Rex Murphy writes the funniest graf of the week

I don't know much about Mr. Gibson. And only the longest of waits in the cruellest of airports, bereft of all other print, will make me lift a People magazine where I might learn -- if the strain on the verb will be forgiven -- something more. I did see the first couple of Mad Max movies, which weren't bad. Then came Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, with Tina Turner as some weird impresario-dominatrix, and Mr. Gibson, if I remember this rightly, doing gladiatorial battle with some guy whose head was a bucket. That snapped the frail charm of dystopia with dune buggies forever

Rex notes the anxiety by some over Mel's recent movie (perhaps you've read about or heard of it, though it isn't getting much press attention) is misplaced in the face of more dangerous and blatant anti-Semitism. Read it all, as they say.

Rumblings of the Taliban coming back to Afghanistan.

Along the main road through the province, the Taliban have set up daytime road blocks. They scrutinize vehicles for potential targets to kill or kidnap. Four engineers working on that road have been kidnapped, and 15 Afghans working for the central government have been killed in the past three months.

Instead of speeches from Washington, I'd like to see more action. I'd like to think the place where plans were hatched to kill so many thousands on 9/11 would be a higher priority. So far the plan to get rid of the Taliban seemed like an excellent idea, but three years later, the follow through is looking dicey. We'll have to see if it's reflected in the Performance review coming up in November.

Most liberal interpretation of Jesus's message I've seen this week: "As for the message, you can love your enemy and see the need to kill him at the same time."- Adam Yoshida. Hmmmmmmm. Wasn't that a song?

"I used to love her
But I had to kill her
And now she's buried in the back yard
But I can still hear her complain"

I'm relatively sure the above song wasn't actually written by Jesus. I know it makes me glad I'm not a person that Adam loves. Link via the lovable but no-need-to-kill Sadly, No!.

Not Exactly Oscar Picks

Best Supporting Actor
Abdul Qadeer Khan, for supporting such absolutely insane nations as North Korea, and slightly crazy places like Libya in obtaining nuclear technology. Dr. Khan could not be here this evening, so accepting the Oscar on his behalf is President Pervez Musharraf, who said "I give many pardons".

Best Supporting Actress
Ann Coulter for this groundbreaking performance in "A Beautiful Hand Grenade"...although there seems to be slight inaccuracy in the screenplay...see this for details:

Awarded: Silver Star; Date Action: 4 April 1968; Theater: Republic of Vietnam

"Action: For gallantry in action while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam. Captain Cleland distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous action on 4 April 1968, while serving as communications officer of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Calvary during an enemy attack near Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam.

"When the battalion command post came under a heavy enemy rocket and mortar attack, Capt. Cleland, disregarding his own safety, exposed himself to the rocket barrage as he left his covered position to administer first aid to his wounded comrades. He then assisted in moving the injured personnel to covered positions. Continuing to expose himself, Capt. Cleland organized his men into a work party to repair the battalion communications equipment which had been damaged by enemy fire. His gallant action is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflects great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

"Authority: By direction of the President, under the provisions of the Act of Congress, approved 9 July 1968."

The action cited occurred on April 4, 1968, four days before the grenade explosion that cost Sen. Cleland both legs and an arm.

Still all in all it was a classic Ann performance.


Best Original Score
No surprise here, it's Halliburton

Its Kellogg, Brown & Root engineering and construction unit reimbursed the Pentagon $6.3 million after disclosing that two employees had taken kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor in return for work providing services to U.S. troops in Iraq.

Outside of Iraq, the company's alleged involvement in the payment of $180 million in bribes to win a contract in the 1990s for a natural gas project in Africa is under investigation by U.S., French and Nigerian officials. Halliburton is also close to wrapping up a major asbestos case, in which it would pay over $4 billion in cash and stock to settle plaintiffs' claims.

Still, with all this to weigh, Halliburton's investors remain decidedly bullish. Its stock, which now trades around $31 a share, is up about 20 percent since the start of the year and has gained about 34 percent in the last six months.

Best Original Screenplay
It couldn't be anything but a blog featuring this line...
"In other news about my head, my teeth have been gritty for the past week. I'm not sure why. " Congrats to Bloviating Inanities!


Best Cinematography
She brought you this disturbing image, and this great shot, so the award goes to SondraK

Best Actor
Momar Quadaffi (possible played by Bea Arthur?). Few cruel dictators could pull off the outfit in the linked post. Even North Korea's Dear Leader is not such a fashion plate. And he sure is acting like our friend now. Pacion is green with envy over this guy's skills.

Best Actress
I hesitate to put someone I like onstage right after Momar, but Lynn S wins with the most heartfelt defense of ponytails ever seen on the stage. Seriously.

