Recent articles in the Daily News Record (I say Wrecker) about the proposed drilling and gas fracking in the Bergton, Virginia area have consistently used the term: "small" when referring to the chemicals used in the process. These amounts have been reported to be about one percent. One percent contamination is 10,000 parts per million. The taxpayers every where are presently paying their own Sewer Authorities to treat their waste down to the single digit parts per million range (a ten thousandth of a percent). Further, our own local "contaminants" are nitrates and various suspended solids, not benzene and the other hundreds of (and presumably proprietary) chemicals used in the fracking process. To call 10,000 parts per million of a carcinogenic chemical like benzene "small" is to engage in misinformation. Wouldn't it be nice if the next reference to fracking chemicals in the news would use the term "massive pollution"? Even the Fracking Company admits that something close to half of the contamination is not recovered for Treatment.
The contamination of surface and ground water by Big Fracking Gas Companies has been exempted from regulation by the EPA, the State of Virginia DEQ, and the Department Of Minerals and Mines by a Bill proposed by Dick (Haliburton) Chenney. The only entity that still has a voice in the process of permitting the drilling (the wells, NOT responsibility for the pollution and presumably redress by the citizenry) is local County Government; a group singularly unprepared to deal with the complexities of geology, waste treatment, and chemistry. The company (as is usual in a great free market) is buying up leases as fast as it can prior to local folks learning about what the leases are worth and what the problems might be (like water wells catching on fire - See the movie "Gasland" - http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-21-2010/josh-fox). The company (and the news paper) imply that the "bad stuff" is going to be way down there thousands of feet below your water well.
If we've learned anything from the drilling tragedy in the Gulf, it should be that fluids (gases and liquids) thousands of feet down in the earth don't really want to stay there. All that rock is heavy and it will squeeze that stuff back up here where we and our water wells live. Especially if you "frak" the rock strata. The only way to make this worse is to put the industrial waste lagoons in the flood plain. That's what they're planning to do.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The weather is better but people are still pretty dumb.
Ben Franklin 1706 - 1790
Necessity never made a good bargain.
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.
Georges Louis Leclerc De Buffon 1707 - 1788
A decent provision for the poor is the truest test of a civilization.
Samuel Johnson 1709 - 1784
Depend on it sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
I wonder if this could be employed as a study aide some how? And last from Samuel:
I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
Horace Walpole 1717 - 1797
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke 1729 - 1777
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Thomas Paine 1743 - 1809
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Thomas Jefferson 1743 - 1829
Pretty good for a guy with the Sally Hemmings “problem”. I’ve said that context be damned; hypocracy is hypocracy and if you can't see it it’s probably because you’re a hypocrite.
To teach is to learn twice.
Ask the young: they know everything.
Joseph Joubert 1754 - 1824
Boy! If this little sarcasm isn’t one of the verities of life, I don’t know what is. Now, if it were only possible to realize the truth of this prior to middle age. But then of course it wouldn’t be true any more. It’s kind of like those puzzles about people on the island that always lie or always tell the truth. Reality flip flops because the a priori conditions affect the perceptions you need in order to solve the problem. A lot of time is spent trying to solve what we think is the right problem. But we often work on something only related to the problem.
RTP: Read The Problem.
Ralph Edmund Bolgiano
Good advice for me when I very impatiently jumped to all kinds of conclusions as to appropriate strategies. Hierarchical levels of organization are too much for most of us. We protest and resist the solution on one level because we like to jump a few levels and assail our debate opponent with, “Oh Yeah, but what about the price of eggs in China?” Many of the debates (arguements) I read in the news employ "Toddler Logic":
I didn't do it. It wasn't that bad. He did first.
Me
Life can be understood backward; but must be lived forwards.
Kierkegaard
The time travel paradox is an example of a “eudox”: I understand that if you could go back in time and kill yourself (or your father), you couldn’t go back into time and kill anybody. And as much as I appreciate the advantages of logical “thought experiments” as Einstein called them. I have a little trouble with a system of thought being the only thing to stop a physical action (Yeah yeah, I know the Theory of relativity holds that approaching the speed of light makes you infinitely short and infinitely massive - but it starts with the premise that you can’t exceed the speed of light so the “proofs” are tautologies). So I guess I’m not as rational as I’d like think I am. It rankles a bit to go from Einstein’s cosmos all the way back to Aristotle for the stopper. Now if logical paradox of rational word usage can keep us from physically going back into time, in mathematics, why do irrational numbers (like pi) and imaginary numbers (square roots of negatives) have any utility? And if the Big Bang happened, there was a time before time (without space there can’t be the time it takes to cross it) when there were no rules (or least, rules that have no “Logical” reason to have any connection to the rules we’re using to think about this question). What was the question? That’s the problem with the thought experiment, rigorous logic gets confusing at the point at which you interject a “wild hair/hare”, one of those “just for the sake of argument” kind of assumptions. Most of us just can’t keep our thought processes straight in this world, much less in an altered or hypothetical universe. And this is a way of seeing where it’s all going? So it slips into mysticism. If you feel it’s true but can’t prove it, it’s either religion or mysticism. To quote John Stockton during his campaign for the vice-presidency: “ What am I doing here?” Which is a larger question that it seems; and the next guy thinks he has some answers.
William Blake 1757 - 1827
To see a World in a grain of Sand, and a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of you hand And Eternity in an Hour.
