More Christian Maddness

See the video here:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/70465/

"A spokesman for King told ThinkProgress that the congressman simply "thought it was important to honor Christmas" by introducing the bill. Yet today on Fox News, King went further, decrying an "assault on Christmas" from "secularists" who want to "eradicate Christ from Christmas." Ignoring the Constitution, King claimed America is really a "Christian nation":

"I recognized that we're a Christian nation founded on Christian principles, and we're coming up to Christmastime. ... It's time we stood up and said so, and said to the rest of America, Be who you are and be confident. And let's worship Christ and let's celebrate Christmas for the right reasons."

I fear that there is enough flexibility in the US Constitution for these lunatics to get their way in large measure, if they can manage to complete the stacking of the US Supreme Court.

"King isn't alone. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee both have declared that America is a Christian nation."

Electing representatives that understand and respect the Constitution is as important as it's ever been. Yet, sadly, this criteria is also more widely ignored than it has ever been. America's grand experiment in freedom (and yes as a matter of fact that DOES mean freedom from
religion), is probably doomed in the long run. Freedom is not in human nature. The general public will never stop fighting for totalitarianism.

Getting Out

Giuliani out. Edwards out. Possible dirt on Obama coming out?

It is possible that McCain could win the whole thing. The polling on this is interesting. The Republicans are solidly split between people that, to sum up, think Bush has done a good job and that abortion should be illegal - they go to Romney - and people that oppose the "traditional" crazy right wing of the Republicans - they go to McCain. That's why the seemingly strange fact that anti-war Republican voters are going to McCain.

The Reagon strategy has run it's course. Rove and company took it too far by electing a complete fool, starting their neo-con holy war and feeding America mindless slogans for 7 years. What you're seeing is a backlash by the majority of Republicans that never did buy into the religious craziness and culture of fear and dogma. All this is also why McCain has been so shut out over the past 6 or 7 years. He's always opposed all that.

So, in general, we're looking at the scariest possible Republican to run against - a grown up. A person that will base policy on thought rather than dogma... We haven't seen a Republican like that get the nomination since Ford ran and lost to Jimmy Carter. In the long run, it's better this way. America could not survive another complete kook.

Many really don't think Obama can beat McCain. And Clinton's not a sure thing either, but for different reasons. Who would have thought, after two destructive terms under what will undoubtedly go down as the worst President in history that the incumbent party could actually stand a chance?

However, something that is both a strength and a weakness of McCain's is already beginning to show. He's really bad at "on message" campaigning. Slogans aren't his style and he does poorly when he tries to do a G.W. like, traditional GOP, strategy.

Clinton will do that in a heartbeat though. She'll pick something and focus like a laser on it with nice short sentences that get everyone worked up. Before anyone can respond, she move to another issue. Watch for lots of banners with short, simple phrases repeated on them. They look good on TV.

It's just a matter of whether or not that will still work. Against that, McCain is likely to be the sort of person that stands around telling people it's really more complicated than that, and calling it "straight talk". Ironicly, that's more like Bill Clinton's style. And it could do well.

Obama, I don't know. He's a fantastic speaker, and good on his feet. But he doesn't have much experience on the big stage; the general election. But he'd have to pick a strategy too. Maybe if he gets good people to help, they could win. Maybe. If the seasoned warriors aren't all working for Clinton.

RECLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRIST

Madness is alive and well in America. And it has a bright future!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7235393/the_crusaders/

"But despite their unprecedented power, fundamentalists still see themselves as a persecuted minority, waging a holy war against the godless forces of secularism. To rouse themselves, they kick off the festivities with "Soldiers of the Cross, Arise," the bloodthirstiest tune in all of Christendom: "Seize your armor, gird it on/Now the battle will be won/Soon, your enemies all slain/Crowns of glory you shall gain."

