Sunday, September 30, 2007

Mets blow it...miss playoffs entirely!

ha-ha.
No major league team had owned a lead of seven games or more with 17 to play and failed to finish in first place.
i feel bad for glavine (roughed up for 7 runs in the first inning of today's game), but, hey, that's the breaks...

Two recent studies on brains--could they be linked?

the LA Times made quite a splash a couple of weeks ago when it published a story about a study conducted by scientists from NYU and UCLA which showed that the brains of conservatives and liberals differ in the way they process information, perhaps explaining how they came to their political orientation. the story begins:
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work...Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.
for comments on the study, the story cites UCal/Berkely professor Frank J. Sulloway, who "was not connected to the study". this could not be further from the truth, according to the blog theironshrink.com. apparently, sulloway headed research in 2003 which found that conservatives were simple and dogmatic. from that study:
“Across dozens of behavioral studies, conservatives have been found to be more structured and persistent in their judgments and approaches to decision-making, as indicated by higher average scores on psychological measures of personal needs for order, structure, and closure. Liberals, by contrast, report higher tolerance of ambiguity and complexity, and greater openness to new experiences on psychological measures.”
it's like deja vu all over again...

it turns out that sulloway's co-author of the 2003 study was a guy named John Jost, who is one of the researchers involved in this new study. but, that's neither here nor there (i guess). sulloway offered his analysis to the news story, that it would probably explain why bush is so single-minded on iraq and why john kerry was seen as a "flip-flopper".

the authors of the study insist that it doesn't show that one political persuasion is superior to the other. they REALLY said that.

which now takes me to another recent study which i read about in a story from science daily.com: Biological Basis For Creativity Linked to Mental Illness. this study, conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto and Harvard University finds that:
...the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people's brains might shut out this same information through a process called "latent inhibition" - defined as an animal's unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition.
this was a surprising finding because, according to the article, scientists previously had thought that failure to screen out stimuli was related to psychosis. now--it's a positive. according to the researchers, "it might also contribute to original thinking, especially when combined with high IQ."

things are not entirely rosy for the creative crowd:
The authors hypothesize that latent inhibition may be positive when combined with high intelligence and good working memory - the capacity to think about many things at once - but negative otherwise. Peterson states: "If you are open to new information, new ideas, you better be able to intelligently and carefully edit and choose. If you have 50 ideas, only two or three are likely to be good. You have to be able to discriminate or you'll get swamped."
...or, get labeled a "flip-flopper"?

Saturday, September 29, 2007

the left and the MSM's weak attempt to smear O'Reilly and Rush

unable to compete with FOXNews on cable, and unable to get any listeners on talk radio, what can the left (and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media) do to constrict the influence of "conservative" voices in the "new media"? take them on philosophically? nah, that usually doesn't work...liberal's arguments are too "nuanced"...or, as Mario Cuomo said (i'm paraphrasing): conservatives write with crayons, liberals with fine-tipped quill pens.

it's so much easier and effective to just take things out of context and blow them all out of proportion.

in the past 10 days or so we've had a couple of classic examples, the first being left-wing "media watchdog" media matters' (mediamatters.org) lame "outrage" directed toward cable TV giant Bill O'Reilly, where they accuse him of being a "racist" for comments he made during a radio conversation with liberal author/commentator/journalist Juan Williams. Williams, to his credit, has rebutted this pathetic smear attempt in a column on Time.com:
So, O'Reilly says to me that the reality to black life is very different from the lowlife behavior glorified by the rappers. He told me he was at a restaurant in Harlem recently and there was no one shouting profanity, no one threatening people. Then he mentioned going to an Anita Baker concert with an audience that was half black, and in sharp contrast to the corrosive images on TV, well dressed and well behaved.
The context being that there was a difference between the self-destructive images which have become the dominant images of the African American community and the reality of what he (O'Reilly) saw in these particular events. only the most prickly, thin-skinned people in the world could consider these comments "racist". Williams continues:
So imagine how totally astounded I was when I heard O'Reilly was attacked on the basis of that radio conversation as a "racist." He was slammed for saying he went to a restaurant in Harlem and had a good time. He was slammed for saying the audience at the concert was nicely dressed. The suggestion was that O'Reilly had racist preconceptions about the restaurant and the concert crowd.

That twisted assumption led me to say publicly that the attacks on O'Reilly amounted to an effort to take what he said totally out of context in an attempt to brand him a racist by a liberal group that disagrees with much of his politics. But the out-of-context attacks on O'Reilly picked up speed and ended up on CNN, where one commentator branded me a "Happy Negro" for allowing O'Reilly to get by with making racist comments without objection.
i was watching CNN the other night, and the host of whatever show it is that is opposite the O'Reilly factor was going APESHIT about this. at the same time, on FOX, Laura Ingraham and O'Reilly were discussing the ruckus as well. and i'm sure Olby was, too, but his show is such a media matters echo chamber that it's hard to watch..

Juan Williams almost puts his finger on the real motivation...but he stops short of saying that the left just wants to shut O'Reilly up, to "Imus" him, so to speak.

which leads to the newest media matters "scandal": Limbaugh: Service members who support U.S. withdrawal are "phony soldiers". this was quickly picked up by the left wing bloggers at daily kos, huffington post, et. al...

anyone who was listening to the show in question knows that this is taken WAY out of context. Rush was talking about one "PHONY SOLDIER"...Jesse Macbeth, who is now going to jail...and, he WAS phony, btw...

he could have easily expanded this to include the recent tall tales of Scott Beauchamp, who wrote a series of "diaries" for The New Republic, , exposing the dehumanizing effects which the Iraq war was having on American soldiers such as himself, which the bloggers on the right exposed as fraudulent, eventually causing TNR to release a statement, which included this interesting tidbit:
Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a U.S. Army private serving in Iraq. He came to THE NEW REPUBLIC's attention through Elspeth Reeve, a TNR reporter-researcher, whom he later married.
amazing stuff. how the left media has any credibility left at all is beyond me.

