Kyoto Cost Benefit

This is the only cost benefit analysis I've seen to date on Kyoto. If anyone else has different numbers I'd love to see them. I seriously doubt we'll get anything other than agitprop from the Boxer committee.

The sloppy logic of the Kyoto advocates is surprising. The protocol would demand the biggest international financial commitment in history, yet it rests on an elementary fallacy: it compares the total costs of potential damage with the marginal costs of slightly ameliorating the problem. Even if every industrial country met the Kyoto goals of reducing carbon emissions 30 percent by 2010, the impact would be tiny. By 2100 that would have postponed global warming by a mere six years. The guy in Bangladesh driven from his home by rising sea levels would have to move in 2106, instead of 2100.

This makes little sense. The best estimates of the cost of implementing Kyoto run between $150 billion and $350 billion a year. The best estimates of the damage from global warming reach about $500 billion annually in 2100. Proponents argue that paying $150 billion to avoid $500 billion in damages is a good deal. But that's not what's on offer. We still have to pay the $500 billion, only six years later. So the real offer is: we pay $150 billion each year for 100 years to postpone payment of $500 billion annually, starting in 2100. All economic models show this to be, as the Copenhagen Consensus put it, a "bad" deal.

Journalists are Retarded cont.

In reporting how those noble French are teaching us about sacrifice by turning off the lights on the Eiffel Tower for 5 whole minutes Reuters reports the following:

The Eiffel Tower's illuminations are one of the most notable features of the French capital's skyline and account for 9 percent of the 7,000 megawatts consumed hourly by the structure.

7,000 Megawatt hours! Holy crap! That’s more power than is generated by all of Iraq and more than has ever been consumed by customers of Duke Energy – the largest energy provider in Indiana.

Most likely the sum total of the editors education on all things electric came from Back to the Future.

To make matters worse over 75% of electric generation in France comes from nuclear generation which has zero net effect on greenhouse gas emissions. So this entire action/story is meaningless.

UPDATE:According to this site, the lighting system at the tower is 120KW. Assuming the AP/Reuters article is correct in stating that lighting is 9% of total power usage then we can surmise that total consumption is 120KW(100 *.09) = 1.08MW. A bit lower than 7000.

UPDATE: CNN’s corrected the obvious mistake. Apparently assuming it was a simple order of magnitude issue (KW vs. MW – I’m not so sure. These dummies still have the original version.)

Starving Baby Polar Bears Drowning Makes Democrats Angry

“The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact.”
– Barack Obama


Boxer said she wanted to hold the hearing so she could take the temperature of Congress before she launches into crafting climate legislation.

So in other words the process from which democrats begin crafting policy that could result in trillions of dollars of impact to the US economy is not one of fact finding or even the debate of “facts” but a forum to express feelings about climate change.

I realize that in order to pass policy that requires taking things away from Americans that they like requires adding a little sizzle to the steak but reducing what is inarguably a very complex engineering and economic problem into inflammatory vignettes is not how good policy gets made. Similar tactics of simplistic rhetorical bludgeoning were used to pass Johnson’s War on Poverty. How did that work out?

Heh.

Somehow, this e-mail to Andrew Sullivan was diverted to me, so I'm publishing it. Because Andrew would.

Thank you so much, Andrew Sullivan. You are the light that illuminates the path
to reason. You are, in fact, the reason that the light shineth at all. Because
of you, I have come out of the closet. Because of you, I oppose outing. Because
of you, I voted for Bush. Because of you, I voted for Kerry. Because of you, I
supported the war in Iraq. Because of you, I oppose the war in Iraq. Because of
you, I have sleep apnea. Because of you, I have cured my sleep apnea. Because of
you, I believe in a conservatism of doubt — although because of you, I must of
necessity doubt the conservatism of doubt that represents the doubtful
provenance of my conservatism. Because of you, I have entirely jettisoned my
sense of humor, as it gets in the way of my self-regard. I owe it all to you.
Or, should I say, You.

