Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Why We Need a Wall

Whenever I have to go through the indignity of airport screening, I think of stuff like this and why it’s all a joke. 

A Win For Republicans

Hillary’s wins yesterday insure the Democrats race will continue to the convention, where a battle over delegates will make both contenders look weak. Obama was incapable of knocking out Clinton, so he doesn’t have the momentum people claimed was there. Clinton is still behind Obama and can’t catch up. She’s behind in the popular vote, as well. And Obama won the Texas caucus, even if he lost the primary election. What this means is, Clinton will have to keep attacking Obama, weakening him further, and making herself look worse and worse in the eyes of Obama supporting Democrats. In the end, even if Hillary and Obama team up in the general election, there will be too many Dems alienated and discouraged by the whole process.

Meanwhile, while the Dems battle it out for the nomination, McCain has clear sailing to drive his message home almost without any criticism from the Democrats. They will be too busy bashing each other.

By refusing to step down, Hillary may be handing the presidency to McCain.

Her inability to walk away with the nomination proves that she’s not popular enough to win in November. Too many people, including Democrats, actively don’t like her and don’t want the Clintons back in the White House. This means that a Hillary win, would be a lose for the Democrats. And while a Hillary win seems unlikely, a Hillary vice-presidency would also likely sink Obama.

But Obama can’t shut her down, which means he’s weak as well. Not strong enough to win on his own merits. Such as they are.

The election in November should be very interesting.

American Idol: 3/4

Last night was Men’s night, and once again they proved this season of American Idol has on of the best line ups ever. This week they were supposed to sing songs from the 80s. Apparently, that’s a lose category as we will discover.

The night started off somewhat weakly with Luke Menard doing a stumbling version of George Michael’s Wake Me up Before you Go Go. It was so so. Menard stumbled around and muttered the words. Luke obviously didn’t use the force. He’s probably going to be voted off.

David Archuleta was next, starting on the piano and singing Phil Collin’s anthem to the homeless. Another day in Paradise. It was a very solid performance,. and once again he made it his own. But as Simon pointed out, it was kind of a downer song. David needs to show some bounce. Which is kind of funny since Simon was picking on Brooke a week ago about being too positive. In this case, it was Archuleta acting like a beauty contestant talking about world peace. (He did that last week with Imagine, one of the most trite songs ever written). First David tries singing about world peace (and socialism!) now he’s singing about the homeless. What’s next, global warming?

It’s sassy Danny Noriega to the rescue next. He’s not he type to get all political. Girls just want to have fun. So his tune of the night is Tainted Love, which was made famous by Soft Cell in the 80s, but they were doing a cover of a 60s song at the time. It was originally recorded in 1964 by Gloria Jones, but it’s been covered by a lot of artists since, including Marylin Manson and the Pussycat Dolls. I suspect the later was Danny’s influence here. Especially the way he flounced around. Frankly, when they said 80s, I was expecting him to busy out a Pete Burns tune. While Noriega did a decent job, it wasn’t his best. But he should be safe.

As if they were trying to make a statement about controversy because a video of Danny being all emo has surfaced on the internet along with stories about David Hernandez working for three years a a stripper in a gay bar.  So when they asked David what the most embarrassing thing he can remember was--oh, snap--he was talking about a booger that appeared in some photos of him. He then goes on to do one of the best performances of the night, covering “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” which was a hit for Celine Dion in the 90s, not te 80s. Though the somg was written for Meatloaf who eventually did it in this decade on Bat Out of Hell 3. Anyway, Hernandez did a solid performance. One of the best so far. He’s safe unless the voters punish him for his past.

Michael Johns followed with “Don’t You Forget About Me”, as if channeling Michael Hutchence from INXS. It was kind of more muted than I was expecting. I kept thinking he should have done an INXS song instead. But it was solid and the judges liked it. Safe.

David Cook decided to take on a Lionel Ritchie song. And for that you’d expect him to be voted off. But he surprisingly made it from a pop song into a Rock Ballad, while bringing a guitar with him. It was surprisingly effective and he garnered high praise for it. Safe.

Jason Castro is next, once again bucking the 80s theme by singing a Leonard Cohen song from the 70s, “Hallelujah. Well, it was covered by Jeff Buckley in the 80s. Anyway, he does a solid version of it. It’s kind of quiet, so I wonder if the fans will vote for him. The judges, however, praised him up and down, so I say he’s probably safe.

Chikezie finished the show with a cover of a song Whitney Houston made famous called “All The Man That I Need”. He changed it to All the Woman that I need. Doesn’t matter if he did a great job singing it, which I feel he did. It may have been a big mistake because Simon ripped into him for it. He tried to defend himself by saying it was done by different artists, etc. No matter. He may not be safe. Which is a shame, because I think he’s a really good singer and could have gone far (but not to the end, I think). He’s been in the bottom a few times, so I suspect he will be again.

So that’s for my review of the Men’s Idol show. Hopefully I will get to see the women tonight. I missed them last week and no one uploaded it to the web.

Science vs Scientology Timeline

Just when you think Scientology couldn’t get any weirder.

More on what they’re talking about here and here.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

There’s Plenty of Oil

A few months ago I was arguing with some visitors on here about Peak Oil. I believe the conventional wisdom espoused by these people is wrong. Peak oil believers have been proved wrong time and time again. Yet they still persist.

Here is one view from someone in the oil business which is much more optimistic. 

The current prices of oil are artificial and they can come down very easily. They probably will in the next year or so.

UPDATE: Read this and see why Democrats have been standing in the way of real energy independence and want to make things worse. 

Fighting the Fanatics

The founder of the Weather Channel is upset.

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.

Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism.

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

So he has a plan for fighting the alarmists.

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

That’s brilliant because they would have to prove it in court and they can’t. They can’t prove anything. But because the AGW people have so much riding on this, I can see them doing everything they can to undermine such a lawsuit before it can happen.

I hope it does. We need to fight fanaticism wherever it rears its ugly head. And this AGW nonsense i way beyond the pale. 

How to Make a Fake UFO Video

Fundamentalism is for Geezers

It seems the Islamic clerics don’t have a lot of fans with the young people these days in Iraq.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

They still hold sway in other places, but I think the internet will kill religious fanaticism, because when people have access to more information it’s hard to believe the lies they are force fed. fanatics rely on isolating people from outside influences. That used to be possible in some countries where they had a tight rein on the media and culture. But I suspect in 20 years the Middle East will be radically different. Hopefully, in a good way. 

Eat for Free

RIP Gary Gygax

The creator of Dungeons and Dragons has passed. It was a game that forever changed gaming, from board games to a nerd obsession. All the things that followed, like myriad computer games, Wizards of teh Coast card games, etc. owe a huge debt of thanks to Gigax.

I was never big into D&D but I played it for about a year in the early 80s. I had the books, with their horrible artwork. And I even bought some of those lead figurines and dice.

A friend of mine just informed me he played it around 1974 when you had to by xeroxed copies of the DM manual because they weren’t printed yet. And they had to make their own eight-sided dice out of Styrofoam

I’m sure some of you have your own memories of the game.

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