"Police action imminent"

To get the occupods out of Lincoln Park across from the Capitol. "No details." Well, except that navy reservists are scheduled to have the park Saturday, some campers say they'll "fight" any attempt to get them out, and: "This morning was the first time the governor visited the growing tent camp from which the stench of urine has begun to waft onto adjacent Broadway."

That's odd. Not the urine stench, but the claim that today was the first time the Gov. visited the place. He at least strongly implied (see post immediately below) that he visited on Tuesday, saying he "went down there this morning," and saw only "eight or ten" tents.

In any case, what a (government-created) mess. If Hick had sent the cops in when there were just three tents, no prob. Now, no matter how things shake out, it's going to be nasty.

Update: KHOW's Dan Caplis, a law and order guy if there ever was one, thinks (and, obviously, hopes) the cops will move in tonight.

Burgeoning

The Post today: "Hickenlooper unsure about what to do about Occupy Denver protesters at Capitol":

Should they stay, or should they go now?

Gov. John Hickenlooper didn't give a clear answer to that question Tuesday when asked about the growing Occupy Denver tent camp on a grassy lawn along Broadway that is part of the state Capitol complex.

Interviewed on radio station KOA-AM's Mike Rosen Show, the Democratic governor and former Denver mayor said he was concerned about the illegal encampment on state property but didn't indicate that he was prepared to order the State Patrol to clear out the park. Patrol officials said Sunday that they had no plans to remove the tents. . . .

The governor seemed conflicted on the question of what to do about the tents, saying that he has "always supported the First Amendment" but had concerns about the camp.

"I will confess I worry about the precedent," Hickenlooper said. "If suddenly we have a park where people can camp out whenever they want, why not the next park and why not the park after that? And then suddenly, you don't have any rules."

In any case, the governor said, there weren't many tents on the lawn, saying: "I went down there this morning, and there were like eight tents, 10 tents. This is not a burgeoning metropolis of tents."

I was down there a couple of hours after the Gov. There are a few more than eight tents:






I counted about 50, and a guy calling in to Rosen right now says he counted 80 tents today.

Burgeoning. Not that I give a rat's ass, except for one thing: The occupods are getting special treatment. During the DNC when Chickenpooper was mayor of Denver, he vacillated on whether to allow those protesters to camp in city parks, but ultimately made the right decision, followed the law and banned them. Wonder what the diff is here (he asked rhetorically)?

Anyhow, pics:


Unusually coherent









Didn't finish the thought.






Left over from the Columbus Day protest Saturday.



Zen around the fake Liberty Bell.



Construction workers eating lunch and getting ready to kick some hippie ass, but mostly eating lunch.

Update: Rosen keeps referring to the gathering as a "shantytown," which, since there are no shanties, is inaccurate but appropriately scornful.

Occupy somewhere or other

Had to be doontoon today, so brought my camera to check out the Occupy Wall Street spinoff protest at Denver's Civic Center Park. It was, um, sparsely attended. One thing must be said: However misguided their various beefs, these people were nice. Friendly. Sincere-seeming. And if Soros is funding this particular protest--what a cheapskate. Pics, por favor!


Three tents. That was it. Still, how come they get to camp overnight in a city park when even R!ecreate !68 wasn't allowed to?


"This is recycled!" he said. I think it was an old feedbag or something.



Occupy my face.



Where's the peroration?



Radical doing the Frug.



This duffer told me he'd been there for three days. "When the snow comes. That's when we'll know how strong we are."



No Tina.



They had some stuff, and handed it out to bum and protester alike. (There were far more of the former than the latter.)



Bum.



The medic station seemed to consist mostly of those toothbrush-'n-paste combo packets, which, again, they cheerfully handed out to all--even the toothless.



The word "divided" seems to have caused some problems, while what we get when we mess with them was apparently left to the imagination.



Focus!



Don't think so. More like Day Five.



Protester reading material.



Dale Carnegie was there in spirit.



This guy was proud he'd snagged the Boy Scout Handbook.







Of course, I had to force Billy Bob to wow the rubes:


Hardly anybody noticed.

Update: The Post has lots of pics of the various protests around the country.

BTW, see how I'm linking to the Post? That's because they've ended their contract with evil copyright suit-filer Righthaven.

Update II: There's supposed to be a march tomorrow. The D-blog may or may not attend, he said wanly.

Update III: Forgot about this card a guy gave me:


What do you want to be when you grow up, Johnny?

Update IV (8 October): No way I'm going downtown. First, there's the "Rock and Roll Marathon" wending its way around town and which the Post claims will draw more than 17,000 masochists (doubt it; it's 40 degrees and cold-drizzling right now); then, to my shock (well, ennui) there's the Columbus Day Parade and Protest, which, who knew? Anyhow, forget it. What a clusterfuck.

How do they know me so well?

Three spam e-mail headings, the first from one "Solitair Hutchins": "My willie in your jaw, jgm!" The second, from Kwaku Anokye, makes nearly the same statement: "My penis in your jaw, John." The third, from "Lucja Piejko," probably explains the first two: "John in fancy girl stockings?" (Why the question mark?)

Random memory trace(s)

Is this possible? I have the distinct memory of my father, Michael-Jackson-like, hanging me out over the parapet or whatever it's called on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I was seven or eight, so it must have been 1965 or 1966. I'm not googling or binging to find out what security measures, if any, were in place back then. But I remember it. Despite my dad being a very determined drunk, I wasn't afraid at all.

The reason I ask is, just the other day I was forced to watch Sleepless in Seattle (actually I rather like the movie--yes, mancard revoked) and I noticed that all the security fencing on the ESB (curved spikes included) was bolted on the original masonry. When did that happen?

One more trace, which I may have mentioned before. Daddio took the fambly to a circus that gave a tour of the animals if you showed up early. We were looking at the elephants when one of them wrapped his trunk around my neck, picked me up, gave me a look, and set me back down. This, according to witnesses, happened.

Memory traces?

Papers, please

Some halfwit at OpEdNews uses Ward Churchill as a lead for a column remarkable only for its flight of ideas, clumsy writing and rabid anti-Obamaism:

Professor Ward Churchill was fired from his teaching position at the University of Colorado for his comments surrounding September 11 attacks. Professor Churchill described the financial and technocratic corps of government as well as the commercial financial interests of America as "Little Eichmann's."

Yes, I know, "Eichmann's." Even Wart didn't screw up that one. But at least the guy's going after the SCoaMF:

I no longer see this government as an entity which represents me or my interests nor do I see it as representing anyone that I know personally. What has taken place is a melding of state and corporate interests to where one can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Tens of millions of Americans have faced the terror of losing their homes in this land and this President, this corporate pitchman, pushes for a continuation of the investment tax credit so that corporations can take yet another tax deduction on research before off shoring the manufacturing process.

From the left, of course.

Officially nearly one quarter of America's children live in poverty and the political class proposes only budget cuts. At a time of catastrophic national unemployment the political class calls for cut backs on unemployment compensation and healthcare programs. Are they mad? Do they not know the lessons of history? Do they believe that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck can override the reaction to an eviction or foreclosure? Do they honestly believe that guns or laws will protect them from a hungry, struggling population?

