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January 31, 2004
Facts And Religion
Georgia, taking a few steps back to the Dark
Ages .
Superintendent Kathy Cox said the concept of evolution
would still be taught under the proposal, but the word would not be
used. The proposal would not require schools to buy new textbooks
omitting the word evolution and would not prevent teachers from using
it.
Cox repeatedly referred to evolution as a "buzzword" Thursday and
said the ban was proposed, in part, to alleviate pressure on teachers in
socially conservative areas where parents object to its teaching.
The dissimulation that is Intelligent Design has gnawed deep into the
heart of sense in the debate of creationism vs. evolution. Of course,
it shouldn't really be classed as a debate, for that lends it an air of
legitimacy which it in fact does not possess. Creationism (and, by dint
of that, Intelligent Design) is purest bullshit, and evolution is one of
the most well-established, well-tested, and well-demonstrated theories
ever promulgated by science. It's not a matter of opinion; there is no
debate, not among scientists at least. As for what anyone else thinks
about it -- well, you study biology, genetics, geology, and some
paleontology for a dozen years, then get back to me.
The socially convervative parents who want to insulate their kids
from reality, and ensure they will never get into a decent university --
well, I just don't care. I should, but I don't. They can live their
hillbilly lives with their Middle Ages beliefs and make all the worst
stereotypes of the South come true. Good for them. It's within their
rights as Americans to be ignorant hicks.
It's why I think in a couple of decades, China and India are going to
eat us for lunch -- for the most part, people there aren't saddled with
these antiquated, demonstrably wrong beliefs, and simply think better
because of it.
There is no opinion about evolution. It's correct. Get over it. If
you deny that, you deny all of science.
Posted by Mike at 11:49
AM
| Comments (4)
Pout
The word "boudoir" means literally in French "a place to sulk." It
comes from the French verb "bouder," meaning "to pout."
Posted by Mike at 02:09
AM
| Comments (0)
January 30, 2004
To Be
One of the reasons pro photographers seem so much better than many
amateurs is because they take so many more pictures. An amateur may take
one or two shots of something he or she is interested in. A pro
photographer will take 500 shots of the same thing -- with variations in
lighting, exposure, flash, no flash, different lenses, etc., ad
infinitum.
The point is that most amateur photographers get down on themselves
because they are not persistent enough. And most pros really aren't as
good people imagine.
There are a few photographers, though, who only need to take one
photo to get it right. One shot, and they have what they need. That's
the kind of photographer I try to be. I am not there yet; I'm not even
close. But nothing wrong with striving.
Posted by Mike at 11:52
PM
| Comments (1)
January 29, 2004
The Last Step Before The Chainsaw
The inventor of the most common combination of keystrokes in the
world: ctrl-alt-del .
Posted by Mike at 01:13
PM
| Comments (1)
January 28, 2004
Cheat Sheets
I've always found it amusing that it is asserted that men "cheat"
significantly more than women in relationships, as the first thought I
had upon hearing this was, Well, who the hell are they cheating with?
One another? One woman? (Damn, she must be tired.)
With a few Jerry Springer exceptions, they are, of course cheating
with women. The difference is that women tend to be more sneaky about
such things, and to cover their tracks a little better. And also, I
think, it's marginally more accepted, at least in Western society, when
women cheat.
So, the assertion that men cheat in relationships so much more than
women is mathematically unlikely.
Posted by Mike at 04:35
PM
| Comments (0)
January 27, 2004
Culpable Of Idea-Mongering
I've often pondered who is responsible for the consequences of ideas,
and how philosophies are put to use in the everyday world. Some people
seem to wish to hold Karl Marx to some measure
of blame for the ideas he brought into the world, and the
subsequent murderous rampages their application spawned.
I do not agree. I don't think it's the responsibility of he or she
who creates an idea to ponder all its consequences, and to see all ends.
No one can do this. Marx was making a genuine (though fatally flawed)
effort to improve the lot of the human race. Later, tyrannical, brutal
minds such a Lenin and Stalin corrupted his vision, and blighted the
landscape with a misshapen interpretation of what Marx wrote, and
thought.
Marx is no more responsible for the misapplication of his ideas than I
am if I suggest to someone that SUVs are flight-capable, and they test
my hypothesis by driving one off a cliff.
But, even that is not exactly the point I am trying to make. I think
Marx's ideas are a shambles of non-thought. I don't even think they are good
ideas.
Even more than that, even if Marx had directly written, "It is your
responsibility as workers to slaughter your capitalists oppressors, and
all who disagree with you, and all who are enemies of the Party," I'd
hold that he still bore no culpability if someone actually followed
through with said actions.
As no one seriously blames Einstein for the horror of nuclear
weapons, I do not see how anyone can blame Marx -- a man who never held
any political power in his life -- for the deaths that resulted in the
application of his ideas. He ordered no purges, no executions. He
organized no death squads. He pulled no triggers.
I don't think Marx can be blamed in the least for the terrors his
ideas fomented -- only the monsters beholden more to power than the
spirit of his conceptions can or should be blamed for what they wrought
on their nations, and their people.
Posted by Mike at 04:54
PM
| Comments (2)
Ice
It's icy here in Charlotte. And when I say icy, I mean the world
appears to be covered in glazed glass. Last night, it was so reflective,
that the street lights mirrored in it as on liquid water.
Just watched a guy in a Mazda truck attempt to get out of the parking
lot. He was trying to climb an incline of only about 5 degrees or so,
but he couldn't make it up. He'd make it about halfway up the small
hill, his rear tires spinning like carousels gone awry, and then he'd
inevitably start to slide back down, the ice he was making yet-slicker
with his spinning tires making his efforts all the more hopeless.
After he came within about two feet of hitting a parked Honda Accord
on his third slide back down the hill, he gave up, and shambled back to
his condo.
I didn't go anywhere yesterday, and I will not go anywhere today. On
either side of where I live are two hills, both with a more than 15
degree incline. I could no more ascend or descend these hills in my car
than I could climb Mt. Everest without oxygen.
Here's the view out the window.
That weird-looking pavement? All ice. No on here has snow tires or
chains or any of that. Be glad when this is all over.
Posted by Mike at 12:06
PM
| Comments (1)
Origins
My grandpa weren't no
monkey . Umm, I mean, caveman.
Posted by Mike at 01:30
AM
| Comments (1)
January 26, 2004
Spew
Over a month ago, I wrote about how presidential candidates need to
be as bland
as possible to have a chance of winning.
Howard Dean showed too much spine, and it will probably knock him out
of the race. It's truly a tragedy of American politics that candidates
with a personality and some fire in their veins are demonized by the
press and present a target for derision.
This can be seen most obviously in the brouhaha made about Howard
Dean's speech following the Iowa caucus -- to me, it seemed
enthusiastic, charged and optimistic. The press, however, didn't see it
that way.
It's equally true, though, that the public is complicit in the
process. If they did not consume the spew of the mass media, it would no
longer exist. The profit motive is what keeps it all going, and if the
companies in question did not glean viewers and advertising with such
tactics, those tactics would not exist. The fact that all those
(admittedly amusing) remixes exist, is proof that the public at large
ran with it.
It was not a negative for Gore that he seemed soulless, and never
said anything controversial or showed any spirit -- on the contrary,
this was to his benefit. Dean could learn a few lessons from him.
Just as bad laws can only be blamed on the people who vote for bad
lawmakers, we can only blame ourselves for believing that because a
candidate extemporizes enthusiastically, does this somehow make him
unfit for high office.
