d00dism

Our lawmakers are hard at work. This time the pressing issue is extension of daylight savings time. The current plan is to extend it by a month total, three weeks in Spring and a week in the Fall. The goal of this legislation is to reduce oil consumption.

I’m no fan of daylight savings. It just means more work for me to change all my clocks. I’d be more in favor of dropping it entirely and picking one damn time scheme. After all, if extending it will save on oil consumption, shouldn’t moving to that time scheme permanently save us even more?

Reps. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, and Fred Upton, R-Michigan, must think there is substantial savings to be had. They originally wanted to extend by a whole month on both ends. They must have something to back up that claim. There must be some compelling reason to do this despite concerns about effects on livestock and international flight scheduling (as well as requiring new programming for computers).

Well, if you thought that like I did, you were wrong.

Senate negotiators accepted the new version, along with a call for a study on how much daylight-saving time actually affects oil consumption.

Wait, wait, wait. They haven’t even done a study on how much the move would actually save? Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse, just a little bit? I would think that careful analysis of the pros and cons of a piece of legislation would be the first step before introducing it. I guess I was wrong.

Besides, who needs studies when you have reason like:

“The beauty of daylight-saving time is that it just makes everyone feel sunnier,” said Markey.

and:

Upton noted that the extension means daylight-saving time will continue through Halloween, adding to safety. “Kids across the nation will soon rejoice,” said Upton, because they’ll have another hour of daylight trick-or-treating.

Just thinking about it makes me feel “sunnier”. How about you?

Update: I didn’t even realize how fucked up Indiana is.

I don’t normally encourage people to get involved with causes, but I feel this one is vital. Don’t let Ground Zero become a political war ground. The memorial should be for and about the victims, not some politically correct quest for international popularity.

I’ve been working my butt off the last few days creating an online petition system for takebackthememorial.org

The World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex will be an imposing edifice wedged in the place where the Twin Towers once stood. It will serve as the primary “gateway” to the underground area where the names of the lost are chiseled into concrete. The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on “a journey through the history of freedom” - but do not be fooled into thinking that their idea of freedom is the same as that of those Marines. To the IFC’s organizers, it is not only history’s triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man’s inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich’s Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona.

OpinionJournal: The Great Ground Zero Heist

Everyone rolled their eyes when serial dickhead Bill Maher suggested that we build a “Why They Hate Us” pavilion at ground zero… but don’t blink: it’s happening.

Go sign the petition, if this sickens you.

We, the undersigned, believe that the World Trade Center Memorial should stand as a solemn remembrance of those who died on September 11th, 2001, and not as a journey of history’s “failures” or as a debate about domestic and foreign policy in the post-9/11 world. Political discussions have no place at the World Trade Center September 11th memorial, and the International Freedom Center honors no one by making excuses for the perpetrators of this heinous crime. The memorial should be about what happened that day, about the brave heroes who risked their lives so selflessly, and about the innocent lives that were lost- nothing more.

TakeBackTheMemorial.org: Petition

[via Tempus Fugit]

I like to read a variety of blogs and get a variety of opinions. Instapundit is still the best way to do get a full sampling. I forgot how I found Wizbang, but I enjoyed reading a lot of the content.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Contributing Editor Paul decided to go into “I told you so” mode because a news story suggested that evolution was more complex than simple genetic inheritance. His expert interpretation was that evolution was severely flawed. Naturally, he got lots of flak for this. Instead of letting it go, he made felt the need to post again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Notice a pattern? This is immaturity at its most embarrassing. He continued to get lambasted with criticism in the comments.

Feeling the tide overtake him, he resorted to deleting comments. He also edited them. Those two steps weren’t enough for him to engineer “winning” the argument apparently though. He’s turned off comments for the latest stories.

It’s sad and way below Wizbang’s standards (or at least I assumed it was based on the quality of posts by both Kevin and Jay Tea of the same site). Considering their colleague’s recent behavior, maybe it’s time they put him in time-out, revoking both his posting and comment system manipulation, or kick him off the site completely (which wouldn’t be a big loss). I’d like to keep reading their site, but if they don’t help curb Paul’s immaturity or offer a way to subscribe to all the posts not written by Paul, I’ll have to remove it from my RSS reader.

Update: And again. Who’s the nutty one here? Will someone at Wizbang take control before the site turns into “The Paul Raging at Evolution Happy Hour”?

Update 2: And again. Again, the guy is a six year old.

Final Update: Thank you Kevin.

Update Redux: I can’t be sure that it’s not just an April Fool’s joke, but Paul posted again. That prompted Kevin to put Paul on hiatus. This was followed by a post by Jay. Again, this may prove to be an April fool’s joke. It was. Lame.

Now you can’t. I read this out of CNN:

During the committee hearings, Boxer said the Bush administration had changed its rationale for the Iraq war from eradicating weapons of mass destruction after no such weapons were found.

In response, Rice asked Boxer to “refrain from impugning my integrity.”

That sounds pretty damning for Rice. It also seems very clear cut that she was avoiding a question. However, it doesn’t seem so when we examine the actual question posed (or at least what appears to be what Rice was responding to).

When Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief, you said — your first words were The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us. Now, the tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime, one of the worst, and it’s going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity. You mentioned it as part of one sentence. And I would hope to work with you on this, because children are suffering; we’re worried they’re going to get in the sex trade. This thing is a disaster — a true natural disaster and a human disaster of great proportions.

Note, according to the transcript, Rice said no such thing. Also worthy of note is that Boxer didn’t so much as interview Rice as lecture her for untold minutes. According to Word, the speech leading up to Rice’s initial response was 2,109 words long. My application essay to U-Mass was capped at a fourth of that. Rice’s response wasn’t limited to that simple phrase either. It was 626 words long.

If CNN’s misleading, oversimplified version of Boxer and Rice’s extended exchange isn’t bias, I don’t know what is. Before you make any decisions about Rice’s answers, read the transcript. It paints quite a different picture than the one that Boxer has been trotting in front of the media.

An online quiz just confirmed what I already knew. Fuck the two parties!

You Are a “Don’t Tread On Me” Libertarian

You distrust the government, are fiercely independent, and don’t belong in either party. Religion and politics should never mix, in your opinion… and you feel opressed by both. You don’t want the government to cramp your self made style. Or anyone else’s for that matter. You’re proud to say that you’re pro-choice on absolutely everything!