Heh again: Here's a perfect example of Sullivan not letting facts interfere with his pre-existing perspective of a situation.

This is good to see

(AP) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of President Bush, focused Friday on a new American target: newly named U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Chavez took issue with comments Reid made just hours earlier to the National Press Club in Washington, citing the Venezuelan leader as among the threats facing the United States in 2007 because "Chavez and (Cuba's Fidel) Castro want to put their leftist marks on young democracies."

This surprised me, but it shouldn't have. Democrats have long and recently been sympathetic to leftist dictators. If they ever are to again become the dominant political force in this country they need to go back to Truman.

Commie hating + ditching the cynical populism could get me to vote democratic.

Uranium's Peaceful Cousin

This is a pretty interesting article about Thorium being almost the ideal fissile material for nuclear power generation. (Yes I read Treehugger. It's the reason our house is down to 6 incandescents. A renaissance man am I...)

Basically the only reason nuclear energy is based on Uranium (and byproducts of Uranium) is because controllable nuclear fission technology was just a byproduct of the Manhattan Project. It's very possible in some parallel universe where WWII or the Cold War never happened some university developed a Thorium based fission process and they're fossil fuel free -- or very much reduced. The reason the Hippies would desist in the banner making is that the Thorium atom breaks apart much more gracefully than ol' #92:

In today's "once-through" uranium-fueled reactors, we mine uranium, enrich it a
little in uranium-235, burn-up some of that U-235, and then throw it away,
supposedly in Yucca Mountain. (very much in the model of a ‘throw away society’)
When we start out with pure uranium oxide, (roughly 97% U-238 and 3% U-235) and
run it though current methods we end up with three broad categories of "stuff"
in the fuel.
First, there’s the unburned uranium-238 and uranium-235. This
uranium is no more dangerous after being in the reactor than it was before
(except that now it’s mixed with other products). It has billion-year
half-lives, which means it practically never decays (which is why it's still
around to dig up five billion years after it formed in a supernova). So the
uranium’s not a risk.
Then second group of leftovers are the fission products
(the actual waste of fission). These fission products are very radioactive, and
give off dangerous radiation. We have to keep these fission products away from
people and the environment. But because the fission products are so radioactive,
they decay quickly. Most decay to stable elements in a few hours, some take
days. And a very few take years or decades. But, if we leave the fission
products alone for a few hundred years, they will decay to normal background
levels of radiation (Safe enough we don’t need to worry about them as
much).
Finally, there are the transuranic isotopes. These are formed when
uranium absorbs a neutron and doesn’t fission, and include some nasty elements
like neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium. The transuranics are radioactive
for hundreds to tens of thousands of years, and as they decay they give off
different kinds of radiation. It's the transuranic waste that is the reason why
you have to build a place like Yucca Mountain that must remain geologically
isolated for tens of thousands of years.

In contrast Thorium byproducts are highly energetic with half-lives measured in human timescales:

Thorium is better because it has to absorb five neutrons before it will turn
into a transuranic isotope, whereas common uranium only has to absorb one- a
built in buffer. So by operating a reactor on pure thorium and uranium-233, you
can avoid producing the kind of long-lived waste that needs a place like Yucca
Mountain.
Thorium is a great possibility- it could be a high density source
of clean energy. The fluoride salt thorium reactor can produce nuclear wastes
that consist only of fission products, which quickly decay to stable elements -
in fact some elements like xenon or rhodium represent valuable commercial
products after a few months 'cooling down'.

The best part is that Thorium is three times more common than than Uranium. Easily exploitable reserves could last for tens of thousands of years.
Maybe instead of attempting to transform anthropogenic climate change from an engineering problem into a moral/religious issue the Pelosi posse could annouce reasearch into this.

Holy Carp!

