Topics

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/2009/08/03/0803inglis_edit.html

In a stunning display of good ol' boy idiocy and abuse of prosecutorial discretion, two West Texas nurses have been fired from their jobs and indicted with a third-degree felony carrying potential penalties of two-to-ten years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of $10,000. Why? Because they exercised a basic tenet of the nurse's Code of Ethics — the duty to advocate for the health and safety of their patients.

The nurses, in their 50s and both members of the American Nurses Association/Texas Nurses Association, reported concerns about a doctor practicing at Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Kermit. They were unamused by his improperly encouraging patients in the hospital emergency department and in the rural health clinic to buy his own herbal "medicines," and they thought it improper for him to take hospital supplies to perform a procedure at a patient's home rather than in the hospital. (The doctor did not succeed, as reportedly he was stopped by the hospital chief of staff.)

The nurses went up their chain of command with their complaints. They got nowhere with their 25-bed rural hospital. So they anonymously turned the doctor into the Texas Medical Board using six medical record numbers of the involved hospital patients .

When the medical board notified the physician that he was under investigation for mistreatment and poor quality of care, he filed a harassment complaint with the Winkler County Sheriff's Department.

To find out who made the anonymous complaint, the sheriff left no stone unturned. He interviewed all of the patients whose medical record case numbers were listed in the report and asked the hospital to identify who would have had access to the patient records in question.

At some point, the sheriff obtained a copy of the anonymous complaint and used the description of a "female over 50" to narrow the potential complainants to the two nurses. He then got a search warrant to seize their work computers and found a copy of the letter to the medical board on one of them.

Charged by the county attorney's office with "misuse of official information," on July 15 a hearing in the Winkler County courthouse on motions to dismiss the nurses' case resulted in no rulings. In response, the nurses got widespread support.

Good Ol' Boy Network at its finest.

The Daily Kos (yeah, yeah, I know) had an independent agency survey a bunch of self-identified Conservatives to see what exactly their beliefs are. Here are the interesting results:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/2/832988/-The-2010-Comprehensive-Daily-Kos-Research-2000-Poll-of-Self-Identified-Republicans

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?

Yes 39
No 32
Not Sure 29

Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?

Yes 63
No 21
Not Sure 16


Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?

Yes 42
No 36
Not Sure 22

Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?

Yes 53
No 14
Not Sure 33

Should Congress make it easier for workers to form and join labor unions?

Yes 7
No 68
Not Sure 25

Would you favor or oppose giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and learn English?

Favor 26
Oppose 59
Not Sure 15

Do you support the death penalty?

Yes 91
No 4
Not Sure 5

Should openly gay men and women be allowed to serve in the military?

Yes 26
No 55
Not Sure 19

Should same sex couples be allowed to marry?

Yes 7
No 77
Not Sure 16

Should gay couples receive any state or federal benefits?

Yes 11
No 68
Not Sure 21

Should openly gay men and women be allowed to teach in public schools?

Yes 8
No 73
Not Sure 19

Should sex education be taught in the public schools?

Yes 42
No 51
Not Sure 7

Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?

Yes 77
No 15
Not Sure 8

Should contraceptive use be outlawed?

Yes 31
No 56
Not Sure 13

Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?

Yes 34
No 48
Not Sure 18

Do you consider abortion to be murder?

Yes 76
No 8
Not Sure 16

So much fail, so little time.

[Representatives from the Georgia Christian Alliance, the Georgia Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, and the Georgia Baptist Convention all put in appearances.]

... bills aimed at preventing child prostitution.

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/02/01/georgias-christian-right-comes-out-against-bills-aimed-at-child-prostitution/?cxntfid=blogs_political_insider_jim_galloway

The weight of the state's Christian right movement just came down in opposition to a pair of bills that would steer young girls under the age of 16 into diversionary programs instead of arresting them on charges of prostitution.

The press conference came just hours after several hundred people turned out to support the measures.

Representatives from the Georgia Christian Alliance, the Georgia Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, and the Georgia Baptist Convention all put in appearances. Republican candidate for governor John Oxendine appeared around the edges of the afternoon press conference, but did not speak.

At issue are two separate bills, one in the House and one in the Senate. Both are sponsored by Republicans.

"Who will benefit from the passage of H.B. 582 or S.B. 304? I'll tell you who – the very profitable and growing pedophile industry," said former state Sen. Nancy Shafer. "It is imperative that these bills be defeated.

Some opponents said the bills amounted to decriminalization, which amounted to legalization. And would lead to more prostitution, not less, they said.

"Decriminalizing that means the police would have absolutely no interest in it at all," said Sue Ella Deadwyler, who writes a Christian conservative newsletter. "They wouldn't arrest the girls, they wouldn't pick the girls up, they wouldn't protect them from influence on the street from the pimps and the johns. It would be an absolute cultural upheaval in our state. Never in the United States, as far as I known, has juvenile prostitution been legalized."

Renee Unterman of Buford, author of the Senate bill, confirmed that she had been in contact with opponents of her legislation. She said a compromise was in the works.

http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/48222-altruistic-robots-produced-through-evolution

A Swiss team has applied Darwinian selection to robot development, producing robots that can walk, cooperate and even hunt each other.

"Just a few hundred generations of selection are sufficient to allow robots to evolve collision-free movement, homing, sophisticated predator versus prey strategies, coadaptation of brains and bodies, cooperation, and even altruism," say the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and University of Lausanne researchers.

"In all cases this occurred via selection in robots controlled by a simple neural network, which mutated randomly."

The input neurons of the neural network were activated by the robot's sensors, and the output neurons controlled its motors.

Each robot had a different 'genome', describing different connections between neurons. This resulted in unique behaviour and fitness - how fast and straight it moved, for example, or how often it collided with obstacles.

At the beginning, the robots had random values for their genes, leading to completely random behaviours.

But Darwinian selection was then imitated, by choosing the genomes of the robots with the highest fitness to produce the next generation.

To do this, genomes were paired, and random mutations such as character substitution, insertion, deletion, or duplication were applied.

The team found that within 100 generations, robots were able to move without collisions in a maze.

When 'breeding' for predator behaviour, a range of strategies evolved, including lying in wait and circling the walls.

And, astonishingly, the robots were even able to evolve altruistic behaviour, in a task that involved pushing tokens around. Some could be pushed single-handed, earning the robot one 'fitness point'; others required two robots, gaining the whole group one point.

It was found that groups of unrelated robots - those with randomly differing genomes - invariably took the selfish approach and went for the small tokens. But those with similar genomes generally pushed the larger tokens, cooperating to raise the fitness of the whole group - and thus reducing their own chances of 'winning'.

"These examples of experimental evolution with robots verify the power of evolution by mutation, recombination, and natural selection," conclude the authors.

"The ability of robots to orientate, escape predators, and even cooperate is particularly remarkable given that they had deliberately simple genotypes directly mapped into the connection weights of neural networks comprising only a few dozen neurons."

Ok, just a quick question here. Why is it "maths" and "sport" when everyone in their right mind would say "math" and "sports"? Math, as a subject, is considered an umbrella term for all of the various brands of mathematics. Calling a class Maths makes as much sense as calling it Histories or Sciences.

Meanwhile sports, as a section of news reporting, typically covers more than one different type of sport. I know you Brits don't play any real sports, but I'm sure that you sprinkle in a couple of rugby and haggis hurling results in with your daily soccer scores. (And yes, it is called soccer. Suck it.)  Calling a section sport makes as much sense as calling it Current Event or just New.

While we are at it, stop saying biscuit, boot, and lift when you really mean cookie, trunk, and elevator. And don't even get me started on how you completely misuse the words fanny and fag.

Please fix these problems in your fucked up language ASAP or we promise to elect another president who will royally fuck it up worse than you ever could.

Love,

America

P.S. Stop it with the unnecessary "U"s while you are at it. It is very inefficient and makes you look silly.

[If every human being since the beginning of time had saved every last penny, denarius and sea-shell, we would still have not saved-up enough to purchase a single arnica molecule from Boots.]

http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/01/homeopathy-by-the-mindboggling-numbers.html

have just purchased a packet of Boots-brand 84 arnica homeopathic 30C Pills for £5.09, which Boots proudly claim is only 6.1p per pill. Their in-store advice tells me that arnica is good for treating "bruising and injuries", which gives the impression that this is a very cost-effective health-care option.

Unlike most medication, it didn't list the actual dose of the active ingredient that each pill contains, so I checked the British Homeopathic Association website. On their website it nonchalantly states that to make a homeopathic remedy, they start with the active ingredient and then proceed to dilute it to 1 per cent concentration. Then they dilute that new solution again, so there is now only 0.01 per cent of the original ingredients. For my 30C pills this diluting is repeated thirty times, which means that the arnica is one part in a million billion billion billion billion billion billion.

