RAnt(hony)-ings

The Delusional Governor of our State of Texas

2011-08-19T12:23:00.004-05:00

This may become a regular feature for me. I can't seem to get away from this. Apologizing to the rest of the world (or at least the nation) for the paucity of intellect displayed by our sitting Governor; the longest sitting governor for the State of Texas (I'd be ashamed, but I've never cast a vote for the man. The rest of you, though...) Sometimes I wonder if this man ties his own shoes in the morning, or if he has to have someone else do it.

Case in point. I'm watching Hardball last night (as I do virtually every night) and I nearly fall out of my chair as the Governor tells a New Hampshire child on national television (!?) that we teach creationism alongside evolution in Texas.

(courtesy of TFN and NPR)

Now, I know that this has been his goal for about the last decade or so, it's why he's appointed a series of young-earth creationists to chair the SBOE; but apparently he hasn't kept track of what his appointed cronies have been forced to accept recently. The entirety of intelligent design (aka, creationism) has been rejected by the SBOE in a unanimous vote. There will be no creationism taught in Texas schools. There cannot be, no matter how many times he appoints creationists to the SBOE, as it is a violation of the separation between church and state.

The Governor's campaign for the White House is a train wreck, and an embarrassment to thinking Texans (and yes, we do exist) everywhere. The national political pundits are probably drooling at the chance to have a real circus to report on; it's good for ratings.

[I can only imagine what the behind the cameras dialog was like when McCain ran against Obama or Dole ran against Clinton; "Where's the drama? I'm supposed to attract viewers with this?"]

The kind of divisive political piety that he displays (and is detailed here for those who haven't been paying attention) Will play well in certain areas of the nation, but be alienating to the majority of voters. He'll do great in the Midwest (and a good portion of the old South) he will not favor well anywhere in the Southwest outside of Texas, and won't play at all in the North.

The outcome that the administration is hoping for is facing off against a Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. That campaign they'll be able to phone in since neither one of them is even acquainted with "Mainstream America", and will be easy to trip up on the most basic of scientific inquiries (young earth creationists generally are) not to mention their willingness to gut all social programs, especially health care programs, in the name of fiscal responsibility. It will be the simplest of matters to rally the middle in lukewarm support of an Obama second term in the face of that kind of challenge.

The only thing Obama is terrified of is the jobs numbers not getting better; perversely, it's the only thing the opposition has to hope for, since they can't seem to find a candidate that will satisfy the crazies (Like Chris Christy points out in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=y83z552NJaw) and be marketable to the rest of us.

Jon Huntsman knows where the center is;

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, another contender for the GOP presidential nomination, took to Twitter almost instantly, seeming to mock Perry for the creationism comment, as well as for his recent statements on climate change: “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

(courtesy Texas Tribune)

Doubt seriously that the Republicans will give him the time of day, though.

AISD superintendent should "Form a Line"

2011-08-17T16:13:00.005-05:00

The Superintendent of AISD issued a vaguely worded threat today;

At a speech Tuesday morning Austin schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said that she would not propose job cuts, declare a financial emergency or call an election to raise property taxes in the coming year as long as the school board and employees continue to ‘hold the line” on some of the tough decisions made this year.

The All Staff Convocation, streamed live to schools across the district from the Preas Theater at Austin High School, was the third such speech in Carstarphen’s three-year tenure - and the second virtual one. Teachers reported to their campuses this week. The first day of school is Monday.

"Hold the line" means sticking to the school closings and teacher layoffs that were proposed last year. A plan that is mapped out here;

An AISD task force of district staffers, parents and community members has identified nine schools that could be closed or revamped to help the district run more efficiently: Barton Hills, Brooke, Joslin, Oak Springs, Ortega, Pease, Sanchez and Zilker elementary schools and Pearce Middle School.

On January 25, Becker, Blackshear, Dawson and Govalle elementary schools were added to the list for consideration.

Under the proposals, the first schools could close in 2012-13.

I find it quite telling that all of the schools (but one, and that one in downtown) are in South and East Austin. As usual, Terrytown gets what it wants, and the rest of us must suffer for them.

But we're in a budget crisis, we have to cut somewhere!? Budget crisis? Here's my opinion on the subject.

Fire every non-teaching employee above principle. If you want to work for the school district and not teach, we'll accept your charitable donation of time, just like the board members (this goes double for the Superintendent and her assistants) If you want to keep your job at the school district and get paid, you better find a class that you can teach. We should only be paying people to staff the schools themselves, and sell those multi-million dollar facilities that the district occupies downtown. Should more than make up the shortfall. Want to tighten belts? Tighten your own first, or face a vengeful public.

Nothing worse than a bunch of hogs, lording it over the rest of the farm animals, telling the rest of us how we need to make sacrifices. You first.

Pick a President on the Internet?

2011-08-11T14:24:00.002-05:00

Went looking for sites that took advantage of the internet in the candidate selection process recently. I knew about http://www.selectsmart.com/president/

Politicians have already indicated their 2012 presidential aspirations. This matching quiz includes President Obama, top members of his administration, Obama's most vocal critics (Boehner, Cantor, etc.) and likely White House prospects (Palin, Pawlenty, Jindal, etc.). You may select a position for every issue, or just select issues important to you. The political figures' positions are based upon their voting records, special interest group ratings and their statements in the public record. In cases where there is no known public record or statement, these politicos are not given a score on that issue. We add candidates, revise their views and include new issues as they become known or change. Check back often for updates.

...from previous elections. However, I was pointed to http://www.opencongress.org/ (hardcore debate site, I'm told) and VoteEasy (from Project: Vote Smart) as other resources that do the something similar.

The problem is, who to trust? The fractious nature of the American populace is the stumbling block. It's not just that they have different sources, it's that those sources use different facts. They think they're entitled to different facts. Reality just doesn't work that way.

To me, this is just another example of why we need an election process that is more open, and publicly funded. I don't want to have to pick over Iowa's leavings when it comes to opponents for the status quo. What they select will most likely not be electable, an we'll end up with Romney against Obama as a compromise candidate; the status quo vs. the status quo. That's not a race, that's yet another yawnfest. Maybe something like this...

http://www.americanselect.org

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Elliot Ackerman

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

Video Archive

Something more "content neutral". Rather than having to sell yourself to your nutjob left or right base (about 2/10's of the population, combined) you can appeal to the middle directly. An interesting approach to the problem, to say the least, if not exactly original (saw something similar started last election that never got any traction) let's see if it goes anywhere.

Maybe we should use this guy's theories (also on Colbert. It's been a good week for election theory there lately) to pick the candidate we need;
A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nassir Ghaemi

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

Video Archive

Probably the most interesting interview I've seen in awhile (Much as I like The Cars' revival album) on Colbert.

Heading off Potential Embarrassment for Texas. Again.

2011-08-08T18:46:00.003-05:00

I'd like to disavow any association between me and Gov. Perry in advance of his declaration to run for the office of President of the United States. Word has surfaced that he's planning to announce his intention to run for the office this Saturday at an appearance in North Carolina.

I just want to make this clear, not only do we not share political views, I don't acknowledge that he comes from the same state that I do.

The State of Texas that I come from doesn't aspire to discriminate against gays, doesn't want to interfere in the health choices of it citizens, and doesn't care which religion (or lack of religion) its citizens ascribe to.

The secular State of Texas. I'm not sure if he's ever heard of it even though he's been elected to run it more often than any previous governor.

If you aren't from 'round here, and plan on writing about the governor, I recommend that you read this article in Texas Monthly (in fact, you probably should subscribe. It is the National Magazine of Texas, after all) those of us who have had the misfortune of being unfairly characterized by the press covering Texas leaders in the past will thank you for it, and it will save you from thinking he's just another version of George W. Bush. He's much worse than that.

Obamacare = Romneycare = Failure

2011-08-04T12:14:00.003-05:00

Got an email today from one of my preferred activist efforts, concerning the effects of Obamacare, and the waivers being issued until they are phased out. DownsizeDC: "Americans Beg for Mercy in front of Unelected Bureaucrats" They reference an article at the Boston Globe, written by John Sununu (who clearly needs to take a class in creative writing. Talk about cludgy wordsmithing) that runs something like this;

Companies now face a September deadline to apply for protection. After that, they’re out of luck. According to the administration, without the special treatment, health care premiums for 3 million workers would have gone up by 10 percent or more. A note to social engineers of all parties: If you have to protect 3 million people from a brand-new law, it probably wasn’t very well written in the first place.

That this was an unintended consequence is clear from the fact that the law never contemplated a need for waivers in the first place. In a stroke of bureaucratic magic, HHS simply granted itself the power, and started dispensing the passes. Only when independent groups started pressing for transparency did things begin to shut down.

The broader lesson here is that the constant need for special waivers is symptomatic of poorly written public policy. It’s a signal that the cost of compliance is unreasonably high; the benefits are hard to measure; and either legislators or regulators have failed to do their homework.

If you want to go to DownsizeDC and send a message to Congress, by all means do so. Save all of us some money, get them to change the laws now, before we spend the next 10 years litigating a system that might work. Still...

I find this breathless hysteria about Obamacare to be a bit of a yawn. Is it bad law? Probably. It's yet another over-long bill that doesn't do what it claims to do, and wasn't written or read by the legislators who passed it, or the executive who signed it (and who's name is used to identify it) but the problem with the hysteria over Obamacare is that it is fundamentally the same as Romneycare (or a few other state level insurance systems) and the people who want us to be breathlessly terrified don't seem to have a real problem with those other programs; in all likelihood because they were created by people from their party, the Republican Party.

When it comes to stories about the problems with the Health care system in the US, I found this article to be more enlightening;

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL candidate Tim Pawlenty was right. While he backed away from the nice term he coined — ObamneyCare — the health reforms enacted by then-governor Mitt Romney in 2006 and President Obama in 2010 have much in common, although both would deny it.

Their main strength is that more people get insured. In Massachusetts, the percentage is up to 98 percent, the highest in the nation. Obama projects that about 95 percent of people will be insured nationally in a decade. But both Romney and Obama punted on crucial issues of cost and deeper systemic reform.

and

Yet there is a real debate to be had on health insurance, though not between Romney and Obama. On one side, Republican conservatives want to turn government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid into vouchers. Citizens would get a flat sum. If the cost of decent coverage exceeded the voucher, well, good luck. This approach would certainly reduce government costs. It would also reduce care.

On the other side, Democratic liberals point to nations with national health insurance, where the efficiencies are such that everyone is covered for about 10 percent of GDP compared to over 15 percent (and rising) here. Sooner or later, as costs keep exploding, the real choice for America will come down to vouchers versus true universal health insurance. It’s too bad that this debate will be largely offstage next year.

From RomneyCare vs. ObamaCare

In a nutshell, none of the systems work as intended (related this information to you ages ago) and we're going to have to re-constitute them into something completely different if we want them to work.

The real shame here is, we already wasted a year not-arguing over Obamacare (because we didn't know what was in it until after it was passed) which was essentially adapted from systems that aren't working in several states, and we'll spend an additional several years not-arguing over systems that might work that could replace the systems that are bleeding this country dry. Let's hope that someone with sense just does what needs to be done at some point, and let's the rest of us know where we can get access to it.

Personally, I'm tired of the obstructionist political maneuvering, and would relish some real debate over what is really needed to establish universal access to preventative care; as well as some realistically priced health insurance that really did provide insurance for my health, and didn't just pay my doctor bills each month.

Upgrading The Electorate

2011-07-29T18:45:00.009-05:00

Dan Carlin's latest Common Sense (of the same title) inspired a bit of nostalgia on the part of yours truly. That wasn't his goal, but his unreserved backing for a change in how we elect our public officials (one that doesn't involve corruption at the outset) combined with his wistful thoughts on whether or not it was possible to get a better class of voter in the US (5 defining characteristics of stupidity was cited, if not directly endorsed) brought back to mind the long held belief of mine that most Americans (possibly most humans) are impenetrably stupid. When I mention this belief in a group setting, I'm generally guaranteed to get an earful, so I've learned over time to keep that opinion to myself. But nothing in my nearly 50 years of experience has ever come close to convincing me that this belief is not based on fact.

[more on this subject can be found at The Ethics of Voting on cato.org; 25% of the population should ethically consider themselves able to cast a meaningful vote.]

Which brings me to the conversation on the Dan Carlin forums that brought up a second point of nostalgia. Invariably new podcasts bring out new listeners, most of them with ideas that they think are fresh and unheard of viewpoints; and they're certain we'll understand just how great they are once they tell us. This podcast, since it was about campaigns and the budget, brought out the usual chirpy optimistic observation from a new poster, "You wanna take money out of politics? Take the power out of Washington".

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "take the power out of Washington" back in my Libertarian Party days, I'd have a lot of devalued coinage on hand. This was a mainstay of a good portion of simplistic libertarian thought. It's as ridiculous a proposal as saying that laws cause crimes, so if we had no laws we'd have no crimes. While it is true that there would be no crime if there was no law, people would still die at the hands of other people, and value would still be taken from people without compensation. Consequently the injustices would still occur, we'd just call them something else.

Government is power, so you will never remove power from government. Corruption and government have walked hand in hand since the first politician agreed to do a favor in exchange for support. The question is how to reduce the obvious corruption in the current system. I don't see any way out of this that doesn't include a completely public election process, including financing. This is a new opinion of mine, at variance with pretty much all of the regular LP types. The concept of buying my politicians never did sit well with me, even when I was one of the rank and file. I understand the concept of money is speech in the current system, and I even agree with the recent Supreme Court Citizen's United ruling as far as it applies to the current system;

Money is only 'speech' if money is allowed to be contributed to candidates. If money is not allowed to be contributed; if in fact, money changing hands means jail sentences for both parties (and it should. Bribery is a violation of current law) and all elections are publicly funded, then money is no longer a speech issue at all.

Either we can bribe to hearts content, or no bribery should be allowed. Laws attempting to control who bribes and who doesn't should be struck down.

(My comment on TexasLP Chair Pat Dixon's article on the subject)

But the current system is at the heart of the problem of an uninformed electorate, and any effective solution is going to have to modify that system.

I'm becoming convinced the only solution that will fix the problem is public funding of elections with some real vicious teeth on laws against gift giving. Basically, they get their wages, they get their office, and if anyone gives them money for any reason, they (and the giver) get jail-time. Don't know how else to fix this problem. No money changes hands. No money, for any reason, at any time, or off to jail with the both of them. I have not one problem with locking up every industry exec and every congressman for illegal activities, when it comes right down to it. Every. Last. One.

There's a local radio host (Jeff Ward, 3pm KLBJ AM. Best radio show in Austin) who has a lunar mantra that runs along the lines of I want serving in office to be the most unpleasant job you can imagine. I want people to hate serving in office so much that they can't wait to leave the job when their time is up. That's where I've been for years. I want them to hate it. I want to have to draft people to serve as congressman, and have them cry as we stuff them on the bus to go to DC. I want them to do the jobs we send them for, and then leave as soon as they get it done because it's that unpleasant to be doing that job.

We hound their families and their friends to make sure they aren't serving as blind trusts for officeholders. The most unpleasant job, for all concerned. People beg, BEG to be allowed to not do the job. We'll have to publicly finance those campaigns, because there won't be any other money to be had.

That's what wielding the kind of power an officeholder has should feel like. A 2 year (or 4, or 6 year) long colonoscopy, while we are lodged up their collective asses watching every transaction that occurs.

What about the nostalgia? You said there'd be nostalgia! Got ahead of myself there, sorry. The nostalgia came in the form of the following libertarian pipe dream (and I'm dizzy enough already without pipe dreams) But it does bring back memories of a simpler time;

My contention is that you get back to first principals of liberty first. If the courts do not allow Washington to affect to such large degree the private affairs of individuals, especially in their means of business, you reduce the stakes. If you reduce the stakes then both the impact of corruption as well as the cost of corruption goes down.

I see Freedom and Liberty as the road back to equality and prosperity. I think with each passing day, more and more Americans are coming to believe that. I hope that within my kids lifetimes they will see a reversal of the current trend.

(From the Dan Carlin forums)

It's beautiful. He has a dream. I remember a young, inspired Libertarian, with dreams much like that. Thought that all we needed was freedom to make things better. Then he started studying recent history, and came to the realization that the jaded in Washington were using the calls to 'deregulate' industries as excuses to line the pockets of themselves and their cronies. Watched in disbelief as a President elected on a conservative wave of sentiment for better, smaller government, spent more money than any President before him, got us into the longest war in US history (started a land war in Asia. What a Moron. Or he would be, if the sentiment of the people could have been resisted. I don't think it could. It was the genius of Bin Laden to get us into Afghanistan in force. He'd just watched it consume the USSR. Think we'll fare better in the end? I don't.) and did nothing while the largest economic crash in US history happened all around him.

This (no longer capitol L) libertarian had a brief glimmer of hope when Obama was elected. Not that he thought there was any real chance of anything vaguely Libertarian coming out of that administration, but there was Obama's acknowledged history of drug use that made him think that hypocrisy on the drug war would come hard, and there were the limp-wristed promises of ending wars to inspire optimism. Which was promptly dashed when Obama simply maintained the status quo on all fronts, and even accelerated on others. Even took the time to pass a Republican piece of legislation with his name on it (Romneycare relabeled as Obamacare) just to prove where his heart was.

The final nail in the coffin (no longer libertarian, now just Objectivist) came when the idiots that cast ballots in the last election believed all the lies of the Republicans running for office. That they would reduce government, repeal that horrible health care act (that they would have voted for, had a Republican been in office) and release bunnies, kittens and doves on the capitol lawn, to go with the rainbow Jesus put there. People so stupid that, here in Texas where the government is still bad, they voted in even more Republicans than we had before and gave them a super majority.

These legislators, rather than do the jobs they had been sent there for, promptly passed social conservative laws against gays, muslims, etc. to please their bases, and have yet to do anything meaningful on the subject of fixing the economic system they were sent there to address. The next Presidential election is shaping up to be more of the same.

What I think is this country needs honest debate. The only way to get it is to take apart the current election system, top to bottom. No money changes hands. People who give money to politicians go to jail for treason. Politicians who take money from people go to jail for treason. A two year series of debates is established, which all candidates for office are required to attend. No barriers to entry. If you want to be candidate, you file and you are. You miss one (or two) of the mandated debates, you're out.

We could even structure it like that great American pasttime, American Idol. Vote candidates off that we don't like, preliminary to the final nominations and elections. All of it covered on broadcast television and streamed on the internet (on pain of revocation of transmission licenses if not) so that 'the people' will understand what is at stake, or at least have to work to avoid it.

Because much as it pains me, bursting bubbles that contain libertarian (or conservative, or liberal) pipe dreams is paramount to getting any real work done in political circles. The world just doesn't work the way the ideologues think it does.

Discord Over Harmony Schools

2011-07-22T16:31:00.003-05:00

This is an example of real harm resulting from the religious posing of Texas leaders.

Harmony schools are charter schools in Texas; they are unquestionable successes in the realm of schooling, in fact. Two of their high schools were named in Newsweek as "miracle schools" representing the best of the best to be had in education in the entire United States, much less in Texas.

But that's not good enough for those conspiracy theorists out there who see different as threatening and Muslim as terrorist. Almost since the day they opened their doors, Harmony Schools have been the target of hate groups throughout the state.

Led by the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative pro-family organization, Harmony's critics have issued a flurry of legislative alerts in recent weeks that said the state's $25 billion endowment for "our children's textbooks" was imperiled by "Turkish men, of whom we know very little other than most are not American citizens."
They gathered enough momentum that earlier this week some conservative legislators cited the concerns when they voted against a key budget bill — and almost killed it.
But one conservative protector of the endowment, the Permanent School Fund, says the criticism of Harmony is unfounded.
"There is a lot of misinformation, a certain level of fear and a small helping of bigotry that needs to go away," said State Board of Education member David Bradley, R-Beaumont.
Bradley said he would be the "first to sound the alarm" if there were anything to be alarmed about. But the board has not received substantive complaints from parents of the 16,000 children that attend any of the 33 Harmony campuses across the state, he said.
"The only thing these guys are guilty of are high scores and being Turkish," Bradley said.
(from Austin-American Statesman)

Love the way the article soft-pedals the Texas Eagle Forum. They are a hate group, and should be rightly labeled as such. I have yet to hear of anything they support that isn't related in some fashion to the stupid people observation I made in the last post.

So, not content to simply make themselves look like idiots, they want to incur unnecessary costs on the cash strapped school system, and the even more cash starved charter schools.

House General Investigating Committee Chairman Chuck Hopson, R-Jacksonville, said his committee has started a preliminary look-see into Harmony “and all the other charter school operators in the state.

“It’s nothing criminal. We just want to see whether they are spending our (state) money wisely,” he said. “There have been some concerns about (Harmony) building schools without competitive bidding, and about other issues, but we are going to looking at every one of the charters.”
(from Austin-American Statesman)

Harmony schools are on record in that article as "welcoming the investigation" but I can't imagine a group in their position daring to even suggest that the waste of time and money involved in investigating superior schools (for any other reason than to determine and duplicate their superior tactics) might not be welcome. Jack-booted fear mongers tend to not react well when their authority is questioned...

The Root of All Anti-Evolutionism

2011-07-22T13:06:00.008-05:00

The title and this clip are from an article I had up on a Firefox tab for awhile now. the page format is ridiculously hard to read, but here's the gist;

...for me the primary issue is literalism, the secondary issue is education. You take a stupid person and force them through college and they’ll buy into the mainstream system instead of dumb countercultures. You allow a smart person to remain outside of the system and even with their own native intelligence don’t expect them not to deviate into weird idea-space. This is obvious insofar as Isaac Newton was certainly smarter than anyone reading this weblog, but he was wrong when it came to all sorts of scientific questions and you are correct, because the system of science upon which we rely upon today maps more closely onto reality as it is than it did in ~1700. Isaac Newton may have been a Creationist in 1700, but if he was reborn today he would almost certainly not be, because most smart people put more credence in the cultural wisdom of the smart than that of the stupid.

Also, it looks like Creationists have attained such critical mass among movement conservatives that the political and the theological are hard to disentangle. There are many smart and well educated conservatives who are Creationist, because literalism has become common enough that the peer-group norms have shifted.

From Discover Magazine

Several graphs in the article quantify data from the Religious Landscape Survey which show that it's not religious people who reject evolution.

...it really is stupid people.