When I was home in Indiana for the holidays my Dad talked a about an invasive species that he had read about called the Asian Carp which has been making its way up the Mississippi River and its tributaries, threatening to invade the Great Lakes. The only thing keeping the carp from making its way into Lake Michigan is an underwater electronic barrier that has to be re-funded every year. The bummer is that there is the ever-present threat that some short-sighted committee with revoke the funding which would be a disaster. Check out the following videos to get an idea of just how big of a disaster I'm talking about.

(The second part is much more entertaining/ridiculous.)

Part 1


Part 2


On the good side though, an emerging market for the fish has evolved that may take some of the urgency out of the problem. From Andrew's fav, NPR:

The fish weigh at least 15-to-25 pounds each, and some are much larger. They fetch about 14 cents a pound. That's not a lot, but Briney says the huge volume of carp he catches more than makes up for the low price-per-pound. Since he started fishing for carp, Briney says he's doubled his income.

Briney used to think carp were ugly. "But now, I think they look pretty good," he says, laughing, noting that they bring "about $4 a fish."

A Growing Market

On a recent day, Briney and his stepson, Jeremy Fisher, took in about 10,000 to 12,000 pounds of Asian carp from the Illinois River. Their catch ended up at Schafer Fisheries, a processing plant in Thomson, Ill.

Plant owner Mike Schafer has spent the last seven years developing a market for Asian carp. He says his company sells more than 2 million pounds each year -- mostly in Asian-American communities in California, New York and Chicago.

The carp now account for 20-30 percent of Schafer's business. He hopes that a new flash freezer he invested in will help him start selling to China and other Asian markets.

Illinois State Senator Mike Jacobs also wants to expand the market for Asian carp. For one thing, he'd like to see it on the menu in state prisons.

"Some people say that smoked, it's better than salmon," Jacobs says of Asian carp's taste. But the name "carp" is likely putting non-ethnic Americans off trying the fish, he says.

"Chilean Sea Bass wasn't always known as Chilean Sea Bass," Jacobs notes. "There was a time it was known as a Patagonian Toothfish, and people wouldn't eat it."

His suggested name-change? "I'm from Rock Island, so I'm thinking of 'Rock Island Sole,'" Jacobs muses. "Schafer Fisheries is near Savanna, [Ill.,] so Savanna Sole might work, too."

Update: If you have to see anything, scroll to minute 2:45 of the second video. It's worth it.

insight-less 2.0

OK, let's try this again.

You may have noticed something different about insight-less. If so, great! At least you're looking at the thing. Something I haven't managed to do in quite some time. Anyway, this version is powered by Blogger instead of Blogger (beta). And I was just in the process of bragging about it when I tried to publish the post and got an error, hence I'm trying this again. It still seems pretty snappy and easy to make editorial changes 'n such, despite my misgiving but time will tell whether this will improve my posting regularity.

So if there's anything that seems stale and tired on this site, or if more regular posters have requests, comments etc., please let me know.

Why I’m Glad Journalists Don’t Run the economy….

While perusing Newsweek’s International edition I ran across this sentence in a story about social and economic challenges in the EU.

“[The EU’s] economy is outperforming the United States.”

Holy tap-dancing Christ! What on earth is this based on?

So I looked and looked and looked and came across this article reporting on a business confidence survey that for the first time in five years showed Europeans more optimistic about their region’s future economic prospects than Americans over the same period. Oh if only believing made it so!

Here’s a reality check for ol’ Denis:

EU economic growth was only 2.8% in 2006. It was 3.3% in the US – the slowest since 2003.

EU unemployment was 7.7 percent. US unemployment remains steady at 4.5%

So I’m not sure how Denis can conclude that things are better on his side of the pond. The only thing I can think of to account for the inexplicable difference in optimism is the 2006 election media which spiked positive economic news and amplified the bad. Economically things in the US remain far ahead of the rest of the G-7.

Oh yeah this genius is the author of “Chavez is a populist, not a socialist”. Boy was he right.

