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2004.04.25 05.08 Global Warming Reassessment There's a long and what appears to be quite interesting article on Climate Change and Global Warming right here. What I've seen looks pretty interesting, though I've not read it all quite yet. Maybe one it's done I'll post some sort of opinion on it, but not yet. |
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2004.04.25 02.32 Yo! Can a Brother get a little Tolerance Up in Here? Right on, Nicholas Kristof! |
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2004.04.23 17.18 Pat Tillman - Football Player, Army Ranger, Hero I don't like to toss the word "hero" around. I think it's used far too often in circumstances where it's just not warranted and doing so cheapens the word. It's a term that gets decidedly less special and significant when used capriciously. In the case of Pat Tillman, though, I use it readily. For those of you who have yet to hear the story, here it is. Pat Tillman was a defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals. He was by every description a smart, tough player and a leader - the kind of player that every team covets. IN 2000 he set a record for tackles with the Cardinals with over 200 (NFL teams play a 16-game schedule. That's a lot of tackles). In 2002 his contract expired and the team offered him a brand new contract that would have paid him 3.6 million dollars a year. He declined the contract. September 11 affected him a great deal and he had decided that when his contract had lapsed (no begging out early for him. He fulfilled his obligation.) he would join the Armed Forces . He did so shortly threafter, joining his brother as a US Army Ranger - no easy duty either. By all accounts he was a diligent and honorable soldier and served well. It was reported today that he was killed in combat in Afghanistan. I haven't seen any details of the action in which he was killed but I do not doubt, form other reports I read, that he fought in a way that gave great credit to the Rangers and his country. I do not wish to denigrate anyone who has left family and friends to serve the people of the United States in the military. It does, I believe, take an extra measure of conviction to lay aside more money than most of us will see in several years doing a job he loved very much to not only serve in the military but do so as a Ranger - one of the most intellectually and physically rigorous positions in any military branch. I hope that his sacrifice will bring more attention to those of us who put their lives at risk to serve us. I hope that we all will find a way to support them in ways that involve more than just words and symbols. There are lots of organizations out there who are trying to serve or soldiers and they need help. One of the more interesting I've found is the Spirit of America. They take direct donations and turn them into all sorts of supplies ot help our troops gain and keep the support of the Iraqis. Right now their current project is to equip several television stations in Iraq to counter the constant barrage of BS being shoveled into the country by al-Jazeera. It's worth a couple of bucks. |
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2004.04.22 23.35 Finally! A Raise!! We just got word that the legislature approved step raises and a Cost of Living Adjustment for everyone for the coming fiscal year. That's great news considering I haven't gotten a step in over two years and only one in the last four, and no COLAs at all in the last three. The economy's more or less passing me by at this moment (because municipal employees just miss that. It's part of the gig). It's nice to see that we're straightening ourselves our, fiscally, to the point where we can get caught up just a little bit. Then again, the state is about to pass a "Living Wage" law, which is going to put me farther in the hole, so it's all more or less relative. Either way, it's about 50 more bucks every couple of weeks, and I can definitely use it. |
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2004.04.22 08.53 No Child Left Behind? This article appeared in today's Washington Post dealing with one school's travails with the No Child Left Behind Act. Of course, the scope of the story broadens significantly (as stories like this probably should) but what struck me was the slant of the article. Here are some excerpts (with my commentary below0
This is the lead. The second paragraph goes on to note how, instead of those things, they have a computer guy who tracks the students' progress and a management guru who's cut the courses up into smaller chunks with a test after each chunk. But that kind of misses the point. The obvious conclusion you are supposed to draw from this is that the school had to fire their arts teachers because they didn't have enough money to keep then and the new folks as well and that the new folks are only there because of the testing requirements of NCLB. We'll get back to the money issue in a moment. Let's go on.
Okay, so from reading this, I'm supposed to assume that because a child is poor or African American I should expect a lower educational performance from them? Are we really going to just go ahead and say that publicly in this country that the poor and/or black are incapable of learning to a minimum level? If we are, then we need to stop dancing around the issue, say it, and stop wasting our education dollars on them. Why expend the effort on someone who will "probably never meet the performance targets"? Isn't that just a teensy-weensy bit racist?? Special educations students are a different story, and I know that NCLB treats them differently, but doesn't let them off the hook. Thanks to this enterprising teacher, I know what they should be doing, though.
