“The Wilhelm Scream”

This is pretty dang funny. Via Balloon Juice, from io9, Strung Out On Science Fiction.

You've probably heard the Wilhelm Scream dozens of times in different movies and television shows without realizing it, but it's one of those things that once you hear, you'll always be able to identify it afterwards. It's now become an in-joke amongst sound editors who try to insert it into their films whenever there's a perfect moment that just needs an over-the-top scream. It began as a Warner Bros. stock sound effect, but was revived and put to serious use by Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt. Now the thing just won't die. Find out more in our screaming triviagasm below.

· The first appearance of the scream was in 1951's Distant Drums, and was used when a man was eaten by an alligator.

· The sound is named the "Wilhelm Scream" after Pvt. Wilhelm gets shot in the leg by an arrow in the 1953 film The Charge at Feather River, and screams as he falls over.

· The sound was used in eight more films in the 1950s, including 1954's Them!, about giant, nuclear-mutated ants.

· The sound persisted into the 1960s, appearing in eight more movies, including the campy Hercules Against The Moon Men, where Hercules battles monsters from the moon.

· While Wilhelm started to flag in the 1970s, Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt found a reel labeled "Man Being Eaten By Alligator" in the Warner archives and used the sound when Luke shoots a Stormtrooper who falls down a shaft in the Death Star.

· Burtt later tracked the sound back to its original use in Distant Drums, although he was the first to call it the "Wilhelm Scream."

· The sound has since been featured in every Star Wars and Indiana Jones movie. In fact, it was even used in The Star Wars Holiday Special.

· It's a mystery as to who the actor was that recorded the original scream, but the most likely suspect is character actor and singer Sheb Wooley, whose name appeared on a memo as a sound extra for Distant Drums. He's best known for his hit song "The Flying Purple People Eater".

· The sound has been used in over 75 movies (most recently in Cloverfield), dozens of television shows (like Doctor Who), and even numerous video games... including many of the Star Wars titles.

I happen to have the movie "Them!" in my collection, and I know the scream they are talking about. It is actually used twice in that film, once for James Arness as he is dodging a giant ant and once for James Whitmore when a giant ant actually gets him. (A more impressive scream in that film is from the little girl, as she wakes up out of her state of shock. One of the best movie screams ever.) I'll have to dig out the Star Wars films and compare the screams.

It never would have occurred to me that soundmen in Hollywood, especially over the span of 6 decades, would have a running inside joke.

Art from a single piece of paper, Part 2

See part 1 for more... Like that needed to be explained.

Art from a single piece of paper, Part 1

The following pictures are entries for an art contest at the Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. The rule was that the artist could use only one sheet of paper.

Hillary Clinton and Ms. Hyde

Boy, howdy. Hillary Clinton is really starting to sound.... Screechy. Petulant. Desperate. She has become a caricature of pretty much what everyone on the Republican/conservative side has been calling her since her husband was elected president. She really has started showing multiple personalities, one day saying how proud she was to be campaigning with Barack Obama and the next chastising him, saying “Shame on you, Barack Obama!” I really couldn’t believe it when I saw some short little video segments of her on the campaign trail on television.

Here is one of her latest, and believe me, just reading the text does not do this justice. When you see the clip live, her voice just reeks of sarcasm and derision.

Speaking to a crowd at Rhode Island College, Clinton said, "None of the problems we face will be easily solved," and then went on to mock Obama's message of unity.

“Now, I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified,'" Clinton said to laughter of the crowd.

"The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,” she said dryly as the crowd erupted.

So, she (and her increasingly out-to-lunch staff) has decided that a good campaign strategy is to mock people who hope for better than we have been getting in the last seven years from the Bush administration? THIS is a winning formula?

I know that politics change people, but it seems like one major lesson that Hillary ought to keep in mind is that people, for the most part, do not liked to be mocked. They do not like to be ridiculed. This is the kind of message that the Republicans have wielded to great effect in the last 25 years. If you want to draw in your base, to strengthen your position among people who are already pre-dispositioned to support you, then ridiculing your opponents is, unfortunately, a winning strategy. It plays to the “us vs. them” mindset that has taken hold of American politics.

However, what it doesn’t do is convince people who may still be making up their minds on the wisdom of your position. Mocking Obama’s message of hope and change, even though it is currently pretty vague, is not something that is going to change someone’s mind. Take me, for example. I was pretty much in Hillary’s camp when the election cycle was getting spooled up. I have heard her speak live and was very impressed. She is a very sharp lady, and knows how to handle herself. But given what has been going on since it became apparent that she isn’t going to get the Democratic nomination just by showing up, I have been very, very unhappy at the things that she has been saying and the underhanded politics that her team has been doling out. We are used to that from the Republicans, and that is one thing that this country is very sick of at present. Why are the Democrats going to nominate someone for the presidency who exhibits the same undesirable personality traits that we have been seeing from the Republicans for so long?

I want this to get over with. I can’t wait for the primaries and caucuses in Ohio and Texas. I want Obama to sew it up and Hillary to concede. She does not need to turn off any more voters on the Democratic label, and she doesn’t need to hand the Republican nominee a bag full of hammers with which to pummel Obama.

Ralph Nader is going to run for president again.

Christ in a bottle. Hasn’t this guy learned anything yet?

Nader, 73, said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. The consumer advocate also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.

"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts."

You know, it’s not that I disagree with what he is saying. However, this is the egomaniac that PUT Bush in the White House IN THE FIRST PLACE! Ralph Nader shoulders a significant part of the blame for the last 8 years, personally! And he has the gall to then go and complain about Bush?! GMAFB.

My thinking is that the Democrats will settle on Obama very soon, and Obama will run away with the general election. Yes, there still are hopeless idealists that will vote for Nader, even though he has zero chance of winning. He has zero chances of carrying even a single state! However, given the results of his run in 2000 and the fact that Obama will have a very commanding lead in the general, I don’t think Nader can successfully throw the election to the Republicans this time. However, who knows what might happen? I certainly didn’t foresee that whole John Kerry Swiftboat thing, and his wimpy response to it. There certainly is a chance something can happen to upset the apple cart, and the less unknowns there are, the better I will feel about it.

Let’s see. Kosovo secedes from Serbia.

Violence is erupting. Serbia is in the middle of the conflict. The countries of Europe and Russia are taking sides in the dispute.

Haven’t we seen this bit before? Or something somewhat similar. Let’s hope there isn't anyone named Archduke Ferdinand who wants to go visit Serbia or Kosovo. (O.K., it was Bosnia, not Kosovo, but still, the similarities are too close to be comfortable.)

What if Barack Obama wins the general election in a landslide? Will that constitute “a mandate”?

Mandates are funny things. Normally, political winners only have mandates when other people agree that they have them. George W. Bush changed all that. In 2000, he somehow morphed winning the general election via electoral college and Supreme Court dictate while losing the popular vote into a mandate. He felt that he could do anything he damn well pleased, whether it was Constitutional or not. Bush and his supporters somehow decided that, when Bush beat John Kerry in 2004 in the popular vote by a 50.7% to 48.2% margin, that truly was a mandate, even though several thousand votes being cast different in Ohio or several other states would have changed the result. 2.5% of the people who vote in any given election now constitutes a “clear mandate”.

So, it is apparent the old “truths” about political mandates are no longer operative. You can call it whatever you want. So long as you do it loud enough and enough people are behind you, you can call anything by any name you want, and then impugn the character of anyone who disagrees with you.

