Dystopian: Pretend to Be a Time Traveler

The following is, apparently, a video that is meant to be an ad for Dennis Kucinich -- though you don't discover that until the end. I find it quite entertaining, however, whom the only politician actually mentioned was. You industrial fans out there -- be prepared to be amused.

Wait -- is it still okay to mock him?

I've heard it said that it's not "nice" to make fun of the intellectually disabled. It's bad manners. So I have to ask, are we still allowed to put out things like the following video and laugh at them, or is this just another sign of what happens when you lie to your kids and tell them that they can do anything they put their minds to?

The infamous "Childrens Do Learn" comment. And think: this man is using a teleprompter!

Joke of the Day -- GOP Top Contenders: "We're Not Racist. Honest!"

Sometimes, it becomes painfully true that stereotypes are created for a reason. Despite a strong and republican sentiment, last night's Republican Presidential debate was missing four people: Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and John McCain. What was different about this particular debate? It was held by a race/minority interest group.

Quoth CNN:

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- Republican presidential candidates discussed the importance of reaching out to people of color during a minority issues debate Thursday night and criticized the leading four GOP contenders for skipping it.

"I think this is a disgrace that they are not here," said Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. "I think it's a disgrace to our country. I think it's bad for our party, and I don't think it's good for our future."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he was "embarrassed for our party, and I'm embarrassed for those who didn't come."

The four no-shows -- former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- cited scheduling conflicts in saying they could not attend the debate at historically black Morgan State University.

[...]

Paul received loud applause when he told the audience that minorities are unfairly punished in the criminal justice system. He also called for ending the war on drugs. "It isn't working," Paul said.

I make no secret of the fact that I am an avid Ron Paul supporter, despite his many faults -- which I have listed elsewhere, and don't care to repeat. But it is worth saying something that the applause for the man was the loudest of those whom were present, especially when he insisted that "I don't care about race, I care about individuals."(Or words to that effect.) It is also worth noting that I live in the home city of one of the "major" Republican contenders ... and while I have seen no fewer than thirty Ron Paul signs on highways and highly-trafficked surface streets, I have yet to see a single poster, sign, or ad for another contender -- Republican or Democrat. Still think "Dr. No"'s support is only online?

In case you missed it, you can find video and audio of the debate here.

Joke of the Day: Equipping The Young

The image is also a link to the source.

When Satire Fails You -- Or; Because Poking Fun of The Government Is a Patriotic Duty.

Not everything can be gloom-and-doom. Since satire has been a powerful tool since at the very least the days of the Modest Proposal, which was itself modeled after the style of the ancient greeks, it is always useful to remember to poke fun at our 'illustrious leaders'.

It is with this thought in mind that I bring you these three items, each drawn from the top online news items of today, September the 24th, 2007.

Forbes.com brings us, "The Biggest FDA Reform In A Decade":

You wouldn't know it from the lack of fanfare, but the Food and Drug Administration is getting its biggest overhaul in a decade in a dramatic coda to Merck's withdrawal of the blockbuster painkiller Vioxx three years ago.

A bill to give the FDA more power passed both houses of Congress with only a handful of no votes, and the president is expected to sign it into law. Because the bill is attached to the re-authorization of an important part of the FDA's funding, a veto is unlikely. If the law doesn't pass soon, FDA head Andrew Von Eschenbach is going to have to start informing staffers that their jobs are no longer funded.

The bill represents a victory for advocates of higher standards for making sure that drug side effects are known and promptly dealt with. Before Vioxx was yanked, some of the changes being made would be unimaginable. Until now the claims drug companies like Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ) and Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) made about their medicines were, to a degree, negotiated. Labeling discussions between Merck and the FDA dragged on, and as a result, the agency will now be able to dictate what claims companies can make with much more force.

Now, hidden in this massive "reform" -- how a 'reform' can increase an agency's powers is news (pun intended?) to me -- also grants the FDA further ability to regulate the claims of unregulated herbals and nutritional supplements. But that's another story.

To shed a little more light on why this is ironic, consider the following, from boston.com:

Federal advisers who met last week to consider whether to restrict doses of popular antianemia drugs were themselves under scrutiny during the hearing. The Food and Drug Administration is considering a top-to-bottom reshaping of how it picks and uses the outside scientists who serve on the agency's advisory panels.

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen. The FDA has now exceeded the absurdity of Monty Python (check the 'subtitles'): Those who are reforming the reformation of the reforming process, have been reformed.


