Master of None

2003-06-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

MOVING: Ok, I'm outta here. If all continues to proceed according to plan, this will be my last post to Blogger. Fare thee well.

My new home is at http://www.mwilliams.info/, and it's still obviously under construction. Assuming there isn't another war for the next few days, I'll probably be spending most of my time fiddling with the new Movable Type stuff and trying to make the place look presentable.

I would greatly appreciate it if the people who have linked to me in the past would update their blogrolls with the new URL

2003-06-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

SHRINKING GOVERNMENT: Bill Hobbs writes that Laffer Associates, the firm founded by the creator of the famous "Laffer Curve" of supply-side economics fame, is moving from San Diego to Nashville because Tennessee doesn't have an income tax. Sucks for us Californians, but oh well.

Bill quotes a site that sums up the idea behind the Laffer curve and supply-side economics quite well:

The curve suggests that, as taxes increase from low levels, tax revenue collected by the government also increases. It also shows that tax rates increasing after a certain point (T*) would cause people not to work as hard or not at all, thereby reducing tax revenue. Eventually, if tax rates reached 100% (the far right of the curve), then all people would choose not to work because everything they earned would go to the government.

In theory, there's an "optimal" tax rate such that if the rate goes either up or down, government revenue will go down. The rate is "optimal" in the sense that it maximizes government revenue, but may not be optimal from other perspectives (such as burden on the economy, for instance).

In his update at the end of the post, Bill makes an important point: many conservatives want to shrink the size of government, and try to enact tax cuts in order to do so. However, if we're currently taxed at a rate above the optimal rate, government revenue will actually rise when taxes are cut.

Ideally, from my perspective, taxes would be cut down past the government-optimal point and government revenue would then continue to fall. My own optimal point is different from the government's; I don't want to maximize government revenue, I want to maximize my freedom and quality of life. I believe that eliminating many functions of government would benefit me greatly, and so my optimal tax rate is lower than the Laffer optimal rate. For more of my opinions on the matter, see this previous post.

In a sense, a tax rate below Laffer's optimal is "benignly sub-optimal", since the lesser government revenue isn't due to harm inflicted on the economy (and should actually benefit the economy as a whole). "Lost" government revenue that's caused by a tax rate that's too high, however actually reflects a real economic loss.

2003-06-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

ABORTION: Clayton Cramer links to an affadavit recently written by Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. "Jane Roe" from Roe v. Wade (1973). In it, she decries her former involvement with the abortion industry and gives some rather graphic descriptions of the two decades she spent working in abortion clinics.

I worked in several abortion facilities over the years. In fact, I even worked at two clinics at the same time, and they were all the same with respect to the condition of the facilities and the "counseling" the women receive. One clinic where I worked in 1995 was typical: Light fictures and plaster falling from the ceiling; rat droppings over the sinks; backed up sinks; and blood splattered on the walls. But the most distressing room in the facility was the "parts room". Aborted babies were stored here. There were dead babies and baby parts stacked like cordwood. Some of the babies made it into buckets and others did not, and because of its disgusting features, no one ever cleaned the room. The stench was horrible. Plastic bags full of baby parts that were swimming in blood were tied up, stored in the room, and picked up once a week. At another clinic, the dead babies were kept in a big white freezer full of dozens of jars, all full of baby parts, little tiny hands and feet visible through the jars, frozen in blood. The abortion clinic's personnel always referred to these dismembered babies as "tissue." Vetrinary clinics I have seen are cleaner and more regulated than the abortion clinics I worked in.

There's lots more in the affadavit. She talks about how she only met with her lawyers twice, never stepped into a courtroom, and found out the results of the court case through the newspaper. She claims that the abortion industry (as she calls it) exists only to make a profit, and cares nothing about the women whose lives are devestated.

What's the difference between an abortion clinic's "parts room" and one of Saddam's mass graves? Saddam killed children against their parents' wishes? The children Saddam killed were larger, and spatially separate from their mothers?

More than 35 million babies have been killed in America since 1973.

2003-06-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

MOVING: It looks like I spoke too soon. Despite the fact that Verve Hosting's signup form told me that mw.biz was available, it turns out that it's not a legal name. I was surprised they said it was, but I thought I could rely on their information. It looks like I'll actually be moving to mwilliams.info or something like that. We'll see.

It's rather hard to pick a domain name.

2003-06-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

PROFILES: This morning I randomly came across the profiles of two very different men: Duane 'Dog' Chapman, and Paul Bremer.

Duane Chapman is the bounty hunter who just captured Andrew Luster (what an ironic surname), the heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune who was convicted of drugging and raping three women and then skipped out of town.

Paul Bremer is the Viceroy in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and arguably the most powerful American outside the United States in over 50 years.

2003-06-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

MINORITIES: According to the WaPo, Hispanics are now the nation's largest minority. Well, the largest racial minority, anyway. I expect that men are the largest minorty overall, since very slightly fewer than 50% of the people in the country are male.

The new census figures also show that Latinos accounted for half the country's population growth in the two years after the 2000 Census was taken. ...

The Hispanic population is growing rapidly because of high birth rates and immigration. Immigration accounted for more than half the recent Latino population increase, census officials said.

Despite the heavy influence of immigration, another census report released today said three in five Hispanics are born in the United States.

So, half the Hispanic population increase is due to immigration... what percentage of that half do you figure is legal immigration? Uh huh.

The good news is that Hispanic immigrants tend to assimilate well into the greater fabric of American culture; one-third of Hispanics marry non-Hispanic whites, for instance.

2003-06-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

DOES THE FDA SAVE LIVES? 2: Following up on the post below, Allen Glosson writes in the comments:

For a somewhat more pointed view about reforming the FDA, you might also see http://www.stopfda.org, in particular the essay about "Consumer Rape".

The story I like the most about the FDA involves Beta Blockers. Back in 1984, Dr. Kessler proudly announced that the FDA had approved Beta Blockers to treat high blood pressure and that the approval would save 17000 lives each year. What he didn't tell us was that Beta Blockers had been approved in Europe in the mid 1970s and approval was sought with the FDA back in 1977. The FDA took 7 years to approve a drug which had already been shown effective in European markets. Thus, the FDA had willfully and deliberately allowed over 100K people to die needlessly while they dotted i's and crossed t's in the approval process.

Do we still believe that the FDA saves lives? I for one, do not.

Incredible, and damning.

2003-06-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

MOVING: Thanks to Dean Esmay, I'm beginning the process of moving my blog to Movable Type and my own domain. Picking a domain name is pretty hard, especially when you have a common name like "Michael Williams". I did a few searches but there wasn't anything particularly elegant available in the normal top-level domains, like .com, .net and .org, so I finally settled on registering mw.biz. Don't try to go there yet, I imagine it will take a few days for this all to get worked out.

I was leery at first, but .biz seems like the perfect TLD for a capitalist like myself, even though this blog isn't exactly a business.

2003-06-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

TAX GIVE-AWAY: Everyone's complaining about the $400 billion bribe that Bush is offering to old people in exchange for their votes, but no one has any outrage left for the ridiculous child tax credit that's paid to people with children. Under Bush's new plan, an average family of four will see their taxes cut by $1600. An average family of one -- like me -- will see their taxes reduced by a lot less. I can't even find a source on the web that will tell me how much I'll save... every article gives numbers for "a family of four" that will save "ten gajillion dollars!"

What this setup means is that single people and people without children are subsidizing tax breaks for married people and people with children. The situation hardly seems fair. Families with children consume more public services, not less, and there's really no reason that society should create a financial incentive for people to have children. The problem is that, as Donald Sensing points out, politicians "take money from the demographic groups of people who vote less and give it to the groups who vote more."

Most people either have children, have had children, or plan to have children in the future, and so they think it's great that at some point they'll benefit from these tax breaks. I plan to have children someday, too, but I'm critical enough to realize that the child tax credit really is nothing more than a bribe that's so entrenched that it's never going to go away, regardless of how unfair and unbalanced it may be. (Some might make the same claim about tax-deductable mortgage interest, but this is a very different issue. As I've mentioned before, promoting property ownership is a valid interest for a democratic society to promote because it strengthens the sense of individual ownership of the society.)

I favor a flat tax rate with a poverty-line deduction of, say, $20,000, and deductions for charitable giving. I would also favor -- as an alternative -- a flat consumption tax. The current income-based tax structure is nothing more than a social engineering tool that those in power use to manipulate and control the population.

2003-06-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

PARABLES: I love writing short fiction although I'm not really very good at it (yet). One of my dreams is to be able to write parables that teach important truths using simple, everyday allegories -- like many of Jesus' teachings and like Aesop's fables, for instance. The parable is a powerful teaching tool because it helps the listener translate an abstract philosophy into concrete terms which he can later extrapolate from -- abstract to concrete and back to abstract again. In the funneling process some of the initial abstraction is stripped away, but the student reconstructs it later on his own thereby enhancing learning even further.

Mark Aveyard has posted a tidy little parable by CK Chesterton that illustrates the difficulties that can arise from situations in which it is much easier to destroy than to create, when the majority agrees on the means but not the ends.

2003-06-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

DOES THE FDA SAVE LIVES?: Bill Hobbs has a post with a great letter from Allen Glosson of St. Louis, Missouri, who gives a good description of the difficulties drug companies face trying to recoup their R&D costs by selling their drugs under patent. Drug patents last 17 years and...

It takes about 15 years for the entire drug approval cycle to be completed, previously leaving only 2 years for the drug company to recover all of its R&D costs.

Bill suggests that the "patent clock" shouldn't start until FDA approval is granted, but a) 17 years seems like a very long time to go without generic substitutes, b) what about drugs that never get approved? Sounds like it would create a new disincentive construct that might change the dynamics of the whole industry in some unforseeable ways.

But on to the real issue at hand. Allan writes further:

Currently, the drug can't be sold to anybody until after the FDA finally approves it. If you've ever read the writing of cancer patients, slowly dying, desperate for that new drug begging with the drug company and the FDA to allow them one more shot at life, you'll know that the FDA process is deeply flawed.

The Food and Drug Administration essentially has veto power over all new medical drugs and devices, and is controlled by a lopsided set of incentives that tends to make it overcautious -- the repurcussions are far worse for the FDA if it mistakenly approves of a treatment that turns out to be dangerous than if it mistakenly delays or fails to approve a treatment that is actually beneficial, even if the number of lives lost in each case is equivalent. The fact that the FDA can prevent sick people from voluntarily assuming the risk of unproven (but potentially beneficial) drugs has undoubtedly claimed thousands or even millions of lives.

The best proposal I've read was put forward by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and suggests that the FDA's veto power be eliminated and that unapproved treatments be made available under medical supervision and with clear warnings of the potential risks involved. The FDA would continue to serve as a state-run evaluator of treatments, and drug companies could choose to seek FDA approval if that approval was sufficiently valued by the public. Competitive market forces would then take hold in the medical industry, bringing costs of production down and thereby lowering prices all around. Additionally, and even more importantly to some, a greater number of treatments for a greater number of diseases would become available for use, which could save an uncountable number of lives above and beyond those saved by the lower prices.

2003-06-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

RITUAL: Courtney went to a Catholic funeral and mentions how she loves the ritual. I'm a protestant (Baptist, technically, I suppose) and I can totally see where Courtney is coming from. My mom's side of the family is Catholic, and the rituals are quite impressive and do give a sense of weight that is often not encountered in protestant churches and services.

Most protestant churches (at least in Southern California) are more populist than Catholics are and aim to be accessible to non-Christians who come to visit. I sometimes enjoy the substance and symbolism behind ancient rituals, but they make the average man-off-the-street feel uncomfortable and out of place. Rituals are impressive, but they can make God seem unapproachable and distant rather than immediately and intimately close. God is powerful and awesome, but he is not aloof; the whole point of Jesus coming to earth was to bring mankind into an intimate relationship with God.

Over the past 5 years, my church has really tried to eliminate any ritual or formality that might prevent a visitor from being able to listen to God's message. Our goal is have a church such that if a visitor feels uncomfortable it's because of the message, not because of the religious trappings.

In response to Courtney's post, Zach points out that there are rather significant doctrinal differences between Catholics and protestants. The Catholic church has done a lot of good through the centuries, but as with most organizations with tightly centralized power structures, they've also done a lot of evil. Aside from huge spiritual questions such as transubstantiation and praying to saints, this organizational issue alone sets off warning lights in my libertarian-ish brain.

God knows that mankind is flawed and falls short of his perfection, and in the Bible he instituted a power structure for the church that would serve to dilute the selfish motivations that take over from time to time, even the best of us. Individual churches should govern themselves independently as God leads them, rather than receive central direction from an earthly authority. Ultimate leadership within each church should not rest with any one man, but should be divided among several elders. Read 1 Timothy and Titus for details.

2003-06-17T00:51:00.000-07:00

THE RING: I just watched The Ring and it was quite good. I'm still a bit creeped out, which is why I'm up surfing the net rather than in bed sleeping. The end has a bit of a twist that really makes the movie stand out, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good thrill.

Nothing is as scary to me as eerie little girls. The Shining is a perfect example, and there are plenty of others. There's probably some deep psychological explanation, but my psychologist ex-friend isn't talking to me anymore, so I can't ask her.

Ok, now I am going to go to bed -- I'm just rambling.

2003-06-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

CONSTITUTION, SCHMONSTITUTION: California's constitution requires that the legislature pass a budget by June 15th. That's the law. Over the past 25 years only 4 on-time budgets have been passed, and this weekend marked yet another failure by our pathetic state legislature. Via Rough & Tumble I found this San Francisco Chronicle article which describes some of my feelings quite well.

Deadline day and nary a lawmaker in sight.

