Skeptacles

Rand Paul, the National Pro-Life Alliance and the Life at Conception Act

2012-01-21T09:48:00.004-07:00

The other day, Rand Paul, Republican Senator from Kentucky, sent me an email. I know it was from Senator Paul because it said so, right there at the top.

"Dear Friend," he writes in the National Pro-Life Alliance's fundraising email pushing the Life at Conception Act.

Well, Dear Rand Paul and National Pro-Life Alliance:

The Life at Conception Act is a simple-minded and sectarian declaration reflecting a simple-minded religious outlook on a complex and divisive subject, and it will be resisted vigorously by those upon whom you pretend to foist it.

The Life at Conception Act says, with brevity matching substance, "... Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being. However, nothing in this Act shall be construed to require the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child."

A Constitutional guarantee without a requirement for enforcement isn't a guarantee at all. It's a fraud, a lie.

The Act goes on, "For purposes of this Act:

(1) HUMAN PERSON; HUMAN BEING- The terms ‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being."

No. It's not like that. Declaring it so doesn't make it so, and your insistence is alienating.

Don't push your religion on the unwilling. You risk a backlash. Convert the unwilling if you can, but don't use the power of the State in a vacuous power play like the Life at Conception Act. Have some respect!

So be it...

2011-11-15T06:58:00.001-07:00

Just checking out the "send to blogger" link in Google Reader.

The particular article that I'm "sending to blogger" (assuming it shows up here) resonates with me, but not enough to overcome the sort of resignation expressed in the second comment to the article at The Nation.

"So be it..."

Update: Well, the article didn't show up (problem between chair and screen).

Here: Capitalism vs. the Climate, by Naomi Klein in The Nation

Subverse!

2011-09-10T12:47:00.002-07:00

The news update on Bitcoin that Google so graciously serves up to me every day brings with it some interesting stuff from time to time. Subverse!

Today it was The Natives are REALLY Pissed!!!

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Subverse!

This comes on the heels of some right-wing horseshit that hit my spam box yesterday. It claimed that radical leftistas in the USA were planning something like the rioting that occurred recently in London and elsewhere over there. They wanted me to sign a petition and send in some money and call my congressperson and so on. Red white and blue. Sarah, Rick, Michele, God, Jesus and Our Tea Party Way Of Life.

Subverse!

Well, I didn't have much sympathy for the British rioters. It's actually more like, fuck 'em. Same for masked anarchist window breakers at economic summits. I'm not temperamentally disposed to such things. Fuck 'em!As I get older, though, it seems my disdain for such things is diminishing.

Less "fuck 'em", more "Hmmm..."

Subverse!

I can't quarrel too much with the following quote presumably from anonymous (whoever that is):

Many of us are scared and angry. We see that your money systems are imploding, and that your governments are growing more corrupt and oppressive every day.

Your political systems offer us nothing but false dichotomies. Every month, we see new half-cocked legislation targeting our lulz. When our brothers simply vandalize a website, you try to put them in cages for decades, crying“cybercrime” and “domestic terrorism.”

This is confusing, because we are in the right. You’re punishing us for simply voicing our displeasure, for saying that we aren’t satisfied with the status quo.

We see your control slipping. In 2009 Uncle Sam spent a third of ‘our tax dollars’ paying down the INTEREST on his credit card bill [1]. Most of those dollars go to the banks who own the Fed.

And for the cost of a couple wars, you could have converted all our cars to sustainable alcohol fuel and built another space station to boot.

But you don’t want that. You can’t exist without the archaic institutions that you have built, like the oil and war industries, the prison-industrial complex, America’s state education system, and centrally controlled money systems. If you allowed free markets to exist, you would be bankrupted by competition. You are parasites on the backs of the human race.

Tools like Bitcoin, gpg and darknets allow us to escape your control systems. We’re going to trade, work, and live without playing your silly games and you can’t do a thing about it.

Know that you can’t silence us and you can’t scare us. We’re not going to fight you, because you have guns with psychopaths behind them. Instead, we are subverting you.

We’re building our own systems to replace yours.

They’re better systems, with blackjack and hookers. And every time someone chooses our systems over yours, your power wanes another tick. We won’t stop until you’ve become the Powers that Were.

-anonymous

Hmmm... I'm way past these guys. They still have hope. I think the modern tools they are so expert with may have distorted their forward vision. Do they really think that they can build a system to replace the the one they are so pissed off at? Do they really think that Bitcoin, gpg and other such brilliant stuff, coming from genius though it does, are silver bullets? Do they think this stuff will still be available after the shit has hit the fan?

Well, I was young once, too. Then I started to get old, then I became resigned, and then, as the old song goes, "I'm younger than that now."

Subverse! Nice meme. I'd have Flattr'd you if I'd found the button. Instead, check this out about the London thing and Fight Club. You might like it.

OK, I'm done. Peace.

Cheney: US different if Hillary Clinton president

2011-09-06T09:02:00.002-07:00

Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't president, but Dick Cheney says that if she were in the White House rather than Barack Obama, then things might be different today in the country.

Yes, because the Republicans would have worked so much better with a white woman than a black man.

I wonder how much difference it would have made to the country had President Cheney not been at the helm for so long?

"Aliens Could Attack Earth to End Global Warming, NASA Scientist Frets"

2011-08-20T11:23:00.002-07:00

The Fox News headline characterizes this study, the report of which is entitled, "Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis", with the following headline:

Aliens Could Attack Earth to End Global Warming, NASA Scientist Frets

NASA Scientist *Frets*!?

Sure enough, Al Gore was mentioned derisively by one of the first commenters, whose chorus is along the lines of "global warming is a hoax". The story has generated over 1200 comments as I type, approximately all of them (based on what limited sampling I could stomach) having dutifully swallowed the spin so quickly they must have felt a violent wrenching sensation in the gut.

Oh, well...

More Power to Bob Fletcher

2011-07-25T07:59:00.002-07:00

...

Bob Fletcher – who officially turns 100 on Tuesday – didn't see combat in World War II. But he was shot at for being a Japanese sympathizer when he quit his job to save three local Japanese American farms whose owners were sent to internment camps.

...

One Monster's Favorites

2011-07-24T17:01:00.007-07:00

This is some of the music that Andrew Berwick, aka Anders Behring Breivik, particularly admires. He recommends some nationalist themed songs from a band called Saga (and some other stuff that doesn't ring my bell).

The Saga singer has a nice voice, and on their face I kind of like the songs. The lyrics are unusual, but were I to hear them out of the blue I wouldn't take much note of them. They certainly wouldn't inspire me to nationalist violence, or even to nationalism (one of humanity's illnesses). But then, I prefer this sort of thing: With God On Our Side and The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. As for the non-Saga stuff Breivik recommends, it's not my cup of tea at all.

In his Manifesto he wrote of Saga:

  I will now show you several music tracks you should acquire as soon as possible which are ideal for the purpose of maintaining a high level of motivation and confidence:

Motivational music tracks, artist: Saga

Saga is a courageous, Swedish, female nationalist-oriented musician who creates pop-music with patriotic texts. She is, as far as I know, the best and most talented patriotic musician in the English speaking world. And for those of you, like myself, who hates "metal", Saga is one of the few sources available that offers quality patriotic pop-music with brilliant texts. Most of the tracks are in English and some are in Swedish.

Marxist and multiculturalist character-assassins will claim that Saga is an evil, national-socialist monsterband from hell, due to her success. However, this characteristic couldn't be anywhere further from the truth. Although the environment surrounding Saga, the former NSF – National Sosialistisk Forening (a former Swedish Indigenous Rights Movement demonised as "evil Nazi monsters"), used to be self-proclaimed national socialists; it has become evident that most of them now has embraced a more national conservative ideological denomination of conservatism, very similar to that of Knights Templar Europe. Saga has created several pop-tracks with nationalist-oriented texts that will appeal to all conservatives, and especially revolutionary conservatives of all conservative ideological denominations.

Saga has the credibility to use the texts presented vocally as she has been a Swedish and European conservative resistance fighter for more than 10 years, working for the political and cultural interests of Sweden and the interests of all Swedes, Scandinavians and Europeans. Saga and similar patriotic heroes and heroines of Scandinavia, who unlike individuals like myself who has yet to come out of the "revolutionary conservative closet", has had to face political persecution and demonisation for years. Yet they continue their brave struggle to prevent the demographical and cultural genocide of the Scandinavian and European tribes. Instead of "physical" revolutionary or democratic resistance, she fights through her music by inspiring the best in us.

I discovered Sagas music relatively late, in 2008, but have enjoyed it ever since. I have listened to many of the tracks several hundred times and I don't seem to get tired of them. I would HIGHLY recommend that all Justiciar Knights of Europe and other revolutionary conservatives use these tracks for self-motivating purposes. Don't just listen to the tracks but learn the texts as well. It has worked brilliantly for me and it will likely work just as well for you. However, "soon-to-become conservative martyrs" should be careful when acquiring the tracks (use anonymizer software and take other necessary precautions) as it is likely that the distribution of the music is monitored by the Swedish intelligence agency, under directive of the Swedish multiculturalist regime.

So here are the Saga songs Breivik recommends:

One Nation Arise

Life is a struggle in these changing times
Thoughts once natural are now classed as hate crimes
Those now in power, they fear no one but one
A man with open eyes and a sober mind so strong

It's been said before, but still we do not heed

To free the enslaved minds of the sleeping mass
we must cast away the yokes, ignore status and class
Barriers were built to make us forget blood ties
And now we aren't as one, and egos benefits on lies

It's been said before, but still we do not heed

Folk and Nation first, and blood - not personal greed
And it's been said before, but still we do not heed
Free your enslaved minds and open up your eyes and see
The strength of your people, one Nation arise!

It is good versus evil, it's the eternal fight
To overcome the darkness we must spreed the light

It's been said before, but still we do not heed

Folk and nation first, and blood - not personal greed
And it's been said before, but still we do not heed
Free your enslaved minds and open up your eyes and see
The strength of your people, one nation arise!

Hypocrite

Too many people spend their time
spreading gossips and complaints
they seek someone to hang
they seek someone to blame
In their search for a scapegoat they forgot to look in the mirror
apathy of weak people is what caused this daily horror

You're the one - the one to blame, oho
People like you - cause us pain, oho
You're the one - the one to blame, oho
Start to act - but use your brain
Use your brain, now

People like you who haven't got
the guts to stand up for your views
you forget the simple fact
it's people like you who makes us loose
You complain about the politicians
but still you vote them in
you've lost your soul
you coward to sell your pride is a sin

You're the one - the one to blame, oho
People like you - cause us pain, oho
You're the one - the one to blame, oho
Start to act - but use your brain
Use your brain, oho
Use your brain

You complain about the immigration
you really make me sick
it was your vote that opened the border
you filthy hypocrite
You say one thing but do another
just how weak can one man be
You're the reason for our misery
so blame yourself and don't blame me

You're the one - the one to blame, oho
People like you - cause us pain, oho
You're the one - the one to blame, oho
Start to act - but use your brain
Use your brain, oho

You're the one - the one to blame, oho
People like you - cause us pain, oho
You're the one - the one to blame, oho
Start to act - but use your brain
Use your brain, now

Black Bannered Legion

Raise the flag of solid black
to keep the memory alive
Of black clad legions
who fought and died for our folk in '45
Black is the colour of mourming for the martyrs of Vinland too
Matthew and Kirk and Singer and Rockwell and Kahl stood true

Raise the flag of destiny
as black as the wing of a raven
And change it not nor raise another
'til we have a folkish haven
Raise the flag of destiny
the flag of destiny

Black is the colour of midnight which
the tyrant shall learn to dread
As we honour fallen martyrs with steal and fire and led
The ancient Aryan Symbol is also drawn in black
so underneath that colour
we will take our Nations back

Raise the flag of destiny
as black as the wing of a raven
And change it not nor raise another
'til we have a folkish haven
Raise the flag of destiny

And when we have that land of our own
then on that holy ground
we'll plant our flag of raven black
upon a scared mound

Raise the flag of destiny
as black as the wing of a raven
And change it not nor raise another
'til we have a folkish haven
Raise the flag of destiny
Raise the flag of destiny
as black as the wing of a raven
And change it not nor raise another
'til we have a folkish haven
Raise the flag of destiny

Ode To A Dying People (he says it's the most popular track on Saga's album On My Own)

Eyes shining bright with unspilt tears,
Thinking about all these wasted years.
Everything worth living for is gone,
Brother, i find it hard to keep fighting on.
Falling down towards the abyss,
The reaper embraces me with his kiss;
It makes me want to refuse to care,
To watch this all unfold - too much to bear.


If this is the way it ends -
If this is the way my race ends . . .
If this is the way it ends - i can't bear to witness

Disease encroaching on all i hold dear,
Somehow i gotta get my soul outta here.
Heart of agony, faint burning hope,
I'm finding it hard to try to cope . . .

Because liars own the world with conquering poise,
In a wasteland of meaningless noise;
We don't stand a chance with dormant pride,
The heroes of our race have already died . . .

If this is the way it ends - if this is the way my race ends. . .
If this is the way it ends - i can't bear to witness . . .

To imagine it has all come down to this,
Apathy and suicidal bliss . . .

It's all over except for the cryin',
With a whimper instead of the roar of a lion . . .

The greatest race to ever walk the earth,
Dying a slow death with insane mirth,
The tomb has been prepared, our race betrayed,
White man, fight the flight towards the grave . . .

If this is the way it ends - if this is the way my race ends . . .
If this is the way it ends - i can't bear to witness . . .
If this is the way it ends - if this is the way my race ends . . .
If this is the way it ends - i can't bear to witness . . .

Don't let it end this way,
Don't let it end this way,
Don't let it end this way, i can't bear to witness . . .

The Nation's Fate

The best are condemned to useless lives
when chaos regimes and the merchant thrieves
The basest sort then make sport
of those who die with anguished cry
because they told the Nations fate

Gods of the rabble are greed and lust
love and honour turned to dust
Patriots in cages and liars as sages
the tyrants rage in every age

Black is white and evil is good
and nothing pure is understood
Emotions grow cold and the future is sold
the senses are sated and the prophets are hated
because they told the Nations fate

Gods of the rabble are greed and lust
love and honour turned to dust
Patriots in cages and liars as sages
the tyrants rage in every age

The state and the press and the church are a tool
an honest man is labelled a fool
Every man must abase
every kin and every race
Or face the fearsome despots plan
to destroy every man

The whores of merchant pave the road to hell
twisting words to weave a spell
Master deceivers making believers
misleading men with a cunning pen
to hate those who tell the Nations fate

Gods of the rabble are greed and lust
love and honour turned to dust
Patriots in cages and liars as sages
the tyrants rage in every age
Gods of the rabble are greed and lust
love and honour turned to dust
Patriots in cages and liars as sages
the tyrants rage in every age

Tomorrow Belongs To Me

The sun on the meadow is summery warm.
The stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Tomorrow belongs to me.

The branch of the linden is leafy and
Green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Tomorrow belongs to me.

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee.
But soon, says a whisper;
"Arise, arise,
Tomorrow belongs to me"

Oh Fatherland, Fatherland,
Show us the sign
Your children have waited to see.
The morning will come
When the world is mine.
Tomorrow belongs to me!

The Snow Fell

He sat in a room
in a square of the color of blood.
He'd rule the whole world
if there was a way that he could.
He'd sit and he'd stare
at the minreds on top of the towers.
For he was a beast
as he hatched his new plans to gain power.

(chorus)
And the snow fell
covering the dreams and ideals.
And the snow fell
freezing the blood and the wheels.
And the snow fell
they had to keep up for survival.
And the snow fell
defeating the beast's only rival.

They took the old roads
that Napoleon had taken before.
They fought as a force as a light
against the darkness in a holy war.
One day they were looking around
and the sun was shining on the cold flowers.
The next day they were freezing to death
in the sleet and the ice cold showers.

(chorus)

Then came the deadly roads
back from the stairs of their retreat.
The cold racked their bodies
but worse was the pain of defeat.
Many people who had hailed them once
now turned and looked away.
These people now knew
that the beast was on it's way.

(chorus)

You finally came back
to the borders of your fatherland.
Now enemies came
traitors everywhere at hand.
Many people who had fought and died
knowing that they had to win.
It still sickens my heart
to see the picture of the red flag in Berlin.

(chorus)

Breivik lists 5 other tracks in Swedish, and goes on to say he'd limited his list to those he felt were worthy and available.

