Chess Boxing and Other Olympic Sports

The latest sports craze: Chess Boxing. Make a move on the chessboard, then pound on your opponent's head. This is not a joke; it's actually being played. Supposedly it combines the ultimate mental and physical challenges -- as well as being the only time you'll ever hear fans screaming during a chess match (the headphones are to help them concentrate).

It seems to me that in this sport it is more important to be good at boxing than chess: no matter how bad you are at chess, it would take a minimum of three moves to get beaten, giving you ample time to beat Mr. Chess-Club-Nerd to a pulp. I mean, Mike Tyson versus Garry Kasparov? It's a no contest, even if you ban ear-biting.

Golf and chess have been trying to become official Olympic sports, and it would seem that chess now has a fighting (heh) chance.

Related topic: I've always thought that the Olympics would be much more exciting if they combined sports. I have a few ideas:

Synchronized Ice Hockey: freeze over a pool and allow half the team to attack from below. Periods last 2 minutes, or longer if you permit scuba gear

Wrestling Gymnastics: on the balance beam, or one ring each

Cycling Javelin: two main events: the kidney-poke pursuit, and the flat-tire timetrial

Soccer Hurdles: unlike in athletics, these hurdles can't be knocked over. Even better would be if the hurdles were embedded in the ground and could be made to spring up without notice

100m Fencing: the first contestant to get all their body parts past the finish line is the winner

4x100m Archery Relay: your team gets disqualified if the arrow hits the ground

Equestrian Polevault: mandatory galloping aproach; double points if both you and the horse clear the bar. Even better: have contestants compete two at a time from opposite directions

Ski-jump Trapshooting: Swish.... Pull! Blam! 8.5! 8.0!

Weightjumping: mulitply the weight carried by the height cleared

Taekwando Sailing: a nautical race with hostile boarding parties

It could get even better if you combined more than two sports:

Cycling-Javelin-Long Jump-Gymnastics-Equestrian: cyclists race down a runway, where a teammate has to hurl a javelin into the front spokes before they hit the white line. Points are gained for both distance and whatever flips and twists are performed before landing on your horse.

Christmas Dreams

 

Gobble Gobble, Part II

Gobble Gobble, Part I

Book Review: The Emperor's New Mind

Author: Roger Penrose
Review by Murray Chapman

A subject that's always fascinated me is the nature of consciousness: how is it that we are aware of ourselves? Are other animals aware of themselves in the same way? What about computers, or calculators? Most people make what I feel is a fairly reasonable assumption that human beings are aware of themselves in a way unlike any other animal or object. Certainly we're more sentient or self-aware than a calculator appears to be; we are also capable of things that monkeys aren't. But monkeys are capable of things that calculators aren't. So are cats. And mice, and grasshoppers. What about plankton? Even these tiniest of creatures exhibit complex, non-deterministic behavior that is markedly different to that of even the most powerful computer in existence. Our attempts at creating or even simulating intelligence are clumsy. Clearly, there is something missing from our understanding about the nature of consciousness, and in this book, Roger Penrose presents a possible explanation.

The book is extremely well written and organized; the subjects covered are so mind-bogglingly large and diverse that without a solid logical progression tying them together the book would be a disorganized and confusing mess. Penrose manages to guide the reader step by step, essentially from first principles, to his final conclusion regarding the nature of consciousness. It's a wild and crazy journey: you look at everything from the smallest subatomic particles to huge galaxies and supernovae, with detours into abstract mathematics, fractals, teleportation, time-travel, biology, billiards, geometry, relativity, the 11th dimension, and quantum mechanics. Before embarking on the journey, it might seem ludicrous that all of these things could be tied somehow into consciousness absent some kind of new-age astrology involving spirits and "magic" -- yet without breaking any laws of physics or nature, and indeed acknowledging when he's bending them even slightly -- Penrose makes a solid, fact-based scientific argument.

Penrose uses an extremely clever technique to present his claims: rather than stating what his conclusion is and then attempting to prove it to be true, he begins by examining exactly what it is that we're trying to find. Then, starting with the most elemental of concepts, he slowly adds layer upon layer in an attempt to move closer towards a solution. The results are profound: rather than feeling like you're being badgered into believing his specific theory, the reader is taken on an entirely plausible journey of discovery, eventually arriving at what feels like a rational and solid explanation.

But what is he saying?

Penrose begins by asking what is "consciousness"? This question reminds me of the "Deep Thought" sequence in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which it became apparent that the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was much, much simpler than the question itself -- which could be very very difficult to state precisely. "You know... everything!" But what, precisely? Rather than trying to convince you of a definition that suits his goals, the author guides the reader through the very nature of the universe, deriving meaning by adding new evidence to that which has been previously discovered and accepted.

Penrose begins by examining fundamental concepts that we will need to precisely define in order to know what we're trying to solve. Example: knowledge. Well, that's "facts plus consciousness". Ok, let's leave "consciousness" out of it for now; what is a "fact"? That's something that is true. But how do we know if something is true or not? Because it can be proved or measured to be so. Right: so after three chapters, we know that we need to solve the "proof" and "measurement" issues before we can possibly understand consciousness.

Now here is where things start to get interesting. Both "proof" and "measurement," despite what philosophers, parents, teachers, and theologians would tell you, turn out to be extremely complex and surprising things that don't play by the normal rules.

Proof

In 1931, Kurt Gödel proved that every precise, complete, and self-consistent mathematical system of rules and propositions must contain statements that can be neither proved nor disproved by the rules of the system. This was a revolution in mathematics; some scholars took this as undeniable proof that everything was pointless and arbitrary, or that the perfect universe revealed by mathematics was a sham, and that there was no underlying order or logic on which nature operated. If there were things that we could prove we couldn't ever know, I mean, what was the point?

It turns out that Gödel's theorem actually opened up more possibilities than it closed; if you have something you can't determine, then you introduce an infinite number of equally valid solutions. This is the same mental leap you have to make to comprehend algebra: "3 + x = 5" -- how can arithmetic make sense when you're not given all the information? To solve it, you need to be able to quarantine the "x" into a "don't worry about it for now" part of your brain, and use what you do know to try and reduce the number of possible solutions. Another similar cognitive leap is required to understand that equations such "x * x = 25" allow more than one correct solution, something that used to result in a detention if you tried it as an excuse for getting your homework wrong.

