A Few Tweaks

I've been away a lot lately. Scrabbling for work, mostly.

Let's see, what's been happening. Well I've been spending a lot of time reading about the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal, and I've concluded that a handful of emails, even if they contained a plot that would make Dan Brown wet his shorts, don't in fact change thirty or fifty years of science, backed by the actual data.

There's a lot more. But for some good reading on the subjects, I'd try Deltoid and DeSmogBlog. This is a debate where style has heretofore trumped science, and those two are trying hard to counter that.

What else ... Oh yes, I've been sort of outed. I left a rude comment over at Canadian Cynic and one of the subjects took the two minutes it took to Google me. He says my name is Ted, and I'm willing to take his word on that. But I knew, and was warned by no less an intertubes big gun than Raincoaster, that no-one's really anonymous on the 'net. So it isn't as though I hadn't expected this to happen at some point.

It'll be interesting to see whether the idea of having a name linked to this blog is likely to change the way I express myself. I hope not. Metro's the little bit of me that I keep locked away when someone's saying something that makes me want to grab their lapels, haul them up to my nose and scream "Are you ₤µ©λing NUTS!?"

Such as when a pleasant, white-haired old lady tells me that Barack Obama is the devil, and means it ... So instead I smile and nod, and when I get home I write it down and try to dissect it.

Anyway ... As you can see, I've updated the blogroll a bit to more accurately reflect where I've been spending my time. If the links look a little left-ish, well I'm hoping to find some reasonable writing from the other side of the spectrum. But it's often a matter of luck. For example, there's today's smart, sensible piece:

At Dr. Dawg's Blawg, I stumbled across a link to this. I linked to Little Green Footballs once, and only once, way back in the prehistory of the ol' Metroblog. I didn't hang about because teh crazy seemed infectious. I forget how I got there, but the Nazi site Stormfront was involved. And no I'm not linking there.

But now I find this post "Why I Parted Ways With the Right, and it so well traces my own retreat from Conservatism that I had to clip a few choice bits off and post them here:

...
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)
...

There's more. I reccomend reading that piece.

Partly as a result of hanging around at places that define the extremes of the argument, I'd been very dispirited and bitter lately about the quality of ideas out there. So it's nice to see that sometimes reason does, in fact, prevail.

Meantime, I'm pleased to meet you.
Now you know my name.

Play me off, Mick and Keith!

Conservatism: The View's Great With Your Head Up Your Collective

I'm honestly wondering whether Conservatism isn't merely a political viewpoint, but a psychotic disconnect.

Case in point: Our own Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is blaming Canada for the recent imposition of visa requirements on Mexicans, which you may recall was a summer surprise from his government.

That is, asked to explain his government's actions, Harper goes for the "It's not my fault--The country I'm trying to rule over just likes brown people too much!" defence. No surprise there, really.

Gutless, brainless, unconscionable ... And speaking of that:

I'm still glad I don't live in the United States. Because apparently Republicans have no idea what the term "discourse" means.

Invited to have a town-hall debate on health care reform, they respond with a) death threats, b) invitations to bring guns to said meetings and be violent, oh, and c) faking their own beatings. More on the Passion of Kenneth Gladney here.

The distortion and lying by shills for the Repugnicans reached its peak with Sarah "Moose Head" Palin's nutty claim that under the Obama proposal some sort of bureaucratic health board would pronounce on the fitness of her offspring to live

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Well I can understand why Palin would be worried about a panel with the power of life or death judging the usefulness to society of the mentally deficient. But even if such a panel were convened, they'd surely have enough humanity to spare her: culling mental defectives in the Palin family would likely leave no-one to care for poor Trig, who has Down Syndrome.

Your Republican Party: Fighting for the rights of the common folk to remain ignorant, fearful, exploited, and ill. Huzzah!

--And god damn them to hell.

In my own province, the BC "Liberals"--who are Conservatives (It'd take too long to explain--Here's the Wikipedia) are mulling over cutting some six thousand surgeries in Vancouver, and also closing a third of Vancouver emergency rooms during the Olympics.

The reason is that the Liberal government told the health authority to suck it up and refused to even negotiate funding a $200 million shortfall in budget because all spare money is earmarked for the Olympics--which is also why we're getting a "Harmonized Sales Tax"--which isn't a tax grab, apparently, but purely co-incidentally adds taxes to items previously spared them.

What's most disturbing about this non-tax-grab is the cynicism behind it. The Campbell Liberals campaigned specifically on a promise of "no new taxes" after adding a 2¢ "carbon" tax on every litre of gas. Note: I support the gas tax. Consumer-level carbon taxes are pretty much the only way to make significant change. However instead of the money going to green initiatives, the goverment plugs it into general revenue to bolster their abysmal budget figures.

Bear in mind that all health changes instituted in the past fifteen years have been from the BC Liberal Conservative party. So if the health authority is scrod--and I believe it is--the people to blame are fairly easy to spot.

You may remember the Olympics--the ones that are some 100% or something over budget and climbing? Turns out that the BC Liberals based part of that budget on the willingness of employers to pay their employees to work at the Olympics instead of, well, at work--Like, y'know, at their businesses.

