Miscellania Archives
This is a very large file. For the full smaller digest version, click here.Sunset and Cahuenga in Hollywood is now "Larry King Square"
The beautiful corner of Sunset Boulevard and Cahuenga in central Hollywood, Los Angeles, California will, beginning on Thursday, be known as "Larry King Square" after America's favorite CNN talk show host, city officials confirm. However, that designation will only take effect during the day; after sundown, it will be known as "RentATrannyCentral". LRonHubbard Avenue, located a couple miles down Sunset, could not be reached for comment.
Mainstream media hacks get taste of own medicine: some OC Register editing tasks outsourced to India
The Orange County Register will be conducting a one month trial where they outsource some newspaper editing functions to a company in India. They'll also be doing layout work on one of the OCR's community newspapers. Per their deputy editor:
"This is a small-scale test, which will not touch our local reporting or decision-making. Our own editors will oversee this work."
Hopefully the reader is laughing as hard as I am. Virtually every newspaper "reporter" who writes about outsourcing and the related issue of immigration is basically a paid hack who pushes the interests of those who profit from outsourcing and massive immigration. Few of those "reporters" have shown any interest in accurately representing the concerns of most Americans and instead have acted as shills and pitchmen. Perhaps some of them will see which way the wind is blowing and realize that this "trial" could turn into a trend among other papers, and that the outsourced writing up of stories gathered by stringers could be used to supplant some "reporters". Certainly, Indian English is a bit different from the American variety, but that's just an implementation detail.
Eve Fairbanks misleads about Wikipedia (+Kevin Drum)
If two "liberals" tell you that Wikipedia isn't biased towards the "liberal" side of things, doesn't that prove that it is biased, especially when the two "liberals" aren't exactly known for thinking things through?
OK, it's not proof, but it is a strong indicator, as Kevin Drum [1] approvingly directs our attention to the post from Eve Fairbanks [2] of the New Republic (also home to Jim Kirchik and Jason Zengerle). She discusses a subscriber-only National Review article (link) called "Liberal Web" which discusses liberal bias at WP, and says:
while I hadn't perceived anti-conservative bias on Wikipedia's political pages, I wanted to see if [John J. Miller] had picked up on something I didn't.
She then uses the fact that Miller only came up with two points to buttress her claim that there's no such bias. Obviously, she's engaging in a logical fallacy: just because Miller doesn't present more examples doesn't mean that there are no more examples and doesn't mean that better examples can't be found. And, in fact, many more can be found as I know from editing various WP pages from about 2004 to about 2007 when I basically gave up due to things such as perfectly reasonable, fact-based edits being constantly rolled back [3]. In fact, I even created a site with a few examples at wikipediabias.com; note that there are many more that need to be added. Not all of the bias is of the "liberal" variety, such as that to be found at the Snopes entry.
And, it's perfectly understandable why there would be such bias due to the demographics of the web, which skews not just "liberal" and libertarian but also younger than the general population. Younger folks have more time to engage in editing wars, and those on the left side of things tend to be more activist than those on the right.
Related:
Wikipedia deletes, locks North American Union article
Google to just let Wikipedia control search results from now on
Liberals: Wikipedia not biased, Conservapedia a joke
AVWatch: will facts stick in Villaraigosa's Wikipedia entry?
How not to criticize Wikipedia
AVWatch: let's see how long facts stay in Villaraigosa's Wikipedia entry
Bloggers: stop linking to Wikipedia
"Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence"
Wikipedia's continual low credibility
[1] washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013529.php
[2] blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/
2008/04/15/george-will-s-not-bitter.aspx
[3] I made a recent edit to the Bill Richardson entry, which was rolled back. I'm not going to get into a fight over it, but others might consider doing so: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Richardson#controversies
Treasury Dep't proposes consolidating Federal Reserve's power
I don't follow financial matters, but I know instinctively that this has to be a bad idea:The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system.
...According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate what is now an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a powerful trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms.
While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation.
The plan would not rein in practices that have been linked to the housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages into securities carrying the highest ratings.
The Rockefeller/Bill Gates/Monsanto seed bank (GMO crops)
Wading into unfamiliar territory, but this seems worthy of note:Built on the island of Spitsbergen in the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean in the country of Norway, a group of wealthy corporations [including "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway"] has invested millions of dollars in their project named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The mission statement is: "So that crop diversity can be conserved for the future"...
...An essential ingredient to this plan is none other than the hybrid seed. The key to hybrid seeds is their inability to reproduce. They are designed to not multiply. Seeds were originally designed to give yields similar to the parent seeds year after year. Not so of hybrid seeds. Subsequent yields are significantly lower and of lower quality. Declining yield necessitates farmers buying seed year after year to assure high yields. The big seed companies were now in perfect control as no smaller group could produce the hybrid but them. This was the foundation of the GMO seed revolution...
...The advantages of [Monsanto's] Terminator technology are obvious. Seeds yield only one harvest. Period. This forces farmers (the third world nations) to return to the seed companies year after year to replenish their seed supplies so that they can grow food to feed their people. Within 10 years, this could create a complete monopoly for these seed companies...
Youtube video view counts are unreliable
Here's an example of how you can't rely on Youtube's view counts for their videos. Not only has the view count for the Obama Che Guevara video I uploaded yesterday not budged at all from this morning until now, but the "Sites Linking to This Video" section shows 52 more clicks than the view count shown just above it:
I don't suggest getting paranoid about this, but at the same time I'd be surprised to learn that some contributors aren't on the "fast track" and that some are on the "slow or worse" track.
UPDATE: Around the morning of the 13th the view counts suddenly started working, and it since went on to get over 11,000 views and briefly hit the 40th or so most watched video of the day. I realize that YT has millions of videos and they only have so much throughput, but if they can update the sites linking figures and generate the most-watched lists they can certainly improve things a bit.
Hillary Clinton voted to grab guns during emergencies, Barack Obama voted against it
One-sixteenth of a cheer for Barack Obama! For, back in 2006 he voted for an amendment that would prevent the federal government from spending any money on gun confiscation during a declared state of emergency. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton voted against it (i.e., on the gun grabbing side).Details on the amendment that was added to HR 5441 here. Those joining Hillary on the wrong side included a constellation of worthies, such as Charles Schumer, Robert Menendez, Barbara Mikulski, Carl Levin, Teddy Kennedy, Daniel Akaka, Christopher Dodd, and the two prides of California, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
And, another Friend of Hillary (link):
One of its strongest opponents was Dick Durbin - Obama's fellow Illinoisan and the first senator to endorse his White House campaign.
During the debate, Durbin sharply reminded senators that the amendment would even bar police from seizing guns they believed to be used in previous crimes.
"What are we thinking?" Durbin, the Democrats' No 2 leader, asked. "Why would we do this to the men and women in law enforcement, to the National Guardsmen, or to innocent victims, which could be you or me or people we love, in a disaster they cannot even anticipate?"
Pakistan given nuclear secrets by U.S. officials? Foreknowledge of 9/11? (B-52 nuke "mistake")
From this:A whistleblower has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.Whether this and the following are tinfoil or not isn't known. What is clear is that the U.S. mainstream media isn't rushing to look into this. While Edmonds has been featured on 60 Minutes and the NYTimes ran several articles mentioning her, the last article was in January 2005 (link). This article tries to tie this in to last year's case of the B-52 which was mistakenly/"mistakenly" loaded with live nukes last year (link); more by that same author here and here. As with another field, there appear to be a statistically-improbable number of deaths of those from Minot AFB; see the last link.
Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.
She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.
Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan...
UPDATE: Ahem. Moving on, one of the suicides mentioned at the baltimorechronicle link is that of Captain John Frueh, who was reported missing and then found ten days later in an apparently remote area of Skamania County, WA. Someone visited the area to check it out here. Unfortunately, that person isn't a hiker, and I'd like the input of someone who is. Because, after doing a little research (link, link; news reports here) I can find no conceivable reason why I would ever be interested in visiting the peak that he appears to have been going for. Of course, my main interests are things like state and county highpoints or hikes involving various challenges. This doesn't appear to involve many challenges and, while they say it has a good view, there are probably plenty of other peaks with good views in the area as well. It doesn't appear to be a major destination. There are certainly many options available here: he might not have been going for the peak and that's just a circumstance, he might have gotten lost (although he was found near his car), if he was going for the peak he'd probably have at least done a little planning and would have a book or printouts or have asked rangers or others about it, etc. Perhaps someone in the area would like to shed some light on this.