Best Director
Alan Greenspan, in directing the Fed, wants to go on to direct Social Security, cell phone safety, and proper removal of stuck legos from your face after you fall asleep on them. I think we should turn over all of our lives to him. Should save time later.

Best Picture

So a new version of Windows XP will have an unfortunate nickname:"A company executive confirmed to CNET News.com on Thursday that Microsoft is now discussing a product internally referred to as 'Windows XP Reloaded.'" I assume another build would be called XP: Revolutions? Does this mean that XP is a "prison for your mind"? Uh oh.

Unfortunate headline of the day:

Swimmer sinks into own world


...for an article singing praises to the aforementioned swimmer.

Radio - Guest post from M

I have always considered Clear Channel radio a dubious organization, at best, but now I will not longer listen to their Cleveland stations two of which (Majic 105.7 & Mix 106.5), I used to listen to on a regular basis. I am disgusted that their president John Hogan felt it necessary to flex his patriarchal muscle and remove Howard Stern's Show from six of his stations to "protect our listeners from indecent content."

Oklahoma saw how dumb Georgia and Ohio had become, so decided that no one would beat them in a race to the bottom.

According to the bill, any state school district textbook that discusses evolution would have to include a disclaimer that states, in part, "This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory which some scientists present as scientific explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants and humans. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact.
The disclaimer goes on to state, "Study hard and keep an open mind. Someday you may contribute to the theories of how living things appeared on earth. "

No one is present near the sun either, so we can't really say it exists. No one alive was present for the Civil War, so we should be hesitant to accept it as fact. The fact is that evolution is not an explanation of the origin of life, but an explanation of changes in life over time. Pseudoscientific ideas that are put forth by religious nuts, who see evolution as a competing meme for their storybook version of the universe. Oklahoma, Georgia and Ohio - can we agree that they are no longer to evolve?

UPDATE: 11:48 PM Over at Discount Blogger, Georgia evolves a bit in voting down an anti-gay marriage bill.

Is Canada just loving the Syrian system of, um, "justice" so much that we must constantly send our people there to be tortured?

The officers did not like my answers. I was made to lift my legs, still lying on my stomach. The soles of my feet were lashed with a cable more than a dozen times. I was told to stand and they poured cold water on my feet. I was made to walk while standing in one place for 10 minutes. They then repeated the same process twice more,' Mr. Nureddin said.

. Course, it's not like they've done this before. Check out Obsidian Wings excellent Arar archives for a prior case of my homeland possibly being involved in sending a Canadian citizen to be tortured in a dictatorship. I'd like to come up with a quip here, but it's growing less and less funny.

Here's an epitaph you probably wouldn't want: "When Mr. Boudreau was younger, he'd dress up and drive around in his big sedan. " Makes one want to make sure you do more than that in life so this isn't all they have to say when you're gone.

Those waiting for justice for Milosevic for his crimes will have to wait a little longer. It's been delayed by the defendants frequent illnesses. "Mr. Milosevic's illnesses caused more than a dozen delays in the trial and the loss of 65 days of hearings. They say in the Globe and Mail that "Court insiders grumbled that the former president sometimes sets off the absences by refusing to take his medication.". Nothing less than the validity of the tribunal is at stake. If they can't put away this mass murderer, it speaks badly for future international justice efforts. The trial against Slobo been running since September 26th, 2002.

Ladygoat notes that a day of the finest hot chocolate and Johnny Depp are much better than getting your teeth pulled. Literally. She's on a nice blog that is very foodie.

Noted blogger Andrew Sullivan is not pleased with Bush's backing of a proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage. As Andrew says of Bush "a simple man and he divides the world into friends and foes. " Perhaps a bit too simple some might argue. I heard part of his speech yesterday where he obliquely critiqued Kerry in saying that one was either for or against the war in Iraq, for or against NAFTA, for or against the Patriot Act, ect. Of course one can have an opinion that is neither strictly for or against something, but let's not let logic stand in the way. At any rate, someone looking for intelligent, well-considered policy making in the current administration may have to look elsewhere, as Andrew seems to be realizing. As Bush whips up his base into a froth over questions to what strangers do in their own homes to each other, over what W terms the sanctity of marriage, I wonder what has happened to the once and future sanctity of that unique American institution, the Constitution?

Public service announcement: If you have a mole or other growth on your skin that has changed shape, size, or consistency, get it checked out. M_ had one that I never even really saw myself, and it turned out to be malignant. She had a MOHS procedure to remove it, and is now cancer-free and healing well. As with all things, time is of the essence.

This is a good look on Salon at the world of low-end tech support. It's not much different that telemarketing, except the customer calls the company. As you might expect, minimal training is given and little results are had by people calling in.

