Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Go green! Nuke the world!
If we're going to save the world, so-called "renewable" energy sources won't help. The only way is to go nuclear.
(Some) Data belongs in revision control
I would like to address some of the issues raised in the recent debate over whether data belongs in tables or not. I think Honroy hit the nail on the head when he wrote, "It's important to consider the likelihood of change as well." But the issues are subtle and complex, which is the reason it has taken me a full day to get around to writing this response.
So let me begin with one of Jeff's responses, since he's the one I'm mainly picking on here :-)
there are no problems. That was an example. If you need historical reporting or tracking, you simply model it that way. As the article clearly says.
Ah, but the devil is in the details. How exactly are you going to model it? If you actually sit down to work it out you will find that the complications mount very quickly. For example, one way to model historical changes is to add effective-start-date and effective-end-date columns. But now you have to deal with the possibility that the time periods could overlap, or that there could be gaps between the periods. (Actually, you already have a similar problem even in the original simple example because there is nothing to prevent shifts from overlapping or having gaps, but that's another can of worms.) If you have an effective-end-date, how do you model the currently effective shift schedule? Do the current shifts have NULL end dates, or end dates far into the future (creating a Y2K-like problem)? What do you do if, due to an operational error, some incorrect data finds its way into the shifts table? What if that incorrect data was used in subsequent dependent calculations? Do you log all your database updates so that you can tell which calculations used the wrong data? Or do you have to go back and recompute everything from scratch?
I'm not saying that these problems can't be solved. Obviously they can. But the structure of the shifts table, and in particular the way in which the contents of the shifts table evolves over time, is such it is not at all clear that storing it in a database is really the best way to do it. The shifts table evolves over time in a very particular way. First, changes are rare. Second, retroactive changes are even rarer, and are generally an indication that some kind of mistake has been made and needs to be dealt with. And third, it is important to know not just what the shift schedule was on date X, but also what the system on date Y thought the shifts shedule was on date X. And it is not at all clear that that information might not be better stored in a config file under revision control.
The devil is always in the details, and it gets worse. What if your data volume is huge and performance is an issue? In cases like that it is not at all clear that it would not be best to hard-code certain rarely-changing parameters directly into the code instead of sticking them in a table and hoping that your database optimizes the join properly. What if you're writing an embedded system and the data is parameters that, if they are wrong, can make something blow up?
There are certainly cases where it is appropriate to put data in tables, and some of Jeffrey's examples (though not all of them) are good examples of such cases. But to extrapolate from there to claim validity for a general rule that "data belongs in your tables, not in your code" is a serious mistake.
So let me begin with one of Jeff's responses, since he's the one I'm mainly picking on here :-)
there are no problems. That was an example. If you need historical reporting or tracking, you simply model it that way. As the article clearly says.
Ah, but the devil is in the details. How exactly are you going to model it? If you actually sit down to work it out you will find that the complications mount very quickly. For example, one way to model historical changes is to add effective-start-date and effective-end-date columns. But now you have to deal with the possibility that the time periods could overlap, or that there could be gaps between the periods. (Actually, you already have a similar problem even in the original simple example because there is nothing to prevent shifts from overlapping or having gaps, but that's another can of worms.) If you have an effective-end-date, how do you model the currently effective shift schedule? Do the current shifts have NULL end dates, or end dates far into the future (creating a Y2K-like problem)? What do you do if, due to an operational error, some incorrect data finds its way into the shifts table? What if that incorrect data was used in subsequent dependent calculations? Do you log all your database updates so that you can tell which calculations used the wrong data? Or do you have to go back and recompute everything from scratch?
I'm not saying that these problems can't be solved. Obviously they can. But the structure of the shifts table, and in particular the way in which the contents of the shifts table evolves over time, is such it is not at all clear that storing it in a database is really the best way to do it. The shifts table evolves over time in a very particular way. First, changes are rare. Second, retroactive changes are even rarer, and are generally an indication that some kind of mistake has been made and needs to be dealt with. And third, it is important to know not just what the shift schedule was on date X, but also what the system on date Y thought the shifts shedule was on date X. And it is not at all clear that that information might not be better stored in a config file under revision control.
The devil is always in the details, and it gets worse. What if your data volume is huge and performance is an issue? In cases like that it is not at all clear that it would not be best to hard-code certain rarely-changing parameters directly into the code instead of sticking them in a table and hoping that your database optimizes the join properly. What if you're writing an embedded system and the data is parameters that, if they are wrong, can make something blow up?
There are certainly cases where it is appropriate to put data in tables, and some of Jeffrey's examples (though not all of them) are good examples of such cases. But to extrapolate from there to claim validity for a general rule that "data belongs in your tables, not in your code" is a serious mistake.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Why storing (too much) data in tables is a Really Bad Idea (tm)
The world is full of Really Bad Ideas which look like good ideas at first glance. My favorite example of this is the Schick Slim Twin disposable razor. The Slim Twin is, as the name implies, a twin-blade razor. It has the "innovative" feature of having a small plastic tab between the blades. The tab is attached to a little button that lets you push the tab towards the business end of the blades thereby (ostensibly) forcing out the razor stubble and other assorted gunk that is trapped in the space between the blades. Schick actually had a series of TV commercials that touted this feature when the Slim Twin first launched many years ago.
It seems like a good if not particularly earth-shattering idea at first glance. That is, until you actually try it. What you find is that the Slim Twin actually collects a lot more gunk than other razors. This is because the plastic tab blocks the space between the blades and actually causes gunk to build up in the first place! When the tab isn't there, any accumulated gunk just falls out of the back of the blades. So this "innovation" actually causes the problem it purports to solve. (And in fact, it makes the problem much worse, because hair can get caught between the tab and the blades, at which point it becomes all but impossible to dislodge. Don't ask me how I know all this.)
Which brings me to this blog entry from Jeff Smith where he asserts that "data belongs in your tables -- not in your code." It seems like a plausible enough assertion on its face, kind of like the idea that having a little tab in the razor to push gunk out ought to be a useful feature. But he doesn't back up this assertion with any actual arguments, only with examples. And in those examples he looks only at the benefits of storing data in tables instead of code and none of the drawbacks.
There are a lot of problems with storing data in tables the way Jeff suggests, but there is one overriding uber-problem, but I won't spoil the fun by telling you what it is just yet. Instead, consider what happens if you follow Jeff's advice, for example:
Now consider what would happen if the company's shift schedule were to change. Simple, you just update the SHIFTS table to reflect the new schedule and you're done, right?
Except that all your historical data is now wrong because it is based on the old shift schedule. And that old shift schedule is now gone.
So the first problem with storing data in tables is that relational databases don't have revision control. Code does. And if you have data that has the kinds of dependencies that revision control systems are good at tracking then you might well be better off having that data in your code so that you revision control system can track it.
But there is a much more fundamental problem with Jeff's advice, and that is that there is no sharp dividing line between code and data. Look at those SQL queries. They are just strings, and hence they are data. So should we store them in a QUERIES table? For that matter, look at the code itself. That is just data too. Why not store that in a table?
The fact of the matter is that the admonition to store data in tables is completely vacuous because the distinction between code and data is arbitrary. It is therefore, just like the tab in the Slim Twin, worse than useless because it seems like such a good idea but in fact it creates problems rather than solving them.
The right way to decide what to put where is to look at the properties of the data you need to store. If it's large quantites of identically structured data that doesn't change in ways that alters referential integrity then it probably belongs in the database. If it's small quantities of data whose structure defines the semantics of other data and which doesn't change at run-time, then it probably belongs somewhere else, if not actually in the code then probably in a configuration file under revision control.
But just because something "looks like data" doesn't mean it belongs in a table.
UPDATE: I do not deny that the problems with Jeff's original example can be fixed. But the point is 1) there are problems and 2) they have to be fixed and 3) the process of fixing the problems is, in this example and many others, essentially, re-invention of revision control. There is no magic that automatically accrues unvarnished benefits merely from moving "data" (whatever that means) out of code and into a database, and applying Jeff's advice uncritically is as likely to create problems as solve them.
It seems like a good if not particularly earth-shattering idea at first glance. That is, until you actually try it. What you find is that the Slim Twin actually collects a lot more gunk than other razors. This is because the plastic tab blocks the space between the blades and actually causes gunk to build up in the first place! When the tab isn't there, any accumulated gunk just falls out of the back of the blades. So this "innovation" actually causes the problem it purports to solve. (And in fact, it makes the problem much worse, because hair can get caught between the tab and the blades, at which point it becomes all but impossible to dislodge. Don't ask me how I know all this.)
Which brings me to this blog entry from Jeff Smith where he asserts that "data belongs in your tables -- not in your code." It seems like a plausible enough assertion on its face, kind of like the idea that having a little tab in the razor to push gunk out ought to be a useful feature. But he doesn't back up this assertion with any actual arguments, only with examples. And in those examples he looks only at the benefits of storing data in tables instead of code and none of the drawbacks.
There are a lot of problems with storing data in tables the way Jeff suggests, but there is one overriding uber-problem, but I won't spoil the fun by telling you what it is just yet. Instead, consider what happens if you follow Jeff's advice, for example:
Your company defines 3 shifts per day: Shift 1 is 12:00AM-8AM, Shift 2 is 8AM-4PM, Shift 3 is 4PM-12AM.
So, when you need to evaluate a DateTime variable to see which shift it falls into, you write:
SELECT ..., CASE WHEN Hour(SomeDate) < 8 THEN 1
WHEN Hour(SomeDate) < 16 THEN 2
ELSE 3
END as ShiftNo
FROM ...
Great, except you now have data stored in your code -- not in a table! Let's store our data where it belongs by creating a “Shifts” table:
And now you simply write:
SELECT ...., Shift.ShiftNo, Shift.Description
FROM ...
INNER JOIN Shift
ON Hour(SomeDate) BETWEEN Shift.StartHour and Shift.EndHour
Now consider what would happen if the company's shift schedule were to change. Simple, you just update the SHIFTS table to reflect the new schedule and you're done, right?
Except that all your historical data is now wrong because it is based on the old shift schedule. And that old shift schedule is now gone.
So the first problem with storing data in tables is that relational databases don't have revision control. Code does. And if you have data that has the kinds of dependencies that revision control systems are good at tracking then you might well be better off having that data in your code so that you revision control system can track it.
But there is a much more fundamental problem with Jeff's advice, and that is that there is no sharp dividing line between code and data. Look at those SQL queries. They are just strings, and hence they are data. So should we store them in a QUERIES table? For that matter, look at the code itself. That is just data too. Why not store that in a table?
The fact of the matter is that the admonition to store data in tables is completely vacuous because the distinction between code and data is arbitrary. It is therefore, just like the tab in the Slim Twin, worse than useless because it seems like such a good idea but in fact it creates problems rather than solving them.
The right way to decide what to put where is to look at the properties of the data you need to store. If it's large quantites of identically structured data that doesn't change in ways that alters referential integrity then it probably belongs in the database. If it's small quantities of data whose structure defines the semantics of other data and which doesn't change at run-time, then it probably belongs somewhere else, if not actually in the code then probably in a configuration file under revision control.
