I have a small proposal.  Seems there is a concern that a Democrat-controlled House, Senate and White House will work together to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine, which would mandate equal time for political talk radio stations.  It was the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine during Reagan's presidency that led to the rise and success of radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and many others.  Democrats have not been happy with the fact that quite a few conservative talk radio shows have been very successful, and influential, while very few liberal talk radio shows can make the same claim.  So the Dems are promising to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine in hopes of taking Limbaugh, Hannity and others off the air.

Mike Pence, fighting the good fight and making Hoosiers proud, is trying to get legislation passed that would act as a permanent ban on the Fairness Doctrine.  Despite having, I believe, all of the GOP House members on board, as well as apparently quite a few Democrats, Speaker Pelosi is refusing to allow Pence's proposal to come up fo a vote.  Hardly a surprise.

So my suggestion to Pence would be as follows:  create an amendment to the Fairness Doctrine the Democrats want to re-enact that would broaden the scope.  Atttach it to every piece of legislation and/or item that comes up for discussion and/or vote in Congress.  Make it apply not only to radio, but to television, newspapers, magazines, and, most importantly, federally elected officials.  So any time a member of Congress runs a campaign ad, or sends out mail to constituents, or schedules a townhall meeting with constituents, equal time has to be given to "the other side" of whatever issue(s) are raised.  Make the congress critters have to pay not only for their own message(s), but the contra message from opponents if the other side doesn't have enough money.  After all, that would be REAL fairness, right?

Seeing the linkline below at Sports Illustrated's site this morning prompts my question above:

Synchronized swimmer faints, rescued in pool

My money's on Lawrence.  As he said:

I don't swim.

From Fox News:

Authorities say a 16-year-old girl who died after losing control of her car had been texting on her cell phone moments before the accident.

Seems like it would be a perfect story for warning teens and drivers in general not to do something stupid like sending text messages while driving, right?  Well, when you read further into the story:

Authorities say Preuss had been driving drunk and was speeding.

If this is how far the media have to look to find a case where the use of a cell phone contributed to a car crash, I'm not going to get too upset at all the yahoos I see driving around New Jersey with their cell phones plastered to their ears.

According to the DNA tests, the carcass that was turned in allegedly as Bigfoot is, well, I'm not sure what it is.  From the story:

One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, according to Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the DNA analysis.

Human AND opossum?  From the same carcass?

Does this make it more like Pigman, or ManBearPig?

Here's the linkline from Fox News:

Wife Accuses James Bond Actor George Lazenby of Death Threat, Offering Toddlers Alcohol

Whoa.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled that George Lazenby wasn't just married to some nobody.  And sure enough:

It's getting ugly between former James Bond actor George Lazenby and his soon-to-be ex-wife, former pro tennis ace Pamela Shriver.

Shriver does tennis broadcasts for ESPN, and won multiple grand slam titles with Martina Navratilova.  I think she made it to a grand slam singles final (or maybe two) in her career as well.  She's probably in the Tennis Hall of Fame.  And it's just "Wife accuses James Bond Actor ..."?  I would have thought it would pack more punch and attract more readers to name both famous members of the pair.  I mean, I think Shriver is also part of the whole Shriver / Kennedy universe, and STILL she doesn't even get mentioned in the headline?  I suppose this is just another indication of how much of a niche sport tennis, and women's tennis, have become, though I would suspect that Lazenby's role as Bond in one movie would put him about on the same level of celebrity obscurity as a multiple grand slam doubles winner.

Skimming through the "Muse Arts" page at Bloomberg this morning, I came across what I thought was going to be a story about a Coney Island attraction where people could line up and pay $1 to be waterboarded for fun.  Here's the link text:

Waterboarding for a Buck Adds Twist to Coney Island Thrills: Jeremy Gerard

It turns out you can't actually get waterboarded for a buck to add a twist to your Coney Island thrills, as we'll see:

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- I wasn't prepared to be devastated by the lurching, blindfolded figure in an orange jumpsuit, gasping for air as a hooded man in black poured water down his mouth.

"Waterboard Thrill Ride," Steve Powers's installation, is disturbing in a way that journalistic accounts of torture can only approximate.  It left me wrecked.

True, I wasn't there by accident (unlike, say, nameless others further south in the lovely seaside resort of Guantanamo Bay).  I'd actually come to see a man being tortured.

Let's get this out of the way first.  It's a good thing the "nameless others" remain nameless, because my guess is none of the clowns down there enjoying the warm weather, free Korans, and three meals a day are there by accident.  Go ahead, Mr. Gerard, name ONE of them who is.  I won't hold my breath.

Now, it still seems from the setup that there is at least going to be a real person being waterboarded, and maybe even a dollar-paying customer who gets to experience it first hand!  Um, no:

I watched the two figures, motionless dummies until I inserted a dollar bill into a slot next to the bars.  That's when the water flowed and the prone body lurched.

