perfidy

Australia is the "world's gayest country".

and from Drudge (who has a knack for good headlines) "Mutant Rats on Rampage in Central Asia" and "House of Filth."

[Update]"Student cuts off penis and tongue after drinking hallucinogenic tea."

Still no power in casa de Buckethead. Four and one half days without electricity gets tiresome. The first two days were fun, like camping. But you go camping with the reassuring knowledge that you can go back to civilization once you've had your fill of primitive living. It seems that we do not have that option.

Nevertheless, there is hope. A crack power company recon team examined our situation, and said that a repair crew should arrive sometime today. And our excellent neighbor Dave ran an extension cord over, so at least we have power for our refrigerator. Of all the electrical gadgets, that is the one I have missed most. 
 

Go read the history of Murphy's Law. I insist.

This is London is reporting that a US research team has made some serious progress in developing a Vaccine for Cancer . The vaccines have produced dramatic results against the most virulent of cancers, such as pancreatic and kidney cancer. Typically, there is a 95% mortality rate over two years for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, over a third of those receiving the treatment were alive after three years, and one was disease free after five.

The new treatments are tailor made for each patient, using materials from the patient's own body to create the vaccine. Researchers also have reason to believe that the technique might also make possible vaccines against other infectious diseases as well.

Given cancer's place on the list of leading causes of death, this is promising news indeed.

As of 9:00 this morning when I left for work, still no power. At this point, not having power is substantially more frustrating, because everyone else on my street has had their power restored. The power company won't give me an estimate on when, either. At least, now that my neighbors have power, they aren't running their generators, and I my neighborhood doesn't sound like the middle of a tractor pull.

Thanks to Ross for allowing us to come over last night and pretend that we still live in a technologically advanced civilization, and watch DVDs, order carryout and gaze at the pretty electrical lights.

I have been without power since 9:00 last night. I am posting this from the house of a friend who (seething jealously) has had power restored. Hurricane Isabel did not do too much damage overall, but a significant amount of downed trees has left hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Virginia powerless.

Therefore, posting will be light until power is restored. On the plus side, lack of electrical power for refrigerators is a good execuse to eat shrimp for lunch, steak for dinner, and all the most expensive food in the fridge for snacks before it all goes bad. Natural disaster is a good excuse for breaking the diet. Or for almost anything.

Lots of games of Parcheesi until Dominion Virginia Power gets its act together.

Just found out that they have shut down the Federal government tomorrow, which means I have the day off. Sweet.

The icon that the Ministry uses for the category Partisan Politics is a seesaw. It seems that it was a better choice than we realized when we picked it almost at random.

A couple things I have read lately have gotten me thinking. First, the court action that has - possibly - delayed the California recall election. This brings back unpleasant memories of the fubar Florida scenario back from '00, only this time, the sides are reversed. That the Democrats there are now eagerly awaiting further court intervention in the furtherance of their political goals, and Republicans are crying foul seems to cause absolutely no embarrassment. A great many of our politicians clearly (though this does not surprise us) have an expedient sort of political principle. It is easy to stand on principle when it advances your interests. Sure enough, there are cases where politicians have stood on principle even when it did not - or even at great cost to their ambitions, but these are rare.

If this legal battle heats up, we could see a small-scale replay of the ugliness that attended the aftermath of the Presidential election, and the further polarization of the political parties. Add in the coming Democratic Primary season, and '04 might turn out to be rather bloody. The rancor that will likely ensue will further alienate the two sides of American politics.

Our good friend Ross, over at Spiral Dive, recently wrote two posts that are striking in their dissimilarity. The first, graciously titled "Standard, Dumb-Ass Answers" is a list of twelve responses that Ross will no longer accept from a republican in regard to, I guess, any political or topical issue. Here's the list: 

1. If it's so bad in the US, why does everybody want to come here?
2. If you don't like it, why don't you just MOVE to another country?
3. France Sucks!
4. We'll just have to disagree, and you are too stupid to understand why you are wrong.
5. Take the average tax cut! See how the average American gets $1003 back?
6. The free market is the only thing that makes this country great.
7. By criticizing the President, you are unpatriotic. You do not support the troops. Therefore you are also guilty of treason.
8. If we DIDN'T have a tax cut, we'd have lost 1.4 million MORE jobs.
9. Halliburton is a fine company.
10. Nobody can prove global warming exists, so it doesn't.
11. Tax Cut! I don't know why!
12. Everybody knows that when you cut taxes, you can solve anything!