I would just like to make sure that people understand this. If Barack Obama does go on to win the Democratic nomination and then cruise to a victory over John McCain in November (say, McCain carries 11 to 15 states, total), by the rules George Bush and his followers laid down in 2000 and 2004, Barack Obama will have a clear mandate. And, per those same rules, President Obama can use his “political capital” to do whatever the heck he feels like, whether or not the Republican party and the hard core conservatives of this country agree with him or not. Because, you see, he will have “a mandate”. As everyone now knows, mandates mean you don’t have to listen to losers.

And, although I don’t hold out any hope in the least that this will happen, I don’t really want to hear any bellyaching about it.

You know that digital picture frame you got for Christmas? You might really be screwed, as many contain one nasty virus.

This sounds really, really bad. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games -- and its designers might have larger targets in mind.

"It is a nasty worm that has a great deal of intelligence," said Brian Grayek, who heads product development at Computer Associates, a security vendor that analyzed the Trojan Horse.

The virus, which Computer Associates calls Mocmex, recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows. It downloads files from remote locations and hides files, which it names randomly, on any PC it infects, making itself very difficult to remove. It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.

The authors of the new Trojan Horse are well-funded professionals whose malware has "specific designs to capture something and not leave traces," Grayek said. "This would be a nuclear bomb" of malware.

By studying how the code is constructed and how it's propagated, Computer Associates has traced the Trojan to a specific group in China, Grayek said. He would not name the group.

The strength of the malware shows how skilled hackers have become and how serious they are about targeting digital devices, which provide a new frontier for stealing information from vast numbers of unwary PC owners. More than 2.26 million digital frames were sold in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, and it expects sales to grow to 3.26 million in 2008.

The new Trojan also has been spotted in Singapore and Russia and has 67,500 variants, according to Prevx, a security vendor headquartered in England.

Grayek said Mocmex might be a test for some bigger attack, because it's designed to capture any personal, private or financial information, yet so far it's only stealing passwords for online games.

"If I send you a package but it doesn't explode, why did I send it?" he said. "Maybe I want to see if I can get it out to you and how you open it."

Now, I know that pretty much any digital device can contain nasty software in it, but who would have thought you might be giving someone the mother of all computer viruses to your parents for Christmas?

This will be really interesting to see if something actually comes of this “Trojan Horse”. I can’t imagine that someone would go to these lengths with this amount of knowledge without really wanting to do something malicious. This seems like a plot out of a graphic novel or something, evil Chinese group out to crash all the computers of the world simultaneously.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

How the military thinks about costs and weapon systems.

This is summarized from an Aviation Week and Space Technology article published on Jan.14, 2008. No link is provided, as it is a subscription only site.

The Air Force has a large number of F-15’s that are in need of structural repairs. An F-15 from the Missouri Air National Guard crashed on November 2 of last year. It was found that some structural elements were unreliable due to manufacturing flaws back in the 1970’s. Nine other F-15’s have been found to have cracks in these suspect elements.

Now, here is the kicker. The Air Force doesn’t want to update their existing aircraft. It would cost them, and therefore, the Federal Government, about $260,000 per aircraft to bring them back into operational status. That fix would extend the operational lifetime of the aircraft for perhaps as much as 20 years. One letter writer calculated, given that 182 F-15’s are currently grounded, that would come to about $47.3 million to fix the grounded fleet. That seems much too expensive for the Air Force, right? So, their proposal is to never activate the F-15’s again and to replace them with all new Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors.

That sounds somewhat reasonable until someone tells you that the cost of a single F-22 is $339 million. That’s one single airplane, which is about seven times the amount to fix all 182 F-15’s.

Never let anyone tell you that President Eisenhower didn’t know what he was talking about with that whole “military industrial complex” thing.

Levitating Dogs

Whatarewedoin’, George? Can I come, huh? Huh? You can fly? Me too! See? I can fly too, George! We’re going to have a lot of fun, huh, George!

Here’s a really, really good argument against obtaining information by torture.

This is from the comments section from a post at Balloon Juice, by a guy who really sounds like he knows what he is talking about. (And the rest of the comments on this post are pretty hysterical. I have to add Balloon Juice to my links list.)

The problem with torture, beyond the moral aspects, is that it does not produce good information any quicker. It produces ASTOUNDING amounts of bulls**t, as the captives learn rapidly what sorts of information their questioners seek.

See, torture usually results in a confession to all sorts of things. It’s why the US Army FM 34-52 prohibits it, specifically.

From FM 34-52:

PROHIBITION AGAINST USE OF FORCE
The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. However, the use of force is not to be confused with psychological ploys, verbal trickery, or other nonviolent and noncoercive ruses used by the interrogator in questioning hesitant or uncooperative sources.

The psychological techniques and principles outlined should neither be confused with, nor construed to be synonymous with, unauthorized techniques such as brainwashing, mental torture, or any other form of mental coercion to include drugs. These techniques and principles are intended to serve as guides in obtaining the willing cooperation of a source. The absence of threats in interrogation is intentional, as their enforcement and use normally constitute violations of international law and may result in prosecution under the UCMJ.

Additionally, the inability to carry out a threat of violence or force renders an interrogator ineffective should the source challenge the threat. Consequently, from both legal and moral viewpoints, the restrictions established by international law, agreements, and customs render threats of force, violence, and deprivation useless as interrogation techniques.

That’s word-for-word out of the manual I was trained on as a 97E, Interrogator. We had some nice demonstrations at our AIT in Arizona as to the efficacy of torture as well.

You cannot trust information gained through coercive means like that without compelling subsidiary intelligence. And if you have that intelligence, you don’t need to f**king torture people. People say what you want to hear when tortured—and that wastes those precious minutes in the scenario you outline above.

We’ve got a nuke going off in an hour in NYC? We’re f**ked. Period. End of discussion. You cannot gain worthwhile intel in that time.

What if the oil runs out?

That was the topic of a program on the Science Channel I watched this weekend. It was a mix of experts talking about the real facts of the situation and a fictional documentation of what the year 2016 will be like. I will flat out state it was really scary and depressing.

This is a subject I have give some thought to, but haven’t dwelled on it to any great extent. I have discussed it on this blog several times. But one of the points that was being hammered upon in this show was that America, and all of the world, for that matter, is in serious denial about the situation and is refusing to confront some very unpleasant facts that could greatly alter our society in the years to come. There is no doubt that a finite resource will ultimately run out. You just can’t argue with that. The problem is that most people in the country, including our politicians (those wise folks who we have chosen to lead us in difficult times) find it much easier to avoid this and other extremely difficult and unpleasant problems.

Here’s the truth of the matter. We are going to have to acknowledge that we are looking at a huge problem, at some time in the future, one that has the potential of causing the collapse of our society. The scarcity and expensive of oil and oil based products could make mass food production very difficult and expensive, if not impossible. Even the food that is grown might not be able to be moved to a central market for mass consumption. And even if that were to occur, many people will be without jobs, as the lack of oil will affect that as well, such that they may find the food that is available unaffordable. All the non-essential jobs and businesses will most likely be gone. The country will start to suffer electrical power outages, as there won’t be any fuel to power the trains which haul massive amounts of coal to fire the electrical generation plants. Only nuclear and hydro-powered electrical plants will be able to be counted upon, and those are not enough to furnish the entire country. The only debatable point of this is when the situation will shift from “expensive” and “a nuisance” to “dire”.

We are not talking about small disruptions here, such as the oil embargo of the 70’s, when gas for the family car (and all other vehicles in the U.S.) became in short supply. Two block long lines of cars waiting to get into the gas stations that had gas might become a fond memory. Unless we do something soon, we could end up with riots and a domino effect on our economy. Given the amount of guns out there in this country and a sizeable portion of our right leaning population that seems rather eager to use them, I am very fearful of what this crisis might actually look like. We are already seeing some signs of what’s to come. Venezuela has just cut off imports to Exxon Mobile, Inc., in protest of Exxon Mobile’s seize some of Venezuela’s oil-based assets. Russia is seriously thinking about cutting off natural gas shipments to the Ukraine. These are not promising signs. They look more like harbingers of further troubles.