Motionless dummies?  There are no real people?  That's right:

The figures in the "Waterboard Thrill Ride" aren't alive.  They're "crummy animatronic robots," Powers told me in a telephone interview, and any doubt about the point of his show is dispensed with by the cartoon on the gray storefront.  A sinister blue man is getting ready to pour water on SpongeBob SquarePants, who is saying "It doesn't GITMO better!" a reference to the practice of waterboarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.  SpongeBob is grinning like it's, you know, a day at the beach.

Again, let's deal with this first - "the practice of waterboarding prisoners"?  Using the word "practice" kind of makes it sound like it goes on all the time.  But does it?  Did it?  Well, according to ABC News [updated to add link], only 3 of the scumbags at Gitmo were waterboarded.  Not much of a practice, but at least a technique to try to get necessary information out of some pretty bad dudes.

Moving on, the upshot of the piece is that you can pay a dollar and watch two "crummy animatronic robots" in a fake waterboarding scene.

Let's remember that waterboarding, while not something I want to have done on me, and not something I would try with my kids, is basically a way to scare the crap out of really bad guys in order to break them down and get information out of them.  They aren't really being drowned.

I think Mr. Gerard and I would have different answers to the question, "Which is worse, waterboarding illegal enemy combatant terrorists who may have critical information that would help save innocent lives, or setting up a fake waterboarding session in order to make a few bucks and add a thrill to tourists' Coney Island experience?"

Seems like a perfect product placement for a "Seinfeld" / "Cheers" crossover episode.  The "Seinfeld" reference is perhaps obvious.  The "Cheers" reference less so.  From the story:

German police women are to be issued with bullet-resistant bras to give them complete undercover protection.

From a news story on a proposal in Great Britain to do away with the notion that there are correct and incorrect spellings of words:

Playwright George Bernard Shaw was fond of pointing out that the word "ghoti" could just as well be pronounced "fish" if you followed common pronunciation: 'gh' as in "tough," 'o' as in "women" and 'ti' as in "nation."

The proposal does not seem to be getting any traction, but it's an amusing article all the same.  It seems to me that it would make teaching children to read and write all that much more difficult if you throw out the idea that there are right and wrong ways to spell a word.  But I would get tremendous satisfaction if one of my kids were clever enough to come with a spelling like Shaw's for fish and tried to get it past a teacher.

From Fox News:

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, Utah —  One of the largest and most photographed stone arches in Arches National Park in the U.S. has collapsed.

Wall Arch fell sometime late Monday or early Tuesday, though no one has reported seeing it collapse, said Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation.

Chief of interpretation?  I'm not sure exactly what the job title means, but there you have it.  The story has before and after photos as well, and unfortunately I have not figured out how to add images to the blog, so I did not paste them in.  Here are the image links in case that is helpful:  Before.  And after.

Sometimes if you can't find a way to laugh, you just want to scream:
 
    * 'World's Greatest Dad' Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse

====================================================

From Seinfeld's "The English Patient" -

[The New York Hospital]

Izzy is in a hospital bed, as Jerry stands beside it.

JERRY: Again, Mr Mandelbaum, this back specialist is supposed to be the best.
So if there's anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to, uh, try and
find my number.

Jerry turns to walk out.

IZZY: Uh, oh, wait.

Izzy rummages on his bedside table and picks up a t-shirt. He holds it up to
his chest so Jerry can read what's written on it. 'World's Greatest DAD!'

IZZY: How 'bout that, huh? The World's Greatest Dad. My son made it for me.

JERRY: (humouring him) That's very nice.

IZZY: The best in the world. (pointing to himself) Which means I'm better
than just number one.

JERRY: Well, I don't know how official any of these rankings really are.

The folks at Maclean's can't seem to make up their minds whether life in the Great White North is better in every conceivable way than here in the U.S.:

Once a month, Henry Tenby jumps in his car — just after the morning rush hour and with a tank close to empty — and makes a 45-minute drive from his Vancouver home to Blaine, Wash. After zipping across the border using his recently acquired Nexus pass, he fills up with cheaper American gas and stops off at a packaging store, Hagens of Blaine, where the aviation buff and Internet entrepreneur picks up the computer parts and memorabilia he routinely buys online from the U.S. and has shipped there under his name. The cross-border shopping ritual saves him anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars a trip — at the very least, the equivalent of a nice dinner out, he says. This month, he plans to buy a piece of new computer hardware in the U.S. for about $200. Buying the part in Canada would cost $320, he estimates. As for Canadian retailers charging more than their American counterparts: "I think they're just being greedy and gouging Canadians," he says. "I don't like it."

