Reallyquickpost - 24 January 2008

Went to see the Seattle Symphony play Play! tonight. Of the three performances I have been to, this one was easily the worst, in my opinion. It might have been where I was sitting (Main floor, aisle seat, right side), but there seemed to be tempo problems for a lot of the pieces (conducted too slow), and for many of the songs, the notes were always precise and seemed very nonmusical, nonflowing to me. There were some songs that were excellent, usually in slower tempo. My musical sense and expectations may have interfered with enjoying this concert fully, but it took, in my opinion, until the middle of the first act for the symphony to start playing things at the right tempo. It was enjoyable when things were on, but when they were off, I was well aware of them. I’d still recommend seeing a Play! concert, if you haven’t already, but your mileage may vary, I guess. Try 8-bit Instrumental as a possibility until then.

Mr. Gore has endorsed equal marriage rights for homosexuals. Perhaps it’s an attempt to utilize his newfound Nobel clout in the service of other worthy social issues? In a only-tangentially related way, the Social Issues Research Centre offers a guide on how, where, and when to flirt. Dry, academic, but possibly useful.

Internationally, Condoleezza Rice dangled the prospect of more normal relations with Iran if it gave up the nukes. Knowing that they couldn’t spend five years in Iran rebuilding like they did in Iraq, perhaps this is a carrot offering? Although, there should be lots of international Frowning Upon Iran's disqualification of more than 2,000 candidates for election because they were deemed to be disloyal to the principles of 1979 that started the current regime.

Preliminary "economic stimulus" agreement would involve tax rebate checks for everyone. Professor tscheese said this might work in the short term, but when there are more substantial problems at work, something like this won’t work for long, if at all. While the solution may not be as extreme as Webster Tarpley's "draft" recovery program, which involves a lot of additional taxes levied at those who make money through stock trades, a “living wage” of $15/hr, as well as a lot of tax relief for individuals, I don’t think that a $300 tax rebate’s going to get people in over their heads out. If Gary Coleman has to auction off his kiddie pants to pay for his kidney dialysis, I think that we’ve got good reasons to consider universal health care. Oh, wait, the veto override for expanding S-CHIP failed.

Perhaps while we’re all mulling that over, a pair of possible FISA bills might have the good one discarded for not making it to 60 votes and the bad one let through without having to make the same standard. And the Senate will be talking about whether to exempt telecommunications companies from the legal ramifications of their role in assisting warrantless wiretapping.

Regarding the database of false statements made by the Bush Administration in the leadup to the Iraq War, Gabriel Schoenfeld wants us to believe that the statements weren't false based on the intelligence of the time, and that only after stomping Iraq into the ground and discovering nothing there, do those statements become false, and to continue using them a lie.

In the general election, the Washington Post has hit on a curious thing - sitting Senators like to run for the Presidential office, but they rarely actually win it. Maybe getting all that experience in Washington gives enough dirt for the populace to be convinced they’re not going to work in the high office. Talking Points Memo has a list of sixteen currently sitting Senators that have run for President.

Our Department of Things Obvious reminds us that botulinum toxin is in fact, toxic and can be deadly if permitted to spread. Thus, groups seeking warnings for Botox as a potentially deadly treatment are just telling us what we should already know. Additionally, people don't take sensory deprivation well.

The Science of Renewable Fuels department is keeping an eye on a claim to be able to convert all sorts of non-foodstuff materials into ethanol at the approximate cost of $1/gallon . If the prototype works as documented, and then can be large-scaled, then maybe we’ll be able to clean up the landfills and produce plenty of ethanol in the process.

In other science, Virgin Galactic unveiled SpaceShipTwo, a design based on the Ansari X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne design. This is being designed more as a commercial venture, to take eight people up to the point of weightlessness and give them five minutes of microgravity. The venture supposedly already has 200 persons booked, with 80 going through assessment and training for the voyage.

The expected response to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is similar to experiences that Pagans have from zealot Christians, including directed negative work and, in the case of the MRFF, daily death threats and actions, including little children chanting rhymes about the afterlife locale of the MRFF founder and his family.

Last for tonight, Fight Club, the Musical.

Time crunch post - 25 January 2008

Posting this in between thinking and making dinner. It’s a neat concept, but really, I suggest something else where possible. Anyway, onward to that which appears to be news.

Impeach the bastards, already. Not only have they made demonstrably false statements about war and weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Bush ignores the original context of an illustration in favor of his own interpretation. Kind of like what he’s done with the Constitution, and the Bible he claims to follow. (Oddly enough, despite their pro-life stances, many Republican candidates seem unwilling to up in front of antichoice rallies and address the crowds.) The Bible will probably earn him a smiting somewhere, but doing that to the Constitution generally constitutes a violation of the oath he swore when he came into office. If that wasn’t bad enough, even with our current military being overtaxed, Mr. Bush offered to send some troops to Pakistan if requested. I’m assuming that this had nothing officially to do with Pakistan's test-firing of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

Mr. Bush might grasp at some straws offered by the agent that interrogated Saddam Hussein, saying that the Iraqi dictator hid the fact that he had no WMD to stop Iran from invading, and that he had no idea that Mr. Bush would go on the ground and knock him over. At the same time, he was boasting about how he eluded the United States’ capture for so long.

And if we thought there would be travel relief any time soon, after the general lack of airline attacks, it is not to be. The Homeland Security chief still thinks terrorists want to blow up planes and airports, so the continued arbitrary paranoia will continue, soon to be aided by REAL ID grousing.

The stimulus package that passed the House is being touted as "bipartisanship" and "cooperation" between the Democratic and Republican members of the legislature. Yep. Having long since lost the ability and the mandate to steamroll, as the populace had hoped they would, the majority Democrats are continuing on their old path - sniveling and touting cooperation.

The science department leads with an infra-red helmet that hopes to be able to reverse the degeneration of Alzheimer's. Well, we’ll watch and see. One of these treatments is bound to work and be generally applicable. Significantly weirder than infra-red helmets is the liver transplant recipient that took on the immune system of her donor. Stem cells went to the marrow, the immune system replicated that of the donor, so no need for antirejection drugs. The doctors involved are obviously very interested to see if they can replicate the process and figure out why it happened. They may want to talk with the doctors that have created a synthetic genome if the genome-creators are able to successfully implant and keep the cell running on the synthetic genome. Last out of science is something that I can’t make complete sense of, and neither could the comment squad at io9 - a gigantic structure with trees and solar panels that appears to provide power and possibly cleaner air to Madrid. Is that a fair assessment of the device, or is there something else going on here?

Instructive dos and dont's with babies. For some of us, this is a needed training manual. Speaking of children, Truthout has a column from earlier in the month about a growing practice of surrogate motherhood in Third World countries - while the money those surrogates make is much more than they would normally, there’s something that’s just wrong about outsourcing the raising of children. Especially with plenty of children here to adopt. Have some pictures of some of the surrogates.

Keeping in the theme, sort of, Curious George has a child interested in seeing nude bodies, and wants to know where good kid-friendly nakedness could be found. It’s a lot of good

Bat mating season delays interstate construction. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of 20,000 bats, either, and especially not when they’re in the process of munching up all those bugs that will aggravate me in the daytime and night.

Last for tonight is a great bit of hilarity - music for everyone. Those with musical training will probably find some of the more obscure ones very funny.

And with that, we disappear for the night.