Saturday, October 26, 2002
New Jerseyans: Giving Floridians a Run for Their Money
We've been making fun of Floridian stupidity for years now. But a recent New York Times/CBS News poll shows that we've been aiming at the wrong target. (The poll can be found via a pop-up link here or directly here.
Let's look at question 26:
26. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high and continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of cost.
Agree Disagree DK/NA 10/19-24/02* 65 30 5Anyone who answers yes to any question that includes the phrase "regardless of cost" is unfit to make mature decisions. Do I need to explain this any further? If you think so, email me here.
*sigh* Common sense isn't ...
posted by vepxistqaosani 3:02 PM
Friday, June 07, 2002
A Note for (Other) Pedants
Yes, I know what "intergalactic" means. But "intragalactic" or, worse, "intrasystemic" wouldn't convey anything to anyone, now would it?
posted by vepxistqaosani 5:31 PM
The Intergalactic Right-Wing Conspiracy
So, it turns out that Hillary was thinking too small (still stuck in the village, I guess). "Vast" is grossly inadequate to describe what Dave Kopel, Glenn Reynolds, and Jonah Goldberg are cooking up.
Like all right-wingers, I'm utterly devoid of prejudice. Heck, some of my best friends are Martians. But I think we might want to slow down the Barsoom bandwagon. There's lots of stuff much closer to home that needs to be tended to.
Global warming, for instance.
Back in the South (well, Florida, actually: so we're talking geography, not culture), where I grew up, old ladies used to have some of the same problems with the Sun that everyone knows we're having now. Their solution was to carry a parasol (umbrella to most of you; UMbrella to us Southerners), which they would deploy whenever their delicate peaches-and-cream complexions were threatened.
Why can't we do the same? A simple disk a few tens of thousands of miles across will drastically reduce the amount of energy the Sun delivers to the Earth. Mind you, there are significant engineering challenges in building something so big that tidal forces have to be taken into account. It would certainly require constant maintenance. But it's not a crazy idea. (OK, it is -- but not that crazy.) And it would take some doing to ensure that it wouldn't cause as many problems as it cures: see this article at SpaceDaily. But perhaps all we have to do is shade the Sahara -- or the Pacific -- to produce a controlled cooling effect.
The point is that there's something we can do -- in space, yet -- that won't destroy advanced economies and further retard the growth of third-world economies.
Which brings me to my other space hobbyhorse: solar power satellites. (Here's a Google search page.) If we embarked on a Manhattan/Apollo-sized effort, we might well be able to supply power to the entire third world (and ourselves) in the most environmentally friendly way possible: Who doesn't like solar power?
The Greens, of course. Solar power is only good if it's small. If it's big -- and, still worse, big enough to help send humans to Mars -- then it must be awful.
posted by vepxistqaosani 5:10 PM
Friday, May 24, 2002
Tyrannophilia
Jay Nordlinger has (yet another) Impromptus column up. He complains (yes, again) about the Castro-worship of the American left. He's just another right-wing extremist who can't get over the end of the Cold War.
But, then, so am I.
The Left will upbraid those of us on the Right with hit-squads in El Salvador, apartheid in South Africa, or the crimes of the secret police of the Shah of Iran. And these are all terrible things. (Oddly, though, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt never catch criticism for their support of Josef Stalin.)
But no-one on the Right ever put posters of Botha or Reza Pahlevi on his dorm-room wall.
We troglodytes are willing to practice Real-Politik (what other kind is there?) -- we use dictators; we do not fall in love with them.
Conservatives are realists. Realists (even the non-Christians) believe in the doctrine of Original Sin; the evidence for it is simply overwhelming.
Nordlingeresque aside: My own proof of the doctrine's truth is that all children are born lawyers.
Liberals are idealists; they (even the Christians) do not believe in Original Sin, but rather that human nature can be improved without limit.
So, dictatorships of the Right are frankly about power. Even if someone like Hitler claims a higher purpose -- the Thousand-Year Reich -- that goal will still reduce to power for the dictator and his cronies. And if you're willing to go along, they'll let you get along.
Dictatorships of the Left, though, claim always to have the good of humanity as their chief concern. Anyone who does not give the regime his whole-hearted support is obviously evil and must be punished.
This explains both the surpassing evil of left-wing dicatorships from 1789 on and the uncritical worship they so often receive. What is there, finally, not to admire about someone -- like Castro, or Lenin, or Pol Pot -- who is willing to dedicate not only his own life, but also the lives of everyone else, to the betterment of all humankind?
What indeed?
posted by vepxistqaosani 12:20 PM
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Al Qaeda's next strike
Much has been made of the failure of imagination in our intelligence services, so I would like to lend them mine.
The 9-11 attacks were designed to destroy prominent American symbols and to take many American lives. What other targets are out there that meet both criteria?
Hollywood. The World Series. The Super Bowl. Disney World.
The Mouse is ubiquitous and unmistakably American. Once Memorial Day arrives, the park will be crowded with tens of thousand of people, mostly young.
I'm sure the Disney people are aware of this, but my brief experience working there some years ago (well, nearly 20) is enough to make me think that, given time and money, I could cause thousands of deaths.
Disney World is riddled with tunnels for employees to use (that's why you only see them when they're supposed to be seen). And the park is huge: 28000 acres (47 square miles), mostly of Florida scrub brush. All Al Qaeda has to do is put one man among the work force of 55,000.