NPR Loves Donkeys with Boobs from San Francisco

After 6 years of having to stomach GOP leadership I really shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of restraint NPR has had in displaying their glee at finally having a Democrat controlled congress. But after burning so much airtime on the previous “do nothing congress” and “Halliburton cronyism” I’m a little amused at the NPR coverage the new speaker has been getting.

After first cheerleading “tough minded” Nancy Pelosi’s “100 hour” agenda for passing 7 bills with broad bi-partisan support they failed to mention that nothing had actually been accomplished in the first 100 hours and that the 100 hour plan wasn’t really that at all with Democrats arbitrarily deciding what activities count against the clock (current projections show the “100 hour” plan expiring by end of day Jan 18 or 336 hours). However while not passing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission Pelosi did find time to make the Speaker’s Lobby non-smoking –foiling those nasty smoking Republicans- for which she was awarded a profile in courage by NPR.

The most important piece of legislation passed by the democratic house for “people not the powerful” populist democratic base might be the increase in the minimum wage. NPR had ample victory lap coverage replete with Democratic congressmen magnifying the significance of the measure on Americans lives in preacher’s cadence, but to date, has completely failed to mention the most interesting part of the bill. It seems that while every company will be required to pay their minimum wage workers more, one small territory – American Samoa – will not. Star-Kist Tuna is the largest employer of American Samoans and Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods. Of course Del Monte is headquartered in Madame Speaker’s district.

Do you think just maybe NPR would have devoted 5 minutes of their precious news time to report/analyze if the previous congress raised corporate income taxes on everyone except Halliburton?

Pretty good Jimmah takedown

Not surprisingly, Alan Dershowitz isn’t a big fan of Jimmah’s last book. What is surprising is that after writing a book that’s purported purpose was to “stimulate debate”, Jimmah wants no part of it.

YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when
he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell
when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to
stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm
talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book "Palestine Peace
Not Apartheid."

Carter's book has been condemned as "moronic"
(Slate), "anti-historical" (The Washington Post), "laughable" (San Francisco
Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many
of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and
not by "representatives of Jewish organizations" as Carter has claimed. Carter
has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said
that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid
South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of
Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered,
"Yes. I think -- yes."

[…]

Carter's refusal to
debate wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that he claims that he
wrote the book precisely so as to start debate over the issue of the
Israel-Palestine peace process. If that were really true, Carter would be
thrilled to have the opportunity to debate. Authors should be accountable for
their ideas and their facts. Books shouldn't be like chapel, delivered from on
high and believed on faith.

Since Ford and Bush Sr. have some concept of how to conduct themselves after leaving office, Clinton is actually intelligent and there’s just no way that Bush is writing anything after 2008 it’s safe to say that Carter has the “Worst Ex President” prize all wrapped up.

Or maybe Amy, his moral compass, just isn't talking to him anymore….

Update: Here's another good question/observation regarding Jimmah:

But what of men like Carter, a man who's worked in government, knows
how jacked-up (Marine word, btw) it is, how far away from the
conventional liberal-left understanding of participatory politics it
really is, a man who's seen the world, worked with the tyrants
face-to-face, spoken with the dissidents, set up meetings with
virtually all competing sides of all major conflicts, monitored their
elections on the ground? How does a man like that keep on sympathizing
with the bad guys at the end of the day? Is it really just pragmatic
politics on his part, another realism? Or is there a real, active
sympathy there (with Castro, Chavez, Arafat, Assad, you name it)? I
think the latter gets more at the truth, which is to say Carter really
isn't the kind of liberal he makes himself out to be. And all the
intelligent, informed self-avowed liberals like him aren't really the
liberals they say they are either.

The Miraculously Evolving Sullivan

Alright, Andrew Sullivan’s principles have fundamentally changed post 2004. I eagerly await to hear how the Christianist agenda led him to this:

Andrew Sullivan today savagely attacks Mitt Romney for ceasing to support employment discrimination protection for homosexuals.

