The Sudan

If it's not a three way civil war or a government tolerated (if not sponsored) murderous horseman militia, then it has to be reactionary extremists longing to murder anyone even perceived as threatening their deep deep religious insecurities. I know some more traditional groups from the Sudan were quoted as saying "This was an innocent mistake" and other younger Sudanese groups stated "this is ridiculous and she should be released immediately".

Still, there is that "stuck in the dark ages of ignorance" class of society who want the very life of a British woman who allowed her 7 year old students to name a stuffed bear Mohammed. The name finally gets its "Teddy Roosevelt" moment and this is perceived as anything other than adoring familiarity!? There are many regular old good and bad men who share this name, because it is promoted with murderous rage throughout the society. A little research can help one determine for one's self whether "murderous rage" is an appropriate description of the activites of the Janjaweed militia in Darfur, Sudan.

One great mark of the success of this rhetoric should be that a group of children in this Islamic society want to associate something adorable with a prophet whose name they adore!

When some choose to make death threats against a school teacher over this, It is the depth and height of ignorance. What should be punishable by lashing and death is to threaten an innocent school teacher and honorable woman with death and lashing over such a non-incident.

Instead, sprained and broken reasoning is used by fanatical adherents whose devotion and hypersensitivity has rotted their common sense.

It is a wholly inappropriate and intolerant response to an innocent choice which actually exhibits deference to the very leader whose name and teachings are said, incredibly, to be insulted. It is truly difficult to decide who exhibited the most childish behavior in this situation.

[edited because I concluded that I was mocking others beliefs in this section, which really negated my criticisms]

=sw

So Much Weird

Tagged: I am to post 7 weird things about myself.

The rules are:

A). Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
B). Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
C). Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
D). Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.


1) I usually have about 150,000 completely inappropriate and not apt things to say at exactly the wrong time.

2) I get lyrics wrong. With a fervor that is un-ending. I mis-heard what was really "Push it, make the beat go farther." My version was much more apt considering Ms. Manson's hotness, use your imagination.



Seriously, she's making my beat go farther right now.

3) I get names wrong all the time.

4) My dry risk-taking humor is hilarious. (right?) I am always willing to risk anything for a laugh, despite my amazing charm and rugged good looks.

5) I can't rollerblade or ice-skate backwards. Forwards I am great.

6) I never drank anything until I was 28.

7) Haven't you heard enough? I am not sure this is so weird, but sometimes, to concentrate, I have to keep my ears busy. I always listen to music at work while coding. It's like it distracts part of me that needs constant novelty, so I can get some stuffy logic done.

ok I am going to tag the following blogs:

1) http://www.logicallycritical.net because I enjoy the programs and maybe just typing something won't take too much time
2) Skepticality...because there are at least 2 of them so maybe they have 14 weird things...
3) Dooce...because someone should! And I used to live in Utah so, Semper Fi Lehi. That just rhymes, I am from Sandy.
4) Belaja! (or Open Vein) I like British stuff and there really needs to be more posting there.
5) Sister Mary Lisa: world traveller
6) Sarah Bellum... there can't be anything weird about her!?
7) Anyone else I missed, yes that means you, so get postin'.

=sw

NBC on Apple

I was pleased to find the NBC Nightly News back on the iTunes music store.

I really like NBC News. I primarily watch the Nightly News, though sometimes I watch the Today Show and occasionally Date Line and Meet the Press. I also enjoy the many NBC Universal television shows found on NBC and other networks as well.

I have renewed my Nightly News subscription on iTunes. I watch every minute of every broadcast, including all the promotional information. I understand NBC and Microsoft have had a long standing relationship.

I am an Apple Mac OS X (Leopard) user. It doesn't matter to me that I like NBC News and that there is a partnership with Microsoft. I use Microsoft software on my Apple computer, like Word, Excel and MSN Messenger. Sometimes I need PowerPoint, Entourage (the Microsoft Exchange and internet email client for Mac OS X), especially at work. I rely on Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection software on my Mac OS X workstation at the office.

Apple's Safari browser, Quicktime media software and iTunes music jukebox/ store client software run on both Windows and Mac OS X.

Most people know all this. I say it to point out that I do not see that being an exclusive Mac user puts me in a camp of necessarily hating Microsoft. There are actual useful harmonies and conveniences to using the Microsoft software, especially in a world where so many people use Windows.

