China - Clamping Down Harder on Speech
Not that there is any free speech in China, that would be ridiculous to consider in a totalitarianistic Communist country. But in case you were somehow under the delusion that China promoted free speech you might want to read this article here on Yahoo. Basically the Chinese government is working to put the genie back in the bottle by having all bloggers and website owners registered and under control. You know, to make it easier to have those visits in the middle of the night by the authorities. Kind of like how things are getting in America too.

Australian Immigration Contacted China
These Australian government people are tools. According to this article here the government officials did the only thing you might have expected them to do in a case when a Chinese diplomat from Communist China tries to defect, they called the Chinese government to let them know about it. It kind of reminds you of when police and government people were corrupt and took their orders from the mob. If there was somebody that the mob wanted then the police helped the gangsters out. Sort of like in this story. The only thing different is that the mafia isn't paying off the police, it's the Chinese government paying off the Australian government. Like good stooges who know where their payments come from the Australian government knew immediately what to do. The bright light of the press, even in Australia, has turned it's spotlight on this story. The Immigration people who ran to tell their Chinese masters said upon being called up on it that they were only 'confirming' his identity. Of course, that this might put the man in mortal jeopardy didn't seem to occur to the officials. Or perhaps it did and they didn't care. But not to worry, the Chinese government said the man can come home now, all is forgiven. Nothing will happen to him. That's hard to believe when you consider the fact that their labor camps are full up with people who expressed even mild disagreement with the Chinese Communist Party and their government. The jails are still holding people from the Tianamen Square Massacre. The jails are not holding the people who committed the massacre of course, just the people who asked for democracy.
Good job Australia.

What Trumps Freedom and Virtue?
Topic: Politics
Why money of course. It's always about the money. Why if you happen to be a diplomat from China who want asylum in oh say, Australia, the chances of you getting it even though we know China holds prisons full of political prisoners who have done nothing more than perhaps say they don't like the government in China, well your chances are similar to the snowball in hell. Story Here Why would Australia happen to quickly say no the asylum seeking Chinese diplomat? Oh, perhaps it's economic, perhaps it's the free trade deal that Australia is negotiating with China. And it's only a few days removed from the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre which is politely forgotten about in the news which does revel in anniversaries about things that interest them. Once again, it's the money that talks.

Advertising and Other Lies
Now Playing: European Techno Trance Radio -Shoutcast
Topic: Law
I often times cast a cynical eye on the things around me and occasionally, occasionally I am rewarded for my eternal vigilance with independent confirmation of my observations. You can see outright lies on the TV and in advertising every single day of your life and it's so pervasive and ubiquitous that most of us just accept it, believe it or tune it out to some degree. Folks believe mistakenly that their government will protect them from false advertising but even when they do take a diet pill or electric weight belt
off the market it's only after the crooks have run millions of dollars in ads and taken many millions in from idiots who believe their fake product must be real since the government let them on TV. Look at every fat pill cure with their steaming piles of lies designed to play on the fears and hopes of overweight people. "Placebo is 'TOO' powerful for the person
with five to ten pounds Vanity pounds to consider using" "Use this ab scruncheroo for only ten minutes a day and you too will have the abs of this twenty year old athlete you see using the scruncheroo. I mean heck, it must be true since you can see six pack ab people using those products.

Same with those creams and lotions that make you younger -used by 17 year old models. You see smoother younger looking skin cause you're looking at smoother, younger looking skin belonging to young people to begin with. Duh. Hello. Anybody home there? It's a big steaming pile of lies. And of course it's dead on true that drinking this beer or that wine
will make supermodels fall all over you. Same for new cars, clothes, perfume and the right steak sauce. Drive the right car, wear the right clothes and you'll be fighting off beautiful women or men. No really, it's true. I saw it on TV so it must be true.

With all of that in mind just the other day I remember looking at the hideously overpriced selection of shaving razors in the grocery stores.
Two, three, four blades, lotion strips, vibrating blades and heroic fast names all at premium prices. The ads claim you'll get the best closest shave ever, that regardless of which way your hairs run the magic blades will cut them all smoothly and so close they even actually pull those hairs out and shave them below the hair line. Blah blah blah. Bulldookie so deep and wide you can't possibly escape the ad copy. With all of that in mind you can rest assured that your right to not be lied to is being taken care of
my concerned citizens. Why just the other day hereGillette was taken to court for its unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims for its 'M3Power Razor' -
those claims stated that the magical razor did raise hairs up and away from your skin to provide the closest possible razoring experience. Magical stuff worthy of Merlin himself. Let's see, the Judge, Janet C. Hall didn't see it that way and granted the preliminary injunction prohibiting Gillette from using that bit of hyperbole/pack of lies in their advertising. The good citizen that called Gillette on their false advertising? Why that would be Schick-Wilkinson Sword who happen to make the other major razor

Ah, the irony of it all.

