Soooo much crap going on in the world.

Recommended reading. It's short and informative. Now I'm not any expert on economics this or that, and I don't feel qualified to make predictions about our fiscal future. However I don't have to be qualified in those areas to tell you that giving Goldman Sachs' CEO a $700 billion line of credit, supplied by taxpayers' money, and giving him the power to do whatever he so chooses to do with that money with no oversight and without any legal limitations on what he does with it is, um, FUCKING SCARY AND REALLY BAD IDEA, guys! I don't even know why there's a "debate" at all. And people are like, "Ohhh we have to act. We can't just do nothing." Okay, so our choices are either do nothing OR give Paulson $700 billion of our money ($2300 for every single man woman and child in this country)? Are you kidding? Do you think I'm in kindergarten or something? Are most people in this country so braindead? And this is when we're trying: we're experiencing a record high (less than half of us! WAY TO GO!) interest in "political" news.

Of all the crazy things, Sarah Palin would support a war with Russia. She's not even in office yet and she's already admitting to having her eye on our old Cold War "buddy." Nice.

To live up to the title of my blog and write about various interesting things, instead of just depressing interesting things, here is some information on sonoluminescence--a bubble turning sound into light guys!!:

"One other area of research may lead to a dynamic foam that of sonoluminescence, in which a very small gas bubble, floating in water, converts sound waves into a burst of light. The sound in generated at a frequency inaudible to humans, but it is as intense as that from a shrieking smoke alarm. In the water, the sound waves create alternating pulses of high and low pressure that make the bubble contract and expand in the same rhythm. At the bubble's maximum size of about fifty micrometers, the gas it contains exerts hardly any outward pressure. The surrounding water pressure then drives the bubble violently inward, shrinking it fifty times or more. At that point, the bubble emits a flash of light that comes and goes in mere trillionths of a second, as determined by physicist Seth Putterman at the University of California, Los Angeles. The flash repeats once every cycle of the sound waves, with such faultless regularity that sonoluminescing bubbles are used to time the motion of elementary particles moving near the speed of light.

The startling feature is that the light lies mostly in the invisible ultraviolet part of the spectrum. According to the laws of radiation, that means this tiny collapsing bubble, buried deep within a liquid, somehow reaches temperatures up to 100,000 degrees Celsius (180,000 degrees Fahrenheit), far hotter than the surface of the Sun.

The leading theory to explain sonoluminescence is that the rapid implosion creates a shock wave, a moving zone of high pressure where the gas in the bubble is greatly compressed, enormously raising its temperature. In support of this view, measurements in Putterman's laboratory show that the bubble contracts at greater than Mach 4, that is, four times the spaced of sound or thousands of miles per hour. Even more impressive is the acceleration of the bubble as it expands after compression, which is several billion times that of gravity. That would bring the bubble wall to the speed of light in a fraction of a millisecond, except it is not sustained for nearly that long a time. " [From Universal Foam by Sidney Perkowitz, which is book you can buy or check out of your library.]

Well, I don't know if you guys all knew about that or not, but if you did...shame on you for not telling me.

Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez reports:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has agreed to postpone implementation of new FBI guidelines, after four Democratic senators raised concerns in a letter Wednesday about proposed changes that they say could permit the FBI to launch investigations of American citizens without any individualized basis for suspicion.
[...]
The proposed rule change, first reported last week, would loosen restrictions on information sharing between agencies, and allow investigators to begin gathering information for criminal or intelligence purpose, even in the absence of any particularized evidence suggesting that a target is connected to criminal activity.

In an article on the same subject, written a week ago, Washington Post adds:

The guidelines [...] do not require congressional approval.

Ho-kay, then! So the time has come that we are inviting national surveillance, provoked perhaps by race, religion, or legal free speech activities. We are on the verge of opting to give an enormous amount of power to unelected officials, held accountable by no one, belonging to a(n arguably illegal) federal police force. Really, America? Does that make you feel safe?

