Rusted Sky

Development of Iranian multiple-warhead missile worries, U.S.A., Israel

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's military said Friday it successfully test-fired a missile not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously, a development that raised concern in the United States and Israel.

The Fajr-3, which means "victory" in Farsi, can reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, Iranian news media indicated.

"I think it demonstrates that Iran has a very active and aggressive military program under way," U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said in Washington.

And let it not be said that the Democrats don't take security seriously.

CNN.com - McKinney: Race sparked tiff with police - Mar 31, 2006

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Georgia, faces possible criminal charges for a Wednesday altercation with a Capitol Police officer, one of her lawyers said Friday that the real issues were "sex, race and Ms. McKinney's progressiveness."

In a news conference featuring actor Danny Glover and singer Harry Belafonte, McKinney said she would be exonerated and that "this whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female, black congresswoman."

I hope like hell her 'progressive' attitude toward security isn't shared by the rest of the Democratic party. Frankly, her worst enemy stares out of her mirror in the morning.

And as long as we're speaking of the Democrats - after a panel of ex-FISA judges say that no laws were broken...

Bloomberg.com: U.S.

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he is ``inclined to believe'' it's appropriate to censure President George W. Bush over his eavesdropping authorization.

Leahy made his comments at a hearing today in Washington to consider a resolution by Senator Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, chastising the president for ordering government monitoring without warrants of calls and e-mails between people in the U.S. and terrorism suspects

Okay, I know I'm being picky here - but is it really expecting too much for the Dems to stop slavering over the possibility of getting Bush in trouble and for them to pay attention to what's going on regarding illegal aliens demonstrating, Iran getting froggy, and their own people acting in ways that (if they had an R for their party affiliation) would normally have them screaming bloody murder? It was one thing when it was just Iraq and the WoT - but Iran's hot pursuit of nukes and their ability to (apparently) field an operational stealthed MIRV, AND the real possibility of severe problems with illegal aliens should be getting their attention. If the Democratic party gets its way, they're going to be in power without a plan and without a clue - and trying to wing AFTER they get into power is going to be a complete and total disaster. I'm thinking Civil War style disaster here at home, with the occasional nuke somewhere in the ME or Europe for punctuation.

And I'm REALLY supposed to take them seriously when they say they can handle the job. Man, they're asking an awful lot. I'd feel better if I thought they actually had a clue about what the job entailed. Because from what I've seen, they don't. And they won't have time to get up to speed - they'll have to hit the ground running. If they get into power again, that is - and I consider it more likely that the party's going to implode first. Which won't do the country one bit of good.

Man, I hate living in interesting times.

J.

He's an occasional commenter here, and has his own blog "Oxbeef.net". He was in town today, coaching for a volleyball tournament. It was a good day, and a good excuse to break off from painting and getting ready for a garage sale next weekend. (Lord, we've got a lot of stuff to get rid of.)

We went downtown via MARTA, which the Little Guy enjoys greatly. The weather was good, and we eventually made our way to the World Congress Center, site of COMDEXes past. We ended up following the wrong signs, and even though he told us he was going to be in the B building, we ended up in C. Well, we wandered back and eventually found him - and watched as his team won.

I enjoyed having lunch with him while She Who Approves Field Trips and the Little Guy watched the various teams compete. We talked about a lot of things, from his coding to jobs to computers to housing - and I've got to amdit I'm feeling a bit envious. He's 22 - and a hell of a lot more together than I was at his age. The little guy said that my friend seemed real nice, and he likes him a lot.

And I agree with that. He's a good guy. We watched as his team won a second time (putting them pretty far up, believe) and then we had to leave out. Good luck to you, Rawb, and I hope to see you again sometime!

J.

The Pinwheel Galaxy

... that it makes the squabbles and arguments here on Earth seem very small and insignificant indeed...

J.

YouTube - Bush Was Right

From "The Right Brothers". Ha!

J.

Plane crashes near Dover Air Force base - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

There's an advantage to large aircraft (and I mean LARGE) - more crush space means better survivability for the passengers.

Tail's gone completely, the passengers in the rear passenger compartment (that swollen area behind the wings) likely were okay. You can just see the escape chute for the crew section forward of the wings.

Wow, that must have been one hell of an experience...

J.

Or, perhaps, your enemy - depending on which way you want the trend to go.

Strategypage - Iraq

April 2, 2006: What you see in the Iraq news, is not what you get. The news business demands startling headlines, to attract eyeballs. It's business, as the eyeballs are rented to advertisers to pay for it all. But the reality of the news is less startling, and consists of trends. These are the current trends in Iraq.

Sunnis realize they can't win.

Sunnis realize that Americans are standing between them and a severe ass-kicking for past behavior by Kurds and Shia.

Sunnis realize Al Quadea weren't their friends. Now AlQ ain't welcome, as in "Come near us and we'll kill you" not welcome.

Americans don't scare, like Osama said. (We do have politicians who are flaming cowards, though.) They're REAL good at killing people, and the 'insurgent' losses from attacking Americans were unsustainable.

Terrorists blwo things up and wreck the economy. The Coalition's trying to rebuild. The "If we can't have it, no one can" attitude didn't work for the Sunnis.

Iraq's building a civil society - one that can run itself.

--------

We went to see Ice Age II tonight. It was a pretty good movie, in a good theater, with a good crowd... which means 'near empty' because it was a Monday night. However, it's also spring break in the local school system, and it was a fairly early movie - 6:45.

I expected more people. As it was, the parking lot was almost deserted. Apparently even with the vacation time people are finding other ways to entertain themselves rather than go to the movies.

Now I wonder why that might be? Let's look at some factors.

For two adults and one child the ticket cost was $21.75. We didn't buy anything at the concession stand. For $2 more, you can get unlimited movies from Netflix, 4 at a time for a month. We paid almost that for one movie, in a theater. (Add in gas, and you've got it.)

Let's see what else was on and coming up...

The Benchwarmers - "Synopsis: A millionaire with a baseball fetish wants to form a team and compete against the meanest Little League teams he can find. As a former school outcast, he is determined to seek revenge for all those who were picked on. To do this, he enlists the help of three men, one of whom has a secret that could break up their little sports trio." Oh, yeah, that's a must-see... right after I poke out my eyes with an icepick. There's a lot fo folks that like seeing people act stupidly - but I'm not one of them. Good comedy, even of the slapstick variety, is HARD to get right.

ScaryMovie 4 - "Synopsis: The fourth installment in the Scary Movie series finds its creators taking aim at both the horror and superhero genres." Icepick material again. Hey, it's okay for them that likes it - but I don't.

RV - "Synopsis: A regular American family sets out on an adventure-filled two week journey together in an R.V." Pobin Williams must be scraping the bottom of the comedy barrel. Saw the preview for this - I wouldn't watch the whole thing with YOUR eyes. Remember how I said good comedy is hard? It isn't just people acting like idiots. Robin Williams has really lost his touch.

The Wild - "Synopsis: In this wild and outrageous computer-animated comedy-adventure, an odd assortment of animals from the New York Zoo – including a lion, a giraffe, an anaconda, a koala, and a squirrel – discover what a jungle the city can be when one of their own is mistakenly shipped to the wild and they embark on a dangerous mission to rescue him. The film boasts an impressive vocal ensemble – Keifer Sutherland, Greg Cipes, Jim Belushi, Janeane Garofalo, Richard Kind, William Shatner, and Eddie Izzard – along with cutting edge animation, and a story filled with hilarious situations." Madagascar redone. Substitute koala for penguins. Sigh.

The Sentinel - "Synopsis: Secret Service agent Pete Garrison investigates a colleague's murder and subsequently becomes a suspect due to the machinations of a blackmailer who knows about his affair with the first lady. Disgraced, dismissed and now a fugitive, Garrison must both clear his name and save the president's life." Sigh. An 'erotic thriller'. I predict it'll do about as well as 'Basic Instinct II' isn't. Secret Service agent servicing the First Lady. Hard to imagine, with some of the recent ones.

Silent Hill - "Synopsis: Rose cannot accept that her daughter, Sharon, has a fatal disease. Against her husband's will, she flees with her child, with the intention of taking her to a faith healer. Along the way, she drives through a portal in reality, which lands her in the deserted town of Silent Hill. Rose loses Sharon there, and she follows what she believes to be the silhouette of her daughter all over town." Horror. And not even particularly good, from the sound of it and the lack of advertising. This one will sink without a splash.

Slither - "Synopsis: A small town discovers it is under siege by a mysterious evil, following a series of increasingly gruesome events." A 'comedy horror'. That'll describe it well - though it's doing better than "Basic Instinct II".

Let's see - what else was at the cineplex tonight? Oh, yeah.

Game 6 - "Synopsis: A playwright (Michael Keaton) who's also a huge major league baseball fan has to decide what to do when his play is scheduled to open the same night as a critical game 6 in the world series." That one apparently stinks. How apparently? It was released on March 10th. It's done about $54k business nationwide since then. It's not even on the BoxofficeMojo charts.

Seems to me like the movie industry's trying to figure out what the viewer wants. Theaters are arguably cleaner than 20, 30 years back. The picture's better, with xenon bulbs instead of the old carbon arc projectors. There's more movies to choose from. Popcorn's more expensive, so are the drinks, and you can now get overpriced hot dogs and nachos. And the bathrooms are even cleaner... kind of.

But... why go? For the big screen experience? There's some movies that benefit by being on the big screen. Serenty for one, Zathura and Aeon Flux for another - there's a need for a wide screen to encompass all the detail. But with the advance of wide-screen TVs that advantage is going away. I can watch a movie on Big Blue, with headphones, and get excellent sound and video, and the chair and snacks are a lot cheaper.

The movie industry survives by putting out movies that people want to see. It seems like in the last five, ten years they've concentrated on a few big blockbuster movies, and a whole bunch of b- and sub-b-list films. And they're not really making money like they used to.

They might want to wonder why. A remake of a copy of a sequel of a knock-off isn't going to grab the customers. Original movies, like good comedy, are damned hard to do well. And they're not willing to put in the work, or so it seems.

J.

... of the rash of NAZI superweapons that were supposed to turn the tide in favor of Germany in WW2? First, a radar-stealthed MIRV warhead, then a (possibly) supercavitating torpedo, and now a SECOND missile system?

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A top Iranian military official said Tuesday the country can now defend itself against any invasion originating from outside the region - a clear reference to the United States - as it tested a second new radar-avoiding missile.

The new surface-to-sea missile is equipped with remote-control and searching systems, state-run television reported. It said the new missile, called Kowsar after the name of a river in paradise, was a medium-range weapon that Iran had the capability to mass-produce.

J.

But that doesn't mean he's got a right to be immune to the results of what he says.

OLIVER STONE - MEDIA SLANDERS POLITICALLY-MINDED STARS

Movie-maker OLIVER STONE has blasted media groups who "slander" celebrities for their political comments - because intelligent stars have every right to question their leaders. The Vietnam veteran, who is a fierce opponent of the US leadership, is appalled every time a celebrity is rudely mocked for making his or her thoughts about PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH and the war in Iraq public, and he urges journalists to be more supportive. The NATURAL BORN KILLERS director says, "We're Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing... (It's) an easy and facile dismissal. "I'm still a citizen, I've served my country as a veteran, I've had many jobs before the film business. I know something of life, having lived to this age. "We have a right to speak and every time we speak: 'You're an actor, a showbusiness director,' we're making it up! "This is not a way of dealing with people. This is slander."

You're not taken seriously? Get a blog, man.

J.

Nothing like making news that fits, is there?

Off Wing Opinion: NBC To Sting Its Broadcast Partner

Via Michelle Malkin, we get news that NBC is soliciting Muslim volunteers to participate in a hidden camera sting operation. The idea here is that the camera team would follow two Muslim men to a NASCAR event to see if they trigger any "discriminatory comments or actions while being filmed". The operation would take place 2-3 times this Summer, with a story to be aired later this year.

I'll leave the media bias charges to somebody else, but here's another angle that folks in the sports biz ought to think about: What in the world are the folks who run NASCAR going to think about this when they find out?

Last time I looked NBC was still one of the circuit's broadcast partners, and now NBC News is attempting to provoke a racial confrontation at a NASCAR race, one that is sure to not only paint certain individuals as racists, but paint the entire NASCAR culture as racist too.

If I were at NASCAR HQ, I'd be blowing a gasket about now, and getting on the phone to NBC Sports in New York. After all, this is ocurring against a backdrop of NASCAR's increased efforts to bring minority drivers and owners into the series, and expand its appeal outside of the traditional Southern fan base.

But you've got to wonder - what are they thinking aside from 'We've got to fake up a good story'? That they've got to run a sting operation 5 YEARS after 9/11 would seem to indicate that they can't find any real examples of prejudice to document.

Are they going to argue that this is 'fake but accurate'?

J.

Heard a radio interview (thanks to Sirius satellite radio) and was massively unimpressed. She seems to think that all the Capital guards should be able to tell who is supposed to be there by sight and not ask for ID. And that they stopped HER after changing her hair style so it looked like she used a cattle prod to style her hair (It's a new technique for the busy woman on the go - "Zapits! One jolt and your hair's done for the day! Fire extinguisher optional.") and asked HER to show ID means that they're racist.