Ask yourself, would you rather have a candidate with passion, and
fervor and life, or some animatronic marvel fresh off the Disneyworld
stage? I see most have already made that choice, which is not
surprising. But it is still disappointing.
Posted by Mike at 01:36
PM
| Comments (3)
Wilted
Posted by Mike at 10:34
AM
| Comments (0)
January 25, 2004
Skip To My Lou
Favorite term of the day: Skip-bombing.
Skip-bombing is the practice of releasing a bomb over water with the
intention of having it skip on the surface of water like a stone, until
it strikes, say, a ship or a bridge.
Not often used today in the era of GPS guidance, but in previous
conflicts was used to great effect.
Posted by Mike at 11:20
AM
| Comments (1)
Need Some Ray-Bans
Opportunity is on Mars, and Spirit has been upgraded from critical to
serious condition . What made me curious is the flash memory used
aboard both rovers.
"Something in the flight software talking to the Flash
memory is causing us difficulty," Theisinger said.
He said engineers do not know what caused the problem, but if it is
purely a software problem, it is likely repairable. If, however, a
problem in the hardware is affecting the software, repair may not be
possible.
Flash memory and cosmic rays do not play nice. Though I am sure the
NASA engineers, being a great deal more intelligent than me, took this
into account, I am wondering if the rover's problem don't stem from the
onboard flash memory being damaged by the increased exposure to cosmic
rays that occurs on the surface of Mars.
Even on earth, believe it or not, cosmic rays have an impact on
computers. Statistically, a soft error due to a cosmic ray impacting a
computer with 256MB of memory is likely to occur once every 800 or so
hours. Increase the amount of memory, and the chance of cosmic ray
impact also increases.
Cosmic rays are one of the reasons that servers use ECC (error
checking and correction) memory. When a cosmic ray impacts a server
containing ECC memory, the error is caught and repaired before it has an
impact on the stability of the operating system or the results returned
by a program.
However, on a normal PC with non-ECC memory, a cosmic ray can cause
memory errors, and memory errors almost invariably lead to an unstable
operating system or application. Ever had a crash when doing something
completely normal, and when you attempt to duplicate the problem and
re-try the action, it works just fine?
There is a non-trivial (and fairly high) chance this crash occurred
due to the impact of cosmic rays onto the memory chips of your computer.
Posted by Mike at 10:55
AM
| Comments (1)
Turn
Posted by Mike at 04:41
AM
| Comments (2)
January 24, 2004
McGyver With A Nuke
No, it is not acceptable
to duct-tape the detonation charge of a nuclear warhead back
together after you accidentally break it. Wow, that could've gone
massively wrong.
Posted by Mike at 05:39
AM
| Comments (0)
I Wants It
This
piece by John Stossel brings up a very good point that is often
missed. It's often asserted that both spouses "must work" because both
incomes are needed, as compared to the past.
Well, that's true, but it's true predicated on the conditions that we
buy far more things that we do not need than anyone in human history
(as Stossel points out).
As compared to a family in, say, 1950 there are important differences
in what people expect to have. Families often feel they "need" three
cars now, while in 1950, one was sufficient. We have things like
computers, complex home entertainment systems, many luxury items that
did not exist before, expensive hobbies, etc. The list is endless.
This is corollary to the relativity of poverty -- in a land where 80%
of people make a billion dollars a year, the man who makes only a
million would be dirt poor by comparison.
When people assert they "need" dual incomes to survive, this need is
almost always in context of extremely large houses, having two, three or
even more cars, buying items that no one in human memory but the
super-rich could afford, save in the last hundred years or so.
I am not asserting this is wrong -- this is a very amazing, wonderful
thing. I am merely observing that there is a difference between "need"
and "really, really want." One income would be sufficient for most
families if people didn't really, really want more than they have in the
past.
Posted by Mike at 05:06
AM
| Comments (0)
January 23, 2004
Wear A Helmut
Holy crap. Helmut Newton, one of my favorite photographers, died
today .
Posted by Mike at 07:50
PM
| Comments (1)
Fiji
This post
is a rant against Maureen Dowd , which is as easy as
paint-by-numbers, but that's not really what caught my eye. It's the bit
about Fijians that I noticed.
I've also met Fijians. Those guys ride around in swivel
chairs with machine gun mounts on the backs of pickup trucks guarding
Iraqi Currency Exchange convoys. Their role is absolutely vital, their
job dangerous as hell, and they are as tough as two-dollar steaks.
I've served with Fijians as well, in Egypt. They were all as big as a
house, and, just as as portrayed, are tough as pig iron -- ready to
fight in a pinch, but if you made friends with them, god have mercy on
your enemy, as they sure would not.
Incidentally, I was standing outside the Fijian bar in North Camp,
Egypt the first time I ever heard the song "The Macarena." I wasn't much
on Egyptian pop music, as it sounded much like American pop music, only
more nasal and whiny, if that is even possible.
When it started playing, I said "Damn, this is the worst Egyptian
music I have ever heard."
Someone informed me that it was, in fact, an American pop construct,
and I just shook my head and tried to block the sound.
Posted by Mike at 04:52
AM
| Comments (0)
Spirit
What really happened
to the Spirit lander .
Posted by Mike at 04:37
AM
| Comments (0)
January 22, 2004
Let's Get Technological
A great boon to general physical fitness will occur when immersive
game-like environments are available where the person "playing" actually
has to move their body to play the game -- fighting a dragon by
actually fighting with a play sword, or boxing against an opponent, or
returning volleys against Pete Sampras.
The technology is here today -- now, all it takes is someone to make
it reliable, cheap and easy enough for the average consumer to take
advantage of it.
Posted by Mike at 06:29
PM
| Comments (0)
January 21, 2004
Flight Of Police Fancy
This is just asinine .
Be careful what you ask for is the lesson Julie Olearcek
learned when she inquired about a gift for her son last week at a
Staples store.
A seemingly innocent query for flight simulation software earned the
Air Force Reserves pilot a visit to her home from State Troopers,
according to local reports.
Some measure of caution is warranted. But as many six-year-old kids
I've heard about searched at airports, about infants being put on the
CAPPS list, forces me to conclude that all this is just the usual
flailing about in the name of security, while the big fish go uncaught.
"Those programs are quite common for entertainment and
training, but he felt it was suspicious enough to warrant a call," said
Charpentier, according to the Recorder. "We responded, and it turned out
to be innocent enough; a person looking to buy a Christmas gift."
In the post-9/11 world, Staples spokesperson Sharyn Frankel said are
instructed to be alert and to report any sort of suspicious inquiries or
behavior in the store. "It's all about keeping our associates and
customers safe. This was out of the ordinary and kind of raised a red
flag and (the sales clerk) did what he thought was right."
Yeah, flight simulators -- only about a couple of million a year of
those get bought. I'm all for profiling, and some suburban white woman
is not who you are looking for. Hint: They'll probably be Arab,
political correctness be damned.
Posted by Mike at 10:26
PM
| Comments (1)
Pulp Fiction
Reminded by this
about something I'd been meaning to write about for a while.
When I was in the Army, it was often my duty to escort members of the
press to events such live fire exercises, homecoming ceremonies --
hell, my team even took about eight members of the local and national
press all the way to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and got them back in one
piece, with one hairy border crossing in between.
What I learned during these many escort missions is that what the
press reports bears little resemblance to reality. I attended the same
events as the press members I escorted. I went to the same press
conferences. I wrote stories about the very same things. I usually had
video and audio of the event.
