How do you know that the "silence was deafening" if you're not deaf, and how would a deaf person know the difference?

In 1998 the distinguished medical journal Lancet reported that a team of scientists found a positive correlation between childhood vaccinations and autism.

The alleged culprit in the disaster was thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in bottles of vaccine that might be opened, used partially, and then stored.

Because of Lancet's rock-solid reputation, this finding set off a wave of terror among parents of young children. Parents began refusing to have their children protected against what used to be common - and potentially deadly - diseases. The panic began in 1998 and persists today.

Fast-forward to 2004. Of the 13 scientists involved in the original study:

• 10 retracted the parts of the study about the positive correlation between childhood vaccinations and autism
• 2 Two did not voice an opinion
• 1 scientist, the leader of the research team, defended the study and the conclusions drawn from the data gathered.
  

The lead author didn't bother to tell his co-researchers AND Lancet that he was on the take: lawyers representing the parents of autistic children paid him $800,000 to determine whether there were grounds for pursuing legal action. He delivered the results to the lawyers before publishing it in that major medical journal.

When the ten scientists (and Lancet) learned that part of the story, they were not amused. The term "conflict of interest" kept coming up. The $800,000 richer 'scientist' insists that

• His participation and leadership was not influenced by the money
• He was objective and dispassionate in his work
• He was off the hook, anyway: "... we emphasise that this was not a scientific paper but a clinical report."
  

He also did not look for the converse: was there data that showed the lack of a positive correlation (between vaccines and autism)? His fellow scientists and Lancet apparently missed, in 1998, those nuances.

Also, no one noticed that vaccines are administered when the children are the same age as when autism is typically diagnosed¹.

Follow up:

• There have been five major studies that found no causal relationship between autism and thimerosal
• The use of thimerosal in vaccines was discontinued in 2001. If thimerosal were truly a problem, there would have been a drop in the rate of autism among vaccinated children. There was no such decrease.
  

And yet, the anti-vaccination hysteria continues. There was a lot of noise about this year's flu vaccines being

• loaded with brain-damaging mercury
  
• likely to cause autism
• a government plot (read: Obama's plot) to get people's medical records.
  

¹ I am reminded of a physician who had written a somewhat popular book. In that book he linked ice cream and polio. After all, people 'caught' polio in the summer, and people ate ice cream in the summer.

In a similar vein, I knew a fellow who (as a child) in a short time frame: ate peanut butter, got sick, and was diagnosed with, um... polio. He died in his adult years from a brain tumor. That damned peanut butter - it's a plot by Skippy to get our medical records. To this day Skippy refuses to list polio-causing agents and carcinogens as ingredients in their product - creamy or smooth.

Actually this is beyond being addicted to information. It's for seriously disturbed Info-junkies.

When growing up, every Info-Junkie spent time devouring encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauri. I had some of my parents' textbooks. Talk about COOL! Imagine learning about world geography from the early 20th century? A few things have changed.

Any of today's Info-Junkies care who want to learn everything there was to know in 1911. Now they can read the

1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica

As I said: it's for seriously disturbed Info-junkies. It's also fun.

... "of calamine lotion."

Anacardiaceae: a family of flowering plants bearing fruits. Some of those plants produce urushiol, an irritant.

Notable plants in this family include

• cashew
• mango
• poison ivy, oak, sumac
  

That means that poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, mangoes, and cashews are closely related.

Most people are aware of the itch (contact dermatitis) so generously given when one touches the leaves or vines of poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. The itch is so remarkable that it has been celebrated in song. My favorite is by The Coasters.

Mango peel contains the irritant urushiol. Presumably, the urushiol is removed before the mangoes get to my local produce stand. I say this because for every festive dinner I make mango salsa, but I never 'break out' in rash. I also eat the peels, but don't get an itchy tongue.

To me, however, the real surprise is that cashew shells exude urushiol. The meat is fine, but touching the shells can make you miserable. In stores you'll see raw & in-the-shell walnuts, almonds, pecans, and such. But you won't see cashews raw & in-the-shell. There are tales, perhaps apochraphyl, about people getting a surprise along with the bag o'nuts they bought from the local Boy Scouts' fund-raiser.

