Not the Valedictorian, I Take It

Good to know that there wasn't an actual plot to kill Senator Obama. But then again, do you really think that the dude on the right especially is all that much with respect to planning and execution?


Dude on right seemed rather familiar to me, and then it hit me:

'Nuff said.

More Ammo for the Drug Warriors

Many people seem to think that the more liberal persuasions would not prosecute the drug war as vigorously as the any-excuse-to-trample-civil-liberties conservatives.

I would argue that one would only need to look at this article and remember that it is the liberal persuasions that pushed mandatory car seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws.

Remember: Conservatives think you are too degenerate to choose what drugs to take, and liberals think you are too immature to choose what risks to take.

Comedy Can Be Enlightening

I have been reading Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The primary premise being that Fascism is an essentially Socialistic enterprise, and that it is not a fit label for modern Conservatives.

But if Fascism was a product of the same thinking that founds much of current Liberal thought, then what about the recieved wisdom that Fascism and Communism are opposite ends of the political spectrum? Hadn't Hitler and Stalin hated one another?

The point lies in Bolshevism being the Marxist Socialism for the benefit of the international working class, Nazism was Socialism for the benefit of the German race, and Italian Fascism was Socialism for the benefit of the Italian nation. All pursued the notion that the State was the highest expression of human will.

So if the difference is not night/day, dog/cat, then why were they so set against one another? Often the smallest differences create the biggest fights. That's when I remembered this Emo Phillips bit (press on to the second half):

I was in San Fransisco once, walking along the Golden Gate Bridge, and I saw this guy on the bridge about to jump. So I thought I'd try to stall and detain him, long enough for me to put the film in. I said, "Don't jump!" and he turns... You've heard of the elephant man. He was kind of like that, he had a, well, you could say he had the head of a horse. And my heart went out to him. I said, "Why the long face?"
He said, "'Cause all my life people have called me mean names like horses-head or Flicka or chess-piece or Trigger..."
I said, "Well, don't worry about it, Ed. It can't be that bad."
He said, "My girlfriend's suing me!"
I said, "For palomino?"
He said, "Why was I put on this Earth?"
I said, "My friend, anywhere else you wouldn't stand a chance."
He said, "Nobody loves me."
I said, "God loves you, you silly ninny."
He said, "How do you know there's a God?"
I said, "Of course there's a God. Do you think that billions of years ago a bunch of molecules floating around at random could someday have had the sense of humor to make you look like that?"
He said, "I do believe in God."
I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"
He said, "A Christian."
I said, "Me too. Protestant or Catholic?"
He said, "Protestant."
I said, "Me too! What franchise?"
He says, "Baptist."
I said, "Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
He says, "Northern Baptist."
I said, "Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He says, "Northern Conservative Baptist."
I say, "Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reform Baptist?"
He says, "Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist."
I say, "Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?"
He says, "Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region."
I say, "Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"
He says, "Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."
I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over!

If only both Hitler and Stalin jumped off of bridges.

Assessment by Relatives and Absolute

Lately I have been challenged to look at my values and to consider how I assess whether something is good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable. The debate of what is good or bad will certainly not be settled here.

Even if one were to debate with a person who agreed to a standard of good and bad, I have found that there is still room for disagreement. That comes from whether the measure of good is done as an absolute measure or as a relative measure. Must the option that is chosen be good in the absolute or is the best possible just going to have to be good enough?

I write these to stimulate thought, and something just went click. In the above paragraph, I used the term “best possible” to illustrate the difference of absolute vs relative. I am starting to think that the essence of the conflict is when one decides that necessity dictates settling for the less than perfect. The course of deciding how to pursue my values is leading me to examine where I accede to necessity. Consistency has been hard to find.

I would like to be absolute in my votes for elected representatives. I want to have people who are in sync with my libertarian social and economic views while maintaining a proactive stance on national defense. While I am wishing, I want a Mustang, current or classic doesn’t matter, for my birthday. Since neither is going to happen, I’ll just pick my way through the candidates and keep my Kia tuned.