Breivik continues:

Other artists:

Lux Aeterna by the English composer and musician Clint Mansell
Comment: I love this work. Lux Aeterna means "eternal light" and it really is an appropriate title. I've listened to this track several hundred times and I never seem to get tired of it. The track is very inspiring and invokes a type of passionate rage within you. In Lord of the Rings – a good version of this track (Requiem for a Tower version which I think is the best) is performed during the most intense fighting of one of the central battles. Since it has worked for me, it is likely that it will
work for you. An invigorating piece of art.

Motivational music tracks, artist: Helene Bøksle
The following is Helene Bøksle`s - Age of Conan theme music. Three of the tracks surpass almost anything I've heard before. The tracks are in old Norse tongue (old Norwegian), truly epic, very
powerful and motivational and even worthy of playing during a martyrdom operation (in addition to Saga and Clint Mansell).

Track 1: The Dreaming - Ere the World Crumbles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kn99vRCbww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g5KYv2oqXk (live version)

Track 2: Nighttime journey through the Eiglophian mountains (Ascending Cimmeria)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GVMEdIfaJQ

Track 3: The Dreaming Anew - Memories of Cimmeria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDNzOYHu-4

Imagine the following; at the end of your mission, when you have completed your primary objectives - imagine fighting for your life against a pursuing pack of system protectors (or as I like
to call them: armed defenders of the multiculturalist system, also referred to as the police). You try to avoid confrontation but they eventually manage to surround you. You hear this song as you push forward to annihilate one of their flanks, head shotting two of your foes in bloody fervor trying to survive. This angelic voice sings to you from the heavens, strengthening your resolve in a hopeless battle. Your last desperate thrust kills another two of your enemies. But it isn't enough as you are now completely surrounded; your time is now. This voice is all you hear as your light turns to darkness and you enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This must surely be the most glorious way to claim the honour of martyrdom in battle.

The following is also decent track for maintaining a high morale during a limited battle confrontation although it lacks vocal:

The Awakening - Hyborian Adventures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHrE_fU2OtY

I'm certainly not about to read the 1500+ pages of Breivik's "Manifesto", but jumping down the pages and scanning a bit is an interesting experience. The guy seems pretty bright, and clearly put a lot of work into compiling the thing. He claims credit for having written about half of it.

The music stuff above starts in page 848, and there's an eye-catching section entitled "There are no atheists in foxholes" starting on page 1344, in which he discusses the value of pragmatic prayer (prayer by even an atheist in the heat of battle for it's calming power).

Whatever dude. You should have smoked some pot instead of whatever toxic shit you ingested.

Highlighted Irritants

2011-07-23T13:25:00.004-07:00

Somehow I wound up on their emailing list, so yesterday I received this invitation from the Arizona Republican Party. Highlighting a few of the things I found most irritating about it, I reproduce it here in case you didn't get it. If you really care, though, you'll have to click the image to see it its full glory.

Since I know the Republicans care deeply about my opinions, I feel I owe them a little constructive criticism in the way of an explanation behind my irritation at various parts of their mailing. Here we go, starting at the top.

At the upper left, I highlighted part of the Arizona Republican Party logo. The irritant here is "Republican Party". As is the case with lawyers, I've known lots of good people who happen to be Republicans. Enough said.

Moving down... Steven Seagal??? Please. OK, so he's made a couple of movies I thought were passable, others not so much. I don't know how much of that stuff about sexual exploitation and lies (google it) actually sticks to Seagal, but even if he is actually a saint, his inclusion here is for the purpose of drawing a crowd I'm happy not to be a part of.

"Restoration of The Republic"
Ok, I'll let that one slide. It's empty.

"We the People"
We WHAT people?

Joe the Plumber isn't a plumber, and had it not been for heavy Republican manipulation of a media accident involving his uninformed questioning of candidate Obama, he might have actually bought the small plumbing business he was supposedly attempting to buy, and then gone on down the drain in the economic collapse without ever wondering whether starvation of the beast had been a good idea after all.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This is the guy who wanted to ring Maricopa County in roadblocks as a tactic in the War on Some Drugs. I tend to like his tent cities, chain gangs and baloney sandwiches, but I don't like ... never mind.

Benefactor Levels. I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would think of this? God bless America.

I have to stop this. Otherwise, I may not survive the next 14 months.

7,000,000,000

2011-07-17T20:46:00.003-07:00

Apparently the human population of Earth is set to zoom past 7 billion sometime later this year.

Seems, too, that forecasts for a leveling off of human numbers somewhere in the 9 to 10 billion range have been revised upwards for some reason.

PBS - Need to Know: Standing Room Only

Nobody knows what can happen, but it's tough to be optimistic about the future for humanity and the ecosystem that supports it.

"Priceless"

2011-07-02T09:13:00.002-07:00

My first exposure to WikiLeaks was when they outed Barclays Bank's tax avoidance schemes. I thought the outing of Barclays was well in order, and it prompted me to send WikiLeaks a small contribution (probably via PayPal).

WikiLeaks is like almost any other organization I've ever supported. NRA, ACLU, whatever. I can't dictate their agenda, but if, on balance, I like their general stance, then I might support them from time to time.

It annoyed me to no end when PayPal froze WikiLeak's account and cut them off. Who is PayPal to tell me where I can send my money? Who is MasterCard, or Visa, to make such decisions for me? How long before they cut off organizations working for change on the basis that what they advocate is illegal (drug policy, assisted suicide, ...). As far as I'm concerned, that's unacceptable. Where will it end? One of these days I might not be able to send money to Planned Parenthood on the basis that it's illegal to kill babies. Screw that.

Maybe there's a real need for something like BitCoin. Despite the down-sides.

I think I'd like to see WikiLeaks continue and BitCoin succeed.

Here's WikiLeaks' parody ad: Priceless. Good stuff!

Nuke plants deploy bio-defenses

2011-07-02T08:28:00.006-07:00

Nuke plants deploy bio-defenses

Health and Safety staff at nuclear plants have urged workers to wash their hands frequently or use alcohol-based hand sanitizers, citing such measures as the best way to prevent transmission of cold and flu viruses.

In other news, a nuclear worker was nuclear injured in a nuclear fire at the nuclear-flood-threatened nuclear Fort Nuclear Calhoun Nuclear Station Nuclear.

High on Drugs: Breaking the Just Say No Addiction | Science | Religion Dispatches

2011-06-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

High on Drugs: Breaking the Just Say No Addiction | Science | Religion Dispatches

I had just finished reading this depressing and annoying piece when I came upon High on Drugs: Breaking the Just Say No Addiction. I don't know much about the drugs the author mentions other than to have read his words in different form elsewhere, but I do know the author's piece is a flash of brilliance in contrast to the propagandist drivel that continues to ooze from the likes of DEA and ONDCP.

Congratulations Gary Laderman. I'll have to go back and read some of your other stuff.

It's not my money. I shouldn't take it.

2011-06-11T14:37:00.001-07:00

Good for you Robert Adams!

– Thu Jun 9, 5:05 pm ET

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. – Robert Adams craved an ice-cold drink after finishing his shift on a sweltering workday, but not having enough money to buy the burrito he also wanted left him with two obvious choices: Stop at the ATM, or find a bag containing more than $17,000 in cash.

"I wanted to get a large horchata, which is almost like a rice or coconut milk," Adams told the Daily Herald (Arlington Heights) for a story published Wednesday. "I would have grabbed a chorizo burrito, too, but I didn't have enough money."

That changed Monday when the Chicago-area man stood at a Chase ATM in Rolling Meadows, looked down and discovered on the sidewalk near a newspaper box a clear plastic bag containing receipts, checks and $17,021 in cash — mostly $20 and $100 bills bound by a rubber band.

"I see this plastic bag. It's clear plastic and it's half full of money," Adams said. "I figure this is a joke. Somebody took some napkins and made it look like money. This has to be a setup. People are going to look at me and start laughing."

Adams said he never had the urge to keep any of the money.

"It's not my money. I shouldn't take it. I don't care if you put another zero on there, I wasn't raised to take money that isn't mine," said Adams, a 54-year-old single man who lives in Arlington Heights and credits his deceased parents for teaching him right from wrong. "If I saw you drop it, I'd say, `Excuse me, sir. I think you dropped something.'"

The word "Chase" was printed on the bag, so Adams carried it inside the nearby branch.

"I walk up to the teller and say, `I think you might have left this outside,'" said Adams, figuring an employee left it behind after restocking the ATM. But employees told him the machine is filled from inside and the money didn't belong to the bank.

Adams then called police, who along with bank officials later determined the money was meant for an ATM in Midlothian and had been under the care of Loomis, an armored truck company. Rolling Meadows police took the money to the station, where it was picked up by a Loomis official.

Loomis officials said they were investigating, but have not said whether Adams will get a reward.

"I really don't know what happens with this situation," Adams said.

Onesimo Santillan, owner of the Senor Taco restaurant where Adams originally was headed to indulge his cravings, said the actions of his longtime customer don't surprise him.

"He has been coming in for years, always orders the same thing, very nice guy," Santillan said. "It's hard to find people like that, honest people."

Rolling Meadows Police Chief Dave Scanlan said Adams did good: "We all said right away that this guy deserves something — credit for being an Honest Abe."

___

Information from: Daily Herald, http://www.dailyherald.com

Google Sidewiki entry by Steve

2011-05-21T21:07:00.001-07:00

Pfff... Surely he said more than that because, if that's all he said he marked himself as brain dead, stupid, uncaring, a bullshit artist or worse.

in reference to:

"Colom told a Mexican radio station Friday that the flow of illegal weapons to drug cartels should be cut off to prevent further killings."
- Guatemalan gang members, no Mexicans, in massacre - Forbes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Drug gangs muscle into new territory: Central America | McClatchy

2011-04-22T06:23:00.001-07:00

Drug gangs muscle into new territory: Central America | McClatchy

Yeah, but...

There is one economy. Just one. That it is composed of legal and illegal sectors might as well be by design.

The legal part of the economy is much more complex, thus much more difficult to deal with, than the illegal part of the economy. When the legal economy declines you have to mortgage the future, start hot wars and apply complex, politically challenging programs to try to avoid depression.

It makes little sense to damage any part of the overall economy, especially at a time when the legal sector has been so severely challenged as of late.

In contrast to the legal sector of the economy (where you must have massive, complex and at least somewhat transparent bureaucratic programs to prop it up) the illegal sector of the economy is relatively simple to deal with.

Yes, you have to apply subsidies to the illegal sector of the global economy in order to bolster its contribution to the whole, because what's good for the illegal sector of the economy is good for the whole economy. Part of the genius of Prohibition is that it applies the required subsidy to the illegal sector of the economy at virtually no cost. The measly few billions in the budget for the ONDCP, for example, generate two or three orders of magnitude greater effect in the illegal sector of the economy, providing greater bang for buck than almost any other government economic program.

There are intangible social costs of applying such subsidies to the illegal sector of the economy, of course, but intangibles are essentially unquantifiable and therefore, as in other arenas like anthropogenic climate change, these not much weighted in such analyses.

The policy of Prohibition must be maintained in order to maintain the contribution of the illegal sector of the economy to the overall economy. This is especially true with marijuana because of its dominant role in the illegal economy.

How could it be otherwise?

NRA asks: President Calderon’s Eyes On The Wrong Border?

2011-04-04T10:40:00.003-07:00

I'm generally in agreement with the NRA when it comes to gun rights, but I don't think they are serious about rights in general. Maybe someone has studied the question and could correct me if I'm wrong, but I perceive the leadership and membership of the NRA to be, generally speaking, a bunch of right-wing authoritarian followers, unconcerned with rights in general.

What sets me off is this annoyingly written piece, President Calderon's Eyes On The Wrong Border? Oh, what the hell. Here it is:

President Calderon’s Eyes On The Wrong Border?

Friday, April 01, 2011

Blaming America for Mexico’s problems has been something of a national pastime for Mexican politicians for many years. True to tradition, Mexican president Felipe Calderon has been blaming Mexico’s astronomically high murder rate on Americans who buy drugs and who sell guns, rather than on the Mexican drug cartels who commit a vastly disproportionate share of those murders, and the historic corruption in Mexico, from which the wicked cartels have spawned.

However, an article published by the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada suggests that el Presidente might better serve the good people of his country by looking to his southern border, instead of al norte.

As explained in English by the Latin American Herald Tribune, “The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico’s drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published on Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper. Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported to Washington.”

The article also refers to “Fast and Furious,” an element of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' “Project GunRunner” operation that allegedly knowingly allowed more than 1,700 firearms to be smuggled into Mexico from our country, including those that may have been used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata in February.

Increasingly, the question is who knew about the operation, and when. President Obama has stated that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder were aware of the scheme. Holder is said to have told his subordinates that letting guns “walk” to Mexico is wrong and should not be repeated. The McAllen, Tex., newspaper, The Monitor, quotes the Mexican government as saying that it “did not have knowledge on an operation that included the controlled traffic of weapons in Mexican territory,” and that “The Mexican government has not and will not give any implied or formal authorization for this to happen.”

Meanwhile, Fox News reports that U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, today issued a subpoena to the Justice Department demanding that the BATFE respond to his March 16 request for information about the operation, the deadline for which passed on Wednesday. Rep. Issa is quoted as saying, “The unwillingness of this administration—most specifically the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—to answer questions about this deadly serious matter is deeply troubling.”

CBS News similarly reported that “The Department of Justice and ATF have missed repeated deadlines to turn over information and documents” to Congress, and further noted that the investigation of Project GunRunner may significantly delay hearings on President Obama’s nomination of BATFE agent Andrew Traver, an activist gun control supporter, to head the BATFE.

The BATFE has until April 13 to respond to Rep. Issa’s subpoena. Stay tuned.

Keep it simple, dumbshits. Don't write anything deeper than you absolutely must.

Restating the obvious for the NRA, the root of the problem IS north of the border. The root of the problem is the enormous subsidy provided to "the wicked cartels" by the idiocy that is prohibition. That's not the party line, though, is it?

What is it about these True Red White and Blue patriot types that prevents them from seeing the

Never mind. Hopeless...

The New Yorker - Unravelling the ultimate political conspiracy

2011-03-28T18:42:00.001-07:00

In case the Rodrigo Rosenberg case interested you and you have not already seen this.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_grann?printable=true

Cheers from Phoenix! Steve

Bitcoin

2011-03-21T17:34:00.002-07:00

Bitcoin. Bit. Coin. Two little syllables. They seem completely natural together.

I think Bitcoin stands a good chance of becoming a big deal. A great big deal.

Lots of questions though.

Bitcoin is a new electronic currency. A currency out of the control of bankers or governments. It's an open source currency running on open source software loaded on standard computers of various OS flavors. It'll be immune from inflation because the total, ultimate amount of coin is embedded in the system.

I've said virtually nothing above, and already I'm saying more than I know. I only know that it smells significant to me.

It'll be interesting to watch this develop. Will governments and banks subvert it by various means. Will they be able to do so? Will it eventually take on the role of global reserve currency? How will it avoid total reliance on breakable infrastructure and dependence on public utilities and communications channels? What about money laundering?

What if I need to stop payment?

I'm thinking about setting up a node, just to learn more and support the effort, but what if I change out my hardware or software, or if my house burns to the ground? Or gets destroyed in an earthquake and tsunami. I don't think it's a simple as joining SETI. I've never allowed port forwarding at my house; what are the security implications of opening ports in my firewall to receive incoming Bitcoin traffic?

Do I have the capacity to understand Bitcoin? I recognized 25 or 30 years ago that asymmetrical, public key cryptography was probably going to become a great big thing, and yet I barely understood it. Now that it has become a great big thing, I still don't really understand it.

So what if I don't understand it? I don't understand much of anything, really.

I guess Bitcoin could be broken some time, just as the cryptography that's central to today's online economy could be broken by the use of chemical genetics in a massively parallel approach to cryptanalysis. Or something. Quantum computing. Who knows?

I'm pretty sure, though, that this will be an interesting thing to follow, and maybe join.

There are lots of really smart people in the world. Sometimes that alone is enough to give me hope.

Usually not, though.

Go Bitcoin!! Suppertime...

Well, it made me smile...

2011-02-27T08:54:00.001-07:00

sls

The Irish Millionaire

2010-12-11T08:53:00.001-07:00

The Irish Millionaire

Mick, from Dublin, appeared on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,' and towards the end of the program had already won 500,000 dollars.

"You've done very well so far," said Chris Tarrant, the show's presenter,"but for a million dollars you've only got one life-line left, phone a friend. Everything is riding on this question. Will you go for it?"

"Sure," said Mick. "I'll have a go!"

"Which of the following birds does NOT build its own nest? a) Sparrow, b) Thrush, c) Magpie, d) Cuckoo?"