Brought to us by thegate.nationaljournal.com is, "Bush & Congress Face Off Over Appropriations & SCHIP":

Bush admitted that the last Congress didn't get all its spending bills passed on time and that the CR helped keep the government running while it finished the bills. Bush has never vetoed a spending bill -- but all the previous spending bills were sent up from a GOP-controlled Congress.

The remainder of the article discussed the increase of expenditure -- and of course Bush has made news by his warning the Democratic congress to "not overspend" -- when Bush's expansion of domestic spending under a GOP controlled congress has outpaced any presidency since LBJ.

You know, I was going to attempt a satirical retort to these items... but upon reflection, it seems they've really rather taken care of it themselves, haven't they? Meanwhile, our government is literally spending the nation into bankruptcy to the point where the Comptroller General of the United States -- that is, the Federal Government's Accountant -- an appointed office is campaigning the country trying to create awareness -- and nobody's doing anything about it. And is that registering in the news? Apparently not. Yet Mr. Bush has the gall to utter "Democrats, Control Your Spending!"

You're doing a heckuva job, Bushie.

Joke of the Day: NE Court To Decide on "Ernie v. God"

Just when you thought that nothing could brighten your day: this comes along.

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers has filed a lawsuit against God. He says he just wants to make the point that the constitution allows a lawsuit to be filed for any reason.

The action seeks a "permanent injunction ordering Defendant to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats."

The Plaintiff (Chambers) is identified as "the duly elected and serving State Senator from the 11th Legislative District in Omaha, Nebraska."

The petition states that the "Defendant (also known by various aliases, titles, names, designations) is present in all places at the same time ("Omnipresent")' is the admitted perpetrator of the deleterious acts complained of herein."

Among the Claims for Relief: "Defendant has made and continues to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff whom Plaintiff has the duty to represent.

Defendant directly and proximately has caused, inter alia (among other things), fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornados, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."

As they say: Life Imitates Art:

And they say libertarians are sue-happy.

Newsflash: Overconsumption Has Health Risks!

It's always a bad sign for a news item to begin, "Doctors have known for some time [...]" -- but what does it say about the state of affairs when things which are safe for consumption are abused? Does this mean that everyone should lose their toys due to one small groups' abuse -- and sequential loss of health due to that abuse?

MSNBC.com has this to say on the recent news that butter-flavored popcorn can cause "popcorn lung":

Doctors have known for some time that people who work in factories that produce microwave popcorn can get a debilitating lung disease from exposure to the chemical used to give the product a buttery flavor.

But until Wayne Watson showed up in the office of Dr. Cecile Rose, no one suspected a popcorn junkie like Watson could get “popcorn lung” simply by heating and eating one of America’s favorite snacks.

[...]

“Right at the end of the interview she said, ‘I’ve gotta ask this question, it’s going to seem weird, but do you ever eat microwave, butter-flavored popcorn?’ “ Watson recalled. “It was like lights went off, marching bands started to play. I said, ‘How did you know to ask that? I am microwave popcorn. I eat two bags of it a day every day.’ "

He’d been eating that much, he told her, for at least a decade. Watson didn't know why, but he noticed a change while singing that he could not explain.

[...]

ConAgra, which makes Orville Redenbacher and Act II popcorn, responded to the story with this statement:

“We are fully confident that microwave popcorn is safe for consumers to prepare and eat. However, in order to eliminate even the perception of risk for consumers and to provide the safest possible work environment for employees who handle large quantities of diacetyl, we plan to eliminate the use of added diacetyl in our microwave popcorn products within a year."

Okay, a few things.

One: ConAgra is the producer of this -- does anyone think that a non-corporate farming entity would have let this one happen in the first place?

Two: Why does everyone else have to loose out on buttery goodness (Which, advisedly, this author does not care for in the first place) just because one idiot thought that it was a good idea to throw moderation out the window?

Three: should "We The People" be culpable for this man's medical expenses, as would happen under a universal healthcare system? At what point do we in that light say, "No, sorry -- your were dumb enough to do that. So no medical soup for you!"?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Bill Nye The Atheist Guy?

Sometimes the author of this blog is slow on the uptake for some items. However, even oldies can be goodies: take for example the instance of one Bill Nye "The Science Guy", having riled up a few good ol' fashioned Texan christofascists (If there's islamofascists, then there's christofascists too.).

The original article has been pulled from the online archives of the local newspaper -- this is in Waco, of course -- but there are some decent sources left for this. Of the better is Ocellated.com:

Last week, Bill Nye (The Science Guy) gave a talk at McLennan Community College in Waco, TX. Everything went well at first, until…

The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.

A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.

“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.