on a side note, it didn't dawn on me until today how pathetic mediamatters.org really is...their links all link back to their past posts, hardly ever to a primary source. i guess they feel that their filtered version "cuts to the chase", so to speak. it sure makes it easier to prevent liberals from actually hearing conservatives speak in their own words....

update: a link to The Influence Peddler, who has an excellent post with many links that demonstrate how vast and pernicious this "phony soldier" problem is...

maybe we could put Larry Flynt in charge:

new front/technique in the "war on terror"...the use of internet pornographic sites featuring some nasty middle-eastern women is either being studied, or already being applied on the battlefield.

i've always thought we should attack islam this way. every other religion has it's faith, tenets, and morality challenged on a daily basis. if islam were subject to this same amount of cultural attack, and the belief in it could be set on more of a waning trend (like christianity and judaism), then we might all be better off because of it.

My old home town--Huntsville, AL--is bringing back fallout shelters

...because of the terrorist threat. a big one they're re-opening will hold 20,000 people. i wonder how these people be selected? will they use the Dr. Strangelove model?

"Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years"


Huntsville had it's own Dr. Strangelove during the Cold War, Dr. Wernher von Braun, ex-Nazi rocket scientist..

i grew up in Huntsville from the mid-60s until 1980. i remember doing nuclear attack drills in elementary school (where we crawled under our desks). i also remember a middle-school social studies teacher telling our class in no uncertain terms that Huntsville was the 14th target in the US of the Soviet nuclear arsenal...

it's a wonder i didn't turn out to be a paranoid freak.

Global Warming Update: Gore shies from debate

the latest: a challenge from Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who was addressing the UN General Assembly this past week on climate change.
In ads appearing in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Times, Klaus has called on Gore to face him in a one-on-one debate on the proposition: "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis." Earlier in the year, similar challenges to Gore were issued by Dennis Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Lord Monckton of Brenchley, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. All calls on the former vice president to face his critics have fallen on deaf ears.
there are several other instances cited of Gore ignoring offers to debate cited in the article...

more from President Klaus:
...Klaus reserved his unkindest cut of all for the movement that has joined forces with Gore is spreading fear about global warming:

"As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning."
strong words...but he's seen it...LIVED it..

why won't Algore debate the critics? the author of this article postulates that one reason might be the...
...unfortunate outcome of a global warming debate in New York last March. In the debate, a team of global warming skeptics composed of MIT scientist Richard Lindzen, University of London emeritus professor of biogeology Philip Stott, and physician-turned novelist/filmmaker Michael Crichton handily defeated a team of climate alarmists headed by NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt. Before the start of the nearly two-hour debate, the audience of several thousand polled 57.3 percent to 29.9 percent in favor of the proposition that global warming is a "crisis." At the end of the debate, the numbers had changed dramatically, with 46.2 percent favoring the skeptical point of view and 42.2 percent siding with the alarmists.
remember, that result comes after the audience members have been inundated with a steady drumbeat of "global warming crisis" propaganda for YEARS, rarely challenged in the "mainstream media".

plus, a smelly debate would get in the way of Gore's prime political tactic of silencing criticism by labeling his side of the debate a "consensus"...kind of like how some at The Weather Channel attempted to have the "Seal of Approval" from the AMS removed from meteorologists who question the theory...or maybe Gore doesn't want anyone pointing out his own hypocrisy when it comes to energy use and carbon footprints...or maybe even that the "carbon offsets" he purchases to compensate for the waste at his own home are bought from Generation Investment Management...a company the "Hon. Al Gore" chairs and helped to found.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

global warming update: taxes raised, Soros funding research, etc...

my roomie (who is some sort of researcher...a lot of chemistry and biology) and i got into a big fight the other night about whose opinion you should trust regarding the science behind global warming. his argument, as expected, was that scientists funded by corporate interests could not be trusted, because the lack of peer review made their findings suspect at best, and completely made up at worst.

they have a "political agenda", you see...

could it be that perhaps they're not the only ones with an agenda? from the Investor's Business Daily:
How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely "NASA whistleblower" standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros' Open Society Institute , which gave him "legal and media advice"?

That's right, Hansen was packaged for the media by (George) Soros' flagship "philanthropy," by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI's "politicization of science" program.

That may have meant that Hansen had media flacks help him get on the evening news to push his agenda and lawyers pressuring officials to let him spout his supposedly "censored" spiel for weeks in the name of advancing the global warming agenda.

Hansen even succeeded, with public pressure from his nightly news performances, in forcing NASA to change its media policies to his advantage. Had Hansen's OSI-funding been known, the public might have viewed the whole production differently. The outcome could have been different.
that's a NASA employee being paid almost 3/4 of a million dollars to propagandize one side of the issue. i'd pay good money to the "peer review" on his research...well, i'd maybe spend an hour or so googling it...whatever. my whole point was that scientists on the government dole have exactly the same motivation for biased research as those employed by private industry...they have to produce results which make their work seem worthwhile. plus, in my opinion, they have extra incentive to slant their findings...as long as they can keep this "crisis" going, they'll have job security and an ever-expanding budget. they're just like any other government employee i know, and i know PLENTY. they all talk about how at the end of the quarter they've got to start using everything up, or outright stealing stuff so they can justify the requests for increases in the grants. then they just sit around, playing on the internet, coming and going as they please...with that kind of cushy work, who the hell can blame them for not going against the party line?

this whole global warming just smells more and more like an attempt at a political power grab. from an interview with Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich) in the washington post:
"This is going to cause pain," he said, adding that he wants to make certain "the pain is shared in a way that is fair, proper, acceptable and accomplishes the basic purpose" of reducing greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
according to Dingell, who is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, it has to "cause pain" to be taken seriously. some of his proposals:
_A 50-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline and jet fuel, phased in over five years, on top of existing taxes.

