Natural Selection

Lawn. Off.

2010-07-06T06:51:00.008-04:00

The Telegraph today has a story carrying the headline:

Chinese farmer declares war on property developers with homemade wheelbarrow cannon

Also:

In May he held off 100 people by firing from a makeshift watchtower.

I love this man. He is my new god.

Fixing a Slow Finder in Snow Leopard

2009-08-29T22:03:00.004-04:00

I don't know if anyone else in the world will have this problem, but if your Finder is running slowly (and running at 90% CPU usage) after an upgrade to Snow Leopard, delete com.apple.finder.plist in your user Library folder, and it should return to normal.

Why mine did this, I'll never know, but using the old MacOS 9 adage of "delete the preferences" seemed to work here.

The whole computer seemed to be running slower with Snow Leopard, and because iStat doesn't work with 10.6 yet, I didn't immediately know what was going on. On further inspection of the Activity Monitor, Finder was using 90% of the CPU, so there was something going very wrong there. Deleting this file fixed it.

Health Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional?

2009-08-23T00:49:00.004-04:00

Possibly. But it hasn't stopped this government lately.

Shop to Earn is a Scam

2009-08-20T21:30:00.007-04:00

A very nice, credulous person just asked me if they should join "Shop to Earn" or "Shop to Earth."

Don't join it. It's a multi-level-marketing scheme (MLM). The promised rebates are up to 70%, but most of the rebates are in the 2-4% range, which you can easily get for free through ebates.com or dozens of other places on the internet.

If we generously assume a 5% rebate on everything you buy (which is highly optimistic, since you'll probably get substantially less than 5% on average) you would have to spend $9,000 online in order to break even. On top of that, you have to pay a $69 yearly membership fee. So after you spend $9,000 online in year one, you'll have to spend $1,380 online every year thereafter to break even, and you have to do all of your shopping through their website for the products that they carry in order to do so. So that's a 24 month, minimum $10,380 commitment you're making by signing up and paying $450. And, of course, $1,380 every year in perpetuity.

As with all MLMs, the only way to have a shot at making your money back or making a profit is by recruiting others to buy in to the scheme. When you recruit someone else, you get a cut of their initiation fee.

It's a pyramid scheme, and you'd be throwing your money away by getting involved in it. The only people who profit are the ones who started it. Everyone else just has to play catch-up forever, or get bilked out of their initiation fee.

Use ebates.com instead.

The Apathetic Army

2009-06-12T14:30:00.002-04:00

New Bipartisanism, Same as the Old

2009-01-31T18:25:00.008-05:00

Matt Welch:

The other factor at play here, which Democratic ears seem unable to detect, is that Obama is skillfully turning the meaning of the word "bipartisan" into "the coalition that agrees with my magnanimous self."

That's all that bipartisanism is: "I'm on this side, you're on that side, and you've finally found the wisdom to agree with me."

When you think about it, though, if the Republicans weren't going to oppose $500 billion in new spending, what were they going to oppose?

My Inauguration Experience (or, The Most Poorly-Organized Event in History)

2009-01-21T02:14:00.011-05:00

Let me tell you a little about the Hell we went through today at the Inauguration... and as you'll see from the links below, I was one of the lucky ones, no thanks to this damn government's complete incompetence at every level.

We thought that standing in line for 150 minutes outside the Cannon House Office Building (where we were picking up some of our Inauguration tickets) on Monday would be a sufficient appetizer for the enormity of the unavoidable crowd chaos on Tuesday, but we were so, so wrong. The way the tickets were divvied up was by color-coded section. There was a purple section, a yellow section, an orange section, a blue section, and a silver section. There may have been one or two other colors that I'm not remembering. Our five tickets originally consisted of two purples and three silvers. Purple was much better than silver, so we thought that we might be able to somehow trade up to five purples, or failing that, trade down to five silvers. We ended up doing the latter, trading the two purples in exchange for two silvers and some cash, which significantly helped offset our trip costs. Trading away the better tickets turned out to be a really lucky break.

Getting to and attending the ceremony really wasn't all that bad. Not great, but not terrible, at least for us. This morning, we left at 6am, knowing that people would start lining up at 4am, but being unwilling to wake up at 3:30 after being out until 1:30 at the South Carolina Ball at the Air and Space Museum. As expected, it took quite a bit longer than normal to make the 1.5 mile walk from our apartment on Massacheusetts & 13th to Capitol Hill, because of all of the random road closures. They'd changed many of the gate entrances without notice 48 hours prior, so there was a lot of confusion there - an indication of the negligence to come later in the day.

The 35 minute walk took about 70 minutes, and the foot traffic increased geometrically as we approached the Capitol. We hit a wall of people about 1/4 mile from the Silver entrance gate. After another 90 minutes of standing around waiting, the gate opened, and the soldiers inexplicably let randomly sized clumps of people in to to the security line at random intervals, to no apparent effect. The crowd (the tightest mob I'd ever been in up until that morning) was getting angry, and reasonably so, from looking at relatively empty security checkpoints and not being allowed to enter.

After another 45 minutes of being crushed in the mob outside the gate, we finally got to go through the security checkpoint, which was a joke. They just had you flash your ticket, open your coat, and waved you through. Security theatre, if you ask me - even more useless than the airport. At least it was fast. Then we hit mob #2: inside the Mall.

As with outside the event venue, there was absolutely no traffic direction inside the Mall either. Actually, at one point, we did get stopped to wait 10 minutes for a single police motorcycle to drive by. We picked out a spot in the Silver section that we thought would work, then saw some people flowing forward beyond the Silver section: the mob had overrrun the plastic temporary fencing cordoning off the sections, so we took the opportunity to get 600 feet closer.

So far, so good: a little irritating, but not too bad considering that there were 2 million people there.

The ceremony itself was really good: Some great performances, a fantastic speech, and John Roberts even flubbed the Oath of Office. Getting out, though, was to be a truly awful experience.

We watched the ceremony from in front of the Capitol reflecting pool, closer to the Northern side of the Mall than the Southern.

Unfortunately, because they closed Constitution Ave. for the parade later in the day, the only way we could exit was about a half mile backward and to the South - and then it got really bad. You can follow our eventual route here: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2505093

We exited the Mall at 4th and Independence and immediately started looking for a place to cross the Mall back North to head home, but the police/secret service completely closed both Constituion Ave and Pennsylvania Ave. We heard that the Eastern route that we used to arrive at the event was closed, so we headed West, expecting to be able to get across the Mall *somewhere*. At every major intersection, we asked the soldiers/volunteers/police/etc if we could cross over there. They said "no." "Do you know where we could?" "No clue. We thought 14th street would be open, but it looks like they closed that too."

There was no communication between any of the "authorities" at this event - NONE. No one knew anything. There were no directions, no signage, no information whatsoever.

We walked West on Independence Ave. along with a few hundred thousand others, and hit a major logjam at just about every intersection. We had to literally force ourselves through HARD - it was like the Taste of Chicago, but many times more dense. None of us have even been so squished or crushed in our lives. You couldn't even move your arms for many minutes at a time - and this was while "walking" home.

At 12th and International, we hit a particularly bad logjam. No one was moving anywhere. We tried to ford through as with the previous jams, but ended up getting nowhere. Rachel's custom-made "Llamas for Obama" hat was stolen right off her head. Asking the police anything turned out to be a huge mistake, because they actually didn't want us to move anywhere, at all - just stand there. As it turned out, the city transportation authority decided to close the Smithsonian Metro (subway) station there at the last minute, and the crowd was PISSED, because there wasn't really anywhere else to go, since they'd closed off the Mall, and the closest subway stops were pretty far away. We learned after getting home that 200 National Guard troops had to be called in minutes after we made it out to prevent a riot. Frankly, these idiots deserved a riot for creating this mess.

The only way we got through this throng was by Rachel lying to the police that she lost her father somewhere in the crowd and had to find him.

We broke out of the mob, took the path of least resistance down 12th, and made our way to 14th via C street - our next hope of crossing over.

No hope. We'd been walking for quite a while now, (on top of standing for hours at the event and before) and were sore to say the least.

Then 15th street - also no. We asked the Army guys if we could cross. "No." "Know where we can?" "No idea. You could try heading back East." No way.

The military guys were really nice, but it was at this point that Iraq and Katrina really started to make sense: These people can't coordinate. There was no radio contact, between anyone, because no one had radios. This wasn't the grunts' fault, it was whoever was in charge, who was apparently no one.

Walking further to 17th street, it looked like we finally had a chance to cross over. Actually, 17th was technically closed too, but everyone was so fed up that we just walked through every unprotected space we could to get somewhere. Blockade after blockade, we finally found ourselves slowing to a stop at 19th and E.

More army guys just stopped everyone cold for no apparent reason. We saw other people walking ahead of us in all directions, but we had to stand there for some reason, with no explanation. After about 10 minutes of pointless waiting, an enormous caravan of empty tour buses start rolling through very, very slowly. Whenever there was a break in the line (meaning a several-minute long gap between the buses) we tried to cross, but they wouldn't let us - we stood there looking at an empty street with the Army blocking our path. The mob of several thousand started yelling, chanting, anything to express that we were REALLY tired of this, and the buses weren't moving anyway.

Then the Army told us to turn around and keep heading West to 20th/21st. NO. We were screaming at them, ready to push them over. Finally, they just gave up and let us through, and we had our first indication of hopeful progress in the general direction of our apartment. It had been hours since we could feel our toes, fingers, noses or legs, our feet were screaming to stop, we were incredibly dehydrated, but all we wanted was to end this ordeal. The empty tour buses, incidentally, turned out to be the tour buses for the bands in the parade, just repositioning somewhere else. Vitally important.

45 minutes later, we finally made it back. The trip which under far-from-ideal conditions would have taken 35 minutes total ended up being around 3.5 hours.

Reading the news after we got back, we learned that it had been far worse for others. Thousands of Purple and Blue ticket holders (the tickets we sold/trade for the lesser Silvers) got stuck in a tunnel for hours, and missed the event completely. They traveled from all over the country at great expense to witness this historical moment, and they got stuck in a tunnel because the "authorities" never opened up one of the Purple gates. At least we got to see it. We were close enough to see Obama and the rest out on the stage, and really feel the majesty of the show and occasion. The Purple people had to sit in a blocked tunnel and miss the whole thing.

So here's the lesson: The government cannot organize anything. Having been through this ordeal today, it makes sense that if they can't even do Rose Bowl-level crowd control (Pasadena has done it every year for decades) then stabilizing Iraq and responding to Hurricane Katrina were completely beyond their abilities. The fact that they "organized" an event in their own back yard by cutting the city in half and not allowing crowds to cross from one half to another demonstrates that they're completely incompetent, and can't handle anything beyond setting up meaningless security checkpoints.

Below are some links to other people's ordeals - it's enough to make you see red.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/01/scenes-from-t-2.html

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090120/NEWS01/901209974&news01ad=1

Purple tunnel of doom:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/01/crush_of_humanity_ii.php

http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/20/the_tunnel

http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=61444130820

Asymmetry and Randomness: Old Weapon and New Tool

2009-01-08T21:48:00.012-05:00

The American Revolutionary War was fought and won using the guerilla tactics that evolved into today's terrorist methods. It was called an asymmetric war not only because of the great difference in size between the two militaries, but also because the tactics of the two sides necessarily differed greatly as well: Britain's large, well-armed military could march straight through a region and take it by force, while the Colonists used their small numbers, greater responsiveness and geographic incumbency to their advantage.

The smaller army often has more options available to it, as its incohate state allows it to be more protean in shape and function. It wasn't the British who were hiding in trees and ambushing the colonists in the hills of Massacheusetts, nor was it the Unified Task Force who were sniping at columns of warlords driving through the streets of Mogadishu. This institutional rigidity is a result of the need to organize a huge enterprise such as an established military. It becomes divided into specialized forces for specific tasks, and it becomes inflexible as a result.

During the Soviet-Afghan war, the United States was able to use the size and financial burden of the Soviet military against Russia itself. Once the Afghans were armed with FIM-92 Stinger Missiles, they were able to use the small, mobile, inexpensive weapon to take out large, expensive aircraft. It was soon discovered that one missile which cost the US $70k could drop a Soviet aircraft worth $20 million, and did so on 7 out of 10 launches. Based on this data, every dollar the US spent on the war cost Russia $200, which spelled an unwinnable war for the Russians absent a disruptive new tactic or technology. This demonstrates the clear advantage of being on the guerrilla side of an asymmetrical war against a large traditional military, and how important it is for large armies to develop their own strategic asymmetry to render moot the enemy's natural guerrilla advantage

Today's ongoing conflict on the Afghan-Pakistan border affords clearly defined advantages to all sides involved: the equipment, resources and manpower of the larger militaries and their specialized forces vs the stealth, agility and small numbers of the terrorists. Because of the sheer size of the American forces in Afghanistan, the terrorists will always know where their enemy is at any moment, and where to hide. The war becomes a stalemate unless the American force can either play the guerrilla game better than the terrorists, or use their existing assets to an asymmetrically disruptive strategic advantage, which brings me to the point of this post.

Because of our vast intel advantage, we know that bin Laden is hiding in a hole somewhere in Northern Waziristan, and his set of possible location points is limited by that boundary. He can move fast, but not far, and thus al Quaeda's central organizing force is limited by these same constraints. The US and its allies can move very fast, very far through the air, but are limited to known targets, which is exactly how the structurally inferior enemy has been able to elude them. In this case, a disruptive tactic is available that neither side has yet employed, and that is the property of randomness.

If a target's location is limited by an absolute set of geographic boundaries, then ideally one could wage war completely and totally on the complete area within those boundaries. Unfortunately, that is simply not possible in an area of 5,000 square miles. A well-equipped military can, however, achieve that same effect through randomness: by randomly targeting areas for bombing anywhere and everywhere within that region, the rules of play for the guerrillas are not only changed, they are eliminated completely.

They can no longer predict where the Americans will be at any moment, because the Americans are no longer chasing them, and their source of intelligence disappears completely. Their set of known possible hiding places is likewise nullified, because their enemy's strategy no longer accommodates those hiding places. Complete randomness in this case tips the advantage to the military with air capability, and it becomes a matter of time before bin Laden is killed or attempts escape through unfriendly territory.

Randomness, then, is the asymmetrical weapon that the Americans can use to frustrate and ultimately eliminate terrorists hiding in the unkind terrain of the Afghan-Pakistani border.

We should randomly bomb Northern Waziristan.

The Traitors

2008-07-09T18:41:00.013-04:00

All of the Senators who voted *for* retroactive telecom immunity:

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Our forefathers would have seized power from these tyrants (or, at least, enablers of tyranny). We, of course, are either too apathetic or pusillanimous to do so.

2nd Amendment Ruling

2008-06-26T12:57:00.001-04:00

That is all.

Amend the California Constitution

2008-05-24T23:03:00.006-04:00

So a bunch of Godly bigots want to change California's constitution in order to deny protected rights to a minority. In and of itself, that's stupid, but what's just as stupid is that the California Constitution can be amended by a simple majority - >50%. Therefore, there needs to be a concurrent ballot initiative to amend the California Constitution such that a 60% majority is needed to amend the California constitution, effective immediately.

Having been through several ballot initiatives at the state and local levels myself in several states and locales, I can tell you that the most common tactic to get these things rammed through the system (especially when opposition is running at only 35%, as the proposed CA initiative banning gay rights is) is simply to put it up for consideration over and over every election (especially in the off-peak elections, because of low turnout) until it gets passed. Raising the bar to 60% (or more) would definitely make that much more difficult to accomplish. And frankly, shouldn't it take more than a simple majority to do something as serious as amend the Constitution? It certainly does at the national level.

Get some signatures.

The Difference Between Clinton and Obama

2008-05-22T13:02:00.004-04:00

Here's an interesting article on Clinton's female supporters in the wane of her candidacy. There's one paragraph in particular that really resonates with me, and for me distills the difference between her and Obama:

"Mrs. Clinton's campaign, many women say with regret, did not inspire a deep or nuanced conversation between men and women, only familiar gender-war battles consisting of male gibes and her supporters' angry responses. Mr. Obama, who sought to minimize the role of race in his candidacy, led something of a national dialogue about it, but Mrs. Clinton, who made womanhood an explicit part of her run, seemed unwilling or unable to talk candidly about gender."