Looking at message board for the television show on the Science Channel, it appears that many people still seem to consider anything that deals with future energy shortages or possible environmental changes as something from the “lunatic left”. “We aren’t running out of oil, we are sitting on a vast reserve in ANWR!” “It’s all a liberal plot!” Etc., etc, ad nauseam. I just do not understand our species’ ability to flat out ignore self evident truths that are sitting in front of our collective noses. We are dependent upon oil. There is no arguing about that. Oil is a non-renewable resource. That’s pretty self evident, too, unless you are talking in the range of millions of years. The combined countries of the world are using more and more oil every single day, especially with China and India transitioning from “developing countries” to “major economic powers”. That increases the demand. Significant finds of new oil deposits are few and far between. Saudi Arabia, one of the largest producers in the world and usually looked upon as being the buffer for any possible shortages, hasn’t had a major oil discovery since the early 1970’s. The remaining finds that being made are in areas that are exponentially difficult to get to, such as in the Bering Sea or the North Sea.

The stock answer for the conservatives in this country is to drill in ANWR. ANWR may have promise as an producing oil field, but some estimates put the total for ANWR as low as a six months supply for the U.S., as current consumption rates. Six months. This is a debatable point, with many people saying that we can’t actually tell how much recoverable oil there might be until we actually drill there. That is true enough, but what is also self evident is that, even if the U.S. were to drill there and the available oil from there meets or exceeds our hopes and expectations, it is still a limited resource that will eventually run out. All that drilling in ANWR will do is postpone the inevitable.

The governments of the world need to recognize this coming crisis and the potential for catastrophe that crisis contains. Someone needs to take the lead and start working this problem as soon as possible. Space exploration, as enlightening and inspiring as it is, is a very large drain of national resources that would be better served in an effort to come up with a viable alternative to an oil based energy system upon which the entire world is based. As much as I dislike this prospect, I believe that we need to get busy building more nuclear power plants. Part of this effort must go towards finding an acceptable solution to the waste nuclear products that remain lethal for hundreds of thousands of years. But if we are going to retain any semblance of the society that we have now, the world must have electricity, and on a large scale. Wind farms are good, and more research and actual construction of these farms should be increased. Private residences and businesses should be encouraged, with tax breaks if necessary, to become much more energy efficient than they are now. More effort should be put into finding any sort of viable sources of energy, no matter the source, as long as it isn’t oil or coal based.

I realize that I have developed a very selfish and shortsighted viewpoint on this issue, just as I have the possible effects of an environmental catastrophe brought on by global climate change. I am hoping that the worst effects are far enough out in the distance that I won’t be personally affected by them. That is a crappy attitude, I know. However, I have very little faith that mankind actually has the will to address these problems. We are mired in the trivial. Our society cares about the latest meltdown from Paris Hilton or Brittney Spears, whether or not a political candidate paid $400 for a haircut. The people in the United States can barely stay awake while the current President and his cronies systematically gut the Constitution that has formed the basis of our government for over 200 years, and make the argument that torturing people really is O.K. now, even if we prosecuted Japanese officers after World War II for the exact same thing that we are doing now. No, this problem will not be addressed before it becomes a crisis. Denial is easy, action is hard.

I feel very badly for my daughter and the rest of the young people who will inherit this mess we are bequeathing on them.

I’m removing FireDogLake from my links list.

Not that anyone will care one way or the other. That site has gone from “newcomer” to “influential giant” in a few short years. I was reading and posting within the first three months of its existence, when there were only two posters, Pach was just a regular commenter and EPU was still a commenter and not a verb. I greatly admire what Jane and Christy have done and continue to do. They have put in an incredible amount of time and energy into the place. The liveblogging of the Scooter Libby trial showed what the internet blogs really can accomplish. These two ladies are incredible in their knowledge, enthusiasm and commitment. The new crop of bloggers, both scheduled and guest, are incredible, as are their book forums and fundraising for progressive candidates. And Jane doing all this while coping with health problems is just another reason to marvel at their accomplishments. They have just shown everyone what blogging is really about.

However, here’s the deal. A number of these web sites have just gone overboard in their quest for the newest, glitziest, coolest, hottest, most dynamic web site ever, and FireDogLake is one of them. (Huffington Post is another. It refuses to load anything else after I get the title bar and the first lines of the top link. That’s all.) First off, I guess they assume that every one of their readers has the absolute latest computer with a large screen and a high speed internet connection. On my home computer, FDL takes a very long time to load, given all the advertisements and creative visual junk that the site now sports. The text of the posts doesn’t wrap around to fit the size of my screen, and then when the sidebar stuff on the right comes in, like the ads and all the other crap, it covers up half the text so that I can’t even read the posts even WITH sliding the bottom scrollbar back and forth. Additionally, I am now starting to get a warning dialog box that tells me that “this site is trying to access your private…” something or other. I have seen this warning about five or six times now. Of course, the answer is, “No, of course I don’t want this web site to access my private information.” Why would I? I have no idea what it is or why it is doing that.

Given all that, I have stopped looking in at FDL, and I am going to remove it from my links list. Big tragedy for them, I am sure. (My traffic is running anywhere from 50 to 100 hits a day, and a lot of them come from searches on some really strange things. For example, I keep getting a repeat search for some variation of “Enemies of rabbits”. Yeah, I don’t think I am helping out those people very much.) I doubt I have been sending FDL much in the way of linked traffic.

If anyone from over at FDL, such as an administrator or whatever, sees this, you might pass the information along. Not everyone is so enamored of new technology that we will run out to the nearest electronics store every time some new “must have” comes along. I hate all that crap, to tell you the truth. I just want something that works, and works all the time. I don’t care if I don’t have the large screen or that I have an older operating system. It works for me now, and I don’t want to have to spend the money, time and stomach lining it would take to become “up to date”. And I don’t want to worry about what private information on my computer an outside web site may be accessing. I have had a couple of those run-ins already; each time it has cost me around a hundred bucks to have my computer cleaned up and put back in working order. I’m rather antsy about stuff like that. I don’t have any of these kinds of problems with more “mainstream” sites (i.e., not blogs), such as newspapers, Wiki, IMDB, etc. No, it seems as if it is only the blogs that I am having problems like this.

Not everyone who is interested in political blogs is a computer savant. And I refuse to try to become one just so I can read some political blogs. Therefore, FDL, thanks for all the good work but you are not worth it anymore. My prediction is that, as I stated earlier, no one will care. I wrote to them earlier about this, and no one responded. The attitude seems to be that “most” of the people looking in are up to date, so that is all that is necessary. Everyone else, well, that’s just too bad. I have even seen the word “Luddite” used at FDL as an insult to describe those who aren’t up with the cutting edge of technology.

That’s a rather prevalent attitude around this country these days, one that leaves me feeling increasingly isolated and alienated. If you aren’t with the program, the majority, well then, that’s just too bad for you, buddy.

One (but certainly not the only) conservative conundrum of our age.

One thing that really bugs me about people, no matter the topic or the person, is when someone pushes contradictory positions and can’t even admit that they aren’t even making sense. It’s obviously the listener’s fault! How dare you misrepresent my position! You are not only wrong, you are evil! Etc., etc.

