kimmy

I was doing fist-pumps at my desk while reading your message. To highlight a couple of points I thought were particularly of interest... A phrase I've been hearing a lot lately... "race trumps gender". As in, for those of a wont to worry over what would be the most Politically Correct thing to do, side with the brown-guy over the chicks. A documentary in England called "Undercover Mosque" came to a similar conclusion regarding Muslim clerics there. (and for Peter F's benefit: clearly not all Muslim clerics. Just a startling number.) And even more appalling in context: al-Hilali was speaking out against the criminal sentences of a gang of Muslim men convicted of a series of gang-rapes committed against "immodestly dressed" Australian women. -k

Hey, I have a question. If believing in Jesus cures homosexuality, why have so many faggot priests been caught abusing altar boys? What "both" sides? There's dozens of sides. Are you educating your kids in the ways of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Judaism? My kids are going to learn to think for themselves. If they "find Jesus" when they're old enough to think for themselves, that'll be their own choice. -k

Joe Biden is as big an anti-marijuana fanatic as you'll find in US government, and the new administration is in favor of some anti-drug programs that will harsh your mellow in a hurry. The Changewagon does not stop in Funkytown. -k

What a load of crap. I don't see anywhere where "Mr C" claimed that domestic violence is exclusive to Islam. Domestic violence crosses every ethnic and religious boundary. However, I'm at a loss to recall a time when a leader of any other faith put on a seminar to advocate for wife-beating. I also see no claim from "Mr C" that "all Muslims" believe this. He did claim that this guy represents "mainstream Islam", and as far as I can tell, this "Islamic Information and Services Network" is just that, a mainstream organization. Perhaps if mainstream Muslims are embarrassed by the stuff their representatives say, they should find better representatives. If a Catholic priest said this stuff, people would be all over him, and nobody would be running around crying "bigotry!" to deflect the criticism. -k

So, this thread seems to be primarily about what a doofus Mr Canada is. I'm afraid I don't have anything to add on that front. However, the news item referenced in the opening post had some issues I was interested in. First off, whether one believes the average Muslim on the street holds these views, it seems curious to me that many of their clerics seem to be such idiots. Mr Mohtadi, from what little information I have found about him, appears to be yet another example of a Wahhabi scholar in a western country getting caught with his foot in his mouth. (a couple of others that come to mind are Canada's Younus Kathrada, and the Australian who compared women who don't follow Muslim dress to uncovered meat.) And while this is purely speculative, the number of times this sort of thing turns out to be not just Muslim clerics in general but Wahhabi clerics in particular makes me think that Saudi money is the common thread. If a cleric can obtain funding from Saudi Arabia to do "missionary work" in the West, then it doesn't matter if he's out of touch with the values of the society around them. And if there's not a lot of mosques to choose from, they might have a congregation almost by default. Secondly... to those seeking to draw an equivalence between Islam and the Catholic church... ...if you could choose between living in a Catholic theocracy or a Muslim theocracy, what would you choose? Either is pretty abhorent to me, but if it was one or the other, I know which I'd choose. How about you guys? -k

That's a very different statement from claiming that they're building the wrong cars. -k

You think he'll go elsewhere? Do you think he'll take his whole family with him? Let's hope so... -k

This lady makes a rather startling claim about the Obama's personal lives at the 10 second mark of the video. Perhaps she is referring to fist-bumps (the hip alternative to handshakes)? I can only assume she's not aware of the usual meaning of the word she used. -k { }

Very surprising to me, as Mrs Gillibrand had a very low profile in this up to now. She appears to have delivered a serious beat-down to her Republican opponent in the past election, but she's from upstate and might not have much recognition with voters in the big city. -k

