I wanted to highlight this post by PZ Myers, mainly because it so neatly dovetails with what I was saying a month ago about The Reaping. I also did a TV episode about fictional atheist strawmen, which you can watch here.
In talking about the movie I Am Legend, PZ highlights a similar major problem with movie atheists, which is that the only time they are portrayed in a positive light is when they are a kind of "failed biblical Job", put through all kinds of awful tribulations until they finally crack and declare that there is no God. Even though this turns them into a sort of sympathetic figure, the fiction in the rest of the story always proves them wrong. As I said regarding a similar character in The Reaping, very few people really come to atheism that way.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Friday, January 04, 2008
The Daily Show returns, for real
In other political news you may have missed, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will air their first new episodes this Monday night. However, since the strike still hasn't ended, they're doing it with no writers. This isn't optimal, of course, but I've seen Jon Stewart do interviews. I still think that an ad libbed Daily Show is better than none at all.
Also, Stewart will be a guest character on The Simpsons this Sunday.
Also, Stewart will be a guest character on The Simpsons this Sunday.
Congratulations to Obama and Huckabee
So, in case you haven't heard yet:
Obama 38%, Edwards 30%, Clinton 29%, Richardson 2%, Biden 1%, Dodd 1%.
vs.
Huckabee 34%, Romney 25%, Thompson 13% McCain 13%, Paul 10%, Giuliani 3%
I'm cheerful about last night's outcome. Before leaving work yesterday, I was chatting with a coworker who leans somewhat more liberal than most Texans, but she likes Ron Paul and hates Clinton. I told her that since Ron Paul didn't have a prayer (and I was right) I hoped Hillary wouldn't be the nominee so that would guarantee that she'd vote Democratic for president.
My favorite candidate, Edwards, didn't win, but he came in second and Clinton came in third. I think Obama is a solid candidate who might pull it off in November, and I know many people who love him. I disagree with a few of his positions, but on the whole I think he can win and I believe the mood of the country is with him.
On the other side, I'm delighted that Mike Huckabee won. Not because I want him as president, but because out of all the candidates, I think he has just about the least chance of being elected.
This isn't a case of sunny optimism, of the same variety some of us applied when we thought "George Bush will never be (re)elected, he's too dumb." Nope -- this is a very divisive nomination. The religious Republicans like Huckabee, but they're the only ones. Many other Republicans HATE him. He's not part of the "old boys' club" like Giuliani or Thompson; and he's got some distressingly quasi-liberal views on law enforcement, social programs, and immigration.
Now, the religious right may have a strong influence on Republican politics, but I don't believe for a minute that they can win an election by themselves without support from the huge political cash machine.
I can picture three things happening in the event of Huckabee continuing to win states:
I think McCain has the best shot at winning the general election, but Huckabee just creamed him 2-1.
Obama 38%, Edwards 30%, Clinton 29%, Richardson 2%, Biden 1%, Dodd 1%.
vs.
Huckabee 34%, Romney 25%, Thompson 13% McCain 13%, Paul 10%, Giuliani 3%
I'm cheerful about last night's outcome. Before leaving work yesterday, I was chatting with a coworker who leans somewhat more liberal than most Texans, but she likes Ron Paul and hates Clinton. I told her that since Ron Paul didn't have a prayer (and I was right) I hoped Hillary wouldn't be the nominee so that would guarantee that she'd vote Democratic for president.
My favorite candidate, Edwards, didn't win, but he came in second and Clinton came in third. I think Obama is a solid candidate who might pull it off in November, and I know many people who love him. I disagree with a few of his positions, but on the whole I think he can win and I believe the mood of the country is with him.
On the other side, I'm delighted that Mike Huckabee won. Not because I want him as president, but because out of all the candidates, I think he has just about the least chance of being elected.
This isn't a case of sunny optimism, of the same variety some of us applied when we thought "George Bush will never be (re)elected, he's too dumb." Nope -- this is a very divisive nomination. The religious Republicans like Huckabee, but they're the only ones. Many other Republicans HATE him. He's not part of the "old boys' club" like Giuliani or Thompson; and he's got some distressingly quasi-liberal views on law enforcement, social programs, and immigration.
Now, the religious right may have a strong influence on Republican politics, but I don't believe for a minute that they can win an election by themselves without support from the huge political cash machine.
I can picture three things happening in the event of Huckabee continuing to win states:
- Republicans eventually grit their teeth and fall in line, with the full force of the Republican noise machine finally backing him. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh will, as Rush said before, continue carry the water for people he doesn't really believe deserve it.
- Float a third party candidate they can support. I don't know who the hell it would be at this point (Gingrich?) but either way I think that would be AWESOME and guarantee an Obama victory.
- Largely not vote. Sure, the fundamentalists will turn out in droves, which will give Huckabee pretty big final numbers. But not enough, that's my guess.
I think McCain has the best shot at winning the general election, but Huckabee just creamed him 2-1.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Pitfalls of a skeptical kid
Quite an eventful Christmas this year. Caitlin and Samantha have come to visit for the entire vacation period. Keryn is engaged. I've met most of the family of my future brother-in-law. They seem like nice folks.
One distant non-relation is a little girl who is 5, exactly Ben's age. She is my sister's fiance's brother's girlfriend's daughter. ("So what does that make us?" "Absolutely nothing... which is what YOU are about to become!") The two kids got along great. Ben's been missing two front teeth since some unfortunate horseplay when he was 5. This girl has lost a tooth in the natural way, which is a hopeful sign because it means that Ben's disfigurement won't stand out for much longer.
They got in the following conversation:
Girl: "The tooth fairy brought me five dollars!"
Ben (confidently): "But the tooth fairy isn't real!"
Girl (taken aback): "She is too! Or else who brought me five dollars?"
Ben didn't answer that one, although I like to think that he knows the real answer and just chose to let it drop. (He does know, after all, that parents bring Christmas presents.)
We made a conscious decision when he was born not to teach him to believe in made-up things like Santa and the tooth fairy. That was a tough decision, but he's just now coming to the age where our decision can ruin the fun for other parents.
Ginny and I had a couple of talks with him. I tried to explain to him that we felt it was the right decision not to pretend that imaginary things are real, because we didn't want to lie to him. But at the same time I struggled to justify why it's okay for other parents to lie to THEIR kids.
At one point he asked "So other parents tell their kids Santa is real to make them happy?" And I said "Yes, that's right." And he said "But I'm happy." Good kid. :)
Ginny had the immediate concern that Ben would blab about Santa to his best friend, who came over on Christmas morning to have breakfast with us after the presents were opened. She said "You CANNOT tell Calvin Santa is real. No, not even if he asks what Santa brought you. You can just say 'I got this and this,' and you don't have to lie about who brought it. You just don't say."
