tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112013682024-03-13T20:47:54.755-07:00Porlock JuniorOne more person's random ramblings, with the usual amount of politics and a certain amount of science.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.comBlogger103125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-76787799788715688462011-02-05T10:30:00.004-08:002011-02-05T10:39:02.883-08:00Skip this, it's Sixties stuffNow, you probably already knew Billy Graham was a liar when it suited his profoundly Christian purposes, but <a href="http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/4118/billy_graham_regrets_political_involvement%2C_again">this</a> was new to me:<br /><blockquote>On August 10, 1960, for example, Graham sent a letter to John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for president and only the second Roman Catholic to run on a major-party ticket. Graham assured Kennedy in no uncertain terms that, contrary to rumors, the evangelist had no intention of raising the “religious issue” during the course of the campaign. <p>Eight days later, however, Graham convened a gathering of American Protestant ministers in Montreaux, Switzerland, to discuss how to derail Kennedy’s campaign. The follow-up to the Montreaux meeting was a closed-door gathering of 150 Protestant clergy at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on November 7—the purpose of which, once again, was to sound the alarm about the dangers of a Roman Catholic in the White House.<br /></p></blockquote><br />That's Randall Balmer speaking, an Episcopal priest and author of <span style="font-style:italic;">God in the White House: A History: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush</span>Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-14332335007218301022011-01-15T17:05:00.007-08:002011-01-15T17:13:42.789-08:00A slightly belated answerOnce upon a time I <a href="http://porlockjr.blogspot.com/2007/10/bureaucratic-trivia.html">posted a question </a>and said I'd provide the answer. Here it is, without the spelling error it had. The discerning reader will detect that this is not the set of answers to my constitutional quiz.<br /><br />What was the first use of a printed form by a bureaucracy? When, what bureaucracy, what purpose?<br /><br />In the British Library, where you may see it any time with no admission charge, there is a standard form, printed within a few years after the first Gutenberg Bible, for selling an indulgence.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-54068340940079802472011-01-15T09:04:00.031-08:002011-01-21T22:07:37.145-08:00Constitutional AnswersHere are the answers to the <a href="http://porlockjr.blogspot.com/2011/01/constitutional-quiz.html">recent Constitutional Quiz</a>. Those who would rather know the question before learning, for instance, <a href="http://digg.com/news/entertainment/Rosebud_was_a_sled_Big_list_of_movie_spoilers_on_one_page">"It's his sled"</a>, will prefer to skip ahead to the original posting before reading this.<br /><br />I have mingled the answers into the published questions because I hate trying to flip back and forth.<br /><br /><br />1. By whose power was the Constitution established?<br />(a) King George III<br />(b) George Washington<br />(c) The states<br />(d) The people<br />(e) God<br />You are expected to provide backing for your answers from the Constitution, in this as in other questions.<br /><br />ANS: (d)<br />Always start with an easy one! Just start reading the document, and you have your answer in the first three words.<br /><br />“We the People of the United States … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” — Preamble<br /><br />Does this mean that all the people who have told you that the Federal Constitution is a creation of the States were wrong, including Thomas Jefferson? Yes.<br /><br /><br />2. Where in the Constitution does each of the following phrases occur?<br />a. Balance of powers<br />b. Executive privilege<br />c. Separation of powers<br />d. Supreme law of the Land<br />e. Wall of separation between church and state<br /><br />ANS:<br />a. Nowhere<br />b. Nowhere<br />c. Nowhere<br />d. Article 6<br />e. Nowhere<br /><br /><br />3. The supreme law of the land<br />3a.What constitutes the supreme law of the land, to which the judges in every state are bound? (Incomplete answers get very little partial credit.)<br /><br />ANS: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby” — Article 6<br /><br />3b. Can such law be overridden by the constitution or laws of any state?<br /><br />ANS: No. “…the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." — Article 6 still<br /><br /><br />4. The Preamble consists of an explanation of why the Constitution was created, and by whose authority. What other provisions, if any, contain an explanation or justification for their existence?<br /><br />ANS: A quiz needs at least two easy questions, and this is the other: The Second Amendment.<br />"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,…"<br /><br />If there is any other such item in the text, I'd very much like to know about it. Otherwise, see the Bonus Questions.<br /><br /><br />5. Three-fifths<br />5a. In the original intention of the Constitution there was a provision that counted three-fifths of the number of slaves, as contrasted with the whole number of all free citizens. What, specifically, did this provision have to do with?<br /><br />ANS: Computing the number of representatives allowed to each state in the House of Representatives. (Also, now obsolete, determining taxes on States in proportion to population.) Article 1, section 2.<br /><br />5b. Did that provision directly name “slaves”? Persons of some particular race?<br /><br />ANS: No. It says “all other Persons” after naming those who are counted and those not to be counted at all.<br /><br />5c. What was the purpose and effect of the three-fifths provision?<br />(a) To decrease the political power of slaves<br />(b) To increase the political power of slaves<br />(c) To decrease the political power of slave owners<br />(d) To increase the political power of slave owners<br />(e) Not really any of above, because there is a flaw in this question itself.<br /><br />ANS: As you can guess, (e). The <span style="font-style: italic;">reason</span> for (e): though two of the choices are simply absurd, the other two are comparative, and it depends what you compare to. To go down the list:<br />(a) and (b) are hopeless, because slaves could not vote; no one in their families could vote (hence it would be nonsense to argue about how women and children who couldn’t vote were still counted); they could never become voters; there was no one recognized by law or tradition to represent their interests politically. Three-fifths of nothing is nothing, which is not an increase or a decrease.<br />(c) Counting the slaves, who had no political power whatsoever, would produce an increase in the power of the slave-owning states relative to free states. Someone would get this power; that group, not being the slaves themselves, would be the people with political power within those states, who were the slave owners. Hence, the three-fifths rule would <span style="font-style: italic;">reduce</span> that power.