Stolen Honor

***Originally Posted to Modern Politics and You***

I was flipping channels today, and what do I see but an extended ad for "Stolen Honor", the anti-Kerry documentary. Told by the lumberjacks that were really there, it tells the story of Jane Fonda and Ho Chi Min's love child, the viscious giant John Kerry. Kerry grew up to be big and strong, and one day, with his big ax and his ox named Blue, he singlehandedly sabotaged the Vietnam War. Years later, he would run for president against Jesus Chr^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGeorge W. Bush. All the whole during this ad, there was a giant banner at the bottom of the screen to go to NewsMax to buy the full video...You know, as a keepsake, for the children.

It would seem that in this day of miracle and wonder, modern politics has created a new art form, the shitty political film. Spurred on by Michael Moore's Triumph of the Wi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Fahrenheit 9/11, now it seems like everyone with political diahreha has the sudden urge to become a filmmaker ("I really want to direct!"). Something tells me this is a bad trend.

Piro Brings the Funny

I'm a regular MegaTokyo reader...I even have the Kimiko blanket (which is quite the blanket, I might add). However, lately MegaTokyo has been dragging...I'm not sure what's been wrong with it, it's just seems like it got bogged down in telling the minutiae of the storyline for weeks with what seems to be no real action. I had thought perhaps that Piro had lost sight of that other side of MegaTokyo; the humor.

But Piro seems to have found that in the last few strips. Today, he really nails it. The funny is definitely back.

"They want to be free!"

Promise

I, Anthropic, being of sound mind and body, hereby promise:

1. In the event that I decide to leave a forum, I shall not make several posts where I have a hissy fit and then proceed to demonize honorable posters, all the while making myself look like a PSYCHO BITCH.

2. I shall never reappear in a forum in the guise of a white gansta' rappa' who ain't 'fraid to walk the streets of Compton.

Not Surprising, but...

***Originally Posted to Modern Politics and You***

While it's not all that suprising, the New York Times has endorsed John Kerry for President...

However, what is surprising is how scathing the criticism of Bush is in the editorial:

The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.

Hopefully, Kerry's speechwritters are taking notes...Later, the Times goes on to say:

We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge. Another Bush selection, J. Leon Holmes, a federal judge in Arkansas, has written that wives must be subordinate to their husbands and compared abortion rights activists to Nazis.

It might be a little late in coming, but I think it's pretty clear that the mainstream press has woken up and smelled the coffee.

In other news, my birthplace's paper of record, the Akron Beacon Journal, has also endorsed Kerry:

George W. Bush has embarked on paths both at home and abroad that depart radically from the concept of sound stewardship.

Yep, that pretty much sums up my opinion too.

Ohio State Issue 1

***Originally Posted to Modern Politics and You***

Guess what's going to be on the Ohio ballot on Nov. 2nd...

Issue 1. Proposed Consititutional Amendment -- State of Ohio (Proposed by Initiative Petition - A majority yes vote is necessary for passage)

Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio:

That the Constitution of the State of Ohio be amended by adopting a section to be designated as Section 11 of Article XV thereof, to read as follows:

Article XV

Section 11. Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.

This has got to be one of the stupidest ideas this state has ever had (and we've had many). Now, the first sentence is simply the standard boilerplate banning of gay marriage. That's bad enough, but the second sentence really takes the cake. Look carefully at that...It would ban, in the State of Ohio, any kind of civil union for anyone. Not just civil unions between homosexuals, but any kind of civil unions. So, as I understand this, it would ban any sort of law about common law marriages.

This is assinine.

Now, I can see where people, with their cultural ties to religious traditions, would want to restrict the tradition of marriage to heterosexuals. I understand that argument, and I think it's a load of crap, but I get the idea.

However, these dodos that want to ban civil unions have lost their minds. That crosses the line from a cultural argument to an argument built purely on hate.

On the one hand, I'm a little worried this made it on the ballot, but on the other hand, my no vote of this abomination is a real opportunity to tell the religious right to go fark themselves.

Re: Swing Voters

***Originally Posted to Modern Politics and You***

It would have been funny if one of the "undecided" voters at the debate had gotten up to ask his question, looked down at the notecard, looked up and said "Aw shit, I just decided," and sat back down.

Writer's Block

***Originally Posted to Modern Politics and You***

Andy has generously asked me to write for this blog. While he generally goes for the satirical angle on politics, my style leans more towards political ranting.

So, for the last few days, I've been sitting here thinking about what to rant about...And it's not that there's any lack of things to rant about. On the contrary, there's far too much. I could rant about the fear-mongering on the Left about Bush reinstating the Draft, or the fear-mongering on the Right about liberals wanting to "ban the Bible". I could rant about how things will get worse politically before they get better.

However, those are mostly things that annoy me. There are also things that simply scare me. Things like this:

Gays and lesbians should not be allowed to teach in public schools, Republican Jim DeMint said Sunday in a U.S. Senate debate.