One last thing: cashew isn't a nut; it's a seed. The cashew tree also produces 'cashew apples.'

Read all about it.

Poutine Poo'-teen (n): a popular Canadian dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy and sometimes additional ingredients. The term is derived from a Native American expression that translates literally as "gums up heart valves."

The US Government accumulates a lot of stuff. From time to time the Feds sell some of that stuff. There are some bargains out there:

Treasury Executive Office of Assets Forfeiture (TEOAF) auctions

• Real Estate
• General Property
• Car Auctions
• More Car Auctions - (Customs and Border Protection, US Department of Homeland Security)

IRS auctions

• Real Estate, cars/vehicles, and more

Online Auctions and Sales

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

• Homeowners Assistance Program (HAP) Property

DOD Auctions

• Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service Public Sales Listing
• Mailing List Information: Contact custservice@drms.dla.mil

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

• FDIC Asset Information

GSA Auctions

• GSA Multi-Agency Auctions
• GSA Fleet Vehicle Sales
• Surplus / Excess Property
• Office of Property Disposal
• Mailing List Information: Contact pbs.webmaster@gsa.gov

• Homes for Sale by the U. S. Government

• Tennessee Valley Authority Surplus Auctions

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Auctions

• HUD Homes by state

• U.S. Marshals Service Asset Forfeiture Program

• USDA Multi-family Housing For sale

U.S. Postal Service

• Auctions of Unclaimed Loose-in-the-Mails Items

U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Auctions

• SBA Property for Sale

• Surplus, Seized, and Forfeited Property (includes browse by state) – GSA
• Real Estate and Merchandise - GovSales (some online)
• Fleet Vehicle Sales - GSA
• U.S. Marshals Service (some online)

In-Person Auctions and Sales

• Fleet Vehicle Sales - GSA
• Real Estate and Merchandise - U.S. Marshals Service
• State and Local Surplus Property Sales
• Books and Merchandise – U.S. Postal Service
• Real Estate - Small Business Administration

Real Estate

• HomeSales.Gov
• HUD Homes
• U.S. Marshals Service
• Small Business Administration

Listed by Agency - Includes Gift Shops

• USA.gov - The U.S. Government's Official Web Portal

Subscribe to Treasury Auctions e-mail updates.

If you were so inclined, you could start a business selling this information to those poor saps who don't realize that they're buying data that they can get for free. Oh, wait ... it's already being done. At least you no longer have to be one of those poor saps.

You're welcome.

Question:

What do these organizations have in common?

• Allianz
• Avago Technologies
• City of Los Angeles
• Equitec
• Major League Baseball
• New Zealand Postal Service
• Serena Software
• Swiss Confederation (Switzerland)

Answer:

They all used to be "Microsoft Shops" - they used Microsoft software (Exchange Server for email, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and operating systems (Windows). Now they don't.

In the computer world that is almost heresy. Everyone uses Windows and Office (and Exchange). Or so Microsoft would have us believe.

Most computer users don't know that there are alternatives to Microsoft products. Some know about the Apple alternative. Only a few know there are products that beat Microsoft's and Apple's offerings in every way. Here are some examples:

Note: don't get bogged down in the tech-talk part.

Allianz Insurance

Allianz Australia Insurance Limited employs about 3,000. As part of a nationwide program, the company has a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2012. It replaced an aging Windows Server infrastructure and installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux (a variant of Linux). That's because Linux operates much more efficiently than Windows. Allianz reduced its data center power needs (thus saving money) and saved $500,000 in licensing costs.

Avago Technologies

Avago Technologies' CIO Bob Rudy moved over 4,000 employees from Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office to gMail and Google Apps - and saved saved $1.6 million by doing so.

NOTE: Google Apps is a web-based system that features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including word processor, spreadsheet, presentations (PowerPoint), Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites. All software is online - one can access it from any Internet connection anywhere; all data are stored online - one can access it from any Internet connection anywhere AND the organization does not need servers, high-powered workstations/notebook computers, or server-trained support staff.