Snowman goes global: Youtube questions at World Economic Forum (Davos)
The World Economic Forum and Youtube appear to have joined forces and are requesting that Youtube users submit questions for the Davos event to be held next year (youtube.com/thedavosquestion). One or more top-rated videos will be selected and screened for the attendees, and then the attendees will deign to provide responses. The user videos should answer the following question:
"What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?"
Then, starting January first, visitors will vote for their top choice. (Since coming up with a voting system isn't that difficult, I wonder why they couldn't have had it in place for the CNN debates.)
Unlike with the questions for the U.S. presidential race, I'd be very happy if all or most of the questions are completely idiotic and then an effort could be started to vote up the absolute worst one. Maybe Hank The Angry Drunken Dwarf could join forces with the Snowman to promote World Communism, or maybe Obama Girl has a song.
Note that the spokesmodel for this effort is Lori Harfenist ("The Resident"). While easy on the eyes (youtube.com/watch?v=2zMxGgmPcHs), she's not exactly known for being a heavyweight pundit nor someone willing to ask real questions (see all her other videos, like youtube.com/watch?v=eVVHotSNR8g, youtube.com/watch?v=6Lqsc97lYlo, or youtube.com/watch?v=e3b-Xbau0nY). Note also that Chad Hurley, Youtube founder, spoke at last year's event (youtube.com/watch?v=2xXlZK5rCls).
Braindead: Neal Boortz, Susan Estrich, Alan Colmes on Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence incident
On October 7, two members of San Francisco's "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" (the "nuns" - except for the last "nun" - featured on this video) took Communion at the Holy Redeemer Church, located in Frisco's Castro district (thesisters.org/MHR_Release.html; picture here; news report with video of the incident here; apology from Archbishop here). They were videotaped apparently by a member of a conservative Catholic group, and in any case if them dressing as nuns-in-drag and their history wasn't enough of a clue, the behavior of the two - such as pretend cheek kissing - made it clear that their goal was to mock, despite their protestations to the contrary.
Bill O'Reilly has been making hay with this event since then, and tonight's Hannity & Colmes decided to make some hay as well.
Guests Neal Boortz and Susan Estrich and host Alan Colmes were completely clueless on this issue, thinking it was a good thing that they were going to church. Whether due to the libertarianism of the first and the liberalism of the last, or due to something in the water, they completely failed to understand that the goal of the exercise was to mock the Catholic Church. While I'm used to seeing braindead pundits, this was a new low.
DailyKos poll: only 35% want Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president (Democratic Party rejoice!)
A few days ago, Huffington Post contributor Sally Kohn disclosed that she has a "crush" on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/23/83652/6735
However, the Kossacks have since redeemed themselves with this poll:
dailykos.com/story/2007/9/23/224950/843
After 1080 votes, only 35% would prefer that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president of the U.S.
There's hope for the Democratic Party!
Minnesota bridge: officials knew of "remote but real possibility of the eight-lane freeway bridge failing"
From this:
Internal MnDOT documents reviewed by the Star Tribune reveal that last year bridge officials talked openly about the possibility of the bridge collapsing -- and worried that it might have to be condemned... The documents provide the first look inside MnDOT's decision-making process as engineers weighed benefits and risks, wrestling with options to prevent what they believed was a remote but real possibility of the eight-lane freeway bridge failing.
Time, relentless time
I have little doubt that many of today's youths will not only not know who these people are, but won't even be familiar with them in their later, more poppy, much more famous incarnation. If you're stumped, here's a hint: think goat.
Here's another one, with an intro as creepy as you'd suspect. Surprisingly, there are actually several other videos available from that version of their ensemble.
"Girlfriend": Avril Lavigne ripped off the Rubinoos? (A contest!)
[By reading this message you have already agreed to conduct blog-related business in English only.]
Bon jour! Canadian national icon and noted singer Avril Lavigne is accused of ripping off a band (I think) I've never heard of called the Rubinoos. Back in 1979 - five years before the glorious year of the Canadian sweetheart's birth - they apparently had a hit with "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Now, Avril and writing partner Luke Gottwald stand accused of ripping them off with her latest Welthit "Girlfriend".
You can listen to them both here, and Avril has since called the charges baseless (here). I have to agree with the plucky Canuck: there are some extremely minor differences between the two songs. They are not completely the same, just about 99.9999999%. In other words, it's not like she was blatant about it or anything.
Now, the contest: come up with Avril's best defense in comments. The winner of the best defense will win a date with Avril (subject to her and the winner's approval).
L'UPDATE: Cette message est tout egalement disponible en Francais. Ecrivez-vous a: La Department des Contests Bilingues de la Blogging/12 Rue des Slagues/Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Earth.
"Al Gore's son busted for drugs in hybrid car"
This site and others are frequent critics of Reuters. However, in this case, they deserve a Pulitzer. Give 'em two Pulitzers!The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for allegedly speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said.
Al Gore III -- whose father is a leading advocate of policies to fight global warming -- was driving his environmentally friendly car at about 100 miles per hour on a freeway south of Los Angeles when he was pulled over by an Orange County sheriff's deputy at about 2:15 a.m..
Art Bell retiring again (round #382)
Art Bell is retiring... again! This is, by my count, the 382nd time that he's retired, at least this decade. The New World Order change agent and pusher of Art Bell's Pizza Punch wants to spend more time with his child bride of full legal age wife Aryn, and intends to stay in Pahrump and work on his giant antenna. Developing...
UPDATE: Of course, it needs to be pointed out the strong possibility that the person now known as "Art Bell" is not the real Art Bell, who may have been whisked away by Grays, Shadow People, Giants, or Bigfoots some time between his 3rd and 4th retirements. We have also been in contact with Major Ed Dames, who, via Remote Viewing, has predicted that Bell will actually end up relocating to Saskatchewan to live at the compound - and home of Peenman Enterprises - started by Dr. Johnson Jameson and designed to weather the Coming Global Superstorm. Maj. Dames informs me that there are gold bars buried several miles from the compound, and he and his team will be looking for them later this year. He, Art, and Dr. Jameson will use those to survive the massive crop failures associated with the cataclysmic solar activity that Dames has been predicting for the last ten years or so... Stay tuned...
Google: jabs at Lou Dobbs; testifies for more H-1B
A few days ago, Google's entertainment channel (?) at current.tv had an episode with a lightweight mocking (in both senses) of Lou Dobbs: current.tv/pods/google/GC03275 . This was contemporaneous with the David Leonhardt smear.
Today, Laszlo Bock, Google's "Vice President of People Operations" testified before Congress today expressing their wish for more H-1B visas, including a warm welcome from former immigration lawyer Rep. Zoe Lofgren. [1]
Related? Just part of the general Google "Zeitgeist"? Completely unrelated? Who knows, but even if there's no seepage of the business and editorial side of Google into the search side, it's always worth taking their search results with a grain of salt, especially since they (as well as Yahoo) tend to place Wikipedia entries near or at the top of search results for a wide variety of terms despite none of the entries at that site being trustworthy.
[1] googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-us-immigration-policies-mean-to.html
Friday Fun Link
Who knew Youtube would actually have a few things worth watching:
Reuters on global warming: ice no longer cold, sunbathing in Arctic
Remember the infamous shot of the polar bears "trapped" on a "melting" ice floe? I do, since I made a satirical video about it (link) that few seem to have realized is satire.
The latest example of picture propaganda comes with the story "Arctic islands invite tourists to see climate woes" by "Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent":
Caption:
Climate activists Lesley Butler and Rob Bell (R) "sunbathe" on the edge of a frozen fjord in the Norwegian Arctic town of Longyearbyen, April 25, 2007. The remote chain of Arctic islands is advertising itself as a showcase of bad things to come from global warming.
I'd say a bit more context is necessary here, perhaps pointing out that this was just a posed shot and that if they were really "sunbathing" in such an environment they would most likely have ended up with frostbite and other medical complications.
Fish were tainted with melamine too
Continuing our proud tradition of linking to one of the few worthwhile posts to appear at the Huffington Post, we hereby link to this.
Melamine-tained fish meal made its way to U.S. and Canadian fish farms, and thus likely into the U.S. food supply. Previously it was announced that millions of tainted chicked had been eaten, and pork products have also been involved, although quarantines may have been involved.
