Today's SNL

American "culture" is a curious thing - all 'round.

The Amazing Randi

James Randi announced his retirement:

At 86 years of age, I feel that it’s now well time to officially retire, so I’m stepping down from my position with the JREF – the James Randi Educational Foundation.

This doesn’t mean that I’m retiring from my battle against the so-­called psychics, faith healers, paranormalists, and the assorted frauds I’ve encountered in my worldwide wanderings. I’ll in no way relax the critical attention I’ve given to them over the last busy 73 years, I promise you. I’ll still lecture and write, here and abroad – but now on my own time – not on the exhausting schedule that I’ve had these past few years.

Here are some resources to help you create your very own Junior Bunkum Buster Kit:

What's The Harm?

Quack Watch

Pusware QuackCasts

The most important tool in your kit (imo) is the Randi Challenge:

The James Randi Educational Foundation will pay US$1,000,000 (One Million US Dollars) ("The Prize") to any person who demonstrates any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability under satisfactory observation. Such demonstration must take place under the rules and limitations described in this document. An applicant can be from or in any part of the world. Gender, race, and educational background are not factors for acceptance. Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and legally able to enter into binding agreements.

Have fun - and let's be skeptical out there.

hat tip = Wonkette

Whoa, Dude

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks it's a tiny bit over the top (or weird, or even creepy) that companies are running TV Ad Trailers - teasers for the ads they plan on running during the Super Bowl.

Youngsterism

Californina is making an effort to raise the age at which it's legal for people to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21.

I remember, way way back in the day, when we were all blabbing about "how it ain't right for  kids to get drafted at 18 and have absolutely no say in electing the slaggards who're sending them off to die in some place they can't even pronounce...".

We got Amendment #26 outa that one.

So let's consider for a minute that raising both the drinking age and the smoking age to 21 is a really good idea.  People's brains aren't terribly well developed until they hit their mid-20s, which is why we should be moving some of those BFD Life Decisions a little further towards that maturity threshold.  (If you can get your kids not to take up cigarettes (eg) before they turn 21 or 22, the chances that they'll stay non-smokers for life go up something like 300 Jillion percent.)

Now, since we're making these changes in order to protect our kids from the evils of nicotine and liquor, how about we take one more step and move the Age of Enlistment up there too.  You're not gonna convince me that joining the US military is somehow safer for the average 18-year-old than just about anything else thay might try - especially since the first 6 months in the military is the period when a ridiculous buttload of kids get introduced to, and then hooked on, all manner of unhealthy habits.  Yes, this happens in college, and yes, it happens to plenty of kids who go to work right out of high school, but the numbers are  higher for those in the military.

Which lands us smack in the middle of the intersection of Obvious and Wise-The-Fuck-Up: not many college freshman and shoe clerks are getting shipped back into Iraq, or off to Afghanistan or whatever Shit-hole-istan is next on our list, so let's acknowledge the fact that just being in uniform is inherently more dangerous than not being in uniform.  And guess what - it's not just more dangerous for the kids; it's more dangerous for everybody to have kids in uniform wandering around with automatic weapons and hand grenades (fucking duh, muthuhfuckuhs).

Or maybe we could just try to be a little more consistent with some of this shit for a change.

Sunday Tunes

Let There Be Love (cover) Laura Fygi

Night Train --Rickie Lee Jones

North Dakota --Lyle Lovett w/Rickie Lee Jones

Early Mornin' Rain (cover) --Eva Cassidy

I Gave My Love A Candle --Bonnine Raitt

Someone To Watch Over Me (cover) --Amy Winehouse

At Last (cover) --Beyonce

Precious --Annie Lenox

I Only Wanna Be With You (cover) --Shelby Lynne

My Opening Farewell (cover) --Alison Krauss

That Was Then And This Is Then Again

  

Know Your Shit

Here at the end of White History Month which (paraphrasing Tim Wise) goes by the clever name of March-thru-January, we should oughta maybe not concetrate only on the Black History part, but make sure we look at the other side and examine our own shit a bit more closely.

It All Comes Down To Money

Money's what matters.

From Zach Carter at HuffPo:

Next week, the House will consider a bill to amend the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, which then-Speaker Gingrich (R-Ga.) shepherded through Congress. The 20-year-old law imposed a host of cost-benefit standards on federal regulators, including a requirement that they consider the costs that new rules might impose on state and local governments. But in order to garner Democratic votes and protect against a presidential veto, Gingrich made a significant concession: The regulators' calculations could not be challenged in court.

--and so-- 

"Cost-benefit analysis has been and will continue to be a blueprint for big banks to water down, dilute and block Wall Street reforms," warned Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate for Public Citizen. "The bill ensures that if financial agencies adopt reforms based on cost-benefit analyses that do not reflect Wall Street preferences, big banks will be waiting in the wings with a lawsuit to overturn the rule."

So on one hand, it kinda looks like they just wanna "play fair" and make sure that all those poor hardworkin' Uber Ethical Biz-Fucks can enjoy access to the courts on the same footing as all those dirty fucking hippies who use Da Gubmint to steal the money I've earned by the sweat of by own brow, just so they can turn around and give it to some Welfare Queen blah bah blah. Or maybe they'll sell it as making sure all three branches get a chance to weigh in on the effects of legislation.  That's all horseshit, IMHO.  It's never really about what they tell us it's about.

Regulation is a key component in any form of device, organism, organization, system, et cetera ad nauseum ad aeternam.  I've hit on this point before, but it's a good one to remember.  The analogy is that without my pancreas to regulate it, my blood sugar goes nuts and while I have a pretty good time for a little while, I'm in sugar shock in a coupla days and I'm dead by this time next month.

What these guys want - "guys" meaning the embedded weevils congressional staffers who work for Monsanto and ExxonMobil and Raytheon, but get paid by suckers like me and you - what they want is another way to exempt their shadow employers from rules that they tell us are oh so very important to maintain "law and order".

So that's the dodge.  We've been almost perfectly conditioned to think government is always and only bad.  If you buy into that, then it follows naturally that pretty much anything that helps Public Governance has to hurt Private Enterprise.  Which is exactly what we end up arguing about, instead of recognizing that it's really "rules for you but not for me".

Right now, once the Regs have been vetted by the Cost-Benefits thing, and they get put in place, you can't challenge them in court - that's not great because we get some really weak shit regs to begin with, but at least Goldman Sachs can't challenge them either.  So fuck that. What's the point of having all this money if I can't just buy the government that all my rich friends keep telling me I deserve?

As usual, Coin-Operated Politicians who already play us like a cheap kazoo are pushing to turn the whole thing over to a Judiciary that's all but bought and paid for now too.  It costs a good chunk o' change to slug it out in court.  Do you suppose Halliburton might have some small edge when you need the courts' help because your well water is now usable as a fuel for your backyard grill?

While we've been distracted, taking the rhetorical beatings because of ridiculously successful creations of Straw Man crap like the Nanny State, the "conservatives" have been busily installing The Daddy State.  The loop is closing apace.

Find The Time

2 1/2 hours of the good stuff for a cold and crappy Saturday

Solo Accoustic Live --Jackson Browne

Today's Professional Left Podcast

Another good one, guys.

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