I can say with a great degree of certainty that the press, because
they are lazy and because many journalists are not that bright, simply
do not understand or know enough to report on much of anything
accurately. There are some great journalists out there. I've escorted a
few of them. But most of them, from at least what I can accurately
recount from my purview of military affairs, simply do not take the time
or have the brains to dig deep and understand what they are seeing.
With the enmity that many press members have with the military, I am
sure this was only magnified in my case.
Note to some reporter from long ago: Paratroopers do not yell
"Geronimo" when they jump out of airplanes. They may have in 1945, but
they do not anymore.
I remember reading many stories reporting events on which I escorted
reporters, and wondering if they'd dropped some acid a few hours
beforehand. What they reported only dimly resembled actual events.
So, like Rafe Colburn, I take everything I read in the press with a
whole saltlick, as I know the probability is very high that it is
simply, flat-out wrong. That it is so far from the truth that if you
simply assume the opposite is true, a great deal of the time, you will
be correct. It's most prevalent and noticeable to me in scientific and
military stories, but I am sure I notice it more because I know more
about these areas than any other.
Judging by what those who have other fields of expertise have told
me, though, it is true everywhere.
My point is not to lambast the press. My point is merely that, when
you read something, realize that the reporter probably cares very little
about what he or she is covering, is not really interested in it, and
wants to get the story banged out as fast as possible to get on to the
next assignment.
Almost everything in the popular press is merely pulp fiction, and
should be treated as such.
Posted by Mike at 12:06
PM
| Comments (1)
January 20, 2004
Good News, From Bad News
Not out of altruism, but because they recognize the RIAA would
shutter the whole Internet if they could, ISPs have told the RIAA to
screw off in their quest to discover the identities of those swapping
songs .
What's sad is that traditional rights and privileges, including many
explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, are now dependent on large
business interests duking it out with one another.
Posted by Mike at 09:45
PM
| Comments (0)
Bush Conspiracy
For all you who believe Bush and the Mossad planned the 9/11 attacks,
or that Bush has Osama bin Laden hidden in a hall closet and will
announce his "capture" right before election night, this is the site
for you . Enjoy!
Posted by Mike at 08:23
PM
| Comments (0)
Reminder Of Warmth -- Fragile
Posted by Mike at 09:17
AM
| Comments (3)
January 19, 2004
Sex Sells...Of Course
Too many thoughts commingled here to write about all of them, I
merely cite this
to state a preference.
But the irony of Lara and the Angels is still hard to
miss. Like the Spice Girls before them, they're selling sex to pay for
empowerment.
There was a time when female action heroes didn't have to show skin.
Ripley took no prisoners in the Alien movies, and did she wear a bikini?
''Sigourney Weaver wouldn't put up with that,'' said Susan Douglas, a
communications professor at the University of Michigan and author of
the book Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media. And
when Alien director James Cameron turned Linda Hamilton into an action
heroine in Terminator 2, he accentuated her biceps, not her breasts.
If it's jiggle and wiggle and a little bit of waggle is what the
audience wants, and that's what sells, I say give it to them; but it's
not what I prefer.
The treatment Hamilton got in T2 was perhaps the best, most realistic
treatment of a female action hero I've ever seen -- she was thorougly
feminine, and thoroughly bad-ass. In a fight against any three of
Charlie's so-called Angels, or all three of them together, she'd have
them crying on the floor like babies. If you can cry with buckshot
throught your throat, that is.
And the scene where she's doing those pull-ups and her biceps are
bulging and she's all sweaty...I need a moment here....
Posted by Mike at 12:11
AM
| Comments (4)
January 18, 2004
Bored, But Alive
Interesting post here
pondering how risk-averse humans will be when we achieve
near-immortality.
I don't think humans as individuals will become significantly more
risk-averse, but I think regulations in this world where people have
essentially-unlimited lifespans will work to seriously proscribe the
behavior of these immortals. And I don't just mean regulations passed by
lawmakers -- I mean de facto regulations instituted by civil lawsuits
and insurance stipulations.
To combine the two themes I mentioned above, imagine a world in which
two people's lifespans are potentially infinite. One of these
immortals, say he's called Balios, kills the other. Let's call him
Xanthos.
Now, Xanthos' family takes Balios to court and sues him, and wins.
What is typically awarded in these cases? Mental anguish, lost wages,
etc.
Lost wages, you say? Well, what's the lost wages on an infinite
lifespan? What do you award in that case?
I think the eventual result of immortality in one possible world
would be eventual banning of things like cars, knives, all competitive
sports -- anything that could be in any way risky.
That's what I extrapolate from our increasingly risk-averse and
increasingly lawsuit-prone culture. Your results may vary.
Posted by Mike at 08:54
PM
| Comments (0)
Not A Shock
According to an informal and admittedly unscientific study undertaken
by Fred Langa, approximately
40% of e-mail never arrives at its intended destination .
With the unreliability of many hosts (including mine), layers and
layers of spam filters, improperly-configured DNS, etc., I am not
surprised by this number.
Posted by Mike at 06:32
PM
| Comments (1)
Space Shuttle Blues
One good side effect of the Bush plan to return to the Moon, and to
go to Mars, is that it likely will
kill the Space Shuttle and the orbiting turd that is the International
Space Station.
President Bush's plan to go to the moon and to Mars
without much additional funding will force NASA and Congress to make
hard choices -- particularly regarding the space shuttle and the hugely
expensive International Space Station, observers said.
The Bush plan increases NASA's budget by just $1 billion over the
next five years. That means the space agency has to figure out how to
carry out the mission -- first a return to the moon and later a trip to
Mars -- without a lot of additional money in its budget.
If this holds true, and NASA's budget doesn't get increased
significantly (which I think is impossible, given the missions), then
the killing off of the mostly-useless Space Shuttle and the ever-useless
ISS will be a net good for the country. Though I don't agree with the
focus on the Moon and Mars for manned missions without a sufficient
propulsion technology, it it provides a good excuse to scrap some things
that are sorely in need of acquaintance with the rubbish heap of
history.
Also, I do recognize that a mission to Mars may be what is needed to
spur on better propulsion tecnology -- necessity, after all, is the
mother of invention, and serendipity its father.
Posted by Mike at 10:14
AM
| Comments (0)
Mental Armaments
Some great
visual tools for understanding math and physics concepts.
Posted by Mike at 09:16
AM
| Comments (0)
January 17, 2004
Southern Comfort
I'd certainly agree with this .
Charleston is definitely the most hospitable place I've been in the
United States. As anti-social as I am, people there are often too
friendly and talkative for my tastes.
Outside of the United States, I'd probably have to pick Eilat, Israel
as the most friendly place. Waitresses who sit down at your table and
talk with you when they are bored, airport attendants who offer for you
to stay in their apartment when you cannot find an empty hotel. Good
place. Great place.
Posted by Mike at 12:28
PM
| Comments (0)
Electoral College Blindness
Eric Alterman has apparently never
heard of the Electoral College .
Surprise, surprise, one of those states is Florida, and
this, along with a few other oddities, is why they play "Hail to the
Chief" when 2000's minority vote-getter enters a room.
In the United States, we have this thing called the Electoral
College, mmkay? Like it or hate it, the U.S. is not a democracy, and who
gets the majority of the popular vote has only an indirect relationship
to who gets elected President. This is codified into our very
Consititution, so it's not terribly hard to discover this information,
and the process for changing it is very clear. So, if you don't like it,
work to change it -- but at least make an attempt to understand it
first.
