Dean's World

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Two sides. Each convinced of its own superiority and righteousness. Each with powerful patrons, and cult-like followings, their unending warring dominates the pages of those media outlets devoted to their field.

We're talking about the successor to the DVD - Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD, of course.

Technogeek site ArsTechnica has been following this brouhaha diligently. About a month ago, it looked like HD-DVD was on the ropes, and Toshiba even canceled plans to have hardware ready by the holiday season 2005.

However, industry titans Microsoft and Intel zapped everyone (including Blu-Ray consortium members Sony and Disney) by suddenly endorsing HD-DVD, based on what they felt were unsubstantiated claims by the BD group of disc capacity and compatibility. Ken Fisher of ArsTechnica interviewed Microsoft's director of technical strategy for the Windows Digital Media Division, and shed a lot of light on the internal rationales for Microsoft's decision to take (very public) sides.

Today, Blu-Ray fired back, saying that the capacity issues would be resolved by launch and that the compatibility concerns were trivial. Fisher has a great synopsis. Naturally, HD-DVD will have a formal response. Also of interest are these opinion pieces by representative Blu-Ray and HD-DVD partisans.

I won't get into the details - that's in the linkfest above. But I think it's important and affects us in a potentially greater way than did the VHS vs BetaMax standards battle of a few decades ago. Ultimately, content on these next-generation discs will have to tread a fine line between consumers' rights and content producers' need to protect their intellectual property. It is good that the debate is playing out in public, because the transparency will ensure that we consumers have a window into the process. After all, it's our hard-eaned cash that both consortiums plan to suck in the hope that we will replace our DVD collections for our personal home theater libraries. Stay tuned.

For two years our front door's deadbolt lock has been difficult to open and shut. It catches, if freezes, it pops and creaks. It used to be mildly annoying but it's gotten worse with time. Like the proverbial (and by the way, false) story of the frog in slowly-boiling water, we just sort of got used to it. But of late it's been truly terrible.

Yesterday while pondering weighty matters of cosmology, molecular biology, and the nature of Senate cloture rules, I had a truly brilliant insight, worthy of Galileo, Einstein, Copernicus, Duesberg, Archimedes: "perhaps a lubricant might help."

Fetching a can containing a special chemical formula known to advanced students of chemistry as "WD40," I sprayed some into the keyhole, inserted the key into the lock, and opened and shut the mechanism few times. Then I sprayed in some more of the amazing chemical, and worked the mechanism a bit more.

Amazingly, the lock ceased to be difficult to turn at all!

But of course, a true scientific theory cannot be validated unless an experiment is replicated. What could I do? Then I beheld: the second lock on the door! While less troublesome, it also acted stubbornly. Eureka! I could try replicating the experiment on this very second lock!

"Spritz spritz!" into the keyhole. Work the lock mechanism a bit with the key. "Spritz spritz!" again and work it some more.

As the hypothesis predicated, now the second lock opened and shut smoothly and without difficulty. Experiment replicated successfully! Another victory for the forces of innovation and enlightened thinking!

I invite any of my peers to replicate the experiment, and to test my new theory: cranky, stubborn locks are often improved in function by the application of lubricating oils. I believe once this is replicated successfully, we can move it into the realm of established theory.

Anyone think I could get a patent on this thing?

(If I am forced to explain the humor of this piece to you, I will have to slap you in Three Stooges fashion. Or drop an anvil on your head.)

He's still running it.

The Queen has the details.

It appears that I'll be appearing on Robert Scott Bell's radio show this Sunday around 2:30pm Eastern time, for any of you interested. Here's a list of all the stations that carry his show. If any of you knows of one that streams live programs let me know and I'll post a live link to it.

If you want to participate in Patrick Ruffini's GOP straw poll for September!

Gallup reports that nobody likes either major political party.

Okay, actually, they report that both parties have their highest unfavorability numbers in history. Does that mean a breakout of a third party as a major force in the next election? For 2006, not a chance. For 2008: only if things remain this way, and if both parties nominate someone seen as an "establishment" candidate.

If things still look like this in late 2007, look for major efforts in both parties to nominate someone seen as a maverick.

