He got it on vacation, and I haven't bumped into him since.
I guess it's not that big a deal. Swine flu is a nasty pandemic, but it's no deadlier than the regular flu.
The Birther Headache
The Politico discusses the "birther" problem I've discussed a few times here on this blog. What's the problem? With Congress out of session in August, legislators will be going home to their constituents. And Republican legislators will be inundated with questions from citizens who insist that Obama is a ferner and therefore can't be preznit of these here united states.
How do they not tell their consituents that they are… uh… idiots?
Some are avoiding having town hall meetings altogether.
Others are placating dishonestly:
Sen. Jim Inhofe has also tried to find the elusive middle ground.
“They have a point,” he said of the birthers. “I don’t discourage it. … But I’m going to pursue defeating [Obama] on things that I think are very destructive to America.”
No, they don't have a point (other than the one on top of their head). I mean, if there really wasn't any substance at all to the birther conspiracy allegations, then folks like Inhofe need to drop everything and investigate. (They won't of course, because everybody with a brain knows that Obama is an American citizen).
Teaching English To A Chinese Grandmother
This is a little mean (and NSFW):
Singing Roads
You know how there are some roads where they put in a series of grooved pavement sections to get you to wake up or slow down (because, say, there's a toll booth ahead) as you're driving? When your car goes over them, it kind of makes a series of tones.
Someone got the bright idea to adjust the height and spacing of the paved grooves so that the road emits a song.
There are a few dozen "singing roads" in the world. Here's one that purports to play the William Tell Overture:
Not very impressive, but still…. a good use for stimulus spending.
I’m Ready For My Tattoo, Mr. DeMille
Not a big fan of tattoos, me. Don't really understand the need to accesorize in that way. Plus, the permanancy thing. What if you don't like it after five years?
But finally, I've come across a tattoo that I would consider. It's not really a tattoo, it's a…
subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin.
The basis of the 2×4-inch "Digital Tattoo Interface" is a Bluetooth device made of thin, flexible silicon and silicone. It´s inserted through a small incision as a tightly rolled tube, and then it unfurls beneath the skin to align between skin and muscle. Through the same incision, two small tubes on the device are attached to an artery and a vein to allow the blood to flow to a coin-sized blood fuel cell that converts glucose and oxygen to electricity. After blood flows in from the artery to the fuel cell, it flows out again through the vein.
Still in the concept phase, and probably very expensive. But cool nonetheless.
Sarah, We Hardly Knew Ye
Well, she's gone. Sarah officially resigned yesterday as Alaska governor, still being vague about her future. She assured her supporters that she "will be able to fight even harder" for them, now that she has no office, no governmental power, no authority, and no influence over public policy.
Ironically, she took some shots in her bye-bye speech against "Hollywood 'starlets'" who speak out from the sidelines on issues, without realizing of course that a sideline kibbitzer is pretty much what Sarah, private citizen, is now. As someone on NPR noted this morning, she's more like a reality show participant, rather than a leader or officeholder.
Apparently the "Hollywood 'starlet'" was a reference to Ashley Judd, who Palin to task for moose-hunting. Warning of "anti-hunting, anti-second amendment circuses from Hollywood," Palin said advocacy groups "use these delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets." She offered such individuals this message: "By the way, Hollywood needs to know: We eat therefore we hunt." Somehow, though, I think the vast majority of Alaskans, including the Palin household, can and do just fine putting food on the table with food bought from a store.
She also derided the "partisan operatives" who had dogged her governorship with ethics complaints, failing to be honest about the fact that many of those ethics complaints were filed by non-partisan government agencies or Republican individuals.
Was this her exit off of the national scene? Democrats are hoping "no".
Another Evangelical Perv
Tony Alamo, a one-time street preacher who built a multimillion-dollar ministry, was convicted today of taking girls as young as 9 across state lines for sex, the Associated Press reports.
Alamo remained silent as the verdict was read.
His five victims sat looking forward in the gallery. One, a woman he "married" at age 8, wiped away a tear, the AP says.
In the trial, the five women, now age 17 to 33, told jurors that Alamo "married" them in private ceremonies while they were minors, sometimes giving them wedding rings. Each detailed trips beyond Arkansas’ borders for Alamo’s sexual gratification.
