Jeff's Thoughts

Destroying the Earth by Digging Holes

2009-06-26T10:42:00.004-04:00

It has been quite some time since I've been motivated to make any blog posts, since I'm, you know, busy doing actual stuff that matters.

Nevertheless, my favorite topic of stupidity is all over the news again, as Congress is preparing to vote on legislation that would regulate the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as a way to combat global warming.

I need not go into all the detail, because you can read all my posts debunking global warming here. Still, this is so dumb that I have to add a bit of fuel to the fire.

You see, one of the last minute changes is that the carbon credit scheme will now be proposed to be overseen by the Dept. of Agriculture rather than the Environmental Protection Agency (both of which are executive branch departments that I see no authorization for in the Constitution, but I digress...)

As it's been reported, this is great news for farming states because (drum roll please), businesses who desire carbon credit can pay farmers to inject seed into the soil, rather than plow the earth, because plowing the soil releases carbon into the atmosphere.

I'm not making this up.

Apparently, digging holes contributes to global warming.

Let me say that again.

Digging holes is going to kill us all.

Whatever scientific genius discovered this has just laid the groundwork for colonization of Mars. Forget terraforming, and atmospheric alteration, and all your other SciFi methods of making the martian atmosphere livable. We can simple have one of the Mars rovers start digging up holes, and given enough time, release greenhouse gasses that trap heat and will allow for human settlements on the red planet.

That's got to be welcome news to all the NASA researchers who were almost certainly thinking of using much more complicated methods of atmospheric engineering, when a simple shovel would do the trick.

If only we could convince people that stupidity caused the brain to leak CO2, perhaps we could get Congress to voluntarily shut itself down for the good of humanity.

Geopolitical question of the day

2009-05-26T08:23:00.004-04:00

Been way too busy to update the blog for some time, but in reading some investment/market related news from the weekend, a few thoughts came up I thought I would share. The talk of the world is, of course, the North Korean nuke test -- which was successful and estimated to be the size of the atomic bombs used in WW2 against Japan.

So, the question is: If China were to invade North Korea so as to "secure the peace" -- and in doing so setup a puppet government, or just outright annexed North Korea, would anyone stop them?

No, I don't think anyone would.

I think it's natural to jump to the "what should the USA do?" question -- but really, if this were to play out, the question is what would the USA do in response to a Chinese invasion of North Korea? Probably not a thing. It's hard to imagine we would. The Japanese would not be pleased, and probably not the South Koreans either, but I don't think the USA would do anything more than "urge caution and restraint," and I'm sure the Russians would do nothing.

So if you are the Chinese, what would you do? A North Korean nuke dropped on Seoul or Tokyo would throw a big fat monkey wrench into the world economy and would obviously destroy any semblance of economic stability in Asia. With the Chinese economy on the upswing, and the world already in recession, would you risk letting that happen, on a purely economic basis?

And then what happens? Does this establish precedent that if a country tests a nuke, a bigger country can invade and "keep the peace?" Does the USA invade Iran? Does Israel bomb Iran? India into Pakistan? China into Pakistan? The USA into Pakistan? Russia into Georgia?

Seems like quite a mess, doesn't it? Yet, at the same time, it seems like "hey, free country" for China to take N. Korea if it sees fit. Certainly if this were a game of Risk, you'd do it. The question is, how do the Chinese view it?

2009-04-21T21:38:00.002-04:00

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Anti-Capitalism abouds at world economic summit

2009-01-25T21:56:00.003-05:00

A couple of quotes from the world economic forum:

"This may be the first Davos where capitalism is widely viewed as a failure, rather than something to be admired," says Ethan Kapstein, professor of economics and political science at French business school Insead, who has been going to Davos since 1994.

or,

"The capitalist myth is lovely and youthful. It kicked off the industrial revolution, but maybe we need a new one," says Richard Olivier.

If this is how the world is starting to think (and it certainly seems like it is), then it's headed down a very dark and dangerous path.

As Ayn Rand would say: Who is John Galt?

"Socialist" is a racial slur

2008-10-22T21:34:00.010-04:00

A columnist for the Kansas City star has written an article in which he explains that socialist is really an old-school secret racial slur against blacks.

Seriously.

I know you think I'm making this up, but alas, I am not. How this guy gets a job as an editor is beyond me, but I assume the pay must be crap otherwise more qualified people might apply.

The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.
...
McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black.
...
Shame on McCain and Palin.

Please, sir, tell me you're not serious.

I did a quick google image search for "famous socialists" and this guy came up first:

Meet Mr. (Comrade?) Vasial Glavinov, a black man cleverly disguised as a Macedonian socialist leader... or so I assume. He was exiled by Bulgarian socialists at some point, I assume because Bulgarian socialists are racist... or... something.

(What is it with socialists and beards anyway?)

So next time you have a gander at the color wheel, keep in mind that the opposite of "white" is "socialist".

Stupid Photos

2008-09-11T09:18:00.015-04:00

When I see something goofy, I try to take a picture of it with my phone so that I can "blog about it" later. The blogging part seems to seldom happen, but finally I'm clearing out the old iPhone photo bank and I'll put a few shots up here.

This was the sign for the women's restroom at the Chart House where Scott and Kristen held their wedding(ish) reception. The site of the building is next to an old public bathing/swimming house, and thus I assume that's what they are going for here. Nevertheless, it seems this woman is in a suspicious position of sorts.

Next...

Here we have a stuffed gorilla strapped onto the back of a motorcycle. It's just not something you see every day. Should he be wearing a helmet?

Next...

When we made our family vacation trek to Florida, we stayed overnight in Montgomery, Alabama. I took a quick stroll around the hotel area, looking for historical monuments and such, and near the river there was an area formerly used to transport cotton from the South, which now had been renovated into a park and amphitheater. As is the trend, an area was set aside where people could donate money (I presume) and get a brick with their name on it. This one happened to catch my eye. You can see in the lower corner, that Betty J. Piatt is a "Classy Lady", but I would certainly not pick her in a bar fight over Cher Bollinger, the slayer of dragons.

Next...

In a very similar vein, here we have a shot of some of the vanity bricks in front of Lucas Oil Stadium, the new home of the Indianapolis Colts. I decided to try and slip in some props for the Miami Dolphins, and sure enough, they were more interested in taking my money than in ensuring all Colts bricks were, you know, for the Colts. Go Dolphins!

Next...
Not far from our Dolphins-supporting Colts' brick, I spotted this brick in favor of the Chicago Bears. Props to Brian Gajos, who had the cajones to not only buy the brick, but to cleverly disguise the "C" from the Chicago Bears logo as the Colts' horseshoe.

And finally...

This one really takes the cake. Just this week, while in San Diego attending the DEMO conference, we got behind this car with a very special license plate. How this one slipped through I'm not sure, but there it is for the world to see, a la "Assman" from the Seinfeld episode, but I doubt this guy is a proctologist. :)

Gravity treats everyone with fairness and equality...

2008-07-10T14:56:00.003-04:00

While I haven't made a post in a while, that shouldn't imply that the world has suddenly become less stupid. Sometimes there's just so much stupidity that it hardly seems worth it to keep up.

But, just when you thought you've seen it all, this little gem pops up from the Dallas Morning News, reporting on a meeting of county commissioners:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.
County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.

A white hole? Touché, sir. Touché.

Oh my.

Maybe all of science knowledge has ended up in a black hole. Or a white hole. Whatever.

It's Ready in a landslide!

2008-05-07T19:20:00.009-04:00

When you think of people winning elections with 100% of the vote, infamous names like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and Joseph Stalin come to mind.

Add to that list, yours truly, Jeff Ready.

That's right. In fact, I take it one step further. In my first public election, I won 100% of the vote, not once, but twice. See the results for yourself:

Ah but that's not all. As you can see, I received 149 votes in my precinct, White River #12. If I take a look at other vote getters in this precinct, I notice the following:

So while I cleaned up, none of the candidates running for president received as many votes as I did. This is clearly an indication of the leadership people see in me--a mandate, if you will.

I can sense your doubt. Don't make me throw you in the gulag.

In fact, on the entire White River 12 precinct ballot, only our incumbent governor, Mitch Daniels received more votes than me with 160 votes. Better watch out Mitch, I'm gunning for you!

What's even better is that these other fools now have to run in a general election where votes will be split up even more, yet I craftily choose to run for offices that are voted on during the primary only. So 100% of the vote it is. I pledge to use my new found power for good, not evil. Mostly. Or something.

Adolf Hitler sighting?

2008-04-22T22:49:00.003-04:00

It appears that Adolf Hitler has taken over the FCC - here's a picture of the chairman, Kevin Martin:

Seriously man... if no one else has ever told you, then let me be the first to say that you need to change that haircut. What the heck. Doesn't this guy have any friends?

Musings from an airplane.

2008-03-11T09:21:00.005-04:00

The funny thing about traveling is that, if you travel to the same place often enough, it feels more like an extension of your local neighborhood than it does a far away land. I’m on the plane now for my 5th trip to California this year already. At this point being in Silicon Valley seems more familiar than being in some parts of Indianapolis. It’s like I head out of the neighborhood and commute into work, which just happens to be 2000 miles away. Go figure.

The worst part of the routine to make the trip is trying to sleep the night before. Despite setting two different alarms, I always have complete pessimism that they’re actually going to go off and wake me up. That’s never happened, but I can’t seem to get my stupid brain to realize everything will be just fine, even if I did happen to wake up late and miss my flight.

So, I hit the sack around 10:30pm, with the alarm set for 4:30am. I wake up like clockwork at 12:30am, 1:30am. 2:30am, 3:30am, and 4:00am. Nothing like a restful nights sleep before making a trip.

At 4:30am the alarm goes off (as I knew it would), I shut it off, disable the second alarm, and head into the bathroom. I get ready, pack up my computer, give my luggage a once over in the hopes of not forgetting anything, and head out the door just before 5:00am. About a minute later I come back in the house to retrieve my sunglasses, which I inevitably left on the counter, then head back to the car.

Luckily I was able to print my boarding pass at home this morning, because last night the website was giving me an error, and despite two calls to Frontier, they couldn’t get it working. This is good because needing to stop at the ticket counter would throw a wrench into my otherwise well planned morning itinerary. There are a number of good things about Frontier. The quality of their website and their online check in system are not among then. They are probably the worst in the industry when it comes to online functionality, despite the fact that you’re forced to use the website if you don’t want to pay extra service fees. But I digress…

I head to the airport, drive to the business parking lot, go in the back entrance, and park across from shelter 4 which always has an open parking spot nearby. It’s also the shelter nearest the exit, which is nice for the return trip. A few minutes later the shuttle arrives, the usual guy with the unpronounceable African name picks me up, I say “Good Morning. Frontier, please,” and away we go. I think his name starts with “Aieedi.” I’m not sure what to do with that.

Off to the terminal, head inside, check the time, which of course is 5:31am, as always, and then over toward the C terminal. Just before the terminal, I head into the bookstore, pick up a copy of the Economist for the plane, and since it’s flu season, a bottle of Purell hand sanitizer.

As I walk up to the FlyClear security line, I’m greeted, as usual, by Jonathan Hargrath who works for Clear. “Welcome back, Mr. Ready,” he says as I approach. He hasn’t even seen my boarding pass yet. Of course, I know that Jonathan is a fellow Ron Paul supporter, and so we strike up a conversation about the latest Ron Paul happenings while he looks over my boarding pass, and I’m subjected to the government’s tracking of my location via smartcard and fingerprint just so I can get through the security line faster.

“Did you see that ABC reported he barely won his congressional bid?” he asks.

“Nope. Didn’t Ron Paul win like 70% to 30%?”

“Yeah. Stupid ABC. Nice report, huh?”

I have not seen the report but I assure him I’ll check it out when I can, although given the state of reporting on Ron Paul, I wouldn’t be surprised if some media outlet did report a 70-30 win as “razor thin.”

Anyway, through security I sail, breezing past the long line by means of selling out my own privacy, and next it’s off to the FoxSports restaurant-ish thing next to the Frontier gate.

“Good morning. The usual?” asks the guy behind the counter. “That was with sausage, right?”

Okay, so it’s one thing for the FlyClear guy to recognize me, since we always talk about Ron Paul. It’s probably another level that I know the first *and* last name of that same guy. But being greeted twice within 5 minutes as though this was my neighborhood hangout? Seems a bit much.

I sit down at my usual seat where I can keep an eye on the Frontier gate. I do this just in case my usual schedule has gone wildly awry and I need to cut short my breakfast in order to board, but that’s only happened once.

They call my number, and I grab my “Eggs Classic” with sausage and a medium Coke. For some reason, when I get up early in the morning a Coke always sounds better than coffee. It’s probably for the best because, if I’m going to have a Coke, I’d rather have the fountain Coke here, than get the crappy Coke-from-a-can on the airplane. Yuck. And the coffee on Frontier is marginally not-so-bad so it all works out.

Anyway, I sit back down with my breakfast and check the clock that hangs from the ceiling in the terminal. 5:54am. Hmm, I am running a little later than usual, it’s normally 5:51am at this point. I briefly ponder why all of my time-checks seem to end in “1” and then pull out my cell phone to confirm the time.

5:51am.

Ah yes, I forgot that the clock in Indianapolis airport is always running a bit fast. Better that than a bit slow I suppose.

I finish eating at (as you might have guessed) 6:01am. I toss my trash, and walk across to the restroom even though I don’t feel like I need to go. On the way out the door I notice the vending machine that has various medicinal products in it for headache, cold symptoms, and motion sickness. And gum. Who buys gum from a vending machine in the bathroom? It’s a question I ask myself every time I see that thing on my way out the door.

The plane is to start boarding at 6:10am, so I’ve got just a couple minutes to wait. I open up my phone and download my mail, just in case something besides spam has arrived between the hours of 4:30am and 6:00am.

Nope. Just spam.

I have a seat on the floor in front of the payphones. I realize that most people gave up sitting on the floor sometime in the third or fourth grade, but not me. One look at the crowded sea of people all slouching in the ugly grey seats is enough to drive me away. Sometimes I sit in the arcade that’s across from the Frontier gate because it has a couple of chairs in it, and it allows me to admire the video game selection circa 1988, but somebody else has already grabbed those spots. So, the floor is good enough for me, and I have my hand sanitizer to clean myself up with when I stand back up.

“We’d like to welcome you to Frontier, flight 615, with service to Denver.”

Why do they say “with service to Denver” as though they were (1) doing something *besides* taking me to Denver, and (2) acting like ending up in Denver was some kind of secondary offering? “We’d like to welcome you to Frontier, where you are invited to sit in seats that are too small, watch a limited television selection on a 4 inch screen, and enjoy ‘complimentary’ Coke-from-a-can for the next 3 hours. As a special bonus today, we’re going to take you to Denver!”

With that thought running through my head I glance down at my cell phone to see if we’re boarding on time.

6:11am.

Uncanny.

“At this time we invite anyone needing extra assistance down the jetway and families traveling with small children under the age of three to board. Also, our Ascent and Summit members are invited to board at their leisure.”

This also strikes me as an odd phrase: “at your leisure.” What a strange way to say, “whenever you feel like it.” I know it’s a commonly used phrase, but has anyone ever really though about it? “Leisure” implies that I’m relaxing or otherwise enjoying myself. Should I board the plane when I think it sounds like fun? Or when I’m feeling good and relaxed? Does boarding the plane “at my free time” make even a lick of sense?

See, this is what happens when you get up at 4:30 in the morning.

In any event, I guess I was feeling leisurely since I got up and get in line to board the plane. Even though I’ve seen it 1,000 times, I’m still bewildered that there are always 3 or 4 people (or more) that try to board the plane before it’s their turn. Here’s the conversation between the gate agent and the two people in front of me:

“Are you boarding row 12?”

“No sir, this is the courtesy preboard.”

And then the very next person in line,

“Are you boarding row 9?”

“No sir, this is the courtesy preboard.”

We're 45 seconds into the trip, and already 30% of the passengers aren't paying a bit of attention.

“Good morning, Mr. Ready. Welcome back to Frontier,” the agent says as I’m shaking my head at the two guys who tried to board in front of me. That makes three personal greetings this morning, two from people who knew my name before they could read it off the boarding pass. I’ve truly reached celebrity status. LOL.

Much to my surprise (and admittedly, a bit to my delight), this was a different flight crew than I normally have. At least I can take solace in the fact that I’ve not yet memorized every Frontier crew that works the Indy to Denver leg.

The plane is only about half full, and before we start taxiing, I grab my stuff and switch to a row that has no one in it. Sitting in coach with no one in the immediate seat next to you is acceptable, but getting a whole row to yourself is practically first class, and on Frontier, which has no actual first class, this is as good as it’s going to get.

I start flipping through the Economist as the flight attendants go through their little game of charades where they pantomime the use of the modern invention known as the “seat belt” and then point up and down the aisle as though, in the event of an emergency, I was going to turn to my right and bang my head against the little plastic window instead of walking up or down the, you know, only place on the plane where you can actually walk. On the other hand, I did get up at 4:30 in the morning, so who knows.

“Federal regulations require that all passengers comply with crewmember instructions and posted placards…”

Placards? When was the last time that word was actually used in the common vernacular? 1882? 1765? Whenever it was, I’m quite sure it was before the invention of the airplane, much less the federal rules regulating how we are allowed to ride in them. Who came up with that goofy phraseology?

“Bill, the passengers are really bored on these trips. Our focus groups suggest we need to spice up the safety demonstration. Hire some marketing consultants and see what you can come up with.”

A dozen brainstorming sessions later we get Marcel Marceau impersonations and “placards” as a way to say, “This is how a seat belt works. Please read the signs.”

Thanks, Bill.

At any rate, we’re over Kansas at this point and the turbulence has begun. I may know how to fly a plane myself, but that doesn’t make getting tossed about at 38,000 feet while traveling 500 miles an hour any less bothersome. Hopefully everything is on time in Denver, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be slightly delayed because my connection is one of the first of the day for that aircraft, and the plane will need to be deiced before we go.

Apparently the fact that you would need to defrost a plane that has been sitting overnight in Denver, in the winter, is quite surprising to the airline. It never seems to be factored into the scheduled time. I’m supposed to get into San Jose at 10:10am local, but maybe I’ll get in at, dare I say, 10:31am? We’ll see.

Who knew you could turn an otherwise completely repetitive morning into a 2100 word blog post?

Chicago to ban little baggies

2008-03-06T11:06:00.005-05:00

(Jeff puts down the drumsticks and puts on his Crusader Against Stupidity hat...)

Life is a funny thing. Every time you think that you've seen the absolute stupidest, most asinine thing ever, someone, inevitably a politician, comes along and ups the ante.

Last night, the City Council in Chicago put a ban on small, self sealing baggies. You know, the kind that your extra buttons come in when you buy a new shirt or whatever. The rationale is that drug dealers use these little bags to package small amounts of drugs for sale in the $10-20 range.

The move bans baggies that measure less than 2 inches by 2 inches, which really is brilliant because IT'S NOT LIKE THE DRUG DEALERS WILL THINK TO USE BIGGER BAGS INSTEAD.

What in the frickin' heck are these people thinking. Oh yes, I'm sure the margins on that $10 bag of crack are so tight that the move to using a sandwich bag that costs $0.005 instead of the mini self sealing bags that cost $0.003 is really going to put the squeeze on these drug dealers.

Heck, half of them might be out of business within a month.

Please.

And all the businesses that legitimately use these bags are going to be hosed because, even though they don't have "intent to misuse" them (or whatever the councilmen said), it's not like it's worth the business risk of having some kind of issue. I know for sure that homebrew stores use these things for hop pellets and the like... as if the average cop is going to know that a bag of weird green hop pellets in a plastic mini bag is "legitimate use" and not some type of drug. Yeah, right.

It's sad enough that some idiot councilman even came up with this idea. It's sadder still that enough of them agreed to pass it. What's really unbelievable is that people vote these jokers into office.

Regulation of plastic baggies. Ugh. What could possibly be next? I hear terrorists have been known to use copper wire and Phillips head screws in their bombs. Maybe we should ban those too.

8 more virtual miles walked

2008-03-03T21:39:00.006-05:00

I'm loving this conversion of drums to miles thing. LOL. I practiced two more hours today, and about an our into it finally got the jam session out of my system. That means I walked 18 miles over the last 2 days. Kinda-sorta.

For the first hour I just played along with music again, and as time wore on I realized that either I was playing worse than yesterday, or more likely, I was now actually hearing myself play instead of just rolling along.

So, it was back to actually working on rudiments and timing (i.e. actually practicing) for about an hour.

On one hand, I realize that I'm much further along in learning to play these things than when I started. On the other hand, I have no idea how my progression is vs. where I should have expected to be by this point. My first drum lesson was August 6th, which means that, later this week, I will pass the 7 month mark of playing. While I can't say that I've practiced as much as I would have liked, I have, at the same time, been legitimately and consistently practicing, probably on the order of 5 hours a week if you were to average out the time when I'm on trips and get only limited practice. When I'm at home it's more like 7 hours I'm sure. And there are more intense weeks, like this week where I've practiced 4.5 hours over 2 days.

Anyway, that's something between 150 and 200 hours of practice. Yet I'm not even remotely capable of really playing a song of any complexity at all. With my sheet music in the "Rockin' Bass Drum" book (LOL - what a name), I'm about half way through it and can mix and match the rhythms pretty consistently. For any drummers that might be reading this, it consists of using the bass on any of th 16th note beats, which is good, but the snare is always just 2-4 and the hi-hat is 1+2+3+4 always closed. Basically, my hands are coasting along and my one foot does something interesting. But some of them do sound pretty cool anyway.

However, then when I go to play a song, my ability to apply any of that is dramatically limited. I basically can play along with just the most basic rhythms like snare on 2,4 bass on 1,3 or 1,2,3,4, hi hat closed on 8ths. Maybe (and only recently), I can go all crazy and hit the crash on 1 once in a while, or go way crazy and hit it on the "ah" or "and" of 4 AND on the 1. Woah. All the fancy Rockin' Bass Drum footwork goes right out the window.

