Just one more day until I get on a plane and fly out the convention space. Convention doesn't officially open until Friday, of course, but there will be a grand time had by all when it comes to the JAMS reunion Thursday night, before we all scatter to the five winds. After this entry, I'm basically out of contact until Monday, so take care of yourselves and don't let anything too important happen while I'm gone.

Onward to the news.

Showing a common humanity in times of struggle, Tawian has offered search and rescue personnel to China to help with the earthquake recovery.

The United States government has been drugging persons scheduled for deportation, against their will, using drugs that are designed to control serious psychological disorders. Often without any indication that the detainees have any sort of disorder at all, unless you count annoyance at deportation to be such. And against the rules of the government itself. Isn't it nice to know that the government will treat deportees in a humane manner? Just wonder what they must do to their prisoners... or even their citizens. Getting some scope of how far and wide the media propaganda goes, Media Matters counts more than 4,500 instances where the propaganda contributors were referenced, cited, appeared on programs, or were otherwise used as experts.

In further news from the domestic sphere, the government has dropped all charges against the "20th hijacker" of the 11 September 2001 attacks. Said charged were dropped "without prejudice", allowing for them to be filed later.

With regard to Iraq itself, Iraqi troops are being allowed into Sadr city once more, under a new cease-fire. What is potentially more interesting, though, is the somewhat uncensored take of Mr. Bush's order to take the city, which seems more in line with his image of people a regular Joe... or in being The Chimp. Paired with Mr. Bush's great sacrifice in not playing golf while the Iraq War is on, I think we're all confirming what we already knew - despite all of the media's fawning attention on George Bush, he was exactly as he appeared - someone without the faculties for international politics. And now, we have ample evidence of what this war in Iraq has wrought. Pictures, stories, accounts, all of them in living color and captured by various media. All this is our legacy, and the legacy of the current administration. Have a look and see the consequences of war.

Mr. Bush is much less optimistic about the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian authority, with his optimism slowly being eroded away into something else entirely.

Fourteen counts of perjury were filed against Barry Bonds, contending that he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs to a grand jury and that he impeded the federal investigation by doing so.

Surprising no-one, Senator Clinton thumped Senator Obama in the West Virginia primary, but did very little to disrupt the momentum of Senator Obama's campaign and likely nomination. CNS News plays up the general election as being a much more hotly contested race by claiming approximately 20 percent of Democrats will defect to the Republican if their candidate does not receive the nomination. That seems odd to me, but maybe it's because I would think the Democrats would want to believe either candidate is better than the Republican. If that's not the case, I wonder what sort of faith the Democrats have in their own nomination process. Is it that they actually take stock in silly things?

Following up on an earlier story, the Arkansas prisoner claiming that he was being starved has been caught trying to give some of his food to other inmates.

The United Kingdom has unsealed a comprehensive archive of UFO sightings, giving plenty for the skeptical and the believers to go through and make their own conclusions about.

In technology, scientists are using Second Life as a virtual lab, designing experiments and teaching science classes to those who stop by. This seems to be the second phase of new toys - after playing with it lots just to play with it, then the play organizes into playing to do things and accomplish stuff. Then, once it's figured out what the game does well and what it does poorly, things tailor further to making it really enjoyable, if you're into that sort of thing. Kind of like naming a new spider species after Neil Young.

Getting into the opinion columns, Mark Helprin says the U.S. needs to step up its military spending to become a deterrent to China, suggesting that soon the U.S. and China will clash on policy issues and that if they decide to launch an attack, the U.S. won't be able to stand up to it.

Thomas Sowell thinks people understand supply and demand just fine, especially when it comes to gas prices going up or land prices skyrocketing, but that people prefer to see themselves as victims and politicians as heroes to rescue them from greedy corporations.

Because I trust CNS News about as far as I can throw it, I'm looking for more information on a University of Toledo employee supposedly dismissed for writing an opinion column on whether homosexuality really is a civil-rights issue. If there are other reasons for dismissal, I'd like to see them appear - after all, they appeared in the "wizardry" dismissal case. And if the university really did dismiss her because of that opinion, then there needs to be an accompanying statement of policy that backs them up on this. Then the campaigns can begin to get the policy changed. To see the editorial for yourselves, in all its Jesus-praising, "they choose this lifestyle, so they can un-choose it", God hates fags way, The Toledo Free Press has it for all to see. And, as a good newspaper does, here are a selection of responses to the opinion column, with several raising the point that regardless of the content of the speech, speech alone is not usually sufficient to invoke dismissal or administrative leave.

In other "family values" types of matters, a candidate for the Idaho State House says that homosexual students should have to use separate bathroom facilities, among other planks of his platform. Um, we already did the "separate but equal" thing, and that didn't turn out to work all that well, so what makes him think that introducing a mandated inequality will work? At least he's not an established legislator with a chance of having his proposals come to law. I'm hoping that he stays unestablished, myself.

The religion section also has Albert Einstein's letter that called belief in the Abrahamic God "childish" and remarked that the Jews were no different than any other people.

Last for tonight, to be cheery right before heading out, Impending Doom, which has several countdowns to the end of the world as we know it. Well, for now, I feel fine, but we'll see. Actually, let's counter that doom with a laugh - the marriage rating scale devised by an APA member in an attempt to scientifically determine whether one's wife or husband was poor or excellent. Consult the entire test yourselves and see how yours stacks up statisically.

Only two days left to convention. Am very, very excited. Should probably buy/obtain more than a few batteries for my camera to chew through in its quest. Either that, or obtain a few disposable cameras and have them do all the work. I’m thinking lots of batteries will do the trick. Assuming that the camera doesn’t eat a couple AAs per picture or something. I think I’ve got just about everything I’ll need. I’ll be on the plane when I forget something important, whatever it is, I know it, but I have most things packed already.

Oward to the news, then.

In Myanmar/Burma, what little aid that has entered the country is being substituted for by the government, handing out low quality and potentially spoiled food aid instead of the promised materials coming from foreign countries. The military junta’s continued refusal to accept and distribute food aid should be causing riots soon, I would think. At least there is some amount of aid getting into the country. Now it needs to get where it should go. The junta needs to let in the aid, or be held responsible for the deaths of all those who could have been saved.

In Afghanistan, the commander of NATO forces has suggested that UK troops take a longer tour of duty so as to make more progress toward the group’s goals and to have more continuous time to perform operations.

The face of battle is changing for the United States. Increased automation and the use of unmanned drones permit the Air Force to use more power for longer with less risk to the people involved. Only a fractino of the unmanned wing is actually local, to take care of those logistics that need local presence. Everywhere else, it’s a bit like Ender’s game, with monitors and cameras and remote-control warfare. If we build ground troops and robots like this, will most of the battles be fought with humans in video-game style rigs?

It may have to be, considering contractors associated with KBR are building base electricity units that are ungrounded or poorly grounded, resulting in several electrocutions. Hrm. Bases back at home falling apart. Bases abroad falling apart. How much money has been spent so far, and with dangerous buildings the result? Just how much money are these defense contractors making as profit by doing things shoddily?

Further changing the face of battle, Col. Charles L. Williamson III thinks the U.S. military should develop a combat botnet that can be unleashed against particular targets, utilizing already-existing cyberwarfare machines. The ability of the military to do DDoS is a truly frightening possibility, and would have to be used with extreme care. And then there’s always the possibility that the military’s botnet could be hacked and then turned against its fellows. I can also just imagine another country’s botnet, like, say, China, deciding to DDoS the U.S. for one reason or another. If the Intertubes are crowded now, imagine what they’ll be like if countries start throwing out swarms at each other.

The troops in Iraq are enjoying donated "dang-it" dolls sent their way as stress relievers. The dolls are meant to take the abuse that can come with stress, and are less expensive and dangerous than small breakable objects at high velocity. I’m sure the best de-stressing, though, would be to have some time at home. At least one solider found another way - getting an amputee Iraqi a pair of prosthetic legs.