I will never use Windows. It's not political, it's just rational. The Apple Mac OS X ownership exeprience is just so much better in its entirety. Having used everything ever, I know what works best and causes the least stress and annoyance.

This means that any media outlet that is Windows only will never get my money. Here I am!

As a Mac user who likes NBC media, I want to be able to buy Heroes, Chuck, Las Vegas, Late Night with Conan O'brien, Madden Sunday Night Football, Bionic Woman, Scrubs, The Office, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, JourneyMan, My Name is Earl and all the other great NBC content on the iTunes music store.

I want to be able to sync my favorite shows to my iPod or iPhone or Apple TV (HD Digital Video device).

To me, my Apple digital lifestyle and the highly desired NBC content are a perfect match. I know I have blogged about this before, but I just have to make the point on behalf of many others who may feel the same way.

If NBC keeps the Apple channel open it would just be a little extra. This channel is not the same as the DVD sales channel. People who watch live will still watch live. People who DVR the shows will still do it. I would bet the almost anyone who buys the DVD's will still do so. Many times the serious fans will buy iTunes seasons AND the DVD collections later. DVD releases will probably have higher quality media than the music store (especially as Blue Ray becomes more popular...or HD DVD..which sounds like a disease to me for some reason). People will also buy the DVD collections for the exclusive content they hold.

I am ready and waiting to buy at least the shows I have bought last season, and maybe more, if NBC will just concede that the pricing is in the right zone and the revenue stream, however small, is additional to their other channels of distribution.

Be creative, NBC! Offer something more and negotiate a higher price for it with Apple, like true 720p downloads could be a place to go when negotiating for a little higher price, even if it's for an introductory period.

I hope they can work it out.

=sw

Snopesies

Don't get me wrong. I like snopes.com. It seems its purpose in life is in harmony with my values, like debunking myth and rumor by shining the cold light of reason on ALMOST everything.

I have noticed a strange phenomenon. It is that some of the most credulous people around are the first to jump to snopes and wield that racket to deflect any notion anyone has of believing something without proper reasoning, research and evidence.

It is always the most pious, religious, believing person in the office or peer group, often a female, who snaps up the snopes and hands them about like a super rational truth machine.

To use a handy biblical reference...they are so quick to reach to pluck the mote (sliver) from another's eye without seeing the beam (timber!!!) in their own eye.

There should be things on snopes.com for these people like:

-There is no evidence Jesus existed
-The Earth is ACTUALLY far older than 6000 years!
-Humans do share more DNA with Chimps than rats do with mice!!!
-Christian symbolism may very well have been derived from ancient astrology and astronomically observable phenomena...I'm just saying.

What good is Snopes if it does not cause the most duped most credulous among us to be nudged? They, in fact, curiously love this site. Probably because it does not ask them to use the same standards of evidence and level of scrutiny with their own irrational beliefs as it does with others.

Yes, if you read me you know I read the works of scientist/ authors like Sagan and Einstein etc. Sagan talks about how believers cling to the gaps in scientific knowledge as a place to wedge in the role of God. It is true, Science is a way of thinking and arriving at understanding through a rigorous method that has a high standard of evidence and requires experimentation. Science is not a complete explanation of all that ever was...though I think it strives for this.

So there are gaps in the scientific knowledge. Religion has a tendency to place God in the Gaps. "The God of the Gaps" as Carl Sagan says. When science bridges these gaps and fills in this knowledge, the need for that god (now lower-case) disappears.

Every Christian agrees that Zeus and other gods were quaint ancient metaphors for celestial bodies, or astronomical events that were used to explain all that was not yet understood like tides and seasons and fate and events.

The trouble is, no one dares to see the myths of our own time. That Jesus is a character that came from myths that have symbolism for the Sun, solstice, seasons and ages. Jesus may only ever have been a character in fables of Sun worshipers and astrologers.

There IS evidence to prove that our fables our also fables, just like the ancient Greek and Egyptian mythologies. For some reason many just don't want to know it or consider it.

Maybe ignorance IS bliss.

=sw

Ye Olde Printing

What is DPI? Dots per inch...in printing. Which is akin to pixels per inch on a screen.



So why do we need paper for documents? Of all the reasons paper isn't better than up to date live information, there are two advantages paper still has.

1) It keeps information in a fairly stable way, long term, without continual or even the apparent subsequent need for energy.

