Monday, March 05, 2007

Embarrassment DuJour

Have you heard Hillary’s fake southern drawl, which she employed at a campaign stop in the south?

It’s worse than Gore’s fake Black Preacher act which he does while visiting black churches.

Talk about patronizing phonies.

UPDATE: Oops! Things aren’t looking so smooth for the anointed one. 

Inverse Racism

What do you call it when people of a race tell you you no longer belong to the club. Why? Because it hurts their bottom line. Welcome to the world of Native Americans.

“Cherokee Nation members have voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee Indians once owned as slaves.”

Ever since Congress allowed Indian nations to each own one casino back in the late 1980s, many tribes have been expelling marginal members to increase the slice of the pie for the remainder.

That’s because the main benefit of belonging to a tribe—the rake-off from a single casino—is finite. In contrast, black and Hispanic organizations have backed broad, inclusive definitions of who is black or Hispanic because the rake-off from being black or Hispanic—affirmative action quotas—are indefinite in magnitude. The larger the percentage of the population, the larger the quota, and the larger the number of voters who are beneficiaries. (Of course, in this zero sum game, the greater the black and Hispanic rake-off, the more pain is inflicted upon whites, but the more white political opposition the more minority ethnic activist groups seem necessary to their constituents, so, for their leaders, what’s not to like?)

That’s the problem with identity politics. It has become nothing more than a scam of its own, to extort money from the government (and in some cases, businesses). In the case of Native Americans, we see how the way their deal is structured, they have to cheat their own to maximize the take. Human nature takes over. Say goodbye to the idea of unity. 

Sunday, March 04, 2007

The 10 Weirdest Things in Space

There’s some stuff here I haven’t heard of before. My favorite: Space-Time Foam.

The more we learn about the universe, the more we discover it’s like nothing we imagined, or even comprehend. Which is part of why I laugh at concepts like man-made global warming. The cosmos is so far beyond us, we are less than microbes in the galactic all. And as far as the earth goes, we are microbes in comparison. 

Quote of the Day

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the other day the Rev. Al Gore declared that “climate change” was “the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced.’’ Ever. I believe that was the same day it was revealed that George W. Bush’s ranch in Texas is more environmentally friendly than the Gore mansion in Tennessee.

Gore is the sad clown clown, laughing on the inside, at the suckers who believe him.

Looking Forward to This

Accepted theories about man causing global warming are “lies” claims a controversial new TV documentary.

‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ - backed by eminent scientists - is set to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.

The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a series of respected scientists attack the “propaganda” that they claim is killing the world’s poor.

Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming African countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2.

Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn.

Hopefully they will show it over here soon.

UPDATE: Another scientist defects from the GW camp. We need to have a heated debate because the ideologues have been dominating the discussion for way too long. 

Hideous Commercial of the Day

Ugh!

The System is Broken

The US Copyright Office has released their new set of rates for the payment of royalties by Internet Radio, and they ignored all of the facts presented by webcasters (including RP) and gave the record industry exactly what they asked for: royalty rates so high that they will put RP (Radio Paradise) and every other independent webcaster out of business. See Kurt Hanson’s newsletter for 3/2/07 for the details on how the rates work and what they will mean to stations like RP. You can participate in the discussion about this issue in our Listener Forum.

For some time, we’ve suffered with a system where we pay a large chunk (10%-12%) of our income to the Big 5 record companies - while FM stations and radio conglomerates like Clear Channel pay nothing. Now they want even more. In our case, an amount equal to 125% of our income. Our only hope is to create as much public awareness and outrage about this staggeringly unfair situation as possible. Neither the record industry nor Congress are ready to listen to us at this point. But members of the media may well be, and we need to get their attention.

Radio Paradise

The RIAA and congressional dupes are out of control. But ultimately, these kind of tactics will backfire. The genie is out of the bottle. The RIAA is unbelievably greedy and their tactics would make Putin proud. But this is going to hurt them in the end.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

The Beauty of China

Some real fantastic pictures here.

Signs We’ll Never See

More Here

Crossing the Line

It looks like Putin’s thuggery is crossing our shores. Unbelievable.

Federal and local law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting in Prince George’s County that critically injured a prominent intelligence expert who specializes in the former Soviet Union.

Paul Joyal, 53, was shot Thursday, four days after he alleged in a television broadcast that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the fatal poisoning of a former KGB agent in London.

Law enforcement sources and sources close to Joyal, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the motive for the shooting was unclear. But several sources confirmed that FBI investigators are looking into the incident because of Joyal’s background as an intelligence expert and his comments about the Alexander Litvinenko case.

Murdering his critics in foreign countries, and even shooting them on US shores is really pushing the envelope. I wonder if we’re going to end up in another cold war with Russia. They seem to be asking for it.