Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart hit Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly with damning evidence of their hypocrisy regarding Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

While Rove recently praised Palin's experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Stewart showed video of Rove trashing Virginia Governor -- and former Richmond Mayor -- Tim Kaine's executive experience, listing all the cities that are bigger than Richmond and calling such a pick "political."

Then, after recent video of O'Reilly describing Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a family issue, Stewart showed a clip of the Fox News host blaming Jamie Lynn Spears' parents for her teenage pregnancy.

Finally, after showing video of Dick Morris complaining about the rampant sexism in the media coverage of Sarah Palin, Stewart unveiled a clip of Morris saying that Hillary hides behind the sexism defense, and that anytime "the big boys" pick on Hillary, "she retreats behind the apron strings."

"In Dick Morris' defense," Stewart said, "he is a lying sack of shit."

Gotta love Moore

From a conversation where the rule was you first have to say some thing good about religion before criticizing it.

I said:

Religion creates bonds of familiarity and community and can provide an ethical foundation for the distribution of good will, charity and transcendence of self for the good of the other. Religion can be the root cause of a life long elevation of the mind and spirit. It can carry important cultural discoveries across generations and create a deep sense of tradition and belonging and be an incredible impetus for the arts and sciences.

However, once religion becomes dogmatic and tries to petrify truth, it loses it inherent value and becomes a ruthless tool of political oppression, spiritual abrogation and impediment to the advancement of humankind on every level. It becomes stupidly literal and vacuously instructive. Once this has occurred people should seek other avenues of enlightenment and eschew completely the polity of their priests and other spiritual intercessors.

The creative spirit loves nothing so much as a heavy dose of debunking.

And it makes me wanna tell them:

This the best physics lesson ever:

But what candidate is?

One of the major disagreements I have with Obama's platform is his approach to universal heathcare. Chris Hedges' article below raises good points about the things I find lacking in Obama's plan. For one, I do not believe that any plan that allows the for profit health care insurance industry to remain in place will work at all. In fact the insurance companies are THE problem and should be cut out of the formula altogether.

Curb Your Enthusiasm for Obama

by Chris Hedges

Barack Obama's health care plan coddles the corporations that profit from the misery and illnesses of tens of millions of Americans. The plan is naive, at best, and probably disingenuous when it insists that we can coax these corporations, which are listed on the stock exchange and exist to maximize profit, to transform themselves into social service agencies that will provide adequate health care for all Americans. I wish we lived in such a rosy world. I know, and I suspect Obama knows, that we do not. 

"Obama offers a false hope," said Dr. John Geyman, the former chair of family medicine at the University of Washington and author of "Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying, and How We Must Replace It." "We cannot build on or tweak the present system. Different states have tried this. The problem is the private insurance industry itself. It is not as efficient as a publicly financed system. It fragments risk pools, skimming off the healthier part of the population and leaving the rest uninsured or underinsured. Its administrative and overhead costs are five to eight times higher than public financing through Medicare. It cares more about its shareholders than its enrollees or patients. A family of four now pays about $12,000 a year just in premiums, which have gone up by 87 percent from 2000 to 2006. The insurance industry is pricing itself out of the market for an ever larger part of the population. The industry resists regulation. It is unsustainable by present trends."

We face a health crisis. The Democratic and Republican parties, awash in campaign contributions from the beasts they should be slaying on our behalf, have no interest in addressing it. A report in the journal Health Affairs estimates that, if the system is left unchanged, one of every five dollars spent by Americans in 2017 will go to health coverage. Half of all bankruptcies in America are because families are unable to pay their medical bills. There are some 46 million Americans without coverage and tens of millions more with inadequate policies that severely limit what kinds of procedures and treatments they can receive. 

But why do they point north? Is it so the sun can warm their udders? Or so the bull mounting won't get his willy chilly?

Cows automatically point to the north

Cows automatically point to the north because they have their own in-built compasses aligning them with the Earth's magnetic field, scientists have discovered.

Researchers discovered that cattle have a good sense of direction and tend to point in a northerly direction.

It has long been observed that cows appear to have a talent for weather forecasting and are able to predict when rain is on the way, but until now their navigational abilities have been largely ignored.

Their innate ability to find north is believed to be a relic from the days when their wild ancestors needed an accurate sense of direction to migrate across the plains of Africa, Asia and Europe.

Gustave upgraded to Catagory 4 - Hanna to Tropical Storm

Here in central Florida we're already in the thunderstorms of the outer bands.

Imagine if they merged over Florida...

Purdy...ain't it?

