Tons

Of Norman Rockwell paintings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s newish exhibit, “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg." F'n Bobbsey Twins.

I'm ambivalent about ol' Normy. Ryan Cole, who wrote the City Journal piece that links to the exhibit's website, mounts the standard conservative defense of Rockwell over the last however-many years--the elites hate him because he loved America.

Fine, fine. I agree up to a point. On the other hand, check out this painting:


This is supposed to be Lindbergh after his x-Atlantic flight. It doesn't look like him at all. In fact, he looks like one of those idealized Na--never mind. And why does he have a horse concealed in each cheek?

Update: Radio broadcast of Lindbergh's arrival in DC after his flight. "A darn nice boy." .

Crime beat!

Pretty weak batch, he said in a blatant attempt to draw the reader in:

At 6 p.m. Sept. 1, Lone Tree Police responded to a report of a theft at California Pizza Kitchen, 8343 Park Meadows Center Drive, Lone Tree. A woman said someone stole her laptop computer while she ate dinner with her family. The woman said the laptop was in a bag on the floor, and added the restaurant service was horrible.

Man mysteriously "Just Married." At 4:25 a.m. May 20, Castle Rock Police were dispatched to a home on the 800 block of Sunset Drive, Castle Rock, on a report of criminal mischief. A 57-year-old man told officers someone wrote in white shoe polish "Just Married" on the side of his 1992 Dodge Caravan. Also, a few weeks ago, someone took the van's emblem.

Man befouls property. Officers cited a man for "befouling property" on Aug. 12 after he was seen urinating in public. Police spotted the man at about 11:51 a.m. near a fence on the 500 block of South Memphis Way. A report indicated he was "snug against the fence and he had his hands down near the front zipper of his shorts." The man apologized for the incident, saying he was headed down to the police department to update his registry as a sex offender.

Woman storms out of manicure session. Police are looking for a female suspect who walked out of a pedicure and manicure without paying. The incident occurred at about 2:38 p.m. June 25 at Daisy Nails, 15270 E. Sixth Ave., Aurora. The customer became upset midway through the manicure, claiming employees commented on her "skin being black." She took off in a Honda Accord without paying the tab, estimated at about $40

Controversial banner stolen. A large banner advertising a new location for a racy coffee shop was reported stolen June 25. The owner of Perky Cups said the 10x20-foot banner at 15258 E. Hampden Ave. was being used to advertise a new location for the business, where scantily-clad female baristas serve coffee. The sign cost about $1,200 and $250 to install, according to the report.

Woman scammed for $3,000. An Aurora woman was swindled for nearly $3,000 from a man claiming to be her nephew. The woman, who lives on the 11200 block of East Baltic Place, called police after she became suspicious of a phone call she received June 16. A man called her home, claimed he was her nephew in Spain and asked for $3,000 to help pay for an accident. She wired the money over. Police contacted Western Union and attempted to stop the transaction, but it was too late. Incidentally, the woman's husband had passed away earlier that morning.

Crackers stolen from car. An Aurora woman filed a theft report March 16 after someone broke into her car. She said her Oldsmobile Alero was broken into at about 8 a.m. while it was parked near her apartment on the 19100 block of East Arkansas Drive. The only thing missing was a plastic bag with a few goldfish crackers.

All from Yourshlub.

Dancing with the stars

Can't remember what Marx Bros. movie it was that Woody Allen always went to to seek solace, but he should have given up on the Marxes. Laurel and Hardy, at their funniest:

Gilbert Dalton

Yes, a name for a title means death. Like "Daniel Schorr."

Gilbert died last September at 77, and because I have no more relatives living in Lincoln, IL, I just found out about it by searching his name. I'd lost contact with him over the years.

Gilbert worked for Western Union all his life, often sitting in tiny gyms, telegraphing the action in Illinois high school basketball games to newspapers around the state. A vanished time.

Gil was also the first hillbilly homo I ever met. My mother, being something of a fag hag, tended to have parties with lots of gay folks. Among others, there was the touring company actor with the bad hair plugs ("Les Miserables" was his greatest success); the flower and party arranger guy with the cruddy toupee; the priest who was in love with my father--and Gil, the hillbilly homo.

Gil grew up in Creal Springs, IL, way down near Shawnee National Forest. It's about as close to the Ozarks as you can get in Illinois.

None of the urbane homos in town liked Gil. He was tiny, he was loud, he was a drunk, he had a southern accent, and he cried all the time. Not good for the brand, as it were.

But he was my friend. When I was a late teenager I'd end up over at his place, usually on Sunday afternoons, where we'd drink beer, maybe barbeque, smoke cigs, watch Julia Child and listen to Ain't Misbehavin', his all-time fave album, sometimes all at the same time.

Occasionally he'd try to ravish me, but never in a boorish way. All it ever took was a polite thanks, but no thanks, and he'd quit.

Long after he retired Gil moved back to Creal Springs. I visited him there once, maybe on the way to a backpacking trip or something. Most of the people in town were his relatives, one way or another. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, half-cousins, cousins of cousins--and all of them crackers.

They loved him to death. In fact, Gil was sort of the matriarch of the clan. Might have had something to do with the fact that he was the only person in town to have ever held a job.

I keed, but only a little.

Gil also did a pretty good Julia Child impression: "Oh no! I've splashed clarified butter on my face! Well, let's just empty the blisters into the pot, shall we?"

RIP.

One-hit wonders of the 90s

The Caulfields: I'm bigger than Jesus now.



Speaking of which, Oprah gave a million bucks apiece to a bunch of schools that allegedly promote excellence, including one in Denver.

Update: For those under 70 years young, the reference.

Ouch

My next-door neighbor rescued a semi-feral cat let loose by another neighbor who was foreclosed on a couple of years ago.

Last year the non-foreclosed neighbor moved to the 'burbs, and asked me to take care of the cat until his fambly was in a position to take her back ("Tots" is the kitteh's name).

I did, keeping Tots outside, of course. But I kept her food and water dishes supplied, and a couple of times inveigled her close enough that I was almost able to pet her. She's a few years old now, and weighs about seven pounds. Tiny cat.

So the other day 'burb neighbor finally came by to collect Tots. He had a cat carrier and everything. He got her within grabbing distance, duly grabbed, and tried to shove her in the carrier. This was the result:


Blood! Blood! And not kitteh blood neither. . .

Not enough?


More blood! Even one of those big square band-aids wasn't enough; I had to go for the gauze and tape to seal the leak. Poor guy was in shock.

Tots is home now, quarantined in the garage.

Abstract of the week!

Been a while, but you have to let the likely journals recharge their marxist fatuity tanks from time to time. Here's one from the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.

Global Distributive Justice: The Potential for a Feminist Analysis of International Tax Revenue Allocation

This article has a modest aim—to engage feminists and progressive international tax scholars in a shared dialogue about the importance of protecting and enhancing the state's revenue-raising and international revenue distribution roles. To this end, the article reviews some of the feminist and critical race scholarship that might assist international tax scholars and policy makers concerned with issues of international revenue distribution; explains the role of tax treaties in allocating tax revenues between nations; applies a feminist analysis to the problem of this international revenue allocation project; and offers some tentative thoughts about a feminist approach to allocating a greater portion of international tax revenues to low-income countries.

One more, this from the journal Feminist Formations (formerly the NWSA--National Women's Studies Association--Journal).

Unmirroring Pedagogies: Teaching with Intersectional and Transnational Methods in the Women and Gender Studies Classroom

As the U.S. academy increasingly markets "the global" and "diversity" for undergraduate student consumption, feminists face new challenges with respect to the decolonizing goals of teaching. Analyzing race, gender, and culture intersections that inform epistemological desires in the Women and Gender Studies classroom, this article examines the potential of a "pedagogy of unmirroring" to engage students in a decolonizing process of learning that facilitates intersectional and transnational feminist methods. The analysis draws from personal teaching experiences to argue that the languages of postcolonial feminist studies can be applied to a politics of knowledge in the classroom by rendering self–other relations of empire visible to the "mirror" of student perceptions in ways that help them confront epistemological desires rooted in imperialist assumptions.

You're welcome

Just another abandoned house in the neighborhood.

