Obama - "Hey Everybody! I have an idea. Let's establish a theocracy and call it America"

That's the only message I can take from this:

With an eye toward courting evangelical voters, Senator Barack Obama is presenting a plan on Tuesday to expand President Bush’s program of investing federal money in religious-based initiatives that are intended to fight poverty and perform the work of social services.

source

After all when President Bush announced his faith based initiatives the world howled that it was an unconstitutional intrusion of church into the affairs of the state, and it was really the first step to a Iranian / Saudi style theocracy. Now Obama wants to EXPAND the programs? That can't possibly be good. I see hordes of religous police forcing scanitly clad females back into their college dorms (mmmmmm, scantily clad co-eds) and condemning then to a horrible death by burning (or possibly pillow fight) if this is allowed to stand.

Will Keith Olberman lead the charges against this horrendous state of affairs? Somehow I doubt it. I am thinking he will just take this as another sign of Obama "not doing cowering".

All joking aside I supported the idea of faith based initiatives, because every study I every saw showed programs run by churches is much more effective, but this is just dishonest. Obama disagrees with every position that evangelicals hold but suddenly I am supposed to believe he has seen the light?

A humorous note here, or two actually, while running around advocating complete state control of every aspect of your lives, somehow Obama has come to the conclusion that the state isn't the answer to every problem:

“The fact is, the challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Mr. Obama is expected to say, according to a prepared text of his remarks. “We need all hands on deck.”

The second humorous point realtes to the audio interview that is embed in the article on the NY TImes webpage. In it John Broder is talking about Obama's evangelical outreach. The guy actually said, "Hye guys, you and I may disagree on gay marriage, we may disagree on abortion, but we agree on the broader issues". If you are an evangelical what are the broader issues? According to John Broder it is Global Warming (tm), the environment and the war. Are those really the issues that are going to peel evangelicals away from McCain?

Oh Sweet Irony Thy Name Is ... Irony. Obama pays women less than men while claiming to be for equal pay.

While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men.

That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Senate office, where women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men.

Source

Of course being Obama rather than bringing the women up to parity with the men I am sure the enlightened one will decrease the men's salaries to achieve parity with the women.

h/t Instapundit I know its all over the web but I saw it there first.

So other than that how was the vacation? Teen decapitated by roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia.

I feel for the family but apparently this kid was a Darwin Awards candidate - He hpped two six foot fences and ignored warning signs so he could recover a hat that fell off while he was riding the Batman roller coaster.

Here is a sick thought, was this like in the movies where the head lofted about 50 feet and landed in some ladies lap?

Radio update

I have installed the software. Am working on playlists. Have recorded the intro and am working on my first podcast. We are still scheduled to go live at 0000 PT 4 July 08.

I need contributions people. :-)

A Second Time in Second Life

A couple of years ago I was messing around in Second Life (another one of those things I am sure I blogged about but cant find a record of). It was interesting for a time I found a lot of "dance" clubs which had some pretty good music and some good social chat, but slowly I lost interest the people I was interacting with dropped off line, the "clubs" closed and the game just started running real buggy so I dropped out. Lately World of Warcraft has been boring. Age of Conan was a non-starter and I was bored so I downloaded the client and went back.

Second Life has changed. Some of the avatars now are so detailed that they are photorealistic. Construction in a lot of places is more polished. Not just a bunch of random shapes. And Oh My God, I thought the place was fetish central before, non mon ami, but it is now, want to be a hypermuscular female giantess with batwings, you can do it. Catholic schoolgirl hermaphrodite? you can do that too. It's interesting how many kinks are out there. Makes the ass, leg and tit man classifications seem like a joke.

There are some other things too, at 11 am there is supposed to be a voice chat on steampunk literature that I am going to attend. I will update this post and let you know if it was worthwhile. There are also some places that show foreign and independent films (which probably means German Scat Porn) that I will check out too. That will have to wait though. After the steam punk discussion I am going to go out and enjoy the sun.

So... Big Doings At Work Today

The company I work for is reorganizing. My division is being "spun off" but no one really knows what that means. THe guy in charge of the division wants it to go as a separate company but that may not happen. If it doesn't life could be a little iffy right around December.

Oh well nothing to do but suck it up and drive on. Or hope some rich woman with big boobs and low self-esteem will marry me.

Are speculators selling off oil stocks?

Floyd Norris in the has an article in the New York Times Business Section entitled "The Beginning of the End for High Oil Prices" in which he speculates:

Oil prices are up sharply (again) today. But stocks in oil companies are not.

...

It may be that the stock market is growing worried that high oil prices contain the seeds of their own destruction.

