"Stimulus" file size: Is Congress TRYING to keep us from examining it?

ReadTheStimulus.org is reporting that the final language of the "stimulus" bill has been posted on the U.S. House website. But if you think you're going to get to exercise your right to easily pore over the legislation, think again. From ReadTheStimulus.org...

Final Language Posted
Posted at 11:00 pm on Thursday, February 12, 2009

The final language has been posted; you can find links to the various docs at the Speaker's website. Update: The speaker's website is apparently down. Imagine that. Docs are also available here.

The total size of the four major files is over 100MB, and consists of 1419 pages. Three of the four files are huge "scanned" PDFs, meaning they were created by printing the original document and then scanning it in again --- and therefore contain no real "text" that can be easily searched. This will make our parsing process difficult and more time consuming, so we most likely won't have our versions ready until midday tomorrow. But we'll see...

There is no reason at all why this bill, as bloated as it is, should not be in standard rich-text Acrobat format. 1,419 pages? In a document containing all text and no images, that would be extremely quick and easy to download, not to mention convenient to search and scan.

But instead, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has published the "stimulus" as unwieldy scanned images.

In my mind, either the House website staff is inept and incapable of fully grasping available technology, or this is a deliberate attempt to prevent the legislation from easily being scrutinized by the public.

I'm inclined to believe the latter.

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THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS trailer is online! Guess whose film you'll see a tiny part of???

Awright, I've been sitting on this for the past week or so, eagerly looking forward to when that e-mail would arrive with the official announcement and now... it's here!

Alexandre Philippe is a filmmaker who is currently working on an ambitious project called The People vs. George Lucas (here's the official website: PeopleVsGeorge.com). Tonight, Alexandre and his crew released the first trailer for their film.

Behold!

Want to see it drastically embiggened and high-deffed? Mash down here!

And at 1:29 into the trailer, there's a black and white clip showing "George Lucas" furiously typing. No, your eyes ain't deceiving you: that is Chad Austin from my first film Forcery (click here to watch THAT movie)! Alexandre contacted me about using Forcery awhile back, and all of us at KWerky Productions are thrilled to have been invited to take part in this project.

The People vs. George Lucas is scheduled for a 2010 wide release. As you can expect, it will be a pleasure to keep y'all posted about it in the meantime :-)

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Something I just caught from last night's LOST...

If you have "This Place Is Death" recorded, or from iTunes or whatever, then do yourself a favor...

...and listen very, very carefully to the scene early in the episode where Jin, Danielle and the rest of her team are on the beach. In particular, listen to the voice that's reading out "the numbers" on the radio.

It sounds like Hurley's.

As if this story isn't loopy enough already!

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Man apparently rid of HIV following radical stem cell transplant

Extremely exciting medical news coming out today: a 42-year old man who had previously been infected with HIV is now, apparently, completely free of the virus and is displaying no symptoms of further infection. This following a stem cell transplant from a person carrying a unique mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS.

The patient has now been without detectable HIV for two years now, and is not currently on any antiretroviral medication. However, researchers warn that the therapy is "too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment", and that a third of those who undergo it die from complications.

I'd still chalk it up as a victory for this kind of medical research, though. Who knows what kind of refinement might eventually come from such a development. And gene therapy is still a very new field: during the next ten or twenty years, we're likely to see even more powerful advances.

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Nite Owl and Silk Spectre in MINUTEMEN scrolling arcade game (coolest WATCHMEN viral site yet)

The marketing for Watchmen never ceases to amaze me. This time it's an Eighties-style scrolling street fighting arcade game based on the Minutemen. Plunk in your virtual quarters and play as either Nite Owl or Silk Spectre as you clean up New York City of the 1940s.

Maybe if you rack up a high enough score, it'll unlock Hooded Justice and Mothman as playable characters :-P

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Well played, Tarheels

Duke fan that I am, I'm man enough to admit that UNC had an excellent game tonight. 101 to 87... that might be the biggest margin between the two teams in a long time.

So to the Tarheels: congratulations!

(I just don't want to have to make a habit of saying that :-P)

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Customary reaction to LOST episode: "This Place Is Death"

Lost is better television than we darned well deserve.

And "This Place Is Death", tonight's episode, was one of the richest of the series to date.

I thought it was also one of the strongest of the Sun and Jin-centric episodes, and doesn't it say something about Lost that Sun could be in 2008 and Jin could be back on the Island in 1988, and this show still make sense? After how powerful the reunion between Desmond and Penny was, I'm of the mind that the setup is happening before our eyes for something much, much more intense when Jin and Sun find their way back to each other. They'd better get back: I know hordes of people who will be honked-off enraged if that doesn't happen.

The scenes in 1988 with Danielle and her team explored a lot of ground in a surprisingly short amount of time. I've wondered what "the sickness" was that 2004 Danielle was talking about... might it have something to do with "Smokey"?

