7/13/2005 Yawn... another shuttle launch
This afternoon, NASA will launch Yet Another Shuttle Mission (YASM) to a place we've been well over 100 times before. The thing that's hard to take is all the breathless excitement.
NASA's
ambitions ride on Discovery trumpets the Denver Post. It's
a Countdown
to Credibility crows space.com. John Logsdon, Director of
the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University’s
Elliott School of International Affairs, says (with a straight
face, no less) "... this launch ranks up there with Alan
Shepard and John Glenn’s Mercury missions and Apollo 11
in its significance."
Please. Let's not sully the reputations of Shepard and Glenn by comparing their tremendous achievements with another routine, boring shuttle launch. Wake me when they actually go somewhere.
7/6/2005 They Just Don't Get It
Every year or two I read a political book of such authority and scope that it changes the way I view the world. [in '03, it was The Future Of Freedom, by Fareed Zakaria].
This year's must-read, They Just Don't Get It by Colonel David Hunt, is a rousing call to action that made me feel like I did on 9/12, and gave me an insider's view of how we (USA) are still - almost 4 years after 9/11 - grossly mismanaging the war on terror. Hunt drags the reader through a history of modern terrorism (starting with Black September in the '72 Munich Olympics), and shows how the USA hasn't really launched an effective response since... with the exception of our recent actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we're well on our way to screwing those up too.
But Hunt doesn't just point out the problems, he proposes solutions. The first step is reading the book and spreading the word. I got my copy at the local library - but you may also click on the title link above, which will take you to Amazon's page where you may buy the book. (read the 'customer reviews' while you're there)
The second step is getting pissed and demanding accountability from our government. It's crazy enough, it just might work! Here's hoping The Shrub reads it.
7/5/2005 The Stupidest Lawsuit of 2005
After a relatively quiescent year, we have a perfect 10 on the stupidity front. Some Russian Astrologist is suing NASA for about $300 mil for their Deep Impact mission over last weekend. The mission made a new crater in comet Tempel 1 as it smashed a cubic-meter-sized 'probe' into the body of the comet. lofting a plume of debris so it could be studied and analyzed. Marina Bei claims the mission upset the natural balance of forces in the universe and upset her horoscope.
Round 1 takes place in the Russian courts. The tragedy is that they will spend some nonzero amount of time on this quack. She should be thrown out immediately and given a punitive fine. If she does it again - sterilize her and her children to nip those stupidity genes in the bud.
6/28/2005 The Man owns your property
Joseph Farah is farther to the right than I am on many issues, but on this topic, he and I are in 100% agreement. If you live in the USA, read the above link, and be afraid, be very afraid. Let's hope Congress has the stones to set aside this precedent and prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the topic in the future. [Stop laughing! I was trying to be serious.]
6/26/2005 Iraq sucks less than it did under Saddam
Here's an interesting quote from this news article:
"Since al-Jaafari came to office nearly two months ago, at least 1,240 people have been killed. "
Let's say is has been 1/7 of a year. 7 x 1240 = 8,680 - tragic, but still short of the 10,000 - 12,000 people per year that were killed under Hussein's regime. And this is under a period of relatively heavy suicide-murders. If Iraq could police its borders better, and we keep killing bad guys, the rate will slow.
The big concern is a truly massive terrorist incident with casualty figures in the 4 or 5 digit range, which I think is possible. I'd love to be wrong about that.
6/18/05 I gotcher torture right here
Don't click on the above link without getting the kids out of the room and steeling yourself. It is gory and graphic.
The next time you hear some libputz talk about the 'moral equivalence' between Saddam's regime and US-sponsored abuses at Gitmo and Abu Graib, whap them upside the head with the above link, preferably inscribed on a brick.
The US-sponsored abuses are mean, stupid, cruel, and short-sighted. They violate the Geneva convention. But they are so far removed from what routinely happened in Iraq under Hussein that the comparison is treasonous.
6/4/05 Oh No, It's More Quran Abuse
A guard at Gitmo touches a Quran with his boot, and it's abuse. Never mind all the blood spattered onto the Quran due to murderous sociopaths bombing funerals at mosques. That's OK.
6/1/05 Science by Democratic Vote
The link is to a space.com article detailing the results of a phone survey regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the universe. Let's have some fun with article quotes:
The telephone poll, which questioned 1,000 Americans, found that 60 percent of those surveyed believe extraterrestrial life exists on other planets.
This statement brought to you by the department of redundancy department. ET life would kind have exist on other planets, wouldn't it?
“It is quite likely that there is life elsewhere in our galaxy, and there’s a real possibility that we will find evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life by the year 2025,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for SETI, who appeared in ‘Extraterrestrial.’
Now this is the kind of crap that gives Science a bad name. On what basis does Shostak surmise life is likely to exist elsewhere in our galaxy? We have 1 data point, Earth. No conclusions can be drawn. We might be the only intelligent beings in the galaxy. There might be gobs of them. We have no flippin' idea.
And then we learn there is a 'real possibility' (whatever that means) we'll find evidence by 2025? The galling thing is that National Geographic consulted this person for input for their show "Extraterrestrials".
Shostak, a SPACE.com contributor, said that the public’s interest in the possibility of alien life can be seen in instances such as the 1996 announcement by researchers claiming to find evidence of ancient microbes inside a Martian meteorite, which sent shockwaves through media and scientific circles at the time. The find has remained controversial.