The arnica is diluted so much that there is only one molecule of it per 7 million billion billion billion billion pills.

It's hard to comprehend numbers that large. If you were to buy that many pills from Boots, it would cost more than the gross domestic product of the UK. It's more than the gross domestic product of the entire world. Since the dawn of civilisation. If every human being since the beginning of time had saved every last penny, denarius and sea-shell, we would still have not saved-up enough to purchase a single arnica molecule from Boots.

Also, the comments on that article make me fear for the future of humanity. 

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/advanced-prayer-strategies.php

Allow me to entertain you with an anecdote: The Greater Wichita Heating and Plumbing Little Sluggers say a team prayer before the big game. Three hours later, they win, and each player is given a personal pan pizza coupon for their hard work during the season. Hundreds of miles away, a small, starving girl in Honduras, delirious with fever, begs God for a single grain of rice to sustain her through the night. By morning, she is reduced to an unflattering, riceless corpse.

The difference between these two stories? Only one message to God was aided by my Advanced Prayer Strategies. (The one without the dead Mexican.)

Hi, I'm Len Haverfield. You may know me best from my line of Beanie Baby-themed nativity scenes, but after being successfully sued by Ty, Inc. over the rights to Virgin Mandrill Mary, I've since changed my entrepreneurial focus to the world of prayer. As you know, most Christians consider their conversations with God to be an essential part of their faith; but with over a billion prayers transmitted to Heaven every day, how can you be sure He's even listening? It's going to take more than some bent knees and folded hands to get God's attention, and with Len Haverfield's Advanced Prayer Strategies, you'll learn how to kick those wimpy, "traditional" prayers to the curb with some truly sacred showboating.

For just $39.99 plus shipping, handling, and Kinko's binding charge, Advanced Prayer Strategies will teach you:

    * God's secret nickname... known only by The Jews!
    * Peak prayer hours: don't get caught up in the pre-bedtime rush!
    * How to bargain with God on your terms. Learn about His secret past, and use it against Him!
    * Over 500 compliments God's never heard before, organized alphabetically!
    * The secret to getting your three wishes promised in The Old Testament, as revealed by The Bible Code!
    * Surefire Sudoku Strategies: we had twenty blank pages to fill.

Just take a look at these Advanced Prayer Strategies excerpts and you'll soon understand why spitting out a simple Our Father is like stabbing Jesus Christ Himself in the side with a spear... of tedium!

I can't be the only one who sees the Corporate Demons haunting my work. Every large work place has a couple of demons hidden in the shadows, ready to eat the souls of the less fortunate.

At my work place right now there is this vicious demon by the name of Attainment. No one really knows who this particular demon is or what it looks like. It is said to live in either the forests outside of Cincinnati or in the ancient city underneath present day Atlanta. This demon has a nasty habit of shackling people to their work benches for almost half the day. For some reason it passes over those who arrive early but attacks those that come in later. Some say that it is related to another evil gremlin Efficiency or the just vanquished demon named Yield. There's talk that this demon will try to ruin Christmas eve for many people if its hunger isn't satisfied. Pretty ironic for someone that shares a parentage with ol' Santa Claus himself. (I've even heard in hushed tones that there is an even worse demon named Engagement that is trying to Attainment's place as rightful ruler.)

But the thing I've learned about these corporate demons, is that there is really no way to permanently get rid of them. Once one is locked back into its box, another appears. If it wasn't Attainment it would be Volume or Sustainability or even one of those really weird ones that just goes by a random string of letters like SOP. If I didn't know better I would say that the executive branch were skilled conjurers. Those aren't really meeting to go over the newest business plan. They are busy poring over grimoires, trying to find just the right spell to cast.

No, no. That would just be too crazy to think. There's no way that demons really exist. But just the same, does anyone know any good banishing spells? I need one before Christmas.

http://chaoskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/12/corporate-demonology.html

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-10-2009/beck---not-so-mellow-gold

Long story short, Beck has a bit of a conflict of interest. He heavily promotes buying gold on his show while being a paid spokesman for a gold retail company. I'm pretty sure that Rush does the exact same thing. Both of their radio shows are sponsored by gold companies. Looks like that both are heavily invested in gold and are using fear-mongering to drive the prices up.

Due to the holiday season (and the fact that I'm pretty much working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week) I am taking a short sabbatical from Apple Talk. I don't have time for this shit right now. I'll probably still be around the other subfora though. I love you and will miss you all. I'll probably be back either after Xmas or New Years.

Feel free to take this opprotunity to say horrible nasty things about me. I'll consider it my Xmas present.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/11/tea-partiers-move-office/

One of the members of Congress most targeted by the tea party movement and other far-right political actors has been Rep. Tom Periello (D-VA). Last month, tea party demonstrators even threatened to burn Periello in effigy, citing his support for health care legislation that recently passed the House of Representatives. Now, tea party demonstrators and the University of Virginia College Republicans have enlisted the help of a Christian civil liberties organization to make the demand that Pereillo move his office so that protesters will no longer have their ability to protest him be "hindered":

A Christian civil liberties organization on Thursday asked centrist Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) to move his district office to a location more favorable to protesters.

The Rutherford Institute, which was founded by conservative constitutional lawyer John W. Whitehead, penned a letter to the freshman Perriello citing the concerns of a local tea party group and the University of Virginia College Republicans that the location of his Charlottesville office interferes with their right to protest there.

"Unfortunately, it is your choice of office location that has hindered the ability of citizens to effectively communicate concerning issues of the utmost importance to you, Congress and the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia," wrote Whitehead.

"The First Amendment clearly guarantees individuals the right to speak out publicly and address their government representatives on the important issues of the day," Whitehead added.

The congressman's press secretary told the media that he has no plans to move his office, largely because he has signed a lease to stay in the building until January 2011.

  World's Laziest Patriots!

Behold! The Ultimate Godwin Ever!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-kaufman/google-books-and-kindles_b_380536.html

When I hear the term Kindle I think not of imaginations fired but of crematoria lit. And when I hear the term "hi-tech" I think not of helpful androids efficiently performing household chores or light-speed rockets gliding seamlessly through space but of the fact that between 1933-45, modern technology was used to perform in ever more efficient ways the mass murder of six million of my people. The instruments of so-called progress, placed in the hands of the modern state, disappeared six million Jewish men, women and children, into a void from which they will never return and in which a majority of them remain forever unidentified. This was done in the name of progress by means of technology for the creation of a better world.

The Nazis often were, by their own lights, well-intentioned idealists working for a better tomorrow. And their instrument was modern technology, aspects of philosophical and aesthetic modernism and the old religious concept of supercession implicit in the Christian notion of progress. Jews were outmoded, useless, they said. Most high level Nazis, like Himmler or Heydrich or Eichmann, did not feel visceral hatred towards the Jew. Rather, they looked upon them coldly as something that simply needed to disappear so that the new life could get on its way. And the means by which they sought to do so was first through a propaganda campaign that portrayed Jews, in Wagnerian terms, as a drag on the visionary energies and bursting vigor of the new Aryan man, and then by the implementation of this decision to eliminate Jews through ever more sophisticated state corporate and scientific technological means. And yet, during the war crime trials at Nuremberg, while Nazi Jurisprudence was tried and hanged, Nazi technological attitudes were not put on trial.

The victorious Allies did not mandate that technology, which had been turned to such murderous ends, must pass an ethical standard review from an international body, like a UN of technology. No such body of decision came about. To the contrary, even while the war crime trials of Nazi chieftains were in session, American and Soviet governments were recruiting high-level Nazis to their intelligence services, military armaments industries, and space programs. So that, while in jurisprudence terms Nazi social and political values were delivered a blow, the Nazi fascination with technology merged seamlessly with that of their conquerors: us.

That is why today we drive Volkswagens, which were invented by Hitler, and use space heaters from companies that may once have manufactured crematoria and why Werner Von Braun, the Nazi father of the V-2 rocket became an American space pioneer hero studied in public schools. Nazi Technology and corporate methodology was folded handily into American feel-good Capitalist culture. That is the very point of the brilliant satire, "Dr. Strangelove".

