The Authoritarians

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The Authoritarians

Professor Bob Altemeyer, University of Manitoba, Department of Psychology, brought to some prominence by former Nixon lawyer John Dean, has apparently spent most of his life studying authoritarianism. He's releasing his new book, The Authoritarians, on the internet, he says,

...partly because this book would never have rung up big sales. I did make one attempt to place it with a trade publisher, but when their editor said no I stopped acting out of habit and started reflecting. I think what I have found is rather important to the survival of American democracy. As such, it should be made available to everyone, and be essentially free. The “www” makes this possible...

In Chapter 1, which is as far as I've gotten, there is the RWA Scale. "This survey is part of an investigation of general public opinion concerning a variety of social issues." He gives three reasons why one should take a personal score with some salt, and says his presentation of the survey in the book is to have the reader "experience for yourself the instrument used to identify and study authoritarian followers." And so on. It's pretty interesting so far.

I guess I'm a salty anti-authoritarian (I scored 34 on the survey), but I have mixed emotions about the issue. I worry that a preponderance of my mindset within the superorganism I inhabit may be suicidal (to my superorganism, that is). If there's to be a clash of memeplexes, and it seems likely that there is at least one serious clash in its early stages, it seems likely that the more cohesive memeplex (which I think implies "the most authoritarian memeplex" under present circumstances) may be the stronger. Is this self-evident or stupid?

Is it conceivable that an anti-authoritarian society could possess a ruthlessness sufficient to deal with this sort of clash? Is such ruthlessness conceivably compatible with a liberal society? Is such ruthlessness even necessary in such a clash?

I think the answer to the last question is probably "Yes". What, beside ruthlessness, will enable an anti-authoritarian society to survive in the face of conflict with a highly authoritarian and otherwise highly incompatible one, especially as the latter acquires the means, through various technologies and asymmetries, to threaten great or even terminal harm to the former?

Dunno. Given the trajectories of various other trends, it may not even matter. Sorry.

Hat tip to Pete Guither.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Que Sera composer Ray Evans dies

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Que Sera composer Ray Evans dies

What a great song. It's probably the most pleasurable earworm I get from time to time, and probably the song that's been burned into my memory longer than any other. I'm glad the authors had such long lives, and I hope they were good lives up until the very end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6WDdZ6xaPg
or

Beliefnet.com: Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan

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Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan on Faith, Religious Tolerance, Moderates, Islam, Atheism, Letter to a Christian Nation -- Beliefnet.com

The other day my wife mistakenly deleted from the Tivo a program I was in the middle of watching, a back and forth involving Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and Reza Aslan (No god but God), moderated by Jonathan Kirsch (A History of the End of the World). I'm not prone to reading such books, but being somewhat familiar with Sam Harris I thought it would be interesting to see how he would do.

The program was gone from the Tivo, but BookTV sometimes makes their programs available over the internet, so I queried Google (which way I frequently find what I'm looking for more readily than by directly searching at the website of interest).

Book TV was only the second among Google's hits. The first hit turned out to be to the blog of Brian Flemming, the filmmaker who did the documentary, The God Who Wasn't There. A few posts down Flemming's blog was a link to the subject exchange between Harris and Sullivan on Beliefnet. That looked interesting so I followed the link.

I still haven't finished watching the Book TV segment, but I've read the exchange between Harris and Sullivan on Beliefnet. It's a civil exchange, and Sullivan seems to be a reasonable guy, but I thought he did a lot of eloquent sidestepping and arm waving. Shermer's bit about smart people being good at rationalizing came to mind.

To the meager extent I think any of this matters, I remain firmly sympathetic to Harris' position.

BBC NEWS | Health | Legal battle over 'right to die'

BBC NEWS | Health | Legal battle over 'right to die':

Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director for the Care Not Killing Alliance said: 'This is a very sad case but what is really needed is not a change in the law to allow lethal injections but access to the highest quality of palliative care to those who need it.'

And when that "highest quality of palliative care" doesn't work, it's ethical to deny the suffering patient autonomy?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Branson launches $25m climate bid

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Branson launches $25m climate bid:

They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.

I wonder how large a pile of diamonds that would be?

Other scientists are also looking at schemes that might "scrub" the air of CO2, collecting the gas for safe storage; but many critics say the energy required to achieve this would make such an approach self-defeating.

Nonsense. It depends entirely on the source of that energy. This criticism assumes a fossil source, but there are others.

Red Flags

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Stern assumptions 'implausible':

Some climate scientists were predicting 'another ice age' in the next 100 years, Lord Lawson added...

That's a big red flag. Once a person has repeated the canard about supposed past projections of an impending ice age I read no further. Where there's bullshit there's probably more bullshit.

Other red flags include inability to model climate given weather forecasting difficulties and derision of global warming based on cold weather here and there. There are others.

A week or so ago Larry King had an economist on who said, essentially, that we ought not burden the economy with carbon concerns because by 2050 the expanding economy would raise the average Bangla Deshi to a $30,000 standard of living, making them better able to adapt to the consequences of global warming like the flooding of their sea-level country.

Lord Lawson said Britain would see "great benefits" from climate change over the next 100 years.

Oh, OK then.

Ice Halo Pics

Here are the ice halo pictures I took in Minneapolis last Friday. I should have tried for a shot including the sun, but I was in a hurry.



The shot below was taken through a tinted third floor window a little while after the one above.



Pretty day. I started to write something about wishing I could have spent it outside instead of in a classroom, but then I remembered how cold it was. I think it was around 6 degrees at the time. Later on it warmed up a bit, to the mid-teens or so, but there was enough wind to make flags unfurl completely. Going to and from the car was more than enough outside time for me.

Unity08: Select & Elect a Unity Ticket in the 2008 Presidential Race |

Unity08: Select & Elect a Unity Ticket in the 2008 Presidential Race

Yes, I am inclined to vote for a bipartisan ticket in 2008, as long as they don't do something stupid like nominate operators like Carville/Matalin.

Some people are against this effort because they see another spoiler. I don't care about that. As long as this thing turns out to be what it seems now to be, I say more power to them.

Here's what I'm looking for, in no particular order:

• Pro-nuclear energy and pro- other atmospherically benign energy sources with significant positive net energy. (If they promote corn ethanol I'll know they're not serious.)
  
• Effective administration of the death penalty
• End that massive stupidity of a drug war
• End earmarks
• Establish independent ethics watchdogs. None of this business of We won't go after yours if you don't go after ours.
• Modernize the nuclear arsenal. Have the best military, able to prevail in two simultaneous wars. DO NOT engage the military in police work or building democracy. If there's a need for military intervention, be bloody-minded, get the job done as quickly as possible, then get out
• Direct the country's (and the countries') attention to the need for sustainability.
  
• Promote family planning
• Immigration reform
• and so on

Brrr2

Looks like I got out of there just in time!



No, seriously...

I didn't get to see much of Minneapolis, spending most of my time in a classroom, hotel or restaurant out in the Plymouth area, but I left with a favorable impression of the place. The weather was quite cold, low 20's and below, with a couple of inches of crunchy snow on the ground. I very much prefer that to 35 degrees and slushy.