Further:
The tainted "wheat gluten" and "rice protein concentrate" at the center of the pet food recall, was actually misrepresented as such. Further tests have determined that it is wheat flour, adulterated with melamine.
Up to 3 million melamine-tainted chickens were eaten
From this:
In a conference call with media this afternoon, USDA Assistant Administrator Kenneth Petersen revealed that as many as 3 million chickens, contaminated with melamine from a single Indiana feed mill, have already been slaughtered, distributed and eaten. An additional 100,000 breeder chickens are currently being voluntarily quarantined by farmers...
Andy Levy/Red Eye (Andrew)
On a recent Reason Magazine thread (reason.com/blog/show/119840.html), Andrew Levy (Andy) of FOX's Red Eye TV program and dailygut.com made an off-hand, ad hominem comment about my Libertarian Quiz. I posted a comment asking him whether he could provide an actual argument, to which he replied, "nope".
While it would be easy to consider him just a lightweight, I'll give him a second chance. He can leave comments here explaining his position, and I'll try to reply as time allows.
Media Matters for America plays word games re: their funding
Recently Bill O'Reilly "disclosed" the funding of the group Media Matters for America (link to video). The segment includes a chart showing money flowing from George Soros to the Open Society Institute, Democracy Alliance, MoveOn, and the Center for American Progress. The latter three are current or former donors to MMFA; the first is/was a donor to the Tides Foundation, which is/was a donor to MMFA.
Now, "A.I." (presumably Andrew Ironside) offers "O'Reilly purported to chart an intricate web leading to "vile propaganda outfit" Media Matters" [1]:
As previously indicated, Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization. If he wanted to fund Media Matters, he or Open Society Institute (OSI), a grant-making foundation he established in 1993 to conduct his philanthropy, could simply write a check directly to Media Matters, as he and OSI do to numerous entities.
That's a truly Clintonian statement. Soros money has obviously flowed to MMFA through intermediaries such as MoveOn. Soros may not have explicitly told MoveOn to give part of the money he gave them to MMFA, but one wonders whether they would do something that he would disagree with.
The paragraph above links to this brief statement that doesn't even go as far [2]:
Media Matters has never received funding from progressive philanthropist George Soros.
Which, again, may be true if the money went through intermediaries.
And, of course, back in March 2005, MMFA stopped disavowing connections to Soros-affiliated groups.
What exactly are they afraid of?
[1] mediamatters.org/items/200704240003
[2] mediamatters.org/items/200704130012
NBC Nightly News promotes left-wing environmental group "Step It Up"
Tonight's NBC Nightly News featured Brian Williams introducing a segment on a group called "Step It Up" which wants to end global warming and which held marchs across the U.S. on the 14th. The report was all bright and happy and wholesome.
Then, of course, I looked up the group itself to find what they weren't telling their millions of viewers. As it turns out at least their "Partners and Allies" include several left-wing groups, yet - oddly enough - Brian Williams didn't disclose any such inclinations Step It Up might have.
It's run by Bill McKibben, a well-known environmentalist, writer, academic, hiker, etc. There doesn't appear to be much "opposition research" on him, but in 1999 he was called a "left-wing ecologist" here.
A look at their "Partners and Allies" page (stepitup2007.org/links.php) shows - in addition to many usual suspects such as the Sierra Club - several left-wing but not extremely radical groups, such as:
* Center For Biological Diversity
* Codepink - Women for Peace (run by Susan "Medea" Benjamin)
* Global Exchange (ditto)
* MoveOn.org
* No War No Warming! (trying to bring together environmental and anti-war movements)
* Physicians For Social Responsibility
* SEIU (Service Employees International Union)
* United for Peace and Justice
Can the reader imagine NBC News featuring their opposite number without using the word "conservative" or similar?
Related:
Young Pioneers of the Global Climate Change and Environmental Justice Movement (comrade)
GoDaddy review: very, very bad
GoDaddy.com is a leading web host and domain registrar, and I strongly advise staying as far away from them as possible. There are dozens of reasons here, and here's my personal tale. Earlier today I was trying to diagnose why a script I wrote was only working intermittently for someone else.
Bottom line: it wasn't a problem with my script, it was a special feature with GoDaddy's hosting that their "support" completely failed to tell me about.
Details: I was pretty sure there wasn't anything wrong with the script itself, yet it only worked once every three or four times. The script was designed to pull XML files from Amazon webservices via REST, and even when I changed it to pull Sun's or IBM's homepage it didn't work well. I called GoDaddy "support" and asked them to take a look at it. No matter how many times I asked (very many), they flat out refused to look at it, or even tell me whether something could be wrong with their PEAR setup. I then tried with Curl, and that didn't work either. Their "advanced" team put a mailer script in the user's account and, after determining that that worked, informed me that the system was functioning properly and there was nothing else they could or would do.
Finally, I did a search for 'godaddy curl', and found this and this document:
help.godaddy.com/article.php?article_id=288
As it turns out, GoDaddy uses a proxy with Curl. Wouldn't you think their "support" - after I explained to them what my script was doing and especially after their "advanced" team had been informed of the problems - should have told me about this? What would almost any other host do?
My GoDaddy review: very, very bad.
Shocker at CBS: producer fired for plagiarism
From this:A CBS News producer was fired and the network apologized after last night's Katie Couric broadcast was found to be plagiarized from The Wall Street Journal and other sources.
The complete broadcast was removed from the CBS Web site and an editor's note was posted saying the segments should have credited to Jeffrey Zaslow of the Journal, Nancy Pelosi's office, George Bush's office, the CFR, ANSWER, Code Pink for Peace, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Immigration Forum, and Michael Moore, the network said Tuesday..
..."We were horrified," CBS News spokeswoman Sandra Genelius said. "It was almost verbatim."
CBS would not identify the producer fired for the transgression, but he's reportedly currently engaged in a bidding war involving ABC, NBC, and CNN.
Young Pioneers of the Global Climate Change and Environmental Justice Movement (comrade)
As others have no doubt noted, the general global warming movement seems to have some curious aspects. For instance, here's Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. in "Assault of the 'Transies'" saying:
Al Gore's hobby horse is also breathing new life into the ultimate Transie project: the imposition of international taxation ("globotaxes") to finance the various causes and institutions favored by transnational progressives.
And, the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Control called for an "international authority" to enforce climate regulations.
And, the "movement" also has its Stalinistic/Lysenkoistic side, attempting to discredit or otherwise send to Siberia those who dare to raise questions about the scientific evidence relating to the issue.
And, they've got their own youth league too. The site "It's Getting Hot In Here" (itsgettinghotinhere.org):
is a community media project created and sustained by leaders of the youth climate movement as a place to speak out about an issue that threatens our livelihoods and future generations and the actions that we are taking to create a more just and sustainable future... ...Originally created by Energy Action [energyaction.net] for youth to report from the International Climate Negotiations in Montreal, Its Gettting Hot In Here has since grown into something more, a strong voice from a growing movement...
The latter held "A week of action" from January 29 to February 2:
America and Canada's youth are calling for five days of demonstrations to jumpstart the second semester of the Campus Climate Challenge and put the heat on a new U.S. Congress and a returning Canadian Parliament to begin aggressive national power shifts on global warming.
If you'd registered by January 10th you would have received a "free DVD and screening rights for 'An Inconvenient Truth'".
(Confused by all these groups yet? There's one more.) One of their members is the "Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative" (ejcc.org) which combines race-baiting with guilt:
Global warming, or climate change, is fundamentally an issue of human rights and environmental justice that connects the local to the global. With rising temperatures, human lives—particularly in people of color, low-income, and Indigenous communities—are affected by compromised health, financial burdens, and social and cultural disruptions. Moreover, those who are most affected are least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause the problem—both globally and within the United States.
You might be thinking, "how long until A.N.S.W.E.R. gets involved?" But, of course, they've been at the very vanguard. Their September 7, 2005 protest (preview.tinyurl.com/2e8lkj) included this:
Global warming is a major factor in the big increase in tropical storms, particularly Hurricane Katrina, which developed from a minimal hurricane to one of the largest and most powerful ever recorded because of the extremely high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. Still, the Bush Administration continues to contemptuously turn its back on evidence of climate change and stands by its position to cancel the Kyoto Accord.