As the final hours ticked down toward the constitutional deadline for the Legislature to pass a budget Sunday night, a canvass of the state Capitol failed to uncover a single lawmaker tucked away in an office, crunching numbers or making deals. ...

"When they want your vote, they say they are going to work for you. Why aren't they working now?" said Sergio Jimenez of Baldwin Park in Los Angeles County.

Jon Boice of Potrero Valley (San Diego County) labeled the lawmakers' absence disgusting.

"What are we paying them for?" he wondered as he left the gallery overlooking the empty Assembly chamber.

Democrats blame the Republicans. The state constitution requires a 2/3 majority to pass tax increases, and the Republicans in the legislature have determined that they will not vote for to raise taxes under any circumstances. Republicans blame Democrats for years of over-spending, but Democrats are unable to cut their precious social programs and reduce their union bribes without alienating their masters. So, we're pretty much stuck.

Tourist Jeff Peterson has a good point when it comes to legislators being away from the office:

"There is no accountability," Jeff Peterson said. "I'm not really sure we're better off when they are here or gone."

2003-06-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

JUSTICE: The WaPo has an article about a man named Charles T. Sell who is refusing the anti-pychotic medication which would make him mentally competant enough to stand trial. What's interesting is that the crimes he is accused of aren't violent in nature -- he's a dentist who has been charged with Medicaid fraud. The Supreme Court has just ruled that since he isn't a danger to himself or others, and hasn't been charged with any violent offenses, forcibly medicating him against his wishes does not "significantly further" an "important" government objective, and would not be "medically appropriate".

The vote in the Supreme Court was 6-3, and I really have no problem with it; I'm pretty much neutral. Justice Bryer does raise one issue that causes me some distress, however:

The U.S. government indicted him on charges of Medicaid fraud in 1997, but courts have found him to be so mentally ill that he is not competent to stand trial. Those courts have agreed with government doctors who say the only hope of rendering him competent is to administer anti-psychotic drugs -- by force, if necessary -- but Sell, citing the drugs' sometimes debilitating side effects and his own constitutional rights, has refused. ...

During the arguments on in March, Justice John Paul Stevens noted that Sell has already been confined longer than he would have been if convicted on all counts of the Medicaid fraud indictment.

Society has no compelling interest in further prosecuting this man, guilty or not. It's a tremendous waste of government resources to pursue this issue any further, and Charles T. Sell should be released immediately based on his non-violent condition and the time he has already been imprisoned. The prosecutor in charge of the case, however, feels differently.

But Deputy Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben, arguing for the government, told the court that Sell has himself to blame for his extended stay behind bars, since he is one of only a handful of people who have ever litigated their refusal to be medicated to such an extent.

"Most individuals accept the fact . . . that medication is the appropriate, medically sanctioned way" to get better for trial, Dreeben said.

The Supreme Court has just ruled that the "fact" Dreeben refers to is actually false.

2003-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

GOOGLE: I love Google's special picture days. Happy Father's Day!

2003-06-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

MYSTERY WEEKEND: I took three kids from church to Knott's today, and we had a blast. I'm totally wiped out. Was there any news today? I don't know, I guess I'll check tomorrow.

We call it "Mystery Weekend" because the kids don't know where we're going to take them until we get there. In the past, it's also been known as "Misery Weekend", but not this year! Knott's wasn't too crowded (and there were lots of hot chicks there, which always makes time fly). We went on every water ride the kids were tall enough to ride, and every coaster the kids were brave enough to buckle into. We had ice cream dots, tons of candy, won stuffed animals... everything you can imagine. It was super fun.

Now, it's time for bed. I hope I can get up early enough tomorrow to run a few miles before church, because I feel extremely fat tonight. We went to Hometown Buffet for dinner. Argh.

Don't forget, tomorrow is Father's Day! Go get your dad something nice, and tell him hi for me.

2003-06-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY THE 13TH: Happy Friday the 13th! I hope you all had a scary evening. I had some friends over and we watched Halloween 1 & 2, which is always fun. Classic thrillers, and they really defined the genre. Nothing comparable even existed until Scream came out 16 years later.

Anyway, time for bed. I'm taking some kids to Knott's Berry Farm early tomorrow morning, and I need to get my beauty sleep. I don't think there will be much posting... possibly in the evening.

2003-06-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

FOREIGN OIL: Bill Hobbs mentions a plan to have our country driving hydrogen-powered cars by 2020. Fine and good. He then goes on to say:

If she's right, and if it works, the nation would be free of dependence on imported oil by the year 2020. Think of how that would change our foriegn policy toward the Middle East. No need to coddle the Saudis!

However, this does not reflect economic reality. We are not "dependent" on foreign oil now -- we can, however, buy oil from the middle-east and ship it to America more cheaply than we can drill and process our own domestic oil. Why? Labor costs and the burden of environmental laws.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing (I'd rather the Saudis despoil their desert wastes than pollute our own country), but that's how it is. The White House claims that two-thirds of the oil we use goes towards transportation, but that doesn't exclusively include cars and trucks. Even if we could reduce our oil consumption by 50%, what effect would that have on our use of foreign oil?

The oil market is worldwide, and the cost of consumption is based on the cost of production plus the cost of transportation. Once that total cost per barrel is known, it doesn't matter where the oil comes from when purchasing decisions are made. If we cut consumption by 50%, what will happen is that we will stop buying the most expensive half of the oil that we buy now, and the most expensive oil we use is produced domestically. I can't find a source online for this at the moment, but I'll keep looking.

Cutting total oil consumption would have an effect opposite to what most people expect -- on a percentage basis we would use more foreign oil than we do now because the absolute amount of domestically-produced oil that we would consume would go down. The only way to lower our use of foreign oil would be to lower the cost of domestic production and then let market forces handle the rest.

2003-06-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

BREAK THEIR WILL: Donald Sensing quotes this BBC article which says that Israeli Army radio...

. . . has been reporting that the forces are now under orders to "completely wipe out" Hamas.

The radio said everyone from the lowliest member to Sheikh Ahmad Yassin - the crippled spiritual guide of Hamas - was a target.

In the comment thread for that post, Barry wrote:

I hope that the Israelis know the difference between actual Hamas members and their families - I know that women and children have been used and are still used as terrorists, but the fewer non-card-carrying Hamas Palestinians killed the better.

Personally, I'm not sure that hope is realistic. The Palestinian people need to have their will to fight completely broken. They're brainwashed by the Muslim death cult, and it might take quite a bit of killing to shake them out of it. I'm not saying it's a pretty thing, but it might be necessary.

Massive civilian deaths would have been counter-productive in Iraq, since most of the population didn't like Saddam and wanted him gone and was more than eager to surrender. If, however, Palestinians are more like WW2 Japanese and Germans they might require a bit more "convincing". Don't get me wrong, I'm not eager for bloodshed, but I'm trying to be realistic.

This poll of Palestinians taken in September, 2002, is not very encouraging. Here are some stats:

- 52% oppose peace negotiations with Israel.
- 73% are pessimistic of a reaching a peaceful settlement to the conflict.
- 66% are opposed to the Oslo agreement.
- 80% support the continuation of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
- 53% believe that the Intifada will achieve its object.
- 65% support suicide bombing operations against Israeli civilians [the poll question specifically mentions civilians].

These poll numbers support my belief that the Palestinian people themselves are a part of the problem, and need to be cowed.

Read more of my thoughts on Arafat the terrorist and the real cost of suicide bombers.

2003-06-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH SPAM?: I don't get it. I get a spam email that tells me my secret admirer has sent me a message. Oh goody! Eager, trembling with anticipation, ecstatic at the prospect of having a secret admirer, I double-click and open the email...

ARGH MY EYES! Why, dear God, why must I be subjected to such a puketastic image!?

[deep breath]

What do these companies gain by trying to trick me into opening such things? If I wanted to see pictures of "cum soaked teens riding the pony" then I would probably be willing to open an email with that title. However, if I'm like the vast majority of people and would rather gouge my eyes out than even contemplate such a thing, I won't visit the website even if they trick me into opening their horrid visual regurgitant. I just can't imagine anyone getting taken in by the false subject, seeing the picture, and then thinking "hey that's pretty great, sign me up."

2003-06-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

I HATE COMPUTERS: I know that I'm a computer science graduate student, but sometimes I hate computers. Like tonight. I have a picture of me standing on top of the stupid Palais de Justice in stupid Paris, and I said I'd scan it and post it, but my stupid printer/scanner dealie doesn't want to scan. It'll print all day long, it loves to print, but when I tell it to scan the stupid computer tells me the stupid scanner isn't connected. However, since I've now spent eight years studying computer science, I know this to be false -- if the stupid printer can print, then the stupid scanner can scan.

I reinstalled the stupid software. Same situation. Fan-stupid-tastic (imagine another word there besides "stupid"). So, no one gets to see the view from the roof of the Palais de Stupid except me.

2003-06-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

BUFFY: I'm sure everyone is already aware of this, but Buffy season 4 came out yesterday. Man, I loved that show. Lucky for me I don't have to order the DVDs from Amazon -- I've got an inside connection that I met through ebay who gets me DVD sets at cost. Yay for me!

Via the LA Examiner, here's a UPI article based on an interview with James Marsters, who played Spike on the show. He was my favorite character by far, and some people have even said I look like him (which I gather is a complement, from the girls I've talked to).

I've got a thing for vampires, but then, who doesn't? They always dress cool, and sometimes they'll totally flip out for no reason.

2003-06-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

BOMB SURVIVORS: It's not uncommon to read a news story about a suicide bombing in Israel causing something like 5 deaths and 30 injuries. Most of the time we focus on the few people that are killed without really thinking about the injured survivors, but even when victims survive their lives are often ruined.

X-rays taken from victims of suicide bombings reveal pieces of metallic fragments embedded in their skin, muscles, organs and bones, says Dr. Michael Messing, who visited the victims of suicide bombings while at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Suicide bombers pack their bombs with nails and other objects so even survivors of suicide bombings will suffer from the bomb's effects.

"They're trying to maximize the number of people they kill and injure," said Messing of the terrorists.

These bombs, which Messing says are sometimes funded by Palestinian authorities including Yasser Arafat, are packed with spikes, nails, screws, nuts, bullets, mortar, ball bearings and even rat poison. ...

"[The Palestinians'] goal is to do as much damage as possible and destroy functional life where they fail to actually kill. Their result is that often those who live and their relatives suffer much more than those who die," he said. ...

Messing said one of the victims he saw while in Jerusalem had around 300 individual metallic fragments within his body. The metal fragments, measuring from millimeters to centimeters, were imbedded in the young man literally from head to toe, he said.

"Several of the fragments penetrated into his vital organs. He sustained a punctured colon, a collapsed lung, and a lacerated liver and kidney. I could actually feel the nails under his skin where they had burrowed and lodged," Messing recalls.

Not only do survivors suffer grievous physical injury, but often worse:

Suicide bombers could be endangering the lives of people from beyond the grave by passing on hepatitis or blood-borne diseases to survivors, a science magazine reported on Wednesday.

Israeli doctors have found fragments of bone from a suicide bomber embedded in a 31-year-old woman who survived the attack. The fragments tested positive for liver disease hepatitis B. ...

"As a result of that case, all survivors of these attacks in Israel are now vaccinated from hepatitis B," Braverman told the magazine.

The biggest fear is finding HIV, which causes AIDS.

2003-06-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

IN HIS OWN WORDS: Yasser Arafat is a terrorist, and there will be no peace in Israel as long as he in alive. Here are a few illustrative quotes, mostly taken from www.iris.org.il.

"Our law is a Jordanian law that we inherited, which applies to both the West Bank and Gaza, and sets the death penalty for those who sell land to Israelis.... We are talking about a few traitors, and we shall implement against them what is written in the law books. It is our right and our obligation to defend our land."

"When we stopped the Intifada we did not stop the Jihad to establish Palestine with Jerusalem as our capital.... We know only one word: Jihad, Jihad, Jihad.... We are at conflict with the Zionist movement...."

"The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches and the mosques of Jerusalem."

"All of us are willing to be martyrs along the way, until our flag flies over Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine. Let no one think they can scare us with weapons, for we have mightier weapons - the weapon of faith, the weapon of martyrdom, the weapon of jihad."

"I say once more that Israel shall remain the principal enemy of the Palestinian people, not only now but also in the future."

"Cooperation and understanding between the P.L.O. and the rejectionist organizations is what will lead to the speedy retreat of Israel from the occupied territories in the first stage, until the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. Only a state like that can then continue the struggle to remove the enemy from all Palestinian lands."

"The jihad will continue... You have to understand our main battle is Jerusalem... You have to come and to fight a jihad to liberate Jerusalem, your precious shrine... No, it is not their capital. It is our capital."

"The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise."

"You are the generation that will reach the sea and hoist the flag of Palestine over Tel Aviv."

"Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations."

"The victory march will continue until the Palestinian flag flies in Jerusalem and in all of Palestine - from the Jordan River to the Meditteranean Sea and from Rosh Hanikra to Eilat."

"Palestine is onle a stone's throw away for a small Palestinian boy or girl."

2003-06-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

GRAY-OUT DAVIS: It looks increasingly likely that California's Governor Gray Davis will be recalled and a special election will be held either this November or next March. Some 900,000 signatures are required for the recall to make its way to the ballot, and organizers claim to have more than 500,000 already -- with months to go before the September deadline. This is a good thing; no matter who replaces Davis it's sure to be an improvement.

Despite his 24%-27% approval rating, Davis isn't counting himself out yet. He's the dirtiest political fighter that I've ever seen, and he's coming up with some rather underhanded schemes to stay in office. He's in a tough position: if the recall petition gets the required number of signatures, then there is no way to prevent the recall from appearing on the next ballot. It's not a competition -- there's no "counter-petition" that could, given any number of signatures, prevent the recall from going to the ballot. And Davis knows that if the recall proposal is put to the people, 83%-86% of them will vote him out of office.

