The Last Amazon's Easter Story

Kate tells the tale of how Easter is an extra-special holiday at her house.

Jane Galt declares war on fat

Jane takes a hard look at the current public health panic: obesity. Here are a few of her Swiftian suggestions:

Here are things that would work, in my opinion:

Make discrimination against the overweight not only legal, but mandatory

Encourage health and life insurance companies to jack up their premiums. Make seats in public accomodations, from stadiums to subways, physically impossible for the obese to fit in. Force airlines to charge them for an extra seat.

[. . .]

Make unhealthy food extremely expensive

We're not talking about some measly 1%, 5%, or even 50% tax. If you want people to cut down on unhealthy eating, you need to usher in the era of the $5 can of soda, the $10 big mac. I'd guess that an increase in the price of fatty and/or sugary food somewhere on the order of five to tenfold would be the minimum effective tax.

Make being sedentary even more expensive

Slap a 50% tax on automobiles, a 500% tax on power lawnmowers. Limit elevators to buildings of five stories or more, and force them to stop only at every other floor. Give tax credits for "heart healthy buildings": ones with no elevators, and parking at least 1/4 mile away. (Obviously, I assume there would be a — small and slow! — elevator for the disabled.) Slap a 300% surcharge on cable or satellite television, and an additional Britain-style TV tax besides. Jack up the cost of broadband, video games, and MP3 players. Subsidize sports leagues and parks.

Would all this work? I think it probably would. If it becomes even more difficult to be fat, I assume people will do less of it.

While points 2 and 3 require government intervention in the voluntary economic transactions of life, point 1 only requires government to reduce their already vigorous interventions. Health and insurance companies would love to pass on the direct costs of obesity to their customers who are overweight, but for the most part are prevented from doing so by government. Airlines, similarly, would love to be allowed to charge extra for those people who require more space (and more time to get in and out, and more fuel to transport them), but are similarly limited in their ability to do so.

Ain't gonna happen. At least, not until there's a sea change in the way most of the population view obesity (in the same way that it took such a change to finally start reducing the number of smokers in the general population).

It's a good question

Johnathan Pearce asks the very sensible question:

If the resources of the Earth are finite and everything eventually succumbs to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then by the logic employed by the deepest of Greens, even if we recycle all our goods and live in mud huts, then at some point, the game is up, we are all doomed, the end is nigh. So my question would be that if this is so, then why not live life to the full and enjoy this "finite" world while we have it? Let's get those SUVs, build those spacecraft, take those lavish holidays, create those new technologies. It is all going to end anyway, so enjoy!

Of course, a lot of politicians like to talk the Green line because it is so easy to justify limiting economic liberties to "save Mother Gaia", and individuals must kow-tow to the power of the herd. If life is a zero-sum game, then Johnathan's question is very pertinent.

Not that many politicians actually feel any need to justify any power grab, of course. . .

"There ought to be a law . . ."

Kerry Howley points out that, in way too many cases, there already is a law:

Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, West Virginia, North Dakota, Virginia, and North Carolina still have laws punishing the unmarried for shacking up, which is kind of cute until someone tries to enforce one. A North Carolina 9-1-1 dispatcher, fired for living in sin, is suing the state with a little help from the ACLU.

Think about that. In this day and age, where all sorts of things are considered "fair game" in the inter-personal relationship sphere, there are still at least seven states that haven't yet caught up with 1955, never mind 2005. How many other absurd laws are still on the books, but ignored?

Post-Secondary Education in Ontario

Angry in the Great White North has a good posting up about Ontario's so-called "crisis" in post-secondary education:

A new rule I have just imposed (because I can do that, you know):

From now on, a spokesperson of a university student association needs to be an economics major if he is going to discuss the lack of government support for post-secondary education.

Angry points out that the claims of hardship are not backed up by the actual figures:

Here's what's strange. If student tuitions have gone up so much, you would expect that the number of students would drop, since a post-secondary education is now beyond their reach financially. But then why are student-teacher ratios higher? For instance, in 2004, Ontario saw a 23% decrease in the number of foreign students studying in the province. But despite that drop (probably because the tuition increase is significantly higher for foreign student who pay the true price of an education, as opposed to the subsidized one Canadian students pay), the overall enrollment is going up [. . .]

Travelogue, Part the Third

The first and second parts of the trip were enough to put insomniacs to sleep. This is the final part of the travelogue.

Wednesday, 16 March

New Orleans having driven us out with a combination of wet, miserable weather, and menacing thugs, we decided to take the scenic route to Hattiesburg (yes, I know: there are demonstrably no scenic roads in either Louisiana or Mississipi . . . but we had to do something to fill in the time before we could check in to the next hotel).

After breakfast, Victor boldly offered to be the navigator for the next leg of the journey. This was his first attempt to read US city maps in realtime, so the adventure was perhaps a bit more extreme than he'd hoped. On the plus side, we did get to cross the Mississippi River a few times, along with the causeway across Lake Ponchartrain. The Huey P. Long Bridge is quite an interesting engineering feat — I wish I'd had the leisure to take a couple of photos of the bridge and its combined road-and-railway approaches.

The weather, of course, remained grey and overcast, so the scenic value of both bridges and the causeway was minimized (at least for me, the white-knuckled driver).

Once we got across Lake Ponchartrain, we turned east on US 190 and took our time towards Slidell and Bay St. Louis. Somewhere near White Kitchen, someone was in a huge rush to get past us and sent a load of loose gravel into our windshield. Luckily, there was only one piece of rock big enough to do damage, and it only chipped the glass. I should get a permanent marker and label it "Souvenir of Louisiana" or something . . .

When we got to Bay St. Louis, the idea of getting out of the car and walking along the waterfront became quite appealing. I turned south into the historic district of town, just as a train approached on the bridge over the bay:

Getting access to the beach was quite a hassle: we keep forgetting that American and Canadian laws differ about beaches (Americans can own land right to the waterline, while Canadians only own the land to within a few feet of the waterline, allowing public access to the shore). We couldn't get down to the beach without trespassing — at least that's the way it appeared as we drove along the shoreline.

We eventually had to give up on Bay St. Louis and continue east. Gulfport and Biloxi had much better public access to the waterfront, as it turned out. We also found fascinating dead creatures scattered along the beach:

We certainly don't see things like this along the shores of the Great Lakes!

Gulfport also offered an essential travel stop: a mall with public washrooms. While we were in the mall, Elizabeth discovered some great deals on clothes, so we spent a couple of hours with her grabbing bargains in the clothing line and the boys trading away their shirts for Magic cards at a gaming store, lusting after swords and daggers in a few other stores, and generally attempting to revive the consumer economy of this part of the Gulf Coast.

Of course, no shopping experience is complete without at least one sign in the store which seems to mean something other than they intended it to say.

Prying the consumers away from the mall, we turned north as evening fell. A quick stop at a liquor store had me in some quandary: so many wines I'd never seen before . . . how many can I try? In the end, it was the diminished carrying capacity of our vehicle that decided things: there clearly was not enough room left for a couple of crates of wine. I made do with some California wines I'd never heard of.

Thursday, 17 March

This was our one day of SCA activity: visiting Gulf Wars, near Lumberton. My original plan had been to camp at the event and merely do some day-trips to New Orleans and the surrounding area. Adding a fourth person (Liam) to our party meant that we couldn't take all the necessary camping gear along, so we converted the trip into a stay-in-hotels expedition. Given the weather we encountered, I think it was a good improvisation.

You'd think, given that Gulf Wars is a pretty big event (at least 2500 people, based on our site tokens), that there'd be plenty of opportunities for photography . . . and probably on any other day of the war you'd be right. As it was, we arrived on the coldest day — so cold that the site looked like it'd been physically transported to Ontario, minus the accumulated snow. As rough, tough, rugged Canadians we were not affected by the cold — at least, that's what I'd like you to believe. We were miserably cold! We drove 2000 kilometres south to enjoy warmer weather. We wuz robbed!

On the positive side, we continued our attempt to boost the economy, buying three swords, a dagger, a cloak, some doublets, and other vaguely medieval or renaissance gear. Victor picked up a "Pappenheimer"-style rapier, while Liam and I each bought slightly earlier swept-hilt rapiers (mine had a matching dagger). I guess I now have to teach them how to use them properly.

The Most Surreal Dinner of the Trip

Arriving back in Hattiesburg, we compromised on the Lone Star restaurant for dinner: we have a Lone Star chain in the Toronto area, although this one didn't seem to be affiliated with them (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Canadian restaurants aren't affiliated with the American chain). This particular restaurant seemed a bit down-market from the ones we were familiar with, and the menu was quite different.

It took quite some time for our waitress to come to take our order, and when she arrived, we seemed to be quite an unexpected surprise to her. She was unfamiliar with the wine list, so Elizabeth and I ended up having to sound out the names of the wines for her — not a good start. To be frank, we suspected that she was either slightly drunk or slightly high: her mood was giddy, but her ability to concentrate was minimal, and she seemed determined to spend as much time talking with us as she possibly could.

Victor and Liam were wearing the Mardi Gras beads they'd bought in New Orleans, and the waitress seemed puzzled about them. She claimed to have never visited New Orleans, and to be unfamiliar with the traditions of Mardi Gras. Because Victor's beads had little devil heads on them, she called him "Satan" for the rest of the meal, while Liam became "Superman" for the logo on his beads.

She took quite a liking for Liam, and pretty clearly was smitten with him (even if she had trouble pronouncing his name — she worked through "Lee-oh" and "Lee-ah", before settling on "Lee-ah-mm"). As she went to collect our drinks, Victor kidded Liam that she was practically drooling all over him.

The food was quite acceptable:

In the background of the photo of Victor, you can just make out the waitress, for a brief moment serving another table before she returned to fawn all over "Superman" again. When she returned, we found out that she was a drummer for her church band. Somehow, this didn't surprise us.