Gödel's theorem raised interesting questions about computability, which is important for questions about knowledge and proof: what can you determine, and what can you never determine? Can you prove that something can ever be learned? Alan Turing took Gödel's work one step further and proved that - in general - you cannot write a set of instructions that works out whether another set of instructions will ever stop. This halting problem is the pandora's box of computer science: you have to open it (ie following the instructions; run the program) to work out what it does.

Proof no longer seems like the black and white, right or wrong concept it was when we started. We continue on to the rest of the book with a large number of items in our "don't worry about it know" collection.

Measurement

Isaac Newton formulated much of the kinetic physics which are taught in schools today: motion, action, reaction, momentum, velocity, etc. Equal and opposite reactions; conservation of momentum, and all that. These beautiful, elegant, and simple laws explained and predicted the actions of nature, and allowed an explosion of scientific advancement.

As we became better and better at measuring the world around us, and could look at extremes of measurement (the very small and the very large) we started to notice small problems with Newton's equations. At first, these were thought to be experimental errors, but after decades of experimentation and careful confirmation, scientists began to suspect that Newton's laws weren't perfect.

For things on the scale that humans typically encounter, Newtonian (or "classical") physics works essentially perfectly: centimeters, hours, kilograms, etc. But when you start looking at astronomical or miniscule quantities (eg light years, or sub-molecular distances), observed reality begins to drift away from the Newtonian predictions.

This is where Albert Einstein comes in; his theories of general and special relativity introduced compensation factors for these extreme quantities; based on his theories we've entered a whole new era of scientific discovery (astronomy, nuclear physics, etc). (It's interesting to note that Einstein himself was dissastisfied with his corrections to Newton, and suspected that there was another truth lurking still deeper within nature, but he was never able to discover it. Modern physicists concur, and are to this day searching for the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) that would tie together Newton, Einstein, and other observed anomalies in gravity and electromagnetic fields.)

As we delved deeper and deeper into the extremes of nature, we find some truly startling things about reality. Things that we have always taken for granted no longer seem to apply. For instance: the faster you travel, the slower that time goes. You would need to get very close to the speed of light (300,000 km/s) for a human to notice it, but modern clocks are accurate enough to notice time slowing down on airplanes, which only move at around 1,000 km/h.

Similarly, some very bizarre things happen when you start to look at extremely small objects. Let's illustrate by way of an example: suppose you want to pick up a tennis ball that is rolling across the floor. In order to do so, you would need to know (a) where it is, and (b) how fast it is moving. This seems like a perfectly reasonable proposition, similarilar to things that we do without thinking multiple times per day. It appears, however, that when you get down to tiny, subatomic distances, it's just plain impossible to be able to answer both questions at the same time.

Huh? What does that mean? Surely you just look at this small object and say "there it is." Unfortunately, it's not that simple. We're talking about measurements so small -- smaller than the wavelength of light -- that they are by definition invisible. It's like trying to locate a pair of socks in your house by ZIP code. Theory, backed by experimentation, shows that the more accurately you measure the position of a subatomic particle, the less accurately it is possible to measure its velocity - and vice-versa. Physics nerds call this the Heisenberg Uncertaincy Principle, thus explaining the joke written on nearly every bathroom door in university physics departments: "Heisenberg may have been here."

This is not some abstract notion cooked up for the hell of it by a bunch of absent-minded egg-head professors looking for research funding. This explanation, and the branch of physics that has grown up around it, is the simplest, most rational, fact-based explanation of what has been experimentally observed. Various models of the underlying components of subatomic physics have been proposed; this is quantum mechanics, named after the further curious observation that events in the sub-sub-atomic realm happen not in any arbitrary sizes, but only at well-defined chunks, or quanta. It is clear that at some point, when you're looking at smaller and smaller objects, there is a sudden change in the rules that govern reality.

So what?

Well, consider this: we starting with the question "how is it that we are aware of ourselves?" and, by following a logical path of exploration, we've ended up examining the very smallest parts of nature, and bumped into quantum mechanics and Einstein's theories of relativity. And so it is with Penrose's book. We've only spent a few paragraphs talking about it here; Penrose fills 482 pages of this kind of background material before he even reaches the subject of consciousness.

Given this volume of groundwork, you may expect that the book gives an incredibly detailed and fully-explained account of each step along the path. Ironically, however, my only complaint with the book is that we're asked to accept so much as "given": Penrose gives copious references for his facts, but the speed at which we (necessarily) move through the subject matter leaves little time to become comfortable with accepting one proposition before it is used to crack open reality in a new and different way, leading to yet another fantastic brain-bending concept.

Penrose needs to cover essentially several hundred years work of the most brilliant minds in mathematics and physics in order to even start making his own arguments, so this is perhaps forgivable. Still, it is rather startling to come across something like, say, this on page 517:

When the time is reached at which it might have struck the retina, and so long as the linear role U of quantum theory holds true (i.e. deterministic Schrödinger state-vector evolution, cf. p. 323), we can have a complex linear superposition of a nerve signal and not have a nerve signal.

....and realize that you actually understand what he's talking about. I'm not suggesting that everyone reading this review should immediately be able to comprehend this quote - indeed when I first encountered it, I had to flip back and forth to previous chapters in order to refresh my memory of the terms - but merely to show that by the time I encountered it in the book, I understood it. Had I seen it cold, as you perhaps are now, then I would have laughed at the thought of ever being able to comprehend it.

But what about thinking?

At long last, Penrose gets down to the nitty-gritty, and makes his point: he doesn't believe in strong artificial intelligence, which claims that intelligence and awareness is merely the result of a sufficiently complex system. Penrose argues, and I agree, that there is something missing. Computers are immeasurably more complex now than they were 50 years ago, yet they are really no closer to being sentient now than they were then. They are faster, and can do more, but they are still a dumb machine, forever doomed to follow a predestined course of action. Philosophical issues of free will aside, humans (and even grasshoppers or plankton) exhibit a non-determinism that we've yet to find outside of organic life.

Penrose suggests that this missing factor is in fact quantum mechanics: that quixotic and (currently) unknowable set of rules that govern subatomic reality, and which, under specific circumstances, can affect the classical/Newtonian world. This theory has met with a great deal of criticism, and has resulted in Penrose's conclusions today being considered "interesting but wrong". A significant problem with the theory is that there is compelling evidence to suggest that interaction between the quantum world and the classical world is only possible at very, very low temperatures - above which the kinetic energy of heat obliterates the tiny influence of the quantum world. Human body (brain) temperature is at least 100 degrees too hot for quantum theory (as we understand it today) to be able to have an observable influence onbehaviorviour.

