Compare and Contrast

Here we have Dana Pico trying very, very hard to be fair to Obama; here we have Cassandra evicerating the won.

I happen to much more agree with Cassandra, but that's not the point: the point is the responses to Dana's piece.

On a only mildly related note:
 news says that "focusing on the shooter's religion might make the backlash against Muslims worse."

Betcha there's more folks hurt or dead from honor killings than from this "anti-Muslim backlash."

W. Is Still The Man

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent "considerable time" consoling those who were wounded in Thursday's shooting spree, Fox News has learned.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

God bless 'em.

H/t doubleplusundead.

Ft. Hood Shooter Was Involved In Homeland Security Policy Institute Task Force

Original link here at Gawker, I found out via Gateway Pundit. (at their shiny new digs; sad that one of the first big new posts there is on a pregnant soldier, just back from Iraq, being murdered)

Listed as a "Participant"-- which apparently is everyone who RSVP'ed before printing-- this may not be as creepy as it sounds; it's a pretty normal military thing to try to make sure that... well, for lack of a better way to put it, it's pretty normal to make sure that if you've got someone who would make a good token rep for an event, you send them.

K, gonna digress:
 If you send five people out of, say, fifty in your department, and you've three women, it's almost 100% assured that the women will go more than the rest of the guys.  If race is involved in the thing you're providing bodies for and you've got only one black guy, he'll almost always end up being sent.  Why?  Because if you don't, sometimes you'll end up sending five 20-something, brownish-haired guys, and you'll get chewed out for not showing enough "diversity."  Really funny if those guys consist of an immigrant from Poland, a guy whose ancestors were mostly from the PI, a guy who doesn't know what countries his ancestors were from, a guy who's dad is from India and a German/American Indian guy..."diverse" is so picky about what type of look-based diversity counts, even if the look-diversity usually results in three middle-class lapsed protestants from Cali going to 90% of the events.  All examples from folks I actually knew who didn't look "ethnic" enough to be token.

Back on topic:
 It's not beyond reason that, if Hasan made big noises about how Islamic he was, he'd be first in someone's mind as a good token name to send in for an event like this-- there's a good chance that if he asked a question, it'd be a PC one, and he's got a good chance of asking a really good question to boot, and it gets the "Uniformed Services University School of Medicine" listed with a name that clearly says "this isn't about attacking Arabs."  Sorry if this pisses folks off, but it is kind of important to consider presentation like this.

  All assuming that Hasan didn't go on his own initiative, although the listing of the school under his name makes that unlikely.

There's Nothing I Can Add

at this time, about Ft. Hood.

Jimmy points out the impropriety of Obama's initial reaction, while Neo tries to put her finger on what was so creepy.

The expected groups are claiming Islam had nothing to do with it, while simultaneously claiming that the bastard was harassed for being a Muslim.  (Er... choosing to give a lecture on your religion, in a professional setting, and advocating murder of unbelievers will make folks have an...unpleasant reaction to you.  That isn't harassment, that's you being a moron.)

Hopefully, heads will roll against whatever PC morons decided that ignoring the mounting warning signs that this guy was Trouble--not that it will manage to get the folks above them, that cause that kind of climate.
  (Back on the ship, we had a shop supervisor who had been accused of racism so many times he kept a pile of responses, xeroxed, in his desk.  Had nothing to do with him, had to do with his shop being the dumping ground for deck guys who thought they could get out of work by breaking things.  He had a crud-ton of trouble every time we had any change in our chain of command, because each and every new guy would try to make a name for himself...)

It's infuriating that over a dozen people are dead because the common sense notion "when we are fighting nutcases who take the Koran's orders to kill non-believers seriously, we should make sure there aren't nutcases who show sympathy to killing non-believers in our fighting force" did not reflect reality.

UPDATE:
Just had a random thought; all the sympathy folks are pointing out Ft. Hood has had a lot of suicides this year.
Wonder if any of them went through the bastard's office.

Something Good

Dead Baby Wasn't.

Short form:
Tiny baby (Just over a pound!) is born in critical condition; after an hour trying to revive him after they lose vital signs, the hospital gives up.

Baby is put in a casket and sent home.

The baby's father opens the casket to say goodbye to his son...and sees that the baby is breathing.  Crying, he rushes his son back to the hospital and gets him into an oxygen tent.

For an idea on the size of the baby, when I went in for my ultrasound they calculated that Kiddo was 22.4 weeks along, and weighed 1lb 4 oz (566g) with all growth-perimeters inside of normal.

Found the story trying to find reference to something I heard a few years back, that a baby's heart will synchronize with his mothers and his biological father's so I could share it with the folks here.  (speaking of cool stories, although you probably already heard about the "babies cry with an accent" thing)

"Stridency-Prone"?

Oh, you mean the way that we tell you when you're full of it, if you ask?

The military as a far-right group...um... yeah... Right.  Only in so far as it's about 90% merit-based-- that would be "equality of opportunity, not of result," and sadly does seem to have become a conservative thing-- and that folks who are willing to risk getting killed for the US tend to at least appreciate the USA.

I'm eagerly awaiting announcements of a Federally funded round-table on "News Media as Far-Left Fearmongers" or some such.  Not holding my breath, though.....

Phoenix Honor Killing Update

The girl is dead.  She was twenty.  And lovely.

The other lady who was hit is apparently the girl's boyfriend's mother, and is expected to be just fine.

The unspeakable murderer apparently had lots and lots of help in trying to evade capture after running down his daughter-- hope they all get hit with a nice, big consperacy to commit murder charge, as well as aiding and abetting and conspiracy to prevent capture, and I think a good lawyer could come up with more....

BZ to the Brits for catching the dog and sending him back.

"Defend the Safety and Confidentiality of Our Clients and Staff"

Rochelle Tafolla, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson issued the following statement: "We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance it is absolutely necessary.

Wondering what happened?

Did someone break in to a records location?  Was a file stolen?  Did someone show up drunk, waving a gun?

Well.... No....

Their former manager was told that she needed to pull focus off of family planning, and go for drumming up more abortion business; she then saw a video of an ultrasound of an abortion in progress.

The lady resigned and is now praying with other pro-life demonstrators across from the PP office, and has been talking with the Coalition For Life.

So PP filed a restraining order against the lady and CFL:

The temporary restraining order contends that Planned Parenthood would be irreparably harmed by the disclosure of certain information, but does not bar Johnson or Coalition For Life volunteers from the premises.

