Quiz Time

Are polar bear populations:

A) Dramatically declining as they drown by the hundreds via Global Warming ice melting!

B) Increasing.

Well let us see:

Their status ranges from a "vulnerable" to "endangered" and could be declared "threatened" if the U.S. decides the polar bear is collateral damage of climate change.
Nobody talks about "overpopulated" when discussing the bears' outlook.

Yet despite the Canadian government 's $150-million commitment last week to fund 44 International Polar Year research projects, a key question is not up for detailed scientific assessment: If the polar bear is the 650-kilogram canary in the climate change coal mine, why are its numbers INCREASING?

The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.

As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.

The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.

As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

That's right.

And I simply love the condescension that reigned in the environmental community about the "self interested" Inuits.

God knows the greens don't have any self interest. Or, seemingly, any conscience either.

UPDATED:

More from Sp!ked on this matter including this exposure of blatant (and false) propaganda being spouted by a complict media establishemnt:

‘They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming. Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice….’

That is how an article in Australia’s Daily Telegraph, entitled ‘A planet on the edge’, chose to open a discussion of the latest climate report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (1). To view the article, and the photo of the polar bears, click here. The student who took the photograph, however, gives a slightly different account: ‘They were on the ice when we found them and on the ice when we left. They were healthy, fat and seemed comfortable on their iceberg.’

Amanda Byrd, an Australian graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), says she took the picture around three years ago - in the summer. The photograph was not ‘taken by environmentalists’ but as part of a field trip with the university.

"Canadian environmentalists"...."Australian undergraduates", those are basically synonymous terms anyway...

Is It My Imagination....

...or don't we already know for a fact, that it was Richard Armitage that "outed" Valerie Plame, in an episode that a special independent prosecutor felt violated no laws?

So, on what planet could this be a reasonable thing to champion?

Valerie Plame Puts Critics to Shame

Valerie Plame, the covert CIA agent who was ‘outed’ after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, publicly disagreed with the Bush administration, is testifying before Congress today and reportedly speaking very well.

AP via CNN:

Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA operative at the heart of a political scandal, told Congress Friday that senior officials at the White House and State Department “carelessly and recklessly” blew her cover to discredit her diplomat-husband.
Plame Wilson, whose 2003 outing triggered a federal investigation, said she always knew her identity could be discovered by foreign governments.

“It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover,” she told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Washington Post: Valerie Plame, the Spy Who’s Ready to Speak for Herself

She has been silent nearly four years. Today, the CIA officer whose unmasking fueled a political uproar and criminal probe that reached into the White House is poised to finally tell her own story — before Congress.

Valerie Plame’s testimony will have all the trappings of a “Garbo speaks” moment on Capitol Hill, with cameras and microphones arrayed to capture the voice of Plame, the glamorous but mute star of a compelling political intrigue. But while she hopes to clear up her status as an agency operative when her name first hit newspapers in July 2003, America’s most publicized spy is unlikely to betray any details in open session about her mysterious career.

The reason: Plame remains gagged by the same secrecy rules that governed her 20 years as a CIA employee working overseas and at Langley in classified positions.

People close to Plame say her primary goal in testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is to knock down persistent claims that she did not serve undercover. “She is so tired of hearing that,” her mother, Diane Plame, said in an interview earlier this week.

UPDATE by MvdG
Think Progress has a good post up about Valerie Plame’s testimony “under oath before the House Government and Oversight Committee”. Plame said that she was still a covert agent at the moment her name was leaked to the press, she added: “While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence.”

Think Progress has a video up, be sure to watch it. She doesn’t just explain that she was a covert agent, she also explains what the leak meant to her personally:

“all of my efforts on behalf of the national security of the United States, all of my training, all the value of my years of service, were abruptly ended when my name and identity were exposed irresponsibly”.

As both TP’s Faiz and The Carpetbagger Report point out, quite some people have denied that Plame was, at the time that Novak wrote his column, a covert agent. Plame (and CIA sources for that matter) contradicts that.

TCR has her entire open statement up - you all should read it in its entirety. She also pointed out:

“The harm that is done when a CIA cover is blown is grave, but I can’t provide details beyond that in this public hearing. But the concept is obvious. Not only have breaches of national security endangered CIA officers, it has jeopardized, even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents, who in turn risk their own lives and those of their families to provide the United States with needed intelligence. Lives are literally at stake.”

Long story short: everyone involved should be fired immediately. Karl Rove should be forced to leave the White House per today. This is an emberassment and I find it, to be quite honest, insulting to the American people and to those who choose to serve their country, for anyone to defend the conduct of certain people in the White House in this matter

All I can say is what kind of dishonest person do you have to be to put up this kind of crap without even mentioning the name of the person we know to be the leaker?

Somewhere Stalin is smiling..."Now THIS is how to have a show trial."

I'll Make An Exception

I'm generally against the death penalty, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception: Girl finds missing dog's head in box at house

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) -- A 17-year-old girl who spent weeks looking for her missing dog unwrapped a box left at her house and found the pet's severed head inside, authorities said.

