The Mono

( The GOP primary snafu )

I'm still torn about the vote tomorrow... ( Democrat-ticket musings )

State cuts off Delta pumps

This whole situation pisses me off to no end.

( The most recent victims in the water wars are the fish. )

This is the middle of Day Three lost to chemical exposure and exhaustion. And people wonder why I don't carry a full class load.

I'm a little shaky, so I've been sitting at the computer most of the morning. I'm not sure that reading the idiocy from GArrow and Sun-King in the political discussion on lily is helping much, though; to an extent, I agree with rm -rf * that the place has turned into Fox News Lite. Between the rampant White House talking points and Sun-King's utter obsession with the super-early primary races, it's probably more stress than it's worth. Somehow I never get around to quitting the discussion, though.

Both sides of the spectrum complain that it's only when their side tries to call out inaccuracies that the media objects. I'll have to take the right-wingers word for that, as I've mostly been seeing the political cartoons and pundits labeling the congressional investigations and criminal prosecutions going on as (literally) Democrat-driven witchhunts; I see little to suggest there's a converse to that. I do suspect that, like so many things in ideology these days, it involves different definitions of common words, like "object", "partisan", and so on, and their expectations of media and government behavior. More than ever, I want an objective metric for semantics, so that we can figure out not only the objective:subjective ratio of any given statement, but whether the reaction by the media at large is really for, neutral, or against. It seems like each side sees it far too differently to ever agree without a common measuring stick.

Whether they would agree to a common measuring stick is, of course, another issue entirely...

I'm getting pretty sick of the escalation off Iran's coast. I've called Nancy Pelosi's office -- (415) 556-4862 -- and left a message that in light of the events out there, I hope she'll reconsider her position on impeachment proceedings. I may also spend some of the day writing letters to Pelosi and George Miller.

This has gone on long enough. It's quite clear that we can't just wait out the last years of this administration; we need to either get them out of there or wrap them up so tight in red tape that they can't do any further damage.

This has been "Blog for Choice" day or some such. elynne talked briefly about why she's pro-choice, as in "pro-reproductive choice". I commented on my reasons, and figured I should put them up here as well.

I'm pro-choice because I believe that sex is not sinful, and pregnancy should not be a punishment.

The only reason I can figure for denial/non-coverage of simple contraceptives is in a misguided effort to create "consequences" which punish innocent (including newborn) bystanders, as a result of a perfectly natural and healthy activity.

Say what you want about the moral position of abortion itself. I'm pro-contraceptive, and that makes me pro-choice by definition.

I don't know who it was that first told me that Chipotle is a subsidiary of McDonalds Corp. It was a while ago. It hasn't stopped me from going there; it's still quick, tasty, healthy, and cheap. Their policy with regards to meat means that I can order any type of meat on the menu and not feel sick for most of a day afterward... I relish the fact that I can get a shredded pork taco without getting smacked by my allergy to antibiotic residues.

In fact, most of the policies I'm aware of there are ones I approve of. Recycling being one -- their paper products are largely post-consumer waste, and they do try to cut down on packaging. They don't buy local, but they do buy sustainably, at least more than almost any other chain I've been at. Not bad from a political point of view.

I know that some of the people at the co-ops, who are even more rabidly anti-corporate than I am, would frown on the fact that I'm giving McDonalds money. I've made a conscious decision not to ignore that fact -- rather, I deliberately give my money to Chipotle. If McDonalds is going to try branching out into the healthy, sustainable, free-range branch of food service, I want to send them the message that people want this stuff. We want healthy, ecological food that tastes good. If Chipotle does well, it serves as notice that there is a demand for this, and maybe McDonalds will consider changing its practices elsewhere as well. Pressure from consumers was what already caused them to give notice to Tyson that they want less antibiotic use in chicken farms, and Tyson agreed to put that into motion.

It's not many corporations that try to branch out into different philosophies, rather than just different areas of the marketplace. Chipotle is a good example of why more of them may want to do that. You get a much better sense of what people actually like and want, rather than what they will settle for.

I've seen lots of people comment on the ~30% of all of these elections that seems to be made up of insane voters. Like the ones who voted for Katherine Harris, or the ones where you just can't manage to justify it as "straight party line" because it was a proposition, or there were no party affiliations.

All I can think of is Rogers' great post, another "lunch discussion with Tyrone", entitled The Crazification Factor. It was a great example of the phenomenon. And damn funny.

I don't see quite what people are hollering about on this Supreme Court ruling, which states that law enforcement does not have to knock (i.e. announce its presence) before entering a building, so long as they have a valid search warrant.

( Read more... )

A great reply to those pushing the anti-gay marriage amendments:

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

about just how your personal information could be assembled, correlated, and made available... and what the consequences could be.

