Friday, July 30, 2010

File under "WTF"

How exactly does something like this happen?
Father Valentin began the baptism ceremony.

“He dipped the baby in the water without even covering the baby's mouth with his hand to prevent him from drowning,” recalls Dmitry Gaydeu, the father of the six weeks-old Laurentiu. “He put his hand on his stomach and dipped him in the water three times.”

The Godparents saw that the boy was not well and warned father Valentine. He answered it was not the first time that he was conducting the ceremony and knew what he was doing. When they saw that the child showed no signs of life, he was immediately taken to the district hospital.

“We went along with the father,” continues Dmitry Gaydeu. ”The physician-pathologist Sergei Railean said that my son has suffered mechanical asphyxia by drowning, there was bruising and bleeding in the soft tissues of his neck. The doctor said the baby was healthy.”

“After that, father Valentine disappeared for some time,” the police officer said. “Then he came to us. We believe that during his absence he went to Chisinau, to the archdiocese.”

Six-weeks-old Laurentiu was buried on Saturday, July 24.
If that doesn't make you scratch your head, nothing will.

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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Warren Jeffs freed

The Modern Pharisee messaged me yesterday afternoon with the good news.  His post about it can be found here.  The Salt Lake Tribune (probably grudgingly) wrote:
The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned polygamist Warren S. Jeffs’ convictions on rape as an accomplice and sent his case back for a new trial, finding there were “serious errors” in instructions given to the jury that deprived Jeffs of a fair hearing.

The justices unanimously ruled 5th District Judge James Shumate erred when he rejected a defense request to instruct jurors that in order to convict they had to find Jeffs knew when he performed a 2001 marriage that unwanted sex would take place and intended for a rape to occur.
Unanimous.  Let me repeat that so that it can sink in.  The decision to vacate Jeffs' conviction was UNANIMOUS.  Unambiguously unanimous.

The wheels are falling off the witch hunt against the FLDS, it would appear.  Good, says I.  The whole effort on the part of the so-called "Justice" system has been driven by pure, raw bigotry, and nothing more.

It looks like the "Justice" system is running out of ways to persecute the FLDS and has effectively boxed itself into a corner.  Let's hope this will result in the Texas FLDS men convicted in the aftermath of the YFZ raid being freed as well.

Continuing on the same general theme of the bigots who hate the FLDS.  There was additional good news breaking just today.  Flaming anti-FLDS bigot Ron in Houston (who, I believe, is the proprietor of FLDS Texas, the most virulently bigoted of all of the bigotry blogs) has been outed by the Pharisee.  Only one thing would make me happier: for the Caput a Palos (TxBluesMan) to be outed.

It turns out that self-proclaimed smart guy Ron is a middling lawyer in Houston.  By "middling", I'm implying that he's not very good or very reliable.  Keep in mind that this is one of the people who accused me of being "not too bright". 

Hey Ron!  Sux when you can't call names and accuse real people of being pedophiles when you can't hide from the consequences, doesn't it.

Asshole.

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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Tea Party

You may have sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm on my part when it comes to the Tea Party movement.  It's not that I stand in opposition to their objectives and ideals.  It's that I'm certain it's doomed for failure.

"Oh come on, Vulture!  How can you say that?"  How?  Quite easily.  Let's start with the basics.

The Tea Party hasn't officially aligned itself with Team Elephant, but Team Elephant is doing its damnedest to align the Tea Party with it.  This is bad.  Very bad.  I knew from the very beginning that if the Tea Party didn't align itself with an existing third party or create a political party of their own, they would be co-opted by the Elephants, who would run candidates who pay lip service to the Tea Party ideals but are beholden to (and thus, voting in every way like) the Rockefellerites.

"But Vulture!  The Republicans have changed!  They've seen the light!"  No, no they haven't.  They are still promoting Taxachusetts health care creator Mitt Romney as a conservative.  They still have RINO Michael Steele as their party chairman.  And they have actively worked to promote "establishment" candidates over newcomers.  The Elephants will ruin the Tea Party and destroy the movement forever.

The other problem the Tea Party has is that it's "solutions" (for lack of a better word) revolve around getting people elected -- and the people around whom they've rallied leave quite a bit to be desired.