That's delightful! However, I'm a bit worried about what this kind of competition means for the Kimmy Green Energy Center for Wind Powered Scooter Innovation. (don't steal my subsidy plz?) As I have mentioned a few times before, I'm baffled by the disconnect between what I read in the papers ("Detroit is failing because they built cars that nobody wanted anymore") and what I see on the street (the most popular new vehicles I see are still North American "big 3" products.) I am skeptical to the degree which the popular assumption ("People wanted green fuel-efficient cars and Detroit didn't give them any") matches up with actual sales figures. I am wondering whether this is an actual fact, or ideological spin that has been imparted. I am of the suspicion that people have projected their own biases onto the reasons for Detroit's struggles. I have heard that the federal money is not coming with no strings attached, and that money will be given only if the US lawmakers are satisfied that the companies will be proceeding in a manner they find satisfactory. If US law-makers have a hands-on role in determining how the automakers proceed and what steps they take in cutting costs, things might not work out well. For example: if the "Hope and Change for American Auto Manufacturers" committee goes in with the attitude that Chrysler is floundering because consumers want fuel efficient cars, and proceeds to cancel Dodge Ram trucks, Dodge Charger, and Jeep Liberty, and concentrate on the Caliber economy car, how well does that pan out? Well, I suspect anybody who has spent any amount of time in traffic would agree that the Ram, Charger, and Liberty are ubiquitous, while the Caliber is seldom seen. Chrysler's bigger vehicles have been pretty successful, while their compact is dismal. If they chose to cancel the larger vehicles and concentrate on the economy entry, it would be a disastrous decision because the Caliber is among the worst vehicles in its segment. Hopefully common sense and the actual profitability of each product line are determining factors of what lives and what dies in Detroit, not ideologically-guided assumptions about what should or should not be built. -k

This thread has absolutely some of the stupidest crap I have ever read on this forum. Oleg, please get back on whichever medication you've let lapse. You should license that and put it on t-shirts! -k

Demand never stays slack for long. Oil is still a good business to be in. I thought I addressed that pretty nicely. With 50% of the populace on the Anchorage power grid, meeting the goal of 50% renewable energy by 2025 could conceivably be done with just one renewable energy facility, and with just 340,000 people on that grid, we're not exactly talking about a mega-project either. It's not going to stay this low for long. And it's not actually low at all. -k

If you're worried about violence, you probably shouldn't be in a terrorist training camp in the first place. Hopefully he gets to watch The Lord of the Rings, and all that other maudlin tripe we heard about how deprived he was while he was locked up. Poor Omar wanted more than anything to watch the Lord of the Rings, and he wasn't allowed to because he was in prison. That was so unfair. That was eating at my conscience. I really hope he gets to watch the fricking hobbits, that's what I want for him more than anything. Watch the movie, and reflect on how if people like your idiot parents and their closed-minded Quran-thumping knowledge-hating fundamentalist Taliban heroes will never ever create anything like the works of Tolkien, or the visual magic Hollywood can create, or the technology that allows you to see moving pictures. Reflect on how if people your parents had their way, none of those things would even be allowed to exist. Think about that, Omar, and shut up and watch the god damned movie. -k

Indeed. The idea that nothing matters if there's no afterlife is silly. It's like arguing that life on earth is just the waiting room to get into heaven, then nothing we do matters either. (isn't this essentially the logic behind strapping a bomb to your chest and killing infidels?) Do you enjoy living? I certainly do. I enjoy the people I love, I enjoy the things I do, I enjoy the world around me. I want to continue to enjoy these things. I want to improve my enjoyment of them, in fact. I meet new people and do my best to improve the relationships with the people I already know. I do lots of things that I find fun or enriching, and I try new things and learn to do new things. I enjoy the world around me in a variety of ways, and in my own small ways I try to take care of it and improve it. I take this view because I believe this is all I have, and all I will ever have. If one is of the view that this is just a place you're stuck for the short term, do you value each day as much as I do? -k

I think people lack perspective on energy prices. Keep in mind that this energy infrastructure was very profitable even back in the days when oil was $20 a barrel, and right now when prices are "way down" it's still over $40 a barrel. People tend to forget that just a few years ago, execs in Calgary were having parties to celebrate when oil hit $60 for the first time. $40 a barrel, until very recently, has been considered a very strong price for oil. (And, a little bird told me, it is not going to stay this low for very long.) Alberta was awash with money back when oil prices were last "this low"; the difference now is not a function of the price of oil. It is primarily a function of a shortage of investment in new projects, which is a result of banking and financial issues, not of the price of oil. I'm not sure of how royalty rates are determined (flat rate? percentage of market value?) or how they're divided up between federal and state levels in the US. However, Alaska has for several years been giving oil royalty cheques to every man woman and child. The recent decline in oil prices might just mean that those cheques are going to be a lot smaller for the next little while. Something else people may lack perspective on is the size of Alaska. Geographically it's huge, of course, but it only has 700,000 people. Meeting the energy demands of 680,000 people is not actually a terribly ambitious goal at all. Of course, some of those people are in areas where power is hard to distribute and these are areas where small fossil fuel generators would likely be in widespread use. However, half of Alaska's population is on a single power grid, running from Fairbanks to Anchorage and its suburbs (the "Railbelt" mentioned in the article.) Building a single modestly sized green energy project to supply that grid would in itself go a long way to meeting the goal of supplying 50% of the state's power through renewable energy. Alaska has an immense coastline and a multitude of fjords, so I'm sure that hydroelectric and tidal power are viable options at many locations in the state. I'm sure that similar thinking, on a smaller scale, could be applied to Juneau and its nearby communities. The massive North Slope energy projects at Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay undoubtedly need lots of power. And the real challenge is providing small, isolated communities with an alternative to fossil fuel generators in a way that's reliable and cost-effective. (I would think that at a scale that small, some variation of geothermal would be a possibility. It shouldn't be that hard to exploit the huge temperature difference between the cold outside air and the warmth under the permafrost...). With these little communities of a few hundred or a few thousand people, the power demands would be tiny and plunking some kind of tiny alternative energy generator onto their micro-grid could probably be done almost ad-hoc. ("New traffic light for Kamookta... pave Main Street in Nukwutsup... green energy generator for Tagloolik...") Anyway, I think what I'm getting at is that oil isn't actually low priced right now, and the scale of Alaska's power requirements is modest, and that what's being discussed here is on one hand not terribly far-fetched but on the other hand not terribly impressive either. -k

