Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

I have to admit that I’m a bit confused about all the news articles talking about a “new” discovery about the eyes of mantis shrimp (stomatopods). The articles talk excitedly about the discovery that the eyes and brain of the mantis shrimp can perceive shifts in polarized light in meaningful ways.

I hate to put a damper on mantis shrimp research, but wasn’t this already known. Back in October, I wrote here, “The stomatopod’s cornea is bisected by a few rows of special sensors that detect color and polarized light.” That mantis shrimp use

Well, maybe this offers something new: “The researchers describe the anatomical basis for stomatopods’ remarkable vision in detail and show that these structures are stimulated when circular polarized light shines into them. They also offer behavioral proof of the stomatopods’ ability by training them to associate either left-handed or right-handed circular polarized light (L-CPL or R-CPL) with a food reward.”

Maybe the precise understanding of the anatomical structure in stomatopod eyes is new. Maybe. However, it was my impression that these things had also already been researched. I’d love to hear from some stomatopod experts out there to set me straight.

Holy things are happening everywhere! Just as Irregular Times brings us news of an image of the Great Polar Bear Spirit that has appeared in the old split wood of a fence, News Buscuit tells us of another miracle.

Praise the Holy Roly Poly Polar Bear! An image of toast has appeared on a statue of the Virgin Mary!

This changes everything we thought about the Trinity. Now we can see that it isn’t about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It has been now revealed through this set of divine visions that the true Trinity is formed from the Mother, the Bear, and the Holy Toast. This also changes the meaning of the parable of the creation of fishes and loaves by Jesus. The loaves obviously came from the Holy Toast, and the fishes came from the Great Polar Bear Spirit. Bears love to eat fish, if they can get it.

The crucial question now is this: Why didn’t the Virgin Mary give anything for the meal? Is there domestic discord in the Trinity?

My WordPress blog started going flakey this afternoon when I tried to update it for my weekend class. There is no announcement that I can find about any new upgrades or new products being added, just a totally redesigned format for writing posts and a spate of frustrated comments in the forum.

I have been thinking about moving my Wordpress blog to its own domain, but with whatever is wrong with it, I don’t dare try it now. Of course it’s not backed up–WordPress says they back it up so you don’t have to.

I can’t tell if this is related to the problems associated with the release of version 2.5 someone here wrote about earlier, or if it’s something completely different.

Until they get it fixed, stay away from Wordpress altogether.

UPDATE: WordPress has now announced they have updated the dashboard, which is what they call the page for editing posts and changing blog parameters. The main bugs so far seem to be with spell check, widgets, and posting images. You may have noticed I posted an image I needed for my class here in the diaries for a few hours yesterday. Thanks, Irregular Times. I have now created a new blog over at Blogger.com for posting images.

I am so sick and tired of hearing people say that the sky is falling, and talk about global warming as if it is actually taking place. Why do they keep suppressing the truth? Why won’t they let the public hear about the real scientific measurements that are taking place?

There is an alternative hypothesis that the liberal media never talks about: The Solar Hypothesis. The Solar Hypothesis acknowledges that there was a period of warming, but observes that temperatures in many places on Earth are now actually cooling! It’s true! It’s happening right now, and if you don’t believe me, then I challenge you to start observing temperatures yourself instead of just accepting what Al Gore is telling you.

The Solar Hypothesis holds that there are cycles of warming and cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere, but that these cycles of warming and cooling happen because of differences in the intensity of energy from the Sun as it hits the Earth, not because of human pollution.

The truth that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know is that temperatures all across the United States have been getting cooler for a long time now - for months, since late August last year.

Will there be a warming trend after this cooling trend is done? Sure. That’s only natural. In fact, scientists who adhere to the Solar Hypothesis predict that there will be a short warming trend starting sometime soon and extending to the end of July, all across the Northern Hemisphere.

But, right now, there is a cooling trend, not global warming! This cooling trend is part of a cycle, which real scientists understand. It gets warmer, and colder, and warmer again. Nothing to worry about.

