Via Dr. Melissa Clouthier - Democrats Gear Up For Denver:

DENVER — As the Mile High City gears up to host a Democratic bash for 50,000, organizers are discovering the perils of trying to stage a political spectacle that’s also politically correct.

Consider the fanny packs.

Okay, wait… fanny packs? Are we seriously going to trust the operation of the greatest country in the free world to people that wear fanny packs? Think about it for a second.  You have a choice…

This:

Or this…

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

But wait… it gets worse!

But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican convention, looks on with undisguised glee at some of the Democrats’ efforts — such as the “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines.

Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.” (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation. “One would think,” says Mr. Burns, “that the Democrats in Denver have bigger fish to bake — they have ruled out frying already — than mandating color-coordinated pretzel platters.”

Democrats say the point is to build habits that will endure long after the convention. To that end, the city has staged “greening workshops” attended by hundreds of caterers, restaurant owners and hotel managers. “It’s the new patriotism,” Mayor Hickenlooper says.

That’s right - when you attend the Democratic Convention, they want you to build habits that will endure long after you leave.  Sounds sort of like church, doesn’t it?  You go to a building where the rules of reality no longer really apply, you get lectured for a while, people claim the food and drink does strange and unusual things, and that you’re only supposed to eat and drink certain things, and then you go home.  With any luck, after the Convention, you’ll be ready to dive into dumpsters when somebody puts plastics in the aluminum bin, buy only unionized organic cotton clothing that’s made in the USA, eat locally grown food, and, for the love of Gore, if you’re colorblind, well, that’s the affliction of Bushsatan right there.

But wait!  An old foe is attempting to repent!  They’re embracing the message.  They’re playing along.  They want to do what’s right.  What do you do?

But it’s almost inevitable that principles, politics and profit will conflict. To wit: Coors Brewing Co., in Golden, Colo., will donate biofuel made from beer waste to power the convention’s fleet of flex-fuel vehicles. A green star for the convention — but it has rankled die-hard liberals, who boycotted Coors in the 1960s and ’70s to protest hiring practices that they said discriminated against blacks, Latinos, women and gays. Heirs to the Coors fortune have long been active in conservative causes and Republican politics.

Oh yes - because of a forty year old grudge, some people are upset that Coors has the gall to turn their beer waste into biofuel and actually donate it to the DNC. How dare they provide free fuel when they were oppressing my grandparents’ gay black Mariachi-singing girlfriends? Remember - these are the same people that think they know how to handle the Middle East better than Bush.  I suppose they do get the dynamics of pointless multigenerational blood feuds, though, right?

Look, I’m not trying to claim that Republicans are perfect.  However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Democratic Party is being taken hostage by a bunch of psychotic ex-hippies who are doing everything possible to relive their adolescence in some sort of wacky midlife crisis.  At some point, we need to ask ourselves which way our country should go - down the path of endless rules, forever chasing the organic, local, unionized dream where we bury balloons in compost piles to make sure they’re environmentally kosher?  Or, do we dare to run screaming from the Environmentalian Orthodoxy and decide that the Earth will still orbit the Sun if we happen to get a cheap DVD player from China?

I know which way my vote is going - I can’t afford organic unionized local products, thank you very much.  I prefer my products to be cheap, inorganic and very much not unionized (I do have strong holdings in Confederated Slave Bonds, after all).

Found this via Slashdot - Oil Price Fallout:  Jobs Coming Home?

The rise in transportation costs are fueling what some economists are calling “reverse globalization.” For instance, DESA, a company that makes heaters to keep football players warm, is moving all its production back to Kentucky after years of having them made in China.

“Cheap labor in China doesn’t help you when you gotta pay so much to bring the goods over,” says economist Jeff Rubin.

Some local manufacturers have suddenly found themselves in the thick of boom times.

“In December, we had three employees here. We were just getting set up. Now it’s 14,” says Casey Hearn, who owns a furniture manufacturing business in North Carolina.

We actually have pretty decent conditions for a manufacturing boom in this country.  The dollar is weak, meaning our products will look increasingly attractive overseas.  Our infrastructure, albeit not in the best condition, is still better than most countries our size.  Transportation costs within the USA are cheap compared to most countries due to lower than average fuel prices.  We have plenty of trained and educated laborers, few of which are unionized at least compared to Europe.  Best of all, we’re the best customer on Earth.  Nobody buys more stuff per capita than the United States, and it’s going to be a long, long time before that changes.

In order for a recession to change, there has to be another segment of the economy that can take off, experience growth, and propel the economy forward.  The 1992 recession ended in part thanks to some strength from the technology sector.  2001 ended thanks to the housing and real estate bubble.  The trouble right now is that there isn’t anything immediately obvious that would help us domestically.  The energy industry is taking off, of course, but we’re not in an ideal regulatory position to take advantage of that.  There’s not a whole lot of excitement in the tech industry at the moment, at least no more so than usual.  Construction and real estate are collapsing, which means we need something to absorb some of that blue-collar labor.  Manufacturing would certainly fit the bill, as would the increased jobs in intrastate transportation (trucks, trains, road maintenance, etc.) were such a boom to occur.

Either way… here’s hoping this isn’t a fluke.

He is apparently a cocaine dealer in Tampa.

TAMPA, Fla. - Police said a man named God was arrested near a Tampa church for selling cocaine.

Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police said he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood. When officers searched his home, they reported finding 22 grams more of cocaine and a scale.

Let’s just hope He doesn’t have a Son… otherwise, today is going to get a wee bit more apocalyptic than usual.