In this primary season, there is another route by which necessity sneaks in. It is all well and good that one candidate has your vote, but can he get enough votes to get where he can actually do any good? Do you back the long shot that is everything you want or should you support a more popular candidate that is two steps forward, one step back? Sometimes, if you are clinging to the Perfect Candidate, the only thing you will get is the satisfaction of having sent a message. Just hope that they listen. The flip side is having to swallow the less than perfect things your less than perfect candidate is doing in office. Remember, a pilot following the shallower dive is still going to put the plane in the ground.

Everyone has faced situations that had gone FUBAR through no fault of their own and the best they could do was minimize the damage. The boss from hell would still scream that he should fire you for the damage you failed to prevent. Now, if you were the cause of the FUBAR your ass deserves to get canned. Otherwise, I believe that one should be rewarded for achieving the best possible results. Let the best possible be decided by spirited debate, but I do think that one should avoid allowing class resentment color one’s opinion.

I’ve come the long way around to the idea of executive bonuses in companies that post losses. Provided the executive did not create the FUBAR, then I believe that he should be rewarded for achievements that approach the best possible results. This would have particular justification if the exec were brought into shore up a failing company.

Other judgments about the executive could be made. Everyone could admire the class of an executive who says, “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” when her company is really hurting or laying off workers. Another type of team player would say, “Thanks, but hold onto it until we’re in the black.” That would mean deferred compensation. Lastly would be the one who taker the money right off. She might be entitled by her contract, but it is still mercenary. Then again, the Board would have known she was mercenary.

I often think that a person is defined by then choices in priorities. I see now that the most reliable way to gauge what I value as a high priority is how much I am willing to settle for less than perfect. The more important to me, the less willing I am to compromise. The frictions in life come from dealing with those, namely everyone, whose willingness to compromise doesn’t correspond with mine. If we are individuals, then our priorities will differ.

And that’s just life.

In Defense of Stupid Studies

Last weekend I was hanging with friends when the topic got around to the government wasting money on stupid studies. Their gripe was about a study that showed that the rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is more common among troops who had done multiple tours in Iraq than those who had done fewer.

While I agree that the government should not be paying for these studies, I tried to argue that the studies themselves aren’t wastes. Even ones that show “well duh!” conclusions like proving that people watch TV to alleviate boredom are not a waste of time or money.

Over the past week I’ve come up with two arguments against what is fundamentally a failure to appreciate different qualities of knowledge.

First: What you might call obvious, I might call an assumption. It comes down to different requirements in what it takes to “know” something. My first retort to my friends’ questioning of doing this study is that conventional wisdom gets slammed quite frequently by someone rigorously examining the evidence. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with an answer to the retort “When have you ever heard of such a case?” At the best I could recall nothing better than how everyone “knew” that the sun revolved around a flat earth. It took a couple of days to remember reading about experiments showing that being physically chilled does not make one more likely to catch a cold, or that eating less than half an hour before swimming does not increase the rate of getting cramps. Imagine if either of these experiments had confirmed the conventional wisdom? Then the old hindsight bias kicks in and the money spent on is declared “wasted”.

Second: A stupid study tests not only the obvious conclusion but the concepts that go into the creation of the obvious conclusion. To butcher an old expression: Scientific discovery is not heralded by “Eureka” but by “What the (bleep), that doesn’t make any sense.” The result of a study is said to make sense if it fits with the previous conclusions that make up the dominant theory. If the data makes sense, then the paradigm is just hunky-dory. If not, one of those pesky paradigm shifts is in the offing, or at least will be once the parameters of the experiment have been verified down to the last measure. The tricky part is that one never knows just which conclusion is the one that will be the thread that unravels the whole conceptual sweater.

So next time you hear about a study that leaves you saying, “I could have told you that,” think instead that you have been given proof that you were right all along. That and future generations won't think you quaint for believing something just because it was superficially obvious.

Now That I Can Think …

Caffeine is proof that God doesn’t want human sacrifices first thing in the morning.

