What They Don't Know...

Bonnie Goldstein at Slate had an article last week titled What high schoolers don't know, complete with some of the questions that those students were unable to answer correctly. Most of the questions weren't too difficult for anyone with a modicum of education, but a surprisingly large percentage of the kids were stumped.

The article answers one burning question for us, anyway: When do people go from being informed to being ignorant? The answer appears to be "somewhere between 5th grade and high school," since the youngsters are able to run rings around adults on shows like "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" but by the time they reach high school, they know next-to-nothing about history or literature.

As Goldstein notes:

The test posed a series of questions whose answers even the slowest-witted high-schoolers might reasonably be expected to know. But only one question (Who gave the "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963?, Page 3), yielded the correct response on a near-unanimous basis (97 percent). Only 61 percent knew what the Renaissance was (Page 2), and only half knew why the Federalist papers were written (Page 3). Fewer than half knew when the Civil War was fought (see below). And this test was multiple-choice!

The Slate article has five pages worth of the questions, with the answers marked. Well, what kind of a challenge is that? If you want to find out if you're smarter than a high schooler, here is the link to the test from Common Core (.pdf file).

Note: I thought #11 was a trick question, as the guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press are indeed in the Bill of Rights, but since that is a part of the Constitution, I think that both of those answers should be considered correct. The only one that I wouldn't have known the answer for was the Ralph Ellison book, which I never read. I probably still could have guessed the right answer by eliminating others like Soul On Ice. I'll give myself credit for 32 of 33.

Super Tuesday II

It should be an interesting day today, at least in the Democrat primaries in Ohio and Texas. Can Hillary Clinton make a comeback and blunt Barack Obama's momentum? Or will the charismatic Illinois Senator put the final nail in Hillary's coffin?

The polls give Hillary the edge in Ohio but Obama a very slight edge in Texas. It's unlikely that Hillary will be able to make huge gains in her delegate deficit, though, since the way the delegates are assigned is somewhat arcane. It's possible that she could win the popular vote in Texas and still get fewer delegates than Obama.

My guess: The polls are close to accurate, Hillary gets a split in the two states, gains a few delegates and decides to soldier on through the Pennsylvania primary, saying that the failure of Obama to get landslide victories in both states shows that there is still some uncertainty out there about who the Democrats want to represent their party in November. If Hillary loses both Ohio and Texas, then I think she's toast.

Happy Leap Day!

Hey, hey! It's February 29th. Enjoy it; you won't see another one for 1,461 days. And be glad that it's not your birthday today, because you'd only get to celebrate your birthday on your birthday once every four years.

It's all about keeping the calendar working properly, of course. The Earth's year is 365.24 days long, and every fourth year, we have to add that extra day in February. Well, unless the year is divisibly by 100, in which case it's not a leap year, except when the year is divisible by 400, like 2000 was, which means that it is, indeed, once again a leap year.

Don't worry about that too much, since if you're old enough to read this, you're unlikely to still be around in 2100 when that becomes a problem again. If you are still around, you'll probably be too decrepit to care whether it's a leap year or not. I myself would be 139 years old in February 2100, which is currently long past my expiration date. It's possible that medical advances may make a 140-year lifespan attainable by the end of this century, but I'm not counting on it. I expect that the second number on the tombstone will start with a 20.

And on that cheerful note, get out there and enjoy your Leap Day!

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

I'm here to tell you, the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. Let's go to the news stories, shall we?

Police: Denver woman, 20, stabs boyfriend, 72

A 20-year-old woman and a 72-year-old man were "intimate friends" until romance turned to violence, said Denver District Attorney's spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough.

Jennifer Stroth was arrested on a domestic violence charge in Loveland on Feb. 17, after the couple had moved from Denver.

The ensuing investigation turned up evidence of two earlier knife attacks on her paramour when they shared a home in the 4900 block of Raleigh Street in Denver, Kimbrough said. Stroth is accused of stabbing the man on Feb. 1 and Feb. 16.

...

According to court records, she has been arrested numerous times on drug, theft and assault charges since turning 18 in June 2005, including an arrest by Aurora police on assault, battery and damaging private property charges stemming from a domestic violence case in November 2006.

Drugs? I'm shocked, shocked! A lot of words come to mind, all starting with C-R-A: Crazy. Crackhead. And Cradle-robber. A word to would-be long-in-the-tooth Lotharios: If she's more than fifty years younger than you and crazy enough to let you poke her, then she's probably crazy enough to poke you with something sharp. Don't do it, grandpa.

And then there's this one:

Devil-Worshipping Rapist Attacks Fiancée During Prison Leave

A British woman who regularly visits prison inmates fell in love with one, and it almost got her killed, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports. The West Yorkshire woman, whose identity was not released, fell for a convicted rapist serving a life sentence and would visit him for several hours every few weeks.

After the prisoner was released on parole to a hostel, he began spending weekends at her home and they eventually became engaged, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports.

"For the first six months things went very well," the woman told a jury, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports. "He was very kind and very caring; I always found him to be like that when he was in prison."

The woman told a jury that the relationship took a turn for the worse when the convicted criminal "started saying 'there's no such thing as God,' and then started praying to Satan."

She went on to say that her fiancé would go "absolutely crazy," insisting that they were not having intercourse often enough. When she tried to end the relationship the man allegedly attacked her with a carving knife at her home, holding it to her throat, saying, "Well, this might make you change your mind," the Yorkshire Evening Post reports.

But he was such a "kind and caring" fellow! I mean, sure, he was serving a "life" (ha-ha-ha) sentence for rape, but that must have just been a misunderstanding, right? Equal time for advice here, ladies: If he's in prison, he ain't no Prince Charming. Even if he's just in there for dope, it proves he's an idiot. And rapists? You're probably safer taking up a new career learning to juggle chainsaws. Seriously.