Homicide investigators were looking into the case because of the "implied" terroristic threat, St. Paul Police Sgt. Jim Gray said. The Humane Society of the United States said Wednesday it was offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

"This was extraordinarily heinous," said Dale Bartlett, the Humane Society's deputy manager for animal cruelty issues. "I deal with hundreds and hundreds of cruelty cases each year. When I read about this case, it took my breath away. It's horrible."

After Crystal Brown's 4-year-old Australian shepherd mix, Chevy, wandered away last month, she put up "missing" posters in her neighborhood and went door to door looking for him. She called the St. Paul animal shelter and rode the bus there several times.

"I felt empty," Crystal told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. "I couldn't talk to anyone. He was my dog. It was just me and him. ... I told him everything and he never shared any of my secrets."

Two weeks ago, a gift-wrapped box was left at the house Crystal shares with her grandmother. The box had batteries on top, and a note that said "Congratulations Crystal. This side up. Batteries included."

Crystal opened the box and found her dog's head inside. The box also contained Valentine's Day candy.

Crystal screamed when she saw her dog's face.

"She was just hysterical," said Crystal's grandmother, Shirley Brown. "She was screaming. She said, 'Grandma, it's my dog's head!'

"I said, 'no it can't be!"'

Authorities say the case is an isolated incident and the suspect likely knew the family. A motive is unclear.

"This was so cruel," Crystal said. "This is one sick, twisted person."

She now has a new puppy, another Australian shepherd. She's named it Diesel. "Hopefully, he'll be my best friend," Crystal said.

I can't help myself. I want this bastard dead.

The Alan Parsons Project: Vulture Culture, Side Two

The second side of Vulture Culture kicks off with the title track. The song is sonically constructed in a favored Project style. It begins with just a couple of instruments and adds parts as the song continues. Parsons uses this trick often in his work, but this ranks as one of the most effective. The bass line (which I'm not sure is played by a synth or a bass guitar...if I had to guess I'd say a guitar dripping with effects) takes the lead part here with a low moaning sax and ethereal keyboards adding atmosphere. The rather sparse arrangement is continued through the verses and the chorus, but the drums get heavier adding to the weight of the track. The building up on tension in the song is released after the guitar solo when the chorus is brought out for the last time.

The lyric is as stark as the instrumentation, presenting the harshness of a cut throat economic landscape. However the view is "top down" as opposed to "bottom up." It is in fact a cynical call to be co-opted by some sort of capitalistic carnival barker.

Vulture culture,
use it or you loose it.
Vulture culture,
choose it or refuse it.

Hollywood is waiting striking up the band.
Everyone one on wall street shakes you by the hand.
Such a vulture culture, never lend a loser a hand.
It's a vulture culture, living off the fat of the land.

So there is presented only one choice, be a winner or a loser. However, in this case being a "winner" is more parasitical than anything else. The song really isn't about offering alternatives, but it does underscore a less savory dark side of economic success in the Western mode.

The instrumental track "Hawkeye" is next. It is a bright, bouncy, and almost cartoonish number that sounds like it would be at home in a funny Bugs Bunny short. Once again the saxophone plays a prominent role, but it is really the percussion and synths that lead he way. There is a very interesting tambourine sound that seems sampled into a kind of sonically blurred white noise. It is tremendously effective.

"Somebody Out There" returns to the theme of self alienation touched upon indirectly in the tracks "Sooner or Later" and, to a lesser extent, "Vulture Culture." IN this lyric the protagonist is a bit of a mess.

Maybe I'm imagining the things they say about me
Maybe there is really nothing there at all.
Standing in the middle while the rumors fly around me,
hiding from the shadow on an empty wall.

When my back is turned he's up to something else,
and I must not stop believing in myself.
Am I dreaming?
Will the nightmare just go on and never end?

Somebody out there
says that he's you.
Somebody out there
talks like you do.

he calls up your number
you cant get through.
Somebody out there.

At this point in the lyric it can be read as a complaint about another person, but as the song continues it becomes clear that the disconnect here is within the individual.

I wish that I could run away and leave it all behind me.
I wish I wasn't hurt by all the things they say.
If I didn't need to know the simple truth about me,
wouldn't it be easier to walk away?

And I don't need more confusion in my life,
no more pain and disillusion in my life.
If I'm dreaming,
Will the nightmare just go on and never end?

Somebody out there
using your name.
Somebody out there
you get the blame.

There's doubt and suspicion
it's hard to explain.
Somebody out there.

The vocals are handled by Colin Blunstone (best known as the lead vocalist for The Zombies), to good effect. His voice has a breathy quality that lends itself to the uncertainty inherent in the song. The protagonist is uncertain of just about everything, and Blunstone's performance gets across the questioning and even a touch of hysteria of the character.

The music in much of a piece with he rest of the album. Keyboards take the lead playing several riffs throughout the song. It may have benefited by featuring more electric guitar up front, but Parsons chooses to hold back and put heavier guitar only on the bridge sections. ("And I don't need more confusion in my life...") It works well in those sections, but the absence of heavy guitar in the rest of the song makes it feel a little lighter than it maybe should. (The same criticism could be levelled against the Parsons produced album by Keats, which is basically the lineup of "Somebody Out There" (Ian Bairnson, guitar; David Paton, bass; Stuart Elliot, drums; Colin Blunstone, vocals) with the addition of keyboardist Peter Bardens.)

