Happy Canada Day to those who celebrate - 1 July 2008

International stuff to start - charges have finally been leveled against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a prisoner at Guantanamo since 2006, for his part in the USS Cole bombing in 2000. The government has said it will seek the death penalty. I think I’m going to be perpetually curious about the long delay between terror incidents happening and charges finally appearing. I’m hoping that’s because the methodological gathering of evidence and building of a case simply took this long to produce something that the government believes will stick, rather than flailing about looking for someone to charge. The defendant says he only confessed because he was being waterboarded and tortured. The government confirms that some waterboarding took place. Which makes this case that much tougher, because anything said even potentially under duress should be inadmissible.

Ahmadinejad is now apparently the target of sophisticated assassination plots using X-ray machines, according to Iran’s ambassador to Italy. So now we’re seeing more covert ops and more claims of covert ops. How long is this dance going to continue before one side blinks and loses?

Oil infighting in Iraq's parliament means contracts with major oil companies for consultancy are missing their deadlines. Iraqis have gotten smart and decided they want to have contracts that benefit them, not the companies that are looking to exploit them. I foresee a longer process in trying to negotiate something much fairer to the Iraqi populace.

Domestic and candidate matters both to start the inside-the-nation roundup. Namely, in a place that prides itself for the mass number of patriotic symbols it can bring to bear, falsehoods about Senator Obama's religion still find fertile ground. Mostly because people are more willing to believe what other people, their friends, have said about the candidate rather than doing the research for themselves and finding out what the truth is. It’s sad, but it’s probably something to do with how we live - after all, an entire town can’t be stupid enough to believe the full slate of rumors, can they? Not only that, but as Liberal Eagle notes, a "devoted family man" in this town threatened to disown his daughter if she voted for Obama, because he believes the "secret Muslim" lie. If the country does as this town does, then Obama’s sunk and the Republican rumor machine wins again. How many people in November will go to the polls still believing that Senator Obama is not a Christian? Oy. Mind-boggling.

Speaking of symbols, the World Trade Center rebuild is taking much longer than expected, due to design difficulties and aggressive timetables on reconstruction. So those waiting for Freedom Tower will have to wait a while longer.

The Associated Press is planning on meeting a group that claims to represent bloggers everywhere about how to handle and quote AP articles on-line. The AP seeks to create guidelines for use which may or may not permit others to use AP stories in a manner consistent with fair use provisions. The AP cited a want to not be taken out of context or have its news diluted by being spread across the Internet at large. I also find it interesting that someone is claiming to represent bloggers either nationwide or worldwide. We’re kind of more like Anonymous than any one group.

CNS throws more numbers at us - their headline is people blame the government for high gas prices, when the case is that they also blame oil companies, both foreign and domestic, have changed their driving habits, are considering better fuel mileage vehicles, and support both greening things up and drilling domestically for oil. That’s not blaming the government, that’s lashing out at anybody they can hit, as well as seriously considering any method that will work to relieve the price pressure. I suspect the more accurate headline would read “Americans pissed off at high fuel prices, want quick solutions”.

Another possible result of abstinence-based education - a 14 year-old girl gave birth to a child, then tried to flush it down the toilet, killing the child. Underage pregnancy, only one way out seen, any access to abortions? So instead, live birth, then death. That said, guess what’s coming forward onto our televisions tonight? The Secret Life of the American Teenager swings the biggest "sex makes you miserable, through pregnancy or disease or finding out that your first time wasn't stellar" hammer it can find. Mostly the pregnancy and disease parts, though.

Other items of interest to the Unabashed Feminism Department include a receptionist fired for refusing to get coffee for the bosses, apparently after she objected that females getting coffee for male bosses reinforced gender stereotypes. I think she has a point, and despite the sexual harassment suit failing, maybe we can finally make it so that either everyone has to get coffee at some point or everyone gets coffee themselves. Oh, and speaking thereof, Starbucks is closing 600 stores in the U.S. Apparently, the all blocks covered technique doesn’t really work as well as we thought.

