Posts from — February 2005

For some reason Halliburton failed to notify the Nuclear Regulatory Commission until Tuesday. The law requires that missing radioactive materials be reported at least within 30 days for the lowest level of regulated material, and some materials require immediate notification.

An NRC spokesman said it would take years to develop a program to track such material while in transit. Might I suggest that the NRC simply demand people use one of the existing services that already provide this service, rather than some new, “pork” project.

Originally there was a mistake in the address and it was returned to a post office for re-routing, but was never delivered. If it was sent during World War II, I might understand that no one was sure where Hitler was.

Okay, I can’t resist, it was in the “dead letter” office.

Where is PETA on this issue? They should be joining with NORML to oppose this outrage. Sigh! Liechtenstein Lattes just won’t be the same, but this explains the “Laughing Cow”.

“The appeal from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argues that a lower court was wrong to allow the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal to import and use the hoasca tea as part of its religious services.”

Let him get away with this and green tea is next. He probably was behind the ban on “dairy doobies”.

Friday Cat Blogging [^TM Kevin Drum]

What do you mean – the one hour processing is going to take 2 days?

[Edit: New cats next week, if the pictures come out.]

As is to be expected it was an argument over beer, but it resulted in the death of 63 “scholars” and 30 locals.

The University got to the King first, received a Royal charter which required the mayor and town council to go to the University without their hats every year on February 10 and pay a penny for each of the “scholars” who died. The practiced stopped in 1825 when the mayor of Oxford apparently felt the practice was silly and refused to do it.

The mayor was obvious a Liberal. Who else would cast aside almost 500 years of tradition just because it was a stupid waste of time and money?

If there is no actual plan, why is the President flying all around the country holding chats with his supporters on the public’s dime? If there is no plan, what is there to discuss? How can he keep showing people charts showing how this non-existent non-plan would change the viability of Social Security plan for future retirees?

Considering the size of the deficit and the planned cuts in programs for the poorest of our citizens, how can this conduct be condoned, this waste of tax dollars?

I Googled “Ward Churchill” and found out he was Keetoowah Band Cherokee, so that’s explained. For those who don’t get it, do a search on “Trail of Tears”. He is someone who remembers that his ancestors were subjected to an ethnic cleansing campaign. The Cherokee will forget about the “Trail of Tears” about the same time the Jews forget the Holocaust.

Churchill remembers the past and works to keep it alive, which makes him a conservative.

The other fit was about the phony journalist, “Jeff Gannon” of Talon News. Apparently James Guckert was forced to give up his role as “Jeff Gannon, boy reporter” because of the relentless persecution of the liberal bloggers and not the open letters and investigations by newspapers like the Philadelphia Daily News and the Niagara Falls Reporter who want to know why a guy with a website and no journalistic credentials can get issued temporary White House press passes to briefings and Presidential press conferences, but they can’t.

Digby has a short transcript of a Howard Kurtz chat with Wolf Blitzer that seems to indicate that any blogger who makes the effort can drop by the White House and pick a day pass using a false name and be ushered into Presidential press conferences.

I see, it wasn’t about being sponsored by a major Republican activist in Texas that got “Jeff Gannon” access, it was because he wrote a blog no one knew existed that enabled him to avoid all of those pesky security procedures put in place by the Secret Service.

For some reason I don’t think we are going to see Wonkette at any press conferences in the near future.

And now for something completely different:
Len over at Dark Bilious Vapors has a great catch: The Nicosphere3000. It looks like a demo for some really creative video guys, but it is slick.

In this case the right of naming is going to be auctioned to provide funding for conservation efforts in the area. This CNN page provides the details.

Hmmm. . . Callicebus [it’s a titi monkey] Dumbya. . .nah, I couldn’t do that to a poor defenseless monkey.

Year of the Wooden Rooster, Yi You

Chinese New Year

The very efficient and helpful people at the local Walgreens pharmacy told me they could sell me the medication with a co-payment through Tricare, but I needed to go to a medical equipment store to buy the nebulizer because it was a device.

I went to the medical equipment store and found out that Medicare covered the equipment and would provide the medication through the mail at no charge to my Mother. So I went through with it and my Mother received the help she needed at a minimal cost.

Here’s the problem: Medicare is leasing the nebulizer. I checked the ‘Net and you can buy a nebulizer for under $70, but Medicare is paying $46 a month to lease this piece of equipment.

