KarcherHaus

Independence Day

2011-07-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate our nation's fight for freedom. Tomorrow we go back to giving our nation's freedom away.

Winter in America

2011-05-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday. One of my favorite artists, he gave me a little insight on how African-Americans view this country and their place in it. Considered to be one of the forefathers of Rap, he also was a great jazz artist and wordsmith. Although the peak of his career was decades ago, a lot of his songs still ring true, like this one.

Uprising

2011-02-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

Tunisia? Egypt? Wisconsin?! The Middle East is not the only place they're taking to the streets. Teabagger Governor Scott Walker is attempting to cut the wages and break the union of Wisconsin's state employees. To make sure they don't strike, he's willing to bring in the National Guard to "prevent disruptions."

However, some teachers, along with their students, went to the capitol and staged a peaceful protest. How many? Estimates ranged from 13,000 to 30,000. Result? Now Walker and the Republicans are considering some changes.

As for the Middle East, it's interesting to note that people suffering under authoritarian regimes are rising up and toppling those regimes one after another with no involvement from us.

2nd amendment remedy

2011-01-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot point blank in the head by a gunman who then emptied his gun into the crowd, killing 5 people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Giffords was on Sarah Palin's Target List with a crosshairs over her district. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer just signed a law allowing the shooter to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

The shooter, Jared Loughner, has a Youtube channel apparently discussing mind control. Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment Remedy" in action.

Don't forget to vote

2010-10-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

Just so you know.

Adventures in stupidity

2010-10-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

If this was fiction, it would be edited out for being too stereotypical, but it's real:

I tell ya, we’ve got some new problems in Washington. Big problems. Just today, Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said people in America are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. They want to give all the power to the federal government to force you to eat more fruits and vegetables. This is what the federal, CDC, they gonna be calling you to make sure you eat fruits and vegetables, every day. This is socialism of the highest order!

GzeroP Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia.

Seriously, people? You want them back in power?

Nobody could have predicted....

2010-08-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

We're having a cool summer here in Sonoma County. It's wonderful. I'm grateful to live here when I read about the muggy, sticky steam bath that the rest of the country is suffering in.

Those of you having to endure that, can take a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that others have it worse:

The extreme heat has led to the worst drought conditions in European Russia in a half-century, prompting the Russian government to suspend wheat exports. The drought has caused extreme fire danger over most of European Russia (Figure 3), and fires in Russia have killed at least 50 people in the past week and leveled thousands of homes. The fires are the worst since 1972, when massive forest and peat bog fires burned an area of 100,000 square km and killed at 104 people in the Moscow region alone. Smoke from the current fires spans a region over 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from east to west, approximately the distance from San Francisco to Chicago.

Stephen Andrew explains what this would be like here:

To put this in rough perspective -- and note this is not absolutely precise, it's purely ballpark to give you some feel for what the Russian people are enduring -- if this heat wave was hitting North America, it would be near 100°F in Fairbanks, Alaska. Most of Canada would be baking at 100° or higher, the northeast, from Maine to the Great Lakes region would be hitting upwards of 105° everyday, even the nightly low in the massive urban heat islands of New York and Chicago would be over 90°! The midwest grain belt and parts of the Pacific Northwest would not see a drop of rain for two months and pushing as high as 110° in places. The desert southwest, even some of the higher elevations of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas, would be as uninhabitable as Death Valley or the Sahara.

A nightmare scenario that, sadly, we have been warned about for many years. Nobody wanted to hear it then, and people still don't, now. The problem with all of this is that these nightmare scenarios are now reality, and this reality will get worse. How much worse depends on what we do next.

Want

2010-07-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Porsche 918 Spyder concept car has been greenlighted for production. Why do we care? Well, as a former 911 owner who still likes fast cars, but is also a realist who understands that gas-gulping supercars contribute to our mounting environmental collapse, this car shows you can have the best of both worlds.

500 horsepower from the gas engine to the rear wheels, along with another 218 HP from electric motors on the front wheels. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. 198 mph top end. 78 miles per gallon.

Along with Tesla's pocket rocket that doesn't use any gas at all, and the amazing White Zombie, it shows that motorheads are warming up to petroleum alternatives.

If Republicans take Congress in November

2010-07-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

The fine folks who shut down government for an extramarital blowjob vow more of the same if they regain the majority:

According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., the House Republicans should exercise their power to subpoena and hold continuous hearings. Speaking to a gathering for the GOP Youth Convention on July 22 in Washington, D.C., she emphasized this point.

“Oh, I think that’s all we should do,” Bachmann said. “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people’s patience is about this big.”

Did you get that? No legislation, no efforts whatsoever to solve the nation's problems, just one witch hunt after another for at least two years. These people still love George W. Bush and think he did a fine job. These are the stakes for this election.

Who they really work for

2010-06-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Tony Hayward was supposed to be grilled by congress but Joe Barton(R-TX) couldn't help himself. Republicans were furious that he let their true intentions show, and made him apologize for apologizing. Republicans and their Teabag lackeys are supposed to be for the little people, but don't let them fool you. Their allegiance is to corporations, not the Constitution.

Victory is sweet

2010-06-09T10:56:00.001-07:00

Jill wins!

Won't spend a day in jail

2010-06-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

Dubya casually admitted that he's guilty of war crimes, and that he'd do it again. Never mind that. The real outrage comes from Paul McCartney.

Wait, let's send this guy to jail instead.

Election time again

2010-06-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to vote on Tuesday if you haven't already sent your ballot in! For those of you who haven't made your minds up, let me offer my recommendations on the ballot measures and selected races.

First and foremost for Sonoma County residents, vote Jill Ravitch for DA! The DA's office is currently wallowing in misery under a graduate from the Captain Queeg School of Management. Jill will have the prosecutors loving their jobs again, benefiting us in the process.

Prop. 13 - Yes. Though the name Proposition 13 bring a gnashing of the teeth, this one fixes some confusion regarding the reassessment of seismic upgrades.

Prop. 14 - No. Takes away the ability of parties to choose their own candidates, lessen third-party participation and unfairly decreases the power of progressives.

Prop. 15 - Yes. It's a step in the direction of taking money out of politics. We don't need eMegs and iCarlys buying elections.

Prop. 16 - No. PG&E's plan to protect their monopoly. Will take power away from voters.

Prop. 17 - No. Mercury wants to gouge more money out of you and is using this as a tool to do so.

Whatever you think, vote! Remember what Frank Zappa said, "if you don't vote, don't bitch."

Jill Ravitch makes her case

2010-05-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

LeeJ and I are volunteering for Jill Ravitch's campaign for Sonoma County DA. Here's some reasons why:

Now that Stephan Passalacqua is taking a page out of Karl Rove's book to keep his position and losing support over it, the choice is clear. We need somebody who cares more about the job than the career.

Spill, Baby, Spill!

2010-05-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

How's that oily, drilly, thing workin' for ya? Currently spewing oil at the rate of four Exxon Valdez's every week, our newest poster child for corporate greed is threatening the Gulf coast with an environmental and economic disaster. Not surprisingly the greasy fingerprints of Halliburton are all over this, and there's more to come.

Just another Republican atrocity that'll be blamed on the Democrats.

Almost forgot, picture credit: NASA/Earth Observatory/Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the University of Wisconsin’s Space Science and Engineering Center MODIS Direct Broadcast system. That's right, you can already see this from space.