Tyrant in training

Hilarious (that's a synonym for "psychotic," isn't it?) article in the Guardian today on how we can reduce consumption to save the planet while not succumbing to the eco-fascists. The author, Micah White, starts, as usual with eco-doomcluckers, on an upbeat:

It is time to acknowledge that mainstream environmentalism has failed to prevent climate catastrophe. Its refusal to call for an immediate consumption reduction has backfired and its demise has opened the way for a wave of fascist environmentalists who reject democratic freedom.

One well-known example of the authoritarian turn in environmentalism is James Lovelock, the first scientist to discover the presence of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. Earlier this year he told the Guardian that democracies are incapable of adequately addressing climate change. "I have a feeling," Lovelock said, "that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while." . . .

Here's where he emitted that pearl. Back to Micah:

Humanity can avert climate catastrophe without accepting ecological tyranny. However, this will take an immediate, drastic reduction of our consumption. This would however requires the trust that the majority of people would voluntarily reduce their standard of living once the forces that induce consumerism are overcome.

Well (rolling up hemp sleeves), let's get to it!

The future of environmentalism is in liberating humanity from the compulsion to consume. Rampant, earth-destroying consumption is the norm in the west largely because our imaginations are pillaged by any corporation with an advertising budget. From birth, we are assaulted by thousands of commercial messages each day whose single mantra is "buy". Silencing this refrain is the revolutionary alternative to ecological fascism. It is a revolution which is already budding and is marked by three synergetic campaigns: the criminalisation of advertising, the revocation of corporate power and the downshifting of the global economy.

No tyranny there! And as usual, all of us except the one doing the decrying are too stupid to see that we're being manipulated by (cue ominous music) The Hidden Persuaders! (oops, sorry--The Hidden Persuaders!).

Authoritarian environmentalists fail to imagine a world without advertising, so they dream of putting democracy "on hold". . . But there is no need to suspend democracy if it is returned to the people. Democratic, anti-fascist environmentalism means marshalling the strength of humanity to suppress corporations. Only by silencing the consumerist forces will both climate catastrophe and ecological tyranny be averted. Yes, western consumption will be substantially reduced. But it will be done voluntarily and joyously.

Yeah, sure.

Update: Loved Vance Packard as a kid (me, not Vance). But on further review, what a hack.

Fuck!

The Post: "Colorado rejects Tourette's Syndrome for medical-pot treatment list":

The State Board of Health rejected a petition Wednesday to add Tourette's syndrome to the list of conditions for which patients can obtain medical marijuana.

It was the first time in the 10-year history of Colorado's medical-marijuana law that a petition to add a new condition had made it through the state health department's review process and come before the board. The decision suggested that the board will require a high standard of proof before allowing new conditions to go on the list.

Board members expressed concerns over the health impacts of smoking marijuana, noted that there are other medications that could be used to treat Tourette's and concluded that the research wasn't evolved enough to show that marijuana would be useful in treating Tourette's. . . .

Neither the petitioner — whose name was redacted from a public copy of the petition because of state laws protecting the identity of medical-marijuana patients — nor any other medical-marijuana advocates testified at the hearing.

But Brian Vicente, executive director of the medical-marijuana patient advocacy group Sensible Colorado, called the review process a "sham."

"The (health department) has never approved any condition despite numerous petitions over the years, and I think it shows they are institutionally opposed to medical marijuana," he said.

Shit. The Post includes a handy-dandy list of illnesses approved for MM treatment. It's not long:

Cancer [Damn.]

Glaucoma [Billy Bob has a touch. Wonder if I could carve out his . . . nah.]

HIV/AIDS {Nope, I claim]

Cachexia (a wasting syndrome) [Don't think they mean the kind of wasted I've been so, so many times over the years.]

Severe pain [I bent my wookie the other day.]

Severe nausea [Saw Obama's last press conference.]

Seizures, "including those that are characteristic of epilepsy" [The D-a-W is always ramming this big wooden spoon down my throat to keep me from swallowing my tongue, she says.]

Persistent muscle spasms, "including those that are characteristic of multiple sclerosis" [People say I walk funny.}

It's all such a sham. Just legalize it, you morons, and collect your vig. Bet it would erase Denver and the state's deficit instantly.

Update: The Post, ever cutting-edge, now has a "Marijuana News" section.

FYI

As if you needed reminding, today is the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, as declared by the UN's Ozone Secretariat. As Tim Blair (via whom) notes, this year's theme is "Ozone layer protection: governance and compliance at their best."

Among the activities planned in various shitholes:

Tajikistan:

Meeting with schoolchildren and speech on “We protect the ozone layer for the life on the Earth”;

Speech and demonstration of video-film on the central republican TV channel on 16th September;

Preparation and publication of “Changing Ozone Layer” Article in central republican newspaper.

Maldives:

A special edition of “Phemphis”, an Environmental Newsletter, will be released with a special message from UNEP and the Minister of Housing and Environment Mr. Mohamed Aslam. One of the most significant events of this celebration will be the starting of the “Annual Ozone day bicycle Race” the purpose of this is to make people aware of the harmful gases the vehicles releases in to the atmosphere and create more understanding about the Ozone Layer. This event is scheduled for 25th September
2010.

Damn bikes.

Croatia is allegedly preparing stuff:

The Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction is preparing the translation of the brochure „Vital Ozone Graphics 2.0 Climate Link - Resource kit for journalists" which will be published on Ministry's website;

In the cooperation with a well known Croatian illustrator, the Ministry is going to create the new concept design which will be used on all the promotional materials and jumbo posters which we are planning to produce;

The Ministry is planning to announce the information that the Montreal Protocol has been recognized around the world as the most effective multilateral environmental treaty ever implemented on its website to awaken the public about the success of the Montreal Protocol.

Sri Lanka is going all out, with, among other junk, a student oratory competition and the issuance of two commemorative stamps.

Apparently no first-world country is bothering.

Nekkid Gaia sez: Look at me! I'm Annette Funicello!

Quote of the Day!

Cuba's only union, the Cuban Workers Confederation, on the announcement that Raul Castro intends to eliminate half a million government jobs:

"Our state cannot and should not continue supporting businesses, production entities and services with inflated payrolls," the union said, "and losses that hurt our economy are ultimately counterproductive, creating bad habits and distorting worker conduct."

Love the pic

Of Obama posted at Drudge this a.m.:


Looks like a still from one of those 30s-40s big-band movie shorts that were almost the only way African-Americans were seen on the big screen back then except as servants, etc. Hidi hidi hidi ho!

Update: Yes (sigh), I denounce myself.

True or false

For some reason Yahoo Answers is running this "open question": "True or False: Ward Churchill was wrongfully fired from Colorado University." A couple of the (very few) responses: "who cares . . . he looks like a hippy freak [I get so tired of people mocking Wart's weight problem]"; and, "the truth is that he was wrongfully hired."

Sunday night at the radio!

Yes, I'm putting a gingerly toe (the big one) back into the septic tank of the blogosphere. And since nobody except poor Snaps ever listened to these things, this is a safe way to do so without attracting unwanted attention.

First up, Gunsmoke, starring that roly-poly little guy with the voice of doom, Bill Conrad. This season (the show's second) was sponsored by Post Toasties, "the heap good cornflakes." The commercials are cutely racist. This episode is called "Kick Me" (28 November 1953). Little scratchy, but good stuff.

Cavalcade of America: "Edgar Allan Poe" (26 February 1941). Surprisingly unbad, as far as it goes (i.e., not up to Poe dying in the gutter). Loooong lofty toned commercial for former (and soon to be again) warmonger Dupont at the end.

And a little sci-fi. X Minus 1 with a Robert Bloch story: "Almost Human" (August, 1955, I think).

G. Spagnuolo says "thanks, sucker"

Good piece by Vinnie Carroll on Denver mayor John Chickenpooper's charitable contributions to the far-left Chinook Fund, a non-profit that funnelled money to such civic-minded groups as Recreat!e 68 and the Transform Columbus Day Alliance. Vinnie:

My colleague Chuck Plunkett wrote a justifiably indignant blog post last week marveling at how a left-wing nonprofit that John Hickenlooper helped to establish and to which he still may be contributing (he won't say) supported groups dedicated to disrupting the Democratic National Convention as well as Denver's Columbus Day Parade.

