tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-268312072024-03-12T22:49:21.024-07:00Part Time Personerudite pontifications on topics scientific, moral, and aestheticIgnatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-18403944145272331082009-09-20T14:30:00.001-07:002009-09-20T14:43:09.475-07:00the USGS to blame?As any geologist will tell you, it's a bad idea to put houses on the southeast side of the Big Island of Hawaii, where active lava flows have been moving since 1984, resulting in the destruction of one entire subdivision, the Royal Gardens.<div>Yet who is the blame for the insurance premium increases, according to homeowners? The USGS, of course.</div><div><a href="http://blog.taragana.com/n/lava-hazard-maps-causing-angst-for-insurance-and-mortgage-consumers-on-big-island-166869/" target="_blank">An article</a> discusses the situation of one homeowner:</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>"...her premiums are skyrocketing now even though her neighborhood hasn't seen new lava since 1790. 'I just keep looking and looking at these maps and (they don't) make any sense.'"</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif, geneva, arial;font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large; "></span></span></div><div>The maps "don't make any sense"?</div><div>What part of:</div><div>1) lava is flowing uphill from you right now,</div><div> 2) lava has flowed where your house is as recently as 1790, </div><div> 3) therefore, there is a high risk lava will do so again in the next few years</div><div>does not make any sense?</div><div>This is another example of the inability of the public to acknowledge that science actually means something more than guesswork and mystical beliefs.</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif, geneva, arial;font-size:13px;"><div><br /></div></span>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-76093414751146213482009-07-27T21:40:00.000-07:002009-07-27T21:52:03.872-07:00<div style="text-align: left;">David Brooks proposes <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/opinion/28brooks.html" target="_blank">this question</a>: </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; font-size:15px;"></span><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; font-size:15px;">"What would happen if a freak solar event sterilized the people on the half of the earth that happened to be facing the sun?"</span></div></blockquote></div><div><div>His answer predicts the breakdown of civilization on the sterile half of the planet, due to a "cataclysmic spiritual crisis," involving the lack of a legacy, the desolation of a future without children. Brooks maintains, "We don't live individualistic lives," and that much of our current happiness results from thinking about the success of future generations.</div><div>Nonsense. </div><div>What Brooks misses is that for many people, being childless is a perfectly happy existence--in fact, far happier than dealing with the myriad problems of parenting. As for our long-term historical legacy, I think Brooks overestimates the importance of such thoughts for the average person. People are motivated by immediate, individual gratification--the long-term consequences be damned. This attitude is prevalent in much of our actions regarding the environment.</div><div>The environment would be a great beneficiary of this thought-experiment. While we can strive to reduce our footprint, and in individual steps contribute less to destroying our planet, by far the biggest savings in environmental terms would result from population stability. In other words, if you change your incandescent lights to fluorescent, this saves a little energy. If you decide not to have a third child, this saves a great deal more. </div><div>Everywhere, in everything we do, we are faced by the crush of people--parking spaces virtually impossible to find, lines at the ATM, lines to get on the subway, lines to get in line on the freeway. Parts of this planet are virtually choking on the masses of people trying to eek out an existence. How like a breath of fresh air it would be to find the lines at the supermarket a little shorter, to find the lines at the DMV manageable. </div><div>Brooks envisions Mad Max-style apocalypse. I think another vision is of a population much better suited for our lifestyles. </div></div>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-72961782587180973272009-07-20T19:11:00.000-07:002009-07-20T19:52:42.083-07:00Apollo 11<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Nce_D54G7TcYEBfxEqIp8oY3DDEWn13IYwHasE5_g4X9eUNlJQe2O4GlcwGb3Ngx1teVol5dNu41ssX_dShQUYGJIiktkJUCQr702CBziK8fWiYLufXOa_xqC1PBNm7mJ33h/s1600-h/footprint.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 301px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Nce_D54G7TcYEBfxEqIp8oY3DDEWn13IYwHasE5_g4X9eUNlJQe2O4GlcwGb3Ngx1teVol5dNu41ssX_dShQUYGJIiktkJUCQr702CBziK8fWiYLufXOa_xqC1PBNm7mJ33h/s320/footprint.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360731194343008210" /></a>Today is the 40th anniversary of the most significant day in human history. <div>In her 1958 book <i>The Human Condition</i>, Hannah Arendt noted that the greatest event of the 20th century up to that point, was the escape of Earth by the Sputnik satellite, and that the glory and accomplishment of this event was almost completely overshadowed by the Cold War paranoia that dominate coverage of this Soviet triumph.</div><div>Eleven years later the crew of Apollo 11 would settle gently onto the surface of the moon. What transpired between Sputnik and Apollo 11 was a cooperative human endeavor unparalleled in history. Up to 400,000 people were employed in a variety of ways in the effort to achieve the lunar landing. It was an effort infinitely more complicated and risky than the building of the pyramids. </div><div>Many people during Apollo, and many people afterwards, bemoaned the money spent, and in their myopic view squandered, in putting men on the moon. However, in total NASA spent less than $20 billion dollars, which in today's terms would come to a little over $80 billion. The Bush administration routinely wrote $80 billion checks to fund oil-rich Iraq, yet somehow this expenditure raised not a fraction of the uproar that the Apollo budgets caused. Walter Mondale, who would later serve as Carter's vice president, made his political name in attacking Apollo spending. </div><div>The Apollo missions were not created by mysticism or superstition; Apollo achieved its victory because of science, reason, testing, and math. Apollo-do, the way of Apollo, like its mythical namesake, the bringer of light, can be a beacon for how we as a species might think and behave if we are to survive and prosper. </div><div>We humans need a goal, a task. Our spirit requires a quest. Without this necessity, we wander aimless, like a hound without a chase. Some ask why we should go back to the moon, why we should go to Mars. As an answer, simply look at the listless and disaffected youth who plague this country, so divorced from any goal that weekends are spent "cruising"--driving around and around aimlessly--while listening to toxic music blaring from speakers.</div><div>Imagine instead that the youth of this nation were set upon a goal, instructed from an early age they they must work to learn science and math, and given the pedagogical tools to enable them to reach their potential. As it stands now, most American students are lost to science, their potential squandered to their toxic "friends," with whom they mutually self-destruct in an indifferent orgy of excess and self-gratification. Imagine instead that the youth of our country were tasked with learning enough math and physics that they might make a serious attempt to solve a major problem.</div><div>As has become apparent over the course of the last few years, our petroleum lifestyle is unsustainable. Not only is peak oil production eminent, but the carbon dioxide waste of this energy source is rapidly changing our climate in unpredictable, but throughly negative, ways. Even worse, because of the grim irony that the world's oil reserves sit under nations that hate us, we prop up dictatorships--Saudi Arabia, Putin's Russia, Chavez's Venezuela, the Shah's Iran--with our money, making us complicit in funding regimes with terrible human rights records. We need a cleaner, more moral source of energy: fusion.</div><div>The science behind fusion is very complicated and the achievement of fusion will be a feat comparable with the Manhattan Project and Apollo. Imagine the benefits if we committed our nation to educating all of our children to learn enough math and physics that they could make a serious contribution to this problem. Most would not achieve this; but eventually a child would be born--an Einstein who would be squandered otherwise--who would have the insight to solve the problem of fusion. The benefits of having so many citizens so well educated would be astounding. It would cost money to educate children to this level, but education is now so terribly underfunded that perhaps only such a national mission could bring education funding up to a reasonable level. The benefits of achieving fusion would be practically unlimited, clean energy. </div><div>Apollo showed us what humans can achieve when the political will relaxes its death grip upon scientific innovation for a few years. The 20 July 1969 Apollo 11 may come to be regarded by historians as the first of many such human triumphs. Or perhaps the first lunar landing will mark the high water spot, when mankind's potential reached its apex, and then slid back into darkness, ignorance, and mysticism. </div><div><br /></div>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-54504728505240586552009-06-25T18:52:00.001-07:002009-06-25T19:25:29.676-07:00The Death of a Salesman<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1yXMBJy-dQg0oPJfQIGEoWR0bJXjYNJG5S0JK9DNukBGrdjnKgb39-Yehln-0NZLOgwY8qCpkvx-qNCPEAuOgDDnoDIMTL2F0c0S6vvovTD5urlcxW-GlS33UCdcNpM5nYTzE/s1600-h/jackson.