Mean Mister Mustard

My War Policy

2012-01-11T19:29:00.000-08:00

If Obama calls me to be an advisor I would suggest that he thinks long and hard about the native cuisine of the country we invade. The Texas Revolution and the Mexican wars reinforced our cravings for tortilla, bean and chili pepper based dishes. The Civil war spread fried chicken from sea to shining sea. World War I brought an appreciation for French wines and Belgian fried potatoes to our shores, WWII netted us a lust for pasta and red sauce with a further desire for cheeses outside the cheddar variations. Don't get me going on espresso and its variations. Japanese dishes found a firm root with our occupying troops and Korea gave us a taste for kim-chee. While we were and still are occupying Northern Europe boiled potato and cabbage based dishes don't have a joint on every corner flogging perogies. Southeast Asia, mmmmm, gave us noodles of the gods, spicy dishes that take no back seat to any chili pepper. Seafood turns to gold when touched by a Thai chef or his mama. Give me Pho and Spring rolls or give me death

I honestly haven't seen anything coming out of Iraq and especially Afghanistan that I would order off a menu. These are ancient cultures. What gives? It's not like you had no time to make a nice sauce to go with the flat bread. You've got Turkey right next door with all that weapons grade kebob technology and India on the other end making me a follower of Vishnu with all the curries and chutney. Hey Egypt! I'm looking at you. You developed beer three thousand years ago and then forgot about it. What a waste.

May I suggest targets for future wars? Argentina, with mountains of free range beef and European bread making. Forget Africa. After okra, bananas and coffee we've pretty much picked the place clean. How about Spain? They should be easy to beat and all those tasty Mediterranean goodies beckon. I mentioned Turkey, but there are a lot of side dished to be found there. China may be a tougher nut, so we might just have to declare war and immediately surrender. Never have there been a people who can do so much with so little. Canada? Meh. Forget England unless you are a big fan of beans on toast. Ireland. Stew and beer we've got. Greece will probably be at the door this next year begging to be invaded, but I don't think we can afford the upkeep. Besides retsina is wretched. Lamb gyros can be good though.

This foreign policy offers the advantage of good food and low casualty counts. If we are going to war, we may as well get something out of the deal. Certainly we could replace all those half billion dollar F22 Raptors with some really nice cutlery and napkins. How much soy and plum sauce could we get for the price of one Abrams Tank? Everyone knows we all are fatter and fatter every year but now it would be patriotic.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2012-01-10T13:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of artists / illustrators I enjoy I know it's not anything political or personal but sometimes we get enough of that stuff.

First there's Zina Saunders, an illustrator who I have followed since before I started this blog. Love her politics and eye for the little stuff that makes up the background of our lives.

Next is surrealist illustrator Tara Tucker. Her wildly imaginary animals make me think if there was a great designer he was somewhat dim witted. Also, I'm crazy for kiwis. It's a damn shame it's impossible to keep them as pets.

Their websites are http://www.zinasaunders.com/ and http://taratucker.blogspot.com/

Villain Versus Hero

2011-12-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

Today all the news is about the timely death of Kim Jung Il and the murky mechanics of succession in the Hermit Kingdom. Somehow the death of a genuine hero goes little noted. Vaclav Havel, playwright, dissident, liberal lion, President of the Czech Republic and all around good guy left us on the same day that the corrupt tin horn dictator Kim drew his last unearned breath of the Earth's sweet air. Havel faced down the Soviet monster when it counted and went to prison for his efforts. His writing was banned and he was threatened with exile. Back then I was a member of Amnesty International thousands of members regularly wrote letters to the Czechoslovakian government pleading for the satellite police state to release Vaclav. They did release him for a while, re-arrested him and released him again. Totalitarian Marxist states were funny that way. They could be shamed into begrudgingly bowing to public pressure. Fascist police states just double down to prove how tough they are. Vaclav Havel actually has a good claim to the title of "the man who freed Eastern Europe". As author of the Velvet Revolution he recognized the desire of Soviet Premier Gorbachev's desire to reform Russia and end the Cold War. Poland was overthrowing their own Warsaw Pact government at the same time. Poland's change was driven by catholic resentment and industrial nationalism. Czechoslovakia's revolution was driven by liberal intellectuals and college students. I have heard writers who should know all about such things that Havel was the most important European after the end of WWII. We need more like him.

The Hitch Is Dead. Long Live The Hitch

2011-12-16T17:29:00.000-08:00

I am unapologetic apologist for Christopher Hitchens. Most folk don't understand his profound atheism and its effect on his political views. Hitchens saw the Arab world and its Salafic Islamic theocratic world view as the most intense threat to all things Hitch held dear. Even more of a menace than the Church of Rome, communist totalitarianism or American fundamentalism. The West has had its religious wars over and over again to the point where few are willing to revisit that historical nightmare. Islam has yet to have its hundreds year war, English Civil War, Reformation Wars or inquisition. We have had our wars of imperialism and ideology and learned from our mistakes. An accident of geology parked a large part of the essential and easy to extract resource, petroleum, under their sands. Hitchens bought the Bush idea that a free and democratic Iraq would spread like wildfire through Islam and tame the beast. Apparently we did it wrong. Perhaps we did it right in Libya, but the votes haven't been counted yet.

The part of the Christopher Hitchens story I regret is his fight with another essayist who I respect almost as much, Alexander Cockburn. Cockburn is a bit too understanding of proletarian totalitarianism for my tastes. Even though he misread history or culture led him to support a war that cost a lot of lives and about a trillion dollars I still love Hitchins because he gave us atheists an articulate, take no prisoners voice.

GOP: The Party Of Dickatude

2011-12-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

In my conversations and writing I rarely use profanity for two reasons. Firstly it turns off a lot of people I try to reach, and , most importantly, cussing loses its effect when it is used too regularly. I was born and raised in the gentile arms of the South and of a class that does not go to the four letter expression as a first choice. That said, The Republican Party has opened its maw and swallowed every racist, hate filled, nativist, narrow minded ass-hole hater this nation has within her borders. Is there a jerk or bum fucker paranoid that this party has yet to embrace? Granted most of Code Pink or the Anarchists wouldn't be welcome, but those folk are a statistically insignificant group, mostly existing only on Fox News as examples of "the enemy". Be you a militarist McVeigh fascist or Concerned Women of America misogynist there is a place for you in the Grand Old Party. Want to hang the Gays? Desire death for illegal immigrants? Prison for pot smoking hippies? Draconian drug laws, not because of the damage from their inherent danger, but because you loathe the hipster students and "colored" degenerates you associate with drug usage.

Is rage hate and resentment a political philosophy? Unfortunately it is and it has taken root in 21st century America with a vengeance. I'm not writing this just to call the worst of the right a few dirty names. Without getting too sappy I do love The United States of America. Not the piece of dirt that we live on. Everyone from Azerbaijani to Zimbabwean lives on a piece of dirt or is strongly attached to a place. I don't love the flag. Everyone has a flag. What I do love is the part of the system that is my country that is best expressed in the first ten amendments to our constitution. The idea that is America. The current GOP right wants to destroy and distort the idea that is America. We don't use religion as a blunt political instrument with which to beat our opponents over the head. Our police have no power to search or detain me without a damn good reason, and a judge has the obligation to oversee any interactions with the State's authority and citizen's ability to live in peace. I love America because of the idea that I can't be searched or forced to bow to any belief system that I do not honestly adopt. My country recognizes my right to express myself and organize my fellow citizens to common purpose. For these rights that are the framework upon which we build civilization our obligation is to support the common good as is decided by majority vote overseen by the Constitution. This means taxes folks.

How many amendments is the right currently promoting? Balanced budget. Repeal the 14th. Crush the right of women to control their bodies, Religious control of the government. They love the Constitution so much they just want to destroy it. We must burn this village in order to save it.

I refuse to reflect their hate. Reason and ridicule are my weapons. Time and demographics are on my side.

CBO Chart. 'Nuf Sed

2011-10-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

Clean For Gene Redux

2011-10-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

Way way back in the dark ages of political protests Senator Gene McCarthy challenged the sitting Democratic President of The United States over our increasing involvement in Viet Nam. Johnson was running for a second full term after the Kennedy assassination and the economy was good. Hundreds of thousands of young men between eighteen and twenty-six were in danger of being drafted and sent to Southeast Asia. We were motivated to put it mildly.

The New Hampshire primary loomed large and many of those young men and women went to that state during Christmas to pound the pavement for McCarthy. The Senator had no money and little support from the political class, but he had troops that The President couldn't match. The one problem that we had was that the anti-war Democrats were young, it was the sixties and the kids had adopted the culture and appearance of the era. People just wouldn't listen to "dirty fucking hippies". It wasn't fair, but that was the way it was. The answer was the "Clean for Gene" movement. Hair was cut, beards shaved, suits retrieved from parents' houses and Windsor knots were learned. Against all odds Gene came close to winning. Close enough to force what was arguably the most ferocious seeker of political power to retire from the campaign. Bobby Kennedy swept in and sucked up the McCarthy voting anti-war bloc. Another Kennedy assassination, a police riot in Chicago and we got Hubert Humphrey to lose against Tricky Dick Nixon. The importance of presenting an acceptable image to the public in a political battle cannot be over-emphasized. Sure beating drums in Rastafarian garb and smoking pot is fun, but extremely unwise. A more recent example was "The Battle of Seattle". The media loved to cover the anarchists throwing newspaper vending boxes through the windows of local merchants and ignored the vast majority of protestors fighting the WTO. Even more recently the drama queen jackasses of Code Pink made the job of anti-war activists all the harder.

My advice would be to shave, cut dreadlocks, hide the drums and get a pair of jeans and sports shirt at the Goodwill. In the words of Jon Stewart "You are not helping!".

From Jen Sorensen's "Slowpoke" via Daily Kos:

The Emerging Aristocracy & Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

Nobody woke up one morning in 1650 and realized that a small corrupt over-class had suddenly taken over all of Europe. It happened so gradually that this development took generations for warlords to transmogrify into powdered bewigged fops living on the surplus production of the 99.9% of their fellow humans. This was the condition of things. The sea that society swam in. The system was ordained by God Almighty. The economic basis of old European aristocracy was land, but power now flows to wealth of a monetary sort.

The protestors marching in major cities against a vague but enraging economic system that is surely changing them into twenty-first century serfs. Options are rapidly closing on the poor an unemployed. To have a fantastically wealthy aristocracy we must have hundreds of millions of accepting or willing servants. The political class licks the boots of the hyper wealthy and use their crumbs to finance elections. Increasingly wealthy institutes and think tanks are running propaganda houses that fix the news and rig elections. Ask yourself why voter fraud is suddenly a prime topic on the 24 hour news cable. The same states that have a history of voter suppression are the same states that are passing voter ID and tight registration laws. The only thing lacking is any evidence of voter fraud.

We as a nation are slipping into the worst of European cultural habits. In New England there has been a seed of this cancer in existence since the late 19th century. The aristocratic system has spread across the nation as soon as a few families became wealthy. Each ensuing generation built upon their inheritances and worked the system to their benefit. After World War Two this process accelerated as inheritance taxes were reduced and income taxes became flatter. There is even a cult of wealth worship that controls the Republican party.

Next time someone calls the protestors dirty pointless bongo pounding clueless hippies remember that some do have bongos but all are jobless and without hope.

Attention! : Fellow Transitional Lifeforms!

2011-09-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of becoming the next version of the hominid form, which will be, with a bit of luck, the next human and so on and so on. No I'm not sprouting wings or anything, but I didn't come with wisdom teeth, a survival adaptation in a pre-oral-surgery world. For some reason I'm still alive what with a history of exposure to some of the nastiest chemicals available back in the dark ages of environmental awareness. I have breathed deadly asbestos and smoked unfiltered cigarettes and was powdered with nuclear fallout back when we tested A bombs in New Mexico and Nevada. Chernobyl? Pfft! Don't give me any Chernobyl. For ten years I entered burning houses as a volunteer in the time before we could buy pricy air-packs. All that burning plastic and foam made a witch's brew of the air inside burning and burned buildings. If I were half my current weight I would still qualify as morbidly obese. Why oh why am I still alive? The very mention of the tea party spikes my blood pressure to dangerous levels. Genetics? Chance? Certainly more worthy folks than I have died far younger.

A lot of my peers and relations have been dying off in the last twelve months. and I've been feeling excessively mortal this last few weeks. I have preformed my biological imperative and reproduced. I have loved and been loved, an ongoing situation. I continue because of raw curiosity. What's next? SETI hits a homer? That would be something. Obama stands up to the tea party? I keep telling myself that this could happen. As things happen I will continue to post here until Google won't have it anymore. I will try to be more regular, dear reader.