So what can he do? Well, apparently there are only a limited number of companies available to be hired to circulate petitions, and Davis is trying to hire them all so that the recall proponents can't use them. Hey, that's pretty sneaky! What's really unsettling, however, is that Davis is also circulating a pro-Davis "petition" and getting people to sign it by tricking them into thinking it's the recall petition.

"The Davis carriers ask people 'Have you had a chance to sign the Davis petition?' They leave the impression with people that they've signed the recall petition, so voters then decline to sign the real recall petition when it's offered to them because they think they've already signed," Costa complains. "I believe that's fraud. For sure it's gutter politics." ...

Meanwhile, those who sign the "Davis petition" aren't really signing a petition, defined by Webster as "an entreaty" or "a request" for something. All the Davis document says is that signers don't want the recall.

Gray Davis is total scum. I could link to hundreds of different scandals he's been involved in, but here's five:

Davis accepts kickbacks from Oracle.
Davis abuses Coastal Commission to do favors for friends.
Davis admits to questionable fund-raising practices.
Davis gives prison guards 30% raise in exchange for $2.6 million in campaign contributions.
Davis' advisors owned stock in companies California bought overpriced electricity from.

2003-06-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

ISRAEL: The Wapo has a set of pictures up from Israel today, where a Palestinian terrorist blew up a bus full of Israelis, and then the Israeli army fired a couple missiles at some Hamas leaders who were stopped in traffic. It's an awful thing to have open warfare in the streets, but I find it very hard to muster any sympathy for the Palestinians. There's a big difference between Israel attacking terrorist leaders and operators and Palestinians blowing up busloads of innocent civilians.

I do know that if I looked out my window and saw this every week, I'd be scared as hell.

2003-06-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

THE SUN IS A MASS OF INCANDESCENT GAS: SDB explains that slightly less than half the earth is lit by the sun at any given time and near the end he gives a list of assumptions that he used to simplify the problem. Most of the assumptions are fine with me because they represent local earth conditions (altitude, weather, imperfect shape of the planet, &c.), but one of them sticks out: he treats the sun as a point light source rather than as a disk, and I think that incorporating this assumption changed his answer.

Think of the point on the equator on one side, just at dawn, and at the other side, just at dusk. They're the two points on the equator which are both lit which are furthest apart. The light arriving at those two points isn't parallel. Those two points plus the sun itself form an isosceles triangle whose base is the diameter of the earth (about 7900 miles) and height is the distance to the sun, about 93 million miles). Do the math and what you find is that there's a difference just shy of .005 degrees between the two, and that means that the sun is actually illuminating just slightly less than 50% of that circle. In order for it to be exactly 50%, those two light beams would have to be exactly parallel, and the light source would have to be infinitely far away.

I agree, except that the sun is a disk approximately 0.5 degrees across when viewed from the earth. This changes SDB's reasoning because the man standing at the sunset will be looking at one edge of the sun, while the man standing at the sunrise will be looking at the other, opposite edge, and those two edges will be 0.5 degrees apart.

The rays of light can be parallel for both viewers at the same time, or come in at an angle even greater than 90 degrees. In fact, slightly more than half the earth is illuminated by the sun at any given time, and this would be true no matter how small the sun appeared in our sky, as long as it's larger than a point.

2003-06-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

LAST... FINAL... EVER: I'm off to take my last final, possibly ever. It's hard to be motivated considering that it doesn't really matter how well I do as long as I pass... but I still want to get an A because I'd like the professor to be on my dissertation committee next Fall. Anyway, posting will pick up later today, I expect.

The news recently has made me yawn. There's got to be another country with oil we can invade or something. What's up with North Korea? Quit stalling! Cable news ratings are sinking, it's time for another war.

Update:
Ugh, I feel so sick for some reason. I had a sore throat for a couple of days, and it's gone, but now my head is just stuffed full of snot. I want to go home and die, but instead I'm here at work. Ugh. My final went well, however.

2003-06-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

DREAM GIRLS: I had a dream last night that I just can't get out of my head. I'm sure it won't make any sense when I write it down, but I don't want to forget it -- and even though these words may not mean anything to you, next year they might be sufficient to remind me of the dream. Check out Dream Girls over at The Forge if you want a little insight into my strange subconscious.

2003-06-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

THE INTRUDER: I've written a not-too-subtle allegory called The Intruder over at The Forge. Apply it how you will. Oh, what the heck, apply it to the Middle-East "peace process".

2003-06-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF FRANCE: Instapundit posts a letter from his Paris correspondent Claire Berlinski in which she mentions a large amount of security around the Palais de Justice ("Palace of Justice") due to the TotalFinaElf corruption trial that's going on there at the moment.

I don't have much to say about the trial, other than "duh".

But I do want to tell you a little story about the Palace of Justice. When my brother, myself, and one of our friends travelled in Europe in the summer of 2001 (we got home less than a week before 9/11) we visited the Palace of Justice in Paris, largely because the name sounds really cool. We had to walk a ways to get there, and when we arrived it was around 3pm on a Thursday afternoon -- the place was utterly deserted.

There was a security guard at the pedestrian entrance who made us walk through a metal detector, but once we were inside the huge and ornate structure we were amazed that we appeared to be the only people there. A few people in suits walked past us on the ground floor, but once we went up a few staircases we were all alone. Every door was unlocked and every room was empty. It was very surreal, like we were in Tel'aran'rhiod.

At first we were worried that we were in some forbidden area and that we'd get thrown into some Parisian jail and left for dead, but after wandering for a while we became convinced that there was no one to discover our presence anyway. We found several concealed spiral staircases that led up to various storage (?) cells (mostly filled with boxes and rubbish), and a few bolted doors that led to various parts of the roof. The doors were only bolted from the inside, however, and we were able to easily make our way out onto the top of the building using conveniently placed ladders.

We didn't have digital cameras with us, but we did take a lot of pictures from top of the palace (which I will scan, if I can find them). The Eiffel Tower was clearly visible from one angle, as was the Seine River. We felt like cat-burglers escaping from Justice League of France. Eventually the sun went down and the novelty wore off.

When we left, even the guard who had been at the main gate had gone home.

2003-06-09T23:46:00.000-07:00

WHY I'M NOT A LIBERTARIAN (EXACTLY): I like libertarian ideas in some respects -- I believe that the government which governs least also governs best. The point of government is to prevent people from interfering with my life, and to leave me alone. That's pretty much it.

So why aren't I a Libertarian? Well, most Libertarians' foreign policy is far too isolationist for my tastes. I believe that one of the only essential mandates for government is to protect me, and in order to do that it may sometimes be necessary to have an active foreign policy (such as with Iraq and Afghanistan).

I tend to be more socially conservative than most libertarians... not because I want the government to meddle in my private life, but because, for instance, I consider abortion to be murder. Most Libertarians are pro-choice, but if they believed that abortion was murder they probably wouldn't be. I'm also not sure that legalizing drugs will solve as many problems as most Libertarians do, and I see some value in having laws that restrict freedom in order to prevent activities that have a very high likelyhood of causing damage or injury.

For instance, many Libertarians I know are against drunk driving laws, on the grounds that it's already illegal to run someone over with your car -- they think there's no reason to punish someone unless they actually hit someone. In my mind, this is like saying that it shouldn't be illegal to fire a gun into a crowd of people; we've already got laws against shooting another person, but if you don't hit anyone then what's the problem?

Libertarian ideas are nice, in theory, but in reality I don't think they completely pan out. There is a great advantage to social order and central government or else it wouldn't exist; the trick is in finding a balance of power between the group and the individual. I do think that in some ways our government has too much power, but most of my complaints could be solved by drastic tax cuts that left other laws untouched. That said, I'm very grateful to all the brilliant Libertarians out there who are fighting the good fight against excessive government, and more often than not I'm right there with you.

Update:
Amazingly, Mark Aveyard has just posted a rather elegant fisking of pro-choice Libertarian Arthur Silbur. What excellent timing! You'd almost think we planned it.

Update 2:
I want to briefly clarify my stance on abortion. Abortion is killing a human being, but in some cases killing is not murder.

2003-06-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

CITY OF ANGELS: No, not the movie... the city! I've cleared out a few links from the left that I don't really visit, and I've added links to the LA Examiner and LA Observed. I love Los Angeles, despite the stupidity of Californians in general, and these two sites help keep me informed of local happenings.

Everyone knows the LA Times sucks.

2003-06-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

IDLE SPECULATION: I wonder how many of our Senators and Representatives would vote in favor of ratifying the Constitution and its various amendments (each individually) if they were put up for votes right now?

2003-06-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

SWATTING FLIES: Everyone has heard about the Muslim woman in Florida who refused to take off her veil for a drivers license photo. Well, despite the ACLU's best efforts, a Florida judge has rejected her request to have the photo taken with the veil in place. Fine. This is pretty clearly the right position to take.

What's particularly interesting to me is what James Taranto notes from the side bar in the CNN article above:

DRIVER'S ID RULES IN MUSLIM NATIONS

Saudi Arabia: Women aren't allowed to drive
Iran: Women wear a traditional chador, which does not cover the face.
Egypt: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
United Arab Emirates: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Oman: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Kuwait: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Qatar: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Bahrain: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Jordan: Women can drive if their faces are covered but do not cover their face in I.D. pictures

So, in the headquarters of Islam -- in Mecca itself -- women aren't even allowed to drive. Spiffy. In that long list of other Arab Muslim countries women are not allowed to cover their faces in ID pictures. Sandra Kellar is trying to claim that her religious rules should take priority over our secular laws, but in point of fact the very clerics who preside over her religion wouldn't allow her to drive a car, which would make her complaint in this case pretty much moot.

Translation: shut up, Sandra Kellar (a.k.a., Sultaana Freeman); shut up ACLU. Quit bothering us with all this nonsense and quit wasting our time with trivialities. If you want to be taken seriously, then concern yourselves with serious issues.

2003-06-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

SOUND FAMILIAR?: Zimbabwean President for Life Robert Mugabe is beginning to sound a little like someone else we know.

Some news reports in southern Africa had suggested the 79-year-old despot, who has run Zimbabwe since independence 23 years ago, was considering standing down and handing over power to a government of national unity as part of a deal brokered by South Africa.

But Mr Mugabe scotched any such suggestion.

"I don't want to retire in a situation where people are disunited and where certain of our objectives have not been achieved," he said.

"It would be nonsensical for me, a year after my election, to resign."

So obvious was the electoral fraud in last year's presidential election that the poll has been dismissed as flawed by the United States, the European Union and MPs from the southern African region.

But Mr Mugabe said: "As long as there is that fight, I am for a fight . . . And I can still punch." ...

Mr Mugabe mocked the claim of the MDC [opposition party] that it was organising the "Final Push".

"The Final Push has failed totally if it was meant to be a push at all . . .," he said.

"On the contrary it has been a push in reverse.

"So who has pushed who? It was just some drama staged for the G8, but a drama in which the main characters have failed to impress anybody." ...

"The actions are blatantly illegal in that they are aimed at an unconstitutional removal of the country's head of state," he said.

"I hope . . . the British and the United States embassies realise that as they sponsor the MDC and instigate it, they are doing so in order to achieve an illegal objective . . . and I warn their instigation cannot be tolerated forever by my government."

This guy is as brutal as the come, and I hope there's a JDAM with his name on it.

2003-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

CALIFORNIANS ARE AS DUMB AS THE FRENCH: Steven Den Beste has been running a series of great essays on why France is screwed because of unsustainable economic policies and a general refusal to face reality.

Well, unfortunately, California seems to be in pretty much the same boat, and people here aren't familiar with economics either.

Thousands of community activists from Sacramento to San Diego gathered in churches and city halls over the weekend to put a face on California's historic budget crisis as legislative leaders continued dueling for dollars under the dome. ...

Sacramento City Council members Sandy Sheedy, Dave Jones, Lauren Hammond and Bonnie Pannell all said they would support resolutions urging the Legislature to impose higher taxes on corporate-owned properties.

County Supervisor Roger Dickinson promised to protect county health-care clinics and maternal and infant-care programs from the $100 million he said is expected to be cut from county departments across the board.

Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, said they would push for amending the state constitution to lower the bar for passage of tax measures from two-thirds to 55 percent of the vote.

California businesses are already heavily taxed, and many of them are fleeing the state for greener pastures up north or directly to the east in Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. It's impossible to solve our budget problems by increasing taxes, because people won't pay them: they'll leave, as they have been doing for the past decade. Sure, our population has been increasing, but mostly with illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes (but do use services).

It's no coincidence that they want to lower the bar for raising taxes to 55% of the legislature (rather than the 2/3 super-majority that's required now). The Democrats control slightly more than 55% of the seats.

As SDB writes about France, economic implosion is inevitiable -- maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon.

Update:
Bill Hobbs points to a Capitalism Magazine article commemorating the 25th anniversary of California's Proposition 13. Prop 13 was passed in 1978 and limits property taxes to 1% of assessed value, with valuations frozen at the time of purchase. The amendment to the state constitution is also responsible for the 2/3 super-majority requirement for tax increases.

2003-06-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

LINKAGE 2: Following up the post directly below, I'm adding a couple of new sites to my blogroll at the left. As I said, my general policy is that I'll link back to anyone who links to me, and I'm particularly happy to link to other small-ish sites.

Especially when they say nice things about me! Aimless, for instance, asks where all the intelligent men like me are in real life. I can only speak for myself, and very often I don't know where I am. But I know where you're going... to the blogroll!

