Fear of Clowns

Yesterday, I rode an old bike. Today, I rode a new one.

// posted by Erik @ 6/30/2005 09:59:00 PM
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I believe I was overly enthusiastic about watering my big cactus this spring (the cactus is two columns of San Pedro), although I also think I may have let it get too dry as most of the yellow, scaly blight is on the side which had been facing the southern sun window.

From what I've read over the last week through google searches, it's pretty simple to start a new cactus from an existing one: Cut a section or top free from blight, let it dry until the cut surface is "corky", then stand it up in cactus soil, keeping the soil only slightly moist and making sure it's not exposed to direct sun until you see new growth.

Some suggest to pare the edges of the cut surface; I imagine this is so the cutting stands up easier on the soil and new roots have an easier time growing primarily growing "out" instead of "down". I did this, as I know my cactus really likes growing it's roots "out".

Some say it takes a couple weeks to get corky, others a few days. I let it dry a few days as it was obviously already quite dry, perhaps because I had also cut off the top which had turned black and the texture of plastic.

Some say dipping the fresh cut surface in rooting powder may help, I did this because I happened to have some and how often does one such as I who just has a few houseplants get to use rooting powder? Others say to mix some powder into the soil, although nobody says any powder is necessary - usually unnecessary. One kind writer suggested placing a plastic bag over the pot to easily keep the soil slightly moist.

I am hoping the rest of the cactus makes it; it was already scarred from something when I bought it late two winters ago and I figure my apartment has a lot going for it compared to the desert. Although I do suppose cacti generally prefer desert to apartment.

// posted by Erik @ 6/30/2005 01:36:00 AM
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Today, I woke up twice while it was raining an a third time about 11 pm when it wasn't.

// posted by Erik @ 6/29/2005 09:59:00 PM
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Today is the third daily bike ride I've gone without sleeping - over 72 hours now. The first 36 hours was on purpose to flip my sleep so I generally am not awake when it's dark. The rest has been an accident.

// posted by Erik @ 6/28/2005 09:59:00 PM
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Exodus 20 has the stuff about thou shall not kill nor think your neighbor's wife is hot. Moses broke this first set of tablets Yahweh gave him - because he got mad. So Moses went up to the mountain to get a backup copy, and by that time, Yaweh had edited the first ten commandments so much so as to render the final copy on the second set of tables unrecognizable from his first draft. The final draft is recorded in Exodus 34,

Ouch, that last one about no beef stroganoff is going to be tough.

// posted by Erik @ 6/27/2005 10:55:00 PM
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Today, the sky opened in a deluge. A real Noah-style onslaught - rain which creation scientists claim accumulated at a rate of over ten feet per hour.

// posted by Erik @ 6/27/2005 09:59:00 PM
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Decisions for the two Supreme Court Ten Commandments cases were handed down this morning.

Previous posts I've made on the cases, and the Ten Commandments in general:

My thoughts on the Kentucky case: "Self-evident does not mean founded upon the ten commandments". How to constitutionally display the Ten Commandments in the Kentucky courthouses.

Thoughts on the Fist Amendment and Van Orden v Perry, the ridiculous Texas case in which the state argued that the Ten Commandments monument is constitutional, because the Ten Commandments are primarily secular in nature. Arguing that way means one would have to argue that the miniature Statue of Liberty on the same grounds primarily represents something other than liberty.

An interview I conducted on separation of church and state with James Madison, the author of the First Amendment. How to channel James Madison in a webboard discussion, including an example.

Musings concerning comments made by Jane Right-wing Christian to a Kentucky TV station.

Listing of Presidents since Washington, ranked by number of references made to a deity in State of the Union addresses.

Kurt Vonnegut asks why right-wingers never fight to display the Beatitudes in courthouses,

... Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God ...

// posted by Erik @ 6/27/2005 08:08:00 AM
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June 26, 2005.

// posted by Erik @ 6/26/2005 09:59:00 PM
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June 25, 2005.