Nostalgia, The Disease that Is Destroying America

2011-08-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

There was a big prayer meeting in Houston today officiated by the Right Reverend Rick (Good Hair) Perry, Texas Governor and soon to be the Republican presidential candidate for president of the USA. I freely admit I didn't attend for several reasons first among which it is now August and being held in Texas. Nobody living in Texas with the means to go to cooler climes stays there in August. I gather from the early reports from Prayapalooza that the Buckaroo Governor evoked the desire to take America back to the good old days of his youth when everyone was brightly scrubbed and lived in tidy, god fearing homes led by two traditional parents. The golden memory of the fifties and early sixties that the propagators of theocratic christianity sounds good, if it were only true. I am about five years older than Rick Perry but I remember that there were white and colored drinking fountains, and I don't mean the color of their porcelain basins. Guiltless children born out of wedlock were shunned shamed by peers and family. People in the USA starved to death, but it didn't matter because of their above average content of melanin in their skins or odd ethnic way of talking. A large minority wasn't safe from the hand of government if they were found in the wrong part of town after dark. Everyone got to pray to Jesus in their public schools, no matter what their religion. To go to a state university you had to sign a loyalty oath and no weak foreign nation, especially those with resources we wanted, was safe from overthrow and imposition of an "anti-communist" strong man.

I'm not saying things are better now, just that things in the golden age of America weren't all that wonderful. Perry is waving the flag of Jesus in the fog of faulty memory to enrage the susceptible. I would be very surprised if the attendees were any more than 1% minority. That is low even for Texas evangelicals but spot on for teapartiers.

9/15/2011 Nostalgia Update: The nightly news broadcast a bit about the passing of the Ez-Bake Oven and its source of baking heat, the incandescent light bulb. The nostalgic among us would rather build a few new nukes or coal burning plants than give up their incandescent bulbs. The righties pining away for their yellow bulbs of yore decry their loss of freedom to burn extra electricity and require the rest of us to build the infrastructure to service their nostalgic desires.

Science Friction

2011-07-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

As usual, the gross injustices rampant in this world are chapping my ass. There was once a golden age of Science Fiction that happened to coincide with my teenaged years. It was glorious. The magazine racks were loaded with SF magazines from "Analog" to "Weird Tales". The first "Dune" novel was serialized, as were dozens of classic books that nobody who considers them selves a fanboi should be without in their library. There is nothing like sitting in a cafe reading one of these works on a Kindle and feeling like the future had arrived, if a somewhat late and low budget future. The works of the great writers from Asimov to Zelazny have been turned into some of the most profitable motion pictures of all time. Truth be told most of those writers lived and died in poverty, or something pretty close. The creator of Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard, blew his brains out forty years before The Governator was blowing his millions made off the character on expensive call girls and illegal cuban cigars. If we are serious about protecting intellectual property the estates of the original authors should get a serious taste of the action. J. R. R. Tolkien had to hold down a day job at the University of Leeds while he wrote the tales that made billions. At some point George Lucas said he couldn't have done the Star Wars movies without the Golden Age SF novels, to which one writer noted that it would be nice if he threw some of them a buck or two for the material.

Today is July 20th, Moon Landing Day. Rockets to the Moon and real spaceships in orbit overhead (if ,abet the last one). Medical miracles abound, even if the inner workings of life are a lot more complicated than we ever imagined. Cosmology is turning out to be one of those barber shop mirror experiences where reflections and Grand Theories recede into infinity. This may disappoint some who wanted simple answer, but I love it.

I never dreamed that I would see the last rocket ship, but there it is. Sure the Eastern Tigers will send up capsules and small payloads, but no genuine rocket ships are not in anyone's CAD file folder. (Drawing Board to old folks) The mini shuttle, poorly hidden by the NSA and CIA, doesn't count because it won't carry people, but is dandy for carrying spy satellites into orbit.

Remember; The gate is down.

2011-07-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

The Hatch act, in light of the Citizens United decision, is overdue for review by the SCOTUS. Surely if a legal entity such as a corporation has the same statue as a human being, a real human working for the government should have those same rights. Enacted in 1939, the Hatch Act makes it all but impossible for government employees to take part in our democracy at any level. Do you wash windows at the courthouse? Well then it is illegal for you to run for water commissioner. Are you a climatologist working for NOAA? Then you can't volunteer to work on the campaign of a candidate who understands the science of climate change. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it. According to Wikipedia the following are forbidden to governmental employees:

be candidates for public office in partisan elections
campaign for or against a candidate or slate of candidates in partisan elections
make campaign speeches
collect contributions or sell tickets to political fund raising functions
distribute campaign material in partisan elections
organize or manage political rallies or meetings
hold office in political clubs or parties
circulate nominating petitions
work to register voters for one party only
wear political buttons at work

The Hatch Act of 1939 is a vestigial law left over from the days of political bosses and closed media. It was written in reaction to abuses during the New Deal. Modern federal contracting practices would not allow any great number of officials to abuse the system anymore. The SCOTUS must quash the Hatch Act just to be fair to real humans.

Incentivisizationate

2011-07-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

I think I've found a way to get the economy going via the tax code. The hyper-rich are notoriously creative and well resourced. They enjoy their status, opulent homes and vacation palaces. They lavish their wealth on their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with the purpose of continuing the family estate and place in history. My idea is to tax these people to the bone and force them to grow their enterprises to maintain their lifestyles. There is little risk in holding up in their estates and gated communities waiting the great recession out. We must also enact a property tax on their holdings both real and chattel, tax attempts to hide income offshore at 200% of the amount involved. This sounds draconian, but it would force the economic overlords to pump their fortunes back into the economy, and both restore the economy and pay off the debt. What's not to love? A second leg of this proposal is a 30% flat tax on imports, including oil. This would be a bit tough on the Saudis and Chinese, but thems the breaks.

Fracking : Galactica Cuss Or Gas Production Technique

2011-06-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

Besides books with their corners cut off, one of the artifacts of the transcendentally excellent remake of Battlestar Galactica is the word "frack" that turned the air blue in the pilot's ready room. Cursing without cursing is a finely developed art on television series. Underneath counties in North Texas, centered roughly at Fort Worth is the Barnett Shale, a hydrocarbon rich stratified rock that was a source of some of the Texas oil that won World War II. The oil is mostly gone, burned up in Sherman tanks, freight convoys through the battle of the Atlantic and early drag racing. The oil boys always knew there was lots of natural gas in the rock, but the technology and expense blocked development of the resource. No Longer. Gas prices are not at a historical high, but they are way up on the shoulder and the process called Fracking provides the technology. It's no secret that there are concerns about the process of pumping water and other chemicals at high pressure into slant wells to break or "frack(ture)" the resource laden stone.

The Environmental Protection Agency is starting investigations into the effect that fracking has on the aquifer. Burning water from the faucet makes an impressive show for the evening news, but it's those undisclosed chemicals added to the fracking water that cause concern. Therein lies the future fight. The gas & oil business has little patience for meddling feds. The Texas State regulators are slathering, peeing poodles for the Ahl Bidness, and are as likely to investigate the possible poisoning of rural families by fracking as I am to start laying solid gold eggs. The reach of Texas politics doesn't quite control the EPA (yet) so the EPA will slowly get up to some actual research. This finding will be one of the most important ever made by any federal agency. Trillions of dollars are in play by some very wealthy individuals and corporations. Affordable, if CO2 producing, energy versus clean water make the decision an existential decision for all of us. Fracking may meet a century of energy needs from the East coast to the Rockies. There may even be natural gas under thousands of feet of lava here in Washington State.

The oil companies will be pouring however much money is needed to win the next presidential election, along with his (Her) right to name the EPA's next administrator. It'll be a great time to own a TV station.

On Cleaning Up After Idiots

2011-06-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned on this blog that I spent a decade as a volunteer fireman, and a byproduct of that I interacted with people who died in gruesome circumstances. I was driving home this morning and passed one of those spontaneous roadside memorial shrines that teens and family assemble near the site of a fatal accident. There are flowers, stuffed animals, candles, mylar balloons and poems written on plywood, propped against trees or fenceposts. It is a sad sight, and romanticizes the death of a young person who seems to be imagined as an angelic visage rising to meet Jesus. This fantasy version of death everything is clean and airbrushed. It is my experience that heads are caved in and faces smashed. Everyone who dies from violent trauma craps their pants. Bowels are loosened and bladders set free to empty. That goes for quarterbacks and prom queens along with overweight pimply nerd who that football star and beauty barely think of as human. Nothing is pretty or dreamy or romantic. Our fire department rarely came across people needing rescue after car wrecks. We were the body recovery and small parts clean up team. The EMTs took care of the survivors, if any.

When I see those memorials I can only think that there are public servants somewhere that had to collect the remains and wash the blood off the roadway. If the family is lucky or can afford the expense of mortuary reconstruction there can be an open casket ceremony, and the fantasy is reinforced. Popular culture is awash with "Teen Angel" songs and romantic movies involving returning ghostly eternally teenaged shades come to work magic on us mere mortals. Who wouldn't want to join that cadre of immortal youth. Sadly soon after the firemen have washed the blood and guts off their hands and thrown up at the station, the candles at the memorial burn out, the flowers wilt and the balloons go flat. The victims of the tragedy are mentioned less and less often, and the county road crew picks up the remains of the memorial and that's that.

Those roadside shrines depress the hell out of me.

Weinergate And Beyond!

2011-06-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

As a recovering politician, and having ben privy to the inner workings of the mind of successful elected officials. Firstly I will state, without reservation, the vast majority of politicos are just trying to do the job to which they are elected. That even goes for Republicans.

Politicians are all seducers, at least the ones that win. There is a bit of the sociopath mixed into that drive to seduce, but I mean that in a good way. Seduction works when the target is sold on the seducers' affinity and likability. This concept goes by the less prejudicial term "salesmanship" but the product being sold is love and respect for the seducer. Hence the name. I have been closely involved in campaigns where the candidate, when the day is over and drinks are poured, will just unleash his skills onto young women involved in the campaign. Many forget that they are married and few in the campaign will call the candidate on the carpet, or even tell him how much his actions endanger the whole election. This is where the mild sociopathy comes in. Often the candidate has a history of getting away with their straying or abuse of trust. I've never seen a woman do these things, so I'll just make this all male specific.

There will always be sex scandals in politics, and the real sin against the public interest is the sin of hypocrisy. Nobody gets to claim moral superiority and wave the flag of family values while habitually boinking an aide in the copy room. People of opposite sexes who work closely together under the intense pressure of political campaigns naturally fall in lust, it's resisting that lust is what separates Clinton from Obama. Don't believe for a second that a couple of dewey eyed aides didn't drool after the young, idealistic agent of change. Republican transgressors have a history of being "Mr. Family Values" right up to the point where they are ratted out. This is the class of sinners that preachers and priests fall into.

Expecting every politician to eschew his inborn nature is both unrealistic and counterproductive. Good politicos have gone into retirement because of their inability to quell their drives. This is a damn shame, and it is the electorate's fault.

The Whole World Is Watching

2011-06-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

I catch a bit of Al Jazeera English, German Deutsche Welle and the BBC almost every day, and read the headlines of The Times of India, and I can report Sarah Palin's name hasn't come up once to my knowledge. Perhaps it is good that we don't take our politics all that seriously, much like we take our religion. Otherwise we would do some serious damage. Of course our tabloid level of understanding of all things economic and international would be a disaster if implemented in the real world. I mean, can you imagine the United States run by teabaggers? Hilarity would ensue.

It's 2011 and SkyNet Hasn't Killed Us Yet

2011-04-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

In the Terminator chronology there are several dates when the evil supercomputer, SkyNet, was supposed to have almost wiped out humanity with our own nukes. Today is one of those dates. History, when time travel is the central premises of a story, can be quite indeterminate. The actual date of the termination of our civilization will be sometime between now and mid July. Our SkyNet is the tea party faction of The Republican Party and their weapon is the debt cap vote. The tea party comes from a long line of "We must burn down this village in order to save it" thinkers on the right. Blind rage over a "colored" liberal president, their taxes going to pay idle government employees, those employees enforcing laws on pollution and safety, and a dwindling majority of real Americans living in their country. Irrational doesn't begin to touch the anger that burns in their hearts. The gays, the women, the nigras, the meskins, and dozens of other un-American minorities polluting their beloved country ignite insanity that expresses itself in the birther and militia movements. As a Southerner, I can attest to the resentment of victimhood that can permeate a culture, even after several generations and a hundred and fifty years.