I hadn't been in weather like that since leaving northern Idaho 21 years ago. I seem to remember winters in Idaho that didn't see temperatures above about 25 for weeks and months on end. The most beautiful day I've ever experienced was during very cold weather like that. I wish I had a picture of one particular morning during which the temperature must have been -25 or so, ice crystals in the air sparkled all over a cloudless sky, wood smoke from every chimney rose in ruler-straight lines until encountering a layer of moving air quite a distance above our town, and the silence was complete. As cold as it was, I was perfectly comfortable outside in shirtsleeves. For a while. Gorgeous day.

I got some pictures of an ice halo (kind of like this) that turned out OK. This picture from the archives of NASA's Astronomy Picture Of The Day page is better, of course, but I'll put mine here when I get it off the camera. There's a good explanation of the ice halo linked from the NASA page.

If I had to chose, I'd prefer to live where the weather gets really cold, like Minneapolis, than where it just gets sloppy, wet cold. Given my druthers, though, I'd stay here in Phoenix where we don't have to shovel the heat. Yes, it gets hotter than blazes for a while during the summer, but the other nine months are excellent payback. That you can probably survive more easily without air conditioning in Arizona than without heat in Minneapolis is a factor in my energy-worried mind, too.

It's good to be home.

Brrr...

Guess where I get to spend this week.

Amazing Interactive Infoporn

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I'm blown away by Gapminder, an amazing presentation of various world stats from the folks at Google.

I don't know about the stats themselves (I assume they're OK), but the presentation is mind-blowing. SciAm said

Finally, and Not To Be Missed Under Any Circumstances: The Gapminder World, which is only the world's most fantastic and amazing piece of interactive infoporn you have ever laid eyes on. Really.

Well, that's certainly true for me.

The West and Islam: "Hurray! We're Capitulating!" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

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The West and Islam: "Hurray! We're Capitulating!" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Good piece.

Why didn't we see the handwriting on the wall when there was still time?

Some did. Some do. Doesn't matter.

For those facing a hopeless situation and powerless to change it, self-deception offers at least some succor.

So, what can be done? Were I dictator I'd have a policy of "assimilate or out". When in Rome, do as the Romans or else.

Were I dictator we'd be ... Never mind. That would be evil.

I don't believe in preordination, but a fatalistic outlook seems justified.

Technology Review: Battery Breakthrough?

Technology Review: Battery Breakthrough?
Well, that's certainly interesting.

... dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals ...

And

... specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries.

As for a first production run,

a 15-kilowatt-hour energy-storage system for a small electric car weighing less than 100 pounds, and with a 200-mile driving range. The vehicle, the company says, will be able to recharge in less than 10 minutes.

If my numbers are right that's a 90 kilowatt charge rate, several times the maximum my house uses at summer peak. Home plug-in charging will have to be throttled considerably, or dedicated charging stations will be required. The range and energy numbers imply something like 5 kilowatt drain, which may be reasonable for a small, aerodynamic car.

Should this thing take off in the automotive sector it will have significant implications for the electricity grid. That's no biggie, as the electricity grid already faces significant issues. This'll just be one more challenge, and not the biggest one.

Even if the thing doesn't work out in the automotive arena, and if this isn't a bunch of hype (such as I've become accustomed to with flywheels over the years), and if self-discharge isn't an issue, this could be a big deal. In any event it's worth watching.

My biggest problem with the article is the final part of this sentence:

Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance, improve the performance of intermittent energy sources such as wind and sun, and increase the efficiency and stability of power grids--all while fulfilling an oil-addicted America's quest for energy security.

It's a battery, not an energy source, and it's not going to fulfill any quest for energy security. Maybe I'm nitpicking.

Google Manhart

Apparently I was hasty. JJ was right about time lag.

This one was funny.

Unconfirmed Sources.

The Motorcycle Diaries (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Motorcycle Diaries (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I was never one to wear a Che t-shirt or anything like that, but I enjoyed this movie about a road trip he took in his younger years. I had to rely on the subtitles, though, because even though I'm fluent in Spanish, between my bad ears, the accent and the wide dynamic range typical of movie and TV audio, I couldn't make out much of the dialog.

I was a kid in Guatemala when Che was killed. The father of one of my friends down there was a CIA guy who occasionally had guys with guns in his house (which happened to be the location of the school I attended during third or fourth grade some years prior). My friend had huge stacks of worthless Bolivian money from having been stationed there prior to Guatemala. His father was supposed to have been involved in the operations leading to Che's capture and execution.

Another little tidbit about Che was that he was supposed to have been in my Grandfather's employ for a short time in Guatemala. I guess that would have been while my Grandfather was the president of the power company down there. Anyway, there was some story about how my Grandfather's life was spared by chance while Che was in his office one day. Something fell off my Grandfather's desk, and at the moment he bent over to pick it up a bullet came flying through the window.

Something like that. It's been a long time...

Political Ponerology

The majority who are healthy have a difficult time understanding that some people are not — they can not fathom being a psychopath or acting like one.
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For example, Lobaczewski discovered that dealing with psychopathic systems made healthy people neurotic. However, they could heal very quickly when he gave them a scientific framework for understanding what had happened and why.

Hmmm... This sounds interesting.

The Cold Within

I've had this poem cached in several places for a long time. I never knew who wrote it. Just "Author Unknown".

It still shows up "Author Unknown", but the widow of a fellow named James Patrick Kinney claimed her husband wrote it back in the 70's. I guess that's good enough for me.

The Cold Within

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood--
Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back,
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next one looked cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain,
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game,

Their sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without--
They died from cold within.

-- James Patrick Kinney

Fox News: Former Narcs Say Drug War is Futile

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I am, not unjustifiably I think, prejudiced against Fox News, so I started to pass this Google News Alert item by. Instead, I took a look and thought it was a good look at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, deserving of a wide audience. Here's the printer friendly version (or in comments).

I can get my point across in 30 seconds in an elevator, a few minutes in a restaurant, or full-blown speech at a Rotary Club.

Cool. That's Howard Wooldridge of LEAP.

The drug war stops real cops from doing real police work.

Coming from the former chief of a major metropolitan police force, that's pretty powerful stuff.

For several years now, LEAP has been looking for a debate with the country's top drug policymakers – anyone from DEA Administrator Karen Tandy to Drug Czar John Walters to powerful prohibition politicians like Indiana Rep. Mark Souder.

So far, they've had little luck. That's too bad. If the drug war is still as important and necessary as our leaders in government say it is, it's champions should be able to defend it--especially against the law enforcement officers they've asked to fight it.

O'Riley must be fuming.

McCarthy's Optimism

Picking up from last night, I read and reflected on John McCarthy's response to the Edge Question for 2007, which is: What are you optimistic about? Why?

John McCarthy is known for his optimism about the sustainability of human development, so he decided instead to respond about world peace and politics.

McCarthy says that what we have is world peace, that there are only minor wars, and that only Africa and the Arab world are in bad shape. He contrasts this with the period between 1914 and 1989 when there were serious attempts at world domination and three (presumably the Armenian, Jewish and Cambodian) genocides .

He knows that something bad and surprising could happen. He thinks that Arab jihadism will soon be outgrown as a function of a younger generation questioning their parents' slogans, but if not we'll kick their ass in war. McCarthy isn't that plain about it, though. What he does is write, “If not” and then inserts an 1898 line from Hilaire Belloc,

Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.