Into the opinion columns - Thomas Sowell wants the populace to consider judicial appointments in their vote for President. Considering the current administration has several scandals relating to politics-based apponitments, Mr. Sowell is spot-on. Where Mr. Sowell and I disagree, though, is in his casual dismissal of third-party candidates by this logic. The assumption that the one of the major party candidates will win the election is a challengable one. I don’t expect it to happen any time soon, because plenty of people believe the lie that there are only two parties. Kang and Kodos would be proud. I do like the incentive to vote for a candidate because he has the power to appoint to the Supreme Court and federal courts. I just still believe that people should vote for the candidate that best reflects their views, regardless of whether they can “win” or not, because if everyone voted their preference, then some of those candidates just might win. We’d need a system like ranked choice voting, though, if that were to ever happen. The third most popular candidate might still win, and might still be a major party candidate, but it would give us a much clearer picture of where the populace’s loyalties really lie, including how many Ron Paul supporters there really are.

In any case, voting to prevent decisions that permitted local governments to use eminent domain and give the resulting seizure to other private entities sounds like a good use of one’s civic duty.

Continuing in candidate matters, the exaggeration of Gen. Clark’s comments yesterday looks like it might be part of a larger narrative, as it looks like Senator McCain's military service and POW experience is a perfect place for both sides to take umbrage and snipe, despite said service only being relevant in determining what the Senator’s outlook on striking at other countries might be like. We have some idea of how the Senator will continue international relations. I suppose it makes sense, though, that if Senator McCain wants to play himself up as qualified because he’s been a pilot and a POW many years before, then others will come looking for ways to take the wind out of those sails and try to keep the populace focused on issues, rather than perceived character.

Flipping over to the other major candidate, Senator Obama intends to expand faith-based programming, but to prevent faith-based programs that use taxpayer dollars from hiring and firing based on religion, co-opting a sstem already in place and trying to bring it into compliance with all the requirements the federal government has to abide by. If he pulls it off, and it is made properly welcome and encouraging to non-Christian groups, it could be quite the Obaam coup. If it continues to be mired in the religious politics that give preference to one type of religion over another, as in the current administration, then this decision is not particularly wise. We’ll see how things turn out, if we have a President Obama. Ariana Huffington agrees that tacking to the center is a bad move for Obama, because it alienates his base and makes him look waffly and not change-based. David Limbaugh suggests that the Democratic Party will be purged of its conservatives if the left elect Obama, and that all of the Senator's campaign promises will have the opposite effect, in essence, still believing that Obama is still completely a leftist candidate, despite his current more centrist rhetoric. I don’t know. Might be interesting to see conservatives scared of the Democratic Party, and an actual bunch of liberals in charge and trying to make policy. It would certainly be a refreshing change compared to the last eight years.

Paul Weyrich believes liberals have control of the media, except for talk radio, and intend on reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine through secret means. If liberals really do control the media, why would they want the Fairness Doctrine to return? It would force them to give up their time to conservative viewpoints, even if they did get time on talk radio bands and stations. The majority secret cabal would not want to give up their own bases just to get access to someone else’s. I don’t buy it. With consolidation and a select few companies owning quite a few radio stations across the dial and the country, if Weyrich really believes in the shadowy media conspiracy, he’d do better to try and get Clear Channel broken up under antitrust laws than to spend his time chasing after phantasms in the legislation.

Ed Feulner wonders why the populace is pessimistic, considering all the progress in Iraq and sound economy and the ability of the American people to overcome problems. Well, everything’s good excepting for those pesky entitlements, but we can work those out, too, he says. Don’t worry, be happy, and so forth. Doug Wilson wants the populace to think long-term about ending oil dependence, through linking short-term drilling ability with research and development of long-term oil-weaning tech. The further along we get toward stopping our oil dependence, the more the oil companies will be able to feed the short-term needs before we gloriously convert over to our cleaner and better power and fuels. While the domestic drilling part I’m ambivalent about, incentivizing oil companies to research their next best thing is very much something we should be doing.

In science and technology, the severely disabled may soon be able to use a tongue-based system for computer operation or for driving a wheelchair. Body-computer interfaces get cooler and cooler by the day. Soon enough, I suspect, we’ll have them for augmentation rather than trying to get the disabled back to full functioning.

After having her car battery die, a woman needed assistance to figure out how to manually unlock her door. Normally, when we have technology malfunctions, we expect big consequences, like leaks of PINs from ATMs to computers that permit hackers to obtain the numbers and then use them. Someone not knowing there was a manual way of engaging locks is anticlimactic.