Yeah, that's good. What the hell is a "life skill" and how are they more important that learning how to speak and write English? I would consider communicating in English to be, unless you lived in California, the essential life skill in the US. If you can't communicate effectively, not much else if going to help you. But it's nice for me to see that Ms. Gogel has surrendered her class to failure. Well done. I've had the chance to spend some real time around, and work with special needs children also and, though I'm far from a trained professional, I've seen them respond to teaching and encouragement. It's not easy by a long shot, but it's definitely possible. Moving on...
Okay, now the picture is becoming clear to me. We can't educate the children because we're not getting enough money to do it. Our schools are having their budgets cut and having these new NCLB requirements thrown onto them. When you put it that way, the schools might have a pretty righteous beef (though not an excuse. We all have to do more with less sometimes. How did me manage to educate our children in small one-room schoolhouses heated by a woodstove??). Except that's not the case. The inference you're supposed to be drawing here is that the first school up there in Warren Township was one of those which had it's budget cut. But they didn't. According to the latest minutes of their Board of Education the school district is receiving a 7 percent increase for the coming fiscal year and that they'll be increasing teaching staff. So there does seem to be money to hire teachers and the management folks they believe they need. And the article devolves from there into pretty much the same "The government's micromanaging us", "we dont' have enough money", and "they only care about results". I'm not necessarily a fan of NCLB but I certainly do believe that results do matter. The only way I can see to objectively measure whether or not children are learning is to test them. If that means that schools "teach to the test" then that is an issue for the parents to take up with the schools. But that's the one thing I didn't see in that article at all: parents taking an active role. I saw a couple or three parents griping about how their kid has to take a test or can't take an arts class this year but I didn't see that parent going to the school system and demanding an accounting for their tax money nor did I see anything about parents helping the schools ready their children for the coming tests. So whose fault is it ultimately? Ours - those of us who sit back and let the schools do whatever they want and use whatever excuse they want to not educate our children fully. If you want your kids to learn, you have to be in it with both feet - no excuses. Parenting just doesn't take a day off, you know? |
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2004.04.21 23.26 Protecting the World, Right Here in the US! And how can we do this, you ask? Because we have a Planetary Protection Officer! This is, easily, the coolest job title I have ever seen, and we have it! And he sits on the UN as the head of (are you ready for more coolness?) The Committee for Space Research! So he's a Scientist and a Protection Officer. He's like the cool scientst in those 1950's sci-fi movies with Tesla Coils and Jacobs' Ladders, and beakers and test tubes and lots and lots of Bunsen Burners all over the place. Giant Robots! Laser Rays! Defending the Earth from horrible space invasions! Well, no. No, it's not even close to what he does. But, still, I think that what he does is cool. His job, really, is to make sure that the stuff the US sends into space conforms to certain standards of "cleanliness" so that our bacteria here doesn't unduly contaminate stuff out there. He also makes sure that the stuff we send up that comes back is cleaned up and made safe for Earth. The latter job isn't such a big deal, but it soon will be, as NASA is working on sending a probe to Mars that will bring back samples. To handle those, he's working on (this just makes me smile with unabashed geeky glee!) a "high-security Martian containment facility." Wait. I know you just didn't gloss over that phrase. Let's see it again. Take your time with it .Savor the coolness. A high-security Martian containment facility. Oh, I do hope they build it right next to Area 51! Please, God, let it happen!! |
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2004.04.19 19.36 Well, looks like Cuba's not so bad after all! As this columnist notes, things are just fine there. Well, maybe not. Apaprently the one thing that will make Cuba a true paraside is a little affirmative action. Right. |
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2004.04.16 23.48 I'm almost speechless. Michael Moore has finally crossed the line into treason. A couple quotes: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?" "I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end." Do you follow this, folks? The man is actually saying, without any shame whatsoever, that he is confident that the people killing our countrymen in Iraq will win their battle and that he fully supports the deaths of more of our soldiers. That's his wish, his desire. This man is one of te darlings of the Democratic party. He's spoken at fundraisers for Democratic candidates with their full and enthusiastic support. Remember General Clark - the man picked by the Clintons and their political allies? He openly embraced Moore. And here's what Moore stands for. I'm not even attempting to be cure or funny here. Read what he had to say. Hell, memorize it! And remember, this man is welcome - INVITED - to appear at Democratic fundraisers. He's an honored guest at Democratic events. And he wants that relative or friend of yours who is over there in Iraq dead. He doesn't want them home to greet you and take up their lives again. He wants them carted off in bodybags. I'm disgusted here damned near beyond words to say so. Just remember those words. |