This article was posted on April 11th. I do not know when, exactly, the Waco Tribune pulled its article, but there is, in the comments of Ocellated.com, a purported eye-witness to the event; said comment left on August 11th:

I am from Waco, Texas, and I was actually present at the talk given at McLennan Community College, and I just want to point at that while there were some uneducated extremists, on the whole the community embraced the visit by Bill Nye, and that it is still talked about by some today. Don’t judge a community because of a few bad apples, while it is true that there are many fundamentalists in Waco, not everyone shares their closed-minded view.
And it was a great talk, he is even funnier in real-life than he is on his show.

And there you have it. There are a few other sources still talking about this little fiasco, such as thecarpetbagreport.com, which asks poignant questions like why evolution is the only topic where the Bible's literal definition is taken these days -- as opposed to little things like the sun going 'round the earth, or the earth being flat.

One can only imagine; one battle at a time, eh? This gets all the more disturbing when you consider that, apparently, one in three people still believe that the sun goes around the earth.

Joke of the Day: Law on the Side of Hackers -- Over Multi-National Corporations?

Poor Apple & AT&T won't get the revenue they're after, or so it is starting to appear. Well, AT&T anyhow. It seems that after-market modifications to cell-phones is legal under the DMCA... because you can't copyright-protect a cellphone network. Who knew?

So will Apple and AT&T's legal action deter hackers? Hardly. Individual users are already allowed to unlock their own phones under an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that the U.S. Copyright Office issued last November. The exemption, in force for three years, applies to "computer programs…that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."

[...]

Problem is, it could be argued that, in reality, the lock only protects access to a carrier's communications network—and communications services aren't copyrightable under the Act, explains Jane Ginsburg, professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia Law School. "This law was written for DVDs and video games," she explains. "What's going on here is using the Copyright Act to achieve another objective."

Indeed, this time, hackers may have the law on their side. Remember, decades ago, automakers built their instrument panels so that only authorized radios of their own manufacture would fit in. Eventually, U.S. courts ended that practice.

Source.

Score one for the evil domestic info-terrorists. It's too bad there's no one like, say, Dateline NBC out there to protect us from these people, just like how Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" protects our children from those evil pedos -- you know, such as Wikipedia?.

Someone At the "International Herald Times" Has A Sense of Humor

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigns, reads the article's headline. But notice the location of the story.

WACO, Texas: Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. He is expected to announce the decision to reporters at 10:30 Eastern time this morning in Washington.

And in case that wasn't enough of a "joke" for you -- consider the ending line of said article:

Senator Schumer said that "Democrats will not obstruct or impede a nominee who we are confident will put the rule of law above political considerations."

Emphasis mine; and I can only say -- how would they know such an individual when they saw him?

Source.
EDIT: The source is called "The International Herald Tribune", not the "International Herald Times".

Fair and Balanced Education

Joke of the Day: Obey The Law, Get Arrested. Disobey the Law...?

SANTA FE, N.M. -

Gov. Bill Richardson ordered the state Health Department on Friday to resume planning of a medical marijuana program despite the agency's worries about possible federal prosecution.

[...]

New Mexico is the 12th state to legalize marijuana for certain medical uses, but it's the only one calling for state-licensed production and distribution of the drug.

Also Friday, Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate, sent a letter to President Bush urging the federal government to allow states like New Mexico to implement medical marijuana programs without fear of federal prosecution.

Such as exception would require Congress to approve legislation changing the law, Gallegos said.

Last month, the U.S. House rejected a proposal - on a 165-262 vote - that would have blocked the Justice Department from taking action against state medical marijuana programs, including New Mexico's.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House drug policy office, said it's up to federal prosecutors and the Justice Department to decide what drug cases to prosecute.

Source: AP Press report via Forbes. (H/T Cato@Liberty )

So, let me get this right: the citizens voted for it; and the government is refusing to follow through because... the government will press charges?

Joke of the Day: House Republican Leader Admitted FISA Court Ruled Bush Admin's Wiretapping Illegal

Quoth House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): "There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States."

Boehner, you say? These puns are writing themselves!

Click on "read more", below, to read the story in full.

read more | digg story

Man Awakened From Coma By Brain Implant Suggests Other Uses

Recently, the story of a man essentially comatose for 6 years being re-awakened through the use of electrodes implanted into his brain has sparked news media interest. The inevitable (though inappropriate) comparisons to the Terry Schiavo case abound. But are there any people whom might just have a little more use for having their consciousness improved upon?

(Disclaimer: Todays's article will be a mild bit "yellow.")