Liars being honest for once

2010-04-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

A cluster of admissions today gives us a glimpse of how much we can trust our leaders:

Republican congressmen say, "everybody thinks that Iraq was a mistake." I guess you were too busy strutting and chest-bumping to let us know that.

John McCain says he never considered himself a maverick. Sheesh, after building an entire persona around that?

Our military brass covered up two sickening incidents, just now admitting the cold-blooded murder of two pregnant women and a teenage girl, among others, then attempting to hide the evidence in an especially grisly way. The other is a 2007 video posted by Wikileaks from a helicopter gunship slaughtering 12 people, including two Reuters employees, with the crew celebrating.

Every now and then the mask slips and we see the rot underneath.

Finally done

2010-03-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Health insurance reform legislation passed in the Senate today after more than a year of wrangling between progressive and corporate Democrats, and an all-out effort among Republicans to derail it. The Teabaggers and other right-wingers throughout the country reacted with their usual grace and sophistication: racist and homophobic slurs, vandalism, threats, envelopes of white powder in the mail and other charming instances of the spittle-flecked, purple-faced rage that spills over whenever a small, long-overdue step towards social justice is achieved.

The ignorance and incoherence of the Right was in full flower during the past year, what with cries of "keep government hands off my medicare," attacks on medical patients and children, and the comparison of Obama to Hitler in the apparent belief that attempting to solve the healthcare crisis is equivalent to exterminating millions of people.

The spectacle was similar to school integration in the 60's when the desire of dark-skinned children to have a better educations was a crime worthy of capital punishment by vigilante mobs.

It would have been nice to have a single-payer system or at least a public option for all this effort, but when you want something more than your opponent does, you are at a disadvantage in the negotiation process.

There is good to be had out of this, with the closing of the Medicare donut hole, the ending of discrimination against pre-existing conditions, ending limits on coverage, and of course, extending coverage to more people. I also hope that this ordeal has finally convinced Democrats that Republicans care about nothing but regaining power and will never negotiate in good faith.

Chubba Bubba sniffs the camera

2010-03-05T19:31:00.000-08:00

Seven seconds in the life of Seven, the cat.

What's up with Pluto?

2010-02-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

Pluto, that used to be a planet but got laid off, is giving itself a make over. Hubble imagery analyzed over several years by planetary scientist Marc Buie at the Southwest Research Institute shows rapid color changes between 1994 and 2003. The Hubble is a powerful telescope but Pluto is rather small and very far away so this is still amazing:

Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Buie (SwRI).

The color changes are considered to be the result of methane ice sublimating into the atmosphere as the northern spring progresses. Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams noted this gives rise to a new mystery:

I thought the liveliest part of the teleconference on Pluto yesterday was Marc Buie’s response to what had appeared in his datasets. Buie (Southwest Research Institute) was looking at imagery collected by the Hubble Space Telescope from 2002 to 2003 and comparing it with the results of earlier ground-based observations, as well as with Hubble pictures taken in 1994. The dramatic reddening seems to have occurred between 2000 and 2002, even as the illuminated northern hemisphere continued to get brighter.

Asked about his reactions to the newer Hubble imagery, Buie was candid:

“The color change in such a short period had me scared, because it’s so hard to understand. I’ve been checking absolutely everything I can think of, wondering if I screwed this up somehow and got the wrong answer. If I did, I can’t find the mistake.”

Another key point: In the Hubble imagery, the color of Charon remains the same throughout, whereas the reddening of Pluto is pronounced.

Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Buie (SwRI).

Something weird is going on way out there. The enigmatic object, now considered to be a Kuiper belt object has some stories to tell. Rather than a frozen ball of ice, Pluto is turning out to be a dynamic world, with seasons, an atmosphere and a varied surface silently lurking in the dark.

New Horizons is due to reach Pluto and Charon in 2015 to capture the first close-up images of the frigid ex-planet. In addition it will acquire chemical and spectral data so maybe Pluto will tell us a few of those stories and hint at a few more. Bet on surprises. I can hardly wait.

SOLD to the highest bidder

2010-01-22T19:46:00.000-08:00

This week the Supreme Court handed the country to multinational corporations. The Citizens United v. FEC ruling gave corporations unlimited ability to fund candidates. Unlimited. That means they can recruit or seduce their own candidates, give them enough money to blow a billionaire out of the water and buy the U. S. government, a seat at a time. Or all at once.

While constitutional scholars point out that this case actually strengthens First Amendment rights, the effect it will have on our political environment is undeniable.

But it’s one thing for U.S. firms to have their say. What about foreign companies that operate U.S. subsidiaries? Many of these, like American businesses, are owned by ordinary shareholders — but a host of others are owned, in whole or in part, by the foreign governments themselves.

One prominent examples is CITGO Petroleum Company — once the American-born Cities Services Company, but purchased in 1990 by the Venezuelan government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. The Citizens United ruling could conceivably allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has sharply criticized both of the past two U.S. presidents, to spend government funds to defeat an American political candidate, just by having CITGO buy TV ads bashing his target.

And it’s not just Chavez. The Saudi government owns Houston’s Saudi Refining Company and half of Motiva Enterprises. Lenovo, which bought IBM’s PC assets in 2004, is partially owned by the Chinese government’s Chinese Academy of Sciences. And Singapore’s APL Limited operates several U.S. port operations. A weakening of the limit on corporate giving could mean China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and any other country that owns companies that operate in the U.S. could also have significant sway in American electioneering.

Milton Friedman was wrong. Corporations are not people, and they don't deserve rights as such. Campaign finance needs to be reformed.

Happy New Decade

2010-01-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

The first decade of the 21st century is now in the books. It can be remembered as the decade that conservatives were given everything they wanted. They were given all three branches of government by the branch they already owned; the Supreme Court. Osama Bin Laden gave them the war they always wanted with a bonus war, Afghanistan, thrown in. Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan and others gave them the economy they always wanted. They were also given the energy policy they wanted (drill, baby, drill), the gun control policy they wanted, (none), the unitary executive they wanted, and the media they always wanted(Fox Noise).

They went on a binge and we were left with the hangover. We were told that they knew what they were doing and to sit down and shut up. We're now currently enjoying the results. It was only when we ignored that admonition that we could slow the destruction. Something to consider in the upcoming decade.

Ahead of their time

2009-12-31T11:04:00.000-08:00

Seems there was a race of super-geniuses. Discovered in South Africa in 1913, fossil skulls showed a brain capacity bigger than modern humans. Not only that, but:

These people had small, childlike faces. Physical anthropologists use the term pedomorphosis to describe the retention of juvenile features into adulthood. This phenomenon is sometimes used to explain rapid evolutionary changes. For example, certain amphibians retain fishlike gills even when fully mature and past their water-inhabiting period. Humans are said by some to be pedomorphic compared with other primates.Our facial structure bears some resemblance to that of an immature ape. Boskop’s appearance may be described in terms of this trait. A typical current European adult, for instance, has a face that takes up roughly one-third of his overall cranium size. Boskop has a face that takes up only about one-fifth of his cranium size, closer to the proportions of a child. Examination of individual bones confirmed that the nose, cheeks, and jaw were all childlike.

Why did they die out? Without more information, scientists can only speculate:

Perhaps, though, it also made the Boskops excessively internal and self-reflective. With their perhaps astonishing insights, they may have become a species of dreamers with an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine.
...

Perhaps the Boskops were trapped by their ability to see clearly where things would head. Perhaps they were prisoners of those majestic brains.