My gut keeps saying the odds of Rudy Giuliani getting the Republican nod are going up, for whatever it's worth. I also begin to have my doubts about Senator Clinton's ability to win her own party's nomination. She'll have to work hard to shake off the idea that she's an "establishment" candidate. But then, she'll be able to say she wants to bring back the robust reform-minded agenda of the early Clinton administration, so that could work for her. I'm still hoping to back New Mexico's Bill Richardson for the Democratic nominee myself though.

In any case, my strongest prediction is that whichever party has the most coherent and easily explained agenda in both 2006 and 2008 will be the one to do best.

John J. Pitney has what are probably the most intelligent comments I've read yet on the matter of Tom Delay's indictment.

I could not find a single word to disagree with. It also explains perfectly why I cannot make myself interested in this matter one way or the other--except to repeat my view that anyone who's been in Congress that long ought to retire anyway.

People are always never asking me "Andrew: what do you look like?" Finaly, I have a good answer for them:

Find out.

Warning! Not work not safe if you want to be productive...

Blogs for Bush has some amusing examples. I especially loved the line about the meat hooks.

The only thing I'd note is that there are righty blogs where you'll get that kind of spittle-flying lunacy, so don't get too cocky. Just try starting a thread on Free Republic entitled "President Hillary."

Heh.

In any case, did someone at Air America actually propose a physical assault? If so I'd think legal action needs to be taken...

Scientists seem to spend a lot of time and effort debunking movie myths. Norm Geras links to their latest efforts here:

IT IS a staple scene of B-movies and Westerns: the cowboy stumbles into a patch of quicksand and is sucked under until only his stetson remains on top, or sinks up to his neck until hauled out by his sidekick.

Both scenarios have now been proved to fly in the face of physics. Research has shown that it is impossible for people to sink into quicksand much beyond the waist — but it is equally impossible to pull someone out once they are stuck...

..Just how far anything will sink depends on its density, and how much it moves. "Any unfortunate victim should sink halfway into the quicksand, but could then take solace from the knowledge that there would be no risk of being sucked beneath the surface," Dr Bonn said. One option to get out is for the person to wiggle his feet gently, gradually allowing water in around the edges. He could then pull himself up by fractions of an inch at a time.

It is only possible to drown by falling in head first. "This I think is where the myth of drowning in quicksand comes from," Dr Bonn said.

More bad movie science: You can't jump through a plate glass window without losing body parts, bullets ricocheting off of walls do not produce sparks and explosions don't go "boom" in the vacuum of space - but it's true, no one can hear you scream.

There is some good movie science out there. Fiction writers, from Jules Verne to Gamera vs. Viras may have been right about monsters from the deep. Giant Sea Squid are not the stuff of legend, they are more aggressive than scientists previously thought and their population as a whole outweighs ours.

Although this information may make film portrayals of giant (or collossal!) squid more realistic, it may not make them more sympathetic, something that's bound to disappoint this cephalopod fan.

There are wildfires in California today. Why the hell isn't FEMA out there ahead of the blaze???

Curse that Michael Brown!

In a more serious vein, my lovely wife has some serious questions about New Orleans.

The Moderate Voice, a moderate-liberal blog, writes: "Now, as DeLay becomes the first House leader to go on trial in a century, the GOP is at a perilous crossroads — and so are the Democrats. And, simmering under this swirling stew of controversies ready to be cooked up and served to the nation via the news media, is a fundamental question: will the batch of shoes that will soon be loudly dropped be good for the nation or be just one more abrupt shove into rage-tinged political polarization?....On this and other issues, the GOP is facing a Moment of Truth: how to define its political soul. As the Chronicle reports, DeLay's troubles could have an impact on campaign candidate recruitment and come amid debate over whether its wise to pursue changes in Social Security and whether the government should spend cazillions on Hurricane Katrina/Rita reconstruction.The key battle — raging not just in the case of DeLay's replacement, but in the case of Terry Schiavo, the selection of Supreme Court judges and others — is over the heart and soul of the GOP. Is it a big tent embracing various factions of Republicanism or a conservative tent where others are selectively allowed in? Is the conservative faction running the party?"

It argues that Democrats face their own set of dilemmas: "But there is a larger issue with the Democrats: it often seems to be a party working overtime to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Newsweek's Howard Fineman notes that the Democrats have missed opportunities, bungled issues virtually handed to them, and lack a single clearly-defined reason that voters could latch onto to justify putting them back into the White House....As a result, the Democrats often appear to be merely stuck in oppose mode. Democrats would (and do) argue that there's much to oppose — but the bottom line is they need to think through and present policies that are viable alternatives."

