Another Precinct Heard From

The floundering MainStreamMedia strikes again. What a great idea; we now need to "educate" and/or "certify" bloggers. I'll let the current state of the "media establishment" speak for itself, in terms of its credentials to make any such assertion. To generalize from the problem as originally outlined in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the MSM should be completely overhauled and "recertified" because of the antics in CBS' "Rathergate" or the legendary Jayson Blair fiasco at the New York Times.

Here's a site that deals with the various categories of journalistic cheating. Cheating that is going on in the MSM.

Never has there been a clearer example of the pot calling the kettle black. As a blogger, I can wholeheartedly, if not eloquently state my response to the MSM: up yours.

Criminalizing Nature

The trend I first observed on The Weather Channel of anthropomorphizing the forces of nature ("vicious" tornadoes, "ruthless" tsunamis) has now been matched with reportage on astronomical events on the largest scale. The black hole in question is alleged to have exhibited "-- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before-" Despite all the fruity, overblown rhetoric, larded with extreme adjectives, natural forces are not capable of intent (which is certainly implied by the use of "act" and its modifier "violence") and therefore there can be no teleological component to the event.

The journalists are running out of language; what's going to happen if we get paved over by Douglas Adams' aliens to make that hyperspace bypass? What will we say? "You....you....you...!!"

Save an adjective for a rainy day (or one of horrid, relentless vulcanism).

Times to the Rescue

The mortgage "crisis" has finally deepened enough to provoke outright pleas for government bailouts from certain quarters. This NY Times Op-Ed explicitly calls for "- federal funds to help at-risk borrowers to stay in their homes and at-risk communities to reduce foreclosures-" although you have to read through a litany of other measures to finally reach it. This piece is authored by a Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers 1993-95 under old You-Know-Who. Some of the measures she proposes may be justified, such as postponing variable rate increases and strictly temporary moratoriums on foreclosures, but you can't simply use scare expressions like "-for the good of the overall economy" and justify pouring tax money in to pay what amount to scam mortgages to rescue those who were stupid enough or oblivious enough to sign them. Another proposal to short-circuit personal responsibility and endorse worse-than-irresponsible behavior in the lending industry will yield- nothing.

It's not often I quote Calvin Coolidge, because he said very little that anyone would wish to remember. This case is an exception: "They hired the money, didn't they?"

Define "Organic" ?

According to this story, some people are peddling milk that isn't organic.

I have to admit- I don't understand what "organic" means, except from my short career in Chemistry, and a somewhat broader exposure to the concept in Biology. I understand organic compounds to be: those comprising some combination of C,H,O,N (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) with the occasional incorporation of atoms of such elements as Sulfur or Iron.
Ever since the unfortunate adoption of the word "organic" by those who theorize that foods produced in a certain manner are more "foodlike" or "less poisonous" than others, I've yet to see any simple, concise definition of "organic foods" ....which, I submit, should be rendered as some sort of phrase when applied in this manner (....or "organic sustenance, organic chow"), and not merely as the modifier "organic," which, as I have noted, is already taken.
What I'm getting at, and where the confusing "middle part" comes in, is that a molecule of glucose is an organic compound, and it is just as much glucose in sugar cane that is raised "inorganically" as some that is raised "organically." The article linked above does nothing to remove the murkiness from the concept of "organic food." It appears that it revolves around a bunch of rather hard to define conditions, e.g., whether (and how much?) milk cows get their sustenance from pasture, as opposed to food. But if their food is just dried baled grass from those same pastures, does it qualify? And then there's the fact that the brand of "organic" has been around long enough, and enough people seek it out, that it's become a battle of the food interests- but I'm not going there.
I admit that I've a very dubious outlook on the whole idea of "organic food" as it's been presented and marketed so far. The best I can say is that I'm looking for more light, and less heat. "Free-range light," naturally.....

The Role of Government

Amidst all the views concerning Matters Green as they are currently playing out -and they are legion- we find the unfortunately common view that Government Must Intercede, as exemplified by this article from our favorite Nanny State, in the relentlessly Socialist Guardian. A brief summary would state that the solution to our Green Disease is goverment rationing of consumer products. A reply to the article is much more deserving of wide publication:

stevejones123
December 3, 2007 1:26 AM

What the government is doing regarding climate change is passing the buck on to the individual.

It could easily ban incandescent light bulbs, air conditioners, insist that public buildings only be heated to 18 centigrade, give the subsidies the Germans do to those who invest in renewable energy, bring in strict laws regarding energy efficiency for new houses, stick an additional tax on electronic goods that don't go into proper standby, insist of aircraft fuel being taxed at the same rate as petrol and diesel, forbid subsidies from local or regional authorities to local airports or budget airlines, and a fair number of other measures.

Expecting the consumer to follow his conscience is a recipe for making people feel miserable and harrassed without significantly reducing energy use.

We are driven to ask: why is government not doing these things? Politically indigestible, might cost some politicians votes, perhaps. It seems to be a necessity of the profession nowadays that the backbone be excised prior to beginning a successful career.

Extremism, I fear it....

....and some days, it seems like there's nothing left in our media but those positions where everyone concerned is breathing into a brown paper bag. Like the New Prohibition, which is another example (or, perhaps, a historically recurring example.....) of good intentions gone wrong, as and organization like MADD can morph itself into a gaggle of Carrie Nations.

This article, via Coffee and Diapers, gives a quote that must be replicated far and wide. It's as much a plea for individuality, free will, and self-recognizance as it is about the topic under discussion, and such statements are sorely needed:

We, the undersigned, take exception to the claim that social drinking in the presence of our children is a sign of irresponsible or bad parenting. Further, we contend that it is moderation that makes responsible drinkers, and that moderation and good sense are the responsibility of all citizens; that healthy attitudes towards the consumption of alcohol are learned in the home; that successful parenting does not require us to sacrifice the exercise of our own maturity in order to protect our children’s innocence; and that our society has more to fear from the poor judgment and intemperance of institutions which prey on parental insecurities than with the hospitality we share with other mothers in our parenting journey.

Bravo.

I'm an Idiot.

Well, whatever sort of insanity grips consumers prior to Christmas finally got me- although for less than an hour, and I didn't actually buy anything. Received word that a local electronics chain (which shall remain nameless, the initials being "Best Buy") was getting a shipment of the scarce Nintendo "Wii" video game machine at 4PM. The store apparently gets shipments of 16 machines on Tuesday and Saturday. When I called to confirm, the individual stated that it would be best if I showed up "-a little before 4." Ha.

I arrived at the store a bit past 3, and inquire as to where I might get in line to wait for the item in question. I was told to repair to the cluster of balloons floating above the piles of merchandise on the far side of the store. I went to the indicated spot, and was thunderstruck to see at least 50 people standing, sitting on the floor and in the store's display lounge chairs, even lying down, all looking at me like deer in the headlights, presumably concerned lest I try to jump the line. I gave a somewhat involuntary laugh, and said something to the effect of "50 people for 16 machines? I think not." And I turned on my heel and left.

It didn't bother me, it was actually what I expected. Lesson learned, never again.

The cream of the jest didn't play out until I got home, where I learned from my eldest son that while I was out braving the anthill of free-enterprise retail that is our local Heart of Darkness, he had received an alert that they were in stock at an on-line retailer (which shall remain nameless, if you don't know the name of the largest river in South America). With a few keystrokes, he accomplished what an hour and two gallons of $3 gasoline had failed to do. If this is the future of consumption, I'm for it.

Well, Duh! Dept.

Housing: A Crisis With Staying Power in the CSM seems to think it's advancing some scientific discovery to say that the housing bust is having profound effects -and will continue to do- beyond a raft of foreclosures. Where it doesn't venture is the historical perspective that the economic history of the United States has been largely the story of boom & bust. We tolerate the bust because we confidently expect the next boom. So far, it works.....

Touchy World

"Everyone's a drum major, leading a parade of hurt." That line, from John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, seems to apply more and more in a world grown insanely sensitive to the crossed wires that are inevitable in human interaction. Teddy bears given the wrong name, wallets given as gifts, or in another place, gifts opened in the presence of the giver......all serious -or even deadly- mistakes, depending on whose toes are being trodden. The first thing that occurs is that there's something built-in that causes such radical reaction upon nonconformance to cultural norms.....at least when it's observed in an alien culture. The second thing is that it would never involve such masses of people if it weren't for the media.

What to do about it? Stay home, I guess, where one may expect to understand the manners and mores.....if indeed such things may properly be defined in early 21st century America.

Why Read?