_A tax on carbon, at $50 a ton, released from burning coal, petroleum or natural gas.

_Phaseout of the interest tax deduction on home mortgages for homes over 3,000 square feet. Owners would keep most of the deduction for homes at the lower end of the scale, but it would be eliminated entirely for homes of 4,200 feet or more.

He estimates that would affect 10 percent of homeowners. He says "it's only fair" to tax those who buy large suburban houses and create urban sprawl. Historic and farm houses would be exempted.

Some of the revenue would be used to reduce payroll taxes, but most would go elsewhere including for highway construction, mass transit, paying for Social Security and health programs and to help the poor pay energy bills.
amazing solutions...all of them. it's so amazing what raising taxes can do to solve problems. and, as a bonus, it's a "soak the rich" solution! what a genius!

i'm still waiting for my global warming buddies to tell me what the IDEAL temperature is. is it cooler than it is RIGHT NOW? WHAT IS IT???



more on the history of James Hansen...

climate research scientist Roy Spencer (works for NASA, too) on his theory that climate change could have much more to do w/precipitation than human behavior...

hurricane expert Bill Gray in the Washington Post:
"I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people"

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

the "perfect" breasts

cosmetic surgeon Patrick Malucci sez:
"I studied a wide variety of photographs of the most popular topless models to work out the various proportions they had in common and what made those particular features attractive.


"These findings allowed me to form a template around which to plan a breast augmentation, and set a standard of aesthetics.

"Obviously personal interpretation and expression has to be accounted for, but this has allowed me to develop a template that I have been using successfully for some time."


The key aesthetic elements are nipple position and the proportion between the upper and lower halves of the breast, he said.


"The ideal is a 45 to 55 per cent proportion - that is the nipple sits not at the half-way mark down the breast, but at about 45 per cent from the top."

okay, that's real cool and technical and all, but i kinda like these:

Monday, September 24, 2007

"We're sorry you tried to kill our kids"

i've been wanting to touch on this, because i think it's a great illustration of how screwed up the world is.

i can't believe Mattel is actually apologizing to the Chinese people:
Mattel was forced to deliver a humiliating public apology to ‘the Chinese people’ on Friday over the damaging succession of product recalls of China-made toys that the US toymaker has announced in recent months.

In a carefully stage-managed meeting in Beijing with a senior Chinese official, which, unusually, was open to the media, Thomas Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice-president for worldwide operations, read out a prepared text that played down the role of Chinese factories in the recalls.
the washington post has a more "nuanced" take on the apology...sez that china interpreted mattel's statement in an unintended way...

meanwhile, china's war against the rest of the world continues:they're trying to kill our babies with cribs.

it's so disheartening for me to look at all of this and maintain any faith i might have at all for the future. when our corporations have to figuratively bend over and kiss Chinese ass when it's not any fault of theirs, we have to wonder who's got who by the balls. at what point do we have to just say NO to cheap products & cheap labor? i work for a huge multinational company right now who is outsourcing things to mexico like crazy...and we don't make toys. we make things which could be deadly if manufactured improperly.


previously on NGNG...the chinese plot thickens.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Ahmadinejad on 60 Minutes: Was Reporter Following a Script Provided by the Bush Administration?

the Democratic base seems to think so.

there's a lot of caterwauling on the left about Pelley's "tough questioning" of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. well, considering that almost daily he calls for the elimination of israel or some other threat, maybe some tough questions need to be asked. this, after all, is the most aggressive leader in the Middle East.

listening to mahmoud give his "thoughtful" answers is such a joke. he does exactly what his buddy hugo chavez does (and what bin laden is now doing)...he listens to the question, then crafts his answer to appeal directly to the people in America who are of leftist persuasion.

here's a link to the entire interview...see and listen for yourself, and tell me i'm not right.

i don't think this is an accident. all three of these figures have been influenced either directly or indirectly by the thinking of who is considered in some places to be "america's foremost intellectual", the linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky's main area of expertise is the use of language to frame arguments his way and use that rigid framework to chip away at his target. at the same time, when he takes the time to not just ruminate off the top of his head and actually write a book, he writes something like "Manufacturing Consent", where he makes the argument that the corporate media is the mouthpiece for the military-industrial complex (i know i'm simplifying), and since he's a famous, revered activist--it becomes a revelation for those on the left who feel powerless. when you see these guys chavez, mahmoud, bin laden use the power of mass media and speak out against America, it's seen by many on the left as "sticking it to the man". what hooey. matt lauer does it on the today show every day without such a ham-fisted approach.

the thing that strikes me when i listen to leftists or leaders such as chavez or ahmadinejad is that their statements all end up in a question mark...for example, ahmadinejad at one point tonight on 60 minutes makes a comment to the effect of "the american government is spending millions of dollars in iraq for no good reason...wouldn't that money be better spent on the victims of Katrina?" i have no problem with questioning as a rhetorical tool, but what ahmadinejad does in this entire interview is hold a mirror up to america. his "thoughtful" answers never seem to shine any light on the inner workings of his own country.

Will the "career woman" be rendered extinct via evolution?

at least one scientist thinks so...

"Only in recent times have women acquired significant control over their own fertility, and many are preferring not to be saddled with the burden of raising children," says Lonnie Aarssen, a Biology professor who specializes in reproductive ecology.

"The question is whether this is just a result of economic factors and socio-cultural conditioning, as most analysts claim, or whether the choices that women are making about parenthood are influenced by genetic inheritance from maternal ancestors that were dominated by paternal ancestors.”
he's basically arguing that women today have inherited traits which emphasize different interests and goals which overshadow the baby-making biological traits.

he feels that the current trend towards rapidly falling birth rates in developed countries (for example, just today in the new york times was an article talking about how germany is panicked at their low birth rates, and is taking steps to correct it through government subsidies) will soon turn itself around naturally, because:
The women who leave the most descendants will be those with an intrinsic drive for motherhood. The ones who would rather forego parenthood in order to have a career, lavish vacations and leisurely lifestyles will of course leave no descendants at all. Over time those genetic traits that influence women away from motherhood will necessarily be ‘bred out.’