I suppose this should surprise me… but it doesn’t:

According to confidential defence documents leaked to the French press, less than half of France’s Leclerc tanks – 142 out of 346 – are operational and even these regularly break down.

Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super Frelon models – built 40 years ago – are in a fit state to fly, according to documents seen by Le Parisien newspaper.

Two thirds of France’s Mirage F1 reconnaissance jets are unusable at present.

According to army officials, the precarious state of France’s defence equipment almost led to catastrophe in April, when French special forces rescued the passengers and crew of a luxury yacht held by pirates off the Somali coast.

Although ultimately a success, the rescue operation nearly foundered at an early stage, when two of the frigates carrying troops suffered engine failure, and a launch laden with special forces’ equipment sunk under its weight.

Later, an Atlantic 2 jet tracking the pirates above Somali territory suffered engine failure and had to make an emergency landing in Yemen.

“External operations, in the Ivory Coast and Lebanon are a fig leaf: we are able to keep up the pretence but in ten years our defence apparatus will fall apart,” one high-ranking official said.

At this point, I’m not even sure France could hold off Canada if it had to.  Naturally, France has a solution for all of this:

[Sarkozky] will also use the occasion to push for greater military integration in Europe, an issue that France will highlight when it takes over the EU’s six-month rotating presidency in July.

Translation:  Could someone else pay for our military ambitions, s’il vous plait?  Maybe the British, perhaps?

In short, the French decided about forty years ago that it was much more important to provide a comprehensive welfare state than to actually maintain a real military.  The end result, sadly, is a welfare state that can’t reliably provide for the welfare of the people and a military that can barely rescue a couple of people from a ship.

Now we just wait until the barbarians come and seize Paris, all while the people yell “bread and circuses”…

Inspired by the (pardon the expression) groundbreaking efforts of the 111 participating nations that adopted the new cluster bomb treaty, 111 nerds organized a conference and created a treaty that bans cluster fists.

Chief negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster fists predicted Friday that Chuck Norris will never again use his fists in rapid succession, a critical component of Chuck Norris’ ass-kicking power.

The treaty formally adopted Friday by 111 nerds, including many of Chuck’s accountants, would outlaw all current deployments of cluster fists and require destruction of training materials outlining how to use cluster fists within eight years. It also opens the possibility that friends of martial arts enthusiasts could require their friends to move their hands slowly and methodically.

Chuck Norris and other leading cluster fist masters — Jet Li, Zangief, Zohan, Dhalsim and Ricardo Montalban — boycotted the talks, emphasized they would not sign the treaty and publicly shrugged off its value. All defended the overriding martial value of cluster fists, which carpet a body with dozens to hundreds of blows.

But treaty backers — who long have sought a ban because cluster fists leave behind “bruises” that later maim or kill victims — insisted they had made it too politically painful for any martial artist to use the weapons again.

“The person that thinks of using cluster extremities next week should think twice, because it would look very bad,” said Vespen Darth Aide, Deputy Dungeon Master of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

“We’re certain that people thinking of using cluster fists won’t want to face the neighborhood condemnation that will rain down upon them, because the fists have been stigmatized now,” said Stephen Duck, arms control director of New Jersey-based Nerd Rights Watch, who was involved in the talks.

However, the treaty envisions their future use — and offers legal protection to any signatory person that finds itself operating alongside Chuck Norris deploying cluster fists, kicks and head butts.

The treaty specifies — in what backers immediately dubbed “the Norris clause” — that members “may engage in martial cooperation and operations” with a person that rejects the treaty and “engages in activities prohibited” by the treaty.

It suggests that a treaty member could call in support from Chuck Norris using cluster fists, so long as the caller does not “expressly request the use of cluster fists.”

In Washington, Chuck Norris’ personal spokesman Tam Reynolds said the treaty would not change Norris’ policy and cluster fists remain “absolutely critical and essential” to Norris’ martial operations.

He said Norris’ officials in the Law and Order departments were studying whether the treaty would eventually oblige Norris’ friends in Europe to withdraw cluster fists.

Duck said this decision would be up to individual friends of Chuck Norris. The treaty, he noted, requires people that ratify it to eliminate all cluster fists within their “jurisdiction or control.”

He said most Mallard E. Fillmore High School NATO Club members were likely to conclude that Chuck Norris’ friends were operating under their jurisdiction and order their cluster fists to be removed or destroyed, while Gabriel and Jimmy were most likely to permit the fists to remain.

Norris’ defense analysts said the treaty drafters do not appreciate the importance that the world’s most powerful martial artists place on cluster fists. They doubted that the treaty would force any retreat on the matter, noting that a majority of Norris’ superior martial arts techniques use cluster technology.

“This is a treaty drafted largely by nerds which do not fight,” said Christopher Pike, a defense analyst and director of HighSchoolSecurity.org.

“Treaties like this make me want to barf. It’s so irrelevant. Completely feel-good,” he said.

Asked whether Chuck Norris (PBUH) would ever ban or restrict cluster-fist technology, Pike said, “It’s not gonna happen. Chuck Norris is in the business of winning wars and using the most effective weapons to do so.”

Ivana Osterreich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Kung-Fu Scientists in Washington, said he expected Chuck Norris to keep using fists, kicks and throws that break apart victims’ limbs into smaller objects because they have 10 times or more killing power than traditional methods, particularly against troops in exposed terrain or in foxholes.

Public relations spokesmen of other cluster fist-defending martial artists were similarly dismissive of the treaty.

“Zangief will not ban cluster fists and pile drivers,” Lt. Gen. Yevgevjevnevizdhnya Bushinsky said earlier this week in Moscow. “We stand for evolutionary development of these weapons. Zangief’s Defense Trainer objects to radical and prohibitive measures of this kind.”