Guns or laws? Lemme think on that. And I'd love to hear what "lessons of history" he's talking about.

I feel as if I've have been immersed in a bad dream from which I cannot awake. I've witnessed the changes in myself which unemployment and homelessness have wrought while I have witnessed the playback on our society as a whole. I no longer feel at home anywhere, I no longer have home town; I am from wherever I am at the time. I've lost my connection to a national identity and found a connection to these people like myself instead.

But I thought losing your connection to a national identity was a good thing. The guy (David Glenn Cox) goes on like this for awhile (he's particularly pissed that he had trouble getting an ID, though it sounds like he's lying about it--I mean, c'mon, a birth certificate won't do it? Maybe he didn't have the long form), but it's his bio you should read.

Bet she understands THIS hand signal

Angelyne the Amazing DEAF Cattle Dog (and her companion-person Eric Melvin) recently visited Boulder!

Yeah, more dogs. Angelyne allegedly knows 40-plus hand signals and "non-verbal commands" she will do tricks to, and Melvin hauls her around for such functions and activities as (according to Melvin's web page, feyly titled "A Unique Character and Compassion Development Presentation"):

Schools and education

Youth programs

Churches

Senior care centers

Developmentally disabled

Chronic and terminal illness

Deaf/hard of hearing

Morale-raisers

Fund-raisers

Children’s parties

and MUCH MORE!

From the Gamera's acknowledgement of Angelyne's recent visit, it appears most of her tricks involve Hula-Hoops. Almost makes me wish I were still an elementary school student, or even chronically or terminally ill (oh, I am, I just don't know it yet).

Actually the only reason I bring it up is that back when Billy Bob (another cattle dog) was a young'un, I taught him tricks (about eight of them, IIRC, the standard stuff--no Hula-Hoops) that he also would do from hand signals alone. And at the time, he wasn't even DEAF! The D-a-W and I used to gig (for free, natch) at coffee shops and housewarmings and the like (me on classassical git, her on that noted instrument of revolution, the Irish harp), and whenever possible I'd weasel BB in to do his stuff. Wowed 'em. At least, more than we did.

Update: Did you know that the Telegraph has a "Pets" page? It's a subcategory under "Families" which is a subcategory under "Lifestyles," and it's chock-full of cute-animal videos and stories ("Can my rabbit have a brace for its teeth?"; "Chihuahua foils armed robbery"), including this one: "Hitler cat 'overlooked for adoption because of markings.'" "Kitler" is cuuuuute (and I am emphatically not a cat person). Heil, Fancy Feast!

Billy Bob at 13

Actually his birthday was a couple of days ago. He's deaf as a post (if you happen to have a post that can hear a little), he's got fatty lumps all oooooover his body, and he sleeps even more than I do. Here he is sneering at the paparazzi (me) after waking up with a severe kibble hangover this morning:



But he'll still go get that frisbee:






And catch it:














(Note grass blade, center-tongue.)

Update: Aftermath:



Update II: Teenagers. Just caught BB with two of the neighborhood ne'er-do-wells smoking cornsilk cigs behind the garage.

Wart to speak at "Black August" memorial dinner

Wart Churchill is scheduled to speak at something called the Denver Anarchist Black Cross's "Black August Dinner" next month, along with Robert King Wilkerson. According to the press release:

Black August began in the 1970′s as a way to honor fallen Black freedom fighters George and Jonathon Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden. The practice of Black August has since grown into an important moment to reflect on the history and current landscape of struggles against imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy.

Never heard of the Anarchist Black Cross before, though they claim to have been around since "the beginning of the 20th century," which, if this wiki can be believed, is true, sort of, beginning in Czarist Russia. The Denver ABC "About" page says the "most previous incarnation of an Anarchist Black Cross chapter in Denver was snuffed out of existence quite quickly in 2004, after a full scale FBI investigation into the organization was launched to coincide with the security efforts protecting the Democratic National Convention that summer."

Wonder if they mean "2008," since the DNC wasn't here in 2004.

Anyway, nothing special, besides their longevity (not counting the usual infighting and resulting splits). More from their "About" page:

Historically, the Anarchist Black Cross has played a crucial role in mass movement defense; organizing support and defense of political prisoners and prisoners of war, maintaining physical solidarity against the police during factory and school occupations, organizing self defense and armed defense of social movements, and fulfilling a broad range of roles within the defense of social movements.

Yeah, yeah. Free this guy, free that guy. With guns and stuff. Right up Wart's alley.

Gere's sum funy st5f

Sorry for the garbled heading: cut myself trying to slit my throat this morning. Anyhow, Tim Blair has been on fire recently, and his latest column is truly funny. He makes me sick.

Update: My lead-in reminds me of a story Jim Bouton tells in his immortal Ball Four. A young pitcher trying to stay in the bigs gets hit in the face with a comebacker. Somehow he gets the third out even though he's gushing blood. He comes off the field and tells the manager, "I'm going back in. I'm going back in." The manager replies: "Not with two mouths you ain't, Meat."

Update II: Ball Four, 40 years on.

Update III: Why am I getting into this? The wiki on Ball Four says that after it was published Pete Rose "took to yelling 'Fuck you, Shakespeare!' from the dugout whenever Bouton was pitching."

TMI

A still from John Woo's Hard-Boiled:

Fourth of July skiing at A-Basin; first time in 14 years

That's all. No link to the Post story, of course. And, oh yeah: AGWMA.

Fourth of July at the Radio!

Pathetic attempt to get the taste of those abstracts out of my mouth.

Pat Novak: For hire. "Agnes Bolton" (4 June 1949). I keep saying this, but nobody listens: Jack Webb was a hell of a writer. For a while. In PN:FH he plays a private dick on the Frisco (as natives call it) waterfront who makes ends meet, some shows imply, by selling bait. Opening lines to this show:

Around here a set of morals won't cause any more stir than Mother's Day in an orphanage. Maybe that's not good, but that's the way it is. And it wouldn't do any good to build a church down here, because some guy would muscle in and start cutting the wine with wood alcohol . . .

Pat's not a happy guy, 'cause 1) he gets the shit kicked out of him roughly twice an episode; and 2) nobody appreciates his hard-boiled similes.

Okay, one more quotidian: "She was at least fifty, because you can't get that ugly without years of practice. She was wearing a green woolen dress and her figure wasn't any worse than a bale of cotton somebody's cut the wire on. Her fat hung down from her arms and there was so much of it you knew even her bones were plump . . ."

Not exactly PC, huh? Hard to figure how Webb, so talented, became a humorless law-and-order robot on Dragnet (the TV series).

Abstract(s) of the week!

For this Independence Day, a leftist patriotism edition.

Remember Michael Yellow Bird? He's the brainiac who said, at the trial of Wart Churchill's suit against CU in 2009, that it was common for historians to lie, and that that was okay, because such fabrications promote the truth.