// posted by Erik @ 6/25/2005 09:12:00 PM
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Today, it finally didn't get above 90 degrees.

// posted by Erik @ 6/24/2005 09:16:00 PM
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Here's something to think about next time you're stuck in traffic. At any given time there will be a certain number of cars in the "faster" lane and a certain number in the "slower" lane. You will be in one of those cars each time it occurs to you to wonder if the "other" lane is faster.

In the "faster" lane, drivers leave more space between them and the car in front of them, next time you observe that the other lane is faster, look at the space between the cars. On the other hand, drivers in a slower lane will leave much less space between their cars. The result is fewer cars in the faster lane and more cars in the slower lane,

Leaving highways aside for the moment, imagine yourself being randomly placed in one of two groups of people: one group having eight members and the other group having four members. You are twice as likely to find yourself placed in the larger group: it has twice as many members.

Back to our highway, the "faster" and "slower" lanes are two groups of drivers, with the slower lane having more members because of the smaller space left between the cars. Therefore, on average, even if you are no more likely to wonder if the other lane is faster when you're stuck in traffic than when you're sailing through in the fast lane, you are more likely to find yourself in the slower lane when it occurs to you to wonder if the other lane is faster.

Click the illustration of the lanes above for an interactive demonstration which will randomly place you in a car on a highway with a fast and slow lane. Repeatedly click the "observe lanes" button to randomly place yourself in a car, which will turn blue. You will find after several observations that the other lane usually does go faster.

Because you are part of the system you're observing, rules of the system make it so.

// posted by Erik @ 6/23/2005 10:22:00 PM
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Today, I laid down in the air conditioned bedroom and didn't wake up until after dark.

// posted by Erik @ 6/23/2005 09:59:00 PM
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Yesterday, I forgot my backpack by the bench I sit in to take the "swing" photo. Today, the guys I sat with yesterday were waiting there for me with my backpack.

// posted by Erik @ 6/22/2005 09:59:00 PM
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June 21, 2005. Chunky, thrilling sky today, the first day of Summer 2005.

// posted by Erik @ 6/21/2005 08:29:00 PM
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Heavy rain and lots of wind today.

// posted by Erik @ 6/20/2005 08:46:00 PM
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The White House edited scientific findings to be discussed an the upcoming G8 summet,

- Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

- Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

- Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'

Another section erased by the White House adds: 'Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that ... mankind's activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.'

The fairy-tale continues ...

// posted by Erik @ 6/19/2005 07:49:00 PM
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// posted by Erik @ 6/19/2005 07:39:00 PM
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Can anybody tell me what this magnificent tree is?

// posted by Erik @ 6/18/2005 07:53:00 PM
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PZ Meyers takes Eugene Volokh to task for commenting on science without understanding something very simple about science which I explained in a few short paragraphs a couple days ago. Meyer's point boiled down to it's core is that the Theory of Evolution is silent on God,

Repeating my formulation of what science does and does not do, science cannot and does not attempt to "prove" anything - a pen may fall up to the ceiling on the 1,000,001st drop. Despite this, science can provide us with understandings of repeated observations and provides us with a basis on which we ought not rationally doubt those understandings.

// posted by Erik @ 6/17/2005 09:22:00 PM
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Two bell-clear days in a row.

// posted by Erik @ 6/17/2005 08:07:00 PM
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This week's surge of media attention to the Downing Street Memo has cast the question "Why did we invade Iraq?" in a new mold.

Matt Yglasias asks, But what were they thinking? Digby seems convinced there surely was some unspoken rationale for the invasion. Atrios muses, and I think he's correct, "Maybe (and quite likely) it was different combinations of these things to different people in the administration."

It was the president's decision, and he had a lot of people telling him a lot of different things ... that ended up not being true (more on that on down) ... but they sounded pretty good: The war would cost the U.S. $40-60 billion dollars, Iraqi oil would pay for all the rebuilding. It would be a cakewalk, the regeime would fall at the first whiff of gunpowder. The WMD case was a slam-dunk.

