Data Dump in 3, 2, 1... - 18-19 July 2010

Good morning, everyone. It's been a busy sequence since we spoke with you last.

We start where we left off yesterday, at the Inigo Montoya School of Grammar and Vocabulary, with the candidate for New Hampshire State House that says he's not a racist, just that he doesn't want anyone but white people in the government and doesn't want anybody but white people living around him or in the United States. But he's not a racist, he says, because he doesn't actually hate people of color, he just doesn't want them anywhere near him. He thinks Dr. King was a prostitute-chasing communist and plagarist, and that Abraham Lincoln was the worst president ever for attacking the slaveholding white supremacists in the South, but he's not a racist, because he doesn't hate people of color. Mr. Wise shows off all the racism that's still here, and comments on that curious breed of white person who thinks that they're the victims of racism from black people and the black President. Last on this subject, good for the Tea Party Express to oust the leader who penned an attempt at satire that fell down hard, but that doesn't get them out of the woods on the issue. After all, we have members of the United States military proudly professing their white supremacy views. So it's going to take bigger gestures to make up the gap from those ugly pictures early on.

Working on a similar discriminatory vein, although this one estabilshed in religion isntead of in race, A woman was arrested in Israel for carrying a copy of Torah near the Western Wall - it is currently illegal for a woman to read from Torah at such a locale, in fear of the ultra Ortodox Jews causing violence, but not to carry. Perhaps because she was leading a bunch of students toward the spot where women are allowed to preach that tripped her arrest?

Finally, a few reasons why requiring everyone to use their real name kills necessary conversations and isn't all that helpful in curbing trolling and antisocial behavior.

Out in the world today, more troops for the Afghan national army and police forces, where they hope to have enough in place, trained well, and in good order for when the United States forces start to withdraw themselves. The United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is on her way to Afghanistan to work out issues with the goals fo the nine-year conflict.

poachers killed the last female rhino in a game preserve in South Africa, highlighting the worries that economics, such that it is, will result in the destruction of important wildlife in Africa.

Domestically, an insane man opened fire on police on a California highway, apparently disturbed by the left-leaning policies of the country.

The Special Inspector General for the automotive bailout criticized the way the Treasury Department immediately recommended closing car dealerships without considering their impact. And an inspector general investigation into a contract the Postal Service made with Goldman Sachs found all sorts of irregularities and falsifications.

The Army produced a comic in 2001 on how they handle Don't Ask, Don't Tell, with the result being that the soldier outed by others gets discharged and the soldier that feels it's important for people to know he's gay gets discharged, too. We've had this policy for long enough. Time to scrap it and the ban that produced such a demented policy. For those looking for the compete comic, Talking Points Memo has scans of all the pages for you to mash up, make fun of, or use as more evidence that this policy has gone on too long.

Our Special Refresher on how the music industry is actively out to screw everyone and line their own pockets starts with the salaries paid out to executives and lawyers from 2007 and 2008, including how much they've spent harassing users and trying to extort money out of them and the actual payouts they've gotten from those attempts. (Lots spent, little got.) And then we get into how the RIAA and other record companies get to make millions of dollars off of their artists, and those same artists don't see a dime, getting charged for their advance and all the promotion the record label does for them - taking that money out of the band's share of revenues. Using this accounting, the record companies basically get all the money from album sales. All of it. And they still own the copyright to the music. Much like how Hollywood makes sure all their films lose money even when they make money. The media cabals hate you, hate their workers, and love their profits, and they will do all sorts of dirty tricks to ensure they get all the revenue to make profit with.

And then a reminder that the music industry is not the only corporate sector out to screw you to line their own pockets - a former WellPoint executive who helped to draft the health care bill is now in chare of administering it. Thaaaat's...special. Makes us worry that the few gains that are in the bill will be invalidated once the rule-makers get their hands on it.

The Deepwater Horizons well in the gulf of Mexico, while capped at the blowout, has seepage in the pipe, indicating that structural integrity in the well is not complete. That may delay the current kill procedures while they figure out what to do about the pressure.

Ah, and then there's the service closed down at the apparent request of an unnamed agency that isn't giving details of why the shutdown happened.