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 221px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1yXMBJy-dQg0oPJfQIGEoWR0bJXjYNJG5S0JK9DNukBGrdjnKgb39-Yehln-0NZLOgwY8qCpkvx-qNCPEAuOgDDnoDIMTL2F0c0S6vvovTD5urlcxW-GlS33UCdcNpM5nYTzE/s320/jackson.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351448644771842802" /></a>Michael Jackson is dead--not soon enough. Not before he used his money and fame to hurt unknown numbers of children.<div>In the midst of the adulation surrounding his death, there seems to be little talk of what this man did between his scarce, mediocre recordings. As <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/010605jackson.html" target="_blank">The Smoking Gun</a> has detailed, Jackson was a textbook molester, using power, intimidation, and psychological manipulation to sexually violate his victims.</div><div>There can be no factual doubt that Jackson was a child molester. Identification of markings on his body by the 1993 victim would only have been visible if the then-13 year-old had seen Jackson nude at close proximity. Items recovered from a "secret room" at Neverland Ranch further connected Jackson with his 2003 victim. In the first instance, Jackson purchased the silence of his victim; in the second, Jackson's purchased enough legal ammunition to distort justice. The deposition of the 1993 victim, as he detailed how Jackson manipulated him into ever-increasing sexual contact through shame and guilt makes <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/mjdec1.html" target="_blank">harrowing reading</a>.</div><div>Fans protested then and now that Jackson's behavior was offset by the inspiration of his music and his dancing. Nonsense. This is like saying Hitler's crimes are ameliorated by the fact that he painted a few pretty watercolors. Jackson's music was trite pop; no Tcshaikovsky he. What about his dancing--did it rise to the discipline and art of Baryshnikov? Even if one accepts the premise that some artistic achievement can offset the crime of hurting children, then Jackson's schtick hardly qualifies.</div><div>Jackson is gone. I fear that in the distance of memory, people will come to regard him higher than he deserves. Already he has been hailed as someone who healed the racial divide in America. Some may forget the monster that lurked behind the self-mutilated face. One thing is sure--he victims will never forget the horror.<div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><br /></span></span></div></div></div>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-33735646791468431102009-06-16T23:40:00.000-07:002009-06-17T00:33:57.143-07:00Tweeting the Revolution<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><i>"T</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><i>oday, there is a social media revolution in Iran, whereby Twitter, Facebook and similar sites are serving as the vehicles by which those who reject the apparent election coup are assembling and disseminating valuable information in real time.</i></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><i>" --the New York Times</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Historians note that the recent events in Iran are not the first time that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have played a part in major world revolutions.<br /><br />Philadelphia, 1776.<br />GeorgeWashto69: Lol, their totally going 2 sign.<br />JimMad14: Sing?<br />GeorgeWashto69: sign some Dec of Indentpence. 2 booring to 2 read<br />LexHam: @Jim, dude, ware R u? we're signnng the Declaration now. get yer ass in here.<br />FrankBen29: Yo dogz, were U all be at? were dun signing<br />JimMad14: lol, missd it<br />GeorgeWashto69: wutz it say?<br />LexHam: dude, we were so stoned when we wrote it<br />FrankBen29: total 4:20<br /><br />St. Petersburg, 1917<br />VladLen: lol@JoseStalin! dat tsarina skank is a total ho<br />HotToTrotsky8: i'd tap dat ass<br />JoseStalin: i kno<br />VladLen: bitter cold Russian winter make nip hard<br />JoseStalin: headlights<br />HotToTrotsky8: what is hedlight?<br />JoseStalin: lol@Trot. what R U, a peasant serf?<br />VladLen: lol@Trot, dude seriously, U need to get out more. Y dunt u come to Petrograd & hang wid us?<br />HotToTrotsky8: I dunno. I iz chillin were i iz at<br />JoseStalin: dude, totally come hang wid us.<br />HotToTrosky8: iz der anything 2 do thare?<br />VladLen: you know, fight the Tsar. foment demagoguery. seize means of production.<br />JoseStalin: totally easy to get the proletariat pissed off.<br />HotToTrotsky8: I dunno. Maybe I'll get a chance to come that way around November.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div></span></span><div><div><div><br /></div></div></div>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-76001195179793031192009-06-05T18:35:00.000-07:002009-06-05T19:11:37.256-07:00The Power of One<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-FtrGfX7gZ2tRSABURAX5defz5uZdlmY8Ta8nUggdUVAXRo9zhNojT7dLuac0XP1cPJOdxTeG5-e9togyiZKAZNrRrfkIg0czN2vB1pYghil_gYL6_IGO7pgPghOC6cVTZ8I/s1600-h/tiananmen.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 236px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-FtrGfX7gZ2tRSABURAX5defz5uZdlmY8Ta8nUggdUVAXRo9zhNojT7dLuac0XP1cPJOdxTeG5-e9togyiZKAZNrRrfkIg0czN2vB1pYghil_gYL6_IGO7pgPghOC6cVTZ8I/s320/tiananmen.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344025893150957090" /></a>Twenty years ago today, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, one anonymous man stood in a street, alone and unarmed, before a column of approaching tanks. We don't know what he had witnessed in the previous day, when the student-led, pro-democracy revolution taking place in Tiananmen was put down by indiscriminate machine gun fire into crowds and the use of tanks as steamrollers to crush people. Almost certainly the man had seen tanks rolling full speed into the crowds of protestors.<div>And yet, he chose to make a stand in the street, utterly alone.<br /></div><div>Some historians, especially those influenced by Marx, posit that individuals do not much matter to the progress of history. We are told that if Hitler had not risen to power, then some other radical would have exploited the post-war chaos of Germany in the same way. And had Churchill not marshaled Britain to stay in the war during the darkest days, then some other politician would have. This Marxist view of history is, of course, speculative and cannot be disproven--a fact which hardly supports its thesis. The Marxist Chinese authorities must have philosophically assumed that an individual could not make a revolution. <br /></div><div>But those who understand the deeper flow of history know that individuals do matter. It mattered that Churchill and Hitler, as persons, engaged each other rather than other players. Almost any other politician would have settled with Hitler rather than continue what seemed like a hopeless war; almost any other tyrant would have had the sense of self-preservation not to invade Russia with the western front still unsettled. Individuals, it turns out, matter more than the masses.<br /></div><div>It mattered that this unknown man found the suicidal courage to halt a column of tanks. For when revolution eventually comes to the tyrants who still rule China, as it inevitably must, then I think this man will stand again as the symbol of the democratic hope that was tragically crushed on that day twenty years ago. <br /></div><div>We have the Statue of Liberty. China will have one man before a tank.<br /></div>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-92204712096007193372009-06-03T22:05:00.001-07:002009-06-03T22:36:51.920-07:00Obama's health care planningAccording to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/health/policy/04health.html?_r=1&hpw" target="_blank">New York Times</a>: <br /><blockquote>"President Obama said Wednesday that he was receptive to Congressional proposals that would require Americans to have health insurance and oblige employers to share in the cost. But he said there should be exemptions for people who cannot afford insurance and for small businesses in general.</blockquote><br /><br />Despite the panoply of problems facing the new president, he has rightly decreed that health care must, because of its tremendous costs to businesses and productivity, not be deferred while other, seemingly-more urgent problems are addressed. This is the correct, long-term thinking that we need.<br /><br />However, as the quote above reveals, President Obama may be willing to settle for something less than a true fix for the health care crisis. Such a half-measure at this time would be a tragic decision.<br /><br />Our health care system is deeply broken. The majority of Americans favor a nationalized, single-payer system. The benefits of such a system, to both individuals, families, and businesses, are manifest and undeniable. To enact something less than full, universal, simplified health care would squander this unique moment in American history where, for the first time since Truman, Americans seem ready to join the rest of the civilized world in terms of caring for its citizens.<br /><br />"Requiring" individuals who are uninsured to purchase insurance is the wrong approach. This will be a crushing burden on the young, the unmarried, and those just starting out in life. Imagine barely scraping by, barely paying the bills, then suddenly being saddled with a new monthly premium bill in the range, depending on one's health, of $500-$700. Few uninsured individuals will be able to make an adjustment of that magnitude. Under this plan, however, those who cannot afford this new bill will be outlaws and subject to punishment. This is no way to reform health care. <br /><br />Allowing exemptions for small businesses and those who cannot afford coverage is essentially no change from the present problem. Right now everyone is technically free to buy insurance; in reality, pre-existing conditions and high premiums are an insurmountable barrier for many.