Contrary to those who think there was an unknown rationbale for going to Iraq, those pushing for it were quite vocal, they were just saying a different things. Even oil was spoken of in code, American interests in a stable Middle-East. Bush's contribution was that Saddam was evil and America has a God-given mission to spread freedom and democracy. This is the one thing that's been consistent throughout: Bush speaking like a shining knight on a white horse. It's usually some version of "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, but God's gift to the world." America just happens to be the main tool in God's freedom workshop.

All you have to do is take Bush at his word when he talks like the Almighty's Earthly Viceroy while keeping in mind that the policy types around him had been pushing for an invasion of Iraq for years and sang of a smorgasbord of justifications and a cornucopia of good effects. It's easy to understand why Bush gave the go to do the Holy Deed. It was his Mission from God.

Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, 9/20/2001

It's in the quote I chose from 2002 where we can see how the fallacious claims about Iraq didn't bother Bush - he plainly says he sees it as the United State's "role" to invade Iraq, the political debate wasn't applicable to his Mission,

We believe in freedom not only for ourselves, but we believe freedom is God-given. We believe freedom is a right that everybody should realize. And you need to tell your kids that this country liberated people from the clutches of one of the most barbaric regimes in history.

I've got a problem, obviously, with Mr. Saddam Hussein, and so do you ... I don't view this as a political discourse or a political debate, I view this as a debate about our future, the role of the United States and the world about security and freedom.

Remarks by the President at Van Hilleary for Governor Luncheon, 10/8/2002

Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow weaker ... As changes come to the Middle Eastern region, those with power should ask themselves: Will they be remembered for resisting reform, or for leading it? ... The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.

President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East, 11/6/2003

America is a nation with a mission. We're called to fight terrorism around the world, and we're waging that fight. As freedom's home and freedom's defender, we are called to expand the realm of human liberty ... Yet I know that liberty is not America's gift to the world -- liberty and freedom are God's gift to every man and woman who lives in this world.

Remarks Via Satellite by the President to the National Association of Evangelicals Convention, 3/11/2004

Freedom is our birthright because the Creator wrote it into our common human nature. No government can ever take a gift from God away ... we pray for help in defending the gift of freedom from those who seek to destroy it .

President Commemorates National Day of Prayer at the White House, 5/5/2005

In my experience, nearly all the war supporters I've spoken to at the bottom supported the invasion because "Saddam was evil" or Saddam was [some vage or abstract] threat. They all have some coping mechanism that allows them to ignore the vast array of justifications they gave for war which have evaporated over the years. I don't believe believe Bush has to be all that different from the rest of garden variety war supporters. he's given lots of reasons, but at the end, it's just St. George slaying the dragon. A fairy-tale that never was.

// posted by Erik @ 6/17/2005 07:27:00 AM
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For a few weeks, I've contemplated doing a series of posts on the topics of life, the Universe, and epistemology and why I think I only understand this stuff as far as I do. The Scientific faith post was a prologue of sorts, although at first not intended to be. I had also intended to make the first post Yes, the other lane usually does go faster, but that will have to wait until later as I felt like writing about the double-slit experiment tonight. I think most have heard of it, and maybe most understand it, but as understanding it is important in general as well as a necessary understanding to have before I try to explain a less-well known but stranger experiment, here it is.

Imagine yourself standing in the middle of an absolutely still wading pool. Start to jiggle one leg around just a bit. The troughs and crests of your waves would radiate outward like this,

Now imagine the pool has a wall running through the length of it. The wall has a small gap so the waves can flow through it, like this,

The waves you're creating would propagate out from the gap, the gap being the center of the waves on the other side of the gap, just like your jiggling leg is the center of the waves on the side you're on,

If you're lucky enough to be near a still pond with a tree or large branch partly submerged by the shore (or imaginative enough to pull up the scene in your mind now), you can splash around and observe that this is how waves travel through gaps and around corners. If there are two gaps in the wall, an interference pattern would appear between the two waves,

Where the two wave crests meet, they will combine to make a larger crest (the light areas on the other side of the wall). Where a crest from one wave meets a trough from the other, the one's crest will equal out the other's trough (creating the dark areas).

