So Pluto's not a planet. Meaning the old helper My Very Elegant Mother Just Baked Us Nine Planets is a bit more Brothers Grimm, as now My Very Elegant Mother Just Baked Us Nine.
Also like, "'It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist,' she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella."
And you say astronomers don't know how to PAAAAR-TEY!
The FDA approved the morning after, or Plan "B" pill for over-the-counter sales if you're 18 or older.
All in all, I think its a fair compromise given all the issues. However, I don't buy the "I’m convinced adolescents are a different group, they require special analyses, sometimes special data," argument, for most other things, pesticide levels in baby food for example, they use the same data and but just adjust the ratio based on weight. Not being a scientist I can't discuss if its safe for 14 year olds, but what does make the 18 age limit acceptable is that it fits in with existing law. If you're 18 you can get an abortion, and since this is "abortion like" at least 18 fits the scale.
What is interesting is where Plan B fits in on the abortion discussion. It doesn't work if you're already pregnant, but it does prevent the normal path of pregnancy. I, myself am pro-life, but I have to admit this is a real gray area. Which is probably why its moving along. It's not ending a life, but it does prevent one from starting. If it comes down to it, I'm against it, but I have to admit it doesn't cause me nearly the angst of a "true" abortion, at the Plan B level its more philosophical.
Long-term, this should dramatically decrease the number of "true" abortions and, I think, actual births. While most moms would not abort an unplanned pregnancy, I do think a large percentage of those same moms would take the Plan B pills. Also, as the number of abortions decrease, how does this shape Roe v. Wade. If the number is small enough, and Plan B exists, it seems like it would be really hard for Planned Parenthood or NOW to make their case. Also, if the number is small enough, how much pressure will there really be to overturn Roe? Personally, I think Roe stands, if it doesn't fall before the effects of Plan B are felt. With all the issues facing the nation, I'm not convinced that the public outrage will be enough to muster the will to change it. Of course the same exact arguemtent could be made about saving it. A group gets the judges nominated to overturn it, and not enough outrage exists to fight it. In fact, down the road, I don't even think its a question Presidential hopefuls even have to answer. So if the right judges were "slipped in" Roe would surely fall, and with Plan B, most American's would say, "Hey, you have your window" and that would hit the threshold for overturning Roe.
There, a nice, circular stream of thought post. In the end, I'm now covinced Plan B will be good for folks like me who want to see the end of abortion on demand.
I just love it when a plan comes together.
Article in the Guardian quotes from the Chatham House a think tank that bills itself as, "one of the world's leading organizations for the analysis of international issues."
To channel Chrissy snow, the article says the think tank says that when the US took out the Taliban the Saddam it created a power vacuum that Iran was ready willing and able to fill, giving them more power and influence in the region than previously possible. Maybe this changes if Afghanistan and Iraq stablize, but even then it will be awhile before either nation is able to check Iran on their own.
So to recap, years before either Afghanistan or Iran stablilize (best case scenario) and years after that before they are capable of countering Iran on their own. Thus, even under best case planning, Iran (a potential nuclear power, known sponsor of terrorism and all around good guy) has a potential run of decades to do their thing.
Ahhh, the sweet smell of success.
This debate, disallowing basketball hoops in the front yard of homes in University Park, has actually been going on for years. I've always thought it was dumb.
A few things to keep in mind when reading this.
One, University Park is a city, not a deed restricted neighborhood.
Two, this city is something like 95% Republican. You know, small government, less regulation types.
Three, this city is sports crazy. I've never understood the attack on basketball hoops in a town where basketball games regularly sell out and during the playoffs "Go Scotts" (the HS mascot)signs dominate lawns.
Four, check out the fine. Up to $2000 a day! I wonder what matrix the town town used to come up with that fine? Where does $2000 a day for a basketball hoop stand against other fines? Does anyone think its excessive that if a family forgets to bring in the hoop and goes on a two week vacation that it could cost the family $28 grand?
Just plain silly.
BUSH: What did Iraq: have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing, except for it's part of...the lesson of September the 11th is take threats before they fully materialize.
Full transcript here.
OK Stalin, Bush himself says no link. That statement has to mean something to you. While I hope this finally ends the Hussein-Al Qaeda-9/11 discussion, with something like 50% of American's And one Hydrablog blogger) thinking we went to war in Iraq because Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attack, I doubt it.
According to this story, VP Dick Cheney is bypassing the CIA on information regarding Iran and instead relying on one of the guys he bypassed CIA intellegence for leading up to the Iraq war, Abram Shulsky. Two possible reasons for this. One, "It's different this time" or two, "Ok, so it was a disaster last time, but the idea is due, man, it's due!"