The Return of a Dirty Word

The word for today is Responsibility.

From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: re·spon·si·bil·i·ty
Pronunciation: ri-"spän(t)-s&-'bi-l&-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
1 : the quality or state of being responsible : as a : moral, legal, or mental accountability

One of the greatest pastimes in the world today is to stick others with it so that you don't have to. We have a real peach of an example in the car crash in Gary, Indiana. There is definitely some stink on this story for the police over the sloppy handling of the scene. But that does
not let the driver, Darius Moore, off the hook for his part of the event.

Too bad that he doesn't seem to agree.

"I'm angry at police because I thought they could have found my friends, and they probably would be alive today if [police] had just done their job," he said.

And here's the real winner:

"A lot of people tell me that it wasn't my fault, that there was nothing that I could do," said Moore, a senior at Gary's West Side High School. "I realize that it wasn't my fault, but sometimes I feel like it was -- it really wasn't -- but it's just how I feel sometimes."

Let us look at that first quote. "Probably would be alive." Aside from flat denying what the coroner reported that the injuries would have been fatal instantly, there is still the fundamental conditional in effect. "Probably would be alive" applies just as well to making sure your passengers were wearing their seatbelts (something that the passengers should have taken on themselves).

More to the point "Certainly would be alive" would apply if young Mr. Moore had not been drinking. The violence applied to the guardrail in one of the photos at CNN certainly doesn't look like 40 MPH after several rolls. Either alcohol impaired his ability to react to a 40 MPH blowout, or he was going the 80 MPH earlier reports indicated.

At the very least, Darius' friends put their lives in his hands when they got in his car. If he had shown more care, they would not have had their fates rest in the hands of sloppy cops in the first place.

As for the second quote , there might not have been anything he could have done after the accident, but there was plenty he should and shouldn't have done before.

Update: Speaking of responsibility, I neglected mine to link to Venomous Kate's Bite Me before sending my trackback . I apologize for the discourtesy and dread the thought that the bite will be harder than I can handle.

Did Tim Taylor Kill the Do-it-Yourselfer?

Let’s take as our starting point the Popular Mechanics article by Glenn Reynolds about the decline of manual skills in society. He ends the article with point that I had to admit came very close to the mark personally:

Most people can do more than they think they can, and it’s often fear of failure as much as lack of skill that keeps people from tackling hands-on tasks.

Speaking from experience, I know how easy it is to fall into the mindset of better to do nothing than do something wrong. Been there, done that, would have bought the T-Shirt but wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do.

Fortunately I have a job that allows me to start with the engineering I went to school for and expand my more manual skills in the course of setting up tests. Confidence in a great thing, I recommend it for everyone.

And there lies the rub. Many people fear being caught out in false confidence. The show “Home Improvement” rested entirely on the premise of the Do-it-Yourselfer who is totally clueless despite his self-professed competence. After that, a leaky faucet suddenly looks like a chance to be branded as a Doofus Dad for the rest of one’s life.

One other factor that plays into to hesitancy to practice manual skills is that when you make or repair something, you take the responsibility that you have done it right. Responsibility is a dirty word the days. I think that many people find a sort of comfort in the thought that if something goes wrong when someone else does it they can sue. That safety net is gone when you do it yourself. The cynic in me is waiting for the first lawsuit to come from someone botching a home repair after taking one of those classes at Home Depot.

And to end this post on a barely related thought: Who does the repairs at John Edwards’s estate? You would think that a contractor would have to be insane to risk the liability repairing any trial lawyer’s home.

Update: Greetings to all of you coming from Instapundit. I would invite you all to take a long look around, but this site is just now coming off hiatus.

What a Man Wants: Wedding Edition

Hey all,

Long time no write I know but I have been tied up figuratively for more than a couple of weeks.

What brings me out of hibernation is this post at Electric Venom about the perception of men that women want them to be able to read their minds. Like every guy, I have felt that way at one point or another. I'm not going to go there right now, but I would like to talk about how a guy, namely me would rather go about planning his wedding.

