"Good relations with the Wookies, I have."

And here I thought that size wasn't supposed to matter. Gives new meaning to the term, "Fuzzball".

Sooo… Rachael Ray is a terrorist loving, America hater who just happens to like coffee and donuts?

Many blogs and a few TV personalities like Keith Olbermann have jumped on this. I might as well join in. Here is a summary of what has transpired, so far, from HuffPo.

The Boston Globe reports that Dunkin Donuts caved to pressure from the conservative blogosphere — and the fear of a mass boycott — and removed the ad:

The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin' Donuts decided it'd be easier just to yank the ad.

Said the suits in a statement: ''In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.''

Malkin praised the decision in her column, writing,

It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists. Too many of them bend over backward in the direction of anti-American political correctness....

Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence -- unintentionally or not -- they matter. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style.

Malkin has previously lauded Dunkin Donuts for its support of immigration laws.

Many, many people have commented on how insane this actually looks. (Love you, Sadly No!) Michelle Malkin called for a boycott of Dunkin' Donuts because of a scarf? An Arabic looking scarf!?! My first thought (besides “give me a f**kin’ break) was, we have a national media personality asking for a boycott because of a fashion that MIGHT have come from some foreign country? I got news for you, MICHELLE. NOT ALL ARABS ARE TERRORISTS!! You are upset that anyone might actually wear some article of clothing that… Man,I can’t even begin to put this together. Jeeesuus Christ. You know, we are supposed to be friends with Saudi Arabia. Just ask George Bush. He's kissed them often enough, both literally and figuratively. Egypt? Not to mention all the Arabic Americans who are actually, like, AMERICANS.

You know what I would find refreshing, Michelle? Non-insane people!! I can only hope that all this insanity on the part of the rightwing goobers of this country is that they realize they are going down, they are in the process of losing whatever influence they feel they might have had, and they don’t much care for it.

One can only hope. Maybe, one fine day in the near future, they will be totally irrelevant.

Senator Clinton invokes the assassination of Bobby Kennedy as a reason to stay in the Democratic race.

And, according to Keith Olbermann’s commentary posted at Americablog, this isn’t the first time she has said this, either. Go read or watch the entire thing, it’s worth it. She implies that she needs to stay in the race because someone might assassinate Senator Obama, the first black man who is the frontrunner to become the next president of the United States. If she didn't mean that, I have absolutely no clue as to what she did mean. It isn’t like this isn’t a real concern, given the amount of hate filled people in this country who also have easy access to guns, or that they aren’t being stirred up already by the lunatic pundits and radio shock jocks. This country has already seen the assassination of Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers, leaders of the movement to empower black people of this country. And then, she has the audacity to apologize to the Kennedy family, but not Obama!

She is rightfully getting her butt handed to her in the press, by everyone. I do notice that the Democrats are among the most vocal. That’s one difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Republicans can say anything crazy they want and the party will find a way to dismiss it and bash the critics. Democrats say or do something beyond the pale and there is no hesitation in them getting nailed by their own party. But, that isn’t my main point here.

Clinton has become like every other politician that becomes too enamored of himself or herself, or else becomes too desperate. They feel that they are allowed to say anything that comes into their heads to justify their claims or actions, and it’s the audience’s fault if they take it somehow badly. I used to really like Senator Clinton. I once heard her speak and she was great. But she now sounds a lot like George Bush. Her rationalizations for staying in the race change on a weekly, if not daily, basis; just like Bush’s rationalizations for why we are in Iraq or why tax cuts for the rich are a good thing. She will say and do anything in order to advance her own goals, and she has lost sight of the fact that she is starting to resemble a complete and utter lunatic.

I can’t figure out Ms. Clinton’s psychological makeup here. I really can’t. Is she that much in thrall to her drive for power that she becomes blind to every other concern? I have a difficult time any one person could be that much of a narcissist. She apparently can’t even recognize the damage she is doing to herself, much less the Democratic party. She used to be one of the party “elders”, whether that label was deserved or not. She was respected and held a position of great influence within the party. She is rapidly making herself into a pariah. Is that what she really wants? Even if she were to somehow snatch the Democratic nomination from Senator Obama, does she not recognize the cost to both herself and her party?

I wish this were over. Lord, I wish this were over.

Hillary Clinton photo from here.

So, American Airlines is going to charge to check bags, eh?

This is going to work really well. I have seen many things written about this already. I’m certainly not going to add much new to the discussion. However, I just want to say that this seems to be yet another example of not thinking through the possible ramifications! Just like the Iraq war! No one seems to believe that you might want to possibly consider all the bad things that can possibly happen before you do something, rather than just concentrate on all the ponies and ice cream you are going to achieve.

Jeez. Charging for checked bags, even the first one! All this is going to do is make everyone want to bring carry on bags. The overhead bins are already filled to capacity. I try to be one of the first ones in line (for my group, which is usually one of the last ones anyway), just so I can make sure I will have a place to put my luggage in the overhead bins. Guess what is going to happen now? And all those folks who now can’t find a place in the overhead? Are they going to have to pull out their wallets and pay the flight attendants $15 or $25 just so they can get their bags put in the cargo hold? And how long is this going to hold up departures?

I can’t believe that airlines just can’t charge for tickets a price that will guarantee the airlines will make enough money on each flight. This is an insane way to run a business, nickel and dime your customer to death. And keep in mind, the flying public is already pretty much saturated by long security lines, taking off shoes and belts, putting all your liquids in plastic bags, airplanes filled to capacity, delays measured in hours, tiny little seats, rude passengers, rude flight attendants…

If the price of oil, and therefore jet fuel, really is going to keep climbing and may double in price from the already astronomically high prices we are paying now, I got news for the airlines. Trying to pry as much as you can from your customers is not going to keep your stupid industry afloat. You are going to have to find someway else to keep your business running and the airplanes flying. All the ‘low hanging fruit’ has been picked. You are going to need to find a better way to make your profits.

Charging for checked bags. Hey, I guess they could go put vending machine type locks on the biffies. Passengers, make sure you have lots of one dollar bills on you before you get on the airplane.

Movie Review: Alien (Director’s Cut)

I haven’t written a move review in quite some time. I think I will throw one in here, just for a little variety. WARNING: Here be spoilers! (However, I can't imagine anyone not having seen this film by now. If you haven't and yet, are upset by the fact that you read anything that gives away how the film ends, I figure that's your problem...)

"Alien” is one of my favorite science fiction films. It is hard to believe that it was originally released almost 30 years ago (1979). The plot itself has some holes in it that I don’t particularly care for. For example, if “The Company” knew there was an alien there already and they wanted a specimen so badly, why didn’t they send out a real group of commandos to get what they wanted? Why send out a bunch of miners who had absolutely no idea what was going on? More than likely, things were going to go badly for everyone involved, since the Company lost a very expensive spaceship and they didn’t get the alien either. And, by the way, just how did the Company know there was an alien out there, anyway? There’s also the whole thing about space travel (really loooonng distances) and the effect of “time stretching”, for lack of a better word. Any spaceship sent that far out into space would have to be traveling near or at the speed of light to make things commercially worthwhile for the people involved. However, that would still cause the two different systems (Earth and the spaceship) to run on different time scales, which would cause all sorts of problems that aren’t really addressed in the film.

However, those plot problems aside, I love the film for the atmosphere. The ship is dark and grimy, the crew is a bunch of non-descript people who are in need of a shave. The whole approach to the film is one of foreboding and suspense. It’s a superb film in those respects. The monster in the film is one of the best ever, in that it is extremely organic looking and has absolutely no aspects of what we think of as "humanity" at all. Most of the film is creepy to the extreme, and there are several just out and out shocking moments, like the one captured in the picture above. It’s a great film and I have watched it many times.