“But it indicates how important it would be to find life, even dead microbial life,” said Shostak of the meteorite debate in a telephone interview. “Because it [would] tell you it is very common.”
This is a common error. Finding definitive proof of life on Mars would not rule out the single-source hypothesis. Literally tons of matter from Earth falls on Mars every year. Some of it is organic. The million dollar question is, is any of it living after it hits the Martian surface? We don't currently know the answer, and if we do prove the existence of Martian life before we find the answer to this question, it won't imply a thing about how common life is in the universe.
Of those polled who believed in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, 77 percent thought alien lifeforms could develop on planets very different from Earth. About eight of 10 Americans believe it is likely that intelligent aliens on other planets are more advanced than humans, the poll found.
The above paragraph is just embarrassing. Who cares what people believe? It won't change the data. It is like debating the color of a unicorn's horn.
My opinion/guess (not based on data!): I think Earth has polluted other Solar System bodies with life, and we'll find bacteria in the rocks just about everywhere we look.
Re: ET life, no clue, but all existing data (which ain't much) is consistent with the thesis that we are alone.
5/31/05 He's Baaaack
Professional huckster Kevin Trudeau is back like a bad check. Now, he has reinvented himself as a women's skin care expert. You can catch his act on (where else?) infomercials. Sing along with your favorite lines from Kevin:
"When I first heard about <insert product here>, I was skeptical."
"All we ask is that you try it once."
"And the best thing about <insert product here>, it has an unconditional money-back guarantee."
Kevin was first featured here on 10/31/04 (and you can click the 2004 soapbox link above to find the article), and makes a living schlepping crap to insomniacs. The variety of things I've personally seen him hawk (Mental math programs, coral calcium, health advice books, memory aids, and now, women's skin care) is staggering. If he's selling, I ain't buying.
5/26/05 Steroids
The three major sports in the USA (baseball, football, basketball) are all showing increased interest (driven from the public) in testing their athletes for performance-enhancing drugs.
Just so we all know, this will be an eternal fight, like it is in the Olympics. For every pro athlete out there, there are 10 others who are *almost* good enough to make it to the bigs, and if they thought that taking some banned substances would allow them to live the dream, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
5/24/05 - Good news from Iraq
The above link is long, detailed, and well worth the read. From the news, you'd think that murders were the only thing happening, which (as the above link shows) is nonsense.
On the topic of murders, large cities in the USA average 5-10 murders per year per 100,000 residents. (the link is an interesting pro-gun read) So, for a country of Iraq's size, we'd expect 10*220/365 = 7 murders per day. The difference is that for Iraq, those 7 lead the evening news, but if they happen in the state of Florida, we don't hear about it.
5/21/05 You tell 'em, Burt
Burt Rutan gave his critique on NASA two days ago - it is very similar to what you will see in many places, including here.
The big difference is, people might actually listen to Burt.
5/20/05 It's out of control
I'm almost a month late on the above news item - but I am deeply concerned that the number of lobbyists in WDC working for drug companies is over twice the size of... Congress itself. Political spending by drug companies is greater than the spending of any other sector - including defense. And let's not forget they don't really want to cure new diseases - they just want you on drugs. Forever. With the guv'mints help.
If you live in the USA, here are three good steps to try to reduce their influence:
1) Write your senators and rep in favor of legislation to make it illegal to advertise prescription drugs. If you're on a prescription drug & you see it advertised, see if you can find a non-advertised (or even OTC) alternative. For example, instead of Ambien, try Tylenol's Simply Sleep - it works well for me.
2) Write your senators and rep in favor of legislation to allow import of cheaper medications from Canada
3) In the Senate, Pub Grassley and Dem Dodd are pushing bipartisan legislation that would force drug developers to release data from all clinical trials of a new medicine — including negative ones the companies don't like to disclose. Get your people onboard this one.
5/19/05 Soapbox trimmed
To make the page load quicker, I finally trimmed off all the 2004 stuff.
5/18/05 NASA to investigate artificial gravity... sort of
Well, it's good to finally see some efforts directed at the problem. We have spent almost 40 years documenting the deconditioning aspects of zero-gee exposure, and zero years doing something about it. Anyone who has taken a Physics class knows how easy it is to generate artificial gravity from circular motion - early space station designs have had large rotating pieces for exactly this reason. But (sigh), the fact that NASA is involved guarantees the study will be done in the least-useful way possible:
- The subjects won't be exposed to zero-gee, instead, they'll be exposed to bed rest here on Earth. It's almost exactly the same, only completely different.
- Half of the test subjects will be exposed to 2.5g for an hour a day, then resume their bed rest. The other half will just do bed rest.
- The centrifuge is very short-radius, which will provide differing g-levels all down the body.
In short, we want to find the effects of sustained Martian g (a little over 1/3 Earth-g) on the human body. NASA is testing the effects of short-duration short-radius 2.5g on bed-resters under Earth-g. I guess it is possible we might accidentally learn something useful from this, but I have my doubts.
How should they do it? Check out #3 on my NASA advice page.
5/15/05 Treasure Trove of Jackson Pollack Artwork Discovered
Or maybe it was a bunch of drop cloths wadded up behind the toilet. I guess we'll never really know.