I fervently hope that everyone has had such a moment in their lives; more importantly, I hope that they remember it, and cherish it, and believe in it. I hope that they haven’t refused to remember the “dream truth” quality of those times that are outside of time (and therefore space), when we see things differently. Certainly sometimes they’re visions that have danger and can cause harm; I don’t engage the man talking to God in the street. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not experiencing a life far richer than those who can’t see anything but the dirt beneath their feet.
We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Moderation in all things.
Publius Terentius Afer 190 - 159 BC
The golden mean is great, but how do you know what moderation is if you’ve never seen excess? I guess that I’m advocating:
There is moderation even in excess.
Benjamin Disraeli 1804 - 1881
“Wisdom through excess.” My friend Jimmy used to say. At least in moderation.... By that I mean we don’t have to take the elevator all the way to the top or bottom, but we shouldn’t be afraid to at least peek into the basement and the top floor at least a time or two. So here we have the LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin experience. So many people (especially those who know nothing about it have made it their business to tell us about the drug experience. The Partnership for a Drug Free American is a great example. Listen to their ads:
When she read her first book she read it to me. When talk of the birds and the bees went around she came to me for advice. So why didn’t she come to me when someone offered her a joint?
IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT MARIJUANA; YOU’RE IN THE RADIO ADVERTISEMENT BUSINESS FOR THE GOVERNMENT GRANT MONEY.
Another group of poor souls addicted to “drug money”. And I refuse to subscribe to the cop-out of blaming the bad parts of a drug experience on the drug. It’s all inside you already. The exalted highs and the abysmal lows. It’s just a pill! The rest is in your head from the totality of your life. The Partnership folks want to blame all our troubles on the drug. I prefer the person who takes the drug. So for those that are shocked, I have to rely on another of the thoughts of Thomas Hobbes:
The secret thoughts of man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
I guess my definition of “sin” (and especially those things that deserve to be illegal) doesn’t include the “victimless” crimes, or “dirty thought” for that matter. I fail to feel guilty about dreams in which I commit adultery with Lamia, or engage in ... whatever. And I reserve the right to think about these things when not in the dream state. It is so much more reasonable to contemplate having seen the underlying microstructure of a leaf in its veins or the roots of a mountain in the texture of its hollows and trees, all with a little (50 micrograms!) help from LSD. Even if the "AH HA! I SEE!" moment doesn’t last after those 1000 or so molecules have been pissed away. I know that it was all possible within the 150 pounds of molecules which are ME. Back to Blake:
A Truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent.
Prisons are built of Stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
Not only a visionary, but a cynic (I like that in a person) with a poet’s flair. Here is Friedrick Von Schiller again:
Whatever is not forbidden is permitted.
A very important principal. And one that has been ignored by tyrants thorough out history, and recently as well. I’m reminded of the case in the 1980’s were a US citizen constructed a hydroelectric power plant on his property (refurbished an old grist mill). The issue came up as to whether he should be allowed to tie into the power grid (selling his electricity at wholesale and buying it back at retail). An electrical power company executive opined that he didn’t think that it was LEGAL for private citizens to generate electricity! Fortunately, Judge Ito wasn’t presiding, and the obvious answer came back. “What?” The judge cleared that up for the power guy. As a matter of fact Virginia has some of the better regulations (and lack thereof) concerning home power generation. . I’m selling electricity to the Shenandoah Valley Electrical Coop right this minute. But as I understand it, there is a cap on the percentage of electricity in the grid that can be produced (and therefore purchased from) private citizens… Better get your PV panels while there's still time. You might have to GIVE your excess electricity away (or purposely waste it) if you’re too late. Let’s get that regulation changed; what do you say?
Mating Call Modification
Electronic file last modified on 25 January 1997.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PRINT & ELECTRONIC VERSIONS ARE CONFUSING AT BEST.
‑‑The original was printed in a single column with lines of 78 characters or less, but it has been converted to lines of 75 characters or less to show better how esoteric we can be.
TITLE:
Whippoorwill (Caprimulgus vociferous) Behavior in response to a mimicking device in Rockingham County in 1997.
CITATION: REDACTED 1997. Whippoorwill Behavior in response to a mimicking device in Rockingham County in 1997. Journal of North American Ornithocalogical Society.
Ornithology 11:511‑523.
Acknowledgments‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑-‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ 617
Literature Cited‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑-‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ 613
Introduction---------------------------------------------609
The purpose of this paper is to provide results of experiments into the Behavior of a Whippoorwill (Caprimulgus vociferus) during oral mating display in Rockingham County
STUDY AREA: FULKS RUN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ROCKINGHAM COUNTY
Approx. Center of Site: 38 37' 10" N, 78 56' 51" W
Singers Glen, Virginia USGS 7.5 minute Quadrangle:
Location: Fulks Run International Airport
Area Studied: Former domicile of the author, the site of a ratty old trailer.
Habitat(s) Studied: Graveled area (Limestone crushed rock, size #5/8) near the author's bedroom window
Elevation: 1377 ft ASL (416 m)
Minimum Distance to Ridge top (ASL approx. 2000): 1 mi (0.6 km).
LANDSCAPED FORMER TRAILER SITE
Behavior(s) Studied: Male mating enticement display station.