I finally had the chance to see Ridley Scott’s “Director’s Cut” version. I was very much interested, as I was hoping to see the sequence where Ripley finds Dallas in the bowels of the ship, pasted up on the wall waiting to be implanted. As we know from the second film, “Aliens”, you actually need a queen to lay the eggs that produce the facehugger aliens that will implant the larval alien. This version did indeed have that sequence in there, and it, no doubt, would have been pretty shocking on the first viewing when I didn’t know what was coming. And it didn’t contradict anything that happened the second film and also sort of set the stage for what was to come later.

There were also some other good sequences that were not included in the original release. Some were very quick, such as the three crewmembers standing along side the landing gear struts of the lander before they set off to find the source of the radio transmission that showed how very large even the lander ship is, not to say anything about the rest of the ship still in orbit. There were some interesting sequences not in the original film showing the crew trying to pinpoint the source of the radio transmissions that are about to change their lives forever. There were also a couple that I could see why were not included in the original release, such as a the crew screaming at each other after Ripley had refused to let Dallas and the others in after Cain had been attacked in the alien ship but Ash had opened the door anyway. Some of that seemed very out of character.

That brings me to my main compliant of this “Director’s Cut”. The intent here seems to be just to release a “different version” of the film. It wasn’t better and it, in many places, it was definitely not as good as the original. In fact, the main purpose of the film seemed to be just as a vehicle to include all the footage that originally ended up on the cutting room floor. Those shots, I must admit, were very interesting to see. It was very odd to see all the characters I have come to know all of a sudden doing things I have never seen before. But, it was not a superior film. It definitely was not in the same league as the Director’s Cut of “Blade Runner", which was also directed by Ridley Scott. With and without a narrator does make a difference to the film. This one, well, I could have done without it. I favor the original version much more than this one. I would have thought, since Ridley Scott got to put his stamp on the final cut (my understanding is that most directors in Hollywood, unless they are really big shots, do not get to edit the final film), he would have taken the opportunity to do address some things that he didn’t like in the original version. And there were some scenes that were cut from the original version that I have no idea why they weren't included. My guess is that Scott wanted to keep the film under two hours and had to lose something from the original for everything that was added. This film just seemed, like I said earlier, to be an excuse to put in a bunch of things we hadn’t seen before.

I’ll give it a B minus.

(And, as a bonus film review comment here, I will just say that I cannot state how much I absolutely hated the third film in the series, Alien(3). Detested it. The filmmakers spent so much time making you care about the characters of Newt and Hicks in the second film, and then, the first thing that happens in the third film is they kill those characters off! "Oh, well, we didn’t need them anyway, and we need to have a reason to have a third film." Screw that. You don’t go killing a 12-year-old little girl that we have so much emotional energy invested in from the second film. I don't care if Carrie Henn was already grown up and out of the acting profession by the time the third film was made. Find a way, dammit! Screw you, Vincent Ward and David Fincher.)

Another truly maddening case of "It’s O.K. If You Are A Republican" (IOKIYAR).

It’s truly amazing what Republicans (or Rethugs, as I like to call them, as that name sort of says it all) get away with. Things that cause the wingnuts to go incendiary are legion. Democrats make the slightest misstatement, or even make a perfectly reasonable statement that can be taken out of context and replayed over and over, and the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannities of the world send out the signal that their rabid listeners should start howling with outrage. The press picks it up and it becomes the story du jour for several news cycles, if not longer.

A good example of this is Michelle Obama’s comment when she said she was “proud of this country for the first time” after during her husband’s campaign. I understood perfectly what she meant. This country, after all, has a history of violent racism, subjugation and, going back a bit further, slavery of an entire race. O.K., it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that she meant, now that the country seems to be not only willing but desiring to elect her husband, a black man, as President of the United States, she is proud that the country may have finally overcome some bit of its racist past. That marks a pretty significant departure from our past. That was obviously the context in which she spoke. Yet, the wingnuts went wild. To illustrate, here’s a link to Faux News and another one to Michelle Malkin. (Note: the only reason I am providing real links are that I wanted to give real examples, not a second hand, unsubstantiated statement and I also know they aren’t going to get much in the way of traffic from my blog links.) Anything to manufacture a little outrage. Actually, a lot of outrage. And this is still going on. Listening to these idiots, Michelle Obama is a racist who hates America. Give me a frickin’ break.

Yet, Rethugs and their wingnut echo chamber get to make all sorts of statements and the press lets them get away with it, scott free. Here is something that ex-presidental contender Mike Huckabee said about Michelle’s husband, Senator Barack Obama. Via dday at Hullabaloo:

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Ha, ha. That’s really hysterical. Mike, your sense of humor is dee-lightful. Making jokes about shooting at the leading Democratic presidential contender AND a black man to boot. Wonderful. I just cannot stop laughing.

I can understand how there are always going to be people that have a rather sick sense of humor and stay very stupid and vile stuff. But when it comes to a public forum and high publicity value people like Mike Huckabee, why does our press continually let these people get away with this?

Personally, I disagree with Michelle Obama. I am not very proud of this country, and haven’t been for about the last 25 years. The last seven, however, have been pure hell.

Shucks! I durn missed out on this here blog’s second annie-versrie.

I can’t believe I did that. It’s sort of like forgetting your child’s birthday. Well, not really. Actually, I do know how I let it slip by. I have been pretty busy at work and also, my wife has found a very compelling web site (for her, anyway) that leaves very little computer slack time available. Maybe the 20 minutes right before and after dinner, that’s about it.

Anyway, it’s been two years. Two very long, shortish years… Lots to complain about, lots of rather interesting pictures. I think I have done several pretty good posts. (See “Fav Posts” in the column on the right, if you are at all intrigued.) A couple of my posts actually even come up as Number 1 in the search list on Yahoo or Google, just so long as you type in the EXACT words necessary…

Based on my experience over the last two years, and also with installing SiteMeter, here are my secrets to having a number of people drop by your web site on a daily basis:

1. A blog title that includes the word “rabbits” and a post by the name of “enemies”. That’s a guarantee of at least four or five hits a day from people scouring the web to see what kind of nasty creatures out there prey on poor defenseless bunnies.

2. A post that contains a picture of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Very popular, indeed.

3. Don’t play cute with titles of the posts, like one called “Oops!” Say, instead, exactly what the post is about so that any searches will come up with yours as a possibility. Like for example, that one should have been called “Airbus A340 smashes into wall at Toulouse, France prior to delivery to Eithad Airlines.” That probably would have come up with a lot more hits on search engines than “Oops!”.

4. Include quotations from popular movies (like “Star Wars”) and television shows (like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). Those will get picked up in by a search engine.

5. Pictures of Audrey Hepburn are always nice.

6. Ditto, pictures of Shih-Tzu puppies.

7. Ditto, any really interesting photos like art from piles of trash, art from Legos, art from chalk drawings on sidewalks. Unusual photos are apparently MUCH more compelling than anything I have to say.

Actually, I find it amazing that I have kept this up for over two years now. I actually find this medium pretty interesting. You can do or say pretty much anything you want, and you have absolutely no idea what kind of audience you might get. If you just leave it to chance, then you might get no traffic at all or you might get a lot more than you expected. It is purely up to the worldwide audience (and I do mean, worldwide) to determine if your material is worth more than a 10 second glance. If you aren’t in this for the money or personal ego-gratification, then this is a pretty fun thing to do. Just toss whatever you think might be of interest to someone else out there and see what happens. It’s like fishing in a REALLY big lake. You know there are fish out there, but you aren’t sure exactly what would attract them. You keep tossing your bait out there until you find the right combination.

I wonder why I came up with that particular analogy. I don’t fish.

So, here’s to the last two years spent blogging. My only wish, and it is a fervent one, is that I have LOTS less to complain about come November.

E-mail hoax? Amazing cloud formations before Katrina. Part II

UPDATE: O.K., I originally bit on the e-mail I received that contained these pictures. They were pretty astounding. But, I admit, even in this day and age, I am still a pretty gulliable person. It appears that these are fake. I haven't researched this. Photoshopped? Real pictures but nothing to do with Katrina? I don't know.