Both, of course, forced authorities to spend a fortune on police protection.

Chickenpooper defended himself thusly, according to Carroll:

"I support the principle of giving some small amount of power to small organizations and letting them succeed or fail on what they think is best for the community," he recently told Post reporter Karen E. Crummy.

And if some groups happen to think what's "best for the community" is to trample on the First Amendment rights of others, that's just the way things sometimes work out when you're into adventurous philanthropy, right?

Please. Hickenlooper shouldn't insult our intelligence and we shouldn't insult his. The Chinook Fund's support for obnoxious groups such as Re-create 68 and Transform Columbus Day Alliance was no accident. Nor was its support, say, for the nearly equally obnoxious Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace, ACORN and Denver Cop Watch. It was the inevitable result of Chinook's philosophy, which is to boost leftist schemes for social transformation. Some of the groups Chinook has supported are harmless. But the ones that aren't were hardly chosen by mistake.

No, they weren't. Like Carroll (and local conservative radio yakker Mike Rosen), I voted for C-pooper for mayor both times he ran--he's always been the best of a bad lot--but I won't be voting for him for gubner. How dumb do you have to be to give money to groups with the avowed goal of disrupting and damaging the town of which you're mayor?

Minimalist spam

In its entirety:

Attention! This is to officially inform you that we have recovery all your belongings. You are to send us your full details for proceedings.

9/11

Actually, I got nothin', except to propose an annual Ward Churchill lecture series on the evils of Amerikkka. AoS has the CNN coverage of that day, which I plan to wallow in like the retrograde fascist I am.

Update: In London, a certain segment of the populace uses the anniversary to let their feelings out for a tapdance.


But it's not because they hate our way of life, oh no.

Oinkers reject force-fed silage

Read this, you deesgusting faht peegs (or parents of same):

School districts across the country are adding healthier food in their lunchrooms, but one of the nation's leaders in the trend is finding it's a tough campaign to sustain if kids don't eat the food.

I recommend the method Vincent Price used to feed a reluctant Robert Morley an organic meal in Theater of Blood:

Boulder Valley Schools in 2009 overhauled its food-services program to make it healthier fare, adding salad bars in every school, preparing hot lunches with natural ingredients and serving organic milk.

Sounds great, huh? Well, no, but even worse, something unexpected happened when the program began:

But the program, which was billed initially as revenue neutral, lost almost $700,000 in its first year despite a 25-cent increase in lunch prices — mostly because fewer kids signed up to eat than were expected.

The school district, with about 25,000 students, anticipated a 10 percent surge in participation with the new meals above the 26 percent participation but got only a 2 percent district-wide increase.

Participation varied from town to town.

For example, schools in Boulder and Louisville sold about 80,000 more meals during the year after they were made healthier, but students in Lafayette and Broomfield schools bought about 53,000 fewer. . . .

Goddamn hillbillies. What to do, what to do . . .

The district is now pushing a marketing campaign to sell at least 750 more meals a day — or at least 30 per school.

Lofty, lofty.

Schools will have daily tastings to preview the next day's meals, radio and print advertisements will tout the program and sports celebrities will make visits to cafeterias to urge kids to buy the lunches.

The district will pay for the campaign through grants and fundraising. . . .

"This is our great challenge," said Sylvia Tawse, a Boulder parent who founded a marketing firm that promotes the organic food industry. "I fully believe in the power of education. We have been feeding our kids into sickness. I think as (parents) start to absorb how bad it is for kids, I would hope they at least would say, 'I will buy lunch every other day.' "

Tawse was on the parent group that worked to bring Ann Cooper to Boulder as the director of nutrition services.

Cooper, known as the Renegade Lunch Lady [obviously a purely spontaneous nic], is a chef who once cooked for the Grateful Dead . . .

And we know how that worked out.

. . . led nutrition services for the Berkeley, Calif., school district [!] and is working with Whole Foods to donate salad bars to schools across the country.

Cooper, before being hired as Boulder's nutrition director, wrote a review of the district's lunchrooms, saying they resembled 7-Eleven stores and served "industrially grown and processed foods."

Schools now have salad bars, hot lunches are prepared from scratch with natural ingredients, students drink organic milk and flavored milk is banned. Foods with added trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, additives and dyes have been eliminated. Fruits, vegetables, and meals with whole grains are served daily.

Cooper sent an e-mail to parents last week, urging volunteers to help push the district's School Food Project.

"Change is hard for everybody," Cooper said. "But we'll get the numbers. We're in a time where people really care about what they eat."

Just the kind of doublethink you'd expect from a state-empowered lunch lady: People are aware as never before that their kids are bloated, disease-raddled hulks, but we still need to mandate and coerce to get them to act.

Please sir, may we have another

A nice little garland of stories on the Denver Post's front page right now.

Two University Hospital clinics balk at government insurance;

Colo. tells Cotter Corp. to redouble mine cleaning effort;

Xcel socks Denver with nation's second-highest electric rate increase;

Economic growth slows to 1.6 percent in the spring; and (just so it's not all doom and gloom)

Stubborn side has helped Sotomayer prevail.

Odd hunger extinguished

For a couple of weeks the d-blog has been craving bologna. On dark rye. With yellow mustard. The d-blog hasn't eaten bologna for a decade at least, but yesterday bought a package and some cheapo mustard (already had the dark rye) and made himself a sammich.

It was gross. Bologna is inherently slimy. Billy Bob got the last couple of bites.

One other craving recently is for Taco Bell's Taco Supreme (with extra hopefully-not-salmonella-infused tomatoes).

The d-blog is not, as far as he knows, pregnant.

Why couldn't it have been a clown car?

The Post:

Numerous injuries after Tiny Town train derailment

The Tiny Town train derailed this morning, causing five passenger cars to tip over.

Capt. Daniel Hatlestad, spokesman for Inter-Canyon Fire Rescue, said 30 people were on the train, 20 were evaluated and 15 taken by ambulance to area hospitals.

Hatlestad said although most injuries were bumps, bruises and scrapes, some people may also have broken bones. "There were many children involved. The patients range from small children to grandparents," he said.

Tiny Town, for those not Coloradoewok, is an allegedly one-sixth-size town that's been a tourist attraction since about 1920. The train itself is a steam engine that chugs along at about ten miles an hour. Bonk. It was probably terrorism. Here are a couple of pics of the tragedy.

Update: One imagines it went down something . . . like . . . this.

Update II: Must have been a Toyota train:

The train at Tiny Town that derailed on Wednesday did so because of operator error, initial findings of the Colorado Department of Labor & Employment have concluded.

In interviews with investigators, "the engineer of the train admitted he accelerated the train - the locomotive - versus braking when he was entering a turn," said Cher Haavind, spokeswoman for the state agency. "He should have been going three miles per hour, and he admitted he was going at a much higher speed."

Eight miles an hour would more than double it.

As he entered the turn, said Haavind, the train operator realized he was going too fast for the turn, "panicked" and reached for the wrong lever in the locomotive.

Instead of grabbing the brake lever, he pulled the lever that actually accelerated the train, said the spokeswoman.

Global warming hysteria, 1989

Check out this snippet. Sidenote: Larry King looked pretty good back then for already being 85 years young.



If you played a drinking game based on the fallacies, sensationalism, and unwarranted assumptions just in this three-and-a-half-minute promo or whatever it was, you'd be in the the hospital. Or the morgue.

That was 21 years ago (points out the guy who almost flunked consumer math). Anything seriously changed since then, either in the climate or in the hysteria of warmenists? Nothing much in the former; in the latter, of course, global warming has become "climate change." That's about it.

(via commenter Leigh on this Tim Blair post. Gotta note the one guy's reply to Leigh's comment: "I see they hired Ted Baxter’s brother to narrate the show.")

Quote of the Day!

From Roll Call:

A House Democrat [Steny Hoyer] who previously helped lead the charge for closing [Guantanamo] had this to say when asked why he is no longer demanding action on the issue: “I forgot.”

(via commenter "Adam" on this Althouse post)

Nickel and dimed

1. Just re-registered the venerable Escort. For the last half-dozen years it's been around $26 to do so. This year? Sixty bucks. More than double. Small cheese, but for most vehicles the fee is going to go up by the same amount for another two years. In other words, I'll be paying well over $100 to register by 2012.