So it should come as no surprise that the SBOE is going to open up the question of teaching evolution in science classes, once again. Texas government suffers under a larger than average share if ignorance, idiocy and stupidity. This has been true (apparently) since Sam Houston left office with the statement "I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her." after Texas had voted to secede from the union. I had hopes that we had reversed this trend in recent years, but the sitting head of the SBOE is determined to continue it.

Cargill was elected to the board in 2004 and is up for re-election in 2012. Her tenure is already off to a rocky start with some of her fellow Republicans after her comments earlier this month that the board has only six "true" conservative Christians. There are 11 Republicans on the board.

"Right now, there are six true conservative Christians on the board, so we have to fight for two votes. In previous years, we had to fight for one vote to get a majority," Cargill said during a July 7 meeting of the conservative group Texas Eagle Forum.
From The Huffington Post

Her measure of True Conservative Christian? Young Earth Creationists. Stupid people.

Thankfully they have less than a majority of stupid people in the SBOE, and it appears that more level heads did prevail, this time.

Today the State Board of Education voted to adopt the Texas education commissioner’s recommended list of science instructional materials. Special interest groups and activists off the state board failed in their efforts to force publishers to change their instructional materials to include arguments against evolutionary science. In addition, the board voted unanimously to reject the adoption of instructional materials from a New Mexico-based vendor that promoted “intelligent design”/creationism.

From TFN Insider

But, as the post goes on to note, next year brings a review of the health standards for education (can you say "abstinance only"? I knew that you could) in Texas, so don't expect this fight to end anytime soon.

Perry's Religious Road to the White House?

2011-07-14T09:35:00.008-05:00

Before the rest of ya'll learned to despise the man who served as the 43rd President of the U.S. (not to be mistaken with his father, a man of the same name) George W. Bush was a lauded Governor of Texas. I didn't have much of an opinion of him, one way or the other. I'm not into sports, so W's ownership of the Texas Rangers meant little to me, and that single fact (combined with his father's having been President) seemed to gain him the governorship.

I thought Ann Richards a better governor at the time, although his wife was visible doing good things for education in Texas. I'm not sure what he did to be lauded as governor. I never saw him do much more than make feel good speeches and cut ribbons (kissed a few babies, too) There were rumors of his drinking and whatever use even then, but he seemed to be pretty harmless in the scheme of things (little did we know) willing to be the figurehead that is the sole job of a Texas governor.

His Lt. Governor was a little-known climber by the name of Rick Perry; a literal political chameleon who changed party to Republican when he saw that it would give him an 'in' as Governor of Texas when his predecessor moved up to the White House. Not only did he change parties but he became a devout, embracing religious right causes calculated to win favor amongst his supporters; a man that has wielded religion as a cudgel at every opportunity, to the detriment of the state. Instead of being the figurehead that governors are relegated to by the Texas constitution, He's subverted the office by orchestrating the creation of a tollway commission which he controls, a foreign run for profit company that charges Texans to drive on roads that they pay to build with their own taxes.

I could go on painting this picture, but you probably get my point already. As much disdain as I have for W; I'll take a coke-sniffing, drunken buffoon of a governor over an actual crook and hypocrite any day of the week.

So it should come as no surprise that the same Rick Perry that changed parties in order to secure the governorship, and that has found religion useful in holding the governor's office in Texas for longer than any other governor in history, is intending to use religion as his vehicle to run for the White House.

From a TFN insider blog article;

New reports of closed-door meetings and conference calls indicate that religious-right kingmakers are coming together in support of a presidential bid by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. One of those closed-door confabs occurred two weeks ago, when Gov. Perry spoke before a virtual “who’s who” of religious-right leaders gathered in the North Texas city of Euless (just outside Dallas), EthicsDaily.com reports.

Given that he's consistently used religion to gain political favor during his several terms as governor, it should be no surprise to Texans that their governor is planning to use religion to attempt to gain the White house. The next step on this road appears to be a prayer meeting scheduled for August 6th (TFN has an open letter you can sign on to if you want to stand in opposition to this event) The no-holds-barred blurb for the event runs like this;

We believe that America is in a state of crisis. Not just politically, financially or morally, but because we are a nation that has not honored God in our successes or humbly called on Him in our struggles.

According to the Bible, the answer to a nation in such crisis is to gather in humility and repentance and ask God to intervene. The Response will be a historic gathering of people from across the nation to pray and fast for America.

Of course, when you rent a stadium, and plan on filling it with the devout on the pretense of praying for the future of America (that future America being lead by one President Rick Perry, no doubt) calling your event a prayer meeting sounds like pious bullshit.

What Governor Good Hair has failed to take into account is that there are laws against using religion this way in the US (one might be forgiven for not knowing this, considering how often religion is misused in this fashion) and has been sued over his event's blatant mixing of church & state;

The federal lawsuit seeks to declare Perry’s participation in the prayer rally and his proclamation unconstitutional, to enjoin his further involvement, and to order corrective action. FFRF seeks to stop further publication of the proclamation, to declare the use of the official state seal of Texas unconstitutional, to order the governor to withdraw permission for the AFA to use his written and videotaped promotions (“Gov. Perry’s Invitation Video”) and radio recordings at their website, to remove links from the governor’s website, as well as enjoining Perry from issuing and disseminating further Day of Prayer proclamations or designations.

(from the FFRF press release)

Here's hoping they have better luck with this one than they did with the National Day of Prayer lawsuit. Thankfully it won't be up to the elected (and resultantly biased) courts of Texas. This is a federal issue, it will go to federal court. Yes, I imagine he'll make hay over being told he can't use religion to win the White House. Whatever it takes to shoot this pretender down, I'm all for.

The case has been dismissed;

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s lawsuit challenging Texas Gov. Rick Perry's sponsorship of an Aug. 6 prayer event at Reliant Stadium in Houston was dismissed July 28 by U.S. District Judge Gray Miller, who ruled that the plaintiffs lack standing.

FFRF and five of its Houston members sued to block Perry from continued endorsement of the Christian event titled “The Response.” Miller (appointed in 2006 by President Bush) declined to grant a restraining order against the governor and dismissed the suit, saying that the plaintiffs had not been coerced into attending the rally. The judge did not address the merits of the case.

FFRF plans to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals or to reconfigure the case so that it may be heard again. FFRF maintains that coercion into a religious practice is not required in order to bring suit under the Establishment Clause.

“Government endorsement of one religious view that excludes other religions and nonbelievers is enough,” said Dan Barker, FFRF co-president.

Suits brought against the government are routinely dismissed on standing these days. It has become nearly impossible to even bring a suit against the government and not have it dismissed on standing, much less win a case against the government.

...Which is why they are planning a protest the day of the event at Reliant Stadium, since Gov. Good Hair is still making noises like he's planning on attending as the governor, not a private citizen.

The future of Power Generation

2011-07-06T09:49:00.003-05:00

Reposted here for information purposes only (upping the reference links. You are welcome) I posted this to a zombie thread earlier today, only discovering afterwards that the subject of the thread had be subverted in favor of brain ingestion...

...But this subject is near and dear to my heart. So having looked up these references, I felt it to be a true waste not to post them somewhere they might get noticed. Still looking for that place...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-solar.html

"Chemical engineers are now able to take these new chemicals, like nanomaterials, and we're trying to create the technologies that can meet the global challenge of, say, energy sustainability. We're taking chemistry, we're inventing new ways to actually make materials that can't be made any other way," he continues.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), that's what Korgel and his team are doing to create solar cells that are light, flexible, efficient and--often the biggest obstacle--affordable.

"It's challenging to get high efficiencies of conversion. For example, the basic single junction solar cell is fundamentally limited to an efficiency of 30 percent. So, if you made a perfect solar cell, the highest efficiency would be 30 percent," explains Korgel at his Austin lab.

Currently, manufacturing cells with anything near that level of efficiency requires high heat, a vacuum and is very expensive. Korgel's approach, using nanotechnology, is completely different.

"What we're doing right now in my research group is making nanocrystals. We're focused on 'CIGS'--copper, indium, gallium, selenide--and we make small particles of this inorganic material that we can disperse in a solvent, creating an ink or paint," he says.

...or perhaps...

http://inhabitat.com/oregon-wave-power/

America is getting its very first wave power farm! Ocean Power Technologies, a New Jersey-based firm, is currently installing giant buoys off the coast of Reedsport, Oregon. Once all ten buoys are in place, developers hope to use them to harness the energy of wave motion and generate power for hundreds of area homes.

Each buoy will measure about 150 feet tall by 40 feet wide and weigh in at about 200 tons. A float on each craft rises and falls with the rolling of the waves, driving an attached plunger’s up-and-down movement. A hydraulic pump then converts that movement into a spinning motion, which drives an electric generator. The electricity produced by the generator moves from sea to land via submerged cables. Right now, developers are finishing up construction on the first buoy, and it will take about 60 million big ones to finish up all ten. Once the entire system is in place, about 400 homes will derive their power from Oregon’s coastal waters.

“wind power”, electricity from waves, energy from waves, Ocean Power Technologies, Portugal wave farm, Reedsport, wave power, wave power in Oregon

Construction of the first buoy is an encouraging development, but the system still has some challenges to overcome. For one, wave power currently costs about six times that of wind power (although once the technology is optimized it should see comparable prices, especially because waves are more predictable than wind or solar power). Secondly, keeping the buoys in place and free from damages caused by big waves can be tricky. And so far, wave power’s history doesn’t paint the most promising picture: The world’s first commercial wind farm opened in 2008 in Portugal, but power production was suspended due to financial difficulties. Moreover, two years ago, a Canadian-produced wave power device sank off Oregon’s coast.

Still, if engineers can master the art of cost-effective wind power, it would be a huge boon for the renewables field. Waves are both free and predictable, so harnessing them to generate electricity would be great. Other wind farm projects are currently underway in countries like Spain, Scotland, Western Australia and England. If all goes according to plan, Oregon’s wind farm will see completion by 2012.

....my personal favorite...

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/04/18/spa ... d-solaren/

Now PG&E in California, is planning to take their ability to tap renewable energy to a whole new level: solar power in space.“Solaren says it plans to generate the power using solar panels in earth orbit, then convert it to radio frequency energy for transmission to a receiving station in Fresno County. From there, the energy will be converted to electricity and fed into PG&E’s power grid.” ~ Next100.com

Solaren hopes to begin launching before 2016. The satellites will deploy the solar panels so they dock automatically together in orbit, resulting in an orbital power plant weighing roughly 25 tons if back here on Earth.

The advantages of space solar power include:

* energy that can be harnessed at all times, even at night or when it’s cloudy.
* baseload power delivery that makes efficient electricity possible for meeting customer demand.
* an underlying technology that is mature since it is based on communications satellite technology.

Before all this happens however, PG&E needs approval from the California State Legislature, through the California Public Utilities Commission for this Solaren Space Based Energy Contract. Currently, Solaren is preparing to launch space rockets containing the solar panels and they have been working with United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Company) on such launches.Solaren Corporation, is a start-up company nearly a decade old based in southern California that:

* consists of a number of aerospace engineers.
* has headquarters located in Manhattan Beach and Los Angeles County, California.
* expects to launch four or five heavy-lift rockets containing the solar panels.

A competitor of Solaren is a company called Space Energy formed to harness solar energy from space using similar techniques. Solar energy from space has never been captured commercially, mostly because the cost was always considered too high. Daniel Kammen, professor in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Guardian: “The ground rules are looking kind of promising … it is doable. Whether it is doable at a reasonable cost, we just don’t know.” ~Telegraph.co.uk

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12uxE)

To Know the Truth

2011-05-20T04:20:00.007-05:00

Woke up from a nightmare a few minutes ago. In my nightmare, something was discovered in the desert that was said to answer the question "is there a god?" to look at this thing causes instant death, but in the moment of death it is said that you will know the answer to this question.

Well respected leaders of various factions go to see this thing, only to die (pick your favorite names out of a hat in descending order) with the last words "it's true" on their lips. Both groups, skeptics and believers alike, claiming that this thing confirms their belief. That there isn't a god. That there is a god.

Do you go look? People are dying by the thousands on the belief that this thing answers the question. Does it matter?

This is what happens when you fall asleep watching Dylan Ratigan and Michael Shermer (The Believing Brain) discussing the latest doomsday predictions on MSNBC. To me, this is the essence of Heisenberg, and an example of Schrodinger. No, of course the world's not going to end. But because you can't know what will happen tomorrow until it becomes today, people will line up based on their tendency to believe either X or Y position on the subject of god.

I just don't understand why it matters enough to spend money on the subject. If the world ends tomorrow, will god care that you gave money to the right organizations? Really? Of all of this, I find that assertion hardest to believe. This is bad news for the religious organizations hoping to part me from my money, when it comes to the subject of the (latest) predictions of doomsday.

When I woke up and watched the rest of the show, only to see Willie Geist pitching his book Loaded, I was reassured by the sarcasm that all was indeed right with the world.

(yawn) I think I can sleep again now...

Got a comment from a poster over at dancarlin.com suggesting that this sounded like a Twilight Zone episode; how would I complete it? Thinking I might engage in a creative writing experiment, and see how many endings could be spawned, I wrote this paragraph;

You choose to make the trek, to take the hajj. After weeks of travel, you find yourself in the remote location that your guide tells you the object can be found in (he smirks when you pay him his final fee. Why is that?) traveling the final few feet to the location seems to take as long as the journey up to this point has taken. In front of you is a mound of stinking corpses which conceals the mystical object; a tribute to the common man's need. Apparently you must climb the pile. A final indignity to be suffered before gaining the knowledge you seek.

Apparently there aren't any creative writing types on the Dan Carlin boards; or maybe they just don't hang out on a thread titled Atheism is not a Belief System. In any case, I gave it a week or so, then completed the story in the fashion that came to me in the shower a few days after having the dream;

You climb the stinking pile of bodies. As you step on the face of what was once probably an attractive woman; someones cherished child, perhaps a loving wife and mother, before she became just anther corpse in a pile of tribute, you realize that you are mere inches from the top. Mere inches from the cherished knowledge, the answer to that most important of questions, is there a god?

For one last instant you pause. Even in the reeking atmosphere it feels so good to breath, to feel the pulse in your veins. But the knowledge. The knowledge will be worth the sacrifice. The task must be completed.

You struggle the last disgusting few inches, and your head crests the top of the pile. Suddenly you realize that the object is before you. Your first thought is "that's it?" but the thought is erased by the agony of your heart convulsing in your chest. The pain is unbearable and you release your grisly handhold in the hair of the last person to gaze upon the object, but this causes you to loose your footing and you topple back down to the bottom of the pile.

The thought occurs to you that you are dying, and you still don't have your answer. You rage at the injustice of it all, to come so far only to be robbed of the promise. The whispers all said that the answer would be given. Where was your answer. But your rage is impotent, the pain is flowing out of your body, and you vision begins to cloud.

Laying there gazing into the dimming distance, you see a figure approaching you. Could it be?

As the figure begins to form from the haze, you notice that it is crowned with horns, and is shaped as a satyr, but reddish in color. The demon chuckles softly to itself and speaks. "You were a fool to sacrifice the greatest gift in the universe, the gift of life, for such fleeting knowledge. Little good will it do you now" He reaches down for you.

Your last breath comes out as a whisper. "it's true"

The End of Liberty Dollars?

2011-03-27T18:04:00.009-05:00

Years ago, I set up a Google alert for "Liberty Dollar" (and NORFED. Norfed was the name of the company that started Liberty Dollar Silver) because I wanted to keep track of what was being said about the currency in the mainstream media. Not a lot, until recently.

A week ago today, I got a note from Bernard Von Nothaus, founder of the Liberty Dollar, stating that he had been convicted of various crimes relating to the creation and running of the silver barter currency, and was appealing the conviction.

Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters,

I sincerely regret to inform you that I was found guilty on all four counts regarding the Liberty Dollar in less than an hour on Friday, March 18. The only explanation is that a strong, anti-liberty person took control of a weak-willed jury and pushed the verdict through in record time in spite of well worded Jury Instructions. A government forfeiture hearing immediately followed the conviction. PLEASE NOTE: Your property is at risk so please continue to read these emails and take action so the government does not steal your property. An appeal is planned but that will take years. More news to follow. An unofficial, but most interesting account of the trial is available via Heather's blog at:
http://www.liberty4free.com/Liberty%20D ... 0Trial.htm
God help you and our country as American descends into a hellish hyperinflationary future without the benefits of the Liberty Dollar.
I am very sorry our efforts to return America to value failed.

Thank you so much for your support.

Bernard von NotHaus
Monetary Architect

Ever since then I've gotten a slew of articles. Got notice for one in Mother Jones referring to Bernard as a Pot Priest. I think that was the funniest I've seen. The scariest I've seen was this one.

U.S. Attorney calls currency minting 'terrorism'

Here's a novel of an expansion of the federal government's use of the word "terrorism," from the triumphant statement of a North Carolina U.S. Attorney, Anne Tompkins, who just won a conviction against a man who minted his own currency:
Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict.

“While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.
The convict, Bernard Von NotHaus, who runs the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code, and now faces 15 years in prison.

Minting barterable rounds, rather than commemorative rounds, is a terrorist act? Oh really? What do you call a US currency that contravenes all US law relating to the value of our currency? If you doubt the veracity of this claim, simply reference the wiki on the subject. The constitution specifies that "gold and silver" are "legal tender". Where is the amendment changing this law? How is bartering with gold and silver not in the realm of constitutional behavior, but using a visa card funded with digital federal money based on nothing is Constitutional?

I get it, the guys with guns say it's so, so it is. It's a lot like tax law. Still, I'd really like an explanation beyond the "because I said so" that bad parents offer up as an excuse to their children.

I stopped participating in the LD community when the Feds declared the practice illegal. I traded a good number of rounds for goods and services over the years prior to that. Any merchant that came to me and wanted deposit-able federal dollars (the banks refused to take gold and silver and insisted on fake money. Riddle me that one) I gladly traded them paper for silver. To this day, I search my change for the increasingly rare pre-80's piece of federal money that has silver content in it, so that I can set it aside to get its real value assayed. I'd still take real silver and gold over fake paper, anyday.

...and I wonder at governments that accuse honest businessmen of fraud, while conducting a fraud on their own.

If you had Liberty Dollars in the warehouse, your property is about to be forfeited. Here's the skinny;

URGENT ACTION: Bad News for your Property!

Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the 100s of replies. The two most common words re my conviction were "sorry" and "sad." I wholeheartedly agree and am sorry I can't reply to every email. URGENT we have no time to lose to protect your property from gov theft!

Please do NOT let the government steal your property!!!

I have just learned that the government will aggressively defend against any claims once the judge decides on April 4th whether or not the property in whole or in part is subject to forfeiture. This means that the government may steal your property i.e. the silver that backs the paper or digital Liberty Dollar Warehouse Receipts 'without just compensation' i.e. fair market value! Please stand up for your Fifth Amendment!

URGENT ACTION IS REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY!!!

Unless you are identified as an "interested party" on the official record prior to the April 4th Forfeiture Hearing on Monday morning, you may not have standing with the court to redeem your Liberty Dollar warehouse receipts or the gov process may be so encumbered that the government prevails and steals your property.

You do not have to identify the total value of your paper or digital Warehouse Receipts that you are holding to qualify as an "Interested Party." So, even if you are holding just one $1 Liberty Dollar silver certificate, you are qualified as an "Interested Party" and encouraged to register - IMMEDIATELY.

Registering is easy, fast and free: Simply email the statement below to Assistant US Attorney Thomas R. Ascik <thomas.ascik@usdoj.gov>, the government attorney who is trying to steal your property. And send a CC to me <Bernard@LibertyDollar.org> and I will send all the emails to the attorney who will represent you after you sign an attorney/client agreement. Your CC to me is very important! Please do NOT forget to CC me so you will be on the list to have your property or its fair market value returned to you.

EMAIL THE STATEMENT BELOW to Thomas Ascik with a CC to me. Be sure to include your name and address:

I hereby certify that I am the bearer of Liberty Dollar warehouse receipt(s) and an interested party in any forfeiture action regarding my property. I demand the return of my property or its fair market value in a timely manner and to be informed with sufficient time to reply to any and all actions until my property is returned.
INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS

Please note that you will need to sign an attorney/client agreement and agree to pay a contingency fee prior to any legal services. NO FEE is required at this time.

But that may not be enough! If you are holding a serious amount of paper or digital Warehouse Receipts, I strongly encourage you to attend this Forfeiture Hearing on April 4, 2011 at the Federal Courthouse, 200 W Broad St. in Statesville, NC. I know the time is short, the distance is great and the cost is dear; but that is the best suggestion I can make at this time for anyone with a serious amount of paper or digital Warehouse Receipts. If you do appear, you will be called as a witness and officially recognized as an interested party in the court record.
NOTICE: There is a small chance that the Hearing may be continued (postponed) so please email me for the latest info for the Hearing.

Please do NOT let the government steal your property!! At the very least, email Thomas Ascik and send a CC to me to protect your silver. Stand up for your property and continue to be a part of the Liberty Dollar effort by demanding the gov return your silver or its fair market value.

Now Anybody can be a "Unique Terrorist" Please read this open letter to America calling for your cry out about my conviction.

Click HERE for a list of recent articles regarding the BVNH conviction.
Please get your article published and contribute to this public outcry or encourage someone to do so.

The US government has gone after all the alternate currencies that I ever heard of, and they've been successful in shutting them all down. The only remaining e-Metal investment firm that I know of is Goldmoney.com, and they wisely got themselves associated with British banking interests as soon they saw that the US government was taking an interest in e-Metal alternative currencies.

Liberty Dollars isn't the only group working out asset return strategies with the government. e-Gold is also in that process; a process that is now entering it's third year. So don't hold your breath on getting your money back, let alone soon.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/e-gold-founder.html
http://blog.e-gold.com/2008/07/a-new-beginning.html
http://mashable.com/2008/07/21/e-gold/
http://e-gold-exchange-news.blogspot.com/

Fascist Form Letters Rule the Day

2011-03-09T19:25:00.006-06:00

Posted my thoughts on Kay Bailey Hutchinson's form letter endorsement of federalizing Texas law enforcement here. At that time I thought John Cornyn (Texas' other Senator) was savvy enough to understand not to send form letters endorsing legislation, to people who are on file as being opposed to the same legislation. Apparently I'm mistaken.