Because it makes Baby Jesus cry. ok, seriously... I think the church probably doesn't lose that many members to other religions, but probably loses a lot of members to loss of faith. For example, all of my grandparents were very religious people, yet both of my parents are fierce atheists. I don't think all that many Christians turn into Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs, but a lot of Christians turn into atheists. -k

I'm not given to using the word "awesome" frivolously. An english teacher once stated that in his view the word awesome is meant for things like a volcano erupting, not for a new cell-phone. And while Obama's inauguration speech may not quite be on the same level as Mount Saint Helens, "awesome" is still pretty applicable in my view. When I hear people talking about Obama's speeches and comparing them to one another-- "oh, it was ok, but not as good as the one he gave in September..." I always wonder what they're grading him on. I often suspect they are simply reacting on an emotional level, reacting to whether the speech gave them as many goose-bumps or tingles up their spine as the last one did. If those are the criteria people are using to evaluate Obama's speeches, I consider it sheer nonsense. I do admire the man's ability to deliver a speech. It's certainly an impressive skill. But it's just one skill, like singing, or dancing, or throwing a football, or so on. Obviously this man has attained an exceptional level of mastery over his voice, in pitch and timbre and pacing and rhythm and cadence and volume, and he manages to modulate all of these qualities of his speech effortlessly. He's able to build rapport, to maintain interest, to build excitement. I'm sure that Obama knows and uses many techniques that psychologists would identify as being effective at making an audience more receptive. I'm certainly not immune to the effects, and I doubt that many are. It's certainly impressive to watch him perform. But at the end of the day it is, still, a performance. I can appreciate the skill involved in Obama's delivery of a speech, just as I appreciate watching the skill involved in Peyton Manning picking apart a defense. And as I have watched Obama in the past, it has always been his mastery of this skill that I find fascinating, not anything he said. Being who I am, I find myself analyzing the things he does with his voice, trying to figure out what techniques he uses in his delivery. And I picture him reading the phonebook or using the speeches Kang and Kodos used in their election campaigns... and find myself thinking that there's little difference. It's the delivery, not the substance. In the past I have watched Obama's speeches with the attitude that I was watching performance art. It's pretty easy to be unimpressed with the speeches if you ponder how the same words would sound if, instead of assimilating the vocal stylings of black charismatic gospel ministers, Obama's special skill was to deliver a perfect impression of Freddy Mercury. It's easy to stop being impressed with his speeches if you detach yourself from the delivery. Disconnected from the delivery, his speeches never impressed me much. But for me, yesterday was different. Yesterday I finally "got it". Yesterday I watched the speech and felt that with much of the ham and theatre peeled away, I was watching a more credible, more sincere speech. I felt like instead of watching a guy doing a credible impression of a black charismatic gospel minister, I was watching a more real Obama. For the first time I actually felt engaged by the man instead of finding myself studying the thick layer of performance art that he generally puts into his speeches. I found myself thinking "so this is why they love him so much." I found the lack of a catchphrase or grandiose talk or crowd-inciting theatrics to be appropriate and sensible. I found that the most firm promise being simply "to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off" to be sober down to earth and respectful given the situation many Americans find themselves in right now. I thought the tone was fitting. I thought appealing to tradition and history and values and lessons learned in overcoming adversity throughout the country's history was reassuring. He sought to remind Americans that (as you often point out) America is a great country. I liked the statement that "Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year." That might be kitsch, but it is something that people should tell themselves each time a new wave of economic doom and gloom hits the newspapers. I think this was my favorite part of the speech... For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. ...and if it's "kitsch", I don't care. I think that was, essentially, the entire theme of his speech. -k

