Damned Random Musings

Jean Grey cops a feel

2010-07-15T23:09:00.002-04:00

I love hidden vulgarity.Was that an accident? No way!

Here's the whole episode.

Right-wing choads and New York cockroaches

2010-07-14T20:34:00.006-04:00

It's amazing the type of authoritarian and outright mean-spirited crap the right-wing choads who let O'Reilly vicariously bully for them say from the safety of their basements:
Well, if you care enough, here's the article. Of course, those are the same kinds of high beams who morally equate Obama, Lenin, and Hitler (as if morally equating Lenin and Hitler isn't stupid enough): Thanks to the intrepid reporting of The New York Times, we even get to hear about it. And what exactly does the corporate press want us to think is the difference between Teabaggers and the rest of the Republikan Party? Teabaggers may be somewhat less literate, but that's not saying much.

Slackware with lighttpd, php, and mono (source installations)

2010-07-12T11:37:00.008-04:00

This overview of installing the relevant lighttpd and mono software packages from source on Slackware 13.1 is designed as a broad overview. I've been using Apache and PHP for years, but I'm quite novice at lighttpd and mono. Also, despite using GNU/Linux for years at home, I've usually set up servers with stable, upgradeable FreeBSD.

Hopefully this will help others avoid pitfalls (or be of use to me in the future if I ever have to recover). I needed to install a fast web server with PHP and Mono. I've had a lot of trouble getting mono running on FreeBSD, so I decided to go with a GNU/Linux distribution for this server. Being a stickler for things I liked in the past, I went with the one I've always found easiest to use and upgrade: Slackware.

Software packages

As of this writing, the latest Slackware is 13.1, though I assume these techniques should mostly carry over to similar versions. I'm using the 64-bit variety. I was rather liberal about installing most software packages that came with Slackware 13.1, mostly out of laziness. After I was finished installing, I deleted Apache so I could install lighttpd.

The latest mono source files I used were for 2.6.4.

Step 1: Basic lighttpd install

I did a pretty vanilla install of lighttpd 1.4.26. Basically just did:

downloaded, untar'd
./configure
make
make install

Simple, right? After this, I took some cues from the lighttpd documentation and set up a simple config file in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf (you have to manually create the directory). It looks like this:

server.document-root = "/var/www/servers/[site]/pages"

server.port = 80
server.pid-file = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid"
server.username = "www"
server.groupname = "www"

mimetype.assign = (
".html" => "text/html",
".txt" => "text/plain",
".jpg" => "image/jpeg",
".png" => "image/png"
)

static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".fcgi", ".php", ".rb", "~", ".inc" )
index-file.names = ( "index.html" )

Make sure to modify the document root to wherever you keep your HTML files. You'll want to create the www user and www group or change these to an existing user.

Next up things got a little tricky because there wasn't a readily available Slackware init.d script to start and stop this monster. No problem; I just borrowed one from the slackbuilds.com's pre-compiled repository. I slightly modified it to match the configuration I made:

#!/bin/sh
# Copyright (c) 2007, Daniel de Kok 
# All rights reserved.
#
# Redistribution and use of this script, with or without modification, is
# permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
#
# 1. Redistributions of this script must retain the above copyright
#    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
#
#  THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
#  WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
#  MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO
#  EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
#  SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
#  PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS;
#  OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
#  WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
#  OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
#  ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
#

LIGHTTPD=/usr/local/sbin/lighttpd
PIDFILE=/var/run/lighttpd.pid
LIGHTTPD_OPTIONS="-f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf"

is_pidof() {
local STATE=$(ps -p $1 -o cmd= | grep "$2" > /dev/null ; echo $?)
return $STATE
}

lighttpd_start() {
echo "Starting lighttpd: $LIGHTTPD"
if [ -r $PIDFILE ] && is_pidof $(cat $PIDFILE) lighttpd ; then
echo "Already running!"
return
fi
$LIGHTTPD $LIGHTTPD_OPTIONS
}

lighttpd_stop() {
echo "Stopping lighttpd: $LIGHTTPD"
if [ -r $PIDFILE ] && is_pidof $(cat $PIDFILE) lighttpd ; then
kill $(cat $PIDFILE)
rm -f $PIDFILE
else
echo "Not running!"
fi
}

lighttpd_restart() {
lighttpd_stop
sleep 1
lighttpd_start
}

lighttpd_reload() {
kill -s HUP $(cat $PIDFILE)
}

case "$1" in
'start')
lighttpd_start
;;
'stop')
lighttpd_stop
;;
restart)
lighttpd_restart
;;
reload)
lighttpd_reload
;;
*)
echo "usage $0 start|stop|restart"
esac

Save the above to /etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd and change the permissions to allow execution (chmod u+x /etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd).

Put an index.html file in your HTML root directory. Test your configuration by running /etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd start and pointing your web browser to http://localhost to see that your index file loads. Next try to stop the server: /etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd stop.

If you just want a basic lighttpd install on Slackware, you can more or less stop here.

Start on boot and stopping on shutdown

To make lighttpd start on boot simply add the following you your /etc/rc.d/rc.local file:

if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd ]; then
/etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd start
fi

Likewise, to make it stop on shutdown, add this to /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown (usually empty by default):

if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd ]; then
/etc/rc.d/rc.lighttpd stop
fi

Mono 2.6.4 install

This is the first time I've seen mono install flawlessly on Slackware without using the sources made available by the SlackBuilds. I basically followed the directions exactly as they appeared in the README.

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

xsp 2.6.4

To use ASP.NET with lighttpd, xsp needs to be installed. xsp is the package that contains the fastcgi components that allow mono to interface with lighttpd. Once again, I mostly followed the accompanying documentation. I used the config prefix /usr/local rather than the one suggested in the documentation.

The steps I followed to install were:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

A little note about step 2: I had a slight hitch following the standard installation instructions. Using the installation parameters from the above mono install, I needed to specify where the directory holding the file dotnet.pc in order to make the xsp package. Using the find command:

find /usr -name dotnet.pc

I determined it was in /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig and simply added the path to the existing PKG_CONFIG_PATH environmental variable.

To find your list of environmental variables, type the env command and hit enter.

Locate get the relevant variable from the list. In my case, it was PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig

Reassign the variable by typing

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig

into your shell prompt.

It's quite likely a reboot would have solved this problem as well.

libgdi installation

I didn't realize this wasn't installed. It probably should have been installed first! This is necessary to run mono on fastcgi. Anyway, the problem is an easy one to rectify.

Once again, I did:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

Modifying lighttpd configuration to use mono

This part gets a little tricky, but it's doable. Much of my information for this area comes from a document, also linked below, on interfacing FastCGI and lighttpd to use mono.

First of all, create a new directory in your /etc/lighttpd directory called conf.d.

Save the following to /etc/lighttpd/conf.d

# Add index.aspx and default.aspx to the list of files to check when a
# directory is requested.
index-file.names += ( "index.aspx", "default.aspx" )

### The directory that contains your Mono installation.
var.mono_dir = "/usr/local/"

### A directory that is writable by the lighttpd process.
# This is where the log file, communication socket, and Mono's .wapi folder
# will be created.
# For a typical system-wide installation on Linux, use:
var.mono_shared_dir = "/tmp/"

### The path to the server to launch to handle FASTCGI requests.
# For ASP.NET 1.1 support use:
#var.mono_fastcgi_server = mono_dir + "bin/" + "fastcgi-mono-server"
# For ASP.NET 2.0 support use:
var.mono_fastcgi_server = mono_dir + "bin/" + "fastcgi-mono-server2"

### The root of your applications
# For apps installed under the lighttpd document root, use:
var.mono_fcgi_root = server.document-root

### Application map
# A comma separated list of virtual directory and real directory
# for all the applications we want to manage with this server. The
# virtual and real dirs. are separated by a colon.
var.mono_fcgi_applications = "/:."

Next up, the configuration file needs some additions and alterations.

Open /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf and add the following to your configuration under the server.document-root = "/var/www/servers/[your web root]/pages" line:

server.modules = (
# "mod_rewrite",
# "mod_redirect",
# "mod_alias",
 "mod_access",
# "mod_cml",
# "mod_trigger_b4_dl",
# "mod_auth",
# "mod_status",
# "mod_setenv",
 "mod_fastcgi",
# "mod_proxy",
# "mod_simple_vhost",
# "mod_evhost",
# "mod_userdir",
# "mod_cgi",
# "mod_compress",
# "mod_ssi",
# "mod_usertrack",
# "mod_expire",
# "mod_secdownload",
# "mod_rrdtool", 
 "mod_accesslog" )

This is a list of modules. I kept the ones not relevant commented out for now. Of course, many people will want to use some of them, particular rewrite, redirect, and alias. Either way, I prefer to keep things simple for now. Next change the line

index-file.names = ( "index.html" )

index-file.names = (
"index.xhtml", "index.html", "index.htm", "default.htm",
"index.php", "default.aspx", "index.aspx"
)

Beneath your new index file list, add the following:

include "conf.d/mono.conf"

fastcgi.server = (
 ".aspx" => ((
               "socket" => mono_shared_dir + "fastcgi-mono-server",
               "bin-path" => mono_fastcgi_server,
               "bin-environment" => (
                       "PATH" => "/bin:/usr/bin:" + mono_dir + "bin",
                       "LD_LIBRARY_PATH" => mono_dir + "lib:",
                       "MONO_SHARED_DIR" => mono_shared_dir,
                       "MONO_FCGI_LOGLEVELS" => "Standard",
                       "MONO_FCGI_LOGFILE" => mono_shared_dir + "fastcgi.log",
                       "MONO_FCGI_ROOT" => mono_fcgi_root,
                       "MONO_FCGI_APPLICATIONS" => mono_fcgi_applications
               ),
               "max-procs" => 1,
  "check-local" => "disable"
 ))
)

fastcgi.map-extensions = (
       ".asmx"   => ".aspx",
       ".ashx"   => ".aspx",
       ".asax"   => ".aspx",
       ".ascx"   => ".aspx",
       ".soap"   => ".aspx",
       ".rem"    => ".aspx",
       ".axd"    => ".aspx",
       ".cs"     => ".aspx",
       ".config" => ".aspx",
       ".dll"    => ".aspx"
)

Appendix: links and more

lighttpd homepage.

Sources download page

The mono project site:

Some basic troubleshooting tips
FastCGI information from the Mono project.
Linker issues? Take a look at this.
Interfacing FastCGI and lighttpd (with some advanced topics covered) - I heavily relied on this document; it might be a good place to go if you're also interested in PHP support

Google code information on the install (I found this very helpful, as it was simpler than the mono documentation).

Breasts should be mundane

2010-07-08T11:55:00.002-04:00

Reports The New York Daily News

Asbury Park will remain G-rated.

Deciding the seaside community popularized in song by Bruce Springsteen needed no more exposure, the City Council said no to topless sunbathing on the Eighth St. stretch of sand Wednesday without a vote.

...

Supporters said a topless beach would revitalize tourism.

But others worried it would scare away families recently returning to the once-famous resort.

Really, why would anyone want prudish families around?

Conservatism and legitimization: the only thing worse than authoritarians…

2010-07-06T11:12:00.006-04:00

…are authoritarians who don't play by the rules they pretend they say everyone else should play by. If there is one blessing (or curse, depending on one's point of view) of the Bush Era it was that many of the right-wing elements in the west that concealed their fascist-like contempt for basic human dignity suddenly publicly embraced it. In the United States, this was seen in the form of political legitimization of torture, a shameless mainstream media blitz of right-wing propaganda, stolen elections, perverse legal backbending quasi-legitimized by the Supreme Court appointments of a president who himself possibly only achieved his office because of a Supreme Court decision, militarism, and demonization and intimidation of people who refused to buy into the junta.

Naturally, where G20 meetings happen, protests follow. And where protests happen, authoritarians crawl out of the woodwork to reaffirm their commitment to a police state. Witness former Canadian Conservative MP Monte Solberg:

During the summit, commentators took great pains to distinguish legitimate protesters from the anarchists who were bent on violence.

I’m afraid I can’t be quite so generous, for sometimes the two blended together.

The op-ed reads a lot like a screed from Fox News:

I deeply appreciate the police. They didn’t initiate this, the protesters did. I’d be happy if the worst vandals amongst the protesters had to spend many weeks in jail.

I hope they get sued for the damage they’ve done and have to sell their entire Michael Moore DVD collections and their victim-affirming Noam Chomsky libraries.

This is the power of mass media. The kind of authoritarian rhetoric found on CNN, Fox News, and right-wing tabloids, is now deeply ingrained in so-called conservative movement of an ostensible "progressive" country. Politically, Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore probably couldn't be more at odds, but in the minds of members of the 21st century authoritarian junta, they're the same thing.

"For the past 90 years or so, the Republican Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of personal freedom and economic dynamism. For a similar period, the Democratic Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of fairness and family security." — David Brooks, New York Times columnist ("The Democrats Rejoice," 2010)

Politics today is about framing, and anti-authoritarians are bad at it. This needs to change. First off: stop using the terms authoritarians choose to describe themselves. They are not conservative, traditionalist, freedom fighters, or pro-life. They are authoritarians. Glenn Beck is an authoritarian. Monte Solberg is an authoritarian. Sean Hannity is an authoritarian. The United States Republikan Party is authoritarian, and so are its equivalents in other countries.

Conservatism is, ironically, perhaps a newer political tradition than modernity-affirming liberalism, and perhaps even more counterintuitively for the American mindset, it's probably closer to dead. Although I generally regard it as rather authoritarian itself, conservatism does tend to have some merits and even some occasional moments of clarity. The people above do not. They couch themselves in a term that refers to reaffirming tradition, ties to the community, and careful social consideration before making change. The conservatism of Edmund Burke is mostly dead, and where it lives on it has refused to acknowledge the problem of the considerably more right-wing authoritarianism stealing its mantle. Even relatively moderate conservatives like David Brooks have generally refused to acknowledge this, preferring instead to play a bipartisan balancing game between the two major parties.

WASP Adam

2010-07-03T18:24:00.001-04:00

Meet WASP Adam and his wife, uh, Jane. You are descended from these two cracker asses. Not included on the cover of this book is their second child - the editor chose not include him on the cover because he turned out to be VERY BAD NEWS. Not to spoil the story for you, but he was a brunet to indicate how evil he was.

This thing was ...full of pictures that almost could have passed as Third Reich propaganda. I would have purchased it, but I didn't deem it worth the $1.99 price tag they were demanding. (Why put a price on my salvation anyway? Very Christian!)

Towards the end, we meet WASP Jesus, but He's been depicted elsewhere so many times I didn't bother to photograph Him.

Driving without drinking

2010-05-19T15:39:00.002-04:00

So, sometimes, The New York Times actually posts something a little dead-on, like this letter from January 1st, 2008:

To the Editor:

In “Let’s Raise a Glass to Fairness” (Economic Scene, Dec. 26), David Leonhardt suggests that the argument for raising the federal tax on wine, unchanged at $1.07 a gallon since the early 1990s, is stronger than the argument for raising the tobacco tax. He points out all the ills associated with drinking abuse, including the some 17,000 Americans who die annually in alcohol-related traffic accidents.

It would seem that a far more appropriate tax to increase would be the federal gas tax, unchanged since 1993, at 18.4 cents a gallon.

Raising that tax would reflect all of the more than 42,000 traffic-related deaths each year, whether the result of drinking, fatigue, negligence or other causes. Irvin Dawid

Palo Alto, Calif., Dec. 26, 2007

In all fairness, Leonhardt makes something of a fair point. Alcohol probably does have a lot of social consequences. But those consequences, and their costs, are probably best dealt with locally, rather than through crushing federal taxes that go to nothing in particular. The same goes for other vices, like addiction to sugary meals such Captain Crunch.

Driving, on the other hand, wreaks global havoc. It is also expensive, and communities pay many confiscatory taxes to support its costs.

Want to reduce some of those costs? Make the drinking age 16 and the driving age 21.

Real anti-authoritarians take on Glenn Beck

2010-05-19T15:20:00.004-04:00

A rather amusing letter appeared on counterpunch concerning Glenn Beck's mentally ill rants. Apparently he (mis)used one of their books as a prop.

Religion: CNN accidentally posts something thoughtful

2010-05-19T14:23:00.001-04:00

Today many U.S. Catholics and Jews think like Protestants. They believe that religion is something we choose as individuals rather than inherit as communities, and they view it primarily in terms of faith rather than practice. None of this comes from either the Catholic brain of Aquinas or the Jewish mind of Maimonedes. The progenitor of this faith-based understanding of religion (who also happens to be the patron saint of religion rulings at the U.S. Supreme Court) is the American Protestant thinker William James, who famously defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”

— Do 6 Catholics + 3 Jews = 9 Protestants? by CNN religious sophist Stephen Prothero

Down syndrome in the Heartland

2010-05-09T13:10:00.004-04:00

I was Googling for yearly statistics on obesity at the urban level, which is shockingly hard to find. So there I was, mindin' my own Google results, when I ran into the article Sprawl and Obesity in Chicago: Why All the Fuss? (which, by the way, was completely irrelevant to what I was looking for). I clicked on it, and then saw, after I clicked on it, that right there in the bloody title of the search result was appended the words "by Wendell Cox." I learned several years ago that Wendell Cox probably ranks somewhere between a snake oil salesman and an 8-ball in his ability to offer intelligent original research. To say the least, the above headline probably says it all to any halfway discerning reader that this guy is probably a shill for shortsighted industrial interests (namely cars and smog producers). What Cox throbs most for is spinning transit use as a wasteful subsidy borne by an increasingly put-upon middle class. He does have two talents though: trying to look clever by asking dismissive rhetorical questions ("sun light: who needs it?") and putting a scholarly spin on naked political propaganda. What Wendell lacks for in intellectual honesty, he makes up for in proliferation.

• People's Republic of New France

• United States of America

(thanks Wikipedia for preserving the above abortion for all eternity; even if, as is common on Wikipedia, the above version is flawed because Alberta is a red state)

But all that's really besides the point. My real agenda here is making fun of the site that hosted the above URL: the Heartland Institute. Everyone knows there's a mass media narrative in America about coastal big city urban elites thumbing their effete, snobbish, latte-dipped noses at those real Americans living in places like, uh, well, it doesn't really matter where they live. Needless to say, real Americans are too pure and wholesome to live in big cities, even if big cities are possibly the economic engines paying for bridges and signs in real America. They also don't live in rural places like Vermont and western Massachusetts, which are full of hippies and bourgeois types who tolerate America-destroying forces like immigration and ethnic diversity. Basically, real Americans don't live in the states where the United States was born, places like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, regardless of what those crybabies at fuckthesouth.com say. Indeed, real Americans live in the Midwest, which wasn't even made up of states in 1791, and the deep South, which supported American independence rather grudgingly if the musical 1776 is to be believed (and it probably is). Such jokes seem dated now, now that Barack Obama was elected and fixed the whole world, but the legendary Jesusland map kind of says it all.

There's a religious aspect to this. Having internalized the above, which resulted in gaining a justified sense of moral superiority over the rest of humanity, The Heartland Institute found something missing: idols (e.g., saints or ikons — something to give a sensual meaning to the existence of the earthly truth). Any new religion inevitably finds itself looking to the past to seek out paragons of virtue because we inevitably don't remember the flaws of our historical and mythological leaders. Who remembers that Heracles and Moses were both murderers? Who remembers that Thomas Jefferson kept slaves? Who remembers that Ayn Rand was a truculent, fascistic, sniveling twat?