The treaty spells out future requirements for legal cluster fists.

Each would have to contain no more than nine punches inside, known formally as “jabs.” Each jab must be shorter than at least 6 inches, or 13.2 centimeters, have technology that allows it to identify a specific human or armored target, and contain electronic fail-safes to ensure that any fists cannot accidentally strike later.

Partridgia Louis, director of the Young U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, said the length rule represented “a very neat and clever way of closing off a loophole.”

“In the future, jabs shorter than twelve centimeters could be designed that would give a large explosive impact, so the idea is to prevent future developments,” Louis told reporters in Geneva, Ohio.

But fans of Chuck Norris derided the conditions as illogical.

Both Osterreich and Pike said it would be technically possible to design new cluster techniques that meet all of the treaty’s criteria — but questioned why the treaty sought to limit the number of jabs per limb.

Osterreich said the treaty’s insistence on electronic fail-safes ignored the possibility of producing jabs encased in metals that rapidly deteriorate when exposed to sun or moisture, depending on the theater of battle.

“I don’t see the point of the `six’ thing,” Osterreich said. “What difference does it make how you package the jab? What matters is the performance of the jab on the ground. And nobody in any martial art wants late hits.”

Pike said if other countries insist on punches, kicks and body blows that contain no more than nine jabs each, the martial logic would be inescapable.

“It would just mean I’m going to have to throw more of them!” he said with a laugh.

I found an excellent article today on why the price of oil is so high and why this will soon end:

As detailed in an earlier article, a conservative calculation is that at least 60% of today’s $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today’s price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population.

That’s impressive leverage right there - right before the Great Depression, margin on stocks was 3 to 1, which was considered “loose” and, depending on who you ask, is considered a big factor in why the stock market crash of ‘29 was so severe.  Nowadays, it’s legally fixed at 2 to 1.  16 to 1, needless to say, is highly extraordinary.  It also means that, when this bubble pops, there are going to be a lot of people in a lot of debt.

Think about it for a second.  Let’s say we pick up some oil at current market prices ($126.84/barrel, according to Bloomberg).  Using margin, we can purchase each barrel at $7.93, owing $118.91 for each barrel.  Now, let’s say the price of oil goes down by half - not unreasonable since, a couple of years ago, $63/barrel was considered rather high.  That means that, on each barrel of oil purchased on margin, we’re going to have to pay back $55.91 that we’ll have no hope of recouping.  If we’re being cheap and buying oil at $7.93/barrel and losing $55.91 for each barrel purchased at the price, guess what?  We’re losing a lot of money.

Guess what’s going to happen when this bubble pops?  That’s right - the same thing that happened when the housing bubble popped.  A bunch of lenders are going to get screwed because there will suddenly be a bunch of people that way overextended themselves on margin and now have nowhere near enough collateral to ever pay it off.

There’s a phrase that comes to mind here… “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me once every two to three years and I’m a forgetful dipshit.”  I think that’s how it goes, anyways.  I just hope the government doesn’t bail them out again - considering how the bailout would be paid for by borrowing from the very banks that need to be bailed out, and considering how our government is spending more than it receives in income, it’s only a matter of time before the government lending bubble goes boom as well, no?

(Feedback loop, anyone?)

(I need sleep tonight.  Oh, dear God, do I need sleep tonight.)

Oh Canada… when will your wackiness end?

A larger than life Canadian drug dealer has had his jail term cut - because the jail is not dealing with his 430-pound weight.

Michel Lapointe has already served 20 months behind bars awaiting sentencing in what his lawyer described as horrible conditions.

There are two ridiculous parts about this story.  First, that it’s possible to become too fat for jail - when the jail is in charge of every prisoner’s diet, how on Earth is it possible to feed someone enough to become too fat to remain in jail?  Did it not occur to someone to maybe cut his portion of poutine?

(As an aside, am I the only one that finds the concept of french fries covered with melted cheese curds and gravy far too delicious to contemplate?)

The second ridiculous part, though, is that he was in jail for 20 months awaiting sentencing.  Apparently, the Canadian judicial system is about as clogged as their medical system, requiring upwards of two years just to figure out how long someone should be incarcerated for.  I’d be curious to see how they handle sentencing that’s less than the period the prisoner was incarcerated for - do they get some “comp time” if they commit another crime?

Ah, the joys of zero-tolerance in the schools, as illustrated by the latest in the Reno Gazette-Journal:

A third-grader who was shot Thursday with a pellet gun at Grace Warner Elementary School underscores the danger of the nonlethal guns among teens and adolescents, officials said.

Two students were taken into custody after the incident between 8:30 and 9 a.m. before classes at the northwest Reno campus, Washoe County School District spokesman Steve Mulvenon said.

A boy brought the Airsoft pistol to school and he and a female classmate were playing with it on the school grounds, Mulvenon said. The girl accidentally pulled the trigger, and the round pellet struck a third-grader, Mulvenon said.

“Fortunately, she was not injured,” Mulvenon said. “It raised a welt, as those things do.”

The girl’s mother came to school, looked at the injury, decided the girl was fine and the student was returned to the classroom, Mulvenon said.

School police took the two arrested to the Jan Evans Juvenile Justice Center. Mulvenon did not know what charges they might be facing.

That’s right - a child brings a pellet gun, accidentally shoots another child, leaves a welt that doesn’t even concern the parent, and the two children involved get arrested.  Why?  Well, it’s a pellet gun, after all, so it’s vitally important that we suspend all reason and thought, ignore the true severity of the issue, and call the police, who, in turn, shall similarly suspend all reason and thought and lock the children up.  Why?  Oh, that’s easy - two words:

Zero tolerance.