Finally, though, The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is concerned about a Washington Post story and database that will list contractors doing allegedly Top Secret work. Reading the response appears to be a bit difficult, with the possibility of the spooks being spooked or that all of this information is known and is otherwise public, just now concentrated in one place. Cue discussions about whether or not this kind of work is vital to the national interest and should be done, even if it risks revealing sensitive data, from here on out. Depending on how good the work is. That said, if a fictitious female can fool some people who have connections to sensitive areas, maybe we don't need to worry so much about the Post report as we need to worry about OPSEC.

In technology, NHTSA tests of Toyota vehicles indicate that the electronic systems did not fail in alleged crashes, but that Toyota does have pedals that don't return to idle and floor mats that could trap the accelerators. So one design flaw and human error in exchange for technological flaws and human intelligence.

Introducing Damn Vulnerable Linux, an operating system designed deliberately to be exploited so that students can learn about security and how exploits and attacks work.

For those that want unmanned aerial vehicles in American domestic airspace, the groups that are flying them up there have a greater accident rate than regular commercial piloted airspace. Once you can prove you can fly the things properly, then we'll talk about the other effects.

The United States FDA may soon be approving the sale of genetically-engineered salmon as a foodstuff.

a robotic exoskeleton names REX aims to help the wheelchair-bound get up and walk again. Anyone else noticing the Metal Gear reference also gets a cookie.

Also, more research into battery-less power generation methods - piezoelectric power and embedded devices in garments, devices that power themselves from ambient radio waves, and vibration-powered energy generators, which might generate an immediate race to the gutter based on the popular name for a certain class of sex toy...

And last out, UNESCO sets up a database to house traditional knowledge and low-tech solutions to various problems. Which will be handy, up to the point where we need to access it because we're all back to lower tech tiers. Hoepfully there's some hard copy distribution when it all gets done.

In opinions, Kos diarist Troutfish reminds us that there are still several people, some in prominent positions, that intend to impose their religious view of the world on the rest of us, exorcisms, LGBT-hate, claimed miracle-working and all. Those people will probably find a nice ally in Phyllis Chesler, a self-proclaimed radical feminist that claims other feminists are too scared of appearing politically incorrect to speak out against The Bloodthirsty Religion and its anti-female practices, instead buying into propaganda about the evil Israel instead of crusading against honor killings, female genital mutilation, forced marriages and the rules of women in Saudia Arabia and Afghanistan, trying to paint the radical as the mainstream of Islam. And if Ms. Chesler believes that feminists aren't crusading against these kinds of treatments, wherever they happen in the world, then she needs to open her eyes and ears more.

In Disability Studies Quarterly of 2003 is a story of a cat in a culture that recommends pet euthanasia taken care of by a person who is disabled in a culture that considers euthanasia as a possibility for the future. The story asks why we think so little of our pets that we'll put them to death at the first sign of major suffering, when we'll fight all the way up to the Congress to ensure that a person stays on life support?

Mr. Shapiro speaks of the special interests and the Congresscritters that wave their "For Sale" signs out to them, sometimes right before critical votes on issues dear to the lobbyists' hearts. On the other side, The Wall Street Journal crows about how the IRS will have to hire agents and do more work to implement the penalties for the health care bill, just like the Republicans said they would. The regulators at least have some time to find another way, if they want to.

the WSJ responds to the latest material regarding the East Anglia climate science scandal by dismissing the exonerating report as a group trying to find no fault with their fellows by not looking for wrongdoing, and indicating that the politics of the incident are tied inexorably with the validity of the science performed - because of the shady dealings regarding the e-mails exchanged and some of the jokes or statements made, their science must be called into question.

The WSJ also claims that Joe Biden is blaming the three Republicans who voted with the Democrats to pass the stimulus as to why it wasn't bigger. If they check out the statement, though, Biden is not blaming the three Republicans for the smallness, he's blaming all the Republicans for not recognizing the importance of the stimulus and working to restrict or defeat it. He's blaming the whole party for why things were so small, because they weren't going to move unless it was at a size they found acceptable.

Mr. Moore profiles Tea Party Queen of Nevada, Sharron Angle, her activist and political past, and the mood she hopes to capitalize on to unseat Harry Reid as Senator.

