If I hear another lie from the pretending Liar-in-Chief, I am gonna explode. In fact, I just did, screaming at the radio.

Screaming, like a feminist who just dropped her bucket of Ben & Jerry's on her favorite cat, killing it.

He was blathering about the "drill, baby, drill" or somesuch, and he said that if we were to get every drop of oil from our resources, that "it would not meet our long-term needs".

His misdirection is breathtaking, but not as asphyxiating as the credulous listeners who hear and do not perceive. Certainly, it will not meet our long-term goals (however he defines them), but increased domestic oil production will currently fulfill our current needs, which is our entire problem now. We need fuel NOW, while we work out the solutions for the future. It is like saying that we should sit in the dark, because our lightbulb production cannot possibly meet future illumination needs. We need a man or woman in the Oval Office who has the clarity to see NOW, because we have to move through now to get to then. Obama's thousand-yard stare is of no use either to us or those in the future. To put it shortly, Barack Hussein Obama is of no use to us, period.

He almost makes me miss Jimmuh Cahter.

President Obama seems pathologically unable to practise strategic thinking. He apparently only deals with Things Tactical. There are people who play chess with their next fifty moves planned ahead, then there's the way I play: just responding move-by-move. I don't win much.

Libya appears to be just one more isolated chess move in a dreadful first-term game for Barack Hussein Obama. WHY are we there? WHERE is a declaration of war by the Congress? WHEN will we get out?
--------------------------------

Tennessee Valley parents are apparently suing the State in Federal Court in Huntsville, blaming the Alabama's low property tax rates for the poor schools here.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Alabama property owners pay the lowest property taxes in the country.

A federal lawsuit set for trial here Monday argues that isn't simply a coincidence or a reflection of an anti-tax electorate, but designed to discriminate against black schoolchildren.

The case is Lynch v. Alabama, named after one of the plaintiffs...

The suit is being brought on behalf of families of black schoolchildren in Lawrence and Sumter counties and families of white schoolchildren in Lawrence County. The plaintiffs range in age from preschool to high school.... --The Huntsville Times

The irony is palpable. They were at least smart enough to include a few white kids in the suit, to fend off accusations of "reverse discrimination".

It is instead taxpayer extortion in the Name of Civil Rights. All of the property money goes into a pool, where it is divvied up. Birmingham and Madison County apparently get more than "their fair share" except that they also pay a large percentage of the tax bill. Should property taxes increase, I will be curious to hear the howls from property owners in Sumter and Lawrence counties.

I wonder how many of the plaintiffs rent?

This made me happy.

Hooked from Character Matters on Vimeo.

STOP COAL PLANTS NOW!!!


We must stop the HORROR that is coal electric energy production.

The destruction, the terror, the loss of property!!

Is 45% of domestic electric generation WORTH the danger posed by ASH?!

IS IT?

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In other news, the Department of Energy has discovered the existence of Electric Fairies. Efforts to utilise them for domestic power production has been hampered by the EPA's placing them on the Endangered Cryptids list.

Pictire from: omarsinc.com/goodteachers

EVERYBODY WINS!

Wisconsin Congressional Democrats have taken their soccer ball and gone ho...wait, they haven't gone home; they've run away! They have joined The Beaver, Dennis the Menace, and hordes of other five-year-olds who didn't get their way, or who went to Dad's study, but didn't learn their lesson.

What lesson? YOU LOST! You are no longer the majority. In a representative government, the Majority has more clout than the Minority (apparently Beav didn't learn his math OR civics lessons, either). Having a tantrum won't change the numbers. This isn't American kid's soccer, where EVERYONE gets a pizza party. Unless, of course, you throw an especially excellent tantrum, turn that exquisite shade of blue, appear on CNN, and get Jesse Jackson to declare the whole "collective bargaining" thing a "Civil Rights Issue".

It's easier to win the soccer match if you have some adults to move your goal around.

BTW, has anyone noticed the Marxism inherent in union-speak? Collective bargaining...struggle....

