Shark Attack

For the record, I'm glad they survived....:

'I took on great white, and won', says Syb Mundy

HAVING plucked his 13-year-old cousin from the jaws of a shark, Syb Mundy thought they would both be eaten as the white pointer pursued them in a life-and-death race to shore.

Mr Mundy, 33, hailed as a hero by policeman Jason Elmer, yesterday revealed just how close he and his cousin, Hannah Mighall, came to death as he pulled off a Hollywoodesque rescue in the pristine waters off Tasmania's east coast on Sunday.

Hannah, a junior lifesaver with a love of the ocean, was on her surfboard about 30m from shore at the northern end of Binalong Bay when a 5m white pointer attacked about 3.30pm.

"She just flew up in the air and got dragged under - the shark had given her a nudge and she disappeared," Mr Hundy said yesterday. "I was about five to 10 metres away. She came back up and went down again a few times and I saw the shark come up out of the water.

...but you're not the top of the food chain when you go out into the ocean. Sure, it's fun to go swimming and surfing... But, well, you're just dinner to top predators... And there is a very good chance this is the result if you're chosen:

April 25, 2008 Dave Martin, 66-year-old swimmer from Solana Beach, was killed by a 17-foot white shark while training for a triathlon near Table Tops in Solana Beach on Friday at 7am. According to Solana Beach firefighters who responded to the attack, the shark only took one bite. It was fatal. Having clamped down on the victim's legs, the shark likely severed the vital arteries in the man's upper thighs, causing him to rapidly lose fatal amounts of blood.

The victim was swimming just outside of the lineup along with about 10 other wetsuited triathletes when he began yelling and was pulled under water. Although his legs were still intact, by the time the other swimmers were able to pull the man to the beach, he had already lost significant amounts of blood. He was pronounced dead upon the arrival of medical assistance according to Deputy Fire Chief Dismas Abelman.

The Audacity of Nope

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The Word - The Audacity of Nope

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Ha ha...

Last night---last night's party line vote was a great start for the 111th Congress. But these hard times demand an even larger meaningless gesture. That is why I am calling on every Republican who voted against this bill to put no money where your mouth is. Refuse to accept a single penny of the eight hundred billion dollars for your Congressional district.

Think of it---think of it---think of it like a hunger strike. Then---then just sit back and watch in glee as the Democrats face the wrath of their constituents suffering as the eight hundred billion dollars tears through their districts like a force five cash-o-cane.

It won't be easy but you are fighting for a principle. If we can't have a perfect bill to stimulate the economy you'd rather have no economy at all. And that's the Word.

Disable Nagle Algorithm - Improve Latency

Interesting

Rampant Ohio Voter Fraud!!!!

Remember when the Republicans were making that case? Screaming and yelling to whomever would listen? You remember the hordes of wing-nut posts about how Obama stole Ohio? Well, here it is, the sum total of, post-investigation, proven Voter Fraud in Ohio:

A prosecutor's investigation into alleged widespread voting fraud last fall in one of Ohio's largest counties has turned up one case.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters subpoenaed the records of roughly 600 people who voted in the county during a weeklong window during which new voters could register and cast a ballot on the same day.

A report Tuesday by a special prosecutor appointed to the investigation found that only one voter committed fraud.

A Connecticut man in town visiting his sister cast a ballot on Oct. 4 but later told officials what he had done.

He pleaded guilty Dec. 29 to attempted false voter registration and was sentenced to one year of probation, a $1,000 fine and 250 hours of community service.

One vote. And he turned himself in.

I won't hold my breath for the admission of error.

Play: INTERACTIVE JACUZZI GIRL

The future of YouTube...

Where Andrew Sullivan, once again, shows..

...he just doesn't get it:

I don't understand why, after two decades of bubbling our way to phony prosperity through the dotcom chimera and the housing boom, it is somehow a "crisis" that our standard of living is falling. It is surely a good thing that the standard of living is falling. It means that reality is beginning to return. A hangover may be painful but its cure is not a bout of more binging. My fundamental concern with the stimulus is that its spending be focused directly on real investment and immediate demand and that it be swiftly followed by a brutal assault on long-term entitlement and defense spending.