******************************************************************
METHODS
A landscaped area (formerly the site of a trailer, definitely NOT a mobile home) appears to represent the all time ideal site for Male whippoorwills' enticement display.
During the early summer (June 22 through June 26) of 1997, starting at 10:02 PM (a) male whippoorwill(s) perched on a bench and conducted his enticement display. The call was measured at 85 db at a distance of 30 feet (8.5 m) in a frequency range of 440 to 1360 MHz, with an average repetition cadence of 0.8 seconds, and an uninterrupted duration of 2 hours and 16 minutes. A similar performance was repeated in the AM hours of the following morning, starting at 02:37 and continuing for 2 hours and 31 minutes.
Several consecutive nights of this behavior prompted the author to seek relief from the mating call by means of whippoorwill behavior modification. The afternoon of 26 June 1997, he obtained a "mimicking device" also known as a mechanical talking "parrot". This device is a nine (9) volt DC sound activated recording and play-back mechanism embedded in an imitation "feathered" puppet designed to represent a "talking" bird. The sounds, or calls, repeated by the device are recordings of the sounds that activate the devise, they are modified in both frequency and cadence rate. Frequencies and cadence rate are elevated by a factor of 1.0627. Description of puppet: Length: 36 cm, wingspan: 32 cm, pelage: back, blue, wings green, red, and yellow, breast: white, tail feathers (3): yellow, green, and red (each one solid color). Eyes: blue, feet yellow. Legs: very short (like the whippoorwill). Bill: very large, approximately 4 inches (10 cm) bright yellow. Genus and species unknown, possibly meant to represent a toucan.
SHORTCOMINGS OF OBSERVATIONS
Unfortunately, observations were unsatisfactory because of sleep deprivation. The first several nights the author had resorted to throwing handfuls of gravel (limestone, size #5/8) at the bird. Previous experience (two years ago) had illustrated the futility of fire arms (see JOO 3:321-315), prompted the author to experiment with alternative measures. Thus, data are only estimates of reality. (See sleep deprivation studies, JOP, 1990, 4:255-259).
******************************************************************
GENERAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The evening of June 26, 1997, a whippoorwill arrived at the mating display location at 09:54PM. The whippoorwill began his mating call (measurements: 85 db at a distance of 30 feet (8.5 m) in a frequency range of 450 to 1360 MHz, with a repetition cadence of 1.2 seconds, nearly identical to those previously recorded on June 25, 1997. Duration however was affected by the response of the mimicking device. The whippoorwill ceased his calls for a period of 5.6 seconds (possibly the time it took for him to try and figure out what the f**k was happening). The whippoorwill resumed his mating call and the mimicking device activated and responded with the afore mentioned cadence and frequency modifications. The whippoorwill responded to the mimicking device by modifying his calls. The whipporrwill calls were measured at 92 db at a distance of 30 feet (8.5 m) in a frequency range of 472 to 1430 MHz. At no time did the whippoorwill mimic the “AUWWKKK!” that the “parrot” interjects at the beginning of each new recording. Duration of this "enhanced" mating call lasted for 1 hour and 22 minutes, when it was terminated by the experimenter's intervention (thrown gravel [again, limestone, size # 5/8] that’s all I can find at this time of night and you can hurt your arm trying to throw it violently).
The author theorizes that the stubborn insistence of the whippoorwill counteracts the “parrot’s” ability to reset and therefore rerecord the “enhanced” display characteristics. Were this not the case, both parot and whippoorwill would have likey ramped up in frequency and cadence beyond the point of human hearing. Perhaps to the point they’d both explode (one can only wish).
After removal of the mimicking device, mating displays were observed to recommence after periods of time as short as 20 seconds after gravel was thrown. Mating calls loudness, frequencies, and cadence, returned to previously recorded levels following additional gravel throwing incidents at 11:18 PM, 11:21 PM, 11:25 PM, and 11:26 PM. Presumably, duration would have also been unaffected by the experiment, had the experimenter possessed the patience to test it (have YOU ever heard a whippoorwill when you’re trying to sleep?).
Following is a representation of the above results in table form:
(Table 1); Apologies to those who do not have the requisite software)
Further study of affects on duration are needed, however, observation effort and methods were inadequate to properly document results on this occasion. Others, (Boekelheide and Ainley 1989, Boekelheide et al. 1990a) have noted the persistence of the mating display (after all, the species name IS vociferus! Scott (1973:23) noted that the rate of return to mating display calls is more than 8 times more rapid than the rate at which frogs return to normal behavior after disturbance (gravel throwing, geogenesis and size unknown). Does this mean that FROGS are smarter than whippoorwills? And will you tell me why a bird that screams “HERE I AM, HERE I AM” a thousand times an hour isn’t eaten by some self respecting owl or fox or something?
******************************************************************
TABLE
Mating call resumption intervals, whippoorwills. sub colony.
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Seconds duration with
Site SC delay Date mpts Young Source
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Parnassas A 45 8/9/1991 70+ 1.56+ ? Fawley 1973) *
Parnassas B 10 8/3/1983 19 ? 1.90 Fawley (in prep.)