Way back when, I worked for one of these companies just outside of Boston, MA. Among the class of people that joined at the same time I did was a sociologist, a History grad, a wannabe Air traffic Controller, and an ex-butcher. Many of them had very little understanding of how computers worked, even less of how the programming language that we were to support worked. Most of them had never wrote a line of code in their life, let alone for money. Those of us who actually had programming backgrounds were a little dismayed at the others who were being hired at the same time. We all had one thing in common though, we needed jobs.

The Salon article is right on one point - that all they care about is getting call times down, not actually solving problems. I think I saw a posting on USENET "saying [that company] is an IT company is like saying Jack-in-the-Box makes food". The training was practically nonexistent, and incompetence was generally ignored, if not rewarded. It was simply cheaper to keep implying fools than to have the expense of hiring and barely training more.

We were working for company x, but when we answer the phone, we were to say that we actually worked for the maker of the software we supported. We even downloaded weather reports so we could reasonably sound like we lived in the area. I won't say which company was farming out their tech support this way, but it rhymes with Microloft. Which is about what I could afford on the pittance I scraped out of that job.

In the programming language we supported there was a function called Between. When you passed it three values it could determine if a third value was between the first two, like a date. It was one of the most basic functions of the language. One of our techs didn't understand it though, and I heard him rattle off "The Between function? It doesn't work". I felt pity for those who had to pay to talk to support. However, perhaps it was better the ex-butcher wasn't handling food anymore. He seemed to have a very poor grasp of the germ theory of disease. He thought it a piece of meat fell on the floor that it was still good if it had only spent time at his feet for a few minutes.

The sociologist got in trouble for something that happened while he was working alone one weekend. A manager came in to find him going up and down the aisles of the deserted cube farm wearing only boxer shorts and rollerblades. He was not fired. He liked sharing with his coworkers, most 20-30 years his junior, stories of his sexual studies in sociology. Since we could rarely leave our desks, we could not escape. One poor team even had an icon on their desktop shaped like a toilet. If they had to go to the bathroom, they had to click it to ask for permission from a manager.

Shortly after they got rid of the free hot chocolate I could see that there were not many good paying places to go in that company so I wisely left the cube farm behind. For those still calling for support, I suspect many of those jobs may have gone to India, with the wage differences. Here's hoping you don't get caught betwixt and between.

Nice graf about the upcoming International court case against Israel's building of a wall to prevent it's people from being murdered:

All of this is perfectly consistent with the long-standing Palestinian strategy of trying to mobilize outside pressure on Israel in order to avoid engaging Israel directly, except through the medium of terrorism. This amounts to a strategy of bombing and whining. It hasn't worked for the past 100 years. And while the indulgence of those who presume to speak in the name of the international community may encourage its persistence for another 100 years, it won't work in the future, either.

Let the bombing end, but they can keep whining if they wish.

The report by 60 prominent scientists critiquing the Bush administration for stacking committees with people based on political rather than scientific reasons should strike a nerve

The report also criticizes the administration for stacking advisory committees with industry representatives and disbanding other panels that provided unwanted advice.
.
This material provides a portrait of government-wide insensitivity to the spirit of scientific inquiry that, unless corrected, will further undermine the administration's credibility and the morale of its scientific personnel.

Why, I'm shocked. Of course science should be about what we can prove, not what we wish was true. Or what we wish people thought was true, and insist that they only hear about parts of the truth that are not embarrassing to any of our pals. The end result is these committees will simply have less weight given to them by those who can read scientific literature on our own, and the rest will continue in unabated ignorance. Let's not forget that since they set policies, it will affect us all, ignorant or not.

Nova Scotia is recovering from it's worst snowstorm ever.

Halifax residents trudged through snow-covered streets as more than 90 centimetres of snow fell by Thursday night, breaking the 1944 one-day snowfall record of 50.8 centimetres. Thousands of people were without power.

That's around 35 inches. With drifts and wind, it can build up even higher. My brother D_ and his wife A_, in the middle of the action have sent some pictures:
     
I wonder if D_ has some snowshoes?

First Hurricane Juan hit, now this. Not a good year for weather events without precedent in my old stomping grounds.

Update Saturday 2/21 11:37 AM
The Poison Kitchen says it's only going to get worse with more snow headed to the area. He's doubling up on muscle relaxants. I'd lend him my snow blower, but it's a bit far...

A Cleveland think tank issued a report linking the North American Free Trade Agreement with job losses in Ohio. Not mentioned? Were there any job gains due to NAFTA in Ohio? I recall when I moved here from Canada back home in Nova Scotia they said we were losing jobs to the US due to NAFTA. Everyone can't be losing jobs due to it...or perhaps it's easier to study this by job loss? I'll have to look for some more economically wise bloggers than myself to figure out more on this one. My instinct tells me that more trade is the best path for any liberal capitalist democracy.