The last song on the album is the wonderful ballad "The Same Old Sun." It is here that the Beach Boys influences come most to the front. The Project had flirted with Beach Boys homage before, most notably on the instrumental "Secret Garden" from the album Eve, but nothing else they ever did was as Brian Wison-ish as this song.

It begins softly with clear, almost bell like keyboards, with the clipping of cymbals adding accent, while Eric Woolfson begins the lyric:

Tell me what to do,
now the light in my life is gone from me.
Is it always the same? Is the night never ending?

Tell me what to do,
all the hopes and dreams went wrong for me.
There's a smile on my face but I'm only pretending.

Taking my life one day at a time
'cause I can't think what else to do.
Taking some time to make up my mind,
when there's no one to ask but you.

There is no way around it. The verses contain a melancholy message. But the message is clear. After the pain and hardships are inflicted upon us, life continues and offers hope.

The same old sun will shine in the morning,
the same bright eyes will welcome me home.
And the moon will rise way over my head,
and get through the night alone.

And the same old sun will shine in the morning,
the same bright stars will welcome me home.
And the clouds will rise way over my head
I'll get through the night on my own.

The touch of defiance and self perseverance is a welcome relief after the skeptical and negative tone permeating most of the album's lyrics. The music also swells around the hopeful words of the song reaching its climax in the outro. This has lead many to claim that the song has orchestration, but it doesn't. It "feels" as if it does, but that is only because Parsons has done his job perfectly. It is emotionally manipulative in the best possible way, and when Bairnson's guitar comes in echoing the melody line of the lyric it sounds like a moment of triumph.

Come To Me My Pretties

One of the earliest causes I espoused here was taking reporters to task for their self-interested casuistry when it came to the intersection of reporters with the law. (See, here, here, here, here, and here) Now it has dawned upon some folks that the Libby trial has come and gone, reporters have been subpoenaed and testified, without the predicted destruction of the free press. Some in the press are evening questioning their previous hysterical hand wringing. Here is Jack Shafer at Slate: The Libby prosecutor didn't savage the First Amendment.

Thanks to the Valerie Plame investigation, the First Amendment lies in tatters on the ground, and a chilling effect has already started to freeze out press sources.

That's what many reporters and academics would have you believe. But now that the Plame investigation has ended, and all the subpoenas and threats of subpoenas are history, I don't buy it. The press (including me) may have overreacted in regarding special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as some sort of Torquemada, and our fears of a shredded First Amendment are starting to look a little overwrought.

...

The popular image painted of Fitzgerald by the press (again, I'm one of the painters) is that he used subpoenas and threats of subpoenas to extract the leaker's identity from reporters. The Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten expresses that view in a recent column that belittles Fitzgerald. Rutten writes that Fitzgerald didn't break the case with a "meticulous FBI investigation" or "brilliant courtroom interrogation." Fitzgerald "simply dragged the journalists who had written or reported on the Plame affair before a federal grand jury and threatened them with jail unless they revealed their sources of information."

That's not exactly true. Fitzgerald and the FBI had made serious headway in the case long before he subpoenaed journalists. Not until May 2004 did he call the first journalists, Russert and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, to testify. Far from dragging all the reporters before the grand jury to spill the beans on their sources, Fitzgerald strove to reach what everybody—except journalists—might now call reasonable middle ground to collect the truth about the alleged crime. He took testimony from Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler (see his statement), a deposition from subpoenaed Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, and a deposition from Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. How intrusive was Woodward's interrogation? Woodward, who got releases from his sources, said on Larry King Live, "I was able to answer every question."

See. Owning up to your responsibilities and duties under the law might be unpleasant, like going to the dentist, but you can actually muddle through it with your fragile little egos intact.

Who knew?

Oh, that's right. I did.

"Gonna Wash That Blog Right Out Of My Hair"

Here is the take from Sean Aqui at Donkelphant on the Democratic Nutroots v. Fox News dustup I looked at here and here:

The Democratic netroots are really irritating.

First they started a war with the Nevada Democratic Party because the Nevada Dems had the temerity to let Fox News Channel broadcast one of their primary debates. They’re gripe? It would “legitimize” FNC.

Never mind that it would send a couple hours of Democratic politics out over Fox’s airwaves, giving them a chance to reach voters they might never reach otherwise. Even if the Kossacks believe that all Fox viewers are partisan automatons, they’d be pre-empting Fox’s regular programming during that time. Surely they would count a two-hour shutdown of FNC as a good thing?

More irritating, it demonstrates a style over substance ideology in which it doesn’t matter what the broadcast would actually say; all that matters is that it would be said on FNC.

I don’t watch FNC; I don’t watch much television news, period. And I could understand Democrats deciding FNC wasn’t a good venue because it would force Democrats to tune in to a channel they generally dislike if they wanted to see the debate. But one gets the feeling that even if Fox started broadcasting flower-children videos tomorrow, the netroots would oppose it because it was on FNC.

At least Air America found some humor in the situation, offering to broadcast Republican primary debates. It’ll be interesting to see if the Republicans agree — although, ideology aside, Air America’s tiny listenership offers a valid reason to reject the offer.