We need to take a machete to social security and Medicare and a very sharp scalpel to all domestic discretionary spending. And we need to think very hard about big withdrawals of troops in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and about the foreign aid we give Egypt and Israel. Between the boomers at home and the expanding, unending empire abroad, the next generation will have no sane fiscal future unless something is done very very soon.

So, to make Andrew "flat tax" Sullivan happy, we are making decisions to, ultimately, throw grandma and grandpa on the streets to die. B

First, most people don't have a clue about savings and investing, no matter how much Mr. Rich and Smug thinks they should. People just don't get it. They don't understand it. And they make bad decisions because they're humans and humans, without special training, are notoriously BAD at risk measurement and financial decision making.

Second, because the markets go through long swings (that last 15-20 years) of Bull and Bear. Right now, it looks like we are in for what may be another decade of marginal investment returns. Like we went through during much of the 60's and 70's. Without bull-market returns of over 10%, it's extremely difficult to use the time value of money to create enough financial wealth to replace your working income.

Third, because when things go bust, they go really bad. Right now, Italy, which went to "market retirement plans" for many of its citizens is in crises.

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

The global market meltdown has created losses for those who agreed to shift their contributions from a government severance payment plan to private funds meant to yield higher returns. Anger is rising both at the state, which promoted the change, and money managers such as UniCredit SpA and Arca Previdenza, which stood to profit.Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s administration is now considering ways to compensate as many as 1.2 million people who made the switch, giving up a fixed return for private plans linked to financial markets. It’s also letting people delay redemptions on retirement funds to avoid losses after Italy’s benchmark stock index fell 50 percent in 2008, destroying 300 billion euros ($423 billion) in wealth.

“The reform didn’t help anyone,” said Gabriele Fava, who heads the Fava & Associati law firm in Milan and writes about labor law. “Not the government, which was hoping everyone would make the switch to take the strain off its coffers, nor the workers who have not resolved the problem of needing a supplement to their social security pensions.”

Italian's in private investments have lost half their retirement money. My father has lost 40% of his retirement portfolio. Mine is down 35%, but I've got decades to go before I need to use the money so I'm thinking it'll pick up by the time I retire.

Fourth, China is seriously considering expanding its medical social services. The Chinese save at a 30+ percent rate because they have no social safety net with regards to medical costs. This savings, the paradox of thrift at play once again, slows the Chinese economy.

The second issue, with which I take umbrage, is his idiotic beliefs about recession management. Reducing spending is not the correct course of action. What we know is that in times of recession consumers get scared and save money. This his called the paradox of thrift, by which sound individualistic decisions are bad for the system as whole. It has been shown by economists (non-wing-nut-Chicago-School-ideologue economists) to stimulate the economy, as the consumer engages in the class paradox of thrift, we need to spend. It has also been shown that each time Roosevelt reduced spending to balance the budget during the great depression, things got worse quickly. Most famous is his 1937 blunder which caused the 1938 downswing.

I swear I don't know why he gets pegged as a "liberal" blogger. Sure, he's gay, but he's not liberal. He consistentency embraces the worst of the conservative movements government and economic policies and beliefs.

Al Qaeda loses top recruiter

I find this ironic:

Soon after the November election, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader took stock of America's new president-elect and dismissed him with an insulting epithet. "A house Negro," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.

...

The torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts now believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda's skin. The departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group.

...

Al-Qaeda's rhetorical swipes at Obama date to the weeks before the election, when commentators on Web sites associated with the group debated which of the two major presidential candidates would be better for the jihadist movement. While opinions differed, a consensus view supported Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as the man most likely to continue Bush administration policies and, it was hoped, drive the United States more deeply into a prolonged guerrilla war.

