We're back from our time off - 9 September 2008

My professional self has a look at a search engine designed to capture the deep Web and Google doing digitization work on newspaper archives and says, “ooooooooooOOOOoh. This could be good. Yummy access...” Of course, nobody knows whether that access comes at a price or not yet. It looks like the Deep Web searching agent will, but I would be surprised if Google starts charging for their access. One of these days, we’re going to get a look inside their finances to see how they manage to make enough money to stay afloat and continually embark on ambitious projects like this...

From here, to news. Internationally, networks in Canada have decided to not allow parties that have no MPs from participating in televised debates for the election upcoming, a discovered plot to blow up Iraqi provincial government buildings, but supposedly IEDs aren't as much of a problem, a changeover in the commander of the Iraq cnoflict, quite a bit of wrangling expected on whether or not the UN HRC will say anything about "religious defamation", even as al-Qaeda denounces Iran for cooperating with America in occupying Iraq, a female Presidential candidate in Panama, Russia finally adhering to the cease-fire agreement, the Cuban economic embargo continues, even as the U.S. offers humanitarian aid for those hit by hurricanes, and let the speculation begin as Russia begins final preparations to bring on-line Iran's first civilian nuclear power plant.

Domestically, Happy birthday, Star Trek! Tho Gene is gone, we still love ya.

More domestic matters: obsessive Big Mac consumption, Secretary of State Rice says there need to be more men and women of color in her department, and Olbermann and Mathhews bounced from conventino coverage. Hrm. I wonder what the internal tensions are that generated this decision. And if it’s really that MSNBC is shifting left and NBC wants to stay central on all of its coverage, they coul at least say that. That said, it would be rather nice to have an actually left channel to provide some balance to the definitely-right channels of Fox.

Code Pink made it inside the RNC, but were stopped before too much disruption, apparently using someone else's credentials to get down on the floor, which is either devious by Code Pink or stupid by the RNC to give out passes without checking identities first.

In strange news, something I would think is an anatomical impossibility - a father was charged with the rape of his 8 day-old daughter. I can’t imagine how that even would work out. Something more plausible is a surfer who got to feel what surfing by shark power felt like.

In candidates, the dirt-digging skills are impressive. Before getting to the stuff, Palin's weekly radio address, to hear her own words about her candidacy. Moving forward, Palin's mayorial spot was apparently the meth capital of the state five years ago, presumably while she was mayor there. Additionally, rape victims may have had to pay for their own sexual asault investigation kits. There’s also admonishments to the maisntream media to stop making it look like Sarah Palin is a feminist, and admonishments to Governor Palin to stop fibbing about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere project, and some concern that the Republican base is more than willing to go along with her in that fib.

Charges airily dismissed against those plotting to kill Senator Obama - even with the FBI asking for more serious charges to be brought.

In opinions, The Slacktivist's Part One on why those damn false rumors just won't die, even when they’re obviously full of holes and factual inaccuracies. David All opines why conservatives should be for net neturality - it stops telecoms from deciding what goes through and what doesn't, so that one can avoid the ever-present liberal bias in the media. Hey, even if I don’t agree with the bias thing, if that’s what gets people to ensure the net stays netural, so be it.

The WSJ gets on the Senate's case for not moving faster in confirming judges.

Candidate-specific opinions produce what's wrong with the Republican Party - too many attacks on others and not enough talking up their own candidate and letting people learn about him/her. Contrast with Heather Higgins' unvarnished praise for Governor Palin as someone who has done lots, and can thus be counted on to be a reformer, compared to Senator Obama's speeches, and Jennifer Rubin's list of ways Governor Palin has changed the election.

Compare author Judy Blume on why it would be bad for Governor Palin to be Vice-President because of her anti-choice stances for both women and children with Carol Platt Liebau taking up the new attack line by calling feminists "hypocrites" because they are going after the bestest shining example of feminism at work EVAR because she's anti-choice, and only the pro-choice are True Feminists. Harry R. Jackson provides the echo.

The General has praise for someone who takes up the call to have John McCain smote so that Sarah Palin can take office. And even better, he gets a response congratulating his parody, but saying that he's serious about the death thing.

Burt Prelutsky stays tried-and-true by describing liberals as immature adults who resent those that have "rules and values",, because, as we all know, only conservative values count as values. Liberals are valueless, godless, amoral savages who nonetheless manage to convince a lot of people they’re humans.