2. During the early-mid aughts drought years, Denver Water mounted a huge ad campaign urging Denveronkians to conserve water.

It (along with mandatory watering restrictions) worked! In fact it worked so well (around a 30 percent reduction in water use, IIRC) that Denver Water not once, but at least twice raised rates because they weren't getting enough revenue (allegedly) to maintain infrastructure. Until fairly recently DW mailed bills every two months; ours was generally somewhere in the $50-$60 range. Now it's every month, and the bill this month was $47. Again, a near doubling.

3. The city is apparently going to do some work on one of the streets running by the D-blog manse. They set up "no parking" signs for the length of both sides of the block last Wednesday, forcing everyone who normally parked there to find new places.

The signs are still there. No work has been done. Worse, some of the people forced to find new places to park (including a couple of tenants) neglected to check the street sweeping signs in their new spots. Tickets all 'round! (recently raised from $20 to $25).

Denver and Colorado: livin' the Democrat dream.

Update: Okay, one more, and by far the worst: Xcel, Colorado's public gas and electric supplier--trendy misspelling is required for the names of mega-monopolies these days--just instituted a two-tier system of charging for electricity. Up to 500 KwH, just under five cents per; over that, nine cents. Again, almost double. This being an apartment building, we naturally go well over 500 (this month 1194 KwH). This alone added $82 to my bill (that's our thing: we pay utilities). Again, nearly double last year's bill from the same month.

And all in the chase for the retarded will-o-the-wisp of global warming. Right now Xcel is spending that extra money converting four coal-fired plants to "cleaner" gas, on "renewable" energy, and on "enhancing" their "public outreach" to teach us why this is worthwhile. A little while ago I chided a couple of funny-looking guys over at JWP's for being Eeyores about the future. Not so sure anymore. As a small (5'10") businessman, I know I can't sustain much more of this. If Cap-n-Trash happens, I'm (eventually) done. What am I gonna do? Raise rent 400 bucks a month for every tenant?

Update II: You know, when I took the GRE I scored almost average on the math portion. Don't know if this speaks to the relative innumeracy of GRE-takers or my huge throbbing natural intelligence (having almost flunked "Consumer Math"--i.e., "Making Change" in high school), but I made a mistake in the Xcel example. I would still have been charged for the KwHs over 500, but at the old rate, which means the increase in my bill purely from the plus-500 KwH hike is about $41. Still, this is roughly a 25 percent increase (check my math).

Update III: Also should add that this hike runs only from June through September of each year. It's specifically designed to limit people's use of a/c. Mike Rosen (a local guy who's the only talk-show host I listen to when I can) had some spokesginkess from Xcel on a few weeks ago who pushed the line that the hike was all about "choice," as in, "we want to make people aware that they have a choice to run their air conditioning or not."

Wart disturbs universe at rally for Lynne Stewart

In Foley Square, NYC. Nothing new. "We have ways, we have means, we have capacities. What we have to have is consciousness and will. If you're going to bring this system down, it has to be brought down in terms it understands. In the terms by which it maintains itself." [. . .]

That is, of course, violence. He says the U.S. has been a fascist state since 1919 (assume he means the Palmer Raids, etc.). Lenny, Mumia, Rapidans all figure in. Warning: Drummers abound, and Wart, wearing a t-shirt that says "Patriot Act" with the red circle and line through it and clutching a dead ciggie, can't help matching his cadences to them:

God, what an asshole.

(via Don DeBar on Vimeo)

Churchill says he'll wait

Terrorist abettor and future Wart-wife Lynne Stewart got nailed yesterday:

Lynne Stewart, the lawyer sentenced in 2006 to 28 months in prison for aiding convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, got a new sentence Thursday -- 10 years -- after an appeals court ruled late last year her trial judge went too light on her.

Southern District Judge John Koeltl could've given the 70-year-old Stewart 30 years, but went easy on her considering her age and failing health.

But Koetl wasn't humored by Stewart's scoffing at her original sentencing by saying in 2006 she could do the time "standing on her head." The statement won her a standing ovation at the time.

In sentencing on Thursday, a haggard Stewart admitted she was crazy to think jail time would be easy.

"I have learned that no one, but particularly this 70-year-old woman, can do 28 months standing on their head," she reportedly said. "I was wrong."

(via commenter "penfold" at AoS)

Update: Wart weighs in. His assholishness has not noticeably diminished.

(via JWP)

Update II: Vote Love!

(h/t Willibeaux)

Tree murdered

Finally got around to reading (well, power-skimming) Chris Monckton's (none of that "Lord" crap around here, buddy) extremely detailed takedown of some gink at the University of St. Thomas who pretty systematically distorts Monckton's skeptical views on global warming.

Monckton's response is clearly a prelude to a libel suit; whether he follows through is another thing. If you haven't already, go read it. Quite entertaining. My favorite stretch starts at question 231, the section titled "The Australian dead tree lie," on the gink's response to Monckton's alleged opinions of alleged sea-level rise in the Maldives. Question 231 from Monckton (he asks the first hunk over and over):

Please confirm that in the following passage I have accurately encapsulated your criticism of me for having allegedly “discounted” sea-level rise:

“Let’s move on to the next major topic of Chris Monckton’s presentation: that’s when he began to discount sea-level rise. He said that ... there was no sea-level rise in the Maldives, which are islands in the Indian Ocean: let’s see what some real researchers are saying about that subject” (48). You then cite papers by two researchers who disagree with Professor Morner’s results showing no sea-level rise in the Maldives (49)."

Question 236:

Did I not explain in my talk that Professor Mörner, who had concluded after a decade-long survey that was probably the most detailed survey of sea-level rise ever to have been conducted anywhere in the world that sea level in the Maldives was similar to what it had been 1250 years ago, had found [an] uprooted tree by the shore, had been puzzled that it was still in leaf, had asked the locals how it had come to be uprooted and had learned from them that a team of Australian environmentalists, realizing the tree was good evidence that there had been no sea-level rise in the Maldives for 40 years or so, had uprooted the tree to prevent anyone else from using it as evidence?

Never run across that one before. Some of these alarmists are as bad as Warm Churchill.

Update: At WUWT, Monckton in a guest post notes that St. Thomas's Associate Prof Abraham (the gink) has shortened his presentation supposedly debunking Monckton (band name!) by ten minutes--according to Monckton, to remove libelous material. Monckton still appears intent on going for him. Get the genetically engineered bio-fuels corn, Edna, and no, don't pop it--I'm a ruminant:

Taking out his direct libels has reduced the length of his talk by 10 minutes. To my own lawyers, Abraham’s retreat will be of interest, because it is in effect an admission that his talk is libelous, and that he and his university know it is libelous. Though his new version corrects some of the stupider and more egregious errors in the original, many crass errors remain, including errors of simple arithmetic that are surely disfiguring in a “scientist” presuming to correct mine.

Unclear to me is whether Monckton will pursue his suit (which he still hasn't said he'll do) in the US or Great Britain. GB, if he has any sense, though I don't doubt he might win here as well. Actual malice, reckless disregard for the truth, etc.

Why is everybody always pickin' on me?

Westword's "Off Limits" page this week notices that Wart wrote the foreword to the comic book 500 Years of Resistance, about--well, I'm sure you can figure it out. Churchill, careful scholar that he is, says he received the invitation to write the foreword "with a considerable degree of skepticism," but overcame it after he found the book to be, shockingly, "a revelation."

Enough of a revelation that the foreword, according to Westword, is 13 pages long. One assumes that doesn't include footnotes. The Wart-lavin' Westword (Michael Roberts?) is unusually snarky (tho still very mild) in this little tidbit.

Small stuff: Your darling D-blog (not to mention the Pirate with the Parrot from Petticoat Junction) had this story almost three months ago--though not any quotes from the foreword, since the book just came out.

Second, why do I keep seeing assertions like this: "In 2009, a judge found that Churchill had been wrongfully fired; he was awarded $1 in damages . . . "

A judge? Naves found that Wart was wrongfully fired? I don't think so.

JWP has a bigger hunk from the piece (and had it first, the spalpeen).