I told him it that this is just a game that some parents play. It's a secret. Since you know the secret, you get to share the game with the rest of us adults. So don't tell anyone the secret, or you'll spoil the game for other kids.
One distant non-relation is a little girl who is 5, exactly Ben's age. She is my sister's fiance's brother's girlfriend's daughter. ("So what does that make us?" "Absolutely nothing... which is what YOU are about to become!") The two kids got along great. Ben's been missing two front teeth since some unfortunate horseplay when he was 5. This girl has lost a tooth in the natural way, which is a hopeful sign because it means that Ben's disfigurement won't stand out for much longer.
They got in the following conversation:
Girl: "The tooth fairy brought me five dollars!"
Ben (confidently): "But the tooth fairy isn't real!"
Girl (taken aback): "She is too! Or else who brought me five dollars?"
Ben didn't answer that one, although I like to think that he knows the real answer and just chose to let it drop. (He does know, after all, that parents bring Christmas presents.)
We made a conscious decision when he was born not to teach him to believe in made-up things like Santa and the tooth fairy. That was a tough decision, but he's just now coming to the age where our decision can ruin the fun for other parents.
Ginny and I had a couple of talks with him. I tried to explain to him that we felt it was the right decision not to pretend that imaginary things are real, because we didn't want to lie to him. But at the same time I struggled to justify why it's okay for other parents to lie to THEIR kids.
At one point he asked "So other parents tell their kids Santa is real to make them happy?" And I said "Yes, that's right." And he said "But I'm happy." Good kid. :)
Ginny had the immediate concern that Ben would blab about Santa to his best friend, who came over on Christmas morning to have breakfast with us after the presents were opened. She said "You CANNOT tell Calvin Santa is real. No, not even if he asks what Santa brought you. You can just say 'I got this and this,' and you don't have to lie about who brought it. You just don't say."
I told him it that this is just a game that some parents play. It's a secret. Since you know the secret, you get to share the game with the rest of us adults. So don't tell anyone the secret, or you'll spoil the game for other kids.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Obama on the Rise
I'm mainly posting this for the benefit of my sister-in-law Lynn, who I know is a huge Obama supporter. This is a remarkably positive article about Barack Obama by Matt Taibbi, who is usually incredibly cynical regarding both sides. Yes, he throws in a healthy dose of skepticism in describing the "well-oiled political machine" that Obama actually has at his command. But the ending is pretty upbeat, at least for Taibbi:
Disclosure: My ranking is Edwards, Obama, Clinton. Maybe stick Chris Dodd in before Clinton due to his recent filibuster stunt, which I thought was pretty awesome. One the whole, I'd rather have Edwards in office due to the fact that he's selling himself more on his positions on the issues than on his personality; I feel that he has stronger positions on economics and the environment than Obama does.
But that doesn't mean I'd have any qualms about voting for Obama; I think he's a solid and charismatic candidate, and that may matter more in this race. For that matter, based on the current front runners, I feel pretty confident that whichever Republican wins is going to be a complete train wreck in one way or another. Hillary Clinton may not be my ideal candidate, but compared to Huckabee, Romney, or Giuliani? No contest.
"So maybe it's OK to let the grandiose things that an Obama presidency could represent overwhelm the less-stirring reality -- i.e., Obama as more or less a typical middle-of-the-road Democrat with a lot of money and a well-run campaign. Maybe it's OK because it's not always about the candidates; sometimes it's about us, what we want and what we want to believe. And if Barack Obama can carry that burden for us, why not let him? Seriously, why not? The happy ending doesn't always have to ring false."
Disclosure: My ranking is Edwards, Obama, Clinton. Maybe stick Chris Dodd in before Clinton due to his recent filibuster stunt, which I thought was pretty awesome. One the whole, I'd rather have Edwards in office due to the fact that he's selling himself more on his positions on the issues than on his personality; I feel that he has stronger positions on economics and the environment than Obama does.
But that doesn't mean I'd have any qualms about voting for Obama; I think he's a solid and charismatic candidate, and that may matter more in this race. For that matter, based on the current front runners, I feel pretty confident that whichever Republican wins is going to be a complete train wreck in one way or another. Hillary Clinton may not be my ideal candidate, but compared to Huckabee, Romney, or Giuliani? No contest.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Zero hour
Fall 2007 semester (Class weekend Schedule)
August 17-18, 2007
September 14-15, 2007
October 12-13, 2007
November 9-10, 2007
December 6-7, 2007
---> *** Graduation December 7 *** <---
Two final exams tomorrow.
(Cracks knuckles)
(Cracks neck)
Let's rock.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Reaping: another awful anti-skeptic movie
I just watched The Reaping, another tedious horror movie that goes something like this:
Act 1, scene 1
Skeptic: "Hi, I'm an atheist and I think supernatural stuff is all bunk!"
Believer: "An atheist, eh? Why, you must have had some tragic experience in your life that made you mad at God."
Skeptic: "Why yes, as a matter of fact I did!"
Act 1, scene 2
Messenger: "Hey skeptic, some weird supernatural events are happening in this out-of-the-way location, and I think you should check it out."
Skeptic: "Supernatural events? Nonsense! There is a perfectly logical scientific explanation! Therefore, I will drop everything else in my life and go check it out."
Messenger: "I thought you'd say that. Car's ready, let's go."
Act 2
(Obviously supernatural events happen.)
Skeptic: "Nonsense, there is a perfectly rational scientific explanation for all of this. Give me a minute and I'll make some up."
Act 3
Skeptic: "Holy cow, it turns out that these events were supernatural all along! I have certainly learned many things and grown as a person. So much for my vaunted 'scientific method.'"
In this case, the skeptic is Hillary Swank, eventually revealed by the exposition to be a former preacher who lost her faith in God when religious whackjobs in some third world country killed her family. Now she apparently gives lectures on why there are no miracles and no God.
As I mentioned when I talked about Evan Almighty, these kinds of movies really work hard to undermine skepticism by establishing a fictional world where the magic stuff is real. The skeptic winds up looking like a fool by clinging on to "rational explanations" long after a real person, employing the observation and deduction skills possessed by a warthog, would have recognized the existence of magic. None of this applies in the real world, though; the takeaway message of the movie is "Don't be so skeptical of magic!" when it should qualify that with "...if you're a person who lives in a fictional magical universe."
You understand, of course, that I'm not complaining because a fictional story has fictional elements in it. I'm complaining about the really bad way that the skeptical main character is portrayed, in that she is confronted with an unprecedented level of real, concrete evidence... which she blithely ignores right up until the very end.
