Read this amazing post of on Bad Astronomer today:

♦ Spiraling tentacles of galactic doom!

If you don’t think much about it, you look at that and go, “Cool, pretty. Interesting.” It kind of looks like eddies of foam in a pond or on the beach.
But think about the fact that the tendril of stretched galactic arm involves countless solar systems! Entire systems of stars and planets and moons, so far apart from each other that from each star involved the next closest one is just another bright speck in the sky–and they’re being blown and stretched through the cosmos my awesomely gihugic, incomprehensibly large intergalactic forces!
Whoa
(Certainly makes me think, once again and as always, of this amazing video:
This, THIS Is What I am Talking About!)

I mean, there’s worse things the American Gestapo could be compared to than the KGB, right? I mean, there’s “Gestapo” for one…

♦ Finnish folk band find a rude airport welcome

Perhaps the most damning comment on the incident was delivered by [J. Karjalainen] who was strip-searched. On a couple of occasions prior to 1991, he was detained by the KGB and interrogated. Compared to the ICE agents here in the Twin Cities, the KGB operatives, he says, “at least acted like human beings. Not a bunch of animals.”

Don’t forget, world travelers, that if you need to travel near or around the U.S., there are international travel agencies that are actually marketing and promoting their services an the best way to avoing stepping foot on American soil!
♦ “W”: The new swastika; “U.S. border”: The new Iron Curtain.

In other news, the KGB could’ve only wished for this kind of domestic spying on citizens:

♦ AT&T’s guilt-by-association algorithm for finding “terrorists”

I want to boycott AT&T and all their subsidiaries and cousin corporations–not so much because of any message it’d send (and I would send a strongly worded letter as a message as well), but because I want to be out of their realm of data collection!

A report recently came out suggesting that maybe the TSA’s No-Fly list, approaching 1 million names, might not be very effective. What? Really?
♦ Report: U.S. terror ‘watch list’ may be getting too long
But it’s been so effective considering it has the names of people who have been critical of this Administration’s actions, like Ted Kennedy, decorated Marines who question King George; has dead people on it; and generic names without more specific information:
♦ Unlikely Terrorists On No Fly List
♦ Professor who criticized Bush added to terrorist ‘no-fly’ list

But the real important question is the recent revelation that buried in King George’s emergency war funding request, was $88 millions to fit B-2 “stealth” bombers to carry 30K pound “bunker-buster” bombs:

♦ Bomb Iran? U.S. Requests Bunker-Buster Bombs

Military analysts say the only reason you’d want to do this is so you can invade Iran. Soon. (Remember, it was White House Chief of Staff Andy Card who cynically quipped before the Iraq invasion that you want to “roll out new product” in the fall.)
Also, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer who’s private advertising company has been recently financed by the Administration to create a public commercial campaign, not asking the public to support the Iraq war (like with joining up or buying war bonds) but justifying the Iraq war and trying to link it with 9/11!, has also been tasked by the White House to start a campaign seeking to convince the American public we need to go to war with Iran now too.

Over this last year we’ve seen a lot of the White House’s attempts to suck Iran into the fray, such as claiming Iran is now the main insurgent problem (even though most “insurgents” are Iraqi nationals, and Iranians make up less than 5% while Bush’s friends, the Saudi’s make up 18%).
Then of course there was King George’s recent remark that Iran’s gaining of nuclear, oops, nookyoular weapons technology will lead to World War III, doesn’t do too much to help the diplomatic situation. Can we say “politics of fear?”

So, the administration has been itching to attack Iran, and it looks like they’re gearing up for it materially. However, trying to think positively, here’s some possible happy bits: According to that ABC News report regarding the emergency request for stealth bombers—it seems sloppy and incompetent to be so careless with information suggesting a “secret” invasion plan. It’s possible that the White House put the bomber request in there and let the press get a hold of it in order to intimidate Iran.
(But then, when has the administration shown any competence in military and diplomatic matters?!)

Also, Russia just recently publicly strengthened their diplomatic ties to Iran. Now, we know King George and Putin haven’t been the best of friends, but any overt attack against Iran would spell diplomatic (and possibly militaristic) disaster with Russia (and possibly China). That would be insane.
(But then, when has this administration shown any sanity in issues with military and diplomatic issues? Not to mention the fact that several neo-con pundits have expressed a belief that the best thing to help the U.S. financially would be another Cold War….)

This is going to be a very interesting next 30 days….

Seriously? Are they kidding with this? This is the CIA’s Terrorism Buster logo?