The remark came late in the first debate between DeMint and Democrat Inez Tenenbaum — a testy and acrimonious hour that broke little new ground on their positions on most issues.

DeMint, a Greenville congressman, said the government should not endorse homosexuality and “folks teaching in school need to represent our values.”

Tenenbaum, the state education superintendent, called DeMint’s position “un-American.”

DeMint said after the debate that he would not require teachers to admit to being gay, but if they were “openly gay, I do not think that they should be teaching at public schools.”

My first reaction is to analyze this in a logical fashion. Where exactly does one draw the line at what constitutes "our values"? Who exactly is "our"? Would someone who is openly an atheist be allowed to teach in Mr. DeMint's schools? What about a teacher who is openly socialist?

But then I stop myself. It's useless to thinking about this logically. DeMint, and those like him (the Santorum's of the world) lack any sort of real logic and are being driven by fundimentalist, ideological hate.

Finally!

For about as long as Mozilla/Browser aka Phoenix aka Firebid aka Firefox has been in existance, people have complained that the Tabbed Borwser is incomplete. There was no way within the browser to force new windows to open in tabs and get links from external applications to open in new tabs. A number of well known extentions were created to fix this problem, but it's always been a pain in the ass; something else to have to teach people about in the browser. Until, yesterday:



Firefox 1.0 will finally fix this...It's a beautiful thing...*sniff*...

/me wipes tears from cheek.


The Anthropic Review of Books

This is a feature I want to do regularly...I tend to read a lot of books, so it only makes sense to talk about them. This first book review may seem strange, but this book has been annoying me lately:

A Different Mirror by Ronald Takai.

First, let me point out that this is the text for my Ethnics class. Some people have a problem finding out that the past was shitty, especially for those who were not white. Personally, I don't have a problem with this learning these things. History is history whether we like it or not, and undeniably the song and dance show we're given in public school glosses over a lot of the more unpleasent events in our past.

The crux of my problem with A Different Mirror is twofold:

1. Missing the Point

You may recall that the criticism of traditional history texts is that they lack substantive integration of race as a driving factor in history. A Different Mirror has the opposite problem...It covers almost nothing but race. On the one hand, I understand books have to specialize, but there's almost no discussion in this book of the context the book covers occur within.

As an annotated list of bad things, this book certainly succeeds. However, if this book is intended to be a racial history of the United States it fails. I would very much prefer something that integrates with the series of events we've traditionally been given in history classes. If regular history texts say: "Everyone was happy an prosperous in America, and then there was the Civi War. And then everyone was happy and prosperous again," then A Different Mirror would be "White people did bad things, then there was the Civil War, then white people went back to doing bad things". Quite frankly, both views are bullshit.

What I want is history, damn it. For example, the Civil War shouldn't appear out of nowhere in this book. There should be a much wider discussion of the sectionalism that was fueled by the derisive nature of slavery in America. There's almost no mention of the Underground Railroad in this book. In A Different Mirror, outside events generally don't exist unless they can be somehow spun to condemn whites. I shouldn't need another history text just to get some context.

In this book, what we already know barely exists. A good example here is the section Takaki devotes to Thomas Jefferson. Unsurprisingly, Jefferson was a bit of a bastard when it comes to race. On the other hand, Takaki seems more eager to bash him then try to integrate Jefferson's racism and hypocracy into his larger character. There are magnificent contridictions at work within this man. If this was a novel, Jefferson would be an awesome character; torn between enlightenment and utter brutality. We can't see that when Takaki is content with only providing us with a one facet of Jefferson. Mr. Hyde is missing Dr. Jekyll.

2. Cut the Crap

A more serious problem in A Different Mirror is Takaki's habit of stuffing so many quotes from so many sources into a single paragraph that you haven't a clue what the hell he's talking about. If he just wanted to list shit, he should have made a book full of bullet points. If he's got a point to make here, then these sources belong in footnotes so they're not cluttering up everything else. Takaki seems to have a hard-on for synthesis.

In another class, one of the readings was Andrew Jackson's written justification of his decision to force the Indians from the eastern US (which directly led to the "Trail of Tears"). I was struck by how disturbing this thing was. This is akin to Hitler justifying the "Final Solution". Takaki must have been aware of this document. If he was smart, he have just dropped this whole piece into his book (it certainly fits) and not shove bits and pieces of Jackson's words in with a dozen other sources. Let the man dig his own grave.

Final Judgement:
A Different Mirror by Ronald Takai
Score: (**---) Two out of Five Stars

Really, It's Not My Mind That's Warped But the World

It looks like political blogs just came in fashion!

This being campaign season (isn't it funny that campaign season and hurricane season coincide?), there's all sorts of political angst being displayed around campus. So today, for the second day in a row, I walk past this guy screaming anti-Bush stuff in the middle of the sidewalk. I sort of laughed as I walked by. Frankly, I'm voting for Kerry (that's a whole nother post). But, at the same time, the level of political obnoxiousness in this country has reached a critical level.

