How Good Television Can Be

This trip down memory lane just reminded me. Wow!

Outer Limits - The Galaxy Being (1/6) - YouTube.com

(With a special thanks to the birthday boy!)

How Good Television Can Be

This trip down memory lane just reminded me. Wow!

Outer Limits - The Galaxy Being (1/6) - YouTube.com

(With a special thanks to the birthday boy!)

Spam Determines Presidential Race

I hope this isn't the reason that Obama can't pull the trigger in Ohio and Pennsylvania but who the hell knows for sure.

Biden, in Ohio, Sees Hurdles Ahead - Washington Post - 20 Sep 08

"Asked to elaborate on the challenge Obama faces from working-class voters, Biden told of an elderly woman at a Philadelphia area diner, who showed him an e-mail on her mobile phone repeating the charge that Obama is a Muslim.

'She said, 'Senator, I love you, I was going to vote for you, and I thought I liked Barack, but I can't do it,' ' Biden said. 'And I said, 'Why not?' She said, 'Well, look,' and she shows me an e-mail. She says, 'He's a radical Muslim,' and I said, 'Why would you say that?'

"She said, 'Everybody tells me that.' And I said, 'I promise you that's not true,' and she said, 'What do I do?' And I said, 'Well, vote for me.' And she looked at me and said, 'Does that mean I have to vote for him, too?' '"

"But 41 percent of Ohioans said in a recent poll by Quinnipiac University that they hadn't heard enough about Biden to form an opinion on him. Even in Pennsylvania, which neighbors Biden's home state of Delaware, a quarter of poll respondents said they didn't know much about him."

Spam Determines Presidential Race

I hope this isn't the reason that Obama can't pull the trigger in Ohio and Pennsylvania but who the hell knows for sure.

Biden, in Ohio, Sees Hurdles Ahead - Washington Post - 20 Sep 08

"Asked to elaborate on the challenge Obama faces from working-class voters, Biden told of an elderly woman at a Philadelphia area diner, who showed him an e-mail on her mobile phone repeating the charge that Obama is a Muslim.

'She said, 'Senator, I love you, I was going to vote for you, and I thought I liked Barack, but I can't do it,' ' Biden said. 'And I said, 'Why not?' She said, 'Well, look,' and she shows me an e-mail. She says, 'He's a radical Muslim,' and I said, 'Why would you say that?'

"She said, 'Everybody tells me that.' And I said, 'I promise you that's not true,' and she said, 'What do I do?' And I said, 'Well, vote for me.' And she looked at me and said, 'Does that mean I have to vote for him, too?' '"

"But 41 percent of Ohioans said in a recent poll by Quinnipiac University that they hadn't heard enough about Biden to form an opinion on him. Even in Pennsylvania, which neighbors Biden's home state of Delaware, a quarter of poll respondents said they didn't know much about him."

Not Enough Nuke Engineers in Germany to Shut Down

More news from the "renaissance" . . .

Germany Says It Has `Critical' Lack of Nuclear Power Scientists - Bloomberg - 19 Sep 08

"Germany, which plans to end its use of nuclear power by 2021, has a 'critical' lack of qualified nuclear scientists to inspect the 17 German atomic energy plants and maintain its expertise, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said.

Germany must find ways to encourage people to enter the field even with the planned phaseout of nuclear energy, Gabriel said today at a Berlin briefing. The federal environment ministry, which is responsible for nuclear safety, has about 15 employees to oversee inspection for all of Germany, which isn't enough, he said.

'We need an improvement regarding personnel,' Gabriel said. 'Regardless of phasing out nuclear power, nuclear research will go on whether it's in the field of medicine or others. The ministry doesn't have a crystal ball and we have no idea how we will use nuclear in 30 or 40 years.' "

Not Enough Nuke Engineers in Germany to Shut Down

More news from the "renaissance" . . .

Germany Says It Has `Critical' Lack of Nuclear Power Scientists - Bloomberg - 19 Sep 08

"Germany, which plans to end its use of nuclear power by 2021, has a 'critical' lack of qualified nuclear scientists to inspect the 17 German atomic energy plants and maintain its expertise, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said.

Germany must find ways to encourage people to enter the field even with the planned phaseout of nuclear energy, Gabriel said today at a Berlin briefing. The federal environment ministry, which is responsible for nuclear safety, has about 15 employees to oversee inspection for all of Germany, which isn't enough, he said.

'We need an improvement regarding personnel,' Gabriel said. 'Regardless of phasing out nuclear power, nuclear research will go on whether it's in the field of medicine or others. The ministry doesn't have a crystal ball and we have no idea how we will use nuclear in 30 or 40 years.' "

They Can't Hep It!