Senator Barack Obama will be campaigning in my hometown today.  Actually, there's probably a little bit of a dispute on that point, as he will be appearing at Concord High School's gymnasium, which I think is technically not located in the City of Elkhart.  The Concord school system is separate from the Elkhart school system, and I don't think all of the land in the Concord area has been annexed into the city.  In any event, the news stories are indicating that Sen. Obama is in Elkhart, so we'll all go along with that characterization for now.

As for the appearance itself, Sen. Obama will be at McCuen Gymnasium.  In talking to my father, I understand the gym hold about 1,000 people.  This would be a nice little rally in a town of about 45,000.

But Sen. Obama could have had a rally in an even bigger venue in Elkhart.  North Side Gym holds approximately 7,000 people.  This gym was built in 1954 and I believe it was one of the largest gyms in the state for high school basketball for a long time.  The gym is actually located at one of the junior high schools (now called middle schools) in town, and both of the Elkhart high schools play their home basketball games there.  As a young kid in the 1970s, I remember going to games on Friday and Saturday nights and the gym would be full.  For sectional and regional games when the state basketball tourney started, the gym would be overflowing, and I can remember sitting in cramped corner bleachers in the upper level for many games, feeling like the whole gym would collapse under the stomping feet of the crowd.

Things have changed over the years with high school hoops in Indiana.  It's now been over 10 years since a single team was crowned THE state champs at the end of the tournament.  Now there are four class champions, depending on the size of the schools.  There will never be another Milan Miracle, upon which the movie "Hoosiers" was loosely based.

And the crowds at Elkhart high school games are not what they used to be.  I went to some of the games when I still lived in town after law school.  North Side Gym was nowhere near full.  A lot of the bleachers in the upper level weren't even rolled out for use.

I'm a little surprised that Sen. Obama apparently could not muster enough excitement in his campaign appearance to at least match the crowds at North Side Gym that I remember.  I'm sure his campaign staff would not want to have him speak in a quarter full gym in a small town in Indiana.  It wouldn't make for very good pictures.  So the smaller venue at the newer school out in the suburbs will probably be just fine.  It will be full with a cheering crowd, like it was when Sean Kemp played for Concord almost 20 years ago.  I wonder if Kemp's name will come up in today's events?  He's probably the most famous athlete to have attended the Concord schools.  If someone on the campaign staff did their homework, it may not be a bad reference to make, at least to try to connect with local celebrity and former glory.

... both the apparent boom in the lowland gorilla population is in some way thanks to warmer global climate, while at the same time the alleged decline in polar bear population (or floe ice, or whatever is the claim) is also in some attributable to the same thing?

It kind of stands to reason that a warmer climate may lead to a decrease in the population / habitat for one species, while it may lead to increases somewhere else.  Let's get the Diane Fossey / Jane Goodall chimp champs to slug it out with the Knut Knights and enjoy the fireworks!

I hope the news out of China this morning, about an apparent attack by Muslim terrorists that killed 16 police officers in far western China, does not turn out to be an even worse harbinger of what we may see in the next few weeks with the Peiping Olympics.  The smoggy, brown, polluted air, locust infestation, and raging algae blooms seemed like enough unpleasantness without the far worse spectacle of reliving the Munich Games.

I see at the Maclean's site they have a story comparing/contrasting Canada and the U.S.  Turns out they think life in Canada is a much better deal than here in the States.  Here's the summary:

The numbers are in. Compared to the U.S., we work less, live longer, enjoy better health and have more sex. And get this: now we're wealthier too.

Is this some kind of viral attempt to get people to move from the good ol' U S of A to Canada?  Maybe to make it an attractive destination for supporters of whichever candidate loses the fall presidential election?  Maybe a look at the immigration numbers will show that rather than trying to get to the U.S., all those poor third worlders are merely using our country as a convenient jumping off point to sneak over the 49th parallel into Canada for a Molson Canadian and a Tim Horton's, eh?

Turns out that for all the hype of the lead-in, the end of the piece reveals a slightly different "truth" than the starting point:

Be it sports, health care, business or wealth, Americans are still competing to be the best. And it's true that the best in the U.S. is the best you'll find on the planet. But when you look at the medians and the averages, their accomplishment pales. As the hard numbers in this report show, Americans have shorter lives, poorer health, less sex, more divorces, and more violent crime. Which may mean that perhaps America isn't the greatest nation on earth. After all, you can't judge a nation by the best it produces, you have to judge it by the success of the average Joe. And the average Joe in Canada is having a way better time.

Hmmm.  Medians and averages can certainly be interesting comparisons on this kind of thing.  But raw numbers might also be interesting.  My guess is that in terms of sheer numbers, a nation of 300 million has a lot more people who are experiencing a standard of living that is equal to and in many ways better than the standard of living of comparable Canadians among their approximately 33 million population.  Twain's observation on statistics, damn statistics, and lies still holds.