Dean's World

Nathan Chan

Age 11

Some of the gun bloggers have been looking into the finances of local "grassroots" victim disarmament organizations, and determining that they are in fact wholly owned subsidiaries of the Joyce Foundation. It turns out however, that there is another organization in this country that wants you disarmed, and this one is a lot scarier.

Fun with Photoshop and the 2008 Olympic mascots
here...

California Josh: The economies of the oil producing states (which also happens to include the US, but never mind that detail) would be harmed if and only if all other oil-consuming nations also followed your plan. And yes, it would be a bad thing to destroy the economies of those countries.

Taking the US out of the oil market only assures a greater supply (and probably cheaper) for the rest of the world. I'm not sure that would meet your desired end.

BTW, it'd be extraordinarily difficult for me to plug in an electric car. I don't have an extension cord long enough to run from my apartment down to the ground, then out to the parking lot. Who's going to pay to put outlets in every parking lot? Who's going to pay to put them every 40 miles along the Interstate system?

"The party of women. Poland is a woman."


The worst internet host... and proud of it. And google actually displays ads for hosting on this page. :-)


Getting air skiing.... Oops!

Josh
1. Do cost analysis. Nothing is free and this is going to cost something. I have no clue how much because honestly, your idea is one of the more off the wall ideas I've seen recently. OTW is not necessarily bad - it's just unusual.

2. Don't see the connection here.

3. Absolutely, just like North Korea pursued the bomb while its population starved. What Iran does not have is public interest groups, a functioning representative democracy and a division of powers between judiciary/legislative/executive that is akin to a Rock-Paper-Scissors game that keeps all three in check.

Iran isn't California, Josh. Hate to sound condescending, but that comment strikes me as naive.

4. You don't have to act like a socialist. Buy a hybrid, and tell your friends to do the same. Heck, go out and buy an electric car - and power it with nuclear power.

I'm a neo-con, but I plan on buying a hybrid for my next car because honestly, I hate Chavez and the KSA.

Markets work - if you let them. Governments don't - unless you force them.

5. WTF - what do you mean? We've been weaning ourselves off oil for decades. Sure we use more of the stuff today than we did in 1970, but that's because our economy is bigger. It's much less of a part of our economy today than it was back then.

The price of gasoline doubled quickly two or three years ago, and our economy didn't falter. The same thing happened in 1973, and there were lines, rationing and a full-blown crisis - one of the many that occurred in the 1970s.

If you were too young to remember those times, count yourself lucky. Aside from the Sex Pistols and David Bowie, nothing else good came out of that decade.

6. They already intervene on gas prices - through taxes - so you're right.

7. Now you're talking like one of us, Josh. Better be careful; they'll kick you out of the state.

8. Hehehe... Needs a little bit more web design but it's a good start.

You might want to "borrow" the web design of this site.

Oh, and like I said, I'm a big fan of CA even if it is crazy. For all it's problems, it's still a great place to live.

3. If Iran was so poor that they could barely feed themselves, would they really be spending their money supporting Hezbollah, and building nuclear arms?

As Iran is finding it pretty hard to feed themselves now, they have pretty much reached that point. But it isn't those that can't feed themselves who get to make the decisions on political, the economic and military spending.

From about 3 months ago: Washington Monthly.

...Ahmadinejad's economic policies have backfired, triggering 20 percent inflation over the past year, increased poverty and a 25 percent rise in the price of gas last month. More than 50 of the country's leading economists wrote an open letter to Ahmadinejad this week warning that he is ignoring basic economics and endangering the country's future.

Worst cabling messes ever

Those are pretty messy, but having worked for Western Union back in the early 60s, installing phone exchange equipment, it's quite tidy.

In the Janesville, WI office we did an upgrade and ran several thousands (tens I think) of miles of cable (counting all pairs in all cables) in the local exchange.

The fuse for the main power that would switch to battery backup if ever blown was a lead bar about 10 inches long, 3 quarter inches thick, and about 4 inches deep. There was a 2 or 3 gallon standard metal bucket under it in case it ever blew. It never had that anyone remembered.

But we often speculated that if we got everyone in town to lift their phone off the hood at the same time, we could cause that fuse to blow.

I think that the "All for one and one for all" that used to be the unwritten motto of unions may be a thing of the past. (The Detroit News)

*GM will implement a two-tier wage system for workers not doing core manufacturing jobs. The lower tier will be as little as half the current $28-an-hour wage for an hourly worker. The new wage structure would apply to new hires, not current workers.

*The automaker will make 4,100 temporary workers permanent employees paid at the lower rate. A special attrition program offering workers buyouts or early retirement would help clear out senior workers and make room for the new workers.

The two-tier wage system doesn't seem to show much solidarity on the part of the union with temporary and future workers.

Makes one wonder if they thought about the future time when these lower paid workers will be bargaining on their behalf when they are retirees. I'm sure that they will remember and be just as cold.

Here's another one for the science geeks:

Migratory birds may "see" Earth's magnetic field

Interestingly enough a somewhat similar idea had once occurred to me.