That appears to be how they differ on every issue, not just on race/gender. Where Obama speaks sincerely in tones of dialogue and collaboration, Clinton has (even moreso recently) taken an "us and them" trench warfare attitude, apparently trying to pick up where Edwards's campaign left off. With the uneducated and the boomer-generation culture warriors, it's worked. With the educated and the youth who are the future of this country, it's felt hollow.

I respect him for that, and I don't respect her for the same reason, and it takes a lot for me to say that about a Democrat who's promised to raise capital gains taxes. Maybe I'll vote for him in November... at this point, it's either him or vote for no one. (As much as I believe in the Libertarian ideal, I can't vote for someone with Bob Barr's past.) But when I see Obama speak on CNN, be it in a canned speech, or in an interview, I can't help but think that that voice is the future this nation needs. My choice now is whether to take the bad with the good and actually give him my vote.

But I live in California, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

Do I live in Russia? Only when I leave the house.

2007-11-02T15:07:00.001-04:00

I'm at the Apple store... waiting... in another line... just like every other day of my life...

The DVD burner on my new MacBook Pro has been acting up, and I can't deliver the promised Rugby World Cup matches without being able to burn them. So to the Apple store I go, thinking, stupidly, that they would be able to replace the drive without a problem. After an hour of being here, I can't even get as far as getting in line to see someone.

As with the DMV, the Passport agency, Berkeley Bowl, the county courthouse, and it seems every other enterprise that deals with any substantial number of people, at the Apple store you have to stand in line for a chance to stand in line. In this case, I have to stand in line, to register for the standby list, which will then possibly, maybe get me on the real list to be serviced. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY???

These breadlines used to be phenomena limited to old Russia. Remember? We used to relish in the schadenfreude of lesser nations dealing with their unwashed masses. Now, these processing lines are everywhere - gradually getting us used to being treated like commodities, willfully accepting a complete lack of service that one deserves as a customer.

The Bay Street Apple store just moved from another location in the same strip mall. From what I can tell, the only difference is that this one is smaller: combining the Genius bar and checkout desk into one great, huddled, irritating mess. I'm on the standby list now, but that doesn't guarantee that I will get service on something that's broken on my computer and covered by the warranty that I paid extra to have. GOD!

This change toward treating everyone as a barcode completely unworthy of any sort of personal respect isn't limited to the Apple store, of course. The TSA and airline industry are probably the worst offenders in this sense.

In order to make baby boomer moms and children of hippies feel safe and cared for, now we have to wait up to two hours in a "security" line at the airport, where they don't even catch the big stuff (knives, guns, etc.) but make sure to strip search you, because you, whitebread middle-America, could be dangerous. It's security theater, plain and simple, made to a) scare you into thinking that there is an immediate threat to your safety, and b) reassure you that in the hands of your capable government, you are safe, or at least, they're doing their best to keep you safe.

The insult continues once you're on the plane. The seats have gotten narrower, the passengers have gotten louder and you don't even get a meal anymore on most flights. Unless you pay for wider seats, or for quieter passengers, or for a meal, which you do if you fly business or first class.

These things are not extras on a flight - just charge more for economy class and give me a pleasant flight. A comfortable seat is a requirement for a pleasant flight. Eating something decent is too. Paying your flight attendants a pension so that I don't have to deal with their unbridled bitchiness is also a requirement for my enjoyment and continued business.

But every airline is trying to be a cut-rate carrier like Southwest. News: they can't do it. Southwest can get away with shitty service and no food and overcrowded cabins because they are charging less than the legacy carriers used to.

But if I get a ticket on United, I expect a quiet cabin, a comfortable seat, some food and a courteous flight crew. I know I'm not alone in saying that I'd gladly pay what flights used to cost in 1995 to get the same level of service that I got in 1995. If I wanted crappy service at a cheap price, I would have gone to Southwest. But I didn't - I came to United because I wanted a pleasant flight, and I'm willing to pay for that. Just don't treat things that are necessary as extras. We like those things, we need those things. That's why Frontier and Southwest are blowing you out of the water - they're starting to give us those "extras," and are charging less than you for it.

I'll rant more about it in a future post - but everything's getting crappy and expensive, and everyone wants to take you for a ride. It is like living in Russia. Long breadlines, poor customer service, and every merchant wants to sell you something that doesn't work, and then make you wait around to charge you to fix it poorly.

All I can do is hope that the Apple store will see the customer reaming them out on their own computer as worthy enough to warrant doing their job.

I Blame Global Warming for Illegal Mexican Immigration

2007-04-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

The National Parks Services of both the United States and Canada are in the process of organizing migration corridors in response to climate change, which makes perfect sense. As localized climates change by seemingly small magnitudes - as small as fractions of a degree - the geographic ranges of flowers, trees, animals and even rivers and lakes will change with them. So migration corridors have been set up for bighorn sheep herds, porcupine caribou herds, wild bison, all sorts of raptors, etc. etc.

In fact, it only takes one degree to drastically affect an area's biota. Colder species move out, warmer species move in. Currents in rivers where the water is warmer or cooler by as little as one or two degrees make for entirely separate, and seemingly incompatible, ecosystems living next to each other.

It makes sense, then, that National Parks are cooperating across borders to ensure the safe travel of animals from one location to a settlement in another. Could the current American emphasis on amnesty be another one of these cooperative programs?

We spent a lot of time on the important and sensitive issue of migration. [...] I say important because a good migration law will help both economies and will help the security of both countries.
-- Pres. Bush, March 14, 2007, in Merida, Mexico.

Of course! The U.S. Government is only trying to ensure the survival of a threatened herd: the Mexican Wage Laborer. Through cooperation with the Mexican Government and local law enforcement, the U.S. has managed to establish a safe and inviting refuge for this threatened population as it flees rising temperatures in the South.

A Community to Respect

2007-04-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

This is the South Korean response to the VT shootings a few days ago.

I am rarely moved by such pictures, but the sincerity of the men holding the banner is so real, so poignant.

(Photo credit Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Ahh, Paleocons

2007-04-16T05:32:00.000-04:00

We need them, now more than ever:

When Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1981, some Religious Right leaders suspected she might be too moderate on abortion and other social concerns. Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell told the news media that "every good Christian should be concerned."

Replied Goldwater, "Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."

I'm Surrounded by Idiots

2007-04-13T03:09:00.001-04:00

From a 2004 CBS News Poll, a 2004 Gallup poll, and a Gallup poll of U.S. teenagers.

81% of U.S. teenagers think that God controlled or influenced the origin of humans. (Gallup)
65% of Americans think that we should teach both creationism and evolution in schools. (CBS)
55% believe that “God created humans in present form.” (CBS)
45% believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old. (Gallup)
37% think that we should teach just creationism in schools, including 60% of evangelical Christians. (CBS)
36% believe in telepathy.
35% say that evolution is well supported by the evidence. (Gallup)
35% say that evolution is not well supported by the evidence. (Gallup)
25% believe in astrology.
25% think the sun goes around the Earth.
13% think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.
Only 13% of Americans accept the standard scientific account of evolution, without a god’s involvement. (CBS)

Thomas Jefferson

2007-04-12T22:50:00.001-04:00

It's his birthday today, worth celebrating for many reasons. While he favored an agrarian society (where Hamilton was busy founding a national banking infrastructure), his views on liberty were absolute: liberty is a natural right, and above all else, it is right. From Christopher Hitchens's "Thomas Jefferson: Author of America"

He [Jefferson] trenchantly restated the view that the American Revolution was founded on universal principles, and was thus emphatically for [its] export. He laid renewed stress on the importance of science and innovation as the spur of the Enlightenment, and scornfully contrasted this with mere faith and credulity.

In his last letter, dated June 24, 1826, to express his regrets at not being able to attend the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, words that are stirring still, words that need to resonate to this day:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

Conviction with purpose, that is what is lacking in contemporary politics. Egoes swaggering about, seeking career advancement and power annexation, often through race-baiting or the language of class warfare. Jefferson was a man who had a cause worth fighting for, moreso than any after him. Fight for it, he did, and we've been enjoying his success ever since. Abraham Lincoln said of him, in 1859:

All honor to Jefferson: to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

To that, Jefferson had already added, in 1791:

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Happy birthday, Tom.

I Can Forgive Seven Pounds Overweight...

2007-04-12T22:27:00.000-04:00

Hell, I can't even tell if someone has gained ten pounds over time... I never have, and I think only women and men in the fashion industry can tell that small of an increase/decrease, because they're obsessed with weight. My obsession with weight runs the other direction, though. I notice when people are, say, 60lbs overweight.

It occurred to me in early 2005. I was standing in the hot dog line at the Jacksonville, FL Sam's Club, when I noticed something horrifying: How many adults within eyeshot were Lipitor candidates? The answer from looking at them: all of them. Yes, it was Sam's Club. Yes, it was Florida - you slack-jawed yuppie Blue state class warriors can shut up now. But, I shopped at Sam's Club (then), and I lived in Florida (then), and I'm nowhere near overweight. In fact, my BMI is 17, which is apparently underweight. I ate a decent diet, bought from that very same Sam's Club, and consumed it in the very same state. Just a few people - sure, could be genetic. But all of them? Our gene pool can't be that tiny, or shallow.

The fact of the matter is that it didn't matter where they shopped, or where they lived - none of that changed the fact that these people were fat, and it was of their own doing. You eat deep-fried potatoes, you get fat. You eat cheese and mayo with every meal, you get fat. You go back for seconds of all of the above, you get fat. You eat too damn much, you get fat.

I mention this because a story was just released that scientists have found a gene which can predispose one to obesity. Not, gross obesity, mind you, but 2.6 to 7.0 pounds. That's it. 2.6 to seven pounds cannot account for this:

Fat.

That is not seven pounds. That's a beer belly. That guy's fat because he drinks too much beer.

The story tells us that if a specimen has one copy of a particular variant of the FTO gene (called the "fatso" gene), then they are predisposed to gaining up to 2.6 lbs. Two copies: 7.0 lbs. And there are asymptotically fewer numbers of three or four variants. But that's not what's going to get publicized, or acknowledged.

"I'm fat because of my genes," is what is reinforced through this finding. No doubt Oprah and the rest of them will jump all over this. "No, you may have gained 2.6 or seven pounds because of your genes, but you're fat because of your behavior."

I'm sure that'll go over.

If you're as overweight as the picture above shows, then you should be embarrassed about how you look. You can't move or think as fast as you should, you consume more expensive calories than you should, aesthetically you're an eyesore, and you're going to die of type 2 diabetes, simply because you eat too much of the wrong stuff, or too much in general.

Except for those 2.6 lbs underneath your neck - those are your genes'.

McCain's Dukakis Moment?

2007-04-09T13:30:00.000-04:00

This looks vaguely reminiscent of the incident that sunk Dukakis's campaign, the infamous tank incident:

If Religion Were Defensible...

2006-12-11T17:27:00.000-05:00

It's a problem of discourse. It's a problem that certain ideas remain in good standing, and remain immune to criticism.

Now, previously, I spoke about the problems that beset any claim that any religious doctrine is true. These being, that if religion really were a genuine brand of intellectual inquiry, it would function by the same rules: We would have people's certainties about their religious doctrines scaling with the evidence and the arguments that can be marshalled in support of those ideas, and we fundamentally find that that's not what's going on in religion.

Sam Harris, 11/07/06, "Beyond Belief" conference in San Diego.

Embargo?

2006-12-04T18:15:00.000-05:00

"We have shown that Venezuela is red! ... No one should fear socialism... Socialism is human. Socialism is love."

Hugo Chavez has won re-election, by a wide margin: 61% to 38%.

He's allying with Iran, and is being just a big, fat pest in general, so why don't we embargo him?

Call your congressman.

Futurama Opera

2006-12-01T01:12:00.000-05:00

I was certain that I'd seen every episode of Futurama, but I don't recall this at all. Can anyone tell me which episode it's from?

"This opera's as lousy as it is brilliant."

Hedonism Bot makes an appearance!

UPDATE: It's from episode 516: "The Devil's Hands Are Idol Playthings"

Two Views on Evolution

2006-12-01T00:53:00.000-05:00

View #1, The Onion:

TOPEKA, KS—In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution, the highly controversial process responsible for the development and diversity of species and the continued survival of all life.

[...]

"Barn swallows that develop lighter, more streamlined builds to enable faster migration, for example, could live out the rest of their brief lives in prison," said Indiana University chemist and pro-intelligent-design author Robert Hellenbaum, who helped compose the language of the law. "And butterflies who mimic the wing patterns and colors of other butterflies for an adaptive advantage, well, their days of flaunting God's will are over."

And view #2, South Park:

"Being off by a factor of a million is not a trivial error."

2006-11-25T20:38:00.001-05:00

An excerpt from a stop in Lynchburg, VA on Dawkins's book tour. Real science's response to intelligent design has taken a few years to get going, but scientists are finally striking back with books-a-plenty, and waging the battle of ideas that they need to.

Einstein said that a unified field theory should be something elegant enough to explain to a small child; Lederman said it should be succinct enough to fit on a t-shirt. Their descriptions of an elegantly formatted complex idea are also ideal standards for the communication of larger scientific principles to the public.

What that objective yields are pithy "memes" - a term which Dawkins himself actually coined - and are exactly what's needed right now for science, for the public can understand little more than soundbytes, and answers to the design inference need to be just that simple. That's what makes quotes such as this one by Dawkins so important:

Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.

Rachmaninoff PC3 on YouTube

2006-11-25T14:20:00.000-05:00

I came across Martha Argerich's legendary performance of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto with Riccardo Chailly and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra on YouTube, and knew that I needed to link to it here. It's an outstanding performance, sure to last. Other excellent recordings of this work include Mikhail Pletnev with Mstislav Rostropovich/RNO, Arcadi Volodos with James Levine/BPO, and Stephen Hough with Andrew Litton/DSO, though I don't believe any are on YouTube. Argerich plays the original, less frequently recorded cadenza. This interpretation sounds as if it's emanating from behind the iron curtain, evoking the rubble of a ruined - or at least decadent - and war-torn city... no matter that the performers (Argerich from Argentina, Chailly from Italy) have no Soviet heritage.

Movement I, Part 1

Movement I, Part 2

Movement II, Part 1

Movement II, Part 2

Movement III, Part 1 - what a tempo!!

Movement III, Part 2 - check out the cool orchesta effect at 1:15-1:52

I'm still hoping for a Chailly CSO appointment - he deserves it, and could bring a sorely-needed recording contract back to that orchestra.

A recording of Yefim Bronfman/Valery Gergiev/Vienna PO playing the same is also on the site. It's a performance with a lot of life and muscle - more of a straight-ahead, modern performance than the Argerich:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5 (including a lovely performance of the C-minor Scarlatti Sonata, K. 11)

Part 6 (including Chopin's Revolutionary Etude Op. 10 no. 12)

And finally, Horowitz playing it with Zubie and the NYPO from 1978. Some memory and finger slips, and Mehta somehow manages to follow Horowitz's wildly varying tempos, but everyone seems to like it, so I'm linking to it. The second and third movements go significantly better than the first - it's still a great performance. God, his piano was bright.

Captain Abstinence

2006-11-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

Amanda Schaffer has a great article on Slate exploring how unhinged Eric Keroack, Bush's appointee to head HHS's family planning program, really is. The more I read about this guy and his organization, the more outraged I am:

I went to Keroack's organization's website. Their current mission statement reads:

A Woman's Concern: Pregnancy Resource Clinic exists to educate, encourage, and empower men and women to make informed life choices.

But, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has their mission statements dating back to when the site opened in 2000. Their former mission statement reads:

A Woman's Concern: Pregnancy Resource Clinic exists to extend the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to those whose lives may be affected by a challenging or unexpected pregnancy, providing help for their physical, spiritual, emotional, medical and material needs, through counseling, support services and education, thus empowering each one to uphold the value of human life.

Disgusting.