Mr. Trzupek thinks the current administration has decided they don't need to respect the rule of law, or listen to the mood of the electorate, to get their agenda achieved and passed. The second of those two items, well, administrations and legislatures have been ignoring the mood of the people for years now. Sometimes they produce truly great legislation out of it, often times they screw the people in service of special interests. As for the first, Mr. Trzupek bases his conclusions mostly on the Interior Department reissuing a moratorium on drilling after a judge found the first one to be overly broad and deficient in its reasoning. I don't see them ignoring the rule of law there, but Mr. Trzupek thinks that it's the fact they keep trying to make one stick or at least tie up the courts enough so as to practically achieve their end that means they're trying to be above the law. Sorry to say, that's a pretty normal tactic, although most people experience it as the corporation or person they're suing tying things up until your run out of time, money, or patience. Will you accuse them of thinking they're above the law, too?

Last out, the ombudsman for the Washington Post responds to the continued calls for the newspaper to cover the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, making the case that until there were inquiries and allegations of wrongdoing by the Justice Department, there wasn't really a need, and that the Post might have gotten to it sooner, but there was a lot of Justice stories and not a lot of Justice reporters.

At the end of our post today, the scientific impossiblity of the flood, the evidence of two textual accounts being merged in Genesis, and the continued silliness of believing in Biblical accuracy, when the lessons imparted by the writings are still just as good, even if they are housed in "skillful means". And then some levity (we think) - GodBlock, the filter that scans for and then blocks any website that contains religious content, in an attempt to ensure children are not exposed to indoctrinating material until they are old enough to make the choice on what religion to follow for themselves.

Making the magic work for us - 20 July 2010

Cheers to all of us, but especially those of you that have stuck with us for a long time. We appreciate the regular readership, wherever you are. We think you’ll be interested in science that suggests happiness and sadness spread in the same patters as disease does, based on the analysis of various social networks and keywords to indicate both moods.

Also, we eagerly await to see how New Zealand's ban on software patents turns out. Hopefully in the excellent so that we can get to work on banning them here in the U.S. and allow for much more innovation.

Finally, for those who notice the cover content and certain gaze of pulp speculative fiction (and some of the older stuff, too), we present Boobships and Titrockets, the newest male-gaze science fiction magazine.

Out in the world today, Monkey-smuggler tries to get 18 endangered monkeys past customs in a girdle and pouches attached to such. Two died.

Syria's government bans full face-covering veils for students and teachers at university.

Due to a lack of donor commitments and funding, the United Nations humanitarian aid programme has to cut back their work in Iraq, leaving mostly women and children in the lurch, from the looks of the article.

Japanese workers, using metal detectors on Okinawa, uncovered a cache of 900 unexploded bombs from the 1945 invasion of the island by United States forces.

And then Iran authorized retaliatory cargo inspections against any country that chooses to inspect Iranian cargo for possible technology that could be used in nuclear weapons development. We do wonder precisely what that retaliation is supposed to do...

Here in the United States, The Washington Post releases their investigation into the intelligence complex massively built up after the 11 September attacks, naming it Top Secret America, and pointing out that there are more people with Top Secret clearance than live in the District of Columbia, as an example. Combined, then, with the declaration from the Attorney General of the last administration that people who fight and kill without uniforms and a chain of command are war criminals and terrorists, then, well, that leaves us in the conclusion that Mr. Greenwald comes to - we have a significant amount of people doing high-level work for the government that require persistent war and surveillance so as to satisfy shareholder insistence on profitability, and many of those contractors can shoot and kill. We have war criminals and terrorists doing intelligence and combat work for us. No wonder the rest of the world doesn’t feel that great about American military intervention.

Conservative television personality Glenn Beck has revealed he has macular dystrophy, a progressive disease that results in blindness. While there are a lot of inappropriate comments that could be made about revenge or wrath from G-d, considering Beck’s frequent references to morals, moralizing, and what kind of Christianized country the United States should be, what we’re asking for is a slow decline, if one has to happen, and for science to be able to step in and provide Mr. Beck with artificial sight when his own eyes can no longer function. “Bless those that curse you...”

Another possible ouster based on creative editing, this time from the USDA. And much like how the “pimps and whores” tape got ACORN defunded, only to have the wider context show how appropriately the official acted outside of the tape, the whole tape might exonerate the “resigned” official. The apparent victims of the racism have spoken up, saying they considered the ousted person a friend who helped save the farm, lending credibility to the defense instead of the edited attack.

In technological realms, research indicating that infants who may be on the Autism Spectrum make different vocalizations than their peers and that an automated device can be calibrated to tell the difference and flag which children have the risk.

