You need to register (for free) with the New York Times website to read this, but there's a fascinating (and disturbing) article about what happened behind the scenes that made CAFTA pass by two votes this past week. If just one Representative had voted against it, the measure would have been tied and thus no passage. As it turns out the pro-CAFTA cabal found their needed vote in North Carolina's own Robin Hayes, who had previously been rabidly against CAFTA. I swear, this account reads like something out of a Mario Puzo novel. Sign up with the Times site (if you haven't already, and give a fake address and phone number if you don't wanna give 'em your real one) and check this story out.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
Did a Clinton-era mandate doom Columbia?
I've been reading about this during the past few days since the Discovery launched: that because of regulations that Clinton pushed when he was President that severely limited the use of freon, that the foam material on the outside of the space shuttle's external fuel tank became pretty lousy and that's why that piece of foam hit and doomed Columbia two and a half years ago. Pardon My English has a good post about it that's well worth a read. Personally, I think that since the shuttle program only has 5 years' of scheduled used anyway, to go back to the previous type of foam and for good measure do something that's not been done since the third-ever shuttle launch: cover the external tank in a lot of white paint. Paint tends to put a protective layer on top of whatever it's covering :-)
Good pro-homeschooling essay at Sierra Times
Nancy Levant writing at Sierra Times about homeschooling versus public education. Her piece's opener is damn depressing, but accurate...
I have very little hope for this nation. The bulk of the populace is still clueless as to the Executive Orders, Acts, and partnership bureaucracy system that have turned our Constitutional Republic into a new banana republic. The ongoing ignorance of the masses is beyond all comprehension and reason.She's right. I don't have much hope for this country either. Our "elected officials" no longer even pretend to be our representatives for the most part, our "government" is become an unholy melange of political and corporate interests, we are engaged in a dubious war overseas that is stretching our defense capability to the breaking point, the border situation is a humungous crisis that threatens just about everything, Congress and this President just voted to broaden the damage that NAFTA did a decade ago, and as Nancy is saying here: our education system is a joke this country's people couldn't care less. Believe you me, my wife and I will homeschool our children... but I shudder to think about what kind of world it is that our children are going to be inheriting.The Southwestern U.S and the West Coast have become a foreign and illegal nation. Every Constitutional right is under perpetrated and highly orchestrated attack, and still the masses watch TV, sports, drink beer, and do and say nothing. Most don’t even know that anything has changed. And why is that? Because public education has changed American people into silent, sacrilegious, non-reading, pleasure-seeking, group-thinking morons – that’s why.
It's times like this I gotta keep thinking of Gandalf's words from Fellowship of the Ring: "All we have to decide is what to do in the time that's given you." Just do our best and let God make everything else settle out as it's supposed to. I keep telling myself that, anyway...
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Army of Darkness on Sci-Fi Channel right now
I swear this must be one of the most funny torn-up movies ever made.
CAFTA passes House 217-215
If I were to post the things the darker half of my nature is tempting me to say right now, Blogger.com would not only suspend this blog indefinitely, they would track me down, drag me out and have me shot, burn down my apartment, and sow the ground with salt.
This is a dark night for America. It was horrible over ten years ago when NAFTA passed, and it just got a lot worse.
The 217 that voted for this are traitors. The President of the United States is a traitor. To their country, the Constitution they swore to uphold and their fellow men.
Remember what I said last night about the border situation? Between that and this, that John Titor guy's talk about a civil war this year is starting to look a lot more viable.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Her love is real... but she is not
If there's ever a major jump in artificial intelligence, we are in serious bat guano if it gets coupled to this new technology. From the BBC:
Japanese develop 'female' androidLooks like the Cylons have already beaten Adama's rag-tag fugitive fleet to Earth:
By David Whitehouse
Science editor, BBC News websiteJapanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1.
She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.
She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.
Professor Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.
Repliee Q1 is not like any robot you will have seen before, at least outside of science-fiction movies.
She is designed to look human and although she can only sit at present, she has 31 actuators in her upper body, powered by a nearby air compressor, programmed to allow her to move like a human.
"I have developed many robots before," Repliee Q1's designer, Professor Ishiguru, told the BBC News website, "but I soon realised the importance of its appearance. A human-like appearance gives a robot a strong feeling of presence..."