There’s also Fish School, a system for training your fish to do tricks. *shrug* I’m more interested, I suspect, in Fish Fight.

Last out of this section, however, is pure, unpolluted pwnage of Andrew Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia. Recall, for a bit, the grand experiment conducted by Dr. Lenski with E. Coli that eventaully produced a mutant variant of the bacterium that could thrive in an environment previously hostile to them. Sure, it took tens of thousands of generations (about 20 years, Hume time, from start to finish), but after obtaining such bacterium, it looked like the mechanics of evolution were validated. So, naturally, accusations and insistences that the data was forged or somehow wrong, or that the experiment proved intelligent design rolled in. Conservapedia’s Schlafly demanded all the data. When it was pointed out that the important data was in the paper, Schlafly demanded the data again. Dr. Lenski then penned a significcantly less polite response, detailing that the data needed was in the paper, making a quick sketch of the scientific method, and ending by saying that he would be glad to let a competent scientist try to repeat the experiment or derive further conclusions from it, which excluded Schlafly and many of his minions.

Next-to-last for tonight, God speaks, and has some choice words for his followers.

Last for tonight, though, finding something we should already know - everyone, including sex workers, enjoys a good cuddle. In a state where it’s legal to do such things, a gent paid $100 to cuddle. It was going to start as a short session, even after it took some convincing that cuddles was all he wanted. And despite the things tarting as sort of a one-off joke, both participants found they enjoyed the cuddles, turning a short session and some banter into a longer session with some deeper dialogue. Everyone could use a cuddle or two. It’s sad that we don’t have enough people in our lives to provide them.

Into the new month headfirst - 2 July 2008

A madhouse today - all sorts of people here for different things. Apparently, a time typo escaped our notice, and so some people were expecting a program at 3:30. Those that were signed up got the scoop that it was actually at 1 today, so there was still a good program. And the hordes did descend for the 3:30, and my co-worker made something ot make them not go away empty-handed, but it surely taxed the stamina.

Starting the news in international relations, the foreign minister of Iraq is urging adoption of a deal that would keep United States troops in the country past the point of their U.N. mandate, claiming that th U.S. has dropped any notion of immunity from local law currently enjoyed by contractors. And even with calling fifteen of the eighteen benchmarks "satisfactory", there’s no hurry for this administration to turn over responsibilities and power to the Iraqi people, some of which probably is the fault of a slow government in Baghdad, but other parts are probably due to the way the country was invaded and occupied. With opinions like Numan al-Faddagh, who sees a greater and freer and Iraq, thanks to America knowcking down Saddam, I’m sure all sides will find the narrative they want to have regarding the country. Terence Jeffrey is still touting the surge success, I’m still trying to decide whether this will be a story of bad things done with good results, of bad and worse things done with bad intentions.

The European Union is developing rules to permit non-hospital health care without first obtaining one's home doctor's approval, and to be reimbursed for getting treatments that their home country would normally provide if the treatments were obtained in another country. In some ways, this is the benefit of belonging to a national or multinational social insurance conglomerate - it’s easy to get care and reimbursement, so long as you stay in-network.

Domestic matters, as always - The Atlantic details a crime wave that left an inner city and went to the suburbs. Apparently, the destruction of low-income Section 8 housing and the giving of vouchers to encourage the inner-city poor to find better housing elsewhere backfired in a horrible way, with the gangs going out and recruiting, and then engaging in new turf wars, and some people who left the projects clustering in the new areas... instead of a high concentration of bad things, we get bad things spread out over a much greater area, which could make things worse even though they’re supposed to make them better. What looks to be most telling, though, is that the people were sent away and told to live like they were middle class, without knowing or having any of the support structure that goes along with it. They were just the poor in a new place, and that doesn’t help anyone actually get out of poverty.

On a different sort of matter, but one that still affects the poor more and possibly hurts their chances of getting out of dangerous lifestyles, Less aid to Michigan universities and colleges means tuition increases, probably to the point where many people who want to go to university get priced right out of the market. Will this continue on in other places? Quite possible. I would guess that this trend will spread to other places as the economy continues to shake things out.