He goes on to castigate the attempts of many right wing and war bloggers to construct strategic explanations for the (generally necessarily) secret plans of our government and military that fit the facts as they have unfolded. 

The list is funny, especially #3. While France may suck, that fact would not be a good explanation for any American policy decision. It most certainly is not a trump card. Bumper sticker patriotism finds its natural home in Ross' list.

This exercise contrasts greatly (with one exception) to the tone and content of the next post, Mythical Leftists. It's a long one, but worth reading. Ross offers a thoughtful and reasoned explanation of liberal views on life. And Ross' views are liberal, in the old sense of that word. This article gently but persuasively argues that creating a straw man of the left is a bad thing, and that those on the right should realize that liberals like himself should not be thought of as godless commies, who hate America or the West, and really have good and ethical reasons for advancing the policy opinions that they do.

Why is Ross motivated enough to write this long post saying that the right is wrong for doing to him what he did to them in the post immediately before? Ross is center-left in politics. He responded to an article that was not aimed at him, but rather at those who live in a slightly redder political universe to his left. In the process, he constructed an admirable defense of (truly) liberal beliefs, which are commonly held on both sides of the political median. But Ross, in his defense, overlooks the fact that there is a left. That left is not that different from how Scott describes it in the selection that Ross quotes.

Ross personally knows at least one conservative (me), and we have had many an engaging and delightful argument over politics, over beer. The first thing he writes after the long quote is, "I am pleased to find a right-winger who can actually spell, can correctly construct sentences, and who actually takes the time to lay out his arguments and beliefs. Well done, sir." Well, I am pleased to find at least one leftist who doesn't want to kill millions of Ukrainians.

This sort of thinking spoils the (generally excellent) points that Ross makes in the remainder of the post. It makes this thoughtful article more like the first - contemptuous of conservatives, and subverts what I assume is the intent of the piece. Ross wants the right to extend to him consideration that he is unwilling to extend to them.

I am guilty of this myself. It used to piss off our Minister Emeritus Mike to no end. I am more partisan than I would like to be. I would like to look at someone like Tom Daschle and say, he's goodhearted - he has the best interests of the nation in mind, but we have different ideas about how to go about achieving it. Then I hear him say something that is so screamingly contrary to fact and hostile to my interests that I say things like, "Jeebus, he's an effing Commie!"

People disagree on matters of policy. That's why we have politics, and elections. That's why we have this blog. The map that Johno included in his "Glories of Centrism" post shows that in one respect we are not as divided as we think. Ross' two posts show that in another, we are polarized even when we try to be tolerant.

I said I'd link to another BTD post, in recompense for my slothful forgetfulness over the weekend. Which I will do. I was going to link to some commentary I thought useful, or interesting, and offer my own spin on it, in typical blog fashion. However, as I was sifting through the site, I saw that their tribute to Johnny Cash was embarrassingly better than mine. So I will link that, because I spent the weekend listening to the Man in Black whilst painting, and Mrs. Buckethead's band played a Cash cover last night, and I can't get over the fact that he's gone.

Johnny Cash

Last week, I got an email from Greg over at Begging to Differ letting me know that on Sunday they were hosting a webcomicapaloozafestarama. He said he'd send me a link on Sunday which he did; and I said I'd post a link, which I didn't because I am a thoughtless amnesiac mofo. To rectify the situation, I am now posting the link, and a small sample of the delicious comedy goodness that can be found over at Begging to Differ. And, I will also post another link, just so Begging to Differ's blog ecosystem stats go up.

Go here to see the whole shebang, but first absorb the goodness to be found in this comic:

That's from Cox and Forkum (sounds vaguely obscene. That's a good thing for editorial cartoonists, I think.) BTD seems to think that this will be a regular thing, so go back every Sunday to see it.