Later the article says:
"In the build-up to the Iraq war, Cheney relied on intelligence almost exclusively from the OSP, which leveled allegations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This was later debunked, but no OSP or DOD officials were held accountable for what many believe was a "deliberate effort" to mislead the nation into war."
No surprise here, there is no accountability in this White House. In fact, if you lucky enough to really screw up, you get a medal.
I have a hard time imagining we have the ability to invade Iran, much less the will, but I guess we'll see.
Looks like $4.7 billion in direct aid to Columbia and appx $40 billion annually have put a combined strangle hold on cocaine over "past quarter century shows that the price of cocaine has tumbled and that purity remains high, signs that the drug is as available as ever."
Stay the course...
(PS. Yes Stalin, I know that every Pres since Nixon has made a big deal about the "war on drugs." "Stay the course" is my new phrase for general ineptitude and a refusal to create a successful plan based on facts. I'm sure I'll be using for either President Clinton or McCain.)
Interesting smackdown happening over at Cato over a Weekly Standard article.
So what do conservatives do when it's not liberals squacking but other conservatives?
Just to pre-empt the inevitable debate, I support team Cato -Go Mighty Bald Eagles!- and Stalin probably supports team Weekly Standard -Go Big Brother!- ratings will be all about the swing viewers.
Cato has a post 'bout a Kansas City law to ban and euthanise all "Pit Bulls." The original article states that a 71 year old citizen was attacked and killed by a pit bull, but it doesn't mention how many other deaths have occured due to pit bulls, nor does it mention what percentage of dog maulings are from pit bulls, or what percentage of the pit bull population mauls people in KC. So I did some digging, and as near as I can tell here's your reason, 'After I saw the photos on TV of that man in Independence after he was attacked, I thought it was necessary to have a pit bull ban in North Kansas City,' Martino said. 'I want to be proactive rather than reactive.' say's the Councilman. Genius. Also, I think this is the guy he's referring to.
Also, here's the story on the 71 year old lady, Jimmie McConnell. Very, very sad. And I don't mean this in that off handed politician way. This poor nice lady was gardening when she was mauled. Horrific only just describes that day. The mistake was that nothing happened to prevent the attack she felt was coming. The council should be focusing on how this lady was let down.
This seem's like a situation where something needs to be done to peanalize irresponsible owners, not ban and euthanise houshold pets.
Being the greenie that I am I do think the Endangered Species Act is a well intentioned idea gone awry. But, it needs to be fixed. As it currnently stands the Act runs smack into one of my least favorite governmental provisions, Eminent Domain, only it's worse. In this Slate.com article economist Tim Harford (one of my faves-see when I was a lad I was uncool and into comic books, now I'm uncool and into economics) makes a point that conservation laws can actually cause more damage to what is being protected than no laws. He then ends the article with the idea that governments should just buy the land they want to protect. Land purchase is the standard argument put forth by those who want to end the Act and I have to admit I agree. Preventing a landowner from developing his land as he sees fit amounts to a "taking" without compensation. Kind of a double whammy. We're effectively taking your land, but we're not going to compensate you for it. In fact, in some areas the vaunted triple whammy applies thanks to developers and realtors. Thanks to their efforts undeveloped land is taxed higher than developed land which is pretty egregious.
Presenting both sides of this debate I should point out that landowners are handicapped by how they can develop their land all the time through zoning laws. While there exists a difference between some development and no development the basic concept is the same, I can't decide to turn my suburban lot at the end of the cul-de-sac into a landfill, thus I'm restricted so pay me.
I'm not a black-and-white type so I'm comfortable with the inhernent shades of gray that supporting, or more accurately complaining about, zoning laws and pushing for governmental compensation for enforcing the ESA bring about.
See Stalin, the media's not biased and mistakes aren't their fault. What you see is the result of how things are presented to them. The media is like a computer, garbage in-garbage out. They're not responsible for distilling anything, in fact it would be insulting if they applied their superior intellect when reporting on the events surrounding us poor dumb yokelsh.
I feel I understand the media better. When their reporting is bad, it's because someone is doing a bad job of giving them information, but when reporting is rational it's because the press got wise and became "sharper and more skeptical" (one can think Slate.com's Jack Shafer is off on this, but it's almost exactly what happend with the Iraqi war). Which makes sense. I think we can all agree that the right time to be sensationalistic and mentally slow is when a crisis is first happening. Then after a while, when things have calmed down, that's the time to get sharp and skeptical. I've always said, if I'm on a sinking boat I plan to run around in a panic and push old ladies down in a desperate attempt to get to a life-boat. Then when I'm safe at shore, I'll calmly review my actions and investigate what I should have done and what I should do going forward. See panic when everyone else is panking, be calm when everyone else is calm.