I think it just means she's stupid and arrogant.

I work behind a fair amount of security. The guard checks my ID every morning. If I didn't have my company issued pass, I'd have to get what's called a 'drunk badge' - a temporary ID, so called because in the old days guys would go out after work, get drunk, and forget their badges somewhere. Next day, hung over, they'd have to get a 'drunk badge' to get into the plant and after work they'd go back to where they got drunk to find their badge again.

But despite the fact I know pretty much all the guards, having both worked on PCs in the guard shacks and being in the habit of bringing them donuts every so often (Hey, I'm stopping at Krispy Kreme to drag in a dozen for the office - if they've got a 2fer1 special, I figure the guards deserve a little present. They're out in all kinds of weather, it's a thankless job, and they're first in line to get hurt or killed if some nutter tries to do something messy.) they wouldn't let me on the plant if I didn't have my pass. It's the rule out here. If you don't have an ID badge and a drive-on pass, you don't get on - no matter who you are. (With the possible exception of the company president.)

But McKinney's saying all the guards should know all the representatives, congressmen and senators on sight and pass them through without question - and that SHE was stopped because SHE had changed her appearance and breezed on through Security without showing ID PROVES that it was racist.

The DNC leadership is backing away from her at supersonic speed. It's kind of hard to convince people your group is serious about security when one of your own members goes to great length explaining why it shouldn't apply to HER.

'Cause she's 'special'.

That woman's worst enemy stares at her out of her mirror each morning. She really needs to change that.

J.

Then you might be interested in the post over at Gates of Vienna: The Reavers’ Jihad.

The Baron's guest blogger, Apollon Zamp, details out the similarities between the Reavers in the Firefly universe and the more, um, extreme aspects of Islam. And I can't say he's much wrong on his take.

One thing that's notable is the inability of the culture of Islam to create and innovate. Even the means of destruction they use seem to have all been bought from outside the Islamic culture.

Over the centuries, some beautiful architechture's been created and beautiful art has come out of Islam, as well as good literature. But In recent centuries advances in the arts, sciences and humanities have been sorely lacking in Islamic culture. It's not impossible for Islam to turn itself around... but it's unlikely.

The only way a Reaver reformed was by dying. The lust for death and pain was just so strong that no redemption was possible. Of course, real life is far more complex than fiction. Any reform, though, will have to be preceeded by a recognition that there's a problem.

And I'm just not seeing that within Islam.

Update: JohnC mentions that there's SOME clerics which are saying essentially "Uh, guys? Wanna put the swords and burqas away for a while so we've got a chance to get caught up with the 20th century?" (Hey, you've got to start somewhere...) They have no traction, however - and I would think that they've been told they'd better shut up and tow the "It's all Israel's fault, dammit" line if they didn't want a sudden mechanically assisted separation of their cervical vertabrae...

J.

And a very good point about the Aztlan movement that wants to take back the SW and return it to Mexico.

Bad Example - IF YOU RECONQUERED THE U.S., YOU'D JUST SCREW IT UP LIKE THE REST OF MEXICO

Lots of money quotes, so I'll just pick one at random:

Right now, I have one question for the Reconquista morons: Why do you you want to turn the Southwest USA into a larger Mexico?

You've already proven that you are unable or unwilling to establish a modern and prosperous nation. That's why we have an illegal immigration problem in the first place. If Mexico wasn't a corruption riddled cesspool of economic despair, so many hispanics wouldn't be risking their lives crossing the desert to get here.

So perhaps the Aztlan movement's figuring it'd be easier to move north and take over an already functioning setup. Hey, it's easier than fixing what's broke... right?

Man. There's ALWAYS something to worry about.

J.

Or maybe not.

French unions: Repeal by April 15 - Europe - MSNBC.com

PARIS - Sensing victory amid mass protests and the sliding poll ratings of President Jacques Chirac’s government, French trade unions on Wednesday set an April 15 deadline to repeal a disputed youth jobs law.

J.

There are times I wish I could look at a history text from 2106. After looking over the history of the 20th Century, you'd think we'd be able to forecast problems and understand a bit better that a lot of the things we think are important aren't - and some that we deem unimportant will come back to bite us on the ass.

But there's no such book available. All we have, really, are folks who look at what's going on and what's past, and extrapolate what might be.

Dan Simmons the novelist has done that, with his Message From The Future. And I can't say it's good news.

One thing that I've found when troubleshooting hardware and software problems is that there's no way around coming up with a definition of a problem. The real difficulty is making sure that definition is accurate. When fixing a computer, diagnosing a hard drive problem as a power supply problem or system board problem is usually just an 'oops, damnit, let me get the right part" sort of event. Figuring out what the problems are from a geopolitical standpoint can be something else entirely.

Apparently in philosophy this is called a 'category error' or 'category mistake'. And Dan Simmon's article brings up the question - what if we've made a category error regarding the WoT, by defining Islam as a 'Religion of Peace'? Or defining terrorism as the problem, when it's just a symptom?

I can't say I like his thoughts.

Go, read the whole thing. And Rawb, with your minor in sociology and international relations (yep, I read your blog...) I'd love to have your analysis of this. You too, Jason, JohnC and JohnB and Ben and James. Please, no snark or quick dismissals of it being SF - but treat it as a potential road map. How would we miss the on-ramp to this future?

Because, if his premise holds true, we have indeeded screwed ourselves severely.

J.

It's looking like the trend isn't the way it's expected... This is a VERY interesting post.

Myelectionanalysis.com - Blog Archive - Numbers

81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25

What are these numbers? This week’s Powerball winners? A safe deposit combo? New numbers to torment those poor b*stards stranded on the island in Lost?

No, they’re the number of troops that have died in hostile actions in Iraq for each of the past six months. That last number represents the lowest level of troop deaths in a year, and second-lowest in two years.

But it must be that the insurgency is turning their assault on Iraqi military and police, who are increasingly taking up the slack, right?

215, 176, 193, 189, 158, 193 (and the three months before that were 304, 282, 233)

Okay, okay, so insurgents aren’t engaging us; they’re turning increasingly to car bombs then, right?

70, 70, 70, 68, 30, 30

Civilians then. They’re just garroting poor civilians.

527, 826, 532, 732, 950, 446 (upper bound, two months before that were 2489 and 1129).

My point here is not that everything is peachy in Iraq. It isn’t. My point isn’t that the insurgency is in its last throes. It isn’t. My point here isn’t even to argue that we’re winning. I’m at best cautiously-pessimistic-to-neutral about how things are going there.

My only point is that, at the very least, people who complain that good news coming out of Iraq gets shuttered by the press aren’t crazy.

My only point is that, at the very least, people who complain that good news coming out of Iraq gets shuttered by the press aren’t crazy. I’m a regular denizen of the right-leaning blogosphere (though I spend about half my daily routine with left-leaning sites), and I was unequivicolly shocked when I saw this. Completely the opposite of what I’d expected. My non-scientific sample of three friends, all of whom are considerably more bullish about the prospects in Iraq than I am, revealed three people similarly surprised by these numbers. I’m guessing if I polled people on this site regarding the direction those numbers were going, and people didn’t answer strategically (eg figure I was up to something from the question words), no one would predict any of those numbers were on a downward trend, or were even flat.

Again, my point isn’t that we’re winning. My only point is that if the data you’ve received left you completely surprised by these numbers, what does that really say about the completeness of the data you’ve received?

We get stuffed with junk news and starved for substance. Anyone know who got kicked off American Idol last night?

J.

Protest Photo 1

Is it time to withdraw?

J.

MIT Institute For Soldier Nanotechnologies - News and Events - Tours

Team 1: Energy Absorbing Materials
Team 2: Mechanically Active Materials and Devices
Team 3: Sensing and Counteraction
Team 4: Biomaterials and Nanodevices for Soldier Medical Technology
Team 5: Processing and Characterization - The Nanofoundries
Team 6: Modeling and Simulation of Materials and Processes
Team 7: Systems Design, Hardening, and Integration

Can't make it this year, but I might have to keep this on my to-do eventually list.

J.

I'm pretty much a believer in evolution - all you've got to do is look at the differences between a wolf, a St. Bernard, a Great Dane and a Pekenese to be able to see how selective breeding works. But I'm also somewhat of a believer in a God who created the universe. (Maybe a FSM, maybe not.)

Sometimes I think the Old Geezer sneezed (the Big Bang) and has been laughing ever since. I DO think God has a sense of humor, and this kind of confirms that.

Fossil shows how fish crept onto land - Science - MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - Scientists have caught a fossil fish in the act of adapting toward a life on land, a discovery that sheds new light on one of the greatest transformations in the history of animals.

Researchers have long known that fish evolved into the first creatures on land with four legs and backbones more than 365 million years ago, but they’ve had precious little fossil evidence to document how it happened.

The new find of several specimens looks more like a land-dweller than the few other fossil fish known from the transitional period, and researchers speculate that it may have taken brief excursions out of the water.

Enjoy!

J.

BREITBART.COM - McKinney Apologizes for Incident With Cop

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., expressed "sincere regret" Thursday for her altercation with a Capitol police officer, and offered an apology to the House.

"There should not have been any physical contact in this incident," McKinney said in brief remarks on the House floor. "I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize."

McKinney's comments came after the case had been referred to a federal grand jury for possible prosecution.

You were insisting you did nothing wrong, Cynthia. You were ADAMANT that the police officer was a RACIST, BIGOTED boor who 'touched you inappropriately'! And what were you saying just YESTERDAY?

On Wednesday, McKinney had charged anew that racism is behind what she said is a pattern of difficulty in clearing Hill security checkpoints, arguing that officers assigned to protect Congress members should recognize her, even without her congressional pin.

And it's a funny thing - you show someone respect, and they'll usually respect you in return, if they're worthy of being respected. If you think you can DEMAND respect simply because of your position - you prove you're not worthy of it.

And now they're showing they're serious, a grand jury's in the works with witnesses against you, and you're getting no support from your own side. Time to apologize, eh? Back and fill, try to smooth things over before the hammer comes down on you?

you could have saved us all this, Cynthia. If you'd apologized right away, it'd likely be forgotten now. But you just couldn't resist the face time with the cameras, could you? Get some media folk in to support you in your charge of racism - hey, you'll get prime-time news coverage!

Lady, do yourself and your constiuents a favor. Resign. Have the Governeor appoint a replacement from your district, and get yourself home. Your actions have made you a severe liability to your party - and the honorable thing to do would be to bow out peacefully.

But then - I don't think you'd know honor if it came up and whacked you with a cell phone.

J.

What a concept!

Roth & Company, P.C. - Tax Updates

If this excuse has been tried in Tax Court before, I've missed it:

Petitioner contends that the section 6651 and 6654 additions to tax are not applicable because her parents raised her to believe that the Internal Revenue Service was an illegal organization and taught her not to file tax returns or pay taxes. As a result, petitioner believes that if she ever filed a return or paid taxes she would be “disowned” by her parents.

The Tax Court today ruled that you can't skip your taxes just because your Mom and Dad say you can.

J.

Jules Underwater Hotel

Neat!

J.

Thought it was the power supply - now it's looking more like the system board. Feh. The blasted thing was less than three years old, too. How annoying.

Update: But it's better now...

Seems like the system board had a problem with the cpu cooler being on too tight. I may have cracked a trace or cracked the system board by overtightening the thumbscrews holding the heat sink on. Got it going again - but I'm not too happy with the state of the system board. Temperatures are running a bit high - think I might need some new thermal grease.

Update: Nope - it hung, then screamed during the POST. Time to swap the poor thing out, I think.

And here it was only about three or four years old, too. Ah, the good die way too young...

J.

Three things.

One addictive game. The music's catchy, unfortunately.

Norway goes open-source - I'd suggest Knoppix, personally.

The Economy doesn't suck. US economy generates 211,000 new jobs

Monster Rabbit Invades - Wallace And Grommit needed...

Yeah, I know it's 4 items. Look on the last as a bonus...

J.

And Big Blue is running again - though some work still remains. Still need to get the AGP video card in, the power supply back in place, the wireless card in, and all the lights and fans going, the case buttoned up and back down on the floor.

The Zalman Heat Sink is VERY quiet - and seems to keep CPU temps down very well indeed.

The MSI PM8M-V Socket 478 mATX Motherboard has darn near everything I could want integrated onto it. It's funny - I've been around the PC world so long that I remember if you wanted even something as simple as a video output or parallel port you had to buy an add-on card for it.

Now you can buy a new system board with everything installed - video, printer port, IDE and SATA connectors, USB, network, and 16 bit stereo sound for about a quarter of what a serial/parallel card cost 20 years ago.

That's good progress.

I should be able to finish it all up tomorrow night, if we're not too fried. I'll let you know what happens!

J.

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Wizard Of Oz Collectible Mythical Fantasy Figurines: Warriors...

Return to the Land of Oz with these exclusive, first-of-a-kind Wizard of Oz collectible figurines from Hamilton Authenticated! As mythical fantasy figurines, the heroes of Oz emerge from the past to meet the future. Their powers have grown and now, their Heart, Strength, Courage and Intellect are unmatched, captained by the Warrior Maiden Dorothy and united by the power of the Emerald Staff she wields!

