Category: General

I’ve noticed that my belly button (an innie) isn’t as deep as it used to be.

I guess I am losing weight, after all.

Thank you for the gift of life, mom.
Thank you for the gift of life, dad.
My life is something I try to use
in the best way possible
each and every day.
So, thank you,
parents
and grandparents
and ancestors
and everyone,
thank you for the gift of life.

Step one: Local blogger rants about a public official(and, in the comments, gets lots of love and attention), and heaps scorn upon the elected official.

Step two: Elected official responds with a reasonable request to speak to the local blogger directly and defend himself.

Step three: Myself and others ask the perfectly legitimate question: will the local blogger take the elected official up on his offer?

It’s early, and JackBog has not (as of my posting this) responded to the question, but I’d like to offer my prediction:

No, JackBog will not meet personally with Sheriff Bernie.

My take is that JackBog is all about complaining about stuff to his adoring Greek chorus, and not about actually doing something about the problems he complains about.

But, as I said, it’s early yet… and everyone’s waiting.

I haven’t been posting lately. That’s not to say that I haven’t had ideas, or even sat down when I have some spare minutes and there are trucks in my tubes bringing me stuff. But it feels like my ideas lately are half-baked and not worthy of putting back on the truck for delivery to the world wide internets of tubes.

F’rinstance, I went into Blogger and took at look at all my saved draft posts. These are the ones I’ve started but haven’t actually published yet. I have 28 – 28 unfinished thoughts, going back to when I first started this blog three years ago.

Not to get all meta on y’all, but for the record, and just because it’ll give me something to talk about, here is a list of those draft posts, in chronological order.

• 3/11/05 – “More music I want to actually pay for”
• 3/30/05 – Another post about music.
• 11/4/05 – I found a picture on Flickr that looks like Bucky from “Get Fuzzy”. Click it and see for yourself – luckily link rot hasn’t taken hold, even after all this time.
• 12/13/05 – I started a list of things I’d like for Festivus – even though it felt a little greedy or selfish. Apparently I never got over that selfish feeling because obviously I never actually posted the list.
• 12/19/05 – A list of the movies I’d seen in 2005 (there were 35 total and several that I saw more than once)
• 12/22/05 – I started a post about a profile I saw on Salon Personals that gave me a clue about a new book by a favorite author – Arthur Nersesian.
• 3/24/06 – An alphabetical memetag game that I got from Tracy – and never posted.
• 4/9/06 – A post about installing Windows on my new sexy thing.
• 4/9/06 – Two separate political posts – one a review of seeing A-list bloggers Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Jerome Armstrong discussing their book at Powell’s City of Books, and an announcement about my starting a local political blog (which has come and gone, I’m afraid).
• 4/29/06 – Discussing how many of Jim Emerson’s 102 movies everyone must see, that I’ve seen (it’s 38).
• 6/3/06 – Annotating a Harvey Danger song, “Diminishing Returns”.
• 8/1/06 – The second in my “Philosophy of Life” series.
• 8/18/06 – A post about the roles I prefer (and don’t prefer) to play in life.
• 9/1/06 – A post describing book scouting as a way to make some money.
• 12/2/06 – A phone call from my dad.
• 1/1/07 – A couple of vacation-related posts – my Christmas trip to NYC “by the numbers”, and an account of my New Year’s Eve trying to get into Times Square.
• 1/1/07 – A bunch of lists summing up 2006 – movies seen, favorite posts of my own and others, how I did on last year’s resolutions and what my new resolutions will be.
• 1/19/07 – A oath of fealty to Jessica Biel’s shiny metal ass.
• 2/7/07 – Describing several strange dreams I’d had lately and discussing Lucid Dreaming.
• 2/7/07 – Bank of Amerca’s “Shop Safe” program and how it’s more about marketing than about actually combating identity theft.
• 2/7/07 – A discussion on Steve Job’s controversial editorial “Thoughts on Music”.
• 2/15/07 – Talking about watching the original “Star Wars” with Kevin, and being amazed at how much I know and remember about that movie.

There. That’s all my draft posts. Now I’m caught up!

…oh, fine, some of those I might actually get around to finishing and posting.

I win!

“DJ” realizes that no one is buying his bullshit and gives up.

And he did, in fact, modify his previous, unoriginal, insult. Getting a troll to modify a previous statement can definitely be considered a “win”.

Dealing with tolls is fun sometimes.

Tee-hee!

Aw, that’s so cute! I got a rise out of one of the global climate change deniers!

And this “DJ” had to ignore what I was actually saying and then jump in with another example of the type of dishonest argument that I was describing. He’s only parroting things that other people, the people who push him around and feed off his fear, have told him to say, things that have no bearing on the scientific debate and the search for solutions to the problem at hand. His misunderstanding of actual, valid scientific dissent makes a mockery of intelligent discussion.

Don’t worry, “DJ”! When scientists and politicians and the progressive movement comes up with the solution to the global climate change that humans (humans like you!) have caused, you’ll benefit from it just as do we. Unless of course your brains have exploded from having to deny that up is actually up and white is actually white.

Oh, and water? Still wet.