The netroots then followed up that idiocy with a campaign to demonize moderate Democrats who aren’t sure they support Nancy Pelosi’s “date certain” Iraqi withdrawal bill. They refuse to acknowledge either the political realities Democrats in conservative districts face, or the big tent nature of the Democratic Party, or the principled disagreement about how best to untangle the Iraq mess. Disagree? Fine. Call members of your own party “saboteurs”? Lordy, they sound like Sunni fundamentalists, who consider insufficiently pious Sunnis to be even worse than nonbelievers.

Of such rigid, shallow ideology are failed movements made.

Perhaps they don’t realize how counterproductive their actions are to their own party. Those members they call “saboteurs” are the only reason Democrats control Congress. And that control is the only reason we’re finally starting to see movement and get answers on a long list of issues that were buried during the long years of one-party Republican rule. Ideological purity may be nice, but it’s not the way the real world works. Thank God.

I think Aqui has this just about right. The Democratic party is seemingly in love with these zealots for ideological purity. I don't get it, as they are obviously electoral poison. They are humorless, hateful bigots, every bit as bad as the worst of the intolerant "Christian" right. For some demented reason they believe that barely scrapping out a mid-term election win was somehow a signal that the revolution is at hand. "To the barricades!"

I do differ in one important aspect from the Donkelphant take. Ideological purity is not "nice." Purity is the talk of tyrants and charlatans, and not the language of democracy. Let communists and Nazis worry about "purity." We live in a country where we are supposed to live with those who hold different ideals, who believe in different visions of what is sacred. "Purity" can only be upheld by the most vicious of intolerance.

The Alan Parsons Project: Vulture Culture

I guess we all have our own inner geeks. There is some or other passion we all hold about which we can "geek" out. I've a few, but none as strong as my love of the music of The Alan Parsons Project. I grew up a Beatles freak (I'm sure you either know or ARE the type), but that is something I share with a couple hundred million other folks seemingly. I've met dozens of people who could either match my Beatles fandom or could surpass it easily. It's a large brotherhood.

Project fans are a far rarer species. ("We few...we happy few.") So it was a great joy for me to discover that the entire Alan Parsons Project was to be re-released in completely remastered versions with bonus tracks. The drooling started almost immediately, and probably won't cease until my greedy hands are wrapped around the last of the releases.

The first one to make its way into my CD player is the 1985 release Vulture Culture. There are two reasons why I put the money down for this disc first. For starters, it will not be issued here in the states at all so, if I wanted it I had to get it as an import. In such cases I've learned to strike while the iron is hot. The second reason is Vulture Culture has always been a favorite of mine. This may be me in a distinct minority of Project fans...or maybe it doesn't...I've met too few to be certain. But I know that fans of Progressive Rock do not like this album, and I can certainly see why. Whatever it is, it is not a prog album in any way shape or form. However, that was never a deal breaker for me. I cut my teeth as a Beatles fan, so I don't think "pop" albums are necessarily bad things.

I've always considered Vulture Culture to be The Alan Parsons Project's Pet Sounds, in the way that sound is layered on in the studio to wonderful effect. In fact, more than any other Project album Vulture Culture improves when listened to with a good pair of headphones. Much of the Project's music here is predicated upon small variations in instrumentation and percussion, and there is no better way to pick up upon the little moments than taking it in "up close." Vulture Culture also forgoes the Project's usual use of full orchestration to provide that lush sound they are famous for. On this album Parsons opts for a layering of synths to provide depth, and the sound he provides is still lush but in a different way. The remastering does a superior job of giving back some of the warmth to the drum sound from the original vinyl that was missing on the standard CD version. The album also echoes the Beach Boys in its layering of vocals, and its use of things like sleigh bells.

In he liner notes in the re-release Eric Woolfson (Project songwriter, and vocalist/keyboards) writes, "The essence of the Vulture Culture album for me was a comment on the economic harshness of Western society...," and while that is certainly the theme of the title track, it seems to me that the theme of alienation is the one flowing through most of the songs. Alienation in the personal relationships between two people figure prominently in three tracks, "Let's Talk About Me," "Separate Lives," and "Sooner or Later." Alienation between the individual and the larger society figures in two tracks, the bleak dog-eat-dog economic world of "Vulture Culture" and the turning away from a connection to place in the song "Days are Numbers (The Traveller)." "Somebody Out There" turns the sense on alienation inwards as it explores the disconnect between our inner and outer worldly lives. The last track on the album, "The Same Old Sun" seems to tell us that these feelings of alienation are simply the way the world functions but that there is hope.

The protagonist in the song "Let's Talk About Me" sounds incredibly self centered at first sounding.

Let's talk about me for a minute,
how do you think I feel about what's been going on?
Let's talk about me for a minute,
how do you think I feel about what's gone wrong?

Let's talk about you and your problems.
All that I seem to do is spend the night,
just talking 'bout you and your problems.
No matter what I say I can't get it right.

But it becomes clear that this person has been attempting to help the other person. Unfortunately the other person has done nothing but be a complete and utter drag. The song isn't about narcissism, but the futility of trying to help those consumed with their own difficulties. The ties of friendship are not enough to bring the other person around to seeing that their complaining is having a negative affect on someone they are supposed to care about.