(I guess now at least those brown people over there won't be "jealous of our freedom" or whatever.)

John McCain isn't sure how many houses he owns. But is he elitist? The current state of US affairs would say no. Elitist used to refer to someone who had a lot of power & money. Dick Cheney, for example, who made tens of millions of dollars with Saddam Hussein before deciding to start a war with him and ending over a million Iraqi civilians' lives along with over four thousand Americans' in the process. You might think that kind of money and that kind of power--power to destroy nations--is elitist, especially when combined with the nonexistent "checks & balances" and national debate (things we're supposed to be proud of as Americans). Unfortunately, these days, an "elitist" is someone who reads and engages in that hated nuance. Why use your gift of a brain to make distinctions (elitist) when you could instead use it to invent reasons to go to war--of which you have never even been close to being a part of--and kill other people's children (which must be downright folksy by comparison)?

Watch this clip. It includes a mayor who sees no problem with the fact that he has implemented a continous curfew on citizens, no matter their age and no matter what time it is. He, in fact, states that it is "akin to martial law." What happens if you're a regular old citizen who just happens to live in a bad neighborhood? It looks like you can't leave the inside of your home, even on your own property. What happens if you do? In the mayors own words: "Zero tolerance, they're going to jail."

So the police can't do their jobs, and citizens are now under virtual house arrest, their liberties stripped, because of it. Thumbs up, America. Way to go! What an inventive way to fight crime! But do you honestly feel safer now?

I've been busy / link roundup

Although some of it is old news by now...

- Black man tasered nine times in 14 minutes by white cop, including two times while he was unconscious. He died.
- CBS covers for John McCain's dangerous stupidity/lies. Despite outrageous incidents such as this, McCain supporters still think their candidate is getting "unfairly negative" press coverage.
- Dick Cheney was going to address injured vets; however, his invitation was rescinded when the vets deemed his "security measures" draconian & unreasonable.
- Over a million disappear from Indiana's voter rolls; Indiana continues to use decertified electronic voting machines. Also of interest, three states may be illegally purging their voter lists.
- University of Florida & Catholics go in together on being ridiculous.
- Church shooter & domestic terrorist Jim David Adkisson was a fan of Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly; he hated "liberalism," even though as a food stamp recipient, he depended on it.

Q Mr. President, understanding what you say about energy supplies being tight and the debate over energy, which has gone on for years and will continue long through the campaign and into the next administration -- one thing nobody debates is that if Americans use less energy the current supply/demand equation would improve. Why have you not sort of called on Americans to drive less and to turn down the thermostat?

THE PRESIDENT: They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done, is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars, they want to conserve. But the consumer is plenty bright, Mark. The marketplace works.

[...]

And people can figure out whether they need to drive more or less; they can balance their own checkbooks.

Q But you don't see the need to ask -- you don't see the value of your calling for a campaign --

THE PRESIDENT: I think people ought to conserve and be wise about how they use gasoline and energy. Absolutely. And there's some easy steps people can take. You know, if they're not in their home, they don't keep their air-conditioning running. There's a lot of things people can do.

But my point to you, Mark, is that, you know, it's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate to consumers how they live their lives. The American people are plenty capable and plenty smart people and they'll make adjustments to their own pocketbooks. That's why I was so much in favor of letting them keep more of their own money. It's a philosophical difference: Should the government spend their money, or should they spend their own money? And I've got faith in the American people.

Is it a little presumptuous to dictate to consumers how they live their lives? What about citizens?

Roosevelt expected and frequently called on Americans to make daily sacrifices and to rise up to be better people and better citizens when his nation was faced with a crisis. Our involvement in Iraq has lasted much longer than our war with WWII--which, may I remind you, was waged by a wimpy Democrat against a(n albeit weakened) triple threat of Germany/Italy/Japan. And warmonger, super powered, "tough" Bush can't "win" a war (how do we define a "win," anyway? What is it we are "winning," precisely?) against a third rate army in a third rate country?