Doggie-fridge meld follow-up

Never say the D-blog doesn't give readers (if any) closure on old stories. The Gamera:

A former University of Colorado student convicted of felony animal cruelty for taping a dog upside down to a fridge last year was sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years probation Friday.

A few minutes earlier [21-year-old Abby] Toll tearfully addressed the court saying she was "deeply sorry for what happened to Rex last year."

Rex is the dog.

"I am so ashamed," she said. "There is no doubt that a horrible, bizarre thing happened in that apartment that night."

Distancing. A common literary effect. Wonder if she was an English major.

She called herself an "animal lover" and said she kept Rex, who was then an 8-month-old shiba inu, in her thoughts every day.

Now Rex is a two-year-old Lab. Scientists call it traumatic transmutation.

The case generated media coverage from around the world and spawned a collection of Web sites condemning Toll. . . .

Spawned. That's a good word.

Toll nearly came face to face with her victim Friday when prosecutor David Cheval asked the judge if he could bring Rex, who has since been renamed Yoshi, into the courtroom for the sentencing. Berkenkotter denied the request, saying only service animals are allowed in the courthouse.

There are pics of Yoshi at the courthouse. Yoshi. God. Let me at his new parents and I'ma tape them to a fridge. Buddhists, no doubt, so I can beat them up first. Mebbe. Can you imagine the PTSD resulting when you go from "Rex" to "Yoshi"? (But don't worry about that, as you'll see.)

Toll appeared most devastated when the judge ordered her not to have contact with animals for the duration of her probation. Toll lives with her mother and her mother's dog in Chicago.

Bit awkward, what? One of them will have to stay in a kennel. Or the Motel Six. Yeah, same diff.

Toll was arrested in April 2009 after police received a call of a domestic dispute at a Boulder apartment building. Inside, they found Rex wrapped in packing tape and stuck to the side of a refrigerator.

Toll admitted binding and attaching the dog to the fridge, saying she did it as a way of getting back at Beck for paying more attention to the dog than to her, according to police. . . .

Paying more attention to the dog than to her. Your point being?

Maximon told the court that Beck was the one who actually bound the dog, and that his client simply stuck him up on the side of a fridge. She lied to police about her role in the incident to protect Beck, he said. . . .

Lots of allegations of abuse and sad childhood follow.

She [I forget who "she" is] described to the court how Toll painstakingly bound Rex's snout, feet and tail with packing tape and hair ties, before adhering the animal to the fridge with more tape.

Hair ties? Adhering? The boyfriend was nailed too, a while ago.

Yoshi, who recovered from his injuries [no mention of physical "injuries" in the earlier story--you wanna google, be my guest], was adopted by Shannon Park and his wife, Amy, who live in Castle Rock.

Park said Yoshi had nightmares for the first couple of weeks after being taped to the fridge. He said Yoshi is fearful around people and other dogs he doesn't know and has been seen by an animal behaviorist.

PTSD.

Of course, Billy Bob is fearful around people and other dogs too, and you know what I do? Tell him to suck it up (his vomit on my pristine hardwood floors, that is) or I'll tape his maggoty ass to the friggin' refrigerator. Works every time.

Update: Billy Bob's 12th birthday is coming up this month. To quote Cary Grunt in His Girl Friday, he's ohhlldd. I might try for some pics illustrating his ancientness. He might retaliate.

Update II: Thought some about how to imitate in writing how Cary said that in the movie. Couldn't come up with anything that looked good.

Update III: E-mailers claim there was no parrot on Petticoat Junction. Guess it was Edgar Buchanan.

Hula-dupes

Communiqué from the People's Hoop Party:

There is much seminal writing on key issues which you won’t read in high school or college. I spoke with a teacher yesterday who had never heard of Paolo Friere. Of course she hadn’t. The man gets banned from curriculums even though he is THE man to go to for any critical pedagogy of literacy. . . .

Banned? Banned? Maybe in Arizona, after their stupid anti-effnic-studies move (tho that's more circumscribed than portrayed on the left). But here's the first graf of the first comment when the alleged Arizona ban was news at Kos last month:

Wow!!! The Paolo Freire whose theories of education practically undergird much of settled education policy today in many parts of the world including this country? [my itals]. The Paolo Freire whose concept of "praxis" has redefined how kids are taught today compared to previous generations. [. . .]

Yeah, banned. More Hoop Party:

Ward Churchill is much the same. Most well educated people have not heard of him, and his books are hard to find. But he has written volumes and his research is fantastic and detailed and deep. He makes a thoroughly convincing argument that the US should get out of North America.

People's Hoop Party is a for-profit biz which, they claim, attempts to "turn good ideas into social reality through direct community action."

Through hula-hoops. Wham-O has a lot to answer for.

Update: "Praxis." God how I hate that word.

Update II: Billy Bob says, "Wham-O, also maker of the Frisbee, need not apologize for any--gimme that Frisbee! Rowowrrrow!"

Spotted

In traffic today, a Mini-Cooper, license "Witchy1," with the bumpersticker, "Get a taste of religion. Lick a witch."

Props to LGF

Yeah, I'll lose one or two of the one or two readers I have, but Johnson's calling out of Reuters' egregiously cropped photos of the peaceniks who carried weapons on the blockade-breaking boats, and the blood shed by same, is, um, honest.

And that's the first time I've been over there for months.

Checked off the things-to-do-before-I-die list

Sticking a live rat's head in my mouth. Actually I've done it about four times, with two different rats. They taste like broccoli.

Update: No, I didn't suck their eyeballs out. Could have. Din't. I'm humane like that.

Desk

Here's the desk my sister Sabra is making for me.

She's as good at taking pics as I am at making desks. Right now (and for the last ten years) I have one of those kit computer desks. Uuuuuugly. And starting to fall apart.

But the one she's building? Simple, and therefore manly.

Update: Sorry, brainfart:



.

Boy

Noticed in the last week or so that some server (Blogger?) has inserted a little code that takes the particular word you put the cursor over in whatever text you're reading and translates it into various languages. Annoying, but apparently easily disabled.

Anyway, my cursor happened to roll over the word "boy" in a comment to a Tim Blair post, and among the translations was "serviente indigena." Spanish, I guess, or maybe Portagee, but, WTF? Has anyone who actually knows the language (whatever it is) ever seen this usage?

Almost forgot: Raaaacissssst!

Idiots all (but some more than others)

Commencement speech at the University of Arizona by Sandra Soto, professor of gender and women's studies:
She's a sack of po-mo crap, of course, and does the usual misrepresentation of AZ's SB 1070 (racial profiling!). The gradutates are duly (but, crucially, unorganizedly) upset at the Hedges-like hijacking of their moment. But listen to the guy close to the camera: "This is Amurica!" "Cut your hair! Bitch!" Big Journalism (via) calls this the "Morning feel-good video." It didn't make me feel very good, except, again, that it was spontaneous anger at a fool, rather than the typical organized violence-courting jerkishness of the left. I assume the "Amurica" guy was AU's valedictorian.

Somebody broke into my car last night

Well, "broke into" is an exaggeration, since every door was unlocked, as always. Unusually, though, I hadn't left the keys in the damn thing.

But besides the load of gold from my latest Brinks heist, you know what they got?

My fancy six-dollar tire gauge. And maybe the fat-body pen I like to sign checks with. (Sorry, I mean "pen with which I like to sign checks.") But I'll probably find that under the passenger seat sometime, stuck to the carpet made sticky a couple of years ago when Josie and Miss Peabody managed to open a can of OJ I'd just bought that, naturally, dumped under the seat where they couldn't get to it. Nobody profited, classic zero-sum. But it almost doesn't stink anymore.

Kids! Stay in school! And you won't have to drive a car like mine! Except under Obama! Then you'll be forced to! (See how topical I am?)

Sleet me

Cold and rain. Right now, in fact, it's sleet. Supposed to rain up to a couple of inches overnight and tomorrow. I'm betting it'll turn into heavy, wet snow and deform all my flora. Sleet. I mean, sheet. AGWMA.

Scarily (well, not really), this has been a very cool spring. Just like last year. Ice Age! Being an albino (self-identification, man), I love it, despite the small inconveniences. Definitely not a heat person, even though I grew up in Central Illinois, which in the old days often reached 97 degrees and 95 percent humidity, and we hung out in the third-floor attic of a friend's house, smoking pot, watching Barney Miller and Soap, and sweating. Didn't bother me then. Or maybe it did. But there was pot. And Barney Miller.