Let's talk about what it all means,
if you are a friend of mine.
Let's talk about me, I'm the one who's losing out.

The song itself is quite bouncy, with a staccato piano riff underlying most of the track. David Paton handles the vocals well as his voice is well suited to a complaining tone. It has a narrow, clipped feeling that always sounds vaguely angry, and it is perfect here. Ian Bairnson's guitar has its moments, and a great but too short solo, the emphasis of the song, however, is on vocals and keyboards.

"Separate Lives" is a "pop" song to the nth degree. Synths lay down several layers, while various percussion and other keyboards sounds offer a kind of background commentary throughout the song. (Now would be a good time to crank up those headphones.) The lyric is pretty much what you would expect from a song entitled "Separate Lives."

We live our Separate Lives
and go our different ways
'cause we don't see eye to eye
and we can't see face to face.

We live our Separate Lives
while counting all the days,
'til the two of us arrive
in another time and place

One of the bonus tracks is an alternate mix of this song. it is a bit of an eye opener. In the alternate take the verses sound like they have been culled directly from a Howard Jones song, but the chorus sounds amazing. Unlike the album version, the alternate mix doesn't add backing vocals on the chorus and Eric Woolfson's vocals are brought forward in the mix. The effect is to add a bit more vulnerability to the vocal performance and alter the melody line a bit. It proves to be quite effective.

The ballad "Days Are Number (The Traveller)" while I'm sure it is the bane of all existence for the Prog rock loving folks in the world (who probably hate "Wondrous Stories" as well), is a wonderful piece of ear candy. As is the rule on Vulture Culture, synths play the central role here. Chris Rainbow, who has a wonderful slightly feminine but strong voice, delivers his best vocal performance for The Project here. The lyric is a cautionary tale of someone driven by something (the world, a quest for success, it really isn't specified) that keep them forever unrooted.

The Traveller is always leaving home,
the only kind of life he's ever known.
When every moment seems to be a race against the time,
there's always one more mountain left to climb.

The use of a saxophone solo is the first real break on the album from the pop synthesizer feel. It is a welcome break, and it's lonely sound adds perfectly to the feel of the track.

The next song, "Sooner or Later" continues the theme of alienation in personal relationships. In fact it is an almost kiss off song. I say almost because the protagonist isn't exactly ready to tell his paramour/friend to get lost now, but he is sure it will happen, sooner or later.

Sooner or later, I'll be free to leave the past behind.
Sooner or later, you're gonna be the last thing on my mind.
Little by little, I'm finding out the truth behind your eyes.
Maybe if I don't show, I thought you might like to know,
You're gonna be the last thing on my mind.

Notice, there is a really big "if" floating over all of this. What is being said is "If the day ever comes that I finally leave you, oh, then its over baby." Which, of course, would be so much more convincing if it wasn't all so wishy-washy.

You didn't want to know. I could've told you so.
But the moment I think it's over, the further there is to go

Just a little word. Such an easy way.
But the longer I think about it, the harder it is to say.

So it seems the disconnects are not simply between two people, but within the protagonist as well. He claims he can tell which way the wind is blowing, but it is an open question as to whether he can make the break.

Musically, the song is very straight forward, so straight forward in fact that one could call it a little boring. The only variety is a nice little guitar solo, but as the song is a mid-tempo rocker there is only so much a solo could do to punch it up. Woolfson provides the vocal, and he has a nice touch with these mid-tempo songs (think of his performance on "Eye in the Sky")...but even I can see why this wouldn't be a stand out and grab you sort of track for a lot of folks. I "get" the song and like it very much, but I can see how it misses for others.

This cover "side one" of Vulture Culture, and, yes, I still think of the album in those terms. I'll try to get around to "side two" tomorrow. (Music criticism, even of this ilk, is a lot more involved then it looks.)

On a semi-related note, I'm still working on the first of my Allan Bloom pieces and hope to get that up soon. If posting is a little light, you know why.

What Does DePauw Think Sororities Are?

From the AP: Troubled sorority cut from DePauw

A sorority accused of kicking out nearly two dozen members who weren't pretty or popular enough was evicted from DePauw University, which said the values of Delta Zeta did not fit with the small private college.

The sorority has said the 23 evictions were based on the members' lack of commitment to recruiting new members. But those asked to leave have charged that they were removed because of their appearance, contending they were active and supportive members of their sorority.

University President Robert G. Bottoms said Monday the school was unhappy with Delta Zeta's policies and actions, and with some of the postings on its Web site in response to the controversy that followed the evictions.

"I came to the conclusion that our approaches to these issues are just incompatible," he said in a news conference.

He did not elaborate on the policies with which the school disagreed. The sorority had previously defended its actions on its Web site and criticized DePauw's reaction to the issues. The Web site was not operating Monday.

My initial reaction is to support the rights of private organizations to decide themselves who should be on their membership roles. Sororities and fraternities by their very nature are discriminatory organizations. It seems highly dubious for DePauw to single out any one of them and say "We don't like the capricious or elitist way you do things," because that is exactly what a sorority is, a capricious and elitist organization.

It seems the national HQ for Delta Zeta did not like the DePauw chapter because it was more than a little like "Revenge of the Nerds for Girls."