And, even earlier (October 17, 2004), their Million Worker March (preview.tinyurl.com/2hktjt) said this:
An end to the poisoning of the atmosphere, soil, water and food supply with a national emergency program to restore the environment, end global warming and preserve our endangered eco-system.
All of this played a part in the (generally failed) satirical petition I created, but I feel the need to take it to the next level. I feel the need for t-shirts, banners, and chants designed to reveal the religious/far-left nature of the "movement". Stay tuned.
Tainted pet food wheat gluten was "food grade"
The first useful post on the Huffington Post has been spotted:Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a "food grade" additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.Question: is it identified as "wheat gluten" on labels, or as something else, such as a more or less generic term?
"Yes, it is food grade," Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query...
...Wheat gluten is sold in both "food grade" and "feed grade" varieties. Either may be used in pet food, but only "food grade" gluten may be used in the manufacture of products meant for human consumption...
...Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine said the FDA is not aware of any contaminated gluten that went into human food but said he could not confirm this "with 100 percent certainty." [link] Wheat gluten is a common food additive used as a thickener, dough conditioner, and meat substitute. It is widely used as an additive in commercial bakery items and special purpose flours...
4/3/07 UPDATE: From this:
Tainted wheat gluten that triggered a massive nationwide pet food recall also ended up in processing plants that prepare food consumed by people, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday. While agency leaders offered assurances that the nation's food supply remains safe, they said they cannot yet completely rule out contamination of human food by the suspect wheat gluten, which contained melamine, a chemical found in plastics and pesticides.Given the Bush administration's well-deserved reputation for managerial competence, I'm sure that will work well.
"To date, we have nothing that indicates it's gone into human food," said Dorothy Miller , director of the FDA's Office of Emergency Operations. "We have a bit more investigation to do."
Darryl Fears wants Washington Post to junk their comments
Howard "Howie" Kurtz offers the rather pointless "Online, Churls Gone Vile", which I only clicked because Memeorandum was running a link to it next to a pic of the Babe of Brentwood, and couldn't help myself. Anywho, discussing the commenting feature that the Washington Post gives logged-in readers, Kurtz says:
But Post reporter Darryl Fears is among those in the newsroom who believe the comments should be junked if offensive postings can't be filtered out in advance. "If you're an African American and you read about someone being called a porch monkey, that overrides any positive thing that you would read in the comments," he says. "You're starting to see some of the language you see on neo-Nazi sites, and that's not good for The Washington Post or for the subjects in those stories."
I've left a few comments on the WashPost's blogs, but I only appear to have left one on the news side. And, the link to the comments isn't exactly prominent. And, since the WaPo engages in editing, we don't know what was in comments that were deleted and how many were deleted.
Despite that, I think I'm going to go ahead and distrust Fears' judgment in this matter, due to his past habit of misleading about immigration matters. In addition to his name's link above, see:
Darryl Fears: the Democratic line on immigration
Illegal immigration supporters split over May 1 boycott
More pro-illegal immigration propaganda from the Washington Post
WaPo: immigration laws aren't being enforced, therefore they won't work
Cardinal Roger Mahony lied to his parishioners
Cardinal Roger Mahony - who frequently hides behind "humanitarianism" to support illegal immigration - has been caught in a lie:At least six months after Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told his superiors at the Vatican that a videotape provided proof of a priest's criminal misconduct with high school boys, the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese told the public that the tape showed no sexual activity between Father Lynn Caffoe and the boys, according to court records.
Documents newly filed in the Caffoe civil case provide the first glimpse into confidential priest files that Mahony sought for four years to keep sealed in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal that engulfed the archdiocese. He eventually took the secrecy fight to the U.S. Supreme Court...
Obamanation! Trademark Office says: stick your application where the sun don't shine
Two radio hosts from Chicago tried to trademark the term "Obamanation", refering of course to Barack Hussein Obama. They were refused because the term was considered to be "disparaging". Oddly enough, however, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office attorney Karen K. Bush included an extremely questionable screenshot in her notice of refusal. (Children can stop reading this entry right about here).
... (Did the kids leave?)
OK: in her refusal, the U.S. PTO attorney included a screengrab of the Wikipedia entry for "ButtttPluggg", except without the doubled-up consonants since I don't want to get hits for the regular version.
You can see a copy of the email the U.S. PTO attorney send them here, and read WND's overview here.
At first glance it seems to have absolutely no bearing on the refusal, and since I don't have Lexis/Nexis I can't check the cited cases to see if they have some bearing. I'm going to assume she was just playing around (with her career).
Google to just let Wikipedia control search results from now on
You know, when searching for something as seemingly basic as that in the graphic below, one would expect that a multi-million dollar TV network's main site or the page listing their shows would appear first in the results, not what is simply a bunch of junk, including at least two mailing list messages in the first five results. And, of course, what would search results be without the now-obligatory Wikipedia entr(ies)?
The Yahoo results are strikingly similar, and this might be related to that network now just using its initials. However, one would think there would be hundreds of old links using its full name or that these search engines would be able to figure it out and deliver something at least slightly helpful.
Greece, Turkey declare war on each other... on Youtube!
Some of the currently top viewed videos on Youtube are currently what appear to be back and forth insults directed at each country. Will the next news we hear out of the region be a withdrawal of their ambassadors from the other country?
Would you like to see what it would be like if Borat was Turkish and was mad at you or your country? Here's a sample. Warning: text and graphics on video are NSFW, very NSFW.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, the video was "removed by the user". You can see another one of these here, but I couldn't find one that, like the original link, was in English.
Liberals: Wikipedia not biased, Conservapedia a joke
Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum has started an alternative to Wikipedia called Conservapedia.
Needless to say, the usual "liberal" suspects are having a great deal of (what passes to them as) fun (link, link, link,link). They're pointing out "errors" in the encyclopedia, and some of those "errors" may actually be vandalism (link, link,link) and would be refered to at WP as such. Did you really expect anything different?
Of course, those of us with a greater mental age might wonder, "if unthinking 'liberals' say Wikipedia isn't biased, isn't that prima facie evidence that it is indeed biased?" And, we could compare that to the occasional ludicrous statement that the MSM does not have such a bias. And, we could point to entries at WP such as that on Antonio Villaraigosa, or the press-release-manquee for Media Matters. Or, something else I just noticed: Art Torres' 187 quote was added to his entry in April 2006, removed in May, and then not added back in until August. Meaning that all during the Summer of 2006, a very "liberal" POV of Torres was being presented to all those who visited the entry, which turns up at the #1 spot in a Google search for his name.
Nope, no bias in Wikipedia, which is "normal" and "unbiased" in the same sense that the New York Times is "normal" and "unbiased".
I note also that WP publishes an /Interwiki_map, which lets you create links to other wikis. Instead of entering the full, external URL, you use something like [[Disinfopedia:Wikipedia]], which would link to the Wikipedia entry at sourcewatch.org. Unlike almost all other external links, such links don't have the nofollow tag added, which is certainly of benefit to many sites. There are interwiki links for commercial sites such as IMDB, and one was briefly added for Youtube (it was deleted over concerns of linking to copyrighted material). You can suggest adding an interwiki link on its talk page, and no one has so far offered for Conservapedia. I wonder what would happen if someone did?
The bottom line is that the "liberal" response to Conservapedia is similar to their response to Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times, and Fox News, and their push to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. They aren't content with having their biases presented in almost all of the wider media, they simply want it all.
VERY SPECIAL UPDATE: Certainly, not all the bias at WP is "liberal". In the 06:13, 26 January 2005 revision of the Asa_Hutchinson article (a Republican and a former DHS Undersecretary), I added four negative links, none of them to any of my sites and all relating to illegal immigration:
"Rounding up all illegals 'not realistic'"
"Hutchinson’s Remarks Indicate Cheap Labor Bias of Administration"
Cheers, jeers at immigration town hall meeting
"(Hutchinson) slammed for stopping illegals sweeps"
Those links were deleted 10 weeks later; in August I added them back in twice before giving up. In its current state, no one would know anything about his involvement in the Temecula sweeps, which is about the only thing (other than running for Arkansas governor) he's known for in the past few years.
DON'T MESS WITH MINILIB UPDATE: My Digg post was buried; searching for it by name didn't bring it up until I checked the 'show buried stories' checkbox. I don't know exactly how that works, but if you go here and vote for it it might become un-'liberaled'.
Posted at 01:55 PM | Comments (12)
Mainland Antarctica not showing global warming effects
Never fear, they're currently looking for them:
A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.
