Recogitare

Celebrity Apprentice -- Annie Duke / Melissa & Joan Rivers/ Clint Black / Donald Trump

2009-04-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

Wow -- great episode. Having just watched a full season of the amazing UK Apprentice with Alan Sugar, I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed this particular episode. Overall, even when compared to the original Apprentice with non-celebrity candidates, the UK's version direction and cinematography is perfect. I think both Trump and Sugar make great decisions. Perhaps I prefer Sugar's less showy style a bit more, but America prefers more ostentatious showmanship.

In any case, back to this (9th) episode of the Celebrity Apprentice. After the end of this show I'm sure of one thing: Annie Duke is the smartest woman I've ever seen. Now let's assume that she lived in Europe a few centuries ago and was the wife of a king, i.e., the queen. It wouldn't be a surprise if she got to that position without special hereditary privileges. Either way, if she was the queen, let's further assume, as was the case the vast majority of times, that the queen and women in general didn't have any outright power in the legal sense. The king did. However, as the queen, she would have had the opportunity to be a very powerful adviser. Now let's say that Clint Black was the king. He would have been very autocratic, yet open to advise (albeit grudgingly) from his wife and a couple other people.

In this scenario, Annie Duke would have been the ruler of the country. Everything she said, Clint would have done. Why? Because she is the smartest woman I've ever met :-). She is absolutely brilliant at manipulating people to get what she wants. It is simply amazing.

Now, if she were allowed to be the queen and legal ruler, she would have been a brilliant ruler, better of course than Clint Black. She probably would have been better than Elizabeth I. Perhaps she was in another lifetime!

As for Melissa, yeah, you were the odd one out like in a high school clique, but you didn't have as much to contribute! And Joan, you're the funniest woman I've ever met, but you're no angel yourself. The only sweet one in this group was the golf pro Natalie Gulbis.

Great episode!

P.S. I agree with Trump that people don't really change. The way they come out is who they are. Environmental factors slightly swing a skyscraper one way or the other, but the structure itself is extremely rigid. I think that's why it's so amazing all the different traits that people have, especially stuff that they're good at. Some people are great at music, or engineering, or design, or teaching, or nurturing, or comforting, or socializing with people, or manipulating people, or writing, or running, or stealing, or fighting, etc., etc. In one way or another, whatever each one of us has, that's the dice that was rolled by natural selection.

America's Next Top Model Cycle 12

2009-03-04T20:57:00.000-08:00

I watch this show with my girlfriend. Awesome show. At the start of the last season, Cycle 11, I noticed that there were a disproportionate number of black girls which made me wonder if there was some form of affirmative action going on. There might have been, and the atmosphere was very ghetto at the beginning of the show, but as usual, the judging was very objective throughout that season, as in any other.

This season is not quite the same, there is less of the ghetto factor. BTW, I did feel sorry for the black girl from Buffalo getting kicked out--it looks like she's had a very tough life for such a young person.

In general I don't like affirmative action because in the long term it hurts the people it's supposed to help, but it's Tyra's show, and the judging is always on the spot. Having said that, you do have to feel sorry for people who've had no choice with the way they were brought up, and perhaps that should be taken into account. In any case, if you do have a ghetto background, learn how to speak properly if you want to succeed because you'll have to speak on camera for commercials. That goes for the white ghetto-wanna-be girls too.

Peace out.

Jim Rogers - The Fed is the Problem

2009-02-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

Great commentary from a very smart man:

Ron Paul Video Compilation / Peter Schiff Video Compilation

2009-01-22T10:37:00.000-08:00

I've been following Ron Paul ever since he announced his candidacy for the President. He's the only one that made sense to me: get our troops out of unnecessary wars (which is bankrupting this country), balance the budget by cutting government spending, get rid of the IRS and the Federal Reserve, cut taxes, and leave the government out of most decision making.

I recently came across a financier who has very similar economic views: Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, a broker/dealer outfit. What makes Mr. Schiff special is that he predicted the collapse of the housing and financial bubbles. As you will see in some of the videos I've compiled, he never backed down in his beliefs while other so called "experts" were laughing at him (unsurprisingly some of these fools are still making the rounds of business-related talk shows).

Like Ron Paul and Peter Schiff, I believe that America is headed for an eventual economic collapse unless the government does things differently--mainly stay out of the way of the free market. Unfortunately right now, the opposite is happening.

Here's a compilation of recent videos of both men that pertain to the financial bubble, the government bailouts, and the future of America.

Ron Paul Video Compilation

Ron Paul Explains How The Financial Bubble Was Created
Sample quote: "When a federal reserve system, a central bank creates easy money, easy credit and has interest rates lower than they should be, business people do the wrong things, they make mistakes--it's called mal-investment, and we've been doing it for a long time, it causes financial bubbles and they have to be corrected. Actually recession is therapy for all the mistakes..."

Ron Paul talks about how to balance the budget and takes a snipe at economist Paul Krugman and other Keynesians
Sample quote: "If they're still winning the Nobel Prize we're in serious trouble"; "The culprit really, is the Federal Reserve, the monetary system, and this spendthrift Congress that we have and government."

Ron Paul discusses the financial bubble at a Congressional Financial Services Hearing
Sample quote: "If we got here by spending too much money, borrowing too much money, inflating too much money, the Federal Reserve too involved in central economic planning through manipulation of interest rates, and the Congress passing too many regulations--as long as we think that's benign, has nothing to do with it, then I guess it seems very logical that we come up by spending more money, borrowing more money, printing more money, and writing more regulations and think we're gonna get different results."

Ron Paul schools Bernanke on the bailout plan and the Great Depression
Sample quote: "In the depression we tried to fix prices, which is exactly what we're doing now... The Austrian school of economics... their key point is, don't mess around with prices because if you do you become socialistic... Here we are in price fixing again. You say that part of your mandate is price stability. I hardly think that price stability comes by price fixing... The Federal Reserve is not smart enough, Treasury is not smart enough, Congress is not smart enough to know what prices are. So I think that is the greatest danger what we're doing here is we're price fixing and that is what I'm convinced prolonged the [Great] Depression in the 1930s..."

Ron Paul on the Auto Bailout
Sample quote: "We are on the road to nationalization!!!"

Peter Schiff Video Compilation

Peter Schiff predicting the financial bubble in 2006-2007!

Peter Schiff: U.S. Banks are worthless!
Sample quote: "They might as well flush their money down the toilet!"

Peter Schiff on the Auto Bailout
Sample quote: "Government money isn't going to fix the problem, it's simply going to perpetuate the problem. First of all two wrongs don't make a right. Just because the government illegally and improperly bailout Wall Street doesn't mean they have to make the same mistake with Detroit."

Peter Schiff predicts doomed economy under Obama
Sample quote: "It can get very bad. I've talked about the prospects of hyperinflation in the United States and that's something that we're actually dealing with. The government is really trading inflation for depression right now. They think they can inflate their way out of this problem, but they can't, and the underlying problem is once the rest of the world really senses the direction our currency is going in and once the creditor nations who have been funding our consumption and buying our bonds, once they stop doing that and they will, then the demand for dollars is going to collapse."

Peter Schiff makes 2009 predictions Part 1 / Part 2
Sample quote: "What is happening is Americans are broke. We've borrowed all this money to spend and now we can't borrow any more mainly because the creditors have reached their limit, they don't want to lend any more, so the government is borrowing for us, but they're forcing us into debt by taking on additional liabilities, but we need to start paying off our debts, we need to start savings again so that we can have money to lend out to entrepreneurs to start businesses, to make capital investments so we can go back to work producing goods instead of consuming them. But the government is simply pouring gasoline on a fire that it set, and it's gonna do a lot of damage with all these stimulus' and bailouts."

Why are there so many people in China?

2009-01-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

Why is China's population so large? I've been trying to figure out the ultimate cause and I think I have a possibility that is quite simple. First let's take a look at the proximate causes (the best source I could find about China's population is at Columbia University):
--From a historical perspective, China's population has always been large--it was already around 60 million around the birth of Christ (perhaps around 1/4 of the world, around what it is today)
--China's long civilization allowed for improvements in agricultural techniques and the clearing of large areas for agriculture.
--New crops from the New World increased food output in otherwise marginal agricultural areas

The ultimate cause, however, is...... RAIN!!! There is a reason why the diversity of species is generally greatest in areas of high rainfall and warm temperatures. Humans are also bound by nature and our density is dependent upon available resources dictated by climate.

I'm posting a population and rainfall map of China below. As you can see, they are very similar (source 1; source 2):

Of course, if you think about the history of human civilization, this all makes sense. From Cairo to Rome to New York to Beijing (Peking), all major cities are near a water source. I don't think I can name any large city in the world that is not near a river, lake, or ocean (except Mexico City with its large aquifers?).

Incidentally, India, with the second biggest population, also receives a huge amount of rainfall. The Himalayas block moisture from reaching Nepal and Tibet, much as the Cascades block moisture from reaching eastern Washington here in the U.S. I've never been to India or Nepal, but I can tell you that the difference in the landscape is amazing between areas west of the Cascades such as Seattle and areas east of it. The former is green and lush, the latter looks like a dessert (it almost is) except in irrigated areas. The population density follows the same pattern as rainfall.

Barney Frank & Elmer Fudd

2009-01-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

This comment made my day:

"Elmer Fudd needs to go away."

Quote of the Day

2009-01-08T20:41:00.001-08:00

"It's ... like including a Heroes DVD with every guidance missile system we sell." - Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), 30 Rock, Season 3 Episode 7

Awesome show!

An American Carol :-)

2008-12-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

This is a really funny movie! I don't get it why it's only rated 4.9/10. Anyway, I guess it depends on your type of humor...

-------------
OK, just finished watching the movie. Still comedic, but in a sly way, the underlying message is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are justified, and that we should always be scared of Islamist terrorists. The issue is too complex to get into here, but it's still a funny movie even if you don't agree with America's foreign policy.

Financial Crisis 2008: Who is to blame? Whose fault was it?

2008-11-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

The media, as always, will (and has) blame(d) Wall Street and greedy Republicans. But the facts are quite different. To better understand who is to blame for the crisis, we should listen to those who have a lot to lose in a financial crisis and those who were inside the banking industry. Hedge fund managers, whose financial well-being is directly proportional (or perhaps exponential might be a better word) to their performance, have a lot riding on guessing the performance of companies, commodities, and the financial system as a whole.

I found these two great insights into what happened, first by Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of hedge fund Blackstone Group, and Noel Sheppard, editor of NewsBusters who worked in the banking industry during and after the 1980s S&L crisis.

Schwarzman: "It’s a perfect storm. It started with Congress encouraging lending to lower-income people. You went from subprime loans being 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% of total loans in 2006. That kind of enormous increase swept into the net people who shouldn’t have been borrowing.... Those loans were packaged into CDOs rated AAA [by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac], which led the investment-banking firms [buying them] to do little to no due diligence, and the securities were distributed throughout the world, where they started defaulting." [Read full article here]

Sheppard: He quotes the Investor's Business Daily, which pinpoints the start of the crisis to Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act, which forced banks to lend to uncreditworthy borrowers, mostly in minority areas. Then, "Despite warnings from GOP members of Congress in 1992, Clinton pushed extensive changes to the rules requiring lenders to make questionable loans." [Read full article here]

So it wasn't too much regulation of the private market that caused the problem, it was too little regulation of the quasi-government entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and unsound laws passed in the name of equality for everyone.

India Malnutrition / India's First Unmanned Moon Mission

2008-10-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

Shouldn't you guys try to feed your people first?

India's Undernourished Children: Executive Summary
India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) needs to undergo significant changes to address the current malnutrition crisis in India, according to a World Bank report. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, the report says. It also observes that malnutrition in India is a concentrated phenomenon. A relatively small number of states, districts, and villages account for a large share of the burden – 5 states and 50 percent of villages account for about 80 percent of the malnutrition cases.
...

India to Launch Its First Unmanned Moon Mission
NEW DELHI -- Amid its first economic slowdown in three years, India is getting ready to shoot the moon.

On Wednesday, the country is scheduled to launch its first unmanned moon mission, when lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 blasts into space aboard an Indian-made rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in the country's south.

The launch will put India into an Asian space race, which last year saw Japan and China launch lunar orbiters. Sites in those countries are regularly used for launching commercial satellites.

The Chandrayaan-1 mission is the Indian Space and Research Organization's first attempt to propel a spacecraft beyond the Earth's atmosphere, although India has been launching suborbital satellites since 1975. About 1,000 scientists and engineers have worked on the lunar project for four years.
...

Woody Allen's two most recent best films

2008-08-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

I just saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona and it was an awesome, awesome film. The similarity with Allen's other most recent masterpiece, Match Point, is the intrigue in relationships amongst people who want to live an upper-class lifestyle, but the actual story is quite different. The dilemma facing the main characters is true love vs. economic security. Very interesting... I guess almost every person on earth has to make that choice at least once in their life along with all the moral choices that accompany it.

Woody Allen is still going strong at 72! Wow!!!

Awesome Olympics Sports: Archery and Ping Pong

2008-08-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

All the matches for archery are over, but I really enjoyed watching them online at nbcolympics.com. The concentration of these guys was unbelievable!!! I think the mental aspect is more important than the physical. The only other sport I can think of that matches that ratio is golf.

Ping Pong is still on. In fact the semifinals are on right now at nbcolympics.com. The Chinese are unbeatable at this event (both men's and women's), but Sweden's Persson is giving it his best to beat Wang. Check it out.

Oh, wait, that match is already over (no problem for Wang). But the next semifinal is about to come on.

Olympic Games in Beijing -- Review #1

2008-08-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Opening Ceremony

Awesome spectacle, but just learned that there was lip-synchronization and part of the fireworks shown were CGI. I don't blame the Chinese at all because they were trying to go over-the-top with everything about these Olympics Games (which so far they have succeeded). My only problem is with NBC, Costas and Lauer, who clearly chose their words carefully:

Lauer: "You're looking at a cinematic device employed by Zhang Yimou here. This is actually almost animation. A footstep a second, 29 in all, to signify the 29 Olympiads."

Costas: "We said earlier that aspects of this Opening Ceremony are almost like cinema in real time. Well this is quite literally cinematic."

Clearly, they could have said something along the lines of, "This portion is a digital effect". My interpretation of their words was that this so awesome, it's like watching a movie.

Onto the parade of nations, and this is where I have a bigger problem with the coverage than the previously mentioned issues: NBC and the Napoleonic Costas (Costas, you are a very good commentator, but also a dangerous man), just like Brian Williams in the Athens games, couldn't back away from taking snipes at Arab countries, specifically the portion about not having many women competitors (UAE), the Iran nuclear problem, laughing at Azerbaijan for submitting a bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, and Jordan being a "relatively modern Arab country" by having actually more women than men competing. Make fun all you want, but the UAE is building the largest skyscrapers in the world and becoming the hub for trade, finance and tourism in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the U.S. is stagnating/declining (hopefully not permanently) and NYC's tallest building was built almost a century ago.

In my opinion, the only political aspects of the game that should be mentioned during the ceremonies are pressing current events, in this case Zimbabwe's Mugabe not allowed in the country and Russia attacking Georgia. Don't take snipes at other countries' cultures. That's simply wrong, it indirectly punishes the people of these countries (by formulating/reinforcing a negative opinion of these nations/people/cultures that could have physical consequences in the real world), and really belittles the Olympic spirit which celebrates our similarities, not differences.

TV vs. Online Coverage

The online coverage has been great on nbcolympics.com. I really enjoyed watching cycling, archery and rowing late at night--events that wouldn't normally be shown on TV. The only problem is that the Internet events don't have voice commentary. Most events have a live blogger that types in his commentary, but it's not the same. And even when the event does have a voice commentator, it's not shown on the Internet. For example, I watched the men's cycling road race live at night on the Internet. No commentary. The next day they show it on NBC in the morning with voice commentary. What the fuck?

Still, overall an awesome job, so two thumbs up to NBC for their online coverage.

Baseball / Softball Out

From the athletes' standpoint who have / would have competed in the games, this sucks. In my opinion, softball was fine since those were the best of the best competing, whereas in baseball, the MLB owners and the player union keep their athletes out (Olympic soccer doesn't have its best athletes either). But baseball is now very popular everywhere except in Europe and Africa, so it's not just an American sport anymore. I presume that's also the case for softball, perhaps somewhat less so. Final judgement: if they have BMX racing, they should certainly have softball and baseball. I think there probably was anti-American bias in the vote to eliminate these two sports.

Good Local Reporting by the New York Post (Gorillas ;-)

2008-08-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

Note the "Associated Press" and "Edinburgh, Scotland". Too lazy to get on the 5 train to interview someone at the zoo? Fucking dumb asses. Oh wait, why am I reading this paper?

Who chooses Google logo birthdays?

2008-07-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was Beatrix Potter, a couple of months ago it was Walter Grupius, the founder of the Bauhaus architectural movement. Now, I've personally never read any of Potter's stories as a child, but I'm sure they're very good. I'm however pretty familiar with the Bauhaus movement, as there are plenty of these ugly, perfectly square or rectangular buildings here in Seattle and elsewhere around the States and Europe when "modern art" became the fashion. Only the drab communist-style buildings dotting (thankfully many have been torn down) the landscape of the old Soviet Union and its satellites are uglier.

My point is this: who chooses to commemorate a certain person and not another? The logos themselves are pretty, but I question the choices. For example, Simon Bolivar, the liberator of a few South American countries, was born on July 24th, yet he was not featured. Perhaps only artists are featured. Then why not celebrate Hemingway's birthday on July 21st or George Bernard Shaw's on July 26th?

I think Google should stick to compiling and sorting information. It seems like there is too much editorial power for someone to pick a particular person that millions of people see (even the Google news section is automatically generated), cute as the logos may be.

Australia's Next Top Model Cycle/Season 4 & 2

2008-07-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I watched the last season every week and more recently we're going through the 2nd season (skipping the 3rd since we found out who the winner was in the 4th season). First, I found AussieNTM's challenges the hardest, compared with America and Britain, and the girls are probably the prettiest too. And that language and nudity are not edited, unlike the horrendous editing in America (violence and murder OK; nudity immoral), the show is even more enjoyable.

Now, to my point. I thought that Erika Heynatz was a good host, and not any worse than Jodhi Meares. The problem I have with Jodhi is that I don't think she was objective in her support for Demelza. It was clear that Caris and Sam were better than Demelza, who showed off the same look--pretty but not versatile--every week. In Season 2, the parallel situation was with Louise, who had the same qualities and shortcomings. I'm not sure why Jodhi stuck up for Demelza 'til the end (BTW, I didn't care for Alex, but the fact it she was better too!). My guess is that she either saw herself in her when she was younger, or perhaps she saw in Demelza a daughter she'd like to have. Either way, her judgment was faulty. BTW, no offense to Jodhi or Demelza.

I'm looking forward to the next season! Goodday mates!

Dirty Work (1998) -- So Stupid & Funny

2008-07-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

I always thought Norm MacDonald was pretty funny back when he was on Saturday Night Live. This movie is very stupid, so stupid in fact that it's very funny. I came across it on this site's response to the AFI's top 100 comedies. I have to agree that the former list is much better. I prefer movies that have scenes and lines that make me burst out laughing. The punch-in-the-stomach scenes and the grandpa saying "I'd prefer if you got me a whore" where just one of the few in Dirty Work.

Can one man save the evil empire from dominating space? Privateers by Ben Bova

2008-07-21T17:24:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Privateers by Ben Bova
Published 1993 by Tom Doherty Assoc Llc.

I came across this book in my small private library. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but it's used like most of my books. It turned out to be an enjoyable science fiction.

Dan Randolph is a billionaire American space entrepreneur--living in Venezuela because the United States gave up control of space to the Soviet Union and is in a deep depression because of lack of natural resources, particularly oil (many cars run on steam-engines!; interesting given today's high oil prices and the supposed "peak-oil" having been reached, according to some)--who is trying to break the Soviet Union's monopoly in space, while making descent money at the same time. The problem is, every other nation is scared to confront the "evil empire", lest they risk isolation and economic doom.

This is a pretty well-written book, with mystery, romance, and adventure to boot. A good three hours of entertainment.