The Weekly Standard is certainly doing its part to play up Iran as a big threat, accusing Tehran of trying to influence most of the Middle East’s politics, through Hamas, Hezbollah, and training and directing militants into Iraq to fight. The solution offered, in addition to keeping the surge working, is to take some strikes at Iran’s current nuclear potential and keep them away from obtaining any enriched materials at all. This continued bellicose rhetoric is justification enough for Justin Raimondo's insistence that the United States' foreign policy is being directed completely by Israel for the purpose of going to war and using missile strikes against Iran. For a lot of logistical reasons, the United States really shouldn’t be engaging Iran with weapons strikes or anything else, but there’s still seven months of the current administration left - no matter who wins the next election. Especially if the results should turn out unfavorably, there’s a chance that Mr. Bush will decide to do something extreme right before he’s supposed to leave office.

Domestically, The increasing price of gas is causing problems for gas stations still fitted with mechanical readouts. The profit margins for the station owners aren’t enough to permit wholesale upgrades to electronic pumps (even as oil companies post record profits), and so new solutions have to be put in place so that an accurate price is shown.

With regard to candidate matters, a new poll suggests that being associated with Mr. Bush's party is as damaging to the Republican candidate as Pastor Wright is to Senator Obama. The one association might actually be damaging, because Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain share the same political views by belonging to the same political party. Pastor Wright and Senator Obama don’t have to share the same views to be part of the same church. So why is the Wright association as damaging as the Bush association? It shouldn’t be. The wright association is more like which candidate would pair well with which Doctor, really.

Senator McCain displayed a plan to combat global warming with a cap-and-trade system on carbon dioxide emissions, drawing criticism from Senator Obama and Clinton on his voting record against climate change while a Senator. As the Republican candidate, Senator McCain doesn’t seem to be the person who would campaign on climate change, but if he’s serious, then a good debate on his solutions should follow.

The Libertarian Party has an additional candidate now, Bob Barr. More on whom the actual Libertarian candidate is when their party convention/elections are finished.

The Wall Street Journal reviews "Gross National Happiness", a book that says, based on self-reported data, that conservatives are happier. The habits of the conservatives, like religious attendance of religious services, marriage, and children (who then turn out like them) are touted as the reason why they’re happy and liberals aren’t. It’s probably a difference in outlook - conservatives like to focus on how good things are right now and why we don’t need to change, liberals are focused on what isn’t good right now, and what change needs to happen to correct that. Might be that liberals want everyone to be happy as much as is possible, while conservatives want to make themselves happy and don’t worry as much about others. I don’t know. It just seems very odd to me that someone would claim a particular political stance as contributing to more or less happiness.

Technology time - Google has introduced FriendConnect, a way of adding social capabilities to just about any website. From the looks of things, it wants to leverage already-existing profiles on social networking space and let people identify and comment and see each other using those on sites taht aren’t social-networking sites. More information about FriendConnect available from Google. I think I’m beginning to see a bit better how these things can work. I just wonder if everyone will add those gadgets on without really thinking about whether they need those capabilities. After that, astronomy data is turning into virtual telescope tours. With all these nice images, it’s good to see them appearing in software packages of that others can use them and get fascinated by the stars and planets in the universe. Closing out technology, Cubicle Culture shows off the ten best and the ten worst workspace in tech, in their opinion.

Of interest to our Unabashed Feminism department - an ad in poor taste from the 1970s. For pants. Which are apparently good enough to turn women into rugs. There are a lot of things wrong with that advertisement, but I wonder whether the underlying sentiment is still around. Also of interest, and a lot better, anonymous rape evidence collection kits will be made available nationwide, which will hopefully make it much more likely for women to both give evidence and then press charges against their assailant in the appropriate case.

Of interest to those in unions and those wishing to organize around the world, some unions are making secret agreements with companies that give the companies final say on where and how many workers can organize. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having organized labor in the first place. No doubt these agreements have made it possible for many workers to become parts of unions, but the companies are likely to make sure that any actual organization of organization is too small to be effective in any manner if push comes to shove. And the unions have also apparently given up the right to strike worldwide.

Last for tonight, an exhibit from the National Archives - When Nixon Met Elvis. Elvis wanted to be an enforcement agent for the federal government against drugs, Nixon agreed to meet him, they talked, and Elvis got his badge. Although with the dispatches from the drug war that are in the New Yorker today, I’d say that things have only gotten worse instead of better. A man who couldn’t get a liver transplant because he was using marijuana on recommendation from his doctor, a woman who may have to go back to prison for twenty years after walking away from a twenty year sentence garnered by being peripherally involved in heroin (okay, that one I can understand - fleeing the sentence is no good. But twenty years on the charge? Ouch.), and a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse showing that while tobacco smoking leads to lung cancer, marijuana smoking does not and might even be preventative. Of course, that study an story got buried fast, and the Institute was probably not happy that the conclusion it wanted had not been obtained. As Cory Doctrow notes, "The War on Some Drugs is as unwinnable and destructive as all the other wars on abstract nouns. Who needs terrorists to rip America apart when you’ve got drug warriors killing off, imprisoning and shunning its innocents?" With more than 1% of the nation’s populace in jail, I wonder how much space in overcrowded prisons could be freed up by simply letting go of many small quantity drug offenders.

Okay, one last thing. The Vatican has given its stamp of approval on the belief in extraterrestrial life forms. We can all sleep safer knowing now that Catholics can believe in aliens as well as angels, saints, and G-d. Then again, human can create the Passively Multiplayer On-line Game which apparently has missions and such for browsing around the web as one might normally do, or more directed browsing. Yes, there’s XP and other things like that, too.

Time for me to go to bed, though.

Definitely anticipating the presence of Anime Central this weekend. Have started to compile the lists and get things in order so that when I arrive, I can just set up shop and make things work perfectly for me. It’s going to be good to see JAMS again, and the three days will probably be too short, really, for all of us to get totally caught up (plus, you know, convention...)

Watched the new Transformers over the weekend and was suitably unimpressed by it - nice effects, but no real story or plot, and the characterization could have been done a lot better. Of course, defense companies are already building tiny spiders and scorpions to help troops navigate dangerous areas and spy on people. In the future, there may have to be a fumigation for all sorts of bug-like creatures.

Let’s get to the news.

The situation in Myanmar/Burma has deteriorated, including delays by the ruling junta, to the point where the idea of invading Burma to deliver humanitarian aid is being seriously considered.

China's Sichuan province took a 7.8 earthquake on the chin today, with more than 8,700 dead so far. In response to the quake, China has mobilized their army to assist and is being open about the disaster response that they are undertaking, perhaps in contrast to the closed nature of the Burma disaster.

Domestically, tornadoes swirled through the South over the weekend, killing more than 20. In Picher, Oaklahoma, the EPA intends to test air quality for high lead levels after a tornado upset several piles of lead-filled waste.

Oliver North has a knock on the “economic stimulus” plan that gives tax refunds to the populace - for most people, the money is a welcome way of making sure their gas tanks stay full. He then goes on to say, “So all of that money’s going to Middle Wast countries so they can keep funding terrorists to send against us. And the people here at home don’t want to develop or tap any new energy sources to counter the rising prices.” Ending dependence on foreign oil by tapping one’s own resources is a temporary solution at best. If the research could then produce something else to run the vehicles and electricity on that is renewable indefinitely during that time, then the tap is probably justified. But I think it would only be there for the purpose of dropping gas prices temporarily, and then having them spike back up when the reserves ran out.

Speaking of the economic stimulus, thanks to provisions that are supposed to keep illegal immigrants out, many citizens are also being denied their stimulus checks. Those whose spouses don’t have SSNs, or are abroad, or who are abroad and have married a local. Funny how a lot of plans find that they haven’t thought about the military in their want to make new rules.

The re-purchase of land by First Nations tribes has their neighborhood cities raising eyebrows, wondering if the natives are trying to block development plans or other such things. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to feel quite so cramped. Or the land was theirs, and they’d like to return it to the way it was? Does it make some people feel uneasy that the First Nations can start reclaiming their land with the money spent on gambling? At least some part of me is saying that this kind of revenge is the best kind, and those tribes that can do it, go right ahead. Improve the lives of the people.

More religious nuttery ensues with children and their mother living with the corpse of a 90 year-old woman, on the advice of an elder who claimed the corpse would reanimate. The religion, however, appears to have been a very small one, and will not likely be succeeding into the future with the discovery of this particular tenet.