For some reason that doesn't seem to be working out. So the BC government is going to second its own employees--that is, civil servants from the force that the first Campbell government slashed to its barely-functional bones--to do the Olympic jobs instead of, y'know, providing government services.

Oh, and that's on top of the massive incentive program already offered to BC government employees who volunteer at the Olympics--they actually get paid to take paid leave.

The Olympic security budget is $900 mil, up from an estimate of $180 million--I think they assumed Superman would be available, so the shortfall is understandable. But Superman is likely to be covering for the cops who are also being drafted into the Olympics' service. Courts will be all-but-closed for most of February in BC.

Conservatives just don't connect with reality anymore. They've earned their tme in the wilderness and should just go away and let the adults handle things until therapists find a cure.

Safety Catch .22

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

~From Joseph Heller's 1961 novel

Just today we receive the announcement that several idiots who filmed themselves illegally shooting flightless baby ducks from their truck and making humourous comments such as "Mama's dead, don't need that one anymore," have been caught.

I have avoided commenting at the various threads on the health club shooting beyond saying that the shooter (may his name be rapidly forgotten) was a zeta-male loser with a grudge and a gun. The part I'm avoiding is the obvious bit about the NRA's unofficial creed: "Guns don't kill people--People with guns kill people!"

The point is that it's fairly clear that many people who get themselves a gun are precisely the sort of people whom no-one would want to have one.

So I propose a simple policy: I call it "Safety Catch-.22"

Since the desire to have a gun often seems to indicate the unsuitability of the applicant, anyone who applies in their own name to own a firearm will be immediately disqualified from doing so.

However, in the interest of fairness and all other requirements met, a license may be granted to anyone who can persuade another person to apply in his or her name.

I mean, think about it. People who know multiple murderers often say "Yeah--he creeped me out." Do you think anyone who knew the gym shooter, or the Columbine kids, would have signed off on getting them guns?

A friend mentioned, by pure happenstance yesterday, that one of the Columbine shooters' "girlfriend" acquired one of the weapons they used. I'd just like to say, "Have a nice life you dopey troll," and to suggest that perhaps the person making the application in your name should have to be a total stranger to you.

The Healthcare "Debate"?

Let me declare my biases:

I'm Canadian

I was born to parents whose own parents didn't have "socialized health care" and who regarded it as one of the finest achievements of civilization

The Canadian health care system helped, at the very least, to save my life on at least one occasion.

So I'm mad when I see the system so mischaracterized by the forces who want to continue screwing US citizens out of their money. Because that's what private-for-profit health "care" does: It rations health care. The very thing it accuses "government-run" or "bureaucratic" or "socialized" health care of.

Because economics is all about scarcity. The scarcer something is, the higher a premiuim it may command on the open market. Healthy people just aren't good "health consumers."

It is reckoned that the US pirate-for-profit system costs several billion dollars in lost productivity each year, not counting the $46 bn in direct costs. Yet there are outfits out there who are frantically trying to avoid the Obama health care debate by going to their "consumers" and trying to defend their (the consumers') right to go bankrupt for cancer treatment, their right to pay premiums and have coverage denied anyway, and their right to go entirely without any form of health care. And, purely co-incidentally I'm sure, these organizations end up defending their right to profit off the sick and healthy alike, through fear.

The US system simply doesn't make sense in a civilized world. Of course, a civilized world would have to be one in which profit might occasionally have to take a back seat to charity, mercy, forbearance. Which doesn't suit insurance companies at all. After all, it takes an especially twisty kind of thinking to take the wrong end of a bet on whether or not you will die, and still make money on the deal.

The Calgary Herald has today an excellent, simple editorial outlining the fractured thinking going on behind the drive to preserve health as something people who produce nothing and contribute nothing good to the economy should continue making a profit on (I'm speaking specifically of HMOs. Insurance itself is useful, and a vital financial instrument that has to be in place for any kind of market-based economy to thrive).

Oh, and to any US Avid Fans: If you hear anything from a Doctor Brian Day, ignore it. He's a rotten lousy shill for the health insurance industry. Because up here in "Marxist" Canada, where "rationed" healthcare dictates who gets what, we allow people to see private quacks out of their own pockets if they like. And we allow said quacks to set up clinics so that they can go about the business of gouging money out of the healthy.

In Canada, doctors are in private practice. But the patient is shielded from predation by drug companies, "health management" companies, and doctors who're so terrified of liability that they send you for unnecessary tests.

The US can't do it like Canada, exactly. There are too many entrenched interests, too long a history, and possibly too decentralized a government (Although we've steadily been devolving responsibility to the provinces--and it's been a bit of a disaster).

Now, no system will ever cover everything (there's that scarcity again). But it seems to me that while government provided systems usually have to justify refusing care, all an insurance company has to say is "Sorry--we don't cover that." It's on record: Companies have routinely sent "deny-first" letters to clients hoping they'll simply give up and go away.