But just because something "looks like data" doesn't mean it belongs in a table.
UPDATE: I do not deny that the problems with Jeff's original example can be fixed. But the point is 1) there are problems and 2) they have to be fixed and 3) the process of fixing the problems is, in this example and many others, essentially, re-invention of revision control. There is no magic that automatically accrues unvarnished benefits merely from moving "data" (whatever that means) out of code and into a database, and applying Jeff's advice uncritically is as likely to create problems as solve them.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
What if Sara Taylor was telling the truth?
From the L'esprit_de_l'escalier department Rondam Ramblings brings you this:
Remember Sara M. Taylor's testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee? The part where she said that she "swore an oath to the president"? Senator Patrick Leahy pounced on that comment, lecturing her about how her oath was to the Constitution, not to the President.
Consider: what if Leahy was wrong? What if that wasn't a Freudian slip? What if Sara Taylor really had (secretly, of course) sworn an oath to the President? Perhaps Leahy should not have been so quick to correct her. Maybe he was on to something and didn't realize it.
Crazy? Maybe. Maybe not.
Remember Sara M. Taylor's testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee? The part where she said that she "swore an oath to the president"? Senator Patrick Leahy pounced on that comment, lecturing her about how her oath was to the Constitution, not to the President.
Consider: what if Leahy was wrong? What if that wasn't a Freudian slip? What if Sara Taylor really had (secretly, of course) sworn an oath to the President? Perhaps Leahy should not have been so quick to correct her. Maybe he was on to something and didn't realize it.
Crazy? Maybe. Maybe not.
If this isn't grounds for impeachment, what is?
The Bush administration has denied a formal request from Congressman Peter Defazio to see the secret plans for operating the government after a terrorist attack.
WASHINGTON -- Oregonians called [Congressman] Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.
As a member of the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom" in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.
On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.
"I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack," DeFazio says.
Bush has also issued an executive order allowing the Administration to seize the property of anyone who opposes the war in Iraq. And so the fifth amendment bites the dust along with the first, fourth and ninth (to say nothing of Separation of Powers). Four down, six to go. (What, you really think the second amendment is safe just because the emperor calls himself a republican?) Meanwhile, the Democrats fiddle while Democracy burns.
WASHINGTON -- Oregonians called [Congressman] Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.
As a member of the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom" in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.
On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.
"I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack," DeFazio says.
Bush has also issued an executive order allowing the Administration to seize the property of anyone who opposes the war in Iraq. And so the fifth amendment bites the dust along with the first, fourth and ninth (to say nothing of Separation of Powers). Four down, six to go. (What, you really think the second amendment is safe just because the emperor calls himself a republican?) Meanwhile, the Democrats fiddle while Democracy burns.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Foursquare with Voltaire
My previous post is generating a surprising (to me) amount of controversy, and there were a number of comments that I thought deserved considered responses. But writing those responses in Blogger's tiny little comment window (Google people, are you listening?) was getting really annoying so I decided to escalate.
Do you consider their opinion to be more authoritative than any other obvious sources (say, a local christian bookshop or church committee or the bible), and if so, why?
This is a very good question, and I have three different answers for it:
First, the meanings of symbols have nothing to with authority. The meanings of symbols derive entirely from the intent of those who employ them, and from the perceptions of those who view them.
Second, it is fairly clear that the ring in this case is a Christian symbol. It is widely recognized as a Christian symbol, and it is inscribed with a reference to the New Testament, which should quell any remaining doubt.
But third, and most important, the ring is a red herring. If the girl had been wearing a crucifix on a chain the school's prohibition on jewelry would (presumably) still have applied. And surely no one would question that a crucifix is a Christian symbol.
So anyone should be allowed to take anything, call it a symbol of some religion
Yes, of course, as long as it is their religion. No one should be allowed to decide what is and is not a symbol of anyone else's religion.
(even though it isn't generally recognised as such)
Yes, of course. Some people have their own private religions with their own private theologies, symbols and rituals. Who are you to tell me that what I choose to be the symbols of my relgion are not valid?
it doesn't follow that you're allowed to say what you want, when you want, and where you want.
A straw man. No one disputes that freedom of speech has limits. You can't cry fire in a crowded theatre or commit libel. Clearly none of those circumstances apply in this case.
it doesn't entitle you to a free audience
It's a ring, for crying out loud. It's not like she's getting up in the middle of class with a bullhorn.
The real problem here is that the underlying prohibition on jewelry is inherently discriminatory against religions like Christianity which tend to render their symbology as jewelry rather than, say, clothing or makeup. Jews have yarmulkes. Sikhs have turbans. Hindus have Tilakas. But the principal symbol of Christianity is the Cross, and the principal means of displaying it on one's person (at least in the U.S.) is as a pendant hanging from a chain. So the issue is not the ring per se, the issue is that any blanket prohibition on jewelry necessarily discriminates against Christians, just as any blanket prohibition on wearing head-coverings indoors inherently discriminates against Muslims (and Jews and Sikhs).
Do you consider their opinion to be more authoritative than any other obvious sources (say, a local christian bookshop or church committee or the bible), and if so, why?
This is a very good question, and I have three different answers for it:
First, the meanings of symbols have nothing to with authority. The meanings of symbols derive entirely from the intent of those who employ them, and from the perceptions of those who view them.
Second, it is fairly clear that the ring in this case is a Christian symbol. It is widely recognized as a Christian symbol, and it is inscribed with a reference to the New Testament, which should quell any remaining doubt.
But third, and most important, the ring is a red herring. If the girl had been wearing a crucifix on a chain the school's prohibition on jewelry would (presumably) still have applied. And surely no one would question that a crucifix is a Christian symbol.
So anyone should be allowed to take anything, call it a symbol of some religion
Yes, of course, as long as it is their religion. No one should be allowed to decide what is and is not a symbol of anyone else's religion.
(even though it isn't generally recognised as such)
Yes, of course. Some people have their own private religions with their own private theologies, symbols and rituals. Who are you to tell me that what I choose to be the symbols of my relgion are not valid?
it doesn't follow that you're allowed to say what you want, when you want, and where you want.
A straw man. No one disputes that freedom of speech has limits. You can't cry fire in a crowded theatre or commit libel. Clearly none of those circumstances apply in this case.
it doesn't entitle you to a free audience
It's a ring, for crying out loud. It's not like she's getting up in the middle of class with a bullhorn.
The real problem here is that the underlying prohibition on jewelry is inherently discriminatory against religions like Christianity which tend to render their symbology as jewelry rather than, say, clothing or makeup. Jews have yarmulkes. Sikhs have turbans. Hindus have Tilakas. But the principal symbol of Christianity is the Cross, and the principal means of displaying it on one's person (at least in the U.S.) is as a pendant hanging from a chain. So the issue is not the ring per se, the issue is that any blanket prohibition on jewelry necessarily discriminates against Christians, just as any blanket prohibition on wearing head-coverings indoors inherently discriminates against Muslims (and Jews and Sikhs).
Monday, July 16, 2007
Equal opportunity oppression
It's not just inarticulate teens who are being denied their right to free speech, it's Christians too.
I stand foursquare with Voltaire (or whoever it was who first said it): I may not (and in this case most assuredly do not) agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it. Or at least blog about it.
I stand foursquare with Voltaire (or whoever it was who first said it): I may not (and in this case most assuredly do not) agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it. Or at least blog about it.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Required viewing
If you are on the fence about impeaching Bush and Cheney (and even if you aren't) then you should watch this.
Friday, July 13, 2007
The real reason the neocons want to attack Iran
Iran announced today that it will sell oil to Japan for yen instead of dollars.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Ron prognosticates: separation of powers is doomed
This is almost too easy. Here's how it's going to go down.
Congress has issued subpoenas. The White House has refused citing executive privilege. The fight will end up in the Supreme Court, which will side with the White House on the grounds that this is not a criminal investigation. (It doesn't really matter. If it were a criminal investigation they would find some other excuse, but this is the most defensible argument for not following the Watergate precedent, so that is the one they will use.)
At that point, Congress's only option to restore separation of powers will be to impeach Bush, Cheney, and at least some of the members of the Supreme Court. Which they could do. But which, of course, they will not do because the Dems are spineless cowards who are afraid of their own shadows.
At that point American Democracy will be well and truly fucked.
Have a nice day.
Congress has issued subpoenas. The White House has refused citing executive privilege. The fight will end up in the Supreme Court, which will side with the White House on the grounds that this is not a criminal investigation. (It doesn't really matter. If it were a criminal investigation they would find some other excuse, but this is the most defensible argument for not following the Watergate precedent, so that is the one they will use.)
At that point, Congress's only option to restore separation of powers will be to impeach Bush, Cheney, and at least some of the members of the Supreme Court. Which they could do. But which, of course, they will not do because the Dems are spineless cowards who are afraid of their own shadows.
At that point American Democracy will be well and truly fucked.
Have a nice day.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Prophecy done right
What will happen if you take a ping-pong-ball-sized sphere and fly it in orbit around the earth for eighteen months? The Bible won't tell you, but Albert Enstein predicted what would happen almost 100 years ago and got it right to within 1% (and that is most likely experimental error). Now that is a prophecy fulfilled.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Ron prognosticates: Kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye
Since I seem to be amassing a pretty respectable track record as a prophet I'll give it another go:
If anyone had any doubt that John Roberts's appointment to the Supreme Court is going to be yet another unmitigated disaster brought to you by the Bush administration, yesterday's decision overturning a 96-year-old precedent for no reason other than five Justices thought it was a good idea should put it to rest. It's not so much that the decision itself will be disastrous (though it is that as well) as that it shows conclusively that Roberts's testimony at his confirmation hearings that he respects precedent was false. Roberts is an utterly predictable reactionary idealogue with no respect for precedent, the law, or indeed anything other than neo-conservative doctrine: big business is good, the government can do no wrong, and the People are an annoyance to brought into line rather than the constituency that the government is supposed to serve. Acordingly, there can be no doubt that Roe v. Wade's days are numbered. I don't know exacly when Roe will fall, or what twisted "reasoning" (and I use scare quotes quite deliberately) will be used to overturn it, but fall it will. (I'll go out on a limb just a little bit and predict that it will be shortly after the next election.)
Not that it wasn't clear before, but this latest decision really puts the facts in stark relief: Bush & Co. care not a whit for anything the United State osensibly stand for: not for freedom, nor truth, nor justice, nor civil rights, nor the will of the People. They care for big business, for oil, for discipline, and for unfettered government power, and they will promote these "virtues" by any means necessary. They will lie, they will cheat, they will steal, and they will even burn the houses of people who oppose them. With a government like this, who needs Al Quada? Bush & Co. are the ultimate terrorist sleeper cell.
And they have nukes.