Update: It's a thunder-snow storm. Dogs no like.

Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my, uh, front window

So the other day I was hunched over the computer in my palatial office in the attic (right at the front of the house, with a splendid view of both the neighborhood and the Denver skyline; a survivalist-leaning acquaintance once told me it had the makings of a good sniper's nest) when I heard yelling and screaming nearby.

Open the blinds to see two guys, one car, and a bike lying in the street (just the bike--the guys weren't lying in the street). Looked like just another bikie-car mishap.

The bikie, tho, as I was watching, took his lock, one of those u-shaped titanium things, and smashed out one of the the back windows of the other guy's fairly nice, fairly late-model Honda.

It was on. Car-guy gets some sort of metal rod out of his car, and they start swinging at each other with potentially skull-crushing objets.

Hero that I am, I opened the window and yelled, "I'm calling the cops, right now!" But before I even got the words out a city vehicle (not a cop car) had pulled up and a short, potbellied, 60ish, balding man got out, unhesitatingly put himself between the two submorons, and broke up the fight.

Then cops and amba-lamps and other vehicles started showing up. Car-guy gets back in his car and cranks backwards real fast for half a block, turns around in the alley, and starts driving away. A cop car coming down the opposite way semi-blocked him. Hilariously, car-guy pulls up to the cop car and says, "I'm not running away! Look what he did to my window!"

Then he ran.

Don't know if they got him. Odds, of course, are that they did.

Bikie got bonked:



Sorry I didn't get pics of the melee, but the camera had the wrong lens on (stupid camera), the other was somewhere else and etc. To make up for it, here's an urban cairn somebody placed on the opposite corner yesterday, no doubt to mark the way to Crackville:


Plush life!

CU files brief in Wart case

Indian Country Today, today:

The University of Colorado is asking the state appeals court to uphold a lower court’s refusal to reinstate former Prof. Ward Churchill, who headed CU’s ethnic studies department until controversy over an essay he wrote led to an investigation into his scholarship and to his ultimate dismissal. . . .

In a 67-page brief filed May 7, CU said that when controversy initially arose about the 9/11 essay, the Board of Regents met, not “trying to find a cause for dismissal,” but to determine whether Churchill’s speech constituted grounds for dismissal and, if so, whether it was protected by the First Amendment. Regents concluded the essay was constitutionally protected political expression “in spite of the damage it may have caused.”

“Had unrelated allegations of research misconduct not arisen against Professor Churchill during (Interim) Chancellor (Philip) DiStefano’s investigation, the matter would have been closed,” the brief states, but since they arose at the same time, DiStefano believed the research allegations should be addressed just as “sanctionable criminal activity” would be examined under the same circumstances.

Noot groofs:

Despite Churchill’s assertion that the investigation of his work was an adverse action, an employer may “undertake an investigation, even when that investigation stems from an employee’s otherwise protected speech” in order to balance the employee’s interests “against the realities of the workplace,” it states.

“One of those (employment) realities is that a public employee’s speech (including political speech) can disrupt the workplace, and, when disruption occurs, the employer may terminate the employee,” the brief states.

Citing various legal precedents, CU argued that Regents, acting as judicial officers, would be entitled to quasi-judicial immunity even if the action taken was “in error, was done maliciously, or was in excess of (their) authority,” since the designation applies to the nature of the decision, not the officials’ conduct in a particular case.

“Obvious facts” can narrow a quasi-judicial action’s discretion, but the Regents terminated Churchill’s employment after fellow faculty members found that he “intentionally engaged in multiple acts below minimum standards of professional integrity” and that his conduct required a “severe sanction,” the brief states.

Churchill’s attempts at reinstatement “had only a miniscule chance of success especially given (his) statements ‘demonstrating his hostility to the university’” and his filing of retaliatory complaints against investigating committee members, according to the current brief.

And let's not forget David Lane's various comments. We appear to have come full circle. At least the issues are fairly clear.

Brittle mind

Longish piece by Peter Huber at City Journal on Stewart (Whole Earth Catalog) Brand and his views on all things eco, as expressed in his new book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto. Penultimate graf:

Brand is a brilliant man with a precariously jumpy mind. Halfway through his book, tucked where it won’t distract any but the most careful reader, we read: “I have learned to suspect my excesses of optimism and pessimism. Apparently I often think that societies catch on faster than they do, and that large complex systems are more brittle than they are. Bear in mind that I might be that way about climate change. And many of my faulty opinions turn out to be based on ignorance; dismissing nuclear was one of them.”

Billy Bob has already filed suit

Because I watch him poop. Telegraph:

Wildlife documentary makers are breaching the rights of animals by invading their privacy, a leading academic has claimed.

Dr Brett Mills believes programmes such as the BBC's Nature's Great Events, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, are "unethical" for capturing animals' most intimate secrets on camera without their consent.

The senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia said it was wrong for broadcasters to treat all creatures as "fair game" and to fail to consider their right to privacy before recording.

Animals just like humans have a basic right not to have their most intimate moments –such as mating, giving birth and dying – broadcast to an audience of millions, he said. . . .

(via a commenter at WUWT)

Update: Okay, one more nature story from the Telegraph:

A teacher with a phobia over rabbits is suing a 14-year-old pupil for compensation after she drew a bunny on the blackboard.

The teacher, from Vechta, Germany, says she was traumatised by the drawing, and claims the girl knew it would terrify her. . . .

School officials removed her from the class and now the teacher is seeking compensation for her terror and her loss of earnings, her lawyer Manfred Bormann told the court.

The case continues.

Australian emissions scheme booted

At least for a while:

It was once a centrepiece of the Federal Government's election strategy, but now the emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been relegated to the shelf until at least 2013. . . .

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently said climate change remained a fundamental economic, environmental and moral challenge, whether it was popular or not. . . .

Gee, that sounds familiar. Also familiar: the craziness of certain (leftie) pols:

Greens leader Bob Brown says Mr Rudd has caved in to [opposition leader Tony] Abbott's attack on the ETS.

"If it is true, it is quite irresponsible because it signifies a climate change collapse by the Government in the face of the right-wing criticism from the Opposition and others that it is a great big tax," he said.

Mr Brown says the Government could do a deal with the Greens, but lacks the political will to do so.

"Climate change is real. It is stalking Australia. It is threatening the Great Barrier Reef. It is threatening the Murray-Darling Basin," he said.

"We have seen projections of up to 90 per cent loss of productivity of the Murray-Darling Basin this century if climate change isn't tackled."

Whatever. This will give everyone time to tiptoe away from the idiot scheme. With any luck, something like that will happen here.

At last!

The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book!


Foreword by Ward Churchill.

Amazon's blurb:

A powerful and historically accurate [heh] graphic portrayal of Indigenous peoples' resistance to the European colonization of the Americas, beginning with the Spanish invasion under Christopher Columbus and ending with the Six Nations land reclamation in Ontario in 2006. Gord Hill spent two years unearthing images and researching historical information to create The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, which presents the story of Aboriginal resistance in a far-reaching format.

Other events depicted include the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico; the Inca insurgency in Peru from the 1500s to the 1780s; Pontiac and the 1763 Rebellion and Royal Proclamation; Geronimo and the 1860s Seminole Wars; Crazy Horse and the 1877 War on the Plains; the rise of the American Indian Movement in the 1960s; 1973's Wounded Knee; the Mohawk Oka Crisis in Quebec in 1990; and the 1995 Aazhoodena/Stoney Point resistance.

With strong, plain language and evocative illustrations, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book documents the fighting spirit and ongoing resistance of Indigenous peoples through five hundred years of genocide, massacres, torture, rape, displacement, and assimilation: a necessary antidote to the conventional history of the Americas. Includes an introduction by activist Ward Churchill, leader of the American Indian Movement in Colorado and a prolific writer on Indigenous resistance issues.

Wonder if this counts as one of the four books Wart claimed his firing and lawsuit kept him from completing.