Says "David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University":
"It's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now... Part of the reason is that there is a lot of variability there. It's very hard in these polar latitudes to demonstrate a global warming signal. This is in marked contrast to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that is one of the most rapidly warming parts of the Earth... The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica... We're looking for a small signal that represents the impact of human activity and it is hard to find it at the moment."
Posted at 12:05 AM | Comments (1)
Freeway offramp fruit sellers: products from supermarket dumpsters?
You know those people who sell fruits like oranges at freeway (or highway or thruway) offramps? Did you ever ponder where they got the fruit and what type of arbitrage is involved there? Well, I did, briefly, once and I assumed that they bought it from supermarkets and then resold it for a higher price for those in a hurry to get the Vitamin C. But now, a disturbing voice has whispered in my ear another possibility: the produce has been retrieved from supermarket dumpsters after the market threw it out because it had passed the sell-by date. I don't know whether that's prevalent or not, but it is something to consider.
Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments (1)
AVWatch: will facts stick in Villaraigosa's Wikipedia entry?
As a test designed to show how unreliable Wikipedia is, I added some long-missing facts to the WP entry for Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Then, someone else came along and junked the paragraph I added up a bit. Then, problem administrator "Will Beback" added 'citation needed' marks to the junked-up paragraph, and I noted at the time that that was most likely a pretext to remove the whole paragraph. I was half right, since "Will Beback" subsequently reduced my paragraph to just this one line:
At [[UCLA]], Villaraigosa was a leader of the group [[MEChA]] [http://www.bruinalumni.com/antonio/antonioindex.html] [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3531] [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/recall/20030830-9999_1n30mecha.html].
Now, I've fleshed out the original paragraph in order to avoid future pretext-related deletions. Let's see what fun happens to this:
At [[UCLA]], Villaraigosa was a leader of the group [[MEChA]] [http://www.bruinalumni.com/antonio/antonioindex.html] [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3531] [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/recall/20030830-9999_1n30mecha.html]. Some, such as [[John and Ken]] of [[KFI]], derisively refer to him as ''Mayor [[Reconquista]]'' [http://www.kfi640.com/podcast/JohnandKen.xml] [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mayor+reconquista%22] [http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/15/video-la-mayor-villaraigosa-jumps-ugly-with-john-and-ken-over-immigration/] [http://newsbusters.org/node/5903] because of that and because of his support for [[amnesty]] for [[illegal immigrants]] [http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_024214716.html] [http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/003211.html] [http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/004756.html]. Quote: ''"I think there is a lot of momentum and support for an amnesty or regularization."'' [http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/spring2002/04-12-02-villaraigosa/index.html]
Posted at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)
Fiji bans Helen Clark and John Howard!
Fiji's new military dictator has banned Prime Ministers Helen Clark (New Zealand) and John Howard (Oz Oy Oy Oy aka Australia) from visiting his tropical atoll country. Clark responded thusly:
"I think the Commander is digging himself into an even deeper hole and I really don't intend to dignify the comments by saying anymore about it."
The Commander in question is, of course, Voreqe Bainimarama, also known as "Frank" and not to be confused with the 80s band with a similar name.
Posted at 05:34 AM | Comments (0)
AVWatch: let's see how long facts stay in Villaraigosa's Wikipedia entry
Wikipedia is completely unreliable not just because of the possibility that an entry contains errors or biased statements. The more pernicious aspect of its unreliability is missing information. Statements of fact in an entry can be verified, but unless a visitor is familiar with the subject, they won't be able to figure out what the entry isn't telling them about the subject.
A case in point is the entry on Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (tinyurl.com/33tyxc). What you won't find in that entry is the undisputed fact that while at UCLA, he was a leader of the group MEChA. In fact, during the L.A. mayoral campaign someone followed him around with a sign and eventually forced him to somewhat renounce his involvement in that group.
As far as I can determine, information on his involvement was deleted from his WP entry on May 9, 2006 and it has not been reinstated (diff: tinyurl.com/2shlrh). I didn't add the paragraph that was deleted, but I had a discussion about another similar paragraph that I added that was subsequently deleted on their talk page (do a find for LonewackoDotCom at tinyurl.com/2l63tj)
As a test, I'm going to insert a modified version of that paragraph and see how long it sticks and who removes it. This is the original paragraph:
On the other hand, there is still some lingering resentment from his district after breaking the promise to serve a full term in the city council. He has remained mum about plans for higher office. Among conservatives, he is often referred to derisively as ''Mayor [[Reconquista]]'' because of his membership in [[MEChA]] and his support for [[amnesty]] for [[illegal immigrants]].
I'm going to change that to the following and put it near the end of the article in the 'Reputation' subsection of the 'Mayoralty' section:
At [[UCLA]], Villaraigosa was a leader of the group [[MEChA]] [http://www.bruinalumni.com/antonio/antonioindex.html] [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3531] [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/recall/20030830-9999_1n30mecha.html]. Some, such as [[John and Ken]] of [[KFI]], derisively refer to him as ''Mayor [[Reconquista]]'' because of that and because of his support for [[amnesty]] for [[illegal immigrants]].
Note that there are at least three links supporting the claim that Villaraigosa was involved with MEChA, so one wonders what interesting excuse whoever deletes this will come up with.
Posted at 12:11 PM | Comments (4)
Washington Post to openly publish fiction
The Washington Post is breaking new ground in journalism:
Washingtonpost.com is publishing fiction for the first time, serializing the debut novel of Post Business section reporter David Hilzenrath.
The rest of this post is a mere formality, because the reader has no doubt already figured out that that paragraph is itself a work of fiction: the WaPo has been publishing fiction for years and calling it fact.
Posted at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
Youtube goes nuts with the links, part 2
This is a follow-up to the first post about linking issues at Youtube, specifically relating to their (perhaps Google-inspired) use of the odious nofollow tag. In the following images, links within a salmon-colored box with a dashed border have that tag, ones without that change are normal, old-school style web links.
The first shows that one of my sites is responsible for over 2% of the views for one of their popular videos. Despite that, I get the tag:
On the plus side, a link to another of my sites that I just added to the description of a video I had uploaded in November does not have that tag:
UPDATE: I wish to fully and completely distance my complaints from these.
Posted at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
Media Matters for America shows left's regard for free speech
The Soros-funded leftwing nuts at Media Matters for America are latching on to the case of "Spocko" a blogger who posted audio recordings of KSFO (San Francisco, "Frisco") hosts Melanie Morgan and Brian Sussman to his website. Those may have been covered by fair use, but ABC/Disney (owners of the station) sent a cease and desist letter anyway and got "Spocko"'s site pulled.
David Brock of MMFA chimes in:
We are also gravely concerned that ABC/Disney has engaged in what appears to be corporate intimidation in an effort to silence the voices of those Americans who would dare to criticize this type of dangerous and un-American rhetoric.
I might somewhat agree with them. However, given MMFA's past statements I'm almost 99% sure that the samples they provide were taken out of context. And, MMFA is engaged in their own form of intimidation and makes it clear in the rest of their piece that they support free speech - just as long as it's not what they incorrectly refer to as "hate" speech. Those "liberals" who actually believe in things like free speech might want to read between the lines of MMFA's letter to see what they really support.
UPDATE: There's much, much, much more than you want to know about this issue here. It does indeed look like some of the quotes provided were taken out of context. Also, sleazeball Mike Stark is involved in this matter.
Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
Youtube goes nuts with the links and all
WTF? In the following screenshot, the salmon-colored squares are not part of the page, but are added by a Firefox one-liner that I use to help me spot links that have the evil, anti-web nofollow attribute. This is a very recent development, and I wonder what role the "do no evil" folks who now own Youtube are playing in this scheme. I don't know exactly what the game is, but perhaps they're trying to concentrate all the "juice" that they receive from links to a certain video into their specific sections of their site rather than it being spread to a large number of unrelated areas. In a typical page, the only links without the tag are: their navigation bar, the user's profile, the tags, the "See all videos" link, the Chevy promotion internal link, and their sitewide page footer.
I note also that the URLs that they allow those with "Director" status to put next to their videos not only have a nofollow tag, they go through a redirect script. I guess that might be better than a redirect script alone, but I believe that before those used to be regular links.
It's little things like this that may lead to people seeking an alternative. Note that Youtube used to have their own version of the "top syndicators" section, but as previously discussed they played around with that too.
