Back toward the routine - 23 June 2008

Wheee. Family safely home, me trying to get caught up on my sleeptime, and things will be settling back toward a routine until I celebrate another year in existence in a little while. Through the grad student years, I know that it felt like things weren’t doing too well. Things are better now than they were before, and some part of it was just getting through the schooling and finding that I am employable.

71 years is not long enough for us - George Carlin died on Sunday. Anyone who knows him for his various famous routines, including the Seven Words You [Still] Can’t Say on Television, or his role as a cardinal in Dogma, or as Rufus in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, realizes just how smart and funny he was. No dumb comedy for Carlin, unless he was making fun of dumb comedy. Harry Shearer pays tribute to Carlin, others reminisce about his best material, including a need to let children not be coddled, giving religion the respect it truly deserves (a big thbbbbpth), and other quotable Carlin items. Honoring his passing, 23 Apples of Eris promtoes him to Discordian Saint, which I’m sure will provide good material for the other residents in the lands beyond. After all, Carlin was going to get the Mark Twain Prize for humor later this year.

Internationally, the situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated to the point that the opposition MDC is pulling out of the runoff, citing increasing pressure by Zanu-PF thugs against voters in general and followers of the MDC. Having been frightened fo the possibility of being voted out of office, Robert Mugabe is now confirming that he has no taste for the ballot box, nor any wish to be seen as a democratically elected leader.

Moqtada al-Sadr&apo;s forces gave up the city of Amara without firing a shot, as the cleric reassembles a smaller force to fight with him and devotes the rest of his followers to peacefully resisting the current Iraqi government and United States forces.

The supposedly undiscovered tribe in Brazil has been known about for almost 100 years, it turns out, but the pictures were there to try and discourage loggers from destroying the area where some really undiscovered tribes might be. First rule of causes - you do not lie to your followers in any way that can be verifiably documented to be so. It tends to make your followers less inclined to believe anything else you say. That said, the photographer isn’t telling where said tribe really is, and is letting the government decide if and when they want contact.

In domestic news, a prominent climate change scientist wants the executives of oil companies put on trial for deliberately creating smoke and doubt on the issue of climate change in the same manner that tobacco companies cast doubt on the links between smoked tobacco and cancers.

A federal fingerprint database for noncriminals is still on its way to existence - anyone in the housing sector may be required to submit prints to the Feds, among other things in a 537-page housing bill. Some part here tells me that this should probably be broken up into smaller bills, just because it shouldn’t need 537 pages to describe one necessary thing for legislation.

Following up on previous matters, apparently there is not "pregnancy pact" officially, just a strange concordance of a lot of girls getting pregnant, more than usual, all about the same time, just the principal’s memory is foggy of where he heard there was a pact going on. Depite this, Margery Eagen decries the idea of out-of-wedlock babies and the mothers and movies that have made it out to not be so bad.

Also following on the schisms in the Anglican communion, an investigation is being launched into a marriage-like ceremony between two male priests. The United Kingdom Anglican community does not condone such things, even though they are legal in the United Kingdom. I guess it isn’t just the Episcopalians who are interested in getting same-sex unions blessed.

Getting into the opinion columns, Andrew Roberts believes that with time, Mr. Bush's presidency will be remembered fondly and with approval because of its solid handling of Iraq and protection of the nation from further attacks. While the second World War was being fought, Truman had pretty bad numbers. Roberts believes that with time, Bush’s bad numbers will also be seen as an anomaly of the times. That may be the case, but it will only be after the country is used to all the eroded civil liberties, permanent troop placements, and neverending nature of the War on a Concept. In other words, when Big Brother wins again, then people might start believing that the Bush War was for Peace.

George Will is perfectly okay with record numbers of people being incarcerated, as it apparently lowers the crime rate wherever the prison population is high, and all the data we’re seeing about minorities in prison more is because more minorities are reported as criminals, et cetera.

OpinionJournal believes Israel will strike at Iran to destroy its burgeoning nuclear capability, and that the West's attempts at diplomacy for too long is the reason why Israel will eventually strike.

