4seth News

I found all sorts of family members on Facebook today. I’ve also found numerous former teachers and professors. It’s a great system for keeping in touch, and I’m glad I found them all!

Testing it on the phone now.

pPicked up Windows Live Writer, to make publishing a little less involved. I’m liking it so far./p pNothing new to report, it’s been a quiet month!/p

And I really should probably be doing work rather than writing right now, but I’m up in arms again. This time? It’s over the California mother of octuplets through in-vitro fertilization. 

Turns out, she doesn’t think that the money she receives from Workers Compensation or Unemployment (she’s single and unemployed) is welfare, just the government “helping people out who need it.” I’m a fan of welfare for people who need it, but not only is she not one of those people, she’s one of the reasons that the Republican establishment is so virulently anti-welfare. It is wildly irresponsible for a single mother to have in-vitro fertilization completed in a manner which is bound to produce multiple births, when she already has 6 children, and is unemployed. It is unconscionable for her to do this, when her state is in the midst of a devastating financial crisis that Gov. Schwarzenegger has indicated could cripple the state completely without Federal aid.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090213/D96AC1PO1.html

Police are investigating death threats against her. She’s being held in an undisclosed location. She’s $50,000 in debt, and has a private website set up to collect donations. She’s on Medicaid, so the premature octuplets’ hospital bills will be paid by the government, to the tune of $1 million or more. Her children will grow up on the edge of poverty, with few niceties, while the tax payers pay an absurd burden.

I’m all for reproductive rights. I respect them, completely. However, in a world where we have people like Ms. Suleman, perhaps we should consider penalizing people on government support for having more children. It’s irresponsible, and the American public should not be forced to subsidized upwards of $3 million for someone who is not contributing to society to have 14 children.

Well, I’m now in my second night in Washington, D.C., preparing for  the Inauguration tomorrow, and am unfortunately not able to update on the fly since the Cellular networks are already being absolutely obliterated by the usage already, and, while the mall itself is busy, it’s nothing compared to what we’ll be seeing tomorrow. For everyone who is going to be trying to call, text or otherwise communicate with those on the National Mall tomorrow - forget it.

We started our circuit by hopping off the Metro at Federal  Triangle and walking along Constitution Ave, around the Ellipse and the South Lawn of  the White House. The sidewalks were absolutely packed - with pedestrians, police, and vendors, selling $5-$10 hats, t-shirts, scarves, gloves, bumper stickers,  just about anything you can think of, and more. Yes, there were Obama condoms for sale at one point, and I couldn’t help but picking up a “Change  Is Coming” version. Crude, but hilarious. Just the way I like it.

We walked further down Constitution, to the base of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge at the Lincoln Memorial, and then turned back to head on up to Capitol Hill. Google Maps tells me that’s about 2.2 miles, but it felt like an eternity - our route was forced in a zig zag by row upon row of portable toilets and crowd-control barriers. Crowded  masses formed around various attractions; Soledad O’Brien from CNN was conducting an interview at one, another was formed around MSNBC’s live broadcasting station, and a third, very close by, around the Westboro Baptist Church, who was, as usually, raising chaos. The crowd’s temperment, as to be expected, was distinctly  ugly. The steps of the Capitol were closed off behind the reflecting pool, but we got close enough to see the absolute enormity of the building itself, and of the stage that has been constructed for the ceremony. We walked up to Union Station, which we had a hard time getting into, and then returned to Judiciary Square. Grand total? Probably about 6.5 miles, but I’m completely drained.

Dave and I have been discussing the possibility of napping now, then staying up all night and moving onto the Mall as early as possible, in an effort to get a good place, as close to 4th Street as possible. We’ll have to see if that actually pans out.

There’s definitely an air of anticipation in the city at the moment. It’s hardly hyperbolic to say there’s an electricity in the air, and the general mood seems to be jovial, friendly, and yet somewhat urgent. 

Pictures coming soon from the Mall.

Stumbled across this rather interesting blog through a series of links from the Drudge Report and npr.org. It’s a resident of Tok, AK, blogging about what life’s like at 60, 70, or even 80 degrees below 0. 

No thank you!

http://livingintok.wordpress.com./

I was listening to your morning news on the drive in tonight, and just thought you ought to know:

It’s “an historic,” not “a historic.” Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid. But trust me, it’s right.

Threat Level decided to do a traditional holiday top# list. But this one is pretty good.

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The Snohomish Smokescreen

Win Ben Stein’s Mind, by Roger Ebert.