I just noticed --- Toto's on a chain leash. He looks like a cross between a dragonet and a bulldog... with wings and a pointy tail.

Pardon me - but I'm going to go use some mental floss and go to bed. That just...

Urgh.

J.

Ben Affleck: Bush 'Can Be Hung' for 'Probably' Leaking Plame's Name | NewsBusters.org

Reminiscent of Al Franken on the Late Show last October, on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, actor Ben Affleck charged that President Bush “probably also leaked” Valerie Plame's name and so “if he did, you can be hung for that! That's treason!” In full rant, an apoplectic Affleck asserted: “You could be killed. That's not a joking around Tom DeLay 'I'll do a year, I bribed the state officials with corporate money.' That's like they shoot you in the battlefield for doing that.”

Hollywood is based on the illusion of reality, of making sure that a plot is well and tightly written and the proper actors are selected in order to charm the viewer into believing that indeed the people on the screen are exceedingly intelligent, amazingly good looking and terribly competent in any chosen field of endeavor that they might tackle. When you bring fiction to life, you can do that. Actors are GODS, man! They know EVERYTHING!

We ordinary people, however, spend years getting good at our jobs and gathering sufficient information to try and figure out the whole mess. This guy - because of his legendary state of actorhood - knows the whole story, the intricacies of handling classified information, and the US code regarding such better than the lawyers who are saying that there was no 'there" there in the first place. We are in the presence of supreme wisdom when he is around, and should be in awe of his encyclopedic knowledge.

AND he gets national coverage, to boot! How much easier it would be to be an actor - to know everything and walk around with an entourage of yes-men willing to smooth out life's every little bump and irregularity for you, simply for the priveledge of working for a creature of god-like knowledge and competence...

J.

Milblog: YGBSM. had an interesting take on Oz figures. Unfortunately, following some links over on Metafilter (where I got the link for YGBSM) I found a different take on the childhood heros.

SPAWN.COM >> TOYS >> HORROR/FANTASY/SCI-FI >> McFARLANE’S MONSTERS SERIES 2: TWISTED LAND OF OZ

Maybe NSFW, maybe not safe for anyone who actually has fond memories of the Oz books.

It makes me a bit sad sometimes that folks can't seem to leave childhood icons alone. What's next, slash fanfic between Pooh and Tigger? (And if you know of some, I don't think I want to know about it.)

J.

At GE? Hmmm.

Enjoy!

J.

FOXNews.com - Did Pedophilia Hysteria Cause Child's Death?

So a man who wanted to do the right thing didn't for fear of repercussions - and the child died.

Congratulations. We've created a litigational climate where adults are subtly (if unintentionally) encouraged to NOT protect children who are not theirs if such protection involves interacting with them in any way.

Truely we are living in crazy times.

J.

Update: Here's something ELSE that would be of interest. spiked-risk | Article | Don't touch those kids!

Can you imagine the result of raising a generation to be touch-phobic? I hope this is something that will pass quickly...

J.

And STILL there's a Hat tip to Linda.

Telegraph | Opinion | There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998

Whoops.

J.

I don't really like the field. I'm a nuts and bolts kind of guy - I look at a process and try to figure out one of three things.

First - is it something I need to concern myself with? If the answer is no (with reasons ranging from 'it's not my responsibility' to 'It's working well enough') then I'm inclined to leave it alone and pay little to no more attention to it.

Second - if it's something I need to concern mysefl with, then I'm faced with the following choices - do I have the authority/ability to make or require changes in the process, and do I know enough about it to change things?

Third - with the authority/ability to make changes, is it possible to FUBAR the system through carelessness and how is such an event to be avoided?

Yet I find myself facing situations where the answers to the above are ambiguious at best. And I see a number of potentially serious events facing the country - and politicians doing pretty much nothing to make any real changes that could head them off.

I think what the problem is could be that the structure of civil political debate has changed markedly in the last 30, 40 years or so. It's no longer acceptable to simply disagree with your opponent, instead you have to do whatever you can to discredit their case, and preferably destroy their credibility to even say ANYTHING about the subject, and preferably drive them out of politics altogether. So you see elections where the issues are ignored and the opponents digging into the past to try to find something to damage or destroy credibility. (Witness the stupidity in the elections in 2004. 'Fake but accurate' memos, people opining about Bush's attendance without knowing the system, people ignoring Kerry's attendance - but that's merely an example.) My major point with this is the team that 'plays fair' (or at least somewhat so) is going to be at a severe disadvange compared to the team who doesn't care about anything but winning.

Any mistake comes back to haunt you, decades later. So it's better to do nothing - because even nothing is preferable to making mistakes.

It's stupid, it's depressing, and it's damn counterproductive and dangerous. It gives a brief thrill of self-righteousness to the ones that do it - but that and a buck will get you a cup of coffee at your local BP station. But that's the way politics are played these days - we can either accept it or change it. (And like the development of the problem, the solution will take decades.)

Now, Jason was under the impression that the Dems really wanted immigration reform and were willing to work with the President on it. Something has to be done - the influx of illegal aliens is a problem, and the 'demonstrations' were (IMHO) counterproductive as hell. Legal immigration? Yes. Illegal? No. Go back, start the immigration process, don't jump the line, be glad to see ya when you come out.

But to the Democrats - that's a voting bloc that they lust for. Sure, they're illegal now - but when they become legal citzens they'll remember who helped them, right? And if the Dems get them legal...

Well, 11 million's a hell of a lot of votes when you're not doing all that well with anything other than your hard core belivers.

So one of the things that worries me is that the Dems are going to block any substantive reform in an effort to pander to the illegal alien block, and thus stall off any minor corrections now that would head off major trouble down the line. (Like the Aztlan movement.) And when that trouble comes down, they're going to be screaming about Bush not doing enough to head off the problem back in 2006.... which would be ironic if it weren't so pathetic.

Now, let's do a little thought experiment here. Think of pretty much any major problem in the world today as a large chunk of rock heading in to hit the earth. (Say a 1-mile wide asteroid. Severe problem, likely almost completely fatal to the ecosphere. Something that needs to be acted on, and very attention-getting.) When first discovered, several hundred million miles out, all it would need would be a tiny nudge to keep it from hitting the Earth. But political infighting keeps the technological fix from being funded, keeping anything from being done at this time, and it drops to back-burner status.

As time goes on, every so often the astronomers go "Uh, guys? It's still going to hit..." and a great round of screaming and fingerpointing occurs... and after a while people lose interest again and the politicians take up the cause du jour and figure they'll still have time to take care of it... later. Yes, it'll be more expensive and harder to do later - but they won't have to make the hard choices during THEIR tenure in office and THEY won't have to spend the money on something substantive instead of feel-good pork. And who knows what might turn up? Could be they won't have to do anything at all, and that wouldn't be good for their chance of re-election if they spend trillions of dollars without good cause.

Of course, the closer it gets the more force will be needed to shift the trajectory so it won't hit the earth. There comes a time when it's impossible to avert the catastrophe no matter the resources thrown at the problem. Of course, those who tried to get the problem solved at an earlier point and were ignored can die with a self-satisfied 'I told you so' feeling... but that's cold comfort.

For example - France is facing two major problems right now. One is their employment system. It's in trouble - big trouble. To stay competitive, a country needs to have people working. If France wants to be more than a rural agrarian society, they need to figure out a way to make jobs, increase production, and get folks to work. 22% unemployment in the 18-25 range? And they DON'T want to change the system? Dang. Let's work on creating a real disaster here, folks.

The other is immigration. Their allowing and encouraging a stratified society is blowing up slowly in their faces. The two of them may both be society world-wreckers, and could have been headed off with hard choices a couple, three decades back - but the easy choices were made and now are no longer available. The asteroid is going to hit - and that can't be evaded.

Here in the US I get the unfortunate feeling we're looking at a couple of real big problems - one of which is approaching the limit beyond which nothing can affect it short of houndreds, perhaps hundreds of thousands dead, and the other is forming up into a nuclear showdown - which could have been averted back under Carter's watch with a solid show of force backed by the UN. (Or it could have solidified animosity to all things non-IRanian - who knows at this point?)

It's always easiest to do nothing.

But a small nudge can have a big effect at the right time. The time for small nudges is long past, sadly. Now we're in the time of expensive solutions and nobody gets everything they want - including a guarantee of survival. And I'm afraid it's going to get a hell of a lot more interesting before it gets better.

J.

EXOTIC COACH | LIMOJET

Well. THAT would be interesting to park!

J.

The Park Slope Hat Spat: Read All the Emails - Gawker

You wouldn't think trying to do something nice would lead to such a flamewar.

Then again...

J.

If you perchance have a two-monitor setup and a high-speed connection, try this.

Get Google Earth running in the second monitor. Find a point anywhere on the globe. (The US East Coast is good for this...) Zoom in to an eye altitude of about two miles. Turn so that 'West' is at the top of the screen.

Tilt the screen down until your eye altitude is about 600-1000 feet. Grab a bit of the landscape and pull towards you. This should start you scrolling Westward.

Now - Hit F11.

Enjoy!

J.

Blog @ Unqualified Offerings

333 comments.

Add yours.

J.

But not here. Closing comments due to spam.

INDUSTORIOUS CLOCK ||| MONO*CRAFTS3.0

Enjoy!

J.

Oh, this is going to be troublesome.

BREITBART.COM - Iran Hits Milestone in Nuclear Technology

Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday. He insisted, however, that his country does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

When India and Pakistan both got nuclear weapons within a short time, I figured that one or the other was going to start tossing them, and all hell would break loose. It didn't - and I think it was because the leaders of both realized they had FAR more to lose than gain from their use. You get a nuke, and all of a sudden your national perspective changes. Border skirmishes are one thing - blowing up your neighbor's capital is another.

Anyone with a semblance of sanity would realize that. Some folks seem to think that the leadership of Iran realizes that although they may get them, they'll be destroyed if they use them - so they won't dare use them.

This assumes a certain amount of rationality on the part of the Iranian leadership. I wouldn't be willing to bet that part of the world on a shakey premise like that. Unfortunately, waiting for Ahmadinejad to die of old age doesn't seem to be worth hoping for. I don't think he's going to step down at the end of his term, and he's already announced that he wants to see Israel destroyed. And a nuke or two would certainly further that end..

I don't like the idea of Iran with nuclear weapons at all.

Well, I won't be sleeping easily tonight. Not that it'll have any effect on the way the world goes...

UpdatE: Captain's Quarters has more.

Wizbang has more.

MSNBC.com has more.

MetaFilter has more.

Russia's telling Iran it's a bad idea.

So now we see what the IAEA reaction's going to be. I don't look for oil prices to be dropping anytime soon.

J.

Who's to Blame for High Oil and Gas Prices?

Expect higher.

J.

In all honesty a lot of the stuff from the '90s and later leaves me cold. Rap - well, they left off the 'C'. I like some trance and techno - but leave the vocals out of it. Everything else is insipid - seems like the 'artists' run more to pretty faces, good dance moves and a marked lack of vocal talent. 80's rock is okay, '70's okay - but it's more of a 'Oh, I remember where I was when I first heard that...' sort of thing.

So it was kind of a surprise for Sue when I got sat radio a few years back - and in short order SHE was hooked. Every so often Sirius shuffles their channels around, adding new ones and dropping ones in which there's little interest. (I was kind of bummed when their Zydeco channel was dropped.) (Yes, Zydeco. Sirius believes in the niche market.)

There's something for everyone - including an Elvis channel - and a new favorite of mine - "Radio Margaritaville." I believe I'm becoming a Parrothead - even to the point of doing something I haven't done in about 5-6 years... I bought a CD. (Um. Blue Man Group doesn't count, really...)

Well, it WAS off EBay so it's not like I paid full price for it or anything... (looks around guiltily...)

The music on Radio Margaritaville is infectious, good-time party music, and the lyrics used are frequently hilarious. He's having a hell of a lot of fun with his singing, and you can tell.

Just go into JIMMY BUFFETT LYRICS and browse around a bit. Take a look at "Oysters and Pearls", or one of his signature songs "Cheeseburger Is Paradise". (And I was thinking it was 'Cheeseburger IN Paradise' all these years.)

Tried to amend my carnivorous habits.
Made it nearly seventy days,
Losin' weight without speed, eatin' sunflower seeds,
Drinkin' lots of carrot juice and soakin' up rays.

But at night I'd have these wonderful dreams
Some kind of sensuous treat.
Not zucchini, fettucini, or bulgar wheat,
But a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat.

Cheeseburger is paradise.
Heaven on earth with an onion slice.
Not too particular, not too precise.
I'm just a cheeseburger in paradise.

I like mine with lettuce and tomato,
Heinz Fifty-seven and French fried potatoes.
Big kosher pickle and a cold fresh beer.
Well, good God Almighty, which way do I steer
For my cheeseburger in paradise.

And then, of course, there's Fruitcakes.

Yep, I'm turning into a Parrothead.

Better late than never, right?

J.

What Hitler failed to do, the legal system may.

The American Spectator

Three Strikes and You're ... in Like Flint
By Hal G.P. Colebatch
Published 4/10/2006 12:06:30 AM
American and British criminologists have long been puzzled and angered by the fact that Britain seems to have learnt nothing from the experience of New York in successfully reducing crime.

