Just a baby cheetah mewing

Hard to believe how goddamn scary this things is going to be someday soon.

Morning Constituional – Monday, 26 September 2011

Good morning, friends. Britney Spears angers some in Stoke Newington, a borough of London, after shooting a robbery-themed music video. Now, your morning constitutional:

An outine for a rescue plan for the beleaguered Eurozone economy is  emerging, which will likely include a 50% write-down of Greece’s sovereign debt and potentially a 2 trillion euro bailout fund.

For the third time in six months, a partial government shutdown is possible if Congress does not agree to a short-term spending plan by Friday. Congress was expected to recess this week, but is staying in town.

Expectations that the congressional so-called “super-committee” could hammer out a major debt deal are dropping drastically.

Who said Obama is holding up domestic oil production? Two years ago, the U.S. imported two-thirds of its oil. Now, it imports less than half. By 2017, Goldman Sachs predicts the U.S. could pass Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest oil producer.

The Saudi King Abdullah announced that women will be allowed to vote and hold office in future municipal elections.

Just seven months before conservative president Nicholas Sarkozy will face reelection, France elected a left-wing majority in its Senate. The Senate doesn’t have the ability to derail Sarkozy’s legislative plans, but it is an ill omen because the Senate has been a conservative bastion for decades.

Republicans in the House passed a bill forcing the EPA to delay and block several air pollution rules. It will likely die in the Senate.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the hikers who were arrested by Iranian authorities, accused of spying, and held for two years, have returned to the U.S. four days after being released.

Republican Candidate for President and Texas Governor Rick Perry is blocking reporters from his Twitter feed.

According to an international team of researchers, the cost of treating cancer in the developing world is spiraling and “headed towards a crisis.”

A visual history of literary references on The Simpsons.

Finally, Minneapolis women tries to send live puppy through the mail.

Elizabeth Warren comes out swinging

Not a new thought, but I like the idea of her being senator. Hell, I’d like her to be president someday.

Your V+V POWER RANKINGS: Second Edition

1. Willard “Mittens” Romney

Romney’s still behind in national polls, but he’s slowing making progress while hitting Perry hard on Social Security. In a recent Suffolk University/7NEWS poll of New Hampshire voters, Romney commands an impressive lead over his rivals with 41% of the vote, with Ron Paul in second at 14% (and Jon Huntsman in third at 10%!).

It’s probably going to come down to Florida, where Romney is is 22% to Perry’s 31%, but that could swing wildly before winter. Especially since Florida’s Republican voters tend to be older, which is prime pickings for a referendum on Social Security.

Oh, he also won Tim Pawlenty’s endorsement, which probably doesn’t mean anything because, like Pawlenty’s campaign, nobody is paying attention to Pawlenty.

I still see him taking the nomination.

Over/Under: 20.6 (+)

Prediction: Over

Again, not by much, but his numbers are on an upward trajectory.

Numbers 2-7 after the fold.

Continue reading »

R.E.M. calls it quits

One of the greatest bands of all times has announced they’re done.

It’s a shame that I never got to see them live, although I always meant to. Guess I should just be pleasantly surprised they made it 31 years—and consistently kept putting out great albums.

British government backs same-sex marriage

This is something:

Lib Dem Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone today declared herself “delighted” to announce the Government’s move to legislate for same-sex marriages before the next general election.

Addressing the opening day of her party’s autumn conference in Birmingham, she spoke passionately about the need to reject prejudice and discrimination, and support the cause of women’s equal rights and persecuted minorities across the world.

To rounds of applause, she said: “I am delighted to announce today that in March this Government will bring in a formal consultation on how to implement equal civil marriage for same-sex couples.

“And this would allow us to make any legislative changes necessary by the end of this Parliament.”

She added: “Civil partnerships were a very welcome first step, but as our constitution states, this party rejects prejudice and discrimination in all its forms. And I believe that to deny one group of people the same opportunities offered to another, is not only discrimination, it is simply not fair.”

Mind you, this is the government that is a coalition between (very crude but still useful labels)  the conservative party (Tories) and the center party (Liberal Democrats). Yes, this is happening because the conservatives are running the government. Huh.