And I can do some basic fills, although if the music is not a basic 3e+a 4e+a fill or something like that (and it seems like it seldom is), I'm lost. And even then I'm pretty limited. Luckily I can work a simple 1 count, 4 beat snare fill in after I've already heard the drummer in the actual song start his break, so I can act like I'm kinda doing something.

(I realize I completely lost the non-drummers. Sorry about that).

Anyway, I suppose as with any instrument there comes a point where you think "Shouldn't I be farther along?" and I'm at that point. Sometimes I feel stuck, sometimes I make a little progress, but the ability to actually sit down and play songs consistently seems quite a way off yet. So much for my plan of paying off the mortgage with my mad drum skills as a second career. LOL.

Ah well. I realized that I'm really just ranting to myself, but you'd think over 100 hours of something and you'd be pretty good at it. With drums, apparently that's not hardly enough. But at least I'm enjoying it, so I'll just keep at it and hopefully see steady improvements.

Next up... the Boston Marathon

2008-03-03T00:17:00.011-05:00

Because of a trip to California followed by a trip back to Griffith for the baptism of the latest Bartinicki family addition, I haven't had any drum practice since my last lesson on Monday, nearly a week ago, and even that's only a half hour long. The week before wasn't much better, with the logistical aerobics brought on by Amy's necessary trip to Evansville, and me doing my best (and failing miserably) at juggling the kids schedule while she was gone.

Long story short is that I hadn't had much time on the actual drum kit, and since I've put my official lessons on hold, I've been anxious to get back at it so that I didn't fall into the habit of not playing at all. Annoying the guy sitting next to me by drumming on my lap throughout a cross country flight doesn't really cut it.

So, I headed down this evening after the kids went to bed and decided just to have some fun on the drums. No real practice drills - just popping in the iPod and attempting to kinda-sorta play along. I put on my top-25-most-played play list and drummed all the way through it. Twice.

Not me.
Amy popped her head in about 10:30pm to check on me, which isn't too surprising since I did head down to the basement at 8:30. I could see what she really wanted to say was "Have you lost your flippin' mind? You've been in here for over two hours!" It may have been the actual question and declaration of "Are you drunk? It stinks in here!" that tipped me off. This is the kind of insight you gain with 10 years of marriage. (For the record, I had had only one drink, and that was 2 hours earlier, so, no, I wasn't drunk. Although I'm sure I did stink. What kind of second-class, pretend-rock star am I? The stinky, sober kind, apparently. Pathetic.)

Nevertheless, I was on the last song of my playlist run anyway, and I decided that, while I had played so poorly as to be classified as "worthless" by any sort of band, I could still be identified as "a guy who is attempting to play drums" as opposed to, say, "a guy who is attempting to fish." Good enough. I decided to call it a night.

When I finally stood up, I realized that my legs and arms were actually pretty tired. So I looked up how many calories you burn while playing the drums.

Much to my surprise (and excitement!) an hour of drumming (for a person of my weight) burns 345 calories. This is the same as walking "at a very brisk pace", playing volleyball, playing hacky sack, gymnastics, or (ironically) fishing.

Here's the website where I found all this info.

Now, granted, the last two throw the creditability of this whole thing into question. Both of the girls are in gymnastics, and so I've seen the kind of things the older girls (or my girls, for that matter) have to do, and there is no way on this earth that an hour of that stuff is the same as an hour of drumming, hacky sack, or speed walking.

Also I also don't know how many fish I'm *supposed* to be catching while fishing, or how much those fish are supposed to weigh, but clearly I'm doing something wrong. Outside of harpooning for Moby Dick, I can assure you that when I spend an hour of my time fishing, my calories burned are a lot closer to what I might burn when, say, "sitting in a chair, largely motionless, drinking beer" (just as an example). This is probably not the same as what I might burn when "playing competitive volleyball in a gymnasium." I mean, come on, let's use a little common sense here for Pete's sake.

Anyway, I don't believe everything I read, but I will believe, based on how I feel alone, that drumming is comparable to walking at a brisk pace or playing hacky sack. So the 345 calories burned an hour adds up to 862 total calories for the 2.5 hours I was playing, which is going to be far and away more than I would have burned by playing World of Warcraft, which in inevitably what I'd have been doing otherwise.

And it sure was a lot more fun than walking 10 miles to nowhere on the treadmill.

Boston Marathon, here I come!

Tasty advice for Startups

2008-02-23T09:48:00.004-05:00

Between my work with the Indiana Venture Center, random speaking engagements, and just meeting different people, I get a lot of questions about starting businesses, raising money, hiring people, and gardening tips.

Well, okay, not so much on the gardening tips.

Anyway, I decided to launch a new website, McStartup, where I can post some of the questions that people ask me, so that others can benefit (or suffer) from reading the answers as well. A lot of times I get the same questions over and over, and maybe this will help a few people who I never would have met otherwise. This gives me a chance to screw up their businesses from afar.

So go check it out, and ask a question, tell your friends, or spontaneously sponsor a billboard on my behalf in your hometown.

Interesting Interview for 9/11

2007-09-11T08:11:00.001-04:00

An interesting interview from Shep Smith's show with Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit. He discusses the root causes for terrorism, and how continued denial of those causes continues to endanger us.

Seriously, why do people continue to believe that the terrorists "hate us for our freedoms?" Yes, there is a cultural clash, but no one is suicide bombing us because we eat double cheeseburgers. Only lunatics would do something like that, and there are tens of thousands of Al Qaeda fighters, not a handful of serial killers.

The hatred stems from political and foreign policy. If you want to believe the policy is a correct one, and that the consequences of it are better than what would happen with a different policy, then you have formed a logical, valid opinion. But, to deny the link between policy and consequence, instead choosing to blame "America's Freedom" for the rise of Al Qaeda, is just naive, stupid, and very, very dangerous.

Junie B. Jones - unemployed gas station attendant

2007-09-10T19:53:00.000-04:00

I'm taking a break from my regularly scheduled Ron Paul plug to focus on my core task of crusading against stupidity.

Today's topic is Junie B. Jones. For those of you that don't know, Junie B. Jones is the main character for a wildly successful series of books by Barbara Park, aimed at kids in the 5-8 age range to read by themselves.

Junie B. is pretty much a bratty kid with bad manners, terrible grammar, and who is 5 or 6 years old, depending on the book. She writes about her adventures and misadventures in a journal she keeps, the books are generally pretty humorous, and kids seem to like them.

However, I have a serious issue with these books. Kaitlyn has now read two of them, and this most recent will be the last. The grammar in the books is beyond atrocious, and any benefit she's getting from reading is being destroyed by the learning--or at least confusion over--the bad English.

Here's an example:

"He clapped his loud hands together... All of us got relief on our faces. And we hurried to the auditorium as fast as we could go. And we quick put on our costumes... I tapped Sheldon very giggly."

That's just part of one page... a page I opened at random just now for purposes of this blog. This page (page 74 of "Shipwrecked") has nine sentence fragments in it, and nine other grammatical errors by my count. There are a total of 16 sentences on the page, including the fragments.

You read that right: 18 errors in 16 sentences. There are two complete sentences that are error-free.

As you might expect, using these books in school has caused a bit of controversy. Some people want them banned, others think they are fine. I think both groups are full of idiots.

First, just because a book is a piece of trash is no reason to make it's use or ownership illegal. Second, to think that having kids who are just learning grammar read books that contain almost no grammatically correct sentences is plain dumb.

From what I've read online, the controversy has been boiled down to some debate between teaching phonics and teaching "whole language." This is also complete garbage.

"Whole language," as we've been exposed to it, has consisted of letting Kaitlyn write stories and such without over-correcting spelling and grammar. This clearly makes sense: why spend 10 minutes trying to spell a word when it's the process of converting thoughts into text that the real skill you want to teach, and where the real learning takes place.

So that's fine. HOWEVER - that does not mean that you should expose the kid to all kinds of bad grammar which they will then, in turn, copy. Every person reading this blog knows someone that can't write worth a crap, because when they do, it's all grammatical garbage. You don't have to wonder why, because the person who has the bad grammar when they write, it the same person that has the bad grammar when they speak.

People write like they talk. People speak like what they hear (other people, TV, radio, music), and what they read. If your parents use incorrect grammar, chances are you do to.

Saying that kids shouldn't be overexposed to this kind of incorrect English is to advocate phonics vs. whole language is also dumb. Phonics has nothing to do with it. First, for the reasons I just listed, and second, because no one really reads using phonics anyway--you only sound out new words using phonics until you memorize the word. You want proof?

Engilsh is a pretty scrweed up langauge.

I'm sure you had no trouble reading that, despite the fact that most of it is grossly misspelled. That's because it's been proven that people only really look at the beginning and ending of a word, and scan the middle for the correct letters. If the letters in the middle are ok, even in the wrong order, and the word starts and ends correctly, then people will read it as though it were spelled correctly, often without even noticing.

So my problem with Junie B. Jones is not her desire to teach using whole language, or that I secretly have a love affair with Hooked on Phonics. My problem is that you learn proper grammar by being exposed to proper grammar, and you will emulate the language structure of your environment.

For all the millions of books out there kids could read, there is absolutely no reason for these books to be read, unless of course they were being used to discuss bad grammar.

If the books only used the bad grammar in the journal parts (where Junie B is writing herself), then I think it would be fine. The kid reading the book could easily compare that to the rest of the correct grammar used in the story. Unfortunately, the grammar is deliberately destroyed throughout, and gives no point of reference to the 6 year old kid who's trying to decipher it.

Junie B. Jones is well on her way to becoming an unemployed gas station attendant who is begging for a shot to appear on the Jerry Springer show. More power to her, but that's not who I want my kids emulating.

Hasta la vista, Junie. I hoping that you'll get a very goodly life when you do.

PS - if my English is incorrect, I blame the fact that I just had to read a whole chapter of this claptrap to Kaitlyn. The last sentence is supposed to be messed up, as, of coursely, you could most plain to tell.

Hurray for me! I have a patent!

2007-08-25T18:58:00.000-04:00

Just found out that on August 14th of this year, the US Patent office finally granted out patent that encompassed the anti-spam technology we invented quite some time ago now.

And so goes the efficiency of the US Patent & Trademark office.

We applied for the patent in 2003. The company we owned at the time was acquired in 2004. Now, some 3-and-a-half-years after that acquisition, the patent is finally granted, long after the rights to the patent were assigned to someone else.

By comparison, the company that it was invented under only existed for 2 years.

LOL

But hey, I can say I was granted a patent. How about that.

Link to US Patent # 7,257,564

Enjoy! :)

Voice Mail Annoyances

2007-07-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

Ok, perhaps people don't know that there are certain things you can do when leaving a voice mail. For one, you need to leave your name and number, the time you called, and most importantly... WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME?

For Gods sake, does the world really need me to spell this out for them? I just got a voice mail this morning that went like this:

"Hi. This message is for Jeff. My name is John ______, with Chase Bank on County Line Road. I'm a banker here. You can reach me at 555-1212. Again, my name is John _____, and you can reach me at 555-1212. "

Are you kidding me?

First of all, you clearly know that I have no idea who you are, otherwise you wouldn't explain who you were, twice, and what you do (and thanks for telling me that you are a "banker"... I wouldn't have guessed that seeing as you WORK AT THE BANK).

Secondly, not once in your minute long voice mail did you bother to tell me why you were calling, why I should call you back, and why I should care who you are. Seriously, do I not have better things to do than have a casual chat with John, the fancy-pants "banker" from the Chase branch down the road?

Has someone robbed the bank? Am I a suspect? Does he need someone to fix his computer? Does he want a Ron Paul bumper sticker?

For all I know, maybe this is something important, but if so, PLEASE TELL ME WHEN YOU CALL.

How annoying.

A Physics Teacher Begs for His Subject Back

2007-06-07T19:16:00.001-04:00

I really, really, really hope that this isn't how physics is being taught in U.S. high schools. Holy smokes...

read more | digg story

Airport Philosophy

2007-05-29T11:57:00.000-04:00

If you’re like me, traveling alone gives your brain all kinds of time to think about the most random things. Normally, this gives me the chance to ramble on about whatever the political topic of the day is and post it to my blog.

But I already did a bit of that this morning, and I make no promises either way as to whether or not I post about something else after the next leg of my journey. But for now, I’ll take a break from politi-speak to opine on a few other things, and give you a glimpse into the chaotic mess that is my brain.

(1) Why is it that, when connecting through an airport, you never really feel like you are in the city you’re actually in? Sometimes, you can be there for hours, and in my case, I’m in Minneapolis for the next hour and a half.

The thing is, there is really no mistaking the fact that I am in Minnesota, unless someone has hijacked this city and replaced it’s citizens with an army of people that sound unmistakenly like native Minnesotans.

(Apparently “unmistakenly” is not a word according to my spellcheck. I henceforth declare it to be one. It also says "spellcheck" is not a word. A self-hating spelling checker?)

(2) Why do they use so much gray color at airports? I assume it’s to conceal dirt, but really it makes the entire air travel experience to be a muted version of itself. I think this adds to the “I’m not really there” aspect of connecting flights.

(3) The NWA WorldClub at terminal F in Minneapolis sucks. Normally, I’m quite amazed at how these membership-only clubs manage to make the airport terminal experience seem more like sitting in your living room (although maybe this has only to do with their use of color instead of yet more shades of gray)..

In this case, my amazement is only that someone would pay for access to such things. I think there is less noise and fewer people outside the club than in it. Normally, I can take solace in the fact that this is one of the few places I’ve found where I can enjoy a non-skunky Heineken.

How so? Well, they have free beer at the club (its only saving grace), and they have Miller Lite and Heineken on tap (and if you only have two things on tap, why NOT make them both nearly identical lagers?). So, even though I could care less about Heineken, I’ve enjoyed the fact that I can taste what it actually is supposed to taste like at the NWA Club in Minneapolis.

But not today--they’ve got a padlock on both of the taps. Maybe it’s because it’s only 10:30 local time, but I’ve been up since 5am local and I want my beer. Come on.

I’m also sitting about 3 feet from the “Free Wi-Fi” sign and I keep losing my signal.

(4) If you’ve been in the business world, I’m sure you’ve heard someone use the phrase “I’m out of pocket.” In case you haven’t heard this bit of business hyperbole, it means “you won’t be able to communicate with me during this time.” I hear it all the time, and I don’t think I’ve used it myself but if I have, I apologize.

My question is, where in the hell does this phrase come from? Out of pocket? What pocket? And does that mean you can only answer your phone when you are *in* someone’s pocket? Is it some bizarre football reference, a la the quarterback is out of the pocket?

You hear some pretty stupid phrases in business, and I assume most of them have root in something that makes sense, but I don’t any idea where this one comes from.

Never Too Late for a worthy cause

2007-05-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot to mention (actually, I did, but someone reminded me) Amy's fund raiser for Never Too Late. It's like the Make-a-Wish foundation, but they focus on nursing home and hospice patients. It's a great cause. From her website:

I'm sure some of you are wondering what the chart is on the right side of the page. It is a fundraiser I'm doing for a group called Never Too Late. They grant wishes for the elderly in nursing homes, hospice patients and others in adult day care situations. This organization is so amazing that they try and grant one wish a day to someone! The wishes they grant are simple ones, but can end up making a profound difference in the outlook in an elderly person's life. It gives them something to look forward to, something to hope for, and in the end, something they can think back about in a positive way. I am currently trying to raise $1000 for them, so they can continue doing the wonderful work that they do.

So reach deep into those pocketbooks, and send a few bucks Amy's way, and help her reach her fund raising goal!

Gun control, illegal immigration, and 9-year-old clay pigeon champions

2007-05-02T18:47:00.001-04:00

(Update: This article turns out to be false. The snopes page is here. This is why you can't trust everything you read!)

For those out there that think either (a) we need more gun control laws or (b) illegal immigration is not a problem that needs immediate corrective action, take a read of this article.

It seems that 11 year old Patricia Harrington was home alone when 2 illegal aliens broke into her house shortly after her father had left. One of these criminals (it was later found out), had broken into another home earlier, and left a 50-year-old man dead from stab wounds.

But young Miss Harrington had no plans of ending up dead (or kidnapped, or raped) this afternoon. As it turns out, Patricia has been a clay pigeon shooting champion since she was age 9. When she heard the break-in, she ran to her fathers room, and took his shotgun.

When the first "undocumented citizen" reached the top of the stair, Patricia opened fire (at slightly-below-the-waist level, as it turns out), and dropped the man from point blank range. When the second of these upstanding young men ran to the base of the stairs in response, Patricia took aim and dropped the second man with a shot to the shoulder. Both intruders died from their wounds.

Can you imagine what would have happened to this girl if owning a gun had been illegal, or if this had been one of these "gun free zones" ? What a story.

I found this article on Digg - if you like to digg, then digg the original to give credit where it's due. Link is here.

Barack Obama, Eminent Domain, and MySpace

2007-05-02T16:28:00.000-04:00

Well this is a curious little tidbit, and one which surely should get chalked up into the Halls of Stupidity.

Apparently some Barack Obama supporter has been running a MySpace page for two years, with the profile name "barackobama". With the ongoing presidential campaign, the page has become quite popular, amassing over 160,000 (!!!) friends. Wow. Up until recently, the Obama campaign had actually been working with the owner of this site, as it fits right in with the grassroots, online effort that Obama has been utilizing all along.

As popular as the site has become, it's no huge surprise that the campaign wanted to bring it in-house, rather than leaving 160,000 supporters at the whim of one political webmaster (cha ching for my use of a "web 1.0" term - haha).

Some discussions took place, and the webmaster wanted $39,000 for the site. Despite having raised millions of dollars from Hollywood alone, apparently old Obama can't part with $39k to compensate this guy for 160,000 names and 2.5 years of work. Alright, fine... IF they don't want the site... BUT - what happens next?

In conjunction with MySpace, Obama seized control of the site!

That's right. Rather than pay the man, the Obama campaign went to a higher authority and just took it. Sure, in the "settlement" the previous owner gets to keep all the friends, but seriously, the site is surely linked from all over the internet, and most all of these people will just head right to the new Obama site and re-friend themselves. It's not like it's too hard to memorize http://www.myspace.com/barackobama, after all.

In recent history, various state and local governments have been utilizing Eminent Domain to seize private property from U.S. Citizens for purposes of economic development and raising tax revenue - a move which many people, myself included, feel is grossly unconstitutional.

I wonder where Mr. Obama stands on the issue, given that he himself has just gone to the "governing body", rather than pay a market price (and a cheap one, at that), for something created by a private party, just because he wanted it for himself?

Furthermore, why would a leading presidential candidate run the risk of alienating the very bloggers that support his campaign?

Links to check out:
News Article
New site of the webmaster

More Stupidity from Congress (shocked?)

2007-04-26T20:44:00.000-04:00

This will be a short post, but as a crusader against stupidity, and I had to make a quick comment.

Today, legislation made it through the Senate to begin a troop pullout on October 1st from Iraq. The legislation will be vetoed by the President shortly. I'm sure you've already heard all this, but if not, here's an article.

What's so stupid? Let me just tell you (you knew I would).

Wanting to pull the troops out of Iraq is a rational and logical stance to have. It's not one I agree with, because I believe the resulting mess is sure to be worse than things are now - BUT - to say that the war is screwed up and, therefore, we should get out, is a rational position to take.

However, to say that "It's screwed up, and we should get out, not now, but in October" is patently ridiculous. Why not start getting out now if we're getting out? Do we want to leave troops there just for fun? Do we like to see soldiers get blown up in a war that we've already written off?

It's like some kind of sick, sadistic, madness. The war is either worth fighting, or it isn't. Period. I'll respect and debate a position that says we should withdraw now. But, to say we should leave out troops out there, not to win the war, but to wait until October 1st is, very simply, stupid.

Stupidity from Congress? Who would have thought.

PS - One added stupidity: This "war funding" bill has 90 billion dollars for the war, and almost $35 billion in random domestic spending, i.e., pork. A war-funding bill where a third of the money is not for the war? Stupid.

Are you threatening me?

2007-04-23T12:13:00.000-04:00

I had to take a quick break from my series 65 studying because it's not every day to get to make references to Bevis and Butthead. Apparently there was some scuttlebutt argument this weekend between Sheryl Crow and Carl Rove over global warming.

I'm sure it was quite the scientific battle-of-wits.

Seriously, can you think of anything that would provide less usefulness to your life than witnessing an debate between these two? Lord have mercy.

Anyway, among all of the hoopla I happened to see that Ms. Crow is advocating a policy of one-square of toilet paper per sitting, in order to help the environment. Yes, that's right. Regulation of toilet paper consumption to save the planet.

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."

And that's not all - she also thinks that paper napkins "represent the height of wastefulness", and had come up with, as reported by the BBC the following:

She has designed a clothing line with what she calls a "dining sleeve".
The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve" after the diner has used it to wipe his or her mouth.

Yes sir. In the Utopian world of Sheryl Crow, we'd all be walking around with skid marks in our pants and spaghetti sauce on our sleeves! That really is a sign of progress and forward thinking!

Maybe Ms. Crow thinks that paper is made by Haliburton or something. For her information, paper comes from a type of plant we commonly call "trees". These "trees" are actually something that we grow -- we call them a "renewable resource," when we're being all scientific about it. The companies that make the paper buy the trees from companies that, surprisingly enough, grow the trees so they can sell them to the companies that make paper.

This is a process we call "farming", and I'm sure Ms. Crow is all about helping the poor farmers, isn't she?

We're not running out of trees because of paper any more than we're running out of carrots or broccoli because we eat them. (Alright, because *you* eat them. I stick with meats.)

And I'm not going to carry a removable sleeve so I can wipe my mouth, or to use in a pinch when I'm over my toilet-paper-square quota for the day. Please.