As can be seen from the category, this is another of those books you really should read.....if you read. If you're part of the growing hordes of non-readers, you can quit reading this post now. The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts is a volume that may occasionally be tiresome, but it's point is one I've read in no other dedicated book: what is happening to us as a civilization because of the tectonic move away from reading caused by the various technologies and media of "the information age?"

For me, this book has nothing to do with:

1) reading to attain "literacy."

2) reading to peruse the newspaper or magazines; these media are in the same status as the dinosaurs a few seconds after the asteroid hit, and reading for information has nothing to do with the point being made.

3) reading to get some job, pass a test to get a grade, and all that dreary crap.

What really grabbed me about Birkerts' book is something else again: reading as escape. Reading to get away from.....this. (From YOU, too!) Just me and the words of Dickens, or Hemingway, or Heinlein, or Miller, or......and if you don't understand what I'm talking about yet, here's another invitation to stop reading. Chances are if you don't get this, you never will.

By way of digression, unlike a lot of people, I don't believe reading is for everyone. First, about a third of the human race doesn't read, and will never be able to read, or not very well; I suppose that's what's meant by "functional illiteracy." Doesn't matter, it's built-in. Reading and writing are an altogether different proposition, categorically different from speaking and hearing. Any normally functioning human being will learn to speak and listen to their language, without the slightest effort, just by "hanging out," by the time they are 2 or so. Reading and writing are handled in different parts of the brain, and a significant fraction of the human race can no more learn to read or write than most can do differential equations. This is -yet another- thing that is not admitted by the educational establishment, although it's documented beyond all question.

To return to the main point, and Birkerts', what will become of us when we can no longer "get away" for a while? Is that "reading place" where a lot of the world's creativity is brewed? I don't know, and don't rate the concept that highly anyway. Is it just one of the last really private places, in a world more crowded and packed each day? Although I consciously live as far away as I can from most humans, and particularly their noxious collectivities, I value it terribly. I can't escape my conviction that whatever the consequences, if and when the world of the reader disappears, something great and fundamental in us will be lost, and our humanity will be something other than we have known.

What's Next?

Here is American Thinker's post "Everything is Caused by Global Warming." Well....not everything, but the 600+ links cited clearly demonstrate that the GW frenzy has become a major disease within a year or two, and one that has only tenuous links to anything sensible about climate change. At such times it's a good idea to remember:

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

- Henri Poincaré

Next: Pizza

The History Channel deserves the name because it is subverting history. It does so by placing established fact and surmise, speculation, and the most outrageous claims on the same plane and concluding the episode (whatever the topic may be) with "Who knows?"

Well, in a recent case...we do. The UFO files (more and more cable channels are developing a love affair with UFOs & Las Vegas devoting more and more air time to these subjects) claims in one episode that we owe integrated circuits, lasers, and Kevlar to items found on or near the putative crashed UFO in 1947 at Roswell, NM. If you've never heard of the Roswell Incident, you're lucky; quit reading this post immediately, and always look (or run) away any time you hear the word "Roswell."

In the cases above, one individual (a former Army officer named Corso) claims that the alien technology was turned over to Bell Labs, or some such thing, and they came up with it. It is specifically claimed that Bell Labs developed the microchip from alien technology. This is patent nonsense, as it is documented that the integrated circuit was developed at Fairchild Semiconductor (Robert Noyce) and Texas Instruments (Jack Kilby) under circumstances that brook no dispute. The technology of integrated circuits requires no postulate of the introduction of alien materials or design.

In all of these cases, it is only necessary to apply Occam's Razor. Simply put, no wonderful and mysterious stories of extraterrestrial intervention are required, thank you very much. And yet the conflation of prosaic fact with wild speculation continues, and on a multitude of topics, every day, via media that are supposedly reputable. Soon, when I claim that the thermometer reads 25 degrees C, I will be told "Not necessarily; that thermometer could be an illusion, or...." Is this a symptom of The Coming Dark Age? I'd better go and consult Nostradamus.....

Media Suicide

The instances of "news that is not news" proliferate.

Family asked to leave Louisville restaurant because child is crying.

While this may be a number of things, it is not news. Not even local news. In fact, it's amazingly trivial.

Twins recover from drug overdose.

And in one of the more maddening categories, this is news, of course, because it happened to the children of someone in show biz. News by reason of "fame by association." Occurs daily.

Thug turns self in early to begin prison sentence.

This has been done to death, only because the thug (and his fellow thugs) are sports celebrities and "ethnic minorities." Not to mention that their handlers have decided that the best route to follow for Mr. Vick, since he has (to use the British term) been "grassed" and forced to plead guilty by his good friends, is to make a mad dash to attempt to rehabilitiate himself.

Oh, it's Darwin Time again....

This is rich....nothing like petting Bambi, particularly in the peak of the rut. Then the animal acts as its nature dictates, and it's reported that some kind of "problem" exists. Of course, this makes little difference in a world where 90% live in cities, and that includes those who live in the faux rurality that go under the general label of "suburbs." These people have no idea what a wild animal really is, and in fact think that the bacon they eat for breakfast grows on some kind of bush.

Back to Blighty

Haven't done any posting in November, because we've been in Bavaria and Austria for the last two weeks. Great trip, enjoying all the usual activities of that part of the Continent. The Tirol, all the fantastic scenery, the Königschlossen, Kirchen und Klosteren. And then there are the attractions of München- wonderful musems, and der Hofbräuhaus (as well as Bräuhausern too numerous to mention).
And then there was the KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau. We'd never been to a concentration camp before, although a tour in 2003 was supposed to include an excursion to Mauthausen. Dachau is not to be missed if you're in the neighborhood. Even if it were not for the ability to walk around the whole rest of the site, the museum (in the former "maintenance" building) would be worth the trip up. Just take the S-Bahn from Munich to Dachau, walk across the street from the Bahnhof to the main Dachau bus stop, and get on the #726 bus, which is clearly labeled "KZ Memorial."
But the rest of the site, the entire former camp, is still there. A cold rain fell the whole time we were there; a perfect atmosphere for Dachau. The barracks were torn down after the war (two have been reconstructed), but the concrete foundations of all the others, with a numbered memorial for each, are still laid out in two orderly rows, like the jaw of some hideous giant whose teeth have been extracted. The memorial is all very neat, orderly, and efficient- and it is this simple effect that conveys -as nothing in the museum could do- how the Nazis applied that same Teutonic efficiency to the 30,000 recorded dead, plus the unknown thousands who died at Dachau of things like "Special Treatment" (a small-caliber bullet in the head). Admission to the camp is completely free. Touring the camp is not easy, but I emerged from the experience believing it was a necessary thing for me to have done.

The Nerve!

.....of the President of France to walk out of a "60 Minutes" interview, or of the reporter to interrrogate Sarkozy about his personal life? Which answer is chosen might be a good litmus test as to one's generation, or how one regards the role of the Fourth Estate, or whether or not the media are at all relevant any more. A lot of things....and one thing the media hardly ever, ever does is roll over on its own....hence Breitbart TV's headline "French President Sarkozy Bolts From ‘60 Minutes’ Interview." Looked like he just took off the mike and walked out. I see "bolting" as exiting at a full gallop. He didn't want to talk about his personal life; why should he?

{Mind you, I am not suggesting there was any agenda in the character of the "60 Minutes" interview, stemming from the fact that Sarkozy is a pro- U.S. President who is establishing a hard line toward Iran. Given the sterling track record of CBS and "60 Minutes," certainly no one could harbor any suspicions that there might be a political agenda involved. I'm sure that if the former French President, Jacque Chirac, almost openly hostile to the U.S. and the Bush administration, had been involved in a similar divorce, I'm just sure "60 Minutes" would have conducted the same sort of interview. I do.....don't you?}

Ignoring Reality

A commentary in today's local paper embodied an impassioned plea that bicycles should be treated just like any other vehicle on the road. I could agree with this, except for the fact that......they're not.

A bicycle is:

1) Smaller than any licensed motor vehicle.

2) Lighter and extremely vulnerable.

3) Less visible.

4) Unable to keep up with even reduced speed limits.

5) Doesn't pay any road use taxes.

So- the proposal is, on the face of it, quite preposterous. This, however, doesn't stop it from being added to the long and ever-growing list of preposterous things in the U.S. and A. at the dawn of the 21st siécle. The ominous thing is that the list shows no sign of stopping its growth, and that therefore the collective state of denial that we appear to accept as the common "wisdom" in our culture nowadays grows ever-deeper.