Here he is around the same time, "defying the lies" of others.

Canadian Review of American Studies

Michael Yellow Bird

What Is the Highest Form of Patriotism?: I Say Acknowledging Our Addiction to Patriotism

Abstract:

Since the United States’s illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq on 20 March 2003, I have published papers that critically interrogate the participation of the “sovereign” US Indigenous nations in this unjust, illegal, imperialistic war. Due to my writings, on 24 June 2007, I was invited to make a presentation at a peace vigil and rally focusing on “What Is the Highest Form of Patriotism?” The speech that I gave is provided in full text in this article, where I probe the United States of America’s addiction to patriotism by interrogating and “defying the lies” of some of US patriotism’s most cherished ideas, documents, leaders, and slogans. I end with a slight twist of the words of the third Buddhist noble truth, freedom from the addiction to patriotism is possible in this lifetime.

God, he loves himself.

Social Text

(Good ol' Social Text.)

Puar, Jasbir K., 1967-
Rai, Amit, 1968-

Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots

How are gender and sexuality central to the current "war on terrorism"? This question opens on to others: How are the technologies that are being developed to combat "terrorism" departures from or transformations of older technologies of heteronormativity, white supremacy, and nationalism? In what way do contemporary counterterrorism practices deploy these technologies, and how do these practices and technologies become the quotidian framework through which we are obliged to struggle, survive, and resist? Sexuality is central to the creation of a certain knowledge of terrorism, specifically that branch of strategic analysis that has entered the academic mainstream as "terrorism studies." This knowledge has a history that ties the image of the modern terrorist to a much older figure, the racial and sexual monsters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Further, the construction of the pathologized psyche of the terrorist-monster enables the practices of normalization, which in today's context often means an aggressive heterosexual patriotism. As opposed to initial post-September 11 reactions, which focused narrowly on "the disappearance of women," we consider the...

Rhetoric and Public Affairs

Roger Stahl

Why We "Support the Troops": Rhetorical Evolutions

Abstract:

This essay tracks the genealogy of the contemporary call to "support the troops," a rhetoric that includes but goes beyond the strategic and argumentative use of the phrase itself. Support-the-troops rhetoric has two major functions: deflection and dissociation. Deflection involves discursive trends in play since Vietnam that have redefined war as a fight to save our own soldiers—especially the captive soldier—rather than as a struggle for policy goals external to the military. As such, this discourse directs civic attention away from the question of whether the particular war policy is just. The essay explicates these trends through an examination of the POW/MIA, war film, and the symbol of the yellow ribbon. The second trope, dissociation, quarantines the citizen from questions of military action by manufacturing distance between citizen and soldier. Dissociation often goes further to define civic deliberation and dissent as an attack on the soldier body and thus an ultimate immoral act. This essay explores this trope through executive rhetoric, an analysis of the particular phrase "support the troops," metaphor for war, and John Kerry's run for the presidency in 2004. Both deflection and dissociation work to discipline and mute public deliberation in matters of war. The essay concludes by considering strategies for reopening spaces for democratic deliberation.

Stalked by Barack

Another note from Toonces (no salutation):

I know we've been contacting you more than usual lately. It reflects the reality that the campaign season is already ramping up -- whether it feels early or not.

So we have a dilemma. While our opponents are campaigning full time, I'm busy doing the job I was elected to do. There will be a moment when I can be part of this campaign in a bigger way, but it won't come for a while.

But that doesn't mean you can slow down. I need you to help pick up the slack.

Midnight tomorrow is an important deadline. The Vice President and I would love to meet you. Please give $5 now to support this campaign -- you'll be automatically entered to join us for dinner when you do [link follows].

Barack

What happened to "No purchase necessary"?

Geez, I beat Ace or an Ace-like entity on the "dinner with Barack" contest by a ton. Eeeeeeee! But he also linked to a later video where Barack announces that Joltin' Joe will be there too. Eeee--aw, fuck it.

A few more Koskid taglines

Went over there to see the reaction to Weiner's resignation. Eh. Lots of people saying he was an egregious dick who deserved to lose his job; at least as many defending him and excoriating Dem leadership for forcing him out. Whatever. Taglines!

Let the yoke fall from our shoulders; Don’t carry it all, don’t carry it all; We are all our hands and holders; Beneath this bold and brilliant sun; And this I swear to all - The Decemberists.

If it's
Not your body
Then it's
Not your choice
AND it's
None of your damn business!

Ayn Rand’s philosophy... reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline."- Roger Ebert

Please Help Me Volunteer in Haiti

"We can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy, but we can't have both."-- Justice Louis Brandeis

I am living proof that a person living with AIDS can still enjoy the passion of lovemaking. AIDS is no longer a death sentence!

LBJ & Lady Bird, Sully Sullenberger, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Drew Brees: Texas is No Bush League!

Full Disclosure: I am an unpaid shill for every paranoid delusion that lurks under your bed - but more than willing to cash any checks sent my way

Resident Palin - even if she did take up residency in the White House in 2012, it's too painful to use the "P" word combined with her name

"My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now." - JFK during the 1962 Steel Crisis

Every moment in life contains an off ramp. Never be afraid to use it.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Note from Barack. Subject:

Dinner?

Like I said, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

John --

I've set aside time for four supporters like you to join me for dinner.

Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests.

We didn't get here doing that, and we're not going to start now. We're running a different kind of campaign. We don't take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs -- we never have, and we never will.

Yeah, sure (caution: link goes to Firedoglake).

We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford -- and I want to spend time with a few of you.

Eeeeeee--wait a minute. Whaddaya mean, "a few of you"? But I want you all to myself, you yummy hunk of man-child, you.

So if you make a donation today, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner. Please donate $5 or more today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack

No.

We'll pay for your flight and the dinner -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas about how we can continue to make this a better country for all Americans.

Who's this "we" who's paying for stuff again?

This won't be a formal affair. It's the kind of casual meal among friends that I don't get to have as often as I'd like anymore, so I hope you'll consider joining me.

But I'm not asking you to donate today just so you'll be entered for a chance to meet me. I'm asking you to say you believe in the kind of politics that gives people like you a seat at the table -- whether it's the dinner table with me or the table where decisions are made about what kind of country we want to be. . . .

I've said before that I want people like you to shape this campaign from the very beginning -- and this is a chance for four people to share their ideas directly with me.

Hope to see you soon,

Barack

Update: Just noticed that Katherine Archuleta, formerly Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's senior advisor in charge of dealing with Rec!reate!68 before and during the Democratic National Convention in 2008, has been named director of Obama's reelection campaign. Probably on Glenn Spagnuolo's recommendation.

Yes, I knew

Tonight's lunar eclipse wasn't going to be visible in the U.S., but I took a pic of the moon over the parachute ride at Elitch's amusement park on the edge of downtown Denver anyway. There were some fireworks going on too, but none of those turned out.


He said as if this one did.

Brit curriculum overhauler: Get rid of climate change

Guardian:

Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said.

Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives.

In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum "to get back to the science in science". "We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff. The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist." . . .

"Oxidation and gravity don't date." Irresistible implication: climate change does, and has.

Climate change has featured in the national curriculum since 1995. In 2007, the topics "cultural understanding of science" and "applications and implications of science" were added to the curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds.

But Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, warned that Oates' ideas might not be in pupils' best interests and could make science less interesting for children.

"An emphasis on climate change in the curriculum connects the core scientific concepts to topical issues," he said. "Certain politicians feel that they don't like the concept of climate change. I hope this isn't a sign of a political agenda being exercised."

He hopes this isn't a sign of a political agenda being exercised. Hahahahahahahahahahah--I can't feel my feet.

Post: Wart case should be canned by Colorado Supreme Court

Well, duh. Not gonna link, for reasons readers if any will know. Here's a quote the Post uses from one of the several thousand committees that found Wart to be a liar and cheat:

"To put it most simply, it was part of a pattern and consistent research stratagem to cloak extreme, unsupportable, propaganda-like claims of fact that support Professor Churchill's legal and political claims with the aura of authentic scholarly research . . . "

Well, duh. We'll see. I'd laugh about this, but once a panel of judges gets to decide things it's anybody's guess.

Dick

Ace and various cob-loggers at AoSHQ (no link, you know where they are) have been posting about Wienergate almost nonstop. Hit and miss, but as usual the commenters rescue some not-all-that-funny posts and kick a couple of funny ones into hyperdrive.

What I can't figure out is, why would anyone, ever, post a picture of himself on the fucking interwebs, let alone of his penis? I've been doing this blogging shit for almost six-and-a-half years, and I've never posted a pic of myself, nor ever will.

I'm ungodly handsome, too (prove me wrong!). And my penis is gigantic (prove me wrong!). Point is, and as often noted basically everywhere, the internet is forever.

One-sentence opinion: Weiner is obviously guilty, guilty, guilty, and there's nothing better than seeing an arrogant asshole get shit for his arrogant assholiness. And tiny penis. But mostly his tiny penis. Okay, three-sentence opinion.

"60 or 70"

That's the "crowd" that attended Wart's speech in GJ yesterday, according to 11News. Worth every penny of that $350 Confluence Media Collective paid him. He spoke for two fucking hours, "mostly," the TV station says, "about Memorial Day." "During the better part of his two hour long talk, he raised questions about why Americans don't honor soldiers on both sides of other conflicts, particularly those involving Native Americans."

Yeah, sure. And the Japanese and Germans in World War II? Why don't we honor them? Huh? Huh?

Other quote: "'I speak truth to people as best I can and try to stay consistent with that understanding and that obligation," said Churchill. "That's my concept of integrity.'"

Integrity. Bwahahah--by the way, I'm a child molester.

Update: JWP notes that the Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to hear Wart's case. Frankly, I was hoping they'd just blow it off. The pirate with the parrot who leans to the right has interesting facts and figures.

Seven p.m. to five a.m.

That's apparently the timeframe, according to East Bay Indymedia, for Wart's appearance at the Eastside Arts Alliance and Cultural Center in Oakland June 3, along with Ericka "My current Heart Question is: How do we facilitate learning about the intersections of race and gender" Huggins, Liz Derias and Claude Marks, to panel-discuss "COINTELPRO 101." Good Christ, Wart, get off it.

Still no word on how Wart's speech in Grand Junction went today, if it's even happened yet, though a TV station there says Tea Partiers are going to protest.

Tis the season

Local power provider Xcel Energy is set to restart its June-September two-tier energy pricing (scroll to last item) Wednesday. The idea is to discourage air-conditioner use by nearly doubling the price per KwH over 500 per month. Commenter Judy F. on a WUWT open thread notes:

Tonight on the 5 O’Clock news on KCNC Channel 4 in Denver, the newscasters reported that the snowpack in Colorado was 232% of normal and A Basin (a ski resort on I-70 east of the Continental Divide) received 53 inches of snow in May. Where I live on the Eastern Plains, today it was a cloudy 63 degrees F and normal is 76 degrees F. Then the newscasters reminded us that Xcel Energy’s two tier rate plan would go into effect on June 1, because of the increase in electrical demand in the summer. Shoot. Except for 3 days last week, my furnace has run everyday since last fall. I hope it warms up enough so I don’t have to pay summer rates to HEAT my house…

Yeah, me too. It's been a very, very cool spring here, with somewhere around four inches of rain in the last three weeks (Denver averages just under 17 inches annually). And yes, our furnace has been running every day too. When it's springtime in the Rockies . . .

Scary cover

Of the Beatles' Run for Your Life by Cowboy Junkies:



Update: That's really a hell of an arrangement. Love the bass line. And it continues a decades-long tradition of other artistes doing Beatles tunes better than the Beatles did (see Cocker, Joe).

After you, Alphonse

Ack-ronym

'Bout halfway through Stanley Kurtz' Radical-in-Chief. Meh. Not that he doesn't demonstrate that Obama hung around and worked with a lot of socialists. It's just that the book has too many acronyms. This isn't Kurtz' fault. Socialists are famously acronym-happy. But it makes for a slog, particularly for bedtime reading.

But I did run across one acronym that was pretty good. Page 202:

Another indicator of ACORN's ideology in the leadership's strong sense of continuity with American socialist history. The first ACORN handbook for new organizers, published in 1976-77, features ACORN leader Wade Rathke's tribute to H.L. Mitchell, leader of the Southern Tenant Farmer's Union (STFU). . . .

My sentiments exactly.

Update: Yes, I know that's not a true acronym. STFU.

Where the elite meet to advocate the destruction of the world economy and the micromanagement of your life

For years now, and particularly since Climategate broke, one blog or another will post on the latest lie, end-of-the-world fatuity, statistical manipulation or sinister government grab related to AGW, and without fail either the poster or a commenter will say something like, "They're getting desperate," or "It's all falling apart" (I'm repeatedly guilty of that one).

The Boulder Daily Gamera, though, makes me wonder. Their "editorial advisory board," which each week answers a reader's question, answered this one last Saturday:

An 11-year-old boy whose neighborhood burned in the Fourmile Fire has joined with a friend afraid of losing favorite hiking trails and an 18-year-old student with a growing asthmatic condition in a lawsuit filed in Boulder County District Court against the state for failing to protect the environment. The lawsuit is part of a youth effort in all 50 states. A nationwide team of legal experts has been assembled through the nonprofit organization Our Children's Trust to represent the young people in their lawsuits. What do you think?

Well, it's Boulder. What do you think they think? Board member Judy Amabile, while calling the lawsuit "frivolous," adds this:

I applaud these young people`s activism. They should be encouraged. Their passion for the environment can bring about real change. The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the formation of the EPA, all came about because passionate citizens pressured the government to act.

We need more environmental legislation. We need to make sure we continue to fund agencies like the EPA. We need to elect representatives to Congress who believe that environmental stewardship should be a top priority for our government. . . .