Breiry Branch A 42 8/3/1983 19 0.45 ? This Paper
Briery Branch B 52 8/3/1983 16 0.31 ? This Paper
Briery Branch C 69 8/3/1983 2 0.03 ? This Paper
Rawley Sp. 84 7/17/1983 49 0.58 1.23 **
** Tesh (1973:9, 23) did not appear to make an intensive effort to measure resumption rate (due to use of shot gun). Thus, Tesh's (1973) data may underestimate the tenacity of C. vociferus.
** Graybill and Hodder (1985:206) list 84 total tests, but Hodder and Graybill (1985:538) lists 82 attempts; the mean value for duration/gravel throws in Hodder and Graybill (1985) is correct if sigma is less than 2.05.
******************************************************************
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Ray Tesh for the lone of the mimicking device. And I am most grateful to Eric Gadberry for the gift of the shot gun; the only strategy that appears to have any effect on Caprimulgus vociferous. However, the nearly instantaneous replacement of the “dead” whippoorwill with a replacement male bird, convinced me that even though I was willing to kill the first whippoorwill on Cross Mountain, I was not willing to kill the last whippoorwill on Cross Mountain. We live and we learn; unless we happen to be particularly stupid Texans. In which case; God help us all.
Literature Cited:
Ainley, D. G. 1990. Farallon WHIPPOORWILLS: patterns at the community level. Pp. 339‑380 in Ainley, D. G. and R. J. Boekelheide (Eds.). 1990.
Whippoorwills, stupidity, ecology, dynamics, and structure of
an upwelling system community. Stanford Univ. Press.
Boekelheide, R. J. and D. G. Ainley. 1989.
Age, resource availability, and idiotic brain-dead birds. Auk 106:389‑401.
Boekelheide, R. J., D. G. Ainley, S. H. Morrell, and T. J. Lewis. 1990a. Whippoorwills. Pp. 163‑194 in D. G. Ainley and R. J. Boekelheide (Eds.). 1990. Bird brains of the North American Continent: ecology, dynamics, and structure birds that are dumber than frogs. Stanford Univ. Press.
Tesh, R. F., Boekelheide, R. J., D. G. Ainley, H. R. Huber, and T. J. Lewis. 1990b.
Effects of #6 bird shot on stupid whippoorwills. Pp. 195‑217 in D. G. Ainley and R. J. Boekelheide (Eds.). 1990. Whippoorwills of the Farallon Islands: ecology, dynamics, and structure of an incredibly stupid bird. Stanford Univ. Press.
Graybill, M. R. and J. Hodder. 1985. Effects of the 1982‑1983 El Nino on reproduction of six species of Caprimulgidae in Virginia. Pp. 205‑210 in W. S. Wooster and D. L. Fluharty, eds. El Nino North: Nino effects in the Eastern North America. Small International Airport Grant Program, Univ. Maryland, College Park, Md..
Hodder, J. and M. R. Graybill. 1985. Reproduction and survival of birds that got "blowed-up" during the 1982‑1983 El Nino. Condor 87:535‑541.
Scott, J. M. 1973. Resource allocation in four species of Caprimulgidae. Ph.D. Thesis, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis.
JOO 5:611‑613 Contents HREF="joomenu.htm” Menu
Friday, April 2, 2010
Water Problems in the Rest of the World
A Republican Bill (Written free of charge for them by Rush Limbaugh)
Whereas, 97% of meteorological and atmospheric scientists (100% of those not in the employ of the fossil fuel industry), so called "scientific organizations" such as the Smithsonian Society, National Geographic Society, The American Meteorological Society and various Academies of Science too numerous to mention all declare that "Climate Change", AKA "Global Warming" is a reality, and whereas these organizations cite and print and post data and images of Arctic and Tibetan and other glacial areas of earth showing the reality of shrinking ice fields as obvious evidence in support of their "theories", be it resolved that;
We Republicans declare all these groups and their members to be ANTI AMERICAN, anti free market, knowing and unknowing dupes of Chinese Communists, pinkos, queers and all those bad people who have a secret agenda. Further, we declare their information to be a hoax and any repetition of it to be fake news.
And further, be it known that anyone on Earth dependent on water coming to them via the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salwen, Irrawaddy, Jamuna, Ganges, Indus, Orinoco, Japura, Amazon, Jura, Madeira, Mamore, Mackenzie, Yukon, Rhone, Rhine, Danube, Tigress, Euphrates, and White or Blue Nile Rivers to be non people and therefore undeserving of consideration by the God fearing good Americans who has got theirs just fine, thank you very much. And f**k you too, you Pacific Islanders, Bangladeshis, and Dutch who don’t have the good sense to live more than ten feet above the high tide mark (and probably can’t speak English like Jesus did).
Whereas, 97% of meteorological and atmospheric scientists (100% of those not in the employ of the fossil fuel industry), so called "scientific organizations" such as the Smithsonian Society, National Geographic Society, The American Meteorological Society and various Academies of Science too numerous to mention all declare that "Climate Change", AKA "Global Warming" is a reality, and whereas these organizations cite and print and post data and images of Arctic and Tibetan and other glacial areas of earth showing the reality of shrinking ice fields as obvious evidence in support of their "theories", be it resolved that;
We Republicans declare all these groups and their members to be ANTI AMERICAN, anti free market, knowing and unknowing dupes of Chinese Communists, pinkos, queers and all those bad people who have a secret agenda. Further, we declare their information to be a hoax and any repetition of it to be fake news.