Everything he said in the 1990s is now to be dismissed. He was once for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act; now he's against it. He was once for domestic partnerships for gays; now he's against them. He was once for ending the ban on gays in the military; now he's for keeping it. In the same interview with theocon Kathryn-Jean Lopez, he says that he opposes "unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference," while he favors allowing gay people to be fired from their jobs for being gay without any sanction.

Pretty harsh. But doesn't Romney have any arguments on his side? Well as one writer generally regarded as sympathetic to gay rights has put it:

Are gay people generally victims in employment? Have we historically been systematically barred from jobs in the same way that, say, women, blacks, and the disabled have? And is a remedy therefore necessary? My own view is that, while there are some particular cases of discrimination against homosexuals, for the most part getting and keeping jobs is hardly the most pressing issue we face. ...

Even in those states where job-protection laws have been enacted, sexual orientation cases have made up a minuscule proportion of the whole caseload.

Most people—gay and straight—know this to be true; and so they sense that the push for gay employment rights is unconvincing and whiny. I think they're right. ...

Instead of continually whining that we need job protection, we should be touting our economic achievements [and] defending the free market that makes them possible ....

Of course, we're told that until we're protected from discrimination in employment, we'll never be able to come out of the closet and effect the deeper changes we all want. But this is more victim-mongering. ...

Who said these things? You've probably already anticipated the punchline: One Andrew Sullivan, in the April 14, 1998, issue of The Advocate.

Of course it is perfectly fine to have a change of heart but one should always acknowledge having done so. Sullivan should cease the charade that he’s been steady as a rock while the world has moved around him. He’s degraded into little more than an excitable hack which is very disappointing given the moral clarity he once articulated so well.

Bonus Sullivan Hypocrisy: Why is it that Sullivan finds it perfectly acceptable to concern himself with Romney’s religious beliefs (comical as they may be) but finds it deplorable that others have made Minnesota Congressman Ellison's (a Muslim) an issue?

Craziest thing I’ve ever seen….

This is the orientation video for Scientology. I was friends with some Jehovah’s Witnesses in high school (technically not allowed) and thought that their religion was the high water mark for comically messed up cults (at least originating from the US) but this left my jaw hanging the entire time.

Not really a joke exactly...

...but still funny. This is an actual animal. The scientists who caught it nicknamed it Mr. Blobby. I like his nose thing.

A Fathead (genus Psychrolutes) trawled during the NORFANZ expedition at a depth between 1013 m and 1340 m, on the Norfolk Ridge, north-west of New Zealand, June 2003 (AMS I.42771-001). Photo: K. Parkinson © Australian Museum. The scientists and crew on board the RV Tangaroa affectionately called this fish 'Mr Blobby'. Note the parasitic copepod on Mr Blobby's mouth.

(Hat tip:Boing-Boing)

On Jokes

Now that my readership has dwindled to zero in response to my sudden and long-term departure from the blogosphere, it seems appropriate to rekindle the raging fire of joe-mania with some simple observations about making jokes.

Organized religion has more or less failed to provide me with enough emotional energy to sustain my lust for life in the face of all the crap that life entails. Other things, thankfully, have done better, but I'm sure many other things will let me down too before I die. Throughout my life, and in my life still, though, laughter has provided me with light in dark times. It, more than anything else, is my religion now. I like to make jokes. I like to make people laugh, I like to make myself laugh, and I like for other people to make me laugh. As other sources of sustenance fade, laughter loses more and more of its constraints for me. There is almost nothing in my personal life that I would not subject to the gentle renderings of comedic analysis.