Yep, “DJ”, I’m dismissive and arrogant and I am, in fact, a vastly better human being than you. Why? Because you’re the type of “human being” that will deny that horses have four legs just because you’re bitter and angry and fearful. You’re feeling that way because daddy beat you and mommy ignored you and you know, deep down inside – no, wait, strike that, you wear it on your sleeve – that you’re a turd with a computer and you have no impact whatsoever on public discourse or human affairs beyond being a pawn of politicians and CEOs and religious leaders that promise you things they will never deliver in exchange for the only value you offer – a vote every so often and all the spare cash they can siphon out of your bank accounts.

Luckily, as a friend has pointed out, fevered postings of comments like “jon” and “DJ” are unlikely to affect the actual search for solutions. And, yeah, people are working on solutions because, dude, the evidence is in for most people who aren’t trading human civilization for money that they won’t actually be able to spend it – when – what they’re pretending to deny comes to pass.

What’s a better stance to take, when faced with the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community?

Standing with your thumbs in your ears and your eyes clamped shut, shouting “La, la, la, I can’t hear you!”

Picking apart the evidence until you can find small inconsistencies and then claiming it invalidates the whole thing?

Or realizing that the pattern that emerges from the multiple converging lines of evidence might be real and that we should move on to the search for a fix?

I can’t expect someone of such ideological-based blindness to have participated in something as social and wholesome as the Boy Scouts but I think their motto is perfect here: Be prepared. It’s, y’know, the position of strength, not weakness.

So you go and keep signing your paychecks over to companies like ExxonMobil, and mortgage your children’s future against your ideology (and I mean “children” metaphorically) while the adults take care of things.

There was another post over at Blue Oregon about George Taylor, the global climate change denier-slash-“State climatologist”.

And I get so tired of all the stoopid verbal tricks that deniers use to muddy the debate.

So I had to comment.

Here’s my comment. Can you tell I was frustrated?

Sure, greenhouse gases are causing global warming.

Sure, humans produce a large amount of greenhouse gases via industry and combustion.

Sure, it’s very simple to demonstrate that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has risen in frighteningly dramatic fashion in the last 100-200 years.

Sure, carbon is a greenhouse gas.

Sure, the amount of atmospheric carbon directly correlates to global temperature, in the several ways in which we are able to measure historical trends.

Sure, the converging evidence from several differing methodologies points strongly to a future of severe global climate change that can drastically alter geography and human existence.

Sure, an overwhelming number of scientists have looked at the data and have gone on the record as saying that the conclusions are inescapable to any reasonable person.

Sure, even scientists like George Taylor have said that if the global climate change deniers (like himself) are wrong that the consequences will be disastrous for human civilization.

Sure, sometimes, rarely, a global climate change denier may agree with one or even several of the points above.

…still, there’s three things deniers can cling to:

1) Any normal level of scientific debate (which, to any reasonable person, does not change the big picture) can be blown up by a denier to mean that “the science isn’t in”.

2) Abnormal and irrational “up is down” opinions can be purchased in a free market to create “dissent” even if it doesn’t exist.

3) And finally, trying to get a denier to admit to the big picture can be unfairly categorized as “stifling dissent”.

Do I have that correct, wingnuts? I really grow tired of all their rhetorical tricks and nonsense. They abuse logical thought in ways they don’t even understand.

Why don’t you just go play in your little fantasy worlds and let the adults worry about the big picture for a while? You’ve had your chance for the last couple thousand years. Let’s let science, rationalism, and logical thought have a chance, eh?

My friend (and awesome web-host) Caleb has made a little contribution to help New Orleans, at the request of a friend of his.

Repairdat.org is a site that lets people send in items that need repair, and then lets the users of the site vote on which ones need repair first. It’s kinda like Digg only specifically aimed at New Orleans, and is intended to be a bridge between the online world and the real world.

Andrew, the inspiration and, I’m assuming, proprietor of the site, has moved to New Orleans to start a non-profit theater company to entertain and help the damaged city and its inhabitants.

The source code for the site is open and freely available on the wiki, although Caleb intends to add many more features as time goes on.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgKy8Hl6AMg]

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So — in this my last good night to you as your President — I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I — my fellow citizens — need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

What have I been thinking about lately?

• Lindsay Lohan and how everyone is so mean to her. Stop being so mean to LiLo! She’s dealing with the pressures of stardom and the ready availability of booze and drugs!
• The Millenium Falcon, Han Solo and Chewbacca’s space ship. I had a dream the other night where I owned that ship, and the first thing I wanted to do was take all my friends for a ride, but nobody was home. I have no idea what that means, other than thinking it was really cool to be piloting the Falcon. Oh, and I was watching the original “Star Wars” with a friend the other night.
• When I ask for “room for cream” in my large (20 oz) coffee, I want room to add cream to the damned cup. I’m not talking about a bare 1/8″ of space between the top of the liquid and the top of the cup! I mean some friggin’ room! Like at least a 1/2″.
• I love my Chucks, even though they provide little to no support for my feet. I still love them, even though my feet get cold and wet when it rains. I just love them.
• I think that my restlessness lately stems from a basic metaphor: that movement equals progress. Because we live with the logic of movement and because our brains connect the logic of movement and journeys to the abstract concepts of progress and its lack (stagnation), if I’m just sittin’ around the house watchin’ teevee, the metaphor kicks in and triggers a feeling of guilt in me for not, y’know, doing something – i.e., not moving. It’s stupid but I can’t change it, at least not quickly.

…huh. I thought I’d have more of a list. I guess not.