"Meet the Dominionists -- biblical literalists who believe God has called them to take over the U.S. government. As the far-right wing of the evangelical movement, Dominionists are pressing an agenda that makes Newt Gingrich's Contract With America look like the Communist Manifesto. They want to rewrite schoolbooks to reflect a Christian version of American history, pack the nation's courts with judges who follow Old Testament law, post the Ten ommandments in every courthouse and make it a felony for gay men to have sex and women to have abortions. In Florida, when the courts ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, it was the Dominionists who organized round-the-clock protests and issued a fiery call for Gov. Jeb Bush to defy the law and take Schiavo into state custody. Their ultimate goal is to plant the seeds of a "faith-based" government that will endure far longer than Bush's presidency -- all the way until Jesus comes back."

Notes

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/28/1517254&from=rss

New York City apparently wants to control access to geiger counters. Ironic. During the height of the cold war a geiger counter was considered a normal part of home survival preparedness. You could get them from the Federal Government. Both ideas are stupid...

* * *

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/28/jetpack_madness_mountain_view_thunderpack/

"Despite a lifetime of waiting we don't yet have our flying cars, our rayguns, our space holidays, nor even our robot/brainchipped-monkey butlers. However, from August - if the manufacturers are to be believed - ordinary consumers will finally be able to buy a (marginally) useful jetpack, for just $100,000."

* * *

http://www.rpmchallenge.com/component/option,com_comprofiler/task,userProfile/user,619/Itemid,296/

A Speed Racer rock opera... Who could ask for anything more than that?

* * *

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2537607920080126?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

"The bidding topped $3.7 billion on the second day of the Federal Communications Commission's auction of government-owned airwaves, but there were no new suitors Friday for a closely watched block of spectrum to be shared with public safety agencies."

Right To Know

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/10/the_skinny/main3597422.shtml

"Convicted rapist Michael Dodele had been free just 35 days when sheriff's deputies found him dead from stab wounds last month in his mobile home. They quickly arrested his neighbor, 29-year-old construction worker Ivan Garcia Oliver, who made "incriminating comments, essentially admitting to his attacking Dodele," police said.

...

"A neighbor of Oliver's said that two days before the killing, he "told every house" in the trailer park that he found Dodele's name listed on the Web site of convicted sexual offenders, and was uncomfortable living near him.

"In a jailhouse interview with the Los Angeles Times, Oliver said he had a son who was molested in the past and he took action to protect the child."

What a country! But wait, there's more!

"As it turned out, Dodele was not actually a child molester. His records show he sexually assaulted adult women. But a listing on the Megan's Law Web site could have left Oliver with the impression that he had abused children because of the way that it was written."

Says It All About American Contractors in Iraq

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1

A woman was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad. The company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

ABC News, not exactly fringe media...

EPA Disgrace

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/25/MNUDUL75B.DTL

"At his first appearance before Congress since denying California's request for a waiver to enforce its new rules, Johnson was hit from all sides. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, called the EPA chief's decision "shameful, outrageous and irresponsible." Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, said the ruling infringes on states' rights and undercuts state efforts to fight climate change.

"California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chaired the hearing, accused Johnson of trying to hide documents from Congress showing that he had overruled his staff in denying the waiver last month. EPA first refused to release the documents, then turned over papers that were mostly whited out. Finally he allowed Boxer's staff this week to hand copy them under the eye of EPA lawyers.

"I have never seen such disregard and disrespect by an agency head for Congress and for the committees with the responsibility for oversight of his agency," Boxer said."

Down Markets

I'd say that recession is inevitable at this point. For whatever reason, it looks like nothing can dissuade traders. I don't expect Bush to be able to make anyone feel better, but a 75 point cut by the Fed was just nuts. If that didn't change anything, nothing will. I think it's fallen too far, to fast, the recover anytime soon. Not sure where the bottom is, but it'll probably be mid-year, or more, before getting back on track. These things become self-fulfilling prophecies at some point. That points been reached.

