"Won't You Blog About This Song?"

You betcha.

Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Space Elevator

Building such an enormous structure would probably require treaty-level negotiations with the international community, for example. A $10 billion price tag, however, isn't really extraordinary in the economics of space exploration. NASA's budget is about $15 billion a year, and a single shuttle launch costs about half a billion dollars.

I want one of these, I really, really do, but the U.S. government couldn't buy a Coke for that much money, and "probably require treaty-level negotiations with the international community?" Statements like those make the whole thing look much more improbable than anything to do with the science. And, what happens if it falls down?! But I still really want one. A lot. Did you see the pictures? I want one.

Dukakis Looked Better

November 1st Pic of the Day. For comparison purposes, the governor in a tank.

European Emotions

“Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”

Well, of course not. The proper European reaction to Auschwitz isn't outrage, it's shame. It's no wonder the Europeans choose to focus on US "outrages," they have to distract themselves from what would otherwise be a crippling sense of their own heinous moral failing. Good on Tom Lantos for calling them on it.

Fred on Healthcare

The former U.S. Senator from Tennessee talks sense:

A lot of people don’t seem to have noticed but, in recent years, the grand experiments in bureaucratic medicine are coming apart at the seams. Nearest home, it was the Canadian Health Care system that lost its luster. Despite paying nearly half their incomes in taxes, and as much as 40 percent of each tax dollar on health care, many Canadian experts have recognized that their health care system’s in a state of crisis.

Now, top officials of the British National Health Service, often held out as an example of the kind of socialized medicine America should adopt, have acknowledged that they have similar problems. One in eight National Health Service hospital patients has to wait more than a year for treatment. Thirty percent wait more than 30 weeks. The poorest Americans are getting far better service than that.

The Mama's own experience with the British NHS has been horrible. My grandmother, then in her late 70's, was hospitalized after a bad fall requiring surgery. I tried to call her to cheer her up. When I reached the nurses station on her floor I was told I couldn't talk to her.

"Why not?"

"Because she isn't in a room."

"You mean she went home?"

"No. We're a bit crowded here. We had to put her in the passageway."

"The what?"

"Between the rooms."

"In a bed?"

"Well of course. What else would she be in?"

"Why can't I speak to her?"

"There's no phone out there."

"Can't you take it over to her?"

"It won't reach."

"When will she be in a room?"

"Not likely she will be. It's very crowded here."

Naturally, she developed a post-surgical infection while in the hospital. Other family experiences with the NHS have been just as bad. In fact, except for childbirth, I don't think there has been a good experience.

If we are too quick to litigate here, and we are, being reasonably free from litigation has done nothing to improve bedside manners or service of healthcare providers in the UK.

And for those who think the Canadian system would be better than what we have, here's a link found in Fred's comments: http://www.onthefencefilms.com/video/deadmeat/ Watch the whole thing.

The Daughter Is An Adult!

Well, she's 18 and can vote now, which is sorta like being an adult. In honor of this momentous occasion, I've added Fred Thompson's fund raising link. So far, Fred's the only candidate who doesn't give me that "yeah, but..." feeling. Fred on immigration:

"No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. … We should scrap this "comprehensive" immigration bill until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."

Son of a Geek

And a righty in the music business. Glenn and Helen have a podcast with the Anti-Dixie Chick, John Ondrasik (Five For Fighting). Listen, then go and make a video for his new charity, What Kind of World Do You Want?

You Want More Trees? Waste More Paper

This one's just for The Daddy -- Charles Johnson links to Penn and Teller's show on recycling.

Honest Work

Mark Krikorian has this post at the Corner on the Republican candidates weakness on immigration. Read the whole thing.

According to a congressman's wife who attended a Republican women's luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president's amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

There should be no need to explain why this is an obscene statement coming from a leader in the party that promotes the virtues of hard work, thrift, and sobriety, a party whose demi-god actually split fence rails as a young man, a party where "respectable Republican cloth coat" once actually meant something. But it does seem to be necessary to explain.

Rove's comment illustrates how the Bush-McCain-Giuliani-Hagel-Martinez-Brownback-Huckabee approach to immigration strikes at the very heart of self-government. It is precisely Rove's son (and my own, and those of the rest of us in the educated elite) who should work picking tomatoes or making beds, or washing restaurant dishes, or mowing lawns, especially when they're young, to help them develop some of the personal and civic virtues needed for self-government. It's not that I want my kids to make careers of picking tomatoes; Mexican farmworkers don't want that either. But we must inculcate in our children, especially those likely to go on to high-paying occupations, that there is no such thing as work that is beneath them.

The idea that there is work that Americans won't do is un-American, and it's been painful to watch Republican leaders embrace it. The Democrats, who seem to be running because they're pretty (except for Senator Clinton, who's running because she isn't pretty) are just as bad.

It's hard to believe, but we stand a very good chance of having to choose between two people for President who both think there's no real reason not to flout the nation's laws on immigration, and who both believe that the nation is made up of elitist snobs who prefer not to let themselves or their children get dirty whilst making a living. I am afraid that may ultimately be very destabilizing for both our security and our character.

Another Hat in the Ring

Former Arkansas governor and fitness guru Mike Huckabee has entered the race for the presidency. "He's not a doofus" says The Piano Teacher, who has met him. She's right, of course, but he is a Creationist. It remains to be seen whether the media can tell the difference.

I hope he makes a good run at it, not only because it might help force Guiliani to the right on guns (assuming Guiliani runs), but also because a pro-life, pro-gun (he has his own concealed carry permit), pro-flat tax, fiscal conservative, Creationist, Southern Baptist Minister is just the absolute worst nightmare of 90% of the talking heads. It's going to be so much fun watching them!

Dick Cheney vs. Nancy Pelosi: The Blink-Off

Quoth The Daughter "Someone's allergic to her eye make-up."

Wedding Thriller Dance

Okay, this is way better that everybody doing the electric slide, but by the time you can get something like this together for your wedding party it'll be sooo over...

Gladys Hardy on The Ellen DeGeneres Show

So cute.

You Can't Do This

And if you can, should you?

Small Yappy Dog to be Supreme Leader

Venezuela continues its long, slow national suicide.

The Woman in the Mirror

They've got Hillary Clinton's number over in mirror-world, and they aren't impressed.

The Great Black Hope

James Taranto has a nice piece about the latest foolishness surrounding Barack Obama. Read the whole thing, then scroll down and read "Obama's Racial Obsessions" as well, which contains this little gem:

Obama wrote that in high school, he and a black friend would sometimes speak disparagingly "about white folks this or white folks that, and I would suddenly remember my mother's smile, and the words that I spoke would seem awkward and false."

As a result, he concluded that "certain whites could be excluded from the general category of our distrust."

"Certain whites" being his mother. Pretty open-minded for an adolescent, really.

Remember when everybody knowing your name qualified you for the barstools at Cheers, not the Oval Office?

Another One Bites the Dust

Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law, and terrorist financier extraordinaire, has been killed in Madagascar. I think the President oughta start celebrating these NASCAR fashion, jumping up on top of his desk and spraying the cabinet with cheap champagne.

Maybe when they catch Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, who, by the way, still wants to kill you. And everyone you've ever met.

Cruise Ship Runs Aground in Antarctic

Best Vacation Ever. Seriously. If you're the sort of person who would vacation in the antarctic, which The Mama most definitely is, then running aground on Deception Island and having to be transferred to another ship while the HMS Endurance stands by only makes the whole thing that much sweeter. I am sooooo jealous.

Shooting a Dead Spy

It seems an elite Russian security agency has been using photos of Alexander Litvinenko for target practice. Their spokesman explained thus:

"We did not shoot at Litvinenko, we shot at a target."

Well, of course not. Litvinenko wasn't shot, he was poisoned. Duh.

It all seems so amateurish. James Bond would never waste bullets on a dead guy.

The Eiffel Tower Goes Dark

For five minutes. On Thursday night.

As part of a campaign to save energy and draw attention to the plight of the planet.

Which sorta makes "French Energy Conservation" seem a lot like "French Military Restraint."

Ann Coulter: I Am Woman, Hear Me Bore

Love her or hate her, Ann has a way of saying things...

Girl-power feminists who got where they are by marrying men with money or power -- Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington and John Kerry -- love to complain about how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously.

It has nothing to do with their being women. It has to do with their cheap paths to power. Kevin Federline isn't taken seriously either.

I wish certain people would listen to her, at least about this, so the rest of us could get back to being real feminists.

Guitar Heroes, Nonvirtual Varient

CityRag has the 20 greatest guitar solos ever, with video.

These guys play guitars with strings.

Burma! He Said Burma!

I was very pleased to hear President Bush mention Burma in his State of the Union speech last night.

And we will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus, and Burma - and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur.

He put it right up there with Darfur, and Castro's colon. I knew I liked this president. This guy was a little less pleased. He felt the president should have talked about New Orleans instead.

One of these days, lord forbid, a dirty bomb or a horrible storm will get a clean hit on another patch we call home. Lives will be lost, people’s careers will be disabled and they will beg for the help of their fellow Americans. Hopefully, when that happens, the President will not be giving the same speech he gave only one week before about a war we never should have engaged. Hopefully, the President will remember that America might have the heart of gold, the best of intentions abroad, but that the people of this nation who make up that land of the free and home of the brave are not slaves to the President’s obsession with saving countries that are hardly on the map.

Burma? President Bush. You are really a fool.

Pretending, for a moment, that we've heard nothing of stolen and abused federal funds for Katrina victims, and that the local governments involved were not completely useless, I still feel that it's at least a little more important to draw attention to, and try to rally world opinion to stop, genocide than it is to reinforce levees around flood plains so that people can rebuild in said low-lying areas.

Here's what Bishop Tutu thinks about Burma:

The retired South African archbishop urged the Security Council to take action against the military regime of the South-east Asian country, in a 2005 report written with fellow Nobel laureate and former Czech President Vaclav Havel.

"I am deeply disappointed by our vote. It is a betrayal of our own noble past. Many in the international community can hardly believe it. It is inexplicable," Tutu said in an e-mail no Saturday to the Associated Press.

In its first vote since it secured a non-permanent seat on the Security Council last year, South Africa joined China and Russia in opposing the resolution proposed by the United States and backed by Britain and France.

I'm with Tutu and Vaclav Havel.

Save the Christians! Save the Karens!

Stick, Stones, Names

Isaiah Washington entered rehab this week in the aftermath of his Using of a Bad Word (twice).

Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington has entered a residential treatment facility in an effort to quell the controversy surrounding his anti-gay remarks — and save his job, Life & Style has learned exclusively.

According to an insider, Isaiah, who issued an apology for his statements on Jan. 18, agreed to undergo a psychological assessment after talks with ABC executives.

The married 43-year-old father of three was spotted entering the facility at 9 a.m. today (Jan. 24).

Note that absolutely no addictive behaviour is mentioned.

We here at The Mama strongly disapprove of consigning people to rehab for purposes of publicity. We feel it makes people inclined to take rehab less seriously. In addition, being sent to rehab by one's employers for something one has said surely tends to inhibit freedom of expression, which We thought was necessary for creative enterprises such as a TV show (but We are left-brained, so, whatever). Further, we feel that the employer-employee relationship is by its very nature somewhat coercive, and that it would therefore be preferable to limit employers to firing serious offenders, rather than allowing them to suggest that the employee have his or her mind reprogrammed by strangers. In short, We find the whole thing doubleplusungood.

Way doubleplusungood. Even for Really, Really Bad Words.

Liz Cheney Takes on the Wimps

She says Hillary Clinton has no "spine" when it comes to Iraq. Senator Clinton lately seems to be justifying her vote for the Iraq war in an if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now kind of way, but she won't have that excuse for her current actions. Ms. Cheney is telling her now how it is:

"In fairness, Clinton, with her proposal for arbitrary caps on troop levels and hemming and hawing about her vote for the war resolution, has company on both sides of the aisle," Cheney wrote.

"Let's be clear: If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists," she wrote.

Good for Liz!

Running Silent

Jeff Jacoby's latest.

Barack Obama launched his exploratory committee with an online video that mentioned the economy, healthcare, vanishing pensions, college costs, and the fractiousness of partisan politics. His only nod to national security was a passing reference to the war in Iraq, which he opposes. But 9/11 and its aftermath? The worldwide jihad? The global conflict between democratic freedom and Taliban-style repression? Not a word.

Hillary Clinton's highly praised kickoff video likewise included nothing about the overriding threat of our time. Her website does contain a speech she gave at the Council on Foreign Relations last October, but it is filled with vague rhetoric about diplomacy and international conferences and how we must address the "troubled conditions terrorists seek out." New Yorkers don't need to be told "that we are in a war against terrorists who seek to do us harm," Clinton says. But if she recognizes that the future of the civilized world depends on winning that war, she shows little sign of it.

Not to give proper place to the defining challenge of our generation is a terrible kind of cowardice. I can only hope that, for the sake of us all, they do a quick gut-check and take on terrorism in a substantive way.

Note to candidates: your guts are not located anywhere near the latest polls.

For the Daughter

'Cuz I know she just can't wait...

This Is Your Spider, This Is Your Spider on Drugs

Any questions?

Stand Up, Or, Um, Sit Down for What You Believe In

But make sure you know how the elections are going to go first.

Tom Rawles is a Mesa City Councilman who's sitting out the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of council meetings.

Rawles said he has been thinking about making such a protest for about five months. But he wanted to see how the congressional elections and Bush's reaction to the Iraq Study Group report played out before making a public protest.

Because the congressional elections had a big effect on his conscience?

RIP Australian Multiculturalism

Australian leader John Howard has changed the name of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Multiculturalism was first adopted by Canada's government in 1971 to address the clash of French and English cultures.

But it was rapidly adopted around the world, including Australia where it replaced "assimilation" as the best way to accommodate the influx of migrants.

And it has worked so well for Canada.

One can only hope others will follow Mr. Howard's lead.

Peace in Our Time...

The Indonesians have decided to crack down on Jemaah Islamiyah, the terrorist group behind the Bali bombings, but this article in the Age (Australian) seems to feel that it would have been better to just ignore JI.

"This is a dangerous development," terrorism expert Sidney Jones told The Age yesterday.

"The ramifications could well be an energising of the jihadist movement, which in my opinion had been steadily weakening," said Ms Jones, the Jakarta-based director of the International Crisis Group.

Because, if you ignore them, they'll just go away. Or at least be merely "sporadic."

Rassyah was trained in terrorism in the same class in Afghanistan as Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, one of three bombers on death row who carried out the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 82 holidaying Australians. He apparently turned up in Poso in 2004.

Since then, Islamic extremists in the town have been blamed for sporadic bombings, beheadings, shootings and other attacks, which prompted the Government in Jakarta to authorise the US and Australian-trained Detachment 88 anti-terror squad to go to Poso to crack down on them. The policeman killed on Monday was from the squad.

What's a few beheaded school girls between friends?

First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Karens

Especially the Christian Karens. I anxiously await the world-wide outrage, wall-to-wall media coverage, and UN condemnation one would reasonably expect for such a blatant case of religious and ethnic cleansing.

Okay, I'm not all that anxious, but that's just because I'm left-brained. I'm sure the media will, logically, want to cover this just as seriously as they do the Middle East or Darfur or Castro's colon.

Blue Monday

Today was supposedly the saddest day of the year. Considering that you've obviously survived it, you probably don't need lessons in happiness from the world's happiest man, but if you do, you'll need to free up a little time:

MRI scans showed that he and other long-term meditators - who had completed more than 10,000 hours each - experienced a huge level of "positive emotions" in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with happiness. The right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts, is suppressed.

And work on becoming more left-brained.

For me, just knowing that all those preachy right-brained creative types are actually miserable makes me feel happier already. There's just something really right with a world where Einstein is likely to be a lot happier than, say, Alec Baldwin.

This Man Wants to Kill You

And he'd like to use a nuclear weapon to do it. He's al Qaeda's nuclear expert. He's been sighted in Mexico, Canada, South Florida and California recently. There's a 5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture.

You'd think the reward would be higher.

'Cuz Nice People Say F@6, Right?

Sheesh. Isaiah Washington stands accused of something -- homophobia? -- and something even worse -- using a mean word ending in -got. This is the third Using of Bad Words by a Celebrity lately, after Mel Gibson's direction of anti-Semitic slurs to the Jewish police officer who was arresting him and that guy from Seinfeld using anti-African American slurs to the African Americans who were teasing him while he was onstage. Why is this news? People who get in fights often say the meanest things they can think of with the express intent of deeply hurting the feelings of the person with whom they are fighting. I'm not defending the language, and I'm certainly not defending the sentiments embodied in the language, but I don't think it's fair to draw broad conclusions about people because of the things they say to a specific individual when they are angry. If Mel actually starts doing hateful things to Jews then we'll know he's an anti-semite; otherwise, he's just a drunken idiot who unimaginatively reached for the crudest possible tools in the midst of an argument. Same with the others. Breathlessly reporting their name calling only makes it seem worse than it is, and encourages those who are at risk of being called something really insulting (and who isn't?) that they've all suffered at the hands of Mel and Co. Is it really good for us to be that fragile?

Only to Be Expected

Muslim groups are protesting the portrayal of Muslim terrorists on 24.

"The overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims," said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations. She said Thursday she was distressed by this season's premiere.

"After watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because I wasn't sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between fiction and reality."

Yeah. Fox is being irresponsible in portraying Muslims as terrorists because, like, that never happens in real life, but this woman who's afraid to go to the grocery store, she's not over-reacting. She's totally rational, and we should give a lot of weight to her concerns, and maybe alter a cultural phenomenon because of them.

Meanwhile, approximately zero government agents have protested Jack Bauer's latest escape tactic, despite the fact that so few of them have ever ripped any one's throat out with their teeth. But they will. You know they will. They just need to get organized.

Magical Reality

If Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote this, we'd praise his beautiful imagination, but the guy who is actually doing it is just another nut case. Kinda unfair, really. Maybe he should say it's performance art.

We Really Are Going to Hell in a Hand Basket

Van Gogh sold only one painting while going slowly insane, but this artist is a hit in our time, which I'm thinkin' means we're putting wheels on the hand basket and greasing the track, but there was always a hand basket, and we were always in it.

Bad Journalism, Part 50 Kajillion

They've sort of, kind of, maybe found Jamil Hussein, the original source for that burned alive story that broke around Thanksgiving. But... his job didn't allow him to talk to the press legally; if the AP points him out, he'll be arrested. So, of course, they won't point him out. Which means the burning story, in addition to some 60+ others for which he was the sole source will have to go unquestioned. You know how it is.

Duke Lacrosse Case Hurting Basketball Recruiting

This comment on Don Surber's blog indicates that the current Duke turnaround may not be entirely sincere. Personally, I don't blame the kids and parents who refuse to look at Duke; I know I wouldn't want The Daughter going there. It's not just the way the lacrosse players have been treated, which is inexcusable, it's what has been revealed about the faculty and administration -- they've appeared to be racist, sexist, over-wrought, and snobbish, as well as the possessors of poor reasoning skills since I'm sure they think they can't be any of those things in relation to white male lacrosse players. It's not just that they didn't defend the players, or at least insist on proper due process, it's that they so clearly wanted them to be guilty. Why would anyone want their child educated by such hateful idiots?

Note: the original ad by the Group of 88 can no longer be found on the web page hosted by the Duke African American Studies department.

Up, Up and Away

Blue Origin is hiring (and making me wish I were working). They are trying to create spacecraft for tourist-type flights, aimed at people of normal means. Go here and watch all of the videos. I don't know if this is the wave of the future, but I sure hope so.

Be sure to watch the fisheye video of the landing.