But the US has a chance to step out and show the world. Perhaps a blended private-public system like many of the Scandanavian countries would do it?

Like the old commercials say: "Two flavour great--No debate!"

In any case, if they really want an easy way to jump-start the economy, the first thing to do is to get everyone some form of basic health coverage.

Ripping the Lid Off From Inside the Can

Understandably, Israel and many of the nations which stand in solidarity with her, such as Canada, have rejected outright accusations of using tactics which violate the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.

Most of the time Israel has found it easier, and surely more convenient, to claim that such charges are propaganda, even in the face of photographic evidence and multiple sources of testimony.

The UN has long recorded a pattern of Israeli Defence Forces targetting its facilities, as well as civillian facilities whose co-ordinates it sends to the IDF for specifically the opposite purpose. Accidents, the IDF says. Although it's an odd accident that hits the same small observation post multiple times while the UN observers inside are on the phone to the IDF commanders.

But now the reports are coming from a source too close to home to ignore: Israeli veterans.

From the BBC:

"A Palestinian neighbour is brought in," he says. "It was procedure. The soldier places his gun barrel on the civilian's shoulder."

If true, that was a clear breach of the international laws of war - which say soldiers have a duty of care to non-combatants - and of Israeli law.

[. . .]

The common thread in the almost 30 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence is that orders were given to prevent Israeli casualties, whatever the cost in Palestinian lives.

The IDF says it's investigating the claims. I'd be surprised if they don't find anything. But I wouldn't be surprised if they don't find anything.

As previous posts about Israel have tended to attract the ire of some people, let me scotch the first arguments here and now: I believe that the state of Israel has a right to exist, and a right to defend itself. I understand that they're fighting a long and difficult war with an enemy who willingly targets civillians. But making the enemy's tactics your own isn't going to win you hearts and minds. There is a strong argument for trying to exemplify your own declared morality in wartime.

As well, the outright and vehment denials that we're used to seeing from Israel and her supporters do no-one any credit. We all know $#17 happens in wartime. But in the IDF it happens, so it seems, to an extent difficult to believe. It's time for an honest and open admission, and a transparent investigation. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

Speaking of Politics ... Which of Course I Never Do ...

Today is Bastille Day!
Today in 1789 a group of concerned citizens stormed HM prison le Bastille Saint-Antoine. In honour of which I am having a beer.

The lesson of the Bastille is threefold:
1) Sic Semper Tyrannis
The Bastille's notoriety was due to secrecy rather than based in fact. At the time of its storming, the garrison was mostly pensioned veterans, backed by 30 or so Grenadiers, and the prisoner count was seven.

However, it remained a symbol of the ruling classes, and following the storming it was appropriated as a symbol by the ruling revolutionaries, leading to lesson #2.

2) Revolutions Poison History (so does everything else)
The goal of storming the Bastille had nothing to do with releasing the prisoners, until it occured to someone what a fine political gesture it might make. Instead, the concerned citizens, pragmatic pre-Marxists that they were, were attempting to apply Marx' principles a priori to the supplies of weaponry, shot, and powder inside.

In the aftermath, the prison's governor and several other of the prison staff were murdered, despite surrendering under a truce flag, and their heads cut off and paraded on pikes.

3) Political Currents Are Profitably Navigable
After the Revolution, a well-connected impresario named Palloy contracted to demolish the building. As part of the demolition, he sold the rubble to souvenir hunters.

Here endeth the lessons.

A Pattern Emerges

Stephen Harper is not, in the words of Don Corleone, "A man of respect." He fires experts rather than acknowledge their competence, muzzles his own ministers, takes the cheapest of cheap shots, fires off attack ads to "save Canadians" from the threat of another election even when a)no threat of an election exists and b) it's hardly a threat to anyone but him. He's known to be contemptuous of others' ideas and opinions, and only by being close as an oyster has he thus far avoided looking like the nasty, unsympathetic, stringy-souled wretch he is.

In recent weeks, two incidents have occurred which throw a bit of light on the character of the hapless and uncomfortable man currently holding the national rudder.

First was Stephen Harper's crackergate. Catholics were scandalized to observe Mister Harper, at a state funeral for former Governor-General Romeo LeBlanc, caught on video apparently taking a communion wafer (about 0:30) and failing to consume it.



Now this wouldn't be a problem if Harper was not himself an evangelical Protestant Christian, who should reasonably be expected to understand about sacred cows. But moreover, he's the Prime Minister of a country that still divides fairly sharply along the Catholic/Protestant divide.

Harper's spokesperson complicated matters by absolutely insisting that his boss swallowed the cracker. Which certainly doesn't appear to happen in the few seconds during which Harper is obscured by the priest.

As an atheist, and one who expressed some concern over a prior incident, I'm of two minds here:

First: It's a cracker, basically. The priest raising the alarm on this one probably isn't very busy otherwise.

Second, however: This guy's the PM. He's supposed to know better--In fact I'd bet he can hardly have avoided knowing better. It seems disrespectful at a very fundamental level. He could have waved off the priest. I sometimes attend church with my family and never take communion.