To me the weakest type of argument in politics has been this one

He contends that the incumbent, among the most liberal members of his party, is ineffectual in a chamber that is, and likely will remain, Republican-controlled

So says Edward Herman, potential challenger to Kucinich for a Congressional seat here in Ohio. It reminds me of how votes used to go back in my old home province of Nova Scotia. Especially in Provincial elections, people would vote whichever way the tide was going - for the party that seemed likely to win. this was in a naked hope to get plum government pork and jobs sent to the district of places that voted for the winning party. It goes against the very spirit of democracy. Is the next logical step for candidates to reward particular areas in their district that voted more for them than their opponent? Why bother with secret ballots at all, let's have political winners decide the fates of all based primarily on how they voted.

Lynn ponders someone who finds Bach annoying. Explaining art to those who do not enjoy it is like trying to explain a joke. Or those who say "X is not funny", as I see a few conservative bloggers refer to AL Franken. If the person Lynn critiques bothered to learn much about music, he could at least intellectually understand what a monumental talent was had in that long dead German. The one thing that always appealed to me about playing in a brass quintet many moons ago was Bach. It certainly wasn't the money, as those gigs were infrequent and frequently the least-paying of all the music jobs I had. I dare anyone to listen to Glenn Gould play the Goldberg Variations and not be moved. Lynn gets a bit steamed about the whole thing, but I might remind her that the glory of fools is that they make the rest of us look better.

Bad hair pic of the day:


Link via Jim, which points to a site advertising something featuring paragraphs in regular type....

FOLLOWED BY SOME IN ALL CAPS!.

Never a good sign...at least they didn't use emoticons. The problem with a "solution" to email spam is that the problem has a large unmentioned logical component. You cannot filter emails without knowing all of the characteristics of email that you want to get in advance. I rely on a few filters but like checking a pool filter for trapped frogs (let's face it, dead frogs), you have to clear out valid emails. I had to clear out one from my sister that inexplicably was classified as spam, and I can guarantee you it wasn't about Viagra or how to get rich quick. Anyway, that's some pretty awful hair up there!

It's time for reading between the lines, this time with poller extraordinaire, James Zogby. Quoth Z:

More ominously, while negotiators met, a network of Israeli highways were being built connecting these settlements to Israel proper making clear a strategic plan to maintain control of these burgeoning Jewish-only communities.

Left unsaid? It was in sad contrast to the multitudes of religions encouraged by every other government in the Middle East.

Columnist Rex Murphy has an excellent read on the scandal going on in Canada right now. For anyone not Canadian, the government sponsored advertising in Quebec, or more accursedly, gave money to Quebec communications companies for no readily apparent return. Says Rex:

Paul Martin says he didn't know it was going on. It's an awkward innocence coming from a former finance minister and a Quebec politician of senior rank mainly because it involves (a) so much money and, (b), going into Quebec.

Turning off non-Quebeckians in Canada, who feel the federal government shoehorns federal bucks to that province to keep it placated and prevent a vote of separation. Anyway, read Rex for more.

Locals may recall the case of a University student in the Cleveland area who struck and killed a 3 year old.

Hetman was a 19-year-old John Carroll University student in July 2000 when the car she was driving struck Bria McCall as the child ran across East 72nd Street in Cleveland.
Her death sparked racial animosity on the street where both lived. Hetman is white. Bria was black. Someone fired shots into the Hetman house, prompting the family to move.
The initial investigation found no evidence of excessive speed or reason to administer alcohol or drug tests.
But three weeks later, Hetman was charged with vehicular homicide. That charge was subsequently thrown out by Cleveland Municipal Judge Robert J. Triozzi.

Politically motivated prosecutions are always vile. About as vile as the white-supremacist sites running with this story. They are heartened to have whatever foul beliefs they harbour about other races confirmed, although in this case it's just prosecutors charging based on the way the winds are blowing. Let's be both glad that in this particular case justice was eventually done, and let the white supremacists take pride in "white" accomplishments like mullets.

A woman tried to cross into Canada with a grenade in her glove compartment (inadvertently), as noted in this report. But what caught my eye was this graf:

'According to her, she was intending to drive toward Vancouver, Wash., not Vancouver, British Columbia,' Shields said. Vancouver, Wash., is on the state's border with Oregon, some 250 miles south of the Canadian city.

Maps - they're not just for news set backdrops, people.

Avedon Carol runs about and finds some things worth reading in "Blogtopia".

Sondra K is a pretty good shot:


I'm only a good shot with fake rifles. "America's Army" is a US Army produced first person shooter that pits you against other players. Conveniently, you always see the enemies as looking like terrorists, and friendlies always look like US troops. The people playing the enemy always see you looking like a terrorist instead. The gore factor is minimal, only little red puffs of blood. I'm relatively sure that in the real world, putting a fifty caliber bullet into someone's head might make a bit more of a visual impact. Maybe this reduces the appeal to sociopaths. The purpose of this realistic weapons, unrealistic blood game? Recruiting. I'm too old to be in the target audience, needless to say. I'm pretty good with the SPR (a modified M16 that special forces use), though M_ points out "You're only good at PRETEND sniping".