I was originally just going to delete these posts. However, the pictures themselves are so cool, I think I will retain them, just for the artistic value.

Here is the probable source of these pictures.

http://www.ireneeng.com/2008/05/22/sky-before-katrina-struck/

Please see Part I for more photos.

E-mail hoax? Amazing cloud formations before Katrina. Part I

UPDATE: O.K., I originally bit on the e-mail I received that contained these pictures. They were pretty astounding. But, I admit, even in this day and age, I am still a pretty gulliable person. It appears that these are fake. I haven't researched this. Photoshopped? Real pictures but nothing to do with Katrina? I don't know.

I was originally just going to delete these posts. However, the pictures themselves are so cool, I think I will retain them, just for the artistic value.

Here is the probable source of these pictures.

http://www.ireneeng.com/2008/05/22/sky-before-katrina-struck/

Please see Part II for... Part II.

The definition of propaganda, as practiced in the 21st Century by the United States?

Military “analysts”, briefed by the Pentagon, on all national media outlets before and during the Iraq war to sell the war to the American public. THAT’S what I call propaganda. Along with a lot of other people who are actually, you know, paying attention, I have been very upset with this story. Many bloggers have been writing extensively about this. See Harry Shearer and Jeff Cohen, both writing for Huffington Post for all the gory details. The national media? Nary a peep. That’s part of the scandal, in my mind.

There are two different parts to this; both of them are worthy of the bright light of detailed investigation by outside sources. The first is that these so-called “analysts” were actually part of the Pentagon’s propaganda effort to sell the war to the American public. That is what their job was, and the story, as it is coming out, fully confirms that. Take this quote, for instance, from Crooks and Liars:

Glenn Greenwald sheds more light on how the Pentagon was so very thrilled by these faux military experts.

The key issue here is that more and more, media analysts are having a greater impact on the television media network coverage of military issues. They have now become the go to guys not only for breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues. They also have a huge amount of influence on what stories the network decides to cover proactively with regard to the military. . . .

1.) I recommend we develop a core group from within our media analyst list of those that we can count on to carry our water. They become part of a “hot list” of those that we immediately make calls to or put on an email distro list before we contact or respond to media on hot issues…

You can’t really get too much more precise than that about what they were attempting to do.

The second part of this is how complicit the national media is in this story, and continues to be complicit in the cover-up. The biggest criticism of the press BY the press on this has come from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC and on NPR. That’s about it. Every other national outlet, print and electronic, has been silent on their role in helping the Pentagon “shape” the public’s perception of the war. What’s just as frustrating is how anyone with a differing point of view, i.e., against the war or even being skeptical of some of the claims being made, was made into a into some sort of kook. Being skeptical of those claims or being flat-out against the war became an extremist point of view, and as such, was not invited on any national outlet to debate some of these so-called “experts”. That is a purposeful and successful attempt at limiting the discussion and driving it to a predetermined conclusion. That is, war was an inevitable as it was necessary and that anyone who said otherwise wasn’t worthy of even listening to.

And these same “news” outlets are now refusing to carry this story, as it shows them in a bad light. I can’t figure out if they are just too embarrassed to admit the truth, or they are still actively working to shape the public’s perception of the war and fully realize what they are doing and how they are doing it. I am actually betting on the second choice. That is a terribly thing to say, but I think our media (and not just Faux News, whose agenda has been obvious for some time) is actively working with the Bush administration and its gaggle of neo-con advisors to shape the public’s mindset. They all still believe, to this day, that the media was the reason the United States lost the Vietnam war, and they are determined not to let it happen again. I can think of no other reason than the New York Times hiring Bill Kristol, Newsweek hiring Karl Rove, CNN hiring Tony Snow, etc., etc. The national media has, for the most part, given up even attempting to be fair and even handed. Our national media has an agenda, and it isn’t to keep the public informed.

The citizens of the United States of America, to this day, continue to be led by the nose by the Republicans and neo-cons and willingly assisted by our press. And most of the public is buying this con job! That is what I find so frustrating and downright amazing. Seeing how badly this administration has handled the Iraq war, both getting into it and actually executing it, how it is very obvious that we have been lied to and mislead at almost every opportunity, we are still buying it. The case is being made for war with Iran. And we are letting it happen.

I cannot believe this country at this moment. What has happened to us, that we have so lost our way in every sense of the word?

Photo of Pravda from here.

How expensive is gasoline going to get?

I have seen a couple of stories on this (this one is from Balloon Juice), probably from the same source, which essentially say this. Oil refineries have been shielding the gasoline buying public from the true cost of gas by the fact they have been hedging the price of oil for some time. I don’t really understand hedging. Here is the Wiki explanation:

In finance, a hedge is an investment that is taken out specifically to reduce or cancel out the risk in another investment. Hedging is a strategy designed to minimize exposure to an unwanted business risk, while still allowing the business to profit from an investment activity. Typically, a hedger might invest in a security that he believes is under-priced relative to its "fair value" (for example a mortgage loan that he is then making), and combine this with a short sale of a related security or securities. Thus the hedger is indifferent to the movements of the market as a whole, and is interested only in the performance of the 'under-priced' security relative to the hedge.

So, it would appear that the refineries have been pumping out gasoline and other petroleum-based products that are more in line with oil at around $85 a barrel. It is now running around $125 a barrel. That’s getting very close to being underpriced by about 50%. When the hedging runs out and the “real” cost of gasoline (not counting the oil companies rather obscene profits, of course) shows up at the pump, how do you think most Americans are going to react, especially if they haven’t been given any warning that this is coming? Gas is currently about $3.75 a gallon locally. I don’t know what it is in the rest of the country. I believe that Washington state is one of the highest places in the country, due to the taxes involved. But if, in the space of about a month, gas were to jump from around $4 a gallon to $6, that’s going to cause some people to really start freaking out. And that assumes that the price of crude oil remains the same, which it won’t, of course. These stories I have seen have predictions that the price of gasoline at the pump might hit anywhere from $6 to $8 a gallon, and possibly even beyond.

If the price to fill up even a small car that gets good mileage starts hitting $60 or $70 each time up pull up to the pump, this country is going to really start feeling some fallout. I think we are already to that point. It hasn’t started really hurting yet. I am, in no way, marginalizing the impact on low and middle class families that rising fuel costs and food prices are having. There are many, many families that are already struggling. They are facing choices of how to pay for food and utility bills. This is a terrible thing for many people. I am talking more about the impact at a national level, however cold that might seen to the people already in trouble. I haven't even factored in the still very real possibility of an economic meltdown due to the sub-prime mortgage mess.

When 80% of the regular commerce which could be called “optional”, such as going out to the movies or sporting events, going out to dinner, buying new clothes, furniture and home appliances, the economic impact is going to be severe. People are just not going to be able to keep up with anything except the basic necessities, such as food, energy for getting to work and keeping the house warm in winter. And this assumes they still have jobs. Those jobs are going to dry up when there aren’t any customers left.

I am hoping I am wrong, but this could end up resembling the Great Depression or perhaps Italy after World War II. It won’t be pretty. And what really worries me is that there are lot of very angry, very wound up conservatives with guns who have been essentially told by the nutjobs on radio and television that they are absolutely right to be upset, it’s someone else’s fault they are in this predicament and they should go out and do something about it right now!

That possibility, however small, really has me concerned.

I’ve heard it said that the duckbill platypus proves that God has a sense of humor.

I wouldn’t argue that point, if I happened to believe in God. Well, not the God of the Hebrew Bible and the many manifestations that have sprung from that source. But what I want to know is, does the existence of the platypus prove or disprove evolution? Because, either way, it’s pretty strange.

Here we have a nominal mammal, yet it has an actual bill like a duck. It lays eggs and they hatch outside the mother’s body. The mother lactates milk to feed her young, yet she has no nipples. The platypus produces a poison, like a reptile, but stores the poison in the legs. And as weird as that all is, the scientific findings are even weirder!