If they're going to do things like this, is there any reason to not use the same tag when linking to Youtube?
(Note: the "F" where the video should be is because I use the flashblock plugin which allows me to control whether I play a Flash movie or not.)
Posted at 05:46 AM | Comments (1)
El Cucuy es... wanted for questioning
Normally this site wouldn't sink this low, but: "El Cucuy" is a Spanish-language disc jockey in Los Angeles, and bus bench ads feature a picture of him together with the tag line "El Cucuy es Raza". His real name is Renan Almendarez Coello, and over the summer he held a pro-illegal immigration bus tour with the help of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, state senator Gil Cedillo, and assemblyman Joe Coto.
Now comes word that the LAPD wants to question him in a domestic violence case. According to Eric Leonard of KFI, one of his sources tells him that he's hiding out in a community to the south east of downtown L.A. Hmmm...
Posted at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
Independent Institute: Somalia, the libertarian paradise
Libertarianism - the political doctrine usually indistinguishable from satire - reaches one of its lows in a paper from Dr. Benjamin Powell called "Somalia After State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement?" He looks to be about 18 years old, but more telling is it's from the Independent Institute, the same group that gave us the Open Letter on Immigration. Our friends at Reason Magazine provide this excerpt:
...In 2005, Somalia ranked in the top 50 percent in six of our 13 measures, and ranked near the bottom in only three: infant mortality, immunization rates, and access to improved water sources. This compares favorably with circumstances in 1990, when Somalia last had a government and was ranked in the bottom 50 percent for all seven of the measures for which we had that year's data: death rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, main telephone lines, tuberculosis, and immunization for measles and DTP. Furthermore, we have found that during the last years of Somalia's government, 1985 to 1990, their performance was deteriorating compared to other African nations as their relative ranking fell in five of these measures...
I'm not familiar with Somalia, but I'm going to hazard a guess that their earlier government - as well as the ones being compared - are a bit - just a tiny bit - dysfunctional. I'm also going to guess that there are certainly governments in Somalia right now, albeit unrecognized ones. And, I'm going to guess that Dr. Powell would not like to live in some of those, unless he were willing to convert. I'll refrain from asking, "other than that, how did you enjoy the play", or commenting on trains running on time.
Posted at 05:14 PM | Comments (3)
Fry's Electronics paid *me*
Like everyone else, I hate Fry's Electronics. Unfortunately, like many other people, we're occasionally forced to shop there. Thus it was a few days ago. Later however, I decided I didn't need the item, and took it back. But, like a sucker, I bought something else from them. Despite continuing to give them money, I received a $50 bill in my change. I thought nothing of it, other than the relative scarcity of such bills.
A day later, I went to a shop, and the shoppee refused to take the bill! He'd run his fake bill checking pen over the bill a couple times and determined that the bill was bad. Apparently the yellow highlighter-style pen should stay a light color for normal bills, but with mine it was a dark yellow.
A million disturbing thoughts rushed through my mind: had I lost forever the respect of the shoppee at RiteAid? Would the no doubt videotaped exchange be turned over to the Treasury Department for immediate prosecution? Why does that unmarked van keep following me?
Perturbed, confused, and uncertain of future events, I visited the local bank and asked the teller person whether the bill was good or not. Shockingly, he informed me that not only was the bill good, but it could even be a collector's item and I should hold on to it! It was only after he informed me that the bill was from 1950 that I realized it was an old bill. Greedily clutching the bill close to my breast, I sped my way to the local library and picked up a recent copy of one of those books that shows the prices of currency.
Unfortunately, the bill would have to be in excellent shape (for instance, without the two yellow stripes) to fetch some times its face value, and the "Average Bid Price" for all such bills is only $2 to $5 more than par.
However, it is the first time I've received an unearned bonus from Fry's, rather than the other way around, so I'll take it.
Posted at 02:03 PM | Comments (1)
Donuts (Christmas music video)
Back in the early 90s I shot this music video (also here) of Los Angeles homeless singing Jingle Bells. This was several years before Bum Fights, and was done with different intentions.
The evolution is also (to me at least) interesting. I shot it on Hi-8 and - before I learned how to do it myself (at the editing house run by the producers of this video) - had someone else edit it using analog tape and the Video Toaster. I had no place to show it except on public access cable TV. A year or three later I digitized it and put it on a CD-ROM, but there still wasn't a way to achieve mass distribution of such things. Yet another year or three later I considered offering it as a download on my website, but even by cutting it down to around 1 meg I decided against that due to bandwidth issues. (Nowadays, of course, bandwidth is fairly cheap so even at 5 megs I could have around 10,000 downloads per month for about $10 with my current host, I have spare bandwidth with another account, and Amazon has a bandwidth service I could use if I needed it).
Now, after having made and uploaded a few videos to Youtube already, I recently remembered this video and had it digitized again. After spending a lot of time finding a converter for .vob (DVD) files and then spending a lot of time converting the VOB file to a regular format, I was able to upload it to Youtube and Google Video.
Posted at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
Tom Ridge recommends the Swiss Army Knife?
Will the horrors of the Bush administration never end? While browsing Amazon, I came upon the "Swiss Army One-Hand Trekker Lockblade Pocket Knife" (you can buy one here), and I saw this:
The Swiss Army Knife is the only knife recommended for the emergency kit of the US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
I was unable to determine whether the former DHS Secretary had actually endorsed those knives (made by Victorinox), but I wouldn't doubt it considering his other Krusty the Klown-style moves.
Previously:
Tom Ridge hired by Albania
Ninety former DHS officials cashing in
Were terror alerts faked to elect Bush?
Tom Ridge on Home Depot board
Posted at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
Dr. Laura Schlessinger action figure (talking doll)
A friend of mine - not me, just someone I barely know, no really, not me - downloaded the pictures of Dr. Laura Schlessinger which were floating around on the web once. Sadly, he informs me that the only one which is "safe for work" is the one on the left:
If you too are a big fan of Doctor Laura for one reason or another, you can recreate the magic with the new Dr. Laura Action Figure (pictured right, available at Amazon). Approved by the good Doctor herself, this talking doll says 23 phrases including "Now, go and do the right thing."
Posted at 10:11 PM | Comments (2)
Get a Playstation 3, the easy way
If, like me, you don't make a habit of visiting malls, and if like me you've watched with some concern the PS3 riots you might be wondering how you could get your hands on what is quite possibly the latest and greatest game console. The easy way to get a Sony Playstation 3 is to buy one on eBay. The average sale price is around $1000, but if you really want one now, that might be your only option.
Posted at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
"Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay"
In the past, I've joked about Bush fleeing to some small Latin American country, and I even have a site jokingly suggesting that some people should leave the U.S. However, if questionable reports are to be believed, the Bush family might already have an exit strategy planned.From this (also here):
Buenos Aires, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.The presumed reference doesn't have anything.
Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.
The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay...
From this via this:
The Governor of Alto Paraguay, Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta has admitted to hearing that George Bush Sr. owns land in the Chaco region of Paraguay, in Paso de Patria. Acosta says that rumor has it that Bush owns near to 70 thousand hectares (173,000 acres) as part of an ecological reserve and/or ranch. However, the governor said he had no documents to prove the rumor. Acosta said that some stories credited the land to the Fundacion Patria, which Bush would be a member of. The spokespeople of the organization were not available to comment. Supposedly, Timothy Towell, the U.S. Ambassador in Asuncion (the capital of Paraguay) is the present administrator of the land. First accounts signaled that Bush had acquired 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) in the Chaco zone of Fuerte Olimpo, near the Bolivian Border. A spark of the interest in this property may have been Jenna Bush's private visit to Paraguay with Unicef, which started Saturday, October 7, 2006. Supposedly Jenna will travel to the ranch to ''observe'' several indigenous villages are located on the property.Unless documents surface, I suggest considering this just a rumor.
Posted at 01:06 PM | Comments (1)
New film claims Cardinal Roger Mahoney assisted pedophile priest
From this:...[A] former priest, who lives in Ireland, said he was able to continue abusing children in part because of actions by Cardinal Mahony, who now heads the country's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, here in Los Angeles, and is among the church’s most influential American leaders. Mr. O'Grady says in the film that as bishop in Stockton, the cardinal moved him from parish to parish in the face of abuse accusations.Read the rest for all the claims and counter-claims.