The excess eating continued:

By the time we got back to the hotel, sleeping was a major priority for Elizabeth and I, but the guys decided to burn some midnight oil and play a few [dozen] games of Magic. Liam demonstrates how well this works in reducing waistlines:

Friday, 18 March

Repacking the car each morning was becoming quite a logistical challenge, with all the additional baggage we'd been accumulating. I'm pretty good at this, but it was taking a bit longer each time to stow everything away safely and still leave me with some small segment of rear view mirror space.

Friday was another drive-all-day day, with the terrors of rural Alabama to be crossed. Not much of note happened until we crossed into Tennesee and tried to find our way to the Chattanooga-Chickamauga battlefields. We got off the highway one exit too soon, and it took a fair amount of time to realize that we were on the wrong side of Lookout Mountain. Getting back on the road was a bit of a challenge, and when we did manage that, we found that we were just joining the back of a huge tail-back due to an accident ahead. It took nearly an hour to get back to the point we'd left the highway the first time.

With the park due to close at dusk, there was no point in trying to get there by this point in the late afternoon, so we carried on towards Knoxville. In spite of my expectations, I didn't see Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit straddling the town like a Colossus, so we just bypassed Knoxville and turned north. We stopped in Caryville, luckily getting one of the last two available rooms in the hotel, and had dinner in Jacksboro.

Over Victor's protests, I insisted on trying the only Mexican restaurant in the area. Yet more eating occurred. I no longer knew how they were fitting it in:

Saturday, 19 March

We were starting to run out of time for this trip, as work and school were waiting for us on Monday morning. The only side-trip we allowed ourselves today was a small detour into Lexington for snack food, Aleve&tm;, and wine. The aptly named "Liquor Barn" near Man'o'War Boulevard provided me with half a dozen bottles of wine to add to the cellar.

It was interesting to compare relative prices between the government-run LCBO and the private Liquor Barn — American wine was less expensive, but not incredibly so, while French, Italian, and Australian wine was actually more expensive in Kentucky than in Ontario. Chilean and Argentinian wine was about the same price in both places. As a result, all I brought back was American wine.

The rest of the northbound journey was uneventful, although I still want those three days I seemed to spend between Cincinnati and Toledo back!

The border crossing was anti-climactic. Until very recently, I'd always had much more trouble getting back into Canada than I'd ever had trying to get into the United States. As a result, we had all our passports ready and I'd threatened the lads with physical harm if they said anything except in answer to direct questions from the Canadian customs official. Liam was, I suspect, terrified (he'd last crossed a border when he was five . . . I think he expected us to be deported to Guantanamo Bay or something).

Getting into the border crossing line-ups, I'd apparently used my unfailing ability to get into the slowest-moving line. It was perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes wait while the seven or eight cars in front of us were processed. Every other line seemed to be passing us at twice our speed. The vehicle two in front of us seemed to draw particular interest, and the inspection took longer than any of the others had done.

We finally pulled up to the booth, handed over our passports, and waited for the throw of the cosmic dice.

Customs: Where have you been?
Me: New Orleans
Customs: How long were you gone?
Me: Seven days
Customs: How was the weather?
Me: It sucked.
Customs: [Snickering] Welcome home. [More snickering]

He passed back the passports and waved us on. The sound of Liam breathing again was almost deafening.

QotD: Children

While it's hard to argue against safer playgrounds, it's also true that by design the transparent playground offers kids no privacy. "As [playgrounds] were childproofed to improve safety, they inadvertently reduced the opportunities for the young to take part in forms of fantasy, sensory, and exploratory play, and construction activities apart from adults," writes historian Mintz. "Unstructured, unsupervised free play outside the home drastically declined for middle-class children. As more mothers joined the labor force, parents arranged more structured, supervised activities for their children. Unstructured play and outdoor activities for children 3 to 11 declined nearly 40 percent between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. Because of parental fear of criminals and bad drivers, middle-class children rarely got the freedom to investigate and master their home turf in ways that once proved a rehearsal for the real world."

So much for the roving pack of kids each block boasted during Mintz's childhood, and my own. "The empty lot has disappeared," he quips. "And we are so concerned with legal liability that if kids do find one, you'd better be sure you'll get a call from the police."

Beth Hawkins, "Safe Child Syndrome: Protecting kids to death", City Pages, Volume 26 - Issue 1267

Review of Mondovino

Kerry Howley, of Reason magazine, reviews the film Mondovino:

Almost thirty years ago, nine French wine critics gathered in Paris to preside over a face-off of French and American wines. Chardonnays battled with white Burgundies, Cabernets sought to displace Bordeaux. The French had always said fine wine was primarily a function of place — and that place was France. But following the blind tasting, the critics found they had chose a Californian Cabernet as the top red and placed three Napa Valley whites within the top four. As he downed a 1972 Napa Chardonnay, one critic reportedly gushed, "Ah, back to France."

These men ushered an identity crisis into the world of wine, an Americanization and eventual globalization that has yet to abate. That crisis and its fallout are explored at length in Mondovino, a documentary that debuted last year at Cannes and opened last week in New York City. Jonathan Nossiter's film, which spans Napa Valley, Bordeaux, Tuscany, and Monkville, Maryland, among other places, is a sympathetic portrayal of European winemakers struggling to hold their own amongst the avatars of globalization.

The comment thread on the original posting is quite interesting, as strawmen are massacred left and right . . .

Update: I guess it would help if I provided the link to the comments, wouldn't it?

QotD: Pornography

The more important effect of home video — and, even more so, of the Internet — has been to create a wide and wild array of market segments, a diversity so dizzying it defies the very idea of a mainstream. A couple decades ago, feminists could argue plausibly that porn was partly responsible for the unrealistic body images they blame for bulimia and anorexia. Today, every conceivable body type has an online community of masturbators devoted to it.

Jesse Walker, "Guess Who's Coming: Progress at the cineplex", Reason, 2005-03-28

Redmond Simonsen, 1942-2005

Thanks to a link from Napoleon Games (formerly OSG), I just learned of the death of Redmond Simonsen who was one of the most significant figures in wargaming in the 1970's and 80's. He died of a heart attack on March 8.

Simonsen, in partnership with Jim Dunnigan, took over the foundering wargame publisher Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) from Chris Wagner, and vastly expanded the number and quality of wargames available at that time. Dunnigan was an experienced wargame designer, while Simonsen became the art director for literally hundreds of wargames.

Simonsen left the wargaming field just as the hobby was entering its long decline (being superseded by role playing games first, and computer-based games later).

Vikings Offseason Appraised

Charles Robinson contemplates the underlying reasons for both the Randy Moss trade and the Vikings' bipolar win-loss records in the past two years:

On a team that had an offense burning rocket fuel, an emotionally comatose defense was dangling along for the ride. By the end of the season, the Vikings would give up 395 points (26th in the NFL) and backpedal into the playoffs as the worst defensive team, at least statistically, in the postseason. It should sound familiar. Had Minnesota not been knocked out of the playoffs on the final play of the 2003 regular season, it would have earned the same title of Worst Playoff Defense.

There's a pattern in there — start 2003 and 2004 a collective 11-1 on the strength of the offense, then finish a collective 6-14 on the failures of the defense.

At the end of both the 2003 and 2004 seasons, it was hard to remember that the Vikings were at the very top of the league for the first six weeks in both years. Memories are remarkably short in the NFL: it's not just cornerbacks who need to forget the immediate past.

Realizing the lack of defensive leadership was no small revelation, but it came at a tremendous price. In 2004, Minnesota's defensive shortcomings wasted quite possibly the third-best statistical performance by a quarterback in the history of the league. Beyond Dan Marino in 1984 and Peyton Manning last season, you would be hard pressed to find a year better than Daunte Culpepper's in 2004: 41 total touchdowns against 11 interceptions, 5,123 total yards (4,717 passing, 406 rushing) and a 69-percent completion rate.

Complement those numbers with a solid defense and the Vikings might have been measuring their place in history with Roman numerals rather than watching the Eagles do it in their place. It's a hard lesson to learn, but one that apparently has been taken to heart.

Note the boldface above. In spite of that, as late as the final game of the regular season, knuckleheaded fans were still baying for Culpepper to be benched and Gus Frerotte started in his place. Football fans can be incredibly dense.

Within the division, though, few signings have been more important than the Vikings' nabbing of cornerback Fred Smoot and Sharper — two players who will make Minnesota's defense grow exponentially in aggression. Paired with cornerback Antoine Winfield, Smoot and Sharper give the Vikings something they've never had: the ability to play consistent man coverage, while piling defenders into the middle of the field and designing more blitz packages.

That's a scheme that should only enhance blossoming defensive ends Kevin Williams, Lance Johnstone and Kenechi Udeze. Add the acquisitions of nose tackle Pat Williams and linebackers Sam Cowart and Napoleon Harris, and Minnesota finally has some strong personalities to propel the team.

That has been perhaps the biggest surprise of the off-season so far: that someone finally got a big enough crowbar to open up Red McCombs' wallet and sign some good defensive players. Make no mistake: these guys aren't superstars . . . they're just far more capable as a group than anyone Minnesota has put on the defensive side of the ball since before John Randle left.

The Vikings are already targeting an impact replacement for Moss, eyeing USC's Mike Williams or Michigan's Braylon Edwards with the No. 7 pick in the draft (or a possible trade into the top four, if necessary). Minnesota also could stand pat and take one of the marquee running backs, then address the receiver position with the No. 18 overall pick. All are luxury scenarios now that Tice has addressed what he felt was the true virus – a lack of fortitude.

The draft is going to be more interesting than any for the past few years: the Vikings have plenty of options and enough money in hand to do some good things. I don't see them taking a running back — although both Onterrio Smith's and Michael Bennett's names keep coming up in trade rumours — I think Mewelde Moore is a good running back and might be "the guy" if he's given a chance (especially paired with Moe Williams as the third-down back).

