Pre-crime doesn't pay for Texas State Legislators.

Saw this here.

Are We Gods To Them?

I've never heard of this, but apparently others have:

...as I was about to step out the door, I looked down and there was a dead baby kitten on our mat. The mama cat is wild and has never let us anywhere near her. A couple of hours later my hubby went to take out the trash and there was another dead kitten in the same place. He buried them out in the field. I just went outside for a smoke, and there is another one, that makes three.

My question is, since the mama cat is wild, why would she keep bringing her dead babies and putting them on our doorstep? Is that normal for cats?

So one commenter had a thought, which occurred to me as well:

Mother cats can be clearly seen to actually *care* (emotionally) for their kittens, and will fight to the death to protect them, and will risk death to save them - anybody remember "Scarlet" the fire-cat?

Why this mom-cat would bring her dead kittens to your door... hard to tell. Possibly she thinks that you might be able to bring them back.

Wow. Just realized what a heartbreaking thought *that* is.

So these are the dumpy men who run North America.

WaPo has a look at Catholic efforts to recruit more young, American, priests and nuns.

Young people who are into social activism love humanitarian causes. Perhaps if the Church focused on its no-war/no-death penalty positions, and downplayed the sex and abo stuff, they might make in-roads.

Then again, social activism in the U.S. often (predominately?) consists of positions well to the right of the rest of the West.

Anyone else think it's (shall we say, unfortunate) that LA Public Schools, which have an absentee rate approaching 50%, seem to be at the center of this whole illegal immigration rights walkout phenomenon? Saturday marching -- fine. Have it at it. But this walking out during school, and out of schools that can barely keep their students to begin with, isn't so cool.

But that's just me. I'm a gringo.

Well, when the good ol' US of A is not creating an unholy alliance of gays, Arabs, and illegal aliens to bash meek little atheists, we're riding a free market economy to heights France can only dream of. Ah, France. It's easy to bash, but let's not (They're good at sharing terror intelligence, ya know).

Instead, let's read this WaPo opinion column on the country's current labor woes.

When you ask French university students who is the Bill Gates of France, they look at you blankly. It's not simply that they can't name one. The bigger problem is that they can't imagine why it matters, or why that has anything to do with why they can't find a good job.

Of course, if you ask an American student about Bill Gates, he'll blame the plutocrat for a crappy DVD drive in his Xbox that keeps breaking. Goddamit, Bill. I've never had a videogame system break until I got yours. Honestly, what a gyp.

In repsonse to Alex's post below, here's what I psoted on Begum: Yeah, what amuses me about the whole thing is that I have a lot more respect (unsurprisingly, I guess) for the values system of a secular humanist (atheist) who has those values for their own sake, rather than because of a fear of hell or any such thing.

Obviously you judge everyone on their own merits, and there are amoral religious folk just as there are amoral atheists, and both sometimes (often?) use their belief systems as a justification for their actions. But when you come to truly moral people, aren't those whose code represents deeply held personal beliefs of goodness and charity in and of themselves far more respectable?

Also, enjoy this quote from former president George HW Bush:

Robert Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

George H.W. Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

But let's forget about that, and enjoy this news item:
Nude Britney Spears Serves As Pro-Life Monument

Yay! I'm part of the most distrusted group in America.

Iran's head cleric/woman-keeper-in-placer says direct talks with U.S. are cool. I think they're cool, too. Hah. Alex in favor of talking with Iran? Indeed. I'm with Christopher Hitchens on this one. The half-drunk Brit intellectual makes a great case here, emphasizing that contrary to what most foreign policy folks think, Iran ain't nearly as "crazy" as Saddam was.

I think we all know what a fetus looks like. If you really want women to have second-thoughts about an abortion, show them the vagino-vac.

Two of my favorites, Charles Krauthammer and Andrew Sullivan, debate homosexuality, gay marriage, and polygamy. Both make excellent points.

The libertarian in me wants to be cool with polygamy, but the conservative Republican in me knows that the way rural Americans practice polygamy makes it de facto slavery for the women and children. And The Party of Lincoln ain't cool wit dat.

I will say this, though: Putting aside all issues of gayness' origins, as a person who admires legal consistency, I cannot see you how you can legalize gay marriage and *not* legalize polygamy. In a strict constitutional sense.

Nothing says I love you like secretly tracking your wife, girlfriend, or daughter, through a satellite transmitter in their panties!

Welcome to the future. It's fucked up here.

Nobody died and nobody even got beat up (physically), but that was easily the most depressing, haunting BSG ep ever. The whole time I was watching mustachioed Adama and stringy hair Starbuck, I just kept thinking of the classic Spock line to a semi-retired, Kirk: "Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny."

At the end of Season 1 I was completely perplexed as to what season 2 would bring, though I had my ideas. When it comes to Season 3, my mind is wide frakking open.

So, NASA found liquid water on Saturn's tiny moon, Enceladus. This is a huge deal. Thankfully, it's also given birth to one of the funniest science-y jokes I've heard in a while. Well, it's actually not a science joke, more like a one-liner. I found it on the Fark.com thread.

Only way we're going to Enceladus is if we're bombed by Europa.

If you're into political blogs, this might make you run for the hills. Granted, it's no Amalgam Comics, but it's a start.

Yeah, yeah, oh boo. Get over it.

Anywho, I pretty much entirely agree with Kevin Drum that Dems should start pushing Universal Health Care the way Repubs push low taxes. ie who gives a crap if it will ever really happen or if it's fiscally viable, we believe in it so we'll constantly run on it and convince a bunhc of people along the way. Of course the difference is that UHC IS viable long term if we start working for it now.

