FAILURE TO ACT?

"Bush is a pawn and unable to act decisively until his handlers tell him what to do and hand him a script."

In 2001 when a plane crashed into the world trade center, followed by a second, President Bush was sitting and reading a book to children called The Pet Goat. He was quietly informed of the event, nodded, then finished reading the book before leaving the classroom to fly back to Washington DC. It took seven minutes to finish reading the book to the kids.

For that failure to instantly leap up and seek out a television camera, President Bush was mocked, attacked and shown bitter hatred by the left - something fauxumentarian Michael Moore highlighted in his outrageous propaganda piece Fahrenheit 9/11. Later, when Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, President Bush did not instantly leap onto a plane and fly down to pose in front of cameras. When he did fly to the area and make a speech after looking at the ruins, he was attacked for using up power to run Klieg lights.

When a loser Muslim tries to blow himself up on a plane, President Obama is informed about the event, nods, and goes on golfing for many times seven minutes. When he finally makes a speech about the event it is several days later.

What do these events have in common? Political opponents attacking the president in each event for failing to run off and grab a camera to make a statement with sufficient speed. Each time the president in question was condemned for "failing to act" and taking too much time.

And every time I've asked the same question: what, exactly, did you expect him to do? What does a politician grabbing face time in front of a camera accomplish other than his personal popularity? When the president makes a speech, that means time taken away from doing other things. When the president makes a speech that's all it is, and nothing gets done except empty words.

I understand the value of bereaved and frightened people hearing from the president about their particular situation. I also understand the difference in the way the press handle President Bush and President Obama - I already said political opponents reacted against the president in question. And I also understand that it makes the president seem uncaring and indifferent when he seems to take no action. Perception is very significant in situations of shock and crisis.

Yet neither President Bush nor President Obama have superpowers. They cannot put on their power ring and build a dam to stop the flooding. They cannot fly around the world really fast, go back in time, and prevent disaster. They are mere mortals, men with a political position and no more special power than you or I.

It seems to me that this is just a cheap way to attack a political opponent rather than a reasonable complaint. There's plenty of other reasons to criticize President Obama (and Bush) other than this nonsense.

Quote of the Day

"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

PICTURE OF THE DAY

At least you have advance warning...

PIRACY IN THE NAUGHTIES

"I like how so many of you people seem to be willfully killing your platform of choice. Keep downloading games in the millions and you eventually won’t have any left, companies just won’t bother making them."

Well, the first decade of the 21st century is coming to a close and its been a pretty wild one. One of the new concepts which came into its own this decade is internet piracy. The concept of pirating copyrighted materials is not new, but doing so with internet file sharing became an issue this decade and this century. It started before Napster was invented but the sharing of files before then was primarily done on individual "bulletin board" systems. With Napster, the pirating and sharing of files on your computer became a huge industry.

Napster was shut down, but it was like cutting the head off the hydra: in its place dozens of alternatives have grown to replace it. Each time one is taken out, another takes its place - or more than one. And at the present there seems no real way to stop the trading of copyrighted files.

This last year saw plenty of piracy like the years before it. The website Torrent Freak has several lists of the files most pirated online (using BitTorrent, at least). Here's the top 5 downloaded on PC:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
2. The Sims 3
3. Prototype
4. Need for Speed: Shift
5. Street Fighter IV

They also have X-Box and Wii most pirated games (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and New Super Mario Brothers). The PC version of Call of Duty clocked up 4.1 million downloads according to Ernesto, more than double last year's big download Spore.

Instead of stealing these games, why not sign up for Gamefly or Ongo Bongo and get Netflix-style game rentals? Its 22 bucks a month and you can keep the game as long as you want, with no late fees. That way at least you can see if a game is going to be any good, and if you like it you can buy a copy later.