Here’s the deal. I am rather enjoying the current meltdown by certain persons within the “conservative” movement about the Republican party over John McCain becoming their nominee in the upcoming presidential election. Many people hate the idea. They appear to hate McCain as a person. He holds positions they don’t like, and he doesn’t go out of his way to kiss the religious right’s collective behind. Even though his voting record shows that he votes in the conservative block a very large amount of the time, he still isn’t “one of them”. Rush Limbaugh regularly blasts McCain on his radio show. Ann Coulter said that she would rather vote for Hillary than McCain! Hugh Hewitt has a weekly public meltdown. Tom Delay (ex-House Leader and bug exterminator) just went on the Sunday news programs and lambasted McCain. His crimes? McCain isn’t “a true conservative”!

However, these same people continue to argue that liberals and Democrats are on the far left of the country, that we are “out of touch” and hold unrealistic positions. THEY represent the mainstream, WE are fringe lunatics. It doesn’t matter what the polls say (depending on the poll, anywhere from 50% to 70% of Americans now say the war in Iraq was a mistake and want us out within a year). That is the mantra they keep repeating over and over. They are the mainstream, we are not.

How can these two things be true? How can their own party (apparently) nominate someone that is so radioactive to the “true conservative”? If they are the mainstream, aren’t they saying that their own party is so out of touch that they are going to nominate some closet liberal to run for President as a Republican? This argument makes absolutely no sense.

On the other hand, what makes more sense is that these “true conservatives” are so far to the right that most of the people within their own party don’t even agree with them anymore. It is these “true conservatives” that are actually out in the fringes. And they can’t admit it. I get a certain sense of satisfaction to see the depth of the hysterics they are throwing. On the other hand, it certainly is a pretty sad statement about the state of political discourse in this country.

(I realize there are a lot of unsubstantiated statements made in this post. I will try to find some links to show what I am referring to in some of these statements.)

The wit and wisdom of Law and Order, as it applies to the adminstration of George W. Bush.

From IMBD, in case you were wondering.

Det. Ed Green: If you're going to lie, be creative or we'll get bored.

Lt. Anita Van Buren: Do you believe him?
Det. Lennie Briscoe: I believe on a good day he couldn't hit his ass with both hands.

Emil Skoda: That's just a load of rehearsed crap.

Det. Lennie Briscoe: Even though you are a taxpayer, you know, we don't actually work for you personally.

Detective Rivera: You know, McCoy, you wanna put the bad guys behind bars you have to get your hands dirty.
Jack McCoy: The problem is, detective, sometimes it doesn't stop at the hands.

There's more of these, if you click on "wit and wisdom", if you are at all interested. Some of these aren't that funny, just kinda sad, as they are so true.

In case anyone was wondering whether or not we had a democracy or a monarchy, here is yet more evidence.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand what kind of thought process is going on in the Bush White House, with less than a year left in their term. However, they continue to act as if Bush is a king, not a president, who can pretty much do whatever he wants to. Look at this new example of a raw grab for power. This is from dday at Hullabaloo.


Mike Mukasey, Attorney General of the United States, before the House Judiciary Committee today. (UPDATE: This is a paraphrase, not a transcript)

Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.

MM: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.

Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.

MM: Immunity connoted culpability.

Delahunt: This is brand new legal theory.

--snip--

MM: If it comes to pass that somebody at a later date that the opinion should have been different the person who relied on the opinion cannot be investigated.

Delahunt: Is there a legal precedent.

MM: There is practical consideration.

The Attorney General is saying that the President can do anything he wants, break the law any way he wants, as long as the President's own Justice Department, populated his own handpicked officials, validates it. And he's saying it directly to members of Congress, essentially telling them that they don't exist. They have no power to prosecute because the Justice Department won't take up the case, and the courts have no power to adjudicate because these are official state secrets. There is only one branch of government that matters.

What I find equally amazing and hugely frustrating is that both the Democrats and the press let Bush get away with this. I partially blame Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for saying, unequivocally, that impeachment is off the table. But it is also all the other Dems in the Senate and House. Except for a few very brave exceptions, everyone seems fine with just running out the clock, letting Bush to whatever he wants, no matter the excesses or illegality involved, until he leaves office. And the press apparently can’t be bothered to pay any attention to this.

What is going on is much, much worse that what the Nixon White House did during the Watergate scandal and cover-up. Yet the politicians, media and most of the public can’t be bothered with such things. This “President”, and I used that term with some irony, has caused untold damage to the institutions in this country that we depend on to maintain our freedom and democracy.

I wish I could be funny, ironic and snarky like a number of bloggers out there. But I am just too angry, too depressed about the political situation in this country. I am so glad that we still have some of our political structure intact, such as making George W. Bush and most of his cronies leave office next January. If Bush had more time, or we were to elect another Republican who thinks just like Bush, this country would never recover.

American talks a good game when it comes to “Democracy” and “Freedom”, but falls flat on its face when the chips are down.

This is from Americablog.

Rice will 'talk to President Karzai' about journalist sentenced to death

Young Afghan journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh is currently being held in prison because he downloaded and distributed a report on women's rights. If the US is supposed to be bringing democracy, as the administration likes to tell everyone, they ought to be moving much more aggressively to assist Pervez who is sitting in miserable conditions. Is this the best Rice can do?

That's great. That certainly is a crime against humanity, distributing a report on women's rights.

I have come to the conclusion that the Bush administration and the neo-cons of this country have absolutely no clue about what democracy and freedom really mean. Everything they do seems to indicate they believe in a government that more resembles the Soviet Union or East Germany than one that is a beacon of freedom and hope for the rest of the world. Bush and the rest of his cronies and enablers seem to want government by secret edict (e.g, Bush's signing statements and secret opinions on Constitutional legality, are pro-torture (as we have just found out, we now admit that we torture and proud of it!), are against freedom of the press, want to have all departments of the government to be extensions of the Republican party, are not above trying to influence elections by dirty tricks (New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, plus lots of circumstantial evidence for lots more examples), and wants the population to live in a state of constant fear, so they can do whatever they want in the name of security.

I can't wait until January, 2009.

And, oh yeah, by the way, the United States DOES torture people.

But only if they deserve it.

The Wit and Wisdom of Star Wars, as it applies to the administration of George W. Bush.

Thanks and stuff to IMDB for these quotes. (For additional posts in the “Wit and Wisdom” series, click on the link at the bottom.)


Dr. Evazan: [explaining] He doesn't like you.
Luke: Sorry.
Dr. Evazan: I don't like you either.

Darth Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

C-3PO: [to R2-D2] This is all your fault.

Han Solo: This is *not* gonna work.
Luke: Why didn't you say so before?
Han Solo: I *did* say so before.

Han Solo: It's not my fault.

Luke: I don't think so. I'm looking for a great warrior.
Yoda: Ohhh. Great warrior.
[laughs and shakes his head]
Yoda: Wars not make one great.

Darth Vader: Calrissian. Take the princess and the Wookie to my ship.
Lando: You said they'd be left at the city under my supervision.
Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

C-3PO: Excuse me sir, but might I inquire as to what's going on?
Han Solo: Why not?
C-3PO: Impossible man.

C-3PO: Sir, If I may venture an opinion...
Han Solo: I'm not really interested in your opinion 3PO.

[after choking Captain Needa to death]
Darth Vader: Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

Princess Leia: I have a bad feeling about this...

Yoda: I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.
Obi-Wan: He will learn patience.
Yoda: Much anger in him.

Yoda: Good relations with the Wookies, I have.

The Emperor: [to the Senate] In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society which I assure you will last for ten thousand years.
[Senate fills with enormous applause]
Padmé: [to Bail Organa] So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause.