Perhaps he thought that slipping it into his pocket was better than being seen by the nation's Catholics refusing to accept it?

But my belief is that it's just part of his disrespect for anyone who isn't him.

Last April, Harper made my country a laughing stock by turning up late for photos at a conference. In fact the first picture at the last G13 (the G8 plus the G5) meeting didn't include him at all.

He repeated the stunt last week, after just about everyone at the G8 meeting criticized him for also being absent on climate change. Canada, under the "leadership" of the Harper Tories, has shamefully neglected, avoided, and ducked its environmental responsibilities.

It's all of a piece: There are the bold and barefaced lies about our environmental policies being sufficient (Harper's plan includes no penalties for excess pollution, resists any scheme to actually, you know, limit greenhouse gas emissions, and is allegedly supposed to produce results starting in 2050--which politically speaking is as close to "never" as dammit).

There's the consistent lack of consideration and respect for other world leaders--Let me rephrase that: "for world leaders".

And the apparent disrespect for Catholic traditions. If you don't share that particular superstition it is surely harmless and innocuous to not take the wafer.

Harper, in terms of establishing meaningful human, international, and intergovernmental relationships, is a washout. Why? Because, it seems, he just doesn't respect anyone who isn't him. Of course, I could simply have called him a Conservative. In Canada these days it seems that that's the shorthand.

Addendum:
I have noticed that where Webster Cook's transgression, and PZ Myers' deliberate desecration of the Host produced death threats and howls of outrage at the "hate crime", particularly from those on the Harperite side of the ideological chasm, the PM's absention of a Host appears to have drawn much milder criticism. I'd like to believe that it's because we're Canadian, and we recognize that, in itself, this is a nothing incident.

As part of Harper's pattern of disrespect, it seems to be more significant.

Walk, Man, Walk On

Thirty years ago next Christmas or so, my sister managed to get her grasping hooks on a Sony Walkman, courtesy of Father Christmas (known in these modern times as Non-Specified, Irreligious, Entirely Commercial Holiday Figure). NSIECHF had received word that the immature zygote considered it the ultimate in desiderata.

It was the hottest thing since Betamax (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what Betamax was). It was going to be bigger than the laser disc player (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what a laser disc player was), while being smaller than a boombox (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what a boombox was).

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Walkman, the BBC convinced a thirteen-year-old to use one for a week. His perceptions are astoundingly deep and sagacious, for such a young man, sprinkled with amusing generational misunderstandings:

From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.

What the young man fails to understand, of course, is that pockets in trousers of the day were nonfunctional, as the pants they were sewn to were so tight as to prohibit the insertion of anything thicker than a quarter for bus fare (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what a quarter was, and when it could have last been used for bus fare). That same tightness guaranteed that they could not be pulled down by a three-pound Walkman, or in many cases by a 230-pound centre-forward (That, O Avid Fans young and old, is the real reason for the rise in teen pregnancies--Pants you can remove in a Volkswagen).

However, the BBC seems to have locked on to one of the few thirteen-year-olds who can't cope with technology:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made.

Read about the rest of them here.

Yet Another Transitional Fossil Found

One of the common arguments used by creationists used to be "Well, where are the transitional fossils, eh?"

And they had a point at one time. It was difficult to link, for example, birds to dinosaurs, land mammals to whales, and humans to other primates. Surely if one creature morphed into another we should see some in-between forms. But for the past thirty years in particular those transitional forms have been showing up.

Unfortunately, every time a new one turns up the usual response from creationists is "Well that was a separate species, all on its own ..." Which is true. But doesn't mean what they want it to mean.

And every time a new missing link is discovered, the gaps in evolution that have traditionally had gods forced in to account for what we don't know grow a little smaller.

And so we have Ida. Ida isn't a lemur, nor an ape. And yet she seems to be both. The magnificently-well preserved fossil may ... I say may because lo it is way sciency to try and be clear about what we don't know ... Certainty is the province of creationism ... be a link between lemurs and other primates, including us.

Researchers are unsure when and where the primate group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans split from the other group of primates that includes lemurs.

"[Ida] is one of the important branching points on the evolutionary tree," Richmond said, "but it's not the only branching point."

~From National Geographic, emphasis mine.

The question is whether the discovery of yet another transitional is likely to wring some acknowledgement of the truth of evolution out of the theory's detractors. I am unlikely to hold my breath.

Hey There (Number Twenty-Something for the "I-Know-I've-Been-Offline-Awhile" File)

Mme and I had a little mini-break last weekend in Banff, the place where everyone is from somewhere else. In one day I was served and had money taken by eight Aussie women. So if you're sitting around in Bundaberg and wondering where all the good Aussi women have got to, you need to visit Banff. If you're a Canadian, sitting around Banff or Whistler and wondering why all the local girls have funny accents, may I suggest Byron Bay? Okay, so half the women in Byron are Dutch, but you're still more likely to encounter a fellow Canuckistani.

