What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wildness?
Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
I hope this isn't a tinfoil hat story, but there are reports that in some areas of Alabama last night the 60 Minutes special on the political witchhunt of former Governor Don Siegelman was blacked out on Channel 19. From the article:
"Channel 19 is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, who can be contacted through Rhonda Barnat, 212-371-5999 or rb@abmac.com . Oak Hill Partners represents interests of the Bass family, which contribute heavily to the Republican Party. Viewers displeased about the channel’s decision to censor the broadcast should express their views directly to the station management or to the owners."
"Did you receive a call but the caller did not leave a message and the Caller ID says "Unavailable"? Type the phone number in the box below and click "Get Details" to find out who is using this phone number."
If you have fallen prey to the inaccurate soundbytes out there suggesting that Barak Obama makes "eloquent but empty" promises and that he has "little experience" in the political realm, I direct your attention to this excellent article on exactly what Barak has done as a junior Senator.
As some of you already know, our House ABV Bill - HB196 - came out of committee yesterday. The companion Senate Bill, SB116, came out of committee today.
These bills are intended to increase the allowable alcohol in beer to 13.9% ABV in the state. The next step for our bills is to be voted on in the House and the Senate, which could be as early as this Tuesday but probably won't happen until mid-March. I will be sure to update everyone once we know the date.
For an overview of where we are with all of our bills, please take a look at:
http://www.freethehops.org/featuredcontent/thesteps.php
How you can help pass our House ABV bill
Please visit the Alabama legislature web site:
http://www.legislature.state.al.us/
there is a box on the left hand side of the screen where you can type in your ZIP code, which will tell you who your House Representative and Senator are. Please call your Representative to let them know you support the bill and would like to see it pass in the House. A telephone call is *the* most effective way to let them know how much you care about the bill!
How you can help pass our Senate ABV and Home Brewing bills
Please call your Senator (see link above) and let them know you support SB116 (the Senate ABV Bill) and SB355 (the Home Brewing Bill), and that you would like your Senator to help pass these bills. Again, a telephone call is *the* most effective way to let them know how much you care about the bill!
I cannot stress this enough: if you, personally, call your House Rep about HB196 (the Gourmet Beer Bill), AND call your Senator about SB116 (Gourmet Beer Bill) and SB355 (Home Brewing Bill), we will free the hops this year! If you are unable to call your Representative or Senator, you can also email or write to them via the Legislature.
Stuart Carter
President
Free the Hops | Alabamians for Specialty Beer
Ok, so I'm glad the Pentagon was able to blast the dying satellite out of the sky. And yes, I'm sure it has some "dangerous" fuel in it, nasty toxic chemical stuff. But don't they all? Why don't we blast all falling debris from the sky? It is so obvious that 1) this was a spy satellite and we wouldn't want anyone getting their hands on it, and 2) we are exhibiting our ability to blast incoming objects (traveling several thousands of miles per hour, no less) from the sky whenever we wish. The way they keep harping on the "toxic rocket fuel" hazard is embarassing. I realize that it's probably a wise political move, but the obvious lies sicken me.
I'm all for freedom of religion, but like with any freedom, a line must be drawn when religion spills over into fundamentalism, when narrow viewpoints are forced upon people against their wishes. I understand that not all fundamentalism is bad, but I would argue that in general fundamentalism causes more division and rancor than any other aspect of religion. After all, that is the point of holding a fundamentalist view--to promote a particular viewpoint to the exclusion of all others in the sincere conviction that you are right and that everyone else, unless they agree with you, is wrong. The misguided zeal and lust for power that usually accompany such views has caused more death and suffering throughout history than the bubonic plague.
Although I've tried to tone down the religious gab on this blog because it tends to peeve the (one) reader(s) and is boring and usually negative, I've got to say that I'm appalled at the recent reports of violent crimes being committed against Muslim women by fundamentalist Islamic men because of alleged violations of Islamic "laws." You've heard about it before--citing the Koran and other "teachings," these men torture and mutilate women for not wearing headscarves or for wearing makeup. They are convinced that makeup is a social evil that justifies hundreds of rapes, beheadings and abductions. It goes without saying that this sort of arbitrary social oppression is disgusting and barbaric and any man who endorses it should be thrown in jail for the rest of his miserable life.
I know what some of you may be thinking. It's the Muslims. The problem is with their religion. But that would be wrong. The problem occurs when a society tolerates a fundamental religious viewpoint and allows it to circumvent or ignore basic civil liberties. I realize that the society first has to recognize civil liberties and be able to enforce them, which isn't the case in Iraq. But this sort of heinous zealotry must be recognized as a product of fundamentalist religious teachings, and its continued existence can only be explained by social tolerance.
In my opinion, and to cite an argument others have made far more eloquently, the burden of reform in this regard is on the moderate believers. People like yourselves. People who go to the church/mosque and say prayers and live normal, decent lives. The burden of reform is on you for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that you share the same beliefs with the fundamentalist crazies. While you may lack the strength of conviction or anger or zealotry or whatever it is that separates you from them, you agree with their ultimate cosmological explanation, more or less. Since a fundamentalist usually doesn't take seriously people who disagree with their views, it is this unity of perspective that makes you particularly suited to exert social pressure on them. No one else can. They will at least listen to you. They may violently disagree with you, but as long as they are treated as a fringe element by their own community of believers they will lack power.
