The Day the Universe Changed: 4

The Day the Universe Changed, Episode 4.
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(When you load this one, you'll need to watch the segments in reverse order.)
Prior Episodes: 1 | 2 | 3
Connections Episodes:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Connections II: 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20
Connections III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Mr. Subliminal Goes To Pittsburg?

This is beyond ridiculous.

Michael Hayslip of KFJX-TV (FOX 14 Pittsburg, KS/Joplin, MO) is seeing coded racist messages in McCain ads:

Obama's catch phrase throughout this campaign has been "change".

Take a look at the crowd above Obama, who during this original campaign stop were holding individual letters to spell out "CHANGE".

But the way the ad runs, there's a dark shadow through most of the "C", and the "E" at the end of the word.

Take out those two letters, and you have a new word right above Barack Obama's head.

Not only is the message coded, but so is the report: Hayslip can't even bring himself to say what that word is. To their credit, Obama's people in Joplin had no comment on this theory.

Why would it not surprise me if Hayslip watched his copy of Loose Change so many times it's melted inside his DVD player?

[Afterthought] And furthermore, Obama's main catch phrase is "YES, WE CAN!". "Change" is merely one of his buzzwords, as in the catch phrase "Change we can believe in".

Call them "Leftist", not "liberal"

There is nothing liberal about them. One need look no further than this comment at DailyKos on the television stations that dare to air advertisements critical of The One's choice of friends:

Failure to serve the public commonweal is sufficient. If and when progressives gain power, we should revoke the broadcast licenses of all Sinclair and Clear Channel outlets.

What makes this threat possible is the "broadcast licenses", which in turn depend on the idea of "public airwaves". How that came to be accepted is a mystery to me. If the Supreme Court can find a general "right to privacy" in penumbras of emanations of the actual text (and I do happen to agree with that reasoning), then they ought to find in "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" that an agency of the US government has no business dictating what can be broadcast by the electronic press.

We know that Democrats desire to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine" if Barack Obama can appoint FCC commissioners to do the deed. The only way to end the threat of some group that gains a majority of FCC seats using it to silence opposition is to take away any power it may have to regulate content. Let the FCC "license" broadcasters on strictly technical grounds, assuring that Channels 4 and 5 don't interfere with one another's transmissions. Let them even see that the technology to decode transmissions be standardized so that an RCA television can receive a CBS signal as well as programming from RCA's own NBC network, but they have no place dictating what those signals should convey.

Let us keep Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and they can have Janet Jackson's breast on TV. It seems a fair trade to me.

The Day the Universe Changed: 3

The Day the Universe Changed, Episode 3.
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Prior Episodes: 1 | 2
Connections Episodes:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Connections II: 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20
Connections III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

The Day the Universe Changed: 2

The Day the Universe Changed, Episode 2.
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Episode 1
Connections Episodes:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Connections II: 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20
Connections III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

It's Edwards's baby. It's just not Hunter's.

If you're a semi-sentient user of the internet you know the outlines of the Rielle Hunter/John Edwards story that's dominated the blogosphere for the last 24 hours.

They say Rielle Hunter had Edwards's baby. I think they're all wrong. I think it's Edwards' baby. I just don't think it's Hunters.

Let me explain.

If you're a semi-sentient user of the internet you know the outlines of the Rielle Hunter/John Edwards story that's dominated the blogosphere for the last 24 hours.

They say Rielle Hunter had Edwards's baby. I think they're all wrong. I think it's Edwards' baby. I just don't think it's Hunters.

Let me explain.

In the broadest strokes, the story is:

A middle aged divorcee trying to start over moves from New York to Hollywood, changes her name from Lisa Druck to Rielle (pronounced ree-ELL) Hunter and goes into the movies.

She hooks up with the Edwards for President campaign and convinces them to pay her a whole PILE of money to make web-only documentaries about Edwards so he comes off less like a Ken doll.

The two of them have an affair.

The National Enquirer hears about it and publishes the story. He denies it, the rest of the media ignores it.

She gets pregnant.

The National Enquirer hears about it and publishes the story. He denies it and says the father is his campaign aid, Andrew Young. The rest of the media ignores it.

They have a baby.

The National Enquirer hears about it and publishes. He denies it. The rest of the media ignores it.

The Enquirer keeps pursuing it, and finally gets pictures. He denies it, the rest of the media ignores it. They keep pressing.

Finally, he admits it, or at least some of it. He now says he had an affair with her, it ended a long time ago, his wife and family knew, he's NOT the father.