Cho Seung-Hui... Forgiven?

2007-04-18T23:22:00.000-04:00

It seems that there is a sudden outpouring of forgiveness for the freak-of-nature that killed over 30 innocent people just a few days ago, according to this CBS article. Here's a quote from one of the students at Virginia Tech:

"People are talking about the senseless violence and hatred of his actions. They are senselessly hating him in return, and that is completely unfair." -- MacKenzie Swigart

Excuse me? A guy goes on a killing rampage through campus and it's "senseless" and "unfair" to hate him? What would it take to justify hatred? 300 deaths? 3,000?

Some people really do live in an alternate world I guess. It's okay to hate this guy. Really. It's fine. You don't have to forgive him. In fact, I think it's a little odd that you'd forgive someone just days later for something as heinous as this.

There's more:

"Cho Seung-Hui lived eight-thousand, four-hundred, and eighty-nine days. I and no reasonable person, or deity, could or should allow the events of one of them to discount the other eight-thousand, four-hundred, and eighty-eight," the student wrote.

Sometimes you want to reach through the computer and slap someone. Is this kid out of their mind? You know what? I *DO* discount those other 8,000 days based on this one day. I most certainly do. Does that make me a bad person?

Look, I don't know what drove this guy to do this. Maybe he had a bad reaction to some anti-depression or other psychosomatic drugs. Maybe he was the victim of some kind of pysical or extreme mental abuse that made him a lunatic. Maybe aliens abducted him. Maybe it was just good old mother nature dealing someone a fricked-up brain in the great evolutionary lottery.

Either way, he picked up the guns, he planned the assault, and he killed all those people.

It was not society. It was not government. It was not anyone else's fault but his own. Period. End of story.

I think people like to find "something else" to blame because the thought of some totally random event - like a psychopath storming a classroom and killing everyone in sight for no logical reason - makes them uncomfortable.

As well it should.

It's easy, in modern society, with all of the technology, science, and knowledge we have about the world, to forget that there are many, many things we simply can't control on a daily basis. And it's events like these that should get you to spend at least 30 seconds to try and rationalize what YOU might do if you ever found yourself in that situation. Jump out the window? Barricade the door? Charge the assailant? Stand there in a panic?

These things do really happen, and at least running through a little bit of mental preparation might help keep you out of harms way. Or it might not. I have no idea, and I hope I never have to find out how I'd react. But still, evil people do bad things to good people, every single day.

It's okay to blame them.

It's okay not to forgive them.

And if you don't blame them and hold them accountable for their actions, then you're kidding yourself, and you're doing a disservice to yourself, your friends, and your family who might need you to be the one that does something rational during a future crisis.

Just standing there, wondering how society drove this madman into your classroom, and what he did with the other years of his life, is not going to help you get your butt out that window and to safety. Compassion won't bar the door, and forgiveness won't provide a weapon so you can fight back.

And when it's all over, you don't have to "lovingly remember" the perpetrator, as Ms. Swigart advocates.

I'd consider you to be a bit crazy yourself if you did.

I'll take a Big Mac, AK-47, and a side of ammo

2007-04-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Here is an article that explains contends that the reason for the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech is the lack of strong gun control laws in the United States.

I'm glad they cleared that up for me. Here I was, thinking the real cause was the fanatical bloodlust of this Cho Seung-Hui fellow.

His family must really be ticked off, seeing as his name is all over the news as the bad guy, when in fact, it's Charleston Heston's fault.

Perhaps that makes Mr. Cho Seung-Hui one of the "victims", given our senseless government and it's lack of gun controls.

And perhaps I am Mickey Mouse.

I mean, seriously folks: 3,000 people died on 9-11 because of a group of fanatics, armed with box cutters, wanted to kill them. Box cutters. Do you really think that this guy would have otherwise been sitting in his dorm room thinking, "Oh hey, I was going to shoot up the entire campus, but since I can't buy a gun from Wal-Mart anymore, I think I'll join the chess club instead."

Probably the most entertaining quote from this particular article comes under the caption of the first picture:

In America, "buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's license."

A machine gun? Come on now. Granted, Amy points out that it's usually the trip to the DMV that *makes* you want to buy a machine gun, but I don't think that's what Der Speigel is getting at here. LOL.

In Britain, the Independent writes:

"The passionate feelings of the gun lobby may be traced to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, enshrining 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms'. Although the provision stems from the times when 'well regulated militias' were deemed necessary to protect against a British attempt to regain the lost colonies, it is the default position of any argument against greater gun control here."

Ugh. Not that I'd expect the Independent to be fully up-to-speed on the reasons for the second amendment, but the purpose of Constutional Rights is to protect citizens from their *own government*, not from a foreign government. We don't have the freedom of speech because we were worried the King of Spain would censor our newspapers, do we? I'd think the basic mechanics of why we have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution would be obvious to a journalist assigned to such political topics, but I guess that's not he case.

I'm sure that somewhere in the back offices of the Independent, there rests a dusty old dictionary like Webster's, which defines "bill of rights" as the following:

a summary of fundamental rights and privileges guaranteed to a people against violation by the state

Of course, we all know that Webster was just a ultra-right-wing militia-joining nut-job who was in cahoots with the shadow-government war cabal.

Or not.

On the other hand, all the "great" gun control laws in the U.K. aren't helping matters there. There rate of assault in this gun-free utopia is 7.5 per 1,000 residents. In the USA it's 7.6 per 1,000.

(And I certainly wouldn't want to try to, say, rob the home of the family shown in this picture I snagged from Google. Someone's getting the raw end of that deal, and I don't think it's going to be the young kiddos pictured here!)

In fairness, I will grant that the assault rate with firearms is much greater in the US than it is in the UK. Not that I'd feel much better if someone assaulted me with a chainsaw, kitchen knife, or large collection of Benny Hill tapes.

When discussing this article, my friend Scott quipped: "As if I'm going to listen to a bunch of socialist fools whose record on freedom adds up to 2,000 years of wars and serfdom."

But is that really fair? It's got to be really hard to overthrow all those kings, emperors, and warlords when all you can do is throw Benny Hill tapes at them, after all.

Don Imus may be a knucklehead, but...

2007-04-16T20:59:00.000-04:00

... he's sure driving a lot of traffic to my blog! LOL

Special thanks to Don Imus, who drove me to make a post about him last Thursday, which resulted in 44 blog visits and my first ever appearance on Digg with a whopping 2 (or 3?) diggs. (you can see the digg count at the bottom of each post).

This got me to actually look at my stats since, at least for a short while, I've grown tremendously from my usual 6 hits a day. And I found the following statistic:

Over the last month, 34 people have visited my site after searching for "Jeff Ready" in google. Thirty-four. So now that you've found me, didn't you want to say Hi, or ask me a question, or something? Or are you just stalking me?

Ah, the mysteries of the Internet.

Don Imus Fired Because of 9/11 Conspiracy

2007-04-16T15:30:00.000-04:00

What in the heck is this all about? Russian newspaper Pravda (of cold-war fame), ran this story today, alleging that Imus was fired not because he's a knucklehead, but because he was about to reveal the deepest, darkest secrets about 9-11.

I'm not making this up. Really. For serious.

Here's the lead paragraph:

In a clear sign of its intent to reign in dissident American media personalities, and their growing influence in American culture, US War Leaders this past week launched an unprecedented attack upon one of their most politically 'connected', and legendary, radio hosts named Don Imus after his threats to release information relating to the September 11, 2001 attacks upon that country.

The article goes on to associate Imus with our old friend Rosie, from which, I presume, we're supposed to draw the tie between Rosie's wack-job conspiracy theories, and her concern, on a separate issue, about the "thought police" going after Imus.

Maybe Pravda is reading my blog? Ha ha.

They then bring up Charlie Sheen, who is set to narrate a 9-11 conspiracy "documentary" as further evidence of some kind of cover-up. A cover-up that can (apparently) only be exposed by American pop culture media personalities.

Mmmmmm-kay.

So the only people that can save the good folks of the United States from the grasp of a shadow government war-cabal are: Rosie O'Donnell, Don Imus, and Charlie Sheen.

And that's not all! Despite offering no proof, sources, or actual hard research, the article concludes as follows:

To the American people themselves there remains no evidence that they know, much less care, about the dire state of their once Free Nation.

Right. And I'm further to believe this nonsense because, hey, it's coming straight from that bastion of "truth", Pravda, the former state-run newspaper of the Soviet Union.

Let me go on record by stating that, if the future of the United States hangs in the balance and can only be saved by a handful of comedians, and a media outlet for communist propaganda, then we're already screwed.

Do people really believe this stuff?

God help us all, Comrades.

Who the F is Don Imus?

2007-04-12T23:02:00.000-04:00

Since this is all that's been in the news for the entire week, I feel compelled to offer some commentary on this Don Imus situation. Fortunately, I've been studying for the Series 65 exam (don't ask) and it's kept me away from most of it.

First off, until this week, I've never even heard of Don Imus. I could not have picked the man out of a lineup. I could not have identified his name as someone who is on the radio (or television). I think he looks an awful lot like a homeless man. I have no idea who he is, what he thinks or acts like, or what format his radio show is. I think I had a jean jacket like that in 6th grade.

Anyway, I trust that you don't need me to give you the full scoop on what's gone on, but the real brief summary is that, on his radio show, he referred to the Rutgers women's baskball team as "nappy headed ho's" supposedly in some kind of joke context. I don't know. I didn't hear it, but supposedly this guy is some kind of Howard Stern-like character which explains (1) why I didn't hear it and (2) why he would say something as idiotic as that.

You don't need me to tell you that what he said was... well... the stupid kind of crap you just shouldn't listen to.

So there's a bunch of hoopla, he ends up on the reverend Al Sharpton's show (I didn't know he had a show either - maybe I should sign up for one of these things if they are just handing them out to anyone), and apologizes. Then he meets the basketball team and apologizes.

Alright. Whatever. I don't care.

His TV spot on MSNBC got canceled. Ok. From what I can see, MSNBC isn't exactly hitting it out of the park in the ratings department, so avoiding controversy probably isn't a bad move.

Then today, CBS cancels his radio show. I guess the guy has been on for 30 years or something (who knew?). *This* is what I find a little strange.

Now, if CBS just doesn't want to be associated with this guy, then good for them. Kick him to the curb. If they think his ratings will drop tremendously and they'll lose sponsors and revenue, then yeah, out the door you go.

But, if they are doing this because of some kind of political pressure, then, well , what the hell. The statement from CBS reads to me to be a little political in nature.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President Leslie Moonves.

That, to me, seems political. Why not just tell it like it is? "Don Imus is a jackass who's fatheaded remarks will cost this network millions. We kicked his nappy-headed butt to the curb. Good riddance." ... something like that anyway.

For one thing, costing your employer is plenty of good reason to give someone the ax. Although, I doubt that he *did* cost them any money - at least not yet. If anything, more people are aware of the show and will tune in, at least for a little while. Sponsors may pull so as not to be associated with Imus, even with the larger audience, but I read nothing of the sort.

Then I'm reading about Al Sharpton and his blathering on about cleaning up the public airwaves. He says:

"It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves."

Are you serious? The beginning of what? Who needs to have this broad discussion, and with whom? Is he going to call for stations to stop playing Snoop Dogg next? I mean come on - no one is forced to listen to any radio station, and if people opt not to listen, then that person, artist, company, whatever, will go out of business. Period. God Bless Capitalism (tm).

This kind of chatter troubles me, because Al Sharpton is a political figure, and if he's advocating going through political/government channels to get some dude kicked off the air for using language that, while ignorant, is present in all kinds of music, movies, television, and otherwise, it's a disturbing attempt to quell free speech.

Imus can say what he wants, and he must live with the consequences. Free speech doesn't free him from consequences. It only frees him from *government* consequences, which, I think, is what Big Al Sharpton is advocating here.

And who is on my side? None other than Rosie, who I just made a few negative (and well deserved posts) about.

O’DONNELL: But, what’s the next step Elisabeth? If you say— the though police–you’re going to get--your job is going to be taken away if you think or say something?

But I only partly agree with her. Earlier in the exchange, Rosie seems to think that if a corporation takes action that's a violation of Imus' free speech. Unless the corporation is the government or run by the government, then no, I don't think it is. They can do what they want, and have no obligation to keep him around if they don't want to.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on that issue (at least for now). The point being, give this Imus character the can because it makes business sense, or because you just don't like the guy, or whatever. Just don't do it because of some political hogwash from someone who appears to advocate government censorship of free speech.

At least I can say I've never heard the man speak. What a knucklehead.

If only I had a demo tape to send into CBS to fill that now-vacant radio slot...

Black Eyed Alanis

2007-04-09T11:51:00.000-04:00

So props to Hawkins for find this hilarious parody of the Black Eyed Peas "My Humps" song and video, done by Alanis Morrisette.

For reference, here is the real video:

And then here's the Alanis version

LOL. I think that's just funny.

And hey, make sure you bookmark/RSS/memorize Hawkins' site, so you don't , you know, have to wait for me to steal all his best posts.

We have met the enemy -- and it's our bureaucracy

2007-04-07T11:08:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting op-ed piece I stumbled onto that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle a couple weeks ago, by Newt Gingrich. Here's an excerpt:

In Afghanistan, it has taken us more than five years to complete a 300-mile stretch of road. It's no wonder that the only form of commerce blooming in Afghanistan is poppy production.
And in Iraq, it was estimated that with an infusion of U.S. dollars, we could jump start more than 150 old and new Iraqi factories, creating tens of thousands of jobs. One is a fertilizer plant north of Baghdad. It used to furnish all fertilizer for the ministry of agriculture. It has produced none since Baghdad fell. As a result, crop production has decreased 50 percent, according to the Pentagon's analysis.

Rosie the Poet

2007-04-02T23:29:00.000-04:00

On a random whim I decided to take another look at Rosie's Website this evening, and... well... hmmm. Let me put it this way: Her site reads like the myspace page of a 15 year old kid who is depressed, writing to no one, and on the verge of suicide.

Seriously.

The writing is intolerable, and not because of the content (as my site often is), but because you can't hardly stand to read the bizarre style in which she writes (and believe me, I use the word "style" in the loosest possible sense).

Here is an excerpt from just yesterday, and it's reflective of the style all over the site. Is she trying to write a series of (poorly done) Haikus, or what?

when joy and i
alluded to bill oreillys
sex scandal
on the view

we were told the following day
that we couldn’t bring it up anymore
or else bill o
would “go after” all the hosts of the view

hmmmmmmm

i saw his friday rosie spin
on you tube
where he edited my statements
to make it seem
as he wanted

like 1984
molding the facts
2 suit the needs
of big brother rupert

...

question authority
america
b4 its too late
spin spin spin
 

Maybe it's just me (I am the only one writing this after all), but that is plain awful.

Penn & Teller on Wal-Mart Bashers

2007-04-02T23:24:00.000-04:00

This is an absolutely brilliant episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit, in which they expose the stupidity that is Walmart Hatred (TM).

Online Videos by Veoh.com

I wish this were an April Fool's joke.

2007-04-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

Amy has has to put up with my complaints for years that there is not enough history taught in school. I know I'm not alone where my experience in high school history classes consisted of a couple of decent teachers and a whole lot of sports coaches who could have cared less. Luckily, one of the best teachers I ever had at any level taught history in 7th and 8th grade and gave me the appreciation for history I have today. Thank you Mr. V.

But enough nostalgia. Amy just passed this headline along to me:

"Teachers Drop Holocaust, Crusades From History Lessons to Avoid Offending Children"

Teachers are dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to offend children from certain races or religions, a report claims.

A lack of factual knowledge among some teachers, particularly in primary schools, is also leading to “shallow” lessons on emotive and difficult subjects, according to the study by the Historical Association.

Allllllllrighty then. The reason not to teach these subjects are (1) some might find it offensive, and (2) a lack of knowledge by the teachers.

History is offensive? It's a factual account of the past, not some kind of personal attack. Bad things happened, often for very bad reasons: learn from them--THAT'S THE POINT! You don't study history because you have a fascination with memorizing dates (but don't tell that to the football coach). You study history to learn about the people, their motives, what you can learn from them, and, how it affected others, and how it affects you today.

And a "lack of knowledge among some teachers"? Of the holocaust and the crusades? We're not talking the finer points of modern computer network architecture here, or some other topic where the data changes at light speed... we're talking *history* here, people -- READ A BOOK FOR GODS SAKE!

I mean, seriously, how can this be true? What subjects are being taught instead, at the sacrifice of history? Is it too much to ask that a middle school teacher have at least a middle school understanding of the holocaust? Really?

I know this is yet another of "old man Ready's" rants about stuff that irritates me, but come on, this is just insane.

Rosie O'Donnel is a North Korean plant.

2007-03-29T23:41:00.000-04:00

So I just saw a clip of Rosie, who, today on The View, spouted off that the seizure of British sailors by Iran was actually a setup, carried out by the British navy itself. This is all a ruse to get the U.S. to invade Iran by the summer, she claims.

Right. The British are sacrificing their own people so that the U.S. can invade Iran. And Tony Blair is in-line to be the next CEO of Halliburton, I suppose?

Unfortunately, the clip isn't on YouTube yet, otherwise I'd have linked it. But lo and behold, you can read it yourself on Rosie's own blog. (is this really her blog? it reads like it was written by a 10 year old punk kid... hmmm...)

In the same report, they quoted Rosie as stating that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by the US government itself, in order for us to invade Iraq.

And so, that leads me to a single conclusion. Rose O'Donnell is working for the North Korean government, spreading anti-US propaganda in support of Her Dear Leader.

What a crack-pot.

The UN is run by idiots, and I have proof

2007-03-26T15:26:00.000-04:00

Human Rights watchdog group, UN Watch, gave a statement to the human rights commission, which I've linked below. The transcript is below that.

But the statement isn't why I'm making a post here. It's the *response* by the Human Rights Council President, Luis Alfonso de Alba. In short, rather than address anything in the statement made, he proclaims the comments to be made in inappropriate language and any future such comments would be stricken from the official record.

Now, read the statement (and response) for yourself. From what President de Alba said, you would think that they guy went on some kind of shouting rant calling them all three-headed venomous beasts! Instead, the statement is, I believe, to-the-point, effectively conveys the opinion of the spokesman, and raises serious points. If this is the kind of thing that is deemed rude and unfit for the official records, then the U.N. is really showing what a joke it's become.

Even if you disagree with every word in their statement, you can't honestly say that this is the type of statement that should be ignored and removed from the records, can you?

(link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhWgZu6tcZU)

Statement delivered by Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch

Mr. President,
Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, Eleanor Roosevelt, Réné Cassin and other eminent figures gathered here, on the banks of Lake Geneva, to reaffirm the principle of human dignity. They created the Commission on Human Rights. Today, we ask: What has become of their noble dream?

In this session we see the answer. Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided?

Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal.

One might say, in Harry Truman’s words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council.

But that would be inaccurate. This Council has, after all, done something.

It has enacted one resolution after another condemning one single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements—and there will be three more this session—Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world—millions upon millions of victims, in 191 countries—continue to go ignored.

So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.

So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.

But do these self-proclaimed defenders truly care about Palestinian rights?

Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights—Ahmadinejad, Assad, Khaddafi, John Dugard—they say nothing. Little 3-year-old boy Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Prime Minister Haniyeh’s troops. Why has this Council chosen silence?

Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the dictators who run this Council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.

They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.

You ask: What has become of the founders’ dream? With terrible lies, it is being turned into a nightmare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Response delivered by Luis Alfonso de Alba, President of the UN Human Rights Council

For the first time in this session I will not express thanks for that statement.
I shall point out to the distinguished representative of the organization that just spoke, the distinguished representative of United Nations Watch, if you'd kindly listen to me. I am sorry that I'm not in a position to thank you for your statement. I should mention that I will not tolerate any similar statements in the Council.
The way in which members of this Council were referred to, and indeed the way in which the council itself was referred to, all of this is inadmissible. In the memory of the persons that you referred to, founders of the Human Rights Commission, and for the good of human rights, I would urge you in any future statements to observe some minimum proper conduct and language.
Otherwise, any statement you make in similar tones to those used today will be taken out of the records.

Entrepreneur Boot Camp

2007-03-22T23:16:00.000-04:00

For those of you that check this out regularly (or should I say, both of you... haha), you know that I sometimes spout off stuff that hasn't really been though through, or in some cases (yes, I'll admit it), I take a bit of an extreme position just to have the chance to toss the ideas around.

However, this post is not one of my usual manifestos of things that tick me off. This post is actually about something I participated in that I thought was really good.

Today, the Indiana Economic Development Council held it's first ever "Entrepreneurial Boot Camp for College Students" - and I was asked to participate on a panel and in some smaller discussions. As it turns out (and I didn't realize this until today), this is actually an implementation of an idea I tossed out back in October, when I was invited to a dinner hosted by the Governor, where 25 entrepreneurs from Indiana met with Gov. Daniels to brainstorm on things the state could do to foster entrepreneurship.

Little did I know, that they were actually listening to what I was saying. Maybe I should have just suggested that the state give me $25 million to start a few companies with... LOL.

Anyway, lo and behold, the event was here, and wow, it really turned out to be something. There were about 500 college students there, all voluntary, who were legitimately (to my surprise) interested in started real companies, and learning what they could about doing so.

I wish something like this existed when I was in school. Around 50 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and others, were in attendance to participate with the students and help them learn what this hair-brained lifestyle was all about.

I speak at these things a few times a year - in fact I'm off to Purdue tomorrow to do something similar - but the genuine enthusiasm of the students really made this one worthwhile. The change in attitude around starting companies right out of school has really been dramatic around here. I can't imaging even 1/5 of the turnout when Scott, Eno and I were drawing up those first business plans while still in school.

I even learned from some of the students that Rose-Hulman has an entrepreneurship club now. I think Scott and I would have been the only members back when we were there. LOL.