OK, to be fair, that image is on a lapel pin and about 5 times the actual size or so. But c’mon. That’s pretty goofy. And by the way, I didn’t realize you could attach an ancient Middle Eastern saber on the end of an AK-47. That’s pretty talented. Because of course, all terrorists are Middle Eastern, donchya know. Like Ted Kaczynski, the guy who set off bombs as the Atlanta Olympics, the people who set black churches on fire, the Phelps congregation who terrorize families of fallen soldiers, Basque separatist rebels–all Middle Eastern. They’re all Middle Eastern Muslims and they’re all over in Iraq, because we’re fighting all the terrorists there so they don’t come here. Yep. We sure are.

OK, but this post is about bad animation. And my heart was broken today by it.

The latest Slice of Sci Fi podcast had an interview with Tracy Hickman, promoting the upcoming Dragonlance movie. Now, I read the first two trilogies of the Dragonlance series in a 72 hour period back in highschool, and loved them! Especially the second, Twins, trilogy! I laughed, I cried, I felt empty and sad when I finished them. They’re not Shakespeare, but they were incredible to me. And a huge cadre on die-hard fans.

So, when it was announced the first book was being made into a feature movie, there was much celebration. (yeeaah) Not only a feature (albeit animated) film, but with a superb voice cast, there was greater rejoicing! I mean, there is no one better to voice Raistlin than Kiefer Sutherland, I’m sorry. And I heard some of the full orchestral musical score, and it’s great! Imagine my disappointment (and the disappointment of legions of fans… like the sound of thousands of people crying out…) when I heard of the 1st trailer being released, and saw this drek:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UHrOfJ8_D0o
It’s like they ran out of money after hiring Sutherland and the orchestra and had to hire animators who were fired by Hanna & Barbera in the 80’s. It looks like old He-Man cartoons spliced together with a little 3D CGI from mediocre 1990’s games. It makes me cry a little.

I’m still hoping that what this is is some modern version of storyboarding, and we’re not seeing any actual film footage yet. I mean, how in 2007 can you possibly make a movie that looks as bad as 1985 Saturday morning cartoons? You have people making entire live-action films on an Apple PC that look high-production value, and the best they could do with this movie is crummy mass-produced 80’s style made incongruous and schitzo with bad CGI thrown in? Sad sad sad.

Speaking of new gilded ages, here’s a blog post I just came across:

♦ Can Anyone Make It in America?

It’s extremely well written, and probably a lot more succinct than I’m capable of.

Carl Sagan wrote in Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, pointing up why it’s so very important that we put more emphasis on good, reality-based science education:

“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

The latest Skepticality episode features a fantastic op-ed on how strident and ubiquitous unreasoned beliefs in the paranormal (ghosts and haunted houses) and charlatans (Uri Gellar and Peter Popov) and outright woo science (homeopathy and astrology) are still persistently prevalent for a frighteningly large percentage of the population, after years…decades of ardent efforts by the skeptical movement. How these beliefs may seem harmless, but are quite dangerous both to the individual and society at large!
Listen to the op-ed, but if you can’t, here it is in PDF:
♦ Where do we go from here?

(no, this isn’t spam *g*)
Some fun tidbits regarding Bush’s press conference yesterday:
Bush said he threatened vetoes all the time over the Rep. Congress. Said that he’d veto any spending bill that was out of hand.
Government spending under the Rep. Congress went up 23%. So why is he using vetoes now (to prevent stem cell research, the increase in medical insurance for kids, and time off for families taking care of wounded veteran family members, and the authorization for a withdrawal timetable…) when he never did during the Rep. Congress? So that he can, quote: remain relevant during the remainder of his term.
He claimed the current Congress hasn’t passed any important bills in the last 9 months.
In fact, the current Congress has had more roll-call votes than ANY Congress in history for any 9-month period. They have had more than 33% more votes on the floor than the Rep. Congress.

An interesting article about the situation in Iraq and Iran:
♦ The Victor?
Fascinating bit of information from it: The Administration is up in arms about Iran and says the last thing we want is for Iran to be in Iraq.
However, Paul Bremer actually gave political power to the factions most friendly to Iran because before invading the country it wasn’t important to actually know anything about the country being invaded. Despite all the Bush rhetoric about Iran chomping at the bit to take Iraq over, Iranian political leaders have expressed a lot of support for the Iraqi government–seeing as the faction in control is quite friendly with this “Axis of Evil” country. Iran actually has what they want and they don’t need to have to worry about using any forces to take the country over.
More like King George is chomping at the bit to start a war with Iran. Less than 5% of the insurgents in Iraq are Iranian, yet more than 10% are from Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