"I haven't got a clue," said Mick, "so I'll use last lifeline and phone my friend Paddy back home in Dublin."

Mick called up his mate, and told him the circumstances and repeated the question to him.

"Fookin hell, Mick!" cried Paddy. "Dat's simple. It's a cuckoo."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fookin sure."

Mick hung up the phone and told Chris, "I'll go with cuckoo as my answer."

"Is that your final answer?" asked Chris.

"Dat it is."

There was a long, long pause and then the presenter screamed, "Cuckoo is the correct answer! Mick, you've won 1 million dollars!"

The next night, Mick invited Paddy to their local pub to buy him a drink."Tell me, Paddy? How in Heaven's name did you know it was da Cuckoo that doesn't build its own nest?"

"Because he lives in a Fookin clock!"

Disagreement with the church again

2010-11-21T09:13:00.001-07:00

The claim that violence cannot be resolved with more violence is false because of its implicitly universal scope.

To the contrary, the sort of state "violence" the bishops refer to can help resolve some types of actual violence. In particular instances it can solve the immediate problem.

The judicial and penitentiary systems should be improved, for sure, but so should health care, diet, education, and a whole host of other things.

Improving the judicial system should begin with strengthening administration of the death penalty. Foregoing the death penalty while improving the judicial and penitentiary systems makes as much sense as foregoing GM foods while trying to improve food production.

in reference to: Church in Guatemala calls on Congress to abolish death penalty :: Catholic News Agency (CNA) (view on Google Sidewiki)

When the law is an ass you treat it accordingly.

2010-10-24T06:36:00.004-07:00

"When the law is an ass you treat it accordingly."

That's a meme I've been carrying around since at least July 2007, and almost certainly for some time before that. July 2007 is just the date of a blog post comment in which I used it.

As I type, if I Google that sentence the blog comment I mentioned is the only hit.

Same result on Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, and 100SEARCHENGINES.

I guess the meme is mine. There must be a million ways to express the idea that asinine laws are to be ignored, but I searched out pithy expressions similar to mine (well, I think it's pithy) and found none.

The only reason I care about claiming ownership, copyright or whatever one can claim with respect to a meme, is because my son told me about an outfit that sells t-shirts with provocative or offensive themes, and they accept submissions which, if accepted, net you a couple of t-shirts. Something like that. It might have been Road Kill T-Shirts, where these two and a few others caught my eye and made me smile:

Beautiful girl wears a t-shirt that says,
With a shirt this AWESOME who needs pants?
Marked as outsourced so it must be popular:
Spooning may lead to forking.

But hey, why not check out one of the print-on-demand services like CafePress, Printfection or Spreadshirt?

I've been aware of CafePress for a while, but only learned about the latter two as a result of checking out the former. There must be others, or better ideas entirely.

What to do? Could I supplement my upcoming retirement income by dreaming up stuff to sell via these services? Should I just pick one and give it a shot? Which one?

Maybe I should just ask someone I know, whose worthy cause I support, if he wants this meme for his CafePress shop.

I don't know. I'll have to do some research and think about this some more, obviously, but in the meantime I claim this as mine:

"When the law is an ass you treat it accordingly."

"Should Be Legalized" Eminem - Love The Way You Lie Parody by Steve Berke

2010-10-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

I really like this video, and not just for its political message. I did not like the Eminem video it parodies, probably just because I'm getting old now.

As for the political message, it won't stir the powers that be, unfortunately, but who knows. Maybe if the video helps to get out the vote in California they can actually pass Proposition 19. Prop 19 is flawed, like any such, but its catalytic effect can only be good for the country if it helps to end the very deep corruption that underlies our national drugs policy.

Item from Blog Del Narco

2010-09-12T08:38:00.005-07:00

There was an incident last week in the city of Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Here's a quick manual translation of the post at Blog Del Narco, imperfect but probably better than by machine. There are other accounts of the incident, of course, but Blog Del Narco is where I first saw it so that's the one I translated. Details differ among accounts, but the gist of it is there. Square brackets and parentheses below are where I didn't know or find a direct translation, but the meaning remains, I think.

Video in which federal policemen beat municipal policemen in Ixtepec, Oaxaca

Oaxaca de Juarez, 8 September

This evening around 7:30, a group of federal policemen tried to rescue two of their members who had been detained by municipal police for being in a state of complete drunkenness. In the process, federal police shot at municipal elements (municipal police forces) in the city of Ixtepec, Oaxaca.

According to early reports, it was around 4:30 p.m. when two federal policemen were "celebrating" with some women from a bar called "El Chicotazo" (The Whiplash), raising so much hell in the place that the owners called the municipal police who, upon arrival, detained the two drunken federal policemen and the women they were with, and transported them to the police station.

Three hours later, a convoy of federal police arrived at the police station aboard two vehicles, one numbered 14049, to rescue their friends, and without saying anything started to shoot at the station with their R-15's [AR-15's?], hurting nine uniformed municipal policemen, three of whom are in serious condition in Macedonio Benitez de Juchitan Hospital in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. (This is an early report. From the video, and from later reports, it looks like the shooting was apparently into the ground for intimidation.)

The police in the City of Ixtepec do not bear arms, and so were not able to repel the aggression of the PFP (the federal police).

The three seriously injured municipal policemen are: Padilla Torres Diaz, Uriel Ortiz Leon and Regino Guzman Colmenares, the latter in very delicate state.

In the same vicinity is the 13th Cavalry Regiment of the Mexican Army, who, upon hearing the shooting went to the location aboard vehicle 0913271, and apparently detained 12 federal policemen, transporting them to military headquarters.

It's not known if the military (consignaron) [questioned] the federal agents, but they did confiscate seven R-15 with retractable butt, 12 30-round magazines, a loaded 9-millimeter, seven bullet-proof vests, a portable radio, a black Kaplan helmet and a van numbered 14049.

A YouTube video of the incident is embedded at this point in the Blog Del Narco post. Watch it at YouTube or at the embed in the Blog Del Narco post.

Ixtepeceans view federal policemen in the municipality as criminals

City of Ixtepec, Oaxaca. - The [jeromeña] citizenry coincided in signaling that the federal policemen who have come to this city have behaved like real criminals and do not inspire confidence, since those belonging to that police group are people whose absence of education shines through. (This refers not to academic education but manners, courtesy, respect, decency. Apparently the federal police are regarded as a bunch of lowlife hooligans.)

This after learning of the new aggression against local police in which nine were injured, one of them balancing between life and death because of injuries received at the hands of the [energúmenos] members of the federal police.

The most gravely injured among the municipal policemen is Regino Guzman Colmenares who received, according to his colleagues, several rifle-butt blows to the head, and was thrown to the floor leaving a pool of blood, and who is under care at the general hospital of Juchitan.

Municipal authorities say they have filed complaints against the eleven members of the PFP (federal police) and the two women who were with them.

It nevertheless happened that despite the [malandros] (federal police miscreants) having ended up in the hands of elements of the 13th batallion of motorized calvalry from the 46th Military Zone, they were not turned over to the federal prosecutor's office as procedure requires, but instead, taking unilateral decision, they were set free, leaving [un palmo de narices] (a slew of injuries) to the municipal police which are still being tended to medically.

That is why the citizenry [jeromeña] rises in indignation, for the fact that delinquents dressed as federal policemen are given cover by the Mexican army when they should be paladins of justice.

The municipal police are now fearful that the freed federal agents will take reprisal against them, and that there will be frameups linking the municipal police to other criminal groups, as the feds frequently do.

Later on it was announced that while the military released the federal policemen, personnel from federal police internal affairs have sequestered them in the Regente hotel, where they remain until their situation is determined.

Narcoblog Post Translated

2010-08-28T12:49:00.005-07:00

This item in the Blog Del Narco caught my eye. I'm curious to see how well my translation compares to what the automated translators produce (update: Mine is better). This is just my first pass, and there are many improvements I could make, but I'm about out of interest in the translation part. The story, this particular one and the wider one, remain compelling. What a tragedy. Doubly tragic because it our own goddamed fault.

They declined to be a part of the Zetas, and 72 were shot

Thursday 26 August 2010

Several vehicles, according to the only survivor of what is the worst massacre on the part of organized crime, blocked the path of the vehicle in which the victims traveled and made them descend. The blockers warned the passengers that they were The Zetas.

The 72 undocumented people murdered in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, were aboard a truck headed for the United States when, last Saturday or Sunday, they were intercepted by the Zeta convoy.

Several vehicles, according to the story of the only survivor of what is - until now - the worst massacre in the wave of violence on the part of organized crime, blocked the vehicle in which the victims were riding and made them get out. They warned the travellers that they were The Zetas.

One by one, the 58 men and 14 women, among them minors, were placed against the wall inside of a storage building, first investigations reveal. Then they were ordered to keep their heads down and were shot with volleys from high-power weapons. At the end, the killers gave each victim a coup de grace.

Among the shot was a citizen of Ecuador, who played dead. The final shot entered, apparently, on the edge of the neck and exited through the jaw. He waited, lying there, until the killers left and he was able to escape. He ws the only survivor. Until now it remains a mystery how he was able to go the 22 kilometers that separate the site from where he made contact with personnel from the Mexican Navy from which he sought help.

Asking for help, Luis managed to say that "the killing was not long ago." He said the miscreants offered them work as hitmen, and that they would earn US$1000 every two weeks. All of the passengers resisted, and with the rejection came the massacre.

At first, the marines did not believe him, since on other occasions they have been ambushed with lies.

It was close to seven in the morning of Monday when the marines had contact with him (Luis) who babbled that there were more than 70 dead at a ranch, but the marines were reluctant to believe him. The head of the unit informed his superiors and it was decided to make an aerial recon of the area, and when flying over they were attacked, from which they deduced indications that the survivor's story was true.

As night fell on Monday, the marines had to redeploy towards Matamoros in the face of the possibility of an ambush by the criminal group The Zetas. Tuesday morning, with more manpower and equipment they arrived at the ranch and discovered the 72 bodies inside an abandoned grain store. They were tied up and blindfolded.

The remoteness of the ranch and the insecurity of the area caused a delay until almost midnight on Tuesday before complete information about the massacre was available. Another 70 marines in vehicles with protection and weapons to confront the delinquents deployed to the ranch where a confrontation ensued in which a marine and three criminals died. During this action a minor from Veracruz, who had particpated in the killings, was captured.

The survivor commented that among the victims were people from Brazil, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. In the report about the victims it says that one of the 14 women was in the late stages of pregnancy. The majority of the victims were young people in their productive age.

One hypothesis about the massacre is that the assassins, presumably The Zetas, want to send a message of fear to those who would resist working for them or under their orders, especially illegals crossing towards the United States.

The captured minor, according to initial reports, is very well trained about not revealing information about what he was involved in. His first comments were made only to personnel from the national prosecutor's office which took charge of the case as of late night on Tuesday.

(With information from correspondents)

Update: The Guardian has a piece about this incident.

.

The Associated Press: GOP calls Obama insensitive over stand on mosque

2010-08-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Every day my disrespect for the Republicans as a pack increases, deepening my sense of despair.

Partisan opportunists exploiting religious nuttery. Fuck you all!

The Associated Press: GOP calls Obama insensitive over stand on mosque:

From statehouses to state fairs on Tuesday, Republican incumbents and challengers unleashed an almost unified line of criticism against the president days after he forcefully defended the construction of a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from the site of the 2001 terror attacks.'
...
'He is thinking like a lawyer and not like an American, making declarations without America's best interest in mind,' said Andrew Harris, a Republican running for Congress in Maryland against first-term Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil.
...
'Well I think it's another example of him playing the role of law professor. ... We can have a great debate about the legal arguments. But it's not about that,' Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in an interview Monday on Fox News.
...
With a steady drumbeat, Republicans tried to force Democrats into difficult positions of either standing with the president or bucking him.

Speaking of map projections

2010-07-27T16:33:00.009-07:00

Wolfram|Alpha is pretty amazing, I think. My brain doesn't have enough oomph to really play with it much, but I've been able to use it on occasion.

Now they have this new thing going, Wolfram|Alpha Widgets. Supposedly you can use their tools to create useful little widgets to put on a blog or web page. Supposedly it's simple. Maybe a dummy like me can do it!

I might try this out. If I can do it, I'll make a widget to do some engineering computations at work, such as converting transmission line impedances from a 50 MVA / 345 kV base to something else like 100 MVA / 525 kV. Maybe a widget to decypher the status bits in a synchrophasor stream or something.

It seems this thing might be very useful (assuming I can muster the mental steam to do it, which isn't a sure thing).

But speaking of map projections, someone called Jessica Paris made a widget to see a map of the globe in various different projections. They say it's as simple as copying the embed code into the HTML view of the post I'm typing. Let's see if I can stick it in here:

Hey, it worked!

As for the angelic projection at the bottom of my last post, I guess it looks like an equirectangular projection, but I'm not sure.

Facing East or Facing West?

2010-07-25T07:41:00.037-07:00

Updated below to add a flat projection of the Magic Ovals.
---------------------------------------

It seems that a few months ago, Muslim clerics in Indonesia made a clerical error and told the country's faithful that they should face West when praying in order to be facing Mecca. They recovered, though, with the help of experts in cosmography and astronomy, who verified that by facing West from Indonesia the faithful would actually be facing Kenya and southern Somalia. Something like that. Google is my friend.

Naturally enough there was plenty of fun to be had ridiculing religious foolishness. I managed to honor my Grandfather's good advice along the lines of saying nothing if you can't think of something nice, and found myself playing with Google Earth. I don't know why these clerics needed expert cosmographers and astronomers to look into the question. Maybe it's against the religion to... Never mind. For some reason the question interested me.

Using Google Earth, I picked a few points roughly defining the extension of Indonesia. I plotted some lines that start out from those spots directly towards the West. Sure enough, they wind up in Kenya and southern Somalia. Then I made some green lines running from those same spots in Indonesia directly to Mecca. Here's the picture:

So, there is no place in Indonesia where one can face directly West to face Mecca. There must be such places, though, so I used the ruler tool to draw a line directly from Mecca to wherever I wanted to, and looked for places where the end point would be arriving directly from the West. I plotted a few such points and saw that they formed a line, like this (click the picture to make it bigger):

Wait a minute, it doesn't look like lines starting out from the magic arc are going West!

True, they just start out facing West. In so doing they define part of a "great circle" line directly to Mecca. Here's a closer view of the lines to Mecca as they start out from the magic arc. You can see that, in each case, the line starts out directly West.

If you try to continue the magic arc up through the Arctic and back down into the Atlantic Ocean (to form a magic circle, say), you find that it doesn't work. If you start a line to the West towards Mecca, before you get there it'll flip around and wind up starting out East instead. I guess that's because we're generally after the shortest distance, but trying to go West to Mecca from the Atlantic portion of a magic circle would lead to a path longer than the Easterly path. That's just a definitional thing, I think; just like the Equator, any great circle goes completely around the Earth.

(I'm starting to confuse a Great Circle with my magic circle. My magic circle is not a Great Circle because it does not have the center of the earth as its center. My magic circle just defines the points on the earth where any ~~Magic~~ Great Circle crossing it in an east-west direction will also pass through Mecca. I think.)

It turns out that there is a magic circle, though. It's actually more like a magic oval. I'll capitalize that. Magic Oval. It's just that, in the Atlantic you have to start out towards the East, not the West, like this:

Putting the two Magic Arcs together to form a Magic Oval, you get this:

As one might expect, there's a similar Magic Oval in the Southern Hemisphere. It looks something like this:

(I'm going to have to come back and put a nose and mustache in that picture.)

Since Google Earth works on a global projection (Is that the term a cartographer might use?), you can't see the whole thing all at once. If Google Earth has a way to present the whole thing into a flat projection, I have not learned how to do it yet. So, instead, I made a couple of videos showing the Earth with the Magic Ovals and Mecca Lines in polar and equatorial rotations. Let's see how that works.

First the Equatorial rotation:

Now the Polar rotation:

I don't know how to project the Magic Circles onto a flat projection in order to be able to see the whole thing at once, but someone made a similar thing that's available on Wikipedia. I think it's really quite beautiful. The Wikipedia image shows equidistant lines, whereas I am trying to show where one can face Mecca by facing either directly East or directly West, but what the hell. If I can figure out how to make Google Earth flatten out the Magic Ovals into one flat image, I'll post it later. Otherwise, hey, it's been interesting and fun. For me, anyway.

UPDATE:

It turns out that if you put all the relevant Google Earth items into one folder under My Places, you can select that folder and export it as a KMZ file. Then you can go to Google Maps MyMaps and import the KMZ file.