The Dark Knight review

2008-07-18T17:56:00.000-07:00

***Contains Spoilers***
Wow, what an awesome film! My girlfriend thought it was not as good as Batman Begins. I originally agreed with her, now I have some doubts. I don't think it's worth 10/10 like so many people are rating it on IMDB, and it still can't beat out Blade Runner (1982!!!) or Return of the Jedi in my opinion for a movie in the same genre but the heart-pounding action and surprises made this 2.5-hour movie seem an hour shorter.

Heath Ledger was awesome (never heard of him until he unfortunately passed away, then just today when I looked up who played the Joker), probably better than Nicholson in the first Batman.

Some reviewer of this movie on IMDB pointed out that the hand-to-hand combat wasn't that great. I noticed that in a couple of scenes but it didn't bother me until I read the comment and thought about how much better they could have been. Ever seen the Steven Seagal and Tommy Lee Jones double-knife fight in Under Siege? Hard to beat that with the exception of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and tons of other Chinese movies I'm sure. In any case, the hand-to-hand combat isn't bad, but they missed out on a way to make the movie even better, especially since Christian Bale was doing ninja training in Batman Begins. Other annoyance: the bank robbers at the start of the movie were pretty bad actors (at least their voices) and the morality lesson of the two ferries not blowing each other up was a little over the top (in real life they would have blown each other up within a minute unless they could somehow communicate with each other and agree to simultaneously throw away the remote controls).

Overall however, the annoyances were tiny compared to the overall enjoyment. Well worth the $7.50. Oh, and the flashing balloon scene in Hong Kong was so incredible that I would have considered the movie worth my time even if the rest of it sucked. And even though the hospital was small, blowing up a real building (from what I could tell) is always better than shitty CGI. Blade Runner and Return of the Jedi--movies made over 20 years ago--had better special-effects than most sci-fi movies today.

I'd give it an 8.5/10 on IMDB if I could. Since I can't, I gotta go down to 8.0 just because I'm comparing it to the other great sci-fi movies. From what I can remember of the last Batman (did your theater flash its lights at the end of the movie to simulate a bat?), it's just as good, but definitely not worse.

Congoo Netpass and Free Wall Street Journal Access / Content

2008-07-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

Supposedly that's possible if you get a toolbar called Congoo Netpass and then subscribe for a free account (you only have to give a valid e-mail address, although I never got a message to confirm my e-mail address).

This site says it works but you only get a free clicks a month. I tried it today for this article about the Euro Zone, but it still showed up as a "free preview" and the full article didn't show up. What I did get was a pop-up from Congoo that gave the choice of activating now or later, but when I press "Activate Now", it just goes to the main Congoo Web page.

Getting rid of the toolbar... Oh, and I get an "XML Parsing Error" right on the toolbar with Firefox 3. That was even before I had to edit the config file to allow non-secure add-0n updates. You'll see what I mean if you try to install this shitty toolbar.

P.S. Congoo is trying social networking by letting you build a profile that contains the news you RSS. Don't see why you'd want to network based on that...

Sheep in America

2008-07-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

We're too scared to protest in this country. I think we'd need to be much poorer than Mexico to have enough guts to stage protests like in Mexico City. I'm not sure what other event could set it off. Maybe if Bush bombs Iran before November (50/50 chance in my estimation) there will be some protests in Boston and Seattle, but most of the country will believe Bush that Iran is a threat to this nation (even if they do have one weapon, which they don't, we have thousands, so it'd be pretty dumb for them to use it).

Anyways, we're pretty much all sheep here.

Protest Fatigue in Mexico City, A Daily Mess of Demonstrations

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 15, 2008; A13

MEXICO CITY -- On any given day, there are six or seven or eight demonstrations taking place in the Mexican capital. The city government keeps a running list of them on its Web site.

Teachers who want more money. State-employed oil workers who want to stop privatization. Campesinos who say the government stole their land.

There are naked protesters. Protesters in Aztec costumes. Protesters dressed like vampires.

And they are almost always in the way.

Blocking roads during a demonstration is considered by some Mexicans to be a kind of inalienable right. But a few politicians have begun to say -- gently, lest they become targets of protests themselves -- that enough is enough.

"Sometimes you end up sitting half your day waiting for the roads to clear -- it's irrational, it's unjust!" Mariana Gómez del Campo, a member of Mexico City's legislative assembly, said in an interview. "I don't think there's another city like this in the world."

Gómez, who once missed a college exam because of gridlock caused by a protest, has been trying for months to pass legislation that will establish "rules of the game" for protests, which numbered 2,000 last year alone and drew more than 9 million people.
...

Reasons for not reforming (expanding) the United Nations Security Council

2008-07-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

The U.N. Security Council has 5 permanent members--essentially the victors of World War II: U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China. The geopolitical and economic landscape has changed dramatically since the end of WWII, and there are good reasons to reform (i.e., expansion) the U.N. Security Council. There are a number of proposals on the table, one of which is to expand the current five permanent seats to nine. These "G4" countries are Brazil, Germany, India and Japan.

Here are good reasons not to admit these four countries as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council ;-)

Brazil

Oi! Como vai? We are Brazil, the famous Portugese-speaking country located in the Spanish-infested speaking pool called South America. As you know, we have the #1 football (known to the stupid Americans as soccer) team in the world. We have a very good economy (sometimes subject to hyperinflation) right now, one of the fastest growing in the world! We also have a very large population, over 191 million as of last count, out of which only 60 million live below the poverty line!!!

You may also have heard of our great nation through the movie City of God, which was nominated for 4 Oscars. Let me be honest with you: the poverty, violence, drug addiction, and police corruption depicted in the movie are totally false. This was a fiction after all, and we don't trust the Americans to tell us which of our movies are good anyway.

Instead, let me tell you why Brazil will become the next superpower that will once and for all end American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere! Our secret weapon is a little plant called sugar cane. Already, unlike the greedy Americans, we are self-sufficient for all of our energy needs thanks to this green weapon (it is not true as widely reported in the media that the great rainforests of the Amazon are being cut down to make room for more agriculture). That's why we don't pay $5/gallon like the gringos and our economy is free to grow exponentially (subject to the occasional exponential inflation).

So as you can see, we are becoming a very powerful nation, better than all those stupid Spaniard nations next door. We will without doubt eventually even surpass the evil and greedy Americans! This is why we respectfully ask the U.N. Security Council to admit the great nation of Brazil as a permanent member.

Tchau!

P.S. We also have the hottest girls in the world who love to wear the Brazilian football t-shirts (often wet).

Signed:

President of Brazil (not a military dictator)
Brazil's Football team (#1 in the world)

Germany

Guten Tag!!! We are the great nation of Germany located in the heart of Europe. Did you know that our ~~blond-haired~~ nation has the #3 economy in the world? Das ist gut! Ja! I know that you may not find that believable because our beautiful nation was almost destroyed during World War II. So it is quite amazing that from the ruble we have once again become one of the most powerful nations in the world!

But let me remind you, we no longer have aspirations to dominate the world and completely exterminate the Jews, Slavs, and other undesirable peoples. That was committed by the people known as "the Nazis" and very few Germans supported the ~~Fuhrer~~ evil Hitler. It is very fortunate that the Nazis no longer exist. Today Germany is all about peace. We love peace today just as much as the Nazis loved war. We are also very green because all of us believe that global warming is only human-induced (we love Al Gore) and will kill the planet and so we are the #1 nation using solar energy. Solar energy in the beautiful yet quite cloudy Germany, you may ask? How did we do it? We have the #1 engineers in the world (just a little better than our best friend Japan). We can build the biggest and best ~~weapons~~ machines and cars very fast, unlike anyone else--all precisely made to the correct specifications! Ja!

So, it is true that we started World War I and World War II, but those horrible things were not committed by true Germans. Today true Germans are all about green energy and peace (we also like to produce lots of bukkake videos like our friend Japan) and we will never start World War III. As proof, did you know that we have 2 million Turks ~~(some of whom have been allowed to become German citizens, subject to tracing their bloodline to true Germans)~~ in Germany and only 91.5% of our population is truly German? They are all ~~ugly and undisciplined and bad engineers~~ great people and Germany ~~hates~~ welcomes all non-German immigrants.

Das ist gut, ja!!!

Please accept the great and peaceful country of Germany's admittance to the U.N. Security Council.

P.S. One more proof we will not start WWIII: look at the friendly and peaceful eagle on our flag!

END OF DRAFT #2,
TOP SECRET
APPLICATION FOR GERMANY'S ADDMITANCE TO THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL
COMPLETED ON 2008/07/06 17:59:48 BERLIN TIME

India

Hello, we are the great nation of India! We need not to introduce ourselves. We are known around the world for having the #2 population in the world (after the despicable country of China), one of the fastest growing economies, Gandhi and peace, spicy cooking, and skilled engineers who work in technical support for Dell Computer Corporation and many other great American companies.

Let us first talk about the primary reason why India should be on the U.N. Security Council. Our country is all about peace. Did you know that India has 23 official languages and over 100 million Muslims? That speaks to our acceptance of diverse people. What about the caste system then, you may ask? The frequently mentioned article depicting the modern-day slavery of 160 million Untouchables is not true. First of all, we cannot speak of this issue personally as the authors of this application are all from the Brahmin caste and we are not allowed to touch Untouchables, but we have been assured that the filthy and disgusting "people" performing the work of sewer, garbage, and laundry cleaners receive over $.05/day. Secondly, these stories are told from their side. If we were born into such as a miserable caste, we'd be liars too. But no worry, they'll have a better chance in their next life, provided that they are subservient to us and they perform their duties as told. Perhaps some of them will be lucky enough to become a blessed cow.

Also, we have nuclear weapons which we shall never use (except on Pakistan) because we are all about peace. How can a country with millions of malnourished people afford to have nuclear weapons? The solution is spectacularly simple: the top two, maybe three castes have very smart people (and not all work in technical support for great American corporations).

India is a great nation and deserves to be a permament member of the U.N. Security Council.

Peace,

Signed

The Esteemed and almost divine Brahmin Members of the Indian Parliament

Japan

KONICHIWA!!! HAI, we bow to you, the great United Nations Security Council. We represent the humble yet very rich nation of Japan. We ask you respectfully to admit the humble nation of Japan to the great U.N. Security Council. We bow to you.

~~Unlike China,~~ Japan is a very small country with lots of people and very few natural resources. Yet, we have persevered through atomic bombs ~~(reminder: when America self-destructs in the next century, we must drop two Class Kamikaze hydrogen bombs on New York City and Los Angeles)~~ to become the #2 richest nation in the world. How did we do so? We are the #1 engineers in the world. Unlike Germany (who we very much support for membership also) who has the #2 engineers in the world, we build very small things. We are very good at that because as we've mentioned we are a small country with lots of people. Of course, it is true that we are the ~~smartest~~ most humble Asians in the world ~~(especially compared to the dirty Chinese and the dark-looking Philipinnos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Indonesians),~~ ~~but~~ and the great nation of Japan no longer believes that Japan was destined to rule and enslave the world as foretold by our ~~glorious~~ poisoned (became mentally unstable) ~~by the Americans~~ former Emperor of Japan. It is not true that the Japanese people supported World War II and the Japanese Army created slave sex camps. As we mentioned, the Emperor of Japan became mentally sick.

Today, the great people of Japan are all about building tiny cameras and cell phones, engineering the best cars and earthquake-proof buildings, designing the coolest video games, having the most ~~gruesome and violent~~ beautiful cartoons called anime, and ~~fantasizing over American Hollywood stars, such as the cute little Dakota Fanning~~ enjoying American films.

We bow to you. Please accept the great and peaceful country of Japan's admittance to the U.N. Security Council. We bow to you, HAI!

END OF DRAFT #2,
TOP SECRET
APPLICATION FOR ~~THE EMPIRE OF~~ JAPAN's ADMITTANCE TO THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL
DIGITALLY STORED IN A TINY NIKON CAMERA (TO BE DUPLICATED ON A TINY CANON DIGITAL CAMERA)

Beijing Olympics -- Cradle of the Revolution?

2008-07-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

China: I think it's good for you that the Olympics are in China. Yeah, you deserve the bad press for Tibet, but overall it's great exposure for you and I hope that your country's GDP/capita continues to increase. You've been poor for way too long. Which brings me to the following question: WHAT THE FUCK is this bullshit doing on the front page of the Beijing 2008 Web site?

Celebrating the "Cradle of Revolution"? Here's the full press release:

Chinese 'Cradle of Revolution' hosts Olympic Torch Relay
Updated：2008-07-02

(YAN'AN, July 2) – A few minutes after noon on Wednesday, July 02, Wang Xilin ignited the flame cauldron to signal the end of the torch relay in the city of Yan'an, Shaanxi Province.

The relay in the city began at 8:15 this morning, when 93-year-old Red Army veteran Liu Tianyou started off the Torch Relay from the site of the Zaoyuan Revolution.

As China's "Cradle of Revolution," Yan'an holds a prominent place in the country's history. From 1935 to 1948, Yan'an was the headquarters of the Chinese Communist revolution. The city served as the country's military headquarters during the Chinese Anti-Japanese War and China's War of Liberation. In addition, Yan'as was former home of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

Along a route that highlighted the historical and cultural importance of Yan'an and its surroundings, a total of 208 torchbearers took part in the 6.31 kilometer-long relay.

The sacred flame will travel to Yangling and Xianyang next.

So you're celebrating the torch going through Yan'an because it was the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Revolution and the former home of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

THIS IS (Communism) what got you into trouble in the first place! If it hadn't been for communism, you'd probably be the richest country in the world a long time ago and millions of your own citizens would not have been killed from starvation and political prosecution.

So celebrate the rise of China, the growth of your cities, the increasing standard of living, the ingenuity and perseverance of the Chinese people, etc., but don't celebrate mass-murderer Mao and "the cradle of revolution". That's fucked up.

Gun Control Laws in the U.S.

2008-06-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

I've never owned a gun, I don't like them, and I believe that the U.S. would be better off without them. But I have to agree with the recent ruling of the Supreme Court. This country was founded on the principles of protecting its citizens from the government (unfortunately government spending is now over 30% of the GDP; of course, the "anti-terrorism" laws in the past few years are even worse for the liberty of citizens), and guns were in a sense part of the foundation of this country.

The best policy is to either outlaw all guns--which can never be done in this country--or give citizens the right to protect themselves from criminals who will get them irrespective of gun ownership restrictions.

And so, Justice Scalia's opinion is not glib in my opinion, Mr. Kellermann.

Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia.
COMMENT
Sunday, June 29, 2008; Page B02

The Supreme Court has spoken: Thanks to the court's blockbuster 5 to 4 decision Thursday, Washingtonians now have the right to own a gun for self-defense. I leave the law to lawyers, but the public health lesson is crystal clear: The legal ruling that the District's citizens can keep loaded handguns in their homes doesn't mean that they should.
...
Read more here.

McCain's $300 million prize for a new auto battery? (Bullshit)

2008-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Dude,

Do you have any idea how much venture capital is devoted into energy? A LOT. This is another of your bullshit gimmicks like the "gas tax holiday". If you want to do something useful, send that money back to taxpayers. And instead of focusing on how to bomb Iran, maybe you should go to college and take an economics class.

Fucking dumb ass...
----------------

McCain to Propose Prize
For New Auto Battery
Associated Press
June 23, 2008 12:51 p.m.

PHOENIX -- John McCain hopes to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," Mr. McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.
...

Naymz: STOP the SPAM information gathering of profiles

2008-06-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

I Googled my girlfriend's name and the second entry that came up was her Naymz profile with her outdated professional title. Because she had changed careers over a year ago, the outdated listing is detrimental to her current business. I asked her why she signed up for an account at Naymz; she told me she never did. Just in case, I put in her e-mail address ("forgot username/password"), but nothing came up.

It turns out that Naymz actively scans the Web and sets up profiles without your permission. I'm sure it's (unfortunately) somehow legal, but it's just plain wrong. Someone can do a background check on pretty much anyone, but at least that person's name doesn't come up on a search engine with a link to a background-check company (although I've seen those come up as paid advertisements, but not with the person's name on the advertisement itself).

The way to erase your profile is to click on the "This is me!" button and then the delete profile button. I had to look at Naymz' Help section to figure that out. It's the first FAQ, which means a lot of other people must be pissed off too.

In summary: FUCK YOU Naymz!

The Edge of Heaven (+ bad Seattle Weekly review)

2008-05-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I went to see this wonderful film at the Seattle International Film Festival the other day. It's partly a cultural study of (Turkish) immigrants living outside their country (Germany), but more importantly a vivid portrait of human relations.

After seeing the film, I happened to read Nick Pinkerton's review of the film in the Seattle Weekly and I was quite surprised and the sarcastic review (the latter part shown here):

...Heaven ups the ambition: Its screenplay is a Dickensian network of happenstance, serving to intertwine six characters of different ages, nationalities, and castes. Three parent-child sets fracture, then reconcile/recombine. This expression of growth-through-trauma mostly involves actors hugging and making wistful "older and wiser" expressions while looking into the middle distance. (Everyone gets along. That the Turks believe in a different God than the Germans, and actually believe at that, is apparently not a pressing concern.) If the united Europe aspires to compete with America globally, this is good news—they've found their own multiculti Paul Haggis! (NR) NICK PINKERTON

Mr. Pinkerton, the Turks do not believe in a different God--that's why Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are known as monotheistic religions. That a similarity between Christianity and Islam is mentioned in the movie (maybe a minute segment) without going into the differences has absolutely nothing to do with this movie. This film is not a documentary on the religious and social divide in Europe between immigrants and non-immigrants; rather, it's a character study on the similarities between different people, happening in today's world as Turkey tries to join the European Union.

Let me guess, you thought that Forrest Gump was not good either because a black and white guy couldn't be friends in the deep South during the tumultuous 1960s?

NASCAR Nextel Cup / Sprint Cup Series: VERY STUPID

2008-05-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

How stupid do you have to be to have your championship named after a corporation? Imagine the Super Bowl being called the Wal-Mart Bowl or the World Series changing their name to the AT&T Baseball Championship. The NASCAR championship is now called the "NASCAR Sprint Cup Series", formerly known as the "NASCAR Nextel Cup Series."

I've only watched a couple of NASCAR races on TV, and honestly I got to say that these guys are the hardest working sport professionals around. The season lasts from February until November! All the other major sports are pussies compared with that kind of a schedule. And not only that, but the racers work really hard to get and then support their corporate sponsors.

Nevertheless, the NASCAR governing body/board of directors should really consider changing their championship to "championship", i.e., the "NASCAR championship (series)".

Until then, you guys (the governing body) are the dumbest (in other words not having any measurable forethought) bunch of guys around in professional sports.

Fuck the Mariners. Fuck Seattle. Fuck bullshit weather.

2008-05-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

It's going to be really nice in Seattle tomorrow and Saturday. I was looking forward to going to a Saturday afternoon game--I'd come wearing shorts and sandals with an empty stomach ready to take in lots of beers and hot dogs. But the Mariners have a Saturday game at 7pm instead of an early afternoon game you'd expect on a weekend. And even though there will be a 1pm game on Sunday, it'll start to cool down and might not be warm enough to wear shorts.

It was a very tough winter in Seattle. Even though relatively warmer than the interior of the country, it's been unseasonably cold, cloudy and rainy for over six months--the Summit at Snoqualmie even has skiing this weekend! So a big F-U to Mariners for fucking up my baseball plans ;-) And F-U to Seattle! I'm moving to Florida this winter. Fuck this bullshit weather.

Hillary Clinton = The Dark Side

2008-05-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

Simple, but true. I'd prefer Ron Paul instead of Obama, but given the warmonger McCain and the "I'll do anything to get elected" Clinton, Obama is my man.

Anti-Tibetan Protests by Chinese in Seattle and San Francisco

2008-04-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

I really found this disturbing: Chinese or Chinese-Americans University of Washington students protesting against the Dalai Lama, a man who preaches non-violence and compassion.

From the UW Daily:

More than 100 protestors gathered in front of the venue with megaphones and banners displaying text such as “Tibet part of China” and “No violence, no riots, stop media distortion.”

“The Dalai Lama is looking for independence; they’re (Tibetans are) starting violence,” protestor Benson Zhang said. “So many Chinese are angry with Western media. … The media is anti-Chinese.”