McCarthy takes heart in the fact that virulent, militaristic nationalism with one-man rule doesn't exist in major countries today, but concludes by agreeing with Stephen Hawking about mankind's chances being increased by migration from Earth.

-

I'm sorry to say I did not find McCarthy's response persuasive. I didn't think it was an expression of optimism as much as a nod at hope. At least McCarthy's response wasn't framed in terms of his technical field, in which I'm sure there is much reason for optimism.

I think McCarthy is wrong about Arab jihadism. It's not Arab jihadism, it's islamic jihadism, which implies a much wider, and faster-growing, demographic and geographic scope.

He takes heart in developments in “major” countries, but I wonder if he's thought about what constitutes “major” in this new era of asymmetrical conflict, bathtub nerve agents, bioengineering, nuclear proliferation and loose radioactives, resource depletion and globalism (not that there's anything inherently wrong with bioengineering or globalism).

That the former-Yugoslavian and Rwandan genocides, and the ongoing catastrophe in Sudan and Chad, have occurred since 1989 may mean something.

I certainly don't mean to be disrespectful of McCarthy. I just disagree. Your mileage may vary, and I hope he's right.

Maybe something good and surprising will happen.

Edge Question 2007

Edge.org's annual question for 2007 is

What are you optimistic about? Why?

I am very much looking forward to reading all the responses, to see what all these brilliant people are optimistic about.

As usual, they didn't ask me, but it's just as well because I'm not particularly optimistic about anything.

Oh, sure, I'm optimistic about a number of things in isolation, such as about advances in various scientific and technical fields, which is how I suspect the majority of responses will be framed (we'll see).

One of the likely respondents is Stanford's John McCarthy. Last year (or was it the year before?) his response to the Edge Question sent me on a very entertaining exploration of mind-expanding math that I thought I followed at the time, but didn't retain. (Actually, I think it was during that exploration that I learned how infinities could have different sizes, and I did retain a bit of that notion.) McCarthy is optimistic about sustainability of human progress, so it'll be interesting to see what topic he responds with.

I jumped ahead. McCarthy mentioned his above optimism, but since he's known for it he opted to respond about world peace and politics. His will be the first response I'll read. Maybe he can change my mind in that regard.

Tomorrow. It's way past my bedtime.

Exxon cuts ties to warming skeptics - Environment - MSNBC.com

Exxon cuts ties to warming skeptics - Environment - MSNBC.com

Well, this certainly seems like good news.

In a report last year on how oil majors are addressing global warming emissions, Ceres gave Exxon a 35 — the worst of any company. Oil majors BP and Royal Dutch Shell got 90 and 79, respectively.

“Given how large and influential Exxon is and that they are basically the last big industry climate skeptic standing, even small moves can have a very big impact,” said Logan.

But he said it was too early to tell the substance of the change [by Exxon with respect to dropping funding of climate change denying stink tanks]. “The devil is in the details,” he said.

Yes, in the details, as with those surrounding Exxon Valdez compensation payments and fines. Still, this sounds encouraging.

My only quarrel with the MSNBC report is where they write:

Last year, CEI [Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the stink tanks] ran advertisements, featuring a little girl playing with a dandelion, that downplayed the risks of carbon dioxide emissions.

I think MSNBC ought to have included the downplay line, "CO2: they call it pollution, we call it Life!"

See RealClimate's post on the subject.

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Thanks Cervantes , I'd missed that.

Oh, come on...

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Flipping through the BBC News links we read that Michelle Manhart is a US Air Force sergeant involved in training recruits, that she's 30 years old, married, and a mother of two.

We see that she's reasonably attractive:


We read that she's now in trouble with the Air Force for becoming a Playboy model, and that the AP quotes her as saying, "Of what I did, nothing is wrong, so I didn't anticipate anything, of course."

Of course.

She's been in the US Air Force, the same US Air Force infested with proselytizing fundies, part of the don't-ask-don't-tell military, since 1994, but she didn't anticipate anything. Right.

Whatever.

What really caught my eye, though, and what prompts this post, is this:



What does it mean that Google's image search service doesn't turn up a single image of Michelle Manhart? Not one. The pictures are definitely out there - you can find them if you look.

Maybe it's just a glitch in Google's service, but I don't think so. Google is too good for that.

It seems highly likely that the lack of Michelle Manhart images is deliberate. That's the troubling part.

I gave Google some slack for cooperating with the Chinese, but this is supposed to be a free country. I hope that's not the issue.

Good move: Skeptic Revamps $1M Psychic Prize

"We can't waste the hundreds of hours that we spend every year on the nutcases out there -- people who say they can fly by flapping their arms," says Randi. "We have three file drawers jam-packed with those collections.... There are over 300 claims that we have handled in detail."

...

In 10 years, though, nobody's passed the preliminary exam. The most recent one was administered in Stockholm in October, when Swedish medium Carina Landin tried to identify the gender of the authors of 20 diaries by touching the covers. She got 12 right; 16 was the agreed-upon threshold for success. (The foundation plans to re-administer Landin's test following revelations that several of the diaries were older than stipulated in the protocol.)

I hope there was a stipulation about repeatability. I would never be convinced, and would never pay off, on a single test with these odds.

Before that, the last preliminary test was in July 2005, when a Hawaiian psychic named Achau Nguyen traveled to Los Angeles to demonstrate he could mentally transmit his thoughts to a friend in another room. Under the watchful eyes of paranormal investigators, a video camera and a small audience, Nguyen selected 20 index cards from a deck of 30 and focused on the words written on each of them in turn -- while one floor below his "receiver" wrote down the wrong word, 20 out of 20 times.

These tests, however unsuccessful, represent the cream of the crop for the Million Dollar Challenge -- polite, sincere applicants able to agree to a reasonable testing protocol. The vast majority of the people applying for the money don't get that far.

A Nevada man legally named "The Prophet Yahweh" planned to seize the prize for charity by summoning two spaceships to a Las Vegas park last year, but negotiations broke down when he announced he was bringing several armed guards to the demonstration in case any "negative personalities" showed up. An inventor who claimed to have built a device that could sense the psychic distress of an egg about to be dropped into a pot of boiling water recently abandoned his application when the foundation suggested the egg be threatened by a hammer instead, in case the invention was really just detecting steam.

"One a week gets as far as a protocol negotiation, and then drops off," says Jeff Wagg, who administers the challenge.

...

Those are the easy ones. In some of the applications, perhaps most of them, the foundation has to deal with the thorny dilemma of where to draw the line between upholding its commitment, and potentially exploiting or feeding someone's mental illness. The demarcation is inherently tricky, since the entire theatre of paranormal testing is located in the realm of extra-rational belief.

...

The media's lightweight treatment of professional psychics is a deadly serious matter to Randi.

The media's lightweight treatment of professional psychics ought to be a serious matter to everyone, especially educators everywhere. It's revolting to see these frauds treated with kid gloves by the likes of Larry King.

More power to James Randi!

NYT - Yet Another Worry for Those Who Believe the Glass Is Half-Empty - New York Times

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Oh, no! I'm gonna die!

A Dutch study followed about 950 65-85-year-olds and concluded that

people who are temperamentally pessimistic are more likely to die of heart disease and other causes than those who are by nature optimistic.

The article's (comments) author, Dr. Richard Friedman of Cornell, is a bit worried.