2) The resolution of printed information is higher than our screens can display.

So let's discuss these things. Keeping paper dry and stable for a long time does require energy. Reading a printed page requires energy from lighting and printing the page required energy in the first place. This information is already in our computers which require energy to retrieve it and view it anyway.

Also, printed pages impact the environment by using up trees and the process of manufacturing paper. Which, again, is in addition to that required to manufacture the computer.

The printed page is not up to date. A friend of mine told me about an executive that rushed to his office to tell him a report was not up to date, slamming a stack of pages on his desk. My friend re-ran the report on his computer and sure enough it was up to date. "Your paper is 2 days old", he informed his boss.

So now we are printing many more than just one version of things. That multiplies the energy needed.

Now to the other issue. The sharpness or resolution on printers is better than our screens have been. Screens typically have had 72 or so dots per inch of screen space. While printed pages have 150 to 300 dots per inch or even much higher.

A 150 DPI page is good enough for a high school term paper. 300 DPI is good enough for black and white fonts in a professional environment. 600 DPI might be what you want for full color imagery or even photo prints.

Consider this:


The iPod Nano has an awesome 200 pixel per inch screen. What if they made a tablet that has this kind of resolution expanded to 8 1/2" x 11" ? That would be a device that could begin to replace paper. Vector based media would scale to use as many dots as are there and a full page could be displayed as legibly as a print out but on a screen. Adobe's Portable Document Format renders this way. That should reduce the need for paper. Soon even 300 DPI and 600 DPI screens will be available further removing the need for the many office uses where paper offers no advantage.

Someday screens will replace printouts. Like on Star Trek the next generation, we will all carry around tablets. Hopefully we can do it with some style, especially if Apple makes it.

=sw

Calling Me Godless

It is not so strange to find ignorance among those who blindly believe. Those can go hand in hand. Although, I have often found wise, thoughtful and learned believers in my experiences.

I read a lot of Carl Sagan. I have read "The Varities of Scientific Experience - A Personal View of the Search for God". This is a book made from transcriptions of his visit to The Gifford Lectures. He tells his audience that when people speak about God, the first thing you have to sort out is what exactly they mean by God. Here is a quote that is related to what I read in the book:

When people ask me after one of my lectures, “Do you believe in God?” I frequently reply by asking what the questioner means by “God.” The term means a lot of different things in a lot of different religions. For some, it’s an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. To others — for example, Baruch, Spinoza, and Albert Einstein — God is essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I can’t imagine anyone denying the existence of the laws of nature, but I don’t know of any compelling evidence for the old man in the sky.

In the cosmic context, the very scale of the universe — more than one hundred billion galaxies, each containing more than one hundred billion stars — speaks to us of the inconsequentiality of human events. We see a universe simultaneously very beautiful and very violent. We see a universe that does not exclude a traditional Western or Eastern god, but that does not require either.

If there really is a not a God, then when a "riled up" religious person calls anyone "Godless", they are also speaking about themselves. If there truly is a God, then calling someone else Godless is a lie and a denial of one's own belief. For if a God exists, being Godless is impossible, whether you like it or not.

I see so many people justify bad behavior because of their faith. Yet I have seen other people who acheive heights of character when inspired to behave like the royal heritage they feel their faith reveals to them.

If you are going to start ignoring the beatitudes, then by all means, cling to your faith. That still won't entitle anyone to repress anyone else for their religion.

Sometimes goodness becomes corrupted. When you begin to demand kindness and try to enforce courtesy the point has been missed.

Sometimes I am sure religious people feel I have been placed here to test their faith. I have such insight into their perspectives as I struggled to believe for many years. It is so difficult to even come to common terms. Neither of us, the believers nor the non-believers, was placed here by anything. We are the outgrowth of complex and amazing processes that should be elevated in their significance for what they truly are.

I would be pleased to acknowledge God. The root word of "acknowledge" is "Knowledge" or in Latin "Scientia". I must have the science, the research, the evidence. The irony is that if there is a God, Science is nothing less than the ordered study of creation. If there is not a God, Science is the study of all that is.

Just the word "Creation" burns the ears. The constant preaching and repetition of things that are not known. So it is written. Many things are written. It is simply nothing less than ignorance to put over presumptions, hopes, dreams and interpretations of ancient unlearned men's dreams as knowledge. It is a deep tragedy that many who purport to desire great familiarity with the divine can allow themselves to know so little about the Universe they live in and are a part of.