I even got the change to make a fool of myself on TV, as one of the local stations, WRTV 6, was there and interviewed me for a spot on the evening news. Thankfully, they didn't make me sound as they certainly could have. LOL. If I can find the clip online, I'll link to it later, but my 10 seconds of wisdom went something like "these kids need to jump in with both feet and start a company right now!"

Anyway, it was really cool, and I hope the event and others like it continue in the future.

Supreme Court Hears Freedom of Speech Case

2007-03-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

Another trip on a plane, another opportunity to ramble on about something and post it to my blog. Today’s episode of Incoherent Thoughts from Jeff’s Head is on the topic of free speech, inspired by a case currently being heard by the Supreme Court. I’d give more specifics, but there’s no internet access on the plane, and as ridiculous as that may seem in 2008, it’s still the cold hard truth.

The premise of the case goes like this: Prior to the last Olympics, the Olympic torch runner was scheduled to run through some town in Alaska. In order to give students the opportunity to witness this event first hand, the local high school canceled school for the day so the students, if they wanted to, could partake in watching the parade. This isn’t any different than if school is let out in Indianapolis so people can go to the Colts’ victory parade.

One such student (I’ll call him Jack since I don’t have access to the ‘net right now) was at the parade. As the torchbearer strode past (how’s that for some masterful literary writing), Jack unfurled a large paper sign he had made which read, nice and big for everyone to see: “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”

At this point, a teacher of the school, who happened to be standing right across the street, came across the street, tore the sign in half, and promptly suspended Jack for 5 days.

Shortly after, Jack protested the suspension on the basis of First Amendment rights, and was then suspended for an additional 5 days. For the record, the school claims that the original suspension was for 10 days, although the witnesses seemed to support the 5 day number Jack alleged.

Jack was not at school at the time, he was standing on a public sidewalk holding up a sign, and a government employee, acting on behalf of the government, tore the sign down and enacted punishment. And, not that it really matters but it does help make a point, Jack was 18 at the time.

There are numerous stupidities at work here. First, if you can’t figure out that the phrase “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” is a nonsensical prank staged by the goofball 18-year-old Jack as a joke, then you are an idiot. He was trying to get something offensive and funny on TV, and then joke with his friends about his accolades. Stupid? Yes. And I’m sure it’s not the only stupid thing done by an 18-year-old in Alaska that year.

Second, why the teacher ever thought this was okay is beyond me, but, even after it happened, an evening of sleep and a reflection on the events they should have told the administration that the right thing to do was to revoke the punishment, apologize to Jack, and call it a day. From what I’ve read of the case, I don’t get any impression that Jack was searching for some kind of free-speech lawsuit, and I have to believe that would have satisfied everyone. Instead, the administration allegedly doubled the punishment after Jack protested the suspension.

Third, how is it possible that this case has made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court? Believe it or not, Jack lost the first lawsuit. Then, he won the appeal. So now, it’s all the way to the Supreme Court in what is reported to be the first freedom of speech case heard by the court in 20 years.

Which brings me to the fourth stupidity: how is it that in an era of political correctness and people getting all bent out of shape because they were ‘offended’ by someone’s words, that this is the first freedom of speech case heard in 20 years? You’d think these things would happen all the time… unless, of course, the lower courts were vigorously defending the freedom of speech instead. But, based on this case, it appears that they are not.

I don’t see how the case could be more black and white. If this had happened at school, or even during a school function, there is some legal precedent that limits the free speech of students. You can argue if that precedent is legit or not, but it does exist and would make the case less clear-cut. This was not a school event, school was not in session, and Jack attended the torch running of his own freewill.

If this were a private school, then there would also be no real problem, other than you can’t go around ripping down a sign someone is holding as they stand in the street. But, it would be within the rights of the school to suspend Jack if that's what they wanted to do. If Jack’s parents want to take away his car and ground him for a month, that’s fine too. If his employer wants to fire him, that’s also fine (Jack might win a wrongful termination suit, but they could still fire him, the issue at hand would be very different). If someone wanted to hold up a sign that said “Jack is an a-hole poopy-head” or “I’m with stupid”, that would be within their rights as well.

But, what *IS* plain-as-day, is that no action can be taken by the government to limit the free speech of citizen, unless the government action is undertaken to protect the rights of another citizen. I hope you don’t need me to tell you, but the Constitution does not give you the right not-to-be-offended by someone’s sign, speech, or poor personal hygiene.

Sadly, this brings up the fifth, not yet realized, potential stupidity of the whole thing. The speculation is that Jack will win the case, but that the rationale given by the Supreme Court go something like this: “Bongs can be used for things other than illegal drug use, such as tobacco use. Therefore, the phrase ‘Bong Hits for Jesus’ does not inherently promote or condone the use of illegal drugs, and as such, the speech was not within the jurisdiction of the school.”

Now, I don’t know if that’s how this thing is going to flush out or not, but to me, the ruling should go something like this: “A citizen, functioning in public, has the inalienable right to free speech, and, as Jack’s sign did not infringe upon the rights of any other citizen, the government has no right to take action against Jack regardless of the underlying meaning of the sign.”

If it’s any less direct than that, then I believe the Court will have failed miserably in a case which even the most junior student of the Bill of Rights can figure out in about 3 seconds. The fact that Jack’s speech (if you were to believe that he was somehow actually promoting drug use in the name of Jesus Christ) is offensive to a lot of people and is against the anti-drug policy of the government institution in question, is PRECISELY the reason it is protected under the First Amendment.

The founding fathers did not come up with the Bill of Rights and free speech to protect the future of child pornographers or some other nonsense. Freedom of speech is all about making political statements, moral statements, or other such statements without the risk of the government shackling you up, tossing you on a train, and moving you to a Siberian labor camp. It’s there so your government can’t arrest a professor for posting an anti-government editorial on his blog, as just happened yesterday in China. It’s there so that young master Jack can make a fool of himself on TV, and we can all point and laugh at his foolishness, or maybe get so offended that we organize an anti-bong hits march (complete with awareness ribbon), all the while calling Jack a (pun intended) jackass.

In a similar case that I just read about in a local Silicon Valley paper, a woman is being fined $50 a day by the city government because she has painted a sign on her roof that contains “messages from God”. It sounds like she may well be out of her gourd, but at least she knows what her rights are, and so, while paying the fine, she has filed a federal lawsuit against the city for infringing on her rights.

And she should win, hands down. Neighbors are offended and annoyed, so they complained, and the city now claims that the sign is in violation of the local signing ordinances. However, those ordinances are there to restrict commerce (which, with limits, is within the jurisdiction of government), so that Wal-Mart can’t make a 3000 foot-wide sign and flashes all night and talks to you as you sleep. The ordinances are not there so that the local government can infringe upon your personal rights as they are trying to do in this case.

There was a similar case in my hometown of Griffith a number of years back, when a guy painted “If you want to get rich, then be a lying, thieving, politician” in huge letters on the side of his garage that faced the main street through town. Griffith played the same violation-of-the-signage-ordinance card on him. As I recall, It went all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court, and the guy won (as you would expect, or maybe not, if you don’t understand how this all is supposed to work). He then added “The town hall clowns lost, I won” to the top of his sign. LOL.

So good for that bitter old man. And, hopefully, good for woman who receives messages from God, and for crazy Jack, the pot-smoking evangelical Christian kid from Alaska.

As it turns out, our friend Jack is now studying in China, where I hope he doesn’t get any hair-brained ideas about freedom of speech, lest he find out that a 5 day suspension isn’t the kind of punishment the Communist regime had in mind. :)

A link to a news article about the case is here.

I hate communists.

2007-03-17T23:52:00.000-04:00

So I'm sitting here after a good St. Paddy's day watching the local news in Chicago. One of the segments had a few shots of an anti-war protest that took place today in Washington D.C. As they pan to the parade itself, what do I spot but a bunch of people holding up Che Guevara banners.

Excuse me? What is with the rampant anti-capitalism, anti-individualism, pro-communism component of the anti-war movement?

If you don't know who Che Guevara was, you might recognize this photo as appearing on various pieces of communist propaganda and the t-shirts of economically-ignorant individuals. Che was a marxist revolutionary who participated in Castro's communist overthrow in Cuba, later headed to various other countries to help lead more communist revolutions, was captured by U.S. & Bolivian special forces, and executed.

For some reason, this militant revolutionary is now an icon for the anti-war movement. The only thing dumber than communism as an economic system is an anti-war protester idolizing a militant revolutionary. Just how ignorant can you be?

What is with all this anti-capitalist/pro-communist crap over the last 5-10 years anyway? Are people really that stupid?

And away we go!

2007-03-16T11:11:00.000-04:00

I got my first flight of the year in this week while we had our first 70+ degree weather of the year. The snow drift in front of the hangar finally melted. Unfortunately, high winds were forecast (and did arrive), so I only got an hour of flying in before putting the plane away. At least I got some practice in.

I also did a quick addition to see how much flying I got in last year:

2005: 65.7 hours
2006: 48.6 hours

Considering the amount of time the plane was down for maintenance last year, that's not to bad.

But we just wanted to help the poor and helpless...

2007-03-15T15:31:00.000-04:00

Next time some politician is blathering on (lying) about how program X helps the poor and helpless, keep this statistic in mind:

Call it welfare, income redistribution, subsidies, or whatever: 85% of this money gets paid out with no regard to the financial situation of the recipient.

The largest programs by far are age-based (Medicare and Social Security). Followed by occupation-based (veterans, farmers), followed by other special interest groups (race-based). Your financial status has no bearing on your eligibility for most "social" programs.

--

PS: props to Hawkins for letting me steal his earlier blog post on the swindle.

Global Warming Swindle

2007-03-11T22:53:00.000-04:00

This is brilliant. At least I know I'm not the only one to interpret the global warming data in, as it seems, exactly the way I did. For those (ridiculous) schools that are showing the Inconvenient Truth movie as part of a class, it would be appropriate to show this as well. Watch, learn, enjoy.

What you really need to know about minimum wage:

2007-03-06T13:37:00.000-05:00

(editors note: No, I didn't spend all morning typing this. I wrote this while on a plane from California to Minnesota, and only being able to use one hand was a blessing because it killed more boredom time on the plane.)

I thought I’d take a minute to share some realizations I had about minimum wage legislation after reading through and digesting some material about the subject. And, since I’m trapped in the world’s smallest airline seat, that of a 757-200 featuring a configuration that could only comfortably seat an army of toddlers, writing this will give me something to do for awhile and distract myself from the pain that is my back and legs right now.

First, let me give you my prior position up to this point: for one, raising the minimum wage doesn’t do anything to actually help the people that are making the minimum wage. If you run a business that employs such workers, when you have to pay them more that money has to come from someplace. Perhaps you’re going to let some employees go. Perhaps you’re going to rely on alternatives like automation or outsourcing. Perhaps you will change your raw materials to use cheaper goods, although this will reduce the quality of your own end product. Or, most likely, you are going to simply pass the added cost along to your customers in the form of a higher price.

Some people might incorrectly think that the business can simply lower it’s profit margin and pay for the added labor cost that way, but this will only work in the absence of free-market competition. If the business in question were making above normal profits, new competitors will always crop up to take a piece of that action, unless there is some force, normally government regulation, that prevents that from happening. Besides this being fundamental economic theory, I know this actually happens, because I’m one of those crazy entrepreneurs that starts those businesses. (by the way, if you have identified a market in which companies are making unreasonable profits and in which there isn’t some stupid anti-competitive legislation blocking entrance into that market, please let me know. I’ll be all over it.).

Ok, so that said, now think about the industries where people actually make minimum wage. The things that obviously pop to mind are jobs in food service, hospitality, and perhaps the very lowest, unskilled manufacturing and service jobs. Of course, if you’re making minimum wage, you may very well depend on the fact that you can get a double-cheeseburger at McDonald’s for 99 cents. By raising the minimum wage, it’s that very cheeseburger that’s going to cost more, and so the net result to you personally is going to buying-power neutral: you make a little more money, and your basic goods and services cost a little more. You also run the risk of making the companies less competitive globally, because your labor costs more than that overseas, but I discount this argument to a great extent, because, while accurate, the fact is that the minimum wage jobs are generally not making a significant contribution to the labor pool of international companies. McDonald’s is not grilling burgers in Detroit and selling them in Mumbai, so it doesn’t play much of a role.

In general, so long as minimum wage is kept low enough to only effect the small pool of workers that it does, my opinion is that, while more or less stupid, it doesn’t really matter.

Anyway, this often comes up during election years and this year was no exception. I had been lumping minimum wage discussion as an attempt at simple voter-pandering for votes: “elect me and I’ll make sure you get more money!” But it was always curious to me why they’d make such a big deal out of it, when really not that many people make minimum wage. The census statistics show that about 2.5% of wage earners make minimum wage, but the vast majority of these are in an industry where they are really working for tips, and as a result make much more than minimum wage (by the way, it may surprise you to know that airport skycaps, the guys that take your bag, move it 2 feet to a conveyor belt, and expect a tip, average over $100,000 a year in income at busy airports. And I’m sure they’re accurately reporting all those dollar bills on their tax filings…).

How many people actually make minimum wage, without tips? 0.33% of workers. Not exactly a large voting block.

But, at last, I had the ah-ha moment where I realized that all this claptrap about minimum wage wasn’t about that little handful of people, struggling to live off of such meager wages. Nope, not at all. That is just posturing to make you feel sad for those folks and support the position of increasing minimum wage, despite the fact that basic economics says it won’t help them.

Here’s the real reason those politicians made such a big deal about it: a significant number of union jobs are tied to the prevailing minimum wage rate.

Unions. A large and powerful voting block. That’s why it’s such a big deal, and this is a way to get higher wages for union employees, not because of their work for the companies they labor for, but because of propagandist tactics making you feel sorry for the 0.33% of people that make minimum wage.

So, if an apprentice in the local union gets 2x minimum wage, then you’ve just increased his salary. Same for the guy that makes minimum wage plus $25 an hour. And right up on the chain the wage increases go.

And that WILL make the companies those employees work for less competitive, because, while McDonald’s does not make burgers locally and sell them overseas, Boeing does indeed make airplanes locally and sell them overseas, and you’ve just driven up the cost of their airplanes while Airbus can keep making them outside the reach of American minimum wage laws. And that does hurt the company, the economy, and overall, the United States.

Of course, this isn’t the only issue you need to look at when casting your vote,. I can think of one state election this past year where the two candidates differed on the issue, but I would have (if it was my district), voted for the guy that wanted to raise minimum wage, even with this new knowledge, because the guy that didn’t want to raise minimum wage was a crazy right-wing religious nutjob who might well stomp all over your rights for his moral superiority. However, I think it’s important to understand that the ramifications of increasing minimum wage are much different that the stories about Jennifer, single mother of three who makes minimum wage, would lead you to believe.

And perhaps just as important, ask yourself whether your congressman should really be involved in setting the wages of pipe fitters or autoworkers, or if thats something that should really be up to the employers and their employees.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

2007-03-05T21:02:00.000-05:00

And I'm not talking organic rice krispies here!

Today I went in for my 2 week follow-up x-rays, and, despite my careful efforts to keep my hand protected, the bones slipped apart again. In fact, they looked worse than they did in the first x-ray.

So, what that means is that the doc got to resent (i.e. re-break) my bone again. This time, he numbed it up (which worked great) for the manipulation. The second x-ray showed that everything was perfectly lined up again and this time they splinted it at a much greater curvature than the first time. Basically it's at the same curve that you'd have if you were making the "OK" sign with your ring finger and thumb. This also means it's going to be much more in the way - nice.

By the time I was getting in the car to drive home, the nerve block was wearing off and - yowza - this thing smarts. To put it in perspective, when I first broke it, they gave me a prescription of Vicodin for the pain, and I only took one tablet on the very first night right before bed. Now, I'm on my forth tablet of the evening.

And Vicodin sucks. I'm sure it affects different people slightly differently, but for me, I'm not sure how much pain it's taking away (but I'm not about to run a personal experiment since it is helping some), and it makes me feel like I've just woken up from a NyQuil induced sleep. So now my finger hurts and I feel like I'm got some kind of unpleasant hazy hangover going on. Oh yes, sign me up for more.

So I go back in one week. If it slips again, it's time for surgery to put a pin in it. Fantastic.

No hand fracture, no worries, god bless global capitalism

2007-02-21T13:42:00.000-05:00

I called the orthopedist this morning and found that he was in surgery. So, I left a message with his staff about the xray discovery. They asked if the Dr. had a copy of the xray, and I said I didn't think so because I carried the xrays in myself. However, I said I had scanned in the xrays and could email them in. She just giggled -- you know the "I don't know what in the heck you are talking about" giggle.

Anyway, I left the message and then spent 15 minutes or so trying to determine the format of the email addresses at OrthoIndy so I could email the xray anyway. I took my best guess and sent it off.

At lunch, I got a call back from the nurse who said the Dr. had received my email and reviewed the xray again (imagine that! email! hilarious!). He thought it was probably a vein, but that it might be a hairline fracture. If it was bothering me I could buddy-tape the two fingers together, but unless it got really bothersome, not to worry about it.

After some more discussion at home, I thought that it was probably worth trying to get one more opinion on the xray, rather than risk a long term injury over my laziness to do so. I happened to find JustAnswer.com, which is a website for posting medical questions and having them answered by doctors from around the world (ie. India).

You only pay if you are satisfied with the answer, and it's $15 bucks. Within 10 minutes I had two doctors answer my question, and they both took the time to read through my blog as well as the info I submitted on the site. Here's what I got back:

In my opinion there is a single fracture in distal part of middle phalanx of ring finger of left hand. The other shadow which you are questioning is actually an artifact & not a fracture.

and this as well:

I agree with Dr. Munjal that it does not look like a fracture. It is rather the superimposition of one structure on another. I have an additional suggestion for you that would provide even MORE evidence that is based on my knowledge of American medicine and ER care. I looked at your blog and found that the X-ray was done in the Emergency Department of a hospital. At this point that means that THREE MDs have read this X-ray.
1) the emergency physician
2)the radiologist (X-ray reading specialist MD who would read it the next day) AND
3) your orthopedist.
Simply go to the hospital and ask for the "Official" X ray report from the radiologist. You are entitled to it. If he or she also read it OFFICIALLY as normal you have THREE MD's who have read it as "normal". That would put it totally to rest; they can't ALL be wrong!

So there you go. And let me point out that it wasn't a long wait in the bowels of socialized medicine program that helped me out, but instead it was a non-insurance based, global capitalist website that got me what I needed, in under 10 minutes, for $15 bucks. God Bless Capitalism. Boo-yah.

hand fracture or no?

2007-02-20T22:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I just did some digging and found a "standard" hand xray for comparison. Maybe my suspected second fracture is just where other bones connect and it's no big deal. I'll probably call anyway, but here are the two images for you to comment on. My hand is on the left, standard hand on the right.

Xrays and stuff you don't want your doctor to say

2007-02-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

You know you're in trouble when your doctor says "Ok, now I'm going to have to hurt you, hold tight..." ouch. As you might have guessed, thats when he reset my finger, and no, it wasn't very pleasant.

Here are my xrays before they fixed it. I'm in a new splint now, and he estimates 5 weeks to heal, with a new xray at 2 weeks to see how it's doing.

In this first xray, you can see pretty clearly that my finger is broken just behind the first joint. After the adjustment, this was all lined up again.

Ok, so I *thought* that was the more disturbing image.... that was until I started messing with the contrast and exposure in order to make these easier to see. Here is the second image:

Ok, so all I was going to show here was that if you look at the longest finger, you can count the three joints. If you look at the ring finger there, you can see between the first and second joint there is a nice horizontal line that looks kinda like an extra joint. Thats the fracture.

However, when I dimmed the exposure and cranked up the contrast, I made what appears to be a disturbing discovery. Look at the bottom between the two fingers I just mentioned. I'm no xray technician, but I would say that is pretty clearly a sizable crack right down the middle on the palm of my hand. To my knowledge, no one even looked at my hand as the focus was just on this finger. The emergency room report doesn't say anything about my hand at all, and so the orthopedist didn't even look at it to my knowledge. Something tells me that I need to give the orthopedist a call tomorrow morning and email him my enhanced image. I hope I'm wrong, but that doesn't look right to me.

More to come...

Oh, snap! (literally)

2007-02-19T20:58:00.000-05:00

Only I could manage to break a bone while at my soccer game, but not while playing soccer. Last night, after playing the first half in goal and stating the second half as midfield, I subbed out to catch my breath. A minute or so later, the ball flew out of bounds through a hole in the netting that surrounds the field (this place isn't the best maintained, as this story will show), an bounded down the hallway toward the emergency exit.

Not wanting the game to get slowed up too much, I jumped up and ran down the hallway to get it. Well, this hallway doesn't have any lights on so it was pretty dark, especially given that my eyes were adjusted to the field lights... Anyway, the ball stopped in the corner by the alarm-door, and as I tried to slow down to pick it up, much to my surprise I discovered that there was a leak in the roof back there, and with all the snow we had it was leaking pretty fiercely. I'm sure you can see where this is going but, let me spell it out mathematically for you:

linoleum floor + giant puddle of water + darkness + flat soled indoor soccer shoes + being in a hurry + 32 years old + a few extra pounds around the midsection = bad news

I hardly even remember trying to stop. I remember thinking "ok, I'll pick the ball up and Johnny will be back at the bench. I'll just turn and throw it back to him so that...." WHOOSH! Both feet and most of my rear end were airborne and higher than my head, I was staring up and the ceiling, and BAM! On my back. "Man that hurts... must get ball... must get ball."

So I popped up, thew the ball back to the bench, and realized that my left ring finger was in considerable pain. It started swelling up immediately and I could feel it pushing on my wedding ring. After a minute or two of gathering myself, I headed over to the snack counter and got some ice. 10 minutes of holding my hand over my head inside the ice bag and considerable pulling later, I got the ring off, thankfully.