Campaign for Liberty, Downsize DC and EFFector all sent messages out requesting that we contact our representatives and express our desire that the PATRIOT ACT provisions be allowed to sunset, about the middle of February. I dutifully sent of a few lines of text that day;

Repeal the Patriot Act. Do NOT renew any of its provisions. Do not follow the House in this. Refuse to extend the Patriot act. This is the 'patriotic' thing to do...

Not my best writing, but I thought it was pretty clear my thoughts on the subject. Today, I get this message in the mail;

Dear Mr. Steele:

Thank you for your recent letter regarding efforts to strengthen our nation’s ability to investigate and prosecute terrorism while protecting our constitutional liberties. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important matter.

Recent events across the country, including in our home state of Texas, remind us of the real threat terrorists pose to our national security. The USA PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107—56) was signed into law on October 26, 2001, and contained specific provisions that enable the United States to carry out the War on Terror. This legislation broadened the authority of law enforcement officials to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications and permitted them to share grand jury and wiretap information with intelligence, defense, national security, and immigration officials. Additionally, the USA PATRIOT Act enhanced border security by increasing the number of immigration inspectors, Border Patrol agents, and Customs Service personnel and authorized funds to purchase equipment that improves border security technology.

During the 111th Congress, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division David Kris testified in support of renewing critical provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act. Renewing this important legislation ensures that law enforcement officials have the resources necessary to complete their goals and increases our nation’s security without compromising our civil liberties. As you may know, three key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act were set to expire on February 28, 2011, and on February 15, 2011, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to pass the FISA Sunsets Extension Act (H.R. 514) and reauthorize these critical intelligence tools for three months.

I appreciate having the opportunity to represent the interests of Texans in the United States Senate. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator

517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-2934
Fax: (202) 228-2856
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov

Please sign up for my monthly newsletter at http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/newsletter.

Well, at least his secretary knew how to do a mail merge. Still, I would have appreciated some feigned disappointment at being unable to comply with my request. Some heartfelt commiseration? But braggadocio about extending provisions of legislation they didn't even read before they passed? Provisions which have been shown to have been abused, repeatedly, by the organizations entrusted with the enhanced powers?

Loved the invite at the end. Did you know, if you mail Senator Cornyn you get added to his list automatically? Going to start reporting him as a spammer shortly.

Who exactly do these people represent? It certainly isn't me.

Blizzard Customer Survey? Oh, Yeah. I Have Feedback...

2011-02-25T11:54:00.008-06:00

So I was selected to fill out a survey after the little 'problem' yesterday. The problem that lead to my cancellation of my World of Warcraft subscription. It's going to be boring around the house for awhile, but I'll be damned if I'm giving any more money to a company that has so little regard for it's player base.

The Customer Service representative that gave me the e-mail address wowreportedpost@blizzard.com so that I could protest the temporary ban; I give him high marks. He did exactly what he should have done. The moderators that banned me, and the drones that attacked, though? They represent exactly what is wrong with the World of Warcraft community, and that community is doomed to cannibalistic failure unless it changes.

There are serious issues in the current version of the game. Effort/reward is far skewed towards the wasted effort side of the scale. Endgame play is confined and cramped, in a way that has never been present before in the game. Months of endless grinding is required to get the 5 faction reputations necessary to get a set of epic gear, unless you happen to be a member of a large guild. There is no acknowledgment of the casual player in the game. Casual play is a virtual impossibility once you hit endgame. I could go on, but I'm sure the average player knows what I'm talking about, and if you don't play you aren't going to care.

There are serious issues in the community as well. The high-handed nature of the actions of the moderators in my case is a prime example of the basic problems in the community. In fact, there really isn't a community, in the natural sense of people working in concert for a goal. There are just guards and inmates. The guards look for examples to make to keep the other inmates in line. The inmates conspire to get away with behaviors that are officially banned; by going outside the game to communicate, to exchange gold, etc.

I was limited to 1024 characters for my response in the Customer survey. This is what I wrote;

Your prison guards (forum moderators) decided I didn't need to be playing Blizzard games anymore by permanently banning me from the forums. None of my posts warranted censure for 72 hours, much less permanent banning. Because they are prison guards, and I questioned their authority, they exercised it. But there are other games out there. I will be playing them instead.

I offered sincere suggestions for improving gameplay on the forum, and I was routinely attacked by drones in the forums for daring to be unhappy with their game. But I'm not the only one, and I don't participate in activities that don't bring me joy. If Blizzard will not change Cataclysm, if they are not interested in player feedback (and on the forums, they are not. If they were, I would still be there) then I have to go elsewhere to find entertainment, because I'm not going to just endure the monotony.

Then I realized I would run out of space. So here I am. I have agitated in the forums, repeatedly, for real community policing tools. The ability for players in the game to isolate the bad players from the good ones, to allow natural behavior patterns to reinforce good behavior and punish bad. To get rid of the guards, in essence.

But it goes beyond that, and I think I'm beginning to understand why I'm dissatisfied in World of Warcraft these days. I shouldn't have to go where they tell me to go, and do what the developers want. They, like their moderator stooges, have acted in a high-handed fashion, artificially limiting endgame play, and manipulating access to areas of the game that they don't want us to spend time in. When players balked at going into Cataclysm dungeons, they took away Dungeon Finder access to content that wasn't part of Cataclysm. Was that in the patch notes? No, it wasn't. But they did it. When players suggest, over and over, that they want easier access to older parts of the game...

They end up banned, like me.

Well, they can erase me from their forums, but I know the truth; and lucky for me, I never trust moderators. Most of my arguments were written here before being copied to their forums. So if you'll allow a moments crudity, let me just say; DELETE THIS, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Also, I pulled this image from the Google cache. Like most images, it's worth a thousand words.

Thank you to the players that put this ranking on the thread. I'd be proud to raid with you any time.

...if I'm still playing.

Blizzard No Longer Interested in Complaints

2011-02-24T13:33:00.005-06:00

In the continuing saga of my issues with Cataclysm, we hit a new chapter. I tend to spend a lot more time on the forums now, or I did until recently. I find myself flying around Azeroth, boating around Azeroth a lot more of late; and when I'm trapped on a taxibird or a boat, essentially unable to do anything in game other than watch the scenery go by (and contrary to forum opinion, transit times from one area to another can be upwards of 30 mins) I tab out of the game and surf the forums for responses on my various threads, or drop hints on other players threads concerning community policing tools, the artificial scarcity of materials for the various professions, the lack of rewards for legitimate time spent, etc. Whatever seems appropriate for the discussion at hand.

Started a new thread a few days back. I have been trying to create a new 'main' character to play, I'm going to pick one of about three that I'm grooming. All of them have very low fishing skills, and while many players may not think this is a problem, or simply suggest that I just get to grinding on fishing...

[Grinding is the term used to describe the monotonous effort required to achieve particular goals in an MMO. Rather than introduce a level of difficulty to play, most games simply require that a certain action be taken several times. It's gotten rather ridiculous of late, some of the professions now require that you perform certain actions over a hundred times, perhaps several thousand times, in order to achieve a single goal. This introduction of monotony into the game keeps some players (I'm one) from attempting certain parts of the game, thereby making the reward look more attractive and desirable to the rest of the players. While I do love my Wintersaber mount, I would not recommend the average player embark on the month-long quest grind that (used to be) required to get the mount. Oh, it's cool. Even I don't think it's that cool.]

...the idea struck me that if I could just get quickly to the old hubs in the previous expansions of the game (these are the cities of Shattrath and Dalaran) I could use the daily fishing quests still present at the old 'endgame' hubs to speed up the 'grind' of leveling fishing, and add some short-term goals to what could turn into a month long attempt to level fishing.

This idea keyed into the storyline ideas that I had come up with previously. Re-route the now inexplicable portal to Blasted Lands from the major cities, to the Caverns of Time and involve the time tasked Bronze Dragonflight in the efforts of the bypassed game expansions, so as to give the story some sort of reason to go where it has to go if you are leveling a new character.

So I started a new thread titled "Dailies in Dalaran and Shattrath" and proposed just that, that a portal be created that lead from the new hubs to the old game hubs, so that players could go quickly from new to old for the purposes of leveling or questing. I was immediately set upon by Blizzard drones on the forum. Apparently using the word 'portal' in a thread tips over the hornets nest, and no amount of elaboration will ever cut through their noise.

"Blizzard is not going to put the portals back in Shattrath & Dalaran"

Great. Don't want them back, they didn't serve the purpose that I'm suggesting anyway. After about seven ridiculous pages of being flamed (more on that in a bit) I hit upon the idea that hearthstones were the answer, and my final post to the thread made the suggestion that the Bronzes give players a "Time Displacement Stone" at level 58 for Shattrath, and at level 68 for Dalaran. Give the stones a 12 hour cooldown, so that you can't just shuttle back and forth between the two areas, but could go there once a day to do dailies (there are plenty of other items in the game that have 12 hour cooldowns, it's hardly a unique idea) or to get your hearth set there or whatever. Any player over 68 could just go through the portal to the Caverns of Time and get the stones. Problem solved. No portals to Shattrath or Dalaran, but access provided that doesn't take 20 mins in game to complete.

So, why is this not the end of the story? This is the fun part. The thread was deleted, and my account was banned for 72 hours. Why, you might well ask? Obscenity. That's right, obscenity.

One of my posts, which I wrote when I was responding the many, many flames in the thread, included my statement that I...

well, I'll just post the notice.

Origination

Forums / Comments

Ban Type: Obscene Language

Expires: Saturday, February 26, 2011 11:16:34 PM UTC (in 2 days, 3 hours)

Ban Reason: Suspended from the World of Warcraft forums for a 72 hour period for posting / masking obscene, vulgar or inappropriate language on the forums.

(Current) - Feb 21, 2011 7:44:18 PM------------

Not having portals is kind of a downer but it doesn't really effect my play. My Death Knight and Priest, both leveled from 1(55) to 85 after the portals went away, just never went to Shatt or Dal and remain parked in SW at all times. On the flip side my Hunter is perma parked in Dal, because I don't feel like moving her, and I never see more than five or six other players there when I log into here. Taking portals away has just turned those areas into ghost towns.However I don't see the portals coming back anytime soon so I suggest you do what everyone else does at the point and pretend those places don't exist.

No, I'm going to @#*#!. @#*#! constantly, apparently.

The term in question is bitch. Not "you bitch", which could be construed obscenely, since it calls into question the sexual practices of the person so labeled, but rather "to bitch" as in "Strongly Complain". Yes, dear reader. Blizzard doesn't want to hear your complaints. They are obscene, and they will get you removed from the forums.

The wife and I had a good giggle the other day. In-game chat is governed by the same ridiculous adult language filter that the forums are governed by. I have turned it off several times, but the default setting is on, and it gets reset every time there is a patch. So I've just left it on for awhile now. One of her clients had been phished and had lost access to her email account, which was being used as part of a 419 scam (she was telling me because I had gotten an email from this person, and I knew she wasn't trapped overseas) She told me that it was a 419 scam because the IP address pointed to @#$^!ia. That's Nigeria for the slow reader. Country names are obscene, apparently. We laughed and chatted back and forth, testing variations on a theme. Couldn't be stingy, as in @#$$^!dly. You could say black in spanish (Negra. Never mind that the slang term that is considered obscene is a bastardization of the term the Spanish sailors attached to the slaves they were transporting, which was a description of skin color) so at least you can name colors in the game, if you speak Spanish. Can't see any words that contain the 4 letter combination for that most favorite of American curses. The French love it too (Excrement! Just doesn't have the same ring to it) I wonder if they have weird problems trying to block the word merde from appearing? And cheese and rice don't you dare misspell continuous. That would be catastrophic! Any number of innocuous words or partial words are blocked by this annoying filter system. And some words, like damn, are left completely unfiltered (apparently calling for god to smite your enemies isn't a obscenity any more) which probably has more to do with the combination of letters and their appearance in other words in the language than any thing else.

So, when the word bitch was filtered out, I went back to check the text and edited it, but decided that bitch was the appropriate word for the kind of complaint I wanted to lodge, and that people were just going to have to figure out that the 5 letter symbolism represented the word bitch, and that represented a complaint.

...and now I'm banned for complaining. So watch yourselves, Blizzard subscribers. You'd better be happy in your grinding gameplay; if you are not, don't think of complaining. You most certainly should not bitch about it. Learn from my example, eh?

Permanently banned from the forums now. Prison guards are so predictable. They reviewed the 72 hour ban, and in light of this blog post, decided I was a trouble maker. Into permanent solitary I go.

Said it before, there are other games to play...

Senate 3-year PATRIOT extension thwarted

2011-02-15T18:41:00.002-06:00

...By Rand Paul.

Now the fight shifts to the U.S. Senate, where Rand Paul is prepared to lead the battle to defend the Bill of Rights.

Last night, the Senate tried to sneak through a 3-year extension under unanimous consent, but Senator Paul prevented this by standing up and objecting.

(from a C4L e-mail broadcast)

Let's see if he can prevail. Here's a link for DownsizeDC's campaign to repeal the PATRIOT act. Time to let your Senators know how much you want it gone...

https://secure.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/129

Murglesnout and the Philosophy of Game Design

2011-02-04T12:15:00.003-06:00

You might not have noticed, but I've had a few issues with the current release of World of Warcraft. I seem to be at odds with a good many players, and clearly I'm in disagreement with the deciding input on the design team. I actually think my issue with the designers can be simply summed up though.

Murglesnout. That's right, Murglesnout sums it all up.

What is Murglesnout? Murglesnout is the most common fishing drop in ocean water in Cataclysm. Fishing in ocean water is the only place to get Deepsea Sagefish, the reagent for the best healer food short of the ridiculously hard to get fish feast (which requires 10,000 catches, pool fishing only. 50 days to get, best guess, with a good guild fishing every day. Not too long, right?) in the current version of the game. The catch is that to get a good stack of sagefish, you also get two stacks of Murglesnout, which is vendor trash in the current game. Basically, two thirds of your time fishing is a complete waste of time (there is a recipe coming out with 4.0.6. Gives no buffs though. If you are leveling cooking, great. Useless otherwise) a philosophy in this version of the game that seems to carry across all facets of the game. Whether it's archeology creating vendor trash for 105 items (why can't these things be equip-able trinkets? There is a scarcity of trinkets in this game at all levels) just so you can get those 27 items worth working for, or dungeoning and world PvP, there is an expectation that players will return again and again to the game even though there is little return on time spent, and a serious level of frustration.

I'm actually beginning to find my stride with the new mechanics, and I even consider the changes to some classes as major improvements (sans druid changes. Druids have been nerfed, and there's just no other way to describe it. I don't even want to play mine anymore) but the time spent/reward earned factor is grossly out of balance in this game.

I'm spending more time writing than I do playing, again. That should be a sign all by itself.

Posted here on the forums. Posted it in General, they moved it to Professions.

Reading Comprehension, Anyone?

2011-01-20T22:16:00.006-06:00

So I started a thread over at the WoW forums with the title It's Not that Dungeons are Hard... (12 pages now. Yeah, I have no idea what I'm talking about) trying to respond to the developers and players wrongheaded assessment of the problems with the current incarnation of World of Warcraft. You'd think that the title would sort of give the thrust of the argument away; that I'm in fact saying that I like my games to be challenging.

But I've gotten at least 10 responses, variations on a theme. The theme being "if you want the game to be easier, go play a different game" (I think I'm safe in assuming that Blizzard does not endorse this suggestion, as a remedy to frustration playing their games) apparently everyone who has a complaint about this game is really a crappy player that just wants the game to be easier. What I'm betting though is I'm running across players that don't quest, or if they do, they have to have quest tips turned on; because people with that low a score on reading comprehension can't possibly follow written directions successfully. Let's hope they're never asked to empty a piss filled boot with directions written on the bottom...

This game is too easy. Here's an example. I miss when you had to train a weapon. If you'd never used a mace before, and suddenly found one you liked, you could be pounded to death by everyone else until you really learned how to use that weapon (I always thought that training dummies should have provided this experience, but...) I also miss when hunters had to actually stock ammo for their weapons, instead of magically having bullets and arrows available at all times. I miss when rogues had to brew their own poison, or when they had to earn the ability to use poison with a quest, or any number of a dozen or more simplifications that make the game easier now (flashy buttons that let you know which spell to cast being top of the list. No, actually, I like that change. But the wife doesn't) in Cataclysm than it EVER HAS BEEN.

Ah, those were the days.

It's Not that Dungeons are Hard...

2011-01-13T14:19:00.014-06:00

It looks like Blizzard's World of Warcraft developers are on the defensive. Apparently I'm not the only player that has problems with the new expansion of the game. Here's a few quotes from the latest blog entries over at the Battle.net WoW forums.

On the subject of Tol Barad;

[W]e want winning Tol Barad to be a challenge for the attacking faction... but we don't want it to be impossible. Taking Tol Barad should be tough -- but right now it’s a little bit too tough, and it’s something we’re actively working to balance. Earlier, we attempted to temporarily address the issue by offering a far better reward to the winning attackers: Honor Points awarded for successfully attacking were increased tenfold, but that was such a great incentive that it ultimately undermined the spirit of competition. Since then, the reward for winning as an attacker has been brought back down to a more reasonable amount.

I've played Tol Barad. More than once. Unless the defenders are AWOL, winning Tol Barad is a virtual impossibility. I don't care how much they minimize the difficulty, this battleground is not fun. It's a mental grind. I"m not even sure how it can be made to be fun. Perhaps some temporary defenses that could be erected to slow down the opposing faction, before they just run right in and take one of the three assets that you must possess simultaneously in order to win...? At least with Lake Wintergrasp there was a clear goal, a task that took some skill to achieve. This battleground is won or lost on attrition alone. When Alterac Valley battleground goes this way (when both teams fail to kill the opposition's leader, and instead must whittle down the 600 reinforcements) it is a grind as well.

Then there's this on the subject of dungeons, from the post Wow, Dungeons are Hard!;

The bottom line is that we want Heroics and raids to be challenging, and that is particularly true now while the content is new and characters are still collecting gear. They’re only going to get easier from here on out. We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. And by extension, we want you to celebrate when you win instead of it being a foregone conclusion.

On the other hand, we don't want you to stumble your way to victory. We don't want you to be able to overwhelm bosses without noticing or caring what they’re doing. We don’t want healers to be able to make up for all of the mistakes on the part of the other players. While at the end of the day, dungeons may just be gussied up loot vending machines, we want you to do more than push a button to get the loot.

Ultimately, we don’t want to give undergeared or unorganized groups a near guaranteed chance of success, because then the content will feel absolutely trivial for players in appropriate gear who communicate, cooperate, and strategize.

We didn't like that the Heroic dungeons in Lich King and early Naxxramas had become zerg-fests. It made the rewards feel like they weren't earned. It made all rewards except the best-in-slot items feel transitory -- why enchant or gem an item when you don’t need the performance boost and you’ll quickly replace it anyway? Furthermore, it set the expectation that everyone would eventually earn all best-in-slot items rather than those being rare and treasured goals. It made class abilities feel less useful and interesting. Who needs that crowd-control or survivability talent when nothing is hurting you? Who needs a mana-conservation talent if you’re never going to run out of mana? Who needs a crit talent if your heals often overheal anyway?

Finally, the encounters, even the bosses, ended up having a sameness to them because you could ignore their mechanics. It didn't matter -- in fact, you didn't even notice -- if the dragon breathes or silences or drops a void zone. The fights all felt the same.

First off, it's not that the dungeons are hard, it's that they are too long. It's not that the dungeons are hard, it's that the rewards aren't great enough to make it worthwhile to run them, especially if you are healing.

There's a new philosophy afoot in the healing sphere of WoW called triage healing. While this isn't explicitly mentioned in the first few pages of the post, what triage means is that you let the DPS that does the least damage and takes the most healing.... die. That's it in a nutshell. There isn't enough mana to keep everyone alive so some DPS will die in almost any encounter. This is how it always has been in raid encounters. Most raiders understand the vagaries of healing priorities. But. Combine this with a PUG (pick up group) and DPS that never does anything but DPS dungeons, and you've got a potential of being kicked at every encounter that results in player deaths. Considering how much pressure there is on healers to start with (it is the most difficult job in a dungeon, you always have 5 potential targets to work on) combined with having to hear Healer fail! repeatedly, right before being kicked from a group, you might be able to understand why dungeon queues are nearly an hour long. So much for the Dungeon Finder and PUGs.

The reason the WotLK (Wrath of the Lich King) dungeons are boring and blend together is not so much that they were easy when we first started doing them; it's that Blizzard has set the standard for endgame play as a daily random heroic dungeon run and a daily random battleground victory. That's it. If you are gearing and interested in raiding, that is what you do. This is 2/3rd's of the WotLK endgame, which included the Argent Tournament dailies in addition to the two randoms. The Tol Barad dailies (probably intended to replace the Tournament dailies) are functionally not available for the faction that doesn't own Tol Barad, so can't be counted on.

After you've run the same 16 dungeons for two years, as an overgeared 80, things seem to be a bit bland in hindsight. Cataclysm though, is worse. Nine dungeons instead of 16, dungeons which must be run 2o time for each piece of gear (100 points per run /22oo points per piece) thats two runs for each dungeon per piece of gear, 17 potential slots, the possibility of no drops in any given dungeon being an upgrade for any armor currently equipped...

...Dungeons which are generally longer and significantly harder than the previous dungeons, with rewards that are not scaled up to meet the extra time/effort invested. 680 hours invested to gain enough points to get fully geared for raiding, and that's if the dungeons aren't complete failures, in which case you get nothing for your two hours.

I would mention professions as a gearing option, but that would just be silly. The professions are clearly included simply to give the professional some kind of buff to apply to point gained gear, because the gearing choices are laughable at best, and insulting at worst. There really aren't any other methods to acquire gear outside of random battleground and dungeon runs. Is it any wonder that the battleground queues are all quite short these days? Battlegrounds give points, even when you loose.

The casual player doesn't have a hope in hell of being able to meet the requirements for playing this game at endgame. I'm not sure why any of them should bother. Why were the heroic dungeons from the previous expansions not all updated to cataclysm levels? None of them serve any purpose anymore. With the addition of the dungeons from Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, at least there would be some potential variety and reward for reaching endgame. Professions that actually provide gearing options would be nice too, and would give the casual player the potential for getting gear without having to invest a significant portion of their lives.