5/14/05 Power, Scotty, I have to have that power
It's the new nuclear battery! This will be a boon for small devices. What I really want to see, of course, is a large-scale battery that shares some of the same attributes, and it's rechargeable (hey, I can dream!), with little dangerous waste. Then, we'd be able to use it to support 'green' energy (solar, wind, etc.). Right now, all solar and wind can do is peak-load shaving. The next time some eco-loon tells you that enough sunlight falls on Wyoming to power the USA, ask 'em how much sunlight they get at midnight. Then ask 'em how they propose generating the power at midnight. It turns out that a lot of dark falls on Wyoming too, and we need some way to store the power and rerelease it.
What we really need is viable nuclear fusion.
BTW - visit http://www.livescience.com/ for your daily dose of science news. While I'm plugging them, look at their list of top-10 energy technologies that will power the 21st century, and the palmtop nuclear fusion reactor.
5/6/05 Updates
Following up on two news items:
Front Range toll road: It has been shot down. For now. Mostly. They're still looking for loopholes, and the state government still is sitting on their thumbs.
You make me wanna hurl, hurl, hurl, hurl: The Stop Ashlee Simpson petition is up to 382,881 signatures as of this writing. I'm sure it won't do anything, since in the entertainment biz there is no such thing as bad publicity. But it's the right thing to do. Won't you help? After all, if it saves the life of just one child... BTW - on the off chance you missed her getting booed off the stage in Miami, here's a clip.
4/29/05 Nuclear: Clean Air Energy
There is a PSA currently being shown on TV describing nuclear energy as 'clean air energy' - which it is. Longtime readers of this site know I'm a big fan of Nuclear Energy. One of the benefits of Nuclear Energy is that the waste is so concentrated it can actually be stored - impossible with any combustion technology. But one caveat to concentrated waste is that it must be dealt with intelligently. I recently finished the book The Ambushed Grand Jury, which is a great caution to nuclear proponents like me. In a nutshell, the book shows how decision-making at DOW/Rockwell was so stupid, twisted, and evil that they disposed of 'extra' Plutonium at Rocky Flats by burning it... 15 miles upwind of a major metropolitan city (Denver, Colorado)... for decades. Rocky Flats dealt with nuclear weapons, not nuclear power, but the disposal issue is similar - nuclear material is concentrated, so it must be dealt with intelligently. If it is dealt with negligently, bad things can happen. And if it is dealt with moronically, the lives of tens of thousands of people can be adversely affected.
The government is still covering this up. Examining some of the published Rocky Flats environmental data is telling - no mention of the Plutonium burnings, but you'll be happy to know that the Beryllium releases (What?!) presented a negligible risk.
So - what have we learned?
- You can't trust the government. (No! Really?)
- You can't trust big corporations
It makes me think that humans may be too collectively stupid to use nuclear anything. Disappointing.
4/26/05 New Energy Plan
The Shrub gave his second Energy speech within a week today, reflecting concern that rising energy costs are slowing our economic recovery and (gasp!) hurting the President's approval ratings. The linked article above is muddled, and one hopes the President has a clearer view of the situation.
There are two completely separate issues here:
1) We use too much oil, and most of it is non-domestic.
2) We need new sources of electrical energy
These are both significant issues, and they have little to do with each other. In other words, building new nuclear power plants (which is a great idea and I think we should) won't affect gas prices.
We also need new transportation energy - maybe it is Hydrogen (though I doubt it). Maybe it is electric. Maybe it is Boron - (visit the site, there's a lot of interesting information there). Who knows - we need to study the problem rationally, and unfortunately, step 1 of doing it rationally is getting the (environ)mental groups like GreenPeace, Sierra Club, etc., away from the problem.
I see very little attention to this problem from the White
House. I'd love to see more.
4/26/05 Mission Accomplished
If you scroll down a bit, you run across me whining about
the 'fines double' warning on speed limit signs in construction
zones. I was mocking them because
they are meaningless. (You could never tell if an amount were,
in fact, doubled.) Well, The Man has heard my complaint, and
I'm happy to report that on the same stretch of road, they have
changed the wording... They searched long and hard, and found
something with even less meaning than 'fines double':
Fines Higher! Higher than what, you may ask? Well, I'm sure they're
higher than something. That'll make them slow down.
4/21/05 Body-Mass Index
Today's rant is about the frequently-used body-mass index, which is your mass in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. I guess it can be a useful tool for normal-size people, but a quick glance at the formula shows why it shouldn't be used at all: Mass is not a square function of height, it is a cubic function.
Let's take me as an example. I am about 1.82 meters tall, and my mass 84.5 kilograms. So, my BMI is 84.5/(1.82*1.82) = 25.5, and we find that I am borderline-obese. But that's not why the formula is flawed. (though it may be why I am flawed!) It is flawed because it should be scale-invariant; that is, if you increase my height to 2 meters, and expand my body proportionally, my new mass would be 84.5*8/(1.82^3) = 112 kilos, and my new BMI would be 112/(2*2) = 28. It changed!
Let's scale it down: If I were only 1.6 meters tall, and my body were proportionally scaled down, my new mass would be 84.5 (1.6^3)/(1.82^3) = 57.4 kilos. But now, we get the happy news that I am no longer on the borderline, my BMI would be 57.4/(1.6^2) = 22. Hey, I'm not overweight, I'm overtall!