<br />(d) However, consider the political weight that a republic might assign to beings with no political rights — none of the rights, responsibilities, or privileges of a citizen of a free Republic; not even the rights that an alien visiting from any civilized country had either here or in his homeland, whether a subject of the King of England or of the Emperor of Japan. For such a being, whether a robot, a mule, or a slave, the correct weight in assigning representation would be none whatsoever. Relative to that, the three-fifths granted an <span style="font-style: italic;">increase</span> in power to the slave owners.<br /><br />Bonus question: Is 3/5 closer to 1 (the slave-owners’ preference) or 0 (the free states’ preference?<br /><br /><br />6. In the whole body of the Constitution before the abolition of slavery in the 13th Amendment, where is there mention of slaves or slavery, under those names or direct equivalents?<br /><br />ANS: Nowhere. Examples of what it does name:<br />The three-fifths rule: "three fifths of all other Persons."<br />The slave trade: "The <a name="C1"></a>Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit …" Article 1, section 9<br />Slavery in free states: "Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another" Article 4, section 2<br /><br /><br />7. Religion<br />7a. In the body of the Constitution as it was originally adopted, laying out its purpose and the laws and procedures of the nation, where is religion mentioned directly?<br /><br />ANS: “[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” — Article 6<br /><br />(Bonus question: Why did these precise 18th-century lawmakers say “ever” rather than simply banning it as it bans other things?)<br />No answer here, as it's a matter of interpretation. But obviously it's a matter of strong emphasis rare in the text of this sober legal document.<br /><br />7b.Where is any practice that is specifically religious mentioned?<br /><br />ANS: An Oath, which is a religious act, is mentioned in three places: Article 1, section 3; Article 2, section 1; Article 6.<br /><br />7c.Where is a distinction between any religion and any other mentioned? If there is such a place, is any preference given to one over another?<br /><br />ANS: No such comparison is made directly; but for each of the religious acts mentioned in (b), the Constitution directly offers a non-religious Affirmation as being equally valid.<br /><br /><br />8. Name as many things as you can that States cannot do.<br /><br />ANS: A list, not guaranteed to be complete, just long:<br /><br />According to Article 1 section 10, it can’t “enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.” More things that they can't do under that section:<br /><br />Charge import or export duties beyond actual inspection costs without consent of Congress.<br /><br />Charge ships a fee for using a port (“duty of Tonnage”). Keep troops or ships of war in time of peace. Enter into an agreement or compact with another State or a foreign power. Engage in war, except responding to actual invasion or imminent danger.<br /><br />Other things:<br />Fail to honor the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of any other State. — Article 4, section 1<br /><br />Deny the privileges and immunities of a citizen to citizens of another state. Fail to hand over a person accused of crime in another state when that state demands it. [Now repealed: Fail to hand over an escaped slave] — Article 4, section 2<br /><br />Merge with another State without consent of Congress. — Article 4, section 3<br /><br />Deny its citizens a republican form of government. — Article 4, section 4<br /><br />Abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. — Amendment 14, clause 1. [Please note: privileges and immunities for <span style="font-style: italic;">citizens</span>; due process and equal protection for <span style="font-style: italic;">persons</span>.]<br /><br />Claim representation in Congress based on a head count that includes people (initially, as a proportion of white males over 21) who are denied voting rights. — Amendment 14, clause 2<br /><br />Grant any State office to any person who has violated an oath of office to the United States or any State, without approval of two thirds of each house of Congress. — Amendment 14, clause 3<br /><br />Assume or pay any debt incurred in rebellion against the United States. — Amendment 14, clause 4.<br /><br />Abridge the right to vote, on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. — Amendment 15, clause 1.<br /><br />Appoint (rather than elect) a Senator, except on an interim basis. — Amendment 17.<br /><br />Deny or abridge the right to vote on basis of sex. — Amendment 19.<br /><br />Deny the right to vote for Federal offices because of failure to pay a poll tax or the like. — Amendment 24<br /><br />Deny voting rights by reason of age to any person of 18 years or older. — Amendment 26<br /><br />That’s my list. Please supply any (clear, explicit) prohibitions I’ve missed.<br /><br /><br />BONUS QUESTIONS: Here we read the plain words of the Constitution and apply them to matters of fact.<br /><br />Bonus 1.<br />Bonus 1a. Is torture illegal in the United States of America? (Here and now, not hypothetically or by debatable reasoning in some court)<br /><br />ANS: Yes. The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was ratified by the United States on 21 Oct 1994. Under Article 6 of the United States Constitution it is, therefore, part of the Supreme Law of the Land; and every judge in every State is legally required to respect it.<br /><br />Bonus 1b. If there are any conditions in which it is actually illegal, what are they; alternatively, what are the specific exemptions from that law?<br /><br />ANS: As that law bans all forms of torture by anyone subject to our jurisdiction at any time (after October 1994) in any place, it’s easier to list the exceptions than all the cases. Here is the list of national security emergencies and other extremities in which this existing United States law allows an exemption: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” — Part I, Article 2.<br /><br /><br />Factual corrections will be welcomed. Interpretative arguments will be considered. Also, of course, any proposed additions to the list.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-31542220827600302662011-01-14T21:31:00.016-08:002011-01-15T11:52:06.724-08:00A Constitutional QuizThe other day, a posting at <a href="http://www.mahablog.com/">Mahablog</a> suggested that people should <a href="http://www.mahablog.com/2011/01/05/more-on-the-constitution-fetish/">propose questions for a quiz</a> on what the US Constitution actually says. Having got carried away with writing up some of my favorite questions and got fed up with trying to get anything formatted at all in a comment, I've decided to re-post here.<br /><br />With some revisions, of course. Still too verbose and preachy, but I may manage to improve it with time.<br /><br /><br />1. By whose power was the Constitution established?<br />(a) King George III<br />(b) George Washington<br />(c) The states<br />(d) The people<br />(e) God<br />You are expected to provide backing for your answers from the Constitution, in this as in other questions.<br /><br />2. Where in the Constitution does each of the following phrases occur?<br />a. Balance of powers<br />b. Executive privilege<br />c. Separation of powers<br />d. Supreme law of the Land<br />e. Wall of separation between church and state<br /><br />3. The supreme law of the land<br />3a.What constitutes the supreme law of the land, to which the judges in every state are bound? (Incomplete answers get very little partial credit.)<br /><br />3b. Can such law be overridden by the constitution or laws of any state?