The big drop in virtually all types of crime in New York has generally been attributed to the zero-tolerance policy associated with Mayor Guiliani. Now Britain, far from adopting zero-tolerance, looks like it's adopting a policy of not prosecuting many serious crimes at all. This is the subject of an official Home Office directive to all British police forces. British police have now been told that instead of arresting a range of serious criminals, they can be let off with a caution.

The Home Office says offenses that may now be dealt with by a caution include burglary of a shop or office, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, and possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine if police decide a caution would be the best approach.

Other crimes including common assault, threatening behavior, sex with an underage girl or boy, and car theft should normally be dealt with by a caution, if the offenders admit their guilt but have no criminal record.

New York and London have populations of 8 million and 7 million respectively and comparable police budgets, though New York has about 40 percent more police actually on the beat. British papers retail many incidents of British police, rather than preventing crime, being kept busy "celebrating diversity" and prosecuting politically incorrect remarks and behavior (large amounts of money and court time have been spent by the Crown Prosecution Service on cases of children who have made politically incorrect remarks in school playground fights, for instance).

In Norfolk, where the Tony Martin affair and other matters revealed a state of professional criminal gangs systematically robbing and terrorizing isolated rural dwellers, police recently alerted all officers to the fact a man was still at large after having stolen four soft porn magazines. This desperado's picture was sent to stations throughout the county, and the police released closed circuit television footage of the crime and appealed to members of the public to ring a Crimestopper number if they knew his identity and could help bring him to justice.

There have also been numerous and well-publicized cases of people being prosecuted and jailed for defending themselves from criminal attacks. A storekeeper was knifed in the back as he tackled a gang of youths stealing wine from his Norwich store. He was arrested on two charges of assault.

Shirley Best, owner of the Rolander Fashion Boutique, was ironing some garments when two youths broke in. They pressed the hot iron into her side and stole her watch, leaving her badly burnt. "I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best, "I thought if I did anything I would be arrested." In July 2002, a shopkeeper, Richard Barnes, hit a teenage thief whom he had confronted with a single blow. The thief had previously thrown a punch at him. Mr. Barnes was arrested, tried before a jury, and eventually acquitted after a three-day trial in the Hull Crown Court.

There was a time when British police and the UK legal system were hailed as the world example. Not any more, apparently.

J.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Op-Ed > Ruben Navarrette Jr. -- Blame the Democrats for immigration reform failure

Who killed immigration reform? The autopsy shows it was Senate Democrats.

It's tempting to put a pox on both parties. But it wouldn't be fair. Republicans were tireless in search of comprehensive, and bipartisan, reform. Sen. John McCain of Arizona joined with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to draft the guest-worker legislation, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter made that legislation central to what his committee sent to the full Senate. Sens. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas were vocal in their support. Sens. Mel Martinez of Florida and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska offered a helpful compromise. And Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist showed leadership by reaching out to the other side.

Too bad you can't say the same for Democratic leader Harry Reid, who was the villain in this drama.

Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin-American Citizens, told me that he tried to impress upon Reid's office that it was important to get immigration reform done.

“Apparently, it fell on deaf ears,” Flores said.

Reid claims it was GOP hard-liners who killed reform by running roughshod over Frist.

Baloney. The hard-liners had – by all accounts – no more than 30 votes, including those of conservative Democrats. On the other side, you had – according to McCain – as many as 70 votes.

A deal was at hand that would have offered legal status to some illegal immigrants. It would have made the GOP seem more Latino-friendly, but it would also have infuriated organized labor, which opposes something that was in the mix: guest workers.

After the Senate Judiciary Committee put out a guest-worker bill, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney issued a statement saying: “Guest-workers programs are a bad idea and harm all workers.”

That did it. Senate Democrats sided with labor and sold out Latinos. The deal came undone because Reid refused to allow the legislation to go through the amendment process. Republicans had come up with as many as 400 amendments but whittled the list to 20. Reid agreed to proceed with debate on just three.

It was a masterstroke by Democrats. Labor is happy. And while Latinos are angry, there's always the chance that Democrats can fool them into channeling that anger toward Republicans.

Remarkably, it's working. At a protest in Washington Monday, one Latina held up a sign that read: “The GOP is losing my Latino vote.” At another protest in Dallas, someone handed out registration leaflets urging demonstrators to vote Democratic.

Some Latino leaders don't think it'll be that easy. Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, told me: “I don't believe that it's wise for Democrats to come to our community and ask for votes by saying: 'Hey, we kept an immigration bill from going forward.' ... People understand when they're being used.”

Even so, it looks like Reid and the Democrats orchestrated the perfect deception. Trouble is, they left fingerprints.

The Washington Post said in an editorial: “Democrats – whether their motive was partisan advantage or legitimate fear of a bad bill emerging from conference with the House – are the ones who refused, in the end, to proceed with debate on amendments, which is, after all, how legislation gets made.”

They will talk a very good game - and then find some reason not to take action when it's necessary. Every single damn time - and then they'll blame someone else. From a teen-ager it'd be marginally acceptable - from a small child it would be understandable, though we don't let the little guy get out of things he's responsible for like that. He's almost 8, and has a (slightly) better sense of responsibility than Congressional Democrats.

Damn, but I wish they'd grow up.

J.

Over at Dr. Sanity, you find this little gem.

Dr. Sanity: STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH DENIAL - Part I: The Many Faces of Denial

....

The many examples of this kind of rhetoric go on and on and we have all heard them thrown at us--usually at the end of an argument that someone has lost.

One of more humorous aspects of the widespread psychological denial since 9/11 is that those who are wallowing in the deepest sort of denial have taken to referring to themselves as "the reality-based community". They like to think of themselves as objective and scientific; devoted to truth and completely and totally in touch with reality. Sadly for them, however, it takes more than being anti-Christian to be "scientific"; more than devotion to their own secular ideology to be able to appreciate the "truth;" and more than shouting at each other in a reverberating echo chamber to be "in touch with reality".

Another thing I've noticed is as the years pass I become much less certain about some of the things I used to be rock-solid sure about. There's certain things that have been reinforced over the years, and things that I go "Well, looks like I was mistaken about that."

For instance, I was pretty sure in my early 20s that the country's infrastructure was going to collapse within the next decade. Things I read lead me to think this - and I was wrong. (Shrug.) Other things, about personal relationships and politics - well, either we learn better as we go along or we harden our opinions into something resembling the shell of a clam, and keep them tightly closed lest anything get in that'll erode your determination.

And often you find that the quest for 'perfection' is the enemy of 'good enough'. As an example, my wife has a friend who desperately wants to get married. All she's looking for is a guy who drives a particular kind of car, makes at or above a certain level, is movie-star good-looking and a certain height or above, and is willing to devote himself to her completely from the first date.

Yeah. That's pretty darn likely, isn't it? She's been searching for 25 years, and hasn't found him yet. But she's not going to drop her standards - not even for a congressman. (She sat next to Max Cleland on a plane once, and he was quite interested in talking to her. Pity he had only one arm and no legs. Didn't meet the height requirement.)

We all figure out ways to function, to cope with reality. Some are better than others.

J.

... might well get my vote in elections.

normblog: The Euston Manifesto

So I don't see the Democrats adopting this. Lot of stuff that's just not going to fly, first of all the necessity to act in accordance with the concepts...

J.

pya! Melee

All you've got to do is be fast on your mouse button. And I mean FAST.

J.

Your assignment? As a reference librarian, suggest books for a freshman readling list.

Ace of Spades HQ

Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he suggested were The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Savage made the recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver.

Savage was put under “investigation” by OSU’s Office of Human Resources after three professors filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel “unsafe.” The complaint came after the OSU Mansfield faculty voted without dissent to file charges against Savage. The faculty later voted to allow the individual professors to file charges.

...

“The OSU Mansfield faculty is attempting to label a librarian as a ‘sexual harasser’ because they disagree with his book suggestions,” said French. “It is astonishing that an entire faculty would vote to launch a sexual harassment investigation because a librarian offered book suggestions in a committee whose purpose was to solicit such suggestions.”

First we have a professor at Yale getting the vapors because the Yale president dares to suggest that there might be a difference in the thinking between men and women. Now you have professors launching a sexual harassment suit because of four suggested books.

Back in the day, sexual harrasment was, you know, SEXUAL. Walk up to someone in the office, tell her "Nice rack and ass, toots, and you sure picked the outfit to display them" and see how long you'd last.

But being solicited for book titles? And giving the following titles...

The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian,
The Professors by David Horowitz,
Eurabia, the Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and
It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum

is seen as sexual harrassment?

There's something seriously wrong with the definition. I can see them disagreeing - but sexual harassment?

YGBFSM.

J.

A number of years back, I had a discussion with a woman who was adamant that vaccinations were completely unneeded. That the state of cleanliness was such that things like polio, measles, mumps and the 'childhood diseases' were a thing of the past and the vaccinations were MUCH more hazardous. Why, she knew children who had never had their shots - and they were perfectly healthy!

I tried to get her to comprehend the concept of herd immunity. I pointed out charts where it plainly showed the death rate from the childhood diseases plummeted to near zero when immunizations for them were introduced - and those plummets matched the year the vaccinations were introduced.

It didn't make much difference. She was adamant that vaccinations caused much more harm than good.

Now, apparently, a new strain of mumps is going around. It seems to miss kids, apparently proving that herd immunity works when sufficent numbers of the herd are vaccinated, and fails when they aren't.

BREITBART.COM - Iowa Mumps Epidemic Continues to Broaden

The mumps epidemic in Iowa continued to widen this week and reached 605 cases by Thursday, public health officials said. Although the highest concentration of cases remained in eastern Iowa, the virus that causes mumps has infected at least one person in half of the state's 99 counties.

"I certainly would consider this a serious threat," said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, the state's epidemiologist. "We're doing everything we can to try to address it, get information out, do what we can to try to get it under control."

A large portion of those with mumps are college-age and few are school-age or preschool children. Health officials said that's likely because of the very high vaccination rates among children.

Even with the widespread vaccination, the mumps vaccine is 95 percent effective, meaning just five in 100 people vaccinated will not develop antibodies to the virus and can contract the disease.

About a quarter of the Iowans who have suspected cases got the vaccine, health officials have said.

J.

This seems to be all the rage in the blogosphere at the moment.

Zarqawi, al Qaeda are heading out, U.S. general says?-?World?-?insider.washingtontimes.com

Al Qaeda in Iraq and its presumed leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, have conceded strategic defeat and are on their way out of the country, a top U.S. military official contended yesterday.

The group's failure to disrupt national elections and a constitutional referendum last year "was a tactical admission by Zarqawi that their strategy had failed," said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps.

"They no longer view Iraq as fertile ground to establish a caliphate and as a place to conduct international terrorism," he said in an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Gen. Vines' statement came as news broke that coalition and Iraqi forces had killed an associate of Osama bin Laden's during an early morning raid near Abu Ghraib about two weeks ago.

Rafid Ibrahim Fattah aka Abu Umar al Kurdi served as a liaison between terrorist networks and was linked to Taliban members in Afghanistan, Pakistani-based extremists and other senior al Qaeda leaders, the military said yesterday.

In the past six months, al Kurdi had worked as a terrorist cell leader in Baqouba. Prior to that, he had traveled extensively Pakistan, Iran and Iraq and formed a relationship with al Qaeda senior leaders in 1999 while in Afghanistan.

He also had ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, formed while he was in Iran and Pakistan, and joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1989, the military said. He was killed March 27.

Gen. Vines said the foreign terrorists had made a strategic mistake when they tried to intimidate and deny Iraqis a way to vote.

"I believe Zarqawi discredited himself with the Iraqi people because of his willingness to slaughter Iraqi people," he said.

Huthayafa Azzam, whose father was seen as a political mentor of bin Laden, told reporters in Jordan in early April that Zarqawi had been replaced as head of the terrorist fight in Iraq in an effort to put an Iraqi at the head of the organization.

Azzam said Zarqawi had "made many political mistakes," including excessive violence and the bombing last November of a Jordanian hotel, and as a result was being "confined to military action."

Gen. Vines, who from January 2005 to January 2006 led all coalition forces in Iraq, did not comment on those reports. But he did caution that although the foreign extremists were leaving Iraq "looking for more fertile ground," they could come back.

"The question now is what kind of government is going to be formed and is it going to be credible," he said, acknowledging that Iran had significant influence over Iraq's religious Shi'ite population.

"Iran wants us out, but not too soon -- after a Shi'ite government friendly to Iran is established," Gen. Vines said. "Iran's view is that the current government is not strong enough, and if we pulled out now, there would be a low-level civil war."

But one thing seems apparent from this - Zarqawi's been forced from his favored playing field. If this is believeable, that is.

I guess we'll see - but I'm cautiously optimistic.

J.

