Did Mitt Romney Have Help At The Florida Debate?

When I watched the Florida debate, Romney was asked if he would do the same thing that Ronald Regan did for social security (which was apparently, raising taxes). Right after the question was asked, I heard what appeared to someone whisper near Romney "raise taxes". I brushed it o ff as a whisper from one of the other candidates...but that does seem unlikely. Apparently everyone else heard it too, and now this story is getting a lot of press on the internet. Watch the video for yourself and see what you think. Was Romney getting help with his questions??

On another note, there's a lot of talk about how that the 'talk time' of the candidates was anything but equal. Here's the breakdown:

Total Times

Romney: 21:11, during 13 times
McCain: 16:00, during 13 times
Giuliani: 13:50, during 11 times
Huckabee: 12:11, during nine times
Paul: 6:31, during six times

So with Mitt Romney getting almost (3) times the 'face time' as Ron Paul, Romney 'won' the debate according to many analysts. Much of this was out of his control however, as the segment where candidates were allowed to ask each other questions, Romney was questioned more than once.

TSA Arrests And Searches A 5-Year Old (And His Mother) At SEA-TAC Airport

....because someone with his same name was on the no fly list. How many people in the world share the same name? Is this really all that they're using to check people??

This is the same organization that arrested (they call it 'detained', same thing....don't let the name fool you) Senator Ted Kennedy because someone had put a "T. Kennedy" on the list (that's no joke). That should make you feel really secure, especially now that the TSA will be arresting people for having the wrong facial expressions. Wonder what's next?

Link to Video News Story

Abusive Driver Fees Are Not Just For Cars

As Kajuan Cornish found out. He was issued a $1,050 fine for recklessly ridding his bicycle in Newport News, VA. Cited on 12/27/2007 for misdemeanor "Reckless Driving - Bicycle" under VA Code 46.2-852, he was eligible for the same abusive driver fees as everyone else. He was convicted in district court but appealed his conviction to circuit court on 1/10/2008.

I'll follow this one to see where it ends up.

Paul Begala Says Fox News Lied To The Public, Even After Knowing It was A Lie

Fox takes the lead in sucking after getting caught red handed (knowingly) pushing false information.

I think I've figured out what they mean by "We report, you decide." You get to decide if they're feeding you B.S. or not.

National Media Wakes Up To The Polling Problem

As I predicted, the polling error issue is becoming a big issue in 2008. Amazingly, the pollsters blew the Democratic vote for New Hampshire.

Candidate	Predicted % Of Vote (Rasmussen)	% of NH Vote	Within Margin of Error (95% confidence)?	% Difference
Barack Obama	37%	36%	Yes	-2.7%
Hillary Clinton	30%	39%	No	30.0%
John Edwards	19%	17%	Yes	-10.5%
Bill Richardson	8%	5%	No	-37.5%
Dennis Kucinich	3%	1%	Yes	-66.7%
Mike Gravel	0%	0%	Yes	0.0%

Generic OTC Omeprazole (Prilosec) Coming in 2008

Israeli pharmaceutical company Dexcel Pharma Technologies, has announced they will be producing generic Prilosec in 2008. The product will be exclusively marketed in the US by Perrigo, (PRGO) a major manufacturer of over-the-counter (OTC) generics for major retalilers (Wal-Mart, Target, etc)

Polling Results Vs. Real Results For The First Primary

Look at the predictions from Rasmussen (a highly respected pollster), versus the actual results. The margin of sampling error for this poll was +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Candidate	Rasmussen Poll 12/17/2007 (%)	Actual Result (%)	% Difference
Mike Huckabee	28	34	21.43
Mitt Romney	27	25	-7.41
John McCain	14	13	-7.14
Rudy Giuliani	8	3	-62.50
Fred Thompson	8	13	62.50
Ron Paul	6	10	66.67
Tom Tancredo	2	0	-100.00
Duncan Hunter	1	0	-100.00

Giuliani's, Huckabee's, and Thompson's results all fell outside of the margin of error. Paul was on the very edge of it.