Music Thoughts

I watched a documentary on the Independent Film Channel the other day titled "Before the Music Dies." It was about the various factors in the music business that were stifling the development of great music and promoting mediocrity, including: The consolidation of commercial radio stations in the hands of fewer companies like Clear Channel Communications, with an increased emphasis on rigid play lists and the bottom line; fewer recording companies, now publicly owned and answerable to shareholders; and the production of formulaic music as a product, with a strong emphasis on "pretty" people who don't need to have musical talent to have a music career. The film makers showed how it was possible to pick out a pretty woman with no singing talent and then run her vocals through a computer program that "fixes" the off-key tune.

The part about the radio stations and their rigid play lists didn't surprise me at all. As they put it, radio's job is to sell products, and the music is there to keep your ears listening through the commercials. The music doesn't have to be good, it only needs to be inoffensive enough to keep you from switching the channel. The dissatisfaction with mediocre repetitive music is one factor in the rise of satellite radio networks like Sirius and XM, with dozens of different choices for consumers.

Locally, there's a fairly new station called Bob-FM. It's a quirky name for a radio station, but over the past couple of years, it has risen to the #2 ranked station in the area, behind only WAVV-FM, the easy listening station for the old folks. It's moved ahead of WINK-AM, the local talk radio station which sits at #3. "Bob" has a very wide play list: The station plays rock and pop music from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and even more recent stuff from the past few years. Their tag line is "We play anything." It even plays music that I don't immediately recognize, which can be a good thing.

Contrast this with your typical "classic rock" station: You know that if you listen to it, you will hear a Led Zeppelin song within one hour, or it's free! A couple of nights ago, I was driving to work, and Bob went to commercials. I hit the button for a classic rock station from the Tampa Bay area. First song: "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. I rest my case.

Now, I don't have anything against Led Zeppelin, but you know, sometimes I want to hear something different, something I haven't heard before. Something NEW. And on the classic rock stations, you won't ever hear anything you've never heard before, because the format prohibits it. When listening to them, it's like all of the crazy lefties were right back in the '80s and Reagan got us into a nuclear war and brought about the end of the world, because apparently no music was made after that.

Not too many years ago, the classic rock stations ruled the ratings roost, but in the latest ratings article in the paper a couple of weeks ago, I think there was one classic rock station mired somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10 stations in the area. The rise of Bob and the decline of the classic rock stations tells us something about the changing tastes of the radio audience. We really don't want to hear "Carry On Wayward Son" again today. Throw us something different, please. Or we'll change the station or get satellite radio and listen to the really cool stuff.

Taking the Scenic Route

I got a bit better acquainted with one of the back roads in Lehigh Acres this morning. Not by choice, mind you; no, it was a detour brought about by an accident on State Road 82.

I was driving home from work and had turned on SR 82 and driven a mile or so until I suddenly noticed that the traffic in front of me had slowed from the normal 60 mph to a standstill. Uh-oh. It was a foggy morning, and moments later, the radio helpfully told me that there was an accident on SR 82 with injuries and road blockage. Great. Now they tell me! It would have been nice if they'd mentioned it five minutes earlier and I would have taken an alternate route.

I thought about doing a quick U-turn, and in retrospect, this would have gotten me home much faster. Instead, I inched down the road behind the line of vehicles in front of me, and the sheriff's deputy whose cruiser was blocking off the highway diverted us off onto a narrow side street. Things moved along reasonably well for about a mile, but then we came to a complete stop. I slowly crawled down that road, taking about 15 minutes to go another mile or so. Finally I got to the next major road and turned left. It took another couple of miles to shake the traffic and finally be able to drive at normal speed.

It could have been worse, I guess. I could have been trying to get some place by a specific time. And I was certainly better off than the poor saps who were involved in the accident that caused all the trouble in the first place. Sometimes, it helps to keep things in proper perspective.

(Later, after some reflection) So what did I learn from this little involuntary side trip?

1. It is best to trust your instincts. If your gut feeling is "this would be a good time for a U-turn," your gut feeling is probably right.

2. The shortest path is not necessarily the quickest path.

3. When the traffic guy on the radio says that there's an accident with road blockage on the road ahead of you, he means it. Really. See #1 and #2 above.

iPod iNdigestion

I spent a big chunk of the weekend ripping CDs to iTunes and rounding up cover art to go with them. By the time I was finished, I had almost 20 GB in my iTunes folder, which is about 2/3 of the capacity on the new iPod. I also made a few tweaks to the sort order on some of my older CDs, which were listed as "Various Artists" because the album's artist was performing a duet with another artist. To get around that, you just select all of the tracks and then put the album's main artist in the Album Artist sort field. Then I imported all of the new stuff and changes to the iPod, and took it to work with me last night.

When I turned it on, I was nonplussed to find out that an iPod that had worked perfectly with 13 GB on it suddenly would not work properly with 20 GB on it. It took forever to show the album listing, and then it would play about one song and then crash back to the main menu. I quickly figured out that the problem was in the new data that had been added. Either it didn't like having new information added in multi-gigabyte chunks, or it didn't like the album sort changes, or both.

I brought it home this morning and took all of the data off, then re-imported all of the songs from iTunes. When you're talking about some 5400 songs, that's a lengthy process. The good news is that after I did that, it appears to be working perfectly again.

The Audacity of Mope?

Oh, boy, we've got another presidential candidate! Yes, the lugubrious Ralph Nader has just announced that once again, he is going to run for president. Because we just didn't have enough candidates in the race who didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting elected, I guess.

As the Sunday Fox & Friends crew just noted, the gloomy-looking Nader isn't particularly charismatic. A picture of Nader was shown on screen, and they noted that he was smiling. "That's as much as you get?" one of them asked. Apparently. Nader is the anti-Obama, but he's not going to get elected on the "audacity of mope." Indeed, he's not going to get elected at all, and anyone who gives him money for his election campaign might as well just set fire to it. Quicker that way.

They Might As Well Have Skipped the Valentine's Day Gifts

Rules for having an argument with your significant other:

1. No hitting
2. No hitting with cars
3. No fighting while one of you is hanging on top of the car, punching through the window, while the other one is driving down a busy road and running into several other cars
   

On the other hand, the make-up sex for this fight would be something spectacular, assuming that they can set up a joint conjugal visit at the prison...