“At some point, it is likely to dawn on people who own oil shares that rising oil prices are raising global recession risks, and that a global recession would be really bad for oil companies,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG.

which leads one of his commenters to remark:

Floyd, your observation is right on the money, the “financial players/traders” who have jacked up the oil prices beyond any logic, are getting out of the oil company shares first (being ahead of the curve), and soon will be unloading their futures contracts…..

Stay tuned!!!

Now I can't prove that speculation is causing the rise in energy prices - Paul Krugman doesn't think so:

Is speculation playing a role in high oil prices? It’s not out of the question. Economists were right to scoff at Mr. Masters — buying a futures contract doesn’t directly reduce the supply of oil to consumers — but under some circumstances, speculation in the oil futures market can indirectly raise prices, encouraging producers and other players to hoard oil rather than making it available for use.

Whether that’s happening now is a subject of highly technical dispute. (Readers who want to wonk themselves out can go to my blog, krugman.blogs.nytimes.com, and follow the links.) Suffice it to say that some economists, myself included, make much of the fact that the usual telltale signs of a speculative price boom are missing. But other economists argue, in effect, that absence of evidence isn’t solid evidence of absence.

This would normally make me positive they were, but a lot of other very smart people tell me the same thing (and honestly as mistaken as I think Krugman is in his politics there is no doubt he is a brilliant guy).

Others just say this is supply and demand playing out in the market. It's true that use in both India and China has surged in recent years, but that much? And is their increased use really exceeding supply. According to the oil companies and the Saudis the answer is no. They see an equilibrium price of about $55 a barrel.

Finally - these prices just feel wrong. Oil jumps 4% two days in a row with no real change in the world supply or demand? Come on.

So now back to the question I started out with? Are speculators dumping their stocks? I am not a financial analyst so this is probably not the right way to do this but I looked at the 5 year averages of 4 oil companies (Exxon, Chevron, Marathon, Conoco, BP and Shell) and while their stock prices are down over the last couple weeks it isn't by a lot and they are still essentially double what they were 4 years ago. So if there is a sell off it is going slow.

What does this mean? I don't know. All I know is that like I said something feels crooked about these prices. I still can't prove it but I know that George Soros is behind it and that as soon and Obama is elected prices will fall.

The plus side to illegal immigration - Better TV

Sofia Vergara




and Sabrina Sabrok

Follow -up on Obama and the Athabasca Oil Sands - Canadian Oil / Venezuelan Oil Same Same

I can't have been the only person who noticed this but so far no one else has mentioned it. (actually I emailed it to a few people including Instapundit but like much of my self-acknowledged brilliance it went unnoticed or unheeded)

I think you get the picture from the short version in the title but the longer version is that the Athabasca Oil Sands in Canada and the Orinoco Fields in Venezuela are essentially the same composition. They both contain high levels of sulfur and would be much "dirtier" than conventional crude oil.

So why is the Obama campaign talking about blocking imports from a country that is a friendly democracy and our number one supplier of oil but not saying a word about Venezuela and it's proto-dictator (or maybe that's just dick) Hugo Chavez? Myabe because they feel closer politically to El Presidente than to the Canadians? Or maybe because Venezuela nationalized the oil industry?

It's a freakin' Mystery

Obama's defense of DC Gun Ban was an inartful statement, by a staffer, of his opposition to the DC gun ban.

Or something like that.

This guy really has a problem with staffers and gun control. How many times is it now that a staffer has made a mistake on Obama's position? 7, 29, Elventy Billion? Hell I lost count after 3. The only common seems to be that it's never Obama's fault it's always a staffer.

Of course there is always a common denominator in these issues - Obama's position. Maybe, just maybe, his position is so nuanced that no one really understands what it is. Seriously what is "common sense gun control to reduce violence in our cities" except an empty phrase that lets his targeted audience think whatever they want.

My definition of common sense gun control is to require everyone to carry a gun in public at all times and summary execution for anyone caught using a gun in a crime. Others probably differ.

Honestly I could respect Obama a lot more if he would take and hold an actual position on something.

I just can't believe this slimy wuss is going to be our next President. Clinton was a communist but at least she was straight up about what she believed and where she was coming from. Honestly at this point a third Bill Clinton term is starting to look kinda good.

I was wrong about Heller. According to the Supreme Court after 69 years of malicious misinterpretation the 2nd Amendment confers an individual right.

It's a 5 - 4 decision and Kennedy actually managed to come back from his happy place for this one. Scalia authored the opinion and according to Fox News it's huge (157 pages). Only one majority opinion which makes it a little harder for lower courts to fudge I think.

From the opinion:

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for
traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

...

The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in
order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing
army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress
power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear
arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.

...

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.
It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any
manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed
weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment
or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms
in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or
laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those
“in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment
rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and
must issue him a license to carry it in the home.

So as I read this the only thing this opinion changes is that a State (or city) may not completely ban firearms ownership otherwise it's status quo. Not quite what I was hoping but not as bad as it could have been.

