By John Ballard
No way to know how long or short this post will be, but I'm running into a slew of interesting or fun links this afternoon, too good to skip without passing them on. So here goes.
For nearly a decade, lightly-trained TSA employees have been forced to estimate�to guess, really�your penis size, based on such factors as height, weight, walking style, and disposition. Frankly, that's asking them to do the impossible. It gratifies me to think that millions of travelers will now be able to fly just a little bit easier, secure in the knowledge of their newly complete and accurate TSA profiles�all thanks to my precise genital scans. Length, girth, heft, and any major identifying characteristics. Everything but the color; this is America, and we don't do that here.In some quarters, folks have been asking: "Why?" As in, "Why must the Department of Homeland Security build and maintain a vast database comprising digital images and noteworthy attributes of the penises of domestic and international travelers?" Questions like these are not for me to answer; I'm just a full-body scanner, not a political appointee. And if this issue is above my pay-grade, surely it's above yours�after all, you don't even work for the Transportation Safety Administration.
The salient point is this: Uncle Sam needs to know exactly what you're packing for the War on Terror. As long as you've got something halfway reasonable down the front of those sweatpants, what do any of us really have to worry about?
That and this next are from 3Quarks Daily.
The Top Ten Daily Consequences of Having Evolved1. Our cells are weird chimeras
2. Hiccups The first air-breathing fish and amphibians extracted oxygen using gills when in the water and primitive lungs when on land�and to do so, they had to be able to close the glottis, or entryway to the lungs, when underwater. Importantly, the entryway (or glottis) to the lungs could be closed. When underwater, the animals pushed water past their gills while simultaneously pushing the glottis down. We descendants of these animals were left with vestiges of their history, including the hiccup.
3. Backaches
4. Unsupported intestines
5. Choking
6. We're awfully cold in winter Fur is a warm hug on a cold day, useful and nearly ubiquitous among mammals. But we and a few other species, such as naked mole rats, lost it when we lived in tropical environments.
7. Goosebumps don't really help
8. Our brains squeeze our teeth
9. Obesity ...Our taste buds evolved to encourage us to choose foods that benefited our bodies (such as sugar, salt and fat) and avoid those that might be poisonous. In much of the modern world, we have more food than we require, but our hunger and cravings continue.
10 to 100. The list goes on. I have not even mentioned male nipples. I have said nothing of the blind spot in our eyes. Nor of the muscles some of use to wiggle our ears. We are full of the accumulated baggage of our idiosyncratic histories. The body is built on an old form, out of parts that once did very different things. So take a moment to pause and sit on your coccyx, the bone that was once a tail. Roll your ankles, each of which once connected a front leg to a paw. Revel not in who you are but who you were. It is, after all, amazing what evolution has made out of bits and pieces. Nor are we in any way alone or unique. Each plant, animal and fungus carries its own consequences of life's improvisational genius. So, long live the chimeras. In the meantime, if you will excuse me, I am going to rest my back.
Smithsonian online. Find fuller explanations at the link.
Saudi King Abdullah proposed implanting Bluetooth chips in Gitmo
detainees and tracking them from horses and falcons
Shhhh...Don't tell the Climate Zombies. They know better.
This year is so far tied for the hottest year in a temperature record dating back to 1850 in a new sign of a warming trend, the three major institutes which calculate global warming estimates told Reuters.U.N. climate talks resume next week in Cancun, Mexico, where expectations are no longer for a comprehensive deal to slow warming, but smaller progress for example to curb deforestation, in a bid to agree a pact next year or later.
[...] Some skeptics have argued that because the last temperature peak was in 2005 or 1998, that global warming must have stalled.
Most scientists reject that view, saying that whether or not 2010 is the hottest year is less important than the long-term trend, which is up, due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions. The period 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record.
[...] In one of the biggest bets on climate change, James Annan, a climate scientist at the Frontier Research Center for Global Change in Japan, has a $10,000 wager made in 2005 with two Russian solar physicists who are skeptical about global warming.