If anyone had any doubt that John Roberts's appointment to the Supreme Court is going to be yet another unmitigated disaster brought to you by the Bush administration, yesterday's decision overturning a 96-year-old precedent for no reason other than five Justices thought it was a good idea should put it to rest. It's not so much that the decision itself will be disastrous (though it is that as well) as that it shows conclusively that Roberts's testimony at his confirmation hearings that he respects precedent was false. Roberts is an utterly predictable reactionary idealogue with no respect for precedent, the law, or indeed anything other than neo-conservative doctrine: big business is good, the government can do no wrong, and the People are an annoyance to brought into line rather than the constituency that the government is supposed to serve. Acordingly, there can be no doubt that Roe v. Wade's days are numbered. I don't know exacly when Roe will fall, or what twisted "reasoning" (and I use scare quotes quite deliberately) will be used to overturn it, but fall it will. (I'll go out on a limb just a little bit and predict that it will be shortly after the next election.)
Not that it wasn't clear before, but this latest decision really puts the facts in stark relief: Bush & Co. care not a whit for anything the United State osensibly stand for: not for freedom, nor truth, nor justice, nor civil rights, nor the will of the People. They care for big business, for oil, for discipline, and for unfettered government power, and they will promote these "virtues" by any means necessary. They will lie, they will cheat, they will steal, and they will even burn the houses of people who oppose them. With a government like this, who needs Al Quada? Bush & Co. are the ultimate terrorist sleeper cell.
And they have nukes.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
First Amendment? What First Amendment?
I'm blogging from a ship in the North Sea. The fact that I can do this at all is a freakin' miracle, but unfortunately, the quality of the connection is poor, so this post is not going to have the links and cross-references that it should. (I'm crossing my fingers that I get it out at all.)
The Supreme Court dealt another body blow to the First Amendment yesterday, ruling cryptically that student speech is not protected by the First Amendment if it is too cryptic, or if it "might" be construed as advocating illegal drug use, or something like that. Frankly, the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" message makes more sense to me that the Court's decision. As near as I can tell, the legal principle that the Court is establishing is that the First Amendment doesn't protect any speech that any authority figure doesn't like, taking yet another giant step towards the day when we in the United States enjoy the kind of free speech they once had in the old Soviet Union.
What worries me most about this is that despite the fact that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their appointed cronies Alito and Roberts have so clearly gone rogue, that they so obviously and manifestly despise everything that America ostensibly stands for: Democracy, the Rule of Law, fairness, respect for human rights, government of the People by the People and for the People... despite all this, there is still no one marching in the streets (I know, I'm a fine one to talk, I can't even be bothered to be in the fucking country as it comes apart at the seams. But I feel bad about it. Does that count?) and Bush's approval rating is still north of 25%, an historic low to be sure, but it still means that there are tens of millions of people out there who think everything is just hunky-dory. To you 25% I say: are you insane? Have you lost your fucking minds? What does it take to get you to disapprove of this crew of incompetent megalomaniacal monsters? Ye gods, they could probably ship your own grandmother off to Gitmo and you'd probably just take their word for it that she was aiding and abetting Al Quaeda!
I haven't felt at this much of a loss for a long time. Does anyone know where I can order a "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" T-shirt on line?
The Supreme Court dealt another body blow to the First Amendment yesterday, ruling cryptically that student speech is not protected by the First Amendment if it is too cryptic, or if it "might" be construed as advocating illegal drug use, or something like that. Frankly, the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" message makes more sense to me that the Court's decision. As near as I can tell, the legal principle that the Court is establishing is that the First Amendment doesn't protect any speech that any authority figure doesn't like, taking yet another giant step towards the day when we in the United States enjoy the kind of free speech they once had in the old Soviet Union.
What worries me most about this is that despite the fact that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their appointed cronies Alito and Roberts have so clearly gone rogue, that they so obviously and manifestly despise everything that America ostensibly stands for: Democracy, the Rule of Law, fairness, respect for human rights, government of the People by the People and for the People... despite all this, there is still no one marching in the streets (I know, I'm a fine one to talk, I can't even be bothered to be in the fucking country as it comes apart at the seams. But I feel bad about it. Does that count?) and Bush's approval rating is still north of 25%, an historic low to be sure, but it still means that there are tens of millions of people out there who think everything is just hunky-dory. To you 25% I say: are you insane? Have you lost your fucking minds? What does it take to get you to disapprove of this crew of incompetent megalomaniacal monsters? Ye gods, they could probably ship your own grandmother off to Gitmo and you'd probably just take their word for it that she was aiding and abetting Al Quaeda!
I haven't felt at this much of a loss for a long time. Does anyone know where I can order a "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" T-shirt on line?
Monday, June 18, 2007
And the staggering irony award goes to...
... Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistani religious affairs minister, who in response to the news that Salmn Rushdie was being knighted, told the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad:
"The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title."
Ye gods.
"The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title."
Ye gods.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Hello world redux
For those of you who may have been wondering why I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth, I can finally tell you. For the last year I have been working on a new startup company which just came out of stealth mode. It is Virgin Charter. Yes, I now work for Richard Branson. (No, I have not met him.)
Although you can't tell, there's actually a functioning beta site running behind the scenes that I have been working to bring up for the last few months (with a lot of help from a really great crew of software engineers). Getting ready for today's launch has been using up most of my mental energy, hence the relative blogging silence.
Things are still kind of intense for now, but I hope to be back in the blogging swing of things before too long.
Although you can't tell, there's actually a functioning beta site running behind the scenes that I have been working to bring up for the last few months (with a lot of help from a really great crew of software engineers). Getting ready for today's launch has been using up most of my mental energy, hence the relative blogging silence.
Things are still kind of intense for now, but I hope to be back in the blogging swing of things before too long.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
There were no WMDs. But we knew exactly where they were. And it's Blix's fault for not finding them.
With all the twists and turns, flip-floppery, and circular reasoning used by Iraq war apologists I'm sometimes amazed they don't get seasick. Consider this item from a webchat with Richard Perle last week:
Alexandria, Va.: You claim Hans Blix believed Iraq was hiding WMD, but certainly by March 7, 2003 -- the date of his report to the U.N., and twelve days prior to the bombing of Baghdad -- he was stating that no evidence of WMD could be found and had expressed his skepticism to Condi Rice that any would be found. Isn't it irrelevant what Blix might have thought before he began inspections?
Richard Perle: It is true that Blix was unable to find evidence. There was never any real prospect that he could. But he did not believe that he was getting full cooperation from Saddam.
Finding WMD in Iraq could only have been accomplished by offering safety to people involved in the prior programs and removing them and their extended families from Iraq where they were in mortal danger. Blix, for reasons I will never understand, did not insist on the authority to offer sanctuary so he was reduced to touring the old sites associated with earlier WMD activity. In any case, we now know that the stockpiles that were thought to exist did not.
The capacity for self-deception exhibited here is truly mind-boggling. Despite acknowledging (in an offhand way) that there were no WMD he still tries to lay the blame for not finding them at the feet of Hans Blix. He does this using an argument of the form, "The only way to find WMDs was to do X. Blix did not do X. Therefore it is his fault no WMDs were found."
Well, no. Since there were no WMD's, there is NOTHING Blix could have done to find them short of manufacturing them himself. And let us not forget that what the administration said at the time was that they had "slam-dunk" proof that the WMD's were there, including information about exactly where they were located.
It is this claim that put the lie to the warmonger's arguments even at the time, because if they really knew where the WMD's were it would have been a simple matter to communicate that information to the inspectors on the ground and have them go there. If the inspectors were "reduced to touring the old sites" it is beause the administration was withholding information, not the Iraqis.
You can't have it both ways. If you claimed to know where the weapons were you can't saddle Blilx with the blame for not looking in the right places. And if you admit that you didn't know where they were, well, then you have a lot of explaining to do.
Why is no one in the press calling the administration on this?
Alexandria, Va.: You claim Hans Blix believed Iraq was hiding WMD, but certainly by March 7, 2003 -- the date of his report to the U.N., and twelve days prior to the bombing of Baghdad -- he was stating that no evidence of WMD could be found and had expressed his skepticism to Condi Rice that any would be found. Isn't it irrelevant what Blix might have thought before he began inspections?
Richard Perle: It is true that Blix was unable to find evidence. There was never any real prospect that he could. But he did not believe that he was getting full cooperation from Saddam.
Finding WMD in Iraq could only have been accomplished by offering safety to people involved in the prior programs and removing them and their extended families from Iraq where they were in mortal danger. Blix, for reasons I will never understand, did not insist on the authority to offer sanctuary so he was reduced to touring the old sites associated with earlier WMD activity. In any case, we now know that the stockpiles that were thought to exist did not.
The capacity for self-deception exhibited here is truly mind-boggling. Despite acknowledging (in an offhand way) that there were no WMD he still tries to lay the blame for not finding them at the feet of Hans Blix. He does this using an argument of the form, "The only way to find WMDs was to do X. Blix did not do X. Therefore it is his fault no WMDs were found."
Well, no. Since there were no WMD's, there is NOTHING Blix could have done to find them short of manufacturing them himself. And let us not forget that what the administration said at the time was that they had "slam-dunk" proof that the WMD's were there, including information about exactly where they were located.
It is this claim that put the lie to the warmonger's arguments even at the time, because if they really knew where the WMD's were it would have been a simple matter to communicate that information to the inspectors on the ground and have them go there. If the inspectors were "reduced to touring the old sites" it is beause the administration was withholding information, not the Iraqis.
You can't have it both ways. If you claimed to know where the weapons were you can't saddle Blilx with the blame for not looking in the right places. And if you admit that you didn't know where they were, well, then you have a lot of explaining to do.
Why is no one in the press calling the administration on this?
Monday, April 16, 2007
Requiem for a peaceful world
I vividly remember the first time I ever saw the Virginia Tech campus. It was April of 1982, I was about to graduate high school, and my family and I were making the college rounds. Two days later a storm would dump a foot of snow on Boston as we visited MIT (interesting how the weather comes around), but that day was clear and warm -- a perfect Spring day in the Appalachians. I remember walking out onto the little dais that overlooks the drill field in front of Burrus Hall, the main administration building, and being awed by the spectacular panaoramic beauty of the place. The nearest municipality that even pretended to be a city back in those days was Roanoke, and that was an hour away. The nearest "real" city was Richmod, another four or five hours away. It was a quiet place, far from the pressure and madness of the world. The biggest problem we had was negotiating the muddy unpaved footpaths carved across the drill field when it rained.
I could have gone to MIT or Stanford, but I chose Virginia Tech because it made me feel at peace. And so the irony of today's events strikes me in the deepest parts of my soul. When life in Los Angeles gets too crazy I have always been able to comfort myself with the thought that there are places like Blacksburg where I could retreat if things get too nutty to bear. And even though I don't think I'd ever actually move back there, just knowing that I could has made LA easier to put up with.
That comfort is gone forever.