Obi-Wan: Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic... to democracy!
Anakin Skywalker: If you're not with me, you're my enemy.
Obi-Wan: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes.

Darth Sidious: Once more, the Sith will rule the galaxy! And... we shall have peace.

Qui-Gon Jinn: Greed can be a very powerful ally.

Senator Palpatine: There is no civility, only politics.

Qui-Gon Jinn: Do you hear that?
[a rumbling is heard in the distance]
Jar Jar Binks: Yeah.
Qui-Gon Jinn: That is the sound of a thousand terrible things headed this way.
Obi-Wan: If they find us, they will crush us, grind us into TINY pieces and BLAST us into oblivion!

Yoda: Hard to see, the dark side is.

Nute Gunray: My lord, is that... legal?
Darth Sidious: I will make it legal.

Lando Calrissian: Here goes nothing.

The Emperor: If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed.

Padme: You're not all-powerful, Ani.
Anakin: Well, I should be.

Jango Fett: Do you like your army?
Obi-Wan: I look forward to seeing them in action.

Anakin: I've heard this lesson before.
Obi-Wan: You haven't learned anything, Anakin.

Anakin: Someday I will be the most powerful Jedi ever.

Anakin: When I got to them we got into aggressive negotiations.
Padme: Aggressive negotiations? What's that?
Anakin: Ah, well, it's negotiations with a lightsaber.

Anakin: You call this a diplomatic solution?
Padme: No, I call it an aggressive negotiation.

Count Dooku: I have good news for you, my lord. War has begun.
Darth Sidious: Excellent. Everything is going as planned.

Anakin: You're asking me to be rational. I know that is something I cannot do.

Queen Jamillia: The day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it.
Padme: Let's pray that day never comes.

Neil Boortz: angry, insane, racist radio host

Pam Spaulding at Pandagon talks about some of the most mind numbing, incredible, unbelievable… horsesh*t from one Neil Boortz, on the January 30 edition of Cox Radio Syndication’s The Neal Boortz Show.

“Edwards’ campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago, with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn’t hear the cries of the downtrodden.” Cries of the downtrodden, my left butt cheek. That wasn’t the cries of the downtrodden; that’s the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them.

…When these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.

…The primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans who you — couldn’t even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way of the water when that levee broke.


Wow... I mean, I am speechless about how angry, how incapable of any positive human emotion such as sympathy or sorrow, this guy is. Boortz just said that the entire city of New Orleans deserved what it got. All the residents of New Orleans are “garbage”. And, of course, there is nothing racist about his rant at all. This is his way of justifying the incredibly lame and immoral response that the Bush administration gave (or not give) and continues to give (or not give) in the face of the destruction of a major city in the U.S. New Orleans deserved it. Judgement passed, end of story.

Boortz, along with many other uber-conservatives of these days, will do and say anything, no matter how heartless, how cruel, how stupid, just so they can justify their increasingly hysterical positions. They feel the rug being jerked out from underneath their feet on the bully pulpit they have enjoyed for quite some time, and they don’t like it. They react the only way they know how, only with increasing hysterics, as they know it is starting to slip away from them. They realize they are becoming irrelevant.

I know there will always be loons out there who are angry about everything and will blame anyone and everyone for their own misfortune, real or perceived. However, I really have a problem when these whackjobs are given actual “jobs” that pay very large amounts of money which allows them to shout their lunatic ravings over public airways.

What has happened to our country? People like this actually have audiences, made up of real people, who listen to this guy and agree with him. And the rest of the country, except for a small number, just let crap like this slide. This guy gets a pass. Yes, “Freedom of Speech” means just that. However, I question why this guy gets PAID large amounts of money to spew this kind of garbage by a major media outlet. And that goes the same for Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, etc. etc.

Returning to the subject of a destroyed city, I can’t help but wonder why it is that Republicans continue to defend the war in Iraq as a battle against “the terrorists”, such that they will not be able to attack our country or kill any more of our citizens, but apparently, having a major city in the U.S. destroyed by natural causes is somehow O.K. That just blows me away. “Broken levees? Not really our problem. But boy, we better listen in on EVERYONE’S telephone calls, just to make sure they aren’t talking to some terrorist!”

This one goes into the “insane people” category.

Today is Super Bowl Party Day, which epitomizes the worst excesses about our society.

I know that sports are very important to some people. Heck, I like sports. I held season tickets to the local university’s basketball team until the Athletic Department decided they would try extortion on their most loyal season ticket holders and donors. But, the Super Bowl… I actually hate it. I hardly ever watch it. I like NFL football, especially when the Seahawks are doing well. The playoffs are cool. But the Super Bowl seems to dwell in another universe from that of the regular season.

What other event generates dedicated multi-million dollar television commercials? A halftime event that gets a build up worthy of the Academy Awards show? Results in the most parties, mostly fueled by alcohol, across the country on a non-holiday? Everything is Super Duper. Must outdo last year! The event of the season! And this isn’t even saying anything about the game itself.

This whole display reeks of extravagance, over-hype, overindulgence, and billions of dollars poured into an event with a captive audience in the hope of moving billions more dollars from one place to another. It is the American psyche on display. And, in my mind, it isn’t pretty.

I also find it very insulting that very, very little will be said today, and has been said this week, about the continuing Iraq war, the outlandish and criminal behavior of the Bush Administration, and the huge problems facing us such as the coming energy crisis, the continual eroding of the infrastructure on which this country depends and the slow baking of our only habitable planet.

Let’s see if someone’s boob ends up on national TV today. Then we can really have a scandal we can talk about.

UPDATE: O.K., I admit that was one of the more exciting finishes to a Super Bowl in quite some time. Whoo!! First time I remember rooting for a team from New York, too.

Tell me, does America REALLY need another Rambo movie?

I mean, seriuosly. Hollywood is so bereft of new ideas that the will stoop to making another Rambo movie? Besides, I thought America was getting a little tired of shoot em up, blow em upforeign escapades.

Talk of “climate change” no more. No, it’s a new Epoch for the Earth.

From Yahoo News:

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:

· Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.

· Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.

· Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns.

· Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

-snip-

Earth's 4.5-billion-year history is divided into major eras, then periods and finally epochs. The Holocene Epoch began after the last Ice Age.

As early as the late 1800s scientists were writing about man's wholesale impact on the planet and the possibility of an "anthropozoic era" having begun, according to Crutzen, who is credited with coining the term Anthropocene (anthropo = human; cene = new) back in 2000. That year, Crutzen and a colleague wrote in the scientific newsletter International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme about some of the dramatic changes:

"Urbanization has ... increased tenfold in the past century. In a few generations mankind is exhausting the fossil fuels that were generated over several hundred million years."

Up to half of Earth's land has been transformed by human activity, wrote Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer of the University of Michigan. They also noted the dramatic increase in greenhouse gases and other chemicals and pollutants humans have introduced into global ecosystems.

It appears that even some hardcore Conservatives are coming around to the view that things are changing rapidly, in some very dramatic ways. Yet, there is always going to be that 20 to 30% who believe that this is nothing more than a “liberal plot”. Usually, plots have some sort of goal, like the Bush administration hiding behind “executive privilege”, such that they don’t have to explain any of their underhanded actions to anyone. What the point of this supposed “liberal plot” might be, I have no idea.

Humans, as a species, can be incredibly stupid and short sighted. The Earth, in some form or fashion, will survive. It has through many, many changes in the past, and will no doubt do so in the future. However, whether or not the climate will provide a nice habitat for humans and our society remains to be seen.

Today's 10 Minute History Lesson: World’s Fair, Chicago, 1893.