Board member Marc Raizman:

We unthinkingly do things on a daily basis that adversely affect the environment. Driving cars when we could be riding a bus or a bicycle. Using plastics that will last 1,000 years. Generating too much garbage that threatens to overwhelm our dumps. Using too many forest products, such as paper. Do we really need Kleenex when handkerchiefs are renewable?

A related problem is that we are caught in a cultural treadmill that the corporate world insists on feeding us primarily through advertising. For example, If we began avoiding products that carried too much packaging, the corporations would adopt [sic] and reduce their use.

Keep in mind: There is no infinite growth in a finite world.

Steve Fisher:

This lawsuit raises three points for me. First, what is the role of an individual state or local government in the solution of a global problem? In my nearly 40 years working in and for governments, I`ve developed great respect for the grave limitations of governmental entities to solve broad social problems or engage in grand social experiments. We have done it before, but I think the global environmental problem dwarfs all previous problems.

Yet what is the alternative? Can we wait for voluntary action? Do we need something like a global green benevolent despot? I, for one, come up without an answer other than to continue muddling through. Ultimately is the solution a zero population growth, low consumption global society? . . .

Anne B. Butterfield:

The youth could not have more daunting science to buttress their case. Geoscientists are now holding that we have entered into a new geological period called the Anthropocene marked by sustained human impact on the earth`s biological conditions through resource depletion and climate disruption. And the National Research Council this week issued a requested report warning Congress about the grave advance of human-caused climate disruption that will thrust "profound" threat on future generations. Like the youth, the NRC calls for action on a national level.

The kids` somewhat quixotic efforts perhaps could be aimed at Exxon Mobil for apparently funding a team of denier-skeptics who have co-authored a blizzard of supposedly independent papers opposing conclusions of climate science, with the result of misleading federal officials who in turn block climate action. Perhaps in time they will.

There were one or two others, but you get the idea. The unexamined assumptions, the ridiculous assertions, the sententious pronouncements, the judicious panic. And these are not dumb people (or rather, not uneducated people). Sometimes you just want to shake them till their teeth rattle and their eyes roll back in their heads. Don't, though. It's against the law.

Tenants, again

So I have this tenant, a woman with three kids. She's nice enough, and so are the kids, but when she moved in she told me she had a husband she was separated from who is a diagnosed schizophrenic.

Fine, fine. He's gone, right? Yep.

Well, a few weeks ago, and unbeknownst to me, he moved in. Generally speaking when something like this happens I look the other way, at least for a while, and then, if the person stays, we redo the lease to add him or her and, of course, raise the rent. This is what I told the woman we'd do. The guy might be a schizo, but he didn't seem to be causing any problems, so big deal.

Not so sure that's going to happen after today. While I was staring blankly out my office window this morning (one of my many talents) I noticed the guy coming up the sidewalk. As I watched he turned and waved cheerily behind him and yelled, "Hi!" Then he walked a few more steps and waved cheerily ahead and again yelled "Hi!"

Now, I can see a couple of blocks both ways on this street, and naturally I looked to see who he was waving at.

There was nobody. Not behind him, not in front of him.

I don't want to make too much of this. For all I know he was just practicing his walk through the well of the House prior to giving his first State of the Union speech. Hell, I do that all the time, except in my case I'm waving to the reporters during my perp walk.

But it made me a little nervous.

Gravy train for Wart

The Daily Reporter, taking from the Grand Junction Sentinel:

A former University of Colorado professor known for his comparison of Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi plans to speak in western Colorado.

The Daily Sentinel reported Tuesday that an alternative media group, Confluence Media Collective, invited Ward Churchill to speak in Grand Junction Memorial Day weekend.

Officials with the group say they're willing to let him cover any topic he chooses. They're paying him $350 and providing lodging.

What happened to that "up to" $11,000 he once supposedly got for a speech? And they didn't even throw in a carton of smokes? You're being ripped off, Wart.

Update: Good God, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has a paywall. What's their motto, "The New York Times of far-western Colorado"?

Update II: The Confluence Media Collective puts out a variety of publications, among them The Red Pill, which describes itself as "independent, horizontalist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and all-inclusive." . . . They also publish Cuntastic, a twice-yearly "Journal of Reproductive and Sexual Freedom," and Mammaphiles, "a compilation zines [sic] about radical parenting . . ."

Update III: In an update of his own, the pirate with the prognathous parrot (it's all about alliteration, baby!) notes the AP's spin on Churchill's firing.

Update IV (5/20/11): JWP says the church Wart was going to speak at has rescinded its permission for him to do so. He has their statement. Even Universalists know the Anti-Christ when they see him.

Update V (5/22/11): Wart gets new venue: a public park. He'll be speaking on Memorial Day.

Guard on the Right

Telegraph:

Silvio Berlusconi, the president of Italy, has launched a bizarre personal attack on his opponents accusing them of not "washing themselves enough."

Mr Berlusconi, 74, who has been charged with having underage sex with a prostitute [one imagines they mean "sex with an underage prostitute," but no matter], accused the centre left of being smelly as tensions rose ahead of local elections this weekend.

There's your problem right there. Tension. Here in the U.S., which thank God maintains its decades-long lead over Europe in anti-stench technology, guys can do death-defying motorcycle jumps and come out not the least bit gamy, I have learned via televisionic device.

The billionaire media tycoon is currently involved in four separate trials with charges also including abuse of office and corruption. The the [sic] election was being seen as a test of his popularity.

During a final rally in the southern Italian city of Crotone, Berlusconi said: "The leaders of the Left don't wash themselves much. When they go into the bathroom, and they don't go often since they don't wash much, they look in the mirror when they shave and surprise themselves."

Not exactly the Gettysburg Address there, Silvio.

Mr Berlusconi has a reputation for disliking beards, seeing them as sign of left leaning political sympathies. His obsession with hygiene has also emerged from intercepts of his infamous "bunga bunga" parties.

The phrase is said to refer to a crude after-dinner sex game and from the wire taps girls invited to the parties reveal how Berlusconi asked them to wash before performing sexy stripteases and lap dances for him.

Berlusconi has often resorted to personal attacks on his opponents particularly on their looks - last year he slammed centre left female opposition MPs as "ugly."

No doubt.

His comments provoked an immediate reaction from opponents including Pierluigi Bersani, the leader of Italy's the centre-left Democratic Party who said: "If we don't wash much, it's because we are clean." . . .

Yeah, sure. There's more, but it has nothing to do with smelliness, so read it yourself if you want.

Glenn Beck notes Wart's appearance at Tucson school board meeting

Where high school students were protesting changes in an ethnic (specifically Mexican-American) studies program.


"Whoa-oh. Who's that guy?"

(via Westword)

Update: In recapping the Churchill saga, Westword's Jonathan Shikes says that "A long legal battle [between CU and Wart] ensued, ending in November 2010 when an appeals court rejected Churchill's efforts to get his old job back."

Er, no. It ain't over yet, Shikesy, as the Westword piece you link to points out.