"I’m just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel," Alamo called to reporters afterward as he was escorted to a waiting U.S. marshal’s vehicle. The trial was held in Texarkana, Ark.
(Emphasis mine)
Yo, Tony? I realize I'm no evangelical preacher like you, so I may be ignorant about the Bible and shit like that, but what scripture of the Gospel commands that you rape eight and nine year olds?
Alamo faces a sentence of up to 175 years in prison. I suspect he's going to get all sorts of sexual education there. Let's hope.
UPDATE: Oh, I see. After visiting the Tony Alamo Ministries website, I've learned that Tony is actually innocent of these crimes. You see, the FBI made these women lie, because Tony has been criticizing the government for 45 years (you know, the government which was behind the JFK assassination and 9/11). As Tony writes: "Either you believe Pastor Alamo or the homosexual Pope."
Um… I'll go with the homosexual Pope, Alex.
Of course, he contradicts himself when he writes:
The legal age of marriage is puberty. Webster’s Dictionary states childhood is the “state or time of being a child; state or time from birth or infancy to puberty or maturity.” Webster’s definition of puberty is “the age when one becomes capable to bear children, which is marked by maturing of the reproductive organs, with the onset of menstruation in the female; the period at which sexual maturity is reached.” The Bible says this as well.
God’s Word, the Bible, never condemns a man for having more than one wife!
Ew, I need a shower.
K’ville’s Nathan Tabor Needs To Read The Constitution Before He Comments About It
You can read the full article for yourself, but Tabor's screed ("A Tale of Two Constitutions") starts like this:
In the era of President Barack Obama, more than ever we will witness examples of selective application of the US Constitution's First Amendment.
…Two recent cases reveal just how partisan advocates of First Amendment truly are. One might argue that the USA actually possesses two separate Constitutions: one to control patriotic US Citizens, and one to allow the most offensive even hate-filled rhetoric.
Tabor then tells of Case #1, involving a supposedly radical Islamic group holding a symposium in a Chicago Hilton Hotel entitled "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam". Much to Tabor's distress, the federal government didn't rush right in and close it down. First Amendment freedom of speech and all that.
Tabor then contrasts that with Case #2, involving a shopping mall kiosk owner in Concord Mills, North Carolina (the largest mall in NC). The owner had displayed anti-Obama, anti-liberal bumper stickers and posters — his kiosk was called "Free Market Warrior". After receiving some customer complaints, the mall decided not to renew the kiosk owners lease. (You can find more info here)
Tabor concludes:
So, my friends, there you have it. In Chicago, members and supporters of a radical Islamic group are allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights, but an American citizen and small businessman is denied his right to advertise items that oppose a sitting president. And the US Constitution continues on its downward spiral — protecting radicals and terrorists, but not protecting American citizens and capitalists.
No, Nathan. Get a clue.
The First Amendment prohibits the government from banning speech. That's just what happened in Case #1 — the group, offensive as its message might be, had every right to conduct a peaceful symposium, and the government couldn't interfere. The group was protected by the First Amendment. The hotel Hilton could have stopped them, but they (apparently) didn't want to.
With Case #2, the government wasn't even a party to the controversy. The mall closed the kiosk owner down, and it was their right to do so. Yes, they CAN shut you down for your political viewpoint (see below). Their property, their rules (and if enough people complain, they can change those rules. That's how the free market works, people).
In each case, a private business made a decision about how to run its business and who to do business with.* Others may or may not approve of their choices, but in any event no First Amendment issue arises.
This is what happens when idiots try to make a point without knowing what they're talking about.
* There is, one could argue (wrongly**), a discrimination issue, but even that has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
** But no, there is no unconstitutional discrimination. The laws protect discrimination by private businesses based on race, religion, sex, etc. Not on political viewpoint.
UPDATE: Freemarketwarrier.com is the website for the kiosk's company. They sell stuff like this:
And have blurbs like this:
The majority of 2008 was formed by millions of Americans who succumbed to a politics of personality. Since the development of mass-media, demagogues skilled at counterfeiting personal connections to millions through an impersonal medium have preyed on those willing to be duped. The masses who see Obama as someone who will personally take care of their needs are just such dupes. They could not explain what the economy does when it works right let alone what’s wrong with it. But with minds programmed for a more primitive tribal society, they are looking for a father figure (or perhaps a sugar daddy) to spare them from the need to think and be responsible.