Yet if you read the comments you get a sense why people are downloading Modern Warfare 2 so much. Certainly there's a huge interest in the game and people want to play it without paying (or despite the fact that they cannot afford to buy it). Nobody wants to say that, but its the primary reason. However, the makers of the game also didn't help themselves much with the way they released the game for PC, as a commenter explains:

Ditto to all the statements above. Modern Warfare 2 is the most pirated game because the developers (Infinity Ward) chose to take the lazy way out and make it a dumbed down piece of S console port that was immediately released on pc.

NO dedicated servers. NO mods. NO console commands even. NO self-server selection. NO LAN multiplayer support for pc. What do they give you? A game slightly more than a rehash of MW1 so it’s MW1.5 more like it. They give you auto pairing/match making which is CRAP, made even crappier by the fact you only can play on IWNet servers.

For all the reasons above. I’d say Modern Warfare 2 DESERVED to be 2009’s most pirated game. AND DESERVES to be continue to be pirated! At $60, the game is a bloody ripoff too, $10 more than regular PC game titles… and with what, 10% the multiplayer functionality. No thanks. I’d take my money and spend it on some other REAL game like Battlefield 2 Bad Company for PC.

Its wrong to steal games and pirate copyrighted material, but at the same time, these companies are acting in ways which encourage people to do so as well.

People are going to try to steal your product, no matter what it is. You can sell oranges and people will try to shoplift them. That's wrong and I sympathize with sellers. Yet there's no reason to antagonize your customers, and companies just do not seem to understand that.

YOU JUST CAN'T

"Haven't you figured out why you can't kill people?"

I watched Terminator 2 again last night. That movie never ceases to entertain and it is one of the best made movies of the last fifty years in terms of technical achievement and excitement. James Cameron did a fine job crafting an entertaining film with few flaws.

One of the only flaws is the casting of young John Connor. There's a reason Edward Furlong's acting career hasn't really gone anywhere: he's awful. Just a bit more care and effort to find a better actor would have helped this movie a great deal. As it is, I find myself cringing when he's on screen far too often.

Watching Terminator 2 I was reminded of something that has long concerned me in the script. It isn't a flaw in the movie as such, but rather a useful illustration to make a point about western culture and postmodernism. Here is the excerpt I have in mind:

JOHN
Jesus... you were gonna kill that guy!

TERMINATOR
Of course. I'm a terminator.

JOHN
Listen to me, very carefully, okay? You're not a terminator any more. Alright? You got that? You can't just go around killing people!

TERMINATOR
Why?

JOHN
Whattaya mean, why? 'Cause you can't!

TERMINATOR
Why?

JOHN
You just can't, okay? Trust me on this.

Cameron's screenplay helps illustrate the point even further with the stage directions that follow:

Terminator doesn't get it. John just stares at him. Frightened at what just almost happened. He gets a glimpse of the responsibility that comes with power.

For Cameron, this was a great scene illustrating how John Connor is learning to lead. For the viewers, nothing was accomplished.

Part of the fault is Furlong, who can't act: he doesn't seem afraid or thoughtful or like he's learned something, he just seems like a kid reading lines. Part of it is just Cameron's inability to tell the kind of story he's trying to. You never really understand how this kid is going to be some great leader of people that saves mankind. He simply does not display any sort of leadership ability beyond yelling orders with a scriptwriter's help of knowing just what to do. Reading the notes in the script you understand what Cameron was trying to tell in the story, but it just wasn't there in the movie.

But that isn't the point I wanted to make. My point is about John Connor's inability to explain his ethical position to the Terminator.

John Connor doesn't know why you aren't supposed to kill people. He just has always heard it and presumes its true. The movie never explains why it is wrong to kill people. I don't actually have the problem some did with the Terminator shooting people in the knees, that's perfectly reasonable for the machine to do given its design and programming, and the "he'll live" line was darkly funny.

