"Our job is not to make up anybody’s mind, but to open minds, and to make the agony of decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking."
- Fred W. Friendly (1915-1998)

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you mad."
- Aldous Huxley

"If you have ever injected truth into politics, then you have no politics."
- Will Rogers

Friday, November 30, 2012

Quick! Pour More Money on the Pentagon!

They obviously don't have enough money -- a doubled Pentagon budget under the Bush administration was obviously not enough.  If it was they could make sure that cars they buy have wheels...or that brand-new overpriced fighters have some....guns?

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Memo to 'True Americans' -- Learn the Language I

I have a feeling this will be an ongoing feature so I decided to number the title.  With all the talk about 'Americans should speak English only', etc. one of my favorite gripes is people whose words or writing appear in public but whose actions demonstrate that they were obviously asleep during English class.   Headline writers are particularly vulnerable - here is the latest example.

Update -- of course they fixed it -- the original said "principal".

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Why I Hate Facebook

The title here is meant as an introduction to this post, but I really do hate Facebook, Google+ and Twitter (particularly) and have never participated in them and never will.  I just don't see the point and if there was a contest between which one I loathe more...Facebook, Twitter, or political parties of any kind I am not sure which one would finish last since all of them tend to either produce or encourage the same stream of brainless drivel and elevate the expositions of small minds and I hold them all in the same kind of contempt.  (I particularly love when I get emails that start out "I saw your profile on Facebook..." there is a real 'innovative' waste of electrons!).

Lets be real folks -- Facebook is NOT innovation by any stretch of the imagination. Facebook is a natural extension of the original Internet design as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee as a text and document sharing mechanism. It was a case of someone waiting until the technologies were in place and sufficiently advanced enough to capitalize on...then doing so. That may be innovation in the warped and sometimes sick sense of what gets Wall Street excited...but it is not technological or scientific innovation as practiced by the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or NASAs of the world.

However, a magazine arrived at the house the other day that really got my attention.  The MIT Technology Review has a long history (since 1899) of following things technological, and especially things technologically innovative.  The cover for the November/December 2012 magazine that they publish really caught my eye...and restated in few words what my frustrations have been with the state of science and technology in the USA (the small caption to the right says: "Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 moonwalker, would like a word with you.").


Fortunately, the issue talks about some people who are not giving up on the 'big problems', and more importantly recognize that we are currently falling way short.  The Founders Fund (sometimes referred to as the PayPal Mafia) is a dominant venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, and their motto is "We wanted flying cars -- instead we got 140 characters."  Interestingly enough, the firm places at least some of the blame on the VC community itself, which in the 1990s began a shift away from funding start-up firms with truly innovative ideas, to those that solved smaller, incremental or even fake problems as long as they would turn a short-term profit.

The issue is full of articles that talk to people who haven't given up, and covers topics as diverse as the crisis in higher education, dealing with the likely effects of a coming dementia epidemic, equalizing the distribution of energy to the 'have-not' areas of the world, government support for basic research, and more.  The ideas presented may seem unrealistic...but then so did Bill Gates' vision of "a computer in every home and on every desktop" when it was made.

Recommended for thinkers....


Thursday, November 22, 2012

The Limits of "Freedom"

Sometimes it is wise to know when you have lost.  I can't imagine this property has increased in value because of the owner's intransigence.







Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Whose Religion?

One of the (many) problems I have had in allowing religion and government (particularly in the US) to mix at all is that you can't go very far down that slippery slope before you have to ask "which religions"? 

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there are 19 "major" religions in the world that are divided into 270 significant religious groups.  Among Christians alone 34,000 individual Christian groups have been identified in the world, the majority of which are "independent" churches that do not want to link with any larger groups.  

So, when Republican factions (for example) want to invoke religious "rights" or insist that government should be more 'religious' -- it would be accurate (and thoughtful) to ask "which one"?  And don't take any weaselly bull-crap answer like "those who believe in the one God" --- I guarantee you each of the above groups/religions has their own definition and perhaps name for 'God'.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Mars Mystery

Apparently there is something on Mars discovered by the Curiosity rover that was at least a bit unexpected, but NASA is (wisely) not saying anything until they double-check it.

The Pentagon Sinkhole II

Senator Tom Coburn, a physician (and Republican coincidentally) has been taking some well-deserved and real pot-shots at the Pentagon lately...not exactly endearing himself to his Republican colleagues that want to continue to pour ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer dollars over the Pentagon without question. 

Among other items he has found is that the Pentagon funded an anthropology study of whether men (of course) holding pistols are considered taller, stronger, and more masculine than those holding a range of other objects, such as caulking guns, drills, saws and paintbrushes. (Apparently they are).

His report found other ridiculous items of a non-military nature that are funded by the Pentagon's largess (and limited funds from taxpayers).  Among them from the front page of the report which is available in full here:

  • Running grocery stores.
  • Teaching kindergartners.
  • Brew beer and make beef jerky.
  • Build windmills.
  • Study flying dinosaurs.
 By all means...lets pour even more money on this single largest expenditure of tax dollars...and the only un-auditable cabinet-level department in the entire government!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Now I Know What Twitter is For!

One of my favorite NPR programs is "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me", a weekly comical look at current "news".  It will both make you laugh and groan at times.  One of the things I like about it is the synergy of the panelists and hosts - sometimes ideas just kind of come together on the spur of the moment.  

This week's episode had a particularly good line.  I have never been able to figure out the value of Twitter, at least to where I should want to waste any time on it (although I can also say the same about Facebook and the other so-called "social networking" sites.   Combining comments from Paula Poundstone and host Peter Sagal following a particularly stupid conspiracy theory racing around Twitter that Obama had somehow caused Hurricane Sandy, the consensus between them was:

"Twitter is a dipstick for us - and we are idiots - its the only mark on the stick."

Friday, November 2, 2012

Speaking of Republicans/Conservatives I Admire

Former US Senator and Governor of our state Dan Evans is another conservative voice that the Republicans badly need to start listening to before the lunatic fringe is their only constituency (if they aren't there already).  He is the last Republican I listened to, admired, and voted for.   Unfortunately since then I held my nose, suppressed a gag reflex and voted for a couple more...and have lived to regret each and every one mightily.

He recently came out in favor of the so-called "gay marriage" item on our ballot this year.  In true, thoughtful fashion he distilled into a few words an implication of "what's the big deal?".  Knowing Senator/Governor Evans though, it was delivered without any condescension, pandering, or hidden agendas...unlike almost anything else you will hear this election season: 

"...[it] just seems right and reflects the fundamental value of fairness that we treasure here in Washington.”

Postscript: I am not the only one who misses the 'real' Republican Party.