This morning, for example, there was a region-wide warming trend, and maybe that’s what the global warming econuts are all worried about. But, there is a current cooling trend. The Solar Hypothesis predicts this, noting that the effect of the sun is getting weaker right now, and is weakening all the time. At 6:05, as I write this, the temperature is about 45 degrees, but by the end of the night, it could well be below freezing!

Take that, Al Gore. How is that global warming? The temperature is getting colder, you envirofascist!

Never mind what the scientific establishment says about this study and that study. You know, you can get research to say anything you want to. You can trust me because I’m asking you to think logically, and I trust your intelligence, unlike those pointy headed university welfare cases.

Just look around you and think. While you slept last night, dreaming the Green dreams that the Earth Firsters put into your head, the USA was getting colder, not warmer! Well, how could it be getting cooler if there is global warming?

You know the answer. It can’t! Global warming is a hoax.

For the benefit of readers who don’t know me: Wink!

Hidden in the murky estuaries of the River Thames, the central corridor of power in the British Empire, a secret has been kept for years - a secret that now has been revealed: Seahorses.

New Scientist tells us: “About five short-snouted seahorses (Hippocampus hippocampus) have been spotted during routine conservation surveys over the last year or so, leading scientists to think they have probably established a resident population. The news has been kept secret until now.”

Why were the seahorses kept a secret, and why are we hearing about this now?

People like to think of seahorses as a friendly sort of creature, what with its slow swimming habits, its big round tummy, and its gently grasping tail. Friendly? Have you ever talked to a seahorse? No. Seahorses don’t talk to people. You know why? They don’t know English.

There has never been a seahorse that has lived in an English-speaking country that has bothered to learn to speak English. Does that remind you of anyone? It should: Illegal immigrants.

So, now we learn that these seahorses (unnaturally mixing land animals and ocean animals) have “established a resident population”. Residents, but not citizens. It kind of reminds me of George W. Bush’s idea of “guest workers” - except the stinking little seahorses aren’t doing any work. They’re just swimming around slowly in the River Thames, not contributing to society, but having babies (that the fathers are expected to take care of while the mother goes out and has a good time) and then expecting the government to take care of it all.

“Conserve my habitat!” they would say, if they could speak English. Well, what have the seahorses done to conserve their own habitat?

They think that they can come in and just set up their little river camps, driving down property values, without going through Customs? Where is their respect for the law?

Of course, some people would say that the seahorses don’t know about the law. Well, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

I think it’s worse than that. Just consider what Al Quaida could do with a group like this. They don’t have anything to do but seethe with resentment against the success of the English people. They’ve managed to learn how to cross borders without being protected, and they’ve been kept secret by the government.

These malcontents on the River Thames look like a classic terrorist sleeper cell to me, and given the government’s involvement, it looks like an inside job to me.

But now the secrecy has been lifted. Do you know why? Parliament has just passed a law that gives special protections to the seahorses, so that they can go about with their little nefarious schemes without bothering to hide anymore. They’ve been made untouchable.

Why is that law coming into effect now, in 2008? Is this some kind of October surprise, in April, designed to tip the American presidential election toward a certain candidate? The coincidence in timing is difficult to ignore.

I just saw an article at AfterDowningStreet.org claiming that Hillary Clinton, when employed by the House Judiciary Committee in investigating Watergate, was dishonest and unethical. The writer spoke to, among others, the committee’s chief of staff, Jerry Zeifman. Clinton was working on a memo supporting the position that Nixon had no right to counsel before the committee; Zeifman told her she should read and cite a recent case that gave the opposite precedent; when she finished the memo, he found that she had (a) ignored that case, and (b) removed it from the committee’s files. Apparently, she was taking this position in the first place because her political patron was tied to the Kennedys, who didn’t want Nixon defending himself too well—he could have excused his own abuses of power by digging up JFK’s.