"The film does certainly charge the atmosphere here in Los Angeles," said William Hodgman, the top deputy of the target crimes division of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, who coordinated prosecutions of priests in Los Angeles.
The film also "will fuel ongoing consideration as to whether Cardinal Mahony and others engaged in criminal activity," Mr. Hodgman added...
Related: Mexico detained lawyers, alleged victim of priest sex abuse (Cardinal Roger Mahony)
Regarding Mahoney's other mission of encouraging illegal immigration, see among others:
"Seeking Biblical Principles to Inform Immigration Policy"
Should Cardinal Roger Mahony cost the Catholic Church tax-exempt status?
Posted at 11:15 PM | Comments (4)
Mexico detained lawyers, alleged victim of priest sex abuse (Cardinal Roger Mahony)
Cardinal Roger Mahony is not just a cheap labor pimp who either doesn't care about the massive downsides of illegal immigration or can't figure things out. He's also deeply involved in the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal. From "Mexican officials detain lawyers, activist tied to sex abuse case":[Mexican] immigration authorities yesterday briefly detained representatives of a man who says he was sexually abused by a Mexican Roman Catholic priest. The three men were detained shortly after they alleged that the fugitive cleric was still celebrating Mass in Mexico.
The alleged victim, 25-year-old Joaquin Aguilar Mendez, also told a news conference he has feared for his life and that of his family since he first went public with his claims late last year.
Aguilar Mendez, along with several U.S. lawyers and members of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, called the news conference to reveal details of a civil lawsuit he filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging that Mexican Cardinal Norberto Rivera and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony conspired to protect Catholic Priest Nicolas Aguilar.
Shortly after the news conference, immigration officials detained and questioned for an hour two of Aguilar Mendez's U.S. lawyers - Jeff Anderson and Michael Finnegan - as well as Survivors Network national director David Clohessy, the group said...
Posted at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
George Stephanopoulos: Castro is OK!
On ABC's This Week, a gleeful George Stephanopoulos announced that Fidel Castro was A-OK and showed the following picture. However, he failed to note that some question whether the image is photoshopped or real:
From the caption:
This is one of four photographs published Sunday Aug. 13, 2006 by Cuba's Communist Youth newspaper's online edition Juventud Rebelde proporting to show The first photographs of Fidel Castro since his illness two weeks ago. Castro holds a copy of the Saturday Aug. 12, 2006 edition of Granma, the Communist Party newspaper. The headline reads "Absolved by history." The Associated Press cannot verify the authenticity or the date when these photographs were shot. (AP Photo/HO)
Posted at 12:41 PM | Comments (1)
Panama Canal to be widened
Details (from a leftie perspective) here. Includes information on water as a commodity. And:The [Plan Puebla Panama] is the most direct threat of corporate water ownership (supported heavily by former President Vincente Fox)......Fox wants to transplant the maquiladora, production-for-export model that has been applied with disastrous results in northern Mexico, but with a few new twists. The isthmus is one of the most bio-diverse regions on the planet, and contains some of the most important fresh water reserves in the hemisphere. Exploitation of these resources is key to the plan. "The US is in support of PPP: "Secretary of State Colin Powell [has] told Vincente Fox that the U.S. will support the plan if Fox militarizes the Mexico-Guatemala border to prevent immigration from Central America northward."
Posted at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)
George Soros, Maurice Strong to sell Chinese cars?
George Soros and Maurice Strong might invest hundreds of millions in Chinese automaker "Chery". They make a car which sells for $3,600 in China but will sell for $20,000 here. GM accuses Chery of ripping off the design for a car that their South Korean affiliate Daewoo makes.
Posted at 11:27 PM | Comments (2)
Alex Jones detained in Canada on Bilderberger orders?
Way far out there radio host Alex Jones tried to enter Canada yesterday to cover a Bilderberg meeting. He claims that he was detained by Canadian immigration officials since last night to this afternoon on the orders of that group:Customs openly told Alex as soon as they brought him into custody that the Bilderberg Group was aware of his arrival and that this was the reason for his detainment. All three members of the team were instantly detained despite going through different immigration desks...Jones appears to have been ordered to fly back to Austin, but they decided not to follow through and he's currently in Canada. And, from this:
...Towards the end of the ordeal national media, including the Ottawa Citizen and CBC, got wind of what was unfolding and sent journalists to the airport to talk to Alex...
...The point to emphasize again is that it was brazenly stated that the Bilderberg Group were behind the decision to detain Alex and his team...
"As a result of the privacy act, we are forbidden from discussing individual cases," said Marina Wilson, spokesperson for the department. "I'm not aware of this ... (detention) is at the discretion of our visa officers."Speaking on the less far out there Coast To Coast, Jones described it as a "terrorizing" incident similar to the Soviet Union. And, he claims that he was under duress when he issued his conciliatory statements.
Mr. Jones said that he and the agents had reconciled prior to his release.
"I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better."
Posted at 09:51 PM | Comments (6)
Pulitzer Prize for Propaganda
The Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. If they wanted to be a bit closer to the past and present reality, they'd have a Propaganda category. What would that look like? Let's imagine:
Best Propaganda: This year's award goes to several newspapers: the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, USA Today, San Diego Union-Tribune, and many more for their reporting on illegal aliens taking Katrina jobs from American hurricane victims. Even though those papers probably weren't working together, their coverage seemed like it. They offered several stories on American citizens being warehoused in hotels outside New Orleans, while illegal aliens from Mexico and other countries were brought in to do work that those Americans should have been doing. The propaganda associated with this effort is some of the most un-American the Prize Board has ever seen, and we congratulate those sources for their efforts
Best Propaganda (Runner-up): Jeff Franks of Reuters for "Immigrants find opportunity in ruined New Orleans". That piece contains this odious anti-American bit: "The immigrant workers do not feel too threatened by competition from the local Americans. They point to the back of the parking lot where the only "gringos" in sight are sleeping on sheets of cardboard or sitting on wooden boxes, surrounded by empty beer cans and booze bottles." The Prize Board concludes that Jeff Franks writes like he could be working for one of America's enemies, and we wish him the best of luck in next year's competition.
Lifetime Achievement Award: This year's award goes to Nina Bernstein of the New York Times. She's actually been spreading propaganda even longer than last year's winner Bart Jones, and it's good to see her finally win it.
Posted at 08:01 PM | Comments (1)
Modern Propaganda Techniques
There's a pretty good list of some techniques the MSM uses here. See also my new site about immigration reform. It provides additional canards the MSM uses to lie about the topic.
Posted at 05:23 AM | Comments (0)
Thomas Kinkade heckled Siegfried and Roy, marks territory
Thomas Kinkade is the artist who makes megabucks selling heartwarming scenes of lighthouses and cottages.According to a new lawsuit, he also has a dark side:
...In sworn testimony and interviews, they recount incidents in which an allegedly drunken Kinkade heckled illusionists Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas, cursed a former employee's wife who came to his aid when he fell off a barstool, and palmed a startled woman's breasts at a signing party in South Bend, Ind.Who among us hasn't done the same things?
And then there is Kinkade's proclivity for "ritual territory marking," as he called it, which allegedly manifested itself in the late 1990s outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.
"This one's for you, Walt," the artist quipped late one night as he urinated on a Winnie the Pooh figure, said Terry Sheppard, a former vice president for Kinkade's company, in an interview...
Posted at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)
Al Gore's Current TV gets sued... twice!
A Maryland company and Minnesota Public Radio are suing Al Gore's Current TV network in separate suits charging trademark infringement over the name of the network.
An earlier statement had the following:
"We know of no consumers who confuse us with Minnesota Public Radio, and we can't imagine that anybody ever would".
Maybe if they tried harder!
Posted at 06:46 AM | Comments (0)
Where will the Bush administration move if the worst happens?
If - God forbid - Harry Whittington shouldn't pull through or suffers a lasting disability, what will happen to the Bush administration?
There's a good chance that Dick Cheney will resign. Of course, you never know, and he might decide to stick around.
If he does resign, perhaps Bush will try to get Jeb, "P", or even Daddy to replace him. The first two for on-the-job training, the last for an experienced hand in times of continual crisis.
Another alternative is that the entire Bush administration - including all family members - will decide to leave the U.S. They could still continue to run the U.S. via a videophone link-up from Mexico, Brazil, or some friendly Mideast country like the UAE. One day their domestic staff will wake up and realize that they've flown the coop during the night.