Jane, the Social Reject tossed me a link as well, despite her 37 years of rage and venom. If she's only 37 years old, then that's her whole life! Maybe my link will cheer her up. She says she doesn't like conservatives, fundies, and pro-lifers, but she linked to me anyway... wait a second, she really really hates morons, so maybe she hasn't read much of my site yet.

2003-06-08T00:35:00.000-07:00

LINKAGE: As a moderately new blogger who likes to get linked to by my big brothers and sisters, I've tried several approaches to getting noticed. Mind you, I mostly write this blog for fun and to hone my writing skills and imagination, but it's fun when other people read it and so I do whore myself out in a few ways. So, how to get read and how to get links? I mean, aside from good writing -- I'm going to try to stay within my realm of experience.

1. Be female. Ok, so I'm cynical. I haven't tried this, but it seems to work pretty well. If you want a scientific explanation, read up on negative frequency dependent selection. There are fewer female bloggers than male bloggers.

2. Post comments on other sites. Most big sites don't have comment boards, but many moderately popular blogs do, and the big boys often read the comments. Specifics? Well, I've gotten lots of refers from comments I've made to Mean Mr. Mustard and Donald Sensing. There are plenty of others, but those are two of my favorites. You can write a few sentences and then mention that you're going to write a post about it; people may click through to see what else you have to say.

3. Email posts to bloggers you think might be interested. This is tricky, and in my experience only works around 10% of the time even with moderately-sized targets, and even when the post you've written is particularly relevant to whatever topic the blogger is writing about that day. This approach works best when you correspond with other small bloggers -- write an email to one of your peers and ask them for their opinion. They'll often be happy to discuss the issue and then you can link to each other and share your combined readership. This is what community is all about, anyway, not just getting links from the big-leaguers.

4. Post pictures. I want to get a digital camera so I can start posting more pictures -- people like to see what's going on, and with a camera you can do real reporting. Take some good pictures of a protest (for example) and you're almost guaranteed to get a few links. You'll need to set up some image hosting service for this to work, but that's not too hard. Man, this trick is almost too good to share.

5. Some bloggers say that in order to get popular you need to "find your niche", but that's just not my thing. It may be true, and worth trying, but from the get-go I determined that this site would be wide-ranging and esoteric. It's in the title!

6. Tell your friends -- I have a good number of non-blogging friends who read my site. Links aren't everything, and you'll probably enjoy yourself more if a dozen friends read what you write than if a hundred strangers do.

7. Link to everything. Some people are stingy with their links -- which makes sense if they're a valuable commodity -- but when you're just getting started there's really no reason not to link to everyone in sight. I remember how happy I was when someone first added me to their blogroll. So blogroll the sites you read, for certain, and when you post put up links to any website that might have inspired you to write what you did. Link as much as you can, especially to your peers. I link to everyone I see who links to me or one of my posts.

2003-06-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 3: Continuing from the two previous posts (one, two), Bill Hobbs sent me an article by Ed Weathers in which Weathers disparages marriage as an artificial social "institution" and really -- in my mind -- misses the entire point.

I live with a woman who is not my wife. Her name is Gail. We share the same bed, and occasionally we make love to each other. We have been doing this for 17 years. At least once a week, Gail and I look at each other, shake our heads, reach out to hold hands, smile and say how lucky we are to be living such a pleasant life. Honestly. We do. You can ask her. ...

Last week, for the five hundredth time, a friend asked me, good-naturedly, "When are you two finally going to get married?"

I gave him the answer I always give to that question: "Never."

Sometimes I'm asked the question differently: "So why don't you two get married?"

Again I always answer the same way: "Why should we? There's absolutely nothing marriage can add to our life together that would make it any better." ...

[snip lots of stuff about how marriage was "designed" to oppress women, "certain colors", and "certain castes", as well as to "suppress the fun of sex"...]

It's not just that marriage is unnecessary, I believe, it's that it's actually harmful. It replaces choice with compulsion. It makes that which should be voluntary, compulsory. ...

Things are clearer for Gail and me, and for others who live together. We know why we're there on Sunday afternoon, reading the paper on the sofa, looking at each other occasionally and smiling. It has nothing to do with covenants and courts. We're there because we like each other best. And we'll be there as long as we both shall love.

Whew, long quote, go read the article.

Ed's is not a new view, and I've heard it before. For all intents and purposes Ed and Gail are married. You don't need to have a big ceremony in a church or a piece of paper from the state to be married; by common law both church and state will recognize their marriage after 17 years, even if they might frown upon it.

What makes his view sound childish to me (aside from all the absurdities I snipped about oppression) is the end where he says "It has nothing to do with covenants and courts. We're there because we like each other best. And we'll be there as long as we both shall love." If that's all he wants, then fine, but you have to admit that an intimate relationship must -- by necessity -- be somewhat limited where there is no commitment.

How much of your life would you be willing to share with someone who may decide on a whim that they don't like you best anymore and that it's time to leave? I wonder if Ed and Gail have joint bank accounts. Do they jointly own property? Do they have children? These are the things that put strain on relationships and that require self-sacrifice and tenacity and commitment above and beyond mere emotion.

Only when we go through trials and tribulation with someone is a friendship really tested, and only then does real love show its worth. Ed seems to see no value in a relationship beyond the extent to which it fulfills his emotional lust, but commitment and partnership take a relationship beyond that. Consider other relationships with financial involvement, such as business partners. Only a fool would go into business with someone or invest money with someone who was unwilling to assume contractual obligations that extend beyond how fun the partnership is at any given moment. How much more so for people having children together? Entering a relationship is voluntary, and voluntarily assuming compulsory obligations is what adults do.

I have a great many acquaintances and surface relationships which exist out of convenience: people I go to class with, work with, see at conventions and conferences, you name it. But there's no real substance to those relationships because there is no shared living. Ed claims that he and Gail are "living together", but I wonder how "together" they really are? How together can it possibly be if there is no commitment beyond "I'll stick around as long as it's fun"?

I will certainly never plan my future on the shifting sands of human emotion.

Update:
Thanks Bill for linking to this post, and for rightfully acknowledging the shredification.

2003-06-07T03:17:00.000-07:00

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 2: Just to expand briefly on my earlier post -- it's important to me that love is a decision rather than an emotion. Free will is one of man's highest attributes, and if love is nothing more than a series of chemical interactions then its worthless.

2003-06-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

BIZARRO WORLD: The liberal left is getting increasingly frustrated by their diminishing power, but they blame it on the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy rather than consider the possibility that their ideas are simply losing traction with the American citizenry. As their screeches become more deafening, sometimes it can be rather difficult to understand what they're thinking. So let's go for a ride to the Land of Make-Believe, a.k.a., the "Take Back America" seminar.

Jeff Faux, distinguished fellow at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, lashed out at the culture of talk radio during a panel discussion entitled "Shrubbed: The Radical Project of George Bush."

"I turn on the radio, and I hear these talk shows with right wing drunks calling in, and I ask myself, where are our drunks?" Faux said.

I found one!

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, charged that "Rupert Murdoch [and his] cronies" are "stifling our messages and keep our messages from being heard, and when we get them out, they are drowned in a sea of lies."

Maybe she's forgotten about ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and all the liberal media outlets. Oh, that no one watches, right. Maybe they're being stifled by stupidity and pompousity.

Maude Hurd, president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said liberals have been "bushwhacked" by the president.

"George W. Bush has pushed so many right wing proposals through Congress that many progressives have begun to despair," Hurd explained. "Bush's endless demands for tax cuts for millionaires are so willfully blind that he reminds me of a substance abuser," Hurd added.

Well, you can't cut taxes for people who don't pay taxes. Nice pun, by the way, but even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.

[Callahan] told the audience that she once asked former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall how it felt to be able to pass environmental regulations during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations without much opposition.

"I asked: 'What was it like when you were running the Interior Department, and you all created the Endangered Species Act, you protected amazing lands, you did these new and insightful and far-reaching things to protect our natural environment?" According to Callahan, Udall answered: "Basically, if you could think it up, you could do it."

Now that's a great method for governing, bureaucrats who can do anything they can think up. Swell.

2003-06-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

WOMYN: Via various sources I see that Women's Action Coalition is planning a "performance protest" during which

One by one, over 250 women will condemn the Bush Administration for destroying our basic American freedoms. Each charge will be answered by a scream of rage and resistance, fury and frustration.

Gosh, a bunch of whiny, screaming, emotional women -- play to sterotypes more, please. Will there be a special segment where female comedians make jokes about menstruation and how hard it is to find a boyfriend? Why not have a cry-a-thon or a mass ovulation or something?

Whatever. I have no doubt that Ashcroft's boot will strike quickly to crush this intolerable dissent and get these girls back to work making babies and doing laundry.

2003-06-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

PEACE PROTEST: Here's a great picture of some Palestinian peace protesters:

Washington Post
Oh no wait, they're protesting against peace. My mistake.

2003-06-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

MIDNIGHT MOVIE: Anyone who's in Los Angeles should make plans to come watch Rosemary's Baby tonight at midnight at the Nuart on Santa Monica Blvd.

Sure, it's directed by Child Rapist Roman Polansky, but it was made before he started raping children -- at least as far as can be proven.

Anyway, email me if you're coming. I have no idea how many (if any) of my readers are from Los Angeles.

2003-06-05T23:53:00.000-07:00

SEARCH ENGINES: My apologies to all those Googlers who came to this site after searching for "jessica lynch nude naked". There are no such pictures here. A while back I was getting hits from people looking for nude pictures of Shoshana Johnson as well. They must have been terribly disappointed.

But thanks for stopping by!

2003-06-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: I had a pretty interesting discussion with one of my friends over lunch today about the nature of love and the meaning of marriage. I'll try to distill it down into a few paragraphs, but as the conversation was a couple of hours long that may not be easy.

The main difference in perspective can be explained thusly: for her, loving someone is the same as being "in love" with someone; for me, being "in love" is a mere emotion, and actually loving someone is a decision to act in a certain way. Emotions are fickle (at least mine are) -- they come and go seemingly at random, and are hardly under our control, if they are at all. Emotions are governed largely by chemistry; it's difficult for our will to subjugate our emotions. A great many people don't even see any value in controlling their emotions, and our culture encourages us to pursue happiness on these ground.

If it feels good, do it. Listen to your heart. How do you feel? This is how most people seem to view love, and I think that this view is intertwined with our cultural construct of dating and has a heavy influence on marraige. People look for someone who makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I call this "emotional lust". The essence of lust is the desire to use someone else to fulfill your cravings, and although it usually refers to physical desires I think it's equally applicable to emotional needs as well. It's generally acknowledged that men make many decisions based on physical lust, but it's not widely recognized that women tend to make many decisions based on emotional lust. As I said, our culture actively encourages this perspective.

Therefore, when a couple is "in love" and emotionally involved and intimate, they decide to get married based on those emotions. They ride high for a while, but eventually those emotions come to an end. It's basically inevitable. People are highly adaptive creatures, and eventually the spouse becomes a part of the environment and the highly charged emotional energy that was there at first dissipates. Clearly, marriages that are based purely on physical lust cannot be expected last, but for some reason people expect emotional lust to be different. The median American marriage lasts 7 years.

What, then, is the alternative? Approach love as a decision, rather than merely as an emotion. There is nothing wrong with the emotional aspects of being in love, but it's important that there be more to a relationship than just those emotions -- repeat after me: emotions are fickle and they don't last forever. Once the emotions are gone, many people find themselves stuck with a person they aren't even friends with. Since those emotions were the foundation of the relationship, it's over.

However, when you decide to love someone, and you make a committment to stick by them, work together, and share each others' lives regardless of circumstance, then the relationship is built on a more certain foundation. When emotional lust does not control, then the focus of love can be on the other's well-being rather than on merely satisfying your own cravings.

Many people view dating as a means of fulfilling their emotional lust. Being with anyone is better than being with no one, because at least you aren't alone. The most important thing about any person you date, then, is how they make you feel. Only when the feelings begin to drain do other components come to the fore: is there a spiritual and intellectual connection? Do the math: many friendships last a lifetime, but very few marriages do. Why is that? You may think it's because marriages are a lot more demanding than most friendships, and you would be exactly right. There is no way that any human being can live up to our expectations and desires, and if you try to lay all that on your spouse you are bound to be disappointed.

Finding a spouse should be like finding a best friend, and indeed I believe that ideally friendship should come before love. It's hard (ok, impossible) to avoid falling "in love" with people sometimes, but it's important not to let those feelings take over a budding friendship. It's very easy to fall in love, but it can be very difficult to get out later. Being "in love" is a wonderful feeling, but it won't last and it's no basis for a permanent relationship.

2003-06-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

AJAR: I haven't written a lot of fiction recently, but I had a silly little idea on the way home tonight. It's called Ajar, and it's up over at The Forge (if the permalink doesn't work). Do people really get divorced because their spouse leaves the window open?

2003-06-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

WHERE'S WALDO?: The search in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction continues, but it appears that many former Saddam scientists still aren't talking.

"Their questions are the same as yours," [one of Saddam Hussein's chief chemical warriors, Iraqi Brig. Gen. Alaa Saeed] said. " 'Do you know of any documents or inventory of chemical agents? Any stockpiles? Any production programs? Any filled munitions? Do you have any idea where these weapons are?' I am ready to give them all the information I have. But the answer is always the same: 'No, no, no.'

"I tell them there are no hidden chemical or biological weapons," he said. "Maybe there is some other group, like the SSO [Hussein's ruthless Special Security Organization] or the Mukhabarat [the Gestapo-like intelligence agency], who have done it. I don't know. That is not my responsibility."

A U.S. intelligence official in Washington said Tuesday that senior Iraqis in custody have provided little useful information.