I don't follow US college football, so I know nothing about the current draft prospects, but with the Vikings having two first-round picks, they should certainly be able to improve in even more areas. I just have nightmare flashbacks to the last time the Vikings had a second pick in the first round. The notorious Underwood fiasco. Shudder.

Red Ensign Raised Again

Tipper has done a great job of raising the Red Ensign for the XVIIIth time (eighteenth, for those of you not happy with Roman numerals).

A sadder development is that one of our members has decided to quit blogging and take down his site. Chris Taylor's Taylor and Company has shuttered the blog window and stolen off into the night. I sincerely hope it's just temporary!

QotD: Scotland

The Scots have a fondness for deep-fried foods. Everything from fish n' chips to Mars bars. A survey of shops said customers also request deep fried sweets, pineapple rings, and even ice cream. The health authorities are naturally somewhat concerned about this diet, but Dr. David Morrison of the Greater Glasgow Health Service Board is encouraged by "evidence of the penetrance of the Mediterranean diet into Scotland, albeit in the form of deep-fried pizza."

Billy Munnelly, "Journal", Billy's Best Bottles Volume 21, No. 4, Spring 2005

Serpent Mounds

Yesterday's leisure time activity was a pleasant drive around Rice Lake. I forgot to bring either the "real" camera or the "real digital" camera, so all I had to take pictures was the Treo. It didn't do too bad a job, actually:

I couldn't get panoramic shots, as the combination of the fixed lens and the overwhelming sunlight just washed everything away. Here are a couple of shots taken from the shore of Serpent Mounds park, on the north shore of Rice Lake.

The first shot is actually looking a bit east of south, while the second shot is looking southwest. You can see how much difference the sun reflecting off the frozen lake blows away the camera's image.

Just after I took this picture:

. . . we thought we were about to get attacked by a local drunk, whose luau we'd interrupted. Fortunately, appearances were deceiving — the native was both friendly and informative, and no alcohol-fuelled assault was intended. I didn't venture to take his picture, however — no point in pushing our luck.

We walked a bit further east, along the shoreline to get to the sandy beach just below the mounds, and I took the opportunity to try for some artistic "nature" pictures. The down-side of using a camera with an LCD viewfinder is that it's almost utterly useless in bright sunlight, so I didn't frame all the images particularly well:

The mounds themselves are difficult to photograph effectively:

By this time, the cold wind off the lake was winning the temperature battle against the warm sunshine, so we decided that getting back to the car would be a good idea.

Harry Potter for Adults

The things that people come up with.

Academics from around the world are convening in Britain for the first Harry Potter conference. . More...

Gunners get new toys

A contract for the US Marine Corps and US Army Stryker brigade artillery compenents was signed last week:

BAE Systems has been awarded an $834 million dollar contract for full-rate production of the M777A1 howitzer. The M777A1 is a lightweight 155mm howitzer and a critical fire support component of U.S. Marine Air Ground Task Forces and U.S. Army Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.

Under the production contract, issued by the Joint Program Office, Picatinny, New Jersey, BAE Systems will manufacture 495 howitzers over the next four years.

"This is an excellent example of transatlantic partnership," said Andrew Davies, managing director of Land Systems for BAE Systems. "We're proud of the collaborative efforts of our integrated team and pleased to provide this critical capability to satisfy current and future Army and Marine Corps requirements."

As with all such contracts, the work is being carefully allocated to key congressional districts technical partners around the US and Britain. The main assembly will be done in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I stayed a couple of nights in Hattiesburg last week, but I didn't realize that BAE had a facility in or near the town. Perhaps I should have been looking for gleeful gunnery types. . .

QotD: Choice

In the early 20th century critics attacked product variety as being wasteful — a sign that markets were less efficient than central planning. Hence, the Chinese wore Mao suits, Americans got uniformly round automobile headlights and British authorities "rationalized" furniture designs.

A famous scene in the film Moscow on the Hudson has Robin Williams as a Soviet immigrant collapsing at the sight of an American coffee aisle, circa 1984. Imagine what would happen in Starbucks.

A free economy multiplies variety, the better to serve buyers with different tastes and different needs and to give people the chance to experience different goods at different times. Arguing that this plenitude is inefficient went out decades ago. The problem with markets, the detractors now say, is that all these choices make us unhappy.

Virginia Postrel, "I'm Pro-Choice", Forbes, 2005-03-28

QotD: Wall Street

Wall Street is a street with a river at one end and a graveyard at the other. This is striking, but incomplete. It omits the kingergarten in the middle.

Fred Sched, Where Are the Customers' Yachts?, 1940

Travelogue, Part the Second

If reading the first part didn't bore you to tears, then this one just might. . .

Monday, 14 March, continued

The weather had been great while we were visiting St. Francisville, but it got ugly again after we turned south. Baton Rouge's rush hour was a minor inconvenience (someone in St. Francisville had warned us that it was "really bad"), until we got to the I-10/I-110 junction, where traffic ground to a halt.

A quick redirection from the navigator had us on to the I-12 eastbound to the I-55 south. We made pretty good time after leaving the I-10 and the travel through the great soggy swamp (or whatever it's formal name might be) was fascinating. The entire area from south of Ponchatoula to nearly the I-10 junction near LaPlace seemed to be more water than land. I can't imagine how much money it cost to build that stretch of Interstate: it's pretty much one long, long bridge.

In warmer weather, this area must be totally covered in mosquito clouds. Each one the size of an A-10 Warthog!

It got fully dark before we got in sight of Lake Ponchartrain, so the dramatic scenery had to wait for another day. Liam once again demonstrated his affinity with the weather, because he mentioned rain just as we got into the urban fringes, and less than a minute later, we were deluged with the stuff. Fortunately, the hotel was very visible from the I-10, so it was only a minor inconvenience.

The rain was so heavy that we decided to just eat a late dinner at the hotel, rather than try to find somewhere else. The staff in the restaurant must have been very bored, as we got amazingly fast and friendly service. Juan, our waiter, was as attentive and helpful as we could possibly have wished. The servings were extra-large, and the boys were given extras (which we weren't charged for) without asking.

Some fellow customers in the restaurant heard our accents, and gave us a free sample of their line of Cajun spices on their way out of the restaurant. To our surprise, when we tried it the other night it was excellent — much better than the various blends we'd been able to get here in the Toronto area.

Tuesday, 15 March

After our wonderful experience in the hotel restaurant the previous night, we confidently headed down there for an early breakfast. The contrast was just flat-out amazing: it didn't just suck, it was one of the worst restaurant experiences we'd ever had. Elizabeth and Victor were our advance party, and it took them nearly half an hour just to get a couple of croissants and a small fruit plate — and that was nearly $15. When I got down, it took an additional 20 minutes for them to scare up a coffee for me. The restaurant was busy, but not that busy; certainly not so busy as to justify waits of that length of time.

The coffee was cold, too.

As a result, we decided to get a mid-morning snack downtown. a scary cab ride, the first stop was the original Café du Monde down on the Mississippi riverfront, for beignets and café au lait. Yes, it's hokey and traditional, but it's also good.

Unlike our last visit to New Orleans, it was cold and wet pretty much the entire day. We got seated in the Café du Monde, right up against the tarp they had lowered to cut the wind and rain. The wind was rattling the tarp enough to interrupt our conversation now and again.

In spite of the extra calories from the beignets, the boys were both ready for lunch within half an hour of leaving the Café du Monde, so we struck out for the Court of Two Sisters on Rue Royal. As you can see, the food was appreciated by our starving teens:

And no, your eyes do not deceive you: that is actually a plate of fruit that Victor is eating.

Yes, we were shocked too.

After lunch, we wandered around the streets, looking into stores and picking up the odd souvenier. Victor's hat above is perhaps the oddest souvenir we ended up with. He even picked up a matching feather boa, but I didn't get a photo of him wearing it, as the weather stopped even pretending to co-operate.

We had planned to go on a walking tour of the Vieux Carré, but almost all of the tours are now run in daytime (apparently the crime has become so bad that only one or two of the dozen "ghost" tours can still operate after dark). We were perhaps lucky that the weather was so miserable, as it kept some of the potential trouble-makers off the streets.

Part the third will get done when I get a few more moments to recollect and (if necessary) embroider the details.

QotD: Modern Flying

On my first flight to Europe, everyone dressed for success. Now everyone dresses for Gold's Gym. And I'm sure the next step in TOTAL SECURITY will be to require everyone who is not of Arab descent to arrive with a note from their doctor attesting that they had a high colonic an hour before the airport to make the body cavity searches a bit more pleasant for the staff. Then there's the added coach thrill of a blood clot developing in the legs that stops your heart at 50,000 feet. Plus . . . no peanuts! After all, think of the allergic children! Add to that the new innovation, no pillows! I don't see why the airlines don't simply install hooks and, working in concert with government's laughable security cops, require everyone to hang from said hooks naked. It will come to that. You know it will.

Gerard Vanderleun, "The Brand-Extension Blight", American Digest, 2005-03-10

QotD: Spying

"We tend to meet any new situation in life by reorganising," Petronius Arbiter, a 1st-century Roman satirist, is supposed to have remarked. "And what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." Wonderful, indeed, for John Negroponte, America's ambassador to Iraq, who will leave Baghdad this month to become America's first director of national intelligence (DNI). Mr Negroponte may come to question which job is the more harrowing. On one side, murder and mayhem; on the other, mayhem and mystery.

The Economist, "America's intelligence reforms: Can spies be made better?" The Economist, 2005-03-19

Just when I think I've heard it all . . .

. . . something comes along to show that I've been living a sheltered existence after all. Like this:

Getting to the bottom of an unwholesome obsession

HEARD of sphincter bleaching? Beauticians are billing it as the new Brazilian wax.