There’s more (including from the chief Republican counsel), but, to me, that’s the worst of it. If this is true, then Clinton probably committed a crime, in order to strengthen her patron’s political standing.

The presidential primary in North Carolina comes soon, in less than a month, on May 6. So, is it too late for you to register to vote in the primary? Not at all. The voter registration deadline is this month.

That’s an invitation for election manipulation.

North Carolina’s primary is semi-open, meaning that independents can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary, just by showing up at a polling station on the day of the election and saying which party’s primary they want to vote in.

That’s bad enough, but the election deadline just weeks before the North Carolina presidential primary is practically an invitation for people of one political party to re-register as members of the other party in order to meddle in the other party’s election. This year, with John McCain already selected as the nominee of the Republican Party, there is no reason for North Carolina Republicans to go vote in their own party primary.

Instead, those North Carolina Republicans, along with the state’s mostly right wing independents, can flood into the Democratic presidential primary, and vote for the candidate that matches their values. There’s even the possibility that Democratic voters could be outnumbered by Republicans and independents.

Why would any state arrange for such a corrupt primary election system?

There’s been a lot of talk over the last twenty years about how the planet Earth seems to have become a great deal smaller. Smaller it may have become, but is that because people can transcend great distances, or is it just because people have become able to ignore them?

A business brochure I happened upon today promised to tell people about “The Future Of Business”. It read, “In this issue, we explore the subject of global change on a local level, drawing our own picture of what the future of business may look like based on conversations with some of the tenants at Centennial Lakes Office Park.”

The brochure was eight pages long.

Can eight pages explore the subject of global change on a local level? What on Earth is global change on a local level?

When people use the word “global” these days, they often just mean “international”. They’ve got business contacts from some foreign countries, sure, but are those contacts truly global? Global is supposed to refer to something that pertains to the whole world, not just a connection between some parts of the globe.

Here’s a test for determining if something is truly global: If it’s not in the Falklands Islands, it’s not global. If it’s not in North Korea, it’s not global.

Roger and Gallet Paris, which is actually headquartered not in Paris, but in Monmouth, New Jersey, produces a “gentle nature shampoo”.

Where in nature are the shampoos found? I could save some money by going to get some there, maybe, if it’s somewhere near me.

I’d hate to contribute to an ecological crisis, though, by taking too much shampoo out of its natural environment.

On Friday, President George W. Bush admitted that he knew about torture techniques being used by American agents well before the existence of torture in Abu Ghraib was revealed. Bush admitted that he knew that Vice President Dick Cheney, then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, and other top White House aides had a meeting to agree to what kinds of torture would be done.

More than that, George W. Bush has now admitted that he approved those torture techniques for use by agents of the American government.

By approving torture, George W. Bush was in violation of domestic federal law, and in violation of the Geneva Conventions, a treaty approved by Congress with the force of law within the United States. That makes President Bush a criminal - but more than that, a war criminal.

There is no question now - George W. Bush has acknowledged that he participated in activities that are obviously high crimes.

Don’t let anyone ever say that it’s a mystery what happened at Abu Ghraib. George W. Bush knew that torture tactics had been approved, because he approved them. Remember when George W. Bush said that the torture by Americans at Abu Ghraib had been due to just a “few bad apples”? Well, there were bad apples, that’s for sure, but what President Bush never said is that he knew very well that the most rotten apples of all were right in the White House.

The policies that led to the Abu Ghraib torture came right from the top - from George W. Bush himself. That fact is beyond dispute now.

Impeachment by Congress is not enough. George W. Bush should be handed over to an International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, put on trial, and sent to prison for the rest of his life.

The moral character of the Republican Party is revealed in a shameful state by its consideration of Condoleeza Roce as a vice presidential candidate.

Condoleeza Rice was already infamous for deceiving Congress about the nature of the briefing given to George W. Bush just before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Now her name will be forever linked to torture.

At a meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell that was approved by George W. Bush himself, Condoleeza Rice gave her strong endorsement to the use of torture by CIA agents against prisoners.