In this way future generations of women will inherit a stronger genetic predisposition for mating and having children as a priority in their lives. Dr. Aarssen predicts that an increased desire for marriage and having children, in both men and women, will be an inevitable product of evolution within the next few generations.
Dr. Aarssen concludes:
“The bottom line from a biology viewpoint is: in order to have your genes live on, you’ve got to have kids. If you don’t, then they’re going to disappear."

more evidence that our airport security is a JOKE

it couldn't have been me! i was smoking crack!

this is heartwarming stuff...get your hanky out...

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Charlie Crist is a cool guy

i was just minding my business, having a burger & some beers with my roommate at The Red Onion in Gainesville. it's a neighborhood bar & grill, kind of off the beaten path for the "cool" downtown crowd. we were just chillin' and listening to our pal mama trish entertain the crowd with her mixture of classic rock covers and bluesy originals.

all of a sudden, these guys in suits burst through the door, looking around purposefully and speaking into their shoulders. and then, my eyes were blinded by the silver mane of none other than Florida Governor Charlie Crist! my god, what a TAN. his entourage took seats at some tables right behind us ("behind", as it related to the stage), while Gov. Crist and a couple of his goons bellied up to the bar, directly to my left.

it was obvious that the crowd was content to let the Governor enjoy himself in peace. one lady did come up and offer to buy him a beer, which i believe he accepted. i'm not sure what this bribe was all about...or that she actually went through with getting him the beer. all i know is that a few minutes later he's got a glass of darker beer which was about half-gone.

all the while, Mama Trish keeps the hits a-coming..."Squeeze Box", some Beatles stuff, some Joni Mitchell...at one point she even caved in to my yelled request and played Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla"--a crowd favorite if i've EVER heard one. after each song there would be the obligatory applause from the audience, and, since i could turn around and spy at the Governor without being too conspicuous, judging from his enthusiastic clapping and the look in his eye he seems to be quite fond of classic rock.

at one point one of his guys who had a habit of talking into his shoulder got up and marched to the back of his restaurant to the men's room, and either he takes care of business faster than anyone i've ever seen or he was just checking the stalls for wayward senators with "wide stances", but that guy burst out of the men's room door in about two seconds, then hurried back over to, i suppose, give Charlie the skinny on the bathroom. it must not have passed the security test, because, to the best of my knowledge, he never got up to relieve himself the whole time he was there. i was curious...i went to check it out for myself. hmmmm...looked clean to me. so, while i was there i went ahead and did my business and then did what i was shocked to hear this past week was a lot less common practice than i ever would've figured...i washed my hands. with soap. i was thinking ahead...
i might shake the governor's hand..

i stroll back to my table and proceed to toss back yet another beer. all of a sudden, a shot out of the blue, during a break between applause and another song:
"hey, do ya know any Neil Young?"
it was Governor Crist. requesting Neil Young at some goofy bar & grill here in Gainesville. i was impressed, to say the least...


he then proceeded to put on a charade by introducing himself to the female staff. i would guess that, this being Berkley of the South & all, that i was probably the only person there who voted for him. (on a related note, i asked my roommate, who didn't vote for Crist, who HE voted for...he couldn't remember the Democratic candidate's name...) seizing what i perceived to be an opportunity which was on the verge of dissapearing, my roomate & i strolled over and introduced ourselves to the governor. he shook my roomie's hand quickly, and then it was my turn. for some reason i blurted out "i voted for you, governor". he said something like "keep doing it", and i said something back like, "well, just keep on doing what you're doing". which, coming from me is pretty much a lie, since Crist's politics are geared toward whatever will eventually earn him 100% approval ratings, and he's getting disturbingly chummy with the global-warming gang...but i was kind of starstruck.

like i said, he's a cool guy.

UPDATE: Mama Trish weighs in on the same story...

Friday, September 21, 2007

Amsterdam cutting back on brothels

...supposedly for developing new shops and housing, and to cut back on the crime related to the legalized prostitution, according to this story by the BBC...

so the plan is to cut the windows the ho's ply their trade in by 1/3 or so. sex-trade activists are speaking up:
"We believe that less windows means more exploitation of women"
-Metje Blaak, spokesperson for De Rode Draad (the sex worker's union)


wouldn't it be cool if we in america could have arguments which could produce a quote like that? weird.

apparently, they've been eyeing closing some of the red-light district down for awhile. back in Dec 2006, this BBC report predicted that the action would be taken by the end of the year (which, hmmmm... means they're about right on schedule).
"We're not knights on a morality crusade, and this is intended to target financial crime, not prostitution per se," city spokesman Martien Maten told the Associated Press news agency.
Since the spokesman insists that this is not about a "morality crusade", it makes me wonder...

okay, maybe it's not HIS morality crusade, but what about their ever-increasing new immigrant population, y'know--the ones who aren't quite so "tolerant"? speaking to some young muslim women in amsterdam:
They believe that it is difficult to be a Muslim here given the liberalism of the Dutch society. “I have the sensation of living against society. Sex, for example, is very important to the people around me. A Muslim is like a mirror that confronts every person with their conscience.”
...and, when they leave their "conscience" at home, they can always use a knife like they did with Theo Van Gogh...

update on "Random Thoughts #1"

i wrote about a week ago a lil' sumthin' about how instead of the politicians offering us socialized medicine, a.k.a. "health care reform", they should offer us legal reform, so that anyone in society, no matter their personal income, could have access to the johnny cochrans of the legal world...for FREE.

i think coulter must've been trolling my blog for ideas, because she's barking up the same tree with her latest online column:
"...the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society."
she points out how propaganda organs like the new york times are constantly finding health-care economists and studies which find that american doctors make two or three times what their european counterparts earn!

this is bad, i guess. why, i'm not really sure. stupid, evil, american health care...you make me sick.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Rather decides to sue; Mapes defends the indefensible...