The years in America after the Civil War and prior to World War I saw a huge change in this country, for the good and the bad. The Gilded Age puts to shame the excesses we are seeing in this country today. But, many good things came out of those times as well.

The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 produced several of these changes, or else set the direction for changes to come. Additionally, it produced just some really interesting and odd things as well.

- Electric power was in its infancy. Two types of electric power were still vying for supremacy; AC (promoted by George Westinghouse, whose design came from the inventions of Nikola Tesla) and DC (promoted by Thomas Edison and the General Electric Corporation). Both bid for the contract to supply power to the fair. AC power won out, unknowingly setting the standard for the rest of the country for the future.

- When the time before the fair’s opening was getting short, the unions working construction for the fair knew they held the upper hand. Many of them went on strike for better pay and working conditions. After some initial resistance, the fair’s management relented and signed a new labor contract. This became the model for future labor/management relations.

- George Ferris’s unveiled his new design, the Ferris Wheel, with the intent of “outdoing” the Eiffel Tower, which was constructed for the World’s Fair in Paris a few years earlier. This first Ferris Wheel stood approximately 300 feet high and carried train carriage sized gondolas high above the fair grounds. Each gondola was equipped with its own small restaurant.

- Elias Disney worked at a laborer at the fair. He and his family were awestruck by the size and magnificence of the fair. Elias’s son, Walt, would later go on to pattern his Magic Kingdom after the Chicago Fair.

- Frank L. Baum visited the Fair and used it as a model for the Emerald City in his later book, The Wizard of Oz.

- Novel products were first offered for sale at the Fair, including Shredded Wheat, Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix, an “oddly flavored” gum called Juicy Fruit, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, a caramel coated popcorn mixture called Cracker Jack.

- New technological advances were introduced to the public, such as an automatic dish washer machine, Edison’s moving pictures, the first zipper for clothing.

It must have been a wonderful thing to see.

Source: “The Devil In The White City”, by Erik Larson. Copyright 2003. Vintage Books, published February 2004.

David Brooks of the New York Times nails the Republican paradigm exactly!

David Brooks is one of those beltway writers that is very pro-Republican and anti-Democrat. They are easy to spot. Brooks is a bit different than some, as he is very well spoken and makes some very good points now and then. He even criticizes his own party at times. However, whenever he does that, you know, with 100% certainty, that he is going to come and whack the Dems even harder. The main thrust of those types of columns seems to be, the Republicans do screw things up now and then, and I am man enough to admit it, but the Dems are even worse! Then he goes and documents, real or fabricated, some offense of the Democrats that make the Republican offense seem trivial. No matter what, the Republicans are always better than the Democrats!

This column is the more of the same. But the charge he makes against the Republicans (before he gets to bashing the Democrats) is exactly spot on. He nailed it. The policy of the Republicans has become to oppose whatever their opponents want.

But then a great tightening occurred. Conservative institutions and interest groups proliferated in Washington. The definition of who was a true conservative narrowed. It became necessary to pass certain purity tests — on immigration, abortion, taxes and Terri Schiavo.

An oppositional mentality set in: if the liberals worried about global warming, it was necessary to regard it as a hoax. If The New York Times editorial page worried about waterboarding, then the code of conservative correctness required one to think it O.K.

Apostates and deviationists were expelled or found wanting, and the boundaries of acceptable thought narrowed. Moderate Republicans were expelled for squishiness. Millions of coastal suburbanites left the party in disgust.

And still the corset tightened. Many professional conservatives do not regard Mike Huckabee or John McCain as true conservatives. “I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party,” Rush Limbaugh said recently on his radio show. “It’s going to change it forever, be the end of it.”

I truly believe that is what is behind the Republicans turning a blind eye toward the problems of global warming and the coming climate change. They cannot admit that their mortal enemies have a point. They would rather see all these dire predictions about the Earth come true before the can admit that Democrats and liberals (including Al Gore, who is fat, by the way) are actually correct. And anyone who actually strays from the lockstep of the Republicans are tossed out. They aren’t true Conservatives! They are the enemy!

That is a terrible reason for a political party to exist. That pretty much ensures that anything that requires the collective wisdom and willpower of the country to address will not get done! And that is a very sad, stupid way for a country to go down the drain.

My view of American society, in microcosm.

I just returned from a business trip. My flight was very bumpy and not very enjoyable. "Thrown about the sky" comes to mind. But the part of it that I would like to relate is regarding the person sitting in front of me.

I am a rather tall person, 6’3” or so, and therefore have very little legroom in the best of times. The person in front of me, of course, reclined his seat all the way, so the seatback was literally about a foot from my face and gave me absolutely no legroom. After a while, I noticed that he was leaning forward, working on something and was not leaning against his reclined seat at all. I tapped him on the shoulder and, very politely, asked if he might pull up his seat one notch, as I had no legroom. I also had knee surgery not that long ago, and am still having trouble with it. I didn’t tell him that, though.

This guy reacted like I had just asked him the most ridiculous thing in the entire world, something akin to asking if he would give me his brand new Porsche. He just glared at me with this unbelieving look. He did move his seat up after he made his point, but he did so in a very grudging matter and didn’t respond when I thanked him.

I thought that was the end of the matter. About 20 minutes later, when he had finished whatever he was working on, he threw back his seat with all the force he could muster, without warning me at all. Of course, he knew that I was already cramped, but that didn’t matter. Later, when he left his seat and then returned, he sat down with what I thought was as much force as he could muster so that his seat whacked me in the knees.

I was thinking to myself, you certainly are an infantile, petulant bastard…. I got the impression he was just waiting for me to say something. I wasn’t going to, at all. I’m not going to escalate the situation with someone spoiling for a fight.

I am positive that this guy was a hard core conservative Republican. He just had that look to him. The crewcut might have something to do with it. Now, he might have been one of the most liberal Democrats in the entire world, but I would bet $1000 against it. He struck me as one of those people who think that they have absolutely no use for anyone outside his little circle, and being nice or even accommodating to another person is something that just is beneath him. He ignores people when possible, and when they intrude on his own personal universe, do whatever he can do to “show them who’s the boss!”

And that is how I view about 30 to 40 percent of the population of this country. That little temper tantrum, when I asked nicely for something that I would do without a second thought, he had to show me that I couldn’t get away with it, demonstrates perfectly what I believe that a lot of people actually believe. That explains their entire viewpoint of “us vs. them”.

So, if I am correct in my assessment, this guy would never read a blog, much less a liberal blog. He just didn’t seem like the “bloggy” type. But, buddy, if you DO happen to read this, screw you! Grow up! Stop acting like an adolescent George Bush! Jeez.

That little rant accomplished absolutely nothing, except made me feel a bit better. Which is the entire point of rants, after all.

On a business trip, try back this weekend.

I might have something terribly interesting to say by then.

Or not.

Messenger probes passes Mercury!

More knowledge about the solar system is being added in big chunks as the first spacecraft in some 30 years takes pictures of the planet Mercury.

I find this type of subject so fascinating. Humans, for as long as we have known about the existence of other planets, could only speculate about what they actually looked like in detail. Now we are finding out. I find exploration of space, by orbiting spacecraft, planetary rovers or telescopic observation (visible, x-ray, infrared, etc.) one of the more appealing things about our species. We now have the technology, as well as the will, to find out what our universe actually is.

There is speculation, no proof as of yet, that Mercury might have been a captured primordial body, similar to the one that collided with Earth during its formation and resulted in our Moon, and it did not actually form from accretion as did the other planets.

This is from NASA’s Astronomical Picture of the Day (APOD), a very cool web site indeed.