The Electoral College gives a bit more of a voice to states that
would have
none in presidential races, and is emblematic of the fact that the
founders of this nation never intended the people to vote
for anything directly. (Which, by the way, I agree with.)
As I have pointed out before, the founders were trying to resist a
tyranny of the people via direct democracy -- either a large tyranny,
such as Hitler, or a small one, such as France where the people vote
themselves more priviliges and social programs without a subsequent,
necessary increase in taxation.
Though I don't think the Electoral College is the best possible
execution of what the founders intended, it was created for a reason,
and a good one, at that. Work to change it if that displeases you.
Posted by Mike at 02:34
AM
| Comments (0)
January 16, 2004
Say It Ain't So
Mr. Miller is also not a traditional conservative. "I've
always been a pragmatist," he said. "If two gay guys want to get
married, it's none of my business. I could care less. More power to
them. I'm happy when people fall in love. But if some idiot foreign
terrorist wants to blow up their wedding to make a political statement, I
would rather kill him before he can do it, or have my country kill him
before he can do it, instead of having him do it and punishing him after
the fact. If that makes me a right-wing fanatic, I will bask in that
assignation."
That's Dennis Miller, from this
New York Times article.
He and I now share many of the same political views, though he used
to be a great deal more liberal-leaning. I believe in letting people do
what they want, as long as it does not harm others. I believe in gay
marriage, legalized prostitution, and liberty in general. The freer the
society, the more possibilities it has. I am by no means a conservative,
except fiscally.
But what some people do not understand (who are mostly, but not all,
liberal) is that there are entire societies of people out there, who, if
they could only find the means, would kill us all with little thought.
Just because they cannot right now carry out this dark
dream, is no reason to forget that they have it.
The war in Iraq may have been wrong and pointless. I do not know --
only history will tell that. That still does not change the fact that we
are facing a grave threat, that we are beset from many sides, and as
soon as one Islamic nutball acquires nuclear weapons, they will be used
against us.
I too will be gladly branded a right-wing fanatic if it means that I
and my society do not get annhilated by idiots from the 12th century.
Me, I prefer life and liberty to death and Sharia.
Posted by Mike at 08:42
AM
| Comments (0)
Show Of Quality
So, some strange guy comes a-knockin' at six am on my door. I look
out and see he's not obviously armed (even though I am, lightly) and
then I open the door.
He asks me for a jump. Says he delivers the newspapers around here,
and his car has stalled. I don't live in the best neighborhood, so I am a
little wary, but I say I'll look for jumper cables. I vaguely remember
seeing the guy before.
I find the jumper cables, ask him where his car is, and he tells me. I
tell him I'll drive over to it. I put on my jacket, my shoes, and walk
out to my car. It starts up fine, so I drive over, make sure nothing
untoward is going on (as there have been a lot of robberies here
lately), and get out.
We hook up the jumper cables, and after a few minutes, his car starts
up without complaint.
Not a great point here, but I think it is immoral not to help those
in need even when there is a hint or possibility of danger. The
alternative is a society that would be quite unlivable, and certainly
not one I'd want to live in.
Posted by Mike at 07:01
AM
| Comments (3)
Hard-boiled Themes
I won't bother to excerpt the whole quote here, as it would only bore
non-Tolkien fans, but one of my favorite moments in Lord of the
Rings comes when Galadriel tells Frodo, "...together through ages of
the world we have fought the long defeat."
That's a neat summation of the theme of the novels themselves -- that
is to say, the point of all those words, if they can be summed up in
but a few words (which, really, they cannot), is that it is worth
fighting for dearly-held beliefs even if you think you have no hope of
winning.
It is worth fighting on without hope for what you cherish, because if
that is destroyed, what hope then?
Posted by Mike at 06:43
AM
| Comments (0)
January 15, 2004
Very Interesting
I think someone is just a wee bit confused about temperature
readings, either the journalist or the scientist .
Personally, I'm betting on the journalist.
During daytime, Martian rocks were colder than objects
made up of fine particles, Phil Christensen said, the scientist
responsible for the temperature readings.
"On the ground, the warmest temperature is around five degrees
Celsius and the coldest is 15 degrees Celsius," he said.
Last time I checked, 15 degrees Celsius is warmer than 5 degrees
Celsius. I bet the scientist really had a "minus" in there. Good
fact-checking!
Posted by Mike at 08:43
PM
| Comments (2)
Not A Small World
Every year for the past fifteen years, a group of experts assert that
CDs will be obsolete in five years .
Well, no. CDs will not be obsolete in five years, due
to the enormous installed base and because they are the perfect size,
unlike the proposed product in the story.
Perfect size? But, but, smaller is better! Not quite. The problem
I've found with most "miracle" storage technologies is that they are
just too tiny. There's a certain limit of size beyond which, if you go
any smaller, the storage medium itself becomes a liability, as it is
hard to label, easy to lose, and hard to handle. I think one of the
reasons mini-discs did not catch on in America is that they are too
small.
While small size is a good thing for things like compact flash cards
for digital cameras, it is naught but a liability for items which you
need to recognize at a glance, handle easily, store easily, and package
in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Products which do not inherently need to be miniscule accrue more
disadvantages than advantages from being made as small as possible.
Posted by Mike at 07:32
AM
| Comments (1)
January 14, 2004
Suicidal Idiocies
The press once again misunderstanding statistics, and choosing sensationalism
over understanding.
Almost 300,000 troops have been in and out of Iraq over the past
year, so
the suicide rate is at or lower than the national average -- yet
this woeful story.
Why do the press and people assume soldiers are different than anyone
else? They're just people. They get depressed and do irrational things
just like anyone else.
We ran into this problem when I was in -- anytime anyone in the 82nd
committed suicide, the press would go apeshit, despite the fact that we
were at less than half the national average for suicide rates. Those J
schools need just a few more statistics classes.
Posted by Mike at 08:10
PM
| Comments (0)
Shot In The Heart
For those who don't believe digital cameras are now on par with 35mm
film cameras, National Geographic, the paragon of photographic
excellence, recently
published its first fully-digital feature-length cover story.
And there was the simple advantage of not needing to
ship film. McNally clinched his argument with the high quality of some
16 x 20 and 20 x 30-inch inkjet prints. He'd had them made from Nikon
D1X photos, which he'd shot earlier that year on the aircraft carrier
USS Harry S. Truman. The prints impressed several key figures at the
magazine, McNally says.
In the end, the Geographic decided that the aviation story would make
a good test bed for a systematic approach to future digital coverages,
according to McNally. "They gave us a green light - said go ahead and do
it." With an ironic chuckle, he adds, "And that's when [Bill and I
said], 'Oh shit, I guess we better not screw this up.'"
McNally was not actually very worried about failing, but he had
little experience shooting digital then. His first real exposure to a
digital camera came when Nikon hired him to shoot an ad for the Coolpix
990 in the summer of 2000. Early in 2002, Nikon loaned him two D1X
digital SLR bodies. He used them on two self-assigned projects,
including his stint on the USS Truman, but he had not shot a paid
magazine assignment with a digital camera before he got the go-ahead
from the Geographic.
He's using the Nikon D1X, a camera I have no experience with.
However, it does have a 5.47 megapixel sensor, while the camera I shoot
with routinely uses a 6.3 megapixel sensor. Nice to know that I am
shooting with equipment the equal of a National Geographic photographer,
though I doubt the skill.