As of Sunday evening, neither Johnson nor Carney had seen the complaint filed against them that prompted the restraining order.

I'd say that, yeah, your director of the last two years who has been big in your organization for the last eight resigning and announcing that you're trying to get folks to have abortions for the cash, then joining up with the pro-life group down the block, is  pretty harmful.

 Just not in a "safety" type way.

Oh, This Couldn't Be Abused

Organizing For America’s nationally-orchestrated, last-ditch, get-out-the-vote campaign in NY-23 is a privacy-invading and potentially dangerous effort.

NY-23 residents should be aware that because of a pervasive lack of controls in OFA’s get-out-the-vote operations and a poorly designed campaign:

The person calling them could be a potential spammer, thief, or even a violent criminal.
That person will be asking for personal information that no one should be willing to give out, including but perhaps not limited to personal e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers, and the time of day voters plan to vote.
OFA may be unable to track down persons who call on its behalf if unauthorized, illegal, or criminal acts occur as a result of information learned during this campaign.

h/t Confederate Yankee

Coyote Attack Update

Apparently, getting more common that is comfortable.

I haven't searched around for any extra info, and I'm headed out the door to buy cheap candy ASAP, so this'll be kinda bare-bones.

Woman and her lab, by three coyotes, in Denver.

Lone coyote attacks man in his back yard, trying to trap skunks.  Coyote is mentioned to not look well-fed and healthy.

At least two attacks in Griffith Park, in LA-- the guy in the story woke up to a coyote chewing on his foot.

Here's a quick google news of the last 6 years, with a very quick attempt to remove the poor musician and the college team called the "Coyotes."

(Prior post here)

Woman Dies After Coyote Attack

Wow, I've never even heard of non-rabid coyotes going for a decent sized kid, let alone a full grown woman.

And two of them attacking a woman, to the point of death?  I grew up around a large number of coyotes, because they are such a low threat to newborn calves that cows will allow them to clean up the afterbirth not twenty feet from the calf.  For comparison, they will not do this with any dogs, or even hawks and eagles.

I want a DNA test-- not that they'd ever actually do it, or release accurate information if they did-- 'cus I suspect they weren't pure coyote, if they were acting like that.  (The article mentions that such attacks are not uncommon in the park.  WTF?!?!?)

Red wolves are known to be wolf/coyote crosses; perhaps... *googles*

Oy. These coyotes are definedas wolf/coyote crosses.

The eastern coyote is descended from western coyotes which expanded their range northeastward as humans wiped out the native wolf populations. On the way, they interbred with wolves in northern Ontario and Québec. This means the animals in eastern Canada are actually a coyote-wolf mix, combining the wolf's hunting prowess with the coyote's adaptability to human activities. The eastern coyote is somewhat larger than its western ancestors because of its wolf blood.

The eastern coyote migrated to Nova Scotia in the late 1970s and had arrived in Cape Breton Highlands National Park by 1981. It may be competition for red foxes, bobcats and lynx which depend on snowshoe hares and rodents for food, like the coyote. Although it is a fairly large carnivore and sometimes hunts in packs, it has not filled the shoes of the wolf as the natural predator of moose, except in the spring when they sometimes take calves.

So it's not a coyote attack, it's an f*ing WOLF ATTACK.

*headdesk*

h/t five feet of fury

Probably Won't Comfort The Protestants-

But no small number of "pagan" customs are Catholic, thankyouverymuch.

Aliens in This World has a very nice article/post on one example where this happened.

(She has two other posts, related to Easter, and I found this old musing from Shea on converting symbols.)

Catholic Church Condems Halloween

-- in a pig's eye.

Yes, the Times of London put out an article titled "Hallowe’en is the devil’s work, Catholic church warns parents."

It's standard issue "did not do their homework" article-- they found quotes from two Catholics, a priest and a Bishop, complaining about how Halloween is celebrated in Spain.  (Anyone here got a clue how they celebrate All Hallow's Eve in Spain?  There's some mention of dancing around pumpkins, but that's about it....)

They then quote Fr. Amorath-- using the common and untrue claim that he's the "chief exorcist" at the Vatican (There is no "chief exorcist" position at the Vatican. Fr. Amorth is a priest of the Diocese of Rome who happens to be one of a number of exorcists there. He is the most well-known and prominent of them, but this does not give him the position of "chief exorcist of the Vatican.")-- saying something sensible about it not being a major risk, and then quote some generic Christian group in GB that objects to trick or treating on safety grounds. (I think this is them.)

Oh, their source is L’Osservatore Romano-- which is as much the "official newspaper" of Rome (let alone the Vatican, or the Pope, or the Catholic Church) as Fr. Amorath is the chief exorcist of those same groups.

But, hey, gee, that paper doesn't archive their stuff online.  So you can pull a chunk of quote out and presto!, instant validation!

I gotta say, I can see where this:

“Hallowe’en has an undercurrent of occultism and is absolutely anti-Christian.” Parents should “be aware of this and try to direct the meaning of the feast towards wholesomeness and beauty rather than terror, fear and death”, he said.

-could be entirely justified, especially given that, well, have you googled "Samhain" recently? Or even just listened to the hissy-fits from various Wiccan/Neopagan/whatever groups that, frankly, sound a whole lot like the standard "Halloween is horrible" sound-bites from Evangelical groups, or "commercialized Halloween has been stolen!" quotes that sound almost exactly like folks complaining about a borrowed feast-day?  (See also: St. Patrick's day, which I've actually had folks tell me has nothing to do with the Catholics. ^.^)

Given the...quality... of the research these papers managed on a modern, organized religion that actually has binding teachings that can be easily researched, I sure would take their history lesson at the end with a bit of salt.

Nicely Said!

To make things even easier, this faculty would be not only always on call and not only ready to hand, it would operate to lure men toward it even if they were unaware of it. It would be instinctive as well as instructive, and it would appear in all nations and all periods of history. Well, while there may be other explanations, we can at the very least say that if there were such a faculty or god-seeking instinct in man, then religion of some sort would be universal in all human cultures, including the prehistoric ones.

On the other hand, if religion is an abortive science, it would appear only in unscientific cultures; if religion is a brain disease, it would appear in families and tribes that carry the disease gene; if religion is a product of priest craft or civic control, it would appear only in civil polities and not in primitive tribes, and so on. We can dismiss at least some other possible models for the origin of religion based on their lack of universalism.