<br /><br />The burden of premiums is particularly harsh on small businesses. The majority of jobs in America, and what will be the majority of new jobs if/when an economic recovery occurs, will be in small businesses. So rather than simply sweeping small businesses and individuals under the rug, these are the primary issues of health care reform.<br /><br />If the president allows these groups to fall through the cracks of health care reform, if "reform" somehow bypasses the very groups it most needs to address, then this hollow health care fix will be a lasting shame to the Obama legacy.<br /><br />America needs and wants not simply a larger bandaid, but radical surgery to extract the cancer that is rotting our economy.<br /> Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-3129620022309120242009-04-02T14:46:00.000-07:002009-04-02T14:48:39.804-07:00Feynman lectures onlineVega has posted a set of Richard Feynman lectures at <a href="http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8" target="_blank">http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8</a>.<br />Feynman, one of the great scientific geniuses of all time, also had an remarkable talent for explaining the complex to layman. Well worth a view.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-16291872088131122082009-03-01T23:08:00.001-08:002009-03-01T23:42:05.976-08:00Elie Wiesel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJfBk0sbWOWfJ1usL-2gAwdYvMBxyebL0N6f-vQ0QdR-JOIhMUPJIzQlvPVeIp7DbWQi065MFy5fELFQSYaYLm_RwVwS5AOpcvu76dNg0PB55Xv3UEOyaUZl-NuNqBMvkd-hjo/s1600-h/150px-NightWiesel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 114px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJfBk0sbWOWfJ1usL-2gAwdYvMBxyebL0N6f-vQ0QdR-JOIhMUPJIzQlvPVeIp7DbWQi065MFy5fELFQSYaYLm_RwVwS5AOpcvu76dNg0PB55Xv3UEOyaUZl-NuNqBMvkd-hjo/s200/150px-NightWiesel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308485336290904434" border="0" /></a>Elie Wiesel has known horrors none of us can imagine. Through his life's work and especially books such as <span style="font-style: italic;">Night</span>, those of us born post-Holocaust can perhaps achieve some measure of understanding about that darkest moment in humankind's history. Wiesel, and his fellow survivor Primo Levi, bear un-silenceable witness to unspeakable crimes.<br /><br />Another crime has just occured. Wiesel has lost his entire life's savings, and all the money of his <a href="http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity</a>, in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Instead of investing his client's money, Madoff spent it in a Ponzi scheme. The money is gone.<br /><br />Surely many of Madoff's clients are equally hurt, but the great injustice here is the loss of funds for the Foundation for Humanity. Their important work in Darfur is a necessary reminder for the world that genocide is happening right now, this very day, far away from the world's attention. Everyone who feels outrage over the possibility of the Foundation for Humanity closing because of the greed of one man should <a href="https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/ElieWieselFoundationforHum/OnlineGiving.html" target="_blank">donate now</a>, in order to demonstrate that Madoff's malice cannot snuff out Wiesel's good work.<br /><br />Last year a mentally-disturbed <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/09/BAGC2O21IL4.DTL" target="_blank">Holocaust denier</a>--a redundancy if ever there <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk75SHZxYBjsnV7Xhyphenhyphen6yG6PJzDV3Y3qIHs0Tc-cAChqQzXzqrSUTrKaPyjR1UX8AmAZfz3WCMW3j3osP-ZrHtiRt6LsfKHUNYpbr3QkuL1aNjYHgpELn5DeqMbjgi194_EiSdX/s1600-h/wiesel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 186px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk75SHZxYBjsnV7Xhyphenhyphen6yG6PJzDV3Y3qIHs0Tc-cAChqQzXzqrSUTrKaPyjR1UX8AmAZfz3WCMW3j3osP-ZrHtiRt6LsfKHUNYpbr3QkuL1aNjYHgpELn5DeqMbjgi194_EiSdX/s200/wiesel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308486402539267938" border="0" /></a>were one--attacked Wiesel at a hotel in San Francisco.<br /><br />Yet I suspect that despite being physically attacked at an advanced age, despite being left penniless in the wake of Madoff's obscene betrayal, Elie Wiesel--winner of the Nobel Prize and one of the most influential persons of the 20th century--has a sense of perspective about these hardships that few of us will ever have. He knows just how bad things can really become.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-70433210244265560102008-12-03T12:29:00.000-08:002008-12-03T12:31:39.629-08:00Bad CrazinessIn my years of teaching, I've come across many students who were creationists. I've even come across one who outright refused to believe in plate tectonics. But this video shows someone even crazier:<br /><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VjgidAICoQI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VjgidAICoQI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />It's hard to know where to start with such extreme anti-scientific craziness.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-6384696744639532462008-11-25T19:33:00.000-08:002008-11-25T20:09:03.559-08:00Scientology & Swordsmanship<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVVnCzdplZqVBSja3h7F6Sp9cwImmYjFKZL-nIN5HBE7T2bT5yCpSRjbBjo0SzguLSu8bgPqgcxRdXWKQOsJuAo3gGX8yBzRKGRPhRcvmfbHyrDfUDmYkG2Kpp-ctdhezDke2s/s1600-h/scientology1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 163px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVVnCzdplZqVBSja3h7F6Sp9cwImmYjFKZL-nIN5HBE7T2bT5yCpSRjbBjo0SzguLSu8bgPqgcxRdXWKQOsJuAo3gGX8yBzRKGRPhRcvmfbHyrDfUDmYkG2Kpp-ctdhezDke2s/s200/scientology1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272812399830853666" border="0" /></a><br />A man was recently <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-scientology25-2008nov25,0,2646875.story" target="_blank">shot </a>at the Scientology <a href="http://www.scientology.cc/en_US/index.html" target="_blank">Celebrity Centre </a>in Los Angeles while approaching with two samurai swords. It was a good effort, although it is a shame he was put down before he did any real mischief. In a just world, Scientology centers would be under daily assaults of this nature.<br /><br />Scientology is not only a cult, but a particularly nasty and vicious cult that gives false hope to thousands while sucking their money into its ravenous maw. Scientology takes advantage of vulnerable people in the worst ways.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0D4NBPFMNx3A-C1CHsaUGqo8m4hcmY-tdHGyLQa0zzyV1jmInJqDW_m5SUmXeS4RXL6ZS9vPNXdSG358zxIfytA_VH8ztLHhOeiM0rBrZOpbSDWrtMPCgzAe_D91PcGdlwtd5/s1600-h/250px-I_want_scientology_finished.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0D4NBPFMNx3A-C1CHsaUGqo8m4hcmY-tdHGyLQa0zzyV1jmInJqDW_m5SUmXeS4RXL6ZS9vPNXdSG358zxIfytA_VH8ztLHhOeiM0rBrZOpbSDWrtMPCgzAe_D91PcGdlwtd5/s200/250px-I_want_scientology_finished.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272809553591238354" border="0" /></a><br />While assuming the trappings of science--Hubbard claimed he invented a "science of the mind"--Scientology practices none of the methods or skepticism of real science. Its bizarre mixture of "e-meters" and "engrams" and aliens seems like a laughable parody of a cult--until one sees the the grim seriousness of its proponents.<br /><br />In civilized parts of the world, Scientology is recognized as a cult, and taxed appropriately. However, in the United States, the Church of Scientology is afforded a religious exemption from taxation. We Americans go to extreme lengths to defer to religion of any conceivable form. In this case, and in the case of the Mormon Church--which directly intervened in politics by financing California's <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/391/story/1308945.html" target="_blank">Proposition 8</a>--their tax-exempt status should be revoked.<br /><br />If people really want to believe crazy things, fine. But does their folly have to be subsidized by everyone else? As the great <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/" target="_blank">P.Z. Myers</a> so frequently points out, "Religion poisons everything."Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-57089906379515458342008-11-05T21:30:00.000-08:002008-11-05T21:49:39.689-08:00Michael Crichton Has DiedNot soon enough.<br /><br />Crichton was trained as a medical doctor; although he was not a research scientist, he had at least taken a great number of science classes. His pseudoscientific writings, however, disparaged and distorted science at every opportunity.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjNitpxXKyiNwmgwJjCmwSOF0hGoriqwnAANLiMRaDDgpOB6QoT71d0OAmvJz06WXbliVz6b0Ygh67EIOhCX2-VlVw_e6JmxwvTJ44P6K0GtcdIOJMZ3AYCNStcCu7m-AHP-ct/s1600-h/Apollo_11_crew_in_quarantine.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 178px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjNitpxXKyiNwmgwJjCmwSOF0hGoriqwnAANLiMRaDDgpOB6QoT71d0OAmvJz06WXbliVz6b0Ygh67EIOhCX2-VlVw_e6JmxwvTJ44P6K0GtcdIOJMZ3AYCNStcCu7m-AHP-ct/s200/Apollo_11_crew_in_quarantine.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265415645889989938" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In Crichton’s 1969 novel <i style="">The Andromeda Strain</i>, a NASA probe returns to Earth tainted by extraterrestrial germs, which then spark a deadly pandemic. The widespread success of this book sparked fears among the public about the upcoming Apollo 11 lunar mission, and caused the protocols for returning astronauts to change. According to Apollo 11 capsule commander Michael Collins, the lengthy quarantine and isolation protocols the astronauts experienced after returning to Earth were a direct result of public fears stoked by <i style="">The Andromeda Strain</i>, rather than by NASA’s assessment of the real danger of “space bugs.”