Folks probably know that I have a blog geared to black moderates and black conservatives, and folks in between. One of my treasures is discovering the work of our peers in other countries and regions (so far...Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, England, Ghana, Kenya, Netherlands, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. They are glad to see that they aren't toiling alone. The folks in Uganda and Zimbabwe even labor under dangerous conditions in their countries due to lack of free speech. One in Uganda, who is a journalist, was even recently jailed for questioning government policies. One from Zimbabwe, a lawyer, is now in exile in Britain).

Anyway, Felix Taylor is a black moderate-conservative blogger and Conservative Party member in the Toronto area who has advice for President George W. Bush, whom he supports:

"U.S. President George Bush is facing a stressful crisis in his presidency. The tragedy with Hurricane Katrina and the Iraqi war crisis has in no way helped. If President Bush is serious about building a legacy — a good one, he must listen to Jack Kemp on how to handle the issue in dealing with the living victims of Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Kemp says in his recent commentary: 'Instead of raising taxes, Congress should provide more juice to the opportunity zone by adding an exemption to capital gains taxes for people and businesses who invest in job-creating enterprises for people in the green-lined zone. As the president said, the people who suffered the most dislocation and distress must participate fully in the rebuilding and the job opportunities that will result from these policy prescriptions. African-American leaders like Morial, Bruce Gordon of NAACP, Earl Graves of Black Enterprise Magazine and Andy Young, the former mayor of Atlanta, have all said access to capital is one of the most important social and economic goals for minority business development and job creation. Let's democratize capitalism as a tool to wage war on poverty, despair and racial discrimination.' Mr. Bush should make this public policy and push Congress to make this happen. The President does not need to increase the ever expanding debt and deficit that [every] American is facing. This is a golden opportunity that he cannot ignore and push aside. If he does, his presidency will be something to dread rather than to take pride in."

...to take an interest in this story.

The latest Grand Rounds, the roundup of the best of recent medical blogging, is up at Family Medicine Notes.

One of my favorite subjects in science has long been perpetual motion machines. There's something seductive about their illusion, because they trap so many people into spending so much time trying to find ways to try to make them work. They never do work of course, but some of the attempts show amazing cleverness. They serve as a testament to why what seems like a good idea is often wrong.

Also, puzzling out the exact reasons why one of them doesn't work is often a great lesson in logical thinking and in understanding physics. All of this is why I thoroughly enjoyed this site when I stumbled upon it: The Museum of Unworkable Devices.

Of course there's always the possibility that one of these days someone will make a perpetual motion machine that works. In which case they'll have a device that creates energy out of nothing. Let's hope it doesn't get out of control and create enough energy to destroy the Earth, or worse, get stuck in reverse and start sucking all the energy out of the universe...

(If I have to explain to you that I'm joking in that last paragraph, I'll have to slap you.)

Paul Deignan has expanded his silly contest.

...is up at Tales of Tadeusz.

Don't say those words at Bucknell University.

There are such heroes you know. Michael Fumento, who's spent considerable time among them, has a great writeup of their work.

Fumento's my kind of iconoclast: skeptical of global warming hysteria, sees Cindy Sheehan as the fascist-coddling fraud she is, skeptical of the magical promises of stem cell research, skeptical of fearmongering claims about vaccines with thimerosal, recognizes just how many falsehoods we've been fed about HIV and AIDS (even if he doesn't agree with HIV's more rigorous critics), and more.

A man after my own heart: an independent thinker.

Fouad Ajami writes:

The remarkable thing about the terror in Iraq is the silence with which it is greeted in other Arab lands. Grant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his due: He has been skilled at exposing the pitilessness on the loose in that fabled Arab street and the moral emptiness of so much of official Arab life. The extremist is never just a man of the fringe: He always works at the outer edges of mainstream life, playing out the hidden yearnings and defects of the dominant culture. Zarqawi is a bigot and a killer, but he did not descend from the sky. He emerged out of the Arab world's sins of omission and commission; in the way he rails against the Shiites (and the Kurds) he expresses that fatal Arab inability to take in "the other." A terrible condition afflicts the Arabs, and Zarqawi puts it on lethal display: an addiction to failure, and a desire to see this American project in Iraq come to a bloody end.