Rice told the CIA, “This is your baby. Go do it!”

What kind of sadist would refer to torture as a “baby”? The Condoleeza Rice kind of sadist.

If John McCain chooses Condoleeza Rice as his running mate, we’ll know that he is that same kind of sadist as well.

In the context of Barack Obama running for President and everything, with questions about the worthiness of his Christian church, or whether he’s a secret genetic Muslim, I thought it would be important to bring news of a pretty shocking statement that a radical black activist made about “religious bigotry”.

He said, “We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry.”

Well, how dare he say such a thing, insulting religious people like that!? He must be just an elitist who, as Hillary Clinton said of Barack Obama, doesn’t understand the importance of faith in ordinary people’s lives! How could we allow someone who could insult religious people, saying that people of faith are nothing but bigots, to go anywhere near the White House?

Oh, the inhumanity! Oh, the pathos! Oh, the outrage! Guard your women and children!

You won’t believe it when you hear who this radical black activist leader is. Did you know that he spent time behind bars? Hmm. Wait a minute… where did I put his name?

Oh, never mind. You can find out here.

Dear, oh dear. It is an outrage, isn’t it?

Am I the only one who found this last weekend’s Faith Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania to be an excruciating display of humiliating and yet pointless pandering?

America is having a presidential election. We’re not selecting an interim minister for a church. Yet, religious groups have pushed to be granted the power to submit presidential candidates to an onslaught of religious test, interrogations designed to see whether the candidates are sufficiently Christian to be President.

For a reason I wish I didn’t understand, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agreed to go along with the parade of shameful faith-based nonsense.

Here’s just a short selection of the irrelevant nonsense that came from the Messiah College team of inquisitors (read the rest):

“You said in an interview last year that you believe in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And you have actually felt the presence of the Holy Spirit on many occasions. Share some of those occasions with us.

CLINTON: You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining. But, really, ever since I was a child, I have felt the enveloping support and love of God and I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the holy spirit was there with me as I made a journey.

It didn’t have to be a hard time. You know, it could be taking a walk in the woods. It could be watching a sunset…”

Why on earth do we need to know whether Hillary Clinton really believes in the doctrine that heaven contains a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? What does that have to do with being President of the United States?

They might as well have grilled Clinton and Obama about what their favorite color really is. It would have been about as relevant.

Senator Obama, I know that you say that blue is your favorite color, but as we all know there are a lot of different shades of blue. Will you finally get specific about what kind of blue is actually your favorite?

Oh, dear Zoroaster wake me up! The ABC News presidential democratic debate, likely one of the last opportunities for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to earn the support of voters, should have been a lively event.

Instead, the first 45 minutes was spent on superficial nonsense like 1960s Weatherman bombings, who’s bitter, Bosnia, and disowned preachers, with followup questions.

Then, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous went hunting for inconsequential distinctions such as who, between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, thinks that Iran should not have nuclear weapons the most.

Help me! I want to care. I want to be motivated. I want to be active and a good citizen, but I have been struck by the ABC News hypno-mind-mister laser beam, which has caused me to hear the words coming out of Clinton’s and Obama’s mouths as if they are spoken in Czech.

Is there an antidote?

I am now officially admitting that I am politically depressed.

I think I’ve been politically depressed for several weeks now, but I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge that depression. The news today puts me over the edge, way past deniability.

Hillary Clinton is releasing advertisements on television that strongly imply that if Barack Obama becomes President, we may likely be attacked by Osama Bin Laden, and Barack Obama won’t be able to handle it. It’s an absurd attack, that preys on the fears of American voters.

The sad thing is that, like the Clinton 3:00 AM telephone call, it works. Voters buy the message. They’re willing to sell their hopes out for the sake of fear. Clinton’s consultants know this, and they’re going whole hog because, above all else, they want to win, win, win.

A few voters get it. They see how despicable this line of attack is. The rest don’t care. They really believe it. It’s these voters, and not even the Hillary Clinton campaign, who depress me.

