Ron Paul on the "demented philosophy of conquest"

It's too bad Ron Paul is so extreme in some of his personal views, because the grand majority of his political views I agree with. Feels weird to type that, but it's true. He keeps talking straight to the sacred lies held by both parties -- he points out that the "war on terror" is just wordplay to justify endless war; that the Federal Reserve prints money with no backing, thereby taxing through inflation; that income tax would be unnecessary if the government would get the hell out of other countries' business and tend to its own; the list goes on and on.

Here's a little bit of him, it took me forever to find a couple decent videos to show, but if you cruise a bit you may find some surprisingly honest and frank discussions coming out of his mouth. And then, every once and a while, some good ol' fashioned Texas religious fundamentalism and thinly veiled bigotry. A shame really, because most everything else his platform is built on is absolutely reasonable. Some folks excluded from his personal worldview support him anyway because of the clarity of his politics and the respect in the individual those politics support.

Ron Paul in Congress, "Terrorism is a tactic, you can't have a war against a tactic."



Chris Matthews gives me the creeps, but this is a great interview:



Enjoy the insiders who are speaking out,

Bp

Cool blog: A woman and her Coyote (and her tomcat)

The Daily Coyote is a blog out of Wyoming, where a woman is chronicling and photographing raising a little coyote pup to adulthood. She's a hell of a photographer, actually. A nice surprise of a site.

[via, of all places, the Portland Mercury Blog]

Enjoy the stories, however they come,

Bp

Strong Tea -- Keith Olbermann on the newest B.S.

When The Wife saw me watching this not long after waking up, she said "you drink some strong tea in the morning, don't ya."

Sometimes I do I guess.

I have some comments, but I'll let this video ride on it's own merits. Olbermann's righteous indignation can give one a nice, warm feeling, wouldn't want to diminish it with my own commentary.



[via The Quiet Pool]

Enjoy the disruption of the propaganda machine,

Bp

Oregon Shrimpers first in the world to receive International Certification

In an awesome bit of news, the Oregonian reports that Oregon shrimpers have been certified by the international Marine Stewardship Council for their sustainable and eco-friendly fishing methods.

Does this mean there is no damage from their shrimping? No, but it does mean they are trying, give a shit, and are working to find a balance that for fishermen and the resource itself. Bycatch is a horrendous problem with the shrimping industry, so anything done to eliminate it is fantastic in my book.

I was going to include a picture of bycatch from shrimping, but found it too disturbing/depressing to force upon ya'll.

So, any Oregonians reading this need to know that there will be a blue label on Oregon-caught shrimp now. If you choose to buy it, you will not only be buying local but also supporting an industry that's trying to go in the right direction.

Enjoy the incremental improvements,

Bp

Beowulf in 3D, a trashing

Holy hell this movie was bad. It had its moments, but they were few and far between and the ... foibles, the... missteps were so egregious and common that they became the standard element of the film.

At times the animation was quite breathtaking, cool panning shots and close ups on faces especially. But the makers insisted on trying to add depth to the story by having these Computer Animated characters act. Sorry, unless you have the team that put together Golem working on every character in the movie, it just ain't going to happen. They over reached.

It started making me wonder whether there is some predictable curve you could plot that if a movie has over a certain budget, the suckier it becomes. Pirates 3 had a huge budget, and it absolutely sucked rocks.

The best thing about these huge budget fantasy/sci fi movies is their trailers. Maybe that's the new theory in Hollywood, if it makes a good trailer and has enough stars in it it will make money, so all's well.

I had more to say about how hyperbole is fine, especially in movies depicting the big, old myths -- but that the hyperbolic "detail" in this one was just over the top. He fights his enemy naked for instance -- who gives a shit (other than Tate, who would probably appreciate that scene, despite many carefully-placed scrotal covers).

Men yelling about what they're going to do seems a big theme too, in this movie and in 300. Another movie, come to think of it, that looks best in the trailers, that takes an overblown myth that could have made a decent movie and makes it suck by including ideological undertones that makes one want to puke.

A hint to the movie makers, when using one of the old stories -- one that includes father/son conflict, and seduction by power, and selling your soul to the devil -- don't try to modernize it. Don't try to "make it relevant today." By its nature it's already relevant, it appeals to deep psychology, just leave it the eff alone and it will work fine.