For example, take this article from my fair school's newspaper:

Discussion of real issues is missing

You would think with a title like that, it would be a fair piece about just how obnoxious things really are...Nooooooo...Take a look at it...That's got to be one of the most hillariously vitriolic things I've ever read.

Why am I getting so fired up by some goddamned "guest editorial" in a college newspaper? I think that's best answered by this quote from Christopher Hitchens:

What will it take to convince these people that this is not a year, or a time, to be dicking around?

Within the last month, we've had Dick Cheney tell the American people that if they vote for Kerry, they'll get another serious terror attack and shortly after we've had John Kerry claim that voting for Bush will bring back the draft. This isn't the traditional mudslinging of campaigns of yore. This is serious. This is a nation waking up to the fact that shit has hit the fan. Politicians spew things like that only when they know that people will believe them (like the author of that trash editorial linked above).

I feel as if I am not contemplating a political landscape here, but a Dali painting.

The Clash of Civilizations

Read these two quotes and let them sort of roll around in your brain for a few minutes:

Quote #1:

"''What if Mohamed Atta had been raised on soul-stretching questions instead of simple certitudes?''"

-Irshad Manji

Quote #2:

"I personally find when there's a confrontation between everything I love -- scientific inquiry, reason, cosmopolitanism, secularism, emancipation of women (and those are the things I love, by the way) -- and everything I hate -- Stone Age fascism, religious bullshit, and so on -- it's a no-brainer. I know exactly which side I'm on, and I knew right away. I felt exhilaration on the 11th of September, and I feel slightly ashamed to say that, in view of the fact that so many people lost their lives that day. But when the day was over, and I had been through the gamut of rage and disgust and nausea and so on -- not fear, I will claim for myself. I'm not afraid of people like that. I'm very angered by them. But there was something I hadn't analyzed when I went into in myself, and I was pleased to find it was exuberance. I thought, "Okay, right. I'll never get bored with fighting against these people." And their defeat will be absolute, it will be complete."

-Christopher Hitchens

I remember that same exuberance Christopher Hitchens refers to after 9/11. In those weeks after the tragedy, there was a vibe going around that we had to change the world to stop this from happening again. That was the exuberance. There was a sudden realization. Irshad Manji got it right; the problem with the Middle East is that their current culture is dominated by fundamentalist thinking that doesn't allow anything in the way of free and open thought. By definition fundamentalist cultures arbitarily set their own moral compass. Thus they can have no independant moral consciousness.

In a free and open society, free expression means that there is always a group of people who believe that the government, or even society in general, is wrong. This keeps the debate open at all times. The effect of this debate is the moral consciousness. We are often told of the value of concensus. The passing of the PATRIOT Act was concensus. A real moral compass emerges from debate.

I have no doubt that right about now some reader will exclaim, "Anthropic you idiot, Bush himself is a fundamentalist!". That's not the point. While I agree that we are not a society free of fundamentalist demons, there are several magnitudes of difference between having a few fundamentalist issues debated in your society and having fundamentalist values thurst upon every crevice of life. Remember, even as you read this there is someone arguing for the legalization of gay marriage or railing against the PATRIOT Act. Whatever failings America may have, the level of public debate today is high. A fundamentalist culture would not even allow such expression to exist.

This lack of expression, this lack of debate, makes fundamentalist-led cultures dangerous to modern societies. Thus, Christopher Hitchen's point up there. Islamic fundamentalists despise everything we stand for. If we want to peacefully co-exist with these people then the long-term solution, for the good of civilization, is to turn the Middle East around by opening up their culture.

At this point in the debate, someone always raises that dictum of political correctness: "We shouldn't be judging other cultures!" And the, I shake my head in disagreement. We should not be in the business of judging other cultures...But, when a culture thick with fundamentalist dogma lashes out as we saw on 9/11, they have judged themselves.

I should stress here that my comments should be read carefully. I am not saying we should destroy the Middle East. I am not saying that we should destroy Islam. I am not saying that the Middle East is inferior to our culture. I am saying that we should not tollerate fundamentalist cultures to lash out at us, and that if the world is ever going to grow more peaceful, we ahve to open up these cultures.

And that is what we are trying to do in Iraq. Iraqis in Baghdad are now going to Internet cafes. The price of goods has radically dropped. The process of opening up their culture has begun. The Iraqis are a strong, industrious people. Given a decade or so, they will thrive, and if we have succeeded, they will created a free, strong culture in the Middle East.

Let us not forget that Western culture was once ruled by fanatical fundamentalists and that there was a time when our cultural progenitors lashed out against more open cultures. That was the Crusades. And yet, today we can look back at the Crusades as insane. We can do that today because Western culture was brought kicking and screaming out of the Dark Ages by the great minds that drove the Rennaisance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. From there, a more secular, a more sucessful, and more intellectual society grew.

It is clear though, that today we can not wait for analogies of those events to happen in the Middle East. In a world where we are all interdependant on each other to sustain our civilization(s), we cannot tolerate cultures that would create 9/11s. That is the reason why invading Iraq was justified. The flood of outside goods and ideas will envigorate Iraq. They can become the catalyst for change in the Middle East. The full impact of intervening in Iraq will take decades to mature.