One step removed from this, are those who see the president as a symbol because of his color. (If the president looks like me, then my team has won somehow and that must be good for me. Alternatively, my white guilt will be appeased if I vote for a president of a different color.) One is tempted, given the genuine historical limitations suffered by black Americans, to sympathize. But the cure for racist identity politics has never been more racist identity politics in the other direction. And for the vast majority of Americans today who have no pre-1965 memories, it is wrong to allow them or yourself to be defined by things that never happened to you. You were not handicapped by slavery or the Irish potato famine, or the pogroms in the Ukraine or the internment of Japanese Americans, etc. You are your own person and you're living your life today. It's important to study history but it’s equally important to live your life today. If you confuse the two you end up voting for Obama instead of getting a job.
It's not particularly offensive in my view. But as I said, it doesn't have to be. The owners of the mall can decide they don't want it in their property for whatever reasons they want, so long as it is not racist, gender-biased, etc.
Local Hunger
Not for nothing, but North Carolina has the nation's second-highest hunger rate for children under 5 years old, second only to Louisiana (which is still suffering the after-effects of Katrina). More than 422,000 children in North Carolina are "food insecure" – , i.e., unable to consistently access adequate amounts of nutritious food that is necessary for a healthy life. That amounts one-in-four of all NC kids under the age of five who are "food insecure".
With an unemployment rate in Forsyth County of 11.6%, you can be sure that many of those hungry children are within miles of where you are (assuming you are a local person reading this).
So, you know, would it kill you to do something?
Socialized Math
Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) on socialized medicine:
Well, if you go to the socialized medicine countries, you find about 20 percent worse results. You get it? One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine! Now, I’ve got three daughters and a wife. I would hate to think that, among five women, one of them is going to die because we go to socialized care, and we have to have these long lists.
Lesson of the day: Never trust statistics from a guy who thinks that 3 daughters plus 1 wife totals five women.
Smooth Talker: The Greatest Voicemail Ever
Making the web rounds is this series of voicemails to a woman from a really really really bad “smooth talker”. One of those things that can’t be described — you just have to listen for yourself. Enjoy.
A YouTube re-enactment:
Part II of the same:
And a re-enactment of Olga:
So Do Women Like Porn?
This is one of those posts which generates a lot of traffic to my site… from Google searches.
That's not why I'm blogging about it…. it's just that there seems to be several schools of thought on this, and the social psychology major in me is interested things like this.
The schools of thought on the women/porn question, watered down to their basics, are:
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT #1: No, women do not like porn — because porn degrades and objectifies women, which encourages rape and other violence against women. (I call this the "uptight feminist view")
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT #2: No, women do not like porn — because women are interested (or are conditioned to be interested) in wistful romantic fantasies and not the crude grinding of naked bodies. (I call this the "Harlequin romance view")
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT #3: No, women do not like porn — because porn is icky and ungodly and women should only have sex when it's time to make babies or relieve their husband's stress (I call this "the WTF view")
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT #4: Uh, yeaaaaah, women like porn. A-duh!
I don't think these four schools of thought are mutually exclusive. For example, a woman can acknowledge that the porn industry in general "objectifies" women, and still enjoy porn. Of course, the porn industry (I'm told) is pretty diverse, and obviously not ALL porn objectifies women. In fact, a lot of porn is tailor-made by women for women.
But enough of my conjecture. Let's see what the experts say, via Oprah.com via CNN:
….the fact is, millions of women use and enjoy "explicit sexual imagery."
…In the first three months of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, approximately one in three visitors to adult entertainment Web sites was female; during the same period, nearly 13 million American women were checking out porn online at least once each month.
Theresa Flynt, vice president of marketing for Hustler video, says that women account for 56 percent of business at her company's video stores. "And the female audience is increasing," she adds. "Women are buying more porn." (They're creating more of it, too: Female director Candida Royalle's hard-core erotic videos, made expressly for women viewers, sell at the rate of approximately 10,000 copies a month.)
(Emphasis mine).