If you looked at photos of these 3 people (me, me scaled up to 2 meters tall, me scaled down to 1.6 meters tall), we'd look identical without something in the background to indicate size. Surely all three of us should be obese (or not!) by the same proportional measure.
The metric should be height divided by mass cubed, and since I am not far from average-size, we can use my data to define the borderline.
Better BMI = Mass in kilograms / (height in meters cubed)
Let's plug in my info:
BBMI for Dave = 84.5/(1.82 ^ 3) = 14
If you're under 12, you may pig out.
12 - 14: You're OK, but watch it.
Over 14: You're overweight
(4/11/05) Highway Robbery
OK, this is a local (USA/CO) issue, but really, all politics are local. The problem is that the Front Range of Colorado has grown rapidly over the last few decades, and the main north/south transportation is I-25, connecting Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Castle Rock, Denver, Longmont, Loveland, and Fort Collins, and numerous smaller communities. I-25 is a terrible way to go - it is often clogged with traffic, and a single accident can bring progress to a standstill. (I go out of my way to avoid I-25, and I have sneaky back routes that take me to all of those cities)
So - one brilliant idea is to build a new north/south interstate, about 30 miles east of the current one. Cool, but strangely, people own that land, and they don't really want an interstate on it. The State Government has a tool they can use in these cases, which is called the right of eminent domain. It basically sez the gov'mint can force the acquisition of private land if they declare eminent domain and pay fair market value.
This is unpleasant but sometimes necessary.
Here is the issue: The State Government isn't doing squat. (SHOCK!) Instead, a private group is trying to acquire the land via eminent domain. Why is that possible, you might ask? There is an obscure law from the 1880s (back in the Pike's Peak Railway days) that may allow it.
This is a crock of #$%. A private group should never be able to access rights of eminent domain, it should be solely the province of government.
IF the State Government thinks it is such a grand idea, they should be the only ones allowed to do it, and they should kick a small % of the money generated (from tolls, restaurants, gas stations, etc.) back to the displaced landowners.
Another sign this is all about $$$: The private group is hoping to force the sale of land within ONE MILE of the proposed tollway. They hope to get a piece of the action from any businesses that crop up along the road.
Here is what I think should happen: I think we need the road, and I think the state government should access the land via eminent domain. Displaced landowners should not only get a fair price for their land, they should get a small piece of the action from businesses that crop up along it. Why the original landowners shouldn't profit from this idea is beyond me.
(sidenote: when we lived in Washington State, there were several state-funded tollways that got paid off. The tollbooths were removed, and they became free. That would *never* happen if it were private.)
(4/6/05) Drunk Driving Tool
New Mexico is the first state on your block to require habitual DUI offenders to install an 'interlock', a device that requires drivers to blow into a tube before it allows the car to be started. If we're still too soft to hang the habitual DUI drivers, I guess this isn't bad.
I have a problem with some quotes from the article:
The new law requires interlocks for one year for a first conviction, two years for a second, three years for a third, and for a lifetime — with appeals at five-year intervals — for a fourth or subsequent conviction.
Yup, we're still letting 4-time DUI losers drive. Take 'em out back and shoot 'em. The life you save may be someone else's.
Opponents say the new law is too punitive and would disproportionately affect the poor, who they argued are more likely to get convicted.
Too punitive? Try nowhere near punitive enough. As far as affecting the poor - if they can buy the sauce, they can be responsible with it. I'm concerned about enforcement though - how do the courts ensure a DUI loser gets one of these installed? It looks like they 'require' it after a conviction - what they should do is impound the car till the loser pays for the install.
(4/1/05) First extra-solar planet imaged
This is sort of a watershed moment - an extrasolar planet has never been imaged before, to date, we have detected their existence via gravitational wobbles and eclipse light loss
This 'planet', though, strains the definition of planet. Or at least it might if it had one! 8) It is about twice the size of Jupiter, with a surface temp around 2000K, and it is probably some kind of gas giant. For now we seem to be defining a planet as something smaller than a star, and a star is an object big enough to undergo fusion in its core.
Fearless Prediction: By 2025, we will be imaging continent-sized areas on Earth-sized planets within 20 light-years.
(3/30/05) Pluto mission being pondered
NASA is thinking about a mission to Pluto (again). Sadly, the biggest obstacle to overcome is the public's fear of the n-word: Nuclear. In a nutshell, the RTG generator being proposed would have no problems. If it did suffer a launch failure, the RTG would splash back into the ocean and we would go fetch it (this is what actually happened on an Apollo test flight). If by some freak occurrence it exploded and the entire load of plutonium oxide vaporized the result would be... negligible compared to what has already been put into the air from above-ground nuclear bomb testing.
But I'm sure some Luddites will whine anyway.
And until the mission launches, we have to hush this talk of Pluto not being a planet!
(3/30/05) Schaivo part 3
More random thoughts:
- Terry Schaivo died in 1991. Someone forgot to tell her body.
- If we start feeding her again now, that would truly be cruel and unusual punishment
- Since when does being 'Christian' mean 'work to prolong suffering at all costs'?