Wonder what they would say about life today?

Passalacqua at it again

2009-12-19T16:32:00.000-08:00

What a surprise.

In handing down the punishment for James Luker, 47 of Santa Rosa, Judge Elliot Daum lashed out at the District Attorney's office for what he said was political grandstanding for publicizing the outcome of another repeat drunken-driving sentencing a few days earlier.

Daum said a news release issued by prosecutors complaining about a one-year county jail sentence issued to five-time drunken driver Emilio Guzman Garcia, 35, was politically motivated and filled with “grotesque misstatements and half-truths.”

The judge expressed anger about the ensuing newspaper article, which he said came on the eve of his departure from the criminal bench and the beginning of a re-election campaign for District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua. He said the Luker decision would not be influenced by the publicity.

Sounds like Passalacqua is trying to pump up his record.

The next big thing

2009-11-16T18:48:00.000-08:00

Yo, digital artists! You want to go here. 3D fractal rendering. Fantastic landscapes, objects and surfaces.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

Creature Features on WGN Sunday nights was one of the greatest forbidden pleasures of my youth. Forbidden because it came on an hour after my bedtime and I had to be reeeaally sneaky to see it. The music is by Henry Mancini from An Experiment in Terror from 1962.

Why I always vote

2009-10-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I received a notice from my 401K plan for an upcoming proxy vote. I used to throw those away because they wanted my vote on board members I never heard of and procedures I didn't understand. But if the maladministration of George W. Bush and the continuing nefarious influence of large corporations in my own financial health have taught me anything, it's to check up on everything they do and use what little power I have to the most.

It's amazing what 15 minutes of teh Google can tell me. I quickly found this:

There was a shareholder proposal made recently requesting the board to “institute procedures to prevent holding investments in companies that, in the judgment of the board, substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity, the most egrigious violations of human rights.”
...First, there was a list of very boring-sounding proposals about electing trustees, updating this, approving that, blah blah blah. The shareholder proposal request came LAST, and it was #8. What came FIRST was this:
“The board of directors/trustees recommends that you vote ‘for’ proposals 1-7 and ‘against’ proposal 8.”

Naturally, proposal 8 was the one urging divestment from companies that do business with the genocidal government of Sudan. If I had thrown this notice away, my vote would have been recorded as agreeing with the board recommendations.

This shareholder proposal was brought about by the efforts of Investors Against Genocide.

My vote may be just a drop in the bucket, but it was last year as well, and enough drops joined me to kick the corporations square in the nuts. If you have money invested in a big mutual fund, check out IAG's website and help bring about the change we need.

The Karcherhaus fight song

2009-09-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

I got this on a sound-chip card from my cousin and his family. We play it in the morning to motivate us for the work day. It's called the Polonäse Blankenese, a 1982 German hit by Werner Böhm, under the name Gottlieb Wendehals.

1 Die Kellner hamm jetzt Pause,
wir rollen das Buffet von hinten auf;
die Post geht ab, wir mach’n jetzt ’ne Sause;
der Bier ist los, heut’ wackelt hier DIE WAND!!
Los, Vater kommt in die Sock’n,
und Mutter schlurft in ihre roten Pamps.
Hier geht was los, da bleibt kein Auge trocken,
Klaus-Dieter, setz’n Halben ab:
JETZT KOMMT’S!

Hier fliegen gleich die Löcher aus dem Kase,
denn nun geht sie los, uns’re Polonase
von Blankenese bis hinter Wuppertal.
Wir ziehen los mit ganz groaen Schritten,
und Erwin faat de Heidi
von hinten an die … Schulter,
das hebt die Stimmung,
ja da kommt Freude auf.
(Los, Oma: hak ein!)

2 Das Orchester auf der Bahne packt der Wahnsinn;
der Pianist reiat alle Tasten ’raus;
die Tuba blast den Trommler, das tut weh, weh;
der Dirigent weint eins und schreit: »LICHT AUS!«
Unten tobt das Volk bereits im Laufschritt,
die Banke fliegen tief, die Tische auch;
der Wirt schmeiat sich schatzend
aberÂ’m Aufschnitt; das Chaos tobt —
WIR AUCH!
Der ganze Saal soll heute abend brodeln,
laat jucken, Jungs, die Nacht ist viel zu kurz!
Bis morgen frah soll hier die Elke jodeln —
was danach kommt, ist uns jetzt ganz schnurz.

Hier fliegen gleich die Lacher aus dem Kase,
denn nun geht sie los, uns’re Polonase
von Blankenese bis hinter Wuppertal.
Wir ziehen los mit ganz groaen Schritten,
und Erwin faat de Heidi
von hinten an die … Schulter,
das hebt die Stimmung,
ja da kommt Freude auf.
(Los, Oma: hak ein!)

50 years ago today

2009-09-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

I drew my first breath. I'm half a century old. I showed up in a busy year. Some people think that year changed everything. It certainly did for me. My mom is out here celebrating it with me and we both can't believe how time has gone by.

Who lies?

2009-09-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

The douchebag who called Obama a liar during his speech last night is a major recipient of health insurance industry lobby money. What a surprise. It's a classic Rovian tactic to accuse the other side of what you are doing. Fight back here.

Family values

2009-09-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

From the OC Weekly:

SACRAMENTO--Freshmen legislators arriving in Sacramento receive advice from veteran  politicians about the intricacies of working in California's capital. One of those tips is to remember that microphones broadcasting legislative debates can also capture embarrassing, career-ending personal admissions if a politician isn't careful. Michael D. Duvall, Orange County's 72nd Assembly District representative, must have forgotten the warning.

In July--two days after Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Republican leader Sam Blakeslee put Duvall on the Rules Committee that oversees member ethics--the second-term, conservative, Republican assemblyman sat in a public hearing and vividly described lewd details about his trysts with a female lobbyist whose clients had business before another committee on which  Duvall sits. 

Duvall, speaking to a relatively mum Republican colleague seated to his left, apparently had no idea his dais microphone became live beginning about a minute before the start of a cable-televised committee hearing. He was captured in the middle of recounting portions of an affair. 

"She wears little eye-patch underwear," said Duvall, who is married with two children. "So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And  so, we had made love Wednesday--a lot! And so she'll, she's all, 'I am going  up and down the stairs, and you're dripping out of me!' So messy!"

He's also cheating on his girlfriend with another woman. He's anti-gay, too. Apparently hypocrisy is a family value.

Update: Buh-bye!

Do not want

2009-08-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

It's hot and muggy here in Sonoma county. The sky yesterday reminded me of the summer skies I used to see in the midwest. I do not like it. It saps my energy, makes it hard to sleep and I sweat like a pig. But I better get used to it. My one consolation is that red states will have it worse.

Want

2009-08-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

Meet Nepenthes attenboroughii, a pitcher plant big enough to eat a rat. Found on the island of Palawan, in the Phillippines. A few of these in the vegetable garden would solve the gopher problem in a hurry.

Twenty years ago today

2009-08-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

My dad put a bullet through his head. Hope you're happy, Dad, wherever you are.

The Empire strikes back

2009-08-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

The authoritarian right is regrouping. The Party of no is adding exclamation points. Even though they are hated more now than last November, they've drawn a line in the sand over health care reform. Generously funded by the insurance companies, aided by the media they own, the right wing has given their minions their marching orders to disrupt debate by any means necessary.