Mr. Wright, of course. Feel free to go read the rest!

I'm pleased to say I had a tiny little role in this-- the person he's replying to dislikes Christianity, apparently, and edited part of a prior 'comment on a link' Mr. Wright posted then scolded him for trying to argue folks should live by Mr. Wright's "subjective beliefs."

Being the smart-arse that I am, I pointed out that the well-named fellow was not only trying to tell someone else how to live, based on his own "subjective beliefs," but felt free to edit someone else's statement to conform to his "subjective beliefs." He kinda nose-dived from there. (Picture saying "boo" to a Chihuhua, and five minutes later it's still barking. Kinda like that.)

Motivator

http://thewarriorsong.com/Video.html

Five types of awesome.



h/t LMA and VC.

Something To Think On

  This is a piece quoted in an article about Late Night with Dave Letterman, but it could be put in to thousands of different areas with total accuracy:

Did Dave hit on me? No. Did he pay me enough extra attention that it was noted by another writer? Yes. Was I aware of rumors that Dave was having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes. Was I aware that other high-level male employees were having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes. Did these female staffers have access to information and wield power disproportionate to their job titles? Yes. Did that create a hostile work environment? Yes. Did I believe these female staffers were benefiting professionally from their personal relationships? Yes. Did that make me feel demeaned? Completely. Did I say anything at the time? Sadly, no.

This is why I'm still not so very big on women in the military.  Yes, a female vet is saying she has reservations about the way women are currently integrated.

In that, I am holding the military to a higher standard than I do civilian jobs; the first place I worked, I was about the only female that wasn't sleeping with the owner that worked there for more than a month, and males tended to quit with surprising regularity.  Honestly, I didn't even notice it until very shortly before I quit. Yes, I'm kinda slow on the whole interpersonal reaction thing.  It did make a lot of the very odd conversations suddenly make sense, though.  (I just figured he was strange.)

Off the top of my head, I can think of more examples of women who used their sex and sexuality to get ahead in the (military) workplace than I can think of women who didn't.  That is both sad and really frustrating-- I understand why folks would sometimes have to be careful to make sure I actually could do all the stuff my record said I could and had, because most of the women around me couldn't.  (The stories I could tell....)

I don't like to make waves, so I never reported anything, when the cluebat finally hit me and I noticed "women sleeping with supervisor gets perks"-- on the basis that it didn't create a life-and-limb hazard.  I just worked to prove myself and do my job to the best of my ability, since that's about all I can control and it's my bloody job.  I can't really say I know how guys feel about the situation, I just know it must suck to have to double-check to see if a woman is competent because, by the odds, she's probably not...picking up the slack is something all the competent folks had to do.
(On the upside, those of us who didn't play games tended to bond really dang fast once we were clear.)

I do know that making things against the rules doesn't really do much to stop it, unless action is taken when the rules are broken.  Our (married) protestant chaplain was sleeping in the XO's room most every night, and nothing came of it under two different captains; the guys in supply spoke almost exclusively in Tagalog unless they were giving you instructions (military requires folks speak English when on duty) and I know at least six different folks put complaints in the CO's box, plus the more normal routes to report violations, and nothing ever came of it.

I'm sure anyone who's been in can think of a bunch of examples of times where the rules were ignored-- for reasons both good and bad, with results both good and bad.
 (I know our supply worked some wonders because so and so was related/drinking buddies with/whatever to that guy on another ship, which had a spare of something that we needed yesterday... True, the problem usually existed because of folks doing favors or just being flat incompetent, but not much you can do when they're brass.)

  There isn't any simple, magical fix for this in the military, much less in civie life.

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.

On the upside, I can think of several businesses where the top hand was sleeping with the boss!  On the down side, they were family-run ranches, and the top hand was the guy's wife.... ;^p

I don't agree with the woman's "dream," incidentally-- men and women do tend to be different, and I don't see destruction of the self-censoring impulse to be something to strive for, let alone to impose.  It's wonderful when a group of people know they can pull out the restraints, but it's more of a social/friendship thing than a "good work environment" thing in my book.  I can see that some work situations must blur the line between social and work environments if they're going to be successful.  (Please, take a moment to savor the irony that part of the lady's barrier to her dream of a totally integrated writer's room is the fact that folks know they can be fired for saying, doing or having something that offends a woman, or that someone decides "might be offensive."  To prevent a hostile work environment and sexual harassment, y'see....)

Fun With StatCounter

It's always amusing to see someone come to your blog via your profile link, then enter a string of blogger searches that lets you have a pretty dang good idea where they came from.

It's even more fun when they clearly didn't find any of the ammunition they were looking for in their straw-man notion of what you believe.

Lets you know that your arguments are strong enough that someone has to go muck-raking-- and then they couldn't find suitable muck!

Soldier's Angels/Valor IT

I, naturally, support Team Navy.

But I'd much rather some cash go to these guys under any flag.

I Do Thank You Notes

to an extent unusual for my generation.  (Come to think of it, that would be "at all....")

I'm a bit slow, but I do get them out, in my best hen-scratch, and they are not form-letters.

That said, I am in utter awe at this:
Japanese bank thieves wrote thank-you note to bank.

CLD, you totally put the cherry on a good day.

Strangled In A Protective Wrapping-

in geek terms.

Very much worth a read.

*headdesk*

As is understood by cops on the street (but not, apparently, by some of their bosses), maintaining a level of secrecy is crucial in mounting an operation such as this one, and officers often go to extraordinary lengths to conceal their preparations from anyone who might tip off the intended targets. For a recent gang sweep near downtown Los Angeles, for example, the command post was set up in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, well away from the neighborhoods where the warrants were served. So it came as something of a surprise to officers assigned to the operation Thursday morning to find that the command post had been set up in a parking lot at the corner of two of the busiest thoroughfares in South Los Angeles, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Worse, this intersection marks the northeast boundary of the area claimed by the very gang the operation was targeting. Assembled there for all the world to see was an array of command post vehicles from the LAPD and the FBI, added to which throughout the night were hundreds of marked and unmarked police cars as well as SWAT trucks and armored cars. Any fool could have driven by and known at a glance that something big was about to go down in the neighborhood.

Is it humanly possible to be this STUPID?!

Read the whole thing-- it gets worse.

