Archive for May 2007
Coolest Widget Ever
See the Answer Tips image at the top of the column to your left? Ok, now double-click on any word anywhere on this page and see what happens. If it's a hyper-linked word, then right double-click. Tell me that's not cool. Just go right ahead.
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Funny Carter
Glancing through the news, I see this. Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history"... I was immediately reminded of a joke that goes something like this: A husband and wife who'd been married for many years had just completed a session in bed, when the wife, who just can't take it anymore, says out loud: "You know, I've just got to tell you. You're the world's worst lover." The husband pauses and reflects a moment. "Nah; that'd be just too much of a coincidence."
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Insanity
Is there a better word to describe this? "What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it's blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?" Perhaps they ought to consider a mote, drawbridge, battlements and portcullises.
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Ron Paul and Blog
For those interested in a single-source for current news and whatnot on Ron Paul, here's an unofficial blog that seems to be doing a pretty good job rounding up everything of interest so you don't have to. So throw that puppy into your RSS reader if you like. I highly doubt Paul could ever win this thing (primary or general) -- but he is a U.S. Congressman of several terms so it's certainly within the realm of possibility. He's getting traction right now because what he's saying (about the war, mostly) resonates both with conservatives who somewhat understand some of the moral imperative behind the war but are tired of it and democrats who are mostly amoral about the thing, count up the number of dead, and because there's more of them than us, conclude that we're the badder bad guy. It's difficult, in hindsight, for me to look back to post WWII and not conclude that plastering military bases in Europe and Asia wasn't the geopolitically smart thing to do. It seems to have worked out. We never went to war with the USSR and my guess is we never will with Russia, at least on the scale that...
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“Speaking Intolerable Truths”
Much as I hate to say it, because he's so often whack, Pat Buchanan is right about this. It's along the lines of something I wrote yesterday. ...up on that stage in Columbia, he was speaking intolerable truths. Understandably, Republicans do not want him back... I suppose it's not unreasonable to say that those who opposed going into Iraq in the first place had very good reason, simply because the chances were so great it would end up the complete and undeniable mess it has ended up. I supported going in, and I was agnostic on the nation-building democracy thing, which is to say: if you can do it, do it quick, and it works, fine. I should have considered how unlikely that was. What we should have done (20/20 hindsight-wise) is as soon as Saddam Hussein was captured, to haul ass, along with delivering a stern message to not make us come back.
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Big, Bigger, Biggest Fool’s Parade
I don't know that James Dobson is anywhere near what Andrew Sullivan refers to as "the most influential man in the Republican base," but he's pretty damn influential, successful, and has been for a long time (I remember him as a teenager, like 30 years ago). But get a load of that, will ya? Well, God is going to move. You won't find in the Scriptures that the United States is coming to rescue Israel or the European Union, but God says he is going to supernaturally intervene, we're talking about fire from heaven, a massive earthquake, diseases spreading through the enemy forces. It is going to be such a clear judgement [sic] against the enemies of Israel that Exekiel 39 says that will take seven months to bury all the bodies of the slain enemies of Israel. And the birds of the air and the beasts of the field are going to eat many of these slain soldiers. I think this is the end of radical Islam as we know it, Ezekiel 38 and 39, and in the aftermath, millions, even tens of millions, including radical Muslims, will come to faith in Jesus Christ. And given the events going...
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Grave Dancing
An interview of Christopher Hitchens given to CNN on the death of Jerry Falwell. I take some issue with it, but take a look first. I'm not so sure that Falwell wasn't sincere in his beliefs in primitive superstition and an imaginary friend. As a teenager and young adult, I watched Falwell and others like him very closely, went to a college for a year at a place much like Liberty University, et cetera. There's a hypothesis I have some sympathy for: that it's impossible for someone (like the pope, for instance), to be stupid enough to really believe all that childish rubbish and create the kind of success they do in building and managing huge organizations. They must just be really good cons. Kind of a Man Behind the Curtain, only out in front. I never bought into that completely, and mostly because it's impossible to prove unless they confess. And, why wouldn't they? If they derive pleasure and satisfaction from the con, then eventually their ego must demand that everyone know just how good they were. I've a better theory, kind of like the Bigger Fool Theory. Religious leaders are sincere fools, and it works only because there's...
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Facts and Judgments
The blogosphere is awash in commentary about the Guiliani and Ron Paul kerfuffle in the 2nd GOP debate the other night. I'll simply point out that there are facts, and then there are judgments about what ought to be done about them. Why is it such a taboo for Paul to point out that America has and is being targeted by Middle Eastern terrorist organizations because it has engaged itself in Middle Eastern affairs? It's a fact. Now, you may think it's an entirely appropriate engagement (and some of it was, in my view), but that is a separate matter from the immutable fact that it's the case. To my knowledge, there are dozens of countries with more or less the same secular freedoms and "morally corrupt" culture we have, yet they are not engaged in the various Middle-Eastern conflicts and you don't see them being attacked. Again, you can judge or characterize their lack of involvement however you wish, but the facts remain. We were, are, and will be attacked because we put ourselves into the fight way back when and are in it now deeper than ever. Alas, Ron Paul has not said that America deserved what it...