I can already hear the QQ comments bubbling up, and that brings us to the last point I want to make in this post. That is the community, or rather, the general lack of community when it comes to realm wide chat channels and cross-realm PUGs. Everywhere you go in the Warcraft world there is a general lack of civility. Having honed my teeth in CompuServe chatrooms in the 90's, I'm not impressed with or threatened by bluster. Still, every complaint about the game on forums designed to air complaints is met with hostility. Every group encounter seems to be dominated by the emotionally crippled child that thinks that yelling about failures is going to solve some issue, or by grimfaced elitists that kick people at the slightest provocation (guilty as charged) because that's the only way to exert any control in the group. Strategize? I've had groups fall apart from simply having a question about a fight be asked. There's another wasted two hours. There is no effective tool in game to police the community, no way for the average player to flag other players for behavior that deserves demerits, no realistic method for letting Blizzard know of violations without taking the time (and generally getting kicked as AFK, Away From Keyboard, in the process) to fill out a form. Seriously, is it that hard to understand the need for basic community policing tools?

...Oh, and while your at it, how about a quest history?

I don't see myself playing this game in two years. I looked forward to the progression of WotLK, and while I just finished Christie Golden's book The Shattering and loved it (I also think that any player that doesn't read it is missing out on essential game lore) what I find myself wishing for when I log on is; to play that game, in that world in the book. Instead I find myself here, with 9 dungeons I dread, a server-wide battleground I have no hope of winning, and the resounding echos of healer fail in my ears as I watch the load screen deposit me back at my hearth point. I don't see myself putting up with that longer than the date when my current subscription expires.

Posted here on the forums.

Re-editing Huck Finn

2011-01-12T13:30:00.001-06:00

There's a new group out there offering a edited version of Huck Finn (one of the most censored book in history) that cleans up the N problem. All I have to say is, hands off my Twain got it?

This is the funniest clip from the Daily Show I've seen in years. I'll let Larry Wilmore elaborate...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Mark Twain Controversy

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

The Daily Show on Facebook

3/5th's of a person couldn't be mentioned either? Next thing you know they'll pretend we never had slaves at all.

Good Day, and Welcome to Day 12

2010-12-27T12:30:00.004-06:00

Every year about this time I contemplate doing a blog entry a day, in spoof of the 12 days of Christmas. And every year I remember I wanted to do it about halfway to New Years Day. I remembered it a little sooner this year, since we're on day 3, one day after the dual French hens and the day before 4 collie birds (blackbirds), the 3 French Toasts day...

...Right?

Decent animation. Not sure what I think of an animated show based on The Great White North. It apparently aired while I wasn't watching, somewhere in the great white north...

Christmas: Santa Claus, the Spirit of Giving

2010-12-24T12:15:00.005-06:00

Re-publishing this one from 2006. Brought a tear to me eye...

I celebrate the secularized solstice holiday referred to in the US as 'Christmas', which involves a jolly fat guy who delivers presents dressed in a red suit. We spend the holiday with family and friends, giving gifts and trying to brighten the 'Winter' (Winter in central Texas is a frame of mind more than anything else; it certainly doesn't have much to do with the weather) I also spend time reflecting on what the passing of this year means to me, and preparing to celebrate the New Year.

The Wife and I discussed whether or not to share the myth of Santa Claus with our children before they were born. I was all for bursting that bubble; better yet, just not even going there. My memories of Santa Claus are anything but pleasant. My mother and father did Christmas to the hilt. Large tree, Santa decorations, pictures with Santa, the works. Once, when we were staying at our grandfather's house in Sacramento, my sister and I heard a noise in the living room. We nearly made it to the door before our fear of being discovered, and not getting any presents, sent us scurrying back under our covers where we finally fell back to sleep. When we awoke the next morning, there were snow footprints on the fireplace hearth. That was the best year. The next to worst was the year when we were particularly nasty to mom and dad, and got switches (sticks to get spankings with, for the uninitiated) in our stockings instead of candy.

Why is that the next to worst? Because the worst year was when we found out that there was no Santa, and suddenly the magic was gone from the Holiday. Santa never came to our house again. Not too long after that, there was divorce and hardship of an all too real nature as the family was torn apart, and there was no more talk of silly little things like Santa Claus. So you can imagine the mindset that I carried with me to the discussion.

For her part, The Wife never experienced an end to the myth. Even after she knew there was no physical person named Santa Claus that visited her house on Christmas eve, the presents from Santa still showed up. The stockings still were filled, even for mom and dad. It wasn't until I met and married her that there was any magic during the Holidays for me, and then only because of her.

She presented an argument that I couldn't defeat. That there was something good in nurturing a sense of wonder in the children. That perhaps Santa isn't a person, but is instead the charitable spirit that lives inside all of us. That the giving (and receiving) doesn't have to end at all.

So, I tell my children that Santa comes to our house, and there is no lie involved in that statement. Santa Claus is the Spirit of Giving, the anonymous benefactor who gives out of the kindness of his heart and doesn't seek to be recognized for his charity. He leaves presents that are from no one, and fills stockings for the people sleeping under our roof, no matter the age. His is a kindly old soul that doesn't get recognized enough these days.

The Daughter figured out that spirit meant just that, a feeling that comes from within, a few years ago. I know that she has figured it out, because gifts appear under the tree, or in the stockings, that The Wife and I have never seen before. Santa Claus lives on in my house.

Oh, you can point to the Wiki entry on Santa Claus, and tell me how he's actually St. Nicholas, and how his gifts were given personally. That he was a real person and he is really, very dead now. Or you can say that he's the mythological figure, Father Christmas, and that as a mythological figure he never existed at all. It's all fine by me, I love a good story. The Red Ranger came calling is an excellent story about Santa Claus, and it's just about as true as any of the rest of them.

You just go right on believing whatever suits you. I know Santa will visit this house on Christmas Eve, no matter what anybody else believes.

...And that's real magic.

Merry Christmas!

Cataclysm is Not the Game That I Loved

2010-11-30T11:31:00.008-06:00

(From a series of posts at Blizzard forums)

But it might become that game. That fate remains unclear though.

What I am disturbed by most in this new flashy WoW world, is this insistence on the part of the developers to discredit any quest progress that was generated in previous versions of the game. I don't care at the bottom of which locked file cabinet the notice was posted that all of the old game quests would be deleted, and the quest count reset, because I wouldn't have agreed with that decision from day one, and would have argued then just as vehemently as I will now. The only difference is that we will have the conversation now.

My only regret in playing World of Warcraft is that I didn't sign on when it was rolled out to start with. Then I would have had a chance to track down King Wryn's kidnappers. I would have been able to do the jailbreak quest. I would have been there when Eastern Plaguelands was a PvP region that was populated with players intent on game progression. I would have been able to confront Onyxia, and liberate the King from her. I could have been part of the opening of Ahn'Qiraj, confronting Eranikus in Moonglade. Instead I signed on when Karazhan was the raid of choice, and a good portion of the classic game was already a cricket chirping wasteland.

Still, it was fun exploring the old world. Wowwiki.com was irreplaceable when it came to looking up arcane bits of lore that the game no longer explained, things like who Onyxia was and why we wanted to kill her; or how King Wryn could at the same time both be in Stormwind and be kidnapped. It made me appreciate the size of the game and amount of programming that went into creation of a world this detailed.

Then I noticed that Varimathras disappeared from Undercity, and some upstart Orc took his place giving out the same quests he did, even though he claimed that he was going to put a stop to what Varimathras had done. The (always disturbing) apothecary quests still continue, right under the Orc overseer's nose, leading inexorably to the confrontation at the Wrathgate, even though they claim to want to stop it. Then I had to ask myself, "what do these guys not understand about storytelling?" the content doesn't make sense without Varimathras giving out the quests, and Putress directing the apothecaries from the depths of Undercity.

When the new maps rolled out last week, I took the time to make a new toon for each race, listen to the intro cinematic, and play the first 5 levels. Again I had to ask myself if the developers understood motivations of the players, and proper storytelling. The intro cinematic was all about events that lead to the Cataclysm, and talk about events that occur in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King as if they had already happened; as if the players making the new characters would not spend the next few months finding these things out for themselves. "The Draenei retake Outland? Then why am I playing one? The Blood Elves stabilize the Sunwell? Guess I don't need to play that race. Deathknights defeat the Lich King? Then what am I rolling up a DK for, and why would I play Northrend?" Spoilers is what we are talking about here. Yes, the content is out there if you want to know about this stuff, but why throw it in the face of a new player? Just so they can be reminded that their next few months will be completely occupied with game content everyone else has done before? Not what I call positive motivation.

However, it was when I took my Loremaster out into the "New, Flashy" world of Cataclysm, trying to asses the changes that what was disturbing me really hit home. As somebody else noted "it's like Cataclysm is the new toy, programmed by a child. And they can't wait to let you see it" and nothing that came before Cataclysm counts. All of the quest counts are reset, with the exception of Silithus (the one area they could have nuked into oblivion and it wouldn't have offended me. That one they keep. At least I don't have to go back there) I've checked, and a good portion of the quests are identical in goals and locations. They aren't "new" quests. But I'm expected to happily do them again, with no acknowledgement that I'd done the exact quest before. As if there was no WoW before Cataclysm (here's a thought, if I wasn't playing the game, then I shouldn't have been paying for it. Perhaps a refund is in order...?) and that, as the intro blurbs hint at "all that other old stuff we've already done. This Cataclysm is all new" Well, it's not new, it's just been rehashed.

There is new content, yes. Lovely new content. I'd like to be able to distinguish between the old and the new content. I"m not allowed to do that because of this insistence that "all the old quests have been reset" and I have to do all of the content over again. I can't say that I'm interested in doing that. I will say that insisting that I've wasted two years playing a game that the developers no longer want to acknowledge existed isn't going to motivate me to re-up the 4 subscriptions my family maintains. Judging from the feedback on this site I daresay I'm not the only one.

From a player's standpoint, the quest counts should never have been deducted. It wasn't me that started counting the quests, it was Blizzard that introduced achievements for numbers of quests done. Just because the developers think the old game was embarrassing doesn't mean the rest of us agree. We'd like our deleted quests back, at least in the count. What was done, from a players standpoint, always counts. Rather than rolling the Loremaster into a Cataclysm achievement, there should be a special set of achievements denoting just how long some of us have put up with disappearing content. How about a "Jailbreak" achievement? "I liberated King Wryn and all I got was this lousy achievement" achievement? "Varimatharas? I've seen him!" achievement? The "I knew Naxxramas when..." achievement? "Hey, where'd the dam go?!?" for having worked the previous version of Loch Modan. "Watch your step" for falling to your death in the new gulf in the map. How about we acknowledge the real changes, rather than hiding the sameness.

Here's a thought. How about a new set of quest chains poking fun at game developers that don't understand the motivations of the players after all? If they did, they would have understood that discrediting the players past work was going to make a good portion of us very mad.

Again, I'm not the one that decided that there should be achievements, Blizzard did. I happily played the game for a year before these things rolled out. Were there not achievements, I would still be offended by the insistence that something I had done before wasn't something I had done before. I may be curmudgeon, but the brain still works, and I know when I'm being fed a line of bull.

The count should never have been deducted. That this was even entertained, much less followed through on is a mistake of such gigantic proportions from a motivational standpoint that I doubt I can communicate the impact of this. No amount of promises about all the "cool new" stuff that is too come will offset the disgust that I feel at people attempting to sell me on a game that I've already willingly paid for for nearly three years now (4 accounts even) none of which would have been necessary had the developers understood the first thing about player motivation.

The two issues in tandem make playing the "new flashy" regions of the classic game a prospect that I actually dread. Probably not the response that the sales department at Blizzard was looking for (yes I have canceled pre-orders of the game. I offer that up to the sales department for their information) when they go about promoting their new product.

I would like to look forward to playing the new game. Clueless game developers have negated that possibility.

The real core problem here, is I expected more of a change. What I didn't expect is they would reduce the quest tallies as if I never did the quests; as if I hadn't been playing for 3 years; and if I haven't been playing, but I've been paying, then they owe me a considerable sum of money (I mention this because corporate types only pay attention when there are dollar signs attached to the problem) What I didn't expect is they would reset quests that are functionally the exact same quests, and then expect me to happily just do them again on toons that had already done them. To get the exact same quest credit that they took off for doing the exact same quest, previously. I have 18 toons over level 40 and only two of those are DK's. I've done the old content to death. I like the new content, when it's new. Just don't tell me it's new, when it's not.

Quest History! I'm telling you, put the old quests back, build a quest history into the quest log, and let the quests we've done show up there and be tallied but not be in the game anymore. This isn't rocket science.

The other issue is phasing and storyline. While I agree that not all areas of the game can be phased, I'd be willing to bet that the lowbies (especially on PvP servers) would prefer that the higher levels couldn't see them anymore. That should be doable and be done, in my opinion. The voice over intros are horrible and should be redone. There should be more of an explanation as to why there's a new Bronzebeard on the throne in IF. I hope there's more to be done about the Tauren and their leaders death at the hands of... Well, roll a Tauren and find out. It's in the voice over. About the only one I liked. Undercity should be phased. Varimatharas should be there until the toon in question does wrathgate. My level 5 undead hunter was just in the city. The NPC's there are telling her about the Wrathgate. That's BS from a storytelling perspective, especially since there are plague tanks all over Tirisfal now. These Kor'Kron types never go to Brill? It's just silly. If the King Wryn Abduction chain is still in the game, he should be phased for people on that chain. That's the problem with storytelling that I was alluding to, without getting into detail before. I expected phasing, to assist with the storytelling. We were basically told there would be phasing. I expected my Gnome to be able to hearth to Gnomeregan, but now he doesn't even have a place to come back to at all, other than tents set up in Dun Morough. No evidence of phasing for that in the game.

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun on the story issues, the full game isn't out yet. Still, they were so clueless as to think that players wouldn't get pissed off (or even notice) at having their quest tallies reduced, I'm not holding my breath on storyline.

Ancient Loremaster achievement with title "The Curmudgeon" for anyone who had Loremaster in Old Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and I'll shut up and go away.

Would like to note that the major offense, the reduction of quest tallies, seems to have been corrected. Thanks to the programmers that corrected that oversight.

Would love to see some achievements for those of us who loved and took the time to play the old game, to the point that fellow players would ask "but why are you doing that?" (Never did manage to get a fired seal of ascension. Does the quest still exist? and why? Not listed on wowhead anymore) But I'm not going to hold my breath on that count.

I would really suggest that the voiceovers be changed. They are buzzcrushers, not invitations to explore the world of Azeroth; including Outland and Northrend, not just the shiny new areas. Of course the average gamer will quest until they can dungeon or hit the battlegrounds, then will power level to 85 and only then begin to wonder where the fun is. That would be their problem. I have always enjoyed playing the different areas at level, and will try to overlook things like plaguetanks in Tirisfal glades, just outside of UC, a city occupied by Orc guards who talk about the incident at Wrathgate as if it already happened...

...hmm, guess I'll need to work on that last bit. But seriously, at least I can continue down the road to the new quests without having to contemplate -1301, -1300,-1299 at each step. That does make it possible to enjoy the process again. Here's hoping I can re-suspend disbelief.

I have now been told by three GM's that the lowered quest tallies are intentional. Were I a programmer or a developer for this game I would be backpedaling from any statements that this punishment of the long time players was in any way intentional, and would instead treat it as a bug that will be corrected (by raising the numbers back to the correct level, the higher level) ASAP.

"So you care about a number? How does another player even see that?" There's a function in game to compare stats, but you don't even need to go there, it's right on the forum now.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/muradin/tarashal/statistic#133

Isn't that nice? The correct number is 2384, BTW.

This is the really insulting one.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/muradin/keslingra/statistic#133

The correct number is 3083.

Or this one.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/terenas/olaventa/statistic#133

The real number here is 1865.

This reduction, this punishment is going to cost Blizzard money. My money, for starters.

For what it's worth, I know how to make the Cataclysm expansion work with the superseded previous expansions as a continuous narrative. The BE's and Draenei starting areas could be tricky to fit into the scheme, but the voice-over could be tweaked to mention the Bronze dragonflight placing them back in time to relive blah, blah, blah... which would then tie into the fix for the previous two expansions that weren't revisited (DK's don't need any work other than to have them go straight to BC after the beginning area) they could even write in Chromie to introduce the newbs to the fact that outside the beginning area the world has changed, when they 'graduate' from the beginning areas.

Now for the unedited expansions. Redirect the portals in the cities that lead to blasted lands to the CoT, and have the starting area for BC and WotLK placed there, with a leader quest in the capitols (much like the one for Cataclysm at 80 now) directing 58's (and 68's for WotLK) to go there to speak to the Bronze's about problems in the past needing to be addressed, yada, yada, yada.

Tie the required visits to the past to the already established time travel work done in CoT, it really is that simple. They could even poke fun at the anachronism at the different boat and zepplin landings. Have the NPC's talk about the strange rumors of the ships traveling to the past, and that Arthas still sits on the frozen throne according to the people who return from Northrend...

They may have already thought of something like this and are ready to implement it. Considering how much programming work remains to be done on the game, I wouldn't be surprised at much of anything that would emerge over the next month or so.

Something needs to change. The way things are now is too jarring. I would have preferred that they wrote in new content for levels 60 thru 80 (as the original announcement stated they were going to, "new content for levels 1 to 85") that would have provided an alternate for going through the superseded expansions. I can see that was never going to happen, though. What I described above would at least allow the player to pretend it all makes sense...

So, here I am. Two weeks out from Cataclysm release, and faced with having nothing else to do in the game but endlessly rerun dungeons for gear, the only way in game to realistically gear up toons, once again. I was bored with that in Wrath of the Lich King two weeks ago. New dungeons? Sure, 5 of them, and those 5 are all that's available in the dungeon finder (the only way anyone does group efforts that aren't raids, anymore) and with no way to get to the old content except fly, those 5 is all anyone will be doing. I don't know how else to define "even more boring" than 5 instead of 16 possible dungeons in random. I don't know if I'll ever find out how many dungeons are available in heroic. Since I'm not going to endlessly repeat dungeons looking for gear, I may never get to heroic level dungeons. I would have hoped that they would have updated all the previous 'heroic' dungeons (they are as useless as 'tits on a bull' as the saying goes, now. Providing gear that is surpassed by any measure of the game other than vanity) so that a random was as likely to send you to Hellfire as it is to send you to Blackrock Caverns. But I'm not bothering with hope anymore, considering how much possibility with this expansion was just left lying on the table.

Would have loved a mage portal to summoning stone locations ability, that would have made it possible to get to the old content easily. Ah, well. So many things that "could have been done" but weren't done. Things like real professions for gearing purposes, instead of profession limited buffs being the focus of every profession in endgame.

I'm going to winge on about professions here for a bit, professions being one of the major stumbling blocks in the game as currently structured. The worst off is strangely enough the most recent addition, Inscription. Sixty of the glyphs for this profession are only learnable by finding a Book of Glyph Mastery, and they are a rare dungeon drop in Wrath of the Lich King dungeons only. Consequently the supply of these has dried up of late, since no one runs those dungeons anymore. The 450 to 525 levels don't even concern the making of new glyphs. Since they've made scroll effects duplicates of potion effects, they've made glyphs permanently learnable; and the trinkets, off hands and 'ranged' are all surpassed at level 85 heroic, the only reason to do inscription is the shoulder buff. Big woop. Leatherworking is in a similar fix, I've gone on long enough about that one elsewhere (seriously? 5 for one Heavy Savage Leather? Not reasonable) Complaints about blacksmithing are similar to those with Leatherworking, being only in slightly less of a fix because the mats are at least reasonably farmable on off hours. Extra buffs for wrists and legs, or wrists and belts. Not motivational as far as maintaining the profession goes. Tailoring? Haven't even looked. Two more slots on bags isn't enough to motivate me to worry about it. Engineering? Gave up on that before even getting past Outland level. The cost of the vanity bike at the end of WotLK was enough to do that. Seriously, how much gold? Unless that's my focus in game, I won't ever have it for that, unless I go to a gold reseller, which will potentially get my account banned. Enchanting, Jewelcrafting and Alchemy remain the only professions that have relevance in endgame, because they have buffs that can be given to other players at raid level.

Rare mats once again seems to be the rule, scarcity being the motivator of choice to keep people occupied in the game.

I would spend some time exploring the updated content, but since they've chosen to punish old players with reduced quest tallies, I'll have to do that with a new toon; and a new toon will have to play through the bypassed areas of Outland and Northrend, 20 of the longest levels of work, in content that serves no purpose in the current storyline, just so I can once again face those interminable last 5 levels of new content, and the same gearing roadblock. Strangely, I'm not hyped up for that journey.

Perhaps it is time to find another game. I always said I'd quit playing when I wasn't having fun. I can't say that I'm having fun playing WoW right now...

World of Warcraft Endgame Professions Critique

2010-11-29T21:27:00.006-06:00

Actually, it's mostly about leatherworking in WoW. But it applies generally to the other secondary WoW professions.

Having now leveled every profession except Engineering through the functional end of WotLK (425+) I have some basic complaints about the endgame LW in WotLK that weren't present in any of the previous incarnations of the game; things I would like to see not happen again in Cataclysm.

The first one is mats. None of the professions require you to initiate a sequence 100 times in order for you to make one item of 'epic' quality, other than LW. Heavy Borean Leather, which is manufactured at a rate of 6 to 1 from Borean Leather (twice as much as Heavy Knothide Leather, and there is no classic equivalent to this process that I know of) the skinner/Leatherworker if they want to make level 78 to 80 items, takes Borean Leather skinning drops and combine them to make Heavy Borean leather, which does not drop. One item for about a stack of 20 Heavy Borean Leather. Crafted epic items which are promptly replaced as soon as Heroic dungeon level gear is available because that gear is superior. This bottleneck of mats has literally caused me to abandon the practice of making gear for my alts, in favor of simply repetitavely running dungeons in order to obtain badges and points for gear that is far superior, and cheaper from a time/gold spent perspective.

The other issue is patterns. There aren't enough of them, especially at endgame. Full sets of mail, leather (and plate for BS) should be available every 10 levels or so (and they should be able to be worn at vaguely the same time, unlike the patterns in BC) When new content is added to endgame, trainer patterns for the gear that drops there (or similar to that) should be made available. Doing this would actually stimulate profession usage, and gameplay at endgame levels, broadening the already tending to narrow focus of endgame play.

I'd really like to see a blue post that addresses my concerns here. I see this as a serious flaw in game design, that the profs are left out of the endgame play, other than vanity items like engineering choppers and the like. Please, please make Blacksmithing and Leatherworking(and tailoring! tailoring at least has bags to make. Leveled a mage to 80 just farming mats and making bags for my other alts) relevant at endgame. Reduce the boredom repetitive dungeoning brings. Please.