And "ignore the evidence" seems to be the only thing that Hillary Swank ever does in her capacity as a skeptic. For somebody with such a supposedly scientific mind, she certainly doesn't bother doing any of the obvious tests that I, who am not a scientist, think of immediately. For instance, the first thing she goes to investigate is a river that has turned red like blood. (The plot of this movie involves a recreation of the ten Biblical Plagues, in order.) Naturally, she starts pontificating on the possible reasons why the river could have turned blood-red. At this point I said to Ginny: "Surely the very FIRST thing that she should do when she gets there is run some kind of test to verify whether that stuff is actually blood or not. I sure do hope that occurs to her."
Guess what she doesn't do.
Oh, she has it tested for SOMETHING, but it's not whether it matches the chemical composition of blood. After she's been in the little town fooling around for several days, some other character refers to all the dead fish in the blood river, and she snaps at the guy "Look, those fish all died because the pH balance of that water is off the charts!" So apparently, she took the time to analyze the pH balance of the stuff, but never bothered to take a little extra effort to find out if it is actually, you know, blood. (Spoiler: It's blood.)
It gets worse. When the requisite priest starts yammering about the original Biblical plagues, Hillary Swank again begins ranting about how there's a simple scientific explanation for all ten plagues. You see, first this uncommon species of algae grew in the rivers, turning them red, and then all the fish died because of the algae, which caused some disease that killed the livestock and attracted frogs and locusts, and so on, in this hilariously elaborate Rube Goldberg sequence that handily explains all ten plagues.
This explanation struck me as so patently ridiculous that it could only be dreamed up by some nitwit in Hollywood, but it turns out I'm wrong. Since I googled some stuff to see if I got her "theory" correct, I found this page at Answers In Genesis arguing against a very similar explanation written by one Greta Hort in 1957. So I guess SOMEBODY really took this stuff seriously.
It's not that this stuff with the algae and the diseases and the frogs couldn't have happened in Egypt, or even been a very common occurrence. It's just that I'm floored by the absolute cocksure way that Hillary Swank declares that This Is How It Really Happened. Much simpler explanation: it's just a story. It's loosely based on things the authors had real experience with, or on local legends. There is no need for a scientific explanation, until such time as any evidence is presented to show that it happened at all.
This whole idea that you can just make up a "logical, scientific explanation" by ad libbing stuff off the top of your head, without taking any data or evidence into account, is what bugs me about this and many other movies in the way they portray skeptics. It's quite similar to cargo cult science, because it's clearly somebody who has no idea what science is, writing a script showing what sciency people sound like.
Similarly, the whole "I'm an atheist because something terrible happened to me and now I'm mad at God" angle is a theistic fantasy of how an atheist talks. Theists ALWAYS seem to jump to the assumption that this is how people become atheists. It's the default explanation. Yet among all the atheists I know, not one has ever told me that their story was anything remotely like that.
Act 1, scene 1
Skeptic: "Hi, I'm an atheist and I think supernatural stuff is all bunk!"
Believer: "An atheist, eh? Why, you must have had some tragic experience in your life that made you mad at God."
Skeptic: "Why yes, as a matter of fact I did!"
Act 1, scene 2
Messenger: "Hey skeptic, some weird supernatural events are happening in this out-of-the-way location, and I think you should check it out."
Skeptic: "Supernatural events? Nonsense! There is a perfectly logical scientific explanation! Therefore, I will drop everything else in my life and go check it out."
Messenger: "I thought you'd say that. Car's ready, let's go."
Act 2
(Obviously supernatural events happen.)
Skeptic: "Nonsense, there is a perfectly rational scientific explanation for all of this. Give me a minute and I'll make some up."
Act 3
Skeptic: "Holy cow, it turns out that these events were supernatural all along! I have certainly learned many things and grown as a person. So much for my vaunted 'scientific method.'"
In this case, the skeptic is Hillary Swank, eventually revealed by the exposition to be a former preacher who lost her faith in God when religious whackjobs in some third world country killed her family. Now she apparently gives lectures on why there are no miracles and no God.
As I mentioned when I talked about Evan Almighty, these kinds of movies really work hard to undermine skepticism by establishing a fictional world where the magic stuff is real. The skeptic winds up looking like a fool by clinging on to "rational explanations" long after a real person, employing the observation and deduction skills possessed by a warthog, would have recognized the existence of magic. None of this applies in the real world, though; the takeaway message of the movie is "Don't be so skeptical of magic!" when it should qualify that with "...if you're a person who lives in a fictional magical universe."
You understand, of course, that I'm not complaining because a fictional story has fictional elements in it. I'm complaining about the really bad way that the skeptical main character is portrayed, in that she is confronted with an unprecedented level of real, concrete evidence... which she blithely ignores right up until the very end.
And "ignore the evidence" seems to be the only thing that Hillary Swank ever does in her capacity as a skeptic. For somebody with such a supposedly scientific mind, she certainly doesn't bother doing any of the obvious tests that I, who am not a scientist, think of immediately. For instance, the first thing she goes to investigate is a river that has turned red like blood. (The plot of this movie involves a recreation of the ten Biblical Plagues, in order.) Naturally, she starts pontificating on the possible reasons why the river could have turned blood-red. At this point I said to Ginny: "Surely the very FIRST thing that she should do when she gets there is run some kind of test to verify whether that stuff is actually blood or not. I sure do hope that occurs to her."
Guess what she doesn't do.
Oh, she has it tested for SOMETHING, but it's not whether it matches the chemical composition of blood. After she's been in the little town fooling around for several days, some other character refers to all the dead fish in the blood river, and she snaps at the guy "Look, those fish all died because the pH balance of that water is off the charts!" So apparently, she took the time to analyze the pH balance of the stuff, but never bothered to take a little extra effort to find out if it is actually, you know, blood. (Spoiler: It's blood.)
It gets worse. When the requisite priest starts yammering about the original Biblical plagues, Hillary Swank again begins ranting about how there's a simple scientific explanation for all ten plagues. You see, first this uncommon species of algae grew in the rivers, turning them red, and then all the fish died because of the algae, which caused some disease that killed the livestock and attracted frogs and locusts, and so on, in this hilariously elaborate Rube Goldberg sequence that handily explains all ten plagues.
This explanation struck me as so patently ridiculous that it could only be dreamed up by some nitwit in Hollywood, but it turns out I'm wrong. Since I googled some stuff to see if I got her "theory" correct, I found this page at Answers In Genesis arguing against a very similar explanation written by one Greta Hort in 1957. So I guess SOMEBODY really took this stuff seriously.
It's not that this stuff with the algae and the diseases and the frogs couldn't have happened in Egypt, or even been a very common occurrence. It's just that I'm floored by the absolute cocksure way that Hillary Swank declares that This Is How It Really Happened. Much simpler explanation: it's just a story. It's loosely based on things the authors had real experience with, or on local legends. There is no need for a scientific explanation, until such time as any evidence is presented to show that it happened at all.