Well a lot's been happening in the world, but little of it seemed to require a post:

We were all supposed to $#17 ourselves over swine flu, but it really doesn't seem as bad as all that. The World Health Organization was right to crank up the pandemic alerts, because there was a genuine risk. But I feel that fast precautions may have averted the worst of it. Besides, in the end it's a 'flu. It poses a major risk to those with immune disorders, and to the elderly and the very young. Like all flu do. Wash your hands, quit snogging strangers at the pub, and you're less likely to be exposed.

A friend of mine, Big Jim, posted a link to healthnet or whatever that friggin' colloidal-silver-flogging network is. Just as last time, it's all a big conspiracy by "the six companies that own all media" and their partners, the pharmaceutical industry. Among the claims: Canada is a corporation, because something named "Canada" is apparently registered with the SEC. Media film at the time showed machinery "producing vaccines", and colloidal silver was shortly to be banned (for at least the third time).

When I tore the post apart, he deleted my post, claiming my discussion was "irrelevant". So I asked directly for the names of the six companies. He refused to name them, saying I should Google them--That is, I should go to a mega-corp to investigate the megacorps that have such a lockdown on media that nothing contrary ever gets published except by people who believe the New World Order and the Reptillians are about to overwhelm us any minute now ... Aaaany minute now ... It's coming ... Don't say we didn't warn you ...

Then he closed his post by saying "This is just my opinion. If I'm wrong, I'd like to know."

I could shoe the Kentucky Derby with the irony in that statement. I have as yet refused to go back and re-post my original and see whether it gets deleted again. I mean, he's a friend. Crack-brained and paranoid, but a friend nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry into whether ex-Prime Minister was taking money from an arms dealer has yet to conclude what most of the country already knows: Mulroney was a Conservative (despite Stephen Harper's desperate and lowlife attempts to have his name stricken from the roll) and a profiteering crook. But I repeat myself.

My general feeling is that when you're meeting in a hotel room and trading envelopes stuffed with cash, someone's getting ₤µ©λed. And since neither of the principals in this case is worth that much, it was the taxpayer. Unfortunately justice in this case has ground on so long, and ground so fine, that there really isn't anything left. I just hope we get a verdict and a prosecution, and at least see both men in jail, before one of them cacks out.

Iran released journo Roxana Saberi, thus catching a slight ethical edge on Barack Obama, who's unfortunately handling the abundant evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the Bush administration the way a cat handles a cat-turd on a linoleum floor. Bad enough he's refused to prosecute the torturers and their enablers. Worse that he's not even pumping for a truth-and-reconcilliation commission. But worst, he's failed to repudiate the current regime of domestic espionage.

Still, he isn't Bush, or any other Republican. And that counts for a lot. Especially while the mainstream of the Republican party is echoing Rush Windbag's sentiments that he hopes the country goes down the crapper because it'll apparently prove that Democratic presidents aren't fit to run the show.

The momentous dishonesty of a tubby, rich, white, stogie-puffing pervert and "ex-"drug-addict making such a statement whilst standing amid the rubble of "No Child Left Educated", a tanking economy fuelled in part by tax cuts to fat, rich, white dudes, two failed invasions, and a legacy unequaled since Rome fell, seems to have escaped Mr. Limpbough.

The Pope is touring the Middle East. Yeah. Whatever. Interestingly, the main manufactured outrage over the tour seems to be over the fact that he's a former Hitler Youth member. On this one, I'm with the Vatican. It has ₤µ©λ-all to do with his current positions. First off, many people were HY members in the final days of the war. A trucker buddy of mine's dad was "recruited" to serve on the barricades in Berlin when he was fourteen or so (and recruited at gunpoint into the French Foreign Legion shortly thereafter--I'll tell you the story sometime). And secondly it isn't as though he's touring Israel denying the Holocaust. Finally, for a wonder, his handlers seem to have managed to keep him from making any stupid gaffes like "Condoms raise the AIDS rate" thus far.

The latest shuttle mission is trying to sort out the Hubble space telescope again. This is annoying. Here's why: NASA has a project slated for 2012 or so, it's supposed to create a telescope array--several telescopes all flying around a specified distance from each other--with a baseline around 10,000 miles. We've just discovered several nearby stars with what look to be Earth-like planets in them. With a telescope with a baseline of ten thousand miles, if there's any intelligent life out there, we'd be able to read the license plates on their saucers with that kind of power. I want this to happen soonest. It may be the closest to real space exploration we manage to get to in my lifetime.

Because if we keep re-electing the bozos we're getting, we may need to find some new real estate, soonish.

Would You Conspiracy Theorists Just Please Keep Quiet and Let the Grownups Get on With Things? Thank You

Today in my inbox were three appeals from my buddy "Big Jim." Jim is a nice guy, plays poker reasonably well (but not so well that I don't take him off the table oftener than he does me), and makes a fine beer. However, he's a full-on kook.

He's a New World Order conspiracy theorist, and is entirely serious about it. He sees the shadowy hand of the Illuminati or someone behind every new piece of legislation, in every apparently innocent tragedy. I have no doubt he believes Natasha Richardson was smuggled from the country to facilitate translplanting her brain into a fembot clone of Michelle Obama, which will use its fantastic sexaliciousness to keep the US president under control.

