…in the shape of a toxic fungus killing people stone-dead. Via the Headlines of the Ace of Spades, who tells off the quoted doctor, Paul Cieslak, for taking it lightly:

“You’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he said. “If we start to get more reports and it’s increasing, I’ll sit up and take note.

He’s the manager of the communical diseases program in the state Public Health Division. Thanks for your vigilance and expertise, Dr. Cieslak. I guess that’s why they pay you the government big bucks.

Woman and family evicted from bus (but taken to their destination, church) for reading Bible aloud:

A spokeswoman for The T said even if Lutz had been reading “Moby Dick” or the Pledge of Allegiance, the same outcome would have occurred.

Anybody want to take that bet?

Exactly how loudly do you have to be reading on a bus before other people can hear you enough to be bothered, anyway?

The TV thing, while outrageous to a taxpayer, doesn’t affect me personally inasmuch as I quit using an antenna years ago.

But I haven’t quit using warm, glowing, brilliant incandescent light bulbs in favor of dim, green, cold, hard fluorescents. That’ll change when the provisions of the energy bill Bush signed last month take effect. They went ahead and mandated our light bulbs, folks.

First they came for the broadcasting, and I said nothing because I have satellite TV. Then they came for the light bulbs, and there was nobody left to scream back at the global warming alarmists.

Faugh.

Update: Just for fun, in addition to making you look like a goblin, they might give you migraines as well.

The Migraine Action Association said there was growing concern about the links between the bulbs and severe headaches.

The charity’s Paul Jansen said: “For some people a migraine attack can be triggered by fluorescent lights, video screens, stroboscopic effects and flashing lights.

“Most of the currently available low energy light bulbs are based on fluorescent light technology.

“We hope that the Government will allow regular light bulbs still to be available to those who need them.’

The Government has acknowledged low energy bulbs could pose a problem.

In a written parliamentary answer, Health Minister Ivan Lewis said: “It is known some people with epilepsy may be affected by energy saving light bulbs.”

Well, is it really just people with epilepsy? I’m subject to occasional migraines and would prefer not to find out for sure, the hard way, that these bulbs cause them.

Thanks to Daddyman for the link.

You know that lefty canard that the money being spent on the war should be spent on health care and education? Well, here’s a billion and a half I’d be happier to see going there than here:

Beginning Feb. 18, 2009, anyone who does not own a digital set and still gets their programming via over-the-air antennas will no longer receive a picture.

That’s the day the television industry completes its transition from old-style analog broadcasting to digital.

The converter boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 and will be available at most major electronics retail stores. Starting Tuesday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will begin accepting requests for two $40 coupons per household to be used toward the purchase of the boxes.

…

The giveaway basically works under the honor system.

The first 22 million coupons will go to all households that request them. That includes a residence that gets cable service for one television but has a spare TV that still uses an antenna, for example.

The rest of the coupons, however, are meant only for those who do not subscribe to a pay-television service.

What the hell? Not only did Congress order what should be a market to go to a certain technology, it will now spend $1.5 BILLION DOLLARS to entitle people to television. Television. And, it will give away this entitlement to people who already subscribe to the technology needed to go on receiving television signal after the government-ordered interference completes the transition to digital.

I have no words for the crap our government wastes money on. Hey, I wouldn’t like to lose my TV programming, either. Maybe the government should have thought about that one order to broadcasters and $1.5 BILLION DOLLARS ago.

As a general indicator, I suppose, but anecdotes are worrying. A Democrat friend tells me he was polled in this manner: Who would you vote for if the primary were today and you were voting Republican?

What kind of indicator of Republican primary voters is it if they knowingly poll Democrats?

Though the idea of The List was made infamous on Friends, mine’s not as notorious as all that–I’d be happy just hanging out for a while with any guy on the list, never mind sleeping with him. Of course, I’m not ruling the idea out, either …

The list actually isn’t that different from last year’s–only two slots changed out of the five.

1. Matthew Perry: Haven’t seen him since Studio 60 came to a somewhat merciful end. Hope he picks a good next project.

2. Nathan Fillion: I haven’t managed to force myself to watch Desperate Housewives just to get a glimpse. Here’s hoping for better things soon.