When the Right was in power, they tightly controlled their interactions with the public and stifled debate. Now that they're out of power, they are open in their intent to stifle debate. They know that true health care reform would benefit Democrats for decades and they don't care what they have to do to stop it.

How far will they take it? There have been vague but ominous threats as to what they'll do if they don't get their way on Election Day.

jck loves leej

2009-08-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

12 great years.

Unreachable

2009-07-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

A wingnut explains global warming.

An Obama Birther disrupts a Republican's town hall and the crowd is on her side.

These are the people who still supported Bush last year. They cannot be reasoned with, and there is no common ground between me and them. The only way to deal with them is to show the world how insane they are, and to use the ballot box to stop them cold.

How to peel a banana

2009-07-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Pharyngula and since I had a banana, I tried it. It works! And to think I've been doing it wrong all these years. I guess you're never to old to learn. So the next time a creationist says, "if evolution is true, why are there still monkeys around?" You say, "to show us how to eat bananas, duh!"

Oh, come on!

2009-07-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

This is becoming ridiculous. These Republican 2012 hopefuls are just getting silly. Still, I'm going to miss her. She's been comedy gold platinum.

All hail SENATOR Franken

2009-06-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously rules in his favor and Norm Coleman finally accepts reality, letting Tim Pawlenty off the hook.

Lee J got her shirt signed by him. Wonder how much that's worth right now.

Another one bites the dust

2009-06-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

At this rate, the GOP is going to have to put out a Craigslist ad for somebody to run against Obama in 2012.

Why we need public health care

2009-06-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

A common practice among health insurers is rescission, customers dropped from coverage as soon as they need care. Now that the Democrats are a majority, lawmakers want to put a stop to it. So they had some execs from three of the biggest companies testify. Here's how it went:

Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."

The answer from all three executives:

"No."

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said that a public insurance plan should be a part of any overhaul because it would force private companies to treat consumers fairly or risk losing them.

"This is precisely why we need a public option," Dingell said.

You can see for yourself, it's about 4:45 in:

Health care reform is not reform until it has the public option.

An act of terror occurred today in Kansas

2009-05-31T15:48:00.000-07:00

Family planning provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered entering his church's Sunday service. People who call themselves "pro-life" rejoiced. This was an act of terrorism by definition. Think the traditional media will define it that way like they did over a bunch of idiots?

The right wing gets crazier by the day. Expect much more of this.

Hold your head up

2009-05-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

A new paper by Darren Naish, Michael Taylor and Matt Wedel is rewriting the book (again) on how sauropod dinosaurs looked. It compares the neck posture of living tetrapods with the iconic giant sauropods and concludes that they walked with their incredibly long necks held erect rather than held out in front of them, like commonly depicted. These guys know what they're talking about; they're hard core when it comes to the vertebrae of sauropods.

Image Credit: Mark Witton

Sorry. I just had to add this.

Snow rollers?

2009-05-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

Proof that God likes to mess with us.

Saturday, May 16, 1953

2009-05-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

Lee J and I are at my mom and stepdad's house in North Carolina. Keith Fisher, my stepdad, showed us some journals that his grandfather, Edmund Redfield, kept obsessive journals about his life. We got a good laugh reading those so I decided to transcribe the entry exactly 56 years ago. I'll try to make this verbatim, but since this was handwritten in pencil on scraps of paper, some of the words I have to guess at.

Sat. May 16, 1953. Raised west window about 1", Slept to 6:10. Arose. Put on fuzzy-wuzzy slippers. Made a 9-view pencil sketch of a folding aluminum Bee Hive, complete with folding aluminum base, nesting aluminum cover, and lining inner cover, and floor in base. Worked sketching 8:40 to 9:40, up to 1st floor. N.B.E. extensive, loose. Down to basement 9:55. Built up fire in stove with some paper, a board, and a dozen sticks of wood. Put teapot on top of stove. It contained Fenugreek Tea. Added water. Put 74-grams of A&P Summerfield Quick Oats in the top bowl of Pyrex glass double boiler. Placed on top of stove, added 8-oz. of hot water 10:00, wrote diary 10:00 to 10:10. Lay down on bed. Tired and sleepy 10:15. Slept to 11:45. Ellen Bellars came to the door. I arose. Put on fuzzy-wuzzy slippers. Opened the door a little. Told Ellen I was not feeling well, and not dressed. She wanted to know if I wanted anything from the store. I told her I would make out a list if she would wait. Gave her the list and a bill of 40¢ due Eshleman's East Side Market, and some money. She left 12:00. I went up to 1st floor. Took along stainless steel frying pan, also covered aluminum frying pan. Down to basement. Dressed. Put on old white rayon "Du-Ons" underwear, 3rd best blue Kupenheimer pants, heavy wool, plaid work shirt, long, light brown cotton soxs, and old brown oxfords. Pored out 16-oz. of rather weak Fenugreek Tea. Added 64-grams A&P Spring bloom Honey, and stirred. Ellen Bellars got back. She couldn't get all the things I listed. She purchased 1-12-oz carton A&S Cottage cheese 23¢, a 1-14 oz, can of Taylor's Sweet Potatoes 29¢ and 1- Northern Paper Towel 20¢. Total 72¢, Tax 2¢, total spent 74¢. Ellen paid bill of 40¢. Total $1.14. I wrote a note to Vandenberg Paint Store for 1-Qt. of Turpentine 30¢. Gave Ellen 30¢, Tax 1¢, Total 31¢, and 5¢ for the errand, including picking up the turpentine and bringing it back from down town after the show at the Sterling Theater, which she plans to see. She left 12:25. I drank 16-oz Fenugreek Tea. Not very warm. 13:30. Up to 1st floor, bathed face and hands. Down to basement 12:35. Brought along an old face towel and hung on a rack at rear of stove. Wrote diary to 12:50, Got remaining sugar syrup in pt. glass jar and went outdoors. Uncovered the Package Bees under the lean-to shelter. Found a lot of large black ants were licking up the surplus sugar syrup. I killed a lot of them. Fed the Package Bees sugar syrup, and covered them with a piece of old canvas 12:50 to 1:10. Back in the house, strong cold east wind. Cut out a sliver in left thumb and a couple slivers on back edge of right hand to 1:15. Wrote diary. Put a 5" dia x 19" long chunk of wood in stove. Up to 1st floor. Took along a roll of paper towels. Put in the plastic paper towel fixture. Washed some thin paper off top of a hive where stuck to paint. Down to basement 1:35. Put 13-(92 grams) pitted dates to soak in 200-grams hot water, added 36-grams of A&P Spring bloom Honey, added 20-grams of Lynne Goat Milk Powder, 8-grams of Live Wheat Germ, 10-grams Loma Linda Soyalac, Soy Bean Milk Powder, and about 260-grams of oatmeal. Ate slowly 1:45 to 2:15. Wrote diary to 2:25. Read "Prevention" magazine for April 1953 to 3:25, Earl Ellmaker came 3:25. We went up to 1st floor. Earl nailed together 10 Shallow Supers, and 5-Deep Hive Bodies, and 1-Base. Gave them all a coat of white shellac to 6:15. I nailed an aluminum top on a cover I had given 2-coats of Ivory Paint and sat around and talked. Too miserable to do anything. Bad pains in chest and a dry hacking cough. Down basement 5:20. Earl got a couple 2-Queen Separators. Earl also got a couple crates from the trunk of his car gave me. Earl left 5:25. Raining all afternoon. I noticed Charles Gaumer brought over the old rear porch steps he had a carpenter replace yesterday. I pulled off some board from one of the crates Earl gave me and got a fire started. Wrote diary 6:30 to 6:40. Opened a 1-14 oz. can of Taylor Sweet Potatoes. Put on top of stove to warm. Added a little hot water, and about 1/2-gram of Sage and 1/2-gram of Sweet Basil 6:45. Put on old rubbers, 3rd best Kupenheimer vest and coat, dark gray hat and neutral color Top Coat. Outdoors 6:55. Over to Bellars. Asked Mr. Bellars if Ellen got home. I mentioned I asked her to get a bottle of turpentine for me. He said she was expected home most any time. I walked home 7:00 Removed rubbers, Top Coat, and dark gray hat. Wrote diary 7:05. Knocked a crate apart, Pulled nails put some of the wood in the stove. Swept floor to 7:20. Up to 1st floor. Washed hands. Down to basement 7:25.

