Politics in State Creation

This is a fascinating anecdote about the creation of North and South Dakota.

Weekly Music Video

The 80s were great.

Alphaville - "Dance With Me"

Weekly Secret

PostSecret

Never Forget

"All Things Will Die" - Lord Alfred Tennyson

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing

Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call'd—we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro' eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.

Patrick Roy Kramer - May 6, 1977 - October 22, 2006

Game of Thrones Pilot to Start Filming

Excellent news for geeks everywhere as the pilot for George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is about to start filming. This does not guarantee it will air, but as Poniewozik notes is a very good sign.

Oh, and here is an update from Martin on the status of the long-delayed fifth book in the series.

Finished a Jon Snow chapter, and have just passed the 1100 page (manuscript pages, the page count in the final printed book will be different) mark on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's counting only finished chapters in something close to final form. I have considerably more in partials, fragments, and roughs.

Even with just the finished portions, DANCE is now longer than A FEAST FOR CROWS and A GAME OF THRONES, and I'm closing in on A CLASH OF KINGS. I do hope I can wrap things up before I approach the 1521 page length of A STORM OF SWORDS.

Making a new run at the Meereenese knot, but maybe not tomorrow. I think I'll hang around at the Wall a bit longer, and maybe visit Winterfell.

Putting on the Pressure to Close Gitmo

Want to see the detention center at Guantanamo closed? Sign the petition.

The Dishonesty of Glenn Beck

I don't get Glenn Beck. Or more accurately, I don't get the people who watch Glenn Beck. On the occasions that I've watches his show, I've been left dumbstruck by his circus antics - making a dramatic point with a misspelled word, crying, or rudely yelling at a caller. I just can't figure out how he can be taken seriously. Obviously he's making a ton of money doing it, so why shouldn't he keep doing it? The fact that so many people buy into his shtick, though, just boggles my mind.

What is perhaps most egregious, however, is his reckless dishonesty. Check out Media Matters pwning Beck for his lying about Anita Dunn's remarks. The video that he keeps showing has been edited to take her remarks out of context! Not to mention that many conservatives have quoted Mao. It's sickening that he does this and people don't care. They live in their little bubble where Beck is an outcast prophet speaking truth to power. Beck is a dangerous demagogue and shouldn't be given the time of day let alone a regular TV spot to spout his garbage.

UPDATE: And here's another example of Beck's intellectual dishonesty.

Tough Times for the Vatican

They're having to hire temps to fill vacant Priest positions. I bet I could do that gig. Maybe I'll look into it.

Your Money at Work

Check out this incredible visual breakdown of the federal budget. It certainly helps to put things in perspective.

Weekly Secret

PostSecret

Weekly Music Video

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to my Arcade Fire channel on Pandora when this song came on. After about 30 seconds, I was hooked. I had never heard of the group before, but I tracked them down on iTunes and downloaded Sam's Town, the album this song was on. The whole album is good, but this song is just brilliant. I've been listening to it over and over. It's hard not to feel good when listening to the earnest vocals, the soaring sound, and the beautiful lyrics. A new favorite of mine.

The Killers - "Read My Mind"

Speaking of "I don't know"

Listen to this very fascinating speech given by Tom Honey, a Canon Pastor at Exeter Cathedral, that grapples with our notion of a loving, all powerful God and the fact that great tragedies occur.



H/T: Sullivan

"I don't know."

That's the answer the lawyer defending the California gay-marriage ban gave when a judge pressed him on how gay marriage threatened heterosexual marriage. This is going to be the biggest problem for proponents of banning gay marriage. There is no logical basis for it. Outlawing it rests on religious beliefs or the "ick" factor. There is no concrete proof that it harms children, raises divorce rates, or in any way has an adverse affect on society.

Gay marriage will be legalized. It's only a matter of when.

Only Mostly Dead

A scientist is working on a method of "slowing time" for people which could be used in caring for critical patients.

You see, Roth thinks he's figured out the puzzle. "While it's true we need oxygen to live, it's also a toxin," he explains. Scientists are starting to understand that death isn't caused by oxygen deprivation itself, but by a chain of damaging chemical reactions that are triggered by sharply dropping oxygen levels.

The thing is, those reactions require the presence of some oxygen. Hydrogen sulfide takes the place of oxygen, preventing those reactions from taking place. No chain reaction, no cell death. The patient lives.

...

After that, and after his conceptual breakthrough, Roth was ready to experiment. First up: developing fish embryos. He found a way to drain the oxygen from their cells, and they wouldn't die -- they'd just stop growing. When he put the oxygen back, they'd pick up where they left off. If he suspended them for a day, they took a day longer to develop. No more, no less. Nothing else was different.

Next up were fruit flies. This time, he gassed them. They seemed to die; they stopped moving. Then he returned them to fresh air, and the flies came back to life. New CPR beat back death for a young mom

The air we breathe is 21 percent oxygen. At 5 percent, those fish and flies -- like us -- would be dead in a few minutes. At 0.1 percent, it was another story. "You get a state of suspended animation and the creatures do not pass away, and that's the basis of what we see as an alternative way to think about critical care medicine," Roth says. "What you want to do is to have the patient's time slowed down, while everyone around them [like doctors] move at what we would call real time."