This whole idea that you can just make up a "logical, scientific explanation" by ad libbing stuff off the top of your head, without taking any data or evidence into account, is what bugs me about this and many other movies in the way they portray skeptics. It's quite similar to cargo cult science, because it's clearly somebody who has no idea what science is, writing a script showing what sciency people sound like.
Similarly, the whole "I'm an atheist because something terrible happened to me and now I'm mad at God" angle is a theistic fantasy of how an atheist talks. Theists ALWAYS seem to jump to the assumption that this is how people become atheists. It's the default explanation. Yet among all the atheists I know, not one has ever told me that their story was anything remotely like that.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Daily Show is back!! Well, kind of...
The Daily Show writers, who probably have nothing else to do, are producing their own mini-Daily Show, live from the picket lines, on YouTube.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Alyx Vance may be one of the best game characters ever
If you're a gamer, chances are pretty good that you are at least aware of Half-Life 2 and the recent expansions, dubbed Episodes 1 and 2. Since I finished playing Portal, probably about five times now, I've been exploring the other aspects that the Half-Life Orange Box has to offer.
Man, what a great collection of games. I liked the original Half-Life a lot, and HL2 was even better, but this is simply a triumph of great story combined with great action. In these last few days, my perception of Valve has jumped up from "A really great game company" to "Nearly Blizzard-like in their ability to consistently do everything right."
One of the major contributors to this perception is the character of Alyx Vance, an NPC (that's "Non-Player Character" for you non-gamers, although you folks probably stopped reading before the end of the previous paragraph) who stays at your side throughout most of the game. Alyx was a fun character in the first HL2 story, but she has really gotten a chance to shine in the expansions. With her specifically in mind, I present:
Seven surefire ways to make an NPC that every gamer will love!
1. Make her female. Because -- go on, it's okay, you can acknowledge it -- most gamers are male.
2. Make her kick ass. The damsel in distress is SO fifty years ago. Today's great female characters should be created in the mold of Buffy Summers, Sarah Connor, Ripley, and Hermione Granger. They aren't sitting around waiting for some man to come along and sweep them away; they can blow away armies of ant-lions on their own very well, thank you. And she does look so very stylish when she's kicking zombies in the face.
3. Make her spend a lot of time with you. Most 3D shooters are all about solo play in an environment where everything is either dead or wants you to die. Ever since Wolfenstein 3D, there has always been a distinct feeling of loneliness as you slog through level after level and don't see a single living thing that isn't evil. Having a buddy who is right alongside you nailing enemies can cause a huge difference to the mood of the game. That's why I always liked playing networked games in cooperative mode much more than I like Deathmatches.
4. Make her talkative. As a corollary to the previous point, if she's going to be around a lot, she'd better be talking because you're not going to. Having a NPC say "Wow, nice shot!" can be a tremendous ego booster, while having her occasionally say "Look out, I hear something" can make her feel like a vital trusted companion. If you're a real roleplayer (code word for "dork") then you can always talk back to her yourself and pretend she's responding to you. Not that I would ever do that. Nope. Not me.
5. Make her actually help you. If there are any in-game hints to give, it makes so much more sense to deliver them through the always-present NPC than a disembodied narration. Whether she's shooting something that just came up behind you, or suggesting "I think we should go this way" or yelling "Look out, grenade!" you need to appreciate having a friend in the game. But more than that, Alyx gets special abilities that set her apart from the player, like climbing to places you can't reach, and hacking through security systems. In the early levels of Episodes 1 and 2, she gets a gun and you don't, so you're relying on her for basic protection. Later, as you're strolling through hordes of zombies, it's just so comforting to see the laser targeting line which means Alyx has your back with her sniper rifle. And there had better be at least a few occasions where it's obvious you would be dead without her intervention.
6. Don't let her hinder you. NPC's are generally very hard to write into action games, because they get in the way and aren't supposed to die. The "Opposing Force" Half-Life 1 expansion was really bad about this. Along the way, you keep picking up small squads of soldiers who are vital to your survival. The difficulty in these sections is generally cranked up, so if you blow away your own squad with an errant rocket, you're really up a creek. NPC's in the recent HL episodes seem pretty near indestructible. You can't shoot them yourself, and the monsters don't finish them off for a fairly long time. Yes, it's cheating for a game designer to give a character near-invulnerability. But remember that the NPC is there for the purposes of story and atmosphere, and NOT as an additional obstacle to keep you from getting through the game. Nothing's worse than when you've just come to the end of a five-minute firefight, you're feeling pretty good about yourself, and then from fifty feet away you hear "Argh..." Alyx has died, game over.
7. Let her get in trouble, but only after you've established point #2. I don't really care about the data card that we've been carrying to who-remembers-where throughout the entire game. It's a MacGuffin -- supposedly important to the characters, but irrelevant to my understanding of the plot. On the other hand, I care a lot about Alyx, because her character has been established so well. So if she just took a fall while heroically protecting my life, you bet I'm not going to take a break from the game until I'm sure she's okay.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
And then, Pinky, we will try to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
I just wanted to mention that I'm fooling around ideas for promoting this blog better. I signed up for Google Analytics yesterday and I'm having some fun looking at the information I'm getting -- about 60 unique readers each day. At one point, I had hacked up my own invisible statistics reader for the blog, but it was in dire need of a rewrite, and I decided Google Analytics would be a good way to not reinvent the wheel.
In addition, my recent Master's work with Digg reminded me that I should start making it easier to recommend posts here, so I've added that little "Digg this" link that you see in the upper right corner. I wouldn't be so crass as to Digg my own posts, but I'm not above begging. So if you're a regular reader and you have a Digg account, I'd be greatly obliged if you'd skim some of your favorite recent posts and hit the button.
No, not THIS post. This post sucks. I notice that the anti-9/11 conspiracy post is popular, but that's partly because it's recent.
The button's not too annoying, is it? Let me know.
In addition, my recent Master's work with Digg reminded me that I should start making it easier to recommend posts here, so I've added that little "Digg this" link that you see in the upper right corner. I wouldn't be so crass as to Digg my own posts, but I'm not above begging. So if you're a regular reader and you have a Digg account, I'd be greatly obliged if you'd skim some of your favorite recent posts and hit the button.
No, not THIS post. This post sucks. I notice that the anti-9/11 conspiracy post is popular, but that's partly because it's recent.
The button's not too annoying, is it? Let me know.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Gaming goodness
I had class this weekend, which means that only one weekend and two classes are left in total. My adviser finally got back to me to let me know that my thesis is interesting and well done, and only a few minor changes are necessary before submission. So on the whole it looks like somewhat smooth sailing from here on out, and therefore I treated myself on Friday evening to The Half-Life Orange Box.