Beware Grandmothers and Purses-

especially if you're a 25 year old scumbag who likes to barge into hotel rooms, demand cash and jewelry then tell everyone to lay on the ground when you've illegally moved out of state while on probation.  (He'd previously served 7 years for offenses included burglary, auto theft and stealing a gun.  At age 25.  And he'd been on parole and on the run long enough for a warrant to be issued.  Yeash.)

The 70 year old lady had a CC license, the .357 belonged to her late husband, and police aren't expecting to file charges.

Lady's upset she had to shoot someone-- pray for her, please?

Good News of Crossing the Tiber

An Anglican Bishop in England is talking about converting, in the wake of B16's move that lets Anglican congregations come into communion with Rome.

There have been examples of high-ranking Anglicans converting, but generally only after they've retired or otherwise left active public service.  This is... unusual.

There's rumors that the Patriarch of Moscow is prodding his guys to get moving, so the Anglicans don't get ahead of them.  Emphasis on rumors, but that it's even being rumored is a Big Deal.

My husband-- who doesn't ID as Catholic-- says he's just waiting for the Queen to convert.

Hm... I Don't Much Care For This...

The CDC stopped actually counting verified H1N1 cased in July, before some states had even reported their numbers.

This is important because, when CBS asked the states for numbers (since the CDC was refusing to tell them anything) it turned out a non-insignificant number of folks who were told they "probably" had H1N1 not only tested negative for swine flu, they tested negative for any flu.  For example, Alaska had 772 tests done on those who were diagnosed as "probably" having swine flu.  93% didn't have any flu at all, and 1% (that would be about 7) had swine flu.

Think about that for a moment.  Wonder if they're testing all the 1000 deaths, or if they just assume?  How about the 20,000 hospitalizations?  Somehow, I'm pretty sure they didn't test everyone that's hospitalized, since the CDC stopped accepting valid numbers three months ago.  Yay, CBS, for investigating!

This is very important, because if you think you had the swine flu and didn't, you will assume you've got immunity; if you assume you didn't have the swine flu, get vaccinated and you actually had had it, you risk major side effects like Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Note: doing something to be on the safe side, and getting an auto-immune disease from it, would suck.  Greatly.)

Oh, and on top of it all?  Gates of Vienna is keeping track of this-- four people, so far, are dead from the vaccine in Sweden.  At least 190 are sick.

I don't much like that the president has authority over where hospitals can put emergency clinics, but I really don't like when they slide something in that declares a national disaster on Friday night, which is generally when you do stuff you don't want all over the news.

Rifqa Recap

The people she ran to, having only met them via facebook:
Global Revolution Church, specifically Rev. Blake Lorenz (formerly of Kirkman Road United Methodist Church).
(Oooh, scary, they're involved with IHOP and try to follow the Bible!)

The people she ran from:
Parents that liquidated their business after she ran away, who go to a mosque with terror links-- not the least of which is a head pastor who is big in the Muslim Brotherhood and deals with Hamas.
 (But it's ok!  He did an interview where he told a newspaper that conversion will naturally happen in the US, and he denies all accusations!  Oh, and the mosque is a member of "BREAD" so it must be totally mainstream, plus the mother's lawyer says there's nothing to the girl's claims.)

That's pretty much a recap of my morning....
Jordan, as usual, has something to say on the matter; unusually, he's about 99% pissed.

Starting to feel sort of like I did when I was on the Black Pearl and the nation watched Terri Schaivo being slowly murdered by dehydration in front of us.

Oh-- I forgot-- the girl carries a Bible around, and prays funny.
  So clearly she's lying.
(I wish I was joking about that line of "reasoning.")

A Gem

From Lileks:

But as I said, keeps you young – or at least in tune with a certain segment of the popular culture. I read with interest this VDH essay about dropping out on popular culture, and while I get it, I can’t do it. Entirely. Pop music: eh. Don’t care. Network TV news: please. No, Movies, I’m split – my love of old movies is matched only by my juvenile love of space operas, which I suppose means I can’t bear to live in the present, but in so many modern movies you can barely hear the bad dialogue for the sound of axes bent to the grindstone. The art and artifice of previous generations is often more rewarding, and in their own mannered fashion they say the same things about life as modern films, but in less time, with fewer pretensions. Human nature in those old movies is something the medium accepts as a given, instead of pretending it can be remade to suit the self-flattering preconceptions of an ahistorical generation. (Or three.)

Stem Cell Research-

we could be up there with Germany, which is offering treatments, if we'd outlawed ESCR ages ago and didn't let ESCR supporters sabotage application of what we know.

(Imagine if bone-marrow transplants required the same approval, each operation, as a whole new drug.)

Nope, gotta sacrifice babies at the altar of progress! Never mind that one works very well and has no moral objections to it, while the other involves cannibalizing small humans-- Science!

Speaking of things that matter less than humans you can't see, and things that matter less than your supposed goal, the Susan G Komen group felt the heat enough to object to the banning of Israli doctors. No word on if the UN looked into a right of return in the matter....

What's the Size of a Cellphone-

has a control pad that looks like a an iPod, some wires hanging off it and can see an unborn child, among other things?

A new portable ultrasound machine.

Is this not too cool? (Non-pregnancy related uses are just mind-blowing, too-- imagine a doctor with a whole medical lab in the classic black bag!)

Bravo, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS

I do not know or care why you chose to behave honorably, but BZ and 'job well done' for doing the right thing:

"Today there was an announcement by the administration," Baier said. "They were putting out the pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, as we showed you earlier for the White House pool - that Feinberg would be doing a round-robin interviews with the five-network pool that covers the White House - basically shares the costs and the daily coverage duties of covering the president. Fox News has been a member since 1997." The press pool is comprised of the five major TV news organizations - CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox News. However, according to Baier, the other members declined to participate unless Fox News was included. "When they put out that message, they specified that all members of the pool were welcome except Fox News," Baier said. "Well the other members of the TV pool said, ‘Well we're not going to do the interview unless Fox News is included."

And up your nose with a rubber hose to whoever thought they could get away with kicking Fox out of a pool they help pay for.

Real Tolerance

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how horrible some folks are willing to be when they say they're totally sure they're right. I have no way of knowing the actual state of their belief; for that matter, Mother Teresa fought against doubt; there's no superiority in having or not having doubts.