The Time Has Come To End The Death Penalty

Last week a Texas man, Charles Chapman, was freed after spending 27 years in prison for a crime the state now admits he never committed. Sentenced to prison in 1981 for rape, it was DNA evidence that finally exonerated him. And DNA evidence is nothing new to Dallas County, the jurisdiction that convicted Chapman. In fact, since 2001 (15) wrongly convicted people have been released from this one county alone based on DNA evidence.

According to the Innocence Project, the first DNA based exoneration was in 1989 (PDF). Since that time there have been (192) people released from prison because the DNA evidence showed they were wrongly convicted. Fourteen of those wrongly convicted people had been sentenced to death. And those numbers are certainly just the tip of the iceberg.

It is now painfully clear that the debate about the likelihood of the government wrongly killing an innocent, wrongly convicted citizen has moved well beyond the academic. I fail to see how anyone, at this point, can support the death penalty when it is clear that justice not only makes mistakes, but does so frequently.

For the state to take away 27 years of someone's life is a horrific mistake. Killing them in error at this point, knowing what we now know, is nothing short of criminal.

The Best Radar Detector Hiding Spot

Uniden has announced they are introducing a GPS/Radar Detector combo. This makes hiding your radar detector a lot easer in places where you can't have them. Unfortunately, laser is making detectors more and more worthless as police convert to them.

I hope this doesn't spur police in places where radar detectors are illegal (like in Virginia, for example) to begin cracking down on windshield mounted GPS devices....It's already illegal to have one on your windshield in many of those states.

Legal Bizzarre: Don't Slander Virginia

Apparently, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, libel and slander only apply if the object of your lies is a woman. Be careful what you say to chaste Virginian belles.

§ 18.2-417. Slander and libel.

Any person who shall falsely utter and speak, or falsely write and publish, of and concerning any female of chaste character, any words derogatory of such female's character for virtue and chastity, or imputing to such female acts not virtuous and chaste, or who shall falsely utter and speak, or falsely write and publish, of and concerning another person, any words which from their usual construction and common acceptation are construed as insults and tend to violence and breach of the peace or shall use grossly insulting language to any female of good character or reputation, shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.

The defendant shall be entitled to prove upon trial in mitigation of the punishment, the provocation which induced the libelous or slanderous words, or any other fact or circumstance tending to disprove malice, or lessen the criminality of the offense.

(Code 1950, § 18.1-256; 1960, c. 358; 1973, c. 526; 1975, cc. 14, 15.)

But feel free to talk about the dirty ones all you want.

New York Times Get's Caught Lying...Again

The New York Times used be "all the news that's fit to print". Now it's mainly known for a continual stream of serious screw ups, ranging from bad fact checking to the publishing of outright lies.

Today comes word of the latest New York Times slander by way of yet ANOTHER fact-free article. In a blog piece published on the Times' website by the Virginia Heffernan,the NY Times published 'allegations' that Ron Paul is a Neo-Nazi. Where did these allegations come from? Apparently their only source was Bill White, the "Commander of the American National Socialist Workers' Party." The times is apparently so friendly with the American National Socialist Worker's Party, that there was no need to fact check this radical and sweeping allegation. No, instead they allowed it to be printed on their website verbatim.

The NY Times, after feeling the wrath of upset Paul supporters and realizing that the blog post bordered on slander/libel, published this "editor's note" (my emphasis added):

Editors' Note: The post below, which appeared on The Medium on Monday, contained several errors. Stormfront, which describes itself as a "white nationalist" Internet community, did not give money to Ron Paul's presidential campaign; according to Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Paul's campaign, it was Don Black, the founder of Stormfront, who donated $500 to Paul. The post also repeated a string of assertions by Bill White, the commander of the American National Socialist Workers Party, including the allegation that Paul meets regularly "with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review and others" at a restaurant in Arlington, Va. Paul never attended these dinners, according to Benton, who also says that Paul has never knowingly met Bill White. Norman Singleton, a congressional aide in Paul's office, says that he met Bill White at a dinner gathering of conservatives several years ago, after which Singleton expressed his indignation at the views espoused by White to the organizer of the dinner. The post should not have been published with these unverified assertions and without any response from Paul.