Projecting the Magic Ovals above on to a flat projection in Google Maps produces the image that follows:

Above is just a screen snag of the browser window showing the relevant part of the online version, which rolls the left and right edges (repeats the opposite edge to fill in what would otherwise be blank space).

The flat projection isn't quite what I'd expected, which was something more like the equidistant projection at the Wikipedia link. Clearly, I have a great deal to learn about map projections.

The flat projection above (a cylindrical projection, I think) looks to me sort of like an angel. Maybe a wire-model manga angel about to stomp on a poor heathen like me.

Hey! This could be a hidden sign from above, donchathink? Maybe I should copyright this image and sell it on eBay or something.

"it's where the money is."

2010-07-04T05:30:00.001-07:00

Between this shameful admission by a US lawman and the narco submarine that was found recently (the first true submarine found in the hands of the narcos), I wonder even more about the sanity of people who cannot see the blindingly obvious fact that our stupid approach to the drugs problem is what creates the incentives for such things (not to mention such consequences as failing states to our south, empowerment of war enemies, increased disrespect for the law, and on and on. .

We can be so god damned stupid...

in reference to: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: FOXNews.com - Strapped U.S. Police Turn to Marijuana Busts for Cash (view on Google Sidewiki)

Vuvuzela culture

2010-06-14T18:44:00.001-07:00

Tolerance of other cultures? Tolerance at a distance maybe. Having heard about the vuvuzela long before the World Cup, there's no way in HELL I'd have attended.

The vuvuzela is like a needlessly loud motorcycle. It's just obnoxious, and the responsible party is just being a thoughtless creep. "Mood Killer" is a perfectly apt description.

"Addressing calls for a vuvuzela ban in an interview with the BBC, Danny Jordaan, the head of the World Cup organizing committee in South Africa, said that the vuvuzela would only be forbidden if fans started throwing the trumpets onto the pitch."

Well, there you have it. 20,000 vuvuzelas raining onto the field might have an impact.

in reference to: The World from Berlin: Vuvuzela a 'Global Synonym for Mood Killer' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International (view on Google Sidewiki)

Piping feature

2010-06-04T19:15:00.001-07:00

I can't see leaking pipes causing the sinkholes in Guatemala City. Most likely these holes are the direct result of subsidence due to excessive groundwater pumping. It may be that storms and leaky pipes precipitate the visible consequences, the sinkholes, but the root cause is many decades of excessive groundwater pumping.

in reference to:

"In fact, Bonis thinks calling the Guatemala City chasm a sinkhole is a misnomer—a true sinkhole is an entirely natural phenomenon. There is no scientific term for what happened in Guatemala, he said, adding that he recommends the pit be dubbed a piping feature."
- Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature (view on Google Sidewiki)

Maybe there won’t be a tragedy.

2010-06-02T06:59:00.001-07:00

...The cockpit recording shows that Russian air traffic controllers told the pilot, “There are no conditions for landing.”

Mr. Protasiuk thanked them and said, “We’ll make an attempt, but if the weather isn’t good, we’ll leave for a second round.” About seven minutes before the crash, controllers told the pilot to reascend from an elevation of 325 feet, and he answered, “If we fail to land, we are reascending on autopilot.” ...

... “It’s going to be dreadful, we won’t be able to see anything,” a crew member said at one point.

Mr. Protasiuk was more hopeful. “Well, no, you can see the ground,” he said, six minutes later. “You can see something. Maybe there won’t be a tragedy.”

Maybe there won't be a tragedy. Wow!

in reference to:

"“It’s going to be dreadful, we won’t be able to see anything,” a crew member said at one point. Mr. Protasiuk was more hopeful. “Well, no, you can see the ground,” he said, six minutes later. “You can see something. Maybe there won’t be a tragedy.”"
- Pilot in Crash of Polish Jet Saw Chance of Landing - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Good for her!

2010-05-15T11:56:00.001-07:00

I've been following Jessica Watson's solo circumnavigation since before day 1, seven months ago, with daily checks of her blog and updates of her position in the ocean.

I don't know why I was interested since I'm not a sailor and don't have anything in common with Jessica, but I was. Maybe it started out as a reaction to some bullshit people were saying about irresponsible parents of reckless, spoiled teenagers or some such. I just felt admiration for her, hoped the best for her, and now I'm glad she's home safely.

Congratulations Jessica! More power to you.

in reference to: BBC News - Australia hails solo yacht girl Jessica Watson (view on Google Sidewiki)

Arizona's Proposition 100

2010-05-07T07:24:00.001-07:00

This is so annoying.

There's a problem with State revenues and budget projections that will require further major cuts in the budgets of various sectors of State government. The proposed Proposition 100 would create a temporary one cent increase in the State sales tax to lessen the cuts that will otherwise me made in education, public safety and health care. They say two thirds of the anticipated $1 billion dollars in revenue will go to education, and apparently the lion's share of the rest will go to public safety.

One of the complaints among the commenters on the Yes on 100 blog is that there's not enough information about how the money would be spent. Maybe a complete breakdown is too much to ask, or maybe it's available and I just have not found it.

Someone suggested looking at the two budgets that the Arizona Legislature had proposed or passed, one with and one without revenues stemming from this temporary sales tax hike. I looked for them, but could not find anything on the Legislature's web page. Maybe it's there and I just didn't see it.

The particular tidbit I was looking for has to do with the public safety allocation, justification for which includes a scare line about having to release thousands of non-violent prisoners, by which they mean, for the most part, thousands of non-violent drug offenders.

Non-violent drug offenders should not be incarcerated in the first place. Their incarceration is the result of bad public policy, the power of the prison-cop complex, deep corruption in the halls of power, stupid authoritarianism and a refusal to recognize that prohibition is as bad today as it was when it was applied to the that really dangerous drug: alcohol.

It would be so easy for me to vote Yes on Proposition 100 if whatever portion of its revenues that will support keeping non-violent drug offenders incarcerated were, instead, going to education. As it is, I will have to hold my nose tightly when I probably vote Yes.

in reference to: Homepage | Yes On 100 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Short Shrift Friedman

2010-05-02T08:19:00.001-07:00

Thomas Friedman's column of May 1, "Narcos, No's and Nafta," contains two paragraphs about the Narcos and the troubles they present, then he drops them from further consideration of Mexico's future.

He goes on about how the No's (the conservative middle class of unionized teachers, oil workers, electric utility workers, other government workers) are the segment of the Mexican middle class that derives its position from Mexico's dwindling oil, which finances 40 percent of the government's budget.

The Nafta's are the segment of the middle class that is meritocratic.

"So here’s my prediction," Friedman writes. "When Mexico’s steadily falling oil production meets its rising meritocratic middle class, you will see real political/economic reform here. That is when the No’s will no longer have the resources to maintain the status quo, and that is when the Naftas from the Instituto Wisdom will demand the reforms that will enable them to realize their full potential."

And the Narcos?

Unless we in the United States get real about the drugs problem and remove prohibition inflation from the profits of the drug trade, the Narcos will gain even more power over society as the No's enter decline. The poor Naftas won't be able to do a thing about it.

The corrupting influence of prohibition has to end. If it doesn't, the Narcos will stifle Mexican progress as the decline of the No's draws nearer.

Thomas Friedman, you gave short shrift to a crucial aspect the issue you addressed.

in reference to: Op-Ed Columnist - Narcos, No’s and Nafta - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Deep corruption evident in drugs policy

2010-03-07T08:03:00.001-07:00

Every day, it seems, there is a piece in the news that deepens my contempt for national and international drug policy, and for those who insist on resisting reform and staying the course.

The refusal to recognize that, no matter what, people will go out of their way to get intoxicated, coupled with the refusal to recognize that the prohibition approach to the drugs problem only makes things worse, reflects deep corruption in the halls of power.

Contemporary drugs policy does not serve the public interest. It is harmful to the public interest.

Contemporary drugs policy serves only special interests, including drug cartels, insurgent groups, and the prison/cop complex.

It's all about the money. It's all about the power. It has nothing to do with the public interest.

God damn you people!

in reference to: Fake Weed, Real Drug: K2 Causing Hallucinations in Teens - Yahoo! News (view on Google Sidewiki)

New Jersey snow sculpture

2010-03-05T16:27:00.001-07:00

The appropriate response, upon having been informed by a policeman that a neighbor had found a snow sculpture of Venus de Milo too risque, might have been to decline to cover or knock down the scupture, but to immediately sculpt a six foot phallus right next to it.

As it is, I think the "more objectified and sexualized" response was pretty good, too.

What's wrong with people?

in reference to: BBC News - New Jersey snow sculpture gets frosty reception (view on Google Sidewiki)

YouTube - "Adding comments has been disabled for this video."

2010-02-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Congressman Becerra Laughs At Pledge of Allegiance

"Adding comments has been disabled for this video."

Yes, but why?

Here's a GREAT comment.

I would like to congratulate the man who had the bravery and patriotism to make a call for the pledge, which every meeting relating to American politics should begin with. It should be clear to everyone, that those who laughed, or hesitated, when the call to pledge loyalty to America was made, are weak or lacking in such loyalty; they sympathize with, or, indeed, are agents of, non-American elements. They represent a very great danger; it is impossible to underestimate the influence of non-American elements, in these extremely serious times, when we have a President of unknown origins, who has spent an unknown amount of time in Russia, and an unknown amount of time enabling Bill Ayers to conspire with the Taliban, and an unknown amount of time communicating with the secret orbital base, Draconis.

Posted by: llewelly | February 25, 2010 10:02 PM

Update about an asshole

2010-02-20T10:28:00.001-07:00

The asshole I was referring to in the passage below is Dennis Miller.

What he spewed comes 4 minutes 44 seconds into this Fox News clip on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD1GNjH-Ygs.

in reference to:

"The bit about TV pundits came on the heels of having deliberately tried to watch the run up to the address on Fox News. Bill O'Reiley was hosting. His guest was some cretin whose name escapes me who responded to a prompt about climate change by saying words to the effect that he wanted to drive his huge SUV down is long driveway from his huge house, and that if you couldn't do that without worrying about carbon dioxide then what's the use of having a planet anyway."
- Skeptacles: State of The Union (view on Google Sidewiki)

Dear Vice President Biden and Speaker Pelosi:

2010-01-30T07:48:00.002-07:00

Dear Vice President Biden and Speaker Pelosi:

I watched President Obama's State of the Union speech the other night, and I found the constant stream of standing ovations to be a major irritant.

Excessive standing ovations that characterize events like this do not encourage me to tune in. I'm pretty sure the same is true of many people.

One of the most important parts of Mr. Obama's speech was about three quarters of the way through, when he spoke of the loss of faith in institutions, CEO's rewarding themselves for failure, TV pundits reducing serious arguments to silly sound bites and politicians cutting each other down rather than lifting the country up. The place was quiet. People seemed to be assimilating the message rather than making sure to clap and cheer louder.

I'm glad the cheer-leading had subsided by that point because, otherwise, by then I would have changed the channel.

Please stop the overdone cheer-leading. It wastes time, detracts from the message and squanders the impact of a real standing ovation.

Stop it. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Steve Sturgill

State of The Union

2010-01-28T06:09:00.001-07:00

He's talking about me:

> Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have
> lost faith that our biggest institutions – our
> corporations, our media, and yes, our government
> – still reflect these same values. Each of these
> institutions are full of honorable men and women
> doing important work that helps our country
> prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for
> failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for
> his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each
> time lobbyists game the system or politicians
> tear each other down instead of lifting this country
> up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce
> serious debates into silly arguments, and big
> issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.
>
> No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there.
>
> No wonder there’s so much disappointment.

I lost any such illusions ages ago.

The bit about TV pundits came on the heels of having deliberately tried to watch the run up to the address on Fox News. Bill O'Reiley was hosting. His guest was some cretin whose name escapes me who responded to a prompt about climate change by saying words to the effect that he wanted to drive his huge SUV down is long driveway from his huge house, and that if you couldn't do that without worrying about carbon dioxide then what's the use of having a planet anyway.

What an asshole.

Right about then my son looked over at me and asked if they weren't showing the address on PBS. Having had my fill of TV pundits and silly arguments, we switched to PBS.

in reference to:

"Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment."
- 2010 Barack Obama State Of The Union Address (view on Google Sidewiki)

Predictable, revolting

2010-01-12T05:48:00.001-07:00

> "Governor Palin has captivated everyone on
> both sides of the political spectrum and we
> are excited to add her dynamic voice to the
> Fox News line-up," Bill Shine, executive vice
> president of programming, said in a statement.
>
> Mrs Palin said in a statement posted on the
> network's website: "It's wonderful to be part of
> a place that so values fair and balanced news."

WHAT!!??

"Captivated everyone" on "both sides" of the political spectrum?

This is, as they say, not even wrong. It's just noise. "Both sides" of the political spectrum? Two sides? That's it? Good and evil? Black and white?

"...a place that so values fair and balanced news."

Revolting.

in reference to: Sarah Palin campaign was a 'train wreck', insiders say - Times Online (view on Google Sidewiki)

Mercenary Prick!

2009-12-28T18:26:00.001-07:00

Travis Kuykendall, head of the Special High Intensity Trafficking office in El Paso, seems to be a mercenary prick.

He's also blind if he can't see the benefits of drug policy reform.

Then again, someone pointed out a long time ago that it's tough to get someone to acknowledge reality when his job depends on continued denial.

in reference to:

"Travis Kuykendall, head of the West Texas High Intensity Drug-Trafficking Area office in El Paso, Texas was quoted by Associated Press as saying, "There's no upside to it in any manner other than for those people who want to smoke pot. There's nothing for society in it, there's nothing good for the country in it, there's nothing for the good of the economy in it.""
- Washington considering legalizing marijuana | The Money Times (view on Google Sidewiki)

The problem is people

2009-12-27T07:25:00.001-07:00

Malthus was right.

It is not necessarily a mistake to fail to foresee future developments, but it most certainly is a mistake to take them for granted.

It's not just the fossil-fuel fueled industrial revolution that created vast agricultural surpluses. Those surpluses only delayed the inevitable for a while, and would not have sustained population growth that occurred in the latter part of the 20th century. For that, the green revolution was required.

What will be the next revolution, the one that's going to sustain two-Chinas worth of people that the globe is supposed to add to today's human numbers if they increase as projected?

It is a mistake to take future developments for granted. It seems unlikely that the "two-Chinas" population projection will come to pass.

To say that "the problem is pollution not people" is to, as they say, put the cart before the horse.

in reference to:

"Indeed, the big mistake made by the original prophet of population doom, Thomas Malthus, was his failure to appreciate how fossil fuels would transform the world economy. To be fair, it would have been hard to foresee, back in 1798, how industrialisation - powered by fossil fuels - would create the vast agricultural surpluses that would sustain a huge increase in population. But his mistake points to the real culprit here: the problem is pollution not people."
- BBC - Ethical Man blog: Are our children to blame? (view on Google Sidewiki)

A key point

2009-12-26T10:13:00.001-07:00

This is a key point about why out-and-out legalization is necessary. Decriminalization of use and possession worsens the situation next door, worsening spill-over effects as well.

By refusing to acknowledge reality we will continue to shoot ourselves in the foot, in the process shooting our neighbors in more vital areas.

Excellent article.

in reference to:

"Several U.S. states like California and Oregon have decriminalized marijuana, making possession of small quantities a misdemeanor, like a parking ticket. Decriminalization falls short of legalization because the sale and distribution remain a serious felony. One of the big reasons for the move is to reduce the problem of overcrowded and costly prisons. While this strategy may make sense domestically for the U.S., Mexican officials say it is the worst possible outcome for Mexico, because it guarantees demand for the drug by eliminating the risk that if you buy you go to jail. But it keeps the supply chain illegal, ensuring that organized crime will be the drug's supplier."
- Solutions to Mexico's Drug Crisis - WSJ.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Good for Catalonia

2009-12-19T09:38:00.002-07:00

Salvador Boix equates eating meat and torturing animals? He's not stupid, so what is he?

I suppose Boix might say of this picture (might have to click on it) that the matador cut himself while preparing the bull for slaughter.

Disgusting.

Good for Catalonia if they manage to ban bullfighting.

in reference to:

"“This attempt to ban bullfighting shows the hypocrisy of the politicians who all enjoy eating meat but vote to end bullfighting.”"
- Catalan Parliament passes landmark vote to ban bullfighting - Times Online (view on Google Sidewiki)

Beretta Tomcat 32: Stuck Safety Lever

2009-12-13T09:01:00.019-07:00

UPDATE2 - December 18, 2009

To hell with it!

