Mysteries of the universe

Steven Den Beste discusses the universe and women here, and like everyone else, finds the universe more explicable.

Others have commented on various things about the post, but what I'd like to point out is that just as a rubber love doll is no substitute for a live woman (so I'm told, and I'm inclined to believe it), a theory is no substitute for reality. SDB notes that equations for relativity have singularities when the relative velocities of entities approach the value of the speed of light. What many often misunderstand is that the singularities are a property of the equation, not the universe itself - the universe does what it will, and we won't know what really happens at these singularities without experimentation.

You'll find similar singularities in equations that apply to fluid flow at high speeds - they have singularities at the speed of sound. Does that mean we can't achieve the speed of sound? - of course not, and we've known that for a long time.

Such singularities are not the only problem with using logic and mathematics in deriving scientific theories. Their value lies in the way they limit the number of possible theories that we will test - we reject out of hand the testing of theories which are not based on logic. The downside is that this is making the questionable assumption that the universe honors our rules of logic. Why should we believe that the universe "makes sense"?

Once we learn to let go of this useful but restrictive assumption, then maybe we'll have taken the first step toward understanding women.

The atheist faith

Steven Den Beste takes it on here and notes that atheists (and he includes himself) cannot back their beliefs scientifically.

Affirmative reaction

Glenn Reynolds didn't mention Susanna here, so I will.

Footprints?

I understand that it's prudent not to erect statues honoring living men. I have the opposite problem - it seems like all traces of me are being wiped out before they get around to planting me.

Did I say I have a home town? Right. In the last year they've demolished the hospital where I was born and the house I grew up in. Another house I lived in with my parents in another town has burned to the ground. Of what is still standing I don't know of any neighbors who are still around. I'm not that old, dammit.

I passed through the alma mater this past week coming and going. While I was there I lived in the two scuzziest dorms they had. Both have been demolished. The campus hangouts I frequented are all gone but one (no more MJ Pippin's Stuffed Pizzas!), but that's probably only because the campus hasn't crossed the interstate there yet.

Now let's check out the resume. About half of the employers are defunct, bankrupt or have been acquired, and often the very buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt. Of the organizations that are ongoing, the sites where I worked have often been closed since I worked there. Hmm - maybe I shouldn't mention any of this at my next interview...

Maybe this is normal, and I've just noticed too much of it too recently. But it has made an impression.

On the road again...

Tomorrow I report for a new gig away from St. Louis. It's in a town I've lived in before, and the work ought to be very similar to what I was doing here in St. Louis, so it won't be too disruptive. (And what the heck - although I've been here for 2+ years now, St. Louis isn't my home town anyway).

But it will mean that blogging will be light for a while. Maybe even only on weekends unless I can rejuvenate my junky old 133MHz laptop. And even then I'll need to be doing a lot of packing and transporting, because my lease in StL goes for a while yet, I'm doing everything singlehanded, and I want to get things organized for once after 7 job related relocations in 5 years.

Knowing me, I'll think of several things to blog after I write this. It beats moving.

Blogbash recap

TNGs still stands in Kirkwood despite our best efforts at Friday's Blogbash. Then again we were missing Matt and Vicki and Charles Austin. And JD left a bit early, perhaps having solved the mystery of how to make a move on a group of nine women.

We also had the tanned and toned Blogger Formerly Known as Juan Gato, Chris Johnson, Anne Wilson and hubby, and Kevin Murphy. The young, blonde and buxom Sara was also there, uterus and all, escorted by Sean. Add alcohol and a barmaid who is heading for Washington to be an intern and what more could you ask for?

M & V apparently couldn't see fit to make a ~700 mile round trip in lousy weather - sheesh, whatta buncha wimps! And Austin wants us to believe he's been working long hours away from home, even going to the trouble of blogging less lately.

And where were YOU?

Green vs. black

Chris Johnson notes this in which the Congress of Racial Equality has accused Greenpeace of "eco-manslaughter".

Although I'll enjoy watching this, I don't think Greenpeace is racist. IMO they despise all humans equally.

The good news is, you're not drunk...

I don't have much to fear from a drunkometer test - I probably get more alcohol from mouthwash than anywhere else. But those who do have tried and recommended many things to avoid detection of their condition. One in particular swore by hyperventilation.

Some years back I thought there was a bestseller about an English or Canadian country physician. In it I recall he learned that having a sour or rotten apple smell on the breath was a sign of appendicitis. Hmm - how far can you go with this?

Max Jacobs of Common Sense and Wonder notes a new electronic nose of sorts, along with applications. Some can be used in food processing to detect subtle off-odors consistently. But the ones under development are to be used for health diagnostics such as for lung cancer:

Scientists tested the e-nose on 60 people at the Forlanini Hospital in Rome, including 35 waiting for an operation to remove a large lung tumour. Each test took just over a minute and the nose successfully pinpointed every cancer patient, according to New Scientist.

I wonder if they'll be able to detect drug abuse by this means. Anyway, the implications are fascinating, and I'm sure civil libertarians will have a lot to say about this before it's over.

Afterthought: what's next, flatulence? Sweat? Handkerchiefs?

Last Call for Blogbash

At TNGs in Kirkwood tonight, as shown here. See ya!

Heading back...

I made it to my destination and I've done nothing but loafing and sponging for a few days now. But duty calls, so I will start back to St. Louis bright and early tomorrow AM. Then it's time to decompress, have a Blogbash, organize, pack, and make tracks to the next work assignment a few hours away from St. Louis on Monday.

Enquiring minds want to know...

Still alive...

I'm on the road, posting this from a coffee shop at my alma mater. I haven't been on campus in 20 years and I barely recognize the place. Anyway, things will be slow around here for the next several days while I'm on the road visiting some relatives and friends, so check out the links on the sidebars. Or even the archives.

Sex and the Single Senior

From the NY Times, via The Corner.

Yes, The Corner.

Most dangerous intersections in the US

This list is national. Toward the bottom you can request a list by state.

Blogbash, at last

Yes, I've been dragging butt about announcing the latest Midwest Blogbash in St. Louis. But now it's settled - May 9, at 7:00 to whenever, at TNGs in Kirkwood. Yes, it's the same place as last time, so it's convenient for Austin and Gato to call Australia and JD can have another shot at the barmaids.

For you slackers who didn't show the last time, it's here, and here is some info.

Yes, it's short notice, but there's a good reason - it'll be my last Friday night in St. Louis. See you there.

Culinary catchall

Where I grew up in small-town central IL, the food was pretty basic and conservative. Meat and potatoes, yes sir, with corn or green beans on the side. Maybe a salad once in a while, or lima beans or brussels sprouts. But that was about it - even onions were exceptional, and breakfast sausage was about the spiciest thing we ate. Pizza showed up in town in the mid-60's, but even it was bland. All other Italian food was Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. And but for a restaurant that served chop suey once a week, Chinese and Mexican food came in cans.

The potatoes were boiled, mashed, baked, or maybe even scalloped or au gratin. Occasionally they might assume the form of French fries. But these were usually frozen, and were eaten with ketchup.

Later I heard that some people eat their french fries with mayonnaise. Ugh. I suppose it's not so much different from potato salad, but it's the thought - this just isn't done. (Then again I thought it would be disgusting to get sauerkraut on a pizza but it actually wasn't too bad - you'll find this near the Mississippi River around the Quad Cities and points north.)

It gets worse. I've never had poutine, and until I stumbled across it on Colby Cosh (yeah, just try to link to a post there) I hadn't heard of it. No doubt purists will scream at this description, but near as I can tell it's french fries covered with gravy and curd cheese. We have Quebec to thank for this, but now the virus is spreading via McDonalds and others to points west and south.

Then there's this concoction found around US 66/I-55 in downstate IL and St. Louis called the horseshoe sandwich. It's kinda what you'd get if you ordered a hot beef sandwich, but swapped the mashed potatoes for french fries and the gravy for cheese sauce. It doesn't have to be roast beef though - as interpreted by the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield, IL (salute!), you can have it with turkey breast, ham, bacon and tomato or hamburger. (Maybe somewhere you can order a horseshoe sandwich with poutine on the side and a deep-fried Twinkie for dessert. Throw in an extra-large milkshake and you might as well call the coroner.)