(3/28/05) Schaivo part 2
Hmm, there is more to this case than meets the eye. Check http://www.terrisfight.net/ for some pro-Terry info. The husband's actions look increasingly odd, and I'd love to hear his side of the story. She is most definitely not in a persistive vegetable state. (or if she is, I don't know what that means)
BOW - you may visit http://www.endoflifechoices.or/home.asp and download some forms to print out that will give you some peace of mind.
(3/23/05) Schiavo
And sometimes you run across stories where there are no good choices, only bad ones. My thoughts:
- 100 years ago, Schaivo would not be able to be kept alive. She would have died the first month.
- We wouldn't starve a dog to death like this. Either we should continue to keep her alive, or we should find a more humane way to kill her (my vote). I hope she's not suffering.
- I am writing my living will, specifying no extraordinary measures, this week. I *never* want that to be me.
My thoughts and prayers go out to this woman and her families. I pray I never have to be on either end of a choice like that.
(3/21/05) Can I pay less taxes?
Government minimalists like me are wondering what the bleep the U. S. Congress is doing sticking its nose into the internal workings of a private business, in this case, Major League Baseball. Are they looking for more face time on TV? Maybe they are trying to score an autograph!
I think the US Congress should be ashamed to mess with MLB. They don't belong there. Period.
(3/15/05) Scott Peterson sentenced to death
Scott Peterson was sentenced to death today, for the murder of his wife Laci and their unborn child.
It irks me to see someone sentenced to death with
* no murder weapon
* no DNA evidence
* no eyewitness
* no murder location
* no murder time or date
* no clear motive
Heck, OJ had all of those things (but the eyewitness) and he walked. But I digress.
I am not arguing for Peterson's innocence at all - he very probably killed Laci, and he certainly sounds like scum-of-the-Earth. But I wish we were more hesitant to apply the ultimate penalty. We shouldn't kill him because he probably killed his wife. We shouldn't kill him for being a lyin' cheatin' scumbag. We should apply the death penalty only in crystal-clear cases, like OJ. Or Brian Nichols.
(3/15/05) School Standardized Testing
This is standardized-testing week in Colorado. We have 2 kids, 10 and 8, taking two different standardized tests. The 10 year old takes the CSAP - the Colorado Standard Assessment Program. That's the big one, teachers fret over it, you can buy study guides (!), results affect school funding. It's like a pre-SAT.
There are so many things wrong with it. Here are a few:
* You shouldn't be able to buy study guides. A poorer family wouldn't be able to, and if we buy one for our kid, that tilts the playing field even more.
* Our 10-year-old is taking the test over 2 days (when she should be learning), but we'll get the results - get this - next Fall. How useful is that? We will all have forgotten about it by then - it'll be less actionable than getting results back from a blood test. Much of the test is standardized - we should be able to get those results back tomorrow.
* Teachers' performance is directly tied into test results. And you'll never guess how they correlate... socioeconomically (duh). Tell me the median household income at a school and the median household income of the district, and I can come durn close to predicting a school's CSAP performance. If we have to test at all, it would be better to test once at the beginning of the school year and once at the end, and grade the results by the difference in performance over the two tests. There are problems doing it this way, but fewer than the way it is currently done.
* We teach to the test. Wrong. The test is supposed to measure where students are, not give schools a goal.
(3/12/05) Mars receeds from Earth
The possibility of a manned Mars mission (from NASA) is growing more remote by the day. I think humans will make it to Mars in my lifetime (unless I die young), but today, I'd take a bet that NASA won't be first. Their glacial pace will be eclipsed. By who, you ask? Well, Japan, China, and India all have drawing-board plans to go to the Moon within a decade. Mars would be a plausible destination after that, especially if they don't get sidetracked by a stupid space station. Even the ESA is a possibility (OK, I just threw that one in to see if you were still awake).
And I'm still surprised some maverick multi-billionaire isn't funding a private trip. Talk about instant immortality. We still recall Ferdinand and Isabella today, and as Robert Zubrin is fond of pointing out, few people can name the preceding monarchs of Spain, nor the ones that followed. (you hear that, Paul Allen? In a century, no one will know or care that you owned the Portland Trailblazers. Do this and you go down in history.)
(3/5/05) Is Bert Rutan a Stud, Or What?
He is worth 10 NASAs. Months from his successful X-prize bid last Fall, he designs the first plane to go non-stop around the world. And what exactly has NASA done in the last year?(*) <insert the sound of one hand clapping>
The pilot of the plane, Steve Fossett, is no stranger to going around the world... he did it in a balloon a while back.
I have a small concern about the path... was it entirely in the Northern hemisphere? If so, around-the-world paths can be arbitrarily short. If the wind were just right, I could throw a frisbee 'around the world' (that is, passing through every line of longitude) standing very near the North Pole.
(*) Many of you have mentioned the Mars rovers and Cassini. Cassini is one of my favorite missions ever, and the Mars rovers have been amazing. But - remember Cassini was launched in '97 and (obviously) designed and built before that. The Mars rovers have both been on the planet for over a year. I stand by my claim.
(3/3/05) Be Still, My Heart
Fed reserve chairman-for-life Alan Greenspan is adding his considerable weight to the idea of a consumption tax. The biggest problem is how to get there from here. I favor biting the bullet and doing a 5-year transition plan, moving us from a 100% income tax to a 100% consumption tax in annual 20% increments.