Thoughts on the 32 GB iPod Touch

My new toy arrived yesterday. I had downloaded the latest version of iTunes, which I needed to run it, so when I hooked the iPod Touch up to the computer with the USB cable, it synched my entire music collection to the new iPod. All of a sudden, I was carrying around almost twice as much music as my 8 GB iPod Nano could hold, and the iPod Touch was less than half-full. It's actual usable capacity is 29.96 GB after the operating system is subtracted out.

You might know that a while back, there was a big flap between Apple Computer and the surviving Beatles and their heirs' company, Apple Records, over trademark infringement claims. Due to this problem, no Beatles music was available to be purchased via the iTunes store. Recently, however, the two sides came to an agreement, and all is now peace and love between them. How lovey-dovey is it? Well, on the cover of the black box that the iPod Touch came in, the illustration shows the cover of Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon, with Lennon himself in his trademark shades looking at the buyer.

The iPod Touch has a nifty sensor in it. When you turn it horizontally, it shifts to show your album covers, allowing you to flip through them until you find the album you want to play and then tap on it. When your turn it back to vertical, you can scroll through the songs on the album.

It's called an iPod Touch because the controls are all on the touch-sensitive glass face plate. The only real drawback is that it does have a tendency to get streaked with fingerprints, but you don't really notice it when it is lit up.

The back supposedly can get scratched fairly easily; it's not anodized aluminum like the iPod Nano, which was comparatively tough. If you buy one of these, you really need to get some kind of case or holster to protect it. I got a DLO Leather Hip Folio for it, which has a clip which can go on a belt or back pocket. It has holes at the bottom for the USB cable and the headphone jack.

I've been busily ripping CDs this morning, and I added 30 of them, plus the cover art for each one, to iTunes. Once I finish doing my ripping for the day, I'll synch everything up again. I still have a lot of CDs to rip, and I'm not yet up to 15 GB. Rome wasn't built in a day, and this task won't be finished today, either. It's a process.

Incoming!

The shuttle Atlantis is getting ready to land. Right now, it's over the south Pacific, but it will be landing at Cape Canaveral in about 25 minutes. It will be coming right over the Fort Myers area as it moves across the Florida peninsula. I'll be going outside as it approaches to see if I can see it going overhead. I should hear the double sonic boom, even if I don't see the shuttle itself.

Update: I didn't see anything, but I definitely heard the sonic booms. All the dogs in the neighborhood started barking...

Adios, Fidel?

Fidel Castro has been out of the limelight for a while, but yesterday he officially announced that he was not going to return to office. The aged Cuban dictator was succeeded by his kid brother, Raoul, who is a youthful 76 years old. Fidel was forced into semi-retirement by health problems a while back, and Raoul's been running things ever since. It's kind of a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." The lives of Cubans have not improved, and nobody is building rafts trying to get to the island nation.

I don't expect the icy relationship between Cuba and the United States to change any time soon. There's too much water under the bridge, and as long as communists from Fidel's generation are running Cuba into the ground, there's no reason for us to change our policies. If at some point in the near future, the Cuban government changes its policies and starts respecting the human rights of its citizens, then we can start thinking about rapprochement with Cuba.

Politics Imitate Art

Raphael's The Transfiguration of Christ.

The picture below came from the Is Barack Obama the Messiah blog:

Obama - The Transfiguration

[Obama at fund-raiser at Steven and Judy Gluckstern's home, April 9, 2007. George Soros is seated to the right of the stairs. (Published in New York Magazine April 16, 2007 - Credit: "Daily Speculations"]

I talked with my dad at lunch on Friday about Obama, and mentioned the whole messianic aspect of Obama's campaign rallies and the fervent, adoring crowds. As I put it, these people are mostly secularists, and they are filling the hole in their souls that would normally be filled with religion with Obama.

What does he stand for? It doesn't matter! He's the New Messiah, and allows people to project their hopes and desires onto him like a blank movie screen. He's smart and wise, and we're smart and wise, so of course he believes in everything that we believe in! Tom Maguire at Just One Minute took a look at this in a post about Obama being the Mirror of Desire.

Finally, Obama was quoted on Super Tuesday as saying, "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." To which I can only reply with the old T-shirt slogan, "We are the ones our parents warned us about."

Yielding to Temptation

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I kept going back to the Amazon page with the new 32 GB iPod Touch and lusting after it, and going back, and going back. Inevitably, I finally yielded to temptation and bought one this morning. I also got a leather holster case for it.

I also finally gave in to reality and decided to accept their offer to join Amazon Prime, which for $79 per year gives you free two-day shipping on all orders. As much as I buy from Amazon over the course of a year, it makes sense to just pay a lump sum and get two-day shipping on everything from now on. This means I should have my new iPod Touch on Wednesday. Then I'll go into a frenzy of CD ripping on the rest of my music collection. We'll see how close to 32 GB I can get. Currently, my iTunes has 13 GB worth of music. I'll probably end up doubling that by the time everything is ripped.

I don't know how useful the wi-fi functions will be on it, since I live out in the sticks, and I don't know if there's any kind of wi-fi network at work that I can latch onto. Then again, I have other ways to access the Internet. And for lugging my music collection around in the palm of my hand (which will be its primary function for me), it will serve the purpose admirably.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey, it's Valentine's Day, so hopefully you're getting some love from somebody special. If not, well...

Story Updates

First, from yesterday, Uno the beagle won the Westminster Dog Show. You go, dog!

Second, yesterday's robin count in the backyard was about twelve; it was hard to count them because they kept hopping around looking for worms for their breakfast. It looked like a gang convention back there. There was no sign of Mr. Blue Jay. It appears that the Bloods chased his Crip ass out of the 'hood.