The problem, of course, is that this line of thought has appeared nowhere in mainstream politcal thought. It would seem that most people view 9/11 as a crisis that has passed. You hear plenty of talk about the economy, you hear plenty of talk about gay marriage, and you hear plenty of talk about "WMD", that incidental dead-end of this whole debate. Where is the talk of 9/11? Perhaps Bush blew it. Perhaps people would rather not revisit the horrors of 9/11 in their minds. What scares me is that 9/11, a recent event that has to rank in the top 10 most important days in the history of America, is not even an issue in this year's presidental campaign. How is it that Vietnam has entered into nearly every discussion of American foreign policy since at least 1968, but 9/11 barely registers these days?

Well, I take that back...At least a few people realize the significance of 9/11. Here's how Christopher Hitchens answered when Tavis Smiley recently asked him if President Bush deserves to be reelected:

"[sighs] Well, it's a tough call for me. I wasn't-I certainly wasn't for his election the first time round. I didn't want Albert Gore, either, and I'm glad it wasn't Gore, by the way. One has to face that fact. I must say I'm a bit of a single issue voter on this. I want to be absolutely certain that there's a national security team that wakes up every morning wondering how to take the war to the enemy. I don't have that confidence about any of the Democratic candidates, but I think that a Kerry-Edwards ticket would be made up of people who have shown that they are serious on this point, yeah. So I'm not dogmatically for the reelection of the President, but I'm for applying that test as a voter."

-Christopher Hitchens

I've got to say that is precisely where I stand as well. I disagree with much of Bush's domestic policy, and the specter of pissing on the Constitution with a ammendment banning gay marriage is abhorant to me. However, post-9/11, the question of "how to take the war to the enemy" is THE issue for me. I will probably not decide who I vote for until I fill out my ballot, but that issue will weigh heavily in my mind when I do.

Cosmos

I recently was engaged in a, shall we say, heated exchange about science and religion with some pretty hardcore religious/anti-science folk. At various points in the argument people accused me of making science my religion...Now, this is something I'd generally disagree with, because science is in no way a dogma, but I admit I do feel what could easily be spiritual feelings toward science. The sheer vastness and complexity of the Universe, and our ability to understand it astounds me. However, what I feel toward science is an deep appreciation that is fundamental to my being, but it is not a need to worship.

Recently, I've been watching Carl Sagan's 1980 science documentary/philosophical journey, Cosmos. If you're old enough, you may have seen this when it was originally broadcast on PBS, or if you're my age you may have seen/slept through it at school. When it comes to forming belief systems, we all have things which influenced us to a considerable extent. Cosmos is certainly among mine. In 13 hour-long hours Sagan walks the viewer through the rational, ordered Universe (thus the title) that has been discovered by science. Furthermore, it presents his vision of a world where the "demons" of hate, fear, and ignorance had been swept away and people truly began to appreciate the world around them and the power of the human mind to understand it. The purpose of the science in Cosmos is to introduce the viewer to what we know already, and the vastness of what we still don't understand.

The point is that what drives scientists forward are the things they don't know. Some religious people are content in believing that everything they need to know is held in some sacred text. Scientists are the polar opposite. They look out into space and crave the mysteries they haven't solved. They look to the future. There is a satisfaction in knowing that their work will take many lifetimes.

Some religious people talk about sacred truths. Scientists will tell you that nothing is sacred, but perhaps some will tell you that there is much wisdom to be infered from science. Here is my version of one of the pieces of wisdom that Sagan presents in Cosmos:

Long, long ago (on the order of perhaps, 10 billion years) a great star began to die. It's supply of hydrogen fuel was nearly spent and it began to collapse...As it collapsed, the pressures in it's center were so intense that the spent fuel (that is, lighter elements like helium and lithium) began another cycle of fusion. Heavier elements such as oxygen and yes, carbon were created. As the pressures became more intense the star grew closer to death. Suddenly, in a bright flash that would be seen by thousands of stars for thousands of years, the star exploded. During the explosion temperatures were high enough to form heavier elements in small amounts, such as gold and even uranium.

The explosion spewed these new heavier elements out into space, where some of them became part of a nebula where new stars were formed. One of those stars was our Sun. As it wandered away from it's birthplace, it took with it a great cloud of gas and dust, ripe with the heavier elements of dead stars. Gravity and angular momentum soon sent this cloud spinning, but rather unevenly. There were some places were chunks of dust grew and formed planets.

On one particular planet, carbon atoms formed very complex organic molecules. Over 4.5 billion years of evolution, those molecules evolved into cells, and eventually into lifeforms that type on Internet message boards.

It doesn't matter what color you are, what country you're from, or what language you speak. The material that composes all of us all came from the same place; a long dead star. We are all bound together by this fact.

Consider this piece of wisdom carefully: We are all made out of starstuff.