Now, much has been said lately about the ethical desirability of certain types of humor, thanks in large part to the popularity of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie. When it comes to understanding the rationale behind tasteless, offensive, iconoclastic, politically incorrect, and infantile humor, I hazard to assume that I am able to speak with some authority. For this is precisely that type of thing that has most appealed to my funny bone over the better part of my life. I will now attempt to explain why this type of humor appeals to me and why I think it's ok.
I am not a particularly dumb person. I am relatively well-read, informed, and engaged with wider world. Nor am I particularly callous. I consider myself pretty sensitive to the plights of other human beings. Nevertheless, from the time I first laughed at the sound and smell of flatulence, I was hooked on low-brow humor. Here's why, I think.

Humor is about truth. Things are funny because they cut through all the layers of bullshit and express what everybody knows, or thinks, deep down. Humor is the opposite of political correctness.

First, farts are funny because they smell bad, sound funny, and come out of people's butts...everybody's butt. They are the great equalizer. Plato farted. Angelina Jolie farts. George Bush farts. The body and its functions are funny because they point out a simple, overwhelming truth that we try our damndest to obfuscate...that we are mortal beings doomed to die (yes, that's a line from lord of the rings). Sex is funny for the same reason. We are stupid little creatures trying to eat, sleep, shit, and fuck. Next time you watch the Oscars, or a french art movie, or a poltical speech, or go to a museum, or engage in a long and emotional kiss with your lover...remember and laugh.

Second, shock humor is funny because it can let us explore the dark aspects of life without having to endure them or see other people endure them. Shock humor is a lot like horror movies in that way (no wonder that I like horror movies). In this way, we can acclamate ourselves to the darkness that we will inevitably have to face in this life. We can be ready for it, having stripped it of some of its power.

This is probably the most delicate and controversial of the opinions I'll express here. Third, shock humor often occurs in the context of the comedian adopting a persona. If I say something offensive as a joke, particularly something that deals with race or sex or sexual orientation, then I'm trying to point out the ridiculousness, the laughability, of having those opinions. Borat is funny because the stereotypes of jews as mystical monsters who love money, and the stereotypes of eastern europeans/central asians as anti-semitic and backwards, etc, etc, ....these notions are ridiculous! A racist joke is not funny...the stereotypes that underlie the joke ARE funny, because they are so irrational and ridiculous.

Fourth, shock humor is way to channel creativity. Why? Because it's hard to shock people these days. It really becomes an art form. Poets are constrained by their forms. Offensive comedians are constrained by the number of dirty words they can think of. Coming up with a really visceral, innovative, emotionally potent insult, or sexual act, or something like that, is really a form of art...the one that appeals most to me, for better or worse.

The real questions is this: do ethics and comedy have any business being discussed together? Is there anything that we "shouldn't" laugh at, or is comedy simply a factual phenomenon...either it's funny or it's not. There certainly seem to be things that just aren't funny to me...mostly anything that involves real people getting really hurt (by real people I mean concrete individuals who actually lived here on earth). But that isn't really normative. It's factual. I don't find that funny. Borat, on the other hand, is fucking hilarious TO ME.

I would like to close by saying that I understand that not everyone gets the joke, and not everyone knows that I'm not an idiot, and not everyone automatically sees my secretly sensitive heart. Not everyone will make the distinction between persona and racist. Not all who get the joke will find it funny. I also realize that these kinds of jokes certainly could be offensive, depending on a person's background, because people have a variety of experiences. Therefore, it's good to be careful about these things and to cultivate more "genteel" types of humor for the general public....because the worst thing of all if for people not to laugh. That's just awkward and embarassing.
(also on my personal blog)

Welcome Madame Speaker

There comes a time for every sports fan of a once great team inescapably trending towards mediocrity to begin looking towards rebuilding rather than suffering season after season of not-too-bad/not-too-good seasons. The hope is that you will be eventually rewarded for accepting one or two crappy seasons by a new resurgent team with the potential to do things that are fun to watch and that your opposition isn’t in a position to capitalize at your expense. After watching the GOP pretty much piss away complete control of govt. (Honestly, when will this happen again?) on basically nothing of merit it clear the Republican party needs to cut loose the underperforming veterans and rebuild(Hastert, the Oswego Bob Evans misses you). If there was some smart, charismatic southern, yellow dog democrat representative in line for speaker I’d seriously be concerned about the GOP being in the minority for a long, long time. Buuuuttttt….the democrats are actually going to select someone who represents San Francisco and who's intense but simultaniously vacant stare seems to confirm the myth that blinking equals thinking.

