Having slept some, I post, then go back to sleep - 22 September 2009

Play ball! Or soemething like it. Anyway, for those of you who have not had the privilege of watching an old-time baseball game, have a look at some of the rules of the older times. If that’s not your thing, perhaps a cute panda?

Internationally, not too soon after the President hesitated on sending mroe troops into Afghanistan, a NATO report indicating the commander's opinion that failure will result if no new troops are added has surfaced. Funny how that happens - the commander also indicated, though, that a changed strategy was needed before troops should be shipped out.

Domestically, an insane killer escaped after he was part of a group trip to a county fair. Since then, he has apparently been recaptured, so breathe easy. Everyone wants to know precisely how he managed to get outside in the first place.

Following on an earlier story reported, the persons arrested by the FBI for possible terror connections may have been arrested when they were because the larger case being built was blown.

In a change of pace from normal reporting on the stimulus, some persons in government and elsewhere are annoyed that stimulus money isn't being spent fast enough.

And finally, Something from the GOP's scare-tactics bin must be working - senior voters are shifting their alignment toward the party of Death Panels and NO. Maybe it’s all the chart purporting to connect the dots between various liberal organizations (and almost always involving ACORN, like it’s the shadowy cabal that controls all libera---uuurrk!)

In opinions, if you were ever curious about what Values Voters types will tell you to try and make you believe and act as they do, try this gem - Michael Schwartz believes that looking at heterosexual pornography will make you homosexual, because it “turns your sexual drive inwards”. Thus, all porn is homosexual porn. And looking at naked women will make all our men homosexual.

In similar wingnut territory, Josh Trevinos thinks pale skin and red hair is all you need to prove you're American. And is clearly ignorant of where that red hair and pale skin comes from. Historically speaking, pale skin should immediately classify you as a descendent of immigrants, not of the natives. But historical ignorance is what likely led to such a statement in the first place.

Mr. Pruden declares his pleasure that climate change is less able to drive people and governments to act, because he sees climate change as a way for poor countries to beg and steal from rich countries, and for those rich countries to tax their populaces so much that their productivity dies. On much more thoughtful objections, Mr. Alexander urges us to consider what sort of damage we do in destroying natural habitat to build wind turbines and solar collectors.

The WSJ contributes an unsigned criticizing the President's decision to take missiles out of the Czech Republic and Poland, painting it as making enemies out of allies and a betrayal of the risk those governments took to agree to have interceptors so close to Russia. The editors writing consider the United States to be playing into Russia’s strategy to give out help when it can get good material things in return, and suggests the next time they need help, the West might be willing to trade away the pro-Western governments of Georgia or Ukraine. To them, it signifies the U.S. can’t be trusted, and is continuing to try and court enemies while thuming their nose at allies.

In economics, Mr. Winkler picks up a Best Persons nod by opining that the Fed needs to disclose to the populace who got TARP loans and bailout money, and that the President should put that requirement on them as part of his promise to increase transparency.

The WSJ also has their customary union-bashing "Card Check is eeeeevil" opinion, revived this time over the election of a new AFL-CIO president.

We step down one rung further with Messrs. Cogen, Taylor, and Wieland telling us that yet again, the stimulus hasn't actually worked, because the stimulus is mostly transfer payments and people haven’t gone out and bought stuff with that money, and the government spending improvements can be attributed to other things, of course. Only private investment had any impact at all, they say. The Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department reminds you that numbers will say whatever the people using them want them to say. Mr. Reich provides an example, where the Dow Jonese Industrial Average is still going way up despite the situation with the peons getting worse - government spending is replacing consumer spending, but it isn’t doing a whole lot for the actual consumer, instead mostly propping up corporations, if not thinking about expanding their reach and profits.