With regard to candidates in the United States elections arriving soon, Senator Clinton praises her ability to build a coalition of white, uneducated voters. That’ right, she said she gets hard working white Americans and white Americans who haven’t finished college. Possibly even more so than the Republican, Senator Clinton is proud to be the candidate of the Angry White Man. Austin Cline at the eGeneral's wonders just what kind of vote Senator Clinton wants, if she really wants the votes of the consciously and unconsciously racist and the scared, and looks at the bigger picture as to whether the election of Senator Obama would be the excuse many would use to continue being consciously or unconsciously racist while claiming that the country has gone beyond racism.

As for Senator Obama, vicious rumors continue to abound about him, including the Muslim myth, the elitist myth, and the patriot myth. Because these falsehoods just won’t die, some states may swing in favor of Senator Clinton. Why does Senator Clinton want this kind of mob as her support base, again? They’ll probably just vote for the Republican in the general. And speaking of him, there are a lot of things younger than John McCain.

Truths of our times, as told to us from a working girl - Humans crave touch. Men are societally told to suffer in silence, whatever their sufferings. And thus, for this particular courtesan, the cuddles and the conversation and the connection were the majority of her time, not wall-to-wall coitus. The men were embarrassed to receive oral sex, or to have a woman on top and enjoy it. And that’s really sad, to have a society that tells men that they always have to be on top, or they’re unmanly.

On the other end of the spectrum from that is the Phelps clan, who have Promised to picket Jenna Bush's wedding because her father apparently hasn't done enough enshrining of discrimination into law for their tastes. Nothing satisfies the Phelps clan, I’m sure, except the case where everyone they hate and everyone who has a civil or tolerant opinion toward the people they hate is executed by firing squad. I guess it’s because Dick Cheney didn’t kill his daughter once she said she was a lesbian.

Absolutely inexcusable, from any end of the spectrum, however, is a 14 year-old boy who gathered two friends to kidnap one of his peers and then raped her. The two accomplices also apparently stopped another girl from witnessing or helping the raped girl. The judge decided that the boy could do without jail time. The account, sounds like it was deliberate and thought out beforehand, considering that there was kidnapping in addition, as well as accomplices. One hopes the judge is right and the boy doesn’t do anything from here on out. If not, he’s probably going to find jail to be a comfortable home.

Humberto Fontova takes issue with a Michael Moore statement, extends Moore’s sentiment to the entirety of the liberal political spectrum, then finds a counter-example to the statement and broadly declares that liberals everywhere want to call all Cuban-Americans cowards. There’s got to be a fallacy somewhere, if not several. Taking Michael Moore as the voice of liberalism is pretty silly.

Dinesh D’Souza does the same, though, trying to make one atheist with some extreme views on euthanasia and infanticide into what all atheists will eventually believe. Dinesh is shocked that in his scheduled debate on the nature of God, that his opponent won’t get sidetracked into talking about something other than the scheduled debate about God. How strange is that. Even so, D’Souza talks about those views and takes his opponent’s combination of atheism and euthanasia as possibly “where the road to complete secularism actually leads”. Sounds familiar. Atheists and liberals will eat children, indoctrinate homosexuality, persecute Christians, blah, blah, blah. Why do some Christians have no faith that fellow members of God’s creation are lacking in the faculties to behave morally and ethically? Even if they don’t necessarily believe in the creator, would said creator be so selfish as to withhold such a gift because the creature with his breath doesn’t believe in him?

Ken Connor manages to point out why there should be no controversy in schools over the teaching of ID, while shilling for Expelled and saying that academics are engaged in censoring heterodox opinions. The key line is that Connor says all theories of origin of life, be they ID or not, require some element of belief. Which is true. Evolution is not a theory of origins, so it should be spared having to go against ID. So far, so good. It’s also true that there hasn’t been a hypothesis on the origins of life on the planet that has made it through an experimental phase. So if someone can provide an experiment that will successfully test the hypothesis of intelligent design, then the test and its results will probably make heir way into the annals of science. Until then, intelligent design should content itself to be taught in metaphyiscs.

Even more disconcerting is the way that language is being abused in these arguments. There’s the classic “only a theory”, completely discounting that theory has special meaning in science. There’s also an insistence that “academic freedom” means “we take everything anyone says seriously, without requiring proof to back up the assertion”, which is more the definition of “gullible” than “academic”.

Regarding all of this, I think Doug Giles sums it up best - Teach the kids/people how to sense BS. It’s a valuable skill.

In technology, semantic Wikipedia searching has appeared, with plans for it to go to the Web at large. Using linguistic analysis and other items, it looks quite interesting to see what can be extracted from various Wikipedia articles.

If anyone is ever curious as to what the last meal requests of those executed are, Dead Man Eating chronicles what was had, how the death was done, the case behind it, and where in the statistical standings the executed lies. There is a bit of a delay from execution to reporting, but that’s probably due to some requirements of law that prevent those records from being released immediately.

Last for tonight, always remember that you live in The Strange Times, and that those who cannot laugh at tge absurdity will soon be consumed by it and destroyed by it. Probably as buttons in the land of Thud. If you’re interesting in picking apart some of the strangeness and watching how things change when lines of code are removed from the world (or just watching Pong go unhinged), look at The Naked Game. In either case, time to make the dream analysis.

So it's a work Saturday, traded in so that I can so off to Chicago next week and enjoy myself greatly there. Life is doing pretty good. Work was also rather interesting yesterday, in that I got to have my professional qualifications and fitness to be a librarian called into question, heard a recommendation for my dismissal, and was told what the library is supposed to be, but also that I was able to sufficiently leverage a good relationship to resolve the conflict without problems. I could feel myself getting all flushed as I was getting verbally abused, which isn't the right response, but I chalk it up to inexperience. Well, either it was embarrassment, or aggravation. Might have transitioned from one to the other. Either way, situation resolved. Perhaps rantiness on it later, if I really think it's warranted. Probably isn't.

It's Mother's Day on Sunday, so hooray for motherhood, without which none of us would be here. amenquohi has a column from Anna Quindlen about motherhood, where all the expert knowledge gives way to the knowledge that children are always a specific case unto themselves.

Proving that social networking tools are great for both good and ill, a garden in the United Kingdom was wrecked as three hundred people showed up for a water fight organized on Facebook. So, able to protest Scientology or create chaos. Improv street performance or giant soaking. Never underestimate the mob. The comments are "make them clean it up!/pay for the damage!/arrest them!/" in the majority, with additional "How sad that our youth do these things! I never would have been in a mob like this!" and "Bet they're all on public assistance, the yobs." sprinkled in. It was probably a bunch of fun, and it may have only been afterward that anyone found out there was a lot of damage, or someone damaged something accidentally and either left it or thought it didn't look that bad. It's kind of like the end-of-school water balloon fight. (Of which, as I recall, carrying a camera in plain sight meant general immunity from the balloon strikes.)

Zimbabwe's opposition leader has said he would stand for a runoff election after the official results said that while he had garnered the most votes, he did not gain a majority of votes, necessitating the runoff. The opposition leader has been concerned that violence in the country is making it impossible for a free and fair election to take place. To that end, the opposition leader has asked for several conditions to be met before the runoff takes place.

An interesting piece - several years after arrest, and apparently a few mistrials, the government is once again trying to prosecute the detainees in Guantanamo Bay - the defendant in this case, Mr. Hamdan, however, wants to know what law he's being tried on, and doubts the fairness of his trial. We'd like to know at some point, too. The defense is trying not only to prove Mr. Hamdan's innocence, but that the process by which he is being tried and the military commissions have been tainted by political meddling. More as this develops.

I'm getting some lessons in perspective here - CNS News, who I think is a little shaky on the news bit, characterizes the recent unrest in Lebanon as a hostile takeover by pro-Iran Hezbollah. The New York Times, in reporting that there will be a cease-fire and Hezbollah will stand down, characterizes Hezbollah's actions as a reaction to government forces attacking people in the country. The facts of the events are still the same. It's all dependent on interpretation.

The world's oldest gorilla turned 55 today. Thanks to good captive care and protection from predators, Jenny has outlasted her compatriots by about 20 years so far.