The first two "endorsed" candidates put forward by the Tea Party are Scott Brown and Marco Rubio.  Brown is a total RINO, and Rubio is showing signs of being the same.

Then there is the person who comes closest to being the face of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin.  Let's cut to the chase, shall we?  She's a Big Government Republican through-and-through.  Yet, to hear the Left and Big Media (the BM for short) -- or is that redundant? -- tell it, she's somewhere to the right of Ghengis Khan.  The Tea Party is being duped by Caribou Barbie.  She isn't any more conservative than King George the Dim was.

It pains me to rain on the Tea Party parade.  It really does.  I would have loved for them to succeed.

But they won't.  Not so long as they continue to believe that the Elephants are their friends.

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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Same shoe, different foot

In all of the hullabaloo about Shirley Sherrod being accused of racism, being forced to resign her government job at the prodding of the Duce administration, and then being exonerated and restored to a position at the USDA, one extraordinarily large question has remained unanswered: wither those who have worn the scarlet "R" prior to Ms. Sherrod?

Video taken out of context showed Ms. Sherrod expressing some extremely hateful sentiments ("let his own kind help him" was my favorite).  However, Ms. Sherrod, in the 24-year-old video, was using those hateful sentiments to make a point: that she came to the realization that her thoughts about the white farmer were bigoted and she vowed to change and never again let such thinking impact her decision making ever again.

I'm glad that Ms. Sherrod was able to return to her employment.  The haste with which she was "encouraged" to resign was beyond ridiculous.  Nice show of leadership, Duce.

But I return to the question I posited in the first paragraph: wither those who have worn the scarlet "R" prior to Ms. Sherrod?

Who will reclaim the reputation of Al Campanis?  Mr. Campanis was the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1980's.  He was no racist; it could be argued that he provided more opportunities in Major League Baseball to minorities than any other GM of his era.  Yet one bad Nightline interview torpedoed his otherwise stellar career.  Paradoxically, the one opinion he expressed that drew major scorn upon him - that blacks weren't built for swimming - has been scientifically proven based on navel position!  Mr. Campanis is dead, but certainly his memory deserves to be expunged of the scarlet "R", does it not?

Who will reclaim the reputation of Jimmy the Greek?  He made off-hand comments to a TV reporter at a bar that ended up costing him his career.  His crime - stating that blacks had been bred to be big and strong during slavery - was insensitive and un-PC...but also historically accurate.  I mean, what slave owner wants a crop of Urkels in the fields?  He was fired by CBS Sports and never worked in TV again.  Mr. "Greek" is dead, but certainly his memory deserves to be expunged of the scarlet "R", does it not?

Who will reclaim the reputation of Trent Lott?  His comments in praise of Strom Thurmond - that the country would have been better off had he won election to the Presidency as a pro-segregation Dixiecrat in 1948 - were in reference to his political stances in general.  The fact that he had run as a pro-segregationist probably didn't even cross Lott's mind.  There are plenty of reasons to despise the big-government whore that is Trent Lott.  But what of the scarlet "R"?  Can his reputation be cleansed at last from that moronic smear?

The blathering heads of CNN were in high dudgeon on Tuesday about the whole Sherrod affair.  But....where were they when Messers Campanis, "Greek", and Lott were being pilloried?  If the sound you hear is that of crickets chirping, then you've comprehended my point.

It's time for the smear of "RACIST" name-calling to end.  Now.  It was bullshit 20 years ago when Al Campanis had his career ruined.  It's bullshit now when Shirley Sherrod nearly has her career ruined.  Stop it!  We're not little children.  You or I can have an opinion that is offensive; said opinion should NOT ruin our life!

It's time for the professional race baiters and racial ambulance chasers like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson to be shown the exit.  

It's time for America to grow up. 

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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mark Williams is a clueless moron

In the wake of the NAACP controversy resulting from their failed effort to condemn the Tea Party as racist (like, what ISN'T racist to this patently racist organization?), up steps professional assclown Mark Williams to prove them right.
Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!
It goes on (and on) like that. Williams uses the phrase "colored people" repeatedly throughout his alleged parody.

Thank you, Mr. Williams, for giving the professional race-bait industry added life.  Thank you for providing even more ammunition to the Tea Party haters to dismiss that movement.  Thank you for making it possible for progressives to make the claim that "conservative = racist".