Neil Gaiman was one of the writers on this project, and that gave me hope it would be cleanly put together and relevant, but it didn't save the movie unfortunately. I'll bet because of the enormous money surrounding the movie, he was just hog-tied as an artist. "It's got to go by the book, or we won't make our money back."

This post was supposed to be short, whups.

Here's the r-rated trailer for Beowulf, it at least touches on the best moments of the movie and might be a better use of your time than watching the movie itself, even in 3D.

By the way, the dragon near the end is quite great. Again, not great enough to save the movie, but it is dandy for sure.



Enjoy avoiding enormous wastes of your time,

Bp

New Guy Ritchie movie coming out -- Revolver Trailer

I tend to like Guy Ritchie movies, and I like Jason Statham despite some of his egregious choices of parts, so I'm looking forward to this movie, despite some less-than-glowing reviews. If it keeps getting canned, I may wait to see it in a $3 beer theatre, but I'll probably see it nonetheless. [yikes, addendum/edit: looks like it may be stinkier than I at first hoped. Definitely a beer theatre movie.]

Here's the trailer for it, called Revolver.



Enjoy the trailer, if nothing else,

Bp

Looking for car advice

So it looks like Geico has decided our little rubazu was a total loss. Now we have 5 days of rental car to find a replacement.

I don't yet know what money they're going to give us for this car, but we need to find a replacement. I wanted to ask ya'll's advice.

We need:

room for 4-5
decent mileage (ideally fantastic mileage)
roof rack
generous trunk
abs breaks

Things subaru had that we don't absolutely need:
all wheel drive
lots of bells and whistles (leather seats, side mirror defrost, etc)

We're open to all ideas.

When we had more money we were considering either a Prius or an extended cab truck. Kind of opposite ends of the spectrum though, one has mineage the other gets us into the woods easier. We're still split on the horns of that dilemna. I'm thinking a 2x4 truck with some clearance and extended cab might be the best of all worlds, room for people but still able to get out into the woods. Rarely have I needed 4x4, but often I need clearance.

Anyway, fire away any suggestions you can think of. Also, if you are in Portland area, let us know where you think it would be good to look for cars too.

I'll work on getting back on track for studying now, blah. Was hoping just to get the Rubazu back.

Enjoy what you can,

Bp

ps/addendum: So far I'm looking at foresters and Toyota matrix. I don't think we'll be able to get a car without taking on payments so I've succumbed to that idea and am willing to pay more than we get, but not a ton more.

California "winter" on Geese Aplenty

Geese Aplenty is a blog I somehow stumbled up on a few months ago. The guy occasionally posts real gems of writing, and today's was particularly good. For anyone who has lived in California or has visited there during the winter, you will be able to relate.

The post is about California and its "winter."

Here's some of the post:

California has no idea what real seasons are, and it will never know because it’s separated from them by thousands of miles. It has no idea that elsewhere in the country, the leaves turn so bright and vivid that they look as though they’re on fire. It doesn’t know that if you stand in a certain place at just the right time, the air smells of apple cinnamon. It doesn’t know that when the storms start to hit, the days become as hard and cold as a runway model’s face.

Enjoy those random strangers with whom you share untoward hobbies,

Bp

Zoological tidbits and definitions

OK we are studying together, I'm going to type up some random interesting or unexpected zoological tidbits as I study for my Vertebrate Zoology final this Thursday. This post is somewhat inspired by Harper's Index, actually.

Rhino horn isn't actually horn, but compacted hair.

There may be a connection to lack of sunlight exposure and autism (hey, it's in my lecture notes I'm just the messenger here).

The Dayak Fruit Bat is one of the only mammalian species where male lactation could be the norm.


Cervids (deer and some such folks) that have antlers (almost all of them do) tend to shed them once a year. The interesting tidbit is, Reindeer and Caribou are exceptions, and don't shed theirs at all.

Of the egg-laying mammals, only the Echidna incubate them inside a pouch in their body. The Platypus makes a nest inside a burrow and incubates her eggs outside her body.

2 grams appears to be some kind of lower limit for size of an endothermic animal. Both the Kitti's Hog-nosed bat and Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) run approximately 1.6 - 2.0 grams. They are generally accepted to be the smallest mammal and bird around, or at least representative of each.

I think I'll do this some more tomorrow.

