Sites is everywhere!

Man, Kevin Sites gets around. If you don't recall, he's the photojournalist who filmed the killing of the Iraqi by the Marine in the Mosque. It looks like he's in Thailand now.

How much is a dead Indonesian worth?

According to the Bush administration and the latest death toll estimates:

$304.34


Hell, even Pfizer is giving $35M. Of course, they don't have a war to run. I thought that this country couldn't embarrass itself any worse than it did on Nov 2. Boy, was I wrong.

Glad I don't work for Starbucks

This has to be the funniest thing I've read in months.

I stopped by the Starbucks on Saturday afternoon but I'm not sure she was there. I asked the assistant manager and she wasn't sure who I was talking about. There was one girl who was kind of chubby -- not really fat though. She had strawberry blond hair -- kind of short bob cut. Does this sound like the person you were referring to? I don't want to fire the wrong girl.

Around the world in 9 days

From today's This Day in History email from the HistoryChannel.com:

VOYAGER COMPLETES GLOBAL FLIGHT:
December 23, 1986


After nine days and four minutes in the sky, the experimental aircraft Voyager lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel. Piloted by Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager was made mostly of plastic and stiffened paper and carried more than three times its weight in fuel when it took off from Edwards Air Force Base on December 14. By the time it returned, after flying 25,012 miles around the planet, it had just five gallons of fuel left in its remaining operational fuel tank.

Voyager was built by Burt Rutan of the Rutan Aircraft Company without government support and with minimal corporate sponsorship. Dick Rutan, Burt's brother and a decorated Vietnam War pilot, joined the project early on, as did Dick's friend Jeanna Yeager (no relation to aviator Chuck Yeager). Voyager's extremely light yet strong body was made of layers of carbon-fiber tape and paper impregnated with epoxy resin. Its wingspan was 111 feet, and it had its horizontal stabilizer wing on the plane's nose rather than its rear--a trademark of many of Rutan's aircraft designs. Essentially a flying fuel tank, every possible area was used for fuel storage and much modern aircraft technology was foregone in the effort to reduce weight.

When Voyager took off from Edwards Air Force at 8:02 a.m. PST on December 14, its wings were so heavy with fuel that their tips scraped along the ground and caused minor damage. The plane made it into the air, however, and headed west. On the second day, Voyager ran into severe turbulence caused by two tropical storms in the Pacific. Dick Rutan had been concerned about flying the aircraft at more than a 15-degree angle, but he soon found the plane could fly on its side at 90 degrees, which occurred when the wind tossed it back and forth.

Rutan and Yeager shared the controls, but Rutan, a more experienced pilot, did most of the flying owing to the long periods of turbulence encountered at various points in the journey. With weak stomachs, they ate only a fraction of the food brought along, and each lost about 10 pounds.

On December 23, when Voyager was flying north along the Baja California coast and just 450 miles short of its goal, the engine it was using went out, and the aircraft plunged from 8,500 to 5,000 feet before an alternate engine was started up.

Almost nine days to the minute after it lifted off, Voyager appeared over Edwards Air Force Base and circled as Yeager turned a primitive crank that lowered the landing gear. Then, to the cheers of 23,000 spectators, the plane landed safely with a few gallons of fuel to spare, completing the first nonstop circumnavigation of the earth by an aircraft that was not refueled in the air.

Voyager is on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

A few points:

• Voyager was made without any government assistance or grant.


• It was made out of plastic and stiffened paper. Paper?


• They didn't think it would fly at more than a 15 degree angle, but ended up flying at a 90 degree angle. You know there were some tense moments there.


• What is it with people named Yeager?

I'm going to have to look up more on Rutan.

Sumerian Authors

My friend Wonka gave me Thomas Cahill's The Gifts of the Jews for Christmukkah/Festivus this year. I've read Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization and loved it. Here's something I've alread learned from The Gifts of the Jews. The ancient Sumerians were the first civilization to discover writing. However, the individual authors didn't take credit for their work. Rather, every book was authored by one of their gods - whichever was appropriate for the theme of the book. So a book on how to grow crops was "written" by Enlil, the Granter of Agriculture and the inventor of the hoe.

More to come from this book.

Quote of the Day

Particularly fitting.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Actually from yesterday's AWAD newsletter. The word for the day was Darwinian.