...and, of course, she and Dan Rather's use of faked documents to support their story doesn't negate the story, it just shows the dangers of the blogosphere:
"The fracas scared the bejeezus out of the CBS corporate types who were completely unaccustomed to the rough and tumble interaction of the blog world." --Mary Mapes
"Frankly, the foaming-at-the-mouth response scared me, too. These people WERE scary. Who wants to see her picture online accompanied by digital catcalls demanding that she be "taken out"?"--Mary Mapes (no supporting link)
her argument rests on the assumption that there is an objective ideal in the media today. that's not true now, and it never was. the concept of a need to protect constitutionally a "free press" would be rendered redundant if "the press" were an independent, objective actor. the press is inherently political, ESPECIALLY in this age where visual, SCREEN-BASED images are the dominant mode of information gathering and sharing.

what's really ridiculous about her argument, at least to me, is that she blames (in her description) the implication of a physical threat from "the blogosphere" for the decision by CBS execs to ditch her and Dan...i guess it had nothing to do with the fact that the bloggers (led by Charles @ LGF) had done the legwork she neglected to do, and that the credibility of the entire news department was on the line, and they had to make a move to save it (CBS's credibility).

maybe it is a true story. imagine that...a politician or a young rich guy avoiding military service...not exactly "man bites dog" stuff......

well, they won't even defend their country...

...why should we expect the french to defend their teeth? according to a couple of french dentists (with no supporting sources) in The Economist:

- one million French citizens never brush their teeth

- half of all French do not brush their teeth in the evening

- 57% of French children under five have never brushed their teeth

- the average French citizen uses between one and two toothbrushes in a year

i feel guilty and miserable when i don't floss at least 2-3 times a week, which i thought was pretty pathetic...

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

University of Florida student tasered after questioning John Kerry



i actually was going to check this out...i took the day off from work, but i heard the tickets (which were free) were all gone, and they would be letting people without tickets in later, if seats were open. there were PLENTY of empty seats.

after watching various videos of this, it's hard to imagine why exactly Andrew Meyer (UF journalism student) was being arrested, or even escorted away from the mic, because his behavior was pretty standard for these events. my impression is that even though everything was happening right in front of his face, Sen. Kerry couldn't even muster a "hey, wait a minute...we still have a first amendment in this country...". no, he just kept on talking. and the crowd, confronted with a questioner who was being manhandled by U of F police, were for the most part listening to Kerry, and ignoring the histrionics of Meyer, and his struggle with the police. hmmm....why? could it be because it was left vs. left?

was it because Meyer had asked Kerry if he was in "Skull and Bones" with George W. Bush? note to Meyer...hel-lo...this is a FACT. of course, many like to overlook this, because it's not "helpful" to the cause...

Barry Manilow - you're LAME

he refuses to go on "The View" because of Elizabeth.

according to TMZ, because she's conservative.

E!Online says it's the other way around, that they cancelled HIM (because of his opposition to Elizabeth).

okay, whatever, dude..

Friday, September 14, 2007

leave her alone.



words...they just can't do this justice...

Der Speigel criticizes German Public TV for 9/11 conspiracy special

it's all here if you want to read it. it's pretty interesting. what stood out to me was this section of the article:
Reality, it appears, no longer exists. Instead, what we have today are only various takes on reality, based on a "general absence of feeling," a circumstance political philosopher Hanna Arendt pointed out in her first book, "Visit to Germany," in 1949. In it, she wrote: "One feels smothered by a general public stupidity, which one cannot trust to correctly judge even the most elementary things..."
this captures a feeling i've had for the longest time.

Random Thoughts #1 ... health care reform

i've been too busy packing this week to blog...but i've been thinking about something the past few days.

you know how all of these politicians want to give us "health care reform", a.k.a., some sort of government-run, government-overseen, "socialized medicine" of some form or another...the entire goal being that the public somehow sees it as "free"?

think about the titanic struggle taking place...a struggle between the professions. essentially, the lawyers want to wrestle control of providing health care from the "experts" of the system--the doctors. the lawyers have the great advantage here--they write "the laws", and are backed by the full power of a government which has the power to KILL, if need be, and at the very least, enforces the behavior it desires at the point of a gun. the doctors, after years and years of education, piling up tons of personal debt, go into business and after many more years of helping people become whole (health-wise), FINALLY begin to reap some financial reward for the career choice they made. the lawyers, after a few years of slogging through law school, learning the tricks they'll need to, for example, keep child molesters out of jail, can immediately start earning BIG BUCKS and picking and choosing who the winners and losers are, based upon who their clients are. and, the most successful ones can earn thousands of dollars an hour, making this out-of-reach to "the average criminal".


i say "bollocks" to all of this.

i want to see a grass-roots movement start where the public starts demanding "legal reform". it's ridiculous to watch a poor person completely at the mercy of the justice system with only a court-appointed public defender at his side. public defenders are good for ONE THING only--keeping the courts running smoothly. none of this tiresome defense stuff...they are the grease in the wheels of justice, cutting the deals which ensure that the prosecutors get to shine, the public defendant gets to have a clear conscience, the jail stays busy, the cops stay busy, etc... at every single point in the legal system money is extracted from the "criminal" for violating the laws that the lawyers--who stand atop this legal money mountain--create.

i think it's time for "FREE LEGAL CARE". i think everyone should have access to any lawyer they need. think about it, there may be differences between the doctors that the rich and the poor see, but, you're essentially getting the same result. poor health care can be fatal, but bad legal defense can be fatal as well, PLUS it adds insult to injury by planting a powerful boot squarely upon your neck (and the neck of entire groups, many times..).