From a story in the Seattle Times (also the source of the photo):

One of the more surprising elements was the animal's system for sex determination. Most mammals have two sex chromosomes, either two X chromosomes (to make a female) or an X and a Y (to make a male). Not only do platypuses have 10 instead of two, but some of those resemble the Z and W chromosomes of birds more than standard-issue X's and Y's.

Moreover, the key gene on the Y chromosome that confers maleness in most mammals is not present on any of the platypus' sex chromosomes. It is on another chromosome, where it seems to have nothing to do with sex. In its place, another gene seems to be central to sex determination in platypuses, evidence of a shakeout of various evolutionary efforts to settle on a system of sex determination in early mammals.

Other genes show how platypuses were transitional creatures on the road from egg laying to internal gestation. There is just one gene for one kind of yolk protein, for example, while chickens have three.

That is consistent with the idea that the platypus represents a shift in strategy toward providing more nutrition after hatching.

I understand that evolution of species, as it is currently envisioned, is not a nice, concise thing that has an orderly progression from one stage to the next. Lots of wrong turns, dead ends, distant relatives that look alike, close relatives that don’t look alike. But the existence of the platypus and the fact that have 10 sex chromosomes compared to the 2 that all other mammals have, well, that’s just plain strange. What kind of twist down the evolutionary tree could have possibly resulted in a mammal with a duckbill and venom that looks remarkably like snake venom delivered by little spurs on its legs? Something like that does not seem to have anything natural to trace to.

It’s just one more mystery that we will probably never understand. Unless, of course, you accept that thing about the sense of humor.

Wolfman: When the wheels won't come up...

Feb 20 2008

The day started early, with a 4 AM wakeup call to get on the early morning flight (UA896) from Singapore to Hong Kong. Although I was a bit tired and heavy eyed, feeling the residue from last night’s Thai dinner and Chinese/Lunar New Year celebration, the flight was fine, with a very courteous United cabin crew, mixing mostly Japanese and Chinese flight attendants with one very out of place German. I think he was the token Caucasian (and male) on the team. Since I had boarded early and was sitting upstairs (row 15-G) and there was not much happening, the Captain invited me into the cockpit while we were still sitting at Changi airport. That’s always a cool visit, and generally it is one of the times I wish I had a camera with me when I travel. Not much that was memorable about the flight itself, except a bit of turbulence as we passed the East coast of Vietnam, roughly half-way between Da Nang and Saigon. OK, I know it’s now called Ho Chi Minh city. Sorry, but old habits die hard...

Hong Kong itself was rather uneventful. Of course there was he usual dash from the first flight to go back through security and head over to the next departure gate. Not enough time to have a drink in the Red Carpet club, but enough time for a Marlboro (or two) in the smoking lounge right next to the gate.

As in the old railway days, it’s time to cry “All Aboard” to get this train rolling for Chicago and home. Now the passengers stream into their seats, and some struggle to fit one more oversized piece of hand carry into the already stuffed overhead bins. Upstairs it’s quiet, everyone has settled in, exchanged names, and gone through their personal rituals as they prepare for a 14 hour flight. For me, that would be 2 aspirin (to prevent blood clots) and 2 over-the-counter Sominex sleeping pills.

Takeoff time, accelerating down the runway, V1, V2, rotate, wheels in the air, and we are going up. Hear and feel the landing gear coming in, flaps are being adjusted.

Oh-oh, we have a problem ! This is bad !! Something is really wrong ! Seriously wrong. Alarm bells are going off in my head.

Sound of a hydraulic pump in overdrive, being turned on/off. The plane is noticeably (to me) banking and listing to the left. Wind and engine sounds are all wrong. I suspect a flap has malfunctioned out on the left wing.

Still gaining altitude, but not as fast as we should. I look at the flight attendant in her seat facing me across the exit row. She looks at my face, and I look at hers, and we instantly know that the other one knows. This is not good. We have a real problem here. Obviously we are OK on airspeed, so it’s not critical. Otherwise we would already be swimming in the middle of a (probably burning) large fuel spill outside of Hong Kong harbor. Flight attendant phone rings, she talks for a few seconds, hangs up. She looks at me, then looks at my lap, and draws her seatbelt tighter. I do the same. Her tense chin says it all.

A few more minutes go by. The more seasoned travelers all know something is not right. Announcement now. One landing gear will not retract. The crew is attempting to bring the gear up. In the meantime we are still climbing, and circling south-east of the city out over the ocean. Safe for now. Obviously we can’t go to Chicago like this. Not as obvious to most passengers is that the gear may be stuck halfway, and it might not be safe for landing either.

After a half-hour the Captain announces it can’t be done, the gear is stuck, and it can not be retracted. We will have to dump our fuel over the ocean and return to Hong Kong. The good (?) news is that they think that the gear is down and locked, so they expect that we can land OK.
This time the passengers are really listening and paying attention as the crew repeat the safety instructions they had just performed an hour ago. Nobody is talking or reading a newspaper, all eyes are on the crew. Upstairs, here in the exit row, all four of us are each being given a one-on-one demo on exactly how to open up the large doors and activate the slides. This time, when they ask if we feel we can assist in an emergency we know this is not just an idle question. We clear out all the papers, carry-on items and anything loose, like headphones, from the areas around our seats and the exit row. The crew verify that we have our shoes on, and that the laces are tied. Nobody is smiling now. This is as real as it gets.

This is Gut-check time people. You are on a plane with a defective main landing gear, possibly it is not in the locked position, and you are getting ready to land at over 180 mph with 400 passengers and crew in a 400,000 lb airplane on runway 7-left in Hong Kong.

And there is absolutely nothing you can do to influence what is about to happen.

(A brief intermission ensues)

Later in the day I’m in a hotel room at the Marco-Polo in downtown Kowloon. The day is almost over, and I have helped some new friends destroy the better part of a bottle of Courvoisier cognac. Obviously we landed OK, but the gear could not be fixed quickly, and we have been delayed for 24 hrs on our flight to Chicago. United put everyone up at a variety of hotels, with the coach/economy passengers getting rooms at the airport transit hotel (a big block of grey concrete). That was not my fate. Given a choice by the ground crew, I picked the Marco, which is right on the water’s edge in Kowloon, near one of my former favorite hotels in HK (the now demolished Hyatt on Nathan Rd.), and close to great nightlife spots and dining.

OK, so in the end everything worked out. I arrived in Chicago, and got home to Maine about 24 hours later than expected. I racked up some hotel points that I was not expecting. Had some very nice meals in HK/Kowloon at United’s expense, and ended up with an interesting travel blog. Hey, do you know what it says on my new baseball cap from Hong Kong ?

“Life is Good”

You think the national television medium sucks? Try local newscasts for a while.

There are endless posts and more than a couple of books about how badly the mainstream media has fallen down on the job. I wholeheartedly agree. I can’t add much to that discussion other than an additional dose of disgust and anger. But I was thinking the other day about how bad the local news programs are. That is something I haven’t seen much about, so I’ll take a crack at that subject.

What I am referring to is the local television market, the one that reaches just as much as their broadcast area covers. Since I live in Seattle, that is the local news that I see. However, “news” is a relative term. “Infotainment” may be a better term. I’m actually surprised to see that Microsoft Word knows how to spell that, so it must be entering the English lexicon. Plus, whenever they can throw in some sordid bits of sex scandals, blood, violence and grieving relatives, so much the better. The old hack statement, “If it bleeds, it leads” is really quite true. Plus, our particular location makes any possibility of snow into a festival of overcoats and gloves, and reporters breathlessly reporting things like, “Well, Dan and Kathy, I’m in Lynnwood, where it was snowing JUST five minutes ago. But as you can see, it has turned into rain.”

Now, to be fair, they do some reporting of some good stories now and then. Those are the ones that fall into their laps and that there isn’t a need to do much in the way of serious analysis. Pictures and just straight reporting of the facts (“As you can see, the house behind me has burned down.”) work well for television news. But, for the most part, local television newscasts are a joke.