This is the kind of study that worries me. Not personally, though — I’m as optimistic as they come. No, I’m worried about my pessimistic friends and patients who will get hold of this article. After all, if the findings are valid, how much can anyone really do about a gloomy disposition?

Drugs!! No, seriously...

So am I gonna die, pessimistic nihilist that I am? Of course I am. Sooner rather than later? There's no way to know. I think one thing pessimists could do if this article bothers them is to think. Divide the things they're pessimistic about into those they can do something about and those they can't. If the things that bother them are not things they can act on, maybe that simple realization can be helpful. Don't worry about things you can't do anything about. It seems elementary, but maybe it's not.

Maybe there's nothing one can do. There was another interesting article in the NYT a few days ago, Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don't (comments). Is free will an illusion or not? I've long felt that free will is largely illusory, but does it matter?

Other studies apparently show that religion confers benefits similar to the benefits of optimism shown in this study. Could I decide to acquire faith and thereby derive those benefits? Could I decide to become optimistic about the pressing global issues that cause me gloom? Seems bloody unlikely, but maybe that's the pessimist in me talking.

I remember an acquaintance I had a few years ago. This man was brilliant, but he was suffering great mental anguish over something that had happened to his family, a great injustice that had forever damaged his entire family's physical health and ruined him financially. This man had done everything in his power to deal with the situation, but he was unable to avoid ruin. Things had reached the stage where I was actually worried that he might resort to violence. He was under tremendous strain and entertaining murderous thoughts.

In one discussion we had I stupidly tried to bring up the idea of addressing his psychic suffering via counseling or introspection. His immediate response was, "I've never been a navel gazer." End of story.

Maybe navel gazing is a learnable attribute of optimism. Whatever...

Sony RF914R and RF920R wireless headphones- Avoid these products

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I have one set each of Sony's RF914R and RF920R wireless radio frequency headphones, but I really wish I'd purchased something else.

The biggest annoyance with the RF914R is the ear pads, which fall apart pretty quickly, long before the headset quits working. That wouldn't be so bad if you could replace the pads at Radio Shack or at any of the other usual electronics outlets, but no. You have to get these directly from Sony (which I already did once but now they've worn out again). You can probably have someone else's parts department order them for you.

These chintzy ear pads cost $7.33. EACH! Shipping adds another $7 or $8.

Another annoyance is that the batteries are not consumer-replaceable. Not handily, anyway. You can't just slide open a hatch and replace standard batteries. Oh, no. I don't know how much the batteries cost, or how much trouble they are to replace, because when these quit I'm throwing the headset away.

The RF920R headset, on the other hand, is the type that surrounds the ear. The ear pads are much more substantial than on the RF914R above. However, the two annoyances with the RF920R are that:

1. While you can replace the the batteries yourself, if you do so with standard batteries you won't be able to use rechargeables (unless you take them out and recharge them externally, of course). Sony's rechargeable batteries are standard AAA size, but they've got a square part glued on at both ends that, if missing (as on standard batteries), disables the recharge function. How annoying! Once again, I don't know how much these batteries cost because I won't be replacing them.
2. The second annoyance with the RF920R headset is the volume limiting circuit, over which you have no control. I use these headphones for TV listening, and despite what the broadcasters say, the volume goes up and down a lot. When Sony's volume control kicks in it's really annoying! It seems to be built into the transmitter unit so, as a workaround I've just tuned this headset to the frequency being used by the other set, which lacks the volume control.

I probably won't be looking to Sony for my next set of wireless headphones.

Nuke

A couple of nuclear items in the news caught my eye this morning. The Times reported that Israel is planning an attack on Iran's enrichment facilities (which Israel denies, of course). Meanwhile, the US administration has apparently decided to blend two designs for modernized bombs competitively recommended by the two American nuclear weapons labs.

I would be shocked to find out that Israeli leadership had been so negligent as to not study options for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. Of course they have such plans, which is entirely different from saying that Israel has such intentions, or even that they think they could succeed. This "news" about Israel planning to attack is just part of the game.

The new American hybrid weapon design is supposedly based on one lab's design that was actually tested way back when, but with certain untested safety and security innovations from the other lab. That's not much information, but I tend to think it would be dumb to forgo modernization of the American nuclear arsenal. I'm afraid, though, that that's exactly what we'll do as a result of senselessly "surging" in Iraq, leading to the Democrats retaining control of both houses of congress and winning the executive in a couple of years. Bye bye new and improved nukes.

But what do I know? One of the few things I feel confident about is that geopolitics, like the climate, is growing more chaotic and extreme.

Public Prayer Power

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These catholics and muslims supposedly worship the same god. Haggling over permissions for muslims to worship in a church, or catholics to worship in a mosque, is the same sort of bullshit involved in the school prayer issue here in the USA.

It's not about prayer. It's about power.

Logo

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The picture below is what I've been using as an online avatar for several years. It is the fundamental plus the first two odd harmonics of a Fourier series (the bold line is the sum of those three terms).



I'm just trying to get the thing reloaded into my Blogger profile directly from a Blogger URL in the hopes that the distortion it displays on my blog page will somehow be corrected. (The more conceptually obvious solution, modifying the image dimensions in the template, eludes me so far.)

Coheed & Cambria sounds pretty good on iTunes as I fiddle with Blogger. I'd never heard of these guys until my friend Chris recommended I check them out. I'm glad he did. Their Good Apollo album has been a good use for the iTunes pre-paid card Santa left in my stocking.

Update: I guess I'll have to either find a way to reduce my avatar to 80 X 80 pixels without the distortion, or find out how to modify the profile to allow the slightly larger image. How to do that is not obvious to me, and Blogger's new template modification features apparently don't allow for that particular modification.

Update again:
I used the Snag-It preview editor to resize (below) the 95x95 pixel jpg to 80x80. Let's see how that looks.



Update yet again:
That didn't work either. Looks like Blogger won't use an internal URL for the profile picture. I wound up posting the properly sized picture to my Flickr account and using that URL for my Blogger profile picture.

Why did I bother? Who cared? Same reason I blog, I guess.

In any event, it does look a little bit better, I suppose.

Before and After:

Principles of Policy Analysis: Final Exam

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Well, I'm just a dumb engineer barely able to spell "policy analyst", but for some reason I thought Mark Kleiman's post - a public policy final exam - was very interesting. He didn't provide an answer key, but I found myself thinking up answers anyway, wondering what conceptual blocks he might be trying to expose and so on.

Clearly, Kleiman knows a great deal, and I know next to nothing, about public policy analysis.

Kleiman is a prohibitionist with respect to drugs, whereas I think our national drug policy is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen.

Should I defer to Kleiman with respect to drug policy on the basis that he knows a great deal about public policy analysis while I know next to nothing?

Naa... Interesting test though. Probably has something to do with the fact that Kleiman's blog remains on my read list while my collection of unclicked links grows and grows.

Futureal

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"It's tough to make a forecast, especially about the future."
-- Yogi Berra (presumably)

I have no forecast. The one I started to post met the delete key. I deleted it not because I thought it was wrong, but because I hope it is wrong.

Certain things seem more likely than others, though. I think Martin Rees is a bit of an optimist. Eric Pianka is probably right. Albert Bartlett is probably right.

Time will tell. Que sera sera.