The Terminator is a machine, a computer. It "learns" in that it adapts its programming and reactions to what happens around it, to better infiltrate and kill. It cannot understand why it shouldn't kill people: not only is that what it was designed to do, but it is the most effective way to deal with the problem at hand. Living people call for help, attract attention, and come back later to attack you. Dead people do none of this. In sheer cold logic, murdering people in the way is perfectly reasonable.

John Connor has been taught that killing is wrong by his mother, but he doesn't know why killing is wrong. Like the parents I wrote about in my essay on counterculture, she probably never knew herself. When faced with someone who actually wants an answer, he's stumped, he is incapable of explaining why. And the Terminator, although it will follow orders, will never just take someone at their word, not out of stubbornness, but out of simple machine logic.

Connor like most people has never tried to examine his worldview. For a child, that's not unreasonable, he has much to learn. He needs to learn how to think for himself and build his own conclusions based on fact, ethical absolutes, and reason. For now, simply obeying and believing authorities on ethical matters is sufficient. Yet the movie never does give any reason not to kill, not once.

Later on, the Terminator and John Connor bring up the topic again:

TERMINATOR
Killing Dyson might actually prevent the war.

JOHN
I don't care!! There's gotta be another way. Haven't you learned anything?! Haven't you figured out why you can't kill people?

Well no, John, because you haven't given him a single logical reason why not to. You haven't even tried. You haven't argued the innate value of human life, or any overarching absolute ethical standard. You haven't tried to reason with the machine, you've simply insisted.

By the end of the movie Cameron would have us believe that somehow the Terminator has learned anyway:

SARAH (Voice Over)
The luxury of hope was given to me by the Terminator. Because if a machine can learn the value of human life... maybe we can too.

Yet there's no evidence that it learned any such thing. It followed John's orders and did not directly cause the death of anyone's life, but there wasn't any "aha!" moment, it never revealed a point at which it understood. It was simply assumed to have.

It is likely Cameron himself doesn't know why and simply buried that fact in spectacular stunts, explosions, and action. And in an action movie this wouldn't usually matter. Nobody expects philosophical discussions and deep thought in a movie filled with robots from the future and big explosions. Yet he brought the topic up, it is critical not just to the movie, but the whole series. And he complicates matters by bringing up the sinful nature of human beings:

JOHN
We're not gonna make it, are we? People, I mean.

TERMINATOR
It is in your nature to destroy yourselves.

Now, why the Terminator was programmed to say that, one can only guess - likely it is simply one of those "voice of the author" moments where Cameron put his thoughts in the mouth of one of the main characters. Yet James Cameron again brings up ethical concerns without defending or supporting his position, yet he hints at a solution, I think: mom breaks up the fight between the two boys. Women will save us with their nurturing ways! I'm being a bit uncharitable, but given Cameron's political viewpoint it is not much of a reach.

So we have several instances where philosophy is brought up but not resolved. And it simply cannot be resolved by the unexamined man. Someone who has not thought about why they believe what they believe and the reasons behind what they assume is incapable of explaining any of it to another. So the Terminator's blank stare and repeated question "why" isn't just a mark of the uncomprehending machine, it is the audience's question as well. A question that is not simply unanswered, but unanswerable by the characters in the movie.

Why is it wrong to kill? Because an absolute, objective authority has said so. Wrong and right only have meaning and weight if they are given this by an authority with the power and right to make it so. A government can tell us what is illegal and legal, but only a greater authority than man can tell us what is truly right and wrong.

The reason for this is simple: what one man insists, another man can disagree with and neither has the power or authority to say they are more right than the other. John Connor says its "just wrong" to kill people. John Wayne Gacy says otherwise - which is right? In an ethical system without an objective, transcendent authority neither. Or both, depending on your viewpoint. The only way you can come to any sort of compelling ethical system without that authority is to simply insist on your way and have the mortal power to force others to go a long with you. They may disagree, but you can have the power to compel them to pretend otherwise, for a time.

And that's what's lacking for Cameron and the characters he writes: no transcendent authority. There's no one to say "this is right, this is wrong" and have the power to do so. If mere humanity determines right and wrong - especially based on gut instinct or tradition - then anything can be called right, or wrong. And in the end, that means nothing is.