Or perhaps Obama's part of it all, in which case he ordered the Secret Service to bump off Richardson so that when he ordered the hit on Michelle, her absence would go unnoticed. After all, Richardson's an actress, right? Who better to replace a very public woman on the world stage?

You get the picture. You only think I'm joking. I have only the slimmest doubt that Jim believes Richardson's death was engineered.

Last week he was fulminating on the new rules coming in for food in Canada. In a piece of legislation specifically stating that Natural Health Products are not regulated by said legislation, Jim saw an iminent threat to the availability of such quack remedies as colloidal silver.

As I said: The law he was worrying about, Bill C-6, specifically exempts "Natural Health Products". The text is available online, and it's the work of a moment to read.

When I took Jim to task in a public forum, we traded shots a couple of times until he finall said, in essence: "I know you've read the bill. I know what it says. Despite that, I take a completely different meaning from the text sepecifically exempting NHPs."

He then cited a definition within the text and claimed that this would allow "foreign agencies, corporations, and governments" to dictate what Canadians could or couldn't put in their bodies. In context, this was like saying that all of theatre is a conspiracy because plays have something called "plot".

This week he's off again. The G20 meeting is the harbinger of the new age of the New World Order. Don't let politicians do this to us!

In saying he opposes the G20, which has managed to work something pretty amazing, Jim is opposing:

Outing countries that create secret tax havens, contributing to money laundering, tax fiddling, and like chicanery, often by the corporations he seems to so despise;

The public shaming of nations that breach trade rules, such as China, and Jim's bete noir the USA, and;

An injection of $100 billion in capital to help the poorest countries (who are not represented in the G20) weather the current economic crisis, which may be a matter of life and death to their people.

In saying he opposes the deal, Jim also manages to put himself into the same camp as Rush Windbag--I mean Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, who openly mocks NWO conspiracy nuts until it's good for his ratings.

There's a saying: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Jim seems utterly onboard with this.

And another, which Jim really needs to keep in mind: "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"

Much less all those powerful dudes with connections to the NWO, eh?

So I asked specifically what he expects to happen, now that the deal's gone through. His response was "Everything's fine. Just go back to sleep. LOL"

No Jim: You shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. I asked "Where? What fire?" And you responded with "Never mind--you're too thick to understand anyway."

So you go post to your internet bulletin boards about the Illuminati, the New World Order, and the space aliens, the "truth" about "9/11", the faked moon landings and similar paranoia-inducing drivel, and let us grown-ups try to get on with living in the real world please.

From netjeff.com: a meme

Go to your favourite search engine and enter , in quotes, your name and the word "needs". So I enter "Metro needs" and here's what Google thinks I need:

1) Reform
2) $11 Billion
3) To go
4) 234 new (rail) cars
5) Lessons on pronounciation
6) Assistance
7) Assistance with trail counting
8) To know results of card giveaway
9) Millions in repairs
10) More taxis
11) To learn from Teen Challenge
12) To pay nonprofit
13) A president committed to transit
14) to have theatrical sound and lighting
15) More time to fix escalators
16) Bangalore, Karnatka, India
17) Toilets
18) Bridges
19) To continue Great Society
20) Ob/GYN


I'd probably agree with most of those. However in the case of 20 I'd prefer said OB/GYN to have dark wavy hair and an impressive bustline. And at a stretch I could combine 6 with 7, and 17 with 18.

Iraq war 'diversion' from Afghanistan: Harper

Yes indeed, sir.

And sir, had you been Prime Minister in 2003, how many people would we have in Iraq fighting that particular "diversion"? And how many would have died?

Here's what you said at the time that "diversion" began to get rolling--or rather, what John Howard said. I presume you were both faxed the same speech from Mr. Bush's office?



Never mind sir, we know you supported the war in your own words. You're on record in numerous places and at numerous times denouncing the Liberal government of the day for failing to stand by our American allies by invading a nation that hadn't done anything to deserve invasion. North Korea and Iran were a bigger threat--though no bigger than China (Oh, but Conservatives like China. It's where the shiny $#17 in Wal-Mart comes from).

Politics doesn't make me bitter and twisted. Politicians do. And Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada are unquestionably some of the worst of the lot. Judas goats without moral compass, every rotten mother's child of 'em.

I'll bet he still considers global warming "a socialist plot."

The Post: The Great Right of the Excessive Right-Wing

I've often said that the journalism in the National Post--Canada's major right-wing rag and proud standard bearer for the Asper group--is quite good, it's the opinions and editorials that should be printed on thin, soft paper and left in outhouses for the apropriate purpose.

On the subject of Gary Goodyear, Canada's apparently-creationist of a science minister, the first person out the gate was Jonathan Kay, who shot his ignorance into the air like somthing from a porn movie, calling it "The Globe & Mail's appalling front-page smear on religion."

Today one shining editorial rose out of the mire. "Ignorance is not a civil right" says John Moore.