I know a little bit of what the people who actually lived through it feel like. In 1991, having lived in LA for three years, I came home to my little house in Glendale to find that the bulb had burned out in the light that we kept on a timer. As I entered the house I could just make out some motion in the darkness out of the corner of my eye. I shouted, as much in fear as in anger, and I saw the muzzle flash as the burglar took a pot-shot at me with his '38 on the way out the window. My first though was, "That can't have been a real gun. It looked and sounded too much like the movies." It wasn't until the police came and dug the bullet out of the wall that I realized that I was lucky to be alive, let alone uninjured. It was many years before I got my next good night's sleep. I still get the odd stranger-in-the-house nightmare.
In other news, 129 civilians died today in Iraq. No one noticed.
I could have gone to MIT or Stanford, but I chose Virginia Tech because it made me feel at peace. And so the irony of today's events strikes me in the deepest parts of my soul. When life in Los Angeles gets too crazy I have always been able to comfort myself with the thought that there are places like Blacksburg where I could retreat if things get too nutty to bear. And even though I don't think I'd ever actually move back there, just knowing that I could has made LA easier to put up with.
That comfort is gone forever.
I know a little bit of what the people who actually lived through it feel like. In 1991, having lived in LA for three years, I came home to my little house in Glendale to find that the bulb had burned out in the light that we kept on a timer. As I entered the house I could just make out some motion in the darkness out of the corner of my eye. I shouted, as much in fear as in anger, and I saw the muzzle flash as the burglar took a pot-shot at me with his '38 on the way out the window. My first though was, "That can't have been a real gun. It looked and sounded too much like the movies." It wasn't until the police came and dug the bullet out of the wall that I realized that I was lucky to be alive, let alone uninjured. It was many years before I got my next good night's sleep. I still get the odd stranger-in-the-house nightmare.
In other news, 129 civilians died today in Iraq. No one noticed.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The time-travel plot thickens
The other day I read this story about a card-carrying physicist named John Cramer who has come up with an idea that sounds suspiciously like my patent on faster-than-light communications. For the record, I'm pretty sure that it won't work (for reasons described here). But this is still interesting. If Cramer is wrong then I feel vindicated -- a long time ago I submitted the "Quantum mysteries disentangled" paper to the American Journal of Physics. It was rejected on the grounds that, essentialy, "Everyone already knows this." Well, apparently everyone doesn't.
On the other hand, if Cramer is right and I'm wrong then I'm about to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, which would be cool too.
On the other hand, if Cramer is right and I'm wrong then I'm about to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, which would be cool too.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
If she floats she must be a witch
In a nushell: on March 11 a school received a bomb threat and through their phone logs traced the call back to a 15-year-old boy,who was arrested and incarcerated for twelve days despite the fact that the boy's voice sounded nothing like the voice on the tape.
Of course the authorities had forgotten about the early onset of daylight savings time, and the boy had actually called the school an hour before the bomb threat.
Aside from the scary fact that it took twelve days for the authorities to sort this out, the account contains this precious little burn-the-witch moment:
"After he protested his innocence, ... the principal said: 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a [terrorist]. [Terrorist]s lie all the time.' "
All this would be more amusing if we hadn't been doing more or less the same thing on an epic scale for over five years now.
Of course the authorities had forgotten about the early onset of daylight savings time, and the boy had actually called the school an hour before the bomb threat.
Aside from the scary fact that it took twelve days for the authorities to sort this out, the account contains this precious little burn-the-witch moment:
"After he protested his innocence, ... the principal said: 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a [terrorist]. [Terrorist]s lie all the time.' "
All this would be more amusing if we hadn't been doing more or less the same thing on an epic scale for over five years now.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Ron prognosticates: the Dems will cave
I generally subscribe to Carl Sagan's admonition that prophecy is a lost art, but in this case I feel fairly safe in going out on a limb and predicting that in the matter of setting a timetable to get troops out of Iraq, Bush will veto the funding bill with the timeline attached, and then the Democrats will cave and give him the money anyway. They will cave because that is their nature. They have no spines, no courage, no convictions. They are afraid of their own rhetorical shadows. Want to scare a Democrat? Just remember three magic words: Weak. On. Defense.
All of which is quite unfortunate, because the Dem's position is quite strong, and they would almost certainly win this fight simply by saying, "No, we did not refuse to fund the troops. We DID fund the troops, albeit with conditions attached that are supported by the vast majority of the American people. It is the PRESIDENT who chose not to accept those conditions and thereby subject our troops to harm." But they will not say that. They will cave. They will meekly say, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. President. Here's your money, no strings attached. Only please please PLEASE don't call say (shudder!) that we didn't support the troops."
God, I hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. If the Democrats don't even have the balls to issue subpoenas in the attorneygate scandal (authorizing subpoenas and actually issuing them are not the same thing), where are they gong to find the intestinal fortitude to stand their ground when something really meaningful is at stake?
All of which is quite unfortunate, because the Dem's position is quite strong, and they would almost certainly win this fight simply by saying, "No, we did not refuse to fund the troops. We DID fund the troops, albeit with conditions attached that are supported by the vast majority of the American people. It is the PRESIDENT who chose not to accept those conditions and thereby subject our troops to harm." But they will not say that. They will cave. They will meekly say, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. President. Here's your money, no strings attached. Only please please PLEASE don't call say (shudder!) that we didn't support the troops."
God, I hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. If the Democrats don't even have the balls to issue subpoenas in the attorneygate scandal (authorizing subpoenas and actually issuing them are not the same thing), where are they gong to find the intestinal fortitude to stand their ground when something really meaningful is at stake?
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Bee afraid
Forget the housing market collapse, there is a much more serious problem looming: honeybees are dying and no one knows why. The seriousness of the problem can be pithily summed up in one sentence:
“If we don’t figure this out real quick, it’s going to wipe out our food supply.”
Youch.
“If we don’t figure this out real quick, it’s going to wipe out our food supply.”
Youch.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
A joke, eh?
Ann Coulter has responded to those denouncing her calling John Edwards a "faggot" by saying that it was just a joke:
"C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."
Oh? Imagine if Coulter, instead of directing her little "joke" against Edwards had decided to attach Barak Obama instead and said, "I wanted to talk about Barak Obama, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "nigger"..."
Or perhaps, "I wanted to talk about Joe Liberman, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "kike"..."
Yeah, Ann, you're a laugh riot.
"C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."
Oh? Imagine if Coulter, instead of directing her little "joke" against Edwards had decided to attach Barak Obama instead and said, "I wanted to talk about Barak Obama, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "nigger"..."
Or perhaps, "I wanted to talk about Joe Liberman, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "kike"..."
Yeah, Ann, you're a laugh riot.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The price of free speech
My latest reply to Cerebrator's comments to my previous post was getting so long I decided to elevate it to a new post:
previous records of copyright infringement
If YouTube shut down every account that had repeated copyright violations there'd be no content left.
Misrepresenting facts, is simply a defamatory move
Really? Who exactly was being defamed? (For that matter, what facts were being misrepresented? Does the Quran not say the things that Gusburne says it does?)
And the TOU I quoted above was clear about that.
Indeed. The part about misrepresenting facts is completely separate from the part about defamatory material. Furthermore, they don't say that you must not misrepresent facts. (Again, if that were the case and were uniformly enforced there would be no content left.) They say that you must not "publish falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage YouTube or any third party."
So which is it? Is Gisburne being suspended for copyright violation? (And if so, why aren't all the other copyright violators being suspended right along with him?) Or is it because of defamation (in which case, who exactly has he defamed)? Or is it because of "falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage YouTube or any third party" (in which case how exactly could YouTube or a third party be damaged)?
The fact of the matter is that Gisburne was suspended not because what he published was defamatory or because it misrepresented facts, but because it was offensive (and particularly because it was offensive to muslims some of whom are notorious for using offense as an excuse for engaging in uncivilized behavior). For further evidence, note that Gisburne's video describing his account deletion has also been removed for alleged terms-of-use violations. It had no background music and no offensive quotes, so what is the excuse this time? This is capricious censorship pure and simple.
The problem with censoring speech for being offensive is that free speech, indeed all freedom, means nothing if not the freedom to say (and do) things that offend people. The "freedom" to say (and do) only those things that offend no one is not freedom at all. I am getting sick and tired of all this pandering to people's frail sensitivities. In a free country, the proper response to people who complain about being offended is to say, "Tough. That is the price of freedom. Deal with it."
As long as I'm on the topic let me say a few words about the elephant in the living room: Gisburne is not being silenced merely because his video is offensive. YouTube is chock-a-block with offensive videos (and that is a good thing). No, Gisburne is being silenced because his video is offensive to Muslims and the folks at YouTube are afraid of offending Muslims. And this fear is not without foundation. Some Muslims (a minority to be sure, but enough to matter) respond to being offended by engaging in various forms of uncivilized behavior. They riot in the streets. They fly airplanes into buildings. They kidnap people and chop their heads off. And Muslims engage in these behaviors on a scale that dwarfs any other identifiable group. Christians may bomb the odd abortion clinic, but they haven't engaged in the kind of wholesale slaughter that Muslims regularly undulge in nowadays for a long, long time. The Scientologist engage in all manner of unsavory practices against those they consider "fair game", but they have not to my knowledge ever actually killed someone. And the idea of a Buddhist terrorist is so absurd it could be the basis of a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Silencing people for saying offensive things is wrong even if they are so offensive as to move some people to violence. It is wrong because it sacrifices freedom for the illusion of security. Silencing critics of Islam doesn't quell violence, it rewards violence and thus encourages more violence.
Do my words offend you? Tough. That is the price of freedom. Deal with it.
previous records of copyright infringement
If YouTube shut down every account that had repeated copyright violations there'd be no content left.
Misrepresenting facts, is simply a defamatory move
Really? Who exactly was being defamed? (For that matter, what facts were being misrepresented? Does the Quran not say the things that Gusburne says it does?)
And the TOU I quoted above was clear about that.
Indeed. The part about misrepresenting facts is completely separate from the part about defamatory material. Furthermore, they don't say that you must not misrepresent facts. (Again, if that were the case and were uniformly enforced there would be no content left.) They say that you must not "publish falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage YouTube or any third party."
So which is it? Is Gisburne being suspended for copyright violation? (And if so, why aren't all the other copyright violators being suspended right along with him?) Or is it because of defamation (in which case, who exactly has he defamed)? Or is it because of "falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage YouTube or any third party" (in which case how exactly could YouTube or a third party be damaged)?
The fact of the matter is that Gisburne was suspended not because what he published was defamatory or because it misrepresented facts, but because it was offensive (and particularly because it was offensive to muslims some of whom are notorious for using offense as an excuse for engaging in uncivilized behavior). For further evidence, note that Gisburne's video describing his account deletion has also been removed for alleged terms-of-use violations. It had no background music and no offensive quotes, so what is the excuse this time? This is capricious censorship pure and simple.
The problem with censoring speech for being offensive is that free speech, indeed all freedom, means nothing if not the freedom to say (and do) things that offend people. The "freedom" to say (and do) only those things that offend no one is not freedom at all. I am getting sick and tired of all this pandering to people's frail sensitivities. In a free country, the proper response to people who complain about being offended is to say, "Tough. That is the price of freedom. Deal with it."