All it took was two lines, written with what was at hand, and Canada's last World War I survivor is a Canadian citizen again. Having given it up to become a U.S. citizen in 1946 because there was no dual citizenship allowed at the time, things have been returned to the way they were before.

Getting into candidate affairs, CNS News attempts to re-stir the hornets involved with the Jeremiah Wright scrutiny by making mention of other pieces written in the church bulletin that could also be viewed as inflammatory. It's beginning more and more to sound like the pastors and people in the church are concerned with more than just spiritual matters, sure, but what counts are the Senator's beliefs. Until the Senator's behavior starts to indicate that he believes the same as some of the more extreme churchmembers, then it's just smoke. Unlike, say, John McCain, who gladly sought John Hagee's endorsement and has done nothing to distance himself from it.

Remarkably (and I'm not sure how this happened, or whether we slipped into Bizzaro World for a bit), Bill O'Reilly has an accurate summary of the issues Senator Obama will have to overcome if he wants to win the general election. No spite, no vitriol, just good reasoning. Had to check the name on it to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. Could you be more like that in general, Bill? For all our sakes?

Further into the opinion columns, Michael Barone thinks the populace was sold a bad narrative on the Iraq War - that the lack of the WMD meant the war was unjustified. Apparently, the threat of WMD and some ties to terror organizations is still sufficient to invade a country. We're getting the same rhetoric with regard to Iran now, although this time Iran is openly admitting that they are doing processes that could lead to weapon construction. Afterward, when the weapons weren't found, the spin changed immediately to what Barone is saying now - Saddam was a Bad Man, we had to get rid of him, he still had the capacity to make the weapons, even if we never found any, and he still was working with terrorists. "Guns don't kill people, you silly liberals, people kill people, so getting rid of the person was a good thing." Despite being a fairly secular regime and having fought wars against Iran in the past. Saddam was a bad man - the evidence is indisputable on that point. If we were going for regime change based on moral outrage, though, there are better targets in the Middle East.

American Samidzat has a laugh in linking to Pharyngula's noting that Yoko Ono was suing the makers of "Expelled". Namely that, the makers of "Expelled" enforced a copyright claim when someone attempted to link to the offending piece that contained Yoko Ono's "Imagine". So, the people being sued for violating someone else's copyright had no qualms on enforcing their own. Thus, the laugh.

If one ever wanted to know what all the dirty words were in Straight Outta Compton, well, the reverse edit should be perfect to satisfy that curiosity. Hooray for technology! Okay, silliness aside, there are patents in the works to use plasma to life objects, admittedly only 15cm, at the moment, but it could be the future at hand! Or, it could be another patent to be put into an Inventors game, like the Horse Waster-Wing Jacket or the Automatic Hat Tipper.

Another unmanned probe will try to penetrate the mystery of Martian ice after the last one ceased to function just before touching down on the South Pole. Mars still looks like a good candidate for terraforming, or at least having a colony established upon it - I wonder whether Mars will be the new Australia. With the warranty being voided on Terra, finding a new planet may be in our best interests. (Th' article's a joke. Terra was clearly marked as-is.)

A PR nightmare was narrowly averted when EA dropped a planned requirement for PC versions of Spore and Mass Effect to phone home every ten days to check and see if the CD key involved was still valid and hadn't been pirated. What were they thinking? Not everyone has a connection, for one, and two, gamers are usually pretty up-to-snuff on their game news. Why piss off an entire user base like that? As things are, reauthentication will still be needed to get new game content, but I wonder how their sales will be hurt as more people find out about the planned protection scheme.

Last for tonight, deserving of a very Special Hell Flaming Quiche, either for being serious about this, or for being a satire that isn't discernible as such, is Take the Action, a program that intends to curb the craving for masturbation. Because apparently, media viewing leads to wanking, wanking is addictive and takes over lives, destroying partnerships and sex lives, and wasting time, dreams, and potentially money (because every masturbator is a porn addict, too). While I'm sure that it would please a significant number of the abstinence movement to find such a product, and to potentially encourage its use, I think $47 is going to be a bit steep of a price to pay.

The last thing this country needs is more sexual repression. For as much as the media sells sex and sexuality, the society it's trying to sell it to has precious little openness of attitude about partnerships, aids, and autoeroticism. Despite saying that products will help you get all the chicks/bring all the boys to the yard, the prevailing attitude is still "Marriage. Then sex. And only for children. If you can't or don't want to marry, tough. No sex for you." *sigh* Society is such a tease.

Also, isn't it sexually healthy to orgasm, whether by one's own implements or another's?

That's all for tonight. I hope that everyone here has a way of being happy with themselves, whether through positive thinking, battery-operated implements, or other methods.

Week’s end. Always seems like there’s more stuff on Friday than any other day. Working tomorrow, too, so that I can do the ACen thing. But let’s get to the news.

The United Nations has suspended relief operations in Burma/Myyanmar, pending getting necessary permissions to get aid workers inside the country so they can distribute their material. The government of the country is letting people die while aid waits outside, because the U.N. insists that it actually get to where it is supposed to go, rather than leaving it there for the government to confiscate for their own purposes.

In matters of Iraq, Iraqi government sez, "We got one!". U.S. government sez, Ah, nope. Similar name, different person.

Five years later, an interview with Hans Blix, the chief of the United Nations weapons inspection program that found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, taking out a significant justification for the upcoming war. I’m sure the government is thrilled to find out that a released Gitmo inhabitant performed a carbomb suicide in Iraq, so that they can justify keeping the people right there and “interrogating” them even more. And they’re grateful that the Iraqi industry minister says that rapid troop removal would be destabilizing. The justification, though, is one that might work - the current Iraqi national police force and army is insufficient to keep peace.

Last out of Iraq, Ross MacKenzie says the U.S. should be in Iraq for the long haul, after taking time out to chide Democrats for wanting to keep a Wildlife refuge a refuge, blocking unsympathetic judges from appointments, and trying to raise sufficient revenue to cover the debts that the current administration has run up. Quoting Senator Obama from September of last year, slyly inserting Pastor Wright where there’s no need to do so, Ross lays out the “success” of the surge (which is still conditional on keeping troop levels up), accuses Speaker Pelosi of loading a war spending bill with pork for “whacko” domestic affairs, as well as “cheapen[ing] the deaths of 4,000 American troops (islamofascism, they say, poses a threat vastly less than Nazism or Communism did) and implicitly declare that the long war on global terror pales in importance against, for instance, the war on global warming”, and declares anyone who is still against continuing to fight in Iraq as defeatists, with the collapse of Iraq and subsequent invasion by Iran as foregone conclusions should the United States leave. I find it interesting that the rhetoric involved here is one of “defeat” and “surrender” now, with “victory” being the goal, despite “Mission Accomplished” having been declared more than five years ago. It’s as if the war supporters forgot that detail, despite Mr. Olbermann’s reminder of it every night at the end of his broadcast.

With other international matters, The United States and Russia have traded diplomatic expulsions. The U.S. is downplaying the significance of the dismissals, considering it an event that happens from time to time, and not an indication of a greater rift in relations between the two countries. Whatever the case may be, when people are sent home, there’s usually a reason for it. The story didn’t give the reason, as best I saw.

Domestic matters begin - Glenn Greenwald lays out, in no uncertain terms, the Pentagon's deliberate propaganda attempt using "military analysts" that were expected to toe the party line. They supposedly became experts on Guantanamo Bay, despite having spent less than three hours in the facility, and none of it actually in the presence of any of the detainees. From there, CNN helped the Pentagon try to discredit the Anmesty International report of widespread abuse in Gitmo. The collusion and lack of truth in the “reporting” on Gitmo is sickening, and those who criticized the Pentagon found themselves without any access at all to the Pentagon or Rumsfeld. This is a documented case of the press cooperating with the Pentagon’s message. (Liberal bias, my tailscales) I wonder how many more undocumented collusions happened, and how many happened in the run-up to the Iraq war. And what’s worse, despite documented evidence that these things happened, the majority of media outlets still refuse to report on it and admit their role in being propaganda engines. Is that because of a continuing relationship, as the Voice?