So that now, sixty four years after the Holocaust, the Nazi disdain for the book has become the feel-good Hi-Tech campaign to rid the world of books in place of massive easily controlled centralized repositories of book texts downloadable on little hand-held devices and from which a text can be dissapeared with the click of a mouse: in Nazi terms, a dream come true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJY-fBXCncw

Don't bother watching it all the way through. It's like Dane Cook trying to do Glenn Beck's shtick but forgetting to put any actual jokes into it.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/12/04/wiseman/index.html

People try to make some very, very silly things into issues in politics. Like the timing of President Obama's speech about Afghanistan on Tuesday night, which happened to coincide with -- and thus preempt -- showings of "A Charlie Brown Christmas Special."

In a saner world, this would have been a total non-story. (Among the numerous reasons that this is a total non-story: Assuming there is still someone living in the U.S. who hasn't seen the special, it will be replayed. Many, many times. Every year.) But people like Matt Drudge picked it up and ran with it anyway, and now we can see the results.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tenn., took to his Facebook page to weigh in, and to give his theory for why Obama timed the speech as he did. From Wiseman's post:

Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch "The Charlie Brown Christmas Special" and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation about it....w...hen the answer should simply be "yes"

Wiseman went on to add such gems as, "you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful" and, "you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different........"

Contacted by the Commercial Appeal, Wiseman told the paper, "You guys are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill."

In what is most likely a coincidence, in the last 2 days both Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic and Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs have decided to part ways with the American Right. They gave very similar reasons for jumping ship: lip service to small government and fiscal responsibility; hatred for blacks, hispanics, women, homosexuals, anyone that looks funny; anti-science craziness, torture, Rush, Glenn Beck, etc.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/leaving-the-right.html

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right

The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won't be going over the cliff with them.

Looks like the purge is becoming a huge success!

Or more specifically, was it the Prosperity Gospel that set us down the Road to Ruin?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/rosin-prosperity-gospel

America's mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it's still going strong.

Many explanations have been offered for the housing bubble and subsequent crash: interest rates were too low; regulation failed; rising real-estate prices induced a sort of temporary insanity in America's middle class. But there is one explanation that speaks to a lasting and fundamental shift in American culture—a shift in the American conception of divine Providence and its relationship to wealth.

In his book Something for Nothing, Jackson Lears describes two starkly different manifestations of the American dream, each intertwined with religious faith. The traditional Protestant hero is a self-made man. He is disciplined and hardworking, and believes that his "success comes through careful cultivation of (implicitly Protestant) virtues in cooperation with a Providential plan." The hero of the second American narrative is a kind of gambling man—a "speculative confidence man," Lears calls him, who prefers "risky ventures in real estate," and a more "fluid, mobile democracy." The self-made man imagines a coherent universe where earthly rewards match merits. The confidence man lives in a culture of chance, with "grace as a kind of spiritual luck, a free gift from God." The Gilded Age launched the myth of the self-made man, as the Rockefellers and other powerful men in the pews connected their wealth to their own virtue. In these boom-and-crash years, the more reckless alter ego dominates. In his book, Lears quotes a reverend named Jeffrey Black, who sounds remarkably like Garay: "The whole hope of a human being is that somehow, in spite of the things I've done wrong, there will be an episode when grace and fate shower down on me and an unearned blessing will come to me—that I'll be the one."

More recently, critics have begun to argue that the prosperity gospel, echoed in churches across the country, might have played a part in the economic collapse. In 2008, in the online magazine Religion Dispatches, Jonathan Walton, a professor of religious studies at the University of California at Riverside, warned:

   

Narratives of how "God blessed me with my first house despite my credit" were common ... Sermons declaring "It's your season of overflow" supplanted messages of economic sobriety and disinterested sacrifice. Yet as folks were testifying about "what God can do," little attention was paid to a predatory subprime-mortgage industry, relaxed credit standards, or the dangers of using one's home equity as an ATM.

In 2004, Walton was researching a book about black televangelists. "I would hear consistent testimonies about how 'once I was renting and now God let me own my own home,' or 'I was afraid of the loan officer, but God directed him to ignore my bad credit and blessed me with my first home,'" he says. "This trope was so common in these churches that I just became immune to it. Only later did I connect it to this disaster."

Demographically, the growth of the prosperity gospel tracks fairly closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots. Both spread in two particular kinds of communities—the exurban middle class and the urban poor. Many newer prosperity churches popped up around fringe suburban developments built in the 1990s and 2000s, says Walton. These are precisely the kinds of neighborhoods that have been decimated by foreclosures, according to Eric Halperin, of the Center for Responsible Lending.

Zooming out a bit, Kate Bowler found that most new prosperity-gospel churches were built along the Sun Belt, particularly in California, Florida, and Arizona—all areas that were hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. Bowler, who, like Walton, was researching a book, spent a lot of time attending the "financial empowerment" seminars that are common at prosperity churches. Advisers would pay lip service to "sound financial practices," she recalls, but overall they would send the opposite message: posters advertising the seminars featured big houses in the background, and the parking spots closest to the church were reserved for luxury cars.

Nationally, the prosperity gospel has spread exponentially among African American and Latino congregations. This is also the other distinct pattern of foreclosures. "Hyper-segregated" urban communities were the worst off, says Halperin. Reliable data on foreclosures by race are not publicly available, but mortgages are tracked by both race and loan type, and subprime loans have tended to correspond to foreclosures. During the boom, roughly 40 percent of all loans going to Latinos nationwide were subprime loans; Latinos and African Americans were 28 percent and 37 percent more likely, respectively, to receive a higher-rate subprime loan than whites.

Beth Jacobson is a star witness for the City of Baltimore's recent suit against Wells Fargo. Jacobson was a top loan officer in the bank's subprime division for nine years, closing as much as $55 million worth of loans a year. Like many subprime-loan officers, Jacobson had no bank experience before working for Wells Fargo. The subprime officers were drawn from "an utterly different background" than the professional bankers, she told me. She had been running a small paralegal business; her co-workers had been car salespeople, or had worked in telemarketing. They were prized for their ability to hustle on the ground and "look you in the eye when they shook your hand," she surmised. As a reward for good performance, the bank would sometimes send a Hummer limo to pick up Jacobson for a celebration, she said. She'd arrive at a bar and find all her co-workers drunk and her boss "doing body shots off a waitress."

The idea of reaching out to churches took off quickly, Jacobson recalls. The branch managers figured pastors had a lot of influence with their parishioners and could give the loan officers credibility and new customers. Jacobson remembers a conference call where sales managers discussed the new strategy. The plan was to send officers to guest-speak at church-sponsored "wealth-building seminars" like the ones Bowler attended, and dazzle the participants with the possibility of a new house. They would tell pastors that for every person who took out a mortgage, $350 would be donated to the church, or to a charity of the parishioner's choice. "They wouldn't say, 'Hey, Mr. Minister. We want to give your people a bunch of subprime loans," Jacobson told me. "They would say, 'Your congregants will be homeowners! They will be able to live the American dream!'"

No, this wasn't written by The Onion:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/a-purity-test-for-the-gop.php

The Republican National Committee could be on the verge of imposing a strict purity test on GOP candidates and officeholders, if a proposed resolution passes at their upcoming meeting in January: If you disagree with the party line on three or more out of a list of ten key issues, no money or official party support for you.

The resolution, officially called "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" draws its standard through a literal interpretation of an old saying of the Gipper's -- that someone who agreed with him 80% of the time is his friend, not his 20% enemy. Thus, this resolution sets 80% as a floor for support of GOP issues.

The resolution could set up a new problem for chairman Michael Steele. Earlier this year, he successfully turned back a symbolic measure that called upon the Democratic Party to rename itself the "Democrat Socialist Party." This latest resolution -- coming after the NY-23 special election, in which moderate GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava was forced out in favor of a third-party Conservative, who then lost to the Democrat -- could have real material impacts.

The resolution list is as follows:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8.) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

The funny part, there is no way in hell Reagan would have passed this test. And according to Think Progress this would cut out at least 40 current congressmen.

It's funny watching conservatives eat their own.

It is a sad fact of life that everything ends at some point. Including this forum. At some point in the future every single one of us will be dead and there may or may not be Discordians out there to take up our mantle. Either way (barring the world ending in 2012, 2030, or 3100) at some point an internet archaeologist will fire up the Way Back Machine and dig through the pile we are currently making. Will they see us as saints or shit heads? Will our words be considered holy scripture or mental fappery? Whatever the case may be, we should take this opportunity to give them a piece of our minds. What message would you like to send to this future anthropologist who is trying to understand the weirdness that is Discordianism? 

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/eff-tackles-bogus-podcasting-patent-and-we-need-yo

Patenting podcasting? You've got to be kidding. Yet a company called Volomedia just got the Patent Office to grant them such exclusive rights.

