Bye bye Facebook

In what seems to be turning into an annual trend, I've decided to kill off another of my social networks, this time doing away with Facebook. (Last year it was Myspace.) I may regret it later, but I'm making a conscious decision to eschew the voyeurism of Facebook in favor of an all-new social network called "My Addressbook." Cutting edge stuff, that--the idea is you actually track your friends by using the phone, calling them up periodically and actually speaking to them. How's that for mobile integration?

I'm a big fan of non-linear communication--email, IM, etc--but Facebook makes me personally less likely to interact with friends when i can simply watch their page for updates on their life. This in turn makes me feel more antisocial, and eventually is kind of depressing. My wife says I'm just blaming Facebook for my antisocial nature, and who knows, she may be right--but FB is definitely not helping matters any.

Over the next week or two I'll post a few more updates, and if you're already a friend on FB, please write down my contact information. As always, I'll be keeping my website (http://www.karmajunkie.com if you're [ironically] reading this on FB) and I decided to keep my twitter active as I have a lot of work contacts through there. Linkedin also made the cut, at least until it becomes less of a professional asset, so you can add me as a contact there if you're on LI.

iPhone woes (or, why the hell is my button action going to a free pointer?)

So the last day and a half I've been debugging this problem which has GOT to be something most beginning iPhone developers run into sooner or later. I had absolutely no luck coming across anything that explained this problem, so I'm posting this to help somebody else who runs into it.

When you connect events in Interface Builder to actions on your UIViewController, there's one thing in particular you want to look out for. Be sure to connect them to the right object! In my case, both my "File's owner" and view controller were the same class, AlertDetailViewController. When I dragged the event over to the resource window, I dropped it on the "AlertDetailViewController" class, when I should have dropped it on "File's owner". By putting it on the former instead of the latter, I sent the event message to an anonymous instance of the AlertDetailViewController, with the result that every time I clicked the button in question, I got a segfault in my application.

I hope that helps someone someday!

How do I get Home from here?

I love my macs, but one of the few aspects of using one that annoys me is the utter lack of home/end keys on the keyboard. Please, somebody tell me there's some minor point I've missed in configuration that magically enables these keys in terminal. (Command-arrow keys don't count--they work in text environments to jump to the beginning or end of a line, but not at all in terminal environments, which means that if i need to change the beginning of a really long command, i'm left with just holding the arrow until i'm back at the beginning of the line. This totally blows.

How is it Apple gets so many other things so right and totally cocks that up?

Snow leopard upgrade woes

So on a whim last weekend i decided upgrading my new Macbook Pro to snow leopard on Day 0 would be a good idea. The upgrade went flawlessly--that is, until I actually tried to use my development environment afterwards.

The root cause of all the trouble was that in SN, unlike Leopard, most applications are 64-bit, which means your Ruby libs that have C code behind the scenes need to recompile. But the default compile only compiles them linking to 32-bit code. In a lot of cases this doesn't seem to matter; the big one people run into is mysql (see this post for details on how to fix it).

Another one it took me awhile to find though, was ruby-debug. When my development partner and I were trying to debug a particularly hairy problem this week, my machine refused to drop into the debugger. It took me awhile to realize what the problem was, and running this fixed it:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install ruby-debug

Once I ran that, everything was golden again.

More adventures to come...

Going to the chapel... Part deux

A little over a year ago, Barbra and I were taking our vows far off the beaten path in Big Bend, and as lovely and special as it was, we did miss having our family present. So, in just under a year, one year and 364 days after our first wedding experience, we are going to relive the experience in a slightly more traditional manner, renewing our vows in a small but beautiful chapel built and owned by a family friend in Salado.

Save the date--March 20, 2010!

Rails training

[Update: the training side of Collective Idea is now Idea Foundry--check out the new site for the training schedule.]

All last week I was in San Antonio for Rails training with these guys. I want to put up a review before too much time goes by because when I looked for one, nobody had anything up about their training class. Also, I plan on whoring my blog out to AdSense one of these days and I bet that'll get some traffic.

So, in a nutshell, best professional class I've ever taken. Usually training like this is really dry (not DRY! [bad joke, you'll have to be a Rails geek to get that one]) and it takes an effort simply to remain conscious. The teacher is typically somebody who's following a program, and doesn't deviate far from the outlined path.

Collective Idea takes a different approach. They scheduled the training in a pretty swank hotel, and even took us out for dinner and drinks the first night. The continental breakfast was exponentially better than what you get out of Holiday Inn. But that's all just details--the point is that from the start, Dan, Brandon, and Brian are working to create an atmosphere that's comfortable and entertaining.

The training went way above what I was expecting. I've had some Rails experience, but its been awhile, and I took their beginner class (along with two true beginners from my office) in order to kind of firm up my knowledge of Rails. Because the class was small, we ended up moving really quickly and managed to cover not only the basic ideas of rails, but also at least a snapshot of the current best practices. There really wasn't anything that was off the table--usually in a class like this, if you have a question that deviates too far from the program, the course instructor will either say "take the advanced class" or give you five or ten minutes of explanation off to the side after class is over. CI's style, at least in our class, was really to let us drive the direction. It was a basic class, in that you didn't need to bring any existing knowledge with you, but we managed to cover some more advanced topics like RSpec and Cucumber. They use Rails every day for the work their company does (training is really a secondary pursuit for them) so they're current on what the community is doing and what's going on with Rails Edge. I don't think we actually asked a single question and got a "Gee, I don't know" response.

Hopefully sometime in the near future I'll get a chance to take their advanced class. I really don't have any complaints about the training I did get. Part of me wishes it had been a day longer, but honestly, I don't think my brain could have kept up for another day. I probably would have started spacing out and missing out on what was being taught. And I think the other two guys I took the class with were probably at their saturation point as well. But the class definitely took the steep learning curve that comes with ruby and rails and turned it into more of a gentle grade. So if you're reading this post because you're wondering whether the training is worth it--it is.

updating again

So I can see from my previous blog entry its been awhile since I blogged on my site. I refuse to believe I went the entirety of 2008 without an entry however; I lost the previous incarnation of my blog to a wordpress database gone bad. Out of sheer laziness, I'm going to use blogger for awhile until I a) start blogging enough that it matters what software I use or b) some blogging software REALLY impresses me.

So what's changed in the last couple of years? I'm out of school now, back in software development (school was an aborted attempt at going to med school). Got married, had a baby. Had a few adventures along the way that have been lost to the ether. Planning on blogging a little more often, probably mostly on technical things. Eventually I'd like to start a small software development shop, at which time this will likely become the web page for that. Until then, its just a blog.

Paper or plastic--a thing of the past?

A friend and I have been carrying on an exchange the last few days regarding the recent passage of an ordinance banning plastic grocery bags in San Francisco. With her permission I'm posting the discussion here for more open debate.

Her first post:

As you may or may not know, San Francisco has become the first U.S. city to BAN PLASTIC GROCERY BAGS!! Here's the news story:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/27/environment.baggs.reut/index.html

Let's make Austin the second! What do you think?

My Reply:

I think if they did that i'd be out of poop bags for my dog! the solution isn't for the government to tell everyone what they have to do, its for people to tell companies what they're willing to take. if you want me to stop using plastic, you have to make an argument that convinces me to do so. I'm not personally convinced that cutting down trees to bag my groceries is any more ecologically friendly than plastic, especially when I have a secondary use for plastic bags that I don't have for paper. i have the same bitch about the smoking ban--its antithetical to a free state to tell private property owners what they can and can't do on their own property.

presuming that the argument that plastic is bad holds water (a point yet to be proven) a better strategy would be to make it less desirable for use, or alternatively and probably more attractive an option, make it less deleterious. for example, requiring a five-cent tax on plastic bags would be one way to make paper more attractive, though I'm of the opinion that a tax is almost as bad as an outright ban. perhaps a better solution would be to charge for them (maybe a dime a bag) and offer a rebate for returning them the way glass bottles used to be handled (say, 8 cents/bag). that way there's both an incentive to keep them out of the landfills and for companies to participate voluntarily. a third path would be to convince companies to make plastic bags out of biodegradable components that obviates the ecological argument against them.

at the end of the day though, it should still be my choice as a consumer, and my grocer's choice as a private enterprise, whether to use or offer plastic. plastic bags aren't exactly toxic waste, and they're made chiefly of byproducts of petroleum refining that would otherwise have to be disposed of, creating ecological problems someplace else. So the argument that my choice affects everyone regardless of their own choices doesn't really hold water.