FREE LEGAL CARE could be the greatest instrument ever for social justice and fair income redistribution. the new mantra could be "sue, Sue, SUE!!!!!!!!!!"

that's all for now. it's food for thought.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Britney at VMAs


flabby and confused?
"Was that incredible? Britney Spears, everyone. Wow. She is amazing. She is 25-years-old and she's already accomplished everything she's going to accomplish in her life. It's mind blowing." - Sarah Silverman

"Britney's face, legs, bottom and bosom looked amazing. She just needed help with her hair and the right outfit to show off her still very strong assets. The girl did her job - driving viewers to watch and giving people a lot to talk about. Also the performance needed a higher concept - in the past she did school, jungle, drag to reveal a nude color outfit. This routine was uninspired visually and story-wise. Reinvention has a place for stumbles. She'd be less dramatic if she were perfect." - Tangy, NY, NY


is it fair to call her "fat"? i don't think so. i would agree that you don't come out in bra & panties when all you do is eat chicken like a pig and drink a ton of beer.

another take on the recent bin Laden video

from Slate.com, courteousy of Anne Appelbaum...

her take is a slight variation on the one that i took a few days earlier here that bin Laden/al Queada is trying to appeal to the anti-american/left-leaning/nutroots democrat-base crowd.

she points out that:
Real or fake, the message might still hint at the direction in which al-Qaida propaganda, or at least al-Qaida propaganda designed for the Western market, is now heading. In a recent Slate piece, Reza Aslan eloquently described how the organization's list of alleged "grievances"—which now include global warming, corporate capitalism, and African poverty, as well as the American bases in Saudi Arabia—weave "local and global resentments into a single anti-American narrative, the overarching aim of which is to form a collective identity across borders and nationalities."
what Appelbaum sees as the goal:
Clearly, al-Qaida's long-term goal is to convert Americans and other Westerners to its extreme version of Islam.
it's not funny, she says...as she explains:
It would only take a very few such converts to do a lot of damage. The results of the Soviet Union's massive propaganda campaign on behalf of world Marxist revolution were also numerically small, but at the time, they were considered very effective: the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Italian Red Brigades, the Weather Underground. There are always disaffected young people—(American al-queada propagandist Adam) Gadahn is a former fan of "death metal" rock bands—and they're always looking for a cause. Conversion in general is increasingly common across Europe. Some 4,000 Germans were found to convert annually in a recent study, and if only 0.1 percent of them choose the jihadist version of Islam, that's enough to cause trouble.
the way i see it, the jihadists are just furthur exploiting advantages they already possess. even though they claim 9/11 as a victory against the US and the west, there are significant numbers of people here in the US and abroad (for example, a recent study of Germans under the age of 30 found that 31%) see 9/11 as an inside job by the Bush administration or similar explanations....and, of course, tons of others blame US policy for the attacks. a recent poll found that 63% of the French, 57% of Brits, 59% of the Dutch, 54% of Poles, 52% of Germans, and 51% of Italians blame US foreign policy for the attacks.

add to that the zillions of people who are ready to blame the US for destroying the world with our carbon emissions, our McDonald's, and our lack of leadership in dealing with the Darfur crisis....that's a lot of potential bodies for people that subscribe to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" theory...

credit where credit is due--John Kerry criticizes MoveOn.org


--heads-up from MoveOn.org--


Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) responded to the full-page ad taken out in the New York Times:

from CNN: “I don’t like any kind of characterizations in our politics that call into question any active duty, distinguished general, ...who I think under any circumstances serves with the best interests of our country.”

CNN adds:
"Kerry is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who was awarded two Purple Hearts. In his 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry was attacked by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who questioned his service in the war."


i had never heard that Kerry served in Vietnam...hmmm...i might've voted for him...

if the Hsu fits...

you won't be seeing much of this story since it is an example of MASSIVE, BLATANT corruption and criminality with the Hillary! campaign at it's epicenter, but it's still entertaining to follow.

Hsu skipped bail relating to charges stemming from 1992, and instead of leaving the country to go back to China or wherever, he got on a train and was apprehended after he either "fell ill" (New York Times), or "freaked out" (FOX news).

update: according to this piece in the WSJ, it looks like there were pills lying all over and Hsu apparently was wondering if he was in jail. suicide? arkansas mafia?

pearls of wisdom from Keith Olbermann:

"Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda — worse for our society."

from october '07 Playboy interview...

Friday, September 7, 2007

bin Laden's video pitch to the left..

the mainstream media are calling this a "rambling" message, but if you've ever read any of the transcripts released by al-queada, it's pretty much par for the course. actually, it's less rambling than usual, because the usual sermon to us infidels contains huge helpings of Koranic wisdom, and not so much "political science".

bin Laden makes his appeal to the american left in many ways:

1. Bush's attack mode on the "religion of peace" has eroded our standing in the world:
"Since the 11th, many of America's policies have come under the influence of the Mujahideen, and that is by the grace of Allah, the Most High. And as a result, the people discovered the truth about it, its reputation worsened, it's prestige was broken globally and it was bled dry economically, even if our interests overlap with the interests of the major corporations and also those of the neoconservatives, despite the differing intentions."
..a little dig at "Big Oil", perhaps?

2. The Mainstream Media carries the water for Corporate America:
"And for your information media, during the first years of the war, lost its credibility and manifested itself as a tool of the colonialist empires."
(they must ONLY get FOXnews in Tora Bora or wherever the hell he is...)

3. Iraq is a "civil war":
"And thus, what is called the civil war..."
notice that not even bin Laden acknowledges that the situation is indeed a civil war..