So, it is time to go home, WI Dems, and represent your constituents. You are the minority, and do not have the clout you once did. You will likely lose this issue. Mensch up, guys 'n' gals. Do your job, even if you lose.

Smile and enjoy the pepperoni!

Jews Forgive Glenn Beck...Film at 10!


Isn't it time to maybe lighten up a tad? Everyone is tired of the Eternal Victim drumbeat.
There has been no black slavery in the YouEssofAY since the late 1860s. There have been no Nazi slaughters of Jews in over sixty years.

But, no, The ADL and other organisations spend their time, electronic antennae a-quiver, hoping to see or hear something, ANYTHING, that can be remotely seen as anti-Jewish hate speech, and then issue press releases and Threats of Reprisal.

They may not have learned as much from History as they ought.

Being a burr under society's saddle does not endear a group to that society, and tends to encourage fringe groups to take action. Sometimes fringe groups take center stage. If YOUR group is twitchy, or touchy, or just weird, then YOU may be the Star Trek red shirts when the Revolution comes. This has played out on the world stage time and again.

Mr. Foxman of the ADL, et al, Mr. Beck was not comparing Judaism with Islam. He was comparing The Reform tendency to Be Political with an Islamic group's tendency to Be Political.
You are smart enough to understand that. But, no, you have to play your Eternal Victim card, and savage a man who is a staunch supporter of the Jews. Whether one is a Zionist or not, your greatest fans and friends are evangelical-types. If you allow polemic to get in the way of that friendship and support, then you may not be as smart and clever as you think you are.

Another thing. Using "Nazi" as an historical comparison to stated practises and goals in no way diminishes the horror of the Holocaust. Knee-jerk "That's OUR victimhood! You can't use that word." attitudes DO in fact diminish it, cheapening it to an editorial page riposte. Between the madness that is in the world, and the victim card-playing of an entire people (or their self-anointed spokesmen) the oath of "Never Again!" becomes hollow whistling past the graveyard. Beck's point in using "Nazi" examples is not as a lame polemical barb, but rather is to show that the political and practical underpinnings of the German National Socialist party in the 1930s and 40s exist clearly and in abundance today, even in our current regime and its advisors. Beck provides ample historical and documentary evidence, using their own words. Perhaps your alarm should be better aimed at the current administration and its supporters.

Reform leaders also accepted Beck’s apology.

"I would welcome the opportunity to meet personally to introduce you more fully to the Reform Jewish Movement, to discuss the concerns about this incident and about the concerns that many of my colleagues (half of them Reform, half Orthodox, Conservative and Reconstructionist) expressed in the open letter to you regarding the repeated references to the Holocaust and Nazis, so that you may better understand the pain and confusion that language evokes," wrote Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism in a letter to Beck.

Beck's comment on Tuesday stemmed from an open letter to him on which almost all the signatories were non-Orthodox rabbis. They criticized him for repeatedly comparing those with whom he disagrees to Nazis.

"There are the Orthodox rabbis and there are the Reform rabbis. Reform rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it is just -- radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics," Beck said Tuesday.

Jewish Funds for Justice, a liberal group that calls for Beck's censure for his frequent use of Nazi comparisons on his program, said the apology was "welcome but incomplete."

"We reiterate our call on (Fox News chief) Rupert Murdoch to end Mr. Beck's tenure at Fox News…. Anything short of this reflects an unwillingness to take seriously the harm Mr. Beck causes to many in our community and beyond," the group said.

"Harm" "Pain" "Confusion". "They criticized him for repeatedly comparing those with whom he disagrees to Nazis. "

This is schoolyard bickering, and unworthy of the line that had Moses the Lawgiver as its head.
Ooooooh You said "Nazi". THAT'S HURTFUL!