And on health care, Ms. Strassel believes the Baucus fracas has simply pushed Congress and everyone further to the left, with likely disastrous consequences when an actually liberal bill arrives on the floor of both legislative bodies, because conservaDems and those who are unwilling to risk their own necks start making sausage or refusing to vote for the bill. The WSJ finds the Baucus bill a public option lite, with all the expenses and none of the benefits, making it more expensive than what there is now. Mind you, they still paint it as the “Baucus-Obama” plan, and think it’s the least expensive of the options currently being pushed, so as to frame your mind into thinking “This bill, which is clearly bad and awful, is the best of all the bills. All the other ones will be worse than this, so I should oppose them all.” The Baucus bill is an insurance company profit-protecting CF, the serious counterpart to this satirical PSA asking us to protect insurance companies. The other bills, the ones with public insurance exchanges and government options, those ones will at least attempt to hold insurance companies in check because the government has almost no profit motive.

At the nadir of tonight, Mr. Turd Blossom himself, claiming that he health care plan is driving people away from voting Democratic, which in turn makes conservaDems worried their bases will vote Republican instead. Mr. Rove cites that young people will flee because they’re getting fined for being uninsured, that old people will flee because the health care plan is still really a secret plot to kill them, and that the fiscal conservatives will...continue to be opposed. Mr. Rove also accuses the President of turning people off because he called the opposition what it was - “misinformation,” “false,” “demagoguery,” “distortion”, “lies” or “tall tales”, all of which Mr. Rove characterizes as “legitimate concerns.” There may be some legitimate concerns in the pile of lies, Death Panels, federally-funded abortions, and free coverage to illegal immigrants, but they’re buried. He also cites the reaction to “You Lie!”, where Congresscritters explicitly put in place a provision that was already there, just so that “You Lie!” wouldn’t be able to keep claiming illegal immigrants can get free health care there (he is anyway), as another sign that “You Lie!” was a legitimate concern. All this editorial tells me is this: Scare tactics work, as does lying so that you can play on people’s fears. Plus, it’s easier to repeat a simple lie than to have to take the time explaining to people what the truth really is and how things work. Once explained to them, the populace generally likes things like the public option.

Last out, Mr. Krauthammer calls the President a liar with a column designed to show how well the President misidrects, omits, and tells half-truths. He, of course, denies that he’s calling the President a liar, because the President’s too sophisticated to actually lie to the people.

In science, uh, Houston, we may have a new plague candidate - a human-catchable virus from rats that kills 4 of 5 infected with it. Thigns get better from here, though, right? Like an MIT hack that's a Rickroll? (Um... let’s keep trying.) How about continuing discovery that junk DNA is not actually junk?

Last for tonight, a handy visual chart of what the five stages of life are like.

Wondering what's still here - 23 September 2009

Greetings, all. The world of knowledge will continue to open up, with pressure from groups to have federally funded research projects be posted to the free Internet soon after their publication in journals.

And the mind may open up with repeated applications of the Zen TV experiment, which reminds us of the unreality of television and all the great components that go into making it look natural.

Expect a fear and terror theme to today’s update - starting with the pledging of Somali militia to al-Qaeda.

Internationally, At the United Nations, President Obama continued to call for multilateralism in dealing with problem countries like North Korea and Iran, hoping for unity among many, even as the UN fights its own divisions.

A piece from our past comes back to say hello as we find out the Secret Service found Boris Yetlsin blitzed, outside, in his underclothes, apparently trying to order pizza.

And then, crashing straight into the present, Australian police are investigating whether members of their force ran around a vehicle in the nude on their way to a stag party.

Last out, an Astralian man died of self-imposed starvation, after having sued and won the right to do so.

Domestically, Enforcing the law they have, an Indiana court refused to grant a same-sex couple married in Canada a divorce, citing a lack of authority to do so.

In the “The Law is a club, not a scalpel” department, a bill intended to strip federal funding of ACORN has language broad enough that several defense contractors may also be considered ineligible for federal funds. ACORN dies, so does Lockheed Martin. And that’s assuming it manages to avoid being smacked as a bill of attainder.