Now, instead of standing in a wading pool divided by a wall with a gap in it, imagine two rooms with a barely cracked door in between them. There is a light bulb in one room, and the other room is entirely dark other than the shaft of light shining through the crack.

A beam of light would be cast on the wall opposite the door, as this diagram illustrates with a view from above,

The edges of the beam are not completely sharp - the light gets diffused a bit as it goes through the crack of the doorway, making the edges of the beam on the wall fuzzy,

You can imagine the particles of light, (called photons) in the beam as being tiny bullets being fired from the location of the light bulb - some of the bullets would glance slightly off the door of the frame, changing their trajectory slightly. The same effect causes fuzzy edges of the beam, the photons act much like tiny bullets.

Now pretend the rooms are very, very tiny - the crack in the door the width of a strand of spider's silk. We can place a photographic plate on the far wall of the tiny room to record the fuzzy beam of light. The image produced look much like the beam we saw on the fall wall of the two rooms,

Now imagine two tiny slits between our very small rooms,

Would the photographic plate on the far wall record two diffused beams just like it would beyond an actual wall with beams going through two cracked doors? No. We see an this,

The diffusion pattern is gone - instead we see an interference pattern, as if light acts not like bullets being fired by a gun, but like waves radiating out from a foot in a wading pool,

To repeat, light acts like tiny bullets - particles - when we give it one slit to pass through, but acts like a wave on the top of water when we provide two slits for it to pass through. Is light made of particles or waves? Does the really depend on whether we cover or leave open a second slit in the same experimental set-up?

If we were the first to discover this bizarre phenomenon, we'd want to look deeper into it. What if we assume light is like tiny bullets and repeat the experiment in such a way that only one photon could be traveling through our experimental set-up at once. We could use a very dim light source, as dim as a candle a mile away from the tiny wall.

First, we perform our one-photon-at-a-time experiment with only one slit open. We wait for enough of the dim light - enough photons - to find it's way through the slit to our photographic plate. We expect to see a diffused shaft of light, and we do,

The pattern on our photographic plate,

Now we perform the experiment with both slits open so each photon from our very dim candle a mile away will go through one of the two. We wait for the photographic plate to accumulate enough hits from photons so we can see where they landed, expecting them to have accumulated over time to show up as fuzzy shafts on the photographic plate on the far wall. Since we're only allowing one photon at a time to go through, we expect to see two* bars of diffused light, just as if we repeated the last experiment without changing the photographic plate, but switching which of our two slits was open.

But behold! This is not what we see. The light is acts like a wave - even though we are sure only one photon of light went through one or the other - ore both, as is the case - of the slits at a time,

The pattern on our photographic plate,

The photons chose to act like waves when we gave them two slits to travel through, but decided to act like particles if we left open only one slit. Whether light is a particle like a bullet going through one slit or like a wave on water traveling through both slits depends on whether there is one or two slits open in our experiment!

Are we examining the light, or is the light examining us? Or both ...

It's important to understand the experiment - or more accurately understand the results of the double-slit experiment to be baffling. Email me (or better, leave a comment) if something is unclear - or if you're not baffled: a sign that I didn't explain it well enough. The next experiment will be a step beyond the double-slit experiment, and therefore be a bit more complex, but much, much stranger.

* in the actual experiment the two slits are so close together that we would expect to see the diffused shafts of light merge into one diffusion pattern. The point being that we would see a diffusion pattern, not an interference pattern. The illustrations are easier to understand if they're drawn as they are - the slits being far apart.

