Going With a Flow

So I saw that Kurt Cobb was back from vacation with an interesting post about the Romans and their long view. One of Kurt's commenters quibbled a bit and concluded by offering up his own post about Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion at EnergyBulletin. I enjoyed Kurt's piece but agreed with his other commenter about Tainter and complexity. (Tainter paper).

I'm not a fan of OTEC, but I decided to go look at the post at EnergyBulletin, then followed their link to The Oil Drum to look at some commentary. Commentary immediately went off-topic but held my interest anyway. One of the commenters along the way offhandedly referred to an article, Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War.

Well, the title was certainly intriguing, but I wasn't familiar with the author or the website. Thought I'd try to find out a little bit about both before actually reading the article. To make a long and entertaining (but you probably had to be there) story short, the author, Keith Henson, has had some run-ins with the scientologists, has testified before congress, and is an electrical engineer with some other claims to fame.

When I googled the title of Henson's paper I wound up looking at a Wikipedia article on memetics which included two links to the paper, one at Kuro5in and the other at The Mankind Quarterly. As I did a little checking on each of those (enough to conclude that they're both done by smart people and probably worth reading), I landed on a now defunct parody site, Adequacy.org (Archive)(Wikipedia), that gave me some exposure to smart mischievous people who like to troll post apparently for the hell of it. Some of it made me smile.

OK, time to go read the paper at Kuro5in. (Mankind Quarterly is a subscription only journal of anthropology, and this paper is not one of their free samples.) Make that tomorrow. I had too much fun today checking out the background and writing this post, and now it's way past my bedtime.

Question 7

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Home | Regulate Marijuana in Nevada

I wish these people all the success in the world on November 7, even though I have a quibble with one of their FAQs:

If Question 7 passes, won’t the feds just come in and shut it down?

It is within Nevada’s power to pass this law. Back when Nevada’s medical marijuana initiative was on the ballot, federal authorities threatened to shut it down if it passed. It’s been in effect now for over five years, and these threats never materialized. In an age when the federal government cannot manage to inspect even five percent of containers coming into this country or adequately respond to a hurricane, one would hope they have better things to do than prosecute Nevadans who are abiding by state law.

Not that it affects my support for their effort, but if Question 7 passes in Nevada, prohibitionists will almost certainly find a way to squash it.

OneWebDay

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BBC NEWS | Technology | Global web celebrations under way

The organisers are planning to create what they hope will be the largest global online photo collaboration.

Web users are being asked to tag their pictures with OneWebDay and upload them to photo-sharing sites Webshots and Flickr, to create global photo albums.

Well, OK, here's my contribution.

The organisers are also encouraging people to post entries to their blogs on Friday which reflect on how the web has changed their lives.

Well, OK, let's see... I didn't have a personal domain, web page or blog before Sir Tim and his colleagues came around with their good ideas, so I credit them and the Web with putting me in contact with some good people I'd never have known otherwise. I also, though, spend a lot of time using the computer, whereas in times past I might have spent that time interacting with people more directly. Who knows?

I'm sure others will go into such things as how the Web has had an impact on political life. Aside from things like Howard Dean leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination early on largely as a result of Web activism, now we have fundie jihadi's using the Web for their purposes. Ayatollah Khomeini became HMFIC of Iran without the Web, so maybe the jihadis would be where they are today without it, but the Web seems to have had a significant impact on radical jihadi operations. (The embrace of the Web by 7th-century-minded people seems ironic to me.)

I used to have some hope that the Web would lead to a complex interconnectedness from which might emerge a sort of global consciousness, a global brain along the lines described by Howard Bloom and others, that would somehow help humanity's lagging evolution to catch up with present conditions to which we seem so maladapted. More recently, though, I've come to think Cas Sunstein is right when he worries about increased polarization as a function of the Daily Me. "The imagined world of innumerable, diverse editions of the "Daily Me" is the furthest thing from a utopian dream, and it would create serious problems from the democratic point of view." Maybe the global brain will suffer a form of schizophrenia (before getting better, one hopes).

The Web has given me new tools at work. I'm pretty sure I was the first engineer at work to publish a report on the intranet, rather than on paper, some years ago. I keep a little web site on my employer's intranet where I keep job-related reference material, reports and so on. I also have a fledgling online forum for people at other companies involved in my line of work, and searching the Web is a useful tool in my job from time to time.

I guess the Web is like any other tool, available for good or evil. Like a gun, I'd much rather have it than not.

Scientific American: Fiddling While the Planet Burns

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Scientific American: Fiddling While the Planet Burns

Will the Wall Street Journal's editorial writers accept a challenge to learn the truth about the science of global climate change?

I don't believe for a second that the Wall Street Journal's editorial board are ignorant here. I think they are, at best, in amazing denial, at worst, liars.

The WSJ's adoration of Bjorn Lomborg, and later their coverage blackout of Lomborg's censure by the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (not one syllable in the WSJ) cost them my subscription some time back.

Reporters for the Wall Street Journal routinely distance themselves from the editorial page. Many of the paper's own reporters laugh or cringe at the anti-scientific posture of the editorials, and advise the rest of us simply not to read them. Nevertheless, the consequences of those editorials are significant. The Wall Street Journal is the most widely read business paper in the world. Its influence is extensive. Yet it gets a free pass on editorial irresponsibility.

As a neighbor to the paper at Columbia University, the Earth Institute has repeatedly invited the editorial team to meet with leading climate scientists. I've offered to organize such a meeting in any way that the editorial board would like. On many occasions, the news editors have eagerly accepted, but the editorial writers have remained safe in their splendid isolation.

Let me make the invitation once again. Many of the world's leading climate scientists are prepared to meet with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, and to include in that meeting any climate-skeptic scientists that that the Journal editorial board would like to invite. The board owes it to the rest of us to make the effort to their own "open-minded search for scientific knowledge." If only for the sake of their own sweltering hometown, it's time they accept the invitation.

Good luck.

The Volokh Conspiracy - The ONDCP on Marijuana (Ads):

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The Volokh Conspiracy - The ONDCP on Marijuana (Ads):

What he, and most of the commenters, said.

I wish people would stop refering to the so-called War On Drugs as such, and instead heap scorn on this idiocy by referring to it more accurately as the War On Some Drugs.

Distributed Backups and Monty Hall

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Mozy Blog: Probability is Fun

So I was wandering around looking at stuff having to do with distributed backup storage. One of the solutions available that seems highly regarded is Mozy. I don't know much about Mozy yet, such as where they actually store your stuff, but I looked at their blog and found this Monty Hall post.

Since the Monty Hall problem twisted my brain pretty severely back when Marilyn Vos Savant raised hell with it in Parade Magazine a dozen or more years ago, and this is about the best explanation I've seen, here it is.

Now to check out Mozy some more. So far my backups are primarily periodic disk images and differential updates, with a few files also backed up online using GoDaddy's Online File Folder service. This works fine but it seems Mozy, AllMyData and various others have good ideas, too.

Anticrepuscular Rays

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APOD: 2006 September 17 - Anticrepuscular Rays Over Florida

NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day", APOD, is my first stop on the Internet every day. Every selection is worthy. Accompanying explanations are always interesting, thought provoking and linked to other interesting stuff.

For example, the explanation for today's picture of anticrepuscular rays states that the rays appear to converge due to the straight lines of light being projected onto the spherical sky forming great circles.

Hmmm... Something twists my rusty spatial visualization gears. I can't help but think that, while true enough that a plane projected through a spherical shell forms a circle, it's not great circles that we're seeing.

If the earth were flat (and it is pretty flat from our human perspective) we'd see the same thing. The rays would converge just like railroad tracks running off to the horizon.

I'm splitting hairs again, and I could be wrong, but hey, it beat the hell out of moving on to see how many people were killed in Iraq overnight or what religionist pissed off how many others of his ilk, how we've got to get involved in Darfur or what a war with Iran would look like.