One of the common objections (taxing the poor) is easily met by either tax credits [for (say) groceries and the first $500 of rent/mort.] or no tax at all on those items.
A more difficult objection is what to do with existing money. Say you have $1000 in the bank. You have already paid taxes on it, but if the VAT switch were pressed overnight, you'd be paying taxes again when you spent it. There are several answers to this problem, but none of them (yet) are good!
When I worked for HP, we had an internal memo circulated regarding our '03 taxes... they weighed almost 300 pounds, and printed out, they were over 18,000 pages. The tone of the memo was to give kudos to the accounting team responsible, but I thought, what a tremendous waste. All of the people that worked on it (and I'm sure it was several person-years of effort) were just friction, doing make-work for the IRS that did not contribute to the bottom line. Thinking about this and about the IRS makes me lean toward Option B when it comes to taxes. I like the VAT - but a variant of the flat tax would work as well. Either way, the IRS would cease to exist, but I guess we'll just have to learn how to get along without them.
(2/17/05) Fines Double
Today's rant is about those stupid 'fines double' signs I see everywhere. How exactly could one tell if it were double? Hint: You can't, it is meaningless. What 'they' should do is, in areas where it is badder to hit a construction worker than anyone else, post a sign that sez Min Fine $100
(2/9/05) Don't let the door hit you
To the utter delight of Hewlett Packard employees everywhere, former chairwoman Carly Fiorina resigned this morning. I worked for HP for about 11 years, and the company had never sunk as low as it did from '01 till now. We laid off tens of thousands of good people, the stock price was in the toilet, and employee morale was nonexistent. That is three distinct failures of the CEO to lead the organization effectively. As a punishment, Carly voted herself a several-million-dollar bonus that year.
Through it all, Fiorina kept up a Robb Report extravagance that was distasteful at best. I remember when former HP CEO Lew Platt used to occasionally fly coach on business trips, as a statement to the troops. That was in no danger of being repeated on Carly's watch. She didn't even fly first-class - she splurged on two $30 mil corporate jets while in the midst of laying off thousands of workers. Classy.
But what really polarized the worker bees was the 'retention bonus' plan she hatched in 2001, during the merger with Compaq. Going into the controversial merger, HP had about 88,000 employees. 6,000 of them (called The Chosen) received 'retention bonuses' equal to 1-3X their annual pay if they stayed on through the merger. The rest of us got... diddly squat.
Can you think of a better way to divide a company? Anger and resentment over the bonuses were huge, and helped to keep morale at absolute zero, until the ouster. And the economy in '01 and '02 was at a standstill; The Chosen weren't in danger of going anywhere.
A friend still at HP says they popped the bubbly and passed out Ding-Dongs (as in 'ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead...') in spontaneous celebration that was apparently repeated throughout the company. It brings a tear to my eye.
Any personal remorse from Carly will surely be tempered by the $21 mil severance package she received upon her ouster. Way more than what she deserved, but cheap at twice the price.
(2/9/05) It's about time
James Cameron is adding his weight (again) to a humans-to-Mars proposal, talking with NASA about timelines, vision, and the need for safety. It is good to see him on board.
But.. I was at the '99 Mars Society convention, when Cameron gave a presentation on two Mars projects he was working on then: An IMAX Mars movie, and a five-hour TV miniseries. They were due out in '01 - where are they now?
Hopefully his talks with NASA now will bear more fruit. Of course, if they bore *any* fruit, that'd be more.
(2/9/05) Sooper X-Ray Vision
The link above debunks a Russian girl who claims to be able to see inside of people and diagnose previously-unsuspected medical problems. There is a Discovery Channel special about her which has aired in Asia and Europe, but not (yet?) the USA.
To their credit, the Discovery Channel asked CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) to test the young woman's claims. They did, and the resulting test (linked above) showed nothing unusual about her purported powers. I hope this means the show is not broadcast here, or (if it is) the debunking is featured prominently.
We're still beating back the stupidity from the Apollo Moon Hoax broadcast on Fox in '01! Don't feed the Conspiracy Theorists, we have enough people who buy in to crap already.
(2/8/05) Junk Science: If You See The Word 'May', it's Bogus
If you've visited other parts of my homepage, you know that Astronomy is a strong interest of mine, but even I had to roll my eyes at this headline from Yahoo: Other Planets in Galaxy May Have Layer of Diamonds. Sure they may. They also may not, and we're centuries away from knowing or caring. It must have been a slow news day at Yahoo.
Let's have fun with one quote from the article: "Carbon planets would be made mostly of carbides, although they might have iron cores and atmospheres." Isn't this like discussing the color of a Unicorn's horn? And, as a side note, I wonder what they think 'mostly' means... are they really proposing the carbide layer would be more massive than the iron core? Let me guess: It might be!
(2/3/05) Testing the Limits of Free Speech
Colorado University professor Ward Churchill is drawing fire for likening the victims of 9/11 to Nazis, calling them 'little Eichmanns', a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organised Nazi plans to exterminate European Jews during WWII.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: The comments are at best insensitive, misguided, and reek of a political agenda.
Much of the uproar centers around the fact that Churchill is a government employee, pulling in six figures of taxpayers' money, and therefore he may be not be free to spout ideas that the public (who pays his salary) finds odious.