A "Different View." Like from the North Rim?

Sean pointed out this article.

[S]ome four million people annually visit Grand Canyon National Park, marveling at the awesome view. In National Park Service (NPS) affiliated bookstores, they can find literature informing them that the great chasm runs for 277 miles along the bed of the Colorado River. It descends more than a mile into the earth, and along one stretch, is some 18 miles wide, its walls displaying impressive layers of limestone, sandstone, shale, schist and granite.

And, oh yes, it was formed about 4,500 years ago, a direct consequence of Noah’s Flood. How’s that? Yes, this is the ill-informed premise of “Grand Canyon, a Different View,” a handsomely-illustrated volume also on sale at the bookstores. It includes the writings of creationists and creation scientists and was compiled by Tom Vail, who with his wife operates Canyon Ministries, conducting creationist-view tours of the canyon. “For years,” Vail explains, “as a Colorado River guide, I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time span of millions of years. (Most geologists place the canyon’s age at some six million years). Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than a few thousand years old.”

The Grand Canyon is one of the best teaching tools available to geologists. It allows people to see millions of years of strata without having to actually get out and dig. The American Geological Institue, along with six of its member societies, has urged the removal of the book. The National Park Service (NPS) agreed to launch a high-level policy review and make a decision by Feb, 2004. However, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) found out with the help of a FOIA request that no review has ever taken place. Further, no review is scheduled and the NPS seems to be swinging more towards the religious right by reinstalling plaques bearing Bible-verses at overlooks. Read more about "Faith-Based Parks" here.

Here be dragons!

Here's a jaw-dropper.

Think of all the world's legends about dragons. Look at those images. What were those folks seeing? They were clearly seeing dinosaurs.

Flying dogs.

Because sometimes you need a laugh.

Four thousand a day. That's a waste.

I first heard this story on NPR's Morning Edition last Friday (the 10th). There's a doctor in China who has been treating ALS and spinal cord injuries by injecting olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) from aborted fetuses into the patient's brain (in the case of ALS) or spine (for those with spinal cord injuries). Dr. Huang admits that he doesen't understand fully why the treatment seems to help, but points out that "if we don't put the research into practice, it's meaningless. Research is all about creating a foundation for treatment and [to] find out the fallability of surgery."

These treatments are't curing the patients and it's debatable that they're even helping. Some critics think that Dr. Huang's operational methods (not decompressing the spinal fluid or decoupling the vertebrae) are what seem to cause improvements. Still, the man is trying.

Here's the part that burns me up. The NPR story and story in the Guardian Unlmited each feature patients who are anti-abortion. In the NPR report, the patient's fiance is admittedly anti-abortion.

I don't believe in abortion. I do believe that the child is conceived and that's the person. [I]t's very difficult for me because any platform or position I've had in my life, I've tried to have the utmost integrity. As Steven was getting sick, I knew - I knew that this could be an opportunity and knowing that I was coming here, I don't say a lot about it because I don't want to talk out of two sides of my mouth, which I have to in order to be here.

The patient in the Guardian article is even more upfront about the change in his ideas. The patient is "a Christian, anti-abortion Texan who has sold his house so that he can travel to communist, atheist China and have Huang inject a million cells from the nasal area of a foetus into his spine." Here's what he has to say about his change of tune.

I wish there was another way they could do it. There are 4,000 abortions a day in the US. Partial-birth ones are murder on a most terrible level. What they are doing here is a whole lot more humane.

Four thousand a day. That's a waste. Something good should come out of something bad. The people who don't believe that aren't in a wheelchair.

My first reaction was to excoriate these people for not practicing what they preach. How dare they fight so hard to outlaw or regulate this emerging science and suddenly change their minds when it becomes an issue for them. How ironic, I thought, that these silly, weak-willed people be trapped in the very situation that helps them see the need.

I let myself be smug for a few days. Then I really thought about it. I know that these tragedies can change one's outlook. My step-father suffered a spinal cord injury and was confined to a wheelchair until recently and has had to comes to grips with his new reality. I must applaud these people for trying to overcome their afflictions. My hope is that they see the good that can come out of this type of medical research and that we have to ensure it continues. My fear is that when these treatments don't work - these people are in a nutshell human guinea pigs - that they return to their previously held beliefs. I pray that their stance doesn't flip back and that the fundamentalist right will hold them up as more "evidence" that we have to ban this type of scientific research.