<br /><br />4. The Preamble consists of an explanation of why the Constitution was created, and by whose authority. What other provisions, if any, contain an explanation or justification for their existence?<br /><br />5. Three-fifths<br />5a. In the original intention of the Constitution there was a provision that counted three-fifths of the number of slaves, as compared with the whole number of all free citizens. What, specifically, did this provision have to do with?<br /><br />5b. Did that provision directly name “slaves”? Persons of some particular race?<br /><br />5c. What was the purpose and effect of the three-fifths provision?<br />(a) To decrease the political power of slaves<br />(b) To increase the political power of slaves<br />(c) To decrease the political power of slave owners<br />(d) To increase the political power of slave owners<br />(e) Not really any of above, because there is a flaw in this question itself.<br /><br />6. In the whole body of the Constitution before the abolition of slavery in the 13th Amendment, where is there mention of slaves or slavery, under those names or direct equivalents?<br /><br />7. Religion<br />7a. In the body of the Constitution as it was originally adopted, laying out its purpose and the laws and procedures of the nation, where is religion mentioned directly?<br /><br />7b.Where is any practice that is specifically religious mentioned?<br /><br />7c.Where is a distinction between any religion and any other mentioned? If there is such a place, is any preference given to one over another?<br /><br />8. Name as many things as you can that States cannot do.<br /><br /><br />BONUS QUESTIONS: Here we read the plain words of the Constitution and apply them to matters of fact.<br /><br />Bonus 1.<br />Bonus 1a. Is torture illegal in the United States of America? (Here and now, not hypothetically or by debatable reasoning in some court)<br /><br />Bonus 1b. If there are any conditions in which it is actually illegal, what are they; alternatively, what are the specific exemptions from that law?<br /><br />[More to come, perhaps]<br /><br /><br />Answers will appear in a future posting, intermingled with repetition of the questions because I hate flipping back and forth when reading such things.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> A few edits, inluding moving question 5 to be question 2. Oh, and introducing question 6. And providing the second half of the Bonus Question.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-10965109212495083682011-01-14T20:51:00.005-08:002011-01-14T21:22:28.318-08:00This thing is being reformattedI'm taking a blind stab at using one of the new (not very) templates in case they make it possible to edit the setup by some less outlandishly stupid and antiquated technology than Blogger used to have. And in fact it already has an almost minimally decent appearance after about 15 minutes of futzing around.<br /><br />Goody, and my thanks to Google for finally fixing things. (Whenever they did it during the two years or so in which I never looked at it.)Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-10334863625907538972008-01-11T21:29:00.000-08:002008-01-11T21:56:26.958-08:00Soapy Sam redivivusI really ought to post here occasionally, but I don't. Getting addicted to putting up comments elsewhere. I think I'll cross-post one I did today.<br /><br />First off, know that William Wilberforce, a major hero of the anti-slavery movement, had a son named Samuel, known to contemporaries as Soapy Sam, who became Bishop of Oxford, based at Christ Church [not College], Oxford, where he ordained as a deacon a shy don named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. But none of this compares in fame with the time when he went to a scientific meeting and asked one speaker, Thomas H. Huxley, whether he claimed descent from an ape on his grandmother's or his grandfather's side. (Which grandmother? Which grandfather? Why not mother and father? Don't ask me, I'm not a Victorian.)<br /><br />The news, reported by Tristero at <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/">Hullabaloo</a>, is that <a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/huckabee-on-evolution-by-tristero-heres.html">the eminent Mr. Huckabee has cleverly remarked</a> "If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, that's fine. I'll accept that. I just don't happen to think that I did." (Isn't he just your typical American yahoo? He just happens to believe things. Explains a lot.) So I was obliged to comment:<br /><br />All I can say is, I'd rather claim descent from the meanest ape in the jungle than from a man with all the advantages of a 20th-century education and access to the best scientists, and holding a powerful political office and vying for the chance to direct the greatest nation on Earth, who brings the discussion of a scientific question down to the level of a piece of personal ridicule that was stale a hundred years ago.<br /><br />I lied. It's not all I can say.<br /><br />AND who claims to be an American, born in the country whose patriots bled 200 years ago to get rid of Kings and Dukes and stuff, who thinks it matters who your great-grandfather was instead of who YOU are and what you've done.<br /><br />By the way, Mr. Huckabee, where was your great-great-great grandfather on the day the Revolution started? Resting on the reputation of <s>their</s>his great ancestors? Mine was *improving* on the achievements of his simian ancestors by fighting at Concord.<br /><span class="byline"> </span><br /><br />[Sorry for the patriotic snobbery, but there you are, <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> try to argue with a pig and preserve your personal daintiness.]Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-87958965994996166082007-10-14T00:27:00.000-07:002007-10-14T00:40:50.932-07:00Bureaucratic triviaRecently I durn near lost all the contents of my Palm thingie and wound up reviewing a lot of the restored notes, including some travel notes from a couple of years ago in London. Then just now I saw <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/">Orac's</a> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/10/caption_this.php">captioning contest</a> and its comments. The association reminded me of a trivia question:<br /><br />What was the first use of a printed form by a bureuacracy? When, what bureaucracy, what purpose?<br /><br />Bonus: Isn't it ironic? Explain.<br /><br />Answers the next time I get around to posting something. Also, another printing-trivia question.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-3154390959354857722007-09-22T11:50:00.000-07:002007-09-22T21:10:30.770-07:00Be all you can beNow this is recruiting, <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/recruit.html">from NASA, for astronaut positions</a>:<br /><blockquote>The open positions require extensive travel on Earth and in space. Possible destinations may include, but are not limited to, Texas, Florida, California, Russia, Kazakhstan, the International Space Station and the moon.