<br /><br />In Crichton’s 1990 book <i style="">Jurassic Park</i>, rogue geneticists recreate dinosaurs in the eponymous theme park. Although it is possible to extract short, fragmented segments of DNA from recently-dead animals, the scenario of resurrecting dinosaurs by such methods is laughably implausible. One can see the science of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Jurassic</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place> as merely literary device in order to have dinosaur-human interactions. However, Crichton’s real theme in <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Jurassic</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place> was science out of control, science playing God, science in the service of profit rather than the benefit of mankind. These views are profoundly anti-science.<br /><br />In the 2002 <i style="">Prey</i>, Crichton’s paranoia about science extends to nanotechnology. <i style="">Prey</i> tells the story of an evil nanotechnology company whose now-sentient product escapes the confines of its lab and evolves deadly traits. Those mad scientists are off again, ruining the world for everyone else.<br /><br />All this could be forgiven and dramatic devices for selling novels. However, in <i style="">State of <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Fear</st1:state></st1:place></i>, Crichton misrepresents the science of global warming. <i style="">State of Fear</i> describes environmentalism—which Crichton calls a religion—as a dangerous and fanatical belief system held by terrorists bent on mass murder. In what one reviewer called a “postmodern view of science,” Crichton implies that science exists only in the service of partisan ideology. <i style="">State of Fear</i> involves plots by environmental terrorists to manufacture what seem to be natural disasters in order to advance the cause of global warming. Crichton’s novel used footnotes, two appendixes, and a twenty-page bibliography to promote fringe ideas about global warming.<br /><br /><span style=""></span>Rather than earning Crichton universal ridicule, <i style="">State of <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Fear</st1:state></st1:place></i> garnered Crichton an hour-long, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19warming.html" target="_blank">one-on-one conversation </a>with President Bush. This time dwarfed the attention given by Bush to the Nobel Prize-winning <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/13nobel.html" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>; they did not earn an hour’s audience, yet a novelist who distorted scientific research to advance a fringe agenda did. This fact is a sorry commentary on the importance given by the Bush administration to ideas generated in the “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html" target="_blank">reality-based community</a>.”Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-83318313339359765522008-08-23T20:50:00.000-07:002008-08-23T20:55:04.101-07:00The Text Message of Obama<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir7IUrsmOxujB4IrSCrxwaGgTAgjF__iJpUaZew3cPfou0HR79F-85aRn7jIwZnH_f3JMatZDUbRLuhSvZGiC0CHyuWJfZm8rM6nt2CMAgj1yGMk5Npcq6aCC-YcIxpzerSTRt/s1600-h/svOBAMA_wideweb__470x323,0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir7IUrsmOxujB4IrSCrxwaGgTAgjF__iJpUaZew3cPfou0HR79F-85aRn7jIwZnH_f3JMatZDUbRLuhSvZGiC0CHyuWJfZm8rM6nt2CMAgj1yGMk5Npcq6aCC-YcIxpzerSTRt/s200/svOBAMA_wideweb__470x323,0.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237927757477459650" border="0" /></a><br /> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>This morning, 23 August 2008, at 1:03 am, I had the following exchange via text message:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/">www.barackobama.com</a>. Spread the word!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: k, lol</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: Um… why do you find Biden funny?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: nOOb. jK.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: I’m afraid I don’t…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: MacCne pwns Obma</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: Look, if you, as a voter, have something constructive to say about my vice-presidential choice…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: Zzzz. YGTbKm? Biden <span style=""> </span>= old, wrkly</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: I was hoping that Senator Biden’s experience would add gravitas, especially in the realm of foreign affairs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: |-O. W/evr. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: Frankly, I was anticipating this reaction from some of my supporters. However, polling data indicate that Biden will complement what the public perceives as my vulnerabilities vis-a-vis John McCain.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: Hold on, need WC.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: If you want to continue your critique of Senator Biden later, at a more convenient time for you…?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: NP, just #1. Does Bdn 4:20?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: Excuse me?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Me: lmao! w33d!<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Obama: I’m not sure this is going in a productive direction. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Me: Yr br8kng up w/me?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Obama: jK.</p>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-85156550233273876332008-08-16T15:09:00.001-07:002008-08-16T15:32:05.752-07:00Blogging That MattersMost blogs are bullshit.* Although most people tend to think highly of their uninformed opinions, the reality is that almost no one is interested in other people's thoughts, experiences, observations, or insights. Even in conversation, Americans don't listen to other people; they just wait until it is their turn to talk.<br /><br />So it is refreshing when a blog actually does something good.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/us/nationalspecial/13activist.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=karen%20gadbois&st=cse&oref=slogin" target="_blank">New York Times </a>recently profiled <a href="http://www.squanderedheritage.com/" target="_blank">Karen Gadbois</a>, a women who moved to New Orleans in 2002. Ms. Gadbois came up with a brilliant idea: Why not drive around New Orleans to see if the houses that city hall claims have been restored from Hurricane Katrina actually have been fixed?<br /><br />It should surprise no one that very few of the homes she inspected actually received reconstruction work. Houses claimed to have been renovated were later demolished as uninhabitable. In one case, an entire city block that city hall claimed had been restored did not even exist. Money had, of course, been spent. $1.8 million. Federal funds have been distributed for work that was never done. A good place to look for it might be in the bank accounts of the city leadership.<br /><br />Rarely does blogging have any real effect. But this time it has: The FBI has raided the offices of the reconstruction agency, and Mayor Nagin is being investigated for possible corruption charges. Someone, after all, received the money that has gone missing.<br /><br />Karen Gadbois has done a great job and a great service to New Orleans. It is shameful, however, that the local mainstream journalists seem so unable to do such a basic thing as their jobs.<br /><br />*including, of course, this blogIgnatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-39497317331409233592008-08-16T14:55:00.000-07:002008-08-16T15:38:23.215-07:00Dream of the HIddenIn my dream, I'm crawling through an old, abandoned military fort. It reminded of <a href="http://www.militarymuseum.org/BtyMendell.html" target="_blank">Battery Mendell</a>, in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Headlands" target="_blank">Marin Headlands </a>north of San Francisco, where once I engaged in an epic hide-and-seek game with schoolmates. We seemed to spend hours hiding and hunting among the crumbling concrete bunkers, probing the dark recesses with flashlights in search of giggling friends.<br /><br />In this dream, I am alone in this empty fort. I am searching for something, but I don't know what it is. As I dig in the darkness among the rubble and exposed wires, I find an opening and crawl through. It is a completely dark. But as I crawl through it, I find that I am descending into a water. I can see light through the water, and against better judgment, I dive into the water to see what I can find. This is still part of the fort, and there is an open door I can swim through into a pocket of air.<br /><br />As I surface, I realize that I have found a completely new part of the fort, one that is isolated from the rest. There is a gigantic bedroom, with 4-post canopy bed. Everything is wet and moldy. The high walls are covered floor-to-ceiling in antiquarian books. I pull off a few titles and examine their moldy, smelly pages.<br /><br />I discover that I am not alone. There are a few other people there, but strangely I do not feel threatened. I suspect that they are trying to steal souveniors and are not much concerned by my presence.<br /><br />As I leave this strange area, I see dozens of blue-shirted people descending upon me. They grab me under water and pull me to the surface, where I am placed under arrest for trespassing.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-27300775936399910032008-07-10T20:56:00.000-07:002008-07-10T21:16:30.412-07:00The Value of a Whiner's LifeIt was recently revealed that the EPA has <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080710/ap_on_re_us/value_of_life;_ylt=Aqp0wFBt.7fn1oSKk6xlTXys0NUE">discounted the value of an American life </a>by nearly $1 million. While this move does not have an immediate, practical effect--your boss isn't going to cut your salary because of this--it does have a longer term effect of reducing the amount of environmental protections available to Americans.