A while back a very good, nice lady got viciously attacked on LJ because she mentioned that she had been friends with a group of friends for ages and had never "noticed" their various races. If she'd been asked to describe them, she'd have been able to, but it didn't matter to her. She got accused of racism, of "forcing" those friends to act a set way to be her friend. Anyone who defended her was also attacked, with anything they thought would stick. At various times I was accused of racism (because my Geek Group in the Navy also didn't care what you looked like, we cared about your thoughts) and sexism, including sexism against myself and some sort of repression of my "true" self.... a stinking mess, really.

Because the lady's friends, my friends and I myself didn't behave the way their beliefs said we should, there was clearly repression, oppression, suppression-- some kind of external control forcing us to behave "wrong."

It couldn't be that their theories were flawed, and that I enjoy wearing T-shirts, blue jeans and playing computer games, arguing about who would win, Batman or Superman (Bats!) and who the best X-Mutant is (Nightcrawler!), or watching Ironman and Slayers! instead of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I'm pretty sure that all these folks could go on at great length about the horrors of their notion of the 50s-- think the 'classic suburb rambler, wife cooks in a pretty dress in the kitchen while wearing pearls, a boy and girl, dad comes home at six in a suit' archetype-- and never realize that their idea of what folks 'really' want is just as horribly restraining as their nightmare of the 50s. (Makes you want to go over what you believe, doesn't it?)

At one point, I remember sharing a rather large complement that "my guys" offered me-- some topic was being discussed, and someone mentioned that they couldn't talk about this around girls. The conversation was light enough that I felt it appropriate to tease him, saying something like "Hey! What am I, chopped liver?" I was deeply touched by the statement: "Aw, you don't count." Anyone who grew up around close-in-age siblings knows that sisters don't count as girls, generally. I could not manage to get across this idea-- I don't know if the flaw lies in me, or if they simply couldn't understand the concept.

Anyways.

This came to mind again, for once because someone got it right. Someone managed to show actual, honest tolerance for something they disagreed with; I'm sorry that I only point this out because the man who was actually able to honestly show tolerance got smacked down by someone he'd respected for ages who wasn't able to do so.

Here's the Anchoress' version of the real tolerance in action:

For those who are unfamiliar with the story of Jillette and Bible, you can come up to speed here; Jillette movingly describing his encounter with an Evangelical Christian fan who loved him enough to give him a Bible. Although he is a professed atheist, Jillette understood and appreciated what the fan had done.

And here is the post and video she'd seen the night before, and that had stayed in her mind through the night:

Penn Jillette: Getting yelled at by my idol for appearing on Glenn Beck POSTED AT 7:11 PM ON OCTOBER 21, 2009 BY ALLAHPUNDIT SHARE ON FACEBOOK | PRINTER-FRIENDLY Via Moxie, the emotion here is raw enough to make this a surprisingly tough watch — but stick with it, as it’s genuinely moving. I’m surprised, frankly, that GB hasn’t had him on the show yet to talk about it. Or maybe he has and I’m out of the loop?

Both videos (Bible here, open mind here) have language warning, but I think are worth the listen.

I've known as far back as I can remember that probably the most dangerous folks to have around are those who want to do things for your own good, but not out of love. This is why I'm a republican--small R-- and generally vote for the Republican party.

Like the old saying goes, the road to Hell is paved in good intentions; working to balance folks' freedom vs other folks' freedom seems a lot safer than balancing freedom against 'good.'

Probably, this will go right past the folks who actually would benefit from evaluating their ideas and ideals, and will only be heard by the folks who already have doubt.

But there's always a chance.

Crisis Pregnancy Help

around Philadelphia, called "Mothers' Home."

Providing a safe place and help to women in trouble-- CMR's Mattew wants to bring your attention to their annual open house.

The important bit:

When I arrived at Mothers' Home I only had two bags of clothes. Not that I am getting ready to leave, I have enough for the baby and me to fill twenty boxes. Mothers' Home has been a place to be while getting help to find something more stable, have given my baby a chance to see life, and has helped me to embrace motherhood while still working towards my goals.

1-610-583-HOME

Attempted Honor Killing, Phoenix

all I can say is: hang 'em high.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki is being sought by police; used a grey or silver 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee with Arizona license plate ADS-9192 to run down two women. Anyone with information is asked to call Silent Witness or the Peoria Police Tip Line at 623-773-7045.

Daughter, Noor Faleh Almaleki, is 20; her roommate, Amal Edan Khalaf, is 43; both are in the hospital, daughter's injuries are life-threatening, the other lady's aren't.

K, This Is Amusing

Nice use of clips with claims and then evidence against them-- it's like a fisking, but worse.... The blank points are presumably the audio that's involved in lawsuits.

Grim Post

-in both meanings; from Grim's Hall:

The argument is difficult to counter, more difficult than you might imagine. The reason it's hard is that all of the facts are in their favor, and the only thing against them are unprovable: questions of intention, of character, of the meaning behind observed acts. The facts are these: 1) America is the most powerful nation in the world, and has set the terms of international debates for more than a decade. 2) This power results from three basic things: military strength, the superiority of the market instead of central planning to make basic decisions, and the strength of our economy (this last to include the dollar's position as a reserve currency). 3) Therefore, to undermine that strength, you'd need to undercut all three things.

Go read, please.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure

You may or may not know, my mom is a breast cancer survivor.

So folks are often surprised that I avoid all those "buy pink things for the cure" promotions, unless I can read the fine print-- I am greatly opposed to the Susan G. Komen group. Why? They do good work on trying to cure breast cancer, after all.

Well, they fund embryonic stem cell research - to borrow mom's phrasing, there's no disease she could possibly have that would make it alright to chop up babies. In so many words. (Not a stupid woman, my mother. The phrasing is at least as accurate as 'utilize portions of early division embryos' and touches on the important part of the situation.)

Interestingly, the only arguments I've personally had on this topic were by folks defending ESCR directly, rather than folks who thought curing breast cancer was worth the sacrifice of small humans. The worthless sacrifice, I'll point out, because ESCR hasn't cured jack. ASCR-- adult stem cell research-- has great results so far, and a lot of promise, without moral problems not found in blood donation. But no go there. (A good article here, including the question of supporting a good cause that directly supports a bad one.)

Maybe it's a mindset thing-- ESCR hasn't cured jack, but they'll sacrifice support for actually curing cancer to donate for the use of it for, I suppose, political reasons: they also sacrificed the attendance of Israeli doctors to have a meeting in Egypt.