"In the last couple of months I've had a lot of requests, so I've started some experiments," says Sydney beautician Anna Marsiano from The Bees' Knees salon.

"I've got one client who's a divorced woman with a couple of kids. She was looking at a Playboy magazine with her new boyfriend and he was making some comments about how clean and light the women looked. My client started to get a little paranoid."

Marsiano says she uses a herbal brand popular in the Philippines as a facial whitener. It is applied to the dark pigmentation around women's rectums as well as to their vaginal areas. Marsiano says the product does not damage the skin and has "rejuvenating" properties.

I could say "go read it all", but I think you've probably heard everything you wanted to hear by now. Or more. Perhaps too much. I know I have.

QotD: The Schiavo Case

I assume that for all the people who actually know Terry Schiavo, there's no relief or feeling of vindication. Certainly not on the part of her family, who wanted to keep her alive and who apparently offered to pay for her medical care (a solution with many merits). But not even for her husband, Michael Schiavo, who on scant-to-non-existent evidence is increasingly impugned as selfish and greedy, the third in a triptych of celebrity wife-haters Scott Peterson and Robert Blake.

Indeed, what might be most appalling about the case is that while the people closest to the tragedy of a young woman collapsing and suffering brain damage deal with all the consequences of that, politicians and operatives on all sides of the issue are in fat city and will be feasting on the wasted body of Terry Schiavo for years to come.

Nick Gillespie, "Schiavo Appeal Rejected; 'Great Political Issue' Will Still Pay Dividends For All", Reason Hit and Run, 2005-03-023

Since I've already blogged the cat . . .

. . . I'm already over. So I lose nothing by posting the cat silly sleeping pose page.

Vikings Free Agency Picture

For the one or two fellow Viking fans, here is a summary of who's been signed, who's been tendered an offer, and who's been released so far this offseason. This is KFAN's analysis of the Vikings' free agency record.

And something about Bordeaux grapes I didn't know. . .

The Wine Commonsewer provides me with a piece of information I didn't previously have:

Carmanere (also called Grand Carmenet) is a rare red grape that once was THE premier grape of Bordeaux. It was obliterated in the 1800's by a nasty disease called phylloxera that ravaged many of the vineyards of Europe. The grape was lost for a century and many assumed it to be extinct. Up until the 1990's this grape was thought to be simply a Chilean adaptation of Merlot but with subsequent advances in technology and science it was learned that it was the long lost Carmanere grape of Europe.

I'd encountered conflicting information about Carmanere, some of which indicated that it was a Bordeaux varietal, and others that mentioned it as being only a New World, specifically South American, grape. This explains how both piece of information could be reconciled. Thanks WC!

I should try this one. . .

Billy Munnelly has recently recommended Concha Y Toro's "Casillero Del Diablo" Cabernet Sauvignon in his most recent newsletter, and today I found another recommendation for the same wine. I've tried their 2002 Merlot, which was a bit of a tannic monster, but the Cab Sauv sounds worth sampling.

Oddly, an email I sent to Billy many months ago is still generating responses. See the excerpts here, under the heading "Readers Write about CITRA". I had a bad bottle of the stuff, and wrote to whine at him about his wine recommendation. Everyone else (with one exception) seems to find my complaint unwarranted.

New member of the Red Ensign Brigade

The newest member of the Brigade is The Monarchist. Welcome to the unit!

The mess is getting a bit crowded, but I'm sure you'll be able to fight your way to the bar eventually. Mine'll be a Petrus '92, if you don't mind.

QotD: Military History

Things have changed little today in terms of the exclusive Western monopoly of military history. Six billion people on the planet are more likely to read, hear, or see accounts of the Gulf War (1990) from the American and European vantage points than from the Iraqi. The story of the Vietnam War is largely Western; even the sharpest critics of America's involvement put little credence in the official communiqués and histories that emanate from communist Vietnam. In the so-called Dark Ages of Europe, more independent histories were still published between A.D. 500 and 1000 than during the entire reigns of the Persian or Ottoman Empire. Whether it is history under Xerxes, the sultan, the Koran, or the Politburo at Hanoi, it is not really history — at least in the Western sense of writing what can offend, embarrass and blaspheme.

Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture

Geek Question

My home machine is an ancient POS, still running along happily under Windows 98. Or, it was running happily until I foolishly shut it down for the week I was travelling. While it was cold, it seems to have developed a highly irritating delay loop in the boot cycle.

Now, when I boot the machine, it chugs through the normal routine right up until the desktop background appears on the screen (with the mouse visible and moveable), but no icons or menus. It stays in this state for a good 10-15 minutes, accessing the disk constantly, before finally letting me do anything. Norton claims there's no virus, and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware can't find any unwelcome spambots that would account for the long delay.

The only recent software install was a secure shell program to access my various websites on a Linux box. The problem only cropped up about two weeks after this program was installed, and the machine was rebooted at least three times during that span of time.

Has anyone encountered anything similar, and if so, how did you resolve the issue?

Get clean AND wired at the same time

This little item was mentioned on one of my mailing lists: Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap.

Please don't anybody ask "what will they think of next", okay?

Travelogue, Part the First

I'd had hopes that I'd be either able to get regular internet access all last week, or be organized enough to keep moderately useful notes. Hopes that turned out to be rather weakly associated with the real world, unfortunately. So, in the extended entry, is a disjointed ramble from Brooklin to Metairie, by way of Stratford, Windsor, Detroit, Toledo, Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, Shiloh, Tupelo, Meridian, and St. Francisville.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Saturday, 12 March

We got up at ugly o'clock in the morning, with the best of intentions of getting the car packed, the coffee brewed, the bodies showered, and the driver awake and responsive by 7:00 a.m. Everything worked great up until the last item — I needed another 45 minutes to be remotely safe on the road.

We arrived in Stratford, our first planned stop, to pick up Liam:

After re-organizing the luggage, we got underway again. Next stop, Windsor's bridge to Detroit. Long wait at the border, with only a light rain to break the monotony. The border guard didn't seem too interested in us, despite our clearly faked documents, badly disguised accents, and the half-ton of weaponry poorly concealed in the trunk. Perhaps it was a good thing I warned the boys not to ululate as we drove up to the inspection station.

The drive south along the I-75 went relatively smoothly, at least once we got out of the rutted road section between the bridge and the Ohio state line. I don't know if Michigan deliberately leaves that stretch of road in poor condition to discourage locals from escaping or if it's a full employment scheme for alignment shops at the exits. Either way, it's almost the worst stretch of road we encountered during the entire trip.

As mentioned before, the I-75 between Toledo and Cincinnati seems to exist in a universe where time has no meaning. Entire geological epochs seemed to pass as we endlessly drove towards the intermediate towns. I'm certain that the continents re-arranged themselves twice in the time it seemed to take between Lima and Dayton.

Driving through Cincinnati at 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday is rather like a combination of riding the Wild Mouse, taking a speed-reading test, and riding through a buffalo stampede. The very worst drivers, of course, had Ontario license plates.

The rain got worse, and the temperature dropped as we entered the stretch of road just north of Cincinnati, and the climb up the hill through Covington on the south side of the Ohio River was just a little hair-raising. The road was icing up just enough to allow speeders to really demonstrate their road-handling skills, or lack of same. We split off the I-75 to take the I-71 to Louisville and fortunately left most of the traffic behind. There were several white-knuckle moments before we got to the Louisville ring road, but nothing too exciting.

Sunday, 13 March

We stayed overnight at the same hotel as a bunch of lacrosse players. They weren't quite as rowdy as a similar-sized group of hockey players would have been, but they were hard to ignore. The next morning, we had to wait until their bus was loaded, as it was parked directly behind my car:

When we managed to get out, we were off down the I-65 towards Bowling Green and Nashville. We've found Nashville to be one of the worst cities to drive through, near, or around; there's always major construction and/or major accidents snarling traffic. This time was no exception: we were stopped for nearly half an hour before we were able to get to an off-ramp and work our way south-east to the Tennessee 155, which took us past whatever was causing the back-up on the I-65. We worked south-west from there, to join the Natchez Trace. We stopped a few times along the Trace, including the Phosphate Mine and the Meriwether Lewis site:

The 50mph speed limit along the Trace meant that we had to get off soon after visiting the Meriwether Lewis site and get back on the main road to visit Shiloh before it got too dark. As US Civil War battlefields go, Shiloh is only moderately littered with monuments and markers (the worst we've found is Gettysburg, where it's difficult to see the ground for all the markers in some spots). The battle took place in early spring, so we were seeing it at about the same stage of the season:

These three photos were taken in the area of the battlefield known as the Hornets' Nest. This was the site of the turning point of the battle, as the Confederates threw in attack after attack on this Union position, wasting both lives and time, and allowing the disorganized Union forces to re-organize. Eventually, after the Confederates brought in 62 cannon and outflanked both ends of the Union position, it fell and the survivors were captured.

It was getting dark as we left the battlefield to make our way down through Corinth to Tupelo. I decided to push on to Meridian, rather than stay in Tupelo again (our last visit hadn't been great). The weather was quite impressive as we passed south of West Point on US 82. A big lightning storm was flashing away directly in front of us, and as we drove further south, the lightning spread wider to both sides, until the entire forward horizon was a constant pyrotechnic show.

The rain held off until we were nearly in Meridian, when Liam suddenly commented that it was amazing that we were still dry. A dramatic pause of about a minute or two, and then the heavens opened and we could barely see the road ahead of us. We didn't have a hotel booked, so finding a place to sleep was a high priority, especially with the rain coming down so heavily. Luckily, there was a Holiday Inn just off the highway, so we booked in there. Unluckily, it was an old pattern Holiday Inn, with exterior access to all the rooms . . . which meant we had to unload the car in the rain and make a dash for the covered walkway in front of the rooms.