You sir, are a tool of the first order.  You need to just go away.  Now.

Congratulations, Mark Williams!  You've earned a Wiener Award!  Now please choke on it. Asshat!

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Journalistic "integrity"

For those of you who think that my disdain for Big Media (the BM for short) is the result of some sort of kookish projection on my part, this story will enlighten you as to why I feel the way I do about the so-called "mainstream" media.
Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”
Isn't that cute? "Journalists" conspiring to take action through their reportage and/or columns on behalf of "their" candidate.

Remember this the next time that you're told that Internet writers (particularly bloggers) can't be trusted as news sources because "they're not objective".

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Sunday, July 18, 2010

Vulture Droppings: Obamacare begins

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.


As modern politics dictates, bad news is always released just prior to the weekend.  This is done to assure that most of the sheeple aren't paying attention.  I mean, it's not like the sycophantic lickspittles of Big Media (the BM for short) are going to go out of their way to embarrass their lord and savior.  They'll report the bad news.  They just won't make much noise in the process of said reportage.

As one would expect, this was the treatment given to the sudden torrent of details regarding Obamacare that spewed out on Friday.  The Drudge Report was the source for these links.  What?  You expected maybe CBS news?  HAHAHAHAHA!

This edition of Vulture Droppings will address those details.

With one breath, with one flow
You will know Synchronicity


The first detail of note is a dramatic change of semantics regarding the requirement for every American to have health insurance.
When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
It's not a tax...until it's challenged...and THEN it's a tax.  Give credit where credit is due.  This is shear genius.  They rammed through the legislation all the while claiming it wasn't a tax (which would have increased opposition to it) but will defend its patently unconstitutional dictates by claiming it IS a tax, which takes a major bite out of the States' challenges to its unconstitutionality.  Can you say "evil genius"?

Don't be surprised as more of these changes in semantics start to creep out, not just in response to challenges, but also as regards policy.  We won't appreciate fully the enslaving power of this POS until much, much later.

Many miles away something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake

The next item deals with physician choice, something we were assured that the Obamacare legislation would not change.
As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.

The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage.

But large employers, as well, are starting to show some interest, and insurers and consultants expect that, over time, businesses of all sizes will gravitate toward these plans in an effort to cut costs.

The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices.
We're shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find out that our choice of providers would be impacted by Obamacare. SHOCKED! [/sarcasm]

Many miles away something crawls to the surface of a dark Scottish lake

Next comes news that Taxachusetts is finding that employers are *shock* looking out for their own interests and dumping the responsibility for health care on the state.
The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budget.
If this is a surprise to anyone, they're an idiot.  Because, as night follows day, employers are going to dump their health insurance responsibilities on the State as a matter of self-preservation.  This is, not surprisingly to those of us who truly understand what der Staat is, exactly what the administration wants to happen!  There'll be single-payer health care on the British/Canadian model before you know it, administration "promises" to the contrary notwithstanding.

Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake

Now for the money shot - the taxman cometh!
If it seems as if the tax code was conceived by graphic artist M.C. Escher, wait until you meet the new and not improved Internal Revenue Service created by ObamaCare. What, you're not already on a first-name basis with your local IRS agent?

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency's new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already "greatly taxed"—pun intended?—"by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public," like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for "the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history." And without "sufficient funding" it won't be able to discharge these new duties.

That wouldn't be tragic, given that those new duties include audits to determine who has the insurance "as required by law" and collecting penalties from Americans who don't. Companies that don't sponsor health plans will also be punished. This crackdown will "involve nearly every division and function of the IRS," Ms. Olson reports.

Well, well. Republicans argued during the health debate that the IRS would have to hire hundreds of new agents and staff to enforce ObamaCare. They were brushed off by Democrats and the press corps as if they believed the President was born on the moon. The IRS says it hasn't figured out how much extra money and manpower it will need but admits that both numbers are greater than zero.
Big Brother just got "bigger". "Do you haff the required insurance, Herr Vulture? Vee haff vays of finding out!"

If you think Das Überwachenden has its nose in your business now, just wait.  It'll only get worse.

So what does it all mean?  It means that we've barely scratched the surface of the real impact of Obamacare.  The enslaving nature of this POS has yet to be fully revealed.  When it is, don't come crying to me.  I fully understood what it was really about from day one.