But hey, what do they know about treating breast cancer?

Here's Something We Can Cut-

B-Daddy reminded me of something I meant to blog about.

Brain isn't working so well ATM, so I'll just post a link and a clip.

Taxes fund environmental suits

Environmental law firms reap billions in fees to fund lawsuits

By MITCH LIES

Capital Press

The federal government has paid out billions of dollars to environmental groups for attorney fees and costs, according to data assembled by a Cheyenne, Wyo., lawyer.

Karen Budd-Falen of Budd-Falen Law Offices said the government between 2003 and 2007 paid more than $4.7 billion in taxpayer money to environmental law firms -- and that's just in the lawsuits she tracked.

The actual figure, she said, is far greater.

"I think we only found that the iceberg exists," she said. "I don't think we have any idea how much money is being spent. But I think it's huge."

In some cases, Budd-Falen said, intervening ranchers and farmers are paying for the defense of their farm and ranch practices and -- through their taxes -- paying for the opposing lawyers' attorney fees.

"That money is not going into programs to protect people, wildlife, plants and animals," Budd-Falen said, "but to fund more lawsuits."

Budd-Falen, whose firm regularly represents farms and ranches, for years was aware that nonprofit, tax-exempt environmental law firms were generating sizable revenue from attorney fees paid by the federal government. In June, she submitted a formal request asking the Department of Justice for information on just how much was being spent.

"They said they don't track that information," she said.

After the response, Budd-Falen sat down with a paralegal and started what she said was a time-consuming process of uncovering and compiling the data.

Is It A Trope If It Really Happens?

The Smurfette Principle-- basically, in a show, there tends to be a group of guys and either one or two girls.

For example--from cartoons folks might know--Rescue Rangers has The Leader (Chip), Funny Guy (Dale), Tough Guy (Monty), Special Guy (Zipper-- he flies) and The Chick (Gadget). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (er, the cartoon from the '80s) has The Leader (Leo), Funny Guy (Mikey), Tough Guy (Raph), Special Guy (Doni-- genius) and The Chick (April).

Now, whoever wrote up the trope thinks this is partly due to sexism. They admit that there's the inverse type, where there's only one guy and a bunch of girls, but still think it's sexism.

Got me thinking... all the groups I can think of, that formed socially-- that aren't made of couples, actually-- tend to fit this. On the ship, the Geek Group was a bunch of guys, and two girls. I'd think this was a side effect of there being a lot more guys than girls, except that the "extra" girls tended to form into their own groups...of a bunch of girls and one or two guys.

I can't think of a purely socially chosen group I've observed where the groups did end up in non-couple equal proportions.

Late night musings.....

A Rational Response to "Sell The Vatican"

-and no, I haven't watched the video, because I don't generally to around looking to be offended. (No matter what Elf sometimes thinks....)

Silverman is trying to claim that if the pope doesn't sell the Vatican to feed the poor, the pope and the Church are somehow being hypocritical - that their actions don't reflect their beliefs. Well, let's take a look at the facts:

• The Catholic Church already feeds more people than any private institution in the world. In the world. There's not even a close second. As a Church, of course we could do more. But we are doing something - and its a lot of something. Silverman might give credit where credit is due.
• Silverman makes the slur that the Vatican was involved in the holocaust. Seriously, Sarah? The historical evidence firmly exonerates the activity of the Church during the holocaust. Pope Pius XII personally saw to the protection of thousands of Jews, at great personal risk to himself and the Church. As a person of Jewish ancestry, how dare she attack the institution credited by Jews the world over with protecting Jews when so many world governments were deaf to their cries. This is beneath even her.
• Silverman likes quoting Christian sayings back to the pope - does she know about motes and beams? I'm curious how much of Sarah's profits, including her movie profits, have you used to feed the poor? If she is tired of seeing starving people on TV, what has she done about it, besides uploading a self-promoting video to YouTube? Shouldn't those who work to feed the poor be outraged at the antics of Silverman, when she uses the plight of starving people to further her own popularity and distract from their needs?
• At the end of the day, it's just a really stupid idea even in itself. The assets of the Vatican (St. Peter's Basilica, etc.) don't have a fair market value. Who is going to buy the Vatican? The best use of the Vatican is to continue to provide a place of worship to the millions of people who are members of the Church, who are in turn the economic engine behind the Vatican's ability to feed the poor. Pure and simple.

Some of you may be thinking: "Thom, chill out, everyone knows this is a joke."

Mr. Peters goes on from there-- go, read, it's worth it.

X-Men Musings

Been at TV tropes a good bit of late, and Elf and I ended up talking about an odd point of philosophy-- why are the X-Men stories so hard for us to buy, these days? Here's the quote that triggered the conversation:

Robert Kelly's arguments in X-Men (such as comparing mutant registration to gun control) actually made sense to some viewers. Then they turned an otherwise logical argument into an Anvilicious allegory to McCarthyism when they had the senator hold up a "list of names of identified mutants", shifting the argument from "Some mutants are dangerous" to "All mutants are dangerous".

A popular counter-argument to the message of X-Men, "Mutants shouldn't be discriminated against because they're just like Gay/Black people," runs to the effect of "Gay/Black people can't throw fireballs either!" Seriously, if you knew that there was a group of people who can blow up buildings by looking at them, wouldn't you want them controlled?
That was actually brought up in the comics on Emma Frost's origin. When she's in college, she learns about mutants for the first time and hears a classmate insist that mutants should be shipped out/controlled because otherwise they'd "vaporize some kid at the playground for lunch money". Emma's response was that if a kid did that then the problem was that he was a sociopath and not a mutant.

