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Inspectors have arrived - 20 June 2008
Jun. 21st, 2008 12:41 amThings are good. We’er all set up in a relatively comfy-cozy situation, there are foods, there are drinks, there are family here, and we love it. There was even bowling where the tunes kept creeping backward in time the longer we were there.
Interplanetary news to start - according to observations of the white material uncovered by Phoenix’s digging at the north pole of Mars, the white material is water ice. There is ice on Mars, which makes things even more interesting when it comes to analyzing and seeing if there is/was life on the planet.
Blackwater instructor and bodyguard for Saudis busted with big quantities of drugs. Helicopter engines worth millions have gone missing in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Conservatives are worried that the recent SCOTUS decision will set precedent to let all captured terror suspects have their day in court. But there’s also IED casulaties going way down, thanks to the increase in troops, which is real progress... really. More eyes spot more things. Having enough soldiers to do jobs properly means they get done properly. The real measure of “success” and “victory” is whether this will hold up as U.S. presence leaves the matter to the Iraqis. Makes great political fodder to say things are improving, but won’t be of any help at all if it all collapses after you’re gone.
Back here in the States, it looks like telecom immunity will be happening after all, after a deal was reached on a bill that will now move forward to the House of Representatives. Said bill includes a provision for telco immunity where the President just has to assert that they were helping the government in good faith to catch terrorists, and they will be absolved. No inquiry, no further investigation on how they broke laws and potentially continue to do so, nothing. As well as precedent to continue messing around and potentially tapping our stuff. Steny Hoyer says we're next. And for those placing hope in the change campaign, Senator Obama has accepted the compromise, while stating that he will work against the retroactive immunity language, accepting that “okay, but no more illegal stuff from here” is sufficient to start with.
Wikileaks has released a Special Forces manual that they describe as "what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places". Including censorship, denial of rights to persons captured, lots of pervasive spying... the works. How much of that has been in Iraq, and how much of that has been here at home, well, probably a decision that everyone makes for themselves.
Speaking of political fodder, the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department has a doozy - after renovations to become more energy efficient, apparently Al Gore's house uses more energy now... despite his costs going down because he now generates some amount of electricity himself. Numbers will say whatever you want them to, in the right context. It also looks like despite the calls to engage in domestic drilling, Mr. Bush will meet resistance from Democrats on actually doing so.
Quick candidate shots - Obama calls for Nuremberg-like trial, should bin Laden be caught alive, McCain likes nuke and clean coal power, and Obama leads McCain in several states this early in the game.
Alternet interviews someone who wrote about the Dover school board case, including what it took for school board members to "lie for Jesus", changing their rhetoric from “creationism” to “intelligent design” when the Thomas More Law Center got involved. The suspicions of intelligent design started when the ID/creationists couldn’t really explain their positions in such a way as to be understandable, instead repeating their script, while the scientists kept trying various ways to make their positions comprehensible. And unlike the “atheists versus creationists” that we got, it turns out that a few of the plantiffs were religious, too, but they were fighting a school board that had been stacked with people who wanted to bring back god to the public schools, including prayer petitions and the attempt to make creationism part of the science courses.
Continuing in the theme, enjoy this thought in proper revulsion - a person who believes that there cannot be extraterrestrial life because the Bible says Terra is unique and humans are special will be spoke at the Pentagon on 18 June. Rather interesting to see that the opinion is in a minority when placed with other faiths and philosophies in a Tuscon paper’s sample, yet that kind of person is the one that has the government’s ear. Pharyngula is having nightmares about it, and in response, Ken Ham pats him on the head, calls him a bad scientist, a moral-less atheist who only cares about what is (because he lacks said morals), and claims he, as a Christian, is being singled out for Pharyngula's scorn. In other words, just about totally missing the point. His #2, which says, “If it were Muslims doing it, I bet he wouldn’t care so much” is the closest he gets to actual refutation. Might welcome it for religious diversity, might want it gone, to, because religious officials really don’t have all that much truck with military commanders, excepting perhaps in chaplaincy, and those commanders are supposed to come to the chaplain, not the other way around. Oh, and he also endorses the pastors urging people to think of the disasters in Iowa in Biblical terms, in the same way that televangelists were claiming Katrina and 11 September were God’s wrath and mercy in telling us to repent and be reborn.