Especially when I read this:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

This little fact has the wing-nuts in a dither. But, frankly, it's a natural and logical consequence of our actions taken under the wing-nut rule of George Bush. For those who don't know of this man, he wasn't a terrorist before we caught him and tortured him for years. Eventually, after the torture, he was cleared, by the Bush Administration, as a non-terrorist. With some classic "Whoops, our bad. So sorry. Well, off you go..." send-off to some rehab program in Saudi Arabia. Which he completes, leaves and travels to Yemen where he promptly joins Al Qaeda.

Even though if we hadn't have illegally detained him and tortured him, by following proper rules of evidence and law, he'd still be a rug merchant in Saudi Arabia.

Something the nut-cases on the far right never seem to get into their heads is that if you torture people, disenfranchise them, treat them like crap... They may end up hating you and becoming exactly what you fear. Think of them as pit-bulls. Pit-bulls are, if properly treated, rated higher on the temperament/docility scale than Labrador Retrievers (83 to 82). But if your average thug (like Michael Vick) buys one... Well, you can turn any dog into a brutal, vicious killer by mistreating it. So, when the dog you've abused for years suddenly bites you... The problem isn't the dog who is acting like a dog. The problem is you, the human, who failed to act like a human who caused the problem.

So, the bottom-line becomes you continue to create your bad-dog terrorists (and alienate your allies) with your behavior. Then, lacking the ability of introspection, you're then stupid and think to ratchet up the cycle through your pseudo-tough-guy routine instead of being smart and trying to calm the cycle. Ultimately, it'll just get worse.

If you can't see it applied to the US, look at Israel, they're a classic example of creating/exacerbating their own problems. Most everything their conservative (Likud) governments have done since the 80's has made the situation worse, not better. Their foray into Lebanon backfired internationally and ended up making Hezbollah stronger. The same is happening with Hamas in Gaza. Further, their actions in Lebanon and Gaza have gotten the US to the point where, frankly, most US Citizens are no longer "on their side" and are becoming neutral with respect to the Palestine/Israeli conflict.

So while it remains incontrovertibly true that our old, toadying government officials still drink the "St. Israel" kool-aid, a new generation of men and women are slowly working their way into power. Long gone, for them, will be the sympathy of the 1967 war and Israel's positives that ruled my life for so many decades. Instead the impression will be the brutal, naked aggression of Lebanon and Gaza with thousands of civilian, non-combatant casualties coupled with the apartheid state of Palestine while Israel continues to illegally occupy Palestine.

Ultimately, as a country, we have a choice. We can continue to act like six-year-olds that want to dominate the sandbox. Or we can grow up.

Being six was fun. When I was six. But when you're supposed to be a grown-up, being six is, well, just stupid, especially when that simplistic mentality stretches to complex issues with no easy solutions.

Ted Haggard is Complete (Not) Heterosexual...

Roy Zimmerman has a great video Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual which, on this news, is funnier than ever:

DENVER - Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard's former church disclosed Friday that the gay-sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard — a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

None of this, with the gay prostitute, bothered me. From the sex aspect. What does bother me is the hypocrisy with which his ex-church was completely involved with, including paying hush money to at least one victim, despite claims of this being an isolated issue:

In early 2007, New Life Church disclosed that an investigation uncovered new evidence that Haggard engaged in "sordid conversation" and "improper relationships" — but didn't go into detail. Earlier, a church board member had said there was no evidence that Haggard had sexual relations with anyone but Mike Jones, the former male prostitute.

Yet the reality was at least one other:

Boyd said an "overwhelming pool of evidence" pointed to an "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship" that "went on for a long period of time ... it wasn't a one-time act." Boyd said the man was in his early 20s at the time. He said he was certain the man was of legal age when it began.

Of course, in the article, there are all kinds of excuses and a straight-up denial of hush-money. But for all their excuses, I think it's obvious that the payoff was hush-money, pure and simple. This mega Church, which is a business for all practical purposes, didn't want its revenue stream to dry up in light of the potential escalation of the Gay Preacher Scandal.

At least, in the end, Haggard gets it:

In an AP interview this month before an appearance in front of TV critics in California, Haggard described his sexuality as complex and something that can't be put into "stereotypical boxes."