I sat in old Craftsman chair too tired to move. Read a little in Sat. May 16th Gazette to about 9:00. Fell asleep about 10:00. Continued reading to 12:05 Wrote diary to 12:10. Miserable, and awful tired. Up to 1st floor. N.B.E. average, plastic. Down to basement 12:15. Built up fire in stove with some paper. Also put in part of a carton and some thin crate boards. Wrote diary. Sat in old Craftsman chair and read "Life" magazine for May 18th, 1953 to 3:25. Put part of carton in stove. Up to 1st floor. Found I left light burning in dining room. It had been burning since 12:25. Down to basement 3:35. Put part of an old carton in stove. Room chilly. Wrote diary.

Cash on hand $13:24.

Removed clothes. Put on old blue pajamas and old blue robe.

Retired 3:50. Awful tired and sleepy. Chest pains due to congestion, cough, digestive upset after eating. Nervous. Eyes hurt. Miserable, no pep or interest in things, indecisive, tire quickly everything I do, and weary beyond words to describe.

Weather, cloudy all day cold E. wind. Rain, mist all afternoon. To-night, cloudy, more rain. E. wind, miserable weather.

He lived from June 7, 1888 to December 19th 1954.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

A little Bay Area flava for today: Pete and Sheila Escovedo with Rebeca Mauleón kick up a latin groove.

C'mon in, the water's fine

2009-04-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

The long collapse of the GOP into a regional fringe party heard another big crash today as Arlen Specter, one of the last Republicans with any interest in legislating, became a Democrat. To be honest, he didn't really have a choice, with polls showing he would get clobbered in the primary. By jumping ship, however, he kept his hopes alive for winning in the general, provided the Democrats support him. Certainly he worked that out with Harry Reid before this announcement.

Still, this shows how crazy the Republicans have become by forcing all the moderates out. With the eventual seating of Al Franken, the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the senate. The Party of No has to talk to the hand now.

Turning over another rock

2009-04-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

And finding the horror squirming in the light. That's what happened this week as more torture information is being revealed. Today McClatchy reported that the Bush administration pressured interrogators to torture detainees into claiming a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

That's right. People were tortured not because they were lying, but because they were telling the truth.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

Cheney and Rumsfeld didn't give a damn whether it was true or not. They didn't give a damn that torture didn't work. They just wanted some cover. This began as early as the summer of 2002.

Last night Rachel Maddow interviewed former executive director of the 9/11 Commission Philip Zelikow who had written a memo against the use of torture. Not only did the Bushies ignore it, they sought to suppress it, to pretend it never happened.

They knew it was illegal. They didn't care. It was party time. These scumbags gave themselves absolute power over other people's lives, bodies and sanity and crushed them just to show how tough they were. They and their enablers on the Democratic side, like Jane Harman, who is shocked, shocked, I tell you, that they would abuse their self-bestowed powers.

Obama who is reluctant to get involved in an investigation and possible prosecution, has gotten hammered (yes!) by the Left for it, has still left the door open. We'll see if anyone steps through it.

I've said this before and I'll keep saying it until it happens or I die, these people belong in prison.

In our names

2009-04-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

Obama's decision to release four OLC memos confirms what a lot of us already knew. The United States of America engaged in criminal acts of torture.

This is the result of a government that has lost its moral bearings. These memos show that the Bush administration at the highest levels instituted torture even when it knew it was on shaky legal standing. One of the authors of these memos, Jay Bybee is still deciding fates of Americans as a federal judge. He needs to be held accountable. They all need to be held accountable.

If you are an American, if you believe in the Constitution, if you believe we are better than this, make some noise. These monsters cannot be allowed to get away with this, for if they do, the next time (and there will be a next time) it might be you. Pat Leahy wants an inquiry, which is a start, but we need a special prosecutor. Tell the White House. Sign the ACLU's petition, or FireDogLake's petition.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass

2009-04-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Rick Perry wants to secede from the Union. He rants at an anti-tax rally attended by idiots who just had their taxes cut, for chrissakes and says the U. S. government is oppressive.

Oh please. You fucking conservatives told us to sit down and shut up when we pointed out that Saddam had no WMDs. You called us traitors for saying the war in Iraq is wrong. When Bush dismantled our constitutional rights you didn't utter a peep.

Every one of your stunts, from Freedom Fries to Sarah Palin to teabagging is intellectually and morally bankrupt. These protests weren't about taxes. They were a petulant lizard-brain tantrum by people used to having their way, leading a mob of imbeciles who have no idea what any of this is about.

Now we have a President and a Congress finally trying to clean up the mess you made you don't want to play any more. Yeah, that's patriotic. That's really helping your neighbor.

Go. Take your stupidity with you.

Spring flowers at La Casa.

2009-04-12T11:38:00.001-07:00

I'm always glad to see flowers make it through the winter.

The little purple irises bloom first.

The Japanese cherry is in full bloom this week.

That's it, I'm done

2009-04-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Obama should have everything fixed by now, and it's not. Therefore the only thing left to conclude is that the Republicans were right and we should all be free-marketeers. Sarah 2012!

The big shitpile, continued

2009-03-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

Is the global economic shitpile created by crooked financiers whose collective Ponzi scheme collapsed? Matt Taibbi says that it's much more sinister than that. It's nothing less than a takeover by the Big Money Boyz of our financial system. Greenwald says we need to get angrier than we already are. Krugman says that Obama is wasting his political capital on more-of-the-same crap from people who got us into this mess in the first place.

I think Obama is sincerely trying to fix this, but he's getting bad advice from people like Geithner, a Bush holdover who just wants to save his buddies. This is a class of people who have nothing in common with the rest of us, don't see any problem with the way things are, and see it all as a game.

We're already in a class war, people. You don't get to pick which side you're on. It's time to fight back.

Time to rewrite the textbooks again

2009-03-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

It appears that all those books, movies, illustrations, etc. showing dinosaurs as big, scaly creatures will have to go in the trash. The discovery of a new dinosaur, Tianyulong confuciusi, by Chinese researchers led by Xiao-Ting Zheng could possibly remodel conventional wisdom regarding the body covering of dinosaurs

Anybody who has looked at a dinosaur picture book more than once in childhood can remember dinosaurs in all their myriad shapes as having scaly or armor-plated skin. Over the last few decades, the discoveries of theropods, meat-eating dinosaurs with evidence of feathers has brought the idea of theropods covered in a coat of feathers. The early horned dinosaurs, psittacosaurs, left fossils with apparent quills over the back and tail. That was it for covering.