I was able to move my finger mostly, and it looked straight, so I figured this was just the latest in a fairly colorful history of bad finger jams (much to my mother's chagrin, I was goalie in soccer, catcher in baseball, an have really poor basketball handling skills...). Once I got the ring off it wasn't hurting nearly as bad so I subbed back in for the last 5 minutes (not as goalkeeper, mind you). I figured in a week or two it'd be fine again ("just rub some dirt on it!").

One of the guys invited me out for a beer afterwards, so I took him up on that. I kept my finger on ice the whole time and really, it felt stiff but only a bit sore and not too bad. After a beer I headed home and told Amy the story, etc. By the time I settled in for bed, it was pushing 11pm or so which was about 2 1/2 hours from when I fell.

Well... I took another glance at the finger and now it had turned considerably more purple and the swelling was, shall we say, unevenly spread on the finger. Yadda yadda yadda, better get an x-ray of that thing, and off to the emergency room, since all the immediate care places were closed at that point on a Sunday.

A nurse, doctor, and an xray technician later, I have a nice clean horizontal fracture straight across my ring finger about a quarter inch below the first joint, with a little twisting of the fractured piece to boot. Temporary splint and make an appointment to see the orthopedist after they open in the morning.

I'll post an update tomorrow as well as an image of the xrays if I can figure out how to do that as well.

Be cautious, however, because by reading this blog post, The Curse of Dairmuid Zoolander O'Dowd may set upon you next. It can apparently travel vast distances over the internet, including crossing large ocean bodies, as it was only two days ago that I read how Dairmuid (in Ireland) broke his finger in a rugby match, and then it struck me.

Consider yourself warned!

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-02-17T00:58:00.000-05:00

[disclaimer: it's late, and I've not reread this at all before posting it. there are likely grammatical errors and such in there. you'll have to deal with that.]

After spending the last several days working on the inconvenient truth that is taxes, I decided to watch Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming. As most of you know, I spent a whole lot of time digging through a whole lot of research over the last several weeks, and I’ve taken a good week off from reading it to give it some time to digest. I felt that I had a good scientific basis to work from when watching the movie, and as much as I didn’t want to give Al Gore any money by watching the movie, I wanted to see what all the talk was about.

Let me start by giving a few overall impressions.First, as you might expect, the movie is well done. It's not the greatest thing I've ever seen, but it's as interesting to watch as a good episode of Nova or a documentary on Discovery Channel. It’s not as though it’s made in some blatant Michael Moore propaganda method, and Al Gore does not come across as some kind of crazed lunatic or anything like that.

Second, I was surprised at the overall lack of real scientific content there was in the film. While I didn’t time it, I’d guess that well over half the film, perhaps as much as 3/4ths is spent on non-science issues: Al Gore’s home farm, his sister with lung cancer, anecdotes about this glacier here, or a woman’s house on the permafrost. Yes, these things are meant to be emotionally moving, and if I were making a movie like this, I would use the same sorts of tactics. However, there was a *lot* of that in the movie… a lot. It’s the amount that surprised me, no the mere presence of such emotional angles.

Finally, the movie, and presumably Al Gore’s underlying presentation, simply makes the assumption that, given a chart on CO2 levels and a chart of temperature levels, that I’m going to buy into the human CO2 production causes global warming concept. That is intended to happen in the first 10 min or so of the movie. After that, it’s all about what will happen when the temperatures rise, and providing evidence (much of it anecdotal), that temperatures are rising and that all these bad things are starting to happen.

I’ve already discussed what I found in researching the correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures—that being that historically it’s temperature that moves first, not CO2 levels. Because of that historical relationship, there isn’t overwhelming scientific reason to believe that if CO2 levels move first, temperature will follow. It could happen, as I’ve said before, but jumping to that conclusion and then basing billions of dollars on what will happen if you are right is not a prudent thing to do. Spending some time and money proving, or disproving, your assumption would be the appropriate next step.

There are a number of things in the film that I could debate and discuss. For example, Mr. Gore says 40% of the worlds population depends on the Himalayan glaciers for fresh water, and that they are receding—but then I’ve read reports that only 0.5% of the glaciers in the Himalayas are even being studied. He claims that global species are being lost at a rate “1000 times greater than the natural background rate,” and some casual internet searching suggests that this is a whole other pandora’s box to explore, but the founder of Greenpeace thinks quite differently as commented in the Penn & Teller Bullshit episode Hawkins sent the link to. I don’t’ know who’s right, but everyone that talks about it, much like global warming, seems to throw information around without the facts they are pulling from. He talks about the importance of Antarctic ice and how it’s melting into the ocean, but just yesterday I read a report that says Antarctic temperatures are disagreeing with global warming models.

But all that, while it might be interesting to research and find out what is solid and what is a stretch, is beside the point. The point is that a clear scientific link between human CO2 production and global warming isn’t made in the movie. It’s assumed. And really, that’s a well known (and effective) way to get people to believe you. Right in the beginning of the movie, Al Gore says something like “I know you’re all aware of how greenhouse gasses warm that atmosphere, so we won’t spend much time on that,” --which is something right out of the debating class 101 handbook: establish your basis as indisputable common knowledge and build from there. No one, after all, wants to feel like they’re the only ones that weren’t aware of this alleged “common knowledge.”

To quote from the link I just gave:In the 1990's scientists started to question the greenhouse effect theory, because of major uncertainties in the data sets and model outcomes. They protested the basis of the theory, which was data of global annual mean temperatures. They believed that the measurements were not carried out correctly and that data from oceans was missing. Cooling trends were not explained by the global warming data and satellites showed completely different temperature records from the initial ones. The idea began to grow that global warming models had overestimated the warming trend of the past 100 years. This caused the IPCC to review their initial data on global warming, but this did not make them reconsider whether the trend actually exists. We now know that 1998 was globally the warmest year on record, followed by 2002, 2003, 2001 and 1997. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990.
What Mr. Gore completely avoids stating is that the Greenhouse Effect is, in fact, a theory. It is not a proven fact. Certainly there is evidence to support the theory, and it’s hard to imagine that it doesn’t play at least some role in the global temperature, but how much of a role, if any, is an open question. Ignoring this and passing the greenhouse/co2 theory off as hard-proven fact is grossly misleading, and is the basis for the entire movie.

My point being, again, that you can’t just ignore the fact that greenhouse warming is a theory still under debate, and then charge ahead without even alerting the viewer that that is the case, particularly when it’s alleged to have such significant consequences.

He uses statistics to establish consensus, and then consensus to provide credibility for the theory-which-isn’t-called-a-theory. He says that of 900-some-odd scientific papers reviewed, none of them disagreed with the concept of human caused global warming, but I’ve found published papers myself that do just that, and they date back into the 90s, so I’m not sure what the basis there is. In fact, the wikipedia entry on the global warming debate cites “when I checked the same set of abstracts, I discovered that just over a dozen explicitly endorse the ‘consensus,’ while the vast majority of abstracts does not mention anthropogenic [human caused] global warming.”

So the statistic is that zero of 900 said humans weren’t the cause, and so the implication is that 900 said it was. But that’s where statistics can lie. I could use the same body of work and say “Of 900 peer reviewed journal articles about the origins of global warming, only twelve—scarcely more than 1%--advocated humans as the cause of global warming.” Such a statement, while statistically accurate, is completely misleading, and is made in the same way using the same data as Mr. Gore used. The truth is that you’re using a lousy sample set to establish an opinion on either side, but again, this is great stuff for winning a debate. The thought process they want you to follow is:

These guys are scientists.They’re smarter than you, and they aren’t fooling around.
900 peer reviewed articles might involved thousands of different scientists! That's a lot!
None of them think humans AREN’T the cause of global warming.
Only non-scientific morons would think otherwise, given all this evidence.

So that’s all good for winning your high school debate contest, and it’s inevitably going to fool a whole lot of people that either don’t know better or haven’t built up a base of knowledge on the issue, or both. I won’t call it an outright lie, because the idea of the movie is to ‘win the debate,’ and anyone trying to do that will probably use the same sorts of time-proven tactics. But, I am pointing out that these statistics to prove consensus are very misleading when the underlying data is examined.

While I’ve not looked (although I probably will) for websites that have analyzed this movie in great detail, because I’m really not interested in nit-picking the individual statements made in the film. Are sea levels going to rise 20 feet? Is Florida going to disappear under the ocean? Will 40% of the people die from lack of fresh water? I have no idea, and I don’t think it matters at this point in the debate. Anyone that’s making a film which is designed to get a point across will use anecdotes and statistics which support their point of view, and there’s really nothing wrong with that. The problem is that, in this case, the very core of the argument is presented in a casual “hey, you already know this is true, lets move on” sort of way, and I think it’s very misleading—particularly when you and I both know that a whole lot of people are going to take that information at face value, and it will be the only source they ever use for forming an opinion on global warming.

So again, for the umpteenth time, I’m not saying that humans are definitely not causing global warming. I’m not saying that the greenhouse effect is some kind of myth. What I am saying is that we should really try to get some more scientific proof via hypothesis and experimentation before we go dumping all kinds of cash into this. There are plenty of other scientific “theories” that I’m fully on board with, and they’re still theories too. But – if someone were to tell me that evolution proves that humans are on the verge of evolving into mindless beings that will destroy themselves, and that we need to suddenly spend a couple hundred billion dollars to stop it, I’d probably start by reexamining that theory of evolution to be sure that I really understood where things where headed, why, and what I could do about it before I busted out the checkbook and handed over that kind of cash.

There are *plenty* of perfectly good reasons to promote energy efficiency, less dependence on fossil fuels, and the like. For one, I’m not all that keen on coal power, given that, in the US, over 800 tons of uranium is spewed into the atmosphere each year from the burning of coal for power. I also find it pretty darn stupid to be using coal in that way when the energy potential of the uranium burned in doing so is greater than the energy produced by the coal power plant itself!

It may surprise you to find out that in the United States, where every garage is filled with a handful of automobiles, that electricity generation is still far ahead of automobiles as the leading producer of CO2 emissions. If you factor in the rest of the world, the spread would be even greater. Coal and natural gas represent nearly all of the CO2 emissions from electricity generation.

So I have an idea of Mr. Gore’s next move. I call it “A Convenient Solution: Nuclear Power.” The data suggests that choosing nuclear over coal and natural gas for power generation could cut the CO2 emissions of the US by over 50%. And you know what, I’d feel a lot better knowing that theuranium waste is either in a pebble-bed graphite ball, or in a barrel a mile under a mountain, rather than being spewed up into the air for me to breathe in, day in and day out, while I scratch my head wondering how in the world we could cut these pesky CO2 levels!

But, nuclear power continues to fall victim to pressure from environmental groups – probably the same environmental groups that are complaining about CO2 levels.How’s that for an inconvenient truth?

This photo/headline struck me as funny

2007-02-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

Reuters had a story which ran at the top of Yahoo today titled "Taliban Deploy 10,000 Fighters for Attack" and then had this photo:

So here are, I presume, 5 of the 10,000 men, apparently armed with, from right to left: A Kalashnikov, nothing at all, some sort of bi-pod assault weapon, a bowl of oatmeal, and another Kalashnikov.

I'm not sure what about this picture is supposed to lend credence to the 10,000 man assault team, but five guys armed with three machine guns and a cauldron of breakfast cereal doesn't really reflect the headline, does it?

Impact of air travel on CO2 levels

2007-02-12T14:39:00.000-05:00

Looks like about 2-3% of human CO2 emissions come from airplane exhaust. That means that airplanes account for:

(3% from airplanes) * (0.7% increase in CO2 levels attributable to humans) = 0.02%

So, air travel accounts for 0.02% of the increase in CO2 levels. Lions and tigers and bears - oh my!

One of the news reports I read points out that "travel by ship produces 160x less CO2 than by air" which I had to laugh at. They don't give any explanation as to how they calculated that -- is that point-to-point or per hour, or what? I have a vision of super-commuters that were flying from NYC to L.A. now piling into ships bound for the panama canal aboard a giant, diesel powered beast, rumbling through the waters. LOL. Am I really to believe that a ship full of people crossing oceans over a period of weeks produces less waste than a jet in the air for 4 hours?

Some days there's just too much material...

2007-02-12T13:28:00.000-05:00

You can't make this stuff up...

Latest Government figures show that the flowers that make up the average bunch have flown 33,800 miles to reach Britain...

Environmentalists warned that "flower miles" could have serious implications on climate change in terms of carbon dioxide emissions from aeroplanes.

If you want to read the article, it's here, but seriously, don't waste your time. There's no scientific evidence provided and you've got everything you needed to know in that quote. I'm assuming that this must be a reasonably wide-spread theory among 'the believers', so if I get a chance, I'll see what I can dig up and what the rationale is...

Global Warming Interview with President of Czech Republic

2007-02-12T10:21:00.000-05:00

When people aren't being politically correct, they can say some funny things. I love it.

[copy-paste from the Drudge Report]

President of Czech Republic Calls Man-Made Global Warming a 'Myth' - Questions Gore's Sanity Mon Feb 12 2007 09:10:09 ET Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis. In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions: Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?• A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.• This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.• Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...• A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice. • Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?• A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.• Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.• Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.• Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?• A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.• Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...• A: ...I am right...• Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?• A: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.• Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?• A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.• That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say. Well, it makes a lot of sense, Prof Klaus. Other parts of the interview were dedicated to the Organization of European States (and Jo Leinen), the Czech civil cold war that has already ended, the radar for the U.S. missile defense, and his relations with the current Czech government. Show postings on this blog that contain the word Klaus. [English translation from Harvard Professor Lubos Motl]

More on global warming and cloud formation

2007-02-11T21:54:00.000-05:00

Here's another article which, after raising some of the same complaints that I have about this global warming debate, cites Dr. Svensmark's experiment with the cloud formation in a box. There's no new data here, but I'm glad to see someone else raising questions about the unscientific nature of what should be a scientific debate.

Now, granted, I have not seen the actual data from the Svensmark's experiment. The whole thing could be bunk. Maybe he's making it up. BUT - at the very least, someone has proposed an experiment as a method of determining the cause of global warming, and someone else (the writer of the above article) has taken notice that experimentation is fundamental to scientific proof.

I'm also raising my estimate to the odds that no one has conducted an actual experiment proving the CO2=greenhouse gas=global warming tie to about 99.9999%. Either the internet is completely absent of that experiment, or it just doesn't exist. I'm guessing the latter. (I have no scientific evidence to back up this claim either, but that seems par for the course...)

Which leads me to my next irritation about this thing. People who have not bought into the human/CO2/warming combination are referred to as "global warming skeptics" or, in more propagadized (is that a word?) terms "global warming deniers" which is a really stupid attempt to equate skepticism of human caused warming with denial of the Holocaust. Whatever.

Anyway, ignoring that obvious stupidity, calling someone a "skeptic" in science implies that someone doubts the results of a particular experiment or overwhelming proof. If I said I had developed a drug that destroyed all cancer, then, in the absence of data, you'd dismiss me as a lunatic. If I backed my claims up with data, you'd probably be skeptical of my claims until you could repeat the experiment that produced the data yourself.

So, "skeptic" implies that there's something to be skeptical about. There isn't, because in this case there is no experimental data or overwhelming proof. There is only circumstantial evidence. So, to me it doesn't seem like there should be a group called "skeptics" so much as there should be a group called "believers". Belief in the absence of proof is something that you find in religion and philosophy, not science.

Instead of spending billions to address the CO2 problem, how about spending millions to get some experiments setup and completed which confirm (or deny) this linkage? Is that too much to ask, given the kinds of dollars that will be spent here?

almost forgot...

2007-02-05T19:05:00.000-05:00

Amy sent me this link to an article by a climatologist in Canada who, more or less, is making the same complaints that I did earlier, although without the eloquent tongue of Jeff Ready to assist him! ;)

The only thing hotter than global warming is my MacBook Pro

2007-02-05T18:28:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jay (see assortment of comments below) my global warming research continues, although to be honest I may need to take a bit of a break from it. I've spent no less than 20 hours over the last week searching for and reading through research, which as I've said before, is often hard to find among all the "media summaries" that are out there without citing actual research.

Just now, I got a whole new list of links to check out from Jay (also below) which I haven't even touched on. However, I did want to make a few more comments on things before too many more days pass and it slips my mind.

First, one of the links below takes you to a wikipedia page of human caused global warming skeptics. I hadn't seen that one before, and I haven't yet even started to try and read through what all was there. But, I did notice that one of the scientists listed was Henrik Svensmark, who is the guy that has been researching how changes in cosmic radiation affects (thanks Jay) cloud formation, and is doing so by [GASP!] formulating, conducting, and observing experiments.

The information I was reading about his work came from his university website here, where you'll find his various journal articles and come peer-commentary on them. There have also been a number of other media reports touting an upcoming journal article, but since I've not seen that actual journal article, I can't give them a whole lot of credit yet.

Finally, there is an explanation (I think) as to why water vapor is left out of the warming calculations explained here (also a Jay link). Basically, the theory is that water vapor levels are reacting warming and not causing the warming, and by extension, water vapor levels are reacting to CO2 levels and aren't changing on their own. There is some math at that link that suggests why CO2 is the primary affector (is that a word?), and not some other greenhouse gas. I have another thought on that in just a sec...

Of course, Dr. Svensmark's work suggests that water vapor *is* reacting, just like the theory goes, but that it's reacting to something besides CO2 levels. And I'm not saying he's right, but at least, again, he's got some experimental data.

I continue to be nothing short of amazed and the seemingly completely lack of actual in-lab experimental data to support the whole linkage between CO2 and warming. Now, I'm no climatologist, but I've spent enough hours in a lab environment to have some idea as to how things work, and I really find it hard to believe that someone, somewhere, hasn't put a bunch of water vapor, CO2, and methane in a box, passed solar radiation through it, and measured the resulting heat levels over time. Then, added CO2, and done the same. I'm sure more would need to be done than that, but seriously, does that sound like a terribly complex experiment that can never be done?

Instead, the data continues to come from associated evidence measured from the atmosphere itself, which by it's very nature, is anything but a controlled environment (hence this whole debate).

While you can't prove a negative, I've come to the conclusion that such experiments have not been conduced (or at least, not published), and therefore data from that sort of experiment just doesn't exist. I don't know how or why thousands of scientists would all jump on board something that is nothing more than a hypothesis when experimentation seems well within out technological capacity, but it's happened. Weird.

Finally, doing hours or research right before bed every night has caused me to have some strange dreams. A few nights ago I had a dream that all branches of science had decided that circumstantial evidence was enough and that actual experiments were no longer necessary to declare something a fact. In this dream I wasn't feeling well so I went to the doctor. He said "well, you don't look good, and you don't feel good, but there's nothing obviously wrong with you, so it must be cancer."

"Cancer!?!" I said. "Don't you need to run some kind of test for that first?"

"Nope, we're just going to start you on chemotherapy now, because if we don't and it turns out to be cancer, you'll have wished that we did."

What the heck.

(No, I'm not making this up. This is the dream I had. Be warned that extensive global warming research can lead to annoying, unappealing dreams... or do the dreams cause the global warming research? I'm not sure.)

Global Warming Research

2007-02-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, so global warming has been all over the news with the recent conference and global warming report that came out today. I've been conducting an extensive amount of (very frustrating) research on my own. Let me start by stating that while I'm skeptical of a pending ecological disaster caused by humans (and anyone conducting research should approach claims of significant change with skepticism), I'm not going in on some kind of witch-hunt or trying to find research that supports a pre-defined view.

In fact, at this point it's quite the opposite: I'm working under the assumption that, with so many people jumping on the bandwagon, I've got to be missing something. And that's where I started...

So, let's start with a set of facts which I have researched and are supported by actual measured data from multiple sources. It doesn't make it right, but I believe this data is probably accurate. Here we go:

The earth has been getting warmer for the last 200 years or so. I've seen the data, it's simple measurement of temperature, and it's going up. Yes, we can measure temperature more accurately today than we could is 1863, but I don't have any reason to believe that the earlier temperatures would be wildly off. There are also sets of data that measure things indirectly effected by temperature change, and these support a warming climate as well. So is the earth getting hotter in recent years? Yes, it is.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels have increased over the same period (approximately the start of the industrial revolution. Based on various measurements, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere 200 years ago was approximately 288 ppm (parts per million). Today it is approximately 388 ppm. That's an increase of about 35% (100/288).
The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Yes, this is true. As you might expect, since "fossil fuels" means "fuels that came from living things" and living things are made up primarily of carbon, then the formation of carbon dioxide is not hard to understand.
The level of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere plays a role in the surface temperation. I've actually not been able to find the actual controlled environment experimental data that proves this, but I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb and accept that it plays a role anyway because of the very definition of what constitutes a greenhouse gas. "Greenhouse gasses" are made up of the following: Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and a group of gasses present in trace amounts. Other gasses like Nitrogen and Oxygen are not greenhouse gasses (I won't go into the explaination here, but it's easy enough to find if you are interested).

Alrighty then. From what I can tell, I'm supposed to jump to the conclusion that:

Humans burn fossil fuels which release CO2 into the atmosphere.
CO2 levels are rising
CO2 is a greenhouse gas
Higher concentrations of greenhouse gas will raise temperature
The earth's temperature is rising
Therefore, human burning of fossil fuels is causing the earth's temperature to rise.

So all that is true and fine, until you get to the last step. I think they've removed the "logic" portion of the SAT test since I took it (maybe this is why), but if this were on the test, you would answer that "the conclusion could not be reached based on the statements above."

If you aren't sure, let me walk you through the same logical steps using an obviously ludicrous basis:

Humans use ovens to cook
There are an increasing number ovens in use as human populations increase
Ovens produce heat
Heat increases temperature
The earth's temerature is rising
Therefore, human use of ovens is causing global temperatures to rise.