* Section captions from Synchronicity I and Synchronicity II by The Police.  What it is that's crawling from the bottom of that lake, I'll leave to the imagination of the reader.

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The Great DC Earthquake

It was, shall we say, not exactly on the scale of the Chilean earthquake.
A 3.6 magnitude earthquake woke the Washington metro region Friday, rattling homes and startling people.

The U.S. Geological Survey says it happened at exactly 5:04:49 a.m. about 3 miles under the earth's surface.

Officials warn there could be aftershocks in the coming days.
Aftershocks?  Where I come from, 3.6 IS the aftershock!  If you're lucky.

Not to be too jaded or anything, but I slept through the entire thing, as any former Californian would have.  A 3.6 is a pimple on a real earthquake's ass.

One intrepid DC metro area resident took photographs of the devastation.  You've got to see it to believe it.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

More anti-atheist blowback

Buzzfeed, a site where pretty much anything and everything and everyone is mocked (particularly Christians and Tea Party types) really doesn't play favorites.  Or.......perhaps even people in the "hipster, agnostic, anti-Tea Party" crowd are sick to death of militant atheists.  Either way, this was the result.
Top 10 Reasons Atheists Suck

1. Atheists really enjoy being smarter and more rational than everyone else. Have you noticed that about Atheists? I have.

2. Atheists tend to be haters who don't believe in anything. You get excited about something cool and they are always all skeptical, asking lots of critical questions, and basically kill the positive energy.

3. They love reading Reddit.com, which is a perfectly good site, but they get all smug about how Reddit is better than other sites. Like is there some rule that if you don't worship the real God, you have to worship Reddit instead?!? WTF?

4. Atheists love to mock hard working, religious Americans who love their kids, work hard, and go to church.

5. Atheists think they are rational and scientific but isn't it more rational and open minded to say that God *might* exist? Should real scientists keep an open mind?

6. Atheists are some of the biggest trolls on the Internet. They will probably start trolling me just for writing this post.

7. Have you ever known someone who would rather be right than loved? And eventually you are like, “dude, ok, ok, you are right” but you are also thinking “what an a-hole!” That a-hole is almost certainly an atheist.

8. Atheists are the kind of people who enjoy telling small children that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are all fake. Thanks for ruining all the fun, atheist! I guess you think a 5 year old knowing “the truth” is more important than them having a happy childhood.

9. Atheists are selfish. Instead of praising God for good things that happen in their life, they just praise themselves. Like “wow, I really deserved that raise. Praise myself!”

10. They just suck. You don't even need a reason. It is obvious. Just accept it.
I have to add, so you know where I'm coming from, that most atheists are perfectly normal, likable people.  I have no problem with them.  I have no beef with them.  I'm live-and-let-live.  They're live-and-let live.  It's those militant Richard Dawkins wannabe assholes who fit the "type" described in this list.  You know, the people that Vox Day so loves to pillory.

The amazing thing about this list is not the list itself.  It's that it made Buzzfeed.  Things don't just end up on Buzzfeed.  They end up there because a sufficient contingent of "hipsters" think it merits the attention.

Being the consummate connoisseur of schadenfreude, I have to opine that the idea of militant atheists being subjected to increasing ridicule warms the cockles of my dark heart.

Now go say 10 "Hail Darwin"'s and contemplate the total purposelessness of your wretched existance.

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The Solution

Deadeye and I were sitting around last night discussing matters of the world.  She wondered how it all got so crazy.  How is it that people that do all of the right things (work hard, save money, fund their own medical care and retirement, etc.) are penalized by our government in the form of confiscatory taxation and regulation while people who flat-out fail at life, people who don't try to get an education, people who won't work but want to "get paid", and those who spend like drunken sailors Congress and accrue back-breaking debt, are rewarded (via handouts, tax breaks, bailouts, etc.)?

I related to her the wisdom of the Founders.  Originally, the right to vote was NOT universal; it was restricted to land owners only.  The wisdom of this is self-evident.  Those who paid the taxes elected the representation.  A profligate Congress of the type we've had since.......since well before I was born?.......wouldn't last a term if those paying the taxes to support that spending were the only ones voting.