Monday, 15 March

We had a room booked in Metairie, just outside New Orleans, but there was no point in dashing down there too soon: we couldn't check in until mid-afternoon at the earliest, so we decided to do some sight-seeing before hitting the Big Easy. St. Francisville sounded interesting, so we turned west and spent the next four and a half hours trying to find some interesting scenery in southern Mississippi and south-eastern Louisiana. There may be some, but we didn't manage to see much of it. Just lots and lots of scrubby evergreen trees and lots and lots of trailers.

St. Francisville has several preserved plantation homes, including the one we visited, which had been built by David Bradford, the erstwhile leader of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.

The house is now a bed-and-breakfast, with tours offered during the day. The tour is a bit over-priced for our tastes: it only includes the lower floor, and photos are restricted to the front hallway.

Part the Second will follow, as time allows.

QotD: Microsoft PowerPoint

There were plenty of irritations with life with Microsoft. I am still astonished how bad PowerPoint is from a design point of view. With these multiples, Microsoft could have hired Louise Fili or Milton Glazer, and the virtual world of the corporation would now be vastly more visual. Actually, because form is content, America would now actually be vastly more conceptual. But, no. The PowerPoint templates were clearly designed by that special someone who did Travelodge napkins and match books in the 1960s. Talk about a difference that makes a difference! Talk about critical path dependency! PowerPoint reproduced Microsoft's limitations, and helped to install them in the American mind.

Still, PowerPoint was an improvement on the Lotus equivalent. I forget what this was called but it was so utterly unpredictable that I discovered belatedly that presentations would not be forthcoming unless you got a group of people to lay their hands on the printer and chant in Latin. (This was not in the manual, unless it was cunningly secreted there in invisible ink, perhaps on the page that read "this page left deliberately blank.")

Grant McCracken, "Brands that bind . . . and when they slide", This Blog Sits at the, 2005-03-10

Mean Movie Review of the Week:

From the New York Post's review of Ice Princess:

This movie wasn't just made for 11-year-old girls; it seems to have been made by 11-year-old girls.

It's safe to refuel while talking on your cell phone

The Register reports that fears of gasoline explosions caused by cell phones are greatly exaggerated:

It is well known to regular Register readers that mobile phones very dangerous pieces of equipment. If they aren't mashing your mojo, they'll be causing brain tumours or enticing you to plunge ten floors to your death in search of a better signal. Just. Plain. Evil.

Or so we thought. But it turns out that they are not quite so diabolical as all that. There is at least one place your mobile phone will not kill you: the forecourt of a petrol station.

We know, we know: a spark from the phone will ignite the fumes bringing all life as you know it to a fiery end. You've read about it, the petrol stations have those nice clear warning signs and you might even have seen it happen on an episode of CSI.

But researchers at the University of Kent now say this is not so. In the last eleven years there have been 243 petrol station fires worldwide attributed to mobiles. But according to a paper by Dr Adam Burgess, not a single one was actually caused by a spark from a mobile.

Belated Pointer to the Red Ensign XVII

In what is almost certainly the slowest response time in the Brigade, I point your attention to Rue's 17th Raising of the Red Ensign.

Great job, Rue!

QotD: Gun Safety

The really hard part about firearm safety is that they're Schrodinger devices. Every firearm is both loaded and unloaded at the same time.

When you need them to be unloaded, they have a bullet in the chamber, ready to fire.

When you *really* need one to be loaded, they make that really sad "click" which tells you you need more ammo.

Chad Irby, posted to the comments at Wizbang, 2005-03-10

I'm back . . . sort of

The trip was great, although the weather sucked most of the time. New Orleans is dirtier, smellier, and noticeably more dangerous than it was in 2001 (my first visit). A full trip report may or may not get posted, as the first thing to greet me as I got back (other than cats who'd forgotten who we were) was a computer that refused to boot. It may be tomorrow before I can get something sorted out on that front.

I can say, however, that Ohio must be located in a time warp, because the drive from Cincinnati to Toledo seemed to take weeks, not the three or so hours it should have done. When it started to rain, it was actually a pleasant change from the monotony of the drive up to that point. Once I got out of Ohio, it would have been nice if it had stopped raining, as Michigan's signs along the Interstate are nearly impossible to read in a misty, darkening late afternoon at the best of times. We nearly missed the exit to the bridge to Windsor, as it was partly obscured by a transport truck who'd missed his own exit and was trying to pull over onto the shoulder.

The freezing rain on the way home last night was a great touch: because we had to detour through Stratford to drop off Liam, we ended up having to grab a hotel room and stay overnight, as the road between Stratford and Kitchener-Waterloo was getting particularly glassy (it was also nearly midnight by then, too).

QotD: Reading Lights

The room, in addition to its other drawbacks, was always underlit. But it's proving a major challenge to find nifty lamps that also give enough light to read by. All the cool Art Nouveau sort of stuff only go up to 60 watts max, which, for a reader, is like switching on the darks. And the lamps in stores are not logically arranged by wattage; one has to wander about turning them upside down and peering at the little sticky labels on the sockets for a clue, for yea verily, the sales staff has none. They are not readers either, sigh.

Lois McMaster Bujold, letter to Baen's Bar, 2004-10

QotD: Critique of Libertarianism

Libertarians are also naive about the range and perversity of human desires they propose to unleash. They can imagine nothing more threatening than a bit of Sunday-afternoon sadomasochism, followed by some recreational drug use and work on Monday. They assume that if people are given freedom, they will gravitate towards essentially bourgeois lives, but this takes for granted things like the deferral of gratification that were pounded into them as children without their being free to refuse. They forget that for much of the population, preaching maximum freedom merely results in drunkenness, drugs, failure to hold a job, and pregnancy out of wedlock. Society is dependent upon inculcated self-restraint if it is not to slide into barbarism, and libertarians attack this self-restraint. Ironically, this often results in internal restraints being replaced by the external restraints of police and prison, resulting in less freedom, not more.

Robert Locke, "Marxism of the Right", American Conservative, 2005-03-14

QotD: The State

Inconvenience would seem to be a small price to pay for peace of mind.

That one phrase sums up all the problems we are having with government in this country. It justifies the humiliating personal searches at airports. It justifies the police state tactics of 'sobriety checkpoints' or 'identification stops'. It justifies the Patriot Act, and the new Intelligence Reform Act, with all their draconian intrusions on personal privacy, including the repulsive, illegal and un-Constitutional parts, such as no warrant required searches, a national ID card, federal snooping into our reading habits at libraries and book stores. It justifies any intrusion into private, personal, or intimate matters. After all, if someone has more than one wife (or husband), doesn't your peace of mind require that that person be harassed, jailed, or otherwise punished for violation of your religious or moral code? It doesn't matter that the people involved are adults who freely and willingly consent to live in that situation. For that matter, if two men or women live together, doesn't your peace of mind require that their 'immoral and ungodly' lifestyle be exposed, and the people involved publicly pilloried?

Ron Beatty, "Peace of Mind", Libertarian Enterprise, 2005-03-06

QotD: The Great Satan

As soon as you see the recommendation from Noam Chomsky on the cover of the book, you can pretty much guess where McQuaig is coming from. I refer to the Chomskyan school of thought as American Monist: in short, the only actor on the world stage is America. It is the sole source of evil and depradation. Everyone else is motivated solely by love and concern for humanity, whilst America is, singularly, motivated only by greed, lust for power and a general animus for all things good, sunny and nice. Only America acts; everyone else is acted upon by the Hegemon, and can't be blamed for the consequences of their actions. America is the Primus Mobilis. And America is bad. So, for example, the notion that an economy-based increased lust for oil is driving foreign policy is solely a characteristic of America; no other nation on earth appears to give a shit about oil. Certainly not France, Russia or China; McQuaig hardly mentions them. While McQuaig is forced to acknowledge that French, Russian and Chinese support for Saddam (and attendant undermining of UN sanctions) was related in some fashion to the oil deals they had each struck with Iraq, she airily dismisses the role that oil plays in their respective foreign policies. So the "oil as the root of all evil" trope is batted away in the space of two sentences when talking about other countries, but more than 300 pages are required to explain how oil and America are mutually catalyzing demon twins. When the rapaciousness of oil companies is discussed, it is almost exclusively American oil companies which are named; hardly ever any of the European, Russian or other oil companies. Because those other oil companies don't possess the true indicia of evil, you see: they don't stamp their barrels "Made in the USA".

Bob Tarantino, "LIB Review: It's the Crude, Dude", Let It Bleed, 2005-03-05

IBM has a Heart!

I am rarely surprised by the callousness of governments and large corporations. IBM one of the worlds largest corporations seems to work hard to do things that are, well, nice. They don't just donate money to charities, though I am sure that they do do that too. They seem to find ways to step up and use their knowledge and position to improve people’s lives.

Here is a URL to a new device that IBM has developed. They call it a "Mouse Adapter". It plugs in between the mouse and the computer and removes the movements that someone with tremors make, allowing them to use a computer.

I hope that IBM makes some money from this device, because that should encourage them to develop more new devices that really benefit people’s lives.

I have been building a little respect for IBM for the past few years. It seems odd, since they were once a company that I disliked for their dominance in the PC world.

A couple of other nice things that I have seen from IBM: They have used open source like patents on a number programs. For example Eclipse is a wonderful Integrated Development Environment (A Programming tool) for Java. It is freely available and can be modified by users; They make a number of pieces of software freely available to Individuals and Non-profit organizations, like DB2.

They may not be the best company in the world, but I hope that IBM keeps doing nice things. It is a great example for other corporations to follow.