Don't want to read all that Wes wrote? Allow me to summarize with Shorter Pruden: Kerry is a pot-smoking, hippie-loving, Democrat and I can barely write enough adjectives, I hate him so. Bonus zen moment: " Mr. Kerry has been rightly praised for his war service. Nevertheless, several of his congressional colleagues, veterans of Vietnam, have applauded with only one hand". And what is that sound?

Unfortunate headline of the day:

Aristide protesters grow in size

Dispatch some dieticians and treadmills to Haiti!

Went for a quick visit to a local art gallery just down the street. If you're in the Lakewood (a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio) area you might want to check out the Dead Horse Gallery. They're hidden away on the third floor of the Detroit-Cook building, and have paintings, sculptures and more. I am decidedly no expert on visual arts, but M_ is and thought they had some good things.

This is some good news from Iraq

The Ministry of Justice officially announced that the GC Resolution 137 can be considered annulled, and that all future family affairs cases would be dealt with according to the former Personal Circumstances ahwal al shakhsiya code which has been in effect since the fifties, and which the GC unilaterally abolished more than a month ago replacing it with Islamic Sharia law.

For those who had not followed this story, this resolution did away with the family law that had been present in Iraq to be replaced with Sharia law. I'm sure many in Iraq are pleased their danger of getting stoned is lower now.

All of Canada....well ok a few self-righteous politicians are in an uproar over "Triumph" the insult comic dog puppet. He appeared on Conan O'Brien's show whilst in Toronto this week, insulting Quebeckers. Example: ' "So you're French and Canadian, yes? So you're obnoxious and dull," Triumph barks at a passerby in Quebec City. 'Heh. But aside from the squirmyness this gives to Canadian politicos who have never come to grips with the sometimes stupid laws protecting language in Quebec, the real interesting row is with another puppet. This one is called Ed the Sock, whose similarity includes also holding a small plastic cigar. I vaguely remember seeing Ed on TV when I lived in Canada, and recalling I have seen fewer things less funny since Mike Binder's HBO show. Ed's creator vaguely implies Triumph, a much funnier puppet, stole his routine.

Steven Kerzner, creator and voice of Toronto's own loudmouth puppet Ed the Sock, has long accused Late Night's Triumph of bearing too close a similarity to his acerbic, cigar-chomping MuchMusic and CITY-TV personality. But the loutish Ed the Sock is "never racist," Mr. Kerzner said yesterday, adding that he thought Triumph's take on Quebeckers was "bigoted."

I wonder if he's mulling a suit against the Muppets? Anyway, you can choose between:

and

I'll try and keep an eye on the hands inside this developing puppet story

Jessica makes note of the worst..."word"...I've read all day: "quirkyalone". It reminds me of the unfortunate combination Steve King made between lobsters and monstrosities, in his Dark Tower series, "lobstrosities".

What’s your worst attempt at being romantic on Valentine’s day? It would have to be back in high school when I had a crush on someone for many years. I was fleeing the cafeteria serving cheeseburgers – which were tasteless sloppy joes mixes with some yellowish cheese like substance – when I came upon some classmates selling roses. The idea was you would pay now, and they would be hand delivered to classes on the 14th. I signed up to have two sent to my prospective [unfortunate? Ed. That’s not nice J] Valentine.

Having somewhat overestimated the privacy policy of the card table in the hall run by teenagers, I didn’t realize they had added my name to the card. When the roses arrived, instead of wondering what mysterious suitor had sent them (my air of mystery and Greek fisherman’s cap are two qualities I have lost since high school), she simply saw my name. And asked me if I had indeed sent them. In what must have been the worst performance since Mike Binder started trying to act, I said no. Which was a clever ploy; if not for the fact there wasn’t another soul with my name in the entire high school. But in the end I was brave and told her the truth...13 years later.....via email.

Most awkward phrase I've read all day: "She said other ads in the campaign feature old-fashioned apple barrels, unhealthy snacks stacked under an apple and a bite-produced apple core". Bite-produced. It was enough to make me put down my gulp-produced empty glass.

Funniest sentence I read today: "In Quebec City, Stephen Harper also sought to distance himself from Mr. O'Brien and his puppet."

Great job team! Here's some champagne, you're fired. There's no easy way to fire anyone of course. In modern times companies have taken up the very classy method of having security guards show up at people's desks and escort them out of the building. With the cost of recruitment so high, even in these times of tough employment, one would venture to hope companies might not try so hard to foster bad feelings and reputations.