A significant amount of candidate-related material has appeared. The campaigns have gone on long enough that the creativity is really starting to appear. Thus, Hillary is 404, providing semi-unsubtle commentary about the state of Senator Clinton’s campaign, while Robert Novak goes after Senator Obama, rehashing that Ayers connection and dismissing Senator Obama’s success as a matter of demographics rather than skill. I don’t see it as a convincing argument, much like how Senator Obama's campaign manager responded to accusations that Obama was being ageist and hypocritical, when the Senator was talking about Senator McCain’s directionlessness.

Most succinctly put so far, in metaquotes, is the wish for the upscoming President to be as elite and intelligent as possible, so as to run the country effectively and well. If most people wouldn’t trust their neighbor to be the President, why do we expect the President to be like our neighbor?

And involving the Republican candidate as well, Bill Press tells a tale of two candidates and two pastors. Both pastors have said some inflammatory things, and both have endorsed a candidate. Yet one pastor has received significant media scrutiny for his remarks, forcing the candidate to distance himself from the pastor, and the other pastor was sought after for his endorsement. The candidate there continues to champion the pastor’s endorsement as a good thing. Why the disparity? I don’t know, but anyone who thinks “liberal bias” is in the media can’t point to this incident.

In other opinions, Diana West feels the power of language, and thinks that the U.S. should still call terror and extremism by the name Islam. The new government decisions on language are supposed to be avoiding inflaming the rest of the religion and sticking strictly to the extremists, but Diana believes firmly that every Muslim is at war with the West and won’t rest until the West is subjugated to Islamic law. No doubt she thinks of Islamic law as the Wahabist strain or the Iranian strain where women are property at best and all freedoms are squashed. By that logic, I would be more worried about the Christians waging war on America, because they’re actually in the country, have successfully managed to garner influence in our political decisions, and are trying to provoke us all into wars with the other major religious and philosophical groups.

Cal Thomas thinks that Time's list of influential people misses out on the really influential people, like the couple that works things out, the honest politicians, and the businesspeople who put people before profit. And Jesus. Cal and I may actually agree that the list should probably be changed to be more worldwide in nature and to think of persons both living and dead whose effects are still felt and influential today. He and I might disagree about what to put in the Jesus entry, though.

And look, a segue! A council of evangelicals have urged their preachers and leaders to pull back from politics, so as not to be exploited as "useful idiots" by partisan politics. Excellent idea! Not only staying strictly on this side of the law about endorsing particular candidates, but going back to those places where churches traditionally have some authority, like the things they consider moral issues. There, we can disagree lots, but we’ll at least admit that the church should be talking about those kinds of things.

Obsidian Wings holds up Representative Vito Fossela as a shining example of what the defending marriage movement is all about - drunkenness and an affair that has a three year-old child, while voting for all the marriage amendments and laws that keep teh gays from adopting or marrying. I’m sure that there are plenty of homosexual couples who would be able to achieve a better marriage than this, so really, what’s the argument again?

But managing something resembling a laugh before moving on, Dana Milbank recounts the Republican woes, including a decision of being against motherhood after being for it, all part of various problems and stalling techniques on display in the governmental halls this week.

In a highly improbable event, our science column leads with the data on a hard drive that was on the Space Shuttle Columbia when it fragmented has been recovered and used to publish an experiment. Wow. Even after re-entry, 90% of the data was recovered.

Protein-folding algorithms may be getting some human direction, thanks to a game in development called FoldIt. It takes the protein folding model to find good candidates for disease prevention and/or cure many of us are familiar with, using BOINC or Rosetta@home or United Devices, and then solicits user input on how to improve the design of good-looking candidate proteins. After a tutorial on how to recognize and build good proteins, the players are pitted into a competitive mode to design and build the best proteins to fight diseases with. The game obviously has no end in sight, and the researchers are hoping to tap into the power of the people and some savants to basically sift a long list of potential candidates into a much shorter list of good candidates. If interested in the game and participating, FoldIt can be downloaded from the main site. Speaking of harnessing great computing power, NASA aims to have a supercomputer that can process 10 PFLOPS (petaflops, or a quadrillion floating-point operations per second) by 2012. Some serious number-crunching going on for the manned asteroid mission and the Return to Luna.

Last out of science, see approved images of the Soviet future, mostly in black and white, but not that different than our own images of a rocketships future. Along with the Solar System Visualizer, many more dreams of The Future might be born.

Taking a less than orthodox interpretation of the Last Supper, a piece depicting the Last Supper of Jesus as a homosexual orgy has drawn criticism from the local Catholic bishop. The piece itself is part of an exhibit celebrating the works of a particular Vienna-based artist.

Next to last for tonight, lest anyone wonder whether children are learning things in their schooling, the breakup of fast-food and fizzy drinks smuggling rings in United Kingdom schools tells me that there are several students who grasp the power of entrepreneurship. They’re missing the part about healthy eating, but I have to applaud their ability to create a supply and distribution chain and make profits off it. Even more so, it was a multilayered organization. As I know from my own work, just because they haven’t reached legal majority doesn’t mean they’re stupid. When they put their minds to it, especially when it comes to rulebreaking, children and teenagers are smart. They’ll swipe Dad's credit card and try to buy escorts with it if they can and feel they can get away with it.

Last for tonight, the instant rimshot. For those occasions where the joke needs it. Or if the six-headed guitar player is busy..

Got to get all my preparations in order for the trip next week. Hehe. It’ll be quite a few days without access. I hope my e-mail box doesn’t back up or anything.

Starting out tonight’s entry with a healthy dose of WTF, Phyllis Schlafly will be receiving an honorary doctorate from Washignton University in St. Louis. The same Schlafly who yesterday praised Ben Stein for exposing a nonexistent conspiracy, and as the linked comment notes, is pretty anti-female, believing it’s not really possible for husband-wife sex to be rape, sex education classes as “in-home sales parties for abortions”, and firmly believes in the North American Union conspiracy. Not the kind of person that would be my first choice for an honorary degree.

Just as big of a WTF, though, was the firing of a Tim Horton's worker for giving an infant a Timbit - a 16 cent crime, really. But apparently a zero tolerance policy meant her dismissal for her good deed, with the manager considering it “theft”. The story turns out well, as she was rehired at a different Tim Horton's after the “overreaction” by said manager, so the owner of those franchises realized just what kind of nuttery went down there. No word yet on whether the manager who fired her has been dismissed or disciplined for their behavior. For all I know, upon hearing this story, the United States government wanted to hire the manager for some purpose in Homeland Security, or perhaps Internal Revenue.

In our international department, there is a new president in Russia, but the question is whether there has been any transfer of power, as Putin now takes on the role of Prime Minister.

Additionally, melting glaciers are releasing trapped toxins back into the water supply around them, which could make for nasty consequences on the local fauna.

Our art department has found several pictures of the Chilean volcanic eruption, capturing the fury and strange beauty of a very violent eruption.

United Nations relief planes are finally landing in Burma/Myanmar, having convinced the government to let them provide humanitarian aid to the people there. United States aid is still being denied, and there is delay on getting U.N. workers passports so that they can oversee distribution of the aid.

Out in the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a $22 billion city is being constructed, aminig to be a zero-emissions, renewable-powered city. We’ll see if the concept works, and then we’ll see if they can be built cheaper, and then possibly retrofitted onto our current cities.

The United States Navy has printed a manga to help promote the arrival of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Japan. Understandably, the natives are a little less than happy that something with nuclear capabilities will be sitting in their harbor. Still, ahve to give the navy credit for thinking of this option in the first place.

Domestically, protesters snarled traffic in New York as they demonstrated against the acquittal of three officers accused of opening fire on unarmed men. The justification, in that the police officers fel threatened by the people in the car, is insufficient and covering-up for the knowledge that the officers committed murder.

According to Cybercast News, should a Democrat be elected President, they will have to deal with Iraq war funding immediately, as a motion will be introduced to cease funding the war immediately. Which will probably endear or alienate the president from the base, depending on how they react to that motion.

Jason Kemp has praise for the creative generalist, liking the flexibility of thinking, and being delighted when asked “What do you do for a Job?” and “What are you going to do when you grow up?”

The science department links us to an article saying humans are sensitive to even the small amount of electromagnetic radiation we get from cellular phones, which, while posing no health risks, may be worth investigating further to see if other effects appear. Those with the cell on transmit had trouble getting to sleep, even after they hadn’t had enough sleep the night before. There’s also a study that suggests having a bodacious booty might not be bad in that some fat types that collect there could fight off diabetes.