I have no more time or patience to deal with Beretta's maze of obfuscation, which you run in to whether on the computer or on the phone.

This Tomcat I'm disgusted with will be the last Beretta product I buy. My advice to anyone happening upon these words is to look elsewhere. Beretta has always been a good brand in my eyes, but no more.

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

UPDATE - December 18, 2009:

I took this little Beretta Tomcat shooting this morning, after having thought the problem of the stuck safety was fixed, but no.

After shooting just 40 rounds, the safety is stuck again. It is possible to free it from the OFF (down) position by the use of a small glasses screwdriver as shown in the last picture below, but I did not disassemble the pistol this time and the safety gets stuck in the OFF (down) position every time.

I will post Beretta's response. [See above. There's nothing to post.]

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

This little story gets around to the trouble I had with the safety on a Beretta Tomcat 3032 pistol. It started when my son and I purchased one of these little guns for my wife a couple of years ago. It was my fault that we purchased the Beretta over my son's preferred Kel Tek P32. I was swayed by my lack of familiarity with Kel Tek, my favorable impression of Beretta, the tip-up barrel and the heavier frame (which I thought would help with recoil).

I should have listened to my son, who has known far more than me about guns ever since he was ten years old. My bad. Sorry Eddie.

It turned out that the Beretta was not to my wife's liking because it was just too hard for her to operate. Racking the slide, closing the tip-up barrel, operating the safety and even opening the tip-up barrel all required too much force for her to enjoy shooting this little pistol, so my son and I reclaimed it and got something else for my wife.

All in all, the Beretta Tomcat 3032 that we bought has been a disappointment, largely because of the problems I had with the safety mechanism, which seems to reflect a design or materials flaw of some sort.

Shortly after we bought the little pistol for my wife, the safety lever got stuck in the OFF position. Nothing we tried would free the lever, so we took it to a local gun shop where there is a gunsmith we like and trust. The pistol never even reached our gunsmith, though, because the shop wouldn't work on it. I don't recall exactly why not, but the reason had something to do with Beretta policies. We had the gun shop mail the Tomcat to Beretta for warranty repair.

When the Tomcat came back the safety lever worked again, but in very short order the same problem occurred again. Nothing we did would free up the safety, which remained stuck in the OFF position. I cursed Beretta and put the thing away, and only took it shooting once since then.

Last night I came across the pistol as we were getting ready to go shooting today, and I decided to try to deal with the stuck safety one last time.

Here's a picture of the pistol. You can make out the safety lever in the upper right, shown in the OFF positon because the lever was stuck.

The following picture shows the safety lever in more detail, and you can see the red "safety off" indicator.

Following is an extract from the owner's manual showing three of the four parts involved in the mis-operation of the safety lever.

It's a little hard to visualize how part number 25, the safety lever, relates to the pictures I'm posting of the pistol, but consider that the schematic drawing is rotated 180 degrees about its up/down axis relative to the position of the pistol in the pictures I'm posting. In the schematic, the images are on the far side of the pistol, which would be pointed to the right. The long, downward-pointing shaft on part 25, the safety lever, traverses the frame of the pistol. Spring 27 fits into a small hole in the main body of the safety lever 25, and safety plunger 26 fits into the spring, which pushes the plunger up against a Safety Plunger Contact Pin shown in the picture below.

Sorry, it looks like you might have to click on the pictures to show them in a bigger size in order to be able to read the red text that attempts to explain what is shown.

In the picture above, the safety is OFF (rotated down).

In the picture below, the safety is ON (rotated up). Note in the picture below that the tip of the Safety Plunger (part 26) is visible, whereas it is not seen in the picture above because it is rotated to a position underneath the Safety Plunger Contact Pin. In the picture below, you can see the tip of the Safety Plunger because the safety is in the ON position (rotated up), and the Safety Plunger has rotated to a position above the Safety Plunger Contact Pin.

So, you can see how, when you rotate the safety back and forth between the OFF (down) position and the ON (up) position, the Safety Plunger (part 26) has to slide past the Safety Plunger Contact Pin, in the process compressing the Safety Plunger Spring (part 27), which releases after rotation is complete in order to secure the safety lever in its new position.

Here's another picture that might further clarify things, in which the safety lever has again been placed in the OFF (down) position, and the Safety Plunger is no longer visible, having been rotated back underneath the Safety Plunger Contact Pin:

As I was Googling this problem I came across forum posts in which people said they had lost the Safety Plunger while trying to deal with their pistol's issues, so I was aware the thing might take off. I was very careful about that when I removed the grip to try to get at whatever ailed the safety. Sure enough, the damned Safety Plunger came out anyway, but at least it landed right on the table where I could see it.

Fortunately, now that I think I know what the problem is, it should not be necessary to disassemble the thing to this extent to get the safety lever to work if it is stuck.

If the safety lever is stuck in the OFF position, it should be possible to free it by pushing on it with a small instrument of some sort as illustrated in the picture below.

You can't see the tip of the Safety Plunger when the safety is OFF (lever down), but by carefully feeling around for the Safety Plunger as shown above, applying a little pressure to push down the Saftey Plunger, and simultaneously applying reasonable upward force on the safety lever, you should be able to free the safety lever.

I think what's happened is that either the Safety Plunger tip, or the Safety Plunger Contact Pin, or both, are insufficiently polished and/or insufficiently hardened, and until they are polished enough by repeated rotation of the safety lever there is too much friction, which effectively locks the safety lever in the OFF position because one is reluctant to apply more force to the lever for fear of breaking something. As it was, I don't think I could have exerted much more force on the safety lever without a pair of pliers (which would probably have been a stupid thing to try).

I suppose the problem could be something else entirely, but clearly, there is an issue for Beretta to deal with. Maybe it's a manufacturing defect in my particular gun, where the Safety Plunger hole is drilled at the wrong angle. Maybe the Safety Plunger wasn't machined correctly, but then why didn't they catch that when they worked on this gun? Maybe the Safety Plunger Contact Pin is not positioned correctly in the frame due to some manufacturing issue. Maybe the Safety Plunger Spring is too strong. Whatever.

I don't know, but it seems that the safety lever on this particular Beretta Tomcat is now working correctly as a function of repeated rotations having polished the contact points of the Safety Plunger and the Safety Plunger Contact Pin, thereby reducing friction between them to an acceptable level.

I hope this was a unique circumstance with this one pistol, but that seems unlikely at the moment. I know I could have benefited from a post like this as I searched the Internet, so here it is in case anybody else has this problem.

Beretta, you owe me.

Just minarets?

2009-11-29T10:45:00.001-07:00

I wasn't able to find, in the short time it was worth, the wording of the Swiss proposal to ban the minaret, but I gather it specified minarets and not steeples or other intrusive religious power structures.

To the extent the measure was specific to the islamic symbol, I would not have supported it because of the discriminatory nature of the ban.

Want to ban minarets? I'd be all in favor, but only if you ban steeples, too.

in reference to: Swiss voters 'back ban on building of minarets' - Times Online (view on Google Sidewiki)

"The American people," Senator McConnell?

2009-11-22T11:35:00.001-07:00

> "The American people are asking us to stop
> this bill and we're going to do anything and
> everything we can to prevent this measure from
> becoming law," [Senator McConnell] said.

No, Senator McConnell, "the American people" are most certainly NOT asking any such thing of you.

What's being asked of you, and not by "the American people," is to preserve present arrangements. The ones asking it of you are 1) special interests making big money from the status quo and 2) ideologues, along with followers manipulated into believing in death panels.

"The American people." Whenever I hear or read that phrase it sets off my bullshit alarm.

in reference to:

""The American people are asking us to stop this bill and we're going to do anything and everything we can to prevent this measure from becoming law," he said."
- BBC News - US healthcare bill passes first Senate hurdle in vote (view on Google Sidewiki)

Incomplete

2009-09-23T17:49:00.001-07:00

The topic of human overpopulation being taboo, this article in incomplete. If prominent projections come true, the world will add two Chinas worth of people in the next few decades. All the while, people everywhere wish to raise their standards of living. In the meantime, we've already depleted vast ocean areas of important species of fish, created vast ocean dead zones, raised the temperature and acidity of the oceans, melted the snows of Kilimanjaro and freshwater glaciers the world over. And so on and on and on...

Articles like this one report selected facts but don't really educate or inform.

in reference to: Earth needs users' guide to protect it from people | Green Business | Reuters (view on Google Sidewiki)

Loose Lips in High Places...

2009-02-14T09:35:00.003-07:00

What happened, Senator Feinstein? Was it a simple mistake? How about an explanation?

The attack followed the statement in Congress on Friday by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the pilotless aircraft take off from a base inside Pakistan.

“As I understand, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” Ms. Feinstein said during a hearing attended by the director of U.S. national intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair. In his testimony, Admiral Blair said that the drone attacks had achieved their goal. “Al Qaeda today is less capable and effective than it was a year ago,” he said.

The drone attacks, especially in the last six months, have increased anti-American sentiment in Pakistan to very high levels. Ms. Feinstein’s acknowledgment that the flights have the tacit support of the Pakistani government is likely to further inflame the protests over the flights. Her statement was prominently covered the Pakistani press Saturday morning.

Link

Damn!

Fat Fucking Chance!

2009-02-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

NATO commander: Afghanistan drug raids imminent - Yahoo! News:

'Activities and actions will occur soon that will be helpful,' Craddock told reporters.

Fat fucking chance, unless you are candid about to whom the actions will be helpful.

Freedom of Information Act

2009-01-25T14:03:00.001-07:00

Freedom of Information Act:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act

"In the face of doubt, openness prevails."

Sounds good to me.

Change.org

2009-01-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

Change.org

Change.org Criminal Justice

End Federal Raids on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Dear President Obama,

I am writing to you, via the facilities of change.org, in support of the notion you espoused during the campaign, of ending federal raids on medical marijuana facilities. Please see to it that these raids end.

These raids are part of a federal program that does not work, and I will hold you, too, to your pledge to end programs that do not work. The program I refer to is the so-called War on Drugs, which is better described as a War on Some Drugs.

I am continually amazed at the stupidity represented by our national drugs policy. Our policies do not serve national interests - they serve special interests. Our drug policies are anti-democratic, authoritarian and wasteful. Our drug policies create scofflaws. Our drug policies create and exacerbate problems in and for other countries.

National drugs policy is just about the stupidest goddamned thing I've ever seen. Please stop the waste and the intrusions into people's lives. Please end medical marijuana raids.

Sincerely,

Steve Sturgill in Phoenix

MLK

2009-01-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Nice Pictures

2009-01-18T16:16:00.003-07:00

My best wishes and congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Obama. I hope that those who say Mr. Obama has the makings of a great president are right, and I think they might well be.

I have a feeling that Mrs. Obama will make a fine First Lady.

Nice pictures.

LEAP - Press Releases › Congress Threatens El Paso Over Drug Legalization Debate

2009-01-14T13:18:00.005-07:00

LEAP - Press Releases › Congress Threatens El Paso Over Drug Legalization Debate

An El Paso City Council resolution was amended to include the words, "supporting an honest, open, national debate on ending the prohibition on narcotics."

The resolution was vetoed by the Mayor, whose excuse was concern over the loss of Federal funds.

The Mayor and Council received a letter from Congressman Silvestre Reyes, and another letter from a group of Texas state representatives, as stated in the LEAP post linked above. I don't know if I would have read a threat into these letters, but in the language of the politician maybe a threat was exactly the intent.

What stands out to me is the text of the letter to the Mayor and Council of El Paso by Texas State Representatives Pickett, Quintanilla, Moody, Chavez and Marquez. Whether or not the letter conveys a threat, it certainly conveys stupidity. How in the world these Texas State Representatives got from

supporting an honest, open, national debate on ending the prohibition on narcotics

ask[ing] the federal government to legalize narcotics ... says "we give up and we don't care"

is beyond me.

Our national drug policy is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen.

Clarence Page: Our Drug War Next Door

2009-01-14T11:41:00.005-07:00

Clarence Page: Our Drug War Next Door:

When you step back and take a broad look at Mexico's growing carnage, it's easy to see why El Paso's city leaders think legalization doesn't look so bad. Mexico's drug problem is not the drugs. It is the illegality of the drugs.

Legalization is not the perfect solution. But treating currently illegal drugs in the way we treat liquor and other legal addictive substances would provide regulation, tax revenue and funds for rehabilitation programs. Most satisfying, it would wipe a lot of smiles off the current drug lords' faces.

Yes. What he said.

Our national drug policy is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen.

TinEye Reverse Image Search

2009-01-13T17:40:00.003-07:00

TinEye Reverse Image Search

Well, I'm impressed.

Yesterday I read about TinEye on Cool Tools. This afternoon I found that my wife had forwarded to me an email she received, which contained this picture.

I thought the picture was funny, remembered the piece in Cool Tools, went back to the reader and clicked the TinEye link. After signing up for the service, I took a screen shot of the picture and uploaded it. In about a second they came back with 30 or 40 matches, which can be sorted various ways.

You can either upload an image or provide a URL to a picture already on the Internet.

They have a feature that allows you to toggle between the version of the picture you uploaded (or linked) and the versions they found on the Internet, so that you can do a flip flip comparison of picture quality. I'm not sure how valid that is given that all the images are presented in one size, whereas the pixel counts and aspect ratios vary. The result I got was that the screenshot version I uploaded was better than any of the larger-pixel-count versions they found. Maybe that's because I told SnagIt to make a high-quality jpeg file rather than standard.

If they don't make a match, the answer why is presented right there, which says that it's probably because they have only indexed 1.1 billion photos so far. Seems like a billion is such a small number nowadays...

In the privacy statement they say they don't add any pictures you upload for comparison to any index, and I guess they don't keep it. I didn't really care, but that's good. Of course, merchants are not supposed to keep your credit card's security number either.

Interesting site. I hope they succeed. I wonder what their business model will be. Photographer's copyright protection maybe?

Inaugural Invitation

2009-01-11T13:43:00.004-07:00

It's a commemorative invitation, not an event ticket, but it's still pretty cool.

Heavy card stock, embossed emblem, but mostly it's the name Obama that makes it memorable.

I think I'll keep it.

Ten Minute Minchin Storm Poem

2008-12-28T09:04:00.002-07:00

YouTube

Pick five, any five

2008-12-20T09:03:00.001-07:00

What Matters Most to You?:

The National Academies want to develop websites, podcasts, and printed information featuring the topics in science, engineering, and medicine that concern you the most, and that you’d like to understand better. Please take a few moments to let us know what you think.

The survey takes only 2 minutes. Your opinion counts!

Brain Boosting FAQ: What You Must Know

2008-12-12T05:23:00.001-07:00

Brain Boosting FAQ: What You Must Know

Polls suggest that as many as one in five scientists already take brain-boosting drugs -- usually the stimulants Ritalin, Adderall, or Provigil.

And there's nothing wrong with that, suggest the authors of a provocative editorial in this week's issue of the science journal Nature.

"We call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs," they write. The editorial also calls for further research into the risks and benefits of using drugs in this way.

It's a prominent list of authors:
...

I'm no scientist, but I am my own ethicist, so I went to my doctor a couple of months ago and asked him for a prescription for Provigil, which I wanted in order to check out the anti-sleepiness effect and the cognitive boost. Mostly the latter. He said No, it wasn't indicated, and he was cautions about the possibility of severe side effects, as small as the odds may be.

"Get more sleep," he told me. Yeah, I know, but that's just not working out. Not enough time in the day to do the things I want to do.

Oh, well...

Is it cheating or unnatural to use brain-boosting drugs?

Yes, say critics such as Leon R. Kass, MD, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics. It is cheating. But even worse, it's unnatural.

"One major trouble with biotechical (especially mental) 'improvers' is that they produce changes in us by disrupting the normal character of human being-at-work-in-the-world ... which, when find and full, constitutes human flourishing," Kass wrote in 2003. "With biotechnical interventions that skip the realm of intelligible meaning, we cannot really own the transformations nor experience them as genuinely ours."

This loss, Kass argues, subtracts from our humanity.

Bullshit, Dr. Kass. Bullshit.

KopBusters- Barry Cooper goes undercover to expose Odessa Police :: Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

2008-12-06T17:22:00.001-07:00

KopBusters- Barry Cooper goes undercover to expose Odessa Police :: Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Good for Barry Cooper! More power to Barry Cooper!

I think I'll show some support. It'll have to be later, though, because his shopping site is down due to high traffic as I type. I hope it's due to many new supporters surfing to Cooper's web site, not because of some authoritarian schmuck's denial of service attack.

More.