At one place I worked, a support center outsourced to Microsoft, turnover was high as an elephant's eye. We had about 35 team members, and about 33 people were hired and dismissed or quite inside of one year. A bunch of us stayed on, so it was even higher than it seemed, with around 20 cubes serving so little time as to scarcely amass clutter from the occupant before being vacated. In the face of such unabated slaughter, you couldn't help but be amused.

I created a web page on the Intranet - needless to say, not very visible to management - that listed everyone who had been fired, with a short epitaph. "Came, saw, coded, wept, left" as an example. It was built with a grayish background and moniker "Rest In Peace", with a kind of graveyard theme. I did not spare myself as I penned my own entry on the day I was promoted out of the 800 person cube farm.

One such victim so entombed in the page was M_ R_, who was a nice guy, but easily rattled. When unable to solve customer problems, he would become angry, throw down his headphones, cry, and go home for the day. About once a week. He was not actually fired but left of his own accord to go pursue a career bereft of the stress of fixing code, and with few reasons to worry. He is now, as far as I know, still an Air Traffic Controller.

A 16 year old tricked a car dealership into giving him a BMW. Yet another example of how social engineering is a far worse danger that computer hackers will ever be. People seem to trust phone calls far more than they should. This would be solved by viewing how Ferris gets his girlfriend out of school for the day in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Sadly this important security film is forgotten by confidence crime victims everywhere.

Just when things were going well in Botswana, misfortune struck brutally hard, in the form of AIDS.

Botswana is proportionally the most infected nation in the world, with 37.5 per cent of its adult population now afflicted with the virus. In the past decade, life expectancy has tumbled from 60 years to 39, according to international health agencies.

Hopefully the distribution of medicines will increase and help save this nation. Free generics may help...

On another African note, added AfricaPundit to my Blogroll, one should keep track of events besides John Kerry's brow. I'll have to look a bit more to find an actual Botswana blog...

Some tips that made my laugh and scare my cat, from someone who has to reject manuscripts, how they begin to divvy up the "slush" pile of unsolicited manuscripts arriving at the publishing house

1. Author is functionally illiterate.

2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don't publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.

3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.

4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, incentiary, reeking havoc, nearly penultimate, dire straights, viscous/vicious.

5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.

It's worthwhile reading the full article. I have not myself submitted anything to anyone, but I can dream one day of collecting rejection slips. I did once take part in writing a play - written by a group - that was so awful the ghost of the Bard haunted us til we would perform it no more. Link via the unrejectable Elegant Variation.

Think Georgia was dumb for wanting to strike evolution from the school vocabulary? Ohio wants to stay competitive in the field of idiocy

BREAKING NEWS
Ohio Board of Education votes to approve 'intelligent design' in science curriculum
The Ohio Board of Education voted 13-4 this afternoon to approve science lesson plans that have been criticized by scientists -- including the president of the National Academy of Sciences -- for including concepts of 'intelligent design,' which critics claim is a veiled form of creationism.

Today's action, taken after more than three hours of testimony from supporters and critics, signifies the board's intent. A final vote will be taken at next month's board meeting. One of the board members opposing the plan has said he will ask Gov. Bob Taft to overturn the decision.

The proposed lesson plans come from a set of science standards that drew national attention in 2002, when the state debated whether to include both evolutionary theory and the intelligent design. Evolution is the theory that living things are descended from common ancestors, while intelligent design argues that life is too complex to have arisen without a guiding hand.

The state eventually adopted standards that include evolution and specifically discounted intelligent design. But the lesson plans approved yesterday require that evolutionary concepts be challenged point by point, and refer students to websites that promote intelligent design

ID, also know as, everything in the universe came about by accident, except for bacterial flagellum and eye disease, they're obviously designed, is disclaimed by any reasonable scientist. It's not a scientific theory at all, but an attempt to rationalize the magical thinking of certain Christian sects. I was going to propose a new song called "Darwin went Down to Georgia", but Georgia caught some sense and axed the plan to ixnay ixvolution-eay. Now it's..

Darwin went up to Ohio, looking for some souls to learn
But the corn chawin schoolboard was a-feared in Hell they'd burn

Dinos in the sediment layers, chile, look away
The debbil put em thar so with your mind he could play
Learn you some 'tellygent design, and show Darwin how it's done,
Taint nothing that never lived that ain't still alive under the sun...

This plus anti-gay marriage laws....I can feel the money rushing to come to the state already!

In closing deals with companies to get them to move to your town, use extreme caution. A Nova Scotia town lost money when a Florida Company reneged on a deal that had the town bearing initial construction costs.

Service Zone still owes Queens about $70,000 in back rent and $333,000 in construction costs.
It owes the Digby Annapolis Development Corp. another $337,000 in building costs and $25,000 a month in lost rent for the centre it was supposed to open at a renovated tire recycling plant in Cornwallis.