The sorority's members have long had a reputation as being known more for academics than partying, and their chapter was widely known among students as the "dog house."

The chapter started the school year with just 35 women, two-thirds empty on a campus where 70 percent of students join the Greek system.

Efforts to improve those numbers — and, some contend, the sorority's image — prompted Delta Zeta's national leadership to conduct a review to determine members' commitment to recruiting. As a result, it moved 23 members to alumnae status in December, evicting them from the sorority house. Six others left on their own.

So, it is unacceptable for Delta Zeta to not want to be the destination for the bookish and unattractive at DePauw, even though the sorority was functioning at only 33% of capacity and could be characterized as a "dying" chapter.

And I love the fact that DePauw is shocked, just shocked, to find out that a sorority would base membership on looks and social standing.

What maroons.

Garbage Du Jour

Great post over at Stubborn Facts concerning the academic left's latest flight of fancy.

The left-wing nutroots need to get their act together and settle on a single message. Are the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress the most corrupt, most investigated bunch of crooks ever, or does the Bush Justice Department engage in "political profiling," selectively targeting Democrats for investigation by a margin of 7 to 1, an even greater rate than African-Americans are profiled for traffic stops, as claimed in a recent "academic" study of DoJ prosecutions of political candidates and elected officials?

Tom Maguire, posting as an Insta-temp, discusses the latest, a left-wing "statistical" attack on the Bush Justice Department (also discussed in detail at Obsidian Wings). Two academics, Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan, claim to prove that the Bush Administration has engaged in "political profiling" of Democratic elected officials and candidates in The Political Profiling of Elected Democratic Officials: When Rhetorical Vision Participation Runs Amok. Unsurprisingly for an article which includes in its opening paragraph a reference to the "Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzales Justice Department's blended religious-fundamentalist and neo-conservative rhetorical vision," it fails to support its outlandish claims. Its biggest flaw: omitted data.

There is much more to read over at Stubborn Facts, including the comment section wherein this op-ed gets additionally punctured.

Defy The New Religious Orthodoxy At Your Peril

Scientists threatened for 'climate denial'

Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.

One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.

"Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor.

"I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal."

Last week, Professor Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 documentary in which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become a "religion", forcing alternative explanations to be ignored.

Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who also appeared on the documentary - recently claimed: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.

"Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science."

Dr Myles Allen, from Oxford University, agreed. He said: "The Green movement has hijacked the issue of climate change. It is ludicrous to suggest the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do."

Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said: "Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."

There is no one who can honestly claim that the Climate Change "debate" is anything other than ideological posturing perpetrated in an attempt to wrest political power away from those who might oppose a leftist agenda.

Period.

Another Line For The Old Resume?

From CNN: Israel recalls El Salvador envoy after drunken episode

Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found bound, drunk and nude, according to information reported Monday by Israeli media and confirmed by a government spokeswoman.

The longtime diplomat, Tsuriel Raphael, has been removed from his post, and the Foreign Ministry has begun searching for a replacement, ministry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel said.

Two weeks ago, El Salvador police found Raphael in the yard of his residence, tied up, gagged and drunk, Israeli media reported. He was wearing several sex toys at the time, the media said. After he was untied, Raphael told police he was the ambassador of Israel, the reports said.

Ben-Hillel said the reports were accurate and that Raphael has been recalled although he did not break any laws.

"We're talking about behavior that is unbecoming of a diplomat," she said.

The thing I don't understand is this: Were I to be discovered by the police nude, drunk, bound, and wearing "several" sex toys (which begs the question of just how many one could properly wear at the same time), the last thing I would do is announce what my job was. It isn't as if you are going to reclaim any dignity, no matter who you claimed to be.

On the plus side, if Israel ever wants to open a consulate in Las Vegas they have found their man.

Hitting Back

From the AP: Islanders' Simon suspended for NHL-record 25 games

If Chris Simon plays again for the New York Islanders, or for anyone else in the NHL, it won't be until next season.

And it might not even be on opening night.

The NHL hit back hard Sunday, suspending the rugged Islanders forward for a league-record 25 games. Simon will miss the rest of the regular season and playoffs as punishment for his two-handed stick attack to the face of Ryan Hollweg of the New York Rangers in a 2-1 loss Thursday night.

Simon will miss the Islanders' final 15 regular-season contests and the entire postseason, if the club gets that far. If the team plays fewer than 10 playoff games this year, the suspension will carry over to next season.

"I think what he got was pretty much expected around the league and by everybody else," Hollweg said Sunday after the Rangers' 2-1 win over Carolina. "What's done is done. The league has made its decision and it's time to move forward now. I think it's fair."

The ban is the longest in terms of games missed in NHL history. Marty McSorley was suspended 23 games in February 2000 for knocking out Donald Brashear with a stick-swinging hit. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman stretched that punishment to one year, and McSorley never played in the league again.

Simon's one-year deal with the Islanders will run out before he is eligible to play again. He can become an unrestricted free agent this summer. Based on Simon's $1 million contract, he will lose at least $80,200 because of the suspension.

The NHL had no choice but to make an example of Simon, and to their credit they did exactly that. It is too bad that this is the most many people will hear about the NHL this year. It has been a pretty good season to this point and the push for the playoffs should be doubly exciting.