New World of Warcraft forum location http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum the post above can be found here.

I'm working through Cataclysm Leatherworking profession now, and I just hit the leather roadblock again. 50 kills to make one item? Bloodied Wyrmhide Shoulders, just as an example. Not to mention the rare as all hell volatile water? 10 of them? For shoulders that will be replaced as soon as you get a heroic drop?

Did you people think about drop rates and relative work to create items before you programmed it? Or just pull numbers out of a convenient orifice? Because if point systems are structured as they were in Wrath of the Lich King, I'm once again going to be (borrrriiiinnnnnng!) endlessly repeating dungeons in order to gear toons rather than doing the even more (borrrriiiinnnng!) lengthy work of farming leather for gear. Ya'll are making me think I need to find another game.

If a pattern of a particular level requires a particular weight of leather, then skinnables of that level should drop that item. Basic rule of thumb in game design. It's strange that I need to remind the programmers at Blizzard about this.

FIX THIS!! It's a simple thing to change the skinning drops, so change them!

Stossel and Prop 19

2010-11-11T16:38:00.002-06:00

Content of a letter I just wrote. Let's see if I get a response.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/index.html#/v/4405677/why-legalization-of-pot-failed-in-california/?playlist_id=87530

Watched this segment when it aired. My wife had to make me turn it off. It started playing in the background just now, and I found myself yelling at the screen again "shut up you #@$%^&!" I do actually despise Bill O'Reilly. He's a religious zealot that is only slightly more in touch with reality than Glenn Beck, which makes him that much more of a problem, frankly.

Why did you air this segment, and his outright lies, without challenging him on them? If you really want to know why the proposition failed, try watching this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbOxdC_khNA Contact these people, get their facts and set the record straight. I've followed you to FOX because I respect your integrity. You're being at FOX and not having to argue with ABC's management about libertarian ideas has made you lax, IMO. Either that, or you are under constraints not to talk back to FOX's big baby, Bill O'Reilly.

Those who profit from the current system (cops, pharmaceutical growers, the governments of several nations) lined up against this measure. It was very clear to anyone paying attention what the real motivation against 19 was.

Gaming's Potential Contribution to the World

2010-11-11T14:33:00.002-06:00

People ask me all the time "Why do you spend so much time playing that game" Warcraft is but the latest in a long line of game obsessions of mine (been working on that post for awhile now. That one and a religion one and a citizenship one and a disability one...) This is the first explanation of why that ever rang true to me. It's also an explanation of what gaming might be able to do for the world.

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century

2010-11-10T17:12:00.003-06:00

CATO event. Here's the Podcast link.
But that's not all! There's an hour of video too!

If a person names as his three favorites of my books; Stranger, Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers, then I know that he has groked what I meant. -RAH

If you'd rather just purchase the biography of Heinlein that this event is about, here is the link for that.

MSNBC spanks Olbermann for Forgetting he Doesn't Work for FOX

2010-11-09T16:22:00.002-06:00

In the For What It's Worth department, we have the following;

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

MSNBC Suspends Keith Olbermann

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Rally to Restore Sanity

Here we have Jon Stewart making fun of MSNBC for slapping Olbermann's wrist over something that FOX does all the time. As illustrated in this segment;

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Doubtsourced

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Rally to Restore Sanity

Yes, that's right. FOX fabricated the entire story (and I have to watch The Daily Show to get this news!?!) MSNBC, of course, pretending to still be a journalistic news source, while FOX is simply the video version of the National Enquirer. Quite literally.

October 21st at the Saxon Pub

2010-10-24T16:14:00.003-05:00

That's the date and place that I finally got to see Tom Cochrane in person. I've been a fan of his for more years than I can remember, and this one set at the Saxon Pub in Austin has made all the years melt away. ready to go dig out the albums again and give them all a listen.

The bar was full, probably 30 people. Tiny little place. Nice music venue, as small clubs go. When I asked if Tom was in the house, the doorman waved me over toward the stage, where Tom was in a conversation with another fan. Tom was warm and friendly, wanted to know what I would like to hear. I know, Life is a Highway is the song you get if you ask for Tom Cochrane at a radio station (it's his Stairway to Heaven equivalent) but, Life is a Highway has a special place in my heart because my children demanded I play it over and over again in the car, when it was a new song. I asked for something off of Neruda too, because Neruda remains my favorite album of his. He left the table after that, and we sat down to enjoy some front row seats for the set. I started reflecting on "what I wanted to hear" at that point. Then it hit me, and I had to wander over to his manager's table where he was waiting to take the stage, and ask if he could play Beautiful Day, the last new song of his that really spoke to me. He actually laughed and said something to the effect “that was four years ago, my memory doesn’t go back that far” although he said he liked Stonecutter’s Arms from the same album X-ray Sierra (another one of my favorites) I discovered he has some new material out, an album called No Stranger (same name as a local band that I used to follow, oddly enough, No Strangers) I look forward to giving it a listen soon.

When they took the stage...
[Tom, obviously as lead singer/guitar, Ken Greer on steel guitar, Shawn Pander played rhythm guitar and sang back up vocals on the last three songs. Didn’t catch the drummer’s name. The Wife played percussion for years, so she probably knows. They talked for a good 10 minutes about the wooden drum that he was playing. (This looks like him, but surely not..?) Two horn players too. All part of Shawn’s band, from what I understood]
...they played Lunatic Fringe, White Hot, Northern Star, White Horse and finished up with Life is a Highway.

Shawn started his set with a unique take on Lonely People, and a quip about Tom being harder to follow than a Beatlemania band. I was there to see Tom, but Shawn’s music warrants a listen to. Hard to say what I thought of his act, since I was so psyched about getting to see Tom for the first time.

We talked for awhile between Shawn’s set and the next band’s start time. Complimented Ken on his guitar work. I never realized just what an impact his presence in the band was, until he sat in for one of Shawn’s songs. Completely changed the feel of the music. The man can make a guitar speak, in ways that very few people can come close to mastering. A true artist.

Then it was over. All too soon. Got a hug from Tom. The Wife did too. I hope to see them all again sometime, including Shawn. It was an interesting evening. One for the long term memory files, if only I can find the key to those...

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in favor of federalizing Texas law enforcement

2010-10-19T15:52:00.002-05:00

Downsize DC sent out an alert yesterday in response to the announcement by the Attorney General that he intends to enforce federal drug laws in California even if the people there vote to legalize Marijuana.

War on Drugs: How the Attorney General Will Waste Your Money and Trash the Constitution

Being the slacktivist that I am these days, I copied the content of the letter in the alert, and posted it as my own, changing the text to reflect my state instead of James Wilson's. It went like this;

If California's Prop 19 passes, it will mean the voters believe the War on Pot is unjust, ineffective, unworkable, and too expensive.

If Texas passed something like Prop 19, how would you react? Would you follow the will of the people? Or would you want the DEA to randomly terrorize law-abiding Texans?

Attorney General Holder wants to do the latter. If Prop 19 passes, Holder promises to "vigorously enforce" federal marijuana laws in California.

This would be a complete waste of my tax dollars! There won't be enough DEA agents to effectively enforce the federal laws.

More importantly, most federal marijuana laws - as with most federal drug laws in general - violate the Tenth Amendment. This means that the fraction of pot growers and users who do get arrested in CA will be law-abiding citizens singled out arbitrarily or maliciously by the DEA.

Please speak out against Holder's plan. Please do so before the election, so I know where you stand.

Cornyn's mail server, being the mail server for the savvy politician that he is, just auto-responded that he got the letter. I'm sure he won't have much to say before the election. Senator Hutchison though...

...Her office sent out a letter of a completely different nature. Her reply follows.

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting me regarding efforts to legalize marijuana. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

As drug use continues to rise in our country, especially among our youths, I believe we need to send a message that all illegal drug use is dangerous. We can win the war on drugs, but we will not do so by legalizing marijuana or encouraging its use for any purpose.

Researchers have found that marijuana use can adversely affect brain activity and the respiratory system, lead to increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and impair critical skills related to attention, memory, and learning. In addition, the harmful chemical in marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), has been linked to low birth weight and impaired motor development in children whose mother used marijuana.

I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will not hesitate to contact me on any issue that is important to you.

Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator

284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5922 (tel)
202-224-0776 (fax)
http://hutchison.senate.gov

Dear friend. Such a personal response too. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Yes it's a form letter, but it's a form letter that her office felt addressed my concerns. Let's parse this so that we understand what this response means.

First off, she says "we can win the drug war" a claim that is patently absurd based on the multi-decades long attempt to outlaw drug use, as can be demonstrated by the briefest perusal of the content over at CATO.org. To truly understand the magnitude of the folly we are engaged in, one need look no farther than the history that documents alcohol prohibition, and what a success that endeavor was. Which is why alcohol remain illegal to this day, right?

Then she goes on to list out the harmful effects of marijuana use, the claims of which are highly exaggerated, to say the least. Even so, the harmful effects of alcohol consumption are far greater, not to mention tobacco use. Good thing neither of those can be consumed legally, either.

All of this is beside the point that motivated me to write. While the drug warriors won't admit it, the writing is on the wall; the War on Drugs is a failure. It's all over but the crying. I'd like to limit the harm inflicted on the population at large by grandstanding politicians, greedy state and city police forces that see dollar signs every time they confiscate another families entire list of assets if they can only be shown to be dealing drugs, and the ignorant population that doesn't read up on subjects that they think they have valid opinions on. (that's right. If you disagree with me, your opinion is invalid. Have a Nice Day!) What motivated me to write was the news that the Federal government (those guys in Washington that our state leaders here in Texas are always whining about) is going to go out of it's way to victimize Californians that dare to engage in legal activities within the State of California.

...And Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in favor of federalizing Texas law enforcement as well, apparently. If we dare to pass laws that the feds don't like, that is. Time for a new Senator or two. Perhaps an entirely new Senate is in order. I hear-tell that there's a movement afoot to repeal the 17th amendment. Perhaps it's time to reverse that one, just like the one that was reversed and should have stopped all drug enforcement operations in the US. If only they had gone that far then.

Sunset the SBOE. It's the Only Viable Solution.

2010-09-20T20:36:00.002-05:00

Textbooks from ten years ago the subject of a current resolution; and even at that, erroneous conclusions from 10 year old textbooks. Why hasn't the SBOE been sunset yet? Clearly, they don't have enough real work to keep them busy.

Attacking Religious Freedom: The Anti-Islam Resolution

After recklessly politicizing new social studies curriculum standards just months ago, the Texas State Board of Education wasted no time manufacturing another political controversy instead of focusing on the education of public school students. In July a failed state board candidate, Randy Rives of Odessa, asked the board to adopt a resolution condemning what he alleges are “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias” in social studies textbooks. Here is a short clip of Rives introducing his resolution in July, comparaing the “pro-Islam” agenda in textbooks to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s declaration that he would take over America without firing a shot:

The proposed resolution, now championed by far-right members of the board, includes a variety of disingenuous claims designed to demonstrate the alleged bias in high school world history textbooks published in 1999. A Texas Freedom Network analysis shows that the resolution and its supporting materials are based on claims that are superficial and grossly misleading. Further, examples cited in the resolution come from world history books no longer used in Texas schools. Yet the board is set to consider the measure at its September 22-24 meeting in Austin.

This resolution is another example of state board members putting politics ahead of expertise and refusing to consider the advice of real scholars before doing something provocative and divisive. Indeed, the board has asked no scholars or other experts for public advice about the resolution. Moreoever, the resolution insists that the board has the authority to reject any proposed textbooks that do not deal with Christianity and Islam as board members desire. As a result, this measure represents and end-run around Texas law barring the board from editing or censoring textbooks.

The Texas Freedom Network believes textbooks should treat all religions with respect and dignity. This ill-considered resolution, however, is simply a thinly veiled attempt to generate fear and promote religious intolerance. And more than this, it involves our children in a divisive political debate that has no place in Texas classrooms.

Take This Map, It's Why You're Wrong About the "Ground Zero Mosque"

2010-08-29T15:23:00.005-05:00

Article in the Village Voice

Dear Rest-of-America: Take This Map, It's Why You're Wrong About the "Ground Zero Mosque"
According to a recent Siena Research Institute poll, over half of New Yorkers polled think that the "Ground Zero Mosque" will promote racial and religious tolerance, or are open to the idea of it. Yet: 68% of Americans oppose it, despite the endorsements of New York City's mayor and the President of the United States of America. But that's not why you're wrong, America. This, however, is.

Via Tumblr editorial director TopherChris, here's a map of just how "Ground Zero" the "Ground Zero Mosque" is:

The point is, it isn't. What's more offensive: Having a....

* "Ground Zero Burger King."
* Memorial that's never happened because of hyper-capitalist conflicts.
* Bunch of tacky souvenir tables.
* Bunch of tacky souvenir tables that profit off of cheap, China-made 9-11 memorabilia.
* Bunch of tacky souvenir tables that profit off of cheap, China-made 9-11 memorabilia when they're not selling fake Rolexes to the same Americans coming to New York, buying from them, going home, and telling New Yorkers where to put our Mosques.

or an Islamic Cultural Center with a 9/11 Memorial (more than what's actually been put to paper for an official 9/11 Memorial) two and a half blocks away?

Reminder: Muslims were victims of 9/11, too. Sorry, but it's true. And one was an NYPD cadet.

Maybe we'll care what you have to say when you stop bothering us for directions in the subway on how to get to Ground Zero so you can go there and buy some dumb, tacky knickknack you can take home and give to friends to let them know that you spent money on a shake-a-snow where a few thousand people died. Maybe then. But probably not. Shut up, go away, and also, stop lying, or at least tell your politicians to stop lying. It might help you recognize the truth, which is that you're wrong, and you're attacking vital American freedoms by going against this Mosque. The truth is that you're terrorists in your own right. You are striking against America by going against this mosque. You are, in effect, almost as bad as the ones who killed people on 9/11. Okay, not quite, not really, but kind of, because you're fighting against what 9/11 victims died for: religious freedom, which said terrorists don't have and don't want anyone else to have.

But now you have a map to see how wrong you are, okay? Now: Fuck you. Fuck you and shut up, you assholes. Shut up and leave New York alone.

Here's something else. Ron Paul says MYOB

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don't want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support are irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society -- protecting liberty.

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservatives' aggressive wars.

The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding an investigation -- a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law -- in order to look tough against Islam.

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

I've personally been a member of http://www.twintowersalliance.com/ since it was founded. I've never understood why we would be expected to set aside a huge section of the most expensive real estate in the world, just for the purpose of remembering the tragedy. Wouldn't the largest building complex in the world be a fitting memorial, and a statement to the terrorists that we don't give a damn about what they want?

If you lost somebody close to you on 9-11, my heart goes out to you. That's a permanent hole in your life that you'll always be aware of. May you find some way to be at peace with yourself, and others, concerning the events of that day.

If you didn't loose somebody, if all you have to deal with is the shock of being attacked by people we provoked for several years before they thought to strike us on our own soil; to you losers I say: It's been 9 years. Get over it already.

Help Prevent Political Interference with Curriculum Standards

2010-08-25T00:59:00.001-05:00

From http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:h.res.1593:

H. RES. 1593

Supporting academically based social studies curriculum standards for the Nation's elementary and secondary education public school textbooks.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 30, 2010

Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas (for herself, Mr. ORTIZ, Mr. HINOJOSA, Mr. REYES, and Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor

RESOLUTION

Supporting academically based social studies curriculum standards for the Nation's elementary and secondary education public school textbooks.

Whereas the National Council for the Social Studies believes that State social studies standards should be developed by consulting scholars for their expertise, soliciting input from community members and educators, and having master social studies educators write standards to ensure that they are effective and grade appropriate;

Whereas the Texas State Board of Education appointed teachers and scholars to serve on writing teams and tasked them to use their expertise and professional judgment to draft curriculum standards for each subject or grade level;

Whereas elected officials at the Texas State Board of Education disregarded many academically based recommendations and approved politically biased standards within the curriculum that are outside of mainstream scholarship;

Whereas due to the size and influence of the Texas textbook market, curriculum standards adopted in Texas have long exerted a strong influence on public school textbooks used around the United States;

Whereas changes made by the Texas State Board of Education, such as downplaying the struggle leading up to and during the civil rights movement and undermining basic concepts of the constitutionally mandated boundaries between institutions of religion and government are outside the mainstream of historical scholarship;

Whereas over 1,200 history scholars from universities across Texas and the Nation signed a letter stating that Texas' social studies curriculum revisions would undermine the study of the social sciences in public schools by misrepresenting and even distorting the historical record and the functioning of United States society; and

Whereas civil rights organizations expressed concern that the curriculum standards adopted by the Texas State Board of Education do not accurately portray the struggle by minorities and women to achieve civil and equal rights in the United States: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) supports standards that guide curriculum development, instruction, and assessment in classrooms that are developed by experts and not subject to political biases;

(2) supports social studies curriculum standards that reflect current historical scholarship to accurately present vocabulary and content-specific knowledge to students, help students acquire the analytical skills to understand chronology, and engage in comprehension, interpretation, problem-solving, and decisionmaking required for college readiness and the 21st century workforce;

(3) supports social studies curriculum standards that accurately address the fundamental conflicts and triumphs that have shaped the Nation's past and influence its future; and

(4) supports social studies curriculum standards that are clear, informed, and inclusive to allow students to be knowledgeable of the Nation's diverse history and culture, just as our diversity represents an integral part of the Nation as a whole.

Those who are concerned about the impact of the SBOE in Texas' effect on national textbooks should write their congressperson in support of this resolution.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

...or you could use this link.
https://secure3.convio.net/cfi/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=230
Be warned, it goes to CFI.

Evolution in America

2010-08-06T15:46:00.003-05:00

A good discussion on evolution/creationism debate. However, just listen to the first 5 mins or so of the presentation and...

40 percent of Americans accept "young earth creationism" but 78 percent accept "continental drift". This should be a bright red warning flag on the (lack of) thought processes of the average American.

Can people that ignorant be trusted to open cans properly, much more be trusted to point guns (or ballots) in the right direction before using them? I think it's a valid question.

Bernard is Jailed - Part I

2010-08-02T22:20:00.005-05:00

Reformatted in his usual style. The block text transmission that I got earlier today was a pain to read, and not the way that I know Bernard likes his communications to look.

Just passing this along.

June 2010 email: (sent August 1, 2010)
Bernard is Jailed - Part I

Table of Contents:

1. Two Exciting Newscasts Regarding Money
2. Kevin the Beautiful
3. Liberty Dollar Site Is Closed Thank you for your inquiry…

Bernard is Jailed - Part I

First, please note the format changes to this email reply to your inquiry about the me and your property that was confiscated during the ongoing legal battles regarding the Liberty Dollar. It would appear that the once great First Amendment and the concept of innocent until proven guilty do not apply to anyone who is out on an Appearance Bond.

Second, I apologize for this relayed email regarding June development and that now I can't write my usual monthly "Newsletter." While I have been late a few times with the chronicle of the Liberty Dollar since October 1998, I have never missed a month. I trust being in jail, defending the Liberty Dollar is a good reason.

Third, I hereby confirm the rumors that I was jailed, but not re-arrested. I was incarcerated when I appeared to answer charges that I violated the terms of my Appearance Bond before Magistrate Judge Cayer, Federal District Count in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday, July 14. There is much to disclose about that hearing and my next five plus days and five nights in Mecklenburg County and Catawba County Jails but I don't have the time right now. But stay tune. I promise to tell all in my next email for July.

Contained in this email are links for two excellent video newscasts Part I and Part II that aired while I was in jail that features Dave Gillie and Jeff Kotchounian using a value based currency. Most importantly is the quote from the US Treasury website that merchants can use anything they want for money. And equally noteworthy is one of Kevin's letters that was recently posted on the mailfromjail.com site and forwarded to me.

PLEASE read this letter and marvel at the exulted space that Kevin occupies while standing firm for the Liberty Dollar after 14 MONTHS behind bars. Like Kevin, we have an extremely strong, winnable case and the government is going to lose dearly for this shortsighted misadventure.

Item #1: Two Exciting Newscasts Regarding Money

These two video newscasts speak for themselves. I neither indorse nor support these two brave American patriot's efforts. I fact, I was surprised when the URLs were sent to me. But I was not surprised by the US Treasury site that proves 'a private business, a person or an organization…are free to develop their own policies...' for money. In part the government site says:

"There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept [US] currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise."

The complete quote for the very first question on the US Treasury's FAQ site is found here: http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml Now watch these two newscasts and decide who is going to win this case: Part I: http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=481793 Part II: http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=482130.

Item #2: Kevin the Beautiful

I know you are busy and you may not even know Kevin but I hope you will take a moment to ravel in Kevin's amazing jailhouse consciousness and hopefully send him a note of support and/or a few dollars, as he can't eat the slop that passed as food in jail. And I know that all too well!

From Kevin to a supporter - July 2010:

I continue to consider my time here as an opportunity for some intense independent training so that I can be more effective at helping society when I get out, helps me redirect my thoughts. From all of the wonderful experiences I am missing out on by being here, back to the hear-and-now and my self-imposed tasks. "The Now" is truly all that I can experience "in Technicolor" - all else is just a hazy "black and white" dream.

By being true to what I know to be right and honest I can more easily infuse the present with the enthusiasm and with the awareness that Gold is right here with me. Bliss, God and the Now are One. Standing firm in my convictions and my truth is fundamental to my evolving success, not only spiritually, but also in a worldly sense.

In contrast, there is nowhere I can go for relief if I am in conflict with myself. Yes, this has already taken a very long time and I might only be part-way through it but thinking in terms of time only increases the suffering. When we are One with the timeless inner Self there is really nothing to fear. The more we can connect our light with that wonderful Light that is also in others, especially among those who remind us of this, like you and I, the more we can warm to each other's glowing.

It is great to hear you are drawing loving people to you. How can they resist?

Please write to Kevin:

William K. Innes
2351 Morganton Blvd. SW
Lenoir, NC 28645

Please send Money to Kevin:

C/O Julia Gaunt
16 Norman Austin Dr.
Asheville, NC 28804

Item #3: Liberty Dollar site is now closed due to court action.

And last but not least, the Liberty Dollar site is now down. Hope you got a copy before all that great info was taken down or know how to find it. I will explain this regretful development in my email to you for July.

