Global Spin

And now for the ranting.

I would like to be as sophisticated as Chris, and as brief, but I can't. So I'll start with "AAAaargh!" I understand that the Vatican is all about tradition. I understand that homosexuality is a touchy subject for them, especially as it's turning out that many "celibate" priests are not, and at the expense of kids who are at a severe power disadvantage. Still, the Pope gets to make rules for Catholics, because that's how the system works. I accept that. BUT...

Now the Vatican thinks that it gets to make rules for everyone, even you and me. So everyone "committed to promoting and defending the common good of society" (which I actually THOUGHT included me), whether Catholic or not, is supposed to oppose homosexual marriage, and not just that, but any legislation that would give gay couples the same rights as married couples.

"Why?" you may ask. Go ahead, ask. Okay, I'll play Pope and explain. See, kids, homosexuality violates something called "natural moral law." God, who is omnipotent, didn't intend for there to be homosexuality. Humans are sinful creatures with free will, and homosexuality is just a terrible perversion of what God wanted, but since we can do what we want, it sometimes happens.

If our all-powerful God intended there to be homosexuality, there would be homosexual animals, right? See, animals don't have free will, they HAVE to follow God's laws. And since there are no verified examples of homosexual behavior among, say, oh, I don't know... penguins, bonobo chimps, whales, giraffes, rodents, geese or bears... (These are NOT just random examples.) ...then homosexuality must be unnatural, right? And a violation of this "natural moral law," right?

Our friends the Italians are fighting the good fight, though, with great protest signs like "Democracy, yes. Theocracy, no." and are comparing the Vatican to the Taliban. The Italians literally have Vatican City surrounded, so we can hope. And pray.

I told Chris he'd regret this...

See, the thing is, I find weird stuff out there. And then I want to share it for some unknown reason. And my current obsession is with Pirates of the Caribbean. So I took a test to find out which of the characters' unhealthy fetishes I am. And... As it turns out...

You are....

Ragetti's dress fetish. Okay, so you like dressing
up. Frilly things are fun! There's no shame in
being who you are, and you DO look rather
fetching in that strawberry number. Oh yes, and
you encourage your friends to come along.
After all, no one likes to look ODD, do they?


Which Pirates of the Caribbean Character's Unhealthy Fetish are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

Skip to the loo, my darlin'!

Back in 1995, I went to France for the first time, all by my lonesome. I was there for three weeks and was terribly homesick. Near the end of my voyage I treated myself to a day at Disneyland Paris. It was great, but what I really loved were the restrooms on Main St. After weeks of "Turkish toilets" and dank, dirty cabinets you had to pay 2F to even open, I was thrilled to be in a large, spacious restroom with bright lights, air conditioning, paper seat covers and Disney muzak. I was home!

Turns out I'm not the only person with a thing for that special Disney experience.
Mouse Planet has a special section devoted to rating all the powder rooms in the park. It's called
The Happiest Potties on Earth. They're arranged by "land" and even include "Club 33."

An honest, fabulous person

From:
Bush Accepts Blame for African Uranium Charge

Bush is taking responsibility for lying about the whole uranium/Iraq thing. But we're not to blame Condy Rice at all. In fact, Bush says of her, "Dr. Condoleezza Rice is an honest, fabulous person and America is lucky to have her service, period."

This sounds perfectly fair, except that according to my Webster's II, "fabulous" means both "of the nature of a fable or myth" and "barely credible." Bush's subconscious is starting to play on him, perhaps?

A test

This is Chris; I'm adding Deana to the system so she can fill in some of these long, boring gaps with fun things.

PNAC Primer

It looks like the Bush administration (specifically Paul Wolfowitz) is shifting its justification for occupation of Iraq to a more September 11th-related story. I really do hope the American people are smarter than the administration assumes.

It's probably time to read the PNAC primer written by Bernard Weiner. I've mentioned the Project for a New American Century before, but Weiner brings it all together in a thought-provoking piece.

My car has arrived... again

Just in time to fill in for Corbin Motors, a new car company in Spokane has started producing the Tango, a half-lane 2-seater electric vehicle that gets 80 miles per charge and has a top speed of 130 mph. The Seattle Times has a great story about the car's development. It looks like the price will be about $80,000 unfortunately, but hopefully that'll make it's way down to something reasonable in time for me to pick one up...

On Further Recall Elections

It looks like California will hold a special election regarding whether or not to recall our Governor. The Sacramento Bee (incidentally, a great name for a newspaper) has a good overview of the rules and procedures of a recall.

83 Calories an hour

Here's something random: a person who categorized everything he ate by calorie content, then compiled a sorted list with pictures. It's worth reading for the bizarre meal choices (like hot dog water) and humorous notes on each meal, like:

Coke (without ice) contains 1,493 kilocalories per gallon, Gasoline (without ice) contains 31,000 kilocalories per gallon, so the energy density of gasoline is 20 times greater than Coca-cola.

Um, yeah. Just like that.