I'm sure there will be another rate cut at the end of the month, but that will just weaken the dollar further. That will weaken emerging markets - which are the main thing that has kept the US markets growing in the face of gross mis-management of the federal government, its budget and foreign policy.

Recovery won't be easy.

Fell For It

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/misinformation_study_3;_ylt=AnndKIEgIQVJGHGpwqHBE5wE1vAI

"A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

...

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

* * *

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/01/23/wrong-number-generator-is-guaranteed-to-make-your-office-more-entertaining/

"The Wrong Number Generator does just what the name implies, it causes calls placed from the target phone to reach the wrong number. It easily connects somewhere between the phone and the telephone jack, and if properly hidden will make it next to impossible for someone to notice."

* * *

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bill_clinton_screw_it_im_running

Bill Clinton: "It is with a great sense of relief that I say to all of you today, 'Screw it. I'm in.'"

* * *

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/01/dont_freak_out_portland_advise.html

"On paper, today wasn't a particularly big deal on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 each lost about 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite index shed about 2%. Big whoop."

Fed 75

A 75 basis point cut, before the next meeting, and before the market open, didn't see that coming... Of course instead of being seen as helpful, or ready to help, it's seen as a sign that there must really be a serious problem, so sell, sell, sell! Traders must be completely psychotic.

Foreign traders driving those markets down say that they think nothing the Fed or Bush will do will have a big impact.

Ironicly, that's really true. Handing every American tax payer $600, or cuts to Fed funds rates, in actuality, will have no short term impact. Maybe not even a medium term impact. It's all in everyone's heads. Which is why so many people don't invest in stocks or mutual funds.

It's also why it isn't all that hard to do well in stocks and mutual funds. People are stupid, which creates an advantage for other people willing to do rather obvious and rather boring things. Buy quality and hold, hold for many years. Buy value. And the most important thing, that hardly anyone does, buy low and sell high high.

Click Here for Abuse

http://www.rjek.com/vmjg59.cgi

I would especially invite readers in Texas to click the above. Texas is full of idiots.

Attack!

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=7470226

"Imagine no religion."

Example

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aiPLSTmr.xe0&refer=news

"General Electric Co. said fourth- quarter profit rose 15 percent on higher international sales of jet engines and power-plant turbines."

The US is no longer the center of the world economy (thanks to George W. Bush). The EU and Asian economies now do pretty well all among themselves. Ironic, but not really surprisingly, American companies are profiting from this. And American markets rise, even as the dollar is forced downward.

Market Suspense

See, this is one of those days that will be fun to watch. There's no particular reason for anything to happen one way or the other, so far. Bush is going to give a speech about economic stimulus, but there will be no surprises in it, probably. Anything could happen - even a big move up or down. On a day like this it's all imagination and emotions without connection to reality. It's days like this that keep people in money market accounts.

Economics 101

http://www.agorafinancial.com/afrude/2007/11/27/exit-us/

"American-style capitalism has evolved into a bizarre marriage of financial gimmickry and governmental coddling. Very few companies produce much of anything, other than derivatives and press releases. This situation would not be so bad if the derivatives possessed a bit of value and the press releases possessed a bit of truth. Instead, the U.S. economy lurches from greed to deception to disaster, and back to greed, without ever eliminating all the flaws and the felons that cause all the problems."

The stock market posted losses in the triple digits yesterday. And there's no end in sight to the devaluation of the dollar being caused by poor business practices, bad tax policy, reckless federal spending - no, insane federal spending, on pointless war and Americans' irresponsible savings practices. America can not be saved.

Torture

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3239372.ece

"Lawyers for a British resident who the US government refuses to release from Guantanamo Bay have identified the existence of photographs taken by CIA agents that they say show their client suffered horrific injuries under torture."

To be destroyed no doubt... The United States is no longer better than its enemies, not under George W. Bush anyway. Hard to say what the future holds. The voters' stupidity can not be over stated.