Until now. Tianyulong was found with impressions that resemble the proto-feathers of early theropods. One problem. Tianyulong was a heterodontosaur, an early branch on the tree on the other side of the main split; the Saurischia-Ornithischia division. That means all of the families of dinosaurs might have had some sort of covering at some point in their history. They might have been fuzzy or furry or downright shaggy.

Illustrators are going to have a field day.

Image by Xing Li-Da.

A copyright nightmare

2009-03-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

But an awesome mashup.

Where's the next terror attack coming from?

2009-03-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

My guess is not from Al-Queda.

An honest Republican

2009-03-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

Nobody, Barack. But that won't stop some people from saying it. Via the Plum Line, Patrick McHenry, R-NC, speaks plainly:

“We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., an outspoken conservative who has participated on the GOP message teams. “Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

They don't give a damn about you, me or the country. Getting back in power is all they care about. That's why they miss this guy.

Why we fight

2009-03-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

Lee J and I became politically active because we feared that democracy was in danger here in America. We joined millions of other concerned progressives to turn the tide in the last two elections. Our efforts are bearing fruit. The Obama administration has begun disclosure of secret legal documents written by Bush administration lawyers. We knew it was going to be worse than we thought, and this is being verified.

Progressives had already denounced Bush's trashing of habeas corpus and the 4th Amendment, but these memos show that his attorneys thought they could override the 1st Amendment and probably the entire Bill Of Rights as well. This is not hyperbole, this is confirmed the Bush administration's own writings.

A substantial percentage of Americans have no respect for democracy and are relentless in undermining it. Even the people we've elected can be infected by this. A dictatorship could happen here if we let them win. That's why we fight.

Here's your shovel.

2009-02-22T11:34:00.000-08:00

Billmon, again, gives us an idea of what needs to be done to get us out of this mess. Essentially, it mirrors Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini in saying that somebody needs to spend big bucks to stop this global tailspin. That somebody is the U. S. Government.

The big shitpile

2009-02-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

Billmon over at DailyKos explains why we're in the mess we're in. When conservatives are allowed to set policy, we all take it in the shorts.

Happy birthday, big guys

2009-02-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

Today is the 200th birthday of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. I wonder what they would think of today?

Darwin would probably be amazed at the advances in biology and medicine that have been made as a result of his writings, but dismayed at the number of people who still refuse to see the elegant truth he revealed.

Lincoln would probably be heartened by the advancement in justice he set in motion that has resulted in an African-American to be enthusiastically elected to, and currently hold, his old office. He would probably be dismayed at the deterioration of his party, now the home of delusion and corruption.

Well, good on ya, fellas. I'll hoist a beer in your honor.

From cold to hot: more cool palaeo stuff.

2009-02-06T19:31:00.000-08:00

Image from Wikimedia Commons

You've heard about the Ice Ages. Ten thousand to a million years ago. Glaciers, mammoths, Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. Pshh. Big deal. A few big glaciers and what did we get out of it? Igloos? Let's go back to the real ice age. The Cryogenian period. 850-630 million years ago. The Earth got so cold that it might have frozen completely over. A global hockey rink.

As cold as it was on the surface, things were happening underneath. A new paper announces the discovery of the oldest animals yet, sponges that date back 635 million years. Fossil imprints weren't actually found, rather there were deposits of steroids (Barry Bonds was alive back then?) in the rock left behind from the sponges' tissue. It appears that all that cold may have had a hand in changing the chemistry of the oceans, introducing more oxygen in the system, allowing single-cell organisms, who had already been around for a couple billion years, the energy to evolve into complex multicellular organisms.

Credit: Copyright Jason Bourque, University of Florida

I can't feel my toes. Let's put our shorts on and hop in the time machine to the Paleocene epoch, 65.5-55.8 million years ago, right after that big rock plowed into the Yucatan and finished the dinosaurs off. After the evolutionary party that was the Mesozoic, the earth had had about enough of thunder lizards and wanted peace and quiet while it slept off its hangover. The mammals, which had evolved while trying not to get stepped on by dinosaurs, now had the run of the place. The world was like a kid's TV show, populated by small, furry creatures. That's what I always thought, anyway.

Like anything else, just as you think it's safe.... For one thing, it was hot as fuck, smoggy from forest fires and muggy. Little mammals still had to watch out, because there were snakes 45 feet long that could swallow something as big as a cow. Stalking the underbrush were sebecosuchans; big, fast crocodiles that could run like hell. Nervous and sweaty, our ancestors in the Paleocene didn't have the post-dinosaurian kumbaya that I thought.

A few other recent goodies: New evidence that proto-whales with feet still gave birth on land, a revelation on the origin of claws in arthropods, and our ancestors had jaws of steel.

Now it's personal

2009-02-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

My boss had to cut everybody's hours at work. We're all taking one unpaid day off per week in the hope of avoiding layoffs. While there is no shortage of work to do around the house and I'll have more time to do it, a 20% pay cut hurts. Especially with a California mortgage. This economy hasn't hit bottom yet, so my pay might still get cut again, maybe by 100%.

Lee J and I have done our part all these years. Our mortgage is one we could afford, with 20% down and a fixed rate. We don't have any other debt except for a modest amount on the credit card. I put my 15% into retirement savings every single pay period and Lee J went back to school and begun a new career. The Republicans took a surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars and squandered it into a trillion dollar hole. All they can say is "more tax cuts" while arrogant executives spend our bailout money on cruises and manicures. Overpaid and unregulated Masters Of The Universe showed they had no idea what they're doing and were rewarded anyway.

President Obama, members of Congress, here's my take on the stimulus. Right now, I'm not gonna spend a dime unless it's necessary. No going out, no purchasing of gadgets, toys, treats, goodies or anything. A tax cut won't mean a damn thing. If I can't be reasonably sure I'm still going to have a job, any tax savings will go into the bank, or to the aforesaid mortgage. I'm not helping the overall situation this way, but I've got my own ass to worry about. Democrats, we donated money, worked the phones and pounded the pavement for you. Do your part. Shut the Republicans up and do this right.

Smell the bipartisanship

2009-01-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

He wined them. He dined them. They still spit in his face. Obama courted House Republicans for their votes on his stimulus plan and didn't get any. Not one. It still passed, thanks to the voters who elected enough Democrats. Now the bill goes to the Senate where it is automatically assumed to be filibustered unless the Democrats can peel two skittish Republicans off or Obama guts the bill completely. I hope he learns from this.

Republicans don't care about anything but returning to power. They want Obama to fail. Their leader said as much. Karl Rove is still thumbing his nose at Congress. Republicans cannot be reasoned with. Obama will have to go around them or through them if he wants to get anything done.

New revelations of the past

2009-01-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

The tree of life may need a fundamental reorganization according to a new paper from the American Museum of Natural History. The writers state that the "lower" orders of animal life, like jellyfish and sponges comprise their own branch on the tree and evolved a nervous system independently. Image Credit: AMNH

The Open Source Palaeontologist has a new paper on combat among ceratopsian dinosaurs, using fossil wounds to reconstruct ancient battles among horned dinosaurs. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The future is go

2009-01-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

We have entered the Obama era. I started drinking since 8:30 this morning and now Lee J and I will hit a MoveOn party at a bar. I haven't celebrated like this for I don't know how many years. Things will suck for a while, thanks to the outgoing people, but the healing begins today.