This Cracks Me Up
Now Playing: Tony Kornheiser - Sportstalk 980
An excerpt from the book The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler book "These things that I had written in such humility for my closest friends were suddenly being read by all sorts of strangers and I couldn't stop them. The spanking, the anal sex, the questionable exchange of money. My mind raced."
The chick does what countless people do - you know kiss and tell, the ass sex, getting paid for it. (It's all a matter of degree after all) And then she writes about it and puts it up on the web. And then the funny part, she's shocked that strangers have read her words and when it's found out she was the one doing the writing she is shocked to find that she isn't welcomed anymore. To me, it's kind of like those bits where some sex pictures, nude pictures or videos of famous people are spread out over the web. Usually nobody seems more surprised than the ones seen in the pictures or videos humping away. It should be a understood rule of life that if you ever took pictures or videos of yourself naked, or if anybody ever took pictures of you naked, nude or otherwise embarrassing, then you can rest assured that those pictures will be spread out over the length and breadth of the country at the least opportune moment in your life. So spend some time right now writing the press release explaining how you were young and the other person was evil or whatever variation of that spin you prefer. If your pictures are out there then they are going to be plastered everywhere eventually. And it should go without saying that you should not be shocked in any way, manner or shape if your kiss and tell blog becomes common knowledge to your family, coworkers, friends and enemies. If you feign shock well then, you are only cracking folks like me up.

Penguins Take Over the World!
Robo Penguins Invade the World! here Okay, well maybe that would be a bit of hyperbole. But it's still an interesting article in Der Spiegel about how the increasingly tiny electronics are allowing scientists to put all manner of transmitters and cameras on penguins, whales, seals, dolphins and anything else they have a mind to. With this ability they forsee the day when they can manage and understand all wildlife.

Bower Birds on Nova
Now Playing: NOVA
I love Bower Birds. I especially love Bower Birds when they are presented by David Attenbourough as my wondering eyes do see right now on this episode of NOVA - "Flying Casanovas", Episode #2818. A tribute to the determination and will of tiny little guys in their herculean efforts to attract that lady they desire.

Romeo and Juliet Psychosis
You know, I really do read the New York Times but I missed this article and caught it while reading The Volokh Conspiracy here and it's about the very real psychosis of love. An excellent article dealing with the brain chemistry of love. It's nothing that we don't already know about but it's always nice to get that scientific confirmation of the reality we are aware of. Watching New Love As It Sears the Brain
"New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis."

The French Vote No -
Topic: Politics
I was holding my breath on this one. The polls have said for weeks that the No side was winning in the vote for the European Union Constitution. Basically the french voters told President Jacques Chirac to take his European Union Constitution and shove it where the foie gras don't shine. The French people voted this way for a number of reasons not least of which was the fear of foreigners and having those foreigners take what few jobs Frenchmen still had. High unemployment, the threat of erosion to their social service system, the inability of the government to actually do anything about it all contributed to the vote going the way it went. The result is good for the United States because it keeps the French and Germans from bringing their antiamerican foreign policy desires to the whole of Europe. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a united Europe is a rival to the United States when the United States doesn't need the extra grief. The Germans and the French were only to happy to try to sell the Chinese advanced military equipment that will eventually be used against the United States and only the fact that our 'allies' weren't standing behind a single Europe entity was the United States able to pressure those sales off the table. Countries will follow their own interests and ideas and for France and Germany, those interests do not see a threat from China. This is the thinking that allows them to happily sell all manner of military equipment to the Chinese. As countries that survived and thrived under the security umbrella paid for and manned by the United States they now believe they know better than the United States. The fact that the French people and shortly the people of the Netherlands have and will reject this European Constitution is good news for peace in the world.

Pentium D and accompanying 945g chipset-To Never Buy
Topic: Law
DRM on an intel chip, the information just hit Slashdot today. The article discussing it is here. It has 'Active Management Technology which according to the article "...will allow administrators to remotely enable, disable or format or configure individual drives and reload operating systems and software from remote locations, again independent of operating systems." Yah right. When certain imaginary nether areas housing the evil and bad people to be punished freezes over will be the time I buy something like that. A shame too, I've always trusted Intel chips and now I'll not buy another one.