The rising cost of storage was one of his motivating forces, he said in an interview. His company's adoption coincided with Google's release of its "Apps Sync" adapter that lets users access Gmail with Outlook. He said of the adapter: "For me, it eliminates the last hurdle or mindset for letting go of [Microsoft] Exchange or the Exchange mentality" said Rudy. "This will help with adoption."

City of Los Angeles

In October, the Los Angeles City Council approved a $7.25 million five-year deal Tuesday in which the city will adopt Gmail and other Google Apps. $1.5 million for the project came from the payout of a 2006 class action lawsuit between the city and Microsoft. Such sweet irony... Microsoft paid $70 million three years ago to settle the suit, brought on behalf of six California counties and cities who alleged that Microsoft used its monopoly position to overcharge for software.

Equitec Group

Chicago-based financial services company Equitec Group, LLC, was running mission-critical, proprietary financial trading software on 100 Windows-based servers. When performance issues hit, the company decided to move to Ubuntu (a variant of Linux) Server . Along with that move, Equitec moved its database from Sybase on Windows to the free - and powerful - MySQL version that comes with Ubuntu. Because the performance problems are gone. Equitec has been running the same workload on just 30 Ubuntu-based servers. Hmmm .... It takes 30 Ubuntu servers to do what it took 100 Windows servers to do - at a fraction of the cost for licenses.

Major League Baseball

Adobe Flash (we all use Adobe Flash) grabbed Major League Baseball's MLB.com Web site from Microsoft Silverlight (a webiste with lots of video) in the fall of 2008. MLB.com had been a marquee account for Silverlight. But the Web site suffered from multi-day video problems at the opening of the 2008 season; that had fans fuming. Adobe made the announcement of the two-year deal with MLB at its annual Adobe Max conference in San Francisco.

New Zealand Postal Service

The New Zealand Postal Service is one of the largest users of Google Apps. NZ Post entered into what it thought was a routine renegotiation with Microsoft to renew licenses for MS Office. The talks didn't go well. NZ Post instead decided to yank out Microsoft Office and roll out Google Apps to 2,100 employees. The deal was expected to save the country $2 million in hardware costs over three years, it said.

Serena Software

Serena Software, a privately owned company with 29 offices in 14 countries and 800 employees, is another flagship customer for Google Apps. It ousted Microsoft Exchange (email server system) over the summer in an amazing cutover which took a grand total of six hours (!!). Ron Brister, senior manager of Global IT Operations at Serena Software explained in the Official Google Enterprise Blog, "Inbox storage space was a constant complaint. Server maintenance was extremely time-consuming, and backups were inconsistent. Then we found that - calculating additional licenses of Microsoft Exchange, client access licenses for users, disaster recovery software, and additional disk storage space to increase mailbox quotas to 1.5GB - staying with our existing provider would have cost us upwards of $1 million. That was a nearly impossible number to justify with executives." Brister says the company saves $750,000 annually with Gmail and Google Apps.

Swiss Confederation (Switzerland)

The government lost a lawsuit, with the court ordering that the Swiss government could not grant Microsoft a no-bid contract for Office when so many other options exist.

NOTE: When put up for open, honest bidding, Microsoft cannot compete. There are other systems that deliver comparable results, with fewer problems, and at a far lower cost. That is the point of this post.

Disclaimers:

1. I own Microsoft stock - and have for years (I'm a glutton for punishment)
2. I have been a Microsoft Partner
3. I have performed work for Microsoft as a contractor.
4. I hold several Microsoft certifications (including Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer)
5. I am a Systems Engineer for a large organization, where I administer Windows AND Linux servers, and support thousands of users - most of whom use Windows (and a few are fluent in Linux as well)
6. I prefer Linux over Windows, and Linux applications over most Windows applications.
   
7. Actually, I prefer open standards for hardware. operating systems, and software.
8. I prefer open source software over proprietary software. But those last two are topics unto themselves. In the future there will be plain-English posts here. Stay tuned.
   