Just remember, with science, to Look Around You. For some video examples of this, consult the great oracle, Youtube.

Last for tonight, the opinion columns that deserve a quiche to the face. The Quiche of... truthiness? WTF? Fury? Needs a snapy name. ‘S not like I can say that these people are the worst persons in the world, or anything.

Someone kindly but insistently remind John Stossel that it is wrong to generalize an entire political orientation based on an interview with one person, and not only that, he has missed the point that Ariana was trying to make in his haste to denounce her “big government” liberalism. Things are getting better, but they could improve a lot more, if the programs in question had the kind of support they really require. And the figures he cites as “progress” still look pretty disturbing. Going from slightly over 30% of single mothers below the poverty line to slightly under 30% is not real progress, for me. There’s still nearly 30% of single mothers living below the poverty line. That’s the point that Ariana was going for. Conservatives and liberals both enjoy pointing to statistics that say things are getting better, even if that change is miniscule. But there’s always a danger about “lies, damned lies, and statistics” - if the number doesn’t really change, or is still too high, then that feeling of progress pride should probably be pretty small.

Brian Fitzpatrick thinks American patriotism is under attack, if by patriotism, one means “the rule of law, respect for God-given human rights, the democratic republican form of government and the free market.” I might agree in various shades on the first three, but it is the fourth that he goes after in the article. He opines that “Cuban revolutionary hero” is impossible because all communist governments have had bad despots as rulers. I personally think he missed the grammatical construction of the sentence, but if he wants to fight on different grounds, then by jingo, we’ll go for it. Being the hero of the revolution says very little about what one has done since, and for people who believe in the ideology, those rulers may still yet be heroes. This round of experiments has failed. Getting back to the meat of things, Fitzpatrick bodly claims that the world is catching up to American superpower because they are emulating the methods that make America great. “Any nation that abandons American values and turns to the secularist, egalitarian, utopian model so fashionable in elite circles will degenerate into a socialist dystopia like revolutionary Cuba.” he says, while also making sure to complain about the lack of a big fence on our southern border and the presence of illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Discounting the fact that we’ve never really had a true test of the socialist/communist model, because it needs worldwide adoption before it can be used as intended, Fitzpatrick has basically said “Greed is good and proper for Americans and the world, thanks be to God.” I resent his implication that America needs God to survive and his twisting of the language. Let’s consult the dictionary, shall we? “Patriotism - devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty”. Tell me again where that translates into slavish obedience to anything, be it an economic system, a form of government, or a belief in Ceiling Cat? Just because the American experiment looks to be working well now does not mean that it will work everywhere, nor for all time. It has significant flaws - the poor, the uninsured, and the destitute indicate that not everything is perfect yet, despite what Fitzpatrick may believe. Have some quiche and come back when you have a plan that will ensure that every American has a place that they can call home and doesn’t have to worry about whether or not they’ll be able to make their rent. After that, find a way that instills in every American the secure knowledge that because someone is of a different sex or race or creed or orientation or gender identity, they are not in any way inferior to anyone else. Then, maybe, we can start talking about unvarnished praise for this country.

And because there’s been a lot on my friendslist about rape and its consequences, a full account of a rape and its effects, from the perspective of more than twenty years afterward. This is potentially triggering, I’m sure. I think more people need to feel that they can report these things when they happen, they should report them, and that they shouldn’t internalize guilt or shame about the matter. I know that’s difficult, though, so I hope that at the very least, nobody feels afraid to report when they are assaulted or violated. It may have to start with parents being more honest about what they did in life, against the advice in that article, which says that parents shouldn’t reveal so much so they can stay the authority of the family. (Because telling your kids about the experiences you had makes you less of a parent?) Trust needs to be built, even on matters like sex, so that victims don’t feel alone or at fault, and that charges are pressed and people who rape get their punishment. It’s still sad that people think they’re entitled to someone else. And kind of a bad thing that the power trip that would happen from rape gets people off so much that they continue.

At the very last, news from the biology front - the platypus is... a mammal, but apparently has genes of birds and reptiles, too. No wonder it’s a silly thing. But it also might be a link in explaining how the very first mammals started moving toward their current dispositions.

Thus, having not ended on a down note, I’m going to bed. Have a staff meeting tomorrow that I have to get up early for.

It’s like, ten days to Anime Central. I’m psyched, what can I say? And after getting my big rant off my chest, I feel much better now.

We’ll start with what is buzzing around the blogs and the news programs - Senator Clinton lent her campaign some $6.4 million dollars in the last month. She’s having trouble managing her own campaign - how will she manage the tax revenues, then? Oh, and Senator Obama received the most votes in North Carolina, with Senator Clinton receiving the most votes in Indiana. The deadlock continues. Rich Lowry considers Senator Clinton to be the electable candidate because of her shift toward conservatism, pegging her as a centrist who will appeal to a lot of voters. Well, perhaps in that the voters know what they’re getting with John McCain and want no part of it. Thomas Sowell feels Senator Obama isn't promoting the strong work ethic that makes America great, pulling out examples of people who persevered through their hardships and went on to be successful. Sowell promotes the “pull yourself up” mentality that often leads to “Well, why should I finance these schools/roads/public works? If they want those kinds of luxuries, they can do what I did and earn them.” Which, for some people, just isn’t possible. They’re working multiple jobs just so they drown slowly, while others enjoy the profits of their work and charge them extra for the privilege.

What we should be talking about, however, is that there are no backup copies of e-mails sent from and to the White House right around the time of the Iraq invasion. How strange - I would think that the public and posterity would be very interested in those e-mails. That they seem to be missing and have no backups makes me wonder what the administration is hiding from us in those e-mails. Not only are the archivists of the United States raising eyebrows at this, the e-mails being “lost” is a convenient way of not having to answer any FOIA requests about them, either. Even if it is “extremely costly” to have to sift the tapes, I think the public interest is greater. And it’s probably cheap compared to the current Iraq War cost.

The IAEA's chief is urging the United States to be more flexible in its Iran dealings, asking the United States to consider economic and other conditions when trying to offer Iran good reasons to give up their program. Offer something they like, rather than threatening to use nukes against them? Well, if nothing else, it makes you seem reasonable if you should decide to knock them over later. I might be more inclined to believe Iran is on the backburner after reading that special forces are spread pretty thin, in addition to the regular troops being concentrated on cleaning up Iraq. It may have finally sunk in that there aren’t enough people to fight several land wars in Asia. Not when the locals in Iraq are still trying to convince the PMCs that cash isn't enough recompense for dead people.

Colombia has extradited one of the country's feared warlords to the United States to face drug charges.

Doing this as much for the picture as anything - 5,000 evacuated as a volcano erupts in Chile. The ash cloud has its own lightning blasts. Wow. Here’s hoping that nobody was hurt in the blast.

In the United Kingdom, the increased presence of surveillance cameras has not dropped the crime rate, according to police there. But now that it’s there, it can be used for whatever other purpose a government would want to, even if its official mission is still preventing crime.

Attesting to the creativity of humanity, eight ninja-style uses for binder clips, all of which will help you organize your life in new ways. In Iraq, that creativity manifests in a short-game 9-hole golf course made in the ground. Of course, that’s temporary, as there are plans for a more permanent and green golf course in Iraq. Back home, trying to ensure that returning vets do have work gets a wounded veterans' internship program - isn’t this the sort of thing that the federal government/military should have, as well?

I haven’t had a “sing the praises of Ben Stein against those evul libruls” opinion column in a while. So, Phyllis Schlafly completely misses the point of why scientists criticize "Expelled", attributing it to a determined effort by science-types to enshrine Darwinism as gospel and fire, bully, intimidate or otherwise remove all critics from places of power or influence. I believe that science accords Darwin respect as a pioneer, but has long since changed its view away from his original theories. Schlafly also sets up some dubious associations - Hitler was a fan of Darwin, as were advocated of eugenics! See, those scientists are evul like Hitler and want to sterilize everyone, after they drive out ID. Academics do not teach ID in science class because ID is not science, lacking testability by any known scientific method. But, much like being “pro-life”, so long as you control the words and their definitions, it doesn’t matter how horribly you’re abusing them, so long as the people believe you.