Food doesn't have to be good to be good. If you ever go to Atlanta, check out the Varsity and you'll see what I mean. You can't miss the place, just off I-75/85 at the North Avenue exit, just east of that bulwark of civilization known as Georgia Tech. I'll probably be passing through there shortly, and I'll stop for chili dogs, the world's greasiest fries and an FO. The stuff must be brain food, because generations of engineers and scientists have lived off it.

Enough - it's time to eat.

Just in time for graduation

The Internet Toilet Roll Browser

Another constitutional amendment?

Anne Wilson proposes one here to prevent abuse of our citizenship rules. Hmm.

Santorum - you know what I'm talking about

It seems that most of the objections to Rick Santorum's recent statement take the form of "Republicans are equating homosexuality and incest" or "Don't the Republicans know when to keep their powder dry?"

Good grief, doesn't the fact that some want Santorum to step down from various party positions based on a contrived partisan misrepresentation of his remarks tell you what this is really about? If you don't like the guy, fine. But if he's as bad as some of us would have you believe, surely he's done worse than this or will. And there's still a long time before the next big elections - can't you build a better case than this?

In a welcome breath of common sense, John Leo lays out everything here.

It must be a rhetorical question

From here:

One "top Egyptian editor" told the Wall Street Journal back in 1991 about a conversation he had with Saddam. "I remember his saying, 'Compared to tanks, journalists are cheap--and you get more for your money.'"

Glenn Reynolds pointed to the item that contains the above, and later asks "Is it ethical not to expose these people, if we find out who they are?"

Time for an Iraqi Marshall Plan?

The ends of wars are always messy. George W. Bush's partisan enemies would like to present the current conditions in Iraq as a failure of his policies.

I'm sure that analysis after the fact will reveal some areas for improvement. But by historic standards, which are the only reasonable standards, we expect some chaos after a war like that in Iraq. For examples, Glenn Reynolds excerpts this right here.

Auto-blogrolling

Going through my referrals, I decided to follow one of them to see where it hit me. Ah, right here on this page. If you haven't been reading this blog for very long, well, just look at what you've been missing!

The Perfect Man

Long have we humans sought the perfect mate. For centuries men have poured their hearts out into poetry like the following:

"I've finally found the perfect girl, I could not ask for more,
She's deaf and dumb and oversexed and owns a liquor store."

Women tend to value other criteria more highly. Ravenwood knows these things. Lacking the stamina to service all women (I presume), he offers us the Perfect Man.

Other women, notably bulimics, may find this more appealing.

Bill Clinton, neocon

From Blaster.

Where's the hate?

I've done a little frog-bashing here, but apparently I haven't done it right - I'm just not getting the hate mail I deserve. But Beaker did, and he has some fun with it here.

But frog-bashing is so anonymous - if you want to get personal, he offers www.famousidiot.com with its celebrity quotes. It includes this from Jennifer Aniston:

( 9/1/2001 ) Aniston mentions how musicians in the Eighties had something to be pissed off about, with Reagan in the White House. I ask her what she thinks of Bush. She vents about him in detail, eloquently, but off the record. She says she doesn't want to come off like another actor blathering about politics. On the record, she'll only say, "Bush is a fucking idiot," and flip him a double-bird, and that Jenna Bush - the Bush daughter whose underage drinking has proved embarrassing for the administration - had a summer internship at Brillstein-Grey, the management firm where she and Pitt are represented. "We'd pass her in the hall," Aniston says, "and Brad would say, 'Heyyyy, Jenna, wanna beer? I got one in the truck!'"

Charming.

But I love that dirty water...

John Hudock of Common Sense and Wonder points to this ecological problem that caused a massive clam die-off.

AIDS - the conservative, Southern connection...

Drudge points to this article in the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation in which we learn the connection between conservatism and AIDS:

The South is more greatly plagued by AIDS and HIV infections because of racial and economic differences and a conservative cultural attitude that interferes with attempts to halt the disease, the report said.

Right. A disease that's spread primarily by needle drugs and anal sex is to be blamed on "conservative attitudes". Have Southerners been encouraging this behavior?

And there's this:

More than half of the people with AIDS in the South are African-American, though only 20 percent of the region's population is Black. African-American men are less likely to acknowledge that they are in a high-risk group for AIDS and are less likely to volunteer for HIV testing, researchers say.

Yep, and African-Americans typically vote conservative as a bloc, right?

And this:

In addition, it said AIDS/HIV rates closely parallel the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis and gonorrhea.

Yep, that accounts for the heterosexual cases that don't involve needles, transfusions or anal sex - the other STDs cause lesions in the genitals which permit AIDS to do its dirty work. OK, then how do you get STDs? By sleeping around. This isn't unheard of among conservatives, but at least they take the trouble to be hypocritical about it.

C'mon, AJC, don't try to sound like the NYT. They'll never respect you because you're from the South.

Hold still, Bessie

You've heard of the old anti-hunting bumper stickers that said "support your right to arm bears"? Well, this guy arms cows.

Courtesy of Last Page - if I were a cow, she could arm me anytime.

More dirty tricks from the Naderites

Courtesy of esteemed lawyer, veteran, and Caption Contest judge Dodd Harris.

Guns don't kill people, gun control does

East St. Louis is well known as a social hellhole. A few years ago things were so bad that someone who had been abused by the police sued the town, won, and wound up with the deed to City Hall.

Maybe we'll see this again in Washington, DC. Shelly Parker just wants a gun to defend herself:

In February of this year, a dealer known as "Nanook" started banging on her door and tried to pry his way into her house, repeatedly yelling, "Bitch, I'll kill you, I live on this block too." Nanook was eventually arrested. He may be prosecuted. But Ms. Parker knows that the police are "not going to do very much about the drug problem on my block." That's why she wants to have a functional handgun in her home for self-defense — just a garden-variety pistol, not a machine gun or assault weapon like the gangs are able to acquire without blinking an eye.

Shelly Parker and countless other D.C. residents should be able to defend themselves. They're not asking to carry a weapon outdoors on the city's drug-infested streets, where the sound of bullets regularly mocks the nation's strictest gun ban. Their needs are more basic: a pistol where they live, so they can defend their property, their families, and their lives.

Yet if Parker has a handgun in her bedroom, she could face criminal penalties — arrest, prosecution, fine, even incarceration — because of the District's preposterous gun laws. Upstanding citizens who reside in D.C., pay taxes in D.C., and obey D.C. laws are too often the victims of criminal predators. Still, the city insists that if someone breaks into their houses, their only choice is to call 911 and pray that help gets there in time. Anyone who's ever used the city's emergency phone service knows that a pizza can be delivered before the police show up.

The DC cops know what's going on, and the politicians have had more than ample time to figure out that gun control works only in liberal Fantasyland. IMO if any of these creeps so much as rustles a hair on this woman's head, she should be able to sue the city, the local politicians, Sarah Brady and the rest of the gun control cabal and collect until she owns the very air they breathe.

Tariq Aziz in US custody

Right here.

St. Louis born on this day in 1214

The man, not the city.

Yes, St. Louis was named for a Frenchman. But this one was willing to fight in the Middle East.

Fire the Boss

A few minutes ago I was subjected to a tearful display by the Dixie Chicks, who might possibly have lost a dime or two thanks to lead singer Natalie Maines' patter at a London concert a while back. Aw, did the poor babies get some bad press?

They said that they got some threats of a physical nature, which no decent person will condone. But they're going to have to learn that their careers are at the sufferance of the listening public, and they have plenty of competition from people who look, write and play better than they.

Then the news showed Bruce Springsteen's site, which contains the following:

The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.

The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.

I don't know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.

Right. Now tell me, Boss, do you feel the same way about, say, John Rocker? (nod to Jay Nordlinger).

Admit it, Boss, you defend this not because they spoke out. It's because you approve of their anti-Bush message, but you don't have the cojones to say it flat out yourself in the current environment of public approval for the President (thanks, Pejman). So you're hiding behind their skirts.