Even Richard Nixon called for sacrifice during his energy crisis, and he led by example: the 55mph speed limit, year-round daylight savings, government ad campaigns, even a symbolic refusal to light the White House Christmas tree.

But I digress. Yes, Americans are smart (part of me is saying, "They're not that smart," but that's irrelevant). They also need leadership. You see, people often do what is expected of them; if you treat people like they're "just folks," well then, they start to believe that they are "just folks," that their actions have little to do with the way things pan out, because by golly they're just one singular folk, capable only of being folksy and quaint. If, however, you decide to lead them as people, call on them to sacrifice, to stand up and do what's right instead of what is easy, to actually set attainable goals, I think we'd all be surprised. With the disappearing middle class, a section of our population being hit hard with gas prices, this is a matter too important to leave up to the marketplace. Obviously something is not right in this equation.

It's a little odd, isn't it, that the president wants to have illegal wiretaps (a violation of our 4th Amendment freedoms), wants to illegally detain citizens (a violation of our 5th Amendment freedoms), wants to silence "shadowy" independent groups from running ads with political content (a violation of our 1st Amendment freedoms)...I could sit here all night listing freedoms he doesn't want us to have.

Isn't it interesting, though, that in the end, the freedom he's really proven himself to care about is our "freedom" of consumerism? And what is it we're so reluctantly yet greedily consuming? Is it--could it be!--oil, oil, oil (<- great book, by the way. I love you Amy Goodman!)? Nahhhh.

I was grinning half an hour into my day; as an attorney files to lift the stay on a case of election fraud in the Ohio '04 election, a lifelong Republican--and the "the top private cop in the world on the subject of data security" in the world--is blowing the whistle on his own party. Although it looks as though they will eventually be able to implicate Karl Rove, they will have their work cut out for them as they work their way up the ladder gathering evidence.

As those of you who have seen Hacking Democracy know, it is all too easy to break into a Diebold voting machine--it took one student 10 seconds to "pick the lock," and only a minute to install malicious software, neither of which leaves a trace that the machine was hacked. Bev Harris, a grandmother who got her hands on Diebold's central tabulator program Gems, was able to alter the results of an election, without any record or evidence of tampering, in under 90 seconds.

I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone why this is a problem; I don't need to mention that without free & fair elections, our democracy is little more than a tattered & torn joke.

Don't expect the media to tell you about the new development in the '04 Ohio fraud--with more news sources being constantly bought up by Rupert Murdoch, you can be sure they won't break the story until they can no longer avoid it. However there is an excellent 10 minute interview with two of the plaintiffs' attorneys here (link is directly to the video). It really is worth watching. Listen closely while they talk about Mike Connell and his humongous enormous conflict of interest. The power we give single individuals is just mind-boggling.

For more videos & coverage on this topic, visit Velvet Revolution, as well as the first page linked to in this post.

"Oh my God," I said. "It happened--we've killed over a million Iraqis." My boyfriend gave me a skeptical look. "Are you sure?" he asked. "That's a huge number--how do we know that?"

I agree that it's shocking--ridiculous. But it appears true--old news, even. The estimate that 1 million Iraqis had likely died as a result of the US invasion of March 2003 received independent confirmation in September 2007. For anyone wanting more information on how these numbers were reached, there is good reading here.

What is Fascism? A right-wing government, in its early state it is opportunistic, as it tries to appeal to as many diverse groups as possible. Often militarily belligerent. Having nationalistic tendencies. Centrally organized. Fundamentalist in that the world in divided into "good" and "bad" with nothing in between. Suppression of dissent. Liberal & democratic values disparaged. And then we have the fascist himself, Mussolini, declaring, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

And there you have it.