George Lucas - Obama Would Be A Jedi

Well of course he would -

As Jonathan V. Last pointed out in his piece "The Case for the Empire" the Jedi are both elitist and arrogant:

The Jedi are Lucas's great heroes, full of Zen wisdom and righteous power. They encourage people to "use the Force"--the mystical energy which is the source of their power--but the truth, revealed in "The Phantom Menace," is that the Force isn't available to the rabble. The Force comes from midi-chlorians, tiny symbiotic organisms in people's blood, like mitochondria. The Force, it turns out, is an inherited, genetic trait. If you don't have the blood, you don't get the Force. Which makes the Jedi not a democratic militia, but a royalist Swiss guard.

And an arrogant royalist Swiss guard, at that. With one or two notable exceptions, the Jedi we meet in Star Wars are full of themselves. They ignore the counsel of others (often with terrible consequences), and seem honestly to believe that they are at the center of the universe. When the chief Jedi record-keeper is asked in "Attack of the Clones" about a planet she has never heard of, she replies that if it's not in the Jedi archives, it doesn't exist. (The planet in question does exist, again, with terrible consequences.)

Yeah I think that you could say that Obama would fit right in.

Correction - so 8 hours later I remember to add the link to the story :-)

Hah! Jerry Pournelle agrees with me

The other day DrewM ran a a piece critical of McCain's battery challenge over at Ace of Spades. I responded:

Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham et. al constantly harp on the fact that the ingenuity of the American people can solve any problem (something I agree with btw) and everyone agrees. John McCain comes along and says the same thing and it's a bad thing?

Government sponsors projects everyday that ends up with commercial applications. I can see the idea that a competition for a prize might inspire creativity. At least this way all the development work is done at private expense and the payoff only comes when someone has something that works.

as well as some additional remarks, which Aces new system have apparently eaten. The jist of which where that encouraging development of this battery thru the use of a prize is a good thing.

As usual I was roundly shouted down with one commenter remarking I was trying to earn points towards my free mexican.

Well at least Jerry Pournelle agrees with me:

...The purpose of prizes is to focus attention on a goal. Lindberg fly to Paris alone for a prize. Prizes did a lot for early aviation. The X Prize got a lot of attention for commercial space. Heinlein left much of his estate to be used for prizes in advance of commercial space. The only obligation the winner of a prize should have is to win it: prize money does n0t purchase the rights to the invention.

Now it is probably true that anyone who wins this McCain battery prize will make a great deal more money for that technology in the market place. Probably true: but the market is uncertain, and raising capital always has to compete with other places to invest. One of the problems we have always had with commercial space is that there are both technical and market risks, and those who understand the one kind of risk generally don't comprehend the other; so they invest elsewhere.

Prizes reduce market uncertainties by providing a floor. If the US were to offer a $1 billion prize for the first American company to fly a ship to orbit and bring it home 6 time in one year, we would probably have reusable space ships within five years, possibly sooner: a billion is a pretty good market incentive. And if the US were to offer $10 billion prize for the first American company to put 31 Americans on the surface of the Moon and keep them there alive and well for 3 years and a day, we would have a Lunar Colony within 7 years and probably sooner.

The neat thing about prizes is that we spend no money unless someone wins. Now surely it would be worth far more than $300 million to have any capitalist have the battery technology McCain describes. Indeed it would be worth far more, and the only real criticism of the McCain prize might be that it wasn't large enough. On the other hand, how does it harm us to have the $300 million offered? This is a very good move on McCain's part, and makes me a lot happier to support him than I was. It makes him something more than the lesser evil...

and since Jerry Pournelle is one of my favorite authors as well as a brilliant motherf**ker.

Pournelle was born in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish in northwestern Louisiana, and educated in Capleville, Tennessee.[1] He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. After Korea, he obtained advanced degrees in psychology, statistics, engineering, and political science, including two PhDs. He acquired political experience by serving as Executive Assistant to the Mayor and Director of Research for the City of Los Angeles, campaign manager for Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr. (Rep.), and campaign manager for the third (successful) campaign for Mayor Samuel William Yorty (Dem.).

Pournelle was an intellectual protege of Russell Kirk (Kenneth C. Cole, Pournelle's mentor at the University of Washington, was co-founder with Kirk of Modern Age) and Stefan T. Possony with whom Pournelle wrote numerous publications including The Strategy of Technology, onetime textbook at the United States Military Academy (West Point) and the United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs). His work in the aerospace industry includes editing Project 75, a 1964 study of 1975 defense requirements. He worked in operations research at Boeing, The Aerospace Corporation, and North American Rockwell Space Division, and was founding President of the Pepperdine Research Institute.

I would just like to say to everyone in that thread - SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASSES!

That is all.