Maybe they’re looking for an economic boost in the midst of their terrible austerity policies?

Hump-Day Song of the Week: Bust A Move by Young MC

This song is from 1989. Young MC is English. The bass line is actually played by Flea. The lyrics were written in 90 minutes in his dorm room at USC and were never edited—he recorded the first draft. Previously, Young MC also co-wrote “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina.”

Also, this song is just plain awesome.

It Gets Better

I’ve said this many times before, but here it is again:  My pride and affection for the American experiment lies in its ability to improve itself, to get better. This morning, America got better.

Finally, after decades of a terrible and ridiculous compromise that left thousands of American servicepeople as second-class citizens, the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” is dead.

It lies in the graveyard of many other terrible mistakes in bigotry: Slavery, segregation, bans on miscegenation, the accepted social and workplace mistreatment of women, and, more recently, bans on sexual practices between people of the same gender.

Yes, it is still illegal (or, at least, not recognized) in most states to marry the person you love. And, it is still legal to fire somebody for their sexual orientation alone. But, we can take pride in the fact that the entirely of the United States Armed Forces can now say: “You are accepted here, no matter who you are. And, you don’t have to lie about it.”

This is the change we believed in. This is the hope we had when we elected the man who stands as the President of the United States. We may have misgivings; we may feel that the wave of hope for a better future, and the expectation that Washington could change, stopped at the rocky shore of political reality. Years of bickering over the economy, health care, public debt, and social issues has darkened our vision of what we thought would be a better future.

There’s still much to do. Same-sex couples in the military who are married in states that recognize it are barred from receiving spousal privileges due to the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that needs to be ended. Also, the military was not alone in its power to discriminate against gays: any private workplace is allowed to fire someone for their sexual orientation. That also needs to end. There are many old, tired and terrible policies that should be changed, updated, reformed, or repealed.

But things are changing. Things are getting better. America is getting better.

Here’s one brave soldier, serving in Germany, marking the end of the ban by calling his father yesterday and coming out. Fitting that Dan Savage’s project to help kids who have been bullied (often as a result of their sexual orientation) is called “It Gets Better.” And, that this particular solider started making videos as part of that project.

It gets better.

Sometimes, being black literally gets you the death penalty

Sweet mother of fuck (emphasis mine):

A Texas inmate sentenced to death—in a racially charged case that now-Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said was inappropriately decided—has petitioned Gov. Rick Perry and his state parole board for clemency, giving the GOP presidential candidate two days to decide whether to commute the sentence or grant a temporary stay of execution. Last week, one of the Harris County prosecutors who helped secure Buck’s conviction wrote a letter to Perry urging him to grant a retrial. In 10 years as governor, Perry has presided over 234 executions, more than any other governor in modern history; only once has he granted clemency in a case where the Supreme Court hasn’t already mandated it. Now, just as he steps onto the national stage, Perry will have to make what looks like a tough call—with GOP primary voters watching.

The inmate, Duane Edward Buck, is set to be executed by lethal injection on September 15 for murdering two people at the home of his ex-girlfriend in 1995. The issue at hand isn’t Buck’s innocence, but the means by which his death sentence was obtained. Prosecutors firmly established Buck’s guilt, but to secure a capital punishment conviction in Texas they needed to prove “future dangerousness”—that is, provide compelling evidence that Buck posed a serious threat to society if he were ever to walk free. They did so in part with the testimony of a psychologist, Dr. Walter Quijano, who testified that Buck’s race (he’s African American) made him more likely to commit crimes in the future. (Quijano answered in the affirmative to the question of whether “the race factor, [being] black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons.”)

Friday Funny: Star Wars impressions

Use the Force for Good at www.su2c.com/usetheforce. Stand Up To Cancer Celebrity Ambassadors Aziz Ansari, Zach Galifianakis, Bill Hader, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, Jaime King, Seth Rogen, Andy Samberg and Emma Stone – along with Star Wars alum Samuel L. Jackson – each Use the Force for Good as they recreate classic Star Wars scenes to raise awareness for cancer research.

