The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
The U.S. Navy staged its latest show of military force off the Iranian coastline on Wednesday, sending two aircraft carriers and landing ships packed with 17,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to carry out unannounced exercises in the Persian Gulf.
My spidey-sense stupidity sense is tingling. This can't bode well. Surely they're not that stupid, are they?
Last time we saw our Hero, he's just voted in a National Wiretap Bill for the Internet that would force all ISPs to buy and install online wiretapping infrastructure to make it easier for Big Brother to look in on your online activitires.
We now resume the action with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his posse at the Justice department who will be getting even harder on copyright infringement, targeting repeat offenders. The new 'Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007' is headed for Congress promising to 'hit criminals in their wallets' hoping to ensure that any 'ill-gotten gains' are forfeited.
This will give even more powers to the RIAA to sue grannies and 3-year olds, as well as go after anybody with a “give us 3000$ and we'll make this go away” lawsuits.
The more I see how things are headed, the more I think about “Rainbows End”, a book by Vernor Vinge. It's not an easy ready, and it's not his best book, but damn if it doesn't hit the nail on the head on a few issues; most notably invasion of privacy and the government cracking down on “really important crime, like pirating music and movies”.
I love this quote from an AC on Slashdot:
“Bah, when copyright is infringed, corporations lose money, and when corporations lose money, the terrorists win! Why do you hate Freedom so much?”
Wonderful!
I've been reading the news again. Really, I shouldn't. Hypocrisy abounds. Most of the news is SCANDAL!!! and gossip from the latest reality-tv-show-that-is-not-scripted-we-swear!!! People are spoon fed claptrap on body image and celebrity schtick. In the meantime, news about the fact that the biggest world economy on the verge of collapse and that big brother is watching you more and more (and you're letting him, cause you're too distracted by shiny pretty things and fake boobs on TV). The “most powerful” country in the “free world” is led by a moron who more than 2/3 of his countrymen think he's doing a crap job (at the time of writing this, Dubya has a 28% approval rating).
You have to give it to Bush though. Everybody knew that politics was dirty and that backscratching was commonplace. He had the chutzpah to actually do it to such an extent that it's right in the faces of the masses. The amazing thing though? He managed to blow smoke so far up their asses that they were distracted enough with other things. The tail truly did wag the dog.
What's the point of this entry? There is none, really. I read about how a U.S. customs agent barred a prominent canadian psychotherapist because he published scientific work on LSD in the 60s and this “admitted drug abuse” was enough to bar him foverer from entering the land of the free. He can appeal to the US embassy and “that for $3,500 (U.S.) plus incidentals, he'd have a 90 per cent chance to get an entry waiver, but it would probably be just for a year, and the procedure would have to be initiated again, any time he wished to cross the border. Each time, he would have to produce a statement saying that he had been 'rehabilitated.'”
This is insane. The US is going to implode under the weight of all its stupidity and two-facedness. It's puritanism gone to the extreme. It's ok to show solders being shot to hell and bombs exploding Marines to little bits of gooey shapnel on prime time TV, but God(!) forbid you see even the hint of a boob. You have freedom of religion to believe in God in any way you want (be it baptist, catholic or even protestant). You can get a complimentary shotgun when you open a bank account (but please refrain from bringing it to school, that's bad taste).
I don't know why I'm so pissed off about everything today. I think it's because the US is going to hell, and it'll drag everybody down with it. CIvil liberties are being eroded away in the name of “safety”. Britain is a prime example of this. Heath & Safety are going completely nuts. It seems that there is no sane middle ground. Everything is hazardous to your health. Warning labels abound (my favourite still being a “may contain traces of nuts” on a block of pure porc lard I bought from Tesco). The UK is following the US's lead and turning into a Nanny State and this is not a good thing in my opinion. It seems that personal responsibility is giving up and burying its head in the sand. Drinking 10 liters of coke a day made me fat so I'm suing Coca Cola because they didn't warn me about the health hazards.
I give up.
Go home, Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Idea Would Require Couples to Have Kids
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced a ballot measure that would require heterosexual couples to have a child within three years or have their marriages annulled.
The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance acknowledged on its Web site that the initiative was “absurd” but hoped the idea prompts “discussion about the many misguided assumptions” underlying a state Supreme Court ruling that upheld a ban on same-sex marriage.
The measure would require couples to prove they can have children to get a marriage license. Couples who do not have children within three years could have their marriages annulled.
All other marriages would be defined as “unrecognized,” making those couples ineligible for marriage benefits.
The paperwork for the measure was submitted last month. Supporters must gather at least 224,800 signatures by July 6 to put it on the November ballot.
The group said the proposal was aimed at “social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation.”