<br /><br />According to the macabre calculations of the Bush-era EPA, if a new environmental regulation is going to save lives, then the value of these lives must be assessed against economic losses to businesses. A similar grim arithmetic was part of <span style="font-style: italic;">Fight Club</span>; if recalling a dangerous part on a car will cost more than paying out damages to the likely number of victims, then car companies prefer to pay damages rather than prevent the injuries.<br /><br />This mentality mirrors that of <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080711/ap_on_el_pr/candidates_gramm;_ylt=AhCPbqx.Y3Lmiazu21nAfZ.s0NUE">Sen. Phil Gramm</a>, a McCain advisor, who also recently complained that Americans had become "a nation of whiners" suffering not from a real economic downturn, but only from a "mental recession."<br /><br />What these ideas have in common is a rejection of the nature of reality. In Sen. Gramm's world, thinking positive has the effect of making the world positive. It's as if our thoughts have the ability to reshape reality. Among many religious people, of course, this thought is common; prayer to a diety for intercession is a common way of imagining that our mental energies have the ability to transform reality.<br /><br />According to Sen. Gramm, if our economy is in a nosedive, this is only because so many people think negatively. For instance, if you are laid off, then it's your fault for bringing down your comapny with your negative energy. If your mortgage payment or rent goes up 25% in one month, the blame lies with you and your bad chi, not with your avaricious landlord.<br /><br />Imagining that environmental regulations can be rewritten according to an arbitrary recalculation of the value of a human life is likewise a fantasy, a profound divorcement from reality. Environmental regulations getting you down? Just say that the people the regulations are protecting are worth less, and--poof!--the regulations evaporate.<br /><br />There can be legitimate arguments about the economy and about the balance of regulation and business interests. But what these two items show is that America has lost its collective mind and entered into a dangerous zone of fantasy.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-88383663878431456102008-06-26T19:57:00.000-07:002008-06-26T20:31:40.876-07:00Moving OnA recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/us/24move.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=to+avoid+student+turnover&st=nyt&oref=slogin">NYT article</a> revealed a major reason why so much of the debate over public education in this country is so utterly divorced from the realities of the classroom.<br /><br />In urban school districts, typically 30-50% of the school population changes schools per year. In economically-devastated cities such as Flint, Michigan, the percentage is closer to 75%. That's right--teachers in Flint see only one out of four of the same students from one year to the next. One Flint school had 300 of its 500 students switch in a single year.<br /><br />The effects on students who change schools are clear: trouble assimilating with a new set of peers, trouble with starting curriculum midway, trouble with not being at grade level and having unfamiliar problems in an unfamiliar setting thrust upon them.<br /><br />The effects on the classroom from such a high turnover are also clear: teacher time sapped to help new students catch up, experience working with individual students and gaining their trust wiped away, instability of the classroom group.<br /><br />These problems are largely economic; Flint, Michigan, for example, was so annihilated by GM plant closings that it might simply be better for parents to relocate out of an area that does not have nearly the jobs to support its current population.<br /><br />However, a large part of the problem is the way students are assigned to schools. In the current system, what matters most for school assignment is the location of the parent's home. The student is treated as a population statistic rather than as a learner.<br /><br />The structure of this system guarantees failure, for it mandates that poor students attend schools with other poor peers, while wealthier kids segregate into schools with wealthier peers. Any attempt to integrate schools in terms of economics will meet with howls of resistance from parents in gated communities, decrying that their children shouldn't have to mingle with "undesirables." Any attempt to assign students in a stable way to schools or teachers who best meet their individual needs will elicit cries of student tracking.<br /><br />The 4th season of The Wire followed a group of students/drug hoppers and a new teacher through a year of their trials and tribulations on and off the mean corners of Baltimore. The Wire--perhaps one of the greatest television series ever--made clear just how unrealistic the goals of No Child Left Behind are when confronted by the crucible of the streets. By the end of the season, and the school year, viewers felt like they had followed these students through a war. The reality is, though, that within that year most of the students would have switched schools.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-13117149977280802772008-06-01T14:47:00.000-07:002008-06-01T14:53:20.207-07:00Rachel Ray, Terrorist<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/rachel_ray_terrorist_01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifM23-0qpcdI8BcnYyFyYnMJgVhkLFeALMGiMwfn_IZ59hMHNHkg53ImAuNm0C0ZlSGEygOa-60zoObqbFvr82eyd6CxLd-8uhP5Suxzgk1H8VqnIXC16BW-wK2jhvUQ_CdX8J/s320/rachel_ray_terrorist_01small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207034043624315074" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/rachel_ray_terrorist_02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hau_grIKi1GEl77Pw1H8qzspCVrJCw0qQfCNB69tJZPv_PXa3FEzXvEmjrz7hZF91_8T794fBz17_O_5c5GWQbl9Ka1ucpJvayHM3Y8LbtbLvKwFZM8Ql5e9lwySOJcI2OpI/s320/rachel_ray_terrorist_02small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207034043624315090" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/rachel_ray_terrorist_03.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8bUfcQXo1CFTzqiaN89sF0I5kIstaXoPJGZt_AF-nJV_y7PzwSbxSVTKGrLPpebLH4msTK5jsm3aMEWyWVAqJ1y2Iu4xaISoRO_H9ZTji0dBaIlAcqiMbxL3vbkFedbQkANo8/s320/rachel_ray_terrorist_03small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207034047919282402" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/rachel_ray_terrorist_04.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFFxuxPwdhMQ_FrYUKUmyv_AGsw74cVKunD1ZFG0WanhlHVL1a5WRG_Mb1Po3HDIFds319JmQmtOvjdb-xIs5hZ_NTVVi8pZDKE9hZZlQiH5jPkiGfvWVRzAQeGXco1OzEeqq/s320/rachel_ray_terrorist_04small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207034047919282418" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/rachel_ray_terrorist_05.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNEOul0ZKHCkT1VxyK7WPSrI7levC4BcoNJwsYcA3lSl70-xe9dWPmgQXpgcTQEm4LiVtqQ-6W-jg8T58-yBPXp2ooYc-5dx16hfKe-JlLTtccJWLuPQwMA5cEpQLbh1FeHeq/s320/rachel_ray_terrorist_05small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207034052214249730" border="0" /></a>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-17216028647872383192008-03-28T19:29:00.000-07:002008-03-28T20:11:06.201-07:00The Devil and John McCain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/devilandmccain_01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasRdT3foKSCYnPCWSmK6QiKQK5-g1di8J2lqJwSk_ciLojdAPLwG2_21TAvIYtLqzOC2s0A8OoFl7yPeTQj9knx5wGB7xDyY0zJhTOvfqUQ4Riu4NdvuFlx3e9flwxVD_PGXj/s320/devilandmccain_01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182992759335174082" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/devilandmccain_02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicSQKfC9EEuhGnIIjcdkPlpodmcN3X3uPCPI-6B5wb1tRSPp9_f7ZHuOUignElYNGrZsVtLs2A1xj8TTI4uJVDeveZvmEKGUQK-YYr_dM_aaG6WbqCm12U9ZzfQNOCeW7okFs3/s320/devilandmccain_02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182992643371057074" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/devilandmccain_03.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; 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float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiks2jjI4B7nksy3mW8JPU_S_3890Sw60F2PPhYrxgTcQTuWtiAzGD8V1uIQXdEn2EVlCpr_tmXwGKyyEAcJZU1aopJ8IfJMOWnzy_C1ZvRrX_ca0LRe3vTkGc0GuwNo3S0Eyks/s320/devilandmccain_19.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182990976923745954" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/devilandmccain_20.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgicUyZShr5I_XupMHKuIkmEwhU11wcp0NO5UQDxwgv5FT9w7xyEJheTAduG8JX9B1-xstGi-G8HM0m71nbQrDY0YYAbtVLr0TVCPXvzrVqNSTTRK46U8lV6mXDlkW1yPHi8oZu/s320/devilandmccain_20.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182990925384138386" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/devilandmccain_21.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1po1_hb-HZSh4OJE0J29VOkWlwTAnKjFhMb432SG0GmDu5Z-G8QujPAbgKHfMtCVHVkNJCq_omza8_UrWFeFqXV3TPsmpLgze-DgFpTCQQ4uuntFfm1RJWFma5wYYm3rIVnmb/s320/devilandmccain_21.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182990865254596226" border="0" /></a>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-17264731595580766372008-03-28T01:11:00.001-07:002008-03-28T01:14:33.432-07:00Senator Clinton's Islam Update<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/senatorclintonsislamupdate01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4wxnn2bv7lZx_uWls6Gfw4VtIccpgLOZPBq0d2BxL9lkjRkrpxzZRCoTZFtkixcJLnO0gWWMb4ODCXzQ9NsGw2BINnMrrSYQoOp1zMN5mjM-j8duTdUiWsZCd7H-cw_GSmmC/s320/senatorclintonsislamupdate01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182702501150342306" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/senatorclintonsislamupdate02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8aSDogkQSphOUVvT1Gw5IUCAOGJ61y_HEcZa7-fNqY7PShPUqkpuww1BnrtPd_YNMU_1CcS3WAS_7HHN6Hh11NmeFBxhK04pnwWoQqjxSb4ONr2fMex9gEUU8F5xlnxXenmK/s320/senatorclintonsislamupdate02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182702501150342322" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/senatorclintonsislamupdate03.