Come on out and say it. You won't have a mysterious accident with a truck or die under torture like dissenters against the recently deposed Saddam Hussein regime. You won't get locked in prison like perennial Hollywood favorite Fidel Castro's dissenters. You might even get some good press from the usual suspects.

But on the other hand, it might cost you some of those almighty bucks that pay for the makeup artists and PR guys who maintain your blue-collar facade. Horrors!

Yeah, everybody's pushing conformity of thought. That's why Enron and other companies got so much bad press, right? That's why the likes of Michael Moore can have a bestseller nowadays, right? Good grief.

Sorry, but I don't have any tears left for multimillionaires like you, fellow BS artist Barbra Streisand, Moore or the Dixie Chicks.

Now you'll have to excuse me while I listen to some old Springsteen albums and ask myself "was he always this clueless?"

NRA demands right for individuals to own nuclear weapons?

Well, no, not really. But feminists have a position that's about that extreme. One has complained that that miscarriage of justice known as Roe v. Wade is threatened by calling the death of Laci Peterson's baby a murder.

Link stolen from Radley Balko, who will never, ever, ever admit that we should have cleaned up Iraq.

I could never fill Lileks' shoes

If you want to see how big his footprint is, look here.

Sic em, Rodger

Ya know, I have my doubts about the authenticity of this image, but it's the thought that counts.

UN competent

Mapchic has another reason to dislike the UN.

Genetic disease question

Jason Soon has his own blog here, but he also posts on Gene Expression. There he offers this in critique of an article by Bill McKibben.

The McKibben post eventually finds its way to discussing efforts of Ashkenazi Jews to eliminate Tay-Sachs disease. Tay-Sachs is a fatal hereditary disease caused when a child inherits the relevant genes from both parents. Genetic screening is being used to combat it.

OK, I can relate to this. To my knowledge I'm "clean". But a cousin of mine died slowly from MLD, another genetic condition that requires the relevant deadly genes from both parents. She was the younger of two girls, and her parents never had any more kids after her.

Then there's sickle-cell anemia, which is associated with Africa but can be found in other nationalities. If a child gets the gene from both parents it will suffer sickle-cell anemia. But having just one of the genes confers some protection against malaria.

So something is lost if the sickle-cell gene is eliminated. And I wonder if the same is true of Tay-Sachs or even MLD, such that carrying the gene is beneficial as long as you don't get it from both parents.

I'd have to pay to see the rest of the Times article, and I can't see giving those creeps a nickel as long as the current regime is in place. So I'm not sure exactly how far Ashkenazi Jews are going toward eliminating the gene. Selective abortion? Sterilization?

But I would be interested in knowing if the Tay-Sachs, MLD or other such potentially deadly genes offered any benefits to their carriers.

AWOL

I'll have to ask MedPundit or DB's MedRants if there is a recognized medical condition known as "'No Watermelons Allowed' Withdrawal Syndrome". If so, no doubt you've suffered immensely over the last few days. But I'm not the only slacker around nowadays.

Well, I shouldn't call our dear Susanna that - she's getting some grad school work done in lieu of blogging. Attagirl!

Meanwhile somewhere in the wilderness of Arkansas a Rottweiler attacked Vicki of Liquid Courage. The lovely Vicki needed stitches in her face? - say it ain't so, Matt! (As for the Rottweiler, give it to Glenn Reynolds).

And Tacitus is having problems with, um, his back end. But he'll be back.

So what's my excuse...?

Links between Iraq and terrorism

Courtesy of Sean LaFreniere

Oh shut up

Did anyone see Bull Durham? In it Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins screwed each other senseless. And judging from recent remarks, neither have recovered to this day. I don't have time for an exhaustive list, but you can have a taste below.

Recently Sarandon's suffered this. Too bad for her - she would have received a hefty fee for promoting volunteerism.

More recently it's Robbins' turn, complaining of a "chill wind" even as he threatens harm to a reporter for writing about his family here (courtesy of Hawspipe, who seems to think that paying work takes precedence over blogging).

Rodney King, your 15 minutes are up

Acidman talks about Rodney King's latest adventure, driving his SUV into a house at 100 MPH.

Which reminds me of a line I heard a few years ago from George Wallace after another RK misadventure. That time King drove into a wall. Wallace said something like "That wall was white - it hit him".

I can't find a cite for this one either, but I recall that a few years ago the leader of a suburban Chicago chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers was killed sleeping in her bed when a drunk driver came crashing through her house.

Melungeons

The May 2003 Discover magazine also discusses Melungeons.

Say what? Actually, it's a who:

It comes as no surprise that Elvis Presley, Ava Gardner, and Abraham Lincoln may be among their kin, yet the members of this tribe have never fitted properly into American racial categories. Depending on the census taker or tax man, they were classified as white, "free persons of color", or mulatto, often drifting across the color line as they moved from county to county....There are perhaps as many as 200,000 Melungeons in the United States today, all descended from a mysterious colony of olive-skinned people who lived for centuries in the foothills of the Appalachians. Some say the Melungeons can be traced back to Portuguese sailors, shipwrecked in the 16th century, or to colonial-era Turkish silk workers. Others point to Gypsies, to Sir Francis Drake's lost colony of Roanoke, or to the ancient Phoenicians. It's not even clear where the word Melungeon comes from: it might be derived from the French word mélange or even a corruption of an Arabic or Turkish term for "cursed souls".

The article goes on to discuss attempts to research Melungeon heritage using DNA methods. This is a big deal because of the racial ambiguity - historically they have been been known to be taken to court for attempting to vote, or hanged for marrying white women.

One can see why Melungeons would have issues with racism, but then others aren't so sure they want to find their true ancestry. One researcher says he got a death threat from a Melungeon "repelled by the possibility of having African-American blood".

The article also mentions other groups similarly "isolated" genetically, such as Louisiana's Red Bones or the South Carolina Brass Ankles. Much more can be found here.

Turkey - our next oil source?

Who needs Iraq and the rest of the Middle East when we can get oil from Turkey?

No, not that one. The kind you eat for Thanksgiving.

If you haven't heard of Brian Appel, CEO of Changing World Technologies, maybe it's time you did. The most recent (May 2003) Discover magazine describes the company's thermal depolymerization process (TDP) as follows:

The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high quality oil, clean burning gas and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers or specialty chemicals for manufacturing.

Unlike other solid-to-liquid--fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water.

Also

Private investors, who have chipped in $40 million to develop the process, aren't the only ones who are impressed. The federal government has granted more then $12 million to push the work along. "We will be able to make oil for $8 to $12 a barrel," says Paul Baskis, the inventor of the process. "We are going to be able to switch to a carbohydrate economy"

A few other points:

• They can get about 100 units of energy in the feedstock at a cost of only about 15 units of heat input.
• "The EPA doesn't even consider us waste handlers. We are actually manufacturers - that's what our permit says".
• The process is scalable - plants can be sized to handle between a ton and 4000 tons of waste per day.

Pie in the sky? There's a full-scale plant here in Missouri, at Carthage outside a turkey processing plant. Each day 200 tons of turkey offal will be transformed into products such as 600 barrels of light oil. Lest you should miss the point, there's a big picture of the input with the article.

If you're at all interested in energy technologies, you can't miss this article. As this is written there is no link to the full article, but maybe it will show up after the next issue is released.

General Tommy Franks Can't Wait to Retire

From Scrappleface.

Ex-Presidents Carter and Clinton, take heed.

Lileks vs. electricity

Right here.

People have some strange ideas about electricity. I have an uncle that is convinced it is out to get him. He'll change light bulbs, plug things in and flip switches, but don't let him see any bare wires. And he would have been amazed at the Animal Planet show I saw yesterday in which a dog flipped a light switch with his mouth.

Alright, getting zapped by electricity isn't much fun. I literally stuck my finger in a lightsocket once in my preteens. I concluded that I had learned everything I needed to know from that experience and thus didn't need to repeat it. Likewise it only took one self-administered zapping with a cattle prod to impress me. But early on I noticed the strange sensation you get when you put your tongue across a 9V battery, and it's still a quick and dirty way to see if it still has any life.

If you're careful you can work 120V circuits "hot", but I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. If you're careless when hooking up phone wires it's possible to get 48VDC, which will get your attention. Lesser voltages are no big deal though.