Hmmmm

Comcast weather page for Denver: forecast high of 37 degrees, forecast low of . . . 42 degrees. Anyway, it's damn cold, snowing and sleeting this a.m. and raining constantly all day. The coolest spring of the last three very cool springs. Won't bring up AGW, won't bring up AGW, won't bring up . . .

Startling D-blog ignorance revealed

Maybe "startling" isn't the right word. "More" is probably better. Been reading Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist. Good stuff, generally speaking, though nothing earth-shattering to (Julian) Simonists. We're not all gonna die (at once, anyway).

But one thing Ridley mentions the D-blog had never heard of before. In a hunk where he's discussing the social progress capitalism has led to, he notes the abatement of cruelty to animals, and particularly, blood sports.

It's not in the index, goddamnit, but one blood sport that died out because of capitalism, he claims, is:

Fox tossing.

Fox tossing? Bear baiting, cock fighting, doggie death-duels, I know about. But fox tossing was a new one. At first I thought it was some weird editing mistake, but sure enough, mankind's savior, Wikipedia, put me some Knowledge:

Fox tossing would take place in an arena, usually either created by setting up a circle of canvas screens in the open or by using the courtyard of a castle or palace.[1] Two people would stand six to seven and a half metres (20 to 25 feet) apart, holding the ends of a webbed or cord sling which was laid flat on the ground. An animal such as a fox would then be released from a cage or trap and driven through the arena, across the sling. As it crossed the sling the tossers pulled hard on the ends, throwing the animal high into the air.[2] The highest throw would win the contest; expert tossers could achieve throws of as high as 7.5 m (24 ft). On occasion, several slings were laid in parallel, so that the animal would have to run the gauntlet of several teams of tossers.[1]

Nice. Here's an illustrative woodcut or whatever, also from Wiki:


Notice the little things mostly lying around all dead-like? Foxes.

Update: By the way, there are two footnote [1]s in Wikipedia's explanation. As far as I know, Wikipedia has never before made a mistake. Something wrong!

Update II: Just noticed another thing: the chicks pulling on the goddamn cords in the illustration. Hot, hot, hot.

Mangum murder and English language mayhem

The charge against Duke LAX false-accuser Crystal Mangum for stabbing her boyfriend or whatever he was has been upgraded to murder, meaning, to make it clear for D-blog readers, that the guy died. KC Johnson's Durham-in-Wonderland links to the NewsObserver's barebones account. Is this a surprise to anyone who's followed the woman's career?

Update: Scroll down a few posts and take a look at KC's take on Gang of 88 stalwart Wahneema Lubiano's (I didn't even have to look to spell her name right) {Update, many moons later: but I got her name backwards. Jesus. Originally I had it as "Lubiano Wahneema"] doctoral dissertation:

Lubiano’s dissertation—“Messing with the Machine: Four Afro-American Novels and the Nexus of Vernacular, Historical Constraint, and Narrative Strategy”—features the combination of only-in-academia beliefs and impenetrable prose that would characterize the few publications she would pen over the next quarter century. Here’s an excerpt from the opening paragraph of the dissertation, with the run-on structure as in the original:

And it does seem easy to give into [my sic] the temptation to think that one “knows” or understands already books about people who live, as the narrator in Invisible Man puts it, a “public life,” and in many ways anyone part of the Afro-American culture does lead a public life, is part of a group “known” (to the public’s gaze) more in the mass than in the particular, the idiosyncratic. Consideration of the “literariness” of these texts might seem, to some readers, almost superfluous because knowledge of the oppression imposed on the culture which forms the (con)text seems to make closer scrutiny of form, of structure, frivolous.

Somebody in the comments (be sure to read) found Wahneema's dissertation abstract:

Four Afro-American novels have advanced new visions of reality, language, and structure. These visions give rise, during the Harlem Renaissance, to the fantastical, shadowy, and dark reality of Cane and the lyricism and folklore of Their Eyes Were Watching God, to the surrealism of the nightmare vision of Invisible Man in the modern era; and, in the post-modern era, to the magical realism of Song of Solomon.

The intersection of Afro-American vernacular, as language or as attitude toward language, the historical moment and its varied constraints, and the narrative structures, form an intersection within these texts: a nexus. That nexus is the unmediated space for the construction of meta-realistic visions that undermine a dominant Anglo-American realism predicated on rationalism and linear historical constructs.

My study, to a great extent, is a translation of that nexus via an examination of the vernacular and the currents of contemporary literary discourse. Within that nexus, the borders of difference are foregrounded, and exploration of that difference is more productive for readers than a too easy and thoughtless identification with the content and themes of the texts.

Anybody who's followed the D-blog's decades-long publication of hilarious (at least to the D-blog) abstracts can see that Wahneema is like frickin' Hemingway (I hate Hemingway) in her word economy and general sense-making compared to some of the divots he's mocked.

Academia is a disease.

Sunday Night Compare and Contrast!

Beck, Bogert and Appice, circa 1973; and Stevie Wonder and Beck, 2009.

Catching up with: North Korea!

It's Year Juch 100, folks. The North Korean news agency KCNA reports on worldwide events to celebrate the 100th birfday of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea:

General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a letter on Wednesday from the participants in the consultative meeting of senior officials of the international preparatory committee for commemorating the centenary of birth of President Kim Il Sung.

As the world recognizes, the President is distinguished thinker-theoretician, great statesman, prominent strategist and great sage with noble virtues, the letter said. . . .

We are convinced that the gate to a thriving nation will be opened in 2012 marking the centenary of birth of the President under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, it said, adding:

The international preparatory committee will fully discharge its mission and duty by making sure that colorful events praising the greatness and undying feats of the President are held on a worldwide scale with larger attendance.

Awww, you shouldn't have:

Floral Basket from Chairman of Int'l Foundation

General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a basket of flowers from Johnny Hon, chairman of the International Kim Il Sung Foundation, on the occasion of the Day of the Sun.

The basket was handed over to an official concerned on Wednesday.

More festivities!

A consultative meeting of senior officials of the international preparatory committee for commemorating the centenary of birth of President Kim Il Sung was held at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang on Wednesday. . . .

According to the information, preparatory committees were organized in many countries and regions of the world after the Pakistan-Korea Friendship Association in January 2008 called upon the organizations for friendship and solidarity with the Korean people to form preparatory committees on the occasion of the centenary of birth of the President and significantly commemorate the Day of the Sun in 2012 through colorful activities including seminar, round-table talks, exhibition and book publication. . . .

A resolution of the consultative meeting of senior officials of the international preparatory committee which calls for commemorating in splendor the centenary of birth of the President as the great auspicious event of humankind was adopted. . . .

The resolution also noted that the birthday of Kim Jong Il, the outstanding leader of the human cause of independence in 2012, would be celebrated as a grand international festival. . . .

Even the flora are in awe:

Flower Named after President Kim Il Sung

The 13th Kimilsungia Festival is going on in Pyongyang to commemorate the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung (April 15).

Kimilsungia is associated with the Indonesian people's deep reverence for him.

