Bush he came a visiting.......

Well, the Pres rolled through yesterday. It was in many ways a great pain in the butt as they kept closing roads as he moved around town. He spoke in the morning in front a a fervent crowd of supporters in the university gym and then later to a much smaller group at a Bed and Breakfast in town. (These folks obviously haven't heard that the American People no longer support him) They got abut 5000 people into the gym and turned probably another thousand or so away at the door. The fire marshal shut the doors before everyone with tickets got in. Several groups from area schools got turned away and the students were most unhappy.
They had designated a "Free Speech Zone" (isn't the whole of the US supposed to be a Free Speech Zone???) near the center of campus and protestors began gathering there early in the morning. Another smaller group of protestors and supporters of the Democratic incumbent in the congressional race ignored the FSZ and just set up on the sidewalk across the street from the gym where Bush was speaking. The main body of protestors marched without incident from their FSZ to they Gym where they chanted and yelled. At any rate no protestor here could complain that they were kept away from the Presidents line of travel.

Most of the protestors were pretty bland and brainless. How many times can you repeat "Bush Lied" (and unless they can prove he KNEW there were no WMDs than they can't honestly say he lied, just that he was wrong.) Other really stupid signs said things like "How many lives per gallon?" One somewhat humorous (to me at least, less so the Secret service I suspect) said "A Burning Bush isn't a Bad Idea" with a picture of the President on fire.

Here are a couple of pictures (yes, I resurrected my digital camera)


These are the larger section of protestors yelling mostly at the people waiting to get into the gym.



the motorcade. You can see protestors in the bottom right corner and I am standing in the midst of a smaller group taking the picture.

The New Jersey Supreme court yesterday ruled that Gay couples are entitled to the same rights as hetrosexual couples. I am sure that if I turn on the radio today a multitude of talkshow hosts will be telling me this is a step in the collapse of civilization. I don't get it. I really don't see the big deal. If my old friends from college, Michael and Alan were able to get legally married as opposed to the little "marraige" they had one day in their apartment,( I was the photographer) I don't think it would have led to the collapse of the social system. And I know that it would have no effect what so ever on marriages preformed in the church I attend.
So what the hell is all the howling about?

On a totally different topic here is a quote.

"This year has been one to forget, a black year. It's the most violent year in the last 50 years, and the acts are barbaric, bloody, with no trace of humanity."

Now is that a quote about the situation in Iraq? Nope that is the situation in Acapulco Mexico as stated by Jorge Valdez a police spokesman.
In a growing spiral of violence more than 1700 people have been killed this year in drug violence. The violence has included at least 24 beheadings, the kipnaping of top police officials and the death of at least 123 law enforcement officials including 2 judges and 3 prosecuters, some of whom were tortured to death.
Surprisingly enough, Mexican police say the violence is a sign of their success in fighting the drug cartels. they say that becasue so many top cartel leaders have been arrested the lower level members are now in an all out battle for playing field. they also may more and more police officers are actually trying to fight the crime instead of turning a blind eye to it ( my comment: and getting a bit of bribe, la mordita)and are getting killed for their efforts.
Awhile back I reported here on the dumping of several heads in a Bar in Uruapan. It turns out they were were meth dealers getting killed off by their rivals. They had been kidnapped from the mechanics shop they used as a front for their meth business and had thier heads sawed off with a bowie knife. (and yes, they were alive when it happened)
In Acapulco, the commander of a special police strike force and one of his officers were beheaded and their heads were stuck on the fence around the police station with a note encouraging the police to "learn respect". In another town a police station was attacked by 15 men armed wtih machine guns and a bazooka who were attempting to free two comrades arrested in abar fight the night before.

There are more tales of woe here that I care to go into today. Suffice it to say in the US we talk about a "Drug War" in Mexico and countries further south they are fighting it.

woe is me

Why woe, well my digital camera seems to have died. At any rate it doesn't come on when I push the button. I have tried a couple of different sets of batteries too, fresh from the recharger and no luck. I hate this because I have really gotten used to just driving around with it and taking pictures of whatever interesting catches my eye. I was looking forward to using it next week because Pres. George is coming to my neck of the woods to campaign for a Max Burns. I really don't care that much about seeing the President. It would be nice and all but I can live without it. I was hoping to get some pictures of protestors pro and con though. I am sure there will be some. He will be in a college town and that will supply some local opposition from the liberak members of the faculty to join the traveling roadshow of protestors. I suppose I could use my 35mm but then I have to get pictures developed and such. I have been spoiled.

On a different front, awhile back the Lancet, a British medical journal published a study they did showing that more than 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the war started. Of course this was leapt upon by the anti Bush blog forces as further evidence of his evil incompetence. Equally predictable were the responses from the administration and various conservative mouthpieces. These responses led to comments such as this

The man feels no compassion or empathy; he is empty. The number, from what I understand, is credible, and abominable.

and this

Thinking about that major intellect at work, scares me to death. He could barely stumble through his speech...saying that he didn't understand "fancy words"...just trying to play "the good ole boy" with an "aw shucks" attitude.

The mean & nasty calculation just makes me sick. Barf, Barf, Barf.

Both of these were comments posted hereBluegirl comments section
(if you read that now you will see my next point made there a couple of days ago)

Now it seems that Bush and his conservatives aren't the only ones saying that the Lancets numbers are non credible. The website http://www.iraqbodycount.org has released a large multipage press release calling the Lancets numbers into question. Their conclusion is that the Lancet's study was faulty and their data collection.

Incidentally, the Iraqibodycount.orgs body count at the moment of writing this was 49,157, a number that I frankly think is low considering the amount of sectarian carnage going on over there.
This response has gotten amazingly little press or notice from the blog world. Blue girls does VERY briefly touch on it in a quote from another blogger here.

People keep accusing me of being a Bush apologist or something. I didn't vote for the man in the last election. I think his social agenda is a disaster for the country and he has seriously blown the war in Iraq. But waving our hands in the air while bewailing his foolishness isn't going to help anything. Neither will looking at Iraq and saying "Oops, sorry 'bout this but we're going home now." That is just short sighted stupidity in my view.

Oh well

I was going to do a serious post today but came across this instead.

It seems the Oslo Natural History Museum is doing a exhibition on Homosexuality among animals. Among other displays are photos of male giraffes mounting each other and tow aroused male Right whales rubbing up against each other. They Also make a big deal about the Bonobo monkeys . (And if you don't know about these little sexual adventurers, well, go do research, I'm not going to go into their details now).

The Museum says

"Homosexuality is a common and widespread phenomenon in the animal world," says an exhibition statement.

"Not only short-lived sexual relationships, but even long-lasting partnerships; partnerships that may last a lifetime."

A zoologist who helped put the exhibit together admits there is a "political motive"

What fun......

The Cyborgs are coming....

Actually, if you want to get technical they are already here and have been for quite awhile. After all, what is the definition of a cyborg?

Cyborg: a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.

Guess what pacemakers are? But we are way beyond pacemakers and insulin pumps now. I was listening to NPR again the other day and they were talking about Cochlear Implants which are done to enable the severely deaf to hear and the upcoming ability to do retinal implants to enable the blind to see. Now folks, when we start hardwiring the ability to see or hear into people's brains we are in the land of the Cyborg. Of course now the technology is limited. They say with a cochlear implant you can hear but it isn't really hearing the same sounds and with the retinal implants you get a sort of very low res black and white view of things. But technology improves and these will too. Now my question is how long before someone decides to tweak their system? Instead of a cochlear implant that picks up the normal register of sound why not expand it's range into the ultra or subsonic? Retinal implants that pick up infrared in additon to (or instead of) standard vision?
The world of Anime cyborgs may never exist but we are getting closer to it all the time. They even have artificial limbs now that are connected to the nerves that used to control the natural limb.
Things are going to get more and more interesting and I love it. I suspect the real advances on modifications will not be made in the US but in Asia. The US has too many regulations about stuff like that. But it is coming, you may just hav to go to Taiwan, or Hong Kong to get it......

Plots

I have come across a new conspiracy theory. Or at least it was new to me. It seems the Bush government wants to eliminate US sovereignty and form the North American Union with Canada and Mexico. (Don’t ask me how anyone plans on convincing the Canadians or the Mexicans to join into this idea.) The means they are going to use to accomplish this is a huge international superhighway that will run from southern Mexico, up to link into the US Interstate Highway system then up into Canada and over to the west coast. It seems pretty far fetched to me. I can actually see the highway system (which is a real plan) as a good benefit to trade. There are some problems with the idea though, for example getting Mexican semis to meet US safety and emission standards if they are going to cross the border hauling goods. I don’t see a lot of hope for this highway considering the current rabid phobia of all border crossers from the south though.
As conspiracies go this one is a bit of a stretch in my opinion but hey, at least it is new. We have to admire folks who come up with new ideas instead of rehashing all the old black helicopter/UFO/JFK/Tri-lateral commission ones.


The Evil Plan

George Soros

I heard an interesting interview this evening on NPR as I was driving home. George Soros, the bane of all conservative Republicans was being interviewed by John Podesta. I found it interesting not that Soros took his expected anti George bush stance but that he expressed some very Bushian ideas. For example, Mr. Soros said that it was a legitimate use of force to remove a tyrant from power. In fact, he implied that if that had been the reason for the invasion of Iraq there would have been a lot more legitimacy for it. He stated (paraphrased) that the botched invasion of Iraq made the use of force to remove other repressive tyrants much more difficult. He used Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe as an example. He also said that a unilateral and immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster. We could not withdraw until there was some form of legitimate government that could effectively rule the country. He stated that if we withdrew now, the rampant chaos that is seen in Baghdad would spread across the country causing a total collapse of the Iraqi society. This collapse could very likely lead to a major regional war as the Sunni nations to Iraq’s west supported the Sunnis in Iraq while Iran to the east supported the Shiites. I was a bit surprised that he didn’t mention the absolute chaos that would erupt if in the midst of this collapse the Kurds in Iraq’s north declared their independence; an action that would draw an immediate and strong military response from Turkey at the least.
It was overall a much more interesting interview than I expected it to be.

Thump Thump Thump

That is the sound of my head smacking against a wall every time I read, hear, or see more drivel about Mark Foley. You know, I really don't care.

On a different topic, I suppose all of you have heard of the Nigerian Scam where they want to transfer money to you and then drain your account? Well I got a new version today from the former lover of Rafik Hariri the assassinated Prime Minister of Lebanon. She wants me to invest money from Hariri's secret account for her and their illegitimate children. I wonder how they expect me to believe that they just chose me at random from all the people out there to handle their money. Of course it works because someone will think, sure, what have I got to lose? Then they lose a lot.

but I thought it was an interesting new twist to to the scam to play this way.

I had someone link into my blog from Iran yesterday. And they came from the link on Zombie Skayer's old page. (I miss him) Interesting.

Wow, just GOT REALLY bad news in my email. For those of you who read his blog ThreeScore and Ten or more is on vacation in Finland and his wife seems to have had a heart attack and is undergoing open heart surgery.

Suddenly I am no long in the mood to write what I was going to do. More later.