My favorite picture of the convention says it all:

"Enough!"

part 1

part 2

Nobody wants to see New Orleans have to deal with another large scale storm, especially since its not even rebuilt from Katrina...but, if such a tragedy should befall the city...

On Tap for the Republican Convention: Karmic Payback?

And now, a brief word about the Republican National Convention:

There is apparently a real chance that Hurricane Gustav could hit New Orleans next Monday -- which happens to be the day that President Bush, Laura Bush, and Vice President Cheney are scheduled to speak.

Politico, the political Web site, is warning that the storm could disrupt Mr. Bush's presentation -- and bring back memories of Hurricane Katrina's lethal impact on New Orleans. Talk about going off message.

President Bush has never been accountable for his unconscionable missteps during Hurricane Katrina.

There has never been an adequate investigation of what went wrong. Too little has been done to assure that a similar tragedy will not happen again. New Orleans has not been rebuilt. And the government has not done enough to help the survivors.

We hope Gustav fades harmlessly away. And if it does hit land, we hope the people in its path are properly taken care of.

We must say, though, that we like the idea that as the Bush administration comes to an end, nature is forcing the President and the Republican National Committee to think back to the horrifically bungled response to Katrina -- one of the worst part-natural, part-man-made disasters in American History.

At the Democrat convention, Bill Clinton:

"People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

from a conversation I started elsewhere.

Who decides what is productive or not? Is the stoned out artist sitting at the table pen in hand day-dreaming less productive if they get up and walk away not having put pen to paper?

Does productive always mean tangible product?

And further, what if there is no market for the product (if there is one); is the artist wasting his time or life?

Is it to our best advantage to let market forces be the sole measure of productivity and determine what activities will or will not be seen or supported by society?

You read those books where luxury
Comes as a guest to take a slave
Books where artists in noble poverty
Go like virgins to the grave
Don't you get sensitive on me
'Cause I know you're just too proud
You couldn't step outside the Boho dance now
Even if good fortune allowed
- joni mitchell (The Boho Dance)

Poverty and such is a small sacrifice to pay to be remembered forever

True, if that sort of desire for immortality is what motivates someone. On the other hand, I have known cultural contributors whose contributions were completely ephemeral and who had or have no wide spread audience to reproduce fame or reward beyond their immediate contacts. And I think we should draw a distinction between living in enforced poverty and consciously living sparingly, under a Spartan or minimalist aesthetic.

Given the wealth of western cultures, it is completely affordable to provide every person with a minimal citizens income that would allow for a much wider set of individual pursuits than are presently allowed because of the constraints of having everyone's personal sense of productivity being tied to a bottom line mentality and that bottom line in turn being defined by a consensus about what is or is not utile at the moment.

And I think most of the resistance to this sort thing has nothing to do with the expense per se to provide such a citizen's income, but rather is based on an erroneous, yet common place Calvanistic, Christian work ethic which has little patience with work that is less than apparently muscular or concretely evident. Anything else is regarded as suspiciouly slothful and therefore antithetical to the idea of being productive.

ISP's confirm '2012: The Year The Internet Ends'

Dylan Pattyn , who is currently writing an article for Time Magazine on the issue, has official confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and is interviewing a marketing representative from TELUS who confirms the story and states that TELUS has already started blocking all websites that aren't in the subscription package for mobile Internet access. They could not confirm whether it would happen in 2012 because both stated it may actually happen sooner (as early as 2010). Interviews with these sources, more confirmation from other sources and more in-depth information on the issue is set to be published in Time Magazine soon.

What can we do?

The reason why we're releasing this information is because we believe we can stop it. More awareness means more mainstream media shedding light on it, more political interest and more pressure on the ISP's to keep the Internet an open free space. We started this social network as a platform for Internet activism where we can join forces, share ideas and organize any form of protest that may have an impact. If we want to make a difference in this, we have to join together and stand united as one powerful voice against it.

Join the movement.

God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!

Reply:

Relax, homosexuals are as natural as the weather.
If you sneak up on one asleep and carefully spread the hair on their heads you will see a "Made by God" stamp on their scalp. No really, its true...try it sometime.

Indulge me this small sermonette:

Q: Who made you?
A: God made me.

Q: What else did God make?
A: God made me and all things -- except Steve.

Q: Why did God make all things except Steve?
A: God made all things except Steve for His own glory.

"Steve" has emerged as a central figure in American theology. He even played a significant role in the recent national elections. Yet despite his enormous influence, we know little about Steve aside from a single reference to him in our holy texts. This reference is, like the catechism, extra-canonical but considered authoritative:

"God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

This oft-quoted text presents a mystery. If God did not make Steve, then where did this uncreature come from? How did Steve come to be?