And then realize where some of these kinds of things lead - a 16 year-old in a faith-healing background died from an easily preventable disease. No charges will probably be filed, as the teenager is old enough under Oregon law to refuse treatment, but the parents were charged in the death of his 15-month old sibling for not getting treatment, preferring to faith-heal, so it’s very likely that this teenager had been filled so much with the power of prayer as to refuse the advances of medicine. And now he’s dead because of it. I understand the idea of the power of prayer and positive thoughts, but such things should be done with qualified medicine, rather than in place of it.
The lunacy is not necessarily limited to those of Christian denominations, either - a mother of an autistic child had to deal with an allegation that her child was sexually abused, based on the unbsubstantiated report of a psychic. The protective services did their mandated job, followed up, somewhat sheepishly, found no evidence at all, said, “Thank you for your cooperation”, and dropped the matter as fast as they could.
But there is hope - a Maine anti-homosexual ballot measure is being abandoned, after having failed to generate sufficient signatures for consideration.
In our opinion columns, Mark Dubowitz has already decided the Durban II conference will be a push from radical Muslims to make speech against Islam, no matter how radicalized, criminal, considering who is on the preparatory committee and how the last conference disintegrated into an anti-Israel forum. If that’s what happens, most likely it will be as similarly ignored as Durban I, really. Expecting that the U.N. will tell countries to pass laws to restrict their freedoms of speech to make any criticism illegal is not thinking very highly of the body. I think Dubowitz has the same opinion of what will happen at Durban that The Wall Street Journal says the secularist Turks have of their Islamic counterparts.
Larry Elder find media bias in the way that Presidential promises are kept, and in the way that Republicans seem to be receiving consistently negative coverage by “the media”. apparently, saying that Clinton fulfills a campaign promise and that W. Bush makes a move to please his conservative backers is engaging in liberal bias. And the negative Republican coverage might be because there are a lot of Republicans that have been doing negative things. The Dems need their fair share of corruption-exposing and scandal-stuff, too, but methinks the “bias” against Republicans is because they’ve been doing bad stuff, starting with their top man in government and going several steps down the way.
In artistic matters, amazing cities of particular colors and art in the Metro of Montreal.
Last for tonight, if conventional methods aren’t working, try farming with dynamite. It’s sure to be a blast.
Interplanetary news to start - according to observations of the white material uncovered by Phoenix’s digging at the north pole of Mars, the white material is water ice. There is ice on Mars, which makes things even more interesting when it comes to analyzing and seeing if there is/was life on the planet.
Blackwater instructor and bodyguard for Saudis busted with big quantities of drugs. Helicopter engines worth millions have gone missing in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Conservatives are worried that the recent SCOTUS decision will set precedent to let all captured terror suspects have their day in court. But there’s also IED casulaties going way down, thanks to the increase in troops, which is real progress... really. More eyes spot more things. Having enough soldiers to do jobs properly means they get done properly. The real measure of “success” and “victory” is whether this will hold up as U.S. presence leaves the matter to the Iraqis. Makes great political fodder to say things are improving, but won’t be of any help at all if it all collapses after you’re gone.
Back here in the States, it looks like telecom immunity will be happening after all, after a deal was reached on a bill that will now move forward to the House of Representatives. Said bill includes a provision for telco immunity where the President just has to assert that they were helping the government in good faith to catch terrorists, and they will be absolved. No inquiry, no further investigation on how they broke laws and potentially continue to do so, nothing. As well as precedent to continue messing around and potentially tapping our stuff. Steny Hoyer says we're next. And for those placing hope in the change campaign, Senator Obama has accepted the compromise, while stating that he will work against the retroactive immunity language, accepting that “okay, but no more illegal stuff from here” is sufficient to start with.
Wikileaks has released a Special Forces manual that they describe as "what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places". Including censorship, denial of rights to persons captured, lots of pervasive spying... the works. How much of that has been in Iraq, and how much of that has been here at home, well, probably a decision that everyone makes for themselves.
Speaking of political fodder, the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department has a doozy - after renovations to become more energy efficient, apparently Al Gore's house uses more energy now... despite his costs going down because he now generates some amount of electricity himself. Numbers will say whatever you want them to, in the right context. It also looks like despite the calls to engage in domestic drilling, Mr. Bush will meet resistance from Democrats on actually doing so.