Strange stuff. They can't really believe that Saddam is still around, can they? It's hard to imagine that all the higher-ups are still toeing the party line. Maybe they're afraid of prosecution for war crimes, but it seems like one or two could be offered immunity for some decent information.

If there are WMD in Iraq, then someone knows where they are. Unfortunately, those who know are probably among the ex-Baathist Sunni Arabs who are currently still fighting against the coalition forces. If the captured scientists have any reason to fear, it's because of these armed remnants who may still be able to reach their family members in Iraq.

(Link to the LA Times article via Rough & Tumble.)

2003-06-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

DRUG LEGALIZATION 2: Danny O'Brien over at Blog O' DOB agrees with my concerns with the prospect of drug legalization.

Understand that while there are moral arguments both for and against legalizing various drugs, I don't think the government should be involved in any way in moral positioning. The only values that government should advocate are morally neutral: interfere with my life as little as possible, and protect me from the interference of others.

2003-06-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

PALESTINIANS AND BOMBS: Donald Sensing points out that the Palestinians have a bomb that can potentially destroy Israel as a Jewish state, and it's attached to their kids! Yes, that's right, the dreaded population bomb.

Right now there are four million Muslims in Israel/West Bank/Gaza. Jews outnumber them by a mere 800,000. At current growth rates of each (see end notes), in 14 years the ratio will be reversed: 6.7 million Muslims and 6 million Jews.

One problem with projections based on growth rate is that they often don't take into account the fact that growth rates change a great deal over time, particularly as overall wealth increases and decreases.

If a workable peace is established in the region, I expect that Palestinian growth rates will decrease as their standard of living increases. It's also hypothetically possible that the Jewish growth rate would increase with added security (more people might have kids), but that's pure speculation.

Additionally, growth rates tend to drop as population density increases, so there will be a leveling-off effect over time.

So yes, I do agree that there is a population issue that the Jews must face, but I'm not convinced it's as dangerous as many make it out to be. Demographics are a tricky subject, and it's hard to make accurate projections.

2003-06-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

ALWAYS SAVE YOUR WORK: I mentioned this post about the Nanog gene and radical life extention over at Setting the World to Rights before, and I wanted to put the link up again because the comments are rather interesting.

One commenter says that once we can create backups of ourselves death will not be permanent, but this is intuitively fallacious. Creating copies or backups of oneself clearly would not obviate death. Another commenter pointed out that a copy would be no different than an identical twin, and wold not really be you, even though they might be just like you.

Even if the copies are fungible to other people, you yourself would still be dead. Same goes for transporters in Star Trek.

Addtionally, I don't expect that we will never be able to back-up a human.

2003-06-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

DIABLOG: Mark Aveyard and I had a chat last night about movies (and other stuff) and it's up at his site, The Diablogger. I love the concept, and it was fun to be the first diablog he's done in a while.

At least he kept my dating success rate out of it.

2003-06-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

HALF EMPTY: I try not to bore you all with too many personal musings, but tonight my glass is definitely half empty rather than half full. Just wanted to share.

2003-06-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

WHY SOCIALISM DOESN'T WORK: In Britain we can see a perfect example of why socialism doesn't work. Healthcare is "free" in the sense that it's paid for by taxes, but apparently some people (such as fat people and smokers) are putting more strain on the system than it can bear. The government has responded by proposing "healthy lifestyle contracts" that doctors would encourage their patients to follow as a part of treatment.

Naturally, this "oppressive" proposal had fat smokers up in arms.

Claire Rayner, president of the Patients' Association, branded the proposal to ask smokers and overweight people to sign healthy lifestyle contracts as "oppressive and obscene".

She said the implication of the plan was to blame people for their own poor health and suggest that they would have to pay more for healthcare because they had brought their illness on themselves.

Ms Rayner said: "This is a nasty middle class document. It's the Tuscan bread and olive oil set telling people they can't eat pizzas and burgers.

She's right about one thing: this does represent the tax-payers telling the poor that they need to take better care of their health. But, that's unfair! Well, it would be, except for the fact that the tax-payers are paying for the medical care these others consume. If I were paying for my neighbor's car, I would certainly insist that he take good care of it and not waste the money I was spending.

You can't have liberty and socialism. It's just not possible for people to live however they want and have society pick up the tab by subsidizing the cost of dangerous behaviors. Because of economic realities, you have to pick: either you have freedom to make dangerous decisions and bear the cost for yourself, or society picks up the tab for everything bad that happens but also has the authority and power to make many decisions for you.

When a child lives at home with his parents, he necessarily lives under their rules. He can't just destroy stuff or leave food or dirty clothes everywhere because it puts impossible strain on the people providing for him. When a child grows up and lives on his own, he (eventually) learns to minimize harmful behaviours due to the cost of dealing with the aftermath. Same with healthcare and lifestyle, socialized jobs and productivity, you name it. There's a liberty/security trade-off that cannot be avoided.

2003-06-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

DRUG LEGALIZATION: There's a movement afoot to legalize many types of currently illegal drugs (particularly marijuana) on civil liberty grounds, and I'm generally sympathetic, even though I have never used any illegal drugs and I rarely drink alcohol. The basic idea behind the movement is that if someone wants to use drugs, even dangerous ones, it's no business of government as long as no one else is hurt. It is also argued that if drugs are legalized then the black market and all the crime associated with it will evaporate because the premium prices will disappear when large, legal, corporations take over production and distribution.

Both of these justifications are plausible. I don't like the government involved in peoples' personal lives, and I do think legalization would quickly undermine the vast drug cartels that smuggle illicit substances into our country and wreak havoc all around the world. But. I don't think that anyone has a clear and complete understanding of how legalization would affect our society and economy.

Civil libertarians may argue that it's irrelevant, but consider what demographics would be most likely to increase consumption of currently illegal drugs. Who would these newly-formed drug companies target with their product? Alcohol has a rather high penetration rate and is often abused... what effect would wide-spread "moderate" LSD or cocaine use have on society? (Can such drugs even be used in "moderation"? Doubtful.)

It may be argued that even if drug use is legalized it will not become wide-spread, but economic theory does not support that belief. Right now illegal drugs are expensive and difficult to acquire, but if they are legalized the price will drop by a factor of 10 or more and they will be available at every corner store. It's absurd to think that this change in market conditions will have no effect on consumption. Will the productivity lost by increased hard drug use be offset by the money saved in law enforcement and gained through taxation? I'm skeptical. And do we really want our government raising money by taxing addictive substances, and thereby gaining an incentive to get more people hooked? (This is why I'm against tobacco taxes and why I think the tobacco industry scored a huge win with the structure of its lawsuit settlements with the states.)

As with all things, a balance needs to be found that maximizes liberty and minimizes the cost of that libery to society. Perhaps alcohol should be legal and LSD should not, perhaps marijuana should or should not be. I don't think the answer is as clear as the legalization-ists would have us believe, but I also think that the status quo needs some serious reconsideration.

2003-06-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Peace between Israel and the Palestinians doesn't seem likely as long as:

The conviction that no way can be found for Israel and the Palestinians to coexist is strongest in Morocco (90 percent), followed by Jordan (85 percent), the Palestinian Authority (80 percent), Kuwait (72 percent), Lebanon (65 percent), Indonesia (58 percent) and Pakistan (57 percent).

The numbers come from this International Herald Tribune article. It goes on to say,

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who chairs the Pew project, called these results "very disheartening, and very dangerous, frankly."

"I hope that this is temporary and that, if there are some improvements in the situation because of the peace process, it will change," she said. "There is no way Israel is going to disappear. We will just have to find some way to mitigate those feelings."

Well, it's not temporary -- these aren't new numbers and there's no reason to expect that they're transient. Albright seems to think that the "peace process" might change the Palestinians' minds, but how can there be such a process if 8 in 10 Palestinians think there's no way to coexist with Israel? Who would embark on any sort of process that they believe is futile?

As Albright said, there's no way that Israel is going to disappear. There's also apparently no way that the Palestinians are going to give up their desire to eradicate Israel. That's a stalemate that can only be resolved when one side loses, and the sole accomplishment of the "peace process" so far has been to ensure that neither side can be defeated. The Palestinians can't realistically threaten Israel's military, and Israel can't bring its full power to bear against the Palestinians due to the political pressure of the "peace process".

Until and unless one side has its will to fight broken by defeat, there won't be peace in the region. When two parties have mutually exclusive goals, the only way there can be peace is if one of them is defeated. The externally imposed "peace process" is just prolonging the agony leading up to the inevitable hot war and raising the stakes for both sides. Neither can back down and they can't both win, so it's just a matter of time.

(Thanks to Opinion Journal for the pointer to the article.)

2003-06-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

GOLD: Just go read Lileks. He's got the dirtiest joke that's ever been on TV, and it's from the Tomacco episode of the Simpsons... one of my favorite. No, I won't just blockquote it here, go read it for yourself. Go go go.

As if you need me to tell you to go read him.

2003-06-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

LINKAGE: Donald Sensing has posted some small blogs that have been linking to him, and I'm among them. Thanks Don!

2003-06-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO ME ON THE WAY HOME...: While I was driving home from work just now I saw a guy on the street driving my old car! I sold my white '91 Ford Escort almost exactly three years ago, and I was quite taken aback to see it again, same license plate and everything. Naturally, I decided to follow the guy home. Turns out he lives one block away from me.

2003-06-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

CALIFORNIA POLITICAL THEORY: As summarized by Al Rantel: If it moves, regulate it; if it keeps moving, tax it; if it stops moving, subsidize it.

2003-06-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

NANOG: SettingTheWorldToRights has a post up about the newly-named Nanog gene, and goes in pretty much the same direction with it that I did. They seem to be in favor of using stem cells from babies killed for reasearch, whereas I am not, and they take our human form as accidental, but that's par for the course.

They focus mostly on the prospect of radical life extension, but I think that the elimination of degenerative disease will come more quickly.

2003-06-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

YOU TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Donald Sensing explains why paying taxes is a legal obligation, but not a moral duty. All the better for having read it right after depositing my federal tax refund check.

2003-06-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

HEY BIG SPENDER: I like Bush a lot, and I think he's going a great job as president... for the most part. Whether through pure skill or through skill mixed with luck and timing he and his team have handled the Iraq/UN situation brilliantly -- not only achieving our immediate goals of fighting terror and oppression against a visible enemy, but also managing to throw some light into the dark recesses of international diplomacy where our "allies" have lay hidden, plotting against us for years.

Of course, his dad performed decently in the foreign policy realm as well. Bush II has managed to pass some nice tax cuts (in contrast to Bush I, who raised taxes despite his famous "read my lips" promise), but I'm still not completely satisfied. Andrew Sullivan points to a Peter Beinart article that criticizes many of the president's policies, and although I don't agree with most of the criticisms (such as "the Bush administration seems to believe that, as the most powerful country on earth, the United States should both dictate the rules of the international system and exempt itself from them" -- I entirely agree with the Bush administration), in one area Beinart is dead on: Bush needs to review agricultural subsidies.

Let me briefly explain what a subsidy is. Take cotton: for every pound of cotton grown in the US, the government pays the grower 72 cents. Without this money (or some amount), it would not be profitable to grow cotton in the US, and the industry would move out of the country. It costs one-third as much to grow cotton in Africa, for instance. If the subsidy was removed American jobs would be lost (from the cotton industry), but there would be a net economic gain because the cost of cotton products would go down (when the cost of the subsidy is factored in). Subsidies are bad for our economy. Not only that, but this subsidy is also bad for Africa, because African growers can't compete in the cotton market with our growers, who can sell the cotton at a lower price, due to the subsidy.

What's the benefit? In theory, we as a nation don't want to be wholly dependent on foreigners for essential goods, such as cotton, oil, food, steel, and the like. So it makes sense from a national security standpoint to subsidize some industries so that they don't disappear entirely. However, agricultural subsidies are often more pork than anything else, and at the very least the entire process should be reviewed and zero-based anew every year to prevent corruption; they've continued to grow under Bush, however, as they have under all past presidents.

2003-06-02T00:58:00.000-07:00

A TALE OF FOUR SERIES: I'd like to briefly compare and contrast four recent movie series, each of which has had two out of at least three movies released. They are all designed to target the same general demographic, and all have huge budgets, but only two of them are really living up to expectations.

Star Wars: Taking the most recent movies as part of a new trilogy (episodes I through III), the general concensus is that they pretty much suck. Nifty new (ostentatious, gaudy) special effects and digital production don't make up for awful acting and absurd plotlines. Let's look at how The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones compare to the first three based on ratings from Internet Movie Database and RottenTomatoes:

Star Wars: 8.8/10, 95% fresh
Empire Strikes Back: 8.7/10, 98% fresh
Return of the Jedi: 8.1/10, 79% fresh

The Phantom Menace: 6.6/10, 63% fresh
Attack of the Clones: 7.3/10, 63% fresh

Those are significant drops in approval, and anecdotally I think most people would agree that George Lucas' most recent forays into writing and directing were less than spectacular. No big stars in leading roles, unless you count Ewan McGregor.

The Matrix: The first movie was obviously huge (8.5/10, 86% fresh) (although I wasn't a huge fan... it was good), but apparently the second isn't being as well received (7.5/10, 75% fresh). Not only that, but Donald Sensing notes that its box office receipts are plummeting much more quickly than expected. Decent star-power.

X-Men: The first movie came out in 2000 and was ok, but nothing spectacular (7.3/10, 80% fresh). The second came out in 2003 and was much better than most people seemed to expect (7.8/10, 88% fresh). The special effects were good, but there was also something known as a "plot". The characters had as many as two (even three!) dimensions, and the world wasn't completely black and white. Additionally, there were a good number of big stars.

