More template problems… Grrr… Tried resizing the images – bzzzt. Wrong answer. Oh well; I’ll address as time allows.
Posted by protected static as blogspot, random at 10:45 PM UTC
August 27th, 2005
bollocks
The Brothers Grimm
We went and saw Terry Gilliam’s latest last night – I posted a mini-review here.
Short version: <homersimpson text=”Mmmmm… Gilliam…”/>
Posted by protected static as cultcha at 9:45 AM UTC
August 25th, 2005
I love a free press
Too bad we don’t actually have one… TIME sat on a major story so as to not affect the 2004 elections.
WTF? Now it’s their job to not unduly influence things with, uh, the truth?
Posted by protected static as politics at 8:15 PM UTC
We get letters
Actually, just one of the strangest pieces of spam I’ve ever gotten… Hare Krishna spam:
Received: from {deleted}
by {deleted}
id ; Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:26:31 +0000
X-Originating-IP: {deleted}
Received: (qmail 30401 invoked by uid 89); 25 Aug 2005 20:29:07 -0000
Delivered-To: {my protectedstatic.com email address}
Received: (qmail 30390 invoked by uid 0); 25 Aug 2005 20:29:05 -0000
Received: from unknown {some UUNET open relay in the UK}
by 10.0.35.1 with SMTP; 25 Aug 2005 20:29:05 -0000
-----Original Message-----
From: Neateye [mailto:nitaigouranga@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 1:26 PM
To: Me
Subject: Gouranga
Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!
It certainly left me scratching my head… Thank goodness for Google, eh?
Posted by protected static as geek at 1:44 PM UTC
Be a witness
Because genocide is news.
[thanks for the reminder, Ann (posting at Sivacracy)]
Posted by protected static as politics at 10:56 AM UTC
Some positive news from Iraq
…however small (and perhaps fleeting): the marshes of the Mesopotamian valley are recovering.
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 4:13 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2005
TOKYO – A decade after Saddam Hussein had them drained to punish their occupants, the marshlands of southern Iraq, said to be the inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, are recovering at a “phenomenal rate” since Saddam’s fall, the United Nations said Wednesday.
New satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water and vegetation cover in just the past three years, with the marshes rebounding to about 37 percent of the area they covered in 1970, up from about 10 percent in 2002, the United Nations Environment Program said in a report describing a multimillion dollar restoration project funded by Japan.
Cool. And definitely better than the ‘progress’ on the Iraqi Constitution…
August 24th, 2005
“Testing Darwin”
In light of the recent controversy over the non-controversy that is evolution, I found the above-linked article quite interesting – digital life, a software package named ‘Avida’, evolving in ways that Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates say can’t happen:
The researchers set up an experiment to document how one particularly complex operation evolved. The operation, known as equals, consists of comparing pairs of binary numbers, bit by bit, and recording whether each pair of digits is the same. It’s a standard operation found in software, but it’s not a simple one. The shortest equals program Ofria could write is 19 lines long. The chances that random mutations alone could produce it are about one in a thousand trillion trillion.
To test Darwin’s idea that complex systems evolve from simpler precursors, the Avida team set up rewards for simpler operations and bigger rewards for more complex ones. The researchers set up an experiment in which organisms replicate for 16,000 generations. They then repeated the experiment 50 times.
Avida beat the odds. In 23 of the 50 trials, evolution produced organisms that could carry out the equals operation. And when the researchers took away rewards for simpler operations, the organisms never evolved an equals program. “When we looked at the 23 tests, they were all done in completely different ways,” adds Ofria. He was reminded of how Darwin pointed out that many evolutionary paths can produce the same complex organ. A fly and an octopus can both produce an image with their eyes, but their eyes are dramatically different from ours. “Darwin was right on that-there are many different ways of evolving the same function,” says Ofria.
Funny – you can create an irreducibly complex structure randomly: by rewarding greater levels of complexity. If this added complexity confers some advantage to the organism, it will be rewarded. You don’t need a designer to get an eye.
Remember this the next time you hear someone say that evolution can’t be tested in the lab…
[stumbled on this indirectly from MSNBC's "Cosmic Log" column]
Posted by protected static as geek at 9:35 PM UTC
Holy. Crap.
Things get scarier and scarier:
American Legion Declares War on Protestors — Media Next?
By E&P Staff
Published: August 24, 2005 4:20 PM ET
NEW YORK The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group’s national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, constitutional protections be damned.
[...]
The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to “ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism.”
Don’t these assholes remember their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution? Go read the whole thing – it documents a pretty scary call for censorship by vigilante. I’m afraid that while vets like this one are not alone, the leadership of reactionary groups like the American Legion and VFW are doing everything they can to pretend that there are no Democrats, no Liberals, no dissenters in their ranks. (Or that they speak for all vets – now is a good time to remember that they do not.)