And further, be it known that anyone on Earth dependent on water coming to them via the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salwen, Irrawaddy, Jamuna, Ganges, Indus, Orinoco, Japura, Amazon, Jura, Madeira, Mamore, Mackenzie, Yukon, Rhone, Rhine, Danube, Tigress, Euphrates, and White or Blue Nile Rivers to be non people and therefore undeserving of consideration by the God fearing good Americans who has got theirs just fine, thank you very much. And f**k you too, you Pacific Islanders, Bangladeshis, and Dutch who don’t have the good sense to live more than ten feet above the high tide mark (and probably can’t speak English like Jesus did).
The End of War
Something was very very wrong with your program.
I was fully prepared to participate in the discussion conducted on "Talk of the Nation" on NPR this past Tuesday, March 30 concerning Drone Warfare. But I just couldn’t listen after the first fifteen minutes. It is profoundly depressing to hear so called "experts" dance all around with smoke and mirrors when asked reasonable questions. Further, many reasonable questions were never asked or the host refused to follow up the non answers with any probing. I heard "answers" that evoked apocryphal and anecdotal digressions ("Oh! my friend wasn’t killed because he got to use a robot to kill the other guy." What about the other guy that got killed? How positive was his experience?) No one addressed the concept of "Thou shalt not kill." I’m an atheist and I adhere to that concept. When asked about the "collateral fatalities" [dead innocents], the talking heads mouthed something about the answer being "Highly Classified" and Congressional Authorization; I guess that is justification for killing the "wrong" people. The Iraq War has inured us to the concept of killing "suspected enemies". Now we’re even doing it with drones. What next, autonomous robots?
Now comes the part where you get to write me off as a crackpot: Sixty years ago, Assac Azimov imagined a world where humans and manufactured human substitutes (robots or drones) were cohabitants. He understood that given human nature, (where we can’t stop killing each other in very personal ways) that in order for civilization to continue to exist; at least the robots needed to obey "Thou shalt not kill". He proposed the three laws of robotics to protect the humans from other humans using robots as weapons. He instilled the robots with better ethics than we humans can manage.
The transition from prosthesis to drone to robot is already occurring around us and there is no sign that those constructing these transitional forms nor our representatives in Government are even thinking about the consequences of their actions. The assumption seems to be that only OUR side is going to have these weapons (how has that worked out so far in the history of warfare)? I recently read an OP ED piece in the Washington Post news written by a United States Army general stating that these "super soldiers" will make war obsolete! Just like the sword, the bow and arrow and the machine gun and the atom bomb.
If NPR is one of the best forums for debate of serious issues (and I believe that it is) and it can’t do any better than the recent program; then we are all truly and surely damned.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Southern Living
We just walked the 3/8ths of a mile of our driveway to get the mail and paper (neither were there). But we did clear the snow from the CRV parked at the bottom near the county road and the sun tomorrow will take care of the rest. The inadequately plowed trench through the 30 some inches of snow had started to drift over as the 40 mph winds continued to gust across Western Virginia. Ah! Winter! Those who live in southern climes, like Virginia have forgotten what it’s like. We here have also been allowed to forget what it’s like to live in winter. The last few years I haven’t really worn a coat; if I’m working outside, I generate enough heat to the point that if I wear a hat I sweat. If I’m not working, I’m on my way to somewhere and the time not spent in a car (even one not warmed up yet) isn’t a hardship. But in this kind of weather when I go out, I have to be protected.
If I want to see, I have to wear my glasses (with strap so I don’t lose them). Then there’s a tube "scarf" open on both ends so it can be a scarf or a balaclava or baklava (one's a dessert and the other is head and face protection....) or even an almost full face mask; a very flexible item. So then there’s a hat with a brim needed to keep the hood out of my eyes. If I’m running the tractor, I need ear protection muffs and they have to be over the balaclava and hat but under the hood. Then maybe I want to take my camera so there’s a strap around my neck too. Then I can put on my gloves if I don’t have to fish around for tractor keys or tools or maybe a pocket knife. Well, That was easy! I can’t tell you the number of times that I have had to completely start the dressing process over because I’ve forgotten something, or forgotten to do something before I go out....
But then after a time out in the wind and blowing snow you come back in, your glasses fog up and with the accumulated snow starting to melt you have to get out of all this stuff. Do you remember each and every item? In the correct order? HA! You end up thrashing your way out of the clothing, maybe dropping your glasses or camera or maybe just pirouetting around in circles trying to get your camera strap out from under the hood you’re no longer wearing up over your hat. All the while leaving puddles on the floor. Ah! Winter!
In the summer you can go naked. Ah! Summer!
As a pessimist I have always said that winter is better because if you’re cold you can always put on more clothing, but in the summer if you’re too hot you can only get just so much naked.
If I want to see, I have to wear my glasses (with strap so I don’t lose them). Then there’s a tube "scarf" open on both ends so it can be a scarf or a balaclava or baklava (one's a dessert and the other is head and face protection....) or even an almost full face mask; a very flexible item. So then there’s a hat with a brim needed to keep the hood out of my eyes. If I’m running the tractor, I need ear protection muffs and they have to be over the balaclava and hat but under the hood. Then maybe I want to take my camera so there’s a strap around my neck too. Then I can put on my gloves if I don’t have to fish around for tractor keys or tools or maybe a pocket knife. Well, That was easy! I can’t tell you the number of times that I have had to completely start the dressing process over because I’ve forgotten something, or forgotten to do something before I go out....