Enjoy your anamilian kin,

Bp

Largest Sitka Spruce in the U.S. succumbs to storms

This Sitka Spruce (also known at the Klootchy creek giant) is huge, and I just can't find pictures that give it justice. Apparently it snapped in half high above the ground during this week's storm, in high winds. It was a consistent stop for me on my way to the coast, and most Oregonians will have some memory to share about visiting it. A local news station took submissions of people's photos around the tree, which may give you some impression of it's grandeur.

This is one of the oldest living things in Oregon, and one of the biggest trees in the state as well. The tree was coming to the end of its natural life cycle, and showed signs of wear long before this storm finally snapped its trunk.

I'm very curious what will be done with the wood, the value is immense.

Sad to say goodbye to this giant being.

Enjoy your old relatives,

Bp

Nice look into government workings

Almost didn't get a post in today.

I have two minutes, so I'll keep it short. I picked this ZeFrank episode because he goes into specifics around a bill that was being blocked in congress. It's a quickie little civics lesson and outing of a pork barrel (hows that for cliche) senator.

Enjoy your finals-free lifestyles,

Bp

An unexpected study break

So we're studying over at The Den (Doc Ock's apartment) when we heard a very serious crunch outside and a car alarm going off. Somehow, I knew. I stood up, got my shoes and started lacing them. I went outside and clicked my keys and sure enough the alarm turned off.

Some poor guy was turning a corner in a light truck, and as he accelerated out of the turn lost the back end on wet street and wet leaves. He really nailed the car, pushing the back tire into the curb hard enough that it's not exactly at the right angle anymore. I'm thinking the axle is maybe not so hot.

He was all right, he came up to the apartment and we started doing the do, we offered him condolences, tea and hot openfaced tuna melts, and the dance with the insurance company begins. So far Geico is fine, but time will tell.

An unexpected 3-hour study break (all told, getting the rental car etc).

Oh, and (although I see its use and I find myself enjoying little bits and pieces of it) Organic chemistry , with this professor and his Rampantly Rigorous Tests (tm) -- can bite me.

Enjoy your infernal combustion transportation,

Bp

Grisly check to fire ant invasion -- a little horror film for Saturday Morning

To quote Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: "Fish gotta swim birds gotta fly; insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another. (p. 64)"

Here is a link to a video about a biological control that is being used to slow down the fire ants in the United States. The story involves eating brains and maggots, so if you aren't the horror film type you might not want to click the link (the images actually are pretty vanilla, it's the concept, really, that turns the stomach). I, of course, was fascinated.

Lets hope this works and doesn't backfire, as biological controls have a tendency to do.


Enjoy nature's brilliant atrocities,

Bp

T. and Pootie enjoying the first snow

We had our first snow this morning, and here is a picture of T. and Pootie on the front porch enjoying the weather. You can see a bit of "winter interest" in the front bed, with the basalt and nice spray of somesuch grass... but overall winter is not the hottest time for our front beds. We're working on it, with the gentle but persistent prodding from a good friend of ours who knows about these things.

I'm off to study.

Enjoy your lazy Saturday morning,

Bp

[ps: Blogger seems to be having some problems with photos right now, so if you click on the picture today to get a bigger version, it will download instead of just display. Maybe it will make a good postcard or something, enjoy. Hope they fix it soon.]

James Brown -- Sex Machine

I figure it's Friday night, and although I'm leaving to go study, ya'll should boogie down, even if only for a few minutes.

And check out that righteous 'stache!!



Enjoy your booty shaking,

Bp

A matter of taste

Some of these crack me up, so I will continue to occasionally submit ya'll to them. This one is especially relevant because we used to have a little pygmy hedgehog named Mitch.



Enjoy the humor, despite yourself,

Bp

Whales and Even-Toed Ungulates related

Apparently I missed this until now, but Cetaceans (whales, dolphins) are closer related to Even Toed Ungulates (Artiodactyla: deer, cattle, pigs, hippos) than to all other mammals. So closely related that new superorder was created, called Cetartiodactyla.

I had heard that whales were very related to Hippos at some point, but hadn't really seen the relationship til today in Vertebrate Zoology class. The morphological evidence (anatomical evidence) as well as the genetic and molecular evidence both strongly confirm this grouping. It's quite well backed up.

Just interesting to me, to imagine the progressions these animals followed coming to their current state.