Mr. Beck does not call people with whom he disagrees "Nazi". He refers to those who display doctrines and practises congruent with the National Socialists "Nazi". There is a difference, and you know it, unless of course you only hear what he says through his critics, and haven't actually listened to what he says. He is issuing a warning of the cyclical nature of history, that if we do not learn from history, then we shall surely repeat it. You may do well to train your antennae onto that one

As the Dread Dormomoo said this morning, "If you act like a victim, you will be one.".

Inversion: Part Deux

This business of inverting or flipping tunes to parody or give the same "feel" in a non-royalty-costing way does not necessarily entail every single note or phrase...just enough to bring to mind the tune being invoked. The beat does the rest.

Here is an anime inversion of Barry Gray's "UFO" series theme. It is by Toshihiko Sahashi, and despite the whingings of the great unwashed on YouTube, it is an homage to Gray's work, not a "ripoff". It was the theme for the second season of Big O, a wonderful anime series from the early "aughts". First, Barry Gray's "UFO":



Next, the "Big O" second season piece:




Great stuff, and very mood-setting.

I have had an interest in soundtrack music ever since I was a little feller (3-4 years old).
One type of incidental music writing involves what I call "inversion". There may be a music theory term for it, but I do not know it. The method involves taking an extant piece of music and flipping it. One of the most obvious examples is Barry Gray's piece "Formula Five" which was a pop music tune set in far-off 2062 or so on "Fireball XL5". When Gray wrote it, the hot jazz craze of the time included "Take Five" performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. It was the record that put jazz on everyone's turntable, and transformed Space-Age Bachelor Pads forever. Here is Brubeck's work, with Barry Gray's inversion below it.




FORMULA FIVE:



See how it works? I have another one for tomorrow, where a Japanese composer inverts a Barry Gray piece.

OK...spent the weekend in Atlanta at AnachroCon, the third installment of the steampunk convention. The entire cast of characters did an amazing job putting on the con, with some 600 attendees partaking in the Victorian SF goodness (I say that to tweak my new friends at Frenzy Universe, fellow hucksters, and purveyors of gear-ey, vacuum tube-ey decorative wonderment for steam enthusiasts. Their blog is cheerful, and informative, too. Their last post corrects the manifest belief that all steampunk is British, or at least revolves around Merrie Olde. They quite correctly remind us of a vast swath of Industrial Revolution history exists this side of the Pond. Hello, M&K!
Safe journey, and Good Hunting!

Mark Helwig is a fun neighbor to have, and a good artist to boot. I say good in the correct sense, not the "he's OK, and uses his colors well" sense. Click his name to be amused. Be sufficiently amused to plunk down the shekels for a print of your favorite. I did.

There were other dealers there, who are also many other places. Wolfhome was there. Jennifer and Kip were well, and their entourage. They sell excellent genre clothing, at SF and anime cons, and at Ren Faires.

It was a great con, and I look forward to next year's!

Alabama
Jihad

I have long tried to stay out of the Alabama / Auburn rivalry because I don't like messing with other people's religion.

(Pauses a beat.)

"Al from Dadeville" called in to the Paul Finebaum show on Jan 27, bragging about his act of fannjish terrorism:

"OK, let me tell you what I did the weekend after the Iron Bowl. I went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live 30 miles away and I poisoned the two Toomer's trees. I put Spike80DF in 'em. ... They're not dead yet, but they definitely will die."

Ahhhhhhhhh, sportsmanship.

The rivalry between the two schools has been bitter, but an egregious act of vandalism like this is unacceptable in any sense. "So what?" you churlishly retort, "It's just a coupla trees."

Yes a couple of 130-year-old oaks that are a community treasure. The trees are regularly mulched with toilet paper. The locals roll the trees mightily after Auburn wins. They are beautiful landmarks, especially when not so festooned.

Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr., 62, of Dadeville, AL, is the miscreant "Al" who poisoned the trees. One defense attorney has already recused himself from the case. This will be interesting.

Mammoth effort is being put forth to rehabilitate the toxic site and save the oaks, Perhaps Toomer's Corner will be blessed with the trees for a long time to come.