Alas, the Post's more usual stance was more accurately reflected in David (Death to Palestine) Asper's "editorial" entitled "The liberal war on faith."

The difference is that Mr. Moore is not being deliberately and willfully stupid about what being science minister in this country means.

I have said this before, but it bears repeating. No matter what Mr. Goodyear's personal beliefs are, any science minister should have had an answer for that question prepped and ready the moment he received the portfolio.

Failing to have one suggests either incompetence in his portfolio or an ideological devotion to religion over science that should scare the willies out of anyone in research, medicine, or education. The Minister must communicate with the public on science issues. Or at least that's the sort of thing ministers used to do until the ideologically hidebound and pathalogically secretive Conservatives were defaulted into power as a caretaker government.

Alas, Moore appears to be the Post's token Lib'rul. But for one shining moment, he lifted the discourse on the Editorial page beyond the normal pro-Conservative puffery and fulmination.

It is a moment Canada should treasure, the more so because they are so rare. At least among the Asper group of papers.

@Google News: I Have Just One Question

--Who the flaming, frying, flying, fiddle-eye ₤µ©λ is Natasha Richardson?

Okay, she falled down go boom, bumped her head. I sympathize. But she seems to have taken over Google news, and I'm sorry, no actress deserves the attention she's getting. I mean, she fell on the friggin' bunny hill. Me, I'd be plurry embarrassed about that.

It looks as though she has a concussion. Big whoop--we're wetting our collective pants about this why?

Yesterday I saw a story entitled "Head injuries can turn deadly" or some such godawful drivel. Naturally the first ten words contained the name "Richardson" twice.

Forgive me if I think there's more important $#17 going on. As far as I know, there were at least three possible concussions in the NHL last night, and none of them are even in hospital.

And look at the stuff that gets shoved down the page because of it:

As cuts to our science programs and the marginalization of science continue under the Conservative "Feel-better-through-ignorance" program, Canada's science minister gives a firm, clear, answer to the question "Do you believe in evolution?"

That firm clear answer, however, is "I refuse to answer questions about my religion."

The problem isn't Goodyear's religion. The problem is that the Conservative Party of Canada neither likes nor understands science or scientists. And that's why, in the digital age, Canadians are cutting down trees and digging big ₤µ©λing holes in order to sell their country by the ounce, barrel, and board-foot to nations that'll sell it back to them as plastic, integrated circuits, and futons.

Evolution only has to do with religion if you're one of a particularly blockheaded and narrow-minded selection of Christian sects. I mean, even the Pope believes that evolution is the working meachanism by which his hairy thunderer keeps the biological world on its toes.

A science minister should have a stock pat answer for that question and be able to give it on cue as easily as Pavlov's dogs answered their bell. To fail to do so suggests either cluelessness unbecoming a government hack--I mean minister--or religious rigidity unbecoming anyone in charge of science.

Speaking of the Pope: He just gets better and better. He's defended the excommunication of people who helped secure a d&c for a nine-year old rape victim. He has allowed people who to this day believe the Holocaust is a hoax to wrap themselves in the authority of the Catholic Church--to speak with spiritual authority on major issues.

And this week, pushed to the mid-page by Natasha whosit's boo-boo, the Pope said that condoms aren't the solution to AIDS in Africa (a reasonable sentiment, and one I agree with [the two are not always the same]).

However, the Pope added the secret ingredient "radioactive stupid" to his stance when he said condoms may make the AIDS epidemic in Africa worse.

And it's amazing, with a few well-chosen words the Pope manages to go from a straightforward, well-understood, meaningful position, to a bucketload of stupidinium.

I mean, does he really believe that the few miserable and precious inches of ground we have gained in the struggle to keep this disease from killing half a continent are all due to husbands keeping their peckers in their pants, wives keeping their skirts down, and prayer? Honestly?

Meanwhile, Washington DC struggles with its own AIDS epidemic. Newsworthy, were it not for the eagerness with which we're apparently pursuing Mme Richardson. And I'll lay a pint to a prawn that she'll be "looking pale and tired, but happy" as she thanks "all her supporters and well-wishers" as she leaves the hospital. Unlike, say, any number of Washington AIDS patients.

Meanwhile:

Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers have been abducted by "witch doctors" to secret detention centres and forced to drink potions, a human rights group says. [...] The London-based rights group said the witch hunters, said to be from neighbouring Guinea, were invited into Gambia after the death of the president's aunt earlier this year was blamed on witchcraft.

Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, said hundreds of Gambians have fled to neighbouring Senegal for safety after seeing their villages attacked.

Somewhere out there, the African Union is presumably warming up the Pope-signal.

But hey, husband Liam Neeson has apparently flown to Natasha's side, so as day three of the Natasha Richardson Concussion Watch draws to a lunchtime, stand by for more agonizing detail.

But first a word from our sponsor!

*Sober second thought (AKA ass-covering). Perhaps I've misread this and Miss Richardson's injury is more than a common or garden-variety concussion. I still don't feel that the story deserves more column inches than real, important $#17 that's going down, right now, in the world.

