Going to bed now - 24 February 2009

Up above our heads, in the darkness of the void of space... a mosquito survived outside the ISS. All hail our insect overlords.

Intenrationally, refrains return with more of the same, it seems. A person released from Guantanamo claims that he was extradited to Morocco, where both the United States and the United Kingdom were complicit and aware that he was being tortured, and is seeking documents to prove this, Fighting in Iraq results in deaths, as accused collaborators go on trial elsewhere, everyone gets nervous that North Korea is planning a satellite launch, with many suggesting the satellite part is cover for learning about what the rocket underneath can do, funds for helping Pakistan secure its borders are scarce, and money is planned to help Gaza rebuild, which will be routed through NGOs like the UN, and not going directly to Hamas.

Domestically, peeking into the lives of influential members of the last administration, veterans groups getting after an Army charity for putting more into its reserves than it paid out in direct aid and loans,

Mr. Obama apparently has a deft hand for humor in his summits and press conferences. While this qualifies as an “I hate the press” link for some, I think there’s soemthing else here. Namely, that if the President can be seen as someone who has a joke or two with the press corps and those assembled while also getting his message across, it means that he’s found a way of making the pressure less. Not that he’s not serious about fixing problems, but that he’s aware that presenting the always-serious front is not the best strategy. A President who can be casual is a President that’s not cracking under the stress. That’s a good sign.

Recall that North Dakota's House passed a bill that would give eggs more rights than women. Now, the General wants to ensure that all the sperm receive similar consideration, through the use of a several millions-strong sperm march on Washington.

A California Assemblyman suggests the legalization of marijuana, with associated heavy regulation and a high tax on the substance to try and help the coffers of the state fill up with some money.

It’s almost an attempt to find the head point of what is now the financial crisis. Meet Mr. David X. Li, creator of a formula that Wall Street used to create new types of securities and play games with the housing market, branching out into places where there was moderate-to-considerable risk and trusting that the numbers would do their magic. Except that those numbers represent people and markets, both of which produce unforseen circumstances that make the models not work. So it’s not Li, it’s the people who used his math outside the bounds that it was constrained by.

Which leads us into the opinions nicely with A Wired manifesto that says every company should standardize their reporting data and language, open-source the whole thing, and make it all public, so that the public can be harnessed as a regulatory tool, where interested persons and investors can download the data, have it set up, crunch numbers, calculate, and help the average person understand whether what they want to invest in is a solid company or the next Enron.

Mr. Prevor beleives the numbers used to jusitfy to Obama homeowner bailout are fuzzy at best and disingenuous at worst. The WSJ blames uncertainty emenating from the Obama administration abotu what is hapening to banks as a reason why the economy has continued to slide downward. So, definitive action, whether right or wrong, is correct because it’s action. Mr. McGurn notes how much Mr. Obama is not talking about small business owners in his plans, disapprovingly because Mr. Obama believes the government can do great things, instead of subscribing to Republican wisdom that government is incompetent at everything. Mr. Hayes and Mr. Malone agree, based on the fact that in a whole, what, two weeks after the stimulus passage, the economy didn’t spring back into its previous state. Thus, private investment in small businesses and entrepreneurship is the only way to go... through tax breaks and loaning capital, of course.

Mr. Beck is convinced we're on the road to socialism, because the government has bailed out industry and is helping people stay in homes they can’t afford. Welcome to the arguments of several months ago, Mr. Beck, and those non-sequiturs about incentive payments for getting library cards and how students expect good grades just for showing up and doing the work aren’t helping you much, either. You’d do well to take a lesson or two from Ms. Byrd's colunm on how she feels Mr. Obama has sprinted back to being the most liberal person in office ever. She makes a more focused and coherent argument. She also thinks that the opposition of Republicans to Mr. Obama will galvanize them back into a unified force as he continues to be liberal and spend lots of money. Ms. Higgins' column might be what you were trying to say - that Mr. Obama has no intention of rescuing the economy, only paying his friends and reward victimhood, instead of encouraging people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, in anticipation of government taking you over, punishing you if you profit, and using your money to let lazy people continue to consider themselves victims and entitled to that money. I will give you one thing, though. You didn’t take Demotivators seriously, like Mr. Thomas does, and use them as an example of what you think the government wants to instill in the people.

Last out, Mr. Stephens believes we're just around the corner from another big conflict, because we foolishly believe people will actually be peaceful. Thus, his solution to needing stimulus is to spend all that money on more weapons, so that we can deter those who might decide to get aggressive, give more money to our friends in defense contract companies, and supposedly get the economy going again, much like how World War II did. And then, when we need those weapons, we can just draft in all those nice young men that we’ll need to fill the positions, or point ou that the still-crumbling economy means that military service is really their only way of guaranteed employment! It’ll be great! Except for the part where it probably won’t actaally fix the economy and it will mean there are suddenly a lot more men to be sent out into war zones to die. But if we believe Mr. Sowell, who warns us of dire consequences from Iran's nuclear capabilities or North Korea's nuclear bombs, then we’ll either lose those men in the nuclear attack or lose them sending them into Iran to destroy their nuclear capabilities and overthrow their government. (While we’re still dealing with Iraq rebuilding and Afghanistan, naturally.) It’s going to take a miracle, again, or so it seems, according to Mr. Sowell.