Therefore, whether you are a Christian in America, a Muslim in Iraq, or a Jew in Israel, if you consider yourself a moderate, everyday sort of believer you cannot sit back and marvel at how crazy the fundamentalists are within your religion. Their ability to get away with oppressive, unjust actions is dependant on you. If their own community of believers doesn’t object, they feel justified. Put in another way, the silence of the majority is tacit approval of the actions of the minority.
Sharon just sent me this delightful entry in a recent Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale of an old book:
LOT 4141
MIDDLETON, CHRISTOPHER.
"A REJOINDER TO MR. DOBB’S REPLY TO CAPTAIN MIDDLETON; IN WHICH IS EXPOS’D, BOTH HIS WILFUL AND REAL IGNORANCE OF TIDES; &C. HIS JESUITICAL PREVARICATIONS, EVASIONS, FALSITIES, AND FALSE REASONING; HIS AVOIDING TAKING NOTICE OF FACTS, FORMERLY DETECTED AND CHARGED UPON HIM AS INVENTIONS OF HIS OR HIS WITNESSES; THE CHARACTER OF THE LATTER, AND THE PRESENT VIEWS OF THE FORMER, WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE PRESENT DISPUTE. IN A WORD, AN UNPARALELLED DISINGENUITY, AND (TO MAKE USE OF A VERODOBBSICAL FLOWER OF RHETORIC) A GLARING IMPUDENCE, ARE SET IN A FAIR LIGHT."
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
A recent article in Scientific American outlines a plan where the U.S., for about $10 billion a year for 40 years, can become energy independent and reduce its carbon emissions 62 percent with solar power as its prime source. You may be thinking, $400 billion? Turns out that's what we've spent in Iraq already.
This image may appear to be a simple spirograph, but according to a recent paper written by this surfer it may provide a critical clue to understanding the structure of the universe. The eight-dimensional 248-point pattern, first discovered in 1887, is called simply "E8" and it is embedded in many principles of physics.
"I have seen many a collection of stately elms which better deserved to be represented at the General Court than the manikins beneath,—than the barroom and victualling cellar and groceries they overshadowed. When I see their magnificent domes, miles away in the horizon, over intervening valleys and forests, they suggest a village, a community, there. But, after all, it is a secondary consideration whether there are human dwellings beneath them; these may have long since passed away. I find that into my idea of the village has entered more of the elm than of the human being. They are worth many a political borough. They constitute a borough. The poor human representative of his party sent out from beneath their shade will not suggest a tithe of the dignity, the true nobleness and comprehensiveness of the view, the sturdiness and independence, and the serene beneficence that they do. They look from township to township. A fragment of their bark is worth the backs of all the politicians in the union. They are free-soilers in their own broad sense. They send their roots north and south and east into many a conservative’s Kansas and Carolina, who does not suspect such underground railroads,—they improve the subsoil he has never disturbed,—and many times their length, if the support of their principles requires it. They battle with the tempests of a century. See what scars they bear, what limbs they lost before we were born! Yet they never adjourn; they steadily vote for their principles, and send their roots further and wider from the same centre. They die at their posts, and they leave a tough butt for the choppers to exercise themselves about, and a stump which serves for their monument. They attend no caucus, they make no compromise, they use no policy. Their one principle is growth. They combine a true radicalism with a true conservatism. Their radicalism is not cutting away of roots, but an infinite multiplication and extension of them under all surrounding institutions. They take a firmer hold on the earth that they may rise higher into the heavens. Their conservative heartwood, in which no sap longer flows, does not impoverish their growth, but is a firm column to support it; and when their expanding trunks no longer require it, it utterly decays. Their conservatism is a dead but solid heart-wood, which is the pivot and firm column of support to all this growth, appropriating nothing to itself, but forever by its support assisting to extend the area of their radicalism. Half a century after they are dead at the core, they are preserved by radical reforms. They do not, like men, from radicals turn conservative. Their conservative part dies out first; their radical and growing part survives. They acquire new States and Territories, while the old dominions decay, and become the habitation of bears and owls and coons."
It was with increasing horror and dread that I read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch last night. A massive eddy in the Pacific Ocean known as the North Pacific Gyre sits there drawing material into itself. The result is an immense accumulation of trash and debris. There's no official measurement of the cloud of filth, but by some estimates it could be twice the size of Texas. Oh dear.
no, really. oh dear.
on that note, I present the poem of the day:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
"Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder."
Dave Campbell has alerted me to an item that actually made my stomach turn when I saw it. The cheeseburger in a can. It's lunchtime right now, but I'm no longer hungry.
Ever since reading Freakonomics a few months ago I have been variously interested in economics and incentive structures. I was an English major, however, so these topics are still very arcane and obscure to me. That's why articles like Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774–2004 are so great.
