MonthJanuary 2008

The Iowa Caucus Explained, Analyzed, Awesome

“The Iowa Caucus occurs on January 3rd, 2008. Why is the Iowa Caucus so important to Presidential politics? How does the hell does this caucus thingie work? Creepy Sleepy explains this strange, convoluted process. Kind of. Creepy Sleepy show 132 was joined by political junkie, blogger, and Iowa resident Greg Hollingsworth, as well as SCOTUS Correspondent for the Talk Radio News Service, Jay Tamboli to explain and discuss the caucus process.From the Wikipedia entry on the Iowa Caucus:

The Iowa caucus operates very differently from the more common primary election used by most other states (see U.S. presidential primary). The caucus is generally defined as a ‘gathering of neighbors.’ Rather than going to polls and casting ballots, Iowans gather at a set location in each of Iowa’s 1784 precincts. Typically, these meetings occur in schools, churches, or public libraries. The caucuses are held every two years, but the ones that receive national attention are the presidential preference caucuses held every four years. In addition to the voting, caucus attendees propose planks for their party’s platform, select members of the county committees, and discuss issues important to their local organizations. Unlike the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary, the Iowa caucus does not result directly in national delegates for each candidate. Instead, caucus-goers elect delegates to county conventions, who elect delegates to district and state conventions where the national convention delegates are selected. The Republicans and Democrats each hold their own set of caucuses subject to their own particular rules that change from time to time. Participants in each party’s caucuses must be registered with that party. Participants can change their registration at the caucus location. Additionally, 17-year-olds can participate, as long as they will be 18 years old by the date of the general election. Observers are allowed to attend, as long as they do not become actively involved in the debate and voting process.”

(via Creepy Sleepy)

links for 2008-01-02

Foreign Policy’s 10 most under reported stories of 2007

1. The Cyberwars Begin

2. US-Mexico Border Fence Gets Cut in Half

3. Salman al-Awdah denounces bin Laden

4. US Navy will leave Iraq when Iraqi Navy is ready to take over (ie, never)

5. More Cubans have been quietly fleeing to the United States than ever before

6. The American Heartland Grows Crops with Human Proteins

7. Thai Junta Gives Itself a Raise

8. Dengue Fever Runs High

9. American Jews Turn Away from Israel

10. Armed Robots Take to the War in Iraq

Full Story: Foreign Policy.

See More

mind control subject george bush

Pope’s exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

the pope

The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.

Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.

They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of “Godlessness.”

Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.

[…]

“Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.”

Full Story: The Daily Mail.

(Thanks Bill!)

Stranger Than Fiction: Parallel Universes Beguile Science

A staple of mind-bending science fiction, the possibility of multiple universes has long intrigued hard-nosed physicists, mathematicians and cosmologists too. We may not be able — as least not yet — to prove they exist, many serious scientists say, but there are plenty of reasons to think that parallel dimensions are more than figments of eggheaded imagination. The specter of shadow worlds has been thrown into relief by the December release of “The Golden Compass,” a Hollywood blockbuster adapted from the first volume of Philip Pullman’s classic sci-fi trilogy, “His Dark Materials”.

In the film, an orphaned girl living in an alternate universe goes on a quest, accompanied by an animal manifestation of her soul, to rescue kidnapped children and discover the secret of a contaminating dust said to be leaking from a parallel realm. Talking bears and magic dust aside, the basic premise of Pullman’s fantasy is not beyond the scientific pale. “The idea of multiple universes is more than a fantastic invention — it appears naturally within several scientific theories, and deserves to be taken seriously,” said Aurelien Barrau, a French particle physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), hardly a hotbed of flaky science. “The multiverse is no longer a model, it is a consequence of our models,” explained Barrau, who recently published an essay for CERN defending the concept.”

(via Physorg)

RIAA Declares Using Brain to Remember Songs is Criminal Copyright Infringement

“On the heels of the RIAA’s recent decision to criminalize consumers who rip songs from albums they’ve purchased to their computers (or iPods), the association has now gone one step further and declared that “remembering songs” using your brain is criminal copyright infringement. “The brain is a recording device,” explained RIAA president Cary Sherman. “The act of listening is an unauthorized act of copying music to that recording device, and the act of recalling or remembering a song is unauthorized playback.” The RIAA also said it would begin sending letters to tens of millions of consumers thought to be illegally remembering songs, threatening them with lawsuits if they don’t settle with the RIAA by paying monetary damages. “We will aggressively pursue all copyright infringment in order to protect our industry,” said Sherman.

In order to avoid engaging in unauthorized copyright infringement, consumers will now be required to immediately forget everything they’ve just heard — a skill already mastered by U.S. President George Bush. To aid in these memory wiping efforts, the RIAA is teaming up with Big Pharma to include free psychotropic prescription drugs with the purchase of new music albums. Consumers are advised to swallow the pills before listening to the music. The pills — similar to the amphetamines now prescribed for ADHD — block normal cognitive function, allowing consumers to enjoy the music in a more detached state without the risk of accidentally remembering any songs (and thereby violating copyright law).”

(via NewsTarget)

links for 2008-01-01

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