But then after a time out in the wind and blowing snow you come back in, your glasses fog up and with the accumulated snow starting to melt you have to get out of all this stuff. Do you remember each and every item? In the correct order? HA! You end up thrashing your way out of the clothing, maybe dropping your glasses or camera or maybe just pirouetting around in circles trying to get your camera strap out from under the hood you’re no longer wearing up over your hat. All the while leaving puddles on the floor. Ah! Winter!
In the summer you can go naked. Ah! Summer!
As a pessimist I have always said that winter is better because if you’re cold you can always put on more clothing, but in the summer if you’re too hot you can only get just so much naked.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Truth, genius, and satire
In calm weather every man’s a pilot.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
John Ray 1628 - 1705
Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the argument of its foes.
William Penn 1644 - 1718
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift 1667 - 1745
If you haven’t read it, The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O’Toole is just great. I appreciate humor so much but the only kind I seem to be capable of generating is very dark and cynical. Unrelated here, but I encourage everyone I meet to read the books in the “Disk World” fantasy series by Terry Pratchett. The books are indescribable (except to say that they incorporate EVERY fantasy and gothic creature you can imagine – pretty much all just trying to get along with each other. Not cynical at all; and I know that book jacket “blurbers” are known for hyperbole, but I have heard Pratchett described as the greatest satirist since Swift in more than one place.) The books are loaded with wry humor, bald humor, wisdom and insight into the human condition and some of the best little sayings that anyone has ever penned – quotable stuff. And the good news is that if you like them, there are over thirty! Jonathan Swift really had a way with words; he was the consummate master of satire, and even about satire said:
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
But Solon (638 - 559 BC) has already said; Laws are like spiders’ webs, which stand firm when any light, yielding object falls upon them, while a larger thing breaks through them and escapes.
Obviously Swift has read his Classics. We forgive him his plagiary; he certainly improved on the original. Anyway, I saw the truth of this at DEQ. We’d hound the little guys but especially during the politicized periods, (I’ll not be coy; DURING GEORGE ALLEN’S TENURE) management was instructed to let the big guys pollute to their hearts’ content. And somehow when the newly appointed CEO’s own business was found to have an illegal discharge; he was allowed to fix it without penalty (or publicity). In fact, no one outside of the Agency ever heard about it. The inspector (same one dealing with the felon mentioned under Francois La Rochoucauld) was told that if she wanted to keep her job, no one outside the Agency was going to ever hear about it. So I have kept mum; we’re both outside the Agency now. What a jerk George Allen was! The best thing that ever happened in Virginian politics (and for the USA) was that Allen lost his bid for re-election to the US Senate (and stepping stone for a run for the Presidency of the USA if you believe the so called conservative pundits). My god! Allen makes George W. Bush look smart! Back to Swift:
Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ‘em;
And so on ad infinitum.
Thus every poet, in his kind,
Is bit by him that comes behind.
The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
She wears her clothes, as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.
I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl on the surface of the earth.
To that, Shakespeare would have said; Well said, that was laid on with a trowel.
Swift could be so cruel; but you get the impression that his victims deserved it.
Truth lies within a little certain compass, but error is immense.
Henry St. John 1678 - 1751
All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident.
Schopenhauer 1788 - 1860
Those not present are always wrong.
Phillipe Nericault 1680 - 1754
I take back what I said about the French. I wouldn’t want to imagine a world without Voltaire, (soon to be heard from) Balzac, Pasture, La Place, Curie, and many many others. It’s just that the French language so messes up crossword puzzles! Next we enter the period of clear speech and lucid thought setting behind the roiling and clouded horizon of grandiose and exalted oratory....
And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them ghosts of departed quantities?
George Berkeley 1685 - 1753
Some adage, huh? I wonder whether George knew what it was he was talking about. Some statements are crafted in the hope that they will be quoted and “well said” has gone through some fashion changes. We will return to this form of “clear speech” shortly. Remember that these guys are not trying to be funny. I am amazed to read some Plutarch and then pick up a Victorian novel. What were they (the Victorians) thinking of?
Blessed is he that expects nothing for he will not be disappointed.
Alexander Pope 1688 - 1744
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Charles de Secondar 1689 - 1755
This one has seen application. The old Soviet Union always made sure that everybody had to break at least one law, that way the state could “legally” come after those they wanted to silence any time they wanted. Get picked up for hoarding toilet paper and never be seen again, in reality because you said something perfectly legal that somebody in power didn’t like. And we’ve got the sodomy laws in the US. Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on your sexual persuasion) they’re only being abused against the homosexuals at present. But the good news is that they’re there waiting to be abused any time the government feels it needs them. And their use is being expanded. In a Christian Theocracy, suspicion of sodomy even between married couples may soon be a valuable law enforcement tool. After all, the most consistent element of all religions is the one that declares: “You must believe and act as I tell you to; God talks to ME.” Just recently, one of the southern states declared all “sexual toys” to be obscene and therefore, those who manufacture, sell, or own them are committing offenses against the State. Against the State? What next? Viagra? These holey that thou crackers better watch out; with the kind of profits that Pfizer Inc. is pulling down, they might just buy Alabama and dissolve the legislature. I am so sorry; I don’t have the exact quote here now but, our esteemed jurist Antonin Scalia has officially opined that whether or not YOU masturbate is a legitimate concern of the Federal Government! I’ll look this one up; it’s too precious to be left unreferenced. Antonin is a wingnut of the highest order. I also want to research a few of his more… “Creative” rulings that he has shared with planet earth since I first wrote this piece. This guy is “conservative”? What the hell is conservative about invading the bedroom? OH! I forgot. If you are right; you can’t be wrong. And I may have said it elsewhere but the genesis of “The end justifies the means.” comes from the belief in GOD. Hard as it is for me; I’ll try to be a little more positive for a while. See Horace Walpole below.