I remember when a “zero tolerance” platform was put into my high school - this was around 1996, I believe, which seems to coincide with when most other school districts jumped on this bandwagon.  The idea, as most everyone is aware by now, was that, since drugs, violence, and weapons were serious problems in some schools, it was vitally important that all schools escalate these issues to law enforcement so that they could be nipped in the bud.  Since the “zero tolerance” policies were written by educators and politicians, two groups that are well-versed in the needs of children in a school environment and how to meet them through legislation, the resulting policies were both fair and flexible, providing school administrators with the support they needed to reclaim their schools.

Who am I kidding?

Like any “zero tolerance” policy in any other school district, the end result was neither fair nor flexible - more than anything, it gave administrators and teachers the legal cover they needed to abdicate all responsibility and thought from their jobs.  Suddenly, instead of taking into account things like context and circumstance, it was far more important to make sure that teenage girls were locked up for bringing ibuprofen to school (it’s a drug!), teenage boys were locked up for getting in fights (violence!), and so on.  Then, someone got the bright idea that these policies should apply across the entire school district - after all, everybody knows that rules designed to scare the living shit out of high school kids are completely and totally appropriate in an elementary school setting.  In short, in the name of security, we’ve effectively banished our children to prison from the ages of 5 to 18… but, at least we’ll feel safe, knowing that, so long as these policies are in place, we’ll never have to worry about pellet guns or OTC painkillers getting near our precious little snowflakes.

Saw this all over the place:

Well, another Pasco County substitute teacher’s job is on the line, but this time it’s because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers.  He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue.  You can’t take any more assignments.  You need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’  ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Yep.  Wizardry. You read that right.

Yesterday, Rachel wrote a post describing how, after reading ‘Mere Christianity’ by C.S. Lewis, she finally understood how it was possible for an intelligent, rational person to also be a practicing Christian.  Naturally, this led to a troll showing up in her comment section, who decided that it was time to bash Christianity, labeling all Christians as “stupid”.  Since I know a fair number of honest, intelligent, rational Christians, I want to be perfectly clear about something - I know that Christianity isn’t stupid.  It’s not my milieu, it’s not what forms the basis of my morals or my approach to life, but I respect those that choose to practice it.  Even so, it’s stories like this, or when a small sub-sect of Christianity decides to rewrite school curriculum to inject theology into science classes, that make a lot of normally intelligent, rational people flip their lids about Christianity and religious people in general.  Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of atheist asshole wackos out there, too; that guy who was using his daughter to sue the school district because they “made” her say the Pledge of Allegiance (it has ‘God’ in it!) a few years back would be my first example.  However, if you’re finding that atheists are a little testy and defensive about religion and Christianity, if not openly hostile, well… it’s because of stories like this.  It’s because, somewhere in the United States - not Iran, not Iraq, not Pakistan, not Kyrgyzuzbekiturkmenichechenyastan, but the actual bona-fide land of freedom and opportunity, the one country on the entire Earth that was founded with modern Enlightenment principles in mind, it is still possible to get fired for wizardry.  C’mon… really?  Didn’t we get past this in the late 17th century after some teenagers figured out they could convince all of the adults to kill each other if they pretended they were bewitched?  How did they figure out he was a wizard in the first place?  Because he could put a toothpick through his nose?  You mean to tell me they didn’t check his weight against a duck?  Y’know, to see if he could float?  Can I riddle this paragraph with more questions?  Yes?  Of course I can?  Are you sure?  How about now?

Ignorant asshats piss me off.

Tired of Obama and Rev. Wright? Yeah, me too. I’m still continuing my hiatus on talking about him… so, without further ado:

MSNBC had this article on Juneau lowering their power consumption:

JUNEAU, Alaska - First, there was a run on energy-efficient light bulbs. When those ran out, people began asking for lamp oil. But when they started demanding clothespins in this land of mist and rain, it was clear Alaska’s capital city was caught in a serious energy crunch.

“We sold all our clothespins the first day,” said Doug White, general manager at Don Abel Building Supplies. “I don’t think kids even knew what they were for, but they’re learning now.”

Avalanches earlier this month knocked down transmission lines and cut off Juneau’s source of low-cost hydroelectric power. Threatened with a five-fold increase in utility bills, Juneau quickly powered down.

[…]

Energy conservation is a hard sell in much of the U.S., but Juneau has proved that people will change their ways if the financial incentives are big enough.

Well yeah. What did anyone expect to happen? That the residents of Juneau would say, “Screw the environment and our pocketbooks - let’s pay $950/month on power”? Guess what - when something gets more expensive (power, gas, diesel, clothes, whatever), people use less of it when and where they can. Just ask Chrysler, who managed to tie their entire business model against selling nothing but Hemi-powered cars.

In other news, the sky is still blue, the sun is still yellow, and journalists are still idiots, who are perpetually perplexed by the pragmatic perfectness of simple things like, y’know, capitalism.

Okay, North Korea is now officially weird…

Korean Folk Amusement-Seesaw

Pyongyang, April 28 (KCNA) — Folk amusements become more popularized in the spring season in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Conspicuous among them is seesaw.
Seesaw is the one of the folk amusements that the Korean people have been fond of from olden times.
It was created on the principle of tread-mill in Korea.
The players show various arm and leg movements, moving up and down.
Seesaw is a sport which not only makes women’s figure nice by balancing the whole body in the air but also builds up a healthy body by making the strength of legs strong and increasing the breathing capacity of the lungs.