Dinesh D'Souza feels he can't let Senator Obama's half-brother live in the poverty he does, and so is setting up a fund to collect donations he can send to the Obama campaign to forward on, performing perhaps one of the biggest concern trollings to date and hoping to shame the Obama camp on a family issue in the eyes of the family-values voters.

At the tail end, Steve Chapman takes both conventions to task for not mentioning how great and free a country we are, and how the freedom to do whatever you like with your life is a bedrock of American society, instead of what he sees as socialism spouted by the left and an unwillingness to grant freedoms they don’t like on the right. Ken Connor feels that political campaigning and reporting should get back to issues and not go after people.

Science! SCIENCE! - with gryoscopic wheels to help maintain balance on bicycles, a digital camera that does movie-quality material - for $17,000, tardigrades survive the vacuum of space, a possible fleet of water-based Google data centers, cloud-seeders as climate-change battleships, water on Mars was there for some time, fire up the Large Hadron Collider, and have a look at some cars intended to dethrone the Prius - a VW diesel that gets 62 mpg, Chrysler's attempt at a plug-in hybrid, Volvo brings a diesel to Europe, and Honda enters the market with a $19,000 hybrid.

Last for tonight, try shark surfing, pictures of an abandoned train station, pictures of hurricanes from orbit, a picture of a purple polar bear, the best places to live in the world, living on less than a pound a day for a year, and a reminder that when life and death matters arrive, the politics often drops away.

The run up to a big... blargh? - 10 September 2008

Leading off tonight with some odd things - the 2GB Evangelion entry-plug USB drive and PMSbuddy, a service that lets you sign up and get reminders for when the women in your life are supposed to be at the point of their grouchiest/crabbiest, so that the men can get coddling, sweet, kind, and otherwise try to remove themselves as targets from potential wrath.

Internationally, an advert for the Conservative party of Cana displaying a puffin defecating on the Liberal candidate has been pulled and apologized for. After the tasteless part, it turns out that puffins tend to hide their poo, not display it in public.

Also, troop shift to Afghanistan is less than what NATO commanders want, Russia seized U.S.-origin equipment in Georgia (anyone else thinking both sides are trying to gear up for another Cold War? In turn, this makes others speculate about whether the U.S. will hang its allies out to dry...), Doctors just returned to Iran from the U.S. arrested and accused of trying to destabilize the government, and an upcoming changeover of the Awakening Councils into security forces or other government jobs.

Domesitcally, some good news to start. Flordia's ban on homosexual couple adoption has been ruled unconstitutional. And the ruling says that it’s so because it prevents courts and workers from deciding what’s in the best interests of the child. I’m pretty sure there are some religious conservatives who are livid at a phrase they thought they had sewn up being turned against them.

Unfortunately, it gets worse from there. the Macomb County, Michigan GOP chair plans on challenging voters who list their address as a foreclosed home. Even if the actual residents there are in negotiation or otherwise residents, the GOP chair sees fit to challenge them on the criteria that they aren’t trueresidents if their house has been foreclosed on.

Even after seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimonies, a man convicted of murder is scheduled to die in Georgia at the end of the month. Thanks to laws put in place that make it harder for someone convicted of a capital crime to make an appeal. I wonder how many others on death row have similar situations.

Muslim workers of JBS Swift and company have walked off their job after finding out that the company would not accomodate their request for prayer breaks during the holy month of Ramadan. One would think, if one were employing a large enough segment of Muslims, that one could find a way of making sure things operated smoothly while there were prayer breaks, but it does not appear to be the case.

The military is keeping secrets about female soldiers classified as "suicides", despite some pretty compelling evidence that the deaths of those soldiers was anything but, alleges Col. Ann Wright. The colonel describes the demographics adn interesting situations that accompanied each of those deaths, giving credence to the idea that there’s sexual assault, which is then covered up by killing the woman and disfiguring her body to remove the evidence, or retaliation against investigations into corruption in command or in contractors. The fine-toothed comb should be applied in these cases. If there’s corruption and rot in the troops, they deserve to have it excised. There will be a lot to search, thuogh - up to 761 bases worldwide where the rot might be. (And most people don’t know they’re there, nor the scale of the American military presence).

Expensive border fencing still on the current administrator's docket, although unlikely to have PETA advertisements with them.

Opinions not of the candidates include the need to ensure that Jordan cannot overstep its territorial boundaries and prosecute Westerners for things they did in their home countries, Alan Caruba repeating his attacks on the Democratic position on petroleum dependence, by claiming the Democrats are deceiving everyone about how poorly renewable and clean fuels have done, The Wall Street Journal blaming everything but tax cuts and defense spending as the reason why the deficit is growing, as well as showing how much the person in charge of Fannie and Freddie wasn't trying to head off the current crisis.