This is a computer-related entry, not a political one, so I hope folks won't be disappointed. (grin)

I've recently (like last week) swapped out my system board. The heat sink I got apparently cracked the system board and things were pretty unreliable. So, new heatsink time and new system board... Anyway, after replacing both items things were fairly stable, except every so often the network card would stop responding, the system would spontaneously reboot, and/or my USB mouse and card reader would quit working. For the USB problem I figured it was because I tried stretching the USB cable (I had tie wraps binding a couple of them, but needed an extra quarter-inch to get things to line up with the sockets properly and tried pulling it instead of cutting the tie wrap like I should have done. Cables do NOT stretch, no matter how much you might want them to...) so I swapped that and got somewhat better results... but still things were iffy in USB connections and in the other aspects.

With the network card, I couldn't get it to run with the Airlink+ drivers. Instead, it kept autoloading a Texas Instrument wireless driver. The system would hook up and at a good speed, so I figured 'what the hell' and kept using it. But then I'd get a sudden reboot, and it didn't seem related to what I had (or didn't have) running in the foreground or background.

Finally, after removing and replacing the network card drivers in the Hardware manager for the umpteenth time, I noticed the four to five wireless routers I can pick up from here all were coming in on their default settings - on wireless channel 6. I got onto my router, set it to channel 10, keeping all other settings the same, including my 128 bit WEP password...

And I haven't had the system lose connection, lock up, reboot, or otherwise flake out on me since. And it's still using the TI drivers.

Now, I wouldn't THINK that simply changing the wireless channel would stabilize the system. I can kind of theorize why it would do something like that - perhaps an overabundance of malformed wireless packets was causing trouble with the wireless network card resource managment, which wasn't too stable in the first place - but it seems kind of far-fetched to me. And having found an apparent solution, I'm not inclined to try breaking it again (setting it back to channel 6) to see if the system problems start up again. At least, not until I can swap out the Airlink+ card I've got...

I've bought Airlink hardware because it was cheap. However, cheap doesn't always equal good and the Airlink router I got about two years back always ran hot. And I don't like touching the case of a piece of solid-state electronics and finding it very warm - it makes me think it's either designed badly or there's something wrong with it. Next card I get will probably be a Linksys - I've found their stuff to be a bit more expensive but more stable long-term...

Now, as far as the new heat sink goes - according to the system board monitor program that came with the new system board, I'm seeing a CPU temp of about 100-102 degrees F, and a 'system' temp of 109 at full load with a room air temp of about 77-78 degrees. Since these are well within the Intel design specs, I'd say the new heat sink is doing the job properly and I don't have to worry about it burning out my CPU.

So all's well that ends well - at least for the time being!

J.

BREITBART.COM - Iran issues stark military warning to United States

Iran said it could defeat any American military action over its controversial nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime's boldest challenges yet to the United States.

"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.

As it is, does it strike you as odd how they're sounding pretty belligerent for folks who ostensibly want peace? Who don't want any trouble? Who are looking to PEACEFULLY pursue nuclear power?

There's something going on in the background there - and I can't say I like the look of it. Plus, there's this...

BREITBART.COM - Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated

The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

Can we drill in ANWR yet? Or in the untouched oil reserves off the California, Gulf and Florida coasts yet? Or does oil have to hit $100 a barrel first? (BTW, remember you're looking at a 42 gallon barrel for oil. Why? Beats me - your standard drum is 55 gallons...)

J.

Bunny Movies!

Star Wars, Alien, Jaws, Night of the Living Dead, and Rocky Horror...

Enjoy!

Ready for the FairTax yet?

Our tax code's grown pretty convoluted, and the Tax Reform commission didn't do anything to solve that. (Spraypainting a pile of garbage green doesn't get rid of the garbage.) And there's a LOT of folks who've managed to game the system to their advantage.

Now, I'm a fan of TaxCut software - but I'd gladly see them go under (along with H&R Block & TurboTax) to see the IRS have to seek gainful employment. Estimates of the business costs of tax compliance range from $300 billion to $500 billion each year. That's a lot of money that could be farmed back into growing a business, paying for R&D, or providing pay increases across the board.

I read Boortz' FairTax book last year, and it makes a lot of sense to me. I'm a fan of simplifying systems when and where possible - because complexity of ANY system really raises the probability that the 'Law of Unintended Consequences' will rear its ugly head. And with the complexity of our current tax system, that probability is so near 1 that it's a certainty.

Are there unintended consequences with the Fair Tax system? Almost certainly. But the intended consequences of it - more money to the consumer, same income to the government - looks to me to be worth investigating.

There will be a LOT of resistance, however. The current tax code's been crafted to please a lot of interest groups and they won't be giving it up without a fight.

So - what would the consequences of implementing the Fair Tax be?

The FairTax is the ONLY tax reform proposal that would completely lift the federal tax burden, including Social Security and Medicare, from the poor.

It is the ONLY tax reform proposal that will protect every single American household from the responsibility of paying federal taxes on their income up to the federal poverty level.

The FairTax is the ONLY tax reform proposal that would bring much of the $11 trillion in dollar denominated deposits outside of the jurisdiction of this country and our tax code back to the United States to go to work in our economy.

The FairTax is the ONLY tax reform proposal that would make America the number-one tax haven in the world for businesses! The United States would be the only country in the world in which businesses, domestic and foreign, could operate without any tax component on tax or labor.

It is the ONLY tax reform proposal that would sharply curtail, if not eliminate, the influence of the K Street lobbyists on our politicians. The FairTax leaves no room for manipulation for the benefit of favored constituencies.

The FairTax is the ONLY tax reform plan that would make the payment of federal taxes essentially a voluntary act.

Anyway - check out what Boortz has to say about it. He and John Linder have studied the whole thing extensively, and their conclusion is that the current tax system has severe flaws that cannot be plastered over with pretty slogans and minor changes. IndustryWeek : Evans On The Economy -- Tax Cheats Snub Spend-Crazy Feds estimates that up to $345/400 billion would be gathered which is not being collected now.

The dismantling of the tax system is not without precedent. The 18th Amendment imposed Prohibition. The 21st repealed it. There was a significant law enforcement apparatus designed to enforce Prohibition... but they found other jobs.

I think the IRS will cope also...

J.

Pinks and greys - sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. Sheep prefer to pretend the wolves don't exist, and hate the sheepdogs for reminding them the world isn't a safe one. Greys realize the world is a dangerous place, forgiving error rarely. Pinks ... well, no worries! It's all good and let's party!

Confederate Yankee: The Sheepdog's War

Conflict with Iran should be avoided if possible, but not at all costs, and it appears the point of no return is approaching with breathtaking speed.

Iran is dominated by a radical sect of Shi'a Islam that seeks to bring about the end of this world as an immediate shortcut to their eternal salvation. Mutually-Assured Destruction that has been so repellant to secular nations for the past 60 years does not apply to Iran. This is not the desire of the bulk of Iran's people. The Mullahs believe that a blinding flash and momentary pain is all that separates them from an eternity in Paradise.

Iran is building up both their technology and their rhetoric at a time that their current President thinks he speaks directly with their Messiah. There need be no clearer message, one simply has to listen, and the sheep will adamantly refuse.

It is a suicidal path the Sheep have taken, but to acknowledge any other possibility is to acknowledge the failure of their own ideology, an ideology they adhere to with no less fervor than that of Mullahs that would set alight the world.

Sheep and Wolf, predator and prey, they are both blinded to facts by their fanaticism. As Whittle defined the Pinks before:

...nothing is forbidden, convention is fossilized insanity and everybody gets to do their own thing without regard to consequences, reality, or natural law.

The consequences of the Mullah's eschatology and the denial of the Sheep are a recipe for the End of Days, an orgasm of Pink philosophies conspiring to obliterate millions in a blinding flash. Only the Sheepdogs stand in the way.

This is the Sheepdog's war to fight, and fight they must. That is the reality that has presented itself to us. As Sheepdogs and as Greys this is not a war we would choose, but one that has been thrust upon us by the overly tolerant of the West and overly intolerant of the Middle East. Iran's Mullah's would have nuclear weapons, and they have promised over and over again to use them, potentially triggering the deaths of millions.

This must not stand. Iran must not have nuclear weapons, nor nuclear facilities that can enrich nuclear materials to create these weapons. Any and all reasonable options should be on the table to prevent this eventuality, conventional and unconventional alike.

Go read the whole thing - it's worth your time. And follow the links...

J.

Discretion and common sense not required. After Daschle's 'You don't professionalize until you Federalize' speech, I'm REALLY sure that NOW the TSA is doing the right thing.

They stopped and held a Marine. Travelling on orders, in uniform. Going home with his unit. After 8 months in Iraq. Because his name was on a watch list. Because he had gunpowder residue on his boots when he came home on leave the LAST time... when he'd been in combat in Al Anbar province..

Aero-News Network: The Aviation and Aerospace World's Daily/Real-Time News and Information Service

Nice to know the hardware works - even if the wetware operating it seems to be faulty.

J.

Blast this lousy, tiny, poorly laid-out keyboard. Work on a post for 45 minutes, then my thumb drifts over and I hit an alt-key combo that wipes it out.

Drat. Or words to that effect.

Pardon me while I go gnash my teeth. In the meantime, take a look at this and this - let me know what you think.

J.

Thanks to Jason, I've been reminded that the barrel is 42 gallons.

Oil Prices Settle Above $70 a Barrel - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Oil prices settled at a record high above $70 a barrel on Monday, rising more than $1 on concerns about supply disruptions in Nigeria and diplomatic tensions between the West and Iran over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

So long as these and other geopolitical issues persist, analysts said it will be difficult for prices to fall too far — unless there is a significant drop-off in demand, which has not materialized. In the short-term, oil prices could climb above $75, they said.

42 gallons into $70 is about $1.67 a gallon. Gas over at the local Quik Trip was $2.69 a gallon. Let's just round everything out and make it $2.67.

That leaves $1 profit per gallon.

Out of that dollar, you've got the cost of getting the oil out of the ground, of storing that oil, transporting that oil, refining that oil into fractional distillates, then shipping the gasoline to the retailer - and thence to the consumer.

Then take into account you don't get 42 gallons of gasoline from a 42 gallon barrel of oil. You get, according to the info here, Instead, the breakdown is...

One barrel of crude oil makes about 19½ gallons of gasoline, 9 gallons of fuel oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, and 11 gallons of other products, including lubricants, kerosene, asphalt, and petrochemical feedstocks to make plastics.

But let's see. Fuel Oil futures today... closed at 2.02 a gallon. Jet fuel is goiing (according to Holman Aviation near Great Falls, Montana) (Hey, I googled "current avgas price" and he was the first listing with prices.) for $3.76 a gallon, Avgas 100LL (Aviation Gasoline 100 octane, low lead) for $3.89. In Georgia, Troup Air will only charge $3.49 a gallon for avgas, but you'll have to pump it. Full service for $4.13.)

Now, you've got some relatively fixed costs. Distribution and marketing will run you about 14%, refining costs and profits 15% (and BTW, in 2005 would you care to guess what the profit margin was for ExxonMobile? 11%. Conoco was 8%, Chevron was 7%. Proctor and Gamble was 14%, Microsoft was 32%, and Citigroup was 33%) and taxes took out 27% (averaged nationwide). Check it out for yourself here. The site's got osme interesting formatting, but the info gets across.

19.5 gallons of gasoline at $2.69 - $52
9 gallons of fuel oil at $2.02 - $18.18
4 gallons of jet fuel at $3.75 - $15.00 (Split the difference, more or less, between GA and MT)
11 of other stuff, at $3 a gallon - $33. (Some specialty lubes cost a heck of a lot - asphalt, on the other hand, is cheap enough to make roads with.)

Add it all up and I get $118.18. Take out the original $70, and you get $48. Out of that $48 you've got to split out for Distribution and marketing, refining and profits, and also R&D and new oil exploration. And pay your stockholders.

Well, it's a wonder to me that gas is as low as it is, looking at all that. It's interesting looking at the economics of oil... I'm not an economist or an oil expert by any stretch of the imagination - I've probably counted costs for refining twice, and forgotten costs for additives, and missed some pretty basic things.

But it's pretty clear - an increase in crude prices will jack everything up.

And it doesn't look like crude will be dropping any time in the near future.

Can we drill in ANWR yet?

J.

Dr. Sanity has a three-part series up on denial - the causes of, how to recognize it and how to deal with it.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

With a bit of introspection, it's not hard at all to see areas in your own life where denial may have caused problems. Politically, denial is EXCEEDINGLY useful, when you're trying to manipulate people or you don't want to acknowledge what's really going on.

And a lot of folks don't want to.

I posted yesterday about Mrs. Conner. Here you see someone angry. Really angry. Frothing at the mouth angry. Screaming out her anger to the point where it frightens her child. To her, EVERYTHING revolves around just one man. She has centered her LIFE around hating Bush and everything he stands for.

Yet she considers herself normal. That the hate she has is justified. Is that denial? Or is it monomania?

There's an old song from the musical "South Pacific"...

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

You have to be carefully taught, indeed.

One of the things that Dr. Sanity says about denial...

The hidden agenda or underlying motivation behind the denial is very frequently related to the potential adverse consequences that could ensue if the denial were eliminated and reality acknowledged. That is where the unnacceptable feelings, needs, and thoughts come in. The denier (or part of him) has made an unconscious decision that awareness of certain feelings, needs, or thoughts is more threatening to his sense of self than the act of denial.

You've got to be carefully taught.