Two days ago, the MESSENGER spacecraft became only the second spacecraft in human history to swoop past Mercury. The last spacecraft to visit the Sun's closest planet was Mariner 10 over 35 years ago. Mariner 10 was not able to photograph Mercury's entire surface, and the images it did send back raised many questions. Therefore, much about planet Mercury remains unknown. This week's flyby of MESSENGER was only the first of three flybys. Over the next few years MESSENGER will swing past twice more and finally enter Mercury's orbit in 2011. MESSENGER is currently moving too fast to enter orbit around Mercury now. The above image was taken two days ago during MESSENGER's flyby and shows part of Mercury's surface that has never been imaged in detail before. Many more MESSENGER will hopefully help scientists better understand how Mercury's surface was formed, and why it is so dense.

The following text and picture at the top is from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory web site.


Just 21 minutes after MESSENGER’s closest approach to Mercury, the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) took this picture showing a variety of intriguing surface features, including craters as small as about 300 meters (about 300 yards) across. This is one of a set of 68 NAC images showing landscapes near Mercury’s equator on the side of the planet never before imaged by spacecraft. From such highly detailed close-ups, planetary geologists can study the processes that have shaped Mercury’s surface over the past 4 billion years. One of the highest and longest scarps (cliffs) yet seen on Mercury curves from the top center down across the left side of this image. (The Sun is shining low from the right, so the scarp casts a wide shadow.) Great forces in Mercury’s crust have thrust the terrain occupying the right two-thirds of the picture up and over the terrain to the left. An impact crater has subsequently destroyed a small part of the scarp near the bottom of the image.

The Day The Earth Stood Still: Klaatu as a Christ figure?

This idea was suggested to me a number of years ago on another web site I used to frequent quite often, of which all the contributors to this site, along with a couple of reliable readers, are alumni. Anyway, although it’s not quite in the same league as The DaVinci Code, it’s rather interesting for film buffs. These allegories were known the Robert Wise, the director, at the time.

Klaatu comes to Earth with a message of peace, but also a message of terrible retribution if this message of peace isn’t adopted. He is killed by the Powers That Be, who are afraid of his motives and what he might bring about. He is then brought back to life. When questioned about this by Patricia Neils character, Klaatu responds that the power of life and death is reserved only “the Almighty Spirit”. (This message was not intended in the original idea of the film, as it was imposed by a Production Code. They evidently thought that the idea of an all powerful, all knowing race was rather at odds with the idea of God being the only all powerful entity in the universe.) Klaatu, like Christ who cured the lepers and changed water into wine, exhibited extraordinary powers in causing all electricity around the world to stop. Even the name of “Carpenter” that Klaatu assumes while masquerading as a local inhabitant is reminiscent of the message of Christ.

It is difficult to determine just what to make of this allegory. Personally, I have never been too keen on allegory and symbolism. I tend to take things at face value. The Christ connection never occurred to me on my own until someone else pointed it out, just as the message in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Aslan as Christ never occurred to me. I work as an engineer and have training as a scientist. Clarity of information is paramount. Why anyone chooses to give a message by a method that is prone to personal interpretation, I have no idea. When I say this to anyone else, the answer I get back is, “That is the idea. What does it mean to you?” My answer back is, “I don’t know and I really don't care what I think. It’s YOUR story/movie/song. YOU tell ME what you intended. You obviously thought enough about your idea to put a lot of time and effort into it. I want to know what you intended. Why are you asking me to interpret something that you wrote?” To me, that’s just stupid. But then, I have found out that I don’t think like most people I know.

Therefore, it is difficult to reach any conclusions about what this Christ-like connection actually means in a sci-fi film from the 1050’s, when the concern those days was “The Red Menace”, “duck and cover” and building bomb shelters in your back yard. It is probably nothing more than an interesting idea that someone thought would make a compelling story, and as the film progressed, the more muddled it all became by other people in a position of power putting their fingerprints all over it.

My main concern about the message in this film is not the Christ connection. It is about the basic message that Klaatu delivered to Earth. “Become peaceful, or we will destroy you.” Talk about your basic contradictory message. “Do as I say, not as I do.” It just doesn’t really fit in with the concept of promoting peace and brotherly love. It is more of an ultimatum, not unlike that of the approach advocated by George Bush and Dick Cheney. “If we think you are threatening us, or even have the potential of threatening us sometime in the future, we reserve the right to annihilate you and to do so without a second thought.”

That is the message that I really have a problem with, in today’s politics or a sci-fi film.

More about this idea in contained in the IMDB entry for the movie, under “trivia”.

Sitemeter, thoughts regarding.

I added the Sitemeter thing to this site a few weeks ago, just to see how much traffic I was actually getting. After blogger changed to this new interface, commenters to this place sure dried up. I wasn't sure that anyone was actually reading. But then, that isn't really the point of this blog. I am perfectly aware that this is about a fourth or fifth tier blog, and I don't do much (although there are a few posts) in the way of original thinking or reporting. Still, I was interested to see what was actually going on.

I did get a big bump for a while from the New Year's "Best of the bloggers" link from Jon Swift. That was neat to be in a list with some VERY good blogs. That lasted about two weeks. I get all sorts of hits for people obviously searching for something specific. (I was a bit alarmed when I saw that someone in Iran was actually reading my post about the possibility of the U.S. bombing his/her country. Just imagine, they were using me to get some information! Scary....) Fractals remains high on the search list, for some reason. That particular post is not much more than a cool picture.

I am very confused, however, about why 90% of the hits I get register as 0.00 as the time spent on the site. Someone clicks in and decides in less than a second they aren't interested? That's surprising. Jeez, you made the effort to click through. At least, look around for 15 seconds to see what's here. And it doesn't really jive with the overall average time that people spend on the site. So, I don't know how to intrepret that.

But here is the thing that I found amazing. Although I knew this kind of information was available, it took me by surprise about the information I can see immediately about each and every person who looks in. I can see the location. I can see the web access you are using. I can see what kind of operating system you are using and what kind of monitor you have! That's pretty scary. And that's just what is being presented to me, in whatever sorted fashion I would like! I have no idea what else people can get if they do a little digging.

It makes me not want to every look in on anything on the web again. Especially at work.

This is hilarious, in a very ironic and depressing sort of way.

O.K., all that noise from the Bush administration about how, if the telecoms were not given retroactive immunity for all the illegal spying that they did on behalf of the White House, “Americans were going to die”. That was the line. If the Democrats didn’t cave and sign that monstrosity of a FISA bill, “Americans were going to die”. Huh.

And now, today, we have word (via the NYTimes and lots of other blogs) that at least one of the telecom giants stopped their wiretapping activities, which may have well been illegal, not because they have had a change of heart, not because it was against the law, not because they realized their duty to the Constitution of the United States. No. None of those. It was because the FBI didn’t pay the telephone bills.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation ''was halted due to untimely payment,'' the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

''We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence,'' according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

Well, glad to see that the telecoms treat the government just as they would any other American citizen. No money, no service.

I do wonder how they are going to justify all those dead Americans, however.

More thoughts about the presidential election season.

None of these items really are developed to the point that I could make a complete post out of any of them. So, I’ll just stuff them in a single one, sort of like sardines in a can.

- Ms. Clinton is being treated very unfairly by the media. They hate her, they have already made up their minds they are going to take her down, and that’s all there is to that. It never crosses their mind that journalists are not supposed to pick the candidates! That is not their job! They are supposed to report and analyze, not demean and bury just because they don’t like someone. When Ms. Clinton gets teary eyed, she’s weak and emotional. When she gets angry or frustrated, she’s strident and shrill. She has breasts. And she’s married to someone else that the media already hates. What could be better? And, as Maha likes to put it, Chris Matthews remains high on the list of people I would like to smack really hard.