</blockquote>h/t to <a href="http://unspeak.net/extensive-travel/">Unspeak</a>. Which btw is <a href="http://unspeak.net/">a blog worth following</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update</span>, 2007-09-22:<br /><a href="http://unspeak.net/any-ethnicity/">A few posts farther down</a> there is a nice take-down of some 9/11 rantings by Martin Amis. This in itself might not warrant a visit, but the comments thread, in the 20s after the 9/11 conspiracy theorist has had his say, is rewarding, as it drifts into the truth about Nazi analogies. The participants are not afraid to ask just what Hitler did that was so bad, anyway; as with pretty much any question to which everyone knows the answer, serious consideration of it clarifies the mind. Read it, and you'll be able to flout Godwin's Law (as it is usually misconstrued) with authority.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-24685536899501486822007-06-23T22:18:00.002-07:002007-06-23T22:26:16.194-07:00This blog rated RWell, I'll be gosh-darned, I didn't know I wrote such dirty stuff. Moreover, you'd think it would be rated C for Comatose.<br /><br />But <a href="http://mingle2.com/">mingle2</a> knows best. According to their <a href="http://mingle2.com/blog-rating">simple, free, automated and therefore infallible test</a>, no one under 17 should see this stuff. Unlike so many purveyors of cute quizzes, they provide the reason:<br /><p id="badwords"></p><blockquote><p id="badwords">This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:</p> <ul class="arrow inline cf"><li><strong class="swatch3">gun (7x)</strong></li><li><strong class="swatch3">torture (4x)</strong></li><li><strong class="swatch3">death (3x)</strong></li><li><strong class="swatch3">dead (2x)</strong></li><li><strong class="swatch3">sex (1x)</strong></li></ul></blockquote>There you are, folks, discussing the Administration's policies is obscene and not fit for the kiddies. Knew that already, didn't you?Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-46818006782489144272007-05-09T21:12:00.000-07:002008-12-11T10:00:19.454-08:00Give that photographer a PulitzerThis was in the paper today.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVaQmEY2YBUjqqrlSJTDAwrQeY5nzOe0my_GoZwppUvF27IlYOypj117G94D-SzqLCeipQbTEb6V8DJ-IvlPaIz3QD22fb80kow4LyzpGLfiFzr7LTfk00BklaCf9ONmI3m-vUlQ/s1600-h/20070508__20070509_A2_ND09KANSTORNADO~p1.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVaQmEY2YBUjqqrlSJTDAwrQeY5nzOe0my_GoZwppUvF27IlYOypj117G94D-SzqLCeipQbTEb6V8DJ-IvlPaIz3QD22fb80kow4LyzpGLfiFzr7LTfk00BklaCf9ONmI3m-vUlQ/s320/20070508__20070509_A2_ND09KANSTORNADO~p1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062781072471124434" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Raising the flag over Mount (post office) Greenburg, Kansas. </span>[Not their caption]<br /><br />What can I say?<br /><br />Well, I guess I can say, "We're from the Government, and we're here to help." Remember that side-splittingly funny line from a few years ago? Now, of course, it's "We're from the Government, and we want to help, but our people and equipment are on the other side of the world, and anyway the Boss would rather make the point that government doesn't work."<br /><br />But there was even better news on that same page of the Chronicle this morning. An ad covering 2/3 of the page announces that Jean Paul Gaultier has released a new fragrance for men, called --<br /><br />Fleur du Male<br /><br />Personally I think that the ad has sort of a Bawdy Air.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-67806704037547910192007-05-09T13:26:00.000-07:002007-05-09T13:52:07.577-07:00Belated final comment on Virginia TechThe news cycle is over; the tumult and the shouting dies; the vultures and the Faux depart. <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/">Orac</a> has, naturally, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/04/the_lowest_of_the_low.php">found the ultimate worst comments on the shootings</a>; you don't want to follow the link he provides; remember, he's a cancer surgeon and has a stronger stomach than mere mortals.<br /><br />But within the range of what passes for normal commentary, there's stuff too stupid and malicious to deserve comment, but still needing it.<br /><br />A friend saw a piece by one <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/">James Lewis</a> in which the <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/04/was_cho_taught_to_hate.html">corruption of Cho by evil professors was documented</a>, and asked people on his mailing list for comments on it. Being lazy and intolerant, I replied by merely listing a places where reasonable comment might be found. But Mauri Laitinen, an old friend and business associate, put the time into taking it apart in detail.<br /><br />I think it's a particularly good job, and deserves to be on record in a place more public than a few people's e-mail archives. So, with his permission, here is the entire post.<br /><br /><br />At first, I thought it was just an example of using some sensational<br />event as a pretext for attacking some group or institution through<br />guilt by association. A tired, old technique. But as I looked at<br />it more, it appears to be also a deliberate and unjustified smear.<br /><br />James Lewis, in the inappropriately named "American Thinker" blog,<br />answers his own question in the first paragraph. College does not<br />drive you crazy, at least in the literal sense. Of the thousands of<br />English majors who move through American universities, most do not<br />commit mass murder. They are not the people one sees living on the<br />streets; they aren't the people who go back after getting poor job<br />reviews to kill their bosses; and for the most part, they don't look<br />forward to careers wearing paper hats and asking customers if they<br />want fries. Many English majors, I've heard, go on to become<br />productive members of society.<br /><br />Cho Seung-hui was violently psychotic. Apparently he had displayed<br />problems for some time. While Cho might have shared all the<br />confusion about identity, gender roles, morality, and the fairness<br />of social institutions that most students feel when they are first<br />exposed to university, it wasn't the cause of his psychosis; it<br />probably wasn't even the trigger.<br /><br />It is disingenuous of Lewis to portray Cho as an intellectually<br />defenseless "resident alien." He'd been in the country since he was<br />eight and had probably gone through a pretty-good suburban Virginia<br />school system. It is likely that Cho had gotten into VT based on<br />merit rather than legacy or affirmative action. He had to be pretty<br />Americanized by the time he hit college. So much for "massive<br />culture shock." (OK, so I don't know for sure that Cho's parents<br />didn't keep him locked in his room until, inexplicably, they decided<br />to ship him off to university. I just doubt it.)<br /><br />But surely Lewis doesn't believe any more than we do that Cho's<br />college classes caused him to become homicidal. It's merely an<br />excuse to launch off on a catalog of academic outrages. And it's<br />here that I have my biggest objection to the article. His examples<br />don't stand up to scrutiny.<br /><br />Take Nikki Giovanni, a nationally known and much honored poet. What<br />Lewis calls her "self glorifying book" is actually a set of<br />collected autobiographical essays. Considering that the 64 year-old<br />writer participated in the civil rights movement in the South, she<br />might have something interesting to say. If you hopped down to<br />Barnes & Noble you could most likely find at least one of her poetry<br />books in which she deals with such radical subjects as summer,<br />growing older, and love of family. Yes, she also deals with racism<br />and the black experience, and the stuff she wrote in the sixties was<br />pretty aggressive, but her message for many years now has been one<br />of hope and optimism.