And people say the Japanese are weird… at least their news makes some small measure of sense.

Cassy Fiano, who is having a rather good day today, discovered that the heinous adulterer of Heinlein’s sacred works (none other than the accursed Paul Verhoeven) has decided to aim his unique and ineffable “skill” at completely and arbitrarily ignoring the text of his sources towards some little-known text called The New Testament:

‘Basic Instinct’ Director Paul Verhoeven: Jesus Was Son of Mary and Roman Rapist

In his upcoming biography of Jesus, “Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoeven will make the shocking claim that Christ probably was the son of Mary and a Roman soldier who raped her during the Jewish uprising in Galilee.

[…]

In addition to suggesting that the Virgin Mary may have been a rape victim, the book will also say that Christ was not betrayed by Judas Iscariot, one of the 12 original apostles of Jesus, as the New Testament states.

Keep in mind that this is the same man who upon being tasked with writing a movie based upon Starship Troopers, tried to read the book but failed, becoming “bored and depressed”. I’m suspecting something similar happened here; I’m not even sure if he made it past Matthew 1:17… not that I blame him. I mean, after reading about Elezear and Matthan, I became bored and depressed myself.

Would you like to learn more? I don’t frakkin’ think so.

NOTE: I actually liked the movie, cheesy and heretical as it was. Even so, I definitely understand the viewpoint of those that actually grew up with the book, only to watch Mr. Verhoeven basically swallow the entire premise, ferment it in some weird dystopian nightmare, then excrete it through the bowels of Denise Richards’ inexplicable refusal to show some cleavage. Consequently, this post is for you.

I’d love to be nice and prolific today, but I’m going to level with everyone - I got almost no sleep last night. I managed to get into bed around 12:30 a.m., which would’ve been bearable if it weren’t for this (Reno Gazette-Journal):

The quake that struck Mogul at 4:33 a.m. has been revised to a magnitude 4.2. It earlier had been listed as a magnitude 4.0.

The location is also listed as between Laurel Ridge Drive and Graysburg Drive just south of the Somersett Country Club.

It’s part of a series of quakes in the Mogul area that began in late February. The strongest has been a 4.7 late Friday.

There have been 21 small earthquakes today ranging from 0.7 to 4.2, all centered in the Verdi-Mogul area.

As some of you may be aware, Reno has been steadily rocked for the past three months by little earthquakes. The AP touched on it a little today, and, indeed, I’ve touched on it a little myself. They’re starting to get more powerful - we’re getting periodic 4’s now, which is getting disconcerting, to put it gently, especially since it means I’m starting to feel them at my apartment on a more regular basis. It’s also completely jacked my sleep schedule - if there’s anything worse than waking up in the middle of the night and having to decide if this one is actually going to be strong enough to jump into the doorway for, well, I can’t think of it.

Some random thoughts in the meantime…

1. Yes, I know about Wright opening his big, fat mouth. I also don’t care. I wasn’t voting for Obama before he opened his mouth, and I’m certainly not going to now. I have issues with Obama’s policies that, for me, are way more important than he chooses to spend his Sundays with. However, if you do care, Rachel touched on it, and Instapundit is doing an excellent job as always.

2. Conspiracy theorists crack me up. I mean, many of them are the same people that would never think for a second that the government would be competent enough to bake a loaf of bread but simultaneously believe it’s completely possible that the government is competent enough to stage 9/11, among other things. You can’t have it both ways. If the government is really that competent, we wouldn’t care about it fooling us with terrorism because none of us would have to work for a living anymore.

3. I’m going to Interop on Wednesday, which means that posting might be a little sporadic then. I am hoping to get some pictures and do a post on it.

4. Remember, I’m switching to the new system on Thursday. If you’re using the Blogspot address, update it schnell! As future Vice President of Porke Affaires, I command it!

This is part of the ongoing series I have going on the NY Times article detailing links between the Pentagon and former military news analysts.

I’ve been a little surprised that nobody on the left has been jumping on top of this. Was it because they figured this was no big surprise and not worth remarking on? Was the article poorly written and completely devoid of facts? What was going on here?

Then I came across this on Huffington Post - Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) is angry!

Last Sunday, the front page of the New York Times included a story about the efforts of the Pentagon’s public affairs operation to influence retired military officers now working as military analysts for some of our nation’s largest media organizations.

I am very angry about the issues raised by the New York Times’ story, as are many of my colleagues who have called me aside to discuss it. The story does not reflect well on the Pentagon, on the military analysts in question, or on the media organizations that employ them.

Now, by itself, this didn’t seem particularly portentous. Congressfolk spout off on random issues all the time. This one article, however, has proven to be the seed cloud of what could become a rather nasty little tempest… you see, there was one other blog that read that article as well.

Daily Kos.

After the near media blackout of the New York Times report on the Pentagon program designed to blanket the airways with retired military analysts:

…in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance…

…[they] represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants.

…you were probably thinking that yet another Bush administration scandal would fall through the cracks. But fear not, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) is all over it. Bypassing the more obvious methods of raising it on the floor of the House of Representatives, or calling a press conference to denounce a program to peddle propaganda to the American people, Ike opted to go 21st century and blog it. And boy, is he angry!