Perhaps even more disturbing: the Chinese Consulate had bused in Chinese along the Olympic torch run in San Francisco. A foreign government busing in people to protest in America??? Imagine the American consulate in Shanghai busing in Americans for a pro-Iraq war rally. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

For all the talk of protests leading up to the Olympic torch relay, we didn't hear much from the supporters of China.

We learned why early on Wednesday morning. They planned to take over the event.

By 10 a.m. at AT&T Park, where the torch run was supposed to begin, it was obvious that the fix was in.

Thousands of supporters were already there, unloaded from dozens of buses parked across from the ball park. (One torch relay insider told me some in the crowd had been bused from as far away as Los Angeles.) During the day Chronicle reporters were told by some supporters that they had been bused into San Francisco from the South Bay, the East Bay and Sacramento by the Chinese Consulate and Chinese American groups.

China supporters far outnumbered many human rights protesters, and anyone from the small pockets of "Free Tibet" protesters was quickly surrounded by the crowd and shouted down. When a Tibet supporter held up a sign, a Chinese supporter would sidle up, the wind would catch his flag, and it would obliterate the sign from the view of the cameras.

"We suspected that the Chinese government would want a public relations spectacle," said Kate Woznow, campaign coordinator for Students for a Free Tibet. "Something that they could broadcast back home."

Google Earth Hour Bullshit

2008-03-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

Very good idea, but not buying it. Why are corporations pretending they're "green" and "environmentally conscious", b.s., b.s.? Of course, it's good for their image. True, but it's still bullshit.

Anyway, while Google is promoting "going green", their founders, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, seem not to have caught on--they're flying on their Boeing 767 wide-body corporate jet, a.k.a., the "party plane".

The Register (UK)
Google founders spar over 'party plane'
By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View (ashlee.vance@theregister.co.uk)
Published Friday 7th July 2006 20:44 GMT

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin need more adult supervision than previously thought.

While the two billionaires agree that they both love colored balls, they can't agree on what types of beds should be placed in their Boeing 767 wide body corporate jet. Brin and Page broke out in a dispute over whether or not Brin should have a long California King size bed in their plane, according to documents tied to a lawsuit over the jet. Ultimately, Google CEO Eric Schmidt had to chime in and make the bed decision for the youngsters.

"Sergey, you can have whatever bed you want in your room; Larry, you can have whatever kind of bed you want in your bedroom. Let's move on," Schmidt told the pair, according to the court documents.

The Wall Street Journal today made the nasty bed dispute public after uncovering a battle between Blue City – Google's holding company for the plane – and Leslie Jennings – a designer contracted to do customer work on the Google craft. Blue City canned Jennings last October, claiming he failed to rework the Boeing as requested. Meanwhile, Jennings is seeking payment for his work and has denied Blue City's claims.

With legal costs rising, Jennings is none too happy about the situation.

"They're intent on seeing whether they can break every bone in my body and drain every cent out of me," he told the paper.

The battle has turned up some wonderful details about the Google boys. According to the court documents, Schmidt has referred to the corporate jet as a "party plane." And, in fact, the Googlers wanted things such as hammocks hanging from the ceiling and a cocktail lounge in their jet.
...
Read the full article.

"80G Luv Gov" Spitzer

2008-03-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

"Prosecutors have considered charging Mr. Spitzer with violations of the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution. Other possible charges could include structuring transactions to evade financial-reporting requirements; violating bans on interstate travel with intent to commit a crime; and helping an illegal entity to launder money. Some of the charges carry prison terms of more than five years.

But Mr. Spitzer's lawyers argued Tuesday that the governor didn't violate federal money-laundering or structuring laws because he didn't hide the transactions, which were in his name and from his bank accounts. In negotiations with prosecutors of Manhattan's U.S. Attorney's office, his lead lawyer, Michele Hirshman, a partner at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, said it would be unfair to charge Mr. Spitzer. People familiar with the legal team's thinking say Ms. Hirshman argued that men who use the services of prostitutes rarely get charged with crimes, even when prostitutes and ringleaders do."

Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? Why are prostitutes and ringleaders charged, but not the johns? I personally think prostitution should be legal, like it is in Singapore, but if you are going to charge someone, it should definitely include "Lov Guv 80G" Spitzer, who clearly broke the law by facilitating the illegal transportation of a prostitute across state lines.

The Clinton Attack Machine

2008-03-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

I remember a comment somewhere on the Internet in the final days before the general election in 2000, something along the lines of, "do you think they're going to let this happen?" Sure enough, a couple of days before the vote, someone in the Gore/Clinton camp leaked that Bush was arrested for DUI in the 1970s.

The 3am ad by the Clinton campaign is another last-minute desperate tactic to try to win the election.

Clinton will never, ever give up. This bitch is so power hungry I am almost certain there will be a serious fight (legal challenge?) when the final delegate count is in. Democratically, she has almost no chance of winning, but again, she will pull out all the stops to make sure that doesn't happen.

Obama not too good at Economics

2008-02-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

I like Obama and will still probably vote for him because McCain is a warmonger, but this so-called Patriot Employer Act is misguided. From the Wall Street Journal:

...Under Mr. Obama's plan, "patriot employers" qualify for a 1% tax credit on their profits. To finance this tax break, American companies with subsidiaries abroad would have to pay the U.S. corporate tax on profits earned abroad, rather than the corporate tax of the host country where they are earned. Since the U.S. corporate tax rate is 35%, while most of the world has a lower rate, this amounts to a big tax increase on earnings owned abroad.

Put another way, U.S. companies would suddenly have to pay a higher tax rate than their Chinese, Japanese and European competitors. According to research by Peter Merrill, an international tax expert at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, this change would "raise the cost of capital of U.S. multinationals and cause them to lose market share to foreign rivals." Apparently Mr. Obama believes that by making U.S. companies less profitable and less competitive world-wide, they will somehow be able to create more jobs in America.

He has it backwards: The offshore activities of U.S. companies tend to increase rather than reduce domestic business. A 2005 National Bureau of Economic Research study by economists from Harvard and the University of Michigan found that more foreign investment by U.S. companies leads to greater domestic investment, and that U.S. firms' hiring of more offshore workers is positively, not negatively, associated with the number of American workers they hire. That's in part because often what is produced overseas by subsidiaries are component parts to final, higher-value-added products manufactured here....

Beautiful!

2008-02-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

The Future of Genetics? Next by Michael Crichton

2008-02-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

Book Review
Next by Michael Crichton
Published by HarperCollins in 2007.

Book synopsis from Amazon.com:

Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug addiction--is it worse than the disease?

What's coming Next? Get a hint of what Michael Crichton sees on the horizon in this short video clip: high bandwidth or low bandwidth

We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.

We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes...

Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.

Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

I can't say that this book is great literature, but for an "airplane novel" it fits the bill--it's fast-paced, entertaining, and in some cases extremely funny. In a couple of chapters the plot is very thin, but there are pieces of brilliant writing, such as in this scene:

Brad Gordon had a bad feeling as he walked into the Border Cafe on Ventura Boulevard and looked at the booths. The place was a greasy spoon, filled with actors. A guy waved from a rear booth. Brad walked back to him.
The guy was wearing a light gray suit. He was short and balding and looked unsure of himself. His handshake was weak. "Willy Johnson," he said, "I'm your new attorney for the upcoming trial."
"I thought my uncle, Jack Watson, was providing the attorney."
"He is," Johnson said. "I'm he. Pederasty is my specialty."
"What's that mean?"
"Sex with a boy. But I have experience with any underage partner."
"I didn't have sex with anybody," Brad said. "Underage or not."
"I've reviewed your file and the police reports," Johnson said, pulling out a legal pad. "I think we have several avenues for your defense."
"What about the girl?"
"She is not available; she left the country. Her mother is illi n the Philippines. But I am told she will return for the trial."
"I thought there wasn't going to be a trial," Brad said. The waitress came over. He waved her away. "Why are we meeting here?"
"I have to be in court in Van Nuys at ten. I thought this would be convenient."
Brad looked around uneasily. "Place is full of people. Actors. They talk a lot."
"We won't discuss the details of the case," Johnson said. "But I want to lay out the structure of your defense. In your case, I am proposing a genetic defense."
"Genetic defense? What's that mean?"
"People with various genetic abnormalities find themselves helpless to suppress certain impulses," Johnson said. "That makes them, in technical terms, not guilty. We will be proposing that as the explanation in your case."
"What genetic disorder? I don't have any genetic disorder."
"Hey, it's not a bad thing," Johnson said. "Think of it as a type of diabetes. You're not responsible for it. You were born that way. In your case, you have an irresistable impulse to engage in sex with attractive young women." He smiled. "It's an impulse that's shared by about ninety percent of the adult population."
"What kind of a fucking defense is that?" Brad Gordon said.
"A very effective one." Johnson shuffled through papers in a folder. "There have been several recent newspaper reports--"
"You mean to tell me," Brad said, "That there's a gene for sex with young girls?"
Johnson siged. "I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, no."
"then what's the defense?"
"D4DR."
"Which is?"
"It's called the novelty gene. It's the gene that drives us to take risks, engage in thrill-seeking behavior. We will argue that the novelty gene inside your body drove you to risky behavior."
"Sounds like bullshit to me."
"Is it? Let's see. Ever jump out of an airplane?"
"Yeah, in the army. Hated it."
"Scuba diving?"
"Couple of times. Had a hot girlfriend who liked it."
"Mountain climbing?"
"Nope."
"Really? Didn't your high school class climb Mount Rainier?"
"Yeah, but that was--"
"You climbed a major American peak," Johnson said, nodding. "Driving sports cars fast?"
"Not really, no."
"You have five tickets for speeding in your Porsche in the last three years. Under California law, you have been at risk for losing your license all that time."
"Just normal speeding..."
"I think not. How about sex with the boss's girlfriend?"
"Well..."
"And sex with the boss's wife?"
"Just once, a couple of jobs back. But she was the one who came on to--"
"Those are risky sex partners, Mr. Gordon. Any jury would agree. How about unprotected sex? Venereal diseases?"
"Just a minute, here," Braid said, "I don't want to get into--"
"I'm sure you don't," Johnson said, "and that's not surprising, considering three cases of pediculosis pubis--crabs. Two episodes of gonorrhea, one of chlamydia, two episodes of condyloma--or genital warts--including...hmm, one near the naus. And that's just the last five years, according to the records of your doctor in Southern California."
"How'd you get those?"
Johnson shrugged. "Skydiving, scuba diving, mountain climbing, reckless driving, high-risk sex partners, unprotected sex. If that doesn't comprise a pattern of high-risk, thrill-seeking behavior, I don't know what does."

McCain Out of Control

2008-02-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

Why not to vote for McCain:

“My friends, we are in challenging times,” he said, summing up his pitch. “I am running for president of the United States of America because I believe the transcendent challenge of the 21st century is the struggle against radical Islamic extremism, which takes many forms, is the greatest force of evil we’ve ever faced, and is bent on our destruction and our extinction. And my friends, we will never surrender. They will.”

John--you really should listen to Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. "Interventionism is not the cure for terror, it is the cause of terror."

The only candidates left in the presidential race who believe in this concept are Ron Paul and Barack Obama.

Shut down NASA!!!

2008-02-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

What the fuck is this???
--------------------

Is Anyone Out There?

NASA Will Beam Beatles Song Into Deep Space

By GINA SUNSERI

Feb. 4, 2008 —

Is there life on other planets in our galaxy?

On the off chance there is, are you listening? Because today, NASA will spin a song into space for the first time The Beatles' "Across the Universe" will go into deep space at 7 p.m. ET.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the song's first recording.

Paul McCartney is happy about being beamed into space. "Amazing! Well done, NASA!" McCartney wrote in a message to the space agency. "Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul."

This is also the 50th anniversary of NASA's founding and marks two other anniversaries for NASA: the launch, 50 years ago this week, of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, and the creation, 45 years ago, of the Deep Space Network, an international network of antennae that supports missions to explore the universe.

The Beatles transmission is being aimed at the North Star, Polaris, which is 431 light years from Earth. The song, written by John Lennon, will travel across the universe at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.
...

Women in an Artist's Life: Lesson of the Master by Henry James

2008-02-02T23:50:00.000-08:00

Book Review
Master and Man by Henry James
First published in 1888.

Henry James was an American author who lived most of his life in England. This short story reads as if it were written by a Brit (a bit too Victorian) and takes a while to develop, but it's still a joy...

"St. George smiled as for the candour of his question. “It’s all excellent, my dear fellow—heaven forbid I should deny it. I’ve made a great deal of money; my wife has known how to take care of it, to use it without wasting it, to put a good bit of it by, to make it fructify. I’ve got a loaf on the shelf; I’ve got everything in fact but the great thing.”

“The great thing?” Paul kept echoing.

“The sense of having done the best—the sense which is the real life of the artist and the absence of which is his death, of having drawn from his intellectual instrument the finest music that nature had hidden in it, of having played it as it should be played. He either does that or he doesn’t—and if he doesn’t he isn’t worth speaking of. Therefore, precisely, those who really know don’t speak of him. He may still hear a great chatter, but what he hears most is the incorruptible silence of Fame.
...
Again Paul was silent, but it was all tormenting. “Are there no women who really understand—who can take part in a sacrifice?”

“How can they take part? They themselves are the sacrifice. They’re the idol and the altar and the flame.”

“Isn’t there even one who sees further?” Paul continued.

For a moment St. George made no answer; after which, having torn up his letters, he came back to the point all ironic. “Of course I know the one you mean. But not even Miss Fancourt.”

“I thought you admired her so much.”

“It’s impossible to admire her more. Are you in love with her?” St. George asked.

“Yes,” Paul Overt presently said.

“Well then give it up.”

Paul stared. “Give up my ‘love’?”

“Bless me, no. Your idea.” And then as our hero but still gazed: “The one you talked with her about. The idea of a decent perfection.”

“She’d help it—she’d help it!” the young man cried.

“For about a year—the first year, yes. After that she’d be as a millstone round its neck.”

Paul frankly wondered. “Why she has a passion for the real thing, for good work—for everything you and I care for most.”

“‘You and I’ is charming, my dear fellow!” his friend laughed. “She has it indeed, but she’d have a still greater passion for her children—and very proper too. She’d insist on everything’s being made comfortable, advantageous, propitious for them. That isn’t the artist’s business.”

“The artist—the artist! Isn’t he a man all the same?”

St. George had a grand grimace. “I mostly think not. You know as well as I what he has to do: the concentration, the finish, the independence he must strive for from the moment he begins to wish his work really decent. Ah my young friend, his relation to women, and especially to the one he’s most intimately concerned with, is at the mercy of the damning fact that whereas he can in the nature of things have but one standard, they have about fifty. That’s what makes them so superior,” St. George amusingly added. “Fancy an artist with a change of standards as you’d have a change of shirts or of dinner-plates. To do it—to do it and make it divine—is the only thing he has to think about. ‘Is it done or not?’ is his only question. Not ‘Is it done as well as a proper solicitude for my dear little family will allow?’ He has nothing to do with the relative—he has only to do with the absolute; and a dear little family may represent a dozen relatives.”

“Then you don’t allow him the common passions and affections of men?” Paul asked.

“Hasn’t he a passion, an affection, which includes all the rest? Besides, let him have all the passions he likes—if he only keeps his independence. He must be able to be poor.”"

A Great Tragic Irony: Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy

2008-01-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

Book Review
Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy
First published in 1895.

I never thought I'd read Tolstoy since trying to get through War and Peace in high school. There are some really great old classics out there and this short story is one of them. It is reminiscent of Jack London's To Build A Fire (and other short stories). I still prefer the latter author because his stories are more adventerous. Nevertheless, this one is well worth reading. Here's an excerpt:

"And having taken these things from under Vasili Andreevich, Nikita went behind the sledge, dug out a hole for himself in the snow, put straw into it, wrapped his coat well round him, covered himself with the sackcloth, and pulling his cap well down seated himself on the straw he had spread, and leant against the wooden back of the sledge to shelter himself from the wind and the snow.

Vasili Andreevich shook his head disapprovingly at what Nikita was doing, as in general he disapproved of the peasant's stupidity and lack of education, and he began to settle himself down for the night.

He smoothed the remaining straw over the bottom of the sledge, putting more of it under his side. Then he thrust his hands into his sleeves and settled down, sheltering his head in the corner of the sledge from the wind in front.

He did not wish to sleep. He lay and thought: thought ever of the one thing that constituted the sole aim, meaning, pleasure, and pride of his life--of how much money he had made and might still make, of how much other people he knew had made and possessed, and of how those others had made and were making it, and how he, like them, might still make much more. The purchase of the Goryachkin grove was a matter of immense importance to him. By that one deal he hoped to make perhaps ten thousand rubles. He began mentally to reckon the value of the wood he had inspected in autumn, and on five acres of which he had counted all the trees.
...
'What's the use of lying and waiting for death? Better mount the horse and get away!' The thought suddenly occurred to him. 'The horse will move when he has someone on his back. As for him,' he thought of Nikita--'it's all the same to him whether he lives or dies. What is his life worth? He won't grudge his life, but I have something to live for, thank God.'

He untied the horse, threw the reins over his neck and tried to mount, but his coats and boots were so heavy that he failed. Then he clambered up in the sledge and tried to mount from there, but the sledge tilted under his weight, and he failed again. At last he drew Mukhorty nearer to the sledge, cautiously balanced on one side of it, and managed to lie on his stomach across the horse's back. After lying like that for a while he shifted forward once and again, threw a leg over, and finally seated himself, supporting his feet on the loose breeching-straps. The shaking of the sledge awoke Nikita. He raised himself, and it seemed to Vasili Andreevich that he said something.

'Listen to such fools as you! Am I to die like this for nothing?' exclaimed Vasili Andreevich. And tucking the loose skirts of his fur coat in under his knees, he turned the horse and rode away from the sledge in the direction in which he thought the forest and the forester's hut must be.
...
Again something dark appeared in front of him. Again he rejoiced,
convinced that now it was certainly a village. But once more it was the
same boundary line overgrown with wormwood, once more the same wormwood
desperately tossed by the wind and carrying unreasoning terror to his
heart. But its being the same wormwood was not all, for beside it
there was a horse's track partly snowed over. Vasili Andreevich stopped,
stooped down and looked carefully. It was a horse-track only partially
covered with snow, and could be none but his own horse's hoofprints. He
had evidently gone round in a small circle. 'I shall perish like that!'
he thought, and not to give way to his terror he urged on the horse
still more, peering into the snowy darkness in which he saw only
flitting and fitful points of light. Once he thought he heard the
barking of dogs or the howling of wolves, but the sounds were so faint
and indistinct that he did not know whether he heard them or merely
imagined them, and he stopped and began to listen intently.

Suddenly some terrible, deafening cry resounded near his ears, and
everything shivered and shook under him. He seized Mukhorty's neck,
but that too was shaking all over and the terrible cry grew still more
frightful. For some seconds Vasili Andreevich could not collect himself
or understand what was happening. It was only that Mukhorty, whether
to encourage himself or to call for help, had neighed loudly and
resonantly. 'Ugh, you wretch! How you frightened me, damn you!' thought
Vasili Andreevich. But even when he understood the cause of his terror
he could not shake it off.

'I must calm myself and think things over,' he said to himself, but yet
he could not stop, and continued to urge the horse on, without noticing
that he was now going with the wind instead of against it. His body,
especially between his legs where it touched the pad of the harness and
was not covered by his overcoats, was getting painfully cold, especially
when the horse walked slowly. His legs and arms trembled and his
breathing came fast. He saw himself perishing amid this dreadful snowy
waste, and could see no means of escape. He forgot all about the forester's hut, and desired on thing only,--to get back to the sledge, that he might not perish alone, like that wormwood in the midst of the terrible waste of snow.'

Thoughts on Playa del Carmen and Mexico

2008-01-28T12:45:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend and I just got back from a week-long vacation in Playa del Carmen in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. This beach town is about 50 or 60 miles southwest of Cancun. After doing some research we chose to stay there because it's close to the airport and seemed to be not as touristy as Cancun.