And her response:

Thanks for the thoughts. I am all for a ban on plastic bags but I definitely see your point. I am not sure that paper would be the solution either but the fact is that plastic bags are the cause of more trash in Texas rivers, lakes, and shorelines than ANY other form of waste, they use petroleum, a resource that is becoming more and more valuable each day, and, contrary to popular belief, with the exception of a very inefficient and expensive process, plastic bags CANNOT be recycled and are not recycled, even in the places where the option is available. I think that in a city of such progressive and creative people such as Austin, we can think of better ways to take home our groceries. I am not sure that the private sector would be able to carry such an idea (excuse the pun) by charging for bags, etc. Most places already give you a discount for bringing your own bags but it is such a negligible amount and so unadvertised that it's not worth it to the average consumer. The government should represent the priorities of the people and in my opinion the environment should be a top priority for Austin.

I haven't responded to this last yet.

Revenge is sweet...

If you're going to sell bad merchandise on ebay, you should really take more care to clean up after yourself...

How do you spell "irony?" "I-N-D-I-A..."

Indian workers are protesting against a so-called injustice I and many of my fellow IT-ers (current and former) are quite familiar with: outsourcing.  Reading the article it appears they are concerned at the moment about plans for India's national reserve bank to outsource IT needs to a private company, not necessarily out of the country, but its also clear from rising salaries across the board in India that moving IT work out of the country to somewhere that still wears the title for "crappy third-world country."

I've been predicting this ever since the outsourcing trend started taking hold here.  Its a fad, mainly; many companies outsourcing IT and development work are finding the quality of the work produced to be less than adequate, poorly documented, hard to maintain, and that managing teams on opposite sides of the world--and the clock--is a dicey proposition at best.  More than a few companies are finding it to be a workable solution at least in part to a tight budget, but just as many are bringing work back home from what they consider to be a failed experiment.

For those companies that do find it to be a workable proposition, a new problem is arising.  India's software economy has been undergoing the same sort of rapid growth and change that the US economy did during the dot-com boom of the 90's.  So many companies are looking for new talent that salaries have risen far out of proportion to the rest of the economy.  As a result, the economic benefits of moving operations to India is rapidly dwindling, and companies are looking for new ground to take over India's spot. 

I have to confess I read about new developments in this area with a certain degree of glee, not unlike a high school geek who's watched his mousy girlfriend blossom into a supermodel only to be left holding the bag while she runs off with the high school quarterback before prom and shows up at the reunion ten years later forty pounds overweight with a passel of kids in tow, married to an unemployed Al Bundy-wannabe whose greatest accomplishment was the Hail Mary pass that won the regional championships his senior year.  I never lost a job directly to outsourcing, though I did have enough trouble finding work because of it that I switched careers altogether, returning to school to finish the bachelor's I abandoned during the dot-com years with the intent to go into medicine. (Its hard to outsource sticking a needle in someone.)  The jury's still out on that move--nobody drags a four-year degree out like I do--but in the meantime there's enough work coming back stateside that I'm considering a full-time return to the workforce to pay the bills in the meantime.

Take heart, my Indian brothers.  This too shall pass.

Old school PDA: freakin' genius

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a geek.  I don't pretend otherwise anymore; back when I had steady income I put "early adopter" as my religious status.  I've tried half a dozen PDA's and the only one that's stuck was my current cell phone, running windows mobile 4.0 and sync'ing to outlook.  Having spent the better part of the last few years broke, though, I've started using my father's version of a PDA: pen and paper.  I started carrying around a little memo book, which has thus far been far more effective than an electronic PDA costing a few hundred dollars and destined to end up an expensive paperweight.

Finally someone has come up with a PDA for people like me.  PocketMod is a website that lets you mix and match several templates into a disposable (i.e., loseable) organizer that you print out and fold.  It has a couple dozen page styles available, ranging from blanks to various sized grids to blank music scores to sudoku pages. you've got 8 pages in a booklet to work with, although I don't really see anything preventing you from getting creative and stapling several together into a larger organizer. 

I was telling steph earlier that the greatest ideas in mankind's history were the simplest ones, those that were so simple that they were simply overlooked.  These guys should really patent the idea before franklin covey or dayplanner gets ahold of it.

Sometimes a cell phone is just a cell phone...

So I lost my cell phone this afternoon. I realized this as I was driving back over to Steph's place from mine after I went over there to give gus a bath and grab a few things for this weekend in Dallas. I went back to the last place I could remember having it--my apartment, of course--but after looking for the better part of an hour, I still couldn't find it. No big surprise as most small items, animals, and children that find their way into my apartment are never heard from again, lost in a tempestuous conglomeration of unopened junk mail, junk that needs to be mailed, closets overflowing with junk and clothes that should be junked, sprinkled with junk food.

Finally I resigned myself to the idea that I had lost it, and would be without a phone for the entire weekend, since it'll be monday before I can get up to austin to do anything about it (since I still have an austin number and want to keep it, I have to deal with Cingular up there instead of down here because they like to make my life a pain in the ass.)

I get back over to steph's, look her work number up in outlook (thank god i have a phone that syncs to outlook automatically) and called her to tell her about it, when I decided, as guys sometimes do when we're
alone, that it was time to scratch my balls. As I was sticking my hand down my shorts I felt a small rectangular object kind of on the side of my underwear. Bet you can't guess what that was, can you?

I really only have two explanations for this. One is that I meant to put it into my pocket and was preoccupied at the moment and accidentally put it inside the waistband of my jeans, and thus in my underwear instead of my pocket. The other is more freudian in that subconsciously I hate my cell phone--or rather, what it represents, which is being at the beck and call of the entire world 24/7--and want to drive myself crazy with it so I get rid of it all together before it sleeps with my mother. I tend to go with the latter. (Except for the
sleeping with my mother part. Sometimes a cell phone is just a cell phone.)

I was all done blogging for the day

I was about to put away my blogging window when I saw this story from the DailyKos via Pharyngula.

Appalling.

The link is about a Christianist rally called Battlecry, complete with unabashedly militant symbolism that borders on Nazi propaganda. When former Special Forces servicemen are posing as trigger-happy Navy SEALs and this is considered positive PR for the extremist Christians, complete with a letter of approval from our Fearless Leader (keeping Alabama's skies free of Commies since 1972), is there any doubt about the ultimate goal of the evangelical movement in America today?

So much for the land of the free...

[Update: An excellent first-person account of BattleCry can be found at truthdig. Be sure and check out some of the comments too.]

Science scores dropping--is anyone surprised?

The NYTimes is running a story on a "distressing" drop in science scores by 12th graders nationwide.  The article offers a couple of explanations.

Assistant Secretary of Education Tom Luce said they reflected a
national shortage of fully qualified science teachers, especially in
regions of poverty, where physics and chemistry classes are often
taught by teachers untrained in those subjects.

"We lack
enough teachers with content knowledge in math and science," Mr. Luce
said. "We have too few teachers with majors or minors in math and
science. That clearly is a problem."

Some teachers cited the decreasing amount of time devoted to science in
schools, which they attributed in part to the annual tests in reading
and math required by the No Child Left Behind law.

Honestly though, regardless of the above explanations, did anyone really think students in America today were getting anywhere near an adequate grounding in science?  We're living under a presidential administration that is actively hostile towards science in favor of religion, and that takes its advice on matters like global warming from its favorite fiction writer.  Stem cell research has all but ground to a halt in this country, and school boards all over the country are being overrun by evangelical Christians making strong legislative and PR efforts to have creationism treated with parity alongside evolution as an adequate explanation for natural phenomena.

The Christianist movement loves to pretend they're Jewish and have been hated and oppressed ever since Christians were fed to the lions in the Colosseum.  Newsflash: the real attack in this country is directed at rational thought. 

The Anatomy of Power

A friend of mine works for the Texas Freedom Network, a non-profit group whose goal is to ensure religious freedom and individual liberties over the agenda of the religious right in Texas.  The group has just released a new report detailing the merging of the religious right with the leadership of the Republican Party in Texas.  TFN isn't anti-religion (unlike yours truly) and in fact, they work closely with a non-partisan network of mainstream clergy and other people of faith through the Texas Faith Network, 

The report details the rise of the religious right in Texas as well as the influence of a few key groups and players, along with their tactics for portraying religious Americans as a people under constant attack.  From the Executive Summary:

A report such as this is likely to be portrayed by leaders on the religious right as further evidence of a “war on Christianity” and “people of faith” in America today. Indeed, this charge has become the stock in trade for cynical far-right leaders who are adept at using religion to further divide Americans in the raging culture wars. Yet it is hard to reconcile this “language of persecution” with the reality in America today.