Nuclear Explosions
Now Playing: The Chris Pirillo Show


I have been deprived of my sport - two promised nuclear events and neither one transpired.
For half a year I've been watching the FOX television series 24 and watched as Kiefer
Sutherland's Jack Bauer chased the nuclear weapon stealing terrorists from episode to
episode with the growing tension and likelihood of the terrorists being successful and at the
same time there was the US Senates' tension and increasing likelihood of their own 'nuclear
option being carried out the filibuster and the odd Judge. Neither explosion happened, in
both cases and at the last minute lame anticlimatic answers were found. Bah. In the
television series you have to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy the exposition. I mean
you know, it's alright that with me that every time a terrorist was surrounded he wasn't
'really' surrounded very well and somehow managed to escape. It's fine with me that the one
guy who might provide them with evidence about the nuclear weapon is only worth two
agents who race out undermanned and underprepared. No problem. I can deal with it. Just a
simple story where the guy who saves the planet is going to be given over to the Chinese for
some show trial and imprisonment as if the exploded nuclear cruise missile didn't happen. It
was good and fun. No complaints.
Now the other 'Nuclear threat' by the various members of the Senate is another matter. It's
the grand Machiavellian story with many of the lines hidden and the ones that are out to be
seen aren't as they seem. Cool stuff. It was a battle by Frist over his future ambitions, it was
a battle over the present and future power of President Bush, it was a struggle for power by Senator Reid, the leader of the Democrats. It was a battle of the list of potential Presidential

candidates and those who didn't fight in this battle are notable in their silence. A battle
Royale, like an Jedi battle in Star Wars, fought with their minds absent the cool sparkly blue
lightning effects.

Big Kamikaze winner/loser of this battle is Senator John McCain. His efforts basically
jabbed a thumb in the eye of the President and his party. Any hope that he might have had
in getting through the primaries past the active right wing active of the party died a noisy
death with this agreement. The Republicans feel that the knife was shoved hard and deep in
their backs and you know those elephants have long memories. There aren't enough open
primaries for McCain to run in to get past the virulent hatred he will now face. He's gone
unless he's picked up as a member of the Democratic ticket and that'll never happen.
McCain has basically further signaled that he doesn't give a crap any longer. Senator Hagel
has played it too cute by half by staying out of this fight and there is no way he's waltzing
into the primaries saying he was really a stand up kind of Republican through the whole fight
even though nobody saw or heard of him through the battle. Liberman, like McCain doesn't
give a flip any longer. If anything he's trying to polish up his paragraph in the history books. The rest of the group of unidentifiable senators as far as the Replicans are concerned, are seen as traitors and rightly so. That group handed the victory for the minority party and made the upcoming Supreme Court Justice fight all that more bitter and lengthy.

As for the President I think you can safely assume you will never hear him discussing the use of his fictional mandate and 'political capital' since those are long gone and last seen riding away with his Social Security plan. But still, the original blood chess game. It's all good and all interesting. Not as interesting as the possible story lines for next year's 24 but still, pretty darn good.

Happy Days
Now Playing: Tony Kornheiser - Sportstalk 980
Topic: Mysteries of Life
Some days just get better and better. Today I found Tony Kornheiser on the Internet. I remember when the foul and evil ESPN took him off the radio and replaced him with some blathering idiot which marked the last time I listened to ESPN radio in any form. The wit, the sarcasm, the world weary cynicism, the sheer crankiness of the orange dude was somehow comforting and assuring to me. First heard him while listening in the DC area. Sportstalk in it's most intelligent and interesting form. Then I was happy to see him go to the emerging ESPN radio even though they changed his time but still I could find him. It's really the small pleasures in life and he was one of those. I don't know, it faded, I thought he wouldn't do anymore radio and stopped looking. Then of course today I finally figured out how to use FeedDemon to get the TWIT broadcasts. Woo hoo. I tell you, it's always wonderful when stuff works. TWIT being the podcast by the guys from the good Tech TV which was taken off the air by the evil G4 crap monsters. (I think there is a theme here)

I said to myself, humm, Leo Laporte has a radio show podcast. Let's find that. I found that show, downloaded the show via FeedDemon and was happily listening to something smart and interesting and then thought about Tony Kornheiser. Started what I thought was a fruitless Google search to see if I could find a podcast from him. I mean, he's hip, he's happening, it could happen. Well, then I found that he was on XM Radio (which means I have to seriously think about getting XM damn it) and then a bit more googling and there he is on Sportstalk 980 here and I'm listening to his show right now. He's talking about some boring sports stuff and then there is the interesting discussion about the chimps eating some guys face. I mean really now, that's what I'm here for. The good stuff. Woo hoo.