In case you’ve missed it, speechwriter, gameshow host, and actor extraordinaire (of a thousand parts but only one role) Ben Stein has recently released a documentary that makes Michael Moore, the unintentional comedian behind Bowling for Columbine and Farenheit 911, look like a reputable journalist. This documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” chronicles Mr. Stein’s horrific treatment in academia because of his refutation of the scientific theory of evolution, at the hands of blindly obedient, lockstep Darwinians who are completely ignorant and totally mean. That’s what I understand, anyway, because I have not seen it, and I have no desire to ever subject myself to the pseudo-intellectual drubbing that it’s reported to contain. I sat down just now and tried to watch his 7 minute 36 second “Super Trailer,” (seen above) and made it about 45 seconds before I turned it off in disgust. 

Roger Ebert, a somewhat notable movie critic and apparently ignorant and blind enough to be deluded by the facts presented by more than 999 out of every 1,000 educated, experienced scientists with an interest in the matter, is unforgiving, in his “review” of the “documentary.”

Ben Stein, you hosted a TV show on which you gave away money. Imagine that I have created a special edition of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” just for you. Ben, you’ve answered all the earlier questions correctly, and now you’re up for the $1 million prize. It involves an explanation for the evolution of life on this planet. You have already exercised your option to throw away two of the wrong answers. Now you are faced with two choices: (A) Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, or (B) Intelligent Design.

Because this is a special edition of the program, you can use a Hotline to telephone every scientist on Earth who has an opinion on this question. You discover that 99.975 of them agree on the answer (A). A million bucks hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking. You could use the money. Which do you choose? You, a firm believer in the Constitution, are not intimidated and exercise your freedom of speech. You choose (B).

Squaaawk!!! The klaxon horn sounds. You have lost. Outraged, you file suit against the program, charging it is biased and has denied a hearing for your belief. Your suit argues that the “correct” answer was chosen because of a prejudice against the theory of Intelligent Design, despite the fact that .025 of one percent of all scientists support it. You call for (B) to be discussed in schools as an alternative theory to (A).

Your rights have been violated. You’re at wit’s end. You think perhaps the field of Indie Documentaries offers you hope. You accept a position at the Institute of Undocumented Documentaries in Dallas, Texas. This Institute teaches that the rules of the “$64,000 Question” are the only valid game show rules. All later game shows must follow them literally. The “$64,000 Question” came into existence in 1955. False evidence for earlier game shows has been refuted by scientists at the Institute.

Mr. Ebert’s condescending sarcasm is completely appropriate. Mr. Stein is an otherwise rational, intelligent man, with a solid education, who should know better. There is no debate in scientific circles about the reality of evolution. It’s been demonstrated, observed, reproduced, it’s falsifiable, and it’s been standing successfully in that test for 150 years. The rage against the theory of evolution from some fundimentalist religious circles and other ignoramuses is based upon a basic misunderstanding of what exactly a scientific theory is, and of what the theory of evolution posits. 