Ammunition vs. Creationism

Good post on daily Kos about the theory of evolution. Here's a quick snippet:

The terms "theory" and "fact" have very precise and rigid definitions in philosophy of science. That is why scientists tend not to talk about Fact of Evolution, but instead of Theory of Evolution. The common non-technical understanding of the word "theory" misleads people to think that there is something unproven about it.

There are millions of technical papers in biology, tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of technical books in biology - every one of them contributes to understanding of evolution, and not a single one of them makes any sense except in the context of evolution. NOTHING in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

Theory of Evolution of all Life on Earth from a Single Common Ancestor (as opposed to being designed) is as strong as Theory that Earth is Round (as opposed to flat), or Theory of Heliocentrism that posits that Earth revolves around the Sun (and not vice versa), or Theory that Sun is not the Center of the Universe.

Theory of Evolution is STRONGER than The Big Bang Theory, or General Theory of Relativity, or Plate Tectonics Theory, or Theory that DNA Replication is the Mechanism of Inheritance. And it is MUCH stronger than Theory of Superstrings, or anything that Freud came up with.

My thoughts exactly

John Rogers has a hilarious post on his blog about how the Republican party has shifted from the "serious-looking 1950's-1960's science guys in the movies" to "the party of fairy dust and make believe." It's a must read.

I think that's gonna clash with your shoes, your Honor

You remember back in the 70s and 80s when "copy cat murders" were all the rage? Now we've got copy cat judges here in Alabama. Judge Ashley McKathan, apparently not content with a plaque, has had the 10 Commandments embroidered on his robe. Aside from riffing on the oddity of the typical Southern male wearing embroidered anything I can't see much humor in this. I just know it's going to get pushed all the way through the court system wasting resources just like Reverend Judge Moore's plaque and monument cases were.

From the AP story:

McKathan told The Associated Press that he believes the Ten Commandments represent the truth "and you can't divorce the law from the truth. ... The Ten Commandments can help a judge know the difference between right and wrong."

He said he doesn't believe the commandments on his robe would have an adverse effect on jurors.

"I had a choice of several sizes of letters. I purposely chose a size that would not be in anybody's face," he said.

If Judge McKathan was concerned about the text not "being in anybody's face" why even have it on his robes? Can't he simply wear a t-shirt with the commandments on it? Or keep a laminated copy in his wallet (which I've seen numerous times). Or even *gasp* follow Jesus' commandments in Matthew 6:1-6

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest [thine] alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

And yes, Reverend Judge Moore has already come out in support of McKathan.

More suicide bo - OOO SHINY!!

As a reward for all their hard work, George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer received the Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday. From the Washington Post:

The president heralded Tenet for being "one of the first to recognize" the growing threat to America from "radical terrorist networks." He made no mention of the failures outlined by the 9/11 commission that forced the administration to overhaul the nation's intelligence operations.

He praised Franks for his Iraq war plan, which utilized "a force half the size of the force that won the Gulf War" to reach Baghdad in less than a month, "the fastest, longest armored advance in the history of American warfare." Bush did not note that more Americans have died after the toppling of Saddam Hussein than during that initial charge.

Bremer, Bush said, "worked day and night in difficult dangerous conditions" to rebuild Iraq and help leaders chart the country's political future. "Every benchmark . . . was achieved on time or ahead of schedule, including the transfer of sovereignty that ended his tenure," the president said. He did not add that the transfer was hurriedly arranged two days early because of fears insurgents would attack the ceremonies.

Gish

It's kinda reminiscent of all those Crash Bandicoot games on PS/PS2. Except instead of a bandicoot, you're a ball of tar. Thanks to BoingBoing for linking it. Download it here.

Political Compass

One of the better political litmus tests out there. I just wish there was a way to record your score. You end up with a graphical representation of where you are on the spectrum, but there's not a way to save it apparently.

I'm Libertarian Left (Economic: -1.3, Social: -6.5). You know: where Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama hang out.

My name is Pierce and I approved this message

This story evokes a subtle terror in me.