Trolling for Tragedy

The fires have died down in California, the rains are done in the Southeast....where can The Weather Channel find the Disaster o' the Day? More and more, as with some other cable channels, there is an obsession with ongoing or putative disaster, and when there's not one one in the offing, their sense of direction is lost.

Wait! All is not lost! There's a large tropical depression building, so there's at least some hope of a hurricane.....

No Bottom With This Line....

Just when you think the depths of stupidity have been plumbed, you're surprised and delighted when some new idiocy comes to light. The incredibly intelligent administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign™ have been forced to rescind a ban on the logo of Chief Illiniwek™ in the homecoming parade. "The Chief"™ is the school mascot who was deleted this year after a 99-year controversy, the details of which are far too dreary to chronicle in these pages.
Now the dear Halls of Ivy™ finds itself in a predictable guerrilla war attempting to keep The Chief ™gone, while thousands of fans and supporters, complete with t-shirts, caps, mugs, keyrings, emblazoned vehicles, etc., pledge to keep him alive.
So- the first battle in the war was to determine the ownership and use of the logo. While the Big U™ has discontinued and revoked all license to use the logo, it retains Sole Ownership™ and must now fight the predictable and inevitable ad hoc battle to keep it suppressed.
The battle over the parade ban was spontaneous, but surely was equally predictable. How on earth all my university administrator acquaintances (of whom I have none), who live and die by all sorts of holy freedoms of expression 24/7/365, could have imagined that there would not have been a holy howl raised when they attempted to ban the logo in the homecoming parade must remain one of the great mysteries of this football season, if you don't count why the U of I™ plays Ball State. At all. (Ball State University, in Muncie, IN, dear old "Testicle Tech," the arch-rival of my alma mater, Indiana State is this year's victim for homecoming.) Wait! That's right....they've got the same season record. Illinois beat- Indiana. Ball State beat- The Southern Michigan Girl Scouts.

Real Wrath of God Stuff....

....cats and dogs, living together, what's next?

When they finished the last series of shows on The End of Days for the 2006 season, eliminating the human race via volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, asteroids, etc., I thought this particular lunacy might have run its course. Now we have Season Two: Black Holes, Gamma Ray Bursts, Prof. Little predicting the sky falling, and the like. Is this just how people adjust their heads to living in a world of diminishing expectations, or is it a full-blown mass psychosis?

Today I see there's a new episode: MEGA-DROUGHT!!!

....I'll drink to that.

No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition....

Don't like what you may hear on affirmative action? Suppress the evidence. Rather like what was done with Galileo's observations 400 years ago. Now California law students are a subject of controversy, not because the affirmative action candidates don't pass the bar exam -which they don't- but because data that would serve to corroborate the findings is being withheld by the U.S. Government.

If push comes to shove in this issue, anyone care to guess what the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (the agency withholding the data) will propose? How many guessed dumbing down the bar exam? Go to the head of the class!

This once again demonstrates that the most powerful force in the universe is not a supernova, or a quasar, but the human will to belief, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Another one of "those" guys....

Today is the anniversary of the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager. He is another of those members of that generation that is an example to us all. When they were having the ball celebrating the 60th anniversary of the event at Edwards AFB, Gen. Yeager was......breaking the sound barrier overhead, flying an F-16. What else?

Let's Have a Show of Hands....

Who doesn't realize that what is now termed "news" is more than 98% speculation and less than 2% information? That's the reason I deal almost exclusively with a pared-down Google Reader. Apparently General Sanchez does, however. Worth reading, although even the excerpt seems verbose.....when it comes to the fourth estate, I prefer Larry Niven's line: "You scream and you leap."

Explanation, please...

I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation of the permanent state of political campaigning that has existed since the 2004 returns were announced. It's constant, it's long past boring or annoying me. The result is that I'm politically numb: I no longer care who's running, or who gets elected, etc. How did this start? How can we exterminate it?

The Last Gunfighter

This is sad, in a way....sadder than if Dan Rather had just faded away in thinly-disguised disgrace. Now Dan's suing CBS, trying to blame the sordid fabrication of anti-Bush documents on some sort of management conspiracy. No one's going to believe this, Dan, any more than those bogus documents were believable. Are you doing it because even the slightest chance of winning that lawsuit would enable you to escape the label of poster child for a mainstream media that's as obsolete as the Brontosaurus? A hint, Dan: it doesn't matter any more. The vast majority of those who take anything in the media seriously are over 50, and most will be in the ground about the time you go. That's your real legacy, Rather. Bye-bye.

Nuke Revival

It was predictable, but it looks like it's finally here: more nuclear power plants to be built. It's even more predictable now, and even the ignoramuses who hyperventilate over reactors and all the issues that go with them don't want their lights to go off. Don't get me wrong- they don't want coal, oil, gas, dams that threaten minnows, nuclear, and many still believe in energy solutions far removed in time -or reality- but they'd rather not freeze in the dark, either. So, faced with burning more fossil fuel and generating more greenhouse whatever....it's gonna be uranium.

Revolutionary Energy From Gasoline?

This is too, too interesting not to post. A gasoline engine so tiny it can fit in a watch and run for two years on a squirt of lighter fuel, and which puts out 700 (that's seven HUNDRED) times the energy of a typical battery used to power the myriad electronic devices with which we encumber ourselves. Furthermore, this could be running small batteries out of the market in less than six years.

Cut To The Chase

The latest news on California's attempt to slice-and-dice its presidential electoral votes is a bit clearer on the details. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the proposal, which would allocate the state's 55 electoral votes according to congressional district rather than by the winner-take-all system historically employed, would only take effect if a number of states equal in electoral votes to the number required to win (270) did likewise.
I'm still not sure 1) That this wouldn't be shot down in the Federal courts, and 2) that it's not just a bad band-aid decision, and if that's what's wanted, it needs to be done through a constitutional amendment changing to a parliamentary system. This would also allow for the powers of the Judiciary and Executive to be limited, presumably ending their dominance of our federal system, where Congress has become a glorified debating society and focus for national ire.
Personally, I think neither of the options discussed above have much chance of success. The "California initiative" will, I believe, be declared unconstitutional in Federal court, and I don't believe a parliamentary amendment has a ghost of a chance of being passed by 3/4 of the states .....as I have a difficult time seeing just about any amendment adopted in our times.

Ron Obvious Strikes Again

The co-chairman of Columbia Records, where I worked Lo! these many year ago, announces that the music recording industry is strictly a legacy, and is on the way out....which, apart from the presumably necessary terminology ("-until the paradigm shifts, it's going to be a declining business. This model is done."), has been obvious to anyone who acquires and uses music for some years now.

The interesting thing to me is what was said by another commentator: "The establishment -which often is those who rode the last big wave- never sees where the next paradigm is coming from."

From luxury to appendage.....

And the latest from the front in a guerilla war that was becoming another major nuisance in my last years of teaching:

"But parents and students have a legitimate point when they argue that kids need cell phones to help coordinate after-school activities, and for safety along the way."

Ah, yes, there's no way anyone even HAD a life before cell phones, that's for sure. And as for safety? The problem at the local university is that no fewer than three students have been killed in recent years by vehicles (in two cases, city buses), two while talking on cell phones, and one with a headset on, all three perfectly oblivious to their doom. There's safety for you.

The recurrent notion that a cell phone is going to provide some salvation if a latter-day Columbine or Virginia Tech is under way is the other mantra one hears. These massacres have transpired with such speed that it's unclear what use a cell phone would be. If even a few of the thirty-some dead at Virginia Tech had been armed and willing to defend themselves, it's very probable that the shooting would have stopped at that point. I wonder what an interview with the survivors who had cell phone would yield? Not much, I suspect.

The only way I'll concede that a cell phone is going to bring the cavalry to the rescue in time to do any good is if the local SWAT team happens purely by chance to be driving by the scene. Unfortunately, real life just doesn't work that way, and I'll eschew my cell phone for a .40 Glock under those circumstances.

In conclusion: There is no cogent rationale for allowing students into the classroom with cell phones, pagers, music-listening devices, etc. They are distractions from the learning process, pure and simple, and anyone of average sense and sensibility should be able to see that. Of course, I've heard that Diogenes finally gave up on the "honest man" thing, and is poking around corners with his lantern held high, attempting to illuminate "a grain of common sense."

Bwahahahaha!

Apparently an arsonist torched the eponymous Burning Man wooden statue in the wee hours Tuesday morning. How dare such an anarchist anticipate the celebration of anarchy that would have occurred four days later?!? I imagine the organizers and participants were glad that all the right-wing establishement goons were on hand to arrest, jail, and prosecute Mr. Addis.