QotD: Blogging vs. the MSM

A wire story consists of one voice pitched low and calm and full of institutional gravitas, blissfully unaware of its own biases or the gaping lacunae in its knowledge. Whereas blogs have a different format: Clever teaser headline that has little to do with the actual story, but sets the tone for this blog post. Breezy ad hominem slur containing the link to the entire story. Excerpt of said story, demonstrating its idiocy (or brilliance) Blogauthor's remarks, varying from dismissive sniffs to a Tolstoi-length rebuttal. Seven comments from people piling on, disagreeing, adding a link, acting stupid, preaching to the choir, accusing choir of being Nazis, etc.

I'd say it's a throwback to the old newspapers, the days when partisan slants covered everything from the play story to the radio listings, but this is different. The link changes everything. When someone derides or exalts a piece, the link lets you examine the thing itself without interference. TV can't do that. Radio can't do that. Newspapers and magazines don't have the space. My time on the internet resembles eight hours at a coffeeshop stocked with every periodical in the world — if someone says "I read something stupid" or "there was this wonderful piece in the Atlantic" then conversation stops while you read the piece and make up your own mind.

James Lileks, The Bleat, 2002-10-10 (originally quoted by Glenn Reynolds)

QotD: Education

We went through a generation in this country where parents discouraged their children from going into trades, and they said to them, "the only way you will get ahead in life is to stay at school until year 12, go to university." Year 12 retention rates became the goal, high year 12 retention rates became the goal. Instead of us as a nation recognising there are some people who shouldn't go to university, and what they should do is at year 10, decide they are going to become a tradesman. They will be just as well off, and from my experience and observation, a great deal better off than many others. I think we have to change that, and it's a very big challenge because 30 years ago, we started getting this foolish bind that everybody had to go to university. Everybody doesn't have to go to university, and a lot of people will be a lot better off if they don't go to university and they recognise that at age 15 or 16, and go down the technical stream.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, interviewed by Mark Riley, 2005-03-06

QotD: Government

One of the reasons I'm in favour of small government is because big government tends to be remote government, and remote government is unaccountable, and, as a wannabe world government, the UN is the remotest and most unaccountable of all. If the sentimental utopian blather ever came true and we wound up with one "world government", from an accounting department point of view, the model will be Nigeria rather than New Hampshire.

Mark Steyn, "Would you trust these men with $64bn of your cash? Of course not", Telegraph Online, 2005-02-06

QotD: War

[T]he essence of war is violence and moderation in war is imbecility.

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, 1913

In Honour Of Those Fallen

A Friend of mine sent this to me. (Clive) I have to say it struck a chord. It seems so appropriate to post it on one of the Red Ensign Blogs.

In hounour of the four Mounties killed.

Constables Peter Schiemann, Brock Myrol, Anthony Gordon and Leo
Johnston.

Clancy of the Mounted Police.
by Robert Service.

Clancy of the Mounted Police.
by Robert Service.

In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear

That who would wear the scarlet coat, shall say good-bye to fear;

Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth hound on the trail

In the little Crimson Manual there is no such word as "fail"

Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top turrets freeze,

Half round the world, if need there be, on bleeding hands and knees.

It's duty, duty, first and last, the Crimson Manual saith;

The Scarlet Rider makes reply "It's duty -- to the death."

And so they sweep the solitudes, free men from all the earth;

And so they sentinel the woods, the wilds that know their worth;

And so they scour the startled plains and mock at hurt and pain,

And read their Crimson Manual and find their duty plain.

Knights of the lists of unrenown, born of the frontier's need,

Disdainful of the spoken word, exultant in the deed;

Unconscious heroes of the waste, proud players of the game,

Props of the power behind the throne, upholders of the name;

For thus the Great White Chief hath said, "In all my lands be peace,"

And to maintain his word he gave his West the Scarlet Police.

QotD: Minnesota Vikings

Wow. You guys are like Dan Rather — you don't just announce news, you make news, and have news hit you like a falling piano.

Seriously, you should have your own cable channel — a combination of ESPN, Court TV and the Cartoon Network.

[. . .]

Thursday, Tice admitted to CNNSI.com that he scalped Super Bowl tickets, days after an anonymous tipster (I don't know who it is, but he's hitting Tice a lot harder than he ever hit Brett Favre) sold him out to the NFL.

Jim Souhan, "E-mailing d-back has struck again", Star Tribune, 2005-03-11

On the road again. . .

Well, you've probably already seen Clive's introduction, so I won't waste words doing further intro-type stuff. I'm headed down to New Orleans for the next 7-8 days (weather allowing), and the forecast for tomorrow's drive indicates some snow pretty much all the way to Louisville, Kentucky. Just wonderful — and apparently the weather is great down there right now, but will turn wet and cold just about the time we cross into Louisiana.

If I get a chance to find an internet cafe, I may be able to give a few short updates, but I promise _nothing_!

Don't trash the place while I'm gone, okay?

Clive's Introduction

Nicholas is going to be offline next week, and he's asked me to guest blog for him while he's away (no idea if he'll be able to get web access while he's out of town).

It has been a long time since I last helped Nicholas by writing anything. What I write will be somewhat different from his work. For example I barely even drink wine. <a warning to those of you that drink wine. Skip to the next paragraph> I like about a sweetness level of 10. Please pass the syrup.

My own interests tend to run to the technical. Woodworking, leatherworking, computers, anything mechanical have been, or are, my interests.

Many years ago I learned about an experimental new device that would work like a TV. But it would be mounted on a wall and used far less energy than a TV. It had no moving parts and it was only a few inches thick. I was amazed and looked forward to one day owning one of these incredible devices. The decades passed. (Yes, decades.)

This week Samsung announced their latest LCD Screen. A Whopping 82" wide screen model. Here.

When we look at the future, our perception of the time that it will take to accomplish is completely askew. Things in the future seem to develop either much faster or much slower than we expect. This doesn't just occur with technology. Politics is an arena where things seem to crawl at a pace that any snail would sneer at. Then suddenly zoom ahead and into full bloom in very little time.

In politics, I tend toward being a liberterian. The phrase, "There ought to be a law." Sends chills up my spine everytime I hear it. Probably because it is a reaction to an event rather than a plan for a needed law.

I have burned out most of the idealism of my youth, but I still cling to the belief that we are essentially good. Misguided, misinformed, often mistaken, but good.

Our media seems to delight in the sensational. I think that is a leading cause of the malaise that affects our society. That hasn't always been the case. Read a local newspaper from a hundred years ago or more. "The John Jones family have raised a new barn," isn't an uncommon article. Simple bits of news without comment or bias was common. Unlike todays headlines.

Websites and Blogs seem to have taken over much of that simple news reporting. People are developing communities online. Sharing many of their simple bits of news in these communities, fostering discourse and building concensus.

When Nicholas asked If I would guest-blog here on Quotulatiousness I felt a bit of trepidation, followed by gut wrenching fear and finally by a simple delusion that I can do that. Hi everyone, it's Clive, things will be different, I hope that you enjoy the blog.

Blogulaciousness Blogs The Cat

In the same sense that TV shows are said to "jump the shark", blogs are said to "blog the cat". Jon blogs the cat three times in a row: Guns don't kill people; kittens kill people, Good thing THIS cat wasn't packing!, and Next time, let the kitten hold the gun.

Of course, technically speaking, Jon's only linking to 'em, so he can claim a degree of separation.

Hey, I've evolved!

The TTLB Ecosystem has been down for the past few days, but apparently is back . . .and I've evolved up to the dizzying heights of Marsupialdom! Hurrah!

If the preceding paragraph made no sense to you, it's actually a good sign: you're not spending any time obsessing over relative rankings in the blogging world. You may have a life, in spite of the evidence that you read this blog.

Coach Tice now admits he scalped "some" tickets

The Vikings are managing to stay in the sports pages headlines lately, as Minnesota's head coach Mike Tice, has admitted that he did scalp some of his own Superbowl tickets, although he denies scalping any of his players' tickets.

As I mentioned earlier, the IRS is going to be paying close attention to how this all plays out. John Czarnecki of FOX Sports discusses how widespread the practice has been in the NFL:

The NFL will ultimately control the Tice case and possibly fine him as much as $100,000. It also could end his head-coaching career. Faced with these allegations, it is unlikely that another NFL owner would hire him as a head coach should he be relieved of his duties in Minnesota.

Still, Tice's biggest headache will be the IRS wanting to know for how long (and how many?) he's been receiving unreported income from scalped tickets. The league doesn't need this story mushrooming out of control because too many officials and coaches are involved in Super Bowl scalping.

Also, everyone should know that Randy Moss had nothing to do with squealing on Tice. It wasn't Moss.

That last statement was interesting, because I'd already wondered if Moss was the secret informant who started the whole investigation. It says that Czarnecki either knows who the informant is, or has extremely strong suspicions.

QotD: America

[T]he example of America must be a special example . . . the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

President Woodrow Wilson, speech in Philadelphia, May 1915

Another Red Ensign blog

The newest member of the Brigade is The Unwinding Road. Mine's a Chateau Haut-Brion '96, thanks!

QotD: Boys

I was also forced to acknowledge by the time I had two sons that the male mind really does approach problems differently than the female mind. Before I had the second son, I put down the differences between the male and female minds as all due to the socialization process. Two sons tipped the balance. It's like this; the bookcases looked cool to climb to the Last Amazon. She tries once when my attention is on other matters; falls and deduced that it was a bad idea. The sons' perceive the bookcases as a mountain to be conquered at all costs and they are prepared to pay any price to crown themselves King of the Bookcases. See the bookcases, take the bookcases; or die in the attempt. It did not matter how many times they were thwarted or injured, they refused to give up. Each time they went into the assault with the premise that this time it will end in triumph.

