Social Commentary
j7uy5 | October 15, 2007Today is Blog
Action Day, during which many persons have agreed to write a
blog post about environmental concerns. This is one of
thousands.
Consider Climate Change, and consider the Iraq War. Other
than both being among the biggest mistakes ever made by humans, it is
not obvious, immediately, that they have much in common.
However, there are common elements, and those common elements
help explain why the threat from both is persisting so long...
Both Climate Change, and the Iraq War, are going to be
enormously expensive. But for both, the bulk of the expenses
are going to be paid later…
j7uy5 | October 13, 2007US Secretary of State
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice">Condoleezza
Rice has some choice words for
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin" rel="tag">Vladimir
Vladimirovich Putin.
href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3726309">Rice
Worried by Putin's Broad Powers
Rice Criticizes Putin's Concentration of Power, Says It
Interferes With Move to Democracy
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW Oct 13, 2007 (AP)
The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so
much
central authority that the power-grab may…
j7uy5 | October 9, 2007Problem #1: College Republicans were shamed by
href="http://operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com/2005/07/operation-yellow-elephant-101.html">Operation
href="http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_06_19_patriotboy_archive.html#111924907437313848">Yellow
href="http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2005/06/operation_yello.html">Elephant.
They think it is a good idea to have a war, so long as they
do not have to risk their own lives. Now they need a way to
redeem themselves, but clearly something that is life-threatening is
not going to work.
Problem #2:
href="http://thelede.…
j7uy5 | October 9, 2007
Researchers studying the European common lizard (Zootoca
vivipara, formerly Lacerta vivipara) have
learned of a three-part mating strategy. Different members of
the species have disticutly different mating strategies.
Additionally, the colors of the bellies are correlated with
the mating strategy employed by the individual. (This was
mentioned recently at
href="http://scienceblogs.com/bushwells/2007/10/boffo_science_headlines.php">Joan
Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge.)
The scientists think that their findings could teach us something about
human sexuality. I don't know about that, but…
grrlscientist | October 4, 2007tags: dance monkey dance, streaming video
An interesting streaming video with words to "Dance Monkeys Dance" by Ernest Cline. [3:53]
j7uy5 | August 25, 2007
class="inset" alt="Crusade Radio logo"
title="Crusade Radio logo"
src="http://www.crusaderadio.com/christianradiohdr.jpg"
align="left" border="0" height="131" width="304">This
topic has been covered by
href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/more_christian_curses.php">Ed
Brayton,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/drake_endorses_huckabee_huckab.php">twice,
and by
href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/lightning_bolts_boils_sour_bee.php">PZ
Myers. This is a little update.
A minister made headlines a couple of weeks ago when he called…
j7uy5 | August 18, 2007No money down, but the payments go on forever. The
only
people who win are the bankers and the contractors. We make
it easy to get in. But like herpes and condominiums, it is
hard to get rid of.
When I was a kid, one of my favorite
books was Starship
Troopers, (1959). It was written by a guy
(Robert
A. Heinlein)who was medically unable to be in a combat role
in World
War II.
In Starship Troopers, the planet Earth is ambushed
by an enemy, but ultimately wins the war decisively. This is
done with just the right combination of patriotism, leadership,
righteousness, brainpower, and…
j7uy5 | August 11, 2007
The headline:
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081001204.html">Federal
Deficit Sharply Lower.
The text: The lower year-to-date
deficit was the
result of a record of $2.12 trillion in revenues. Spending, however,
was higher -- $2.27 trillion, which also marked an all-time high.
So we spent more than we brought in, but the deficit is lower?
No,
the rate of increase in the deficit is lower.
The deficit is still getting bigger. Last year the
deficit went up $239 billion. This year it is
was projected to be "only" $205 billion. I say was…
j7uy5 | August 7, 2007The
US Army Crops of Engineers accidentally dumped hundreds of unexploded
pieces of ordnance on the beach at Surf City.
Now, they want the city to help pay for the cleanup.
"If
they're talking about getting any money out of Surf City to pay for
their mistakes, they can forget about it," Mayor Leonard T. Connors
told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Apparently they conducted a 71 million dollar reconstruction of the
beaches, unknowingly using sand from a World War I dump site.
(
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070806/ap_on_fe_st/odd_beach_ordnance_found;_ylt=ApKG5AWHHB5FyhKu.…
j7uy5 | August 1, 2007This
is the face the USA presents to the rest of the world:
href="http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003619296">Bush
Insults BBC Political Editor at Press Conference
By E&P Staff
Published: August 01, 2007 10:50 AM ET
NEW YORK At a recent press conference at Camp David,
President George
Bush insulted BBC political editor Nick Robinson, the Daily Mirror
reports.