Just yesterday, he read that the writers for Marvel's Civil War storyline (Superhero Registration, with the heroes divided on what side they supported.) still believe that the pro-registration was more sympathetic, had better arguments and was overall "better" than the one they had to go with to keep the Marvel Universe going. Basically, look at the most over-the-top anti-gun (and anti-self-defense) arguments you can find, and apply them to super heroes. Uh... WTF? Mandatory registration because you can do super hero stuff? They wrote the pro-registration side horribly, even, every a&&-hole they could wedge in? Everyone I know that was a fan before that got turned off by the arc-- true, I was on the ship at the time, but it was universal. (Me, I quit Marvel for the Nightcrawler-is-Satan's-son arc....) Anyways, Elf pointed out tonight that of course the Marvel writers assume there will be more sympathy for repackaged anti-gun messages-- most of them are libs. Big-time libs, even-- that's why the original poster in the quoted conversation, above, thought Senator Kelly had such a good point-- they agree with the philosophy that anti-gun arguments spring from. I then realized that this is maybe why the anti-mutant hysteria in the X-Men comics is so annoying to me, in the modern form-- it just doesn't make sense when I read it, why folks would act as they do just because someone is a mutant. If you see Colossus punch through a wall while taking massive bullet-hits without blinking, sure, makes sense to be nervous-- see Wolverine dice up a car with his claws, oh hells yes I'd be nervous. See a cute little Shadow Kat peek out of a wall she's phased through? Meet Nightcrawler at the coffee after Mass? That would be as silly as...being scared because someone has a revolver in a tactical holster on their hip, or a filled rifle rack in their car. The biggest fear would be about being rude while trying to satisfy curiosity about their gun/holster/mutation. But the anti-gun libs I know are scared in those gun situations-- so they write folks that respond to mutants the same way they do to guns. The mutants-as-homosexuals thing really doesn't work, because the objections to homosexuality are based on behavior-- most easily expressed via natural law arguments. Having a mutated X-gene is no more immoral than having a mutated trisomy 21 (extra chromosome 21, AKA Down's) or being an albino-- I suspect it's only used because it makes the authors more comfortable with writing folks hating the heroes. (Who the heck wants a generic antagonist whose arguments you would fully agree with, if they weren't against the heroes? Only way to make that work is to have heroes on both sides-- thus, Civil War....)

Meh, just random musing, but it does help to understand why comics I grew up loving (my mom's brothers had tons of old X-Men comics-- probably from the 50s or so and onward) are so alien to me, now.

The assumptions of the authors have radically changed.

16.5% of Deaths Via "Pathway"-

Says WJS.

The UK’s Liverpool Care Pathway has apparently killed its first (reported) victim. The Pathway treats dying patients as members of a category instead of as individuals. Rather than give patients the individualized treatment their respective symptoms and conditions warrant, the Pathway sedates patients thought to be near death, and withholds food and fluids until death. About 16.5% of deaths in the UK are now, apparently, via the Pathway, a far higher percentage than hospice professionals tell me require sedation to control symptoms.

Add in this-- linked by Little Miss Attila-- bit of info: Deborah Murphy, the national lead nurse for the care pathway, said: “If the education and training is not in place, the [plan] should not be used.” She said 3% of patients placed on the plan recovered.

(emphasis mine) So... a "hurry up and die, here's pain killers, we'll take that food and water and any other treatments" path is implemented on roughly one in six people who die, and only now is there an issue with it? Why do I suspect this cancer survivor-- who ended up being dehydrated to death because they misdiagnosed his pneumonia as a cancer relapse-- isn't the only one who's been murdered this way?

Tin Ear Again

Appearing on CNN [Sunday] morning, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said Fox News exists simply to further the agenda of the GOP. “Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” Dunn said. This is the second time in a week that Dunn has blasted Fox. She was quoted in Time Magazine on Thursday blasting the cable network as “opinion journalism masquerading as news.”

Quotes Neo-Neocon, adding later on:

Whether Obama’s attempt to clamp down on the media that dares to challenge the party line will be through the mechanism of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, or through some other means such as actions resembling Chavez’s pitch for “democratizing” media ownership, or whether Obama will just continue to use himself and/or surrogates to attack media voices that happen to disagree with him, it’s a dangerous—and dare I say un-American—move.

Seems pretty typical-- for class president, or some similarly low rank. Pathetic in someone who's supposed to be leading a country. (Related article here.) Maybe he can take time out of giving speeches and arguing with the few news sources that don't support him to do his job? Nah, that's crazy talk....

Good Healthcare Reasoning

Reposted by Little Miss Attila-- and no, not because I happen to agree with her conclusion. (I've been known to point out that folks' reasoning is sound when I utterly disagree with their basis and conclusion-- for example, the notion of killing someone for their own good can be rationally defended if you have a base assumption that a human doesn't inherently have a moral worth.) This bit has the best quotable impact:

Now, the empirical part: everyone asking this question is looking longingly abroad while ignoring the evidence much closer to home. Exhibit A: we’ve got a single payer system, called Medicare. It negotiates huge cost discounts with providers. It has low administrative costs. It has a gigantic apparatus to evaluate reimbursements for various treatments. It has . . . a faster rate of per-capita cost growth than the rest of the health care system, according to a CBO report issued by one Peter Orszag.

Anyway, head over and read the rest.

This Might Wake You Up

(3) EVIDENCE OF ASSOCIATION OR AFFILATION WITH HATE GROUP.—The following shall constitute evidence that a person is associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence: (A) Individuals possessing tattoos or other body markings indicating association or affiliation with a hate group. (B) Individuals known to have attended meetings, rallies, conferences, or other activities sponsored by a hate group. (C) Individuals known to be involved in online activities with a hate group, including being engaged in online discussion groups or blog or other postings that support, encourage, or affirm the group’s extremist or violent views and goals. (D) Individuals who are known to have in their possession photographs, written testimonials (including diaries or journals), propaganda, or other materials indicating involvement or affiliation with a hate group. Such materials can include photographs, written materials relating to or referring to extreme hatred that are clearly not of an academic nature, possession of objects that venerate or glorify hateinspired violence, and related materials, as determined by the Attorney General.

Hm, "encourage" the "extremist" views or goals? The Anchoress is right....

Global Warming Fishy Buisness

I'll work it into my uber-global warming post sometime-- maybe-- but this story from American Thinker stinks like month old fish:

In the wake of a revelation by a key research institution that it destroyed its original climate data, the Competitive Enterprise Institute petitioned EPA to reopen a major global warming proceeding. In mid-August the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) disclosed that it had destroyed the raw data for its global surface temperature data set because of an alleged lack of storage space. The CRU data have been the basis for several of the major international studies that claim we face a global warming crisis. CRU's destruction of data, however, severely undercuts the credibility of those studies.

Obama Got a *Peace Prize?*

Apparently not a hoax. That said, you gotta be kidding me-- this takes jumping the shark to a whole new level. h/t American Thinker. Here's others that have won it-- honestly, makes me sad. Bad enough with the '94 bizarro world award, and eye-rolling with the '07 (putting aside the 'we ran out of ideas' that was '01) but this is just...well, pathetic. If you give credit for effort and really want to believe, Arafat and the UN have worked for "peace." Gore, that was very lightly veiled politics-- this? This is just stupid.