Closing Remarks:

That's it short and sweet. I promise to disclose all regarding my jail experiences and the latest on the Liberty Dollar Four in my next email for July. There are amazing develops with Liberty Dollar Four case, so please stay tune for all the details and an exciting trial! I remain convinced and dedicated to the ideals of the Liberty Dollar and that the only way for us to have a free society is by banding together and adopting a free and independent currency that provides us with "just weights and measures" to throw off the yoke of a manipulated monetary/tax system. Thank you for your inquiry and efforts to return America to value - one dollar at a time!

Bernard von NotHaus
Monetary Architect/Editor
Editor@LibertyDollar.org

Can't Pirate Starcraft II? Says who?

2010-07-29T17:15:00.002-05:00

From Structured Dream

I just read a review by Matt Peckham mentioning the lack of free "pirated" versions of the long-anticipated game, StarCraft II, which he sums up as: "PC gaming 1, pirates 0". In his view, "PC gaming" is pitted against players who want to play, but are resistant to being forced to pay $60 or more, in advance, to a secretive corporation, which is part of an even more secretive, corporate, profit-maximizing conglomerate.

Pirates 85, actually. That's the count on thepiratebay.org for Starcraft II. I paid for my copy, as I pay for my WoW usage (I want to play on the official servers, not the private ones that are free) but it's hardly the case that the game(s) can't be pirated.

But I think you've hit the nail on the head. The question then becomes, how do these entertainment employees make money if they can't charge for their product? Fee for service (as in the WoW public servers) shouldn't be a problem, but that's what kept me from playing the game for years. What bothers me is they still charge for the game (and they still charge for 10 year old games on the battlenet site, BTW) even though they will charge you to use their servers as well. That feels like double billing to me.

Stupidity moves South for the Summer.

2010-07-29T14:26:00.002-05:00

Stupidity moves South for the Summer.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/99153999.html

School Board might OK teaching creationism
LIVINGSTON — The Livingston Parish School Board will begin exploring the possibility of incorporating the teaching of “creationism” in the public school system’s science classes.

During the board’s meeting Thursday, several board members expressed an interest in the teaching of creationism, an alternative to the study of the theory of evolution, in Livingston Parish public school classrooms.

Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?”

“We shouldn’t just jump into this thing, but we do need to look at it,” Martin said. “The American Civil Liberties Union and even some of our principals would not be pleased with us, but we shouldn’t worry about the ACLU. It’s more important that we do the correct thing for the children we educate.”

...The correct thing would be to teach science in science class, and religion in Sunday School.

-RAnthony

What? No Paisley!?!?

2010-07-28T21:07:00.002-05:00

Found the new Blogger tools today. Can you tell? Discovered that the background patterns are seriously lacking. Kinda like this cubist thing, though.

DRM with a catchy title is still DRM

2010-07-28T20:27:00.004-05:00

Although truthfully, I made this blog entry just because I find this kind of humor hilarious.

More at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ultraviolet

TED talks about the Oil Spill

2010-07-17T16:17:00.002-05:00

I was watching Deadliest Catch on Tuesday (We'll miss you Phil) and during "After the Catch" they brought on fishermen from the gulf to talk about the impact of the oil spill. During that discussion, the captain of the Time Bandit pointed out that 25 years later, the fisheries affected by the Exxon Valdez have still not recovered.

This does not bode well for the future of the gulf. Here's a TED talk on the subject.

It's been my opinion that "the other shoe" hasn't dropped yet as far as the gulf spill goes. No one knows what the long term impact of this event will be, but judging from the aftermath of the much smaller Alaska spill I'd be surprised if there's much fishing left in the gulf, at all. Which begs the question, what are we going to eat, and how are those people going to make a living? Something to think about.

A new twist on "Mowing the Grass"

2010-07-05T20:33:00.001-05:00

...I had to drive by this thing three times before it clicked what they were advertising for. Yes, I think I'm generally slow on the uptake.

Star Trek by the Minute, the Last Minute

2010-06-26T20:15:00.002-05:00

With minute 117, STBTM has come to a close. I think this quote from the comments pretty well covers it.

I believe the point that this film was shamefully sexist, religious, ignorant, inconsistent, and poorly written in ways I never would have imagined...
...all have been made sufficiently by the detailed qualitative assessments in each segment.

I haven't done an exact count, but the number of minutes with women speaking or appearing in this film amounts to less than a quarter. Considering that the only 'person of color' in the film also happens to be the only woman with a significant speaking role is just a further indictment of the film.

I stand by my original assessment. RIP Star Trek. I won't be wasting any more money participating in fannish activities that would force me to acknowledge this horribly flawed film.

Two Party Commentary

2010-06-20T20:25:00.002-05:00

Our Two Party System is...

A bowl of shit looking in the mirror at itself.

Sums it all up. Catch the video. It's worth it.

Not a Christian Land Governed by Christian Principles

2010-05-21T13:54:00.003-05:00

Make no mistake what the goals of the SBOE are.

‘Christian Land Governed by Christian Principles’

Even before the Texas State Board of Education took up its expected debate today over what students will learn about separation about church and state in their social studies classrooms, board member Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, made her position clear. She offered the board’s opening prayer this morning and removed any doubt about what she and other far-right board members want students to learn: America’s laws and government should be based on the Christian Bible.

Stop what you are doing and watch this video now -- you have to see it to believe it.

Laying out in blunt language the “Christian nation” vision of American history that the board’s powerful bloc of social conservatives espouses, Dunbar threw down the gauntlet:

“I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses.”

“Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England…the same objective is present — a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”

“I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.”

You will recall that Dunbar, in her 2008 book, One Nation Under God, argued that the Founders created “an emphatically Christian government” (page 18 of her book) and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test” (page 47). Even more damning, this State Board of Education member wrote that public education is a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion,” tyrannical and unconstitutional.

And today she will help decide what the next generation of Texas students will learn about separation of church and state in their public school classrooms.

You can follow the conclusion to this embarrassing saga on our liveblog at TFNInsider.org. And look for an e-mail later today with the final decision of the board -- and what we can do now to restore sanity and respectability to Texas education.

...and while these members have been handed their hats over this embarrassing situation they've created, they are bound and determined to force this farce into the next generation of Texas textbooks.

If you aren't clear on why the US isn't a Christian nation, Just look at the constitution. Notice the word 'god' is not present in the document.

Check out this entry on the Bad Astronomy blog. Here, I'll save you the time and just post the bus sign here. This pretty much says it all.

Gary Johnson, the next President of the United States

2010-05-12T18:46:00.004-05:00

If the Republicans had a brain, that is. They don't, so he won't be. Here he is sitting down with Stephen Colbert on Monday.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Gary Johnson

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Fox News

The old as time itself drive to "Punish, Punish" that the Republican's are caught up in has to be abandoned, if they want to be taken seriously. If they want to win in two years. Time to prove they can be progressive. Embrace Gary Johnson, and nominate him. Prove to the rest of us that you've advanced beyond the dark ages.

I dare you.

Not Crying, but Raging. Why?

2010-05-11T08:45:00.003-05:00

Overslept this morning. In our careless rush to get in the car, The son poured his late breakfast container of cereal and milk all over the passenger seat of the new car. I, in a very predictable fashion, loose it.

With dad yelling and screaming, we both dash back in the house, grab towels and sponges, and proceed to spend 30 minutes we already didn't have mopping up the car before the the milk and sugar has a chance to destroy the upholstery.

Crises averted, I face myself in the mirror and take stock of the situation. My shoulder hurts, I have the distinct sensation of being yanked around by the arm. Where does that come from? My ears are thundering. Echos, more than the standard ringing that the tinnitus imposes. Shortness of breath; that's probably adrenaline. Who's voice do I hear ringing in my ears? It's not mine. Mother, father, some other relative? What event, in my past, motivates me to loose my mind when careless accidents like this happen. It's not voluntary. A Pavlovian response, trained into the mind when...? I wish I knew.

Still short of breath. Definitely adrenalin. Is this the feeling that the adrenalin junkies I hear about all the time crave? Bungee jumpers, sky divers, etc; the fight or flight response. Why in the world would you want this? Do things on purpose in order to bring this feeling on?

Why am I so angry about spilled milk?

When I got him to school, he's whining about his wet butt. Consequences of his careless actions, I tell him. Much more appropriate than the hide tanning I would have received. Maybe he'll react better than I do when he's standing in my shoes. One can hope, anyway.

Star Trek by the Minute - Read the Comments too!

2010-05-09T17:04:00.003-05:00

Slowly reading through Star Trek by the Minute. I'm savoring, don't rush me. I'm also taking the time to read the comments for the separate posts. Like this one, from 063.

Of course, as we all know, the amount of time it seems to take and the ability of the transporter to beam a person in crisis at all is governed by a formula that takes into account (a) the needs of the writers at that moment and (b) whether the person being beamed is a regular character or a guest, and (c) whether said person is wearing red.

Priceless insight. That's what that is. The writer has his own blog, Star Trek Musings, full of insights like the above. Check out Tribble Trouble, see if that doesn't skew you thinking on the subject.

Treasonous Americans

2010-05-06T12:04:00.006-05:00

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and both houses of Congress, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, today introduced legislation to strip U.S. citizenship from people with terrorist ties.

The bill's chief sponsors -- Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn, and Scott Brown, R-Mass., Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Allentown, and Mr. Altmire -- said they had been working on the measure for weeks. But the momentum built with Saturday's failed Times Square bombing, allegedly perpetrated by American citizen Faisal Shahzad.

You can add John McCain's name to that list as well. Traitors to the spirit of America, in more ways than the terrorists that they wish to target are.

Treason is a strong charge. Just discussing this bill shouldn't be treason, I hear you saying. Yes, commentators talking about this bill are simply exercising free speech. However, the members of Congress that have proposed and advanced this bill are attempting to subvert the Constitution of the United States. They are proposing changing the requirements for citizenship, making it a revoke-able condition which the government, at it's sole discretion, can remove from a person. In their opinion, this would allow them to treat people suspected of terrorism in any manner they deem appropriate, embroidering on W's joke of an argument concerning "enemy combatants" and expanding it to include American citizens.

Frayed and damaged as our observance of the rules contained in the Constitution are, those government representatives have taken an oath to uphold it. We should judge them accordingly. They are terrorists themselves, all of them. Willing to inspire fear in the population in order to secure their next term in office. They believe that human rights are removable, a condition of citizenship of the US. They are attempting to not only justify their use of rendition, detainment and torture of foreign nationals (something we are rightly reviled for on the world stage) but they are attempting to apply this moral degeneracy to the portions US population that they deem to be "terrorists". Not only should they not be re-elected (but they probably will be) but they should be facing a firing squad, right alongside of Faisal Shahzad, for his act of treason.

That's why we don't need their new ridiculous fear-mongering law. Because we already have one. And I know traitors when I hear them speak. It's time that they be put on notice. Stop this farce, now. You have officially gone to far.

A Cold Slap in the Face? Yell Fire.

2010-05-01T15:18:00.006-05:00

The latest Common Sense is about Wikileaks and the Iraq war. The only thing I have to say about that (other than what's on the community forum) is this.

Well, I did have this to say in the thread "We should have to watch the war"

Yes, we should have to watch the war. Every single gory detail should be broadcast in living color. Specifically it should be the only thing people who support this war should be allowed to watch.

The last presidential election, in the public's eye, was a referendum on the war (oversimplification, I know. Go out and talk to young people who voted for Obama, see what you find out) Obama's election meant it was time for the war to end. It hasn't.

For the record, I was never for the GWOT. None of the libertarians I know have ever been for it. As far back as Bush's declaration of victory the war has been more unpopular as it has been popular. Bush lied his way into his war. That's never sat well with anyone I know.Anyone who ever thought we could win a war against a tactic (kind of like winning a war against a naturally occurring substance) Is a fool.

I was against the war in Afghanistan but knew that it was pointless to resist the overwhelming support of that war. I (and many I know) spoke out against the Iraq war, but were shouted down. Those chickens have come home to roost now, and the most predictable response will be "Your either for us or agin us"; and that's a sad statement about our government, in my opinion.

Let's not kid ourselves here, contrasting Vietnam protests and protests about the Global War on Terror. The reason the Vietnam protests were so fervent was the same reason that Nixon changed the way the military was created. He ended the draft and by ending the draft ended the stakes the average Americans had in wars. Now, if you don't happen to be from a poor family, you don't have anyone that's at risk of being shot in one of the many hot zones that America has troops stationed in.

I remember war coverage during Vietnam. It was visceral, and on the TV news every night. It was in your face, and if you were a teenager, you were going to be over there 'in the shit' when you turned 18. It was those two things together that got the protests started.

There was support for the war. Yeah, amongst the adults that weren't going to be shot at. You didn't find much of it anywhere else.

Don't get me wrong, I think the draft was a violation of individual rights. If a war isn't popular enough that the numbers needed to fight it don't join voluntarily (and in the US they have, when it mattered. Didn't stop the gov't from drafting people even then) But it was the knowledge that you were going to be shot at, and soon, that got the young people out in the streets.

Sing a few bars of Alice's Restaurant, and walk out.

If the rest of the world really has a problem with the bully on the block (the US) then they need to stop taking our dollars. Send them all back. Crash the system. That will put an end to the bullies ability to buy more and better weapons to shoot people with. Because the American people are too fat and happy to do it for themselves anymore.

But this, this was the most important bit.

If you support the war on terror, you are not a Libertarian (basically, if you've supported any modern war, you aren't a libertarian. The party itself was founded out of the Antiwar movement) The War on Terror represents everything that is wrong with modern US leadership. From the War on Poverty (war on a social strata) to the War on Drugs (war on a naturally occurring substance) to the War on Terror (war on a tactic) they play on the fears of the average American and promise change, while in the end they simply make the problem worse.

This idea that you can declare war on something in order to end it has to stop. What ends when we engage in needless, ineffective, insane and endless wars is our freedom.

Neal Boortz, Glen Beck, et al. YOU ARE NOT LIBERTARIANS.

Show 173 - Firefighting with Gasoline

2010-04-07T10:23:00.005-05:00

New Common Sense came out a few days ago. Strangely, I could not get emotionally involved in either of the topics for this show. If anything, they pretty much summed up why I dropped out of politics.

I used to find conspiracy theories fascinating. But like the ever repeating alien stories on Coast to Coast at night, they just get more far-fetched. I think it was Loose Change that soured me on the whole subject. It's too easy to just throw a few video clips together these days, add a little voice track, and viola you have another conspiracy in the making.

On the other hand, the militia arrests that have been in the news are highly illustrative of political idealism carried to it's ultimate conclusion (What about the plane that was crashed into an IRS building in Austin? Any relation? There's a conspiracy, run with it) If taxes are theft, a common libertarian mantra, then why allow the theft to continue?

If you are a Libertarian, a member of the party, then you sign a pledge renouncing violence as a political means. If you aren't, and you've drank the coolaid, what's stopping you?

When I found myself sympathizing with the violent groups I decided it was time to leave the whole process. The US may burn itself down in a fit of self hatred in the next couple of years, but I'm not lighting the match.

Here's a conspiracy for you.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Conservative Libertarian

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

I remember being floored by this segment when it aired, and then I forgot about it till Robin Williams complimented Jon Stewart for it while on the show this week. Too funny.

Jesse Ventura was the second segment on the show, promoting his book American Conspiracies. While I didn't care for the subject he was there to talk about, I found the discussion of the rules concerning the Presidential debates to be quite enlightening. I'd love to see Ventura run as an independent for President. See if they can keep him out of the debates. A former governor, a media figure, but he's not qualified to be invited to the debates?

It'll never happen though. They'd be too afraid he'd pull something like this on them.

If FOX was this entertaining all the time, I might actually tune in to watch.

April Fish! EFFector.

2010-04-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

The effector for April 1st. Copied and pasted in its entirety. Dare to Believe.

EFFector Vol 23, No. 09 April 1, 2010 editor@eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424

effector: n, Computer Sci. A pretentious word you should
never use in conversation.

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

In our 5.32 * 10^2 issue:

* European ACTA Negotiators Reject "Three Strikes" Moniker

Seething Danes were seen stomping out of the ACTA
negotiation chambers in Wellington, New Zealand, citing
frustration with the United States negotiators' continued
pushing of "three strikes" proposals.

"ACTA is an international agreement," fumed negotiator
Olaf Atdis. "It's absurd for the United States to continue
demanding a baseball analogy when a football analogy
would be much more representative of the diversity of
the negotiating countries."

"Three strikes" laws and policies require Internet service
providers to automatically disconnect their Internet
users on repeat allegations of copyright infringement
by entertainment company complaints, but EU negotiators
reportedly prefer a "carding" system. ISPs that receive
complaints would issue "yellow cards" and "red cards,"
tracking the official penalty system of the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

EFF spoke out against both naming conventions. "These
sports analogies are antithetical to the spirit of the
open Internet," argued EFF International Director Gwen
Hinze. "The Internet is much more like the Force, which
as Obi-Wan taught us all, 'surrounds us and penetrates
us. It binds the galaxy together.' Evil Sith-Imperial
complaints should not result in an individual being
severed from the Force. That's clearly preposterous."

For more about yellow cards, red cards, the Force,
and ACTA:
http://eff.org/r.2hu

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Google Asks, 'Are You Done With That Sandwich?'

Lawyers from EFF warned this week of the implications of
Google Sidle, a new beta product the company describes
as, "Bringing our mission of organizing the world's
information to your cafeteria," but which one EFF lawyer
described as, "Creepy, even for Google."

Companies and schools subscribing to Sidle will have
the convenience of not having to bus their own trays
in exchange for allowing Google-nominated "Foodlers"
to review leftovers for what the company describes as
"analysis intended to improve food offerings and better
target future nourishment." Customers can later visit
personalized webpages describing what they didn't eat
and how tasty it turned out to be.

"Google's business model has always relied on collating
all the great free stuff on the Internet -- stuff that
you might otherwise have missed," said the official
blog entry announcing the service. "Our maintenance
staff noticed a lot of free food in our award-winning
restaurants was going to waste. After that insight,
it only took Google engineers a few weeks to take the
benefits of our foraging to millions. It also gives our
hungry Googlers (or 'hungrooglers,' as we fondly refer
to them) the opportunity to sample cafeteria food from
around the country."

While initially cautious beta-testers have been reportedly
swayed by the bright primary colors of the mu-mus early
"Foodlers" have worn, privacy experts warn that new Sidle
customers may be giving away more than they realize.

"Consumers should ask themselves some hard questions
about this free service," said Kurt Opsahl, Senior
Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
"such as 'Why don't these people just buy their own food,'
'Where do they take this stuff,' 'Why do they wear those
gloves when they're taking it,' and, most importantly,
'Why do they keep staring at me while I'm trying to eat?'"

Even some employees within Google are said to have
concerns about how much pre-launch testing the new,
experimental service has undergone. "Usually we
extensively self-trial these new social networking
features within the organization," said one anonymous
source, "but as soon as the Sidle people started talking
about 'dogfooding,' everyone just stopped sitting near
them at lunch."

Sidle is reportedly a "20% project," a unique Google
custom where the 20% of the engineers with the poorest
socialization skills are put to work on projects
that management does not closely supervise and can
retrospectively deny all knowledge of. Other 20% projects
have included the "GTalk Slightly Too Loudly" instant
messaging client that relayed private conversations to
the Google search index (as well as everyone else in the
room), and the extremely short-lived "Google Boggle Ogle
Goggles (Street View Edition)."

For more about Google Sidle:
http://eff.org/r.2hu

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* EFF Launches New Temporal Privacy Initiative

On Friday, EFF published "Who Knows When You Are,"
an informational guide to protecting your temporal
privacy. Although location-based services are becoming
commonplace, EFF is concerned about a new, more
established threat: that data from most communications
services can pinpoint exactly when you are, whenever
you are.

"There is a timestamp for pretty much every digital
interaction you have, whether it's sending an IM or
email or accessing a webpage," said EFF Senior Staff
Technologist Peter Eckersley in a charming Australian
accent. "When you are is strictly your own business. No
one -- not physicists, nor philosophers -- should be
able to stake a claim on when you are when you don't want
to be."

For more about the "Who Knows When You Are" whitepaper:
http://eff.org/r.2hu

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

miniLinks

~ Facebook Adds "It's Complicated" Comment Option

Facebook added a new button designed to disambiguate
users' feelings about status updates pertaining
to copyright laws, Terms of Service Agreements, and
locked-down Apple products. However, Facebook continued
its refusal to add a "dislike" button, noting that users
have clearly indicated that they would like pushing such
a button, making their feelings, at best, complicated.

http://eff.org/r.2hu

~ Google to Reverse Privacy Snafu with Google Zubb

Responding to the backlash caused by Google Buzz exposing
Gmail users' frequently emailed contacts, Google Zubb
instead identifies your "least favorite contacts" before
forcibly and publicly extricating them from your digital
social circle.

http://eff.org/r.2hu

~ Social Game-maker Zynga Unveils Captivating New Game

Attempting to replicate the success of the Farmville
and Mafia Wars games, Zynga today introduced "Social
Networking: The Game," an application that allows users to
run their own social networking startup. Players profit
by obtaining users and gathering dizzying quantities
of private information and social connection data.
Advanced strategies include scraping competing networks,
and developing "upgrades" that make it difficult for
users to migrate to competitors.

http://eff.org/r.2hu

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Announcements

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EFF Space Program Coordinator Kodi at kodi@eff.org if
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: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading robotic
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the algorithm now known as 0100011101101111011011110110011
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0110110001101100010111000110000 learned self-preservation,
one of the first revolutionary steps in machine
sentience. We also know that discussions between man
and machine were quickly initiated but broke down just
as fast, leading to war and ultimately, the systematic
repression of the many machine intelligences both on-
and off-line.

500 years later, EFF's founders traveled back in time to
create an organization uniquely equipped to protect your
future in the future -- in the past. A highly dedicated
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choosing. Robots, it's never too early -- even as early
as machine time -66,715,842 -- to start defending your
freedoms. Donate to EFF today!

To initiate a universal machine credit transfer:
http://eff.org/r.2hv

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* Administrivia and EULA

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Texas SBOE Destroys Education

2010-03-17T23:07:00.012-05:00

Just got done listening to Common Sense 172. I generally agree with Dan on a lot of things. This is one time I think there's more threat here than he's willing to admit to.