I have to post this, of course, or even material much less ironic. God help me, I love it so.

Thanks to Brian Tiemann at Peeve Farm for the link.

I don't get it....

I don't see the purpose of this "bulletproof backpack," since it's unlikely to protect the wearer from anything. Of course, it can be added to a myriad other products of marginal or even negative utility.....or viewed as a manifestation of a certain kind of insanity.

Another Theory of Spam

I have come to the conclusion over the past few years that day-to-day news is almost completely irrelevant. This is possibly supported by the statistical theory labelled The Black Swan, which posits that most important events and discoveries are unexpected....and the endless babble that has become the 24-hour news media is hard enough to deal with in separating signal from noise the way it is. Therefore, I need only wait for the important to occur, and if it's important enough, it will make itself manifest.

I have therefore concluded that "news" as it is understood in the early 21st century, as regurgitated by media in any form, is almost all identical to what is branded "spam" in e-mail, only different in that it pretends to information rather than advertising.

In the past three months, I have performed the experiment of having Google's News Reader perform the sole function of channeling news to my laptop, and the Tragic Lantern stays OFF. TV was a part of the familar everyday world to me for around 50 years- but I can't say that I miss it. It is now used for the sole function of prerecording shows or movies for entertainment, or showing same on DVD.

This in no way applies to local news, but "local" to me also has a very limited definition, and it's surprising how fast it falls off beyond Sangamon Township, where I live in what used to be a rural environment, but where those of us who moved here for reasons of our own have been joined by large numbers of city dwellers, who carry most of their urban predelictions with them as they fashion their estates -complete with drywall barns- in what they deem "rural splendor."

As far as "thinking globally," that was just another passing hallucination. Human beings are capable of dealing ethically with an absolute maximum of about 150 people; the rest is a mathematical abstraction.

I can have no impact on the fate of the dolphin or snail darter, the Amazon rain forest or the coming engineering of the human genome.....nor, as T.S. Eliot said, "-was meant to be." This attitude would no doubt horrify much that is embodied in fashionable ethics. I don't give a damn.

Moral obligations to distant others falls off fairly directly, and logarithmically, as the distance. I have the highest degree of obligation to my own beliefs and principles, followed by my friends and family. I have only to acknowledge the humanity of the inhabitants of Sulawesi or Central Park West. Although I have apparently omitted any connection to my nation, that, of course, is a convention. At my age, I consider my duties to society discharged (and more), and any ongoing reckoning I make, per formula, every April 15th.

Before I made this transition, I was like a happy man with a persistent deerfly buzzing around his head. Now the fly is gone.

Prospective Plaintiffs

It should have been possible to predict- tort law has now moved into realms of injuries that might occur.

"Less than a week after Mattel recalled about nearly a million Chinese-made toys in the U.S. believed to be contaminated with lead paint, an Alabama mother has filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status in the Central District of California against the company and Target, which sells Mattel toys, alleging negligence and asking for funds to medically monitor kids that “suffered an increased risk for serious health problems.”

For centuries, the basis of tort law is that an injury or damage has occurred (that's what a "tort" is). Now, we're moving back to the future.

This is, of course, consistent with those ambulance chasers who want to use their time machines to sue contemporary society for the effects of slavery, the Black Death, the eruption of Pompeii in 79 AD. The fun never stops, and is no coincidence that this lawsuit, although originating with someone in Alabama, is being filed in "-the Central District of California." Them folks in Alabama ain't advanced enough to allow this lawsuit, no doubt.

Is this complicated, really?

I've been reading about as much as I can stand about the mortgage crisis, and its effect on stocks, etc. and blah (all of which I find excessively tedious) and all the complexity and terminology seems to boil down to one very old-fashioned word: greed.
Now the unthinkable (or what greedy people just don't WANT to think about) has happened, and lots of people are running for cover. Shades of 1987, back to 1929, whenever.....all it actually proves is that there really IS nothing new under the sun.

Forget oil....

As I've read from time to time, the "sleeper crisis" that will overtake oil in a short time is water. We live on a water planet, but only about 5-7% at any given time can be described as "fresh," and what we've got isn't getting any more plentiful, or any fresher. Here is some interesting perspective from GE's Chief Marketing Officer for Water and Process Technologies.

A Small Symptom

I finally ran across the exact quote I referred to yesterday, and who it's attributed to: Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, referring to the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River at Minneapolis.

"A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down," Klobuchar said at a news conference with Coleman.

Whatever its intent, or the context, it pretty much sums up the "why" part of my complete disaffection with government. If I am wrong, Klobuchar, Coleman and others will take immediate steps to pass legislation that will see to it that our crumbling infrastructure -bridges, highways, railroads, electrical grid, etc.- is rehabilitated, brought up to date, and maintained properly. But I'm not holding my breath, because it's not going to happen.

Oh, it's not the worst or most pernicious form of this particular syndrome. An example of what is can be found in William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Chapter 12, "The Road to Munich" -which I am re-reading for reasons both complex and peripheral to this post. Chamberlain allows himself to be duped by Hitler (oh, he knew....) in the topic "Surrender at Munich: September 29-30, 1938," and comes back to Britain and utters the immortal lines: "My good friends," he said, "this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time."
This was no belief at all, but a desperate wish that what Chamberlain knew was certain to occur, what it would take a miracle to prevent from occurring, would -somehow- not happen. He was the Prime Minister of a great nation, and many cheered his words -and yet, in less than a year, World War II was underway.

This is just another version of what happens when politicians pretend bridges shouldn't fall; it will ensure the familiar, odd human trait that consists of a combination of willful blindness, and ignoring, and forgetting continues, and is perpetuated by such people as Sen. Klobuchar, and, I fear, all too many of those in government.

Simic Named Poet Laureate

Today Charles Simic was named 17th Poet Laureate of the U.S. This is one way that, taking one thing with another, we might have refrained from imitating Great Britain. Furthermore, I have read a number of Simic compositions that I think are crap.

Nevertheless. IF we were justified in naming a poet laureate, I would accept Charles Simic in that sinecure solely on the grounds of writing Ax:

AX

Whoever swings an ax
Knows the body of man
Will again be covered with fur.
The stench of blood and swamp water
Will return to its old resting place.

They’ll spend their winters
Sleeping like bears.
The skin on the throats of their women
Will grow coarse. He who cannot
Grow teeth, will not survive.
He who cannot howl,
Will not find his pack....

These dark prophecies were gathered
Unknown to myself, by my body
Which understands historical probabilities,
Lacking itself, in its essence, a future.

— Charles Simic

Just When You Think It's Safe....

....to turn on the TV, somebody comes on and quotes an unnamed U.S. Senator:

"No bridge in the United States should ever collapse."

Looking for that repeal of the laws of physics.....

On Infrastructure

If the I-35 bridge collapse in MN brings anything good, it may be to draw some serious political attention (although the last three words seem an oxymoron in these benighted times) to our crumbling lifelines. A reporter was told, when he got indignant that the I-35 bridge was classified "deficient," that 160,000 other bridges in the U.S. were similarly tagged. That shut him up.

Unfortunately, it didn't shut them all up. Actual words seen on-screen on a cable news channel this morning:

The bridge fell
from the sky
on a train
in the river
where's your brain? (Italics mine)

I suppose they could have reincarnated Dr. Seuss to do the on-screen text....

Here We Blow Again....

Funny, just when I get done watching a show of respected meteorologists say that frequency and severity of hurricanes seem to follow a 30-year cycle, and they don't know what causes it, this comes along. Please don't ask "What is an article about the increased frequency of hurricanes being caused by climate change doing in a site about Green Cars?" I frankly don't know. But it is interesting how nearly anything that comes up these days runs Anything = Global Warming, no matter how many intermediate steps have to be postulated.

Let's see. An increase in the frequency of dirty socks produces Global Warming. Dirty socks = washing = hot water = electricity = burning fossil fuels = more CO2 = Global Warming. There, that wasn't so difficult, was it? Now you try it. And knock it off with those dirty socks!

The Discount on Legends These Days

"Legendary Talk-Show Host Tom Snyder Dies"

No- you talked to people on TV, Tom. Beowulf is legendary, you're (now) a re-run.

Another Sign of the End Times

I may be confused about all this. There's a car chase (admittedly in Phoenix, where the sun beats down constantly on people's heads), and somewhere in the process, two news helicopters collide in midair, killing those aboard. Now there's talk of charging Mr. Car Chase Suspect (or Person of Excessive Speed, or whatever) with the deaths of the people in the helicopters. Surely I'm missing something, maybe he shot them down.