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2004.04.09 01.12 Cool Science Stuff I read this morning about a rather neat experiment that's going into orbit very soon. Gravity Probe B is scheduled for launch from Vandenberg AFB on April 19. The satellite will be carrying four very precise gyroscopes - perhaps the most precise and frictionless gyroscopes ever made. The purpose of GPB is to verify part of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Okay, so let's see if I can explain why this is cool. It's going to be kind of quick and dirty, so I'll leave some of the really detailed things out. And I'm not a physics major either (my physics major friend isn't available to proof this either) so you'll have to settle for the explanation of an amateur science-geek. The General Theory of Relativity is one of the really big theories we have out there. it explains exactly how and why things in the universe act they way they act. The GTR is all mathematical formulas, though, and at the time much of it wasn't scientifically verifiable because we just didn't have the technology to do so. The math was sound, though, and what experiments could be run bore it out every time. Scientists can't really rest, though, until they can verify all of a Theory with direct experiments, though, and that's what the GPB is intended to do. The GTR deals with large objects - really large objects. For "normal" objects like falling apples, buildings, and airplanes we use the old Newtonian Physics that the GTR supplanted because for the most part, Newtonian Physics works. When you get out into space and start dealing with things the size of planets and moons, though, Newtonian Physics just doesn't work. There are all sorts of imprecisions and conflicts and things that it just can't handle. So we have to use the GTR. The biggest thing the GTR did was to say that there was no such thing as separate notions of time and space, but one thing called "spacetime". Spacetime is flexible. It bends and warps substantially when something large gets involved. How this happens is a really neat trick. Before Einstein, folks believed that gravity was a force that something gave off. Einstein showed that it didn't quite work that way. Let's do a little visualization. Imagine that space is a nice, flat piece of rubber. Now roll a ping pong ball along the rubber sheet in a straight line. No problem. Now let's put a bowling ball in the middle of the sheet. It's going to make a dent in the sheet that, when we roll the ping pong ball again, is going to cause the ball to move toward the bowling ball if it gets close. That's the analogy Einstein used for how spacetime works. Before that, there were no "dents. Planets and starts just exerted a force called gravity that reached out and grabbed something. Einstein said that there was no reaching and grabbing, but that spacetime was warped by the gravity of a massive thing. It was a change in thinking that proved to be huge, to say the least. But what about this time thing? How does that figure into it? Well, here's where the "relativity" part of the GTR fits in. Let's say you're on a spaceship with a perfectly tuned watch orbiting the Earth. I have the partner to your watch on my wrist standing on the surface of the planet. You orbit for an hour or so then come back and we compare watches. You'll find that our watches are now out of sync and that yours will be slightly faster than mine. You can even do that experiment by having one person to to the bottom of Death Valley and one staying at the top. The difference will be very slight, but it will be there. That's because Einstein found that time was a relative notion. You get even more extreme effect as gravity itself becomes stronger and stronger or as an object's speed gets closer to the speed of light. These two discoveries (and an awful lot of math and experimentation that followed) put space and time together in one single unit. Convenient, huh? Except that proving it to a very precise degree is difficult. You have to be able to get experiments out into space and free of as many other influences (like flaws in the material, friction, etc) as possible before you can have any confidence in them. What scientists believe will happen is that the gyroscopes in the GPB will be influenced by the curvature of spacetime around the earth in a very precise and predictable direction. The phenomenon they're looking at is called "frame dragging" and the satellite should be accurate to within 0.01 percent which is the most precise experiment ever done. Very cool indeed. |