As long as I'm on the topic let me say a few words about the elephant in the living room: Gisburne is not being silenced merely because his video is offensive. YouTube is chock-a-block with offensive videos (and that is a good thing). No, Gisburne is being silenced because his video is offensive to Muslims and the folks at YouTube are afraid of offending Muslims. And this fear is not without foundation. Some Muslims (a minority to be sure, but enough to matter) respond to being offended by engaging in various forms of uncivilized behavior. They riot in the streets. They fly airplanes into buildings. They kidnap people and chop their heads off. And Muslims engage in these behaviors on a scale that dwarfs any other identifiable group. Christians may bomb the odd abortion clinic, but they haven't engaged in the kind of wholesale slaughter that Muslims regularly undulge in nowadays for a long, long time. The Scientologist engage in all manner of unsavory practices against those they consider "fair game", but they have not to my knowledge ever actually killed someone. And the idea of a Buddhist terrorist is so absurd it could be the basis of a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Silencing people for saying offensive things is wrong even if they are so offensive as to move some people to violence. It is wrong because it sacrifices freedom for the illusion of security. Silencing critics of Islam doesn't quell violence, it rewards violence and thus encourages more violence.
Do my words offend you? Tough. That is the price of freedom. Deal with it.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Protest YouTube suppression of free speech
Reddit today led me to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRPVsamLaKk
This video is by a fellow named Nick Gisburne. His account was deleted for posting another video that was nothing but a slide show of quotations from the Quran. (That video has since been reposted by at least a dozen other people so it's easy to find.)
This really bothers me for four reasons. First, to deem quotations from a holy text to be "inappropriate content" is outrageous on its face. Second, Gisburne was given no warning. Third, YouTube didn't just delete the video in question, they deleted Gisburne's entire account. And fourth, this makes a mockery of Google's "don't be evil" slogan. There can be no possible reason for this action other than caving to intimidation, and sanctimonious cowardice in the face of oppression is a particularly pernicious breed of evil.
If you share my outrage I urge you to contact YouTube and let them know how you feel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRPVsamLaKk
This video is by a fellow named Nick Gisburne. His account was deleted for posting another video that was nothing but a slide show of quotations from the Quran. (That video has since been reposted by at least a dozen other people so it's easy to find.)
This really bothers me for four reasons. First, to deem quotations from a holy text to be "inappropriate content" is outrageous on its face. Second, Gisburne was given no warning. Third, YouTube didn't just delete the video in question, they deleted Gisburne's entire account. And fourth, this makes a mockery of Google's "don't be evil" slogan. There can be no possible reason for this action other than caving to intimidation, and sanctimonious cowardice in the face of oppression is a particularly pernicious breed of evil.
If you share my outrage I urge you to contact YouTube and let them know how you feel.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The mind works in mysterious ways
I just a truly surreal experience. It actually started a month ago, when I was in Portland, Oregon for the holidays. I had just driven from Portland to Seattle for a day trip to do some interviews for the film. I got back to Portland at about 9 PM, just in time to catch my family finished dessert at a downtown restaurant. Because I still had my car I ended up driving back home by myself. I was listening to the radio and they started playing a song that struck me as a perfect addition to the soundtrack for the film. I was just rolling up to the house as the song was winding up. I had the volume cranked up loud, and my wife and her sister heard the last bars of the song. I mentioned to them that I thought the song would be good for the film, and they both agreed.
A few days later we were back home and I found that I had totally forgotten what the song was, and so had my wife and her sister. I called up the radio station and asked them to run down the playlist at the time which they very graciously agreed to do, but none of the songs that were on the air around the time I was driving home seemed to be the one I was looking for.
I figured that song was gone forever.
Then today as I was waling my dog (funny how so many of the key events in this saga seem to be connected to my dog) a little snippet of melody suddenly popped into my head, just half a dozen notes, but somehow I knew that this was part of the long-lost song. I kept humming that little bit of tune to myself over and over again, and slowly enough of the song reassembled itself in my brain that I was able to recall a bit of the lyrics, which let me look it up on Google, which led me to iTunes, which led me to... 'Question" by the Moody Blues!
I'm looking for someone to change my life
I'm looking for a miracle in my life
That was it! It also explained why I didn't recognize the song when I was going through the playlist. "Question" is almost like two songs in one, a hard-rock intro and a soft ballady ending. I remembered that the song was a ballad, and so when I heard the hard intro I thought that couldn't be it and moved on.
Funny how the mind works.
Now, if I could just find the sunglasses I lost in Las Vegas over the weekend...
A few days later we were back home and I found that I had totally forgotten what the song was, and so had my wife and her sister. I called up the radio station and asked them to run down the playlist at the time which they very graciously agreed to do, but none of the songs that were on the air around the time I was driving home seemed to be the one I was looking for.
I figured that song was gone forever.
Then today as I was waling my dog (funny how so many of the key events in this saga seem to be connected to my dog) a little snippet of melody suddenly popped into my head, just half a dozen notes, but somehow I knew that this was part of the long-lost song. I kept humming that little bit of tune to myself over and over again, and slowly enough of the song reassembled itself in my brain that I was able to recall a bit of the lyrics, which let me look it up on Google, which led me to iTunes, which led me to... 'Question" by the Moody Blues!
I'm looking for someone to change my life
I'm looking for a miracle in my life
That was it! It also explained why I didn't recognize the song when I was going through the playlist. "Question" is almost like two songs in one, a hard-rock intro and a soft ballady ending. I remembered that the song was a ballad, and so when I heard the hard intro I thought that couldn't be it and moved on.
Funny how the mind works.
Now, if I could just find the sunglasses I lost in Las Vegas over the weekend...
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Spare change
Ran across this old poem I wrote many years ago. Seems kind of apropos given that I'm making a film about homeless people.
---
SPARE CHANGE
(Copyright (c) by Ron Garret, all rights reserved)
The man says, "Got any spare change, mister?"
Now as it happens I do have spare change.
There are seventy-seven cents in my coat pocket.
I know because I just bought myself a Snickers bar
And paid with one of three crisp dollar bills
That were up against the fives
That were up against the twenties
That came from the magic money machine.
The man looks at me with burning, sunken eyes
That look as if they saw one day too many on the street
About a year ago.
The hair that once was golden
Now is black and stringy, greasy
The hand that holds the broken paper cup
Is sun-dried leather
The clothes that hang like flying-dutchman sails
From bony shoulders
Are as dirty as the street they know so well.
Poverty makes strange bedfellows.
"Got any spare change, mister?"
The man does not repeat himself.
The paper cup speaks for him.
The paper cup, the hands, the hair, the eyes
Peer through my stoic facade and into my coat pocket
At seventy-seven cents.
The eyes gaze at me with a longing and desperation
That I have never known for anything
At seventy-seven cents.
Response comes thick and fast and automatic:
My mouth says, "Sorry, no."
My head bows in regret
My legs pick up the pace
And I walk briskly away
As if only the urgency of my business prevents me
From acting on my true nature
And giving him my seventy-seven cents
And asking his name
And shaking his hand
And offering him a meal and a bed and a shower.
As I walk away I think of a thousand good reasons
Why I'm doing the right thing.
Funny, though, none of them really sound convincing.
But they are enough
To keep me from turning around
And going back.
---
SPARE CHANGE
(Copyright (c) by Ron Garret, all rights reserved)
The man says, "Got any spare change, mister?"
Now as it happens I do have spare change.
There are seventy-seven cents in my coat pocket.
I know because I just bought myself a Snickers bar
And paid with one of three crisp dollar bills
That were up against the fives
That were up against the twenties
That came from the magic money machine.
The man looks at me with burning, sunken eyes
That look as if they saw one day too many on the street
About a year ago.
The hair that once was golden
Now is black and stringy, greasy
The hand that holds the broken paper cup
Is sun-dried leather
The clothes that hang like flying-dutchman sails
From bony shoulders
Are as dirty as the street they know so well.
Poverty makes strange bedfellows.
"Got any spare change, mister?"
The man does not repeat himself.
The paper cup speaks for him.
The paper cup, the hands, the hair, the eyes
Peer through my stoic facade and into my coat pocket
At seventy-seven cents.
The eyes gaze at me with a longing and desperation
That I have never known for anything
At seventy-seven cents.
Response comes thick and fast and automatic:
My mouth says, "Sorry, no."
My head bows in regret
My legs pick up the pace
And I walk briskly away
As if only the urgency of my business prevents me
From acting on my true nature
And giving him my seventy-seven cents
And asking his name
And shaking his hand
And offering him a meal and a bed and a shower.
As I walk away I think of a thousand good reasons
Why I'm doing the right thing.
Funny, though, none of them really sound convincing.
But they are enough
To keep me from turning around
And going back.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Gald you noticed
I'm glad that someone besides me is starting to recognize that Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil is turning out to be disturbingly prophetic.
Monday, January 08, 2007
America is no longer a free country
Wow, I really thought (hoped) this would go the other way. The Supreme Court today refused to hear a challenge to a law that requires people to show ID when travelling. Why is this significant? This "law" is not actually on the books. It was never passed by Congress. It is a secret law, the very antithesis of free and open democracy. By refusing to hear this appeal the Supreme Court effectively sanctioned the transformation of the U.S. into a totalitarian state.
Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper:Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
-- Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
We have cut down the law to get at the devil. Heaven help us now, for the law surely will not.
Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper:Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
-- Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
We have cut down the law to get at the devil. Heaven help us now, for the law surely will not.
This seems like the right answer
Much as it surprises me to say this, it looks like Chevrolet has found the right answer for the car of the future. It's called the Volt, and it's a hybrid but with a design tilted more towards an electric car than a gas-powered one. Basically, the gas tank is there to provide range when needed, while short trips (up to 40 miles) run on batteries. It also doesn't look nearly as goofy as previous hybrids/electrics, though it's not quite as cool-looking as the Tesla roadster.
I sure hope Chevy can make a go of this. I hate watching the U.S. auto industry go under.
I sure hope Chevy can make a go of this. I hate watching the U.S. auto industry go under.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Why I bash Libertarians
[NOTE: I originally started writing this last December.]
Reddit this morning led me to a book by Henry Hazlitt presumptuously entitled Economics in One Lesson. And since rounding out my collection of articles on why everyone but me is wrong about everything seems like as good a way as any to sign off this disastrous year I thought I'd take a swipe at the Libertarians and critique Hazlitt.
Hazlitt's argument is seductively self-evident: any argument for government intervention in the free market is wrong because it focuses myopically on the benefciaries of that policy while ignoring the (invariably far more numerous) victims. According to Hazlitt, "Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man" because of:
"... the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.
I decided to pick on Hazlitt because he himself suffers from the very same myopia which he credits as the source of so many economic fallacies. It is an instructive exercise to read Hazlitt even if only to see whether you can see past his critiques of what other people have overlooked and figure out what he himself has overlooked. It is easy to get caught up in the fun of demolishing other people's arguments, even if many of them are just straw men, and so miss the fact that you are being snookered. Go on, give it a go. I'll wait.