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB01gTsWNE4lVB8wyAtKV8ZlU18A10Oyn-7ca5icWhoIDLkTh5aN_7ZD8rF1SCbysCDE_Ti9OOUmnZo_q4QiAaJ3qnb1Surjqbu2su69cOOPAIVFifzTUpTOFHWQ45Yka4F3_N/s320/senatorclintonsislamupdate03.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182702505445309634" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/senatorclintonsislamupdate04.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSCWto2otuvZwaJ153G_q4pwCTP5OQ4Wk8zieQXW873RkIIrzA5U9miCbIPNpvNFtE0cZ4lmSBfwgSsyEGTMRBiCUWD_c1m1mWtaij-JKtlxFAR9RCTya2E3MAIoyJQEXkC6hq/s320/senatorclintonsislamupdate04.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182702509740276946" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/senatorclintonsislamupdate05.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1JB6jahpuiVwP8flTIJt5zx84-g-PTvCX7xIfot9gjIdcG2Mw5ebU48E5ElRamgnc1mKtIM1EBJHZEgM_VnY2MObvlN9BNcz_tPWAg3GvYL1wsz4DPf4DYmnnT7lWcEPOWle5/s320/senatorclintonsislamupdate05.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182702509740276962" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blackquartz.com/images/cartoons/senatorclintonsislamupdate06.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKJWL_UrI6ToJzy-s7vmf6gfw1J3LOWOwfAkNpRccat44a36tFFhKYxKtl7Ra5nKy1ZdTaFusWbhWzMza7PfoYJ6bhGzQwNkHuG1e4FQmUIQAkQbhnUmb1vXx0TS61q9C6vJng/s320/senatorclintonsislamupdate06.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182702578459753714" border="0" /></a>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-18435702658777293712008-03-13T14:09:00.000-07:002008-03-13T14:39:10.947-07:00Games of Life & Death<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje6AoBVNBC6ph-T3ONrFUQQZ4jhJjgjEObXwBY75AwBExGwJTkhyfXIhb4dhohK0daxzcoF9b04Ay3XXYTAnUadbUnN6uJvwTYSODXtLcodYcm0g2HJcCRSJSwjtPJjFjcuP8a/s1600-h/lottery.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 148px; height: 227px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje6AoBVNBC6ph-T3ONrFUQQZ4jhJjgjEObXwBY75AwBExGwJTkhyfXIhb4dhohK0daxzcoF9b04Ay3XXYTAnUadbUnN6uJvwTYSODXtLcodYcm0g2HJcCRSJSwjtPJjFjcuP8a/s200/lottery.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177341950340197330" border="0" /></a><br />Today's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/us/13bend.html?ref=todayspaper">NYT </a>had an article about a strange, grim lottery taking place in Oregon.<br /><br />Ninety-one thousand Oregon residents have put forth their names into this lottery in order to win health care. The state lottery has slots for only 7,000 Oregonians. Those aren't good odds.<br /><br />Many people visit the area around Bend, Oregon, for recreation, for Bend is unusually-blessed with volcanoes and forests and wild rivers. What these vacationers don't realize is that almost 20% of the people living in the region do not have health care.<br /><br />What does it mean to not have health care in modern America?<br /><br />Not so long ago, Mr. Bush proclaimed, “I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”<br /><br />What this misstatement ignores is the fact that once an emergency room saves your life, you still get the bill. Even a brief hospitalization can quickly accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars. For many people in the income brackets that tend to not have health care, such a bill is so far beyond their ability to ever pay that might as well be for a trillion dollars. A sickness then, even if one recovers, becomes a life-ending event.<br /><br />What Mr. Bush's statement also misses is the fact that by waiting until the last minute to go to an emergency room, by waiting until the pain is unbearable, or the victim has lost consciousness, diseases that were easily treatable become untreatable. Diagnoses that could stave off later problems are not made. People die because they do not have health insurance, despite Mr. Bush's snide assurances.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVmMkXjva85DPMb0nPqXNBjVlQ1UbuyviejKNN3R9zKT2g51cW_HSgt6EFSq3_9S_o8K2ON8H_L3eJr4C-WfVFomynlAOgBNIEW6nTVPmn4IgnBVLYXhS4NKfUH4ynNiZJ_wt/s1600-h/castle.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVmMkXjva85DPMb0nPqXNBjVlQ1UbuyviejKNN3R9zKT2g51cW_HSgt6EFSq3_9S_o8K2ON8H_L3eJr4C-WfVFomynlAOgBNIEW6nTVPmn4IgnBVLYXhS4NKfUH4ynNiZJ_wt/s200/castle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177341958930131954" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Oregon's lottery is about more than just getting health care. It is literally a matter of life and death.<br /><br />What kind of society decides the life and death of its citizens by chance?<br /><br />Shirley Jackson answered this question in her famous story, "The Lottery." (Although everyone knows "The Lottery," I think Shirley Jackson's book <span style="font-style: italic;">We Have Always Lived in the Castle</span> is even more worthwhile.)<br /><br />In "The Lottery," a small-town meeting turns out to be a gathering for human sacrifice, the victim of which is selected by lot. There is never any<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfp-_6PpduZNRbG_TqRezcfJKw7z8ECMem96MsvFt2yVGgYtSkl97AOMOGecxdgb6XllB39jq4J20dmgVE3TE4yfz4a8Ys1D_CQl5FD22IMVOoYhyphenhyphenTOZPL2YpV90y82qeLltKS/s1600-h/jackson2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfp-_6PpduZNRbG_TqRezcfJKw7z8ECMem96MsvFt2yVGgYtSkl97AOMOGecxdgb6XllB39jq4J20dmgVE3TE4yfz4a8Ys1D_CQl5FD22IMVOoYhyphenhyphenTOZPL2YpV90y82qeLltKS/s200/jackson2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177341954635164642" border="0" /></a> reason stated for the murder in this town; it is simply tradition. And this is the real meaning for modern America: There is no rational reason for people in Oregon to have to wager for their lives. There is no rationale, no defensible argument one can make, for Americans <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>to have universal health care.<br /><br />We Americans now are as superstitious as the Shirley Jackson's villagers. As long as we cling, through tradition and fear, to our dangerous and cruel practices, we are no better than savages cutting-out human hearts to appease a blood-thirsty god--in fact, we are worse, because we know there is no such god and yet still perform the sacrifice.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-1223235833479939102008-03-03T21:01:00.000-08:002008-03-03T22:29:32.133-08:00Teaching Opportunity: Violence Required<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZBLw20idX8cgbOjIPHgeJeTLPdEwDq9bh72yVKw6EUkKXBaV1em-CsQke2Lg64RXK8nBjGJ1bkM2cjftEuVwgqhEZGdETobkR3JNsuVfRElAjgY1KkHSpzf5LWcKH6Clin9s/s1600-h/160px-CSUEB.svg.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 152px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZBLw20idX8cgbOjIPHgeJeTLPdEwDq9bh72yVKw6EUkKXBaV1em-CsQke2Lg64RXK8nBjGJ1bkM2cjftEuVwgqhEZGdETobkR3JNsuVfRElAjgY1KkHSpzf5LWcKH6Clin9s/s200/160px-CSUEB.svg.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173755596484513522" border="0" /></a><br />I am an alumnus of Cal State Hayward, which is now officially known as <a href="http://www.csueastbay.edu/">Cal State East Bay</a>, although no alumni call it by that name. As an alumnus, today I feel quite ashamed of the actions of CSUH in regards to one of its teachers, <span id="bodytext" class="georgia md"><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BAQPVAUVO.DTL">Marianne Kearney-Brown</a>.<br /><br />Ms. Kearney-Brown is a veteran math teacher--a instructor, in other words, in a field in which everyone seems to agree there is a desperate shortage of qualified teachers. But rather than encouraging her academic pursuits, CSUH fired her for inserting the word "non-violent" in her loyalty oath.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn_XKitDDEtZethB7uG5i5_hBeTH7PWdABMEpxx7xXi7DbNXDWbqBa6ocWwWCVbKjNM23sQWV8F4je5a5RimC4cNgHbMShTEwMh0WCzJztCKiwJrledCCTA-eCNTPPo1nO0tHi/s1600-h/mccarthy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn_XKitDDEtZethB7uG5i5_hBeTH7PWdABMEpxx7xXi7DbNXDWbqBa6ocWwWCVbKjNM23sQWV8F4je5a5RimC4cNgHbMShTEwMh0WCzJztCKiwJrledCCTA-eCNTPPo1nO0tHi/s200/mccarthy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173755596484513538" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span id="bodytext" class="georgia md">Loyalty oaths?<br /><br />Weren't those something out of the McCarthy era? Well, yes. What possible reason could there be for a loyalty oath today? Well, none, of course. But once bureaucratic instruments are in place, they have a strange longevity; perhaps this is because administrators fiercely defend their work. If they didn't have forms to fill-out and loyalty oaths to collect, why would a school need to have petty administrators on the payroll? Therefore, the forms and oaths must stay so that they can keep their jobs. None of this, of course, has anything to do with the business of running a university, and constitutes a steady and completely-unnecessary drain on school resources and the time of of those teachers who actually do the work of the school.<br /><br />You would think that, in 2008, loyalty oaths would be a thing of the past, if for no other reason than the publication of Joseph Heller's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Catch-22-Novel-Simon-Schuster-Classics/dp/0684865130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204607803&sr=1-1">Catch-22</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span>one of the greatest books of the 20th century. (I also think Heller's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Something-Happened-Joseph-Heller/dp/0684841215/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204607775&sr=8-1">Something Happened</a> deserves similar accolades, although this book is far less read, perhaps because it is so tragic, so heart-rending, and so true that few readers can stand its bleak portrait of the meaningless suffering of life.)<br /><br />In <span style="font-style: italic;">Catch-22</span>, Heller skewers military and bureaucratic life. This book is so good that during Vietnam soldiers had their copies of <span style="font-style: italic;">Catch-22</span> confiscated; there probably is no higher praise for an intellectual than to be banned by the American military. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Catch-22</span>, one of the legion of petty bureaucrats governing the lives of Air Force men comes up with the idea of making all the men sign loyalty oaths.<br /><blockquote> Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discovering himself spearheading it. He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Each time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay form the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers ... When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced a pledge of allegiance, and after that 'The Star-Spangled Banner," one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses."<br /><br />"Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that ... the more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was."<br /><br />"...he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths. At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seats at the table. Already at the tables, a group of that arrived still earlier was singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in order that they might use the salt and pepper and ketchup there."</blockquote>One of the more depressing things in life for me is that fact that even when someone like Heller so brilliantly flays open ludicrous incompetence, that ludicrous incompetence pops up in another form, another way, another time. Liberal education posits that by reading great literature or seeing great art, people will become educated, changed for the better. This is true in some cases. But most people do not listen; they merely wait until it is their turn to talk. People do not learn; they merely read the required material in order to pass the test, hating every minute of it, and absorb none of its truths. The idea of "speaking truth to power" is doomed because administrative power is deaf.<br /><br />In the case of </span> <span id="bodytext" class="georgia md"><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/03/quaker_teacher_fired_over_loya.php">Marianne Kearney-Brown</a>, she did <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/03/loyalty">refuse </a>to sign the <a href="http://www.nbc11.com/news/15457294/detail.html?rss=bay&psp=news">loyalty oath</a>. She merely followed her religious convictions by altering the oath to specify non-violence as her form of protecting the Constitution. Ms. Kearney-Brown is a Quaker, a pacifist group whose non-violent ways were respected <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Public_Service">even during WWII</a> (although not WWI). But now we have the War of Terror. Religious pacifism isn't patriotic enough for post-9/11 CSUH. Violence is required, even of math teachers.<br /><br />When scientists went to war in the Manhattan Project, the military was concerned that they were insufficiently ready to defend their country by physical force. It never came to Nobel-laureate physicists being forced to do push-ups in the mud at Los Alamos, but it nearly did. Richard Feynman recalls a mock calisthenic/calculus drill where the physicists were harangued with, "Men! Pencils out! Pencils at the ready! On the mark, integrate!"<br /><br />One hopes that Ms. Kearney-Brown will settle with CSUH for a large sum of money. However, only someone who has not read <span style="font-style: italic;">Catch-22</span> thinks that anything will actually change.<br /></span>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-47427378648221991022008-02-14T22:47:00.000-08:002008-02-15T00:02:04.181-08:00Torquemada on the Potomac<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14d-7sFLPTRq6eUsAUt4j6bNX-9AI4xeCVNgp7j6zzaVWt8D0FJjif-4gO7ntFCQ4BNftyOopbMr-9krSGQBT1Tq2apUn66qoEDFC8TF8ZxByZDEMwBTAV_-DkLjzx4X1ftf_/s1600-h/hajj.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 123px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14d-7sFLPTRq6eUsAUt4j6bNX-9AI4xeCVNgp7j6zzaVWt8D0FJjif-4gO7ntFCQ4BNftyOopbMr-9krSGQBT1Tq2apUn66qoEDFC8TF8ZxByZDEMwBTAV_-DkLjzx4X1ftf_/s200/hajj.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167095415712769186" border="0" /></a><br />Mr. Bush would like you to know that America does not torture.<br /><br />You might hear a different story, though, if you ask the journalist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/opinion/14kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin">Sami al-Hajj</a>, also known as Internee #345. Al-Hajj is a Sudanese national currently being held in Guantanamo, which has been his home since being arrested by the US in December 2001. Mr. Al-Hajj is a journalist with the Al Jazeera network.<br /><br />While being held in Guantanamo, Mr. Al-Hajj has been beaten, starved, and sexually tortured. Because of the physical abuse he has received at the hands of United States interrogators, he can no longer flex his knees. A doctor prescribed a special toilet seat for this condition, but officials have now removed it in order to humiliate him. According to Reporters Without Borders, Mr. Al-Hajj’s throat cancer, in remission since 1998, has returned, but he is being denied medical treatment.<br /><br />It may surprise you to learn that no one thinks Mr. Al-Hajj is a terrorist. He has never been charged with terrorism. The Bush administration does not believe him to be in any way involved with terrorism or pose a risk. We know this because the administration has already promised him immediate release on one condition—if he were to spy on Al Jazeera. It is unclear how, even in a misreading of the Constitution worthy of Scalia, the United States can assert the right to detain and torture a foreign national for not being a spy.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglifVFNLWVGCHzLNlPBDaQ_vBvCgLcOzigGxkpXRJcn2y9JzhIMcS-OghUbjReJmNsrr7qczvJz58FSdHRWDle1ZK-sIxVFlv7fegBTsLJwSawYhS-HyPoWIzr4c7DIDxzDUNH/s1600-h/guantanamo-21.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglifVFNLWVGCHzLNlPBDaQ_vBvCgLcOzigGxkpXRJcn2y9JzhIMcS-OghUbjReJmNsrr7qczvJz58FSdHRWDle1ZK-sIxVFlv7fegBTsLJwSawYhS-HyPoWIzr4c7DIDxzDUNH/s200/guantanamo-21.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167095815144727746" border="0" /></a><br />According to Clive Stafford’s book on Guantanamo, Mr. Al-Hajj was not picked up by mistake, but rather for the express purpose of turning him into an informant against a television network Mr. Bush deemed hostile. Mr. Al-Hajj actually asked to be interrogated about what he was accused of having done.<br /><br />To protest, and perhaps to end, his 6-year incarceration in this Kafkaesque nightmare, Mr. Al-Hajj is engaging in a hunger strike. The US now roughly and forcibly inserts a feeding into his nose daily and force-feeds Mr. Al-Hajj in order to avoid the embarrassment of having a Guantanamo prisoner starve to death. According to Mr. Al-Hajj’s lawyer, this tube sometimes is smeared with the blood of other Guantanamo inmates also being force fed.<br /><br />This is what the United States has become.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2doZ7tFkvO_XgbJU3HIm82qMcRgGKsEVUpaa_eiu_8qNIHlyVyHHzSRNd_mKFtlsnL-JPgubgEUYF-NIv6hdda3_hX6_K8t1huJzUrlF2ST2Wakj6Zc0gedIwL7ANeAdy2_pg/s1600-h/waterboardingphp.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 246px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2doZ7tFkvO_XgbJU3HIm82qMcRgGKsEVUpaa_eiu_8qNIHlyVyHHzSRNd_mKFtlsnL-JPgubgEUYF-NIv6hdda3_hX6_K8t1huJzUrlF2ST2Wakj6Zc0gedIwL7ANeAdy2_pg/s200/waterboardingphp.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167095639051068594" border="0" /></a><br />The roots of torture in America are a deep part of our culture. Even before we were a nation, the Salem Witch Trials provided an outlet for American sexual sadists to strip, hurt, and torture women while pretending to protect the security of their neighbors. The DSM-IV defines sexual sadism as a replacement of normal sexual gratification with pleasure derived only by the infliction of pain; put simply, sexual sadists can only become aroused by cries of pain rather than passion, by hitting rather than fucking. Make no mistake about it--what happened in Abu Ghraib has deep psychological roots in our culture.<br /><br />What is happening this very day in Guantanamo is part of this American sickness. Everyone else in the world see us for what we truly are; most Americans, as repressed and incurious as ever, have little idea what is being done in their name. Ask yourself this question, and answer honestly: Had you ever heard of Sami Al-Hajj before reading this?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuFatzTr6YRrJYNXpHw4bML9KqNuXDgNimitkSsRyvfTpCPRlGE1HQ1uEoQ5XcyGZicuvZZuqHnhuut1WzR0fbwgDj1jYNeI3KXRj42WaT4amnsIKnZtWYg0Tbojdq9Jo19UYf/s1600-h/3-1-Executioner-with-axe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 127px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuFatzTr6YRrJYNXpHw4bML9KqNuXDgNimitkSsRyvfTpCPRlGE1HQ1uEoQ5XcyGZicuvZZuqHnhuut1WzR0fbwgDj1jYNeI3KXRj42WaT4amnsIKnZtWYg0Tbojdq9Jo19UYf/s200/3-1-Executioner-with-axe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167097769354847442" border="0" /></a><br />It is all well and good to say that when those who authorized and operated Guantanamo become prisoners themselves, in US prisons facing charges with lawyers at their sides, then justice will be done. It is all well and good to say that when the cowardly judges who have abdicated their duties and their souls by deferring in every way to the evils of the Bush administration are removed from their positions and disbarred, then justice will be done.<br /><br />But in reality, it is already too late. The new face of Uncle Sam is the hood of the torturer.Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-33334817126564361212008-02-14T22:46:00.000-08:002008-03-03T22:44:47.947-08:00The Great CrashRobert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor, sees <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?em&ex=1203138000&en=28af38a856305f61&ei=5087%0A">the recent American economic downturn</a> as a long-delayed symptom of underlying economic disease afflicting this country.