It took as an hour to get through Mexican customs at Cancun airport, which seemed like a long time until you realize how long visitors--and in some cases US citizens--have to wait to get through American customs when entering the US. There were no drinking fountains at the airport--apparently tap water is not drinkable anywhere in Mexico?--so we got ripped off getting a small bottle of water for 35 pesos.

We took a public bus to Playa del Carmen for 80 pesos, which is a good deal. The buses are more comfortable than Greyhound buses in the US. On the way there we spoke to an American tourist who told us of a cheap hotel in the main tourist area (5th Ave.) of Playa called Maya-Bric. It turned out to be a very nice hotel and we only paid 550 pesos per night which is a good price for the high season.

Besides getting cheaply-priced tequila and water at Wal-Mart (see map; BTW, most customers there are Mexican), we spent the first couple of days on the beach, which is free unless you want to rent a chair with a towel, which runs between $2 and $5 for the day depending on where you go). We found a small (and cheap) Mexican place for breakfast on 10th Ave. and Calle 8 or 10 (unfortunately I forgot the name but it has a wooden patio and is across from Ipanema's Steakhouse and O'Barzinho). For dinner we went to Yaxche and Parilla. Both are tourist traps but have good food and are not overly expensive (probably $25 each with a couple of drinks).

On our third day we rented a car at Hertz ($65 for a Jeep) and set out for the ancient Mayan ruins of Coba (we read over the Internet that they were much better than the ones at Tulum). Our experience renting the car was horrible. Hertz has an office right on 5th Ave and Calle 10, but they don't bring the car there. Instead, you have to take a 20 peso taxi to another office where the cars are. Once there, it took as about an hour to get the car. The office is small and inefficient. One of the employees there was in a shouting match with a couple of customers over something... OK, we finally got the car and headed out for Coba. The highway (route 307) was moderately dangerous. Gotta watch the shifting lanes--often not marked--and huge speed bumps right in the middle of the highway. No kidding, but at least they're well marked. Coba was great, I highly recommend it. The literal high-point of the trip was a ~150-foot climb up a pyramid called Nohoch Mul.

On the way back we stopped at a Pemex (the monopolized Mexican gas stations) to get some gas. The attendants, seeing that we were foreigners, immediately pounced on us. After they tanked us, we gave the guy a 500-peso bill. He came back a minute later and said he couldn't take it because it was torn on the edge. I didn't believe him and told him so. There happened to be an American nearby who could translate (my Spanish was not good enough for this instance). After a couple of minutes of arguing he took the bill. This was the low point of our experience in Playa, but I wasn't surprised because I read about the Pemex problem in Mexico before our trip. Watch out for these mo-fos!

The rest of the time we were on the beach and at local Mexican bars and restaurants (Salamandria for cheap drinks, HC Monterrey for the best meat ever, Dr.Taco for the best tacos, and our breakfast place for great omelets). You won't find many tourists there, but that's what made it fun. We met some really nice and great-to-hang-out-with Mexicans there. We conversed in a mixture of Spanish and English. You only have to attempt to speak some Spanish and people will open up to you.

When I got back I was thinking shit, what am I doing here in Seattle with this bullshit weather, I should be having an easier life in Mexico. I would consider living in Playa del Carmen, but I'm afraid that I'd get bored too quickly. Maybe it's becoming too touristy. The never-ending harangue from the shopkeepers--asking you to check out their merchandise--gets tiresome. What else.... You're not supposed to flush any toilet paper down the toilets (we didn't follow the rule) and of course you gotta watch out for the Pemex guys. But overall, if you can get used to Mexican inefficiency, I think it's possible to have a much easier lifestyle there than in the States. No bullshit about when and where you can drink or smoke. No worries about some bullshit terrorist threats, wars, politics, mortgage or car payments. Of course the bottom line is you have to have money to live there or find a way to make a living. I haven't figured that out yet, but if I do, I just might move there.

VIVA MEXICO!

Hillary is not an Evil Robot! (not)

2008-01-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

I feel for you Hillary... And because of that, I will now vote for you in the New Hampshire Primary!

2007-12-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

Book Review
Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
First published in 1856. This Dover Publications Edition published in 1990.

American Amasa Delano, captain of a trading ship and moored off the coast of Chile, sees a distressed ship approaching the harbor. But something is amiss: it carries no flags, its captain Benito Cereno seems physically and mentally unstable, and the crew and passengers act strange and disorderly. What really happened during the treacherous passage around Cape Horn?

Melville published this book just a few years before the Civil War; therefore, slavery was a hot topic in America then. Most of the cargo on the Cereno's ship, the San Dominick, were slaves, but the American captain is surprised to find that they have relative freedom on board. And how is that the Spaniard's steward and confidant is a Negro? Something is much amiss, the American captain figures.

Benito Cereno is a mystery novel of the first rate and it touches upon the moral and political issues of Melville's day. Contrary to what some readers think, the novel promotes abolishing slavery, as a shrewd analysis of the events will show at the end of the book...

Ron Paul Tea Party - December 16, 2007

2007-12-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

The only hope left to save this country... I'll be there for you Ron on December 16th drinking tea (my preference is to mix it with vodka).

Interventionism is not the cure for terror, it is the cause of terror.

2007-12-01T13:45:00.000-08:00

More Pat Buchanan (the great quote is at 3:38):

If people only listened more to Pat and Ron Paul, this country would be in much better shape. Billions saved, constitution and privacy rights upheld, lower taxes, no war, no antagonism from the rest of the world, etc., etc....

No Free Energy Episode #4

2007-11-30T13:24:00.000-08:00

I'm passionate about this issue because a lot of people think . It's too bad Einstein is now alive; I'd really like to hear his view on this issue. In my opinion, it comes down to this fundamental law: energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.

Notes from the McLaughlin Group:

AL GORE (former vice president): (From videotape.) Tipper and I will go to Oslo and I will accept this award on behalf of all of those who have been working so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary emergency.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The Nobel Peace Prize this year went to Al Gore. Gore has awakened the world to the reality and the danger of global warming. This alert and the scientific evidence behind it has set off a worldwide scramble to profit from a tectonic shift.

There's big money to be made in the green gold. The gold rush of yesteryear has become the green rush of today. General Electric, General Motors, Archer Daniels Midland, ExxonMobil, are racing to discover how, through their own businesses, they can feed the demand for green -- green fuels, green subsidies, green mandates.

You've heard of blue-collar jobs and white-collar jobs. Well, climbing up the ladder, we now have green-collar jobs. The Credit Suisse Group has introduced a new, quote-unquote, "global warming index." It lists new green investment stocks and other green instruments for major banks. Over the next 25 years, global demand for energy will climb by 40 percent.

This combination of profit motive, market incentives and government regulation has unleashed billions of dollars in new research on two fronts: New energy and efficient energy. Economists predict that this wave of innovation will reshape world markets as radically as the computer boom of the '90s.

But skeptics say we've heard that song before, notably in the '70s during the energy crisis. Washington then subsidized synthetic fuel. Washington then subsidized solar panels. Nuclear took on a new life. Detroit retooled; built engines that delivered more miles to the gallon and a catalytic converter built around it.

Then, after all this commotion, after all this reaction to the escalation of oil prices, the price plummeted and the big green balloon burst.

Question: So which will it be this time, a green boom or a green bust? Pat Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: It'll be both, John. It's going to start off with a boom because there's an enormous political movement to transfer wealth and power to the federal government and from nation-states to international bureaucrats who can control the planet and the rest of it.

Businesses are going to reach into this thing and make all the money they can on good capitalist principles. The media love an end- of-the-world scenario; nothing better than that for ratings. And it's all going to continue, John, until we're going to wake up and find the ocean did not rise 20 feet at all and the planet is warming very slowly and it's not a crisis.

Then they'll find a new one, like bird flu or nuclear winter. They find these every decade, one or another. And then it will go away and everybody will have made a lot of money, and government everywhere will have more power. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So global warming is the big lie. Is that what you're saying?

MR. BUCHANAN: It's not a lie. It's occurring. But it's a big con.
...

Pat, you are my hero. I am certain that 30 or 50 years from now when America will be a 2nd or 3rd rate economic power, people will say, "Buchanan was right".

Whatever fate befalls you, is it for the best?: Candide by Voltaire

2007-11-28T15:45:00.000-08:00

Book Review
Candide by Voltaire
First published in 1759. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition published in 2005.

Along with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, I think this is one of the best works of fiction written before modern times.

The story is about Candide, a candid youth who is taught by his tutor that all that happens in life is for the best. But when many misfortunes befall on him and his compatriots, will his moral and philosophical foundation be shaken?

Here is an excerpt from Candide:

"Now we are upon this subject," said Candide, "do you think that the earth was originally sea, as we read in that great book which belongs to the captain of the ship?"

"I believe nothing of it," replied Martin, "any more than I do of the many other chimeras which have been related to us for some time past."

"But then, to what end," said Candide, "was the world formed?"

"To make us mad," said Martin.

"Are you not surprised," continued Candide, "at the love which the two girls in the country of the Oreillons had for those two monkeys? -You know I have told you the story."

"Surprised?" replied Martin, "not in the least. I see nothing strange in this passion. I have seen so many extraordinary things that there is nothing extraordinary to me now."

"Do you think," said Candide, "that mankind always massacred one another as they do now? Were they always guilty of lies, fraud, treachery, ingratitude, inconstancy, envy, ambition, and cruelty? Were they always thieves, fools, cowards, gluttons, drunkards, misers, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, and hypocrites?"

"Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always been accustomed to eat pigeons when they came in their way?"

"Doubtless," said Candide.

"Well then," replied Martin, "if hawks have always had the same nature, why should you pretend that mankind change theirs?"

"Oh," said Candide, "there is a great deal of difference; for free will-" and reasoning thus they arrived at Bordeaux.
...
"As soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey's slaves. I was purchased by a merchant who carried me to Tunis. This man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. After many changes, I at length became the property of an Aga of the Janissaries, who, soon after I came into his possession, was ordered away to the defense of Azoff, then besieged by the Russians.

"The Aga, being very fond of women, took his whole seraglio with him, and lodged us in a small fort, with two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers for our guard. Our army made a great slaughter among the Russians; but they soon returned us the compliment. Azoff was taken by storm, and the enemy spared neither age, sex, nor condition, but put all to the sword, and laid the city in ashes. Our little fort alone held out; they resolved to reduce us by famine. The twenty janissaries, who were left to defend it, had bound themselves by an oath never to surrender the place. Being reduced to the extremity of famine, they found themselves obliged to kill our two eunuchs, and eat them rather than violate their oath. But this horrible repast soon failing them, they next determined to devour the women.

"We had a very pious and humane man, who gave them a most excellent sermon on this occasion, exhorting them not to kill us all at once. 'Cut off only one of the buttocks of each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you will fare extremely well; if you are under the necessity of having recourse to the same expedient again, you will find the like supply a few days hence. Heaven will approve of so charitable an action, and work your deliverance.'

"By the force of this eloquence he easily persuaded them, and all of us underwent the operation. The man applied the same balsam as they do to children after circumcision. We were all ready to give up the ghost.

"The Janissaries had scarcely time to finish the repast with which we had supplied them, when the Russians attacked the place by means of flat-bottomed boats, and not a single janissary escaped. The Russians paid no regard to the condition we were in; but there are French surgeons in all parts of the world, and one of them took us under his care, and cured us. I shall never forget, while I live, that as soon as my wounds were perfectly healed he made me certain proposals. In general, he desired us all to be of a good cheer, assuring us that the like had happened in many sieges; and that it was perfectly agreeable to the laws of war.

"As soon as my companions were in a condition to walk, they were sent to Moscow. As for me, I fell to the lot of a Boyard, who put me to work in his garden, and gave me twenty lashes a day. But this nobleman having about two years afterwards been broken alive upon the wheel, with about thirty others, for some court intrigues, I took advantage of the event, and made my escape. I traveled over a great part of Russia. I was a long time an innkeeper's servant at Riga, then at Rostock, Wismar, Leipsic, Cassel, Utrecht, Leyden, The Hague, and Rotterdam. I have grown old in misery and disgrace, living with only one buttock, and having in perpetual remembrance that I am a Pope's daughter. I have been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?

"In the different countries which it has been my fate to traverse, and at the many inns where I have been a servant, I have observed a prodigious number of people who held their existence in abhorrence, and yet I never knew more than twelve who voluntarily put an end to their misery; namely, three Negroes, four Englishmen, as many Genevese, and a German professor named Robek. My last place was with the Jew, Don Issachar, who placed me near your person, my fair lady; to whose fortunes I have attached myself, and have been more concerned with your adventures than with my own. I should never have even mentioned the latter to you, had you not a little piqued me on the head of sufferings; and if it were not customary to tell stories on board a ship in order to pass away the time.

"In short, my dear miss, I have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the world, therefore take my advice: divert yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all that has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most wretched of mortals, I give you leave to throw me headfirst into the sea."

No Free Energy Episode #3 (Ethanol is bull shit)

2007-11-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

See this article from the Wall Street Journal:

Ethanol Craze Cools
As Doubts Multiply
Claims for Environment,
Energy Use Draw Fire;
Fighting on the Farm
By LAUREN ETTER
November 28, 2007; Page A1

Little over a year ago, ethanol was winning the hearts and wallets of both Main Street and Wall Street, with promises of greater U.S. energy independence, fewer greenhouse gases and help for the farm economy. Today, the corn-based biofuel is under siege.

In the span of one growing season, ethanol has gone from panacea to pariah in the eyes of some. The critics, which include industries hurt when the price of corn rises, blame ethanol for pushing up food prices, question its environmental bona fides and dispute how much it really helps reduce the need for oil.
[chart]

A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that biofuels "offer a cure [for oil dependence] that is worse than the disease." A National Academy of Sciences study said corn-based ethanol could strain water supplies. The American Lung Association expressed concern about a form of air pollution from burning ethanol in gasoline. Political cartoonists have taken to skewering the fuel for raising the price of food to the world's poor.
...
Read the full article.

See my previous posts about energy: #1 and #2.

Finally, the History Channel's Modern Marvels discusses the pros and cons of various types of renewable energy.

Warren Buffett on the Estate Tax

2007-11-15T17:09:00.000-08:00

Warren Buffett is a hero of mine, not only because he is the icon of American capitalism, but because I consider him to be a good guy.

So while I disagree with him on the estate tax, a.k.a. "the death tax"--I don't think there should be any because over one or two generations a rich person's fortune will likely be squandered by his/her descendants anyway and the private sector is better at allocating resources than the government--it was sad to see a man of his stature and integrity to be interrupted and questioned unfairly by the honorable members of our government.

Specifically, during the Senate hearings, he was cut off by Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)when he was discussing why the vast majority of charitable organizations only spend the required minimum (5%) of their endowments; Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) who was making the assumption that Buffett was for the estate-tax because his holdings include insurance companies who have been lobbying hard not to have the estate tax repealed; and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), who thanked Buffett for his contributions to the Gates Foundation, but said a few times something along the lines of, "whenever you do make the contribution."

Do your homework people! Buffett is the good guy here!

Miss Navajo

2007-11-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

I saw a really great Independent Lens documentary last night about the Miss Navajo pageant in Arizona. This was a really inspiring story about the struggles and triumphs of the Navajos. One story note that was really disturbing: after WWII when the children in the reservations were taught by outsiders, the children were punished for speaking Navajo. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was trying to eradicate their culture (this is the common practice amongst conquering tribes/nations). Once a language dies, so does its culture... Of course, that unfortunately did happen for most Native American tribes.

John Murtha = George Bush on an Al Gore diet?

2007-10-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

"If John Murtha were a businessman, he'd be the biggest employer in this town.
...
Johnstown's [PA] good fortune has come at the expense of taxpayers everywhere else. Defense contractors have found that if they open an office here and hire the right lobbyist, they can get lucrative, no-bid contracts. Over the past decade, Concurrent Technologies Corp., a defense-research firm that employs 800 here, got hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to Rep. Murtha despite poor reviews by Pentagon auditors. The National Drug Intelligence Center, with 300 workers, got $509 million, though the White House has tried for years to shut it down as wasteful and unnecessary. Another beneficiary: MTS Technologies, run by a man who got his start some 40 years ago shining shoes at Mr. Murtha's Johnstown Minute Car Wash."
...

Hillary Clinton -- 1984 Redux

2007-10-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul is my choice, but this is a good ad nevertheless. Anyone but Clinton! No matter who gets elected, the American empire is still going to sink; the only difference will be how hard the impact will be...

Schweiz, Schweiz, Über Alles!?

2007-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Nationalism really sucks. It is unfortunate that xenophobia is a fundamental characteristic of human beings. There's little doubt the attribute was carried down for millions of years from the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, which brings up the following question: can it ever be eradicated? Almost certainly not, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't fight it.

....
Swiss Fury at Foreigners Boiling Over
Grisly Attack on African Underscores Race Issue In a Harsh Campaign
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 9, 2007; Page A10

...One of the world's oldest democracies is at the center of Western Europe's most divisive political debate: to embrace an increasingly globalized, multicultural society or to retreat into social isolation in an effort to preserve eroding traditional identities.

Across Switzerland, anti-foreigner and anti-Islamic attitudes have become so pervasive on the streets, in politics and within governmental institutions that the United Nations, European Union, Amnesty International and Switzerland's own Federal Commission Against Racism have expressed alarm in recent months.

The theme is dominating the campaign for national parliamentary elections Oct. 21 and is crystallized in a controversial campaign poster showing three white sheep kicking a black sheep off a Swiss flag above the slogan, "For more security."
....
Read the full article.

The Greatest Conqueror in the World

2007-10-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World by Leo de Hartog
Published in 1999 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

I picked this book up at the most recent Seattle Public Library Book Fair. I can't say that this is a great book about the life of Genghis Khan: the maps are second class, the descriptions of the various regions and tribes are often not presented in terms of today's geography, and the author's focus on the position and status of dozens Genghis Khan's family members and associates is hard to grasp at times.

Nevertheless, this book is a good a primer on the history of the most successful military commander the world has ever known. There are a number of aspects to this man that were both very intriguing and at the same time quite terrifying. For example, through the Mongols' contacts with other cultures, they began to doubt that their God (Tengri) was the only one; as a result they were religiously tolerant. At the same time, Genghis Khan and the Mongols became known for their slaughter and destruction wherever they fought (China, Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe):

"For Genghis Khan and his Mongols human life had no value, and they did not understand the worth of a static civilization or of an agricultural population. They had no interest in anything that could not be adapted to their native steppes. Undoubtedly the Mongols did not kill, ravage and plunder out of sadism: they did not know any better. Their action conformed with the practice of warfare current at that time. As shown earlier, any chance of an effective rising against the Mongols was quashed by killing all the able-bodied members of the population or by removing them as prisoners."

The success of the Mongols was, of course, due to one man: Genghis Khan. Not only was he a great military general, but he also had an ability to judge human nature very well, in the words of the author, Leo de Hartog. He picked the best people and put them in the right positions, even his ex-enemies he judged he could trust. Those he couldn't trust, especially deserters from the opposing army, he killed. Genghis Khan also was influenced by the much more educated Chinese and Muslims, and used them extensively to administer his empire.

As to the military strategy and tactics of Genghis Khan and the Mongol army--this is where the book gets interesting. They included: careful planning prior to campaigns, including the use of spies; bidding his time when not in an optimal position to attack; protecting a threatened flank at all times, including going on the attack; moving with lightning speed, sometimes covering over 75 kilometers per day; the extensive use of terror tactics, especially using the enemies' able-bodied men as cannon-fodder; use of prisoners, fake dummies, and torches to make army appear larger in size.

In essence, Genghis Khan made sure that the battle was won before it was fought, making one wonder how extensively he was influenced by Sun Tzu.

Finally, what really stands out in the book, and justifiably so, are the vivid descriptions of slaughter he and his army caused. Undoubtedly, such mass-scale slaughter had happened before (but hopefully will never happen again?), but the speed and the terror of the campaigns were probably only matched by the Germans in WWII. In the end, this is what Genghis Khan will forever be known for.