Nerd Score

Make that low mid-rank nerd, and I think I agree with the fellow who thought the test actually ranked geekiness. Kind of fun either way.

I would have thought there'd be a question or two to gauge one's interest in sports, but no.

Hat tip Deltoid via Rabbet Run.

Leaked memo

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AP Wire | 09/15/2006 | Leaked memo bolsters image of Kline fostered nationally

Attorney General Phill Kline is frustrated that, as he seeks a second term, the national attention he has received for fighting abortion and championing conservative causes may overshadow his crime-fighting and other activities.

That has come to the forefront since a campaign memo he wrote in August, outlining an aggressive plan to court conservative Christians, was leaked anonymously to reporters. Kline's memo discussed political receptions held after services, directing his staff to get friendly pastors to invite 'money people.'

Hmmm... Making contacts at church. Sounds like my old realtor buddy.

"My position on the life issue is not born out of my faith but out of what I view the role of the government to be - to protect the most innocent and the most vulnerable," Kline said.

Is he blind to the contradiction or just acting that way?

Underprotected: Advocates for Muslim Women Face Constant Danger - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Police Protection: Advocates for Muslim Women Face Constant Danger - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

What do do?

Those who take a stand for the rights of Muslim women -- by criticizing the practice of forced in marriage, for example -- put themselves at considerable risk in Germany. Murder threats and attacks by conservative Muslims are common, and the police can offer only limited help.

Stupid Judges Contemptible Decisions

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USA v. $124,700 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is not exactly new, but it is highly offensive none-the-less. That a subjective measure such as "preponderance" can justify the taking of substantial valuables absent actual evidence of wrongdoing, and in the face of plausible explanations to the contrary, is disgusting.

I contemptuously dissent. This is the sort of thing that creates scofflaws.

Here is the decision straight from the Court.

The War on Some Drugs is far more expensive than we think.

House votes to outlaw slaughter of horses for human consumption

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House votes to outlaw slaughter of horses for human consumption

Despite the lopsided vote in favor of the measure, some lawmakers mocked GOP leaders for using one of the few days left on Congress' short fall calendar to address horse slaughter.

'With all the pressing political issues that confront our nation ... I do not think this is the issue the American people expect their elected representatives to be considering,' said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House Democratic whip.

This is ridiculous.

Backers of the bill showed photos of stallions that were bloodied when crammed into trailers during transport to the plants. During slaughter, a bolt gun drives a metal rod into the horse's brain to stun it before the animal is hoisted by a leg to have its throat severed.

"It's brutal," said Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., a chief sponsor of the bill. "We need to bring an end to this practice."

Why is it so brutal that it needs the attention of the federal government in the case of horses but not cattle?

I'm in favor of standards of treatment to avoid unneccesary suffering prior to or during slaughter, but there are already animal cruelty laws that could be enforced.

That's not what it's really all about, though, is it?

Good for Melinda Gates

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National Catholic Register:

Another major beneficiary of the Gates Foundation has been International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world’s largest private abortion business.

"Abortion business". I stopped reading right there, having made it past

Melinda Gates is a Catholic who attended high school at Dallas’ all-girls Ursuline Academy. But she’s anything but Catholic in her position on condom use.

and

Not only do condom promotion programs fail where abstinence succeeds against AIDS — but souls as well lives are at stake.

"Abortion business." Right.

War on Terror vs. War on Drugs

The Volokh Conspiracy - -

What he, and most of the commenters, said.

Australia mourns 'colourful son'

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BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Australia mourns 'colourful son'

Mr Irwin, 44, was struck in the chest by a stingray's barb while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef.

What a shame. And what a shame that the man and those around him were so reckless.

I almost wish all these animal-handling TV people would attend STOP training and think more about the possible consequences of unanticipated contingencies like sting ray barbs to the heart.

Steve Irwin's death was entirely preventable, and I don't think his show would have suffered much, if at all, had he displayed more safety consciousness.

Beyonce Knowles, freedom fighter | Salon.com

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Beyonce Knowles, freedom fighter | Salon.com

This month, Beyonce and Jay-Z's 'Deja vu' is No. 1 on the top 40 of the biggest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia. Nine of the top 10 songs on the United Arab Emirates singles chart are hip-hop or R&B. Earlier this year Egyptian rappers MTM -- whose hit song 'Ummi Musafra' ('My Mother's Away') is about a teenager who holds a dance party while his mother is away on holiday -- were voted best modern Arab act at the first Arabian Music Awards. Several journalists have reported on the vast Iranian black market in Western music and movies of all sorts. And everyone seems to agree that youth in Iran are engaged in widespread rebellion against Islamic sharia law. Tattoos, sneakers, platform shoes, belly rings, and public displays of affection are ubiquitous in the most militantly Islamic republic.

Hmmm... I could almost become a hip-hop fan.

Hat tip: The Revealer - Amoral Infection

Temptation of Leviathan; A Lengthy Reply

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Stop The Spirit Of Zossen - Temptation of Leviathan — A Lengthy Reply

Are you a 'Cultural Hobbesian'? Or a 'Neo Lockean'? My guess is that we both will be encountering that question under various guises in the future. Alot.

I landed on this "Stop The Spirit of Zossen" blog the other day, and here I am again. I don't know who these people are, but clearly they are way over my head. Still, every so often I pick up a crumb here and there that appeals to me.

I think these people might be academic philostophers or political skyentists. Historians perhaps. Whatever. They seem to have a sense of humor to go with their RSS feed.

Last time I was here I wondered if my leg was being pulled. I don't think so, but I'm pretty sure that if they wanted to pull my leg I might not notice.

As to the question above, probably more the former than the latter, but frankly, I'm just an ignorant nihilist.

What should I call this post?

This comment to this post at Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory blog led to this post at Daily Kos, in which a blogger referred to this post on a vast right-wing conspirator's blog called Swords Crossed.

The point of the post at Kos was that Republicans know how to play the game and Democrats had better learn. The post at Kos had been updated to include the text of an email from the vast right-wing conspirator bearing congratulations for a nice post, thanks for kind words and a few points of clarification. Really. It's all very civil.

The vast right-wing conspirator's post is about the so-called "Overton window", a model for public attitude manipulation named after another vast right-wing conspirator, formerly vice-president of another vast right-wing conspiring think tank.

The point of Greenwald's post, by the way, was about how influential this yet other vast right-wing conspiring think tank is, how they want us to bomb Iran and so on and so forth.

I don't have anything constructive to contribute. What I have is a recollection of the distaste I felt in the company of some politically active friends of my Mother's who were gleeful about voting in the other party's primary in order to vote for the candidate most likely to be beaten by the guy they wanted to win from their party. Struck me as a dirty pool mentality then, and it all strikes me as a dirty pool mentality now. Too bad it doesn't really matter.

Probability of razor-thin national election results

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Is Mexico going the way of Venezuela, with political violence leading to a hostile government next door?

BBC NEWS | Americas | Mexico deputies stop Fox speech

The original count saw Felipe Calderon - of the National Action Party (PAN) - win just over half a percentage point more support than Mr Lopez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

I am highly suspicious of razor-thin national electoral results. I'm no sadistician, and probability gave me a headache in college, but I can't shake the sense that razor-thin national election results are very low-probability events with chicanery the most likely explanation.

It's easy for me to sympathize with a Mexican citizen who voted for Lopez Obrador as he heads out to raise hell at the demonstration.

If there is a good explanation for razor-thin national election results I have not found it. The closest I've found had to do with the likelihood of razor-thin results occurring in a small number of political subdivisions of a larger electorate in which a close election is forecast, but that's not the same thing.

Do razor-thin national election results indicate a high likelihood of chicanery? Is there a better electoral system?

So far I think the answer to both questions is Yes. I'm not particularly hopeful though.