<br /><br />Reich brilliantly explains how the upcoming tax “rebates” will do nothing to slow America’s spiraling descent into, possibly, Argentine-style economic chaos. The problem, as Reich sees it, is that we Americans have finally run out of ways to spend more than we earn.<br /><br />The first problem is the decline in real wages—that is, wages adjusted for inflation. Wages have been flat over the last 35 years; although actual dollar amounts have increased, because of inflation the purchasing power of these dollars is the same as if was 35 years ago.<br /><br />Compounded on this problem is the fact that average wages are falling; the "middle mark" is sliding toward the poverty end of the income scale. Thirty years ago, the median male worker in his 30’s earned 12% more than he does today. This is largely the result of the migration of high-paying manufacturing jobs, and their replacement by no-skill, no-benefit retail work.<br /><br />To maintain “middle class” lifestyles amid this decay, American families have increasingly relied on women to work outside the home. This trend began in earnest in the 1970s, and resulted in a terrible personal time deficit for many women. Arlene Hochschild has written eloquently about the deleterious effects of this in her book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Second-Shift-Arlie-Hochschild/dp/0142002925/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204613018&sr=8-1">“The Second Shift</a>.”<br /><br />Having both parents work soon became not enough in the face of declining wages, Reich writes. The next stage involved increasing working hours, both within one job and by the addition of other jobs. Americans now work 350 more hours/year than Europeans.<br /><br />This trend, too, had a limit; one cannot work more hours than there are in the day. So how to maintain lifestyles in the face of declining wages? In the 1990s a trend began for large numbers of workers to take out home equity loans, using their still-mortgaged houses as collateral. This is a like taking out a new credit card to pay minimum payments on another maxed credit card. And now, of course, with the collapse of the housing market, this last aspect has hit Americans like a freight train.<br /><br />Even those of us who rent are being affected; increasing numbers of apartment dwellers across the country are arriving home to find 72-hour eviction notices because their landlord cannot make minimum mortgage payments. One thing woefully lacking from proposed congressional legislation protecting home owners from foreclosure is some manner of protection to renters—who have paid on-time and in good faith, and yet through no fault of their own find themselves homeless at a few day’s notice.<br /><br />This crisis is long in coming.<br /><br />Since the 1960s, manufacturing in America has been in precipitous decline. There have been several plateaus—the 1990s Internet Boom, the 2000s housing boom—but the long-term trend is dismal. We are going broke.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYssbno2QlBWVKhyphenhyphenlNxkWXYcyXzenNfNGteD1YRl0dn8TTX4RhyphenhypheniKSemEMBXiaksLd47Ige7RwpjCJeZoGqIKIpoHUgZ2BkJVcGceND0gddKtct4A-yKgMS-DbO28k231FwZ9U/s1600-h/National-Debt-GDP-L2.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYssbno2QlBWVKhyphenhyphenlNxkWXYcyXzenNfNGteD1YRl0dn8TTX4RhyphenhypheniKSemEMBXiaksLd47Ige7RwpjCJeZoGqIKIpoHUgZ2BkJVcGceND0gddKtct4A-yKgMS-DbO28k231FwZ9U/s400/National-Debt-GDP-L2.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167111199717582082" border="0" /></a><br />To understanding just how bankrupt America actually is, consider our <a href="http://zfacts.com/p/318.html">$9 trillion national debt</a>. With a population of 300 million Americans, this $9 trillion debt saddles every man, woman, and child in America with a <a href="http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/">$30,000 payment</a>. However, this number does not consider that we pay interest on this $9 trillion debt; this interest effectively doubles the national debt burden.<br /><br />Congress can pass a balanced budget, and this would reap lower interest rates, as we saw during the Clinton years. However, even a balanced budget does not begin to pay down this vast national debt, a burden which makes balanced budgets difficult because of the interest which must be paid right now. As our interest payments balloon, the funds available for everything else the government does must inevitably suffer. Soon our federal budget will fund unnecessary wars, Social Security payments, and little else.<br /><br />How did it come to this?Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26831207.post-3424357325337283412008-01-19T18:22:00.000-08:002008-01-19T19:24:36.770-08:00Roar for Entitlement<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtiEiL2O3oP3R-B_L3IMmtIDjUNzvFgs7gbkFaeDGOH6U2jm2wUKpGLOmYuypsfxJ3mXK0_FSi0mgSjHZ3J6Xwe-MidJq7iHzR7Nkh0zUpsDmm7Xbt2JrELmELKfKG-rdaFfrX/s1600-h/ap_dhaliwal2_080109_ms.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtiEiL2O3oP3R-B_L3IMmtIDjUNzvFgs7gbkFaeDGOH6U2jm2wUKpGLOmYuypsfxJ3mXK0_FSi0mgSjHZ3J6Xwe-MidJq7iHzR7Nkh0zUpsDmm7Xbt2JrELmELKfKG-rdaFfrX/s200/ap_dhaliwal2_080109_ms.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157385226640878466" border="0" /></a>Just when everyone thought Mark Geragos could not possibly find a client more odious than the child molester Michael Jackson or the wife killer Scott Peterson, Geragos decided to represent Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal. The reckless actions of these drunken jackasses led to the destruction of Tatiana, a beautiful 4-year old Siberian tiger.<br /><br />Now that the Dhaliwal brothers have <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/18/MNEIUH4B9.DTL&hw=tiger&sn=002&sc=850">confessed to provoking</a> the tiger who attacked them on Christmas Day, the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/16/MN19UFM17.DTL">transcripts of the 911 </a>call from the SF Zoo shed further light into the unsavory character of these individuals.<br /><br />Kulbir Dhaliwal placed the first call at 5:16 pm from in front of the cafeteria at the SF Zoo. He was apparently having an argument with the manager of the cafe:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Kulbir: </span><span id="bodytext" class="georgia md"><span style="font-style: italic;">I'm talking to the manager here, the stupid a- doesn't want to get me a towel ...</span><br /><br />The towel was presumably to staunch bleeding. Of course, in Kulbir's thinking, the manager should have exposed himself and his employees at the cafeteria to the danger of a prowling tiger, despite the Zoo's policy of locking down buildings during an escape.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">911: The ambulance, the police are at the front.<br />Kulbir: Get them out here already!</span><br /><br />He was apparently quite impatient with the response time, which was on the order of 10 minutes. This is a fairly quick response time in SF for a life and death emergency; times in East Bay cities such as Oakland and Richmond can be twice that, and there are instances where dispatched ambulances and police do not arrive at all to crime scenes. In other words, if you live in underfunded cities such as SF or Oakland, which have about half the police force of comparable cities in other states, then you should be thankful if you can just get through to 911 without being put on hold.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">911: OK, the ambulance is staging. I need you to understand. That if the ambulance people, paramedics ...<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Kulbir: What do you mean? ... My brother's going to die out here!</span><strong style="font-style: italic;"></strong><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">911: I'll stay on the line with you. If the paramedics get hurt they cannot help your brother, so you need to calm down and ...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Kulbir: Send more paramedics then!</span><br /><br />Lovely. Kulbir thinks he is a general ordering more troops into the breach, damn the danger. No one else's life matters except his brother's. It does not matter to him if a paramedic is killed as a result of his stupidity in taunting the tiger.<br /><p><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Kulbir: Can you fly a helicopter right here? Because I don't see no f- ambulance here.</span><br /><br />What a sense of entitlement! He screws up and now he thinks he deserves helicopter attention.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8vooys6IUoQoU6gIMPAaESbyGQoVvj-7IkfM06UDUnnDeZrMvoQk0O1lfW5NXs2Aw_xvinWVI0SWuB3WkWWkQFkgXcaBj-aGtv6aFFbRfbbspywaYKNgGyUgKj6BHlR-tqnS7/s1600-h/ap_tiger_escape_071226_ms.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8vooys6IUoQoU6gIMPAaESbyGQoVvj-7IkfM06UDUnnDeZrMvoQk0O1lfW5NXs2Aw_xvinWVI0SWuB3WkWWkQFkgXcaBj-aGtv6aFFbRfbbspywaYKNgGyUgKj6BHlR-tqnS7/s200/ap_tiger_escape_071226_ms.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157385162216369010" border="0" /></a> Helicopter "Life Flights" are not usual for SF because no hospital in SF has helicopter landing facilities. Life Flights are more of an East Bay phenomenon.<br /><br />These transcripts, the refusal of these brothers to cooperate with police, their documented effort to conceal what occurred that day, all speak to egomania and a prince-like expectation of entitlement.<br /><br />What a pity Tatiana was not allowed time to finish her snack.<br /></p><iframe src="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll.php?poll=20564&width=200&fontsize=11&height=200&fontface=Times+New+Roman&padding=10&textcolor=%23000000&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&doublespace=0&borderwidth=1&linkmap=1&bordercolor=%23cccccc" width="222" height="222" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"><a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-20564.html">Take the poll</a><br /><br /><a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/">Free Poll by Blog Flux</a></iframe>Ignatius J. Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101347804687404468noreply@blogger.com1