He will win if average world temperatures are higher from 2012-17 than they were from 1998-2003. "Things are progressing smoothly," he said.
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Embedding "Disabled by Request" but Christiane Amanpour spoke with four prominent rich people this afternoon who have pledged to give away the bulk of their accumulated wealth. Highly recommended viewing.
Lifted from The Rich History of Philanthropy, NPR 2006:
When John D. Rockefeller created the Rockefeller Foundation, its purpose was to improve the wellbeing of mankind throughout the world....Millionaire George Peabody used his and others' money to help newly-freed slaves. By the beginning of the 20th century, the first truly modern foundation was created....Carnegie actually didn't intend to create a foundation. He had hoped to give away all his money in his lifetime, but he failed at that....while we know of Carnegie today from his name on libraries and other institutions... another millionaire of his day has vanished from our memories. Julius Rosenwald was a merchandising genius. In 1917, he set up a foundation to educate blacks in the south.
Andrew Carnegie provides a historic template for a rich man giving away his fortune. He was not popular among his peers as a result, but that did not deter him from philanthropy. As a businessman he was a famously hard boss, demanding as much from workers as anyone else, convinced that if he paid them more than they were worth they would just waste the excess on drinking and careless living. Funding civic institutions like libraries was a much better use of his gifts. Even then he leveraged the wealth. Before he funded a library he got a commitment from local authorities that they would be responsible for its staffing and maintenance. Otherwise, no funding from him for a free library.
Today's tensions between Libertarian-leaning Republicans and Democrats echo his disagreements with Herbert Spencer.
Spencer adapted Charles Darwin's notion of natural selection and applied the theory to human society in a philosophy that became known as "Social Darwinism." It was Spencer who coined the term "survival of the fittest," using it to apply to the fate of rich and poor in a laissez faire capitalist society. Spencer argued that there was nothing unnatural -- and therefore wrong -- with competing and then rising to the top in a cut- throat capitalist world.
"Spencer told [Carnegie] that it was a scientific fact that somebody like him should be getting to the top," says historian Owen Dudley Edwards. "That there was nothing unnatural about it, wrong about it, evil about it."
Not only was competition in harmony with nature, Spencer believed, but it was also in the interest of the general welfare and progress of society. Many successful capitalists of the late 19th century embraced Spencer's philosophy. These captains of industry used his words as justification to oppose social reform and government intervention. As Spencer said, these would interfere with the natural -- and beneficial -- law of survival.
"The concentration of capital is a necessity for meeting the demands of our day, and as such should not be looked at askance, but be encouraged," Carnegie wrote, paraphrasing Spencer. "There is nothing detrimental to human society in it, but much that is, or is bound soon to become, beneficial."
Yet Carnegie did not follow all of Spencer's teachings, especially Spencer's call for unfettered laissez faire capitalism. Carnegie argued, for example, that if workers were to have an eight-hour day, the state would have to regulate it -- something that Spencer never would have approved. Carnegie also ignored Spencer's complete opposition to philanthropy, as the American business tycoon was one of the great philanthropists of his day. Spencer held that the poor were the unfit who would not survive; Carnegie, however, believed that the poor (such as himself) were often the ones who grew up to become "the epoch-makers."
Warren Buffet said several things to Christiane Amanpour that stick in my mind. "A rising tide lifts all yachts, but not the rowboats."
And later "I think the idea of dynastic wealth is kind of crazy. The idea that you should be able to do nothing in this world for the rest of your life -- and your children and your grandchildren -- because you picked the right womb, doesn't seem to me very American."
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I forget the context now, but back in my history file for today is this great bit from Kung Fu Monkey, October 2005. Remember, this was some time before Obama was looking to become a candidate for president. But even then Republicans recognized him as a threat and imported Alan Keyes in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to defeat him locally.
Lest we imagine that Palin is anything particularly new, recall stuff like this was happening five years ago...