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
Philip Dormer Stanhope 1694 - 1773
Surely this has been said prior to Stanhope. I think I like the modern variation;
If you don’t have time to do right the first time, when are you going have time to do it over?
Anonymous
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
Voltaire 1694 - 1778
Unfortunately, no one pointed this out to the DEA, who up until a very recent Supreme Court decision, was confiscating “drug money” property prior to the convictions of the accused. Many of the “accused” were later found to be innocent, but their property had not only been confiscated, but had already been sold at auction as well. Coincidentally, the Law enforcement establishments doing this got to keep the money. Just who is addicted to drugs here? I say that the judicial system is addicted to drug money. If marijuana wasn’t illegal, it would cost about 25 cents a pound (about like tomatoes in the summer; it’s easier to grow and keeps better). You couldn’t force drug “pushers” to deal in it. No money for them; no money for the cops when they catch ‘em. So farmers or pot smokers would grow their own and wouldn’t even encounter the guys selling the heroin and the cocaine. We wouldn’t want that situation; one stop shopping is the backbone of modern commerce. And by the way, penalties for growing your own pot so that you don’t support the “pushers” are an order of magnitude greater than those imposed for buying it from Central and South American murderers. The narco thugs of the world are on their knees in gratitude to the American Government’s drug policy. And speaking of censorship, the definition of crime, and the debate about both, Voltaire also said:
I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
And just maybe we did. Now this next guy is a true original. Search in vain, you will not find antecedent for his statements. They are original and perfect pearls for the ages.
All along the untrodden paths of the future I can see the footprints of an unseen hand.
Sir Boyle Roche ca. 1700?
Now don’t you wish you’d said that? Sir Roche has the Yogi Berra gene and he just knew that he was going to be quoted. I believe that he was speaking to parliament concerning the poor when he said:
Little children who could neither walk nor talk were running in the streets cursing their Maker.
Many thousands of them were destitute of even the goods they possessed.
I don’t see, Sir, why we should put ourselves out of the way to serve posterity. What has posterity ever done for us?
We’ll have to wait a long time, until Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, before we hear finer words of wisdom than these. But the comparison to Yogi isn’t fair. Yogi, we’ll see when we get to him, makes a sort of “meta-sense” that’s hard to define but none the less is profound in its own way. Bush and Quayle just babbled. We have to thank Bush for one great achievement; he proved that ANYONE can be president.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
John Ray 1628 - 1705
Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the argument of its foes.
William Penn 1644 - 1718
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift 1667 - 1745
If you haven’t read it, The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O’Toole is just great. I appreciate humor so much but the only kind I seem to be capable of generating is very dark and cynical. Unrelated here, but I encourage everyone I meet to read the books in the “Disk World” fantasy series by Terry Pratchett. The books are indescribable (except to say that they incorporate EVERY fantasy and gothic creature you can imagine – pretty much all just trying to get along with each other. Not cynical at all; and I know that book jacket “blurbers” are known for hyperbole, but I have heard Pratchett described as the greatest satirist since Swift in more than one place.) The books are loaded with wry humor, bald humor, wisdom and insight into the human condition and some of the best little sayings that anyone has ever penned – quotable stuff. And the good news is that if you like them, there are over thirty! Jonathan Swift really had a way with words; he was the consummate master of satire, and even about satire said:
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
But Solon (638 - 559 BC) has already said; Laws are like spiders’ webs, which stand firm when any light, yielding object falls upon them, while a larger thing breaks through them and escapes.
Obviously Swift has read his Classics. We forgive him his plagiary; he certainly improved on the original. Anyway, I saw the truth of this at DEQ. We’d hound the little guys but especially during the politicized periods, (I’ll not be coy; DURING GEORGE ALLEN’S TENURE) management was instructed to let the big guys pollute to their hearts’ content. And somehow when the newly appointed CEO’s own business was found to have an illegal discharge; he was allowed to fix it without penalty (or publicity). In fact, no one outside of the Agency ever heard about it. The inspector (same one dealing with the felon mentioned under Francois La Rochoucauld) was told that if she wanted to keep her job, no one outside the Agency was going to ever hear about it. So I have kept mum; we’re both outside the Agency now. What a jerk George Allen was! The best thing that ever happened in Virginian politics (and for the USA) was that Allen lost his bid for re-election to the US Senate (and stepping stone for a run for the Presidency of the USA if you believe the so called conservative pundits). My god! Allen makes George W. Bush look smart! Back to Swift:
Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ‘em;
And so on ad infinitum.
Thus every poet, in his kind,
Is bit by him that comes behind.
The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
She wears her clothes, as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.
I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl on the surface of the earth.
To that, Shakespeare would have said; Well said, that was laid on with a trowel.