"The next large town to be approached by the Mongols was Nishapur. In the summer of 1220 it had offered no resistance to Jebe and Subedei, but later it adopted a more hostile attitude. In November 1220 an assault by Toquachar's tumen was repulsed, and Toquchar was killed. When they saw Tolui's great army the inhabitants wished to parley about surrender, but Tolui refused to have anything to do with their spokesmen. The assault began on 7 April 1221. After three days the Mongols forced their way in. As in Merv, the townspoeple were drive nout to be massacred. To avenge the death of his brother-in-law Toquchar, Tolui gave orders to raze the town to the ground so thoroughly that the land on which it stood could be ploughed. Even the cats and dogs were killed. Toquchar's widow demanded a share in the massacre of the townspeople. Pyramids were made of the heads which had been cut off. The head of the men, women and children were kept in separate rows.
...
It is noteworthy that the Mongols had less difficulty in taking town in Transoxiana and Khurasan than in north China. In addition to the use of siege engines in the Khwarazm empire, terrorist techniques [mainly the removal of a town's men of military age and using them as cannon-fodder] had great success there. Terror had less effect on the Chinese, because in the course of the centuries they had become accustomed to the methods of the barbarians."

"In K'ai-fend the situation became steadily more hopeless. In 1223 the Emperor Ngai-tsung managed to escape from his beleaguered captial to a town in the east surrounded by water. There he tried without success to urge the Sung to change their plans. In the spring of 1233 K'ai-fend surrendered to Subedei, a step hastened by the treachery of Ts'ui-li, a Chin general. Subedei executed all the male members of the Chin dynasty, as well as the entire family of Wan-yen Yi. The women of the imperial dynasty he sent to Qaraqorum. Subedei also proposed to wipe out the whole population in the capital, but thanks to the energetic intervention of Yeh-lu Ch'u-ts'ai, this massacre was not carried out. plundering, robbery, violence and arson could not be avoided after such a long siege however. The Sung troops also joined in these activities."

The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters

2007-09-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I decided to see this movie on a lazy Saturday. We weren't sure what to expect because it's about a guy who is trying to become the new scoring champion in a 25+ year old arcade game: Donkey Kong.

But this documentary is not so much a story about a few nerds trying to become champions at something that most people couldn't care less about (given that the video game industry brings in more revenue than the movie studios, that may not be totally true nowadays); rather, this is a story about human nature, as my girlfriend put it. And a great story this is...

The Life of Revolutionary Soldiers: Ocean of Words by Ha Jin

2007-08-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
Published in 1998 by Vintage International

These are the fictional stories of soldiers during the Sino-Russian border conflict in the late 1960s. Author Ha Jin was a soldier in the People's Liberation Army then, and this must be why his stories seem so authentic--not necessarily the actual content, but the mindset of characters. This is what is so enjoyable about Ha Jin's stories: each character is different and most have somewhat of an opportunistic if not dark side, somewhat similar to Jack London's writing. Add in the occasional satire, and there is little doubt that Ha Jin is a natural, or perhaps a learned (based on his experiences in Communist China) skeptic.

Here then, is a portion of a story from Ha Jin's Ocean of Words, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award.

"Our talk did not take long. He looked crestfallen and ashamed, but he denied there had been somebody else involved and insisted to me that a good man must accept the consequences of his own actions.
In a way, I appreciated his only blaming himself for the whoring. If another man like him was found in my platoon, I would have trouble clearing our name. People would chuckle and say the First Platoon had a whoring gang. That would give Liu Fu a hard time too, because he would surely be treated by the other men as a sort of traitor.
But I did take this case seriously, for I had to stop it. We stayed at the border to defend our country, and we must not lose our fighting spirit by chasing women. Unlike the Russians on the other side, we Chinese were revolutionary soldiers, and we could not rely on women to keep up our morale. Every Saturday night we saw from our watchtower the Russians having many college girls over in their barracks. They would sing and dance around bonfires, kiss and embrace in the open air, roll and fuck int he woods. They were barbarians and Revisionists, while we were Chinese and true Revolutionaries.
So I ordered Liu Fu to write out his self-criticism, examining the elements of bourgeois ideology in his brain and getting a clear understanding of the nature of his offense. He wept and begged me not to take disciplinary action against him. He was afraid his family would know it, and he would carry the stain for the rest of his life. I told him that a disciplinary action would have to be taken and that I was unable to help him with that. It was better to tell him the truth.
'So I'm done for?' His horsey eyes watched my mouth expectantly.
'Your case was sent down by the Regimental Political Department. You know our company cannot interfere with a decision from above. Usually, an offender like you is punished with a disciplinary action, but this doesn't mean you will have to carry it for the rest of your life. It depends on your own behavior. Say from now on you behave well in every way, you may have it taken out of your file when you are demobilized.'
He opened his big mouth , but he didn't say anything, as if he swallowed down some words that had been stuck in his throat. The word demobilized must have struck him hard, because a soldier like him from the countryside would work diligently in order to be promoted to officer's rank. It would be a misfortune to return to his poor home village, where no job waited for him; if he had no job, no girl would marry him. But with such a stigma in his record, Liu Fu's future in the army was fixed: He would never be an officer."

The Life of a Chinese Scholar in 1989: The Crazed by Ha Jin

2007-08-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Book Review
The Crazed by Ha Jin
Published in 2002 by Pantheon Books

It is a small personal achievement to find an author with great talent--the kind where you want to pick up his or her next book right after reading the first one. Ha Jin is that type of author.

When the well-liked Professor Yang, a scholar at a provincial university in China suffers a stroke, it comes as a surprise to his students. One of them, Jian Wan, who is engaged to his daughter, makes daily visits to the hospital to console him. But the professor seems to be out of his mind, spouting philosophical and revolutionary songs, tirades against the Communist government, and personal love stories. Is there any sense to his seemingly random talk or has the professor truly gone mad?

In The Crazed, Ha Jin gives us a great picture of China around the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It is not a positive one. Even though economic and political conditions have drastically improved since the Cultural Revolution (which he frequently mentions in the book), there is still much poverty and it seems that in many instances one can only advance by being a member of the Communist Party and knowing the right people. Qualification at universities often comes secondary, and besides their hard work and accomplishments, both students and faculty do not seem very happy. In the words of The Crazed' Professor Yang, they're all clerks in a pickle vat (the narrator is Jian Wan).

"'Professor Yang, I'm here to see how you're doing. Do you feel better?'
'No, I'm getting worse,' Mr. Yang snorted without moving his head. His right hand was fingering the elastic waist of his new pajamas.
'Profesor Yang, may I report to you on the editorial plan for the next issue of the journal?'
'What journal?'
'The one you've been editing.'
'That's a pamphlet.'
'Okay, whatever you call it. So far we have picked eight papers for the next issue. Two of them are on the regulated verse, one on Ming fiction, one on ancient folk songs, two on--'
'Why are you talking to me about this propaganda stuff? I'm not a clerk anymore.'
Yuman Tan looked confused, then turned to me searchingly. I forced a smile while my forefinger was cranking my temple.
'Well,' he answered Mr. Yang, 'because you're the editor in chief, I'm just your assistant, and you have the final say.'
'I quit long ago so that I can take a trip.'
'A trip? Where to?' Yuman Tan closed the briefcase and put it on his lap.
'To Canada.'
'Why Canada? Isn't it very cold there?' He sucked his breath as if feeling a sensitive tooth.
'No. Every room is heated in Vancouver, warm inside.'
'Doesn't it snow a lot in winter?'
'Snow can clean the air and purify your spirit.'
'I don't get it, Professor Yang. Don't you get laryngitis when it's cold?'
'This country is a pickle vat and I don't want to be marinated in this filth anymore. Like the lotus flower, I came out of the mud but will not be soiled by it.'
That made me panic, because Yuman Tan might report Mr. Yang's twaddle to the leaders. He said unctuously, 'You can't desert us like this, Professor Yang. We need your guidance and leadership. Without you we'd be totally lost.'
'You should leave this place too. In such a pickle vat even a stone can be marinated and lose its original color and begin to stink. You should find a peaceful place that has clean water and fresh air, good for the health of your soul.'
Yuman Tan frowned, but immediately his face softened. He turned to me and said under his breath, 'Maybe I shouldn't bother him with this trifle for the time being.'
I replied, 'Yes. He can't think clearly now.'
'Don't badmouth me!' Mr. Yang snapped.
'All right,' said Yuman Tan, 'Professor Yang, you're very tired today. We'll talk about the editorial stuff another time. Take good care of yourself.' He stood up, stepped forward, and patted the back of Mr. Yang's hand. Then he turned to me and said, 'I'd better get going.'
Mr. Yang said crossly, apropos of nothing, 'I shall forgive none of you. You all hate me, but I don't care. I shall leave this mousetrap soon, for good.'
Shocked, Yuman Tan furrowed his forehead, but he didn't say a word. I followed him out of the room. In the corridor I begged him, 'Please don't take Mr. Yang at his word. He's beside himself today. You know he loves his country.'
'No doubt about it. Don't worry.' He put on a smile that showed some smugness.

Private Equity: "I create nothing; I own" ?

2007-07-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm an ardent supporter of capitalism, but the way private equity companies structure deals such as the one outlined in the Wall Street Journal article below only benefits the takeover sharks. Obviously there's nothing wrong with restructuring if it helps a company's long-term prospects, but a successful corporation has to share some of its wealth with its workers; if it doesn't the company will usually fail at some point assuming there's free competition. In a case such as this one however, the company that was bought out had no choice but to lay off its workers because the private equity company that bought it saddled it with debt and then immediately took a dividend out for itself.

It's reminiscent of the movie Wall Street and the famous line by Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas): "I create nothing, I own." See my post from last year about private equity--the WSJ article mentioned is eerily similar to this one.

PAGE ONE
DOW JONES REPRINTS
IN THE TRENCHES
How a Blackstone Deal
Shook Up a Work Force
Layoffs at Travelport, Dividend for Investors;
'On Pins and Needles'

By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN
July 27, 2007; Page A1

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- Not long after the Blackstone Group bought Travelport Ltd. last August, workers at the company's office campus here began feeling the squeeze.
Two months after the deal closed, scores of employees were lugging boxes of personal belongings to their cars, having lost their jobs. Under Blackstone's ownership, the travel-reservations conglomerate has laid off 841 people, about 10% of its work force. Blackstone, a private-equity firm, has already recouped all of the money it invested in Travelport.

Similar scenes have been unfolding at companies around the nation, a human toll of the corporate-buyout boom. Private-equity firms, which say they bring sorely needed financial discipline to poorly run companies, have been slashing costs and extracting profits at warp speed. As the cycle of buying and selling companies has intensified, life in the trenches can be unstable and traumatic.

By the end of 2007, Travelport expects to slash costs by $150 million. Last week, it brought public its online reservations unit, Orbitz Worldwide Inc., using the proceeds to pay off debt. Its Galileo unit, which feeds airline information to travel agents, is the focus of much of the overhaul. Many of the job cuts have occurred at the company's data-operations center here outside Denver, where some jobs have been outmoded by shifts in technology and in the way people buy airline tickets and rent cars, executives say.

John Kliegel, 41 years old, a computer-systems analyst, and his twin, Russell, a technical writer, were both laid off. They're selling the house they share because they can no longer afford it. Don Kleppinger, a 46-year-old software engineer with five sons, lost his job, leaving him without health insurance for several months. Grace Covyeau, 63, who lost her job as a telecommunications engineer, took a part-time job last month making sandwiches and coffee at King Soopers grocery store.

"It came as a shock," says Michael Berson, 49, who lost his job as a data engineer in October, three years after receiving a "Super Star" award for saving the company $1.2 million on telecommunications costs. Mr. Berson has moved to Tulsa, where he is looking for a new job.

In addition to the 841 layoffs, 1,500 Travelport workers have left voluntarily since the buyout. The company says it has hired 1,582 new workers during that period, and has invested heavily in new technology.

Travelport Chief Executive Jeff Clarke describes the Centennial operation as the "factory" through which thousands of transactions pass every second. "We need to shift into new technologies," he says. "Some require productivity improvements and often will lead to layoffs."

To complete their $4.3 billion Travelport purchase, Blackstone and Technology Crossover Ventures, a Palo Alto, Calif., venture-capital firm that now owns 11%, invested $1 billion and borrowed the rest. That debt landed on Travelport's balance sheet. In March, Travelport borrowed an additional $1.1 billion and paid it out as a dividend to the two firms, returning all their money in just seven months.

"This is likely one of the quickest returns of invested capital for a private-equity deal of its size," Travelport's new chief financial officer, Michael Rescoe, said in a May conference call with analysts.

The buyout boom has been lucrative for Blackstone partners and investors, which include large institutions such as pension funds. Last year, Blackstone managed assets valued at about $88 billion and earned $2.27 billion, according to a prospectus for its own initial public offering in June. Its chief executive, Stephen Schwarzman, who resides in a 35-room Manhattan apartment, made more than $650 million on the offering and retained a 24% stake now worth more than $5 billion.
....
Read more here...

Maternity Leave: U.S. Worst in the World

2007-07-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

For being the richest country in the world, this is a disgrace. Isn't the Democratic Party suppose to fix this? Oh wait, it's the Republicans: they're the "family values" party. Wrong--everybody is a pawn to the corporations.

[Graphic is from the most recent issue of National Geographic Magazine]

The Genius of Haruki Murakami

2007-07-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Published in 2006 by Vintage; translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel

Once you have read a few of fiction writer Haruki Murakami's stories, it is doubtful that you wouldn't think he is a genius. Some of his books, such as Norwegian Woodand South of the Border, West of the Sunare great stories that flow really smoothly, the kind you never want to end. Pretty straightforward stuff. His other books on the other hand, particularly Wind-up Bird Chronicleand Kafka on the Shoreare anything but normal--Murakami takes the reader to the outer edges of consciousness with quirky characters, dark metaphysical events, violence and sex. At the same time, the Western reader is left with two distinct questions: could this have happened and are the characters typical of the Japanese mindset?

Here's a snippet from Kafka on the Shore:

"...At times like that I always feel an omen calling out to me, like a dark, omnipresent pool of water.

A dark, omnipresent pool of water.
It was probably always there, hidden away somewhere. But when the time comes it silently rushes out, chilling every cell in your body. You drown in that cruel flood, gasping for breath. You cling to a vent near the ceiling, struggling, but the air you manage to breathe is dry and burns your throat. Water and thirst, cold and heat--these supposedly opposite elements combine to assault you.
The world is a huge space, but the space that will take you in--it doesn't have to be very big--is nowhere to be found. You seek a voice, but what do you get? Silence. You look for silence, but guess what? All you hear over and over and over is the voice of this omen. And sometimes this prophetic voice pushes a secret switch hidden deep inside your brain.
Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart.
Before running away from home I wash my hands and face, trim my nails, swab out my ears, and brush my teeth. I take my time, making sure my whole body's well scrubbed. Being really clean is sometimes the most important thing there is. I gaze carefully at my face in the mirror. Genes I'd gotten from my father and mother--not that I have any recollection of what she looked like--created this face. I can do my best to not let any emotions show, keep my eyes from revealing anything, bulk up my muscles, but there's not much I can do about my looks. I'm stuck with my father's long, thick eyebrows and the deep lines between them. I could probably kill him if I wanted to--I'm sure strong enough--and I can erase my mother from my memory. But there's no way to erase the DNA they passed down to me. If I wanted to drive that away I'd have to get rid of me.
There's an omen contained in that. A mechanism buried inside of me.
A mechanism buried inside of you.
I switch off the light and leave the bathroom. A heavy, damp stillness lies over the house. The whispers of people who don't exist, the breath of the dead. I look around, standing stock-still, and take a deep breath. The clock shows three p.m., the two hands cold and distant. They're pretending to be noncommittal, but I know they're not on my side. It's nearly time for me to say good-bye. I pick up my backpack and slip it over my shoulders. I've carried it any number of times, but now it feels so much heavier.
Shikoku, I decide. That's where I'll go. There's no particular reason it has to be Shikoku, only that studying the map I got the feeling that's where I should head. The more I look at the map--actually every time I study it--the more I feel Shikoku tugging at me. It's far south of Tokyo, separated from the mainland by water, with a warm climate. I've never been there, have no friends or relatives there, so if somebody started looking for me--which I kind of doubt--Shikoku would be the last place they'd think of."

Ron Paul: Freedom is the Answer

2007-07-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting for a true libertarian to come along in the presidential campaign for a long time--someone who believes in the principles this country was founded on: liberty of the individual, the less government the better, the least amount of foreign intervention. Someone similar to Ronald Reagan without the military adrenaline. Actually, believe it or not, George Bush had a similar message before 9/11--he was proposing less international involvement and lower taxes (instead we have a bigger government and people around the world hate us).

After listening to all the candidates from both parties, I'm convinced that Ron Paul is the best person for America. Someone who can save the looming bankruptcy (by drastically reducing the size of the government), returning rights to individuals (no government approval for anything; no income taxes; no draft; etc.), and make America loved around the world again (by bringing back troops from across the globe). As congressman, Ron Paul voted against the war in Iraq, against the Patriot Act, and against more government spending.

The sun has not yet set on America, but I'm pretty certain that America is on the verge of a permanent decline unless we engage in honest dialogue that can lead to less government. If we don't change soon, we will either become a country like Mexico, where the are a few rich people, a lot of poor people, and almost no middle class; or we will become a socialist country like France as a result of the former where everybody seems to be equally happy and prosperous but in reality they're neither.

In the words of Ronald Reagan, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

2007-07-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

It is easy to follow the pack. When the winds shift on an issue--as is the case with the war in Iraq--most of the public unconciously follows course and skillfull politicians conciously change their viewpoints. Global warming is another such issue. During the early and mid-1970s many scientists, the news media, and the public believed that the world was cooling and that we could be on the verge of a new ice age. Now of course, most believe in the opposite.

Let us hope that no rash and very expensive decisions are made on incomplete data and incorrect assumptions. There is no doubt that the Earth is currently in a warming state, but to say that it is caused by human activity is extremely doubtful at best, a fabricated lie at worst. This documentary shows why that is the case. (I've previously written on this issue--here's another good documentary.)

If you want to change the world, find another issue that's more important such as ending the war in Iraq, global poverty, or habitat destruction (the biggest threat to humanity today).

No Free (Energy) Lunches

2007-07-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

Note to Brad Pitt: take the bus back next time.

From AutoblogGreen:
Brad Pitt thinks BMW's Hydrogen 7 is perfect for Ocean's 13 premiere
Posted Jun 6th 2007 1:39PM by Sebastian Blanco

At the premiere of Ocean's 13 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre last night, Brad Pitt arrived in a BMW Hydrogen 7. Our source didn't say if Angelina Jolie arrived in a different vehicle, but if you want oodles more photos from the event (both Brad and Angelina were there), here's IESB's gratuitous photo gallery with all the stars.
BMW is getting a lot of publicity out of the Hydrogen 7s they've got in America.
...

Here's the real scoop on the environmental efficacy of the vehicle from Spiegel:

BMW'S HYDROGEN 7
Not as Green as it Seems
By Christian Wüst
BMW is manufacturing the first series of hydrogen fueled cars. They're not as green as they seem. For a start, they're incredibly thirsty -- and they will put more strain on the environment than a heavy diesel truck.
....
The problem is that hydrogen is in scarce supply and producing it requires vast amounts of energy. Climate-friendly production of liquid hydrogen on a large scale presupposes a virtually unlimited supply of ecologically produced electricity -- not something likely to materialize in the near future. That's why energy experts from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy believe forcing the transition to a hydrogen-based economy within the next three to four decades is "not an ecologically sound" idea.

Storing the volatile energy source also requires energy and money. The only method that promises a reasonable storage life is liquid storage at temperatures below -253 degrees Celsius (-423 degrees Fahrenheit). The process of cooling the storage facility down to such a low temperature alone uses up to one-third of the energy contained in one fuel tank.
...
And so, in creating the Hydrogen 7, BMW is announcing a future of putatively clean, full-throttle driving. The new car caters to the pleasing fantasy of customers spoiled by high-horsepower engines: That they can conform to ecological standards without making any sacrifices, burning "clean" fuel to their heart's content. Advertizing images display the Hydrogen 7 against a backdrop of wind turbines and solar panels.

But the image is one of deceit. Because the hydrogen dispensed at the new filling station is generated primarily from petroleum and natural gas, the new car puts about as much strain on the environment as a heavy truck with a diesel engine. Add the loss of environmental benefits involved in the production and transportation of the putatively clean fuel to the consumption of the car itself and you get an actual consumption corresponding to considerably more than 20 liters (5.3 gallons) of fossil fuel.