Creepily Prescient

2006-11-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

Air date: February 4, 1997

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJuMX1GzD6I&NR

Transcript (found here)

Gen. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF: On the question of going to Baghdad - if you remember the Vietnam war, we had no international legitimacy for what we did. As a result, we, first of all, lost the battle in world public opinion. Eventually, we lost the battle at home.
In the Gulf war, we had great international legitimacy in the form of eight United Nations resolutions, every one of which said, "Kick Iraq out of Kuwait." Did not say one word about going into Iraq, taking Baghdad, conquering the whole country and- and hanging Saddam Hussein. That's point number one.
Point number two- had we gone on to Baghdad, I don't believe the French would have gone and I'm quite sure that the Arab coalition would not have gone. The coalition would have ruptured and the only people that would have gone would have been the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
And, oh, by the way, I think we'd still be there. We'd be like a dinosaur in a tar pit. We could not have gotten out and we'd still be the occupying power and we'd be paying 100 percent of all the costs to administer all of Iraq.
ROBERT GATES, Deputy National Security Advisor: And that was the quagmire. Therein laid Vietnam, as far as we were concerned, because we would still be there. And what's more, given the American way of doing things, we would have then had the responsibility for rebuilding all of the infrastructure and we were just determined not to get sucked into that trap.

I remember watching this when it first aired. I was a sophomore in high school, visiting family in Minnesota. Fascinating.

Thank God he's gone

2006-11-17T10:18:00.000-05:00

Rick Santorum is insane. This is appalling:

In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

[...]

He and Karen brought Gabriel's body home so their children could "absorb and understand that they had a brother," Santorum says. "We wanted them to see that he was real," not an abstraction, he says. Not a "fetus," either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described -- "a 20-week-old fetus" -- on a hospital form. They changed the form to read "20-week-old baby."

...Clinical.

Commenting on how he felt Democrats viewed him:

"If you have someone who's really effective on the other side, it's nice to get rid of them if you have the chance," he says. "Particularly if you see them, as a lot of them see me, as a fluke. They say, 'How's a guy like this get elected in Pennsylvania? He's just so lucky.' " ("They" is how Santorum generally refers to Democrats and the media. When channeling the views of "they," Santorum's voice acquires an exaggerated whine.) "They say, 'He's always had a bad opponent or ran in a good year.' They see me as an accidental senator."

Well, that's what pencils have erasers for - consider the mistake corrected.

Bunnyocalypse

2006-11-14T19:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.hanttula.com/exhibits/bunnies/

Had It Coming

2006-11-08T12:10:00.000-05:00

To lose one House may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.

The Republicans had it coming. Now, I'm no fan of the Democrats, but the Republicans' run of incompetence and religious extremism couldn't and shouldn't have been tolerated by voters.

And it wasn't. Thank God.

At the moment, it looks as though the Democrats of all people will be working for fiscal reform, if they are capable of such a thing. I personally don't think so - they're far too fond of spending via self-flagellation to actually eliminate the national debt that so sorely needs to be gotten rid of.

Anyway, the election resut is further proof that religious extremism in government always leads to corruption. Here's to secularism!

Linksys WRT54GL

2006-10-30T06:47:00.000-05:00

What follows is a true tale of greed, fraud and extortion. The names have not been changed, as no one here is innocent...

Part 1: Preamble

I've stood by the Linksys WRT54G wireless router since I bought my first one in 2004. It was version 3 of this model, and never, ever went down. I didn't even need to upgrade its firmware. I had an 8 megabit pipe coming in over the cable line, and was always running a few torrents, occupying often in the area of 300k/sec. Adding to this my penchant for P2P and constant websurfing, it was surprising that, with all this going on, it was rare for my http/ftp download speeds ever to dip below 400k/sec.

All those problems you heard about with other routers - constant restarts, terrible packet loss, inconsistent performance, etc. - were never an issue for me.

So, I recommended it to others, and ended up installing three WRT54Gs that I can recall, and know that five other people have installed them themselves on my recommendation... all without incident. That all occurred within about an eight month period, though, and I didn't have a need for a new router, or occasion otherwise to install or recommend one for someone else. Until now.

Part 2: Who are you, and what have you done with my router?

My (now) former roommates had grown dependent on my trusty router, so I left it at my old apartment, as my car was quite full, and I figured that I could always get another one when I needed to. The Summer passed, and I needed to get another router about a week ago. So, off to CompUSA it was, where I picked up my favorite router, and went home.

It picked up an IP address from the modem quickly, and DHCP'd new IP addresses to the two Powerbooks immediately thereafter. But, net access was slow. I mean: really slow. And it was slow in a really peculiar way, too.

Pages would load as quickly as expected for the first few seconds, then the dreaded pinwheel of death would appear for anywhere between 10 seconds, and x. To make things even more frustrating, I was sitting literally two feet from the router. I was resetting all the equipment about three times per hour in the first five hours that I had this thing hooked up, and nothing I tried in the router's admin page increased the reliability of the wireless connection.

Was someone logged in without me knowing?

Was some heretofore unknown poltergeist messing with the router settings?

Was one of the Powerbooks still somehow sending out bad IP addresses? Prior to the installation of this router, I was sharing the net connection via one of the Powerbooks' AirPorts, using the computer as the router.

No, none of that was the case.

Part 3: Bait-and-switch

After much wringing of hands and many onomonopoetic grunts at the new WRT54G, I learned on the various internets that, between versions 4 and 5, Linksys had gone from a Linux-based OS to a VXWorks-based OS, and downgraded the flash ROM from 4mb to 2mb.

It's a different router. Unworthy of being called a WRT54G.

The stability of the old WRT54G stemmed from the fact that is was a small Linux box. Add to this the ability to swap in third-party firmware which allows you to boost the wireless signal and do some nice QoS stuff, and you can get a $300 router for $50.

But Linksys got greedy.

They apparently didn't like the fact that people were hacking their boxes, but they also saw the market for allowing people to do so. So, they crappified the WRT54G, and released a "new" router called the WRT54GL.

The WRT54GL is the old WRT54G - the only difference being that it costs $20 more. Linux-based, acceptable amount of memory, and as solid as one expects the WRT54G to be.

A really interesting part of this sordid tale is that Linksys no longer puts the version number on their WRT54G boxes, so you don't know what you're getting. Now I know that if there's no version number on the box, you're getting the piece of garbage version of the router.

Apparently, the WRT54G is now fairly stable for Windows users using a desktop and a wireless laptop, but it can't handle any more than that. (It also has an egregious programming error that I'll get to in the next part.) But, it breaks down and cries any time a Mac runs talks to it, and it cannot handle Bittorrent. No, if you want a router that actually works, you have to ante up another $20 for the GL.

This is extortion and fraud. If you look up Oxford's definition of bait-and-switch, it reads as:

bait-and-switch
noun
the action (generally illegal) of advertising goods that are an apparent bargain , with the intention of substituting inferior or more expensive goods : [as adj.] a bait-and-switch scheme.

By not advertising the version number on their box, that's precisely what Linksys are doing here. If they wanted to introduce this new, useless VXWorks router honestly, they should have called it the WRT54GW or something, indicating that it was a cheaper, less functional version of the WRT54G.

Part 4: Tech trouble

There's a deeper technological problem with the newest versions of both the G and GL, though... once they open a Bittorrent connection, they never close it. And you can only solve the problem on the GL, because it's a Linux box. So, if you plan on doing any Bittorrenting (especially on a Mac) in the near future, buy any router other than the WRT54G. This will work just fine on a GL, though - which is what I have now.

To teach your WRT54GL how to properly close connections once they're through, download the DD-WRT firmware, and install it (first the mini version, then the standard).

Once that's done, you'll need to SSH in to the router. To do that, open up a terminal window and type

ssh root@192.168.1.1

You can also use an SSH program to do this if you're terminal-phobic.

Once in, enter the following code:

~ # nvram set rc_startup="
> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses
> echo '600 1800 120 60 120 120 10 60 30 120' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeouts
> "
~ # nvram commit
~ # reboot

NB, these commands are only good for the DD-WRT firmware.

The router will then reboot - it'll probably only take a few seconds - and then everything will be hunky dory. You'll never worry about wireless latency again.

Part 5: Afterword

It's important to note that this problem is irreparable on the new WRT54G, because the software is not open source, and you can't really play with it. It is now an inferior piece of equipment which they are selling at the same price as the old, superior equipment. At the same time, they have re-branded the old equipment under a new model number, and are charging more money for it. It's unethical, it's fraudulent, and it's extortive, because in order to buy a usable router, you need to fork over more money for the GL, after you've fought with the G to your wits' end.

Moral of the story: Never buy a WRT54G. If you're going to buy a router from this line, get the GL. It's still an excellent router, and you can still modify the software any way you want... you're just going to pay more for it now.

I think this is worthy of a class-action lawsuit against Linksys. Hopefully, that will happen in the near future.

Where's Your Party Now?

2006-05-19T21:16:00.000-04:00

Both parties are evil - despicable and pusillanimous. Though the Republican party has, under this President, committed the most appalling apostasy of principle that I've seen a major political party take in my study, the Democrats are no better - for though they hope to be what the Fundie Right is not, they're gradually capitulating to them, to steal the new center, a center significantly more authoritarian than it was when the Clintonistas coined the term.

Case in point: On May 10, Howard Dean appeared on the 700 Club, and told Pat Robertson that the Democratic Party Platform is that "marriage is between a man and a woman."

Party supporters dispute this claim by their leader, repeatedly. And they're right, to a point. The current Democratic party platform includes equality of marriage and other great aspirations for people of all sexual orientations, but it is conspicuously absent from the forthcoming platform, for the Midterm elections and the next Presidential race.

Hmm...

Because I'm in That Sort of Mood

2006-04-12T13:40:00.000-04:00

Without religion, there would be no debate about gay marriage.
Without religion, there would be no debate about what to teach in science class.
Without religion, there would be no debate about stem cell research.

Religion is a backward and poisonous force in this country. What good is it?

Fired for Committing Journalism

2006-03-16T02:10:00.000-05:00

Daily Illini editor Acton H. Gorton has been fired for publishing the Mohammed Cartoons (more lighthearted link here). Why? A journalist's first objective is to avoid offense, not publish the news, that's why.

These cartoons should be published in every major newspaper and magazine in the country - by its very nature, respecting barbarism is to tacetly condone it.

On the same note, the twelve signatories of the Anti-Islamist Manifesto have been marked for death. Email your name to prochoix@prochoix.org to have it added to those in solidarity with the twelve. You can also sign the solidarity petition here.

Khuzestan

2006-03-10T16:14:00.000-05:00

We need to make this happen. Khuzestan is a Southwestern Iranian province with a border on Iraq, and a coast on the Persian Gulf. While most of Iran's population is ethnically Persian, Khuzestanis are primarily Ahwazi Arab. The really interesting thing is that this province and its ethnically distinct culture produce most of Iran's oil. Of course, the profits are not seen by the local population, but go back to Tehran. This could be very promising for the U.S.

The new Iranian Bourse threatens to undermine the value, stability and security of the dollar, moreover, oil is the only real leverage Iran has in its favor right now - a conspicuous Achilles' Heel. Coupled with the country's misbehavior on the international stage and its theocratic abuse of human rights, we have plenty of reasons to neutralize the threat of Iranian economic hostage-taking and Iran-like sectarian hegemony throughout the region.

An unhappy, culturally distinct, oil-producing province and population is a prime opportunity for such neutralization. There have already been episodes of unrest, and it is in our short-term interest to facilitate more. This will probably come back to bite us in 20 or 30 years, as Zbigniew Brzezinski's strategy to aid the Taliban in the 70s has today, but that did help to end the Cold War.

The Tristan Chord

2006-03-07T14:11:00.000-05:00

I've solved the Tristan Chord conundrum - what can I say, it's what I do.

The "Tristan Chord" is in the second full bar, spelled from the bottom up as F B D# G#. When I was in college studying this, the answer was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't quite get to it. Obviously, it has the shape of an F half diminished chord, but the harmonic function is really one of F-E in the bass. What Wagner's done here is soured a French Augmented 6th chord - which would be spelled F A B D#, or in his voicing, F B D# A - with a suspension on the downbeat. He delayed the A by placing a G# on the beat, resolving to the A afterward.

That explanation alone would be dandy, if it weren't for the fact that the chord sounded so good, begging for an isolated analysis. The chord's pleasant sound is explained by two things: 1.) It's a half diminished chord, which our ear finds comfortable; 2.) Half diminished chords always sound better than French 6th chords, because French 6th chords are comprised of two interlocking tritones, and sound a little ugly in the first place. Furthermore, Wagner places another suspension - the A# - on the subsequent downbeat, thus confirming that the harmonic idiom at this point is one of downbeat suspensions.

But let's say that I'm an idiot, there aren't two suspensions in a row, and it really is a chord unto itself. Fine. In that case, Jazz theory explains it handily. It sounds like an F chord, leading to an E chord. Tritone substitution determines the downbeat of the second full bar to be a B13(b5) which nicely prepares the E chord in bar three. B13(b5) in the key of A minor: That's a V/V, pure and simple.

Consider this Gordian Knot cut.

Bees Can Fly

2006-01-11T01:29:00.000-05:00

In another significant blow to Intelligent Design, CalTech rehearchers have found that it is physically possible for bees to fly. I'm glad they've got this sorted out. IDologues will say silly things, such as "We don't even know how bees fly" in a pathetic attempt to undermine the authority of science.

"Well, we haven't ever sat down to figure out how bees fly, but you know what - fine. If it's really that important to you, we'll figure out how bees fly. Jackasses."

The new knowledge could be useful for future aircraft design, as well as in understanding the behavior of other bee-like creatures.

Yahoo story here.

"The Root of All Evil?"

2006-01-10T07:35:00.000-05:00

Richard Dawkins has a new two-part television series out: The Root of All Evil? It is billed as a challenge to contemporary religious belief systems, examining religion's destructive force in the modern world.

The first episode - "The God Delusion" - aired last night at 8:00pm GMT on BBC 4, which I am downloading [via bittorrent] as I type this. You can find the torrent file here (don't worry about what the tracker says, I picked up 28 seeds and 52 peers). The next and final segment airs Monday the 16th, same time and channel.

On a barely related note - the hermit crabs arrived today from Iowa! Yay!!! I welcome these stalwart nomads to our California life of light and warmth.

Very Sad News

2006-01-01T10:02:00.000-05:00

Last night, a friend of mine died. He was in the care of another friend, and she did everything possible for him over the last several months.

Since early in July, Darwin - the perfect little Siberian Dwarf Hamster - had been dealing with what was apparently an incurable genital hernia, and a consistent series of infections throughout his body which it seemed to spur. Amanda - the human friend, and the actual incarnation of Dr. Doolittle if there ever was one - had been taking care of him in Iowa since the end of May.

After the hernia occurred (its cause is still a mystery) she stayed up with him all night on occasion administering antibiotics and even hydration injections, when he was too sick to even drink or move. He had been at the brink of death several times since the onset of the hernia, and every time, Amanda brought him back from it. He would soon again be curious as ever, exploring the room, forraging for his food, rummaging around his large cage underneath his bedding.

I met Darwin at PetSmart in Jacksonville, FL as I was on my way to purchase some hermit crab food. (The hermit crabs are also staying with Amanda for the time being.) He ran up to the side of the glass enclosure, and standing on his hind legs, excitedly said, "Hello!!" From that point forward, he was endlessly entertaining, novel and sweet. He was far and away the most inquisitive and fun hamster of the bunch, or of any bunch I'd ever seen, so I got a three-story house for him and his curiosity. He refused to use the hamster ball, insisting on being the little explorer out in the open. For these reasons, I named him "Darwin."

You can find a post with pictures of Darwin on the sidebar.

Amanda, thank you for taking such attentive care of him the last few months. You'd not only repeatedly quickened him from death's door, but made him happy and comfortable in what, for a hamster in anyone else's care, would have been very painful and immediately terminal times. Although he was my best friend and roommate, you were truly the best friend he ever had, and did more for him than I or anyone else ever could have. You provided absolutely unconditional care for him. I wish I could be there with you and Darwin to say goodbye. I'm so sorry that I can't be, and that you have to bury him, and dismantle the cage...

This is so sad...

Darwin Strikes Back

2005-12-20T13:15:00.000-05:00

Dealing another in a quick series of body blows to the Intelligent Design movement, U.S. District Judge John Jones earlier today found that presenting ID to Pennsylvania public school students is unconstitutional. Faboo.