<br /><br />Lewis leads you to believe that Shoshana Knapp approves of<br />self-justifying criminals, but that is like saying a course on<br />mystery novels is equivalent to an endorsement of crime. And most<br />of her work seems to be analyses of 19th century literature.<br /><br />Bernice Hausman is a feminist. Writing and researching about sex<br />change operations and gender identity is an issue in the news and<br />popular culture, so it strikes me as a legitimate area of<br />study. There's no evidence whatsoever that Hausman was encouraging<br />students to doubt their own sexual orientation or dress up like Milton Berle.<br /><br />Yes, indeed, Paul Heilker wrote "Textual Androgyny, the Rhetoric of<br />the Essay, and the Politics of Identity in Composition (or The<br />Struggle to Be a Girly-Man in a World of Gladiator Pumpitude)" in<br />1992. I don't have access to the journal in which it was published,<br />but I note from his CV that virtually everything he's written before<br />or since had to do with teaching composition. If I can remember<br />that far back I think it was actually a current reference to the<br />"Saturday Night Live" Hans and Franz skits. I think it's probably<br />an essay with a humorous title about teaching composition. In other<br />words, Lewis has served up another helping of red herring.<br /><br />I especially like the reference to Lisa Norris' Toy Guns, and Lewis'<br />assertion that he doesn't know any Americans who are in love with<br />war. Well maybe he's right; I'll check with Dick Cheney right after<br />I get back from the matinee of "Grindhouse." Seriously, a professor<br />who writes fiction about guns and violence is somehow<br />suspect? Looked at the paperbacks they sell in any US supermarket<br />lately, rented any videos, watched any TV?<br /><br />And Sheila Carter-Tod? If you look at her unremarkable website, you<br />find that she teaches composition, especially graduate dissertation<br />composition. As a side issue, which she clearly labeled<br />non-academic publications, she examined cases of backlash against<br />Muslims after 9/11 for the US Civil Rights Commission. This is radical?<br /><br />Probably the most deceptive of Lewis' descriptions is that of Susan<br />C. Allender-Hagedorn. This fiery revolutionary perverts her<br />students' minds by teaching technical writing. She also has a<br />couple of external links on her web page to comics and to feminist<br />science fiction.<br /><br />Then there was a Marxist, ho hum, and Professor Collier, who writes<br />about metacognition as applied to scientific thought. We must<br />differentiate between inducements to rage and inducements to<br />sleeping through class.<br /><br />So what I'm saying is that James Lewis dug through the VT English<br />faculty websites, found--or in some cases manufactured--sensational<br />non-representative tidbits, speculated wildly that Cho had been<br />force-fed the most extreme social ideas, and used these<br />misrepresentations to smear VT and liberal arts education in<br />general. I had assumed that Lewis' examples might at least be real,<br />the sort of silly, offensive, or incomprehensible stuff you find in<br />obscure, refereed literary journals. There is no shortage of<br />them. But Lewis doesn't bother finding such examples; he just<br />misrepresents the facts.<br /><br />It's worth noting that undergraduate students don't pore over their<br />professors' web sites or read their professors' esoteric papers on<br />disturbing social topics. (It's hard enough to get them to log on<br />long enough to find the next assignment's due date.) In fact, most<br />academic papers in most academic fields, both in the sciences and<br />the arts, go largely unread because they are too specialized or too<br />boring. The typical undergraduate English Lit curriculum is still<br />largely Beowulf, Shakespeare, 19th century novels, poetry, and one<br />or two courses on 20th century lit. At most, an undergraduate might<br />have to take one or two criticism classes where he or she might be<br />exposed to more extreme ideas, but somehow, such exposure just fails<br />to radicalize.<br /><br />Finally, I think his interpretation--and elisions--of Nikki<br />Giovanni's poem, "We do not understand this tragedy" suggest<br />deliberate misrepresentation. I don't think it's a great poem (of<br />course it was written less than a day after the shootings) but it's<br />not a rant against capitalism or a paean to "adolescent rage" or an<br />attempt to deny responsibility. Lewis hopes that you won't bother<br />to read the poem yourself or read the condolences also on the web<br />page. If you do, you get a very different sense of what she and the<br />English Department are saying.<br /><br />Lewis badly misrepresents the faculty and the English curriculum at<br />the school. It's just not this hotbed of Marxist, feminist,<br />anti-American rage that James Lewis has invented in order to<br />criticize. I've already spent more time than the article<br />deserves. It just bothers me that such cheap caricatures and<br />specious causality pass these days for thoughtful analysis.<br /><br /><br />[The piece was sent as two messages; the second part follows here.]<br /><br /><br />I've been more sensitive recently to what I consider deliberately<br />deceitful arguments by bloggers & newspaper columnists. Victor<br />Davis Hanson, who appears regularly in the SF Chronicle, is a master<br />of the false premise. Many bloggers seem happy to insinuate or<br />attack using made-up data. Or they just attack for fun. Before<br />blogging there were newsgroups. I stopped reading them because most<br />of the posts were so petty. Blogs, if anything, are<br />worse. Bloggers seem to feel no obligation to write truly<br />thoughtful articles, and readers rarely respond with thoughtful<br />critiques. Maybe it's a consequence of getting older, but I find it<br />dispiriting that thoughtful dialog seems so little valued. What's<br />wrong with all those stupid, ugly, perverted bastards anyway?<br /><br />There's lots of Political Correctness in universities. There are<br />refereed papers, public utterances, conferences and whatnot that are<br />indistinguishable from parody. A while back you sent out a link to<br />that joke paper by the physicist Alan Sokal, which was accepted by<br />"Social Texts." What's even more amazing is that after he revealed<br />his own hoax, there were literary critics defending his article as<br />valid social commentary! As you may remember, I went back &<br />finished my degree a few years back. One of the essays I had to<br />read and comment on in a lit crit class discussed the threat of<br />Barbie dolls to a girl's self-image. As the father of 4 daughters,<br />I never noticed that they compared themselves to the dolls. To<br />kids, dolls are something to dress, move around, and play with. My<br />girls never even thought about whether they lived up to Barbie's<br />impossible physical standards. It's why I don't worry about Molly,<br />who used to pull the heads off her dolls, or Eileen who claims she<br />will get us back for giving her Malibu Barbie instead of Ballerina<br />Barbie. You can hear college students complain about all sorts of<br />PC things. For example, I remember a radio interviewee describing<br />herself as a "potential survivor" of harassment. If you think about<br />it, that means she hasn't been harassed, but she believes she will<br />survive a non-life-threatening situation. This would be really<br />disturbing if it weren't for the fact that most of us were just as<br />silly at that age, and we more or less grew out of it.