If they decide that my Mother only needs to use this device for a month, then the system is fine, but if she needs it from now on, Medicare is paying for a new machine every two months, while the patient continues to use the same piece of equipment.

A nebulizer is essentially a cheap paint sprayer. There is a small pump that is identical to an aquarium pump with a filter on the air intake, a plastic mask, and a mixing chamber. The air supplied by the pump causes the medication to be blown into the mask as a mist.

If this is going to be long term, I’m going to buy one on the ‘Net. I can’t see ripping off Medicare for $46 per month.

They were going to do the same thing with my Mother’s walker, but she went and bought the one she wanted and didn’t worry about being reimbursed.

I can’t blame the equipment companies, but someone at Medicare needs to look long and hard at the way they do things. If I can buy a single unit for $70, surely they can get them at a much lower cost.

There are very few democratically elected world leaders. The leaders of most “democratic” countries are not, themselves, elected by their people. Prime ministers are the leaders of political parties. Most of the European leaders were selected in the same manner as Tom DeLay: they are the majority leader of the largest party in the lower house of a parliament.

The presidents of France, Russia, the Palestinians, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, and a few other countries are actually democratically elected, which is to say they are elected by a direct vote of the people of their countries. The President of the US is not a true democratically elected official because of the electoral college.

In many countries voters actually choose parties, not candidates. The parties have a list of candidates usually equal to the total number of seats in their parliament. After the election the party learns how many seats it has won based on its percentage of the vote and people take office based on their position on the list. This is the system used in Iraq’s recent election.

Even “democratic” countries can have less than democratic features: the military in Turkey heavily influences government actions, as does the Iranian council of clerics, and some in the US would claim the Supreme Court does the same thing.

It was first celebrated in Mobile, Alabama, but the big show these days is in New Orleans, and it is a holiday in the state of Louisiana, because people wouldn’t show up for work anyway, so why fight it.

The tradition is to serve King cake, which is a circle of cinnamon bun dough with a white frosting on top sprinkled with sugar colored purple, green, and gold. If that weren’t bad enough, they put the figurine of a baby in the dough, and whoever finds it in their piece is supposed to be lucky. Actually if you find it and don’t choke on it, I guess you are lucky. You should use a small ceramic figurine, as some of the cheap plastic versions melt in the oven [yummy].

A few things as I scanned the Internet:

Around the World in 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and 33 seconds

Ellen MacArthur of Britain has broken the record for sailing alone around the world. With only the wind for power and having to deal with storms and the errant whale she has arrived back in Britain. Surely she will be Dame Ellen in short order as the Queen and Prime Minister both sent her greetings.

Born in landlocked Derbyshire, she has pursued her dream of sailing and become one of the best deepwater sailors ever. I admire people who will sacrifice all comfort to push themselves to their limits in pursuit of a goal. This is what it takes to reach the Moon, climb Everest, discover cures for diseases.

Update: It’s official: Dame Ellen.

Harry Potter vs. the US Army

J.K. Rowling and her solicitors are not amused by cartoons appearing in US Army training magazines that show a great similarity to her Harry Potter books. While Ms. Rowling has no problem with, and even encourages, fans expanding on her creation, she takes a dim view of anyone attempting to profit from her works, and is probably not in favor of any connection between Harry Potter and the US military.

The military is claiming there is really no similarity, not much anyway, I mean the names really are altered, sort of. . .

Former WMD hunter sees ‘eerie similarities’ in Iran

Australian Broadcasting’s John Shovelan in Washington reports on David Kay’s view of the current rhetoric about Iran being very similar to what was said about Iraq, and has warned the Bush administration not to repeat the mistakes it made with Iraq in Iran.

For the short attention span group on the right, David Kay was a “true believer” in the existence of WMDs before he wasted more than a year of his life on that snipe hunt.

Fundamentalists are All Alike

Novelist Mary Gordon during an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air from WHYY on January 31 ^st made an observation that is important and should be repeated.

She stated the obvious link: all ultra conservative religions denigrate women. They all treat women as if they were tainted and deny them the right to fully participate in the religion.

The really odd part is that none of the basic documents of these religions actually take this view, and many explicitly say the opposite, but the ultra conservative interpreters of these religions are all consistent in their view that women need to be excluded.

This attitude is at definite variance with nature and the continuation of the species. The male’s role is rather limited in time and scope. It has only been recent that fathers could be determined with any certainty, while there is rarely a case when there was any confusion about a child’s mother. This isn’t a value judgment, merely a statement of reality.