Daniel and Charlotte: seemed handled a bit clunky, but I'm willing to see how this plays out. Jeremy Davies proves once more why he was the perfect choice to play Daniel: nobody does off-kilter lovable nerds better than he :-)

Ben's emotional blow-up in the van was an excellent scene. Michael Emerson shows again that he is one of the best actors working in the medium right now. More and more it's becoming easier to take Ben at his word, and I don't think he was being deceitful at all when he talked about what he and others had done to protect the Oceanic 6.

So... Locke has done it. He has turned the wheel and is on his way. Can't wait to see the story of "Jeremy Bentham" unfold once he gets to the outside world.

The final scene, where the gang meets Eloise inside the church: can't help but think that portends some amazing stuff next week. Eloise speaking in the teaser about how "this is how the Island was found" while showing the weird pendulum is painfully tantalizing. Can't wait 'til next Wednesday to get here to find out more.

Okay so... thought? :-)

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Two satellites collide in space over Siberia

At least 600 pieces of spaceborne shrapnel are now plaguing the sky, no thanks to an unprecedented collision between two satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Early yesterday, 790 kilometers (490 miles) above Siberia, an inoperative Russian satellite called Cosmos 2251 smashed into Iridium33, a communications satellite. Ground radar is now tracking the hundreds of resulting bits of debris, hoping that none of it will smash into any other satellites or the International Space Station.

When asked which satellite was at fault, NASA scientist Nicholas Johnson said, "they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction."

The good news, if there is any, is that Iridium Satellite LLC still has 64 satellites in unusually low orbit, relaying calls between special satellite phones (the U.S. Department of Defense is one of its biggest customers).

I wonder if one of them was trying to speed through an intersection...

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Fred Reed, Internet's greatest curmudgeon, is retiring (for now)

This is a sad day for the very many of us who have faithfully followed the "scurrilous commentary" of Fred Reed. The renaissance man behind Fred On Everything announced yesterday that he is ending his regular columns, owing to upcoming surgery for a corneal transplant (as Reed puts it "this being the belated result of a largely forgotten foray by the US into military adventurism").

Reed shared his reasons for beginning his web-based column, and he speaks for many of us in conveying the biggest reason why a lot of us do this, in whatever way we can. He also admits some inevitable frustration with it all...

"My reasons for inditing the sucker were, first, to see whether a web column could work and, second, to get away from the strangling grasp of political correctness. A third reason, common I suppose to most columnists, was the hope that, however minor my voice might be, in combination with thousands of others it might engender pressure for slowing the rush into the high-tech medieval twilight that the culture has undertaken.

"This by now is clearly quixotic. The civilizational changes we now see are both irremediable and beyond control. The peasantrification and empty glitter of society, pervasive hostility to careful thought, onrushing authoritarianism, and distaste for cultivation are now endemic. I do not know where these lead, but we are assuredly going to get there. Fuming buys nothing."

As with everything else he has written that I've read over the years, it's a great essay. Our thoughts and prayers go out to him, and here's hoping that the Internet's best curmudgeon and best-known expatriate will be back in the saddle sooner than later :-)

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Texas preparing for possible collapse of Mexican government

This might be the most under-reported story in America right now, that has the potential to wreck the most havoc on this country: the escalating violence of the drug wars in Mexico and the teetering stability of that country's government.

I've got friends in Mexico City who tell me they can't believe us Yanks aren't talking about this "enough". Juarez, straight across the border from El Paso, has seen more than fifteen hundred murders already in the past year. Many of them have been of the "send a message" variety... particularly the bodies that the police are finding sans heads.

So maybe this'll open some eyes: the government of the state of Texas is bracing for a likely collapse of Mexico's authority and the millions of refugees that would no doubt be streaming north to escape the chaos.

Should this happen, the services infrastructure of the United States... well, it ain't in such hot shape either, is it?

Whatever happens, it will assuredly not be anything like this great clip from the Latino Comedy Project...

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First pics of the Fallen and the Constructicons gestalt from TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN!

Japanese website ACTOYS has posted the first good image of the Fallen from this coming summer's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...

And guess what else ACTOYS has snagged? I hate hate hate that Michael Bay wasted the name "Devastator" on a mere army tank in Transformers, so I'm betting they'll stick another name on the Constructicon combiner.

Whatever it's gonna be called, the Constructicons gestalt is one pure angry design that looks hella kewl!

Seibertron.com has a lively discussion going on now about the Fallen and, ahem..., "Devastator".

I just hope it won't require a Masters degree in engineering to put the toy of that thing together.

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To whom it may concern

"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind..."

-- Hosea 8:7

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"The Woz" to compete on DANCING WITH THE STARS

ABC's hit show Dancing with the Stars returns for a new season on March 9th. And it's been confirmed that joining singers Jewel and Belinda Carlisle, gymnast Shawn Johnson and rapper Lil' Kim will be none other than Steve Wozniak, AKA "The Woz" and co-founder of Apple Computers.