<br /><br />I'm not trying to be contrary, really, but I'm not entirely sure<br />there's an easy solution to murderous rampages. While I agree that<br />hunters and sportsmen do not need semi-automatic assault rifles,<br />that's not what Cho used apparently. From the reports I heard, he<br />had two handguns and a whole shitload of bullet clips. By<br />"automatic" they mean the same type of gun that the police carry as<br />standard-issue sidearms. The typical hunting and recreational<br />target rifles are semi-automatic, meaning that you can pull the<br />trigger repeatedly, firing a single shot with each pull. Banning<br />them would mean banning every handgun that wasn't a six-shooter and<br />every rifle that wasn't a single-shot; that's almost all the guns<br />made. As a practical political matter, it's a non-starter.<br /><br />I agree that the gun death statistics are frightening, and something<br />must be done. But I think that the overwhelming majority of gun<br />deaths in the US are "accidents." Everybody made jokes about Dick<br />Cheney shooting his companion in the face, but few people pointed<br />out that he was an inexperienced hunter and drunk at the<br />time. Anybody who hunts (and I don't; I find no pleasure in it)<br />knows that the woods are filled with drunk hunters; it's an accepted<br />form of behavior. Imagine if the NRA had enough moral courage to<br />come out and condemn Cheney's reckless behavior and started a "If<br />you drink, don't shoot" campaign. And just like drunk driving, if<br />we started prosecuting hunters who were found drunk, we could cut<br />hunting accidents. We've largely eliminated the "boys will be boys"<br />excuse for drunk driving; we could do it for hunting. Another large<br />portion of gun deaths comes from domestic accidents. Again, if the<br />NRA spent less time justifying the civilian use of body-armor<br />piercing bullets, and more time running training courses (like the<br />used to in the fifties & sixties) and hammering home the idea of gun<br />safety, it would significantly cut the gun death rate. I know most<br />people don't agree with me, but I still think that we don't focus<br />enough public disapproval on people who are careless with guns. We<br />focus instead on the gun or on the tragedy. Not enough time to talk<br />about gun crime, so I won't. OK, so I'm a raging<br />conservative-liberal who believes that while most people have the<br />right to own guns, they mostly shouldn't because they are<br />stupid. This way I can offend both sides.<br /><br />But back to Cho. The news media seems to want a simple cause &<br />solution. I heard one senator say it was a bureaucratic problem<br />because colleges cannot expel troublesome people. Had Cho been<br />expelled, it would have given him more freedom to plan his<br />rampage. As you know, most universities do not control access to<br />their campuses, which are so large that they cannot be physically<br />protected. So whether he had been expelled or not, he could have<br />walked on any time. Others rightly complained about the fact that he<br />had been referred for psychological evaluation but that he was<br />released as an out-patient. He was so seriously disturbed that<br />teachers in the English dept.referred him to a psych eval. Either<br />the psych eval failed to accurately assess him, or maybe he got<br />worse. What appears to be true is that his violent tendencies had<br />been noted and yet he wasn't put into the state database that<br />prevents the mentally infirm from buying guns. Since we've done<br />everything we could to gut national handgun registration laws, Cho<br />was able to buy all the ammo he wanted over the Internet. What<br />could have been done was with proper registration laws not only<br />could he have been prevented from buying guns, but the police and<br />his doctors could have been warned that he was trying to buy<br />weapons. That might have allowed some sort of intervention and<br />perhaps commitment to a mental lock-up. Would banning handguns have<br />prevented this tragedy? Well, no. He could have hidden a machete<br />and Molotov cocktails in his backpack. It wouldn't have been the<br />same tragedy, but it still would have been bad. So while we can and<br />should work to identify dangerous psychotics before they explode, I<br />don't know whether we could dramatically improve our percentage.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-59671907090994697432007-05-09T13:11:00.000-07:002007-05-09T13:18:44.414-07:00Does this by any chance work?N ow that Google has forced me to convert, is it a login change, or will they have screwed up the blog completely, as they have done to various people, on some of whose blogs I can't post a comment telling them that I can no longer post a comment there, because, you know, I can no longer post a comment there?<br /><br />Testing, testing. If I can't make it work with zero effort, I'll try to get the word out telling where Porlock has moved to, if anywhere.<br /><br />UPDATE: Yup, it seems to work. Wonder how all those others wound up with such a mess.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1176540348216306712007-04-14T01:38:00.000-07:002007-04-14T01:51:35.436-07:00Latest meme announced(Or maybe it's an old one that I've somehow missed? In any case, there's no such thing as a meme -- pass in on.)<br /><br />Of course you've been following the Kathy Sierra business. In case you haven't: a blogger who has received fantastically perverted sexual death threats, accompanied by publication of her address and social security number, and being one of those Weaker Vessels, has got all upset about it, and has been instructed by Kos to stop taking herself so seriously, because after all you get lotsa nasty mail when you post about hotly controversial matters, like, in her case, computer program design. In the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/">Pharyngula</a> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/04/kos_screwed_up.php#more">thread about it</a>, this has popped up twice, seemingly independently:<br /><br />If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Then go back and get me a sandwich, dammit.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1169365843232234322007-01-20T23:49:00.000-08:002007-01-20T23:59:24.580-08:00All the girls are wiseand all the boys are indomitable,<br /><br />and it goes without saying that all the children are above average,<br /><br />at Marin General Hospital, where <a href="http://www.marinij.com/fastsearchresults/ci_5042046">the two most popular baby names in 2006 were Sophia and Alexander</a>.<br /><br /><br />And let's hear it for that great group, <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=knox&y=13&tn=oldest+dead+white+males&x=22">Bernard Knox and The Oldest Dead White European Males</a>.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1168940650248342332007-01-16T01:42:00.000-08:002007-01-16T01:50:23.196-08:00O Canada! O Falafel!Do not miss <a href="http://falafelsex.blogspot.com/2007/01/weird-science.html">the show currently playing at Falafel Sex</a>. (Office safe, unless your office has a rule against raucous laughter.)