Robinson, who has asked Bush pointed questions in the past such as
whetherthe president was “in denial” over the Iraq
war,
posed a question to Bush about whether he could trust…
j7uy5 | July 26, 2007For
some reason, my Father used to say that when he made an
indisputable point of some significance. It is in the
href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=put+that+in+your+pipe+and+smoke+it"
rel="tag">Urban Dictionary in case you are curious
about the expression. It is also the title of
href="http://www.autoblog.com/2007/07/17/put-that-in-your-pipe-and-smoke-it-fords-made-of-hemp/">a
post on Autoblog about a 1941 Ford made of organic plastic,
which had been made from plant material. Apparently they now
are researching a similar idea using hemp.
href="http://blog.…
j7uy5 | July 20, 2007Science
fiction has often centered on the theme of "what if?"
Many of the finest works have explored alternative futures,
based upon just one or a few changes in contemporary society.
Indeed, science does have a powerful influence on culture, so
some of these alternative futures are quite plausible.
Now, perhaps it is not really science fiction, but
a leading publication asks the question, "What if
href="http://www.whitehouse.org/administration/dick.asp"
rel="tag">Dick Cheney became President?"
(Courtesy of
href="http://www.superdickery.com/dick/5.html">Superdickery.com)
j7uy5 | July 7, 2007The
term "entitlement" has garnered a strongly negative connotation in
recent years. Usually, the word entitlement is
used to refer to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, plus other
programs that provide direct assistance (Aid to Families with Dependent
Children, student aid, housing, food stamps and other nutrition
programs, and direct public assistance).
Of course, there is also a class of entitlements that do not go to
individuals; rather, they go to corporations in what is sometimes
called corporate
welfare. Admittedly, it can be
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
j7uy5 | July 6, 2007It is
a cheap shot, indeed, but an exceptionally good one. And
given that Cheney is the only person in history to get an apology from
someone after shooting him in the face with a shotgun, it is strangely
appropriate...
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quality="high" bgcolor="#006699" name="comedy_player"
allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="external"
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pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/…
j7uy5 | June 10, 2007This is not
exactly news, but it is nice to have some specifics that put the issue
in perspective.
href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-execpay10jun10,0,3379172.story?coll=la-home-center">CEOs'
compensation can significantly impact shareholder value
By Kathy M. Kristof, Times Staff Writer
1:11 PM PDT, June 9, 2007
Compared with the pay of celebrity chief executives such
as Oracle Corp.'s Larry Ellison, the $7.3 million in total compensation
pulled down last year by Synnex Corp. CEO Robert Huang is practically
paltry.
But set against the tech-product distributor's…
j7uy5 | May 18, 2007Each
of the major papers has to choose one story to have the most prominent
headline. Today, USA Today chose this one:
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-17-gas-prices_N.htm">
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-17-gas-prices_N.htm">Drivers
cut back — a 1st in 26 years
By Paul Overberg and Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
The
average American motorist is driving substantially fewer miles for the
first time in 26 years because of high gas prices and demographic
shifts, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal highway data...
The
growth in miles…
j7uy5 | May 11, 2007
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Blackwater USA was
co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince, a "billionaire right-wing
fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family."
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">By the end of 2004
Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, was bragging to the press of
"staggering" 600 percent growth. "This is a billion-dollar industry,"
Jackson said in October 2004. "And Blackwater has only scratched the
surface of it."
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">According to Scahill,
there are tens of thousands of private…
j7uy5 | May 3, 2007
Congress sent the President an appropriations bill that suggested a
timetable for the withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq. He vetoed it. When
President Bush vetoed the bill, he
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/02/AR2007050202410.html">signed
the veto with a pen handed to him by the father of a Marine
who'd been killed in battle.
Although I disagree with the veto, I do think it was a nice touch for
him to include a citizen in a ceremony that was meaningful to that
citizen.
It was only the second time Bush has vetoed anything, so these…
j7uy5 | April 25, 2007OK, I
turned on the TV, in all its 12-inch glory, and watched
href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html">the
show. It is as good as any articles of impeachment
will ever be.
Money quotes, from the
href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html">transcript:
BILL
MOYERS: It didn't make sense to Simon that the dictator would
trust islamic terrorists.
BOB
SIMON:
Saddam as most tyrants, was a total control freak. He wanted total
control of his regime. Total control of the country. And to introduce a
wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something…