Noise Pollution Clearinghouse

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I wonder if anything can be done about loud motorcycles? What is it that compels some people with big Harleys and custom bikes to be so loud? The claim that it's for safety is pure hogwash, so what is it, really?

All I know is that having the peace and quiet shattered for a mile around by some selfish bastard riding a deliberately thunderous motorcycle is enough to raise murderous thoughts in me.

There's entirely too much ambient noise in most public places. Deliberately adding to the din, clearly the intent of many bikers, is especially galling.

Recurring interests, (useful?) obsessions

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Several times, over the years, I've become interested in computer security. Each time, I eventually wound up getting tired of the subject and consciously decided to drop it. Security being just an illusion anyway, why not move on to something more entertaining?

For example, seven or eight years ago it occurred to me that computer security at work was lacking because senior management and employees generally didn't place much importance on it. Everyone thought things were fine because we had a perimeter firewall and Norton anti-virus. I did what I thought I should do to raise awareness, but wound up pissing off the poor security manager (at that time it was just a grunt position with no authority) so I backed off.

A few years later I had a run-in with a scamming fraudster. During this episode I again became interested in computer and network security. I learned a little about packet sniffing, port scanning, protocols and so on (emphasis on a little). Eventually, after failing to resolve multiple signs of unwelcome guests in my computer, I simply nuked it and all backups, adopted a new paradigm and left my sniffers and scanners behind. I still tried to practice safe computing, but paranoia gets tiresome.

My most recent interest in cyber security was sparked by a little toy I bought a few months ago, DU Meter. One night I decided to start DU Meter's stopwatch before going to bed. The next day I was surprised to see that there had been a lot of outbound traffic overnight. (I might have mis-read DU Meter. I've not seen such a thing again.) I could understand occasional inbound peaks from automatic updates to this or that, but an unattended outbound peak seemed, well, interesting.

Now I've got a few new toys and interests. I replaced my router with an old 600 MHz PIII computer running the Smoothwall firewall. I've learned how to run the tcpdump sniffer on the firewall machine, how to transfer the capture file to a PC, and how to analyze it with Wireshark. I've learned how to compare what's captured on the firewall machine with what's captured on the PC using Port Explorer, and now I'm assisted by the macro functions of my new text editor, EditPad Pro. Along the way I became interested in "regular expressions" and now I've started doing the tutorials to learn a little Python programming.

I've also upgraded my internal network to gigabit, and converted another old computer into a network file server using NASLite+. It's just the main PC and the NASLite box that are running gigabit so far, but the cabling and switches have been changed out.

When I set up the Smoothwall box, I included the unprotected DMZ option. I keep thinking about getting another old PC to set up a honeypot in the DMZ, but I don't think I'll go there (at least not yet). Any script kiddie can run circles around me, and while a honeypot might be interesting, so are matches and gasoline.

I won't go into the books I've started reading but not finished, or the various things I should be doing but am neglecting. Hey, I'm getting old, OK? I'll do whatever the hell I want, responsibility be damned. (I can't believe my KMA day (Kiss My Ass day - early retirement eligibility) is less than four weeks away!)

OK, now for an hour or so of Python tutorials, and maybe some paying attention to the world. Bye!

Interpretation?

The topic of Revere's Freethinker Sunday Sermonette this week at Effect Measure has to do with contemporary American religiosity as a driver of atheistic books. It's worth a read in itself, of course, but what caught my eye was a comment by The Ridger:

I remember hearing that BBC reporter, Tara Gadomsky, saying that the Amish "don't believe in" helicopters, cell phones, or ambulances. Well, that's ridiculous, because they certainly know they exist. What they don't "believe" is that such things are useful, sanctioned, or moral.

Many theists have a hard time with "I don't believe in God." They think it must be this use of "don't believe in" - the "reject" use - rather than the "don't think it exists" use.

Now that I've realized this, I'm trying not say "I don't believe in god" any more. I'm being more explicit. I don't want people to think I refuse to worship a god I know exists for some bizarre reason of my own.

Hmmm...

Could it be that believers tend to interpret "I don't believe in God" to mean "I reject a God that I know exists"? I guess I'll have to ask some believers or try to find others' answers to this question.

New Blogger Beta (second update)

I've been meaning to check out the new Blogger beta, and was finally prompted to switch by the posting troubles Blogger has been having with the older version.

So far so good. I have not played with the new template features, and though I've played with the labelling tool I have not yet see how (or if) it looks after publishing.

Update 1: Ah, now I see... The labels appear at the bottom of the post after publishing. Publishing itself seems somewhat faster, as they said it would be. So far I've had a very similar experience to that with the old Blogger, though I read a post somewhere that made mention of a consequence to commenters who are still on the old version. I'm guessing that has to do with the change in how you sign in to Blogger, which is now done via a Google account.

Update 2: Now I see, too, that whereas the RSS feeds ("live bookmarks" in Firefox) of the blogs of other Blogger bloggers whose opinions I value are failing to load (as mine almost certainly would have before converting to the new Blogger), mine loaded as they are supposed to. To any Blogger blogger who happens to see these words, I suggest going to the new Blogger at the earliest opportunity. It's a little different but not that much, and their new equipment and software seem to be coping much better than the old.

The God Delusion. By Richard Dawkins - Books - Review - New York Times

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The God Delusion. By Richard Dawkins - Books - Review - New York Times

Here's an interesting review of a book I'm not likely to read. I'm a slow reader with a few other books already open, besides which I've only got one toe, if that, left in the doorway to Dawkins' choir hall.

As stated early in the review, and as I understand from other exposure to his ideas, Dawkins allows for some small uncertainty. I think that disqualifies him from out-and-out, strong atheism, and it places me in his camp. Sure, there might be something out there that a deist could be comfortable with, but the traditional God, the one who sits up there monitoring everyone's thoughts while answering all prayers and guiding the seasons, is so improbable as to be dismissed.

The reviewer wonders what sort of event it would take to unsettle an atheist's conviction. Actually, he's more elegant than that:

But what possible evidence could verify or falsify the God hypothesis? The doctrine that we are presided over by a loving deity has become so rounded and elastic that no earthly evil or natural disaster, it seems, can come into collision with it. Nor is it obvious what sort of event might unsettle an atheist's conviction to the contrary.

I'm not sure I go along with (or understand) the bit about doctrinal elasticity, but Ironwolf addressed some possible evidence a couple of days ago.

I have no problem with some religious people. I have known, respected and loved a few of them over time. What I detest is the aggression of the religionist who seems to think he's got a lock on truth to go with a mandate from his god to shove it down my throat.

It's interesting that such people invariably claim belief in an omnipotent god, but at the same time, they limit that god's power to be different things to different people. Religionists are simply involved in a power play, their own or that of some annoying memeplex.

Hat tip: The Revealer

Coping with Climate Dread :: thetyee.ca

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Coping with Climate Dread :: thetyee.ca:

Depleted fish stocks, species extinction, SUV and oil obsessions, Kyoto rejections, disenfranchized youth, the Alberta tar sands and deadly methane gas: Condon says 'an emerging consensus' is setting in among his colleagues; 'Every hour of [our] work is in the context of 'Can the madness be stopped?'' he relates. 'And when you're looking critically at the information, and using your critical functions, you often conclude that it can't be.'

I don't often conclude that the madness can't be stopped. It is my conclusion, period.