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2004.04.09 00.33 Isn't There Something Better They Could Be Doing? Normally, I'm a John Ashcroft fan. This time, though, he seems to have gone way, way off the reservation to me. The Justice Department is spending millions of dollars to start prosecuting Federal porn cases again - something that hadn't been done for about ten years. On one hand, I can see some of the merits of what they're doing. Porn has, in some cases, gotten out of hand. It's shoved into your e-mail box (and the e-mails of children) without your consent and often against your express desire otherwise. There's no telling what pop-up ad will have something pornographic in it, even on the most innocent of web sites. It crops up in places that no parent might suspect (hence, the furors over the Super Bowl halftime show). It routinely employs underage women (Tracy Lords thankfully credits an FBI raid with ending her porn career at the age of 18). It's exploded to the point where it's nearly inescapable. On the other hand, the scope of the investigation here seems far too broad to me. The article says that the FBI will even be looking at "soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in guestrooms of major hotel chains". That seems to be to be a huge overreach and I'm not sure why it's necessary to do so. Generally, porn is an adult activity for adults to choose if that's what they want. If porn industry people are using kids, then bust them hard. If they're shoving porn into our boxes without our consent, well, that's not illegal, but it certainly could be if we wanted the legislation drawn to narrowly cover that. The problem is that we of course have a First Amendment problem here. The bulk of court rulings on porn is that the First Amendment covers it and that it's just fine. The real relevant case was decided in 1973 - Miller v. California - and it held that something could be considered "obscene" only if an average person applying contemporary community standards would find it patently offensive. Sounds good, right? There are some problems with it, though. It's nearly impossible to get a conviction under those guidelines because there's so much play in words like "patently" and "contemporary community standards". There's just no way to tell what a jury will find. For my money, if we really wanted to get to the heart of porn, we'd look at it as a commercial activity. There are all sorts of things that might be perfectly constitutional but that are regulated or even prohibited commercially. That porn is sold makes it a matter of commerce and that's something that certainly could be regulated, even on the Federal level. I'm not suggesting that it ought to happen, but that it's possible. Either way, I really think that the Justice Department has other things to worry about instead of making this a priority. Last I heard, there are still folks creeping into the country who want to kill lots and lots of us. |
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2004.04.09 00.13 There Aren't Many More Impressive Women in Politics Here's a transcript of Condaleeza Rice's comments before the 9/11 Commission today. Every time I see Dr. Rice speak in public, I have to stop and watch. She's incredibly intelligent, engaging as a speaker, and has an uncommon ability to explain complicated matters in a way that a layman like me can easily understand. And she's really quotable, too. Here's an example from today. "After the September 11th attacks, our Nation faced hard choices. We could fight a narrow war against al-Qaida and the Taliban or we could fight a broad war against a global menace. We could seek a narrow victory or we could work for a lasting peace and a better world. President Bush chose the bolder course." Bam - concise and sharply to the point. You may not like her politics but you can't deny that she's damned sharp and more than qualified to do what she's doing. Now, I'm going to pick a couple nits here where she's concerned. First, the woman holds a Doctorate and she's the National Security Advisor. She's earned much better than to be called "Condi" by the media talking heads. They've not earned that level of familiarity with her in any way. Her position and sheer manners demands that they either call her "Dr. Rice" or "Condoleeza" until she grants them permission to be more familiar. And if that happened, they certainly shouldn't refer to her by a diminuitive nickname in a news broadcast. Using a nickname like that diminishes her. It makes her smaller and less important than she is and it's disrespectful. I don't see them doing this with any other female officials in this administration (or any other, for that matter). Second, I have a huge problem with the raking over the coals she's been getting. If you read the newscasts, you see all sorts of phrases attributed to her that I know full well wouldn't be used if another woman were in her position. I have even more respect for her because she's not cut loose and flown off the handle. She could very easily make the point that the coverage of her has been sexist and perhaps even racist, but she hasn't. it's one hell of a credit to her that she's stayed focused on the issue at hand instead of defending her own personal honor. |
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2004.04.08 23.39 Don't Like Your Face? Well, make a new one! Okay, it's just mindless fun and all the faces I've made so far look like Armed Robbery Suspects (including the one that looks eerily like me), but you weren't using all those hours in the day on productive things anyhow, right? Right. Go make a face. |