About the author

Gord Hill: Gord Hill is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation in British Columbia. He has been active in Indigenous resistance, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist movements since 1990. He is also the author of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, a slim volume of history published by PM Press (and distributed by AK Press) in 2009 that is a companion to the graphic novel.

Ward Churchill: Ward Churchill is a writer, political activist, and co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado. He is the author of numerous books on political and Indigenous peoples’ resistance, including On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, Struggle for the Land, and Acts of Rebellion.

Guess he ended his "leave of absence" from AIM.

Begging the question

An event sponsored by something called "The Tavistock and Portman" ("Leaders in Mental Health Care and Education"):

Sally Weintrobe will examine the unconscious motivations behind people’s responses to climate change. She will explore some of the underlying reasons for the current level of denial of climate change and will suggest ways forward towards greater engagement.

Yeah, engagement.

The overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is that the warming the Earth has observed over the last 50 years has been due to an increase in greenhouse gases directly caused by human activities. Predictions for the likely effects of this warming vary from the disastrous to the apocalyptic.

Where's "Meh"?

People’s reactions to potentially hazardous problems are often acute and even exaggerated. Predicted pandemics such as swine flu cause panic and induce rapid changes in people’s
behaviour. . . .

How'd that work out, anyway? And what behavior changed, besides various Asians, as they always do, wearing surgical masks in public for a while, at least long enough for the MSM to video them?

Yet faced with overwhelming evidence of a likely global catastrophe the vast majority of populations have their heads in the sand. Why is this?

Because it's an idiotic panic exactly like Swine Flu (except much, much bigger)?

Is it ambivalence and apathy? [Yes.] Or are people paralyzed by feelings of anxiety and helplessness? [No. You may reverse those answers at will.] What are the biggest barriers to individual’s [sic] taking action? We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act.

Can't wait to pay my 75 pounds to find out, Sally, how you're going to get people to act, you stupid, self-righteous bint. Bioline:

Sally Weintrobe works as a psychoanalyst. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis and Chair of its Scientific Committee. She has written on the topics of greed, entitlement and grievance and her latest paper is on climate change denial.

Couldn't find the paper. Psychoanalyst. Freud was the greatest fiction writer of the 20th century. But I did find this abstract, from Dame Sally's "Links between grievance, complaint, and different forms of entitlement":

The author argues that different kinds of object relationships underlie the phenomena of grievance and complaint. Grievance is addressed to an object held responsible for a failure of idealisation, and the object is scolded or punished for this failure. Nursing grievance can restore the ideal object in phantasy and block mourning the ideal. With pathological grievance the self is seen as ideal and awareness of dependence on the libidinal other is denied, as are the passage of time and the transience of experience. An attitude of narcissistic entitlement to be special and exempt from ordinary reality is seen as intrinsic to the more persistent and pathological forms of grievance, and this narcissistic entitlement fuels grievance. Turning to complaint, the author argues that complaint is addressed to an object that is less idealised; there is more open acknowledgement of the need for and dependence on the other to realise liveliness. Complaint is the voice of the authentic lively self and intrinsic to complaint is a sense of lively entitlement. The author presents clinical material to illustrate these themes, and to show movement between complaint and grievance. Some technical difficulties in working with grievance are discussed.

Makes sense to me.

(oops, forgot to h/t a commenter at WUWT. Who cares who it was (still no permalinks); just go to the best blog in the 'sphere and read, read, read.

Update 11/17/10: Read this post.

Ayers and Lane--together at last

AP, via CBS4:

A Denver lawyer says he'll sue the University of Wyoming unless it lets former 1960s radical William Ayers speak on campus.

David Lane sent the school a letter Monday saying he had been retained by student Meg Lanker. He contends the university violated the First Amendment when it canceled a speech Ayers was scheduled to give in March.

He gave the university until noon Wednesday to respond.

A university spokesman didn't immediately return messages left after business hours Monday seeking comment.

Lane previously represented former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who was dismissed for alleged plagiarism and research misconduct following criticism of an essay in which he compared some 9/11 victims to a Nazi.

Update: Tried to find more about why Ayers was canceled, but only came up with this April 1 AP story:

The University of Wyoming has canceled a speech by former 1960s radical William Ayers after it raised hundreds of objections from citizens and politicians over the man who became an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In a statement released by the university, UW President Tom Buchanan supported the decision to cancel Ayers.

"The University of Wyoming is one of the few institutions remaining in today's environment that garner the confidence of the public. The visit by Professor Ayers would have adversely impacted that reputation," Buchanan said. . . .

Ayers and Ann Coulter, together at last!

Update II: Westword's Wart-lavin' Michael Roberts adds a few quotes. And no, I don't support the university's decision to cancel Ayers, even if they're right that it would detract from the school's reputation (and they are). On the spot-the-idiot theory of the First Amendment, the more exposure the reprehensible Ayers gets, the better.

Update III: According to this, Lane was to file suit this morning.

Update IV: Suit filed. And a little more info on the circumstances from the Casper Star-Tribune (top local story: "Another arrest made in Gillette outhouse explosion"):

Late last month, the UW Social Justice Research Center canceled plans for Ayers to visit campus on April 5-6, after the center and university administrators received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails voicing outrage that the school would invite someone with Ayers' past to campus. Some of the messages threatened to cut off funding to the university or even violence if Ayers showed up.

Angry about the cancellation, Lanker and the Secular Student Alliance, a UW-recognized group, arranged to bring Ayers back to campus and tried to reserve a room in UW's Classroom Building for him to deliver his lecture on education theory.

But when Lanker told UW Provost Myron Allen of her plans last Thursday, he was immediately resistant to the idea, suggesting Ayers' visit would hurt the university and cause many donors to stop giving to the school, according to the lawsuit.

"You need to think about the fact that there are people higher up than me that have trump cards and that this is not a teachable moment," the lawsuit quoted Allen as telling Lanker. "This will inflame public sentiments."

The following day, the Secular Student Alliance withdrew its sponsorship of Ayers' lecture because of pressure from the university, according to the lawsuit.

With the student group out, Lanker attempted to rent the UniWyo Dome as a community member. But soon afterward, she received a phone call and e-mail from UW attorney Susan Weidel telling her that she couldn't rent any university venue for Ayers' lecture.

You'll see in the story that Ayers is going to show up anyway, in the manner of Wart and his amazingly short-lived rump classes on the CU campus after he was fired.

Why they put pics of Happy Meals on the keys of McDonald's cash registers

Just thought this was funny at WUWT, at the head of a piece on the IPCC's odd use of maf:



What the IPCC did, of course, is much less funny.

Watts Up With That. Sigh ♥.

Update: This is not to claim that your darling D-blog understands math, including making change. When he gets a job at McD's (soon, soon), he'll need those pics.

I did not know that

Alec Baldwin on TCM with Robert Osborne, introducing Judgment at Nuremberg, just said that Gobbles was a defendant at the trials. His-toe-ree.

My God, I also didn't know Shatner was in the movie. And Colonel Klink.

Update: Baldwin's almost as accurate as Wart was when he said the Nazis invaded Russia in 1940.

My Day

By Eleanor Roosevelt.

Shit fucking Christ. Fuckin' shit. Christ. Goddamnit. I'm gonna throw Frankie down the stairs. Bump bump bump. Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a day which will live in infaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I spent today cleaning up piss water. Fuck you all.

And please hit the tip jar.

Wart speaks

According to the Mining Journal (apparently a plain-old newspaper in Marquette, MI, despite its odd title), Wart appeared at Northern Michigan University the other day. Same old, but I did like this:

The author of more than 20 books, Churchill is a member of the American Indian Movement of Colorado and a founding member of the Rainbow Council of Elders. He said he's often considered a controversial figure.

Said that, did he?

"People say, 'why are you angry?' I say, 'why are you not?' " he said. "I believe in our struggle and I participate in it."

He told the crowd that he's been working for his cause for most of his adult life because absent engagement, "talk is cheap."

"We have the right to respond on our own behalf by any means necessary under conditions like these," he said. "We can't declare things in clear terms. You come for my children, I'll kill you I may not be successful, but I am obligated to try And you have more than a right, you have an obligation to hand that off to your children, and your children's children."

The vid they posted is even choppier than the article.

Update: The parrot who calls his companion-pirate a pedophile notes Wart weighing in (and you can see how much he's weighing in the vid) on the latest priest scandal.