In science, why this upcoming year could be the worst for people who believe, against science, that vaccination causes autism, approval from the FDA for doctors to implant electrodes in the brain for helping curb OCD, which may soon include the ability to stimulate the electrodes wirelessly, the completion of development of paper-based diagnostic tools, PackBot in the tech news again, analysis of the new Kindle version, a bill to restore Pluto to planet status, at least in Illinois, and a quick series on how much orange juice isn't, because of flavor packs that make the juice taste fresh. Plus, as it turns out, some people are more concerned with the packaging than the product. Actually, now that I think about it, there's a good chance everyone cares more about packing than product - we’re not all that great at identifying dog food in blind taste testing, despite consistently rating the dog food on the human palate as a mismatch. There’s also this bit where higher incidences of fast food restaurants and unhealthy populations go together, but the researchers haven’t teased out if one correlates to the other, and which way the correlation goes.

Last for tonight, science explains why you hate George Lucas after the prequels came out - they invaded your sense of nostalgia, and surrounded it with negative context, and thus you shout “George Lucas raped my childhood!”

Midday rant - On Atheists and the Supreme Court.

Ooh, another rant? By all means!

So, let's point out the source first. Your target in the crosshairs is Ken Klukowski, writing a column entitled "God Save America from Millitant Atheists". You can guess where this is going. Klukowski is up in arms that courts continue to hear the arguments of Michael Newdow, avowed atheist and secular society promoter. Furthermore, Klukowski fears that Mr. Newdow and others will soon be successful in their challenges if President Obama is allowed to appoint justices to the Supreme Court.

While Mr. Newdow has been unsuccessful to this point on any of his suits (and odds are good that this latest one, requesting the removal of "So help me God" and the two invoking and benedicting prayers from the presidential inauguration ceremony, will also fail), that the courts continue to hear him and push his cases to the Supremes indicates that he is obviously making solid points that require the learned legal opinions of the Justices.

The current test supposedly underway, the "establishment test" asks whether ceremonies of that nature violate the establishment clause. Given that most prayers are specifically nondenominational, the best argument there could be made that Theists are establishing their religion. Along with the guidelines for "legislative prayer" and the idea of "ceremonial deism", where we say words but intend as liberal an interpretation of them as possible, he's probably not going to win. Significantly more disturbing, though, is the shift in the test that will supposedly happen now, the "coercion test", where you ask the people who were there if they felt coerced into following or supporting a religion. Can you adequately ensure that if they say "Yes", that they don't become instant social pariahs or are subjected to retribution from their community, authority figures who are pushing this on them, or the government itself? And how many people or percentage thereof does it take for the event to fail this test? Considering, as Klukowski notes, 93% of the populace professes a theistic faith of some sort, they're not going to feel oppressed by someone offering theistic words. As an exercise, though, I wonder how many of those 93% will suddenly feel very oppressed if the person benedicting is of a non-Christian religion. Reference to people protesting practicing Hindu giving legislative prayer, requiring the Sergeant-At-Arms to remove the morons from the gallery here. If that's what the reactions are going to be, I think the Justices may want to say, "Well, fine. Until the fools among you who can't respect others go to the hells of their own making, or everybody decides that they're okay with other people expressing their own beliefs right next to yours, we're not letting anybody do anything. Motion granted, strip all references to theism out of our ceremonies"

Sounds to me like the "coercion test" is giving in to the tyranny of the majority in a really bad way. The Klukowski is getting bent out of shape because people who don't believe in God are asking their beliefs be respected in the halls of government is unwise. Using the Washington State Capitol incident as a sign of intolerance of theists while neglecting to mention that someone stole the sign and dumped it as a sign of their great tolerance for atheists is not giving he whole story.

Last example for this rant - replace "atheists" and "religion" with, say, "homosexuals" or "racial minorities" and then re-apply this "coercion test". "Well, hi there, you seven homosexuals in a group of 100 - do you feel oppressed if someone talks about sexuality as if there were only heterosexuals, even if they only talk about it in the most general of terms and don't get into details like kinks? And would you be willing to say that in front of a court, with your name on the record, when you know that your employer might fire you, your community might ostracize you, and you could have heterosexuals demonizing you by name if you do and become a known homosexual?" (Oh, wait...) "What about you, Ms. Minority? Would you feel oppressed if someone talked about race as if there were only white folk around? And if you wanted the government to recognize that there are other races, and to stop talking as if there were only white folk, with those same kinds of threats, would you speak up?" (Wait, we did that, too, didn't we?)

Luckily for us, there are people who are willing to speak up on these kinds of matters. 7% or no, this country, and its government, are for everyone, no matter what you believe or don't. This is why the Justices will keep hearing Michael Newdow, and why Klukowski is quaking in his boots at the possibility of Justices who believe this is true becoming the majority. After all, an act of legislation placed words into the Pledge of Allegiance - another act of legislation, or of the judiciary, could remove them.