"Risible Sprint" - Sam Harris has a way with words

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The Language of Ignorance
by Sam Harris

In this essay, the bestselling secularist author of “The End of Faith” delivers a scathing review of “The Language of God,” a new book by Human Genome Project head Francis Collins that attempts to demonstrate a harmony between science and evangelical Christianity.

And it is scathing.

While the mere sighting of a waterfall appears to have been sufficient to answer all important questions of theology for Collins, he imagines himself to be in possession of further evidence attesting to the divinity of Jesus, the omnipotence of God and the divine origin of the Bible. The most compelling of these data, in his view, is the fact that human beings have a sense of right and wrong. Collins follows Lewis here, as faithfully as if he were on a leash, and declares that the “moral law” is so inscrutable a thing as to admit of only a supernatural explanation. According to Collins, the moral law applies exclusively to human beings:

Though other animals may at times appear to show glimmerings of a moral sense, they are certainly not widespread, and in many instances other species’ behavior seems to be in dramatic contrast to any sense of universal rightness.

One wonders if the author has ever read a newspaper. The behavior of humans offers no such “dramatic contrast.” How badly must human beings behave to put this “sense of universal rightness” in doubt? And just how widespread must “glimmerings” of morality be among other animals before Collins—who, after all, knows a thing or two about genes—begins to wonder whether our moral sense has evolutionary precursors in the natural world? What if mice showed greater distress at the suffering of familiar mice than unfamiliar ones? (They do.) What if monkeys will starve themselves to prevent their cage-mates from receiving painful shocks? (They will.) What if chimps have a demonstrable sense of fairness when receiving food rewards? (They have.) Wouldn’t these be precisely the sorts of findings one would expect if our morality were the product of evolution?

Collins’ case for the supernatural origin of morality rests on the further assertion that there can be no evolutionary explanation for genuine altruism. Because self-sacrifice cannot increase the likelihood that an individual creature will survive and reproduce, truly self-sacrificing behavior stands as a primordial rejoinder to any biological account of morality. In Collins’ view, therefore, the mere existence of altruism offers compelling evidence of a personal God. (Here, Collins performs a risible sprint past ideas in biology like “kin selection” that plausibly explain altruism and self-sacrifice in evolutionary terms.) A moment’s thought reveals, however, that if we were to accept this neutered biology, almost everything about us would be bathed in the warm glow of religious mystery. Forget morality—how did nature select for the ability to write sonnets, solder circuit boards or swing a golf club? Clearly, such abilities could never be the product of evolution. Might they have been placed in us by God? Smoking cigarettes isn’t a healthy habit and is unlikely to offer an adaptive advantage—and there were no cigarettes in the Paleolithic—but this habit is very widespread and compelling. Is God, by any chance, a tobacco farmer? Collins can’t seem to see that human morality and selfless love may be derivative of more basic biological and psychological traits, which were themselves products of evolution. It is hard to interpret this oversight in light of his scientific training. If one didn’t know better, one might be tempted to conclude that religious dogmatism presents an obstacle to scientific reasoning.

One of the more memorable experiences of my life occurred one day about 30 years ago while I was taking a drive in the San Gabriel mountains near Los Angeles, California. Having spotted something occupying the curb half of the driving lane ahead, I slowed down to move into the opposite lane of this narrow, twisting mountain road. As I drove slowly by, I looked at what turned out to be a group of a dozen or so squirrels huddled around a recently car-killed associate. They did not bound off the road into the bushes as my car approached. They just sat there, erect on their haunches, in a circle around their dead comrade. As I drove past, I received an overwhelming sense of their sorrow. They were mourning. A couple of them turned their heads to look at me as if saying, "Do you mind? We're praying here!"

It was a very touching scene and a highly spiritual experience, but I figure it probably had about as much to do with anything as would a vision of a frozen waterfall.

Whatever...

Collins’ sins against reasonableness do not end here. Somewhere during the course of his scientific career, he acquired the revolting habit of quoting eminent scientists out of context to give an entirely false impression of their religious beliefs. Misappropriation of Einstein and Hawking, while common enough in popular religious discourse, rises to level of intellectual misconduct when perpetrated by a scientist like Collins. Where either of these physicists uses the term “God”—as in Einstein’s famous “God does not play dice…”—he uses it metaphorically. Any honest engagement with their work reveals that both Einstein and Hawking reject the notion of Collins’ God as fully as any atheist. Collins suggests otherwise at every opportunity.

I wonder if there's some way for people who are deliberately mis-quoted, or their heirs, to sue people for twisting their words into something opposed to what was plainly meant?

If one wonders how beguiled, self-deceived and carefree in the service of fallacy a scientist can be in the United States in the 21st century, “The Language of God” provides the answer.

Maybe it's just bullshit in mistaken service of bridging a culture gap? If so, I prefer Wilson's approach:

While the scientist believes in evolution, the evangelical Christian interprets the Bible as the literal word of God.

"I may be wrong, you may be wrong. We may both be partly right," Wilson writes.

Naa... That's the devil talking.

... they won't do it

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link

I don't know who the author, "A Marine in Iraq", is, and I don't know who the retired Marine said to have received and quoted the email is, but Soldiers for the Truth doesn't strike me as anything other than what they say they are. The message doesn't strike me anything other than what it appears to be: the assessment of a man on the scene. It would be nice to know the date of the email (the story is dated not quite a month ago). Still...

The biggest lesson I have learned over 6 months here is that the Iraqi culture is incapable of sustaining a western style military. The Arabic style military it can function with is distasteful to western soldiers: officers who hit their men, officer and senior enlisted men who regularly steal from their men, using leadership to openly grant yourself more food and standard of living items while your men go without, taking food from civilians while searching their houses, taking food from crops while searching for weapons caches, and all the while professing to be men of God.

Hat tip: Winds of Change

So after 6 months we've:

• taught them techniques for planning operations...they won't do it.
• shown them how to conduct weapons sustainment ranges...they won't do it.
• we've shown them how to conduct convoys...they won't do it.
• we've taught them moral and ethical behavior required of soldiers...they won't do it.
• we've taught them how to manage logistics...they won't do it.
• we've taught them personnel and administrative management...they won't do it.
• we've taught them how to operate tactically...they won't do it.
• we've taught them how to sustain the life support systems on the camp...they won't do it.

Basically we have taught them how to be a self sufficient battalion, but unless the Marines do it for them, they won't do anything. They ALWAYS revert back to the "Iraqi way" when we are not around and that involves DESTROYING and WASTING everything they get their hands on.

But other than all that they say they are "dedicated" to the future of Iraq...should be a bright and wonderful future.

Aimlessly Wandering

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Der Spiegel's email said

------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNDER THE SCOPE
------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Book on Nazi-Era Humor: “Did You Hear the One About Hitler?”

A new book about humor under the Nazis gives some interesting insights into life in the Third Reich and breaks yet another taboo in Germany’s treatment of its history. Jokes told during the era, says the author, provided the populace with a pressure release.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,434399,00.html

--------------------

which sounded interesting so I clicked it.

It was interesting. Then it prompted me to wonder about the state of contemporary Iraqi humor.

My quick but essentially fruitless google was cut short when I clicked on a hit that said

Stop The Spirit Of Zossen - History's Cruel Humor
Do you think the rumors about Bush bad sense of humor are just the fevered ... It's possible that someone studied a book called the “Arab Mind,” and thought ...

Well, I have no idea about the Spirit of Zossen, but the hit looked promising and SiteAdvisor had a green checkmark next to it, so I clicked it and landed here to see a blog post about the credibility of a story about Kola Boof being Osama bin Laden's mistress.

I'd never heard of Kola Boof, but the discussion following the post kept me reading. At one point a commenter gave me pause by writing that Hizbollah was "a part of the coalition of the Cedar Revolution gov that was once hailed, before it was bombed." That didn't square with my recollection, which is that Hezbollah sponsored massive pro-Syrian counterdomonstrations during the Cedar Revolution. Maybe I'm mistaken. Whatever.