However, picking idols is no easy task. Not just anyone can be chosen. American Christians often find Jesus to be a poor idol indeed because he really doesn't live up to many of the beliefs they hold most dear. Thankfully, the Heartlandites have other choices. Theirs is an ideology very much the opposite of Jesus's ideology. Flawed as Jesus the man might have been, and we really don't know how flawed he was because of our scant records, Jesus of the Gospels favored the weak over the strong, the poor over the rich, and the sinner of the saint — if Christian theology has any elegance, it's that occasional point that maybe it's the fallen who need grace most of all. But Real Americans will have none of that crap. The Heartlandites are for markets, guns, property. More earthly models had to be chosen, ones that fit Real American preconceptions about themselves

To that end, the Heartlandites created an animated banner at the top of their web site to alternate through their idols.
This lead to some curious choices, many of whom have little or nothing to do with each other:

John Locke —moral and political philosopher; proto-liberal who favored limits on monarchical power

Market activities: sold future generations on charlatan contractarian philosophy, which echoes down to this day in the works of writers like John Rawls

Crispus Attucks — actually, nobody really knows anything about him, except that he died in the Boston Massacre and might have had dark skin
Benjamin Franklin — American inventor and politician (Americans get mocked for lack of civil knowledge of other cultures, but Americans who travel abroad frequently find Europeans telling them that Benny was America's best president); born in puritanical Boston, migrated to Philadelphia, where he spent a life rich in intellectual pursuits

Market activities: freely initiated the exchange of money for sex

Thomas Paine — anti-authoritarian liberal writer, active in both the United States War for Independence and the French Revolution; anti-slavery and arguably pro-gender equality

Market activities: wrote stuff, TLDR

Thomas Jefferson — wrote the Declaration of Independence, which was fine-tuned by Franklin; third President of the United States who favored anti-mercantile policies and distrusted financial markets

Market activities: monopolized the loins of at least one slave for a fixed period of time, no doubt in a mutually beneficial exchange of services; as President, purchased a lot of rather marginally useful land from the French, who had only recently stolen it back from the Spanish

James Madison — wrote some early American political propaganda; fourth President of the United States
Booker T. Washington — token black man (in case Crispus doesn't cover all the bases)

Market activities: credited with being the first inventive black man in American history (Benjamin Bannecker is forgotten)

Ayn Rand — Russian fascist

Market activities: author of some really crappy books

Milton Friedman —right-wing liberal economist

Of course, not many of them even come from the "Heartland" of the United States. Most of the American idols come from the coasts, especially Virginia. Milton Friedman may be the only true Heartlandite in the bunch, since he was seated at the University of Chicago for decades.

Financial Leverage

2010-05-08T16:42:00.003-04:00

I love this description of the 1929 Wall Street trust as described in John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash 1929 (1988 revision published by Houghton Mifflin Company, page 57-58):

The principle of leverage is the same for an investment trust as in the game of crack-the-whip. By the application of well-known physical laws, a modest movement near the point of origin is translated into a major jolt on the extreme periphery. In an investment trust leverage was achieved by issuing bonds, preferred stock, as well as common stock to purchase, more or less exclusively, a portfolio of common stocks. When the common stock so purchased rose in value, a tendency which was always assumed, the value of the bonds and preferred stock of the trust was largely unaffected. These securities had a fixed value derived from a specified return. Most or all of the gain from rising portfolio values was concentrated on the common stock of the investment trust which, as a result, rose marvelously.

Consider, by way of illustration, the case of an investment trust organized in early 1929 with a capital of $150 million — a plausible size by them. Let it be assumed, further, that a third of the capital was realized from the sale of bonds, a third from preferred stock, and the rest from the sale of the common stock. If this $150 million were invested, and if the securities so purchased showed a normal appreciate, the portfolio value would have increased by midsummer by about 50 per cent. The assets would be worth $225 million. The bonds and preferred stock woulds till be worth only $100 million; their earnings would not have increased, and they could claim no greater share of the assets in the hypothetical event of a liquidation of the company. The remaining $125 million, therefore, would underlie the value of the common stock of the trust. The latter, in other words, would have increased in asset value from $50 million to $125 million, or by 50 per cent in the value of the assets of the trust as a whole.

This was the magic of leverage, but this was not all of it. Were the common stock of the trust, which had so miraculously increased in value, held by still another trust with similar leverage, the common stock of that trust would get an increase of between 700 and 800 per cent from the original 50 per cent advance. And so forth. In 1929 the discovery of the wonders of the geometric series struck Wall Street with a force comparable to the invention of the wheel. There was a rush to sponsor investment trusts which would sponsor investment trusts, which would, in turn, sponsor investment trusts. The miracle of leverage, moreover, made this a relatively costless operation to the ultimate man behind all of the trusts. Having launched one trust and retained a share of the common stock, the capital gains from leverage made it relatively easy to swing a second and larger one which enhanced the gains and made possible and third and still bigger trust.

OMG PROTECT TEH CHILREN!!11!!!

2010-04-12T18:37:00.004-04:00

According to the BBC:

Facebook executives are due to meet the head of a British child protection agency in Washington to discuss safety measures on the social networking site.

It has been criticised by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre for not installing "panic buttons" on every page.

Ceop's director Jim Gamble said the matter was urgent after the murder of a teenager by a man she met on the site.

Here's an adult safety measure: if you're a "child protection agency," stay the hell out of politics. You waste time and effort coddling parents too damn lazy to make sure their children make sensible decisions about the online world. Panic buttons and other regulations are unlikely to help cure parental stupidity, and are more likely to just give sanctimonious thugs another opportunity to scream "pedophile!" at people who committed no harm.

History is so full of it

2010-03-28T18:02:00.004-04:00

I have spent a lot of my spare time reading about Medieval history lately. It's always amusing to see how every generation imposes their own values on history (rendering the entire art of history crap). Joseph R. Strayer's Western Europe in the Middle Ages: A Short History (Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.: New York, 1955) and Thomas Cahill's Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art From the Cults of Catholic Europe (Random House: New York, 2006) both recount the twelfth century love triangle between French King Louis VII (Louis the Younger), Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, and English King Henry II. Strayer's narrative had Eleanor being dumped by Louis and getting revenge by marrying Henry. Cahill's narrative had Eleanor manipulating the Catholic anti-consanguinity rules to her advantage, getting the marriage annulled, and marrying Henry, whom she supposedly truly loved.

How The Other Half Lives in New York City

2009-10-28T15:02:00.004-04:00

I ran into an article on StumbleUpon written by a black woman fed up with catcalling on the streets of New York. Although this article dealt primarily with black men who victimize black women, a lot of women have complained about it over the years to me, but this is the first time I actually read an article specific to New York about it. The problem appears to largely cross racial lines too.

The unfortunate thing about this problem is that there probably is little that can be done about it, at least immediately. How do you get what must be tens or even hundreds of thousands of males to start showing empathy towards members of the opposite sex?

Palin won't go the hell away

2009-07-15T09:40:00.001-04:00

Thanks, Frank Rich, for this amusing anecdote about how full of shit Sarah Palin is ("She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It ," Frank Rich, 2009-07-15):

The politics of resentment are impervious to facts. Palinists regard their star as an icon of working-class America even though the Palins’ combined reported income ($211,000) puts them in the top 3.6 percent of American households. They see her as a champion of conservative fiscal principles even though she said yes to the Bridge to Nowhere and presided over a state that ranks No.1 in federal pork.

Now that she's not in government anymore, can we start pretending she doesn't exist?

Do big companies like regulation?

2009-06-12T12:44:00.002-04:00

From USA Today ("Congress sends Obama bill to regulate tobacco," 2009-06-12, Associated Press):

Altria Group, parent company of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest tobacco company, issued a statement Thursday supporting the legislation and saying it approved "tough but reasonable federal regulation of tobacco products" by the FDA. Rival companies have voiced opposition, saying FDA limits on new tobacco products could lock in market shares for Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes.

I'm no fan of cigarettes or smoking, but it seems to me that it's not a coincidence the Altria likes this legislation while R. J. Reynolds doesn't.

Cigarettes are probably a little like beer. Making them is easy. Mass producing them is easy. The tricky part is administrative, going through all the legal, regulatory, and tax hoops to penetrate the market. This probably explains why Budweiser is kind of bland; the same bottles are made to be sold in New York and Utah — compare the taste to a local or regional microbrewery (e.g., Brooklyn Brewery in New York or Redhook in Seattle), where the alcohol content is almost certainly higher.

Besides vice, what other industries might have this resemblance to oligopolies because of regulation? Two others I can think of right off the top of my head are automobiles and banking. Making a car isn't easy, of course, but it got a lot harder in the 1970s or so. Expensive safety regulations, testing, and requirements that parts to be available for years after manufacture all add to the cost — and help guarantee that only a big, established company could survive in the market place.

What about banks? That's an easy one. Starting a new bank is difficult, but easily requires tens of millions of dollars in starting capital. The legal and regulatory hurdles require top heavy administrative and legal overhead.

So, is it possible that by restricting vice, governments are reward vice-purveyors? What would happen if the pornography industry became more heavily regulated?

Larry Craig admits he was cruising?

2008-12-10T01:58:00.003-05:00

My emphasis added ("Appeals Court Rejects Craig's Attempt to Pull Back Guilty Plea in Sex Sting" by Ben Pershing at The Washington Post, 2008-12-10):

In his appeal, Craig argued that the district court fundamentally erred in its decision, that the state's disorderly-conduct statute was unconstitutionally broad and that his behavior in the airport bathroom stall should be considered legally protected speech. The court rejected those arguments.

Poor Larry "Wide Stance is Free Speech" Craig!

Small computers

2008-12-09T13:45:00.001-05:00

Are some of these getting a bit too small?

Also: article on building your own.

The UK is suburbanizing?

2008-12-01T14:25:00.002-05:00

Mark Easton writes in the BBC ("Life in UK 'has become lonelier'," 2008-12-01):

Community life in Britain has weakened substantially over the past 30 years, according to research commissioned by the BBC.

Analysis of census data reveals how neighbourhoods in every part of the UK have become more socially fragmented.

The study assesses the health of a community by looking at how rooted people are in their neighbourhood.

Academics created "loneliness indices", to identify where people had a "feeling of not belonging".

Wow, just like the American 'burbs.

Kentucky: God before safety

2008-11-29T13:10:00.002-05:00

Kentucky is officially stupid ("Anti-terror law requires God be acknowledged" by John Cheves, Lexington Herald-Ledger, 2008-11-28):

Under state law, God is Kentucky's first line of defense against terrorism.

The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.

As amended, Homeland Security's religious duties now come before all else, including its distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants and its analysis of possible threats.

The time and energy spent crediting God are appropriate, said Riner, D-Louisville, in an interview this week.

I'm sure al-queda would agree. 9/11 was, afterall, a faith-based initiative.

Jerusalem Syndrome

2008-11-29T12:01:00.002-05:00

This is hilarious. From Jerusalem Syndrome by Judith Fein (featured on The Savvy Traveler):

The malady called Jerusalem Syndrome is no joke. Afflicted tourists have been found wandering in the Judean desert wrapped in hotel bed sheets or crouched at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, waiting to birth the infant Jesus.

...

[Dr. Yair Bar-El of Jurusalem's Kfar Shaul Hospital] explains that there are three categories of tourists who get Jerusalem syndrome.
Dr. Bar El: "We speak first about clearly mentally ill people in their country. They arrive to Jerusalem with psychotic ideas. The second, the biggest group, tourists, pilgrims with deep religious convictions."
...
Dr. Bar-El: "We have a little third group, the REAL Jerusalem syndrome. Completely sane persons without psychiatric history, without drugs, and arrive here as normal tourists. Here they develop this specific, imperative psychotic reaction that is the real Jerusalem Syndrome."
The same clinical picture always emerges. It begins with general anxiety and nervousness, and then the tourist feels an imperative need to visit the holy places. First, he undertakes a series of purification rituals, like shaving all his body hair, cutting his nails and washing himself over and over before he dons white clothes. Most often, he lifts the white sheets from his hotel room. Then he begins to cry or to sing Biblical or religious songs in a very loud voice. The next step is an actual visit to the holy places, most often from the life of Jesus. The afflicted tourist begins to deliver a sermon, demanding that humanity become calmer, purer, and less materialistic.

In Israel, Jerusalem Syndrome is taken very seriously. Everyone involved in security, tourism, or health is on the lookout for afflicted visitors. In an average year, three or four tourists develop real, palpable Jerusalem Syndrome. In l999, more than 50 visitors were diagnosed, the increase possibly attributed to millennial activities.

From a religious point of view, the Syndrome seems to favor Protestants, who account for 97 percent of all cases. Almost all of them were raised in ultra-orthodox homes where the Bible was the book of choice for family reading and problem-solving.

Maybe this explains Jesus's behavior.

Moderates: Rick Warren?

2008-11-28T23:06:00.003-05:00

I keep running across this pudgy, kind of insincere sounding Rick Warren character. I had only vaguely heard of him before Barack Hussein Obama and John bin McCain were interviewed by his plump, smug self over the summer. Besides the fact that he strikes me as incredibly insincere, he seems to get a free ride in the mainstream media.

Now, Buzzflash has some lovely news about him honoring smirking clown President George W. Bush ("The resurrection of President George W. Bush as presided over by Pastor Rick Warren, By Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash," 2008-11-28):

On World AIDS Day, Monday, December 1, Rick Warren, pastor of the Lake Forest, California-based Saddleback Valley Community Church and who is well on his way to becoming one of the most recognizable and powerful pastors in America, will be hosting his Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health at the Washington, D.C.-based Newseum. As part of the event, Warren will be giving President Bush the first "International Medal of PEACE" from the Global PEACE Coalition, in recognition of Bush’s “unprecedented contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases,” a Saddleback Church press release announced.

Horrifying as it sounds, I find you almost sort of do have to give credit to George W. Bush for his anti-HIV initiatives. It certainly doesn't eclipse all the evil things George W. Bush did over the years, but he did handle HIV/AIDS sort of well.

Back to Warren: who is he? Says the Buzzflash spiel:

Warren, recently dubbed a “celebripastor” by DMN News, is the author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” a book that has sold over 50 million copies. He recently announced a partnership with the Reader’s Digest association that will pool their international resources to develop an entity called The Purpose Driven Connection, a multi-media “platform to help people who are seeking their purpose in life and wish to interact with others on their spiritual journeys.” The will be “The Purpose Driven Connection” quarterly magazine; study materials delivered in DVDs, workbooks and downloadable discussion guides; and a state-of-the-art Christian social networking website.

Earlier this month, Warren “released his first book since his best-selling “Purpose Driven Life” as part of a special three-tool outreach for the Christmas season,” The Christian Post reported. The new book is called “The Purpose Driven Christmas.” “People are more open to the Gospel at Christmas than any other time,” said Warren.

According to The Christian Post, “All three tools are based off a Christmas message Warren had delivered two years ago at his Southern California megachurch that drew around 4,000 people and saw more than 2,000 accept Christ.”

Warren said that “Fox News then showed it on their television show the next year. The year after that, the Armed Services Network asked to show it to their entire Armed Services network around the world, so I decided, ‘Why don’t I turn this into a little booklet – kind of a handout for evangelism?’”

He's also apparently afraid of (surprise!) gay marriage (see "Rick Warren Surprises Nobody With His Support of Prop 8," Rightwing Watch, 2008-10-24):

It was a good question, considering that back in 2004, Warren declared the question of where presidential candidates stand on the issue of "homosexual marriage" to be one of the "5 issues that are non-negotiable" to Christians.

So where should they stand? Well, they should be against it, naturally! According to creepy sounding OneNewsNow.com:

The well-known Christian author says people in California need to vote "yes" on Proposition 8 because for "5,000 years, every culture and every religion...not just Christianity...has defined marriage as a contract between men and women."

And Warren says "there is no need to change the universal, historical defintion of marriage to appease two percent of our population." As Warren puts it: "This is not a political issue -- it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about."

Well, that makes sense. Let's oppress 2% of the population because less than 1% of the population (creepy, smug evangelical pastors) say they don't like change. While we're at it, let's slaughter some Indians and lynch some negros. Because, violence is a tradition too.

The Buzzflash article also had snippets about his homophobia:

In August Warren said: “I have never been considered a part of the religious right, because I don't believe politics is the most effective way to change the world.” However, a week before the election, Warren told his congregation: “Here’s an interesting thing: there are about 2% of Americans [who] are homosexual, gay, lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population determine—to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years. This is not even just a Christian issue, it is a humanitarian and human issue, that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love and procreation. I urge you to support Proposition 8 and to pass that on.”

...

A mid-November piece at The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal, one of the most intrepid reporters covering the Religious Right, pointed out that “In the past, Warren’s crusading against gay rights was generally ignored. When Warren shepherded his congregants to the polls in 2000 to vote for Prop 22, a California ballot measure banning same-sex marriages … [overturned by the state Supreme Court earlier this year; a decision that led to Proposition 8 being placed on the ballot], he hardly caused a stir outside evangelical circles.”

At the time Warren received a “letter of gratitude” from the Christian right godfather James Dobson, Blumenthal noted.

Conclusion: Warren is a Christian supremacist with a smiley face.

Patton Pissing

2008-11-28T16:36:00.003-05:00

Patton pissing in the Rhine (I found this linked from a poorly cited WWII facts page).

How cute!

2008-11-27T22:45:00.001-05:00

Horsey! It looks tasty.

Also: "modern ways to control water."

Unpleasant propaganda

2008-11-27T02:01:00.003-05:00

Propaganda shite:

American politics: how much does blue subsidize red?

2008-09-14T10:21:00.021-04:00

I took a table showing total appropriations by state from Federal Dollars: What Came to and Left Your State in 2005 and color-coded each row by whether the state went for Bush or Kerry in 2004. Sadly, I couldn't find post-2006 numbers yet. I would have been interested to see how things changed after the 2006 election, but those numbers probably won't be available until 2009 or 2010.

State	Rank¹	Per dollar expenditures²	Total Expenditures (millions)³	IRS Collection (millions)⁴	Total Expenditures per Capita
United States	N/A	$1.01	$2,284,760	$2,268,895.12	$7,568
New Mexico	1	$3.10	$20,604	$6,642.05	$10,698
Mississippi	2	$2.96	$26,181	$8,859.59	$9,001
West Virginia	3	$2.94	$16,087	$5,469.75	$8,868
Alaska	4	$2.62	$9,230	$3,519.75	$13,916
North Dakota	5	$2.26	$6,608	$2,928.61	$10,413
Montana	6	$2.17	$7,814	$3,596.11	$8,359
District of Columbia	7	$2.08	$37,859	$18,189.10	$65,045
Alabama	8	$2.06	$42,061	$20,398.81	$9,248
Maine	9	$1.99	$11,356	$5,717.40	$8,615
South Dakota	10	$1.95	$7,481	$3,844.24	$9,655
Hawaii	11	$1.90	$12,699	$6,680.48	$9,974
South Carolina	12	$1.89	$32,044	$16,972.41	$7,545
Kentucky	13	$1.82	$34,653	$19,035.72	$8,305
Virginia	14	$1.75	$95,097	$54,430.45	$12,572
Wyoming	15	$1.55	$4,782	$3,086.24	$9,399
Louisiana	16	$1.55	$39,628	$25,647.32	$8,792
Arizona	17	$1.53	$44,639	$29,177.14	$7,498
Maryland	18	$1.42	$66,720	$46,824.58	$11,936
Vermont	19	$1.40	$4,645	$3,311.37	$7,463
Utah	20	$1.27	$14,823	$11,648.47	$5,952
Idaho	21	$1.23	$9,598	$7,808.79	$6,715
Missouri	22	$1.22	$48,273	$39,555.06	$8,326
Iowa	23	$1.19	$20,345	$17,167.63	$6,860
Florida	24	$1.16	$134,544	$115,562.30	$7,572
Oregon	25	$1.16	$22,792	$19,713.74	$6,263
Tennessee	26	$1.15	$48,288	$42,060.54	$8,108
Indiana	27	$1.12	$42,347	$37,751.79	$6,758
Kansas	28	$1.09	$20,492	$18,798.43	$7,457
Pennsylvania	29	$1.05	$99,503	$95,087.60	$8,021
New Hampshire	30	$1.02	$8,331	$8,205.04	$6,375
Washington	31	$1.01	$46,338	$45,996.76	$7,365
North Carolina	32	$0.98	$59,162	$60,525.67	$6,822
Oklahoma	33	$0.97	$27,637	$28,510.40	$7,799
Michigan	34	$0.95	$64,787	$68,500.02	$6,414
California	35	$0.91	$242,023	$265,783.66	$6,694
Georgia	36	$0.91	$59,846	$66,063.78	$6,553
Wisconsin	37	$0.89	$33,749	$37,973.25	$6,105
Texas	38	$0.88	$148,683	$169,392.72	$6,485
Massachusetts	39	$0.87	$55,830	$64,373.14	$8,678
Rhode Island	40	$0.87	$8,423	$9,712.56	$7,846
Arkansas	41	$0.85	$20,387	$24,012.31	$7,345
Nevada	42	$0.84	$14,089	$16,710.69	$5,840
Colorado	43	$0.83	$31,173	$37,769.49	$6,685
Ohio	44	$0.80	$77,881	$96,836.57	$6,790
Nebraska	45	$0.79	$12,785	$16,121.65	$7,272
New York	46	$0.73	$144,876	$198,562.27	$7,500
Illinois	47	$0.68	$80,778	$119,182.24	$6,328
Connecticut	48	$0.67	$30,774	$46,131.12	$8,791
New Jersey	49	$0.57	$58,617	$101,997.48	$6,735
Minnesota	50	$0.46	$31,067	$67,148.61	$6,060
Delaware	51	$0.42	$5,495	$13,227.40	$6,528
Other	N/A	$2.45	$40,837	$16,672.85	N/A

(1) According to Ratio of Amount Returned per Dollar Paid in Taxes. (2) Expenditures in State per Dollar Paid by State Taxpayers. (3) CFFR in millions. (4) IRS Total Collection (in millions)

Red states received $1,177,262 million (almost $1.2 trillion) back from the federal government, after sending $1,009,904.48 million ($1 trillion) collected by the IRS.