Just When You Thought it Was Safe to Go Back Into the Inbox

I went back to the inbox yesterday. Thought it would all be over, that things might have settled down.

Not quite.

I have previously received mail for other variations of "Metro" such as "M. Etro," "Me_Tro," etc. from such diverse groups as a veterinarian (the type of animal involved is as yet unknown, but goes by the name of "Blinky"), a school board, and the Boy Scouts of America. Who would definitely not approve of my latest inbox find.

The first was innocuous enough: An art gallery invite consisting of a postcard-sized scan of a drawing that might have been done in tenth grade art class. Even down to the two nude ladies holding hands.

I don't know much about art, but I like looking at nude ladies, so I was going to RSVP when I noticed that the invite was for a) a Friday night some long time gone and b) a gallery in New York City. Lacking a TARDIS, I was forced to decline.

The next item was *sound the trumpets* a job offer. As I am unemployed, I paged through the mental file labelled "Jobs I Have Applied For". It's a thinnish file--professional writing work doesn't lend itself to the descriptor "job" too often, really--And contains nowhere the nomenclature "project co-ordinator." That's Mme's line of country.

However, Missoula, MT isn't impossibly far away, and for a while I considered following up and attempting the interview. But they wouldn't actually have hired me, and if they had it's doubtless that M Etro might have been peeved. So I returned it with a polite note hoping they could find the actual candidate, but if they needed some communications work done that my word processor is at their disposal.

The third item of mail, also intended for someone else, was an invitation to "Dance Bitch." It was from a person who is apparently an actor, with at least one production film to his credit, said movie being called Swishbucklers, set for release this year. While the IMDB page gives no useful information, the list of "If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends" movies includes "Clones Gone Wild" and "Johnny, Are You Queer?" This actor is named Billy Francesca.

Enclosed was this picture. I believe Mmlle Francesca is the person in the middle.



I considered attending, but it appears to be in San Francisco, and while I could arrive there fashionably late in the Lear, my sequined thong won't be back from the cleaners.

Quel dommage, darlings ...

What? Are you kidding? I'm an actor, dammit! It is my bounden duty to attend functions at which I might attract the attention of Hollywood producers. Which, admittedly seems unlikely given the picture.

Unless Hollywood producers are into bears.

From the "Learn Something New Every Day " Department (#17, 443)

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the famous Vaudevillians:
Gus Visser and his Singing Duck!



Actually, due to a recent contract negotiation the Duck gets top billing.

But this isn't just a film scrap. From this site I learn that:

While, at first glance, just a bizarre oddity of the early sound era, this film clip is of actual historical note. It was made by Theodore Case in 1925 as a proof-of-concept for the sound-on-film process he was shopping around an all-silent Hollywood--a process that would eventually lead to the birth of the talkie in 1929's The Jazz Singer

They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships ...

I have, so far as I know, little naval heritage. At least no more so than any other descendant of an island nation. However, I do love the water, and what Ratty referred to as "simply messing about in boats."

As a writer, I seek to connect to my passions, and to help others see the beauty in them. And in search of a lead line for what I hope may be a profitable little article, I went to Google the phrase forming the title of this post.

Which brought me to Evan Izer. I'll let his site speak for itself.

Is That the Wind of Change I Hear?

In an earlier post I expressed a wish that Mr. Obama should be more statesmanlike that George W. Bush.

Already he's outstripping Dubya. Who can imagine the late unlamented Decider saying stuff like this?:

In a transcript published on Al Arabiya’s English language Web site, Mr. Obama said he believed “the most important thing is for the United States to get engaged right away” and that he had told his envoy to “start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating.”

“Ultimately, we cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what’s best for them. They’re going to have to make some decisions,” Mr. Obama said. “But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. And that, instead, it’s time to return to the negotiating table.

The article's in the New York Times.

Now I know that's just an interview, and like everything else, it awaits to see a genuine effort on the Israel/Palestine front.

But those words wouldn't fit in Bush II's mouth, nor those ideas in what passed for his mind.

God, what a breath of fresh air.

...

Not much going on in the ol' Metrolife right now. I've been recovering from a lousy cold (spent much of yesterday in bed) and trying to commit to memory the lines for the next play. Also making progress on the house, one scruffy inch at a time.

What's that? Where have I submitted my writing? What a terrific question! I'm glad you asked that question.

Next question, please ...

LOL O' the Day #512

Comes to you today from RationalWiki, where I started out searching for "genetic drift" and wound up following the trail of a goat.

On the "Goat" page was the question "Were you looking for sex or Goatse?

Now I've seen Goatse (although friggin' jaysus I wish I 'adn't) and I suggest strongly to all avid fans that you restrict yourself to the Wikipedia article if you don't want your innocence blistered, but I wondered what RW could possibly have to say on the subject. Then the London Olympic Goatse logo caught my eye and I was forced to read the article.

The LOL was produced at the very end:

See also
* Andy Schlafly

For those who don't want to wade through the article, Schlafly is the creator of the ever-truthy Conservapedia. Which values nothing more than the facts but conservative truthiness.