Did you figure it out?
Identifying Hazlitt's myopia is challenging because most of his arguments are actually correct. Government intervention in free markets usually does lead to all manner of negative consequences. Unfettered capitalism really does lead to increased productivity and societal wealth. Minimum wage legislation really does increase unemployment. And so on and so on. So what's the problem?
Hazlitt himself leads the reader half-way there:
Our study of our lesson would not be complete if, before we took leave of it, we neglected to observe that the fundamental fallacy with which we have been concerned arises not accidentally but systematically. It is an almost inevitable result, in fact, of the division of labor.
In a primitive community, or among pioneers, before the division of labor has arisen, a man works solely for himself or his immediate family. What he consumes is identical with what he produces. There is always a direct and immediate connection between his output and his satisfactions.
But when an elaborate and minute division of labor has set in, this direct and immediate connection ceases to exist. I do not make all the things I consume but, perhaps, only one of them. With the income I derive from making this one commodity, or rendering this one service, I buy all the rest. I wish the price of everything I buy to be low, but it is in my interest for the price of the commodity or services that I have to sell to be high. Therefore, though I wish to see abundance in everything else, it is in my interest for scarcity to exist in the very thing that it is my business to supply. The greater the scarcity, compared to everything else, in this one thing that I supply, the higher will be the reward that I can get for my efforts.
(Emphasis added.)
Hazlitt continues:
Just as there is no technical improvement that would not hurt someone, so there is no change in public taste or morals, even for the better, that would not hurt someone. An increase in sobriety would put thousands of bartenders out of business. A decline in gambling would force croupiers and racing touts to seek more productive occupations. A growth of male chastity would ruin the oldest profession in the world.
But it is not merely those who deliberately pander to men's vices who would be hurt by a sudden improvement in public morals. Among those who would be hurt most are precisely those whose business it is to improve those morals. Preachers would have less to complain about; reformers would lose their causes; the demand for their services and contributions for their support would decline.
If there were no criminals we should need fewer lawyers, judges and firemen, and no jailers, no locksmiths, and (except for such services as untangling traffic snarls) even no policemen.
Under a system of division of labor, in short, it is difficult to think of a greater fulfillment of any human need which would not, at least temporarily, hurt some of the people who have made investments or painfully acquired skill to meet that precise need.
Now it is often not the diffused gain of the increased supply or new discovery that most forcibly strikes even the disinterested observer, but the concentrated loss. The fact that there is more and cheaper coffee for everyone is lost sight of; what is seen is merely that some coffee growers cannot make a living at the lower price. The increased output of shoes at lower cost by the new machine is forgotten; what is seen is a group of men and women thrown out of work. It is altogether proper—it is, in fact, essential to a full understanding of the problem—that the plight of these groups be recognized, that they be dealt with sympathetically, and that we try to see whether some of the gains from this specialized progress cannot be used to help the victims find a productive role elsewhere.
So far so good. Here is where he goes off the rails:
But the solution is never to reduce supplies arbitrarily, to prevent further inventions or discoveries, or to support people for continuing to perform a service that has lost its value.
Really? Why not? On this point Hazlitt is silent. He simply takes it as axiomatic that the more goods and services are being produced the better off the world is. He sees only the forest and misses the trees. And, unfortunately, in this case the trees are people. To someone on the street with no money and no marketable skills it matters not a whit if economic progress has produced cheaper coffee (Hazlitt's example), he still can't afford to buy a cup. Disposing of excess buggy whip makers is a much thornier problem than disposing of excess buggy whips. But Libertarians try to pretend that these are structurally comparable issues.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. There are lots of things you can do with buggy whips that you can't so easily do with human beings. You can put buggy whips in warehouses or landfills, but you can't do that with buggy whip makers, at least not in a civil society.
The Liberatarian answer is that when buggy whips become obsolete the buggy whip makers should find something new to do. But this is not always so easy. A fifty year old who has spent his whole life making buggy whips might not have such an easy time learning a new trade, particularly in a world where productive occupations often require decades of training.
The fundamental problem with Liberatarian economics is that there is a positive-feedback effect that tends to put capital in the hands of those who need it the least. This gives those lucky few the leverage to effectively turn everyone else into indentured servants who have to work their entire lives to pay off their debts. Or, even worse, it lets some people slip through the cracks even if they are ready, willing and able to be productive simply because they don't have the capital to find a market for their services (a.k.a. a job).
Certainly in the aggregate the world is better off if we can simply take excess people and, like excess buggy whips, warehouse them or discard them or otherwise turn them into somebody else's problem. But is that really a better world? I think not.
Finding the right quality metric for an economy is not easy, and Ron's First Law applies: all extreme positions are wrong, which in this case means that all facile positions are wrong. The Right wants to increase the average while the Left wants to decrease the variance. Those extremes lead to lassez-faire capitalism and Marxist communism, both of which the world has rightly decided are pretty bad ideas.
The right answer is some sort of engineering compromise: free markets encourage innovation and increase productivity and standards of living, but then I also think there ought to be some government intervention to recycle some of the capital from the top back to the bottom to prevent people from falling into abject poverty and despair. Yes, it's inefficient. Efficiency needs to be tempered with (but not sacrificed to) compassion.
Reddit this morning led me to a book by Henry Hazlitt presumptuously entitled Economics in One Lesson. And since rounding out my collection of articles on why everyone but me is wrong about everything seems like as good a way as any to sign off this disastrous year I thought I'd take a swipe at the Libertarians and critique Hazlitt.
Hazlitt's argument is seductively self-evident: any argument for government intervention in the free market is wrong because it focuses myopically on the benefciaries of that policy while ignoring the (invariably far more numerous) victims. According to Hazlitt, "Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man" because of:
"... the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.
I decided to pick on Hazlitt because he himself suffers from the very same myopia which he credits as the source of so many economic fallacies. It is an instructive exercise to read Hazlitt even if only to see whether you can see past his critiques of what other people have overlooked and figure out what he himself has overlooked. It is easy to get caught up in the fun of demolishing other people's arguments, even if many of them are just straw men, and so miss the fact that you are being snookered. Go on, give it a go. I'll wait.
Did you figure it out?
Identifying Hazlitt's myopia is challenging because most of his arguments are actually correct. Government intervention in free markets usually does lead to all manner of negative consequences. Unfettered capitalism really does lead to increased productivity and societal wealth. Minimum wage legislation really does increase unemployment. And so on and so on. So what's the problem?
Hazlitt himself leads the reader half-way there:
Our study of our lesson would not be complete if, before we took leave of it, we neglected to observe that the fundamental fallacy with which we have been concerned arises not accidentally but systematically. It is an almost inevitable result, in fact, of the division of labor.
In a primitive community, or among pioneers, before the division of labor has arisen, a man works solely for himself or his immediate family. What he consumes is identical with what he produces. There is always a direct and immediate connection between his output and his satisfactions.
But when an elaborate and minute division of labor has set in, this direct and immediate connection ceases to exist. I do not make all the things I consume but, perhaps, only one of them. With the income I derive from making this one commodity, or rendering this one service, I buy all the rest. I wish the price of everything I buy to be low, but it is in my interest for the price of the commodity or services that I have to sell to be high. Therefore, though I wish to see abundance in everything else, it is in my interest for scarcity to exist in the very thing that it is my business to supply. The greater the scarcity, compared to everything else, in this one thing that I supply, the higher will be the reward that I can get for my efforts.
(Emphasis added.)
Hazlitt continues:
Just as there is no technical improvement that would not hurt someone, so there is no change in public taste or morals, even for the better, that would not hurt someone. An increase in sobriety would put thousands of bartenders out of business. A decline in gambling would force croupiers and racing touts to seek more productive occupations. A growth of male chastity would ruin the oldest profession in the world.
But it is not merely those who deliberately pander to men's vices who would be hurt by a sudden improvement in public morals. Among those who would be hurt most are precisely those whose business it is to improve those morals. Preachers would have less to complain about; reformers would lose their causes; the demand for their services and contributions for their support would decline.
If there were no criminals we should need fewer lawyers, judges and firemen, and no jailers, no locksmiths, and (except for such services as untangling traffic snarls) even no policemen.
Under a system of division of labor, in short, it is difficult to think of a greater fulfillment of any human need which would not, at least temporarily, hurt some of the people who have made investments or painfully acquired skill to meet that precise need.
Now it is often not the diffused gain of the increased supply or new discovery that most forcibly strikes even the disinterested observer, but the concentrated loss. The fact that there is more and cheaper coffee for everyone is lost sight of; what is seen is merely that some coffee growers cannot make a living at the lower price. The increased output of shoes at lower cost by the new machine is forgotten; what is seen is a group of men and women thrown out of work. It is altogether proper—it is, in fact, essential to a full understanding of the problem—that the plight of these groups be recognized, that they be dealt with sympathetically, and that we try to see whether some of the gains from this specialized progress cannot be used to help the victims find a productive role elsewhere.
So far so good. Here is where he goes off the rails:
But the solution is never to reduce supplies arbitrarily, to prevent further inventions or discoveries, or to support people for continuing to perform a service that has lost its value.
Really? Why not? On this point Hazlitt is silent. He simply takes it as axiomatic that the more goods and services are being produced the better off the world is. He sees only the forest and misses the trees. And, unfortunately, in this case the trees are people. To someone on the street with no money and no marketable skills it matters not a whit if economic progress has produced cheaper coffee (Hazlitt's example), he still can't afford to buy a cup. Disposing of excess buggy whip makers is a much thornier problem than disposing of excess buggy whips. But Libertarians try to pretend that these are structurally comparable issues.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. There are lots of things you can do with buggy whips that you can't so easily do with human beings. You can put buggy whips in warehouses or landfills, but you can't do that with buggy whip makers, at least not in a civil society.
The Liberatarian answer is that when buggy whips become obsolete the buggy whip makers should find something new to do. But this is not always so easy. A fifty year old who has spent his whole life making buggy whips might not have such an easy time learning a new trade, particularly in a world where productive occupations often require decades of training.
The fundamental problem with Liberatarian economics is that there is a positive-feedback effect that tends to put capital in the hands of those who need it the least. This gives those lucky few the leverage to effectively turn everyone else into indentured servants who have to work their entire lives to pay off their debts. Or, even worse, it lets some people slip through the cracks even if they are ready, willing and able to be productive simply because they don't have the capital to find a market for their services (a.k.a. a job).
Certainly in the aggregate the world is better off if we can simply take excess people and, like excess buggy whips, warehouse them or discard them or otherwise turn them into somebody else's problem. But is that really a better world? I think not.
Finding the right quality metric for an economy is not easy, and Ron's First Law applies: all extreme positions are wrong, which in this case means that all facile positions are wrong. The Right wants to increase the average while the Left wants to decrease the variance. Those extremes lead to lassez-faire capitalism and Marxist communism, both of which the world has rightly decided are pretty bad ideas.