The FCC's person in charge of diversity, Mr. Mark Lloyd, is taking heat for comments encouraging white executives to step down and promote minorities into positions of power, appearing to admire Hugo Chavez's revolution in Venezuela, and offering suggestions on how to make liberal talk radio better. The heat stems mostly around the idea that this will make the FCC start using its weight to step on conservative talk radio’s success and enforce a Fairness Doctrine, even without one explicitly in place. Mr. Lloyd denied being a fan of Chavez.

In our “How’s that retracted Right-Wing Terrorists Report doing for ya, DHS?” department, a substitute teacher who also worked for the Census was found hung in Kentucky with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest. Can we finally get over the illusion that fringe objection to the government is some sort of legitimate policy problem and start applying the chair leg of truth?

The FDIC may be borrowing money from banks to help ensure that it can pay out deposit insurance on those banks that fail. This seems rather perverse. Would it not be easier to call in loans and guarantees made to various banks and use those monies to restock the FDIC?

More developments on the early-firing New York terror arrests - the police and FBI warned of possible attacks and targets, believing they may not have gotten all the terrorists.

The Washington Times also throws spin from the headline in indicating the presence of a rally for Muslims at the Capitol on 25 September. The headline? “Attorney to terrorists organizes Muslim rally at Capitol”. Boy, if that wasn’t a haevy suggestion that all the Muslims attending such a rally are also terrorists or terror-sympathizers.

Finally, 500+ amendments. One bill. Let let cage match begin on health care.

In opinions, an opening salvo to truly show the state of the science versus nonscience "controversy" - let the ID people put up their best debaters against a properly armed and vetted college student. If the college student can beat the IDer, then there’s your answer. If the IDer wins, then give them a PhD student, then a professor, then maybe PZ Meyers, and then and only then, Richard Dawkins. The idea could be extrapolated out to other science versus nonscience or pseudoscience problems, or new science versus older science - start with the college students, and then move forward from there.

Mr. Greenwald follows into politics by opining on the chameleon nature of Glenn Beck, and how left-right debate has shifted into those who believe what we have now is sound and good, and those who believe what we have now is rotten to the core and must be excised. Mr. Greenwald notes only the Republicans are interested in tapping this amorphus rage and directing it against the Democrats for their own purposes, trying to get the protesters to do something some of them are principally opposed to - putting the Republicans back in power.

The G-20 summit in Pittsburgh is ready to say hello to protesters. With riot police, barricades, and all sorts of other measures designed to ensure nobody gets anywhere close to the meeting, no logistical supply arrives, and some of the preferred places for protesters to gether on the Web go dark and stay that way. The opinion part, though, is that globalization is in its death throes and those who cling to it desperately are using the last thing they have, force, to prevent the populace from tossing them aside and doing something better.

An opinion on how newsmedia might save themselves - getting into the custom research business. As an example of things that might work, Common Craft, which creates three-minute videos explaining complex concepts in plain language.

And in other opinions, the WSJ on the war on terror, praising President Obama for his continuation of Bush-era illegal wiretaps, the intelligence community for doing their jobs (possibly outside the law), and military gains in Pakistan. At least General Petraeus's comments on Afghanistan all talk about things done squarely within the realm of the law.

Mr. Berman tells us the Bush plan on missile defense was the best of the bunch, and says the CBO agrees with him. He then tsks at President Obama for systematically removing the good options in favor of his preferred one, to our potential disaster if Iran develops long-range missiles before we can defend against them.

Mr. Corvitz makes a weak argument that the current administration is reducing security goals in intelligence and counterterrorism by referring to semantics in a document.

Ms. O'Grady returns to the Honduras matter, still convinced that the United States is trying to get Honduras to violate its own Constitution because Mr. Zelaya wished to hold a referendum on whether the law should be changed to allow a President to have more than one term. Ms. O’Grady feels the U.S. is being bullying against the independent and properly-acting judiciary by revoking heir visas and continuing to pressure them, and is happy for said judiciary’s continual refusal to resotre Mr. Zelaya.