Conscientious Objector to ONDCP's "Moral Seriousness"

2008-12-06T10:28:00.003-07:00

Hit & Run > John Walters' Well-Kept Secret: 'Our Drug Policy Is a Success' - Reason Magazine

"The good news in drug policy," Walters writes, "is that we know what works, and that is moral seriousness." Moral seriousness on this subject would require taking into account half a million nonviolent drug offenders behind bars, the victims of black market violence, avoidable deaths caused by the unreliable quality and unsanitary practices that prohibition fosters, the risk-premium subsidy to thugs and terrorists, the corruption of law enforcement officials, and the loss of civil liberties resulting from the drug war's perversion of the Constitution. Walters' claim to moral seriousness is therefore hard to take seriously. I'd settle for a little bit of intellectual seriousness from whomever Barack Obama chooses to succeed Walters, but it seems to be incompatible with the job.

Yesterday I happened upon the John Walters piece in the online WSJ that Jacob Sullum responds to above. The claim to moral seriousness by Mr. Walters jumped out at me immediately and filled me with contempt and disrespect.

Our national drug policy is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen.

I am a conscientious objector in the War on Some Drugs.

Appeals court rules no jury trial for strippers

2008-12-05T07:31:00.003-07:00

Appeals court rules no jury trial for strippers | Arizona Politics | eastvalleytribune.com

Hmmm... Let's see...

People accused of violating city ordinances ... are not entitled to ... a jury, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

... The judges said the right to trial by jury is not available to everyone.

...

... two sections of the Arizona Constitution guarantee the right of a trial by jury. But he said those provisions are not absolute.

One governs only crimes which were eligible for jury trials when Arizona became a state in 1912. The other covers crimes the Legislature or whoever adopted the law considered "serious," regardless of the punishment available.

...

As to the issue of whether the crime is "serious," Thompson said the general rule of thumb is that no right of a jury trial exists for misdemeanors which have a punishment of no greater than six months in jail. That is the maximum penalty for the charges at issue here.

...

Six months in jail sounds pretty damned serious to me. In any event, if it's not serious, why is all this time and money being tied up in dealing with it. Are there no truly serious issues at hand?

Damned puritans...
.
.
.

Light Echo Mind Warp

2008-12-02T06:37:00.009-07:00

NASA's APOD site featured a four-frame animated GIF of this sequence of shots back in 2003. Yesterday, the Boston Globe's Big Shot feed featured a larger, five-frame version at the top of their growing Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008.

What appears to be a spectacular explosion, complete with ejected matter, is actually a "light echo".

(By the way, I snagged the pictures in this post from this HubbleSite news release and included them here for better flow.)

Light echo? What seemed, at first, to be a pretty simple concept, got more complicated the more I thought about it. Eventually I just let it go, but now I think I've got it.

OK, the basic idea of a light echo is pretty simple. Shine a flashlight on something and see the light echo off of it. Look at the night sky and see the sun's light echo off of the moon. Simple, so what was my problem?

The star V838 Mons had been observed producing a tremendous burst of light, like a strobe flashing light in all directions. Once. Think of an old-time flash bulb.

I could easily envision a spherical shell of light expanding outwards from the central source. Obviously, when that thin, expanding shell of light encounters something, it illuminates it for the duration of the original flash, and then the shell moves on. Whatever we see in these dramatic images, we see thanks to the original, central flash of light echoing off of the matter it encounters as its thin, sperical shell expands at the speed of light.

Once I accepted the notion that what we see is not ejecta from an explosion, but rather, illumination of matter that was already there, things got a little bit clearer.

But wait! How could it be that, whereas we'd already seen the original light pass the Earth's position some time back, now we're seeing that same light bounced off of matter surrounding the star from whence said light came?

Well, light that bounced of of something before it reached you had to take a longer path, so it took longer to get here.

Yes, but look at the image. We're seeing light supposedly bounced off a shell of matter surrounding the flash star, which is presumably at the center of the illuminated matter. The distance from Earth to the star is much, much greater than the apparent distance from one edge of the illuminated matter back to the central flash point. How could the expanding shell of light have illuminated that surrounding matter that we see in the images after we've long since seen the original flash from the star? Something didn't seem to make sense to me.

What I had failed to assimilate is the concept illustrated below:

The matter off of which the light from the flash is echoing (the reason we can see it) is actually only coming from a small part of the spherical shell of light from the original flash, the part behind the star that flashed. The distance from edge to edge of the image we see is defined by an almost flat, circular disc within the thickness of the spherical shell (which thickness is the duration of the original flash times the speed of light). The reason it's an almost flat disk is that all of the light in the image had to arrive at the Hubble at about the same time, which means it must have originated at the intersection of the two spheres defined by the flash sphere and the sphere defined by the distance from the Hubble to the back edge of the flash sphere (which is essentially a plain within the tiny piece of that much larger sphere).

Maybe I can draw a picture to illustrate this, but it'll have to be later.

I feel SO much better now that I think I have a decent understanding of this "light echo" business. The picture is not of traveling ejecta, and it is not of interstellar matter surrounding the flash star. The picture is of matter behind the flash star that was illuminated by the original flash. The distance from the flash star to the back surface of the spherical shell of flashed light, and then back to the flash star (on its way to the Hubble), defines the difference in time between the original flash and its echo as seen here on Earth by the Hubble Space Telescope.

I'll have to try to wordsmith this a bit more, but later. Stuff to take care of now.

Amazing stuff.

Phishing and Spam IQ Quiz by SonicWALL

2008-11-26T11:57:00.001-07:00

Phishing and Spam IQ Quiz by SonicWALL

I really didn't expect to get 100% right on this quiz, but I did. There were some questions in which it was not clear to me whether the thing was a phish or not, but if I had received something like it I would have treated it as a phish.

I think this was a very good and useful exercise. On the results page at the end you can click a "Why?" link for information about why each example was, or wasn't, a phish.

Good on SonicWALL for hosting this quiz.

I guess the bottom line is to be very suspicious of links in emails. There are some sneaky bastards out there.

Illusion of progress

2008-11-26T11:17:00.001-07:00

Fraser: The illusion of progress in the drug war - Milford, MA - The Milford Daily News

Perhaps the non-performing drug war programs are not really expected to deliver on their publicly stated goals, but continue because they serve a very different purpose.

Perhaps? Perhaps??

The author is correct, of course, and goes on to mention politicians pandering to authoritarians, preservation of funding and job security for prison operators and guards.

I wonder how likely it is that "black budget hiding place" is a big reason for continuance of the War on Some Drugs? Seems likely to me, along with usefulness in certain covert operations.

I don't know anything except that national drug policy is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen. Not to worry, though, because President Obama has promised to end programs that don't work.

Hole Into Space

2008-11-24T09:27:00.002-07:00

Wow.

The level of ignorance in the Arab world is staggering.

I recently re-deployed from a 14 month combat tour in northern Iraq, near the city of Kirkuk. This is a very secular area, relatively peaceful and with good education.

Early in our deployment, some of our Soldiers were talking with one of the Iraqi Army units in the area at their headquarters. The Iraqi Army (IA) officers were university educated, secular professional soldiers, most of whom held rank during the Saddam era.

As usual, a TV set was on, and everyone watched as a Space Shuttle launched toward the ISS. A short time into the launch, the shuttle began it's roll program to head East and gain advantage from the Earth's rotation. Some of the IA officers began chattering in Arabic, and the translator said they were talking about the Shuttle heading for Israel.

When American officers asked what they meant, they explained (as to idiots) that the Shuttle had to aim for the hole into space left after the Mohammed ascended into heaven all those years ago.

The clinching evidence? When Columbia and Challanger were destroyed, it was because THEY MISSED THE HOLE INTO SPACE!

This was not expressed as a joke, or as a religious story - it was explained as a simple "truth".

Mind boggling.

2008 List / Google Docs

2008-11-22T23:34:00.002-07:00

sls gift list
Desktop bell
Sundial
Prism
Fresnel Lens Magnifying Glass
4 oz. bottle of UltraGlow paint
Uranium Glass Marbles
Zero Blaster
Radiometer
K7 Truncated Octahedron
50 of these S4G's

-------------------------------------------------
This was really just a test of publishing from Google Docs directly to the blog. Worked OK except for extra blank lines between the items, which I edited out in the Blogger editor.

I learned that when you publish a document in Google Docs (to the web, not the blog), if you also share it with the people you invite to look at it (if you set them up as Collaborator anyway, probably not as Viewer), links in the document won't work unless the person goes "File -> View as web page" (using the document's File menu, not the browser's File menu).

I suppose the rationale is that if someone is a Collaborator, then it's logical that they'll want to edit the document, and during editing the links don't work. I think that's consistent with Word, in which you have to hit some key combination along with the click of the link if you want to follow the link.

I really don't have any need to collaborate with people on any documents, but if I ever do, I think Google Docs will work fine.

Vision for America

2008-11-21T21:17:00.005-07:00

I responded to a solicitation from the Obama transition team for a donation towards the inaugural ceremonies, for which the new administration will not accept the usual corporate and lobbyist cash. Since I like that, I sent in some money.

Along the way there was a request for people's visions for the country. Well, "vision for the country" is somewhat more expansive than the writing I was prepared to do, but prompted by having just looked at the annual report from the Drug Policy Alliance, I figured What the heck, and sent in the following:

This is just a little piece of my vision for the country. Writing about "my vision" will take a little longer than the time and space I have here.

One element of the vision I have for the country involves the War on Some Drugs, private prisons, privacy rights and individual responsibility.

Our national drug policy is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen. It does not serve the public interest, but does very nicely for certain special interests, including drug warriors, drug producers and merchants, various vendors, and several others.

The War on Some Drugs wastes something on the order of 60 billion dollars per year while furthering erosion of civil rights (and foregoing significant tax revenue that could be raised in a legal market). All the while, it advances abominations like civil forfeiture, breeds scofflaws and creates antipathy among our neighbors to the south.

ONDCP's mandate to counter efforts to change the law is an affront to liberty that gives rise to some of the most risible propaganda I've ever seen.

If the country can somehow achieve rationality in dealing with the drugs problem (and it is a problem, just not a law enforcement problem), my hopes for the future will be raised.

Thoughts on energy and the environment | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

2008-11-21T18:19:00.002-07:00

Inside the Transition: Your thoughts on energy and the environment | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team: "Heather Zichal"

I like what the transition team is doing with their updates and requests for input. They are making it hard for the cynic in me to come out.

They asked for thoughs, so I submitted this:

You know, watching Heather Zichal's video update (great job presenting!) I was left hoping that your energy and environment team has some heavy technical hitters on board. By this I mean people who have an appreciation for the concept of embedded energy, people who understand the concept of base load and the need for energy storage as a part of the renewables picture, and people who understand why we need more nuclear energy as quickly as it can be brought on board. (McCain was right about this.)

I think that energy security is, bar none, the most important issue (possibly in a first place tie with one or two others), but my continued sense that Democrats fear nuclear energy and will fight it rather than nurture it worries me greatly.

Along these lines, Heather's reference to the "cars, trucks and SUV's of tomorrow" discouraged me because what is needed is not SUV's of tomorrow, but the elimination of the "need" for SUV's tomorrow.

Please make sure you have credible technical people, and a mix of them, of your team. Amory Lovins is great but I don't think he should be left unsupervised. Make sure you've got technical representation from among the Peak Oil community. Talk to Robert Hirsch of SAIC, Matt Simmons of Simmons & Company.

And, for God's sake, banish the idea of corn ethanol! I know Mr. Obama is from Illinois, but corn ethanol is a bad move anyway because of its marginal energy return and impact on food prices.

I get the impression that energy discussions among the transition team are being held among political people, and I'm not confident that you've got sufficient technical/scientific representation.

One more thing, please don't even consider Robert Kennedy for a high, policy making role. His stance on thimerosal in vaccines bucks the overwhelming consensus of the relevant scientific community. He reminds me of greenhouse gas skeptics, and I don't think he's qualified to head an agency so dependent on science as the EPA.

Good luck!

The 63 Questions

2008-11-21T11:16:00.003-07:00

The 63 Questions the Obama Administration Must Answer | Background Check News
-
Apparently, Change.gov does not offer the famous 63-question questionnaire for download. Instead, you have to submit a statement of interest in a job with the Obama administration. Once they're interested in you, they'll ask you to answer the 63 questions.

You can see the questionnaire in the form of a scanned PDF at various places, or read the thing in text form at the Crimcheck website. Thanks for that, Crimcheck. Classy of you to host your own copy of the PDF and, especially, to transcribe the questionnaire into text.
[Update: I put the text here.]

Right wingers seem to be looking at this extensive questionnaire as an example of Obama hypocrisy, noting, for instance, that much of the questionnaire was off limits regarding Mr. Obama himself during the campaign. I don't know about that and I doubt if it is true, but I don't care because it is irrelevant.

I guess the purpose for such an extensive questionnaire is to try to avoid the avoidable during the confirmation process, which is probably a good thing to try to do. Zoe Baird might have been confirmed (or she might have been disqualified, thereby avoiding the whole issue) if her employment of domestic servants had been known about as a potential issue up front, and dealt with appropriately. Giuliani's buddy, the one who wanted to be boss of homeland security, is another example where an extensive questionnaire might have come in handy.

I don't see anything wrong with the questionnaire, except that it might deter some good applicants from applying for lesser posts (applicants for posts requiring confirmation already know they're in for a wringer). It's like one of those forms you fill out for a security clearance, only on steroids.

Most of the questions would be easy for me to answer simply because I'm a nobody who keeps his meager financial affairs simple. I'd be uncertain about some answers, such as whether the guys I hired to trim my palm trees were legally eligible to work in the U.S. at the time. Hell, I don't know!

Question 59 is, well, questionable.

59. Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any person injuries or property damage.

The question sticks out like a lion in Alaska, and its inclusion in the questionnaire indicates a lapse of judgment on the part of the transition team (though it may be in keeping with the general temperament there).

Yes!

2008-11-18T09:32:00.002-07:00

At the end of the day, I personally shouldn't of wrote this, even if it does, with all due respect, absolutely present a fairly unique synergy of outside the box thinking and low-hanging fruit.

Going forward, I'll bring to the table a proactive, high-level paradigm shift that will take cliches to the next level by drilling down to the core competencies of interpersonal linguistic efficiency.

The fact of the matter is, though, irregardless of the leverage gained by ignoring granularity as a long-pole item, commenter speed1961 did it, like, better than I myself.

Also, many thanks to commenter shwonline. Priceless!

Dealing with piracy?

2008-11-18T08:48:00.001-07:00

The Reality-Based Community: International law query

l tend to agree with Eugene Volokh and Kenneth Anderson that the Somali piracy problem might represent an opportunity for the Obama Administration to assert international leadership. I don't understand the operational issues here, but if Google Earth can show street traffic it shouldn't be hard to spot pirates.
Apparently part of the problem is what to do with captured pirates, and in particular their potential asylum claims in whatever country catches and tries them.
That raises a question.
When a pirate ship is sunk by naval forces, is there an affirmative duty to rescue the crew? If not, then the question of whether the pirate crews have rights of asylum might not arise. If the duty exists and is triggered by the presence of ships capable of effecting the rescue, then the use of long-range air-to-surface or ship-to-ship missiles might make rescue infeasible.

Come on. Using a long-range weapon on the basis that it renders an otherwise obligatory rescue infeasible is no different, morally, from sailing away after letting them have it with a Vulcan cannon or something.

The idea of using an expensive missile to shield yourself from a supposed obligation to rescue, and possibly provide asylum to a fucking criminal, is absurd.

This is why we are collectively incapable of dealing with terrorists or making quick work of war. I am not in favor of ineffectual and half-assed anti-piracy policies, which is all we'll get with this kind of thinking.

Good for her!

2008-11-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press: Dunwoody becomes first female four-star general

John Dean on danger from the Republicans

2008-11-14T09:43:00.002-07:00

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Evidence Establishes, without Question, that Republican Rule Is Dangerous: Why It Is High Time to Fix This Situation, For the Good of the Nation:

Frankly, the fact that the pre-election polls are close - after eight years of authoritarian leadership from Bush and Cheney, and given its disastrous results - shows that many Americans either do not realize where a McCain/Palin presidency might take us, or they are happy to go there. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me, for there is only one way to deal with these conservative zealots: Keep them out of power.

That from Richard Nixon's White House Counsel. He ought to know.

The leading authority on right-wing authoritarianism, a man who devoted his career to developing hard empirical data about these people and their beliefs, is Robert Altemeyer. Altemeyer, a social scientist based in Canada, flushed out these typical character traits in decades of testing.