No laws have apparently been broken. Case precedent on political speech as it pertains to blogs does not exist. But where journalists' careers may be broken on ethics violations, bloggers are writing in the Wild West of cyberspace. There remains no code of ethics, or even an employer, to enforce any standard.

Beginning next year, the F.E.C. will institute new rules on the restricted uses of the Internet as it relates to political speech.

I have yet to discover what "new rules" will be instituted. Consider, what was originally designed and marketed as an online diary is now going to come under the jurisdiction of the FEC (that's the Federal Election Committee to you and me Russ). The prominence of blogs in this year's election has made the main stream media concerned for some reason - do they see blogs as a threat? I assume so. But really, regulating what I say on my blog about the current administration and what another party might be able to do better seems like a bit of an overstep, not to mention unconstitutional. I'm going to do a bit more research on the FEC's rules and see what I can find.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a non-card carrying member of the Libertarian Party and I receive no funding for this site (yet!).

Backing into a Victory

Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog makes a good point about how Bush Sr.'s Gulf War hurt (or at least didn't help) his re-election campaign whereas Bush Jr.'s seemed to help his. Seems to continue the trend of the administration's tendency to keep those who screw up and let go those who tell the truth.

I gotta get one for the Hillbilly Cadillac

..and you'll LIKE it!

When asked by a soldier why they aren't properly equipped for Iraq Rumsfield tells him they'll head into battle with what the Army gives them.

Sometimes the arrogance just floors me.

Cool art site

Via Boingboing: Mondolithic.

Happy Thanksmasoween

We're going to see the Nutcracker tonight. We're planning to get our tree tomorrow. We've already opened the first four windows on the advent calendar. It's getting to be the season. Here's a holiday card for you.

Recent Quotes

I get the A Word A Day email each day. One of my favorite parts is the quote at the end. Here are some recent ones:

Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality. -John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum. -Henry Miller, novelist (1891-1980)

Substitute damn every time you're inclined to write very; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy. -Phil Zimmermann, cryptographer (1954- )

These are Presidents I can vote for

Wednesday the wife and I caught the Presidents of the United States of America at a local club called Zydeco. Man, they rocked. They played pretty much everything off their first album (the one with Kitty, Lump and Peaches among others) plus a bunch of new stuff which sounds great too. Got a t-shirt. Highlights:

Segue from Kitty to Stevie Wonder's Superstition and back

The "Cover Song" which turned out to be a medley of covers of about a dozen 80s songs, ending up with Video Killed the Radio Star

You know how James Brown does the whole "hit me three times!" thing? Ya, they did that. "Hit me 137 times!" And then they hit it 137 times.










Yeah, I'm OCD enough to have counted.

Seed Idea: See through visors

One afternoon, I was driving into the sunset (it was the end of the movie...) and could barely see. I flipped down the visor to keep the direct sun out of my eyes. When I stopped at a red light, I couldn't see the light (I was the first car in line) due to the angle, so I had to keep ducking for looks, peeking and getting blinded. The visor in our car has an extender which slides out of the side to give the driver coverage around the rearview mirror. The extender is a darkly tinted plastic, but still translucent. Why not make the visor out of this material? Or at least sell an after-market snap on piece that would do the same? You could at least see the light change that way and then flip down the opaque visor for when you're driving. I'm sure someone's done this.

New Word

Sean and I came up with a new word.

Gourdamorphic: In danger of turning into a pumpkin.

Cinderella had to hurry away from the ball because her coach was gourdamorphic.

Hey, 80 bucks is 80 bucks

Manufacturing Speeds Up as Consumers Spend Away

In the orgasmic post-Thanksgiving buying season, all the pundits get carried away when consumer spending goes up. Of course, people aren't (necessarily) getting paid more and that extra cash has to come from somewhere. So the savings rate goes down. According to the latest numbers, down to .2%. Which means the guy making $40,000 per year is squirrelling away $80 each year. Should be interesting when it comes time to kick back and retire at 65.

I mean 68.

Ok, 70.

Heck, I can work 'til I'm 75, right?

80 - no problem...

Geek: Story Hours

One of my favorite RPG sites is ENWorld (linked in the sidebar). The initial draw for me were the story hours. Story hours are narrations of a game session of D&D. There are different styles people use, from very transparent (noting who rolled what, how many hit points someone has, etc.) to novelistic (focusing more on the story of the game than the mechanics used to produce it). My DM has been writing up a story hour of our Modern games - read it here.

