Harriet Miers' church supports the crankiest of young-earth creationists

Harriet Miers attends Valley View Christian Church. Their website's "links" page links to Carl Baugh's Creation Evidence Museum. Baugh, a cranky young-earth creationist with diploma mill credentials, is notorious for making claims so bogus that his fellow young-earth creationists debunk them.

Harriet Miers thinks Bush is an intellectual giant

David Frum of the National Review, who has personal experience with Miers, says: "In a White House that hero-worshiped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met."

She's clearly unqualified for the Supreme Court, as she's either deluded or dishonest.

French fry vending machine

Patatas Chef is a device ("like a clean and small sophisticated factory") that makes and sells french fries. Expect late-night TV ads on how to make millions from the comfort of your home, along with your WiFi hotspot and Internet kiosk.

Neurological evidence for the placebo effect

Research by Jon-Kar Zubieta at the University of Michigan published in The Journal of Neuroscience shows that subjects told they were receiving pain medication produced more "opioid" activity in the brain, as measured by PET scans showing activation of "mu-opioid receptors." Subjects given the placebo showed higher such receptor activation and reported greater pain relief, and had to be given higher levels of pain stimulus to maintain the same reported level of pain.

So it's not just mind over matter magic.

Bush to consider using military to enforce quarantines if Avian flu epidemic breaks out

The Seattle Times reports:

President Bush, increasingly concerned about a possible avian flu pandemic, revealed today that any part of the country where the virus breaks out could likely be quarantined and that he is considering using the military to enforce it.

"The best way to deal with a pandemic is to isolate it and keep it isolated in the region in which it begins," he said during a wide-ranging Rose Garden news conference.

Housing bubble losing volume in Phoenix

MLS listings for metropolitan Phoenix area, from ziprealty.com. Inventory has increased by 79% in a little over two months.

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Bush Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers

Bush is expected to nominate former Texas Lottery Commission head and current White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. She has no experience as a judge, and was head of the Texas Lottery Commission during Bush's term as governor of Texas, when Ben Barnes, the guy who got Bush into the Texas Air National Guard, received a gigantic severance payment from Gtech, the company with the contract to run the Texas Lottery, followed by Gtech getting it's contract extended without having to bid for it. Miers was in charge of the commission when it chose to extend Gtech's contract despite the fact that the company was involved in a bribery scandal. I'm sure there will be some interesting questions at the confirmation hearings if Miers is really the nominee.

BTW, Gtech has quite a history... in 1993, Virgin billionaire Richard Branson accused its founder, Guy Snowden, of trying to bribe him in relation to the UK national lottery.

Gtech also runs the state lottery in Jeb "Chang" Bush's state, Florida, as well.

(Note added 8:29 a.m.: Bush has announced the nomination.)

While on the Topic...

Speaking of Bush speeches, get ready for a "significant" one, according to this article.

Yeah, I'm sure it's going to be erudite, persuasive, and chock full of talking points we've never heard before. It seems that Condoleeza "Guru" Rice and "a senior Bush administration official" have even given us a little preview.

Condoleeza:

"If we abandon future generations in the Middle East to despair and terror, we also condemn future generations in the United States to insecurity and fear."

I see. So, continuing to shoot at, blow up, torture, and intimidate Iraqis will avoid "abandoning [them] to terror"? Building permanent military bases over there will ensure future security here?

Cowardly "official":

"If you think by going home, you buy peace, it is wrong-headed."

But it's not wrong-headed to think that keeping the military there and continuing to shoot at, blow up, torture, and intimidate Iraqis--um, dare I say, continuing the "war"?--will "buy" peace?

Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
- George Orwell

Learn English from the speeches of George W. Bush

I've been listening to the podcasts of 2600 magazine ("The Hacker Quarterly"), which are quite good. Emmanuel Goldstein (real name Eric Corley) has been traveling the world by land and sea, and reporting back on the state of freedom and technology via satellite phone, cell phone, or land line, as available. The August 30, 2005 podcast of "Off the Wall" was recorded in Tiananmen Square. Among observations about Chinese kite flying at busy intersections, their appreciation for ice and the sale of bottles of frozen mineral water, Chinese throat clearing noises, and the surprising modernity of Beijing, they reported on the wide availability of books in English. One bookstore of 6 or 7 floors was reported to have an entire floor on books for learning English. One of the books, which Emmanuel's companion Sasja purchased for its humor value, was a book to learn English through reading the speeches of George W. Bush. Quite amusing, given his poor ability to speak the language. (This topic occurs about 26:30 into the August 30 "Off the Wall" podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple's iTunes.)

Porn availability goes up, crime goes down in U.S.

Radley Balko at The Agitator points out that as pornography has become more and more widely available in the U.S. with the rise of the Internet, sex crimes against children, abortions, teen pregnancy, divorce, crimes against women, and rape have dropped. Of course, the U.S. is still worse than many countries on several of those attributes, as the earlier study about rates of religiosity showed. This would be interesting to compare across countries with different levels of Internet connectivity. This item via Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars, where you can find further commentary.