She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.
CAFTA vote in House coming today?
Am hearing that the vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement in the House of Representatives might be coming as soon as today.
Any member of the House who signs onto this is a traitor worthy of putting against the wall. Ditto for everyone in the Senate who did (guess who that was from North Carolina) and anyone else for that matter.
Our "representatives" no longer represent their constituents. They only screw them. For however much money they can get out of us.
On top of the previously-mentioned illegal immigration, this is what is destroying our country... and hardly anyone is giving a damn about it.
This is where and how America's next civil war begins
From the Associated Press via the Monterey Herald:
Tensions rise along San Diego Border between Minutemen, protestersI'm amazed that this hasn't registered on the national radar screen that much. Well, yet anyway.SAN DIEGO - Clashes between California Minutemen and protesters are heating up along the Mexican border with reports of shots fired and an alleged scuffle between a state senator's aide and a university professor.
The confrontation between University of California, Riverside, ethnic studies professor Armando Navarro and Mark Belgen, an aide to Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Carlsbad, allegedly occurred July 16 in the border town of Campo. The area, about 40 miles southeast of San Diego, is where several dozen anti-illegal immigrant activists have set up watch for migrants crossing the border. They are expected to continue patrols through Aug. 7.
Belgen was accompanying Morrow to Campo to support the California Minuteman Project's anti-illegal immigrant border patrol group, modeled after the group that monitored Arizona's border earlier this year. He alleges that Navarro kicked him.
Belgen was unhurt and told the North County Times he waited to report the incident until late last week because initially he did not know kicking was considered an assault.
Navarro, who heads the immigrants rights group National Alliance for Human Rights and was protesting the Minutemen, declined to comment to the newspaper, citing the seriousness of the allegations.
A message left for Navarro on Tuesday was not immediately returned. Morrow's office declined to comment, citing a pending investigation.
Minuteman volunteers and protesters have traded accusations in recent weeks...
The past few weeks and months have seen a lot of trouble brewing on the border with Mexico. And it's our own government's fault. President Bush outright refuses to do anything about the illegal immigration problem... hell he's practically inviting them to keep coming in! Congress is unwilling to tackle the crisis because with the exception of very few in the House or Senate, they're all afraid of losing Hispanic votes. Fercryingoutloud, conservative "hero" Grover Norquist just said that "It’s not clear to me that opposition to immigration is a vote-moving issue."
What the #$@% is going on here?!?
Lately I've been wondering a lot about the infamous John Titor, and whether he was really a time-traveler from the year 2036. Ya know why? 'Cuz he said a civil war in the U.S. is in its seventh year by 2012: a civil war between the United States government and rural American citizens. That would put it starting either this year or next. And there's nothing closer to pushing us over that brink as is the border situation. Regular American people have already begun doing the job that their own government refuses to do, illegals and criminals are shooting at American citizens from across the border and sometimes even well beyond it, and the Mexican military has even given escorts to "immigrants" streaming over the line. I'm all for legal immigration... but what's happening illegally is stretching our resources and infrastructure to the breaking point. Sooner or later - and more likely than not it'll be sooner - it's got to snape. And it ain't gonna be pretty.
Keep an eye on the U.S.-Mexican border over the next few months. It might be, in the words of a Chinese curse, in for some interesting times.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
We are so DOOMed
The first time I heard about this it was 1994 and Ivan Reitman was supposed to direct it. Eleven years later and the movie version of Doom is finally coming out. Over at IGN.com they have an exclusive trailer for Doom. Wonder if the movie includes that legendary wonderful "Barney the Dinosaur" WAD that we all enjoyed back in the day...
Enough time has passed that I can comment on this
Do not do not DO NOT click on this link if you haven't read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yet. My wife is reading it now and I've had to be VERY careful not to let any spoiler-ish material slip my lips. Suffice it to say: I just wanted to make note that in regards to a certain "something" regarding this book, that I made a perfect call on it well before it had been released.
I'm pretty good at that. Sometimes. :-)
Oops, guess we can't say "Roll out!" just yet :-(
In light of that last post about the live-action Transformers movie in '07, Ain't It Cool News is now reporting that the project is getting torn apart by its producers. At issue is whether or not to use the original cartoon's cast of voice actors.