God did not make Steve, therefore we must also assume that Steve was never born. If Steve had been born, after all, then he would be "begotten, not made." Surely we are not meant to conclude that Steve is a little-known fourth member of the Trinity.

Thus again we come to mystery. Steve was neither made nor begotten; yet Steve is.

What can we do in the face of such mystery? It is beyond our ken. We cannot hope to understand, we can only drop to our knees to sing a bewildered hymn of praise to the Creator of all things except Steve.

hat tip to Vinay

One of Tesla's major concepts was the idea of wireless transmission of power. Now the theoretical proposition has nearly come to fruition:

Wireless recharging one step closer to reality

Imagine juicing up your laptop computer or cell phone without plugging it into an electrical socket.

That's a luxury that could be provided by wireless power transmission, a concept that has been bandied about for decades but is creeping closer to becoming viable.

Building off work unveiled last year by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, Intel Corp. demonstrated Thursday how to make a 60-watt light bulb glow from an energy source 3 feet away.

The Intel team did it with relatively high efficiency, losing only a quarter of the energy the researchers started with.

"That, to me, is the most striking part about it: transmitting 60 watts at 75 percent efficiency over several feet," said Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner.

"The power pack for your laptop isn't that efficient. ... It's one of those things that's almost too good to be true."

Wireless transmission of electricity makes use of some basic physics. Electric coils that resonate at the same frequency can transmit energy to each other at a distance.

ok... next.

I like Biden.

That is all.

Here's the root cause of the mess that is the Homeland Security fiasco. We have a bunch of hammer headed people trying to manage a computer system that is a complete mess.
7 years !!! -- and they can't figure out that a 5 year old kid with a common name is not a terrorist and shouldn't be on a no-fly list. Pull the frigging plug on this crap and fire everyone.

Anti-terror agency defends computer system

he National Counterterrorism Center is disputing charges that the computer system that compiles information on terrorists and suspected terrorists from government agencies is ineffective and hindering its ability to track terrorists.

"There has been no degradation in the capability to access, manage and share terrorist information," the center said in a statement on Friday.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-North Carolina, is asking for an investigation into the center's computer systems. Miller says that half a billion dollars has been spent on a computer upgrade that is riddled with flaws.

"It's been seven years since 9/11, and we appear to be no better prepared, no better able to connect the dots than we were seven years ago," Miller said.

The computer system is used to create government watch lists and provides information to federal, state and local officials.

According to a congressional staff report prepared by Miller's House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, the system put in place after the September 11 attacks has limitations that make it difficult to search or locate key data.

For instance, the report says, information about "pocket litter" -- the scraps of paper in a suspect's pocket that can yield important clues like phone numbers, credit cards and addresses -- is contained in 23 tables rather than just one.

The report says the system upgrade, called Railhead, does not have the ability to search e-mails and discussion threads, images or attachments.

In tests, it couldn't match different spellings of suspected terrorists' names, a common problem associated with translating Arabic names into English. And it will not connect to intelligence community Web sites like the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency.

"It's like having a dictionary without it being in alphabetical order," Miller said. "The information may be there; you just can't find it."

In its statement, the center said regular reviews have identified program shortcomings that have been quickly addressed. It noted that the House and Senate intelligence committees have been briefed multiple times and that the program has received congressional support.

"Representative Miller's Subcommittee has had no interaction with the NCTC or the Intelligence Community on the Railhead Program," the statement said.

The Homeland Security bureaucracy needs to be eliminated. If this is the way that it is being run, it is a complete disaster and has no place in the American social landscape.

Are these people who are officiating this monstrous sham on innocent people even worthy of contempt? I think not and they should all be fired. This is simply retarded.

Name on government watch list threatens pilot's career

(CNN) -- For Erich Scherfen, being on a government terror watch list isn't just a matter of inconvenience. It could end his career.

Scherfen served in the U.S. military for 13 years, as an Army infantryman in the first Gulf War and then as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. After receiving an honorable discharge, he was hired as a pilot by Colgan Air Inc., a regional airline operating in the Northeast and Texas.

In April, Colgan informed Scherfen that he was on a government list and would be suspended from his job. He was told he faced termination on September 1 unless he was able to clear his name.

But Scherfen, of Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, has been unable to do so and said fears it could mean he has no future as a pilot.

"My entire career depends on me getting off this list," he told CNN. "I probably won't be able to get a job anywhere else in the world having this mark that I'm on this list."

Witold Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing Scherfen and his wife in a lawsuit, calls the government actions "unfair" and "unjust."

"It is quite clear when the government does something that takes away not just your job, but your occupation, your career, they have to provide you with some means to clear your name," Walczak said.