Quote of the Day

"Folks can't seem to realize that it isn't a smooth talker we need in there but a steady man, a man with judgment. Any medicine-show man can spout words, if they are written for him. It takes no genius to sound well. To act right and at the right time is something else again."
-Louis L'Amour, Comstock Lode

PICTURE OF THE DAY

What is this? Its a timeline showing the deception, fraud, and deliberate manipulation of data to mislead the world about climate change. It's Warmaquiddick in a time line. If you want a closer look, check out this article and download the pdf file it includes.

How many other areas of science is this happening in?

2010 POLITICS

"May you live in interesting times"
-A Chinese Curse

OK the Democratic Party passed a health insurance takeover plan which none of them have read and nobody is exactly sure of the true contents. What we know is disturbing, but the vote went straight down party line. Despite many congressmen such as Pete DeFazio (D-OR) and Joe Lieberman ("I"-CT) claiming they'd never ever vote for such a bill, every single Democrat in the Senate did. Most were bought through outrageous bribes and pork giveaways, and in the end this was the wrong bill at the wrong time which nobody likes.

Why was it rammed through, and why did the Democrats all vote for it? Why did they push so hard for it and vote for it despite vows not to? Why didn't a single Republican vote for this bill if the Democrats thought it was so desperately important?

At least of them voted for this bill because they were bribed to, we know that already. The payoffs were so excessive and noxious that even the legacy media noticed and reported about them. Yet that does not explain a full vote by all Democrats and "independents" such as Lieberman who plainly said they'd vote against it.

Some probably heeded the threats coming from the Democratic Party leadership and White House. Vote our way or you won't get funds for your upcoming election. Vote our way or you won't get your pet projects through. Vote our way or we'll support and fund your opponent in the primary vote. That's tough for a politician to stand up to, since few have any integrity or honor and most are there to get reelected, rather than to do a good job.

Some, perhaps most, think that government-run health care is best. That socialism is a fine idea, if they run it, and that since most of the world - especially those enlightened, superior Europeans - has socialized medicine, then it must be the proper way to handle things. This is one more step toward that final goal, and the step is too important to let go. This probably was the last chance to get such a bill passed, and each incremental step toward the goal is worth risking the ire of voters.

Some certainly know that the more people who are dependent on the US government for anything, the more they are likely to vote for leftists. After all, conservatives want people to stand on their own, to be responsible for themselves, to be self-sufficient and help each other rather than rely on big government for their aid. Leftists will openly and gleefully pander to those who want something for nothing, a Democratic politician can always rely on votes just because people know Democrats re more likely to vote for goodies and giveaways, for bigger government programs to hand things out than Republicans. That means more power and more money for the Democrats who are in office.

And some probably thought that, although the polls say people hate it now they will come to like it later once they learned what it was all about. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said so in very plain language recently. He'd better hope so, if the polling data from his state is accurate - he's down by 10 points to his Republican opponent for next year's election. And there may be reason for this optimism.

People won't like the plan as they hear more about it - there's a great deal to dislike, if for no other reason than it costs hundreds of billions of dollars we do not have. Yet the Democratic Party has 10 months to sway public opinion. To do so they have to do several things:

1. Convince the media that the Republicans will win if they aren't more supportive
2. Convince the public that the economy is roaring along, even if they have to issue "mistaken" numbers, again
3. Either convince the public that the health care plan is a terrific thing or distract them with something else so they forget it
4. Convince the public that President Obama is a super keen guy everyone should love
5. Convince the public that Republicans are horrendous ogres who would steal their children's food.