Still, as with most adventures, the destination is not as important as the journey. We may have not answered our Ultimate Question, but we've explored our own curiosity - and found that we need to be more curious in order to understand it. Philosophers have long debated the question of whether it's possible for a human brain to be able to comprehend how it itself works -- the answer appears to be "not yet", but if you are interested in pushing your brain in this direction, Penrose's book is an excellent starting point.

New Land Speed Record in Hypocrisy!

The Majority Leader of the House, Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was a featured participant in a previous article I wrote on hypocrisy -- you will remember him as the one who fought to deny the ability of a brain-dead comatose patient's husband to make decisions regarding her care. This, despite having pulled the plug on his own father in order to alleviate his suffering. Based on his actions today, he may have set a new world record for the quickest hypocritical statement by a politician.

Having already been admonished three times in the last twelve months for ethics violations, he was late last week formally indicted on conspiracy charges, relating to his fundraising activities in Texas. There aren't many rules restricting campaign finance in Texas -- in fact there is precisely one: you can't accept money from corporations and give it to candidates. DeLay and his associates are accused of collecting money from corporations via their "Texans for a Republican Majority" committee, then sending the money on to the Republican National Committee, who then cut a check for the exact same amount to give directly to candidates. Shady? Definitely. Illegal? We shall see!

If this sounds to you like money laundering, then you're not alone: prosecutor Ronnie Earle today (Monday) further indicted DeLay on two money-laundering charges, making DeLay by far the most indicted US politician in the last 100 years.

When the original indictment came out on Wednesday, DeLay was "outraged" at how he was being singled out for political persecution by a "partisan hack Democrat" (Earle). DeLay did not explain how Earle's prosecution record (13 Democrats and 3 Republicans) is proof of a bias against Republicans.

So on Friday, DeLay let rip with this zinger:

My defense in this case will not be technical or legalistic. It will be categorical and absolute.

Yet today Fox News reports:

[DeLay's] lawyers asked a judge Monday to throw out the first indictment, arguing that the charge of conspiring to violate campaign finance laws was based on a statute that didn't take effect until 2003 — a year after the alleged acts.

Congratulations, Mr DeLay: a categorical and absolute denial of the charges, based on solid fact-based refutations of the evidence. Guinness will be contacting you shortly.

And while on the subject of alcohol, another politican has made the headlines for unbelieveable antics. David Graves (Republican, naturally) attempted to get out of a drunk-driving charge in Georgia by invoking a two-hundred year old law granting immunity from arrest to government officials travelling to or from official meetings during legislative sessions. The law was enacted to prevent corrupt local sheriffs from arresting and detaining politicians in transit just long enough to miss a vote -- hardly something that is common-place today.

This story would be funny enough, even without the other salient points: the "official meeting" that he was returning home from was basically a private party at which he and a bunch of colleages got roaring drunk -- he would have us believe this is government business as usual! More hilariously, though, the scandal has forced him to resign his position on an official state government committee: the one regulating the sale of alcohol.

Behold the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

I've found religion. Let me explain.

Forbidden by the US Constitution from promoting any one religion (or, arguably, religion in general), publicly-funded schools in the US have been increasingly exposing students to the theory of evolution over the last few decades, but not to the concept of creationism. This has never sat well with the more religious elements of US society; witness the Scopes Monkey Trial, which was the basis for the excellent play/movie Inherit the Wind.

Historically, religious conservatives have responded to this trend in one of two ways: (a) attacking science as somehow being inferior or detrimental to religion; or (b) insisting that religion is a fundamental part of the country's heritage and foundation, and therefore entitled to be included/preserved in our school system.

These arguments have met with little success; largely I believe because they're easily countered with both logic and evidence. Argument (a) is refuted by pointing out that science is incapable of promoting atheism (it's a fundamental tenet of science that you cannot prove the non-existence of something), whereas point (b) can be easily disposed of with documentary evidence thus:

Article VI, Section 2 of the US Constitution states "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." And in 1796 the US entered into the Treaty of Tripoli, which is notable for a phrase in Clause 11:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any way founded on the Christian Religion" -- Treaty of Tripoli, 1796

This document, and therefore the sentiments expressed therein, was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, President John Adams, and the US Senate, becoming law on 10 June, 1797. It is difficult to imagine a more clear-cut statement of the secular intentions of the Founding Fathers.

Retreating to heavily-funded think tanks for a few years, Christian Conservatives have reemerged with a new and admittedly more clever strategy: do battle with science on science's terms. Recognizing (but not necessarily admitting) that arguments based outright on "religion vs. science" have proved ineffective, they have come up with a concept that is "creationism without religion": they call it "intelligent design".

The argument basically goes like this: "There are things in the universe that are so well-constructed or well-organized that they must have been the result of intelligent decisions rather than random processes such as natural selection."

Emboldened by support from a White House and Congress that owes it a favor for electoral victory, the proponents of "intelligent design" have been assaulting school boards across the nation with a smoke-and-mirrors campaign designed to confuse them into thinking that "intelligent design" is a scientific theory, and therefore ought to be taught as an alternative to the theory of evolution. This strategy is quite clever: formerly, their attempts at introducing creationism into the classroom were easily shot down due to their religious content - but with religion removed - or more accurately (and significantly, as we will see later) unspecified - it's not as easy to detect and expose.

Witness their success with the Kansas State Board of Education, which stands poised to change the definition of science. Yes, that's right: in October, the conservative majority on the board will permit the redefinition of "science", as taught to children in Kansas. Of course, once you change the definition of science, it isn't science any more.

Science basically says: "Look at the evidence, and form a theory based on what you see. Use the theory until you find evidence that doesn't fit; at that point, adjust your theory and repeat." Note the fundamental difference here between science and religion: changing your position is unthinkable in religion, yet it is required as part of science.

The "intelligent design" argument puts the cart before the horse: it leaps to the conclusion ("the universe was designed by an intelligence"), and then seeks to provide explanations for how the evidence supports this goal. This is not science; under no circumstances will its supporters change the conclusion.