- I am not certain that I am enamored with the idea of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. I think she would probably make a good President (excellent, compared to the one we have now, but then, a Hello, Kitty! wall clock would be preferable to what we have now). However, I am probably pretty sure that she would get absolutely ripped to shreds by the Republicans and their attack dogs in the general election. Unlike John Kerry, she would definitely fight back. She’s been through too much already. However, it would be very nasty. The Republicans seem a bit nonplussed that Ms. Clinton has not already been anointed the nominee. But, I think they will get the “wind beneath their sails” as quickly as they adjust to the fact that Mr. Obama might be the nominee, instead of Ms. Clinton. In fact, they will probably have a field day. He’s black, he’s got a funny name that sounds a bit like the name of some lunatic that knocked down the WTC towers, he was born a Muslim…. Wheee!! Did I mention he is black? Still… I am thinking that, even though Ms. Clinton is undoubtedly qualified for the office, I don’t believe the country really needs to endure what will certainly happen if she is the nominee. I also am thinking that some fair minded, right of center Republicans might actually support Mr. Obama, where the mere mention of Hillary Clinton’s name seems to require some primal response from conservatives of all stripes, not unlike Pavlov’s dog. Conservatives, that is. Not Ms. Clinton.

- I very much dislike seeing the Democratic candidates really ripping on each other. I was very unhappy to see Barack Obama parroting Republican talking points in an attempt to trash Ms. Clinton. Likewise, I was very unhappy to see Ms. Clinton repeat that tired old George Bush line (that has been adopted with great gusto by Rudy Giuliani) that, if we dare elect anyone but her, the country will not be safe from terrorists. You would think that the Dems would have had their fill of that kind of crap over the last seven years. That kind of behavior absolutely stinks to high heaven, I don’t care if it is politics.

- I am rather excited by the possibility of having the good ol’ boy U.S. of A. actually electing a black guy as President. There are going to be many, many in this country who will start foaming at the mouth if this looks like it will occur, and I am going to be very fearful of Mr. Obama’s safety for quite some time. But, if we were actually to elect this man to the highest office, boy. What a step forward that would be for this country. He may be short on the specifics of his ideas for policies and how he is going to handle the numerous problems that the Bush administration is going to leave him, but his message is certainly resonating right now. We have heard “vote the bums out!” many times, but usually, the people who replace the ones we threw out were just as bad or much worse.

- If Mr. Obama wins, will all future candidates for high political office start kissing up to Oprah and trying for her endorsement? Oprah = Kingmaker!

- I rather feel for John Edwards. This should have been his time, after what happened in 2004. However, the world is not fair and things rarely work out like they should. I think Mr. Edwards would have made a very, very good President. Yes, he is still carries the label of “serious contender”, but he isn’t going to win the Democratic nomination. I wish both he and his wife the best.

- I am hoping that this cratering of the Republican candidates means the final breakup of the current Republican party, which is run by a bunch of power-mad, Constitution hating, testosterone frenzied freaks. They deserve to become totally irrelevant. However, as I have said before, I think that it is vital that this country have two vibrant political parties. I need not agree with both of them. If that was the case, what is the point of having two? But we just need that checks and balances that two parties can provide. However, and this is a big however, we need both parties to have a moral balance, a sense of fair play and working toward the common good. “Beating the crap out of the other guy” is not a reason for a political party to exist, and neither is cheating, lying and operating outside the law just so they can retain their power and line their own pockets with taxpayer money. That is what the current Republican party is, and it needs to change.

- I have been very fearful of the extreme Fundamentalist Christian right wing of the Republican party really grabbing hold of power and running roughshod over everyone and everything else, including the Constitution. I really believe that these people would like nothing better than to establish a Christian (Southern Baptist, of course) theocratic government, which would also probably produce something along the lines of a police state worthy of Mussolini. However, I see lots of pushback on that now, including some on the Republican side of the aisle. Fundamentalist Christians are supposed to know their place, just supply the votes when required, and then go back home until the next election period. The Republican establishment doesn’t really like this new Huckabee phenomena very much, so they are pushing back as well. I am breathing a bit easier than I was about 8 months ago. However, I think we still need to be very wary.

- Bill O’Reilly is, and will always remain, a unendurable prick who believes the world revolves around him. Unfortunately, a Democratic win in November will just mean that he, once more, has a reason to exist. That is, to attempt to destroy anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.

An emotional rant intended for an American audience only, and only those interested in NCAA football. All others, proceed cautiously while yawning.

The NCAA “National Championship” game was held this week in New Orleans, which, if I am not mistaken, just hosted the Sugar Bowl a little over a week earlier. In summation, LSU won, Ohio State lost again, for the second time in two years, and, outside of the states of Ohio and Louisiana, no one really cared. Big deal. Try telling the University of Southern California or the University of Georgia that LSU has a better football team. Heck, even the University of Missouri. This game really proved nothing. In fact, it was a complete and utter “don’t care”.

Listen up, NCAA. College football is supposed to be over on JANUARY 1st!! Just because you, the major television networks and the “BCS conferences” have figured out that you aren’t competing with yourselves when all the major bowl games were held on New Year’s Day, it doesn’t mean that people really give a flying fig about a game that is held over a week after everyone else has gone home? And on a Monday night? Sheesh. Can you say “anti-climactic”? Or perhaps, “post-coital depression”? If last night’s game really and truly was “for all the marbles”, then why did we all waste our time on those 26 other bowl games, or whatever it was, in the last month? Those meant nothing?

Even the name, “BCS National Championship Game” sounds hokey and totally bereft of any magic at all, when placed next to “The Rose Bowl”, “The Orange Bowl” or “The Sugar Bowl”. Those games have history and pageantry. Their very names invoke a certain mystique. They have an aura about them. The BCS National Championship Game is a cheap invention, “the big con”. It embraces all that is bad about the NFL Super Bowl, and has none of the benefits of being the final game after all the other pretenders to the crown have been dispatched. For your information, HALF of the teams playing in bowl games ended their season by winning their games!

Either make this one way or the other. Either you institute a honest-to-God tournament, like the DII and DIII playoffs (and I refuse to use that utterly insipid name the NCAA has foisted upon them, when even all the television commentators have given up and call them “the divisions that used to be called DII and DIII), or else go back the way it was, where all the bowl games mattered. Don’t pull this lame crap where we should all care about crowning one particular team National Champions, where it is all such a transparent farce.

The NCAA “Bowl Championship Series”. To me, it’s just another demonstration of the ruling class in our society pretending to address what was really an issue for many people (i.e., the lack of a true champion in NCAA DI football), but only coming up with something that just puts more money in the pockets of the people and institutions that already have lots of it already.

Portugal's amazing airport runway

The airport's runway is 2781 meters long, of which 1000 meters of the runway is supported by 180 pillars, each pillar 50 meters height (about 17 floors tall). Surprisingly, the runway is designed to safely handle a Boeing 747.

Look at the cars parked below the runway.

It rather looks like an aircraft carrier. On land. With really long legs.

(Thanks to my buddy Wolfman for supplying these photos and technical info.)

Update: This post has been getting quite a lot of hits from people searching on the words in the title, such as "Portugal" and "airport". I have to say that these photos look like they were taken by a professional photographer and are probably under copywrite. They are in the state that I got them, without any identification or attribution. If someone were to tell me that they are under copywrite, I would certainly either delete them or post them with an attribution, as I did the pictures of the storm pictures with the ferry.

This is known as "covering one's behind", in case you didn't recognize it.