So what about this Spirit of Zossen? I clicked on the title link at the top of the page and was taken to the current blog page, which as I write is a post with an interesting perspective called Returning to See Charred Boats. My interest was further engaged by the moniker at the bottom of the post: DrLeoStrauss, whose contact page refers one to the web site (watch the speaker volume if you click) http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/, where the blog is hosted.

Woah! What's that all about?

The Leo Strauss Stiftung is a global leader offering militarized solutions in defense of Freedom, Liberty and Democracy. Since 1936 our clients have benefited from our esoteric commitment to the Athenian ideal.

* Our Award-Winning "Militarized Solutions Now" (tm) product offers immediate results from Low Intensity Conflict to Regime Change.

* International Cadre Identification and Recruitment.

* Transforming Societal Consciousness One Mind at a Time.

Nuts? Crazies? A bit over my head and outside my scope, so back to Google to find this blog post from The Remedy (the Claremont Institute's blog) saying it's parody. I was thinking it might be parody, but I can be pretty dense and couldn't tell for sure. Guess I hadn't looked enough. Anyway...

So what's up with this parody site that seems to host a serious highbrow blog? (I say "seems" because I still wonder if they're pulling my leg in the blog and I'm just too stupid to realize it. I'll have to read some more, which probably marks them as pretty good memesters.) It turns out their registrar is the same one I use, GoDaddy, and that they've used GoDaddy's "Domains By Proxy" service. Dead end there.

Enough already. This guy thinks the Strauss site is great. Good enough for me.

Animazing

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I've owned and enjoyed the first Animusic DVD for a couple of years now, so yesterday I picked up Animusic 2 as an impulse buy at Fry's, and I'm glad I did.

Animusic 2 is very cool. Highly recommended. My favorite tracks are Starship Groove (see the YouTube embed below) and Pogo Sticks, followed closely by Cathedral Pictures (Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition).

Here's a good article: Inside Animusic's Astonishing Computer Music Videos

The YouTube embed below only gives an idea of Animusic. It is a not-quite complete promotional clip of Starship Groove. Check out the samples at the Animusic site for a better idea of the quality of this thing, and then imagine it on the larger screen. (Our TV is just an old 27 inch cheapie, so I can only imagine the experience with a nice, modern big-screen.)

I won't wait so long to buy Animusic 3 whenever it's released.

Good article on Pianka

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Controversial UT professor warns of Earth's end:

He says he tries to reduce his imprint on the Earth, but not as much as some of his friends, who've replaced their cars with bikes. In the end, Pianka said, it doesn't really matter.

Good article.

C. Herb Ward, who teaches in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at Rice University, said there is widespread agreement in the scientific community that humans have placed great stress on the natural environment.

"Man hasn't helped the ecology," he said. "I think most ecologists would say the world is overpopulated."

But the conclusions one draws from that assessment — whether and how to reduce population growth, who's to blame for the current state of affairs — are value judgments, Ward said.

Who am I to argue with any professor, but no, they are no more value judgements than for one to observe that the car will be better off with regular maintenance, and that without regular maintenance it is the owner's fault when the car deteriorates.

Too bad the HTML page title sucks. Pianka doesn't say anything about the Earth's end. In fact, he talks about it going on to an improved state once humanity's numbers have been reduced by its walk over the cliff.

"I think we're going to be cavemen again because we're too stupid to head it off," he said.

Well, my own sense doesn't have us going back quite that far, but as he says, it doesn't really matter.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Nasrallah sorry for scale of war

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BBC NEWS | Middle East | Nasrallah sorry for scale of war

"We did not think that there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war of this scale and magnitude," Sheikh Nasrallah said.

"Now you ask me if this was 11 July and there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war like the one that has taken place, would you go ahead with the kidnapping?

"I would say no, definitely not, for humanitarian, moral, social, security, military and political reasons.

"Neither I, Hezbollah, prisoners in Israeli jails and nor the families of the prisoners would accept it."

So, the war was because Hezbollah got the calculus wrong? This reinforces the notion that proportionality in war is a mistake.

John Perry Barlow's "Sympathy for The Devil" comes to mind. Barlow was trying to come up with some explanation for what he observed, not endorsing it. Who knows, now maybe he'd endorse it.

Solace in Religion

War-Torn Middle East Seeks Solace In Religion

JERUSALEM—Millions of Middle Easterners are turning to one thing to make sense of the seemingly endless violence between Israelis and Arabs: religion.

"Femi-Nazi"

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When someone uses the term "femi-nazi" to refer to women of a political persuasion different from their own, it immediately tells me that I am probably not the slightest bit interested in that person's opinions on anything.

The sort of conservatism characterized by the use of "femi-nazi" is a controlling conservatism whose adherents seem usually to proclaim the grip of myth, who project excessive self-assurance and contempt for contrary worldviews.

I don't like that shit, dittohead.

Mainstreaming Irresponsibility: The "Plan B" Pill by Steve Bowers

"Planned Parenthood" is liberal-speak for abortion mill, ...

No, it's not. Less than 10% of Planned Parenthood clients receive abortions. Planned Parenthood does not shy away from referring clients to adoption agencies. Planned Parenthood prevents abortions by providing contraception information and services.

At least this guy didn't use the detestable term, "abortion business".

A couple of questions for Gandy and the other members of the anti-responsibility, free love crowd: How is taking massive doses of a drug designed to prevent and abort pregnancy healthy for your reproductive system?

What's that got to do with anything? The reason to take Plan B is to prevent pregnancy (a dangerous condition in itself). Plan B is not a vitamin pill.

If she can get past that one perhaps she can answer this one: Why do folks like Gandy think that it is perfectly okay for 13-year-olds to be having sex and taking pills designed to prevent the natural consequences of sex without the knowledge or consent of their parents?

Who thinks it's OK for 13-year-olds to be having sex? That's a canard. As for knowledge and consent of parents, it's unfortunate that not all parents conform to the ideal which might have avoided things getting to this point in the first place, and sometimes a parent is simply not around when needed. Sometimes, too, unfortunately, a parent's influence is precisely the last thing a minor needs.

Finally, how is taking a pill AFTER having sex to prevent the natural consequence of sex "contraception" and not just a total lack of personal responsiblity for your actions? Forget about actually having to THINK about what you are doing BEFORE you do it.

Well, because prevention of pregnancy is contraception by definition. As for the lack of responsibility that he seems to think is the only reason one might need Plan B, hey, people are people. We don't always act responsibly. Get over it and try to reduce harm.

Just take a pill that screws with your reproductive cycle AFTER irresponsible sex and everything's cool.

That is a worrisome point. Molly dealt with it pretty well, I thought, in her post, "Too little, too soon". I agree with Molly that the answer is not in taking Plan B off the shelves. The answer lies in education, which, if parents were always as competent as this author seems to assume, might not be as much of an issue.

And this is what it's ultimately all about: Free sex for all "women" without consequences. If it happens to result in the death of a potential human being that's okay. "Plan B" is just another part of the abortionists holy sacrament that the FDA, with the full knowledge and support of the Bush Administration, just whole-heartedly endorsed.

"Abortionist's holy sacrament"?

Whatever...

Plan B: Too little, too soon

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Molly Saves the Day: 08/01/2006 - 08/31/2006

Good post. If I had a daughter she'd read it, and discuss it with me afterwards.

Gangster No. 1

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Gangster No. 1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last night, as I flipped through the channels before heading to bed, I landed on IFC at the beginning of this British gangster flick and was hooked.

This is one hell of a movie. Looking at reviews this morning I see I am not the only one to have thought of A Clockwork Orange and Sexy Beast as I watched it. I also thought of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Layer Cake, but there was nothing funny about this flick.

There was a lot to admire about this movie, particularly the performance by Paul Bettany. Hell, all of the performances were great, but Bettany's portrayal of an absolutely intimidating psycho was something else entirely.