The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID’s “official position” does not acknowledge that the designer is God. However, as Dr. Haught testified, anyone familiar with Western religious thought would immediately make the association that the tactically unnamed designer is God, as the description of the designer in Of Pandas and People (hereinafter “Pandas”) is a “master intellect,” strongly suggesting a supernatural deity as opposed to any intelligent actor known to exist in the natural world. (P-11 at 85). Moreover, it is notable that both Professors Behe and Minnich admitted their personal view is that the designer is God and Professor Minnich testified that he understands many leading advocates of ID to believe the designer to be God. (21:90 (Behe); 38:36-38 (Minnich)).

Although proponents of the IDM occasionally suggest that the designer could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of the IDM, including Defendants’ expert witnesses. (20:102-03 (Behe)). In fact, an explicit concession that the intelligent designer works outside the laws of nature and science and a direct reference to religion is Pandas’ rhetorical statement, “what kind of intelligent agent was it [the designer]” and answer: “On its own science cannot answer this question. It must leave it to religion and philosophy.” (P-11 at 7; 9:13-14 (Haught)).

A significant aspect of the IDM is that despite Defendants’ protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument. In that vein, the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity. Dr. Barbara Forrest, one of Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, is the author of the book Creationism’s Trojan Horse. She has thoroughly and exhaustively chronicled the history of ID in her book and other writings for her testimony in this case. Her testimony, and the exhibits which were admitted with it, provide a wealth of statements by ID leaders that reveal ID’s religious, philosophical, and cultural content.

This quote is from pages 25 and 26, which are representative of the whole 139 page ruling. The thrust of this finding is that ID is a religiously-motivated movement, working for religious ends in the public school classroom. Judge Jones, however, provides a mountain of factual, logical and case law evidence to support his ruling. For example:

After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.

The third point really boils the IDeologues' blood, apparently because they are unfamiliar with the many and varied refutations of all contentions raised by ID on every level. (For an extensive, though far from comprehensive list, see http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html)

Religious types are, of course, rolling out the "judicial activism" mantra on this one. This argument - not unlike ID - fails the test of logic, because the "judicial activism" label could be applied no matter what side he ruled for. In this case, because he is preventing action from being taken, he is a judicial activist. On the other hand, if he had allowed ID to be exposed to public school students, that would be judicial activism in the same sense that Roe v Wade allowed women to seek abortions. Therefore, no matter what ruling he made, he was doomed to be branded with the "judicial activist" monkier.

Do youself a favor and read the entire thing - it's actually fun! Oh... One more, just to celebrate:

The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial.

Russell quote for our times

2005-12-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

With the confluence of Intelligent Design casuistry and gay marraige bigotry, there is no more important notion to remember right now than what Bertrand Russell said in his Outline of Intellectual Rubbish. He continues:

The power of governments over men's beliefs has been very great ever since the rise of large States. The great majority of Romans became Christian after the Roman emperors had been converted. In the parts of the Roman Empire that were conquered by the Arabs, most people abandoned Christianity for Islam. The division of Western Europe into Protestant and Catholic regions was determined by the attitude of governments in the sixteenth century.

Regardless of one's revelatory pretenses, their religion is at base the result of socially conditioned superstition. Ignorance of this fact, and the violent intransigence which that ignorance tends to foster is the greatest danger to the modern world - the greatest threat to the survival of a liberal society and a prosperous future.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. -- Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 5

A health care plan that might just work

2005-12-07T09:12:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney's proposing a new health care plan which requires those able to afford health care to purchase some limited form of it, not unlike compulsory auto insurance. It will also make a point of bringing those who are not covered and eligible for Medicaid into that system. Most boldly, however (and the point which gives me the most pause) is that the state of Massachusetts will subsidize the health care of the working poor, by allocating the $1 billion that it had been spending on emergency care for those who had no coverage (including those who could afford it) to subsidizing the working poor.

I've decided that I like this plan, about as much as I like required auto insurance. It's not savory, and it doesn't really reduce government expenses, but it is necessary to defray costs that the state is currently funding. What I like most about the idea is that

The government is not providing health care to all people, and
It is being done at the state level, not at the expensive (and historically mismanaged) federal level.

Go-go Gadget Federalism!

How to Eat PCP

2005-12-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

The evolution of an irreducibly complex system:
(from http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html#how2eatpcp)

How to Eat Pentachlorophenol

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a highly toxic chemical, not known to occur naturally, that has been used as a wood preservative since the 1930's. It is now recognized as a dangerous pollutant that we need to dispose of. But how?

Evolution to the rescue! A few soil bacteria have already worked out a way to break it down and even eat it. And conveniently for us, they do it in an irreducibly complex way. The best known of these bacteria is called Sphingomonas chlorophenolica (also called Sphingobium chlorophenolicum).

The PCP molecule is a six carbon ring with five chlorine atoms and one hydroxyl (OH) group attached. The chlorines and the ring structure are both problems for bacteria. S. chlorophenolica uses three enzymes in succession to break it down, as follows: the first one replaces one chlorine with OH. The resulting compound is toxic, but not quite as bad as PCP itself. The second enzyme is able to act on this compound to replace two chlorines, one after the other, with hydrogen atoms. The resulting compound, while still bad, is much easier to deal with, and the third enzyme is able to break the ring open. At this point, what is left of PCP is well on its way to being food for the bacterium.

All three enzymes are required, so we have IC. How could this IC system have evolved? First of all, bacteria of this type could already metabolize some milder chlorophenols which occur naturally in small amounts. In fact the first and third enzymes were used for this. As a result the cell is triggered to produce them in the presence of chlorophenols. The second enzyme (called PcpC) is the most interesting one; the cell produces it in sufficient quantity to be effective all the time instead of just when it is needed in its normal metabolic role. Thanks to this unusual situation PcpC is available when it is needed to help eat PCP.

The inefficient regulation of PcpC is evidently the key to the whole process. So far as biologists can tell, a recent mutation that changed the deployment of this enzyme is what made PCP degradation possible for this bacterium. It also happens that both PcpC and the first enzyme in the process are now slightly optimized for dealing with PCP; they handle it better than the corresponding enzymes in strains of S. chlorophenolica that use PcpC only in its normal role, but not nearly as well as would be expected for an old, well adapted system. These factors, combined with the fact that PCP is not known to occur naturally, make a strong circumstantial case that this system has evolved very recently.

The chemistry and probable evolution of this system are explained in much greater detail in Shelly Copley's article "Evolution of a metabolic pathway for degradation of a toxic xenobiotic: the patchwork approach" in Trends in Biochemical Sciences. (see Copley SD. (2000). Evolution of a metabolic pathway for degradation of a toxic xenobiotic: the patchwork approach. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 25(6):261-265.)

What fun!

Continuing Evidence That Voters Are Not To Be Trusted

2005-11-20T16:43:00.000-05:00

On page 50 of this Pew Institute Poll, only 23% of Americans surveyed correctly identified Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia. I bet most of those were Russian immigrants, too.

On pp. 57-58:

Only 52% correctly stated that Great Britain posseses nuclear weapons.
Only 38% correctly stated that France posesses nuclear weapons.
Only 48% correctly stated that Israel posesses nuclear weapons.
44% think that Japan has them.

and...

21% didn't know if Russia has them. Russia! Who has some 20,000 nukes... ...RUSSIA!!

That's it. No more voting in the United States. It's bad enough that we put the civil liberties of homosexuals up to a vote, but to trust people this patently stupid to elect a competent government is reckless.

A Holiday Message

2005-11-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

To creationists everywhere:

The World's Stupidest Biochem Major

2005-11-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

AMES, Iowa -- With a magician's flourish, Thomas Ingebritsen pulled six mousetraps from a shopping bag and handed them out to students in his "God and Science" seminar. At his instruction, they removed one component -- either the spring, hammer or holding bar -- from each mousetrap. They then tested the traps, which all failed to snap.

"Is the mousetrap irreducibly complex?" the Iowa State University molecular biologist asked the class.

"Yes, definitely," said Jason Mueller, a junior biochemistry major wearing a cross around his neck.

That's the answer Mr. Ingebritsen was looking for. He was using the mousetrap to support the antievolution doctrine known as intelligent design. Like a mousetrap, the associate professor suggested, living cells are "irreducibly complex" -- they can't fulfill their functions without all of their parts. Hence, they could not have evolved bit by bit through natural selection but must have been devised by a creator.

On a certain level, I find this utterly demoralizing: An adult college student of the sciences calling a moustrap irreducibly complex, such that he makes the absurd conclusion that the moustrap proves that a designer invented the universe - simply because he has a damn cross around his neck. Since Blogger kicks people off for violent speech, I'll keep my verbal response to this appalling miscarraige of reason quiet. Actually, the mousetrap could be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch. It is important, however, to clarify the nature of irreducible complexity, and what, if anything, we can deduce from it.

A system's state of irreducible complexity is not evidence of design, it is evidence of irreducible complexity. If a system stops functioning when you take Behe's tweezer to it and remove a single part, that simply means that that part was necessary. Even if you remove every component one at a time and find them all to be necessary, that is not evidence of design - it only illustrates one of two things: 1) that the pieces are interdependant, and you have not yet explored the effects of removing combinations of parts, or 2) that the system has reached a state of elegance and efficiency where it has shed its unnecessary parts. In both conclusions, it is the result that one expects from a process of iterative evolution. I am still dumbfounded as to how any of this is lost on the IDers. Actually, I'm not - it's lost on them because recognition such simple logic would prevent the introduction of the supernatural into scientific inquiry.

Dear readers, please read my previous post for catharsis, and this final quote from an otherwise bleak article:

Ms. West and other honors students will have a chance to hear the opposing viewpoint next semester. Counter-programming against Mr. Ingebritsen, three faculty members are preparing a seminar titled: "The Nature of Science: Why the Overwhelming Consensus of Science is that Intelligent Design is not Good Science."

I just don't feel the moral vigor to lambaste the idiot biochem major and his idiot teacher right now, so I'll reprint talkorigins.org's stock answer to their wrongheaded, predetermined conclusion: (link on sidebar)

Response:

Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:
- deletion of parts
- addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
- change of function
- addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
- gradual modification of parts
All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).

Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied; irreducibility is no obstacle to its formation (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996).
Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.
Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.
Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
- The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
- The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
- In spite of the complexity of Behe's protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
- The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.

Links:

TalkOrigins Archive. n.d. Irreducible complexity and Michael Behe. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

References:

Aharoni, A., L. Gaidukov, O. Khersonsky, S. McQ. Gould, C. Roodveldt and D. S. Tawfik. 2004. The 'evolvability' of promiscuous protein functions. Nature Genetics [Epub Nov. 28 ahead of print]
Dujon, B. et al. 2004. Genome evolution in yeasts. Nature 430: 35-44.
Hooper, S. D. and O. G. Berg. 2003. On the nature of gene innovation: Duplication patterns in microbial genomes. Molecular Biololgy and Evolution 20(6): 945-954.
Lynch, M. and J. S. Conery. 2000. The evolutionary fate and consequences of duplicate genes. Science 290: 1151-1155. See also Pennisi, E., 2000. Twinned genes live life in the fast lane. Science 290: 1065-1066.
Meléndez-Hevia, Enrique, Thomas G. Waddell and Marta Cascante. 1996. The puzzle of the Krebs citric acid cycle: Assembling the pieces of chemically feasible reactions, and opportunism in the design of metabolic pathways during evolution. Journal of Molecular Evolution 43(3): 293-303.
Muller, Hermann J. 1918. Genetic variability, twin hybrids and constant hybrids, in a case of balanced lethal factors. Genetics 3: 422-499. http://www.genetics.org/content/vol3/issue5/index.shtml
Muller, H. J. 1939. Reversibility in evolution considered from the standpoint of genetics. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 14: 261-280.
Pennisi, Elizabeth. 2001. Genome duplications: The stuff of evolution? Science 294: 2458-2460.
Ussery, David. 1999. A biochemist's response to "The biochemical challenge to evolution". Bios 70: 40-45. http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/Behe.html

"Irreducible Complexity"

2005-11-14T16:34:00.000-05:00

I love this book. I've loved it since I bought it in 2002. It's called "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. He invented Mathematica. He was a child prodigy, publishing his first paper on particle physics at age 15, going on to acquire a Ph.D. from Caltech when he was just 20, and proceeding quickly to important results in quantum field theory and cosmology. Stephen Wolfram is undoubtedly one of the smartest people on the planet. I also love his thoughts on clarity and modesty:

There is a common style of understated scientific writing to which I was once a devoted subscriber. But at some point I discovered that more significant results are usually incomprehensible if presented in this style. For unless one has a realistic understanding of how important something is, it is very difficult to place or absorb it. And so in writing this book I have chosen to explain straightforwardly the importance I believe my various results have. Perhaps I might avoid some criticism by a greater display of modesty, but the cost would be a drastic reduction in clarity.

I bring him up because his massive work entitled "A New Kind of Science" demonstrates that a seemingly "irreducibly complex" system can be the result of a set of very simple laws. I haven't posted about it on this weblog before, but in the interests of thoroughness, I feel it's necessary to do so. Below is an excerpt of a comment I made in an ongoing war I'm personally waging at an Intelligent Design blog:

It's not a matter of saying that there is not a possibility of a designer at the very, very beginning of the universe's life. There are many varied and possible models and theories of how and if a big bang occurred, but our human knowledge does not, at this point, extend that far into the past. Deists can agree with that much. But, after that point, the things that [the previous commenter calls] the building blocks of life were able to evolve, and for a mathematical demonstration, you can see Stephen Wolfram's tome "A New Kind of Science" which I heartily recommend.

http://www.wolframscience.com/thebook.html

The book literally illustrates that simple programs can produce extraordinarily varied, and what in retropsect appear to be completely random, results. For example, the model at

http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-27
and
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-28
and, most importantly, what it produces at
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-30

Some regularities are evident, particularly on the left. But even after all these steps there are no signs of overall regularity - and indeed even continuing for a million steps many aspects of the pattern obtained seem perfectly random according to standard mathematical and statistical tests.

A very small version of the Rule 30 cellular automaton. Notice the regularity on the left, and the complexity and apparent randomness on the right. See http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-30 for a clearer view, and http://www.wolframscience.com/downloads/basicimages.html for the rule set.

This model demonstrates that extraordinarily complex results - even statistically random ones - can be rendered from extraordinarily simple rules. C'est la vie. The universe is guided by sets of elegantly simple and concise laws including gravity and such varied forces, that when they interact they bear a startling array of diversity from planets to black holes to atoms and everything in between.

Finding those simple rules are an integral component of science, and to remove those goals is to limit and effectively end scientific inquiry. Einstein said that his goal of a unified theory is something that could be explained to a child, something that could fit on a t-shirt. The rubric below the illustration of rule 30 on page 27 of the links I posted fits those criteria well. I look in amazement at what it produces on page 30.

How many steps has the universe undergone since the execution of those primitive rules billions of years ago, rules which may very well be the results of even more basic laws? The fact that the variety of the results is baffling to our human brains does not mean that such laws cannot be discovered in time through the nexus of tenacity, perspecasity and inspiration.

The truth is detectable. How dare so-called "scientists" stand in the way of this most noble of pursuits by trying to impede its progress through criticizing that which we have necessarily not yet answered. These are small minds which have designed a similarly small God, and I have no use for them.

Take That, William Jennings Bryan!

2005-11-10T16:49:00.000-05:00

There is a God! And, verily, He has revealed His existence by removing Himself from Dover biology classes. Christen, ätzet diesen Tag In Metall und Marmorsteine! Christians, etch ye now this day both in bronze and stones of marble! Sing his praises in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, for this is indeed a glorious victory for for all that is right and just.

What could bring this humble blogger such visceral joy and dopamine-inducing relief in these uncertain times? On Tuesday, November 8, voters in Dover, PA voted out all eight school board officials who were up for re-election and supported the teaching of Intelligent Design. Fired! Unbound from the shackles of the public employ!

It was a close election:

Unofficial election results showed that just 288 votes separated the first- and last-place finishers among all 16 candidates, with the top eight vote-getters garnering seats on the board. One of the eight incumbents unseated, David Napieskie, for example, was ousted by just 26 votes.

The victors, though, are magnanimous:

But as a board, "we would all have to meet and decide what we would do as a team," Dapp said. "Our first step is to hear what the judge [in the Intelligent Design statute challenge] says."