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Confirming Signal
Yep; just when you think all is settled and everyone is on board is the most critical time in any trend. I saw this coming months ago. Here's a confirming signal (link: Meyer). Watch for more. It was a combination of things. It was the ever-increasing number of Toyota Prius Hybrids I see (enormous, here in CA). It was compact florescent bulbs, which for most applications are not any improvement over what we've been using for the last 50 years and more in terms of purpose. It was the increasing hysteria over plastic grocery bags to the extent that some cities are banning them. It was pretentious calls to use less TP, for Christ's sake. It was Citigroup committing $1 billion to the global warming cause. It was all kinds of things that looked to me just like an exhaustion rally. Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think so, and the reason I don't think I'm wrong is because I highly suspect that man-made global warming is bullshit, and I think that the warming that has been demonstrated isn't and won't be anywhere near as serious as has been predicted. It may even be beneficial, on balance, globally. Look at...
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This Just In
Michael Hampton at Homeland Stupidity has a really excellent writeup on last night's GOP Debate on Fox to include poll results at both Fox and MSNBC where Paul placed 2nd and 1st, respectively. Look: nobody should be the president of the United States. But I'd at least like to see Paul get some decent (wide) media exposure. He's the only one (on either side) saying anything that 's worth more than a dime's worth of difference from what everyone else is saying.
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Falwell
I actually heard him speak in person once, at a church here in the SF Bay Area. Must've been mid-80's. As with all such controversial personalities, they're loved or hated far more than ignored and in my book, overcoming irrelevance goes a long way towards having lived a life. - I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians, ... the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this [terrorist attack: 9/11] happen. - If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being. - AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals. - The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country. - Homosexuality is Satan's diabolical attack upon the family that will not only have a corrupting influence upon our next generation, but it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America. - Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions....
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Legislating Elightenment
Here's a follow-up to a sent item form yesterday. This was from another very nice and upstanding member of our small community whose company I always enjoy quite enthusiastically. I understand the point of view that compassion and respect cannot and should not be legislated--that's what I hear lies at the heart of your response, yes? Yes; they cannot. Compassion, respect, appreciation, understanding, enlightenment, empathy, et al; these and other -- some would say 'virtuous' -- attributes can't be legislated. The law can only effect one thing: compliance. To wax metaphorical, legislation can't offer heaven, it can only threaten hell. And of course that's precisely why the laws and ordinances are needed: to ensure that folks who would otherwise be ignored or who have historically been marginalized or in some other way "disenfranchised" or dehumanized so that others DON'T feel compassion, understanding, or respect toward them, can participate fully. Right. We're not talking about compassion, respect, understanding, education, or anything like that. We're talking about force, compulsion, penalties, and so on. We're also talking about the transfer of assets from some to benefit others, also backed by threat of force. One clarification: such laws and ordinances are perceived as "needed"...
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“The Stockdale Paradox”
Long-term human optimism in the face of short-term reality An interesting bit on the late Admiral Jim Stockdale, Vietnam prisoner of war. Asked: "Who didn't make it out?" "The optimists. They were the ones who said we're going to be out by Christmas. And, Christmas would come and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, We're going to be out by Easter. And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. Then they died of a broken heart. "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." Words to live and trade by, I think.
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“Respect”
A nice gentleman from our downtown loft complex writes to the homeowners email list regarding the handicapped parking in our garage. My reply to the list follows. I hope we would all respect the intended use of those spaces. I wonder if "respect" is the right word. Isn't "submit" more accurate? "I hope we would all submit to the intended use of those spaces." If we, as owners-in-common, had voluntarily decided to donate the -- what, $100k or so? -- value of those spaces out of our own pockets to handicap use, or whatever use, the "respect" that would come into play would be the that of our property rights -- the right to see to our own affairs for our own purposes. Is that what we did, or does the city compel us, by force, into having those spaces? We can, of course, blissfully congratulate ourselves on our "compassion" for the handicapped, feeling all morally superior; but it seems to me that the possibility for compassion was thrown out the window once we were compelled to do it rather than doing it out of the goodness of our hearts or whatever might motivate us to voluntarily undertake to help...
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Resistance to Change
I mentioned my new Sony Reader a couple of posts ago, and the discussion in the comments related to it reminded me of this little bit I saw some time ago. I'm sure the transition from stone tablets to scrolls went along without a lot of opposition.
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The Irony
What Daimler gains from the deal is closing the door on both the ongoing losses and the liability for future health care costs for Chrysler's unionized employees and retirees, estimated to be as high as $18 billion. I suppose the lesson to take away is that it's one thing to be a socialist company, another to be a stupid company, but socialist and stupid just won't do.
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A Reading: Greatest Enemies
His aversion to religion, in the sense usually attached to the term, was of the same kind with that of Lucretius: he regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies -- belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind -- and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtue: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. -- John Stuart Mill on his father I have never, ever read such an apt and thorough description of my own judgment of religion (as moral evil and great enemy). I came upon this in chapter two of God is not Great by Christohper Hitchens, which, incidentally, I'm reading on my new Sony Reader which is just fabulous. For years I've said that paper books won't have real competition until they come up with a display...
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Kicking Back
Visiting San Francisco for the weekend, staying at our timeshare on Bush St. at Stockton just off Union Square. We just absolutely love it up here. A few Saturday morning photographs from the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge: The Transamerica Building and Financial District: Coit Tower and surrounding commie residential area. That's where you can live when you can afford a $1 million condominium or $2 million townhouse. Then you can look down upon the lower classes and feel yourself morally superior by proposing endless sacrifices to "help" them, all imposed by force and conveniently exempting yourself. On a final note, the Samsung Blackjack is performing swimmingly. Rather than buy the high-speed connection, I noted the phone showing the 3G symbol, so I hooked up and am pulling down 950 kbps and kicking up just over 300. Sweet!
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Interview with a Fellow American
Christopher Hitchens: "It's an inescapable one. Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends and astronomy begins." All together with a pretty touching moment at the end...
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Smile: There is No Hell
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