substitute

I haven't seen much Government Music Video. The first was the infamous Just Say No anti-drug one in '85 in which hipsters like Herb Alpert urged us GenXers not to do cocaine. It was possible to see all the way through if impaired in some way.

There were also some examples of AdRoc from the military that I've banished from my mind.

Some time in the 1990s, kerebearus was partially responsible for some Government Music Video about nutrition and fitness for a local county here. I have memories of cute sixth graders chanting "NO PROTEIN POWDER! LOUDER!!!"

She refuses to have these digitized. So now we have something that kerebearus would also appreciate. Government Health Care Recruiting Furry Hip-Hop! YO WAASSSUUPPP GOV!



planetdracula are you pumpin' yo fist in agreement?

Blame to the Exploding Aardvark.

'Prophet' is back on street

Popular transient who was in confrontation with police is back in Lake Forest, on probation.

By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ
The Orange County Register

LAKE FOREST – Weeks after he was involved in a violent confrontation with police, a well-known transient known as "The Prophet" has been seen in the same area where deputies used Tasers, batons and beanbag shots to restrain the 265-pound man. Charles Barnes, 49, was released two weeks after police said the 6-foot, 6-inch-tall man took several items from a CVS Pharmacy near the intersection of El Toro Road and Rockfield Boulevard.

When Orange County sheriff's deputies arrived to the area June 20, Barnes was wearing what appeared to be body armor constructed from pieces of traffic cones, magazines, plastics, and a hubcap strapped to his chest.

Barnes threw a bottle at officers as they arrived, said Lt. Don Barnes, chief of police services for Lake Forest. Officers used Tasers and beanbag shots to subdue "The Prophet," but they had little effect because of the layers of clothing and material strapped to his body, Lt. Barnes said.

Officers said Barnes grabbed one deputy's Taser and officers used batons to subdue him and force him to let go of it. When the popular transient was taken into custody, he was taken to a local hospital with cuts, bruises and what may have been a broken hand, Lt. Barnes said.

"The Prophet" was booked for robbery, but not for resisting arrest, Lt. Barnes said. "That was probably a decision that was made on the field by the deputies," he said. Charges were not filed by the District Attorney's Office regarding that incident.

Barnes remains on three years' probation from an earlier charge of obstructing and intimidating a business and customers, which occurred June 4. Court records show that Barnes was arrested May 7 as well, and charged with resisting a police officer and obstructing and intimidating a business and customers. He was sentenced to 15 days in jail and three years' probation in that case.

"Our goal is to make sure the community is safe," said Lt. Barnes. "We just don't want to have another confrontation like we had last time."

Delaware to test response to flu outbreak


By Patricia Breakey
Delhi News Bureau

DELHI — Don’t panic if you see officials wearing masks and gloves taking people into custody in Delhi. It’s just a pandemic-flu isolation and quarantine drill being staged by several Delaware County and state agencies.

Mandy Walsh, Delaware County Public Health preparedness program coordinator, said the drill will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday.

"We don’t want people to be alarmed," Hamilton said. "We are just trying to be prepared."

[ ... ]

"The law-enforcement personnel will be wearing protective equipment," Walsh said. "People may see unmarked cars driven by people with masks and gloves. They will be knocking on doors and serving orders."

Walsh said the respirator masks cover the nose and mouth and have canisters on the sides, which give them the appearance of a gas mask. Some of the volunteers have been instructed to resist the court order, so people may see someone being taken from their home unwillingly and a scuffle may occur, Walsh said.

[...]

From http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/2006/05/22/dt7.html via trinnitl

The government says: 1) Run like hell

The rest of the instructions are at this helpful USDA guide to surviving a swarm of relentlessly savage enraged stinging insects.

Thanks, 'Vark!

It's rare to see me supporting libertarian grumps against conservation rules, but I don't think that forcibly crippling the nation's showerheads is an effective strategy for reducing water consumption.

Government Can't Explain Change in 2002 TSA Contract

The modification to the contract involved switching the interview sites for tens of thousands of airline passenger screener jobs from a contractor's own assessment centers to hotels and luxury resorts.

Federal auditors eventually called into question an array of expenses, including charges of $525 for an airport shuttle trip in Tallahassee, $7,920 for beverage breaks at a Manhattan hotel and $514,000 to rent tents in Boston.

So let's get this straight. Homeland Security changed from using classrooms to using luxury hotels, we got charged $343 million for this, and no one can explain why?

I want someone's head on a plate.

My new icon is in honor of Trofim Denisovitch Lysenko.

Who was he? Here's a man who saw around the foolish plodding of the so-called scientific method. Starting as an unknown country agronomist, he carved himself a place in this world with good peasant sense, pluck, spunk, and old fashioned elbow grease.

Of course the "geneticists" didn't buy his theories, but Trofim Denisovitch went over their heads to the real guardians of sanity: the Soviet government. And Josef Stalin listened, because Stalin was smarter than those stuck-up biologists too. They complained like crazy, but try as they might they couldn't stop this feisty underdog with a plan to save his country. And if they tried, they were shot or jailed. That may sound harsh, but standing in the way of the happiness of the people is a serious matter, and bad science has to be rooted out deep or it'll come back. And you know, those science guys, they were elitists who weren't in touch. Arrogant nerds. A lot of them were Jews and they had all kinds of chips on their shoulders, you know.

Of course none of his science worked just right. It was all pretty crazy. You can't "vernalize" plants by cooling them down to make them produce more. You can't change the next generation of plants by modifying this generation, either; it's called the Lamarckian mistake and everyone knows this. But you couldn't slow down a man like this with theories; he was about cold hard facts. And if those were hard to come by, he could scare up a few; he was good at scaring. If the man asked you how the vernalization was going on your collective farm, some answers were healthier than others, and even starving peasants don't care to be shot.

Soviet biology and agriculture didn't recover from Lysenko. His theories were used well into the 1960s, and even later in China. Some of Lysenko's agricultural innovations played a part in Mao's unfortunate farming changes in the Great Leap Forward, contributing to famines that may have killed tens of millions of people; the statistics are hazy but not so good. But we know that's not the point. He'd given all those people something: hope. And that's what it's all about, really.

Why is Lysenko our hero today? He had vision. And he understood something about science that we're only just rediscovering today. Scientists shouldn't keep nattering away about global warming, or Peak Oil, or the ozone layer, or all of these other crappy negative theories. That doesn't make our nation proud and strong, and it sure doesn't help us fight terror. We need science that builds us up instead of breaking us down. And if people don't like evolution, stop ramming it down their throats. Who's paying your salaries, anyway?

Learn something from Trofim Denisovitch. A guy from nowhere with a can-do attitude is worth more than a hundred overeducated weenies with permanent jobs! Maybe you guys can give us some science we can use for a change, something to make people feel the pride again. Something positive.

And if you don't like the way things are going, watch your mouth. Naysayers need to be isolated and dealt with around here, or we're just playing into the hands of the terrorists.

Freedom science is on the march.