To their credit, the scientific community has refused on principle to even engage in arguments on the matter, wisely realizing that you can't use logic to defeat an argument that doesn't respect logic, and further recognizing that zealots of this kind are immune to any form of persuasion: as long as they don't admit defeat, they believe that they have won - their faith is intact. Such a strategy may be the high road, but it's not going to stop kids in Kansas being taught pseudo-scientific dogma in their science class.

The significant critical flaw in the "intelligent design" proposition is that it doesn't (dare) explain anything about this "intelligence"; mentioning any specific "God or gods" immediately exposes their position's religious motivation. We're therefore left in the curious position of having the "intelligence" being intentionally and necessarily left as an open, unanswered question, in order to avoid the Constitutional prohibition against promotion of any one specific belief system.

By carefully avoiding any promotion of any one specific religion, all religions are neatly placed on a level playing field: an "intelligent design" curriculum must be compatible with any and all religious explanations for the "intelligence" component.

Enter the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Bobby Henderson, a self-described "concerned citizen", declared himself the prophet of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and sent a letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, demanding equal time in science class for his explanation of the origin of the universe, namely, that it was created by an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster. If "intelligence design" is to be accepted into the school curriculum, then the same arguments can be used to demand equal time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.

The believers in this religion (who call themselves Pastafarians) have "discovered" the truth of human origins: we were all created by this Flying Spaghetti Monster, who deliberately planted evidence of evolution in order to hide the truth about human origins. To quote the gospel: "[Scientists do not] realize that every time we makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this."



Henderson's letter continues on to satirize the idiocy of the anti-science movement, claiming that global warming has been caused by a decline in the number of pirates in the world -- and indeed, a graph of "number of pirates" versus "average global temperature" shows a definite correlation! The fact that there is no causal relationship between pirates and global warming serves as a parody of the pseudo-scientific arguments used to promote intelligent design. For more laughs at the expense of creationists, see Colin Purrington's spoof of the warning labels required on science textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia!

The next year or so should prove interesting, if not decisive. As well as the Kansas affair, the US Supreme Court will address the question of the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance. The court weaselled out of having to rule on its constitutionality a few months ago by ruling 8-0 to reject the case on a technicality. Attorneys general from all 50 states have urged the court to reconsider the case; the technicality has been resolved and the case is headed back up the hill. Unfortunately, by that time Bush will have made his second Supreme Court appointment, no doubt tilting the bench heavily in favor of the religious conservatives.

I find it ironic that the pledge, as originally written in 1892 by a Baptist minister does not include the phrase "under God":

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America , and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The "under God" phrase was added during the 1950s, as a knee-jerk McCarthyist attempt to flush those godless communists out of the woodwork. For the record, I also have a problem with the words "In God We Trust" appearing on US currency.

I'm amused by the hypocrisy of those who on the one hand demand the preservation of the county's (non-existent) religious heritage, but on the other insist upon a revisionist version of the pledge. I doubt they see it this way, but that's the beauty/curse of hypocrisy.

Blatant Self-Promotion

We've recently launched something on IMDb that I think is really cool. Well, I would think it's really cool, wouldn't I, seeing as I created it. It's a "keyword concordance" for movies; basically, a way of exploring relationships between movies and what they depict.

For example, if you were interested in movies that involved (say) both "flatulence" and "flashback-sequence", you could find it here. From there, you could click on "Kung Fu", and instantly you'd get a list of all movies that involve reminiscing about farting while kicking someone's ass. (Hey, whatever floats your boat!)

Curiously enough, the two movies that match that description are I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, both of which were so horrible that I actually turned them off. This is puzzling, as I like both martial arts films and movies with fart jokes. Perhaps there are just some topics that don't belong together, although I'm disappointed to discover that it's these two.

It's a good way to test your movie knowledge. Without looking, can you think of movies that involve wrestling and a Princess? How about Elvis and a chainsaw? Or a mullet haircut and high heels? What was the movie that had that huge brawl in Chinatown?

Have a poke around and let me know if you find any interesting combinations!

In other news, Monday is the official Talk Like a Pirate Day, so remember to participate.

I spent some time writing some software to translate English into "Arrrrrrr!" (the official pirate language). It ended up working quite well... even when run against something that you wouldn't think had anything to do with pirates, say:

Photographer John Rutter was sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison Thursday for trying to extort $4 million from actress Cameron Diaz who posed nude for him in 1992 when she was 19 years old. Rutter reportedly approached Diaz with the photos a week before the 2003 premiere of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, telling her that he had publishers who were interested in buying the photos. Rutter's attorney, Mark Werksman, told today's (Friday) Los Angeles Times that the trial represented a legal battle between "a rich and famous celebrity" and a "hard-working photographer."

...you get a translation in which you can almost see a salty pirate swaggering along, quaffing rum from a bottle, ranting at his crew while a psychotic one-eyed parrot munches weevil-infested seabiscuits on his shoulder:

Artist John Rutter were sentenced t' 3 years and 8 months in Davey Jones' locker Thursday fer trying t' extort 4 million Spanish doubloons from Lady-in-waiting Cameron Diaz who posed nude fer that scurvy dog in 1992 when she were 19 years auld -- I warrant it t'be true! Rutter reportedly engaged Diaz with th' portraits a week before th' 2003 premiere o' Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, telling that comely wench that he had brigands who were interested in buying th' portraits, aarrr! Pieces of eight! Rutter's first mate, Mark Werksman, told today's (Friday) St Dominique Times that th' trial represented a lawyerly battle betwixt "a rich and famous buccaneer" and a "hard-working Artist." Tie that scurvy dog to the yard-arm!

Bush Accepts Responsibility; Satan Catches Pnemonia

CNN must be playing a joke on us. They're reporting that George W. Bush has taken responsibility for something. They've obviously been hacked; check it out before it gets taken down.

In other news:


You know something is seriously wrong with the world when articles at The Onion start making more sense than those in the mainstream media.

F%&#% You, World!

John Bolton shows how much
respect he has for the UN

During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush described himself as "a uniter, not a divider". One would assume from this statement that he would therefore seek consensus on issues of great importance: national security, constitutional law, judicial nominees, and international relations.

Of course, it was all a giant lie.

In the latest affront to the citizens of the United States, it's constitution, and to every other sovereign nation in the world, Bush has unilaterally installed as Ambassador to the United Nations the notorious John Bolton. Before we examine the manner of his appointment, let's meet this certifiable, frothing-at-the-mouth, war-mongering lunatic.