Another numbskull off the ice. Who's next?

‘Apocalypse my arse’

Over in the UK there was a bit of a donnybrook for the whole Global Warming Crowd: Take a look at Sp!ked:

Martin Durkin has a hangover. And a cold. He spent last night, Thursday 8 March, watching the Channel 4 screening of his film The Great Global Warming Swindle in a pub with friends and colleagues. ‘It’s better than watching it at home. That can be an isolating experience. You become convinced you’re the only person in the country watching it.’ Now, this morning, he has some things to get off his chest – about the green movement’s demonisation of him for daring to question environmentalist orthodoxy; the ‘soft censorship’ of his earlier programmes; and the endless revelations that he had an apparently dodgy Marxist background.

‘Shock, horror’, he says. ‘Exposing that a journalist has a Marxist background is like exposing that he wears trousers.’

Durkin’s latest film has won him the accolade – or perhaps slur – of being the ‘anti-Al Gore’. Where the American president-who-never-was transformed his rather dull PowerPoint presentation on the threat of global warming into a marginally less dull big box office flick – An Inconvenient Truth – Durkin has directed a 90-minute made-for-TV movie that basically says: ‘Everything you know about global warming is wrong!’

Its title a knowing, punk-rebellious nod to the Sex Pistols film The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle, The Great Global Warming Swindle featured scientists questioning whether global warming is manmade. Some of them argued that the Sun - directly, or through its effect on cosmic rays - causes global warming. Others claimed that CO2 levels are influenced by changes in temperature rather than the other way around. If this were the case, it would turn on its head every fundamental assumption underpinning not just the green movement but also national and international politics, a whole new genre of global warming literature and research, and much of the newly greened education system in Britain: those assumptions being that a rise in CO2 is causing the Earth to warm, that man is responsible for that rise in CO2, and thus we must rein man in. No wonder many seem miffed by Durkin’s film.

Whatever viewers may have thought about the new theories put forward in Swindle to explain global warming (personally, I found the replacement of the widespread, all-encompassing manmade theory with an all-encompassing cosmic ray theory – sort of ‘It’s the Sun wot done it!’ – a little unconvincing), there’s no denying that the film poked some very big holes in the global warming consensus.

Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, one of the world’s leading experts on malaria, was a revelation. He explained how he had to threaten legal action against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to have his name removed from the list of ‘2,000 of the world’s leading scientists’ who apparently backed its summary published last month. The problem? Professor Reiter didn’t back it, instead arguing that it was a ‘sham’. The IPCC ‘make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed, but it’s not true’, he said.

And leaving to one side the science of global warming, there was also some stirring stuff on the impact of the environmentalist ethos on political debate and human ambition – especially in relation to the developing world. Many of the talking heads argued that our obsession with restraining development in order to ‘save the planet’ will consign the world’s poorest to a life of grime and squalor. And, ironically, pollution. As one contributor pointed out, the smoke from cowshit and other items that some in the developing world burn in order to warm their homes – because they don’t have electricity and because the only solution put forward for their predicament is that they should use expensive and ineffectual ‘sustainable’ solar and wind power – is recognised by the World Health Organisation as one of the worst pollutants in the world. Tens of thousands of children in the developing world die every year from respiratory problems brought on by such in-house smog. It is peasantry, rather than modernity, that kills them; shit, not cars.

Watching The Great Global Warming Swindle felt a little bit naughty, even subversive. You simply never hear stark criticisms of the politics of global warming in the mainstream media very much. And yet, as Durkin points out, the response to his film has pretty much been a shrill: How can Channel 4 show this stuff?!

‘Some people seem really outraged that 90 minutes of airtime was given to “the other side”’, he says. He describes as ‘surreal’ the accusation that Channel 4, in airing his film, is somehow distorting the debate about global warming. One commentator declared: ‘Channel 4 has done a huge public disservice. Or are they planning to show a follow-up that takes apart last night’s wayward thesis?’ (1) ‘These people talk about balance, but the environmentalist view is everywhere!’, says Durkin. Indeed, even Durkin’s film was not allowed to stand alone: earlier in the week Channel 4 showed a Dispatches documentary made by green Guardian columnist George Monbiot to ‘balance out’ Durkin’s film, and then repeated it again last night after Durkin’s film. So even when you get to criticise the prevailing view, you have to be sandwiched in between two slabs of Monbiot.

There is a lot more at Sp!ked. It is worth the read.

Simon Doesn't Say. Simon Swings.

Prelude to a laying down of the law? NHL suspends Simon for stick to face

New York Islanders forward Chris Simon was suspended indefinitely by the NHL on Friday for his stick-swinging hit to the face of Rangers center Ryan Hollweg.

Simon was given a match penalty for deliberate attempt to injure late in Thursday night's 2-1 loss to the Rangers. The length of the suspension won't be determined until after a disciplinary hearing. That hasn't been scheduled but is expected to take place next week, likely in Toronto.

Simon was ejected with just more than 6 minutes left, and the ensuing power play led to the decisive goal in the Rangers' victory.

Just seconds before he was hit, Hollweg drove Simon into the boards with a hard, clean check. Simon got up angrily and met Hollweg as they came together again. He then swung his stick into Hollweg's face, just above his neck.