Not sure what these call centers were for, but one would hope it isn't pure telemarketing. These kinds of jobs may fly away to the next place with cheap labour and governments willing to foot construction bills in advance...

Lysianne Gagnon opines that the media is a self-titillating organization. In Canada they are looking for a new leader for the opposition Conservative party. Belinda Stronach, who has not before held elected office, is a leading contender, albeit for hard to comprehend - or maybe, not so hard to comprehend reasons. Gagnon compares media excitement and comparisons with the first female PM, Kim Campbell.

What both women have in common is that their candidacy generated a great deal of excitement in the (mostly male) media because the media can't resist the 'star quality' of a young, blond, attractive figure. But this irrational (and sexist) excitement usually doesn't last very long.

It reminds me of reading male movie reviewers getting way too excited about a new actress, inevitably referred to as "fresh-scrubbed". One would hope political pundits would be above ...bwahaha! I almost got that sentence out with a straight face.

Hey Governor Taft! That law against gay marriage - does it only apply to homo sapiens? I'm thinking there's a product tie-in with Linux here, with the right marketer...

Special Guest post by M_

For the first time since I've moved to Ohio I am embarrassed to say that I live here. I never had the pride only a native can feel, but I did feel that Ohio was a plucky state that did its best to keep itself vital and viable, in spite of the obvious economical changes that have plagued the "rust belt" states over the past thirty years.

Now I am embarrassed. How can Governor Taft feel it is his place (rather than the citizen’s) to step in and shore-up the marriage laws of this state. It is a pre-emptive attempt to undermine the any legislation that might make same-sex unions legal, since these unions would obviously include the same advantages and pitfalls of opposite sex marriage. He is casting himself as the “White Knight” riding in to save the institution of marriage, when in reality he has cost this state and the wide-reaching “business” of marriage countless millions of dollars at a time when the state desperately needs more income. By denying same sex couples legal rights, he has not made a tradition stronger, but continued in the history of policy makers involving themselves in people’s private lives. This is explained in a book by Yale Professor Nancy Cott, which outlines the historic reasons for marriage, which fall largely out of the realm of romantic love.

The only good thing I can think of that may come out of this is that he may succeed in knocking “nipple-gate” off of some people’s radar.

To quote Governor Bob Taft of Ohio, from his press release

First and foremost, this is not a law of intolerance. I do not endorse, nor does this law provide for, discrimination against any Ohio citizen.

Unless you're gay. No better way to encourage business to recognize gay couples and the rights to such excessive benefits like being allowed to make decisions in hospitals when someone you love is sick or dying, or getting shared benefits that go to everyone else that is allowed to get married. One day, we will look back on this law, and wonder why the government had to get into the bedrooms and start grading based on personal preferences. It won't be a look back with pride. I congratulate Taft on the joining the ranks of great governors who should be immortalized in song like Faubus, forever remembered in the song by Charles Mingus, "Fables of Faubus".

Bob Carroll from Skeptic's Dictionary notes pseudoscientific blather being told to people with AIDS.

The Lifestar CD4 Restoration Protocol is standard voodoo naturopathy: you need to raise your consciousness, stop ingesting unnatural stuff, start ingesting natural stuff, think happy thoughts, don't think negative thoughts, get rid of bad beliefs, suck in good beliefs, the body is naturally pure and healthy, you can restore your energy and your immune system to top form if only you go natural and positive! Stay away from conventional medicine: It's unnatural! Listen to your friends at Lifestar! The surefire way to find out whether this all-natural protocol is working is through applied kinesiology. I'm not kidding.

Yet another reason, as if there were not enough, that science education is vital. Let's hope the number of people falling for this crap is minimal, as the results can obviously be fatal.

Kevin Poulsen reports on activities of hackers attacking cable modems. They're hacking the software and hardware and operating like a software company, even recruiting talent. The risks seem to be centered on downstream traffic, depending on if you cable companies have encrypted traffic or not. Most Cable outfits wouldn't respond to Kevin's requests for comment, which to me does not bode well for their proactive movement on security. This is one of the reasons I don't lan on using a cable modem anytime soon...

Looks like the next time I driver to Canada, it may be a loooong wait coming back. They are thinking of doing the fingerprinting and photographing of certain foreign visitors to the US, now down with air travelers, to land borders. This would have the effect of increasing the amount of time to inspect every car crossing the busy US Canada border. I would imagine Detroit and the Peace Bridge in Buffalo are going to see some long lines. If they extended the program to take biometric information from every country's citizens, it will give new meaning to queuing. I wonder if there is a business chance here in selling food and beverages to people stuck in their cars on bridges and in tunnels, waiting to get into the US?

Random things heard while working out...