I might have to check this out. Steve Wozniak has always seemed to be a pretty cool guy. He's currently active with a Segway Polo team (though that might not help his footwork much on the dance floor).

Too bad Circus of the Stars is no longer on television: we could have probably seen Steve Ballmer throwing chairs on the high wire.

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Internet video, Netflix enticing many to cut cable TV

Interesting story about technology and the economy: vast numbers of people are canceling their cable television service, opting to get their TV with old-fashioned antennas instead. Rising cable rates and the ever-increasing need to cut back on expenses is one reason. So is this: a lot of folks are now turning to broadband Internet - either through pay services like iTunes or bittorrent downloads - to get their fix of the shows that they like. Netflix's popularity is also considered a factor in the decrease for cable TV.

I could easily see this trend continuing, and into some potentially very interesting new territory over the next several years. Like, f'rinstance: a group of video bloggers, armed with inexpensive equipment and bleeding-edge Internet bandwidth, setting up a live operation on par with anything Fox News and CNN is doing.

Don't think it can't happen.

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Insanity: "Stimulus" ultimate cost could be $9.7 TRILLION

At this point, I am only left to seriously wonder if the people who are supposed to be running the country, have any functional grasp at all of the value of numbers.

According to a story on Bloomberg.com, the total cost of all the bailouts that the U.S. House and Senate are pursuing with this "stimulus" package, is going to come out to, at least, $9.7 trillion.

Here it is for people who like to look at lots of zeroes...

$9,700,000,000,000

It's said to be enough to pay off 90% of all the homeowner mortgages in this country.

I'm going to paraphrase a line that I heard from a movie several years ago...

"The country is headed for trouble. The country is headed for grief."

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Image of Jesus on my closet door?!?

This might be the stupidest post that I've ever made on this blog (and that's sayin' something). I'll let you, Dear Reader, judge for yourself.

It's sort of my friend Kevin Bussey's fault (even though he's a totally great guy :-). His blog, Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee, is one of my favorites: not just because he offers up a lot of terrific insight as a brother in Christ, but also for his fondness of posting about the more whimsical news of the world. And he especially enjoys sharing the occasional stories about "apparitions" of Jesus or Mary materializing in loafs of bread, lava lamps etc.

So yesterday Kevin had this item about what is supposedly a picture of Jesus in a car dealership's door. It reminded me of something that I'd promised to do for Kevin over the past few months. And seeing that picture well... I couldn't help but think "Hey, my Jesus is more Jesusy than their Jesus!"

So I might as well get this over with...

Here it goes: my old closet door has a very curious wood grain pattern in it, that many people over the years have said looks exactly like Jesus Christ holding out His hands.

On the right (click to magnify) is the best photo that I was able to take of it, over at my parents' house last night. But trust me: this looks much better in real life than it does in the picture. Even in subdued light, the visual signature is readily discernible. Several people who have visited my old room have said that they can make out the hair, brow, eyes, nose, and mouth of a male figure who seems to be standing. Most of the folks who have seen it swear that they can see the figure is wearing a robe or similar garment.

The most interesting feature of the pattern is that it seems as though, if indeed people are seeing a man (or Son of Man) here, that it/he/He is holding two hands out in front of him, in apparently perfect proportion to the rest of the figure.

So... what do y'all think: is this just a regular wooden pattern, or is it a bona fide photographic anomaly?

I'll have it be known here and now though: I do not want flocks of pilgrims lining up to see this! So far as I'm concerned, there's nothing supernatural about it at all. And it wouldn't be proper to come oggle this anyway: if the Bible teaches us that not even the angels are to be worshiped, then I can't begin to imagine how much worse it is to pay homage to an inanimate hunk of wood.

But all the same, I will confess a curiosity as to what others might be seeing in this picture.

Comments?

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Guess what chilling line of dialogue has made it into the WATCHMEN movie!

EXTREMELY encouraging word from the Watchmen panel at New York Comic Con yesterday. The thousands in attendance were treated to the first 18 minutes from the movie, which shows the fight between Edward Blake and his assailant, and then a montage of the Watchmen world's history playing out to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are-A Changin'", followed by Rorschach's initial investigation of the murder.

And then, the audience at New York Comic Con got to behold something that I know for darn near certain that every Watchmen fan has been hoping and praying would make it into the movie...

Two words: "Prison Cafeteria".

And yes: Rorschach says it. We are finally going to get to hear him say the line, on the big screen.

I've a lot to do tomorrow, but I plan on spending a little time seeing if there's a theater in Greensboro that's gonna have a midnight premiere of Watchmen. It'll be worth staying up late, just to see that scene along with a few hundred other rabid Watchmen fans, and watch everyone go crazy when he says it.

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