When you can get good 20 x 30 prints from a digital camera, don't
talk to me about digital being inferior to 35mm. If National Geographic
uses it, the race is over. Digital has won.
Posted by Mike at 05:18
AM
| Comments (1)
BBW Be Gone
Americans are fatter than ever. You don't need me to tell you that;
just go to a mall and look around.
The deepest reason is that we are animals at heart whose goal for
hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of years as a species has been to
find and consume as much food as possible, as for most of human history,
starvation and famine (as with most animals) was a major problem.
With a McDonald's on every corner, and food prices as low as ever
recorded, anyone, including some homeless people I've seen, can exceed
the bounds of their pants with very little money. When people say it's
"genetic," they they are fat, they are correct. The desire to eat as
much as you can stuff in your face is genetic. But, unlike most animals,
we have the ability to police and control our desires. This is the
crucial difference.
I do not believe the vast majority of people are obese because it is
"genetic." I believe they are obese because they eat too damn much.
I know, I know, that sounds obvious, but with so many people eager to
believe that "big
is beautiful" and that being lardy is somehow a cause
for celebration , it is worth pointing out that being grossly
overweight is in fact not natural, and not in any way
desirable or worthy of plaudits.
It is not my intent to offend any of my readers who are overweight.
The great thing about being overweight is that it is possible to lose
it. It just takes willpower. What I strenuously object to is this
truly-dangerous fat acceptance and celebration culture, as obesity is
contributory to most
of the major health problems that plague Americans today. Being
overweight is simply unhealthy, and furthermore, it increases my health
care costs as I have to help pay for the health problems of obese people
who are a severe tax on the health care system.
But, if you want your adolescent kids
to develop Type II diabetes at the age of 14 , allow them to
consume whatever they want. Allow them to be subsumed by the fat
acceptance culture.
Big is not beautiful. Big is dangerously unhealthy, unnatural, and a
premature death sentence. Big is stupid.
Posted by Mike at 03:47
AM
| Comments (1)
Things That Are Sad
Tonka no longer makes their trucks out of metal, instead using cheap
plastic. No more standing in the back of them and riding them like a
skateboard for modern kids, as I did.
Posted by Mike at 02:40
AM
| Comments (1)
January 13, 2004
The Resistance Of Memory
How much of a memory is authentic? Scientists tells us that our eyes
have far too little bandwidth to really remember full-motion video, as
we seem to -- but we aren't doing science when we remember.
For most of us, full-motion video is peripheral to the experience of
our memory. We aren't DVD players. We remember what we felt. We remember
a smell, how the sun suffused our eyes with scarlet as they squinted
through the tears, how the day reverberated through all the rest of our
lives with ripples of pain, or pleasure, or anomie.
My earliest memory is of confusion. It's not a bad memory, really, as
memories go. It was just the day that I recognized the world was a
little deeper and more unpredictable than my three-year-old mind had yet
been able to ascertain.
Like so many memories, it is mediated and conjured by a smell -- in
this case, the scent of lumber. Sawdust still clinging to it, the
slightly-damp smell of fresh-cut timber wafting through the warehouse,
the last sensory remnant of the forest these trees had once been a part
of.
My grandfather was building a house with his own hands, and he needed
wood to do it. My memory here is hazy, as I was only three, but I know
from what my grandfather told me and what I can recall, is that the
clerk in the lumberyard was not helpful.
My grandfather asked the clerk for a specific type of lumber, and the
clerk responded that there was none to be had. Having been there
earlier in the day, my grandfather knew this to be untrue, so my
grandfather asked that the clerk walk back to the rear and take a look.
The clerk refused.
My grandfather has never been one to tolerate ignorance very well, or
rudeness, and the clerk had ample portions of both. My grandfather
began to raise his voice at the clueless clerk, demanding that he be let
back in the yard to find what he needed, and the clerk refused.
I'd never seen my grandfather angry before, never heard him raise his
voice, never thought that the person I'd only spent Saturdays fishing
with, and Tuesdays out at restaurants with, could act like some tough
guy from the Westerns that my dad watched. It made me a little afraid,
and unsure what to do. But, when you are unsure what to do as a child,
you usually just stand their petrified by events, and that's exactly
what I did.
I can still feel how the world changed for me that day. It acquired
more range. All had been one shade before -- a painting sketched with
the steady hands of hope and protection of my parents, the details in
the dark corners left out for later consideration. That's the day when
some of those details emerged, blocked out with the help of the listless
incompetence of some random clerk.
Eventually, after my grandfather's voice had resonated through the
store for what was probably 30 or so seconds, but which seemed like an
eternity to my ears, the clerk relented and allowed my grandfather to
walk back through the yard and find the lumber himself, which took only a
few seconds.
That day, the incident probably faded quickly, resident in my young
mind. I doubt I pondered it for more than a few moments after that until
years later, when someone asked, "What is the first thing you
remember?"
At the time, there was no reason to brood -- there were boards to
hammer with my comically small half-size hammer, built especial for my
three-year-old hands, and fish to catch, and pineapple upside down cake
of my grandmother's to eat. All these are what glimmer in the mind of a
three-year-old surrounded by those who love him in the country.
But now, looking back, most of the things that I ever saw, or ever
knew, are lost to the gloss of time and irrelevance. This one memory,
not recorded in full-motion video, with no clever soundtrack to
complement it, remains. It's not much. It's a moment in time, an
impression of smell, and emotion. But I remember it because it changed
me.
One more stroke added to the painting I keep of my world.
Posted by Mike at 01:33
AM
| Comments (2)
A Little Laugh
Typical 82nd Airborne Division soldier being
an amusing ass . I love it. Hoo-ahhh!
Posted by Mike at 01:27
AM
| Comments (0)
January 12, 2004
No Jobs
This
is not surprising . Jobs are not being added to the American economy
for several reasons. The first is because American workers, after all
these years, are really beginning to leverage the power of computers and
networking technology.
Put simply, a worker today can do more with less -- and I believe
that the productivity numbers are pretty severe underestimates as
compared to what is really occurring. One of the reasons for this is
that as a single worker can do more with less, the companies in question
attempt to preserve the price point by improving quality.
The second reason is that companies are boosting profits and growth
(at least in the short term) by moving jobs overseas, or eliminating
them altogether due to increased efficiencies aforementioned -- which
leads to another problem. What do you do in a country where there are
400 million people, but only enough jobs (low or high-skill) for 50
million people? I think it will eventually come to that as technology
improves.
Jobs are not being created because productivity improvements and
offshoring are making additional hiring from the American pool of labor
unnecessary, while GDP continues to rise due to same. Time to revise the
textbooks.
Posted by Mike at 06:18
PM
| Comments (0)
HP No More
I will not be purchasing any
HP products in my personal life, nor will I be recommending them
any longer at work.
Fiorina talked at length about technology finally living
up to its promise and opening new ways for consumers to enjoy a world
rich in culture. At the same time, however, she vowed to out do all
technology companies in the restrictions HP will place on those
consumers sharing their culture. The company whose slogan is "Invent" is
doing all it can to stifle innovation, new business models and new
markets.
To emphasize this point, we take you back to 2001 when Hale Landis
warned of the death of the open PC.
"The old line hard disk vendors can not survive without bending to
the desires of the entertainment industry." Landis wrote. "Basically
your "general purpose personal computer", aka "home computer", is
history."