When visiting Indonesia, Kim Il Sung was guided to the Bogor Botanical Garden on April 13, Juche 54 (1965). Sukarno briefed him on a flower bred by an Indonesian botanist and suggested naming it after the DPRK President.

Kim Il Sung politely declined the suggestion, saying he had no particular reason for it.

But Sukarno told him that he deserved it for his great contribution to humankind.

Finding it difficult to decline any more, Kim Il Sung said he would accept the suggestion as a token of the Indonesian people's admiration for the Korean people.

Let's hear it for the ladies:

Women's Union Members Commemorate Day of Sun

An art performance of women's union members "We Will Always Sing the Song of Sun under the Guidance of the Great General" took place here on Wednesday to commemorate the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung.

Its numbers included "We Will Always Live with the Leader," "The Father of People" and "The Victory of Revolution Is in Sight."

The audience expressed great admiration for a short play "My Wife" and duet "My Daughter-in-Law" that show the Korean women's honor and pride of leading a happy life as the flower of the country and the flower of family.

Quintet "Ninani Nanno of Happiness" and drum and chorus "A Thriving Nation Is in Sight" gave the audience confidence in tomorrow when all ideals of the people will come to reality.

The performance was enjoyed by Choe Ryong Hae, secretary of the C.C., the Workers' Party of Korea, Ro Song Sil, chairwoman of the C.C., the Democratic Women's Union of Korea, and officials and members of the union in Pyongyang.

Ninani Nanno! Guess who's gonna be taking part in the celebrations:

Former US President Jimmy Carter is scheduled to fly to Pyongyang later this month and has said he will try to revive the six-party talks and address humanitarian woes.

Carter: always with the wet blanket.

Update: Remember when Obama wished he were the president of China? Just putting on my Tom Friedman hat here, but I've got a better
idea . . .

Update II: Could somebody help me out with the subjunctive here? Should it be "Obama wished he were president of China," or "Obama wished he was" . . . etc.

More crushing necessary

Get a load of this crap by Terry Eagleton in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. "In praise of Marx":

There is a sense in which the whole of Marx's writing boils down to several embarrassing questions: Why is it that the capitalist West has accumulated more resources than human history has ever witnessed, yet appears powerless to overcome poverty, starvation, exploitation, and inequality? What are the mechanisms by which affluence for a minority seems to breed hardship and indignity for the many? Why does private wealth seem to go hand in hand with public squalor? Is it, as the good-hearted liberal reformist suggests, that we have simply not got around to mopping up these pockets of human misery, but shall do so in the fullness of time? Or is it more plausible to maintain that there is something in the nature of capitalism itself which generates deprivation and inequality, as surely as Charlie Sheen generates gossip?

Gad. Read the comments. Commies abound.

(via Althouse)

Tending toward evil

Talking to a friend of mine a little ago and he was bitching about being the primary (or nearly so) caregiver for his poor withered mither (he's a good son, despite his smell). After letting him vent for a while I suggested (in jest, I necessarily add) that he reenact that scene from Kiss of Death. You know the one:



Well, a few minutes later my phone rings. My friend. "Hey," I say, perspicantically. No response, except for this sound, familiar, yet unidentifiable: Bumpety-bumpety squeak, bumpety-bumpety squeak, bumpetybumpetybumpetysqueaksqueaksqueeeeeaaaaaak boink-boink-boink.

Crash. All this time I'm yelling "Xanthippe? Xanthippe! XANTHIPPE!!! (not his real name (except the exclamation marks)), and--nothing. I was worried. But as it turns out it was all a (to be continued, he lied.)

Abstract(s) of the Week!

Ethics & the Environment

Greta Gaard

Reproductive Technology, or Reproductive Justice?: An Ecofeminist, Environmental Justice Perspective on the Rhetoric of Choice

Abstract:

This essay develops an ecofeminist, environmental justice perspective on the shortcomings of “choice” rhetoric in the politics of women’s reproductive self-determination, specifically around fertility-enhancing technologies. These new reproductive technologies (NRTs) medicalize and thus depoliticize the contemporary phenomenon of decreased fertility in first-world industrialized societies, personalizing and privatizing both the problem and the solution when the root of this phenomenon may be more usefully addressed as a problem of PCBs, POPs, and other toxic by-products of industrialized culture that are degrading our personal and environmental health. The NRTs’ rhetoric of choice is implicitly antifeminist: it blames the victim by attributing rising infertility rates to middle-class women who delay childbearing while struggling to launch careers; it conceals information about adverse health effects and solicits egg donation and gestation services from women disadvantaged by economic status, nation, and age; and it offers no choice at all for the millions of female animals—chicks, cows, turkeys, pigs, and others—whose fertility is regularly manipulated and whose offspring are commodified as products for industrialized animal food production. An intersectional analysis shifts the discourse away from reproductive choice to a framework of ecological, feminist, and reproductive justice.

Configurations ("The official publication of the Society for Literature and Science")

Robert Yarber

The Cloud of Unknowing

Abstract:

The author presents a case of self-organizing daimonic mythopoiesis. The spiritual tourist, entheogenic experimenter, and the painter enfold a matrix of inter-developed "sorties" into the allotropic differentials of the autopoietic process. Fieldwork in Mandi, Himashal Pradesh, India provides an introduction to the virtualities of the peripersonal as it manifests in a "darshan" or self-showing of the goddess where the velocity of the psychopomp's body approaches pure phase-space. The immersive space of the peripersonal is further revealed in the author's absorption within the wire-frame virtualities of currently available three-dimensional modeling programs. Parallel work is conducted through experimentation with Animita muscaria, a traditional entheogen revered in various cultures. Possibly the ancient Soma of the Vedic scriptures, the mushroom provides occasion for somatic dissociation within which phenomenological data is gathered. Use is made of the phenomenological method of introspection, which more literally becomes a driving inward of the homuncular eye along a trajectory of the cine-somatic gaze through an introjected, intra-corporeal immersive scene. In the conclusion, this ancient "gaze of the clinic" is deemed useful to current research, as corporeality and the politics of peripersonal space enter new technological and juridical frames of reference in relation to agency, identity, and the state.

Conference on World Affairs, CU's annual "intellectual Olympics," opens

Note how mature I am in not calling it "CU's Intellectual 'Special' Olympics."

Actually it's not maturity, it's just been said over and over, and this year, as past years, shows why. The Gamera:

Flags representing countries from around the globe now line CU's Norlin Quadrangle, and the annual procession of panelists and dignitaries made its parade through the Boulder campus Monday morning.

Eager attendees have marked up their schedules, choosing panels on marriage equality, nuclear weapons, 2012 presidential candidates and ... Tinker Bell's cleavage and body enhancement.

The Gamera asks predictably ponderous and right-thinking keynote speaker Elizabeth Coleman, president of Bennington College, "What things matter in America today?"