Thoughts from the Random Zone...

/me looks at date on last update...*snicker* It's been a fricking long time since I've updated this... But I suddenly realized last night that I have some interesting things to relate.

First, iTunes for Windows is rather cool. As I've said before, I'm not a fan of Apple's pompousness, but this time, they seem to have done something really great, and on Windows no less! Apple, as always, has an interesting way of looking at user interface design. Far too many music jukebox apps ( including my personal favorite, Winamp) are based on the idea that a music jukebox app should look like some type of stereo equipment...While this is at first a nice premise, Apple seems to have taken the position that a music jukebox app should look like a library of sorts, because that's what it is, a library for your music. It's an approach that works, IMO.

Second...GO FALCONS!!! I've already got my tickets for the MAC Championship game on Thursday.

Third, over Thanksgiving Break, I made the severe mistake of picking up my copy of Cliff Stoll's excellent book The Cuckoo's Egg. You see, once I start reading a book like that, I don't stop until I get to the back cover, and thus night rapidly became morning. If you haven't read Cuckoo's Egg, and have any interest in computer networks or computer crime, this is the book four you. While it's written like a fictional work, and certainly flows like one, it's 100% true. Cliff Stoll by the way, is I think the only person I've ever seen hiding behind a chair on C-SPAN. You may remember him from the awesome early-period MSNBC show "The Site" from back in "the day". As I recall, he did one segment from his bathtub, naked, with his laptop (computer) on his lap.

In computer news...

I found an IBM Model M keyboard at Goodwill! This is definitely the Keyboard of the Gods. It makes my current Gateway keyboard feel like a piece of flimsy trash. No stupid "media" buttons, no stupid Windows keys, just 100% pure keyboard. It feels more like some type of huge control console then a keyboard. Unfortunately, I can't use it here in the dorm because it's far too loud...However, I shall display it proudly and take it to LAN parties and other geeky events.

Elsewhere in computer news, I got bored over break and installed OS/2 Warp 3.0 and Windows NT 3.51 on our old Compaq, dual booting via OS/2's very nice Boot Manager.

I put OS/2 on because...Well, I don't know why... It's sort of a joke with me, I've put OS/2 on several machines just for the hell of it, but I can never really find any use for it. It takes one hell of a long time because the copy I have is on several dozen floppies.

NT 3.51 strikes me as very, very cool. I must admit, I love the way the old interface looks (other then the wasteful way programs minmize to the desktop), and with the added graphical goodies of NT (full window drag and dynamic resolution changes), it looks better then ever. Thinking back, the NT 3.x series was probably the first real OS Microsoft ever produced (32-bit pre-emptive multitasking, excellent resource management, protected memory, multiple user support, file security, etc). Thank you David Cutler, et al.

In gaming news, my roommate introduced me to Gunbound, an amazing online game that combines the gameplay of Scorched Earth and Worms with the psudo-manga graphical style of Rangorak Online. Basically by fighting you can improve your character. You earn experience points and gold which is then used to buy cool stuff that improves your stats. Basically you have to see it to understand. I recommend it to everyone!!! My name on Gunbound (not surprisingly) is Anthropic.

0wnage

Wow...It's been almost a month since the last update...Really, there's no reason for the posting delay. Yes, I did go out of town for a week ( Busch Gardens...Wheeeeeeee!) while asshat(s) dragged my good name through the mud on the Internet, but hey, what do I care. Mostly, I'm lazy.

So, what should I talk about today? Internet Asshats? Politics in Liberia? The MSBlaster Worm?...Nah...How about stupid people with hormones.

Every so often, I come across something so sublimely hillarious that I feel I have to share the hillarity with everyone. Today is one such day. Witness the poor plight of one BuddyChrist83, a denzine of the Gaming-Age forums (one of my favorite places to lurk, though I don't post). As a result of a two-thread romp of hillarious 0wnage, BuddyChrist83 has contributed multiple counts to his idiocy inditement.

Count One: Seeking relationship advice on a videogame forum. Now, Gaming-Age is a pretty happening place, full of people with real brain tissue. But relationships are not something you want to ask these people about. Just watch this:

BuddyChrist83:

"So my ex-girlfriend (Leah) IMs me earlier. For anyone that remembers anything, I was pretty much happy for it to be over, as it was just too much of a hassle. She's all 'my life is empty without you', and 'my parents, who hated you when we broke up, love you now because they see that I really care about you' and all that wonderful alluring stuff. So I'm going over tonight....to tell her no, I'm gone, forever. This is going to be one of the hardest things to do because I'm not a dick and I do care about her well-being, not to mention the fact that I've already had a crap day at work."

Having grown up on bad sitcoms, the denziens of GA urge Mr. Christ83 to seek "breakup sex". Now, in and of itself, this is not a bad thing. However, recall that said Mr. Christ83 is in fact, an idiot.

Count Two: Recall that sex-ed class serves a very important purpose. That purpose was not making pre-teens laugh. BuddyChrist83 continues...

