And more for the pile - 24 April 2008

Okay, here we go. Started my work day early in what was hopefully a productive manner (and hey, I got another coffee mug out of it...) and so I got to take things off kind of early to make sure I didn’t overwork. Here’s your entry for tonight, all nicely bundled up. Well, except for an office/company based Tarot deck. I really couldn’t find a place to put that. Maybe I’ll file it with all the Unitasker objects. Or the lynchings that have resulted from accusations of sorcerors shrinking and stealing men's penises (despite said organs still being in their right places).

Mr. Bush has promoted General Petraeus to be the chief of Central Command, which puts him in an oversight role over the entire theater of the Middle East and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. So if we get the 100-Year War candidate in place, the brass will already be ready to continue the work.

At least one Republican Party candidate has sympathies with the American National Socialist Workers Party. Which could lead to a lot of jokes, but that would probably invoke certain Laws of the Internet, and so such jokes will be left to the readers to create.

Following from yesterday, the facility that Syria was building, allegedly with North Korean help, was near completion before Israel bombed it, according to the account being delivered to congressional committees.

In our technology corner, a device that converts data to a bioelectric field, permitting it to be read through regular contact with a compatible reading device. Aren’t we kind of worried about RFID being swiped? What sort of things would happen if people designed bioelectric field readers. Would be fun for business contacts, though - shake hands, receive electronic version of business card. Scaling up the science, Solar sails continue to be developed. Pretty neat way of riding the winds. Of couse, we’d still need the ability to send people out on multigenerational missions that might end with the destruction of all who went, because the planet turns out to be uninhabitable. We may not get the chance, because we’re busy developing large-scale magnetically-driven spike-throwers with which to kill each other.

Into the opinion realms, dark and murky that they are.

bradhicks wants the media and questioners to put pressure on John Ashcroft and see if he'll crack on the torture issue and sell out his conspirators. He’s apparently starting to act in odd ways, and it would be nice if he were to give everyone the inside information on what happened, who authorized it, and enough documentation and evidence to convict everyone involved. So, while his politics have been horrible, and ill probably continue to be, maybe holding his feet to the fire and making his personal beliefs come into play will get us what we need to restore our image by convicting and jailing those people who authorized the use of torture.

Michelle Malkin finds former President Jimmy Carter an embarassment to the Democratic Party, while still taking time out to link President Carter, Hamas, and Senator Obama as being a big happy family of anti-Semitic and terrorist-sympathizing positions. I’m really getting tired of this tactic. Just because you know someone and are friends with them does not mean that you think in lockstep.

Walter Williams lays the fault of everything that’s wrong with African Americans at the feet of the Democratic Party, claiming that things have gone wrong the worst in the places where the Democrats have held power the longest, by driving up prices through environmental regs in California, letting out prisoners back into black communities (not because they’re overcrowded with small-time offenders or anything, but because of liberal judges), and through the nightmare that is the public education system, because Democrats support teacher’s unions, and certainly not because property taxation drives education budgets, standardized testing is crushing the soul of schooling, and there are several governmental interests hard at work trying to squeeze poor schools for all the money they can.

Tony Blankley sees the tension between the West and Islam as a struggle between a philosophy that emphasises the individual and one that emphasises the collective. Which is a fairly historical perspective to take, as Latin Christendom and Dar al-Islam have been at loggerheads for much of the history of the world. Blankley is kind enough to note that the Islam in question is radicalized Islam when he rants about how the West appears to be appeasing demands that are antithetical to the smooth relations between different groups in various countries. Much of the difficulty comes in the reasonable request not to tar every Muslim with the fundamentalist/terror-supporting brush being blown up into a slippery slope argument that ends in that fundamentalist Islam taking over the country and subjecting everyone to the same kidn of government and law that exists in Saudi Arabia today. Blankley certainly implies that this is where the road ends for Europe if they continue on their current path, and that there will be violence in the streets when the natives finally decide there are too many foreigners around. I would be very surprised to see a radicalized government appear in the West without a violent revolution installing it. I doubt that it will ever get that far. But that’s because I think we’re hearing a very small minority’s demands, which are then echo-chambered as “This is what all Muslims want”, and then things go downhill from there. I suspect most Muslims, like most Christians, want to be able to practice their religion, but realize that some parts of the religious law will conflict with civil law, and that the civil law is more important, because it prevents backlash when a different group comes to power. It’s kind of like how the American media makes large amounts of noise whenever fundamentalist conservative Christians say things, but generally gloss over the millions (and millions!) of those who quietly live their faith out, heeding the command to not be like the hypocrites.