I am not going to say "Not at all". I can tough it out because it means a lot to Trish and I would like to have stuff that I like there as well. The big thing that gets to me is all of the small things that I really don't think of as important to me (such as centerpieces or favors) that she insists on having my input in. The moment I say, "OK, I like this one," she says, "Oh."

You guys know the tone that she uses. The one that says that this is not really a wedding favor catalog but a Cosmo quiz and your selection has just put you in the category of "Call animal control immediately" .

Suddenly, you get this feeling in your gut that your whole relationship is going down the drain because your incompatibility over place holder cards indicates a deeper rift. Let me tell you something ladies, few things make a guy uncomfortable like being judged on his taste.

I suggested the fix of going like this: Trish can look through magazines and catalogs to her heart's content. Once she feels like she has found her four or five favorites, she can come to me for my opinion of what I like best. Simple and to the point.

Because this is my nightmare scenario: I find something I really like, and she finds something that she really wants, and we fight about it. Or more insidiously, I don't fight and tell her to go with what she wants. Then she might come back with that she doesn't want me to only like it because she wants it. That way lies madness.

Like I said before, I really don't care about these incidentals, especially not enough to fight over them. She knows that my only request to her for our wedding day, the one irreducible thing that I must insist upon, is "Be there."

Hell Reconsidered (or How I Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Gift Registry Shopping)

Most any guy will tell you that shopping, outside of electronics or power tools, is a hell akin to that scene in Total Recall in which Arnold is pulling out the tracking device that had been placed deep in his sinus passage. Particularly if you are registered at a place like Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

That was my thought prior to actually going to BB&B for shopping for items on the registry. First off, they got knives. If anything can get a guy into a kitchen, it is the opportunity to lose a fingertip and a couple of pints of blood trying out their Benihana routines. Looking at the really quality knives just made me happy and wonder how we could put one of those island rangetops in our condo.

What has me looking forward to going back (seeing as how we only made it through half of the first floor before I had to run home to watch the finale of Heroes [note to self: add TiVo to the registry]) even though we have already covered the sharp, pointy objects, is the little gizmo they give you to scan the items onto your online gift registry. Let me tell you, nothing can get a guy into the shopping mood faster than a hand-held electronic doo-dad with a laser that goes "bleep". Without a time limit, Tricia might need some help prying it out of my fingers.

"A twelve-armed scented votive candle chandelier? Why not?"

The Vacation

Trish and I took a long weekend in the Napa Valley. We are very seriously considering having the wedding at Mont La Salle. We visited my uncle, a Christian Brother, who lives there, and the grounds just grabbed her.

Now we get to sell the invitees on a weekend in Napa as part of the wedding experience. Somehow that has not been a difficult sale.

Shouting From the Rooftop

You may recall that I ended the last post with a hint that more good news might be coming. It is the type of news that I felt I should share with my family before proclaiming it to the world at large. So now, without further ado:


Everyone, say hi to Trish. This the the beautiful lady that just a couple of weeks ago agreed to be my wife. When we first started dating, we wanted to keep our relationship on the down-low so that we wouldn't get talked about constantly at work. The whole time I wanted to shout from the rooftops how much I loved her. Well, the whole discrete thing didn't work out as most everybody was talking about if we were or were not an item. With that in mind, and Trish's blessing, I am announcing my love to the world.

(Please, no comparisons to Tom Cruise and Oprah's couch. I think I am being rather dignified here)

For some reason, the engagement seems to come as a surprise to practically no one. We have been dating just since November, yet everyone who knew we were dating seems to be completely unfazed by the announcement. Her best friend said she was not surprised, and her friend in Las Vegas, who has never met me, said she could tell it would happen just by the picture Trish sent her. Even my parents said that they had taken Christmas in the When-will-they-announce-an-engagement pool. My sister had chosen my birthday (April) so I think my parents still have the closest, but that's not the point. It just seems that everybody knew this was going to happen just a bit sooner than we did.