Bush introduced Bolton thus:

I'm sending Ambassador Bolton to New York with my complete confidence. Ambassador Bolton believes passionately in the goals of the United Nations Charter, to advance peace and liberty and human rights. His mission is now to help the U.N. reform itself to renew its founding promises for the 21st century. He will speak for me on critical issues facing the international community. And he'll make it clear that America values the potential of the United Nations to be a source of hope and dignity and peace. White House press conference, Aug 1 2005

Here, in his own words, is John Bolton's opinion of the United Nations:

There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along. 1994 Global Structures Convocation, New York, NY.

I kid you not; you can even watch a video of him saying this, as well as several other diplomatic gems, such as:

The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost 10 stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Ibid.

I particularly love the part where his voice starts to crack as he jabs his finger and bellows:

The United States makes the U.N. work when it wants to work. And that is exactly the way it should be, because the only question... the only question for the United States is "What's in our national interest?" ...and if you don't like that, I'm sorry, but that is the fact.

From a country that likes to think of itself as the leader of the free world, this is a shamefully ignorant and selfish statement to make.

Bolton's Reputation

During the Senate confirmation hearings (see below), numerous colleagues from Bolton's past came forward to testify that he is a bully, hounding people whose opinions he doesn't like. One woman described (under oath) being chased through the corridors of a Moscow hotel by Bolton, who disliked a position paper she had written. One colleague described Bolton as a "quintessential 'kiss-up, kick-down' kind of guy," and confirmed his reputation as a vindictive, blundering pig-headed lout. Bolton is currently under investigation for demanding the sacking of a lower-level employee who disagreed with him. The White House refuses to release the documents that could shed light on this situation.

Bolton's Appointment

As a means of checks and balances, the U.S. Constitution requires the appointments of ambassadors and high-ranking judges to be confirmed by a Senate. Nominees are typically grilled for days on their past statements and opinions on certain topics. In the words of one Senator Chuck Schumer, "The burden is on a nominee ... to prove that he is worthy, not on the Senate to prove that he is unworthy."

Bolton was grilled for several days in front of a Senate subcommittee, which eventually sent his nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation. Considering that the subcommittee was stacked in favor of Republicans, this was a remarkable vote of no confidence in Bolton. Senate Democrats subsequently blocked the senate from a vote on Bolton by filibuster.

The filibuster (endless speech-making) is a technique available to the party in the minority; a supermajority is required to end it. This ensures that there is no tyranny of the majority: minority parties can, under extraordinary circumstances, use this technique to forestall progress.

Predictably, the Republicans cried foul, claiming that this was an unprecedented affront beneath the dignity of the senate, and that it was shamefully to delay such an important nominee due to partisan politics.

Of course, this was complete crap: Clinton's nominee for U.N. Ambassador (Richard Holbrooke) was blocked by a procedural maneuver by a single (Republican) senator for fourteen months, not because he wasn't suited to the job, by instead as a protest over an unrelated State Department employee.

The Constitution gives the President the power to make a recess appointment, which installs the nominee without Senate confirmation, for a limited term. The idea is to give the President the flexibility to make an emergency appointment without having to recall the entire Senate, which was quite an ordeal when the Constitution was created.

Clinton offered Holbrooke a recess appointment, but he refused, stating that being sent to the U.N. without the approval of the U.S. Senate would leave him hopelessly compromised; not having the full authority of the government behind him.

Today, Bush used a recess appointment to install Bolton. This was entirely legal, and there is no question that the President has the authority to do so.

Personally, I find it telling that we are reduced to evaluating the actions of the President by asking "is it legal or not?" -- as if "not breaking the law" was the only yardstick by which we are measuring him. For someone who prides himself on "moral character" and being "a uniter, not a divider", Bush certainly can be accused of hypocrisy (there's that word again!)


The Mesasge This Sends

At a time when the United States is seeking to regain it's reputation as a leading democracy, Bush's use of the recess appointment sends a clear message to the rest of the world: he doesn't need his government's authority to do what he wants. Democracy and due process are optional.

I particularly like Hal Crowther's take on the situation:

Bolton is simply the Republican fist with its middle finger held erect, a calculated insult aimed at Democrats, the media and the world -- a rude gesture of unprecedented arrogance and defiance. Is this a coarse joke, irony served White House-style? For America's most visible and sensitive diplomatic post, they offer the ultimate anti-diplomat, an obnoxious bully so incapable of diplomacy or common tact that he offends everyone he encounters, Democrat or Republican, ally or enemy....

"Making him ambassador is like thumbing our nose at the UN, and foreign diplomats understand that."

There are a number of conspiracy theories surrounding just why Bush is so desperate to get Bolton to the U.N. The scariest of these relates to Bolton's association with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think-tank which was urging a U.S. invasion of Iraq as early as 1998. John Negroponte was considered the leading hawk on an Iraq invasion; Bolton apparently had a thing for.... Iran. Watch this space.

The Public Report of The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

9/11 has been the subject of innumerable discussions around the world for the last few years, but nobody I had ever talked to admitted to actually reading the official commission's report. Even if you're the most partisan and cynical person in the world, and dismiss the report as propaganda, a whitewash, cover-up, hatchet-job, full of cheap-shots, or waste of time, the historical significance of the event and the commission itself makes the report vital reading. Having now read it, I am even more deeply disturbed at the level of ill-informed rhetoric coming from those who haven't.

Note: the entire report is available for free online at the commission website.

The Report

Overall, I found the report excellent, with an objective tone. While mostly fact-based, there is some conjecture, but it is always clearly labeled as exactly what it is: the best guess, based on available evidence. Structurally, the report is broken out into a riveting and thoroughly detailed account of the events of 9/11 and the ensuing invasion of Afghanistan, followed by an analysis of the political, society, and intelligence failures that allowed the events to occur. The last section of the report gives a lengthy set of recommendations to reshape the entire country in response to the disaster.

The initial section, describing the events on the hijacked planes, is as captivating as any fictional thriller, with the added horror of knowing these events actually occurred. Both ABC and NBC have announced plans for mini-series based on this section of the report, although NBC has subsequently blinked and is looking to sell their project to a cable network such as HBO. I believe the formerly-at-NBC project will end up being the better one; it's produced by Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment, and is being written by Graham Yost (who also wrote part of Band of Brothers for HBO).