Speaking of clashes of belief, Nina May believes in God, in Ben Stein, and thinks all the clamor about Expelled proves its major point. Because asking that only science be taught in science courses is apparently untenable. She challenges atheists to recreate the conditions that brought about humanity, utilizing modern science, because that would be a way of proving that there is no God. I can see a loop in hat argument, though, where if it were to successfully be done, that it would end up proving the existence of a creator, because if we can do it, there’s nothing stopping God from having done it first. There’s also the tired rehash about how liberals and atheists claim to be the most tolerant people around, yet they are so very hostile to ID and creationist arguments and God himself. And the anti-intellectualism argument that liberals, atheists, and evolutionsists all think themselves superior to everyone else, elitists who think they know everything. And in the comments section, it looks like misappropriation of scientific terminology, lack of understanding of just what evolution actually claims to try and explain, and other common mistakes. A lot of heat, but no light to be shed in these places. Some of the reasoning sent onto the field of battle makes assumptions that would fail muster in just about any arena other than the poster’s chosen spot. There are others who are labornig, trying to get people to think in the scientific world, with its particular rules and regs, and their opponents refused, stubbornly insisting on using the nonscientific definitions and then trying to apply them to scientific concepts. Oh, and did we mention Yoko Ono is suing over the use of a song clip in Expelled? She claims it is presented in a way that makes it sound like the guardians of John Lennon’s estate authorized the clip’s usage and endorsed the film.

Staying in the theme, and perhaps providing an illuminating example, Pharyngula (which is just fun to say) has something from the other side of the coin in his encouragement to ;Fire John Freshwater, but for the right reasons - he’s proselytizing aggressively in a school, a big no-no. He’s not teaching science at all, but ID/creationism. Having a bible on the desk? Wouldn’t be enough. Using it as a club to beat people with? Big problem. The General has an opinion about what to teach in classrooms, that’s probably more in line with Freshwater than Pharyngula.

And to close out this segment, an upcoming article in Rolling Stone magazine named Jesus Made Me Puke, which goes inside a fundamentalist Christian sect and describes some of the practices inside, as well as a warning about how easy it was to go along and not think weird of it, because of the environment where everyone else was totally sold on whatever the minister or person in charge had to say. Definitely not the Christianity I thought should be there, but for some people, it appears to be just the thing they want.

The Happines Project gives us a list of 9 tips to make TV watching fun, several of which appear to contradict each other in the short bolded blurb. For other random data, on average, a husband appears to create seven more hours of housework per week for his wife because of the shifting of responsibilities and duties that often accompany marriage. That’s assuming no children, who add more work all by themselves to every parent. And finally, some etymology and discussion on trophies. These are the things that researchers devote time and serious study to. May seem odd and useless, but somewhere along the way, it will become important, I’m sure.

