Skepticalsinner’s Weblog

In case you hadn’t seen, there have been additional profane comments from Jesse Jackson on presidential nominee Barack Obama

http://www.hulu.com/watch/26185/late-night-with-conan-obrien-jesse-jackson-71008

How scary is that? Now what excuse will you have for watching it….

Find out more over at my main blog.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

What a finale!

If you haven’t seen it – don’t forget you can watch it on hulu.com 

The final two were Christina, a 23 year old Culinary Student from MO, and Petrozza a 47 year Catering Director from NC.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you can see it over at Hulu.com, because **spoilers** will follow. … more

Greetings to all you fine friendly folks. Hope you had a good 4th of July, it was a Friday, so hopefully any non-Americans enjoyed it too.

Been busy playing Space Empires V – busy is the wrong word, wasting time in an enjoyable fashion is much more appropriate. If you’ll recall, I already shared my disdain for Masters of Orion 3 – SE V is definitely the spiritual successor.

Its a 4 X game which means you Xplore, Xterminate and X-ray peoples baggage at the airport – not sure what the fourth X is for, but its a turn based strategy with Galactic conquest …more

I came across two excellent opinion pieces.

One from the LA Times 
“The United States’ so-called war on drugs brings to mind the old saying that if you find yourself trapped in a deep hole, stop digging. Yet, last week, the Senate approved an aid package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America, with a record $400 million going to Mexico and $65 million to Central America.
The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition — with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind.”

And One from Matt Hutchens from the MPP
“For almost forty years, America has been engaged in a war which has cost us trillions of dollars and ruined the lives of millions of our citizens. We have been fighting against drugs in a street war across the country. The definition enemy combatant has changed through the course of this conflict, first encompassing only the smugglers and distributors, then growing to include users, and now reaching beyond our borders to the farmers in the developing world who produce the source crops. Today we are told that all these parties are contributing to the forces of Terror, and that the whole chain of enemy forces is complicit in a conspiracy against us. If this were true, though, wouldn’t we disarm our enemies by taking control of the economic forces that are the source of their power?”

Prohibition fails. Prohibition puts money in the hands of those who have no disregard for law, order, decency or justice. That money isn’t taxed, or accounted for. It’s laundered and used to buy guns. It’s used to corrupt law enforcement officers. It’s used …more

Soon to be followed by .duh

According to CNN http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/06/25/domain.names/index.html

Apparently the most sought after domain name in this new land grab is going to be “dot.sex”
The least popular? I’m not sure, but my prediction: “ionlyhave.sex”

First I thought I was ambivalent about this decision but …more

In McCain’s open to the public townhall meeting, a 61 year-old woman was arrested cited for trespassing on orders from the McCain security detail for carrying a sign that read McCain=Bush.  Carol Kreck received a ticket and her court date is set for July 23.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/7/18337/07170/283/547890

Wow - watched the video, she was cited for “tresspassing” on City Property (that she pays taxes for) carrying a sign, non-violent, peaceful expression of opinion. …more

Both, apparently, found this story on Rush Limbaugh’s site.

“Just yesterday — this is not anything that hasn’t happened before but it just continued to happen. Just yesterday, we learned that owners of land will not be able to develop it in Montana because of a grouse, a grouse population.  The ultimate aim is to get the grouse put on the endangered species list so the owners of that property can’t do diddly-squat with it.  There’s oil underneath that land, and there’s an opportunity for developers to make residential areas out of it or what have you.  So there are people active in this country, doing everything they can to destroy the country’s ability to grow, to remain prosperous, and to remain a superpower.”

For those of you, like me, who prefer their news without frothing, the Denver Post has a more complete story here: http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_9589531

Short summary: The departing Bush administration are trying to open up more oil drilling sites in Montana, Colorado and Utah. Many of these sites are home to dwindling populations of native species, and as such, development of this land has environmentalists deeply troubled.

What it comes down to is we either break our dependence on oil or we break a few eggs to continue …more

Reuters are reporting the New York Post has sources that state Jeffrey Immelt, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Multinational super conglomerate conglamarate conglamorous Corporation General Electric (NYSE:GE) has 6 months to shape up or ship out.

Jeff’s come under a lot of heat for two major reasons. One: GE’s stock has been flat since Immelt took over from infamous CEO Jack “Neutron Jack” Welch and Two: Slipping up on an earnings estimate that was “in the bag”.

How does Jeff attempt to redeem himself? …more

I found the original suggestion at http://www.emaxhealth.com/24/23009.html

But it was sourced from http://jaxconservativeradical.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-way-to-fund-medicare.html

emaxhealth haven’t approved my reply yet (Shock) but I visited the Jax and shared my opinion on his epiphany.

He writes:

“I have an idea where the Congress can discover some of the money needed to keep funding the medicare program at it’s present level.
Congress spends the following amounts of your tax dollars supporting America’s own genocide, abortion!
In 2003, Planned Parenthood Federation of America extinguished the lives of 244,628 unborn babies — making the organization more deadly than leukemia, brain cancer, skin cancer, diabetes, car accidents, Alzheimer’s disease, and HIV/AIDS combined.”

He also quotes some impressive dollar amounts that the US Government have paid to planned parenthood

“2003-2004 … $ 35.2 million in tax money
2002-2003 … $ 36.6 million in tax money
2001-2002 … $ 12.2 million in tax money
2000-2001 … $ 38.9 million in tax money
1999-2000 .. $ 59.5 million in tax money
1998-1999 … $125.8 million in tax money
1997-1998 … $ 42.1 million in tax money”

Source: JaxConsertive – I haven’t attempted to verify the information, it’s moot as far as I’m concerned. Here is my reply:

“And if these operations were paid for by the government, meaning that the women undergoing the procedure were unable to, the tax payers would no doubt have carry the cost of those unwanted children over a course of 18 years. ….more