Cheryl Haskins, executive director of Allies for Marriage and Children, said opponents of same-sex marriage want only to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
“Some of those unions produce children and some of them don't,” she said.
Ok, so even they admit the concept is idiotic, but they still want to go through the motions. That's just… <head goes boom>.
So the UK is now at DEFCON -1, condition red, all-hands on deck which means that something somewhere is supposed to blow up.
It's currently at the point where all flights coming into Heathrow have been cancelled, hour-long delays are expected for all flights that *might* be leaving. The plot was supposed to blow up 9 (that number keeps increasing) flights headed to the US. Because of that, all hand luggage needs to be checked in the hold. You're only allowed to walk into your flight with a clear plastic bag holding your passport, keys (minus your electronic car fob), glasses (minus case) and essential sanitary and medical supplies. If you're traveling to the US, it's even worse.
Jeez, I'd prefer to cancel my flight rather than flying long-haul without a book, my ipod some earplugs and some food. All of which would not be allowed under current panic levels.
Now here's where the cynicism kicks in. Has Tony Blair taken a page from Dubya's Idiot's guide to governing by fear? The US masses are constantly being bombarded by messages of FEAR! FEAR! WAR ON TERROR! FEAR! GOD! FEAR! political kickback scandal FEAR! FEAR! WAR ON TERROR! GOD! MORALITY! FEAR! economic scandal FEAR!!!!
The department of homeland security in the US keeps the threat alert always at or above “elevated” (or 3 out of a possible 5). I'm pretty certain that it'll never be low, or even guarded. In essence, it's worthless at meaning anything useful, except to keep people worried and distracted so they can, essentially, be shafted by the powers that be.
Does the fact that this bomb plot happened now, when Swiss Tony is currently under pressure about his position on the current middle-east crisis and his government is being accused of being lapdogs to the Bush administration have any significance? Is that just the universe being its funny self again? I don't know. And that's where the cynicism kicks in…
This makes me ill.
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity. The agency's goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation's borders.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
Also in the news-that-just-makes-me-cringe category, a quote from none other than Dubya himself:
“Brother Jeb would be great president”
Uh huh… let me break out the tinfoil hat now…
State Board of Education member Connie Morris took exception Wednesday to a picture of a made-up creature that satirizes the state's new science standards hanging on a Stucky Middle School teacher's door.Fellow board member Sue Gamble told The Eagle that Morris asked for the picture to be removed.
The creature, called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is the creation of Bobby Henderson of Corvallis, Ore. It looks like a clump of spaghetti with two eyes sticking out of the top and two meatballs flanking the eyes.
Henderson created the entity and an accompanying mythology on the origin of mankind to make fun of Kansas' recent debate over the teaching of criticisms of evolution, including intelligent design.
In November, the board voted 6-4 to allow criticisms of evolution to be taught in Kansas schools. Morris, who voted for the new science standards, saw the picture during the tour. She did not return phone calls for this report. Gamble, who voted against the new standards and was also on the tour, said that Morris asked principal Kenneth Jantz to have the picture taken down.
Board members toured Stucky before finishing two days of meetings in Wichita on Wednesday. Gamble said that when she saw the picture during the tour, she knew that some board members wouldn't approve of it.
“When we went into that classroom, students were looking at rock formations,” Gamble said. “Connie stopped to talk to a teacher and I moved on. That was when I was aware of the flyer. I thought 'she's probably going to say something to the teacher.' ”
Gamble said that when Morris saw the picture, she asked the principal, who was on the tour, to take it down. Jantz did not comment for this report. Gamble said she didn't see Morris talk to Randy Mousley, the teacher, or to the principal, but that she later went up to Mousley and asked if Morris said anything to him about the picture.
That's when Gamble learned that Morris had asked the principal to take it down. The monster's picture has hung on the door since September or October and was put up there as a joke, Mousley said.
“It's a parody,” he said. “It's just making fun of anti-evolution.”
Mousley said he doesn't teach students about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Also on the door is a Doonesbury comic strip about science, said board member Carol Rupe, who represents Wichita. She also voted against the new standards.
“It was two little pieces of paper on the door,” she said. “It was poking good fun.”
Gamble said she told the principal that it was his decision whether the monster could stick around. “I advised the principal that Morris has no authority,” she said. “I told him to deal with his staff as he saw fit, not by what a state board member says.”
Board chairman Steve Abrams, who voted for the new standards, didn't see the picture but said he thinks that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is silly. “Personally, I think it's juvenile,” he said.