To fill in those whom aren't aware of the story already, here's a few excerpts. From Direct Neural Interface:

I would be remiss to skip a big story that has hit nearly every major media outlet. A 38-year old man in a minimally conscious state was aroused from his 'slumber' via stimulation of the "central thalamus". I'll leave you to read any one of the below reports, but I want to highlight the issues brought up by Wired. In short, they question the rise of what might be called the cognitive life support system, and when it would be ethical to "pull the plug".

H/T to DNI for bringing this to my attention, by the way. Another source, however, has somewhat more information on why the Terry Schiavo comparison is inappropriate (as does the Wired article DNI links to):

Deep-brain stimulation is widely used to treat Parkinson’s patients and movement disorders, but this is the first reported case of using the technique to restore consciousness. If it can be replicated, the doctors say the technique could change the standard of care for patients locked in a “minimally conscious state,” or MCS. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state who have lost almost all brain function, MCS patients show intermittent signs of awareness and may even attempt to communicate using simple words or signals.

Persistent vegetative state = zero consciousness to restore.

But let's take a look into the news of today to see if there aren't a few people whom could use a little bit of augmentative neurosurgery, shall we? Here's a starter: the story of the fiasco involved in the death of one Pat Tillman. Classically Liberal has a great deal to say on this subject; while Tillman's name reached wide awareness for his being a professional NFL football player who turned down a multi-million dollar contract to enlist in Iraq, there is more to this man than simply being a "humble, patriotic jock". But rather than re-hash, read the entries over at Classically Liberal. This isn't the recent news nor is Mr. Tillman the individual requiring neurosurgery (being dead aside, the man apparently was a paragon of reason and virtue). But keep in mind, the Bush Administration is in hot water over this issue (what aren't they, these days?). From sfgate.com:

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top military leaders stood Wednesday before Congress and denied any effort to mislead the public about the death by friendly fire of Army Ranger and football star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

[...]

"You knew this for a month before ... why did you not come forward and tell the family and tell the public the truth?" [Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.] said. "You sat on your hands and you didn't say anything about it. And I find that hard to understand."

If only there were an ethics & honesty chip -- in other words, "My Kingdom for a horse!" Someone needs to either teach these people to stop lying, or else to lie much better. Bill Clinton might, but I suspect that would be like "crossing the streams". Okay -- so we have subject (group) number 1: Rummy & The Military Leaders. A Reggae band, they certainly ain't.

So, howsabout candidate number 2? Well, again we must turn to the Bush Administration for inspiration. It won't be a long trip, don't worry. Quoth the NY Times:

“The attorney general’s legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States,” a statement issued by [Senator Patrick J. Leahym, D-VT] said. “It is time for full candor to enforce the law and promote justice, rather than word parsing.”

Alberto Gonzales, the "One Lawyer To Rule Them All", apparently has a memory like a sieve with a hole the size of a modern aircraft carrier in it. So here we have our second candidate for augmentative neurosurgery. Yet another person who needs to learn how to lie better -- or at the very least to not smirk at your Inquisitors! Smarm covers this group; it is nigh-unto perfectly alike something out of a bad pulp/dime novel from the forties.

We could go higher up the chain, but hell, it's shooting fish in a barrel at this point. So let's move on. Diebold. To those of (well-informed) libertarian circles, that should practically be an "enough said." But since my readership isn't just libertarians, or maybe just missed out on the loop of this one, here's a refresher: Diebold builds electronic voting machines. They were used in the 2004 & 2006 elections. There are a lot of controversies surrounding them -- more on that in a moment. In recent news, a government study conducted for Los Angeles, CA, found that Diebold's machines in particular had a number of major security risks. And what was Diebold's response? Criticize the messenger, of course. Via Forbes.com:

Diebold also complained that the study didn't look at its most recently developed software, which was designed to deal with some "low-risk issues" identified in a 2006 UC Berkeley study. But that equipment has yet to be certified for use in California.

Hart said it found "several inconsistencies, alternate conclusions and errors" in the report.

It also complained that the university's review didn't take into account "the well-designed security aspects of the Hart Voting System." As an example, the company said its machines store votes in three different locations, making it difficult for hackers to change results.

For the record, Diebold still refuses to acknowledge the existence of Baxter the Chimp. Who's Baxter the Chimp, you ask? Why, he's the chimpanzee who got famous for hacking a Diebold voting machine. Here's a video showing it being done. So here we have our third candidate: Diebold, Inc. (What's that? Diebold's an artificial person? Okay, then -- whomever does Diebold's thinking for them obviously needs a little neuroshock assistance.) We also, apparently, have a candidate to reject for augmentative neurosurg