Blue states received $1,066,662 million in federal spending (approximately $1 trillion). The IRS collected 1,242,317.82 million ($1.24 trillion) from blue states. That means a total outflow of $175,655.82 million, or approximately $176 billion dollars. And as you can see from the chart above, many of the harder core blue states are the biggest losers.

Pass that chart around to all your smug neocon friends!

Republikans on cities and political independence

2008-08-21T11:39:00.004-04:00

Not-so-bright "conservative" wingnut Glenn Beck wrote a commentary on CNN about how U.S. cities shoot themselves by how they keep electing Democrats. He strongly implies that cities need more Republikan leadership. Complains Beck:

The only two cities in the top 10 that I didn't mention (Miami, Florida, and El Paso, Texas) haven't had Republicans in office either -- just Democrats, independents or nonpartisans.

I was rather surprised that his definition of non-Democratic leadership doesn't include independents and non-partisans.

Of course, there is a reason why Republikans rarely rise to power in traditional cities: the GOP has nothing but contempt for cities. National Democrats aren't exactly great either, but Republikan urban policies almost exclusively support raiding the wealth generated in major cities and transferring it to Republican jurisdictions. Oh, and putting city residents in jail for non-violent crimes.

Beck also seems to put a great deal of city's problems on their shoulders. While certainly city governments are far from perfect, they also have rather limited means to solve their own problems. A few cities, like New York, Chicago, and perhaps even Boston and Philadelphia have etched out unique niches for themselves in areas like finance, culture, and advertising. This gives them wealth to address their own problems. Buffalo, Baltimore, and St. Louis don't really have those advantages, and even New York, et al, barely manage to invest in new infrastructure — the kind that will be needed to compete in the 21st century.

McCain: the guy who thinks for himself

2008-07-23T14:06:00.002-04:00

I really, really hate it when the word "independent" is used in American political discourse. Let's be honest about what it means when the American press (whether a "journalist" or a pundit) uses the word: it's used to describe a politician who acts like a Republican, but maybe has had one or two disagreements with the party brass. Hence, John McCain is an "independent." In the rare instances it isn't used to describe a Republican or non-affiliated person who may as well be a Republican, it's used to describe a Democrat who votes like a Republican.

Of course, it's not really debated whether or not McCain is "independent." It's just assumed. For instance, take this nugget of poop from CNN ("Analysis: McCain's best shot is stressing independence," 2008-07-22):

At home, McCain and Co. are smoldering. They consider the press complicit in a Teflon Obama candidacy.

"McCain is getting covered like he's a speed bump on the road to history," a top McCain adviser griped to me.

...

"Obama has calculated every utterance he's ever made on Iraq," this adviser says. "And McCain risked everything in his support for the war."

That, in fact, is the key to McCain's appeal. He was for the surge before President Bush was for the surge. But it's an argument he and Obama will never resolve.

As for Afghanistan, McCain will argue it's become a haven for terrorists precisely because we have succeeded in Iraq, and they are fleeing.

...

McCain risked -- and almost lost -- the nomination because of his support for immigration reform. No doubt about it, McCain has beliefs, and adheres to them. Sometimes, he angers conservatives -- as when he was among a bipartisan group in the Senate standing against filibusters for Supreme Court nominees. Or when he supported stem cell research. And liberals don't like him much for the war or his stand against abortion.

But independent voters -- who most likely will determine the outcome of this election -- like the maverick in McCain.

So here's the question: Why isn't McCain emphasizing his independent credentials more?

Besides the fact that there's nothing independent about McCain? Well, for starters, you don't win elections in the U.S. by being "independent." Republicans understand this better than Democrats. The reason for this is the number one way people in the U.S. vote is by staying home. So when Democrats pretend to be Republicans, as they often do (usually without being called "independent" by the press), they turn off Democrats. They don't really win more Republicans that way either, because Republicans generally already have a Republican to vote for.

U.S. to cut farm "aid"?

2008-07-22T14:18:00.002-04:00

From The Washington Post:

GENEVA - The United States is ready to cut its ceiling for trade-distorting farm subsidies to $15 billion a year to help unblock talks for a global trade deal, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said on Tuesday.

The long-awaited offer was contingent on other partners at the World Trade Organization making offers to open up their markets for agricultural and industrial goods, Schwab said.

The United States currently has a limit on subsidies which stands at more than $48 billion, although actual payments last year were only around $7 billion because soaring food prices meant U.S. farmers were in less need of support.

More here.

Baucus and Tester against Real ID

2008-01-14T12:14:00.001-05:00

Another stupid government program that hopefully won't come to pass:

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Amid the reports of yet another delay in the implementation of the federal Real ID Act, Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester reaffirmed their opposition to the national identification system.

The federal Real ID Act calls for drivers’ licenses to be used as a national identification networking system, requiring extensive private information from all U.S. citizens. It would also require states to standardize their drivers’ licenses at their own expense.

The Department of Homeland Security announced today that states would have until May 2011 to implement new regulations that would require its citizens to submit a digital photograph, birth certificate and other information to their department of motor vehicles. Today’s delay marks the second time in a year that implementation has been pushed back by the Bush administration as concern has grown about how the states could reissue all 240 million existing licenses.

More here.

In the market place of ideas, the currency is stupidity

2008-01-13T17:22:00.001-05:00

I already complained that William Kristol (Wikipedia article) is now an op-ed contributor at The New York Times. Today, the public editor, Clark Hoyt, wrote a softball article defending the decision, heavily comparing Kristol to William Safire. Safire, of course, was The Times' token conservative with a long legacy of being sloppy at best.

In The Times, the columnists seem to be given something akin to tenure. They write about what they want with little fear of reprisals; factual errors aren't corrected by the paper. Tenure, of course, isn't necessarily a bad thing. In academia, tenure provides protection from reprisals when a professor makes an unpopular statement. Likewise, judges get a similar benefit in the political system. Nobody wants judges to be afraid to be impartial because they'll be fired by biased politicians. But does the idea work for newspapers? The flip side of tenure is obvious: while somebody can't be tossed out for being unpopular but right, they also can't be tossed because they're insipid, stupid, dishonest, counterproductive, etc.—and that's whether they're right or wrong. As Salon notes, Safire seemed to take advantage of that ("William Safire, minister of disinformation," by Barry Lando, 2005-02-21).

First of all, the flow of the article went from specific to general reasons why Kristol's contribution isn't the end of the world. Most generally, The Times itself (not the public editor, but the editor of the paper) felt they wanted "a columnist who brought to our pages a deeply held and well articulated point of view in line with what you might call the conservative Republican movement. ... Our Op-Ed page is a marketplace of ideas. He’ll strengthen the discussion." The article implied that the paper was on a mission to find such an individual, and as such Kristol only gets a year-long contract as a test-run before he really gets tenured next to Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, and the rest. Much as I personally despise the "conservative Republican movement" (I would describe so-called conservative thought as as "Republican movements"), I can't argue with hearing them out—I feel it's best to know what people are thinking, not least of all dangerous people like William Kristol. On the other hand, Hoyt describes the choice as "a decision I would not have made." Amongst his reasons, Safire has made statements to the effect that the The Times should be prosecuted for reporting on government activities. He goes on to say, "But it is not the end of the world. Everyone should take a deep breath and calm down."

So, The Times wants to expand the "marketplace of ideas," a phrase we've heard before in reference to some other rather insidious things. But does hiring Kristol meet that goal? As the public editor makes clear, Kristol isn't hard to find for those looking for him. He's on Fox News, and he's in The Weekly Standard.

So, how much is The Times expanding the "marketplace of ideas" with this decision? I would say, not very much. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's doing quite the opposite. By giving people like Kristol a soap box to stand on in a respectable newspaper, they're taking dangerous and dishonest hegemony to a whole new level. Safire was pretty bad, but Kristol is probably worse. Ideas like Kristol's have been around a while, and haven't exactly served us well. Kristol is one of the "intellectuals" who helped draw the United States into Iraq.

Finally, remember, nothing I'm saying here constitutes censorship. Censorship is legal suppression of information by lawful authorities. I'm not calling for that. I'm just calling for the fourth estate to use its powers responsibly.

President Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel?

2008-01-12T18:12:00.000-05:00

William Kristol is now a contributor to The New York Times. Good, they haven't had a sufficient hardcore liar since William Safire retired. Kristol says ("President Mike Huckabee?" Jan. 7, 2008):

Who, inquiring minds want to know, is going to spare us a first Obama term? After all, for all his ability and charm, Barack Obama is still a liberal Democrat. Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration. We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.

Well, uh, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect here. Nanny state? Isn't that the kind of state that keeps an eye on you to make sure you don't do anything wrong? But I digress.

After the last two elections, featuring the well-born George Bush and Al Gore and John Kerry, Americans — even Republicans! — are ready for a likable regular guy. Huckabee seems to be that.

Blah! Likable? Isn't that what we were promised with the current numbskull? Why, yes, yes it was. George W. Bush, born with all the advantages in the world and able to be defeated to victory twice, was supposed to be a likable, regular dude who'd be fun to have a drink with. Al Gore and John Kerry were stuffy intelligent types who were out of touch with the rest of the country (whatever that means).

I say that's all BS. Having a nice guy president doesn't get you a job. Liking hunting isn't a qualification for fixing the healthcare system. Wearing cowboy boots instead of suits and ties isn't going to help the stock market.

Maybe if we had one of those silly, out of touch, intellectual types, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now, or at least not as badly. We wouldn't be spending the economy of a small, wealthy western European country on Iraq every year. We might have a rational healthcare system (single payer or not, anything that provides universal coverage is an improvement over the current mess which has us spending more and getting less than just about anyone).

In the interest of reducing the nanny state and increasing competence, here are some qualities that would be nice in the next president:

doesn't hunt
when cutting taxes, reduce the federal transfers to states that already get more back from the federal government than they send (that mostly means red states)
doesn't wear a cowboy hat
end highway funding; let the states handle it
supports rational healthcare; single payer, universal, socialized, public-private partnership, whatever—anything is better than what we have now

Bad parenting

2008-01-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

From CNN ("'Meanest mom on planet' sells son's car," January 9, 2008):

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."

After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone -- by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

This is pretty damn sick. What kind of irresponsible parent gets their kid a two-ton killing machine anyway?

Kids: don't drive. Just stick with booze.

Mor(m)ons!

2008-01-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, I guess I got to stop writing about what an asshole Mitt Romney is:

But most Mormonism-related discomfort with Romney may, in fact, reflect less a view of religious truth than a sense that there is something vaguely troubling or unfamiliar in the Mormon manner or worldview. .... [S]uch reservations are not simple prejudice; they are a complicated outgrowth of the tortured history of the faith’s relationship to mainstream American political life over the nearly two centuries since God first spoke to Joseph Smith.

I find it even more troubling that Romney is a Republican.

I'm glad Romney lost the Iowa Caucuses, though I'm a little saddened that Huckabee won. I don't say that because I think Huckabee is worse than the others (he's arguably better than any Republican in years), but he's still a Republican and the less prima facie repugnant Republicans are, the more the media promotes them as the best candidate.

See "What Is It About Mormonism?" in The New York Times for a verbose, yet somewhat educational, article.

Jessica Simpson's security entourage

2007-12-23T11:36:00.001-05:00

This is really sickening. It's a shame that the onlookers weren't willing to gang up and subdue those out-of-control bully security guards.

It doesn't matter

2007-12-22T11:59:00.000-05:00

I'm so sick of seeing early polls, like this from Zogby:

UTICA, New York - Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would defeat all five of the top Republicans in prospective general election contests, performing better than either of his two top rivals, a new Zogby telephone poll shows.

His margins of advantage range from a 4 percent edge over Arizona Sen. John McCain and a 5 percent edge over Arkansas’ Mike Huckabee to an 18 percentage point lead over Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the survey shows. Against New York’s Rudy Giuliani he leads by 9%, and against Fred Thompson of Tennessee he holds a 16 point edge.

	Romney	Huckabee	Giuliani	McCain	Thompson
Obama	Obama leads 53%-35%	Obama leads 47%-42%	Obama leads 48%-39%	Obama leads 47%-43%	Obama leads 52%-36%

Remember the 2000 election? Bush was ahead of Gore from practically 1998 until the eve of the election, and still....

Oh, hell, nevermind.

Censorship vs. turning your television off: an early chapter

2007-12-21T11:15:00.001-05:00

I got to thinking during my last post, actually, that it always surprises me how the debate about garbage in the media is framed. It usually looks something like this: one side (in Amerika, we call this side the "conservative" side) complains that there is way too much unregulated garbage on TV that is accessible to impressionable young minds. The other side says, well, the First Amendment kind of bars government censorship. Sorry. These two points get repeated over and over again in idiotic three-minute cable segments, as if there isn't any other solution, or even any other side to the issue. It reminded me of this exchange between Frank Zappa and John Lofton on CNN's crappy show Crossfire:

First, the thornier side, is about sex. The viewing public loves sex. So, naturally, the racier the sexualization of television, the more viewers you'll get. Whether in Utah or Los Angeles, people watch complete garbage.

The pro-censorship guys

Then, of course, there's a powerful section of the population, maybe waning in power now, that wishes to impose what might be described as a neo-Christian (or neo-Judeo-Christian*) morality on the public. John Lofton is an early example. In the 1980s, he was playing the quintessential American 1980s conservative: angry, dumb, beedy-eyed, wearing large-rimmed glasses, and ready to sink his teeth into anyone who dares to disagree with him (which, to him, is probably tantamount to disagreeing with the Bible). Today, he runs a blog after having left the Republican Party because they're too unbiblical.

It's said neo-Christians ("Christian right") have theological motivations at times, though I somehow doubt theology was ever the overarching motivation. If they resemble an earlier Christian movement, it's the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages—people believed in them, and they believed in Jesus, but not too many people really knew what they were talking about. In the jolly Middle Ages, there wasn't much in the way of enforcement of rules, but there was a lot of talk about rules. Hell was reserved for pretty serious heresy (or Jews). Like the 1970s-1980s, capitalism and borrowing was the new vogue. The bourgeois become popular in government because they were able to manage finances. The church was a big receiver of income (in the climax of the neo-Christian movement, in the early 2000s, there was a lot of talk of federally-financed, likely unconstitutional "faith-based initiatives"). While this was going, the church backed off from its restrictions on usury, as secular governments found themselves needing to borrow to finance wars and later explorations. It was only in the early modern era that religion surged in violence again (maybe that's next in the 21st century?).

In any event, neo-Christians weren't necessarily fundamentalist Christians, and some still aren't. Most are Republicans, but occasionally there's a Democrat (Joseph Lieberman) or Libertarian thrown into the mix. Most subscribe to some form of evangelical, highly eschatological Christianity, but some are Catholics or even Jews (Leiberman again, or Bill Kristol). Heck, some are Mormons—witness the recent idiotic speech by Mitt Romney, who preaches religious toleration to a point.

If anything, neo-Christians may not even agree about very much. They agree that abortion should be banned, they agree that federal power can be used to enforce morality (to varying extents), and they agree that at least parts of the First Amendment really shouldn't have any teeth or no heed should be paid to it at all. In all other ways, they have wide-ranging beliefs, though it often seems otherwise because they're willing to sacrifice almost everything else over their core issues, allowing other interest groups to fill in the vacuum (this is where people like Kristol and other Republican Party sects like big business come in).

The neo-Christian guys first cropped up definitively in the 1970s, though elements of their theology and even influence certainly can be traced back decades, if not centuries. They were around before Roe v. Wade (1973), though Roe certainly boosted them. Pat Robertson had The 700 Club in the 1960s and The Late Great Planet Earth (by ex-riverboat captain Hal Lindsey) was written before Roe (1970). Less polemical, but also at least on the fringes of that movement, was Billy Graham.

By the 1980s, after hot issues like the Vietnam War and Watergate had cooled down, these neo-Christian guys took Washington and the airwaves by storm. They never had full control of the House and Senate until 1994, but they set the legislative tone from 1980 until 1992, and then from 1994 until 2007. They only managed full control of both the Congress and the White House for most of the period between 2001 and 2006. There was a short lull from late 2001 until early 2003 when Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords left the party and handed control of the Senate over to the Democrats (he decided not to seek reelection).

Regardless, from the 1980s on, neo-Christians set the social agenda, and deferred to other sometimes overlapping, sometimes contradictory sections of the Republican Party to set the economic agenda. Their power to persuade was unprecedented because they learned to master the airwaves as a tool for spreading memes. Constant, non-stop repetition of their ideas made their ideas popular, even when those ideas were obviously stupid. Ronald Reagan's moronic economic policies, which we're still paying for in 2007, sounded great: cut taxes, cut spending, cut regulations, get the government out of our lives, spend a lot on the military (I know, but they don't quite contradict). Either way, he really only managed to cut taxes and some regulations. Meanwhile, Ronnie had no problems using the federal government to thrust social policy on people: he presided over raised drinking age to 21. Meanwhile, the neo-Christians managed to poison to the 'L' word and keep the focus of dialog solely on their beliefs until at least 2005, arguably with a break around 1992 when the mess made in the 1980s and early 1990s was really to much.

Keep in mind, however, this movement was a lot more earnest early on than it was by the 1990s, or even in the 2000s when it was partially eclipsed by neoconservatism.

* I'm just going to stick to neo-Christian as the term, because it's short.

Is "getting speared" a euphemism for something?

2007-12-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times ("TV’s Perfect Girl Is Pregnant; Real Families Talk"):

High school girls here wondered aloud on Thursday why no one was talking about contraception. Parents across the country, on the other hand, commiserated over the Internet about how, thanks to Ms. Spears, they were facing a conversation with their 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds about sex.

How terrible! It's absolutely awful for children to understand how to avoid pregnancy before they're faced with it!

Seriously, maybe Jamie Lynn's mom, who recently canceled a book on parenting, ought to have had the talk at that age.

And yeah, why isn't contraception being discussed? Good job, New York Times, you get a cookie.

Of course, none of this means an end to the usual doom and gloom as neo-Puritanical parents and right-wing politicians lament that children are getting pregnant at younger ages (quick: how old was your average girl when she had her first child in 1600s New England?). Why, it's almost like it's the television's fault that these poor little children hear all this disgusting filth about penises going into vaginas, squirting, and coming back out and smoking a cigarette:

“Nowadays, nothing’s safe, not even cartoons,” Diana Madruga, who has an 11-year-old daughter, said as she wrapped up her shift as the manager of a Dunkin’ Donuts here in the Boston suburbs.