EFF and the law firm of Howrey, LLP aren't willing to just sit by and watch. This patent could threaten the vibrant community of podcasters and millions of podcast listeners. We want to put a stop to it, but we need your help.

The Volomedia patent covers "a method for providing episodic media." It's a ridiculously broad patent, covering something that many folks have been doing for many years. Worse, it could create a whole new layer of ongoing costs for podcasters and their listeners. Right now, just about anyone can create their own on-demand talk radio program, earning an audience on the strength of their ideas. But more costs and hassle means that podcasting could go the way of mainstream radio -- with only the big guys able to afford an audience. And we'd have a bogus patent to blame.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/16/columbus-go-home/

On Saturday, a few dozen anti-immigration activists gathered on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol for a Tea Party, part of the nationwide effort by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC). But somehow, one of the counter-protesters, a "concerned citizen from Minneapolis" named "Robert Erickson," manged to get on the speaking list. His address started with the standard anti-immigrant rhetoric, but then revealed that he was talking about European immigrants. By this time, however, the crowd was in a frenzy and joined him in his chants of "Columbus go home!" and "Europeans out!":

Let's send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don't care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery! Its time to restore the sovereignty of people native to this land! I want more workplace raids, starting with the big banks downtown.

SUCK IT LONG! SUCK IT HARD!!!!

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_passionate_defender_of

ESCONDIDO, CA—Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot Kyle Mortensen, 47, is a vehement defender of ideas he seems to think are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and principles that brave men have fought and died for solely in his head.

"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. "It's time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are."

According to Mortensen—an otherwise mild-mannered husband, father, and small-business owner—the most serious threat to his fanciful version of the 222-year-old Constitution is the attempt by far-left "traitors" to strip it of its religious foundation.

"Right there in the preamble, the authors make their priorities clear: 'one nation under God,'" said Mortensen, attributing to the Constitution a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself did not include any reference to a deity until 1954. "Well, there's a reason they put that right at the top."

"Men like Madison and Jefferson were moved by the ideals of Christianity, and wanted the United States to reflect those values as a Christian nation," continued Mortensen, referring to the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison, considered by many historians to be an atheist, and Thomas Jefferson, an Enlightenment-era thinker who rejected the divinity of Christ and was in France at the time the document was written. "The words on the page speak for themselves."

According to sources who have read the nation's charter, the U.S. Constitution and its 27 amendments do not contain the word "God" or "Christ."

Mortensen said his admiration for the loose assemblage of vague half-notions he calls the Constitution has only grown over time. He believes that each detail he has pulled from thin air—from prohibitions on sodomy and flag-burning, to mandatory crackdowns on immigrants, to the right of citizens not to have their hard-earned income confiscated in the form of taxes—has contributed to making it the best framework for governance "since the Ten Commandments."

"And let's not forget that when the Constitution was ratified it brought freedom to every single American," Mortensen said.

Mortensen's passion for safeguarding the elaborate fantasy world in which his conception of the Constitution resides is greatly respected by his likeminded friends and relatives, many of whom have been known to repeat his unfounded assertions verbatim when angered. Still, some friends and family members remain critical.

"Dad's great, but listening to all that talk radio has put some weird ideas into his head," said daughter Samantha, a freshman at Reed College in Portland, OR. "He believes the Constitution allows the government to torture people and ban gay marriage, yet he doesn't even know that it guarantees universal health care."

Mortensen told reporters that he'll fight until the bitter end for what he roughly supposes the Constitution to be. He acknowledged, however, that it might already be too late to win the battle.

"The freedoms our Founding Fathers spilled their blood for are vanishing before our eyes," Mortensen said. "In under a year, a fascist, socialist regime has turned a proud democracy into a totalitarian state that will soon control every facet of American life."

"Don't just take my word for it," Mortensen added. "Try reading a newspaper or watching the news sometime."

Why did it have to be so accurate???

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574527513453636326.html

The Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London stands as one of the worst in recent years, handing local governments carte blanche to seize private property in the name of economic development. Now, four years after that decision gave Susette Kelo's land to private developers for a project including a hotel and offices intended to enhance Pfizer Inc.'s nearby corporate facility, the pharmaceutical giant has announced it will close its research and development headquarters in New London, Connecticut.

The aftermath of Kelo is the latest example of the futility of using eminent domain as corporate welfare. While Ms. Kelo and her neighbors lost their homes, the city and the state spent some $78 million to bulldoze private property for high-end condos and other "desirable" elements. Instead, the wrecked and condemned neighborhood still stands vacant, without any of the touted tax benefits or job creation.

That's especially galling because the five Supreme Court Justices cited the development plan as a major factor in rationalizing their Kelo decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy called the plan "comprehensive," while Justice John Paul Stevens insisted that "The city has carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue." So much for that.

Kelo's silver lining has been that it transformed eminent domain from an arcane government power into a major concern of voters who suddenly wonder if their own homes are at risk. According to the Institute for Justice, which represented Susette Kelo, 43 states have since passed laws that place limits and safeguards on eminent domain, giving property owners greater security in their homes. State courts have also held local development projects to a higher standard than what prevailed against the condemned neighborhood in New London.

If there is a lesson from Connecticut's misfortune, it is that economic development that relies on the strong arm of government will never be the kind to create sustainable growth.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-11/neuron-computer-chips-could-overcome-power-limitations-digital

According to Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist at Stanford University, a robot with a processor as smart as the human brain would require at least 10 megawatts to operate. That's the amount of energy produced by a small hydroelectric plant. But a small group of computer scientists may have hit on a new neural supercomputer that could someday emulate the human brain's low energy requirements of just 20 watts--barely enough to run a dim light bulb.

Discover Magazine has the story on how the Neurogrid computer could completely overhaul the traditional approach to computers. It trades the extreme precision of digital transistors for the brain's chaos of many neurons firing, with misfires 30 percent to 90 percent of the time. Yet the brain works with this messy system by relying on crowds of neurons to shout over the noise of misfires and competing signals.

That willingness to give up precision for chaos could lead to a new era of creative computing that simulates the unpredictable patterns of brain activity. It could also represent a far more energy-efficient era -- the Neurogrid fits in a briefcase and runs on what amounts to a few D batteries, or less than a watt. Rather than transistors, it uses capacitors that get the same voltage of neurons.

Boahen has so far managed to squeeze a million neurons onto his new supercomputer, compared to just 45,000 silicon neurons on previous neural machines. A next-generation Neurogrid may host as many as 64 million silicon neurons by 2011, or approximately the brain of a mouse.

This new type of supercomputer will not replace the precise calculations of current machines. But its energy efficiency could provide the necessary breakthrough to continue upholding Moore's Law, which suggests that the number of transistors on a silicon chip can double about every two years. Perhaps equally exciting, the creative chaos from a chaotic supercomputer system could ultimately lay the foundation for the processing power necessary to raise artificial intelligence to human levels.

China accuses Google of censorship

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1559872/china-accuses-google-censorship

THE CHINESE Communist Party's main newspaper has accused Google of keeping searchers away from its website after it reported on a copyright dispute.

The People's Daily had reported on a Chinese group's complaint that Google's planned online library of digitised books might violate Chinese authors' copyrights.

For three days Google searches for the report, in the books section of the website, warned users the site might contain harmful software. The paper argues that the Chinese search engine Baidu did not return a similar warning.

"We thought it might be related to our reporting on the conflict between Google Library and Chinese authors," The book section's manager Pan Jian said. He claims the paper was first alerted to the problem by readers.

An unidentified People's Daily official quoted on the paper's website said the section was "maliciously blocked by Google".

Google responded by saying that these accusations were "absolutely incorrect". Google spokeswoman Cui Jin told the Canadian Associated Press that the warning was generated by software that is "an automatic function without any human interference".

Back way way long ago there was a man named James Ussher who was the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate^* of All Ireland. Very important man with lots of time on his hand. So much time that he figured he'd put it to good use by counting back all of the begats in the Bible to see exactly how old the earth is. After much calculation and triangulation he came up with an exact date: Sunday October 23, 4004 BC. Nightfall, to be exact. That means that today (presumably at sunset in Israel) the earth will be exactly 6012 years old. Happy birthday, earth! You've come a long way, baby! However, I must say that you are looking awfully old for your age what with all the wrinkles, stretch marks, and radioactivity. You really need to learn to take care of yourself better.



* - Yes, it is ironic that one of the icons of Young Earth Creationism openly called himself a primate.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/militia-madness-online-game-based-am

This week's is pretty special: An online game at which you can actually earn money by defending America in the year 2011 against the evil forces of the fallen Obama administration. The game is called "2011: Obama Coup Fails".