Once at work I was inspecting one of my systems when I got bit when I touched the metal sheath around some calcium silicate insulation and something that was grounded at the same time. A minute or so later I got bit again in a different spot the same way. It felt a bit weaker than a phone zapping, so I told our electricians about it and told them I'd felt about 40V.

To the amusement of the electricians, I was within a volt or two. It turned out that some heat tracing wires (installed to keep pipes warm and thus keep solids from coming out of solution) had been damaged by the metal around the insulation, and this metal was not grounded. That is, until I touched it while I was grounded. I'm lucky the damage wasn't closer to the hot end of the wire.

Enough thrills and chills for one day - my post about grounding and electrical codes will have to wait until later. Try not to get electrocuted in the meantime.

SARS catchall

No sooner do I mention Arthur Silber and Steven Den Beste a few posts below and I find myself citing them both.

Arthur Silber points out the dangers of govt censorship as it applies to the Chinese SARS outbreak here. In the comments someone points to SDB here about an interesting and IMO plausible theory about China as the incubator of influenza.

My two cents is for an article in NRO I almost blogged a couple of weeks ago when it first came out:

Not very long ago — within the past five years, let's say — an American businessman of my acquaintance, a leading figure in the health-care field, was approached by an authoritative official of the Chinese government with a truly fabulous offer. How would the American like to set up a nationwide network of clinics, under his own name and with clear American identification? He would provide the medicine, the staff, the doctors, the technology. The Chinese would provide the money, the land, the labor force to build the clinics, and guarantee a substantial profit for at least a decade.

The American was impressed; who wouldn't be? And of course he was curious. Why were they being so generous?

The answer helps understand why it took so long for the Chinese to fess up to the existence of the new Viral pneumonia. The Chinese official put it this way: "we are having a terrible time getting people to see doctors, even for routine physical checkups. And this is because of an event that took place back in the late 1940s, following Mao's revolution. At that time, the government promised to eradicate venereal disease in China. And it did. Everyone was forced to undergo an examination by a certified doctor. And anyone with venereal disease was executed. Ever since, most Chinese stayed far away from medical doctors."

So the current regime, which would like to improve the health of the population, thought that it might be possible to get the people to a doctor if that doctor were clearly separate from the government. Indeed, as far removed from Chinese officialdom as one could imagine: an American doctor in an American clinic that guaranteed utter privacy.

From which Ledeen suggests:

I'm not so sure that the authorities were keeping the information from the people. It may well be that the people were keeping it from the authorities.

I for one have a hard time seeing our govt ever doing anything as radical as Mao's Chinese allegedly did. But I notice that a lot of people who push govt involvement in health care seem to have issues with John Ashcroft. Alright liberals - would you like Ashcroft or any other terrifying "Christian right-wingers" to have access to your health care records?

Then again, what is to be done to control epidemics? Should we apply the same standards we did with AIDS, in which the risk of stigmatizing people was given more weight than concerns for general public health?

Somebody gets it

An Egyptian, a Pakistani and some Kuwaitis discuss the US and Iraq.

Keep the UN out of Iraq

Years ago mathematician Pierre Fermat left an interesting theorem written in the margin of one of his books. He said he had discovered a wonderful proof which the margin was too small to contain. It turns out he was right.

With that in mind, and not having the time or inclination to write a Steven Den Beste or Arthur Silber length item needed to back it up, I simply offer my conclusions about UN involvement in Iraq below.

The UN should have nothing to do with reestablishing a new govt in Iraq.

Why?

1. We see what types of govt the UN approves of. Typically socialist or dictatorial, and corrupt.

2. We see what types of policies the UN approves of.

3. A viable govt cannot be created with such policies.

4. If the UN is involved, such a nonviable govt will be created anyway. And it will fail.

5. The UN wants it to fail, lest its success should encourage further such liberations at the expense of the despots who have such disproportionate influence there now.

6. Said failure will be blamed on the US no matter what we do.

Just what is the UN bringing to the party?

Credibility? Forget it.

Money? Only if they get more of it from the US, and this will increase the relative power of an organization that has shown itself antithetical to US interests constantly.

Competence and experience? Don't make me laugh.

Integrity? Ditto.

The UN is about providing sinecures for international bureaucrats who have delusions of grandeur. Its continued existence is of value only as an example of what we could expect from world government.

Burning the evidence

Iraqi embassies sure are doing a lot of lawn care lately - they wouldn't be burning anything else besides grass clippings, right?

James S. Robbins talks about it here.

Now it can be told

Via the NYT:

ATLANTA — Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard — awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.

There's much more. Link stolen from The Corner.

DanceSport 103 - getting started

Alright, you're sold - dancing is for you. But...

Standard disclaimers. I'm not a physician, and if I were I don't know jack about you anyway, so you know the rules - see a doctor before starting any exercise program.

That said, it can be as much or as little exercise as you want. If you're recovering from years of couch-potatoing, the easiest place to start would be with smooth dancing like foxtrot. It's slow, and in its easiest forms is much like walking. Rumba is slow too, but there is more lateral motion which might bug your hips. Bad knees might slow you down a little, but then you might strengthen them too if you give it a chance (yeah, I'm talking to you...).

If you're in good shape already, the place to start is probably with east coast swing, or what the locals call Imperial swing after a long defunct ballroom. It and variants like jitterbug can go about as fast as you might want to. Cha-cha will also get you moving, and it'll loosen up your hips if you do it right.

Alright, you know what to learn - now where to go? If you're totally green, a local community college is probably the best place. That way classes start everybody in the same place. You might think that would go without saying, but that's not necessarily true at a dance studio. I know I've walked into some nominal "beginner" classes that IMO were too advanced or else moved too quickly for raw beginners. It can be very frustrating - I for one am not used to being at the bottom of the class, especially in one where everyone else can grade you.

Or if you'd rather limit the number of people who witness your development, there's always private lessons. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a friend who knows a few things so you can get by cheap. In the worst case, here in St. Louis private lessons from certified teachers have run as low as <$30 per hour with an extended agreement and a new studio, but you'd better budget at $50.

But you don't have a partner? No problem. There are usually extra partners of one sex or the other in a group class, usually women, and instructors usually have you rotate partners so nobody stays alone for long. You might wind up dancing by yourself part of the time, but that lets you watch the others and practice by yourself until you get a better feel for what they're teaching (or just convince yourself that the others are having trouble too). Also, instructors might try to shuffle people around between classes to even things up, and usually the women are willing to dance with other women if one of them knows the man's part of the dance.

But the other dancers are older/younger/uglier than I am! So what? - I'm assuming that you're there to learn to dance. Assuming that the person isn't so fat or feeble that they literally can't move, you can't tell much about who the good dancers are just by looking at them away from the dance floor. And they won't all be particularly attractive. (Yo young guys in particular - remember the wise counsel of Benjamin Franklin (beware of a tame nude picture). Things you learn with the older women just might come in handy with other women). But I've found dancers to be a friendly accepting bunch, and assuming you possess rudimentary knowledge of manners, dress and hygiene, and you put forth decent effort to learn, you'll do fine.

Now it's time to hit the street. Dance studios and other organizations often sponsor dances to drum up business. My experience is that as long as you don't pretend to be something you aren't, your partners will be very understanding with beginners. Then you have an instant excuse to meet anyone you want for three minutes of intimacy.

Alright, you've run out of excuses. Out on the floor, now!

Naked Quidditch!

Tomorrow the second Harry Potter movie hits the shelves, so I'll get one if I have to wrestle it from the sticky hands of a dewy-eyed moppet. Well, probably not from Gnat, but only because she's up in Minneapolis.

And that was before DPM pointed me to Naked Quidditch.

Before you ask, Quidditch is a coed game, and Gryffindor has some babes playing for them. Savvy?

Needed - conservative Michael Moore

Well, maybe that title needs work. We don't need another Michael Moore of any stripe unless energy shortages dictate a return to whale oil.

I haven't actually seen it, but from what I've heard "Bowling for Columbine" doesn't rise to the standards set by the old Clinton conspiracy tapes. Why don't the more intellectually defensible parts of our political spectrum fight back? Is it that they don't have anyone so mean and dishonest as Moore?