Now, it's pretty easy to say that I'm in denial about all the bad our country's done. I don't think so, personally. I think our country's made mistakes. I think it's done some pretty stupid things. With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to be critical. I also think we've done some good things, and that some things which looked like mistakes at the time (confronting the USSR in the '80s) were actually very much the right way to go. I don't look at the idiots who perpetrated Abu Grhaib and see the whole Army in them - I know better. I know that our military is made of people - not robots - and that people can be both good and bad but tend to run much more toward the good.

The bad tend to make themselves very apparent indeed.

But denial - that would tend to shade things so that the bad is all that's seen, all that's important. Breaking out of that, accepting that reality is much more complex and emotionally dangerous than simple sound bites and slogans could possibly cover isn't an easy thing to do. You see it on the economy - where things are good, but a lot of people are denying it. You see it on the war - which is going well, but people are denying that because it isn't perfect. People are dying! AMERICANS are dying!

But I feel there's a time coming where avoiding reality isn't going to be an option.

On the left, there's a good bit of denial going on. The most dangerous man in the world right now is Bush. He wants to impose a theocracy on the US, with himself as Supreme Leader for life. He wants to steal all Iraq's oil, and leave them NOTHING. He's making the rich richer by lowering taxes. He's champing at the bit to nuke Iran. He WANTS a war, because it'll prove he's got a big dick. (Hmm. How tall is Dick Cheney again?) 5-second slogans. 5-second explainations. 5-second justifications for disliking Bush.

5-second reasons for entering into denial.

Reality exists. Denial doesn't cope with it.

J.

Fancy that.

OPEC believes oil prices are too high: delegate - Netscape News

DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC believes oil prices are too steep, after setting a fresh record high above $70 a barrel, and the rise is not justified by market fundamentals, a senior OPEC delegate said on Tuesday.

The delegate said there was no shortage of crude oil supply and that OPEC giant Saudi Arabia and other producers had pledged in the past to keep markets well supplied.

I think OPEC sees that oil at this level is going to really spur development of replacements. They've been running the scam for a long time, but now they realize the marks are feeling screwed and they're about to pack up and go elsewhere.

And they're got NOTHIN' if they don't sell their oil. No money, no influence, no imports - they'll be in trouble. It might not happen for a few decades - maybe three or four, but they can see the writing on the wall.

J.

The librarian accused of harassment was cleared.

Inside Higher Ed :: Quick Takes: Ohio State Librarian Cleared

Ohio State University officials on Friday cleared Scott Savage, a librarian at the Mansfield campus, of harassment charges filed against him based on his recommendation of an anti-gay book for a freshman reading assignment. A conservative group had threatened to sue the university if the charges were not dropped. They were dropped the same day that the group went public with its complaints about the way the librarian was being treated.

As it is, the damage may have been done anyway, according to some of his comments in Inside Higher Ed :: Tolerance and a Reading Selection

Well, I must disagree a bit...with our anonymous “Colleague”
Some thoughts:

It is 6:00 pm on 4/17. No one has told me that I have been “cleared” of the harassment charge. It is now being claimed that “there was no finding of harassment” on April 6.

My four conservative titles were offered tongue-in-cheek after one of the professors on the committee claimed that the book chosen needed to be polarizing on behalf of university policies in favor of homosexuality and against fundamental Christians. I was making the point that some committee members would never accept a book that was polarizing if it went against campus orthodoxy.

I was right about that, eh?

It is disingenious to claim that the supposed “unsafe” comments were due to sending my responding email to “a public, conservative, openly anti-gay, website.” (It was the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which even “Colleague’s” Dean recognizes as a non-partisan, balanced organization defending everyone’s rights.)

The website had nothing to do with the harassment accusations. Read the email from Hamlin in response to my email:

“On the matter of homophobia, I think you should be rather careful, Scott. OSU’s policy on discrimination is not simply a matter of academic orthodoxy, but a matter of human rights. Re. Kupelian’s book, would you advocate a book that was racist or antisemitic, or are you arguing that homosexuals are not in the same category and that homphobia is not therefore a matter of discrimination but of rational argument? And what are we supposed to make of the fact that Kupelian’s Armenian family died in the holocaust? Does this mean that he then has the right to spout bigotry about other minorities with impunity? As for Dr. Reisman, Norman’s response seems sufficient. Your championship of intellectual freedom seems more than a little peculiar.”

Here is Norman Jones’ complaint to my boss:

“Dear Beth,

I feel it important as a faculty member here who relies on the library to tell you that Scott Savage’s decision to stand by his recommendation of this anti-gay book for our First Year Reading Experience, especially based on the reasoning he offers, severely damages my confidence in the library and its staff here at OSU-Mansfield. It will affect not only my use of the library staff in conducting my own research, but also my use of the library staff in teaching and constructing research projects for my students.

With deep regret,Norman”

Nothing there about outside organizations. The faculty assemblies on March 13 and 15 were quite clear in stating it was sexual harassment for me to suggest the book. There is no way to spin it, except maybe by fibbing.

As for whether everyone on campus is somehow obligated to report a claim of harassment, when that claim on its face is patently absurd and clearly violates protected speech rights and academic freedom, I leave for those outside of this Wonderland to decide.

Was I targeted because I was a Christian? Or maybe just because, as a plain Christian the assumption was that I am too “fundamentalist” or stupid to recognize suppression?

Those are interesting questions, and my colleagues have documented their beliefs so well that I leave it up to you, the readers.

You should, however, request of OSU-Mansfield the minutes of the faculty assemblies on March 13 and March 15, in order to have a full understanding of what has happened here. They are public documents, and they truly speak for themselves.

If you have become a disembodied brain chattering away in this forum, please take a moment to reconnect with your heart and imagine that it was you who was falsely and publicly accused of sexual harassment by “Colleague” and 20 of his or her faculty members. Imagine that you have been by God’s grace a faithful husband and father for 16 years in word and deed, and have never in that time told a dirty joke, or accepted it when people spoke hatefully of others. Imagine that on any given day at work you may be confronted by views and people with whom you disagree, but, in the words of those who work with you:

“I witness his work every day in answering reference questions, instructing library classes, collection development and grant writing. His personal beliefs do not enter into his professional life. He is an excellent and highly skilled librarian. His professional actions embody the spirit of intellectual freedom, rather than being influenced by his personal beliefs. There may be those who do not believe this, but there exists not one soul on this campus who knows his work better than I, and as such I hope that will carry some weight with you.” “Colleague” has already read this testimony.

Imagine it is you. Now go home and tell your family what is happening to you. Explain it to your friends and neighbors, all of whom are very religious and are very concerned about morals.

Okay, now go on back to arguing about which book selections are or are not harassing. Meanwhile I will be imagining how one lives down a smear of this dimension.

But Jason was right. It's been dropped. How he can regain his good name is another matter. Because there's plenty of people who will be glad to carry a grudge against him for years to come - cleared or not.

J.

Gotta keep your story straight...

FOXNews.com - Zinni's Zinger? - Brit Hume | Special Report

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Former Clinton CENTCOM commander, Anthony Zinni — the most prominent of the retired generals attacking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — now says that, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, "What bothered me ... [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn't fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD."

But in early 2000, Zinni told Congress "Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region," adding, "Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions ... Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months."

Of course, he DID say... "Probably".

UPDATE: Looks like the good General DOES have a book coming out - or at least he's going on a book tour, which would imply the same thing. There's also commentary about his history, coming from Marines. It's worth your time.

The upshot of it is, IMHO, that Zinni's got a right to speak up, but IF he originally had reservations about all this the time to voice them was BEFORE everything kicked off. Waiting until after you retire, while the war is still going on, is very bad timing on his part.

J.

I'd like to see this happen. Don't think it will, though.

Victor Davis Hanson on Iran on National Review Online

The Multilateral Moment?
Our bad and worse choices about Iran.

....

The Democratic leadership should step up to the plate and, in Truman-esque fashion, forge a bipartisan front to confront Iran and make the most of their multilateral moment. If the Democrats feel they have lost the public’s confidence in their stewardship of national security, then the threat of Iran offers a Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, or John Kerry an opportunity to get out front now and pledge support for a united effort — attacking Bush from the right about too tepid a stance rather from the predictable left that we are “hegemonic” and “imperialistic” every time we use force abroad.

Finally, the public must be warned that dealing with a nuclear Iran is not a matter of a good versus a bad choice, but between a very bad one now and something far, far worse to come.

I fear it will explode - and would have, no matter who was in the White House or which party controlled American foriegn policy....

I might want to see about finding that duffle bag of my old uniforms. I've only been retired three years - if (hopefully 'if' and not 'when') the shit hits the fan a lot of folks are going to be needed...

J.

Well, I guess we'll see.

Bush: 'All options' possible with Iran - Mideast/N. Africa - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that “all options are on the table” to prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons, but Russia maintained its opposition to sanctions as it hosted a meeting on next steps.

“We want to solve this issue diplomatically and we’re working hard to do so,” Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden.

Bush also said there should be a unified effort involving countries “who recognize the danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon,” and he noted that U.S. officials are working closely with nations such as Great Britain, France and Germany on the issue.”

Of course, that was back in '79...

Ah, well. What will be will be.

J.

To just plain NUTS. Over at Captain's Quarters, there's advance warning of new environmental activism - ANYTHING that produces energy is apparently to be fought against.

Oil. Gas. Nukes. Wind. Tidal. Solar. Hydrogen. Ethanol. Biomass. Anything.

"Not In My Back Yard" morphs into "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything"... and soon it'll morph into "No Usable Tech Sources"...

Yep, it's NUTS all right...

We've created a technological society that requires electricity. It's got to come from somewhere. Making it impossible to create it, or create ENOUGH of it, just won't do.

Of course, if you've got an abiding hatred of technology or humanity, then it might be to your advantage to engineer the situation so there IS a technocrash. The downside of that is that when the crash happens, your influence will immediately disappear. Undernourished folks aren't going to worry about the delicate sensitivities of PETA, and folks looking for electricity aren't going to give a shit about Greenpeace. Your only hope would be a DEEP enough crash that wood's the only remaining or even potentially available fuel source, and I don't think that would happen without some severe stupidity on the part of a LOT of legislators.

J.

I recently sent e-mails to my Senators about the Fair Tax proposal. This is the reply I got back from Sen. Chambliss.

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concerns
about the Fair Tax. It is good to hear from you.

On January 24, 2005, I introduced S. 25, "The Fair Tax Act
of 2005." This bill, if enacted, would uproot our current unjust
progressive tax code and replace it with a simpler, fairer one by
repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal
Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax. I believe our
antiquated tax code, that was implemented in 1913 and has since
been modified numerous times, is overly complicated and
desperately in need of an overhaul.

The Fair Tax, otherwise known as a national sales tax,
would replace our current system which is based on annual income
with a tax on goods and services. The Fair Tax is a consumption
tax - the more you buy, the more you pay.

The Fair Tax Act of 2005 would repeal the individual
income tax, the corporate income tax, capital gains taxes, all
payroll taxes, the self-employment tax, and the Federal estate and
gift taxes in lieu of a 23% tax on the final sale of all goods and
services. The eradication of these taxes will not only bring about
equality within our tax system, it will also bring about simplicity.
Social Security and Medicare benefits would remain untouched
under the Fair Tax bill; there would be no financial reductions to
either one of these vital programs.

And lastly, under this bill, every American would receive a
monthly rebate check equal to spending up to the federal poverty
level set by the Department of Health and Human Services
guidelines. This rebate would ensure that no American pays taxes
on the purchase of necessities.

The Fair Tax creates a fairer, simpler code that allows
every American the freedom to determine his or her own priorities
and opportunities.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. As
always, I appreciate hearing from you. In the meantime, if you
would like to receive timely e-mail alerts regarding the latest
congressional actions and my weekly e-newsletter, please sign up
via my web site at: www.chambliss.senate.gov.

Sincerely,

Saxby Chambliss
United States Senate

BTW, if you're looking to get a copy, try Amazon.com - the lowest price is $7.05.

It's also interesting reading the reviews. It's absolutely AMAZING to me how many one-star reviewers there are who's ONLY review is of this book, and those reviews are (to say the least) skimpy in their details as far as objections go. As one positive reviewer put it -

Point 1: Though there are many, many 'talking heads' that oppose the FairTax, there are NO credible scholarly reports that can refute even a single claim. Not even one.

Point 2: Most, if not all the numbers I've seen in the negative reviews on here are wrong in so many ways. I can only assume that they are ignorant or lying on purpose including the one gal/fellow who thinks coming up with 20+ different Amazon IDs so they can post nearly the same review over and over is convincing anyone. The numbers in the book are very accurate and have been pored over by both proponents and critics of the FairTax.

Point 3: The poor do extremely well under the FairTax (due to lowered costs and the prebate) and the working poor do best of all (as they also get to keep their social security and medicare deductions).

Point 4: Those who have read AND UNDERSTAND Adam Smith's theories realize that an income tax BY ITS ESSENTIAL NATURE has to distort the efficient functioning of the marketplace. Removing income taxes allows people and businesses to make more efficient/better decisions and therefore all money spent is better spent. Also try reading Freedom to Choose by the Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman and his wife Rose Friedman. Not that the Nobel Prizes have always been handed out wisely, but in this case they chose well.