Immediately following 9/11, I was prepared to accept that the attack was so audacious and unexpected that nobody could have possible predicted it: security was lax, and by all accounts the entire financial cost of the operation was less than $100,000. The commission report confirms, however, that all the warnings signs were there: they knew Bin Laden was interested in hijacking planes, and more than one intelligence analyst had worried specifically about terrorists flying hijacked planes into buildings.

The report spends a lot of time showing how the critical intelligence in the years prior to 9/11 was ignored, confused, lost, sat on, not communicated, deprioritized, and misinterpreted. Rather than coming out of left field, the report makes it clear that authorities knew such an attack was imminent. I've therefore reluctantly abandoned my position that 9/11 was not preventable.

What went wrong?

The report very diplomatically describes the disaster as "a failure of the imagination", but again notes that the government-at-large had all the pieces of the puzzle, but wasn't structured in a way that allowed it to see all of it at once. It should be stressed that the hijackers's plan was very well executed, particularly the preparation. There were numerous opportunities for it to fail, and they made some terrible decisions which were overlooked:

• the flight center where they trained notified the FBI that they had some incompetent students who were interested in learning to fly but refused to learn to land the plane
  
• when checking in for their fateful flight on one-way tickets, two of the hijackers did not have proper id, could not speak English, had suspicious-looking photographs, and were considered by the staff to be security risks
  
• Hani Hanjour was frisked when he repeatedly set off the metal detector
  

The list is embarrassingly long, and is a savage indictment of an intelligence community which was still structured to deal with a Cold War-style enemy. There's also plenty of blame to go around: presidential administrations as far back as George Bush Sr. made critical missteps that enabled Al Qaeda to grow and operate.

Vilified Hero

Like most people, I hadn't read the report when much of the finger-pointing and blame was being dished out. I had a keen interest in the subject, but after reading the report I realized just how much of the truth had been twisted for political gain and ass-covering. I'm speaking specifically about the treatment of Richard Clarke.

Throughout the report's description of the years of activity leading up to the attack, time and time again the name of Richard Clarke stands out as the only person who understood the seriousness of the situation and as a tireless servant who continually found innovative ways to get around political and bureaucratic barriers placed in his way.

I'm reminded of Roger Boisjoly, the Morton Thiokol employee who was literally standing on the table screaming at NASA to not launch the Space Shuttle Challenger the night before it blew up: he alone recognized the situation and the potential of what could happen. For Clarke to appear before the 9/11 commission and apologize for failing the American people is one of the greatest acts of humility I've ever heard of. If there was one person involved that could escape blame, it would be Richard Clarke.

Of course, this is completely at odds with opinion of Clarke held by the general public. In an effort to dodge their own culpability, the Bush administration and GOP attack-dogs launched a disgraceful smear campaign against Clarke, claiming he was "out of the loop", or that he was somehow a disgruntled employee with an axe to grind. These claims are both ludicrous and insulting: the report makes it clear that Clarke was more "in the loop" than Rice, Bush, Cheney, or Tenet, and they would have you overlook the fact that Clarke has served in the intelligence community since his appointment by Ronald Reagan.

Sadly, the current tactics of the GOP are highly successful: throw enough mud, and some of it sticks. Clarke has been effectively sidelined when he should be hailed as a national hero.

Aftermath

You may have often heard people say about something they've read that "this book changed my life", and for me, this book did. Not in a touchy-feely, new-world-outlook kind of way, but in a way much more practical.

Many survivors of the World Trade Center collapse credit their escape to the fact that they were able to locate a flashlight. Smoke and power loss made locating escape routes nearly impossible; the report details how people missed fire exits because they weren't located at the end of the hallways as expected.

After reading this, I decided that I could afford the $3.95 to have a flashlight at my desk at work. I'm only on the seventh floor, but experts will tell you that the danger in a real fire (as opposed to the smoke-less BBQs that Hollywood produces) is the smoke, not the flames. Several colleagues have noticed the flashlight, and when I explain why it's there, they go and buy their own.

Of Bush and Buffet

President Bush has just finished a 60-day tour of the country, attempting to portray the Social Security "crisis" as an urgent problem that desperately needs to be fixed by pulling money out of it and putting it into the stock market.

On CNN just now, Warren Buffet made an intersting observation:

Well, it's an interesting idea that a deficit of $100 billion a year, something, 20 years out, seems to terrify the administration. But the $400 plus billion dollars deficit currently does nothing but draw yawns. I mean the idea that this terrible specter looms over us 20 years out -- which is a small fraction of the deficit we happily run now -- seems kind of interesting to me.

Warren Buffet ought to know what he's talking about; class "A" shares in his investment company are currently trading at around $85,000 each.

Book Review: A Short History of the Future

Author: W. Warren Wagar

Wagar is a historian, which makes writing about the future as it if was the past an interesting idea; he terms the concept "prognostics". What's refreshing about the book is his admission up front that the further one looks into the future, the less likely your predictions are to come true (history is a cumulative process). Too often I've found a giant chasm between pure speculation, and dry predictions about the state of technology.

Wagar had the dreadful misfortune to publish the first edition mere months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. To his credit, he had correctly predicted the fall of European communism, but he had expected it to take 50 years longer than it actually did. The book's second edition was published just before the advent of the communications/internet revolution, and so this aspect of the present is conspicuous by its absence in his work.

The third edition of the book (the one reviewed here) continued the streak of bad luck: it was released a few years before 9/11. Terrorism and the "problem" of fundamentalist Islam is given scant mention in the book -- a huge cry from its importance in reality.

As with nearly every single work which attempts to portray the future, this one falls into the trap of predicting that Sci-Fi dream concepts are going to happen very soon. Within the next few hundred years, Wagar has an immortal human race populating the solar system and even travelling to the nearest stars. Although these kinds of things are the fantasy of many-a Sci-Fi buff, actual progress towards these fantasies from a scientific research point of view indicates that it's going to take a lot, lot, lot longer than we think.

By way of example: most futurists and prognosticators routinely ignore the cold, hard, unglamorous facts about space travel: it literally kills you. Absent some huge sheild (like the earth's magnetic sphere), you're going to be cooked by the sun. And if you do make it as far as Mars, living there is much more difficult than is generally realized. Of course, this assumes that you can get off the ground in the first place. Best case, humans will return to the moon in 2015. In other words: despite the technological progress made in the last 40 years, we're no closer to getting to the moon than we were before we started, back in 1960. Wow; let's hear it for progress!