Random Thoughts

This date will be much more hyped next year than it is today. Why? Because today is Abraham Lincoln's 199th birthday. Next year, February 12th will be the Lincoln Bicentennial. It will be a big deal, at least for one day, because we like round numbers that end in 00 or 50. It's just how we are. Today? Not so much, since nobody gets Lincoln's Birthday off as a holiday any more.

Hillary Clinton needs to start beating Barack Obama in some states. She hasn't won anything since Super Tuesday, and she may lose all three primaries taking place today in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Well, it wouldn't be correct to say that she "hasn't won anything" lately; she sure put a beat-down on that MSNBC chump who said that it was like the Clintons were "pimping out" Chelsea on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, getting maladroit talking heads fired doesn't win any delegates. It does let the networks know who's boss, though. Expect the regular fawning coverage to resume from MSNBC if Hillary gets the Democrat nomination.

Uno the beagle is trying to break a jinx at the Westminster Dog Show. No beagle has ever won "best of show" in its 100-year history. Uno won the hound competition yesterday to go on to the grand finale, the first beagle to do so. He's a literal underdog, so I'm pulling for him to win.

It was 40 below zero in International Falls, Minnesota yesterday. Al Gore, call your office!

Spotted in the Back Yard

Three robins, one blue jay. I can't blame them for wintering in Florida, because from what I've seen on television, it's darned cold Up North.

Yesterday, I was reading an article on a Madison, Wisconsin newspaper's web site. There was a little weather widget showing the predicted high for the day there as being -1 degree. No, that's not the wind chill; throw in the blustery winds and it was far worse than that.

Well, it's winter time. It's supposed to be cold up there in the winter. All of this talk about global warming probably made some people believe that they'd soon be planting palm trees in Fargo, North Dakota.

Ain't gonna happen, folks. Ain't gonna happen.

Obama as Messiah

"Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" That's the tongue-in-cheek question this blog asks. It shows the religious fervor of the converts to Obama's cause. Looking at the pictures that might have come straight from an evangelical revival meeting and reading the fervid prose of Obama's acolytes, I was suddenly struck with a strong sense of deja vu. I HAVE seen this before, and it only took me a minute to figure out where. The last time around, though, the part was played by Roger Daltrey (Okay, that's Pete Townshend singing the song in that clip, but in the movie, Roger Daltrey played the role of Tommy and sang "Sensation.")

Hey! I got mentioned at Instapundit!!

Cultural Insensitivity

Don't you just hate it when this sort of thing happens?

Palestinian group calls on Egyptian minister to apologize to Gazans

DAMASCUS, Syria: A radical Palestinian faction on Sunday denounced a recent statement by Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in which he warned the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip not to cross the border into Egypt or else they would have their legs broken.

How culturally insensitive is that? Anyone who knows anything knows that the Palestinians show their joy at meeting their neighbors by setting off explosive devices and firing automatic weapons into the air. "Breaking legs"? Only crusader infidels or occupiers from the Jewish entity would do something so gauche! Come on, Ahmed Aboul Gheit! Get with the program! Show your love to the Gazans in ways that they would understand.

Fun With Wikipedia

If you've ever been to the Wikipedia home page, you've undoubtedly seen the long list of languages in which the articles are written. Most of them are real languages, but I almost think that the Scots language articles are somebody's idea of a practical joke. Here, for example, is the Scots Wikipedia article on the United States:

The Unitit States o Americae is a kintra on the North American continent, an it is bund bi twa oceans (the Atlantic, an the Pacific) an bi twa kintras (Mexico tae the sooth, an Canadae tae the north). Its current Presses is George W. Bush o the Republican Pairtie.

Follaein the European colonisation o the Americaes, thretteen o Graet Breetain's nineteen American colonies spleet frae the mither kintra an formed the Unitit States, the warld's first constitutional an democratic federal republic, efter thair Declaration o Unthirldom in 1776 an the Weir o Unthirldom (1775–1783).

---

This airticle's a stub. Ye can gie Wikipædia a haund bi eikin til it.

Ach, come on, yer pullin' mah laig!

Here is the same article in Anglo-Saxon:

Þā Geānlǣtan Rīcu American is trēowiendlicu cynewīse þe ligþ mǣst in Norðamerican. Hīe gebyrdaþ norþ Canadan and sūþ Mexico. Hīe habbaæ 50 rīca and āne trēowiendlice scīre, and habbaþ sume foldan mid syndrigum gradum sibbe. Man spricþ ymbe hīe, in syndrigum fiellum, swā þā Geānlǣhtan Rīcan, America^[1], þā U.S., þa U.S.A., þā U.S. of A., þā Rīcu, oþþe (leōþlīce) Columbia.

And just for fun, in Esperanto (Here's enough to give you the flavor of it):

Usono (angle: The United States of America; mallonge: USA, US aŭ America) estas federala konstitucia respubliko kiu konsistas el 50 subŝtatoj kaj federala distrikto.

Usono estas preskaŭ tute en la okcidenta hemisfero. Ĝia kvardek-ok apudaj subŝtatoj kaj ĝia ĉefurbo Vaŝingtono situas en Nordameriko; la plej granda parto de Usono (la t.n. 48 ŝtatoj, krom Alasko kaj Havajo) limitiĝas norde de Kanado, oriente de la Atlantika Oceano, sude de la Golfo de Meksiko kaj Meksiko, kaj okcidente de la Pacifika Oceano. Alasko lokiĝas nord-okcidente de Kanado, kaj Havajo lokiĝas enmeze de la Pacifika Oceano. Usono ankaŭ posedas dek-kvar teritorioj, inkluzive de Gvamo kaj Puerto-Riko.

Man, they love their J's and K's in Esperanto, don't they? And just for the hell of it, read their list of American cities at the bottom of the article.

And yes, in case you were wondering, there is, indeed, a Latin version of the page, for the Civitates Foederatae Americae:

Civitates Foederatae Americae^[1] (Anglice: United States of America), breviter Civitates Foederatae vel Civitates vel America, in quibus quinquaginta civitates insunt, in America Septentrionali anno 1789 conditae sunt; quarum urbs Vasingtoniae est caput. Septentrione Canadam, austre Mexicum, oriente Oceanum Atlanticum, occidente Oceanum Pacificum tangunt. Praeses est quadragesimus tertius Georgius W. Bush.