Will the reactionary right be willing to destroy our economy? You Betcha! It's like a train wreck we can see coming for miles away, and due to factors beyond anyone's ability to stop. I hope I'm wrong, but I've spent my life amongst these folk and they are serious. So gas up the car, buy a case of beans and spam and a couple of boxes of shotgun shells. It could be a long hot Summer.

2010 Wrap Up

2010-12-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

I thought I should record my thoughts on the last twelve months in our lives. About midyear I lost interest in adding to this little rant and rave site. Friends and relations have asked me to continue, but if I'm not feeling it, I'm not doing it. It's not like I get paid or have a deadline or anything.

My Son was married this July to a very nice young woman. They are happy and employed, no small feat in 2010. My daughter is sneaking up on graduation from UW and working part time at The Institute of Systems Biology's lab.

Our President and political system couldn't figure out how to work with the increasingly disfunctional Senate. There is a lot of the "Lets burn this village down in order to save it" philosophy out here on the left. I can't so lightly consign almost a quarter of all Americans to penury. The poorest and most disadvantaged, mostly disabled and children, would suffer the most in any federal shutdown. Don't get me wrong. The Koch brother and Walden families should be taxed within an inch of their private jets, but the right will stack the poor into a breastwork protecting the mansions and dare the moderates and liberals to attack.

I wished that I never would have had to write this but we are doomed. We are slowly turning into an aristocracy with a small overlord class demanding fealty to the high born. Our military is increasingly a more and more commercial enterprise. Already the Air Force is copying the Israeli Defense Force in promoting religious fanatics into the officer class. The AFA in Colorado Springs is now a hotbed of evangelical recruitment, and promotion is dependent on being able to "pass" as born-again.

As empires decay things turn nasty. Rome and England did not take their decline with equanimity, and I don't think we will either. The Soviets couldn't admit that their theory of economic governance wasn't working and they doubled down with their police state as things rotted. Our problems can all be traced back to the Reagan-Clinton-Bush ideology of unfettered free markets with no consideration for national survival. I have said before, and say again "Trying to shoehorn a modern economy through an ideological keyhole will ruin the lock, door and key holder" The bad time comes when the ideology has obviously failed, but the true believers decide to use the power of the state to shut their critics down.

Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year to each of my (three) readers. It can't get much worse.

Pass The Cheap Wine

2010-06-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

I have spent much of the last year trying to avoid turning into a classic cranky old man. History and events conspire to subvert my heartfelt desire at every click on my favorite news compiler's link. Obama spends his days trying to compromise with a clique of Republican righties who have an un-alloyed rage driving them to destroy his administration. Big money is currently bankrolling the most vile and vicious racist teabagger loons. Bankers and insurance companies sip their pricy wine on the people's tab. The people who profited from the last fifteen years of rigged markets have had the taxes on their ill gotten gains cut and cut again in the name of economic stimulus. The most "pro-family" members of the legislating class are constantly exposed for their hypocrisy, while their priests and spiritual confidants wallow in a stew of infidelity and child molestation. War that never should have been and war that was botched and short changed from the beginning. The criminals who brought us to our current state of despair have yacht parties and soft seats on corporate boards while the crook in chief builds a five hundred million dollar monument to incompetence and crime. The capper is that "The Bush Library" is being built in the same neighborhood in Dallas where I grew up. I have enough problems with depression without venting on my little blog on a regular basis.

While it would be amusing to watch the teabaggers try to run the government, I really love my country too much to wish it that horrible fate. Perhaps we have been too rich for too long to appreciate the peril that has come from running our economy according to an inflexible ideology.

Now I just need to learn how to become an alcoholic so the voices will stop.

Pure Gold

2009-12-28T20:57:00.000-08:00

Seldom does a year add one science fiction movie to the pantheon of all time greats, but 2009 has given us two. District Nine and Avatar both demonstrate the imagination and creativity that are required to do the genre well. Ah to live in such a time!

This Picture Says It All

2009-12-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

I am an old retired shoe repairman and President Obama's choice to get his money's worth out of his shoes warms my heart. This picture shows the President or First Lady had his shoes fitted with Cat's Paw brand power soles. These thin rubber caps make leather soles last much longer, but in this picture they have obviously worn through. He needs heels also.

The Vilest Most Racist Teabaggers On The Web.

2009-12-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

There is a group of Teabaggers who publish The Daily Nigger and firmly weld their movement to the white supremacist loons together at the hip. The rage and hate occasionally surface at their big rallies no matter how much Fox News tries to avoid their exposure. Witness the Obama witch doctor posters or portraying the middle of the road president as Hitler. The publishers of TDN hit all the Teabagger notes right down the line on health care reform to foreign policy to the recovery act. Acorn is prominently displayed as what blacks and liberals are doing behind the scenes. Every scrap of hate in their shriveled little hearts is slashed across the page in the crudest manner imaginable. They don't like gays much either.

A Few Kind Words For The BCS

2009-12-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

The least popular, most maligned playoff system in sports today is the Bowl Championship Series. There is even a move afoot in congress to set up a play-off bracket system similar to the NCAA's basketball play-offs. Besides being a colossal waste of time this proposal ignores the unique nature of football. There are crippled middle age men who can trace their infirmity back to their college football careers. Not NFL retired pros, but linesmen and backs selling insurance who, a bit of bad luck and a nasty hit, have lived a life in pain. The spirit of the young man doesn't recognize limitations, and their coaches are under pressure to produce wins at the expense of the players who will soon graduate and move on.

A playoff would add at least four games to the seasons of major schools' schedule. That is a pro's life without the big NFL check or investment in the health of the players. You can play baseball and soccer as long as the weather permits because the opposite team isn't trying to kill you or ay least intercept you at a full run. A baseball pitcher will only play one in four games if in the full rotation and not expected to play through shoulder pain and broken fingers. Quarterbacks are and more. Snow, rain, heat and ice cancel or delay soccer, and basketball is played indoors. No disrespect intended, but football is different. The BCS is probably as good as we can do . Not every team gets a fair shot at national champ. Live with it. If it saves one offensive linesman a lifetime knee problem and one back an ankle that constantly need surgery, then I say Go BCS!

Update- 12-28-2009 : Texas Tech's coach Mike Leach has been suspended before the Alamo Bowl game for punishing a player for having a concussion. The only reason the coach was suspended is that the kid's parent is a big shot at ESPN and could get noticed. How many thousands of less parentally endowed players have been pushed beyond reason to further the ambitions of their coach. Everyone gets hurt in football, and that's in the nature of the game, but endangering the life and welfare of the students is not part of the game.

The NRA Effect On TeaBaggers

2009-12-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

The extreme position held by the National Rifle Association's overlords does not represent even a majority of gun owners, not to mention the general populace. (source: conservative Quinnipiac poll) This fact begs the question; How does the NRA scare the crap out of politicos and punch way above their weight? The truth is that 20% of the population is batshit insane and can over-rule the more passive majority. This goes double for the TeaBagger movement. They have brought the NRA technique of setting fire to their hair and run screaming "NO! NO! NO!" through the streets. I have no common language with these people. They have no idea of what "socialist", "communist", "fascist", or "Nazi" mean. The baggers only know they are bad. They think President Obama is evil and alien, so they make him an evil alien moslem in their little fantasy world.

Surprisingly crazy is effective. The average voter sort of doesn't have time to focus on the political discourse the way pol-junkies do. The average voter pays attention when he or she loses their job, health insurance or pays their taxes on April 15th. People have lives to live and government sort of lives in the background keeping the bad guys away, paving the roads and doing all the stuff that can't be run as a business. The current Great Recession has the public's attention and the highest profile bonfire visible is the Fox News promoted TeaBagger movement. The TeaBaggers have simple answers for complex problems and serve as an outlet for the resentment and rage of those who a modern mixed economy and emerging multicultural society is a threat.

We are, as always, teetering on the knife edge of history. We have the power to destroy the greatest, most advanced liberal society in human history. We've had it easy. Taxes are low in relation to services provided. Our military matches all others combined, yet we have passed the cost of empire on to other generations and creditors. Our schools have degenerated into social organizations dedicated to living out the vicarious lives of the students' parents. Curiosity is discouraged and wealth is praised. Yes we don't have tens of thousands ICBMs pointed our way, and our only enemies are a tiny group of religious fanatics given power by their willingness to die in their attacks. The NRA will tell you that having a pistol in your nightstand will make you safe from crime, and Ron Paul tells you that the economy will not be stable unless we re-adopt the gold standard. Simple solutions for complex problems. Unless we become skeptical of easy answers I fear that we will continue to fritter this great civilization away.

Love And Death In The Age Of Oprah

2009-11-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

My Mom is a big Oprah fan, but I've only seen clips of her show that have been cut and posted since way back when Carl Sagan was browbeat by the Queen of daytime for his skepticism about the local god or gods. That must have been twenty-five or thirty years ago. Don't get me wrong. Oprah is generally a force for good for a large group of people, mostly women. In a society that dumps all over women as a matter of course Ms Winfield offers a powerful symbol of succor and success. Her tendency to go off the edge with magical thinking of the self-help book genre is unsettling, but tolerable. She hasn't gone all Glen Beck with her popularity, and uses her considerable fortune to fund help for the least of our fellow humans. I think of it as populism with a heart.

Far right populism fueled at least eight murders of innocents in the first six months of the Obama administration. One doctor, four policemen, and three legal Chilean students.That doesn't count the museum guard killed by an old Nazi. Oprah has inspired none to commit homicide. The same can't be said for Operation Rescue, Glen Beck, OReiley, or Lou Dobbs. Militia recruitment is way up while Oprah continues to form book clubs and encourage people to read. No evil in her soul that I can detect, but she is retiring soon. The cheerleaders of rage show no sign of packing it in. Rupert Murdoch has brought his European style of tabloid hysteria to the mass American market and feeds the resentment of the angry and pasty. Do we go down his road or Oprah's? In Europe football (soccer) drives fans to distraction, but some teams play to empty stadiums because class, parochial and race hate make the fans too dangerous to allow filling the seats. The current flap here over H1N1 shots is nothing compared to the panic of the Old World. You can't even buy a Dorito in Paris because of their irrational fear of genetically modified crops. I don't know for sure, but I think Oprah's only entry into the food crazy field was against Alar, a ripening agent for apples and an oft seen crossword puzzle word. I know some jerk rancher in Amarillo had her charged on some blatantly unconstitutional "slander of a crop" law because she said that folk shouldn't eat so much beef. Should Obama sue the birthers?

I've always considered Oprah a lightweight, but the harm she does is just in encouraging women to seek new age solutions for problems that probably won't be solved down that path. Sort of like praying for rain.

I think I've wandered off the fairway at some point in this post. Oh well................

Dead Rover Feeling Better

2009-11-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Spirit, the Mars rover, has been stuck in the sand for three months, exacerbated by a dead wheel motor. We have certainly got our money's worth out of the little lawn mower sized robot, but it would be nice to get to out of the crater and back to limping across the deserts of "Barsoom". Today on the Universe Today site we have new information. We learn that Spirit has move a couple of millimeters. YEA! The Spirit rover was only supposed to last about ninety days, but that was almost six years ago, and its twin, Opportunity, continues to roam unimpeded. Should Spirit get out of its crater it can continue on the remaining five driven wheels, dragging the frozen sixth. NASA has some kick-ass engineers.

Purge At The Washington Times

2009-11-12T19:29:00.000-08:00

If you have been paying attention you know The Moony Cult started and has been financing the Washington Times as a wingnut alternative to The Washington Post. The disadvantage the Post has is that they must turn a profit to stay in business, while the Times gets a fat wad of cult cash each year. Over a billion and a half at last counting. The Reverend Moon has some odd and dangerously reactionary ideas in his bald and wrinkled noggin. We can overlook the whole Messiah thing. The world is full of messiahs and one is as good as the next. What should creep you out is his insane desire to rule the world via the Unification Church. He is very open about his plans, having grown up in the shadow of North Korea and their maniacal evangelical nationalist marxism. Ayn Rand suffered a similar childhood, much to the sexual detriment of numerous junior high intellectuals.

I support the Moonie's decision to blow billions on their little read vanity publication. That's 1.5 billion dollars they don't have to promote wingnut think tanks and harass people on street corners. When Moon's heirs drop the Times in an effort to get a handle on their fortune and empire. Gone will be the last actual publication that wingnut sites can quote in their blogs.

And Lo There Shall Be Much Beating Of Breasts, Weighing Of Balls And Measuring Of Penises.