Dame Maggie Smith-- That's "Professor McGonagall" To Us-

has breast cancer, and was having treatments during the last movie.

Brave Dame Maggie Smith has vowed to film the final Harry Potter movie - even if it kills her. The Oscar-winning actress, who has been suffering from breast cancer, said she had come to terms with dying and may quit the theatre.

I wish her a full recovery-- at least as full as my mother's; they both strike me as very dedicated (or hard-headed, depending on their position relative to you) women. Part of me says "What? She wants to finish a film series before she dies, that's it?" Part of me says "This lady has been an actress for just slightly less time than my parents have been alive. These movies are a big deal to a lot of kids, and I can't think of anyone who can pull of Professor McGonagal like she can-- it's like my Grandma as a teacher witch." I'll be praying for her, hope y'all will too. And yes, I'd managed to forget she played the Mother Superior in Sister Act. h/t my sister, Mouse.

Notice A Pattern, Here?

"Pregnant 15 year old girl, murdered by older boyfriend" is a huge number of the pro-abortion examples CMR covers, here. Matthew's point is "look, this is pro-abortion violence-- these women were killed for not having abortions." What comes to my mind is: "Wow, that sexual revolution thing is just so great, isn't it? The girls get pregnant by guys old enough to buy beer before they are old enough to drive, then get killed when, shocker, these paragons of virtue don't want to have to deal with a child they can't screw." Where are women's rights groups on this stuff? Guess they're the same place they are when people demand teenage girls stuff their bodies full of hormones to prevent pregnancies, probably at the same table as the environmentalists....

Marion Morrison

John Wayne FTW.

Someone Issued a Bible Re-Written For Political Purpose

...and this is news?

All my life, I've noticed that "Christian Book Stores" that have maybe one full translation of the Bible in stock will have a Baskin' Robin's worth of KJVs with matching "Chicken Soup For the Soul"-- "For Women," "For Students," "For Mothers," "For Those in Mourning." Not even going to touch the various let's-change-the-gender-God-used versions.

The Anchoress covers the story much better than I can, mostly because I'm still over here going "Hi, Church of England? King James Version was written for them? Dude wanted to get out of a marriage and possibly get the power that comes as the head of a church? How does that not count?"
(Interesting history side-note here, not fact-checked.)

How is it news that religion is powerful, and folks will try to use it for their own ends? It's a bit odd that such openly, callously applied ideology is on the right end of the spectrum, but that has more to do with more of the right-end taking such things seriously than the left-end. (Something I expect to change if the Church in the US doesn't get better, but that's another rant-- well, two, with the "'independent' means I can be a Dem but I'm special and a free thinker, now fall directly into line with me" tangent....)

Mother Angelica Honored-

IRONDALE, AL, October 5, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI has awarded EWTN foundress, Mother Mary Angelica, and Deacon Bill Steltemeier, Chairman of EWTN's Board of Governors, the Cross of Honor for distinguished service to the Church. The medal, officially known as "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" (literally "For the Church and the Pope"), is the highest honor that the Pope can bestow upon laity and religious.

Good for her! My grandmother-- VERY Protestant-- in the last years of her life took to watching EWTN. Towards the end, the Mass on that station was about her only contact with a church.

Every So Often

I will either 1) despair of the survival chances of humanity (at least in America) if we lose our computers, or 2) argue with someone about the amount of information we have in tradition sources-- baselines vary from "all computers are nuked," through "all libraries are nuked" to "somehow all books are just destroyed, OK?" In situation 2, I usually draw on the stuff my folks' generation knows-- mom has a BS in animal husbandry and does leather working, dad blacksmiths as a hobby and just knows tons of survival stuff, both need zero reference stuff to raise animals, raise plants effectively (including rotation, crossbreeding, etc) and repair most anything well enough to get back to someplace that can fix it. I've got uncles who can make guns and ammunition, can find mines, tell you now to mine, smelt and such... all kinds of information, in short, is in leetle gray cells. This trope gives me hope that there is an even bigger pool of information to be drawn from-- for example: Dwarf Fortress is probably the only game in existence for which a geology textbook is a good substitute for a strategy guide. The steps for creating alloys and certain types of glass are also 100% accurate, and most existing abstractions are temporary.

So He Asked The Great Pumpkin For a New Battleplan

From Coyote Blog

Two short quotes, one where he's quoting someone, one that's just me quoting him. The implied context is correct:

I too was not surprised by the members not endorsing an invitation. Nothing I heard had to do with your science on harvesting or your research on polar bears – it was the positions you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition.

And:

If you are not familiar with Taylor’s positions that are alluded to, as I understand it they include: 1) The fact that most polar bear populations have been rising rather than falling over the last decades and 2) polar bears have survived interglacial periods in which we believe all sea ice disappeared.

'Nuff said.

CLD is OK.

If anyone knows Cutelildrow/Shadowdancer and has been worried because of the flooding in the PI-- she and her family are alright. More flooding than anyone had seen in the last forty years, but their house is two-story and they were able to take shelter upstairs with some food and such. She's got information here on useful things to send if you have an address. Me, I'm utterly *pissed* that the f*ing terrorists chose now to attack-- they killed two of our sailors with an IED, along with one of their Marines. Navy does a LOT of stuff in the PI-- now we'll have to be watching our backs while trying to help in this situation.

For 9.5 Million-

a website should do my taxes, not just be searchable!

The site, unveiled today by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, was revamped through the use of $9.5 million in stimulus funds. It provides easier-to-use tools, such as a ZIP Code search that shows stimulus projects in specific communities. The government also has set up a toll-free hot line (1-877-FWA-DESK) for reporting fraud, waste and abuse.

Sure, the site is pretty, but the click-through map is rather lack-luster--frankly, they should've just asked Google Maps if they could use their system, then make sites for each grant, loan or contract. Oh, wait, that'd be easy to link, without load time and scrolling a tiny window to the bottom.... H/t Doubleplusundead

"Who Wouldn't Buy A Soldier A Steak?"

Too, too cool-- the All American Beef Battalion.

Beware False Positives

and be sure to check the data. The punchline? People have been grabbing the false positive and part of the data and running with a conclusion....