Fouad Ajami thinks that the vaunted anti-American sentiment is mostly hype, considering how many people will curse America while applying for a visa to come here and stay. Thus paradox of loved and feared is a historical pattern for powerful nations, he said on Talk of the Nation today, and I suspect there are more than a few books and quips about what mix of the two is best for a ruler. He disputes that this is a new, W. Bush thing (with which I agree), and believes that liberals are heavily invested in trying to present the world as such.

Nina May finds conservatives considering Barack Obama to be blinded by Obama's personality, and Republicans trying very hard to be like the Democrats, and both parties happily sending America down the socialist path. Because of all this, she says people should write-in votes and the McCain campaign should wake up and go back to being Republicans.

In other candidate matters, Robert Novak endorses, and feels Senator McCain should take on, Rep. Ryan's plan for the economy, which will supposedly curb runaway spending on entitlements and permit those closer to the retirement age to have greater control over their federal retirement entitlement.

Oliver North is convinced that when Senator Obama visits Iraq and Afghanistan before the election, he will have to reverse his policy on troop withdrawals once he sees how the surge is working and victory is at hand. I guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around a definition of victory that involves maintaining troop levels and possible adding more in. Isn’t the whole point of being victorious that you can draw down your troops and go home? The point that North really wants to make, though, is that even with such a decision flip, the mainstream media won’t take the Senator to task on it. If the media doesn’t, I suspect the Democratic and Obama-following base will. So I don’t really find North’s premises to be valid.

In technology, Oxytocin doses may help shy people become more social, by reducing stress and anxiety. Make me wonder if it can take a panic attack and knock it down to something resembling normal stress or take it out entirely. At the same time, I don’t really feel like shyness is something that needs medication, unless it’s the kind that turns into a xenophobia and affects one’s life, or panic attacks and such that interfere with normal life. If you’re shy or just don’t find enough interesting things about the people around you, you shouldn’t feel like you’re diseased. There was also some material about other possible effects of the drug, including its potential use as a more natural date-rape type item, to induce trust and arousal in the mark by the perpetrator.

Further tech - using modified measles to attack immune cells with cancer, improving solar cell power by manufacturing it nonuniform, A CT scanner that takes one pass and can show not only the organs, but how well they're working.

In art, Psychedelic music and film posters from the 70s by Tadanori Yokoo, with full color spreads, interesting backgrounds, and gravity-defying musicians. There’s also what looks to be long-exposure pictures taken to make pictures with light designs. Last, and probably the biggest time-suck of them all, is Roadside Architecture, chronicling all the interesting things you can see by the side of the road.

Yet more useless data - 24 June 2008

There’s a lot here to get around to, but I think I may still need some amount of recovery sleep before I’m fully up and running again.

My professional self salutes the Cranking Widgets blog for reminding us all that children are naturally curious and will ask questinos until that curiosity is satisfied. They’re not trying to drive us crazy, they just want to know.

NPR remembers George Carlin, and an interviewer for Psychology Today may have the last full interview that George Carlin gave before dying, which started as something for a small blurb and exploded into something much bigger.

In international matters, the United Nations has officially condemned the actions of Robert Mugabe to prevent a fair election taking place in Zimbabwe. Mugabe shows his hand as someone not really worthy of the political position he has. The Wall Street Journal calls for Mugabe to be unseated, not through the democratic elections, but through South Africa and other countries deposing Mugabe and installing Tsvangarai.

Queensland is beginning a voluntary chemical castration program for sex offenders, to be done in conjunction with psychiatric treatment. By undergoing such a voluntary measure, officials hope that the offenders will not reoffend. For some, this may work. For others, they would have to have their bits removed physically before they would stop, and others might still try even without them. If it works as intended, great. And hopefully it stays voluntary.

Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus gets re-okayed by Vatican. The Vatican is not my first choice of institutions that would want to reverse the growing trend toward covering natural processes up because people might say, “Look! Nipples!”, but it’s nice to know they’re willing to do so. Maybe we can start getting the statues of Justice uncovered, too? (If they aren’t already so.)

In Iraq, frustrated with the perceived slowness and lack of aircraft from the Air Force for their use, the Army has built an aviation wing to do additional surveillance and air support for the ground-pounders. Battling military branches... I foresee even more spending on the military as the Army tries to make itself into a chameleon branch.