The vast majority of Americans proclaim a belief in God and attend church freely and regularly. Religious organizations own and operate radio, television and cable stations across the country, freely promoting religious messages to large audiences. Bible and prayer clubs meet in countless public schools. Decorations and public displays celebrating religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter can be found on almost any street in communities across the country. The truth is that faith and religious freedom are flourishing in America.

Given the current national political landscape, especially the dominance of Texas politicians such as George W. Bush and Tom Delay and the influence of leaders of the far right like the ever-asinine James Dobson on both political circles and the evangelical movement, this report is as much a look at the rise of the religious right nationally as well as in Texas.  Its well worth a read, regardless of your feelings on the matter.

There's hope for women all over the world now

Toyota is bringing to market a car that can park itself... Finally, women all over the world can feel free to parallel park.

[Thank god i've already got a girlfriend or I'm betting this post would cramp my dating life for awhile!]

Buy an SUV and get a free year of irresponsibility

GM is demonstrating an even greater disregard (or perhaps its merely lack of understanding) of market forces at  work by offering new SUV buyers a 1,99 cap on the price of gas for one year.  I can't begin to fathom what GM executives are thinking, unless they've got their minds set on going out with a bang.

First there's the economic cost to GM.  Leaving aside the fact that many buyers of these vehicles (including the incredibly fuel-inefficient H2 & H3 series of Hummers) don't care about the price of gas, by limiting their cost during a time when gas is likely to hit $4/gal GM is basically saying, "We'll match whatever you spend on gas."  On the vehicles in their production lines that are going to maximize that proposition.  If I were one of GM's investors, I'd be pretty f'ing pissed.

Secondly, there's the blatant disregard for the role American auto manufacturer's have played in the current gasoline crisis.  For years now they've been virtually assaulting American consumers with a barrage of ads and incentives to convince consumers to buy these fuel monsters.  Not to downplay the personal responsibility consumers have for making rational decisions, but anyone who reads this blog regularly is aware of the disregard I have for the ability of the average American to grasp the idea of "rational."  What GM is doing here is telling consumers, "Hey, we know what a pain in the ass it is to be responsible.  Hell, we've based our entire business model around that!  So why don't you just do what you want, as long as you want to buy one of our monster trucks, and we'll take that pesky responsibility thing and just sweep it under the covers for you."  GM is well-aware of the inability of your average consumer to see past the BS, and is taking advantage of that.

So my question to GM is this:  if you're so fired up about making gas prices cheap, why don't you offer this deal for only your most EFFICIENT vehicles, or your flex-fuel vehicles?  In doing so you'd save your investors a ton of money by limiting the cost of your asinine little idea, and you'd encourage consumers to buy more energy-efficient vehicles, helping to offset the increase in demand you'd be causing by setting a price ceiling.  I mean, bloody hell, how much more powerful a marketing message can you offer than "This car's so efficient we'll pay for all of your gas for the first year."  Might have something to do with the fact that there aren't any American cars that are highly efficient, of course...

The answer, of course, is because GM, like other American manufacturers, has always focused on the profit margin, looking to drive up sales of their bigger, high-margin vehicles instead of focusing on creating solid, reliable, energy efficient smaller cars and trucks.  Foreign manufacturers like Toyota, meanwhile, have been bitch-slapping GM in the marketplace precisely because they took the more intelligent strategy of decreasing their costs of production instead of taking the low road of higher vehicle margins.

Call me a Commie, tell me I hate America or that I'm a terrorist sympathizer.  Call me what you want--my next vehicle is going to be foreign.  I simply can't support American manufacturers when they pull boneheaded moves like this.

I just found my next cell phone

I have a beef with motorola. Many, actually. Mostly I just hate their phones. I've always found them to be overhyped pieces of crap no self-respecting e-dung beetle would stoop to ingest.

They might have a phone to change my mind now.

The "Q," as its called (think James bond's Q) is a slim-factor phone slightly thicker than the SLVR, about the same size as the RAZR. Runs the latest version of Windows Mobile (5.0) Smartphone, which is the killer feature of my current cell (the Audiovox SMT-5600.) Except the Q addresses my biggest problem with the SMT, the lack of a qwerty-style keyboard. short text messages aren't a problem, but for sending emails, chatting, web surfing... its a Major Complication. Most Smartphone apps take this into account, taking care to make applications menu-driven instead of text-driven, but there are a few good ones (in terms of filling a gap) that not only don't follow this convention, but don't take advantage of the predictive text available.

The Q will initially be available only from Verizon, but I'm hoping Cingular gets it soon, since I'm stuck with them for the next couple of years unless I suddenly come into a large sum of money to pay an early termination penalty. Although I'm not really inclined to change providers--I don't like Cingular's customer service or business practices, but the service itself is usable.

"I'm so complicated"

You come over unannounced
Dressed up like you're somethin else
Where you are and where it's at you see
You're makin me Laugh out
When you strike a pose
Take off All your preppy clothes
You know You're not foolin anyone
When you become Somebody else
Round everyone else
Watchin your back
Like you can't relax
You tryin to be cool
You look like a fool to me
    --Avril Lavigne, "Complicated"

I guess she got over being "complicated"... 

How do you know a doomed startup?

When its more about ego than product.

Seriously, every startup I've ever seen that puts headshots of its management team has ended up as a crapshoot.  That should be the #1 tip to potential investors that their money is going to be put to use fueling egos and sports cars rather than spent on hiring developers and designers, ads, or just about anything else that might be useful in a company.

Also, the fact that this "social network" is anything but social might also be a clue.  Here's a tip, guys: snobby people don't go online to be snobby.  They prefer to do it in person so that they have other rich people to pat them on the back for being rich, and peons to exclude in order to brush away those pesky insecurities about their self-worth.  What's the point of a gated community if no one can see you driving through the gates every day?

So this is the face of senility...

Pat Robertson, ever mindful of his complete and utter irrelevance in world affairs, has apparently been having tea and crumpets with God again.

Longtime readers of the political pages will remember his previous conversations with God, which included "Kill Chavez now!" and the classic episode in which Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke as divine retribution for attempting to bring peace to the holy land.

I had a friend once who was convinced her grandmother (a very nice lady, by all accounts) received messages from God.  Not in the "dove perched by an open window" kind of way, but in a verbal, "Tell so-and-so to turn left instead of right at 12:03pm today."  I was never able to convince her that her grandmother was probably a lifelong schizophrenic of some sort, but she spoke in tongues herself, so I had my work cut out for me there.  [as a side note, how convenient is it that some people are given the gift of speaking in gibberish, and other's the gift of interpreting it?  Let's hear it for accountability!]

What boggles my mind is how people can be so convinced of such a preposterous idea merely because once or twice in a blue moon the recipient of such messages manages to be right.  I mean, you fling enough crap at a wall and something's bound to stick sooner or later.  Which is, of course, exactly what Roberts is doing here.  He's predicting a lot of storms on the coastlines (Imagine that... a storm on the coast.  whodathunkit.)  during a period in which everyone from the meteorologist at the local news to government climatologists to academic geologists has shown that global warming is a) a reality and b) creating conditions for highly active hurricane seasons with stronger-than-normal storms.  Sorry, Pat, you don't get credit for a divine prediction when everyone already knows it.  As for the tsunami prediction, he's clearly using heightened public awareness and fear of tsunamis to get everyone's attention, knowing full well that if a tsunami doesn't show up everyone will forget his little prediction and if it does (unlikely in the extreme) he got lucky.

"I think maybe I kinda like you..."

Not a line that's going to end up on the top ten of all time, but it worked for this guy.

Here's what I've figured out about women in the last few years.