On health care, the WSJ believes the President is just trying to not call a tax a tax so he can get his plan through. The tax in question is supposedly the fines and penalties being paid out by persons who do not get insurance under an individual mandate. Because the government is charging it, to the WSJ, it’s a tax. To the President, it’s a fine or penalty. I’m inclined to go with the President on this one, because I doubt anyone would consider their overdue library books a tax, and these are similar situations - follow the contract, get no penalty. Don’t follow the contract, take a penalty. Tax happens on people whether they’re following the contract or not.

Tonight’s worst opinions in the world, however, start with Mr. Hill, who echoes Boss Limbaugh in wondering whether the President is actively trying to make America fail so he can rebuild it in his own image, because of his want to nationalize health care, the stimulus spending, and foreign policy overtures that are intended to hurt America and help the world, according to Mr. Hill. Since he re-raises his question, I re-raise mine. Would the Democratic party put forward a candidate who had even the slightest inclination toward despotism after having suffered through several Republican presidencies where that seemed to be the aim? Would the vetting process mysteriously fail at rooting out any and all heterodox ideas and possible signs of insanity? It would make much more logical sense to use the position to enrich oneself at the cost of the country, and a universal health care proposal wouldn’t normally seem to be the way to go about it. Unless, of course, you believe the President is a corporate shill working he very best to advance the interests of the people who really hold power in this country, but that’s normally a rather liberal (or libertarian) position to be holding, and you don’t strike me as that kind of person, Mr. Hill.

But, because there’s an October month coming on, we have to give our obligatory shout-down to the subset of people who believe all witchraft is demonic, that Harry Potter, anime, manga, and the old classic, Dungeons and Dragons all corrupt young souls and leads them into demonic service, and that Halloween is the holiday given to Satan so that he can tempt those souls to his service. It’s not like there aren’t, say, other holidays Christians celebrate that have pagan origins or anything. (She touches on that, saying their original origins have been properly co-opted into being godly holidays.) One would like to believe the Satanic Panic is over, but Mr. Potter and the like show us that it simply went underground for a bit. And one last thing - her advice to parents on avoiding the witchcraft influence - take the kids out of public school. Homeschool them or send them to Christian schools. Because that will certainly stop them from learning about all these things they need to be protected from. Smother them by reading everything they read and looking for the hidden occult influences, which might be the mention of someone celebrating something other than Christmas (or not celebrating it at all). Foster the environment that will engender underground rebellion and your children hiding things from you so as to have actual privacy and be able to think for themselves about things. Here’s my additional piece of advice, if you want to seriously consider all of this - keep them out of the public library. I can do more damage to your carefully constructed worldview in a few minutes than you can do in years trying to fix it. I can also do this damage without deliberately intending to, just by recommending some books or answering a question or two. Oh, and you’ll also have to live without Internet access. Just saying.

Science and technology tell us we build cities like our brains wire themselves, getting bigger and expanding according to similar lines of structure and support, we're trying to design surveillance systems that reason like our brains, whether in video, as in the article, or as webcrawlers designed to look for abnormal information on the Internet, proteins continue to be promising candidates to deliver cancer-killing radiation to tumor cells, and expected announcements that Luna has quite a bit of water on it.

Last for tonight, proof that sometimes little creatures can eat the lunch of bigger creatures and survive...mostly if the bigger creature decides not to kill them.

And then the opposite, the laws that turn young people who experiment with sexuality or make one bad decision about showing anatomy into sex offenders, where they will be jailed and then restricted from participating in the normal life everyone else has, paraded as pariahs and people thought to have done heinous things instead of normal adolescent fooling around, and then subjected to the worst of our feelings because they have the label permanently attached to them. This is what “thinking of the children” produces, when mixed with the still-misconception that the law is a scalpel. Here are more examples of what will get you named a sex offender, despite not having any pedophilic interests, or by just being of the wrong age to explore your sexuality.