Some time ago I wrote an entry:
♦ The war against the middle-class.
Where I featured two articles: Gilded Age Crime: Poor Go Homeless, Wealthy Get Bailouts and Grapes of Wrath Return discussing how the global market capitalism and so-called “free trade” is creating a new gilded age.
Well, some recently released data from the IRS has been making the rounds and can be well analyzed here:

♦ Rich get richer and middle class stagnates

Here’s some of the info: The top 1% of the U.S. population earned 21.2% of the income in 2005 while the bottom 50% of the population earned 17% of the money. That top 1% had a 5% increase between 2001 and 2005. However, they also had the biggest tax cut of the population, getting a nearly 5% tax decrease over the lower 50% meaning the 1% made more and got to keep more of what they made. Once again in 2006 capital gains went up (corporate earnings) while general employee wage income went down. Meaning: Corporations are making more money, but the employees are being paid less. As well as benefits such as insurance are also being cut, and insurance costs have gone up beyond the rate of inflation.

What’s this all mean? The middle class is once again becoming the working poor in this country while the wealthy are getting richer, creating a gilded age like we had in the 1920’s before the market crash.

Basically what this shows is that only those in the top 1% truly were better off in 2005. When you take into consideration the increasing costs of health care and energy, most people in the other brackets are facing income stagnation or actual income loss. Still wondering why a majority of the population think we’re in a recession or heading there?

Here’s a little image I made to help give a visual:

The bottom graph refers to this information just released by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER):

♦ Pioneering Study Shows Richest Two Percent Own Half World Wealth

The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.

The response from capitalist ideology would be: So? It’s the free market. People earn what the market will bear, etc etc.
Well first of all let’s get something straight. We don’t have a free market. The U.S. (nor any country) does not have an open, free economy. The government control, regulates, and creates the market through it’s printing of the money and it’s control of it through the Federal Reserve System. A system that is run by the Federal Reserve Banks that are part government run and part controlled by a handful of capital rich corporations.

Now, tell me how free of a market it can be when the market is essentially controlled by the corporations, and a government that literally sells laws and regulations to these corporations? Since Hearst and J.P. Morgan and DuPont and the other robber barons actually bought laws from the federal government to curb free trade and give themselves greater power over the market, the tradition has continued. What happens when Hilary Clinton receives the most or second most (depending on what year over the last 6) amount of money from corporate healthcare companies of any U.S. senator? She reveals a plan for “universal healthcare” that makes it a law for all citizens to have to buy health insurance. (Meanwhile the U.S. is the ONLY industrial nation to not have real universal health care for its citizens.)
Where are the lobbyists for the poor up on Capital Hill?

There is no free market, no free economy. It’s a corporatocracy kept alive by corporate owners and members-of-the-board who hold political positions. So long as massive inherited wealth continues, corporations own the government, and the people are complacent, the chasm between the rich and the poor will continue to widen and we will have a nation, eventually world, of serfs and royalty. And we’ll let it happen so long as we hold onto the ideology handed down to us from those in power, which at this time in history is the capitalist ideology: “Work hard, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and you’ll become rich! Fail, and it’s entirely your fault for not working hard enough.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with hard work! But for whom are you working? For who’s benefit? Ultimately, in the capitalist society, it’s your corporate owners. The harder you work, the more millions the people at the top of the pyramid earn. CEO’s who make millions of dollars, make even more millions when they leave a company, especially if they can lower labor costs by lowering wages, cutting benefits, and laying people off. The masses who are being brainwashed to “work hard! Become rich!” earn $8, $12, maybe $15 an hour or $30,000 a year, barely able to afford medical care if at all, while the people at the top of the corporate pyramid buy more houses, more jets, take more vacations in Paris and Maui. So, is the capitalist ideology working? Of the millions of people in the country, why are only 5-10% considered wealthy? Are 90-95% of the population not working hard enough? Is it entirely their own fault for not working and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps?

Funny how under capitalism the proletariat are fed the ideology of work hard! Fail and it’s your fault! And the people who benefit from it are the corporate owners and capitalists. In feudalism, the peasants were told that their lot was ordained by God and the royalty and land owners are because of God’s will–and the peasants accepted it for centuries. Who did ideology provided and perpetuated by the rich land lords benefit most?

The wealth must be redistributed, the governments must be brought down, and the people must work as a cooperative collective if humanity, society, is to progress and flourish. There is more than enough wealth in the world for every living person of the 6 billion people on the world, to have a comfortable western middle-class-like lifestyle–except that wealth is being hoarded and incestuously passed around by the 1% of the population that has the governmental protection. Whether that’s in the U.S., Russia, the Congo–wealth and power flow upward to those at the top of the pyramid who primarily got the fortune of being there thanks to inherited wealth. Maybe global socialist revolt won’t happen next year, or in the next 100 years, but it must happen.