Here's a hint for you, Mme Madruga: turn off the goddamn television! And don't have your kids read the Bible, whatever you do. There's filth in there too.

Of course, I'm jumping the gun a little. Only some of this is part of that age-old (that is, going back to circa 1980) shouting match between frightened, goonish right-wingers and the few people simultaneously both courageous and influential enough to stand up for free speech. There is also a hint of an actual social problem here, expressed so eloquently by a 17-year-old:

High school girls who had already had their hearts broken by the all-too-public life of Ms. Spears’s older sister, Britney, known as a hard-partying mother of two, worried that their younger sisters would be devastated by the news — or, worse, that their sisters might think it was “cool” to be 16 and pregnant.

What? Maybe some of the problem here is teenage girls don't have good role models anymore. Wonder Girl never got pregnant (correct me if I'm wrong).

“She’s the idealistic little girl,” Alicia Akusis, 17, said of the television character Zoey between classes at Concord-Carlisle High School here. “She does perfect in school. Boys like her because she’s pretty, but she doesn’t deal with boys. She’s really smart, she’s really cool, she’s an empowering girl character.”

She's the "idealistic little girl" who "does perfect in school"? Maybe Concord-Carlisle should work on its grammar curriculum, but I digress.

Anyway, empowering female figures have sex drives too. From the sounds of it, nobody can fairly accuse Jamie Lynn Spears of a moral failing. She was 16 and practically living with her older boyfriend. Uh, yeah, they're going to have sex, and probably not safely. Mama Spears should have looked up from the typewriter that she was using to write a book on parenting occasionally to spend time constructive time with her daughter. And, oh yeah, maybe not let her live with her boyfriend. Seriously, Mama Spears was so shocked that all she could do was muse that her daughter had never missed curfew, as if sex couldn't be had before curfew.

Maybe some good could come from this. Nickelodeon could do a docudrama show about teenage pregnancy and postpartum life. Some of the dialog could be awesome, showing what it's really like when you have an infant. Like, not being able to hang out with your friends, or get boozed up, or whatever 16-year-olds do nowadays. Actually, Nick kind of did have that idea:

Dan Martinsen, a spokesman for Nickelodeon, said Thursday that “Zoey 101” was one of its most popular shows among viewers 9 to 14.

“Nothing about the content, characters or the storytelling on our air has changed at all,” Mr. Martinsen said. He said that Nickelodeon was discussing a special on the issue with Linda Ellerbee, the television journalist who is the host of “Nick News.” “Whenever an issue becomes so prevalent that it’s inescapable,” Mr. Martinsen said, “her show is where we turn to help kids navigate and interpret and understand it.”

And, of course, this Times spiel ends on a note of attempted irony:

Greg Moseley, 18, said he was sick of hearing the name Jamie Lynn Spears. “Why do we care about Britney Spears’s little sister?” Mr. Moseley said. “Why does it make a difference? What does it mean? Nothing.”

“All this stuff is impossible to get away from,” he continued, “unless you go to Alaska and live in the woods.”

Or, turn of your television and skip the headlines about it on the Internet and in the paper. Mostly worked for me, except I guess I sort of just ranted about it.

Sex ed. delays intercourse?

2007-12-20T12:49:00.001-05:00

"Study: Sex Education Works to Delay Intercourse." The only thing that makes me doubt it is that Fox reported it.

Also:

[Jamie Lynn] Spears, who turned 16 on April 4 and says she is 12 weeks into her pregnancy, told the magazine she plans to raise her child in Louisiana, "so it can have a normal family life."

...of eating possum and shagging sheep?

Now you know they had her best interests at heart

2007-12-20T09:19:00.000-05:00

This is extremely f'd up ("Heat on Halliburton over 'gang rape'," AP, published in The Sydney Morning Herald 2007-12-20):

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 23, said that she was gang raped inside the Baghdad Green Zone in July 2005 while she was working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc, which has support contracts with the US military.

...

Jones' KBR contract however included a clause which prevents her from suing her employer, Poe said, which will likely force her into arbitration, which he described as "a privatised justice system with no public record, no discovery and no meaningful appeal".

There are many laws that the Department of Justice (DOJ) "can enforce with respect to contractors who commit crimes abroad, but it chooses not to", Democrat Robert Scott said.

The DOJ "seems to be taking action with respect to enforcement of criminal laws in Iraq only when it is forced to do something by embarrassing media coverage," he added.

More on what a slimeball Mitt Romney really is

2007-12-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

From Frank Rich's column in The New York Times ("Latter-Day Republicans vs. the Church of Oprah," 2007-12-16):

Mr. Romney didn’t fight his church’s institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that’s his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.

It's nice that columnists have to do the job of the newsmedia nowadays. This, really, is just one more way that Mitt Romney is a bigot who wouldn't stand a chance on the ticket of a major party in a civilized country.

(By "institutionalized apartheid," Rich is referring to the fact that the Church of Jesus F. Christ of Latter-Day Saints institutionalized racism until the late '70s. Just one more bit of immutable wisdom that, in retrospect, didn't seem like such a good idea.)

Minutemaniacs: Failing to Stop Immigration!

2007-12-18T10:58:00.000-05:00

More immigration madness from Arizona!

Of course, if anybody wants to stop illegal immigration, it'd be easy: just raise the minimum wage exorbitantly for illegal immigrants. That would punish the employers who hire them sufficiently so they won't be hired. Then, when such workers get hired under the table anyway, enforce it when employees come to the authorities and demand their pay. Illegal immigrants would be doing the policing for the government. The jobs would dry up, and the problem would be negligible.

Of course, concern about illegal immigration isn't rooted in common sense or concern for American workers, no matter what anyone claims. The root cause is racism, jingoism, xenophobia, ignorance, and stupidity.

Huckabee strikes at more Mitt Romney idiocy

2007-12-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

From "Romney Hits Huckabee for Criticizing Bush" (by Michael D. Shear, 2007-12-15) on The Washington Post's The Trail blog:

Sensing an opening in his desperate effort to retake the lead in Iowa, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney on Saturday pounced on comments by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in which he characterized President Bush's foreign policy as an "arrogant bunker mentality."

Campaigning in Iowa, Romney accused Huckabee of sounding more like a Democrat than a Republican.

"It sounds like something Barack Obama or John Edwards would say -- not what you hear from someone running for president as a Republican," he told reporters. Huckabee made the comments in the latest issue of the journal Foreign Affairs.

First of all, Bush does have an "arrogant bunker mentality" to his foreign policy. The fact that Bush still has supporters is just astounding. Who are these people, and who ties their shoes in the morning? The fact that a seemingly intelligent man like Mitt Romney would still support Bush shows how morally bankrupt he is. He's not presidential material.

However, the odder part is that Huckabee is somewhat right—Republicans and Democrats are often sounding very much alike. But then, let's not forget that some Democrats thought it was a good idea to "authorize" the smirking chimp to attack Iraq, believing he wouldn't do it without good reason.

What Democrats, with their spinelessness, don't understand is that it's not good to behave like a Republican. Democrats may never really have stood for anything, but pretending to be Republican to win votes while abandoning the people who would never vote Republican is a terrible way to win elections.

I'm not letting the Republican Party off the hook. It is quite possibly the largest, most powerful politically organized scum party on the planet today—sure, it's possible to point to fascist parties in Europe, but they're marginal and the result of Europe's more democratically representative elections. Republicans actually have the power and influence to do terrible things all over the world. It's the mission and cause of the Republican Party to be destructive—it's their very nature, not something to be emulated.

Some may say I'm overreacting, but the mentality of the current crop of GOP leaders shows that they don't belong in power. Indeed, most probably belong in prison. Making people disappear to "undisclosed locations," unprovoked invasions, torture, and denying habeus corpus (apparently even to American citizens, in some cases) are marks of fascism.

Doll lovin'

2007-12-15T23:51:00.001-05:00

A documentary about Real Dolls and the men who love them. Definitely one of the stranger modern, uh, relationships.

Wild game will carry me away

2007-12-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times ("Locavore, Get Your Gun," by Steven Rinella, 2007-12-14):

Hunters need to push a new public image based on deeper traditions: we are stewards of the land, hunting on ground that we know and love, collecting indigenous, environmentally sustainable food for ourselves and our families.

Stewards of the land? Like Mohicans and Cherokee and stuff?

Maureen Dowd on Doug Feith

2007-12-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

Doug Feith is one of the little-known neo-conservative goons who helped draw the United States to war with Iraq. Here's an excerpt from Maureen Dowd's recent New York Times column ("The Dream Is Dead," 2007-12-12) about him:

Feith told Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker that “My family got wiped out by Hitler, and ... all this stuff about working things out — well, talking to Hitler to resolve the problem didn’t make any sense to me. The kind of people who put bumper stickers on their car that declare that ‘War is not the answer,’ are they making a serious comment? What’s the answer to Pearl Harbor? What’s the answer to the Holocaust?”

What’s the answer to bin Laden? According to Feith, it was an attack on an unrelated dictator. He oversaw the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, whose mission was to amp up links between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

It defies reason, but there are still some who think the chuckleheads who orchestrated the Iraq misadventure have wisdom to impart.

The Pentagon neocons dumped Condi Rice out of the loop. Yet, according to Newsweek’s Mike Isikoff, Condi has now offered Wolfie a job. It wasn’t enough that he trashed Iraq and the World Bank. (He’s still larking around town with Shaha, the sweetheart he gave the sweetheart deal to.)

Condi wants Wolfie to advise her on nuclear proliferation and W.M.D. as part of a State Department panel that has access to highly classified intelligence.

Once you’ve helped distort W.M.D. intelligence to trick the country into war, shouldn’t you be banned for life from ever having another top-level government post concerning W.M.D.?

Ray Comfort with the Banana

2007-12-08T21:48:00.001-05:00

Ray Comfort's banana demonstration is about the gayest thing ever. EVER!

I stole the video from here.

Wikibullshit

2007-12-08T20:52:00.001-05:00

Stuff like this is what I can't stand about Wikipedia: "Not expressed as an ideology"? What is it expressed as then? A sonnet?

Anti-authoritarian? Only its rhetoric.

I know Wikipedia has major problems inherent to any group effort on a mass scale, but for some things it's just not so bad. For issues relating to politics, however, it's virtually worthless. Of course, there are bigger jokes out there.

Links:

Perm link to the paleoconservatism entry I was looking at
Wikiality on "The Wørd" segment of The Colbert Report (sorry for all the commercials)

Annoying the Fcuk out of you

2007-12-06T20:21:00.000-05:00

From Germany and Japan!

Mitt Romney and Religious "Freedom"

2007-12-06T13:45:00.001-05:00

Ah, religious freedom! My favorite subject. Here's to Mitt Romney, and all others who cure diseases with heavy doses of poison:

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone," he said.

This statement has some interesting implications. First of all, God is perishable? I guess the Catholics would agree. And then, who wouldn't, as long as you have the correct religion?

Second, would Mitt Romney ban atheism? But permit worship of Cthulhu or the Spaghetti Monster (not to say they're all that different)? Curious indeed: this would be the first time in American history, I think, where not believing something would be against the law.

Third, and most revealing, we can conclude that Mitt Romney is more batshit nuts than I thought. He communes with God? Is it a two-way conversation? If so, Mitt belongs in Bellevue, not the White House.

Mitt Romney is a bigot. It's time for people to stop electing charlatans, like Romney and Bush, who play lip service to belief in God, while doing all they can to hurt the public. If you aren't going to make it easier for the poor and middle class to send their children to a good school, you're not "pro-family." If you're driving up the costs of healthcare for those who can least afford it, you're not "pro-life." And, if there is a God, believing in "Him" doesn't make you any less of an asshole.

More fun:

Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition Skit, Part 1, Part 2
The Inquisition Song from The History of the World Part 1

Update 2007-12-14: Roger Cohen wrote a great piece about religion in American politics in The New York Times yesterday. See "Secular Europe’s Merits." The relevant part about Mitt Romney:

Romney allows no place in the United States for atheists. He opines that, “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.” Yet secular Sweden is free while religious Iran is not. Buddhism, among other great Oriental religions, is forgotten.

He shows a Wikipedia-level appreciation of other religions, admiring “the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims” and “the ancient traditions of the Jews.” These vapid nostrums suggest his innermost conviction of America’s true faith. A devout Christian vision emerges of a U.S. society that is in fact increasingly diverse.

...

Jefferson’s “wall of separation” must be restored if those who would destroy the West’s Enlightenment values are to be defeated.

Hard drinkin' 8th graders: how kids should handle booze

2007-12-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

Let's see. What kills the most teenagers in that 15-19 age range? I'm going to guess HIV, since clearly most of them are hookers walking Castro Street.

All right, let's see if I was right. This popped up to tell me.

Damn! It's suicide. Of course, it doesn't really relate that back to the original subject of the ad, which is that kids drink. But I guess setting up a meaningless correlation between alcohol consumption and suicide in teens is perfectly honest, right?

I'm really getting tired of ads like this everywhere. And you know what the worst part is? These ads probably feed the problem. They're free advertising for alcohol companies. They're a constant reminder to every kid who sees one that there's this terrible, evil, forbidden fruit known as alcohol that has mind-altering effects.

Here's the proper way for kids to learn about alcohol: have mommy and daddy sit down with them when they're around age 13 and pour them a shot of Wild Turkey 101, preferably a little bit before dinner on an empty stomach. Tell little Bobby or Suzy to shoot it as fast as possible, so it all gets down before the gag reflex kicks in. Mention that burning sensation inside the stomach, and that creeping sensation to vomit. Within a few minutes, a pretty strong buzz ought to set in. This is known as "drunkenness" and it's accompanied by a marked reduction in cognitive ability and spacial reasoning. And that's just one shot, widely believed to be about an appropriate level of consumption in the course of a few days (depending who you ask).

Later on, or perhaps the next day, when little Bobby or Suzy has sufficiently sobered up (it really shouldn't take too long), it's time to explain what that crazy shit was. Wild Turkey is a high-proof booze, roughly 50% alcohol (2 proof = 1% alcohol). Different beverages have different proof ratings, ranging from low (beer) to moderate (wine and some spirits) to high (stronger spirits). Drink sizes are standardized in most of the world based on how much alcohol you take in per drink; for instance, if you ask for a shot of Whiskey, you're getting about the same amount of alcohol you would get from a glass of beer. Mention that most drinks don't need to be that strong, and that enjoying alcohol usually means having a drink that isn't so strong—a glass of wine, or a beer perhaps. Drinking doesn't need to be about getting drunk. You can, and should, enjoy alcohol without getting grossly intoxicated. Things like hangovers are no fun.*

Alcohol consumption should be a public affair. It provides a stigmatization against acting like a complete fucking moron. Ads with cute little kids somberly telling you they're heading down the path to alcoholism makes me want to drink.

* If you do drink too much...

If you do drink too much, try to have a vitamin supplement heavy on vitamin B mixed with lots of water before you go to bed. You should wake up feeling pretty good; a lot of the hangover is caused by a lack of vitamin B and dehydration. (Of course, while you're drinking, it's best to stagger your drinks with glasses of water anyway.)

Personally, I suggest 1-2 packets of Emergen-C mixed with at least 1 tall glass of water, preferably two. Click here for the supply on MotherNature.com; you can also find it on Amazon.com and in most major drug stores. My favorite flavor is orange. Any vitamin supplement heavy with vitamin B should do the trick, but I'm not aware of anything that works as well as Emergen-C. I'd love a heads up if anyone can suggest one.

Save Tucker?

2007-12-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

I never really understood how cable news "stars" rise and fall. I guess it usually comes down to a few gimmicks: sarcasm (Keith Olbermann), yelling at people in lieu of making a point (Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly), being just borderline racist/nationalist enough to still get away with it (Pat Buchanan), exuding a sense that you know what you're talking about even when you probably don't (Bill Schneider, Jack Cafferty), hating immigrants (most of Fox News, Lou Dobbs), being inflammatory while looking like a hooker (Ann Coulter), having a funny name (Wolf Blitzer), blind partisanship, being batshit insane (most everyone). One thing's for sure: being thoughtful or bright isn't helpful criteria. You pretty much have to be either a frothing right wing nut, or a center-right buffoon acting as an unwitting foil to a right-wing nut. Some guys, like Olbermann, get by on humor and being slightly inflammatory, but they're a minority. But, fitting a mindless platitude into a 30-second soundbyte is a talent too, right?

Before I continue, I guess I need to lay out the cable news industry as I understand it. In the beginning, in the 1980s, there was CNN, and it wasn't really all that good. But, 24/7 news had finally gone online (before "gone online" was even a cliche). Then, around 1996, along came MSNBC and Fox News. MSNBC was supposed to be hip and interactive, backed with money from Microsoft and featuring a mix of news and allegedly hip tech-oriented shows. Ratings never really worked that way, and MSNBC later tried other formulas (11 years later, they're still experimenting*). Fox News, on the other hand, found its niche by catering to a massive, angry swath of American society that doesn't quite understand why it's angry—these people are among the incongruous masses who call themselves conservatives without knowing what the term means.

By the 2000s, Fox and CNN were at each other's throats as the two heavyweights in the cable "news" business. Fox News actually managed to exceed CNN's ratings sometime in the third millennium. Through it all, MSNBC was sort of like the yappy little chihuahua that got to watch. After every meal, after the two big dogs would eat the entirety of the meal, little MSNBC got to live off the entrails and feces of the kill. Because of low ratings, MSNBC often got left with the worst hosts, the worst personalities, etc.†

Tucker Carlson is one of those guys who really fits a lot of those criteria I mention in the first paragraph: if he's not dumb as a rock, he's pretty damn close. Tucker even has a unique gimmick: a bow-tie, like Jimmy Olson! He says he's not blindly partisan, but he probably is. I guess he rose to stardom on CNN, and was thrown off the air circa 2005 when the so-called Cable News Network realized it hadn't reported any news in years.

So, what's this I hear about having to save Tucker?

Liberals want to save the whales. Environmentalists want to save the Everglades. Conservatives want to save the Confederate flag but we just want to SAVE TUCKER.

MSNBC executives are considering cancelling 'Tucker' with Tucker Carlson which airs on MSNBC at 6:00pm EST weekdays.

This decision by MSNBC will silence a conservative voice, part of a move by MSNBC to swing left and become "FOX for the Liberals," dropping any pretense of objectivity or balance. Tucker Carlson is a conservative who brings a tone of civility and his unfailing good-humor to political talk television. Quirky and unpredictable, we love Tucker.

Silence a "conservative voice"? The majority of their pundits aren't enough? I guess Pat Buchanan is more of a paleoconservative, to Tucker's neoconservatism. Yikes! And we still have Joe Scarborough. Jesus Christ, I guess there are no conservatives to be heard at all. It must be hard fitting conservative voices between segments about the latest dead blonde woman to hit the airwaves.

"Objectivity or balance"? Do right-wingers think the only way to have objectivity or balance is to have nothing but Bill O'Reilly clones on all the time on every channel? How many frothing fanatics with shitfaced grins does society need hijacking our airwaves before far right Republicans will be pleased? I'm guessing anything less than 100% saturation is, to them, "unbalanced." There is virtually nothing even watchable for anybody left of Genghis Kahn on television.

The video they post on their web site is precious. Introducing himself, Tucker says, "I'm a journalist." Huh? Is spouting partisan rhetoric make you a journalist now? Why, every blogger must be a journalist!

Here's an idea: no more fucking "news" opinion shows. Get Tucker, Pat, Ann, Chris, Lou, Bill, and every other right-wing nut off the air, and shut down the TV after the news is reported. I'd say we should get the left-wing nuts off the air too, but I don't really think we have any, contrary to media claims about liberals and Vermont being left-wing.‡ I'm talking about what the networks should do, not the viewers. The viewers should read a newspaper, and then go outside and play, and stop watching the idiot box. Get the facts, and think for yourself. Yeah, sometimes newspapers are biased, but at least the better ones aren't myopic.