Time to Act

I usually don't ask you to do much. This site is more of an ongoing rant than an attempt at persuasion. However, if you're concerned about the intelligence that was presented in support of going to war with Iraq, please consider signing MoveOn's petitiion to support an independent investigation into WMD evidence.

Online petitions usually aren't worth the paper they're printed on, but MoveOn has the right idea. They get real volunteers to print out names and addresses and physically deliver petitions to your local Congressperson. This kind of personal interaction has already been shown to work, and MoveOn has the numbers to make representatives sit up and take notice.

OK, end of plea. Do what you can.

Iraq Iraq Iraq

Yeah, I know, you don't want to hear it. I'll keep it short. There are lots of good editorial pieces about the Bush administration and Iraq, but here's a particularly good one from Newsweek.

Copyright, right?

The Morning News has a great editorial piece on copyright. It should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in why Mickey Mouse is protected from copying while Sherlock Holmes is not. (Hint: Holmes isn't owned by a multinational corporation.)

More planets!

NASA reported Thursday that they've found a really old planet, three times older than Earth and only a bit younger than the universe.

...but who's counting?

When questioned by Congress, Donald Rumsfeld today upped his estimate of the cost of Iraqi occupation to $3.9 billion per month, double the previous estimates. To put that in perspective, $4 billion dollars would pay the monthly salaries of one million teachers.

Oh, and that doesn't include reconstruction costs. Of course not.

Stuffing the Genie Back In the Bottle

The Washington Post has a well-written article on suppressing the work of a grad student because it might compromise national security. The twist here is that the student is reorganizing publicly-available data using mapping techniques. Nothing proprietary, no espionage involved. So where's the risk? Only that it makes government and corporations nervous.

More commentary on this in a moment. I need to have breakfast.

UPDATE: I've included my thoughts in the extended entry below.

In Columbo style, I'll state my conclusions first. We should not restrict this kind of information, either in parts or when it's compiled into a whole like Sean Gorman has done. On the surface it may seem like information that could be dangerous in the hands of those who would do us harm, but it is actually an effective weapon against attack. My reasoning goes a bit like this:

1. The information is public for a reason. A Slashdot reader made the excellent point that highways are crucial infrastructure, but detailed maps are widely available. The reason is because people need these maps to work effectively. In the case of telco infrastructure, accidents and outages happen much more often than terrorist attacks, and having a good map makes finding the problem that much easier.
2. Finding infrastructure flaws is a good thing. I've dealt with Web security for years, and it's become plain that the best way to prepare for an attack is to simulate it yourself and be aware of all the vulnerable spots. Big clients like to see a comprehensive list of limitations because it lets them plan effectively. If we told a client "there may be flaws, but we can't tell you because they're classified", the client would drop us immediately.
3. Infrastructure companies would love to keep this data secret. So would the government. Clients (or citizens) with access to all the flaws in the system are likely to demand that they be fixed or at least protected. In both cases, it's much easier to deny access to the problem than come up with an adequate defense.
4. Terrorists don't use high-tech means. Our most recent terrorist attacks were carried out with box cutters and envelopes. Suicide bombers in Israel don't carry out surgical strikes. The point of terrorism is to be random and symbolic, so a target will be found whether infrastructure information is available or not.

Resist

We've known from the beginning that the PATRIOT act was bad news. Luckily, we're not alone. Apparently cities around the country are calling on law enforcement to resist the PATRIOT act by refusing to cooperate with activities it authorizes that would otherwise be unlawful.

Eh, Steve!

If you've wondered how it is that Homestar Runner gets produced (and paid for), Wired News has just the interview for you. I'm glad that the Brothers Chaps are able to fund the whole thing themselves; it looks like they have the right attitude toward it.

Thanks to Deana for the heads-up.

90 light years is so close

By now you may have heard of the discovery of a new planetary system that looks a whole lot like our own. It's 90 light years away, but as a wise man once said, "that's peanuts to space." Seriously, 90 light years is the kind of distance we'll be able to travel in a few months (relative) once we get the basics of interstellar flight taken care of.

Even better, seeing a solar system like our own so close to home makes it even more likely that we'll find one with Earth-like life sometime fairly soon. That's why I like reading this:

ESA is leading the way with its Darwin mission to analyse the atmospheric composition of Earth-like planets. This flotilla of six space telescopes will launch in around 2014.

How very 21st century!

Fun stuff!

I've been reading a lot about carbon nanotubes lately. (Specifically, I'm reading The Space Elevator, which is fascinating despite the sketchy writing style.) There seems to be no end to great uses for them, including bulletproof T-shirt fabric. And to think, we didn't even know they existed until a decade ago. Go nanotubes!

UPDATE: Deb noticed that I had the wrong link. It's been corrected.

The Cost of War

Deana writes:

Check out "Cost of War"
Oooh, dang. This is dramatic.

I agree. Counters really do make the point sometimes, so a war cost counter can really hit home. Be sure to see how many additional schoolteachers we could have hired instead. It's quite a thing to see.