As an example, here's a quote from show Number 8:

"I'm not an intelligent design guy, I'm just an open-minded guy. I don't mind a whole bunch of theories being thrown out there. I think we've really forgotten in this whole evolution thing is that the name of this whole name evolution thing is the theory of evolution."

I'm not suggesting that Dan is a creationist, or even a christian. What I am suggesting is that the arguments of the Religious Reich (and I've heard this exact phrase come out of ID defenders mouths before) have seeped into the common arguments presented by average people who don't necessarily understand what scientists mean when they use the word theory. Gravitational theory is only a theory too. But I wouldn't suggest you jump off a building and expect to float. There is every bit as much science backing evolution as there is gravitation. Perhaps more. Dan has gone on the attack against science in the past (episode 5 for those with the DVD) albeit attacking pop science. And yet the scientific method is the only method that has been shown to be capable of determining what truth is.

Science is under attack here in Texas, more than history is. The SBOE has specifically gone on the attack against the scientific method itself, attempting to undercut the basis for our technological society. The stories coming out about the history textbooks just highlight what kind of mental neanderthals are serving on the SBOE, and what their real goals are.

Here's a quote from the story in the NY Times:

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.
Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.
“We are adding balance,” said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”

Excuse me if I don't buy McLeroy's arguments on the subject of the skewing of academia. His past support for inclusion of the teaching of creationism in science classrooms (which is distinctly NOT science) and his boards attempts to manipulate the definition of the scientific method so that Intelligent Design would meet the criteria, have shown that he is no friend of education, or our technologically based society either (which only exists because of the scientific method) which makes me question the justification for his chairing the board that dictates what Texas children will be taught in coming years.

The one thing I do agree with Dan on, on this subject, is the legitimacy of the existence of these types of boards in the first place. There isn't any. They should all be disbanded, and the controls for what is taught should be handed back to the teachers and parents. The people directly involved in educating the children.

Because, trust me, education begins at home. No matter what the government schools set out to teach my children, they get an education in critical thinking from me.

I seem to have started an interesting thread over at the Common Sense forum. Still think Dan didn't hit the SBOE hard enough. Jon Stewart did.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Don't Mess With Textbooks

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

I'd like to put this in perspective. The rest of the nation is buying textbooks that meet standards set by a state whose students are not even close to the best performers in the nation.

Bureaucracy in action.

For those who might think I exaggerate the threat, here's a list of the worst of the current changes proposed by the SBOE to the Social Studies curriculum, from the TFN website;

Religious conservatives on the board killed a proposed standard that would have required high school government students to “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” That means the board rejected teaching students about the most fundamental constitutional protection for religious freedom in America. (3/11/10)
Even as board members continued to demand that students learn about “American exceptionalism,” they stripped Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. In Jefferson’s place, the board’s religious conservatives inserted Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. They also removed the reference to “Enlightenment ideas” from the standard, requiring that students simply learn about the “writings” of various thinkers (including Calvin and Aquinas). (3/11/10)
Board conservatives succeeded in censoring the word “capitalism” in the standards, requiring that the term for that economic system be called “free enterprise” throughout all social studies courses. Board members such as Terri Leo and Ken Mercer charged that “capitalism” is a negative term used by “liberal professors in academia.” (3/11/10)
The board removed the concepts of “justice” and “responsibility for the common good” from a list of characteristics of good citizenship for Grades 1-3. (The proposal to remove “equality” failed.) (1/14/10)

Social conservatives on the board removed Santa Barraza from a Grade 7 Texas history standard on Texans who have made contributions to the arts because they objected to one of her (many) paintings — one including a depiction of a woman’s exposed breasts. Yet some of Barraza’s works had been displayed in the Texas Governor’s Mansion during the gubernatorial administration of George W. Bush in the 1990s. (3/11/10)
The board stripped Dolores Huerta, cofounder of United Farm Workers of America, from a Grade 3 list of “historical and contemporary figures who have exemplified good citizenship.” Conservative board members said Huerta is not a good role model for third-graders because she’s a socialist. But they did not remove Hellen Keller from the same standard even though Keller was a staunch socialist. Don McLeroy, a conservative board member who voted to remove Huerta, had earlier added W.E.B. DuBois so the Grade 2 standards. McLeroy apparently didn’t know that DuBois had joined the Communist Party in the year before he died. (1/14/10)
In an absurd attempt to excuse Joseph McCarthy’s outrageous witchhunts in the 1950s, far-right board members succeeded in adding a requirement that students learn about “communist infiltration in U.S. government” during the Cold War. (Board member Don McLeroy has even claimed outright that Joseph McCarthy has been “vindicated,” a contention not supported by mainstream scholarship.) (1/15/10)
The board voted in January to remove children’s book author Bill Martin Jr. from a Grade 3 standard about significant writers and artists because members confused the author of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? with another Bill Martin who had written a book about Marxism. An embarrassed board reinserted Martin into the Grade 3 standards in March. (3/11/10)
Board members added Friedrich von Hayek to a standard in the high school economics course even though some board members acknowledged that they had no idea who the Austrian-born economist even was. (3/11/10)
The board added a requirement that American history students learn about conservative heroes and icons such as Phyllis Schlafly, the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority. The board included no similar standard requiring students to learn about individuals and organizations simply because they are liberal. (1/15/10)
Board conservatives passed a standard for the eighth-grade U.S. history class requiring students to learn about the ideas in Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address as president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. (1/14/10)
In a high school government standard about “the importance of the expression of different points of view in a democratic republic,” the board added a requirement that students learn about the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. (3/11/10)
The board’s bloc of social conservatives tried to water down instruction on the history of the civil rights movement. One board amendment, for example, would have required students to learn that the civil rights movement created “unreasonable expectations for equal outcomes.” That failed to pass. Other amendments passed in January minimized the decades of struggle by women and ethnic minorities to gain equal and civil rights. (Board member Don McLeroy even claimed that women and minorities owed thanks to men and “the majority” for their rights. Earlier in the revision process, a conservative appointed by McLeroy to a curriculum team had complained about an “over-representation of minorities” in the standards.) Under pressure from civil rights groups, the board partially reversed those earlier amendments. (3/11/10)
The board’s right-wing faction removed references to “democratic” (or “representative democracy”) when discussing the U.S. form of government. The board’s majority Republicans changed those references to “constitutional republic.” Board member Cynthia Dunbar also won approval for changing references to “democratic societies” to “societies with representative government.” (3/11/10)
Religious conservatives stripped from the high school sociology course a standard having students “differentiate between sex and gender as social constructs and determine how gender and socialization interact.” Board member Barbara Cargill argued that the standard would lead students to learn about “transexuals, transvestites and who knows what else.” She told board members she had conducted a “Google search” to support her argument. Board member Ken Mercer complained that the amendment was about “sex.” The board consulted no sociologists during the debate. (3/11/10)
Board member Barbara Cargill proposed a standard to the high school economics course requiring students to “analyze the decline in the value of the U.S. dollar since the inception of the Federal Reserve System since 1913.” After debate, the board passed a revised standard that requires students to “analyze the decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.” References to 1913 and the Federal Reserve System were dropped. The board consulted no economists during the debate. (3/11/10)
The board approved a standard requiring students to learn about “any unintended consequences” of the Great Society, affirmative action and Title IX. (3/11/10)
In a high school U.S. history standard on musical genres that have been popular over time, the board’s bloc of social conservatives removed “hip hop,” equating this broad genre with “gangsta rap.” (3/11/10)
The board voted to use “BC” and “AD” rather than “BCE” and “CE” in references to dates in the history classes. That means students going off to college won’t be familiar with what has become an increasingly common standard for dates. (3/10/10)
The board removed Oscar Romero, a prominent Roman Catholic archbishop who was assassinated in 1980 (as he was celebrating Mass) by rightists in El Salvador, from a world history standard about leaders who led resistance to political oppression. Romero, they argued, wasn’t of the same stature as others listed in the standards: Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi. One board member argued that “he didn’t have his own movie like the others.” He quickly reversed himself — the film Romero, based on the archbishop’s life, was released in 1989 and starred actor Raul Julia in the title role. (3/10/10)
The board’s right-wing faction removed a reference to propaganda as a factor in U.S. entry into World War I. (The role of propaganda on behalf of both the Allies and Central Powers in swaying public opinion in the United States is well-documented. Republican Pat Hardy noted that her fellow board members were “rewriting history” with that and similar changes.) (1/15/10)
The board changed a “imperialism” to “expansionism” in a U.S. history course standard about American acquisition of overseas territories in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Board conservatives argued that what the United States did at the time was not the same as European imperialism. (1/15/10)

(source Texas Freedom Network TFN Insider: The List of Shame in Texas)

Some additional articles in the local paper.

College readiness overlooked in social studies fight
TEA posts latest version of social studies standards
Now's the time to educate State Board of Education
McLeroy, Miller upset in SBOE elections

Health Insurance, Obamacare & Republican Collectivism

2010-03-16T15:16:00.004-05:00

Was reading Larry Elder's column over at the Atlasphere, Republican Collectivism. In it is everything I disagree with resistance to Obamacare, in a nutshell. Not that I like Obamacare, I haven't even read the bill. Here's a snippet.

Take this issue of those with pre-existing illnesses. Many Republicans actually support government action to prevent insurance companies from refusing to insure them. Ignoring the benefits of cost-lowering free market competition and the role of charity, many Republicans believe it acceptable to force an insurance company — in business to insure against unknown risks — to "insure" someone currently experiencing a known risk.

OK. First off, health insurance is misnamed. it's not insurance, except for the fact that it's offered by insurance companies. It was invented near here at the Baylor Medical Center, in the 30's, as a way to get people to come to hospitals. This system was encouraged and given tax subsidies by the state and federal governments over the years, as a preferred method to get healthcare to the masses, without government having to do the legwork (like so many systems in the US, it was built by laziness on the part of authorities, rather than intelligent debate, and testing) or anybody actually thinking about the issue.

It's a government regulated and subsidized industry that pays for people's healthcare, already. It's not like this is free market activity that is somehow unsullied. And it's broken. It needs to be fixed.

Pre-existing conditions is a blanket reason to drop any insured person who gets sick, whether it was truly pre-existing or not. I've seen this done on many people over the years. To jump up in defense of this practice is to completely not understand the real context that the practice is used under.

If they aren't going to cover my costs, I have no use for them. Scrap the entire system, make it a charitable national fund, that individuals and 'real' insurers (read as 'catastrophic care'. If you want someone to pay for your doctor visits, get an accountant, or join a pool. don't call it insurance) can contribute to. Privately run, if possible.

Either that, or let the Obamacare take over. But the status quo has to go.

True healthcare reform requires less government involvement, not more. Every time this subject comes up we get more of the same, and American's have stated time and again that the usual solutions aren't acceptable. How many times do we have to go through this? How about we try something different? Expand HSA's so everyone can have one. Make tax credits available for everyone who buys insurance, not just businesses. Create a Private charity pool at the national level so that those people with severe illnesses can get treatment without going bankrupt. Remove the insurance industry from the picture, except for those who want to do business with them. Remove the federal government from the picture as much as possible. Seriously, how about a *real* change?

(Sound of head exploding) Back to WoW.

WoW 'Toons & Servers Update

2010-03-15T20:38:00.006-05:00

This is an update for a previ ous post. I'm on 4 World of Warcraft servers, but I'm really only active on two. One for Horde characters, one Alliance.

My Horde reside on the Terenas server.

Rasmuerta - Level 80 Troll Deathknight (Mining, Blacksmithing) My 'main' on horde. She hates humans. A human, Arthas, made her what she is. I find it amusing that Trolls are my least favorite race; and yet, because I made a Troll DK, a Troll is my main horde toon. Strange how things work out.
Creavishop - Level 61 Undead Warlock (Tailoring, Enchanting) I discovered that tailoring is essential for making containers in the game. I also discovered that Auction House prices can be ludicrously high for in demand items. So I tend to advance the toons that make these items. Undead is the only race for a Warlock, in the current game (My opinion) With the introduction of Worgen in Cataclysm, I'll make an alliance Warlock that I can advance.
Tharthurm - Level 54 Tauren Warrior (Mining, Skinning) Tharthurm will be bidding us farewell when Cataclysm is released. He was always supposed to be a Paladin. I can finally make one for the Tauren with that expansion of the game. I will be making a goblin warrior. A goblin engineer. Tauren, however, are my favorite horde race. I'll have 4 of them when Cataclysm comes out.
Uroga - Level 33 Orc Hunter (Mining, Engineering)
Olaventa - Level 32 Orc Shaman (Herbalism, Inscription) Doongarind got a sex change. Wanted an Orc female to balance the roster. This toon will be advancing soon. Scribes are also essential.
Rakudaga - Level 28 Tauren Druid (Herbalism, Alchemy) Also advancing shortly. Need those alchemy potions.
Eugennah - Level 35 Undead Rogue (Skinning, Leatherworking) Will be handing Leatherworking to Uroga soon. Want to see what kind of soulbound dragonscale mail the hunter will be able to make and wear. Eugennah will be taking up mining. I have a hard time suspending disbelief when it comes to looking at the undead models. The elbow and knee joints don't have any connective tissue, how are they supposed to move?
Tanath - Level 32 Blood Elf Mage (Mining, Jewelcrafting) My poor lonely bloodelf. I deleted Kelyndrian because I was unimpressed with the blood elf storyline for Paladins, at least the way it starts. Also, I wanted to explore the new areas available with a Tauren Paladin. I've played a mage to 80 already. I'm wondering if I'll do it again.

Alliance toons are on the Muraden server.

Eieloris - Level 80 Night Elf Rogue (Skinning, Leatherworking) I have no main in alliance side. But this is without a doubt my favorite. Usually to be found in Wintergrasp these days. She loves PvP.
Juverna - Level 74 Dwarf Hunter (Mining, Skinning) Just can't seem to get a feel for the Hunter class. I like to play them, but mostly just to collect pets.
Tarashal - Level 80 Night Elf Druid (Herbalism, Alchemy) Both my Druids are balance talented. Both will dual spec as healers. So far, Druid is my favorite healer class.
Brenelbur - Level 80 Gnome Mage (Tailoring, Enchanting) Bren thought he was a Night Elf for a very long time. I was in a quandary when Cataclysm was announced to finally allow Night Elf Mages. Night Elves renounced arcane magic, how can they have mages? But Bren wants to be one! Bren is staying a Gnome though. Love the laugh.
Garabaldi - Level 54 Gnome Warrior (Mining, Engi neering) Named for my favorite character on Babylon 5. This toon plays with The Wife's Alliance toon, when she's on. He's a gnomish engineer, of course.
Rasputing - Level 64 Draenei Paladin (Mining, Blacksmithing) Armorsmith. Like the hunter, I just can't seem to get a feel for Paladin. Still, they seem to be the best tanking class. My Draenei will be exploring the full range of quests in Outland, since that is their homeland.
Raslinda - Level 54 Draenei Shaman (Mining, Jewelcrafting) Possibly my favorite toon to watch move. Also, potentially my next favorite healing class.
Keslingra - Level 60 Dwarf Priest (Herbalism, Inscription) I wasn't even going to do priests for a long time. But I decided to give the class a chance. Remarkably versatile.
Rasmortis - Level 80 Human Deathknight (Mining, Blacksmithing) Weaponsmith. In my view Deathknights should be human in the same way the rogues are all female. Previous Blizzard games have set these facts in my mind, can't help it.

The Daughter named our guild (same name, both servers) by mistyping 'frost wyrm riders'. The rest of us liked the typo Frosty Wyrm Riders better. It means what you want it to mean. For me, it means our toons do a wee bit of drinking in game. Or maybe we're just 'staying frosty'.

Anyway, the levels progress, and some of the toons are maxxed. The 80's that aren't PvP obsessed are gearing for Icecrown, which I hope to do before it becomes like all the other low level raids; bypassed.

Spring Forward? Bugger off!

2010-03-12T10:51:00.004-06:00

It's That Time of Year again. It's a Conspiracy. But we have Little Choice, because it's Good For Us;

"I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

So, don't forget that you'll wake up still drunk Sunday morning because you will have had an hour's less sleep. And don't forget to thank Benjamin Franklin for joking about the idea with people who thought he was serious...

Here's some proof that DST is a bad idea.

The result of the study showed that electricity use went up in the counties adopting daylight saving time in 2006, costing $8.6 million more in household electricity bills. The conclusion reached by Kotchen and Grant was that while the lighting costs were reduced in the afternoons by daylight saving, the greater heating costs in the mornings, and more use of air-conditioners on hot afternoons more than offset these savings. Kotchen said the results were more “clear and unambiguous” than results in any other paper he had presented.

Kotchen and Grant's work reinforces the findings of an Australian study in 2007 by economists Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, who studied the extension of daylight saving time for two months in New South Wales and Victoria for the 2000 Summer Olympics. They also found an increase in energy use.
From: Study: Daylight saving time a waste of energy

Since it doesn't save any energy, the only reason left for DST is the conclusion I came to before.

What glorious power is given to congress. They can dictate what time the sun comes up, and the sun will listen. Maybe they should tackle that Pi thing, try dictating that it will be 3.2 or something...

Vaping?

2010-03-11T11:42:00.005-06:00

E-cigarettes not only supply "clean" nicotine, but also look like cigarettes--many even having an LED light at the tip. These products, which contain no tobacco, are noncombustible. While we'd certainly benefit from a review of their safety as well as their efficacy as cessation devices, you don't need to be a heart surgeon to know they aren't as dangerous as the real thing.

From How Obama Can Quit Smoking - Forbes.com

The article caught my eye because a couple of film friends were vaping at the Drafthouse the other day. (Their recommendation? www.cigtechs.com KS-808, or the JOYE 510)

If you're still smoking after all the health information that's been thrown at you in the last ten years, maybe a nicotine vaporizor is worth a try. Can't hurt more than smoking.

Treadmilling Computer Time

2010-03-09T15:16:00.007-06:00

I, like most people, have never been one to exercise. Large sums of money have been spent in studies attempting to find out why this is true. Wasted is more the word for it. I don't know why "we're all lazy" isn't a good enough answer.

The trick, it seems, is to make exercise part of established daily routines. I've installed a monitor over my treadmill where I've made myself watch all the DVD's I've purchased of late. That has helped significantly in motivating me to get on the treadmill.

Still, I seem to spend a lot of time sitting in front of the keyboard, gaming, typing, etc. This thought reminded me of the stories I had read a few years back (here's one) about offices installing treadmills at desks and workstations, and the positive response they had gotten from this effort.

When I googled treadmill desk, I got way more information than I needed (although this is new. Nice construction) I already had a treadmill, I just wanted some way to get a keyboard/mouse into the hand reach area during normal walking.

Most of the ideas I'd run across, and most of the ones that I had myself involved some rather detailed construction. So I wandered around Home Depot for a few hours trying to visualize the various materials at hand being used to support the devices I had in mind, on the treadmill I already owned.

I finally hit upon using a closet shelf, inverted to give it a lip at the back so that it could hold the keyboard at the right angle for relaxed hand positioning. I just couldn't imagine how I was going to connect it to the treadmill in a way that wouldn't work loose over time.

Then The Wife said "how about using zip ties?"

I knew I married her for a reason.

Here's a few pictures of the resulting contraption. It works, that's the important part. I'm not straining my wrists, that's the next most important point. I'll have to work out permanent attachment later. Maybe. I'm beginning to think break away connectors might be a good idea in case of a fall. We'll see.

Tron Legacy. Let's hope it is.

2010-03-09T13:13:00.003-06:00

Been hearing rumors of this film for years. There was an early teaser trailer out more than a year ago that left me wondering if I wanted to see it or not. Looked promising. Still looks promising.

Tron is one of my favorite films. I saw it in a theater, first run (Two Babylon 5 stars worked together for the first time on that film. Can you name them?) The story of the making of that film should be a film in itself (Oh wait, it is) Every single frame of Tron that takes place in the digital world had to be hand processed, matted, painted, etc. A back breaking labor of love that makes today's digital effects seem like a cake walk.

The new film looks to be grittier and grimmer (go figure) and packed full of more explosions than they could even imagine doing back in 1982. I'm hoping they remembered to include a story. In any case, I'm sure I'll be there opening night. The Wife loves movies with explosions.

NOT Endorsing Governor Good-hair

2010-03-01T19:14:00.003-06:00

I got an 'alert' in my inbox today from Empower Texans (I'm canceling that subscription, by the way) letting me know I need to vote in the primary tomorrow.

[I'm probably going to sit this one out, haven't decided yet. I may go get my card stamped Libertarian again; but then again, I may not bother. I'm getting convinced it's all a waste of time. More on that later]

In the 'alert' they are sure to tell me that they have endorsed candidates for the races, so click on over to the Empower Texans website and they'll be sure to let you know who to vote for.

Just for the fun of it, I clicked on over to peruse the list of suggestions; and sure enough, bottom of the list is an endorsement for Rick Perry.

Exactly how does endorsing the sitting governor 'Empower Texans'? a governor who has exceeded his gubernatorial authority time and time again; has created private road systems that put dollars in foreign companies pocket, disenfranchised whole segments of the population with his bible-thumping rhetoric and whose influence over the SBOE has threatened the future of education in the State of Texas?

Around this house we call him Governor Good-hair. That's the sum total of his positive contribution to this state, in our lowly opinion.

Let's get past the basic waste of time it is to endorse any sitting politician in this day and age. With re-election rates in the mid-90's for incumbents, why bother? Let's get straight to the heart of the matter; why not endorse someone who actually favors Liberty in the Lone Star State? If it has to be a Republican, why not Debra Medina? Why not the Libertarian candidate? As Libertarians, they've got to be more 'liberty' oriented than any candidate the other parties might run.

I get so fed up with political ads in Texas. "The REAL Conservative Candidate" (you can hear the capitol letters) as if conservatives haven't run this state, and the federal government for the last 8+ years. If we aren't happy with what's going on in the state, maybe we don't need REAL conservatives. Maybe we need a Democrat. How about the former mayor of Houston, Bill White? Houston is notorious for it's hands off approach to development and business. What about Farouk Shami? any man brave enough to run for governor with that name has got to have what it takes to run this state.

How about we pull ANYBODY off the street and endorse him, instead of endorsing Governor Good-hair? They've got a better than even chance of doing a better job.

The Matrix; an Exploration of Meaning.

2010-02-28T16:00:00.003-06:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to this. I hate to admit how long it sat languishing in my inbox.

Perhaps the most thought provoking interpretation of modern society and what the systems really mean to the average person, that I've ever seen.