That really goes for much of the population. And I don't mean gay/bi issue. I just mean sexuality is extremely complex, more-so for some than others and that there are huge numbers of people for which the "acceptable" 19th "Do it for England" missionary posture act isn't going to work.

Another Victory Against Racism...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Voters in Nashville on Thursday rejected a proposal that would have made the country music capital the largest U.S. city to make English the official language of local government.

Returns showed the proposition lost by 41,752 votes to 32,144, local media reported.

The Nashville Tennessean had urged defeat of the measure, saying in an editorial on Thursday that it was discriminatory and would damage the city.

It would "exclude and marginalize" non-English speakers, it said, asking: "How can they assimilate if they cannot first get basic services -- deeds, permits, driver's licenses, police and fire protection?"

There was a time, in my life, I would have voted for this. Not for the reasons the racists who proposed this legislation, but because it's something I got from my Grandfather whose family emigrated from Austria.

My grandfather (a Ukrainian Austrian) would not speak anything but his heavily accented English and wouldn't teach his children his native language. It was, in that part of my family, important to assimilate into the culture of the United States.

But things change in the world, and thus, so do worldviews. Today, the English-only views come from the nativists, the racists and the most vile parts of America while wrapped in the flag of Patriotism.

Well, last night I voted against this initiative. I'm proud to have voted against it. Not because I don't think everyone should speak English, I actually do. I really am one of those people who believe that both the culture needs to adapt to influences, but those that come into the culture need to adapt to the culture and adopt it as their own instead of remaining separate. I think assimilation with adaptation is the only clear path to get past the racism, tribalism and the enclave-mindset that is destroying our country from within.

So, yes, at one time I would have voted yes. But not today. Because, regardless of my beliefs and ideals about assimilation and adaptation, I'm not going to pursue them at the expense of feeding racism and intolerance in this anti-Latino scapegoating/backlash.

Hit The Road, George!

Enjoy!!!!

Toddler Sad to See Bush Go Bye-Bye

Funny

It's funny because, well, it's true...

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

But not...

Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov

The Whitehouse Blog

Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. I'm Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the people who will be contributing to the blog.

A short time ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and his new administration officially came to life. One of the first changes is the White House's new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world.

It's like going to the doctor and finding out that the mystery spots aren't cancer... And the nightmare is over...

The New Sheriff

I'm a cynical bastard, so we'll see:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

And for those who don't quite get cynicism... A cynic is a disappointed and frustrated idealist.

Skewed views of science

A wonderful video. It applies to more than science, as well.

Taliban ban 'un-Islamic' female education in Pakistan region

What kills me is that the wing-nuts still count Afghanistan as a success. And, to make it worse, Obama the spineless seems to want to continue to play with that tar-baby. Oh well:

12:00 AM CST on Sunday, January 18, 2009
Reuters, The Associated Press

Taliban militants have banned female education in the northwest Pakistan valley of Swat, depriving more than 40,000 girls of schooling, officials said on Saturday.

In August, residents of Pakistan's Swat valley examined books burned by militants in a government girls' school. The military is losing control in the region. "My daughters are sitting at home," said Mohammad Ayub, father of two girls whose school was blown up by militants in October. "Their future looks bleak because they will stay uneducated."

The day it becomes feasible, I'm so moving to Australia. I know it's not perfect, but this country has turned into the biggest pack of cry-babies, cowardly-war-cheerleaders and christinist-wingnuts I could possibly imagine. I look at our country and it's almost third-world country, never-mind it has become an actual third-world economy.

From the I never thought I'd live to see it file...

The Arizona Cardinals are going to the Superbowl. In other news:

The Principal's Office -

This is just too funny.

Lewis Black - The Devil's Handiwork

An oldie, but a goodie.

A fair trial, then a hanging...