// posted by Erik @ 6/16/2005 11:49:00 PM
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Skeptic James Randi has accepted Prophet Yahweh's application for the James Randi Educational Foundation $1 million challenge - Randi himself will be present for the test on January 25 or 26, 2006. Oh, and they confirmed that Prophet Yahweh's legal name is indeed Prophet Yahweh.

Yahweh now says two giant spaceships will appear for two days over Las Vegas. He's also kicked all "homosexuals and homosexual sympathizers" off his list and told us that it's OK for him to bash homosexuals because he once was one, but has since been convinced by the straight agenda and converted to heterosexuality,

a man anally penetrating another man through the channels that his bowels pass as if it's a woman's vagina ... This is self induced mental illness through Satanic possession.

What else can it be? If you think what I just said is not mental illness, then you need to see a psychiatrist!

People talk about being gay and hear about being gay, but most of them never really think about what fags do when having sex.

As for me, I know it is as sick as I have described for a fact! The way I know, is that I use to be a homosexual.

... you may wonder why I would admit this to several thousand people. The answer is so that many people, who allowed the devil to deceive them, sexually, like he did me, will be motivated to completely and totally abandon the horrible homosexual world, when they see how YAHWEH saved me from that sick and demented lifestyle.

End note: my psychic reading that Yahweh's first "financial donor" was actually a Nigerian Scam was correct. Today, Prophet told his email distribution list that it "ended up as an attack on my bank account."

// posted by Erik @ 6/16/2005 09:29:00 PM
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Today, I went back out after I saw I didn't have a good picture of a blossom.

// posted by Erik @ 6/16/2005 08:48:00 PM
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"Science offers the boldest metaphysics of the age: the faith that if we dream, press to discover, explain, and dream again, thereby plunging repeatedly into new terrain, the world will somehow become clearer and we will grasp the true strangeness of the universe. And the strangeness will all prove to be connected and make sense."

-Edward O. Wilson

This passage reminded me of what frustrates me most in debates over evolution with religious fundamentalists: not their faith in an understanding of life which answered questions of people who had just learned how to grow crops, but fundamentalists' refusal to understand science . If I had a dollar for each time a fundie has tried to taunt me with "I envy your devout faith in the religion of evolution," it would cause a perceptible decline in the revenue generated by Southern Baptist collection plates.

The faith in the scientific dream spoken of by Wilson is itself based on assumptions accurately called "faith". For examples,

• that cause precedes effect,
• that if one million observations have been made of a phenomenon such as a pen falling down and not up when dropped, the 1,000,001st observation will yield the same result,
• that physical laws will in the future be the same as they were in the present and past.

There is no logical proof that can overcome any of these faithful assumptions; In this rigorous sense, science cannot "prove" anything - the pen may fall up to the ceiling on the 1,000,001st drop. Despite science's assumptions, it can provide us with understandings of repeated observations and a basis on which we ought not rationally doubt those understandings. Faith is the absence of doubt. Ta da.

// posted by Erik @ 6/15/2005 11:37:00 PM
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// posted by Erik @ 6/15/2005 04:41:00 PM
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On and off storms today as well as yesterday - magnificent thunderheads and fantastic sunsets. Toaday, I took pictures of an "artifact" for a guy I've chatted with several times on my ride.

// posted by Erik @ 6/14/2005 09:40:00 PM
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Found an mp3 of mysterious origin while cleaning my desktop , "Imagine This" (WaxAudio).

UPDATE: It's a mashup of a mashup of Imagine/Walk on the Wild Side (RX) ... er, maybe the other way around. Listen.

More of a similar nature.

// posted by Erik @ 6/14/2005 05:04:00 PM
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This Prophet Yahweh fellow who seemed to have "summoned" anomalous objects in the sky for a Las Vegas ABC affiliate by praying for a sighting. He has a Yahoo! group to which he sends a whole lot of email, which I read so you don't have to. Notable narratives have included a story of a financial donor whose $750,000 donation ended up being bogus, but the voice that calls himself YAHWEH had told him to "watch out". In my opinion, the story fits the description of a Nigerian scam. Prophet Yahweh has also presented basic knowledge about the New Testament (for instance that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses and that Matthew's author is anonymous) as earth-shattering proof that the Gospels are "forgeries".