Obviously faulty logic. The problem is, that's all I can find. I can find a whole bunch of people that walk me through all the bulletpoints, give me graphs and charts, and data, and anectodes, but then nothing to actual bridge the gap between all that, and proof that the human behavior is actually linked to the warming planet. If you've got the connection, please tell me, because none of the sources I've find have done it yet.

But okay - I pressed on in the hope that maybe by just 'accepting' this premise, I'd end up with the evidence I needed as I dug deeper. The problem is, there really wasn't much to dig into. Like I said, you can find plenty of data on global temperatures, and plenty of data on CO2 levels, etc, etc, but nothing the solidly connects the two.

In fact, an observation I made which shocked me is based on looking at the charts that were supposed to be used to *support* this theory of human-induced global warming. Let me show you what I found:

Below is a chart that I'm sure you've seen in some form before. It shows the level of CO2 in the atmosphere for the last 1000 years or so.

(note that "today" is on the left side of this chart, zero-thousand years ago)

Ok, so the author of the graph took the liberty of adding the comment "the industrial revolution has caused a dramatic rise in CO2". This is more faulty logic, since what the chart shows is that "CO2 levels have increased dramatically since the start of the industrial revolution" - that is true - but looking at this chart and proclaiming that the industrial revolution *caused* the warming is beyond what you can actually say from this data. It's not automatically ruled out either, but logic says you can't make that claim based on what is shown in this chart.

In any case, the underlying graph, if you ignore the author's added statement, I believe to be accurate, and it does show, as supported by the data sets that I found as well, that CO2 levels have gone from about 288 to 388 ppm, like I said above.

Once you've seen that, the next graph to look at is the temperature graph, which again is something I'm sure you've seen before:

And so, here we have a chart (in which time goes from left to right, opposite of the first chart), that shows temperatures are increasing over this post industrial revolution period. Sure enough. Up they go, and I've seen enough data to believe that this guy didn't just make stuff up for the graph. You can see that the overall swing in temperature is about 1-degree C during the life of the graph here.

So now, without further adieu, I ask you to jump to the conclusion that CO2 levels are the primary cause of this temperature increase!

But wait, there's a problem... If you lay the two charts on top of each other, get the date ranges to match up, and, of course, get them both going the same direction, here's what you get:
Ok, I know that chart is small, but the red/orange line represents temperature, and the blue line represents CO2 levels. So that matches up, just like the theory goes, right?

Wrong. Look closely and you'll see very clearly that the temperature moves before the CO2 levels move. First the temperature rises, and *then* the CO2 rises. First the temperature drops, and *then* the CO2 drops.

This is exactly the opposite of what this whole CO2/greenhouse gas theory says should happen. Remember that the hypothesis is that increasing CO2 levels cause the warming. But I (and now, you) have data in front of you - data that comes straight from the same people that want to you reach their conclusions - and it shows that, in a historical context, its the temperature that causes the CO2 level to change, and not the other way around.

If you're wondering why no one has noted this before, don't ask me. I'm asking the same question. Remember that I'm not regurgitating some anti-environment ultra-right-wing nonsense here. I'm telling you what I found in doing the actual research, and all the graphs I'm showing you have come from the wikipedia, not the National Review.

Ok, so before I move on to what I did next, let me share one more graph with you that I found in this research. If you do this yourself, you'll find that most of the articles that cite this stuff usually show you the charts from just the industrial revolution onward, which is really just poor science to do that, but the charts fit best with the theory there. If you get something bigger, it will probably be the chart I just showed you, which goes back 650 thousand years or so.

I kept looking for data that went back further--after all, the earth is 6.5 billion (with a B) years old.

Well, it's hard to find that data, but I did find this chart of CO2 levels going back millions, instead of thousands, of years.

Here again on this graph, present day is to the left, and 550-ish million years ago is on the right. Using the graph reading skills Kaitlyn has learned in kindergarten, you can see that on the left, we're practically at the lowest point on the whole chart! In fact, you can see the first mark going up the y-axis is "1000 ppm" for the CO2 level. From the data earlier, I noted that present CO2 levels were 388m - far less than even the first mark on that axis. The common ancestor to chimps and humans existed about 6 million years ago, so it's not like people were walking around when the CO2 levels were 2000 ppm. But still, it seems pretty obvious that over the course of this chart, that CO2 levels are seriously on the decline.

But anyway, I kept digging, as I was trying to find out what of the 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels could really be attributed to humans. In looking for that, I found out some general, and very interesting information about greenhouse gasses. First, here is the breakdown of what makes up the collection of things in the atmosphere called greenhouse gasses:

95% - water vapor
3.6% - carbon dioxide
0.4% - methane
1.0% - nitrous oxide
and trace gasses

Wow. So 95% of the greenhouse gas mix is water vapor. Seeing that, I had to jump in and do a little math:

(35% increase in CO2 over 200 years) * (3.6% of greenhouse gasses comprised of CO2)

equals a whopping 1.25%. Yes. All this hub-bub about the increasing CO2 levels and that only amounts to a 1.25% increase in greenhouse gas.

Adding fuel to the fire (or perhaps, insult to injury), I found research that suggests that if you add up all of the CO2 emissions ever released from the burning of fossil fuels, that would give you a maximum increase of 57 ppm. So, a little more math:

(57 ppm from humans) / (100 ppm increase in CO2 levels) * (1.25% greenhouse gas increase)

equals... (drum roll please)... 0.7%.

Yes. Humans burning fossil fuels have increased greenhouse gasses by 0.7% over the past 200 years, and THAT is causing the earth's eco-system to spiral out of control on it's way to roasting all of us through massive storms, great floods, and famine.

Are you kidding me? This entire theory is based on trying to link the earth's warming to an increase in CO2 of less than 1%? For pete's sake. It wouldn't surprise me if the instrumentation used to measure CO2 levels has a margin of error of at least that much!

So I don't know. If you want to say that the little change in greenhouse gasses is going to be the end of us all, then be my guest, but I'm going to think you are an idiot. In the absence of some additional proof, which I would be happy to look at, this whole thing seems like a wild goose-chase down the wrong path.

And the real problem I have with it is this: billions or even trillions of dollars could get tied up in programs, research, and retooling to lower CO2 emissions world-wide. And for what purpose? To take the 0.7% increase and make it, oh, 0.6%? 0.5%?

Meanwhile, let me remind eveyone, the earth really is warming! Will it stop? Maybe. Probably even. But when? Who knows. In the mean time, all of this money could be going into much more useful things like, say, trying to engineer grains that will grow in warmer, more arid climates. If the earth does heat up, we're going to still need food. And if it doesn't heat up that much more, then we'll have done research that might allow for crops to be grown in parts of the world where they can't now because it's too hot and dry, and that should make (almost) everyone happy.

And all that additional corn should even soak up a little CO2 while it's at it.

I did find some very interesting research that suggests that increasing temperatures are correlated with increased low-cloud cover. They have the data to support that, and, given that clouds are water vapor and water vapor is 95% of the greenhouse gas mix, then yes, it would seem that water vapor may have an effect on temperature. The research links this cloud cover with cosmic radiation levels from our sun and otherwise, and there are experiments that show that, in a controlled environment, exposing air to UV radiation will cause clouds to form.

Of course, humans don't cause any cosmic radiation, and so there are a bunch of people that have been ripping this guy a new one because his theory doesn't link humans to warming. (Oh the horror. As if we can't desire to get away from fossil fuels and have cleaner air, while at the same time not linking fossil fuels to the destruction of the planet. Anyway...)

Now I need to look into that more, but praise the lord that someone has set forth a hypothesis based on data, formulated, conducted, and has a repeatable EXPERIMENT, and is now publishing his observations and conclusions from that. The same scientific method you learned in junior high. Genius!

But anyway, my attempt to gain a better understanding of what this is all about has only opened up more questions about the theory at it's core. Temperature appears to effect CO2, and not the other way around. CO2 is just a small piece of the puzzle, and human induced CO2 is smaller than that. CO2 levels are among the lowest they ever have been on earth.

If you have more data (and I mean scientific data, not some screwball nonsense) that would suggest otherwise and would close the loop on this theory, I'm all ears.

Kaitlyn Ready - Photographer

2007-01-26T09:54:00.000-05:00

Today Kaitlyn's school is celebrating it's 100th day by having a "100-day" museum. Each of the kids was asked to do a project involving 100 items, and bring it in to display.

As many of you know, Kaitlyn loves to take pictures, and so she decided to take 100 pictures and bring them in to display. Amy showed her how to zoom in and out with her SLR camera, and set her loose around the house. Kaitlyn wandered around for much of the afternoon taking photos of whatever she thought was "interesting to look at."

After dinner, I downloaded the images to my laptop so I could print them out for her. Amy and I were amazed at the results (not that I'm biased or anything). It's fun to see what she likes to look at, and getting the 5-year-old-3-feet-off-the-ground-perspective is pretty neat as well. But what I was most amazed with was her choice of things to photograph. Several of these are simply patterns or macro shots that I would have never thought she'd think to photograph. Seeing her aiming and shooting with a giant SLR camera was pretty funny as well.

One of my favorites is on the page here. There's a link below to view the whole 100-photo ensemble. Keep an eye out for the cat paw print in the show, the zoom in of some plastic baby gates, and the smiley face of pool balls shot from the side. Kaitlyn was particularly proud of those.

Of course, daddy was up until 1:30am fighting the printer to get all these things to print out.

Link to Kaitlyn's 100-day Project: http://public.fotki.com/readyja/kaitlyns-100-day-project/

Load that up, then hit the "slideshow" link in the menu to the right.

Supertaster test scores revealed!

2007-01-23T10:34:00.000-05:00

So thus far, I've tested a variety of people for tasting ability using some test strips I ordered from a science teacher supply company. Using a somewhat unscientific scale of "tell me on a scale of 1 through 10" here are the results:

non-tasters: Dana, Collier, Mom
low-normal: Mike, Stacey, Carl
high-normal: Phil, Eno
supertasters: Amy, Jeff, Scott, Dad

Because among the "normal" tasters I've noticed two different reactions (and associated numbers reported), I split it into high and low categories, but under the strict 3-category system, these would all be considered normal.

And with limited results, we've got 25% non-tasters, 42% normal tasters, and 33% supertasters. Since just two families make of almost half of those tested, I'm surprised that the numbers line up as close as they do to the overall US population. From what I've read, the overall split would be 25/50/25 or 30/50/20 depending on whose study I'm looking at.

I can only hope that we supertasters use our powers for good and not for evil. :)

What's that? Bears/Colts you say? Boulderdash!

2007-01-22T08:25:00.000-05:00

Well who would have thought, Bears/Colts in the superbowl! That is just crazy talk. Too bad it wasn't being hosted in the midwest, because what a chaotic party that would be. I'm going to be cheering for the Colts, but I can't say I'm going to be terribly disappointed if the Bears win, but you do have to pick a side to make it more fun.

In other news, I'll give some props to Hawkins for posting up a Hillary Clinton Saturday Night Live funny.

Also, yesterday we had our first snow of the year, and probably got about 4 inches. Katilyn and Hailey were so excited! Hailey woke me up by saying "Daddy! Daddy! There's a big toe outside!" lol. Kaitlyn must have played outside for two hours, building a pretty impressive snowman with Vincent from next door.

Now I'm en route to California for a couple days. Northwest canceled the only direct flight from Indy to San Francisco, so I'm back doing the connection thing, which adds a couple hours to the trip. Ugh. But, the good news is that, with a little help from Hawkins, I've been given Gold Elite status, which didn't get me first class on this trip, but it did get me into the exit row and out of the middle of row 33. And, connecting through Detroit gives me the chance to use the airline club room feature of the Amex Platinum card, which is the only reason I even keep that thing. If you've never used an airline club room, it's basically the difference between sitting in nice hotel lobby vs. sitting at the Greyhound station. Food, quiet, desks, and couches. Not as nice as a direct flight, but it could be much worse.

I'm sure Ames will have some pictures of 'Frosty' the snowman up on her site soon. He was a good looking pile of snow!

Go Colts!

I TOLD you that lettuce tastes like gasoline!

2007-01-05T23:48:00.000-05:00

So Amy is reading this book, and in it the subject of "supertasters" came up. The book goes on to explain that supertasters, in general, will sense tastes much more intensely than the average person, in particular, bitter tastes, or for some people, sweet tastes.

This is not really new information to us, but it caused me to dive a little deeper into the subject this evening during some downtime. I knew from an experiment a few years ago that I qualified as a supertaster, and for those that know my eating habits, this is no surprise. Amy did as well, although to a slightly lesser degree than I did. Here's the test.

Swab some blue food coloring on the edges of your tongue. Take a piece of paper in which you've punched a 3-hole-punch type hole, and lay it over your tongue. Count the red bumps in the circle. While these aren't your tastebuds themselves, these little bumps are where your taste buds live.

If you have more than 30, you're a supertaster. 15 would be about normal. Less than 5 is a "non-taster", i.e, the guy that will eat anything. I have about a trillion I think. Well, not really, but depending on what part of my tongue I put the circle on, I had anywhere from 37 to "they are packed in there so close I can't possibly count them without a still photograph and photo-enchancement."

And, as it turns out, whatever you see there is probably in greater density down the back of your tongue (way back, as in, down your throat).

So I did some research and it's pretty interesting and "taste science" is a pretty new area, relative to the technologies out there. About 25% of people will be supertasters or non-tasters, and 50% will be normal tasters. For the supertasters, the variety of foods liked/disliked can vary wildly (much more so than with the other groups), but in general they are less likely to enjoy fruits (hello, Amy), and vegetables (hello, Jeff) because they taste so bitter.

In fact, what might taste intensely bitter to a supertaster might have no taste at all to a normal taster. This explains that I call the Lettuce Phenomenon (TM). You see, a lot of people don't understand how bad lettuce tastes. In fact, a suprisingly high number of people have told me that lettuce has "no taste" or "almost no taste at all" to which I respond -- "if you knew that that lettuce really tasted like, I assure you, you wouldn't be eating it".

Further evidence is the McDonald's Lettuce Factor (TM) in which I am able to determine that there is a piece of lettuce shrapnel on one side of a burger simply by tasting the other non-lettuce side. I've also been able to tell when lettuce *was* on a burger but was removed before it was handed to me. And finally, after years of wondering why, once in a while, my fries from McDonalds/Wendys/etc. tasted faintly like lettuce, I learned that the often-bored crews at these fine establishments will sometimes toss a piece of lettuce into the deep fryer, because the the high water content of the lettuce will cause a bit of a mini-fireworks display. Mystery solved.

The funny thing is, while most people that read this won't even believe me, those that are supertasters will know exactly what I'm talking about.

It also turns out that most kids err to the supertaster side and then move towards normal during adulthood. This is the explaination for why there are foods that you hated as a kid, but like as an adult. You think your pallet is more refined, but in fact, you just can't taste the food anymore. Haha.

Amy was asking me why I thought supertasting existed in people, and I told her that it was so that some of us would survive the Taco Bell/tainted Spinach/E. Coli outbreaks. As it turns out, this is not that far from the truth. The supertasting gene (and I didn't mention above, but they have traced this to a single gene), is thought to have evolved from areas where the ratio of poisonous plants to edible plants was highest. The ability to detect small amounts of bitterness saved us while our cohorts keeled over while choking down green onions from Taco Bell. Likewise, the non-taster gene evolves from areas where that ratio is lowest, allowing for the greatest taste tolerance in areas where almost everything is food.

Foods most often enjoyed by supertasters include meats and fats. Again, this is shocking news, I'm sure. Foods often disliked by supertasters include alcohol (hello again, Amy), mustard (hello Jeff), vegetables with the exception of corn, potatoes, and green beans (I'm not making this stuff up), raw tomatoes, coffee (Amy again), and peanuts & peanut butter (hello Jeff).

Also interesting is some association with texture and tasting. Supertasters identify texture as something that is likely to be a key factor in food dislike. Apparently (much to my surprise), for normal tasters texture was most likely to be noted when it contributed positively rather than negatively, and for non-tasters, well, they could care less about texture. However, no one has figured out why there is this texture association, but I speculate that perhaps the little bumps we counted earlier also contribute to how much you "feel" the food as well as taste it.

This also contributes to supertasters not liking foods with, what they call "double textures", for example, a sauce with bits of stuff in it, or as I have lovingly referred to this in the past, sauce with "chunks of nasty". At least I'm not alone. This too is tied to the same gene and is suspected to be evolutionary like the poison thing. Basically mixed textures (in the wild) could mean, dirty or contaminated instead of clean and pure ("boy, this water is chewy. oh well, drink up!").

And finally, while people, in general, can develop a "taste" for just about any edible food, this is not always the case with supertasters. The bitterness of the food in question can, in some supertasters, trigger an actual gag reflex (hello Jeff), in which case it is very unlikely that the person will ever be able to tolerate the food.

For me, peanut butter and rice are two foods I don't like, PB for taste, and rice for texture, but neither one actually triggers the aforementioned gag reflex, so maybe there's hope. However, pretty much all raw vegetables do, as well as raw tomatoes, as was reflected in an unfortunate childhood dinner-table incident involving a slice of salted tomato, a napkin, and a dash for the toilet.

I hope you enjoyed this little lesson on supertasters. While it does nothing except confirm that I'm a freakish eater, at least I know I'm not alone. See you at McDonalds.

PS - in the research, I also learned that the little diagram we all learned in school about the parts of the tongue and where you taste sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, is all a load of bullcrap. You can taste all of the above at any one tastebud, and there is no association at all with tastebud location and sensitivity to a particular taste. Spread the word! :)

Wild Card Weekend Predictions

2007-01-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

Also, vote for the Superbowl winner in my new PollDaddy poll to the right ->

Here we go for this weekend.

Dallas over Seattle
New England over the Jets
Philly over the Giants

and... ummm....

Kansas City over Indy. Ugh.

Cowher to become next Dolphins Head Coach

2007-01-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe. Actually who knows, but there has been quite a bit of rampant speculation (led by yours truly) as to who might be the next Dolphins head coach.

For those of you that don't know (which means just about everyone but me), Nick Saban, former Dolphins head coach, resigned yesterday to take a head coaching job with Alabama. This, after Saban has been denying such rumors since November. Thanks to the fine folks over at ProFootballTalk.com, I've had the inside scoop on this for a long time.

And now, these guys are reporting all kinds of speculation as to who might be the next coach of the Dolphins, but the good news is that all the names being floated so far are guys I'd love to have.

First up is Bill Cowher, current head coach of the Steelers. All season there has been reporting of his "retirement" after this season, even though he's got another contract season with the Steelers. However, the PFT guys are reporting that what he really wants is a big payday, which he can get by ending his tenure with the Steelers and cashing in with the highest bidder. Who can blame him either? He's done a great job with the Steelers and he doesn't get paid anywhere close to what some other coaches do. As it happens, the two coordinators of the Dolphins were both former coordinators under Cowher, so he could potentially drop right in, not have to change systems, and hit the ground running.

The second candidate is Bill Parcells. Word is the Parcells has had his fill with Jerry Jones, and I'd assume is coddling of Terrell Owens. And who can blame him for that either. So, he could be looking to move on as soon as Dallas loses a playoff game, and the Dolphins will be looking for a big name like him. PFT also reports that the GM of the Dolphins and Parcells are friends, and so that might be another good fit.

Finally, Bill Belichick of the Patriots. Strange as it may seem, there is a lot of "mystery" surrounding his contract with the Pats, and again the PFT guys can been speculating that "something is going to go down" with the Pats after the season. Rumors of some of the Pats staff headed for the Giants among them. If the organization gets blown apart, perhaps Belichick will be looking for new ground and a payday of his own.

In any case, this is at least something to keep we Dolphins fans interested in the off season. In the mean time, Go Colts! (and good luck with stopping Larry Johnson... yikes)

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T09:58:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone! As the first day of the post-holiday season, today also ends my 2-and-a-half week hiatus from exercise and worrying about what I was eating. It was fun while it lasted. I'm back on the band-wagon today, and I've got 5 days to try and get reasonably ready for a soccer game on Sunday.

Speaking of Sunday, this Sunday I got to cash-in on my birthday present from Amy and the girls by having a family trip to the Dolphins-Colts game on Sunday. Unfortunately, we didn't win, but it was close and came down to a Dolphins try at a Hail Mary pass at the end of the game. There was even an (unsuccessful) flea-flicker tried during the game, so that was exciting as well!

I made a make-shift "Cleo Lemon" jersey out of my Dolphins jersey to show my support for our quarterback who made his first NFL start today. Using duct-tape to make a "17" and also to cover the old name and write "Cleo Lemon" in it's place was a real crowd pleaser. I'm fairly certain I was the only one in the stands with a Cleo Lemon jersey - LOL. While in line for a dried-out-and-not-at-all-warm "hot" pretzel, and older guy behind me said "now he's a fine looking young quarterback who could do good things for your team in the future, good for you for supporting him!" I'm not sure how he can cast that judgement after seeing him play all of one half of a game, but hey, go Cleo!

Today we're off to the Children's Museum. Kaitlyn is off school until this coming Monday yet, and both she and Hailey (and Amy) have been sick since the day after Christmas. Today they seem to both be feeling well enough to do something (we hope).

Anyway, Happy New Year to all 7 people that read this!

What's this? Top noch customer service? In 2006?

2006-12-20T09:16:00.000-05:00

Well my plane is finally fixed and flying again. I flew it for the first time this week since August (!!!!) and everything is working fine. Thanks to the patience of Ames, I was able to fly it two days this week before Christmas sets in, and while the weather was good.

My GPS has had a couple issues. First, the very first time I removed the power cord from the unit, the tip stayed in and the wires came out. Luckily, it came with two cords (one for the car) and I've been using the second. However, it's starting to come apart as well.

Secondly, and more concerning, the battery pack has stopped charging. This means that as soon as power is disconnected, the unit goes dead. One of the real benefits of this unit (in my opinion) is that in the event of an electrical failure, you still have navigation thanks to the battery. In fact, it even has a simulated instrument panel so you still have some instrumentation if you have an electrical and/or vacuum failure.