What I object to most is how anything to do with sex becomes a subject worthy of in-depth reporting. I blame it on Mary Kay Letourneau, the local schoolteacher that became a national news story for repeatedly having sex with a very young student. Since then, it’s pretty much all sex, all the time. I feel that they can report on the newsworthy facts of any case like that, but they really don’t need to dwell on the sordid details. Yet, that is where the local news departments seem to think they get the most mileage.

For instance, there was a very sad situation that happened recently here, where a local high school teacher and track coach vanished. He could not be found for several days. Then his car was found, parked along side the road with a door open and the keys still inside. Then, his body was found a few miles from the scene. He had been shot to death.

Details came out about some adult oriented web site that he had been a member of. I didn’t think much of it. I was much more upset by the fact that someone could shoot an unarmed man like that. It was reported that the authorities were looking into this web site to see if that might have anything to do with it. Once the television stations got that particular detail, boy, Katy bar the door. They started reporting that the victim had been advertising for sex, and in particular, sex with multiple partners. One newscast I saw actually showed a screen capture of they guy's web page with all the stuff he was into and what he was looking for. All sorts of sordid details about the person started coming out. It started to become more of a story than the fact that he was murdered in cold blood. Luckily, the police apprehended a couple that they termed, “persons of interest”. It looks like those are the people who did it, although the motive remains unclear.

However, the victim’s friends and family, and all the students at his high school have now been bombarded with all this crap that is probably not related to the crime, and his reputation is now more about that than the fact he had been a very popular figure at his school, well liked and well respected. I firmly believe that what consenting adults do for their jollies in private, so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else and involves adults and not kids, is their own business. The only time I have written about this kind of behavior is when these great hypocrites, the bastions of American society, say one thing and do another. In the past few years, that has mostly been Republicans (e.g., David Vitter, Larry Craig) but more than a few Democrats have been caught as well (e.g., Eliot Spitzer). But, in private, it should remain private. I think that the local television newscasts really had no reason to delve that publicly into this aspect of the case. What’s the point, other than titillation and sensationalism? It also makes sometimes for a news story that is worthy of an "R" rating. I really don't like my 12 year old daughter to hear some of this. I would rather not have to explain this particular subject right now, and I wish the TV stations would consider who is probably in the living room before they actually say some of this stuff on their programs.

I know that funds for local television news departments are not extensive. But I feel they really should do a better job of reporting important local news stories in depth. All this emphasis on the trivial is ridiculous. A news story that gets no more than a couple of inches on page 7 of the newspapers becomes the lead story on the local news. I don’t even bother anymore. I knew that things were really bad when I saw a promo for one of the local news broadcasts having to do with psychics for your pet. Yep, that one is really “news”.

I also object to the local newscasters just repeating anything that the Bush adminstration says. And remember, Seattle is one of the more liberal areas of the country. I really had a problem whenever one of the local stations had a story about the war in Iraq, the background graphics said "War On Terror!" Dammit, how many times do they have to hear that Iraq really has NOTHING to do with terrorists? Jeez. To be fair, they haven't done that for a while. I guess I should give them a break, because 95% of the media in the country fell for that one as well. Still, I do wish the local news departments would put a LITTLE thought into what they reporting, instead of just taking 20 seconds per story to read two paragraphs out of the local paper.

I have given up. If there isn't anything in the first three minutes of the local news (which starts at 4:57 p.m., instead of straight up 5:00), then figure that nothing has really happened today, and I switch over to MSNBC and watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

This is one of the best sports-related stories I have seen in quite some time.

I don't normally post stuff like this, as I happened to be a terrible cynic and distinctly un-sentimental about most everything not related to puppies or young children. However, after months of months of just terribly depressing news stories, one after another, this one was just too good to ignore. And it has nothing to do with winning or losing. Or maybe it does, but shows that there are other, more important considerations than “winning”, such as sportsmanship, respecting one’s opponents and being a compassionate human being.

This is from the Seattle Times.

Something remarkable happened in a college softball game Saturday in Ellensburg. At least, I am conditioned to think it was remarkable, since it involved an act of sportsmanship, with two players helping an injured opponent complete the home run she had just slugged.

Why this generous act should seem so unusual probably stems from the normal range of bulked-up baseball players, police-blotter football players, diving soccer and hockey players and other high-profile professionals.

The moment of grace came after Sara Tucholsky, a diminutive senior for Western Oregon, hit what looked like a three-run homer against Central Washington. Never in her 21 years had Tucholsky propelled a ball over a fence, so she did not have her home run trot in order, gazing in awe, missing first base. When she turned back to touch the bag, her right knee buckled, and she went down, crying and crawling back to first base.

Pam Knox, the Western Oregon coach, made sure no teammates touched Tucholsky, which would have automatically made her unable to advance. The umpires ruled that if Tucholsky could not make it around the bases, two runs would score but she would be credited with only a single. ("She'll kill me if I take it away from her," Knox thought.)

Then Mallory Holtman, the powerful first baseman for Central Washington, said words that brought a chill to everybody who heard them:

"Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?"

The umpires huddled and said it would be legal, so Holtman and the Central Washington shortstop, Liz Wallace, lifted Tucholsky, hands crossed under her, and carried her to second base, and gently lowered her so she could touch the base. Then Holtman and Wallace started to giggle, and so did Tucholsky, through her tears, and the three of them continued this odd procession to third base and home to a standing ovation.

"Everybody was crying," Knox recalled Tuesday. "It was an away game, and our four fans were crying. We couldn't hit after that."

Not sure I can say much after that.

UPDATE: I had originally thought this was a local story. That is one reason I posted it. However, I was wrong. This has become a national story, with the same information showing up on Yahoo News and the CBS Morning Show. Well, that's great for all the ladies involved and both teams. I guess a lot of people were just as taken by this story as I was. But, it is a bit sobering to think one reason this hit such a nerve with people is that this kind of story is so damn rare these days. Sportsmanship and respect is, along with many other concepts that used to be part of the fabric of this country, some quaint and obsolete notion that just has no place in our society these days. See? My cyncial side returns...

Torture Nation! Plus, some bloggy introspection with a little despair thrown in for good measure.

The second anniversary of Barking Rabbits is fast approaching. This is of absolutely no importance to anyone, of course. I am just amazed that the time has gone by so fast, and that I have been able to come up with enough material to fill two years worth of postings. Not necessarily, “good material” or “interesting material”. Just “material”…

I wish I had the incisive wit to have a really funny, snarky blog like, say, Sadly, No! Those guys are really hysterical at times, and the comment section is even better sometimes. I wish I could do that. Mostly, however, what gets me in the mindset to write something is when I finally get upset about something enough to actually formulate a readable post that isn’t just a rant that doesn’t ever manage to include a point. Rants for the sake of rants relieve the tension and stress, but it hardly meets the criteria for being interesting enough for others to read it as well. I’ve always tried to keep that in mind. No matter the subject I post about, I wanted it to be such that someone else might also find it interesting and worthwhile spending a few minutes looking at.

I just read some more information on John Yoo and his legal memos which allowed people in the employment of the United States of America to torture subjects who haven’t even been legally charged with a crime, must less actually shown to be guilty. This just is so sick…

“It increasingly appears that the Bush interrogation program was already being used before Yoo was asked to write an opinion. He may therefore have provided after-the-fact legal cover. That would help explain why Yoo strained to take so many implausible positions in the memos.

Lawyers had told Bush administration officials that some of the techniques already in use were illegal, even criminal. In fact, a senior Pentagon lawyer described to me exchanges he had with Yoo in which he stressed that those using the techniques could face prosecution. Yoo notes in his Pentagon memo that he communicated with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department and got assurances that prosecutions would not be brought. The question becomes, was Yoo giving his best effort at legal analysis, or was he attempting to protect the authors of the program from criminal investigation and prosecution?

In any case, Yoo kept the program running. Even the man who came in to run the Office of Legal Counsel after Yoo's departure, Jack Goldsmith, has written that he understood Yoo's project this way. Goldsmith also rescinded Yoo's memos.”