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2004.04.05 23.47 The Rwandan Genocide - Ten Years Later Beginning on April 6, 1994 the Rwandan Military and militia of a tribe called the Hutu begin killing their rival Tutsi tribal leaders on the eve of a Treaty signing which would have brought a measure of peace to the country. Among those killed were ten Belgian troops there as members of UNAMIR (the UN peacekeeping force) who were guarding the Hutu Prime Minister (a moderate in favor of the treaty). The Belgians were tortured before they were killed. The Belgians withdrew from UNAMIR ten days later. UNAMIR troops in charge of civilian refugee camps watched the slaughter but were forbidden to intervene by the UN. UNAMIR was, at the time, under the direction of Kofi Annan, the UN Director of Peacekeeping. Over the next 100 days, into the end of July, the Hutu slaughter approximately 800,000 Tutsi in what's been described as the worse single case of genocide since the Holocaust. During the genocide, the UN reduced UNAMIR troops from 2500 to 270. UNAMIR troops were pulled out from a school which sheltered over 2000 Hutus. Most of them were killed after the withdrawal. Most nations sent troops to evacuate their citizens including France and Belgium. The US also airlifted its citizens out of the country. None of them took any Rwandans with them, not even those Rwandans working in their embassies or on their consular staffs. By the end of April, the International Red Cross estimated the deaths as "tens of thousands". The Canadian General, Romeo Dallaire, in charge of their contingent of troops begs the UN to send more troops and begs that their orders be changes from "shoot only in self-defense". Later he testifies that they only needed 5000 troops to stop the genocide at the time. The UN finally passes a resolution but leaves out the word "genocide". That word is not included in any UN resolution until Mid-May (UN Resolution 918) when it says that "acts of genocide may have been committed." The UN authorized in that resolution 5500 troops to be deployed in Rwanda. Unfortunately, none of them actually arrived. Four days before that, the UN considered restoring UNAMIR strength, but US Secretary of State Madeline Albright delays this vote four days. French troops with the permission of the UN arrive at the end of June and set up a "safe zone". Those zones did not prove safe as Hutus were killed there as they had elsewhere. The French provided no hindrance and in fact may have helped the Tutsi. Rwandan President Paul Kigami says that, "they opened routes for people who were...committing genocide to flee...they saved those who were killing, not those who were being killed." By mid-July, 1994 the genocide had mostly dwindled out. The French were replaced by Ethiopian troops. The US armored personnel carriers that had been asked for in mid-May never quite make it there. You can find background information and current news on the genocide and its lasting effects via: PBS Frontline, and this Rwandan news site . ---------------------------------------- It is beyond a shame to see that while nearly a million people were killed in less than six months, we did absolutely nothing about it. We talked about it, debated over it, and slung nice legal arguments around whether what was happening was actually a "genocide". When it came to saving the lives of those people we here in the US sat on our hands and did nothing. That's not exactly true. We didn't do "nothing". We did far worse than that. Our President and his administration knowingly distorted what was happening so that there'd be no outcry. See, they were gun-shy because of what had happened in Somalia, so they hid the slaughter. The UN wasn't clean either. According to General Dallaire, UN officials told him that "Rwanda was of no value in any way, shape or form." The French took action, of course. They helped the Tutsi with the genocide, letting those doing the killings go free. What wasn't widely known at the time to the population at large (but was pretty damned well known to the UN and the Clinton Administration) was that the French Government had very close ties to the Tutsi hardliners who were killing all those people. So the French let the murderers pass by without stopping them, and even halted an attempt to stop the Rwandan military forces involved in the killing. Pleasantly enough, a French commission blamed the US and UN for the genocide but absolved President Mitterand and his administration from any blame. And let's throw one last thing in here. How were the Tutsis killed? It wasn't largely by gunfire, though the regular Rwandan military used guns. They were killed by either being burned to death or hacked to death with machetes. It may be the first time in recorded history that the machete was used as a weapon of mass destruction. The denial continued well after the genocide. Millions of Rwandans died in the aftermath from internecine war, starvation, and disease. The conflict spilled over into Uganda and Burundi Some estimated have the deal after the fact at around 3 million in the general area. What happened in Rwanda ought to shame us to our cores because, in the end, we allowed it to happen. We didn't pay enough attention and when there was a chance to act, we let ourselves be lulled to sleep by either a deceitful President or an apathetic UN. In either case, we ought not to let this happen again, no matter where it happens. |
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2004.04.05 23.35 Now that's futility! People of Detroit rejoice! The Detroit Tigers won their opening day game today, 7-0. It's the first time they've had a winning record since April, 2001. Yep, that's right. 2001. Go Tigers. |