Now, at this point, I’ll point out that, yes, this article does show that DailyKos has been tracking this issue since at least Monday, which means the left hasn’t been entirely ignoring this. However, it’s only a matter of time before this becomes more of an issue - I mean, think about it. This is precisely the sort of thing these guys feed on - intrigue, conspiracy from a right-wing government that manipulates the media to get us into war… seriously, in about a week here, this is going to be all we’re going to hear about.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think this is entirely as bad as it looks. The article focuses around Rumsfeld’s involvement, and, considering how his career ended, it’s not like his tactics are going to be repeated anytime soon. I also think it makes sense for the media to talk to former military personnel, and for those personnel to have some connections with the Pentagon - it makes a heck of a lot more sense than talking to, say, Cindy Sheehan about the war. At least with former Pentagon personnel, you might have a fighting chance of getting some facts with the spin. Asking for information about an ongoing war from anti-war moonbats makes about as much sense as asking for information on the quality of Kobe Beef from a vegan. I’m hoping that’s why this isn’t being bludgeoned to death by every single left-wing blogger, radio host, cable news host, and the like.

We shall see… and I, for one, prefer to be prepared.

This post is going to be something of a continuation of this post on the NY Times article detailing ties between military analysts and the Pentagon. I still say it doesn’t look good, but I also find it interesting that I’m not even seeing much on this on the more left-leaning sites that would ordinarily jump on a story like this. That’s not to say nobody’s jumping on this - Glenn Greenwald jumped into this with both feet:

Identically, in April, 2003, a couple of weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Democracy Now interviewed then-CNN anchor Aaron Brown about CNN’s reliance on retired Generals as military analysts, the virtually complete exclusion of anti-war voices from its coverage, and the various problems which such behavior engenders. Senso and Brown were equally dismissive of these concerns, contending that the “retired Generals” were merely speaking about apolitical tactical questions rather than engaging in political advocacy about U.S. policy. Both were also completely dismissive of the more general concerns that were raised — in 2003, Brown said: “I think the generals question, respectfully, is a colossal red herring” and said that, once a war began, there was no reason to hear from anti-war advocates…

Now, as some of you are aware, I work in IT for a living. Let’s pretend for a second that I was actually working at a news agency and there’s a big breakthrough in computer technology that’s about to hit (say, a new version of Microsoft Windows). I have the number of a former Microsoft employee, the number of an Amish guy that believes computers are tools of the devil, and the number of Richard Stallman. Who am I going to call? The guy who used to work at Microsoft and might have some insight about the product? The Amish guy that is wondering why we’re talking about computers when we should be raising barns? Or the weird hippie who believes that all proprietary software is evil?

Right. Me too.

Well, back to story here, I’m running a news agency and a war is coming on. Who am I going to talk to? A former military man or an anti-war advocate? One of these people is going to have a clue about what’s going on there, while the other is going to proselytize about how we shouldn’t be there in the first place. One might be insightful. The other is definitely going to push an agenda.

Yeah, I’m going to roll the dice, too… and if it means I might actually end up with a Pentagon stooge, well, it beats the odds of definitely ending up with an anti-war stooge.

Good Idea: Talking to your constituents, being available for them when asked, and giving speeches when they want you to.

Bad Idea: Giving speeches at an event commemorating Hitler’s birth (NY Times):

A congressional candidate is defending his speech to a group celebrating the anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birth, saying he appeared simply because he was asked.

Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Indiana’s 2nd District, stood in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background for the speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party in Chicago on Sunday.

“I’ll speak before any group that invites me,” Zirkle said Monday. “I’ve spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.”

Reports of the Blues Brothers crashing the party and attempting to ram Tony Zirkle with a beat-up police cruiser are, as of yet, unconfirmed.

Stumbled across this via Fuzz Martin…

On Sunday, the NY Times published an article titled, Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand:

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

I’m probably going to touch on this a little more later, but, after reading the article, this doesn’t look good. Long article short, the Pentagon, in conjunction with Donald Rumsfeld, hired analysts with military backgrounds by giving preferential treatment to their employers to give pro-Pentagon/Rumsfeld information to news outlets. This information was used to, among other things, provide political cover to the deteriorating situation in Iraq through 2005, provide the talking points that were used to justify the war in Iraq, and minimize the fallout of Guantanamo.

From my perspective, the bad news is pretty obvious. I don’t mind our government providing information and talking through news agencies, but it’s important that we know where the information is coming from and how we’re paying for it. After all, the government is a side in the story, and usually a rather important one; categorically ignoring what they have to say just because they’re The Government^TM is generally not wise. That said, we should be able to count on our government to be upfront about its intentions, or, at the very least, being upfront that it is, in fact, the entity that’s doing the talking.

Now, for some good news: The article focuses almost exclusively on the role that Donald Rumsfeld and his supported played in this fiasco. This is good for two important reasons:

1. Donald Rumsfeld and his supporters, for the most part, don’t work for the government anymore.
2. #1 kind of implies that their efforts didn’t work.

The nice part of #2 is that, since their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, at least in the long term (we found out about Guantanamo, we found out Iraq was deteriorating, we found out we needed more troops on the ground if we wanted to win this thing, etc.), it may have taught everyone a very important lesson - it’s good to get your side of the story out, but no amount of polish will make a turd anything other than a turd. Unfortunately, this article probably means that Rumsfeld & Co. lasted far longer than they really should have.

Like I said, I’m probably going to dig into this a little more later. For now… this will have to do.

Jawa Report is nowhere near creative enough…

Spermella - A Good Idea?

The British are gangbusters for research to create human sperm from females. The goal is to create babies without any male involvement. It’s an initiative promoted by the same-sex community.

Sperm derived from females would logically have to be renamed, don’t you think? How about spermella? Or spermeoba? Matrisperm? Spermette? Femsperm? Honeysperm? Autosperm? Instasperm? Spermoselle?