Yesterday, Prophet Yahweh, born Ramon Watkins, revealed to his list further proof that the Gospels are forgeries: "encrypted" in the Gospels are hints that Jesus was a homosexual pedophile - to Prophet Yahweh, this indicates that the leaders of Christianity are "Satanic" - that if one understands "the Gospels suggest that the Jesus was a child molesting homosexual, then you'll know why his representatives, who are sworn to "follow" his "example" and walk in his "steps" are doing the exact same things today!"

The "encryption" is "spread ... out into different chapters [so] only the enlightened mind, with higher-level analytical abilities, would be able to ... see clearly the sexual perverted views attributed to our Messiah." Among the hints Prophet Yahweh sees "spread out",

I want to bring to your attention what appears to be an innocent statement made concerning the Christian Jesus in the Gospel of John chapter 13, verse 1. It states:

1. "...having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them until the end."

Now, compare this statement with verses 34-35 of the same chapter. It states:

34. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."

35. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

... In Mark 14:51-52 it states:

51. And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:

52. And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

Now, what kind of love is it that would make a young man or boy not flee like everyone else when the Roman's came? It had to be more powerful than the love Jesus' disciples had for him. That's for sure!

Here's the kicker though, his series of emails on this topic ended with photographic proof,

I think we can conclude with certainty that Prophet Yahweh either has a few screws loose or is a fantastic performance artist.

// posted by Erik @ 6/14/2005 01:06:00 PM
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Had he won, I had intended to give Kerry six months to show progress in Iraq before changing my tune to "bring 'em home now." That six months would have been up next month and there's certainly no sign of progress. Oil pipelines are being blown up as quickly as they can be repaired, more cities are becoming restive, even in relatively calm Basra the chief of police says he only trusts 25% of his force. As Iraqi security forces are phased in, it's not cutting our casualty rate, only adding to the total casualties. In other words, the war is escalating.

Yet at this mark I was willing to give Kerry, I keep thinking it's better to launch a war that ought not have been launched and stay as long as innocents are militarily threatened than invading and saying, "Goodbye, we sorta screwed up, sorry."

Some would argue that our presence there is inciting much of the violence, a point on which I certainly agree. However, if we left, Turkey would likely enter from the north and Iran from the east. Which I believe would be more of a negative than we have now; In fact, it would be a formula for a regional war we'd jump right back into.

A Pew survey has 46% of Americans wanting to bring troops home sooner than later. I believe a great deal of Americans really thought of the invasion as a video game or movie when you can reset the game or was guaranteed happy ending for America. Three quarters find American casualties in the invasion and war unacceptable. Seems Rambo didn't show up. He probably won't show up by putting another quarter in the machine.

// posted by Erik @ 6/13/2005 10:35:00 PM
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He or she let me get about 15 feet away before taking off.

// posted by Erik @ 6/13/2005 08:01:00 PM
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Today I got some really close pictures of a Great Blue Heron after a storm.

// posted by Erik @ 6/13/2005 07:59:00 PM
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Via Josh Marshalll: Owner of struggling defense contractor loses 43% on a $1.6 million real estate deal to a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Defense contractor suddenly enters list of top 100 federal contractors. Congressman who profited from deal doesn't smoke pot though.

// posted by Erik @ 6/12/2005 08:13:00 PM
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April 4, 2005	May 4, 2005	June 4, 2005

// posted by Erik @ 6/12/2005 07:48:00 PM
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June 12, 2005. Today I sat with two Vietnam age guys who were also last week on the bench from which I take the "swing" photo. Spoke about purebred dogs.