They've created a whole future history, written from the perspective of people in the year 2011. And as you can see, it's militia-movement material from the '90s updated for the Glenn Beck generation. For instance, here's the history:

As far back as the 1950s there were many who would talk of the N.W.O., or New World Order, behind closed doors--and the plan to implement it. Rumors of this clandestine planning were scoffed at by the media and political elite, and the majority of people were in the dark concerning the true nature of the processes and policies unfolding before their eyes. By 2007 the N.W.O was being spoken about freely in the media. By 2009, the President of the United States and world leaders openly discussed how to achieve this New World Order, and how to ensure the permanency of a regime that would represent the successful culmination of the Marxist experiments of the 20th century. Back in 2007, one brave newscaster was the first in what used to be called the 'mainstream media' to ring the alarm bell. That man was Lou Dobbs of CNN. Click to see video. Lou Dobbs was reported missing during the media purges of January and February 2011, when Mark Lloyd and the FCC, on Obama's orders, cracked down on all dissent in broadcasting. Glen Beck, another broadcast media personality who rang the alarm bell before the coup, was found dead of an 'aspirin overdose' in late 2010, after the devastating elections in November.

    Other broadcasters and 'new media leaders' Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity, among the hundreds of others who dared to speak against what was going on, were rounded up shortly before the newly elected Congresspeople and Senators were to be seated. This event is now referred to as the Great Media Purge of 2011. President Obama and the Draconian FCC, now filled with his appointed Marxists including Mark Lloyd (Click to watch video), were quick to abolish FOX news, talk radio and all other dissent. The elite media, formerly called the mainstream media, were ecstatic as their audience had been declining week after week beginning in 2008. Unable to face a real media that investigated and reported news, they acted in self-interest in hope of getting government bailout money promised to them by officials in the Obama administration. This was the first step in the nationalization of all media in America, which officially began in 2010, a move that Americans would not welcome and helped spur the Second American Revolution. It all seemed to be coming to a head by late 2009. With over a million (by some estimates) people gathering in Washington D.C. for the anti-tax rally on 9/12, spurred on by Americans from all parties, the media's complicit bend toward dictatorship showed itself for the world to see.

    Yahoo News, NY Times, and most other media outlets simply ignored the rallies. Rather than cover the news as news outlets used to do before journalism died in 2008, they preferred to tar the attendees as "racists" and "extremists." It now seemed as if all of middle America were being called racists and extremists. Even the Department of Homeland Security put all Patriots on a watch list for daring to want smaller government or less taxes. They dared even to classify our returning vets as security risks to be watched, which helped to add to the military's disgust with the Obama Administration and media. The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for most Americans came when Obama appointed avowed communists and ex-felons such as Van Jones to White House positions "advising" Obama. No one to this day knows how such people could pass the formerly required background checks of the F.B.I. The NY Times, oozing bias, formerly the newspaper of record, didn't even mention most of these Czars' names until the bloggers and FOX investigative reporting outed them as the crazed radicals that they were.

    Of course, using recent video tape of the Marxists talking of either overthrowing America or of their love of Castro, Chavez and other Marxists, was enough for the NY Times to claim a 'hatchet job' had been performed on the Czars. This was a laughable matter for any American who knew how Obama was filling all posts with real Marxists and revolutionaries who hated the United States and freedom. The fallen Glenn Beck put it all together for us and the question was asked "Could a coup ever take place in America?" Andrew Breitbart led the way in exposing the communists in ACORN and their massive voter fraud schemes. The elite media turned a blind eye as usual. The bloggers came out over and over again exposing the entire collapse of our financial system and how it was executed via the CRA or Community Reinvestment Act. Even Obama's past was well-hidden, with the help of the elite media. In fact, his entire past was shielded from the public. These facts further incensed the public. The Revolution brewed and brewed and nothing had stopped it by early 2010.

    The powderkeg had a short fuse, which Obama was more than happy to light. American citizens were not sheep like the citizens of Britain, who allowed their government to take away their right to bear arms, and Americans would not go quietly into the night. Even before Barack Obama was elected, the destruction of America was well-planned by the global Marxists and N.W.O. proponents. American citizens were also well-prepared and the Revolution turned out to be one of the bloodiest any nation would ever see. With literally millions of Americans taking to the streets and even facing down Federal troops in Michigan, New York, California, Texas, and Illinois, Obama knew his days were numbered. Admiral Mullen of the Joint Chiefs finally recalled all Federal troops from their remaining posts in American cities after 4,000 soldiers in Michigan, most of them Oathkeepers, turned on and killed the commander Obama had hand-picked for them. This was the 8th incident across America where American Soldiers or Marines dared to follow the Constitution and not obey the Un-Constitutional orders given to them by Obama's appointed commanders. The Joint Chiefs decided not to be on the wrong side of history and declared that the military would stand aside and guard against any foreign threats during the remaining days of the crisis.

They even have a future news section with headlines like:

Michelle Obama Captured By Militia, America Celebrates

    Breitbart's Brigade Takes Out C.O.R.N.Y. Forces

    Joe Wilson and the New Congress Militia Meet Up With Breitbart Brigade

    Michelle Malkin Stands Out Among The Leaders Who Saved America

About a month ago Jack Black did a skit at the VMAs where he gave a big shoutout to ol' Satan himself. For some reason the fundies are just now having a shit fit about it.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=724962

The Radio City Hall audience readily acquiesced to Black's invitation to pray to the devil. In a video posted on YouTube, Black encouraged the large audience to join in by saying, "let me see those horns." Black, dressed in a "muscle suit" continued by asking the awards ceremony audience to join hands during "the prayer." He then held hands with actress Leighton Meester while he prayed aloud.

Black's prayer went basically unnoticed among most conservative and Christian media circles -- perhaps because they feel the comedian was simply joking as he displayed his contempt for Christianity with the prayer invocation. In fact, this would be in keeping with Black's previous behavior.

In 2008 he participated in a video that mocked supporters of California's marriage initiative, Proposition 8. In commenting on that video, the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) said Black "appears as Jesus rebuking the Proposition 8 supporters while munching on a shrimp cocktail and saying that the Bible condemns eating shellfish too. Then he reels off some scripture references without context to suggest that the Bible is self-contradictory and unreliable." In their press release (December 4, 2008), CMI described Black as "an anti-Christian bigot."

Others claim last month's public "prayer" to Satan was just a publicity stunt to promote the new heavy metal video game, "Brutal Legend."

But regardless how one looks at Black's actions, it sets a dangerous precedent. Author and King's College professor Paul McGuire labels Black's prayer to Satan as "just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening in our nation and in the entertainment industry." The conservative commentator contends that "although it is hidden, Satanism is one of the fastest growing religions in America." He adds: "We can expect to see Satanists demanding and getting the same rights as any other religion."

Oh noes!! We can't go around letting just anyone have religious freedom. Liberty is only for people that worship God.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8837675

A 6-year-old boy climbed into a homemade balloon aircraft and floated away Thursday, forcing officials to scramble to figure out how to rescue the boy as he hurled through the air.

The bizarre scene played out live on television and prompted fears that the flying saucer-shaped balloon would crash with the young child inside. FAA spokesman Mike Fergus says the agency has been notified and it was unclear whether traffic controllers had picked it up on radar.

Larimer County sheriff's spokeswoman Eloise Campanella says the device has the potential to rise to 10,000 feet. Sheriff's officials last saw the device floating south of Milliken, which is about 40 miles north of Denver.

"We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning," said neighbor Lisa Eklund.

I feel bad for laughing at this but it is just too goddamn hilarious to keep in.   

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/10/captain-lou-albano.html

Legendary pro wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano died this morning, MTV.com is reporting.

Albano, who was sent home from the hospital earlier this week and place under hospice care, was 76 years old.

Albano is best known to non-wrestling fans as the father in Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" video. That helped kick off the Rock 'n Wrestling connection that launched the then-WWF to national prominence in the 1980s.

Good night, funny man. 

From everybody's favorite "Trustworthy" Encyclopedia.

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning:

    * lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts of Christianity
    * lack of precision in modern language
    * translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.

Of these three sources of errors, the last introduces the largest error, and the biggest component of that error is liberal bias. Large reductions in this error can be attained simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English.[1]

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[2]

       1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
       2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
       3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]
       4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
       5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
       6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
       7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
       8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
       9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
      10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

  It's like they are parodying themselves now.

http://www.newsmax.com/john_perry/obama_military_coup/2009/09/29/266012.html

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn't the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

# Officers swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to "obey the orders of the president of the United States."

# Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.

# They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.

# They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.

# They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.

# They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America's troop strength is allowed to sag.

# They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.

# They can see the nation's safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.

So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?

Wait until this president bungles into losing the war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear bombs falls into the hands of militant Islam?

Wait until Israel is forced to launch air strikes on Iran's nuclear-bomb plants, and the Middle East explodes, destabilizing or subjugating the Free World?

What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, "I'm not interested in victory") that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?

Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?

Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America's military leadership is lost in a fool's fog.

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a "family intervention," with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don't shrug and say, "We can always worry about that later."

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

And just in case that link goes down the Memory Hole: http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909290042

There is no way in hell a "civilized" military coup would happen. I know bloodless coups have supposedly happened before but there is no way in hell that the right wingers wouldn't come out shooting. They've stocked up way too ammo to let it go to waste.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5b4_1253879100

A small group of us in the Sherwood Park / Edmonton area decided to start launching high altitude balloons with experimental amateur radio payloads and nickname them BEAR (Balloon Experiments with Amateur Radio) after watching others do this and seeing no reason why they should have all the fun. We are not a club or official group, but simply individual amateurs with similar interests, common goal and hope that BEAR projects, which anyone is welcome to participate in, will help promote education, experimentation & camaraderie between all amateurs and amateur radio clubs in the area.

The balloon and camera were launched at 7:44 AM, the balloon burst at 10:51 AM at 107,145 ft. and the camera landed via parachute at 11:40 AM, 89 miles from the launch site after a 3 hr. & 56 min. flight. The camera recorded a total of 4 hrs. & 22 min. of Hi-Def Video before it stopped recording 53 secs after landing, when its 32GB of memory was full. The only thing better would have been if the camera had recorded for several minutes more to captured the sound of us approaching and video of us opening its container.

The video is absolutely amazing. It's crazy that a bunch of amateurs were able to get shots like this.

Someone took a bunch of old Cosmos clips, autotuned the hell out of them and made a glorious song.  LISTEN NOW, BASTARDS!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_re_us/us_ammo_shortage

Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can't keep up with the nation's demand for ammunition.

Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have never seen such shortages. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammo, in part because they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation — even though nothing specific has been proposed and the president last month signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.

Gun sales spiked when it became clear Obama would be elected a year ago and purchases continued to rise in his first few months of office. The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that 6.1 million background checks for gun sales were issued from January to May, an increase of 25.6 percent from the same period the year before.

"That is going to cause an upswing in ammunition sales," said Larry Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association representing about 5,000 members. "Without bullets a gun is just a paper weight."

The shortage for sportsmen is different than the scarcity of ammo for some police forces earlier this year, a dearth fueled by an increase in ammo use by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are working overtime and still can't keep up with the demand," said Al Russo, spokesman for North Carolina-based Remington Arms Company, which makes bullets for rifles, handguns and shotguns. "We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7. It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business."

I still think that gun and bullet manufacturers are the ones that started this whole scare in the first place. Get people freaked out over Obama taking their guns away and the merchandise goes flying off of the shelf.

[Thanks to the green revolution, world food production more than doubled between 1960 and 1990. In Pakistan and India, two of the nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain yields more than quadrupled over the period.]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6616226.html

Agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution" who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger and saving hundreds of millions of lives, died Saturday in Texas, a Texas A&M University spokeswoman said. He was 95.

Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas from complications of cancer, said school spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips. Phillips said Borlaug's granddaughter told her about his death. Borlaug was a distinguished professor at the university in College Station.

The Nobel committee honored Borlaug in 1970 for his contributions to high-yield crop varieties and bringing other agricultural innovations to the developing world. Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives.

Thanks to the green revolution, world food production more than doubled between 1960 and 1990. In Pakistan and India, two of the nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain yields more than quadrupled over the period.

Equal parts scientist and humanitarian, the Iowa-born Borlaug realized improved crop varieties were just part of the answer, and pressed governments for farmer-friendly economic policies and improved infrastructure to make markets accessible. A 2006 book about Borlaug is titled "The Man Who Fed the World."

"He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much," said Dr. Ed Runge, retired head of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school. "He made the world a better place — a much better place. He had people helping him, but he was the driving force."

Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in Mexico at the end of World War II. There he used innovative breeding techniques to produce disease-resistant varieties of wheat that produced much more grain than traditional strains.

He and others later took those varieties and similarly improved strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa.

"More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Borlaug. "We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace."

During the 1950s and 1960s, public health improvements fueled a population boom in underdeveloped nations, leading to concerns that agricultural systems could not keep up with growing food demand. Borlaug's work often is credited with expanding agriculture at just the moment such an increase in production was most needed.

"We got this thing going quite rapidly," Borlaug told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview. "It came as a surprise that something from a Third World country like Mexico could have such an impact."

His successes in the 1960s came just as books like "The Population Bomb" were warning readers that mass starvation was inevitable.

"Three or four decades ago, when we were trying to move technology into India, Pakistan and China, they said nothing could be done to save these people, that the population had to die off," he said in 2004.

Borlaug often said wheat was only a vehicle for his real interest, which was to improve people's lives.

"We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech. "For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care."

In Mexico, Borlaug was known both for his skill in breeding plants and for his eagerness to labor in the fields himself, rather than to let assistants do all the hard work.

He remained active well into his 90s, campaigning for the use of biotechnology to fight hunger and working on a project to fight poverty and starvation in Africa by teaching new drought-resistant farming methods.

"We still have a large number of miserable, hungry people and this contributes to world instability," Borlaug said in May 2006 at an Asian Development Bank forum in the Philippines. "Human misery is explosive, and you better not forget that."

Despite winning almost every single award possible he is still one of the most under-rated men in American history. He completely changed the face of agriculture and single handedly saved the lives of several hundred millions of people yet the average person had never heard of him. The world is a worse place without him.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090909/ap_on_re_us/tropical_weather

Forecasters say Hurricane Fred has formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean with winds at 75 mph (120 kph) and is expected to strengthen.

The National Hurricane Center said Tuesday night that the Category 1 hurricane is about 445 miles (715 km) west-southwest of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and moving west near 12 mph (19 kph). It is the second named hurricane of the season.

Forecasters say after it increases in intensity, it should weaken beginning Thursday.

Did Hitler Want War???

http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war.

Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers.

By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the greatest terrorist of them all, Joseph Stalin.

What cause could justify such sacrifices?

The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson's principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.

Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland's rescue.

But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?

Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn't want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.

Comes the response: The war guarantee was not about Danzig, or even about Poland. It was about the moral and strategic imperative "to stop Hitler" after he showed, by tearing up the Munich pact and Czechoslovakia with it, that he was out to conquer the world. And this Nazi beast could not be allowed to do that.

If true, a fair point. Americans, after all, were prepared to use atom bombs to keep the Red Army from the Channel. But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet's, or Fidel Castro's, was out to conquer the world?

After Munich in 1938, Czechoslovakia did indeed crumble and come apart. Yet consider what became of its parts.

The Sudeten Germans were returned to German rule, as they wished. Poland had annexed the tiny disputed region of Teschen, where thousands of Poles lived. Hungary's ancestral lands in the south of Slovakia had been returned to her. The Slovaks had their full independence guaranteed by Germany. As for the Czechs, they came to Berlin for the same deal as the Slovaks, but Hitler insisted they accept a protectorate.

Now one may despise what was done, but how did this partition of Czechoslovakia manifest a Hitlerian drive for world conquest?

Comes the reply: If Britain had not given the war guarantee and gone to war, after Czechoslovakia would have come Poland's turn, then Russia's, then France's, then Britain's, then the United States.

We would all be speaking German now.

But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can't get out of the Baltic Sea?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser's fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.

Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, Miklos Horthy's Hungary and Father Jozef Tiso's Slovakia.

Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.

As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?

Winston Churchill was right when he called it "The Unnecessary War" — the war that may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization.

Yeah, Hitler was just misunderstood. That whole attacking Poland thing was just an accident.

http://www.nateanddi.com/?p=424

Kristin Maguire, the Chairwoman of the S.C. State Board of Education resigned her post shortly before SC poliblog FITSNews published a piece claiming that Maguire is a "prolific author of hardcore erotic fiction on the Internet." FITS promised something juicy was on the way last Friday, which is actually when she submitted her resignation to the LuvGov himself. The article also alleges that Maguire engaged in lap dances at bars, public indecency at Jenny Sanford's desk in the governor's office, and points to a probable cover-up by Sanford's staff when they were tipped off earlier this year.