The other thing that I don't agree with Wagar on is his idea of what will happen after World War 3. Wagar sees humankind engaged in a vicious backlash against consumerism and capitalism. While I might be able to accept that the generation who actually lived through the holocaust might be radically transformed, it's more difficult to believe that every generation thereafter will no longer experience greed, drive, ambition, or jealousy.

Wagar's post-apocalyptic society "eliminates" poverty by providing a standard stipend for every human being. While this may sound good in theory, the plain fact of the matter is that if you give 100 people each $100, after a week some of them will have nothing, and some will have $1000. The failure of communism underscores the fundamental aspect of human/animal behaviour: people are more motivated if they get something personal out of it. It's human nature, and no amount of wishing or prognosticating is going to change that.

Next book: The 9/11 Report

New Carpet (Old House)

Today we had new carpet installed at our old house.... only a year after moving out. The entire process was very quick: we picked the carpet on Sunday, the measuring occurred on Tuesday, and today was the installation. It's a touch darker (and a lot cleaner) than the old stuff. (The guy in the picture is removing, not installing :-)

The only thing remaining to fix up before we can put the house on the market is the front porch -- the first thing that people will see when they come for a look. A lot of the wood has become rotten, and it desperately needs a good coat of paint. We're hoping we won't have to stain the back deck, although it's looking a lot greyer than when it first went in.

Calculated Acts of Senseless Hypocrisy

The recent media and political frenzy over Terri Schiavo's predicament has sharply exposed the opportunism and hypocrisy of the Bush administration and Republicans in general. I never intended use the tragedy of Terri's situation to make a political point, but the shameless and blatant way with which George W. Bush and the Republicans have opened the door to such crass political opportunism begs a reply in kind.

For those outside the USA or otherwise unaware: Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state for over 15 years. Her husband Michael has for the last 7 years been seeking legal approval to remove her feeding tube on the grounds that she had previously expressed a desire to not to be kept alive by such means and under such circumstances. Michael is opposed by Terri's family, who claim she may recover and want the feeding tube to remain in place. Terri's feed tube was removed in March, and she died twelve days later.

The Facts

Michael Schiavo has won every single one of the nearly 30 court proceedings regarding his wife. This perfect record applies to not only the motions that he has made, but also in the defeat upon initial and final determination of all motions made to overturn or halt actions he wishes to take.

The courts have determined (and recertified upon appeal):

• Terri's condition is the result of brain damage following a cardiac arrest, caused by abnormal potassium levels
• Terri suffered from the eating disorder bulimia, which frequently causes such abnormal potassium levels
• Terri is in a persistent vegetative state with no chance of ever recovering
  
• Michael is Terri's legal guardian and is accorded full legal rights and duties of care and decision-making

The Hypocrisy

During the 2004 election, Bush railed against what he called "activist judges" who try to "legislate from the bench" (source), accusing them of writing their own laws to push their own agenda.

Bush and Republicans are tripping over each other in their rush past the limits of their own authority. Congress was recalled over the Easter weekend specifically to pass a bill aimed at reinserting the feeding tube of the individual, Terry Schiavo. Such an attempt reeks of attainder against Michael Schiavo, given it's primary goal would be to thwart him in his duties as guardian.


Congress was recalled on Easter Sunday specifically to debate and pass a resolution calling for Terri's feeding tube to reinserted. Bush immediately flew back to Washington from his Texas ranch to sign this law.

Bush made the admittedly symbolic gesture of flying back from holiday to sign the bill which specifically addressed one person, yet took three days to publicly speak about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which killed over 200,000 people. Despite the apparent haste and zeal for saving lives, Republican house speaker Dennis Hastert has refused to allow a vote on the Mental Health Parity Act which would have provided more help for Terri in her fight against the bulimia which was the root cause of her predicament.


"While I believe there's a role for the federal government, it's not to impose its will on states and local communities". George W. Bush, Jan 6 2001

These comments came merely weeks after Bush asked the Federal Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the Florida State Supreme Court (Bush vs Gore). In the Schiavio case, Bush and the Republicans again demonstrate their hypocrisy by creating a law specifically designed to circumvent the judiciary.


When the law was struck down as unconstitutional, Republican Whip Tom Delay said: "We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president." (source)

The constitution of the United States provides for the separation of powers (Marbury vs Madison, 1803), clearly defining the responsibilities of each branch of the government, without fear of interference from the other two. This is taught in Year 4 Civics class, but it's apparently news to DeLay. To quote Justice Greer's ruling in the matter:

By arrogating vital judicial functions to itself in the passage of the provisions of Section 2 of the Act, Congress violated core constitutional separation principles, it prescribed a “rule of decision” and acted unconstitutionally.

This is polite judicial language for saying "Mr DeLay, the judiciary is not your bitch to slap around. You can create and install whatever "laws" you like, but we are the ones who can throw them away."


Republicans trumpet their regard for human life; Bush declares that in complex cases one ought to "err on the side of life"

Bush's record on capital punishment speaks for itself. During his four years as governor of Texas, 152 people were executed. Far from being cautious and "erring on the side of life," Bush has admitted spending typically less than 15 minutes on each clemency request, usually at the urging of the then state Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales who didn't feel it necessary to mention in his case summaries such irrelevant facts as that a defense lawyer had fallen asleep during the trial, or that a conviction was secured largely on the basis of a confession written in a language that the defendant couldn't read, speak, or write.

Bush's regard for human life is further confirmed by his subsequent nomination of Gonzales for U.S. Attorney-General following his legal opinion justifying the use of torture during interrogations.


Republicans position themselves as the defender of family values and marriage; Bush indicates his "support for marriage" by proposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Bush and the Republicans have sided with Terri's parents instead of her husband. This belies their support for the sanctity of marriage, placing ideology above respect for marriage and the judicial system which gave Michael Schiavo guardianship over his wife.


Republicans have declared this an issue of "morality", and present themselves as being concerned only with protecting the rights of those unable to do so for themselves.

Behind closed doors, Republicans make no effort to maintain the facade of caring. During an invitation-only speech to the conservative Family Research Council, the ubiquitous Tom DeLay declared "[O]ne thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America."

Not content with making political hay from a disabled woman's personal tragedy, DeLay feels the need to make personal gain from it. He continues in this speech to liken the "save Terri" effort to his own personal fight against yet another ethics investigation.

In yet another further layer of hypocrisy, The Los Angeles Times uncovered the fact that DeLay withheld life-extending medical treatment from his own father so he would die more quickly following an accident that left him in what doctors called a "vegetative state".