The people at the top knew this was illegal and immoral. Yet, they proceeded to find legal cover, however flimsy, so the perpetrators could not face future prosecution. Hey, I got news for everyone. If you are doing something for which you feel you need legal protection in the future, you probably should not be doing it! How difficult a concept is this to grasp? And yet, we have the entire White House crew personally involved in the day-to-day decision making for who to torture and how to torture them.

I don’t have a link for this one, but I saw this on Countdown the other day. Someone had the nerve to ask ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft about waterboading. In public! The question was something like, please explain how the U.S. prosecuted Japanese Army soldiers and officers after WWII for using the same technique on our soldiers, to attempt to find out information they thought would be valuable to the cause of the Japanese Imperial Army, that we are now condoning and using on prisoners. Ashcroft got all huffy, apparently, and objected to the question on the following grounds. The Japanese torturers actually FORCED water down the throat and windpipe of the U.S. military personnel undergoing this “enhanced interrogation technique”. Where WE, the good guys in this war, only “pour” the water down the prisoners throat and windpipe.

That was the distinction used by the TOP legal official in the U.S. government
was making: “forcing” vs. “pouring” water down the nose and throat of someone such that they believe they are drowing. And Ashcroft actually had the balls to act upset that the questioner, plus about 80% of the rest of the country, could not see this distinction.

And conservatives accuse liberals of “moral relativism”?!? Mother of God… What kind of person could seriously make this argument and not expect to get laughed at in his face, much less the ex-A.G. of the United States? And that brings up another point, is that he did it because he felt that no one would call him on it! It’s only those traitorous liberals that would object to such a reasoned, rational argument!

I think I have found a good excuse for not to be able to be really humorous and snarky about these kinds of events. They are just too mind numbing to even comprehend that our government, the United States of America, is a bunch of thugs and liars, much less make jokes about them. All I see is despair and disillusionment.

Entitlement

According to Webster’s, the definition of “entitlement” is:

NOUN:
1. The act or process of entitling.
2. The state of being entitled.
3. A government program that guarantees and provides benefits to a particular group: "fights . . . to preserve victories won a generation ago, like the Medicaid entitlement for the poor" (Jason DeParle).


Many people in the Republican party are all up in arms about “entitlements”. In their world, this means things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veteran’s benefits, subsidies for farmers, etc. Oh, wait a second. Farm subsidies in heavily rural areas which tend to be Republican strongholds like Iowa and Oklahoma aren't entitlements. Those are "good things". I forgot myself for a bit. Entitlements are things that the government has promised people, and people now depend on these payments. Things could get really tough for some of these folks if these pacts between the government and the citizens of this country, i.e., entitlements, were to be suddenly voided. In the world of conservatives, entitlements are tantamount to socialism. And, as “everyone knows”, socialism is evil and doesn’t work, and besides people in Canada waiting for hip replacement surgery have to wait over a year!

However, as interesting a subject as that is, that isn’t really what I want to talk about. I only introduced that meaning as a way of explaining what I am not talking about. How’s that for being vague?

Bob Herbert wrote an eye-popping column in the New York Times. Here is a little snippet.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.

“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”

Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.

When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.

This got me thinking a bit. Here is what I was thinking about when the word “entitlement” popped into my mind. Entitlement, to me, means something that people just expect to have or receive, without really any basis for that expectation. It, whatever "it" is, is a God given right and no one should even question as to why I deserve it.

For example, the citizens of the U.S. have a mindset that says that this country is the greatest country that has ever been and can do no wrong. That way of thinking is obviously behind some of anger that pops out of the extreme right any time the left accuses George Bush of… just about anything. “How dare you, you Blame-America-Firster, you!” As if George Bush and the United States of America are the same thing…. Anyway, back to the point I am trying to make. Americans, back in the 40's, 50's and even early 60's, had good reasons for this attitude. After all, we were on the winning side in both World Wars. We were at the core of the free world during the Cold War. (Yes, Korea and Vietnam happened, those just don’t fit too well into the established narrative.) Our industrial might was second to none, we were the source of innovation and technology. We put men on the moon. We beat the Russians in hockey at Lake Placid. The Berlin Wall came down. All other nations either followed our lead or else were very wary of us. We were a supertanker in a lake full of sailboats.

However, things have changed without many Americans not having noticed that the world is a much different place than it was in the 1950’s. We still have this feeling of entitlement (See? I knew I would get around to making the connection sooner or later) that the position of America is still predominate in the world. Everyone else should concede to the superiorousness of the United States and kowtow whenever we feel we should be kowtowed to. We, as citizens of the United States of America, are entitled to all the adulation that the world can toss at us! If they don’t, then there is something seriously wrong with that country!

In the beginning of the 21st Century, the United States is still a large player in the world. However, this feeling of entitlement by the good citizens of this country make it really difficult to see, at times, that the U.S. has no real reason for this feeling of superiority. We are constantly being outclassed by other countries in the world on many fronts. Two of the few reasons remaining that other countries pay any attention to us at all is 1) we still have a bigger military than the rest of the world, combined, and 2) we have one of the largest consumer markets in the world. We are really good at buying stuff from other countries and throwing our weight around, militarily. Other than that, we don’t seem to be doing great shakes about much of anything. Our economy is teetering on the edge of meltdown, companies are abandoning the U.S. in the hopes they can make more money elsewhere, we have very little in the way of manufacturing left in this country, one third of our students don’t even graduate high school, and the few good jobs that do remain require a college degree. Things are not looking too swell for the future. In fact, “bleak” doesn’t even begin to cover it, in my mind. “Damn frightening” is more like it.

I agree with the central premise of Herbert's column. On the whole, the population of this country is really ignorant, and they are damn proud of it, too! Don’t tell US about problems like global climate change or oil at $150 a barrel! We know better! Facts be damned! We have our opinion, and that is MUCH better than facts. More people now believe in UFO's than they do in evolution.

So, even though everything is going to the crapper here in the good ol’ U.S. of A., most of the people in this country STILL expect us to be the Top Dog, the King of the Hill. God Bless America! (Which sort of implies, in my mind, that God couldn’t give a damn about all those other countries that aren’t America.) No one should ever tell us what to do, and we can demand, at any time for any reason, that others do our bidding at the drop of a hat or else we will start calling them insulting names like “Old Europe” or “cheese eating surrender monkeys”. China and Japan are expected to buy up our debt so we can continue on throwing money at the rich people of this country and in the black hole that is Iraq.

I can’t help but feel that many people in this country are in for a very, very rude awakening in about 15 or 20 years. I am just hoping, for very selfish reasons, it isn’t sooner than that. But I do feel very badly for the children and young people in this country, because they are going to inherent a world in which the “entitlements” they have been taught are rightfully ours are a thing of the past.

Money roll picture from here.

More thoughts on Clay Bennett, NBA owner, duplicitous S.O.B. extraordinaire, and proponent of socialism for the wealthy.

Yep, the hits just keep on coming. Just as with all the various Bush administration scandals, revaluations are coming so frequently that it is hard to keep up with them. Here are some excepts, via the Seattle Times, of some of the e-mail between the various parties intent on moving the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City that are coming to light in two separate court cases. (One is by the city of Seattle, intent on making the Sonics play out their remaining two years of their valid at Key Arena, and the other is by former owner (and Starbucks coffee magnate) Howard Shultz, claiming that the ownership group that he sold the team to lied to him. Gee, Howard. Who would have guessed?)

• Bennett, like Litvin, worried that McClendon's comments could land the owners in legal trouble. In an Aug. 13, 2007, e-mail to McClendon, Bennett wrote: "Yes sir, we get killed on this one. I don't mind the PR ugliness (pretty used to it), but I am concerned from a legal standpoint that your statement could perhaps undermine our basic premise of 'good faith best efforts'... "

That's a reference to the language in the contract Bennett's group signed with former owner Howard Schultz promising to make "good faith best efforts" through Oct. 31, 2007, on a Seattle-area arena deal. Earlier this week, Schultz filed his own lawsuit, accusing Bennett's group of fraud and seeking to void the 2006 sale of the Sonics to the Oklahoma group.