// posted by Erik @ 6/12/2005 07:47:00 PM
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I missed this,

A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state--who is President Bush's nominee for United Nations ambassador--believed Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian arms-control specialist was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined the main U.S. rationale for war.

Can't have any weapons inspectors mettling with important war plans, can we?

// posted by Erik @ 6/12/2005 12:34:00 AM
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Tod Lindberg writes of the Downing Street Memo in the Weekly Standard,

For smoking-gun enthusiasts, the key to the plot is that word "fixed," as in, the fix is in. As in, the intelligence and facts weren't what Bush needed, so he fixed them. The problem with this analysis, if you can call it that, is quite simple: If what is being described is chicanery and wrongdoing in the form of the Bush administration fabricating intelligence, how come nobody in the room with Blair when C drops this bombshell is sufficiently perturbed to do so much as ask a follow-up question? How come Blair's "sofa cabinet" just goes on earnestly discussing the military options?

In fact, exactly how is it that the official note-taker at this meeting [...] decided to record this momentous revelation with a colloquialism worthy of a James Cagney gangster movie? The answer is that he is doing no such thing. "Fix" here is clearly meant in its traditional sense, in the sort of English spoken by Oxbridge dons and MI6 directors--to make fast, to set in order, to arrange.

Let's think: the memo isn't scandalous if one understands British English. Why then was it scandalous in the UK? Hmm.

Beyond that, Lindburg suggests the language of the memo is to be understood, "the intelligence and facts were being arranged around the policy." Uh, that doesn't help Lindberg's point at all: Policy being "arranged" around facts, good. Facts being "arranged" policy, bad. Teh.

Let's ask Mr. Blair, a speaker of "the sort of English spoken by Oxbridge dons and MI6 directors" for his take on it,

Q Thank you, sir. On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all.

Ha ha ha. Right wingers.

// posted by Erik @ 6/11/2005 09:28:00 PM
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Yesterday, the lake was quite still, as it has been for many days. Today, it was choppy when I started but stilled during my ride.

// posted by Erik @ 6/11/2005 09:02:00 PM
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Here is an aerial photo of Lake Calhoun from google maps. The teardrop pointer indicates where I live.

The bike path around Lake Calhoun is 3.19 miles; around Lake Harriet - the lake at the bottom - is 2.99 miles, around Lake of the Isles (on which Mary Tyler More fictionally lived) is 2.97 miles. These paths are part of the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway - a huge and rambling park all across Minneapolis with over 80 miles of walking and biking paths. It's one of the things that makes Minneapolis a great city to live in. Hight taxes be damned, we have a great quality of life.

I look forward to our light rail being expanded and hope for the eventual implementation of Sky Web Express. Those who hope for Minnesota taxpayers to build the fantastically wealthy owners of the Vikings or Twins an new stadium can screw themselves. Let the owners build them on their own dime if they want.

// posted by Erik @ 6/10/2005 09:33:00 PM
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Yesterday, I saw baby ducks in a row. Today, I'm wondering if someone can tell me what caused the line in trhe clouds - a temperature or pressure front?

// posted by Erik @ 6/10/2005 09:17:00 PM
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A hard follow up question which wasn't asked (transcript) regarding Bush and Blair's Tuesday response to the question to both on whether the Downing Street Memo is accurate. From both came, "[W]e worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully." Of course followup questions were not allowed.

Well, here's the disconnect I keep seeing here.

The president said, we wanted to do this peacefully. We wanted to accomplish this peacefully. Well, what was the this? If Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, if they weren't connected to 9/11, what was the this? And what is that this now? It seems like the this now is nation-building. Back then, it was fighting what the president said were the dangers of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.

Crooks and liars has the video.

// posted by Erik @ 6/10/2005 12:11:00 AM
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FOXNews questions in an exclusive Bush interview,

Mr. President, we knew you had won the election and now we have heard that you had better grades than your opponent too in college.

Do you think you get a bum rap in the media on the economy?

So when you see these polls that show your popularity ebbing a bit, it doesn't frustrate you?