* Last I saw, they were playing non-stop discussions about dead white girls.

† It isn't just MSNBC that slummed for the "worst." Many of Fox News' right-wing hosts started out on MSNBC (John Gibson, for instance) before making their way to Fox. Democratic fanboy Paul Begala become CNN's token "liberal" (whatever that is) after his show with Ollie North was cancelled (Ollie went on to work at Fox as a news correspondent). But MSNBC seems to pick up a lot of the crumbs the other guys can't stand anymore.

‡ It's perplexing that there really aren't "left" or even moderate-liberal voices on television, but the reason probably is that most people intelligent enough to think Bill O'Reilly is an authoritarian windbag probably aren't the biggest viewers of cable news. Sadly, they probably watch sitcoms.

Closing Time, Texas Style: "Texas Judge's Decison To Close On Time Lead to Immediate Execution"

2007-10-13T14:29:00.000-04:00

Of course, Michael Richard is in no position to say his right to due process was denied—because he's in Hell now! Texas has some bizarre customs indeed ("Judge: 'We Close at 5'; Texas Judge's Decison To Close On Time Lead to Immediate Execution," ABC News, 2007-10-12):

Four words -- "We close at 5" -- enforced by Texas judge Sharon Keller led to the almost immediate execution of convicted murderer Michael Richard.

Three hours after Keller refused to keep her courthouse open past closing time to receive the condemned killer's request to stay his execution, Richard was executed.
...

What happened? Richard's attorney's computer broke down, so he needed a little more time to finish an appeal.

Richard's attorney's computer broke down, and when they called the courthouse asking for a little more time, just 20 minutes more, Judge Keller ordered the court clerk not to wait for the appeal that could have at least temporarily stopped his execution.

After the execution, prominent defense attorneys from across Texas signed an official complaint against Keller, asking the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct to disciplined or fire her.

It sounds like Keller was just really eager to execute someone.

Jackass makes scene tearing down Mexican flag

2007-10-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

Here's an "unedited video" on YouTube. A creepy looking veteran decided to tear a Mexican flag because it was flown atop a pub above an American flag. He left the Mexican flag on the ground, and ran off with the American flag. According to Infowars.net, the man said, "I'm Jim Brossert and I took this flag down in honor of my country with a knife from the United States army. I'm a veteran, I am not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us, but I want somebody to fight me for this flag. They're not going to get it back."

Apparently, some wingnuts think the actions undertaken by the nutcase on the video was, uh, okay. (Apparently, wingnuts think stealing is okay under certain circumstances.)

First of all, if you're so hyper-patriotic that the position of the flag relative to another flag matters to you, get your head checked. Also, the owner of the bar apparently didn't mean any insult to the United States. He was flying an American flag; he probably knows there are jingoistic asholes like Mr. Brossert who have such small dicks that they'll start a fight because of a perceived swipe at their country. I doubt he wanted trouble.

Finally, the one thing nobody is remembering, is that the First Amendment guarantees you the right to fly the flag any which way you choose. So, when it comes down to it, the only crime that was committed was vandalism and theft, and that was by Mr. Brossert.

If you care, here's the federal law about displaying the flag.

Stupid laws

2007-10-11T22:08:00.000-04:00

"Strange laws on the Suncoast" from mysuncoast.com (2007-10-11) had the be the most poorly written article ever, but some of the choice quotes in it were great. A local moron was swearing in front of children, so he got arrested for leaving a mud puddle in front of his house for more than 24 hours?

Sarasota's city attorney says some of the laws in the miscellaneous section of the city code need to be updated. Some of them need to be changed and some removed completely.

Same thing in Bradenton. Should you really go to jail for leaving a mud puddle in front of your house for more than 24 hours?

When 45-year-old Christopher Haupt was arrested Saturday at the grand opening of Payne Park for swearing in front of a group of kids, some people were surprised that such a law existed.

Sarasota city attorney Bob Fournier says it may be a little old fashioned, but probably here to stay. "I certainly don't want to condone that type of behavior and I don't think city commissioners do either, so I'm not so sure that one is antiquated."

The site should be myfuckingidiotcoast.com. Never use terrible grammar and diction like this in front of your kids:

Most people we spoke to agree with him. "It's a rule you have to have because some people go nuts won't stop and at that point doesn't freedom of speech get involved with other people especially minors," says Jay Warren.

Thank you for that nugget of wisdom, First Amendment Savant Jay Warren. (God, I hope that's a misquote.)

Here's another bit of local wisdom:

There are other strangely-worded laws. For example, one city ordinance prohibits a woman with a reputation for bad virtue from lounging about and behaving in an inappropriate manner. "See now you've got to define questionable virtue and bad reputation. Are you going to ban Lindsey Loman and Britney Spears and how about Hilary Clinton," said another resident.

Holy shit, kids! Britney Spears and Lindsay "Loman" being compared to "Hilary" Clinton? Does Hillary walk around dressed like a hooker now? (Guess which one of the three is running for President of the United States.)

For more dumb laws, dumblaws.com used to be fun. Now, of course, just check to see what the latest White House initiative is.

Ethos and Water

2007-10-09T02:02:00.000-04:00

Ethos Water or Ethos-Water? What a conundrum!

The "Left"

2007-10-07T13:49:00.000-04:00

So, Congress is getting a little concerned that the war isn't going well. Even some Republicans have pulled their heads out of that orifice where most of the Republicans' ideas come from. Great idea, I guess. Of course, I love when The Washington Post ("House Passes Bill on Pullout," by Jonathan Weisman, October 3, 2007) tries to report on something political:

The House, with overwhelming, bipartisan support, voted yesterday to give the Bush administration two months to present to Congress its planning for the withdrawal of combat forces in Iraq.

The 377 to 46 vote was the first salvo of a new legislative strategy adopted by House Democratic leaders, away from partisan confrontation and toward a more incremental approach to war policy that can bring Republicans to their side. The withdrawal-planning bill had met fierce opposition this summer from ardent Iraq war foes, who scuttled an earlier vote by saying it would do nothing but give Republicans political cover for their support of President Bush's policies

This time, amid the stirrings of a bipartisan centrist coalition on Iraq, Democratic leaders stared down the antiwar left and went forward with the vote. With Senate leaders stymied in their efforts to force a change of course in Iraq, House Democratic leaders faced a choice of whether to continue pushing firm timelines for troop withdrawals, as many liberal Democrats want, or to search for bipartisan comity, even after the Senate had failed to find it.

Wait a second. A 377 to 46 vote to give the administration two months to present a plan about withdrawing troops from Iraq is staring down the antiwar left? What the hell is the anti-war left anyway? Everything to the left of Rush Limbaugh?

What is The Washington Post saying? First of all, one thing is clear: antiwar in this case means being against the current debacle in Iraq. It doesn't mean being against war in general. Some pretty hefty Republican troglodytes have come out against this war, including no doubt some that might have loved many other wars including Vietnam, Desert Storm, Korea, Afghanistan, and maybe some that haven't even happened, like a hypothetical nuclear holocaust during the Cold War that would have hastened the Second Coming.

More accurately, The Washington Post was trying to say that the motion to withdraw wasn't as strong as some who are against the war would have wanted. Some would like the U.S. out of Iraq in two months. They could have just said that without using the loaded term "antiwar left." I expect that from Fox News or The New York Post, not a respected newspaper.

Frank Rich on Clarence Thomas

2007-10-07T13:35:00.000-04:00

Great title: "Nobody Knows the Lynchings He’s Seen" (by Frank Rich). Oh, seriously, I'm not going to read Clarence Thomas' book. The guy, frankly, bores me. Heck, Scalia may be a right-wing nut, but at least he's colorful. Thomas, on the other hand, generally comes across as a not-so-thoughtful bullshit artist at best.

One of Thomas' big gripes in life is affirmative action. Ironically, he likely benefited from it. Which, I guess, makes him one of affirmative action's biggest mistakes. He made it all the way to the Supreme Court, after all.

One bit piqued my curiosity:

Mr. Thomas seems ignorant of this changing America. He can never see past his enemies' list, which in his book expands beyond his political foes, Yale and the press to "elite white women" and "paternalistic big-city whites" and "light-skinned blacks." (He does include a warm mention of Mr. Thurmond, a supporter in 1991, without mentioning that the senator hid away a child fathered with a black maid.) Always eager to cast himself as a lynching victim, Mr. Thomas is far more trapped in the past than the 1960s civil-rights orthodoxy he relentlessly demonizes.

Light-skinned blacks? Paternalistic big-city whites? What the f—?

Moms pissed off

2007-09-07T17:13:00.000-04:00

I love hearing stories about pretentious suburban mothers getting hosed over nothing. And it happens all the time in allegedly "liberal,""progressive" Los Angeles. Like, this non-issue about some Disney Channel star on some movie that I've seen billboards for somewhere getting pissed off because an actress in it was seen nude:

(Sept. 7) - The wholesome image of Vanessa Hudgens, star of the made-for-kids TV movie hit "High School Musical," was under fire on Friday because of a nude photo circulating on the Internet, creating a new publicity challenge for the Walt Disney Co.

...

"She's damaged," Renee Rollins-Greenberg, a Los Angeles mother of two, told Reuters. "She's got this teeny-bop audience, young pre-teens and younger, who are admiring her and thinking she's this wonderful, pure innocent person. Eighteen is awfully young for this kind of display."

"I'm devastated because I have an 8-year-old for which I now have to have an explanation," said another Los Angeles-area mother, Rosie Konkel. "She's always looked at this character as a very smart and proper young lady."

No, she's not damaged. She's damaged when she does a nude pictorial in Penthouse. That's when you know your body is buying you a star on the Walk of Fame anymore.

Yahoo! News Story: Bridge falls into Mississippi River

2007-08-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

This must have sucked.

MINNEAPOLIS - The entire span of an interstate bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour Wednesday, sending vehicles, tons of concrete and twisted metal crashing into the water.

...

A burning truck and a school bus clung to one slanted slab, while at least eight cars and a truck were submerged in the river.

Slanted slab?

Government Secrecy in Missouri

2007-07-30T19:28:00.000-04:00

From The New York Times ("After Flawed Executions, States Resort to Secrecy" by Adam Liptak; July 30, 2007):

A Missouri doctor who had supervised more than 50 executions by lethal injection testified last year that he sometimes gave condemned inmates smaller doses of a sedative than the state’s protocol called for, explaining that he is dyslexic. “So it’s not unusual for me to make mistakes,” said the doctor, who was referred to in court papers as John Doe I.

My first instinct on reading this was surprise that a doctor, sworn to preserve life, would help a state—especially a barbaric state like Missouri—execute a prisoner.

So, what does a government do when its unethical behavior is challenged? Pass a law to protect itself!

A new law, signed this month by Gov. Matt Blunt, makes it unlawful to reveal “the identity of a current or former member of an execution team,” and it allows executioners to sue anyone who names them.

Hell, if we're going to have execution, why can't we be honest about it? Government activities should be publicized, afterall. Of course, the answer about why we can't be honest about it is it would turn people's stomachs if they saw it happen publicly.

White House Using President's Biography To Spread Political Propaganda

2007-06-26T13:28:00.001-04:00

I found myself reflecting on what a miserable failure Bush is today, and decided to see if the whole Google bomb thing was still going on. Sadly, it's not. However, if you read the president's biography on WhiteHouse.Gov (as of today) you'll find a very glowing review of his mediocre presidency. It's also riddled framed terminology designed to spread party propaganda. Here's an annotated text of the biography with the propaganda terms (at least the ones I caught) in bold:

George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn into office on January 20, 2001, re-elected¹ on November 2, 2004, and sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005. Prior to his Presidency, President Bush served for 6 years as the 46th Governor of the State of Texas, where he earned a reputation for bipartisanship² and as a compassionate conservative³ who shaped public policy based on the principles of limited government,⁴ personal responsibility, strong families, and local control.

President Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1968, and then served as an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. President Bush received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1975. Following graduation, he moved back to Midland and began a career in the energy business.⁵ After working on his father’s successful 1988 Presidential campaign, President Bush assembled the group of partners who purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1989.⁶ On November 8, 1994, President Bush was elected Governor of Texas. He became the first Governor in Texas history to be elected to consecutive 4-year terms when he was re-elected on November 3, 1998.

Since becoming President of the United States in 2001, President Bush has worked with the Congress to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.⁷ He signed into law tax relief that helps workers keep more of their hard-earned money, as well as the most comprehensive education reforms in a generation, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This legislation is ushering in a new era of accountability, flexibility, local control, and more choices for parents, affirming our Nation’s fundamental belief in the promise of every child. President Bush has also worked to improve healthcare and modernize Medicare, providing the first-ever prescription drug benefit for seniors; increase homeownership, especially among minorities; conserve our environment⁸; and increase military strength, pay, and benefits. Because President Bush believes the strength of America lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens, he has supported programs that encourage individuals to help their neighbors in need.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked our Nation. Since then, President Bush has taken unprecedented steps to protect our homeland and create a world free from terror. He is grateful for the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform and their families. The President is confident that by helping build free and prosperous societies, our Nation and our friends and allies will succeed in making America more secure and the world more peaceful.

President Bush is married to Laura Welch Bush, a former teacher and librarian, and they have twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. The Bush family also includes two dogs, Barney and Miss Beazley, and a cat, Willie.

One could only hope that someday a future administration will replace the above with a more accurate biography.

Notes

Implies he was elected the first time around. The result of the original election was closely contested, and an honest result likely wouldn't have been in Bush's favor.
Also debatable, although Bush wasn't really well-known outside of Texas before he was elected. His father was something of a high-level bureaucrat within the government and Republican Party apparatus, however. Oh, his father was also president from 1989-1993 and is also named George Bush.
Bush's administration has cut back benefits to the poor. Bush also supports the death penalty, and opposes life-saving stem cell research. "Compassionate" is an interesting term to use.
This term is especially interesting. While Bush has cut taxes and privatized government functions, he has also expanded the federal budget to a record size and increased national debt drastically. Some of the functions formerly handled by the civil service have been bidded off to contractors. This has, ironically, raised costs and decreased efficiency in some cases (although it arguably decreased the size of the government).
If memory serves, he never really had a single successful drilling venture.
Bush was likely benefitting from his father's connections. Either way, this venture made him quite wealthy when the team was sold. However, the idea that Bush took a strong leadership role in this venture is unlikely.
While only the term "ownership society" in this section constitutes an example of carefully crafted, framed propaganda, the rest of the sentence is interesting too: Bush's actions have enraged large portions of the world, and his war in Iraq has proven to be a spectacle of American weakness. Likewise, his cuts to benefit programs have likely reduced opportunity and most certainly have increased poverty.
Here we have an outright lie.

New York Post : Anti-New York?

2007-06-06T22:31:00.000-04:00

Lee Anthony Nieves is leaving New York. He couldn't take all the godless liberalism, gun control, high utilities, and "ceaseless left-wing extremism." And he's taking the wife and kids with him.

Who is Lee Anthony Nieves? I don't really know either. Some guy who wrote an op-ed in The New York Post ("Ex-New Yorker: Why I'm Gone," May 29, 2007). Says the post, "Lee Anthony Nieves was a lifelong resident of The Bronx. He resigned recently as deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Veterans' Affairs." The best part of the whole thing is the terrorism hook.

And then there's the liberal political culture of Bush-bashing and anti-conservative hatred. No matter what the White House does to protect New Yorkers in particular and the nation as a whole, it's either never enough, wrong, illegal or stupid. It's as if the Republicans (I'm one) are the real enemy, not Islamic jihadis.

Can't we have more than one "real enemy"? Just because Islamic jihadis are dangerous, authoritarian troglodytes doesn't mean that Republicans aren't too.

Bye, Lee. Take The New York Post with you.

Master debaters

2007-06-06T11:47:00.000-04:00

I don't watch the Republican debates usually. It's not really worth my time to see a bunch of overly made-up old men masturbating over who likes Ronald Reagan the most. So, I just read about the debates afterwards.

There was one nugget of complete insanity ("Republicans clash on immigration," BBC News, June 6, 2007):

The 10 candidates also debated the possibility of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

All candidates agreed that Iran needed to be prevented from developing nuclear weapons and there was criticism of Democratic rivals over their willingness to hold direct talks with Iran on the issue.

California congressman Duncan Hunter was the most explicit, promising that he would be prepared to authorise a tactical nuclear strike if necessary.

Great, let's just turn Iran into a glass parking lot. It sure solved all our problems every other time we did it. Luckily, even Reagan wasn't batshit nuts enough to push that button.

So who's running anyway? He's a list for those wanting to stay updated:

Sam Brownback—religious nut
Jim Gilmore—governor of Virginia, big fan of execution ("pro-life")
Rudolph Giuliani—mediocre mayor of major city, tough on crime, guest starred on Law & Order
Mike Huckabee—former fatass, current religious nut
Duncan Hunter—batshit nuts war hawk
John McCain—war hawk has-been
Mitt Romney—goofy Massachusetts Mormon
Ron Paul—Texas authoritarian ("libertarian")
Tom Tancredo—anti-immigrant, anti-choice
Tommy Thompson—starred on Law & Order

Pelosi running for President in 2012 or 2016, then saving world?

2007-05-29T12:36:00.001-04:00

Well, unless the Republicans nominate a New York politician too, it's a fairly safe bet that the Democrats will lose in 2008. Between Hillary and Rudy, I'm guessing Hillary would be the better of the two Republicans in the running.

California, though also having a (largely underserved) reputation as a fairly progressive state, somehow was lucky enough to have their delegate of House of Representatives' 8th district also be Speaker of the House. The 8th district of California covers most of San Francisco, the city that is probably largely the reason for California's (largely undeserved) reputation as a progressive state.

So, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been running around the world meeting almost everyone she can. On a Congressional tour of Israel and Syria, Pelosi tried to be a go-between for the Israelis and Syrians to discuss peace.

Now, she has met with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, to discuss climate change ("Merkel and US House Speaker Pelosi Debate Climate Change," Deutsche Welle, May 29, 2007):

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday after meeting with US House of Representives Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she would continue to press for binding targets to combat global warming ahead of the G8 summit in Germany.

"We need multilateral agreements to deal on a global basis with the challenges facing humanity," Merkel said after a meeting with Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Pelosi, for her part, stressed her commitment to "save the planet" and said she supported cooperation on climate change as she met with Merkel.

I wonder if she's shoring up on foreign policy experience to see if she can take a stab at running for President in the next decade or so. It's a common tactic of less-than-qualified career politicians.* George W. Bush didn't bother, of course, but it was the tactic Bill Richardson used for years before he decided he was going to run for the nomination in 2008. She'd have an opening in 2012 if the Democrats manage to steal defeat from the jaws of victory again.

* I always feel that the best candidates for President of the United States are the ones most quickly disqualified. First of all, I would expect them to be fairly effective governors of medium-to-large, influential, highly bureaucratic states. As far as foreign policy is concerned, having economic, cultural, and in some cases even political ties to other countries couldn't hurt. California has a large immigrant population from Latin America and Asia; New York has many European immigrants as well as the United Nations. Even Illinois, because of its immigrant population, and Massachusetts fit the bill to some extent. Also, it's not that I appreciate bureaucracy, but the federal government is the biggest bureaucracy of all. Unfortunately, such states, even as they often are tax donors to smaller states (meaning their citizens send income taxes to the federal government, which then get redistributed to other states), often have a reputation for being economically rigid. Thanks to media ostracization, potential candidates from such states tend to be taken out of the running early. Part of the reason for the said media ostracization is that these states tend to not really fit the media's prevailing image of "real America"—that is, predominantly white, Protestant, politically conservative-populist (at least on paper). As a matter of fact, they tend to be as politically hegemonic as allegedly conservative-populist states. As a result, we often end up with mediocre options from states that maybe shouldn't be states at all.

2007-05-18T01:02:00.000-04:00

Disgusting, disgusting, and that's all you can say about it, and it shouldn't happen; it shouldn't be allowed to happen and the government should ensure that laws are put in place to stop these type of things happening.