(Side note: D&D is at heart a fantasy game consisting of dragons, knights, trolls, elves and all that stuff you saw in the Lord of the Rings movies. There are extensions of the same system, though. One is called d20 Modern and allows for gaming in a modern setting with guns, cars and such. Our group skips about a bit, but we've been running a Modern game for a year and a half or so.)

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this entry is not to show off my geekiness, but to give a wonderful example of how role playing can be used as a teaching tool. One of the members of ENWorld has been taking his three year old daughter on adventures through the house and back yard. He gets her imagination going, works on her memorization and counting skills, improves her probelm solving and probably best of all spends quality time with her creating memories. He's written up a story hour about the adventures they have (including the cutest pictures you'll see today) and gives tips on how to do the same with your kids. Hopefully in a few years I'll get to do this too. Go read the Adventures in Mommyville.

Go Rosa!

According to my This Day in History email from HistoryChannel.com:

In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic act of civil disobedience.

"The mother of the civil rights movement," as Rosa Parks is known, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. She worked as a seamstress and in 1944 joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. Parks' refusal was spontaneous but was not merely brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery's racist bus laws for several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion.

Learning of Parks' arrest, the NAACP and other African American activists immediately called for a bus boycott to be held by black citizens on Monday, October 5. Word was spread by fliers, and the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed by the activists to organize the protest. The first day of the bus boycott was a great success, and that night the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., told a large crowd gathered at a church, "The great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right." King emerged as the leader of the bus boycott and received numerous death threats from opponents of integration. At one point, his home was dynamited, but he and his family escaped bodily harm.

The boycott stretched on for more than a year, and participants carpooled or walked miles to work and school when no other means were possible. As African Americans previously constituted 70 percent of the Montgomery bus ridership, the municipal transit system suffered gravely during the boycott. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On December 20, Montgomery's buses were desegregated and the Montgomery Bus Boycott was called off after 381 days. Rosa Parks was among the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent civil rights movement had won its first great victory. There would be many more to come.

Even more relevant considering the status of Amendment 2. I wonder what Judge Tom Parker thinks about ol' Miss Rosa.

Is he going to stand in the door of The Quest?

I live in Alabama. It's a beautiful state, really. For everything you hear, the people here (at least in Birmingham) are truly nice folks. But recently things have taken quite a Twilight Zone turn.

First it was the whole Roy Moore fiasco. Whether you agree or not with placing the Ten Commandments in a Federal building, the fact is that the U.S. District Court told him to take it out. He refused. Obviously, it was removed. And so was he. Read about it here.

Then on Election Day, voters said No to Amendment 2, which removes segregation-era language from the state's Constitution. Yeah. Amazing. Here's the thing, though - Moore campaigned against Amendment 2, saying it would "allow judges to increase taxes for education." Sigh. Fortunately a recount has been announced since in the final tally the Amendment only lost by .13%.

And now, State Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottendale has introduced a bill to "ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries." From the article:

Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.

"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

Books affected would include The Color Purple, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Brideshead Revisited.

I love this quote:

Ken Baker, a board member of Equality Alabama, a gay rights organization, said Allen was "attempting to become the George Wallace of homosexuality."

Read the article here.

Stem Cell Meme

John Rogers blogged on stem cell research last night on Kung Fu Monkey. He's got more links to wondrous recovery stories. Check it out!

Seed Ideas

One of the things that always seems to happen to me is that I'll get these idea nuggets and never follow up on them. Normally they'll come to me in the shower, while I'm driving, lying in bed before going to sleep, that kind of thing. I've tried to incorporate the habits everyone talks about like leaving a journal on the side of the bed or carrying a notepad in the car, but those never really caught on with me. Of course, this may not either.

I vacillated between the terms "Seed Ideas" and "Idea Seeds" before settling. Idea Seeds implies that these snippets aren't fully realized ideas - incomplete. They're something that should start the growth of an idea. Seed Ideas implies an entire idea that grows into something larger.

I'm not writing these ideas down to make sure I follow up on them later, because I probably won't. I suppose it's kind of a archival thing.

And if anyone does follow up on these and make a million bazillion dollars, at least give me props.