General Wesley Clark is going to run for President. He will announce his candidacy tomorrow, but first I'd like to point out some problems that he might face:

• His name is Wesley. Remember ST:TNG.
• He's from Arkansas. We haven't had a lot of luck with presidents from that state. Though to be fair, this argument would have me voting for Dean.
• Most of his advisors are ex-Clinton staff, a group well known for their probity and ethics. On the other hand, they are effective.
• He is a war hero from where, again? Oh yeah, that war that started in Sarajevo. No not that one, the little one that came eighty years later. We bombed some stuff. Like the Chinese embassy.

I think it might be a little too late for him to have entered and still win - though it frightens me that I say this over a year before the actual election. The other monkeys have had time to build organizations, raise money, and get, in some cases, as much as ten percent of the population aware of their existence. Clark has a long way to go.

That said, many Democrats will feel that he is the perfect complement for their favorite candidate, and soon we will see Dean/Clark, Gephardt/Clark, Kerry/Clark and Kucinich/Clark bumperstickers. He is almost a shoe-in for the VP. Though Clark should remember what one former VP had to say about the office, "The Vice Presidency ain't worth a bucket of warm spit."

Space.com is reporting that Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites have successfully completed a full on test burn of a prototype hybrid rocket motor. (Another company has also tested a hybrid motor. Reportedly, Scaled Composites will decide which rocket to go with soon.)

Rutan has already conducted a series of tests of the White Knight mother ship that will carry the smaller SpaceShipOne to high altitude, where it will begin its independent flight into space. SpaceShipOne is designed to land like a glider, and it has undergone several gliding test flights.

The hybrid motors burn Nitrous Oxide (whippets) and hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) - otherwise known as rubber. While these are not the most energetic of all propellants (Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen, used for the Shuttle main engines, are the most powerful) they have the advantage of being stable, easily stored and non reactive; and safer than almost all other potential rocket fuels.

It looks like Rutan is the most likely winner of the X-Prize, moving along at a rapid pace. I think it would be a rather amazing thing if they launch on Dec 17th, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brother's first flight. It could happen.

Johnny Cash died of complications due to Diabetes today. He was 71.

I will regret forever that I never saw him play live. He will be missed.

Two years ago, on a clear, sunny day just like today in every respect but one, over 3000 people died. They died at the hands of terrorists willing to sacrifice their lives to kill the innocent, in the service of an insane and evil cause.

Some ways, we were lucky. Had the planes hit the towers later, many more might have died. Had the towers collapsed sooner, the death toll might have been in the tens of thousands. Had the plane hit the Pentagon on the inside of the north side, it would have missed the mostly untenanted, newly remodeled section on the south. Had the passengers not taken action over rural Pennsylvania, the Capitol or White House might have been hit instead of a field. We should give thanks that only 3000 died.

We have hunted those responsible, with some success, though their leader remains at large. We have sought to end terrorism, and the governments that make it possible. We have not had a terrorist attack on American soil since that terrible day. That must count as at least provisional success in the war on terror.

Over 250 American soldiers, marines and pilots have died in the war on terror. We must remember them also. They fight, and sacrifice, so that we may be safe and free.

But for the 3000, and the 250, we have to continue the fight, to give meaning to the sacrifice of the dead. We have to win. The cost of terrorism to its practitioners must be made so high that no one will ever think to do it again.
I have already mentioned the 9/11 Digital archive, which is well worth seeing. You should also go to Voices: Stories From 9/11 And Beyond at A Small Victory. Bill Whittle has a new post that adds some perspective.

For more links, simply go to the Winds of Change which has the best round up I've seen.

Even though the RIAA is Johno's bete noire, I seem to be posting a lot about it lately. That Junior college across the river from MIT must be keeping him extraordinarily busy for him to miss this incredible monument to recording industry hypocrisy.

The wired article details the activities of BigChampagne, a company that creates databases of information on song downloads, sorted by region. It sells that information (at a substantial markup) to the record labels. When a label sees that one of their songs is being played once a week at three in the morning, and in the same market that song is the number ten download on kazaa; they can put the arm on the local radio station to increase its airtime.

On the one hand, this is clever, sensible and good business. BC has found a need in the market for a certain type of information, and it has filled that need. The labels are responding to the actual desires of real customers by trying to get frequently downloaded songs onto the radio. Which will increase their album sales.