And in the end, good triumphed over evil religious agendas. This is such a relief... I still don't think that voters right now are to be trusted with important things like facts and truth, but in this case the majority made the right decision, if only by a very slim majority, and there are mentions of a defective voting machine. But the results are conclusive, and Intelligent Design has been dealt a significant blow. Are the tides turning? They'd better be...

Kathy Martin, you're next!

Calvin & Hobbes

2005-11-10T16:12:00.000-05:00

Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff.
Calvin: Oh.
Dad: That’s why the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don’t the people get burned up?
Dad: No, the sun goes out as it sets. That’s why it is dark at night.
Calvin: Doesn’t the sun crush the whole state when it lands?
Dad: Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun’s just about the same size.

If it's good enough for ID, it's good enough for me!

Socialism Creating Terrorists

2005-11-08T13:40:00.000-05:00

John van Heyking has an outstanding guest commentary posted at the Ashbrook Center entitled The Riots of Ramadan. He poses that Tocqueville's nightmare of an impotent welfare state crushed under its unfulfillable promises has come to fruition, and the result of the French nanny-state is the what we've seen the past two weeks. Some important quotes follow, but it's worth your time to read it in its entirety:

For instance, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's longstanding economic policy has been to use the state to provide jobs while setting up trade barriers to protect French companies. Of course, this policy is self-contradictory and typifies the sclerosis of the French political class and perhaps of the Fifth Republic itself. With unemployment at ten percent for non-immigrants, the French economy is too sluggish and dragged down by the welfare state to generate jobs.

The government's policy of housing these immigrants in public housing projects compounds the problem. Americans will be familiar with the "projects" that originated with Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs and with the various criminal and social pathologies they created. The lack of private ownership and the lack of self-respect that accompanies it produce the conditions for these rioters. Nicholas Sarkozy was criticized for labeling the rioters "scums" because he was supposedly insensitive to the problems caused by their unemployment. To his mind, they are scums because they destroy their own communities. The press has interviewed several shop-owners whose shops were attacked and who agree with Sarkozy. However, in another sense they are not destroying their own communities because their communities are not their own. This is why one local community leader explained that the ideals of the French Revolution liberty, equality, and fraternity have not trickled down to them. With no sense of ownership of their own communities, the rioters view themselves as dependents or wards of the state. The projects were meant to enable immigrant populations to practice self-government Tocqueville's civil associations. Amir Taheri compares this system to the "millet" system of the old Ottoman Empire where Christian and Jewish communities ran their own affairs under the more-or-less tolerant umbrella of Islamic officialdom. However, with rioters pelting their own imams with rocks, it is clear that they reject even this level of association with the broader French culture. Therefore, the "root causes" argument once again fails to account for their lack of pride in themselves. The essence of mass man, that is to say those who lack a sense of their own personality, gets enacted through such acts of violence. The violence might "express" desperation, anger, or lack of self-ownership, but it has no strategic or political goal. Villepin's attempts to engage in "dialogue" with the rioters might constitute salutary window-dressing of a benevolent government policy, but it is at best a stop-gap measure that has come too late because his government was too timid in stamping out the violence.

[...]

For [Olivier] Roy, political Islam is very much a modern phenomenon because it is driven by masses of displaced or deterritorialized Muslims who have left their traditions and are searching for an "essential" Islam. Roy notices a strongly individualistic streak among them. For instance, he observes that 9/11 bomber Mohammad Atta's suicide note contained significantly more references to himself than to Allah, which he takes signifies a modern obsession with the self. The rioters are indeed Islamists, as evidenced by their frequent chant, "Allahou Akbar!" "God is great!" Of course, it is difficult if not impossible to identify the "essence" of a 1,500 year old tradition. Ironically, Islamists do what Westerners do when the latter express their "Orientalism" in reducing that complex tradition to a few slogans such as, "Islam is a religion of peace" and "Islam is a religion of war." Islamists paradoxically, and perversely, treat themselves as "the Other" in reducing their own tradition to some kind of "pure Islam." Doing so enables them to identify (and destroy) those deemed apostate but also because Muslims can no longer take their religion for granted as something connected with the soil. Their traditions have been uprooted over the past several generations, which contributes to a radicalized sense of identity politics.

More from "The Religion of Peace"

2005-11-07T17:16:00.000-05:00

It doesn't matter, I don't care anymore. I'm going to go ahead and confuse governments and people, at least where they espouse the same hateful religion. Read on, in amazement (from jihadwatch.org):

Iranian state television has broadcast a cartoon that glorifies suicide bombings against Israelis, depicting a young boy blowing himself up after being told: "Go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine."

[...]

The cartoon, one of a series shown by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on "Jerusalem Day" nine days ago, presents the actions of a boy who kills himself to strike back against Israelis as a noble example for children to follow. The cartoon follows the story of Abd who dies in a suicide attack. More professionally produced and graphic than previous Iranian propaganda aimed at children, the cartoon appears to be part of a campaign led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to elevate the issue of the destruction of Israel. The day before the cartoon was shown, he declared at a World Without Zionism conference: "This stain of disgrace [Israel] will be wiped off the face of the world - and this is attainable."...

Why do we tolerate this? Why do we live on the same planet as these, um, "people?" "People" who teach their young to kill others. "People" who brainwash and pollute their youth through children's television. "People" who hold "World Without Zionism" conferences. "People" who declare "This stain of disgrace [Israel] will be wiped off the face of the world - and this is attainable." These things are not "people" - they are monsters, and need to be executed en masse.

This is what the tolerance and appeasement of the thugs and dictators in the UN has gotten us: an untenable situation. It's escalated beyond politics, and now we are headed for an unavoidable world war. Thank you very much, UN! You've certainly done your job well! What a way to prevent war: Feed the monster, maybe he'll like us! Their diplomacy of socialism and impotence has failed miserably. If it had worked, or was working, the US wouldn't have responded to this threat by electing someone like GW who, while probably ill-equipped to be the leader of the free world, will at very least not back down from these savages and their eschatological rhetoric. At least, that's why I voted for him. Self-hating, blame-America-first liberals have brought us to this point, and it is becoming increasingly clearer that we've passed a point of no return with the Islamic world.

Let's hear it for the UN!

"Blame Bush for France"

2005-11-07T16:50:00.000-05:00

Some excerpts from Rush's show today - I'm glad that 22 million people listening to him are hearing this, because the left will blame the terrorist insurgency in France on Bush.

... You know who runs Somalia: warlords like Mohammed Farrah Aideed Sahib Skyhook, he of Mogadishu fame. That's who these "pirates" are. They are not insurgents in Iraq, they are terrorists, they are Islamic terrorists, and they are being recruited from all over by Iran and Syria, and yet, Bush can't be right. You have to understand what a guiding principle this is for the American left, which includes the Democratic Party in the media. Bush cannot be right. So what's happening in Paris is just a young bunch of ruffians, just a young bunch of street thugs who are of course trapped in their poverty and have no hope and have no future and are lashing out because in France you have the haves and the have-nots, which of course is a joke because in France you've got nothing but pure socialism. You don't have to work to get benefits. You can if you want to but it doesn't make any difference. You have very high minimum wage, and if you don't have a minimum wage job you'll have a pretty high benefit unemployment rate, and benefit. France threw its lot behind socialism long, long time ago with the mistaken belief that the finer elements of humanity would rise to the cream of the crop and the surface and we would all find experimental ways to get along with one another in our differences yet side by side and so forth, and it stems from the liberal arrogance. The liberal arrogance is that there will be no enemies of liberals because liberals have the ability to make everybody appreciate and love them and be in awe of them. Liberals, that's why they always think they can appease their enemies.

"Why, they won't want to attack us, why, they will want us to help them rule the world, because we're the smart people, we are the good people." And it's just amazing to me when you look at world history, and you find the number of liberal socialist appeasers who have been profoundly embarrassed time and time and time again, you talk about people who are stupid rather than the brilliant elites they think they are, they do not learn from one experience or two or a dozen.

[...]

[What do Liberals think of] The Soviet Union? Why, it would have just worked if we hadn't had corrupt people in there. If we hadn't had corrupt people, the Soviet Union would have worked. Socialism, it's clearly the best for everybody, because it doesn't choose winners. Everybody is equal. Yeah, equally miserable! So this thing in Paris, I think it's a little too soon in France to know where it's going to go, but the signs are ominous if you ask me. The signs of this are really ominous because does anybody think the French can really put out this fire by themselves? Does anybody think they will? I don't. Well, I take that back. There are certain ways they could do it, and those are even worse than not-- (interruption) They're going to call in the military? Oh, the French are talking about calling in the military. Okay, they're talking about calling in the military, and they'll keep talking about calling in the military. If they ever do call in the military, they're call in Lawrence of Arabia, the French Foreign Legion. Call them in there to do something and then after whatever they do they'll apologize for it and give half the country over to the people that they just creamed and say, "Please forgive us," or whatever.

It remains to be seen. It is getting out of control. Now it's going to spread inside the city limits of Paris, and, you know, all these people who have accepted these promises of tranquility and peace are going to demand something to stop this. And if they're like the liberals and socialists in this country they're going to blame their own government and they're going to blame their own prosperity, going to blame themselves for it rather than the people who are actually committing these crimes. But the press is eager -- depending on what you read -- the press is eager to make sure, "No, no, no, no! This is not Al-Qaeda types. Oh, no, no, no! These are just young kids. These are just young kids buried in their poverty, striving to be noticed, striving to right the social wrongs in an unjust world," blah, blah, blah. This kind of garbage talk that makes me not to throw up, because Bush can't be right. Bush can't be right that there are terrorists all over the world and that they are gradually immigrating to free and open countries in the world for the purposes of raising hell and havoc, oh, no, Bush can't be right about that because, you see, in the construct of the liberal world the terrorists are only terrorists because Bush made them that way. There were no terrorists until Bush became president. When Bush became president, that gave us some terrorists, because they were mad that he stole the election from the Democrats in Florida. Then when Bush was reelected in '04 because the voting machines in Ohio were tampered with, that created more terrorists. Then when Bush went in to Iraq and kicked out the dictator and got rid of the rape rooms and the torture chambers and the mass murders, that created more terrorists. So Bush has created all this terrorism. Now, to follow suit, you almost have to blame Bush for what's happening in Paris, and don't be surprised when that happens.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What are we up to now, 1,400 cars that have been burned in Paris? Oh, it's to 5,000 total, or is it 1,400 for this cycle? Okay, 1,400 this cycle, but 5,000 since the whole phenomenon began. When does that 5,000 predate? Only 12 days ago? I thought the 1,400 was 12 days -- I just read something at BBC, and they said 1,400 in the most recent riotings. Anyway, 1,400, 5,000, we need to start a car fire count just like the media does a body count of American soldiers in Iraq. We need to get gleeful when we get to 1,500 cars, then start counting up to 2,000. If it's 5,000 we get gleeful when it gets up to 5,100, whatever it is. Because I'll tell you what's happening over there. This is not just the burning of Paris and the burning of France, but I will guarantee you, even if these are just ruffled French ruffians, youth, if you will, I guarantee you that there are jihadists all over Europe watching the reaction to this, gauging it, and making plans based on how much easier they think it might be to get away with this kind of thing in certain countries. You can't throw out the fact that France has the third largest Jewish population in the world after Israel and New York. Well, America. But you can't take all these factors out. You know, Brussels and Germany are having these instances. Now, there's some copycats going on out there clearly but you don't know if some of these copycats are made up of the people in the same kind of mind-set, and I think it's a little too risky for all these people to start calling this stuff copycat now, because, remember, folks, the template has set, the news cycle has set. It's all Bush's fault, Bush created terrorists, Bush started terrorism, Bush created them by going to war and opposing them. If the liberals can just win this country back and just run this country and show the terrorists around world we mean them no harm, just like France has been doing all these years. A-hem! A-hem! A-hem, a-hem, a-hem!

Governator

2005-11-06T17:59:00.000-05:00

I'm watching Fox 11 News right now, and it's a live, hour-long Q & A with Schwarzenegger and a studio audience about the ballot initiatives coming before California this Tuesday, and he's kicking some serious be-hind. Most of the questions are "Aren't you afraid that this will happen?" and most of his answers are "But that's what is happening right now!" And he's doing an excellent job of demonstrating the need for these changes to a general public audience. "This is why we're sitting in traffic - because we're not spending money on new roads. This is why we're short 35,000 classrooms - because we're not spending money on building new schools. That's why we don't have earthquake-proof hospitals..." etc.

Good for you Arnold. I'm hoping against hope that your propositions pass.

Muslims, Van Gogh and Hollywood

2005-11-04T08:18:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan's email of the day for 11-03-05 (emphasis mine):

As you know, Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, Warren Beatty, et al are not filmmakers, they are celebrities. They do not speak for the independent film community. I'm an independent filmmaker, and let me tell you I am horrified by the Van Gogh story. It is as disturbing as it gets. He made a short film about a Muslim woman, and he gets brutally murdered for it? I can't wrap my head around it. I shot a movie with a crew of five in the projects of the South Bronx, and somehow I was not in that kind of danger.

I wish those Hollywood bloviators were not considered representatives of the creative community. They are funded by the studios, meaning they are funded by corporations, just like the people on the right they criticize. So you're hearing it, right now, from a filmmaker living in Hollywood: the Theo Van Gogh murder is a horror, an outrage, and a sin against mankind.

Natural Law

2005-10-28T13:35:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I posed a brilliantly simple reconciliation of science and religion, but it turns out that I was beaten to the punch to the tune of 64 years with a nearly-identical thesis by none other than Albert Einsten.

For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.

In a speech given at The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in 1941, Einstein traces this misapprehension to the reliance on what he terms a personal, anthropomorphized god, and the notion that religion needs a god, especially this sort of god:

During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfilment of their wishes.

[...]

To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.

But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.

"A doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on makind, with incalculable harm to human progress." This sounds strikingly similar to a Richard Dawkins polemic which I posted in June:

The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.

... Not quite as conciliatory as Einstein, but he makes the same point. Returning to Albert, I'm also a little surprised at the self-effacing bravado he demonstrates by saying

In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself.

That's gutsy, but ultimately correct. Einstein's notion of religion is much broader than could be tolerated by most of today's Christians. He focuses on the larger, nobler pursuit and purpose, and basic necessity of religion, a nexal point it shares with science that necessitates both ideas. He's right.

Amazing.

The Base

2005-10-25T03:35:00.000-04:00

Maybe my beef isn't with the Republican party, but with many Republicans themselves - what is called the party's "base." What follows (use bugmenot to log in) is a concentrated form of what's wrong with the party, and America at large:

The demographics of the GOP also make a hard-right run tempting. Recently, pollster Tony Fabrizio has been asking Republican voters whether their most important goal "is to promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of its citizens" or "to promote traditional values by protecting traditional marriage and the life of the unborn." In his most recent survey, 34 percent of Republicans take the freedom position and 49 percent take the values position.

Eye on the ball, guys! You're so caught up in your vapid religious fervor that you've lost sight of the most important tenet: freedom. Liberty - remember that stuff? Noooo..... it's far more important to make sure everyone behaves as you want them to. Dependancy on the state is a small price to pay to "spread the word of God."

I hate evangelism and Evangelical/Charismatic Christianity, as its results make no concession for personal responsibility or public conduct. And its music sucks. Yesterday on Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan, Joe Lieberman said:

I think that most people in public life, and I will speak of myself, I've found that if you're honest about who you are, people respect that. Even if who you are may involve some religious practices that are different from the ones that they have. But ultimately I come back to what I said earlier: When you're in public office, your responsibility cannot primarily be to your faith, or the doctrines of it, it has to be to the Constitution, to the interests of the country.

Sen. Joe Liberman, an Orthodox Jew, plainly states on national radio that the government cannot be beholden to the religious views of its officials, but to the interests and freedoms of the governed, and he's right. Real evangelism is practiced through living one's life as it would please their God, a life which will improve the lives of those they encounter. The New Right's evangelism of coersion, litigation and legislation which politically-activated megachurches across the country now employ is a dangerous, evil, and fundamentally wrong disposition of their faith's power to persuade, which is at the same time the result of a demonstrably unpersuasive and intellectually unsatisfactory set of beliefs. Their efforts at converting the unconverted haven't worked well enough using traditional methods, so they now write laws to control the acts of individuals.