The right answer is some sort of engineering compromise: free markets encourage innovation and increase productivity and standards of living, but then I also think there ought to be some government intervention to recycle some of the capital from the top back to the bottom to prevent people from falling into abject poverty and despair. Yes, it's inefficient. Efficiency needs to be tempered with (but not sacrificed to) compassion.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Imagine that
I am shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that a security flaw has been found in Microsoft's new Vista operating system.
Also, Peter Gutman's detailed analysis of Vista's inherent design flaws is getting a lot of attention. Could Vista be the beginning of the end for Microsoft? The Zune disaster doesn't seem to have made much of a dent. But maybe the new year will bring with it a ray of hope that the world will at long last throw off the Microsoft yoke.
But I wouldn't bet my life savings on it.
Also, Peter Gutman's detailed analysis of Vista's inherent design flaws is getting a lot of attention. Could Vista be the beginning of the end for Microsoft? The Zune disaster doesn't seem to have made much of a dent. But maybe the new year will bring with it a ray of hope that the world will at long last throw off the Microsoft yoke.
But I wouldn't bet my life savings on it.
Friday, December 22, 2006
I'm going to have nightmares for weeks
I stopped eating foie gras a long time ago (along with veal) because I heard descriptions of how the stuff is produced. But nothing prepared me to actually see it with my own eyes.
Be warned: if you care for animals at all you will find this video very, very disturbing.
Be warned: if you care for animals at all you will find this video very, very disturbing.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
At least we know he won't hijack the plane
Just when you thought that airport security couldn't get any weirder the LA Times reports:
A woman going through security at Los Angeles International Airport put her month-old grandson into a plastic bin intended for carry-on items and slid it into an X-ray machine.
A woman going through security at Los Angeles International Airport put her month-old grandson into a plastic bin intended for carry-on items and slid it into an X-ray machine.
Friday, December 15, 2006
An interesting experiment
The balance of power in the Senate now hangs on the health of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson, who would almost certainly be replaced by a Republican if he should become unable to serve.
Interestingly, South Dakota law only allows Johnson to be replaced if he actually dies. As long as he's alive it doesn't matter that he can't perform his duties. The presumption is that he will recover eventually, so he can't be replaced. Which makes me wonder: if Johnson were in a persistent vegitative state, would the Republicans be as eager to insist that he be kept alive as they were in the case of Terry Schiavo?
Not that I hope we ever get a chance to actually do that experiment. I'm pretty sure I know what the outcome would be.
Interestingly, South Dakota law only allows Johnson to be replaced if he actually dies. As long as he's alive it doesn't matter that he can't perform his duties. The presumption is that he will recover eventually, so he can't be replaced. Which makes me wonder: if Johnson were in a persistent vegitative state, would the Republicans be as eager to insist that he be kept alive as they were in the case of Terry Schiavo?
Not that I hope we ever get a chance to actually do that experiment. I'm pretty sure I know what the outcome would be.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Proof that God is a Republican
Democratic Senator Tim Johnson has apparently suffered a stroke which will probably result in the balance of power in the Senate shifting back to the Republicans.
Although I intended the title of this post to be darkly humorous, there is no doubt in my mind that millions of Americans see the Right Hand of God at work here.
UPDATE: The LA Times is reporting that Johnson did not suffer a stroke after all.
So this brings to mind a very strange thing that happened to me the other day. I was having dinner in a restaurant with some friends and we had just polished off a very nice bottle of Riesling and were starting on a 2004 Seghesio Old Vines Zin when I suddenly started feeling woozy. Long story short: I passed out, my wife thought I was having a siezure, and they ended up hauling me away in an ambulance. They ran a full battery of tests on me, including a CAT scan and a tox screen, and found absolutely nothing wrong. Even my blood alchohol came back as 0.000! (That's a trick I need to learn how to repeat!)
Fast forward two weeks. We're at Thanksgiving dinner. My wife has two martinis, which usually doesn't even register, and she starts to feel green around the gills! She ended up losing her lunch and spending four hours conked out in our host's guest room while we chowed down on turkey.
Maybe there's a bug going around that makes people pass out? If so then Johnson's prognosis is good. Neither I nor my wife have had any relapses.
Although I intended the title of this post to be darkly humorous, there is no doubt in my mind that millions of Americans see the Right Hand of God at work here.
UPDATE: The LA Times is reporting that Johnson did not suffer a stroke after all.
So this brings to mind a very strange thing that happened to me the other day. I was having dinner in a restaurant with some friends and we had just polished off a very nice bottle of Riesling and were starting on a 2004 Seghesio Old Vines Zin when I suddenly started feeling woozy. Long story short: I passed out, my wife thought I was having a siezure, and they ended up hauling me away in an ambulance. They ran a full battery of tests on me, including a CAT scan and a tox screen, and found absolutely nothing wrong. Even my blood alchohol came back as 0.000! (That's a trick I need to learn how to repeat!)
Fast forward two weeks. We're at Thanksgiving dinner. My wife has two martinis, which usually doesn't even register, and she starts to feel green around the gills! She ended up losing her lunch and spending four hours conked out in our host's guest room while we chowed down on turkey.
Maybe there's a bug going around that makes people pass out? If so then Johnson's prognosis is good. Neither I nor my wife have had any relapses.
DNS attacks do happen
Reddit is down. Not the site itself (as far as I know) but their DNS servers, which are hosted at name-services.com. That site is now full of adwords spam. It's probably been hacked, and any site that used them for DNS service is effectively off the air.
It's odd how addicted to Reddit I have apparently become. I keep hitting reload in the vain hope that the problem will fix itself even though I know it will almost certainly be hours or days. Ironically, reddit itself is almost certainly still up, but there's no way to get to it without knowing its IP address, and the only way to find that out (unless you happen to have a cached copy or wrote it down on a post-it) is, in reddit's case, to get it from name-services.com.
I should look into getting some backup name servers for my own domains. But I probably won't.
UPDATE: Shimon Rura points out that every cloud has a silver lining.
It's odd how addicted to Reddit I have apparently become. I keep hitting reload in the vain hope that the problem will fix itself even though I know it will almost certainly be hours or days. Ironically, reddit itself is almost certainly still up, but there's no way to get to it without knowing its IP address, and the only way to find that out (unless you happen to have a cached copy or wrote it down on a post-it) is, in reddit's case, to get it from name-services.com.
I should look into getting some backup name servers for my own domains. But I probably won't.
UPDATE: Shimon Rura points out that every cloud has a silver lining.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Fuck you, John McCain
John McCain wants to extend Federal anti-obscenity laws to blogs. To which I say: Senator McCain, with all due respect (which apparently isn't very much): fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Better yet, fuck you with the horse you rode in on. What part of "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press" do you not understand?
Monday, December 11, 2006
And liberals wonder why no one takes them seriously
I decided to wander over to the Huffungton Post this morning just to see what was going on. The very first sentence of actual text on the front page was from a blog entry by Nora Ephron:
"I met Condoleezza Rice last weekend. She was much prettier than I thought she was going to be."
It gets better (or worse depending on your point of view):
Condi was the hostess of the dinner, and she stood up to speak about each of the honorees. She was completely competent. She was, however, not at all funny. She tried to be, but she wasn't.
I wonder how Nora would feel if the shoe were on the other foot:
I read a blog entry by Nora Ephron today. Her picture was so tiny that I couldn't tell if she was good looking or not. I think she might have been trying to be funny, but I really couldn't tell. I guess that means she's not a very good writer. Maybe she should stick to hosting dinner parties, at which she professes to be an expert."
"I met Condoleezza Rice last weekend. She was much prettier than I thought she was going to be."
It gets better (or worse depending on your point of view):
Condi was the hostess of the dinner, and she stood up to speak about each of the honorees. She was completely competent. She was, however, not at all funny. She tried to be, but she wasn't.
I wonder how Nora would feel if the shoe were on the other foot:
I read a blog entry by Nora Ephron today. Her picture was so tiny that I couldn't tell if she was good looking or not. I think she might have been trying to be funny, but I really couldn't tell. I guess that means she's not a very good writer. Maybe she should stick to hosting dinner parties, at which she professes to be an expert."
Friday, November 24, 2006
Truth and reconciliation
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Confessions don't start with the word "if"
God help me, I cannot believe I am actually writing about O.J. Simpson, but the number of people taking seriously the proposition that his book ought to see the light of day because it's a confession really steams my clams. Hello! Earth to Timothy Noah! Confessions don't start with the word "if". If O.J. waned to confess he'd go to the police and say, "I killed them. I'm terribly sorry. Lock me up." Or at the very least he'd start to pay the civil judgement he owes to the Goldman family. But "If I did it" is no confession, it is twisting the knife. It is a spoiled narcissistic scum-sucking murdering brat whining about the fact that no one pays any attention to him any more. "Hello," O.J. is saying, "I got away with murder, remember? Everyone pay attention to MEEEEEEE!" It's a scene more suitable to an episode of South Park than to real life. Anyone who treats this animal or anything that he says or writes with anything other than unmitigated contempt ought to be ashamed of themselves. That is, until he drops the "if".
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
I've found my spiritual home
So here I am writing all these rants lamenting what a jerk Richard Dawkins is when this falls in my lap. It took me less than half an hour to see the light: I am a Realist! Halelujah!
Seriously, I think this guy has a much better approach to spreading the Word than Dawkins does. Joining the Church of Realism also comes with fringe benefits.
Holy crap, this guy is prolific. And some of his writings are real eye-openers. I'm gonna be up half the night.
Seriously, I think this guy has a much better approach to spreading the Word than Dawkins does. Joining the Church of Realism also comes with fringe benefits.
Holy crap, this guy is prolific. And some of his writings are real eye-openers. I'm gonna be up half the night.
Monday, November 20, 2006
What's so great about evidence?
Right on cue Richard Dawkins answers the charge of being an atheist fundamentalist :
"Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a very different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn't happen with holy books."
To which I respond: What's so great about evidence? Is not your belief that evidence is a reliable guide to Truth just a matter of faith?
I can only imagine how Dawkins would respond to that, but there is only one answer that I can think of so I'll argue with myself and say: the difference between evidence and faith is that the holy books are mutually and internally contradictory, and there is no principled way of resolving those contradictions. Scientific evidence, by contrast, is consistent and independently reproducible, and therefore everyone at least agrees on what the evidence is even if they might differ from time to time about the implications.
The problem with this is, interestingly, a manifestation of the Universal Asymmetry that I pointed out in my last post on this topic. Dawkins may have come to his beliefs by studying "the evidence" but very few people have this luxury. The vast majority of the people in the world do not have direct access to "the evidence." At best they have access to books written by people (scientists) with access to the evidence. And the vast majority of such books are written specifically to be inaccessible to the layman. (To be fair, many of Dawkins' own books are notable exceptions to this rule.) Take me, for example. I believe in evolution, but not because I have actually studied the evidence. I don't have time for that. I believe in evolution becuase it makes sense to me. And people who believe, say, that Christ died for their sins, believe that for the same reason: because it makes sense to them.