Energy prices could be cut in half if specualtion was reined in

We have discussed a couple times that oil company execs have repeatedly claimed that the equilibrium price for oil should be around $55 a barrel and prices are being driven up by speculation. That view go a boost in congressional testimony testerday.

Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.

Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy Security Analysis and Roger Diwan of PFC Energy Consultants agreed with Masters’ assessment at a hearing on proposed legislation to limit speculation in futures markets.

Krapels said that it wouldn’t even take 30 days to drive prices lower, as fund managers quickly liquidated their positions in futures markets.

“Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals,” according to Gheit. “Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel.”

So the oil company execs say out of control speculation is the problem, financial market experts say speculation is a problem, even Ben Stein says speculation is a problem (Jun 19th on the Radio factor)



This is one of those cases where a totally hands off approach is probably the wromg thing.

This isn't to say that supply and demand is not a contributing factor here. As I understand the market if there was the ability to increase demand the supply to meet increased demand then the speculation would not be able to have such an impact. The same situtaion that occured with Enron and the energy markets.

Note: corrected the above strikeout

STILL no Heller v. DC

At this point I am absolutely convinced that the case did not go for a pro-individual right. I am starting to think it will be reargued next term.

Heller will definitely be issued tomorrow as will Davis vs. FEC

So today was a big day for Exxon. The $2.5 billion judgment against them was thrown out and restricted to a max of 507.5 million.

Not such a good day for the forces of law and order. The death penalty was restricted categorically to cases in which an intentional death resulted and a guy who killed a person got his conviction reversed on the grounds that the murder wasn't committed to silence the witness so previous statemennts the witness made should be excluded. (I think I have that right).

Anyway I guess we will see what tomorrow brings.

After 27 years of declining them MTV to accept political ads

"MTV Networks will accept political advertising that is national in scope, sponsored by a legally qualified candidate, a candidate's official campaign committee, a nationally recognized political party, or the official congressional campaign committee(s) of a nationally recognized party."

After 27 years of saying no what could have driven this change?

Well obviously the magical minster of change himself Barack Obama:

MTV's announcement of the switch follows a report in the New York Times on June 22 that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's campaign wanted to do an MTV buy. It's also probably not a coincidence that Mr. Obama, who is opting out of public funding, will likely have plenty of money to spend on youth-directed ads. A political expert said the most immediate beneficiary of the switch is the Obama campaign.

"I think MTV's decision to accept advertising is an important indication that the youth vote this year will have a real impact on the outcome of the election," said Tad Devine, a Democratic campaign strategist who handled Sen. John Kerry's campaign four years ago. "Now campaigns have the opportunity to reach young voters in a venue where they congregate, and I'm sure Obama's campaign will look seriously at advertising there, given his advantage with young people."

So if I was the Republican Party I would be taking that huge pile of cash and blanketing MTV make Obama spend like Michael Jackson at a plastic surgeon. I would aslo keep the ads low key. Use the schoolhouse rock format and pound home conservative principles, but hey that's just me and as I am constantly reminded over at Ace of Spades I am not very bright or a real conservative.

Obama's plan for energy independence a Mad Max like post-industrial wasteland

Not content with preventing the US from pursuing it's own sources of energy Barack Obama is now taking aim at our lragest supplier of imported oil - Canada.

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president -- and one of his first targets might well be Canada's oil sands.

A senior adviser to Mr. Obama's campaign told reporters it's an "open question" whether oil produced from northern Alberta's oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate's plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

...

The remarks amount to a shot across the bow of Alberta's oil sands industry, which is planning to boost production from 1.3 million barrels a day to 3.5 million barrels over the next decade.

source

So the Obama plan at this point - No new oil, no nuclear, convert all our arable land to corn production for ethanol - which we may not be able to use because the carbon footprint throughout the production cycle is higher than conventional oil and the Waxman amendment won't let the US government buy it- thereby stopping food production and starving millions.

Wow, seems like a winner to me!

I am ordering my build it yourself Thunderdome kit now so I am ready for the inevitable societal crash.

OK, I admit it may not be quite that bad, but so far his energy policy does seem to boil down to "Oppose Anything That Will Work"

Supreme Court - Chief Justice John Roberts "Death penalty remains hella-f***kin-balls-to-the-wall-awesome"

Supreme Court Rules That Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

Alternative energy everyone can support - Harnessing the untapped electricity generating power of breast motion

Then one day recently I had an idea. As I rode public transportation to the office, my messenger bag slung uncomfortably across my chest, I thought, "Why not put the girls to work?" Human-powered devices are showing up everywhere, from Rotterdam's sustainable dance floor to human-powered gyms in Hong Kong. The time seemed perfect—perhaps even overdue!—for a bra that could harness the untapped power of breast motion.

source

Concept video below:



by my admittedly rough calculations she should be able to power a Los Angeles.

h/t Instapundit