"Tide for Toomers" is a Facebook page put up by Crimson Tide fans who deplore this senseless act, and who are raising money toward the effort to save the oaks.

The Plumbline's
BLACK HISTORY MONTH VIGNETTE

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
Frederick Douglass

But was there EVER a question?

Socio-Sexual Hierarchy Quiz

My Results:

Sigma

You don't give a damn. You are off doing your own thing, with or without anyone's approval. You radiate cool and intrigue, and women find you intensely interesting, despite you not trying or noticing. You don't go to parties or social gatherings, but if you do, you're usually with a friend and a gorgeous woman you brought. You're the lone wolf of the hierarchy, almost as attractive as Alphas. You shun leadership in favor of getting the hell away from everyone.

Vidad and Mr. McLeod may giggle as appropriate.

SO, the Dread Dormomoo and I were talking, herself in the throes of the viral orgy, having unspeakable things done to her cellular integrity: aches, fever, chills, do the math. She is still clearer-thinking than I on my best days. The business of Ron Paul's straw-poll win at CPAC came up, and Fox's love affair with Anyone-But-Paul. The big-big-BIG news apparently is that Mitt Romney came in second, that meaning in anybody's lexicon that he lost .

The question of the day is, If a polygynous Mormon were to make it to the White House (and yes, I know it would take an event equivalent to an asteroid strike -read Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer - for this to happen) who would be First Lady? Or First Sister-Wife?

Perhaps the fever has affected her summat.

"Herbalife Reviews -- 98% Of Herbalife Reps Get Burned Discover Why. Get the Free Report"

Why?

Because it's an MLM, THAT'S why.

ATTABOY, HOSNI!

Egypt's President Mubarak has gotten his back up.

"I have to responded to your calls, but I am also embarrassed and I will not listen to any foreign interventions or dictations, regardless of their sources."

He is responding to things like this from President Obama:

"Third, we have spoken out on behalf of the need for change. After his speech tonight, I spoke directly to President Mubarak. He recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that a change must take place. Indeed, all of us who are privileged to serve in positions of political power do so at the will of our people. Through thousands of years, Egypt has known many moments of transformation. The voices of the Egyptian people tell us that this is one of those moments; this is one of those times.
Now, it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders. Only the Egyptian people can do that. What is clear -- and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak -- is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now."

It is NOT our business to instruct another Head of State in what to do, and President Obama is a wiseguy who knows better than everyone else What To Do, and he is not shy about letting them know. Barack Obama is "That Guy". Mubarak clearly did not appreciate it. Silly man.
(Incidentally, I do not know where this "brutal dictator" business is coming from. He was never on the "Axis of Evil" radarmotron to my knowledge.)
Mubarak is a Middle-Eastern ruler. Period. He does not fit our sanitised Western mold of What a President Should Look Like. He is no Reagan, but neither does he appear to be a Saddam Hussein. I am open to correction on this, but this whole Egypt thing appears to be straight from the box. This is an organised flash crowd.
I dunno, but I am of Tevyesque mind where Egypt is concerned. The Pragmatic Aardvark says that Mubarak is our and Israel's ally. The current regime is stable, at least by Middle-Eastern standards. On the other hand, the PEEE-PUL are raging and want him out, Democracy uber alles! On the other hand, the whole thing seems a ready-made, instant revolution, just-add-water. On the other hand, look at you. A baby and a sewing machine. You're a person.
There is no other hand.
I do not harbor end-timey-wimey thoughts. My understanding of Revelation, and the gospels (especially the Matthew 23 & 24) is historical, in that I believe the historical church's understanding that Jesus was speaking of things SOON to come to pass, during that time period. I do NOT follow the New York Times bestseller version. That was developed by John Darby early in the 1800s, and popularised by C.I.Scofield (the P.T.Barnum of eschatological humbuggery) in the early 1900s. That said, Israel is important to us in the region, not as The Budded Figtree, but as a strategic ally. Egypt is a mutual ally, at least until the Muslim Brotherhood gains control. You know, kinda like Iran in 1979. THAT went well.