2009-11-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

There is no better bell-weather of neocon thought than the ravings of Doctor Doom Cheney, and now that the Afghanistan war presents itself in its full intractable glory we can expect much much more. The Keyboard Kommandos and Chicken Hawks of all stripe are revving their engines and Obama has dropped the flag by refusing all the military options he has ben offered. Smart man. The truth is that the generals always think that no objective is unobtainable. Clinton fell into this trap when he asked if the armed forces could capture or kill the head warlord. That lead to "Blackhawk Down". There is a mindset that thinks that our armed forces can do anything they are ordered to do, but doesn't consider the level of support from the political system. Even the military police state that was the Soviet Union could not sustain their war in Afghanistan for more than nine years. Is there any reason to think that Americans would be any more patient?

I am no fan of unqualified adulation of politicians so I am reluctant to call President Obama "brilliant", but he comes damn close in rejecting the open ended counter insurgency policy being pushed on him. It will be tough sell to explain to the American voters why one of our soldiers should die in defense of the hopelessly corrupt Karzai government. Perhaps he will pull our troops back to defendable friendly territory in the North, and keep al Qada off balance using drones and special forces teams. Our "allies" in Afghanistan are warlords every bit as backward and ruthless as the Talaban, and while the Talaban taxes opium passing through their territories, the warlords actually grow and process the poppies. Whoever wins the civil war, the women are screwed. Perhaps they could be our next generation of ethnic restauranteurs that inevitably follow us home from foreign entanglements. Immigration laws should be adjusted to allow the widows and children of Kabul some leeway in escaping that hell hole we helped create.

There is no shame in avoiding a fight you are unwilling or unable to win, but the neocons will bay at the moon over Obama's prudence.

Post 300: Why Wasn't This Enacted After Oklahoma City?

2009-10-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

The House has passed a bill that will prevent members of hate groups joining the U.S. military and root them out of the services all together. Getting the proud haters out is a fine idea, but getting the militia nuts and rednecks a swift discharge would be even better. We can get all those guys administrating "Don't ask, Don't tell" to do the job of weeding out the few Kluxers and skinheads. There is some reaction to the law in The Army Times , Link Scroll down to the comments.

USA! USA! USA!

Victory! (sort of)

2009-10-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

If this session of congress does nothing else, by defunding the insanely ignorant border fence has insured their place in history as a brief flash of reason in an otherwise bleak era of no-nothing nativist ascendency. It was always my opinion that the border fence should have been built as a monument/tourist attraction a La the Great Wall Of China. At least that way when the country came to its senses we would have something of value for our billions. Thanks to the "slap it up at all cost" frenzy to appease the knuckle draggers the wall is an ugly scar of tin and concrete slashing across private properties and de-facto ceding thousands of acres to Mexico. A bad idea, poorly executed.

Can It Be This Simple?

2009-09-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

There are dozens of real Democracies in the community of nations, and all but one have a public scheme to provide affordable good quality health care to their citizens. You know who is that one. At any tine in the last sixty years all of these democracies could have withdrawn from their public plan and adopted a market based American style system. Not only have none of the democracies made any move to copy us, there is no viable political party advocating adoption of American healthcare, save our own Republicans.

There is nothing in Finland, England, Japan or Spain stopping the electorate from freeing their insurance companies and drug companies from the heavy heel of government control of medicine, None in Germany, Belgium, Ireland seem to buy into the concept that there is somehow a superior "market" solution to health care. One must ask: Why not? I can only come to one conclusion, and that is that public control of health care is the obvious solution to a universal problem.

This popular durability of public health systems can be shown to the opponents as an undeniable proof of success, or so one should think. I have given up any hope of hearing anything logical from the right.

Confessions Of A Dabbler.

2009-08-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

I noticed last week that I hadn't posted for about two months, and it's not for lack of ideas. Motivation escapes me every now and then, supposedly because of a serotonin uptake problem. I take little mud colored "crazy" pills, but they are unreliable and at most take the edge off. Perhaps that's the cause of my dis-motivation, but I suspect that in this case it is my status as a unreconstructable dabbler and lay-about that rang in this epic period of inactivity. I think I need an editor setting deadlines and yelling at me to get on a schedule.

Dabblers like me cannot stay on task long enough to actually add to the net knowledge base of mankind. I have opinions I can turn a phrase to communicate concepts, but have no audience. Today's thought is that the passing the Republican health car plan (whatever it is) is like buying season tickets to the Harlem Globetrotters. Pointless. I see undirected rage in the tea-bagger community boiling, but too PC to actually admit that they can't stand a black man living in the White House passing laws that conflict with the Church of Free Marketry.

To my few readers: I promise to be better.

Palin. Ensign. And Sanford! Oh My!

2009-07-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

This past ten days or so has been bad news for the loyal opposition. You folks are loyal, aren't you?

Tale Of Fail

2009-06-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just can't win, and sometimes it just isn't about you or your wishes. The Honduran generalisimos have installed a puppet after dragging President Zelaya to the airport in his pajamas for a short plane ride to exile in Costa Rica.

The Wall Street Journal is pissing their well tailored pants over the threat that Hugo Chavez presents to the newly minted junta and the unwillingness of the Obama administration to support the putsch. But that's what we expect from the Wall Street Journal. Chavez, a victim of a Bushie Neocon coup himself, cannot seem to differentiate between administrations.

Our previous sins and the sins of American flagged corporations have poisoned our relations with large swathes of the planet and it will be generations before it will sort itself out. That is only if we keep our noses out of their tents. Otherwise the animosity will never end.

I propose the Great seal of the United States be altered to show the eagle shooting itself in the foot. Repeatedly.

Mr Floatie And The Power Of Shame

2009-06-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Victoria British Columbia is a beautiful city by any standards. Well kept and landscaped, the second largest city in the province has a hidden advantage that has saved the municipality billions of dollars over the decades and a leg up on her neighbor cities of Vancouver and Seattle. Plainly put they have never had sewage treatment facilities. Commonplace through WWII, this coastal city retains the old fashioned system of sewage outfall pipes that send untreated waste directly into the Straits of San Juan, leading directly into the Puget Sound. The receivers of this bounty of prime Canadian poop are ungrateful and somewhat irate, which lead the "Mr Floatie" campaign to shame the municipal government of Victoria into treating their waste. The amazing thing is that it WORKED. The only disadvantage is that the residents of Island County won't be able to tell when the Victorians had corn on the cob for dinner the night before.

Public morality gets a bad name because it is most notoriously used as a blunt instrument to allow a group of prigs to control the personal habits of other people. Moral outrage has also stopped torture in our names and lead to the reform of a long list of gridlocked policies imposed on private folks because politicians are afraid to move off the dime. I am optimistic.

Smokin'

2009-06-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

After twenty years of contemplation, I have decided that we should let 'em smoke. I personally haven't had a cigarette since 1980, and have been a supporter of the smoke free movement. I see the damage that making ordinary people stand out in the weather to feed their addiction. The anti smoking movement has all the obnoxious elements of the anti abortion movement. Sure there is probably some danger in second hand smoke, but if you have a smoking friendly establishment you should be forced to buy a cancer/heart disease rider to your regular workman's comp. Same goes for smoking offices.

The main damage done by the smoking ban is to our cohesion as a nation and respect for law. I am as annoyed by the folk who know how I should live my life and use the government to make me do it. Kiss my ass, you can't miss it.

One Small Step

2009-06-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

I was twenty four, pissed off and having an edgy visit to my parents' home in Dallas. The Army wanted my ass to fill a hole in Viet Nam. North Texas State University was becoming skeptical about my dedication to obtaining a degree from that storied institution. Sparks had been flying between me and my dad all morning, and Mom was sitting on the couch watching some sort of black and white news program on their color TV. Breaking the mood, she called our attention to the fact that "they" were landing on the moon.

I had been a science fiction reader all my literate life. Avid didn't cover it. I would have said exclusive science fiction reader, but I read a lot of Marxist political work. You should think that I would be super glued to the nearest boob tube bathing in the glory that was the future of mankind. Unfortunately I had come across enough real science and politics to know that this moon landing was just a cold war political stunt. A fantastically expensive, amazingly successful engineering feat, but a stunt nonetheless. In the whole Apollo program only one scientist went to the moon, and he was on the last trip. There wasn't going to be any traveling to the stars in my lifetime, or anyone else's if the astrophysicists are right. I say this in no disrespect to the efforts and dedication of the men, and few women, who made the stunt possible.

That was forty years ago this coming July, and I'm still pissed off, just about different things. Marx was as full of crap as Adam Smith, and we farm out our wars to high tech and willing subcontractors.

This anniversary will be the beginning of the boomer's slippage into the mists of history. Forty years is two generations, and even in the West that means the third in the pile is on the way out. Clear the decks for a generation with their own baggage.

I saw the moon landing live on TV. It could be the most important day in the history of mankind or fun fact remembered by trivia buffs. That status going to be up to generations to come.

It's The Religion, Stupid.

2009-05-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

The Republican party gladly embraced the religious fundamentalist right and reactionary Catholics to win elections. Now these unsavory groups form the spine of the party, and everyone knows it. We have a bit of real world experience dealing with religious fanatics now, and Americans are increasingly skeptical of the exclusionists christians among them.

Fundamentalists live to be persecuted, and we refuse to do so. Actually the coming "Great Ignoring" will be pure hell for the Party of God. I have previously pointed out the weak seams in the Republican juggernaut, and the reality of their internal fractures are now apparent to all. Looking at the polls about twenty-two percent of the electorate lives in Limbaugh Land. There is a five point swing in that figure depending on current events, but that is the Republican Base of renowned. Every R is grubbing for that hand of doom in their primaries, and can't walk back far and fast enough for the general elections. If I had to design a losing strategy and insert it into the soul of their party I couldn't do better.

Now I don't necessarily think this is a good scenario, at least in the long run. America made its nut based on a two party system, and that means something other than the Democratic party out there taking a center-right position. That party will probably call itself "Republican," but will bear little resemblance to the current Rs. When I say center right I mean people like McCain, and not pocket loons like Jindall.

I suspect the Repubs will purge all but the fringe in 2010, get reduced to a Southern party with about thirty-two Senate seats and no hope of doing better. All good. It will take Obama two terms to undo some of the damage inflicted by Bush, and a term or two of Hillary to finish the job. By then We will probably need a term of classic Republican sobriety to get the bureaucracy under control. Democrats have their lunatic fringe, and making them happy is impossible in the real world. Meanwhile we can bask in the glory that is Obama, and look forward to eight years of as much peace as is possible, given the mess, and a bit of returning prosperity, even though it will never be the same as it was. That's a good thing.

Dilemma

2009-04-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Your faithful blogmaster is hung on the horns of a dilemma. I have been planning to go to an old hippie reunion this Summer, but recently I got word of the timely death of one of the most thoroughly unpleasant individuals I knew at that time of my life. At first I thought "Yea! I won't have to pretend to have once been his friend" but the response of the other old hippies was nothing short of flabbergasting. Long memorials dedicated to the life of the now dead individual. I thought, "Who was this saint?". Were there two individuals in this little Colorado ski town with the same name at the same time that had the same set of friends as I? Perhaps I was the jerk. It's been thirty years, and my memory has been over written several times, but I still can see the low points. Friends come and go but enemies are forever. I don't think I could bight my tongue through three days of beer and remembrance of this most recently departed individual. I will note that all the posters of the loving sentiment are women, and he presented a much different face to guys. What a viper he was. A mean drunk to boot.

Tortured Logic

2009-04-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

I am appalled by the public support for the officially sanctioned torture of al Qaeda operatives held at Guantanimo. The logic seems to be that the radical Islamists would show no mercy if they had an American in similar circumstances. This was the sort of thinking during the Cold War made it popular to violate the rights of American citizens. After all, the Soviets would have no such compunction.

Supporters of torture are always pushing the "24" scenario: There is a ticking time bomb hidden in a city and the hero tortures a villain to obtain the location of the device. It's a fiction we see over and over again in action/adventure movies and programs. That doesn't make torture logical, ethical or legal. I'm just a liberal wuss, and ACLU simp, but let's conceder this scenario. Your child is kidnapped, and the abductors have demanded an amount of cash that you have no hope of obtaining by the kidnapper's deadline. You, with your child's life on the line, rob a bank, pay off the kidnappers and rescue your child. Should you be arrested for bank robbery? After all you were acting in a good cause and in extreme panic. Now what if it were not your daughter, but you under threat from Mafiosi demanding the money for your own life. Not quite so sympathetic a scenario, but still you are robbing the bank for a greater good. Tell it to the FBI. I'm sure they will give you a pass. Raise the violation from a simple felony to the abrogation of our constitution, the backbone of our nation. We Americans are not a plot of land or colorful flag. We are an Idea, and any assault on that idea is an assault on our country as bad as any atrocity al Qaeda could hope to devise.

Prosecuting the torturers and their enablers is not only a good idea, it is mandatory, if painful. The Bush administration tore our legal system down to the level of a corrupt central Asian republics better known for authoritarian repression than respect for any inalienable rights.