I'm betting on the latter being the most realistic scenario.
Posted at 10:17 PM | Comments (2)
Cheney shooting victim has minor heart attack
Now breaking...
Posted at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
Lithuania: dead sailor might have had bird flu
AN Indian sailor who died in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda may have been infected with bird flu, the Lithuanian health ministry said today.They aren't going to do an autopsy for religous reasons, so we won't know the exact cause.
"A member of the crew of the ship MV Ocean Wind, Indian citizen Shaikh Rafikque, died in Klaipeda today. The suspected cause of death is bird flu," a statement from the ministry said.
If avian flu is confirmed as the cause of death, it would be the first human case of the disease in the European Union...
The Liberian-flagged Ocean Wing came to Lithuania from Germany on January 17 to undergo repairs, the health ministry said...
...Kazimieras Lukauskas, head of Lithuania's state veterinary and food service, said raw poultry was among foods loaded onto the ship in Germany, but played down the possibility that it was the cause of the sailor's death...
Posted at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)
Michael Chertoff apologizes for latest Rex-related deaths
Speaking in Chicago earlier today, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff profusely apologized for the latest round of maulings and deaths caused by 'Ready Kids' mascot and mountain lion 'Rex'.
"When we originally invisioned the latest mascot 'Rex' we were going to create him as just a cartoon character. However, we had the brilliant idea of using a real mountain lion in order to increase our penetration of the market. It is unfortunate that due to various unforeseen circumstances Rex was able to get loose. And, we heartily apologize for not just the latest incident but all previous incidents as well", he said.
Some sources have raised issues with Rex's handler, Alan Hubertson, claiming that he is unqualified for the role. Hubertson is a former lawyer for the mercury and dioxin disposal industry association and a former member of Team Bush-Cheney 2004. He is also a cousin of vice president Dick Cheney. And, he has absolutely no background in wild animal management or any field of life sciences. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff derides all such criticisms as "partisan politics."
'Rex' - together with his cartoon wife Purrcilla, his daughter Rory and his best friend, Hector Hummingbird - form the latest propaganda offensive from the DHS, designed to help schoolchildren as young as 3rd grade understand to the very root of their being the absolutely vital necessity of electing some member of the Bush family - or whosoever they may designate - in order to protect them.
Earlier in the day, Secretary Chertoff held a very informative roundtable discussion in which he said that in addition to featuring cartoon mascots, the DHS is also "getting the border under control". However, he warned America that they can't achieve full control unless and until they have a guest worker program. "Anything else would be contrary to 'market' forces," he reminded America.
Secretary Chertoff is working with the Ad Council, Scholastic Inc., and Halliburton to "re-tool" the Rex campaign, including the possibility of feeding him immediately before appearances at schools and forcing him to wear large gloves. They will also shortly be announcing a new "Protect Your Necks From Rex" campaign.
Source: dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0848.xml
UPDATE: Linked by this.
Posted at 08:33 PM | Comments (3)
Halliburton gets $385 Million detention facilities contract
Halliburton's KBR subsidiary has got yet another "Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity" contract, and this one is of interest both from the immigration and the tin-foil hat perspective. It involves building detention centers. Of course, detention centers are "multi-use facilities" and can be used to keep people in, keep people out, transship people, and so on. They could be used in case of a natural disaster to provide emergency housing. Or, in the case of the bird flu to detain victims, even against their will. Or, they could be used for mass deportations of illegal aliens. Or, they could be used to detain the millions of illegal aliens who'd come here if Mexico completely collapsed. A million and one uses. From this (also here, here, and here):...The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.This isn't an entirely new idea; KBR had a similar contract from 2000 to 2005. However, considering Katrina, the bird flu, and the heating up immigration situation it seems to have a bit more saliency. UPDATE: More details in "Deal struck to build immigration jails".
The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.
Posted at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
Wendy's Chili Finger Finder gets nine years
Anna Ayala, who claimed to have found a severed human finger in a bowl of chili she got at a San Jose Wendy's, has been sentenced to nine years in California prison:
"Greed and avarice overtook this couple and they lost their moral compass," Judge Davila said... [he] also ordered the couple to pay almost $22 million (12.5 million pounds) in restitution but Wendy's officials indicted to the court they would only seek to collect approximately $170,000, representing the wages lost by employees at the San Jose restaurant where working hours were cut back after a downturn in business.
This story was last featured here in: Breaking: Wendy's chili finger settled $50 debt
Posted at 03:32 PM | Comments (1)
Deepak Chopra, COINTELPRO agent?
Is Deepak Chopra a COINTELPRO agent? If not him, what about other New Age gurus and gurettes? Has someone dressed in black "gotten to" Shirley McClain?
Those questions and many others went through my mind as I scanned the first part of the very long post "How to Spot COINTELPRO Agents". The part that I read posits that the New Age religion was started by the government as a form of mind control and to make discussion of UFOs a fringe subject.
Of course, I don't believe a word of that, and I quickly lavaged my mind of all such bad thoughts.
The same author thinks that the Above Top Secret website (abovetopsecret.com) is run by "sp00ks".
Of course, that's all just crazy talk.
OPCEN 15 983 AOX 212 FRANCE OP 28 28 28 AUTH 17
Posted at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)
Democratic Underground Thread of the Week
This "TOTW" is indeed pathetic. It concerns the Sago Mine miners and the notes they wrote. Considering the source, can you guess the title? I'll bet you can come close.
Posted at 04:44 AM | Comments (0)
Boffins: Star Trek gobbledygook might become reality
The U.S. government is looking into a scheme that would use a huge magnetic field to propel a spaceship into an alternate dimension, enabling a trip to Mars in three hours and a trip to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days.
The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and scientists working for the American Department of Energy - which has a device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory withstands further scrutiny.
(Lonewacko comments: The Z Machine is currently used to control the weather, hurricanes, and the like).
Professor Jochem Hauser, former chief of aerodynamics at the European Space Agency and a physicist at the Applied Sciences University in Salzgitter, Germany says:
"NASA have contacted me and next week I'm going to see someone from the [US] air force to talk about it further, but it is at a very early stage. I think the best-case scenario would be within the next five years [to build a test device] if the technology works."
Posted at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)
Goodbye Chris Garnett, hello KentuckyFriedCruelty.com
The youth outreach coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Chris Garnett, has legally changed his name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com. Those wacky extremists!
The former Dover Plains, New York, resident and current Street Team coordinator of peta2—PETA's youth division [aka "petmol" -- LW] —has the official state papers and driver's license to prove it... Under KentuckyFriedCruelty.com's watchful eye, peta2's Street Team has grown to more than 100,000 dedicated young activists across the country who will mobilize in defense of animals at a moment's notice... KentuckyFriedCruelty.com joins the growing ranks of consumers, celebrities, and scholars—including actor Pamela Anderson, The Rev. Al Sharpton, Sir Paul McCartney, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama—who are helping out in PETA's campaign to force KFC to end its abusive treatment of chickens.
Previously: Lisa Franzetta bares all for the cause.
Posted at 01:34 PM | Comments (2)
Canadian Liberal Party official quits over blog posting
Our charter requires 0.04% Canadian coverage, and here it is:A high-ranking official within the Liberal Party of Canada resigned today after he made disparaging comments on his blog about NDP Leader Jack Layton and his wife, NDP candidate Olivia Chow.Here's the cache of his since-deleted site. But, since the pictures have been deleted too go here to see a screengrab. It's really mild stuff by our standards, but, they're Canadians so be kind.
Mike Klander, executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party's Ontario wing, stepped down after photographs of Chow, the NDP candidate for the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, and a chow chow dog were posted on his blog dated Dec. 9 under the heading "Separated at Birth."
Posted at 04:57 AM | Comments (0)
How to Crush the Schemes of the Enemies Who Disseminate Unusual Lifestyles
Welcome to today's lecture. I and Our Leader would like to congratulate you on your hair, as it appears to conform to our standards. Remember: long hair depletes your brain of the oxygen it needs and does not conform to socialist style. Do not let your hair grow longer than 2 inches. But, if you are an older man, you can let it grow 2.8 inches in case you need to comb it over.
Also, Our Leader congratulates the women in the audience for wearing such modest skirts and blouses, and I even see a few wearing the hanbok. Anything else would be a sign of the utterly rotten bourgeois lifestyle.
I must however remind you not to watch any foreign movies,