1.) Nice guys finish last.  Its not because nobody likes the nice guy--its just that nobody wants to sleep with him.  Don't get me wrong.  Being a jerk doesn't get you laid much either (although marginally moreso than being a nice guy.)  Its because a nice guy has no backbone, no spine.  He'll let a girl walk all over him--or anyone else, for that matter--so that he can retain his internal picture of himself as a "nice guy."  When girls do go for the nice guy, its for a very specific, very temporary purpose: rebound.  This is a nice guy's bread and butter.  If there's one thing he's good at, its picking up the pieces of a girl's broken heart, putting them back together again, and restoring her sense of self and self-esteem.  Oh, and he's pretty good at getting left behind for the badass on a motorcycle too.  There are few hard-and-fast rules in dating, but I'm pretty sure this is one.

2.) Nobody likes a jackass.  These guys tend to get laid more than the nice guys do.  That's because there's no dearth of women who seek out trouble like a moth to a flame.  They're unable to have or maintain a normal, functional relationship with another adult human being because they have no real identity of their own, so they look for what they see as a strong personality to whom they can attach themselves in order to have some sense of identity.  Unfortunately they're also really poor judges of character, not having any of their own to use as a reference.  (Women like this, incidentally, are almost always unsalvageable--stay away.  They may learn one day, but they'll learn of their own accord.  No one will ever be able to show them.  Especially not the Nice Guys of the world.)  At the end of the day, though a relationship with the Jackass may last awhile, it will be rocky and fraught with peril.  Her friends will hate him, mostly because at least twice a week she will call them with yet another story about what a jerk he is and how she should just leave him for good--and then she will return to him as soon as he calls.  Its annoying, really.

3.) The rules for Getting Laid and the rules for Being Happy are vastly different. Getting Laid, unfortunately, usually involves a little bit of being a jackass.  You will never find a relationship that makes you happy this way, because the pretext under which you start it is not who you are (hopefully.) 

Suppose you're the Nice Guy in your group of friends, and by some miracle, or perhaps through the machinations of your friends, you manage to do the exact opposite of whatever your instinct is: instead of complimenting her hair, you tell her what a big ass she has; instead of reading her poetry, you make her buy you a drink.  Whatever the case may be, you find yourself the next morning laying next to the only semi-attractive wench that's voluntarily dropped her panties for you in months. [before women reading this get their panties in a wad and start complaining that no woman would respond to that, shut up.  Yes, you do.  Maybe not all of you--those with a little self-respect tend to fall into this category--but most of you do.  Now go bring me some cheesy poofs and shut your pie hole.] 

So now, sober and back to your old self, you proceed to do all the things your instincts tell you to do: make her breakfast in bed, buy her flowers, call her just to say hi, leave her sweet little have-a-great-day notes on her car while she's at work... all those little romantic things you'd love to be able to do for your presumptive girlfriend.  Except guess what, douchebag... She didn't respond to that in hopping in the sack with you.  She responded to you treating her like crap.  Anybody want to take a guess at what comes next?

The disconnect in our hypothetical NG's behavior is this: he went out to Get Laid, but once he'd fulfilled that need, he was trying to convert the product of those efforts into a Relationship--into Being Happy.  That's a no-no.  Its like going to a sex shop and buying a big bottle of sensual massage oil, then trying to cook with it or put it in your car.  You can try it, but its not going to produce good results.

So how exactly are you supposed to be happy and get laid at the same time?  Personally, I see it as a pretty simple technique:

Just Be Happy.  [Its not just a song lyric anymore, people.]

Be satisfied with your own life.  Do the things that make you happy, whether its riding a bike, hiking, being a Beer Snob, whatever... If you want to meet people, then find things that make you happy and are somewhat social, like art openings, or political organizations, or something like that.  Be the person you want to be, and be satisfied and content.  The thing is, other people gravitate towards that peace, and like drops of oil on the surface of water people who share that quality tend to find each other and stick together.  Sooner or later  you and one of those other drops of oil will find that your lives complement each other, and if you don't cock it up by pretending to be something you're not, she (or he) will sleep with you.   Maybe even more than once.

If you focus on that first though, you're introducing a need into your life, and artificial needs are antithetical to being happy.  Needs have to be fulfilled.  That's why they're called needs.  Everyone has needs of course: you need to eat, sleep, shit, and breathe.  If your need doesn't fall into one of those four categories, its artificial--you're creating it for yourself.  That doesn't make it a bad need, necessarily, but you have to decide what needs you want to let control your life.  In a relationship, for instance, I need to be with someone who's intelligent and shares some or all of the ideals that are important to me.  That's a need I'm willing to allow to have some control over my life.  I'm not, however, willing to let my desire to get laid become a need that overrides that more primary need. Its a matter of prioritizing your needs.

Maybe later I'll take a break and write more about my philosophy of needs.  Right now I need to take a crap.

Hosting change

Update: Transition complete.

I just changed my hosting setup, so KJ may be hosed for a few days... if you get a 404, or some weird front page, bear with me, I'll be back to my usual annoying self shortly.

mental diarrhea

I'm just kind of going to link a bunch of stories/links/etc that I'm finding today that I'm too lazy to blog about individually today.

I'm not exactly a big fan of the cowboy diplomacy that will likely be the most noteworthy aspect of Bush's presidency, but I've really got to wonder what the hell Iran is thinking here.  They've been offered time and again alternative paths to a nuclear power program that don't also give them the ability to produce nuclear weapons, something the international community can all agree is practically the worst idea since filming Tammy Faye Baker living in a house with Vanilla Ice and Ron Jeremy for a month.  Russia's offered to do the enrichment for them.  The EU is all but offering blowjobs for everyone if they'll give up the idea of uranium enrichment.  I think there's even been an offer at one time for them to do their own enrichment under close supervision.  Instead, we get Halocaust denials and railings against Israel's right to exist from the Iranian president.  Honestly, sir: do you really think if you push the situation far enough we won't kick your ass?  I'm no fan of Bush, but even I will acknowledge that the US has the firepower and manpower to eliminate your ability to function as a nation in the 21st century, even if we can't control your nation as a whole.  The Republicans will likely lose control of Congress later this year, and lose the presidency in '08, but rest assured, whoever comes in behind them will still put on a pair of shitkickers and beat you senseless if you force us to.

Google's release a new version of Desktop.  I've been a big fan of this ever since they added the feature to detach applets from the sidebar to be positioned on your desktop and the ability to show or hide these applets with a double-tap of the shift key.  Now they've kicked it up another notch, with the ability to write said applets (called Gadgets now) in javascript and/or C++.  I think C# or any other .Net language might work as well, if you write and compile it as a COM component.  I'll have to investigate that more--one of my projects this summer is going to be to write a project tracker/timer with subtasks.  Hopefully I'll be able to do that completely in Javascript; I'll do a write-up on the success of the venture when I'm done.

Pavlina's got a great article for college students, along the lines of keeping you focused and motivated.  I sure could have used that one back in '96 when I started college.  Hard to believe its been 10 years... never thought of myself as "that guy".

And lastly... Kuro5hin demonstrates that there is no end to the lengths a whackjob will go to prove his whackjob street cred.

It really takes a lot for me to bitch about the "nanny state"

...but this did it:  lawmakers have proposed a bill in the House that would ban access in federally funded schools and libraries to any site that "allows users to create Web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users and offer a mechanism of communication with other users."

In case you missed it, that's a shot across the bow of myspace, facebook, and essentially any non-static page on the internet.  From the article:

The legislation is aimed at "protecting children from
terrible individuals who would aim to use Facebook and MySpace to harm
young children," says Michael Conallen, chief of staff to Congressman
Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who sponsored the bill.

Where, oh where, do I begin?

First of all, facebook is for college kids, not young children.  Myspace doesn't allow young children on it--you have to be at least 14, by which is a nice segue into point #2:

how about you teach your kids a little common sense, and while you're at it, maybe take a shot at raising them yourself instead of letting the internet or television do it? 

Whatever happened to the whole "Never talk to strangers" bit that was so prevalent when I was a kid? When I grew up, my father had me convinced that everyone he didn't personally introduce to me was an axe murderer he had put in jail himself (Dad was a prosecutor.)  I was 12 years old before I learned that garbage men weren't always convicts.  Once I even attempted to spread the word about the dangers of garbage men to every kid in the neighborhood (which, in my neighborhood, meant the little girl whose backyard bordered mine, and a kid who lived three blocks over.  The rest of my neighborhood was basically a retirement community.)

Sometimes I really hate election years.  This is obviously a stunt to get the soccer-mom vote.

I guess they were all out of shrimp on the barbie...