Hale Landis is right. The personal computer as an open platform is
dead, it just doesn't know it yet. And that will be a real tragedy, as
it will probably be responsible for the first extended period of
negative growth in the American economy since the Depression.
Posted by Mike at 01:58
PM
| Comments (0)
January 11, 2004
Price Is Everything
Brian Tiemann opines
that there may be a change in the weather for Apple fans.
While I respect Brian and his site a great deal, I have to disagree.
Most people buy on price -- and almost nothing else. I've seen numerous
people buy the most shoddy goods imaginable, only to replace them in a
few months as they fail, while properly-made and slightly more expensive
goods would've lasted years.
This happened to me as a kid, where my parents would buy cheaply-made
shoes from Wal-Mart that would have to be replaced in three months, as
they were "cheaper." When I finally convinced them to buy me low-end
Nikes, surprise, they lasted a year or more.
People, like businesses, buy on price and only consider the short
term. This is the main reason Apple will never gain much more market
share at their current price point -- no matter how good they are, they
are simply too expensive for most people.
This remains true if they had a computer that was five times as fast,
and could read your mind. Too expensive is too expensive no matter the
features; when I can build five computers that are 80% as good as a Mac
for the same price as I can buy one G5, this is insurmountable.
Posted by Mike at 11:00
PM
| Comments (2)
Clarity Of Thought
I've been marshalling my thoughts for many days on exactly how I felt
about Return of the King, and the two other movies in the
series.
I recall a comment Peter Jackson made in one of the Appendices disks
about Fellowship of the Ring, that at first they changed
Tolkien's story in that movie significantly, and as they actually worked
the scenes out, they returned mostly to what Tolkien had originally
written, as it worked better.
They should have stuck with this advice throughout, because The
Two Towers and Return of the King have many changes which do
not enhance the movie for the screen, and in fact detract from the power
and beauty that could have made both movies far better. I will not
catalog them all, because another has done it here
far better than I could.
Please note that I am not referring to changes made due to time
constraints or those unavoidable ones that spring from the translation
of an extremely long trilogy into movie format. I am referring only to
changes that were made out of condescencion to modern audiences.
Most of these are in the review that I linked to, but the culling
from the story of Gandalf's deeds and actions is a real slight, and it
was one done out of condescencion that moden audiences would not be able
to handle the Frodo/Sam scenes as well as focusing on the deeds of
Gandalf.
In my opinion, what seems to have happened is that the characters and
events got out of hand for the filmmakers as they made the movies, and
the filmmakers simply could not keep it all together. The Fellowship
of the Ring was a great movie, through which I could grit my teeth
and ignore most of the personality changes wrought on the main
characters.
The Two Towers, though, was mediocre by comparison, and was
where the vision of the filmmakers really went askew, what with the
"death" of Aragorn, the botching of the Entmoot, the misplaced dwarf
humor, and the shifting of scenes to the third movie that should have
been in the second.
I realize it is partially a limitation of cinema as an art form, and
Jackson seems to genuinely love the characters and events that Tolkien
described, but only understands them as a 14-year-old boy would
understand them, and films them thus. This makes for great visuals,
stunning scenes of beauty, but a depth too shallow and too pedestrian to
convey Tolkien's true vision, and what separates Tolkien's work from
other fantasy, which I find absolutely unreadable. But perhaps this is
impossible to convey; the frosty flower of the north that was the real
Eowyn (not the fiery redhead), the wisdom of Galadriel, a being so old
that she'd seen the Sun and Moon hung in the sky, the true depth and
strength of Denethor. Denethor was a strong man, a man who loved Gondor,
not the venal weakling portrayed in the movies. He was strong enough,
in fact, to vie with Sauron mentally through a Palantir and not be
corrupted, though he was forced to despair by all he saw.
I am a Tolkien purist. If I'd made the movies, they would be 100
hours long. I was not expecting that from Jackson, and that is not what I
am writing about here.
There were entirely too many changes made because it was felt modern
audiences wouldn't "understand," devices to inrease tension that
actually decrease it compared to the books, and the robbing of major
characters of important scenes that would've added characterization and
interest.
Perhaps one day, these movies will be made anew, with the original
spirit and characters that Tolkien intended. As movies, they are good,
viewed not in the context of their source. But, in the context of their
source, even taking into account the vagaries of book-to-screen
translation, they, especially the latter two, do not hold up well at
all.
But, the books stand alone, and we will always have those, no matter
the movies.
Posted by Mike at 08:18
PM
| Comments (2)
How Did It Come To This?
As I predicted and feared, corporations are now assuming more
than de facto law enforcement powers -- and, predictably, it is one
of the most evil organizations outside of politics to ever exist, the
RIAA.
Though no guns were brandished, the bust from a distance
looked like classic LAPD, DEA or FBI work, right down to the black
"raid" vests the unit members wore. The fact that their yellow stenciled
lettering read "RIAA" instead of something from an official
law-enforcement agency was lost on 55-year-old parking-lot attendant
Ceasar Borrayo.
The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the
streets.
This is an older story, but I hadn't thought about it a great deal
till now. The idea of corporate "cops" is not a new one. It has appeared
in science fiction many times, a genre which receives little credit but
is often ahead of societal trends by decades. But it wasn't till a few
years ago that I realized I'd see such a travesty in my own lifetime.
It's no mistake that they are now preying on immigrants, the least
likely to resist. But that, I am sure, will change.
I'd love for a group of them to confront me -- I'd be sure to
instigate a confrontation that got physical, made sure I lost with some
pretty-for-the-camera damage to my face and body, and then sue them into
oblivion. Any lawyer would love such a case.
However, if I were a DA and these idiots were operating in my area,
they'd already be in prison for impersonating law enforcement officials.
Posted by Mike at 07:08
AM
| Comments (0)
The White Tree
Posted by Mike at 06:00
AM
| Comments (1)
January 10, 2004
Chest-thumping
Saw this van on I-85 west of Charlotte today. It seems if you wish to
deliver some grand patriotic message, you should at least get the
letters straight.
I have nothing against patriotism or loving the United States. There
is much to love. But this species of chest-thumping patriotism annoys
me, and I don't think it's healthy. And I am not sure why North Korea is
on there. Does he know something I don't? Or is he just hoping that's
next in the crosshairs? I am sure 'tis the latter.
(I apologize for the photo quality, as it was shot through a
windshield while traveling at approximately 65mph.)
Posted by Mike at 04:24
PM
| Comments (2)
January 09, 2004
Do They, Like, Sell Wall Stuff There?
Wal-Mart has long been in the business of squeezing every last ounce
of efficiency out of the market -- but perhaps now it is just squeezing a
little too hard .
Posted by Mike at 10:41
PM
| Comments (0)
Ares
What some people think the Mars probe is really looking for:
O.J. Simpson: The real killer, since he's not on all those
golf courses.
Michael Jackson: Martian boys. Heard they're red-hot.
Howard Dean: An internal monologue.
George W. Bush: National guard records, the Plame leaker. And
those pesky Martian WMDs.
Jacques Chirac: Cooler weather to store uwanted old people so
they don't die in the heat.
Pete Rose: Someone who doesn't believe he's a scumbag.
Jessica Simpson: Men. They are from Mars, after all.
Ken Lay: A bigger shredder.
Miss Cleo: Someone who believes Jamaican accent is authentic.
SCO: Suing landers for running Linux. Also, rocks, because
they contain silicon, which can be used to make chips which could run
Linux.