1 The first one is pretty easy to do, everyone who follows and believes polling like the voice of God is convinced that unless things change, the GOP will win big in November 2010. I think the Republicans will win many seats, but fail to gain a majority, but we'll see. That simple knowledge will prompt the legacy media to tend to try to help their guys win - the Democrats. Although reporting juicy stories that people want to hear and big scandals that sell lots of advertising is difficult to resist, we've seen for years now that the legacy media would rather die than hurt Democrats win political power, in the end. All the Democrat leadership has to do is remind them of the perceived danger of GOP victory and demand that the press stop covering things that hurt them, and the press will. They've done it before.

There's another aspect to this though. Most of the legacy media can be relied on to toe the line and follow like good obedient sheep. The problem is that the new media - blogs, talk radio, etc - won't. And Fox News, the biggest cable news provider in America, will tend not to although they're heavily poll driven. So next year is a critical time to watch out. Will the Obama administration set up new FCC rules to control their political foes? I've written about how this could be done, and it wouldn't involve the fairness doctrine at all. Time will tell, but this administration has demonstrated it is more than willing to help its friends and hurt its foes with the power of the executive department - even if sometimes it is legally questionable.

2 The second is a bit more challenging, because while depressing people into believing that things are worse than they really are is merely a matter of showing folks on TV who have it worse, no matter how many happy shiny people you see on TV, that doesn't make you able to pay your bills or get a job. While the "accidental" misstatements about economic factors can help (and few read the corrections), in the end, the facts weigh heavy on the minds of voters. And given the hapless incompetence the Democrats display every time doing something about the economy comes up, I'm not confident they can pull this off. On the other hand, maybe the economy really will be doing well, and that would only help the Democrats.

3 The third bit, bread and circuses or selling the plan, is probably the easiest. While people are enraged about being force fed a crap sandwich by radicals in office who laugh at or even insult their constituents, that will fade when the next celebrity trial or missing little girl or big scandal erupts. Just have another Michael Jackson death, or another terrorist attack, or another major news story and the polling will shift away if for no other reason than distraction. And again the legacy media can easily be counted on to help with this, even if they aren't asked to. They all want to pile on the same big story to cover it.

4 Next we come to the Obama rehabilitation program. This I think is a lost cause. President Obama's three big attractions were the perception that he's black, the perception that he's post-partisan and represented a new political way by an outsider, and the perception that he was centrist, or at least supported in what individuals did. His speech making was sufficiently vague and uncertain that undiscerning people or those who didn't pay much attention could think he meant whatever they wanted him to make. That's easy enough to do.

The hard part is when it comes down to actually taking action. The few times President Obama actually has taken action, he's tended to annoy large groups of people. Nobody likes the health insurance takeover plan that was passed. Some people like some parts of it, but it is not just disliked but hated by most people who follow politics closely, both left and right. And that's a big millstone hung around Obama's neck. He's not the post partisan guy he lied about being. He's not the centrist he lied about being. He's not the guy who likes what you like, despite vague speeches which could be taken that way. He's not really even black - he's just as white as he is black. You can't get any of that back, not a bit of it. All that can be done is to make his opponents seem worse.

5 And finally, the GOP smear plan has to work. This can, easily. Once the legacy media managed to lie, distort, and misrepresent President Bush enough about Hurricane Katrina, they had the momentum to make Republicans look bad for months. With carefully timed releases of scandals which conspicuously left out coverage of Democrats also involved in them, and sex scandals involving Republicans while ignoring those with Democrats, the public was shoved away from the Republicans - and let's face it, the GOP didn't help any with their attitude and spending.

Making Republicans look bad is pretty easy, they're politicians and politicians are generally unlikeable, unworthy of support, and sleazy. Readers here know I have no particularl love for Republicans. The hard part for the Democrats and the legacy media is that Republicans aren't in power any longer. They can't make anything happen for good or ill. They can't be caught doing nasty things not because they wouldn't but because they can't. Bills can't be spun as unpopular to hurt Republicans because they have no power to even get them out of committee. Every earmark a Republican manages to squeak through is matched by ten a Democrat did. And every time the Democrats push through another gargantuan leftist scheme, that enrages people even more against the donkey. So this will be a tough sell. In the end, all Republicans have to do is seem less obnoxious than Democrats and that's a pretty low bar to hop over.