Lunch Discussions #145: The Crazification Factor
John: ... I mean, what will it take? That last speech literally made no sense. It was crazy drunken bar talk! Islamic radicals are like COMMUNISM?! (gets speech on laptop) If we don't fight terrorists in Iraq they'll build a fundamentalist terrorist state stretching from Spain to Indonesia? What the fuck? Even assuming Spain, which last time I checked is 95% Roman Catholic, goes down, you gotta assume France, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, all eight hundred million Hindus in India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would be somewhat of an obstacle.
Tyrone: To be fair, you're going west-to-east. Maybe he meant a fundamentalist terrorist state stretching from Spain to Indonesia going east-to-west. Going that way, there's only the U.S. The President could be warning us that if we don't prevail in Iraq, the United States will become a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist state.
John: ... a little oblique, isn't it?
Tyrone: The man is nothing if not subtle.
John: (calling up map on laptop) You know, I guess if you start in Spain, swing hard south through northern Africa, you got Algeria, Libya there, Egypt, cross the Red Sea and you're in the Middle East ...
Tyrone: From there, if you spot him the Indian Ocean and India, you're in Indonesia.
John: I am not spotting him eight hundred million Hindus. I call shenanigans.
Tyrone: And again, I must point out Bush said "the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, allowing them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region." That's what the militants believe. They may just be delusional. He says that himself: "Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. Well, they are fanatical and extreme -- and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed."
John: But he's citing that desire as a basis for our strategy. You can't cite your enemy's delusional hopes as a basis for a rational strategy. Goals don't exist in a vacuum, they're linked to capability. David Koresh was utterly committed to being Jesus Christ. See how far that got him. Either Bush is making strategy based on a delusional goal of his opponent, which is idiotic; or he's saying he believes his opponent has the capability of achieving this delusional goal, which is idiotic. Neither bodes well for the republic.
Tyrone: Reading here, the speech boiled down to two points --
John: Who cares? The Spain-to-Indonesia thing should automatically invalidate the whole speech. I don't care how good your investment advisor is, he can spend three hours reviewing mutual funds, as soon as he says "And of course, we can put your money into the Easter Bunny's Egg Upgrades", he is out of --
Tyrone: -- two points. First, Iraq is the keystone in the struggle between the West and Islamic Fundamentalism.
John: Which, if we accept the Administration's own argument, means that invading and destabilizing Iraq with insufficent post-war planning (and all that entails), not enough personnel, and shitty equipment for that personnel was the biggest screw-up in the War on Terror.
Tyrone: He's the President: if he says it, it must be true. Second, Bush says we have made a lot of progress in stopping al-Queda plots. Look: "Overall, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least ten serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th, including three al Qaeda plots to attack inside the United States. We've stopped at least five more al-Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States, or infiltrate operatives into our country."
John: What are they counting for those wins? Are they counting guys like Padilla?* This is all very gooey, like how we've killed like, nine of Osama Bin Laden's #3 guys.
Tyrone: Being #3 in Al-queda is like being a "creative vice president" at a Hollywood studio. There are dozens of them ... and they are expendable. Listen, don't do this, you're just getting worked up. Have another mozzarella stick. John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is -- Tyrone: 27%.
John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.
Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.
John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?
Tyrone: Hadn't thought about it. Let's split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification -- either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.
John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?
Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?
John: ... a bit low, actually.
Tyrone: (shrugs) Probably right, then. Speaking of Obama, I need to get t-shirts printed up to sell.
John: I can do that on the web. What do they say?
Tyrone: Don't You Dare Kill Obama
John: How about Don't You Dare Kill Obama (... and we know you're thinking about it)
Tyrone: Niiiiice.
John: Or You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN
Tyrone: Even better. Nobody wants their shit burned down.
John: Glad to help.
Tyrone: I'm having you taken off the list for when the revolution comes.
John: ... there's really a list --
Tyrone: Oh yeah. Hell yeah.
So I had to see what that blog was up to today and this is what I found...
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