[illustration via Afrol News]


Enjoy your long-term musings,

Bp

Rocks trucking around on the playa, by themselves

Bentley sent me this excellent article from geology.com about the sliding rocks of Racetrack Playa. There still isn't an explanation, I love natural events for which there are not yet explanations.


Enjoy nature's anomalies,

Bp

[photo from linked article]

Inspirational video, no joke

Doc Ock said he watched this video and his "father insides" just revved to full speed and he cried like a baby. Even Captain American said he can't watch it without tearing up. We are all grinding away on Organic Chemistry and needing to keep our morale high, so we watched this video.

This is a sports video, and it's inspirational. Most people would think I was about to be sarcastic, because I'm not the big sports fan, and the term "inspirational" nowadays is almost always a setup for a cynical, ironic flippant comment of some kind.

I watched it, and sure as shit I teared up.

Story of McElway, an autistic kid who only really opened up around the high school basketball team that he was the assistant for. He was a huge fan, and carried water and balls and towels for the team for years. At the end of the season, years into his involvement with the team, the coach had him suit up and go in.

We watch. We imagine ourselves in the kid's place. We watch the crowd reaction.

And then we commence to have leaky eyes.



Enjoy your sappy but healthy emotions,

Bp

New comment on the Naomi Wolf Post, reposting here

This comment just posted in the archives, at the Naomi Wolf post, and I didn't want it to get lost.

Check it out.

Posted by rs suckle:

The Ten Steps of the Fascist Shift as interpreted by Naomi Wolf and applied to the Bush administration, could equally apply to Presidents in the 1920’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s. United States history has been through many worse times and survived.
While researching the 1920’s for my book “The Ragman’s War,” I learned many dark secrets about the Roaring Twenties hidden in union archives, news articles from that time, and in memories of old men.
Applying the 10 steps to the administrations of Wilson, Harding and Coolidge would have made it the 1920’s the worst decade for fascism in US history. Steel and Rail Barons controlled all branches of government and wielded their influence to keep millions of immigrant workers laboring in the mills and mines for little or no wages. Dissidents and union organizers who riled against this serf system of cheap labor that kept the Twenties stock market roaring were branded as anarchists. They were detained, deported, jailed, or murdered.
In the mining towns the mine families were forbidden to bear arms, to assemble, to have free ingress and egress to their towns, to sing hymns, and join unions. During the 1927-28 strike in the western Pennsylvania coalfields, they had their property seized and sold at auction and were evicted from their houses even when the rent was paid. Company agents had free access to invade their homes at whim.
Constitutional abuses in the bituminous coalfields around Pittsburgh were so bad that members of the US Senate decided to visit the area to evaluate the situation. The ACLU did their own investigation and reported their findings in a booklet titled “The Shame of Pennsylvania.”
Don’t believe me then look it up for yourself or read “Bucket of Blood the Ragman’s War,” “The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America’s Largest Labor Uprising,” or “Storming Heavan.” Then there was the Red Scare of 1919, the Palmer Raids, and persecution of the IWW (Wobblies)? What about the Red Scare of the late 1940’s under Truman? How many communists and sympathizers were detained, deported, jailed, or went into hiding? Is Wolf an historian or a just sharp cookie out to sell books and bash Bush?

The Ten Steps of the 1928 Fascist Shift:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy (Communists, Wobblies, Labor Unions).

2. Create a gulag ( Captive Coal Towns, Wobbly Interment Camps, Deportation Centers).

3. Develop a thug caste (Coal and Iron Police, Pinkerton Men, American Legion).

4. Set up an internal surveillance system (Paid Stool Pigeons, Mail Interception).

5. Harass citizens’ groups (Company Sheriffs, State Troopers, County Sheriffs, Constables, Coal and Iron Police, KKK, Jim Crow Laws).

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release (union organizers, black lists, civil rights activists, Wobblies, innocent immigrant workers).

7. Target key individuals (scientists, academics, journalists, artists, writers, social activists, movie producers, labor leaders and organizers).

8. Control the press (coal, steel, and rail barons, judges, Hearst Syndicate).

9. Dissent equals treason (Sedition Laws, Red Scare, Palmer Raids, Anti Union Laws).

10. Suspend the rule of law (suspension of Constitutional rights for coal and steel families, Rossitor Injunctions, Coal & Steel companies rule the towns they own, their appointed agents are the law).
OOPS!!! Wolf forgot about suppression of free speech.