So will this all work? I can't predict that, but I would say probably not as well as they hope. I don't see a huge turnover in congress as I said before. The Democrats will lose their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and lose a lot of seats in the House, I expect, but not their majorities. And a lot could go wrong.

First, the economy, I fear and strongly expect, will seem to be getting better, then crash. I see things getting significantly worse than they were this year, not better. By November we could see double digit inflation and unemployment close to 20%. Let's pray not, but if that happens, the Democrats could lose even more than I expect.

Second, the Democratic Party is being run by leftist radical dinosaurs who love Mao and think Che was a great fellow, who admire Fidel Castro and think that communism failed because of corruption and poor management rather than innate impossibility of success. They're the guys who wept when the Soviets failed. These guys are really hardcore leftists. They can't seem to help themselves, now that they have power. I expect that, despite all political capital being used up and vast debt, they'll keep trying to ram through one leftist scheme after another.

I see "immigration reform" on the horizon, the kind which means "amnesty and lets get Hispanics to vote Democrat." I see "election reform" coming up, the kind which means "lets get felons and make it easier for non citizens to vote." I see legislation to diminish the impact of internet and talk radio politics that the left doesn't care for. I see Cap and Trade coming back, despite Warmaquiddick and the miserable fraud involved in climate science. I see lots of hard left plans, the things that these guys have sat around talking about doing when they finally had the power - and they think they've got it now. And every one of these that is shoved in the faces of Americans means more people outraged and frustrated and determined to make them pay.

In fact, the only real bright spot I can see for Democrats, beyond the willing and sycophantic legacy media, is Republican incompetence. Republicans are stupid and fearful, they don't strike when they ought and fail to follow through when they could. They do idiotic things to try to get votes, and the entire GOP leadership seems to think that the reason they lost power in 2006 and 2008 was that they weren't enough like Democrats. That only helps the Democratic Party out.

So this next year should be interesting because the Tea Party is only gaining momentum and Sarah Palin has turned herself into a powerful force for conservative voice, one that cannot be ignored and will not be silenced. It should be interesting... in the bad way the Chinese Curse intends.

BEST OF WORD AROUND THE NET

"and the winner is..."

Last year I highlighted several posts which got the most links and internet search interest; over this year I was amused to see the reposts got plenty of attention as well. I put up a few new posts this year which have received a great deal of notice as well, but instead of reposting I will just recap and link them here.

This year I added the marketgid widget to my site, offering interesting and odd bits around the net from a Russian company. They tend to highlight how cool Russia is and how dumb America is, but it has thrown me quite a few links in the process.

The first is the Strange Stairs article I did, highlighting several of the fascinating stair variants which Toxel.com collected. This one got linked all over the place, but I'm not sure Toxel got all the attention it deserved. That's a problem with the internet, I always try to go back to the original source when I can, but not everyone does.

Another pair of articles which have gained attention are two self-shot posts. Since many of these sort of posts on the internet are of nekkid girls, I think people looked these up in hopes of finding porn, but they were probably disappointed. I put up an article about self-shot models featuring Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, which I then followed up with self-shot celebrities. Being basically egotistical and self-fascinated the webcam, cell phone, and social media phenomena have made it possible for celebrities to show themselves even more love, to the delight of their fans. I can't help but agree with Eric when he commented:

I don't know what it is exactly, but I have always thought pictures where you can see somebody's arm extended because they are taking a picture of themselves are just sort of tragically depressing. Even when the person is smiling the picture is candid and cute.

Another post which got a lot of attention was Ephebophiles and the Law. This was a think piece about how the law and society treats men who think girls under 18 are attractive, and I hoped it would stimulate discussion and debate, but not much was said. Many of the hits come from searches which picked up phrases such as "completely naked girls" and "pre-teen girls" as well as mentions of David Hamilton and Bill Henson.