And biologically, studies show that women DO enjoy it:
In a 2006 study at McGill University, researchers monitored genital temperature changes to measure sexual arousal and found that, when shown porn clips, men and women alike began displaying arousal within 30 seconds; men reached maximum arousal in about 11 minutes, women in about 12 (a statistically negligible difference, according to the study).
Even more compelling were the results of a 2004 study at Northwestern University that also assessed the effect of porn on genital arousal. Mind you, a copy of "Buffy the Vampire Layer" and a lubed-up feedback device isn't most girls' idea of a hot night in. But when the researchers showed gay, lesbian, and straight porn to heterosexual and homosexual women and men, they found that while the men responded more intensely to porn that mirrored their particular gender orientation, the women tended to like it all.
That's right — women like porn so much that they're less selective about what is depicted.
But that's not universally true:
Not every woman feels empowered to enjoy the show. For years we've been told that we won't — or shouldn't — be turned on by porn, end of story, sleep tight.
…When everyone tells you that what you might be curious about, or even secretly like, is wrong, bad, sleazy, and shameful, you don't have to cast a line very far to land a set of inhibitions.
And, indeed, many a smart, strong, sexually self-reliant girl has popped in a porn DVD and ejected it just as quickly because she saw something that offended her or made her uncomfortable.
Some of that discomfort has less to do with the societal stigma of women/porn, and more to do with body images:
The biggest roadblock for women (and men) to enjoying explicit imagery is the fear that they don't "stack up" to the bodies and abilities of the people onscreen. Erotic models and actresses bring up a whole range of adequacy issues, from breast size to weight, from what you look like "down there" to the adult acne we all periodically fight.
Yeah… I don't think the whole "body issue" thing is as big a problem for men as it is for women. We don't even look at the dude, really. But for those women who do have some misgivings, the author closes with this advice:
We (women) don't have to think of rationality and animalistic urges as mutually exclusive. If we desire, we can let them play together like tennis doubles. Porn is one more pleasure to add to life's sexual buffet, one that can be enjoyed with a partner or alone.
Makes sense.
And I got through this entire post without making one immature sexual innuendo. I want some credit for that. It was pretty hard. I wasn't sure how long I could keep it up.
(Damn!)
Obama’s Bear Market
Remember about four months ago when all you could read from conservative blogs was crap like this:
The Obama Bear Market
With yesterday’s declines, we now have an “official” Obama bear market, defined as a 20% decline. The S&P 500 index closed at 850 on the last trading day before Obama’s inauguration, and now it’s at 682. And it barely took six weeks.
Don’t let ANYONE tell you that this is Bush’s fault, or that Obama inherited the decline. The stock market by definition is a leading indicator. It predicts the future for corporate earnings, not the present or the past.
The stock market is saying that with Obama in office, the outlook for business is poor. And with his promises of higher taxes and more regulation, Obama is doing his very considerable best to reinforce the negative perception.
Next time you open your 401(k) or mutual fund statement, try not to flinch at the thought that a great big bear with Obama’s face is looking over your shoulder.
— Redstate, March 6, 2009
Even legitimate news organizations got on the "Obama bear market bandwagon".
The numbers are a bit breathtaking: In a little more than four months, the Dow Jones industrial average has leapt more than 2,500 points — nearly 39 percent — to close above 9,000 for the first time since January.
That's right. When Obama took office, the Dow was at 9,034. It closed yesterday at 9,069.
Will they credit Obama? Don't hold your breath.
UPDATE: Heh. Conservatives are all now, like, "I can't remember that". The fun starts at 4 minutes in….
UPDATE: Better video:
Nobody Likes Sarah Anymore
Hmmmm. Looks like Sarah's "I'm quitting because I'm all mavericky and it's great for Alaska" spin didn't work too well. From WaPo:
Overall, the new poll found that 53 percent of Americans view Palin negatively and 40 percent see her in positive terms, her lowest level in Post-ABC polling since she first appeared on the national stage last summer….
The dip in Palin's favorability comes as she gets ready to leave office Sunday with about 18 months remaining in her term and plans to turn her attention to national politics.
The Born Identity
I generally don't have much success embedding The Daily Show videos, but I'll give it a shot this time, because Stewarts roast of the "Birthers" (the tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists who espouse that Obama isn't a legitimate president because he wasn't born in the United States) is excellent.