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring was pretty amazing (8.9/10, 95% fresh), and The Two Towers was excellent as well (8.8/10, 97% fresh). Again, good special effects, good acting (mostly), and a few moderate-size stars.

The first two series are struggling (some may disagree with regard to The Matrix, but box office receipts don't lie), and the last two are flourishing. I don't think many people expected much from the X-Men franchise when the first movie came out, and although people had high hopes for LoTR there was a prevailing sense of dread that the the beloved series would be butchered in production (as Star Wars was).

So what sets the last two series apart? There are a decent number of movie stars in each, they all have big budgets, they all have special effects, they all have boatloads of promotion... even Hugo Weaving is spread between them evenly. So what's the deal?

X-Men and LoTR are based on amazingly powerful prior works, and Star Wars and The Matrix are not. There are obviously hundreds and thousands of books and comic books that came out contemporaneously with X-Men and LoTR, and most of them failed and disappeared. That these two works survived long enough to be made into movies demonstrates their underlying fitness. In contrast, Star Wars and The Matrix were thrown immediately into the same entertainment niche with these proven contenders and will likely fall by the wayside, just as their earlier paper competition.

What's the lesson? Maybe Hollywood needs to consider that the same qualities that make for a good book also make for a successful movie. Special effects and promotional tie-ins will get people in for the first weekend, but ultimately a good story is what people are after. Conflict, character development, background depth, mystery, risk.

X-Men and LoTR had leading characters die (Boromir and Jean Grey). Star Wars killed off Qui-Gon Jinn (who was introduced for the sole purpose of killing off, it seems) and The Matrix has an invincible main character. In both, the heroes fight against robots who are killed by the hundred, but who cares? That's like killing Nazis -- no one sees the enemy as significant, they're just cannon fodder. In LoTR the orcs at least have some personality, and the Black Riders are actually pretty scary and cool. Their history as corrupted human kings gives them some weight, and Sauron's flaming eye is downright evil.

Magneto is more of a tragic hero than a villain, and the audience can relate to his desire to protect mutants, even if his methods are dangerous and destructive. There's a complex interplay between good and evil that's not seen in Star Wars -- the evil Jedi don't really seem that evil based on what we see on screen -- or The Matrix. Even though the evil in LoTR is very clear-cut, the conflict and struggle among and within the Fellowship is enough to sustain the feeling of apprehension and mystery (aside from the fact that we all know how it ends).

I certainly don't want anyone to take away from this the idea that movies should only be remakes of previously successful stories (argh, no!), but I think movie-makers could learn a lot from reading a few books.

2003-05-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

FINDING NEMO: Despite getting a 99% "fresh" rating from RottenTomatoes.com, Pixar/Disney's new release, Finding Nemo, totally sucked. The computer animation was cool, yay, but the plot was incredibly weak and I could barely stay awake.

As any English major can tell you, the key to any story is conflict. Finding Nemo has no conflict. There are no bad guys -- it's basically a man (fish) vs. nature story, except that nature pretty much does everything it can to help out along the way.

Along with this underwhelming story they toss in a few cheap anti-American knocks that really serve no purpose at all considering that the movie takes place near Australia. The fish don't know where Sydney is, but they can crack wise about arrogant Americans. Screw you, Pixar and Disney.

Overall it was boring and monotonous. Marlin, the dad, would escape from one mildly threatening situation and fall right into another, only to be rescued by whatever friendly sea creature happened to be swimming by. Nemo eventually frees himself from the dentist's aquarium by getting tossed down a sink, and somehow manages to reach the ocean by passing through a waste treatment plant alive. Whatever; trying to analyze the plot is like beating up a little kid with a nerf bat.

2003-05-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

HOLLYWOOD GETS IT WRONG: Stephen Stanton explains how Hollywood gets capitalism all wrong, and why we should care.

2003-05-31T02:08:00.000-07:00

DO GUNS REALLY INCREASE SECURITY?: I'm generally very pro-gun. I think law-abiding citizens should be allowed to own and carry pretty much any type of gun they want without government involvement. I believe that wide-spread gun ownership can reduce crime and ultimately save lives. There are some statistics that bear out these beliefs, but what I'd really like to focus on at the moment is a situation that appears to stand in stark contrast: the on-going barbarism in the Congo.

The Telegraph article describes how crazed, drug-infused, cannibalistic militias (with periodic military support) have been devestating the country for the past five years, resulting in between 3 and 5 million deaths thus far. It's an awful, inconceivably evil conflict with no apparent end in sight, and it's being perpetrated on the populace despite the apparent widespread availability of guns.

Along the town's main street shop doors hung drunkenly from their hinges. Windows on many buildings were smashed, their contents looted. The few establishments that escaped pillaging were firmly shuttered. A Hema boy, aged no more than eight or nine, sauntered down the street dressed in a ridiculously oversized military uniform, his camouflage jacket flapping about his calves.

He disappeared into a building for a moment and re-emerged casually swinging an AK47 from his hip.

A pick-up truck filled with grim-faced Hema soldiers and mounted with a fearsomely large machinegun roared down the street.

So what's the deal? I buy into the idea that guns can make society safer, so why isn't it working in the Congo?

One might argue that civil order has already broken down, and that the problem is that there is no central authority with enough firepower to restore it. However, there don't appear to be significant quantities of heavy weapons involved on the side of the militias, so why can't the rest of the population at least organize to contain and restrain them? Lack of will? Pure fear? Do I have a mistaken impression of the quantity of guns in play? Do the militias have a monopoly on firearms that the population as a whole does not have access to?

Perhaps there is some law and order threshold such that in circumstances where peace already prevails gun ownership can reduce crime, but in circumstances where violence dominates throwing more guns into the mix just exacerbates the problem. Maybe this threshold is somehow related to mob psychology in the sense that individuals will tend to follow the existing status quo, be that peace or violence. Does anyone have any insight?

(Telegraph link via Mean Mr. Mustard.)

2003-05-30T21:22:00.000-07:00

WAR IS GOOD FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS: Not only have all the children that Saddam locked up been released, but the terrible environmental damage he caused is beginning to be repaired, as can be seen from these satellite photos. From the UN, no less!

Hopefully someone will credit this environmental clean-up to Bush's account during the 2004 election. I have no doubt that it will win over a great many Green party members.

(Thanks for the photos, OpinionJournal.)

2003-05-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

POST-WAR IRAQ: Robert Pollock has a very different view of the Iraqi street than I opined on yesterday. It's also a much more encouraging report than that from WaPo, which bemoaned the current lack of Iraqi local governance.

On the street, opinion of Iraq's would-be leaders [prospective Iraqi leaders] is decidedly more skeptical--perhaps understandable in a country that has not learned to expect great things from politicians. "No to [Shiite religious leader] Hakim, no to Chalabi," is a common refrain. "I want America to stay here . . . kill Saddam and stay." Of all the preconceptions I had before my visit, the idea that Iraqis would demand a provisional government of their own at the earliest possible date was most wrong.

Unfortunately, many of the Iraqis who are offering themselves up for leadership positions are former Baathists and Saddam cronies who the local populace is understandably afraid of. Almost everyone who was in the old Iraqi bureaucracy was also involved with the Baathist regime, and so there aren't many experienced administrators available to take control.

I don't see this as a bad thing, considering how corrupt the old government was -- what it does mean, however, is that the American administration will have to train a new bureaucracy from the ground up. Luckily, if there's one thing we're good at here it's bureaucracy!

2003-05-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

PAPER INTERNET: One of my aunts was at my house the other day and saw the anti-anti-war poster I was holding in this infamous AP photograph taken at the big anti-war walkout at UCLA in early March (link's broken, great... I'll find another later). She remarked, "that's the poster that from the protest; it's so neat that you got onto the internet!" I smiled and nodded, but her perspective on the internet (really the WWW) made me think.

My aunt's statement would have made much more sense if she was talking about me being on television, for example. It's unusual for any specific person to be on TV, and no doubt that was the connection she was making in her mind. However, the web isn't really like TV at all. Anyone can put anything up on the web, basically at will and for no cost. There's nothing significant about having your picture on a web page somewhere. In this instance, the only reason it was significant was because the photo was taken by an AP photographer and was carried by a few wire subscribers, as well as Instapundit.

If anything, the web is like paper more than it's like TV. Anyone can write something down or have their picture taken -- what makes it noteworthy is how that paper is then positioned and who sees it. The mere fact that my picture was available on the web is not remarkable, but its positioning was.

2003-05-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

DIVINE INTERVENTION: As I mentioned yesterday, I passed my Written Qualifying Exams. They were difficult, and after I took them last week I was pretty sure that I had not done very well. I took the exams once before and failed, and I was mildly stressed out about the possibility of failing again (that's about as stressed out as I get).

During the six months of preparation, the few weeks of cramming, the 10 hours of testing, and the 10 days of waiting to get my scores back, I did a lot of praying. I asked God to give me wisdom as I studied, a clear mind, focus, encouragement, some lenient professors... and of course, I ask him to help me pass. And I did pass. So, did God answer my prayers, or did God just sit back and watch while I did my thing?

SDB believes that "the material universe is all that exists, and that everything we see around us is a manifestation of matter and the way it interacts according to the laws of physics". So he would clearly say that my prayers had no impact on my actual performance, other than perhaps psychological. But then, that assertion would be predicated on his existing philosophy and not really based on any evidence in this particular case -- indeed, my prayers were such that they could be answered without there being any incontrovertable evidence of God taking direct action.

What about free will? Some have claimed that God cannot act directly in the world or intervene in human affairs without undermining free will. That's an interesting position, and it relates closely to my prayers regarding my exam. It seems obvious that God could, for example, manipulate natural forces without interfering with free will (or even leaving noticable indications that he was meddling), but in order to answer my specific prayers in the affirmative God would have to tweak my own behavior, at the very least.

I asked for wisdom and focus, so if God assented and somehow helped me be more dedicated to my studies did he violate my free will? Not if he was only doing what I myself asked him to do. The very process of asking for God to act implies that I consent to the requested involvement.

The request for lenient professors is a bit trickier. Speculatively, God could cause memories to arise of the professors' own examination experiences which could lead to generosity when they graded mine; that would not necessarily subvert their free will (since such remembrance is not generally a conscious process), but would certainly be somewhat manipulative.

In the end, there's no real proof either way. But I did pass, and my intelligence and opportunities at the very least came from God's grace.

2003-05-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

POST-WAR IRAQ: Local governance in Basra is shaping up to be rather difficult. I didn't buy all the overly optimistic predictions that had an Iraqi government in place and our military out in six months, but I also didn't think it would be quite this hard to set up local city councils. I still stand by my initial guess that it will be two years or so before the Iraqis really control their country again.

I'm also sick and tired of reading about their complaints. Boohoo, you're not "free" yet. You're also not being tortured and mutilated anymore either. Just chill!

2003-05-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

NANOG: Kinda like egg nog, except that "nanog" is the name genetic researchers are giving the "master gene" that they've discovered which they believe is responsible for giving embryonic stem cells their pluripotency. That is, stem cells can mature into any type of cell, whereas most human cells have their nature fixed within a few days of creation.

The article says that:

In one crucial experiment, Smith's team inserted copies of the human nanog gene into mouse embryonic stem cells, and subjected those cells to laboratory conditions that normally force such cells to mature and become one kind of tissue. The human nanog gene prevented that process.

That suggests that if scientists were to reawaken the dormant nanog gene in adult human cells -- something the Japanese group and others would like to try soon -- they might "reprogram" the gene activity patterns in those adult cells and turn them into cells that, for all practical purposes, are embryonic stem cells.

If this ability can be turned on and off at will at different locations throughout the body it will be possible to heal many currently untreatable conditions: nerve damage, lost or damaged organs, severe burns, brain diseases like Alzheimer's, nerve diseases like Parkinson's and muscular dystrophy, cancer, heart disease... you name it.

In theory, it would also be possible to reverse/eliminate aging and extend fertility indefinitely.

2003-05-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

CALIFORNIA POLITICS: I rather enjoy politics, and California has quite a bit going on. We've got a $30 billion (or $20 billion) budget crisis, an attempt to recall governor Gray Davis circulating for signatures, a highly partisan legislature, massive immigration problems, &c. &c. The problem is, most of the news blogs and sites I read deal on a more national level, and it's hard to find out what's going on locally. I get most of my California politics from local talk radio in the afternoons, but it's not entirely satisfying. So, I'm happy to have discovered Rough & Tumble, a blog that givs us "a daily snapshot of California public policy and politics". I'm sticking a link on the blogroll to the left.

2003-05-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

I'M THE BEST AROUND! AND NOTHING'S GONNA EVER KEEP ME DOWN!: Just as Daniel-san recovered from the Cobra Kai's vicious leg-sweep, I have defeated the mighty WQE despite its initial, short-lived, victory. Yes, that's right, I passed my Written Qualifying Exams! Woohoo!

I suggest a new strategy, WQE: let the Michael win!

2003-05-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

RESTORING MY FAITH IN THE MEDIA: Or at least taking a shot at it. In the wake of the recent New York Times debacles, it was refreshing to come across this LA Times memo via Courtney.

The reason I'm sending this note to all section editors is that I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage. We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.

I'm no expert on abortion, but I know enough to believe that it presents a profound philosophical, religious and scientific question, and I respect people on both sides of the debate. A newspaper that is intelligent and fair-minded will do the same.

Bravo.

2003-05-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

SUPREMACY OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Erik over at Brainville takes a rather absolutist view of individual rights that I admit is rather appealing given the socialist/collectivist view of freedom that permeates much of the world; however, in his zeal I think he has moved too far to the other end of the spectrum. As with nearly all things, moderation is the key. Individuals rights should certainly reign supreme in the natural order, but as members of society we voluntarily abridge some of our rights in order to live together peacefully and securely.