An excerpt from the 2006 Yale Law School Commencement regarding John Yoo and the torture memo, where the professors correctly note that one’s memory as a law practitioner is not by how skillfully one interprets the law, but by the purposes which that skill is put to - using it to give the green light to torture makes one a bad lawyer, and pretending that one’s work wasn’t doing just that is worse. It would be like the scientists on the Manhattan Project denying that their work was being used to create something that caused massive destruction. Oh, and did we mention that post-war suicides might exceed the official count of combat deaths?

Moving into more positive, pleasant things - pictures of Zeppelins, for instance. Or that NASA is planning a manned mission to an asteroid as preparation for trying to live on Mars. Or Luna, I would say, but small steps seems to be the order of the day today. There’s also a possible multiple sclerosis treatment discovered by accident, where a marrow transplant produced a remission of the disease. And a hands-free, eleven minute Super Mario World level that provides good counterpoint to tunes playing over top of it. The time and effort put into it must have been quite interesting, but the result sounds good, even if the look is a little weird. There’s also Barackula, which looks to be just a bit bizarre.

Last for tonight, Ask Genghis Because Khan knows all. And take a pack of animal index cards as your consolation.

Okay, one more thing. I was going to link to a picture of a hut with chicken legs sticking out of it, and make a joke about the phrase "Hey, chickenlegs! Squat!", but as greenhornline tells me, that's an f-locked post, so it doesn't quite work out. (Ten points to your house if you know who says that line, anyway.)

It’s rare that something aggravates me enough to devote a single entry to it, but I have to say, this has done it. I think our Unabashed Feminism department would also be interested in reading the source material from these points and drawing their own conclusion. I think they alerted me to the original in any case, so here we go.

The original powder keg was the bold assertion that Joss Whedon's Firefly is as antifeminine as it gets, according to the view of the author, because Mal disregards Inara, despite loving her, Jayne is a lech and a womanizer, the frequent use of violence as a cure to problems, Inara’s presence and profession, Zoe’s position between the man she loves and the captain who kept her alive, and the jokes are supposed to be taken seriously, apparently. Ah, and apparently Wash is a rapist, because he and Zoe have sex. Did I miss anything?

Well, she takes quite a bit of offense at the episode Our Mrs. Reynolds, where Saffron tricks Mal into believing he married her, so that she can steal his ship and do stuff with it. So, let’s follow her through this episode and see what she has to say.

Our radical feminist endears herself to very few persons in part one of her screed against Joss, claiming heavy comment moderation, equating the existence of male feminists with unicorns (throughout the episode, she refers to Mal becoming a unicorn when he does something in defense of the equality of both sexes), and mocking the idiots who told her that she would be better off dead. (Actually, on mocking idiots who would tell someone to go kill herself because she has strong opinions, we agree. Which no doubt would horrify her to no end.) Once she gets to the episode, she apparently doesn’t like that Mal cross-dresses for the purpose of the plot, and appears to enjoy doing so. The laugh that Zoe and the crew have at Mal once he finds out that he has Saffron is apparently not funny, because Saffron in this domestic disguise is a sexual and domestic slave, and no black person or woman, not even in the future, would joke about slavery. Confronted with the idea that some men kill women, rather than recognizing Mal saying “What kind of backwater do you come from where that happens?”, our authoress finds Mal’s advice to Saffron to fight back to be useless, because women who defend themselves are killed, or locked up, or have their lives taken from them. If Joss truly believed that, she says, he’d write a character that did just that and got away with it. But no, because The Patriarchy endures, there aren’t any characters that do that. (Except River does it in the movie. And possibly elsewhere...) Then Book’s advice about burning in hell with child molesters, should Mal take advantage of her, is apparently an indication that Joss reads Hustler and likes to joke about child sexual abuse. I’m trying to figure out these left turns, I really am, but my knowledge and deductive skills just aren’t up to the task.

This taking the jokes seriously continues through Saffron’s dinner and Wash’s joking about Zoe cooking dinner, which nets him a glare of death. Because Mal didn’t want Saffron to cry of feel useless, he let her cook dinner and ate it. This is apparently confirming Mal’s status as rapist slime. Jayne, being the oaf he is, offers to trade Saffron for his prized gun, for which Mal smacks him upside the head. But this is apparently not enough, as our authoress only sees Mal masquerading as someone who believes in equality for women. As she puts it, “I see two rapists. Only difference is that one is in a two-dollar-shop disguise as a unicorn.” And thus ends part one.

With that lovely taste, let’s get to part two of the analysis of Our Mrs. Reynolds.

Rather than taking Saffron’s dismissal of her history as a way of keeping Mal and others from looking into her past too deeply, the authoress considers it use of a misogynist writing technique on Joss’s part, and then pairs it with Zoe’s objections and Wash’s unwillingness to comment on local practices and impose his or Zoe’s view on Saffron. A very Prime Directive sort of thing, but for our writer, it turns into a defense of how men do all sorts of things to women to try and break them, and how in the face of all that, women are then called weird if they try to conform, or if they try to buck the system. A fair point, but I think that’s heavy subtext reading to get there from Wash’s wishy-washiness.

And then Saffron’s plans are finally revealed. Her skillful manipulation of Mal’s eye and weakening of his will are transformed into how the authoress does not find any sort of submissive attitude sexy, and Saffron’s submissive attitude, deceptive that it is, is yet another example of Joss Whedon’s anti-woman writing style. Then, when Saffron knocks Mal out, the revelation that she’s actually quite competent and has been playing Mal for an idiot is also anti-woman, with the implications apparently being that Joss is telling us that all women are liars. Her further manipulation of Wash, to which Wash is resisting, although acknowledging that it’s difficult, subsequent knocking out of Wash (to which our authoress says is the very first remotely feminist bit in the whole script) and then her attempt to manipulate Inara are all judged by this same damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t strategy. I’m guessing that nothing short of storming on and kicking everyone’s butt would be sufficiently sexy and feminist for our authoress. Even though it would be a really stupid plan, and not very likely to work.

Mal’s revenge on Saffron for her tricks is then spun into a justification for domestic violence because of Mal’s appropriation of the marriage theme running through the entire episode and playing up the “jilted husband” angle. Apparently, it’s Mal taking out his frustration on her for being capable and not the feminine submissive she was acting as, not for tricking him and trying to steal his ship. After a parting shot at Inara, whose “sexuality is neatly controlled by patriarchal institutions...the good whore: the wife”, as opposed to Saffron’s apparent use of her skills against those institutions, in her own self-interest, the episode and the commentary end.

I think this pair of commentaries is a classic example of reading your conclusions into the source material. Starting from the perspective that all the men want to subjugate and rape women, it becomes very easy to read all sorts of intent and style into the work. In the comments to this entry, Joss and all men are “probable rapists”, for example. If the conclusion in these pieces were that men are often unaware of the potentially sexist and misogynistic way their writing could be interpreted, especially when making jokes, there might be a case for it. Or a commentary on how societal expectations of women in “the past” or “backwards planets” are way screwed up, sure. But I just don’t see how this episode confirms, creates, or reinforces a lot of the ideas expressed here.

Not to mention, now that I’m looking at it, I find lots of places where doing one thing is useless, but doing the other thing is useless, too. Mal’s advice to Saffron to fight back is useless, because women who fight back get put in their place, but Saffron’s particular fighting style is wrong because she doesn’t stomp every man into the ground from the beginning. Instead, she prefers tactics that succeed by utilizing the very assumptions that our authoress hates against Mal and his crew. When Wash floats the idea of Zoe taking on some of Saffron’s submissive tendencies, Zoe rebuffs him. Mal expresses progressive ideas in the face of Saffron’s submissiveness, but being Companion-trained, she’s very good at manipulating him. Wash doesn’t fare any better. And really, the only remotely feminist thing in the episode is Saffron planting a boot in Wash’s head? Yet Mal’s justifiable anger at Saffron lying to him is an endorsement of male violence against women? Saffron’s lies are Joss being misogynist, and the reward she reaps for lying and deceiving is also misogynist? These are no-win situations. The conclusions have already been drawn - men cannot write feminist works, men are all probable rapists, all rape is sex, and all jokes are really windows into the author’s soul and must be taken seriously.