I'll keep you all filled in on details as they happen. In the meantime, Trish has always wanted a wedding on the beach. Anyone know of some good locations in the Southern California area?

Game the World - The Rematch

Hey folks, remember me? It is Winston, Ted, and Gamer, all at once. Game the World is back on the lively list. I'm calling this post the rematch because the world pretty well kicked my ass last time around. In this new incarnation of the site I might get into the personal type of stuff.

I didn't do that before because my life wasn't really anything to write home about. Things really hit bottom about a couple of years ago, and my interest in the political and philosophical just waned to zero around summer of last year. There might come a time where I will write about that dark shit, but I haven't decided for sure about that yet.

For now, I will stick with the good stuff. I started a new job back in August for a firm that does testing on materials for the construction industry. My work, in the vernacular, is to break stuff under controlled circumstances and write reports in egg-head speak. It isn't the aerospace industry that I had always wanted, but the culture of my new company doesn't have the constant deadline pressure that turns people on one another's throats. My boss, Jay, is the first one I have ever had that seems almost happy to answer my construction-neophyte questions.

Further good news, I broke one of the oft-cited rules of the workplace. I went fishing off the company pier, and I caught a beauty. Her name is Tricia and she does the accounting at the company. Somehow I have found someone who shares my significantly off-kilter sense of humor. I have never been with anyone with whom I have clicked so well with.

Things are looking up, and I hope to be back soon with more good news.

Why Geneva

Just had a conversation with a friend (one whom I have been encouraging to blog) who reminded me just what the Geneva Conventions were created for. The Conventions were created to keep war on a somewhat civilized basis.

Now here is the rub inherent in Geneva is that it applied only to uniformed soldiers. Since pretty much everyone we've taken from Afganistan and Iraq were out of uniform, they fall under a different definition in the Convention: spies. Spies are completely outside of the Convention's protection. Spies and saboteurs could be killed on discovery. In this light, Gitmo seems downright benevolent.

Pondering Vocabulary

I recall an old anti-war musing that went "What if they threw a war and nobody showed up?" That got me to thinking, and I realized that we need a word to describe what it is when one side showed up but not the other. Granted, it wouldn't be war, it does take two to tango. But it certainly would not be "Peace", despite whatever Western Anti-War protesters like to think. Go tell it to Al-Qaeda and get them to stop fighting. Maybe then we could get some peace.

My Thought on The New York Times

The New York Times does not have the best interest of the country in its corporate heart. In publishing the bank tracking story, despite pleas from both sides of the aisle, showed that it put its own interests ahead of all others. In effect, they have acted in the semblence of the worst of corporate governance. Something to remember for the progressive defenders of the Grey Lady.

The Problem in a Nutshell

One of the reasons that I took the lay-off from the site was that I was getting bored with the tone of debate. It is one thing to say that someone is wrong, a whole 'nother to say that someone is evil.

While this comment at Balloon Juice doesn't actually use the word evil, it does go to the personalization of political discourse. Please, can someone liberal please step up and debate in such a way that I can have a civil drink with them? Not too much to ask, is it?

Implications Not Thought Through

At least that's what I thought when I saw this new style of door flyers.

Sure, let's block the view of the peep holes for burglars. Also, can you imagine the damage that the glue might end up doing? Finally, it would seem to be rather labor intensive to get the folds and placement just right.

Link via Dave Barry

A Bad Day for Security

Someone's head had better roll in response to the case of three men dressed as clowns breaking into a Minuteman III missile facility in North Dakota. There must have been guards somewhere, but there certainly aren't any in that picture. The name of one of the men: Greg Boertje-Obed, makes me think that Jedi mind tricks may have been used. That fact will have to wait until trial to be determined.

A Bad Day for Security

Someone's head had better roll in response to the case of three men dressed as clowns breaking into a Minuteman III missile facility in North Dakota. There must have been guards somewhere, but there certainly aren't any in that picture. The name of one of the men: Greg Boertje-Obed, makes me think that Jedi mind tricks may have been used. That fact will have to wait until trial to be determined.