There does not, however, appear to be one in Pig Latin. Ixnay on that idea! Be sure and read the list of American states and their capitals in Latin at the bottom of the article, and see how many you can puzzle out. Cenomannica? Mons Viridis? Novum Eboracum? Terra Mariae? Have fun with those!

WTF?! (Again)

I heard that some wacko shot up a town hall meeting in Kirkwood, Missouri, killing five people, including two cops, before being shot and killed himself. Fox News showed a picture of him, a friendly-looking black guy with a toothy grin, which apparently belied his explosive nature.

But the WTF? moment came immediately afterward, when the man's mother said on camera, "It was an act of God, like a tornado," saying that the town had pushed him too far by giving him tickets. "Act of God"?!?! WTF?! Who do you think you're kidding, lady? It was a violent act by your son, who was obviously a disturbed individual, not some sort of natural catastrophe! Why the hell can't some people properly lay the blame when someone commits violent acts like this? "Act of God!" Get outta here!

Technolust

The other day, my friends at Apple sent me an e-mail, suggesting that an iPod would make a nice Valentine's Day gift. They also mentioned that they are adding a new member to their iPod Touch line, with a new 32 GB version available. The cost: $500, give or take. Amazon.com has it available for pre-order at $494.

It looks really, really cool. I like my little 2nd generation 8 GB iPod Nano, which I've had for a year and a half, but I already have more than 13 GB of stuff that I've ripped to iTunes from my CD collection, and I could probably rip several GB more, but I can only squeeze 7.45 GB onto the Nano. To put on something new, I have to take something off, because it's almost completely full (currently 57 MB free).

The iPod Touch is a bit larger and heavier than the Nano, and I don't know whether it is quite as robust, but with 32 GB of Flash memory (less the amount needed for the operating system, of course), I would be able to put all of the music I own on it! Add that it has built-in wi-fi, and it looks like a pretty cool gizmo.

I'm tempted, I'm very, very tempted. It would indeed make a great Valentine's Day present, and who would I rather lavish such an expensive present on than myself? The list is quite short...

Zeitgeist Flashback

So last night, I'm driving to work, listening to the radio station that plays all kinds of pop and rock music. I'm almost there and I hear a song that takes me back a quarter-century: "99 Red Balloons," the 1984 English version of the song by the German singer Nena. (Here is the German version; if you prefer the English, click the link above.)



I first heard the German version "99 Luftballons" back in 1983 when I was in Germany. It kind of tapped into the fearful zeitgeist of the mid-80s, when all the Europeans were afraid that Ronald Reagan's forceful, confrontational style was going to trigger a nuclear war with the Russians. Fortunately, that didn't happen, and we can look back on the angsty feelings of the time with a bit of a smile. Things weren't really that bad.

There were other songs that were popular during the 1983-85 period that also captured the fearful nature of the times: Men At Work's song "It's A Mistake," from 1983; several of the songs on Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Welcome to the Pleasuredome album from 1984, especially "Two Tribes" and their cover of "War"; and the piece de resistance, Sting's funereal "Russians" from 1985, a dreary dirge of a song.

Note that none of the artists listed above were Americans; Men At Work were Australians, and Sting and Frankie Goes To Hollywood were British. I think that most Americans weren't quite so fearful as the Europeans were of the Russians. In the end, the good guys won, the Soviet Union disappeared, and the nukes stayed in their silos.

Super Bowl Half-Time Show Questions

I like Tom Petty's music, and I loved the Full Moon Fever album that came out in 1989, but... Shouldn't the Super Bowl's half-time show feature an artist who has topped the charts a little more recently? The song selection is telling: "American Girl," which was on the debut Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album in 1976; and "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'," and "Runnin' Down A Dream," all of which came off Full Moon Fever. They're great songs for a tail-end Boomer like me, but how relevant are they to the twenty-somethings that were shown dancing around on the field in front of the stage? Why must a musical act be inducted into Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before they can play at the Super Bowl?

I guess it goes back to 2004's Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction." The NFL figures that if you have folks in their 50s and 60s out there on stage, they're less likely to prove an embarrassment on national television. Since 2004, it's been Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Prince and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

Why is it that I suspect that when Super Bowl LXII rolls around in twenty years, we'll be watching some musical act from the mid-2000's doing the half-time show? Maybe a clean-and-sober Britney Spears, if she doesn't Anna Nicole herself.

The Unkindest Cut

I just read that Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh (age 67), Bob Weir (age 60) and Mickey Hart (age 64) are reuniting for a concert on Monday in San Francisco as part of a GOTV (Get Out The Vote) campaign for a Democrat presidential candidate. Hmmmm... Which one do you think it is? Would it be the 60-year-old former hippie chick who hung out in Berkeley in the summer of '71 with her boyfriend Bill?

She fits in nicely with the age demographic of many Grateful Dead fans. But no, they're not playing for Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama, this note's for you.

They did a nice job on that poster, by the way, fusing the Dead logo with Obama's campaign logo. "Fired Up And Ready To Go!" And I don't think they're talking about their bong.

Mississippi: The Nanny State?

Health nazis: I hate 'em! They go against everything that America stands for: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And unfortunately, they think that they must change our unhealthy behaviors "for our own good," because they are so much wiser than we are about how we should live our lives. So they want to legislate away all of our unhealthy choices: Tobacco, alcohol, fatty foods, and on and on.

In the state of Mississippi, hardly a bastion of liberal folly, three members of the state legislature have proposed a bill that would ban all restaurants that are licensed by the state health department from serving any food to people who are deemed to be obese. That's ALL food, not just fatty food. If that bill were to pass, obese people in Mississippi would have no choice but to eat at home, because they wouldn't even be able to purchase a low-calorie salad or vegetable platter at any restaurant in the state.