BuddyChrist83:

"Well...I'm alive, and to answer everyone's burning questions

1) Yes, we had sex. In my backseat, no less, and yes, I was extremely stupid and did not use protection."

Now, we all know exactly where this is going. Fans of Law and Order will no doubt want a damning-gavel sound right here...So here you go.

And so begins Buddy's plight...Immediately, the moderator steps in and changes Mr. Chirst83's tag...It now reads:

"OH SH*T SHE'S PREGNANT"

For the next four pages, nearly everyone else weighs in on this in a similar fashion.

Count Three: Having spilled all of this onto the Internet, how could BuddyChrist83 increase his stupidity further?...Posting pictures of himself and the female in question will do nicely...This leads the expectant crowd (hah) to do a little photoshopping:

Count Four: Remember Count One?...Buddy goes for multiple counts of that offense by posting yet another thread a few days later. Yes ladies and gentlemen, you all saw this coming. Out self-protagonist continues:

BuddyChrist83:

"well, she had her period, but it was lighter and shorter than normal, not to meniton completely cramp free which has only happened 3 times in the past 5 years. in other words, there's still a good chance she's pregnant, especially considering when we had sex (about 5-7 days before she was supposed to 'start'). needless to say, i'm freaking out right now, i'm going to do some type of pregnancy test over the next week, but i don't know what's reliable, i don't know where to get a blood test or how much it'll cost, and i need to keep this all secret from my family ( including my dad, who is also my boss) and her family. this comes, ironically, after i told her i just wanted to be friends and i didn't want to date her anymore. i need to know if she is so I can drop out of college before the next semester starts. fuck."

Now the crowd, realizing Mr. Christ83's serious intelligence deficiencies, becomes sympathetic. Alas, it is too late (hah), the APB for this suspect is already out.

As of right now, this case is still wide open...Though, I'm sure BuddyChrist83 will in due (hah) time make another post for all of us in the waiting room (hah).

The Great Gaming Divide

Yes ladies and gentlemen, today I want to talk about videogames...I guess the nature of life, the universe, and everything can wait a day or so (hehehe)...

Have you ever noticed the, shall we say, tension between PC gamers and console gamers? At times it's almost like two rival gangs. On the one hand, PC gamers rib console gamers for tollerating 640x480 screens and playing FPSs with no mouse. They lambast the lack of strategy games and chuckle at the thought of "multiplayer" meaning four people in front of one TV. On the other hand, console gamers have this general distaste for PC gaming. They complain about the price of a decent PC rig and sneer at the lack of console style RPGs. Then they mutter something about how FPSs and startegy games are the only well maintained PC genres.

What strikes me here is that these are perceptions generated entirely by the gaming populace, and not corporate hype machines. Think about it...Console giants such as EA, Codemasters, Rockstar, Konami, and THQ have all seen fit to release PC versions of prominent console games. Even Square, Sega, and Sony-era Psygnosis supported PC from time to time. Conversely, PC-centric companies such as ID, Epic, DICE, Bethesda, and others have brought famous PC games to consoles. It's definately not in these companies interests to bash either side.

There is, of course, the perception that PC gaming is somehow very seperate from console gaming. When Rockstar signed a single platform exclusivity agreement with Sony for Grand Theft Auto, nothing prevented PC versions of GTA3 and VC. Back when the only way to play Sega games was supposed to be a Sega console, PC version of Sega classics from Outrun to Sega Rally 2 were made.

And yet, though there may be divide in software, there has never been a divide between PC hardware (in the sense of all personal computers and not the Wintel sense) and console hardware. The NES and SNES shared CPUs with models on the Apple II line (6502 and 65c816 respectively). The Sega Master System and Gameboy were both powered by a Z80, an infamous and widely used copy of the Intel 8080. The Genesis and Sega CD shared CPUs with the early Macintosh line (the 68000). N64, Playstation, and Playstation 2 both drew upon technology from SGI's workstation lines (MIPS cores). Dreamcast is well known for having a PC graphics chip at it's heart, but the SH series of CPUs had also been used in handheld PCs running WindowsCE. Gamecube, of course uses a video chip from ATI and a modified version of the G3 chip that powered Macintosh a few years back. From a hardware perspective, XBox is only unique because it uses an official Intel CPU. In a very real sense, at the most basic levels, console and PC gaming are just branches on one big videogaming tree.

However, as many have come to find out, facts are quickly lost on the gaming masses. Nearly every message board has some misguided soul who will complain that the XBox is too much like a PC, or that he hates PC gaming in general. Really, I think it's time for gamers of all creeds to just get over it and become one big gaming continuum.

On the Uranium Question

Woah, it's been awhile since I updated...That's not good...As I said when I started this blog, I don't want to just be talking about what I do all day; that's just boring. So, the challenge for me is to come up with interesting things to talk about here, and after a week, I think I have a few.

Now, on to today's topic...The issue of the President's african uranium statement from January's State of the Union address. Quite frankly, I think this is a non issue. That may sound like I'm simply brushing the issue off, but I don't think it was ever an issue to begin with...Did that make any sense?