For instance, I believe very strongly that individuals bear the primary responsibility for their own defense, and that the right to keep arms towards this end is fundamental and essential to human dignity and liberty. However, given the requirements of a functioning society, I do not believe that this right should be entirely unlimited. The question is, how limited should it be? It's easy to draw a bright line and deal with the world in black and white -- there should be no limits on private weapons. Indeed, in the natural order of the world this would necessarily be the only acceptable view. However, society is artificial and we do not exist in a "natural order"; I do not believe that unlimited freedom to keep every sort of weapon is the optimal strategy for my own security and prosperity. For instance, I am very strongly in favor of laws that prevent my neighbor from constructing a nuclear weapon in his basement, even if he is doing so to protect his family or to resist a potentially tyrannical government. Similarly, I do not believe that felons or psychotics should be allowed to possess weapons.

Free speech should also be limited to some degree. Britain's libel laws are far too restrictive, but ours in America are not particularly burdensome and I have no problem with them in general. Likewise, threatening speech should not be permitted, nor should fraudulent advertising. Drunk driving should be illegal for the same reasons that it's illegal to fire a gun into the air in the middle of a city.

It is emotionally and intellectually satisfying to believe that no one should sacrifice or abridge any of their natural rights under any circumstances, but I don't think that this perspective is practical or optimal for either the individual or the community. We are right to be concerned about the potential erosion of our liberty, but it's a matter of degree -- and not every slope is slippery. It is possible for me to voluntarily yield my right to own a nuclear weapon without later yielding my right to possess a handgun or a rifle or (for that matter) a tank. Society is built on compromise, and some freedoms can safely be surrendered in exchange for security, comfort, and prosperity. The trick is in finding where to draw the lines.

I do think that our current system has moved too far towards the collectivist viewpoint and that many of our fundamental rights are being slowly taken away by people who hope to shape society into their version of utopia wherein the elite few "guide" the mindless masses of sheeple in the direction that is "best for them". In particular, the right to possess the means to protect oneself from violent assault is overly restricted here in California. However, it would be possible to go too far in the other direction, as well. Who then should possess the power to determine the limits of our rights?

Why, we outselves, of course! That's the beauty of democracy. We have the power to reclaim our rights; our system is not hopelessly flawed and we do not require violent revolution, we simply need to state our positions clearly and disseminate them as broadly as possible, and then allow the people to decide. Unlike the socialists, I am not afraid to let the populace determine our destiny. As it is, we have already decided that certain rights are outside the power of the majority, and I am not advocating strict majority rule. Our tradition, history, and founding documents outline the rules of the game, and I trust the majority to deal with the specific details.

2003-05-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

TONGUE TWISTERS: Here are some of my favorites --

Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.

Toy boat. Toy boat. Toy boat.

The pyrite pirate's playwright playmate played right.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickeled peppers;
A peck of pickeled peppers Peter Piper picked.
But if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

2003-05-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

HISTORICAL ACCURACY: Along the same line as the textbook post below, Clayton Cramer points me to a post by Eric Muller that recounts an experience with real discrimination during a historical re-enactment at Colonial Williamsburg. I've been to CW before and found it mildly interesting, mainly because of the attention to historical details. However, is it appropriate to discriminate among visitors by race and religion so that they can get a feel for what past discrimination was actually like?

Then the bailiff explained that the members of the panel of justices would have to meet the requirements of the period—they would have to be white, male, Protestant, over a certain age (I don't remember what it was), and land owners. Then he said, “the law at the time would have required you to swear an anti-papist oath too, but”—and here he broke into a broad smile—“we're not going to push it that far.” Many in the crowd laughed.

Then he asked for volunteers. He must have noticed the enthusiasm in my face, because he specifically pointed to me and asked if I wanted to participate. I was confused—had all of that stuff about the requirements for serving been a joke? He said nothing that indicated he wasn't serious. And he'd even said that there was an eighteenth-century requirement that they weren't enforcing—the anti-papist oath—so that led me to think that maybe they were serious about the other ones. Anyway, I answered him that I didn't meet the requirements. (I'm Jewish.) “Thanks for being honest,” he said, and then turned to get other volunteers.

The point could have been made without enforcing the discriminatory rules, and would certainly have raised fewer eyebrows... but was this actual discrimination or what? Was it wrong? I can't quite put my finger on it.

Clayton Cramer mentions that in the past, black employees at CW were said to be playing the role of "servents" rather than "slaves" for fear of offending anyone, but that particular change seems very revisionist to me. It's one thing to hire actors to play historically accurate parts that involve discrimination, but it's quite another to impose racism on visitors for the sake of accuracy. The Holocaust Museum here in Los Angeles doesn't require Jewish guests to sew yellow stars onto the clothing when they enter, for example.

2003-05-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

COMMIES: I don't know if I hate all communists, but I sure hate communism. Most young, American commies that I come into contact with are just misguided idealists, but that doesn't really make them any less dangerous. Communism has killed more people than fascism has, but it isn't recognized as being as evil because its intentions are better (on the surface, anyway). I saw a hippie wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt at In-N-Out last night and I wanted to start an arguement with him, but I didn't. What's the point? Other than pure entertainment, I mean.

Communism is seductive because it sounds so nice, but it doesn't work, and when it fails it fails spectacularly.

2003-05-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

THINK OF THE CHILDREN: Lincoln said that "you can't please all the people all of the time", but apparently textbook writers are care less about pleasing everyone than they worry about offending anyone. Dianne Ravitch's new book, "The Language Police", gives a list of 500 words that the four major textbook publishers have banned from their products for fear of offending various groups of people. This is hardly a new issue, but it makes me cringe every time I see it.

Among the words and phrases excluded:

... you can't find anyone riding on a yacht or playing polo in the pages of an American textbook either. The texts also can't say someone has a boyish figure, or is a busboy, or is blind, or suffers a birth defect, or is a biddy, or the best man for the job, a babe, a bookworm, or even a barbarian.

All these words are banned from U.S. textbooks on the grounds that they either elitist (polo, yacht) sexist (babe, boyish figure), offensive (blind, bookworm) ageist (biddy) or just too strong (hell which is replaced with darn or heck). God is also a banned word in the textbooks because he or she is too religious.

Obviously this type of nerfing is counterproductive -- it clearly inhibits actual learning, which is the point of textbooks. If a student is never exposed to anything different than what he already knows, how can he ever learn or grow? Textbooks should teach facts. Sometimes facts are unpleasant. People who live in the real world (as opposed to education-fantasyland) need to learn to deal with things they don't like without getting "offended".

Even the concept of being "offended" is ridiculous to me. People are different than you, deal with it. Some people do own yachts, some people are barbarians, whatever. Understand the context behind the words you don't like, learn where the connotations come from, and decide for yourself whether or not they're justified. That's what education is about.

Some people want to nerf the whole world and cover all the sharp corners with soft, squishy foam so that no one ever gets hurt or experiences an unpleasant moment. There already are such places: they're called insane asylums. Go live there and leave the rest of us alone. What will happen when your child is confronted with a real live blind person who own a yacht and plays polo?

2003-05-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

CFR AND THE 17TH AMENDMENT: I've written several times about so-called campaign finance reform, and there's another aspect that I want to address. I said before that one of the reasons that there is a problem with "special interests" unduly influencing elections is that the legislative branch of our government has usurped too much power from the states themselves, and that's a fact. It would be good to drastically cut taxes and "entitlements", but how could such a thing be accomplished under our current system?

Well, it probably can't. However, the current system isn't the only possible way to do things; until 1913 the federal legislative playing field was quite different. Before the enactment of the 17th Amendment Senators were not elected directly by the people of each state, but were instead selected by the state legislatures. John Dean wrote an essay in 2002 in which he argues that this change to our republic is really what is responsible for the federal bloat we've seen since FDR, and that such cannot be laid solely at the feet of the Progressive movement.

I think Dean has a valid point. The 17th Amendment doesn't account for the explosion of state governments, but I'm sure it at least played a role in the subversion of our federal government. Why was it enacted in the first place? John Dean bases his conclusions on the research of George Mason law professor Todd Zywicki and demolishes two traditional explanations for the 17th. He then says:

Fortuntely, Professor Zywicki offers an explanation for the Amendment's enactment that makes much more sense. He contends that the true backers of the Seventeenth Amendment were special interests, which had had great difficultly influencing the system when state legislatures controlled the Senate. (Recall that it had been set up by the Framers precisely to thwart them.) They hoped direct elections would increase their control, since they would let them appeal directly to the electorate, as well as provide their essential political fuel - money.

This explanation troubles many. However, as Zywicki observes, "[a]thought some might find this reality 'distasteful,' that does not make it any less accurate."

The permanent solution to the corruption in Washington is to split Congress back into its original form, so that state legislatures can provide a balance against the federal government's insatiable appetite for power (and vice versa). The "checks and balances" of our political system are its greatest strength; competition eliminates the long-term problems that arise when too much power is concentrated in any one institution.

2003-05-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

A COMMON THREAD: I want to briefly mention a topic that's been bouncing around in my brain for a while. I think it was brought to the forefront by something I heard on the radio today, but I'm not sure.

In a country with a parlimentary system of government, the Democratic Party would be five or six seperate parties. Because of our electoral system these disparate factions have banded into one party, and there are a few important threads that tie them all together. What do labor unions, NOW, environmentalists, urban blacks, Hollywood stars, teachers' unions, welfare mothers, and all the rest have in common? Well, the most obvious answer is that they all benefit greatly from big government and think that it's better for everyone if the elite have the power to tell you how to run your life. Longing for a big, powerful, unlimited government that can usher in Utopia is the major platform that all these groups stand on; only slightly beneath the surface is the desire to profit off this concentration of power, to use the government as leverage to attain wealth and easy living.

More subtle, though, is the issue of abortion-on-demand. There are/were many Democrat politicians who used to be pro-life (such as Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Ed Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Jesse Jackson, to name only a few) but who have since changed their position. Why is that? The fact of the matter is that no Democrat will get political support from the party apparatus these days if he/she is not stridently pro-abortion. Ideological diversity is unacceptable to the people who value other arbitrary/involuntary forms of diversity above all else.

Abortion is the hidden tie that binds. I'm not exactly sure why, though. Most blacks and hispanics (who largely identify themselves with the Democrats) aren't knee-jerk pro-choicers, so what's the deal with the party? I guess the party elites just know better than the plebes do, and they're intent on pushing their own agenda. It hurts the party politically, however, and I suspect that many of the minority voters that they count on are going to wake up sooner or later.

2003-05-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

POST-WAR IRAQ: Donald Rumsfeld has an article up at OpinionJournal.com in which he outlines some of the broad principles that the Coalition Provisional Authority will be putting into place in post-war Iraq. Some are pretty direct, but some are more subtle. The very first one is:

Assert authority. Our goal is to put functional and political authority in the hands of Iraqis as soon as possible. The Coalition Provisional Authority has the responsibility to fill the vacuum of power in a country that has been a dictatorship for decades, by asserting authority over the country. It will do so. It will not tolerate self-appointed "leaders."

That's very direct, and clearly an important thing to do.

Contracts--promoting Iraq's recovery. Whenever possible, contracts for work in Iraq will go to those who will use Iraqi workers and to countries that supported the Iraqi people's liberation so as to contribute to greater regional economic activity and to accelerate Iraq's and the region's economic recovery.

Translation: French and Russian contracts will not be honored, and nations which opposed the war will be locked-out of the rebuilding process.

The international community. Other countries and international organizations, including the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, will be welcomed to assist in Iraq. They can play an important role. The Coalition Provisional Authority will work with them to maintain a focus of effort.

That's a little more subtle -- the UN and other organizations can come and help, and we'll tell them how to focus their efforts.

Priority sources of funds. In assisting the Iraqi people, the U.S. will play its role but should not be considered the funder of first and last resort. The American people have already made a significant investment to liberate Iraq, and stand ready to contribute to rebuilding efforts. But when funds are needed, before turning to the U.S. taxpayers, the coalition will turn first to Iraqi regime funds located in Iraq; Iraqi funds in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program; seized frozen Iraqi regime assets in the U.S. and other countries; and international donors from across the globe, many of whom are already assisting.

Good, that's how it should work. There's no reason that America or Britain or anyone else should have to finance Iraq's recovery when the country is floating on oil.

2003-05-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

MATRIX RELOADED: Yeah, what he said. I don't really have much to say about the movie. If you like the process of tearing through wrapping paper more than you actually enjoy getting to the present, you'll like the movie. Otherwise, you might be disappointed when you discover there's really nothing inside the gaudy packaging.

Update:
Mark Aveyard blasts Lileks' critique of the movie. He also claims that the woman who ate the magic cake was having an orgasm, but uh, if that's the case, then it was a more subdued orgasm than I've ever seen. Ahem.

2003-05-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

THE SPICE OF LIFE: I think the quarter system is superior to the semester system for a lot of reasons. One of the primary is that I have a short attention span, and I'd rather learn a subject in 10 weeks than in 18. For some things, like math, we cover the same amount of material in three quarters as is otherwise done in two semesters, so there's no real net gain. But for other subjects (such as when I had to take an "ethics in engineering" course) it's quite a relief to finish up as quickly as possible.

I like variety, I like change, I like doing new things -- as long as they're below a certain threshold. For example, I enjoy rearranging my furniture but I hate moving. Changing a room around can give it a whole new vibe and completely realign it mentally. You can wash out all the old memories of past experiences that took place there and end up with an entirely new place.

Moving, on the other hand, always makes me feel empty and alone. Even once I've got my phone and my internet connection hooked up I still feel isolated and distant in my new location. What if someone is trying to reach me, and they don't know where I am?! Geesh, I don't even know where I am! A couple of weeks later the new house starts to feel like home, and everything mentally falls into its proper niche. The secret to success is to will yourself into taking that first step.