—Noel McNamara, Crime Victims Support, Sydney (see Virginia Tech killing game anger)

I of course don't like the idea of such a "game," but I also don't like the idea of censoring people for making what is apparently a political statement of some sort (albeit, a poorly constructed one). Yeah, the game's concept is disgusting, but the United States Federal Government and State of Virginia are also disgusting for allowing Seung-Hui Cho to get a gun. Why don't we ban them?

What Noel McNamara sees to be gained from banning a mockery of something that happened across the world in a foreign country is beyond me. Even the United States isn't so authoritarian as to ban this game—at least not yet.

Then, we all have to put up with things that we find distasteful. I find most "victims' rights" groups distasteful. As a matter of fact, I find them to be one of the biggest threats to civil liberty out there. Of course, I'm not familiar with McNamara's organization, but here in the U.S., "victims' rights" groups frequently push for unconstitutional restrictions on individuals, including ex post facto laws. Furthermore, they're dangerous in that they try to treat justice as a personal matter, rather than as a social virtue (as even Plato and Aristotle saw it). Of course, McNamara probably thinks I should have my blog shut down for saying that.

The game appears to be available from NewGrounds.com here. If you don't like it, don't play it. I didn't.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. on atheism

2007-04-06T13:52:00.000-04:00

E. J. Dionne, Jr., wrote a somewhat interesting article about the so-called "neo-atheist" movement. He describes the movement as a reaction against modern religious fundamentalism, and somewhat a re-kindling of the post-Age of Reason religious skeptics of the late 19th and early 20th century ("Answers To the Atheists," April 6, 2007).

The article begins:

This weekend, many of the world's estimated 2 billion Christians will remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

While some Christians harbor doubts about Christ's actual physical resurrection, hundreds of millions believe devoutly that Jesus died and rose, thus redeeming a fallen world from sin.

Are these people a threat to reason and even freedom?

No, they often are not. And not very many people think they categorically are. The problem with Christians, as with any other massive, wide-ranging group, are the ones that are batshit nuts. Here in the United States of America, we have a lot of those. A hell of a lot. Elsewhere, there are other Christians who are batshit nuts to the point of crucifying themselves. And then there are groups that are just plain strange (I include the Catholics and Mormons in this category).

Oh well. No problem. Religous freedom, right? Yep! So, why did Dionne ask if devout Christians are a threat to reason and freedom? Well, apparently, somebody made what sounded like a categorical statement that they were:

It's a question that arises from a new vogue for what you might call neo-atheism. The new atheists -- the best known are writers Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins -- insist, as Harris puts it, that "certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one." That's why they think a belief in salvation through faith in God, no matter the religious tradition, is dangerous to an open society.

What if the believer just believes that he'll get salvation? He may not be certain. And I don't think all religious people are so certain.

Belief and faith, to me, are two forms of uncertainty anyway. That's the primary reason I call myself an atheist. I don't believe in God, and I don't have faith in God or any particular religion claiming to speak for God. On the other hand, I don't believe there is no God. I withhold judgment on the question of God due to lack of evidence. My atheism, personally, is rooted in the technical meaning of the term: a- (greek root for negating something) and theism (belief in the existence of God or gods). Other atheists will categorically state that there is no God, which strikes me as just as silly as saying there is a God.

On the other end of the spectrum are those who not only believe there is a God, but that this God (usually referred to with the proper pronoun "He") actually speaks to them. These people are often certain because they actually hear God's voice in their heads. I have a hard time not thinking these people don't belong in Bellevue, personally (okay, I'm being a little ironic here—a little).

On the other hand, Dionne brings up a good point here (inadvertently). What believers are the most dangerous ones? The certain ones or the uncertain ones? In fact, it may well be the uncertain ones who are the most threatening. These people are more likely to be insecure in their belief systems, often hold political power, and often exercise their political power at the expense of others. The United States Republican Party is crawling with these types of people. There isn't any reason to try to institutionalize your religion and impose it on others if you're at least pretty sure you're right—or at least secure enough in your beliefs to accept that you might be wrong, and are respectful of people who might draw alternative conclusions.

Then again, I don't have access to the thoughts of believers who exercise power at the expense of others. Sometimes, however, I'm convinced their very sure about their beliefs. That doesn't mean they're not insecure (intolerance of innocuous beliefs or lack of beliefs—and I hold lack of belief in God in and of itself to be innocuous—seems like a form of insecurity to me). However, it's hard to think that these people are uncertain sometimes. Fred Phelps and his family/church are so certain that God utterly hates homosexuals that they're willing to go to remarkable lengths to tell everybody. What reason do I have to believe that Fred Phelps isn't certain? He's certainly wrong (even if God exists, why would God hate homosexuals?), and he would probably be pretty dangerous if he held actual political power, but he's not uncertain.

Another example of certainty in your belief system are probably the 9/11 hijackers, who, in a religion-inspired frenzy, decided that God wanted them to suicide bomb some skyscrapers with airplanes. It seems to me that you need to have a lot of certainty in the afterlife to do something like that. You may be batshit nuts for doing it, but it still takes certainty.

So, what is the problem with the neo-atheists? Are they certain or uncertain? Dionne says they're certain:

The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn. They are especially frustrated with religious "moderates" who don't fit their stereotypes.

For one, there's nothing intolerant about being frustrated with people you disagree with. I get frustrated all the time with people I disagree with. Ultimately, the challenge is to remember that you have to allow people to think (even believe) what they want, even stupid things.

It even seems fair to be frustrated when people are utterly disregarding established practice because they simply don't understand it. The evolution v. creation debate is a great example. I'm not sure that idea escapes Richard Dawkins, even if he at times does seem to have a bit more zeal than he needs. (I for one don't care if people believe in creationism, although I take exception to having it imposed on me, and also take exception to the way that many people refuse to modify their beliefs in the face of other factors. If anything, evolution gives us a pretty good explanation for why the world wasn't created in seven literal 24-hour days. And if God is so omnipotent, why couldn't he have created the world in one second? Seven days seems awfully arbitrary.)

Take a look at this exchange between Dawkins and Bill Moyers (from December 3, 2005, on NOW With Bill Moyers):

MOYERS: Even as you speak about the four billion years of evolution, I can hear minds going off in the audience that says, "Yes, but we can't think that long. We're concerned right now with this controversy in this country."

One of the largest school districts in Georgia created a real stir, not long ago, when they insisted on putting a warning sticker on biology books saying, and I've got the exact quote here, "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." What's your response to that?

DAWKINS: All materials should be studied with an open mind, studied critically, etcetera. I'm all for that. What's wrong is to single out evolution as though that is any more open to doubt than anything else. Of course, in science, there have been sort of open to doubt and things that need to be discussed.

And, of course, everything needs to be approached with an open mind. But, among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know. And that, of course, as you know, is accepted by responsible educated churchmen, as well as scientists.

Evolution is a fascinating case of something that is frequently cited as blurring the line between faith and fact. I never really hear Dawkins give a great explanation of what the theory in the theory of evolution really means. I'll try to explain it the way I believe most scientists see evolution. First of all, we're dealing with something that can't quite be proven to the point that you can reproduce it completely in a lab. Now, you can demonstrate natural selection in a lab. That's pretty easy; you could probably do it in your kitchen with fruit flies. But evolution is more than just natural selection, and the idea of evolution predates natural selection. Likewise, natural selection, as described by Charles Darwin, predates by almost a century the explanation for natural selection. It wasn't until the mid-20th century, well after the development of some pretty sophisticated medicines (vaccines, antibiotics, happy pills, birth control pills) that we discovered that there was actually a coherent unit of natural selection, genes, that passed traits from parents to offspring, and that these genes could even mutate (even identical twin brothers don't have the exact same genes).

As a result of what we have learned about evolution (dating back to before Darwin), natural selection (dating back to Darwin), and genetics (dating back to the mid-20th century), human beings have discovered some remarkable applications. These applications range from understanding our ability to adapt to our environment (e.g., what role does genetics and blood types play in a heart surgery?) to solving crimes (remember O. J. Simpson?). Yet, evolution continues to be dismissed as "just a theory" when convenient for creationist zealots.

Naturally, the term theory in the theory of evolution doesn't mean the same thing that theory means when it's used in everyday language. When you use the term theory in everyday language, you're talking about a guess or hunch. Not so in science. A theory in science is more like a framework. There might be pieces of the framework that need to be altered in the face of new evidence (Einstein did this to Newton, for instance; Newton's equations describing motion don't take into account variations in time, and don't necessarily have to, since time is a rather insignificant variable at low speeds). A good explanation of the differences between theories, laws, and hypotheses can be found on Wilstar.com ("Scientific Laws, Hypotheses, and Theories"). Another good example comes from the Online Gadfly ("We're Not in Kansas Anymore"):

So folks, here it is again. As we all know, in ordinary speech, "theory" means "a hunch." And as we gather practical evidence, that "theory" may "grow up" to be a proven fact. (The scientist uses the word "hypothesis" in roughly this sense). In contradistinction, to the scientist, a "theory" is a complex model of reality, composed of "facts," laws (generalizations), and a carefully defined vocabulary of concepts, all woven into an intricate structure of implication and mutual support. Scientific theories are no more capable of "growing" (dare we say "evolving"?) into "facts," than a raisin cake is capable of "growing into" a raisin, a solar system into a planet, or a molecule into an atom. In science, facts are ingredients of theories!

This is why it never occurs to most people to discount Newton's theories of motion and gravity, or atomic theory, or the theory of relativity, or numerous other scientific theories, as "mere theories, not facts."

So, how does scientific theory play into religion? If you ask me, it shouldn't. If anything, scientific theory should supersede previously held religious dogma. But science could never replace religion. They aren't compatible, and near as I can tell, don't overlap. Religion is supposed to offer spiritual fulfillment, not factual certainty. Debunking evolution no more proves there was a "creation" of the cosmos than debunking relativity disproves motion. God might have created the world five minutes ago, with all our thoughts and memories intact, if God was so inclined.

However, the elegant thing about science isn't that it provides certainty. Science provides a posteriori answers to questions. The rules of logic come into play, but there is a method to science as well. The method is experimentation and observation. These methods don't provide certainty, however. Take the claim, the sun rises every day. That seems like a pretty well-established fact. But, is it universally-descriptive? Not really. Observing the sun from Baltimore, Maryland, you might think it is. The sun does rise every day in Baltimore, Maryland (discounting overcasts and crazy volcanic eruptions, anyway). On the north pole, the sun may not set for months, so it doesn't rise every day. We, therefore, have to modify the description, perhaps to places north and south of a certain latitude. The sun rises every day in southern Ontario, but it might seem to rise earlier in northern Ontario.

At the end of the day, I don't ever really see Dawkins harping on religious folk like Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr.. There is room, however, to criticize religious moderates. They often believe things that must be fundamentally wrong (they often believe in opposing theologies, so at least somebody has to be wrong). Often, they allow room for interfaith dialog, however. The moderates aren't killing each other. Sometimes they're debating each other. Sometimes they're joining together to improve the effectiveness of their humanitarian efforts, however.

Sam Harris may be a bit more critical of the so-called moderates. As Dionne says:

In his bracing polemic " The End of Faith," Harris is candid in asserting that "religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each one of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others."

I don't see where that's such a scathing criticism. I know it may not make a lot of people happy to think that religious moderates have to, at least logically speaking, be incorrect in their belief systems.

But, something also tells me that there is a danger to categorically refusing to accept that moderate people can hold personal religious beliefs. Primarily, I think there's something that we all have to grapple with, even if we personally don't like religion: religion isn't going away. As reported in The Washington Post ("Atheist Evangelist," October 26, 2006):

Nobody has ever accused the man of being subtle. Harris is straight out of the stun grenade school of public rhetoric, and his arguments are far more likely to offend the faithful than they are to coax them out of their faith. And he doesn't target just the devout. Religious moderates, Harris says in his patient and imperturbable style, have immunized religion from rational discussion by nurturing the idea that faith is so personal and private that it is beyond criticism, even when horrific crimes are committed in its name.

"There is this multicultural, apologetic machinery that keeps telling us that we can't attack people's religious sensibility," Harris says in an interview. "That is so wrong and so suicidal."

Van Harvey is quoted in the article as a critic of Harris:

"I think this country needs a sophisticated attack on religion," says Van Harvey, a retired professor of religious studies at Stanford University. "But pushing moderates into the same camp as fanatics, that seems like a very crude mistake."

According to Harvey, not only has Harris picked a fight with those who could be on his side, but his solution -- let's all ditch God -- is laughable given the role that religion plays in so many lives. Others say that he has taken these "Old Books" at their literal word, instead of studying the way that the faithful actually engage the scriptures. Put more simply, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

I'm inclined to agree that religious moderates perhaps don't alter their beliefs based on evidence. I find the idea of bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is somewhat silly. I just can't help that. But Christianity doesn't have to monopolize religion, or belief in God. God could easily exist independently of Christianity.

In closing, I think the key point that Dionne missed was that atheism itself is a very poor thing to identify with. Atheism is an assertion that you don't believe in God, and perhaps an assertion that God doesn't exist in its more dogmatic forms. God may or may not exist, but even if God doesn't exist, why base your political or spiritual identity around the matter? Maybe the worst thing Harris and Dawkins do is just that. But that doesn't make them worse than those who base their identity around the belief that God does exist.

Newt Gingrich is a bigot

2007-04-05T13:37:00.000-04:00

From Boston.com (April 5, 2007):

WASHINGTON --Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is mulling a presidential bid, said his "word choice was poor" when he equated bilingual education with "the language of living in a ghetto."

The headline of the article is hilarious: "Gingrich clarifies 'ghetto' word choice." Clarifies? Very charitable headline.

Today's Fuckery Round-up: Drunk Driving Horseback

2007-04-05T10:33:00.000-04:00

Drunken horseback riding from the Associated Press, printed on Boston.com ("Ala. woman on horseback charged with DUI," April 4):

SYLVANIA, Ala. -- A woman used a horse to ram a police car during a midnight ride through town and was charged with driving under the influence, police said. DUI charges can apply even if the vehicle has four legs instead of wheels, Chief Brad Gregg said Tuesday.

Sex paper in high school ("Parents Protest H.S. Sex Newspaper," March 30):

HAMPTON, N.H. Mar 30, 2007 (AP)— Some parents are protesting the "sex" edition of the student newspaper at Winnacunnet High School. Several said they were especially offended by a photograph of two women kissing under the headline, "Why men love women who love women," a quiz question about anal sex, and an interview with an unnamed custodian who said he had found a vibrator in the girls' shower.

...

"I don't want to discuss personnel," Wood said. "I want to discuss the paper. "I thought it was a vile, disgusting piece of pornography I wouldn't want to be in front of children, let alone paid for by taxpayers."

...

The student paper's editor in chief, Katie McCay, and managing editor, Lisa McManus, said they wanted to educate students, nearly half of whom are already having sexual intercourse, according to a 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey at the high school. The true or false quiz was particularly enlightening, they said.

...

In an editorial, McManus wrote that the students were aware they were dealing with a taboo.

"These stories have been edited and re-edited for content and delivery, keeping in mind that the job here is to inform, not shock," the editorial said. "It's about sex. Deal with it.

"It is something parents hope their children remain ignorant about until after marriage. It is something faculty members and administrators hope not to deal with, but something that almost all students have experienced or been exposed to."

Bribing little boogers not to drink ("MADD and Nationwide(R) Kick Off Prom With Music by Bow Wow at Sam Houston High School," April 5):

Schools participating in the THINK.Prom program receive a pledge pack that includes a giant pledge signing banner, individual pledge sheets, a powerful DVD to show in the classroom or to an entire assembly, artful awareness posters, ID cards, event hand stamp and giveaways such as penny stickers, party mints and rear-view mirror tags. Schools also receive safety posters for spring break and graduation. Through the THINK Web site, students can receive rewards for making good choices including free Napster downloads, text messaging, screensavers and cell phone wall paper.

(6000? What the hell is an underage-drinking related cause?)

Alcohol is the No. 1 drug problem among youth killing more young people than all other illicit drugs combined. More than 6,000 young people die each year due to underage drinking-related causes. In 2005, 2,035 15-20 year olds were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes-an average of six deaths per day. Of those deaths, 1,387 youth aged 15-20 died in crashes involving a 15- 20-year-old alcohol-impaired driver.

(Don't fall for it, kids. Drink up, and take mass transit.)

From July 28, 2006: Happy map (Danes Are the Happiest, Study Says):

FRIDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- Piecing together information from more than 100 studies in the growing field of happiness research, a British psychologist has produced what he says is the first world map of happiness.

It ranks 178 countries, with Denmark at the top and the African nation of Burundi at the bottom. The United States comes in 23rd.

Your Own Chocolate Jesus

2007-04-02T11:03:00.000-04:00

So, a brief recap: Catholics have their panties in a bunch again. Somebody made a sculpture of Jesus. Okay, that's not so bad. But the sculpture was made out of chocolate. Okay, that's...tasteless? But not that bad. So, what was so bad about the statue that it attracted the attention of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights? (As a side note, just remember that the League has very little to do with religious rights and just about nothing to do with civil rights.) Here's what was so bad: Chocolate Christ was missing the loin cloth. (BBC News: "Chocolate Jesus exhibit cancelled," March 21, 2007.)

Elsewhere on the crossroads between religious fanaticism, oversensitivity, and censorship, here's a nice little gem from the UK:

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

So, that makes sense. Take the one chance to instill something other than iman-endorsed lies into the minds of impressionable young children and just piss it away ("Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims," by Laura Clark of the Daily Mail, 02-April-2007).

Christians against Sarah Silverman!

2007-03-12T21:59:00.000-04:00

Oh oh ("Offensive Sex Scene with 'God' Upsets Christians," 09-March-2007):

Comedy Central, home to controversial shows such as South Park and Drawn Together, rebroadcasted an episode of the Sarah Silverman Program on Thursday in which the female comedian has sex with “God.”

Dear The Christian Post:

I'm not sure South Park or Drawn Together are particularly controversial anymore. They're sort of like how The Simpsons were by 1995: mainstream.

Sorry!

And the only controversy I see here is this: why would Sarah Silverman want to even pretend to have sex with a crusty old man who Michaelangelo seems to think looks like Santa Claus? (At least Michaelangelo made him into a swarthy Santa Claus.) Next, maybe she can copulate with Odin—who is much less swarthy, although he is missing an eye.

The Bible: Georgia in the news again

2007-03-12T13:04:00.000-04:00

From the Associated Press ("Ga. close to OKing Bible classes," The Associated Press, March 8, 2007):

Georgia is poised to introduce two literature classes on the Bible in public schools next year, a move some critics say would make the state the first to take an explicit stance endorsing — and funding — biblical teachings.

The Bible already is incorporated into some classes in Georgia and other states, but some critics say the board's move, which makes the Bible the classes' main text, treads into dangerous turf.

I say, cool! Anyone who actually reads the bible isn't going to come out believing a lot of that crap anyway. Learning the Bible properly is a critical component of understanding our culture and traditions, and why many of them are so goddamn ridiculous.

While many might be skeptical of teaching the Bible, it must be remembered that it doesn't need to be taught in a way to indoctrinate the youth to make fundamentalists happy. This might even backfire for religious fundamentalists. Fundamentalists depend largely on teaching their own interpretations of the Bible in churches, newsletters, party propaganda, and on TV. I'd really be quite surprised if fundamentalists actually wanted their congregations to read and understand the Bible. When they do the interpreting, it's easy to just ignore the really absurd passages like:

Deuteronomy 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

Some may scoff at the degree to which religious fundamentalism is taught, but it really should be remembered that the Catholic Church depended on keeping scripture esoteric for centuries. Part of the reason the printing press was seen as so dangerous was because it actually made mass production of ideas, including religious ideas, viable. When scripture was translated from Latin to colloquial languages, scripture became accessible to the masses.