Zarqawi's war, it has to be conceded, is not his alone; he kills and maims, he labels the Shiites rafida (rejecters of Islam), he charges them with treason as "collaborators of the occupiers and the crusaders," but he can be forgiven the sense that he is a holy warrior on behalf of a wider Arab world that has averted its gaze from his crimes, that has given him its silent approval. He and the band of killers arrayed around him must know the meaning of this great Arab silence.

Further:

The drumbeats against Iraq that originate from the League of Arab States and its Egyptian apparatchiks betray the panic of an old Arab political class afraid that there is something new unfolding in Iraq--a different understanding of political power and citizenship, a possible break with the culture of tyranny and the cult of Big Men disposing of the affairs--and the treasure--of nations. It is pitiable that an Egyptian political class that has abdicated its own dream of modernity and bent to the will of a pharaonic regime is obsessed with the doings in Iraq. But this is the political space left open by the master of the realm. To be sure, there is terror in the streets of Iraq; there is plenty there for the custodians of a stagnant regime in Cairo to point to as a cautionary tale of what awaits societies that break with "secure" ways. But the Egyptian autocracy knows the stakes. An Iraqi polity with a modern social contract would be a rebuke to all that Egypt stands for, a cruel reminder of the heartbreak of Egyptians in recent years. We must not fall for Cairo's claims of primacy in Arab politics; these are hollow, and Iraq will further expose the rot that has settled upon the political life of Egypt.

But as the saying goes, read the whole thing.

Remarkable essay. Thanks to Tall Dave for point it it out to me.

Neo-Neocon's got a great discussion going.

you probably already know what I am referring to. Or maybe you are blissfully unaware; that will change in about an hour. In either case, here's some important information you need to keep in mind about Travis County DA, Ronie Earle:

While Earle is an elected Democrat, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, a June 17 editorial in the Houston Chronicle commended his work: "During his long tenure, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has prosecuted many more Democratic officials than Republicans. The record does not support allegations that Earle is prone to partisan witch hunts." This assertion supports Earle's own claim about his record; a March 6 article in the El Paso Times reported: "Earle says local prosecution is fundamental and points out that 11 of the 15 politicians he has prosecuted over the years were Democrats."

The relevance of this will be made clear soon enough. I think I need to ignore politics for about a week and batten down the hatches again. Thermonuclear war ahead.

UPDATE: See what I mean?

Cathy Young says:

If there is a solution to this conundrum, it is greater flexibility of gender roles in the home. But to move in that direction, we need to get past the notion that the only obstacle to equality in parenting and homemaking comes from sexist men clinging to patriarchal privilege. Women are just as likely to regard child-rearing as their turf and to regard the freedom to choose between various options of work-family balance as a female privilege. Yet few feminists have confronted the hard truth of this female version of sexism. What's more, all too often, feminism—academic feminism in particular—has been inclined to treat men as "the enemy" rather than potential equal partners. Until that changes, feminists are doomed to wring their hands over young women's abandonment of equality.

What conundrum? She examines it here.

...is inspiring.

I'm moderately more optimistic on Afghanistan, as I think that within two decades it could come out of "backwater" status, but I otherwise quite agree with Murdoc.

And I definitely agree with what he says on Iraq.

I guess there's no surprise here:

You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (65% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

How'd you score?

(Link via Arguing With Signposts.)

I'm sorry, I posted about this earlier but few seem to be reacting to it. So let's lay it out again to get your attention:

Dead babies stuffed in ice coolers. Women, children, and babies of all ages raped. Cannibalism. Shootings everywhere. Corpses numbered in the hundreds at the Superdome, and tens of thousands throughout the city.

Bulls**t. It was all f**king bulls**t. You know, I am usually one of the first to stand up and say I hate false accusations of racism, and how America is mostly over that crap from the past, but someone please tell me: why did we all believe this racist bulls**t about the darkies down in New Orleans? (Yes, including a lot of you black folks, don't deny it... why the F**K did any of us buy this S***???)

Because NONE OF IT HAPPENED!

ARE YOU NOT ANGRY ABOUT THAT?????

* Update * Juliette thinks I'm wrong. Maybe she's right, but I gotta wonder about all those stories of po' white trash on the gulf coast raping babies and eating each other that we never heard. Come on man, what's been goin' on here?