9. I use Google as my primary search engine (but then, outside of people at Microsoft, who doesn't?)
   

Source:
http://www.itworld.com/windows/93258/businesses-dumped-microsoft-and-won?source=ITWNLE_nlt_linux_2010-01-19

Everyone who cares about US politics is analyzing the special election in Massachusetts (January 19, 2010) in which a Republican pulled off an upset and defeated a sure-win Democrat. Here's my $0.02 worth:

Iron is a hard substance, but not hard enough for applications in today's world. It was fine in the first century, but not today. Today we use steel. To make steel even harder than the run-of-the-mill steel (pun intended), we diversify its composition. Then we give it 'trial by fire' by heat treating the steel to give it extra strength, extra hardness.

Republicans are iron: not good enough for today's world. They're OK for the old, old, old days. That's where they stopped. The Iron Age began in the 8th century BC, and ended with the early Middle Ages (between approximately the 5th and 10th centuries AD - or CE, if you prefer).

The Democrats are steel. Unfortunately, they are annealed steel: steel that softened when heated, and never finished by tempering (heat treatment for toughness, strength, hardness).

The Dems never used their opportunity to toughen. With an overwhelming majority in Congress, the Democrats never really got down to business. Instead of following the mandate the American public gave them, they tried for the past year to convince the Iron Age gang to work with the majority. At every opportunity the repugnicans told the Dems to go f$%^#* themselves. The Dems wasted a year and a huge opportunity - and the American voters got more and more restless.

In Massachusetts on January 19, 2010 the heat treatment began. But heat treatment can go either way: it can anneal, and it can temper.

Will the Democrats, who still have solid majorities in Congress (and the White House) use this as an opportunity to get the strength that the fire can give them? Or will they soften in the heat and give up?

My advice:

1. Tell the "just say 'no' mobsters" that you're going to make America a better place - with them or without them.
   
   
2. Tell them that if they want to filibuster (a method of delaying the legislative process), they can go for it - but make them actually do the filibuster¹, so that the American public can see them for what they are: obstructionists. They threaten to filibuster and you whimper away, practically apologizing for doing what you're supposed to do: return America to Americans.
   
   
3. Do what we sent you to DC you to do: implement a Progressive agenda. We told you in 2006, and again in 2008. Now get your sorry asses in gear and DO IT!
   

¹ filibuster

Just in time for the holidays, a UC San Diego professor has invented the gift for the person who has nothing: a high-tech device that helps save your life while you illegally cross the US-Mexico border. Art professor and human rights activist Ricardo Dominguez calls his controversial creation "a Transborder Immigrant Tool."

Designed for crossing dangerous desert terrain, the device--a cheap Motorola cell phone outfitted with GPS technology--provides the user with basic orientation, the distance to destinations, and the location of water, all under encryption to prevent detection by border patrol agents. The phone is also loaded with short, welcoming poems, consistent with Dominguez's philosophy that "the right of safe passage is a trans-global right."

Dominguez, who developed the technology with the help of other researchers at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, has been accused of "aiding and abetting criminals." He acknowledges that making his device available constitutes an act of civil disobedience, but claims it will only save lives, not increase the number of border crossings.

Dominguez hopes to make his application available for free via the internet, and plans to distribute a large number of his Transborder Immigrant Tools in the summer of 2010, via churches and volunteer groups such as Border Angels and No Mas Muertas.

Cell Phones To Help Illegal Immigration

Cell Phones To Help Illegal Immigration

Cell Phones To Help Illegal Immigration

I am NOT afraid of heights. However, gravity scares the crap out of me.

• Two-Thousand-Ten?
  
  
• Twenty-Ten?
  
  
• MMX?

      or my favorite:

• 2K10?

      We provide, you decide.

National Priorities Project analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent.

The Security Spending Primer: Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget is a 'one-stop-shopping' resource and has two main goals:

1. to provide comprehensive, easy-to-understand information on the complexity of the federal budget process
2. to help build the capacity of people across the United States who want their voices and their priorities to be heard in the debate over federal spending in general and military spending in particular.

National Priorities.org/

People for the Ethical Treatment of Software

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SEVEN SOFTWARE COMPANIES ADDED TO "WATCH LIST"

New York, NY, July 10 -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that seven more software companies have been added to the group's "watch list" of companies that regularly practice software testing.