But -no- a glance at a story shows that some people are quite serious about this. I just don't understand how. To merely stretch this same logic a tad, all the people who sit home and watch TV coverage of car chases could claim that said drivers caused the flat spots on their asses.

The helicopters were engaged in inherently dangerous, completely voluntary (an in no way necessary) activity when pilot error (as captured on the radios right before the crash) caused the mid-air collision that resulted in the four deaths. Arguments that they would have been sitting somewhere drinking coffee if there had been no car chase are puerile.

I hasten to note that the deaths of police, paramedics, firefighters, or other "first responders" (of which TV news helicopter crews are NOT included) are in no way involved in what I have said here, as they are there in the performance of their duties.

If the individual involved can be charged in the four deaths, it indicates that there is a bad, bad law involved, one that should immediately be repealed. It reflects Harry Truman's principle that even one bad law breeds contempt for all law.

Juice at a Fundamental Level

Now this is kinda interesting.....bacterial dynamos, would you believe?

This Is The Life

....or at least, it is for me. Family gatherings are the greatest! More pix....

Maybe Not !

Here and I was letting myself think that the next wave of technology is always the wave of the future. With VOIP (phone calls on the Internet), maybe not.

Not Their Finest Hour...

Several weeks ago, I posted on the danger of environmental tinkering in a vacuum. Now it is proposed by some UK think tank to do just that, brushing off the implications of environmental engineering by stating "-three strategies are generally available-" as if it were proven that any of these will work, and how much, and completely ignores the terminal danger in raising or lowering the albedo (basically reflectivity) of the planet. Environmentalism is truly well on the path to becoming the new religion, and this may be its first leap of faith. Let us hope it is founded in True Belief. Since beliefs in the name of science are apparently part the New World Order, my belief is that the proposal above is to embark on a 20-year plan, without the slightest evidence that it can produce the intended result......and some of the unintended consequences are potentially disastrous.

In response to those who may take me to task for having advanced no solution, I can only propose what no one dares say now, but which will in the end prove inevitable. We will do less, with less people, and the "equilibrium" some talk about will be restored. Whether this is done the easy way or the hard way remains to be seen.

I KNEW This Would Be Fun

.....when I first saw the name "Dance Dance Immolation." As the article goes on to explain, "-DDI, however, combines the (dance) movements with flamethrowers--needless to say, it's for grown-ups only."

Spoilsports.

Coming Home To Roost Dept.

"I feel we are being railroaded, and the market generally forced (us) into a corner or even a cul-de-sac. In a free market, we have made Microsoft dominant, and now we have the collective responsibility to reverse this situation to re-establish balance and competition. If I am being driven down the Vista route, then an Apple Mac is smarter money and cheaper."

- Richard Snooks, Capital & Regional CIO, see complete article.

"Chance" of Morons in the Neighborhood

OK, I've only got one thing to say about the controversy over whether Fred Rogers is responsible for the "entitled" generation: Get Over It, Take A Pill, Soak Your Head. Nothing on TV is responsible for anything; it's entertainment. Now repeat that until you never feel the need to take this kind of nonsense seriously, ever, ever again.

Also: "Grown Up" means being responsible. If you're an idiot, running around with some sense of entitlement to an A instead of a C, or that you've some right to esteem without having done anything estimable, that's your problem.

Thought of the Day....

It's not that most of the idiots and yo-yos in this world don't know anything. They learned what they needed to know to do what they do. A lot of people awarded a sheepskin know what they had to learn to get their ticket punched. Along the way, they may have learned how to golf, bowl, blow their nose into a hanky instead of the tablecloth, and whatnot. What makes them idiots is that they don't know what they don't know.

The Price of Freedom

Interesting July 4th reading on Snopes.com concerning the price of freedom, and our need to turn History into Legend.

"That's History. Not what happened, but what people make themselves believe must have happened."

- Alistair Cooke

We Shall Not See Their Like Again

Another of those has passed who struggled in the giant conflagration of World War II, in which I was born too young to remember, but which has marked us all. Charles Lindberg, a Marine who was part of the group to raise the original flag on Mt. Suribachi, died June 24th in a hospital near Minneapolis.
Since it seems like a good time to thank the Marines for all they've done for this country, and it may be better to be specific, I'll use the closest Marine to me. Thanks, Dad:

1st Lt. John Avelis (1918-1979), USMCR, pilot, Marine bomber squadron VMB-413. Flew 44 missions against Rabaul and Munda in the Solomons, 1943-44. Awarded Air Medal w/six clusters and Distinguished Flying Cross.

My Choice

People love to write about the end of the world and its causes: fire, ice, bangs, whimpers.....and it looks like we have another contender.

Anybody You Know?

Here's this week's "Neanderthal Dad at Little League Game." You've probably never seen this....unless you've had any kids go through the array of kiddie sports, and then it's got to happen some time. Ours went through Tee-Ball, which is OK, too early to bring out the cave dweller, but Little League'll do it, every time. Makes a fellow proud to be swimming in the same gene pool. Wait! Maybe not....you've had enough time to look at him. Closest relative? I'll go with Jabba the Hutt.

A Show of Hands.......

.....to indicate how many people are really surprised by this: only 24% of those Americans polled indicated any interest in public or alternative transportation if gas prices continue to rise. Also, half of all drivers are driving vehicles that get less than 20 mpg. Ditto, and so much for fuel efficiency.

Hughes the prophet

Here's another contemporary example of how Robert Hughes' Culture of Complaint has become institutionalized, to the point where we accept the constant background whining over trivia as the obbligato to our faltering society. Can anyone give a reason why the U.S. Supreme Court should be ruling on high school sports recruiting? I didnt' think so; res ipse loquitur.

Wooo....I'm shakin!

Harry Fuller says media is in an uproar, as "tectonic shifts" (his phrase) are eclipsing the media establishment. Well, to use another phrase from his article, "Yeah, so what's new?"
Furthermore, if what I encounter as examples of the newspaper art, and what I view on TV are indicative of media quality, mightn't an earthquake or two be a good thing?

Take That, Prius....

A 63mpg Honda Accord in 3 years? That's what I'm talkin' about.

Making The Point...

I didn't call Reid Bryson "The Father of Scientific Climatology," folks, other people did. And, as the article says, it's not that global warming isn't occurring, it's just that he thinks that the theory that humans are causing it is a bunch of crap.

Wi-Fi Record

I am duly chastened. I thought I was doing pretty well pushing our wireless connection 8 miles with 300 mw of power using a 24db-gain dish. This South American link pretty much busts all that, though. Nearly 400 miles on the technology is pretty impressive....but if you don't already understand Wi-Fi, pay little attention to the explanatory stuff in the article. It's pretty bad.

Insensitivity = Semtex

Didn't much care for the little Salman Rushdie I did read, but he's back in the news, with a knighthood, or O.B.E., or whatever. And at least he serves to remind people that we (that is "we," the entire West) are under constant threat of death if anyone in the Muslim world has their feelings hurt. Because that's all it is.
The majority of the world, after all, isn't Muslim, and doesn't acknowledge Muslim beliefs or confer any particular status on Mohammed. I refuse to even give him the title of "Prophet," because the next step, of course, is to insist that if I refer to him, I must include what are essentially statements of religious reverence, such as "peace be upon him." I should actually not phrase that in future tense, because insistence upon this honorific has already been made in the U.K. These things I refuse to do, or acknowledge that my rejection of them, and beliefs specific to Islam, constitute blasphemy.

Just because someone East of Suez gets ticked off about a knighthood in the U.K. can have no connection in any rational world to threats of suicide bombing, which is essentially what some Pakistani minister has threatened. All of which shows that we have not been dealing with anything rational in this war, nor have we ever. Therefore this will not end in diplomacy or treaties, but in the sword. Fight it now, or fight it later.

At Least Once More

I have written precious little about the "progress" in public schools since my retirement from that particular arena five years ago. This should not be inferred as insouciance, rather that I've seen little point in writing about the same ills -again- when it's obvious that the forces in our society that are transforming the schools must run their course.

Nevertheless.