After 290 comments on the story, and this embarrassing story making the rounds on the Internet, the Times has closed the blog to comments. I'm sure it will be accidentally 'removed' from the website soon enough. So what will happen to Virginia Heffernan? My guess is absolutely nothing. I suspect the higher ups at the NY Times support her in her campaign to smear Ron Paul. She will just join the NYTIMES hall-of-fame-er Jayson Blair as the typical NY Times "reporter".

I guess that means Ron Paul is officially in the ridicule (read: smear) stage that Mahatma Gandhi so succinctly outlined: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win ."

Was Pseudoephedrine Maligned To Make A Corporation Rich?

Jeffrey A. Tucker at the Ludwig von Mises Institute has a fascinating short post about what may be the real reason Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) was moved behind the pharmacy counter as part of the Patriot Act.

Protectionism and My Stuffy Nose

Florida Woman Tasered For Being Loud And Obnoxious

A 35 year old Daytona Beach, Florida woman was Tasered in a Florida Best Buy for being loud, using profanity and exhibiting what police called "passive physical resistance".

Once again, this proves the point that the Taser is no longer being used in place of lethal force. It's being used as a primary tool of force to get people to comply. That would be fine, if people weren't frequently dying from this tool being used.

[Link to video of incident]

Google News Stories of the incident

Does Fox News Suck More Than CNN?

Well, I didn't think it was possible, but I think Fox is taking the lead in sucking. Take a look at this clip, where moron ex-Miss America Gretchen Carlson asks Ron Paul to play a word game.

Here's what she asks him @ 1:36 seconds

"OK...let me ah...do ah..a little kind of a situation with you here. I'm going to say a topic and if you can give me a one word response (sic). IRAQ-Mainstream Media- Immigration-War On Terror" (Watch Carlson's eye's light up after she finishes saying "IRAQ" at 1:43 seconds. It's like she just tied her shoes for the first time. I think she was just proud she could read all those big words, even though she's unable to speak in complete sentences.)

So why does Gretchen want to play the "Let's put a complex issue into one word" game? Perhaps it's because she can only ponder one word at a time. But I suspect it's more because she's been told that one word is the maximum that a Fox News audience member can grasp.

From what I can tell, that's correct.

To see how utterly ridiculous Fox News has become, take a look at this: Fox News Porn. You'd think it would be 'not suitable for work', but it's nothing but actual Fox News clips. Hilarious, but with a serious message - Fox News Sucks.

Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine - Complete Bullsh*t ??

- My two second review: Wi-Fi may in fact be bad for your health, but this study is so bad it appears to me to be a hoax.

A few weeks ago the news was abuzz with a story that linked wi-fi radiation with autism. At first I couldn't find the journal that the study was published in, but then a helpful reader pointed me to a PDF version. Originally I had intended to read the study "Wireless Radiation in the Etiology and Treatment of Autism: Clinical Observations and Mechanisms" and provide a layman's analysis of the study's methods and findings.

After reading it, I have to agree with the anonymous commenter to my original post. This study is such a huge steaming pile of pseudoscience. To save you from having to read the 5 pages of overview and pseudoscience blended with garbled scientific mumbo-jumbo, I will provide you with my brief notes:

This study looked at clearing of heavy metals from subjects. Study claims that exposure to heavy metals have been implicated as a cause of autism. Primary subject is diagnosed as autistic, and for the last 7 years has had "...a long history of difficulty in clearing metals...." (Whatever that means. Did they feed him heavy metals and see if he excreted them? How did they know his exposure level? And SEVEN YEARS of exposure?)