You oughta be in pictures

Andrew Bolt has a post on the scholarship of Barbara Baird, associate prof and head of the Flinders University Women's Studies Department. Here are the titles of some of her papers:

Relocating Marie Bonaparte’s Clitoris. Australian Feminist Studies (forthcoming 2009)

Rethinking Gendered Perversion in Visions of Sadism and Masochism, 1886-1930.

Recovering Difference in the Deleuzian Dichotomy of Masochism-without-Sadism.

Colonial Visions of ‘Third World’ Toilets: A nineteenth-century discourse that haunts contemporary tourism

Fin de Siècle Sexuality and Excretion.

Cultures of the Abdomen: Dietetics, Digestion and Obesity in the Modern World.

Gonna have to start doing Abstract of the Week again. Oh, and here's her university page. Bolt had to caution his readers not to be abusive about her appearance. Eh. I've seen women like that at every protest and Chutchathon I've been to, and frankly, she's better-looking than most. Reminds me a little of Ronald Colman.

Things I admire about myself

1. I have never, either in print or speech, used the phrase "Spot on."

2. Lemme get back to you . . .

3. I'm better looking than Henry Waxman (based on a scientific self-assessment involving nostril measurement).

4. I have never claimed that Guam might tip over--at least, sober (me, not Guam) (h/t jwp).

Gack

Up this morning about six (couldn't sleep--clown dreams), went downstairs to get some oj, and there was a dead mouse floating in the dogs' water dish in the kitchen. I fished it out with a plastic bag.

Yerg.

Speaking of Earth Hour, as far as I could tell using the Denver Post's world-class search function, they didn't mention it. Not once, before or after. Not even simpering, preening, uber-lib columnist Susan Greene, who a couple of years ago was farting with delight over children harrassing people to turn off their lights. Progress.

Could link to all the blogs having fun with Erf Day, but you know them as well as I do. Oh, here's the WWF's suggested Climate Curriculum for Teachers. Explore at your own risk.

Wart, DNC protesters, Balloon Boy Dad, and now . . .

City Council underwear protester!

David Lane, a Denver attorney who has tackled some of the most high-profile cases in Colorado, is now working with a Boulder man who was arrested during a recent City Council meeting.

Lane said he is working with Seth Seth Brigham, a local activist who was arrested Feb. 16 after stripping to his underwear and launching into a biting criticism of two council members during public comment time.

Seth Seth? Lane goes from strength to strength.

“We're looking at Seth Brigham's case and we're thinking about whether or not we should file a lawsuit,” Lane said.

Lane, who has represented former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill and Richard Heene, the Fort Collins father of “Balloon Boy,” said Brigham might have a case against the city.

“It appears to be a First Amendment violation, but we're not filing a lawsuit at this moment," he said.

Brigham was arrested after he refused the orders of a Boulder police officer — who acted at the direction of a councilman — to leave the speaking area before his two minutes were up.

Considerably less than the 15 minutes Warhol posited.

Extreme weather events you've experienced

They all mean global warming, of course. But what have you seen with your own eyes?

Me first (that's why I have a star in front of my handle in comments). I'll leave out the weird weather on various backpacking/river trips, and stuff I saw after the fact.

1. The D-a-W and me, walking the dog (only one at the time, now long dead) toward Sloan Lake, when we heard this roaring sound. We looked up the street, and there was a solid curtain of hail coming toward us. It was totally opaque, very loud, and advancing at about a block every few seconds. We hugged a tree, but D-a-W still got nailed big time by a couple hunks of golf-ball-size ice ripping through the branches and leaves. An old lady across the street was standing on her porch, gesturing for us to come over to safety. No way, but nice of her.

2. Standing on the south steps of the Capitol building. One big-ass tornado visible less than a mile to the east, another one to the west. They both did big damage, but the only death, IIRC, was a firefighter who fell through a roof.

We're not worthy

Anthro global warming sceptics Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That compare two Colorado cities on their Urban Heat Island differences:

Fort Collins, Colorado is most famous for Balloon Boy, and Boulder, Colorado is most famous for Jon Benet and Ward Churchill.

Both are hotbeds of Climate Science, with familiar names like Roger Pielke (Jr. and Sr.) Walt Meier, William Gray, Kevin Trenberth and Mark Sereeze. Both are of similar size (Boulder 91,000 and Fort Collins 130,000) and located in very similar geographical environments along the Front Range – about 50 miles apart. The big difference is that Fort Collins has tripled in size over the last 40 years, and Boulder has grown much more slowly. Fort Collins population is shown in blue and Boulder in red below.

You can guess the difference in UHI effects, but read the whole thing. Location of temp stations plays a role, natch.

Update: And by the way, if you're not already haunting WUWT, start doing so at once. It's the premier example right now of what blogs can do to right the balance between "consensus" (as voiced by the powers-that-want-to-be) and the truth.

Update: Or at least, the fact that we don't know the truth.

Who?

There's a commercial running on radio for the dating site It's Just Lunch in which the announcer quotes Tennyson's line that "In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lurve." Only problem is, the guy calls him (and I've heard it at least four times, so I'm not mishearing) "Alfred Lloyd Tennyson."

Update: They've added a little teaser that you can get $200 off in joining IJL for doing something or other. Two hundred off? That means it's free, right? I mean, what do these dating services cost, anyway? No, I'm not gonna look.

Lessons unlearned

A weird, poorly written article in The Student Life, apparently a periodical of some sort published by Pomona (CA) College or Claremont College(s) or something on the Wart case. Start of the second graf:

On Apr. 2, the Denver State Court ruled that the university had fired former Ethnic Studies Professor Ward Churchill for political reasons. . . .

Er, no. But I did like this, a little further down:

Claremont McKenna College government professor John Pitney said that this case highlights important issues for faculty and administrators at the 5Cs [I assume "5Cs" refers to various Claremont colleges].

“There is a lesson for administrators and a lesson for faculty,” said Pitney. “For administrators: in any kind of disciplinary action, observe due process. For faculty members: in your research, don’t make stuff up.”

Words of wisdom. More:

Brian Burkhart, a Pitzer College Native American studies professor who was not rehired, compared Pitzer’s decision to not rehire him and CU’s decision to fire Churchill. Burkhart was denied the position of comparative or non-western philosophy [huh?] after a national search. Burkhart said that there are connections between his case and Churchill’s.

“When Native American academics attempt to do research that really reflects Native American worldviews, these academics are seen as trouble-makers, activists, and/or just bad scholars,” said Burkhart.

Churchill hits the trifecta there! Last couple:

Pitney thinks that Churchill should not return to his post at CU.

“A judge is going to decide whether he should either receive reinstatement or back pay,” said Pitney. “I’m not a lawyer, so I cannot offer a judgment on what Colorado law requires. I do think, however, that his blatant academic dishonesty renders him unfit for any faculty position.”

Good for you, Pits, but you forgot the third option: Chutch gets nothing: no job, no money.

Update: And the assertion that that fat fake reflects "American Indian worldviews"--well, I won't elaborate; I've got a sub sandwich to love.

You okay, Caz?

Southern City Swamped (Tim Blair).

Update: You know what's embarrassing? Expressing concern for someone you think might be floating upside down, bumping gently, head first, against a street drain, and this person doesn't even read your blog enough to tell you she's not floating upside down, bumping gently, head first, against a street drain.

Update: Caz (finally) responds in comments. She's fine, besides the zombie thing, and has a good blow-by-blow of the storm.

No books

Over at "the girls'" place today, taking care of shit that anyone owning a 100-year-old house will be familiar with. Both girls are college students. One is pre-med, the other studying radiology or something.

Looking for panties to sniff (kidding!, tho not according to Ward Churchill), I noticed one thing: besides textbooks, there are no books in their place. No books. None.

Not even Stephen King. Scares me a little.

Update: By the way, is there anything more boring than a 20-year-old girl (or boy, for that matter)?

Update II: Okay, one more whine: when I opened the front door to the girls' place there was a sound like this: Screeeeeeeee! I asked the girlie in residence: Doesn't that drive you crazy?

She said yeah. But it was like, I'm helpless. I got the can of WD-40 out and took care of it. Learned helplessness: is there anything it can't not do?