Pretty pictures - the campus of the University of Michigan at night. These are the kinds of things that inspire nostalgia of the college years. Yes, I know, I haven’t officially been out for a year yet. Although, on Monday, I will be. (Overlord!) That’s kind of scary - time zips along on you like this. Continuing with more pictures, various trees as seen under the effects of various situations. Some are funny. On a different sort of scale, Waldo is now visible from Google Earth. And Posthuman Blues has a really neat self-portrait. Definitely a picture of the wired world we live in. And with conceptual items like keybaord pants, it’s probably only going to get more hooked up. although it may get more wireless. And we can make art out of our technology, like I Want You To Want Me does with taking dating and personal ad statements and mixing them into exhibits, and Sinai Hotels does with abandoned luxury hotel buildings. The half-finished material turns what would have been commercial enterprises into art exhibits.

And just for fun (or living out gruesome revenge), Barbie Crime Scenes. While it’s plastic dolls, it still might be considered NSFW.

Last for tonight, and probably an actually important piece of data: on average, in the U.S., a Nintendo Wii console sits on the shelf just one hour before it is purchased. Which makes it all the more impressive that as many people have got their hands on them as they have. This average has been over the last 17 months, and Nintendo of America keeps reminding the parent company that shipping more consoles to America, where they’re in demand, rather than Japan or Europe, where there are plenty, would make for more sales. And in one other neat bit of Nintendo technology becoming multipurpose, fans of the Seattle Mariners who bring their DS to Safeco Field will be able to access statistics, video feeds, and order stadium food from their seat.

And on the postscript, Cory Doctorow on why saying "he has too much time on his hands" is a vicious insult. And with that, we go to bed.

Getting in early for the weekend - 25 April 2008

Getting this all done before the weekend strikes. Feeling a bit poorly because I whacked my knee and shin on my recently-acquired bed frame yesterday night, but it should be fine with some time, rest, and a little exercise. Made it to the Great Maze last night, so there shouldn't be too much farther to go... assuming, of course, that the Great Maze doesn't take freaking forever. Anyway, onward to the news.

For the Tolkien fans, Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct two Hobbit movies. Seeing what he did with Blade, I'm wondering if Samwise and Frodo are going to suddenly become Sting-toting badasses. Seeing that he also did Labyrinth of th Faun, it could be pretty dark and gritty.

Because everyone needs a laugh to start today's entry with, Jack Thompson has sent a letter, through his lawyer, to the mother of Take-Two's chairman, with the regular wild accusations that her son is marketing murder trainers to young children, and such. If that didn't do it, then perhaps a logo gaffe in the United Knigdom's Office of Government Commerce will.

On a more serious note, oil prices are set to double by 2012, according to a Canadian study, which can only make the gas crunch worse on all of the products that we buy. So I wonder what the profits will be on oil companies this year. Victor Davis Hanson asks the country to do more to generate power domestically and reduce importation needs, including re-evaluating the need to tap domestic stocks of oil so that other countries don't get lots of American dollars continue to pollute their own countries lots.

In Iraq, the Untied States is selling some of its best anti-IED technology to the Iraqi government, despire fears and almost certainties that the technology will end up in teh hands of those who plant the IEDs, rather than those who try to get rid of them. Makes me wonder whether there's new technology coming down the pipe soon that will be better.

In domestic news, the United States Senate passed a bill that would ban discrimination on jobs or health insurance coverage based on genetic predispositions. Pre-existing conditions are still grounds for denial of health coverage, of course, so the health care situation is definitely not resolved by any means, but this is a nice first step.

Three New York detectives accused of firing 50 bullets unprovoked into a vehicle, killing one and seriously injuring two others, have been acquitted of all charges. The judge did not find the prosecution's case proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. A group called The People's Justice is not happy about the verdict, but according to the NYTimes article, there were no incidents of major unrest over the verdict.

The General Accounting Office has found youth "boot camps" to utilize deceptive advertising practice when selling themselves to parents. Add on to this that those camps are only loosely regulated by the government, and the stories of abuse, such as a dog trained to bite people in the genitals, or residents being hooded and having nooses placed around their necks, will appear. Those stories have been found credible in a lot of cases, unfortunately. So new legislation is being introduced that would tighten regulation and require staff at the facilities to recognize child abuse/neglect and be able to report it. I still don't quite understand why a parent would subject their child to that kind of program. Most of the time, the stories I hear are of normal children who have overzealous, brooks-no-disagreement anywhere parents hat think a child having a differing opinion is an act of flagrant rebellion.