The idea was to measure heavy metals excreted in hair, feces and urine and determine if excretion increased in an electromagnetic frequency (EMF) free area. The hypothesis is that EMF causes heavy metals to be trapped in cells, thus leading to toxicity which presents itself symptomatically as autism (??? Nice theory, but why? Oh yes...the Thiomersal debate)

So the researches try to construct an EMF free zone by removing all wireless devices from "the building", requiring cell phones to be turned off (! What about the cell tower's radiation?...oh just wait....), installing EMR filters on electrical circuits and appliances, and (my personal favorite) the application of "...body worn sympathetic resonance technology, energy resonance technology and molecular resonance effect technology" WTF? is THAT?!? I had no idea what that was, so I looked it up.

It would appear that the "sympathetic resonance technology" they refer to is the Qlink, as they use that same phrase in marketing material. What is Qlink you ask? It's a fancy 'high-tech' version of a new-age 'crystal'. It appears at first glance to be, oh, complete and utter pseudoscience. It not only protects you from the dangers of electromagnetic fields, but it will also improve your golf game (I wish I were kidding, because that's freaking funny...My favorite quote from the golf video "No one ever thinks, hey you know what, this might be in my head"...uh ...yeah.)

The "molecular resonance effect technology" appears to be some sort of 'energized water' and something of the sort is patented! Energy resonance technology appears to be....ugh..some other crap I don't have time to wade through.

The bottom line, this study looks to me to be complete BS. It seems to prove nothing, other than the fact that the media will run with a story that they think will sell, regardless of its veracity.

It's a good reminder, that when you read that "A study has linked...blah blah blah" Unless you actually read the study, you never know what kind of morons might have 'conducted' it.

Here's more on this ridiculousness, and if you want to waste your life reading the study, have at it(PDF)

I Hear Whispers of The Polling Crisis

A story in the Associated Press today says that 2007 is likely to be the first year where Americans spent more money on cell phone bills than land line phones. A quote from the article:

"What we're finding is there's a huge move of people giving up their land line service altogether and using cell phones exclusively," said Allyn Hall, consumer research director for market research firm In-Stat.

Yup. I'm one of those people. I know many others. And no one with just a cell phone is being polled. As I mentioned earlier in December, telephone polling, which is pretty much the basis of all the polls you hear or read about, is seriously broken. How will it be fixed? Without a change in federal law allowing pollsters to call cell phones, it's uncertain. What is certain, there will be a shock in 2008 when the mainstream media realizes their polling tools are worthless. To be sure, the biggest gainer in this debacle will be Ron Paul. Whether or not the error is significant enough to win the presidency, I'm not willing to say. But I will say that it will be big enough to make the pollsters worry about their job security.

I can't wait until those "same 10 Ron Paul spammers (i.e. supporters)" spam the voting booths.

Electronic Voting Machines Suck

So says the Ohio Secretary of State according to the New York Times. But then again, who didn't already know that? These machines make 'hacking' an election so easy that changing a 1 to a zero in an Excel spreadsheet is all that is needed. Not that corruption of elections is anything new, but the rush by states to use electronic voting machines left out critical security concerns. Paper receipts would be a start, but so much more needs to be done.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

I'm Sorry, What Was That?

tlhIngan maH!

I just read a news article about Joe Vento, the Philadelphia steak shop owner who's in all sorts of trouble for posting a small sign outside his cheese steak restaurant in Philadelphia that read

This is America, when ordering speak English

The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations is claiming that Vento is discriminating against people who cannot speak English. I did notice that the website for Philadelphia is also only in English, even though they offer short messages to speakers of Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, Cambodian, etc.

Stunningly, there's no Klingon version. Wow. Even Google offers a Klingon version of their search engine. Does this not smack of Klingon anti-love? The tiny, poorly funded Klingon Language Institute even outdoes Philadelphia's web site in offering a (much larger) message to speakers of THIRTY languages, compared to Philadelphia's paltry seven.

As I sit here, late at night thinking about this, I think Mr. Vento should hire a Klingon speaking lawyer to represent him, then have that lawyer speak for him at the Commission's hearings, demanding of course, that a translator be present. All briefs should be filed in Klingon as well.

I would love the see the commission's reaction Mr Vento's lawyer responded to their questions with a beautiful sounding "nuqjatlh? jIyajbe'!"

(By The way - A shout out to the Klingon homies over at bo logh. Very nice)

My Matrix Theory - Circa 1999

Neo is the "one" alright...just not the "one" you think.

"Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the LORD, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem."

- Numbers 18:15

*Written Circa April 1999, this version is mostly unchanged from a version I posted on the Warner Brothers website during the first week of the movie's release. Unfortunately, the original post is gone as the website is no longer there. However, most of my original post was captured on USENET (and thus preserved) by a Polish reader in July 1999. I will clean up/edit this as time permits.

I saw the Matrix a few nights ago...and was amazed. It was a great film, but what I've since found even more amazing is that my view of the symbolism in the film is in the minority (even though to me...it seemed obvious). In fact, I've only found a couple of people on the internet who've posted anything about the perspective I took. So...for your dissection, here is my theory (and don't let me step on your toes if you think this is a Christian film, I mean if a film means that much to your faith, maybe you should recheck your faith):

Neo is the Anti-Christ. Everyone seems to have picked up on the religious symbolism in the film, but it's my opinion that everyone's got it backwards. I think it's easy for people to assume that Neo is a "Christ" figure since he is battling an obvious evil (the machines). The machines are clearly acting in the role of God, as they are creating, nurturing and completely controlling humans in every conceivable way. They control humans to the point that "they" (or more appropriately, "it") has completely and totally created their universe and can completely control everything that happens within it. Sounds a lot like God, doesn't it?

But who is to question the methods of God? Isn't the saying that God moves in mysterious ways? And what if God really was a machine that was sucking out the energy from us? Would that necessarily contradict what we know of God? The amazing trick of this movie is that it stacks the cards against the audience by not portraying God as the 'old man with a beard' most secretly imagine "he" is.....and instead portrays God as something a little less cuddly. At the same time, it presents the story through the eyes and viewpoint of the Anti-Christ

Symbolism

The first event symbolic of the "evil" of Morpheus (and thus, Neo later on) is his offering of the two pills to Neo. He presents Neo with a red and a blue pill. The blue pill represents ignorance. The red pill is the forbidden knowledge (of the matrix). He tells Neo that if he chooses the blue pill, he goes back to his regular life....with nothing changed. Choose the red pill and you will know the truth about the Matrix but there is no going back. To me, this is clearly symbolic of Satan offering humans the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Playing the role of Satan is Morpheus. And while the Bible does not specify the type of fruit in the Garden of Eden, the most common interpretation is that it's an apple. Most people think of apples as being red, thus the red pill is symbolic of the apple.....and Neo chooses it.

When Neo awakes on the ship, take note of the following dialog:

Neo: Why do my eyes hurt? Morpheus: You've never used them before

A simple line you may have missed, but one that links directly the biblical story of the fall of Adam and Eve. Once Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, the Bible notes that "the eyes of them both were opened" as if for the first time, to realize they were naked. As was Neo.

The next symbolic event is when Morpheus shows Neo the "real" world. It is a burned out shell with blackened skies. Clearly the presentation of the "real" world is hellish. No one would choose to leave the relative sanctuary of the Matrix, even if it's a lie, and live in this "real" world. But that's exactly what Morpheus wants to do....he wants to destroy the Matrix (world) and give them this nightmarish world in exchange. Morpheus states that "no one really knows when the world was changed like this (so it could conceivably be since the beginning of time...and not, say, 30 years ago). He does state that it was "us" that scorched the sky. Could humans have made it that way due to their eviction from the Garden of Eden? Morpheus wants to destroy the Matrix (world) but he cannot do it himself. Like a Christian prophet, he too is waiting for "the chosen one" who will foment the apocalypse. He believes that Neo is the "chosen one"....not Christ, but the Anti-Christ who will battle God (the machine) in hopes of destroying it.