Domestically, Time has an article about how to curb a growing tendency toward binge drinking in youth, even as the amount of people who are drinking underage goes down. One good solution - drink with your children and turn alcohol into something quotidian rather than forbidden. The problem with that is that some states would put a parent on the hook for underage drinking if their kids were drinking at home under supervision, and fine or jail them for it. Or they’ll put the parents in jail for underage drinking, even if they were nowhere near the party at the time.

A nominally "pro-life" candidate allegedly knocked up a woman, refused to marry her, and then gave her money and drove her to an abortion clinic, dropped her off at the clinic, and drove off. He then later denied that he knew she was going to get an abortion. This prompted the woman to come forward and tell her story. Well, his “pro-life” candidacy is shot, the right to life group is not endorsing him because they believe the allegations, and it looks like there will be much campaign dying in fire over the hypocrisy. The General suggests that the candidate try to reframe is as him exercising his God-given control over her body as a last-ditch effort to save the candidacy and possibly get some amount of his base to vote for him.

In Presidential candidate matters, Republicans and CNS News claim that there won't be a horde of 527 political organizations spending money to attack Senator Obama, refuting the primary reason why Senator Obama refused public funding for his campaign. They may say this now, but I wonder what the shakeout on the finances will be - how many organizations will have crafted advertisements of some sort in the end?

Scholars & Rogues offers up a progressive candidate for our times, someone who is farther to the left than either of our current candidates. Did we mention that he’s a Republican?

Opinions begin with James Glassman getting pragmatic about what sort of ideological warfare needs to happen to stop extremists from recruiting new members, putting the sufficient condition at diverting impressionable people away from becoming terrorists, rather than at getting them to want and emulate Western society. A very practical solution, to be sure, and one that both ideological sides could probably get behind. The continued military strategy might still drive a wedge between them, but both of them can at least agree that stemming the flow of terrorists, whether fundamentalist Muslims, Christians, or whatever philosophical stripe, is worthwhile.

Bret Stephens wants the West and others to take care of situations like Darfur, Zimbabwe, and Burma through knocking over the despots, installing their opposition, quelling he backlash, and then leaving. Come in, stomp the place, get the opposition in charge, keep them alive until things settle, go. And hope that you don’t have to do it all over again if the opposition becomes just as bad and ruthless as the originals. Not to mention the stress that would put on an already overtaxed military to keep rushing in and performing these hits on leaders. And does the United States really want more of a reputation for stomping on anyone they don’t like? Not to say that the situations mentioned don’t need to be stopped from continuing, but going the way Stephens suggests may mean that all the problems start looking like nails, because we’ve used the hammer so much already.

Scitech begins with new knowledge that the ice is melting faster, despite a cold winter in the Arctic. This prompts more dire warnings from the people who first brought global warmning to our attention, and more ideas on how to save the planet from the semi-intelligent upright hominids that walk on it. If we need to crunch numbers on how it might shake out, well, there will be about 2 billion PCs in use by 2014, which may be too late, or may be enough to build and activate a big grid network. Last from Science and tech is a way of recovering fingerprints from metals, even if they’ve been wiped off or otherwise cleaned. So long, that is, as the metal object in question hasn’t had the layers of metal corroded by the finger scrapes or abraised off.

In our art section, the rice paddy art is appearing again, as it’s that time of the year for all the colors to come out. At the right angle, look, it’s art! If rice isn’t your preferred medium, take a look at the works of Kogoro Kurata, an ironsmith who likes to build and create tall, gothic-like items.

But at the very end, singled out for scorn, derision, and all those other evil, evil things, James Dobson accuses Barack Obama of distorting the Bible and of a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution, because Senator Obama has actually read both and prefers the Sermon on the Mount to the Levitical Prohibitions, and because the Senator believes that you can’t convince people of the rightness of your cause if you only use arguments that the already-converted will understand and accept. Dobson, who wants the Levitical prohibitions that he likes to still apply while dismissing all the others are having been absolved in the new covenant, also seems to be reading in a part into the Constitution that says that the nation will be governed by his Christian principles, and that all matters of morality are the exclusive province of his Christianity. The speck-plank problem has become astronomical in Dobson’s case, and this only continues to add on to the length of his own beam.

Last for tonight,

how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen

...and from there, something to think about - how does consent work in your fandom? If you don't know, you're doing yourself a disservice if you decide you want to write smut.