Now, this is every bit as speculative as the various pre-9-11 reports; but I would be very concerned if I had any responsibility for security.
Or can someone tell me why an attack on a theme park could never happen?
posted by vepxistqaosani 11:15 PM
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Campaign Finance Reform Loophole
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Web ...
Much has been made of the prohibition of issue ads sixty days before elections, while the media is permitted -- as it clearly must be -- to editorialize as much as it wants. And that opens up a loophole big enough for anything.
Let's say I'm the CEO of Evil, Inc. and I'm rabidly, irrationally opposed to Joe B. Righteous, the leading candidate for Senator in my state. I'm willing to empty my company's coffers to defeat Righteous. What do I do?
I start a newspaper ... and advertise it on TV
"Read the Evil Times to get the low-down on Joe B. Righteous! You'll find out that he refuses to tell our reporters when he stopped beating his wife! You'll gasp to learn that he was once -- and may still be -- a ... Thespian!"
I admit that the subterfuge is utterly transparent ... but a newspaper's a newspaper, and a newspaper clearly must have the ability to advertise.
In fact, why should one have to go to the expense of printing a newspaper? Why not just advertise a blog?
If any real lawyer reads this, I'll be interested to learn if there are any countermeasures available to those who will have to enforce CFR.
posted by vepxistqaosani 2:44 PM
Monday, March 18, 2002
Just one more for now.
My children are privileged to attend public schools in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, where education is our absolute, top-most, number-one priority -- so long as it doesn't cost too much. It's my blog, and I get to ride whatever hobby horse I want.
One of my daughters is in 4th grade and therefore about to take the ESPA test. ESPA is "Elementary School Proficiency Assessment." Here's a sample question, with answer, from the New Jersey Department of Education:
3. Using the digits 1 - 7 only once, what is the largest even number you can make with a 5 in the thousands place?
A. 7,654,321 B. 7,654,312 C. 7,645,312 D. 7,435,216
The correct answer is B.Those of you who are even more mathematically adept that the geniuses in our education department will have noticed that the correct answer is C.
This error has been up, I guess, since the ESPA test was created about five years ago.
Need I say more?
posted by vepxistqaosani 1:56 PM
I guess if I'm going to get linked by the formidable Instapundit, I'd better start putting more good content on this blog. Well, more content, anyway.
Yesterday, I had my debut as a hymnodist. My church's choir sang a hymn for which I wrote the words and our music director, Cliff Bohnson, the music. (I'll figure out how to post an audio file later, if Cliff doesn't mind.) I hope to do better later, but here's my first attempt at a hymn:
I have felt shadows of your love; Life has no sweeter part. Yet I leave you at ev’ry turn: I am not master of my heart. Lord, save me from myself. A true and inner voice says you Should be my only goal. Yet all things else entrance me more: I am not master of my soul. Lord, save me from myself. Though I do fear both pain and death, And wish to endure no ill, Yet there’s one thing that I most fear: I am not master of my will. Lord, save me from myself.And while I'm unloading verse on to the unsuspecting masses, here's a pseudosonnet I wrote my wife this past Valentine's day (I'm too cheap to buy flowers, and she doesn't eat chocolate):
Did fortune smile and open every door, Were we served our food on plates of gold, or if the servants drove us to and fro -- Do not suppose that I could love you more. If every room were piled high with mess, were we to grow incredibly obese, or if we lost our hair, our minds, our teeth -- do not suppose that I could love you less. And though we seem an ordinary pair, who've balanced good and ill and gain and loss, who worry over children and things' costs -- do not suppose there's any love more rare. Who cares that constant love is out of fashion? I always doubted doubt did much for passion.I haven't seen much verse on blogs; we'll see if this garners any protest. Send 'em to vepxistqaosani -at- netscape.net, where I'll probably ignore 'em.
posted by vepxistqaosani 1:40 PM
Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds is concerned about anti-gay bias as evidenced in the Roman Catholic Church's sex scandals. He asks, "...if sex with 16-year-olds is child abuse only if it's gay sex, then how, exactly, is the outrage-differential distinguishable from simple prejudice against gays? Am I missing something here?"
Well, yes. Let me begin by referencing the late gay Christian scholar, John Boswell, who wrote a tendentious book twenty years ago called Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century.
[Aside: Boswell's argument is that, since there is no word that unambiguously means "homosexuality" in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic, homosexuality (and therefore homosexual acts) could not have been condemned in the Bible. He makes this silly argument by drawing on books in -- by my count -- fourteen languages and on his encyclopaedic knowledge of ancient times. An amazing misapplication of genuinely impressive scholarly resources.]
One of the high points of Boswell's book is a discussion of (what is usually thought of as) Paul's condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27: For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet [KJV]. Boswell's interpretation hinges on the words here translated as against nature: he argues that Paul simply means that people who are heterosexual by nature should not indulge in homosexual acts (and, of course, vice versa).
Thus, homosexual acts between men and older boys are especially wrong when those young boys are not by nature homosexual, which is likely to be the usual case, as homosexuals only make up 1 to 3 percent of the population.
Second, such homosexual acts are especially abhorrent because of the extra level of sexual hypocrisy involved. Men who become Roman Catholic priests vow to uphold the teachings of their church, which include the notion that homosexual acts are always sinful, while allowing that (some) heterosexual acts are (sometimes) tolerable.
posted by vepxistqaosani 12:35 PM