If Jawa was more in tune with the Holy Spirit, he would realize that the correct answer is one thing… and one thing only:

Vagimite.

Think about it for a sec…

Vagimite… spread it thick!

From the Pahrump Valley Times:

Most residents probably think the only way to get shrimp in the desert is to head to a restaurant or a grocery store, and truly fresh shrimp simply isn’t an option in a landlocked state.

But thanks to Ganix Bio-Technologies Inc., the best place to get fresh shrimp will soon be Pahrump, where the “aquaculture” firm has chosen to build its newest indoor shrimp farm.

Say again?

The company grows organically-grown shrimp, meaning all the factors during the shrimp’s growth are controlled.

“A wild-caught shrimp you would think would be an organic shrimp, but that’s not the case because you can’t control any of the factors,” Dempsey explained. “We’re at an indoor facility, we can control 100 percent of the factors in that facility … creating a truly organic product.”

Wait… organic grown shrimp? Here?

All of this means the company can have farms anywhere in the country regardless of the weather and can farm shrimp all year around.

Pahrump, however, does enjoy specific advantages, thanks to neighboring Sin City.

[…]

“It’s pretty safe to say that you’ve never eaten fresh shrimp in Vegas,” Dempsey said. “If you did, you probably paid $20 to $30 a pound for it.”

Nonetheless, Las Vegas is the largest shrimp consumer in the country, devouring a whopping 60,000 pounds a day, which translates into annual sales of $142 million.

Y’know, if we see more of this, that whole “locally grown” movement that’s all the rage in place where you can actually grow enough food locally to feed everyone without destroying the water supply (HINT: Not Nevada) might actually catch on…

It’s not news. It’s the BBC:

Muslim call to adopt Mecca time

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Okay, wait - stop. Surely any scientist realizes that the center (sorry - “centre”) of a sphere or sphereoid like the Earth is not, in fact, on the surface? In fact, let’s diagram that, shall we?

This is a sphere:

Note where the center of the sphere is not:

Any questions?

I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about the Texas polygamy case for a while now… and I’m still not sure if I’m going to go where I want to with this, but, at this point, it’s time to either do this or get off the pot, as the colloquial expression goes. Just as a heads-up, though, this is going to be a pretty long and involved post.

First, a bit of disclosure: For a brief point in my life, I was a Mormon. Got baptized and everything. It’s a long and not particularly interesting story how that happened - it mostly revolves around me trying to accommodate my ex’s religious viewpoint of the time - but, due to the experience and my exposure with Mormons through my ex, her family, and their church, I’ve developed a bit of insight on subjects like this. In fact, in the distant past, I even threw together a somewhat ill-advised post on polygamy, arguing that we shouldn’t have it because we don’t have the legal framework to handle it. For what it’s worth, I was dead right - as Ace pointed out recently, the Texas court system is doing its best to simulate the infamous Mac beach ball of death.

With that out of the way, let’s dig into some of the facts, near as I can ascertain them:

Who are the polygamists?

They belong to the Fundamantalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a splinter group of the church that most people refer to as the “Mormons”.

Are these guys Mormons?

Depends on who you ask and what you define as a “Mormon”. As far as the “official” Latter Day Saints are concerned (i.e. the ones based in Salt Lake City that bring missionaries to your door), the only Mormons are the ones that belong to the LDS Church, which means the FLDS group is not “Mormon”. That said, the FLDS do self-identify as “Mormons”, so what’s the real answer here?

Most anyone with any familiarity with the Mormons are at least passably aware of their beliefs, notably:

Take Christianity and add the following:
1. Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God.
2. The Mormon Church has a Prophet at the head of its Church, as determined by the Church.
3. No drinking coffee or tea.

They’re also aware that the Mormons practiced polygamy at one point, but claim they don’t now. To get into that, we first need to dig a little into the history of the Mormons. Christopher Hitchens, being the irascible atheist that he is, has a rather entertaining but reasonably factually correct view of how it all began - Joseph Smith claimed to find some gold tablets in his backyard, other people believed him, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was born.

What most people don’t realize is what happened after Joseph Smith died. According to the doctrine of the LDS church, it must be led by a living prophet. The entire point, doctrinally, of Joseph Smith being a Prophet of God was that it meant that the original Christian church (i.e. the one founded by Jesus’ disciples) could be reformed - according to Mormon doctrine, the original Christian church lost their way because they failed to pass down the power of prophesy (i.e. the power of God talking directly to and through a human being). However, before passing down that power to someone else, Joseph Smith was shot in a jail cell and died. This led to a problem - who should succeed Joseph Smith? Most people chose to follow Brigham Young, the highest-ranking church official of the time, into Utah. Some, however, believed that the next living prophet was a living descendant of Joseph Smith, which is how the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) was born.

Why am I bringing this up? It’s because the Fundamentalist LDS group that the Texan polygamists belongs to is yet another group that split off from the main LDS church due to doctrinal reasons - namely, whether or not polygamy is doctrinally allowed. In the late 19th century, the Mormons had a problem: If they wanted to remain a church, they needed to renounce polygamy. Back then, polygamy (along with pretty much anything else that happened in somebody’s bedroom) was a much bigger deal than it is now, politically speaking. That the Mormons were openly practicing polygamy in the first place was a big, BIG problem in Washington - big enough, in fact, that the Congress of the time passed a lot of laws that, nowadays, would be subject to some incredible press scrutiny nowadays, such as forbidding bigamous cohabitation (i.e. one guy and multiple women), revoking the right to vote from women in Utah, and seizing all LDS church property. In order to ensure some faint hope for survival, the LDS church forbade polygamy in the late 19th century, and, around 1910, began to excommunicate people that practiced polygamy. Obviously, this didn’t go over so well among some people, which is why the FLDS church was founded.