Well, hell. Prohibition passed, right? (Of course, it WAS repealed...)

J.

Bash The Block

Haven't you WANTED to punch your way through ice walls? Now's your chance!

J.

Dry_Fire @ CrazyMonkeyGames.com

Enjoy!

J.

But I'm not going to gripe. Where else could I get a pair of sneakers, a pair of FRS radios, a Subway sandwich, and a coffee maker... in less than 35 minutes from the time I walked in until the time I walked out? (Admittedly, I was lucky with the shoes - first pair fit right, which is really unusual - normally my shoe size is 13 1/2 in Nike, 12 in Reeboks, 12 1/2 in New Balance sneakers, size 11 in issue combat boots, 10 1/2 in issue low-quarters, 11 1/2 in Rockports... The chance of the first pair of shoes fitting RIGHT for me is low.) But that was made up for by having to go over to the hardware section to get a cheap tape measure to see if a coffee maker would fit under the cabinets - and the one I had my eye on would have fit - I just wouldn't have been able to flip the top and get coffee and water into it...

35 minutes. I was impressed. Figured it would take at leat 45, without getting the sandwich.

Yeah, I know. WalMart's evil, yada yada yada. Well, big whoop. They had what I needed, when I needed it, at a price I was willing to pay. That's good enough for me.

Anyway, my brother works there as a janitor (in a Washington State WalMart) - and it's the best paying job he ever had. An insignificant fraction of a cent of my purchase today will go towards his next paycheck...

J.

Newsmaking past lottery winner shot several times | Chicago Tribune

The man who collected the third-largest single-ticket jackpot in the history of the Florida Lottery was shot multiple times by Seminole County deputy sheriffs early today after they confronted him in a field near his Forest City home.

Robert Swofford Jr. is in stable condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center after undergoing surgery, Sheriff's Lt. Dennis Lemma said. He will undergo a second surgery this afternoon to remove a bullet from his stomach. He was shot at least three times, at least two of which are in his extremities, Lemma said.

Deputies on bicycles were patrolling the Barrington at Mirror Lake apartment complex because of a rash of recent vehicle burglaries when they came across a man breaking into a car, Lemma said. When they tried to apprehend him, he fled in a black Honda Civic.

Man.

J.

Democrats Call For Action to Prevent Gas Price Gouging - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON, April 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- With Americans across the country struggling with an unusual and unexplained spike in gas prices and with experts predicting a 25 percent increase in prices over last summer, 15 Senate Democrats today sent the following letter to President Bush, urging him to take action to support federal anti-price gouging legislation and renewing their call for a bipartisan energy summit to solve the dangerous problem of America's dependence on foreign oil.

Do you get the feeling that I think it'll be a lot of bluster and posturing, without anything viable being produced by the Dems, and BUSH being blamed for obstructionism? Could it be because, oh, that's what happened last year when drilling in ANWR was suggested?

They're going to want an immediate solution. The desired fix? A law against price gouging. Go ahead and laugh, but the rising price of crude OBVIOUSLY doesn't have any effect on how much gasoline costs! Or so politicians think. You pass a law, and the problem's fixed, right?

Well, so they think.

They're looking for a quick fix. One problem, though - there isn't one.

Let's look at some of the factors behind the current high price of crude.

There's an insane regime in Iran, working hard as anything on nuclear weapons.

Iran sits on the Straits of Hormuz - a good place to block if you want to cut off about 40% of the world's oil.

Iran also fronts on the Persial Gulf for about a thousand miles.

And the President of Iran has said he wants to destroy Israel and the US.

Naturally, stable oil futures are dependent on there being a politically stable supply of petroleum and natural gas. Take away that stability, and the prices are going to soar.

Now - one problem we may well have is a feedback squeal effect. Iran collects more nuts, gets stranger, sees price of oil rise.. and thinks "Hay, if a bit is good, a lot is better. $74 a barrel? I'll bet you it'll hit 80" - and proceeds to toss even MORE trouble into the oil markets.

Passing a price-gouging law's not going to cure that. Any reasonable cures (like drilling in places that still aren't politically feasible) would need to be started now to be available in a few years. Conversely, for something to come on-line NOW would mean it was started two, three years back.

And we won't discuss who fought drilling in ANWR.

We are in a trap (regarding oil) that we won't be getting out of soon. Passing a law won't make oil magically get cheaper.

J.

Here's another entry on the price of oil - a graphic showing the percentage of crude, refining costs, taxes and such.

(Oops. Sorry about that - I forgot to put in the link. My bad - I blew it. It's fixed.)

Unfortunately, it's only updated to March.

BTW, expect spot shortages - seems that refineries are shutting down temporarily to change to their summer blends AND some are shutting down for deferred maintenance. Since we've been running at essentially 100% on refinery capacity... any disruption's going to cause problems.

But we can't build any new refineries to take the load off, you know. It's politically unfeasible and outrages the NIMBY crowd..

So - the beatings will continue until morale improves re oil and gas prices. On the one hand, you've got Iran screwing up the crude futures, on the other you've got a lack of refinery capacity driving up gas prices.

I know! I've got the PERFECT solution! We can pass a LAW!

LOL. Yeah. That always helps....

J.

Open thread - talk amongst yourselves....

J.

AAAHHHHH! Run for the hills!

Former Military Air Traffic Controller Claims Comet Collision with Earth on May 25, 2006t

To: National Desk

Contact: Dr. Michael Salla of the Exopolitics Institute, 808-323-3400, drsalla@exopoliticsinstitute.org

KEALAKEKUA, Hawaii, April 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Eric Julien, a former French military air traffic controller and senior airport manager, has completed a study of the comet 73P Schwassmann- Wachmann and declared that a fragment is highly likely to impact the Earth on or around May 25, 2006.

Comet Schwassman-Wachmann follows a five-year orbit that crosses the solar system's ecliptic plane. It has followed its five year orbit intact for centuries; but, in 1995, mysteriously fragmented. According to Julien, this is the same year that a crop circle appeared showing the inner solar system with the Earth missing from its orbit. He argues the "Missing Earth" crop circle was a message from higher intelligences warning humanity of the consequences of its destructive nuclear policies. He links this crop circle to May 25, 2006, and identifies the comet Schwassmann-Wachman as the subject of higher intelligence communications.

Using NASA simulations of the comet's path, Julien concludes that impact is likely around May 25 precisely when the comet crosses the Earth's ecliptic plane. While the first fragment will cross at approximately 10 million miles, lagging fragments threaten to collide. While astronomers have stated that the comet poses no direct threat, Julien argues that some fragments are too small to observe. Astronomers have predicted possible meteor showers indicating some cometary debris will enter the atmosphere.

Julien argues that the kinetic energy of even a 'car sized' fragment will impact the Earth with devastating effect. He concludes the May 25 event is tied in to the Bush administration's policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran, and the effect of nuclear weapons on the realms of higher intelligences. Regarding its importance, Julien declares: "we have to save lives when we have such information to share with the public". He further claims it important "to preserve all data, historical artifacts and precious material in the event of such a collision." Julien predicts that the comet collision will occur in the Atlantic Ocean between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, and generates 200 meter waves. Julien concludes that "each person with this information has to take responsibility to warn potential victims."

His article, "May 25, 2006: The Day of Destiny" is available at: http://www.exopoliticsinstitute.org/EricJulien-En.htm

Sponsored by the Exopolitics Institute: http://www.exopoliticsinstitute.org

So let's see. 11 years ago, aliens foresaw the election of GWB. And because of their forecasting of the tensions with Iran, coming shortly after the problems with the Iraq phase of the War On Terror, they decided it was necessary to whap the Earth and destroy it.

And they warned us with a crop circle.

Okay. Well, that's ... interesting.

I think this isn't a worry.

J.

Oil consumption's up worldwide.

Meanwhile, production isn't - for a variety of reasons.

When a commodity is scarce, it's going to cost more. Thanks to China and India drinking more, there's less to go around. Thanks to that, and the inmates running the Iran asylum, the oil futures traders are going ballistic. THEY make money off it, no matter which way the prices run.

And of course, there's the political posturing that's going along with it. Neil Boortz posted...

Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, really just a Democrat with an R next to his name, has proposed a way to "get even" with the oil companies. You see, since they're earning so much money with the price of oil the way it is, he wants to institute a windfall profits tax. Given the overall state of economic ignorance in this country (thanks to government schools) he just might get it through. But it is a terrible idea. Let's count the ways why.

First of all, memorize the following sentence and commit it to memory for as long as you live: corporations do not pay taxes. The shareholders and customers of corporations pay those taxes. So guess what that means? If Senator Specter gets his way, the oil companies will simply just raise prices to cover their loss to the government. So by "punishing" ExxonMobil for being successful, Specter is really punishing the public. Nice going.

Specter is trying to score cheap political points by validating public ignorance about high gasoline prices. He's pretending to buy into the school that gas prices are high because the oil companies are inflating the prices to increase their profits. It's a conspiracy! Well, if that's the case, then it must be a conspiracy that stretches all the way around the globe. Because right now oil is at $75 a barrel everywhere. That's the single biggest factor in the price of gasoline right there. Do the oil companies control the price of a barrel of oil? Nope.

And besides...don't we want American oil companies to make huge profits? Isn't that the idea...to bring that money home? I guess in Arlen Specter's world, facts and common sense don't rate very high. Just another day in the life of a Washington politician. Oh, and check this quote from Carl Levin, Senate Democrat, about the windfall profits tax: "If the president would call the oil companies into the Oval Office and tell them he's going to support a windfall profits tax ... I'll bet that the price of gasoline would come down within a matter of days."

Oh really? Since high oil prices are a big reason George W. Bush's popularity is in the tank, don't you think that if he had control over the price of gasoline that he would do something about it?

Bottom line: Politicians like Specter and Levin can demagogue this issue for political gain because of the ignorance of the American people on issues such as profits vs. profit margins, an ignorance born and nurtured in our hideous system of state-controlled education.

The price of oil will go down when one or more of the following happen...

The istuation with Iran stabilizes - which could mean accepting the status quo, or an internal revolution.
We make serious headway towards drilling in US oilfields, including ANWR and areas currently off limits.
We make serious efforts with alternative technologies.
We start building nuclear plants again.

Until then? $3, plus or minus about 50 cents... unless the folks inside the beltway pass a windfall profits tax, and you'll see $3.50 to $4 in short order.

J.

Will Press Put Out Fire on Iran?

Nah. They wouldn't want to do that... would they?

J.

Comments closed due to spam

Got this reply from Sen. Isakson.

Thank you for contacting me regarding the fundamental reform of our tax code. I appreciate hearing from you, and I am glad to have the opportunity to respond.

The tax code is a source of anxiety and frustration for many Americans, and I believe that the time has come to pursue fundamental changes to our tax system. It is my opinion that the only way for all types of reform, including the fair tax, to receive a fair hearing is to lay all options on the table. Therefore, at this time, I am not signing on to any one specific tax reform bill. Instead I have introduced legislation which terminates the current tax code and forces Congress to come up with a simpler, fairer tax code.

My Tax Code Termination Act calls on Congress to repeal or replace the Internal Revenue Code of 1896 by December 31, 2008. My bill requires a thorough review of the structure and provisions of our current tax code, including exploring options for replacing the current system with a flat income tax or a national sales tax. It is critical that any fundamental tax reform be as seamless as possible by providing a transition plan. Therefore, another priority of my bill would be to examine the costs that any transition would have on American citizens, businesses, and government. This bill requires that any new federal tax system be approved by Congress before July 4, 2008. If that fails to happen, Congress would be required to vote to reauthorize the current tax code.

Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson
United States Senator

J.

With his volleyball coaching. This... well, it's a tough team sport that makes volleyball look downright easy..

Chinlone.com

Enjoy!

J.

Called my folks today (first time since Friday) and found out my brother had a SECOND heart attack on Friday. (He didn't call my folks till Saturday, when he got released from the hospital.) Why they didn't call me over the weekend, and why HE didn't call me, I don't know.

But he's okay. Had symptoms he recognized from his FIRST heart attack, called 911, went to the hospital - they did some tests on him, he was stabilized until the morning surgeon came on duty and then two more stents were put in... then it was bed rest until about midmorning Saturday - and discharge. He can go back to work next Saturday.

Dang. That's... impressive.

To put this in perspective. My father had a heart attack in 1973. He was hospitalized for six weeks, then he could go home for an additional three months of bed rest.

And I guess I shouldn't be irked - I might be having to go out to Yakima today to take care of his estate, such as it is...

That reminds me. I need to see if he's got a will...

Folks - take care of yourselves. He's been a smoker for the past 45 years or thereabouts. That's not good. He also has a decided tendency to not eat right, or take care of himself well. He's 11 years older than I am - and I'm getting a weird feeling I'm looking at my future.

J.

Three videos on stuff you'd never think of.

YouTube - How to remove whole crab meat easily.

YouTube - How to create original colorful scratch card.

YouTube - How to fold T-Shirt in split seconds

Check out the other things. Enjoy!

J.

Or... not.

SITE Institute: SITE Publications - BREAKING NEWS: The Mujahideen Shura Council Presents a Video Featuring Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

He looks worn, tired - and standing up to fire a machine gun at Iraqi or Coalition troops is a sure ticket to 72-virgin land. Instructing mujahideen... and there's only 4 visible?