When students actually have to read the text of The Bible, or at least significant portions of it, they'll inevitably draw their own conclusions. Naturally, as happens when students actually are stimulated to think for themselves, the conclusions they'll draw about the Bible won't make some people very happy.

Sweet, innocent, little girls go bad!

2007-03-05T14:49:00.000-05:00

Stuff like this really bugs me:

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- The mother of a 19-year-old arrested in a bank theft scheme said Monday that her daughter isn't a bandit, she just fell in with the wrong crowd and made a bad choice.

Joy Miller said her daughter, Ashley Miller, is sorry for what she did.

...

"I want (people) to know that her and Heather both are not bandits," Joy Miller told ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday." "They're little girls that made a bad choice."

That's from CNN ("Mom: Giggling bandits 'little girls that made a bad choice'," March 5, 2007). What I didn't paste from the article is that both these "little girls" were 19. The father of the other daughter, Ashley Johnston, had something possibly even more mindless to say:

Johnston's father, Edward Johnston, has said his family was in shock.

"God gives us free will and it's up to us what we do with it," he said. "Any adult has to make decisions and live with them -- good, bad or indifferent."

Well, at least he acknowledges that his sweet "little girl" was actually an adult. Though I'm not sure any offering from God plays into this. Perhaps it was determinism!

Don't forget this is Georgia. These "little girls" should feel lucky that they're white. At least they'll get off easy, as long as the feds don't get involved. Hell, if you get away with bank robbery, the rewards are probably great.

The slow death of the Mandeans

2007-03-04T19:12:00.000-05:00

The Mandeans are a small ethnic and religious minority who live on the frontier bordering Iran and Iraq. They're semi-nomadic, and have lived in the area for over 2000 years. In the power vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein, they've been persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists who regard them as heretics.

Saddam kind of tolerated the Mandeans. The new religious orders taking shape in Iraq feel they shouldn't exist. As a result, Islamic fundamentalists have begun a systematic campaign of rape, torture, and even murder.

The Mandeans aren't often discussed in the mainsteam media. It might be because they probably blend in with the other nomads and semi-nomads in Iraq, like Marsh Arabs. In a lot of ways, they're strangely reminescient of southern U.S. baptists (actually, in a bit of a turdabout, Mandeans are indeed baptists, but not Christians). Like the American baptists, they're very ritualistic, speak in tongues, perform baptisms, and exorcize demons.

What's so strange about the Mandeans is not any particular belief they have, but their history. They're a throwback to a loosely organized group of monotheistic religions known as gnostics (actually, many would classify them as the last gnostic group still in existence, barring perhaps strange traditions carried over from whoever or whatever loosely inspired groups like the Masons). Gnosticism was all the rage in early Christian history, but most of its literature and followers were destroyed by the Catholic Church. The Mandeans don't believe that Jesus Christ was their lord and savior. Actually, they believe Christ was something of a usurper of divine autority and perhaps even an evil demon. They believe themselves to be followers of John the Baptist, whom they see as their major prophet (kind of like Muhammed is to Islam).

According to an article on the BBC, the Mandeans are now trying to get out of Iraq. They're going to slums in urban areas of neighboring countries. A small group already, there is fear that they may become extinct. This is yet one more toll of Bush's moronic war.

BBC News: Iraq's Mandaeans 'face extinction' (March 4, 2007)

The environment: taking small steps to ruin the atmosphere; Grassley doesn't mind funding terrorists

2007-03-03T15:34:00.000-05:00

"Moderate" Senator Grassley has something to say about ethonal imports. And other interests would hate to see the United States actually import cheap energy other than oil ("U.S. and Brazil Seek to Promote Ethanol in West," New York Times, March 3, 2007):

In a letter to President Bush on Thursday, Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said he failed to understand “why the United States would consider spending U.S. taxpayer dollars to encourage new ethanol production in other countries.”

The proposed partnership, Mr. Grassley warned, could become a backdoor way for Brazil to escape the tariff on imported ethanol that currently insulates American producers.

Meanwhile, of course, we cap some our oil wells because we can't cheap with cheap, cheap OPEC oil. The article continues:

The United States imposes a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imported ethanol, but Caribbean nations and countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement are exempt from those duties if they make the ethanol from products grown in their own countries. Using Brazilian technology for refining sugar-cane-based ethanol, such countries could in time become exporters to the United States.

In addition, Caribbean nations can export a limited amount of ethanol that comes indirectly from Brazil and other countries. Under the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which has been in force for years, countries can take partly processed ethanol from a country like Brazil and carry out the last step in processing before shipping it to the United States. But the region is allowed to export that kind of ethanol only up to a limit of 7 percent of United States’ ethanol consumption.

Last year, the United States imported about 600 million gallons of ethanol, and about 200 million gallons came indirectly from Brazil through the Caribbean, according to Robert Dineen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group that represents ethanol producers. The total imports of all kinds of ethanol amounted to slightly more than 10 percent of American consumption last year.

For the moment, American ethanol producers are watching warily but not protesting.

“I don’t believe the fundamental objective of the administration is to produce ethanol in the Caribbean for export to the United States,” Mr. Dineen said. But, he added, American companies will be watching to see if the initiative becomes “the camel’s nose under the tent.”

Really, why not? It sure as hell beats exporting petroleum from the Middle East. I'm not saying that because I think ethanol is going to be our savior. It actually seems to have very few benefits. But it is something.

It seems to me that if demand for ethanol actually grows to the point where it becomes a common component of fuels (face it, we probably can't produce enough to make it our primary fuel), there might be enough demand to make every producer, foreign and domestic, happy—especially with subsidies we already offer American producers still in place.

It's imperative that we reduce our dependence on petroleum products. Setting aside the environmental aspects of consuming gasoline, the fact remains that buying oil puts money into the coffers of terrorist governments like Saudi Arabia.

I'm by no means a fan of preserving the subsidized transportation and development of the American suburb, but at least this has the potential to reduce the damage wrought by cheap gasoline. I feel that we should do more to limit that damage that cars do to our cities, however.

One solution is better public transportation in urban areas, which allows for energy to be produced at a better scale than a small internal combustion motor, as well as move emissions away from densely populated areas (reducing that smog effect you see even in cities with good public transportation, such as New York).

Public transportation is itself admittedly a dangerous proposition. Despite the common belief that public transportation causes little or no damage to the environment, it indeed does when it's not used effectively. Enter a case such as Washington, D.C., where the heavy rail rapid transit system allows workers to live ever further away from the central city. They may take the train into the city and reduce traffic congestion (it's possible, but I'm not sure if I believe that either), but the fact of the matter is most of them probably go in for work. When they get home, they're using their cars at least as much as they would at any other time. And if you imagine that some people who live in distant exurbs have to drive a long distance to get to a train station, you also have to figure many of them are living in places where they have to drive to get food, clothing, go out, go to church, visit friends, and do whatever other things exurbanites do. So in reality, not only is the public transportation idea a wash, but it's very likely that people are venting more emissions because of public transportation in some cases.

Image information:

Image Information (smog in New York, 1988, from WikiPedia)
The second image I took after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport in January; some of the distortion probably comes from the plane window, but it's a striking image of the smog in the L.A. metropolitan area.

Links:

David Owen wrote an interesting article in The New Yorker ("Green Manhattan," PDF) on the positive effects of places like Manhattan on the environment, and also spoke about the D.C. transportation system and its effects on the environment.
From the Washington Post: "Around D.C., A Cheaper House May Cost You" (October 12, 2006)

BBC News: Mayor unveils climate change plan

2007-02-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

From the BBC ("Mayor unveils climate change plan," Feb. 27, 2007):

London Mayor Ken Livingstone has called on Londoners and businesses to unite in the fight against global warming.

Unveiling his Climate Change Action Plan, the mayor appealed to people to stop wasting energy.

Londoners will be offered cut-price loft and cavity wall insulation and could cut £300 a year from fuel bills by making homes more energy-efficient.

He also urged companies to invest in green technology to help slash carbon emissions by 60% within 20 years.

By 2025 he wants 25% of London's electricity supply to be from local combined heat and power systems.

It's interesting to see this kind of thing happening more. It is especially important for cities, however, to try to cut costs of doing business. While they produce a lot of carbon dioxide per unit of real estate, they often produce very little per capita compared to surrounding suburbs. Driving businesses to cheaper suburbs will end up causing more pollution.

Love Me, I'm A Liberal

2007-02-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

Some new lyrics of the Phil Ochs classic! Also, 100 fucked up things said by fundies.

Rural Values?

2007-02-26T15:40:00.001-05:00

From Local6.com ("1 In 3 Boys Heavy Porn Users, Study Shows," Feb. 24, 2007):

Almost half of rural youths in the survey reported seeing pornographic videos or DVDs at least once, compared to one-third of the urban participants. Thompson is unsure why rural teens access porn more on video and DVD, but suggests that parents may think distance acts as a buffer.

"Maybe they have a false sense of thinking they are far away from unhealthy influences," she said.

Rural boys also reported a lower incidence of parents talking with them about sexual media content. Urban girls were most likely to have had discussions with their parents. And while the majority of teens surveyed said their parents expressed concern about sexual content, that concern hasn't led to discussion or supervision, and few parents are using available technology to block sexual content, according to the study.

Anne Frank To Get Honorary U.S. Citizenship?

2007-02-26T15:31:00.000-05:00

According to the New York Times, there is a movement to push for Anne Frank to be granted honorary U.S. citizenship ("A Push for Citizenship to Honor Anne Frank, but It’s No Easy Sell," Feb. 25, 2007):

How the issue came to emerge from this old seaside Long Island village is almost as intriguing as the question itself. In a compact grid of a dozen square blocks that seem cut from a Currier and Ives catalogue, there are 11 churches and zero synagogues.

The idea was proposed three years ago on the 75th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birth by a Sayville resident named Christopher Bodkin, a Republican town councilman who is known around town as a kind of serial memorializer. Over the years Mr. Bodkin, 59, has researched, documented and led successful campaigns to erect memorials to Sayville citizens who died in World War II and in the Vietnam War.

His campaign for Anne Frank’s citizenship, however, is of a different order, he said in an interview: “When you come from a town like this, you tend to grow up thinking that the whole world has always been like this. Placid. Settled. It’s amazing to me how much people don’t know about what came before us.“

What about what's coming now? For Christ's sake, we're involved in a horrible civil war in Iraq because a few zealots wanted to win an election in 2004. Iraq is a spectacle of American weakness. Yes, it's a very placid, settled world indeed. And the suburbanites on Long Island are living it up!

I don't really see what good giving Anne Frank American citizenship does myself. And if we'd given her a visa in 1941 in the first place, she never would have become the archetype she is.

Links:

Christopher Bodkin of the Islip Town Council

NY Times: Krugman: Substance Over Image

2007-02-26T15:27:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman of The New York Times really nailed it with this one ("Substance Over Image," Feb. 25, 2007):

Six years ago a man unsuited both by intellect and by temperament for high office somehow ended up running the country.

How did that happen? First, he got the Republican nomination by locking up the big money early.

Then, he got within chad-and-butterfly range of the White House because the public, enthusiastically encouraged by many in the news media, treated the presidential election like a high school popularity contest. The successful candidate received kid-gloves treatment — and a free pass on the fuzzy math of his policy proposals — because he seemed like a fun guy to hang out with, while the unsuccessful candidate was subjected to sniggering mockery over his clothing and his mannerisms.

Today, with thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead thanks to presidential folly, with Al Qaeda resurgent and Afghanistan on the brink, you’d think we would have learned a lesson. But the early signs aren’t encouraging.

“Presidential elections are high school writ large, of course,” declared Newsweek’s Howard Fineman last month. Oh, my goodness. But in fairness to Mr. Fineman, he was talking about the almost content-free rivalry between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — a rivalry that, at this point, is mainly a struggle over who’s the bigger celebrity and gets to lock up the big donors.

Enough already. Let’s make this election about the issues. Let’s demand that presidential candidates explain what they propose doing about the real problems facing the nation, and judge them by how they respond.

Bill Clinton an issue for Hillary

2007-02-25T01:15:00.000-05:00

Apparently, according to The Washington Post, it's been decided that the non-issue of Bill Clinton's silly impeachment is an issue for Hillary Clinton ("Clinton Fights to Keep Impeachment Taboo," February 25th, 2007):

The turmoil of the later Clinton years has been a theme of national politics since it occurred: George W. Bush ran in 2000 on a promise to "restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office," while Vice President Al Gore campaigned as a solid family man, distancing himself from the impeachment ordeal.

Firstly, I would think being a "family man" is very distracting when you're president. But it does help you win elections. Hillary, are you a family man too?

Secondly, George W. Bush's promise to "restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office" was a very fair offering. Easy to fall for it. Afterall, who restored honor and dignity to the White House after Bush's father left office? (Hell, I'd say the problem goes back to Reagan, if not Nixon.)

So, my question is, are elections designed to distract people from what matters in this world or something?

Beaver Spotted

2007-02-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

Scientists spotted a beaver in The Bronx ("1st Beaver spotted in NYC in 200 years," Yahoo! News, February 23, 2007):

NEW YORK - Beavers grace New York City's official seal. But the industrious rodents have not been seen in the flesh here for as many as 200 years — until this week.

Can you spot any beavers in New York City? I believe I've seen a few in Manhattan.

Big-Breasted Fake MySpace Friends

2007-02-23T13:48:00.001-05:00

Why don't big-breasted women flock to me like this in real life? Thank you, MySpace (you dirty whore)!

Racist? Maybe not. Stupid? Yep.

2007-02-22T18:09:00.000-05:00

The Republican-Jugend are at it again (Anger over NY 'immigration game', BBC News, February 22, 2007):

A Republican student group in New York has sparked claims of racism by organising a game called "Find the Illegal Immigrant".

Students will act as immigration officers in Thursday's game and try to find a student in a crowd designated with a badge as the illegal immigrant.

The game has sparked protests from other students with hundreds planning to demonstrate against it.

The New York University College Republican club denied it was racist.

Okay, I guess it's not racist. Some illegal immigrants are indeed white. Actually, you're probably much more likely to find a white illegal immigrant than a swarthy Republican with a modicum of intelligence. Come to think of it, it's really quite amazing that somebody moronic and unethical enough to join a Republican Party group has any chance of getting into NYU.

I have an idea though: let's get the New York University College Thuggery Club to agree not to shop in any businesses that might hire illegal immigrants. In a city like New York, that probably means they'll have to starve to death.

As far as I'm concerned, illegal immigrants should be welcomed to New York, which has always been a haven for immigrants. The city should go out of its way to make them feel welcome. However, Republicans and their foul ideological bent should be made to feel very unwelcome.

Oh oh! Porn!

2007-02-21T17:44:00.000-05:00

PROVO, Utah — Anti-porn group CP80 and film company Living Biography have joined forces to release “Traffic Control,” a new documentary that details what it calls the rampant rise in Internet pornography and the fight to stop it.

That's from XBiz ("Anti-Porn Group Releases Documentary"). You know, because Utah doesn't have more important things to worry about. Like Mormons.

Oh hell, anyway, you can see where they might be bothered. Who is viewing all this porn anyway? I would guess people without a steady supply of sex.

So, the solution? Scare people by finding one of those rare examples of a porn star who allegedly contracted an STD on the set. Enter ex-porn star Shelley Lubben ("Roxy"). Oh, by the way, she promotes virginity on MySpace now.

The film details the experiences of Shelley Lubben, a former porn star turned anti-porn activist who used the stage name Roxy, as she battled a drug and alcohol addiction and contracted herpes while working in the adult entertainment industry.

The film also reports that access to pornography by minors is a big problem, with nearly 57 percent of those aged 9 to 19 having viewed adult content online.

An article in the Deseret News reported that The Free Speech Coalition said that figure is closer to 10 percent. However, FSC Executive Director Diane Duke said the trade group had no such data.

Lubben said one adult producer told her that the industry markets to children.

“[One producer told me], ‘We want the children — they’re the next generation of consumers,’” Lubben said. “They actually program their websites to have words that kids search for.”

Although she had not seen the film, Duke told XBIZ she rejected the claims made by Lubben.

“In any business you will be able to find disgruntled past workers willing to disparage their industry,” she said. “In many ways, we are like any other industry. The difference is with our industry is that there are organized groups of moral extremists attempting to put us out of business. These groups use fear and falsehoods to organize communities against the industry. It is up to us to dispel theses myths. We are the adult entertainment industry, we use adult performers, and produce adult products for use by the adult community — period.”

Yes, the usual rhetoric apparently.

"It corrupts the youth, destroys families, and every time you watch it God kills a kitten."

"But it's freedom of speech!"

Truthfully, I'm no fan of porn. And I'm really not a big fan of easy access to porn. I think it's somewhat tragic that kids can find pictures of people eating shit fresh from each other's anuses before they've ever had their first kiss. But I know porn's not going away.

I'm not against sex. I'm pro-sex to boot. I'm all for sex, sex partners, having sex in crazy positions, and adding spice to my own sex life. For homosexual males, I'm all for educating young gay boys about ways to safely engage their partners in oral and anal sex. For the lesbian ladies, I'm all for licking and sucking. I'm for premarital sex, public sex, private sex, sex supplemented with toys, sex supplemented with heavy petting, and sex supplemented with multiple partners. I'm for sex in church, if the church doesn't mind.

Of course, I don't feel porn should be banned. I do feel porn actually is a by-product of unhealthy sex lives and even sexual repression. It would be less needed if sex were somewhat demystified. However, anti-porn crusaders often do all they can to even stop the prevention of proliferation of pornography in public. Remember when zealots in the U.S. decided to stop the adult content top-level domain from happening? Such a thing would have made it really easy to stop children from viewing pornography by actually making content filters effective.

I would like to correct a mild inaccuracy on Shelley's "friend's" MySpace page (Live Offensively for God). It has this picture on it:That's not entirely true. This one allegedly involves no females.

Links:

Shelley has a web site: http://www.shelleylubben.com/
She's also on WikiPedia

This Just In: Crappy Show On Fox Called "The Half Hour News Hour"

2007-02-17T12:56:00.000-05:00

It's supposed to be satire, but...

...can anyone tell me how The Half Hour News Hour different from other Fox offerings? It sounds like a rip-off of This Hour Has 22 Minutes (from the CBC).

Too bad they don't understand that satire depends on a grounding in reality.

Seems mighty tasteless. Here are some links:

A case of life immitating art?

2006-11-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

"Fair and balanced" Fox News is ready to try to immitate The Daily Show with a half hour news comedy show for "conservatives" (Hyden, Steve, "Fox News ponders 'Daily Show for conservatives'," November 20, 2006):

No longer content with just producing unintentional hilarity on The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes, Fox News is prepping a half-hour news satire program that will premiere in January. Overseeing the show, tenatively titled This Just In, is Joel Surnow, co-creator of that wacky laugh-riot 24. In Variety, Surnow said This Just In will be "The Daily Show for conservatives," an enticing description that promises many side-splitting Ted Kennedy jokes. "The way I look at it, almost every comedy show or satire show I see uses the same talking points against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney," Surnow told Variety. "The other side hasn't been skewered in a fair and balanced way." Finally, somebody will report positive fake news about Iraq.

According to the Variety article ("Satire hands a right," Learmouth, Micahel; November 20, 2006):

The pilot segs will be co-anchored by comedians Kurt Long and Susan Yeagley and feature a family of correspondents. "There will be some elements of 'The Daily Show' and some of 'Weekend Update,' " Surnow said.

...

Surnow said the show will feature man-on-the-street interviews and "respond to the news of the day." It will be scripted and may not have in-studio guests, a point of departure from Stewart and Colbert.

Predictably, the show won't be funny. The reason The Daily Show is funny is not because it offers fake news, but because it's a fake news show. Actually, it's even somewhat informative because it tells the truth, or at least tries to. (That is in opposition to Fox, which pretends to tell the truth, but doesn't.) It may present the truth in an absurd light, but it tells it nonetheless. Unlike the general cable news broadcasters, time is precious on The Daily Show's half hour slot, so the guests tend to be carefully picked and interesting; there's no need to worry about interviewing a Republican, and then interviewing a Democrat for balance.