Which is a bitter pill to swallow, when the conclusions you draw from your professional life spell a disastrous future for your own children. When she's at her lowest, Campbell has moments where she looks at her son and second guesses the wisdom of having brought a child into the world.

That's the hardest part of all.

Rees gets philosophical: "I suppose I'm an existentialist: you have to decide what you're going to do," he says. "I mean I could go and shoot myself, I'm wealthy enough to put my feet up, go out and buy myself a boat and a case of rum and enjoy the remaining days of my life."

But, like the others, Rees has resolved to continue the fight, and to see global warming through, in whatever shape or form life on earth takes in the coming decades. Just because this is the grimmest thing we've ever faced as a species doesn't mean they're throwing in the towel. Far from it.

But it's going to take some work.

"The very tendencies that gave [us such] a leg up in the competition with the other species 50,000 years ago are maladaptive today," Rees concludes.

"Now, if we are intelligent enough to recognize that, at least in theory we should be able to over-ride our biological predispositions. If we don't, we're doomed."

If we don't, we're doomed.

The title of this piece is "Coping with Climate Dread". Expanding the scope only makes the outlook worse.

My own prescription for coping is one of resignation, acceptance, hoping against hope that I'm wrong, and trying to live in the present.

Morals and Ethics...

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300 Million Reasons to Vote Republican by James P. Kelly:

This March, the Texas Institute of Science named American scientist Dr. Eric Pianka, a world renowned ecologist, its “Distinguished Scientist of 2006” for offering a creative solution to Man’s ecological woes -- the killing of 90% of mankind with the Ebola Virus.
...
Morals and ethics represent our only protection...
...
Unlike those who see killing mankind as its only hope, I believe that far more practical solutions exist. ... When I first read of professor Pianka’s proposal -- and more importantly of its enthusiastic acceptance by his peers ...

Morals and ethics, one on each fork of the tongue.

This author did not read any proposal by Pianka to kill mankind, nor did Pianka's peers enthusiastically accept any such proposal, nor did Pianka receive the award for making any such proposal.

There was no such proposal.

Morals and ethics. Sure.

WARNING! Stable Strangelets Ahead

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Andart: Warning Signs for Tomorrow

Memetic hazards: a black lightbulb to represent really bad ideas.

Heh...

More cool ideas there.
HT

Prominent Republican Calls For Republican Ouster in November

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NOW . Transcript . October 6, 2006 | PBS:

HINOJOSA: California Republican Pete McCloskey should know about cover ups. He was in Washington during Watergate … serving in Congress from 1967 until 1983.
...
PETE MCCLOSKEY: The only way it's gonna change in Washington, I think, is if the Democrats take over the House in November. That's the only possible way to restore good ethics. And then you've gotta watch the Democrats-- two to four years hence, because they will be abused by power. It is in the nature of the beast.

Well, that's certainly how I will be voting - against something rather than for something. It would be nice to vote FOR something, someone with ideas about taking power away from the extremes, making it impossible for the parties to collude in shutting down ethics committees, someone with ideas on how to curb lobbyists, someone with ideas on shifting loyalties from the parties first to the nation first, ... * POP * Well, that was nice while it lasted.

Let the population grow | Chicago Tribune

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Let the population grow | Chicago Tribune

So, there's literally too much food in the world, there's plenty of room for lots more people, productivity will continue to trump reproductivity, sustainability means consigning billions of poor people to lives that threaten the environment, while the usual boogeymen Malthus, Sanger and Ehrlich, the Holocaust, eugenics and gas chambers, ...

These days, overpopulation is primarily a hang-up for environmentalists, though suburbanites and feminists occasionally whine about it too. And an important part of the argument has changed. While before, Progressives were worried about the "muck" at the low end of the global population, they're now vexed by the fat cats at the top.

Americans consume more of the earth's resources, they complain, and produce piles more greenhouse gasses. At the environmentalist fringe, there's even a growing movement to convince eco-friendly Americans to voluntarily reduce or eliminate their own reproduction in order to ease the strain on Mother Nature. Since the political orientation of your parents is the single best determinant of your own politics, you can expect a lot fewer environmentalists in a couple of decades if this idea catches on.

So be it. The meek and the assholes shall inherit what's left of the earth.

god god god god god god

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BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran warns of revenge over Israel

Mr Ahmadinejad called Israel's leaders a "group of terrorists" and appeared to threaten any country that supports it.

"You imposed a group of terrorists... on the region. It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

Ultimatum? One of these days there'll be a cure for religion.

The Ergosphere: Open letter about the ethanol lobby

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The Ergosphere: Open letter about the ethanol lobby

What he said!

And that's why YOU, dear voter, should be skeptical about ethanol or even opposed to it. There are benefits from it, but those benefits aren't for you.

Music Videos

In no particular order... Latest additions on top...

Rick Springfield - Jesse's Girl

Crossroads Guitar Duel - Steve Vai vs. Ry Cooder (Ralph Maccio)
INXS - Suicide Blonde

Village People - Macho Man
The Monkees - Daydream Believer
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
Saraya - Love Has Taken Its Toll
Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible
Pearl Jam - Wishlist
The Bangles - Manic Monday
Ministry - New World Order
Mary Chapin Carpenter - He Thinks He'll Keep Her
Joan Osborne - What If God Was One Of Us
Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes to Midnight
Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast
Hooters - And We Danced
Golden Earing - Radar Love
Bad Religion - American Jesus
Montrose - Bad Motor Scooter

Chris deBurgh - Lady in Red
Mike and the Mechanics - The Living Years
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
Leann Rimes - Cowboy Sweetheart
Pink - Get This Party Started
Pink - Don't Let Me Get Me
Juan Luis Guerra - Ojala Que Llueva Cafe - La Bilirubina
Jose Luis Perales - Un Velero Llamado Libertad
=======================
OK, that does it. I just found another worthy music video on YouTube. Rather than post embeds to all these videos I like, I'll just put them all in one post that I'll update as time goes by. I'll include a link to this post at the top of my links list so that I'll always be able to find it when I want to. I think one can also change the date of the post so that when it's updated it it'll show up as if fresh. We'll see. Here goes:

Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today The Chambers Brothers were on stage playing this song as I arrived at the entrance of the 3-day First Annual West Palm Beach Music and Art Festival in Florida back at the end of November 1969. We still had quite a way to walk before we could see the stage, but the music was clear and memorable, a great intro to an unforgetable experience.

Joan Baez - Sweet Sir Galahad The video's end is taken up with credits, but I just close my eyes and it doesn't matter. I wish I could find a video of Baez doing Dylan's With God on Our Side, which was the reason I became a Joan Baez fan 35 years ago (having previously hated her for her activism - what can I say? I was a young, stupid dropout enlistee in the Vietnam era). What an absolutely beautiful voice to go with Dylan's fantastic lyrics. With God On Our Side still moves me deeply, but it makes me sad because, in part, on another level my attitude has hardened into a nihilistic kill them all.

Elefante - Mentirosa
Tina Marie - Lovergirl
Sheena Easton - Sugar Walls
Sheila E - The Glamorous Life
Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It
Quiet Riot - Metal Health
Starz - Cherry Baby
Pat Benatar and Martina McBride - Independence Day
Pat Benatar - Promises In The Dark

OK, now I'll go include this post at the top of my links list on the lower left of the main blog view.