The Brits make some pretty good movies.

California Hemp Bill Passes Final Senate and Assembly Votes; AB 1147 Heads to Governor's Desk for Signature - Yahoo! News

California Hemp Bill Passes Final Senate and Assembly Votes; AB 1147 Heads to Governor's Desk for Signature - Yahoo! News

There are already half a dozen or more states with similar laws, yet there is no domestic hemp production because of the federal War on Some Drugs. Part of me wants Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign this bill into law, irrespective of the supremacy of the federal Controlled Substances Act, even if only to spit in the fed's eye. He told them to piss off with respect to stem cells and he should do the same with respect to industrial hemp.

What really needs to happen is the repeal of prohibition. I wonder whether passage of the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act might somehow delay that day.

Were I Californian this would be a letter to the Governor asking for his signature on the bill.

Good for her!

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fortune smiles on space race sponsor

On Tuesday, Anousheh Ansari was confirmed as the replacement for Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto as a fare-paying passenger onboard the next Russian rocket mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Lift-off for the Soyuz capsule that will carry Mrs Ansari and two members of the next ISS crew is scheduled for 14 September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

In her quest to fly in space, Mrs Ansari, co-founder of Texas-based Telecom Technologies, helped seed the development of a private spaceflight industry by donating $10m for the X-Prize competition, which was awarded in 2004 for the first pair of suborbital manned flights.

Too bad for Mr. Enomoto, but if he gets to go later he'll probably get to take the new 90-minute spacewalk option.

The old silver lining? I hope so. May whatever ails him resolve itself soon.

Ironwolf - The Power of Nightmares

Ironwolf - The Power of Nightmares

Ironwolf links to a BBC series I'd missed, and includes links to the Google videos. If you prefer, you can download a DVD image (or the individual pieces) from Archive.org.

The comment I left Ironwolf is

Good tip. Thanks. I downloaded the DVD image from archive.org, burned it and watched it earlier today. BBC is one of my top news sources but somehow I missed it.

I can’t quarrel with the series too much (not that I’m particularly well qualified to do so anyway). It’s consistent with what I think has gone on and is going on, though I do think they’re a little cavalier toward the end. I gather they updated the series after the London bombings, but the update wasn’t on the DVD image.

That the islamists seem driven by myth while the neocons are just pragmatic about it would lead me to side with (if I had to choose and while holding my nose) the latter. Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope for a return to the days the producers point out were led by people chosen for their vision rather than their nightmare.

Good series. Check it out.

Stay the Course of Course of Course

Colombia's Coca Survives U.S. Plan to Uproot It - New York Times

Drug warriors claim successes like price spikes, cultivators on the run, that guerrillas and paramilitaries running the trade are weaker and Colombia is more stable.

Yet recent data show the following results:

- As much coca is cultivated today in Colombia as was grown at the start of the large-scale aerial fumigation effort in 2000, according to State Department figures.

- Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the leading sources of coca and cocaine, produce more than enough cocaine to satisfy world demand, and possibly as much as in the mid-1990's, the United Nations says.

- In the United States, the government's tracking over the past quarter century shows that the price of cocaine has tumbled and that purity remains high, signs that the drug is as available as ever.

While McDonald's, NBC and the DEA propagandize in Chicago,

Even the most optimistic [drug policy analysts] see the drug war as just about holding the line.
...
But by any estimate, the amount of cocaine produced vastly exceeds demand, so much so that even headline-grabbing seizures do not cut deeply enough into the supply to affect price or availability. That has been the case for years.

The UN seem to be even bigger bullshitters than the US:

Not all the news is bad. The latest United Nations estimates, released in June, show a 28 percent decline in the coca crop for the three Andean countries since Plan Colombia began.

But

State Department figures are far gloomier than those of the United Nations, a disparity attributed to different satellite measurements and a broader survey done last year by the United States that covered 81 percent more area in Colombia and found still more coca.

After swift declines in the late 1990's, the figures show, coca plantings in Peru and Bolivia are actually on the rise. Total acreage in the Andes is now higher than in 2000, and covers as much ground as it did in 1997, the equivalent of half of Delaware.

The stupidest goddamn thing is how they credit fumigation with reducing violence by beefing up security in many towns. Gee, I wonder what would have happened if they'd beefed up security in many towns without fumigating?

The United Nations sees the data as distressing, illustrating the need to add a state presence in lawless coca-growing regions while providing lasting alternatives to poor farmers, something Plan Colombia devotes far less money to.

What kind of alternative are they going to provide the poor farmers? This makes me want to scream. There is no better alternative from the farmer's point of view, and the only reason this is so is prohibition.

As things are, we're accomplishing nothing except to piss off the people. Stupid stupid stupid.

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

"Israel's response to the AIDS virus has been overbearing, cruel and inappropriate"

Proportionality and Responsibility:

Interesting perspective.

I tend to think that proportionality in war is a mistake. I have some sympathy for the point of view expressed in On the Virtues of Killing Children about the unnatural wisdom of hardened hearts.

Proportionality in war increases the odds of war, or so it seems to me.

TerriPAC

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Husband Takes Schiavo Fight Back to Politicians - New York Times

It's a shame that the authors of this otherwise good article still associate Terri Schiavo's death with the removal of the feeding tube. They write

Hence the creation last winter of TerriPAC, a federal political action committee aimed against politicians who tried to stop Ms. Schiavo's death, and the debut of Mr. Schiavo, a newly remarried, self-described normal guy, as a political weapon in this year'’s midterm elections.

Emphasis mine.

The phrase "stop Ms. Schiavo'’s death" is incorrect. The thing that defines a living person is the person's brain activity. Terri Schiavo was long since dead. Only her body lingered. Writers should chose words that reflect this fact. I'd suggest something like "... against politicians who tried extreme measures to override state court outcomes, ...".

Again:

Ms. Schiavo'’s parents, who adamantly opposed her death and rejected Mr. Schiavo's claim that she would have wished it, had pleaded with Congress and President Bush to intervene.

They weren't opposing her death. She was already dead.

Michael Schiavo is starting a political action committee, TerriPAC. Online donations are easy.

The Schindlers and their surviving children, Bobby and Suzanne, are raising money through the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation Center for Health Care Ethics, a nonprofit group whose stated goal is to protect "the rights of disabled, elderly and vulnerable citizens against care rationing, euthanasia and medical killing."”

Against health care rationing, eh? Might as well stand against the tide. One way or another, health care is rationed. What these people are against, I think, is rational health care rationing.

Euthanasia AND medical killing? I suppose they're also against suicide AND self-annihilation.

Again, they might as well stand against the tide. One way or another, euthanasia will occur, and its use will increase. It'll just remain hidden if the Schindler's foundation has its way.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Police decryption powers 'flawed'

BBC NEWS | Technology | Police decryption powers 'flawed':

Lord Phillips of Sudbury described RIPA as a 'hair-raising' piece of legislation and expressed reservations about the effect the powers being given to police would have.

'You do not secure the liberty of our country and value of our democracy by undermining them,' he said. 'That's the road to hell.'

OK, so I'll turn over the key to my encrypted files, but not to the hidden archive contained in the archive. Open source: TrueCrypt

Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:

1) Hidden volume (steganography – more information may be found here).

2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).

WHAT?

New museum exhibit tackles drugs | Chicago Tribune:

"There is also a slide show of photos of people whose deaths are linked to drugs in some way.

Among them is Jay Balchunas, a Wisconsin Department of Justice investigator who was killed in 2004 in a gas station robbery while on his way to a drug investigation."

What?

If he'd died of an aneurism on his way to a drug investigation it would be equally relevant. I'm sorry the guy died, but come on, what bullshit. Par for the theme I suppose.

Desensitization

Sex Education in Korea: A Phallus Garden in "Love Land" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News:

"Whoever has meandered about between the gigantic stone labia and climbed the 10 meter (33 feet) marble phallus probably feels a little less repressed afterwards."