[ . . . ]

I admit to being a little more than angry and frustrated myself. Partially it is at a school system that won't allow boys any physical activities where they can blow off steam. No football, soccer, hockey, baseball, dodge ball, or any other kind of game that "promotes aggression" or the "possibility of injury". Volleyball and cross country running are all well and good but they are seasonal, and frankly, to a lot of boys; it blows. I do understand that not all boys are the "physical" sort but more are than not. While I realize no parent wants their child injured; it just seems that by denying that boys really do need a way to physically deal with aggression, you set them up for horseplay which eventually leads to fighting. How can anyone expect boys to spend all recess at the wall or standing around chatting about the weather?

Kate "The Last Amazon", "When Biology is Destiny", The Last Amazon, 2005-03-02

What If? Why not?

Brian Micklethwait (who doesn't like his words being "swiped") discusses the What If? and What If? 2 books edited by Robert Cowley. These are collections of essays by (primarily) military historians on what might have happened if certain historical crises had been resolved differently. I read the first book and enjoyed it immensely, and Brian has just reminded me that I have What If? 2 sitting among my huge pile of books "to be read, someday".

I'll be adding it to my packing list for next week's trip down to New Orleans. Thanks for the hint, Brian! I find it quite amusing that our book-buying habits appear to be indistinguishable:

I was delighted by the first What If? book. So I eagerly purchased its successor volume, More What If?, when I also came across that in a remainder shop.

I buy lots of books in remainder shops — my intellectual efforts beiong heavily influenced by chance purchases — and often only read them months or years later. So it has been with More What If? I am now, finally, reading it.

I'm assuming that the book More What If? was published in North America as What If? 2 (so many books have different titles for the UK and US/Canadian markets).

Examples: Maybe you did know that someone tried to kill FDR in 1933, although I did not.

I happened to know this, but only because of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, where Zangara gets electrocuted in mid-song. (Speaking of odd ways of finding out things. . .)

Good news, bad news

Just as the Vikings seemed to be moving into a better phase, having signed former Redskin cornerback Fred Smoot and re-signing tight end Jermaine Wiggins, a new scandal breaks. This time it's the head coach, Mike Tice, being accused of scalping Superbowl tickets.

While I strongly hope that this is not true, part of me would not be surprised to find that there's something to it. It's been reported that players and assistant coaches are notorious for reselling their Superbowl tickets, and that just about every team has some involvement. A head coach being involved in this is just plain ludicrous, but Tice is the worst-paid head coach in the league (many assistant coaches are better paid), which makes the accusation a bit more believable for the reporters.

As with so many other financial scandals, it's not really a surprise to find that people try to get away with shenanigans of this sort, it's that they do it for such relatively tiny amounts of money. The worst-paid player in the NFL is earning $300,000 per year: even to a league-minimum-wage player, the $2-3,000 payoff for scalping tickets is peanuts, especially as the IRS is the organization most interested in tracking down this sort of activity.

QotD: Canada

Need I bring to your attention the utter gall of a leading member of "Canada's natural governing party" accusing the Bush Republicans of running a one party state. Didn't the Yanks just have a bruising knock 'em down, electoral race that had all the thrills and spills of Northern Dancer winning the Queen's Plate.

Checks and balances? Canada? Third parties can't even participate fully in electoral campaigns here. Checks and balances are very few in this centralized, caucus whipped, PMO run federal government. Let us pass on quickly lest the good doctor/statesman becomes completely embarrassed by his own rhetoric.

John the Mad, "Lloyd's Unworthy Letter", John the Mad, 2005-03-05

Jon suffers for his coffee

Jon explains the world of fast food coffee shops:

The seam in the cup is about 1/360^th the diameter of the cup, and yet they nail it with the suck-hole in the lid more often than chance would dictate. Country Style is even worse — I asked about this once and was told that they did it deliberately, "to keep the cups from leaking <snicker-snicker-snicker>" Worse than the dribble cup effect is what happens to the seam as you drink — it begins to dissolve, and you start to get cardboard pulp in your coffee. When the pulp gets good and soft, a big chunk breaks off and gets stuck in your teeth. And then you have to pick it out, so you're driving along in the morning rush hour with your hand in your mouth trying to get the cup pulp out from the crack in a back molar, and you're distracted, and you don't see that traffic has stopped, and you run into the guy in front of you and your hand is propelled right through the base of your skull.

QotD: The Middle East

It is strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.

Walid Jumblatt, quoted in the Washington Post by David Ignatius

Let It Bleed Axes the Axworthys

This is a devastating analysis of the fuzzy thinking that went into Thomas Axworthy's paean to the glories of the gun registry.

On the one hand, you will learn that the gun registry is "a stunning success". On the other hand, you will learn that "gun-related violence stalks the land". These two assertions seem slightly, well, contradictory. Especially in light of the fact that we were promised that the gun registry would end violence as we know it, or something along those lines. In any event, how can "violent gang warfare [be] on the rise" if "the program is working"? Who knows? Regardless, you will be comforted to know that the billion dollar cost of the long-gun registry (you will recall that the Liberals promised it would only cost $2 million a year to operate) is, in Thomas' view, "hardly an eye-popping figure". At least we can be confident that Liberals are dedicated to ensuring that the threshold for objectionable government expenditures continues to rise: a year ago we were being urged to temper our reaction to Adscam, because, in the grand scheme of things, $100 million was "hardly an eye-popping figure"; today, $1 billion is "hardly an eye-popping figure". Can't wait to see what next year brings ($100 trillion for nationalized daycare? Pshaw! Hardly an eye-popping figure.)

Welcome the 50th member of the Red Ensign Brigade

A belated welcome to the latest member of the Red Ensign Brigade, Turning 30 and a half. As you'll undoubtedly have been told by other members, it's the responsibility of the newly joined officer to pick up the tabs for drinks in the Brigade Mess. I'll have a J.L. Chave Hermitage '80, if you don't mind. . .

QotD: Mistakes

Show us a man who never makes a mistake and we will show a man who never makes anything. The capacity for occasional blundering is inseparable from the capacity to bring things to pass.

Herman Lincoln Wayland

QotD: Booze

I absolutely reject all the arguments of increased insurance liability and potential legal problems created by booze — I have no interest in the blatherings of insurance types and lawyers, because they've caused most of our Nanny-related problems anyway. The problems occur not with booze itself, but with the lack of personal restraint. And that's something which is addressed by people acting like adults, not like children let loose in a candy store with $1,000 to spend.

Here's part of the booze problem we face Over Here.

American beer is too weak, and American short drinks are served too strong.

The problem with weak beer is not its weakness per se, but the fact that you have to drink quite a bit of it to get a decent buzz — and the problem with drinking in quantity is that it's really difficult to know when to stop once the old Alcohol Accelerator comes into play. I'd rather have a pint of Boddington's Ale than four Michelobs (which are about equal in terms of buzz generation). The difference is that the former is, well, a pint; the latter is three pints. That's a lot of liquid to drink, in a lunch hour, which means you have to drink it fast; whereas the Brit pint can be savored in a leisurely fashion, knowing that the destination will be the same.

Kim du Toit, "Un-Lubricated", Kim du Toit - Daily Rant, 2005-02-24

Vikings Free Agency

So far, the big news hasn't been too big for the Minnesota Vikings. Here's a quick summary of the Vikings' current free agent status:

Vikings Free Agents

Other Teams' Free Agents

QotD: Parenthood

What know I about 3 am feedings, Spongebob Squarepants, day care pickups or those special moments when one finds oneself on one's knees, covered in vomit, as one's darling child wails uncontrollably? I mean, it all sounds horrible, but I expect that it would be even worse to live it, fighting tears of exhaustion and a post-partum pouch.

[Incidentally, current parents should note that y'all are not doing a good job of selling this child-bearing thing to those of us who are as yet non-reproductive. You know, if you actually succeed in communicating all of the dreadfulness of your parental lives to us, as so many articles currently seem intent upon doing, your social security benefits are going to look pretty darn sad in thirty years or so. But I digress.]

Jane Galt, "Focus on the family", Asymmetrical Information, 2005-02-18

US Navy to sink own aircraft carrier

The US Navy is planning to sink the decommissioned carrier U.S.S. America later this year, according to this report:

The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosive tests this spring, an end that is difficult to swallow for some who served on board.

The Navy says the effort, which will cost $22 million, will provide valuable data for the next generation of aircraft carriers, which are now in development. No warship this size or larger has ever been sunk, so there is a dearth of hard information on how well a supercarrier can survive battle damage, said Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

Grant McCracken on the Military "MBA"

Grant McCracken spends a bit of virtual ink on the ongoing transformation of military from pure hierarchy to highly distributed command systems:

But it is not just the U.S. that has been experimenting with a dynamic military. Israel has a longer tradition.

Izhar Shay (former paratrooper in the Israeli Army and the chief executive of V-Secure Technologies), [. . .] and other veterans say the Israeli military trains its soldiers to think quickly and act nimbly, adjusting to circumstances as they arise rather than waiting for orders. While the American military in the post-9/11 era increasingly favors those same qualities, notably in the Special Forces that it deploys deep inside enemy territory, Israel has been giving its warriors greater latitude to call their own shots ever since its founding more than half a century ago.

Today comes notice that this training is having an interesting diffusion effect.

"[a] disproportionate number of Israel veterans begin their own businesses, often in highly competitive technical fields."

This means that the Israel military is supplying a de facto business education, as Betsy Cummings suggests in the title of her excellent article in today's Times: I got my MBA in the Israeli Army.

This is certainly not your father's army, nor even mine. Elite military forces have emphasized individual initiative and decentralized decision making for decades, but this is moving the entire army in the direction of individuality. This is, to mix a metaphor, quite a sea change.

For western countries, this is probably an inevitable shift, as we grow less and less willing to subject ourselves to the kind of rigid military discipline and less willing to support existing military disciplinarians. This would have been a weakness twenty or thirty years ago, but today can be a huge strength — because the technology to empower the individual soldier is now coming out of the lab and into the field.