My take on that is this: get an entirely new crew of voices. The cartoon was good for its day but it's now time to re-introduce the Transformers for a new generation... and redefine it for another that should now be expecting more. Think of the talent that's available today to do this: I can't help but think of Liam Neeson for the voice of Optimus Prime, or Sean Astin as Bumblebee. Besides, many of the original actors have sadly passed on, including Chris Latta (as the irreplacable voice of Starscream) and Scatman Crothers, who I never knew until now that he did the voice of Jazz, but thinking back on the cartoon I guess he did! Anyhoo, there's been so many iterations of the Transformers (my favorite was the Marvel comic, BTW) that it'd be wrong to limit the vision for the movie to just one: let the big-screen live-action feature stand on its own, with its own unique cast of actors.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
July 4th of 2007 will never get here fast enough...
Ooh-boy, just got back into town after a coupl'a days and found a real treat over at Ain't It Cool News.
In the name of all that's good and holy... was that Devastator?!??
Click here to see what I'm talking about. When you go to the video, the good stuff starts about 2:00 into it.
Spielberg. Bay. The Transformers. As of this moment my future offspring now has a legend for their own generation. And sonuvagun, it's one of mine's too :-)
(P.S.: there's even more stuff over at TransformersLive.com, including a video presentation by Steven Spielberg.)
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Another deep essay by Kyle Williams
If you want to wrap your brain around something really meaty read the newest piece by Kyle Williams over at WorldNetDaily.
V for Vendetta trailer hits the net
No, this ain't a big-screen movie about the man-eating alien lizards that NBC shocked us with back in the mid-80s...
I will be there opening day to see this, even if I can barely explain it to anyone else I know. I borrowed this graphic novel from a friend in college about ten years ago. It's... interesting, to put it mildly. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore is something like "George Orwell's 1984 meets Batman meets Moore's Watchmen meets Guy Fawkes meets Terry Gilliam's Brazil", if any of that makes sense at all...
I will be there opening day to see this, even if I can barely explain it to anyone else I know. I borrowed this graphic novel from a friend in college about ten years ago. It's... interesting, to put it mildly. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore is something like "George Orwell's 1984 meets Batman meets Moore's Watchmen meets Guy Fawkes meets Terry Gilliam's Brazil", if any of that makes sense at all...
And, it looks like in the hands of the Wachowski Brothers, this movie is going to nail the comic pretty darned close (which doesn't happen much with an Alan Moore adaptation). I don't really know too much about this to be honest but just going by the trailer it looks like they're edging away from the "almost-happened" reality and putting this into the realm of our possible future. This might be a perfect movie for our times, as evidenced by this quote from the trailer...
"People should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people."
Open the Windoze and look at the Vista
It's been almost four years already, and Bill Gates thinks that's long enough to go without a new operating system: Windows Vista will be arriving late in 2006. 'Course they announced Windows 95 a few times and it kept getting pushed back more and more, so it may yet be '07-'08 before this sees shrink-wrapping.
Sobering thought that until very recently there were only three things that people would line up for at midnight to pay money for: a new Star Wars movie, a new Harry Potter book, and a new Windows OS. Soon it'll only be Windows on that list. That's a pretty sad statement about us when you think about it...
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Scotty has read his last technical journal...
I met him once, very briefly. Super nice guy, Doohan was. I just read that he was a veteran of D-Day, even lost part of a finger on one hand during the fighting.
He beams up to the good company of fellow Enterprise crewmember DeForrest Kelly (Dr. "Bones" McCoy). I don't know what else to say but: Warp speed, and God bless Scotty.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
My thoughts on John G. Roberts as Supreme Court nominee
I don't know much about this guy, but from what little I've read so far he sounds like a pretty strong practitioner of judicial restraint. Eager to see what his views are on the Second Amendment and the recent Kelo decision (the one that allows cities to steal private land and give it to rich developers) but I found this quote by Roberts to be quite interesting indeed...
"We continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."Roe v. Wade is the classic example of bad litigation coming from the bench. If Roberts feels that way too about it, I'll be rooting for him to clinch the job.
You see, I can praise Bush for something if he ever gets it right!! :-)