Okay, so these guys are Mormons, right?

Members of the LDS Church and the FLDS Church can both be considered “Mormons” in much the same way that Episcopalians and Southern Baptists are both considered Protestants. Yes, they share much of the same doctrine (Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, there are Prophets among us today, the power to prophesy on behalf of God is passed down through the living church), but, just as there are some wild doctrinal differences between Episcopalians and Southern Baptists, there are some big differences between LDS “Mormons” and FLDS “Mormons”. Consequently, making sweeping generalizations about Mormons based on the activities of the FLDS church makes about as much sense as making sweeping generalizations about Protestants based on the preachings of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

I heard they have sex orgies, the women have sex with each other, they’re raping children, they sacrifice goats to Joseph Smith, drink the blood of their enemies, and worship Satan. They’re evil, right?

A lot of the news stories out there are stuck in a Deviancy Amplification Spiral. The Jawa Report has a couple of great posts on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:

I’m sorry, many of the charges being laid at the feet of the polygamy cult are just way too over the top to believe and I’ve been saying this from the beginning. Young girls forced to have sex … in the compound’s temple… while others watched [and I’m getting this from TV reports] … doesn’t this sound like something out of a bad move made for Lifetime T?

Yet, a lot of people are going to believe this because we know that’s what must be going on with those people!

We tend to believe reports that reinforce our own world view and disbelieve those that go against them. This is the reason why I’m always skeptical of war crimes claims against our soldiers. The same applies to many on the Left who are quick to believe those same soldiers routinely rape, murder, & torture.

That’s why my Father continues to believe to this day that Satanic cults routinely rape and murder children–because that’s what Satanic cults do, right?

It could turn out that some of the allegations against the FLDS are true, such as claims of widespread statutory rape. But I have a pretty strong feeling that most, if not all, of the more sensationalist stories will turn out to be just that: sensationalist stories.

I could be wrong. Sometimes even the most sensationalist claims are true. After all, the moral of the Boy Who Cried Wolf story is not that there are no wolves, but rather that sometimes the wolf really is after the sheep. But 2 out of 3 times it just aint so.

Let’s see here… deviant group? Yep. Doing deviant things, like engaging in polygamy? Yep. Need to fill some air time? Yep. Time to blow this completely out of proportion by watching Caligula and claiming that’s what’s going on in the compound? You betcha.

Okay, so, if they’re not smearing dog blood on themselves in the name of Xorthax the Space Warrior, what are they doing in there?

Good question. You can follow along nicely here - Patterico is doing a wonderful job of following this story.

When watching the news on these people, keep in mind the following - these people left the main Mormon church because it was too liberal for them. Think about that for a sec - Mormons are the same people that think that electing Orrin Hatch is a good idea. Also keep in mind that these people really believe in their faith and their faith is written down on paper - lots and lots of paper. As a result, you’re going to see these guys trying to live out what’s on that paper is literally as humanly possible and trying to live like it’s 1859. Consequently, you can pretty much count on the following:

1. Orgies? Lesbian sex? Hell no… well, probably not, anyways. Let’s just say that same-sex sexual contact is very frowned on in the Mormon faith.
2. Disrespect of women? Oh, almost certainly… at least by modern standards. You can pretty much count on the women being treated like many wives of the late 19th century were treated - roughly. You can also count on the women acting like ideal wives of the 19th century, meaning they’re cranking out lots of children and backing up their man all the way.
3. Underage marriage? Almost certainly - remember, these are people pretending it’s the 19th century. They’re living according to the rules of 19th century society, which had very different views about when it was acceptable for a young woman to enter into marriage. So, yes, the 13 year-old pregnant girl definitely passes muster on this one.
4. Incest? Probably, but not directly because of religious belief - there’s just not that many families in this group. Consequently, I doubt there’s much of the father-daughter stuff going on, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find first cousins playing around.

If you really want to know what to expect, there’s a government-issued primer here, which is used by law enforcement agencies in Utah and Arizona. It also explains why the police aren’t particularly aggressive with these groups.

Where are these women coming from?

They’re home-grown. The bigger question is what happens to the boys… and it doesn’t look pretty.

Muslims practice polygamy too, right? What would happen if we found a colony of polygamist Muslims running around?

That’s a very good question.

So… what do you think about this?

I think we’re going to see a lot of sensationalism - it’s hard not to when you have over 400 kids involved in a weird, esoteric polygamist sect in Texas. I also think the kids are going to be royally screwed no matter which way this goes - they’re either going into foster care, where, if they’re lucky, they’ll be adopted by families with beliefs that are radically different from their own, or they’re going to go back home, where they’ll either be kicked out when they turn 14 because they happen to be male and can start getting women pregnant, or they’ll be stuck in a life of doing nothing more than living in a severely warped domestic hell of sharing their husband with a few women, popping out babies on command, maintaining the household, and taking advantage of Texas’ single-mother welfare laws (did I mention that our legal system doesn’t adapt to polygamy well?). No matter which way it goes, the kids are going to suffer, if only because we’re talking about splitting apart the closest thing they recognize as a family.

Personally, nothing would gratify me more than seeing the parents locked up for welfare fraud and child abuse. It would also be great if the kids could find decent homes. I also suspect we’re going to go 0-for-2 on that - the lawyers (all 100+ of them) are going to have a field day, this is going to stick in the news for the better part of a year or so, there are going to be appeals for time eternal, and absolutely nobody is going to be satisfied with how this ends.