Make no mistake: I absolutely believe that those who deny evolution are wrong. The difference between me and Dawkins that I understand how someone might reasonably come to a different conclusion and Dawkins doesn't. He believes despite evidence to the contrary that all non-scientific worldviews are unreasonable. They are not. They just start with different premises and life experiences. Until Dawkins and his ilk come to understand and accept this (and adjust their rhetoric accordingly) I predict they will make little progress towards their stated goals.
P.S. It is not true, as Dawkins claims, that there is are no corrective processes in religion. The text of the holy books may not change often (although it does happen) but the interpretation of the holy books is in constant flux, just as the interpretation of scientific evidence is.
"Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a very different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn't happen with holy books."
To which I respond: What's so great about evidence? Is not your belief that evidence is a reliable guide to Truth just a matter of faith?
I can only imagine how Dawkins would respond to that, but there is only one answer that I can think of so I'll argue with myself and say: the difference between evidence and faith is that the holy books are mutually and internally contradictory, and there is no principled way of resolving those contradictions. Scientific evidence, by contrast, is consistent and independently reproducible, and therefore everyone at least agrees on what the evidence is even if they might differ from time to time about the implications.
The problem with this is, interestingly, a manifestation of the Universal Asymmetry that I pointed out in my last post on this topic. Dawkins may have come to his beliefs by studying "the evidence" but very few people have this luxury. The vast majority of the people in the world do not have direct access to "the evidence." At best they have access to books written by people (scientists) with access to the evidence. And the vast majority of such books are written specifically to be inaccessible to the layman. (To be fair, many of Dawkins' own books are notable exceptions to this rule.) Take me, for example. I believe in evolution, but not because I have actually studied the evidence. I don't have time for that. I believe in evolution becuase it makes sense to me. And people who believe, say, that Christ died for their sins, believe that for the same reason: because it makes sense to them.
Make no mistake: I absolutely believe that those who deny evolution are wrong. The difference between me and Dawkins that I understand how someone might reasonably come to a different conclusion and Dawkins doesn't. He believes despite evidence to the contrary that all non-scientific worldviews are unreasonable. They are not. They just start with different premises and life experiences. Until Dawkins and his ilk come to understand and accept this (and adjust their rhetoric accordingly) I predict they will make little progress towards their stated goals.
P.S. It is not true, as Dawkins claims, that there is are no corrective processes in religion. The text of the holy books may not change often (although it does happen) but the interpretation of the holy books is in constant flux, just as the interpretation of scientific evidence is.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Now he tells us
Henry Kissinger says that victory in Iraq is no longer possible.
Damn those latte-sipping sandal-wearing terrorist-mollycoddling liberals. I'm sure it's all their fault.
Damn those latte-sipping sandal-wearing terrorist-mollycoddling liberals. I'm sure it's all their fault.
The elephant in the atheist living room
Richard Dawkins shows off his finest fundamentalist form when he attempts to discredit any possible reason an atheist might have to tolerate religion. Dawkins to my mind is no better than the assholes who work the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica waving their Bibles and spouting off about the evils of homosexuality. [UPDATE: This is worded too strongly. I should have said something like: some of Dawkins's rhetoric is no better than...]
I personally subscribe to a variant of I'm-an-atheist-but-ism #2: people need religion. There is palpable irony in seeing the Great Logician himself trying to refute this argument by saying that it is condescending. Even if it were (I don't think it is), so what? Aren't we supposed to judge the truth of falseness of a proposition by the evidence rather than on whether or not we think someone might be offended? By rejecting this argument on the grounds of political incorrectness Dawkins shows himself to be just as much of a hypocrite as all the other religious fundamentalists.
But the problem runs even deeper than that because not only is Dawkins arguing ab-political-correctness, he is also knocking down a straw man: It is not that people need relgion, it is that they want religion! Some people, to the perennial chagrin of people like Dawkins, simply prefer existence with the sense of purpose that faith can provide (and frankly I can muster a great deal of sympathy for that position if jerks like Dawkins are the role models for the alternative). This is simlpy a fact. People choose religion of their own free will. It is the height of condescension to suppose, as Dawkins does, that choosing religion is ipso facto an unsound decision, and to appoint yourself as the arbiter of what they should have chosen for themselves.
It gets worse still because there are manifest sound reasons why someone might reject science in favor of religion, not least of which is that there are important questions that science cannot answer. Science, being objective by definition, is by its very nature unsuitable for addressing questions of subjective experience. We can tease out, say, all the chemical reactions that occur when one eats a chocolate bar and still have made no progress towards an understanding of what it is like to eat chocolate.
Science is likewise impotent in the face of mystical experience. Scientists tend to write it all off as delusion, but that is unjustifiably facile. Imagine that there were a genetic mutation that made one unable to taste chocolate, a sort of color-blindness for your taste buds. (When I was in my twenties I caught a weird virus that actually made me completely lose my sense of taste for a few days. It was a very distressing experience.) Someone with this mutation would be utterly unable to grasp the subjective experience of eating a chocolate bar, and if there were enough of these people they might suppose that all the folks waxing rapturous over the wonders of chocolate were (no pun intended) nuts.
Although we are making astonishing progress in understanding how the brain works, the mind is still a deeply mysterious phenomenon. Science cannot yet eliminate the possibility that some minds might be in contact with something extra-physical (or even just complex and subtle, but nonetheless real that we do not yet understand), and so to dismiss religion on the grounds that it is a priori untenable is, at best, premature. But, as ever, it's actually much worse than that. There is an elephant in the atheist living room, a question that is both obvious and unanswerable by science. It is this: why am I me? From my point of view there is this very obvious asymmetry in the Universe that the symmetric laws of physics not only cannot account for, but with which they are in fact fundamentally incompatible. The facile answer -- that the situation is symmetric because everyone experiences this -- is not an answer but an evasion. It does not address the question, which is why do I have this particular subjective experience.
I am personally content to let that question remain unanswered and revel in the delicious mysteriousness of it all. But I see no rational reason for passing judgement on those who might choose to do otherwise.
I personally subscribe to a variant of I'm-an-atheist-but-ism #2: people need religion. There is palpable irony in seeing the Great Logician himself trying to refute this argument by saying that it is condescending. Even if it were (I don't think it is), so what? Aren't we supposed to judge the truth of falseness of a proposition by the evidence rather than on whether or not we think someone might be offended? By rejecting this argument on the grounds of political incorrectness Dawkins shows himself to be just as much of a hypocrite as all the other religious fundamentalists.
But the problem runs even deeper than that because not only is Dawkins arguing ab-political-correctness, he is also knocking down a straw man: It is not that people need relgion, it is that they want religion! Some people, to the perennial chagrin of people like Dawkins, simply prefer existence with the sense of purpose that faith can provide (and frankly I can muster a great deal of sympathy for that position if jerks like Dawkins are the role models for the alternative). This is simlpy a fact. People choose religion of their own free will. It is the height of condescension to suppose, as Dawkins does, that choosing religion is ipso facto an unsound decision, and to appoint yourself as the arbiter of what they should have chosen for themselves.
It gets worse still because there are manifest sound reasons why someone might reject science in favor of religion, not least of which is that there are important questions that science cannot answer. Science, being objective by definition, is by its very nature unsuitable for addressing questions of subjective experience. We can tease out, say, all the chemical reactions that occur when one eats a chocolate bar and still have made no progress towards an understanding of what it is like to eat chocolate.
Science is likewise impotent in the face of mystical experience. Scientists tend to write it all off as delusion, but that is unjustifiably facile. Imagine that there were a genetic mutation that made one unable to taste chocolate, a sort of color-blindness for your taste buds. (When I was in my twenties I caught a weird virus that actually made me completely lose my sense of taste for a few days. It was a very distressing experience.) Someone with this mutation would be utterly unable to grasp the subjective experience of eating a chocolate bar, and if there were enough of these people they might suppose that all the folks waxing rapturous over the wonders of chocolate were (no pun intended) nuts.
Although we are making astonishing progress in understanding how the brain works, the mind is still a deeply mysterious phenomenon. Science cannot yet eliminate the possibility that some minds might be in contact with something extra-physical (or even just complex and subtle, but nonetheless real that we do not yet understand), and so to dismiss religion on the grounds that it is a priori untenable is, at best, premature. But, as ever, it's actually much worse than that. There is an elephant in the atheist living room, a question that is both obvious and unanswerable by science. It is this: why am I me? From my point of view there is this very obvious asymmetry in the Universe that the symmetric laws of physics not only cannot account for, but with which they are in fact fundamentally incompatible. The facile answer -- that the situation is symmetric because everyone experiences this -- is not an answer but an evasion. It does not address the question, which is why do I have this particular subjective experience.
I am personally content to let that question remain unanswered and revel in the delicious mysteriousness of it all. But I see no rational reason for passing judgement on those who might choose to do otherwise.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Chasing a dream
After watching the events of the world unfold over the past few years I've grown a pretty touch hide, but this still made me cry.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The terrorists win
If George Bush is to be believed, terrorists around the world have won a major victory as Democrats take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Good thing George Bush is not to be believed. It's a little early to say that my hope in the American electorate is restored, but just maybe there is hope for the world yet.
Good night, and good luck.
Good thing George Bush is not to be believed. It's a little early to say that my hope in the American electorate is restored, but just maybe there is hope for the world yet.
Good night, and good luck.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
The stakes
Robert Parry has a really good summary of what is really at stake in tomorrow's election. Worthwhile reading.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Sniveling cowards
Just when you thought the policies coming out of the twisted little brains of the Bush administration couldn't possibly get any more perverse we learn that they want to prevent torture victims from talking to lawyers because
"Improper disclosure of other operational details, such as interrogation methods, could also enable terrorist organizations and operatives to adapt their training to counter such methods, thereby obstructing the CIA's ability to obtain vital intelligence that could disrupt future planned terrorist attacks"
And what of the innocent people who are accidentally caught up in this secret web of kidnapping and torture and God only knows what else because of bad intelligence or vendettas or political agendas or less-than-iron-willed people who are willing to say anything to stop the pain? Unfortunate but necessary "collateral damage" in the war against terrorism you say? Then what exactly is it that distinguishes us from the terrorists?
Actually, I can think of one thing: the terrorists are not willing to sacrifice their principles to save their own skin.
"Improper disclosure of other operational details, such as interrogation methods, could also enable terrorist organizations and operatives to adapt their training to counter such methods, thereby obstructing the CIA's ability to obtain vital intelligence that could disrupt future planned terrorist attacks"
And what of the innocent people who are accidentally caught up in this secret web of kidnapping and torture and God only knows what else because of bad intelligence or vendettas or political agendas or less-than-iron-willed people who are willing to say anything to stop the pain? Unfortunate but necessary "collateral damage" in the war against terrorism you say? Then what exactly is it that distinguishes us from the terrorists?
Actually, I can think of one thing: the terrorists are not willing to sacrifice their principles to save their own skin.
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