Hollweg's chin was bloodied, but he was not seriously injured and expects to play Saturday when the Rangers visit Pittsburgh.

Simon has been suspended several times before by the league, and that could carry weight when the latest punishment is handed out.

"I've always been known as a team guy, and I feel real bad about letting the team down," said Simon, who scored the Islanders' lone goal Thursday. "I think I'll wait until I talk to the league office, and then I'll answer all questions afterward."

Simon was back at Nassau Coliseum on Friday morning for the Islanders' team picture, but he didn't participate in practice. General manager Garth Snow declined to comment until after the hearing.

The Islanders have 15 games left and a tenuous hold on an Eastern Conference playoff berth. They might have to go the rest of the way without Simon, whose 6-foot-3, 220-pound frame provides an imposing presence on the ice.

"We'll just talk to the league and see what happens," said coach Ted Nolan, who like Simon is a member of the Ojibwa North American Indian tribe. "On something like that, you're disappointed. It doesn't matter who it is."

Simon's hit, which conjured memories of the shot Marty McSorley landed to the head of Donald Brashear seven years ago, flattened Hollweg with 6:31 remaining and left him motionless for several minutes in the Rangers' zone.

While Hollweg recovered quickly, Simon likely will feel the sting of his actions for quite some time.

"It's not easy to see a teammate lose his cool, and to have it happen with 6 minutes left in the game. It's a tough one to swallow," Islanders defenseman Brendan Witt said. "We were undisciplined, and it cost us."

McSorley was suspended for the final 23 games in the 2000 season for knocking out Brashear with a swinging stick. The ban was extended until February 2001 by Bettman, and McSorley never played in the NHL again.

Todd Bertuzzi missed the final 13 regular-season games and the playoffs because of his blindside punch to the head of Colorado's Steve Moore on March 11, 2004. But the banishment was extended to 17 months and prevented him from playing anywhere during the yearlong NHL lockout.

Ironically Simon's act was worse than Bertuzzi's, although Bertuzzi caused the far greater injury. Simon should count himself damn lucky he didn't hurt Hollweg badly. Both Simon and Hollweg were saved by pure dumb luck.

The league has to make this suspension a lengthy one. 20 games at a minimum. 40 wouldn't be out of the question. And none of that making the suspension liable only during the regular season. If the Islanders make the playoffs (which seems unlikely at this moment), Simon should have to sit.

What makes this equally sad is the fact that Simon is going to be remembered as basically a goon. He scored 29 goals in the 1999-2000 season for the Washington Capitals, where he played the game with an edge. Unfortunately, he has shown an inability to control himself on the ice.

That is why he has to sit...for a long time.

Cross posted at (Get) A Sporting Life.

Hysterical For A Good Reason?

Probably not. Audit: FBI snooping did not follow rules

The FBI is guilty of "serious misuse" of the power to secretly obtain private information under the Patriot Act, a government audit said Friday.

The Justice Department's inspector general looked at the FBI's use of national security letters (NSLs), in which agents demand personal and business information about individuals -- such as financial, phone, and Internet records -- without court orders.

The audit found the letters were issued without proper authority, cited incorrect statutes or obtained information they weren't supposed to.

...

The FBI has made as many as 56,000 requests a year for information using the letters since the Patriot Act was passed in October, 2001, the audit found.

A single letter can contain multiple information requests, and multiple letters may target one individual.

The audit found that in 2004 and 2005, more than half of the targets of the national security letters were U.S. citizens.

...

The inspector general's review identified "26 possible intelligence violations" between 2003 and 2005, 19 of which the FBI reported to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board, the audit said.

Of the 26, "22 were the result of FBI errors, while four were caused by mistakes made by recipients of the NSLs," it said.

The audit also found problems with "exigent letters," which are supposed to be used only in emergencies when time may not permit the NSL procedure to be followed.

The audit found exigent letters were not used in emergencies and gave the agency access to telephone records it should not have had.

Mueller said Friday the FBI stopped using exigent letters in May 2006 after the practice was revealed. He said they were used to obtain information the FBI was entitled to but should have gained in other ways.

So, let me get this straight. Of the roughly 168,000 requests from 2003-2005 there were 26 problems (0.015%) found by the audit, of which only 22 (0.013%) were the FBI's fault. Additionally, 19 of the errors were not found by the audit but self-reported by the FBI. That means the audit found an additional 7 (0.004%) problem requests.

In addition, it must be noted that these requests did not begin with the Patriot Act:

Most of the 200-page report focuses on the national security letters, the use of which it says has undergone a "dramatic increase" since the Patriot Act was put into law after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The letters existed before the attacks, but the Patriot Act allowed them to be used on a broader scale to seek more information.

Now, the FBI has to do everything in its power to make sure it follows the procedures as closely as possible. And every deviation away from proper procedure is worthy of being pointed out and corrected, but a little perspective is never a bad thing. The imputation is that the FBI is out of control and has harmed American citizens in some way.

In fact, they seem to be doing a good job in practicing oversight in this area, and there is no evidence brought forward that anyone was harmed in any way, or subject to prosecution via illegally obtained information.

You can forgive me if my knickers remain untwisted.