Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

For a long time, we’ve been reminded that, though we see paintings and sculptures of dinosaurs in particular colors, nobody really knows what colors the dinosaurs were. Now, in the case of one dinosaur, that’s not at all true.

Scientists have examined small structures in the feathers of the dinosaur Sinosauropteryx in order to explore an evolutionary connection between birds and dinosaurs. Particular types of these structures, melanosomes, are associated with particular colors in modern day birds. So, by identifying the melanosomes in fossilized feathers of Sinosauropteryx, researchers can tell which parts of the creature had feathers of which colors.

The results indicate bands of light and dark orange along the tail of the dinosaur. Read more about it.

I am a proud Congress geek. The way that some guys like to talk about sports statistics, I like to cite legislative bill numbers, and cosponsorship levels. Congress is a rich world of competition that’s at a level of complexity that NFL football can’t touch.

Mainstream news coverage of Congress on the other hand, is simple and boring. The articles are written as if they’re still being read in a print newspaper, almost never with links in to the legislation or to original sources. I like reading the Irregular Times congressional niche partner, That’s My Congress, because they don’t talk down to me in that way.

When I want to interact with other Congress addicts, I also use a couple of other sources: Open Secrets, which has all sorts of information about the backroom relationships that explain the apparently crazy decisions people in Congress make. Another is Open Congress, which allows people to rate and debate bills, and follow them with widgets.

Hm. Both of those sites begin with open. I guess that says something about what I’m looking for. I’m looking for sources of information that can help me crack open the tough outer shell that Congress presents to outsiders at first glance, so that I can get to the delicious meat hiding inside.

Oooh. Metaphors make me hungry. Anyone got some walnuts?

Compare Americans’ reactions to two different bits of news that came out today:

1. Tiger Woods might be cheating on his wife.

2. According to audio recordings of an insider meeting between government spy agencies and the corporations that help them do the spying, gathered by Indiana University grad student Christopher Soghoian, the Bush Administration and Obama Administration demanded private GPS data from consumer mobile devices operated by Sprint-Nextel 8 million times over the last year alone.

So, guess which story is among the most popular among blog readers, according to Google Blogsearch.

You know the answer, don’t you?

Hint: Constitutional rights are soooo last century.

Homeland Security has reached the inside of the Hilton hotel in Woodland Hills, California, where the Guest Services Directory instructs visitors to “study the layout of the room, and determine anything that might help or hinder emergency exiting”. An engrossing documentary on PBS? That might hinder emergency exiting, if you just have to find out how string theory is related to the philosophy of the Southern Indian dynasty of the first millenium of the Common Era.

A particularly useful instruction is found next to the elevators on the first floor: “ALARM SOUNDS LIKE WHOOP”. Remember: Alarm does not sound like DING or OOOOOOO. Alarm sounds like WHOOP.

Practice that sound now, before you go to sleep.

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.

The cease fire is over. Moqtada al-Sadr has gone from insurgent to government minister to insurgent again.

Whatever you think about al-Sadr, he has been calling for a solution based on diplomatic talks instead of fighting in the streets. Not Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki has been saying that he’s going to fight against al-Sadr “until the end”.

So guess whose side the United States has taken? Al-Maliki’s, of course. He’s the American puppet, after all.

The United States military has joined the Iraqi civil war between Al-Maliki’s militias and Al-Sadr’s militias. The US military is now hurling bombs into Iraqi cities, hoping to kill Iraqis aligned with Al-Sadr.

How is that going to help make Iraq more stable?

The fact that the U.S. military is taking the side of Al-Maliki in this civil war may end up helping Al-Sadr more than Al-Maliki. After all, three-quarters of Iraqis want the American military occupation to end, and want American soldiers out of Iraq. Making it clear that Al-Sadr is the top anti-American fighter may make him stronger, not weaker. Tens of thousands of Iraqi protesters took to the streets this week against Al-Maliki, not against Al-Sadr.

George W. Bush’s strategy in Iraq is as smooth as ever, which is to say, as rough as a mule ride into the Grand Canyon at night in a snowstorm with a saddle made of sandpaper.

Let’s put this plainly: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has saved a huge part of the United States from filth.

The air that blows across Kansas eventually blows over most of the continental United States. If Kansas keeps that air clean, then the millions of Americans who live downwind from Kansas. If Kansas spews filth into the air, then the millions of Americans who live downwind from Kansas will breathe that filth.

On Friday, Governor Sebelius vetoed legislation that would have allowed the spewing of filth into America’s air, and into America’s lungs, from new dirty coal-fired power plants that would have been built in Kansas.

Thank you, on behalf of downwind America, to Kathleen Sebelius, for protecting us from this filth.

It’s official. Terror has been identified by the President of the United States as one of the government’s tools in its supposed War on Terror.

Explaining why he vetoed legislation from Congress that would have explicitly outlawed waterboarding and other forms of torture, George W. Bush said that “The bill would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror.” With that statement, President Bush is on the record as saying that torture is regarded by his White House as among the “most valuable tools” against terror.

Americans who know how to think will regard this statement as strange, given that the purpose of torture is to encourage compliance through the creation of terror.

So, the Bush White House is using terror as a tool in the War on Terror. That suggests to me that the War on Terror is not really a war against terror at all. We ought to call it a War For Terror or a War Of Terror instead.

I was deeply disturbed to read this afternoon that Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Houston was an official stop on the Hillary Clinton for President campaign today. Every time I see Joel Osteen, with his insincere smile and gospel of divinely sanctioned wealth, I feel dirty. The man is so slick he fairly drips with snake oil, leaving a trail behind him as he leaves his stadium for Jesus.

Hillary Clinton’s political advisors might want to consider: If you win the Democratic nomination through an appeal to the followers of hucksters like Osteen, you’ll do so without the respect of many Democratic voters outside the Bible Belt. Of course, Democratic politicians have been campaigning on a neglect of Democratic voters for a long time, and getting away with it.

Maybe Clinton’s advisors have calculated that the number of Democrats repulsed by the connection with Osteen will be made up for by the number of evangelical Republicans impressed by it. Within Texas, of course, a Democrat is merely a Republican who has trouble pronouncing the “R” sound, so I suppose the Bible thumping will play well there.

Daniel Gardner of Oberlin, Ohio is cool. George Luna of Atascadero, California is cool. John Bork of Grafton, Iowa is cool.

Is your mayor cool? You can check at Cool Mayors.

A mayor is counted as cool if he or she has committed the municipal government of his or her city or village to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign (CCP) or the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. In other words, these mayors are trying to get around the inaction of the Bush White House in confronting climate change, and working to make things better where they live.

Cool.