The new base feel that only jurists who will overturn Roe v. Wade are suitable for the bench, that only Presidents who are "true believers" are fit to govern. In truth, the new base of the Republican party let their doctrine hijack the agenda - an agenda which now eclipses liberty and subjugates the governed. What would happen if the Administration nominated a homosexual to an appointed position? That would be fun, but also completely outside the realm of possibility.

To the New Right I say this: Your Messianic Complex is an outrageous corruption of the human spirit and the power to govern. The legacy of your "faith" is now going to be bigger government and higher taxes, with less liberty available to all. You will have achieved what LBJ and Ted Kennedy never could. All this simply for your charismatic religious comfort, to aid in your "Mission." You sicken me. Go to South Carolina. Or better yet - go to Iran. You'll be much more comfortable there.

We need Newt back.

West Wing on Intelligent Design

2005-10-23T03:59:00.000-04:00

The West Wing
Season 7, Episode 4
"Mr. Frost"

Clifford Reynolds, English teacher: "Do you believe that the theory of Intelligent Design and the theory of Evolution should be taught along side each other in the public schools?"

Matthew Santos, Presidential Candidate: "Absolutely not. One is based on science and one is based on faith. Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, it is a religious belief, and our Constitution does not allow for the teaching of religion in our public schools."

CR: "Many of us here would be more comfortable if our children were taught all points of view."

MS: "And I'm all for that. Evolution is not perfect - doesn't answer every question - but it is based on scientific facts: facts that can be predicted, tested and proven. Intelligent Design asks theological questions. I'm sure that many of us would agree that at the beginning of all that begatting, something begun. What was that something?"

CR: "Congressman Santos, many of us want a version of science taught to our kids that's in accordance with our beliefs."

MS: "I understand. But can't we agree that the inclusion of non-scientific explanations into the science curriculum of our schools misrepresents the nature of science? And therefore compromises a central purpose in our public education, which is the preparation of a scientifically literate workforce."

"If you have a problem with your child's education, get involved. If you have a problem with what the school board wants to teach, run for the school board. We can never forget that the best way to preserve our democracy is to take part in it."

---

"... The inclusion of non-scientific explanations into the science curriculum of our schools misrepresents the nature of science..." I've never heard it phrased better. Wouldn't it be cool if we all had screenwriters following us around?

Incidentally, have you seen ABC's "Commander in Chief?" ...Terrible.

Putting the "Duh" back in Fundamentalism

2005-10-21T01:53:00.000-04:00

No, not the Islamofascists - it's the reliably indignant Christian Reconstructionists (also known as "Dominionists" - see sidebar) up to their wiley tricks again! Their latest idea is to move all of the most faithful and least educated of the land to South Carolina to set up a theocracy in God's graven image. Why not - it gets them that much further away from me. Normally I wouldn't waste your valuable time posting a link to this sort of thing, but because of one of their bullet points, I feel it belongs on this blog (emphasis mine):

Abortion continues against the wishes of many States
Sodomite marriage is now legal in Massachusetts (and coming soon to a neighborhood near you)
Children who pray in public schools are subject to prosecution
Our schools continue to teach the discredited theory of Darwinian evolution
The Bible is still not welcome in schools except under unconstitutional FEDERAL guidelines
The 10 Commandments remain banned from public display
Sodomy is now legal AND celebrated as "diversity" rather than condemned as perversion
Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as "hate speech"

Why must these people continue to assert science education as their bailiwick? Shame on us, poisoning our children's minds with factual analysis and testable hypotheses. It has to be difficult to live in a world where logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence is taught, and your cherished, if backward, fairy tale account of life's origin isn't.

We should give them South Carolina, just like we should give violent criminals, um... North Carolina, for its convenient placement next to South Carolina. The Palmetto State should serve as the fundies' own hate-filled Hammurabian commune, so that they could cast aside the completely discredited theory of Evolution, in favor of the monumentally reliable story of Creation, and found their own hypersensitive, provincial, abhorrently intolerant, authoritarian nation, just like God says. It's in the Bible - somewhere, I'm sure.

Fundies, South Carolina is yours - you deserve it. And it's a good thing there are no gay Christians, especially in South Carolina. Because if there were, you would have to recast your doctrine to accommodate tolerance, forgiveness, and a less-than-intransigent-and-bigoted interpretation of the Bible, and that would be an affront to your First Amendment rights, or something like that.

I honestly fail to see the problem with this

2005-10-19T23:46:00.000-04:00

Apparently, burning the bodies of Taliban fighters is a taboo thing. I ask: Why shouldn't we desecrate the dead of these vile people? Hell, parade the bodies around town! Festoon them with Big Mac wrappers and plant an American flag in their torsoes, rightfully designating them as our conquered property. An Israeli flag would be even more fun, but that could be construed as going too far. At very least, we should flush a few Korans down the toilet, and then decapitate the captives in the fashion of which they are most fond.

If only...

Furthermore...

2005-10-19T18:36:00.000-04:00

Gods were responsible for lightning until we determined natural causes for lightning, for infectious diseases until we found bacteria and viruses, for mental illness until we found biochemical causes for them.

God is confined only to those parts of the universe we do not know about, and that region keeps shrinking.

By the way...

2005-10-18T23:44:00.000-04:00

Intelligent Design has no testable hypothesis.
Intelligent Design can make no predictions.
Intelligent Design explains nothing.

I feel it needs to be said every so often.

Nixon

2005-10-13T04:11:00.000-04:00

Big-Government "Conservatism" is fiscally worse than any Liberalism we've had... Yesterday at the world's finest magazine, Nick Gillespie reprinted the findings by American Enterprise Institute analyst Veronique de Rugy concerning discretionary spending increases over the first five years of all two-term Presidents since LBJ. All are official OMB figures, all are adjusted for inflation:

LBJ: 25.2%
Nixon: -16.5%
Reagan: 11.9%
Clinton: -8.2%
Bush: 35.2%

"Nixon: Now more than ever."

Music Test

2005-10-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

You have three hours to successfully complete the following exam, if you want to call yourself a musician:

1. Explain the difference between sforza, sforzando, sforzata, and La Forza Del Destino. Be specific.

2. Redesign the traditional cup mouthpiece to permit greater endurance, a larger sound and effortless altissimo register. Explain why your design is better than contemporary models.

3. List Johann Sebastian Bach's male and female children. Include their dates of birth and death (if deceased), middle names (if any), last known address and Social Security numbers.

4. Name all of the composers who wrote a First Symphony and notate the opening theme of each of those symphonies.

5. What is the relationship and musical significance of the 10th and 11th bars of the aria "Soldaten, Soldaten" to the aria's final bars (1048-1063) in the Alban Berg opera "Wozzeck"?

6. Who conducted "Tannhauser" at the 1847 Bayreuth Festival? Was he right or left-handed?

7. How many members of that orchestra were Jewish? Name them. (A Trick Question).

8. Trace the development of the "Family Unity" theme in Richard Strauss's "Sinfonia Domestica". In which key(s) is it presented?

9. Describe in detail the formula for the varnish on violins made by Stradivari during the first third of his career. Explain how this varnish differs from the varnish used on his violas. What modern substances could be effectively substituted in duplicating this formula today?

10. What is the optimum acidity/alkalinity (expressed in pH) for soil in which cane for bassoon reeds may be grown? For bass clarinet reeds? For Alto clarinets? For Artie Shaw?

11. Name and describe the bones and muscles involved in forming a brass player's embouchure.

12. What are the advantages of using xylophone mallet heads made of a.) Ebony, b.) Teak, c.) Philippine Mahogany, d) Stale marshmallows

13. Argue both sides of the following statement: "The most important element in music is rhythm." Critique both arguments and decide which is correct, or more nearly correct. Compose a three-movement symphonic metamorphosis (not to exceed 1 hour in length) on a theme by Ned Rorem to support your decision.

14. Defend Mozart's use of the glass harmonica and explain why this instrument has lapsed into disfavor, especially among Latin bands and Punk Rock groups.

15. Give the "Slap-Back" time in seconds (to three decimal places) of each hall used by all major American and European orchestras. Defend your selection of each orchestra as a "major" orchestra and name each orchestra's past and present conductors.

16. In which of his symphonies did Franz Joseph Haydn use a.) Clarinets, b.) Horns, c.) Bassoon, d.) Slide Whistle, e.) Theremin

17. Write out the first 25 bars of Stravinsky's "Circus Polka". Watch those key changes!

18. What is the Kochel number of Mozart's 4th Horn Concerto? Why didn't he write a fifth?

19. Develop a simple set of general rules that explain the harmonic and melodic progressions, voice leadings and rhythmic notation of the music of Bartok and The Macarena.

20. Give the ratio between the bore and overall length of a Couesnon Contra-Bass trombone, Model G-571a, when the slide is in flat 4th position. If the position is used in conjunction with both thumb valves (F and D) to play the 7th note of the overtone series, what note will be sounded? Will it be sharp, flat, or in tune? If sharp or flat, by how many hundredths of a semitone?

21. Who invented the Ocarina? In what year? Why?

22. Explain the musical inconsistencies as to key, notation, accidentals, etc, found in the original score of Robert Schumann's Symphony #3.

23. Write a seven-voice motet in the style of Orlando di Lassus in invertible counterpoint. Ten Extra credits if the motet can also be performed backwards. Twenty Extra Credits if it sounds better that way.

24. Using materials commonly found in the kitchen, construct a 15 rank, 3-manual positiv organ (with pedals) and use it to perform two pieces by Oliver Messiaen.

25. Reconstruct the missing movements of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

26. Give the Russian, German, and Serbo-Croatian equivalents of the following Italian terms: Tuffato, Con Amore, Cadenza, Fugato, Garbonza, Mafioso, and Fuggedabowdit.

27. Explain why the jazz-influenced pieces written by Ravel, Stravinsky, Poulenc and Berstein didn't swing.

28. Now that Preservation Hall is under 8' of water, will real jazz continue to exist?

29. Because of the lack of electricity to power Rock Bands in the Coastal Regions of the Southern United States, will the local populations be the first in America to regain their hearing? Defend your position.

30. Rank the following items in order of importance as far as the long-term effects of their invention concerned the destruction of melodic music and explain why:

1. Bagpipes
2. Country/Western bands
3. the Amplified Guitar
4. Stephen Sondheim
5. Mantovani
6. Kenny G
7. Florence Foster Jenkins
8. Arnold Schoenberg
9. Darlene Edwards
11. Jack Benny
12. The Monkees
13. Nancy Sinatra
14. William Shattner

--
Thanks Brett.

"Author Of America"

2005-10-08T00:54:00.000-04:00

I've added a for-real hardcover book to the "Worthwhile Reading" sidebar: Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Christopher Hitchens. After I saw him give George Galloway a much-needed shallacking on the September 23rd episode of HBO's Real Time with Fidel Castro, I picked up his newest book at the Grand Junction Borders en route to Southern CA (pictures to come shortly).

It's fantastic. The most enjoyable read I've had this year. He distills Jefferson's biography (and to this point I didn't think such a feat was possible) to the salient events and motivations of his life, and actions and achievements of his administration. Even the book's tangents prove to be delightfully pertinent. Hitchens's first blockquote of the book is from Jefferson's final letter, addressed June 24, 1826 to express his regrets for missing the then-upcoming 50th anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Excerpt:

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."

It's one of those rare quotes that clarifies this nation's purpose and inspirational objectives in such a way that itself inspires. If those noble ideas remained the focus of Independence Day today, rather than the celebration itself, or if they even could claim their rightful place at the center of American rhetoric still, I think there would be a greater base of public understanding for our need to successfully deliver democracy to where it is needed most, and to extend all liberties too all citizens, especially those of our own country.

Hitchens later states:

"He [Jefferson] trenchantly restated the view that the American Revolution was founded on universal principles, and was thus emphatically for export. He laid renewed stress on the importance of science and innovation as the spur of the Enlightenment, and scornfully contrasted this with mere faith and credulity."

He also interjects the famous Lincoln quote:

"All honor to Jefferson: to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression."

The author doesn't shie away from the hypocrisy of Jefferson's repeated assertions of inalienable human rights and his ownership of slaves; in fact he discusses it throughout the book. But, upon introducing the issue, he dispenses with its controversy in a very satisfying manner:

"... It would be lazy or obvious to say that he [Jefferson] contained contradictions or paradoxes. This is true of everybody, and everything. It would be infinitely more surprising to strike upon a historic figure, or indeed a nation, that was not subject to this law."

I've already babbled more than needed, but it suffices to say that I recommend this book as an engaging (and brief) read. It's worth the $20.

"Dear Fux"

2005-09-16T01:54:00.000-04:00

Dear Fux,

If the Christian Coalition gets their way, will teaching species counterpoint be prohibited in the schools? What will happen to Salzer and Schachter?

Cynical in Scranton, PA

Dear Fellow Cynic,

"Creationist Counterpoint" does in fact seem poised to become the required school of thought should the Christian Coalition come to power. Pat Robertson has already made public his desire to eradicate the "Endangered Species Counterpoint Act" altogether. Thus, rare species of counterpoint such as "47 against 1" will face almost certain extinction, in the absence of U.S. government protection. And so-called "Free Counterpoint" which flourished during the promiscuous 1960's will go the the way of long side-burns, the dodo bird, and the National Endowment for the Arts. As for Salzer and Schachter, the truth is that they are one and the same person, or actually three in one. Early in this century, a music theorist named Heinrich Schachter left his native Stuttgart and the family porcelain figurine business which specialized in "Salzer und Peppar Schenkers" (salt and pepper shakers) and emigrated to the United States where he began a lucrative music publishing career under various pseudonyms such as "Salzer" and "Schachter" (and later many other names). His sermons were soon accepted dogma in music departments far and wide, and his disciples installed in powerful administrative positions. Schenker/Salzer/Schachter et al. will most likely be convicted of demagoguery and "crimes against musicality" and sentenced to some sort of musical "gulag" where he will be "rehabilitated" by transcribing the mittelgrunds of the collected works of Pat Boone.

We can trace the roots of the species counterpoint controversy back to the sixth century, when the firebrand (and short-tenured) Pope Darwinicus penned his 590 A.D. treatise entitled "The Origin of Species Counterpoint", which was roundly denounced by other popes, such Pope Gregory who, in the year 600, claimed that the rules of counterpoint were given directly to him by his good friend, God. Revelation being the most compelling method of Christian argument, Gregory's assertion of divine elision settled the issue for almost a milennium. But, in the fifteenth century, Pope Pius II proposed the existence of modes which he explained in his 1463 tome "Pius a la Modus: A Counterpoint Cookbook." Gregory, however, prevailed over all other popes, and through deft use of intimidation, disinformation, and by aligning himself with a group of wealthy Republican bishops and cardinals, ascended to power. To this day, the "Creationist Theory" of counterpoint is taught throughout the pre-industrialized world.

~JF

Transitional Forms

2005-09-15T04:09:00.000-04:00

Quotes from Harvard Professor of Geology and Zoology Stephen Jay Gould:

The anatomical transition from reptiles to mammals is particularly well documented in the key anatomical change of jaw articulation to hearing bones. Only one bone, called the dentary, builds the mammalian jaw, while reptiles retain several small bones in the rear portion of the jaw. We can trace, through a lovely sequence of intermediates, the reduction of these small reptilian bones, and their eventual disappearance or exclusion from the jaw, including the remarkable passage of the reptilian articulation bones into the mammalian middle ear (where they became our malleus and incus, or hammer and anvil). We have even found the transitional form that creationists often proclaim inconceivable in theory--for how can jawbones become ear bones if intermediaries must live with an unhinged jaw before the new joint forms? The transitional species maintains a double jaw joint, with both the old articulation of reptiles (quadrate to articular bones) and the new connection of mammals (squamosal to dentary) already in place! Thus, one joint could be lost, with passage of its bones into the ear, while the other articulation continued to guarantee a properly hinged jaw. Still, our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert the absence of all transitional forms by ignoring those that have been found, and continuing to taunt us with admittedly frequent examples of absence.

— "Hooking Leviathan by Its Past," Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1997, pp. 360-361.