Two of these three morons are Republicans, one is a Democrat. As the linked article at TheSmokingGun.com notes, this bill is probably dead on arrival, as it should be. But for the citizens of Mississippi who elected those dimbulbs who proposed it, this should be a call for action. All three of those fools should be invited to return to private life at the next electoral opportunity.

Can you imagine all of the restaurants in the Magnolia State having to purchase scales in order to weigh any customer who looks like he or she might be obese? Do you trust fast food workers who can barely get your order right to read the height and weight tables? And what about drive-through lanes? Since everyone would have to come in and be weighed before they could purchase anything, drive-through lanes would go the way of the dinosaurs in Mississippi.

"I'm sorry, Jim Bob, but I can't sell you anything. The law says you're fifty pounds overweight for your height, and there's nothing I can do about it. There's a health food store across the street, though. Maybe you can get some tofu and sprouts there. Come back when you've lost the weight and you can have that Big Mac and fries you want."

Just For Britney

The perfect song, by Suicidal Tendencies: "Institutionalized"

We Are Not Amused

That's not the "royal We," by the way. No, it's my friend Barbara and me. We are of an age, and it's an age that is still on the sunny side of 50 by a couple of years.

Well, yesterday Barbara e-mailed me a picture of a mailing that she got from the AARP -- whose membership is open to those 50 and over, and their spouses. Barbara doesn't meet either of those qualifications. I told her that there must be some mistake, and asked her if she might have perhaps had a fake ID at some point in order to purchase adult beverages. She denied ever having a fake ID. It was a mystery.

So this morning, I'm looking through yesterday's mail and what do I see? Sure enough, a mailing from the AARP, inviting me to join and offering to help me "make the most of life over 50." Only one slight problem: I don't turn 50 until 2010! They must be hard up for membership or else somebody really screwed up. It's strange, because usually people can count on "getting AARPed" right around their 50th birthday. Maybe their membership screener was having a "senior moment" or two.

Spotted in the Valentine's Day Candy Aisle

Walking along the holiday aisle, I spotted all of the usual Valentine's Day candy: Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, conversation hearts, Hershey's Kisses in various and sundry flavors (New York Cheesecake Creme? Cherry Cordial?), etc. And one thing I hadn't expected to see: Packages of all-green M&M's candies.

Now, why would there be packages of all-green M&M's in the Valentine's Day candy aisle? Because the urban legend has it that green M&M's are an aphrodisiac.

Is it true? Well, Ms. Green certainly hints that it is. "Green is the new color of love," the M&M's press release tells us. You'd better get them quickly if you want them, though, since the all-green packages will only be available through Valentine's Day.

You know, M&M's is actually missing a trick on this, since they should keep the all-green packages available for another month -- through St. Patrick's Day, the traditional "green" holiday. I'm not the one running their marketing department, however.

Teddy: Get In the Cah, Hillary

As if having JFK's daughter endorse Barack Obama wasn't bad enough for Hillary Clinton, now word comes that Uncle Teddy is going to endorse Obama as well: Ted Kennedy embraces Obama

The powerful senior Senator from Massachusetts is a major player in Democrat party politics, and many Hispanics like him because of his co-sponsorship (with Republican John McCain) of the amnesty bill for illegal aliens, which might peel off some of the Hispanic support that Hillary currently enjoys.

Like me, most Republicans find Ted Kennedy a repugnant figure, but for people in his party, he's as much a hero as Josef Stalin is to this day among many Russians. (Although, to be fair, Ted Kennedy has killed a lot fewer people than Stalin did.) This is not an inconsequential endorsement for Democrats.

One piece of advice for Hillary: Keep your scuba gear handy.

A Cautionary Tale From Across the Pond

As you no doubt know, one of the plans that all of the Democrat presidential candidates have for us is "universal health care." While perhaps a laudable goal in humanitarian terms, the de facto end result is that we could end up with the same sort of situation that exists in places like Canada and Great Britain, where health care is nationalized. Anyone who lives in a state that borders Canada knows about the Canadians who eschew their "free" health care and come south to the United States to get treatment.

Why? Because since the government medical system is not capable of treating everyone, care is rationed, and people have to wait for months or years to get their "free" health care, possibly dying before they can get it. Better to cross the border and pay for it and live to tell the tale.

The other problem with a nationalized health care system is that ultimately, the government (or its employees, the government-paid doctors) decides who gets health care and who doesn't. This results in nanny state abuses in places like Britain, where those who don't meet healthy lifestyle guidelines may not get treatment. If you're fat or a smoker or an alcoholic, well, you did it to yourself, so why should we treat you? If you're old, well it's just not actuarially sound to give you that expensive, life-saving operation. Sorry, old chap. Keep a stiff upper lip.

I cannot understand why anyone in this country would want to put the government in charge of health care. These are the same gimlet-eyed folks who do your tax audit. The system is bad enough without putting government bureaucrats in control of it.

Update: Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club has an interesting post about this same subject. So does Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters.

Caroline, No

Where did your long hair go
Where is the girl I used to know
How could you lose that happy glow
Oh, Caroline no

So not only did Hillary Clinton get clobbered by Barack Obama in yesterday's South Carolina Democrat primary, but now Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late president John F. Kennedy, has endorsed Barack Obama in a New York Times editorial. It seems that she sees him as better embodying the legacy of her father than Hillary Clinton does.

Who took that look away
I remember how you used to say
You'd never change, but that's not true
Oh, Caroline you

The Clintons, like most middle-aged Democrats, have fond memories of the short administration of President Kennedy. Indeed, one picture that Bill Clinton used extensively was one of himself as a starstruck teenager posing with President Kennedy.

Break my heart
I want to go and cry
It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die
Oh, Caroline why?

Ms. Kennedy has always been a very private person and has rarely if ever endorsed a presidential candidate. She thinks that Obama could be as inspirational to this generation as her father was to young, idealistic people in the early 1960s. That may or may not be true, but it certainly is an unwelcome endorsement to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Could I ever find in you again
The things that made me love you so much then
Could we ever bring 'em back once they have gone
Oh, Caroline no

(lyrics by Brian Wilson)

Just a Rock

Perhaps you saw the story in the news where NASA debunked the conspiracy theorists:

NASA: Mystery Creature On Mars Is Wind-Carved Rock

An image of a mysterious human-like creature on Mars that sparked a flurry of Internet activity is not an alien but a feature of the atmosphere, according to NASA.