It is almost laughable in hindsight to think that people whose only role in society is to exhaust natural resources and sponge off of the productive are allowed to vote.  Who do you think such people are going to elect?  The guy who promises to reign in government spending and enforce Constitutional government, or the guy who says "Bring on the goodies!"?

The only hope for any sort of sanity in government is to pass a Constitutional amendment limiting the voting franchise to tax paying citizens ONLY.  And that has about the same odds of happening as the odds that I'll one day be President.

My brother is right.  This IS the insane asylum of the universe.

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Sunday, July 11, 2010

A brilliant campaign strategy

If you're going down - I mean going down hard - and you know it, what do you do?  You could just give up, I suppose.  But if you're Team Donkey, you never say die!  In what may be perhaps the single most brilliant campaign strategy ever, the Donkeys are unveiling a brilliant strategy of threats of what they will do if they lose Congress in the 2010 elections.
That's why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.

"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month.
[...]
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.

Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.

Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.
"SOOOOOOOOOOOO! You think you can just discard us like yesterday's trash!  Try it an we'll unleash hell!"

How brilliant is this strategy?  My first thought after I read the article was, "OMG!  We'd better pray that the Donkeys win in November!"  Then the portion of my brain dedicated to cynicism (that would be 99.9%) kicked in and I realized that the reaction I had is the reaction their strategy is intended to trigger!

Give credit where credit is due.  They're evil geniuses, those Donkeys.  Evil effing geniuses.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Cleared of all wrongdoing [/sarcasm]

The search for truth being a relative thing, we can certainly take it as settled fact when the University of East Anglia proclaims that its investigation of....uh....itself....uncovered no wrongdoing of any kind.
Emails stolen from one of the world's leading climate change research centers contained no evidence to undermine the case for manmade global warming, a report found on Wednesday.

An investigation into the British research unit cleared its scientists of serious wrongdoing, but criticized their lack of openness and said some of their data was misleading.

The University of East Anglia, eastern England, launched the inquiry after 1,000 emails hacked from its climate research unit were put on the Internet and held up as evidence scientists had exaggerated or lied about man's role in global warming.
Just like Penn State University in its investigation of....uh....itself....found nothing amiss.

Nothing to see here people.  Move along.

Not all of us are persuaded.
Russell was appointed by the institution to investigate an archive of source code and emails that leaked onto the internet last November. The source code is not addressed at all. His report suggests that the problems were of the academics' own making, stating that they were "united in defence against criticism". Yet the enquiry found that despite emails promising to "redefine" the peer review publication process, and put pressure on journal editors, staff were not guilty of subverting the IPCC process, and their "rigour" and "honesty" were beyond question.

Leading academics were called for written and oral evidence before the Russell enquiry, and in many cases the report accepts their account of events. The subjects of their criticism were not invited, not were climate scientists critical of their behaviour. For example, in their capacity as IPCC gatekeepers, the academics are cleared of excluding critical evidence, and yet bending the rules to include supporting studies. To reach this particular conclusion, for example, the report finds a criterion: a "consistence of view" with earlier work. The earlier work here was in fact produced [by] the academics under scrutiny. So, having compared the CRU academics' work against their previous work, and found it to be consistent, they are cleared of malpractice.
Let me summarize. Because the results produced in the time frame under investigation matched the results of earlier work produced by....uh....the people under investigation....nothing untoward has occurred.

Nothing to see here people.  Move along.

Now let me speak honestly, from the heart.  The source code matters.  Michael Mann's discredited "hockey stick" program would produce the same result whether you fed it temperature data or the price list from Wendy's.  It skewed older numbers to a pattern of a slow, gradual increase, and completely distorted numbers at the tail end of the dataset to sky upward at an exponential rate that is ridiculous on its face and should have caught SOMEONE'S attention from the very beginning.

What's in the source code at East Anglia?  Are we dealing with the same kind of intellectual dishonesty as that shown by Mr. Mann?

Talk of "tricks" and "hide the decline" matter.  When one speaks of "cheating on my spouse" you don't assume it involves a card game.  Someone with a little more intellectual honesty (and no connection to either the University or any government bureaucracy) needs to look into what their little "tricks" were.