The mainstream media, prodded from it's stupor, finally publishes it.

As the mainstream media has reported it many bloggers have started pointing at holes in the story. Like, when exactly was Ms. Hunter hired, and were they having an affair at that time? When Young - a man with a wife and kids - was identified as the father before the baby was born, Hunter was moved into a house in Young's neighborhood. Apparently Mrs. Young did not object.

What?

And then there's the question of timing. The baby - little Frances Quinn Hunter - was born Feb 27th 2008. Assuming she was born full term, she was conceived about June 5, 2007. But on March 22, 2007 Edwards and his wife announced that her cancer had returned; she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, with metastases to the bone and possibly to her lung.

What kind of a man would get his mistress pregnant 6 weeks after announcing to the world that his wife was dying from cancer? I don't like Edwards, but that just seems too low, even for him.

The statement released by Edwards says he had an affair with her, but didn't love her. That his wife and family knew but let him run for President all the same.

The whole thing just doesn't make any sense. So I started thinking (a dangerous pastime).

Maybe the admission we're getting from Edwards is still a lie, meant to cover up something completely different.

What follows is pure speculation.

Edward's wife Elizabeth is 4 years older than him, born July 3 1949. They had 2 kids, Wade in 1979 and Cate in 1982. Wade was killed in 1996 when his Jeep was blown off a road by strong winds. Shortly thereafter, the Edwards decided to have more children. They had Emma Claire in 1998 and Jack in 2000.

At the time Emma was born Elizabeth was 49. The odds of her becoming pregnant at that age with her own eggs is about 1:1,000,000. They have said that she underwent "fertility treatments" but it is almost certain that both Emma and Jack were the result of one or more egg donations.

They have never admitted that. Perhaps not even to the children. It is relatively common for DE (Donated Egg) parents to keep it a secret from everyone. There are MANY Hollywood celebrity mothers who have had DE children and won't admit it. When an actress has twins at age 50, it's DE.

When you do a DE procedure it's just like conventional IVF, except the Dr. changes patients between egg retrieval and embryo transfer. And if it works you almost always end up with extra embryos, stored frozen in liquid nitrogen in a lab.

There are a few things you can do with those frozens - or "Totsicles" as some of the DE people call them. If the parents want more kids they can be transfered, one or two at a time, into the mom in the hope that they'll take and become new babies. They can be thawed and flushed. They can be donated to science for stem cell research, or they can be donated to another childless couple that can't afford a full $40,000 donor egg cycle.

It isn't at all common, but they could also be implanted in a surrogate, to carry them to gestation. Parents might do that if they wanted more children but the mother couldn't carry a pregnancy to term. For example, she might have had a hysterectomy, or have a progressive disease like Parkinson's. Or she might be on Chemotherapy.

Like Elizabeth Edwards.

I think maybe that's what happened here. I think Rielle Hunter wasn't John Edward's mistress, or at least she was not JUST his mistress.

I think she was a surrogate. I think John and Elizabeth Edwards wanted another baby, but due to the chemo she couldn't carry one.

That 6 weeks between the cancer announcement and conception would be a horrible span, if Edwards was cheating on his wife then. But would be about the right amount of time to get a surrogate ready to accept an embryo. Since she became pregnant she's been put up in very nice private homes AND paid $15k/month - a little on the rich side but not that outlandish as a surrogate fee, and they were paying for more than a conventional surrogate. The payments seem to have continued after the birth, as Ms. Hunter has nursed the little girl. The plan may have been to wait until after the election then quietly adopt the little guy. After all, John McCain has an adopted daughter, why not the Edwards? If it hadn't been for those meddlesome kids at the National Enquirer, they would have gotten away with it, too!

One more percentile to drop into the equation - Ms. Hunter is 44 years old and has never had children before. She MIGHT get pregnant the old fashioned way, but it's very unlikely - the odds are something like 1 in 40. MOST women who get pregnant at 44 do it with infertility treatments of some kind.

If it's true, it actually increase my estimation of Edwards. I don't care that he lied to the press; they deserve to be lied to early and often. I don't agree with their decision to not disclose the use of donated eggs for their first two children - I don't disapprove, it's their business, but I think transparency is a better option all the way around.

If I'm right it will come out eventually. Several people know - Edwards, Elizabeth, Rielle, the people at the Doctor's office, the aids and contributors that have been busy covering it up. And while I may be the first to come up with this hair-brained theory, I don't think I'll be the last. If more than one person knows, it's not a secret.