<br /><br />I should perhaps mention that experiments of this nature have been performed not just recently, as stated in the report, but starting about 50 years ago. The results, however, were rather different.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1168758200820072942007-01-13T22:58:00.000-08:002007-01-16T01:47:34.426-08:00What part do you still not understand?Postings <a href="http://porlockjr.blogspot.com/2005/03/just-say-no-to-torture_06.html"><span class="PostTitle"> Just say no to torture</span>; Or,<span style="font-style: italic;"> What part of</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">No exceptional circumstances whatsoever</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">don't you understand?</span></a> and <span class="PostTitle"><a href="http://porlockjr.blogspot.com/2005/04/horse-im-not-dead-yet.html"> Horse: I'm not dead yet</span></a> are incorporated in this document by reference.<br /><br />Naturally, the real officers who make policy for real soldiers fighting an all too real war do understand it perfectly well.<br /><br />Perhaps all the blogs in the world covered this on the couple of days I had the flu, and if so, I apologize for the waste. Anyway, the current (February 2007) issue of <i>Harper's</i> has an excerpt from the new edition of the <i>Counterinsurgency Field Manual</i>, prepared by the United States Army and Marine Corps and released in December, after 20 years in which the previous edition held. (The new issue is not up on the site yet, oddly enough; but the text would be firewalled anyway if it were.)<br /><br /><blockquote>LIMITS ON INTERROGATION<br />During the Algerian War of Independence, French leaders decided to permit torture against suspected insurgents. Though they were aware that it was against the law and morality of war, they argued that this was a new form of war and these rules did not apply. Illegal and immoral activities made the counterinsurgents extremely vulnerable to enemy propaganda inside Algeria among the Muslim population as well as in the United Nations and the French media. Torture is never a morally permissible option, even in situations where lives depend on gaining information. No exceptional curcumstances permit its use. In the end, failure to comply with moral and legal restrictions against torture severely undermined French efforts and, despite a number of significant military victories, contributed to France's defeat.<br /></blockquote>If you are of high moral standards, you will be offended by the mix of moralizing with pragmatic war-winning policy. Be my guest. Please excuse me from joining in. But they do understand <i>No exceptional circumstances.</i><br /><br />By the way, now that Lewis Lapham has retired, the Notebook apparently is written by a rotating group of editors; so far it has not suffered. This month, Barbara Ehrenreich, no less, writing agains Hope and positive thinking. The passage that almost covered my nice new issue with stains of spluttered tea:<br /><blockquote>Cancer? See it positively, as a "growth opportunity," and hopefully not just for the tumor.</blockquote>The rest of it is up to that standard. And don't miss the sidebar "Paper Jam" on page 22, which it would be too hard to explain.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1168672108777362042007-01-12T23:07:00.000-08:002007-01-12T23:49:22.893-08:00When the most dignified person......at an execution is the mass murderer, you know something isn't going well.<br />[that guy on the Daily Show, quoted approximately, because I can't find a transcript.]<br /><br />But the quote that's so obvious that everyone must have been citing it, and only an international conspiracy can account for my not having seen it mentioned <b>once</b> in the masses of commentary, is<br /><br />Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.<br />[Macbeth, Act I scene iv]<br /><br />However, Ms Four Sigma, whose wisdom in these matters is sometimes delayed by the salutary practice of avoiding the news, noted another text:<br /><br />Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;<br />And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,<br />And so am I reveng'd. That would be scann'd.<br />A villain kills my father; and for that,<br />I, his sole son, do this same villain send<br />To heaven.<br />[Hamlet, Act III, scene iii]<br /><br />Fortunately, we don't share those old superstitions about the moment at which a person is killed. Does Moqtada al-Sadr?Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1167984349217365762007-01-05T00:04:00.000-08:002007-01-05T00:11:21.766-08:00"He is out of touch with his cruelty."The competition for statement of the year looks to be tough right out of the gate. This one is from Justin A. Frank, MD, in an <a href="http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/049">interview at Buzzflash</a>, <a href="http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-bush-sociopath.html">cited at length</a> in the News Blog.<br /><br />To save you troubling in guessing who the subject is, a little further text:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>He is unable to think clearly when presented with new information. He cannot do it. He cannot read. He cannot pay attention to the Baker-Hamilton Report. He never looked at that report. He looked at the opening title, about a new way forward or something, and that’s what he’s been using as his slogan now. He is not able to process information. </p><p>I think Cheney, as much as he is malevolent and destructive and greedy and self-interested as an oil executive and wants absolute power, he’s out front about it. I think that he would have to negotiate in a way that’s different because he can’t not think, whereas Bush doesn’t think.</p></blockquote><p></p>Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1167772934476700722007-01-02T13:17:00.000-08:002007-01-02T20:50:16.883-08:00Spitzer-Obama: Still a good ticket for '08Franklin Fiorello Spitzer barged into office without too many niceties: took his oath first thing in the morning on Jan. 1, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/nyregion/01cnd-eliot.html?em&ex=1167800400&en=21cc03fad85d0a7d&ei=5087%0A">started signing a bunch of executive orders for ethics rules</a>, and was heard to say, "Don't need no stinkin inauguration." Well, not really the last; I understand he took time off that afternoon to speak at the ceremony.<br /><br />I give him his honorary nicknames as a reminder of how and from whom people can learn to be Democrats; and how the models don't have to be actual Democrats.<br /><br />What rankles is the reminder that they tend to be from New York. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, whom we love and admire and support and who we hope will not betray us too badly, is doing a four-day whirl of celebrations that <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/02/DDGRJN7GU91.DTL&hw=jon+carroll&sn=001&sc=1000">has Jon Carroll fuming righeteously this morning</a>. OK, Speaker of the House, that's one thing to celebrate; and the first female Italian-American from California, three more; but can't we economize a little bit in these times of National Sacrifice? Oh, I forgot. If we sacrifice, the terrorists will win.