'Nuff said

2009-01-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

Almost over.

Who is cutting the farts of Mars?

2009-01-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

The discovery of methane in the atmosphere of Mars has both astronomers and biologists in a tizzy. There really shouldn't be any in the atmosphere so this is a very exciting mystery. There are a few equally plausible reasons it could be there. A geological one, in that internal heat causes subsurface water to react with carbon dioxide, a chemical one from the oxidation of iron, and a biological one, being made by the waste of bacteria. Naturally it's the last one that's generating interest. Given the many depictions of martians in popular culture, it would be deliciously ironic that we would finally find them by their flatulence. Image credit: NASA

The case for prosecution

2009-01-14T20:11:00.000-08:00

We're in the final week of the eight-year nightmare that has been the Bush Administration. Most Americans are glad to see him finally leave, allowing us to begin the healing process. Bush, on the other hand, will amble off to a comfortable retirement, having learned few lessons from his toxic term in office. Those of us on the left, who called for his impeachment a few years ago are now asking whether Obama will investigate, much less prosecute Bush and his associates over possible war crimes.

There are two main reasons why investigating and, if necessary prosecuting members of the Bush Administration. First, we need to ask ourselves what kind of nation we are. Are we a nation of laws, a nation that works with other nations to foster justice and democracy around the world? Or are we an empire whose maintenance justifies any action?

Second, If we decide that things like torture and the elimination of basic civil liberties are acceptable for the President to use, do we draw a new line that the President can't cross or do we leave the door open for a dictatorship down the road?

We know that the USA under Bush committed war crimes. Bush admitted it. Cheney admitted it. CIA Director Michael Hayden admitted it. Books have been written about it.

Cheney in recent interviews has been not only unrepentant, his admissions are essentially daring Congress to go after him. Cheney is betting that they won't. This will establish a precedent that future Presidents who want unlimited power can hide behind.

Some congresspeople like John Conyers want to investigate. The media, who were on the bandwagon all along, naturally wish it would all go away.

Obama and the Democrats had an epic win. Republicans are arguing amongst themselves and Karl Rove's Permanent Majority is rubble. But these people are like weeds that can't be killed. They never give up. Just like Cheney and Rumsfeld learned at Nixon's knee, loyal young Bush stormtroopers, like this guy, will wait, and have their time again.

Bush's legacy

2009-01-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

From MSNBC, comparing when Bush took office to today:

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

Then: 4.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2001)
Now: 6.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008)

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE
Then: 10,587 (close of Friday, Jan. 19, 2001)
Now: 9,015 (close of Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009)

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (1985=100)

Then: 115.7 (Conference Board, January 2001)
Now: 38.0, which is an all-time low (Conference Board, December 2008)

FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY
Then: 6.4 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 7.6 million (Census numbers for 2007 -- most recent numbers available)

AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE
Then: 39.8 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 45.7 million (Census numbers for 2007 -- most recent available)

U.S. BUDGET
Then: +236.2 billion (2000, Congressional Budget Office)
Now: -$1.2 trillion (projected figure for 2009, Congressional Budget Office)

Not to mention two unjustifiable wars, the destruction of habeas corpus, letting New Orleans drown, ruining the environment and on and and on. Chimpy says history will judge and he's right about that. I just wish I could see how he'll be portrayed 200 years from now. Less than two weeks to go.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T18:47:00.000-08:00

We're doin' it our favorite way. Dick Clark on TV with the sound off, the KCSM New Year's special on the stereo and the cats for entertainment.

Happy Xmas. War is hopefully almost over

2008-12-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, sung by 11-year-old Gayla Peevey in 1953.

World's smallest aquarium

2008-12-17T16:48:00.000-08:00

MIT has created a planktonic ecosystem on a microscope slide. They're using it to study the carbon cycle in the oceans and they wanted to focus on plankton without all the other creatures getting in the way. It's the perfect new conversation piece for our downsized economy!

Photo credit: Donna Coveney

Why we are here

2008-12-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

Via Palaeoblog there's an interesting paper by a father and son research team out of Finland that considers why life arose. Not why-because-God-was-bored why, but why an assemblage of chemicals on an infant planet became flora and fauna.

The reason is due to entropy. In this case, the entropy being the reduction of energy differences between chemicals on early Earth. It's like when you put a hot object next to a cold object. The hot object warms the cold one, and the cold object cools the warm one until they're the same temperature. Since the sun and the Earth's core were (and are) pumping energy into the system, the reactions between chemicals and the chemicals themselves got steadily more complex until they fit our definition of life. Physorg gives a more thorough description here.

Creationists will go nuts over this because they make two points. One is that life is ultimately a series of reactions that can be described by thermodynamics. The other is that life didn't arise by an event. It became what we describe as life gradually by simple reactions growing in complexity.

In a nutshell, we're here because life was brewed. Like beer.

Can we haz January yet?

2008-12-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

Now that the election is over, I don't have as much to get riled over, so I'll have to find something else to blog about. Of course, our economy's collapsing due mostly to Republican policies, so if I lose my job, that should give me fodder. I'm not in imminent danger of that. Yet.

So, pretty much like everybody else, I'm taking care of holiday business and trying not to spend too much and looking forward to this season's big day, January 20th. I scheduled the day off and will be watching the inaugural on TV. Most likely saying "buhbye dickhead," over and over, louder with each drink. And I will drink.

41 more days.

Post-Thanksgiving Belmont blogging

2008-11-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

We're here at Lee J's parents again for Thanksgiving and I brought the laptop with me so I've done a ton of web-surfing and caught up on a lot of the blogs I haven't been to lately. It took us a bit to find the password for the wireless, but Beverly, my mother-in-law called tech and got it.

Turkey Day had the traditional dinner which was great as usual and I stopped eating before I reached the pain threshold. I pigged out on Halloween candy, though.

One of their cats went missing about a month ago while their house was being remodeled and the other on disappeared earlier this week. Wednesday night I heard scratching and yowling that sounded like it was above so I suggested we open the hatches to the attic so she could come down that night. A little after midnight I was awakened again by scratching and yowling and I thought the cat might have been stuck in the wall. Then it occurred to me that the sound was coming from the chest of drawers that they had put back in the room after the painters finished. I switched on the light and sure enough, I opened the drawer and out jumped the cat. It took off straight for the litter box. Our cats would have crapped in the drawers.

I wanted to start on the Expectorator, but I forgot most of the files I need. Typical.

4:20 - time for your Alzheimer's vaccine

2008-11-24T16:21:00.000-08:00

Smoking weed might prevent Alzheimer's. Works for me.

Plantimal

2008-11-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

Via Carl Zimmer, there's this new genetic study of a photosynthetic sea slug. It's taken the symbiotic algae technique a step further and incorporated photosynthetic ability into it's own DNA. The lead researcher has given it its own website.

Like beaten spouses

2008-11-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

Senate Democrats let turncoat Joe Lieberman keep his Committee chair today. Harry "thank you sir, may I please have another" Reid (D-Spineless) said, "we're looking forward, we're not looking back." We donated, volunteered and voted these dickheads into office and this is the thanks we get.

Kind people

2008-11-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

Via kos, list of potheads abound. Pot smokers are successful and have lots of friends. Rich and famous friends, in fact. It's time to stand up for ourselves.