Allow me to explain. First, as I recall, the Administration never used nuclear weapons as a reason to go into Iraq. Even before the war it was pretty clear that Iraq was not actively persuing nuclear weapons. That was just plain common knowledge. Recall that Colin Powell demonstrated simulated chemical weapons at the UN Security Council, not simultated nuclear material. What is being said now about the african uranium line implies that uranium was really an issue for Iraq. No, it was more like the little sprinkles on top of a large, multilayered cake.

Second, it's clear that the fact that the sixteen words that are in question got into the Address because several groups with the Executive branch screwed up. What's not clear is why they screwed up. Did they screw up because they honestly believed the bad intelligence? Did they screw up because they needed more evidence and were grasping at straws? My problem with this issue being raised in the way it has, as some sort of backhanded credibility issue, is that we have nothing that speaks to motive (I have in fact been watching too much Law and Order). It's pretty clear that those that are opposed to the President, i.e. the people who are raising this issue, are trying to imply that in making the incorrect statement about african uranium, the President lied...And that's just a bunch of BS (or just plain bull, heh). For the President to lie, the President would have to know that the statement he was about to speak was blatently untrue (as was clearly the case with Clinton). We have no evidence that is the case.

Third, the timing of how this issue is hitting the front pages bothers me. I distinctly remember hearing/seeing news reports that the documents used to support the President's statement on african uranium were not believable as far back as late April or early May. Now it's July and this is suddenly a Presidential issue. It just gives me the impression that someone opposed to the President sort of slipped this into the media...Is that how we want our news media to work?

Stuff that Really Matters

I found this "Ask Slashdot" question to be extremely disturbing: "In all seriousness, I need a RAID that supports at least level 3 and stores > 500 GB, and I need to it work in zero-G (but not in a vacuum)". Yes ladies and gentlement, this man is actually asking a question about space equipment on Slashdot. I mean, the only places that I can think of that are in zero-G but not in a vacuum are the interior of the space shuttle and the International Space Station. The person who is asking the question works for Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Apparently, they send all kinds of things into space, including hard drives...

In a coincidence worthy of a Police album, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is also working on a "New Fuel for Hypersonic Ramjet". They say that, "Striking time-critical, heavily defended, or deeply buried targets while protecting our forces is an important role for future hypersonic weapons." These guys must read the Guardian.

In other news, the launch of NASA's "Opportunity" Mars Exploration Rover has been delayed until July 6th...Which is very cool since I have plans Saturday night. I watched the launch of sister-rover "Spirit" and it was extremely neat to watch.

The Coming Living Room Superstorm

There has been some talk lately that Microsoft's XBox console is faltering. The "gloom and doom" crowd, spured on by a recent John C. Dvorak piece in PC Magazine entitled The XBox Quagmire, claims that XBox, having too few exclusive "AAA" games, is bound for failure in a PlayStation 2 dominated world.

In my opinion, these people are missing the point. This is about much, much more then games. Microsoft is taking the long view here...They intend XBox to be the first part of a long term strategy to compete with Sony for the blossuming digital home entertainment market. In essence, these are first drops of rain in a looming battle of corporate giants to create the equipment that will power the HDTV-centered living room of tomorrow.

For example, Microsoft is trying to push Windows Media technology as the software side for a hi-definition DVD replacement. Check out the demos here. Just look at the new T2 DVD release. It comes with a WM9-encoded version of the movie to be viewed on PCs that's higher resolution then the DVD. With resolutions like that, there's no doubt in my mind that Microsoft is serious about the next DVD standard being Windows Media based. Think of the T2 HD disc as a sort of prototype of the next generation in home video. Sony, of course will undoubtedly have their own codec to counter Microsoft. And why not? Whoever controls that codec will be receiving lisencing fees from each HD-DVD player slod, even if that player is a competing company's videogame console.

This is bigger then just DVD. With PSX (Sony's new Tivo-like PlayStation 2 model), Sony is trying to create a centralized digital home entertainment machine. This is an attempt by Sony to undercut Microsoft's Windows Media Center initative.Microsoft thinks Sony wants to leverage their Playstation empire to start to compete against Microsoft in the home entertainment world.

While most people see very definite borders between PC's, consoles, Tivos, and DVD players, Microsoft and Sony see this as all one big market. The same technology drives all four markets. A Tivo is just a PowerPC running Linux. A PS2 is not just a game console, it's a MIPS based Linux platform as well. Microsoft understands that in the home market their Windows monopoly on PC is dependant on people needing Wintel PCs for everyday tasks. They fear Sony wants to "come in the back door" so to speak by creating products that people use instead of their Wintel-based PC. So, to compete, Microsoft competes with Sony on a one-to-one basis, with a Wintel-based console, which could easily become a Wintel based home-entertainment center.

Therefore, I'm saying that Microsoft is willing to fund XBox until Sony gives up their home entertainment ambitions. XBox is the moat that lies between the Sony hoards and Microsoft's Windows monopoly. As a result, it doesn't matter how good or bad XBox does at this point. It's a hedge for the future.