Somebody the kiwis up for sale.  Not the fruit--the country.

more fatcats come out swinging against digital music

This time its Real's CEO, Rob Glaser:

About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal.... If you want interoperable music today, there is a very easy solution:
it's called stealing... it's the only way to get non-copy protected,
portable, interoperable music.

Ok, Item The First: if only half the music is "stolen", then that must mean half the music is bought, right?  That's a pretty big f'ing deal for iTMS--five years ago, you could pretty much count on all the music being downloaded from peer-to-peer networks or ripped off CD's, which leads us to...

Item The Second:  Ripping your CD's OR your friends CD's isn't illegal.  Sharing for personal use among your friends is now and always has been fair use, despite what the RIAA wants you to believe.  Uploading it to a server for all the world to grab... not so much. 

What Glaser is really pissed about is that nobody's playing music from Real's music store on iPods.  Sour grapes.

What is it about CEO's that makes them such asshats?

This is why I left Mississippi (*not* that Texas is much better)

Disgraceful.  First they convict an innocent man--a hardworking farmer and a fucking war hero--on trumped up charges of theft because he's black, its 1960, and he was stirring up trouble by trying to integrate Southern Miss.  Then he dies because of poor health acquired in the prison.  And now, even though he was clearly innocent and ought to be given a posthumous award for trying to advance civil rights, they won't pardon his name because he's dead.

Don't ever let anyone try to tell you attitudes in MS are any different than they used to be.

SBC finally good for something...

Something you might not know if you're an SBC/AT&T DSL subscriber...

Barnes & Noble's wireless is admin'd by SBC.  Normally, you have to either become a member at 19.95/mo with a 1 year committment, or buy a prepaid connection card, which comes to about 8.00/day for connection, or pay 3.95 for a two hour connection.  Not bad, if you really need connectivity, but not great either, if you use it a lot.

I was looking at their options, and noticed that if you're a DSL subscriber, you can subscribe to wireless connectivity as well for an extra 1.99/month.  $2 a month.  That's it.  Month to month.  Gets you connections at BNN, McDonald's (!), UPS stores, Caribou coffee houses(don't have those around here) and a few other assorted places.  possibly in airports as well.  now THAT's a deal.

That's the first thing SBC's done that didn't piss me off in years.

AWOL

I haven't been in a very bloggy mood the last month or so... School's intense this time of year, I got into a relationship (finally! a good one!) Some of my Faithful Readers will understand how big a deal that is, considering what a committed bachelor I've been the last few years (interrupted by a year or so of on-again,  off-again with someone).  Its probably going to last awhile longer... I've had a lot of sad news the last few days, won't be done with finals until the end of the week, and I've got some other stuff going on I can't talk about for awhile.  not bad stuff, just stuff.

Yeah, this post is kind of a waste of your time, dear reader.  sorry about that.

Maybe Katie isn't as dumb as I thought...

Check it out--Katie Holmes, going back on the open market... (3rd story down)

Welcome to the Bank of Exxon...

I think this approach is likely to take off in the near future as a way to beat gas prices.  A high-capacity gas station in Minnesota sells gasoline in any amount to consumers at current prices, then allows them to withdraw the gas at any point in the future.  They actually have customers who paid less than $1/gal who are still driving on that "deposit."  I know I'd probably put easily a thousand dollars on an account if i could get the gas at anything approaching $2/gal, which would probably keep me driving for at least a year, maybe two or three with my current usage.  It would also allow me to better budget my fuel needs.  I don't really see any downside--the gas station buys petroleum futures on the Merc for large orders to ensure they can provide the gasoline when needed, and they've got 50,000 gallon tanks for the short-term orders.

Another win for the free market approach...

The latest on Delay (or, "What, you mean that's illegal???")...

Quote from the article:

Prosecutors have e-mails showing Rep. Tom
DeLay's office knew lobbyist Jack Abramoff had arranged the financing
for the GOP leader's controversial European golfing trip in 2000 and
was concerned "if someone starts asking questions."

Consider the questions asked, Tom...

Next on al`Qaeda's Funniest Home Videos: Zarqawi

Apparently he's got a blooper reel... 

And this is the terrorist mastermind keeping American forces occupied in Iraq?  Bush et al's degree of incompetence just became a whole lot clearer.

Working at Dunder-Mifflin...

Ok, I don't actually work at Dunder-Mifflin.  But I'm on their mailing list all the same.  A bit from last months newsletter:

Mad ups to our very own accountant Oscar Martinez, who thwarted an attempted mugging last Friday!  The incident occurred around nine pm near the woods on the outskirts of Crowley Park.  Oscar was parked in his car with an unidentified male companion when a female jogger was accosted.  With the same eagle eyes he uses to spot clerical errors in our expense reports, Oscar saw what was happening, bolted from his car and scared the would-be assailant off.

In typical hero fashion, Oscar didn’t even want to discuss his bravery.  Said Oscar, “What I do on the weekends is nobody’s business.”  He’s Mr. Modest, and hey -- that’s why we love him!

It should be noted that this only came to light because volunteer sheriff Dwight Schrute had been astutely monitoring his police scanner at the time.  Mr. Schrute also placed sixth out of fifteen in the Lackawanna County Volunteer Sheriff Pistol Target Competition last weekend, so congratulations to him as well.

Oh yeah, and Dwight's got a blog...

Exxon Posts First-Quarter Profit of $8.4 Billion

NPR is reporting that Exxon posted a 1st quarter profit of 8.4 BILLION (yes, with a B) today. 8.4 Billion. with a B.

Now, I don't like paying $3/gal more than anyone else for gasoline, but I understand the economics of the situation. Gasoline supplies are tight, and if the price of gas doesn't rise then we end up with gas shortages as people continue to drive their SUV's and Hummers with not a care in the world. As it is, gas reserves are dangerously tight--another disaster like Katrina and we'll be remembering fondly the days when you could get a gallon of gas for about the cost of a Double Whopper with cheese. But honestly, that's not what pisses me off.

What pisses me off is that the oil industry get some of the biggest governement tax breaks in the entire budget. Ostensibly for "exploration", it is these subsidies that finance $400 million compensation packages for executives like Exxon's CEO. Its these subsidies that allow oil companies to post ridiculously high profits like this. And when the few politicians that AREN'T firmly in the oil industry's pockets talk about reducing or, god forbid, eliminating the tax subsidies, they make veiled threats about passing the burden onto consumers.

Its exactly that kind of attitude that gets an industry regulated. The oil industry is a boil on the ass of humanity. So here's my proposal: get rid of the subsidies altogether. No company that can post profits--PROFITS!!! not just REVENUE, but PROFITS!!!!--like that in a 3 month period needs government help. That's more than the entire economy of some nations. The additional money in the government budget should be earmarked to push alternative energy technologies--research into fuel cells, ethanol development, tax breaks for ethanol stations, doubling or even tripling the individual tax credit for hybrid vehicles, wind & hydro technology, and especially research into converting military assets to green energy derivatives. Its ridiculous that so much of our national security infrastructure relies on a region of the world with whom we seem to be constantly at odds. Eliminating this tax subsidy would go a long way to financing the tax breaks for the wealthy the Bushes seem so intent on providing.

Additionally, I think any vehicle over a certain weight should require a special class of license to drive, and state laws for this requirement should be tied to highway funding the way it was when the Reagans, in their infinite wisdom, decided should be the case for alcohol. I'm not sure how much exactly, because I'm not a car person and I don't know what trucks weigh, but basically anything bigger than something like a silverado (and maybe not even that big) ought to require some kind of additional certification on one's ability to drive. You shouldn't be able to own or operate something like a hummer at the age of 18, period. While this isn't tied directly to fuel efficiency it would certainly reduce the number of these vehicles on the road.

Lastly provide incentives both for the development of products like biodiesel mods and plug-in hybrids that can be charged off the power-grid, and for greener grid technology like wind energy. For individuals with a daily commute of less than about 20 miles, this would give them the ability to get as much as 180 mpg, reduce demand for gasoline (which would allow gas to be cheaper again, assuming the oil industry would reduce prices to match, which we all know they wouldn't--again making the case for antitrust action and tight regulation as a public utility) and allow consumers to use green credits to charge the cars. Merely by switching to the power grid we reduce our dependence on foreign oil supplies by increasing our use of domestic supplies of energy like coal and nuclear power.