I especially love the end where Stewart describes exactly what the conspiracy theory means — i.e., that back in 1961, a nobody man from Kenya and his nobody wife from Kansas somehow conspired with the government of Hawaii and the Hawaiian media to engage in a conspiracy on the chance that their black baby Obama would someday become president of the United States.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Born Identity | ||||
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Gawker has a nice FYI on the whole birther thing. A segment:
What Do Birthers Believe?
It is hard to pin down and explain what the birthers actually believe, because it an ever-shifting series of assertions, arguments, and insinuations that change on a dime depending on the audience and facts presented, but we will give it a shot.
Basically, birthers believe that Barack Obama is not a legitimate president, because he was not born in the United States. But, faced with rather overwhelming evidence that he was born in the United States, some birthers are even now changing their stories and claiming that he's not eligible because he was born a dual citizen (of the US and either Kenya or… Britain), making him, again, not eligible.
But these are the more popularly accepted theories:
- Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Obama's mother was living in Kenya with Obama's father, and after his birth, she took him back to Hawaii to register his birth, because… she knew one day he would run for president? Birthers claim Obama's paternal grandmother admitted to being present during Obama's birth, in Kenya.
- Barack Obama is a citizen of Indonesia, where his sister was born.
- Barack Obama's real middle name is "Muhammed."
- Barack Obama's birth certificate is a forgery.
- Barack Obama's birth certificate isn't a forgery, but they used to give those out to people who were born overseas (this was what they had to settle on once Hawaiian officials confirmed that his birth certificate was real).
- Hawaii didn't give out birth certificates to kids born overseas at the time of Obama's birth, but his mother lied about where he was born (and sent out two newspaper announcements!) in order to procure one.
But the details don't make sense, and don't matter. Here's a representative paragraph from a birther website:
Depending on what his long copy vault birth certificate states, this may or may not deepen the problem. If it states either of the two hospitals and the hospital records prove that he was in fact born in one of the Hawaiian Hospitals, then the location of his birth will definitely prove he is entitled to be a US Citizen in accordance to the 14th Amendment. This of course does not necessarily give him the necessary status of a natural born citizen.
If Obama issues another birth certificate that states, also, that he was born in Hawaii, in a hospital, he still might not be a natural born citizen. They'll come up with a reason why, however, should this chimerical document ever surface. For fun, here is another sentence from the same site: "If his long form birth certificate states he was born at home, then this in itself does not prove that he was born, and in fact could lead to greater problems."
Why, yes… if Obama wasn't actually born, that would create greater problems…. because it means our President doesn't actually exist!
Bonus Video: Chris Matthews takes on G. Gordon Liddy about this. Liddy looks like he's about to die….
By the way, Liddy refers to a "sworn deposition" from Obama's step-grandmother insisting that he was born in Kenya.
Not true at all. Salon's Alex Koppelman has the story:
What Liddy was referring to is actually an affidavit filed by a street preacher named Ron McRae, who conducted an interview with Sarah Obama, the second wife of President Obama's grandfather, through a translator. (Sarah Obama is not the president's biological grandmother, but he calls her "Granny Sarah.")
In that interview, Sarah Obama does in fact say at one point that she was there for her grandson's birth. But that was a mistake, a confusion in translation. As soon as a jubilant McRae began to press her for further details about her grandson being born in Kenya, the family realized the mistake and corrected him. And corrected him. And corrected him. (The audio is available for download here.)
And here's the relevant part if you don't want to listen to the audio:
MCRAE: Could I ask her about his actual birthplace? I would like to see his birthplace when I come to Kenya in December. Was she present when he was born in Kenya?
OGOMBE: Yes. She says, yes, she was, she was present when Obama was born.
MCRAE: When I come in December. I would like to come by the place, the hospital, where he was born. Could you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?
OGOMBE: No, Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America.
MCRAE: Whereabouts was he born? I thought he was born in Kenya.
OGOMBE: No, he was born in America, not in Mombasa.
MCRAE: Do you know where he was born? I thought he was born in Kenya. I was going to go by and see where he was born.
OGOMBE: Hawaii. Hawaii. Sir, she says he was born in Hawaii. In the state of Hawaii, where his father was also learning, there. The state of Hawaii.
The audio doesn't of course matter to the birthers. They're going to believe what they want to believe. But it IS rather nutty, huh?