Republicans stand for conservative values, limited government and the rights of individuals.

Florida governor and presidential brother Jeb Bush attempted to take custody of Terri Schiavo by force, alleging unspecified and unsubstantiated "abuse" at the hands of her husband.

Such claims of abuse are ludicrous: Michael Schiavo was awarded $1 million in his civil malpractice suit against doctors who failed to diagnose Terri's bulimia. If there was any evidence of abuse, this would have surfaced at the trial. It did not.

Attempting to seize custody of Schiavo shows the respect that the Republicans have for the rights of individuals to live and even die without government interference. It is no surprise that the court immediately denied Bush's request.

Interlude: Peabrains and Peacocks

Exposing the hypocrisy of Bush administration's involvement in the Schiavo case is easy -- but not nearly as easy as exposing the blatant right-wing agenda of the Fox News Channel. By way of illustration, let's examine Sean Hannity's coverage of the Schiavo case.

Background: Hannity is a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, masquerading as a journalist. He has a talk-radio show and a TV show on the Fox News Channel, and is demonstratably wrong on many of his "facts". For more information on Hannity and Fox's bias, see Outfoxed. (Possibly unavailable in Australia, thanks to Rupert Murdoch)

Hannity took his TV and radio shows down to Florida, and broadcast from in front of Schiavo's hospice for nine days. Each night he would interview Schiavo's parents, as well as a loaded slate of guests who gave an extremely one-sided set of opinions. Hannity has long been accused of self-aggrandizing and posturing for media attention; I was disgusted by his blatant nightly exploitation of a family broken by tragedy.

After the feeding tube had been removed, Hannity decried the cruelty, decried the inhumanity, and decried the "rush towards death". "With all these things in dispute... bulimia: in dispute; abuse: in dispute; vegetative state: in dispute... why not slow down and let the court take a look at the issues?"

This is absurd rubbish from an intellectual midget. Terri's case has been the subject of lawsuits for the last thirteen years; every single issue has been kicked to death, resurrected for appeal, and then put to bed again -- 100% of the time in favor of Michael Schiavo. This case reached the U.S. Supreme Court six times; far from being a rush to judgement, it's difficult to imagine how this case could have had more meticulous judicial oversight.

The Irony

Two more points to consider:

1. Terri's medical care was largely funded by Medicaid, which the Bush administration is attempting to cut.
   
   
2. Drowned out by the media circus covering the Schiavo case, a similar case was playing out. On March 15th, a Texas hospital disconnected life-support from a six-month-old infant against the wishes of his mother. This was done under the authority of a Texas state law which some lawyers claim is being applied in cases where the parents lack money to pay for continued medical treatment. The law was signed into the books by then-governor George W. Bush.

Post Mortem

So what's really going on here? Why was this case so important to the right, and how could they make such a mess of it?

Ironically, I agree with the answer a Republican has suggested. Former Republican senator and Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times:

High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Ms. Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles like approving Congressional involvement in private decisions and empowering a federal court to overrule a state court, can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power blocs.

Since moving to America, and more increasingly since 9/11, I have been alarmed at the degree with which religion and American politics has become intertwined -- all in the name of morality. To me, the Schiavo case indicates that with the legislative and executive branches controlled by Republicans, we must look to the judicial branch to provide a sense of balance. It's worth remembering the wisdom of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis:

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

I want to ensure that the last word on the subject is about the victim in this case: Terri Schiavo. Amidst the ugliness of lawsuits, partisan bickering, and familes torn apart by tragedy, the fact remains that there could be no happy ending for Terri, regardless of the whether she was taken off life-support or not.

Progressive commentator Al Franken was right when he said "The real tragedy was not when her feeding tube was removed; it was not when she died; the real tragedy was 15 years ago when she suffered brain damage."

I wonder what would have happened if the feeding tube had remained in. We could count on the "Rapture Right" to celebrate and declare the salvation of Terri's soul and the nation's morality.

But I fear that after this celebration they would have quickly departed for their next moral crusade. Terri would be left behind, exactly how they found her: motionless and vegetative, but now soiled by being forced to play the role of martyr for a cause she didn't believe in.

Visited by Two Ghosts!

We were very surprised last night to discover two ghosts in the kitchen. I happened to have my camera on me, and managed to take a picture of them. This was immediately after consuming an Indian meal that was delivered to us in paper bags; perhaps the apparition was really a hallucination caused by the spiciness of the food because the ghosts appeared to be wearing the paper bags themselves rather than the traditional sheets. The ghosts hung around the kitchen for a while, making scary noises before asking for a chocolate milk and then mysteriously disappearing around Tasha's bedtime.

On a much more serious note, Tasha managed to lose Cliffy for two whole days -- we were very concerned and spent many hours searching. We were sure she hadn't left the house with him, but we couldn't see him anywhere. As time wore on, we started to get more desperate, even looking in such odd places as the pockets of the pool table and in the freezer.

The number one suspect was the dog, but he's shown no interest in savaging Cliffy over the last five years, and it would have been very much out of character for him to suddenly devour him.

Cliffy was eventually discovered underneath some desk parts leaning against a box in my office; I had looked there, but perhaps I hadn't lifted all of them up. Based on the uproar every time that Cliffy goes missing, I am investigating options for locating him more easily.

For the Love of Parody

I find most of the covers of romance novels to be hilarious; they usually show some brozned, bare-chested "hunk" nuzzling the neck of a drunk-looking woman who has apparently passed out from his bad breath.

Imagine my delight at discovering a site devoted to poking fun at romance novel covers:



There's some classics in there, but for my money you can't beat old Scottie McMullet.

Beaver Log!

We went for a walk around the lake today. On previous occasions we've noticed evidence of beaver activity, but nothing prepared us for what we were about to encounter:



As we got closer, we could see that the beavers had been very busy and quite ambitious: they had successfully felled several trees with trunks nearly a foot in diameter, and were well on their way on a few others:



One of the trees seemed like it should have already fallen over; only a slender twig remained holding up a twenty foot high tree:



No doubt the beavers will return tonight, and we'll be awakened by an almighty crash as they finally bring it down and drag it to the water.

Tomorrow I will go look, and if I'm lucky I'll have The Mother Of All Beaver Logs to put on my piano.

It's alive!

It's alive!

I'm going to give this blog thing a try, and if it's something I can do regularly.