The forum appears to be having a really hard time the past couple of days. Slow response, pages often load only partially and occasionally not at all. And last night I was trying to post a message and found the forum went completely to sleep when I hit the "submit" button and became not-responsive for several minutes afterward; this happened a few times. (A database issue perhaps?) Did Greg forget to feed the hamsters again? -k

I thought it was an awesome speech, personally. The analysts I was watching noted the lack of the "crescendo" which his speeches often build to; they felt that this was deliberately so, in keeping with the theme of subduing rampant expectations. They also noted an effort to avoid flowery language and speak in more pragmatic terms. And they noted an effort to appeal to "mainstream" American values. -k {and yes, following him with that lame poet was pretty poor planning.}

Any US President has enough enemies to make him a target for assassination by somebody or other. One thing that was noted yesterday is that while other recent Presidents have made their home-away-from-the-White House in locations that give them some amount of solitude (and thereby, security) the Obamas will still use their Chicago home, which presents extra security challenges. As I hear it, attempting to assassinate Andrew Jackson was a truly bad idea. Jackson was apparently a habitual gun duelist, and had been shot in the chest so many times that he frequently coughed up blood and is said to have "rattled like a bag of marbles." A man named Charles Dickinson, a noted marksman who had killed 26 men in gun duels, made disparaging remarks about Jackson's wife; Jackson challenged him to a duel. Jackson sportingly allowed Dickinson to shoot first, presumably to give him a fair chance. Although Dickinson hit Jackson near the heart, Jackson was unamused and killed Dickinson with his reply. Richard Lawrence, Jackson's would-be assassin, produced two pistols which both misfired (probably, they were afraid of Jackson) and Jackson proceeded to beat the man to a pulp with his namesake cane ("Old Hickory") before being restrained. The beat-down was the only punishment Lawrence received, as he was deemed insane (he believed himself to be King Richard III) and permanently institutionalized. -k

The Hell's Angels would simply never let legalization happen. -k

So politicians prefer to make moves that are popular. That's not always true, of course. Politicians often make moves that are unpopular because the long-term requires it (making social spending cuts to reduce a deficit, for example.) Politicians often make moves that are unpopular if there's a larger principle at stake (voting against the death penalty even if the public is in favor of it at some particular moment.) But a decision like this, the long term effect of choosing from any of a number of arguably solid candidates is completely speculative. And there's no larger principle at stake in choosing one over another (unless, as we have learned, one of those candidates is black; see Roland Burris.) I don't think there's any shame in respecting the polls in choosing a representative that the people elect anyway under ordinary circumstances. If one of the candidates was Paris Hilton and (god help us) she was the most popular in the polls, that would be different. That would fall under the heading of "larger principle at stake". But the guy the polls are behind happens to be a guy with a solid resume. You said earlier you thought Andrew Cuomo might have his eye on Paterson's job. Would appointing Cuomo to the senate be a way to take him out of the race? I assume the Democratic nomination for governor will be hotly contested. -k

Perhaps she will used dirty dead caribou spotted owl oil revenue blood money. or perhaps she can get a grant from the Obama Green Energy Center for Wind-Powered Generator Innovation. (she can haz subsidy plz?) -k

Call me a cynic, but I don't think politicians generally "do the right thing" unless they think the voters perceive it as being "the right thing" or see the alternative as "the wrong thing". In this case, it seems as if the public is behind Cuomo, then Kennedy, with Maloney barely a blop on the radar of public support. Picking Cuomo would be popular... picking Kennedy would be politically expedient... what's in it for him if he picks Maloney? "Qualified" is a pretty subjective term. It's not like you can take a community college program to be qualified to be a senator (or any other political position, really.) As a former Attorney General, I'm sure Cuomo is probably very capable. But I gather Maloney has been in politics at various levels since Cuomo was still in high-school, and I gather she's highly respected. -k

I've lost track of how many times I've heard "Woodstock" invoked over the past couple of days in describing the significance of the Obama inauguration. "It's this generation's Woodstock!" "The atmosphere in Washington is almost like Woodstock." What does that mean? The significance of Obama's inauguration is obvious on many fronts. What exactly was so significant about Woodstock? Millions of people will be able to tell their grandchildren that they were at Obama's inauguration, and be telling the truth. Millions of people tell their grandchildren that they were at Woodstock too, but most of them are liars. If they say that "the atmosphere is almost like Woodstock", what are they actually telling me? -k