There's plenty of material nowadays, what with all of the antiwar idiocy. Unions, especially teacher's unions, are ripe for abuse. And how about dimwit lefty celebrities like those mentioned here and here? Or a travelogue that shows that Eden otherwise known as ANWR, spiced with some of the hysterical ecobabble in defense of it?

Libertarians might want to see PJ O'Rourke make a movie out of "All the Trouble in the World", or "Parliament of Whores". Or imagine what Penn Jillette or Dave Barry could come up with.

I'd like to see what you could get from a team of conservatives like Rob Long, Larry Miller, Jonah Goldberg and the staff from the old Rush Limbaugh TV show.

Come on guys, what are you waiting for?

What's the best golf book?

I've decided that I don't have enough vices, so lately I've started golfing. Still driving range stuff so far, in a community college group class, but I'm coming along.

Is there anything I should be reading? I've heard people rave about Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, so I'm checking it out. What else? How about videos or DVDs?

A skit begging to happen

Iraq's information minister is almost beyond parody, but James S. Robbins tries it here.

Surely SNL or Mad TV will take him on.

Fighting the left, doing it right

...at the ProtestWarrior.

Via Blog O'Dob.

Setting the record straight

Jay Nordlinger of NRO is always a good read, and lately he's written some items worthy of inclusion in this blog. About Frenches and mustard.

Here he mentions a press release for French's Mustard, which notes that it is all-American. In fact, it was introduced nearly 100 years ago right here in St. Louis along with the then-newfangled hotdog. So don't let that name fool you.

Just in case that wasn't enough, he published an email here which said "Dear Jay: Just because French's is yellow doesn't mean it's French."

Elsewhere in the same item was another email:

"Dear Jay: My sympathies to French's Mustard. [This refers to an Impromptus item from Friday.] My last name (by marriage) is French. My ex-husband had not a single tiny drop of French blood in his family tree. I don't know where the name came from. But now, I am honestly considering changing my and my kids' names to something else. My son (twelve years old) is being harassed and bullied for having the name 'French' and kids are accusing him of being French, which is an enormous insult and the kids all know it. I don't whether this will blow over or not."

Take pride in your name. I can't find it just now, but I'll swear I recently read something that said that that name came from Scotland and was an abbreviated form of "killer of Frenchmen" or the like.

Enough Frog-bashing for now. After all, I'm a Kraut.

Brilliant

It should be easy to spot Steve Brill nowadays. He'll be eating lunch all by himself.

Why? He has a book out which dares to suggest that Homeland Security is working.

Whether you agree with that or not, it is remarkable that Brill is the man who wrote the book. Up until now he was probably best known for a nasty hit piece on Ken Starr in the debut issue of his now-failed magazine Brill's Content. But now

"He is a laughing stock!" mocked one network executive, who has been a friend of the self-described "lapsed-liberal" for more than 10 years.

Brill has been telling associates how arguments over the 700-page book have "nearly become violent."

This I've got to see.

Sean McCray is back after a long hiatus

Right here.

Psst - want a picture of Hillary Clinton naked?

And if so, why?

Yes, Hillary Rodham Clinton has posed nude before. Read about it here.

You know who you are

Or not, most likely - there's about a 99.9999% chance you'll never read this blog. But maybe someone who does will get a hint.

No, I'm not an authority on women's beauty. But I know of a few things that women complain about wrt their looks, such as 1) sagging breasts, 2) protruding abdomen, 3) protruding buttocks, and 4) being unfashionably short.

They can help all 4 by merely standing up straight. And they'll look more elegant. And it's better for their spines too. What can be wrong with that?

Stand up straight even if you're tall (that means you too, MM). Tall is in nowadays, and tall and straight is always better than slightly less tall and slouching. It even helps with balance and coordination.

If standing up straight hurts, then you're out of shape. Working on your abs won't hurt a bit, especially with Pilates. Of course I'm not a physician and there could be other underlying issues that make this a bad idea, but if you can't even stand up straight without hurting maybe you ought to see the doctor anyway.

At last, my subject. She's about 19 and is really a doll. She has natural good looks, she takes care of herself and she dresses well, and although at her age she could use less warpaint she used it well too. So apparently she wants to look good and she generally succeeds.

But every time I see her I just want to grab her abs just below the navel from behind, pulling backwards and upwards until she stands up straighter. But however generous an act that might ultimately be, my innocent, paternal, purely esthetic motives might be misinterpreted. Ya think?

One woman told me she might be self-conscious about her bust. If so, she'd do more to hide it by wearing looser clothes and standing up straighter than with the way she dresses now. If she were flat-chested standing straighter would be worth a dozen Wonderbras.

Another woman told me there could be confidence issues. That's not inconceivable, but I have to wonder why. I don't know her too well, so about all I know about is that she's not sure what she wants to do for a permanent career. Sheesh, that's true of most 19 year olds in my experience. If this is an issue, well, sometimes acting the way you want to be can help you become that way.

In the olden days young ladies were taught to stand up straight, even going so far as to have them balance books on their heads. Corsets probably helped too. Such things typically get nothing but snarky comments nowadays, but this is not just about vanity - there really are tangible health benefits associated with good posture

Alright, I'm through venting. We'll see if I figure out a way to bring this up.

Brass ones

According to a Fox News broadcast, Dominique De Villepin doesn't think the US should be rewarded for "starting the war" in Iraq.

This is wrong in more ways than I have time to deal with. But IMO those conniving benchwarmers who sold the Iraqis their reactor and much more besides shouldn't be allowed to make so much as a dime from the rebuilding of Iraq.

One would hope that once the Iraqis regain control of their country, they'll remember who helped keep Saddam in power.

Jessica Lynch, icon

By now everyone has heard of the rescue of Jessica Lynch. I wish her the best and certainly wouldn't want to give the impression that I, from the comfort of home, was denigrating her in any way. In particular, I understand that her injuries (two leg fractures, arm injuries, a gunshot wound and a stab wound) are consistent with fighting, not torture, and it appears that she's the only survivor of her group. She must be one tough girl (not to be confused with Shannon Faulkner).

But it will be interesting to see how her experience will be spun by various groups. Who will be the winners and losers?

As for Private Lynch herself, I'm guessing she'll have more lucrative opportunities than her earlier ambition of teaching school back home. I wonder how many agents-to-be have been calling the family.

See Virginia Postrel's new site

Right here.

Among lots of other good things, she links to "Brainwaves", another Corante blog. There's just too much good stuff on it to single anything out.

"Mommy, where do Easter eggs come from?"

Now we know, courtesy of 3 Bruces. Warning - the image could be too intense for some viewers...

100 Best April Fool's Gags

Right here.

Coal to Newcastle

According to this link at Command Post, the US Army estimates it costs $150/gallon for fuel in Iraq.

Saddam's bodyguard

James Robbins discusses interesting behavior by Saddam's bodyguard in NRO.

Why didn't I think of that?

Juan Gato knows how to handle the media.

The world of scissors/paper/rock

Dr. Alice points us to the championships of Scissors/Paper/Rock. It's good for what ails you. Oh come on, if a lizard can play, then you can.

Well, maybe you don't know how. It so happens that I work with people from all over the world, and they're used to oddball culture questions from me. The Tamil guy across the aisle says he used to play scissor/paper/rock in his part of India. The Israelis knew of it too. A Tanzania native hadn't heard of it, but with her past experiences with me she might have thought I was putting her on. I missed my Chinese, Thai and Filipino sources. Others are welcome to contribute their knowledge of its origins.

Of course some people can't leave a good thing alone.

UPDATE: My Thai, Chinese and Filipino sources all say they had variations. The Chinese variant used cloth instead of paper. My Turkish source hadn't heard of it back home.

Attention redheads

Looky here - it seems that there is a female specific pain pathway, and the same gene that gives fair skin and red hair apparently heightens women's responses to analgesics.

This space reserved for a snarky comment.

Harry Zona, meet Mrs. Sippi

Max Power points to this interesting collection of things people believed when they were kids.