Like I always concede, scientists can be religious, and internally they may feel they can sort and balance their knowledge with their faith. It is just barley bearable misery to see the other kind of religious people, the blowhards, latch so readily upon ignorance and offer it up as if it were the flawless truth. What a dangerous thing rampant credulity can be.

Maybe my old religious sensibility now just promotes the virtues of the Mac. At least my claims can be tested and the purported results can be obtained and evaluated independently.

I was watching House this week, which might as well be "Non-believer-revival" (or say Heathen Fireside). There was a character who was an African American mormon intern, given away to House by his BYU class ring. They needed to conduct a liver test without generating a lab record as a favor to a woman who wanted to get into the Airforce. The team decided they could use tequila to run the test. They needed a "control" group to observe Heavy, Occassional and Non-drinker responses compared to the patient response to consuming a shot every few minutes. House asked the mormon character to drink as the "Non-drinker" control for the experiment. He refused, citing his religious beliefs were more important than the woman's career choices. House argued that the test could also save her life as well as her career. The intern doctor agreed to participate. House asked him later why he allowed his belief to be supercede by House's will. "You made a rational argument", said the religious character. House said, (and I paraphrase) if rational arguments always worked on religious people there wouldn't be any anymore.

I know I make a post relating to this subject every few weeks, though I continue to have this conversation with the world and within.
=sw

Iraq War

With all the news about the "private army" contractors in the Iraq War I decided to look up some videos on YewChube.
Here is a still from one of the videos I watched.



This Iraqi man, probably younger than me, was weeping.

Why is weeping? Because his goal was probably to blast some American invaders out of his holy city (Najaf), like a good and faithful local boy should.

I may not agree with the teachings of extremists and insurgents. I may not agree with religious people's beliefs at all, but this moment made me realize that there are those who do what they have been taught is right and are not evil people just because they are fighting us. Maybe this kid isn't that guy...maybe he is one of the bastards who beheads people or pays teenagers to commit suicide or maybe he is just a local Muslim kid who feels like fighting the invaders and their ruthless mercenary companions (like contractors) is his moral and patriotic duty, from his perspective. To me this gives me a lot of heartache and misgivings about war.

I wish there were no war. I wish there were no reason to fight. I want our billions to be spent on national healthcare and energy research. Why can't we use our dollars and smarts here at home to solve our problems?
I may not know all the reasons for war, though I may not like them all if I knew them.

In any case, a private unregulated army not commanded by elected leaders, is not a good idea.

Zeitgeist

This is a german word pronounced to rhyme with say ..."Kite Diced...Zite Giced".
Anyway, as most people happen to know it means something like "the current state of things" or the "status quo" or the "prevailing spirit of the moment". See, it's so much simpler to just say Zeitgeist.

Browsing yewchube, which is my duty as a human being, I found segments of this movie until I saw some hot girl post the whole link.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

And for your amusement the hot girl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuKg5XV6b3g&mode=related&search=

I am pretty sure she is Canadian.
I hope you find the movie as thought provoking and interesting as I did.

It is somewhat sensationalist for entertainment value, though it contains good questions and compelling arguments for your consideration.

=sw

Jena

These are my thoughts on what I understand about what is happening in Jena, LA.

It is my understanding that there is a shade tree on the property of a highschool. I have heard that the tree was planted by 2 young women, one black and one white, many years ago as a symbol of racial harmony.

I know what highschool can be like. Kids can be cruel and irrational as they test the limits of their power in social situations. In an atmosphere like that, some students had it in their heads that the shade tree was somehow to be for whites only, echoing long outlawed segregation.

When an African-American student raised concern about the issue in an assembly, the school officials stated that they could, of course, sit whereever they please. Thereafter, some white students hung nooses from the tree.

The weight of history hangs over this kind of behavior, especially a symbol like a noose which was used to carry out arbitrary and summary executions of many black Americans over many years. It was not so long ago that such things took place.

I have a coworker who grew up in central Virginia. He still remembers many stories he heard as a kid and some first hand incidents he witnessed where the father of an African American friend or neighbor was dragged from his home into the street and beaten.

Free American men women and children have been falsely accused, bombed during church, torn from their families and insulted, abused and murdered. A 14 year old black boy in the south was once drowned in a river for merely whistling at a white woman.