I have no burning desire to see good Americans persecuted for doing what they saw as their duty, but such positions also attract some of our less savory personalities. The ability to abuse people without retribution attract some to positions in law enforcement, corrections, and the military. They are a minute percentage of the people in those positions, but they can do the most damage, especially when sought out by superiors looking to use them as willing tools.

Some names are public, and others will have to be ferreted out in the coming investigation. The perpetrators are the sort of cowards who can be deterred by the threat of punishment. Their bosses are another case entirely. They were so determined to prove that Iraq and al Qaeda were linked and that Iraq had WMD that they were willing to do anything, and did. We don't have a deep enough hole for these corrupt thugs to spend the rest of their festering lives, but we should use the best one we have.

Quake Picture

2009-04-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

The picture above is a compilation of two satellite images taken weeks apart of the Iquila Italian earthquake by a European Space Agency spacecraft with sub millimeter resolution (LINK). The displacement of the countryside was in excess of 250 mm so the fingerprint of the quake is very visible and shows the localized nature of quake damage. In the few quakes I've experienced I didn't understand how I could be close to the epicenter and feel very little, but spots miles away would suffer major damages. Obviously this picture shows a "ripples on a pond" complete with a second, less well defined, daughter pattern. I will speculate this secondary ripple is the result of the shock wave bouncing off a deep fault or denser strata. We truly live in an age of wonder when tools designed for one highly technical use can be re-tasked to a previously unimagined application. Man, are we smart apes or what?

Attn: Conservatives! You Got Beat. Live With It.

2009-04-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

I lived for eight years under the mismanagement and ineptitude of Bush, dreading each newspaper and evening news broadcast. Now we'll see how you like it. Suffer the agony of having a smart guy represent the country. Groan under the embarrassment of an articulate leader supporting well thought out workable solutions to mountainous problems and feel that emptiness of your beliefs when they are bathed in the light of reason and logic. Long for the cowboy days of shooting first and asking questions later, if ever. Suck it.

Now the righties have backed over their own peckers with their take on Today's rescue of the Captain kidnaped off the Somali coast. On the day of the piracy they blamed Obama's limp wristed foreign policy for the attempted capture of the freighter (Link)). Yesterday they griped that Obama didn't bluster and blow about a war on piracy (Link). And today they blame Obama and the whole Democratic Party of grandstanding over the rescue (Link). Exactly what do these wackaloons want the President to do? The captain is safe, the pirates are dead and Obama OKed the action, but left the job to the experts on the ground, or fantail as is the case. If you prefer your examples in an easier to digest, and harder to deny video format, here's a compilation from KOS (Link)

I have come to the conclusion that the right is drunk on rage, and should be left to go into the wilderness to shrivel and die. RIP Republican Party.

Computers Just Aren't The Same Anymore

2009-03-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

I was looking at this MacBook I'm using and remembering how computers used to be portrayed in popular media, and and thinking of the things they just don't do that they were supposed to do long before now. Has anyone ever had a PC that made that dot matrix printer sound as it displayed green lines of text fed from the top of the CRT? They all do that in made for TV movies from the 80's and 90's. No Flashing lights or even whirling tape drives covering walls of an underground lair were ever produced. I mean, you knew your computer was working because the lights were flashing and the tape reels were spinning in a jerky back and forth manner. I miss that. Most of all I miss all the explosions. In the old movies the computer exploding, shooting sparks and hardware across the lab was the apex of the story line. While we are at it, where are all the evil world dominating, crew killing computers? Mine just sit there like a lump and slowly go obsolete. Who ever decided to tear out a Hal 9000 and put in the 12 thousand model. Our computers just crash or freeze. No "That does not compute" tag lines. I want my money back.

RICO

2009-03-20T15:04:00.001-07:00

There's a lot of to and fro, teats-in-a-wringer screaming about the AIG big shot bonuses, and I'm here to say we are missing the point on how to deal with these people. They are criminals. If Congress and the Administration were to stupidly give, say, a real world Tony Soprano a bonus, that wouldn't make him any less a criminal. Our bankers and insurance company execs have committed fraud if there is any meaning to the word, but it goes deeper than that. There are tens of thousands of real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, and appraisers who have contributed to the disaster. There are hedge fund managers galore who need to be stripped of their gains and given long sentences in federal prison. AIG is no more a convoluted criminal scheme than ENRON, and plenty of them are, or were, cooling their heels in the joint. Sure the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act was written with making prosecution of Mafiosi easier in mind, but RICO is at least half about financial fraud. The AG's office is going to need lots of prosecutors to deal with the private enterprise crooks and the Bush torture crew. Let the subpoenas begin.

Avon Calling.

2009-03-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

We now have one portrait of William Shakespeare that was painted from the living subject, age 44. I guess the artists of the age had much greater historical characters to immortalize, and just had to squeeze The Bard in between other sittings. I find it interesting. It is from the BBC if anyone cares.

Will 2009 Be The Year?

2009-03-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

I had a thought that 2009 will be the year that the United States suffers another major terrorist act, and Al Qaeda will have nothing to do with it. Mark my word that some deranged ass will walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic in a major city and set off a suicide bomb. The far right of the anti abortion movement has a serious case of commitment envy when they look upon the radical Islamists. I have heard a Klansman say on the History Channel that he admired the spirit of the September 11th highjackers. The deluded sheep of far-far right Christianity would feel privileged to die for Jesus and the unborn. The sheep would be ecstatic to die for their beliefs. A little push from a whack job preacher is all it would take, and I believe that that preacher walks among us today. Perhaps a "traditional" Catholic priest. Perhaps a unreconstructed snake handler. Who knows, but they are out there and every bit as dangerous as Ben Laden. They are here, don't have beards or funny accents and Homeland Security doesn't watch them.

England Swings (For The Fences)

2009-03-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

I've got to give it to The Bank Of England. Looking down the barrel of an economy killing deflationary super recession they chose to create eighty-billion pounds on the authority of the government. That's not issue bonds, but essentially print the cash. Of course they don't really make banknotes anymore, but just flash it into existence on the bank's computers.

Printing money in time of crisis has a bad reputation (deserved), but could be a sure cure for what ails us if not overdone. Trillions of dollars in equity have evaporated form the balance sheets of American banks. Tens of trillions of dollars in equity have flown into the aether from the retirement accounts of middle America. Those trillions of dollars gone into the realm invisible represent real money, and the foundation of the economic system. It is impossible to understate the hit we have all taken. Critics of this idea of money creation by fiat will call up visions of third world basket cases that try to print their way out of economic disaster. Fair enough, but nobody since the Great Depression has tried it in a first world economy. England will be a great test bed for this obvious fix. It has been said before that Americans will always do the right thing, after trying everything else.

They Done Good

2009-03-04T10:43:00.001-08:00

As much as I love to gripe about the crappy service and lack of knowledge by the floor people, especially at consumer electronics stores, I have to give an attaboy for the folks at the University City Apple Store. My Daughter has my old MacBook, and as an aging laptop is want to do, it is developing "issues". First the hard disk developed "the click of death". No argument, no runaround. Apple replaced the drive in a day and she went happily, if lacking her un-backed up data. Three weeks later she had a connectivity problem with her Airport card, which turned out to be a snafu with the cable company's equipment. While visiting the "Apple Genius Bar" she mentioned that her battery was not keeping a charge, and presto! a new battery is provided.

I will report the folks I dealt with knew their stuff, and were able to correct the problems in short order without consulting a manager or requiring the machine be sent off to a repair center. Yes, we pay a premium for Apple product design and service, but in my experience it's been well worth it.

Their Glorious Leader

2009-03-03T17:13:00.000-08:00

"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!"

2009-02-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" "David Johnston's voice crackled over the radio link from Coldwater Observation Post, north of Mount St. Helens, on the clear Sunday morning of May 18, 1980. Seconds later, the government volcanologist was engulfed in the volcano's gigantic lateral blast." - USGS Obituary

In Bobby Jindal's world this was just another "bureaucrat" wasting tax money monitoring a volcano. Unfortunately the thirty year old scientist didn't survive the eruption. Johnston spent his last weeks convincing the Washington State Patrol and USFS to evacuate the area around St. Helens. Lacking that evacuation thousands would have died, and the eruption would be remembered as an unmitigated disaster rather than a geologic novelty.

Obama's Place In History

2009-02-22T13:07:00.001-08:00

President Obama has studied the life and presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and will be a better Commander In Chief for it. I don't think Obama thinks he is Lincoln 2.0, but he has to mobilize a country ripped apart by sportscasters turned self styled political leaders to fight the worst economic collapse in two generations. These former sportscasters, philosophically anchored on Rush Limbaugh, know nothing about the delicate balance of ideology and compromise always hemmed in by the constraints of reality. To Sports broadcasters, there is just winning. The loser of the Super Bowl doesn't get to negotiate an honorable outcome that will give their fans dignity and a piece of the victory. That's sports, not politics. Lincoln would have a hard time running The National League, but that's Obama's model.

Obama's most ardent supporters think he is FDR or JFK. He certainly has a task set before him that is equal to, if not worse than, the Great Depression. Roosevelt only needed to reinforce the existing financial structure, organize and insure. Obama has to re-create the financial sector of the world economy. At the time of the Great Depression the financial sector was less than three percent of the economy. By 2005 the financial sector was over fifteen percent. Larger than healthcare or manufacturing. Finance is the oil that lubricates the modern economy. Engines are not there to provide oil a job and place to stay, but suddenly we find ourselves with a fifty gallon oil sump and the purpose of the car is to carry all that oil around. Our financial sector needs to shrink to less than half what it is presently. Most likely more. Lincoln freed the slaves and saved the Union. Obama must crush the economic overclass and bring society more into the historical we have enjoyed in the pre derivatives, uncovered short, securitized debt America.

Obama has been called a lot of things. Second Coming, Hitler, Marx, The AntiChrist, a Moslem, a Terrorist, whatever...........

The one name I haven't heard him called is Gorbachev. Gorbachev was handed the impossible task of fixing the unfixable. A nation so corrupt as to be un- redeemable, sinking in an military swamp that it could no longer afford, and an economic system that obviously was inefficient and unable to supply the population with sustenance and shelter.

Now we aren't the old Soviet Union, but we suffer from the same sort of political ideological lockjaw. Our economy becomes more and more stratified as the distance between the mega-rich and the expanding peonage grows. There was a reason that the most robust era of American economic security had a 90% top income tax bracket. The nicest thing I ever heard William F. Buckley say about FDR was that the Democrat had saved the US from a communist revolution.

I have been a fan of Gorbachev for Decades, and even though he is despised in his homeland, he was a humanitarian (at least as much as a Russian dictator can be) with the best intentions and could probably have saved his nation if he had the time. We are in for a rough time.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

2009-02-21T19:48:00.000-08:00

The solid and trustworthy BBC News has reported, with the credulity of a four year old, the fact that a group of jewish fish buyers from the Skver sect of Hasidic Jews overhear a carp predicting the end of the world. LINK Zalman Rosen, one of the Hasidim, Shouted, in yiddish we are to presume, something like "It's the devil! Kill it". The New York times reported the incident, further cementing their place in journalism's high pantheon.

The chatty carp had a lot more to say about his previous life as a local, and the coming of the messiah. Perhaps there was some discussion about the decline in quality of corned beef and complaints about the constant aching it his dorsal fin that weren't reported, but we got all the good stuff.

I find it admirable that for people to find a use for carp, other than decorative. As an eleven year old I though I was the world's best fisherkid, until my Dad informed me that I had caught carp, and they were inedible. Sigh..... Anyway, I am rethinking my atheist heathen ways now that carp are having conversations with religious fanatics.

Doom In The Sand

2009-02-17T15:01:00.001-08:00

There are three thousand or more new cars left in the Dubai airport with their keys left in the ignition. Is this the result of Islamic respect for the "Thou shall not steal" commandment? Hardly. In Dubai they have actual debtor's prisons and thousands of international hustlers have baled out of the emirate rather than face the unpleasantness of third world jail cells. A bad idea poorly executed has sealed the fate of Dubai.

You couldn't open a glossy magazine in the last five years and not be regaled with the wonders of the miracle of Dubai. Enormous artificial islands sculpted of sand in the Gulf of Arabia crusted over with luxury condos and skyscrapers. An enormous medical college built from the ground up to educate the wastrel scion of Arab princes in medicine rather than have them spend their lives in Monaco's casinos gambling, whoring and drinking. They seem to prefer the whoring and drinking, so the university has filled up with more ambitious youth.