Quick candidate shots - Obama calls for Nuremberg-like trial, should bin Laden be caught alive, McCain likes nuke and clean coal power, and Obama leads McCain in several states this early in the game.
Alternet interviews someone who wrote about the Dover school board case, including what it took for school board members to "lie for Jesus", changing their rhetoric from “creationism” to “intelligent design” when the Thomas More Law Center got involved. The suspicions of intelligent design started when the ID/creationists couldn’t really explain their positions in such a way as to be understandable, instead repeating their script, while the scientists kept trying various ways to make their positions comprehensible. And unlike the “atheists versus creationists” that we got, it turns out that a few of the plantiffs were religious, too, but they were fighting a school board that had been stacked with people who wanted to bring back god to the public schools, including prayer petitions and the attempt to make creationism part of the science courses.
Continuing in the theme, enjoy this thought in proper revulsion - a person who believes that there cannot be extraterrestrial life because the Bible says Terra is unique and humans are special will be spoke at the Pentagon on 18 June. Rather interesting to see that the opinion is in a minority when placed with other faiths and philosophies in a Tuscon paper’s sample, yet that kind of person is the one that has the government’s ear. Pharyngula is having nightmares about it, and in response, Ken Ham pats him on the head, calls him a bad scientist, a moral-less atheist who only cares about what is (because he lacks said morals), and claims he, as a Christian, is being singled out for Pharyngula's scorn. In other words, just about totally missing the point. His #2, which says, “If it were Muslims doing it, I bet he wouldn’t care so much” is the closest he gets to actual refutation. Might welcome it for religious diversity, might want it gone, to, because religious officials really don’t have all that much truck with military commanders, excepting perhaps in chaplaincy, and those commanders are supposed to come to the chaplain, not the other way around. Oh, and he also endorses the pastors urging people to think of the disasters in Iowa in Biblical terms, in the same way that televangelists were claiming Katrina and 11 September were God’s wrath and mercy in telling us to repent and be reborn.
And then realize where some of these kinds of things lead - a 16 year-old in a faith-healing background died from an easily preventable disease. No charges will probably be filed, as the teenager is old enough under Oregon law to refuse treatment, but the parents were charged in the death of his 15-month old sibling for not getting treatment, preferring to faith-heal, so it’s very likely that this teenager had been filled so much with the power of prayer as to refuse the advances of medicine. And now he’s dead because of it. I understand the idea of the power of prayer and positive thoughts, but such things should be done with qualified medicine, rather than in place of it.
The lunacy is not necessarily limited to those of Christian denominations, either - a mother of an autistic child had to deal with an allegation that her child was sexually abused, based on the unbsubstantiated report of a psychic. The protective services did their mandated job, followed up, somewhat sheepishly, found no evidence at all, said, “Thank you for your cooperation”, and dropped the matter as fast as they could.
But there is hope - a Maine anti-homosexual ballot measure is being abandoned, after having failed to generate sufficient signatures for consideration.
In our opinion columns, Mark Dubowitz has already decided the Durban II conference will be a push from radical Muslims to make speech against Islam, no matter how radicalized, criminal, considering who is on the preparatory committee and how the last conference disintegrated into an anti-Israel forum. If that’s what happens, most likely it will be as similarly ignored as Durban I, really. Expecting that the U.N. will tell countries to pass laws to restrict their freedoms of speech to make any criticism illegal is not thinking very highly of the body. I think Dubowitz has the same opinion of what will happen at Durban that The Wall Street Journal says the secularist Turks have of their Islamic counterparts.
Larry Elder find media bias in the way that Presidential promises are kept, and in the way that Republicans seem to be receiving consistently negative coverage by “the media”. apparently, saying that Clinton fulfills a campaign promise and that W. Bush makes a move to please his conservative backers is engaging in liberal bias. And the negative Republican coverage might be because there are a lot of Republicans that have been doing negative things. The Dems need their fair share of corruption-exposing and scandal-stuff, too, but methinks the “bias” against Republicans is because they’ve been doing bad stuff, starting with their top man in government and going several steps down the way.
In artistic matters, amazing cities of particular colors and art in the Metro of Montreal.
Last for tonight, if conventional methods aren’t working, try farming with dynamite. It’s sure to be a blast.
