Compassionate Conservatism Gets Compassionate All Over the Environment

So apparently the big news today is that Cheney is an asshole and has been "secretly" trying to suppress testimony regarding global warming. The LA Times has decided to be clever and link this to when Cheney crafted U.S. energy policy in secret, working directly with energy industry lobbyists. They may be reacting to the fact that that story got no mileage seven years ago. It appears that the only reason anyone is paying attention to this latest move by the friendly and lovable members of the Bush administration who only want the best for the American people, is because someone in the Democratic party finally grew some stones and is standing up to this shit.

People on the right fringe give Al Gore tons of crap about "An Inconvenient Truth" but he never even brings up this shit. Its understandable why a respectable person would refrain from pointing the finger at the people who are trying to suppress the truth in order to gain a financial benefit. Usually when one decrys the influence of the big bad oil companies they immediately get labeled as a kook or a conspiracy nut. In some cases this kind of arm waving behavior may be paranoia but when the manipulation of public sentiment is actually happening why can't it be pointed out in a legitimate discussion? Why is the standard response to pointing out information manipulation the logical fallacy resort to ridicule? And why is that the end of the public discussion of the manipulation?

St. Tibbs Birthday

February 29 (St. Tib's Day): St. Tib's Day (POEE)/Leaping Birth Day (D&D of the ECG). Tell everyone today is your birthday. Figure out how old you would be if you only had a birthday once every leap year. Act your age. Determine if you're of legal age to drive, raise children, buy a gun, gamble, leave school, get a job, drink, get married, get drafted, sign a contract, vote, run for parliament or congress, have sexual congress, have sexual congress for money, retire, or walk across the street by yourself. Realize how silly having a legal age for everything really is, and how arbitrary it is, and how it doesn't recognize the individual as an individual, and how it's all culturally-biased ageism anyway. Forget about age limits, and do whatever you want. If you're lucky, maybe you can convince them you're too young to get arrested for doing any of the above (but don't count on it).

from Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht, Holydays: Season of Chaos

Today* is St. Tibbs Day, in this, the YOLD 3174. St. Tibb's Day falls between the days of Prickle-Prickle and Setting Orange, between the Seasons of Chaos and Discord, every 4 years.You should celebrate St. Tibb's Day by only existing for one day. Mayflies are beloved of St. Tibbs.Most pundits identify Tibbs as St. Tibba, the niece and/or daughter (folks had looser morals back then) of King Pendra of Mercia, and the sister of the legendarily more buxom Saint Kyneburga. She was supposedly from Rhal, Rutland (mmm... Rutland), and was a Benedictine nun at Dormancaster abbey, Northamptonshire, during the 7th Century. She is widely assumed to not have existed, but possibly only existed one day every 4 years.St. Tibb's Eve is said in tradition to be the night before Judgment Day, which would make it the evening of either August 28th 1997, July 24th 2004, or April 20th 2011. A Glossary of the Folklore of Maritime Canada sums up the variousness involved, thus:
Tit's DayTit or Tibb's Day was a pagan feast and recuperation day following Tit's Eve (which see). At one time it was the first day of the month and celebration termed Yule. In revised Christianized form Tit's Day was described as the day following the final Resurrection and Judgment Eve, a day after time when accounts were beyond settlement. To have a Maritimer promise that he would repay money on Tit's Day meant that the loan-agent could not expect to recoup money in this or any other world.This feast day clearly belonged to the pagan deities Thor and Frey. C.L. Apperson has guessed that this was "a day neither before nor after Christmas" and that "tibb" is synonymous with "never". Desultry attempts were perhaps made to give the day a Christian veneer by referring to it as Saint Tit's Day, but the connotations of the word made this unsuccessful. Certainly The Old English Chronicle does list a Saint Tibba, circa 963, but Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1870) insists there was never a legitimate saint who bore this peculiar name. Tit's Eve Also known as Saint Tit's Eve, Tibb's Eve, Tip's Eve, or Tipsy Eve. The evening of the twenty-third day of December.This holiday was known in some parts as the Mother Night and followed the shortest day of the year . In former times, the overindulgence on this night marked the beginning of Yule... So now you know, and you can safely forget it all for another 4 years.(hehe hehehehe... they said "tits"...)

All stolen from http://www.23ae.com/
and as the comment says, also stolen from http://drjon.livejournal.com/1092702.html

Anyone else have that age old feeling of disenfranchisement?

I was perusing the Cnn.com, as part of my regular late night masochism session, looking for some clues as to what is going on with the electorate. How come the same pundits who are so horribly wrong about policy are surprisingly correct when it comes to predicting elections? As a vehement Ron Pauloholic I was optimistically expecting well above 10% from Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary. (By the way, can we strip them of their state motto: Live Free or Die because no one truly free would vote for Hilary Clinton, well maybe as a joke?) The acceptable Jack Cafferty echoed that idea before the primary on CNN, though none of his co-workers agreed. As we all know, as well read (five points to anyone who coins a new term to replace "well read" in regards to getting their news from Youtube and Log Cabin videos) politicos, Ron Paul did not even hit 10% in New Hampshire, and has done similarly or worse since, in Wyoming and Michigan. On CNN.com they have some exit polls from Michigan, and one of them asked the voter, who they think is the candidate that will best bring much needed change. Then they broke down who those people voted for. For example, 28% of Republican voters thought John McCain will best bring about much needed change, and 88% of those people voted for McCain. Well, 12% of Michigan Republican primary voters thought Ron Paul would best bring about much needed change (that figure alone angers me for being low.) However, only 48% of those people voted for him. In summary, 6% of the Michigan Republican primary electorate thought that Ron Paul would be the best person to change this country for the better, but decided not to vote for him. Motherwhat? YOU PEOPLE ARE DRIVING ME INSANE!

At one time in our lives we have all either supported a "fringe" candidate, or knew someone who did. If you are one of the people who supported the "fringe" candidate, then you heard, almost every time you tried to proselytize for your boy, "I'm not gonna throw my vote away." If you are not someone who supported a "fringe" candiddate, then you are that asshole who said, "I'm not gonna throw my vote away." Yet they rarely attack that candidate on the issues, on hizzer policy and cred, street or otherwise. I figure this is either because they agree with the candidate but are afraid to vote for himmer, like our Michigan 6%, or they are uninformed of him, a number likely much higher than 6%.
I was watching a fall 2000 Charlie Rose episode on Youtube that had a number of political experts analyzing the first Gore-Bush debate from that election. A couple times they referenced a poll that asked about people's impressions of the candidates, and seemingly used it as evidence of what the candidate actually is. I thin I only explicitly noticed it because I was able to look at these talking heads with a very 20/20 perspective. However, this is an hourly occurrence on every news network, newspaper front page...and most blogs, for that matter. Just because a poll says most people THINK a candidate is something, does not make him so. And for the media to spin in that way, makes it not only self-fulfilling but that number can increase like a snowball, and then simply becomes fact. It is circular logic that doesn't even have a factual base to turn on itself.

There are hundreds of way the propaganda machine, sorry, "media", distorts and hides the truth. There are many ways in which it, eh...for lack of a better word, BRAINWASHES people into voting a certain way. As bad as it is that there are elections being rigged at the polls, after the polls, and before the polls, by not allowing people to vote, elections are also being stolen through propaganda. Remember, why steal something forcefully or stealthily when you can just trick someone into giving it to you?