3. Josh Charles: A girl can live a long, long time on a few episodes of Sports Night.

4. David Tennant: Currently playing the Doctor. The casting directors of that show know what they’re doing when it comes to picking a Doctor with personality off the charts–he is what makes the story interesting in a welter of uneven writing and a certain amount of camp. Ultimate casting wish: A series of Lord Peter Wimsey movies, with Tennant as Wimsey, Kate Winslet as Harriet Vane, and James McAvoy as Detective-Inspector Charles Parker.

5. And speaking of McAvoy, I keep married men off the general list, both to help me whittle it down and because it just seems rude to do otherwise. So the Honorable Mention slot this year goes to Married Guys, guys it would be great to hang out with and have a beer with them and their wives: Hugh Laurie (the incomparable House), James McAvoy (best period-piece heartbreaker), Jason Dohring (the guy who shouldn’t be that cute but somehow is–personality again, I’m a sucker for the stuff), James Frain (classic tall, dark, and handsome), Adam Baldwin (“Don’t worry, Chuck. When Sarah leaves we’ll get you a new girl.”).

Cheers and Happy New Year!

P.S. Don’t worry, Allahbabe, I still love you too. And I know you know I do not think the sun rises and sets in Fred Thompson’s … belly.

Jackass.

Somebody came to this blog by googling the phrase “how healthy is it to live in oregon.”

Well, it depends. What political persuasion are you, and how high do you like your blood pressure?

Resist.

Damned if you do (want it too much) and damned if you don’t (seem to). The double-twisted vise you’re caught in when you run for president. Fred Thompson has already given an answer that more than satisfies me:

In the first place, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t be doing this if i didn’t. I grew up very modest circumstances. I left government, I and my family have made sacrifices for me to be sitting here today. I haven’t had any income for a long time because I’m doing this. I figure that to be clean you’ve got to cut everything off. And I was doing speaking engagements and I had a contract to do a tv show, I had a contract with abc radio like I was talking about earlier and so forth. I guess a man would have to be a total fool to do all those things and to be leaving his family which is not a joyful thing at all if he didn’t want to do it.

But I am not consumed by personal ambition. I will not be devastated if I don’t do it. I want the people to have the best president that they can have.

…

But I approached it from the standpoint of a deal. A kind of a marriage. If one side of a marriage has to be really talked into the marriage, it probably ain’t going to be a very good deal for either one of them. But if you mutually think that this is a good thing. In this case, if you think this is a good thing for the country, then you have an opportunity to do some wonderful things together.

I’m offering myself up. I’m saying that I have the background, the capability, and the concern to do this and I’m doing it for the right reasons. But I’m not particularly interested in running for president, but I think I’d make a good president.

But as SeeDub points out with considerably more heat and extra helpings of what should be, but apparently isn’t, Mr. Obvious logic, it isn’t just what he says but what he does.

No, he doesn’t want to be President. He just loves debating with Ron Paul. He just loves fielding moronic questions from ham-headed local reporters. He just kissed off a plum lifetime job on one of NBC’s flagship dramas, where the catering truck was right there and the interviews by the entertainment press were light and fluffy and respectful and there weren’t any “hand shows” about global warming.

Of course, he’ll always treasure those hours spent in briefings talking about ethanol subsidies to policy wonks. You just know he gets a warm fuzzy feeling coming up hat in hand to strangers, asking them to keep his campaign bus fueled and his commercials on the air. And he just gets his rocks off on having James Dobson wonder whether he’s really a Christian or not. Woo hoo!

Preach it.

Daddyman, upon watching Fred Thompson’s video message to the Iowa caucus-goers: “Did he just say he’s going to save the Democratic party, too?”

Electability: “Now I’m asking my fellow Republicans to vote for me not only for what I have to say to them, but for what I have to say to the members of the other party–the millions of Democrats who haven’t left the Democratic party so much as their party’s national leadership has left them. In this campaign I’ll be seeking the support of millions of Democrats who no longer believe that they can trust their own party’s leadership on the issue of national security. I’ll be seeking the support of millions of Democrats with young families who’re beginning to see the economic burdens they may face because of their party’s leadership’s taste for high taxes and politically motivated refusal to fix Social Security and remove the threat of the shortfall in federal benefit plans that could be a catastrophe for younger taxpayers. And finally, I’ll be seeking the support of Democrats who are weary of spin politics and the permanent campaign, and endless attempts to control the media dynamic–who think policy stances ought to be judged on a higher criteria than what works better in a sound bite or fits this week’s campaign message guidance. So I’ll be asking good Democrats as well as independents to give us another chance to see if a Republican president and Congress that’s dedicated to conservative principles can move forward with an agenda that goes beyond mere partisanship and political expediency and actually deals with the long-term foreign and domestic crises we face.”

What makes that statement stand out is the marked lack of any drivel about “consensus” or “bipartisanship.” The reality is that people who agree on issues have consensus; people who disagree can get, at best, compromise. Thompson should appeal to Democrats who are less interested in straight-up opposition to whatever the current Republican administration is doing and more interested in what’s actually best for a given situation. I know at least one Democrat who already said to me, after seeing Thompson on Meet the Press, that he could live with him as president because he seemed like a reasonable, intelligent person–which are the main two characteristics required for working with opposition. Those calling the loudest for “consensus” are usually the ones with the most stridently unreasonable policy ideas–or those with no ideas at all, who prefer to whine, “Can’t we all just get along?” Not so Thompson–he runs the way I’ve always thought most sensible: Vote for me if you agree with these positions I’ve outlined. Period.

Oregon’s civil-union law passed the legislature this year, and a group collecting signatures to put this law on the statewide ballot in 2008 missed the number of valid signatures by a very small margin–96 short of the required 55,179.

Now the law is blocked in federal court pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the state’s method of verifying signatures. And if the implications of the phrase “random statistical sampling method” are what they seem to be, the challenge isn’t coming any too soon.

Attorneys for the state said that procedures verifying signatures are applied equally to everyone. The state uses a random statistical sampling method to determine whether enough valid signatures are collected.

The Oregonian story is long on personal anecdote, including the old, tiresome tarradiddle about inheritance and medical decisions between gay couples, but short on detail as to how the state goes about verifying the signatures. “Random statistical sampling method” certainly suggests that they take some minority number of signatures and put them through a verification process–and then assume that if two out of ten of those signatures are invalid, then two out of ten of the whole number are invalid. And whether that nutshell I just gave is literally correct or not, this is a document full of math to ascertain that the process is definitely accomplished by estimates and not by verification of the whole number of signatures.

The signature verifications are made in stages. First, a random sample of 1,000 signatures is verified. If the petition does not qualify from the first sample, then the second larger random sample is verified. Qualification of the petition is then based on an estimate of M [where M=number of distinct valid signatures] made from the combined first and second samples. In the event that the petition is not qualified from the combined sample and a second submission is made as permitted by ORS 250.105(3),a random sample of signatures from the second submission is verified. Qualification of the petition after verification of the sample from the second submission is based on an estimate of M made from the samples in the first and second submissions. The methods for determining whether a petition has a sufficient number of valid signatures are described for the following three cases: after verification of the first sample, after verification of the second sample, and, when applicable, after verification of the sample from the second submission. For each of these three cases, examples are given to illustrate the numerical calculations and conclusions.

So in other words, the state “verifies” (unfortunate choice of word, considering how the process is accomplished) a “random statistical sampling” of signatures that are supposed to signify the position of a voter on an actual election question. But instead they’re treating it like a poll–if a random sample is in this proportion, then so must be the whole.

And that’s outrageous. It’s unfortunate in a way that this lawsuit should take place over this particular case–the protests will be wild and vehement, and the motives of anybody who thinks, as I do, that the state’s procedure is a fraud will be questioned to the hilt–but it’s high time this was looked at in detail. I certainly never knew they verified those signatures by poll rather than by count. I’m no statistician, but when I think of 96 short of 55,179, the phrase “not statistically significant” floats to mind.

I wish the judge a stalwart backbone and the plaintiff a good set of mathematicians.

Or, Here’s One for My Kucinich-Liking Friend(s).

It’s great that Pizza Hut’s encouraging people to vote, but a few Kucinich supporters don’t like how they went about it.

Hey, he didn’t say he’d seen one.

(Via Hot Air headlines.)