Altemeyer believes about 25 percent of the adult population in the United States is solidly authoritarian (with that group mostly composed of followers, and a small percentage of potential leaders). It is in these ranks of some 70 million that we find the core of the McCain/Palin supporters. They are people who are, in Altemeyer's words, are "so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds."

Altemeyer made his book, The Authoritarians, (which came to my attention a couple of years ago thanks to Pete Guither) freely available via the Internet. He's added a postscript on the 2008 election, which concludes

Almost nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing the research on authoritarian personalities become totally irrelevant, now that we have seemingly put the nightmare behind us and begun anew. I’d much rather people get interested in my next book instead, which is about a far more pleasant subject: my studies of the sexual behavior of university students. But I’m afraid www.theauthoritarians.com will remain worth people’s visiting for the next little while at least.

Palin says a woman on 2012 ticket would be good for GOP - USATODAY.com

2008-11-14T07:58:00.001-07:00

Palin says a woman on 2012 ticket would be good for GOP - USATODAY.com

Not necessarily. It depends on the candidate.

In any event, the Republicans will pick a few more bible-type conservatives, loose more elections, and eventually come back a changed party. David Brooks sounds about right to me.

Africa Palin

2008-11-13T09:33:00.001-07:00

A Fake Expert Named Martin Eisenstadt and a Phony Think Tank Fool Bloggers and the Mainstream News Media - NYTimes.com:

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

That one was so outrageous that anyone should have seen through it. Hell, I did, and I almost wanted it to be true.

Maybe it will turn out that these guys performed a public service with their hoax. Even assholes serve a purpose, I guess.

But the truth was out for all to see long before the big-name take-downs. For months sourcewatch.org has identified Martin Eisenstadt as a hoax. When Mr. Stein was the victim, he blogged that “there was enough info on the Web that I should have sussed this thing out.”

And then there is William K. Wolfrum, a blogger who has played Javert to Eisenstadt’s Valjean, tracking the hoaxster across cyberspace and repeatedly debunking his claims. Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish praised his tenacity, adding that the news media could learn something from him.

“As if there isn’t enough misinformation on this election, it was shocking to see so much time wasted on things that didn’t exist,” Mr. Wolfrum said in an interview.

And how can we know that Mr. Wolfrum is real and not part of the hoax?

Long pause. “Yeah, that’s a tough one.”

I wonder how much of what I think it true, isn't? Now that I think about it, though, I've thought in terms of probabilities for a long time now. Things aren't true, just "probably true" or "almost certainly true", or false, and so on. Sometimes I actually place a number on something, and error bars.

Probabilities and error bars...

"Sad episode"

2008-11-11T10:14:00.001-07:00

BBC NEWS | Europe | Hitmen 'killed matadors' horses':

[owners of killed horses] hoped justice would at last be done

Justice.

The justice that comes to my mind is that imposed by the Overlords, in one of my all-time favorite books, Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.

I'm not European, and my own country commits its fair share of stupidities, but the fact that the EU subsidizes bullfighting is just bizarre.

Just as boxing, ultimate fighting championships, prostitution, drug use, and most other human activities objectionable to some should not be banned, bullfighting should not be banned.

Were I European, though, I'd be very angry about hefty subsidies to the bullfighting industry, especially in the guise of agricultural subsidies.

Here's an interesting video from the archives of the European Parliament's EP Live.

Write Or Die : Dr Wicked's Writing Lab

2008-11-10T08:37:00.003-07:00

Hat tip to Lifehacker

Start test:

Well, this ought to be interesting.

The idea is to keep writing. Keep writing, and to do so, make use of automated prods. Keeping writing is one of the suggestions I received early on, but which can be tough to sustain. Write, write, write, and then go back later to cull, edit, sieve, harvest, and retrieve anything good that may have come out of the exercise.

This web app will prod you if you stop writing. There are several modes, such as gentle
\
ok I just hit the first prod. The screen went pink when I stopped wiring for something on the order of ten or 15 seconds. I think that the settings I went with will result in words beginning to disappear from the end if I stop for longer than that.

So far I've been writing to 6 and a half minutes, and I've written 143 words. I don't think I was very realistic in setting my target of 500 words in 10 minutes, but let's see what happens. [No, I was mistaken. The timer counts down, so I had 6 and a half minutes to go.]

I'm thinking I need to simply stop my tendency to backspace and correct things when I'm in this fast mode that I chose to try. Just go go go go go go go go, Het that's a way of chating the word count. I still can't resist the urget o hit the backspace key (did it twice, three times there) but now I'm at four minutes left and 232 words down.

This promises to be a useful device. I wonder if you can get it on a usb key, portable, to use at work, holy shit I waste a lot of time trying to compose stuff at work. maybe allocating five minutes to an email response would be useful. I think eventually you could retrain yourself to be much more productive a the keyboard

See, I'm gettig better already, as shown by the increas in errors. But who cares about errors when the object is to simply write down words for later polishing?

Logjam! Oh, shit, now what? Write! asshole! OK. Oh, man. take a break. See what the second prompt is. Stop now. Well, OK, the screen changed color starting at about 8 secnds, and went to red in one-second increments over about ten seconds. I didn't wait any longer to see what would happen [Apparently it starts making noise, but I don't have sound on this computer.] if I waited more. One minute to go, 389 words down.

Well, this has certainly been an interesting introduction to this web app. I think , no I know, I will be back to make further use of it, but I will be more realistic in my goal setting. 500 words in 10 minutes is pretty fucking intesne. Intense. 321

OK, the exercise is over. I got about 440 words down in ten minutes. Are they any good? Who cares. It was just a test. Could I go back and retrieve anything of value rom this forced stream of consciousness or whatever? maybe.

Congratulations Dr. Wicked! Very interesting. I'll be back.

	491

15

lab.drwicked.com

PS: There's a "Done" button in the web app that I did not click at the end of the ten minutes, which accounts for the 15 minutes stated in the banner above, and I did not stop typing at the end of ten minutes, which accounts for the higher number of words. Next time I'll get it wright (get it?).

Bali bombers buried in emotional ceremonies

2008-11-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

Bali bombers buried in emotional ceremonies
| Reuters:

Emotions ran high as thousands of people poured onto the streets for the funerals after the bodies were flown by helicopter to their home towns -- brothers Mukhlas and Amrozi to Tenggulun in East Java, and Samudra to Serang in West Java.

How stupid is it to facilitate this sort of thing? Flown by helicopter. Terrific. Brilliant!

Better that the announcement of impending execution be the last thing ever heard about crazy people like these. From firing squad to incinerator.

Change.gov

2008-11-08T07:06:00.003-07:00

Change.gov
Office of the President-Elect

Sounds good. "Change" looks good next to ".gov".

Blog

Suggestion form

Agenda

President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden have developed innovative approaches to challenge the status quo in Washington and to bring about the kind of change America needs.

The Obama Administration has a comprehensive and detailed agenda to carry out its policies. The principal priorities of the Obama Administration include: a plan to revive the economy, to fix our health care, education, and social security systems, to define a clear path to energy independence, to end the war in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and to work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, among many other domestic and foreign policy objectives.

OK, that's fine, but I'm disappointed to see "Science" seemingly tacked on as an afterthought. One of the big changes I want to see out of this Obama administration is a decent attitude towards science. It's probably reading too much into this to react badly to seeing "Science" alongside "Arts" and "Sportsmen" in the final, "Additional Issues" section, but it does not look good.

I didn't expect to see some of the particulars I'd have included, such as "Critical Thinking" in the "Education" section. Seeing Plug-In Hybrids referred to as "cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon" in the "Energy and Environment" section is annoying. But, hey, it's a start.

I don't like the idea, in the "Energy & Environment" section, of using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to cut prices, and I don't like the complete omission of nuclear energy. There's no way the country will even come close to reducing CO2 emissions by 80 percent by 2050 without including this atmospherically benign energy to the portfolio. Not while maintaining something approaching reasonable living standards, anyway.

Seeing two different drug-related issues in the "Civil Rights" section is somewhat encouraging. Eliminating sentencing disparities and expanding the use of drug courts are OK, as far as they go, but they are entirely insufficient. Among the items I did not expect to see was some mention of the fact that the ONDCP's mandate includes acting to prevent changes in the law (something that ought to be considered unconstitutional). Such a mandate hinders development of a more rational approach to the drugs problem than wasting untold billions of dollars per year to accomplish little except to serve the interests of the prison-cop complex, threaten liberty and corrupt us. I heard Candidate Obama state categorically that he'll end government programs that don't work. The War on Some Drugs clearly fits that category. We'll see.

Good luck, Mr. Obama, in your new job. So far I'm happy to have supported you. Keep it that way.

Moderates to blame for GOP losses, conservative leader says - CNN.com

2008-11-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Moderates to blame for GOP losses, conservative leader says - CNN.com

Oh, please.

There are conservatives and there are conservatives.

I can live with libertarian conservatives if they don't get too impractical, but fundie conservatives, the ones that overuse the word "family" and have a god on their side, are just annoying.

If their god is omnipotent, who are they to limit its ability to say different things to different people?

PAIN: Personal, Abrupt, Immoral and Now

2008-10-24T17:42:00.003-07:00

Daniel Gilbert, Harvard psychologist, gave a talk at Pop!Tech on why the threat of global warming fails to get our attention while the threat of terrorism consumes us.

In a nutshell, there are four characteristics of a threat that human brains have evolved sensitivity towards. Terrorism presents all four of these characteristics, global warming none.

Human agency (Personal):
Terrorism has a human face, global warming doesn't.

Rapidity (Abrupt):
Humans are good at spotting fast not slow, relative not absolute, changes.

Moral sensitivity (Immoral):
Emotions are raised around, say, food (nausea) and sex (disgrace), but we're oblivious to atmospheric chemistry.

Immediacy (Now):
Terrorism can kill you right now, global warming can't. The brain responds to present, not future, threats.

Sounds plausible to me.

The talk is available at the following links:
The Psychology of Global Warming I (YouTube)
The Psychology of Global Warming II (YouTube)
The Psychology of Global Warming (view or download from Pop!Tech)

Irresolution

2008-10-24T09:10:00.001-07:00

Op-Ed Contributor - From Beirut to 9/11 - NYTimes.com
This piece by Robert McFarlane, former Middle East representative and national security advisor, concludes with

First, however, we must win in Afghanistan — truly the decisive battleground in this global struggle. Never has there been a greater need for experience and judgment in the White House. Unless our next president understands the complexity of the challenge as well as what it will take to succeed, and can lead his cabinet and our country in resolute execution of that strategy, we will lose this war.

Mr. McFarlane's piece appears to be a between-the-lines endorsement of the McCain-Palin ticket. But if it was, why didn't he just come out with it? Is he being luke-warm towards the Republican ticket? Given the focus on Afghanistan, could it be a tentative endorsement of Obama-Biden?

Nah... He's got to be a McCain-Palin backer, possibly holding his nose.

As for his piece, a couple of paragraphs from the end he writes, in the context of cabinet policy debates and leadership, that

What is intolerable, however, is irresolution.

In the context of this editorial, that passage is a bit ironic.

I'm sympathetic to McFarlane's point, though. He may wish the Reagan administration had taken a more resolute approach to the kidnapping of US officials in Lebanon. Who knows what the details were, but on the first occasion that Soviet officials were kidnapped in Lebanon, the Soviets responded resolutely (with a certain savagery), got their people back and did not have that problem again. I wonder if McFarlane urged that sort of resoluteness on the Reagan administration.

It seems to me that an Obama-Biden administration has more potential than a McCain-Palin administration to understand

the complexity of the challenge as well as what it will take to succeed, and [be able to lead the] cabinet and our country in resolute execution of that strategy.

Time will tell, but we're in for a wild ride irrespective of how the election turns out.

Well, it's about &$(@! time!

2008-10-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide:

Colin Powell, a former Army general who served in three Republican administrations, declared his support for Barack Obama in an endorsement that may enhance the Democratic presidential nominee's standing to be commander in chief.

Now, where are are Shinseki and Sanchez? I don't recall hearing anything from Shinseki after he retired, but Sanchez pretty thoroughly blasted the administration. Where is he now?

Nasty Appeal to Ignorant Bigotry

2008-10-17T17:53:00.007-07:00

I took the red-bordered snapshot below of an email I received today. I'd love to know the identity of the lowlife who composed this trash. I'll simply refer to him or her as Mr. Lowlife.

Mr. Lowlife had to know that the book Mr. Obama is carrying is a serious, scholarly work authored by a well-regarded secular individual. The book is a best seller, it is not anti-American and it is not "a Muslim's view."

I Googled the phrase, "The Post-American World' -- it's a Muslim's view", and wound up looking at this page from the Modesto Bee's forums, which shows, by the date on which it was posted, that Mr. Lowlife's slime has been floating around for some time.

The message on the Modesto Bee's forum contains a link to the picture, not the picture itself. The link is to The New Republic, but not to The New Republic's post in which the picture was used. Lowlife's link was directly to the picture, with no mention of the context provided by the accompanying post.

Mr. Lowlife is a scumbag and a liar. He represents the worst aspects of America.

Mr. McCain could make some points, could display some leadership, by placing a Gallery of Shame prominently on his website under the banner, "DON'T DO THIS!" With this "Muslim's view" vomitus near the top of his Gallery of Shame, McCain could show that he was seriously trying to distance himself and his party from this sort of filthy tactic. He might actually swing some voters his way. But no.

Disgusting. I have such contempt...

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/postamerican.asp

Response to a forwarded e-mail

2008-10-17T06:51:00.003-07:00

You may have received, or seen elsewhere, a letter from Joe Porter, of Champaign, Illinois, about Mr. McCain's qualifications, and Mr. Obama's lack of qualification, for the Presidency. The entire letter, as I received it, is reproduced below along with my comments.

(Forwards and email addresses deleted.)

THIS LETTER MAKES MORE SENSE THAN ANYTHING I HAVE SEEN, HEARD, OR READ, CONCERNING THE UPCOMING ELECTION...

I disagree.

IT'S A LETTER FROM= A U.S. CITIZEN... WHO LIVES IN ILLINOIS... AND OBVIOUSLY IS A 'SELF-THINKER'... NOT JUST A 'FOLLOWER'!!!

A proper self thinker would not have included a reference to Obama's "Muslim background".

IF YOU ONLY READ ONE THING, REGARDING THIS ELECTION... LET THIS BE THE ONE THING!! AFTER READING IT, YOU WILL PROBABLY WANT TO FORWARD IT TO OTHER AMERICANS WHO ARE 'SELF THINKERS'!!

There are plenty of "self thinkers" who favor Obama over McCain.

An impassioned letter from a 'nobody'. But he gives his telephone number at the end.

No, he doesn't.

The phone number at the bottom belongs to Ronald Hess, of Carlsbad California (who may want a new number by now).
The first line of the letter says, "My name is Joe Porter. I live in Champaign, Illinois."
See a reverse phone lookup: http://dexknows.whitepages.com/search/ReversePhone?phone=760.434.1395
Google "760 area code". It's not Illinois.

Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 3:19 PM
Subject: FW: A letter from Ilinois

Dear Friends:

My name is Joe Porter. I live in Champaign, Illinois. I'm 46 years old, a born-again Christian, a husband, a father, a small business owner, a veteran, and a homeowner. I don't consider myself to be either conservative or liberal, and I vote for the person, not Republican or Democrat. I don't believe there are 'two Americas ' but that every person in this country can be whomever and whatever they want to be if they'll just work to get there and nowhere else on earth can they find such opportunities. I believe our government should help those who are legitimately downtrodden, and should always put the interests of America first.

Joe Porter sounds like a nice guy. We seem to have a lot in common. Husband, father, homeowner, veteran, neither conservative or liberal. Neither Republican or Democrat. Good stuff. Me too. But Mr. Porter doesn't believe there are 'two Americas'. He's mistaken. Look around you, self-thinkers!

The purpose of this message is that I'm concerned about the future of this great nation. I'm worried that the silent majority of honest, hard-working, tax-paying people in this country have been passive for too long. Most folks I know choose not to involve themselves in politics. They go about their daily lives, paying their bills, raising their kids, and doing what they can to maintain the good life. They vote and consider doing so to be a sacred trust. They shake their heads at the political pundits and so-called 'news', thinking that what they hear is always spun by whomever is reporting it. They can't understand how elected officials can regularly violate the public trust with pork barrel spending. They don't want government handouts. They want the government to protect them, not raise their taxes for more government programs.

I can go along with that.