State of The Nation

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-crump/unconstitutional-acts-to-_b_81597.html

"The peaceful demonstrators' attempt at free speech was quickly squashed when police officers forced them to stay at least 150 yards away from the motorcade route, walling them off by placing numerous police cars and officers on horseback between the protesters and the president. Meanwhile, a group of Bush supporters was allowed to stand right along the motorcade route, where their "God Bless George Bush! We pray for you!" sign was in plain view of both Bush and the journalists accompanying him."

Speaks volumes... Fake rallies are often staged by governments with things to hide, or to hide from.

"These incidents of censorship appear to be dictated by White House policy. The official Presidential Advance Manual recommends that someone working on the ground where the president is to make an appearance "ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route." It advocates the formation of "rally squads" of sign-wielding supporters that can "use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform." It also suggests that the rally squads "lead supportive chants to drown out the protesters (USA! USA! USA!)."

The Fall

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/73720/

"It is madness. What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthia was to Rome."

I'd like to say that I hope people will read and understand what Harold Bloom has to say. They won't. People are deeply, deeply stupid. They will destroy the American experiment and return the world to new medieval period of science-less religious dictatorship. They are determined. They can not be stopped.

"Democracy, whether in Sweden or the United States, depends on the voter's capacity to think. If you have read the best of what has been thought and said, then your cognition and understanding is on a much higher level than if you have read Harry Potter or Stephen King. So what this decline into half-literature and mediocre media really means is de facto a self-destruction of democracy."

Robots

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22128856/

"Toyota Motor Corp. said on Thursday it aims to put its humanoid and other advanced robots to practical use soon after 2010 to help people in factories, hospitals, homes and around town."

Here's the next area of industrial development where the US is being left in the dust, and doing not a thing about it. It's been decades since America has had a sensible industrial policy, and it shows.

I hope America's next generation of workers can compete with robots for the service jobs, since that's the only category of jobs that will be available.

The Price of Stupidity

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

"Early last year, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated that the true cost of the war would ultimately exceed $1 trillion, and maybe even $2 trillion.

"Incredibly, that estimate may have been low."

Frankly, I blame the American people for this. A man like George W. Bush should never have become President. The Congress failed, the media failed too, but the ultimate boss in America is the voter.

Wide

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/01/mozilo-severanc.html

"As the mortgage industry went into a nose dive in late 2006 and 2007, Mozilo [of Countrywide Financial] cashed out about $140 million in stock options, becoming one of the highest-paid executives in the country."

It's hard to believe this could happen without law breaking.

Mozilo was guaranteed three times his base salary, plus a cash payment equal to three times the greater of his average bonus or the incentive bonus paid the previous year: $87.8 million.

There's also two pensions that were worth $24 million as of December 2006, lump sums. And "continuing health benefits for life for himself and his spouse, three years of life and financial planning benefits, and "tax-gross-up payments" to compensate him for any penalties he'd have to pay for receiving payments the IRS might consider excessive."

Astonishing. How's your 401k this this afternoon?

Fed Up

Look, it's perfectly simple. What part of "stands ready to take substantive additional action as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks." don't you understand?

Virgin

Richard Branson on how to become a millionaire: "Start as a billionaire and buy an airline".

Copywrong

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/law_review_arti.html

"By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges)."

Says it all... But of course laws can never be changed, ever. No matter how distant and detached they become from reality. Law can never, ever change. Ever. That would be "amnesty."

Worst

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49293700-10,00.htm

The top ten worst consumer technology products... MSFT Vista comes in at number ten. Way to go Microsoft, Vista is the least bad of the very, very worst!

We're Number Ten!
We're Number Ten!
We're Number Ten!
...

This would just be funny except that this is the current flagship product from the company that's done more to hinder technologic progress than, well, anyone ever... And people *still* won't stop using their stuff!

Look at the other junk on this list! You wouldn't see that crap on woot!

MP3 Player

Check out Sony's new MP3 player for girls!