But they are much less odious when placed in context. In a recent statement, Churchill said he's not defending the 9/11 attacks, but "pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned."
OK, that sounds fine. But Churchill also speaks of the 'gallant sacrifices' of the terrorists themselves, which is a bit unpalatable, especially when coupled with the Nazi reference. [Churchill was chairman of the ethnic studies department, and he has stepped down from his chairman position based on reaction to his comments.]
Though I disagree with his reasoning, it seems to me that all of this is OK, and easily falls under the First Amendment umbrella. But it seems odd when compared to the football coach at the same university.
CU football coach Gary Barnett, when he's not busy defending rape allegations against his players, talked some smack against former kicker Katie Hnida (the only female football player ever at CU), saying "It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful," Barnett said. "Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it.". He added she "couldn't kick the ball through the uprights."
For these remarks, CU President Betsy Hoffman placed Barnett on paid leave [though this incident was probably the straw that broke the camel's back, all the rape charges put his head on the chopping block to begin with].
It's an odd pairing... Churchill says some tasteless stuff, and he hides under the skirt of the First Amendment. Barnett speaks the truth on a topic he is eminently qualified to opine on, and he gets put on leave. I think Barnett should be able to speak his opinion regarding the football skills of any of his players, and while I disagree with Churchill's comments, I think he has every right to make them.
update 2/8: My friend Mark
makes a clarifying point. It is one thing to argue that Ward's
comments are protected by the first amendment. It is quite another
to argue he should face no diciplinary action as a result. If
I work for the local 7-11, I am free to bad-mouth my boss in
public. And s/he is free to fire me.
(1/28/05) Another freedom goes up in smoke
Smokers are today's whipping boy... you can't do it indoors, you can't do it if you work for a certain company - my hometown, Greeley, Colorado, just passed a comprehensive smoking ban, including bars and bowling alleys.
Michigan-based Weyco Inc.'s new policy bans its staff from smoking -- even away from work -- to cut health care costs. I have a problem with companies telling employees they may not do certain legal things when they're not working. I have a problem with the government saying smoking is not legal indoors in a town.
If I smoked (I don't) and I wanted to build a pub in my hometown called "Dave's Smokin' Pub", I couldn't, because The Man tells me I couldn't.
People don't get excited about this issue, because most people in the US don't smoke, and most nonsmokers don't like being around smoke. But it is just another erosion of freedom. And it starts us down a very slippery slope:
Heading out for fast food on your lunch hour? Sorry, you can't. It's bad for you.
Enjoy dirt-biking on weekends? Ye gads, man! The insurance risk! We'll have to ban that too. It's for the best, really. After all, if it saves the life of just one child...
Are you overweight? Terrible! We'll have to cut out your lunch and substitute an aerobics class.
Say goodbye to bungee-jumping, parachuting, white-water rafting, hang-gliding - they're just too dangerous.
Meanwhile, the world death rate continues to hold steady at 100.0%
What we should do is accept personal responsibility.for our actions...
If you choose to engage in *any* potentially dangerous behavior, you automatically personally assume the risk.
If you go to a place that allows smoking, you will breathe some smoke. If you don't like that, choose to not go there rather than pass ill-advised laws that erode more freedom.
(1/27/05) Irant, Irave
Iran has a nuclear power plant (which allows them to produce gigabuttloads of clean energy ), and they are pursuing a nuclear enrichment program, which greatly aids production of fuel for nuke power plants, but also makes it easier to make a nuclear bomb.
The entire free world doesn't want this, in accordance with the nuclear non-proliferation thesis. And there are two members of the free world, Israel and the USA, that may forcibly remove this capability should Iran acquire it.
In the short term, Russia will give Iran all the enriched fuel it needs. In the longer term, I'm sure Iran would want to make their own enriched fuel. And as soon as the inmates aren't running the asylum, they can.
Meanwhile, Iran is saber-rattling and chest-thumping about their Astonishing Response should they be attacked. Yo, Khatami, I realize you're not terribly sane, but there are at least 20 countries in the world that could smash you. STFU.
There is a reason we don't give matches to little kids. There is a reason we restrict access to guns. It is the same reason we don't allow murderous psychotic dictators to get their hands on nukes. No offense, Khatami. Pass and enforce a constitution limiting the power of the government and elect your leaders democratically, and we wouldn't care so much.
(1/27/05) Israel/Palestine
Wow. If the world's attention were not diverted elsewhere (Iraq, Iran, the tsunami), we'd all be overjoyed at the (relative) peace and love flowing out of Israel/Palestine. Can you imagine Israeli PM Sharon being 'very satisfied' with Arafat? Me neither. But click on the link above, and he says exactly that about Abbas (Palestinian president). I know, it is early to get excited about the prospects for peace. But I am very hopeful.
(1/25/05) Stop Ashlee
In September 2004, I wrote the following (in my '04 soapbox page):
Jessica Simpson is a bona fide star, she can actually sing. Her kid sister Ashlee is a joke. Is this all the 'talent' it takes to make it in music these days? If one of my sisters ever has a hit song, I figure I'm in. She wouldn't make it out of the first round on American Idol. Why, I remember back in the day, you needed Actual Talent to make it in music. Bah! Humbug! Those boots are made for walkin', and your 15 minutes of fame are just about up.