The Conservative Thinking blog thinks I've gone off the deep end. My question would be: how so? We all bought into this complete bulls**t about how poor folks in New Orleans were raping each other, stabbing each other, slashing each others' throats, torturing and raping babies, and behaving like complete animals. But it never happened. Why did we buy into this? Why did we all--black, white, and otherwise, why did we all just accept this? What the hell were we thinking? It wasn't even close to the truth!

* Update 2 * Others in the comments are making a good point: a lot of these reports came out of Mayor Nagin and the New Orleans chief of police. I hadn't thought of that, good point.

Actually, these books are merely frequently "Challenged " And I admit that I did not like many of the books which ended up on this list. Still, there is something fundamentally unAmerican about wanting to keep a book out of someone's hands. So I've spent some time compiling a list of links to both BN.com and Amazon.com. If you want to buy a book or three from this list, I recommend doing so. "Censor" was a part of the Roman Republic America happily did not adopt... BTW: even if you don't want any of these books for yourself, buying one and donating it to a library will get you directly into heaven...

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz Amazon

2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite Amazon

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Amazon

4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier Amazon

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainAmazon

6. Of Mice and Men by John SteinbeckAmazon

7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. RowlingAmazon

8. Forever by Judy BlumeAmazon

9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine PatersonAmazon

10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds NaylorAmazon (one of the series)