<br /><br />And whatever Barbara Boxer has been doing, it's not attending to business or paying attention to her consituents. <i> Well, seems I'm not gonna give you a link here about her knuckling under to the recent campaign by various fuming raghead-haters against CAIR, which I saw in some good blog this morning, because I can't find it, and a quick Google News search gives me just one trivial item other than link after link after link to neocon bs. Like, we all know Google isn't biased and all that, so it shows that the fascists still dominate the ranking algorithms, and the info you get if you want data on a current story is still wildly weighted (by objective algorithms) toward dangerous malicious nonsese, so stop celebrating the collapse of the influence right blogophere, and gosh, do you think this could be a problem in getting across to the public?</i><br /><br />But my proposal two years ago for a 2008 ticket looks at least as good as ever.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1166087814147480432006-12-14T01:15:00.000-08:002006-12-14T01:32:46.306-08:00And several poniesThe next time <a href="http://www.thepoorman.net/">the Poor Man</a> shows us a <a href="http://www.thepoorman.net/2006/11/07/yay-you-winned/">gusher of ponies</a>, he'll have to think about whether to <a href="http://www.brunching.com/pornorpony.html">list their names</a>. Go ahead, take the test. <a href="http://stevereuland.blogspot.com/2006/12/porn-star-or-my-little-pony.html">HT</a> to <a href="http://stevereuland.blogspot.com/">Sunbeams From Cucumbers</a>.<br /><br />Speaking of the Poor Man, don't miss his <a href="http://www.thepoorman.net/2006/12/12/pointless-2008-dem-presidential-prognostication/">rundown on the Democratic aspirants</a>.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1160886353432875132006-10-14T21:24:00.000-07:002006-10-14T21:50:44.070-07:00Dept. of Unintentional Prophecy: DoonesburyFor the first part of this story, one must get one's Negropontes straight. <span style="font-style: italic;">Nicholas</span> Negroponte is the MIT Media Lab guy; it's not his fault that his brother is a war criminal. (Well, knowing how siblings are, we should at least give him the benefit of the doubt.) He's the guy who designed the $100-dollar computer with wireless Internet connection, for distribution to people all over the poorer parts of the world. The hundred dollars is the estimated cost once it gets into mass production, and the moment it was announced, jillions of peopole really wanted one; but this is for people who <i>need</i> it. And he's pushing to get it into production and into people's hands.<br /><br />The second part is about the second Mrs. Doonesbury. As you may recall, Mike met this young programmer at Microsoft, Asian of course (stereotype!), and wound up marrying her. I followed this passively, and it was not for some time that I took some hint in the morning's comic and realized who she was.<br /><br />You see, that little spat we had in Vietnam affected the lives of Doonesburians, and not only B. D., who wore his football helmet through his combat duty. There was a rather nondescript middle-class couple whose adventures we watched as they dealt with the little Vietnamese war orphan they had adopted. One day Daddy came home to find Mommy very exicted: the baby, who spent a lot of time sitting in front of TV, had said her first word! Namely, "Big Mac".<br /><br />That's who Mrs. Doonesbury is. I've forgotten the proof, but maybe somebody can dig it up. Professor Weil, are you listening?<br /><br />Returning to out main story, there's an item over on <a href="http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/">Amygdala</a> about <a href="http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-used-to-tidy-nicholas-negropontes.html">Negroponte's work with his fabulous machine</a>. He's now got a deal that, if it really works out, will put an Internet-capable laptop in the hands of every schoolchild in Libya. Not your favorite beneficiary, but you've gotta start somewhere, and it's not the kids' fault, you know.<br /><br />So, the tie-in:<br /><blockquote> [...] The idea of a laptop for every schoolchild grew out of Mr. Negroponte’s experience in giving children Internet-connected laptops in rural Cambodia. He said the first English word out of the mouths of the Cambodian students was “Google.” </blockquote>Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1160019999152820072006-10-04T20:43:00.000-07:002006-10-04T20:46:39.163-07:00colorless green ideasSome day I'll write a real blog posting. Meanwhile, don't miss <a href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/">Brad deLong's</a> discussion of how <a href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/colorless_green.html">colorless green ideas sleep furiously</a>. Seriously, you'll be glad you did, provided you don't skip the comments.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1159858222552795112006-10-02T23:48:00.000-07:002006-10-03T00:43:51.923-07:00What is the Internet?People have asked that for a long time, actually years. And it's hard to answer simply; even Ted Stevens, a trained communicator, had some trouble making it entirely clear. Now, though, thanks to Seth Breidbart (no, I don't know who he is) as quoted by JP Stormcrow in a comment (#44) to <a href="http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/discourse_and_power_and_blog_comments/">a post</a> by that's well worth reading for its own sake if you have any use for <a href="http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php">Bérubé</a> at all, we have a clear, simple one-sentence definition, shorter than these attributions:<br /><br />It’s the largest equivalence class in the reflexive transitive symmetric closure of the relationship “can be reached by an IP packet from”.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1159601678897786472006-09-30T00:31:00.000-07:002006-09-30T00:40:26.236-07:00When I say coffee...I mean <span style="font-style: italic;">Folger's</span> Coffee. There won't be many people old enough and local enough (San Francisco) to recognize that one.<br /><br />But Folger's is not on the agenda tonight. There are many important things on which I have many important insights at the moment, like what the Pope really said (what he was <span style="font-style: italic;">thinking</span> is beyond me), and the nature of the entity known as Hewlett Packard and how that relates to Mennonites. So, rather than talk of any of those, here is <span style="font-style: italic;">le mot du jour</span>. Passed, as you might say, to us by <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/09/your_friday_dose_of_woo_coffee_doing.php#more">Orac</a>, who does not take responsibility for its content:<br /><br />" What does a coffee enema do, and why is it better using Wilsons coffee?"Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1157773431680377892006-09-08T20:40:00.000-07:002006-09-13T01:29:21.463-07:00Gospel music timeI don't always agree with <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/">Pharyngula's</a> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/one_for_the_oldtime_gospel_mus.php">recommendations</a> on religious reading and listening matter. OK, I don't often agree. But<a href="http://falafelsex.blogspot.com/2006/09/reasons-abby-is-going-to-hell-number.html"> this is priceless</a>.<br /><br />As if my personal blogroll weren't too long already.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Update:</span> This Internet thing is expanding my musical horizons. I'm quite taken with <a href="http://www.jkdigital.com/Kraftwerk/Kraftwerk_Numbers02.mov">this</a>. May have to find their other stuff.Porlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.com1