Michael Moore: Burger King. Or Taco Bell. Or Wendy's.
Whatever's open.
Rush Limbaugh: Pills. Pretty white pills.
Gollum: My precious. Tricksy rocket scientistses.
Posted by Mike at 03:13
AM
| Comments (0)
Lost My Katana In a Cabana
Japan's national lost and found system is 1,300
years old . (Courtesy of Boing
Boing .)
Posted by Mike at 01:59
AM
| Comments (1)
January 08, 2004
Wh-Wh-What?
I never thought I'd be writing about pop tart Britney Spears on my
site, but this
article just bothered me with its near-celebration of the
entitlement culture developing in America.
Folks in Britney Spears hometown don't see the humor in
the superstar's weekend wedding joke. Spears 55-hour marriage to
fellow Kentwood resident and childhood friend Jason Alexander has
engulfed the town in an unwanted media frenzy and it has rekindled an
old question: What's she done for Kentwood lately?
It's embarrassing to have the worldwide media attention with the
buildings in such rundown, decrepit conditions, said Tammy Shaffett, a
co-owner of The Hair Studio on Avenue F, the main street that once had
traffic and a movie theater.
Here's what Britney Spears "owes" to Kentwood: not one damn thing. If
she wishes to help the town out in any way, that's her concern. But as
to what she owes them because she happened to live there, I see that
debt as essentially nothing.
I also see it as a symptom of the growing entitlement mentality that
many Americans have, that exhibits itself in various forms, such as the
increasing amount of frivolous lawsuits against fast food companies and
even, now, cable
companies .
Only way to fight it is to not give in to it. If I were Spears, I'd
buy up the town and bulldoze it -- that certainly would improve its
appearance.
Posted by Mike at 12:11
AM
| Comments (1)
January 07, 2004
Alleged
"'Alleged'...I am going to say 'alleged,' because it happened in the
past."
--A quote I just saw on the news by the woman claiming to have bought
and then "lost" the winning Powerball lottery ticket, about her very
real criminal past. Very creative use of "alleged." I give her 10 points
for originality, and five points for form.
I think she should have been using the word "alleged" to refer to her
probable criminal charges in the near future for this latest scam. That
would be entirely more accurate, but have amused me far less.
Posted by Mike at 10:26
PM
| Comments (0)
Germ Sniffer
Just how advanced we are getting in
disease detection and diagnosis.
As I've said many times before, if you think the world changed a lot
in the past 100 years, just wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Posted by Mike at 10:04
PM
| Comments (0)
iPlod
So, the new mini iPod costs $250, or about $100 more than it's really
worth. I don't know who will buy this, when you can spend $50 more for
15GB more. Not a good deal -- and I am an iPod fan.
Posted by Mike at 10:00
PM
| Comments (0)
January 06, 2004
Seeing Everything
A decent overview of the technology the 4th Infantry Division used
to bag Saddam .
Some call the 4th Infantry Division the "digital
division" because its vehicles are equipped with a system called "Force
21 Base and Command Brigade and Below," or FBCB2.
Other military units have similar systems, but the 4th Division is
the first to be fully digital, according to civilian specialists
attached to the division.
The Iraq war is the first time the FBCB2 has been used in combat.
The secure, digital radio system allows vehicles to be seen on a
screen at a tactical operations center -- a mini war room -- in this
case at the division's 1st Brigade headquarters in Tikrit.
The more technology at our disposal used wisely, the fewer lives we
lose -- but conversely, the more harm (in both a personally tragic and
tactically significant way) occurs when a life is lost in such a
technological force.
The battlefield will change a great deal in the next 30 years.
Posted by Mike at 09:53
PM
| Comments (0)
January 05, 2004
The Water There
The charter jet that crashed
into the Red Sea over the weekend took off from where I lived for
six months in Egypt.
Sharm el Sheikh, an unbelievably gorgeous place, with probably the
best scuba diving in the world. I remember standing on the deck of an
Italian Navy ship after a party at sea, and looking down into the water
in the harbor straight to the bottom. The water was probably sixty feet
deep, because this was no small ship, but it was so pellucid it gave
the illusion that if I were just to stick my hand through the surface,
I'd be able to touch the gleaming sand with the tip of my fingers.
I'm glad I spent that time in the Arab world. It has allowed me to
realize that a lot of what both the right and left claim in the debate
over Islam is purest crap.
So much to remember about that place.
I recall talking to an Egyptian dump truck driver on one of my
excursions out into the wilds near our camp. He was very curious about
me -- how I lived, how much I made, if I had a car. He spoke English
well, and he appreciated that I'd learned some basic Arabic.
He told me how much he made a year -- 3000 Egyptian pounds. At the
time, three Egyptian pounds equalled one dollar, so he made about $1,000
a year. He wanted to know what I made. At the time, I was an Army E-3,
making very little by American standards. I told him I made around
36,000 Egyptian pounds year.
He asked me, Are you rich? He meant it. He thought I was a general or
colonel or some such rank.
I told him that, no, I hardly had any rank at all, and that people in
charge of me made four or even five times as much as I did.
What I saw in his eyes is hard to describe -- it wasn't exactly envy
or lust or jealousy, or any of those things. It was more a begrudging
yearning for those things, too -- or at least the possibility of them.
He wanted the same chances that I had, the same riches.
I won't get into all the problems with Arab culture. Others have done
that far better than I. But what I noticed in Egypt is that the media
is merely a tool of the leaders there, and the leaders guarantee their
own power by opposing America. Even the English-language newspapers in
Cairo are extremely anti-American, so I can't even imagine what sort of
hate the ones I could not read, in Arabic, published about we evil
Americans.
The people in Arab lands hate America because the press tells them
to, with the press being merely the political tools of corrupt leaders.
If you want to "ask yourself why they hate us," I have a large part of
the answer. It's because it's drummed into them from as soon as they can
watch TV and read by the Arab press. Some of it is even true. So is all
good propaganda.
A plane crashes after taking off from Sharm el Sheikh. I remember
that airport, that long, lone runway protruding like a finger into the
lifeless sands. I remember the truck driver I met there, infected by the
memes of his poisoned media, but wanting what everyone, everywhere
wants: a good life for himself, and his family, money, the chance of
success.
There are no easy answers to this conflict of civilizations, and the
medieval with the modern. I believe we should kill those who want to
kill us. I believe it is right to defend ourselves. When I get angry at
another bombing, another Arab leader seemingly mad with power, I think
back to that truck driver, and the other people I met in Egypt. All the
times I was invited into an Arab house for a meal, or a drink. All the
small courtesies I was shown, with them knowing full well I was an
American soldier.
It is important not to give truth to the lies that the Arab press fed
that truck driver all his life, to fall prey to our baser instincts in
war and in politics, because the truth will bear out, and we'll need
people like him on our side when this long, inevitable war finally
concludes to rescue Islam and Arab society from its diseased state.
Posted by Mike at 08:49
AM
| Comments (1)
Damn Zombies
Most people know that Ferdinand Magellan's expedition was the first
to circumnavigate the earth -- what few people know is that he ran
afoul of zombies in the Philippines.
Posted by Mike at 07:33
AM
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January 04, 2004
Ride, Rohirrim
I've never seen such an honest depiction that the devastating impact a
cavalry charge had on dismounted soldiers in the era before firearms as
appears in Return of the King, during the Battle of Pelinnor
Fields.
Of course, no one alive today has seen a real cavalry charge, but
from what I've read, that's about what happens.