Videos on MTV????
Now Playing: Eurovision 2004 Kiev
Topic: Music
Watching a video for NIN, The Hand That Feeds on MTV of all places. I didn't know that they ever had any videos on that channel. I'm pretty sure that the programing there consists of variations on the 'throw hot and sexy kids together and see who screws and see who fights' reality crap shows along with videos of black singers dressed as pimps or gangsters while scantily clad women do variations of pole and lap dances. Yup, about ten minutes of commercials followed the video by the Killers and the video by NIN. But hey, it's MTV so the commercials were only for 'cool' things like ring tones and anti smoking commercials. A veritable crapfest.

Anyways, the NIN video was good, minimal, blue scan lined and edgy in that artfully done raw look that takes a bit of work to arrive at. The important thing, the song, was good. A good NIN song that is a good sign for Reznor and gang. The Fragile, his last double album was a bit uneven and some of the works were admittedly unlistenable. This album is better.

The stuff I'm listening to is the European Idol stuff. Except it came first and is less of a freak show as I understand it. Eurovision Song ContestTatu came from this contest and I love Tatu. Basically it's artists from each country competing. A lot of it sounds like Abba clones. I'm thinking of Angelica Agurbash who I'm listening to now. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's a European style of music that is distinctive enough to notice. Marian van de Wal sounds melodious of voice as well. All in all the music is upbeat and fun to listen to. I give it a three out of five based on my incomplete listening of the work so far. And really, that's far more attention than most folks give when reviewing a CD.

Oh wow, MTV has actually put a Green Day video on now. And now the Gwen Stefani video, complete with lap dancing skank whore cheerleaders as well as the regular kind. That makes four videos in a half hour. It must be a new record for that Network.

Triumph Of Our Communities
Now Playing: Bernadette Peters - Live at Carnegie Hall
Topic: Art and Poetry
"Triumph of our communities" is a ASU's publication on Chicano art which is linked here and includes a profile on my own brother as a prominent artist in the Chicano art community. A wonderful artist and an active member of his community in Colorado.

Military positioning for China Conflict
Topic: Politics
Looking at the long awaited base closings list I see that there isn't much in the way of major bases being closed. That's good news for the military in many respects and it seemed to me that any list that did in fact try to close major bases in major states would have been the end of any power President Bush hoped to wield in his final years as President. The death by a thousand cuts endured by every President combined with the ill advised attempt at Social Security reform had taken any power he had over his Senators and House Republicans. It's every man for himself out there and trying to close any big base in the state of any two Republican Senators would have been complete suicide. However there is one political hit on the list, the Base in South Dakota, big old Strategic Air Command base Ellis must go. Sort of a delayed punishment for the sins of ex Democratic Senator Tom Dachele. I mean really, you folks in South Dakota elected him many times and now here is your reward. The memories of Republicans are long. Republicans aren't represented by an elephant for nothing.

The other base closing that caught my interest is the one in Connecticut. True enough it's in a Democratic State with Senator Dodd and Senator Lieberman who have no influence with the Republicans and of course will be punished for their allegiance to the Democratic Party but it's also a sign that the military threat assessments are coming in line with the emerging reality from Asia. China is the threat now and redirecting forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific is critical to the chances of threat containment. I heard that some of the assets currently at the Groton Base will likely transfer to Guam and that is good news. Peace through strength isn't just a snappy saying, it's true as can be. The better our forces are prepared and arrayed in the Pacific the less chance the Chinese will calculate that they can achieve their Pacific ambitions without consequences. And again, like many would be threats the Chinese assess their chances based upon their ability to complete their goals before the US can react thus leaving the US and her allies with a fait accompli to be dealt with. The theory goes that if the US is faced with a invasion instead of a defense that the military cost would be too high and the US would grudgingly accept the new reality. Thus were the dreams of the old Soviet Union with regards to Europe and thus are the dreams of Red China with their Taiwan dreams.