...for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. It is the only way to restore our country's honor and rule-of-law:

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon official acknowledged in an interview published Wednesday that the United States tortured Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi man who allegedly had hoped to become the "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We tortured Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, a retired judge who was appointed convening authority of military commissions in February 2007. Crawford was interviewed by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

Al-Qahtani was one of six men charged by the military in February 2008 with murder and war crimes for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks. But in May, Crawford decided to dismiss the charges against al-Qahtani, who was being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

His Pentagon-appointed attorney, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, suggested at the time that his client's harsh interrogation, authorized by the defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, could have influenced the decision.

"In any instance in which the United States wishes to impose the death penalty, my opinion is that such a case requires clean hands on the part of the U.S.," Broyles told The Associated Press in May.

U.S. authorities had acknowledged that al-Qahtani was subjected to waterboarding by CIA interrogators and that he was treated harshly at Guantanamo.

Al-Qahtani in October 2006 recanted a confession he said he made after he was tortured and humiliated at Guantanamo.

The alleged torture, which he detailed in a written statement, included being beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female personnel.

In the interview published by the Post on Wednesday, Crawford said: "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that is why I did not refer the case" for prosecution

They should hang. Everyone of them. There is no excuse.

Bleach Memories Of Nobody (Instrumental)

My daughter loves this music. She also likes the anime.

Marry Me

Enjoy

Wii Fit Parody

Enjoy!!!

Hitler -- Better than Vista...

Ah, so true...

Cheney is French...

WASHINGTON — Vice-President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. “I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal,” he said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Cheney also said that Mr. Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.

“I don't think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has,” Mr. Cheney said.

“I don't think anybody saw it coming,” he said.

Yes, and the Maginot Line eliminated all risk of France being invaded... Seriously, the real-estate market goes in boom bust cycles. But in the past, they'd been at least some what regulated. When the Republicans destroyed the regulatory environment...

Well, it was foreseeable.

As for the war crimes. Sorry, but anyone who's studied history and the Nuremberg trials knows that what we did was illegal.

We're from the FBI...

Quite a shock when two men dressed in black coats say that at your front door... Thankfully I'm just a relatively unimportant witness to a small ($600K) alleged contract fraud.

Of course, I have no idea if my client did it or not. My engagements are limited to tax return prep and, frankly, it's not like he hasn't reported a rock-solid income over the years.

So, we'll see...

But it is quite the shock. On two levels really. Compared the fraud that goes on with defense contractors, government contractors and through-out vast unethical landscape that is Fortune 500 business practice, they're worried about $600K?

Spend your time on Archer Daniels Midland. Sure, you've caught them twice, for billions, but if you think catching them twice is going to stop them...

Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies

Enjoy.

The Wheels on the Bus...

go 'round and 'round...

Today, thanks to many Cif readers, the overall total raised for the Atheist Bus Campaign stands at a truly overwhelming £135,000, breaking our original target of £5,500 by over 2400%. Given this unexpected amount, I'm very excited to tell you that 800 buses – instead of the 30 we were initially aiming for – are now rolling out across the UK with the slogan, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", in locations all over England, Scotland and Wales, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, Cardiff, Devon, Leeds, Bristol and Aberdeen.

From today's launch, two hundred of the buses will run in London, because the campaign was originally started as a positive counter-response to the Jesus Said ads running on London buses in June 2008. These ads displayed the URL of a website which stated that non-Christians "will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternity in torment in hell … Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire prepared for the devil". Our rational slogan will hopefully reassure anyone who has been scared by this kind of evangelism.

One day, hopefully, this will come to America as well. And we can abandon our unenlightened, bronze-age beliefs while moving forward and joining Europe, and other, first world countries in wonderfulness that is the 21st Century.

The Yale Whiffenpoofs of 2008 - The Whiffenpoof Song

Enjoy!

Yes, but...

Created "very good." I always found this to be troubling when I read the bible. One of the things that stuck with me and made me doubt because things were, obviously, not created "very good."

My first thought was God doesn't quite understand the concept of "very good" if he made creatures capable of sin. Never mind the obvious defects in design, beyond the rationalized reasons we age and die. For example:

Why are people near-sighted? Why do people get far-sighted? Why do they get both?