Echostar Communications, the parent corporation of DISH Network is suing News Corp., claiming that News Corp. hired a hacker to break into the DISH Network service, then steal and disseminate codes that would permit pirating of DISH Network content.

In the opinion columns, bradhicks tells us about how his family demonstrates the principle that conformists and those who unquestioningly obey authority are often rewarded, while those who object to authority when it crosses their own morals are marginalized. At least, that's the understanding I got out of it - both of them uncompromisingly insane, by his own definition, but the insanely obedient one is rising in rank and prestige, while the insanely questioning one suffers a common fate of many philosophers - penury.

Inspector Lohman reminds us of our history - that the founders of the country had little use for actual rule by the people, and as a consequence of this, the elections where the rich compete against the rich as two facets of the same part are the norm, not the exception, despite what all the propaganda says. Bernard Weiner talks about the elephant in the room: The current administration has more than enough evidence against it to warrant an impeachment, so why aren't the Democrats actually doing anything about it? David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey think the war or terror and its justifications are not criminal in trying to defend the belief that the lawyers who advised the administration on its current positions should not be prosecuted. Defensible conclusion, but not for those reasons. A stronger argument would be to say that the lawyers were giving their professional legal opinion in the course of their work, and they should not be prosecuted for what the administration then did with those opinions. Going from legal justification to military justification, the Wall Street Journal praises the promotion of Petraeus, thinking that the commanders in their new places will make it harder for a new President to order withdrawal, and that the higher-ups in the various commands are now all focused on staying in Iraq chasing "victory". Which, according to Chalmers Johnston, is a sign it's time to flee the country, before we make it plain to everyone that our model is not Washington, 1776, but Berlin, 1933.

Maybe I'm missing something, but there's got to be some reason that this particular image has all the elements it does together. Substitute for genitalia, check. Object of distraction so that male viewer is conquered, check. Sex sells things, sure, but I guess I'm missing why a woman in lingerie is supposed to help sell the gun. It's probably the same principle that thinks bikini-clad women sell cars. Moving from pictures designed to be commercial to art against encroaching corporate and governmental power, Dr. D modifies billboards to make the message different. A sampling of work, H.M.P. London, has been captured by a Flickr user.

Want to pay cash, in person, to a person, for your bills? That'll be $2, please. Or $5. Or $15. Or whatever fee the company/bank decides to charge you for the "service" of permitting you to use that payment option. Naturally, Consumerist is cheesed about the fees to pay.

In our science department, Stanford university researchers suggest that humanity may have come close to extinction approximately 70,000 years ago, according to analysis made of human DNA. The near-extinction may have come about because of drought in several areas, according to the study. Additionally, species diversity is good for humans, both for the selfish reason that extinct species cannot be mined for things that will help humans, and for the more altruistic reason that species loss disrupts the cycle of the world and existence becomes that much harder when niches are unfulfilled.

Technology nods and smiles at a 100 kilogram elephant-looking robot that is designed to clean men's urinals. Built in Japan, the robot is apparently useful and water-saving while at work, and designed for large areas like highway rest stops and train stations.

Last on the docket, Mad Monarchs, which chronicles the lives of some of the more daft rulers of the world's empires. We may want to add on to that Koopa, King of the Turtles and Goombas and Peach, Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom to that list, but in this darker take, it's really Mario's fault that they're like this.

Okay, one more laugh and cool thing before we go - an entire run of Al Jaffee's fold-ins for MAD magazine, all done digital-like so that there's always a perfect fold and no worries about creases. As for th cool thing, TypeRacer gives you quotes from various movies and pits you in a race against your compatriots to see who types the fastest with accurately.