The ruins of Dubai are going to make one hell of a post-apocalyptic movie set someday. It's going to get really seedy between now and then. There is a much better article on the Emirate than anything I could ever write at SmashingTelly. Check it out.

Can We Get A Little Wisdom Up In Here?

2009-02-14T20:03:00.000-08:00

The religious folk seem to be getting bent out of shape over Gays and the scientists are acting like there aren't any moral implications to the technologies built on their discoveries. There are things coming that can't be easily absorbed by any culture. What do we do about robots? They are coming soon, and they are going to be smart & fast. Do we develop military models? DARPA is funding the research as we sit here and eat Cheetos. We are about to take over from natural selection for Homo Sapiens 2.0. Should the next generation be taller, smaller, disease resistant, smarter, immortal or even have what we now call "race". Who's going to decide? The market? Our robot overlords? Certainly not the men and women obsessing about teaching creationism in public schools, which their kids don't attend anyway. We have some insanely important decisions to make, and many of them will be wrong, or at least not optimum. Some results will be downright evil.

Morality is serious stuff. Not to be wasted on teen sexual habits or what can be shown in movies or said in songs. Wars, life, death and history need our best minds working on the path we will walk. Biology, artificial intelligence, physics and other disciplines are opening doors that enter problems we haven't even considered. Some scientists are making stabs at ethics, but they fear and distrust people with easy answers. Too often the lumpen masses simply want to shut everything down they don't understand. The citizenry must become literate in science just to get any meaningful discussion started. The current lack of respect for the scientific method and emphasis cost containment in public schools offer little hope for improvement.

We don't even know what a human is. We dither over human embryos while millions of undeniable humans die early deaths of privation and disease. Is a creature that looks like an ape, but has augmented intelligence by manipulation of its genetics to equal a human then a human? Does any plant or animal with human genes a human? Does a machine that has all the attributes of humanness then have all the rights of a human? We need someone other than science fiction writers, as wonderful as they are, working on how to address our near future. Our children will live in that world.

Great Thinkers: Turn off the televangelists and work on these things. Stop worrying about flashes of boobies on TeeVee and get cracking on stuff that really matters. I don't want have to turn this civilization around, forget Disneyland and go back home. I'm serious this time.

Things

2009-02-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

I think there is a list of things one should do before becoming compost. Here are a few items on my list:

1. Discover a body.

2. Spend a night in jail.

3. Have a beer or cup of coffee with your State's Governor.

4. Reproduce.

5. Love someone you are not related to.

6. Eat an animal you have personally killed.

7. Buy a house or two.

8. Drive a car that you paid less than a hundred bucks for.

9. Make a difference that will outlive you.

10. Fly an airplane.

11. Make art.

12. Speak truth to power, and mean it.

13. Take a hit without retaliating.

14. Learn how to cook beans.

15. Be questioned in a murder case.

You Aren't Going To Like This

2009-02-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

Several nations, Germany among them, are trying to measure gravity waves that can, as it is postulated, be caused by super novas or merging black holes. The method that has the most chance of detecting these unseen waves seems to involve two beams of split coherent light shined down mirror ended trackways set at right angles with known multi kilometer distances. The beams are recombined, and the interference pattern should detect the elusive waves. Funny thing happened. A white noise like background interference that cannot be explained or tuned out.

While waiting to iron this little wrinkle out, on the other side of the world Craig Hogan at FermiLab had an idea on how to test the untestable. The Holographic M theory universe. These guys MAY have found evidence proving all of existence may well be painted on an enormous two dimensional membrane in quantum grains of space/time. Those grains have a sub Planc radius that make them insanely small. I'm talking the size of a proton is to one of these grains as a grain of sand is to our galaxy.

Living on this Membrane or "brame" universe makes no sense from our vantage, but is rooted in observation and mathematics. And you thought "Lost" was hard to wrap your mind around. M theory has the potential to explain both quantum mechanics and gravity in the same neat package. Cool.

I've been reading about physics for thirty years, and for the first time I think the guys are really looking at the road to the theory of everything. Remember, I'm the grossest amateur so read really dumbed down versions of this stuff, but real scientists live to shoot their colleagues' out of the saddle so if the M Theory folks are wrong, it won't take long for the scientific method to correct the error. That's the beauty of the scientific method.

Earthquake. Man Made? If The PRC Has Their Way, We'll Never Know

2009-02-03T20:14:00.000-08:00

The 7.6 magnitude Sichuan earthquake of last year in Southwest China may well have been brought on by the stresses caused by the 511 ft-high Zipingpu dam's reservoir changing the dynamics on an underlying fault. According to Slashdot.com the PRC is doing its best to suppress any study of the possibility of this mega-project causing the quake that killed well over eighty-thousand Chinese citizens. The geometry is simple to visualize. You put up a dam in a narrow gorge and back up 350 million tons of water on one side of the already stressed fault. Can this scenario be proven or falsified? We may never know because the PRC denies any possibility of faulty engineering. Anyone living in Eastern Europe in the era of Soviet control knows that engineers and cadres ruled and public interests took the back seat. A sooty, corrupt, inefficient environmental wasteland was the result. The dam is still there. The fault is still there.

Shrinkage

2009-01-25T21:07:00.001-08:00

With the collapse of the financial system trillions of dollars have been wiped off the face of the earth, leaving naught but massive holes in the asset sheets of the banks, investment and insurance companies of the world. It goes without saying that very little of the money supply exists in a form that would fit in your pocket, and economists have labeled accounted money as M1, M2, and in some instances M3. M1 being balances in savings, checking, CDs, still the smallest, but most liquid of the "moneys" in the supply. M2 is where we run into trouble. Asset backed balances (M2) suddenly find themselves standing on soft ground. M2 and M3 supplies are dependent on the value of the assets held by financial institutions, and this number has taken a six trillion dollar hit in the last two years. Deflation is the result. "Real" assets dollar values decline, interest rates shrink to nothing, and the economy stagnates and contracts. The cure is obvious, more cash injected in the system to re-float the system without overshooting the target and bringing on inflation.

All this is a long winded way to say that the current stimulus package is not going to be inflationary, and the real danger is undershooting the target. If the package isn't big enough the first time, then the legislative dance will have to be joined again, without the current political consensus to drive passage. The answer is to adopt a "too large" package, and give the secretary of Treasury and President the ability to trim it back in the case of an early end to the recession. Congress is loathe to relinquish financial control, but they need to cowboy up and take the one time hit to their power. Perhaps we could trade stronger war making authorization powers to the House and Senate in trade.

The Dog That Didn't Bark

2009-01-15T16:56:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who is noticing that Hesbollah, the Iranian backed Shia force in South Lebanon, has not fired a single missile at Israel? If I had been looking for an example of the discipline knit into the Iranian version of radical Islam I don't think I could have found a better. There have been a few Katusha rockets fired from Lebanon, but they are crude homemade devices as dangerous to the firers as the targets. These are not the weapons of Hesbollah. Why can we not recognize Iran's restraint in this obvious opportunity to make Palestine a bigger mess and cement their dominant political position in Syria and Lebanon for generations?

I don't pretend to read the Mullah's minds, but I suspect they are looking for a deal and don't want to step on the toes of the incoming administration. Lets hope Obama and Hillary can read the tea leaves.

Why We Fight

2009-01-14T11:33:00.001-08:00

"Why can't you atheist science fans just be nice and not make waves." We, or at least most of us, are not trying to be jerks. Why can't we just let the majority religion build monuments and alters on publicly owned lands? Who does it hurt to allow creationism to be taught in the schools when the parents of the students want it taught? Why not prayer in classrooms? Democracy means giving people what they want, right? In the original democracy people were exiled or executed for the crime of annoying a majority of the voters. From the standpoint of an annoying person, I think this is a bad idea. We call ourselves a democracy, but we aren't. We call ourselves a republic, but we aren't one of those either. Western democratic republics are all creatures of their history and aspirations tempered by an independent judiciary. Our system in the USA is the result of a history of founders whose grandfathers fought in nightmare religious civil wars, hid from zealots or were beheaded. A side effect of the civil war and passage of the 14th amendment was the extension of the ban on official government religion to the states. Prior to 1865 states had official churches and taxed citizens to support the groups.

So, why do I get all bent out of shape over bad, or worse, pseudo science. It matters. The bad science involved in creationism and idiot cousin Intelligent Design must be crushed to save civilization. Our children must know that the fight is theirs. We call a lot of things "wars" that aren't. Drugs. Terror. Cola. Late Night. Science versus systematic ignorance is a real war that we cannot lose.

Israel's Holocaust Victimhood Account Overdrawn

2009-01-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

If you want to target civilians in order to force your enemy into surrender, then you must be prepared to slaughter a large percentage of their population. We did it to Germany and Japan in the Second World War, and were willing to do it to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We argue it was necessary to defeat evil aggressors, and it is hard to work up any sympathy for Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. That said, the crude weapons of the day and existential nature of the fight I for one chose to cut our fathers and grandfathers a lot of slack.

Israel, as the national expression of the Jewish people, has faced intractable enemies in the past, and the current gang of militarist racists running the country has traded long enough on the maltreatment of the Jews by the Nazis and their neighbors' constant history of unprovoked assault. While they live in a tough neighborhood, Israel's home grown religious nationalists have run roughshod over the best interests of the small nation, murdered the last prime minister who supported a fair peace and invaded the lands owned by the Palestinian people in order to build towns for the sole purpose of denying their neighbors their lands.

Jewish Americans confuse the current gang of religious fanatic thugs running Israel with their visions of the Jewish paradise that is their safe harbor in a world that too often has wanted to exterminate them. Now Israel, in a racist rage, bombards The Gaza Strip incessantly, justifying their siege of innocent Palestinians as the only way to stop the constant, if ineffectual, rocket bombardment from the territory. Like their neighbors, the Israelis seem hell bent on destroying themselves through isolation and international repulsion. Even we, the Jewish state's most reliable ally, are rapidly becoming disenchanted with our bullying little friend.

Rock Stars Need Your Money Now

2009-01-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

Not that kind of Rock Star, but the Eocene shales found at The Stonerose Interpretive Center in Republic Washington. Loaded with the oldest known forms of the rose plant and the Fir tree this site represents the birth of the modern ecosystem we see around us. The Rose family evolved to produce the apple and pear families of familiar modern fruit trees.

The center is run by volunteers and one paid paleobotanical manager. Unique among fossil sites Stonerose encourages people to find fossils and allows the finders to keep duplicates of the center's collection. Stonerose works closely with the Burke Museum at the University Of Washington.

As is with all such operations money is always tight. Believe me when I tell you that not one dime is misdirected or misspent in keeping the doors open. It is a true labor of love, but love is not all they need. They need donations, and now isn't too late to start raising the balance of '09's operating budget.

Click on this Stonerose link and please be generous.

In Defense Of The Shoe.

2008-12-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

Two days ago an Iraqi journalist threw a pair of shoes at the visiting President (35 days and counting) Bush and apparently nobody can see the justice in the act. The whole loafer-gate incident seems somehow apt and an excellent expression from a frustrated and much abused people. Bush's wide eyed explanation of the incident as being the result of all the "freedom" we have brought to that ancient land was a perfect example of the man's inability to grasp the nuances of the situation. If the journalist had just yelled at Bush, the story may have just been a ten second sound bite, and then disappeared. If the journalist had done something more injurious it may well have ginned up some sort of sympathy for Chimpy W. But no. W was insulted and given the ultimate Arab symbol of disrespect, expressing the rage that so many of us feel toward Bush 43. If it were up to me the white house lawn would be covered with shoes by this weekend.

Big D, Little A Double L A S

2008-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

After an exciting three day drive from Seattle to Dallas I have arrived in the city, if not of my birth, at least of my formative years. The food is great. Barbecue, Tex-Mex, Southern soul (white guy version): all fantastic comfort foods without a single hint of nutritional smugness.

A traditional Republican stronghold, Dallas is looking a bit like a whipped puppy. The traditionally troglodytic Dallas Morning News is lamenting that the state is simply misunderstood after eight years of Delay, Bush and snake handler National rule. In the pages of the paper they write that they are not the dunderheaded barbarians and crazed cowboys that the media presents to the rest of the nation. I am skeptical. Hubris has been laid on the soul of this town with a backhoe, and I see no sign of contrition. I have been slapped in the face with a thinly veiled "Merry Christmas", with the "Christmas" emphasized in order to make sure I was on the right side of the culture wars. When did "Merry Christmas" become a blunt instrument?

I will say about North Dallas is that they really take care of the place. As the cheap Mexican labor that does the landscaping becomes rarer, I suspect that will change. The local media would have one believe that Dallas is immune to the downturn that is ravaging California and Michigan.

