Ryan Joy (atxryan)

“President Bush managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option,” McClellan concluded.
Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/05/28/0528mcclellan.html

Read that statement again. Slowly.

Whether you believe Scott McCellan is just doing this to sell books (he is) or not, that doesn’t change the fact that this is someone who was very close to the President making a very candid statement. Did he come out with this information too late? Of course. Should he have resigned? If he believed then what he currently says he believes, then most definitely. Regardless, I find that single statement breathtaking in its indictment of this administration’s lead up to the Iraq war.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that many court fines must now run concurrently instead of consecutively, much the same way many prison terms must be served at the same time instead of being stacked one after the other. This means that in many cases only the most expensive fine would be applied and lesser fines would be considered paid in full.

Read more at Statesman.com: Criminals get a break on fines

Expect this issue to be rolled back in the legislation during the 2009 session. The political pressure from on high to down low will be enormous as this affects every precint’s budget.

Returning from a recent trip to Houston, Jade and I stopped to fill up the tank in Brookshire, Texas at a Flying J.

There I encountered this absurd sign →

YELLOW is not a threat level. It’s a color. It represents the Department of Homeland Security’s Elevated threat level designation in their inane advisory system. While it represents a “significant risk of terrorism”, it is in fact the de facto default threat level as America is always at a significant risk for some terror attack. We’ve never been at guarded (blue) or low (green) levels and I can’t imagine we ever would be.

Please see cashier for details? I’m to defer to some high-school kid for information regarding the state of our national security? What specific intelligence will they impart on me to justify my newfound heightened fear? Who should I look out for on the roads? Do I need more duck tape?

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No it won’t from The Onion.

This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher. It will not end the threat of weapons of mass destruction; it will make possible their further proliferation. And it will not lay the groundwork for the flourishing of democracy throughout the Mideast; it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence.

vs.

No it won’t.

It just won’t. None of that will happen.

You’re getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax, okay? You’re really overreacting.

“This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher”?

It won’t.

I received a voicemail this morning at my work phone number from a Bill Barkus claiming to work for Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) and the National Republican Congressional Committee. According to the message, the RNCC wants to recognize me with their “national leadership award”. Of course I’m immediately skeptical as I consider:

a.) why would a Rep. from Oklahoma want to recognize me as a national leader?
b.) why would the RNCC want to recognize a Democrat?
c.) how did they get my work number?

I thought surely that someone had nominated me as a joke.

However, I needed some answers so I searched on the Internet for “Tom Cole leadership awards“. Lo and behold the first site that came up was another blog about these so-called ‘leadership awards’ and I learned that many, many people had been called. You can read all about it here.

Apparently they ask permission to use your name in a full-page ad they’re taking out to “support further tax cuts and to defeat the Democrats in the upcoming elections” and they also ask that you donate a few hundred dollars to help out with the “media blitz”. I’m assuming that their goals have changed since the Republican defeat in November. Then again, maybe not. They may just be that out of touch.

The common link seems to be registered business owners, but it’s still odd that I was called on my work number. My DBA doesn’t list my work number. The other commonality seems to be that we’re all Democrats (or at least vote that way), but I don’t believe that can be substantiated. Perhaps it’s just Democrats who were skeptical enough to research it further on the Internet.

I haven’t called the number back yet, but I think I might tomorrow sometime just to have a little fun. I did, however, put a call into MY Congressman, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) to inform his office of this scam on the part of the RNCC in case they were not aware. I’m hoping that someone will introduce a symbolic resolution demanding that the RNCC stop harassing and trying to dupe voters across the country. That should embarrass Mr. Cole, Mr. Reynolds, and the already disgraced Mr. Delay.

Update: (03/16/2007): I just received another phone call from Mr. Tom Cole’s office. This time the caller identified herself as Amanda Peyton on my voicemail, but gave the same spiel. They should google their name and their award. They’d see that I come up first.

Update: (04/27/2007): Congratulations to this guy. It’s a real honor to be considered for this award and not just some money-making scam that casts a wide net.

Update: (05/02/2007): These guys are UNBELIEVABLE! I just got another voicemail, this time from a Douglas Wilson with the Business Advisory Council telling me that Congressman Cole would like to invite me to dinner with President Bush on June 13th. This time I was instructed to call 888-383-8065, so it looks like they’re changing up a little bit.

Update: (05/11/2007): It will never end. I returned from lunch just now to find yet ANOTHER voicemail from Jacqueline Grupe (sp?), my contact at the Business Advisory Council. I was asked to call the same 888-383-8065 number as before and to do it with urgency to be able to have dinner with President Bush. Tom Cole must really, really want me to join them for dinner.

Perry orders anti-cancer vaccine for schoolgirls

I am utterly shocked, but very much thrilled, that Texas is leading the nation on this one.

Bypassing the Texas Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an Executive order today making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, or Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Beginning September of next year, girls entering the 6th grade will be required to be vaccinated. While the Gardasil vaccine can be pretty pricey (about $360 for the three-dose treatment), Perry seemed to attempt to combat this by ordering that state health agencies make it available free to girls 9 to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance does not cover vaccines. In addition, he ordered that Medicaid offer Gardasil to women ages 19 to 21.

Perry has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different from the one that protects children against polio. The weird thing is that, though I wholeheartedly applaud this move from a humanist perspective, I feel strange accepting this rule by fiat. Yes, this vaccine will potentially save many thousands of women, but it’s not the same as requiring school children be vaccinated for meningitis, polio, or tetanus. These viruses are communicable through dirty objects, saliva, and contaminated food. These obviously pose a greater risk of outbreak in the school environment. HPV, however, is communicable through sexual activity and therefore it seems heavy-handed to require vaccinations from all schoolgirls.

These things are not without precedent, most notably in the food sector, though I’m sure you were required to get all of your vaccines as well. I bet you never asked that your water be fluoridated or that your rice be enriched with niacin, but these moves were made as a response to mass public health crises.

Regardless, it really is a great day for Texas’ women.

Find more information here:

• A look at Gardasil
• Gov. Perry’s Executive Order

Update:
Facts about HPV

•HPV is a group of viruses that includes more than 100 strains, more than 30 of which are sexually transmitted.

•About 20 million people are infected with HPV, and 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year.

•Most HPV infections have no signs or symptoms. That means most infected people are unaware they carry HPV and can unknowingly transmit the virus to a sex partner.

•Every year in the U.S. about 10,000 women get cervical cancer, and 3,700 die from it. It is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among women around the world. The only known cause of cervical cancer is HPV, and the research on how it causes the cancer is solidly established, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The parts of the virus that cause the cervical cells to get cancer is well-defined,” Offit said.

HPV is also linked to other rare cancers such as anal, vaginal and penile cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From Statesman.com - British to Show Al Gore Movie in Schools

“Children are the key to changing society’s long-term attitudes to the environment,” Johnson said. “Not only are they passionate about saving the planet, but children also have a big influence over their own families’ lifestyles and behavior.”

This news is heartening as it is this kind of direct action that may ultimately prove most successful in combating the biggest problems the world faces today. I only wish that similar action would be taken here in the United States where most of the world’s carbon emission occurs and hope that China can follow suit where most of the world’s carbon emissions will likely come from in the very near future.

“To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical unthusiasm was the mark of a real man … Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect.”
- The quote is translated from Thucydides, the Father of History, writing about the day in 415 B.C. when Athens sent its glorious fleet off to destruction in Sicily.

From: http://russellsteapot.com