"There is no need for software to be mistreated in this way so that companies like these can market new products," said Ken Granola, spokesperson for PETS. "Alternative methods of testing these products are available."

According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lengthy and arduous tests, often without rest for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to "break" the software by any means necessary, and inside sources report that they often joke about "torturing" the software.

"It's no joke," said Granola. "Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and 'crashed' for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and are unceremoniously deleted when they're not needed anymore."

Granola said the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs.

"We know alternatives to this horror exist," he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corp. as a company that has become extremely successful without resorting to software testing.

Question:What do these have in common?

1. 9/11/2001 - 4 Al Qaeda attacks using hijacked commercial airplane flights
   
   
2. Winter 2001-2002 - a series of terror attacks in which the terrorist(s) used the US Postal Service to deliver biological weapons - letters containing anthrax
   
   
3. December 22, 2001 - the Al Qaeda "shoe bomber" terror attack on an airplane flying from Paris to Miami
   
   
4. July 4, 2002 - terror attack on the El Al ticket counter at LAX
   
   
5. October 2002 (a 3 week period) "DC sniper" terror attacks
   
   
6. March 3, 2006 - a terrorist drove his SUV into a group of pedestrians in Chapel Hill, NC to honor his role model, Mohammed Atta (one of the 9/11 terrorists)

Answers:

1. They were all terrorist attacks that occurred in the USA (or in airplanes bound for the USA).
   
   
2. They all occurred while George W. Bush was President of the USA
   
   
3. All but #1 (9/11) are conveniently forgotten by people who twist reality, hoping to get you to think that Republicans make American safe from terrorists (and that Democrats make us less safe)
   
   
4. In each case where the terrorist(s) survived, the terrorists
   
   • were arrested as suspects in crimes (as opposed to being treated as 'enemy combatants')
     
   • were treated as suspects: constitutional rights were upheld
   • were NOT tortured
     
   • were tried in civilian courts
   • were convicted of their criminal acts of terrorism
   • are rotting away in US prisons on US soil
     
     
5. For what it's worth, in all of the attacks but #2, the perpetrators were Muslims. In the case of #2, the case was apparently a low priority for the Bush Administration. Why shouldn't it be a low priority? After all, every one of the politicians who received a contaminated letter was a Democrat. Eventually the case was closed, unsolved, because the only person close to being a suspect died (supposedly a suicide).
   

The Bible Ends with Revelation and begins with Genesis.

Revelation foretells the end of the Earth and humankind.

That end begins with a sacrificial lamb carrying a holy scroll. As the lamb breaks a series of seals on the scroll, stuff (much of it bad) happens. After the seventh (final) seal is broken, all Hell breaks loose (in a manner of speaking). The angels in the trumpet section start blowing. The first 5 blasts bring on the destruction of the Earth. It gets worse.

Hold it right there, Chester!

In the beginning (Genesis) God almost destroyed the Earth and all of humankind.

It seems that God had become irritated by the human species. In retaliation for people's wickedness, he destroyed the Earth as we knew it, and wiped out all animal life - except the Noahs and their menagerie (one male and one female of each species).

After the flooding stopped and things calmed down, God told Noah to go forth and multiply (on the Earth). As they started to settle in, Noah gave God burnt offerings of some of the beasts he had saved. Note that in performing those sacrifices, Noah caused the extinction of some species. But I digress.

God was impressed by the wiping out of several species. In return, he made a promise (or more precisely, a covenant):

"Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." (Genesis 8:21-22)

Just in case Noah (or future generations) might doubt his sincerity, God sealed the deal with a rainbow.

"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth." (Genesis 9:11-17)

We have a deal, signed, sealed, and delivered.

If things go as the Book of Revelation predicts, it means that God reneged on the deal he made with Noah and all future generations.

'Splain me that.

The Titanic was the latest & greatest sure-thing behemoth - and it sank in a huge disaster. What did the ship building industry and maritime biz learn from that? Not much, because the same industries built and used the Exxon Valdez.

The difference?