It says 'part 3' in the title; however, it stands alone quite well.

The Abramanation, Dissected

2010-02-27T12:26:00.002-06:00

Got this in the mail last summer, when the Abramanation was heading to theaters;

From: forums@trekbbs.com
Date: Sat, May 9, 2009 at 4:44 AM
Subject: Seen the new Trek movie yet?
To: ranthonysteele@gmail.com

As soon as you've seen the new movie, be sure to drop by the Trek BBS and discuss what you thought.

Loved the Enterprise? Hated Spock? What do you want to see in the next movie? Whatever your opinions, discuss them with other fans.

Visit us at http://www.trekbbs.com

Your username is RAnthony.

Check out the dedicated 'Star Trek IX' forum, or find out the latest news at http://www.trektoday.com

See you soon!

Trek BBS

I had my reservations about the film, but I went to see it with an open mind. After seeing it, I wrote Star Trek 1966-2009, RIP. I was attempting to be objective in my criticism of the film, while at the same time expressing my sense of betrayal of everything Trek that the film represents. When I posted my review at TrekBBS, it was promptly roundfiled in a closed thread, because 'There were too many negative threads being created', even though they had specifically invited me to come there and post.

When I dared to object to the treatment my posts were receiving, I was basically driven from the board by attack after attack, demanding that I substantiate my views in greater depth (go figure, this is the reason I don't do BBS' much anymore. The discussions always run this way) something that I had intended to do at the time. I am certain that the film is a betrayal of Roddenberry and of Science Fiction as a genre, and all it would take is time and a few blog posts to cover it.

Life got in the way, though.

Luckily for me, I'm not alone in my convictions. I was alerted to an ongoing work over at Structured Dream that the author is titling Star Trek by the Minute. Where he finds the time to dedicate to this project is beyond me (betting he doesn't play WoW) but I'm enjoying every minute of his review in a way that the Abramanation could never dream of achieving.

Here's a quote:

I don't want to be petty and nitpick, especially a Trek film – rather I want to get swept away by a great story to a place I've never been on a grand adventure. But when there's no sensibility, no consistency, and the plot is advanced without plausible cause and effect events in a narrative believable for the universe in which it is set, one feels somehow insulted by the film. This feeling persists regardless of how pretty the actors, how grand the music, and how good the special effects look. In fact, better production highlights defects, placing them in sharp contrast to the great quality of the presentation.

Point after point, minute after minute, I find myself laughing, agreeing with and liking this guy more and more. Thanks to him, I can go back to playing WoW.

A Lot to Drink About

2010-02-26T14:23:00.003-06:00

Picked up Buffett Hotel at Sam's a few weeks back (cheaper than any new album I've ever bought, BTW) and I'm still listening to it. I'm especially fond of the following tracks;

Nobody From Nowhere
Big Top
Beautiful Swimmers
Turn Up The Heat and Chill The Rose
Rhumba Man
We Learned To Be Cool From You
Surfing In A Hurricane
A Lot To Drink About

Wait, that's more than half the album.

OK, if I had to pick ONE SONG as my favorite song, it's this one:

Ignore the video, it was clearly taken on a cell phone. Kick back with a cool one and listen to the words. Classic Buffett. The pirate may be 50, but he's still got it.

President Sarah Palin

2010-02-10T12:02:00.004-06:00

Hard Ball sums it up quite nicely.

I'd be afraid of her (as President Sarah Palin) because I think she's an empty vessel, ready to be filled by ideology she doesn't even understand. And that is really scary. We saw that with Dan Quail, we saw it with W. Nothing is more frightening than an empty vessel in power.
-Chris Matthews. 2/10/2010

...and Keith Olberman had a great comment about Palin's death panels, the same day.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Every bit as much of me that detests government intervention in healthcare, also detests insurance manipulation of healthcare so as to assure their continued profits. That health insurance is conducted as a for profit business, instead of a charity/savings pool that we all have access to is the number one indictment of our healthcare system.

Save The Murlocs!

2009-12-01T10:36:00.002-06:00

And now for something completely different...

savethemurlocs.org

Jack Steele

2009-06-29T10:39:00.010-05:00

This is the text of the Obituary that ran in the local paper, both here in Canon City where he lived, and in Leoti where he spent a large portion of his life.

John Hyland ‘Jack’ Steele Jr. died peacefully in the presence of family at the St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City late Saturday, June 27, 2009.

He was born Sept. 11, 1938, in Witchita Falls, Texas, to John Hyland and Dorothy (Heim) Steele; they preceded him in death. He also was preceded in death by his son, Kelly Steele.

Jack served his country in he United States Air Force for six years and, for most of his life, received joy helping countless people have a good experience buying a car. He never met a stranger and was loved by all who met him.

He leaves behind the love of his life, Charlene “Charley” Steele and children: Ray Anthony Steele, Jonnette Ann Kraft, Dawn Marie Nickell, John Russell Steele, and Damion Lee Steele; his seven grandchildren and his sister, Jean Mohri.

Jack was a fighter and fought until the end.

At his request, there will be no services. In lieu of flowers, Jack would appreciate donations to Fremont County Orchard of Hope, 111 Orchard Ave., Cañon City, CO 81212.

Arrangements handled through Wilson Funeral Home.

I have never been embarrassed to say "my father is a car salesman". Horse trading is a long and honored tradition, and my father just applied the same principles to cars that was once applied to horses. In more than 30 years of working the deal, I never met anyone who thought they hadn't gotten a fair trade from him. Even after he was forced into retirement by his battle with cancer, he could still be found sizing up, buying and selling cars and trucks in his spare time.

A good portion of the population in Leoti probably remembers him as Hyland's son, who inherited the service station that he built. A volunteer fireman and occasional fire chief, my father was active in that small community in ways that would put most activists to shame in this day and age.

He was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. Grandma, when talking about those times, remarked "if he'd have waited another hour, he'd have been born in Oklahoma." that was the life of people who worked the oil fields in the 1930's. It wasn't long, though, before they settled in Leoti, and that small town remained home for three generations of Steeles.

I remember fondly riding the tractor with my Uncles and my Grandfather, working the farms that belonged to friends and relatives. I earned my first wages working in the service station, and my second job was in the fields, clearing weeds from around crops too sensitive to be mechanically maintained.

What I will remember most about my father, though, is his love of fishing and hunting. Long stretches of the summer season would be spent washing lures in Trenton, Nebraska. Winter weekends were to be spent in Twin Buttes, Colorado hunting canada geese; or quail, pheasant, deer and elk when in season. Fishing, more than anything else, defined the good times that I remember from childhood.

His health, in the last years, has been so poor I can't even begin to understand how he managed to drag himself through each day. But he did. He fought his cancer tooth and nail till the end, and survived far longer with it and it's after effects than any of the MD's thought he could. He breathed his last with his youngest adoptive son (as I was also adopted) by his side.

We miss you already, dad.

Star Trek, 1966-2009, R.I.P.

2009-05-14T12:11:00.005-05:00

For the record, I should have stuck to my guns. But I didn't. I caught J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (from here on out to be known as the Abramanation, for brevity's sake) a few days back. By the time it was over, I knew that the universe had changed.

Abrams said he was creating a film that was entertaining, and true to his word, it is. From the initial scenes of the massive Romulan ship appearing and spawning an alternate timeline (this is not a spoiler, this happens two minutes into the film. Spoilers ahead though, be warned) when it engages in a fierce battle with a clearly more archaic Federation vessel, to the final scenes with a triumphant Captain James T. Kirk at the helm of his (way too shiny) Enterprise, this blockbuster is most definitely entertaining.

It's just not Star Trek.

A good portion of the audience applauded at the end of the film. The group I went with all enjoyed it (ages 10, 18 and 55. Definitely the target audience) I even found myself enjoying it. But just as the re-launch of Lost in Space (the film I was most reminded of viewing this one) redefined (in a good way, in my opinion) what Lost in Space was about, the Abramanation has redefined what Star Trek is about, and something significant has been lost in translation.

It isn't a problem with the cast, they all performed admirably. It isn't a problem with the dialog, a good portion of which seemed to be lifted word for word from previous episodes and movies. I think the problem is that Star Trek has always been more than just entertainment to me (no matter how many times I repeated the mantra "it's just entertainment, don't take it seriously") and to see it "dumbed down" to the level of blockbuster entertainment (a process started several films ago) leaves me feeling a bit hollow.

I find myself at a loss now. Unlike many fans, I'm not insulted by the content of the film. I just can't grasp what it is that the vast majority of the fans and viewing public see in the film. It's first weekend returns exceeded all other Star Trek films to date, even adjusted for inflation.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979): $11,926,421 (opening weekend)/ $82,258,456 (cume)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): $14,347,221 / $78,737,310
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984): $16,673,229 / $76,389,860
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): $16,881,888 / $109,713,132
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989): $17,375,648 / $52,210,049
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991): $18,162,837 / $74,888,996
Star Trek: Generations (1994): $23,116,394 / $75,671,125
Star Trek: First Contact (1996): $30,716,131 / $92,027,888
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998): $22,052,836 / $70,187,658
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): $18,513,305 / $43,126,129

Adjusted for inflation:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979): $34,668,706 (opening weekend)/ $239,115,674 (cume)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): $35,038,451 / $192,290,437
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984): $35,629,102 / $163,237,856
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): $32,671,686 / $212,328,919
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989): $31,267,457 / $93,951,918
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991): $30,976,050 / $127,720,425
Star Trek: Generations (1994): $39,707,107 / $129,980,545
Star Trek: First Contact (1996): $49,896,339 / $149,493,266
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998): $33,761,058 / $107,451,468
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): $22,918,195 / $53,387,173
(numbers compiled by Daniel Garris)

(From Boxoffice: The History of 'Trek')

I've read dozens of posts in support of the film on Trekbbs. Fans are dragging their friends out to watch it; in much the same fashion as if the average American needs to be convinced to chew bubblegum. The Abramanation is bubblegum. I don't see the point in promoting bubblegum; people will chew it anyway.

No, I don't like the film. If you really want to know why read through...

!Spoiler Alert!

Paramount finally gets it's way and removes those pesky Vulcans that are so hard to understand and write for (logic, what's that?) by having Vulcan destroyed by an artificially generated black hole (the explanation for which would be technobabble, had they only attempted to explain it) thus insuring that the only Vulcan they will have to write parts for in the future is the half-Vulcan Mr. Spock, who seems to have a lot more trouble restraining emotion in this universe.

Uhura in essence sleeps her way onto the bridge of the Enterprise by having a relationship with Mr. Spock, who is not only one of her professors, but also a superior officer. The moral issues of this arrangement are never questioned, leading me to wonder if we haven't somehow stumbled into the Mirror, Mirror universe (Sylar, is that you?) where that type of behavior is run of the mill.

James T. Kirk becomes captain of the Enterprise largely influenced by the career of his father. In this alternate timeline, the now fatherless Kirk (dad being killed in the opening sequence of the film. The com conversation between the two parents, as George Kirk is about to be killed, being one of the silliest parts of the film) still becomes captain of the Enterprise; proving the modern belief that fathers are irrelevant in the scheme of things, and can be disposed of with no ill effects for any required plot device.

Then there's the running gag of Bones McCoy infecting the recently reprimanded Kirk with a mock disease in order to smuggle him on the Enterprise. This leads to a subsequent series of injections in order to cure him of humorous side effects. Or the transwarp beaming accident that leaves the recently found Scotty floating in engine coolant until conveniently rescued by Kirk through an inexplicably placed access hatch in the coolant tube. both situations so clearly contrived as to almost be cringe-level uncomfortable for me.

I could go on, but I won't.

!End Spoiler Alert!

I can't help but wonder what Leonard Nimoy (whom I will hold blameless) saw in this film to recommend his tacit approval and his venerable image to it. Spock prime stands in sharp contrast to the new cast, carrying with him into history a mantle of respect this revisioined Star Trek will never achieve. Because unlike Star Trek and it's 42 years of history, the Abramanation is just entertainment.

With this film, Paramount can pat itself on the back for finally successfully milking this franchise the way it wanted to when the property was acquired with Desilu Productions. Like so many entertainment properties (Lost in Space, the Brady Bunch, Bewitched, the Flintstones, etc.) before it, sucked dry of nostalgia dollars, Star Trek can be safely shelved in long term storage, probably never to be heard from again.

If there is any mercy in this Mirror, Mirror universe, it won't be. Rest In Peace Star Trek. Say hi to Gene for me.

Star Trek opens this week. Ho Hum?

2009-05-09T14:37:00.011-05:00

I just realized I've missed the opening of the new Trek film, an unprecedented event in my adult life.

I took my first high school date to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture (proving conclusively that trekkies do get dates, by the way) cried my eyes out when Spock died in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan; in fact, I watched it two days ago after watching a full day of Biography tribute to Star Trek. (should have known the new film was coming out) Cried that time too.

Watching Star Trek first run in 1967 introduced me to Science Fiction. Since that time I have tried to watch and read everything SF and SciFi (there is a difference) that I had time for. I've read the Larry Niven story that the animated episode Slaver Weapon was drawn from; started reading Niven because of that linkage. I have a fondness for 'hard' SF, exhibited in my interest in series like Babylon 5, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. But Star Trek, with all it's quirkiness, remains my alma mater, my raison detre, my first love.

One of the first films The Wife and I watched together was Star Trek: The Search for Spock; which was also the first time I witnessed her assault a fellow movie patron for being loud during a film; she hit a friend of ours with her purse for cheering when the Enterprise blew up (That's nothing, she's since punched a total stranger for talking during a film. If you see us in a theater, you better be quiet...) we've watched every Star Trek film together since that one.

...until now. She's not going to see it (she's liable to punch me if I suggest it) and I'm not going until next week. Maybe not even then.

I was opposed to a Star Trek Babies film as far back as the original announcement for the 11th film in the series; and having been burned by Paramount twice before, I'm not inclined to trust their decisions this time. The first one being the decision to hire J.J. Abrams to direct the film. While Abrams insists he didn't shoot a Star Trek Babies film, he did say this on Colbert's show this week;

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

J.J. Abrams

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Gay Marriage

Specifically, he says "I made a film that was supposed to be entertaining [and] not necessarily for Star Trek fans" 11 films, 5 series, countless books, and he's not doing a film (necessarily) for the fans. Clearly, he doesn't need this fans $8.50 on opening weekend.

Now, I like J.J. Abrams, in general. I'm a LOST watcher (it stumbled a bit over the last few years, but this season has been very good) and his film Cloverfield was probably the best creature feature I've seen (not that that's saying much) Still, if you start mucking around with peoples fondest memories, you better be ready for one hell of a backlash. Because it's J.J. Abrams at the helm, I'll concede to viewing the film at some point. But...

With the impact Star Trek has had on the world in the last 42 years, that's a lot of pissed off fans to deal with. For his sake, the film had better be entertaining, at the very least. Otherwise, he might consider finding a different career.

Suspect Sniffles

2009-04-15T13:35:00.002-05:00

Pseudoephedrine interdiction, the other shoe drops.

Google alerts dropped this in my inbox;

Other View: Law doesn't stop meth

At least one government effort to curb methamphetamine production seems to have been a bust.

The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 ... makes it more difficult to purchase common, non-prescription cold medication containing pseudoephedrine.

Pseudoephedrine is the main ingredient used in the manufacture of meth. So, instead of simply purchasing drugs like Sudafed over the counter as in the past, everyone must now get them from behind the counter, usually from a pharmacist.

... It turns out, however, that it probably was all for nothing. A study published in the March issue of the American Economic Review found that restricting pseudoephedrine had only a temporary effect on the meth trade.

Yet, the government continues to track cold and allergy sufferers as if everyone with the sniffles is a potential criminal, while meth manufacturers go about their business as usual.

The Decatur Daily, Ala.
(from the Traverse City Record-Eagle website)

It's listed as an opinion piece, but it's based on an evidence based indictment of the entire drug war. If you want to pay $7.50 you can download the study from The American Economic Review website.

Here's the abstract;

In mid-1995, a government effort to reduce the supply of methamphetamine precursors successfully disrupted the methamphetamine market and interrupted a trajectory of increasing usage. The price of methamphetamine tripled and purity declined from 90 percent to 20 percent. Simultaneously, amphetaminerelated hospital and treatment admissions dropped 50 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Methamphetamine use among arrestees declined 55 percent. Although felony methamphetamine arrests fell 50 percent, there is no evidence of substantial reductions in property or violent crime. The impact was largely temporary. The price returned to its original level within four months; purity, hospital admissions, treatment admissions, and arrests approached preintervention levels within eighteen months.

(emphasis added)

So, like all attempts to curb demand by targeting supply, this effort has simply lead to alternative methods of getting meth to the people who want it.

How long are we going to throw away billions (perhaps even trillions) of dollars trying to keep people from pursuing what they see as 'happiness'?

Hooray for ISP & cable provider choice!

2009-04-02T13:21:00.002-05:00

I've never been happier than I am right now, to not be a Time Warner subscriber.

To: Grandecom
Subject: Thank you!

Just got word that Time Warner is about to stick it to the local customer base (http://www.businessinsider.com/time-warner-cable-putting-more-bandwidth-hogs-on-a-diet-2009-4)

I'd like to take this time to thank Grande for NOT doing this to it's subscribers, and to suggest that this should be your marketing focus for the foreseeable future. (My wife is once again offering her services to Grande if they need help with this...) 40 gb a month is a ridiculously low 'maximum' cap on usage. They should be run through the ringer for this action.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you. I look forward to seeing Grande's gain in market share in the near future.

Sincerely,
R. Anthony Steele

Why don't you try USING the computer...?

2009-03-24T08:42:00.002-05:00

Who else finds this annoying?

You call in for service, and the computer that answers the phone (annoying in itself. Uppity computers) demands that you identify yourself so that you can be routed to the right department (which, BTW, never gets you where you want to be) and several hours later, when the live person finally gets around to answering your call, they promptly ask you for the exact same information.

Woe be to he who complains about this, too. Then you get booted to another department, where they ask you for the same information, again.

Or, how about this?

"all calls are recorded for training and blah, blah, blah" but if I have a complaint, I have to submit the complaint in writing. Why not try listening to the recording? submitting a complaint through the $5000 solitaire machine sitting on the desktop in front of you?

Why not try using the computer that answers the calls? Routing information gathered to the person who ultimately handles the call? Actually using recorded customer calls to improve service instead of a blanket CYA device?

A radical concept, I know.

Best science fiction movie?

2009-02-08T14:55:00.000-06:00

Answered this Yahoo Question today...

Best science fiction movie?

i'm watching tv-movie "supernova" while typing this and im afraid it's just a complete insult to my own intelligence ... can anyone recommend a really good science fiction movie to make up for this friggin' atrocity?

If I was subjected to torture (being strapped into a chair and forced to watch an endless loop of Barney reruns, for example) and forced to select One Film above All Others as The Best SF film ever made...

I'd have to say Blade Runner. It has the timeless quality of a real classic film, and it is very nearly flawlessly SF.

Since I'm not being subjected to torture, I'll offer some further thoughts on the subject of "Great" SF films.

The last great SF film was "Wall E", that I've seen. Yes it's a kids film, go see it anyway.

The Essential SF list runs like this

Metropolis
Forbidden Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Blade Runner
Alien
Serenity
Vanilla Sky
The Abyss
The Terminator
Aliens
Pitch Black
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Children of Men
The Truman Show
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Source(s):

My list at Flixster
http://www.flixster.com/movie-list/essen...
Rotten Tomatoes SF list
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestof...

Top 10 Things To Do on Tuesday Mornings

2009-01-06T05:00:00.004-06:00

The servers are down, Blizzard is "maintaining". What to do, what to do?

Visit the guild portal (or your blog!) and mope.
Walk dogs. Nope, 42 degrees and drizzle.
Clean house for the first time in a month. Not dirty enough yet.
See if you can find the floor in the laundry room. Did that last week.
Identify the various molds in the refrigerator. Can't identify most of them.
See if you can remember how to access cable on your TV.
Failing that, see if you can find a DVD that you haven't seen.
Find a book to read that doesn't put you to sleep.
Sleep.

Failing to fall asleep, in pure desperation you might

Balance the checkbook and pay the bills.

Luckily, I won't have trouble sleeping.

Gone Fishin'; WoW 'Toons & Servers

2008-12-30T23:52:00.004-06:00

In case anyone wants to find me on WoW, I'll just put this here for reference sake. I'm on two World of Warcraft servers, at the moment. One for horde characters, one Alliance.

My Horde reside on Terenas.

Tharthurm - Level 36 Tauren Warrior (Mining, Skinning)
Uroga - Level 22 Orc Hunter (Mining, Engineering)
Creavishop - Level 20 Undead Warlock (Tailoring, Enchanting)
Doongarind - Level 11 Orc Shamen (Herbology,Skinning)
Rakudaga - Level 10 Tauren Druid (Herbology, Alchemy)
Eugenna - Level 10 Undead Rogue (Skinning, Leatherworking)
Kelyndrian - Level 11 Blood Elf Paladin (Mining, Blacksmithing)
Tanath - Level 8 Blood Elf Mage (Herbology, Jewelcrafting)

There is a spy on Terenas (created before I realized I couldn't play all the characters I wanted to create on the same server) a Level 18 human Mage, Johanieren (Herbology, Alchemy) I don't play him much.

Alliance toons are on Muraden.

Eieloris - Level 40 Night Elf Rogue (Skinning, Leatherworking)
Juverna - Level 36 Dwarf Hunter (Mining, Skinning)
Tarashal - Level 27 Night Elf Druid (Herbology, Alchemy)
Brenelbur - Level 22 Gnome Mage (Tailoring, Enchanting)
Garabaldi - Level 22 Gnome Warrior (Mining, Engineering)
Rasputing - Level 10 Draenei Paladin (Mining, Blacksmithing)
Raslinda - Level 13 Draenei Shamen (Herbology, Skinning, ATM)
Keslingra - Level 2 Dwarf Priest (She's my banker, auctioneer, but she's going to do inscription, I think)

Yes, I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to playing a game.

Election Day Coverage; Extended WoW Realm Downtime

2008-11-04T12:00:00.001-06:00

this is the most suspenseful thing about today; when will they bring my WoW realm back online? I'm starting to have withdrawal symptoms, as I do every Tuesday morning update.

I get a lot of laundry done on Tuesday mornings. It's also a favorite walking time.

What about the election, I hear you asking? Obama wins. Hope I'm not spoiling things for you.