Now, I'm not saying we're currently living in a fascist state, or even that we are careening that way; but historically it has been a slow creep, has it not? In any case, there isn't a single person that I've ever been able to talk to who can tell you with certainty (and if can tell you with certainty, they can't tell you with authority) what is actually going on with regards to how we are governed and what it is that is being planned for us.

You tell 'em, Naomi.

I was laughing at this ridiculosity: Windsor Hill Baptists in Oklahoma apparently think it's a great idea to give away a semi-automatic assault rifle...to a teenager. For more laughs (those are gales of laughter, right?) take a quiz on Oklahoma gun control laws.

"From 1987 to 1997 in particular, we had terrible economic growth," says Mintz. "By the time we reached 1999, we were way behind the U.S. in per capita incomes and everything else." Back then, he notes, the newspapers were packed with dire warnings of brain drain. Canadian incomes were so low compared to Americans, our best and brightest were fleeing the country.

However, Canadians currently lead Americans in life expectancy, wealth, quality of life...and they work less. This actually gives me some hope for America...

This article contains a couple of interesting things, too. This article implies that in the year 2000, 70% of Americans said the environment should be the government's biggest priority. Was America seriously that different back then? Additionally, almost an entire third of Americans claim that the rising gas prices has caused a "major changes" in their daily lives. A third! And this is how they react, by not reacting? People here are still driving their Cadillac Escalade up a steep grade at 55mph, passing everyone they can, only to be sitting there at the stoplight when everyone else caught up to her. Thumbs up, guys!

The brush-tailed bettong & affecting change

Eee so cute!! Especially because it appears that he has wet himself out of nervousness.

Anyway, that little guy is a brush-tailed bettong. In addition to being really freakin' cute, he (or she!) does a lot to help the eucalypt forests of Australia out. Because eucalyptus trees secrete an oil which makes it hard for the forest floor to absorb water, this little guy comes in quite handy because he digs for truffles, thus penetrating the oily surface and allowing water to infiltrate it as well. This is useful for another reason: organic matter from the litter layer also falls down into this hole, to be decomposed and incorporated into the soil, thus making it healthier. A single bettong ♥ ♥ will effectively turn over at least six tons of soil every year. Without it, the soil would be hydrophobic & compacted, cutting down on plant diversity.

Well some asshole had the idea to introduce foxes to Australia for sport hunting. While the fox adapted to life there just fine, it did so at the expense of animal species in the 'critical-weight-range,' causing not only a marked delcine in their population size & distribution, but also an extinction rate much higher than normal. While once the cute little brush-tailed bettong was widespread in the forests of Australia, the species now occupies one percent of its original range. The forests survive, but a human life is much too short to see what damage will actually become of this, as every year the soil gets more and more dry, and more compacted, squeezing out all kinds of life that once lived there & helped the ecosystem to function--insects, spiders, fungus, bacteria.

Now...it always baffles me when people say that humans are 'too small' to affect the planet. People opposed to the idea of global warming often trot this one out, but I've also heard my friends say it. I think it's a problem of scope; humans, for the most part, live in cities and are unconnected to the world which supports them. They hear about deforestation and forest fires cumulatively destroying thousands of square miles of land, but because their quality of life doesn't immediately diminish, they think it's no big deal. Humans are horrible at thinking about long term implications, and moreso in areas we don't understand. I have textbooks on plant biology and have read up on our forests, and I've learned enough to know that even if I learn for the rest of my life about it, I will never understand a forest completely. No one ever will. It is just too big, beyond the scope of human understanding. And so we erroneously think that because it's too big for us to comprehend, nothing we do can hurt it.

It confuses me and makes me a little mad when people start saying that humans are 'too small' to affect the planet. Really? Are we? When a single teaspoon of oil can contaminate the entire water supply of an aircraft carrier, and the United States alone uses so much oil DAILY that if we were to put it into one gallon containers & lined them all up, it would wrap around the earth's equator six times...we can't affect change to the planet? What the fuck is that about?

Really I just wanted to show you all how cute those little bettongs are...