1. Evolution does not claim that life arose out of nothing. It’s an explanation for the diversity of life, which was (according to all evidence) a result of genetic drift, and the impact of various diverse traits on the survivability of individuals within a population to reproductive age. That’s it. Abiogenesis is the theory that posits that life came out of the “primordial muck” through chemical processes. A critique of abiogenesis is not a critique of evolution, since evolution concerns itself not with where life came from, but what it’s doing now that it’s here. That said, abiogenesis is very well accepted as well, so I hope noone takes this clarification as an indication that it’s in any way scientifically acceptable to suggest that a loving, caring God made the original strands of self-replicating proteins 3,000,000,000 years ago that are our great- great- great- great- (…) -grandfathers. 
2. Intelligent Design is not falsifiable, therefore it’s not scientific, and it has no place being considered on a par with evolution in an academic setting. To clarify, by “academic setting,” I’m referring to an situation where our arguments are based upon their rational basis, and not upon how well they fit with ancient fairy tales. Intelligent Design is a wonderful theory for Sunday school, because it has plenty of God in it, and, depending on who you ask, it’s either the Genesis creation story, or something a little less specific (and ostensibly more scientific). Renaming Creationism to “Intelligent Design,” snipping out the parts about the serpent and Adam and Eve, and trying to put it on a par with the intellectual and scientific accomplishments of almost 2 centuries, as represented by evolutionary theory, is just absurd. 
3. Theory. Yes, evolution is a theory. A scientific theory. A scientific theory is not a guess, a supposition, and it’s not a matter of faith. It’s a model that explains what we observe in the world around us, which is supported by all the empirical data that we can obtain. When the data disagrees, the theory is modified, and we have a new theory that better fits what we observe. This is the method of science, a method which is inherently rejected by the unfalsifiable nature of Intelligent Design. Let’s consider some other theories that are on equal footing with evolution, as far as firm scientific foundations go. Gravitation. Things are attracted towards other things. On Earth, the result is things falling towards the ground. Pretty uncontestable, right? Relativity. Crazy, wacked out! Totally nuts! If I were into fundimentalism, I’d see a scientific model that suggests that God can’t even make the clocks run on time at different levels in a gravitational field as much more offensive than plain old evolution. Yet, without equations based on relativity, our GPS systems wouldn’t work. Trust me.
4. Your religion doesn’t have to be threatened by evolution. Heck, even the Vatican came out and said that Christianity and evolution are not irreconcilable. If you believe that every word of the Bible (or any other religious text) is absolutely true and written directly by God through the hands of men, you’re beyond my helping, and I’m probably coming off as a complete jerk. I’m sorry. That said, a rejection of demonstrable facts because they disagree with a text that (you’ve heard through a 3,500 year telephone game) you believe is God’s word, is the height of irrationality. Science is about reason, and if you want to be irrational, I welcome your right to do so, but I cannot suffer this desire to see religious beliefs vindicated by reason and taught in a science classroom as equivalent to scientific theories and facts (evolution is both). Keep your faiths, by all means. They’re not incompatible with scientific reason. If you want to believe that God caused the abiogenesis that sparked evolution, that the Earth is special because it’s capable of sustaining life, by all means, don’t let me stop you.

All this to say the following. Ben Stein is completely off his rocker. Around the bend. He’s gone quite mad. The movie is a farce. There’s no significant debate on the subject among people who know anything about it whatsoever. 

Please keep the faith out of the science classrooms. Reserve them for religious studies or mythology classes.

Some thoughts on cars.

American companies are good at making large vehicles. (its really quite true)
Honda and Toyota are good at making small efficient vehicles.

Get rid of all the small / midsized shitty cars  prevalent in American companies and what do you get?

You get a lineup for each manufacturer that doesn’t have a 25mpg average… so what? They have cars people want to buy in the segments that they are desired. At least they don’t have to spend millions of dollars on retooling old plants, and they don’t have to keep producing small cars that no one wants to buy and that they have to sell at a loss to move off the lots. Sure the companies would shrink and a lot of their factories would close down but that’s life… I’m sure Hyundai and Toyota and Nissan would buy and use a few. However the companies would be lean, and most importantly profitable, giving them time to do proper R&D and come up with great cars for the markets in which they don’t have a good presence. Ford is going to get there in 2011/12 due to ford Europe but gm may take a bit longer.

If a company is very good at something, why force it to into bankruptcy?

Chrysler though should sell jeep and dodge, and then die.

To drive this home, no one wants the focus, or the fusion, the town car, the sable, the milan, the grand marquis, g3,g5,g6, or vibe (even though its a matrix), the aveo, the impala, the hhr, the cobalt, the lacrosse, the lucerne, the 9-3, the 300, the sebring, the PT cruiser, the avenger, the caliber. OK maybe people DO want them, but there are alternatives to those cars that are superior in gas mileage and quality and driving characteristics at the same price points, so the only way to sell them is at a loss or a very very slender profit. However without them the entire product line will fall sharply below 25mpg average…. but that’s OK. CAFE is wrong , the government decided to paint with broad strokes and it failed to see the repercussions. It took away a lot of the flexibility that could have saved the manufacturers from their current distress.

Think about it, if you couldn’t buy those cars and could only buy more efficient alternatives from Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai, then overall co2 emissions would decrease… If you convince them to manufacture them stateside then no jobs would be lost. Sure foreign CEO’s would be getting paid more instead of our local CEO’s but the people working in the factory would contribute to our economy. And yes, a foreign company would be worth more then an American company… but if that wealth of assets is concentrated here then who cares. It’s just propaganda. Example: the Honda accord is manufactured in Alabama, and is sold here. In Japan and Europe it is sold as an acura the profits go to Honda US for operations, salaries, expansion and to Honda Executives. The chevy aveo and suburban are manufactured in Mexico, the profits (are there profits?) go to gm executives and to Mexico. Whats better?

Just because your car has is American it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t made by Suzuki in Argentina or by Toyota in Canada.

Free markets… that’s probably a good solution. Create incentives to go green, not laws.

Also these speedbumps are awesome