Weaving the bizarre without worrying to much about it in the candidates, apparently when Senator Obama says his opponent's policies are like putting lipstick on a pig, it's a sexist remark against the VP. And yes, Senator Obama did say it, in its proper context, after describing the similarity of McCain's policies to the current administrator's. Of course, Senator McCain said it first, almost a year ago. So Senator Obama calls the whole thing a "made-up controversy", and I agree. After all, lipstick has been getting a lot of play lately, ever since Governor Palin made the joke about it. Mona Charen wonders if Governor Palin's decision to have a Down's Syndrom child is the real reason why her opponents savaged her. Jim DeMint praises Governor Palin's anti-earmark abilities by comparing them to what Senator Obama has been doing this year, highlighting the differences of cash between the state and federal level, and choosing which things to mention that Senator Obama voted for. All of this caps off with a joint McCain-Palin statement about how much they're going to stop bailing out companies with taxpayer dollars.

And then there’s the letter from a resident of Mayor Palin's town that talks all about what she did and what kind of person she was while in office - apparently, the dear mayor carries a grudge and tends to try and ruin anyone who speaks ill of her, in addition to her policies.

The Washington Post admits it - it's more about themes and perceptions than actual facts, and hen it comes to stretching the truth, there are few better at it than politicians. Right now, the Republicans are getting the brunt of the need to fact-check. ericmonster has issues with the "balanced" reporting in the articles, because it tries so very hard to paint Senator Obama as exaggerating things that Senator McCain actually said recently and other such nonsense. And then there’s the CNS item that repeats the "economy grew, so bad times can't exist" mantra, without actually noting where that growth comes from and to whom the growth goes. And for as much as the GOP wants to make itself into the party of small-town America, small-town America isn't doing too well under Republican rule, and they're not going to be played like rubes. We hope. That some supporters of Senator Obama forced Senator McCain to cut short a speech with their chants could be takes as a good or bad sign, depending on how you want to spin it. I’m not in favor of mobs suppressing political speeches, so I would hope that the Obama supporters would be a bit more civilized, listen to the speech, and then pick it apart in all the inaccuracies it has. Or take Rober Creamer's advice and get out into the world, convincing others that your candidate really is the best candidate, making calls, and demanding that people show up and vote in the election.

Juan Cole compares Governor Palin to the theocrats of the Middle East and finds the comparison far more apt than anyone should. For those who may want a refresher course on what a dominionist Christian really wants, have a look at the Joel's Army crowd, steeplejackers extraordinaire.

In the past, Senator McCain favored abolishing the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He doesn’t now, but if we’re going to declare that the decades-old associations of the Democratic candidate are indicators of his personality, culture, and policy, then it’s only fair to do the same to the Republican. Or we could go a lot mroe recently and scratch our heads at why the McCain campaign is attacking an age-appropriate pedophile-protection (i.e. "good touch, bad touch") program for kindergarteners and calling it “sex education for kindergarteners”. Does Senator McCain really want to look like he's sucking up to pedophiles? Not to mention, his advertisement is in serious need of factual context, and is a great example of taking quotes out of context.

Senator Obama and Bill'O have a tax chat, where Senator Obama explains that those who make more should be helping those who aren’t, and Bill’O promptly applied the “socialist” label to it and called him “Robin Hood Obama”. Fouad Ajami thinks Senator Obama can't lead as commander-in-chief because he doesn't believe in the military, and that makes him unsuited to the Presidency, and the WSJ thinks that Seantor Obama might finally have a handle on a sensible (of sorts) tax plan.

In SCIENCE - testing begins on the LHC, in anticipation of some actual particle-smashing next month, electronic fields potentially interfering with nature and causing things like colony collapse, the possibility of created life, Google and O3b teaming up to provide satellite internet capabilities to the rest of the world, and an opinion that the developing world needs to use as much science-backed agriculture as possible, along with a plea to cut back on meat consumption globally to counter greenhouse gases and a host of other effects.

On the tail end: The Happiness Project offers 11 tips for "eating very right", an opera version of The Fly, and Inisght provides a little glimpse into the way P.K. Dick saw reality. Oh, and of course, the creation of the LHC exposes it for the humanity-killing machine it was designed to be. Oh, and it would take the LHC approximately 30 nanoseconds to defrost a pizza, if the power of the beam was spread out properly.