If the patient's time -- the process of your death -- were slowed down, doctors would have more time to fix you. In medicine, time is key. An analogy is the history of open heart surgery. For years, surgeons had the technical tools to make simple repairs on the heart, but they couldn't help patients until the development of the heart-lung machine made it possible to preserve the body for more than a few minutes without a heartbeat.

This is an incredible time to be alive.

Obama's Nobel Prize

I've thought a lot about what I think about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize and I wasn't sure exactly what to think. I do think, though, that Ezra Klein probably best sums up how I feel.

I had a good time making fun of Barack Obama's Nobel prize this morning. It is undeserved. It is a bit ridiculous. But it's a laugh in the way that finding a $900 antique chair in the attic is a laugh, or getting paid $120,000 to be a celebrity dog walker is a laugh. It's an absurdity worth celebrating. It's an absurdity that can help you.

During the campaign, one of the arguments for Obama's candidacy was that his election would give us a costless shot of international goodwill. That the symbolism of his election would aid America's international standing without forcing any substantive policy concessions. At the time, that was a very big deal: Leaders were winning elections in other countries in no small part by tying incumbents to George W. Bush. That made it a lot harder for our allies to loudly support our initiatives. Fixing that was not going to be easy. Candidates and countries pay a lot of money to better their public image. Obama, some said, could do some of it on the cheap.
...
This prize, which came as Obama contemplates a troop build-up in Afghanistan and hectors the international community on financial regulation and global warming, suggests that there is some reservoir of relief and amazement for America's young president. The international gushing may seem absurd to us, as the schoolyard lionization of an older brother often seems funny to a sibling, but it can be used to our advantage. Leaders in allied countries no longer run against America, and now the Nobel Committee is attempting to welcome America back as the leader of the free world. And it didn't cost us anything. Would that life told more jokes like that one.

Last Words

I don't believe in the death penalty. Even if we were able to be 100% certain that the person was guilty, I would still find it barbaric. Killing someone is not justice; it's vengeance. Maybe that's why I found a recent NYT article rather poignant. It has a list of the last words spoken by some of the people executed in the state of Texas. Here are some.

Death row is full of isolated hearts and suppressed minds.

Mistakes are made, but with God all things are possible.

I am responsible for them losing their mother, their father and their grandmother. I never meant for them to be taken. I am sorry for what I did.

I can’t take it back.

Lord Jesus forgive of my sins. Please forgive me for the sins that I can remember.

All my life I have been locked up.

Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my life back.

I am tired.

I deserve this.

A life for a life.

It’s my hour. It’s my hour.

I’m ready, Warden.

Now, to be clear, I am not feeling sorry for these people (unless they were innocent). But I do pity them and I do think that this is wrong, no matter how heinous of a crime they may have committed. How can killing someone in cold blood ever be considered an acceptable course of action? Don't we teach our children that two wrongs don't make a right? That we should not sink to the level of those who perpetrate wrongs against us?

Saturn's New Ring

New to us anyway. Scientists have discovered a new ring around Saturn. This one is quite different from the others.

"Iran is a military nothing"

Juan Cole, a Middle East expert, reminds everyone of some basic facts, not that those are welcome in the debate.

Remember, God is a Conservative

What a great idea.

Since the landmark 2008 general election, there can be no doubt that a very large percentage of our Nation's leaders have a liberal mindset. The undeniable fact is that the 111th Pelosi-Reid Congress and the Obama Administration demonstrate a far left political philosophy. And since the President nominates federal judges and Justices of the United States Supreme Court, the judicial branch of government could take on a decidedly more liberal bent as the Obama Administration wears on.

Liberty Counsel has therefore named this special new prayer-in-action program Adopt a Liberal. And that's exactly what we invite you to do -- adopt a liberal who is in authority for regular, intense prayer in accord with St. Paul's admonition to his disciple, Timothy. In fact, we expect that many of our friends and supporters will choose to adopt many liberals as subjects of regular prayer!

I would think that there would be better uses of prayer, but I guess that's just me.

H/T: Sullivan

The Politics of the Olympics

Regardless of how one feels about Obama's campaigning for Chicago to host the Olympics, the crowing from some on the Right about Chicago losing is just bizarre. As Roland Martin said:

Whenever President Obama has traveled overseas and offered pointed and direct assessments of the United States, some of them critical, Republicans have ripped him for criticizing America, saying a president should always defend the United States.

So I want to hear the explanation by these so-called patriots of their giddy behavior over the United States losing the 2016 Olympic Games.

This is an example of what I was talking about in a previous post about how the Republican Party is treating politics as a zero-sum game. It doesn't matter what Obama and the Democrats propose, the GOP proclaims that it is against it. The Republicans have adopted this strategy rather wholeheartedly, but it is hard to see how this can pay off in the long run. Can anyone (Republicans included) even say what the GOP stands for right now? If the Republicans expect to govern effectively in the future, they need to stop the slash-and-burn tactics and take a stand on something. I guess I'm not optimistic about that happening, however. It's much easier to paint the other party as EEEVIL! than to actually make a case on the merits. Unfortunately both parties are well-versed in this, but right now at least the Democrats are standing up for something whether or not you agree with any of it.