Hmmm... OK.

When I first took an interest in surgery (I'm not a surgeon - I just watch them on TV) I had to force myself to watch for the first 15 minutes or so. After that I was largely desensitized, which doesn't mean I enjoyed it any more, just that it became easier to do.

Too bad so many societies seem to screw up people's heads with respect to sex. Maybe I shouldn't, but I feel sorry for young people in this land of the free. If a girl's not "hot" or a guy isn't studly they lose out, while the pressure to be that way leads to serious health or behavioral problems for some.

ABC News: Al Gore YouTube Spoof Not So Amateurish

ABC News: Al Gore YouTube Spoof Not So Amateurish

That sort of thing (hired PR guns posing) is to be expected, I suppose.

I'm still looking for some explanation of the omission by CNN of the final sentence supposedly appearing in the email from the Canadian UN peacekeeper killed in Lebanon. What's up with that? as they say. I described what I'm referring to starting in the fourth paragraph of this comment a few days ago. I've seen nothing from CNN on the matter, and all I've found so far is noise involving Salon, Kos, Huffington and a few others.

I tend to think the side that says Hezbollah operates from among civilians and UN peacekeepers is probably right, if only for the simple reason that Hezbollah would be swatted like flies by the IDF if they didn't, and because doing so causes Israel heavy PR losses when they kill people exposed by Hezbollah's presence among them. I suppose that's why they call it asymmetric warfare.

Whatever...

Christian Casts Off Republicanism

Mike Heath -- Why I've Had It

A month ago I unenrolled from the Republican Party. I want to tell you why.

It's because the Republicans he joined when he found the other party to be a "moral orgy" turned out to be a big tent that doesn't reflect Jesus' commands. Mike is a social conservative who wants to ram his morals down other people's throats.

Look. Christians either condemn sex outside of marriage, and work for laws that do the same, or we stop pretending on Sunday mornings. Christianity is either good for every part of our lives, or it isn't real.

Hmmm...

"..., and work for laws that do the same, ..."

Work for laws...

"Christianity is either good for every part of our lives, ...

Our lives?

Everyone who thinks like Mike should leave the Republican party. If the Republicans became a little more like Goldwater then maybe I'd join them. In the meantime, the unnatural alliance of libertarians and fundies turns me off.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Top scientist makes climate plea

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Top scientist makes climate plea

Public funding for energy research across the world has halved in real terms since 1980, and in the UK it is now one-tenth of what it used to be.

There could be a lot lurking in that statement, but if even remotely correct (and I'm sure it is) it's enough to drive one nuts in the face of regular expenditures for wars of various sorts. The War on Some Drugs is particularly galling. I wonder what might have been accomplished on the energy front with some significant fraction of the US$60,000,000,000 (or thereabouts) wasted annually in the War on Some Drugs by the United States.

"None of the kinds of energy that we can produce now routinely are going to really be sustainable in the long run at the scale we need."

If anyone doubts the truth of that statement maybe they should try to critique a presentation given by the departed Nobelist Dr. Richard Smalley. Here it is, near the top of Smalley's Rice University page.

The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030 global energy demand will increase by 50%.

I hope the IEA's prediction comes true because, if it does, it'll mean that humanity is still muddling along and that my son's generation will have had a chance to approach middle age. I hate to write this, but as I squint at political, religious, environmental, demographic and other trends, I simply can't muster more than 50/50 odds for the IEA's prediction.

What a bummer man.

Genocide

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John Podhoretz (hat tip Kleiman) asks a bunch of questions about whether nice guys finish last. It's unfortunate that he included the following question, both because it's a wrong question and because it opened the door to kneejerk reactions.

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

You have to read the entire piece to see that the quote above just doesn't fit. Podhoretz shot himself in the foot. And no, the reason there is an insurgency has little to do with the survival of Sunni men, and the basic cause of sectarian violence is not Sunni men. It's noxious memes.

Mark Kleiman says Podhoretz is being cowardly and that he's advocating genocide. Kleiman links to a fellow called Greg Djerijian who goes on at lenth to the same effect, and to a guy called John Derbyshire in order to call him a racist.

Kleiman concludes:

Our civilization is not at risk. To think so reflects cowardice. To persuade others that we are at risk is to spread cowardice. Podhoretz's tough-guy persona hides either a man too terrified to think like a civilized human being or a man who hopes to terrify his fellow-citizens into supporting policies he favors for other reasons. He'd make a good teller of scary stories around a Boy Scout campfire. As a strategic thinker, he'd have to improve a lot to be contemptible.

Given that Kleiman is a prohibitionist I don't think he ought to be commenting about the quality of others' strategic thinking.

I think "genocide" is one of those words, like "hero" or "coward", that's great for manipulating people through emotion. Aside from the stupid quote above, Podhoretz is asking some difficult questions, and it doesn't seem cowardly at all to do so.

Opening Eyes to the Damage Caused by the Drug War - The DEA Targets America

Opening Eyes to the Damage Caused by the Drug War - The DEA Targets America

What he said.

Here we are, spending gazillions in Iraq and Afghanistan while cutting taxes and subsidizing oil companies during times of record profits, so I guess it follows that we should be wasting a mere 60 billion dollars or so per year in support of the prison industry in this stupidity of a War on Some Drugs.

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

Articles

Energy and global climate are among the most important topics anyone can think about.

Energy and climate are central to discussions of everything from war and peace, sustainability vs. collapse, feast or famine, sickness or health, and just about anything else you can think of that is at all important.

There is no lack of intelligent, insightful commentary out there, but two threads on EnergyPulse recently caught my eye. As is frequently the case on EnergyPulse, discussion following the articles is as valuable as the articles themselves.

Rebutting the naysayers on climate change, by Tam Hunt, was published a couple of weeks ago but continues to generate discussion ranging wider than the article's title.

The maturation of Matt Simmons, energy industry investment banker and peak-oil guru is by Jan Lundberg, one of the heavier peak-oilers. One of his points is that this energy banker, Matt Simmons, is pointing out the inefficiency of importing blueberries to to Maine from Chile even during blueberry season. Lundberg's piece needs a bit of editing, and I would have urged him not to imply that uranium supply is a problem for the nuclear industry (it has problems but uranium supply isn't one of them, necessarily), but it and the discussion following are well worth a read.

One of the commenters to Lundberg's piece acknowledges an earlier comment about technological change but notes that between now and then a great deal will happen that doesn't lend itself to elaboration on a wonderful morning. I think I completely understand the man's comment about ruining a wonderful morning. It's very dark stuff.

'disproportionate'

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Gaza offensive 'disproportionate'

I don't have much patience with the idea of proportionality in war. What a silly concept.

What a bunch of bullshit

Target America

This fills me with revulsion.

DEA, WTC, Osama, ...

Right.

What naked propaganda. What bullshit.

More power to Pete Guither.

Amnesty Ironic

BBC NEWS | Americas | Guatemala urged to act on murders

That Amnesty International raises its voice in this case while campaigning against the death penalty seems a bit ironic to me.

Amnesty says that the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

What is more cruel, inhuman and degrading: to permanently anesthetize a beast or to be subjected to torturous murders such as those described in the BBC article?

Amnesty says the death penalty violates the right to life. In this they are just being religious. Amnesty believes in inherent human dignity, from which it derives a right to life.

Human dignity, though, is far from inherent. Human dignity is reciprocal. The beasts among us should be executed.

No, not "period"

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "American Life League: Planned Parenthood President Drenched..."

I guess we'll always have people with gods on their sides who want to control the behaviors of others.

"period ... perversion of the truth ... no matter the circumstances ... never acceptable ... horrific truth ... babies are killed"

"The only real choice abortion affords a mother is whether she will be the mother of a living baby or a dead baby."

Nonsense.