The picture was still on the door at the end of the school day Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — With no fanfare, President Bush signed a bill Monday pushing the ceiling on the national debt to nearly $9 trillion. The measure allows the government to borrow an additional $781 billion and prevent a first-ever default on Treasury notes. It also lets the government pay for the war in Iraq without raising taxes or cutting popular domestic programs. The debt limit increase was the fourth of Bush's presidency, totaling $3 trillion. With the budget deficit near record levels, an additional increase in the debt limit almost certainly will be required next year. The measure allows the debt limit to rise from $8.184 trillion to $8.965 trillion.
Yes folks that's 9,000,000,000,000$USD. Now given the fact that at the time I'm writing this, the world population is about 6.6 billion people, this means that if you spread out the US debt across the whole friggin world (!!!), each man-woman-child would owe about 1400$. If you reduce that down to the US population, about 295 million, that comes to a staggering 30 grand!
Canada's debt per capita is a third of this amount and people are already worried the country is going to go bankrupt. But since this is the US, everything is hunky-dory…
From the I-can't-believe-I'm-actually-reading-this-shit desk:
As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts.
Said an FBI spokesman on why not all agents of the FBI are allowed to have an email account…
Senators say military strike on Iran must be option
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican and Democratic senators said on Sunday the United States may ultimately have to undertake a military strike to deter Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but that should be the last resort. “That is the last option. Everything else has to be exhausted. But to say under no circumstances would we exercise a military option, that would be crazy,” Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said on CBS's “Face the Nation.”
I saw this one coming a while ago. The cynical part of me is thinking the US is going to bomb the hell our of Iran. The realist part of me says the cynical part of me isn't far off the mark. That scares me.
Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.
The 6-4 vote was a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power. Critics of the new language charged that it was an attempt to inject God and creationism into public schools, in violation of the constitutional ban on state establishment of religion.
All six of those who voted for the new standards were Republicans. Two Republicans and two Democrats voted no.
This is a sad day. Were becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that,[Rc: ya think?] said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat.
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said the decision would encourage school districts in Kansas and elsewhere to make similar moves, distracting and confusing teachers and students.
It will be marketed by the religious right … as a huge victory for their side, she said. We can expect more efforts to get creationism in. Supporters of the new standards said they would promote academic freedom. [Rc: you're free to think what we tell you to. Riiiiight.]
This is a great day for education. This is one of the best things that we can do, said board chairman Steve Abrams. Another board member who voted in favor of the standards, John Bacon, said the move gets rid of a lot of dogma thats being taught in the classroom today. [Rc: he actually said that with a straight face??]
John Calvert, a retired attorney who helped found the Intelligent Design Network, said changes probably would come to classrooms gradually, with some teachers feeling freer to discuss criticisms of evolution. These changes are not targeted at changing the hearts and minds of the Darwin fundamentalists, Calvert said. [Rc: fundamentalists.. that's rich.]
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports challenges to Darwinian evolutionary theory, praised the Kansas effort. Students will learn more about evolution, not less as some Darwinists have falsely claimed, institute spokesman Casey Luskin said in a written statement.
The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.
In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. [Rc: then a miracle occurs…]
The new standards will be used to develop student tests measuring how well schools teach science. Decisions about what is taught in classrooms will remain with 300 local school boards, but some educators fear pressure will increase in some communities to teach less about evolution or more about creationism or intelligent design.
The vote marked the third time in six years that the Kansas board has rewritten standards with evolution as the central issue. [Rc: How long has Dubya been in office now?]
In 1999, the board eliminated most references to evolution. Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould said that was akin to teaching American history without Lincoln. Bill Nye, the Science Guy of childrens television, called it harebrained and nutty. And a Washington Post columnist imagined God saying to the Kansas board members: Man, I gave you a brain. Use it, OK?
Two years later, after voters replaced three members, the board reverted to evolution-friendly standards. Elections in 2002 and 2004 changed the boards composition again, making it more conservative. The latest vote likely to bring fresh national criticism to Kansas and cause many scientists to see the state as backward.
Many scientists and other critics contend creationists repackaged old ideas in new, scientific-sounding language to get around a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1987 against teaching the biblical story of creation in public schools.
The Kansas boards action is part of a national debate. In Pennsylvania, a judge is expected to rule soon in a lawsuit against the Dover school boards policy of requiring high school students to learn about intelligent design in biology class. In August, President Bush endorsed teaching intelligent design alongside evolution.
In an effort to fight back against intelligent-design advocates, a grass-roots group calling itself Campaign to Defend the Constitution said Tuesday that it was launching a $200,000 online ad campaign to combat a threat posed by the religious right to American democracy.
This is a significant attack on science, said Jack Krebs, vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science. They really are advancing a sectarian religious view. Theyre treading on constitutional grounds.
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9967813/