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/27/hw_sony_lipstick_walkman/

A whole one GB?
But lookit the pretty colors!

Re: Honda

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/11/26/la-auto-show-honda-fcx-clarity-home-energy-station/

The nice thing is that this car is not drawing board stuff for the future. It's actually for sale on a lease basis for $600/mo and Honda takes care of it. It would probably be impractal, yet, to sell them outright. That was the problem with GM's electric car. But this shows Honda isn't just ahead of the Americans, it's totally creamed them. It's too late. I think American car makers are going to go the way of the old European brands that are just niches now like Bently, MG, Fiat and the like. Chalk up another dead American industry.

C# Stupidity

http://www.codeproject.com/showcase/IfOnlyWedUsedANTSProfiler.asp

These guys used C# in their entry for the DARPA Grand Challenge, a contest for the design of autonomous vehicles - cars that drive with no human intervention. A C# garbage collection bug dashed their chances.

A flaw in a Microsoft product!? Shocking!! File under "Duh!"

Anyone using a Microsoft product for anything important, should expect exactly the result they are going to get. And that is after all what the DARPA contest is all about isn't it...

New Business Models

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/F/FUTURE_OF_MUSIC?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-01-06-13-36-35

"Among the business models music fans are likely to see more of: music subscriptions bundled with the price of Internet access, and services like Nokia Corp.'s upcoming Comes With Music, which would give users of select mobile phones a year's worth of unlimited access to music, for no extra charge."

It looks like media companies are finally, finally finally beginning to realize that they are in the content business, not in the CD business. They may finally be ready to stop their two front war on their customers and on artists.

Or not. Never underestimate how stupid people are. There is still a better than even chance that the big media companies of the past couple of decades will yet drive themselves out of business. And when they are gone, no one will notice. The customer will have long since moved on - creative destruction.

Out of Control

http://davisfreeberg.com/2008/01/03/bad-copp-no-netflix/

"When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I've purchased from Amazon's Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue. Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup."

And ordinary people are supposed to understand these services?

"The irony in all of this, is that the DRM that Hollywood is so much in love with, is really only harming their paying customers. When you do a DRM reset, it’s not your pirated files that get revoked, it’s the ones that you already paid for that are at risk. I’m not allowed to watch low res Netflix files, even though I have the capability to download high def torrents? How does this even make sense? It’s as if the studios want their digital strategies to fail."

And more than that, this issue will only be resolved when they push themselves out of business and what market remains is dominated by content produced by individuals.

Meanwhile...

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5563748933217057754&postID=3330827097507898177

"The last major label will throw in the towel on digital rights management and prepare to fight Apple for valuable download revenues."

Cured

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2

"There are some aspects of quackery that are harmless - childish even - and there are some that are very serious indeed. On Tuesday, to my great delight, the author Jeanette Winterson launched a scientific defence of homeopathy in these pages. She used words such as "nano" meaninglessly, she suggested that there is a role for homeopathy in the treatment of HIV in Africa, and she said that an article in the Lancet today will call on doctors to tell their patients that homeopathic "medicines" offer no benefit."

People are stupid.

Radiohead

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080102-radiohead-artists-often-screwed-by-digital-downloads.html

"You might think, if you didn't work in the music business, that famous artists stand to make mad cash from popular albums on iTunes and other digital storefronts. Sadly, that's not the case, and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has spent the last week calling out the labels for it. He recently told BBC Radio 4 that "the big infrastructure of the music business has not addressed the way artists communicate directly with their fans. In fact, they seem to basically get in the way. Not only do they get in the way, but they take all the cash."

***

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL0365200720080103?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

"Online music sales reached 2.9 million tracks in the last week of 2007, more than double that of the corresponding week in 2006 and the largest one-week sales tally recorded to date in Britain, the Official Charts Company said."

***

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2737460020080101?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

"But everyone wants to know: Who's next? The following 10 acts represent where the smart money is on such speculation. Let the games begin."