Obsidian Wings: Ban Interstate Traffic In Nonhuman Primates

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Obsidian Wings: Ban Interstate Traffic In Nonhuman Primates

I'm a bit late here, but I support this notion for the reasons well stated in the link.

I was attacked by a "pet" monkey that got loose when I was 12 or 13 years old. It was a bit scary and he drew a little blood, but that's not my interest here.

The long and tall of it is that the animal should never have been kept as a "pet".

Elefante - Mentirosa

I really like this song, Mentirosa, by the Mexican band Elefante (not to be confused with vocalist John Elefante formerly of the rock band Kansas, or Joe Elefante's big jazz band from Noo Yawk City (which reviews seem to indicate is well worth checking out)).



Artist: Elefante
Song Title: Mentirosa
Album: Elefante

Sorry, my translation eesn't perfec, bat jew get de idea.

Que le vamos a hacer?
What's there to do?
si la vida es asi,
Life is like that,
le aposte todo a tus besos
I bet everything on your kisses
y asi todo lo perdi.
That's how I lost it all.

No me pidas perdon, que ni tu te lo crees,
Don't ask me for forgiveness, not even you believe it,
esas lagrimas son falsas, como falso fue tu amor.
those tears are fake, as fake as your love.

Pero no me digas nada, que el tonto he sido yo,
Don't say anyting, the dummy has been me,
si la luna no es de queso, ni las nubes de algodon.
the moon's not made of cheese, nor clouds of cotton.

Para que seguir con cuentos, con amores de ficcion,
Why continue with stories, with loves of fiction,
si tu boca no es de fresa ni en tus ojos sale el sol
your mouth isn't of berries and the sun doesn't rise in your eyes.

Mentirosa, traicionera
Liar, backstabber
y yo que daba por ti la vida entera
and I who'd have given my entire life for you
Mentirosa, embustera
Liar, cheater
basta ya de tanto ruido, este cuento se acabo.
that's enough with so much noise, this story is over.

Para que decir mas, si todo termino,
Why say more, it's all over
todo lo que sube baja, todo lo que viene va.
what goes up comes down, what comes goes.

No me pidas perdon, que ni tu te lo crees
Don't ask forgiveness, not even you believe it,
vete por donde llegaste y ojala te vaya bien.
go the way you came and bon voyage.

Pero no me digas nada, que el tonto he sido yo,
But don't tell me anyting, the dummy has been me,
si la luna no es de queso, ni las nubes de algodon.
the moon isn't of cheese, nor the clouds cotton.

Para que seguir con cuentos, con amores de ficcion,
Why continue with stories, with loves of fiction,
si tu boca no es de fresa ni en tus ojos sale el sol
your mouth isn't berries, the sun doesn't rise in your eyes.

Mentirosa, traicionera
Liar, backstabber
y yo que daba por ti la vida entera
and I who'd have given my entire life for you
Mentirosa, embustera
Liar, cheater
basta ya de tanto ruido, este cuento se acabo.
that's enough with so much noise, this story is over.

Mentirosa, traicionera
Liar, backstabber
y yo que daba por ti la vida entera
and I who'd have given my entire life for you
Mentirosa, embustera
Liar, cheater
yo contigo no regreso aunque me muera
I won't go back to you even if it kills me

Mentirosa, traicionera
Liar, backstabber
y yo que daba por ti la vida entera
and I who'd have given my entire life for you
Mentirosa, embustera
Liar, cheater
basta ya de tanto ruido, este cuento se acabo.
that's enough with so much noise, this story is over.

More YouTube

I'm coming to love YouTube. I don't know to what extent enjoying YouTube depends on having a broadband connection, but it seems likely. I noticed that sometimes there are duplicate versions of the same video on YouTube, and that the quality of the duplicates can vary. In any event...

update -

I've noticed that sometimes it's better to go straight to the YouTube site to see the videos rather than click on the embedded video. Just click on the link I included above the embed to do that.

I just watched Independence Day again, and am reminded that at the end, though it's not shown in the video, Martina makes a comment about Pat's performance making her cry. I agree, it's that outstanding.

Here's a video I probably haven't seen since college more than a couple of decades ago. A highlight of my week was to pick up a six-pack of Oly pounders on my way home from classes on Friday afternoons, down one or two of them on my 20-mile drive home through the beautiful Palouse countryside (perfectly legal by the way), drop the books at my desk, and sit back to put on a buzz and watch the MTV Top 20 Countdown. (Back then MTV actually played music. Nowadays it seems they've always got some stupid reality show going.)

These videos place me back in those days:

Teena Marie - Lovergirl:


Sheena Easton - Sugar Walls:


Sheila E - The Glamorous Life:


One of my profs used to use Twisted Sister in examples having to do with signal analysis.

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It:


Quiet Riot - Metal Health:

Starz - Cherry Baby:


OK, that's enough. Changing gears, I spent a little time looking for Luciano Pavarotti's rendition of Ave Maria from some Christmas concert a few years back. That particular performance of the piece gives me chills and goosebumps, and can bring tears to my eyes. I didn't find it, but I did find clips of Pavarotti doing the Ave Maria with a number of other singers like Bono, Roberto Carlos, Dolores O'Riordan, Jose Carreras and Roberto Carlos.

All I can say is that nobody should be allowed to sing the Ave Maria with Luciano Pavarotti. Nobody should want to sing the Ave Maria with Luciano Pavarotti. It only makes them look and sound inadequate. There should be one, official version of the Ave Maria, and it should be by Pavarotti. Schubert wrote the Ave Maria for Luciano Pavarotti knowing that God would eventually bring him along to sing it.

Well, OK...

Great Stuff!!

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I absolutely loved the rendition of Independence Day by Martina McBride and Pat Benatar on the CMT show Crossroads. For some reason the only DVD I could find of the show was a used one on eBay, and I passed it by. A while later I found Independence Day on Google Video and bought it, but for some reason it was cut off after about a minute and a half, and all Google could manage was to refund my $2.

Something moved me to check iTunes this evening, and when I saw that they had it I didn't think twice. It's just outstanding. Cheap at twice the price, as they say.

Turns out you can see it on YouTube, too:

Independence Day


And here's Pat Benatar doing Promises in the Dark. Great Stuff! I'm going to have to look into YouTube some more. They must be doing something right for Google to have shelled out a billion or two for them. Anyway...

Promises in the Dark

XP - SiS PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller - Unknown Device - Simple Things First!

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[Update:

No, sorry, I don't have the hotfix. When it didn't work for me I un-installed it and trashed the download.

It really wasn't much trouble at all to get the hotfix from Microsoft. I just called them on the phone, gave them the KB article number and explained that the KB article said to contact them for the hotfix. Then I got transferred to someone who made sure I knew what I was talking about, and that I understood the hotifx might not work and had not gone through all the testing. This second person then sent me the link and a time-limited password to open the file via email.

You did try unplugging everything for half an hour and holding in the power button for a minute, didn't you? ;>) I'm still mad at myself for not trying that first.]

Summary:

If your XP computer's integrated USB hardware stops working, try shutting it down and disconnecting it from the power source for half an hour.

Long version:

The integrated USB2 hardware on my confuter's motherboard quit working.