The image, which was captured by NASA's spacecraft Spirit last November, circulated the Internet this week.

After seeing the photo, some called the image the equivalent of Big Foot pictures and evidence of an alien presence on Mars.

A version of the image was even magnified to show the apparent creature walking with his head tilted to the side.

However, NASA said the creature is a feature of the atmosphere -- a rock 2 inches high and carved by the Martian winds, according to a CBS News report Thursday.

Darn! That would have been pretty cool, wouldn't it? It just goes to show that the human eye sees what it expects to see. We see images in the clouds, we connect stars together into constellations, and we see a humanoid shape in a picture of a rock, because our eyes are very good at seeing humanoid shapes. Our minds try to make order out of chaos and sense out of nonsense, because we don't like chaos or nonsense.

Tragedy Averted

For someone, at least. Seems that Chicago radio station WJMK-FM 104.3 decided to cancel their "Win a Date With Drew" contest. "Drew" being Drew Peterson, the ex-cop whose current wife disappeared a few months ago and whose most recent previous wife died under circumstances that the coroner has now declared were homicide.

Now, how hard up for a date would a woman have to be to want to go out with a guy like that? I think that any woman who does decide to go out with Mr. Peterson should invest in one of those radio chips, so that the authorities would at least be able to find her body, as opposed to the current missing Mrs. Peterson. It would be the considerate thing for such a hypothetical woman to do.

Exit Fred, Stage Right

I was a bit disappointed to see that Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. I liked his policy positions better than any of the other Republican candidates. At this point, I'm going to have to look seriously at the other major Republican candidates, since the Florida primary election is next Tuesday. (Florida is a "closed primary" state, so as a registered Republican, I can only vote for Republican candidates in the primary.)

When I went to the library on Saturday, I found out that it was one of the five "early voting" locations in the county. Floridians are allowed to vote early if they want to do so, but instead of going to their local precinct, they go to one of the central locations. Also, Floridians are allowed to vote by absentee ballot if they wish to do so. The post office encourages postal employees to do so, since it increases the first class mail volume.

However, this Fred Thompson situation is a perfect example of why I wait until Election Day to vote: So that my vote isn't wasted if circumstances change between voting early and Election Day. Had I voted at the library on Saturday, I would almost certainly have cast my ballot for Fred Thompson. I can say for sure that I won't be voting for Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee, since they both rub me the wrong way. Other than that, I'm officially "undecided" at this point.

Pass the Popcorn

Did you see that Democrat debate last night on CNN? Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton got downright nasty with each other. "Corporate lackey!" "Slumlord mouthpiece!" Such malice! I found it quite entertaining. John Podhoretz at Commentary magazine noted about Senator Clinton:

It was not a good moment for her, to put it mildly. Angry and condescending in the same instant, not to mention proudly triumphant, she looked like a Disney villainess at the second she finished her attack.

I'm thinking Cruella DeHille.

Sucks To Be Them

Once upon a time, Zimbabwe was a reasonably prosperous country, at least by African standards. That has all been changed by the corruption and foolish mismanagement of the government of President Robert Mugabe, whose land reforms have lead to food shortages and hyperinflation. How bad is it?

Zimbabwe bank issues $10million bill - but it won't even buy you a hamburger in Harare

A hamburger there runs $15 million Zimbabwe dollars, which is around $6 U.S. That's if you can actually find a hamburger, what with shortages of bread, meat and just about everything else.

This, by the way, is after they slashed three zeros from their old currency in August 2006. Zimbabwe has hyperinflation running at an official rate of about 25,000 percent, but as the article notes, unofficially it's probably closer to 150,000 percent. Official unemployment is around 80%.

Thank your lucky stars that you are not a Zimbabwean.

Coming Attractions

What do Harrison Ford (age 65) and Sylvester Stallone (age 61) have in common? Both have action movies that will be coming to theaters soon that reprise their starring roles in movie series from the 1980s. Ford will be starring in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which continues the popular Indiana Jones trilogy that came out between 1981 and 1989. Stallone's Rambo, which comes out this Friday, brings back the popular character from the Rambo trilogy that was released between 1982 and 1988.

Twenty years is a long time to go between films, especially when those two decades are the ones between an actor's 40s and his 60s. There's a lot of water under the bridge there. Stallone, at least, looks great for his age. I saw him on Letterman the other night and he appeared to be really fit, especially for a man of his age. The Wikipedia article about the upcoming Indiana Jones movie notes that Ford "spent three hours a day at a gym, and relied on a high-protein diet of fish and vegetables" to get in shape for the role.

Of the two movies, I'm far more likely to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, simply because I really liked the Indiana Jones movies. I hope that this sequel can live up to the quality of the rest of the series and not just be an exercise in nostalgia.

Say What?!

Sometimes you read something that is just gobsmackingly stupid. This article from the London Daily Mail is one of those things:

Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims

Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.

Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

In other news, the Holocaust is being renamed "the Period of anti-German activity" and the Spanish Inquisition is being renamed "the Period of anti-Catholic activity." Politically correct history departments may have future recommendations for other renamings as well.

My comment, which may or may not be published on the Daily Mail's web site, was that "Jacqui Smith needs a new wardrobe to go with her new language. On with your burqa, luv. We wouldn't want you to offend any Muslims by walking around half-dressed like that."

Note also the picture of "The alleged terror attack on Glasgow Airport last summer," with two alleged men putting out the alleged fire burning where the alleged SUV had allegedly crashed into the alleged building. Allegedly.

More Than Meets The Eye

There are a lot of strange things out there that we miss because they are just too small for us to see. Fortunately, there are microscopes out there to magnify them for us.