Bygones Be Bygones

People handle humiliating mistakes if various ways.  Some use self deprecating humor to make fun of the situation, others will be absent from a scene until the incident blows over, or perhaps the best technique is to own up to the mistake and minimize the humiliation by showing it doesn’t bother you.  For some people, namely Bill Buckner, there is no right answer.  Nothing that guy did after letting a weakly hit ground ball through his legs to end game 6 of the 1986 World Series was going to change his destiny of becoming the nation’s prime exemplary of blowing it.

He returned the next season, was traded thereafter, returned to the Red Sox for a quick bit in 1990 with warm greetings by the fans in Boston.  But it didn’t change the fact that his name would forever be associated with those split seconds in the 10th inning from 1986.  In fact, it wasn’t until the Red Sox won two subsequent World Series that Buckner ever returned to Fenway in 2007.  So the good news for Bill is that he was able to move on and avoid the Ray Finkle path.

In fact, it turns out that when you lead your field in anything, even being the butt of half of baseball’s jokes, it’ll pay out.  Over the years, Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson, have been signing pictures of that “memorable” moment and now they have stepped it up.  Should anyone really want to solidify Buckner for years to come you can get a signed painting of him, looking sullen, as Mookie drives home the winning run.  Seriously, its just $399 at http://www.theplay86ws.com/.

Hump-Day Song of the Week: High Horse by the Jim Jones Revue

This is pretty

Apologies for the stark lack of pretty things on the blog lately.

Compressed 02 by Kim Pimmel:

I combined everyday soap bubbles with exotic ferrofluid liquid to create an eerie tale, using macro lenses and time lapse techniques. Black ferrofluid and dye race through bubble structures, drawn through by the invisible forces of capillary action and magnetism.

Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern thinks gays are the worst ever

Oklahoma Republican state legislator Sally Kern starts out strong:

You know if you just look at it in practical terms, which has destroyed and ended the life of more people? Terrorism attack here in America or HIV/AIDS? In the last twenty years, fifteen to twenty years, we’ve had maybe three terrorist attacks on our soil with a little over 5,000 people regrettably losing their lives. In the same time frame, there have been hundreds of thousands who have died because of having AIDS. So which one’s the biggest threat?

I read that far and basically thought “Hey, finally! Some perspective!” I was excited (well, I could have been, if I didn’t sort of expect what was coming). HIV/AIDS does impact more people than terrorism, and we spend far more on anti-terror policies. Maybe a fraction of that could go to education, treatment, research.  Terrorism also takes up far more of our media bandwidth. Terrorism got so scary, we had to say any time we mentioned it: “This isn’t about us versus Islam! It’s about the world versus the crackpots!” Maybe we could take some of that bandwidth and rail against the stigma of HIV/AIDS infection: “You’re positive, but your life isn’t over! You’re negative, but people who are positive aren’t scary!”

Nope.

Instead, as expected, she goes right to the deep end:

And you know, every day our young people, adults too, but especially our young people, are bombarded at school, in movies, in music, on TV, in the mall, in magazines, they’re bombarded with ‘homosexuality is normal and natural.’ It’s something they have to deal with every day. Fortunately we don’t have to deal with a terrorist attack every day, and that’s what I mean.

…

It’s more dangerous, and yes I think that it’s also more dangerous because it will tear down the moral fiber of this nation. We were founded as a nation upon the principles of religion and morality, if we take those out from under our society we will lose what has made us a great nation, we will no longer be a virtuous people, which we see happening already. And without virtue this nation will not survive.

I think I can trace the logic (although, it’s really strained): AIDS is worse than terrorism. Gays make AIDS. Gays are worse than AIDS. Gays are the worst.

Lesson from 1937: Halting inflation a good way to create recessions

A solid read over here, but here’s the key take-away:

If we are to avoid the mistakes of the past, it is important to have an accurate assessment of what those past mistakes were. The severity of the Recession of 1937-38 was not due to contractionary fiscal policy or higher reserve requirements. By contrast, the policy tightening associated with gold sterilisation was not modest – it did not simply reduce the growth of the monetary base by a few percentage points, it stopped its growth altogether. While the Federal Reserve is often blamed for its poor policy choices during the Great Depression, the Treasury Department was responsible for this particular policy error.