There has been a lot of attention lately to my essay series on John Calvin as well (almost finished with that series, I expect to conclude it this week).

And finally, Cheesecake Tragedy, my series on Global Warming (especially with Warmaquiddick), Cheap Living, and Plastic Turkey Myth all got plenty of attention again this year.

WITHOUT MAKEUP

Once again I return to a topic I've noted before. Every so often there's a special online or in magazines: celebrities without makeup! Most recently I saw a series of pictures on Izismile of Jessica Simpson without makeup on, and the pictures looked like this:

Now, here again there's a disagreement in the term "makeup." When women use this word they mean a specific kind of cosmetic called "makeup" which covers blemishes, etc. When men use this word, they mean "anything that makes you look different than you really are."

See, Ms Simpson has eyeliner, lipstick, she's used coloring to bring out her blond eyebrows; she has makeup on. Her lips are not normally that color, her eyes do not have dark lines around them like that, her eyelashes are blond and difficult to see etc. That's all stuff to make her look different: makeup.

Quote of the Day

"The President must stop gambling with taxpayers' money and get the country back on the path of fiscal sanity."
-Candidate Obama

THE BIRTHDAY OF A KING

I want to take this chance to wish all my readers around the world a very Merry Christmas; for those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, then have a great Hannukah, or at least Boxing Day. For some thoughts on Christmas in the past I offer you these previous pieces I've written on WATN:

Sorry, Virginia
Emptiness and the Light of the World
A Humble Suggestion

WORD AROUND THE NET

"This is what happens when the rights of criminals are put before law-abiding people."

Because I won't be posting for the following two days, Word Around the Net comes early this week.

Burglar Walid Salem whom I wrote about last week - the man who tried to rob a house and was beaten for it, resulting in jail time for the man who did the beating - is in the news again. British courts decided he couldn't stand trial because he'd been beaten so bad and was suffering from brain damage, so the man he tried to steal from is in prison, but he is free. Colin Fernandez and Ryan Kiesel report that apparently he wasn't too brain damaged to keep committing crimes:

...the Daily Mail has learned Salem went on a crime spree shortly after he was discharged from hospital - and was caught for crimes including possession of forged credit cards.

He appeared at St Albans Crown Court on November 30 for five offences - one of possessing a false instrument, one of possessing a false identity card, two of handling stolen goods and one of possessing an article for use in fraud.
...
Salem was arrested on January 4 this year carrying 20 counterfeit credit cards, a false driving licence in the name of Gamal Ben Ghali, a stolen driving licence photocard in the name of Brenda Gray, and a stolen driving license photocard, National Insurance Card and Halifax card belonging to Lucie Taylor.

Salem had been conviced fifty times before for various crimes. I guess if you get away with it that long, you figure there's no reason to stop.

Previously it had been reported by the White House that economic growth the last quarter was 2.8% and like the unemployment numbers before it, this has had to be adjusted again as a closer look was taken at the data. Amazing how this keeps happening - either the guys working at the white house are incompetent (a lot of them can't seem to figure out how to pay their taxes) or they are deliberately lying about the data, knowing that the correction will get little play. The Clinton administration did this in 1999-2000, highballing economic numbers to make things look rosier than they were.

Economists predict that the next quarter will be even better, perhaps as high as 3.5%. I hope that's true, I'd love to see the recession over and recovery strong. Its hard not to be skeptical about the data after this, though.

Carbon trading is nothing more than a scam, and if you ever wanted proof, here it is courtesy Chris Flood and Fiona Harvey at the Financial Times:

Carbon prices plunged yesterday in the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, dealing a blow to the credibility of the European Union's carbon-trading scheme.

Not only is this scam self evidently fraudulent (what are you trading exactly? Money for what? But the fact that since the Copenhagen summit produced nothing but absurd news and publicity for the pundits and politicians who attended, the prices went down. Why? Because they thought this would create a boom market for the scam, that it would make a lot of money for investors. It didn't.