Lowe traffic

Derek Lowe said that his traffic was down. I can't imagine why - there probably isn't a blogger who's a better source of info about chemical and biological warfare. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that he gets hits from Baghdad.

This post is about the chemical stuff. He also links to this PDF about chemical warfare. It's 55 pages but might be worth a look if you're really interested.

Income taxes due April 15

Oh joy. At least for Kerry Kerstetter, Tax Guru, who has an interesting blog with tax info and lots of political cartoons. Check it out.

Save energy, starve a terrorist

You don't have to be a ecobabbling tree-hugger or leftist to appreciate energy conservation nowadays. That's especially true now that we're fighting in Iraq - there are plenty of dangerous dragons to be slain there, but the simple fact is that we're fighting those particular ones instead of any of dozens of others is because they're around a major supplier of our oil. (And while you're at it, keep an eye on other major oil suppliers like Nigeria and Venezuela).

Lefties generally support energy conservation, but their prescriptions typically are either nutty lifestyles or govt programs. And they're simply stupid when it comes to their supply side prescriptions. They'll never solve the problem they claim to want to solve.

As for the rest of us, well, nothing much seems to be happening besides bitching about electric bills and the occasional power outage. That's a shame, because there are so many minimally painful ways to curtail power consumption.

Let's start with consciousness. Do you have any idea how many power consuming devices are on in your home now? Do you know how much power they take, or at least which ones are the biggest consumers?

My background is as an engineer from the nuclear power industry, so maybe my expectations are out of whack. But I've been astounded at some of the things I have found otherwise intelligent and motivated people doing which affected their electric or other power consumption drastically.

For instance, do you have pets? Do you provide a heated area for them to stay in? OK fine - but use a spot heat source such as a light bulb, don't heat the entire garage like one couple I know. You can shield the lightbulb so it doesn't dazzle your pets. And they're used for heat more often than you might think, such as to keep the instrumentation from freezing at municipal water tanks.

Do all of your rooms need the same attention? For instance, can you shut off the heat or A/C to the guest bedroom or others? It's easy - just close the vanes on the register. If it doesn't have vanes, replace it with one that does.

Is your furnace filter clean? Clean it or replace it as needed, to improve the air circulation. This is especially significant if you have allergies, or have major dust or dander sources indoors or out.

Do you provide power to outbuildings via buried power lines? Slow shorts on such lines can suck down significant amounts of power long before they blow a breaker or fuse, as another couple I know found out. Hubby had been in a hurry to put in the power, cut some corners at a buried splice, and you should have seen the steam come out of the ground when he dug it back up to fix it.

Do you have a well pump? Make sure it is operating properly and your captive air tank (if any) is properly charged. The pump is a significant power consumer, and it shouldn't be kicking on every time you flush the commode or run the water.

Simply closing shades can work wonders, especially if they are thick enough to provide some insulation. You might be money ahead to close the drapes and turn on a light.

What about those lights? In the winter they're your friend - replace them with higher wattage values. But in the summer you're paying once for the juice to light them, and again to suck the heat back out. So back off on the wattage values. Better yet, use the long life low power bulbs - they look funny and don't always fit into the same spaces old bulbs do, but they can provide the same light for less heat and power and they last a lot longer too.

Do you have a geothermal heat pump system? One couple I know wondered why their bills were sky-high. It turned out that an emergency switch was flipped that had their supplemental electric heat on all the time, so they were using far more power than they should have been.

Do you have an attic fan? Attics can reach very high temperatures, and that heat creeps into your house. Attic fans keep fresh air coming in, lowering attic temperatures and ultimately the cooling demand on your A/C.

Do you have enough insulation? It helps in the summer too. If you're in an old house, you may have less than you think.

What about your hot water heater? Extra insulation can help here, especially in the summer. Take shorter showers and blow the extra humid heat out the bathroom fan or window before you open the bathroom door.

Your dryer? It is vented outdoors, right?

Do you have a setback thermostat? They're cheap and easy to install, and by using them you can make sure the heat and A/C are only on when you need them. For instance, you might set it to lower the heat a bit after you go to bed, come back to normal before you rise, cut back when you go to work, and start back just before you get back. Don't argue with me like one couple did (and they knew I was an engineer - sheesh).

There are many more suggestions here.

OK, so where do you get the stuff to do this? It's probably as close as your hardware store or Walmart.

Where do you get the money? From the money you'll save on power bills.

If you like to shop over the internet, here is a site of interest. I have no connection with them other than some past purchases and a place on their email distribution list. They offer a lot of products which can be helpful in reducing your power consumption and your convenience in doing so. Here's another site. If you have other suggestions, comment here or email me and I'll post them too.

But don't put it off. If our troops can sweat it out in the desert, you can try it a little at home.

Strange associations

Michael Moore's next project about associations between the Bushes and the Bin Ladens is being financed by a company owned by Mel Gibson. Read about it here, from the Corner.

History or Hysteria

...is the title of an NRO post by Victor Davis Hanson. It's all worth a look, but here are two of the better paragraphs:

We should recall that in the first Gulf War we bombed for over 44 days. Critics in 1991 by day 10 were complaining because after the first few nights’ pyrotechnics, Saddam’s army had not crumbled. In turn, earlier swaggering air-advocates had promised victory in three weeks — only to be unjustly slandered that they had failed to end the war in six. Gulf War I is considered a great victory; it required 48 days of air and ground attacks by an enormous coalition to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait. Our present attempt, with half the force, seeks to end Saddam Hussein altogether — and on day 7 already had him cut off, trapped, and besieged.

In the campaign against Belgrade, the ebullience was gone by day 10 when Milosevic remained defiant. By the fifth week, criticism was fierce and calls for an end to the bombing widespread. On day 77, Milosevic capitulated — and no critics stepped forward to confess that their gloom and doom had been misplaced. Does anyone recall the term “quagmire,” used of Afghanistan after the third week — and how prophets of doom promised enervating stasis, only days later to see a chain of Afghan cities fall? Yet no armchair doom-and-gloom generals were to be found when the Taliban ran and utterly confounded their pessimism. Our talking heads remind me of the volatility of the Athenian assembly, ready to laud or execute at a moment’s notice.

But don't stop there - read it all.

Microchip evolution

An interesting post on Andrew Zolli's blog about a new way to design computer chips. I didn't see any way to link to it directly, so look for the post titled "Moore's Law, Darwin's Method".

Rock chalk Jayhawk!

KU 78, Arizona 75. See ya in Nawlins!

Your abortion dollars at work

I guess anybody can have a bad day:

A consultant gynaecologist who inadvertently removed parts of a woman's kidneys, ovaries, and fallopian tubes during an abortion has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council but is allowed to continue working, under conditions.

Dr Andrew Gbinigie, 47, was working his first day at the private Calthorpe Clinic in Birmingham in November 2000 when the abortion took place.

From MedPundit.

How to educate peaceniks

According to Denny Wilson.

Remind me not to tick off Rachel Lucas

Here she has a word for that particularly dysgenic breed known as the antiwar protester. There's plenty more elsewhere on the page.

Conversion

Glenn Reynolds links us to this about an Assyrian who returned to Iraq to oppose the war but changed his mind.

How did that happen? He did something outrageous - he actually asked Iraqis what they really wanted.

Oh no, not that!

CNN says we're threatening to prosecute Iraqis for war crimes.

And then if they still don't stop, presumably we'll use even stronger language. Just who do they think they're going to impress?

And it's legible...

Now Pejman lives here.

Great line

Down at the bottom of this page, someone notes that there was a low turnout for a Bill Clinton speech at the University of Iowa on Wednesday night. As The Prowler put it, "for once the terms Clinton and sellout weren't synonymous".

Boreblogging?

I'm way ahead of you, Vicki, being perhaps the sole source in blogdom for Chinese palindromes, pelvises, librarians, DanceSport and True Love.

And what happened to your picture?

Iraqi suicide murderers kill 5 Marines at checkpoint

I try to keep the language under control on this site, but even profanity pales before the task of describing Iraqi operations in this war. See The Command Post here.

Chinese palindromes

Back in the 1980's some people thought Japan was going to take over the world economically. Not so. No matter what they did, we'd always have them beat with palindromes. Can you even have a Japanese/Mandarin/Cantonese/Korean palindrome?