Among other things, it shows the idiocy of politicians in western countries arguing in favour of the mass (conscript) armies of yesteryear: military service is going to be more technological, individual training will be more intensive, and individual equipment will be much more expensive as time goes by. A soldier will no longer be an expendable body, mere "cannon fodder". As Robert Heinlein predicted nearly 50 years ago in his book Starship Troopers, a private soldier will eventually be so technical that he (or she) would rate as a "master" in a civilian trade.

Not that this will change the disdain that the educated self-appointed "elites" have for individual soldiers and the military in general. Few are as blind as those who refuse to see.

QotD: Breastfeeding

I threw out the baby books that I had been given after the first week of breastfeeding. All those promises/warnings of "don't be surprised if you experience multiple orgasms while nursing". Hey, I was always up for multiple orgasms which was no doubt why I had three children in four years but the reality is only a dominatrix could think that the initial stages of breastfeeding's could produce an orgasm. Even after the extreme pain vanished there was never the slightest chance of orgasm which leads me to speculate that other people have a much more bizarre sexual life than I could possibly imagine. And if the books were will filled with such utter rot about breastfeeding; I wasn't willing to chance the rest.

Kate "The Last Amazon", "When Biology is Destiny", The Last Amazon, 2005-03-02

Yet more blogger bash photos

Damian Penny finally got his driveway shovelled out, and posted some photos of the blogger bash last Friday. In my fine tradition, I managed to stay out of his photos better than he managed to stay out of mine!

QotD: Drugs

Any parent who has ever smoked a joint has a moral duty to give up all hope of achieving good things in life, give him- or herself permanent brain damage, and get a career working on an assembly line, wearing a hairnet and stamping packages of irradiated food. Only in this way will kids realize drugs always lead to a bad end.

Tim Cavanaugh, "Don't try this at home, kids; you might end up becoming President", Reason Hit and Run, 2005-02-20

Heteronormativitynessness

I learned a new word today: "heteronormative". Now I'm going to try very hard to forget it.

At the Crimson Online (via Drudge), a discussion about the disappointing "heteronormative" remarks made by Jada Pinkett-Smith at Harvard where she was receiving the "Artist of the Year Award" from the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations:

Students said that some of Pinkett Smith's remarks concerning appropriate gender roles were specific to heterosexual relationships.

Maybe that's because she is in a heterosexual relationship (she's been married to actor Will Smith since December of 1997; they have two children).

"Some of the content was extremely heteronormative, and made BGLTSA [Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance] members feel uncomfortable," he said.

Calling the comments heteronormative, according to Woods, means they implied that standard sexual relationships are only between males and females.

Aaarrrgghh! I feel an RCOB moment coming on. This is Offensensitivity on steroids! Where did the meme get started that everyone (in certain groups) had to be free from hearing words that might upset them? Whose bright idea was it to make those easily offended the ones who decide what it is that can and cannot be said?

The "Wine and War" Tour

I read the book Wine & War by Don and Petie Kladstrup, and found it quite entertaining, if a little too steeped in the mysticism of French wine. It describes how several winemakers tried to hide their wine stocks from the incoming Nazi forces after the collapse of the French army in 1940. The company French Wine Explorers is offering a Wine & War tour to visit many of the wineries featured in the book.

The tour is in April, which is too early for me to even pretend I could join the tour, but it did sound interesting.

QotD: Liberty

Liberty requires responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

George Bernard Shaw

Anything but a f'ing Merlot

Evan Kirchoff reports on the effects of Sideways on sales of Merlot:

Product Placement

Sideways appears to have singlehandedly crippled sales of Merlot:

Many oenophiles have turned up their noses since the mid-1990s, when "a glass of Merlot" became synonymous, for casual drinkers, with a glass of red wine. But sales never stopped rising, and Merlot passed Cabernet as America's best-selling red wine in 2000, according to the Wine Institute.

Now everything has changed, thanks to just two lines in the movie "Sideways." In a much-quoted scene, the wine snob character Miles tells his easygoing friend Jack before a double-date dinner: "If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any f[ucking] Merlot."

Wine on the frontiers of technology

An article in Wired talks about how new world wine growers have been capitalizing on technology to catch and surpass the traditional old world wineries:

To the horreur of traditional winemakers in old Europe, the ancient art of making wine is being transformed by science and technology.

New vino-producing countries like Australia and Chile are becoming winemaking forces, thanks to new technology shunned by vintners in France and Spain — to their detriment.

The Curse of Docco

"I had just started to open FrameMaker when the drugs began to take hold. . ."

So starts the unpublished tale of Gonzo technical writing by the late Hunter S. Thompson, who apparently tried turning his attention to software documentation during the early 1990's. The hand-written story was found in the bottom of a case of shotgun shells that appeared on the desk of the CIO of [name removed for legal reasons], a medium-sized software company in Silicon Valley. Only a few barely legible pages survive — or perhaps are the only parts Thompson ever set down during his life.

I love stress myself, and I have learned to survive under savage and unnatural pressures. I am a stress freak. On some days it seems like I have lived in my cubicle for half my life. There is blood in this keyboard, and some of it is mine. You don't need to be paranoid in the savage, world of software: it makes you paranoid. The wolves are always there, waiting for that split-second of inattention to hurl themselves upon you and rip off steaming chunks of your flesh. I survived this hell, but only through judicious applications of drugs, alcohol, and carefully placed .45 caliber bullets. [. . .] The department manager was Bruce Hawkins, an Australian, and a true drunken bastard in the classic mold. He always referred to the department as "Docco". I hated that, but the man had a survival instinct. No matter how often we tried to get rid of him, he'd be back the next day, blood in his eye and beer on his breath. I still don't know how he survived the time I cut his brakeline (the office was at the highest point of the hill, with a long twisting road down to town). The skin-flayer of the week was the status meeting, where the tortured souls of the department were taken out for beatings and repeated humiliations. With the right mix of ether and peyote, I could survive the worst the manager had to offer. The screams I could suppress, until the hyenas started to howl, just as the [illegible] tore open and the bile spewed out. Your everyday Nervous Breakdown is nothing compared to the hopeless Craziness of a woman who woke up a team lead on the flagship product and went to bed as the new trainer for interns. This is a guaranteed overwhelming shock to the system; if you don't go insane from suddenly having to see the world from the POV of the brain-dead new intern, your mind will be churned into butter by having to crawl, head-first, with your eyes open, down a septic tank hatch, just to have a place to sleep. [ . . . ] Programmers are swine. They know it. They go out of their way to prove it. But I know how to treat 'em. You need to cut out the head swine from the herd and break him; that forces all the others to give you respect, and tell you when they fuck with your software. I favour cutting off the little toe on each foot: no head swine can keep the respect of his homies when he's unable to walk in a straight line, bouncing off partition walls and filing cabinets, wailing his distress. [ . . . ] I have always hated editors, and I like to have sport with them. They are harmless quacks in the main, but some of them get ambitious and turn predatory, especially in Silicon Valley. In Santa Cruz, I ran into a man who claimed to be Microsoft's chief editor. "I consult with Bill Gates constantly," he told me. He produced a business card and gave it to me. "I can do things for you," he said. "I am a player." I took his card and examined it carefully for a moment, as if I couldn't quite read the small print. But I knew he was lying, so I leaned toward him and slapped him sharply in the nuts. Not hard, but very quickly, using the back of my hand and my fingers like a bullwhip, yet very discreetly. He let out a hiss and went limp, unable to speak or breathe. I smiled casually and kept on talking to him as if nothing had happened. "You filthy little creep," I said to him. "I am Bill Gates!" That was the tone of my workdays in Silicon Valley: violence, joy, and constant Mexican music. [ . . . ] The one I knew I had to keep my eye on was the office intern, a pimple-faced whelp whose reptilian gaze and inability to sweat marked him as potentially deadly. I pistol-whipped him on his second day, just to keep him off-guard. His life revolved around TV and relentless masturbation. Deprive him of one and he collapsed. That was the key; showing him that you had to power to destroy him. Vaya con dios, amigo. I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma. [. . .] Why bother with technical writing, if this is all they offer? Hawkins was right. The writers are a gang of cruel faggots. Technical writing is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits — a false doorway to the basement of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and wank off like a monkey in a zoo cage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The preceding post is complete fiction, derived in very large part from the works of the late Hunter S. Thompson. Don't sue me!

QotD: Political Correctness

It takes one's breath away to watch feminist women at work. At the same time that they denounce traditional stereotypes they conform to them. If at the back of your sexist mind you think that women are emotional, you listen agape as professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT comes out with the threat that she will be sick if she has to hear too much of what she doesn't agree with. If you think women are suggestible, you hear it said that the mere suggestion of an innate inequality in women will keep them from stirring themselves to excel. While denouncing the feminine mystique, feminists behave as if they were devoted to it. They are women who assert their independence but still depend on men to keep women secure and comfortable while admiring their independence. Even in the gender-neutral society, men are expected by feminists to open doors for women. If men do not, they are intimidating women.

Thus the issue of Summers's supposedly intimidating style of governance is really the issue of the political correctness by which Summers has been intimidated. Political correctness is the leading form of intimidation in all of American education today, and this incident at Harvard is a pure case of it. The phrase has been around since the 1980s, and the media have become bored with it. But the fact of political correctness is before us in the refusal of feminist women professors even to consider the possibility that women might be at any natural disadvantage in mathematics as compared with men. No, more than that: They refuse to allow that possibility to be entertained even in a private meeting. And still more: They are not ashamed to be seen as suppressing any inquiry into such a possibility. For the demand that Summers be more "responsible" in what he says applies to any inquiry that he or anyone else might cite.

Harvey Mansfield, "Fear and Intimidation at Harvard", Weekly Standard, 2005-03-07