Somewhat hyperbolic, but still an interesting thought-experiment.

Google refuses to release data to Feds.

The Justice Department isn't after it for national security reasons -- they just want Google to do their research for an attempt to resurrect a law restricting access to porn by minors. The law was struck down in 2004.

Other, unnamed search engines have complied with the subpoenas, but Google will fight the government's effort "vigorously", claiming that handing over the data would compromise customer privacy and their own trade secrets.

Okay, it is going a little far to break out the quotes from "1984", but ( this is disturbing. )

I was waiting for a pie to cool down enough to carry it to the car today, so I was poking around a little on the 'net. And I read another article which unearthed a thought I've had many times... no matter how many times I mull it over, I still don't have any answers.

( Cut because it isn't everyone's cup of tea )

Chief Justice Rehnquist has died.

I can't add a lot more to that.

Hackett lost to Schmidt in Ohio today. I've been following this mostly through Nick -- he's been very interested -- and I heard the verdict when I got home tonight.

( Read more... )

This caught my eye, mainly because it has to do with plant pathology. It is, however, also a tale of the same sort of corruption that pervades the current White House. Which makes sense, given who Katherine Harris is.

Pressure was put on Florida officials to test "Celestial Water" as a cure for citrus canker

I haven't researched citrus canker specifically, but I remember hearing that it's been a real scourge in Florida over the last four years or so. It's a bacterial disease, and the combination of wet weather (which helps it spread from tree to tree) and hurricanes (which injured the trees, making wounds where disease could enter) has made a serious impact on the citrus orchards. The only treatment for most cankers is to cut off the affected parts, which in many cases in Florida has meant taking out trees entirely. Everyone's looking for some other way, but I don't know of any.

When Katherine Harris, who knows absolutely zip about plant disease, hooks up with a New York Rabbi and a cardiologist to suggest a cure, it makes me angry that scientists have to comply with ignorant superstitious beliefs just because of who she is. Other quacks are brushed off with a quiet "do the research and let us know". Yet this Kabbalist dreck gets tested by the state, because a U.S. Representative is breathing down people's necks.

Gah. I get irritated by politicians messing with climate change data, but I guess when they mess with my profession, it gets personal.

Irony is truly alive and well.

The Chief Privacy Officer of the company formerly known as Gator (remember them?) has just been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security, as part of the "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee". D. Reed Freeman will be one of 20 members on the panel. (The Salon article requires registration, but I recommend you sit through the free day pass if you want to read the whole short article -- it's pretty painless.)

This is the same Gator, by the way, that became infamous while making the term "spyware" familiar to a lot of people. The adware they installed on unwitting systems, by attaching it to popular programs as a hitchhiker of sorts, added advertisements in all sorts of places as you surfed the net. It was difficult to detect, even harder to remove. Nice show of integrity for a former Chief Privacy Officer.

Of course, the Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security itself used to work for DoubleClick... why am I not surprised.

Kudos to This Is True:

A school spelling bee in Rhode Island was cancelled because the district believed that the competition conflicted with the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. (It was later reinstated by the new superintendent, who seemed to feel a little differently.)

Their argument: "a spelling bee does not meet the criteria of all children reaching high standards." It creates "winners" and "losers", you see, which is to be avoided; this is one of the main points of the No Child Left Behind Act, which seeks to make sure all children succeed. I note that the same reasoning has eliminated team sports in many elementary schools.

I recall one of the biggest disappointments of my grade-school years... I participated in our school district's Young Authors Project for two years, submitting hand-bound books in sixth and seventh grade. The first year I netted an award -- tied for second, I seem to recall. The prize that year was a little certificate, and the choice of any two books I wanted from the book bins, which were stuffed full of new young adult fiction. I had taken home "The Dark Is Rising" and another one the previous year, and was looking forward to rummaging through the bins again.

The second year my book was considerably better (as I had learned quite a bit about making one), and I expected to do well. I was quite dismayed at the awards ceremony, when they announced that there were no individual awards: we would all be given little medals for our participation, because our hard work had made us all winners.

It wasn't that I hadn't gotten a ribbon or anything to hold up as proof that I was better than anyone else... it was that, by lumping all of us together, they had done just the opposite of what they set out to do. Instead of making us all feel like winners, they made me feel like I was just another generic kid. All that effort to make the best book I could, and the only acknowledgement I got was a pat on the head and a platitude.

This is why, when I come across items like this, I know exactly how the kids feel. It's not just the bright ones, who feel like they're being lumped in with the average ones -- it's the average ones too, who feel like they're never given a chance to show that they're anything other than average. And when kids lose that chance to shine, everybody loses.