Now, in January 2005, I am happy to report you may actually sign a petition (click the link above) to stop this no-talent hack from polluting our airwaves. I know, we're just tilting at windmills(*), but it's fun.
And as long as I'm dissing the Simpsons - you know that Pizza Hut commercial that shows Jessica staring at some buffalo with wings on them? (advertising Pizza Hut's buffalo-chicken pizza)
It's worth half a chuckle, and it's a slight tip of the hat to Jessica's 'Chicken Of The Sea' moment... but the funny thing about the commercial is *not* that the buffalo are shown with wings, it's the fact there are buffalo at all.
Buffalo wings are chicken wings with a spicy sauce first made (according to legend) in Buffalo, New York. They have nothing to do with buffalo (the animal).
And as long as my mind is bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in a dryer... did you know you can construct arbitrairly long English sentences consisting only of the word "buffalo"? The word has at least two definitions: The animal, and to fool someone.
So, we have: Buffalo buffalo buffalo. [some buffalo fool other buffalo]
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. [buffalo (that are fooled by buffalo), fool other buffalo]
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. [buffalo fooled by buffalo, also fool (buffalo fooled by buffalo)]
And so on, for any odd number of 'buffalo's. Even numbers are possible too, with a different parsing of the sentence. Now you know!
(*) In a almost totally unrelated story, a local farmer has a donkey named 'Hotay'.
(1/19/05) Condoms are OK
It's about time the Catholic Church woke up and smelled the coffee on this issue. While I have admired the simplicity and purity of their 'gospel of life' for years (pro-life, anti-death-penalty, etc.) (*), I don't think it should include anti-birth-control. There are almost seven billion of us. Isn't that about enough?
Condoms are a two-fer: Not only are they a contraceptive, they also control the spread of AIDS and other diseases. Which is nice; I don't see sex going out of style any time soon.
(*) Even though I'm Catholic, I don't agree with it. I'm not far from their pro-life stance, but I have real problems being strongly anti-capital-punishment. To me, capital punishment is bad in theory but workable in practice. Great case in point: Malvo and Mohammed. There are some people that just need killin'.
(1/19/05) Palestine smells the coffee too
In an unprecedented move, Palestine security forces will work *with* the Israeli military on the Gaza border to prevent attacks.
Had this happened on Kerry's watch, I'm sure the 'big media' would be falling all over themselves ascribing cause to the POTUS - who, in this case, didn't do much.
(1/19/05) Tsunami toll over 226,000
8( I didn't truly understand the total devastation until I saw these pictures. That island didn't just get destroyed, it got obliterated. And obliteration happened over and over in the countries around the Indian Ocean.
(1/14/05) The $10,000 Moon Shot
Randy Moss (receiver for the Minnesota Vikings) got a $10K fine from the NFL for pretending to moon Packer fans during last weekend's game in Green Bay. Additional facts:
- Fining Moss $10K is like me losing a nickel in the sofa cushions. Did they slap his hand too?
- It is evidentally a tradition for Packer fans to moon the opposing team's bus as it pulls into Lambeau Field. I cannot confirm this, and I (if it is true) know I don't want to see pictures. I have a BIL who lives in Green Bay, I'll ask him. [Update: I asked him, he sez he had never heard of that prior to last week, but based on the word on the street over the last week, he sez it is probably true]
- NFL Cheerleaders do a moves more suggestive than this every week.
- Jake Plummer (QB for the Denver Broncos) received a $5K fine for actually (instead of pretending) flipping the bird to some fans at a home game. I know which one I'd rather explain to my kids.
(1/14/05) Cassini/Huygens
I've been waiting for this since 1997... Cassini should rewrite our knowledge of Saturn in much the same way that Galileo did at Jupiter, only better, since we don't have the communication problem that plagued Galileo.
Huygens is the small probe sent to Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan is the only moon known to have a significant atmosphere (it's thicker than ours), and it looks like it will be the only known body other than Earth to have liquid on the surface. The best place I've found for pictures is here.
Update 1/16: The ESA has been very slow in coming out with the pictures. But the amateurs haven't. Check out this link! (esp. this part)
The liquid can't be water, it's way too cold on Titan. But it could be some flavor of ethane or methane or hydrocarbons.
For more images from Cassini (but not necessairly the Titan closeups) check here.
And if you're a glutton for punishment, you can check out all the images.
Congrats to NASA and the European Space Agency. Fantastic.
(1/6/05) Yates could walk
Andrea Yates' murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court today, on the grounds a psychiatrist for the prosecution gave erroneous testimony that may have directly affected her sentencing.
This highlights - again - how short-sighted the plea of 'innocent by reason of insanity' is. Is anyone really arguing she *didn't* kill her five kids? She definitely did, the only question is whether she was sane at the time. In other words, she is guilty of the crime. We need a plea of 'guilty but insane'. Just 'cos ur crazy don't mean u didn't do it.
Back to this specific case. It is in the best current interests of just about everyone that the verdict stay unchanged in the retrial. I'm not overly fond of mass murderers of children in general, and I am aghast there is a even a remote possibility she could go free.
(1/6/05) Happy New Year!
OK - I'm splitting the soapbox up to annual pages. This is the 2005 soapbox, but I'm keeping the last four months from 2004 around too, for your surfing pleasure.