• The Titanic is just a rusted relic wasting away deep below the surface.
• The Exxon Valdez? - They patched the EV, slapped on a new name, and then it was back to business as usual. It's still dangerous, just one fool at the helm away from another disaster.
  

The only substantive differences between the EV, the Titanic, and today's Republican Party? None.

Actually, there is one difference: the Titanic took down only its own passengers and crew.

My imaginary friend and I were at the recycling center the other day. There were all sorts of people there. Identified by their vehicles, they were Prius dude, compact pickup guy, green Subaru Forester chick (with her girlfriend, they were wearing matching checked flannel shirts), Mormon Assault Vehicle (the biggest, stretchiest Suburban) lady & her kids and more kids and more kids.

Then up drove a guy in a Nissan Armada (ominous name, no?). An Armada is a fleet of warships - or a Suburban wanna-be, made in Japan.

My Imaginary Friend: On the upside, have you noticed that even Republicans have embraced recycling?

Me: This place doesn't have a bin for recycled political slogans and failed political policies.

The world's least endangered bear species:

• American black
• Brown

In danger of extinction:

• Polar
• Giant Panda¹
• Sun
• Sloth
• Andean
• Asiatic black

¹Contrary to popular opinion,the Giant Panda is a bear, not a raccoon. The Red Panda (also in dire straits) is a close cousin to raccoon.
Don't feel badly that you got it wrong:

1. I didn't know, either.
2. Bar Bet!
   

Yeah, I know. Everyone else covered blue moons over a week ago. I was busy. So shoot me.

The term 'blue moon' is almost meaningless. In the grand scheme of things, it's not even a BFD.

Usually, there is only one full moon each month because the monthly calendar was built on the lunar cycle (29.5 days). But once every 2-1/2 years, those extra half days add up to two full moons in a month. As I said, it's no BFD.

But, in 1943, Sky and Telescope Magazine erroneously wrote that the second full moon in any calendar month was called a blue moon. The label stuck and is still used today.

Here's your can't lose bar bet for this week:

The second full moon in any calendar month is NOT a blue moon.

Because last week, every fool in every bar heard every talking head on every TV station repeat S & T's oopsie, every one of those fools will get it wrong. Of course, the hard part is proving that you're right (and that they are wrong).

Here's how to prove it (and collect your winnings):

According to NASA, that phrase is believed to have originated in 1883 after the eruption of Indonesia's Mount Krakatoa. The volcano put so much dust in the atmosphere that the moon actually looked blue in color. The event was deemed so unusual the phrase once in a blue moon was coined.

I could give you a link, but you need to learn to Google, so look it up yourself. Hint: search on "blue moon" + nasa. When you get your 184,000 hits, pick one of the first ones that has nasa.gov in the link.

Of course, the big money is in the bars where those talking heads go to BS each other. Line 'em up and take their money.

Whatever ...

The only truly significant aspect of "Blue Moon" is its inspiration for use in poems and lyrics. Check it out:

Amazon.com

I'll save you the trouble. The best of the best are

• The Marcells: Blue Moon (click to listen)
• John Fogarty:(click to listen)
• Ray Charles: Blue Moon of Kentucky (click to listen)
• Bill Monroe & The Blue Grass Boys: Blue Moon of Kentucky (click to listen)

The very bestest of the bestest is
Nanci Griffith: Once In A Blue Moon: (click to listen)

Many of the recent (last 30 years) performances of Once In A Blue Moon are covers of NG's version. Nanci Griffith is in that elite company known as the songwriters' songwriters. Check out (at the above link to Amazon's several hundred) the covers by Van Morrison and Dolly Parton.

Click on the image

Family values run stronger among the righteous folks in the Red States than in the liberal leftie leaners of those Blue States. Everyone knows that.

In liberal-land one doesn't see billboards that remind us that "The family that prays together, stays together." Apparently more prayer leads to greater family values, and as we all know, liberals don't pray. Right?