It depresses me to live in a nation where people are too cowardly to live in freedom, and too lazy to get involved in their own government, and too stupid to tell the difference between a scare tactic and “experience”.

I’m not writing this to try to score points for Barack Obama above Hillary Clinton, and try to affect any election. You know why? I’ve finally realized that I am too little and too powerless to have any affect. In a nation of 300 million people who care more about whether Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake have really finally broken up than they do about the Bill of Rights, I’m not going to be heard. I’m not going to make a difference.

If I try, I’m going to fail.

I’m going to keep on trying, just because it’s a damn old habit that I don’t think I can shake. Nonetheless, I no longer have any expectations of success. My voice won’t be heard. Things won’t get better. America is on the way out, and the American government is just going to get uglier and uglier.

Tonight, Pennsylvanians are going to reward Hillary Clinton for her scare tactics. Hillary Clinton will stay in the race, gleefully running around cheering “I won! I won!”

And then we’ll go on to Guam… and Indiana… and Nebraska… and the next state… and all the way to the end… and Hillary Clinton’s tactics of never asking the American people to think big or step out on a limb will be vindicated.

It will be a stalemate, and although Barack Obama will have won the majority of primaries, and have gotten the majority of primary-elected delegates, Hillary Clinton will be made the Democratic nominee, just because she has more powerful people who owe her favors.

We’ll slump on toward Election Day, and maybe Hillary Clinton will win and maybe John McCain will win, but most Americans won’t really care. They’ll just want to make sure that the election coverage on TV doesn’t interfere with their favorite weekly TV show.

I’ll still care, but I don’t expect that this year’s election will change anything. Clinton won’t bring soldiers home from Iraq, and she won’t close Guantanamo, and she won’t have the Patriot Act repealed, and her health care plans will be forgotten within a year, and we’ll continue to watch America slouching into the margins as Bill Clinton has one last fling at sexual independence with some middle-aged barmaid he meets on the outskirts of Peoria.

We had a chance to do something better with this country, but people just don’t give a damn. Damn it all to hell.

A while ago, I published an article explaining that mantis shrimp can be eaten, as much as many of us might like to see them alive.

I’ve always wonder how fishermen manage to get a commercially viable harvest of mantis shrimp, given the way that they can break bones or slash open flesh with their powerful front smashers or stabbers.

Out of curiosity, I’ve been looking for images of what mantis shrimp actually looks like when cooked and prepared as part of a meal.

I found a video that shows just that. If you’ve got stomatopod-loving kids in the household, cover their eyes.

Tennessee Representative and superdelegate John Tanner endorsed Hillary Clinton for President yesterday, in news ignored by the Mainstream Media but just as important in determining the outcome of the national presidential primary election! Congressman Tanner is just the sort of moderate American politician who appeals to ALL Americans, and his decision to support Hillary Clinton is a sign that Hillary Clinton can and WILL WIN in November. Says Tanner, “In my opinion, the best person to lead this critical effort is Hillary Clinton. Hillary is a smart, pragmatic leader who understands the grave situation our country faces, with a $9 trillion debt, much of which is borrowed from foreign countries. Now, more than ever, our nation needs a leader like Sen. Clinton who can work with others to return to fiscal sanity.”

Barack Obama is a nice young man, but he just decided to run for president last year. Hillary Clinton has been part of running the country for SIXTEEN YEARS! With John Tanner’s help, I will be proud to see my new president, Hillary Clinton, take the oath of office on January 20, 2009.

Democracy is about the will of the people, right?

In a democracy, the will of the people is expressed through their votes, right?

Well, if you count up all the votes from all the primaries, who has the most?

Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has the most votes.

The will of the people is for Hillary Clinton to be the next president.

Why didn’t I get a pony for my 16th birthday?

Usually, you know, he wears a suit with the sleeves down. But in this picture you can see his forearms and everything. I wonder if he will get a burn that way. Probably keeping the sleeves down at most outdoor events is a good idea.