On the other hand, it is rank hypocrisy for the labels to be using this information gleaned from file download services to increase their profits while simultaneously extorting $2000 from twelve year olds, and sueing the grandmas who are using those same file download services. Even congressmen, not known for being with it, are saying that, hey, record people, if you keep going like this, people aren't going to like you.

The record industry needs, at the very least, step down its evil to the level of Microsoft, and adopt an "embrace and extend" policy. By using the file trading services, they could (especially in combination with clever ideas like selling cheaper cds) increase profits. And not be quite so evil.

The September 11 Digital Archive is being added to the Library of Congress's permanent collection, and the LC will host a day-long symposium on Wednesday, September 10, 2003. If you're in DC, play hooky and go. In the meantime, you can view the collection of images, video and stories here.

From Rocket Jones, (by way of Terra Taco) here are a couple links to nifty, neato google tricks:

Here you will discover how to use google as a calculator,

and here you will find a plethora of useful google tips.

Kerry has been on a tear lately. The other day, he jibed Dean for his comment that we should not take sides in the Middle East:

"It is either because he lacks the foreign policy experience or simply because he is wrong that governor Dean has proposed a radical shift in United States policy towards the Middle East. If the president were to make a remark such as this it would throw an already volatile region into even more turmoil."

Of course, Dean could lack experience and be wrong.

Then, he took a cheap shot at the Administration, I heard this on the radio this morning and couldn't find a link, but he said something on the order of:

"As I look out on this audience, I see people of every color, every creed and background. This must be John Ashcroft's worst nightmare."

Whatever you think of the Patriot act, calling the man a racist is just not right. It often infuriates me to hear anyone who disagrees with the left instantly labelled "racist" or "fascist" - it's just utter bullshit.

I don't want a bitter, lemon sucking jerk in the White House. Happily, he won't ever get there.

By the by, Dean also took a shot at Ashcroft:

"John Ashcroft is not a patriot. John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy."

More bullshit, I'm afraid, from the Deanster. Ashcroft is not Satan. For that matter, tailgunner Joe was not Satan.

It would be nice if the Democrats could mount a campaign without inciting hatred for conservatives. Policy disagreement does not equal evil incarnate.

Yesterday, I remembered that I had not read the Limey Brit in some time. Instantly, I rushed over and found... a movie review.

Limey raves about the movie Equilibrium. Convinced by his sparkling prose, I rented the movie last night. It kicks ass. I have not enjoyed a movie as much since I was forced to watch Boondock Saints. (I have watched that movie of my own volition several times since. It also kicks ass.)

I have a few quibbles with the plot, but on the whole, it was fairly well thought out. And the action sequences are amazing. The Brit was right, this is not guns and martial arts, it is guns as martial art. Clever idea, and perfectly realized on film. Curiously, I am reading the Gunslinger series from Stephen King, and it gave me a new way to think about what the gunslinger does. Added bonus.

The funny thing is that I might have watched this movie months ago, but for the fact that when I picked up the box at the lackluster video, the front screamed, "better than the Matrix!!!" Needless to say, I was dubious. Oh well, now all is right with the world, and I need to find someone to teach me gun fu.

Joe Bob says, "Check it out!"

Clueless has a short (for him) post up focusing on the recent goings on in the Palestinian leadership. I've been thinking a bit about this since Abbas quit.

When I saw the first news reports of his resignation my first thought was, "Damn, he just set made a huge deposit in his Karma bank." Clueless commented,

If another Prime Minister is appointed and forms a cabinet, and then Arafat is exiled, then as a practical matter the new Prime Minister will have far more control than Abbas ever did. I think Abbas was genuinely trying to work things out, and the next PM might not be willing to do so. But such a leader would not have the kind of grip on power that Arafat has, and would in turn be easier to replace.

I don't know for sure whether Abbas is genuinely interested in peace or not, but I am sure that this resignation not permanent. Abbas will be back, and the very fact that he resigned because Arafat would not give him the power to work with the Israelis will in the future give Abbas some serious world credibility. If Arafat leaves, Abbas will come back, and likely with the support of both the American and Israeli governments.

What he does with that power, we'll have to see.