President Obama made a big deal out of how he was going to reach out to other nations and heal, that the supposed arrogance of the Bush administration would be over if he were president. That the "open hand of friendship" would be appreciated over the "closed fist" of the Bush White House. Meanwhile, the rest of the world snickers at and mocks President Obama (and America), and here's what America's enemies think of his attempts to not be arrogant:

"He lies all the time, deceives with demagogic words, with profound cynicism," Rodriguez told reporters.

"In this summit there was only an imperial, arrogant Obama who doesn't listen, who imposes positions that even threaten developing countries,"

Arrogant, imperial. Who said that? Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, courtesy Reuters. Its almost as if these guys think the US is bad no matter how you act.

Michael Barone has an interesting story about the last time congress shoved through an unpopular bill by legislative tricks, bribes, and every sleazy lawyer stunt people despise. It was 1854, and the Senate Majority Leader was Stephen A. Douglas. The bill was the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Barone explains in the Examiner:

The issue that Douglas said the Kansas-Nebraska Act would settle forever was slavery in the territories. His bill repealed the 34-year-old Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery in territories north of Arkansas and substituted popular sovereignty -- territory residents could vote slavery up or down.

In that case, at least the Democrats were attempting to follow the US Constitution so that states would decide their own destiny. This time, with the Government Health Insurance Takeover act of 2009, they're trying to violate the constitution. That time, Democrats lost both houses of congress, the presidency, and weren't back in power for 20 years. This time? I suspect they'll hang on to the majority in both houses, by a small margin.

Both MSNBC and now CBS news have reported on the bribery, corruption, and underhanded deal making which the Democratic leadership engaged in to get cloture for the Government Health Insurance Takeover act of 2009. Apparently this has such a reek of scumbag political tricks that even their allies can't stand it. This bill that makes sweetheart deals with insurance companies, hurts the elderly, raises taxes on everyone, and could only be passed by blatant bribery is not popular with anyone but the hard, radical, extremist left.

Polling, if you believe and trust it, says that President Obama is now more unpopular than President Bush was at the end of his term. Mind you I still say that approval polls are meaningless - you can strongly disapprove of someone and still vote for them.
Governor Schwarzenegger is demanding more money for the state of California or he'll have to cut social services. The idea of cutting anywhere else - such as extravagant salaries for state workers, spending for illegal immigrants, funding for warmist alarmism, and so on - are not even being considered. Realizing Californian tax payers will never vote to pay more taxes for a government which is incompetent and uncontrolled in its spending, he's appealing to the federal government for $8 billion dollars. Well, its a drop in the bucket compared to what they're spending each month already.

Some Republicans are celebrating the shift of congressman Parker Griffith (Alabama) from the Democratic Party to Republican. My position remains the same: it ought to be illegal for anyone to change parties while in office. They should be forced to stay in the party they ran on, got funding from, and campaigned for until they run for reelection. People cannot vote for the other party's candidates in most primary systems, and the party's platform influences voters. Who ends up with a majority in congress makes a difference on how many people vote as well, and there are some who vote straight party line. Changing parties in midstream betrays the voters and should be made illegal. It is absolutely unethical - particularly as this guy is only doing so because he's facing a tough Democratic challenger for the primary election next year.

Cameron Diaz, Mila Kunis, Jenna Jamison, Jessica Simpson, and Kate Beckinsale. What do all these women have in common? Other than being female celebrities, they are women who allegedly play World of Warcraft. I think I might have grouped with a couple of them - really stupid players. Celebrity Odor has a list of eight such women, calling them all "hot" although some of them are not really celebrities. Kunis was recently on Jimmy Kimmel, and she has the gamer language down pretty well; Nixie Pixel has the video.

Everyone have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy the time with your families.

Quote of the Day

"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then--we elected them."
-Lily Tomlin