I mean it works for the press, and we all know how much they're looked up to.
FCC says its going to investigate the use of packaged "news" stories created by third parties, pushing an agenda made to look like actual news stories put together by local affiliates. These are introduced by the anchor and no indication is given that viewers are watching what is essentially a commercial.
Personally I hope the FCC bans them, but we'll see. Maybe that new "indecency" fine can be put to good use.
Paris Hilton.
Kind of makes sense. In her day, nearly every man fantasized about sleeping with Marilyn Monroe. Today, with Paris, nearly every man has.
I have to admit I didn't follow the JonBenet Ramsey tragedy at all, but unless you were the unibomber you couldn't help but get the basics, which I won't go into here. It looks like they finally found the murderer, and it wasn't Mr. Ramsey. My point with this blog is that the American public was absolutely convinced that the father and possibly mother were responsible, and there were persisitant rumors of even more disturbed things going on. While I can never have proof, my gut says if there were some kind of election for Mr. Ramsey guilt or innocence he would have been voted guilty.
This is why we have courts, protections and process. Those who argue for lesser court protections in the name of quick "justice" need to remember that the public does get things wrong. Furthermore, what information we get is often wrong. And that hysteria, and/or the need to find someone "guilty" severly biases the court of public opinion. This notion that if you can get 51% of the people to agree then it must be right is misguided. The bottom line is while we live in a democracy, the democracy only works with a strong, somewhat undemocratic court system.
While the Ramsey's lives were destroyed when their daughter was murdered, and then further devestated when the public relentlessly hounded them as the murderers, at least they never went to jail.
While I was out I missed yet another injustice perpretrated against the Greek peoples. So You Think You Can Dance voted of the brilliant Greek dancer Natalie Fotopoulos. You know, I just don't understand. We give you people democracy, yet every chance you get you torment us with your votes against us. First there was the Duke, and now poor Natalie feels the selfish sting of your ingratitude.
For shame people, for shame...
Just to throw out a philosophical argument, it seems that the "global war on terror" is more about inconvenience than effect. Take travel. One way to get to near perfect security is to not allow any take-on's or checked baggage. Just send what you need ahead. Wildly inconvenient on planning your travels, but very safe and there would be no need for background checks, x-ray machines or invasive searches of your stuff, but think about how much faster the lines would move and as an added bonus it would cripple the drug trade. Plus, while it seems like a hassle now, I'm 100% positive some entrepreneur somewhere would find a way to handle the hassle on the cheap.
Or imagine if rather than just seemlessly flicking a switch to monitor all your calls, someone had to come by your house and install the federally approved data recorder in your home. Do you think people would be as blase about governmental monitoring if were an invasive process, and not invisible as it is now?
Because giving up our privacy (and by my count our rights and our security) does not get a check-mark for "inconvenient" it happens easily and with our consent.
Because giving up the "security" of traveling with our stuff gets a check-mark for inconvenient, we are willing to sacrifice our actual security.
Those who wish to do us harm sleep on the dirt in caves, convenience is not their real concern.
While I agree with Israel, the article is right there was a noticible lack of debate on the topic.
Someone soon is going to jump on the concept of MINO's or Minority in Name Only. As the Hispanic popluation continues to grow, at some point they can't, as a group, be considered a "minority." According to this AP article, hispanics make up 14.5% of the population, and non-hispanic whites are a "minority" in four states plus DC. Clearly, no matter what, non-hispanic whites will never merit "minority" status, but when does a named minority group lose it's status. Is it nation wide? At the state level? Can you qualify for minority perks at the federal level, but not at the state level? Since Texas is one of the states where non-hispanic whites are a minority, I'm assuming that statistically hispanics are not a "minority." Does this affect hispanic preferential hiring agreements with fire and police departments? Like I said, whites will never get overt preferential hiring status, but should hispanics get to keep theirs when they're no longer a statistical minority?
My bet is that minority status is a forever lable, there's too much at stake to give it up. But while immigration is a non-sensical platform, a politician could get the same boost from his targeted base from taking up the more rational argument for taking away minority status from hispanics, freeing them of the lable, freeing up tax dollars, and getting rid of hiring/admission quotas. The obvious counter to this is to furhter segment "hispanic." "Cuban's aren't Mexican's" and will be the chant, and you will be called racist for grouping them together. Fun, fun, fun.
In any case I get the copyright on MINO's. You read the it here first.