...David Brooks opining on NPR that the Democrats take on 9/11 doesn't have salience, or they don't remember it, whatever that's supposed to mean. I take this to be a prospective election talking point. I'd like to see some basic things, like serious minded airline security. Because remember 9/11? With the planes crashing into buildings? I'd like to think we're trying to stop that from happening again.

...A woman was telling her friend that in a fireman's strength/fitness test she placed thirteenth of twenty-seven ...among the men! I think If I had taken that test I would have placed DNS (did not survive)...

...Another lady there told of receiving an email via a web-dating site, where the writer told her "I've heard you have beautiful eyes, and the eyes are the windows of the soul". My unsaid advice was that she avoid someone composing such dreck...

...a guy waiting by the ellipticals..."...because you'd think they'd notice, in a bar, someone stabbing the guy...". If not I think perhaps one should rethink where to obtain spirits...

Kevin has the funniest post I've seen all week. He skewers know-it-all, insular bulletin board communities quite nicely.

They're deporting Song Dae Ri , a North Korean, from Canada back to his homeland where he faces likely execution. How likely? His wife returned back home and was executed - after being lured back for a visit by her parents. They even ruled that his son can stay in Canada because he might face trouble in North Korea as the "son of a dissident". But the dissident himself gets to go back to Dear Leader and die

IRB member Bonnie Milliner ruled that Mr. Ri will likely be executed for treason if returned home, but said he was not 'deserving of Canada's protection' because he was complicit in crimes against humanity merely for being a member of Kim Jong-il's government. She made that ruling despite written assurances from Canada's War Crimes Unit that Mr. Ri was 'not a person of interest to them' and that there was no evidence he had committed crimes against humanity.
'While [Mr. Ri] may not have personally committed any atrocities, I believe that on a balance of probabilities he was aware of the North Korean government's excesses . . . and waited 10 years [to leave],' she concluded in her September, 2003, decision. 'He was a high-level North Korean government official with weighty responsibilities.'

Quite a reason to give someone what amounts to a death sentence, to be "aware" of your government being a murderous regime. I'm sure his son will be pleased to live in the land that sent his father back to die.

Update: Mar 1, 2004 11:48 PM. Got a letter from Lubomyr Luciuk on this issue, reprinted here due to length.

Lost your keys?

There is a key inside one of the women's toilets, it is still there if you want it

Evonne Pelaez
Manager - Telephone Service Center

Sister, I guess you better REALLY want those keys!

You can sign a petition here against the proposed removal of the word Evolution from the state of Georgia's science classes.

Eugene makes note of a geek naming his kid Jon Blake Cusack 2.0. Ah. To paraphrase Seinfeld, I can see this kid's future in the schoolyard. 2.0 beatings a day, 2.0 broken bones a beating, and many more than 2.0 years in therapy.

The Transportation Security Administration has had a lot of problems, but it's actually worse than I had thought. I thought it was just silly stupidity such as seizing nail clippers, but this article has charming tales of people being cuffed and thrown in cells for "observing too closely" and barely trained air marshals waving their guns around like fools - on planes. In instills great confidence that a great deal of ass-covering is going on, with little improvement in actual safety. They can't even stop reporters and others from carrying knives and other objects on planes. Perhaps the TSA should look back 3 years in the distant past to find out why they were created in the first place. I sincerely hope somebody in the upcoming presidential election makes this a big issue. All in all, a very sobering article from James Bovard.

Dean has this to say for people who are gay. (and want to effect political change).

Step Three: Go into your Yellow Pages, and look up the phone number for your local Republican Party headquarters. Don't say, 'I'm gay and I want to help.' Say, 'I'd like to get involved in the party.' You should especially ask what it takes to become a delegate in your area--it may surprise you to learn that it's fairly easy to become one, in many areas. You will almost certainly meet your congressman, and unless you're in a gigantic state, you may well meet your Senators.

Be sure to not mention that you're gay though. Why, it's downright unpopular. I can't stand doing unpopular things, how about you? Alas, I can't try Dean's proposed course of action, being straight, but I try to imagine joining a group where I had to disguise the fact I was a trombonist. Not lock it away forever, mind you. Just put it somewhere handy for when things get better. That closet in the hall should do.

You could buy Bill Frist's book, "Good People Beget Good People". That or slam a wooden plank into your head whilst intoning "Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem". I guarantee the same feeling from both exercises. Guarantee void in The Kingdom of Mercia.

All this fuss over the superbowl entertainment show - all over a boob. I don't think Toby Keith was that bad.
Cardinal FCC Chairman Powell is out for CBS blood over the baring of the Janet Jackson's breast. Retroactive fines to Micahaelanglo over the pantless "David" are soon to follow. For certain if there is one downfall to great civilizations it is corruption unwise wars power mad dictators ignorance and the collapse of education stagnation economic irrelevance loss of technological and scientific superiority boobies and wieners.