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2004.04.04 16.37 Archaeologists Find Proof of Dinosaur Butts! Of course, we see the bones in the museums. I mean, with all that, dinosaurs had to have butts, right? Well, now we know for sure. They've found a buttprint! Now for the elusive, "Dinosaurs sleeping on their tummies" print discovery.... |
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2004.04.02 18.45 *Yawn* I'm terminally bored. It's a shame that a vibrant, smart, funny, sex-ay guy like me has nothing happening on a gray, rainy Friday night. I had actually planned on spending a bit of time outside doing some stargazing (yes, I know. It's sheer excitement.) but with the weather the way it is, that ain't gonna happen. There really isn't any place I feel like going tonight. It looks like a DVD and popcorn kind of night. Nope, it's not exciting, but I suppose it could be a lot worse. |
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2004.04.01 23.33 It's Enough to Make Me Throw Up My Hands. According to this article in the Guardian, The President and members of his Cabinet knew that genocide was going on in Rwanda well before the worst part of it got going. That's not the worst part, though. Not only did they know about it, they purposefully hid what was happening form the American people because they knew that we'd demand action, and they didn't wnat to act. They were afraid of another Somalia and didn't tihn that stopping the genocide was in our national interest. Not in our national interest? Over 800,000 peole were systematically murdered right in front of the world and we did nothing. Our leaders at the time turned a purposefully blind eye to their plight and let them die. Why? Because they didn't think they were worth saving. How is it not in our national interest to protect the helpless anywhere we can? Isn't that what we're really about here in America? Isn't that what truly makes us unique? Bah. These are the same people who felt that the people in Iraq weren't worth saving - and still feel that way. It's beyond horrible to me. |
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2004.04.01 23.15 Chicago Rules in Iraq It's been in the news the last two days. Four civilian contractors were murdered and their bodies desecrated by a mob in Fallujah, Iraq. And then a convoy was attacked near the same city and three soldiers were killed. This has got to stop. We've been awfuly worried here in the US about being sensitive and gentle and understanding, but it's obvious ot me and it ought ot be obvious even to the most objective observer that this isn't working in and around Fallujah. We've known since nearly our first day in Iraq that the city was going to be a nest of vipers, yet we seem to be treating it like every other city. I think it's time to introduce the residents of that city to "Chicago Rules". You remember Chicago Rules from "The Untouchables". Elliott Ness asks Malone about getting Capone and Malone asks him how serious he is and what it'll take to bring him down. Here's a choice quote. "Malone:You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do? Eliot Ness: Anything and everything in my power. Malone: And THEN what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead. Eliot Ness: How do you do it then? Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? Eliot Ness: I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so. Malone: Well the Lord hates a coward. Do you know what a blood oath is Mr. Ness? Eliot Ness: Yes. Malone: Good, cause you just took one." Not only is that the Chicago way, it ought to be the United States way in Fallujah. There needs to be hard payback against the savages who did this and it needs to happen right now. |
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2004.03.31 17.45 And now, the insanity. Please, don't click this unless you need to feel your brains leaking out of your ears or have some horrible vendetta against your cubicle neighbor at work. On second thought. Go ahead and click. You all deserve to be singing this the rest of the day. I love y'all too much to keep it to myself. |
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2004.03.31 17.42 Which Level of Hell are You? Go ahead, you know you want to know. Try it and see! Apaprently, I'm the Fifth level of Hell (though I could have as easily been the Second, or Lustful Level - WaaHooo!). Here's a wonderful snippet of the description. "Fifth Level of Hell The river Styx runs through this level of Hell, and in it are punished the wrathful and the gloomy. The former are forever lashing out at each other in anger, furious and naked, tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth. The latter are gurgling in the black mud, slothful and sullen, withdrawn from the world. Their lamentations bubble to the surface as they try to repeat a doleful hymn, though with unbroken words they cannot say it. Because you lived a cruel, vindictive and hateful life, you meet your fate in the Styx." Aren't you glad to know me? |
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2004.03.31 17.28 This is worth reading through. It's a retelling of the famous (or infamous) Fells Acres Day Care case in the mid-1980's. The case was one of the more sensational of the time and was at the very height of the "day care center sexual abuse" trials which popped up all over the country. In this case, it looks like an innocent family was ground exceedingly fine by a prosecutory machine determined that they be found guilty come hell or high water. Read a bit - check out the links - and see what you think. |