Enter Google. A googlewhack, perhaps? No, I found 3 sites, and this one says that there are Chinese palindromes. So now we know.

That same site contained this:

Arnold Toynbee once predicted that by around 2050 Chinese characters would become the international standard for visual code used in communications, just as Arabic numerals have become the international standard for written numbers.

I'm thinking he's gonna miss with that one.

I'm dinking around with Chinese at the moment, in part because I'm working with a few native Mandarin speakers nowadays. The differences between it and English are so profound it's amazing. For one, from my sorely limited current vantage point, it appears that everything is monosyllabic and there are no strange genders, declensions and conjugations. But part of the price you pay is the tones - in Mandarin each syllable can be inflected 4 ways, and in Cantonese (less widely spoken, mainly in southern China) there are 7, and each inflection can convey an entirely unrelated concept. What with the script, palindromes might not be so easy, but it's not hard to see that the spoken language would permit some diabolical puns that are at least as difficult to translate.

Another thing I didn't expect was that Mandarin and Cantonese speakers have the same written language. So they can read the same newspapers, but can't talk about them, but they can still communicate by passing notes.

And the text! If you have a Palm or similar device you know that most Latin characters can be rendered intelligibly with one continuous stroke. I don't know what the most complex Chinese characters are, but some that I've seen must take a calligrapher about 20 strokes to do right. It's little wonder that "Chinese" is often used as a modifier indicating complexity or confusion, such as in "Chinese algebra" or "Chinese fire drill".

Given these fundamental differences between English and Chinese, I have to wonder if they don't actually influence the way we use our brains. I suppose the usual suspects would consider it "racist" even to investigate, but I wonder if an EEG or other device could pick up differences in brain usage between a native English speaker using English and a native Mandarin speaker using Mandarin.

Alright, I've exposed enough ignorance for one day. But what else is a blog for?

Googling

I don't know what I'd do without Google. ZDNet has some leads on better ways to use it here.

One of the best thing about it is that it's work safe by default, so you can innocently look up things like "water sports" without getting a bunch of, um, special interest material. But you can turn that off, like I had to to find some of the pelvis stuff a few posts down.

If you're dyslexic, try Elgoog. Some people have way too much time on their hands.

Whose side are the French on?

Many have linked to articles about Dominique de Villepin's unwillingness to state what side the French were rooting for in Iraq. Here's one. It appears that that is a bit unfair, but by now nobody should be giving the French the benefit of the doubt IMO.

Here's an interesting quote:

M de Villepin's central message was that a world dominated by a supremely powerful America was dangerously unstable. Instead, there should be "a number of regional poles" that co-operate with each other.

I don't get it. Is there some respected political theory about this, or is this just more BS to justify knee-jerk anti-American behavior?

Next stop - Syria?

If you want to get rid of Saddam, maybe. This says he is making preparations to go there and has already sent relatives.

The same article says Saddam offered to leave as long as Qusay was left in power. Yeah right.

Link stolen from the Corner on NRO, which should be a regular stop.

Interesting war commentary

From Jed Babbin on NRO.

Don't read this

Glenn Reynolds says he's pro-sodomy, but he won't tell us his position.

You were warned.

Michelle Malkin on Muslims in our military

Right here.

Stolen from Powerline.

AntiAmericans International

Amnesty International fears war crimes have been committed by "both sides" in Iraq. The US has bombed Iraqi TV, and the Iraqis have fired mortars on their own citizens. Is it possible that there's a certain lack of proportionality there?

Perhaps this accounts for the concerns of Hollywood types. Killing people is no big deal, but bombing TV stations affects their ratings.

Who's smarter?

I got this in a forwarded email, allegedly written by Cindy Osborne. Beyond that I don't know who to credit. Here it goes:

The Hollywood group is at it again. Holding anti-war rallies, screaming about the Bush Administration, running ads in major newspapers, defaming the President and his Cabinet every chance they get, to anyone and everyone who will listen. They publicly defile them and call them names like "stupid", "morons", and "idiots". Jessica Lange went so far as to tell a crowd in Spain that she hates President Bush and is embarrassed to be an American.

So, just how ignorant are these people who are running the country? Let's look at the biographies of these "stupid", "ignorant" , "moronic" leaders, and then at the celebrities who are castigating them:

President George W. Bush: Received a Bachelors Degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard. He began his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975 and worked in the energy industry until 1986. He was elected Governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote. In a historic re-election victory, he became the first Texas Governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998 winning 68.6 percent of the vote. In 1998 Governor Bush won 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, 27 percent of the African-American vote, 27 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of women. He won more Texas counties, 240 of 254, than any modern Republican other that Richard Nixon in 1972 and is the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the heavily Hispanic and Democratic border counties of El Paso, Cameron and Hidalgo. (Someone began circulating a false story about his I.Q. being lower than any other President. If you believed it, you might want to go to URBANLEGENDS.COM and see the truth.)

Vice President Dick Cheney earned a B.A. in 1965 and a M.A. in 1966, both in political science. Two years later, he won an American Political Science Association congressional fellowship. One of Vice President Cheney's primary duties is to share with individuals, members of Congress and foreign leaders, President Bush's vision to strengthen our economy, secure our homeland and win the War on Terrorism. In his official role as President of the Senate, Vice President Cheney regularly goes to Capital Hill to meet with Senators and members of the House of Representatives to work on the Administration's legislative goals. In his travels as Vice President, he has seen first hand the great demands the war on terrorism is placing on the men and women of our military, and he is proud of the tremendous job they are doing for the United States of America.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was educated in the New York City public schools, graduating from the City College of New York (CCNY), where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in geology. He also participated in ROTC at CCNY and received a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in June 1958. His further academic achievements include a Master of Business Administration Degree from George Washington University. Secretary Powell is the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign military awards and decorations. Secretary Powell's civilian awards include two Presidential Medals of Freedom, the President's Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal. Several schools and other institutions have been named in his honor and he holds honorary degrees from universities and colleges across the country.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: attended Princeton University on Scholarship (AB, 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as a Naval aviator ; Congressional Assistant to Rep. Robert Griffin (R-MI), 1957-59; U.S. Representative, Illinois, 1962-69; Assistant to the President, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Director of the Cost of Living Council, 1969-74; U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 1973-74; head of Presidential Transition Team, 1974; Assistant to the President, Director of White House Office of Operations, White House Chief of Staff, 1974-77; Secretary of Defense, 1975-77

Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge was raised in a working class family in veterans' public housing in Erie. He earned a scholarship to Harvard, graduating with honors in 1967. After his first year at The Dickinson School of Law, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for Valor. After returning to Pennsylvania, he earned his Law Degree and was in private practice before becoming Assistant District Attorney in Erie County. He was elected to Congress in 1982. He was the first enlisted Vietnam combat veteran elected to the U.S. House, and was overwhelmingly re-elected six times.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice earned her Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her Master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. (Note: Rice enrolled at the University of Denver at the age of 15, graduating at 19 with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science (Cum Laude). She earned a Master's Degree at the University of Notre Dame and a Doctorate from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies. Both of her advanced degrees are also in Political Science.) She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, and the University of Notre Dame in 1995. At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions. From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military. She was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. She was a Founding Board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco. Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her Master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studie s at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, and the University of Notre Dame in 1995. She resides in Washington, D.C.