More here -

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared in a video posted Tuesday on the Internet, claiming the West of waging a "crusader" war against Islam.

He also said the formation of a new government in Iraq was an attempt to help the United States get out of what he called the dilemma it faces in Iraq.

It would seem to me that he's not doing so well.

J.

Take one 6-panel comic page. Change the narrative. Do that for about three years.

That's entertainment!

Start here... qwantz.com - dinosaur comics

Enjoy!

J.

Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life - A Web Comic

Start at one, work your way down...

Enjoy!

J.

Economy sucks, gas prices high, and what happens?

U.S. durable goods orders surge in March - Stocks & Economy - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods soared in March by the largest amount in 10 months, reflecting a big increase in demand for civilian aircraft.
The 6.1 percent increase in orders for durable goods, everything from computers to airplanes, followed a 2.7 percent rise in March, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

It was the biggest advance since a 7.3 percent increase in May 2005 and was more than three times the 1.8 percent increase that Wall Street had been expecting. Two-thirds of the gain reflected a 71.1 percent jump in demand for commercial aircraft.

J.

Gasoline Price History

Although high, it's still a bit off the 1979-1980 peaks...

Make of that what you will...

J.

My analysis of this later...

Radio Blogger

Why oil is at the price it is.

HH: We're going to talk oil and gas, and I'm actually going to do it with someone who knows what they're talking about. John Felmy is the chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, and he's a Nitny Lion. We're not going to hold that against him. He doesn't know much about football, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know a lot about oil, because he got his PhD from the University of Maryland as well. John, welcome to the program.

JF: Thanks for having me, and we are Penn State.

Read it all - and enjoy...

J.

500KV switch fails in Nevada, 20 meter spark ensues VideoSift

Found on VideoSift

THAT'S power.

J.

Or, to be precise, a pair of them.

Microsoft's announced their IE 7 Beta. It seems to be fairly functional (yes, I know it's Microsoft - but sooner or later it's going to be adopted at work. I'll need to know how it messes up, and what to do to fix it.)

And I swapped out the Airlink+ card I had for a Hawking HWP54G PCI wireless card. It seems okay, but I've noticed some odd hesitations while loading stuff, and occasionally pics come across garbled, which indicates data loss in the jpg or gif. We'll see what happens - that problem just showed tonight and it might be an indication of network problems.

Just thought I'd let ya know...

BTW, I'm also thinking about a site name change. Haven't figured out yet what, but it'll be a new name and URL. Don't worry, I'll warn folks before that happens.

J.

And this is true, according to Snopes.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Richard Lamm on Multiculturalism)

Claim: Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm delivered a speech on the perils of multiculturalism.

Status: True.

A Frightening Analysis

We all know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of American's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor named Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia," explaining how immigration — both legal and illegal — was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.

Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'"

"Here is how they do it," Lamm said: First to destroy America, "Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar Seymour Lipset put it this way: 'The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans."

Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, "Invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

Third, "We could make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: 'The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved! Not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.'"

Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America reinforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school."

"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.' I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population."

"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity! Unity is what it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games.

A common enemy Persia threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to over come two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell.

"E. Pluribus Unum" — From many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'Unum,' we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo."

"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits ~ make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'x! xenophobes' halt discussion and debate."

"Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology,' I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them."

In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."

There was no applause.

A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Every discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate 'diversity.' American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America — take note of California and other states — to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984." In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace," "Freedom is slavery," and "Ignorance is strength."

Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy are deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.

Out on the China Lake Test Range, Google Earth shows the following item.

It's at 36.049134N, 117.506946W.

The 'wings' are about 44 feet long. Across the widest part, it's about 53-54 feet long - at least according to the tools available in Google Earth.

Anyone have any idea what it is? Admittedly, it's not a terribly clear picture - but it seems an odd thing to find at the end of a runway.... And it's a 5000 foot long dirt (I think) strip. Doesn't look like any wind pointer I've ever seen, and it's the wrong place for it. So - anyone else got any ideas?

J.

Can you identify this location?

Enjoy!

J.

WorldTribune.com: Qatar blames high oil prices on fearful politicians

ABU DHABI — Qatar plans to invest $5 billion through 2010 in an attempt to increase the production of crude oil.

Qatari Energy Minister Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah said the price of oil would drop by $15 should politicians end their expressions of concern over a halt in supplies.

Al Attiyah said the record oil prices of more than $75 per barrel was the result of fears and speculation within the market.

J.

FOXNews.com - U.S. Calls for Action After Iran Defies Security Council - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

NEW YORK — The U.S. called for Security Council action against Iran Friday after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was enriching uranium in defiance of the United Nations.

And the last one will go in a big flash...

J.

Air America to Lose Flagship New York Station | NewsBusters.org

Media Week reports that Air America is about to lose the New York station that carries Air America, viewed as the liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh, et al.

You know, I'm not terribly suprised by this. From day one it seemed like they were having problems getting advertisers and stations, and paying their bills. If you don't have listeners, you don't have good ratings. You don't have good ratings, you won't get high-paying advertisers. You don't get the income, the electrons don't keep outgoing on the antenna.

You know what this really reminds me of? A vanity press operation, only dealing with radio megastar-wannabees who think they can be the next big thing...

A vanity press or vanity publisher is a book printer which, while claiming to be a publisher, charges writers a fee in return for publishing their books. Johnathan Clifford claims to have coined the term in 1959. In its very simplest terms, while a commercial publisher's intended market is the general public, a vanity publisher's intended market is the author him/herself.

Well, I'm sorry to see it go. But it's just one more victim of our heinous, money-grubbing capitalistic society. It was perceived as having no value by the listeners so they didn't stay - without listeners the advertisers wouldn't stay - without advertisers there was no income - without income there's no air time - so that's the end of the story.

Update - looks like MediaWeek's back up. Here's the article..

Air America Radio will lose its New York flagship station, WLIB-AM, on Aug. 31. While the left-leaning radio network’s original lease for the Inner City station ran out March 31, AAR managed to get an extension which only lasts until Aug. 31, according to an informed source.

Through an agreement with ICBC, WLIB will be operated as a joint venture and programmed by P1, a company run by former Clear Channel and Jacor Communications executive Randy Michaels. Michaels is expected to program a progressive-talk format, but replace AAR’s network programming with more local programming. A likely addition to the new lineup: Ed Schultz, the left-of-center talker syndicated by P1.

“To be clear, Air America will not go silent on the New York City airwaves. We do not, however, comment on hypothetical speculation,” said an AAR spokesperson.

J.

NPR : Q&A: What's Behind High Gas Prices?

...

The Bush administration is supporting an investigation into possible price gouging. Meanwhile, some members of Congress are talking about a windfall profits tax. Will those measures help?

The government has conducted numerous investigations of suspected "price gouging" in the past; it usually finds that market forces of supply and demand, not illegal market manipulation, are responsible for high prices. The idea of a windfall profits tax was raised last year and went nowhere. Oil companies say taxing their profits would limit their ability to invest in new oil fields or refineries, although at least one proposal, from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), would tax only those windfall profits that were NOT reinvested.

Are there any short-term fixes?

The market solutions are: a) increase supply; and b) decrease demand. The seasonal crunch in refining capacity should ease in the next few weeks. But unless peace suddenly breaks out around the globe, crude oil supplies are likely to remain tight. So decreasing demand is our best hope in the short run.

What about long-term fixes?

They're the same: increase supply and decrease demand. But in the long term, we have more opportunities to do this, by developing new oil fields, building new refineries, replacing gas guzzlers with gas sippers, and searching for alternative fuels.

J.

Win-Lose for the rest of the world.

Radio Blogger

...

HH: Do you think if the United States stands up to them, that that regime can be dispatched in relatively quick order?

VDH: Well, if the United States has the political will...I mean, if they're going to stand up to Iran, ultimately that's going to be ultimately a military option, and the American people have to understand what that would entail. That would entail CNN with collateral damage every five minutes. It would entail large oil prices. If they're willing to put up with that, I think then you can talk tough. But it won't do any good to talk tough unless you realize that that's what it ultimately may devolve into. And there's China and Russia in the picture.

HH: Now Victor Davis Hanson, then, how significant are the days in which we are living? Because the alternative to doing that, and you make it sound remote, and I have to agree if it was a different president, I would think it was remote. The prospect of a nuclear Iran is really extraordinary.

VDH: I think it is, and more importantly, this is a man who says that he's the biggest supporter of Hamas, and yet from his rhetoric, you understand he's willing, probably, to send a missile into East Jerusalem as if 50 kilotons can tell the difference between East and West Jerusalem. I mean, that's how he treats his friends like the Palestinians. He says I'll help you by nuking the people right next to you. I mean, it's crazy. He listens to a voice in a well. He thinks people can't blink, and we don't know to what degree this is staged or real. So we don't have a lot of options. It's bad and worse. Oddly enough, the people who don't want to use military force under any circumstances in Iran should be the biggest supporters of what's going on in Iraq. Because with this recent presidential change, there's a good chance that we could end up with a government that would prove very destabilizing to the theocracy in Iran. But to say you can't use force in Iran, and yet you're not for what we're doing in Iraq, then you really don't have any options that are peaceful.

HH: At this point, when you talk to senior military officials, as you frequently do, Professor Hanson, do they expect military action against Iran, if not by us, then by Israel?

VDH: I think they've come to the conclusion that we're going to exhaust the multilateral option with the Europeans. We're going to try to cajole the Chinese and Russians. We're going to try to use the U.N. as much as we can. We're going to try to hope that dissidents in Iran are empowered by the experiment across the border in Iraq. And then at the 11th hour, when those things are being armed in a year, two years, we're going to act. And they hope we don't get to that, because they see it as a public relations nightmare, but something that we could pull off. It would be, really, an act of war, and we'd be in a war with Iran.

HH: Do you think we have that much time?

VDH: I think we have about a year, myself. But I'm not an expert at it. Remember, this is a person who says that Israel is a one bomb...I think the exact term was a one bomb state.

HH: Right. That it would be blown away with one strong wind.

VDH: There's not going to be a second Holocaust. If you're an Israeli prime minister, and you know that the Iranians have threatened to wipe you off the map, and you know that they may have, months away from a nuclear bomb, you're not going to go down in history as a person who ensured a second Holocaust. We've got to remember that.

HH: So Iran is driving, one way or the other, towards a confrontation?

VDH: One way or the other. And it's hard to know to what degree it's bluff, and to what degree, once they get the weapon...I mean, it's a win-win thing for them if they get the weapon. They can bully the Arab world for oil concessions, cut back some production, they can threaten Israel, they can threaten our bases, they can pass themselves off as an ancient Persian, nationalistic force...It's just win-win if they get it.

I'm not sure it's a great idea to think it's staged.

J.

A couple of days back, I upgraded to IE 7 beta.

I tried to roll it back tonight.

I ended up with an IE 6 that was unstable and unusable....

So, I'm back up on IE 7 beta... and I can't say I'm too pleased with it. Microsoft's done a lot of things right, or mostly right... well, not terribly wrong, 'k? But this - it's not good. Can't quite configure IE the way I'd like, the MT right-click doesn't work right - just a bunch of little annoyances that serve in aggregate to tick me off.

Well, better to learn it now than later at the customer's desk...

J.

Al Qaeda video claims America in Iraq 'broken'

A video posted Friday on the Internet from al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, alleges insurgents have "broken the back of America in Iraq." "Iraq, America, Britain and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disaster and misfortunes," he said. Earlier this week, an Osama bin Laden audiotape was broadcast and a video from the al Qaeda in Iraq leader was posted on the Internet.

J.

Hawking Technology HWP54G PCI card I bought last week? Below is my letter to the company. Consider it as a consumer review, after having used it for a week.

I recently purchased an HWP54G.

The info codes on it are

00120E 12998D
HABTWP54G2T054100404

And I'm NOT happy with it. Went through the pre-install process, made sure the drivers were available, and ended up having to point the system to where the drivers were as it kept trying to install something for a Texas Instruments card.

I bought this to replace an Airlink+ card that I thought was flakey. It was a marvel of stability and trouble-free behavior in comparison to the HWP54G.

After installing this, I tried downloading your latest drivers - and that didn't help any. (And they were the drivers that came on the CD.) IE (and any browser) started having major problems with the pulled-up pages. I'd have scrambled graphics, half-loaded pages, formatting strangeness and the like, not to mention VERY slow response. Something was wrong - and the problems went away when I put the Airlink+ back in.

I'll be returning this tomorrow. Life's too short to deal with hardware that's not ready to work out of the box. As cheap as the Airlink+ was (and $20 is cheap) it's a whole lot better than your HWP54G was at $35.

This is not the first time I've had a problem with a Hawking product - I bought one of your antennas, and the coax connector wasn't exactly well-installed, to put it mildly. I ended up junking it. But I figured I'd try again.

Now I've been burned twice. There won't be a third time.

Signed, a disgruntled customer that'll likely never buy a Hawking product again if there's any other choice, possibly up to and including two tin cans with a wire between them. (Yes, I'm THAT unimpressed with your products.)

J.