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2004.03.31 01.13 Nice Campaign Ad I'm not particularly keen on the ads being run by the Bush Campaign. The President has a lot of good things to say in his favor. He needs to be saying them now, not a couple months from now. They ought to check out this amateur ad and give the admaker a job. Tomorrow. Mood:  amused
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2004.03.31 01.11 Yuh-oh...looks like the RIAA's been Fibbing. I read today that a couple researchers have done a study on internet downloads of music and CD sales. What'd they find? No significant correlation between the two. Zero. Zip. Nada. This of course flies in the face of what the RIAA has been saying for the last couple of years. They have surveys, of course, but have you seen the survey questions? They're leading, IMO, and don't get to the real causes. If someone is downloading music, but not buying it, why not? Are they simply pirating music or perhaps they're getting digital versions of music they already own? Are they sampling what's out there and deciding not to buy the CD because they don't like the music? There are a lot of reasons folks download music and don't buy right away beyond the obvious but they surveys don't cover those in any great detail. IN any event, this study (a PDF several pages long, but worth reading)ought to make them sweat. I wonder if we'll see a little Congressional action in the near future. Mood: amused
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2004.03.29 23.49 Neat Stuff in the Night Sky - Part 2 Just about everyone can find the Big Dipper (or the Plough, if you're in Britain) this time of year. It's likely the most recognizeable feature of the sky and the end of winter is a great time to see it and some of its notable neighbors. The first neat fact about the Just about everyone can find the Big Dipper (or the Plough, if you're in Britain) this time of year. It's likely the most recognizeable feature of the sky and the end of winter is a great time to see it and some of its notable neighbors. The first neat fact about the Big Dipper is that it's not a constellation of itself. The proper name for it is an "asterism" - a group of stars that make their own distinctive shape. You've probably seen other asterisms before: The Hyades (which makes up the horns of Taurus), Orion's Belt, and the Sword of Orion are perhaps the most notable. It's part of a constellation called Ursa Major or The Great Bear. Most folks, myself included would be hard pressed to identify the rest of the Great Bear, but that's okay. Most astronomers have a hard time finding it with the naked eye, too. It's not the easiest constallation to find, mostly because it's made up of relatively dim stars and because it's spread out over a good chunk of the sky. There are a couple features about the Big Dipper I find interesting and to my knowledge they make it a truly unique bunch of stars. First, unlike many other constellations, the Big Dipper doesn't have any notable stars. They are all of the same approximate magnitude and none of them stand out to the point where they have memorable names. There aren't many constelations in the Northern Hemisphere for which this is true and certainly none as famous as the Big Dipper. Second, the Big Dipper has something called an "optical double". This is where two stars seem close enough to be thought to orbit each other, even though they don't. The optical double formed in the handle of the Big Dipper is the only one I can recall readily seen by the naked eye. To find this neat little sight, we have to find the Dipper first. Look in the Northern Sky, slightly to the West. The Dipper will be hanging upside-down with the handle arcing gently to your right and the broad part of the dipper opening to the left. Once you've found that, the optical double is a snap to find. Look closely at the second star in the handle. If you don't have a lot of gorund light, and the weather's reasonably clear, you should see a small star right next to a brighter one. From the Big Dipper, you can find four other constellations easily. We'll take the easiest one first - the one most folks learn as children. The back two stars of the Dipper (the ones which, right now will be the ones highest in the sky) are called the "pointer stars". Make a straight line betwen them then extend that line out from the bowl of the dipper to the first visible star. That star is Polaris, the North Star, the most visible star in Ursa Minor. It lies almost exactly on the North Magnetic Pole. It wasn't always the North Star, though. Because of a phenomenon known as precission, the north star shifts from one star to the next. This happens because the Earth doesn't rotate perfectly on its axis. There is a slight wobble that causes the north and south poles to slowly move in a cirle every 25,000 years or so which means that we won't have to worry about it for a while. :) Of all the stars which are likely to become "north stars" in the future, Polaris is the one closest to Magnetic North we'll ever know. Let's go back to our pointer stars, and head in a line moving the other way. You'll come to a brightsh star named Regulus the most luminous star in the constellation Leo. Regulus means "heart of the lion", which makes sense to me considering it's smack in the middle of Leo. Oh, and there's another asterism here for you asterism collectors. Regulus is the bottom of what's called the "sickle of Leo" which you can find my moving up and following the curve of stars that form Leo's head. Okay, let's go back to the Dipper. Do you notice how the