[hat tip to Atrios]
Posted by protected static as politics at 8:56 PM UTC
Feds pull funding for abstinence-education group
Associated Press – Updated: 10:10 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2005
PITTSBURGH – The federal government has cut off funding to a nationwide program that promotes abstinence to teens through skits and music videos, saying the group in charge of the campaign did not adequately separate religion from its message.The Silver Ring Thing program, related to a Christian ministry based in the Pittsburgh suburbs, puts on shows at churches nationwide that include “Saturday Night Live”-style skits, music videos and a message of abstinence. Young people are given a silver ring and decide whether they want to pledge to abstain from sex.
Now if only they’d defund these jokers because their programs don’t seem to work… Oh wait, that’d be a rational thing to do…
Posted by protected static as politics at 7:37 AM UTC
August 23rd, 2005
Interesting lessons from our past
Lessons in community and biodiversity, provided by a group of 5 archeologists and historians running a 17th century farm in Wales for an entire year using nothing but period equipment. No, this isn’t a remake of “Frontier House” or what have you – no soap operas dressed in period cloting here. The folks doing this were all well-versed in the period prior to participating in the project – but only from an academic perspective. This was intended to provide them with some valuable hands-on insights into the reality of their chosen era of study. A sampling:
1. Know thy neighbours. Today it’s possible to live alone, without knowing anyone within a 20-mile radius (the same goes for townies). That was simply not possible in the past – not only did the neighbours provide social contact, people shared labour, specialist skills and produce.
or
9. Reliance on any one thing leaves you vulnerable. Hence the country ground to a halt during the petrol blockades of 2000, and a shortage of coal during 1978-9’s Winter of Discontent caused electricity shortages. On the 1620s farm, when oxen used to plough fields fell ill, the implements were reshaped and horses did the job instead.
While I do have some rural/early-tech skills, I know I sure as hell couldn’t live like this – but this may be a glimpse of shades of our future as well, if Peak Oil comes to pass.
The producer’s site can be found here.
Posted by protected static as geek at 8:03 PM UTC
August 21st, 2005
We survived! We survived!
The in-laws just left; they fly back to Sacramento first thing tomorrow… It was a good trip, but I’ll be glad to have our routine back.
Oh, and I just noticed Blogger’s new ‘word verification’ to cut down on comment spam – that just got turned on, tout suite. I’m still allowing anonymous comments for now, though.
[update: mumble, mumble... Now they're on... Thanks, Rusty ;) ]
Posted by protected static as random at 8:57 PM UTC
August 20th, 2005
News Flash! Bush Lies!
President explicitly links 9/11 and Iraq!
“In a few weeks, our country will mark the four-year anniversary of the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. On that day, we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors no longer protect us from those who wish to harm our people,” Bush said [in his weekly radio address]. “And since that day, we have taken the fight to the enemy,” he said.
Yet again, more evidence that the mendacity of this administration knows no bounds. If we were taking the fight to the enemy, we’d have Bin Laden’s head on a stick now. Instead, here it is four years later and we’re pouring blood and money down the rathole that Iraq is becoming, and we’re trickling away blood and money in the rathole Afghanistan is becoming.
In other news, water is still wet.
Posted by protected static as politics at 9:57 AM UTC
August 19th, 2005
Fart rockets!
I shit you not! (as it were…)
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to toy gas-fired missiles, and more particularly to a toy gas-fired missile and launcher assembly in which the explosive mixture for propelling the missile is derived from colonic gas discharged by the operator of the toy.
What else is there to add? Dave Barry’s line, perhaps? A Beavis & Butthead reference?
[hat tip to the BBC's The Magazine Monitor column, 'Things we didn't know this time last week']
Help impede Roberts’ progress
Thanks for the heads-up, Jane!
On Monday the DNC will file a Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to John Roberts’ work as a political appointee under the first Bush administration that the White House has so far refused to turn over to the Senators who have asked for them. The request will come from Howard Dean and anyone who wishes to put their name to it. You can read the formal request and add your name here:
I don’t know if it’ll help, but it can’t hurt…
Posted by protected static as politics at 9:40 AM UTC
August 18th, 2005
30-second science blogging – “Strange fossil defies grouping”
A strange 525 million-year-old fossil creature is baffling scientists because it does not fit neatly into any existing animal groups.
How cool is that? Unfortunately, I fear that this very legitimate process of scientific debate will be siezed upon by those people seeking to create a very different debate where none exists. It is also unfortunate that those people will be able to exploit the American public’s general ignorance about the scientific process, and will be able to engender confusion and doubt where none should exist.
Posted by protected static as 30-second science blogging, geek at 4:03 PM UTC