Today's topic for discussion is:

A post at fivethirtyeight.com, outlining the different parties and coalition combinations in play for last week's elections in Germany.

posted at: 04:08 | permanent link to this entry

Abuses of Power, part (n)

From the 'Duh' department: US Department of Justice's report on deferred warrant requests for 2008 is out, and can you believe the PATRIOT Act was used to advance the (domestic) Culture wars, instead of combat the Islamist threat? Pardon me while I feign shock; just make sure to clear a spot on the ground, in case I actually fall over while attempting to feel faint. HuffPo ran a story about 1200-1300 warrants being granted under this PATRIOT Act provision, with 5 of them being terrorism related. Fortunately, HuffPo was generous enough to host (and link to) the actual report, so it's possible to see past the writer's bias. 763 warrants were requested in 2008. The remainder were extensions for existing warrants (including these), so the 1200 number is bullshit. That being said... 474 (62%) of these were for drug investigations. 53 (7%) were for fraud investigations. 39 (5%) were for weapons investigations. 23 (3%) of these were given no reason at all. 23 requests were modified by the granting judge (not necessarily to add reasons to the warrant requests). 3 requests were denied. The above three categories were the most frequent reasons given for a warrant request, with the remaining 26% pertaining to a scattering of federal crimes. 30-90 days are by far the most frequent delayed notification periods, with 90 days being the most-used with the warrants and extensions. No mention of interrelation was given in the report; e.g. "how many non-drug warrants were tied to drug cases, and vice-versa." I suspect that when they're lumped together, the rate of misuse is much higher.

posted at: 15:27 | permanent link to this entry

Today's topic for discussion is:

Five shall be the number of the counting; the number of the counting shall be five.

posted at: 15:23 | permanent link to this entry

Today's topic for discussion is:

The relative merits of playing a Halo soundtrack during historic rains.

posted at: 04:31 | permanent link to this entry

A Loose End, Tied

My netbook ate my Dragon*Con '09 summary, so that's in progress of being re-written. I'm in the middle of several other posts, including Atlanta mayor's race. And oh, by the way, Atlanta metro got [3d6 + 1] inches of rain over the weekend. All sorts of happenings are going on, and I can't coherently describe any of them. I can, however, report that a question which has nagged me for 20 years has finally been answered. From an old Fark/bannination profile: Name that Video Game I vaguely remember a coin-op from the late 80's (maybe 1990), it involved a 1930's adventure setting. The premise involved three archetypes -- Dashing Adventurer (indiana jones-type), Hot Chick Reporter, and Millionaire/Playboy Expedition Sponsor -- being warped by/into an artifact retrieved from the latest expedition. This was an animated, bi-directional scroller, using overlaid tiles, and some fairly blocky animation. The adventurer started with a whip, the millionaire with a revolver. The answer: Dark Adventure (Konami, 1987), an American second release (and revision) of Devil World. A large thanks to VGMuseum.com for including this game (as the original Devil World) in their inventory. I hit on this while aimlessly clicking around, and instantly recognized the screencaps.

posted at: 04:00 | permanent link to this entry

From the Aether: California's Water Crisis

We are most certainly not the only region with water problems. Apparently, California is going dry (-er than normal). I found the following useful bit from bannination recently. This references Newsweek article, as journalistic contrast to some blathering on the subject. Couple of facts: The San Joaquin Valley, in case anyone out there doesn't know, is a completely unnatural agricultural environment. Less than a century ago it was largely a dustbowl with a couple of scattered farms centered closely around the few local water supplies of the area. It was only because of efforts brought about by water works initiated during the New Deal that the Valley became a sustainable agricultural area. The area is now in its 3rd consecutive year of drought. This has caused an unsustainably growing increase in water needs for farmers in the area which goes head to head with Environmental Protection Act. As it is, the increase demands would not only have an impact on the minnow in question, but many other species including trout, salmon and sturgeon. The issue isn't really so much about the environmental regulation in and of itself (regardless of what Hannity would like everyone to believe), but because of a tragically fucked up water distribution system that has been in place for years that allows farms larger allocations of water based on what is known as "senior water rights". As a result, as the article states "...four other contractors are getting a full 100 percent of their water allocation this year, despite the drought..The result is a patchwork valley, where a Westlands farmer like Mark Borba is forced to fallow land while his neighbor has excess water that he can sell at a hefty profit." Oh, and take in mind that the drought is not expected to magically get better any time soon, so basically even if these idiots use a minnow as a excuse to trash the environmental protection act, it is a temporary fix, as more and more water will be needed to sustain this area and more species will become threatened.

posted at: 04:50 | permanent link to this entry

Today's topic for discussion is:

Five-alarm beefaroni.

posted at: 04:45 | permanent link to this entry