There was a period of hundreds of years in Europe where how many
cavalry forces you had determined whether you won or lost a battle. With
that graphic illustration provided in ROTK, it's easy to see why.
Posted by Mike at 03:00
PM
| Comments (2)
Assclown Antics
Some assclown contacted me yesterday to harass me. More details will
emerge on this site after the police investigation culminates. I don't
usually involve the police in these sort of things, but he made it just
too easy.
Among the crimes he committed, and which have now been filed with the
Sumter, SC (via the Charlotte) police deparment (Yes, I know you read
my site, and yes, I know where you live, you assclown, down to your home
address. I don't have your full name yet, but I will.), are:
1) Impersonating a law enforcement officer. This is illegal under
South Carolina statute
16-17-720 , and is a felony punishable by up to a year in prison.
2) In addition, impersonating either a federal law enforcement
official or a military officer is a federal crime, for which you can be
thrown into a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for an even longer
time. You did one or both. Look it up yourself, if you aren't in jail
already.
3) Communicating threats. This is self-explanatory.
4) Illegally recording our conversation, or at least claiming to,
without my consent -- since you were calling from another state, you
also violated federal
law again . Yay for you.
In addition, you were not bright enough to conceal your telephone
number, or my phone picked it up anyway, so I have all the information
in the world about you.
Also, since you claimed to be a major in the Marine Corps and and a
law enforcement official, I knew you were full of shit right away,
because by federal law, active-duty military members are prevented from
conducting civilian investigations except in very, very rare
circumstances, none of which you met.
In addition, you refused to identify your commanding officer or
supervisor, claiming you directly repoted to George W. Bush. Har. Har.
If it does turn out you are in fact in the military, I will also be
calling your commanding officer personally to let him know of your
behavior. This will not be pleasant for you.
In short, you made several mistakes. You contacted someone who'd been
in the military for five years, and knew you were full of it, and who
is reasonably computer and tech-savvy, and would like nothing more than
to see you in jail. I informed you of all these things on the phone, but
now I wish to do it in public so I can make fun of you for everyone.
By the way, the police report I filed is 1401. Check it
yourself, if you like.
Posted by Mike at 03:00
AM
| Comments (4)
January 03, 2004
Four Points
Things that most people believe but are incorrect:
1) That breast implants caused sickness and health problems in a
statistically quantifiable number of women.
2) That secondhand smoke is a measurable cause of health problems.
3) That evolution is a theory supported by scant evidence, when in
fact, along with quantum mechanics, it is the most evidence-supported
theory in all of science. Additionally, most of these people also do not
understand what the word "theory" means, or what the word "evidence"
means.
4) That there is any dietary benefit to eating protein vs.
carbohydrates for losing weight -- i.e., the Atkins Diet. Calories are
calories, no matter their source. It's just a piddling physics problem.
Reduce calories, you lose weight. Increase calories, you gain weight.
It's that easy.
Just because I am feeling particularly anti-social and arrogant
tonight.
Posted by Mike at 12:48
AM
| Comments (3)
January 02, 2004
Pakistan
The biggest threat to the world right now is not Iran, or North
Korea, or even the United States, as some really odd people in the EU
believe -- it is Pakistan.
There is a very real danger that Musharraf will be successfully
assassinated, as has already been attempted twice, and either
Islamofascists will seize control, or their sympathizers will, and
nuclear weapons and technology will fall into the hands of some very
unsavory people.
There is not, though, much that can be done to prevent this
possibility.
Posted by Mike at 12:50
PM
| Comments (1)
January 01, 2004
What We Are
Many people, including many living in America, think of this country
as a democracy. This is not so, nor should it be, nor did the founders
of this nation intend it to be so. Remember, Hitler was elected.
The United States is a constitutional republic, which is a different
animal indeed than a democracy, and a superior one, in my opinion.
In a democracy, the majority's voice rules -- right, wrong or simply
retarded. In our republic, principles and ideals derived from the
Constitution determine (or should determine) the behavior of legislators
and the laws they make. That is to say, no matter if a majority
believes something to be correct and should be a law, it is the duty of
the judiciary and the lawmakers not to contravene the Constitution. Of
course, the Constitution can be (and has been) amended, but this takes a
great deal more effort than simply making a law.
This post is really just to remind people that the U.S. is a
constitutional republic organized under democratic principles, and is
not in fact a democracy. A democracy is much more subject to the tyranny
of the majority, while our system of government, though not entirely
immune from it, is much less susceptible.
If you've ever joined the military, you'll understand this a bit
more. You don't pledge an oath to any person, or to a place, or to the
nation itself. When you swear your oath, you give your word, pledge
your sacred honor, to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States of America."
You swear on an idea. And that's why we are no democracy.
Posted by Mike at 10:49
PM
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Vetting the 'Vette
The 2005
Corvette actually looks great, unlike all previous Corvettes except
the original, with obvious styling cues taken from Ferrari.
It's not all swoopy and too long, as were all late-model Corvettes,
but neither does it give the same impression as the RX-8 and the 350Z,
that of a refugee from some failed 1970s sci-fi show.
For the first time since the 1960s comes a car from General Motors
that I'd actually purchase.
Posted by Mike at 04:35
PM
| Comments (1)
Bela Lugosi And Horatio Alger Are Dead
How the income distribution in America is changing, and the American
Dream is slowly being
killed off .
Let's talk first about the facts on income distribution.
Thirty years ago we were a relatively middle-class nation. It had not
always been thus: Gilded Age America was a highly unequal society, and
it stayed that way through the 1920s. During the 1930s and '40s,
however, America experienced what the economic historians Claudia Goldin
and Robert Margo have dubbed the Great Compression: a drastic narrowing
of income gaps, probably as a result of New Deal policies. And the new
economic order persisted for more than a generation: Strong unions;
taxes on inherited wealth, corporate profits and high incomes; close
public scrutiny of corporate management--all helped to keep income gaps
relatively small. The economy was hardly egalitarian, but a generation
ago the gross inequalities of the 1920s seemed very distant.
Now they're back. According to estimates by the economists Thomas
Piketty and Emmanuel Saez--confirmed by data from the Congressional
Budget Office--between 1973 and 2000 the average real income of the
bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers actually fell by 7 percent.
Meanwhile, the income of the top 1 percent rose by 148 percent, the
income of the top 0.1 percent rose by 343 percent and the income of the
top 0.01 percent rose 599 percent. (Those numbers exclude capital gains,
so they're not an artifact of the stock-market bubble.) The
distribution of income in the United States has gone right back to
Gilded Age levels of inequality.
I disagree with Paul Krugman on many things. His almost-insane Bush
hatred of late has made many of his writings unpalatable and
nonsensical, but on this point, he is correct. Due to corporate
malfeasance, tax havens for the rich, the shifting of the major part tax
burden to (lower) wage earners, the beginnings of a caste structure are
forming in the U.S. This, however, could be unavoidable due to forces
such as offshoring and the fact that sooner rather than later, computers
and robots will replace a lot of low-skill jobs.
Unlike Krugman, who is always seeking too much of a handout for
people, which is just as counterproductive as the current state of
affairs, I think a geat deal more effort should be made to reign
corporations (and their rich CEOs and boards of directors) in who are
now actively subverting and controlling large swaths of the government.
But Krugman places the blame, once again, the wrong way. It's not the
government's fault. It's our fault, all of ours, for allowing it to
happen.
Posted by Mike at 03:01
PM
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