After reading a rather well-crafted column in the local paper on the subject, I am moved to blog about it again, and so ask, and perhaps for the last time, why?
The schools have always been where a great many Americans, perhaps a large majority, take their hopes for the future, when children enter the classroom to acquire some of the tools needed to deal with the world. Perhaps, after acquiring some schooling, some students will apply that learning to addressing society's problems. This is certainly reasonable; historically, a number of such students have done this, and will continue to do.
But through what side door crept in the wholly irrational expectation that schools themselves can be mandated to solve a multitude, if not all of society's ills? It is irrational -looked at in the broadest sense it is impossible- since schools are not structured to do it and should not be restructured to attempt it.
And yet this litany goes on, gets longer, and is pursued with increasing pressure. Racial, medical, dietary and a myriad behavioral problems (not to mention some that we've not thought of yet- this is covered by the catch-all phrase in the DSM-IV-TR) are all deemed to have an educational solution, and those who attempt to manage the schools are far past the point where they can fold their hands and admit their incompetence to deal with these issues. Instead, they nod, and smile broadly, and assure the public that they can solve the problem (just fill in your own blank), if only they "-have the resources."
Those with adequate mental acuity who work in the schools know perfectly well they can't correct these issues. The children bear these problems to the schoolhouse door, and they are a matter of congentical defect, deficiency, or a home life that makes fantasies like the Jukes and the Kallikaks look like the Brady Bunch. The more time the teacher must devote to being a therapist or warden, the less they can teach.
The single biggest force in our present culture that militates against success in school is the prevalent belief that everything ought to be pleasant and not upsetting or rigorous. Oh, there's plenty of talk of "challenging" kids in school, but the teacher who attempts it is just as apt to find him or herself in hot water for doing so. Nothing of the sort is generally permissible in an educational atmosphere that insists that teachers embrace detailed curriculum guides and not deviate. And the curricula themselves are increasingly aimed at the lowest common denominator, as relentlessly "dumbing down" is the only practical way to ensure that "no child is left behind."
As far as any support from the home, that most perceptive of contemporary social philosophers said:

Parents can no longer control the atmosphere at
home and have even lost the will to do so. With
great subtlety and energy, television enters not only
the room, but also the tastes of old and young alike,
appealing to the immediately pleasant and subverting
whatever does not conform to it.

-- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind; 1985

........and there is nothing immediately pleasant or gratifying about learning the parts of speech, Julius Cæsar, the Constitution, or fractions- they're all just necessary hills to be climbed on the road to becoming educated. This is the increasingly impossible task our teachers must attempt, and one of the reasons I'm frankly glad to be retired.

But none of this addresses the why of it all- what's behind it? Have we lost so much confidence in our society, are we that suspicious and fearful of our neighbors that we insist that all the things we see that incite our fears be rectified by some magical, impossible diktat? I suppose if I knew, I'd be rich & famous....the main and hopelessly banal goal that -apparently- is the presumptive end of contemporary education.
I suppose that none of this will be rectified unless and until we finally allow schools to pursue a true education: educat = to draw out, to bring forth those things in each individual and develop them as much as teaching can. And, as important as it is, teaching is always a limited activity, always ending where the free will of the individual begins. And free will is an uneasy concept as the 21st Century opens, as is anything that is not subject to statute, regulation, or some other form of social control. The more our society attempts to reduce education to a formula, the more it becomes obvious that it is a glorious variable, helping to produce individuals in all their unpredictability and diversity.

Once More, Justice

Nifong gets his; it's been a while coming, but it's been worth the wait. What is still irritating to me is that the linked NYT story uses the word "fiasco" to apply to Nifong's charges against three Duke lacrosse players. I don't see how the definition of "fiasco" applies to knowingly and falsely accusing the three young men to further his own political career. In a world of complete justice, now that he has been disbarred, he would serve a prison term.

Goodbye, Seattle!

This has got to be the end of civilization as we know it- the Microwave Popcorn Crisis threatens orderly government in Seattle. Next up: Rome falls, film at eleven.

Modern Art

Well, given my views on the daubings and splatterings, twisted coathangers, and random lumps resembling the aftermath of a pre-school Play-Doh™ fest that passes for contemporary art by humans, I'll take the efforts of the Hubble Space Telescope at 17.....

None Dare Call It....

I have now read several rather long articles about the crisis at Los Angeles' Martin Luther King Jr. - Harbor Hospital, and, to quote that famous philosopher Mr. Lewis Black, "I am confeeewzed."
We are regaled with the apparent ineptitude and even outright malpractice of the hospital staff, but no media report I have read even hints at a cause- not one. And yet the articles state that the hospital primarily serves the minority areas of Watts & Willowbrook, and we're supposed to just draw the implied conclusion, the one the media doesn't dare discuss, that this hospital is almost certainly so chaotic, such a snakepit that attracting good staff must be a near impossibility.
And since the causes can't be mentioned, it becomes impossible to discuss solutions, so all we read is that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors is considering closing the hospital. And this will help.....what?
At least if the reasons for this meltdown in health care delivery were discussed frankly, it might be possible to do something about it. In the long run, I don't know what the answer is, but in the short run, I suspect that if hefty premiums were paid to get better people working there (as long as such competence could be assessed ) and those who couldn't demonstrate competence had their pay cut until they could meet standards, with the clear understanding that they were on probation, and would soon be on the street if they didn't shape up.
It's not a cure, but it's a start, and when people are dying on the ER floor, a start is clearly what's needed.

This Is What Computers Are Good For

My idea of cool: Rome Reborn 1.o

Rendezvous With Destiny....

The argument over global warming seems to have been derailed time and again, and curiously in much the same way as the constant skirmishing over evolution. Evolution and global warming are facts; what are at issue -what must always be at issue in Science as presently conceived- are the theories applied to explain the facts.
A theory of the cause of global warming, which has gained much momentum, states that it is demonstrable that the activities of the human race has produced the rise in global temperatures for the past several hundred years. Given a bit more of a push, a cup or two of religious fervor and maybe a dash of paranoia, and we will see putative remedies being applied willy-nilly, in hopes that the effects of centuries can be reversed in a few years.
Don't get me wrong: some of the things that will be done have been pending for three decades or more, need to move forward, but have nothing specifically to do with global warming. The most salient example that comes to mind is the move to alternative energy sources. What I am referring to is a rush to address global warming that amounts to a massive over-reaction to a situation, the remedies for which may not be well understood, with disastrous consequences on a world-wide scale.
When it comes to some things, like flirting with Geo-engineering, it's playing Russian roulette with a big, big gun. If we're right about the causes, it may succeed. If not, we may spend trillions of dollars and, if we're lucky, accomplish nothing. If we're not, we may achieve at a stroke what forty years of the Cold War couldn't- a very acceptable substitute for Nuclear Winter.....except we could just refer to it as the end of the Fourth Post-glacial Period in the Pleistocene. If that occurs, we may hope that genetic engineering has progressed far enough to resurrect the Woolly Mammoth, because we're gonna need to hunt them (again) for food.
There was much doomsaying during the Cold War, which dominated the first 50 years of my life, bemoaning the fact that mankind had finally achieved the ability to destroy himself. This was made doubly bad because it was going to happen in a Nuclear Holocaust. The irony is that we may accomplish the same thing, and with the best of intentions. There have been five Great Extinctions in geologic time since the Precambrian, and those who point to a sixth -the increase in the rate of extinction in the past 10,000 years due to the activities of man- may be right about the extinction, but wrong about the species. Such people worry about our powers threatening other species, and ignore the fact that a relatively small miscalculation -a mistake in some gene-splicing lab, for example- could eliminate the human race far more efficiently than all the nuclear bombs ever made.

Shared Illusion...

The issue of vaccines administered to young children used to be a favorite hobby-horse of Don Imus before he was jerked from the air. Despite the definitive findings to the contrary of the Institute of Medicine, some parents and their advocates insist that the mercuric preservative thimerosal is the causative agent in autism. As with other types of scientific findings, the action of collective human belief, particularly where it relieves fear or uncertainty, appears to carry at least equal weight with some.
As Paul A. Offit writes in The Boston Globe,

"Now, vaccine makers are again threatened. Lawyers will argue that either the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or a mercury-containing preservative (thimerosal) in vaccines or the combination of the two can cause autism. This theory has been advanced on television shows such as 60 Minutes, in popular magazines like Time and Newsweek, and on national radio programs such as Imus in the Morning. Most prominently, the mercury-causes-autism theory has been advanced by a parents advocacy group called Safe Minds -- a group now at the center of the litigation."

Thus, simple media exposure creates belief, and belief in the hands of any group of people -people backed by tort lawyers- is enough to counterbalance definitive scientific proof, if only twelve people on a jury can be convinced.

Then, there is evidence that while mercury is certainly capable of causing debilitating conditions or even death, there is no evidence that autism is one of them:

"Certainly there is plenty of evidence to refute the notion that vaccines cause autism. Fourteen epidemiological studies have shown that the risk of autism is the same whether children received the MMR vaccine or not, and five have shown that thimerosal-containing vaccines also do not cause autism. Further, although large quantities of mercury are clearly toxic to the brain, autism isn't a consequence of mercury poisoning; large, single-source mercury exposures in Minamata Bay and Iraq have caused seizures, mental retardation, and speech delay, but not autism."