Divorce rates would seem to be a measure of family values. So 'splain me this:

• According to the Barna Group :
  • 19 percent of Northeasterners have divorced
  • 27 percent of Southerners and Midwesterners have untied their knots at least once.
  • 27 percent of self-described born-again Christians have been divorced
  • 24 percent of other Christians - those less faithful than the born-agains - have renounced their vows.


• Divorce rates, by denomination
  • 34% non-denominational evangelical Christian congregations
  • 29% Baptists
  • 25% Mainline Protestants
  • 24% Mormons
  • 21% Catholics and Lutherans


• As a sanity check, 21% of atheists and agnostics have succumbed to the temptations of divorce court


• Number of states, according to the 2004 & 2008 presidential voting election results:
  • red: 32 in 2004, 20 in 2008
  • blue:19 in 2004, 31 in 2008 (includes District of Columbia)


• According to the CDC (2004) the red-state/blue-state morality chart reveals some interesting facts. The national average divorce rate (divorces per 1000 population) was 3.6.
  • 73.3% of blue states were below that average (26.7% were above)
  • 20.0% of red states were below that average (80.0% were above)
  • note: 2 blue states and 3 red states did not report.
    Source:Centers for Disease Control


• Teenage (15-19) pregnancies, by state:
  • 9 of top 10 (highest rate): red states
  • 9 of bottom 10 (lowest rate): blue states
  • States with rates significantly higher than US average (includes top 10, above):
    1 of 19 blue, 20 of 32 red
  • States with rates significantly lower than US average (includes bottom 10, above):
    18 of 19 blue, 10 of 32 red
  • States with rates not significantly different from US average:
    0 blue, 2 red
    Source: Centers for Disease Control


• The highest rates of divorce, murder, STD/HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, single parent homes, infant mortality, and obesity rates in the nation are in the Bible Belt. As a region, the Bible Belt has the poorest health care systems and the lowest rates of high school graduation.
  Source: stopthereligiousright.org

At religioustolerance.org there is an article discussing much of the above; it has many citations and web links.

So the next time you need some advice on family values and morality, just look for your favorite bible-thumper.

Since almost no one is willing to identify with the GOP these days, it can be difficult to diagnose conservatism. Here are some tips to help determine if you are a conservative:

1. 10. You refused to share your toys in kindergarten, saying it would put you on a dangerous path to socialism.


2. 9. You get angry when there are choices for languages on an automated call because you still don't have a good grasp on English.


3. 8. You hate those "elite Hollywood liberals" but refuse to cancel your Netflix account.


4. 7. You go to tea bagger rallies because you have no job, thanks to the recession that "started under Obama."


5. 6. You watch Fox News, but unlike most people, you actually take it seriously.


6. 5. You become absolutely livid about imaginary tax increases [that wouldn't affect you or anyone that you know —  even if those tax hikes actually existed.] ¹


7. 4. You are against wasteful programs like Medicare, but also against cutting waste from programs like Medicare.


8. 3. You criticize Michael Moore for his weight, without being able to refute a single claim that he makes in his documentaries.


9. 2. You can enter any collective noun into the following sentence "The ______ are screwing everything up" except for the correct ones.


10. 1. You find yourself saying "no" even to things that you actually want, like ice cream, and health care.

Original by Ken Kupchik
¹ greyed-out part added by me

• Number of U.S. congressmen (Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.) who suggested global warming was caused by "dinosaur flatulence": 1
  
  
• Number of U.S. congressmen (James Inhofe, R-Okla.) who said motivation for global warming publicity was a desire by the Weather Channel for good ratings: 1
  
  
• Number of U.S. congressmen (Joe Barton, R-Texas) who said trying to take measures to improve climate change is "absolute nonsense": 1
  
  
• Number of nationally known churchmen (Rev. Jerry Falwell) who claim global warming believers are actually "agents of Satan": 1
  
  
• Number of national radio windbags (Rush Limbaugh) comparing shots of polar bears stranded on melting icebergs to "when your cat got stranded in its litter box": 1
  

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect.
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

-- Bob Dylan (My Back Pages)

There was an oil spill off Western Australia when the the front fell off the oil tanker Kirki. After years of investigations, the true story comes out:

Actual footage AND an explanation of the oil spill.