So who are these celebrities? What is their education? What is their experience in affairs of State or in National Security? While I will defend to the death their right to express their opinions, I think that if they are going to call into question the intelligence of our leaders, we should also have all the facts on their educations and background:

Barbra Streisand : Completed high school
Career: Singing and acting

Cher: Dropped out of school in 9th grade.
Career: Singing and acting

Martin Sheen Flunked exam to enter University of Dayton.
Career: Acting

Jessica Lange Dropped out college mid-freshman year.
Career: Acting

Alec Baldwin Dropped out of George Washington U. after scandal
Career: Acting

Julia Roberts Completed high school
Career: Acting

Sean Penn Completed High school
Career: Acting

Susan Sarandon Degree in Drama from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Career: Acting

Ed Asner Completed High school
Career: Acting

George Clooney Dropped out of University of Kentucky
Career: Acting

Michael Moore Dropped out first year University of Michigan.
Career: Movie Director

Sarah Jessica Parker: Completed High School
Career: Acting

Jennifer Anniston: Completed High School
Career: Acting

Mike Farrell Completed High school
Career: Acting

Janeane Garofelo Dropped out of College.
Career: Stand up comedienne

Larry Hagman Attended Bard College for one year.
Career: Acting

While comparing the education and experience of these two groups, we should also remember that President Bush and his cabinet are briefed daily, even hourly, on the War on Terror and threats to our security. They are privy to information gathered around the world concerning the Middle East, the threats to America, the intentions of terrorists and terrorist-supporting governments. They are in constant communication with the CIA, the FBI, Interpol, NATO, The United Nations, our own military, and that of our allies around the world. We cannot simply believe that we have full knowledge of the threats because we watch CNN!! We cannot believe that we are in any way as informed as our leaders.

These celebrities have no intelligence-gathering agents, no fact-finding groups, no insight into the minds of those who would destroy our country. They only have a deep seated hatred for all things Republican. By nature, and no one knows quite why, the Hollywood elitists detest Conservative views and anything that supports or uplifts the United States of America. The silence was deafening from the Left when Bill Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory outside of Khartoum, or when he attacked the Bosnian Serbs in 1995 and 1999. He bombed Serbia itself to get Slobodan Milosevic out of Kosovo, and not a single peace rally was held. When our Rangers were ambushed in Somalia and 18 young American lives were lost, not a peep was heard from Hollywood. Yet now, after our nation has been attacked on its own soil, after 3,000 Americans were killed by freedom-hating terrorists while going about their routine lives, they want to hold rallies against the war.

Why the change? Because an honest, God-fearing Republican sits in the White House.

Another irony is that in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was in office, the Hollywood group aligned themselves with disarmament groups like SANE, FREEZE and PEACE ACTION, urging our own government to disarm and freeze the manufacturing of any further nuclear weapons, in order to promote world peace. It is curious that now, even after we have heard all the evidence that Saddam Hussein has chemical, biological and is very close to obtaining nuclear weapons, their is no cry from this group for HIM to disarm. They believe we should leave him alone in his quest for these weapons of mass destruction, even though it is certain that these deadly weapons will eventually be used against us in our own cities.

So why the hype out of Hollywood? Could these celebrities believe that since they draw such astronomical salaries, they are entitled to also determine the course of our Nation? That they can make viable decisions concerning war and peace? Did Michael Moore have the backing of the Nation when he recently thanked France, on our behalf, for being a "good enough friend to tell us we were wrong"? I know for certain he was not speaking for me. Does Sean Penn fancy himself a Diplomat, in going to Iraq when we are just weeks away from war? Does he believe that his High School Diploma gives him the knowledge (and the right) to go to a country that is controlled by a maniacal dictator, and speak on behalf of the American people? Or is it the fact that he pulls in more money per year than the average American worker will see in a lifetime? Does his bank account give him clout?

The ultimate irony is that many of these celebrities have made a shambles of their own lives, with drug abuse, alcoholism, numerous marriages and divorces, scrapes with the law, publicized temper tantrums, etc. How dare they pretend to know what is best for an entire nation! What is even more bizarre is how many people in this country will listen and accept their views, simply because they liked them in a certain movie, or have fond memories of an old television sitcom!

It is time for us, as citizens of the United States, to educate ourselves about the world around us. If future generations are going to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers bequeathed us, if they are ever to know peace in their own country and their world, to live without fear of terrorism striking in their own cities, we must assure that this nation remains strong. We must make certain that those who would destroy us are made aware of the severe consequences that will befall them.

Yes, it is a wonderful dream to sit down with dictators and terrorists and join hands, singing Cumbaya and talking of world peace. But it is not real. We did not stop Adolf Hitler from taking over the entire continent of Europe by simply talking to him. We sent our best and brightest, with the strength and determination that this Country is known for, and defeated the Nazi regime. President John F. Kennedy did not stop the Soviet ships from unloading their nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 with mere words. He stopped them with action, and threat of immediate war if the ships did not turn around. We did not end the Cold War with conferences. It ended with the strong belief of President Ronald Reagan... PEACE through STRENGTH.

Who's Smarter?

Of course advanced education is less important to an entertainer than looks or other talents. But IMO with Hollywood we're dealing with a bunch of needy showoffs who want to be taken seriously for their intelligence, and if they're stroked right they'll parrot someone else's lines just as they do in their careers.

Curtain call

After the previous post, I'll have to note that of course there are Kegel exercises for men as noted here and here. Do them enough and next thing you know ol' Willard will be able to start your lawnmower for you.

I'm not a physician, but I have figured out a few things by now. For instance, I believe this quote from the first link above is wrong:

As well, although this method may not sound enthralling, if you stick a finger in your rectum and try contracting your PC muscle, you will know that you're doing so because your finger will feel your anus contracting (pressure). Always try to keep your other muscles (thigh, back and abdominal) relaxed.

It might well be that potty training tends to make us associate two distinct muscle groups. Kegel exercises are intended for the pubococcygeus (PC) muscles. Near as I can tell from this (pictures here), the anus is operated by the coccygei muscles and the puborectalis. You can figure out the ramifications as an exercise.

I suppose it's possible that the ability to manipulate these distinct groups separately is one of those things like curling your tongue, wiggling your ears, etc, that some people can do and others can't. No doubt the govt is waiting with millions of dollars in grants to fund this research. In the meantime, what you do on your own time is your business.

Now back to the women, doggone it. Here's a Kegel exerciser, which looks like something like a shoe tree or a hand brake. I've heard of others too, which I understand are weighted cones. Apparently they go in big end first, and the stronger the PC muscles are the higher you can hold them in.

Is that enough already?

UPDATE: Not to worry, GH - no empirical research was done wrt the theory in the blockquote above.

Pelvic potpourri postscript

After I did my women's pelvises post earlier, Susanna commented that I had neglected men's pelvises. That's OK with me - although I may be resisting cultural trends, I'll unabashedly note my prejudice in favor of the distaff variety. I could compromise and write of my own, but that would be even duller than it sounds. But since then I've encountered a few items on the general topic that I'll share here.

I already published the Moron's Guide to a Larger Penis here. I've always been amused by the ones who offered enlargement "prosthetically". No, I've never tried it (nor needed to, dammit). I'd think keeping it attached would be a challenge. Surely you couldn't fool anyone with it. And then there's that tiny little problem with the lack of nerve endings - if they ever figure out how to make that little interface work the implications are staggering, and not just for the terminally horny.

The blood supply to the penis is complex - both erections and flaccidity are necessary to keep blood flowing as needed. Everybody has heard of impotence, in which erections are rare if not impossible. The flip side of this is priapism, and believe it or not it is worse.

Anybody for spotted dick?

Medpundit offers us this about men who train doctors in prostate exams by submitting to them time after time. I'm happy to hear that there are no visual skills involved. One major concern is to avoid startling the patient, and to avoid anything that even remotely could be construed as erotic (this link also from MedPundit).

One might hope that such a process would escape exploitation in the entertainment business. One would be wrong, for as H. L. Mencken once allegedly wrote, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. One choice scene was from Tom Hanks' movie "Bachelor Party", in which Hanks' sister is a proctologist. If I remember right, he wanders into the examining room while she is in mid exam with an old man in all fours - she introduces the two and tries to hug him as he tries to keep her at bay.

Oh yeah, I think Mad TV did it once too. This time the victim was a fat guy laying on his side as a bunch of viewers watched his colonoscopy. He was subjected to untold indignities. Then they decided to take a group picture, so they just gave the probe a yank and used it to take the shot. Yow.

The spring 2003 American Heritage of Invention and Technology magazine has an item on America's best collegiate inventors. One of the candidates, Carlo Traverso, invested a non-invasive colon-cancer test that has potential of eliminating many colonoscopies. He gets innumerable comments of course, but the worst part is that he gets unsolicited offers of stool samples from strangers.

I'm gonna quit while I'm behind. We'll try to return to my usual standards (?!) later...