Read an article in yesterday's Journal-Star about some local professors involved in matching up startle reflexes with political policy positions. Maybe this is why some of the political types are so immutable.

The Startle Reflex - Key to Your Politics - Time - 19 Sep 08

"The study, published in the Sept. 19 issue of the journal Science, involved 46 Nebraska residents with strong political convictions. Researchers examined the link between each participant's stated political views and his or her physiological response to a perceived threat in the lab. People with stronger measurable threat responses, the study found, tended to adhere to 'socially protective' political policies, or those that suggest more concern for preserving the social unit — for example, supporting the Iraq war and the death penalty but opposing abortion rights and gay marriage.

Researchers shied away from using labels such as conservative and liberal in their study, but they concede that volunteers who registered a heightened sense of threat also tended to subscribe to conservative attitudes. 'It's not that conservatives are 'fraidy-cats,' says Kevin Smith, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and one of the study's co-authors. 'It's that people who support socially protective policies — which, yes, can be interpreted as people taking a conservative position on those policies — are more sensitive to environmental threat.'"

They Can't Hep It!

Read an article in yesterday's Journal-Star about some local professors involved in matching up startle reflexes with political policy positions. Maybe this is why some of the political types are so immutable.

The Startle Reflex - Key to Your Politics - Time - 19 Sep 08

"The study, published in the Sept. 19 issue of the journal Science, involved 46 Nebraska residents with strong political convictions. Researchers examined the link between each participant's stated political views and his or her physiological response to a perceived threat in the lab. People with stronger measurable threat responses, the study found, tended to adhere to 'socially protective' political policies, or those that suggest more concern for preserving the social unit — for example, supporting the Iraq war and the death penalty but opposing abortion rights and gay marriage.

Researchers shied away from using labels such as conservative and liberal in their study, but they concede that volunteers who registered a heightened sense of threat also tended to subscribe to conservative attitudes. 'It's not that conservatives are 'fraidy-cats,' says Kevin Smith, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and one of the study's co-authors. 'It's that people who support socially protective policies — which, yes, can be interpreted as people taking a conservative position on those policies — are more sensitive to environmental threat.'"

John McCain - Slime Ball

Joe Klein and Elizabeth Drew, hardly left-wing radicals, call out McCain as an unprincipled man who has lost his honor.

John McCain and the Lying Game by Joe Klein - Time - 17 Sep 08

( Read more... )

"But these dreadful weeks should not be forgotten. John McCain has raised serious questions about whether he has the character to lead the nation. He has defaced his beloved military code of honor. He has run a dirty campaign."

How John McCain Lost Me by Elizabeth Drew - Politico - 18 Sep 08

"I have been a longtime admirer of John McCain. During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries I publicly defended McCain against the pro-Bush Republicans’ whisper campaign that he was too unstable to be president (aware though I was that he had a temper). Two years later I published a positive book about him, 'Citizen McCain.'"

( Read more... )

McCain’s caving in to this 'compromise' [on the Gitmo trials] did it for me. This was further evidence that the former free-spirited, supposedly principled, maverick was morphing into just another panderer – to Bush and the Republican Party’s conservative base."

"By then I had already concluded that that there was a disturbingly erratic side of McCain’s nature. There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges."

"McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man.

In fact, it’s not clear who he is."

John McCain - Slime Ball

Joe Klein and Elizabeth Drew, hardly left-wing radicals, call out McCain as an unprincipled man who has lost his honor.

John McCain and the Lying Game by Joe Klein - Time - 17 Sep 08

( Read more... )

"But these dreadful weeks should not be forgotten. John McCain has raised serious questions about whether he has the character to lead the nation. He has defaced his beloved military code of honor. He has run a dirty campaign."

How John McCain Lost Me by Elizabeth Drew - Politico - 18 Sep 08

"I have been a longtime admirer of John McCain. During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries I publicly defended McCain against the pro-Bush Republicans’ whisper campaign that he was too unstable to be president (aware though I was that he had a temper). Two years later I published a positive book about him, 'Citizen McCain.'"

( Read more... )

McCain’s caving in to this 'compromise' [on the Gitmo trials] did it for me. This was further evidence that the former free-spirited, supposedly principled, maverick was morphing into just another panderer – to Bush and the Republican Party’s conservative base."

"By then I had already concluded that that there was a disturbingly erratic side of McCain’s nature. There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges."

"McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man.

In fact, it’s not clear who he is."