Earworm for ya

2008-11-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

For some reason, Poinciana has been stuck in in my head lately. Now it's your turn. From the original poster:

Jazz piano legend Ahmad Jamal performing in 2005, in a set of mostly originals, accompanied by drums legend Idris Muhammad and James Cammack on bass.

Life is returning to normal after the election. I finally cut the grass, sorted some files on the computer, put all the Halloween stuff away and vacuumed the upstairs. Well, the Roomba did, anyway.

Yes We Did

2008-11-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

Last night, at some friends' house, we watched our first black President-elect give a call to a new nation. The long horror of the Bush administration will end soon. The country has repudiated conservative ideology. We are not a conservative country and never were. The slumbering electorate, long content to be led by simpleminded dogma, has awakened to the need for thought again.

The glass isn't full. The passage of Prop. 8 is a big turd floating in the punchbowl. The gains in Congress were less than I had hoped. Scumbags like Michelle Bachmann and Mitch McConnell retained their seats. But, for the second election in a row, we won. The left is energized, organized and on offense again. This is our moment. This is our time.

Halloween post-game

2008-11-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

The cave in the garage went better than I thought it would. I managed to get it all set up by about 3:30, so I could catch my breath before any kids showed up. It rained on and off through the day and I thought wouldn't get anybody to show up, but we had a fair amount of family groups come by for a couple of hours.

The kids, even the older ones, were hesitant to come in, so I guess it looked pretty spooky. I could never get my mask on and hood up in time when we say them coming down the driveway, so I could only jump up and scare a few of them but I got a lot of 'em with Zombie Nixon.

It was fun. I'm going to try this again next year.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is a hurried and blurry photo of the Skeletal Protester character for this year's Halloween display. The body is a cheap Bucky skeleton with a glowing head and hands. The sign says "On all the important issues of our day, I have been totally in agreement and support of President Bush," which is what McCain said on Meet the Press in 2005. With it is a photo of McCain hugging Bush in 2004.

I had to put it on the front step to keep it out of the fucking rain. We're supposed to have rain tonight through Sunday. It couldn't have waited two more days?! I took tomorrow off to finish building my cave in the garage. Hopefully we'll get at least a couple of kids. I can't do anything in the garage until tomorrow because we park the cars in there so I'll be busy. The zombie Nixon is done though, and I should be able to finish before it gets dark. I'll keep the garage door closed as long as possible but I'll have to finish hanging the cobwebs from the ceiling when the door is open. If everything works ok, then I'll try to post a better picture.

5 days until the election! Don't forget to vote early if you are able to and haven't done so. I'll hit the phonebank over the weekend and maybe get out in the street for No on 8 if I can.

In a nutshell

2008-10-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

From here.

Upgrade city

2008-10-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is my first post on my new Mac. I waited until the new MacBooks came out then decided to get a previous generation Pro on clearance. This upgrade was desperately needed and it feels good to be up to date again. Of course, now I have no excuse not to assemble a home network.Or at least I don't after the election. Next spring, when the weather is nice I'll blog from the back yard. I love technology.

Funny or die

2008-10-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Ron Howard reunites with some old friends for Obama. When you've lost Andy Griffith, you've lost the country.

A look inside the right-wing mind

2008-10-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

They want to smear Obama with his tenuous association with Bill Ayers yet Palin doesn't consider abortion clinic bombers terrorists. Palin and her supporters think killing people is just fine when it's done on their behalf.

Cambrian conga line

2008-10-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

A paper out last week describes a strange fossil. It's a group of small shrimplike creatures attached head to tail. Nobody knows what they were doing 500 million years ago, but it must have been important for them to hold on to each other as they were buried in sediment. Feeding has been ruled out since that would have been nasty for all but the first one. Mating? Maybe it was a wedding that got out of hand.

Catalogue of Organisms, HMNH and Pharyngula have more insight into this mystery.

How to filet a wingnut

2008-10-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

A good example of why we love Rachel Maddow. Oily slimeball David Frum tries to draw Rachel into a Crossfire-style shouting match, and she pins him down and nails him to the wall. Tristero at Digby's house and HTML Mencken at Sadly, No! love her, too.

McCain: Pallin' with terrorists

2008-10-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post has a live one: William Timmons, the lobbyist heading up John McCain's transition team, lobbied for Saddam Hussein. It's a long post, but read the whole thing anyway. Two guys working for Timmons were convicted of acting as unregistered agents for Saddam, and Timmons bragged that his ideas led to the disastrous oil-for-food program. MCain want's to bring up Obama's associations in the debate tomorrow. We can only hope.

2 votes in the bag for Obama

2008-10-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

Lee J and I filled out and mailed in our absentee ballots. If you are voting absentee or are in a district where you can vote early, please do so! There is going to be a huge turnout for this election and the earlier we can get our ballots in the easier it will be for the election officials to count them. This will also give the Republicans less of an opportunity for messing with the process and making false claims of vote fraud.

A trained parrot

2008-10-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

John Cleese defines Sarah Palin.

The mask is off

2008-10-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

Republican voters are showing their true colors:

More examples of compassionate conservatism here, here, here, here, and here.

Here's mud in your eye

2008-10-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

The McCain campaign has decided that, since it can't win on the issues, it wants to drag Obama into the mud. This weekend, Sarah Palin pulled out the race card and tried to pin Obama to retired Weatherman Bill Ayers. They also plan to exhume the corpse of the Jeremiah Wright "scandal," even though they said they wouldn't. Fine. Let's play that game, shall we?

Since we're on the subject of past associations with supposed terrorists, what might we find? For starters, McCain doesn't think bombing abortion clinics is terrorism. He also hangs out with several convicted criminals, such as G. Gordon Liddy, Carl Lindner and Ollie North who've all supported terrorists. When Clinton was trying to warn everybody about Osama bin Laden, McCain didn't think bin Laden was such a bad guy. And, of course Todd Palin's membership in a party that seeks Alaska's violent secession from the US should also be in our tally.

When it comes to rubbing shoulders with religious crazies, Obama can't touch McCain or Palin. McCain's associations with bigoted and unstable preachers such as John Hagee and Rod Parsley is well-known as is Palin's pal, witch-hater Thomas Muthee.

Oh, and McCain's oft-told war hero story might be not what it's made out to be.

Since the economy is on everyone's mind, the Obama Campaign made a little documentary on McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal:

McCain was supposed to be contrite about that and called it one of his worst mistakes. Seems that he's apparently only sorry he got caught. McCain is right; his only way to victory is to distract voters from the collapse of the free-market economy that he championed. The only problem is, if he's going to resort to cheap smears, Obama is rubber and McCain is glue.

Winter wonderland

2008-10-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Nasa's Phoenix Lander has detected snow falling on Mars.

Mother of all geese

2008-10-01T17:17:00.000-07:00

Dasornis, an enormous relative of geese lived 50 million years ago in southern England. It had a 17-foot wingspan and teeth-like structures on its beak. It soared over the waves much like an albatross. I wonder what the white meat tasted like.

Image courtesy of Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum.

Yet another reason to vote for Obama

2008-09-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

With John McCain growing more infantile by the minute, there is no shortage of reasons to vote against him. This makes us forget that there are just as many reasons to vote for Obama. Here's another one; 61 Nobel science laureates endorse him because he understands the importance of research.

For Lee J

2008-09-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

As if we didn't have enough to worry about

2008-09-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

We're being tugged at by forces from outside the known universe. If the universe isn't big enough for you, cosmologists are talking about multiverses now.