This all seems elementary to almost everyone I talk to, Republicans and Democrats alike. Its blatantly obvious that the motivation for Congress to keep the status quo is solely related to the deep pockets of the oil industry. Am I the only one who remembers the rhetoric in the 2000 campaign claiming that one of Bush's "pluses" was that his cabinet had a lot of energy experience and would bring that to the table, keeping the costs of energy low? Glad that one worked out so well...

You have to love the ideas they come up with during an election year

The Republicans want to give a $100 gas rebate check out to taxpayers to "soften the blow"  of high gas prices this year.

Let me get this straight: you have, for the last five years, been giving out tax cuts to the wealthiest americans while watching the size of the middle class shrink and those under the laughably-low federal poverty lines grow, you have supported a miserable failure in the Iraq war and your President, and extended tax subsidies to oil companies who are in the middle of a record-shattering profit streak...

... and you want to give me a free goddamn tank of gas to make me feel better about it???!!!

And Republicans accuse the liberals of being out of touch...

hyperbole at its finest...

AOL-speak is destroying language's beauty

Don't be asinine.  AOL-speak, though crude and annoying, has nothing to do with the ability of young persons to communicate (or rather, their inability.)  If you want to know why they can't communicate, try looking at their english and literature classes.  What "AOLSpeak" amounts to is the typed equivalent of a linguistic phenomenon known as code-switching, and anyone who's ever conversed with their peers in a manner differently than you'd speak in a board meeting is guilty of it.  The disconnect occurs because students aren't recognizing the status of email recipients--they perceive that all receivers are part of the same cohort, in other words.  They're making the assumption that because someone uses email they're part of a particular peer group conversant in this language of abbreviations.  This, in my mind, is a failure of the educational system, not a breakdown in the english language itself.

When someone emails you, texts you, or IM's you using crap english, call them on it.  If you're an english teacher and you accept written assignments of any kind with abbreviations like "ur", you ought to be run out of school on a rail.  But for pete's sake, don't make a mountain out of a molehill. 

The Delay thing is just warming up...

I noticed this article on Newsweek's online site this morning, and I have to agree with Clift: this one is going to go somewhere.

Short version: (read towards the end of the article--the first part just covers the non-event that is the White House "shakeup")  A New Hampshire operative for the RNC, James Tobin, was convicted in December for telephone harassment in connection with a conspiracy to have an Idaho telemarketing firm make thousands of phone calls jamming up the lines to several Democratic headquarters.  One of the three $5000 checks that financed the jamming operation came from Tom Delay's PAC, the other two from Indian tribes connected to Jack Abramoff.

Its was pretty clear when Delay announced his abandoned bid for reelection that there was more to come, despite his protestations to the primary.  Reading between the lines, I think there's a strong likelihood of these events being connected out in the open in the coming months.  With any luck, Delay is only the first of many in this Administration who will be having "come to Jesus"  moments in the coming year.

powered by performancing firefox

watch how you treat your waiter...

Good article on judging a person's character by the way they treat subordinates...

Still in Dallas post-funeral... Hopefully home soon and will start posting more again.

brilliant rebuttal to the anti-immigrant argument

I don't have time for the commentary, just posting the link.

Second-rate superstitions

Tom Delay at the "War on Christians" conference last week:

Last Tuesday Mr. DeLay spoke at "The War on Christians" conference during which he agreed with the central theme - that there is, indeed, a "war on Christians" in America today. He went on to say that America treats Christianity like a "second-rate superstition."

(original link)

Christianity is indeed a superstition, as are all religions. That isn't the problem--the perceived negative connotations associated with the word "superstition" are the believer's problem, not my own. I don't think merely the fact that religions are superstitious is necessarily a reason to view those beliefs as illegitimate. However, regarding Christianity as practiced by people like Tom Delay and this guy, "second-rate" is being a bit generous, I think.

I'll say this much for the ID'ers: at least they've got the good sense not to hold up such absurdities as their idea of "evidence."

Another bait and switch

Back in '99, I was only halfheartedly interested in the pending 2000 Presidential election. The candidate succeeding Bill Clinton was kind of a douchebag, and on the right there were a number of front-runners who were mostly bland players. I honestly didn't care who won--it was six of one, half a dozen of the other. The one candidate I did like a lot was Sen. John McCain--seemingly the last of the old-school Republicans, whose campaign was derailed almost entirely through the machinations of someone I now know as one of the most despicable Americans I can think of, Karl Rove. I was still somewhat intrigued by the end of the election debacle by the prospect of having someone who campaigned as a moderate Republican as President. One might even say I was hopeful that the change from a Democrat to Republican administration would be overall beneficial--much as a gene pool needs an infusion of new blood every so often--even though I knew there would be things I disagreed with, and I was (rightly, as it turns out) concerned about the prospect of both the Presidency and Congress being controlled by a single party.

Of course, mere months later my hopes were dashed. From September 11th, 2001 onward, this administration has proven itself to be one of the most avaricious and despicable displays of greed and incompetence in the history of the US. Even Jimmy Carter, though presiding over a highly troubled administration, has redeemed himself in the years since, proving to be a formidible statesman, peacemaker, and altruist--an accomplisment that George W. Bush will match only on the coldest day in hell.

Until recently I had high hopes that McCain would make a comeback and take the White House back for the American people, forging a government based on balance and unity rather than corporatism and theocracy. Though it troubled me greatly, I brushed aside his unflinching support for Bush in the 2004 election cycle as a necessary evil if he wanted to remain relevant in the coming years. But after this, I can do so no longer. He has dropped all pretenses of remaining a moderate Republican in the next presidential election and begun pandering to the far right in earnest, even lowering himself so far as to speak at Liberty University, the last bastion of the "oppressed Christian." Frankly, I no more trust McCain now than I would trust Dick Cheney to turn Halliburton into the worlds largest non-profit dedicated to eliminating world hunger.

Whoever pushed him to this political strategy ought to be hung by their toenails. You're not going to outdo people like Bill Frist in pandering to the theocon vote, Senator. All you're doing now is alienating the 80% of the country that doesn't believe that white Christian males have a divine mandate to take over the world.

Delay drops out of race--so much for redistricting

This one's spreading like wildfire: Tom Delay is dropping out of the Texas 22nd race. Citing polling numbers far below his usual safe zone, Delay is claiming he's doing this for the good of the party--that the race has become a referendum on Tom Delay rather than on the Republican platform. While that statement may be true in and of itself, Delay is the embodiment of the Republican platform, and of all the problems of the Republican party. A referendum on Delay is a referendum on the GOP.

My personal belief: this has less to do with Republican values than it does with the investigation into his shenanigans with the redistricting battle here a few years ago. At least two of his former aides are involved in the Abramoff scandal, and while he doesn't appear to be involved in that particular debacle, the investigation into his PAC illegally funnelling corporate money into Texas House races is still going strong, and I'm betting somebody in the Austin prosecutors office knows something Delay wishes they didn't. Maybe I'm just mudslinging here, but frankly, I can't think of anyone in Texas more deserving of it, except perhaps Tom Craddick or Rick Perry..

I find no small degree of irony (and pleasure) in noting that his polling numbers are also directly linked to Delay and his cronies divving up his district to run Nick Lampson out of his former district.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this show sometimes...

... But their penchant for tongue-in-cheek humor is magnificent.

What kind of nation, indeed.

Pen put up a link to an article by Peggy Noonan the other day I wanted to comment on. Specifically, this part:

Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.

Who is at fault? Those of us who let the myth die, or let it change, or refused to let it be told. The politically correct nitwit teaching the seventh-grade history class who decides the impressionable young minds before him need to be informed, as their first serious history lesson, that the Founders were hypocrites, the Bill of Rights nothing new and imperfect in any case, that the Indians were victims of genocide, that Lincoln was a clinically depressed homosexual who compensated for the storms within by creating storms without . . .

You can turn any history into mud. You can turn great men and women into mud too, if you want to.

And it's not just the nitwits, wherever they are, in the schools, the academy, the media, though they're all harmful enough. It's also the people who mean to be honestly and legitimately critical, to provide a new look at the old text. They're not noticing that the old text--the legend, the myth--isn't being taught anymore. Only the commentary is. But if all the commentary is doubting and critical, how will our kids know what to love and revere? How will they know how to balance criticism if they've never heard the positive side of the argument?

We've got a word for that when you teach something that isn't actually true in order to instill some belief in an impressionable mind. Indoctrination. And if our history, and more importantly, our present actions, are such that a young mind must be indoctrinated in order to hold fast to those ideals, then we have lost what it means to be an American.