Of course, since I enjoyed Firefly and Serenity, I’m probably blind and biased on these conclusions. Being male as well, I’m probably beyond the pale and not supposed to be even worthy of deigning to give my opinion. I read through this to see how far things would go. I wanted to see what the justifications were. I find that picture of the characters, the writers, and men in general to be an unfair portrayal, based on the evidence being presented. I do not share the underlying assumptions. And I felt the need to say something about it. So, I suppose this is the bleating of a unicorn. What do you think? Does the horn fit?

Always more in the news than meets the browser. I’m still miffed that when Ubuntu upgraded, they decided to go with a beta version of Firefox 3 as their shipping browser. It crashes often whenever taxed with lots of tabs to open at once. These things are beta for a reason. Enlisting an OS’s userbase as an unofficial testing crew is not a smart idea. Hopefully they put the Firefox 2 branch into a separate package. I may go back to that one until Firefox 3 actually has an RC, unless beta 5 is supposed to be the RC. A lot of my add-ons broke with the sudden upgrade. Although I did get one back, so it’s not all bad.

Anyway, onward to the news things. The skies have been grey all day today, which means my rain sense has been going off all day, too.

To start with something light-hearted, Zombie season is coming. Are you prepared? Along with that, If Rick Astley knew then what he knows now...

For the true fans of the game... and those that can put together a full 11 a side, Table Football XXL, which can put 22 on the pitch all at once. Bet it takes as long to score in that as it does on the real field.

And then there are the pudding cups that are supposed to look like female breasts. From the land where all things are available through vending machines, of course.

But following on a good story - the wedding cake and place settings for the guy who proposed to his wife with a hacked Bejeweled.

Because there are primary elections today, Black Box Voting's forums note more than 1.1 million voters have been purged from Indiana's rolls just in time for this particular election, despite needing to clean up the records before every general election. This is in addition to using decertified machines, according to the post.

With more candidate stuff, Star Parker gushes with praise for John McCain's health care plan, which adds tax credits so that the self-employed can purchase health insurance and get the cost refunded on their taxes, and making it so every insurance company can compete across the nation with every other insurance company, instead of being restricted only to what’s available in one’s own state. Ms. Parker thinks this is swell because she doesn’t like employer-based health care, figuring that it leads to waste and not asking whether procedures are necessary (because they’ll be paid for!). A tax credit is only good if you can afford the up-front price, of course, and the market-based solution always gets praise from the conservative establishment. Would still be much simpler to guarantee that everyone receives a certain standard of care, and for those that need additional material, they can purchase (or get through their employer) additional coverage. The Slacktivist has his own comments on how McCain’s economic policies work, and he's not fond of McCain's "gas tax holiday", considering it horrible policy. In addition to the Slacktivist, did we mention that 200 economists also think a gas tax holiday is a bad idea? Also in that piece is an article about how there is a Poor Person’s Rate on just about everything we can think of - if you make enough money, you pay one price. If not, you pay a different price, often higher. So the people who have the least to spare are charged the most. And McCain seems more than willing to take money away from necessary infrastructure to shovel into the profits of oil companies. Dodge is at least disguising their PPR a little better by making people think about low gas rates.

Carol Platt Liebau implores the voting populace not to be fooled by Senator Clinton's chameleon abilities. What Senator Clinton will say to try and get votes is fairly boundless, it appears. With that kind of ability to shift, would anyone be surprised if, upon attaining the office of President, she changed from an electable “moderate” to something more in tune with the conservative ideology? John McCain proudly proclaims himself a hypocrite, claiming to be someone who will enforce clear limits on powers... while succeeding someone who has made the powers of the executive great, and planning on using some of those powers himself to continue fighting an unpopular war.

All of this and more from the media, to bradhicks is old hat. And thus, he hungers for actual news to make the news at some point soon.

Internationally, the death toll from the Myanmar cyclone could reach 10,000, according to the foreign minister of the country. More stories about violent weather - is this just more meida outlets covering it, or more actual violent storms?

Iraq tones down their rhetoric toward Iran, despite the Untied States turning up their bellicosity a couple notches, including releasing a report that says Hezbollah is training militants in Iran for use in Iraq.

Oil prices continue to go up, with speculation going up even further in the futures market. More profits for the oil companies.

China struggles to fight off a resurgence of hand, foot, and mouth disease, but thinks things will be under control in time to start the Olympic Games in Beijing.

In domestic news, the FCC has ruled that both "TMZ" and "The 700 Club" qualify as bona fide newscasts, and thus stations don’t have to worry about equal-time requirements with regard to political candidates.

Robert Bluey finds the potential classification of polar bears as endangered an environmentalist ploy designed to stop exploitation of Alaska for domestic oil supplies, and a nod to “global warming alarmists”. There’s a nice dig in at Canada at the end, too, dismissing it as a country that America doesn’t need to follow the example of for a majority of time.

I seem to have a nexus of material that brings out the worst of humanity today. To start, allegations that a father repeatedly used a stun gun on his 10 year-old child, which is horrible. There’s also the Yankees fan that ran down the Red Sox fans . And then there’s the woman convicted of manslaughter because her cry of being raped caused her husband to kill her lover. According to the account, however, the husband saw her kissing someone else and already pulled his handgun out, intending something. If she noticed the gun, and feared that her husband was going to shoot her and her lover, then the rape cry makes more sense. According to her account, he shot the truck she was in before pulling her out of it, so she was probably trying to save herself from being shot as well. In any case, the husband shot the lover, and he’s dead, and now she’s getting the prison sentence for it.

At least the story of Mellisa Bruen's Spring Weekend does not end in rape or death, but it could have, had she not decided she was going to fight back against anyone who wanted to try and rape or fondle her. More power to her that she was able to fight off her attackers, and great shame on the boys who tried.

The Odd News department must add one more fatality from Civil War technology to the roster. I wonder who that cannonball would count as a kill for, if things were still being tracked somewhere. Additionally, the carpet is coming off of Westminster Abbey so that a beautifully-designed floor can shine through. And the conservationists are trying to figure out how to make sure that having feet treading on the treasure is not going to damage it any further. But happy endings for a dolphin as we close out the section, as Winter has an artificial tail, to replace the one she lost.

Mildred Loving, the person who brought suit to be able to marry a person of another race, has died at 68 years of age. Elsewhere in the country, yet another gay marriage constitutional ban goes further along the legislative track. Because having a law that forbids it isn’t enough, people want to enshrine their prejudices in the constitutions, where it’s much harder to overturn or get at. Mildred Loving talked about her experience and what marriage is to her, and I think the populous should sit up and listen to her remarks. Everyone is a collection of stereotypes, but nobody is defined by them, and that it’s not really a good idea to use stereotypes freely in making judgments.

A reminder for the blog audience: You own your copyright, and are free to go after people who steal your work outside the bounds of fair use. Unless you specifically have noted that your works are in the public domain or use a licensing system that is known to your readership, that stuff is yours to do with what you like. Now that we have that out of the way, some stories about writing - getting your details right can only help your story, even if it is a speculative fiction. Also, for the curious, Patricia C. Wrede has kindly provided a list of questions to help fantasy (and other) authors get their worlds built well.

Good news on the fight against botnets - researchers have demonstrated an ability to infiltrate and pollute the Storm botnet, which renders it far less effective.

Next to last for tonight, in the search to make all equal, No Touch Monkey links to a multimedia production of Harrison Bergeron, about a world where everyone is equal, and it’s enforced by government regs. The source short story, by Vonnegut.

At the tail end, though, something that will induce a WTF in most people - A teacher has been disciplined and may be dismissed for a magic trick. A quick trick with a toothpick and it’s up before the Assizes for wizardry. Well, I know someone who can comisserate. Ozymandias J. Llewellyn got tarred and feathered for the "quarter-behind-the-ear" trick. Sadly, this doesn’t really make me think things are strange, because a mother is apparently angered by books that have the word "porn" in them, despite containing no actual pornography (either that, or someone at UPI is having a laugh), so the strange is no longer immediately discountable as a hoax. Just recall, everyone is not watching the same show, even when they’re on the same channel at the same time.

And on that note, going to bed.