While her resignation letter makes no mention of the alleged salacious details, the upstate evangelical apparently acknowledged to FITS that "she had visited certain websites where such material was posted and reviewed."

This is probably good news for all public school students in S.C., as the home-schooling mom of four had no business chairing the very board responsible for public education policy to start with. She has been a vocal anti-evolutionist and is a strong supporter of "abstinence only" sex education as well. When Maguire was elevated to lead the S.C. Board, her appointment was hailed as a victory for social conservatives and cheered on Christian blogs and websites across the Southeast.

There's links to her erotic stories on that site too.

AUTOTUNE IS DEAD, HOVA HAS SPOKEN!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z13AjI8n4I

http://rightwingwatch.org/category/groups/faithful-word-baptist-church

I spend a lot of time here mocking Religious Right groups and activists for their views of homosexuality, but as Jeremy says about these audio clips he posted the other day, "this 'culture war' is all fun and games until someone wants to execute you."

And he's not joking. Just listen to these rants from Steven L. Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, AZ, explaining to his audience how gays are out to rape their children in order to recruit them and says that the only way to stop them is to kill them:

You want to know who the biggest hypocrite in the world is? The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers and not for homosexuals. Hypocrite. The same God who instituted the death penalty for murderers is the same God who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals - sodomites, queers! That's what it was instituted for, okay? That's God, he hasn't changed. Oh, God doesn't feel that way in the New Testament ... God never "felt" anything about it, he commanded it and said they should be taken out and killed.

You know why God wanted the sodomites in the Old Testament to be killed? You know why every good king of Israel, the Bible says they got rid of the sodomites in the land? You know, the good kings that came after the bad kings who had allowed the sodomites to infest their land, they had infiltrated ... King Asa got the sodomites out of the land, Jehoshaphat exterminated the sodomites that were left from the days of his father, Asa. Why? Because the sodomites are infectious, that's why. Because they're not reproducers, that goes without saying, they're recruiters.

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they're multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there's more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They're reproducing right? No, here's a biology lesson: they're not reproducers, they're recruiters! And you know who they're after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That's who they're after. You drop them off as some daycare, you drop them off as some school somewhere, you don't know where they're at. I'll tell you where they're at: they're being recruited by the sodomites. They're being molested by the sodomites. I can tell you so many stories about people that I know being molested and recruited by the sodomites.

They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It's not a physical disease, it's a sin disease , it's a wicked, filthy sin disease and it's spreading on a rampage. Can't you see that it's spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it's just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting 'em.

So how many sodomites is one sodomite going to produce? A lot, and that's why it's just exploding. The only way to stop it, you say "how do we stop it?" ... You want to know why sodomites are recruiting? Because they have no natural predators.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/lawyer-fbi-paid-right-wing-blogger-charged-with-threats/

A notorious New Jersey hate blogger charged in June with threatening to kill judges and lawmakers was secretly an FBI "agent provocateur" paid to disseminate right-wing rhetoric, his attorney said Wednesday.

Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges.

But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate "without crossing the line," according to his lawyer, Michael Orozco.

"Almost everything was at the behest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Orozco said in a 45-minute telephone interview from New Jersey. "Their job was to pick up information on the responses of what he was saying and see where that led them. It was an interesting dynamic on what he was being asked to do."

"He's a devoted American," added the lawyer, who claims Turner was paid "tens of thousands of dollars" for his service.

Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman, said in a telephone interview the bureau's policy is "to neither confirm nor deny whether an individual has an association with the FBI."

Turner's alleged 5-year-long bureau stint ended sometime in 2007, Orozco said, the year the mischievous online group, Anonymous, briefly shuttered his site — turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com — with a denial of service attack. At the time, hackers also posted what appeared to be private e-mails between Turner and the FBI.

The e-mails are legitimate, said Orozco. The FBI approached Turner, now 47, in 2002, and he spewed rhetoric about politics, white supremacy, immigration, abortion and other hot-button issues for years in exchange for government cash.

What are the chance that he is making all of this up get out of a sentence? Why would the FBI intentionally stir up the right wing crazies?

Now this is how you properly counter protest:

http://billionairesforwealthcare.com/BillionairesForWealthcare.html

I give to you the next mayor of New Orleans, Brad FUCKIN' Pitt!

http://www.wwl.com/Brad-Pitt-for-Mayor---He-anwers-the-question/4999634

Superstar actor Brad Pitt came back to New Orleans this week. He faced questions about the recent effort to recruit him to run for Mayor.

"I'm running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform," he told the Today show. "I don't have a chance."

Pitt says, seriously, that he is not interested in running. "That's not what I do best." Legally, he couldn't run if he wanted to as the city charter requires mayoral candidtates to have been living in the city for 5 years.

Pitt did say, however, that he wants to spend more time in New Orleans working on his Make It Right NOLA home building effort in the 9th Ward.

"I want to see this through. I also know that this works, and I know that this is the future," Pitt said in the nationally televised interview. "We are the greenest neighborhood in the United States already, and that's only with 15 houses... we will be 150 houses next year."

Pitt says he just wishes he could do more. "It's an extraordinary success, at the same time I'm irritated because there were 4,000 lost in this neighborhood. We're just scratching the surface."

He says the families they have been able to bring back home are enjoying 20 utility bills.

Pitt says he plans more trips to New Orleans. "It means something to me... I get antsy when I can't get down here."

Ok, so maybe not. But that would still be fucking awesome.

http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=10888260

A mayoral candidate has resurrected a controversy over Creationism at the Tulsa Zoo.

A push to exhibit the Christian story of creation at the Tulsa Zoo failed four years ago.  Republican candidate for Tulsa mayor, Anna Falling, is bringing the issue front and center.

It's the same exhibit and the same arguments, but now it is given from the bully pulpit of a candidate running for mayor.

"Some may ask why this issue during a Mayoral campaign?  And I say why not?" said candidate Anna Falling.

For Anna Falling, the road to city hall runs through the Tulsa Zoo.  She's made her Christianity central to her platform and now the exhibit depicting the Christian story of Creationism is her first campaign promise.

"Today we are announcing that God will be glorified in this city.  He shall not be shunned. Upon our election, we hereby commit to honoring Him in all ways that He has been dishonored," said Anna Falling.

Falling says God was dishonored four years ago, when the Tulsa Parks Board rejected an exhibit which borrows heavily from the first book of the Bible.  Supporters argue the zoo includes other religious icons like the Hindu god, Ganeesh, and Christianity should also have a place.

"I am surprised that has come back up again.  It was a bad idea the first time around," said Brian Cross with Friends of Religion and Science.

Brian Cross fought the exhibit the first time around.  He says the other exhibits that reference religion are not there to proselytize, but educate people about other cultures.

"They weren't put up here at the behest of any particular group in order to advance their agenda. That's the difference. She wants to promote for her religion.  The curators of the zoo want to educate," said Brian Cross with Friends of Religion and Science.

"Unless we find ways to engage the Church back into public policy decisions we will be lost as a city, state and nation," said Anna Falling.

Her speech was part sermon, part rallying cry.  And, it's already winning over some voters.

"I think she stands up very strong for her beliefs. And, I think by doing this she shows that. And, I think that's good. We need a mayor that comes up and is strong about their opinion and is not afraid to express their opinion," said Creationism supporter Angela Childress.

Anna Falling is gathering signatures to appeal to the Tulsa Parks Board about the Creationism exhibit.

A Tulsa Zoo spokesperson said in a statement that the Tulsa Parks Board resolved this issue in 2005, after a very public process involving the entire community.

Also notice the picture on the left:



Protest sign makers really need to learn how to use a dictionary.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/9/764064/-Alright-Republicans,-We-Give-Up.

Dear Republicans,

Over the past week, we have seen your passionate protests and heard your concerns about Democratic proposals for health care reform. We have considered your insightful and well reasoned arguments, and on behalf of progressives everywhere, I am here to say: OK! We give up! We are willing to compromise on the proposals that concern you. You've won! Yay!

In accordance with your cogent and potent criticisms, these are the terms of our concession:

   1. We will not euthanize your grandmother. This is the big one, and I really hope you guys appreciate how much of a concession this is on behalf of the progressive movement. Since the days of the Bull Moose Party, progressives have wanted nothing more than to slaughter old people by the millions. That much is obvious. After all, if we wanted senior citizens to have long and healthy lives, why would we have created Social Security and Medicare? Think about it. Death to grannies has long been the core of progressive policy, so it's not without some consternation that we give it up. So there: no euthanizing old people. You've got it.