Do you think that the focus on Michael Jackson has hurt you?

The last question must have come from upper management

// posted by Erik @ 6/09/2005 08:50:00 PM
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Yesterday was the darkest night I've taken my ride. Today, the sky was marmalade, magnificent.

// posted by Erik @ 6/09/2005 08:40:00 PM
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Jordan asks some good questions in comments, the answer to which may have been missed. So a new post. Here's Jordan,

You said that you do not believe life begins at conception.I have only one question for you-- then when does it begin? You must choose some random point if you don't believe that when egg and sperm collide, those cells are human life. Is it when children can survive outside the womb? Medical science is continually pushing that timeframe back, so you better keep up on your research so you can know when life begins. I would hate to make a mistake and have an abortion at 23 weeks and then find that a doctor across the country had saved a baby that young...

The operating definition of whether or not someone is "living" seems to be whether or not they are "wanted".

I've not said I "do not believe life begins at conception." This is not a pertinent question to bring into the abortion debate: one does not question that a transplanted kidney, a vial of human eggs and a separate vial of human sperm, nor Ulysses S. Grant's corpse in Grant's Tomb are all human life. The question that must be asked is "When ought we assign personhood to human life?" May answer is,

Until we can assuredly assign rights to a fetus through the scientific method, the time we ought to assign rights is the week at which the fetus has a reasonable chance at surviving outside a woman's womb with the best technology available.

In other words, the operating definition is not "whether or not they are 'wanted'", but "whether or when a fetus is a distinct individual". I can think of no better point at which a fetus becomes a distinct person with distinct rights than the point at which it's body has developed sufficiently for science to sustain it's own life without another human's body assisting its metabolism, respiration, immune system, etc.

Regardless of whether or not you think that life begins at conception, the point is that if those cells are given their natural environment and aren't disturbed, a human is born. Messing with the process at any point affects the end result.

In the context of the debate from which this stems, frozen embryos are certainly not produced in a "natural environment", so it's puzzling why a "natural environment" has entered in from the side claiming frozen embryos are people. The fact of man merging with machine is at the heart of the debate.

To head anticipated responses off at the pass, one can't reasonably use a biblical reference without claiming that life begins at ejaculation, Genesis 38,

Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.

God killed Onan for using the "pull-out" method (this is where we came up with the word "onanism"). Sperm was thought to be the seed of future generations, women were just a receptacle for the sperm to grow in. We're also speaking of a book that urges one to utterly destroy all life and property in cities that worship gods other than Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13 & 32, for instance).

So science and logic, please.

// posted by Erik @ 6/09/2005 01:53:00 PM
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The comments in a post about third party IVF are getting out of hand; people claiming I'm using circular thinking without pointing to circularity, people disputing unnamed facts without explanation. Anonymous says,

Indeed, I like provocative but accurate language, and indeed, people who believe they are saving embryo's (people's) lives by attempting third party IVF with frozen embryos are in fact killing most of the "people" they are trying to "save".

Here are the facts I've presented in my argument,

1. The best medical technology available today can only ensure the survival of, at best, one third of frozen embryos in third party IVF using frozen embryos (source).
2. Frozen embryos, even with today's technology, can be successfully thawed if they were frozen a decade or more ago (source, source)
3. Medical technology is rapidly advancing and it's not unreasonable to believe that in a few decades, third-party IVF will result in more successful pregnancies (source citing recent progress).
4. If one believes frozen embryos should be "rescued", waiting for medical technology to improve will result in a higher "rescue" rate.

My question, explicitly stated is "Can anybody present a rational argument for today attempting third party IVF with frozen embryos if the objective is to bring as many of the embryos to a successful pregnancy?"

Thanks.

// posted by Erik @ 6/09/2005 01:30:00 PM
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James S. Robbins of right-wing National Review Online dredges up a July 2002 article in The Guardian (of all sources for a NRO columnist to cite as credible)