Though concern was voiced over the refusal of the scientists to share their "data" (I use the term loosely - fictitious bullshit is the more appropriate term) with independent scientists so they might independently validate their findings, this too matters much more than the sham investigation weighs it.  The fact that in one of the emails a scientist said that he would DESTROY the data before he would share it with an outsider is GARGANTUAN.  This is not something to be brushed under the rug or treated with a slap on the wrist.  You don't hide your data unless you know that it's corrupt, has been falsified, or is total fiction.

The bullying of scientific journals to prevent publication of opposing viewpoints matters.  If science is, as so many of its proponents claim, a search for the truth, then let opposing voices be heard!  These scientists weren't acting as seekers of the truth by throwing their weight around in this way.  They were acting as ideological thugs.

I'm tired of the dishonesty.  I'm tired of this ideology-tainted pseudo-science serving no other purpose than to further political schemes to increase taxation on and control over formerly free peoples.

My brother is right - this planet IS the insane asylum for the entire universe.

Update:

Check out this column for a scathing review of East Anglia's "finding".

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Suing for -- what?

If this isn't the damndest thing.  The federal government tries to pry itself into every nook and cranny of our lives, to regulate every single minute facet of of our existence.  Perversely, enforcement of our borders, one of the few powers granted to the Federal government by the Constitution, is the one area where the federal government has no interest in inserting itself.  So when Arizona attempts to do it for them -- they sue
The federal lawsuit against Arizona's tough new immigration law focuses heavily on a question that has been in the spotlight repeatedly the past decade and dates back to the Founding Fathers: The right of the government to keep states from enacting laws that usurp federal authority.
The feds have basically stated, in so many words, that not only are they not interested in enforcing our borders, but they'll be damned if they'll let anyone else do it!

And before you "conservatives" start jumping on the "blame Obama" bandwagon, don't forget that your champion, King George the Dim, was worse than Il Duce on border security, and your last candidate for President, "conservative" (ha! in a pig's eye!) John McCommie was the driving force behind Scamnasty.

Our "leaders" don't care to enforce our borders.  Is cheap labor really worth the dangers to which the citizens of borders areas are subjected? 

I. just. don't. get. it.

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Monday, July 5, 2010

Another out-of-control Prosecutor

Normally, this would be a story for Toes at Sore Toes and a Bleeding Heart.  She is a tireless advocate for the reform of CPS (Child Protective Services).  But Toes passed it to me because (a) she knows my opinion of Prosecutors, that they are over-ambitious weasels intent on parlaying their position into a future political career without regard to the human wreckage left in their wake, and (b) it happened in my neck of the woods.  In Harford Country, to be exact - just a couple of hours northeast of humble Frederick.

Toes knows me entirely too well. The story got the predictable reaction out of me - I'm PISSED.

I can't do the story justice with a few random quotes. You can find it here in its entirety (major hat tip to Bill Medvecky who, like Toes, is a champion in the fight against out-of-control CPS). This is the money quote.
We want to see how she reacts when we tell her her kid is dead.
Classy. I hope there's a special place in hell where assholes like this can be subjected to horrors beyond imagination.

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Thursday, July 1, 2010

"Weak economy? We're shocked!"

The people effing up our economy (and the sycophants who obediently shovel their propaganda) simply can't believe that their counter intuitive deliberate efforts to save destroy our economy aren't are working.  The latest news?  Weak numbers (for weak minds).
Fears that the economic recovery is fizzling grew Thursday after the government and private sector issued weak reports on a number of fronts.

Unemployment claims are up, home sales are plunging without government incentives and manufacturing growth is slowing.

Meanwhile, 1.3 million people are without federal jobless benefits now that Congress adjourned for a weeklong Independence Day recess without passing an extension. That number could grow to 3.3 million by the end of the month if lawmakers can't resolve the issue when they return.

All of this worries economists.
NOW you're worried?!?!?!

Anyone who's been paying attention - particularly those who follow Vox Popoli - knows that government bailouts and incentives have only served to prolong the pain and postpone the inevitable crash.  We're in the midst of a profound economic earthquake that has only just begun to rumble.  We would have been a lot better off - a whole lot better off - had King George the Dim simply let the economic chips fall where they may in 2008.  We'd probably be pulling out of the deep, deep recession it would have caused right about now.  Instead, we'll be subject to Great Depression 2.0 in dribs and drabs as our political class tries to salvage their own careers rather than do the right thing.

Now THERE'S a cheery message for a Thursday evening, eh?

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