   2. Rahm Emanuel's brother will not kill Sarah Palin's baby. While this will require us to gut HR 3200 "America's Health Choices and Murder Sarah Palin's Baby Act of 2009," we're currently working with Henry Waxman to remove the extensive Sarah Palin's baby-killing provisions from the final bill. While this will probably cost us Andrew Sullivan's support, we recognize that this is a necessary sacrifice for securing broad bipartisan support of health care reform.

   3. The government will not nationalize hospitals and other health service providers. This is another big one. Though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has correctly pointed out that current Democratic proposals involve adopting the British health care system, we now recognize that this is not politically viable. The final bill, accordingly, will not involve the nationalization of hospitals and other health service providers. This will be a major setback to Obama's well known communist agenda, but again, we progressives agree with the Blue Dogs that we need to reach a broad national consensus by responding to Republican concerns.

   4. We will make the health care reform bill available for all Americans to read as soon as possible. I know that conservatives and pundits have been eagerly anticipating an opportunity to read the final health care reform bill, and after extensive discussion, we have decided to comply with your request. While we would like to have unseen drafts languishing in committee forever, we have asked Senate Democrats like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad to deliver a bill as soon as possible in order to allow the public to read it. As you know, progressives wanted nothing more than to keep these drafts hidden for as long as possible, but in the interests of transparency and bipartisan consensus, we recognize that it's vital to move the legislative process forward. In fact, it is our hope that Baucus and Conrad will return from the August recess early in order to ensure that the public has as much time as possible to inspect their work.

   5. We will not subsidize abortions with your hard-earned tax dollars. Despite the fact that both FactCheck.org and Politifact insist that we already made this concession months ago, we're going to make extra-special-super sure that we did. Just give me a second...

...

...

...

... yep, we did.

   6. We will not allow the government to have direct access to your bank account. I know several conservatives I've spoken to are deeply concerned about this measure, and while we progressives are always looking for new ways for the government to unlawfully violate your privacy and steal your money, we have decided to remove this provision from the final bill. While we may include a way for individuals to voluntarily set up an electronic funds transfer with their insurance provider, we will no longer push for government access to all individual bank accounts. You've won this one.

   7. We will not provide illegal immigrants with unlimited free health care. Though progressives want nothing more than to provide unlimited social services to illegal immigrants while denying them to everyone else, we now recognize that this plan was, perhaps, a bit inequitable. However, while they will not be receiving unlimited free health care, each illegal immigrant will still receive a pretty pony. I'm sorry, but we have to draw the line somewhere.

   8. Private health insurance will not be eliminated. Though, as Drudge recently pointed out with a damning YouTube video, the long-stated Republican goal of moving away from employer-based coverage somehow means "eliminating private insurance" when Obama talks about the same thing, we've decided to preserve private insurance plans for those who want them. However, we have yet to convince ultra-socialist Charles Krauthammer to drop his communist crusade against employer-based (i.e., according to Drudge, "all private") coverage.

   9. You will not be issued a "National Health Insurance ID." While we thought this was a fun idea, the final version of the health care reform bill will not require you to have any kind of ID when you're pulled over for drunk driving or found loitering outside of a military base. In fact, you are hereby encouraged not to carry any proof of insurance whatsoever. Trust me, it's a terrible idea!

  10. There will be no super-secret-awesome health care program for ACORN employees. Though we love our election-stealing squirrels, we have decided that they'll have to settle for the same options as everyone else.

With these concessions having been made, I trust that we can now move forward on health care reform with a broad, bipartisan consensus. Blue Dogs and Republicans, you can now rest easy knowing that the concerns of the town hall protesters have been met. While the progressive dream of a nation in which old people are slaughtered to pay for the abortions of ACORN-employed illegal immigrants will again have to be deferred, we are willing to settle for a bill without these measures in the name of bipartisanship.

Congratulations, Republicans. You've won this round.

Do we have enough people here willing to do a Fantasy Football league for this season? I'm willing to be commissioner if we use a site like Yahoo:

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/

Ten team owners would be great but we could make do with 8 in a pinch.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/26/att-blocks-4chan-this-is-going-to-get-ugly/

As if AT&T wasn't already bad enough. In an act that is sure to spark internet rebellions everywhere, AT&T has apparently declared war on the extremely popular imageboard 4chan.org, blocking some of the site's most popular message boards, including /r9k/ and the infamous /b/. m00t, who started 4chan and continues to run the site, has posted a note to the 4chan status blog indicating that AT&T is in fact filtering/blocking the site for many of its customers (we're still trying to confirm from AT&T's side).

Reports of the blocking began to surface on reddit this afternoon, and a number of blogs are beginning to pick up on the story, though it doesn't seem like any have managed to get a comment from AT&T (we've reached out to the company and will update once we hear back).

4chan has been called many things, most of which aren't particularly flattering. Some parts of the site are entirely unmoderated, leading to a wild-west, highly NSFW environment where irreverance, mischief, and lewdness thrive (I like to think of it as the Mos Eisley of the web). But that doesn't mean the site isn't extremely influential on web culture. Many of its exploits are famous, including taking over the Time 100 list, and it's also where some of the Internet's most famous memes got their start, including the Rick Roll and LOLcats. It's also known as the main hub for Anonymous, a group that has held a very public campaign against Scientology.

In other words, AT&T has just opened perhaps the most vindictive, messy can of worms it could have possibly found. Blocking any site is an extreme breach of user trust, but the decision to block 4chan in particular just seems stupid. Expect the web equivalent of rioting if this doesn't change soon.

Kafka was right!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/21/heritage-house-law/

With all the attention that's been paid lately to long federal sentences for drug offenders, it's surprising that a far more troubling phenomenon has barely hit the media's radar screen. Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison.

What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has.

We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct.

Federal law in particular now criminalizes entire categories of activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. This is an inevitable result of the fact that the criminal law is no longer restricted to punishing inherently wrongful conduct -- such as murder, rape, robbery, and the like.

Moreover, under these new laws, the government can often secure a conviction without having to prove that the person accused even intended to commit a bad act, historically a protection against wrongful conviction.

Laws like this are dangerous in the hands of social engineers and ambitious lawmakers -- not to mention overzealous prosecutors -- bent on using government's greatest civilian power to punish any activity they dislike. So many thousands of criminal offenses are now in federal law that a prominent federal appeals court judge titled his recent essay on this overcriminalization problem, "You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal."

Consider small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, who will testify at today's hearing. Krister never had so much as a traffic ticket before he was run off the road near his mother's home in Wasilla, Alaska, by SWAT-armored federal agents in large black SUVs training automatic weapons on him.

Evertson, who had been working on clean-energy fuel cells since he was in high school, had no idea what he'd done wrong. It turned out that when he legally sold some sodium (part of his fuel-cell materials) to raise cash, he forgot to put a federally mandated safety sticker on the UPS package he sent to the lawful purchaser.

Krister's lack of a criminal record did nothing to prevent federal agents from ransacking his mother's home in their search for evidence on this oh-so-dangerous criminal.

The good news is that a federal jury in Alaska acquitted Krister of all charges. The jurors saw through the charges and realized that Krister had done nothing wrong.

The bad news, however, is that the feds apparently had it in for Krister. Federal criminal law is so broad that it gave prosecutors a convenient vehicle to use to get their man.

Two years after arresting him, the feds brought an entirely new criminal prosecution against Krister on entirely new grounds. They used the fact that before Krister moved back to Wasilla to care for his 80-year-old mother, he had safely and securely stored all of his fuel-cell materials in Salmon, Idaho.

According to the government, when Krister was in jail in Alaska due to the first unjust charges, he had "abandoned" his fuel-cell materials in Idaho. Unfortunately for Krister, federal lawmakers had included in the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act a provision making it a crime to abandon "hazardous waste." According to the trial judge, the law didn't require prosecutors to prove that Krister had intended to abandon the materials (he hadn't) or that they were waste at all -- in reality, they were quite valuable and properly stored away for future use.

With such a broad law, the second jury didn't have much of a choice, and it convicted him. He spent almost two years locked up with real criminals in a federal prison. After he testifies today, he will have to return to his halfway house in Idaho and serve another week before he is released.

(Via @dangerousmeme)

It's the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon so NASA is pulling out all of the stops to celebrate. Here are a couple of cools links to enjoy:

http://wechoosethemoon.com/  "Real time" reenactment of the Apollo 11 mission.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/remembering_apollo_11.html  Incredible (and very large) pics from the Apollo mission. I've already saved a couple of them to use as wallpaper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ_mTgkGSZk  Some cleaned up footage of the moon landing that NASA just released.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html  Phil Plait's website debunking all of the Moon Landing Hoax nonsense.