I have not bought a game in several months, and part of the reason behind this purchase is that I had heard so many outstanding reviews that I couldn't stand to do without it any longer. This package contains Half-Life 2 (which I've played) and two mini-expansions (which I haven't) as well as some multi-player stuff that I don't much care about. And finally, there's Portal:
Many reviews have been written about Portal, but it's not the professional reviews that did it for me; it was Lore Sjoberg, a very funny guy who writes "The thing about Portal is this: it’s very funny. ...As a puzzle game, Portal runs way too short. As a comedy, it’s perfect." And it was "Yahtzee" Croshaw, whose great review of the Orange Box deserves to be watched and heard in full.
Yahtzee's a hilarious reviewer, and anyone who likes games will have a great time watching all of his regular weekly videos. He's also a very sardonic and pitiless reviewer, which is why it was especially meaningful when he said: "Lastly, there's Portal, and if you're a regular reviewer you'll understand how insane these words feel coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it. I'm serious. This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece. ...Absolutely sublime from start to finish, and I will jam forks into my eyes if I ever use those words to describe anything else ever again."
Well, "sublime" is a very good description of the game. It is not only fun gaming, it also has brilliant writing, and it is alternately extremely funny and very, very, creepy and unnerving. Fun, amusing, and scary. Those are pretty much my three gold standard criteria for good games, and this hit them all exactly right.
Ben loved it too (and the scary parts were partly derived from uncertainty and the ability to read, so they weren't too scary for him). When you play the game, some puzzles require you to jump from a great height into a portal on the floor, so that you'll build up a lot of momentum before you shoot out of a wall going in a different direction. As we played together, we both started saying "Wheeeeee!" every time we jumped. Well, a minute later, the computerized trainer voice also said "Wheeeeee!" along with us.
Ben cracked up and kept laughing for several minutes. The afterwards, he wanted to know how the computer knew what we were saying. I had a hard time convincing him that it was a coincidence.
I have not bought a game in several months, and part of the reason behind this purchase is that I had heard so many outstanding reviews that I couldn't stand to do without it any longer. This package contains Half-Life 2 (which I've played) and two mini-expansions (which I haven't) as well as some multi-player stuff that I don't much care about. And finally, there's Portal:
Many reviews have been written about Portal, but it's not the professional reviews that did it for me; it was Lore Sjoberg, a very funny guy who writes "The thing about Portal is this: it’s very funny. ...As a puzzle game, Portal runs way too short. As a comedy, it’s perfect." And it was "Yahtzee" Croshaw, whose great review of the Orange Box deserves to be watched and heard in full.
Yahtzee's a hilarious reviewer, and anyone who likes games will have a great time watching all of his regular weekly videos. He's also a very sardonic and pitiless reviewer, which is why it was especially meaningful when he said: "Lastly, there's Portal, and if you're a regular reviewer you'll understand how insane these words feel coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it. I'm serious. This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece. ...Absolutely sublime from start to finish, and I will jam forks into my eyes if I ever use those words to describe anything else ever again."
Well, "sublime" is a very good description of the game. It is not only fun gaming, it also has brilliant writing, and it is alternately extremely funny and very, very, creepy and unnerving. Fun, amusing, and scary. Those are pretty much my three gold standard criteria for good games, and this hit them all exactly right.
Ben loved it too (and the scary parts were partly derived from uncertainty and the ability to read, so they weren't too scary for him). When you play the game, some puzzles require you to jump from a great height into a portal on the floor, so that you'll build up a lot of momentum before you shoot out of a wall going in a different direction. As we played together, we both started saying "Wheeeeee!" every time we jumped. Well, a minute later, the computerized trainer voice also said "Wheeeeee!" along with us.
Ben cracked up and kept laughing for several minutes. The afterwards, he wanted to know how the computer knew what we were saying. I had a hard time convincing him that it was a coincidence.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The writer's strike explained
I hate the fact that there's a writer's strike; it means that I won't be seeing new episodes of The Daily Show for a while, and Boston Legal will probably go into reruns soon. My friend Possum Momma is also affected by it directly.
Joss Whedon, whose work I dearly love in all incarnations, (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, most of Toy Story) has written a great essay that explains why the strike is good and necessary. Everything Joss says must be right by definition, for he is Joss.
Also, this video is one of the most clear and concise explanations of the strike that I've heard so far:
I'm a fan of writers. With a very few exceptions, I despise reality shows and think they are a cheap, lazy way to get around the need to write compelling content. I mean, user-generated content is great and all; I like blogs (obviously) and message boards. But give me a good, solid novel any day, or a well-written non-fiction account. Give me a TV show that's smart and/or funny, as long as it's well written. There's only so much schadenfreude I can derive from watching Simon Cowell brutally crush the egos of young idiots who mistakenly believe they can sing. (This is one of the "few exceptions." The first few episodes of American Idol are loads of fun. After the field of contestants has been narrowed down to people who supposedly have "talent," not so much.)
In other news, and speaking of Mr. Whedon, a friend recently notified me that he has a new show in the works. With Eliza "Faith" Dushku. Be of good cheer.
Joss Whedon, whose work I dearly love in all incarnations, (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, most of Toy Story) has written a great essay that explains why the strike is good and necessary. Everything Joss says must be right by definition, for he is Joss.
Also, this video is one of the most clear and concise explanations of the strike that I've heard so far:
I'm a fan of writers. With a very few exceptions, I despise reality shows and think they are a cheap, lazy way to get around the need to write compelling content. I mean, user-generated content is great and all; I like blogs (obviously) and message boards. But give me a good, solid novel any day, or a well-written non-fiction account. Give me a TV show that's smart and/or funny, as long as it's well written. There's only so much schadenfreude I can derive from watching Simon Cowell brutally crush the egos of young idiots who mistakenly believe they can sing. (This is one of the "few exceptions." The first few episodes of American Idol are loads of fun. After the field of contestants has been narrowed down to people who supposedly have "talent," not so much.)
In other news, and speaking of Mr. Whedon, a friend recently notified me that he has a new show in the works. With Eliza "Faith" Dushku. Be of good cheer.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Two quick thesis updates
I finished the second draft of my thesis last Friday and submitted it to my supervisor. It's 64 pages, including 17 pages of "padding" in the form of indexes, glossaries, title pages, etc, which are required in the official template. I think it turned out pretty well, though I'm still waiting on feedback from Dr. Ghosh sometime this month.