The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. It is gradualism that we must reject, not Darwinism. […] Eldredge and I believe that speciation is responsible for almost all evolutionary change. Moreover, the way in which it occurs virtually guarantees that sudden appearance and stasis shall dominate the fossil record. All major theories of speciation maintain that splitting takes place rapidly in very small populations. The theory of geographic, or allopatric, speciation is preferred by most evolutionists for most situations (allopatric means ‘in another place’). A new species can arise when a small segment of the ancestral population is isolated at the periphery of the ancestral range. Large, stable central populations exert a strong homogenizing influence. New and favorable mutations are diluted by the sheer bulk of the population through which they must spread. They may build slowly in frequency, but changing environments usually cancel their selective value long before they reach fixation. Thus, phyletic transformation in large populations should be very rare — as the fossil record proclaims. But small, peripherally isolated groups are cut off from their parental stock. They live as tiny populations in geographic corners of the ancestral range. Selective pressures are usually intense because peripheries mark the edge of ecological tolerance for ancestral forms. Favorable variations spread quickly. Small peripheral isolates are a laboratory of evolutionary change.

What should the fossil record include if most evolution occurs by speciation in peripheral isolates? Species should be static through their range because our fossils are the remains of large central populations. In any local area inhabited by ancestors, a descendant species should appear suddenly by migration from the peripheral region in which it evolved. In the peripheral region itself, we might find direct evidence of speciation, but such good fortune would be rare indeed because the event occurs so rapidly in such a small population. Thus, the fossil record is a faithful rendering of what evolutionary theory predicts, not a pitiful vestige of a once bountiful tale.

— "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change," The Panda's Thumb: Reflections in Natural History, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980, pp. 182-184.

Webern Day

2005-09-14T23:42:00.000-04:00

'A novel contained in a single sigh' On Sept. 15, 1945, Anton Webern stepped out to smoke a cigar. An American soldier, seeing the glow of the cigar, panicked and shot Webern three times. Webern, along with Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, is credited with -- or blamed for -- ushering in an era of composition emphasizing strict, mathematical order over all elements of music, a reaction against the suicidal excess of Romanticism. On the anniversary of his death, BBC Radio 3 hosts Webern Day, during which Webern's complete works will be broadcast. The total time to perform his 31 works is about three hours. (Links grabbed mostly from ArtsJournal.)

New Sega Console

2005-09-10T05:30:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it's from May, but it's the hardest I've laughed this week.

DFD's 80th

2005-09-08T21:49:00.000-04:00

The Song and the Singer.

For many he is the greatest Lieder singer of the 20th century. As he turns 80, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau reflects on his long career.

In the Beginning...

2005-08-29T04:13:00.000-04:00

It makes perfect sense!

http://notthebible.8m.com/b2.htm (skip the introduction, it's useless)

Young Earth Creationists are stupid.

... Actually, scratch that... Creationists are stupid.

Libertarian Q & A

2005-08-29T03:44:00.000-04:00

From the Liberator online newsletter:

=========

ASK DR. RUWART

Dr. Mary Ruwart is a leading expert in libertarian communication. In this column she gives readers "short answers to the tough questions" to real questions libertarians are frequently asked. To submit your questions to Dr. Ruwart, see end of column.

Dr. Ruwart's past Liberator Online answers are archived in searchable form at: http://www.TheAdvocates.org/ruwart/categories_list.php

* * *

What is libertarianism?

Question:

"I'm trying to figure out what libertarianism is. Can you give me a simple, cohesive definition, such as: "Libertarianism is a system of self-government qualified by ___________ " please?"

My short answer:

"Libertarianism is the political philosophy in which everyone rules themselves, as long as they don't physically assault others, steal from them, or defraud them. In a libertarian society, those who violate this "non-aggression" principle or "Good Neighbor Policy" restore their victims as much as humanly possible.

"Other political philosophies reject self-government in favor of rule by the majority (democracy) or rule by a minority (monarchy). Such political philosophies use taxation, regulation, and punishment (rather than restitution) to enforce this rule. The person or group in power changes periodically. People take turns being victims and aggressors. Society is thus eternally at war, with no hope or possibility of peace.

(Editor's note: for other short definitions of libertarianism -- and much more on the topic as well -- please visit our Libertarianism.com Web site: http://www.libertarianism.com )

* * *

Question:

"What do libertarians think about universal health care?"

My short answer:

"The way to make health care universal is to make it affordable. The way to make it affordable is to slash the excess regulations that cause prices to soar without protecting the consumer.

"In 1962, for example, regulations were passed that tripled the development time of new drugs. These regulations haven't made drugs any safer. Most side effects seen in drugs for the past 50-75 years are ones that can't be predicted from animal studies or the small number of people exposed to the drug during clinical testing. Thus, these regulations kill about 100 times as many people as they save. In addition, they've driven drug prices up 700%. (For details, see: http://www.ruwart.com/AAPS.pdf )

"I conservatively estimate that we could slash 80-90% off our health care bill without such wasteful regulations. Almost everyone could then afford to pay for their medical care. The few who couldn't would be easily covered by private charity.

"If we keep excessive and expensive regulation in place and make the taxpayer foot the bill, we'll have to ration health care as other nations with universal health care do. In practice, this usually means that the elderly are denied care in favor of children and adults of working age. In Britain, for example, people over 55 years of age are often denied kidney dialysis. Thus, universal health care, as proposed by our politicians, is even less universal than the current bloated system in the U.S."

======

To subscribe to the newsletter:

http://www.theadvocates.org/publications/liberator-online.html

Godless Geeks

2005-08-26T03:00:00.000-04:00

These are now being added to the "Required Reading" sidebar:

"Over Three Hundred Proofs of God's Existence"
"Why Atheism"

What fun!

Chinese Invasion

2005-08-23T02:11:00.000-04:00

Is this thing real?

"Still Pro-War"

2005-08-19T00:30:00.000-04:00

Andrew Sullivan's July 2nd, 2005 post in The Stranger: Still Pro-War, Despite the Flaws.

Excerpt:

I'm not going to give you the lame answer: we're already in so deep we cannot just abandon Iraq now. That's a fool's argument. So here's my shot at a better one. The reality of 9/11 was a terrifying one. It was that we faced a fanatical enemy determined to kill any civilization or people who objected to the restoration of a medieval, theocratic dictatorship in the Middle East (and, eventually, as with all such ideologies, elsewhere). We'd ignored or appeased them for years. And then they killed over 3,000 innocents in the heart of the United States. If they had had the means, they would have killed 300,000. If they get the means in the future, they will.

What do you do? In my view, you fight back, remove their base of operations, and kill as many of them as we possibly can. That we did in Afghanistan, a war that many on the anti-war left now pretend they supported. But leaving the matter at Afghanistan was a superficial solution. The fundamental cause of this new, totalitarian ideology - forged in the Egypt of the 1960s - was Arab autocracy and dictatorship. My view was and is that only democracy could allow these forces to exhaust themselves sufficiently to remove the underlying threat. I believed and believe that we owed it to the victims of 9/11 to craft a root-and-branch solution, not just a quick regime turn-around in a relative side-show called Afghanistan.

Intelligent Design Is Stupid

2005-08-16T17:34:00.000-04:00

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University:

It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.

Our own bodies are riddled with quirks that no competent engineer would have planned but that disclose a history of trial-and-error tinkering: a retina installed backward, a seminal duct that hooks over the ureter like a garden hose snagged on a tree, goose bumps that uselessly try to warm us by fluffing up long-gone fur.

The moral design of nature is as bungled as its engineering design. What twisted sadist would have invented a parasite that blinds millions of people or a gene that covers babies with excruciating blisters? To adapt a Yiddish expression about God: If an intelligent designer lived on Earth, people would break his windows.

The theory of natural selection explains life as we find it, with all its quirks and tragedies. We can prove mathematically that it is capable of producing adaptive life forms and track it in computer simulations, lab experiments and real ecosystems. It doesn't pretend to solve one mystery (the origin of complex life) by slipping in another (the origin of a complex designer).

Many people who accept evolution still feel that a belief in God is necessary to give life meaning and to justify morality. But that is exactly backward. In practice, religion has given us stonings, inquisitions and 9/11. Morality comes from a commitment to treat others as we wish to be treated, which follows from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the universe. Like physical evolution, it does not require a white-coated technician in the sky.

Kenneth Miller & Joseph Levine, "Biology" published by Prentice Hall, 2 million copies sold, page 410:

Darwin made bold assumptions about heritable variation, the age of Earth and relaionships among organisms. New data from genetics, physics and biochemistry could have proved him wrong on many counts. They didn't. Scientific evidence supports the theory that living species descended with modification from common ancestors that lived in the ancient past.

George Carlin, "When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?" page 112:

Regarding Creationists: Aren't these the same people who gave us alchemy and astrology, and who told us the earth, besides being flat, was at the center of the universe? Why don't we just kill these [expletive] people?

... Bright people everywhere agree: Intelligent Design is a load of dog squeeze.

States where Intelligent Design is being forced on schools at the state and local level:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Indiana
Kansas
Louisiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Texas
Washington
West Virginia

Ignorance

2005-06-04T14:37:00.000-04:00

It's been so long since I've been able to post that I have to start with an article dating all the way back to May 21. Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, and is one of the foremost advocates of Evolutionary biology. He's also the most entertaining personality and writer in the Evolution debate, sublimely gifted in polemic aphorism. The article is titled Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant. From the end:

The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.

What intellectual cockroaches these rabid creationists are. Have I mentioned that I hate them?

The fight is about to begin in Utah as well.

"What an insult to teach children that they have evolved from a lower life to what they are now, and then they go home and learn that they are someone special, a child of God," [Conservative activist Gayle] Ruzicka said. "This is not right."

Incredible how Christian-centric these people are, while arguing that this is legitimate material to teach in government schools. Can a Jewish reader tell me if the creationist movement is as voraciously blind and forceful in their religious community? I'd make a shot in the dark guess that it's not.

In other news, CNN, in its typically understated manner of reporting environmental stories, today displays the headline "Atlas reveals global devastation." I certainly don't disagree with the story at all, but it's humorous how zealous they are in framing their agenda. Incidentally, the story's another example of why humans really shouldn't breed.

Golly, I'm in a delightful mood today. At least it would appear so from reading the screeds on here as of late. But we started rehearsing just yesterday, and the cast is absolutely fantastic. On the other hand, Comcast charges $155/mo for cable internet service up here! So it's another summer on dialup... C'est la vie.

Almost...

2005-05-21T21:06:00.000-04:00

According to Wikipedia, a year ago today, Stanislav Petrov was awarded the World Citizen Award for averting World War III in 1983. His Soviet military reward: a reprimand and demotion.

Santorum

2005-05-15T22:45:00.000-04:00

"Now we are forced to do something that societies often do when people can't control their desires. We have to pass laws to stop their desires." [NYT - use bugmenot for a login]

- A new nugget from our favorite fascist in neocon's clothing, Rick Santorum. [warning: coarse]

Hat

2005-05-15T02:30:00.000-04:00

I commend this hat.

The Brahms Effect?

2005-05-14T18:27:00.000-04:00

I know I think better when I listen to Mozart - specifically, the Perahia recordings of the piano concertos and sonatas. Other composers can lead to other outcomes.

Brilliant.

Dominionism & the GOP

2005-05-14T17:53:00.000-04:00

I can't support this party any more. After the Arizona thing and everything I've read about the rise of Dominion Theology [yes, it's RollingStone, no I don't normally read it, yes they did leave out the father of the movement, RJ Rushdoony - but it is RollingStone so you can only expect so much] (more info here) in the Republican party, it's painfully obvious that it's not the party it was, or the party it's supposed to be. Granted, I haven't called myself a Republican in quite a while, but I still harbored hope that it really was the party of individual empowerment first and government empowerment only when absolutely essential. I hoped that it would soon return to its roots of limited government and personal liberty. I hoped that it would recognize its fiscal responsibilities by the next election cycle. I hoped that the extremist theocrats were only a small group of morally corrupt fanatics at the edge of the party. I really wanted to believe that it was still a secular party, just friendly to and tolerant of Christianity.

Unfortunately heretics like Ted Haggard and Pat Robertson - the driving personalities behind individually oppressive charismatic Christianity - have commandeered the party. Most of the the Republicans in both legislative houses now score near-perfect ratings from the Dominionist Christian Coalition and its ilk, and this is no accident, since the congress we have now was funded and propelled largely by evangelical activists. Consequently, this increasingly activist Christian theology has steadily eroded popular support for church-state separation. We've seen bills introduced like the wildly-unconstitutional Constitution Restoration Act, which insulates and ensures the primacy of the Bible and its devotees over the Constitution. This barbaric Christian fanaticism needs to stop - it's sickening and dangerous. I hate you people so much.

I've come to see this filibuster episode for what it is too. These extremist judicial candidates do not belong on the bench. From truthout.org:

There's Priscilla Owen, the token white woman and Texas judge whose eagerness to substitute her own values for the rule of law was too much for even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who rebuked her for it when both served on the same court.

[...]

There's Brett Kavanaugh, who has never tried a case, but rose from Ken Starr's impeachment crusade to become a White House operative.

[...]

There's William G. Meyers III, who also lacks trial experience but who has put in plenty of time rabidly fighting against environmental laws and in favor of mining interests.

The filibuster clash is over turning a blind eye to these woefully unqualified and dangerously ideological candidates, positioning them for nothing more than to further a brutal religious agenda hell-bent on theocracy.

Almost the complete Republican congressional leadership consists of born-again Dominionists. I don't know any such statistics about the cabinet yet, but I have a great deal of respect for Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, etc. and I tend to agree with them on foreign policy issues (Iraq, terrorism) while being outraged by Bush's domestic policies (illegal immigration, stem cell research). If, however, I find the same Dominionist beliefs among the cabinet, I will be confirmed third-party for the foreseeable future.

For the moment, the scope of my alarm is limited to Congress. I can't be part of this new, horrifying direction they're taking the GOP in, but being an individual who believes in his own potential, and not simply a representative of a demographic, I will never, ever have anything to do with the Democratic party. Thanks to the consolidation and reanimation of their "fringe, kook bases," the choice between these two has become Theocracy or Socialism. Kathy Martin or Noam Chomsky.

I choose freedom.

Proof Positive

2005-05-11T01:57:00.000-04:00

... that fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity are on the same side. (see this weblog's credo)

In order to make up its mind over what sort of biological concepts should be taught to Kansas schoolchildren, the state's school board is using taxpayer money to fly in a nonscientist associated with a group that terrorized Turkish professors who dared question that the proliferation of life on Earth was a miracle of Allah.

When asked to appear in Kansas to counter the creationists (let's not mince words here, ID is creationism costumed in pseudo-science), the following is one example of how actual scientists responded:

"As I am sure you are aware, the state of Kansas has made itself the laughingstock of the scientific world over this issue," wrote Oxford University professor and well-known author Richard Dawkins to the state board after he got his invitation. "The very idea of 'representatives from both views' presupposes that there are two views to represent.... For real scientists to share a platform with the biological equivalent of flat-earthers would be to give them the credibility, respectability, and above all publicity that they crave. I am sorry, but count me out."

I understand why reputable scientists are boycotting this trial, but given what happened in Turkey (creationism is now taught in public high school biology books there), and the players involved, can they really afford to sit this one out?

Though it's unsavory, we need to take these people head on, not just ignore them. Religion has this nasty habit of occupying power vacuums (e.g. the dark ages and other transitional periods between empires) such that when there is no strong leadership pointing to the truth, religion emerges and attracts throngs to itself, as it requires no objective critical thought, only blind belief and intransigence. It's an alarmingly simple and effective trap, and all too alluring for a huge number of (uneducated) people. People like Kathy Martin.

That's why we have to engage creationists or any of these other ignorant groups of people, regardless of their tactics or backward beliefs - because if we don't they will win people over the same way they have in power vacuums of the past: by default. They thrive on silence. Let's not afford them another default.

Scary.

What Fun

2005-05-11T00:32:00.000-04:00

This is one of the most enjoyable polemics I've read in a long time. And, its target is one of the most unsavory icons of the liberal establishment. (One of...)

I liked it so much I gave it its own post. So you should read it now.

It Starts...

2005-05-10T22:36:00.000-04:00

Kansas is the new Florida.

How quickly and deeply will the coming rift in the Republican party form? If Bruce Fein and this Kansas thing are any indicators: soon, and deeply. Let the soapboxing begin!