Swift could be so cruel; but you get the impression that his victims deserved it.
Truth lies within a little certain compass, but error is immense.
Henry St. John 1678 - 1751
All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident.
Schopenhauer 1788 - 1860
Those not present are always wrong.
Phillipe Nericault 1680 - 1754
I take back what I said about the French. I wouldn’t want to imagine a world without Voltaire, (soon to be heard from) Balzac, Pasture, La Place, Curie, and many many others. It’s just that the French language so messes up crossword puzzles! Next we enter the period of clear speech and lucid thought setting behind the roiling and clouded horizon of grandiose and exalted oratory....
And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them ghosts of departed quantities?
George Berkeley 1685 - 1753
Some adage, huh? I wonder whether George knew what it was he was talking about. Some statements are crafted in the hope that they will be quoted and “well said” has gone through some fashion changes. We will return to this form of “clear speech” shortly. Remember that these guys are not trying to be funny. I am amazed to read some Plutarch and then pick up a Victorian novel. What were they (the Victorians) thinking of?
Blessed is he that expects nothing for he will not be disappointed.
Alexander Pope 1688 - 1744
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Charles de Secondar 1689 - 1755
This one has seen application. The old Soviet Union always made sure that everybody had to break at least one law, that way the state could “legally” come after those they wanted to silence any time they wanted. Get picked up for hoarding toilet paper and never be seen again, in reality because you said something perfectly legal that somebody in power didn’t like. And we’ve got the sodomy laws in the US. Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on your sexual persuasion) they’re only being abused against the homosexuals at present. But the good news is that they’re there waiting to be abused any time the government feels it needs them. And their use is being expanded. In a Christian Theocracy, suspicion of sodomy even between married couples may soon be a valuable law enforcement tool. After all, the most consistent element of all religions is the one that declares: “You must believe and act as I tell you to; God talks to ME.” Just recently, one of the southern states declared all “sexual toys” to be obscene and therefore, those who manufacture, sell, or own them are committing offenses against the State. Against the State? What next? Viagra? These holey that thou crackers better watch out; with the kind of profits that Pfizer Inc. is pulling down, they might just buy Alabama and dissolve the legislature. I am so sorry; I don’t have the exact quote here now but, our esteemed jurist Antonin Scalia has officially opined that whether or not YOU masturbate is a legitimate concern of the Federal Government! I’ll look this one up; it’s too precious to be left unreferenced. Antonin is a wingnut of the highest order. I also want to research a few of his more… “Creative” rulings that he has shared with planet earth since I first wrote this piece. This guy is “conservative”? What the hell is conservative about invading the bedroom? OH! I forgot. If you are right; you can’t be wrong. And I may have said it elsewhere but the genesis of “The end justifies the means.” comes from the belief in GOD. Hard as it is for me; I’ll try to be a little more positive for a while. See Horace Walpole below.
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
Philip Dormer Stanhope 1694 - 1773
Surely this has been said prior to Stanhope. I think I like the modern variation;
If you don’t have time to do right the first time, when are you going have time to do it over?
Anonymous
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
Voltaire 1694 - 1778
Unfortunately, no one pointed this out to the DEA, who up until a very recent Supreme Court decision, was confiscating “drug money” property prior to the convictions of the accused. Many of the “accused” were later found to be innocent, but their property had not only been confiscated, but had already been sold at auction as well. Coincidentally, the Law enforcement establishments doing this got to keep the money. Just who is addicted to drugs here? I say that the judicial system is addicted to drug money. If marijuana wasn’t illegal, it would cost about 25 cents a pound (about like tomatoes in the summer; it’s easier to grow and keeps better). You couldn’t force drug “pushers” to deal in it. No money for them; no money for the cops when they catch ‘em. So farmers or pot smokers would grow their own and wouldn’t even encounter the guys selling the heroin and the cocaine. We wouldn’t want that situation; one stop shopping is the backbone of modern commerce. And by the way, penalties for growing your own pot so that you don’t support the “pushers” are an order of magnitude greater than those imposed for buying it from Central and South American murderers. The narco thugs of the world are on their knees in gratitude to the American Government’s drug policy. And speaking of censorship, the definition of crime, and the debate about both, Voltaire also said:
I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Had he said and done nothing more that this he still would have achieved more than 99% of all the people that ever lived.
Common sense is not so common.If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
And just maybe we did. Now this next guy is a true original. Search in vain, you will not find antecedent for his statements. They are original and perfect pearls for the ages.
All along the untrodden paths of the future I can see the footprints of an unseen hand.
Sir Boyle Roche ca. 1700?
Now don’t you wish you’d said that? Sir Roche has the Yogi Berra gene and he just knew that he was going to be quoted. I believe that he was speaking to parliament concerning the poor when he said:
Little children who could neither walk nor talk were running in the streets cursing their Maker.
Many thousands of them were destitute of even the goods they possessed.
I don’t see, Sir, why we should put ourselves out of the way to serve posterity. What has posterity ever done for us?
We’ll have to wait a long time, until Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, before we hear finer words of wisdom than these. But the comparison to Yogi isn’t fair. Yogi, we’ll see when we get to him, makes a sort of “meta-sense” that’s hard to define but none the less is profound in its own way. Bush and Quayle just babbled. We have to thank Bush for one great achievement; he proved that ANYONE can be president.
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