Anyway, all that is for naught if the battery doens't work. This morning I called Garmin, and after puching "5" for aviation equipment, someone answered the phone in one ring. I told them that I bought the unit about a year ago (I got it last December), and described the battery and cable issues. Lo and behold, they guy took my address and is shipping me a new battery and cable, no questions asked. He asked what version of the software I had on the unit, but since I left the unit in the plane, I don't even know.

So how about that. In an age where you can't even return Christmas presents to Target and get your money back, Garmin is shipping me replacement parts for a year-old unit without so much as a proof of purchase, and I was on and off the phone in 5 minutes. Amazing! Go Garmin!

Stuck at the airport

2006-12-12T08:30:00.000-05:00

Apparently it takes a three-and-a-half-hour flight delay to give me time and motivation to post to my blog. At least I got an update posted before an entire month had past. I'm on my way to California for a 2 day work trip, which has now quickly become a one-and-a-half day work trip. The good news is that I got bumped up to first class. The bad news is that Indy doesn't have a NWA Club room, and so I don't get the comfy chairs and free internet while I'm waiting here. Oh well...

Amy again has posted plenty of family updates, including some really cute pictures, so in the very unlikely event that you are reading this without first reading her blog, you might want to check that out.

My exercise regime has gone to heck the last couple weeks, with a combination of travel and holidays getting in the way. This is my last trip to California this year, but of course there's Christmas travel now as well. Hopefully I can at least get a little bit of exercise during the coming weeks.

Nevertheless, soccer continues. We're now 2-5 this session. Due to a scheduling foobar, I was the only one on our team that showed up two weeks ago at the right time. The team I assembled at the last minute won that game, but it counts as a forfeit for us anyway. I suppose that makes me 3-4 as the goalkeeper even though we've lost one more than that.

And, we should have won our game this week. It was probably as good a team effort as we've put together this year. We played the best team in the league, in my opinion, even though it's the team we beat the first week and nearly beat again. Ah well... no one got hurt and it was a fun game to play, so that's good. We finally seem to have people showing up every week to play (the aforementioned schedule issue notwithstanding) which helps quite a bit. We still need some extra girls to play, but Stacey from the Indiana Venture Center tells me that she's going to sign up next session which will be a big help, assuming everyone else comes back as well.

Speaking of the IVC, I gave them official notice that I wouldn't be able to help them out much anymore given my increasing commitments with my other business projects. I haven't been able to go in nearly as much as they've asked me to anyway the last couple months, so this isn't really a change so much as it is me tell them "I've enjoyed helping out, but I'm too busy now - good luck to you." Haha. I'm sure I'll still go in once in a while when they have a company they'd like me to help out, but it's going to be really limited from now on.

Well, I guess I'll go stare out the window some more. They said the plane is down for maintenance, but it's just sitting here at the gate which leads me to believe that it's broken *and* no one is fixing it. That's not a good sign.

Updates you didn't need to get here...

2006-11-19T23:36:00.000-05:00

Much of the week was spent getting ready for a massive furniture delivery which happened on Friday. To see the before and after pics, just take a look at Amy's website. You'll also get to see some pics of her fencing... so just watch yourself or she's liable to poke someone with that thing.

Finally, I had a very early soccer game tonight, which allowed the family to come and watch me play. The girls surprised me by making signs and cheering from the stands. Kaitlyn held up a sign that said "That's my daddy, the Goalie!" and Hailey kept cheering "Nice save, Daddy!" Haha. I can tell you that's the first time I've seen anyone cheering with signs at one of our games!

Unfortunately, I was the only one on our team that showed up on time, and only two more people got there at all. So, I recruited some additional players from the previous game and we mixed the teams up a bit to have a scrimmage. While it won't count as such in the record books, our side won and I played pretty well despite a substantial lacking of defensive effort. I suppose if you're subbing in for a team just for the heck of it, you're more interested in scoring for yourself than playing defense. I did make a save on the one 3 v 1 breakaway they had, which is a miracle unto itself. I think I let out an audible "Oh, what in the heck" as that play developed. There are only 5 players besides the goalkeepers on each side - how you let 3-out-of-5 of them get behind your "defense" -- at midfield -- is beyond me.

Officially changing my car vote

2006-11-16T11:10:00.000-05:00

For a number of years, the car I had my eye on was a Lotus Esprit V8 Turbo. However, they stopped making them and so the styling has become dated and I lost interest. I substituted a Jaguar XKR for a while, but was always put off a bit by the lack of a manual transmission (in the USA).

So, I'm officially changing camps. I now prefer the Aston Martin DB9. Call me Bond. James Bond.

I'll have a Coke...err a soda... err a pop. Whatever.

2006-11-16T10:48:00.000-05:00

And so for my first poll, and post one that's been done a zillion times before, but that's okay. Having been raised a "pop" guy, college roommates with a "so-dee" guy, married a "coke" girl, and spending 5 years in a "soda" community, there's no telling what will fly out of my mouth when trying to order a soft drink. I'm still going to vote for "pop" however.

Of course, stupid Blogger won't let me post javascript within an actual posting, so if I did this right, the poll should show up on the right-side of the blog page here.

View Poll

Hailing from parts unknown... it's Jonathan Hill!

2006-11-16T10:24:00.000-05:00

On my last trip to California, who should I have the chance to meet up with by my good friend, Jonathan Hill from Ireland. I haven't seen him in 6 years, and I was so glad to get the chance to meet up with him again. We had quite a large group, so we didn't get to chat as much as would have been ideal, but I ended up meeting some great guys that he brought along and a good time was had by all.

Jonathan's company, Infacta, has a number of products including Group Mail which is how we ended up working together for a time in the 1998-2000 area. He told me about a new product he's experimenting with, PollDaddy, which is a blog widget/thingy/whatever to run survey's and polls. As such, I'm going to start using it and hopefully drive some traffic his way.

Of course, that traffic won't come from me, but maybe some of the people that do read my blog and have more popular blogs of their own, like Amy or Hawkins, will use it and thus an avalanche of PollDaddy traffic will ensue. :)

(editors note: I'm sure Jonathan is thrilled that I've posted a wedding photo of him on my blog, but despite his interest in photography, there are suspiciously few photos on his site of himself, so he gets what he deserves!)

A million updates

2006-11-16T10:23:00.000-05:00

I've got a million things to post about and update, but my laziness continues. To add to the confusion, Blogger asked me to update to the beta today, which I did, and I'm still waiting for the email that says I can post in the new system. I figured out how to still login to the old system, so for now I'm just going to do that.

Anyway, prepare ye self for a flurry of updates...

Limited recent progress in project "Get in Shape"

2006-11-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

I'm now well into my attempt to get into some sort of reasonable physical shape. We just finished the 3rd week of my second soccer season, which means I'm not about 13 weeks into my attempt.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like a lot of progress has been made recently. While I'm still much better off than I was after my first game, at the game last night I was tired early, didn't run the field much because of it, and was pretty well exhausted by the end of the game. I am fighting off a bit of a cold, but it's very minor and I can't believe it would make that much of a difference.

Most disheartening is that this game at the end of a reasonable week of sticking with the treadmill routine. I hit the treadmill 3 times in addition to my game, and have been keeping up pretty well with my push-ups. Usually if I get at least 3 treadmill jogs in, then I do much better on Sunday, but that seems to have petered out some.

Tied to this is the fact that, despite all of this exercise, I've been putting on a decent amount of weight since I started. My theory is that I'm adding muscle mass but not getting rid of any fat, but getting rid of fat was most of the reason for starting this anyway.

So, all that adds up to a need to alter the diet. Ack. All last week I cut back the calories and ate better, but all I had to show for it was fatigue while playing soccer. Nice.

Adding even more chaos into my attempt to diet is a show that Amy and I watched on Discovery Health called "On a Diet" (I think). Basically, this show explains that the real problem isn't weight, but it's weight that you carry around your belly button, which of course is right where most of my extra weight is. It goes on to explain the dangers of some processed foods including High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated Oils.

Some of this we already knew, but in short here's the scoop: high fructose corn syrup is a whole lot cheaper than real sugar, and so all these packaged foods use it. But, it's also has a much higher calorie count for the same amount of sweetness. So the result is that you get the same taste as sugar with twice the calories. Thanks a lot for that.

The hydrogenated oils are a worse than that. Basically they were an attempt to create a healthier oil that didn't work out, and the resulting product raises bad cholesterol, lowers good cholesterol, and worst of all, actually tricks the body into thinking it's hungry after you eat it because of some indigestible parts of it.

So this makes for a fine combination, doesn't it: eat the oil, screw up your cholesterol, get hungrier, and stuff down extra calories for the same amount of food. No wonder the old midsection is swelling up.

The most annoying part of the whole thing for me is the presence of high fructose corn syrup in just about everything. First of all, its annoying because sugar tastes a lot better than this HFCS stuff anyway, and it's better for you. This was obvious in our visit to Texas, where we stumbled upon Dublin Dr. Pepper, a Dr. Pepper bottling plant that refused to make the switch to HFCS whenever that was mandated by the company. As a result, they are the only plant in the world that makes Dr. Pepper with real sugar. And SURPRISE, it's tastes better -- noticeably better. Not that drinking Dr. Pepper with real sugar is your key to losing weight, but you see my point.

Secondly, HFCS is in everything, and if you don't believe me, start reading your food labels. In going through the cabinets, the biggest disappointment was Rice Krispies. Yes, Rice Krispies. Why in the world would you put HFCS in something that you can't taste any sugar in anyway? For God's sake, the first thing I do with a bowl of Rice Krispies is put a spoon of regular sugar on it anyway, so the HFCS is totally worthless.

And another thing - the peanut butter we had contained both hydrogenated oil and HFCS. What? I don't like peanut better but the last time I checked, peanuts were full of their own oil, and the process of making peanut butter consisted of shelling peanuts and beating them to a pulp. Who the heck thinks you should add oil to a product from which you get oil? Hey I've got an idea, lets dip this butter in corn oil before we package it up...

Anyway, I'm hardly the one to launch a crusade of eating healthy, and I'm all about making food taste good. But, when you are adding crap into food which (1) makes it taste worse and (2) is worse for you then let me be the first to say "that's stupid."

At least I'm guaranteed to lose some weight now, because when we got rid of all the food with this extra crap in it, we were left with nothing to eat. Yee ha.

All the latest news (that's fit to print)

2006-10-30T16:05:00.000-05:00

So I'm what you would call a horrible blogger. It's been a month since I made a post, and that's just sad. I guess since people suggested that I not rant on so much about political topics that I just have nothing to say. Haha.

In airplane news, my plane is down for it's annual inspection, which means they rip it apart and give it a look over. It's an FAA requirement. Needless to say, since this is my first inspection as the actual owner of the plane, they were able to find a whole slew of things that should be fixed. The engine and such were all in good shape, which is pretty much most of what is required by the FAA, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that really needed to be fixed and was probably just not done since the last owner had no intention of flying the plane anymore.

That, and add another year of wear and tear to it - not that I flew it that much but I think I racked up a little bit north of 50 hours in the plane this last year, and I haven't been up in it in 2 months. I actually ended up doing this inspection a month early since I had a landing gear issue I needed fixed anyway.

So, one of the issues they discovered (or I should say, confirmed) is that the wing skin had broken away from the underlying support strut where you step on the wing to get in the plane. Basically this meant you could push on the skin right by the door and it would pop in and out. I had it looked at during the year and was told it wasnt' really a safety issue, but should be fixed, so I waited until now to do it.

The reason I waited is because of one of the pictures you see here. Yes, that it my right wing, clearly seperated from the rest of the plane. It's a big project. I don't know how much of it is tied up in actual sheet metal work, and how much of it is getting the wing on and off, but I suspect it's more of the latter. 24 hours of labor time in just this wing project. Ouch.

As you can see from some of these other pictures (sorry about the cell-phone camera quality), the whole plane is pretty much ripped apart. The interior shows the very sport military green primer that they use to help keep all the interior metal from rusting. Right now it looks more like some WW2 bomber than my little Piper Archer. haha. (oh but what the WW2 bomber pilots would have given for a Garmin 396 portable GPS system!)

I'm hoping to take Kaitlyn over to the maintenance hangar before they put this back together so she can get a look at all the parts, and she'll certainly be amused by the missing wing. She helped me wash the plane the other day and we spent some time inside learning about all the controls and instruments, so I think she'll like it. Hailey loves planes but I'm not sure if she'd be into all this quite yet, and it might be a bit dangerous to let the 2-year-old wander the maintenance hangar. (there's a gummy bear in your air intake? sorry about that!).

To ramble on a bit more - we ended our last soccer season by forefeiting all of our playoff games due to lack of players. In the last game, I was the only one (!!!) to show up on time. I did play all the games though, as we scraped together teams from players there for other games.

We just started a new session 2 weeks ago. We won the first game and lost last night in a game that we probably should have won. We let two goals in in the last 5 min and lost 5-4, although I'm not going to take too much of the blame on either of the goals. Really, I played one of my top games since starting again, and even saved a penalty kick. Somehow, the other team always had two girls standing on my side of the field at all times, which led to a whole bunch of 2 of them vs. just me situations (our defense hasn't really come around yet). I think they only scored on one of those though, and I made a serious number of saves.

This team also seemed a little too aggressive for this kind of league too. Not really aggressive in a skilled-soccer kind of way - more aggressive in an out-of-control disturbing kind of way. Maybe they feel like they have a lot of pride riding on the adult co-ed recreational indoor soccer games - haha. But hey, I had fun and our team really did play pretty well until the end.

I've got more stories but I'm tired of typing. Halloween is tomorrow so that's sure to liven things up even more.

Random Catchup

2006-09-29T09:28:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted and I know how the 3 people that actually read my blog get when I don't keep up with it...

So let's see - in my soccer league we've started the post-season. We finished in 5th place (out of 9) and would have been in 4th had he not had to forfeit the last game because our team didn't show up on time. When they did get there - about 10 min late, we played and won 6-4.

Then last week was our first post-season game, which we didn't win, unfortunately. We were short a girl, so we had to play the game 5 on 6, and then our best player sprained (hopefully didn't break) his ankle and was out for part of the first and all the second half. Then our second best player (that was there) twisted his ankle midway through the 2nd half and would later pass out and be puking from dehydration (it's Ramadan and he had nothing to eat or drink all day, yikes!).

So, while it was 2-1 in our favor at half time, things deteriorated quickly as the second half wore on. They had more than enough people and subs, and our team got tired quickly being short a person and without any subs even for the guys. I'm guessing the score was about 6-2 or 7-2 but I lost track and was too exhausted to even keep track. Playing goal was like being in a video game - I'd make a save and then they'd be right back shooting again, save, shoot, save, shoot. Man, that was tiring. I sprained my own ankle near then end of the game, and landed funny on my wrist as well, both of which are still a little sore, but really nothing to complain about compared to what happened to the other guys.

We play again this Sunday. With two guys possible out to begin with, I really hope some people show up. How annoying. In the fall I'm thinking of switching to a league with a bunch of Delta Sigs from college, if the game schedule permits.

In other news... last weekend Ames and I headed out for a date-night and went downtown. We were having a drink at RAM Brewery when the Jacksonville Jaguars bus rolled into town with the team. From what I could gather, it looks like all the out of town fans gathered at RAM as well because there were a bunch of Jags fans waiting for them to arrive and cheering (a lot meaning a half dozen or so).

After that, we walked over to St. Elmo's Steakhouse for dinner. They didn't have reservations available, but suggested we just try to walk in, which we did. They gave us a wait time of 20-30 minutes.

While we were waiting, who should walk in but Byron Leftwich, starting quarterback for the Jags, along with two guys I didn't recognize. He asked for a table, and upon hearing he'd have to wait, said something about "man, this is crap" and left. His two buddies we laughing at him as well.

It was pretty clear that the girls working the check-in area had no idea who he was. Not 30 seconds after he left, our table was ready. So, I guess we can say that we got Byron Leftwich's table. LOL.

And in less important soccer news...

2006-09-10T23:49:00.000-04:00

In my adult leage, we tied our game tonight 4-4. That gives us a record of 2-3-1 with one week to go before the tournament. I played ok, but we'd probably have won if I wasn't up until 3 in the morning the night before with Dana's party.

Go Purple Rockets!

2006-09-10T23:21:00.000-04:00

It's the start of a new season of soccer for Kaitlyn and Coach Daddy. We've now moved into the U6 league, and have a whole new group of kids.

Our first game was a little rough. I work a lot on trying to teach the kids basic positioning and passing, since I figure that will help them to understand and enjoy the game of soccer instead of just participating in a game of chase the kid with the ball.

The result of that coaching, both last year and this year, is that the kids look very confused for the first few games.

After the first game, which was pretty rough, Amy heard me voice my usual complaints about our particular soccer club's rules: we have only 4 practices and then it's all games and no more practices, we get all new kids every year, and now the coaches can't go on the field (which makes my complaint about no practices that much more). The only practice we get now is the 15 minutes before the game, if everyone gets there on time.

I was very happy to see that we really improved in our second game, which was this past Saturday. I could see the kids starting to "get it" in terms of where to stand and why that actually helps, plus they were learning that passing can be better than just dribbling and that they should look for that.

And in some very exciting news, Kaitlyn scored a goal! This is her second goal ever and the first of the season. Kaitlyn is the best so far at understanding that she needs to get away from the big clump of kids and move into the open, and call for the ball (since this is her second year under Coach Daddy's system, it's not surprising that she's ahead in some of the more mental aspects of what I'm trying to teach).

The video clip is here. Aunt Dana was fortunate enough to have her camera rolling, because our camera crapped out for good during the game.

Having the chance to look at it now, there are really several things to make a coach happy in this play. At the start of the clip, you'll see that one of our forwards, Faith, is in process of stealing the ball and taking it to the inside. In the same frame, you can see our two backs, Austin (#2) and Cole (#4) actually standing back and letting Faith do her thing. No, they are not quite as far back as I'd like, but compare that to the other team which is in the classic "clump". (and don't worry about the kid who appears hurt at the start here, you'll note that he's very excited to run into the goal and retrieve the ball after Kaitlyn scores! :)

Kaitlyn is not in frame here, as she's just run away from the group to the center and is there by herself. As Faith dribbles with the ball, she sees Kaitlyn, who is in process of calling for it (you'll see her raise her hand), moving toward the goal while looking back at the ball (this in and of itself is quite an accomplishment).

Faith then passes the ball up to Kaitlyn on purpose. If you pause it, you'll see that Faith sets her feet and strikes the ball with the (mostly) proper form I've been showing for passing, using the inside of her foot, but it's easier to see in the original footage vs. this compressed youtube garbage. It's a nice pass, just past Kaitlyn as it should be, and thanks to the good positioning Kaitlyn dribbles it uncontested into the goal. Whoohoo!

We have another game on Tuesday, so we'll see if we can keep this up, I'm certainly very happy to see that the kids have improved so much just over one game.

Victory!

2006-08-27T22:52:00.000-04:00

Well what do you know, we won our soccer game! It helps significantly that we had our entire team show up, and that we picked up one additional female player, so for once, we had subs (for the men) and 3 females that are really all on our team.

This set us up for a 5-4 victory which included a score for us in the 37th minute (it's a 40 minute game), and a series of two saves by me late in the 38th minute. It felt good to get a finally get a win when starting at goalkeeper, especially after it felt like we were so close last week.

I even got some kudos from Raul, who, as far as I can tell from my internet searching, played keeper in college at MIT. I didn't have any saves off of my eyeballs this week, although I did take a bit of a kick to the ribs near the end of the game while (successfully) diving for the ball as someone was taking a shot. One of our defenders was not pleased that the ref didn't call a penalty on the guy that kicked me, but as far as I can tell it was a pretty clean play. I got to it only a split second before he would have kicked it, and everyone was getting pretty aggressive near the end of the game anyway, so I don't blame the ref for not making a call.

The image here is from the movie "Victory" which Dan Bartnicki and I enjoyed quite a bit when we were kids. I mean, there is no better adversary than Nazis, and being able to earn your freedom from a prisoner-of-war camp by defeating them in a soccer match is really at the top of the chart for 8-year-old boy soccer players, especially when the movie stars both Sylvester Stallone AND Pele! LOL.

They call me One-Eyed Pete... Arrrrr!

2006-08-21T14:04:00.000-04:00

Last night was our 4th soccer game of the season, which we managed to lose again. However, for the first time since we won in week 1, we were actually in the game, people played like they wanted to win, and I seriously thought we were going to pull it off. We lost 5-4. We were down 3-1 at halftime, which means we outscored them 3-2 in the second half, which was good for us. As usual, we had to pick up a couple players from the other teams because we never have enough girls to play.

I played in goal again, and had my best game of the year. I lost track of how many saves I made but it was a lot. I may have lost track while making a save with my head, and then a minute later with an open left eye. Ouch. At least I know I was keeping my eye on the ball, because I saw it all the way through impact!

I don't have a black eye (at least no more black than my eyes usually look), but Amy tells me that it is a bit swollen today. She was also aware enough this morning to bring me some Advil while I was still in bed, which is what allowed me to muster the strength to actually get up. haha.

I told her after the game that if she wanted to see me play some good goalkeeper, this would have been the game to come to. On the other hand, if it would disturb her to see me constantly throw myself into situations where it looks like I'm going to take some real damage, then this was *not* the game to see. Today I feel like I've been bludgeoned with baseball bats, which is, more or less, exactly what happened.

And so many people don't like playing goal. What's the matter with you?

This is John Madden reporting live from Avon, Indiana

2006-08-18T23:24:00.000-04:00

Tonight was the opening night for high school football here in Indiana, and my good friend Bob Potosky of HSSP Radio (www.hssp.cc) asked me to join him again this year to do color commentary for some of his broadcasts.