I wonder what these people would do to me if they would get away with it? The brain their presumably omnipotent god supposedly gave me harbors a view increasingly hostile to theirs (in fact, it denies their image of a god), so they presume to control my behavior and in the process limit their god's omnipotence.

Period, I guess.

Another Hot One

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It's hot everywhere these days, but this is Phoenix.

A couple of weeks ago our air conditioner failed. We live in an old house with an old air handler, and this happens from time to time. That's why we keep paying the home warranty people to take care of things. One of these days we'll re-model and make everything efficient, but not just yet.

The heat really isn't that bad. Yes, it's hot, and we're having extreme heat warnings, but you just drink lots of water and keep the fans aimed at you on high. This time, though, we spent the better part of a day out of power due to a pole fire a couple of spans down from the house. No fans. That was ... interesting.

We're told the replacement blower motor wasn't available locally and had to be ordered from the manufacturer. Supposedly they'll be out Tuesday morning to install it. In the meantime, temperatures in the house reached over 102 degrees yesterday (it was officially 113 degrees at the airport, 117 here in the back yard according to my thermometer). At 7 a.m. this morning, having had fans sucking air out of the house and in through the windows all night, it's down to 92 degrees inside. Time to go close up the house now that it's about to get hotter outside than in.

I wonder if this is good practice for the not-too-distant future, what with the atmosphere and all? As my Uncle Jack used to say, you can get used to anything, but would you want to?

JURIST - Paper Chase: Ex-Guatemala dictator says Spanish arrest warrant on genocide charges unfounded

JURIST - Paper Chase: Ex-Guatemala dictator says Spanish arrest warrant on genocide charges unfounded

I wasn't in Guatemala at the time of the coup that brought Efrain Rios Montt to power, and I'm not sure of how it came to be. The story I heard, which was generally accepted in circles I visited, was that the coup had been carried out by a group of young military officers, honest patriots, who had then drafted the honest Rios Montt to step into the vacuum they'd created by displacing corruption.

Likely story. Sure.

Well, it could be. I have a close, well-placed relative who would, having worked very closely with Rios Montt over the years, back something along these lines.

During at least part of his tenure, Rios Montt would grab all the radio and TV frequencies for an hour or so on Saturday or Sunday to "regañar al pueblo", to scold the public, to sermonize. Some time prior, Rios Montt had left the Catholic Church and become a Falwell-Robertson type of "evangelico". As I recall, Rios Montt didn't preach bible as much as talk civics, though he certainly mixed the two. My impression, not necessarily well founded, was that common people didn't much like being scolded, but they recognized a necessity for it.

Rios Montt required every member of his government to take a sworn oath that he or she would not lie, steal or abuse. It rather annoyed me to one day find myself in the coastal home of a fairly high official, and to find that he had a switch in his kitchen with which he would disconnect the electric meter when he needed to run his air conditioners. Oh, well...

This guy's offspring (the guy with the switch) had an effect on me, too. One day I was in their company on the beach at the town of Panajachel on Lake Atitlán, when an Indian lady approached to offer for sale some pants that had become popular among the tourists there. This lady's price was $4 for a pair of pants. Four lousy dollars. It really disgusted me to see these little center-of-attention pricks in their leather wrapped sunglasses automatically compelled to haggle the price down to $3.

Assholes.

What He Said

The Reality-Based Community: Ecumenical bigotry

Stupid Stupid Stupid - Record Hammerhead Shark

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WFTV.com - News - Record Hammerhead Shark Was Pregnant:

He said he wouldn't have killed it if he didn't think it was bigger than the record 991-pound hammerhead caught in 1982. He said it isn't fair to criticize him because other anglers catch pregnant fish.

What a stupid reason to kill something.

Blind or Deliberate?

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What's the difference between advocacy and admonition or warning? Some people seem blind to the distinction. Others seem to cultivate that blindness.

People are still defaming Pianka. Some, I believe, do it knowing full well what they are doing but justifying the means with their end. Others are just, well, they do it for other reasons. I'm not sure whether this piece if from the deliberate or the other camp.

Allow widespread disease to eradicate at least 90 percent of the earth's population, ASAP! AIDS, [Pianka] believes, is too slow. His disease of choice is the Ebola virus which kills in days. And luckily, Ebola is airborne-transmittable! Never mind the horrific deaths of those who succumb as their internal organs liquefy inside them. Pianka also says bird flu is "good" for the job. And, yes, he's willing to sacrifice himself.
...
And some of the "smartest smart" ones want to kill off 90 percent of their own species.

Want to. Right. Oh well...

No, I will not support Greenpeace

Chernobyl certificate No 000358 | Greenpeace International

Part of me wants to support Greenpeace. I'm with them on whaling, and their stances on timber, the oceans and so on makes some sense to me.

Greenpeace's stance on nuclear energy, though, doesn't follow. They assert that we don't need nuclear energy because we can meet all our energy needs with safe and efficient renewable energy technologies. Maybe so, but I think almost certainly not for reasons ranging from intermittence to NIMBY to unintended consequences (such as bird kill due to wind energy extraction, shorline erosion due to wave energy extraction or algae blooms due to ocean thermal energy conversion).

I resent Greenpeace raising the spectre of Chernobyl, as if Chernobyl represented the technology of future nuclear energy.

As for inherent danger, life is inherently dangerous, less so on some paths than others. All things considered, the no-nuke path is much more dangerous than the pro-nuke path.

Energy not available from new nuclear energy will come mostly from new combustion of fossil fuel, not from safe and renewable green sources. What is more inherently dangerous than the accelerated increase of the atmosphere's CO2 burden?

Energy available from new nuclear sources will decrease the likelihood of resource wars by some number. What's more inherently dangerous than war?

What's more inherently dangerous than steady growth against limits? There is zero probability of humanity limiting its numbers except by the four horsemen on the one hand, or good standards of living for everyone on the other. I don't think we'll avoid the four horsemen without the energy of the atom.

The globe needs massive amounts of new nuclear energy along with every other safe and renewable source. When Greenpeace changes their anti-nuke stance I'll reconside support.

Manufacturing Doubt

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Yesterday I came across this piece in the Canada Free Press, "Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe - "The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists" by Tom Harris. I thought I'd better read it because, though I have not yet seen Gore's flick, from what I have seen and read I think Gore is highly credible on the topic of human-caused climate change. Maybe I shouldn't so credulous?

My first reaction to Harris' piece was actually to the brilliant red-white-and-blue theme of the web site. Rightly or wrongly, I've come to associate a high likelihood of bullshit with red-white-and-blue themed web sites. It's not the colors themselves, which still look great on the US flag; rather, my reaction is to what I perceive as an intent to bolster propaganda within. (Yes, I know it's a Canadian web site.)

My next reaction was to the word "alarmists" in the subtitle. I'm sensitive to that word because it's another of those focus-grouped and endlessly repeated words flagged by master compliance professionals for their manipulative effectiveness.

Then I learned that the Earth had actually been frozen while CO2 levels were ten times higher than today. Wow!

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Well, I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are both happening in the blink of a geological eye as we un-do many tens of millions of years worth of natural carbon sequestration? Maybe it has something to do with having a small feel for feedback?

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."

Oh. OK.

So who is this author anyway? I've never heard of Tom Harris.

Looking around, I see Harris also wrote a piece called "The gods are laughing", that says

Gore repeatedly labels carbon dioxide as "global warming pollution" when, in reality, it is no more pollution than is oxygen. CO2 is plant food, an ingredient essential for photosynthesis without which Earth would be a lifeless, frozen ice ball. The hypothesis that human release of CO2 is a major contributor to global warming is just that -- an unproven hypothesis, against which evidence is increasingly mounting.

He goes on to say the ice is thicker, the polar bear populations healthier, that mountain pine beetle infestation is due to poor forest management, and that there is no "alarming" sea level rise going on.

He probably just forgot to mention thawing permafrost and increasing ocean acidity. I suppose both must be due to natural cycles (or not happening at all).