So I say welcome Madame Speaker and thanks in advance for your help rebuilding.

more election media frustration...

If got forbid Republicans somehow manage to hold onto congress (I now believe the GOP needs a re-org and what better time than now?) you can count on there being weeks, even months, of MSM amplified outrage over Republicans seemingly magical powers to suppress the vote and steal elections undetectably – now aided with their new sinister ally….the com-pute-err.

Likewise when Democrats likely take at least the house you can count on there continuing to be next to zero reporting on actual democratic voter fraud despite recent convictions in two states and indictments and ongoing investigations that exist in at least 3 more.

I truly do believe that the democrats should come out ahead in this election simply based on merit – or the GOP’s lack there of. However, as with the last 3 elections I find myself extremely frustrated with the brazenness of the national media to not call things with the dispassionate eye they so frequently represent themselves as having.

UPDATE: Thank goodness. Based on current election reporting it appears everyone’s fears of unprecedented voter fraud were unfounded. How do we know this? Well it’s clear the once corrupted natural order of things has been restored by a Democratic sweep of the house and senate silly. No prolonged, result delegitimizing investigations into phantom GOP bullying are needed like in the previous three elections because it’s clear they didn’t. Democrats were finally allowed to fairly win. Everyone should just be satisfied with this result and enjoy all the news reports of people being happy with their new democratic leadership rather than the spiked stories of widespread election fraud we’d surely see if things had worked out differently.

the gaffe

Michael Kinsley once observed that in US politics "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth".

So when I heard of Kerry’s gaffe...I mean botched joke, I really didn’t find it that surprising. No one should be shocked that, like most on the left, he views those in the armed forces as largely unjust victims of our unjust society's unjust degree of socioeconomic injustices.

What I did find surprising was how under whelmed the MSM was by Kerry's statement. It's obvious that the US military is no sacred cow to the MSM, and I don't think it should be, however when viewed in the context of constituencies that very clearly are sacred cows to the MSM the controversial nature the botched joke becomes apparent.

Lets try a thought experiment that may reveal just how lacking in self-awareness the media is of their own biases.

Kerry said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you get stuck in Iraq.

Now imagine the MSM reaction if a Republican said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you _________________.

will be a journalist.
will be a public school teacher.
will be a social worker.
will be a union worker.
will be like a (insert minority name) person.

If a Republican said any of these things the hoodoo would be so deep the RNC would be digging out until next summer but apparently calling the military dummies? Well that’s just some strait shootin. Give him another silver star.....

Sappy Human Interest Story

Usually, when confronted with the "Human Interest" story I tune out. But on Friday I was supremely bored at work and scoured the internet for anything that might be considered entertaining. So, in poking around I came across Boing-Boing, a site I've checked out a handful of times and have always been led in interesting directions. Anyway, there I found a link to a post on Scott (creator of Dilbert) Adams's blog that was human-interest-y but of a cool sort.

Apparently he has a very unusual medical problem, and about 18 months ago he lost his voice after a bout of allergies and with the odd exception of public speaking can't get it back. It's something called Spasmodic Dysphonia and basically has no cure. All treatments seem to be extremely unpleasant and not terribly effective...

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadnÂ’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe itÂ’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Pretty cool... Go Dilbert guy.

Oh, and if you check out his post, browse some of the 1300-odd responces this post of his garnered, they're also rather interesting/uplifting.

Say it ain’t so!

BBC discovers it's biased:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.

Thank goodness PBS is waaay different.