Of course, I did my best to make a fool of myself, and had a good time doing so. Rule #1 in broadcasting is to make sure you are in the studio/press box before the broadcast begins. In this case, I was stuck in traffic, then stuck by a train, and then ran threw the ticket gate (luckily no one stopped me to ask for a ticket) and arrived panicked and winded in the press box a couple minutes after Bob had started the broadcast. Needless to say, I was tripping over myself throughout the start of the evening.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Bob, who diligently does multiple broadcasts a week as play-by-play man, chief engineer, magazine salesman, and equipment porter, statistician, and goodness knows what else. How he does it, while somehow pulling stats, names, and figures out of the thin air is beyond me. I've had the privilege of listening to Bob do play-by-play since we were kids and he annouced our Nintendo Tecmo Bowl games. He was certainly born for this profession.

I, on the other hand, am an unpaid, volunteer stand-in who does it because I've enjoyed football my whole life and began my enjoyment of doing radio when I started doing shows for the campus station, WMHD, in college. The inexperience shows.

It's probably obvious, but doing live sports coverage is significantly more difficult than doing on-air D.J. work for a music show. There is very little downtime, and since Bob himself is a one man show, there's no one feeding me what to say.

Combine that with the position of color commentator on the radio, and you've got a recipe for foolishness - haha. Next time you watch a TV football broadcast, look at what the color guy does -- a lot of the time, he's commenting on the replay which is being shown to the viewers at home... "look at this block here..." "what you'll see now is..." they might even draw some x's and o's on the screen.

On the radio, of course, there is no instant replay. Nor is there a jumbo-tron or TV crew showing me an instant replay. Nor can I even see a half of what is taking place on any one play, given that I'm largely unfamiliar with the team (since it's usually a different team each week), and the rosters and stats we're given from the school can often change or just be wrong to begin with (as was the case tonight).

And of course, if no one is talking, the listeners get nothing. No cheerleaders to show. No crowd shots. No victory or defeat on the faces of the players. Nope. The listener has nothing except Bob and me.

So after each play, Bob starts typing stats into his excel spreadsheet, or is sending and receiving scoring updates via instant messenger, or is answering his phone for yet more updates and stats. In this midst of all that he might point at his screen and hopefully I figure out that there's an interesting stat line to read, or he might toss me a paper with a sponsor's ad on it and silently signal for me to start reading it (no pre-reading allowed, and the scripts are usually hand-written).

That means my job is to try and fill the space, without the use of any visual references provided by wonders of modern video. Just me, hoping to find something insightful to say about the last play, or how the game is developing, or how it's not raining yet, or how Madden 2007 comes out on Tuesday.

Then try to do that in the 4th quarter of a game that's 35-0 and hasn't had a score since the first play of the second half. You quickly run out of insights or things to say. Haha. In my attempt to stay upbeat on the team that was losing, I think I used the term "bright spot" abot 700 times. That's not exactly the next nation-wide catch phrase of choice, is it?

But anyway, it's fun and I enjoy it. And as with anything else, some days are better than others, and even a single game has it's ups and downs. And most of the time my real insights come at a time when I can't talk because Bob is in the middle of a play-by-play call. At home, of course, you can talk anytime while you're watching the game, but on-air, once Bob starts his play call, I've got to shut my trap. Tonight, for example, Avon lined up with 3 receivers to the near side on 4th and 8. As soon as I saw it, I knew the QB was going to roll left before throwing it because he'd been rolling left all night and that was the best way for him to buy some extra time. Of course, no sooner to I realize that then Bob starts with "The QB goes under center..."

And so the snap, the guy rolls left, and eventually they are stopped short of the first down. But stating it ahead of time would have been a useful call to the listeners at home, but I was too late with it. But so it goes. I'll be better with more practice, but even then, when you listen to the pro guys calling an NFL game on the radio, the color commentator often sounds like a dufus, and now I know why. LOL.

I don't think the game is online yet, but it will be soon and you can listen to a replay at http://www.hssp.cc/ to hear my foolishness. Our game was Hamilton Southeastern at Avon. If you do, you'll probably want to jump ahead to at least the 2nd quarter where, I think, I sounded less like a guy that walked in off the street (which is true, of course), than I did at first. Hats off to Bob who manages so sounds professional despite a guy like me flapping my jaws with gibberish every few minutes.

For all my California pilot friends

2006-08-09T11:10:00.000-04:00

Just in case you ever come and fly in the Midwest, I thought you might want some clarification on what the AWOS was telling you. This picture represents "Sky Condition: Clear" on every AWOS in the area, plus the FSS folks.

I took this picture at about 3500 feet while maneuvering around clouds to maintain VFR on my way back into Greenwood. The opening you see under the clouds is a bit misleading, as this was essentially the hole that I was diving through as fast as I could get the Archer to drop. It doesn't really do justice to show you the cloud cover there really was.

I started my dash for this hole from 8500 feet. Fortunately I didn't have any passengers since I'm not sure they would have enjoyed the dive. The cloud tops (not really in this picture) were higher than that (I'd guess maybe 9500-10,000 feet) and I wasn't going to clear them at my current climb rate (a density altitude of 3000 feet on the ground didn't help).

Before this hole came into view, it looked like I was going to have to turn around to descend and then come back at under 3000 feet to stay clear of the clouds.

I'd have gotten better pictures, but maintaining VFR cloud clearance was more important than digging for the cell phone, so I didn't snap the photo until it was obvious I was coming through the bottom. Clear skies indeed.

Maybe by "Clear below One-Two Thousand" they mean "Some altitudes below 12,000 are clear, just not between 3000 and 10,000 feet where all the local aviation traffic is." Ha ha.

Jeff Gordon Killed my Soccer Game

2006-08-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

Ok, well I guess some dude named Jimmy Johnson won the Brickyard 400, but either way, I got a call that my soccer game, already delayed until 9:50pm tonight, was canceled due to insurmountable traffic around the soccer facility because the race traffic was being routed past there. Ah well, I was looking forward to it, other than the fact that is was so late.

Anyway, I've been diligently continuing my aerobic work with the treadmill and heart monitor throughout the week and threw in an extra session tonight because soccer was canceled. It's got me doing 4 sessions a week, and I've been using Saturday (day before the game) and Monday or Tuesday as my rest days. The soccer game is a bit more of sprinting intervals (less so when playing goalie, but still pretty much bursts of activity), vs the steady walking/jogging of the treadmill.

Anyway, according to this thing I burned about 2300 calories in my exercise this week. Of course, I've probably eaten about that much extra per day anyway since I'm now hungry all the time, but hey. Yesterday was the first day I actually had to do some jogging to get my heart rate in range (sad, I know), so it was jog/walk/jog/walk, etc. Today was just walking again, but that my have something to do with the two beers I had at dinner.

According to the monitor, 50% of those calories came from fat, so that's 1/3rd a pound of fat based on my google research. I'm sure that would be a pleasant sight.

Still Alive!

2006-08-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

Well at last an update. We’ve pretty much been on the road or in and out of town since the last update. We first headed up to the Michigan “fish house” for an extended 4th of July weekend, then off to California for a working vacation, then some time in Evansville, and finally we’ve landed back home.

Big news with the girls: Kaitlyn starts Kindergarten in less than 2 weeks, and she’s very excited, and I think a little nervous. We spent all day yesterday getting supplies, picking out a new backpack, and getting uniforms. Aunt Dana was nice enough to watch Hailey so Amy and I could have a “special day” getting ready for school. It was a full, tiring day, but everyone had fun.

On the Hailey front, the big news is that we’ve moved on to the “Big Girl” bed. No more cribs for us! I had a bit of a rough evening getting her to use it the first day, but on the second day and so far, it’s been smooth sailing! Wow!

In news about me, I signed up for an indoor soccer league and started playing 2 Sundays ago. While this may be obvious, jumping straight into a league full of guys 5-10 years younger than me after spending the last 15 years sitting on my duff has proved to be somewhat difficult.
What some call a “soccer game” and what I call “3 minutes of running followed by 47 minutes of trying not to throw up” led me to actually try to get in some sort of aerobic shape.

On Monday, I attempted to jog on the treadmill for all of 15 minutes which led me to a half day of feeling like crap. After doing a bit of research, I determined that the problem was over-exerting my sorry, out-of-shape self, and that by monitoring my heart rate I’d be in much better shape. That was worth a try I thought. I wound up buying a Polar Heart Monitor and doing some work on the treadmill over the next 4 days and was able to work up a decent sweat and get some decent exercise.

According to the heart monitor, I still can’t do much more than walk fast as even starting to jog slow sends the old ticker beating like a bass drum in a Metallica song. So, better to build up the cardio than suffer a heart attack.

I played again on Sunday and this time as it turns out I played goalie. This also means that I played the whole game. I was pretty winded and tired but I was able to do it and there was no risk of puking on the field this time. At least the goalie gets some rest (although not like in outdoor soccer), and I had a week of somewhat organized cardio training under my belt.
Playing keeper didn’t come without some consequences, however. Both of my knees were a bloodied mess, I pulled my right quad, and I jammed 3 fingers. Fortunately, other than being pretty sore yesterday and today, I think I’ll pull through. :) I took yesterday as a break day, and today get back on the treadmill.

Of course, I’ve been as hungry as a ravenous wolf, so weight loss seems to be out of the question at least over the short term. I’ll worry about that after I’m convinced I can jog at a slow pace without keeling over. I’ll keep you posted.

Oh no! We suck again!

2006-06-22T20:36:00.000-04:00

Well, the USA national soccer team made a mockery of U.S. Soccer once again. Landon Donovan, my most despised player, proved to be entirely worthless, the team is unmotovated, boring, and has no fire. Despite what ever great things head coach Arena has done for U.S. soccer, he himself has no presence and no personality, and that is completely reflected in the way the team behaves. What a joke.

Below is an MP3 for your amusement from the Waterboy. Enjoy!
http://www.moviewavs.com/0085934086/MP3S/Movies/Waterboy/ohnowesuckagain.mp3

I'm afraid this battle station will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

2006-06-21T09:59:00.000-04:00

Collier sent me this and titled it "Operation Can O' Whoop Ass."

The USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Kitty Hawk and USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike groups steam in formation during a joint photo exercise (PHOTOEX) in preparation for Valiant Shield 2006 on Sunday, June 18, 2006, in the Pacific Ocean. The PHOTOEX featured 14 ships as well as 17 aircraft from Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corp including a B2 bomber. The Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group is currently participating in Valiant Shield 2006, the largest joint exercise in recent history. Held in the Guam operating area beginning June 19-23, the exercise involves 28 Naval vessels including three carrier strike groups, more than 300 aircraft and more than 20,000 service members from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Jarod Hodge)

Yet another page from the Somalia file

2006-06-19T23:48:00.000-04:00

I find it hard to believe... but here's yet more fantastic news coming out of Somalia.

Group linked to al Qaeda tightening grip on Somalia

An Islamist group with ties to al Qaeda is quickly solidifying its grip on parts of Somalia and moving toward setting up a Taliban-style Islamist regime in the country, according to U.S. officials familiar with events in the region.

Not so much fun with Google Earth

2006-06-19T23:22:00.000-04:00

Ames tells me that I need to post happier, friendlier things on my blog. I fully agree. But then I sit down at the computer and read this:

"N. Korea set to Test-Launch Missile Capable of Hitting the United States"

Well that's nice. So I load up Google Earth and do a quick measurement... from N. Korea to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska (which I assume is what they are talking about) is about 2500 miles. Needless to say, the continental US is much further away than that.

However, for those of you that haven't been following, N. Korea is in a complete economic shambles, and has a giant energy crisis ongoing. They could really use some energy. No energy, but long range missiles. Hm....

See, there's this other country... a South American country named Venezuela, which is also convinced that the USA is getting ready to invade it at any minute. They've said they plan to continue to use their oil profits to arm themselves against a US attack.

Oh - did I say... Oil Profits? Oil - as in the primary source of energy used by the modern world? Yes. I did say that. So lets see - there's a country with long range missiles, nuclear weapons, and no oil... and a country that wants weapons to deter the US and has oil... hmm...

So with a little more Google Earth research, I drew some lines from Venezuela to the US, and found that, more or less, you can draw a trapezoid from Texas, to Chicago, to Maine, to Miami. Anything within that area could be hit with a N. Korean nuke that was sold to and stationed in Venezuela.

And no sooner do I do that bit of research, but this headline hits the Drudge Report:

"North Korean threat prompts US to Activate Missile Defense System"

Maybe I should just move to New Zealand.

And from the Somolia file...

2006-06-14T22:28:00.000-04:00

Here's yet more good news from the results of spreading Islamic fascism:

Two die as hardline Islamists ban World Cup
[Mogadishu]
Hardline Islamic courts shut cinema halls and barred residents from watching the World Cup, prompting scores of civilians to protest the ban in which two people were killed, court officials and residents have said.

Iran bans The Economist...

2006-06-14T22:22:00.000-04:00

...because, on a map, they labeled the familiar waterway near Iran "The Gulf" instead of the more common, and what Iran seems to prefer "The Persian Gulf".

If that's not a good reason to ban a magazine, I don't know what is. Down with freedom of speech!

Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/m395q

Geeking out with Google Earth

2006-06-05T23:50:00.000-04:00

I put together a list of the airports I've flown to, and saved them in Google Earth. Now there is a quality use of my time. :)

The nav menu on the right points to it now too. I've not used idisk before, so if it asks you for some kind of password or something, please let me know. You will need Google Earth installed to view it.

http://idisk.mac.com/jeff.ready/Public/pilotjeff.kmz

There are two things I can't stand...

2006-06-05T20:34:00.000-04:00

... racial intolerence, and the Dutch! LOL @ this:

Dutch Evangelicals calls for pray-in against the Devil

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/05/060605122726.5i4vny6k.html

Remember Black Hawk Down?

2006-06-05T08:42:00.000-04:00

Does anyone remember Black Hawk Down, the story of American troops having a bit of trouble in a "peacekeeping" mission in Somalia? I'm sure some of you do, as it was a great book and a movie that came out in 2001. After getting a handful of troops killed in a raid-gone-wrong, we largely withdrew from the country under intense public pressure.

In any case, back during the actual events in the late 90s, there was much talk about why we were there, what purpose did it serve, how did this help America, etc.

If you were a doubter, then here is your answer, and further proof that the American public, or at least the American media establishment, does not have the stomach to actually fight for the protection of America or our way of life:

Mogadishu - Somali Islamists on Monday declared victory over a United States-backed warlord alliance in Mogadishu after four months of bloody fighting, and prepared to take over the lawless capital.
Having captured nearly all of Mogadishu and a key warlord supply line on its northern outskirts at the weekend, the Islamists were set to formalize their seizure in a surrender and handover meeting with remnants of the alliance.

And so I present to you, the next Afghanistan. Ugh.

The Word of the Day

2006-06-04T21:35:00.000-04:00

nomenclature |ˈnōmənˌklā ch ər| (noun)

the devising or choosing of names for things, esp. in a science or other discipline.
the body or system of such names in a particular field : the nomenclature of chemical compounds.
formal the term or terms applied to someone or something : “customers” was preferred to the original nomenclature “passengers.”

Geeks rule!

Find Italy. Go east, then south.

2006-06-02T23:35:00.000-04:00

I found a National Geographic study released last month which reveals some fun stats about people's lack of even basic world understanding. In their survey of 18-24 year olds (which would be the crowd to have most recently studied this stuff, you would think), they found the following:

33% could not identify Louisiana on a US map
88% could not find Afghanistan
63% could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map of the middle east
75% could not find Iran or Israel on a map of the middle east
44% couldn't find the Middle East at all
50% could not find New York on a US map
56% couldn't find Ohio
44% estimated China's population to be double that of the US
54% couldn't identify what continent Sudan was in (10% said Europe!)
75% could not find Indonesia
75% didn't know Indonesia was a Muslim country (PS - it's the largest Muslim country in the world, oh geographically challenged citizens)
48% think that China exports more, when measured by dollar value, than the US
34% could not identify which escape route, in a hypothetical scenario, directed them to the northwest when using a map and a compass rose! (page 18 of the report if you want to see how easy this one should be)
66% did not know you would travel south to get from Japan (in the northern hemisphere, P.S.) to Australia (in the southern hemisphere)
51% could not find Japan
30% thought the population of the US was over 1 billion people
74% thought English was the most common native language in the world
30% said the most heavily fortified border in the world was between the US and Mexico
50% thought India was a muslim contry

On the "positive" side,

70% could find China (of course, so can Kaitlyn, and she's FIVE)
59% know that the Amazon rainforest is in South America (well done class!)
51% could find India (again, nice work)
only 6% thought India was the world's largest consumer of oil (but just who are you people?)

So, the next time Hawkins lets us know where he is, he'd better put up a map on his blog, as well as instructions on how to use it.

The World's Smallest Political Quiz

2006-05-30T15:37:00.000-04:00

This takes about 30 seconds to take. Let me know how you score. Here's what I got:

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 70%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%.

I'll be happy to educate you if your economic score is not > 70% :)

http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html

Soccer Superstar, Kaitlyn Ready!

2006-05-23T00:08:00.000-04:00

Our Spring soccer season just ended, and the kids did great. Mason scored his first goal tonight, which meant that every kid on the team scored this season! That made me happy.

What made me even more happy is how advanced the kids were playing. The last two games have really been quite amazing, and the kids have really started to learn the concepts of playing a position and teamwork. I wish we had another couple games to keep building on this foundation, but that will have to wait until the Fall, and we'll have a whole different batch of kids to work with.

The biggest news of all is that in Saturday's game, Kaitlyn scored her first goal ever! Logan got an assist with a nice pass to her in the middle, and she booted it right in. She was so excited! (as was everyone!)

Tonight's game, however, was Kaitlyn's best game ever. While she didn't score, she got 3 assists, all of which were done on purpose! She would have scored herself on the first one, had Emilie not booted it in before it rolled across the line, but that's okay. I teach the kids to chase the ball even if it looks like it's going to make it, and that's just what she did.

In fact, that was one of the top plays of the season. Liam passes it in (we don't do throw-ins) to Kaitlyn, who actually taps the ball upfield while turning, then Kaitlyn centers to Emilie who scores. Boo-yah!

In the second one she makes a steal, then centers for the score. And, in the third one, we essentially have a give-and-go where Kaitlyn does a great job of controlling the ball on a breakaway before centering back to Mason who gets his second goal (both on Kaitlyn-assists!). Now that she's got a little confidence, she's even showing some speed in the breakaway!

I know she would have liked to score, but she played a great game, as did the whole team. It's nice to have your best game of the year be your last game. Tomorrow night... pizza party!

Click the links below for video clips (hopefully!)

Thanks to the new Apple MacBook Pro, the importing and editing of video was pretty easy. However, even with Apple making it easy, I've got to tell you that messing around with video simply takes time. I'm sure I'll get faster at it, but it's a far cry from the ease with which you can just dump pictures to your harddrive and post them for the world to see. But I digress... enjoy the soccer clips!

Sound familiar?

2006-05-19T11:12:00.000-04:00

You don't need to be a history buff for this to sound familiar... at least I hope you don't.

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."

The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

Full story: http://tinyurl.com/o5mro

Comic relief in the form of real events...

2006-05-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

Hawkins recently sent me over to the Media Research Center, which collects all sorts of quotes to capture the liberal bias of the press. Some are funny, some are not. This one comes from the "it's funny because you are the stupidest human I've ever heard speak" file:

Anchor Elizabeth Vargas: "In Washington, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 470,000 new jobs last month. The Bush administration was quick to claim this was good news, but is it really? We turn now to ABC’s Betsy Stark for some perspective."

Reporter Betsy Stark: "Elizabeth, this may sound like good news, but investors are terribly nervous. More jobs mean fewer people in the unemployment line, and that means unemployment offices will lay off workers. More people with money in their pockets could drive up inflation, and oil prices could soar. And more new homebuyers could mean a further expansion of this huge housing bubble, indicating a possible crash ahead. That could leave a lot of families out on the street, Elizabeth."
— ABC’s World News Tonight

Jobs are bad for the economy. ROTFL.

Un-freaking-believable

2006-05-15T09:11:00.000-04:00

The EU is going to make a proposal to Iran that will include "generous" incentives to stop it's nuclear program. These, of course, would be incentives (let's call them "appeasements"), in the form of an agreement, to rectify a situation that arose because of the last time that IRAN IGNORED ITS INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

What a bunch of dolts. This really is shaping up to be the rise of the Third Reich all over again. Maybe after they get it signed, the EU spokespeople can wear a Neville Chamberlin mask and throw a little "Peace for our time" into the press conference.

Maybe in a year or so, after we've withdrawn troops from Iraq, Iran will gear up it's army and, under threat of invasion and with internal Shite cooperation, Iraq will opt to "join" Iran. The new Iran will invade Kuwait because Kuwait "is a rogue state and is really part of Iran (Iraq) anyway". Saudi Arabia falls like a deck of cards, Jordan surrenders, Syria joins voluntarily and Israel goes down in a nuclear cloud. Pakistan revolts and joins as an independent Axis power (let's call it "Italy"), and Egypt is forced to join because of the rest of the region. Libya surrenders as well. Turkey remains neutral, for now, which essentially lulls parts of the EU into a false feeling of being safe. Meanwhile, Venezuela joins as an independent power (lets call it "Japan") and teams up with Bolivia and the new socialist government in Mexico. Columbia and Argentina join easily, leaving Brazil and parts of Central America as the key battlegrounds. China remains neutral, as do the Russians. At this point, there's really nothing stopping N. Korea from invading S. Korea, leaving Japan as a major battleground which we might be unable to help. The U.K., U.S., and Australia are really the only ones ready enough to do anything, perhaps with Germany and France joining this group (let's call them "the Allies") after the shit has already hit the fan. Oh, and P.S, the Allies have no oil...

ÂThose who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat itÂ
-George Santayana

Only 14 states require Economics in high school

2006-05-11T21:42:00.001-04:00

Are you kidding me? This explains a lot.

http://tinyurl.com/lz7vd