We are in the unique position in this country of electing our leaders. It's a privilege to do so. I've never found a candidate in any election with whom I agreed on everything. I'll wager that most of us don't even agree with our families or spouses 100% of the time. So when I step into that voting booth, I always try to look at the big picture and cast my vote for the man or woman who is best qualified for the job. I've hired a lot of people in my lifetime, and essentially that's what an election is - a hiring process. Who has the credentials? Whom do I want working for me? Whom can I trust to do the job right?

I can go along with that, too, except that this year I'm looking more at the party than the individuals running for office.

I'm concerned that a growing number of voters in this country simply don't get it. They are caught up in a fervor they can't explain, and calling it 'change'.
'Change what?', I ask.
'Well, we're going to change America', they say.
'In what way?', I query.
'We want someone new and fresh in= the White House', they exclaim.
'So, someone who's not a politician?', I say.
'Uh, well, no, we just want a lot of stuff changed, so we're voting for Obama', they state.
'So the current system, the system of freedom and democracy that has enabled a man to grow up in this great country, get a fine education, raise incredible amounts of money and dominate the news, and win his party's nomination for the White House, that system's all wrong?'
'No, no, that part of the system's okay we just need a lot of change.'

And so it goes. 'Change we can believe in.'

If Mr. Porter says the dialog above characterizes his experiences, then I guess it does. What it does not do, though, is reduce the certainty that a lot of change is required on fronts as diverse as health care, foreign policy, energy policy, education, regulation, law enforcement, trade agreements, civil rights and on and on.

Quite frankly, I don't believe that vague proclamations of change hold any promise for me. In recent months, I've been asking virtually everyone I encounter how they're voting. I live in Illinois, so most folks tell me they're voting for Barack Obama. But no one can really tell me why only that he's going to change a lot of stuff 'Change, change, change.' I have yet to find one single person who can tell me distinctly and convincingly why this man is qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on earth other than the fact that he claims he's going to implement a lot of change.

I share Mr. Porter's apparent disdain for the phrase, "Change we can believe in," but pointing out that people in your circle can't verbalize specifics doesn't discredit the candidate.

We've all seen the emails about Obama's genealogy, his upbringing, his Muslim background, and his church affiliations. Let's ignore this for a moment. Put it all aside. Then ask yourself, 'What qualifies this man to be my president? That he's a brilliant orator and talks about change?'

Obama's genealogy is irrelevant unless you're a racist. That he turned out OK as a result of his particular upbrining is evident. Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim, and any reference to "his Muslim background" discredits the author. Obama's church affiliations are pretty tame and less objectionable than Mr. McCain's courting of the sort of "agents of intolerance" he rightly criticized in times past.

CHANGE WHAT?

Friends, I'll be forthright with you I believe the American voters who are supporting Barack Obama don't have a clue what they're doing, as evidenced by the fact that not one of them - NOT ONE of them I've spoken to can spell out his qualifications. Not even the most liberal media can explain why he should be elected. Political experience? Negligible. Foreign relations? Non-existent. Achievements? Name one. Someone who wants to unite the country? If you haven't read his wife's thesis from Princeton, look it up on the web. This is who's lining up to be our next First Lady? The only thing I can glean from Obama's constant harping about change is that we're in for a lot of new taxes.

Not one can spell out Obama's qualifications? Come on now. Even if that assertion is true in Mr. Porter's experience, that the people Mr. Porter talks to can't satisfy him says nothing about the candidate.

Michelle Obama is an impressive woman, and she's going to make a fine First Lady.

For me, the choice is clear. I've looked carefully at the two leading applicants for the job, and I've made my choice.

So have I.

Here's a question - 'Where were you five and a half years ago? Around Christmas, 2002. You've had five or six birthdays in that time. My son has grown from a sixth grade child to a high school graduate. Five and a half years is a good chunk of time. About 2,000 days. 2,000 nights of sleep. 6,000 meals, give or take.'

John McCain spent that amount of time, from 1967 to 1973, in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp.

When offered early release, he refused it. He considered this offer to be a public relations stunt by his captors, and insisted that those held longer than he should be released first. Did you get that part? He was offered his freedom, and he turned it down. A regimen of beatings and torture began.

Do you possess such strength of character? Locked in a filthy cell in a foreign country, would you turn down your own freedom in favor of your fellow man? I submit that's a quality of character that is rarely found, and for me, this singular act defines John McCain.

Senator McCain's military record, though admirable, does not constitute qualification for the Presidency. It's just one factor among many.

Unlike several presidential candidates in recent years whose military service is questionable or non-existent, you will not find anyone to denigrate the integrity and moral courage of this man. A graduate of Annapolis, during his Naval service he received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. His own son is now serving in the Marine Corps in Iraq . Barack Obama is fond of saying 'We honor John McCain's service...BUT...', which to me is condescending and offensive - because what I hear is, 'Let's forget this man's sacrifice for his country, and his proven leadership abilities, and talk some more about change.'

No, it is not condescending, not offensive, to acknowledge Mr. McCain's military service then move on to any number of other issues that require attention. Hero worship is not a good way to pick a President.

I don't agree with John McCain on everything - but I am utterly convinced that he is qualified to be our next President, and I trust him to do what's right. I know in my heart that he has the best interests of our country in mind. He doesn't simply want to be President - he wants to lead America, and there's a huge difference. Factually, there is simply no comparison between the two candidates. A man of questionable background and motives who prattles on about change, can't hold a candle to a man who has devoted his life in public service to this nation, retiring from the Navy in 1981 and elected to the Senate in 1982.

Questionable background and motives? Like Obama's being a Muslim, right? Insinuation discredits the author.

Perhaps Obama's supporters are taking a stance between old and new. Maybe they don't care about McCain's service or his strength of character, or his unblemished qualifications to be President. Maybe 'likeability' is a higher priority for them than 'trust'. Being a prisoner of war is not what qualifies John McCain to be President of the United States of America - but his demonstrated leadership certainly DOES.

I appreciated Senator McCain's leadership in the Gang of 12 effort to break a deadlock over judicial nominees. I appreciated his initial stand on torture, but not so much the wafle that followed. I did not care at all for his involvement in the Keating business. I most certainly do not approve of his choice of running mate, and I don't like his social conservatism.

I don't trust a McCain administration to respect my civil rights. I expect a McCain administration to further the tendency to authoritarianism. I don't trust him to honor his debate pledge to end federal programs that don't work; rather, I'm confident that a McCain administration will, for example, stay the course in the War on Some Drugs in deference to the prison cop complex.

I don't trust him to make good judicial nominations. During the debate last night McCain said he would have no litmus test for federal judges, but then went on to say that a judge who thinks Roe was correctly decided wouldn't make the grade because he wouldn't be a strict constructionist.

I don't trust McCain when he protests that he is not George Bush; instead, I expect a McCain administration to be a continuation of the Bush administration.

Mr. McCain does not have my trust, nor that of the majority that will probably elect Mr. Obama in three weeks.

Dear friends, it is time for us to stand. It is time for thinking Americans to say, 'Enough.' It is time for people of all parties to stop following the party line. It is time for anyone who wants to keep America first, who wants the right man leading their nation, to start a dialogue with all their friends and neighbors and ask who they're voting for, and why.

Speaking of party line, I don't trust a McCain administration to do anything other than toe the Republican party line.

There's a lot of evil in this world. That should be readily apparent to all of us by now. And when faced with that evil as we are now, I want a man who knows the cost of war on his troops and on his citizens. I want a man who puts my family's interests before any foreign country.

I agreed with Mr. McCain at times during the last debate, particularly when part of his answer to the question, "What don't you know and how will you learn it?", was the simple truth that "Nobody knows what will happen."

Nobody knows what will happen, but I'm confident that an Obama administration will bring better qualifications to the office than a McCain administration.

I want a President who's qualified to lead.

Yes, that would be good.

I want my country back, and I'm voting for John McCain.
Phone: 760.434.1395
E-mail: ronald.hess@alumni.purdue.edu

I want the Republicans out, and I'm voting for Senator Obama.

Republicans Ashamed of Their Republicanism?

2008-10-12T08:14:00.004-07:00

I thought it was funny when, yesterday morning, two guys that looked vaguely familiar came to my door, introduced themselves as running for state office and gave me a campaign flier.

The thing that immediately jumped out at me was the lack of any indication of party affiliation. Nothing. Just their names and a couple of paragraphs ending with the URLs of their respective web sites. Between the few words one could discern Republicanism, but the total lack of any overt party declaration was interesting.

So I went to the computer to check out their respective web sites.

The first one was just an Apache HTTP server test page which is still there this morning.

The second guy's web site also didn't declare any affiliation to the Republican party. It wasn't until I looked at the endorsement from the local newspaper that Republican party affiliation became clear.

It so happens that Tivo had recorded a joint campaign commercial for these two gentlemen. I just watched it again carefully. Twice. Not a peep about the Republican party.

So I looked at the state ballot. It lists them both as Republicans.

So, the Republican party is such an embarrassment that their own candidates don't advertise their membership? I don't know how widespread this is, but it sure stuck out to me.

I'd have to give some credit to one of these guys. That he was effectively removed from office by the fundies must speak well of him in some respect. From what I've seen, I could even vote for him, except that I will vote a straight Democratic ticket this time around because the Republican party deserves to die.

Once again, I'm voting against, not for.

Sarah Palin: The view from Alaska | Salon

2008-10-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin: The view from Alaska | Salon:

What’s with the smug posturing, recently adopted fake Minnesota accent, and that gosh-darn-it hockey mom pitch? Maybe it plays well in Peoria (and presumably Duluth), but it’s all an act. “She’s definitely put on a new persona since she’s been a vice-presidential candidate,” says Kertulla, who has worked closely with Palin for the past 18 months. “I don’t even recognize her.”

Hat tip: The Misanthrope.

Palin has always struck me as a faker. No more genuine than those plants at the McCain rally that were so "I'm mad! I'm really mad!" and "I beg you!" Bullshit artists. Bad actors.

Understanding Sarah Palin: Or, God Is In The Wattles

2008-10-11T08:32:00.002-07:00

Interesting piece.

These findings aren't carved in stone. A lot of the studies are correlational, the models are in their infancy, yadda yadda yadda. But the data are coming in thick and fast, and they point to a pretty plausible model:
Fear and stress result in loss of perceived control;
Loss of perceived control results in increased perception of nonexistent patterns (N&S again: "The tendency to detect agency in nature likely supplied the cognitive template that supports the pervasive belief in supernatural agents");
Those with right-wing political beliefs tend to scare more easily;
Authoritarian religious systems based on a snooping, surveillant God, with high membership costs and antipathy towards outsiders, are more cohesive, less invasible by cheaters, and longer-lived. They also tend to flourish in high-stress environments.
And there you have it. The Popular Power of Palin, explained. So the next question is

Now that we can explain the insanity, what are we going to do about it?

I don't know. My approach seems to be to try to embrace uncertainty.

Debate

2008-10-07T20:06:00.002-07:00

So I just watched the second debate between the Presidential contenders. I'm very happy that it didn't devolve into sniping about character, with references to "palling around" with terrorists and retorts about Keating. I suppose they must have agreed not to go there. Good.

Some of the questions were annoying, particularly one from the moderator, Mr. "Raucous Cacophony" Brokaw. I don't remember what it was right now, but, come on Tom.

Obama could have scored some unneeded points from me had he answered the "zen-like" question, What don't you know and how will you learn it? by starting out with a paraphrase of Mr. Rumsfeld's knowns, unknowns and unknown unknowns statement, the one that earned him so much unjust ridicule. Rumsfeld may have been a bit of an asshole, particularly towards the end, but it always annoyed me greatly to see scorn heaped on him for what was a perfectly logical statement. I wonder if Obama could have swayed some white, male fence sitters with that question by somehow working in a little defense of Rumsfeld's phrase, a bit about reaching across the aisle or something. Whatever...

Obama kind of irritated me with his insistence upon placing Osama bin Laden at the center of the terrorist question, as though killing him will be like decapitating a snake, which then dies.

McCain could have scored some needed points from me by including the useless War on Some Drugs among the things he'll be looking at in terms of cutting expenses. ONDCP apparently has a sunset clause he could decide to let go. Anti-drug resources would certainly go a long way if re-deployed for more constructive purposes.

I was glad when it was over. I felt I'd performed a civic duty in sitting through it. My vote did not change, largely because I'm furious with the Republicans, and certainly because of McCain's choice of running mate. Hockey Mom. Right. Winky dinky may I call you Joe pit bull shit artist. George Bush is an embarrassment, but I'd be mortified to have a President Palin (and it seems to be at least a 25% likelihood during the first term should the Republicans somehow win the election).

McCain's initial answer to the what don't you know question appealed to me. Nobody knows what will happen. Simple truth.

And that was that.

-----
Raucous cacophony. I think I watched Tom Brokaw's first network piece, or one of his first, when he used that phrase in some report. He was a natural. Sounded perfect. The phrase was memorable and deliberate, and Brokaw delivered it as smoothly as can be. After the report, I think it was John Chancellor, Brokaw's senior on the broadcast, who immediately repeated the phrase with a smile of acknowledgment. He might as well have saluted Brokaw. Great television moment.

Damn, that's a long time ago!

Subprime Explained - Google Docs

2008-10-05T14:15:00.001-07:00

Subprime Explained - Google Docs

Someone sent me this amusing but incomplete explanation of the subprime meltdown that's making the rounds.

I think it's incomplete because it lets politicians off the hook. In particular, it lets conservative Republican politicians off the hook. They are the ones with so much faith in the free market that they effectively gutted regulation and undid lessons learned as a result of the Great Depression it took World War II to get us out of.

I was going to add one more "fuck you" to the presentation, but what's the point?

Palin: Obama Is ‘Palling Around With Terrorists’ - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

2008-10-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

Palin: Obama Is ‘Palling Around With Terrorists’ - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com:

"... Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country?”

Obama is palling around with terrorists, eh?

Bitch.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - Druckversion - The End of Arrogance: America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

2008-09-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

SPIEGEL ONLINE - Druckversion - The End of Arrogance: America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International:

$596 trillion

Wow! Dat's a big nummer!

The triumphalism of the Bush years could easily be followed by the "I'll-sit-this-one-out" years of an Obama administration committed to a strict policy of belt-tightening. If that happens, both old and new Europe will have to demonstrate whether the European Union can rightfully claim to be on an equal footing with the United States.

In the past, the US government's solo efforts provided the Europeans with an all-too-comfortable excuse for simply doing nothing. But that excuse is no longer valid.

Maybe that'll be a good thing.

Op-Ed Contributor - The children of presidents and vice presidents shouldn’t be in combat. - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

2008-09-29T05:20:00.000-07:00

Op-Ed Contributor - The children of presidents and vice presidents shouldn’t be in combat. - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com:

My inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that the assignment to Iraq or Afghanistan of a service member who is the son or daughter of a president or vice president does not make sense. No matter what the young person’s desires or career needs are, they are of little importance compared with ensuring that our leaders are able to stay focused on the important business of the nation — and not worrying about the fate of a child a world away. Personally, I would like to see someone of stature like Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arbitrarily reassign them. Too much is at stake.

I always thought it was stupid to allow such high-profile people to be placed in harm's way.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: SARAH PALIN'S SECRET LOVER REVEALED! - Celebrity News | Gossip - National Enquirer

2008-09-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: SARAH PALIN'S SECRET LOVER REVEALED! - Celebrity News | Gossip - National Enquirer:

Hey, if it's in the National Enquirer it must be true. After all, they got John Edwards, didn't they?

I don't know what else to write!

The Seven Hundred Billion Dollars

2008-09-21T08:29:00.001-07:00

The Dark Wraith Forums / Cadre:

"... Okay, where is Congress going to get that $700 billion?"

Dark Wraith Forums has become a regular stop on my rounds. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but this post reflects part of the reason in the quality of the author's writing.

When I first stumbled upon Dark Wraith Forums, I was distracted by little things like "Dark Wraith has spoken" and a couple of thematically related elements of the presentation. Very quickly, though, I came to interpret those simply as playful edges on a serious man's presentation. Gilding on a sword, engraving on a pistol.

The author, whoever he is, Dark Wraith, seems likely to be exactly what he claims to be, a long time, award winning teacher. His writing reflects talent and care. It's a pleasure to read.

Maybe the reason I like Dark Wraith Forums has to do with confirmation bias. There are plenty of other, well-known economists out there to whom I might have continued paying attention but did not. I still read Krugman, and when I see an article by Fred Banks I read it, but I generally regard economists as just another priesthood.

I wonder if Dark Wraith was one of the 500 economists polled for Scott Adams?

Naaa... Probably not.