The environment isn't the only loser: Customers will also have to shell out a lot of money for their deceptive display of ecologically responsible driving. The current standard price for liquid hydrogen is 57 euro cents (0.73 US cents) per liter (0.3 gallons). And the price tag on a 100 kilometer (62 mile) drive in the Hydrogen 7, at a comfortable speed, is about €30 ($38).
...

Notes on Immigration...

2007-07-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I were searching for a movie to watch on Amazon Unbox (I tried it a few months ago and the speeds were very slow; now it works very well) and we came across The Border, a 1981 drama about the US/Mexican border starring Jack Nicholson and Harvey Keitel.

I have to agree with someone's comment: nothing has changed about the immigration debate in the last 25 years. It's the same story: the border agents realize that their job is pretty pointless; the immigrants are driven to the country by poverty; corruption is not uncommon; "the wets" are viewed and treated like cattle.

This is a very sad state of affairs and nothing will change until there is less poverty in emigrant countries and the poor who want to make a better living are viewed more humanely.

A Travel Gem of the 19th Century: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

2007-06-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
First Published in French in 1872; first English translation in 1873
This Edition Published in 2004 by Penguin Classics

It feels wonderful to find old and entertaining masterpieces, and this is one of them. Written shortly after the American trans-continental railroad, the linking of the Indian railways, and the Suez Canal were completed, Jules Verne was the first to capture the imagination of the public-at-large about circumnavigating the world.

The fictional character Phileas Fogg of London, reads in the Daily Telegraph that it is may now be possible to travel around the world in 80 days:

"From London to Suez via Mont Cenis and

Brindisi, by rail and steamboats ................. 7 days
From Suez to Bombay, by steamer .................... 13 ‘
From Bombay to Calcutta, by rail ................... 3 ‘
From Calcutta to Hong Kong, by steamer ............. 13 ‘
From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan), by steamer ..... 6 ‘
From Yokohama to San Francisco, by steamer ......... 22 ‘
From San Francisco to New York, by rail ............. 7 ‘
From New York to London, by steamer and rail ........ 9 ‘
Total ............................................ 80 days."

He then makes a £20,000 bet with his friends at the Reform Club that he can accomplish the journey in that time.

Whether or not Philleas Fogg makes the trip in the allotted time, the reader will have to find out, but it is acceptable to state that his journey around the world is highly entertaining.

For the history of the novel, see this Wikipedia article (the Nellie Bly connection is very interesting). Also note that this book is not copyrighted in the U.S. and is available for free here (PDF format).

The Downside of Globalization

2007-06-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

With the world population still surging, non-replenishable resources becoming more scarce, and the competition to make ever-cheaper good relentless, stories like this one will become more common. But is there anyway to stop it or are these the inevitable casualties of "collateral damage"?

An Ancient Indian Craft Left in TattersSari Weavers Struggle Amid Economic Boom
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 6, 2007; A01

VARANASI, India -- Deep in a labyrinth of stucco buildings, in a dark, cavelike warehouse, Mohamed Javen, 18, switched on a light bulb, sat before his rickety loom and began working on what was once the prize possession of every Indian bride: the hand-woven silk sari.
His feet operated the bamboo pedals, making a rhythmic clopping sound. He carefully positioned hair-thin strands of gold thread into green silk, crafting a glittery lattice of leaves, elephants and birds that unfolded like a painting.

This sari design, which has been in Javen's family for 100 years, can take up to two months to weave. Patterns like these have been a source of Indian pride for more than 2,000 years, with India's version of haute couture adorning wealthy women of the empires of Rome, Egypt and Persia. Until recently, weaving was India's second-most-common occupation, behind farming.

But in this ancient city along the Ganges, Hinduism's holiest river, an estimated 1 million sari weavers are facing almost certain ruin. Cheaper, machine-made saris -- many of which are copied from Varanasi's famous patterns -- are being pumped out of China and from newer factories in India's western Gujarat state. Adding to the weavers' woes, changing fashions and global trade rules have opened the Indian market to foreign competitors, leaving many once-prosperous sari weavers and their families in desperate poverty.
...
Full article here.

Best Documentary of 2007: The Price of Sugar

2007-06-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

So far this year at least. We saw it at SIFF last week. It's about the slavery-like conditions the Haitian immigrants live in on the plantations in the Dominican Republic. A Spanish-British Catholic priest named Christopher Hartley is trying to make the workers' lives better by organizing them and fighting for their rights with the Vicinis (a SIFF representative told the audience that their lawyers tried to stop the screening), the most powerful family in the country which owns the sugar plantations within the Father's parish.

The conditions under which the worker's live and work is quite simply terrifying. Many of them (and their children) have malnutrition and have little if any money for anything else (one of them was shown working in the field without shoes; he said he didn't make enough to buy any). The priest and the Church (and not the company) set up food centers just so that the workers are fed better! The owners could easily pay them a little bit more, but they choose not to. Worse of all, the immigrants are undocumented workers who have nothing left in Haiti (which is a poorer country than the Dominican Country) but also have no rights in their adopted country. One of the producers of the film was at the screening in Seattle and before the start of the movie asked the audience to consider the immigration situation in America (incidentally, most of the exported sugar is bought by America!). The similiarities are eerie and one hopes that it will never be as bad here. Nevertheless, after seeing this movie, one becomes aware of how important immigrants are to our economy; how hard they work; and how badly they are treated and perceived. I am now a bigger supporter of immigrant rights than ever before.

Global Peace Index - U.S. scores 96th

2007-05-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hmm... why don't I find the ranking surprising?

U.S. ranks low, just above Iran on new peace index
REUTERS - By Deborah Charles1 hour, 58 minutes ago

The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran, according to a new index released on Wednesday that evaluates 121 nations based on their peacefulness.

According to the Global Peace Index, created by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the
most peaceful nation in the world and Iraq is the least, just after Russia, Israel and Sudan.

"The objective of the Global Peace Index was to go beyond a crude measure of wars by systemically exploring the texture of peace," said Global Peace Index President Clyde McConaghy.

He said the inaugural effort proves "peace can and has and will continue to be measured."

The index was compiled based on 24 indicators measuring peace inside and outside of a country. They included the number of wars a country was involved in the past five years, how many soldiers were killed overseas and how much money was made in arms sales.

Domestic indicators included the level of violent crimes, relations with neighboring countries and level of distrust in other citizens.

The results were then reviewed by a panel of international experts.
...

The full story.

Seattle International Film Festival

2007-05-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's time for the SIFF again! It started this past Thursday and runs until June 17th. I think the biggest highlight is the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to Anthony Hopkins this coming Wednesday. Of course getting tickets for the event will be next to impossible, but I did manage to get tickets to a couple of movies--as a matter of fact, it looks like most of them are still not sold out.

Here are the movies I've seen already:

Fair Play (France) - SIFF / IMDB

Hezké chvilky bez záruky (Czech Republic; a.k.a. Pleasant Moments) - SIFF / IMDB

Sonhos de Peixe (Brazil, Russia; a.k.a. Fish Dreams) - SIFF / IMDB

All were excellent and I wish I could see more movies of such caliber throughout the year. The very good news is that there are actually a number of movie theaters in Seattle (Harvard Exit, Neptune, Loews Uptown, Northwest Film Forum, among others) that play independent and international films, but they're not always good, so I think the only way to see the better ones is keep track of awards given out at other film festivals and just browsing through IMDB and NetFlix.

The Connection between Disease, Evolution, and Life: Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem

2007-05-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem
Published in 2007 by William Morrow

"DNA isn’t destiny—it’s history. Your genetic code doesn’t determine your life. Sure, it shapes it—but exactly how it shapes it will be dramatically different depending on your parents, your environment, and your choices. Your genes are the evolutionary legacy of every organism that came before you, beginning with your parents and winding all the way back to the very beginning. Somewhere in your genetic code is the tale of every plague, every predator, every parasite, and every planetary upheaval your ancestors managed to survive. And every mutation, every change, that helped them better adapt to their circumstances is written there."

So writes Dr. Sharon Moalem, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist in Survival of the Sickest--the story of how disease is forever linked to our and the Earth's past through evolution.

Why after all, is there, and always has been, so much disease afflicting humanity? From numerous plagues to influenza pandemic to AIDS to cancer millions have died of regardless of space or time.

There will always be disease because of the nature of life: all organisms want to live and reproduce, Dr. Moalem explains. Diseases are caused by bacteria, parasites and viruses, some of which survive by harming humans. Bacteria and viruses reproduce and evolve much faster than humans, and a new strain of either can potentially cause harm to a person or population that doesn't have a built-in response to fight it. That is exactly what happened with the bubonic plague in the 14th century in Europe. However, over time, the plague subsided. Fast forward a couple hundred years and the medicinal practice of bloodletting is widespread on the continent. Fast forward to the late 20th and 21st century and scientists discover that hemochromatosis, afflicting a small but not insignificant number of people with European ancestry, is an inherited disease whose victims die prematurely because of excess iron in their blood. What is the connection between these three events? It turns out that--Sharon Moalem explains--people with hemochromatosis are immune to the bubonic plague (probably caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis). The downside is that their excess iron will eventually kill them, unless the excess iron is periodically released from the body--via bloodletting! The answer to the whole mystery was evolution: people who had a natural immunity to the bubonic plague were more likely to survive and reproduce, and therefore pass on their hemochromatosis genes onto the next generation.

This is just one amazing story of how evolution plays a role in disease. There are many others discussed by Moalem, including, the reasons why so many northern Europeans inherit a propensity to develop Type 1 diabetes, why malaria victims are bed-ridden, and why mothers affected by malnutrition have babies that can cope better in harsh environments.

The only downside of the book is that the somewhat frequent colloquialisms are unnecessary and written as if the target audience was in middle school. Otherwise, the content of Survival of the Sickest is so engrossing that one is almost guaranteed to pull an all-nighter reading it.

China Blue

2007-05-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

China Blue is the story of "Jasmine", a young girl who works in a Chinese jeans factory. This factory is a sweatshop of the worse kind--the workers live in horrible company-provided dorms, they work 12+ hours/day (often much longer), are paid very little, and treated inhumanely by the owners and managers.

Many of the viewers on the PBS Web site commented that they now want to buy American-made products. I disagree--I think it's better to buy these products because as the country gets richer, the labor laws and conditions will improve. That's the hope at least.

This is one of the best documentaries I've seen in a while. Once again, PBS strikes gold.

How To Become a Banker and Help People Too

2007-05-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

This is a great idea! (Many of my posts are cynical; this one is not)

Is Life Guided or an Accident? The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

2007-05-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Book Review
The Bridge of San Luis Ray by Thornton Wilder
First Published in 1927
This Edition Published in 2003 by Harper Perennial

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time, and it happens to be a classic (and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928). The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a story about the lives of three people who are among the five who die when a rope bridge snaps near Lima, Peru in the early 1700s. Was it an accident or an act of God? Brother Juniper, a Fransiscan friar, attempts to answer that questions by reconstructing each of the victims' lives through interviews with those who knew them. Were those characteristics good? Did they live noble lives? Or did evil overtake them, and in that case they deserved to die?

Here then, are snippets of the characteristics of the three main characters:

Doña María, Marquesa de Montemayor (and servant Pepita)

"The Marquesa, beside not having heard the scurrilous songs, was in other ways unprepared for the actress’s visit. You should know that after the departure of her daughter, Doña María had lighted upon a certain consolation: she had taken to drinking. Everyone drank chicha in Peru and there was no particular disgrace in being found unconscious on a feast day. Doña María had begun to discover that her feverish monologues had a way of keeping her awake all night. Once she took a delicate fluted glassful of chichi on retiring. Oblivion was so sweet that presently she stole larger amounts and tried dissimulating their effects from Pepita; she hinted that she was not well, and represented herself as going into a decline. At last she resigned all pretense. The boats that carried her letter to Spain did not leave oftener than once a month. During the week that preceded the making of the packet she observed a strict regimen and cultivated the city assiduously for material. At last on the eve of the post she wrote the letter, making up the bundle towards dawn and leaving it for Pepita to deliver to the agent. Then as the sun rose she would shut herself up in her room with some flagons and drift through the next few weeks without the burden of consciousness. Finally she would emerge from her happiness and prepare to go into a state of 'training' in preparation for the writing of another letter."

Esteban (and his twin brother Manuel)

"Camila seized the note the moment it was done, pushed a coin along the table and in a last flurry of black lace, scarlet beads and excited whispers left the room. Manuel turned from the door with his candle. He sat down, put his hands over his ears, his elbows on his knees. He worshipped her. He murmured to himself over and over again that he worshipped her, making of the sounds a sort of incantation and an obstacle to thought.

He emptied his mind of everything but a singsong, and it was this vacancy that permitted him to become aware of Esteban’s mood. He seemed to hear a voice that proceeded from the shadow saying: “Go and follow her, Manuel. Don’t stay here. You’ll be happy. There’s room for us all in the world.” Then the realization became even more intense and he received a mental image of Esteban going a long way off and saying good-bye many times as he went. He was filled with terror; by the light of it he saw that all the other attachments in the world were shadows, or the illusions of fever, even Madre Maria del Pilar, even the Perichole. He could not understand why Esteban’s misery should present itself as demanding a choice between him and the Perichole, but he could understand Esteban’s misery, as misery. And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess. To be sure there was nothing on which Esteban could base a complaint. It was not jealousy, for in their earlier affairs it had never occurred to either of them that their loyalty to one another had diminished. It was merely that in the heart of one of them there was left room for an elaborate imaginative attachment and in the heart of the other there was not. Manuel could not quite understand this and, as we shall see, he nourished a dim sense of being accused unjustly. But he did understand that Esteban was suffering. In his excitement he groped for a means of holding this brother who seemed to be receding into the distance. And at once, in one unhesitating stroke of the will, he removed the Perichole from his heart."

Uncle Pio

"He never did one thing for more than two weeks at a time even when enormous gains seemed likely to follow upon it. He could have become a circus manager, a theatrical director, a dealer in antiquities, an importer of Italian silks, a secretary in the Palace or the Cathedral, a dealer in provisions for the army, a speculator in houses and farms, a merchant in dissipations and pleasures. But there seemed to have been something written into his personality, through some accident or early admiration of his childhood, a reluctance to own anything, to be tied down, to be held to a long engagement. It was this that prevented his thieving, for example. He had stolen several times, but the gain had not been sufficient to offset his dread of being locked up; he had sufficient ingenuity to escape on the field itself all the police in the world, but nothing could protect him again the talebearing of his enemies. Similarly he had been reduced for a time to making investigations for the Inquisition, but when he had seen several of his victims left off in hoods he left that he might be involving himself in an institution whose movements were not evenly predictable.

As he approached twenty, Uncle Pio came to see quite clearly that his life had three aims. There was first this need of independence, cast into a curious pattern, namely: the desire to be varied, secret and omniscient…. In the second place he wanted to be always near beautiful women, of whom he was always in the best and worst sense the worshipper…. In the third place he wanted to be near those that loved Spanish literature and its masterpieces, especially in the theatre."

Opening Night for the New SAM

2007-05-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I decided to hit the town this past Saturday night for a special occasion: the 36-hour opening gala for the new expansion the Seattle Art Museum (a.k.a., SAM).

We left around midnight and got there 20 minutes later. We waited for our tickets (which were free) outside the museum at 1st Ave. & University St. for just a few minutes. There was even a person who informed us what time we would get our ticket for, which she said would be 1:20am, but by the time we got to the front of the line, they were sold out and our slot was for 1:40am. We considered going home, but instead went to the Alibi Room and hung out there for an hour before heading back to the museum.

The new expansion in terms of its architectural accomplishment is not much of an improvement over the existing building--the outside is quite ugly. It looks like The New-Age Ministry of Information. The only nice parts of the building are the white neon signs in my opinion.

Once we got inside, we were not any more optimistic about the new $100+ million expansion--while the first floor was very spacious, it's main attraction was four early 1990s Ford Tauruses. They were hanging from the ceiling and were also on display on the ground (one of the exhibits pictured here had a Taurus in the foreground with a widescreen showing a clip of Times Square in the background??). We really didn't get it, but perhaps we just weren't smart enough to figure out the artistic beauty of these particular retro-modern-art pieces... There was another strange quirk: also on the first floor there was a room where one could make custom buttons, paper

masks, and other memorabilia. The participants (pictured here) undoubtedly thought they were uber-cool and hip to be involved in such an ingenious act of modern artistry; we, however, found the task to be reminiscent of kindergarten.

Now, here comes the good part: once we got to the third and fourth level (the second floor looks onto the first), the various collections were amazing. From a porcelain collection to New Orleans old-fashioned dresses to Greek vases, every exhibit was designed with the utmost precision and presented beautifully.

So, overall we were very satisfied with our visit. The collections easily surpass the shortcomings of the 1st floor gallery and the sterile look of the outside of the building. Secondly, the event was very well organized and the employees and volunteers were very nice and welcoming.

Congratulations, SAM!

Cut Global Warming, Eat Less Red Meat (not Al Gore style)!

2007-05-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

...

The panel also said for the first time that lifestyle changes could help fight global warming. It gave no examples, but IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said these could include turning down the thermostat and eating less red meat, which could cut animal methane emissions.
...

Thank you for the recommendation, the distinguished Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)! (read the full Reuters article)

But you should note that Al Gore argues for the opposite course of action: eating more red meat so as to shorten cows' lifespan, which has the same aggregate effect of producing less greenhouse gases.

Recogitare's Revolutionary Diet Plan (100% Free)!

2007-05-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

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Thus, to get an Energy Deficit, you must a) decrease energy input and/or b) increase energy output.

To decrease energy input, eat less

To increase energy output, exercise more

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Bill Moyers Journal -- Buying the War

2007-04-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

Journalists are supposed to be objective reporters. In the case of the runup to the war in Iraq, most in the U.S. failed miserably in questioning the Bush administration's propaganda which, while exquisitely ingenious, effective, and even matching the infamous Soviet propaganda machine, is not a government tactic that is supposed to be believed so easily in America. But it was, because it served both parties' interests: the administration's geopolitical goals and media companies' profits. With the war drum beats growing loud, only a few stood up to buck the status quo.

Buying the War is a great piece, and along with Why We Fight, Iraq: The Hidden Story, and these Frontline stories, are the best documentaries on Iraq.

By the way, hats off to Bill Moyers and the good (and courageous) guys mentioned in the story:

Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, and John Walcott of Knight Ridder
Phil Donahue
Charles Hanley of the Associated Press

And a big F-U to these guys (at the very least, concede your mistakes):

Judith Miller, Thomas Friedman, William Safire, and the New York Times
Charles Krauthammer and the Washington Post
William Kristol and the Weekly Standard
Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and Fox
Hillary Clinton
Bush, etc.

A Nomadic Life in the Desert: Shabanu by Suzanne Fisher Staples

2007-04-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

Book Review
Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1989

This is the story of Shabanu, a young teenager and member of a semi-nomadic family living in the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan. The family's sustenance is raising and selling camels which, while enough to live on, does not allow for much extravagances. Coupled with a harsh environment and an unpredictable monsoon season, the family is frequently in a state of flux.

Suzanne Fisher Staples' account of this region of the world could be part of a James Michener historical fiction. Both light up an unknown (to most readers) world with vivid descriptions and memorable characters. While the timeline of Shabanu is the modern age and spans only a few months, the story feels timeless perhaps because a nomadic life in the desert mimics a never-ending saga, and the author does a wonderful job of bringing that aspect to life. Nevertheless, the writing in general and the dialogue in particular somehow feel a bit labored and not developed enough. Ironically, it is not until the very end that the story really shines through, but because of it, it is worth reading.

Can Atheism Save "The Death of The West"?

2007-04-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting article from The Wall Street Journal about the rise of atheism in Europe. I couldn't help but recall Pat Buchanan's The Death of the West.

THE NEW CRUSADERS
As Religious Strife Grows,
Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit
Islam's Rise Gives Boost
To Militant Unbelievers;
The Celebrity Hedonist

By ANDREW HIGGINS
April 12, 2007; Page A1

CAEN, France -- With 40 minutes to go before show time, the 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium was already packed. A fan set up a video camera in the front row. A sound engineer checked the microphones.