One key ingredient to The Daily Show's success is its ability to mock attempts journalistic objectivity run amok. That "objectivity" sort of a by-product of the American media's obsession with having a di-partisan political system. If one side says something stupid, they don't feel they can report on the truth. Instead, they feel they have to present the stream of information as it came out of the mouth of a political official or party hack. This, in turn, allows some people (particularly Republicans, but Democrats too) to lie without being called on it.

Another key ingredient is that it really had a lot of material to work with the past six years. Politicians lied to get us to go to war in Iraq. Calling those politicians, like the Bush Administration, on their lies wasn't something very many news networks were willing to do. Further, with people like Rick Santorum and George Allen (both defeated in the recent election) in power, a constant stream of virulent social conservatism was being spewed across our airwaves for years, eagerly lapped up by their allies in the talk show industry. The Daily Show was able to present their absurd statements about homosexuality and the famous macaca incident in a humorous, yet tasteful, light.

In short, The Daily Show is often funny because it can turn the tables on dishonesty in political discourse. Much of that dishonesty comes from Fox News, of course. What will really be interesting is to see if The Daily Show can stay funny now that the source for all its material is out of power.

Links:

IMDB Profile for This Just In

Mark Foley and his poley

2006-10-06T12:24:00.000-04:00

I avoided saying much about Mark Foley because I really don't give too much of a damn about his text message masturbation. Of course, nobody can miss the irony of a conservative Republican and a gay sex scandal. Yeah, pagefuckergate was funny for five minutes, but it's time to move on.

Before we move on, I do have a few wise-ass comments. One, Foley really deserves a medal. He made an American election truly competitive for the first time in probably twelve years. The incompetence of his own party in doing, well, anything was just not enough to overcome the sheer incompetence of the Democrats. Foley did the opposition's job for them. Thank you, Mark Foley!

Next, by age 16, you aren't a child. Mark Foley isn't a pedophile. They may be legally underage, but they have pretty much adult bodies. I'm not really going to look into this too hard, but it may well be that age 16 is the age of consent for homosexual relations in Washington, D.C.. Of course, some of these events took place outside of Washington, so maybe they weren't legal where they took place. These little bastards knew what they were doing when they wrote back sexy things to Mark Foley. That said, they helped make a competitive election too. Let's give them medals as well.

Finally, in all seriousness, it's amazing to see how dishonest some Republican apologists really are. Look at Bill O'Reilly labeling Foley as a Democrat!

And here's to a Santorum/Foley ticket in 2008!

More Muslim Madness!

2006-09-18T22:54:00.000-04:00

From The Independent ("Vatican experts say Pope 'unrepentant'," Popham, Peter; September 19, 2006):

As protests against the Pope continued to rumble around the Muslim world yesterday, Catholics began asking themselves if this highly intelligent man can really have been so crass as to have ignited the passions of millions of Muslims without realising that he was doing it.

If the alternative version is more credible - that he knew exactly what he was doing - then the next question arises: why? The gloomy conclusion of some Vatican experts is that there was no inconsistency in the Pope's choice of the words "inhuman and evil" - quoted from the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus - to characterise Islam. Such a negative view, they say, is consistent with all his words and actions with regard to Islam.

Their claims make for a tragic contrast with the decades devoted by John Paul II to the challenge of bringing Islam, Judaism and Christianity closer together after many centuries of hatred and bloodshed. Now all that hard work, rowing against the tide of history, seems to be at risk.

I guess I wouldn't be surprised if Pope Benedict Unit Number XVI really did want to inflame Muslims. I really wouldn't be.

But I do have an alternate theory: is it possible that many Muslims are just really, really easy to piss off? We all remember the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Where are the "moderate" Muslim leaders to speak out and say, "You know, guys, you're going to get criticized every now and then. Especially because our religion has its fair share of n u t c a s e s. I know we're not all nutcases, and I know Christianity has n u t c a s e s too, so thankfully we're not the only ones keeping bad company. But really guys, don't you think it's time to cool it?"

A Jewish group had it right when Iran announced an anti-semitic cartoon contest. They responded with their own Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest, to mock the stupidity of the whole matter. If only other religions and cultures could learn to be self-deprecating sometimes.

Solve all your problems: go to college!

2006-09-17T01:06:00.000-04:00

The New York Times is calling on states and the federal government to heavily subsidize college education ("Killing Off the American Future," editorial; September 16, 2006).

America’s domination of the global information economy did not come about by accident. It flowed directly from policies that allowed the largest generation in the nation’s history broad access to a first-rate college education regardless of ability to pay. By subsidizing public universities to keep tuition low, and providing federal tuition aid to poor and working-class students, this country vaulted tens of millions of people into the middle class while building the best-educated work force in the world.

...

The warning about American vulnerability, which has been sounded in several reports of late, was underscored yet again in a study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a nonpartisan research organization. The report highlights some ominous trends. As the well-schooled boomers march off into retirement, the generation that replaces them is shaping up to be less educated by far. No longer the world leader in terms of the proportion of young people enrolled in college, the country now ranks 16th among the 27 nations examined when it comes to the proportion of college students who complete college degrees or certificate programs.

Nice as the idea of subsidizing college education sounds, it seems to me that many people think that's the only problem.

What about those who get into college? It's obscene that a freshman can't read adequately. Starting in first grade, schools aren't really educating people.

And what is this about college being a mandate for everyone? College should be for people who are prepared for it. There are perfectly intelligent people in the world who should never go to college because it's not for them.

Nazinger on Islam

2006-09-17T00:56:00.000-04:00

I'm not one to defend the words of a Catholic pontiff, but I have to say, a lot of Muslims are really thin-skinned here. From Deutsche Presse-Agentur ("Anger mounts in Muslim world over pope's Islam remarks," September 15, 2006; reposted on Monsters and Critics News):

Anger mounted across the Muslim world Friday over remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to Germany this week in which the pontiff quoted a 14th century Christian emperor as calling aspects of the legacy of Islam's Prophet Mohammed 'evil and inhuman.'

...

The pope's remarks came Tuesday in Regensburg in his home state of Bavaria, when he was quoting a conversation that took place in Ankara in the year 1391 between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on Christianity and Islam.

'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,' the pope quoted Manuel as saying.

As head of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned by law but tolerated in Egypt, was calling on Pope Benedict to apologize, the Vatican was attempting to shore up criticism of the pontiff on a day that saw a new Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, take office.

One of the first tasks awaiting Bertone, an Italian, who becomes the Vatican's new 'prime minister' will be to repair the damage caused by Benedict's remarks.

As if some Muslim, at some point, didn't have a legitimate (or in many cases, illegitimate) gripe about Christianity.

Even Protestant Christians have, by and large, come to respect the fact that their beliefs can be criticized, and have been, and will be. Nevermind that in this case, the guy in the funny hat (oops) was just quoting somebody. He wasn't saying Muslims were evil. He was saying somebody said Muslims were evil...and it was said seven centuries ago.

LATimes: "Texas-Sized Area of Thick Ice Lost in Arctic"

2006-09-16T18:49:00.000-04:00

Well, according to The Los Angeles Times, the area of ice lost in the Arctic last year was about the size of Texas. Nonetheless, global warming is a lie of the liberal left-wing media bent on destroying America by depriving it of cars, gasoline, fumes, and parking lots. According to the article (September 16, 2006):

About 288,000 square miles of perennial ice, which normally doesn't melt during the summer, was lost from 2004 to 2005, scientists found using data from NASA's QuickScat satellite.

I have a simple solution. Since the ice was Texas-sized, let's wedge Texas up in the Arctic to replace the lost ice surface.

David Horowitz: Blatant Racist

2006-09-16T08:45:00.000-04:00

Wow, I knew the guy was a nut, but I didn't know he was this crazy ("Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too," January 3, 2001):

Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians - Englishmen and Americans -- created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?

Nancy Grace's grilling causes a woman to commit suicide

2006-09-16T08:19:00.000-04:00

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that a woman who helped prod another woman into suicide with her show on CNN wrote a book called Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System? From the AP ("Mother of Missing Boy Commits Suicide"):

LEESBURG, Fla. (Sept. 14) - Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with TV's famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?"

Nancy Grace is an embarrassment and has no grace. And her pious, condescending Southern accent is the kind that gives Southerners a bad reputation for stupidity (besides the one they already earned).

(Special no thanks to AOL's The Feed for pointing this stupid shit out.)

Police chief wife "porn"

2006-09-09T14:48:00.000-04:00

I was very disappointed by the "porn" that The Oklahoman reported ("Wife's porn site prompts calls for chief's firing," September 6, 2006). Apparently, a police chief's wife posed nude with the American flag draped around her. Alas, my "research" into the matter yielded no porn.

Before researching this matter yourself, consider (from "Police Chief Out In Nude Wife Pix Flap," KCCI.com, September 8, 2006):

"My wife is 6-foot-3 and weighs 300 pounds," he [Police Chief Tod Ozmun] said. "If there is somebody that thinks they can control her, have at it. I have tried for 11 years and haven't been able to."

Point taken. Have at it!

Ozmun later resigned as police chief. Another loss for American justice!

More 9/11 Political Propaganda Coming Up

2006-09-08T12:41:00.000-04:00

I always find television tasteless. However, one particularly tasteless form of television is the political drama genre. And one particularly tasteless form of the political drama genre is the 9/11 political drama. In I guess 2003 I watched Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story, which featured the former hard-ass mayor of New York City trapped in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, taking charge of the situation, and using his Herculean strength to kick down doors that his aids weren't smart enough to open.

This week, it turns out ABC is up to yanking people's delicate heartstrings with yet another 9/11 drama. This one is known as The Path To 9/11. A bunch of former Clinton administration aids wrote a letter to ABC complaining about inaccuracies that leaked out.

According to an article in The Times of London ("Clinton aides condemn 9/11 drama as 'terribly wrong', September 8, 2006), among these complaints were:

Ms Albright objected to a scene that she was told showed her insisting on warning the Pakistani government before an airstrike on Afghanistan, and that showed her as the person who made the warning.
...
Mr Berger questioned a scene that he was told showed him refusing to authorise an attack on Osama bin Laden despite a request from CIA officials.

"The fabrication of this scene (of such apparent magnitude) cannot be justified under any reasonable definition of dramatic licence," he wrote.
...
The senators’ letter questioned the political motivations and leanings of the programme.

"Frankly, that ABC and Disney would consider airing a program that could be construed as right-wing political propaganda on such a grave and important event involving the security of our nation is a discredit both to the Disney brand and to the legacy of honesty built at ABC by honourable individuals from David Brinkley to Peter Jennings," the letter said.

Actually, it's really not all that surprising that 9/11 material comes across as partisan political propaganda. I've seen very little coverage of the 9/11 events that really couldn't be construed as propaganda.

It is sad, however, how right-wing nuts who largely control the American media seem to like to dramatize the whole matter. Even Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 came across as something of a Leni Riefenstahl piece, even though it at least tried to be factual.

9/11 political dramas have mostly tried to get off with treating George W. Bush as a knight in shining armor riding to battle to stop this horrible, horrible menace.

For some god-damned reason, after having five years to screw up, George W. Bush is still enjoying something of an advantage on the issue of terrorism over the Democrats, so a proganda piece fictionally portrays the Clinton administration's failures with dealing with international terrorism can't come at a better time. Like the times wrote:

Tim Reid, Times Correspondent in Washington, said that the row bore testimony to how politically-charged an issue the attacks continued to be, as the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approached.

"Politically, this comes at a particularly sensitive time because of the mid-term elections coming up. Clinton's side are very sensitive on this issue and the Democrats are particularly so at the moment because it comes at a time when the Bush Administration is trying to tell America that it can keep people safe from terrorism and fight al-Qaeda better than the Democrats. It is the only remaining issue where President Bush enjoys an advantage over the Democrats.

"The film reinforces what conservatives have been saying; that they were in power for only eight months before the attacks happened but the Democrats had been in control for eight years. Mr Bush and the Republicans are trying to focus the voters on their response to 9/11 rather than the war in Iraq and this film doesn't do anything to hurt that."

Of course, his response to 9/11 was to attack Iraq. But we can gloss over that little factoid too.

Democrats Are Pussies

2006-09-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

Buried in the back of an article in the "left-wing" Washington Post ("Congress set for combative, pre-election push," September 4, 2006):

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said, "Democrats are going to make it clear that we understand that terrorism is real, that terrorism needs to be confronted and defeated and we are prepared to do that.

No, dumbass, that's not what you need to do. Stop framing this so defensively. If you want to win, point out how badly the Republicans misunderstand terrorism. It's not like you're lacking fuel for that fire. I mean, Iraq? Border security?

And where the hell is Osama bin Laden? Pumping gas at a station in Texas?

I really wish we had a few "third parties." Democrats always end up acquiescing to the whims of their more authoritarian counterparts across the aisle anyway.

New Blog

2006-09-03T18:24:00.000-04:00

I started a new blog concerning my comments on New York State and New York City. I felt that it would make sense to separate out these posts, since they tend to overshadow the rest of my commentaries and aren't really that interesting to non-New Yorkers.

More On How F**ked Up Upstate NY Is - And Why It Hurts Downstate

2006-09-01T02:55:00.000-04:00

The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester had a rarely lucid article on Upstate New York's problems. I disagree with a lot of the points made, and the politics, but the overall jest of it should really sound the alarm in stoic Albany. The article ("Spitzer shining light on upstate solutions, not just woes," March 27, 2006) was written by Joseph Morelle, a state assemblyman. He cites some alarming statistics:

Since the 1990 census, upstate's growth rate has been slower than that in all but two states. In fact, the state that was once first in population will rank fourth in the 2010 census, continuing the trend that has eroded New York's representative clout in the U.S. Congress since 1940.
Upstate has seen 25 percent of its young people between ages 20 and 34 leave, taking their economic potential.
More than one-third of upstate manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the past 15 years.

Really, Upstate has been in decline for over a generation, but it really was noticed in the 1990s when other parts of the country recovered from the same decline (industrial stagnation) while Upstate didn't. Consider that a century ago Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse were all prosperous, wealthy cities. Today, they barely keep their heads above water. Buffalo lost half its population since 1950, most of that loss occurred after 1970.

I've always taken interest in Upstate's condition. I don't feel too connected to it, having never lived there, even though my family migrated down from there sometime in the mid-20th century.

It's interesting from a socioeconomic perspective to understand just what's going so wrong with it. As a region, it could be doing very well. Even today, Upstate has relatively high incomes, skilled labor, decent infrastructure, and despite the myths, the weather far from the worst in the United States. On the other hand, the industry it once depended on has dried up, the Erie Canal is no longer an economic engine, and the region never really had a distinct cultural identity to fall back on.

Meanwhile, New York State's government does nothing but look out for the interests of New York State's government employees, from the legislators on down. Costs are kept high, education is poor, growth stays stagnant, and the status quo continues to thrive. Children growing up in Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, or Utica have no hope of landing really good jobs after high school, even if their parents are lucky enough to retain one. They don't have the options, like perhaps even their fathers had, of going to work in a big factory and taking home a union pay.

As Morelle says, Upstate's losing population, and that hurts New York State.

Regardless of how upstate is described, the implications of our circumstances reach well beyond Schenectady. We do not have downstate's population or national profile, but clearly what happens here affects the health of the entire state. Our population losses slow the state's overall growth to a crawl, which means we lose ranking and political representation at the national level in relation to faster-growing states such as Florida, Texas and California.

That's a rather important tie-in, and Florida will soon become the third largest state. If current trends continue, New York State is going to fall to fourth in population behind a muggy, penis-shaped hurricane magnet. If it doesn't happen by 2010, it will happen by 2020.

This does hurt Downstate. As reactionary states like Texas, Florida, and, yes, even California, gain political representation in the House of Representatives, it happens at a cost to our representation. While New York City and its suburbs do fairly well economically, and even manage to attract new residents (primarily through immigration), it's barely enough to replace the losses downstate. Furthermore, New York City is, contrary to popular perception, propping up Upstate with transfer payments. In that regard, a healthy Upstate that can sustain itself means more money for us to spend on our own concerns, such as education, fighting poverty, and modernizing our infrastructure.

So what are Upstate's economic strengths? I can't really think of many. There are some excellent colleges and universities: the Rochester Institute of Technology, Buffalo State, Syracuse University, Cornell University, just to name a few. And while industrial and transportation infrastructure does exist, there's little to produce industrially and little to import or export.

Morelle heralds Attorney-General Elliot Spitzer as the economic savior of the region.

...Mr. Spitzer's economic program rests on a five-pillared approach:

Reduce the cost of doing business: Cut property taxes and reduce the costs of health care and workers' compensation.
Support cities: Revitalize urban downtowns and rural communities burdened by layoffs and the decline of schools and neighborhoods that follow.
Focus on small business with strategies designed to help the small-business sector, where so many jobs will be created, especially for women, minorities and immigrants.
Infrastructure investment: Renew the commitment to improve and modernize our transportation, energy and telecommunications capacities.
Innovation and emerging technologies: Identify and aid the growth of strategic industries. This last point particularly impacts Rochester, a city whose optical and imaging industries enriched our community in the 20th century, and where emergent photonic, biotechnology and fuel cell firms are building the foundations for similar prosperity in the 21st century.

That's all nice, but it's coming about a generation too late. Upon reflection, one really has to wonder where New York was in the 1960s when the space program and computer revolution were happening. Had Albany been thinking, Silicon Valley could easily have been in the Hudson Valley, and New York City could easily have enjoyed the 1990s benefits of Sand Hill Road's venture capital industry. Early 20th century high tech firms were already located in New York State, and many are still here, including IBM. When the state saw the Erie Canal dying, and technology rising on the west coast, it should have done what it could to encourage relocation to the Erie Canal zone.

Today, New York State does have the chance to make a grab at the infant biomedical and biotech industries, if it wakes up fast. Many of the ingredients necessary to induce research and development exist in New York State—again, right along the former routes of the Erie Canal and New York Central Railroad, the corridors where the vast majority of the state's population still lives from New York City to Buffalo. Among those ingredients:

an educated, literate, and diverse workforce
virgin land to attract inexpensive, yet environmentally sustainable, development
world-class universities, from NYU and Columbia to Buffalo State
the cultural and economic clout of New York City to attract bright minds from around the world

It doesn't seem to me that economic success needs to depend on the many of the factors cited in the success of other states. We do, however, need to find creative approaches to dealing with problems that have plagued New York since its pre-industrial infancy. While unions certainly may have a place in the economy, we need to find a way from keeping them from becoming slow, anti-progressive bohemoths; the same goes for many of the super-firms we give tax breaks to on Wall Street, or those rare tech giants that still exist upstate. If we're going to continue to have our bureaucracy and transfer payments, they should be contingent on productivity.

This probably means requiring those who live on public money to work, if they're able to—and this is something that unions should, in all fairness, not be allowed to interfere with. Those who do work while receiving public benefits should be expected to learn a marketable skill in the process.

We talk about term limits for our elected officials, but it's unelected officials who in many ways affect how people live and work more than elected officails. People who work for the government should have term limits. Since obviously experience is needed in many higher-level jobs, those who are qualified should be promoted if a position is available. Those who have spent a certain number of years working a job should be required to step aside and make room for another qualified applicant who can bring new ideas to the table. Those who are unable to be promoted in their fields should be expected to find a new line of work elsewhere, even if it means a different public service position or a private sector position—they should be prepared to train for and compete for a given public service job to demonstrate they're the best candidate. Only in compelling circumstances should somebody in a public service job be allowed to have more than a fixed number of terms.

We should also try to unite our elected officials to craft coherent policy. If possible, a state law should be enacted to require members of our delegation in the House of Representatives and Senate to be compelled to publicly testify about what they're doing in Congress to improve New York's economic health and to see to it that the state is getting fair treatment from the federal government. Those who refuse to comply should be prohibited from appearing on ballots for re-election.

Yale, Schmale

2006-08-29T23:55:00.000-04:00

I will say no more: