The Hound Of Ulster

Houston taxpayers could start footing the bill to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores, under a proposal before City Council this week.

The “Credit Score Enhancement Program” will give up to $3,000 in grants to individuals who are trying to qualify for mortgages through the city’s homebuyers assistance program. City officials say some applicants fall short of eligibility by only 10 or 20 points on their credit scores, and paying off some debt balances can quickly improve their numbers.

Why wasn’t this sort of thing around when I was trying to buy a house?  Or trying to “enhance” my credit score?  (Come to think of it, that wouldn’t have helped.  My problem was not that my credit score was bad, it was that it didn’t exist.  It would have been easier for me to get a loan with bad credit than with no credit.  Who’s running this thing, anyway?  Anyone?  Stanford?  The same folks running THIS?)
 

Jindal and Nagin are at LOGGERHEADS.  Again.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, has suggested his state may not be interested in all of the roughly $4 billion allotted to it in the economic stimulus package to be signed by President Obama today.

“We’ll have to review each program, each new dollar to make sure that we understand what are the conditions, what are the strings and see whether it’s beneficial for Louisiana to use those dollars,” Jindal said, according to CBS affiliate WWLTV.

…

As WWLTV notes, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said he’ll take any money that Louisiana turns down.

The trickle-down stories that will start to trickle out as the stimulus package goes into effect may turn out to be almost as much “fun” as the passage of the bill itself.

…all of which is significantly less fun than watching the radically different ACCOUNTS of Pelosi’s Papal visit:

From the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, today. In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show His Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.

From the Press Office of the Holy See:

Following the General Audience, the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage. His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception until natural death, which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists, and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of development.

Were Benedict XVI and Nancy Pelosi in the same meeting, or even in the same city, this morning?

And then there’s THIS.  It seems to be spreading from South DAKOTA.
 

THIS is an interesting story, especially for those of us who like to think about technology and its impact on the world as we know it:

One of the most succesful authors of the past two decades, John Grisham is working with Random House to finalize a deal with Amazon that would release 22 of his titles in ebook format, just in time for the Kindle 2. Grisham , New York Times  bestelling author without ebooks available for purchase.

David Gernert, Grisham’s agent, told the Wall Street Journal:  “There was a period when John and I felt it was a good idea to watch the world of e-books evolve before diving in. Now that it’s a more mature marketplace, he will be available very soon in all digital formats.”

Combine that with the Kindle II ROLLOUT, and we may be looking at the book-reading equivalent of HD.  Myself, I love reading actual, physical books so much, it’s hard for me to imagine that we would leave that behind.  But perhaps my kids will someday browse through Grisham’s 79th ”Lawyer Thriller” without a single sheet of paper being used in the entire process.

(And now, I’m off to find an “UnTech” version of the H. G. Wells story that produced this post title.  Since I wasn’t able to find it on Google Book SEARCH.)
 

Here’s a handful of links that seem worthy of further consideration, but I have neither the time nor the concentration to give them that consideration at the moment.

First off, the Stimulus Bill is BIG:

“You know, this is huge money,” McConnell said. “This is — someone said the other day that, if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.”

…

So here goes our math: 2,012 times 365 (yes, we are aware there are leap years..don’t be like that) times $1,000,000. A: $734 billion (give or take a few hundred million).

The stimulus package is actually short of $1 trillion too, $819 billion. But that’s still more than a million bucks a day since the day Jesus was born.

Very big.

Then we have THIS and THIS, because I can’t stop thinking about this SSPX stuff:

The decree revoking the excommunication bears the signature of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the congregation for bishops. Another cardinal, Darío Castrillón Hoyos, is the president of the pontifical commission “Ecclesia Dei,” which, ever since its creation in 1988, has dealt with the followers of Lefebvre. Both of these cardinals have said that they were taken by surprise, after the fact, by the interview with Bishop Williamson, and that they were never aware that he was a Holocaust denier.

But wasn’t it the primary responsibility of these two cardinals to carry out an in-depth examination of Williamson’s personal profile, and of the three other bishops? The fact that they did not do so seems inexcusable. Such an examination wasn’t even difficult. Williamson has never concealed his distaste for Judaism. He has publicly defended the authenticity of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” In 1989, in Canada, he risked being taken to court for praising the books written by Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. After September 11, 2001, he supported conspiracy theories to explain the collapse of the Twin Towers. Just a click on Google would have turned up all of this background material.

Another serious lapse concerned the pontifical council for the promotion of Christian unity. Reversing the schism with the Lefebvrists is logically part of its competencies, which also include relations between the Church and Judaism. But the cardinal who heads the council, Walter Kasper, says that he was kept out of the deliberations: this is all the more surprising in that the issuing of the decree lifting the excommunication took place during the annual week of prayer for Christian unity, and a few days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

That’s not all.The media release of the decision also seems to have been entirely negligent. The Vatican press office limited itself, on Saturday, January 24, to distributing the text of the decree, in spite of the fact that the news had already leaked out a few days earlier, and a fiery controversy was already growing around the statements denying the Holocaust made by Williamson.

THIS is for The DUCK, because he brought up the whole Billy/Bacon/Monkey thing yesterday.  (He informs me that the math is a bit shaky, yet another indication that he’s just the man for this link.  I was mostly just amazed that someone had that much to say about it.)

And then there’s THIS, which can’t possibly get enough attention.  And because will get almost none.  Such is life.
 

 

Man, I wish I’d come up with that moniker.  Unfortunately, I’m not that clever.  Luckily, Dana Milbank IS.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged the Goracle to look further into the future. “What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” he inquired.

The Goracle chuckled. “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator.”

It was a jarring reminder that the Goracle is, indeed, mortal. Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority” — and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.

I was pleased to see this, though:

If that wasn’t quite enough, Corker added: “Very much enjoyed your sense of humor, too.”

Humor? From Al Gore? “I benefit from low expectations,” he replied.

That seems borderline-clever. 

…

OK, OK, I’ll be nice.  It’s flat-out clever.  Course, now I just wonder how he could be flat-out clever about his humor, and still willing and able to put up with this sort of absurd, starry-eyed stuff from US Senators.  I guess I should probably wonder how he’s even able to hold this position in the first place, though.  Just to be consistent.

HERE, in all its mind-bending, sci-fi glory:

President Barack Obama’s pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.

Moments after Obama’s inauguration last week, the White House website was updated to include policy statements on a range of issues, including a pledge to restore U.S. leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites.

…

Watchdog groups and even some defense officials welcomed the statement, which echoed Obama’s campaign promises, but said it would take time to hammer out a comprehensive new strategy.  Enacting a global ban on space weapons could prove even harder.

For instance, it was difficult to define exactly what constituted a “weapon” because even seemingly harmless weather tracking satellites could be used to slam into and disable other satellites, said two U.S. officials involved in the area who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Michael Krepon, co-founder of the private Henry L. Stimson think tank on space, cited recent reports that the Pentagon was using two smaller satellites launched in 2006 to fly near a dead missile-warning satellite and investigate what happened. The Defense Support Program satellite, DSP-23, built by Northrop, failed on orbit in mid-September.

“This incident clarified how important it is to have rules of the road for technologies that could have many different applications,” Krepon said. “There are lots of benign reasons to have a closer look at an object in space. But we all know that when satellites make close passes they could also do things that are not benign.”

I think I need to watch more Battlestar Galactica to really appreciate this fully.  Or just talk about Star Wars a bit more with the boys.

In almost related news, I really wish THIS were true.
 

Iowahawk “BORROWS” from Homer:

But Obamacles was only momentarily dissuaded from his task,
for he knew the people of Demos longed to return to the White Temple,
where they had been banished by the idiot emperor Chimpos II.
Although the Demos knew that Chimpos was the stupidest person in the world,
and they were the smartest, they had somehow been unable to defeat him.
Obamacles seized his opportunity. On the Isle of Demos, and said:

“Citizens of Demos, I am Obamacles of Illinus. I will lead you
from the wilderness back to the White Temple.”

Dispite his gleaming smile the agora laughed at the stranger’s folly.
“Fool, our leader is Hildusa,” they mocked. “What chance stands a handsome
newcomer like you against the mightiest of the gorgons?”

“For one, I will conjure our Spartans back from Babylonia,” said Obamacles.
“Hilldusa voted with Chimpos. I say it is time to begin the war to end this war.”

The words of Obamacles created a murmur in the agora, for on Demos the people
wished the Spartans home from war, to face trial for war crimes or be caged as madmen
Like in the many tragedies at the Demos Odeon Octoplex.

“We are with you, Obamacles,” came the shout of a man, who was turned to marble
and struck by lightning before his words could be completed. Obamacles had stoked
the terrible rath of the gorgon Hildusa, and the battle was joined.

The Economic Recovery Bill seems to come with a bit of BAGGAGE:

An additional $650 million for the Department of Commerce’s Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program, to be used for “coupons and related activities, including but not limited to education, consumer support and outreach, as deemed appropriate and necessary to ensure a timely conversion of analog to digital television.”

Apparently, the artists were not entirely HONEST:

The network said it sent a note to pool members saying that the use of recordings in the musical numbers was possible. Inaugural musical performances are routinely recorded ahead of time for just such an eventuality, Ms. Florman said. The Marine Band and choruses, which performed throughout the ceremony, did not use a recording, she said.

“It’s not something we would announce, but it’s not something we would try to hide,” Ms. Florman said. “Frankly, it would never have occurred to me to announce it. The fact they were forced to perform to tape because of the weather did not seem relevant, nor would we want to draw attention away from what we believed the news is, that we were having a peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next.”

A bit more HERE.  Good thing they’re not pop artists.

And lastly, my FAVORITE:

As for cleanness, many films may be worse than the Sound of Music, but stop and think - are youth, physical attractiveness and being in love the essence of marriage? Can you imagine this Julie Andrews staying with the Captain if “the romance went out of their marriage”? Would she not divorce him and grab his children from him to be her toys? Such romance is not actually pornographic but it is virtually so, in other words all the elements of pornography are there, just waiting to break out. One remembers the media sensation when a few years later Julie Andrews appeared topless in another film. That was no sensation, just a natural development for one rolling canine female.

…

But, somebody may object, The Sound of Music is only entertainment. Reply, is the world in a mess, or not? Now, has the world got to where it is by people listening to sermons in church? They do less and less of that. Then what do they drink into their hearts and souls and minds? Is it not their “entertainment”, The Sound of Music in season and countless films more or less like it out of season? Then if the world around us is corrupt, it sure fits these films being corrupt, whereas if someone can see no problem with The Sound of Music (1965), how can he see a problem with Vatican II (1962­-1965)? The simultaneity in time is no coincidence.

Apparently Alaska is not particularly AMUSED by the Goremiester:

Local businessman Craig Compeau on Monday unveiled an ice sculpture of the 2007 Nobel Prize winner and leader in the movement to draw attention to climate change and global warming.

The 8 1/2-foot-tall, 5-ton bust of the former vice president dominates a downtown street corner from its perch on the back of a flatbed truck.

Compeau says he’s a “moderate” critic of global warming theories. He used the unveiling of the sculpture to invite Gore to Fairbanks to explain his global warming theories.

The sculpture even has its own WEBSITE, courtesty of a business that sells snowmobiles and ATV’s.  (And here’s a little ARTICLE that might show why they’re not amused.  Sure, it got warm.  But it was a bit chilly before that.)

That’s Chesley B. Sullenberger the Third, to you.  He’s the HERO of yesterday’s extraordinary airplane crash.  An Air Force retiree from Danville, CA, apparently.  And also nearly uniquely well-suited:

Sullenberger, who has flown for US Airways since 1980, flew F-4 fighter jets with the Air Force in the 1970s. He then served on a board that investigated aircraft accidents and participated later in several National Transportation Safety Board investigations.

Sullenberger had been studying the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning even in the face of crisis, said Robert Bea, a civil engineer who co-founded UC Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

Amazing STUFF.