One of my music friends inadvertently just asked me what the "anacrusis of Federalism" would be... tee hee.

Evolution Is Still Right and There's Nothing You Can Do About It

2005-05-09T14:59:00.000-04:00

There are these frequent moments when I consider just chucking the music career out the window, and dedicating my efforts to reversing the tide of charismatic religious zealotry in this country. The latest dose of idiocy (that I'm aware of) comes to us courtesy of the Kansas State Board of Education. You're gonna love this:

Perhaps the most significant shift would be in the very definition of science - instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

In a nutshell: no longer limiting science to natural explanation. So, Aristotle looking up at the night sky and posing the hypothesis that "stars" are actually cracks in the great glass globe that surrounds the planet: That's science.

Or the old lady at the back of the room at a Bertrand Russell lecture: She stood up at the end and said, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." Russell asked, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever young man," she replied. "But it's turtles all the way down!" That's also science. Good, old fashioned, homegrown science.

Another scientifically valid theory of the universe,
according to the Kansas State School Board.

The article regales us with further accounts of the mediocre sophistry these people pass off as reason:

"You can infer design just by examining something, without knowing anything about where it came from," Dr. Harris said [in defending Intelligent Design], offering as an example "The Gods Must be Crazy," a film in which Africans marvel at a Coke bottle that turns up in the desert. "I don't know who did it, I don't know how it was done, I don't know why it was done, I don't have to know any of that to know that it was designed."

Whatever. I can do that too. Douglas Adams told a charming tale [RealMedia] about a puddle who woke one day after a thunderstorm and said "This hole that I live in fits me just perfectly. It obviously was made especially for me." You think that just because something exists, or it's complex or intricate that someone had to be sitting there designing it and making it. And you'll stick with that until science throws overwhelming evidence to the contrary at you, and then you may finally abdicate. To employ a freshly-minted term, yours is a "God of the gaps" - and frankly is a small god designed especially for a very small person.

I'll reconcile science and religion for Dr. Harris right now. It's rather simple, and I've understood it explicitly at least since high school, and implicitly probably as long as I've been conscious. Ready? Here it is:

"Science" answers a specific set of questions: What, When, Where & How.
"Religion" also answers a specific set of questions: Who & Why.
Neither should venture in to the other's territory, as they will always get the wrong answers to questions that they have no business addressing. Rf: Creationism.

Whoa, that was difficult! As you can see, the problem with Dr. Idiot's "The Gods Must Be Crazy" argument is that he specifically sets aside the questions that only religion can answer:

"I don't know who did it, I don't know how it was done, I don't know why it was done..."

and then presumes to answer a question in the realm of science through ideology:

"... I don't have to know any of that to know that it was designed."

That's a big leap. You can know that the thing is there, but to know that it "was designed?" He's trying to answer the "What" question (and in truth the "How" question as well, regardless of what he mistakenly asserted in the previous phrase) by inquiring into the origins of the thing using religious ideology which is ill-suited to questions in the scientific sphere. The most we can hope for out of such disoriented reasoning is an uninformed miscarraige of religion and science that satisfies neither inquiry.

The best story I know of confusing science and religion is of our old friend Pat Robertson who "prayed away" Hurricane Gloria in 1985, and even claimed to have directed it at Fire Island himself. A stunning display of theological meteorology if there ever was one.

Religion needs to learn its place, now more than ever. Fundamentalist Christianity is no more worthy of respect or patronage than fundamentalist Islam. They're both dangerous, and even "evolved" Creationism like Intelligent Design impedes the progress of Evolution. Stuff evolves, that's pretty apparent. Stop making excuses or go away.

KookyChow

2005-05-01T20:20:00.000-04:00

It's been almost three weeks since my last post, as I've been busy writing, recording and scoping out Los Angeles. But I came across one website that is just too good to pass up: KookyChow.com

It's run by a former BigIdea artist who had a collection of "Regrettable Edibles" displayed in his office. A particular favorite from the site:

Note to Self

2005-04-12T14:38:00.000-04:00

If you are a Harvard economics professor, one brilliant career move is stealing manure.

Money quote:

Rockport police say Weitzman—who teaches a course on “Environmental and Natural Resource Economics” in the fall—told them that he was a professor during booking.

Atwood

2005-04-12T13:04:00.000-04:00

Daniel, the webmaster for Atwood, Kansas's town newspaper, has left the town, removed the website, and put in its place an open letter (edit: site removed - mirrored here)to his hometown. Atwood recently voted 984 to 113 to deny gay couples any rights for their relationships - including hospital visitation. In the letter, he addresses, among other things, Gay taxation without representation and Biblical arguments against homosexuality, and thus homosexual marraige.

Although the grammar at times is horrific, it's a very sincere, well-thought-out, and frankly measured response to the bigotry that's been sweeping the country of late. Do we need simply to wait two generations for society to become liberal enough to right this wrong? We can always rely on attrition, but in the case of clear injustice, I'd rather not.

Since the article probably won't be up for very long, I've mirrored it on my webspace.

Art

2005-04-10T20:03:00.000-04:00

myMondrian - Even if you're not a fan of Piet Mondrian, this new online toy is a hoot to play with.

Another good argument against the sanctity of life. As Andrew Sullivan termed it, a "bizarre echo" of the Schiavo case.

Why is this man still in the Church? He should be in jail, not kicked upstairs.

Wanted: The perfect housemate. See, this is why I live alone.

All for now...

Jazz

2005-04-09T00:50:00.000-04:00

Guess who I met tonight?

Guess who I'm playing with on Sunday?

Good times.

Good Point

2005-04-06T19:31:00.000-04:00

How much longer can we continue to deny basic rights to good people - our own citizens? AndrewSullivan.com points to a recent post on BoifromTroi on clear iniquity and discrimination against gay couples in campaign finance laws because gay candidates are not allowed legal spouses, who can donate, by transferring property tax-free, unlimited amounts to their spouse's campaigns. Reprinted below is the complete post:

Elections, Gays and Marriage

Yesterday, I attended a fundraiser for Bill Rosendahl, a candidate for Los Angeles' 11th City Council District. The event was well attended, with L.A. City Councilman Eric Garcetti, West Hollywood City Councilman Jeff Prang, Assembly District 42 GOP Central Committee Chairman Paul Fredrix and columnist Jill Stewart were among the many luminaries.

During the fundraising pitch, Rosendahl pointed out [an advantage] that his opponent--Flora Gail Krisiloff--has of contributing to her campaign when she fell behind in the fundraising race. Unlike the rest of us, Candidates' spouses can contribute up to $25,000 in a Local campaign and unlimited sums in Federal and State races. A spouse can draw upon the wealth of their husband or wife because property may be transferred between the two without taxation--something which is not allowed for gay and lesbian couples.

Which raises one important issue when it comes to equal marriage rights. Are gays' and lesbians' ability to seek and hold public office being limited by our inability to marry? If you ask me, the case is pretty simple.

Gays and lesbians' fundraising abilities are limited because we are denied the right to marry. That makes it harder for us to hold public office. As the Supreme Court has ruled, money is speech and under McCain-Feingold and local election laws governing campaign finance, gays and lesbians' speech rights are, comparatively, limited.

Major Changes

2005-03-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

A self-centered post...

I've decided that after my stint this summer in Colorado, I'm going to move out to California and make it happen. I'm not really happy with the pace and nature of things in Jacksonville, and the West Coast has been where I've known I have to end up anyway. It wasn't the wrong decision, per se, to come down here instead of Los Angeles last year, but I feel that I've gotten all the professional experience out of this area that I'm going to really use toward my ultimate ambition. Staying here any longer I think would cost me getting started as soon as possible in Southern CA , without any actual rewards here in Jacksonville. If I were to stay here next year, I'd be doing the same things that I've been doing this year, and that doesn't whet my palette (sp.?) in the slightest.

Playing with the big band here seriously rocks though. It's an incredible band, and I don't know if I'm going to have that sort of opportunity again for a long time. But playing 10 times a year with a great band isn't enough of a reason to stay and put off my dreams any longer. I've learned far more than I ever expected coming down here, and I'm on top of my craft as a result.

And maybe that's the reason I came here - to start playing in the bigger game even though my chops were just barely there. The musical transformation from September is remarkable - I've come ten times as far as any progress I made in college or high school. In Florida I've played, conducted, music directed, recorded, written and arranged for the best in the business (and some not so near the top) - and it's been the most intense crash course in professional music that I could handle. Everything I'd learned before Florida I used when I got here, and I expect that everything I've learned in the Sunshine State I'm going to use in the real big leagues in Los Angeles.

So I know where I'm going, and I know how to get there. On any other day - some day where I wasn't going through significant unrelated personal issues - it would be a great feeling. I've learned just what is the type of work in the professional field, and how to get it. In April, I'm taking a trip out there to get things moving.

I have a goal and a direction again, something I've been missing for I don't know how long... too long. It's that feeling of being in your native state, the one where you're inspired, and you're inspiring as a result. This is going to be difficult, but I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.

Keeping Current

2005-03-17T15:06:00.001-05:00

The backing tracks process is nearing its terminus, which means I'll be able to get back to posting regularly next week. A young professional musician's life comes in clumps of projects and deadlines, with several ending up in a single week, followed by a drought of work. The "clumps" don't predispose themselves to consistent weblog maintenance.

People keep writing about Lang Lang. "The Tiger Woods of classical music." Give me a break. Earl Wild, a real pianist if there ever was one, deemed him "the J-Lo of the piano." But he's lionized on 60 Minutes - that was probably the last straw for me with that show. In some circles he's rightly known as "Bang Bang," such as in a great newsgroup quote from someone who shall name anonymous (since I'm using it without permission):

I'd like to hear a Lang Lang Winterreise with Bocelli. Bo Bo meets Bang Bang. Schubert dies again.

Lang Lang's sideshow act completely lacks any substance, artistic introspection or intrinsic value. How dare he call himself a pianist. This is what classical music would sound like if Russell Watson, or Vanessa-Mae, or Charlotte Church were to take up serious literature. And the deaf media fawn over him because he plays fast and is animated at the instrument... Charlatan! Hack!

He hijacks the music by glossing over all detail and forethought that went into the material, and placing the focus squarely on him, the selfish, self-indulgent performer. I have no more admiration for him than I do for vapid, tasteless singers who insist on injecting their own self-aggrandizing cadenzas into opera literature.

The reason this is all so offensive is that the intent is to promote himself, not great music, and it's clearly evident in the way he plays; the elicited reaction is supposed to be "My God, is he going to make it?" or "I can't believe he can do that!" instead of transporting the audience to a place that only the music can take us. Music and artistry are completely lost in his playing, and he should be ashamed of himself for it. And he's sloppy. And musically immature. I read a Gramophone interview where he came up with such original and insightful gems as "Classical music should sound as fresh to us today as it did when it was written" and "This chord here - this is the farmer."

This tirade has been brought to you by an article appearing in the Globe and Mail yesterday - "Music's symbol of a China rising." Right. If anything, Lang Lang is a symbol of a superficial China, a poster boy for counterfeit musicality. He continually defecates in the artistic reservoir, and the media celebrates him for doing so.

In other news, Slate is reporting in a shocking new development, that weapons sites in Iraq were plundered immediately before and after the invasion. I guess this was completely unexpected... Not only that, but now the equally surprising possibility is floating around that said weapons were stolen by other Arab dictators.

Darwin Pictures

2005-03-10T22:09:00.000-05:00

The hamster is turning out to be an expensive endeavor - I bit the bullet and got a camera... so lo-res pictures of Darwin are here and here. He's really cute.

And someone's going to get sued for this.

A Beautiful Picture

2005-03-09T19:35:00.000-05:00

This is fabulous.

Go to the website advertised at the bottom of the billboard, and take a look at the main picture. You'll see why.

Maybe David Frum was right - after legalizing gay marraige, Dutch society (for ducks, at least) is falling apart.

Bush to U.N.: Drop Dead

2005-03-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

Fred Kaplan thinks it's a bad idea to appoint John Bolton as the U.N. Ambassador.

Speaking as the medium for this blog's favorite cartoon character: "I adore this man!" - Reasons why here.

What was Kerry's line? "Speak truth to power" I believe it was... (Yes, it's actually a Quaker axiom).

Darwin

2005-03-08T21:55:00.000-05:00

It's been a few days since I've been able to post, and this one will be a short one, but I made a new friend this weekend...

His name is Darwin, and he's a Winter White/Siberian Dwarf Hamster. Again, pictures would be forthcoming if I had a camera. On Saturday I went to Petsmart to get climbing logs for the hermit crabs, but I walked past the rodent cages and he caught my eye.

I first noticed this especially active hamster with really big eyes and ears that perked forward in the most endearing way, so I stopped to take a look. Not only was he interested in meeting me through the glass, but after he'd finished with me, went back to the purple plastic igloo in which everyone else was sleeping, flipped it over (nearly crushing the other hamsters in the process) and shoved it up against the wall. This was a hamster I could respect. On top of that, though, he did this to use it as a ramp to get to the upper half of the cage wall where there were more air vents which he used as climbing holds. He climbed around up there and made it up to the ceiling, where he ran around upside down for a few minutes.

"This is some sort of mutant genius hamster," I thought. "He must be mine."

I didn't buy him right there, because I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to take care of him the way he needed. So I went home and slept on it, and went back the next day to get him and all of the finest hamster accoutrements. $85 later I have a hamster who continues to entertain me.

He doesn't seem to play in the wheel very much, but he does play with the wheel. I've never seen another animal do these things:

One activity I've seen him do pretty frequently so far is what I have to call "upside-down running." He crawls under the wheel, flips over, and spins it with his paws. The other way I've seen him play with the wheel is to crawl up to the second story, sit on the edge, and spin the wheel with his front paws. Strange.

I thought for the last 24 hours that he could be deaf, but it looks like he was just ignoring me when he wanted to. I found him asleep today, and as I was talking to him, he flinched with my vocal modulations. Which is another strange thing...

He was asleep at the bottom juncture of the tall tube, where it makes a 90 degree turn upward. I found him all spread out in there, not moving, and I imagined him falling from the top and dying, or worse yet, paralyzing himself. So I rudely awoke him. He obviously didn't want to get up, but I didn't know that at the time and thought he was really dead or quadriplegic or something. Then he started flinching to my voice. "Well he's not deaf, but now he's paralyzed." He finally got around to moving which was a relief.

That's all the time I can afford to take now. Hamster aside, I feel like I've been doing nothing but working the last four days, and only fallen further behind. The forecast is for another hell week. If it weren't for the backing tracks, life would be easy. Then again, if it weren't for the backing tracks, I'd be destitute...

C'est la vie. Summer can't come soon enough.

The Pentagon Budget Is Too Small

2005-03-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning conspiracy fix:

"Behold: The USAF Top Secret Nuclear Powered Flying Triangle Thingy in all its glory." (via Fark)

I think this is clear evidence that we should give the Defense Department whatever money it wants.

UK Election

2005-03-05T23:08:00.000-05:00

Just as debates on the floor of the House of Commons have a real quality of debate and the discussion of ideas, in contrast to the wholly disengaged stump speeches that come out of the U.S. legislature, British campaigns seem to act as a forum for actual issue discussion, and again not just the deaf speeches and soundbytes that result from the (much, much longer) American elections. The Scotsman's article from earlier today expresses this.

The only thing I could find on the Observer's site pertaining to the referenced interview is here.

There's another issue here, though. The British dread becoming what America is:

Mr Blair said that the fears of public service workers over the potential for a US-style litigation culture had made a deep impact on him.

Pet peeve. England sees what we are, why don't we? Is there any way, or even possibility, that we could undo what lawyers and judges and basically liberals overall have done to this country? Some of the most popular daytime shows are "Judge Judy" and "Judge Mathis" and "Judge Selfimportantjerkchannelingdrlaura." I remember a few years ago I played at a junior high school for a music class, and when I told them my age, they didn't believe me. Fine. But half the kids demanded to see my driver's license. Is my word not good enough? Must you have government documentation in order to believe me? This follows the abdication of responsibility, personal or otherwise, that necessarily accompanied LBJ with his disgraceful "Great Society." Yeah, I blame him and the socialism he ushered in. No, I don't capitalize socialism or liberalism.