While doing research on various animal eyes and what spectrums they may perceive and how visual information might be interpreted by various animals I started studying the eyes of goldfish and the eyes of hawks and eagles. It occurred to me that certain animals might not only be able to perceive spectrum frequencies beyond generally considered normative ranges, but that they might also be able to perceive ambient energy fields, such as those produced by magnetic and gravitational fields, as well as things like the Van Allen belts, micro-friction such as might be produced along fault lines immediately prior to an earthquake or lightning strike, etc. and so forth. Of course this would in no way preclude other sensory capabilities which might also be able to perceive non-normative impulses, such as tactical or auditory or olfactory perceptions but it also occurred to me that non-normative and hyper-sensitive perceptual capabilities might often overlap in a given species, that is to say they perceive hyper-perceptually along different pathways simultaneously and are then able to correlate these different pathway inputs into a collective "over-perception." I wrote a White Paper about it (The Development of Operational Advantage by Means of Indirect and Asymmetrical Perception and Comprehension of Ambient Sensory Information) and how humans might develop a similar capability for Strategic Data Correlation using technology, though my research had been aimed at eventually developing genetic splicing and/or recombination techniques to directly render humans similar capabilities in an inherent and biological fashion. But in this case we're only talking about vision, so I'll return to that.

Anywho, where was I. Oh yeah, if they were able to perceive ambient energy fields then things like acutely powerful disruptions of that field, even if highly localized, or similarly minute fluctuations in the functioning of a persistent and yet primarily stable field might render useful data and information which the animal could then exploit, assuming it could be first perceived and then somehow understood. And of course then one must consider how are changes and in-field motion perceived, interpreted, and read by any given agent of perception. (Whether animals, or humans for that matter, can understand all of the sensory information they receive, or even understand that they are receiving it, is quite a different matter. That's a whole nuther subject so I won't breach it, it is not now germane.)

In any case it seems to me that God has planted, for whatever reason, a number of capabilities inherent in both men and animals which might be best described as biological God Technology (or Genetic God Technology), that is biological sensory and other capabilities which would, if properly exposed, exploited, and mastered mimic abilities normally ascribed to God, at least on a small scale. Capabilities which would certainly make things like, let us say, prophecy easier to comprehend and even possible to master. For instance say that you, as a man or woman, were able to perceive minute and long term changes regarding a certain ambient energy field like the electromagnetic spectrum, or could feel or see or hear changes in the earth's crust in a given locale, then making predictions about at least certain future events, such as an earthquake, or famine or drought would be much easier. How to understand what you are perceiving, how to perceive it in the first place or replicate the capabilities of another creature, or how to know exactly what to look for are also other matters. It would be very much like learning a new skill, language, or even sense capability. Even if you had always had the ability, that is no guarantee that before you understand this, or know how to properly employ it, then the capability would still be only latent, not actualized. For senate a man might have been able his whole life to throw discus reasonably well, play the piano, or master Morse Code, but until he sees a thing and recognizes it for what it is, and is willing to make the effort to attempt the thing, then latent ability never becomes actual talent, or sensory capability in this case. There was something else I was gonna mention regarding sensory perception of ambient energy fields but I got to thinking about how the genetic code of a given species or individual might effect their ability to perceive energy fields and now I've forgotten it. I reckon I'm kinda pooped out. Me old brain is stupefied, and me mind is tried. And so to all the ships at sea, good weather and good night. I need a little sleep.

Sandi, you and I probably know each other four people removed, per that social cliche. I work in cellular RF optimization, having gotten there from computer tech work, but my driver from last year's contract was wire side, having done switch maintenance for the old Wisconsin Bell.

I was invited last night to a premiere for a play called "News in Revue", basically a sort of musical lampooning political and current events.

My 2 word review: Simply awful.

I wound up walking out after the Obama number [probably 15 minutes in] where there were 4 white actors, one playing Rev. Al Sharpton, to a very campy 'black' stereotype, verging on racism. This is passing as humor in theatre these days? They couldn't have gotten more offensive if they'd put them in blackface. Glad I didn't pay for it.

I don't blame the actors one bit. I know two of them, plus the director and several of the staff. The text is utter crap and they should've known better.

I can't say that I'm an expert on the origin of the phrase "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel," but I do agree with it. To an extent.

Did you ever see the Godawful musical Grease 2? In "Do It For Out Country," Louis attempts a ludicrous setup to entice Sharon into bed with him:

Yeah, let's do it for our country, the red, white, and the blue./It's Uncle Sam who's asking, so your mother will approve./Tomorrow I'll be fighting, and I'll win this war for you./Let's do it for our country, our country wants us to.

Similarly, when somebody makes a naked appeal to my patriotism, I'm immediately suspicious. Invariably, whether the person is selling vacuum cleaners or a government policy, the fact that he's going for my patriotism tells me that he doesn't want me to think too much about my decision. And somebody who doesn't want me to think about what he's selling is being deceitful ... and is, by definition, a scoundrel.

--|PW|--

My first car (in 1974) was a Honda 600. I bought it because of the gas milage; although gas was pretty cheap, I figured high miles per gallon means lower emissions. Although I'm not a global a GW priest (and we were looking at global cooling back then anyway), I've always understood that unnecessary wate products are intrinsically bad.

If PEOPLE could be convinced that their actions are responsble for virtually all pollution either directly or indirectly (via consumption and the kinds of products they buy), then intrusive government action is not necessary. If demand for gas guzzlers falls, there will be less gas used.