The recession of 1937-38 occurred long ago, but it does have policy lessons for today. It suggests that, in a weak recovery, a pre-emptive monetary strike against inflation (which was very low at the time, as it is today) is capable of producing a devastating recession.

Running Mates

So, here’s something: In a race to unseat incumbent Charlotte City Councilmember James “Smuggie” Mitchell, one of the candidates is the incumbent’s ex-wife, Vivian Mitchell.

Vivian Mitchell divorced James Mitchell last year after more than 20 years of marriage.

Vivian Mitchell said she is running because James Mitchell has “neglected and abandoned the community.” She said it’s important to help District 2 because it’s less affluent than other parts of the city.

She ran unsuccessfully for school board two years ago.

This reminds me of a Family Guy episode. And that’s not a good thing.

Morning Constitutional – Monday, 12 September 2011

Good morning, everybody. Reese Witherspoon is not pressing charges against an 84-year-old driver who struck her while she was jogging. Now, your morning constitutional:

Fears about Europe’s weakening financial situation has led to a sharp stock downturn.

More than 100 are dead in Nairobi, Kenya after a petroleum pipeline caught fire and exploded.

An explosion at a nuclear reprocessing site in France has left one dead, but there is no risk of radiation leaks.

President Obama is sending the American Jobs Act to Congress today. Even Republicans who like the bill want to sink to it avoid any legislative victories to the president.

Former Minnesota governor and presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has endorsed Mitt Romney for president. He will join the Romney campaign as national co-chair.

A new CNN/ORC International Poll puts Rick Perry solidly ahead of Romney, even in electability.

There isn’t much evidence that low capital gains tax rates spur growth, but they do overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy.

A bill pushed by the National Rifle Association and co-sponsored by half the members of the House of Representatives would require all states and jurisdictions that issue concealed-weapons permits to honor permits granted anywhere else in the U.S. Only Illinois and the District of Columbia would be exempt, because they don’t allow carrying concealed weapons at all.

A breakthrough in chemotherapy could dramatically reduce the side-effects.

Finally, a drunk Swedish elk was found trapped in an apple tree.

Who’s ready for the BIG JOBS SPEECH HUH

We’ll surely be watching, at the bar, and drinking every time the President says “jobs.” Since we’ll be good and riled up afterwards, we’ll also be drinking every time they say “jobs” in the post-game, I mean, post-speech analysis.

Finally, we’ll drink a bottle of rot-gut Irish whiskey when we realize that people are comparing it to this one:

Because, well, that’s the speech that buried Carter, despite it, in all reality, being a really good piece of oratory. And absolutely fucking honest. And, still appropriate today more than ever. In fact, maybe the president should just give this same speech verbatim. If you’re going to be compared to Carter, you might as well crib the damned thing.

But, if I were the president, I’d just crib Charlie’s speech.

Bush and Reagan on Immigration

After last night’s “debate,” it’s interesting to look at an old Republican primary debate—let’s say between Bush and Reagan in 1980:

Wow, have the times changed (“I’d like to see something done about the illegal alien problem”). Once, both frontrunners for the Republican nomination believed in an immigration policy that would be human-centric, decent and rational. Reagan talks about a guest-worker program. Bush passionately calls immigrants “honorable, decent, family-loving people.”

You won’t be hearing this kind of rhetoric nowadays from the Republican party (except, maybe, from Huntsman). And that’s too bad. Hell, it’s too bad President Obama hasn’t been the champion for immigration reform he could have been, but I feel that it, like many other things, is a casualty to the economic crisis.

The Singularity

ReasonTV did an interview with Vernor Vinge, the San Diego State University math professor and sci-fi novelist who came up with the idea of singularity in his 1993 essay “The Coming Technological Singularity,” in which he wrote “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

Mostly I am posting this because Estes is freaked out by the singularity, even though it’s kind of silly.

This is a pretty awesome rumination on the concept, how it has affected the newer, more diverse generation of sci-fi writers, and how their ideas of identity and gender make it almost obsolete.