Thinking more on Leiberman, his strategy and problems are striking similar to the dems in general. Afraid to make a stand (burn the boats and run as dem-forcing the voters to make a real decision), after all it may fail, mostly hoping the other side makes some mistakes and lets him win, and basically hoping for things instead of making them happen. Leib's is changing that, late and reluctantly, but up until the primary he ran his campaign exactly like Kerry ran his.
The GOP may have screwed up so badly that the dems will gain the house, but it will be hard to say "the dems won the house" its more likely that the "gop lost the house."
Well I've been out for the last 10 days, at least not much happened...
In no particular order, here are my quick thoughts on the news I managed to see over the last week and a half. Going to try to go fast without a lot of links. You were there, you can remember.
Mel...Kiss My Grits!
So Mel went on a drunken anti-Semtic, sexist rant. Wow, who saw that coming? Well I mean besides some controversial film that supposedly had anti-semitic undertones. While I can't speak to this (never saw the movie. I prefer my gore to be dished out by the son of a husbandless woman who uses a chainsaw to cast out sexed up teens and who can't be killed, sort of the same, but not really) but I'm imagining all those who dismissed the case that the movie might be somewhat anti-semetic feel a little...I don't know...silly for so ardently defending a man they never met who's father is a holocaust denier? Personally I think this speaks volumes about people. Folks like to defend or attack people they don't know, like they've know them for years. JLo's a real gem, JLo's a whore. Kerry's a hero, Kerry's a coward. Terrel Owens is a great team mate, Terrel Owens is a cancer. And people get really tied to these points. Some of the most heated arguements I've ever been in involve the "true" personalities of people I've never met. Really silly when you get down to it. The reality is that we don't even know the tips of famous people. For all I really know Arnold Swhatrzernagger is a total wimp, but man can he deliver a stare. As for Mel...I don't know. .13 or whatever hardly counts as drunken stupor, but mix in fear of getting busted, shame, etc, and oh yeah we've all said things and thought, "Wow, where did that come from?" I'd care more if I was a jewish friend of his, but then I'd probably have more to go on too right? Have to say this, one of the great apologies of all time. Not one of those, "To the extent my words may have inadvertantly offended anyone, I apologize" types of weenie apologies. But then he is an award winning actor, writer, director. Quick note, I thought it was interesting that it's been something like three years since Mel said he'd do a film on the holocaust and nothing, nada, zips been done. It's not like he can't greenlight a project...
Leibs Loses.
This was the expected outcome as soon as he made the motions way back when to run as an independent. As soon as he stepped into that second canoe his fate was sealed. This way not voting for Leibs could be protest vote and not one voter had to really decide what they wanted. They could all yell at Leibs for being too cozy with W, and still vote for him in November. I would have been shocked if he lost as a Dem, and will still be somewhat surprised if he loses in Novemember. I do think he's exposed now, and the anti-Leib forces now have the mo'. US voters tend to punish those who try to have it both ways or get cute. Personally, I think he should have put the voters to the test, burned the boats and ran as a Dem. If he wins, he puts all this noise behind him, if he loses, at least he has his dignity. Real quick, I don't get this stuff about "fringe" CT voters punishing him for his war stance. Last poll I saw, most American's now think the war was a mistake, and want the troops home yesterday. Polls move with the wind, and maybe Leibs got caught in a gale, but right now, the majority opinion moved him out.
London Calling.
Interesting thing 'bout the London terror catch, it happened the old fashioned way, good cops doing good investigations. And that's great. As far as it's reported so far, no one was tortured and no nation's were invaded. Imagine that. I'm betting I could buy a lot of good cops for $1 trillion. I'm also betting $1 trillion could buy a lot of machines that could catch bomb making material, both carry-on and checked. I may even several hundred billion left over to do something about the ports. I'm not sure how Iraq will pan out, but I do know that I'd feel a whole heck of a lot safer if that $1 trillion was spent in the above manner. Throw in something to get us off foreign oil and I'd be postively giddy.
Random crazy thought for the day.
Hezbollah's showing how to fight a stronger enemy. Win the hearts of the people. Use Iranian oil money to build hospitals, pay for funerals, give loans, etc. This bears watching. One way to get to America would be to do the same with our disenfranchised. Funnel money either from drugs or oil into a real campaign to separate them from the rest of the nation by giving them what they want for free, and making them feel like someone cares about them. In fact, this is just begging to happen in England and France where the schizm is already larger and angrier. I'm not saying it will, but if it's successful in Lebanon, it will happen again, its a good plan. A long-burn plan for sure, but one that has a real chance of working. You can't beat the US from without, someone will try to do it from within.
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