All the green in Texas is pretty much limited to the Christmas tree lots and the odd live-oak tree this time of year, but after Puget Sound's oppressive pine and fir forests it is nice to be able to see for a few miles in all direction.

I turned the satellite radio service on in my Honda for the trip, and it was a lifesaver. West Texas is still nothing but Limbaugh and preachers on the dial for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

To my Mother I suggested that Texas change its motto from "The Lone Star State" to "America: We're really sorry about that whole Bush thing" She was not amused.

This Is For The Last Cat I Had

2008-12-02T21:42:00.001-08:00

I don't have any pets right now, unless you count the mice. This score is for the last cat I had.

Outrage!

2008-12-01T15:23:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO EMBIGGEN.

New Christmas Carroll

2008-12-01T09:36:00.000-08:00

Monday's Number

2008-12-01T08:21:00.000-08:00

400,000,000,000. Four hundred billion: the number of lego blocks that have been manufactured since 1953, half of which I have stepped on barefoot in the middle of the night.

Persia, Part 2

2008-12-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

We know what we want from Iran, so what do they want from us? Firstly they are desperate for the legitimacy and safety that comes with recognition and trade with the US and our allies. Even being the regional superpower floating on a sea of crude oil isn't enough without the respect and acknowledgement that comes with full diplomatic relations with the West.

The Iranian government has problems that they can't solve internally. Al Qaeda hates the apostate Shias with a rage that will not be quenched. We don't read about the Islamist terror attacks in Iran, but they happen every week. The Kurdish tribes are as much a pain in the rear for Iran as they are for the Turks. Iran can be extremely schizoid when it comes to tribal versus cosmopolitan attitudes. Much like Yugoslavia in the '80s the country is a series of almost European city states surrounded by a rural peasantry who's lives haven't changed much since the sixteenth century. This split causes a lot of stress on Iranian society, and they use the theocracy to keep a lid on.

Any problem Pakistan has with the Northern tribal areas it doesn't have anything on the Iranian problems with Baluchistan, an Arizona sized nebulous tribal regional wasteland dominated by ungovernable clans straddling the Pakistani and Iranian border. Sound familiar?

Iran has things we want, and we have things they need. Surly two cultures of traders can come to a mutually advantageous compromise.

Persia, Part 1

2008-11-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

Robert Baer, the retired CIA agent and former head of the Lebanese desk recently spent an hour talking to the good folks at CSPAN on the subject of Iran. (As in "Bomb, bomb bomb Iran") and he comes to some disturbing conclusions, at least disturbing to neocons or unreconstructable cold warriors.

Both he and I agree that Iran is our natural friend. Iran is the home of the Shia branch of Islam, the smaller, but much more structured branch of the religion. The larger sect, the Sunni, are somewhat like evangelical christianity in that every follower is an internally consistent believer, not requiring over-arching structure for validation. Each village and tribe has its own Imam, sometimes several, and each of these holy men his own batch of followers. As in the evangelical community, the competition for followers is intense and drives the preachers to the extreme ends of the faith. The Shia have a much more well defined hierarchy.

As with all theocracies the Iranian Republic can be a bit of a political snake-pit. A committee of Mullas, deriving its authority and legitimacy through its origins in the Islamic Republic of Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 overthrow of the American client government. Before his death Khomeini created a Soviet like council headed by a new Ayatollah. These are the guys that run Iran now. They are the folk who chose the candidates for election to office, and while the elections themselves are surprisingly free, especially by Islamic standards, any real foes of the theocracy can't get on the ballot. All this said, at least there is a structure to negotiate with that generally respects agreements made by previous iterations of the committee.

Iran/Persia is a mind numbingly ancient culture. They suffered needlessly under the Ottomans, British and Shah, but are notably cosmopolitan and well educated despite all the abuse. The President of Iran is a notably powerless figurehead, even though they have the right to annoy and inflame the foreign media. We classify Hesbollah and al Qaeda as pretty much the same sort of organizations, but nothing could be further from the truth. Al Qaeda are batshit crazy Sunni nihilist whack jobs. Hesbollah is a Shia militia with a hierarchical structure that almost exclusively fights military units. These are people we can deal with, and our allies Israel seem to be determined to wipe them out. Hesbollah has more credibility with the Palestinians than any other group because they are incorruptible and have fought the invincible Israel to a draw in Lebanon. The Iranian controlled group is the key to the Palestinian side of Middle East peace.

Opportunity abounds with the incoming Obama administration if he negotiates with the right people. Do it sooner rather than later.

Victory: The Illusion That Leads To Heartbreak

2008-11-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

FIRST KNOWN REFERENCE TO A BUCKET OF FRIED CHICKEN. ASSYRIA 1244 BCE

So we have won, and I use the collective as opposed to the royal, like as in "we won" when your town's NFL franchise wins, but you can't afford the four hundred bucks it would cost to take a friend to the game. You, like me, sit at home with your friend, drink cheap beer, snack on cheap snacks and watch the game. In politics we make small donations, defend our candidate against ignorant attacks, write the odd letter to the editor and put a new post in your blog every once in a while. My political activist stage is in my past. I don't have the fire in my belly. Well there may be a fire in there somewhere, but the belly does such a good job of hiding the embers that I can't tell.

All I have to do is remember Rove's "Permanent Republican Majority" and that purges any thoughts of victory from my thoughts. Victory is so illusive in Democratic and democratic politics. The idea of true victory is a bit un-American if you think about it. Dictators can have the ability to have genuine victories. Burma's and North Korea's ruling generals both have had a perfect victory. In the messy reality of Western politics the next election is just around the corner, and none of your allies can be trusted absolutely. Before you revel in stepping on someone's face on your rise to power just remember that face, and think of the next time you may see it.

Only a person without ambition, and with no fear of death can afford to be ruthlessly blunt with the truth. Don't take that last sentence as permission to be a jerk.

Reward!

2008-11-12T17:50:00.000-08:00

It's a crispy five dollar bill for the first sighting of 2008's phony "War on Christmas" outraged editorial.

Missing All The Fun?

2008-11-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

I added a folder to my bookmarks bar labeled "Wingnuttery" last month just to use this week, and perhaps next. I've dragged all the right wing nut site links that caught my eye for the last couple of months, and I have been rewarded by a peek behind the flag. All I can say is BWAHAHAHAHA! Eat shit and die Rethuglicans. The flights of fantasy to be found amongst the far right are breathtaking. Obama is coming for your guns on January 20th in the early afternoon. Limbaugh shrieked for a bloodletting among Republicans to drive out the impure.

It was all worth it.

OCD Poll Watch: Too Much Information Edition

2008-11-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

Those of us suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are buried under a mountain of statistics and opinions and opinionated statistics. The cable news fire hose of factoids has drowned my frontal cortex and left me running on the primitive operating system that came with my medulla's lizard brain.

I know that fivethirtyeight.com is sort of the go-to poll site for poll junkies looking for a fix, and I do read their stuff. Hominid View covers all the polls in a more user friendly format, but is no lightweight. Politico.com gets a bit too superficial for my taste, and the newspaper polls refuse to average their precious proprietary results with the research of other media outlets.

I have burned my candle at both ends this year, and am ready to be done with the election.

What They Are Really Saying.

2008-10-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

The late game plan of the Republican campaign seems to be to frighten voters by holding forth the visage of a sixty vote Democratic majority in the Senate. Be afraid. Be very afraid. In reality the Rs are saying it is their intent to use the filibuster in the Senate to gridlock the government for the next two years. Why else would they want the capacity to block legislation?

Miracle In Florida

2008-10-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

The most amazing event of this election was the timing of the joint appearance between President Clinton and Barak Obama to fit into a live shot on the eleven O'clock news. Nobody but nobody has ever been able to schedule Bill Clinton finely enough to fit into the tightly timed schedule of broadcast television.

Know Nukes

2008-10-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that a nuke plant produces a prodigious amount of electricity. More than any coal or gas fired plant, and outdone by only a few hydro electric dams. Nukes produce very little greenhouse gas compared to any of the fossil fuel fired alternatives. Nukes, if not operated by lax and greedy companies or brain dead government functionaries, have been shown as safe as any oil or coal based generation method. Safer than coal really. Engineers love Nuke plants. All these are facts. All that said we must be realistic.

Nukes are at the bottom of the list when it comes to being sited in a community. There is nothing like a proposed nuke plant to inspire a native uprising. The suburban tribes have something more powerful than rifles and war ponies. They have lawyers.

Nukes are hellishly expensive. Fifty billion a copy, and to be fair, a like amount for waste storage and decommissioning costs. The current proposal for fifty of these plants is a ruinous dream.

For the price of ten Nukes we could insulate every home in the US and install heat pumps in al fuel oil heated residence. The number of jobs created would be enormous. Low skilled workers would insulate homes and install efficient windows. You don't even need a degree to operate a caulking gun, and there is no waiting period to buy one. Skilled workers would build and install the heat pumps. Saudi princes can't cut off the laws of thermodynamics that makes heat pumps operate.

There may well be a spot for a Nuke plant, but the alternatives should be looked at first. We are probably ten years or more away from a practical photovoltaic power production, but basic science breakthroughs could change that in a hurry. Wind is coming on line fast, but is starting to run into a bit of NIMBY pushback. (Why doesn't GM make wind towers? There is a bigger market for those than Escalades.)

Luck: A Superstition

2008-10-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

I've never had much respect for the concept of luck. Probability seems to be written into the fabric of the universe, and any deviation from the mean is an illusion ginned up in our little brains in that special place that sorts tigers from waving grass. All that said, and I will reiterate, John McCain is one profoundly unlucky guy. Be it gremlins setting off his bomb load on the decks of the USS Forrestall, getting shot out of the sky by a bunch of farmers, losing his family to booze and bimbos on his return from POW camp, the Keating S&L scandal or the selection of Palin for VP candidate McCain is repeatedly screwed. Did I mention five years of torture?

Now in the fading days of the '08 campaign fortune continues to rain on the Republican parade. Ted "Internet Tubes" Stevens has been convicted, and promised to deliver the reddest of the red states, Alaska to the Dems.

All evidence to the contrary, there may indeed be a god-ish sort of creature out there screwing with us.

From Under A Rock. November 5, 2008

2008-10-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

The truly ugly will come out the day after Barak Obama is elected. The Republican wing of the Republican party will be looking for a scapegoat, and his name will be George Soros. The story will be that Soros crashed the economy in order to put MoveOn.org in the driver's seat. Perfect. Soros is not only a foreigner, but a jew and liberal. The trifecta of wingnut mythological evil. There will be blood.

Confessions Of A Voter Registrar.

2008-10-22T14:23:00.001-07:00

A long time ago, in a county far, far away I was a deputy voter registrar. It's the sort of job for which there is not a whole lot of competition. You miss time with the family using otherwise leisure time to sit out in the sun at a card table trying to talk indifferent citizens into signing up to vote, an act that had the added bonus of getting added to the pool for jury duty (Washington law in the '80s). A good friend of mine, attorney Dick Perry, and I would spend a Saturday or two every year before election time on the Colville Reservation doing political work. Dick would take a truck load of political signs around the Res and post them on trees and fence posts and I would set up outside the Keller or Nespelum store snagging tribal members and enrolling them. I am a Democrat, and was pretty sure most of the people I was signing up were going to vote Democratic. No harm, no foul. The party recruited tribal members to run for office and even elected more than a few.

The Colville Reservation is larger than most counties, and originally much larger. Unfortunately the northern part of the Res had gold, and that was confiscated. The Res is dry, dusty scrub or ponderosa pine forested uplands. One of the three paved roads on the Res washed out in 1987, and hasn't been rebuilt. When the Federal government needs to cut expenses (always) the country's indian reservations are a "no constituency that matters" choice. The only way to get the tribes their due is to make them a voting bloc, and registration was the only way to do that.

From Keller it was a sixty five mile round trip to the court house to register, and bringing the service there seems obvious to me. Washington State law dictates what a registrar must do with all registration forms. Even if you know the registration to be bogus it must be turned in to be sorted by the county office. Even if you have used a form scribbled on to get a ball point pen to write it must be turned in. No exceptions. Partizan registrars, like me, of course focused on people who would vote our way. I never asked anyone if they were a D or R, but I could guess.

I can still taste that red dust from the Res, but we swept the county for the Democrats and of that I am proud.

Texas, Oil, CEO, Cocaine, Stripper, Death, Bush

2008-10-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

From the Houston Chronicle we have a story of the 53 year old CEO of Andrews Technology who had the misfortune of entertaining a 19 year old stripper who died of a cocaine overdose in his mansion. What? No preacher? How can we have a dead stripper story in Houston that doesn't involve a preacher? Well, we do have a Bush family connection. Mr Andrew's ex wife is married to Neil (S&L) Bush. Where else but Texas?