4. The sins of the white man's past will always dog us in the present.

reacting to a statement by Richard Perle to the effect that if we leave Iraq, we'll face a holocaust:
"I say, refuting this unjust statement, that the morality and culture of the holocaust is your culture, not our culture....The holocaust of the Jews was carried out by your brethren in the middle of Europe...The genocide of peoples and their holocausts took place at your hands: only a few specimens of Red Indians were spared, and just a few days ago, the Japanese observed the 62nd anniversary of the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by your nuclear weapons."


5. The Democrats' seizure of Congress was a mandate to end the war in Iraq.
"...the vast majority of you (americans) want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning..."
bin Laden's explanation for this is that the corporations/big money supports the entire political process in a democratic system of government, so the politicians have to do what they are told by their corporate masters. this, by the way, explains Vietnam, and also the JFK assassination (the corporations were fearful that Kennedy would try to abort the Vietnam effort, so they had him killed).

i highlighted "Democratic" above because bin Laden is savvy enough to know that's what the Democrats like to be called when used in conjunction with "Party".

6. Noam Chomsky knows what he's talking about.
"This war was totally unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. and among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice."
Which is why, he goes on further to explain, mass anti-war demonstrations are futile...because Bush won't listen.

7. Global Warming is a bigger threat than terrorism (and it's caused by corporations).
"...It has become clear that they (corporations) are the real tyrannical terrorists. In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations..."


he also feels our pain in the current "mortgage crisis"...


So, bin Laden was doing pretty good up until that point. i can picture my liberal friends saying "y'know, he's making a lot of sense here". Then, in my opinion, he overreaches and makes his pitch for ditching democracy and replacing it with Islamic rule, and then COMPOUNDS this overreach with the argument that, under Islam, you PAY NO TAXES. Hey, Osama...you blew it.

Now, about that beard...


UPDATE 9/9/07: since i made this post i see that this same theme is making the rounds all over the internet. this is an alarming development to the Soros/Clinton funded "ThinkProgress" media-watchdog site. their especially enraged about NYT columnist David Brooks' comments on PBS (video at thinkprogress).

Thursday, September 6, 2007

from dingbat to dangerous


Rep. Dennis Kucinich is loveable in a way. he's every moonbat's wet dream--he's one of those politicians that you can tell has the "little guy" in his every waking thought. perhaps it's his diminutive stature (the guy's what, about 5 feet tall, maybe?). but you have to hand it to him...he believes what he says, and he's not afraid to say it. VERY refreshing, in this age of lame focus-group tested soundbites.

he's definitely one of those guys who would LOVE to hand over power to the United Nations, because he's obviously one of those persons who is aghast at any display of nationalism or patriotism. he's pretty much the poster child for the loony left,
as this article in the liberal magazine The New Republic illustrates...he's a friend of shirley maclaine...need i say more?

so, right now he's on a trip to the middle east, where he's made a point of meeting with Syrian leader Bashar Asaad, where he praised this guy, who is one of our "enemies":
"What most people are not aware of is that Syria has taken in more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees," Kucinich said. "The Syrian government has actually shown a lot of compassion in keeping its doors open, and being a host for so many refugees."
Would Kucinich visit Iraq? NO.
"I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation ... I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence," he said in an interview in Lebanon, after visiting Syria. "I will not do it."
this guy is running for PRESIDENT. he's running around the middle east blasting our foreign policy...which i always maintain is GIVING AID AND COMFORT TO OUR ENEMIES. but, that's just his style...Assad is apparently receptive to Kucinich's idea of "strength through peace." i would imagine Assad would be EXTREMELY receptive to Kucinich's idea of our capitulation, especially coming from someone who fancies himself to be a candidate for the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD.

Assad must've gathered that Kucinich was giving him a tacit thumbs-up for his behavior...Syria fired on Israeli warplanes yesterday, in a flaring up of tensions between the two countries.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Chinese effort to kill Americans expands...

first they tried to kill our pets using banned chemicals in pet food.

then they tried to poison american children with toys containing lead.

now, they seek to spread AIDS, via a condom-dispensing program targeted at Washington, DC, where they've shipped a ton of faulty condoms to help "curb" the AIDS problem in this highly afflicted city.

they were wrapped in paper. PAPER. in my opinion, this should've been a big red flag right from the get-go. but, they were free...

it never ceases to blow my mind why we would let china become the source for almost everything we buy. i mean, OUR FOOD? (have too many of our farms bought into the ethanol hoax?) OUR CONTRACEPTIVES? CAN'T WE MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE?

Hillary! campaign preventing release of "The Path to 9/11"?

according to Cyrus Nowrasteh, one of the mini-series' many producers, YES.
(from a story today in the LA Times):
With no date for the release, questions are being raised about whether political pressure is behind its current status as a stalled or discarded DVD project. The reasons are murky, but the miniseries' writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, believes it's crystal clear: Powerful forces are out to protect Bill Clinton's presidential legacy and shield Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) from any potential collateral damage in her bid for the White House.

Nowrasteh, also one of the miniseries' many producers, said he was told by a top executive at ABC Studios that "if Hillary weren't running for president, this wouldn't be a problem."
remember, this is such a touchy subject to the Clintons that before the film's release, there was a full-on freakout blitz put on by their supporters to pressure ABC/Disney to prevent it's showing, or at least make key changes to 'correct the historical record', as it may...(a.k.a., put them in a more favorible light):
(according to CNN) In the past week former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former national security adviser Samuel Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton aide Douglas Band have written letters to Disney CEO Robert Iger to express dismay with the film.

"It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known," Lindsey and Band wrote.

They called the project "a fictitious rewriting of history" and urged it be shelved until "egregious factual errors" could be fixed.

Berger objected to the reported portrayal of him refusing to authorize a strike targeting bin Laden when CIA operatives had the al Qaeda leader in their sights.

...Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have also joined in calling reported details of key scenes false and misleading.