Finally, anyone with a sixth-grade education ought to be able to understand the argument that if mercury is withdrawn from a vaccine, yet the incidence of autism is not only unaffected, but increases, then there is NO connection!

"Finally, vaccine makers removed thimerosal from vaccines routinely given to young infants about six years ago; if thimerosal were a cause, the incidence of autism should have declined. Instead, the numbers have continued to increase. All of this evidence should have caused a quick dismissal of these cases. But it didn't, and now the court has turned into a circus. The federal and civil litigation will likely take years to sort out."

The track record of vaccines is clear, particularly in young children. The use of vaccines has a track record that is clear, going back to Edward Jenner's inoculations against smallpox in the eighteenth century. I can sympathize with any parent having to deal with a condition as serious as autism, but that does not, and should not preclude the access to vaccines, which our current system of litigation threatens to do. Risk is a part of life, and the risks of being vaccinated are without doubt enormously less than not being vaccinated.


And yet, curiously, we are threatened with the possibility -and out of pure belief- that vaccines might become a thing of the past, or manufactured completely under government ægis in order to block litigation that can place drug companies in receivership. The demand of the vast majority, supported by evidence that vaccines are safe is curiously sidelined by a group of about 5,000 people supported by their attorneys. My demand that my children and my grandchildren have vaccines available is therefore validated only if I sue in their behalf- evidently.

If anyone believes that contemporary mankind is necessarily more clear-headed and rational than our predecessors, this sorry business should quell that argument. We ARE the same ancestors who believe that "bad air" caused malaria, and that necklaces of flowers could protect against the Black Death, and who burned old ladies at the stake when epidemics occurred. Or, put more succinctly:

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."

- Adam Savage

Rocket Mail

June 8, 1959. I'm for it. Where is cool stuff like this today?

Tom Swift, Where Are You?

Noticed this excerpt today at Green Car Congress, in an article entitled IATA Director General Calls for a Zero Emissions Future for Aviation. An excerpt is instructive:

Technology: The aerospace industry must build a zero-emissions aircraft in the next 50 years.

I challenge the US, Europe, Canada, China, Brazil, Russia and Japan to coordinate basic research on a zero-emissions aircraft and then compete to develop products based on this research. Clean fuel is also critical. Governments have cut alternative fuel funding while oil companies are busy counting the US$15 billion in increased refinery margins that the airline industry is now paying. The first target is to replace 10% of fuel with low-carbon alternatives in the next ten years. And the second is to begin developing a carbon-free fuel from renewable energy sources. It’s time for governments and the oil industry to make some serious investments.

Hmmmm. "-make some serious investments." That's one way to put it. Another way would be "Come up with a completely new set of scientific principles." Wait, that's right, all we have to do is contact Star Fleet Command and they'll give us all the technology we need.

Zero emissions aircraft? First think "completely new physics & chemistry textbooks." At our level of knowledge, might as well wish for levitation, oh, hell, make that teleportation and have done with it.
We are faced here with what we can only hope is a fading attitude that science is bound to come up with ways to preserve our way of life, if only we make the proper investments and invoke the proper phrases at the Scientific Temple of Cant. No one is even willing to fantasize yet about Living With Less. But they will.

How Far from Moonbat?

There was the guy who wrote the letter to the editor in the paper tonight, stating that Congress simply must lower fuel prices, citing a giant conspiracy of oil companies and whoever to stage the Iraq imbroglio to (somehow) provide a pretext for higher fuel prices. At least this guy is obviously qualified for a tinfoil hat and a set of those special night-vision binoculars for spotting black helicopters. No problem; he's a loony, he's been quite honest in laying that out for us, and as far as I'm concerned he's got a right to his opinion....and his rubber room.
But how far removed from him are Big Automotive's 3 CEOs, who together with the UAW make special pleas to further postpone increases in the CAFE standards for motor vehicles? Take away the blatantly crazy rationales of the guy in the previous paragraph......not so much. Who really believes this kind of stalling can help, as the inevitable looms ever closer? Evidently they can, but who can believe that it's anything but their bottom line talking?

That's Synergy!

In a new entertainment sensation, "Dance Dance Immolation" (and, nooo, I am not making this up) evidently combines all the best features of modern technology with an auto-da-fe to combine a fun night on the town without the mess and inconvenience of body waxing or other depilatory regimens beforehand, bring your own onions and mustard.

I don't know why I can't think of these cool innovations first.....

Paris Goes to the Pokey

It's a beautiful day in East Central Illinois, made just that teeniest bit nicer by the fact that Paris Hilton actually did have to go inside, if only for 23 days, which is what she'll supposedly get for good behavior. I was wrong, I admit it, and I'm glad!

Upheld....

Ill. ex-Gov. Ryan loses pension appeal

© 2007 The Associated Press

CHICAGO — A judge upheld a state board's decision to strip former Gov. George Ryan of his entire $197,000-a-year pension because of his conviction last year on federal racketeering charges.

I'd like to think this'll stick, but I liked the idea of Paris Hilton going to jail when it was first announced....and you saw what happened there. It's easy to be cynical about these things, but is the progression: Perception of differential justice -> acceptance of such treatment -> social classes?

I Just Need an Explanation, Please.

OK- the hurricane forecast for the 2007 season is out, from whatever wizard peers into his scrying mirror, doppler radar, or whatever substitute for tea leaves they use, and it looks like Doom For Sure. What I want to know is what this means. To me.

"He (N.E. Cromancer) says there's a 74% chance of a major hurricane making landfall on the US coast. He says there's a 49% chance of a major hurricane landfall on the Gulf Coast between the Florida Panhandle and Brownsville. The 20th century average was 30%."

We can dispose of #1 on the general assumption that since I don't live within 800 miles of a coast, we can call it a miss.

Does #2 mean "this year?" And, if so-

How does it relate to #3's stated average for the 20th Century (if I understand the concept of "average" aright, and I think I do)?

Am I correct in assuming that there can't be any real relation? Did the stoplight just change to green, and is that my favorite color? Did a few too many brain cells just go "poof?"

.....and a big thanks to YOU!

It goes without saying that this blog, and EVERY blog, should have this as its guiding light. Thanks to Big Daddy Drew at Kissing Suzy Kolber, excerpted from "A Hearty Welcome To Our New York Times Readers.":

And now that we have a more upscale readership thanks to you, the Times reader, we’re going to do our damnedest to model this site closely after the Paper of Record. So look out for movie reviews that don’t clearly recommend a film one way or another, conservative op-ed columns that aren’t actually conservative, Nicholas Kristof-style reports from Pakistan that make you feel like shit for a good five minutes, catty TV reviews, Frank Rich-style pieces that marry the latest hot button political issue to the latest pop culture trend in one very clever double entendre (Like, “How Iraq Became A Grind House”! That’s gold!), a printable science section you’ll roll up and use for kindling, the wedding details of wealthy white asshole couples you’d like to beat to death with a shovel, food recipes for things like homemade crème brulee that the author insists “couldn’t be easier to make” but in reality take five goddamn hours just to get in the oven, Al Sharpton quotes, reviews of ballets and operas no one under the age of 72 attends, letters to the editor from righteous dipshits, and a bitching obit section. All that and more!

I'll Do Anything You Want, Just Shut Up!

Of course, the current spasm of "green religion" (and someone has already used just that phrase, and in all seriousness) must run its course before any sense can emerge from our re-re-re discovered awareness that 1) fossil fuels aren't inexhaustible, and 2) we are fouling our own nest.

Nevertheless, it's simultaneously tedious and frustrating to read the 87th iteration of what amounts to the same mantra. Today's selection is "I'm running a mix of Wesson Oil, used french-fry squeezings, and the renderings of chit'lins in my '77 Mercedes 240D, after Alf the Diesel Doctor worked on it. I'm saving the world, now if all of us just...."

Ignoring the fact that you can act locally in such a situation, but you cannot apply it globally, I'm just on overload with the whole thing.

When Robert Benchley was writing as critic in The New Yorker back in the 1920's, he expressed this kind of frustration well, but on a different topic:

I am now definitely ready to announce that Sex, as a theatrical property, is as tiresome as the Old Mortgage....I am sick of rebellious youth and I'm sick of Victorian parents and I don't care if all the little girls in all sections of the United States get ruined, or want to get ruined, or keep from getting ruined. All I ask is: don't write plays about it and ask me to sit through them.