• Sonics owners began trying to persuade NBA executives to approve an Oklahoma City relocation as early as last April, when it became clear the Washington Legislature would not approve a $500 million Renton arena.

Bennett e-mailed Litvin on April 23, 2007, saying a decision to leave Seattle was "not made in haste but in the context of now years of failing economics" and no prospects for a new arena. While Oklahoma City "is certainly a much smaller media market, this ownership group provides a unique relationship" with the city's business, media and political leaders and "can deliver a viable business operation and commitment to competitive teams," Bennett told Litvin, president of the NBA's league and basketball operations.

• In a July 2007 e-mail to fellow team owners, Bennett still left open the possibility of a Seattle-area arena deal, saying he was issuing a "last call to action to Seattle and Washington." Noting his good-faith promise to Schultz, Bennett said "we believe our efforts in the Legislature this past session satisfied the good faith condition" and that the owners' overall actions would persuade the NBA "we are exhausting every avenue in Seattle."

• Bennett displayed frustration with politicians. In an e-mail last April to Stern and Litvin, Bennett groused that he "wouldn't trust [Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis] as far as I could throw him." He added that the political leadership in Washington state "has never valued the threat of moving to Oklahoma City. They don't even know where it is."

• Bennett vented in other e-mails about the Seattle media. In an e-mail to McClendon and other co-owners last July, Bennett reacted to a column by Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley: "All of these guys are against us. Seattle has the most inept and difficult sports media of any major market. That was the view of the league before we arrived and I now completely agree."

Bennett added: "They still don't get the deal ... Ultimately it is not up to us to build them a building — it is up to the leadership and the broad public to build a building.”

That last bit is what really got to me when I read it. “Ultimately it is not up to us to build them a building ” What is left unsaid in that sentence is “to build US a building SO WE CAN ALL MAKE LOTS OF MONEY.”

Tell me, what other industry or financial concern expects the government and citizens of the location to actually build them the infrastructure? Does the Ford Motor Company threaten to move all their plants to Alabama if Michigan won’t build them brand new, state of the art automotive assembly plants? O.K., yes, many corporations are getting lots of tax breaks when they are looking around for a new location. The Boeing Company played that very well when they were looking around the country for a location at which to assemble their new jet, the 787. And they got some attractive packages, for sure. But the local governments and the taxpaying citizens most certainly did NOT fund expansion of the Boeing facility in Everett, so Boeing could continue to make tons of money off their product.

What in God’s Name are the rich people in this country thinking?!? Conservatives and Republicans complain about entitlements and government support of various programs intended for the greater good, calling it “socialism”. Depending on your definition, that may be. But what the heck do you call millionaires expecting government subsidies and out-and-out handouts for a private, multi-million dollar business like professional basketball? What is that? Seattle “has never valued the threat of moving to Oklahoma City”? Were we supposed to?

Man, rich people make me ill. They think the world owes them even more than they have already. It’s too bad that we don’t have a time machine, where we could go plunk these people down in Neolithic North America, where one of their biggest problems would be trying to find food while not getting eaten by a saber-toothed cat.

I find that I get a certain amount of satisfaction in that visual imagery.

I have it! Our crappy media isn’t due to bias or laziness. It’s due to food poisoning from Ergot of Rye !

Here is my theory of what is going on in the media these days. I usually have a very high opinion of my original thinking, but I believe that I have outdone myself with this one.

My original thought was that, maybe after years and years of being bashed by the conservatives of this country for a real or imagined “liberal bias”, reporters, analysts, editors and owners actually have swung hardover in the other direction, such that there is now a CONSERVATIVE bias. Reporters and pundits alike would just take whatever is being fed to them by their government contacts and publish it as news or opinion. That certainly seems like what happens when Judith Miller, when she took all the stuff that Scooter Libby was feeding her and put it into the New York Times as actually reporting. Tie this in with the fact that major media outlets are now subsidiaries of major corporations whose interests lie in conservative policies and keeping the status quo, and you have what I thought to be a compelling case for why the media is doing such a terrible job of, you know, actually informing the public of what is going on in their names.

However, after hearing about how many cocktail parties that these media types go to where they gather and “chit chat” about whatever it is they chit chat about, I came up with a new idea. You know how, at cocktail parties, they always serve these stupid little “finger sandwiches” on that stupid flat, crunchy dark bread that looks suspiciously like it might be rye bread? It is now my theory that all these media types (except for Keith Olbermann) are consuming moldy rye bread infected with a nasty little fungus called Ergot of Rye. Food poisoning due to Ergot of Rye is thought to perhaps have been behind the madness that took over an entire town during the Salem witch trials. Here is an interesting speculation about Ergot of Rye.

"Today historians are speculating that some other bizarre events of the past may be due to ergot poisoning. For instance, an affliction known as "dancing mania" which struck Europe from the 14th to the 17th century may have been caused by the troublesome fungus. This phenomenon caused groups of people to dance through the streets of cities– often speaking nonsense and/or foaming at the mouth– until they finally collapsed from exhaustion. Sufferers often described wild visions, and continued to writhe after falling to the ground. Some also suggest that Kykeon, a popular hallucinogenic drink from ancient Greece, may have been made from ergot-infected barley."

See? Doesn’t it all make sense now? Doesn’t that describe people like MoDo, Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin exactly? I mean, it all fits! “Speaking nonsense and/or foaming at the mouth?” “Wild visions?” Who can tell me that doesn’t sound like David Broder?

Our entire country is collapsing around our ears and our media won’t report on it (except for liberal bloggers, who apparently either don’t go to cocktail parties or maybe they don’t like rye crisps), because of a fungus! The obvious conclusion here is, of course, that people in the media should not go to cocktail parties and hang out with the people they are supposed to be reporting on!

If you read this story and start quoting from it, please make sure you give me proper credit for this groundbreaking theory. Thank you very much in advance. That’s z-e-p-p-o, small “z”.

Picture of Salem Witch Trials from here.

David Stern; what a pathetic little man with a Napoleonic complex.

The NBA owners approved the move of the Sonics (can’t call them the “Seattle Supersonics” anymore) to Oklahoma City. Clay Bennett, Oklahoma Raider, says that he “is thrilled much more for the people of Oklahoma City more I am for me”. Yeah, I’ll bet. The people of Seattle, on the other hand, well, you can just go **** yourselves.

David Stern, making the announcement of the move, showed us exactly how firm the ground is that they are standing upon. A local reporter started asking several rather aggressive questions about whether or not Stern had actually READ the e-mails between the Sonics ownership group that showed, without question, that they had lied to everyone within earshot about their intentions. What does David Stern do? He gets all testy with the reporter asking the question and lectures him. That’s always good. Get really snippy and self-righteous when you know you are screwing people over. And then, when asked about the possibility of Seattle getting another franchise, he said that he might, but he didn’t like the fact that Seattle actually was suing the Sonics to stay and play the last two years of their valid and legal lease at Key Arena. The difference is between Charlotte, which did get another team after their original one left, and Seattle is, apparently, that Charlotte made nice, didn’t sue anyone and asked really, really nicely if they could have another team, pretty please. Stern, the magnanimous Napoleon he is, took pity on poor little Charlotte and they have another team. Seattle, on the other hand, has some nerve to actually sue anyone! Breaking a lease, all the local politicians being lied to… They all amount to nothing, and how dare you insinuate anything to the contrary!

I really won’t miss the NBA. I haven’t watched it in years, and I certainly wouldn’t have ever gone to any more games. But when the radio sports announcer read off the list of players since the inception of the franchise, I couldn’t help but get really sad and very angry. Yet another example of how greedy, rich, powerful white guys can do anything they want, no matter how badly it reflects on them, and get away with it. No conscience.