The machine is a three or four year old 1.6 GHz Pentium 4 running Windows XP Home SP2. The motherboard itself (Gigabyte RZ Series, 8S651MP-RZ) is newer, having replaced the one whose cazapitors blew a year or two ago. The machine is kept up to date with OS patches, and is as well protected from creepware as I can make it. It's also reasonably well protected from power glitches.

Nothing lasts forever, but there wasn't any reason for the USB to have quit working. What might have precipitated the problem was installation of the APC PowerChute Personal Edition software that came with my new APC UPS, and connection of the new UPS's comm port to one of the ports on a powered USB hub connected, in turn, to one of the computer's USB ports. The APC software is supposed to allow the UPS to shut down the computer if there's a power outage of a given duration. I didn't test that function while things were still working, but if I re-install the UPS software and reconnect the UPS to the computer, I will certainly test it. For now, though, I'm a bit hesitant.

I became obsessed with fixing the motherboard's integrated USB hardware, and probably spent more time on it than I should have. At first I was pretty happy because a bit of googling pointed to the "SiS PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller" part of the USB setup in the Device Manager*. Following the suggestion, I disabled the "SiS PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller" in the Device Manager and, like magic, USB started working again. That being the case, I started an incremental backup to my USB hard drive before I went to bed.

(*You can get to the Device Manager through Properties on My Computer, or by hitting the Windows and Pause/Break keys on the keyboard at the same time.)

In the morning I was surprised to find that my incremental backup was still running. That led to the realization that what I had actually done was to disable the faster USB2 while reviving the glacial USB1 functions. Better than nothing, but unacceptable. Back to Google.

I was reasonably certain there was nothing wrong with my hardware since the USB still worked under version 1, so I carried out different suggested remedies such as obtaining the latest drivers, removing the USB entries in the Device Manager and re-booting and so on, most of which I'd already tried.

One authoritative-sounding suggestion was to simply give up early and install a USB card instead of wasting time trying to fix the integrated USB.

I tried a few things I thought might help, like disabling USB support in the BIOS and then running my registry fixer program immediately after rebooting. RegSupreme Pro found a lot of stuff to toss, but this did not solve the USB problem. Nothing I did solved the USB problem. The Microsoft web site was not helpful at all when I went looking for USB-related help (or maybe I didn't look hard enough). My motherboard manufacturer didn't help either, simply saying something to the effect that due to Microsoft licensing they only made the drivers available on CD.

Eventually I found something referring to a known issue with XP and USB, so I went back to the Microsoft site and searched a little harder, eventually finding an article (892050) acknowledging the known issue and mentioning a patch file. One would have to contact Microsoft to obtain the patch file, though, apparently because it hadn't gone through all the testing they do. I contacted Microsoft on the phone and in short order had a link in my email inbox to download the patch. I applied the patch to zero effect, and since the problem persisted I uninstalled the patch.

I was about to break down and install a USB card, feeling like an ass for not heeding the earlier advice to give up early on fixing things, but it was already past my bedtime. I remembered the advice to shut down, unplug the machine from the wall, push the power button for one minute and then wait half an hour before firing it up again. I went a little further than that and unplugged all peripherals in addition to the power.

After a minute of holding the power button in, and about 40 minutes of waiting, I came back, plugged everything back in, fired it up and, you got it, it worked like a champ.

Lesson (re)learned: Try the simple things first.

Police spokesman surely knows better

The Ely Times - elynews.com :: News: Clergy members support effort to legalize marijuana:

[Las Vegas police Lt. Stan Olsen] said the argument that Nevada should legalize marijuana because laws have not stopped the use of the drug, is like saying the state should legalize burglary because laws have not stopped burglars.

The police spokesman surely knows better. I'd venture to guess he knows that he knows better. This is almost as bad as that stupidity the other day.

Gore Cigarettes NewsMax Drudge Limbaugh Bullshit

A few days ago NewsMax went with a story making the fantastic claim that Al Gore had addressed the United Nations, and that he had told them that cigarette smoking is a significant contributor to global warming. (my earlier post)

The clear but false implication in the writing, and the one picked up and transmitted by the likes of Drudge, Rush and a whole shitload of similarly-minded people, was that the smoke from cigarettes was the significant contributor to global warming.

There is no way in hell that Gore meant any such thing.

The thing that amazes me is how fast and how far this story spread, how uncritically it is received, and how brazenly it was spread by the puppeteers.

Drudge picked up the bullshit from NewsMax, apparently, and for two or three days had a link prominently displayed on the left hand side of his page. You'd click on that link and be taken to a page with a few paragraphs repeating the ridiculous assertion about Gore's talk to the UN, and breathlessly baiting the reader with the final line, "Developing...".

That there was noting to develop, that the whole thing was a smearing propaganda play, and that the likes of NewsMax, Drudge and Rush were in the thick of it is one thing. What really surprised me was the silence from the other side.

Obviously, it's not possible to read everything, but by using search engines you can try to find things. There just wasn't anything out there countering this onslaught of bullshit. There was a forum somewhere in which the participants expressed disbelief and discussed a few things that Gore might have actually been talking about, such as soil disturbance or the overlap among prominent smoking cancer and global warming denialists, but essentially there was nothing out there responding to the nonsense. It was unopposed.

Why was that? I suppose one possibility is that smarter people than me have concluded that this sort of thing is just a large-scale analog to newsroom trolling, best left unanswered. Maybe the smarter ones recognize the whole episode as something designed by the right to help keep control of political discourse, with a response simply furthering the right's aim.

I don't know. What I'm left with, though, is a deepened disrespect for dittohead puppeteers and political dirty tricksters. I can't say much for people's uncritical reactions to the thing, either.

Oh well, I guess we need cannon fodder.

Jeff Beck

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Jeff Beck put on a great show last night at the Mesa Arts Center's Ikeda Theater. Beth Hart was very impressive, particularly on Morning Dew. What a set of lungs!

Rock Radio:

Jeff Beck will open his fall tour with a show on Wednesday, September 6th, at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida. He's often surprised fans with the material he plays live, and this tour is no exception. Beck told us that for these dates, he's pulling stuff out from his earliest days as a solo artist, and the reason is that he's got the right group for the songs: "The setlist, it looks a little bit like (a) leftover from the early days, but the fact of the matter is, we're having to play this stuff partly because the players are not techno players -- they're pure musicians. We play the stuff that has the most challenging parts in it, plus we got a, you know, vocalist now, which can cover some of the Rod Stewart stuff. So it's like a sort of mini-life story on stage."

Beck's band for the tour includes Beth Hart on vocals, Jason Rebello on keyboards, Randy Hope-Taylor on bass, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums.

The guitarist and company will be on the road through an October 1st date in Mesa, Arizona.

Review. Another review.

Gov. Acts on Last of New Bills - Los Angeles Times

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Gov. Acts on Last of New Bills - Los Angeles Times:

Acting on the last of 1,172 bills sent to him this year by the Democratic-led Legislature, Schwarzenegger...

Wow! Maybe they should have a law that says something like "No more than 100 bills, and each one about only one thing."

I'm sure they don't really need a law prohibiting teens from riding in the trunks of cars. Surely there's already a law covering that sort of thing.

I'm happy to see that gay and lesbian couples can file joint returns now, but disappointed that the Governor vetoed the hemp measure. Who cares about the Feds? Where's the States Rights attitude when you need it?

Oh, well, I'm from Arizona anyway.