(I have a hard time coming up with titles. :P)
Kinda busy, so not going to expound on these too much, but here’s some interesting news in the world of surveillance and spying:

♦ Insect Drones ‘Spotted’ on U.S. Streets

The natural evolution of technology, it’s bound to happen and there’s no stopping it. Spy drone the size of dragonflies, and flies, before long it’ll be gnats. Perhaps even cloaked gnats. Was reminded yesterday that the government has the technology (and private citizens can get it too, for the right bag of money), can point a laser beam at a window from a hundred or more meters away and pick up all the sound in the connected room.

Now, do you think for a moment that the government’s not going to use this tech against its own people? We already know federal agents take video of peaceable protests to record persons who speak out against the government. People have been put on the No Fly List for doing nothing but speaking out against the Presidents actions. We know Democratic party computers have been hacked by RNC employees (oh, but of course not officially under RNC auspices, even though Karl Rove was connected.) The government has no compunction against spying on its own people. Note the fact that Bush says he won’t pass the “Roll-Back” bill unless it give telcom companies like AT&T retroactive immunity for handing over all their customer calling records to Homeland Security, and the recent revelation that they authorized the NSA to datamine U.S. citizen’s e-mails.

Informing the question of whether the government should be allowed to gather and peruse data on private citizens, is can the government be responsible for the information–and obviously if humans are involved in any way, and politics have even the slightest connection, the answer is an unqualified “NO!”
Take this recent example:

♦ they can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles
♦ Intel Director Launches Qaeda Leak Probe

In short, a 3rd-party intel gathering organization who has spent years getting into al Queda resources and has been able to warn people of impending attacks and plans, was able to get a copy of bin Laden’s latest video before its public release, and kindly gave it to White House officials.
How does the White House repay them? By allowing it to be downloaded en mass by people with White House IP addresses and then releasing to the press that they got a leaked copy of the video. Thus destroying this particular source for highly valuable al Queda information.

That’s King George’s administration. Whether it’s a years long entrenched vital info source, or an American CIA agent with viable assets “in country”, they’ll burn anyone and anything for political conniving and personal gain/vengeance.
That’s who we want to allow the phone companies to give our info to? Our ISP’s to route our e-traffic to? Who we want to allow to have fly-size spy drones?

A couple of great items–satirical takes on the tactics and methods used by people who spread their woo around (whether it’s astrology, miracle medical cures and super-vitamins, ESP, etc.).

♦ The Woo Handbook
That’s the better one, but this one is funny and interesting as well…
♦ The Woo Woo Credo

That’s ultimately the only reason, the last and final reason people rely on when they exclaim their hatred of gays and lesbians, bisexuals, etc. It all goes back to simply because the Bible tells them so.
Fascinating looking documentary on the subject:
♦ For the Bible tells me so.
Interestingly, it seems the Bible is much more clear regarding the hatred God has against shrimp:

If {there is} a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. - LEV 20:13 (NASB)

but…

These you may eat, whatever is in the water: all that have fins and scales, those in the water, in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat.
But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, and they shall be abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you. - LEV 11:9-12 (NASB)
These you may eat of all that are in water: anything that has fins and scales you may eat, but anything that does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you. - DEU 14:9-10 (NASB)

So where’s all the hatred toward shrimp? Oh! There IS! Hee-hee: God Hates Shrimp
UPDATE: Be sure to watch the trailer for ♦ For the Bible tells me so..
I just realized that my breaking the self-imposed rule on discussing religious issues yesterday I re-opened the valve and made this post today. So, after this, back to no more religion again. Sorry.

I saw this story last week on CNN.com, and being a local story, it came and went. But these stories of extreme acts by people chronically adversely affected by government stay on my mind.
Classically Liberal has picked up on the story and expanded on it:

♦ The tragic lesson of Bo Ward.

The blogger uses this event to discuss the way in which government affects people’s lives without responsibility or remorse. What is being done on a mass scale with war and health and education, can be seen more dramatically on a more personal scale in the example of Bo Ward.

Each politicians feels less and less responsible for the outcome, as there are more and more of them controlling the outcome. The “government” decides not the individual so the “government” is responsible not the individual politicians. And the bigger government gets the more it has. But the bigger it gets the less there is any sense of individual responsibility among those who wield that power. What a lethal combination is being created by this thing called government. More and more power is concentrated in it while there is less and less individual moral restraint.