11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea NewmanAmazon

12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher CollierAmazon

13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. SalingerAmazon

14. The Giver by Lois LowryAmazon

15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie HarrisAmazon

16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. StineAmazon

17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton PeckAmazon

18. The Color Purple by Alice WalkerAmazon

19. Sex by MadonnaAmazon

20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. AuelAmazon

21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine PatersonAmazon

22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’EngleAmazon

23. Go Ask Alice by AnonymousAmazon

24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean MyersAmazon

25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice SendakAmazon

26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry AllardAmazon

27. The Witches by Roald DahlAmazon

28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles SilversteinAmazon

29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois LowryAmazon

30. The Goats by Brock ColeAmazon

31. Kaffir Boy by Mark MathabaneAmazon

32. Blubber by Judy BlumeAmazon

33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois DuncanAmazon

34. Halloween ABC by Eve MerriamAmazon

35. We All Fall Down by Robert CormierAmazon

36. Final Exit by Derek HumphryAmazon 37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret AtwoodAmazon

38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead GeorgeAmazon

39. The Bluest Eye by Toni MorrisonAmazon

40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda MadarasAmazon

41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeAmazon

42. Beloved by Toni MorrisonAmazon

43. The Outsiders by S.E. HintonAmazon

44. The Pigman by Paul ZindelAmazon

45. Bumps in the Night by Harry AllardAmazon

46. Deenie by Judy BlumeAmazon

47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesAmazon

48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy GardenAmazon

49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis SacharAmazon

50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin SchwartzAmazon

51. A Light in the Attic by Shel SilversteinAmazon

52. Brave New World by Aldous HuxleyAmazon

53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)Amazon

54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna ColeAmazon

55. Cujo by Stephen KingAmazon

56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald DahlAmazon

57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William PowellAmazon

58. Boys and Sex by Wardell PomeroyAmazon

59. Ordinary People by Judith GuestAmazon

60. American Psycho by Bret Easton EllisAmazon

61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda MadarasAmazon

62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy BlumeAmazon

63. Crazy Lady by Jane ConlyAmazon

64. Athletic Shorts by Chris CrutcherAmazon

65. Fade by Robert CormierAmazon

66. Guess What? by Mem FoxAmazon

67. The House of Spirits by Isabel AllendeAmazon

68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline CooneyAmazon

69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt VonnegutAmazon

70. Lord of the Flies by William GoldingAmazon

71. Native Son by Richard WrightAmazon

72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy FridayAmazon

73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel CohenAmazon

74. Jack by A.M. HomesAmazon

75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. AnayaAmazon

76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter MayleAmazon

77. Carrie by Stephen KingAmazon

78. Tiger Eyes by Judy BlumeAmazon

79. On My Honor by Marion Dane BauerAmazon

80. Arizona Kid by Ron KoertgeAmazon

81. Family Secrets by Norma KleinAmazon *

82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette ColeAmazon

83. The Dead Zone by Stephen KingAmazon

84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark TwainAmazon

85. Song of Solomon by Toni MorrisonAmazon

86. Always Running by Luis RodriguezAmazon

87. Private Parts by Howard SternAmazon

88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin HanfordAmazon

89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette GreeneAmazon

90. Little Black Sambo by Helen BannermanAmazon

91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken FollettAmazon

92. Running Loose by Chris CrutcherAmazon

93. Sex Education by Jenny DavisAmazon*

94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette GreeneAmazon*

95. Girls and Sex by Wardell PomeroyAmazon*

96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas RockwellAmazon

97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis RobertsAmazon

98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley SnyderAmazon

99. The Terrorist by Caroline CooneyAmazon

100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher CollierAmazon

Asterisks indicate a book that is out of print. Which probably means the ban was effective...

Caveat: I work for Barnes and Noble. That’s why they are listed first...

...are looking pretty good.

(Gosh and I didn't even get a free ticket!)

Okay, now I'm getting mad. I didn't know about the sobbing, hysterical, AND FALSE on-air statements about the Superdome and convention center.

This isn't jut embarassing. It's borderline criminal. What else have we been misled about by the press?

to see me get my arse flamed out of existence. Tilting at windmills, I suppose.

BTW, we are all fine, negligible damage to the house. Thank you all so much for your kind wishes and support. You humbled me. All my family has sufferred is some inconvenience; let's pray that those poor families just east of town in Beaumont and Orange County who really bore the brunt will find relief soon. pray, and donate, of course.

Here's one more small step toward a space elevator.

Think of the classic photo of Goddard next to one of his rockets. It's not that we can do this today, but....

Patrick Ruffini is holding another Republican straw poll.

* Update * I had the link wrong earlier. If you had trouble voting, try again.

Here's a story of a man denied a career because of unsubstantiated allegations. This sort of thing happens to men a lot in this country: Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

Sadly, I doubt anything will be done. Rumor appears to be enough in these circumstances.

In much the same way that Halloween masks in Presidential years can be a good indicator of who will win the election, perhaps other Other toys are indicators of other things...

The Wall Street Journal notes that Democrats are increasing efforts to be seen as the party of fiscal discipline, and notes some history on that.

My own view is that the party that complains about lack of fiscal discipline is almost always the minority party. That's because it's an easy target and is something you can complain about without actually doing much about it. Sometimes those making this complaint ride into power with fiscal discipline as their war cry, but after a while cease to care about the issue as they find that they care about spending on their own pet projects more.

Economist Milton Friedman has said that historically you get the best fiscal discipline from divided government, i.e. a different party controlling the congress than the White House. I've often wondered how rigorous his analysis is on that.

Coooool!

I want a pair of the cat's eyes.

(Via Ith.)

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts from Iraqi and Afghani bloggers. This week we have the incident in Basra, bloggers helping bloggers, the Iraqi constitution, a whole passel of new blogs, and much, much more.

Afghan Warrior explains why Afghanistan still needs Coalition forces in the country.

An Average Iraqi gives an account of the incident last week in which the British apparently broke into an Iraqi jail to free two British soldiers. Hammorabi comments. I think Ibn Al-Rafidain has the right of it: at the very least it's extremely poor coordination; at the worst very bad indeed.

Sunshine of Days of My Life has an interesting story of bloggers helping bloggers. Mama of Emotions… has a little more.

Friends of Democracy has commentary on the thank-you speech last week by Iraqi Prime Minister Ja'faril.

Omar of Iraq the Model has observations on the Al-Jazeera reporter found guilty of terrorism in Spain the other day.

neurotic iraqi wife is back from their holiday to Hong Kong and Japan.

Salam Pax will probably vote “yes” on the new constitution—but he's not too happy about it.

I've gotten behind on reporting new Iraqi bloggers. There are a number of them: Baghdad Security (not much there yet), From Haneen With Love, Little Snippet (well written and slickly put together), 24 Steps to Liberty. To quote Little Snippet: all hail the Iraqi cyber-revolution! Hat tip: Iraq Blog Count.

We have another chapter in the story at Ishtarria. She's fallen into the clutches of an official of the Saddam Hussein regime. Will she escape?

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.

Remember the futures that never were? Here's a great site devoted to them. Lots there, including old radio plays!

(Via James Rummel.)

Instapundit's got some terrific photos.