Well, all of this is certainly counter to the image I have of what is going on in the world. Who is this guy, anyway?

As I tried to answer that question, I came upon a new addition to my collection of blogs: DeSmogBlog:

DeSmogBlog.com exists to blow off the public relations pollution that clouds climate change.

The blog does NOT exist to argue climate science; we leave that to highly reputable science sites that have already spoken on that issue (see the links under: Is Climate Change Real?). Rather, the DeSmogBlog's mission is to debunk the climate change deniers who use suspect science and a host of public relations trickery to confuse and mislead the public on this critical issue.

So far, I like what DeSmogBlog's Jim Hoggan has to say.

There is a line between public relations and propaganda - or there should be.

And there is a difference between using your skills, in good faith, to help rescue a battered reputation and using them to twist the truth - to sow confusion and doubt on an issue that is critical to human survival.

And it is infuriating - as a public relations professional - to watch my colleagues use their skills, their training and their considerable intellect to poison the international debate on climate change.

(More)

Oh yeah:

Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company.

Oh yeah yeah:

The High Park Group (HPG) is a public affairs and policy consulting firm, with offices in Toronto and Ottawa. We work in a broad range of areas, with core practices in energy, environment, and ethics.

Our dedicated team of advisors is committed to providing timely, customized services that provide maximum value to our clients.

Sounds like "hired guns" to me.

Pro-life abortion cancer

.

Focus on the Family:

Major women's health groups that focuses on breast-cancer research continue to contribute money to Planned Parenthood, in spite of scientific evidence that indicates a link between abortion and breast cancer.

National Institutes of Health - National Cancer Institute:

[H]aving an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.

Planned Parenthood:

Undaunted by the absence of compelling evidence, anti-choice extremists insist on making the connection anyway. Once more they are using misinformation as a weapon in their campaign against safe, legal abortion.

I think pro-lifers will say anything. On the one hand they rail against Planned Parenthood's "abortion business", but on the other they object to donations to Planned Parenthood by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation on the grounds that the donations free up money to pay for more abortions.

Reading the crap put out by pro-lifers (I have a Google Alert set on "Planned Parenthood" that generates 95% pro-life propaganda) is a real chore.

Fingers

They wag their fingers in the air.
Authoritative. Doctrinaire.
Persuading folks they do not lie.
I wish they'd all fuck off and die.


































































.

Lightfoot

Last night I watched a Gordon Lightfoot DVD. I've seen Gordon Lightfoot in concert at least half a dozen times over the past 35 years or so, and I love a lot of his music.

Yesterday I made a post about a young group of rockers called Damone, about how much I was enjoying their work. Whereas I implied that I favor speedy rock music over all other, I really don't. I listen to rock more than other kinds of music, but I like a little of almost anything, and I love some non-rock music. If I could only save one piece of music from my burning house it just might be my old Telefunken Das Alte Werk LP recording of Concentus musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting, Rotraud Mansmann (Soprano), Kurt Equiluz (Tenor) and Max von Egmond (Bass). I have heard other renditions of the Peasant and Coffee Cantatas, but the old LP I picked up at Kaufhalle in Pirmasens back in 1977 just takes my breath away. I really should rip it to the computer one of these days.

(I lifted the past few lines from a post I made back in February. I've been putting off ripping it to the computer since before then. I guess I'll procrastinate soon.)

Joan Baez, Marty Robbins, Inti Ilimani, Melanie Safka, Simon and Garfunkel, Cyndi Lauper, Emmylou Harris, Sandy Denny, Merle Haggard, Roger Whitaker, Sons of the Pioneers... Each of them has moved me. I don't necessarily like everything they've done, but they are all among my favorites.

Kind of dates me, I guess. Oh, well...

OK, no more posts about music. I'll only slight more great artists by not mentioning them.

Damone

I've gotten really, really tired of worrying about the world, being pissed off at religionists and drug warriors and polluters and breeders and Hummers and whalers and NIMBYs and pro-lifers and controllers and wars and climate and energy and racists and sexists and thin-skinned people and on and on and on. Nothing but intractable problems.

To hell with them all. At least for a while.

When it comes to music I tend to favor rock and roll, the harder and faster the better. For the past 40 or more years, when I listen to some good, speedy, heavy type music I find myself separated from all the bullshit the world has to offer. It all comes back, of course, but there's a little break available from time to time. (I was raised by classical music and opera buffs, and I enjoy a good bit of that sometimes, too, but rock me any time.)

Lately, iTunes offered a free download by a band called Damone. It was a hard, speedy tune called "Out Here All Night". I enjoyed it a lot, and wound up buying the whole album, which I've been enjoying a lot, too. Somebody called it "power pop", which seems like a good description to me.

If you like that sort of music, check out Damone's MySpace site. They have the song posted in three flavors, 1) a commercial, MTV-type video, 2) a live acoustic version, and 3) a live powered version.

I've noticed that some of my fellow rock fans don't seem to like bands with female singers for some reason. Different strokes, I guess, but I think some of them are terrific. I love Avril Lavigne, for example, and one of the most memorable performances I've ever seen on the tube was Pat Benatar and Martina McBride doing "Independence Day" on the CMT Crossroads program. Absolutely spectacular performance! I guess someone might argue that "Independence Day" is country not rock. I guess someone could argue that Avril and Damone are pop not rock. I don't care - it's great stuff. Whatever.

Anyway, great success to the young band Damone. Maybe they'll come to Phoenix some day so I can think about seeing them live.

"Out Here All Night" - Damone

Summer's coming too fast,
Winter's been here too long
If we keep wasting our days,
Pretty soon they'll be gone

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

I've been out here all night,
I've been out here all day
With my eyes open wide
Hoping that you will stay
Everything is all right
We can be happy too
If you look out for me
The way I looked out for you

People take what they need
Then they tell you "get lost"
Kindly leading you on
While they're ripping you off

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

I've been out here all night
I've been out here all day
With my eyes open wide
Hoping that you will stay
Everything is all right
We can be happy too
If you look out for me
The way I looked out for you

If I sounded insecure
It's because I wasn't sure
You were really there

I've been out here all night
I've been out here all day
With my eyes open wide
Hoping that you will stay
Everything is all right
We can be happy too
If you look out for me
The way I looked out for you

You can stand there all night
You can stand there all day
You can do what you like
It doesn't matter to me

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

Ex-Guatemala President Lucas Garcia Dies

Ex-Guatemala President Lucas Garcia Dies

Former Guatemalan President Romeo Lucas Garcia, whose rule was marked by a bloody police raid on the Spanish Embassy, has died at a hospital in Venezuela.

Bloody police raid...

Revolutionary Suicide or Massacre: The Spanish Embassy Occupation and Assault as History, Guatemala 1980

Depending on the source, either the Guatemalan police murdered a bunch of innocent people in an illegal raid on sovereign diplomatic territory, or communist revolutionaries committed a tremendous, fact-creating murder/suicide. I tend toward the latter, and that the fact-creators were wildly successful.

My uncle Jack was a friend of the police commander at the scene of this event, Colonel Chupina. My uncle told me that Colonel Chupina had told him that the police had not fired a single shot, and that the fire was started by those inside the embassy. I wish I could recount my uncle's entire story, but so much time has passed that I've probably forgotten most of it. But why would my uncle's friend lie to him, and why would my uncle lie to me?

I have another close relative down there who personally knew at least one of the dead inside the embassy, an indigenous leader with whom he had worked on some social programs. This relative of mine believes that his associate and many others inside the compound had been duped by organizers of the operation.

This embassy occupation came three months after the Iran embassy invasion, which had, of course, dominated the news and generated global publicity for the hostage-takers. Though it flies in the face of most of what one reads about the event, my interpretation of the event in Guatemala, based on what I've been told by people I trust, is that organizers, which included the Spanish embassador, intended to create a similar spectacle on the global stage.

Oh, to hell with it...