I am moving into G.R.O. mode: "Get Rid Of"; finding my inner Buddhist , or at least my inner Don Aslett. (Why is it that the really useful people with good ideas seem to be Mormon nowadays?)

I am going through my junk roo...er, office and Throwing Things Away. I felt a heady sense of accomplishment as I found a stack of DVD-ROM disks, and started tossing them. Dark Age of Camelot free trial disks. For them wot knows, DAOC trials were the gamer equivalent of those ubiquitous AOL "FREE TRIAL!!!" disks. Anyway, they are bound for the dustbin, now.

Must start looking for other junk of which to divest myself. I am afflicted with the "but I might need one of those one day" mindset, and so find it difficult to G.R.O. stuff. I didn't go through the Great Depression, but I was raised by some who did, hence my problem. You know those little bits of PVC coated wire that power cords and suchlike come bound with to keep 'em neat in their packaging? I find little outcroppings of them in drawers, my rationale being: I always lose the twist-tie from the bread, and these are better than the paper-and-wire ones that come on the bread." Sadly, these are in my office drawer, four miles from my kitchen where my bread resides.

No, I do not have towering stacks of newspapers stored Babelesque about my house.

My office is done up in a charming melange of "Childhood Toys", "Space-Age Bachelor Pad", and "Industrial Mayhem", with a couple of David Goodman's paintings thrown in for good measure.

Yes, I own TWO Goodmans!

So, I am trying to lose a ton of stuff, to streamline my life. Wish me Godspeed, or Luck, or Qapla', whatever you are comfortable with, and if you know someone with a Bobcat for rent cheap, let me know, please!

This may be a re-visitation, but in a time when the "why" of someone's actions may be more important than the actions themselves (think "hate crimes"), Christians are again given the nasty end of the stick.

I pause to allow you to pick your jaw up from the floor.

One of the most annoying things the True Believers do is share, or witness, or evangelise. (Remember, evangel means "good news") The militant atheist crowd, as well as the "just want to be left alone" crowd really militate against this hateful practise of telling them about Jesus. They see it as judgmental, that they are being told they are bad people who are going to hell.

Admittedly, there are some who take it upon themselves to punch someone's ticket, but the scriptures themselves do not offer that as part of the job description. We may speak as far as the gospel does...no farther. Thus-and-so will keep you out of the Kingdom of God. It is up to the hearer to make the connexion. One must recognise peril to recognise the need for rescue.

Since the motive is more important than the action in today's enlightened view, please consider this: is it a bother to you for a flagman to stop you to warn of the bridge being out? Do you malign his callous disregard for your time schedule? The reasonable person sees through to motive: "I don't want you and your family to die at the bottom of the gorge.". Likewise the coworker, friend, family member, or artless stranger who wishes to tell you about the gospel. This person does so with the highest motive: concern for your well-being. He sees you in spiritual peril (Jesus said "No-one comes to the Father except through me".), and wants to throw you a life-ring. Do you argue with the lifeguard who is pulling you to shore?

You may not believe at all, or you may be a lifelong neo-Zoroastrian, but when an unsophisticated evangelist sees you as his personal mission, please understand that he is doing it out of love, out of a true desire to do you good.

Motive IS important.

Saw the > AIDS ad on telly. It is apparently not on YouTube. I'm glad they are Breaking the Silence, since no-one has talked about this at all for close-on to 35 years.

io9 had a serious article on the Internet "Kill Switch" being proposed in Washington. I HAD to respond to a guy named "wopper" in the comments. We may hear more from Cyber Ben Franklin.

"So maybe I am alone on this but wouldn't a kill switch be a good idea in the event of a massive internet offensive?" --wopper
-----------------------------------------
"Those who trade internet freedom for internet security deserve neither internet nor freedom." -- Cyborg Ben Franklin

Seriously, placing a kill switch in the hands of any one man (or party) is a recipe for major trouble. Ask yourself: "Would I want a President of The Other Party to have this power?"