The Village Voice reminds us that Scientology tactics of obfuscate and litigate have a long history, and will continue even after someone has won judgment against them. All of the attention and attacks are enough to drive people insane, no doubt. For some, Scientology itself may have driven them insane. All the more reason for the great hordes of the Anonymous to flow as the water does and wear away at the empire until it collapses.

Six persons have been fired or suspended for their lack of action in helping a woman in the emergency room and then falsifying patient data to make it appear that she was conscious and moving when she was not. So how did this happen? Was it just that there wasn’t a staff person free to see her until she collapsed and became an emergency? Or did people notice her and ignore her, because she seemed fine at the time, and then became an urgent case? These things don’t happen in a vacuum, I would hope.

Candidate opinions - Cal Thomas wants voters to pay attention to all the things said in the Democratic primary, rather than letting them get buried in the new talk of unity. One would think the Republican challenger wouldn’t want to let good issues die, so I would expect many of them to have a resurgence in the general election campaign, if they haven’t already begun to do so now.

Other opinions are circulating around the upcoming holiday. I’ve been trying to avoid them, for the most part, because one can only really see "America is the Greatest Nation Ever" and all those who don’t believe in my interpretation (Protestantism, militarism, and free enterprise unfettered or uncaring about what it does) of its founding principles should try some other country better suited to their beliefs, "Independence Day means that we should give thanks to all our troops who help keep us free" as if our military force against foreign persons and nations through time were the sole reason that America is still standing, and "Our principles are the greatest - if we start acting more like the world wants us to, we'll become weak and ineffective like they are" before saying, “Stop abusing the holiday.” The celebration of the birth of a nation and the principles that founded it is excellent - but should probably be a time of study as much as a time of celebration that the nation is still here. For as much as people will tout the Declaration and the Constitution, it might be a good time to go over it and read the source documents. Of course, some national pride is good, too. Having an Amerocentric view of history and making us out to be the heroes of the world while everyone else rolls over doesn’t really work all that well for me.

Science has an interesting way of getting around - the Buzzball, a motorized hamster ball for humans. Posthuman Blues suggested it would be a precursor to a spherical lunar transport, but I think it would be an interesting way of getting people around here on Terra. And, I admit, it does resemble the big spheres from the classic American Gladiators, so I can imagine playing a bit of bumper balls with these. Constructed solidly and properly, we might even be able to handle a little road rage without giant wrecks.

There’s also using object-recongition software to track penguins, and a market trading agent programmed to adjust its behavior based on the behavior of the other players, getting more aggressive when others are, and more maximizing when there’s less aggerssion around, and a way of taking pictures without pointing a camera at the object being photographed.

Singled out for special abuse tonight is Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, who asserts that women are abused because they refuse to submit to their husbands and take on their divine roles as wife and mother. “Blame the victim”, for starters, rather than the men who expect unreasonable things from their wives, justify it with the religious book, and then neglect the part that says that husbands are supposed to respect and take care of their wives and children right after they tell the wives and children to respect their fathers and husbands. The men don’t escape notice, either, though, because they apparently have two options when they’re faced with an uppity woman who doesn’t know her place - they become abusive, because, by God, women will submit to the God-given Male Authority, or they become weak, spineless, passive wimps because they’re not asserting their God-given Male Authority. Either way, it’s the woman’s fault for trying to be a man. Thankfully, the General provides a third way out - publicly insulting your wife in front of reporters. As revenge, perhaps his wife can buy him an anti-abortion, pro date-rape shirt from Amazon. By the time this posts, the item will probably be removed, but imagine it as the slogan, emblazoned on a T-shirt, and you get the idea. Jezebel and others find it not the greatest of jokes, assuming it is one.

On the next to last mark, five tips for giving people good praise. Because, as Humes, we are praise junkies. This is just the way of making things a purer solution of lovey goodness.

Last for tonight, One of the more intriguing ideas I’ve been linked to is The Something Store, which will send you... something, for the price of $10, shipping included. You won’t know what the thing is you got until you get it. For all we know, it might be something from the Particle Zoo, which has plushie versions of subatomic particles.

So, from here, I’m going to turn the machines off, swap out the batteries, and then send the old one away to the recycling center (free of charge, no less).