I'll echo another portion of her article:

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this?

My answer: Not us. The Civil War wasn't fought over slavery--it was fought over the right of the states to secede, the ultimate in States' Rights. Instead of looking at this part of history though, let's look at some more present-day events, keeping in mind the question, "What kind of nation does this?"

• Torture
• Spying on its own citizens
• Indefinite detention of its own citizens without trial
• Falsification of intelligence to support an invasion of a country that presented no immediate threat to the security of this nation
• Allowing the chief executive to disregard existing law and constitutional principles at will
• Singling out minorities for discrimination, going so far as to attempt to amend the constitution of the US to allow it
• do i really need to go on?

So answer me this, Ms. Noonan: exactly what kind of nation does this?

Voodoo science

Digg had a great article on detecting voodoo science that ought to be required reading for anyone in the press reporting on science or technical stories, as well as anyone dealing with the Discovery Institute.

And the Teacher of the Year award goes to... (nobody at this school)

Father John Tinnelly said his son was forced to stand in the back of
the classroom and not allowed to sit because he was wearing the yellow
star.... "He was crying," Tinnelly said. "I said, 'What are you crying about?' He said, 'Daddy, I was a Jew today.'"

Jesus, what fucking retard came up with that idea?

Hyphenated Americana

My friend Pen has an entry from the other day about which I felt obliged to remark, quoting Lou Dobbs (who, like many other pundits, is kind of a douchebag), who was in turn quoting Teddy Roosevelt:

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

and more:
"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."

[note: the full quote was longer, but I didn't want to reproduce Pen's entire entry and the substance of the sentiment is unchanged.] Nice fiery rhetoric, isn't it? Makes you kind of get all jumbly with patriotism. Problem is that its bullshit.

First of all, the context of the quote was during a period when there was still a broad influx of Europeans immigrating to the US and in the midst of WWI. There is an understandably nationalist tilt to it. But it also makes clear one prevailing thought, which both Dobbs and Patrick argue persists today: if you don't assimilate, you're not just not an American--you're anti-American. But assimilate into what? What is this American culture which they are supposed to assimilate into?

Diversity has always been one of this country's greatest strengths. People from all walks of life can be found here, and bring to the table all kinds of experiences that make us what we are. To imply that those experiences--and wanting to preserve their significance to oneself and one's family--makes one somehow less of an American is itself one of the most unAmerican of thoughts. Even more sinister than this is the implication for those born in the US. Mexican-Americans, Chinese-Americans, African-Americans--they are none of them any less American than the born-on-the-4th-of-July, dyed-in-the-wool patriot who bleeds red, white, and blue. Should their patriotism be any less well regarded because their families didn't come to this country on the Mayflower, or because their cultural heritage is strong enough that it has survived through generations? Not just no, but hell no.

And what of those of us who are not "hyphenated Americans" but feel no less alienated by those who spout this nonsense and this "culture" they claim is America? Are we somehow less American because we refuse to subvert our individualism, because we hold dear to those things that set us apart from the blob that is this "American culture" we're all supposed to assimilate into? Again--not no, but hell no.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. It is because we love our country that we march on our Capitols, protest in the streets, and argue in the press, Congress, and before the Supreme Court. It is because we love America that we refuse to allow the title "American" to be defined by those that say that only the assimilated and the conformist can be a good American. It is because we love America that we fight to preserve that most American of values which has always made America great: freedom--freedom to be who we want to be, to be part of both our past and our future, to continue to contribute all that we have to offer to every facet of life in this country.

America has always been a diverse mishmash of cultures both old and new. Maybe its time Lou Dobbs did some assimilating of his own.

Neglected husbands of the world, unite!

I can't say I'd handle this problem the same way, but I can definitely sympathize. A Michigan man has started a website to complain loudly to the world about the lack of attention he gets from his wife. I'm betting the effect probably isn't what he was looking for from her (her response? "He'll live.") but he certainly isn't the first guy to deal with this. From his site:

All I want my wife to do is stop spoiling our children and allowing
them to wreck our love life! Husbands have feelings too!
Husbandonstrike.com is home of the National Association of Desperate
Husbands, and I'm not only the CEO and Director, but I'm also a card
carrying member!

Married women, hear me now. I can't tell you how many times I've heard women complaining that their husbands don't want to pay any attention to them after they've had a couple of kids and put on a few pounds. If you asked me, I'd say the woman ought to consider herself lucky she got a husband that really wants her instead of some jackass who'd rather go find some college co-ed to play with. Not having kids my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, but for what its worth, your life as a married couple shouldn't end with the birth of your children. You're still adults in an adult relationship, and if you want to make that relationship last, you have to treat it as such. Hire a babysitter for a weekend and go to a hotel for a nice getaway weekend. Have your (gulp!) mother-in-law come sit or something. Hell, send your kids packing to a friends house for a sleepover. Whatever it takes--do it. the way I see it, if it was worth getting her knocked up (or getting knocked up!) you ought to at least try to preserve it!

Of course, that's really probably not what's going on here. Most likely she's the one who isn't interested in keeping their relationship anymore. Maybe he's let himself go, or she's just without passion for him or whatever. I have, on occasion, found myself in those relationships where the sex has left the building, and without exception, those long, long, long "breaks" in your sex life herald the beginning of the end. There's not usually any blame to hand out--sometimes it just doesn't work, and that's the way life is. If you're a decent person you still care very much about your partner, even if you don't want to jump their bones every chance you get. All the same, my advice to this guy is to A) get into marriage counseling soon, and B) get a good divorce lawyer and do his best to make it an amicable split. The irony is that in doing so, he may very well save the relationship he's prepared to let go of altogether.

Equal-time for Dr. Buchanan

After my last post Amy suggested I take a look at a site on origin theory put up by Dr. David Buchanan, one of her former professors. I did, and found it to be a fairly well-rounded collection of links from all sides of the debate. I can't say I agree with all of the information found or linked to from that site, but it is a pretty good resource if you're wondering what the hell I keep ranting about. His "Answers to questions about evolution" page does a particularly good job of clearing up a lot of the misinformation and misconceptions that are out there.

I will say he gives the Discovery Institute and Michael Behe in particular a lot more credit than I do, but I'll chalk that one up to a less charitable inclination on my part, or perhaps more faith in human nature on his. At any rate, its worth a read, especially if you're a Christian trying to figure out how to reconcile your religious beliefs with science you think conflicts with them. Its unfortunate there aren't more scientists like him getting exposure in mainstream media outlets instead of jackasses like DI and Behe.

Finally--an evangelical who GETS IT

Newsweek's running an otherwise-unremarkable article on the evolution debate on college campuses in their college rag Current. It really just makes a few comments on the dilemma presented to strict creationist students when they leave the sheltered confines of a Christian high school to join the real world where we conduct research instead of consulting bronze-age mythology for the answers. (ok, not exactly a fair-and-impartial summary, i'll grant you, but its my website, so bugger off...)

One quote did jump out at me:

Buchanan himself is an evangelical Christian and believes that it is
important to discuss origin theories that contradict evolution, because
“in science, we are always looking at alternatives.” He
cautions, however, that the current incarnation of intelligent design
theory has not reached the viability necessary to be taught in a
college science class.

Yes! Finally someone who gets it! Intelligent design advocates are constantly accusing the legitimate science community of kow-towing to evolutionary theory as though its some kind of ideology and refusing to consider alternate points of view on the idea of the origins of the world--an accusation invariably followed with their own presentation of ID as an alternate scientific theory. Here we finally see someone who understands that the scientific community as a community (barring the odd geek/nerd who refuses to consider such things) does and has always entertained the notion of alternatives and/or restatements of existing theories, when they're backed by legitimate and rational discourse and presentation of evidence. The ID community, however, has done neither. Instead of pursuing science they're simply trying to attack it by waging a PR assault against it--a tactic that is unfortunately effective as most people neither have the background to challenge or evaluate their assertions nor the inclination to do so, since ID is preaching what they want to believe anyway.

To Dr. Buchanan I say "Bravo".