This reminds me so much of George Bush’s Iraq war. He knew that he was going to start a war. He wanted it, and was going to have it. But yet, he would say all the right things which he knew to be lies of the worst kind to make people stop asking questions during the run up, so it would make it seem like, in the end, he had no other choice but to follow through on something they knew they were going to do all the time. And we had a war. And now, Seattle has no basketball team.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, equating the two things. Not at all, so please don’t take it that way. What I am saying is comparable is the mindset of the two architects involved. "I want this, I am going to do this, but I need to lie to everyone to make sure they believe I am doing this the right way." They knew they were doing something underhanded that, if discovered, would not be looked upon kindly by the people involved. But, in the end, they were discovered and they showed no shame regarding their actions and the lies they spoke. Who cares if the "little people" get screwed over? We got what we wanted, so that's all that matters.

The attitudes of the ruling class of this country suck.

The Wit and Wisdom of Repo Man, as it applies to the Administration of George W. Bush.

Thanks IMDB, although I gotta say, it’s rather annoying when you go around delete a whole bunch of quotes that have been compiled over the last five years. It isn’t like you don’t have really big servers. Some of those quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mystery Science Theater 3000 were classics, and now they’re not there anymore… How sad.

Agent Rogersz: Good evening, Otto. This is Agent Rogersz. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Since time is short and you may lie, I'm going to have to torture you. But I want you to know, it isn't personal.

J. Frank Parnell: You ever feel as if your mind had started to erode?

J. Frank Parnell: Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.

Bud: Look at 'em, ordinary f**king people, I hate 'em.

Agent Rogersz: It happens sometimes. People just explode. Natural causes.

Leila: I'd torture someone in a second if it was up to me.

Leila: What if he's innocent?
Agent Rogersz: No one is innocent.

Otto: Some weird f**kin' shit, eh, Bud?

And, I implore you, please click on Wit and Wisdom for the other posts in this series. You won't be sorry.

Repo Man photo from, uh, I’m not really certain…

Very, very odd and disturbing link.

I didn’t even know Satan had a website.

A newly discovered metaphor: My daughter’s junior high basketball team and the mainstream media.

There have been so many bloggers writing so many entries about how the media in America has fallen flat on its face when it comes to fulfilling its primary job of watchdog, it’s impossible to provide a summary here. There are also a number of very good books on the subject, such as “Lapdogs: How The Press Rolled Over for George W. Bush” by Eric Boehlert and “Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy”, by Marcy Wheeler. The magnitude of material available on this subject makes it very difficult to rant and actually add anything of substance that hasn’t been said before.

But it did occur to me that I had an analogy staring me in the face. Here it is, for what it’s worth.

The role that the media in the country is supposed to play used to be comparable to a referee in basketball. (That’s not what it is now, of course. I wrote a short blog entry about that subject here.) But back before the media became subverted or corrupted or whatever the hell happened to it, one of the main purposes of the media was to watch what was going on with our elected officials, what they said and what they did, and then call them on it if they started getting too far out of bounds. Breaking the rules, in other words, which is sort of what a referee in basketball does. Tweet! Foul, you hacked the ball carrier across the wrist while he was shooting. Two shots! Everyone line up! And knock off the whining, or I’ll nail you with a technical foul.

Basketball officials are required to be impartial, even tempered, not subject to overt pressure by coaches, players or fans, and do not give favorable calls or non-calls because they are friends with someone associated with any particular team. I am able to talk about this with some assurance, as I was a basketball referee for high school for eight years. I injured my knee and had to stop, but that is besides the point for this discussion.

Well, this last season, I would watch my daughter play on the junior high team of a very small private school. They were actually pretty good for this level of play and they were well coached. They had a tall girl who could rebound and shoot from outside. They had two good, very fast ball handlers. They were well coached. You don’t really see this combination very often at that level. They went undefeated against the rest of the league, except this one other school, call it School X, that is much bigger than our school and looks to have LOTS of more money.

All the schools in this league hire referees from the organization that does all the high school and junior high games in the county, so they are assured of getting officials that should know what they are doing. All have gone through some training, all have taken a written test to show they know the rules. All the schools in the league except for School X. They use a couple of guys who actually work for this school and “know basketball”. That was the extent of their credentials. They “know basketball” and would do the games cheaply or for free, since they worked for the school.

These two schools played four times during the year, and School X won every game. School X did have some very good players, the two teams were pretty evenly matched. However, they also were rough and really just ran over our girls. The first game at School X, I have never seen such a blatant example of referee favoritism. Before the game, the refs were out chatting with the coach and the fans of School X. They would call everything against our team and nothing against theirs. The final foul call tally was 27 fouls against our team and 2 against theirs. 27 to 2. Knowing how basketball should be officiated, there is no way this should ever happen. Their girls would just run up behind our player with the ball, essentially tackle her, such that she ended up on the floor, and take the ball away, and nothing would be called. However, even phantom fouls were called against our team. On one occasion near the end of the game, our best player stole the ball cleanly, had the ball in her possession and took two dribbles before she was whacked across the wrists by the girl who lost the ball. The foul was called, of course, on our girl, which was her fifth foul. They would not call traveling on their team, they would allow the girl to run the out-of-bounds line trying to inbound the ball, which is a violation. They would just blow the whistle and give the ball to their team without any indication of what had just been called. They would just ignore all complaints as if no one had said anything. Even as it was, our team stayed with them for about ¾ of the game before the obvious and inevitable happened.

I don’t remember every being so mad before. Yes, this was just a junior high girls basketball game that the participants themselves won’t even remember by next year. Small stuff, as issues go, I agree. However, I just couldn’t seem to let it go. I slept very little that night. The unfairness of it just really rankled and just sort of settled in my stomach and simmered for quite a while.

School X had a good enough team that they didn’t need the help of the referees, and School X obviously has enough money to pay for real officials and not someone who just works for the school. Of course, when some of the parents went to the Athletic Director of School X (which is a Christian school) to complain, she, of course, saw nothing wrong with this arrangement at all. What’s the problem? These guys “know basketball”. However, everything is wrong about it. Even if the two guys who work at that school officiated the games even handedly, there is still the perception of bias. That should be avoided at all costs, if you are trying to show everyone that you are following the rules and are not giving one team an advantage. If you abuse that trust that everyone associated with the game has given you, you have just undermined the entire setup. Why even bother playing the game if you know things have been setup such that the outcome is predetermined before the game even starts?

I’m sorry about the length of that setup. I was still getting riled up by this, even after this much time has elapsed. So, I have taken this long to get to the previously mentioned analogy. This is what our media today is doing. They are playing favorites. They are biased. They like having access to famous, powerful people. Tim Russert is an obvious example. He is much more interested in maintaining his access than he is on actually reporting the news and uncovering the truth. The media’s current love affair for John McCain has been well documented. He treats the reporters on his campaign to a BBQ and hobnobs with them on his campaign bus. That becomes the overriding factor in their reporting, not uncovering the truth. They have undermined several things that are under their control, their integrity and their impartiality. If reporters, like basketball officials, lose the confidence of everyone involved in the process, you end up with a situation where they are now regarded as part of the problem. They have “taken sides” and can no longer be counted upon to fulfill their role in American society. Even when they do the right thing and do some good reporting, they have opened themselves to all sorts of criticisms from people who don’t like what they just did. The principles that they could always stand by and shield themselves from such criticisms are no longer valid. They have lost everyone’s confidence. And once that happens, it may be impossible to get it back.

That is what is going on right now in this country. The press has become like those obviously biased and compromised basketball officials for my daughter’s junior high basketball game. They should excuse themselves from further involvement, after apologizing to the public about how they have lost their way. But, of course, they won’t. They, along with the people in power with which forms their mutual back-scratching society, have too much invested in this setup. They enjoy it. Why would they want to change? It’s only the public that is getting screwed, after all, and no one really needs to listen to their complaints. They’re only “the public”, after all. Who cares about them (us)?