The star: Michel Onfray, celebrity philosopher and France's high priest of militant atheism. Dressed entirely in black, he strode onto the stage and looked out at the reverential audience for his weekly two-hour lecture series, "Hedonist Philosophy," which is broadcast on a state radio station. "I could found a religion," he said.

Mr. Onfray, 48 years old and author of 32 books, stands in the vanguard of a curious and increasingly potent phenomenon in Europe: zealous disbelief in God.

Passive indifference to faith has left Europe's churches mostly empty. But debate over religion is more intense and strident than it has been in many decades. Religion is re-emerging as a big issue in part because of anxiety over Europe's growing and restive Muslim populations and a fear that faith is reasserting itself in politics and public policy. That is all adding up to a growing momentum for a combative brand of atheism, one that confronts rather than merely ignores religion.

Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun and prominent British author on religion, calls the trend "missionary secularism." She says it mimics the ardor of Christianity, Islam and Marxism, all of which have at their core an urge to convert nonbelievers to their worldview.

Mr. Onfray argues that atheism faces a "final battle" against "theological hocus-pocus" and must rally its troops. "We can no longer tolerate neutrality and benevolence," he writes in "Traité d'athéologie," or Atheist Manifesto, a best seller in France, Italy and Spain. "The turbulent time we live in suggests that change is at hand and the time has come for a new order."

As with many fights involving faith, Europe's struggle between belief and nonbelief is also a proxy for other, concrete issues that go far beyond the supernatural. In this case, they involve a battle to define the identity of a continent.

Half a century after the 1957 Treaty of Rome laid the foundations for the now 27-nation European Union, Europe has secured peace and prosperity. But it is deeply uncertain about what binds the bloc together beyond mere economic self-interest. Says Ms. Armstrong: "There is a big fight going on to define European civilization."

Read more here (subscription required).

We Are (Unique) Animals: The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

2007-04-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

Book Review
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
First Edition Published by Harper Perennial in 1992

Jared Diamond’s best known work is Guns, Germs, and Steel, the Pulitzer Prize winning thesis of why and how Euroasians were able to conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and other peoples, and why these groups were not able to do the reverse. In that groundbreaking book, Jared Diamond postulated how geography and its effect on the distribution of plant and animal life played a role in the relatively modern eventual displacements of sets of peoples by other distant groups. In The Third Chimpanzee, the author digs much further back—to the animal kingdom and ape life especially—to conjecture how we developed our unique and not so unique human characteristics and were able to eventually conquer the world and dominate each other and all other species.

Just Another Species of Big Animal
Diamond first explains why we are indeed the third chimpanzee besides the pygmy (a.k.a. Bonobo) and the common chimpanzee. Because taxonomy is based on physical characteristics and often anthropocentric, Diamond argues that cladistics—the classification of animals based on genetic distance of time of divergence—is more objective and scientifically sound:

“All taxonomists agree now that red-eyed and white-eyed vireos belong together in the genus Vireo, the various species of gibbons in the genus Hylobates. Yet the members of these pairs of species are genetically more distant from each other than are humans from the other two chimpanzees, and diverged longer ago. On this basis, then, humans don’t constitute a distinct family, or even a distinct genus, but belong in the same genus as common and pygmy chimps. Since our genus name Homo was proposed first, it takes priority, by the rules of zoological nomenclature, over the genus name Pan coined for the ‘other’ chimps. So there are not one but three species of genus Homo on earth today: the common chimpanzee, Homo troglodytes; the pigmy chimpanzee, Homo paniscus; and the third chimpanzee or human chimpanzee, Homo sapiens. Since the gorilla is only slightly more distinct, it has almost equal right to be considered a fourth species of Homo.
Even taxonomists espousing cladistics are anthropocentric, and the lumping of humans and chimps into the same genus will undoubtedly be a bitter pill for them to swallow. There is not doubt, however, that whenever chimpanzees learn cladistics, or whenever taxonomists from Outer Space visit Earth to inventory its inhabitants, they will unhesitatingly adopt the new classification.”

It wasn’t until after the Great Leap Forward, perhaps as recently as 40,000 years ago, that humans diverged from other apes through mainly cultural and not genetic change. Diamond suggests that the enormous cultural changes since then were made possible because of the development of human language.

An Animal with a Strange Life Cycle
The focus of the next section is the human life cycle, including sexuality and lifespan. Diamond’s analysis of why women developed ovulation and menopause, why it’s mostly men and not women who practice adultery, how we pick our sex partners, and why we grow old and die are fascinating and convincing because of his use of precedents in the animal kingdom. Another thought-provoking hypothesis is on extraterrestrial life: Diamond argues that even with billions of potentially habitable planets, we could be the only intelligent life in the universe because convergent evolution is not universal (he cites the family of woodpeckers, which evolved only once), and because the lifespan of an intelligent species such as ours could be short given humans’ destructiveness of each other and other species. And if contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life were to happen? Diamond writes,

“I find it mind-boggling that the astronomers now eager to spend a hundred million dollars on the search for extraterrestrial life have never thought seriously about the most obvious question: what would happen if we found it, or if it found us. The astronomers tacitly assume that we and the little green monsters would welcome each other and settle down to fascinating guidance. We’ve already discovered two species that are very intelligent but technically less advanced than we are—the common chimpanzee and pygmy chimpanzee. Has our response been to sit down and try to communicate with them? Of course not. Instead we shoot them, dissect them, cut off their hand for trophies, put them on exhibit in cages, inject them with AIDS virus as a medical experiment, and destroy or take over their habitats. That response was predictable, because human explorers who discovered technically less advances humans also regularly responded by shooting them, decimating their populations with new diseases, and destroying or taking over their habitats.”

Uniquely Human
They include language, art, agriculture, and our propensity to use addictive substances. With respect to art, it may not be uniquely human at all—the paintings of Siri, a captive elephant, were described as having “a kind of flair and decisiveness and originality” by Willem de Kooning himself (he of course did not know that the artist was not human). As to why animals don’t paint in the wild, Diamond writes:

“Perhaps we can now answer the questions why art as we know it characterizes us but no other animals. Since chimps paint in captivity, why don’t they do so in the wild? As an answer, I suggest that wild chimps still have their day filled with problems of finding food surviving, and fending off rival chimp groups. If wild chimps had more leisure time plus the means to manufacture paints, they would be painting. The proof of my theory is that it actually happened: we’re still 98 percent chimps in our genes.”

The author also proposes an interesting theory on dangerous behaviors: they may have a biological purpose as a useful tool for sexual selection. Equally intriguing is the section on human language—it turns out that some animals learn to emit the correct sounds (words in their language) based on the context from their parents, just as human babies learn to pronounce words correctly and use them in a proper context.

World Conquerors
Diamond next discusses how contacts between distant people change culture and language (it is essentially a prelude to Guns, Germs, and Steel). The author’s first-hand accounts of his visits to and his analysis of New Guinea are fascinating:

“Europe today has only about fifty languages, most of them belonging to a single language family (Indo-European). In contrast, New Guinea, with less than one-tenth of Europe’s area and less than one-hundredth of its population, has about a thousand languages, many of them unrelated to any other known languages in New Guinea or elsewhere. The average New Guinea language is spoken by a few thousand people living within a radius of ten miles. When I traveled sixty miles from Okapa to Karimui in New Guinea’s eastern highlands, I passed through six languages, starting with Fore (a language with postpositions, like Finnish) and ending with Tudawhe (a language with alternative tones and nasalized vowels, like Chinese).
New Guinea shows linguists what the world used to be like, with each isolated tribe having its own language, until agriculture’s rise permitted a few groups to expand and spread their tongue over large areas.”

The section on the Indo-European group of languages (of which English is a part of) is likewise intriguing and surprising. Diamond convincingly speculates that the origins of the Indo-European languages lie on the Ukrainian/Russian steppes north of the Caucasus, not in Western Europe as some anthropologists believe.

Contact between peoples also involves genocide, an unfortunate human hallmark that has roots in the animal kingdom as well:

“…of all our human hallmarks—art, spoken language, drugs, and the others—the one that has been derived most straightforwardly from animal precursors is genocide. Common chimps already carried out planned killings, extermination of neighboring bands, wars of territorial conquest, and abduction of young nubile females. If chimps were given spears and some instructions in their use, their killings would undoubtedly begin to approach ours in efficiency. Chimpanzee behavior suggests that a major reason for our human hallmark of group living was defense against other human groups, especially once we acquired weapons and a large enough brain to plan ambushes. If this reasoning is correct, then anthropologists’ traditional emphasis on ‘man the hunter’ as a driving force of human evolution might be valid after all—with the difference that we ourselves were our own prey as well as the predator that forced us into group living.”

Reversing Our Progress Overnight
Diamond argues that the two most pressing issues facing humanity are our destruction of the environment (a prelude to his most recent book, Collapse) and the possibility of nuclear obliteration:

“The risks of a nuclear holocaust and of an environmental holocaust constitute the two really pressing questions facing the human race today. Compared to these two clouds, our usual obsessions with cancer, AIDS, and diet pale into insignificance, because those problems don’t threaten the survival of the human species. If the nuclear and environmental risks should not materialize, we’ll have plenty of leisure time to solve bagatelles like cancer. If we fail to avert those two risks, solving cancer won’t have helped us anyway.”

As sociobiologist Edward Wilson has done in numerous books including The Future of Lifeand The Creation, Diamond writes that the rate of extinction has indeed gone up exponentially in modern times, and that the interdependence of species is part of our survival and that is why it is important to try to save all species.

“Dismissing the extinction crisis on the grounds that extinction is natural would be just like dismissing genocide on the grounds that death is the natural fate of all humans.”

The Third Chimpanzee is an all-encompassing book on the evolution of human traits, many of which are shared or have precedents in the animal kingdom. The drawbacks, if any, are miniscule: the contents are a bit jumbled, some of the theories are perhaps incomplete (he fails to mention the theory that the click sounds of Khoisan and Bantu languages in southern Africa may have roots of the first spoken human languages in the “Bridges to Human Language” section), and some facts are omitted (in describing genocide, he names all “tribes” by their nationalities except for Germans in WWII, which he calls “Nazis”; he also does not mention the Chinese genocide of millions in the 1950s and 1960s). The Third Chimpanzee is well-written, fascinating to read, and because it has elements of seminal theories expounded on in his later books, it may be Jared Diamond's best book yet.

Man-Induced Global Warming: The Biggest Hoax Ever?

2007-03-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Last May I wrote that I had serious doubts that anthropogenic factors are the cause of global warming. I no longer have doubts--after seeing this documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle", from the UK, I am now convinced that man-made actions are not the cause of global warming.

Here are a few quotes from the film:

"...carbon dioxide is not the cause of that warming. In fact we can say that the warming produced the increase in carbon dioxide."

"Humans produce a small fraction, in the single digits percentage wise, of the CO2 that is produced in the atmosphere."

"Volcanoes produce more CO2 each year than all the factories, cars, planes, and other sources of man-made carbon dioxide put together. More still comes from animals and bacteria which produce about a hundred and fifty giga-tons of CO2 each year compared to a mere six and a half giga-tons from humans. And even larger source is dying vegetation from falling leaves for example, in the autumn. But the biggest source of CO2 by far is the oceans."

"...the recent warming of the Earth happened in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Most of the warming took place in the early part of the 20th century and occurred mostly at the Earth's surface, the very opposite of what should have happened according to the theory of man-made global warming."

Amateur Night

2007-03-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

I went to the Comedy Underground this past Monday. The last time I went there was in October with my girlfirend. The difference this time was that it was amateur night--the cover was only $4 and each act lasted only a minute or two. The show was from 8:30-10:00pm, so there must have been at least 30 or so comedians on the stage. Wow! A couple were really bad, most were mediocre, and a couple of guys were very funny. One of the better jokes I remember:

"I just read this study that masturbating five times a week can help avoid prostrate cancer. Shit, I got to cut back."

All-in-all, it wasn't a bad deal for $4, but it's also worth seeing a $15 show. Incidentally, the same very funny guy we saw in October, Jim Short, will be there again this weekend. Oh, and the waitresses are still as bad as last time. It took this one 15 minutes to notice us and the place wasn't even half full. The only good thing was that she forgot to ring up two of my beers (sadly, I don't think she was smart enough to undercharge to compensate for her mistake and hope for a bigger tip).

Lucky Toilet Timing

2007-03-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

A good reminder for me--I got guests this weekend. Time to get those yellow & brown stains off. Ummmmmm, I'm looking forward to this one (positive attitude necessary)!

Thu Mar 1, 8:44 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Cleanliness has long been next to godliness for the hygiene-conscious Japanese, but fortune-tellers are now advising those who want to succeed in life to start by scrubbing the smallest room.

"Cleaning the toilet to attract luck" published this month is the latest in a series of books advising readers on how to attract good fortune using a brush and an array of cleaning fluids.

"Don't just wipe the floor, polish it," the book instructs. "It's important to maintain a positive mood while cleaning."

....

More here.

The Tricks of the (Book) Trade: The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

2007-02-28T15:05:00.000-08:00

Book Review
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
First Published in Spanish in 2002
This Edition Translated by Sonia Soto and Published by Harvest Books in 2006

A wealthy Spanish book collector is found hanged with a copy of Alexander Dumas' The Vicomte de Bragelonne by his side. A book seller acquires the dead man's collection of Dumas' personal notes to The Three Musketeers. Lucas Corso, an antique book broker of dubious caliber, is hired to investigate the authenticity of the Dumas papers. Was the death a suicide or a murder, and what is the connection with Dumas? Coincidentally, he is also asked to evaluate an apparently original printing of Aristide Torchia's The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows, a medieval book that was banned by the Church and caused the author his life at the stake. Corso soon finds himself overwhelmed with both mysteries as he seemingly finds himself a character in a Dumas novel the deeper he digs in the secretive and shady world of antique book sellers. Can Corso find out the truth before reality catches up with him?

The Club Dumas is a well-written and engaging novel, much like Perez-Reverte's more recent The Queen of the South. The style in this book is quite unique and works very well for this particular mystery: it is written in both the first person singular and third person singular--that is, there are two different narrators in the novel (Perez-Reverte used the same technique in his other novel). If there is a minor flaw with the author's writing style, it is that his constant allegories may at time get tiring, yet perhaps they are more often than not needed for his otherwise excellent characterizations. Two thumbs up for this book!

Two Powerful Documentaries

2007-02-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

I saw a couple of interesting documentaries in the past couple of weeks: This Film Is Not Yet Rated and America: Freedom to Fascism.

The former played in select theaters last year and is now out on DVD. It's about the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system. Ever wondered how movies are rated and by whom? The answer is: almost nobody knows because the MPAA is a secret organization whose membership is not published. The criteria by which movies are judged are vague and the MPAA doesn't publish specific guidelines. And why is that movies with so many violent scenes can get a PG-13 rating, while a sex scene automatically relegates it to an R rating? As discussed in the documentary, in Europe, the rating system is just the opposite (sex is OK, violence is not). And why should someone else decide what I can or cannot see? It takes a lot of digging by director/writer Kirby Dick to find out some of the mystery behind the MPAA. This is definitely a worthwile film to watch.

The latter film is a documentary mostly about the IRS and taxation on individuals' earnings. Writer/Director Aaron Russo discovers that there is no federal law that mandates paying a federal income tax on wages. In a larger context, the film also touches upon diminishing individual rights in America. This was also a great movie and you can see it on Google for free (see the film Web site to purchase the DVD). Here are a few quotes from the film:

"Do you think America is going deeper and deeper into becoming a police state, and if so, in what ways do you see that as a Congressman? --Aaron Russo

"Yeah, I think, we're moving in that direction, because there is not much we can do without permission. The absence of a police state is that people are free and if you don't commit crimes you can do what you want, but today you can't open up a business, you can't develop land, you can hardly do anything, you can't go the bank, you can't go the doctor without hte government knowing what you're doing. And they talk about medical privacy--that's gone. Financial privacy--that's gone. The right to own property--that's eseentially gone. So, you have to get permission from the government for almost everything, and if that is the definition of a police state that you can't do anyting unless the government gives you permission we're well on our way. This is something that eventually I hope people will get sick and tired of and say enough is enough." --Congressman Ron Paul (TX-R)

The Federal Reserve is a privately controlled entity owned by the major banks of this country.
--G. Edward Griffin, author of Creature from Jekyll Island

"The war on terrorism is the war on your freedom"

"There is no constitutional basis for a tax on the wages of Americans living and working in the fifty states of the Union" -- Peter Gibbons, Tax Attorney

"If Americans just learned that the IRS was actually knowingly deceiving them that would be enough for them to rise up and put a stop to it." -- Joe Banister, Former IRS Criminal Investigator

"Sex not War": Bonobos' Closeness to Humanity

2007-02-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

Bonobos seem to have behavior characteristics which humans hope for (somewhat naively perhaps), at least in terms of their overall peacefulness. It seems that we are, however, more closely related to the common chimpanzee, which shows much more aggressive behavior within a troop, and especially towards "foreigners."

From Wikipedia:

Frans de Waal, one of the world's leading primatologists, states that the Bonobo is often capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience and sensitivity.
...
Recent observations in the wild have seemed to indicate that the males among the Common Chimpanzee troops are extraordinarily hostile to males from outside of the troop. Parties are organized to "patrol" for the unfortunate males who might be living nearby in a solitary state. (Some researchers have suggested, however, that this behaviour has been caused by a combination of human contact and interference and massive environmental stress caused by deforestation and a corresponding range reduction.) This does not appear to be the behavior of the Bonobo males or females, both of which seem to prefer sexual contact with their group to violent confrontation with outsiders.
...
Bonobos are capable of passing the mirror-recognition test for self-awareness. They communicate through primarily vocal means, although the meanings of their vocalizations are not currently known; however, humans do understand their facial expressions and some of their natural hand gestures, such as their invitation to play. Two Bonobos, Kanzi and Panbanisha have been taught a vocabulary of about 400 words which they can type using a special keyboard of lexigrams (geometric symbols), and can respond to spoken sentences. Some, such as bioethicist Peter Singer, argue that these results qualify them for the "rights to survival and life", rights that humans theoretically accord to all persons.

A Powerful and Memorable Fairy Tale: Pan's Labyrinth

2007-02-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

We went to see this movie last Saturday in the early afternoon. I usually go to the theater to see a film only if it's rated a B+ or higher by both critics and users on Yahoo Movies. I've also been browsing through various genres on IMDB to see which ones to rent.

This was a great movie. At first I thought it was a fairy tale for kids because the main character is a girl, probably 7 or 8 years old, and it features some science-fiction. Soon enough, we realized that the target audience is adults, as the violence of the Spanish Civil War--fictional in the film but based on real events--is shown in graphic detail. While the violence is vivid and disturbing, it does fit in with the plot very well, because the story is about living through and overcoming eye-for-eye violence that is usually so pervasive in any conflict, as it was during the Spanish Civil War.

Along with The Last King of Scotland and The Queen, Pan's Labyrinth is the best movie I've seen in the past 4 or 5 months.

Oh, I almost forgot: this guy next to us walked out of the theater a couple of minutes into the movie. It looked to me like he walked out because he thought the movie was in English. Too bad for him. This is a Spanish movie (in Spanish, from Spain) with subtitles.

Poker Night

2007-02-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend and I sometimes go to an Irish pub in Seattle called Fadó for trivia night. The goal is to correctly answer as many questions as possible. There is a host with a microphone who asks five questions in a row about a particular subject such as history or entertainment. The teams right down the answers on paper and hand them in at the end of each round. There are at least ten or fifteen rounds I think. It lasts at least two hours.

The trivia tournament is on Wednesday nights. Some time ago I read about a weekly poker tournament on Fadó's Web site but for some reason I never bothered to check it out. I used to play poker every night for a few weeks a couple of years ago on Yahoo Games but haven't since. I was taking a break from work yesterday afternoon and saw the tournament was on in the evening and decided to give it a shot. It starts at 6:30 so at 5:00 I went online to refresh my game-play. I got into it again after a few tries.