I just want to comment on this: "Here's my guess: in private, I'll bet all of these gentlemen [2004 Dem Presidential aspirants] do acknowledge that a simple single-payer national healthcare plan is the best policy. But for tactical political reasons, they think it's more effective to talk about incremental solutions." With Howard Dean, bless his screamin' soul, you didn't have to guess. As I recall he straight out said "I want single payer care, but I don't think we'll get it right now, so here's my plan that I think we CAN get."

He's great.

Also if you want a constant stream of wonkery about health care in America and abroad then I highly reccomend Ezra Klein, formerly of Pandagon.

I was thinking today that in this never ending era of massive corporate buyouts and mergers and brand extensions, the roll call of personal electronics you own probably remain astonishingly diversified. Take me for example (or not, I suppose...)

I use AIM for chatting
I watch all my video downloads in Quicktime
I play videogames on my Xbox or Nintendo systems
I use a Motorola cell phone (American personal electronics, bay-beeeeee!)
Both my apartment's TV's are Phillips
My DVD player is Sony
I record my TV shows on a TiVo
My laptop is a Gateway
My AV switcher is a General Electric
Both phones are AT&T

I saw "V For Vendetta" last night. It's pretty great. I highly recommend the first trailer, from when they thought it would come out last November.

The movie is fairly faithful to the original work, with the some major changes, but I didn't mind, so they must have been doing something right. All in all it hits all the right notes, and is very well directed. Portman is good, Hugo Weaving is great, and even the minor characters are, as in the book, very fully drawn (no pun intended). My only major complaint is that I am just sick to death of slow mo action scenes, particularly fights. Hey, you know what's exciting? When things move fast! You know what isn't exciting? When things move slow. just sayin'.

Most importantly, for all the talk of how gutsy all of this year's Oscar nominees were, and how much courage it took to make this or that film, they all pale in comparison to "V." This movie is objectively pro-terrorist. In these times, in this climate, Wanrer Brothers released a movie that says, in no uncertain terms, "you know what? Sometimes the terrorists are right, and sometimes terrorism is all we have." Now that takes guts. Despite the movie taking place in Britain, and being very British, by the very end I was feeling incredibly proud to be an American. We rebelled, fought for our rights, and terrorised the shit out of the British, and I'm damn proud of it. Go terrorism!

Liberals are so stupid sometimes. Stupid and weak. Want to see something funny? Watch Matt Yglesias harp on Clooney for his Oscar acceptance speech:

"I worry, however, that George Clooney's "some say we're out of touch; I say we're better than ordinary Americans" acceptance speech is going to cost Democrats 2-5 seats in 2006."

Hilarious! You know what would be even funnier? If Democrats would stop pissing all over people they agree with and start defending them instead. How often do Republicans chastise the radical religious right? Not very often. And yet Clooney's speech, which was pretty much dead on accurate, about how often liberal Hollywood has been at the forefront of issues of race, class and gender, and maybe "out of touch" means "ahead of the curve" is grounds for reprisal? Every once in a while I would like to see other Democrats stand up and defend Hollywood. At least the film industry isn't afraid to stand up and be counted and put forward a liberal message, which is better than I can say for most Democrats.

Spineless. I'm ashamed.

Stanley Tucci gives an interesting performance in The Core. This should be discussed at some point.

Andrew Sullivan sees the Dubai Ports Imbroglio (not to mention illegal immigration) as a massive opening for the Dems. I agree. The far left in this country has been creeping toward isolationism and nativism for some time. If such sentiments can be packaged in a less alarming, more common sense-y way, big gains can be had. This also seems to jive with what Glenn Reynolds keep harping on: The Dubai thing is a "tipping point" in U.S./Muslim relations.

If a Dem President in a time of war with Arab interests, made a deal with other Arab business interests, and Republicans criticized, they'd be called close-minded racists and blablabla. But -- since it's otherwise bland Dem senators calling out Bush on his bizarro brand of free market multiculturalism, it's officially okay for Americans to reveal that, you know what, we don't trust Arabs, we don't think Islam's a "religion of peace" and we're sick of all "their" bullshit. Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer and some of the farthest left senators in Congress have done more to channel/understand what those dastardly, usually-GOP-voting heartland hicks have been thinking, than any Demo think tank/polling firm/demographic study could ever muster.

UPDATE

I'm not saying that Boxer et al are themselves bigoted. Just that latent bigoted emotions in everyday Americans are given legitimacy by the institutionalized fears of the other (in this case, Mideast Arabs).

I think it's important for everyone to know that there is actually something called a "murder hole." Just ask wikipedia.

Man, the things you learn when you're researching ceilings.

Missourri might get an official religion (Christianity, duh!)

What with Montana's abortion ban and now this I think we might be hitting the far end of our national lurch to the right. Sadly it isn't with any conservative views I can respect like balanced budgets or civil liberties, but rather with this cultural nonsense that I just hate hate hate. Anyway, I think pursuing this sort of thing will probably start the pendulum swinging back to the left. Most people really aren't going to stand for abortion being totally illegal and I hope that most people also see that an official religion is, you know, against the whole freedom of religion thing.

Here's a breakdown of the never released, hilarious sounding Penn and Teller non-game from the mid-1990s. Some of the mini-games include:

Desert Bus: In which you drive a bus from Tuscon to Las Vegas in real time at a speed that does not exceed 45 mph. Completeing this part takes eight hours and you're rewarded with one point.

Warp Zones: Anytime you talk to a guy selling hot dogs you warp to NYC. For no reason.

Nail Gun: One of the missions has you killing a tiger with a nailgun.

But my favorite "feature" is the pause:

When you pause the game, it shows a two minute-long, completely unskippable movie of Penn & Teller eating pizza in silence. And then you regain control.