Racially motivated hangings (also sometimes referred to as lynchings) carried out by violent mobs have taken place in the past. These occurences where not so long ago in history and frequent enough to be common knowledge.

The use of such a symbol of repression as a noose, and the history behind such symbol is a cruel and violent, abhorrent act all its own. It is more than a prank. Legally it ought to be considered at least harassment if not a death threat. It is something terribly serious in our culture to communicate in such a way to a people who have had a history of injustice and harm done to them. Not to mention years of slavery preceeding the segregation times.

The kids who admitted to placing the nooses have yet to be charged.

Teenagers get in fights. These things will happen. Especially when injustices are carried out against them in these Highschool social battles. Apparently some fights took place surrounding these events. These involved bloodied bruised faces and even allegations of attempted murder. There were apparently many fights with many subjected to harm on both sides of the racial divide.

It seems that only African American youths were actually charged in the assault cases. One of these young men was being held in jail and now that his conviction has been overturned by a judge is still in jail.

That seems highly irregular.

This is a civil society. I don't think it's wrong to prosecute assault. Yet, in light of the egregious nature of the extenuating circumstances that led to the violent backlash, it should be understood that these 6 young men, who actually were charged, had a justified outrage.

All parties to the fighting should be cited. Also, those who have now admitted to hanging the nooses should be charged with something befitting the utter disregard for decency and the social contract in which they have engaged. Couldn't there be a "disturbing the peace", "inciting riots" or other applicable charge filed against those kids?

It looks awfully skewed that not one of the arrested parties happens to be caucasian.

I believe it is clear that use of a violent symbol that threatens death, invoking real and horrifying actual events from the not too distant past is far more serious an offense than some teenage fist fighting, even if the fights were started by these morally wronged young men.

=sw

Hey Diddle Diddle with the Kitty in the Middle

I saw Aerosmith with a band called "The Blackhearts" over the weekend.

I had thought I was going to see "Joan Jett and the Blackhearts" open the show...though it turned out to be an early 80's punk/clash like band fronted by a woman with a hot voice whose name was "Joan Jett" who, for your information, is simply the lead singer of a band called "The Blackhearts" from New York. If you don't get it right soon we are going to have to hit you in the face with awesome rock and roll! "Yah, Oh yeah".

Yes they finally played everything we know well like that "I don't give a damn on my bad reputation" song. That "I love rock and roll so put another dime in the juke box baby!!!" song. It's ok that the money amount sounds wrong, it was always just a euphemism anyway. Also "Crimson and Clover" over and over...I mean just once.

Joan Jett had 2 side stage bleachers of American armed forces V.I.P.s. She was able to honor their spirit of service while criticizing the government in a song for their opaque nature during the Bush administration...she even played some sound clips of the Whitehouse spokesman being deliberately confusing...and of George Bush failing to use the "fool me once shame on you...fool me twice shame on me" phrase correctly.

On to Aerosmith. First, this band is still really great. They play well, put on a great show with a lot of charisma. Much of the rock and roll charisma comes from Steven Tyler who is not afraid to be funny. They proudly employ his mouth as a band member all its own. There are a lots of shots where the stage cameras are zoomed in to his mouth which gets projected on 3 huge screens. It's funny and great and very "rock and roll" all at once.

Their show started with a retro style video showing their international destinations with a clip of a B29 flying from place to place and an old news-reel like voice talking about the major cities and destinations around the globe. That ended with...and now...the band arrives at the "rockinest" town of them all "Bristow!!!" (Bristow Virginia being the small town where the Nissan Pavillion concert venue is located outside Washington, D.C. It was so damn funny.

During "Pink", one of the big famous Aerosmith tracks...he actually wears a pink feather boa...(something you'd usually expect to see at an Erasure concert). Right at the beginning Tyler shouted to an audience member "get off the phone"...classic.

While they played a good solid 2 hours or so, they didn't seem to play end to end hits. It was more like...rock and roll moments interspersed with big familiar hits. This is noodle rock and they noodled around more than an Italian pasta maker. I guess the die hard fans know what they want to hear.

I did enjoy the big famous songs. My expectation for the show was that I would hear "Love in an Elevator" and then I'd go home happy. It was their first song...so the show went well for me and a Heineken Keg-can and a small group of friends.

=sw