It's important to note that Morpheus is not Satan, but a later follower of him. Morpheus mentions the Satan character later on when he notes:

When the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside that had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit....When he died, the Oracle at the temple of Zion prophesied his return and envisioned an end to the war and freedom for our people. That is why there are those of us that have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him.

And since Morpheus has been looking for Neo, he must therefore be the second coming of this original "man", i.e. the Anti-Christ figure.

The ship's name, Nebuchadnezzar is symbolic of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon who besieged Jerusalem , destroyed all of its temples and enslaved the Jews - God's chosen people.

On the ship Neo is told by Tank that he and Dozer were born the old fashioned way in Zion. When Neo asks where Zion is, he is told that it's deep within the Earth near its core, where it's still warm. To most people, a "warm" place at the center of the Earth is symbolic of Hell.

But probably the most obvious symbolic confirmation of my theory is when Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the there was an earlier version of the Matrix (this is during Morpheus' capture and subsequent beating). He tells Morpheus that the first Matrix was perfect, but that humans couldn't accept that it was perfect and were always looking for flaws. They (the machine/God) had to redesign the Matrix to include suffering because humans measured their existence by suffering. To me, this is clearly an allusion to the Garden of Eden (the perfect Matrix) and thus the Machine's position as God.

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was re-designed to this: the peak of your civilization.

In that one section of dialog, it is confirmed that the Machine is God (thus Neo is Anti.) and also explains why God allows suffering to exist in the world following the failure of Eden. Doesn't the reference to 'crops failing' seem oddly out of place?? In such a high-tech setting, Agent smith makes reference to something more akin to an ancient agrarian world. Of course it makes sense if you consider God's curse on Adam during the fall of man "cursed is the ground for thy sake".

Some Other Things To Consider

How would Neo appear to someone in the Matrix? He has supernatural powers and kills others with abandon (especially cops). Would he appear to be "good" person or an "evil" person? A Christ figure or a Satanic figure?

It's interesting that the machine's people are referred to as "agents", since it sounds so similar to "angels", which according to my theory, they are.

When Trinity sees Neo dodge bullets, she tells him that she's never seen anyone move like he does...and that he moves like the Agents.

Trinity: How did you do that?
Neo: Do what?
Trinity: You move like they do . I've never seen anyone move that fast.

Of course Neo can move like they do. He is a 'fallen' agent (angel) and that's why he is more like them and less like the others.

Come on, doesn't Morpheus just *look* evil in his trench coat and sunglasses??

When Tank tells Neo about where Zion is, isn't it interesting that he uses the expletive "God Damn!" for no apparent reason. There are multiple examples of this throughout the movie.
Trinity Says to Neo as he prepares to enter the Matrix to save Morpheus:

No? Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Morpheus means more to me than he does to you. I believe if you are really serious about rescuing him, you are going to need my help. And since I am the ranking officer on this ship, if you don't like it... I believe you can go to hell. Because you're not going anywhere else. Tank, load us up.

What do you think? I'll have to see the movie some more to see if I can come up with anything else to support my theory. Ecce signum.

Over The Counter Zyrtec Will Finally Be Available To Americans

Finally, 18 years after Canada made the very popular antihistamine Zyrtec over the counter, the FDA has decided Americans are 'adult enough' to buy it without a doctor. Gone are the days when you'd have to smuggle $0.20 Zyrtec from Canada to avoid paying $2.00 for a tablet here in the US.

Of course, the FDA recommended this change the first time back in 2001, but their back room deals with the drug companies kept that from happening.

Sadly, the more you learn about the FDA's prescription regime, the more you realize it's mostly about profit protection for corporations and very little about public safety.