Now we know what the oil execs are doing with all our money.

The Scrooge McDuck Big Bailout Blast

2008-10-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

Everybody remembers Donald Duck's miserly uncle Scrooge McDuck and his gigantic vaults with swimming pools filled with cash and jewels. Uncle Scrooge loved to put on his trunks and dive in and swim among the Gold Double Eagles and Franklins. That's what billionaires like. Unfortunately the modern Scrooges have turned their cash into high interest junk bonds, derivatives, naked shorts and sub prime paper on wildly over valued real estate. Suddenly those vaults are full of documents with the value of yesterday's newspapers, and we are going to refill them with real money again so they can get back to their play time.

Now some treasonous liberals are suggesting that there may be a better way to get out of this mess, and at least have a chance to get some of the vast fortune back. Not all, but some. Paul Krugman wrote in the NYT that we must get a piece of the companies we are bailing out and Warren Buffet showed us how to get value for our dollars. He bought a huge chunk of Goldman Sachs preferred stock and warrants for five billion dollars. If the commercial bank can hold on he stands to make a healthy dividend every year. If Goldman Sachs prospers he can convert his warrants and make more money than The Pope.

Any economist will tell you that the trouble we are going to have is pricing the questionable securities. Six trillion dollars worth of "toxic paper" dumped on the market in a panic really would be monumentally stupid, netting no value and crushing the economies of the industrial world. This is the libertarian solution. Ruinous, but ideologically pure. Running the risk of being called "Socialist" we could demand a controlling piece of any bank or brokerage wanting our cash. With the calming hand of the SEC on the tillers of the failed institutions we could liquidate using the expertise of the banks' employees and move back into a regulatory roll in a decade or so.

A good career choice for an up and coming grad would be economics or accounting. There will be plenty of work in the next twenty years sorting this mess out.

Clean Bill

2008-10-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

Just to prove that the Senate can't pass a clean bill, the following was added into the "emergency" financial bail out bill:

SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

Emergency over. Everything is back to normal.

I Was Wrong.

2008-10-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

To everyone I bet money with that Palin would be gone by October 1st: I owe you. I'm good for it. Just wait 'till next week and I swear I'll pay up. Double or nothing on gone by the 15th? Please don't send Guido around again.

The Failure That Is The American Right

2008-09-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

For a while now I have thought the conservative movement deserved congratulations for dropping its reliance on raw anti Black racism to win elections. This realignment is quite a step away from the Nixonian "Southern Strategy" of not too subtile codes for the threats from African American citizens. This year is a real test of conservative morals what with a real possibility that the right will be swept from power in a gigantic electoral uprising lead by a black liberal. Not a Clinton "liberal", who was in actuality a moderate Republican, but a genuine FDR style liberal. A liberal that will curb the privileges of the rulers and move the burden of taxes more to the shoulders of the Überclass.

I've only seen a few outliers of anti Black crapola coming from the Rs this year. There was the guy that claimed the banking crisis was caused by giving loans to Blacks, but that's about it. Hispanics are another matter. The whole border security issue is more based on old ladies worried about someone in line at the grocery talking in a language they don't understand than a threat to national security. I read today in The National Review that Washington Mutual failed because they loaned money to and promoted Mexicans. Curious.

By the time my kids reach middle age the country will have a majority of what is now thought of as minority voters. Under the Democratic party the country will have a chance of working the knots out that such a sea change makes in politics. The Republican Party is about to have an episode of monumental shrinkage. I've been predicting the shattering of the GOP into the super-right, overclass, and snake handling factions. Good riddance.

Who, Me?

2008-09-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

The old joke is that if you sit down at a poker game and can't figure out who the pigeon is in the first five minutes, it's you. Now we are getting a glimpse of the rough outlines of the Big Bailout and of course we, the average Joes and Joleens are screwed. Behind the closed doors at the White House the same guys that brought us Iraq, Katrina, torture and the most massive deficits in history are writing the recovery plan. A plan that a lot of liberal economists are extremely skeptical about its ability to do anything to solve the illiquidity problem. A plan that seems to be designed to laden the government with so much debt that a national health plan would be unattainable. Grover Norquist is aroused.

If my fellow citizens chose the senile old Republican and the extra from "Fargo" to lead this great country just because we can't stand the thought of having a black president then you deserve the consequences. Not me, but you do.

Economics? What Economics?

2008-09-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

I checked the Webber-tubes this morning and apparently there is something wrong with the economy. I understand that there are banks holding bags-full of questionable IOUs and would like us to buy them for something north of a trillion dollars. We are going to do it. All I'm going to say is that we need to get something for our money. I'm thinking ownership of the offending banks would be a starting point. I'm talking about confiscation of all the stock and assets of the distressed lending institution or holding company. An added bonus would be that the executives of these federally held companies would be GS rated government employees pulling down a livable salary, but not multi billion dollar überbucks the former CEOs expected. While we are talking about separating the overclass from their ill-gotten gains perhaps disallowing deduction for salaries and bonuses in excess of a million dollars in the tax returns of corporations. There are many business overlords who made out like bandits in the last twenty years. A surcharge on past looting would be one way to bring justice to the bail out.

That takes care of the local problem, but international banking boys may not be so generous. The World Bank has a history of grabbing third world countries by the lapels and slapping some economic sense into the offender. We well may be about to get a dose of our own medicine. Higher taxes, lower spending and seriously decreased imports of consumer goods is the prescription usually given little countries.

New Deal anyone?

UPDATE:

I beat Paul Krugman to these ideas, point by point, by better than five days.

Voting Blocs

2008-09-17T13:07:00.002-07:00

John McCain continues to peel off strategically important voting blocs from the Democrats. The Baroness vote has gone to McCain when the Contessa Du Rothschild jumped to the Republicans and endorsed McCain.

Also the confused old man vote was grabbed when the Senator from Arizona continuously confused Spain (Nato Ally) with Mexico (Lawn Mowing) during an interview for Madrid television. A McCain administration apparently will not meet with the president of Spain until the European nation renounces terrorism.

Only Two More Shopping Days

2008-09-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

Pay No Attention To The Old Wrinkly Man Behind The Curtain

2008-09-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

The political stunt that was the Governor of Alaska's candidacy for VP has about run its course, and not a minute too soon for my tastes. I'm not thinking for a minute that we've seen the last of the shiny things waved in the field of vision of the press. Last week it was something to do with cosmetics and livestock. This week, buried under the avalanche of the grimmest economic news in my lifetime, The McCain campaign tried to trick Hillary Clinton into appearing on the same stage as Palin. FAIL! Now the GOP is repackaging itself as the party of change. George W. Who?

Since 1932 the Democratic Party and Progressive Liberals have slowly invented the American middle class, built the infrastructure and defended America. Since 1994 the conservatives and Republicans have waged war on the middle class, poor and creative.

We will look at the political bathtub in six months and see the Republican high water mark. We are looking for a better, safer world without the tribal resentments and inequities that plague modern societies.

A Bit Closer, And All Our Days Would Have Been Ruined.

2008-09-15T16:39:00.000-07:00

Last week a gamma ray burster star went off, aimed at the earth. Luckily it is several hundred million light years away or we would have been cooked as most life was during the great cambrian extinction. We have a GRB cooking here in the milky way that is only 40 thousand light years away, but it isn't aimed at us.. At least our best astronomers don't think it is.

September 12Th, 2001

2008-09-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

America was so united that day. So determined to bring the criminals that planned and supported the horror to justice. We demanded that countries that harbored and financed the criminals be brought to heel. Over 90% of Americans supported President George W Bush as the leader to take us to war against the bloodthirsty pirates of al Qaeda. We were ready for a draft. We were ready for higher taxes to pay for defense of the homeland. We were ready to sacrifice to bring down the Taliban government in Afghanistan. We would pull down the house of Saud to root out the source of finance that built the madrassas that recruited and indoctrinated the religious fanatics that hijacked the planes. We were of one mind, unified as no other time in my life. We were openly supported by all nations, even traditional adversaries like Cuba and Iran.

So what happened? Bush and Cheney pissed it all away. Taxes to pay for the actions that had to be taken were off the table. Cutting taxes holds the position of religious faith among Republicans. Unknown to the average American the focus quickly moved from Afghanistan to Iraq, based on ...... What? Neo-con fantasy of The Project For The New American Century? Get Saddam?

Now, seven years later we are raking through the ashes looking for that was America. What has happened is beyond incompetence. Nothing our enemies could have done would even approach the damage that has been done.

Government. Yer Doin' It Wrong

2008-09-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Republican Party and conservatives in general have had effective control over the government of the United States since 1994. Sure there have been a couple of one vote Democratic majority Senates, but by no means have the liberals had their way at any time since the dimly remembered "Contract with America". The Federal government ever since has been increasingly staffed by opportunists and headed by political hacks that don't believe the department they oversee should even exist.

Now the papers are all full of the Interior Department scandal centered in the Denver Office that was trading oil leases for free breakfasts, sex and vacations. Most citizens aren't even aware of the functions of Interior. Indian tribes and rural Westerners' lives are intimately linked to the whims of Interior. The department has been run as an adjunct to the mineral extraction industries with little regard to the citizens who own that wealth. That is you and me. Interior oversees the implementation of the Mining Act of 1872 that gives away billions of dollars worth of metals and other valuables every month.

America loves a good sex scandal. Sex is understandable, unlike oil leases and timber extraction. Sex isn't elite. It doesn't require a law degree. I suppose the watchword of conservative government should be "Keep it zipped". Otherwise "Help Yourself".

Short And Sweet

2008-09-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

The Large Hadron Collider started operations yesterday, and we weren't wiped out in a, well, whatever the chicken littles with too much time on their hands fantasize. Seldom do we get such immediate confirmation of the silliness of pseudo scientific woo. Yay!

Republican Energy Plan

2008-09-09T17:01:00.001-07:00

Here's how Exxon/Mobile and Carl Rove would have us write federal oil lease legislation:

Step 1. Saturate your hair in lighter fluid.

Step 2. Light hair, scream.

Step 3. Run in tight circles while writing the legislation.

Passing laws in a panic has always given us fantastic results.

Good News Everyone!

2008-09-06T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's too late for sixteenth century explorers, but the Northwest Passage is open and free of ice. And we thought global warming was a bad thing. Now, about all those pesky hurricanes... What the hell? They are just are clobbering the Old Slave South for the most part, and those red states don't believe in it any way.

P.O.W.

2008-09-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

What can I say? The guy spent five years as a Prisoner of War in Viet Nam. I will mention that he wasn't kidnaped, but was shot down while bombing the crap out of a country of farmers that had never threatened my country in any way at any time. Torturing him was an anathema, but we have no way to bring the criminals who tortured him to justice, but we do have the ability to prosecute the criminals who torture people, and order people tortured in our country.

Lust And Abuse. Confessions Of A Mac User

2008-09-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

Us Apple fans have to endure the sneers and jeers of Wintel minions every day. We don't have access to new $500 laptops, or sixty different word processors, but we love our machines. It's sort of like those four hundred dollar Italian pumps with six inch spike heels. They hurt like hell, but they are sooo cool it's worth it. Like a customer of a high class dominatrix we are blinded by the leather and skin and chains and attitude. Apple users don't need a password, we need a safe word. Oh Steve! Slap Me again!. Sure those two iBooks I bought crapped out after a year and a half. Sure my PowerBook's battery died again and again. I can hardly wait 'till my MacBook dies an untimely death of mysterious logic board or graphics card failure. Whip Me! Whip Me! I just can't get enough abuse.

Justification

2008-09-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Movement conservatives within the Republican party have decided decades ago that tales of Democrats "voting the graveyard" in the depression and early post WWII years made it so anything goes in politics. The voting machine jiggery-pokery evident in Ohio in 2004 and the fraud that was Florida in 2000 were just two examples of self justified fraud. In Washington State we had a very close governor's election four years ago, with the Democrat winning by fewer than 140 votes out of two and a half million cast. Convinced that they were robbed, the Rs are out for blood, and I suspect payback will be attempted in several of the rock ribbed Republican counties in Eastern Washington. Having a relatively uncorrupted judicial system, it probably won't work.

Now from Virginia comes a new twist on an old trick designed to keep college students from voting in the counties where they reside. A lot of Universities are located in areas where they are the vast majority. Those counties want the money and prestige that a university brings, but not the ability of the students to effect the outcome of local elections. Now Montgomery County is notifying newly registered voters that they will lose their student aid and have to apply for new drivers licenses if they chose to vote in the county where thy go to school. Nice. Like the scam that jammed the Democrats' voter notification line in November 2004, someone will eventually go to jail, just not soon enough to make the election fair and open.