EC: The challenges facing this country are enormous. They are unmet. We are watching. They are urgent. We are failing desperately to educate vast quantities of our young people. The challenges of health, this most civilized highly developed country is failing miserably to provide a minimum reasonable level of health to this society. Issues of the environment, particularly global warning, have the likely potential of undermining human civilization all together.

There are, of course, a number of panels on Global Warming among less-silly offerings like--well, here's the schedule; pick out your own less-silly offerings. The Camera has a story on NASA AGW scientist Peter Hildebrand, who spoke yesterday on "Climate change and wildfires in the west." Guess what he thinks:

"The whole Rocky Mountain area has been drying out," said Peter Hildebrand, director of the Earth Sciences Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "You put that information into a conceptual (fire) model, and it shows that fire incidents are going to increase as climate warms up. And that's what's been happening." . . .

Is there anything models can't predict? Other climate change panels include "Species extinction is no big deal" (probably sarcasm, huh? Hildebrand is on that panel, too); "Climate change: Past the point of no return" (ditto); "It's the economy: Whatever happened to global warming?" (yep); and "Can science feed the growing global population (Hildebrand, where are y--oh, there you are).

All right, since D-blog readers are by definition too lazy to click on links, I'll list a few other panels: "American optimism: Dead or alive?" (dead); "Peace by peaceful means"; "Why jazz matters" (boop-diddle-bop); "The wild, wild web: We are all outlaws online" (bang); "Socially responsible careers: Doing well by doing good"; "Near-sighted Americans: Misperceptions of the other"; "Death to the death penalty"; and "Life outside Facebook" (I'll take the death penalty). And that's only Monday and Tuesday!

Skimming the "participant prosopography" (yes, I had to look it up), there are actually two or three sorta conservatives among the scores of "progressive" participants, including WSJ columnist John Fund and NRO writer Michael G. Franc. Never forget: They're risking their lives for us.

The most paneled panelist is probably conference stalwart and former Dead Kennedy Jello Biafra. Let's see, he's on: "Sex: Good for you is good for me"; "What the left can learn from the right"; Katy, Gaga, Ke$ha: The new feminist role models"; "Dynamic Duo: A partisan rant"; "What's wrong with American sports"; and "Anarchy in the USA." I probably missed a couple. Always wondered what flavor Jello Biafra is. Probably dirt.

Anyway, sorry I have to miss it. Gotta wash my hair. Yes, all week. Scabies, don't you know.

Head tourism official: Ward Churchill

The Telegraph:

Liverpool is famed for many things – including The Beatles and its football team. But few would associate the city with one of the most famous political speeches in history.

Yet tourism officials in the city have published the extraordinary claim that Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech was written at a city centre hotel.

The allegation has been made in a guide to a major art event entitled "Liverpool Discovers", commissioned by amongst others, the city council.

A map in the guide shows how more than 20 locations where famous people were born along with places associated with celebrities and events in their lives.

The guide proclaims: "Martin Luther King visited his supporters in Liverpool three times, and the first draft of his famous 'I have a dream' speech is alleged to be written on Adelphi Hotel headed notepaper."

Even less well-known, Four Bears made his "the whites gave us smallpox bankies" speech in Liverpool, according to the gaffers down at the pub. Back to MLK:

[The speech's] links, if any, to Liverpool, have for nearly half a century been kept under wraps, and experts were quick yesterday to suggest that is where they should remain.

Dr King's biographer, Godfrey Hodgson said that the suggestion does not fit the facts. . . .

Prof John Belcham, a Liverpool University history lecturer who wrote an 800-year history of Liverpool in 2008, confirmed that he was unaware of any connection between Dr King and the city.

That, however, has not stopped tourism officials in publishing the rumour, and yesterday they were unrepentant. They said that the claim came from a public consultation and there was nothing to suggest it was untrue.

A spokesman for Liverpool Discovers said: "All of the facts we have came from a public consultation where we asked people to submit what they knew about Liverpool. . . .

"As you will appreciate it is sometimes difficult to prove historical facts, and we have run the map by local historians to best verify what appeared.

And they said, "What are you on about, son?" The spokesman steals arguments from the global warmists, too:

"Although biographers such as those associated with Martin Luther King may not be aware of such a fact, with all due respect to them, that in itself does not prove it to be untrue.

The Beatles got their start in Denver.

"Many cities reference stories about their history that cannot be absolutely proven –and in this case the word 'alleged' informs the reader that the fact is not set in stone."

It has though left tourist guides in the city somewhat out on a limb. One said: “We are getting people asking us to tell them more about this remarkable event and why there is no plaque at the hotel to commemorate it.

"We have to say it is some kind of urban legend that has been printed in error. It's very embarrassing."

Send her to finishing school

Fake team-rape victim Crystal Mangum has been arrested again, according to Durham-in-Wonderland and a local TV station, this time for "stabbing her boyfriend in the chest." Didn't kill him, just "seriously injured" him. First she tried to send a bunch of innocent lacrosse players to jail for 30 years. No go. Then she tried to burn down her house with her kids in it. Couldn't manage it. Now she goes a more direct route. Still no prize, but she's getting closer. Allegedly.

Colorado weather

Yesterday, 80 degrees and sluggy:



Today:

False headline

Telegraph front page tease: "King's teeth removed from auction." The story itself is more truthfully headlined: "Royal family requests x-rays be withdrawn from auction."

Rats. I'd have had one implanted right in front. Beat that, gold-toothed rappers! Of course, how would anybody know, unless George's tooth was conspicuously larger or more rotten than my other front tooth. I'd have to carry a certificate of authenticity around with me. Never mind.

There was this little nugget: "Experts who have viewed them said that the king's teeth were not the cause for his famous speech impediment that his [sic] subject of the hit film The King's Speech." . . .

Stephen Hancocks, the editor-in-chief of the British Dental Journal, examined the X-rays of King George VI's teeth.

He said: "The X-rays indicate that the King had good teeth for a man of his age.

"There is some evidence of bone loss which may be due to gum disease, possibly linked to smoking, as he was known to be a heavy smoker."

Update: Poetry Corner--of Death! Telegraph again:

Sergio Lapa, 36, was initially awarded second place in a poetry competition in the prisoner's magazine Inside Time.

The prisoner, who is awaiting trial at HMP Norwich on a charge of attempted murder, entered a poem called In Bed in his attempt to win the £25 prize in the March edition of the magazine.

But he was caught out when at least eight prisoners spotted the poem was an exact copy of Philip Larkin's poem Talking In Bed.

How many prisoners in the U.S. would have spotted it? That's right: none. I weep for our country.

Mr Lapa is now facing a barrage of abuse by prisoners at HMP Norwich.

A prison source said lags took poetry 'very seriously' and were furious when poems were ripped off. . . .

"There is a very moral code in prison when it comes to poetry and this guy is feeling the heat at the moment – there are a lot of angry people around."

A spokesman for Inside Time confirmed it had received 'many letters' about the poem. He added: "Do not plagiarise other people’s work, as you WILL be found out."

The poem by Larkin lost out in the competition to a contribution titled Relating from a prisoner called Brian Darby, of HMP Maidstone.