If you want to see for yourself, you can take a look at the draft here. Also, you can play around with the data I collected (in a very limited way) by visiting the web interface here. The main point of interest is the graph on page 48 (though it's actually page 36 if you go by the numbers at the bottom of the page). This graph shows the emphasis given to celebrities by news sources, compared directly against the interest shown in the same topics by Digg readers. Not completely surprisingly, people are not as into sensational news as TV and print news seems to think they are, at least not according to the way I interpreted my data.
Yesterday I went to visit a journalism professor at UT, a guy named Maxwell McCombs, who invented the "agenda setting theory" of journalism that I referenced early in my paper. I explained the subject of the thesis and he seemed downright enthusiastic about it. He said "I certainly hope you're planning to publish this!" I said that I don't know how the publishing process works, not being particularly involved in academia. He gave me the names of some journals that might be interested, and then asked me to send the working draft and he would do some reading on the subject and get back to me. So, that's neat... nice to have your work validated. And if I actually get this published, maybe that will open some doors for me.
If you want to see for yourself, you can take a look at the draft here. Also, you can play around with the data I collected (in a very limited way) by visiting the web interface here. The main point of interest is the graph on page 48 (though it's actually page 36 if you go by the numbers at the bottom of the page). This graph shows the emphasis given to celebrities by news sources, compared directly against the interest shown in the same topics by Digg readers. Not completely surprisingly, people are not as into sensational news as TV and print news seems to think they are, at least not according to the way I interpreted my data.
Yesterday I went to visit a journalism professor at UT, a guy named Maxwell McCombs, who invented the "agenda setting theory" of journalism that I referenced early in my paper. I explained the subject of the thesis and he seemed downright enthusiastic about it. He said "I certainly hope you're planning to publish this!" I said that I don't know how the publishing process works, not being particularly involved in academia. He gave me the names of some journals that might be interested, and then asked me to send the working draft and he would do some reading on the subject and get back to me. So, that's neat... nice to have your work validated. And if I actually get this published, maybe that will open some doors for me.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
In Which I Ridicule 9/11 Conspiracies
Wow, the 9/11 Truthers are really coming out of the woodwork this month. I've seen two separate celebrities accosted by them in viral videos.
First, Bill Maher threw people out of his studio after they wouldn't stop shouting "What happened to building 7?"
Then Bill Clinton responded to a similar rant by a heckler:
Unfortunately I'm personally familiar with people who believe in these conspiracy claims suggesting that the 9/11 attacks were planned by our government and not by terrorists. At one point these people called the Atheist Experience several times and got very mad at us when we wouldn't take them seriously. Matt once spoke dismissively about the conspiracy theories on The Non-Prophets, and we got multiple emails that repeated the inane phrase "Oh, so you believe the CONSPIRACY THEORY that our GOVERNMENT promotes?"
Besides that, 9/11 truthers infest the phone lines for the Washington Journal morning show on C-SPAN (which I often watch while getting breakfast), and various Air America hosts are constantly bombarded by demands to swear loyalty to these ideas. There is a two hour amateur documentary out on the internet called Zeitgeist. We keep getting email about this movie all the time, and my blood pressure goes up a couple of points every time I see yet another message about it. Zeitgeist starts with a semi-interesting story arguing against the existence of a historical Jesus, and then degenerates into 9/11 "truth" claims about the World Trade Center attack being an inside job. For good measure, they also throw in some stuff about how federal income taxes are illegal. Riiiight.
I confess: I haven't watched Zeitgeist all the way through. I've tried a couple of times, but it is a fairly awful bit of film making, and I didn't have the patience to sit through two hours of it. I gave it another chance today, just so I would have more to say about it. Tried turning it on and listening to the audio while I worked. The problem is that most of the "shocking revelations" require the movie to clear the screen of any action and display text for several seconds while ominous music plays. So I can't follow the thread of the story unless I sit in rapt attention staring at the screen for the full two hours.
Attention, budding filmmakers: Movies are not the right medium for text. I'm fine with reading a long article, and I'm fine with watching a movie, but don't mix the two. People read things at different speeds. The advantage of a movie is that it presents a sequence of entertaining visual images and compelling sounds. The advantage of text is that you can go through it at your own pace, and you can jump backwards to reread something you missed. A movie with lots of text combines the worst of both formats: The movie is boring, and the text is hard to read. Most of the text is too slow and you have to sit there staring at something you've already read, but if you take your attention away from the screen, you'll miss something and never see it again.
DON'T DO THAT! Watch a Michael Moore movie sometime for an example of how to do it right. Even if you think that Michael Moore is a big fat jerk, and everything he says is a total lie, the guy knows how to make an entertaining movie. You don't get an academy award for putting a full page of text on the screen every thirty seconds.
I have a lot of reasons for thinking that the "inside job" explanation of 9/11 is bullshit, but here's what it really comes down to. Big conspiracies don't work. The bigger they are, the less likely they are to be successfully covered up. Franklin said it best: "Three can keep a secret if two are dead."
It should be no surprise that I'm not a big fan of Team Bush, and I believe their actions have led to the deaths of thousands of innocents, in various ways. But IMHO, these deaths have mostly come about due to apathy and greed, not deliberate attempts to kill American citizens.
It's not that I think Bush and company are a bunch of swell guys who would never harm a living person. It's that I find it completely ludicrous to think that they could plan something this elaborate and make it work without a hitch. Look at Iraq. The Project for a New American Century folks were planning that one for decades, and yet it seems like they sincerely believed that we would be greeted as liberators and have candy and flowers thrown at us when we arrived. Slight miscalculation on their part, no?
The conspiracy dreamt up by 9/11 "Truth" ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means") is massive in scope. Whether they're claiming that explosives were planted inside the buildings, or that the government fired missiles at the Pentagon, or that all the news videos released were actually fake... all these ideas require an insanely large number of people to be in on the conspiracy. Let's see, there's the people who planned the actual attack, and much of their staff; the people at the airport; the news organizations that collaborated in spreading fake videos; etc, etc. You can say that some of them were dupes who didn't know the whole plan, but in a scheme this big and this well-executed, you need a LOT of people to have a significant portion of The Big Picture in order to handle their jobs correctly. I think my Project Management professor will probably agree with me there.
What 9/11 truthers are suggesting is that every one of these people was an intentional accessory to the murder of nearly 3,000 people. Now, you can call me a starry-eyed idealist, but I just find it beyond the limits of my credibility that among all those people, not one of them grew a conscience enough to let slip a little information about what they saw.
Think about it... who's promoting the conspiracy? People who would actually be in a position to know anything about it? Government workers, airport workers, aids to important people? No... college kids who are meticulously studying the frames of grainy video footage, and theoreticians pontificating on how the laws of physics prevent smashed up burning buildings from falling down.
Yes, Bush was negligent in following up on credible threats. Yes, he and others like him have done a fantastically good job of exploiting the tragedy at every possible chance. But this looks to me much more like a case of answering opportunity when it knocks, not getting hundreds of American citizens intentionally involved in the murder of thousands.