The latest Carnival of the Capitalists is up at AnyLetter.

Oh lookee, Dan Rather is back, and theorizing about blogger conspiracies.

Dan, we hardly missed you.

* Update * Oh, I see Dan's old assistant Mary Mapes is making her paranoia public too.

Remember all the stories of rapes and murders in the Superdome in New Orleans?

It turns out those stories were mostly B.S.. I guess we can now put that in the bin of discarded Katrina news hype like "tens of thousands dead" and the rumors of cannibalism.

(Thanks for spotting that, Zach.)

Can anyone point to me the definitive study which demonstrates that HIV kills t-cells?

Failing that, I will accept a half-dozen or so rigorous papers which in toto demonstrate same.

A paper or series of papers I can order from Medline will be fine. The only thing I ask is: no BS. These have to be studies which you can hand to any grad student or recently-minted PhD in biology and say, "read this, and they will show you that HIV kills t-cells."

You have to be willing to stand by them and say, "yes, any reasonable biologist should be able to read these and say, 'yes, HIV kills t-cells.'"

I won't make fun of you, or even argue with you. I just want to know what these papers are, so I can order copies and read them.

No BS now. I can point you to the papers by Linus Pauling that demonstrate that the polio virus causes polio. I can point to the clasic papers which demonstrate what causes tuberculosis. I can even point you to the classic papers which demonstrate what causes smallpox. Challenge me, and I will give you citations.

So, simply put: name these papers for me.

It can't be hard, right?

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...

More here.

Rudy explains.

PressEthic.

WASHINGTON (AP): The nation's crime rate was unchanged last year, holding at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

Since 1993, violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 57 percent and property crime by 50 percent. That has included a 9 percent drop in violent crime from 2001-2002 to 2003-2004.

The 2004 violent crime rate - assault, sexual assault and armed robbery - was 21.4 victims for every 1,000 people age 12 and older. That amounts to about one violent crime victim for every 47 U.S. residents.

Many explanations have been advanced for decline in violent crime, including the record prison population of more than 2 million people, the addition of 100,000 police officers since the mid-1990s and even a deterrent effect that terrorism might have had on street crime.

--Blacks, men (except in cases of sexual assaults) and young people were victimized most often.

--Nearly two-thirds of women knew their attackers, while men were just as likely to be attacked by strangers.

--In 2004, just under one-quarter of all violent crimes were committed by an offender armed with a gun, knife or other weapon.

--The rates of rapes and robberies have dropped by nearly two-thirds since 1993...

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England’s firearms restrictions "seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld." Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.

Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London’s Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England’s inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England’s rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America’s, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world’s crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don’t need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to "walk on by" and let the professionals handle it.

This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available...

Check out her awesome blog RIGHT HERE.

As a big fan of Ron Moore's, I was interested recently to come across this article on naturalistic science fiction. It explains a lot of why I like his latest show so much.

Mind you, this concept isn't new in science fiction literature, but it is (fairly) new in science fiction television.

The tagline for this blog since it was started has been "defending the liberal tradition in history, science and phlosophy."

What does that mean? To me it is simple: we wish to discuss ideas. It does not matter whether we agree with these ideas. It does not matter whether we like these ideas. It means we shall discuss them.

In the last three years, less that two dozen people have been ejected from this blog. I would like to think that this happened not because they disagreed with me, but because they violated the spirit of our charter.

What does "the liberal tradition" mean to me? It is not all that complicated. Simply put:

If you wish to stand upon your two feet and argue for a point of view that is unpopular, the worst thing that could possibly happen to you is that others--including myself--might explain why we disagree with you. Sometimes elegantly, sometimes not so elegantly.

The only thing that is out of bounds--at least I would like to think so--is if you make me or my loved ones your subject. You may argue all day, every day, for weeks on end, about why your ideas are the correct ideas. But once your host or his loved ones become your subject, you can expect nothing less than a full-throated, and quite rude, ejection from the premises.

Anything else goes. You may receive a response from your proprietors that you do not like, but so long as you understand what "the liberal tradition" means, the worst that will happen to you is... well... you'll be disagreed with.

Does that make sense? And, if it does, I would like to know if anyone thinks I have not lived up to that ideal?

Homespun Blogger Radio episode #9 is on the air.

Or on the packet stream, anyway. :-)

Sondra's got a few. (Scroll down.)