The Day the Universe Changed: 1

After the three iterations of Connections, you might have thought James Burke was done chronicling the intertwined threads of history that lead to our modern society and its technologies. Then he came out with The Day the Universe Changed. This series covers a slightly different territory: it's about how the way we think about things affects our very perception of everything. There's some insight into how Western Civilization differs from Eastern, which is a very good thing to understand right about now. Enjoy Episode 1.(Click on the image to play — it will open in a separate window/tab)

Connections Episodes:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Connections II: 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20
Connections III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Levant wins, but free speech still loses

The saga of Ezra Levant continues. In How I Beat the Fatwa and Lost My Freedom, he describes his "victory" over the "Alberta Human Rights Commision" (an Orwellian name, if ever there were one.)

My dismissal is not a victory for freedom of the press. Because Alberta’s press is not free — it is now subject to the approval of the government. But Canadians have the right to a free press in spite of the government. We have the right to break every one of Gundara’s petty and subjective rules.

As the Blogfather says, read the whole thing!

The Perfect Cheer

At first glance, The "Obama Cheer" Project seems like a joke, but it's apparently being treated seriously by ABC's news department. I'll try to take them just as seriously, but it'll be tough.

In their effort to produce the Perfect Cheer, they've worked up some doozies...

Obama, Oh, Oh, Obama
O-B-A-M-A
Change is gonna start today!

Not even waiting for Election Day, much less a formality like inauguration in January?

Loud and clear hear our voice
NOW is when we make our choice
Health-care education,
WE are gonna heal the nation

How, exactly will you heal the nation? Maybe it's the "education" part, to train a bunch of new health care workers.

Obama, Oh, Oh, Obama
O-B-A-M-A
Let's rebuild the USA!

Not afraid of sweat and tears
We can conquer all our fears,
Leaders who feel what we feel
Know that what we see is real

Yes, leftism is all about FEELING, not about thinking. They demand confirmation that their fantasies are real.

Obama, Oh, Oh, Obama
O-B-A-M-A
Change is gonna start today!

Keep the seashore free from drilling
Let’s not train our kids for killing
Wind and sun are free and clean
Work to make our planet green.

Does gasoline refined from Saudi or Iranian oil fields magically not generate pollution? Obama's already moved on offshore drilling (not "seashore", which McCain doesn't support either), and he's on the record wanting to use our trained "kids" to go into Pakistan and kill Taliban/AQ remnants there. The whole reason why 18-20-year-olds get to vote is the argument that people who are old enough to risk dying for their country are adults, not "kids", and should be able to vote for the people who decide where they'll fight.

I think we can all agree that wind is great, except when someone wants to build windmills in your neighborhood. -- will he be able to persuade his buddy Ted Kennedy to allow that wind farm project off Cape Cod?

Obama, Oh, Oh, Obama
O-B-A-M-A
Let's rebuild the USA!

Red or Blue, a separation,
Will no more define our nation
Parties force us to divide
We are all the same inside

And yet he's running for President as a Democrat, not an independent like Joe Lieberman. You remember him? The guy that was "divided" right out of the party that nominated him to be a heartbeat away from the presidency because he wouldn't "define" himself as "Blue" enough on Iraq.

Obama, Oh, Oh, Obama
O-B-A-M-A
Change is gonna start today!

STOP the "bleeping" hesitation
End the DAMN procrastination
Let McCain go on vacation,
WE are gonna heal the nation

And yet it's Obama's buddies Pelosi and Reid that went on vacation (with a technicality that keeps the Senate in session for 5 minutes a day so that the President can't call Congress back into session) while McCain wants to vote now on opening up access to domestic oil reserves so we won't have to train our kids to kill people in a BLOOD FOR OIL war.

Obama, Oh, Oh, Obama
O-B-A-M-A
Let's rebuild the USA!

It's not just imagination
We all have the dedication
With the power of the nation
Let's begin our celebration!!

Really getting heavy oh the "-ation" rhyming bit, aren't we? It's getting old. But I'm encouraged that you feel the need to point out that it isn't "just imagination", since at this point, imagining hopey change is about all your guy has going for him. And what "power" will our nation have, if you won't let us use the power we have (in either the energy or military sense)?
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Connections: 310

The tenth and final episode of Connections III.(Click on the image to play — it will open in a separate window/tab)
Prior Episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Original Connections Episodes:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Connections II Episodes: 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20