In a letter to Iger, Reid said the reputation of ABC's parent company, the Walt Disney Corporation, would be "deeply damaged" if the film aired with those scenes intact.
ABC/Disney bowed to the pressure. disclaimers aired at several times during the showing of the film (distancing itself from the 9/11 Commission Report). It had several disputed scenes deleted.

on a further Clinton offensive, President Clinton showed up on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace in a one-on-one interview where he used intimidation tactics like giving Wallace the "crazy eyes", standing up and leaning over Wallace, and jabbing his finger into Wallace's knee to make the point that this was all just some crazy "right-wing conspiracy" to suggest that the Clinton Administration didn't do all it could to counter terrorism:



it's easy to understand the Clinton's sensitivity to this...for one thing, while Hillary! was grooming herself to run for the presidency, she made sure to get a seat on the Senate Armed Services committee, to make sure that, as a woman, she had some military credentials. then, she voted to go to war in Iraq...though she later said that she was misled by Bush, which led to her current position of getting the troops out...(this IS her current position, right? what day is it?). when she casted her vote FOR the war, she stated that it was "the most important vote she'd ever make", or something to that effect...a vote SO IMPORTANT that she didn't even bother to read the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) report before the critical vote was cast, even though Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), no dove, mind you, IMPLORED all of his colleagues to read it. (Graham voted NO.)

back to "the path to 9/11", in my opinion it doesn't show the Clinton Administration in a bad light at all. if anything, it shows how screwed up the federal gov't's bureaucracy is...the FBI hiding "evidence" from the CIA, the CIA hiding "intelligence" from the FBI, the state department tying the hands of investigators, ETC... NOBODY in their right mind should ever accuse Clinton of ignoring the threat. he didn't, and couldn't know what the full extent could possibly be. the government did what, at the time, it COULD do. in the movie, the Bush administration is at the helm during the biggest calamity. what's the problem?

the full miniseries can be seen at youtube. it's posted in 6-7 minute segments.

Monday, September 3, 2007

"Mexico does not end at it's borders" - Calderon

according to the AP, "Calderon blasts US immigration policies":
MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying "Mexico does not end at its borders."

The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address.

"We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers," he said. "The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle ... for their rights."

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: "Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."
i say let's just give them back California, and we'll call it even..

disturbing images from Thailand.

According to the 2000 census, Thailand is 95% Buddhist, and 4.6% Muslim. it's Muslim population segregates itself from the non-Muslims. (source: wikipedia, for whatever that's worth...)

hardly a day goes by without some news story about the jihad raging in Thailand. but, i guess since it doesn't really fit into the mainstream media's template of "bush is causing terrorism", it doesn't get much play in the U.S. and the rest of the western world.

but, it's happening, and it's BRUTAL. if you have a STRONG stomach, check out this photo gallery from zombietime.

here's a travel advisory issued by the Australian government to it's citizens who wish to travel there.

Castro's fight against "the dragons which devour our electricity"

This was a pretty interesting article in the New York Times yesterday. it's all about the effort by Castro's government to switch Cuba's population from the use of ancient (50's models) American refrigerators to new, "improved" models which they buy from China. Simon Romero, the author of the article, describes the effort as "(getting rid) of some of the most resilient totems of American imperialism".

switching over to the new Chinese fridges is not as easy as it may seem:
"...unlike education and health care in Cuba, refrigerators are not free. A concern for Cubans is the cost of the new Chinese models: about $200, a small fortune in a country where the average monthly wage is about $15.

Ten-year payment plans have been made available.
TEN-YEAR PAYMENT PLANS. for refrigerators. oh boy...

anyway, though it's not mandatory to switch, to comply is seen as "patriotic", a way to become "the apple of Fidel's eye".

the article goes on to blame Cuba's economic plight on it's "economic isolation" from the world and the American embargo against it. the problem with this is that Cuba is free to trade with the rest of the world freely. maybe it's main problem is that their economic policies, socialism, and totalitarian government might be restraining the Cuban people from prospering? just a thought...

i work with a recent Cuban refugee who was just last week describing how Cubans kept all of their old clunker cars running..."they make things." replacement parts are non-existent. in the NYT article, a Cuban newspaper' headline asks: "Where do the old refrigerators go?"..."from them, everything is reclaimed". it shows how technicians swarm Cuban junkyards confiscating every little thing off of junked appliances, which in turn go to produce small items (like forks) for the people, or the scrap sold to China to be re-sold to Cuba in the form of new appliances.

the Chinese refrigerators are being lauded by the Cuban government for their energy-usage efficiency. but, they are loathed by the Cuban people because they're tiny in comparison, and they have acquired a nickname: "Llovizna" (that's "Drippy" in English...).

the article goes on to describe how some Cuban artists have used the discarded refrigerators to create art which celebrates the efforts to keep the old refrigerators running all of these years. one example was of a refrigerator having oars installed onto it...another was painted olive green, covered with medals and named "General Electrico". haha--that's pretty good...

i asked my co-worker if she wanted to return to Cuba...her response: "Si, yes, when he dies", as she stroked an imaginary beard.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Utterly useless links (unless you're a pig...)

while doing research for this month's new "No Grits No Glory Girl" (ESPN/ABC sports reporter Erin Andrews--see below), i came across a few blogs that make me realize why i love the internet more than TV...

the world's hottest female sports reporters...including ex-CBS reporter Jill Arrington, and an mexican up-and-comer who covers soccer.

the ladies of "fox & friends"...a blog which specializes in stills from the show where crotch shots and low-cut tops are scrutinized.

okay, enough of this...i really want to maintain at least some level of "seriousness"..

Tebow can throw, too.

nice 48 yard strike to bubba caldwell, a 59 yard TD pass to riley cooper, a 10 yard or so TD strike to percy harvin...just had his first incomplete pass with 8:30 left in the 2nd quarter...has had some big runs, AND he ran over the Western Kentucky water cooler.

6-7 passing for 150 plus yards, 2 TDs...4 rushes for 40 yards. not bad, so far...

that girl's got really nice breasts...i wonder if they're real?