Conspiracy nuts, give it a rest already. The fact that everyone you contact hangs up on you and doesn't listen is not "censorship," nor is the fact that you were thrown out of a private studio for disruptively yelling at the host. I hang up on you on our cable access show because you are annoying and sound silly.
If you want to read more amusing stuff on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, may I recommend:
First, Bill Maher threw people out of his studio after they wouldn't stop shouting "What happened to building 7?"
Then Bill Clinton responded to a similar rant by a heckler:
Unfortunately I'm personally familiar with people who believe in these conspiracy claims suggesting that the 9/11 attacks were planned by our government and not by terrorists. At one point these people called the Atheist Experience several times and got very mad at us when we wouldn't take them seriously. Matt once spoke dismissively about the conspiracy theories on The Non-Prophets, and we got multiple emails that repeated the inane phrase "Oh, so you believe the CONSPIRACY THEORY that our GOVERNMENT promotes?"
Besides that, 9/11 truthers infest the phone lines for the Washington Journal morning show on C-SPAN (which I often watch while getting breakfast), and various Air America hosts are constantly bombarded by demands to swear loyalty to these ideas. There is a two hour amateur documentary out on the internet called Zeitgeist. We keep getting email about this movie all the time, and my blood pressure goes up a couple of points every time I see yet another message about it. Zeitgeist starts with a semi-interesting story arguing against the existence of a historical Jesus, and then degenerates into 9/11 "truth" claims about the World Trade Center attack being an inside job. For good measure, they also throw in some stuff about how federal income taxes are illegal. Riiiight.
I confess: I haven't watched Zeitgeist all the way through. I've tried a couple of times, but it is a fairly awful bit of film making, and I didn't have the patience to sit through two hours of it. I gave it another chance today, just so I would have more to say about it. Tried turning it on and listening to the audio while I worked. The problem is that most of the "shocking revelations" require the movie to clear the screen of any action and display text for several seconds while ominous music plays. So I can't follow the thread of the story unless I sit in rapt attention staring at the screen for the full two hours.
Attention, budding filmmakers: Movies are not the right medium for text. I'm fine with reading a long article, and I'm fine with watching a movie, but don't mix the two. People read things at different speeds. The advantage of a movie is that it presents a sequence of entertaining visual images and compelling sounds. The advantage of text is that you can go through it at your own pace, and you can jump backwards to reread something you missed. A movie with lots of text combines the worst of both formats: The movie is boring, and the text is hard to read. Most of the text is too slow and you have to sit there staring at something you've already read, but if you take your attention away from the screen, you'll miss something and never see it again.
DON'T DO THAT! Watch a Michael Moore movie sometime for an example of how to do it right. Even if you think that Michael Moore is a big fat jerk, and everything he says is a total lie, the guy knows how to make an entertaining movie. You don't get an academy award for putting a full page of text on the screen every thirty seconds.
I have a lot of reasons for thinking that the "inside job" explanation of 9/11 is bullshit, but here's what it really comes down to. Big conspiracies don't work. The bigger they are, the less likely they are to be successfully covered up. Franklin said it best: "Three can keep a secret if two are dead."
It should be no surprise that I'm not a big fan of Team Bush, and I believe their actions have led to the deaths of thousands of innocents, in various ways. But IMHO, these deaths have mostly come about due to apathy and greed, not deliberate attempts to kill American citizens.
It's not that I think Bush and company are a bunch of swell guys who would never harm a living person. It's that I find it completely ludicrous to think that they could plan something this elaborate and make it work without a hitch. Look at Iraq. The Project for a New American Century folks were planning that one for decades, and yet it seems like they sincerely believed that we would be greeted as liberators and have candy and flowers thrown at us when we arrived. Slight miscalculation on their part, no?
The conspiracy dreamt up by 9/11 "Truth" ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means") is massive in scope. Whether they're claiming that explosives were planted inside the buildings, or that the government fired missiles at the Pentagon, or that all the news videos released were actually fake... all these ideas require an insanely large number of people to be in on the conspiracy. Let's see, there's the people who planned the actual attack, and much of their staff; the people at the airport; the news organizations that collaborated in spreading fake videos; etc, etc. You can say that some of them were dupes who didn't know the whole plan, but in a scheme this big and this well-executed, you need a LOT of people to have a significant portion of The Big Picture in order to handle their jobs correctly. I think my Project Management professor will probably agree with me there.
What 9/11 truthers are suggesting is that every one of these people was an intentional accessory to the murder of nearly 3,000 people. Now, you can call me a starry-eyed idealist, but I just find it beyond the limits of my credibility that among all those people, not one of them grew a conscience enough to let slip a little information about what they saw.
Think about it... who's promoting the conspiracy? People who would actually be in a position to know anything about it? Government workers, airport workers, aids to important people? No... college kids who are meticulously studying the frames of grainy video footage, and theoreticians pontificating on how the laws of physics prevent smashed up burning buildings from falling down.
Yes, Bush was negligent in following up on credible threats. Yes, he and others like him have done a fantastically good job of exploiting the tragedy at every possible chance. But this looks to me much more like a case of answering opportunity when it knocks, not getting hundreds of American citizens intentionally involved in the murder of thousands.
Conspiracy nuts, give it a rest already. The fact that everyone you contact hangs up on you and doesn't listen is not "censorship," nor is the fact that you were thrown out of a private studio for disruptively yelling at the host. I hang up on you on our cable access show because you are annoying and sound silly.
If you want to read more amusing stuff on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, may I recommend:
- Bill Maher again. This is the video that inflamed those people into harassing Maher in his studio in the first place. "New rule: Crazy people who still think the government brought down the Twin Towers in a controlled explosion, have to stop pretending that I'm the one who's being naive."
- Matt Taibbi: The Hopeless Stupidity of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories. BUSH: "So, what's the plan again?" CHENEY: "Well, we need to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. So what we've decided to do is crash a whole bunch of remote-controlled planes into Wall Street and the Pentagon, say they're real hijacked commercial planes, and blame it on the towelheads; then we'll just blow up the buildings ourselves to make sure they actually fall down."
- The Best Page in the Universe (their title, not mine): "Now we're expected to believe that the same government that was able to commit the largest terrorist operation in history--with military precision no less--is suddenly too incompetent to sniff out and shut down a little website set up by some college losers within days, if not minutes of its creation?"
Comic strip triage
Since I keep filling up my Google feed reader with more stuff than I have the will to slog through, I'm deleting a few comic strips from my feed rolls. If you read comics, you can follow along with me.
Wow. I just realized... with this latest round of cuts, I now officially read NO daily syndicated cartoons that get printed in actual newspapers. It's all online.