Many people have told me about feeling trapped or stuck in places or experiences in life, such as jobs or relationships or what-have-you. That's not something I've ever really had trouble dealing with, myself. There have certainly been times when I've felt that I'm not making sufficient progress in the direction that I want to go, but I've never felt trapped anywhere with no escape. Most such "traps" are really just mental hills we have to climb, fears we have to overcome, and motivational thresholds we have to surpass. We need to take the first step, and the rest is easy (even if it's not always comfortable).

For myself, I try and recognize such situations in my own life early on, and then move quickly to escape before I invest too much time or energy in a losing proposition. I'd rather face unpleasant truths than live enveloped in comforting lies, and so when a job or relationship or circumstance goes sour I do my best to muster up the courage and energy to escape as soon as possible. It's important to consider the situation carefully, but once the truth is clear I never waste time making the hard decision that will inevitably be required.

He who hesitates is lost. Who dares, wins. Just do it.

2003-05-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?: Apparently, Iraqi doctors are now confirming that the spike in the infant death rate in Iraq in the 1990s was Saddam's fault, and not really due to sanctions. Who'd've thunk it?

2003-05-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY:

Pic from USMemorialDay.org.

2003-05-25T00:21:00.000-07:00

CONTAINMENT: Because of the containment problem I just mentioned I don't believe that humanity will ever develop artificial intelligence that rivals our own. I don't think that we'll ever be able to understand the true nature of our minds, because our comprehension is itself contained within that system. That's why research into AI relies heavily on trying to generate emergent effects -- complex results from simple inputs. Getting complex results from complex inputs is easy, but so far no one has been able to come up with a system of rules that fully describes human behavior. Constructing simple inputs is easy, but it's almost always impossible to get more complexity out of a system than you put into it in the first place.

2003-05-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

APPEAL TO CONSEQUENCES: SDB asks "Do you prefer unpleasant truths or pleasing falsehoods?" In almost every instance I believe it's better to know the truth than to believe in something false just because it's more comfortable. There are plenty of examples, particularly that relate to religion, but since I said "in almost every instance" let me briefly discuss one case in which the truth seems irrelevent.

Is there such a thing as "free will"? I believe there is -- if man is created in God's image, then the most significant implcation of that is our existence as free moral agents. It gets to the root of one of the biggest questions that many people have about God: if God is completely good and also all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the world? Because he gave us the ability to make choices, even choices that don't coincide with his desires. Free will is essential to Christianity, because without it there would be no value in talking about good or evil, both of which rely on intentionality. God imbued this physical bodies with a supernatural essence, a spirit if you will, that transcends the mere material universe.

From a scientific perspective, however, there isn't much explanation or allowance for free will; additionally every conceivable investigator is himself trapped within the phenomenon in question. How can I possibly determine whether my own thoughts and actions are the result of choice, or whether they are predetermined by chemistry and physics? My decision-making process is hopelessly and fundamentally tainted and depends entirely on the result being generated. This difficulty is what I call a "containment problem", because our reasoning itself relies on the answer we're trying to come up with.

Most of the non-Christians that I've asked believe that there is such a thing as free will (does SDB?), but none of them has a credible conjecture on the source or nature of it. If our intelligence is wholly dependent on the biology of our brains, then how can we be anything but complicated deterministic machines? Some have turned to quantum mechanics, but no one yet has an understanding of quantum effects that could be used to explain the origin of free will. Even if QM plays a significant role in the high-level operation of our brains (questionable), this just serves to introduce macroscopic randomness to the system... would they argue that this is the same as free will? If so, it's a different definition than I would use.

In the end, I don't think it matters. Although SDB wouldn't like it, an argument based on "appeal to consequences" appears to give the most satisfying answer possible. If there is no such thing as free will, then the question itself becomes rather pointless. If we're all just biological computers running complex, chaotic programs, then why even bother having the discussion? Acting as if we do have free will is the only practical option (how would you act otherwise?), and so we may as well believe it to be true.

2003-05-24T02:37:00.000-07:00

TODAY: Been out for 20 hours, and I just got home. Work was crazy again so I didn't really have much time to post anything today, and then I went to a baseball game this evening, a bbq, and then just hung out for a while. I'm totally wiped out, and I've got two parties to go to tomorrow. It's funny, because there are some weekends that I've got nothing to do and I feel bored, and then there are weekends like this one where I wish I had nothing to do. At least it's a three day weekend.

I've come to realize that it's a lot easier for me to meet new people when there aren't people around that I know. I'd rather go to a party where I don't know anyone than go to a party where I only know one or two people. I have no problem striking up conversations with strangers when I'm flying solo, but when there are other people around that I know I'm always much more self-conscious. It seems kinda paradoxical to me, since I would expect someone to feel less inhibited around their friends than around strangers, but that's not the way it works for me.

I find it pretty easy to strike up conversations with girls, but I never know what to do once I've got it going. I can make people laugh, and I'm a good listener so I can generally get girls to share their life story while I act interested, but then what? I'm not good at closing the deal. Whenever I do ask for a number it sounds awkward and then afterwards it seems too early. But if I don't say anything then the moment will seem to pass and it'll be even worse. Timing is everything, and I just don't have it down yet.

I met a few beautiful babies tonight, but I couldn't even get a decent conversation going because there were too many people around who I sorta knew but not really, if you know what I mean. I knew them well enough that we couldn't make small talk, but not well enough that I didn't care about looking stupid in front of them. Acquaintances are the worst for me to be around, at least when I'm trying to meet girls.

Anyway, I'm just rambling. It's almost 3am and I need to hit the sack.

2003-05-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

ORIGINAL SIN: Donald Sensing mentions the Christian doctrine of original sin and I wanted to toss in my 3 cents.

It's common to hear it said that "most people are basically good", but whenever someone tells me that I wonder if they're living in the same world I am.

Me: Are you good?
Them: Well, mostly I guess. I try to be.
Me: Have you ever murdered anyone?
Them: No, of course not!
Me: Oh, well that's good. Have you ever lied?
Them: Sure, sure, sometimes I do.
Me: Ever steal anything?
Them: Haha, when I was a kid maybe.
Me: Never fudge your time cards then at work, I suppose?
Them: Maybe a little....
Me: Ever rape anyone?
Them: What?! No!
Me: Not even in your mind?
Them: Well you certainly can't judge me for the things I think about....
Me: So you're a liar, a thief, and you've at least contemplated rape --
Them: Bye.

The point is that no one is "basically good". Everyone is depraved, self-centered, and evil -- the fact that we don't act on these desires isn't due to some inner virtue, it's because of fear. That's the purpose of society, to pit my selfishness against yours and thereby restain both of us from our true nature. I'm planning another article on this topic as it relates to my previous post on game theory.

Anyone who has ever seen or been a part of a mob knows what can happen when societal restraint breaks down. Otherwise orderly, good, decent, normal human beings can go completely nuts when their fear of retribution and punishment disappears, and this is our natural condition. Anyone who is honest with theirself knows this to be true -- I alone know the beast that lives within me.

It was horrifying to me to read about the terror that Saddam's regime perpetrated on the Iraqi people. How could anyone commit such atrocities? The countless murders and rapes, children tortured, mass graves, medical experimentation... we've only begun to discover the carnage. One of the scariest things to me was that I could see kernels of that same evil in my own heart. Sure, I'm a long way from there in action, but somewhere deep inside of me is a sliver of darkness just looking for tiny ways to break free each and every day. What about you?

2003-05-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

CONSCIOUSNESS: How much time each day do you actually spend conscious? I don't mean merely awake, I mean self-aware. How much time do you spend just following patterns of action and mindlessly executing one program after another? Wake up, get dressed, drive to work/school, sit/stand around for a few hours, drive home, watch TV, go to sleep. If you're like most people, you turn the radio on in the car while you're driving to keep your mind occupied, so that you don't have to actually think about anything during this otherwise dead time. Most of our daily activities do not require conscious thought to perform. We do it once, learn the ropes, and then just follow the same pattern over and over again.

How many of us truely are intelligent beings? Every single human? Most? A few? None? Cogito ergo sum -- I think, therefore I am. I have no doubt that every human has some periods of self-awareness, but I think they're rare and spread far between, and most people don't even realize it. Thinking is a lot of work, and it's more efficient to develop patterns and heuristics to help us make decisions and carry out our every-day activities. I'm certainly not saying that these routines are bad; can you imagine how frustrating it would be if you had to devote considerable mental energy every time you drove to work?

It seems as if the goal of many people is to think as little as possible.

2003-05-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

GUNS AND TYRANNY: As wrote about women and crime, no one thinks bad things will happen to them. In America, most people will scoff if you cite "defense against tyranny" as a justification for the Second Amendment, but at the lowest level that really is the whole point. Dave Kopel compares guns to fire extinguishers:

One never knows if one will need a fire extinguisher. Many people go their whole lives without needing to use a fire extinguisher, and most people never need firearms to resist genocide. But if you don't prepare to have a life-saving tool on hand during an unexpected emergency, then you and your family may not survive.

It's a good analogy, but it misses one critical difference: owning a fire extinguisher won't make it less likely that a fire will start, it will only make it easier to deal with; if people own a guns it will make it less likely that tyranny will ever gain a foothold.

People who say they would feel unsafe owning or carrying a gun remind me of people who say that they don't wear seatbelts because they don't want to get trapped in a burning car. Sure, that's happened before, no doubt; and yes, people are killed by their own guns from time to time (discounting suicides, even). But the vast majority of the time you're going to be safer if you wear your seatbelt than if you don't, and you're going to be safer if you carry a gun than if you don't.

No one thinks that a ruthless dictator is going to rise to power in their country, but if you look back at history it happens all the time. Pol Pot and Hitler are obvious examples, but even the Roman Republic was undermined by Julius Ceasar. If you think it can't possibly happen in America, ask yourself why not? There's really only one reason: there are more than 200,000,000 guns in America in the hands of private citizens.

(Kopel article via Instapundit.)

2003-05-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

"IT WAS A MASSACRE...": I talked to the computer science graduate student administrator about the WQE this afternoon and asked if any other students or professors had said anything about it to her. She rolled her eyes and said that dozens of students had gone to her to complain, that there was lots of yelling and screaming, and that the test was, in her words, "a massacre". So I feel a little better. I don't know if it means I'll pass, but at least I wasn't the only one frustrated by the whole experience.

2003-05-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

WOMEN AND GUNS: Courtney has a couple of posts up on the subject I raised previously, and enlightens us as to why many women seem to have an irrational aversion to guns. As if women need a reason to be irrational, pffft.

Anyway, one thing she wrote that I'd like to take minor issue with:

... However, more often it seems men are finding very successful women sexy. Women who pull in a huge salary or have a lot of power become sexually charged.

She treats money and power in roughly the same fashion, but I'm not sure men are equally attracted to both. I wrote earlier about the androgynation of the sexes and I do think that in many ways there is some confluence, but there are still quite a lot of differences. A woman who earns a lot of money is one thing, but I think most men would still hesitate before marrying a senator, for example.

Guys like a girl who is assertive and confident, as long as the girl still defers to him. This is somewhat paradoxical, but no more so than the fact that women want tough men who like to cuddle and play with kittens.

To be honest, I don't really find pictures of women with guns to be any more sexy than pictures of the same women without guns. I think it's great for women to own them and carry them, etc, it just doesn't do anything for me. I'm more into the pretty-pretty-princess type of girl though, at least from the outside. Girly-girls are the best, as long as they know when it's time to turn it off and take care of business. Let me open the door for you and let me buy you dinner, but then when the date's over let's act like normal people again.

Everyone wants the best of everything all combined into one person -- that goes for women and men. In the end, we settle for reality. Stupid reality... be more sexy!

2003-05-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

STILL BRAIN DEAD: And work was crazy today, too. Maybe I'll have something to write later. My aunt and uncle are in town and I'm going to eat dinner with them tonight; my uncle is a gun-nut, so I'm hoping he'll go with me to buy a gun later this week.

It's nice that I don't have to study tonight, anyway.

2003-05-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

DONE... FOR NOW: I say "for now" because I have a sinking feeling that tells me that I'm going to have to take my exams again in six months. The questions today were unbelievably hard. Altogether, this test was harder than the one six months ago -- a lot harder.

The AI question was absurd, had nothing to do with AI, and was not even vaguely related to the material on the syllabus. Which sucks, because AI is one of the fields that I would expect to be able to do! The networking question wasn't too hard, but I am not an expert on networks. I think I did ok, but I don't know if I passed it. The software systems question was mostly just BS, and I think I did well. Architecture was hard, but I believe I did well on four ot of the five parts... I have no idea how the parts are weighted, though. The theory question was as difficult as Greibach's questions typically are, and I really have no idea how leniently she'll score me on it.

Overall, it's possible that I passed AI (if they end up throwing out the out-of-domain part), architecture, and software systems. It's conceivable that I passed theory and networking too, but that would be lucky. I guess it's possible that I passed the exams, but I'm doubtful at the moment. Sigh.

Talking to other students after the test was over, I got the sense that everyone thought it was hard. I got a couple things right that other people may not have, and I mostly did ok based on the answers other people got. The networking question was my weakest, relative to everyone else. Maybe I need to take a networking course or something. Many people seemed to get the one part of the architecture question I had trouble with, also. But I got part two of the AI question right and some others missed it. I really don't know. I'm tired and mentally exhausted. I can't imagine a worse fate than having to study all this material yet again. Well, failing out of grad school, maybe.

On a brighter note, I had ice cream for dinner and spent two hours wandering around a bookstore. It doesn't get much better than that. Oh, except if you ace a major exam right beforehand, I imagine.