The relative freedom of the Internet is an enormous blessing, and presents danger to the alleged defenders of Free Speech on the leftward end of the spectrum. (I admit that there is 'Net opposition in the Right as well, but that mainly involves moral turpitude.)

Were I you, I would find suspect and resist ANY legislation re: the Internet, period. Washington does not need to "protect" the Series of Tubes.

-------------------------------------------------------

I should be coating screens, but I have oter stuff going on in my head. I keep hearing Dave Ramsey promos where he is talking about the New Sin on the Block: Financial Infidelity. It wearies me. Let's come up with yet ANOTHER reason to end a marriage. It's like the tiresome fussing about porn as a a reason for divorce. (I recognise that this is a ticklish subject, and that the "committing adultery in one's heart" issue is arguable at some levels - do you divorce your hubby for leafing through a Playboy, or are we talking hundreds of dollars a month in internet porn and cybersex?) My point is that the marriage covenant (who knows what THAT means anymore?) is potent, and requires overt breaking to annul. The modern attitude appears to be one of Humpty Dumptifying the concept of adultery ("when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean...") with all manner of sub-infractions so that I may wiggle out of my marriage for virtually any reason, just so I couch it in the proper terms.

Sound another death-knell for marriage.

There is too much to write about. I cannot focus. Egypt is boiling, and our President-in-Chief is demanding (!) that Mubarak turn on the Intarwebs and let Democracy flow as rivers of water. I don't know what plagues our Moses-in-Chief will threaten the Egyptian leader with;;;perhaps a case of worms.

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My good friend and NASA worker Mark got married to-day. The Dread Dormomoo and I went to the nuptials. Kasey Harbin officiated, even with a gamy leg. It was a huge blessing, even if it was an ALABAMA-themed reception. The groom's cake was a red-velvet cake with white fondant icing, with a black houndstooth pattern. Yep, it was a Bear Bryant's Hat cake. The food consisted of tailgating-style noshes: chili, sliced beef, ham, wings, the obligatory plates of veg and fruits. DEEE-lish.

Musn't forget the sausage balls, pigs-in-a-blanket, cocktail weenies wrapped-in-bacon-and-then-fried, and a tureen of stuffed baked potato soup.

Did I say that the ceremony was nice, too?

May Mark and Pam have an awesomely blessed marriage.
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Here is the link to MobiCon, where I will be the Fan Guest-of-Honor. I have interesting company.

Your Aardvark began going to SF conventions in 1980. The Dread Dormomoo and I packed up shirts, paints, airbrushes other fannish oddments and her Craftsman air compressor (the one that sounded like a Harley) into our Monza station wagon, and headed to PhilCon, where she painted shirts ranging from unicorns to a portrait of Johnny Mathis.

Thus began 31 years of huckstering. (That is a story in itself. The dealers at SF cons originally sold books, fanzines, and doodads to pay their expenses at the con. They were called "hucksters". This changed to "dealers" sometime in the '80s, but with "Just Say No" and other cultural pressures, it became more acceptable to call them "merchants" or "vendors" or "exhibitors".)

I am a huckster.

31 years has yielded the Fan Guest of Honor. In May 2001, I had the pleasure of being Dealer Guest of Honor at Deep South Con 39/Tenacity 1 in Birmingham, AL. You have to understand that I understand that this honor plus $5 will yield me a really good coffee at Starbucks, but I am gonna play this up for all it's worth. I have asked the con chair for a Perrier fountain. (He's a friend, and knows I'm being a jerk.) The DD and I will be going to the con, and I will have a special Warhol-esque t-shirt of my phiz to throw out willy-nilly.
This is gonna be fun. I will get to participate in panel discussions, so YAAAAAY!, I will get to Talk to a Group.

More to come.