Nevertheless, I still read Comics Curmudgeon daily, so I won't completely lose touch with the world of crappy corporate comics.
- Goodbye, Doonesbury. I've always sort of liked Doonesbury, but only in a "That occasionally makes me smile" kind of way. Most often, when I'm a week or more behind on my comic strips, it's Doonesbury that has the most unread entries. I presume that if there is a Doonesbury cartoon that's especially insightful, someone will point it out to me. In the meantime, I'm bored of reading about veterans in counseling and Mike's whiny college-attending daughter.
- Goodbye, Fox Trot. I think there's an unwritten law of comic strips that says that by the time a cartoonist goes into semi-retirement, they already suck so much that it's too late to recover. Fox Trot was once one of my favorite cartoons, but I could already see the writing on the wall before Bill Amend decided to transition from a daily cartoon to a Sundays-only strip. One of the side effects of having idiosyncratic characters who never age is that eventually you start telling the same jokes over and over and over again. Jason is still a little geek who deliberately makes simple tasks more complicated with advanced math. Paige is still obsessing about making a splash in her freshman year, every single year. The mom still insists on making healthy food that everybody hates. Ha ha! Bye bye, Fox family.
- Dilbert. I should have seen that it jumped the shark YEARS ago. Not that it was ever truly hilarious, but somehow I failed to notice exactly when the office humor stopped being slightly interesting. Besides, there's so many Dilbert strips on office doors around the IBM buildings, that reading the strip just feels like actually working. And also, Scott Adams is a creationism promoter, and an obnoxious one at that.
- Non Sequitur. Used to be a truly funny cartoon in the spirit of The Far Side - which, by the way, was authored by the much smarter Gary Larson, who quit while at the top of his game. Non Sequitur went into a slow tailspin when it started doing multi-strip story arcs. The tailspin accelerated massively when the story arcs were all about Danae. Even now, as I look at it today, the story is about god damn Danae again. I'm glad I gave up that habit.
- Calvin and Hobbes. Sadly, I had to finally let go of this one when it occurred to me that I've already read all the reruns like, five times. I'll miss you, Bill Watterson.
Wow. I just realized... with this latest round of cuts, I now officially read NO daily syndicated cartoons that get printed in actual newspapers. It's all online.
Nevertheless, I still read Comics Curmudgeon daily, so I won't completely lose touch with the world of crappy corporate comics.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Education = terrorism
The conservative group "Family Security Matters" has let us know just how afraid they are of educated people. And also bloggers. On their list of "The Ten Most Dangerous Organizations in America," "Universities and Colleges" came it at number two. Not any particular university or college, mind you. All of them.
Speaking as an educated person AND a blogger, I would like to know when I will have the opportunity to make my acceptance speech.
Speaking as an educated person AND a blogger, I would like to know when I will have the opportunity to make my acceptance speech.
A floating libertarian dictatorship
Pharyngula linked a story today about Freedom Ship, a proposed libertarian paradise that would be a floating version of Galt's Gulch.
Apart from creationism, there are few things I enjoy reading more than a good rant about libertarian fantasies. As weird as the whole story is, this one part caught my eye in particular.
Zoinks! Who the hell is going to be stupid enough to sign up for that?!?
I think this little detail is a perfectly distilled example of what is wrong with libertarianism. In stripping away a planned government, which includes detailed rules and restrictions on what the government may not do, they have simply pared away all possible civil protections in order to reach the smallest possible government: one guy. One completely unaccountable guy who makes all the rules.
Look, what people call "big government" exists for a reason. The United States has an elected, distributed, multi-faceted government, composed of different people who do not agree and who do not have absolute power. This in itself is the best way to ensure that people are not ruled for long by petty tyrants. Richard Nixon expressed the opposite point of view in its most pure form:
Yep, that's what Nixon said, right before he resigned in disgrace. (He gave his farewell speech exactly one month to the day before I was born. As my dad once said about himself and Mussolini, "He must have seen me coming and figured the jig was up.)
Apart from creationism, there are few things I enjoy reading more than a good rant about libertarian fantasies. As weird as the whole story is, this one part caught my eye in particular.
On Freedom Ship there will be a jail, a “squad of intelligence officers,” and a “private security force of 2,000, led by a former FBI agent, [that] will have access to weapons, both to maintain order within the vessel and to resist external threats.” And while technically the law applied would be that of whichever state lends its flag, Freedom Ship officials make no bones that “the captain’s word will be final.”
Zoinks! Who the hell is going to be stupid enough to sign up for that?!?
I think this little detail is a perfectly distilled example of what is wrong with libertarianism. In stripping away a planned government, which includes detailed rules and restrictions on what the government may not do, they have simply pared away all possible civil protections in order to reach the smallest possible government: one guy. One completely unaccountable guy who makes all the rules.
Look, what people call "big government" exists for a reason. The United States has an elected, distributed, multi-faceted government, composed of different people who do not agree and who do not have absolute power. This in itself is the best way to ensure that people are not ruled for long by petty tyrants. Richard Nixon expressed the opposite point of view in its most pure form:
FROST: "So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal."
NIXON: "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."
Yep, that's what Nixon said, right before he resigned in disgrace. (He gave his farewell speech exactly one month to the day before I was born. As my dad once said about himself and Mussolini, "He must have seen me coming and figured the jig was up.)
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A trifecta of suck
I just want to point out that over on Daily Kos, DHinMI has been running an interesting series of posts drawing connections between three things I frequently write about with derision: Blackwater, Amway, and Bushies. It's worth a look.
"Bush Authoritarianism: Blackwater+Amway=GOP"
Also linked from the latest entry, there is a great piece about Amway magnate Dick DeVos, whom I mentioned in my Blackwater post.
"Bush Authoritarianism: Blackwater+Amway=GOP"
Also linked from the latest entry, there is a great piece about Amway magnate Dick DeVos, whom I mentioned in my Blackwater post.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Suggestions wanted: Scary stories for five year olds
One of Ben's friends has his birthday on Halloween, so Ben will be attending a combination birthday/Halloween party this year. My wife has asked me to be the teller of scary stories at this party.
I have "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" volumes 1-3, but only a few of those stories seem appropriate to the audience. I also fondly remember the story of La Llorona from my childhood in Santa Fe, when I used to listen to Joe Hayes.
Just wondering if anyone can link me to any good sites or books with stories that are scary, but not TOO scary.
I have "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" volumes 1-3, but only a few of those stories seem appropriate to the audience. I also fondly remember the story of La Llorona from my childhood in Santa Fe, when I used to listen to Joe Hayes.
Just wondering if anyone can link me to any good sites or books with stories that are scary, but not TOO scary.
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