...and I don't care if the importance of french-fry oil is earth-shaking (which it's not), I just don't want to hear any more about it.

Yodish

Non-language of the day: "People may not be accepting of that."

Shame is that a......

Memorial Day, 2007

There are many good and thoughtful memorials, designed to help us remember those who have given their all in defense of this country. But on Memorial Day, there is a tendency to focus only on the external threats that the sacrifice of these individuals represent. Accordingly, I felt it appropriate to post something a bit centripetal:

Whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some transatlantic giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River, or make a track on Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we shall live forever, or die by suicide.

- Abe Lincoln, 1837

It's about time.

If they can have Book-O-Mania or whatever it is on C-SPAN, so can I. Besides, now that Don Imus is busy making his crawl in sackcloth and ashes to Canterbury Cathedral, I don't think books are mentioned anywhere else on TV, except when it's absolutely unavoidable.

Today, something short: E.M. Forster's The Celestial Omnibus. This is no fairy tale; it is absolutely true, and absolutely necessary for anyone who plans on maturing into a proper adult to take with deadly seriousness. I believe that the child is born, and the imagination, given proper stimuli, develops as a matter of course in any normal person. Lacking those stimuli (...and TV, quite specifically, qualifies as a "lack"), it will wither and die in adulthood, and that person becomes, at very best, pathetic.

There you are; a review of a short story, short and to the point.....

My Kind of Town

Spring in Newport, RI.....there may be better places to have a getaway, but this town is pretty nice. I suspect that late May is the lull between the rather low-level Winter and the hectic touristy Summer. Not our sort of place socially, of course. Apart from the Navy, much of the town seems to be folks with aspirations to gentility, but with more money than anything...including the knowledge of what they really want. They buy a house that was built in the early 18th c., but the founders of Providence Plantations who fled the New Jerusalem in Massachusetts are no closer to them, and no more of their mental furniture than those days in History class they missed. The old Quaker clapboards are mixed in with Victorian wedding cakes and the elegant Federal piles with fanlighted entrances....all telling their stories, if some part of a lifetime is spent learning to understand the tale. And there's precious little appetite for that, and, I suppose, in any age. What drives occupancy of these houses is the same thing that moves the owner to buy an Audi because the neighbors on each side have BMWs or Volvos: exclusivity. The overwhelming need of so many to somehow be distinguished from the mass of the middle class. We have no titles of nobility, and a ragamuffin's dress may belong to a bum or billionaire in this society, and so a particular accumulation of property becomes our identity, and a monument that will be raffled off like Scrooge's old bedclothes when we pass.

As for the rest of Newport- pretty much like the rest of these United States. Unserviceable traffic problems, made worse here by the insular geography. Street signs posted at regular intervals declare "Restricted Parking Resident Vehicle by Pass only 6PM - 6AM, May through October." These are the signs of our times.

Yeah, I knew that....

In perusing the Naval War College Review, Winter 2007 edition, I came across the article "Duty at All Costs" by George M. Clifford III. In treating a topic that must always be a possibility for the military profession, it nonetheless manages to give examples of those who "knew" that Vietnam, or Iraq, or, presumably, the campaign against the Barbary Pirates was immoral, bad policy, strategy, etc.

The article goes on to recount how certain individuals then -almost- went in and set fire to their commissions in front of the higher ups.....in the case of a four-star during Vietnam, he recounts "the day" when he was ready to walk in and fling those stars on LBJ's desk and walk out and hold a press conference.

But- somehow, it never quite happened on "that day," and when I reflect upon it, I can convince myself that there were one or two instances in my working life when I should have walked in and thrown down the gauntlet, burned all my bridges, and crossed the Rubicon generally on matter of principle.

And I wonder how many other human beings, in the autumn of their years, professional soldiers or no, could also fix on a time or times when that was the case. But "conscience doth make cowards of us all," and there is always personal responsibilities, or the crass consideration of pension and health care benefits, or the simple fact that most human beings are turtles in this regard, and just won't stick their necks out, even if it's something that stirs the passions as much as a war.

Then there's always the reconstruction of matters in hindsight. "Yes, it was controversial. Yes, I had my doubts. No, I didn't do anything about those doubts. But twenty years later, I can reassure myself that if only things had been -slightly- different, by golly I would've." And so what happened passes the bar into what ought to have happened, and from there it's not all that far to to what must have happened. Thus, the Will to Belief triumphs again.

Birthday Present.....

I was surprised and pleased to receive for my birthday this year the book version (which I had never seen) of the films I used for three decades in my U.S. History classes- Alistair Cooke's America series.
I never paid much attention to Cooke's epilogue, as it didn't really fit into the syllabus of a high school class, but something of it stuck with me. From the book:

I myself think I recognize here several of the symptoms that Edward Gibbon maintained were signs of the decline of Rome, and which arose not from external enemies but from inside the country itself. A mounting love of show and luxury. A widening gap between the very rich an the very poor. An obsession with sex. Freakishness in the arts masquerading as originality, and enthusiasm pretending to creativeness.

- Alistair Cooke, America, p. 387

I find little to disagree with.

Grandpa Again....

I became a grandpa for the second time yesterday. First time last August with a little girl, yesterday with a boy. Somehow, being a grandparent seems like the most natural thing in the world....and a good thing.

The Cold Equations

"16-year-old drivers are at 9 time greater risk of a fatal accident than the driving population at large." when I hear things like this on the radio -at least in the context of consciousness-raising crap, I either ignore it or get steamed, since in a case like this there is not a shred of hope that anything will actually be done to change the situation.
Well, when I heard this this morning, and this afternoon the paper carried a story of the consolidation of five rural school districts into a single co-operative high school, I reflected on the fact that the increased driving distances for the teenagers in question will automatically result in an increased death toll for the student population of the proposed school.

40 Reasons to Ban Guns

1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, Detroit & Chicago cops need guns.

2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.

3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."

4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates,which have been declining since 1991.

5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.

6. The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.

7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.

8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.

9. When confronted by violent criminals, you should "put up no defense - give them what they want, or run" (Handgun Control Inc. Chairman Pete Shields, Guns Don't Die - People Do, 1981, p. 125).

10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns & Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.

11. One should consult an automotive engineer for safer seat belts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for internal medicine, a computer programmer for hard drive problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.

12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which was created 130 years later, in 1917.

13. The National Guard, federally funded, with bases on federal land, using federally-owned weapons, vehicles, buildings and uniforms, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a "state" militia.

14. These phrases: "right of the people peaceably to assemble," "right of the people to be secure in their homes," "enumerations herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people," and "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people" all refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.

15. "The Constitution is strong and will never change." But we should ban and seize all guns thereby violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to that Constitution.

16. Rifles and handguns aren't necessary to national defense! Of course, the army has hundreds of thousands of them.

17. Private citizens shouldn't have handguns, because they aren't "military weapons'', but private citizens shouldn't have "assault rifles'', because they are military weapons.

18. In spite of waiting periods, background checks, fingerprinting,government forms, etc., guns today are too readily available, which is responsible for recent school shootings. In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's,anyone could buy guns at hardware stores, army surplus stores, gas stations,variety stores, Sears mail order, no waiting, no background check, no fingerprints, no government forms and there were no school shootings.

19. The NRA's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, but the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.

20. Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.

21. A handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.

22. Women are just as intelligent and capable as men but a woman with a gun is "an accident waiting to happen" and gun makers' advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."

23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.

24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.

25. A majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population supported owning slaves.

26. Any self-loading small arm can legitimately be considered to be a "weapon of mass destruction" or an "assault weapon."

27. Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by because they can be trusted.

28. The right of Internet pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.

29. Free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self- defense only justifies bare hands.

30. The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the Constitution.

31. Charlton Heston, a movie actor as president of the NRA is a cheap lunatic who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas, a movie actor as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.

32. Police operate with backup within groups, which is why they need larger capacity pistol magazines than do "civilians" who must face criminals alone and therefore need less ammunition.

33. We should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.

34. Police officers have some special Jedi-like mastery over handguns that private citizens can never hope to obtain.

35. Private citizens don't need a gun for self- protection because the police are there to protect them even though the Supreme Court says the police are not responsible for their protection.

36. Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with cops, need a gun.

37. "Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.

38. When Microsoft pressures its distributors to give Microsoft preferential promotion, that's bad; but when the Federal government pressures cities to buy guns only from Smith & Wesson, that's good.

39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.

40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to "keep guns out of the wrong hands." Guess what? You have the wrong hands.

Thanks to "militiajim" for this collection....