Additionally, a robot with an artificial digestive tract, allowing it to generate energy for several days on end based on sewage-type inputs. It also produces waste products, which it has been trained to deposit in a litter box once every day.

Laser anti-air weapons to strike at unmanned aerial vehicles tested by Raytheon today in a naval exercise.

Into the opinions - Mr. Brownfield joins the trickle-down effect of complaining about the New Black Panther Party case, trying very hard to make it into a case that was easily won but for meddling by Obama political appointees, and then quickly going out into the place where those appointees apparently said that they wouldn’t prosecute black people. Shaky premise into even shakier premise designed to make you either RAGE in support or RAGE in opposition and not take the time to notice where all the holes are, including the big one where the previous administrator did a lot of the downgrading work.

Mr. Boortz swings...and misses about the signs proclaiming stimulus dollars at work, claiming that President Obama, if confronted by the "average" family that needs another $10,000, would tell them they can't have it because he needed it to build the sign. Like he’d do anything that bad for his image. On the substance of your point, though, those are necessary signs. Why? Because infrastructure done right is invisible. You don’t compliment nice smooth roads - you complain about potholes. Every day that you have pure water from the tap is normal - it’s when it contaminates that you notice. Without those signs indicating ARRA support, nobody would connect the dots. Sure, it’s PR, but it’s the kind of PR that you need to tell people what’s happening. Speaking of PR, Mr. Hanson says the Persident's populist mask is slipping with his increasing golf games, making him seem like the elitist he claimed not to be. Well, setting aside the bit where anyone who actually gets elected to President has to be an elite member with money and campaign contributions out his ass, even if he is on the golf course, if the President can get the legislation passed, then he’s more of a populist than the opposition that claims to stand for the little people but won’t help get anything passed to help them.

Mr. Zuckerman spends significant column space on a hagiography of American innovation as justification for his accusation that government is retarding growth and prosperity through regulations and stances that scare the investment out of businesses. After of course, they held the reins too loosely, forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them, and let the SEC permit ever-greater levels of leverage. All things that the businessmen were clamoring for and that Mr. Zuckerman still believes in - less regulation is better, because that way firms can be ever-more creative in how they pocket profit and screw regular people. Which is it, Mr. Zuckerman? Is it too much regulation or not enough, based on your complaints?

The WSJ joins the growing chorus of conservatives saying that the unemployed are lazy and taking advantage of government largesse to stay out of work, rather than finding a job, tacking on that the continued numbers of unemployed are a perfect indication of how the Presidential stimulus doesn’t work and the petrified businesspeople afraid to hire anyone lest they be swamped in Sudden Government Costs. As has been noted before, previous instances of extension of unemployment benefits passed without a hitch, but suddenly now they have to be offset. And some Republicans believe tax cuts for the wealthy should never have to be offset, even though they can demonstrably be shown to increase the defecit. I’d like for those people to actually get to know the jobless, the five who are competing for one job, the ones who can’t find work anywhere, in their field or out of it, and that have to rely on unemployment insurance so they’re not foreclosed on and made homeless in trying to find work, too. See how hard they work, what kind of sacrifices they make, and then tell us again that they’re being “lazy” and they should just accept any ol’ job that they can find, regardless of whether it makes a sufficient wage for them. They clearly don’t understand the requirements that people have to go through just to keep getting those benefits.

Mr. Williamson spends the majority of his article talking about the greatness of the right to bear arms as a crime deterrent and personal protection measure, then switches gears to how homeschooling is also one of the few great radical things we have left, before finally landing on his point, that both guns and homeschools are important ways of protecting oneself from the government, resisting state control, and taking care of predators in general. It’s not an invitation to anarchy, he insists, but the requirements of living in a free society. We guess that he implicitly assumes that all people who have guns will use them responsibly in defense, instead of aggression or crime, (but even if they do, then the people they attack will be defending themselves with guns, too, and so it all works out in his mind), and those who homeschool will do so with the intent of providing sufficient education for their children so as to make them able to function in society. Well, it’s nice to be optimistic...

Last out of opinions, Mr. Stephens provides his theories on why Israel hasn't glassed Iran yet, while chastising the rest of the world for putting them in the position of having to go it alone without support or cover.

Last for tonight, Ghibli great Hayao Miyazaki is not impressed with the iPad, comparing users to chronic masturbators.