stars of the handle make a gentle arc? Well, keep following that arc to Arcturus. Arcturus is the brightest star in Bootes the Herdsman. No, don't blame me for the name of these constellations. I would have named it "The Kite" because that's all I ever see when I look at Bootes. and I have no idea who Bootes is, either. I guess he was a famous herdsman who herded sheep really well and so, hey, a constellation. Arcturus is the fourth-brightest star in the sky and shines nearly as bright as Sirus over there in Canis Major (remember Canis Major?). One more constellation and you can rest your next. Luckily, this one sits fairly low in the sky this time of year. Take that line you drew from the Dipper to Arcturus and make a beeline to Spica. Spica is the luminary of what may be the rarest thing nowadays, Virgo the...err..Virgin. Again, this constellation doens't look much like a virgin, but I assume that she was named by sailors out on a months-long voyage. I think we're lucky that all the constellations didn't get these kind of names. In the Southern Hemisphere, as a matter of fact, there's a wealth of nautically-named constellations (the Sextant, the Argo, the Compass, etc). So there you go....five constellations for the price of one famous one! Believe it or not, if you take these with the ones that group around Orion, you have most of the constellations in the sky during the early spring. Enjoy! |
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2004.03.29 23.43 Neat Stuff in the Night Sky! This time of year is one of the two best, IMO, for finding really cool things up there in the night sky. Late winter/Early spring is great for viewing one of the most recognizeable constellations in the Northern Hemisphere. And we're going to have fun with it and its neighbors. But first...FIRST.....there's something that you won't get a chance to see for another generation - all five planets visible to the naked eye in the sky at the same time. The added bonus is that you get to see a beautiful star cluster, too, and all you need are your peepers. A pair of binoculars will work, too, but they're not required. Here's a ]little overview of what to look for. You'll be looking for horizon to horizon for those bright non-twinking objects (cool note: Stars twinkle. Planets don't unless they're close to the horizon). Jupiter will be the big bright one to the East and Venus will be even brighter to the West. In between them will be the semi-bright Saturn. Between Saturn and Venus you'll find the reddish Mars. The toughest to find will be Mercury. It'll be tucked under Venus, low on the horizon. You'll need a nice clear night, an uncluttered horizon, and almost no ground lights to spot it. If you get it then you've done great! If not, enjoy the four you can see easily. But why stop while you're there? Drop down and to the right of Saturn and find Orion . The most distinguishable feature is the three horizontal stars known as Orion's Belt. If you have really good binoculars you can find the Orion Nebula (located just under the second star in what would be the "scabbard" hanging off the Belt"). The Orion Nebula is one of the universe's most active star birthplaces and a favorite of the Hubble Space Telescope. While you're looking at Orion, note the red star that makes one of his shoulders. That's Betelgeuse. It's a really freaking big star (so big that if you replaced the Sun with it, it would extend past the orbit of Jupiter) and the redness is caused by its advanced age. The other bright star which is diagonally opposite Betelgeuse is Rigel. Rigel is the 7th brightest star in the sky, some 40,000 times brighter than our own sun. But while we're looking at bright stuff, take a look to the left and slightly lower than Orion. That really bright star there is Sirius, the brightest star in the whole sky - 23 times brighter than the sun. Much of that brightness is due to its closeness to us - only 8.6 light years. Rigel, by comparison is 775 light years away. Sirius is part of the Constellation called Canis Major (AKA: The Big Dog). And here's another one to find, if you're lucky this time of year. Slide over a little farther to the left and down, near the horizon (try looking for this one later in the night). There'll be another bright star there that's part of the smallest constellation I know, Canis Minor (AKA: The Little Dog). Canis Major and Canis Minor serve as companions to Orion - his faithful hunting dogs. The star you see there is Procyon . Canis Minor is ade of two stars, but ht eother is so faint that Canis Minor is often called the "Lone Star Constellation". But what are Orion and his hunting dogs hunting? Well, remember where we left Mars? Look just a little down and to the left. You'll see a "V"-shape, headed by a reddish star that looks a bit like Mars. That star is Aldebaran and it's the brightest star in the constellation Taurus . The bull is fearsome! Grrrr! If you haven't gotten a crick in your neck quite yet, come up a little form Aldebaran and see the Pleiades, otherwise known as the Seven Sisters or The Most Often Misspelled Thing in the Sky. On a normal night you can pick out six to seven of them with the naked eye. A clear night will reveal as many as a dozen. With a decent pair of binoculars, you'll see dozens! There's your star cluster. Yahoo! The trio of Sirius, Procyon, and Betelgeuse form the Winter Trangle, just one of the great reason to gaze at the stars on a clear night this time of year. |
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