Much Ado About Nothing

The way the media, especially the British media covers the U.S. Military is very odd. Today The Guardian reports:

"The Pentagon is planning a new generation of weapons, including huge hypersonic drones and bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US to strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own territory."

Now, I would have to say that's a pretty important story. Some people have even commented on how unusual it is that the mainstream U.S. press isn't covering this.

The answer is that this is old news. The very public, 1996 "Air Force 2025" study contains this statement about the one of the types of weapons the Air Force wants by 2025:

"Hypersonic Attack Aircraft A high-speed strike vehicle capable of projecting lethal force anywhere in the world in less than four hours. Operating at Mach 12 and a cruise altitude of 100,000 ft, this vehicle is a reusable two-stage system comprised of an unmanned boost vehicle and a manned hypersonic strike aircraft. The gas turbine-engined boost vehicle requires a conventional runway and accelerates the strike vehicle to Mach 3.5 and 65,000 ft. The strike vehicle then separates and uses a ramjet/scramjet engine to reach its cruise condition. The total system range is 10,000 nautical miles (NM); the hypersonic strike vehicle has an unrefueled range of 5,000 NM. It is capable of launching precision-guided munitions, including the hypersonic air-to-ground missile described in system 5.4, at a standoff distance of 1,450 NM. Alternatively, the platform may be used to transport an uninhabited unmanned air vehicle described in system 4.2."

In other words, this is simply not news. Similarly, a 2001 Global Security.org article describes the military's HyperSoar project...

"HyperSoar could fly at approximately 6,700 mph (Mach 10), while carrying roughly twice the payload of subsonic aircraft of the same takeoff weight. As a military aircraft, a HyperSoar bomber the size of an F-22 could take off from the U.S. and deliver its payload from an altitude and at a speed that would defy all current defensive measures. It could then return directly to the continental U.S. without refueling and without the need to land at forward bases on foreign soil."...

Gee, sound familiar? This is old news.

In fact, this idea is really, really not new. The Nazis dreamed up the A9, a giant manned version of the V-2 which could strike at America that is similar to the "HCV" concept the Guardian speaks of. Hypersonic bombers have long been a dream of aircraft designers, a fact that these media reports ignore.

In any event, the HCV, aka FALCON, aka HyperSoar is a good idea. Unlike ICBMs, this weapon could be considered a precision weapon. Current ICBMs are so inaccurate that they need to use nuclear weapons as warheads. With a nuke, there are no near-misses. What this new concept envisions is something with the precision bombing capability of a B-2 (recall the "decapitation strike" on the first night of the Iraq War) combined with most of the speed and range of an ICBM. As of right now, ICBMs are only options for madmen. With a hypersonic strike capability, we get all of their advantages with none of their disadvantages.

Even more interesting is the notion that at hypersonic speeds, one no longer needs bombs. A precision guided rod of titanium traveling at Mach 10 would be just as effective as most bomb, without the danger of unexploded bomb fragments...And all of this, at two hours notice.

The Right Takes a Wrong Turn

I was watching a discussion on CNN's NewsNight about the political views of Ben Franklin, the founding father...In particular, the biographer spoke of Franklin's dislike of partisanship, and his belief in compromise. Aaron Brown asked, "Would he have been a Republican or Democrat?", and the answer was "he would have been a centrist". That sounds so foreign in a political discussion, doesn't it? We're so focused on "Left or Right", "Liberal or Conservative", that it almost seems like we've forgotten the vast expanse in between. Sadly, our politics has become so partisan and the center seems so barren.

I get into a lot of politcal arguements, and someone usually accuses me of being on one side or another. I am not on the Left or Right. I'm a Centrist by reason. For example, I take issue with much of the Liberal agenda, such as Affirmative Action, expanding Welfare, and to great an emphesis on environmentalism. I am vocal in my disgust for Marxism, which in my opinion seems all too often to drip into the agenda of the Left.

For that reason, I'm often accused of being a Conservative. But I'm not. How could I associate myself with a movement that could produce this?:

"WASHINGTON - The Senate majority leader said Sunday he supported a proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage in the United States."

That's just plain sick. Two things strike me here the most. First, as a heterosexual male who is free to marry at any time, it deeply saddens me that in this nation built on freedom, where we are supposed to be guaranteed “pursuit of Happiness” that homosexuals are not given the same right. Is not marriage one of our greatest institutions of happiness? Conservatives paint homosexual marriage as a moral issue. No, it is plainly a civil rights issue. Frist wants to alienate a minority in this nation through constitutional amendment. If that minority was black, Asian, Jewish, or anything other then homosexual, there would be riots in the streets.

Secondly, how could Bill Frist, one of our nation's top legislators, even think of trying to legislate morality through constituional amendment? Didn't his predeccessors early in the 20th Century learn how poor a choice that was with the 18th Amendment? That "noble experiment" failed.