Why are their different levels of intelligence and, frankly, so many people so stupid? Why can't we use our feet like hands AND walk on them? Why do we have fingernails instead of retractable death-claws of doom, like my cat?

In fact, why don't we look more like cats? Do you see LOL humans sweeping the Internets? No, you don't. And, sure, you have LOLCelebs, but only a few people can be celebs while ALL my cats, my mom's cats, my families cats, and even the crazy cat-ladies of the world, can have their precious feline masters be LOLCats. While were spend our lives laboring in obscurity while opening cans of tuna for our masters...

And Speaking of Religious Liars...

As if they didn't figure it out at the time:

In Expelled, Stein, with his trademark monotone, takes on the role of a Michael-Moore-like muckraker bent on exposing the allegedly closed minds of scientists who champion Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.

"We wanted to generate anger," Ruloff said.

"We always knew we'd get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle."

Well, he got no interest, the movie was a bomb. The anger was at the lies, propaganda and, frankly, crappy movie.

Of course, at least now he admits Expelled was just another religious diatribe that wasn't even pretending to be a documentary. Ironically, like the church-going lady below, we see actions of dishonesty speaking louder than the rhetoric of "morality and honesty" the Christian crowd preaches.

You like to make a movie. The movie is a lie. And you lie about it post facto while admitting your first lie, but not your second. Which compounds your lies as you hide behind some rationalization to pretend your first lie was done 'for a just cause.'

Really, Christians do not have a monopoly on morality, though they make a strong case for hypocrisy.

Religion spoils everything...

Apparently, this includes the brains of it's practitioners...

Bus Matron Arrested For Abandoning Disabled Man on Bus

The bus matron who knowingly left a mentally disabled man on a bus overnight was arrested and fired. Ed Wynn Rivera, who suffers from cerebral palsy and is unable to communicate, was found after 17 hours of sitting in the bus (which was parked at a Brooklyn depot), freezing and still strapped to his seat. And what's more, Rivera had been sitting right behind the driver.

Linda Hockaday, who had worked for Outstanding Transport, was charged with reckless endangerment. WCBS 2 reports that sources say "Hockaday admitted to knowing that Rivera was still on the bus when it was locked up on one of the coldest nights of the year. Her rationale for leaving? She apparently didn't want to be late for church." Apparently she thought someone else would notice Rivera! Only Hockaday was charged, and not the driver, because, as the bus matron, she is responsible for passenger safety.

Rivera's parents were worried when he didn't arrive back at their East Harlem home from his day program (in Tribeca) on Wednesday afternoon. They called the police, which searched the depot with K-9 and aviation units but didn't find him. According to the NY Times, "On Thursday, the police, with help from Mr. Rivera’s parents, searched another part of the depot and found Mr. Rivera in the vehicle." Rivera's sister said, "Of course we're angry ... How could you just lose a whole person? ... Now I can say honestly it is a happy New Year. I know that he's OK. My eyes are red from crying so much."

What ever happened to "doing the right thing" that so many of the religious prattle about? How did religion give this woman "morality" that I, as a an atheist, supposedly lack?

I hear the talk. But as far as I can see, the walk is in the opposite direction.

It's all about Evolution...

Scientific American is celebrating Darwin's Theory of Evolution and how it has remained both robust and yet been fine-tuned by one-hundred fifty years of science.

The features are online here: http://www.sciam.com/sciammag/

Apparently it is....

Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute (inappropriately named if there ever was an inappropriately named institution):

“Bicycles have two wheels. Unicycles, having only one wheel, are missing an obvious component found on bicycles. Does this imply that you can remove one wheel from a bicycle and it will still function? Of course not. Try removing a wheel from a bike and you’ll quickly see that it requires two wheels to function. The fact that a unicycle lacks certain components of a bicycle does not mean that the bicycle is therefore not irreducibly complex.”

Seriously, just shut up about this irreducible complexity thing. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Even Dembski, the guy who proposed (and coined) the concept has given up on it...