Things That Chap My Ass No. 106: Jealous guys with slutty girlfriends

About once or twice a month, I find myself compelled to go to Walmart for something, either by the constraints of shopping at 3am, or because their prescriptions or some other item I desperately need are the cheapest and I can't really afford to be an idealist at this point in my career as a perennial college student. Almost invariably its a stress-inducing event for me, as I'm forced to deal with a number of things I take great pains to avoid in my daily life, such as asses large enough to require a "wide-load" banner stopped in the middle of the only aisle between me and where I need to be while the owner of said ass corrals the herd of loud and ill-behaved ragamuffins which are invariably in tow and treating the shelving units like some kind of new-fangled jungle gym. Also high on my list of things to avoid are the self-checkout lines we all know and love so dearly.

Now we can add one more to the list: the infamous Jealous Guy. You know who I'm talking about. The one whose path seems to keep criss-crossing with yours as you wend your way through the grocery aisles. He's easy to spot: every time you pass by him and his girlfriend he makes a point of making eye contact to glare at you for looking at his girlfriend. He may even make it a point to get in your way so you're forced to acknowledge his dirty looks. Well, here's my message to the Jealous Guys of the world:

"Look pal, I really can't help it if your girlfriend was standing in front of the only kind of frozen pizza I like back there on the freezer aisle. Its not my fault her frosty nipples were patently obvious at the time--you were on the freezer aisle, after all. Which brings up another point: if you hate guys looking at your girlfriend so much, how about asking her not to dress like a hooker? Don't get me wrong. I love the fishnet-and-pleather look, especially when she's foregone such trappings of modern society as underwear and bras, although I think most guys would agree its much easier to pull off when her belly roll isn't popping out from under her tube-top (kudos on bringing that one back, by the way.) You might also give some thought to not dating a slut if the thought of her giving ten-dollar handjobs in the Whataburger parking lot really bothers you that much. That is what's bothering you, right? I mean, I really can't think of many other reasons to be worried about the occasional stray look when you're standing right there! Obviously you've got me mistaken for one of her regulars.

"Take it easy, buddy. She's not my type. Believe me. That one's all you."

May his noodly appendage bless you and keep you... "R-amen"

USA Today has an article on the pending release of The Gospel of the Flying Spahghetti Monster, a "holy book" for a parody "religion" (that I have claimed allegiance to on more than one occasion) that rose out of a satirical letter to the Kansas School Board during the debate that went on following their order that Kansas students be given exposure to intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. (I've blogged about this particular event before and no doubt will do so again.)

Its not really a remarkable article--very little that comes out of the USAToday is--but one quote struck me:

"It's too bad that they'll get attention for this sort of drivel when we have a robust scientific research program that the media doesn't seem to want to write much about," Discovery Institute spokesman Robert Crowther said in an e-mail interview.

Um, no, Robert, you don't. There's nothing scientific about postulating supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. Your so-called "robust scientific research program" has failed to produce a single legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific paper that does anything more than attack evolutionary theory with misinformation and misinterpretation. The fact that anyone knows anything at all about your work is almost entirely due to your constant, incessant (and might I add, annoying!) public relations campaign waged in the popular press outlets.

If you're upset that no one in the scientific community takes you seriously, then start practicing science instead of chicanery. You're nothing more than proverbial snake-oil salesmen, little yappy dogs nipping at the heels of legitimate scientists. You misrepresent evolutionary theory to the world at large, knowing full well that the majority of people outside the scientific community are unable to rationally evaluate your claims. You present the world with a strawman theory and tell them, "You can't believe in God and this at the same time!" when in fact nothing can be further from the truth, as many if not most scientists can personally attest.

You're charlatans and scam artists, the scientific equivalent of circuit-riding revival preachers, and its high time the country sees you for what you are.

What do you do when your Administration is incompetent? Arrest the compentent, of course.

The sheriff of Forrest Co. MS, which is where I grew up, is being hauled up on federal charges of interference in a federal operation for commandeering two ice trucks that were sitting idly by while FEMA officials sat around completely impotent with their thumbs up their collective asses.

[update: it has been pointed out that FEMA sat around with their thumbs up their collective ASS, not assES. Point well-taken. -ed.]

I've met Mr. McGee on several occasions. He's a friend of my father, and a good man. In the days following Katrina, the federal response was so abysmal that he really had no choice in the matter. What boggles my mind is that this adminstration, which prides itself on taking decisive action (despite the fact that their actions are rarely decisive and almost always wrong), is pursuing this matter even though Sheriff McGee's response was clearly appropriate and timely. He clearly attempted to pursue the matter through the proper channels, futile though that was, and finally had no choice but to take the action he did.

This is yet another example of the incompetence of this administration. How much of this are we as a country going to take before we say enough is enough?

Sometimes I hate being right all the time...

I knew it. Something inside myself was screaming, "This is just WRONG on so many levels" the other night when I was watching Idol. I was trying this whole "open-minded" thing out, and boy, was that a mistake!

I remember thinking to myself that Chris Daughtry sounded a lot like Ed Kowalczyk, the frontman for Live. I guess it was because he was singing a Johnny Cash cover that I was temporarily blinded. I started wondering what other covers had been done of it so I started digging through my collection and found Live's own cover of I Walk the Line, which doesn't just sound similar to Daughtry's version--it is Daughtry's version. Or rather, Daughtry's version was Live's. Man, I KNEW I'd heard that somewhere before.

Even that wouldn't have been so bad--it would have still left him at the top of the heap, or at least near it, except not as creative as he was making himself out to be. But no. He had his chance to give credit where credit was due, and he totally passed it off as his own. He can sing, all right, and he'll probably end up fronting some band that becomes one of Clearchannel's favorites. But he's totally lost my respect.

I'd give the judges more shit about it, but since I bought it myself for a day or so I guess that wouldn't really be fair. Although I will say that Simon at least should have had an inkling of where it came from. And I wish I'd done my homework before someone else beat me to the punch, although MSNBC still hasn't picked up on it.

So I reckon I'm back to watching Scrubs on Tuesdays now...

George Washington just called... He wants his beer back.

Bullshit.

Executive summary: TABC has been rounding people up for PI's in Irving, even going so far as to arrest patrons of hotel bars who were registered at the hotel. Choice quote: "Going to a bar is not an opportunity to go get drunk," TABC Capt. David Alexander said. "It's to have a good time
but not to get drunk."

Fuckadoodledoo. Going to a bar is for whatever I fucking well want it to be. Bars are not public places. They're private establishments and I can be drunk in them if I want to be. If I want to go to a bar and get completely obliterated, who the fuck is David fucking Alexander to tell me I can't? You want to curb drunk driving? Great idea--try arresting drunk drivers.

to those who don't think we're moving closer to a police state every single fucking day--take a deep breath. really really deep. You hear that little trickly sound? Smell that slightly stale uriny smell? That's Mr. David Alexander pissing on your civil rights.

My dirty little secret

I'm going to catch a lot of flak for this. I mean a lot. Not all of it is undeserved--I've handed out quite a bit of shit for this one, So I'll take my medicine like a man. Bring it on.

I'm watching American Idol. By myself.

It all started courtesy of Jason and Tedrah (thanks a lot guys! bastards...). They forced me to watch it last week, and while most of it was a painful experience it was made less so by the inordinate number of mind-altering beverages I'd had by that point.

Now I find myself watching it for four reason:
1) making fun of all the really bad performances is fun. Even if i'm only talking to the dogs.
2) Katherine McPhee. sweet jesus she's hot. I don't really care what she sounds like.
3) Paris bennett. She ain't real bright, but she can sing like its going out of style. Its rare to see talent like that at her age. My one bitch is this: Paris, you're 17. Dress like it. You may have a voice like Etta James, but Marilyn Monroe you are not.

Finally, my favorite:
4) Chris Daughtry. Seriously. Dude, what are you wasting your time on Idol for? Nothing good can come of it. People go to Idol when they can't sing but still manage to perform, or can sing but haven't got an ounce of creative talent. I'll say it again: What the fuck are you wasting your time on this show for?

I think I'm going to start doing a podcast or something along with the show. There's just too much fodder there. Take young Bucky for instance. Every time i see him on stage I'm reminded of this art history professor I had once. This guy had a fascination with several paintings (I think they were early Victorian, but don't quote me on that.) Anyway, he kept pointing out that the reason the subjects always had their legs spread out was because of the raging case of syphillis they had. Now, I can't really speak to the veracity of that statement. But every time I see Bucky up there, all i notice is that the guy never puts his legs together! So from now on I'll be referring to Bucky as Syphillis Boy. Syphillis Boy can sing ok, although its obvious he's mostly imitating other rockers. Mostly he's just Syphillis Boy though.