I got to the pub just before 6:30 and grabbed a seat at one of the three or four available tables. Each table has eight players so I think there is a maximum of 32 players. I think there are probably 25-28 players. Each player gets $500 in chips and the play continues until there are 16 players left. Actually a player can move to a different table at anytime because some tables might empty out sooner and moving evens out the number of player/table.

I started out slow and lost a few bucks the first few rounds but was soon winning a few. There are no staffed dealers at the table--the players take turns dealing. I was a little shaky doing that since I've never done it before and needed assistance from other players. Most of the guys and gals there were pretty nice although there were a couple of stiffs who actually cared about nothing else but winning the grand prize of a $25 gift certificate! I don't think they were having too much fun. One big baboon got mad at me for beating him because he thought I was playing dumb, which I was at times just to make it more fun.

I was probably second in the money count at our table when we split up to join the two final tables. I lost the first hand when the guy who was ahead of me went all in on a pair of kings. I had one ace and was hoping for another one on the final two cards. I didn't get it. Oh well. By that time I had played for 2 hours. So I think the play could have lasted at least another hour and a half. That's a lot of poker, but the time goes by really fast. I enjoyed it and I'll be back hopefully next week.

By the way, Fadó is a chain, which surprised me when I found out that it was one because it doesn't feel like it. Part of it is because it's downtown and on the first floor of a larger building; it's also well done inside (lots of wood) and feels hospitable.

Why We Fight

2007-02-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

This video, along with Iraq: The Hidden Story, is the best documentary on the Iraqi war I've seen so far. Why We Fight, while focused on Iraq, is about the dangers of "the military-industrial complex", a phrase coined by former President Dwight Eisenhower who warned that its' rise could have negative consequences on America's democracy.

I think I have a better understanding now of why we went to war in Iraq (not necessarily in order of importance):
1) The need to protect America's energy supplies
2) The complimentary goals of the military and corporations, both of which have huge influence at the executive levels of government
3) The opinion of analysts who work for think-tanks--they have great influence in the Pentagon and other branches of government, yet do not carry any accountability. Many are strongly pro-Israel and have wanted a war with several Middle East nations long before 9/11.
4) The Congress and the media, both of which did not ask the right questions of why we should invade Iraq.

There are probably a couple other ones I'm missing...

Fuck Organic

2007-02-01T20:24:00.000-08:00

I am sick of the organic bullshit. Seriously, the whole thing is now being overplayed. I went to PCC the other day and organic on-the-vine tomatoes were selling for $6.99/lb.! What the fuck is that? Now, I don't mean to pick on PCC, but everything seems to be at least twice as expensive as in a regular store. Organic soda???

I've written about this issue before, and my stance back then was that I thought that I'd try to avoid eating artificial ingredients but I was skeptical about some aspects of marketing organic products. I still think that, but I am now even more skeptical. If I give my dog organic products is he/she going to live longer? Well, the same applies to humans. I'm still going to avoid eating shit food (for example: fast-food, too much meat), but I still believe that food plays a secondary role to genetics and exercise (staying thin), provided that you don't have a malnutrition problem. That's my rant for tonight...

F-ing Puritanical Idiots

2007-01-31T21:36:00.000-08:00

What is wrong with you people? Can't you find anything better to do?

Quote of the Day

2007-01-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

From last Friday's The McLaughlin Group:

"You've got a divided country. You've got a president discredited, as Martin said. Our position is undercut. We're in the middle of two wars. This is the end of America as a superpower, John, when you cannot fight and win this war and keep your country with you behind it."

--Pat Buchanan

Is Humanity Doomed?: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

2007-01-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

Book Review
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

First Edition Published in 1972

Published by Bantam Spectra in 1990

My interest in science-fiction is not waning, especially after reading a couple of interesting science-fiction books recently (Stanislaw Lem's Solaris and Asimov's Caves of Steel). The Gods Themselves did not disappoint either. The synopsis is that Earthmen find a way to communicate and exchange "free" energy with other beings in a para-Universe. But is that energy really free or is there a hidden and dangerous cost in rushing into something not fully understood?

The significance of the story is humans' behavior: how far will we go to reach our professional goals?; is there anything to stop us in our search for more of everything?; are we overlooking downsides to our never-ending quest for cheap energy?; what are the dangers of listening to the status quo?; will we always look down upon those we deem different?.

As customary, Asimov treats us to a future that is realistic and perhaps possible. What makes this book a jewel is the slow build-up to the plot conclusion, the surprises and twists and turns, and the enjoyable and comedic (and not overly done) sexual innuendos.

Here, then, are a few snippets of The Gods Themselves!
------------------------------------------------------------

“‘The population is two billion now from its six billion peak.’
‘Earth is much better for that, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, undoubtedly, though I wish there had been a better way of achieving the drop…. But it’s left behind a permanent distrust of technology; a vast inertia; a lack of desire to risk change because of the possible side-effects. Great and possibly dangerous efforts have been abandoned because the danger was feared more than greatness was desired.’
‘I take it you refer to the program on genetic engineering.’
‘That’s the most spectacular case of course, but not the only one,’
…
‘…The Earth has retreated. Mankind has retreated, everywhere but on the Moon. The Lunar colony is man’s frontier not just physically, but psychologically, too. Here is a world that doesn’t have a web of life to disrupt; that doesn’t have a complex environment in delicate balance to upset. Everything on the Moon that is of any use to man is man-made. The Moon is a world constructed by man from the start and out of basics. There is no past.’
‘Well?’
‘On Earth, we are unmanned by our longing for a pastoral past that never really exited; and that, if it had existed, could never exist again. In some respects, much of the ecology was disrupted in the Crisis and we are making do with the remnants so that we are frightened, always frightened….On the Moon, there is no past to long for or dream about. There is no direction but forward.’”

******

“‘The Earthman was staring at the nameplate she wore on the blouse covering the upper slope of her high, not-too-large left breast. She decided it was really the nameplate he was looking at, not the breast, though the blouse was semi-transparent when it caught the light at a particular angle and there was no garment beneath it.’
…
‘The Earthman was lifting his for carefully. ‘I see what you mean. Even the simplest motions seem queer.’
‘Actually, you get used to it quickly enough. At least to little things like eating. Walking is harder. In ever saw an Earthman run efficiently out here. Not really efficiently.’
For a while they ate in silence. Then he said, ‘What does the L. stand for?’ He was looking at her nameplate again. It said, ‘Selene Lindstrom L.’
‘It just means Luna,’ she said, rather indifferently, ‘to distinguish me from the immigrants. I was born here.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s nothing to be surprised about. We’ve had a working society here for over half a century. Don’t you think babies are born here? We have people here who were born here and are grandparents.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-two,’ she said.
He looked startled, then mumbled, ‘Of course.’
Selene raised her eyebrows. ‘You mean understand? Most Earthmen have to have it explained.’
The Earthman said, ‘I know enough to know that most of the visible signs of again are the result of the inexorable victory of gravity over tissue-the sagging of cheek and the drooping of breast. With the Moon’s gravity one-sixth that of Earth, it isn’t really hard to understand that people will stay young-looking.’
Selene said, ‘Only young-looking. It doesn’t mean we have immortality here. The life-span is about that of Earth, but most of us are more comfortable in old age.’
…
Selene, who was similarly accoutered, laughed. ‘Now, Ben, there’s nothing wrong with your bare body, barring a certain flabbiness. It’s perfectly in fashion here. In fact, take off your briefs if they’re binding you.’
‘No!’ muttered Denison. He shifted the blanket so that it draped over his abdomen and she snatched it from him.
‘She said, ‘Now give me that thing. What kind of a Lunarite will you make if you bring your Earth Puritanism here? You know that prudery is only the other side of prurience. The words are even on the same page in the dictionary.’
‘I have to get used to it, Selene.’”

The End of Books

2007-01-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in a bar a couple of days after New Year's and I was trying to find some book readings to go to. Both the Seattle Weekly and The Stranger--weekly local newspapers that are mostly guides to events in the city--had no listings. I figured that it must be because of the holidays and I think that turned out to be the case.

Last week's issues left me just as disappointed (both dedicate less than one page out of almost a hundred to books and The Stranger doesn't even post book readings in their paper anymore, so it seems) and I think it's just dawned on me now that books are a form of art that is slowly disappearing. Well, not quite disappearing but let's say definitely on the decline. A large part of that has to do with video game and television I am sure. But those two forms of entertainment are never included in either issue. You could assume that the reader of The Seattle Weekly and The Stranger is more educated than the average Seattlite. Or maybe that's not true and people who don't watch much television or play video games still don't like to read that much, relative to say twenty or thirty years ago. I think that's probably true too. I think the big readers--there are only a few out there (I'd bet 3/4 are women) and the number is getting smaller. As a male, I must really be in the single digits as a percentage of the population, the terms being reading every day or a few times a week, particularly fiction.

As for the numbers, the numbers have gone up nominally, but it's not the sort of business that gets very good returns--it seems that you can get a better rate of return if you put your money in a savings account, speaking for the industry as a whole. I couldn't find any subset numbers for fiction, but I bet they're similar to the highlighted ones, or perhaps a bit higher due to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (whatever you have to say about it, it does create a buzz for books in general).

So to all the other writers out there: goodnight and good luck!

Important News from around the World...

2007-01-18T01:41:00.000-08:00

Doomsday is coming! The clock is ticking!

In a related story, it's time to vote for the Hooters Best Damn Dream Girl!

An Attack on Religion: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

2007-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

Book Review
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Published by Houghton Mifflin in 2006

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist by trade (author of The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker), is also one of the world's best known and most avowed atheists. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins makes the case that religion is not the foundation of humanity's moral values, that it has and is a major source of violence in the world, and that it instills ignorance which deprives free thought and pursuit of knowledge.

The author begins by defining the difference between a true believer, an agnostic, and an atheist, followed by debunking the major arguments for God's existence, from Thomas Aquinas' 'proofs' to the scriptures to Blaise Pascal's wager ("You'd better believe in God, because if you are right you stand to gain eternal bliss and if you are wrong it won't make any difference anyways."). Dawkins uses eloquent logical reasoning to counter these claims and is utterly convincing. The explanation of scientific facts in the next chapter, "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God", is likewise powerful and cogent. For example, Dawkins argues that even though the origin of life is still a mystery and the chance of it happening is statistically small (relatively small, because even if the chance was one in a billion, there would be a billion planets with life on them, given that there are a 100 billion galaxies and probably a billion billion planets in the universe), the probability of a God is even smaller because if a divine creator designed life, who designed the creator?

The chapters "The Roots of Religion" and "The Roots of Morality: why are we good?" are also immensely interesting. In the former, Dawkins cites a postulation that religion could be a by-product of mechanisms that were built into the brain by selection for falling in love. Another complimentary hypothesis is that irrationally strong conviction was useful in early human evolution as a guard against fickleness of mind ("It would be a severe disadvantage, for example, when hunting or making tools, to keep changing one's mind."). In the latter chapter, Dawkins theorizes that altruism towards strangers is another by-product of our ancestral altruism towards close kin, just as sexual desire is not diminished in a couple where the woman is on the pill even though they both know that she cannot conceive.

Dawkins justifiably has a problem with parents who teach their children a certain religion without proper explanation:

"I thank my own parents for taking the view that children be taught not so much what to think as how to think. If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the Bible is literally true or that the movement of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege. The important point is that it is their privilege to decide what they shall think, and not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure."

In the same chapter, titled "Childhood, Abuse, and Religion", Dawkins quotes a few dozen idioms, phrases, and cliches used in English that come directly from the King James Authorized Version of the Bible. In concluding the chapter, he writes:

"Let me not labour the point. I have probably said enough to convince at least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage."

It is here that Dawkins is incomplete in his reasoning and omits a very important point. Besides providing personal psychological needs, religion also serves ecological and ecclesiastic roles that strengthen the community. There is something to be said of a weakening culture due to weakening religion as evidenced in Europe, where many churches lay empty or are being converted into nightclubs.

At the outset of the book, Dawkins declares, "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." Indeed, attack would have been a good subtitle for the book--Dawkins leaves all pleasantries at teatime and does not mince words. In doing so however, he covers a diverse issue of topics, from the Afghani Taliban to the prayers of John Paul II to the policies of the Bush administration. His expression of opinions on a plethora of subjects begs the question--why is an evolutionary biologist writing about these issues? Richard Dawkins has gotten criticism for his inclusion of political opinions in an otherwise unrelated discourse, such as his excellent book The Ancestor's Tale--which traces Homo sapiens' ancestry species by species back to the origin of life--which would have been a masterpiece save for his quips about the Bush administration. In fairness to Dawkins, his opinions are much more appropriate in this book than in any other because religion and politics are deeply intertwined in many countries, but especially in America and the Muslim world. Yet even if some of his opinions are relevant, they are not always explained in scientific terms. For example, he correctly compares the U.S. government's and media's use of "terrorism" to the Salem witch trials, yet when he writes about suicide bombers who justify their actions through religion, he does not dig into their ultimate causes (for example, territorial and cultural transgression, etc.). This is why his previous bestseller The Blind Watchmaker is a much better book on why God almost certainly does not exist (and had nothing to do with the creation or subsequent evolution of life) precisely because it is void of political and philosophical opinions and only advances scientific facts and theories.

The God Delusion is still a good, mainly philosophical discussion on religion and its current-events implications, and is worth reading. But given Richard Dawkins' confrontational style--in contrast with the Southern politeness of Edward O. Wilson, for example--readers, especially religious ones, who are interested in learning more about evolution will be better served reading The Blind Watchmaker and The Ancestor's Tale.

Comedy Improv

2007-01-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

We went to a comedy "improv" show in the U-District last Friday. We've never been to one before and we had nothing to do so we drove there for the 10:30pm show. We had about fifteen minutes to spare so we stopped at the Irish Emigrant. Not really a very special bar--it's almost a sports bar--but it was close by and we needed the beer. The female bartender had the voice and attitude of a sorority girl: a crackly voice and a demeanor slightly on the rude side; acting a little bit masculine by pretending to like sports ("I love to wear baseball hats" + the crackly voice) , but not too much where it'll turn the guys off. Well, everybody's got to do what they got to do...

Back to the theater where we got there just on time. There's actually a bar there and we were going to drink there before the show but it is very small and right next to the entrance where someone is always coming in or out. The good news is that you can get a drink anytime during the show. We took full advantage of that unusual (in the U.S.) perk.

An improv comedy show is just what it suggests: the comedy is improvised based on audience suggestions. For example, a few of the skits involved asking the audience random questions such as "What's in the room?". My girlfriend yelled out "elephant" and so one of the words to be used was elephant. A member of the comedy group would wait outside until there were five or six such random words and then he (unfortunately there were no female performers) would have to guess what the words were in a two minute game of pictionary. The difference between a regular game and this one was that they had to do it in the form of a conversation.

And it was conversation that was really the highlight of the show. The audience would choose a random topic--one was taxidermy--and the members would strike up a conversation. Five were lined up facing the stage and one was in front of them and facing them. After one of them started talking about the topic at hand, he would randomly point to anyone else who had to immediately pick up the storyline without pausing (even when in the middle of a word!) and without straying off course to the point where the story no longer made sense. That takes a lot of talent and they were all very very good. Is it as funny as regular stand-up comedy? I think so, but I could see myself going to see a different comedian almost every week, whereas I'd probably get bored seeing improv too often in succession.

After the show, we stopped at another bar for a couple more. This was a punk kind of place so we were not dressed accordingly, but we didn't care. We talked about whether the people there were dressed like that because that was their style or because it was to fit in. I think they think they're original, but the power of the latter is frequently underestimated: I believe that probably less than 5% of the population truly doesn't care what other people think and isn't influenced by others (at least in terms of choice of wardrobe). If that wasn't the case, why would they all kind of look the same (at this bar or most other bars, workplaces, etc.)?

Poverty, Ignorance, Idiocy, and Degeneration during the Great Depression: Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

2007-01-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

Book Review
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

First Published in 1932

This Edition Published in 1995 by the University of Georgia Press

Set in the deep South during the Great Depression, Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road is a story about the Lester family--white sharecroppers who live in extreme poverty near Augusta, Georgia. This is one of those great novels that is bound to leave a permanent imprint in the reader's mind. On the one hand, the story is quite comedic because the predicament of the Lester family seems to be largely due to the character of the head of the household, Jeeter, as exquisitely brought out by Caldwell in the dialogue:

"Now that he was alone he began to worry all over again about the way he had treated Lov. He wanted to do something to make amends. If he went down to the chute the next morning and told Lov how sorry he was and that he promised never to steal anything from him again, he hoped that Lov would forgive him and not try to hit him with chunks of coal. And while he was about it, he could stop by Lov's house and speak to Pearl. He would tell her that she had to stop sleeping on a pallet on the floor, and be more considerate of Lov's wants. It was bad enough, he knew, to have to put up with a woman all day long, and then when night came to be left alone, was even worse.
'Ain't you going to haul no more wood to Augusta?' Ada demanded. 'I ain't had no new snuff since I don't know when. And all the meal is gone, and the meat, too. Ain't nothing in the house to eat.'
'I'm aiming to take a load over there to-morrow or the next day," teeter said. "Don't hurry me, woman. It takes a heap of time to get ready to make a trip over there. I got my own interests to consider. You keep out of it.'
'You're just lazy, that's what's wrong with you. If you wasn't lazy you could haul a load every day, and I'd have me some snuff when I wanted it most.'
'I got to be thinking about farming the land,' teeter said. 'I ain't no durn woodchopper. I'm a farmer. Them woodchoppers hauling wood to Augusta ain't got no farming to take up their time, like I has. Why, I expect I'm going to grow near about fifty bales of cotton this year, if I can borrow the mules and get some seed-cotton and guano on credit in Fuller. By God and by Jesus, I'm a farmer. I ain't no durn woodchopper.'
'That's the way you talk every year about this time, but you don't never get started. It's been seven or eight years since you turned a furrow. I been listening to you talk about taking up farming again so long I don't believe nothing you say now. It's a big old whopping lie. All you men is like that. There's a hundred more just like you all around here, too. None of you is going to do nothing, except talk. The rest of them go around begging, but you're so lazy you won't even do that.'
'Now, Ada,' Jeeter said, 'I'm going to start in the morning. Soon as I get all the fields burned off, I'll go borrow me some mules. Me and Dude can grow a bale to the acre, if I can get me some seed-cotton and guano.'
'Humph!' Ada said, leaving the porch.
J E E T E R did not go down to the coal chute to see Lov. Neither did he go to the house to speak to Pearl. There were always well-developed plans in Jeeter's mind for the things he intended doing; but somehow he never got around to doing them. One day led to the next, and it was much more easy to say he would wait until to¬morrow. When that day arrived, he invariably postponed action until a more convenient time. Things had been going along in that easy way for almost a lifetime now; nevertheless, he was again getting ready to burn off the fields and plow the land. He wanted to raise a crop of cotton."

On the other hand, the poverty experienced by sharecroppers was obviously due to the economic depression during the 1930s. The extent of the despair is evident when the family depends on tobacco, a.k.a. "snuff", to quiet their hunger:

"'By God and by Jesus, Lov,' Jeeter shouted across the yard, 'what about them there turnips? Has they got them damn-blasted green-gutted worms in them like mine had? I been wanting some good eating turnips since way back last spring. If Captain John hadn't sold off all his mules and shut off letting me get guano on his credit, I could have raised me a whopping big mess of turnips this year. But when he sold the mules and moved to Augusta, he said he wasn't going to ruin himself by letting us tenants break him buying guano on his credit in Fuller. He said there wasn't no sense in trying to run a farm no more-fifty plows or one plow. He said he could make more money out of farming by not running plows. And that's why we ain't got no snuff and rations no more. Ada says she's just bound to have a little snuff now and then, because it sort of staves off hunger, and it does, at that, Every time I sell a load of wood I get about a dozen jars of snuff, even if I ain't got the money to buy meal and meat, because snuff is something a man is just bound to have. When I has a sharp pain in the belly, I can take a little snuff and not feel hungry all the rest of the day. Snuff is a powerful help to keep a man living.'"

Yet throughout the plot ignorance and stupidity lead to further degeneration, and it is that atrophy, poignantly described by Erskine Caldwell, that makes Tobacco Road a sad story, and a classic.

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