Offered for your consideration, the EIPBN 2007 Nanofabrication Bizarre/Beautiful Micrograph Contest, sponsored by Zyvex Labs (Note that there are a LOT of pictures on this page, so it may take a while to load). If you want to see the winners from previous contests going back as far as 1995, see this page. EIPBN stands for Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication, by the way.

Crikey!

Here's a story about an Aussie bloke who tried to use his disarming charm on a couple of sheilas, and found himself disarmed: Waving at girls costs man his arm

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian man who waved out of a car window at two young women was expected to lose his arm Monday after it was almost severed by another passing vehicle.

The 20-year-old was a passenger in a pick-up truck at Bunbury, in Western Australia state, when he waved at two women in a car wash.

But as he put his arm out the driver made a right hand turn and the man's limb was struck and almost torn off by an oncoming four-wheel-drive.

"His left arm was partially severed and doctors believe the limb may need to be amputated," police said.

Crikey! It's all fun and games until someone loses an arm. I'm a bit confused, though. Australians, like Britons, drive on the left side of the road. The steering wheel is on the right side, and the passenger side is the left side, the opposite of American cars and trucks. So this guy is waving his left arm out of the passenger side (left) window as the driver makes a right turn. The oncoming traffic should have been on the driver's side of the truck, right? So how did the oncoming 4x4 smack into the passenger's arm?

Other Movie Stuff

Spotted in the previews the other day: The live action version of Speed Racer. Yes, they're tapping old cartoons for inspiration for new movies. Not like it hasn't been done before. I also saw a poster (but no preview) for a new movie version of Get Smart, based on the television show from the 1960s. Sorry, but you just can't replace Don Adams and Barbara Feldon.

Movie Review: National Treasure: Book of Secrets

I had lunch with my dad yesterday and then we went to the movie theater and saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets, starring Nicolas Cage. I had read a review in the local newspaper which gave the movie only 1-1/2 stars, calling it "Dumb fun, emphasis on 'dumb'." We enjoyed the movie, but there were some plot holes big enough to drop Mount Rushmore in. It was kind of like Indiana Jones meets Mission Impossible, with beautiful scenery and nonstop action that was moving so quickly that it was difficult to say, "Hey, wait a minute!" while the movie was going on. Afterwards, in retrospect, there were plenty of things to say that about.

Spoilers follow in white text. Drag your mouse over the white block to read them.

First, after the big car chase scene in London, with multiple crashes and much gunfire, how in the world did they get out of England and back to the U.S. without being detained by the authorities? You have to show identification to get on an airplane, and the cops and Scotland Yard would have been watching the airports and the Chunnel very intently at the customs points. Second, after Gates kidnaps the President at Mount Vernon, and escapes with the Secret Service and the FBI hot on his heels, how do they all make it all the way to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota without being captured? Again, there's no way that they could fly, since they would be at the very tip-top of the FBI's most wanted list. And there are only so many routes going to Mount Rushmore. Gates tells Wilkinson (the movie's villain) that the FBI is on the way, right behind them, as they walk up Mount Rushmore. What, the FBI doesn't have radios and telephones any more to call ahead and capture them? Dumb.

But the movie was beautiful to watch, and fun while it lasted. Worth seeing if you saw the first one and liked it, as long as you have a very strong ability to suspend disbelief, at least temporarily.

Other things: Before the movie, there was a Walt Disney cartoon short featuring Goofy, with a title something like "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater System." It was hilarious. Made in 2007, there were a lot of little retro touches, like when Goofy goes to the Shiny Things big box store to get his electronics. The parking lot is filled with cartoon cars that look like they came straight from the 1950s.

There was also a trailer for the movie Hancock, starring Will Smith, that is scheduled for release on July 2nd. This one really looked funny, with Smith's down-on-his-luck superhero crashing through freeway signs, derailing careening freight trains and hurling a beached whale back out into the ocean -- and knocking over a sailboat in the process.



That trailer may not be representative of the whole movie, but if it is, then it could very well be one of the biggest movies of the summer.

How's That Global Warming Thing Going?

Snow falls on Baghdad for first time in memory

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Snow fell on Baghdad on Friday for the first time in memory, and delighted residents declared it an omen of peace.

"It is the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "We've seen sleet before, but never snow. I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished," he said.

When snow starts showing up in places where it hasn't been seen in living memory, it tends to make a person skeptical about global warming.

Perspective

It is human nature to complain when things go wrong, as I did yesterday. We blow things out of proportion, we dramatize them more than we should: "Oh, woe is me."

Sometimes something happens to instantly snap things back into perspective, to show that things really aren't that bad, and that instead of grousing about minor things, we should be thankful that we are even around to complain. Last night, when I got to work, I learned that one of our maintenance supervisors had died while on a hunting trip, apparently from a heart attack in his sleep. He was 43, according to the death notice in this morning's newspaper. Mike was a good guy, and it's a damn shame that he died so young. The tragic news really cast a pall over the whole night.

So for today, I'm not complaining about anything. Any day that you're on the right side of the dirt is a good day. Carpe diem, folks.

One of Those Days

Some days are effortless; everything comes together like it should and runs smoothly.

Today was not one of those days.

I was running on short sleep, since I had stayed up past my bedtime reading a book. Add on various petty annoyances, a paper cut near the end of the day, and a horrifically bad mailing that came apart running through the machine, and you had all the ingredients for a forgettable day.

That mailing was one of the worst I've ever seen. I didn't feed it through the machine the first time, but it didn't really look that bad until it went through the machine, popped the seals on the back end and ripped the cover part with the address off on most of the mail pieces. By the time we were through running that mail, I had a half-tray filled with shredded pieces for the Rewraps people to play with, and I would cheerfully have signed the death warrant for the person who designed that mailing. And not some wimpy "lethal injection," either! Whoever came up with that mailing deserves to suffer for a while.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Hillary Clinton is on Fox News Channel right now, talking with the Fox & Friends morning crew about her surprising victory yesterday in New Hampshire over Barack Obama. As a registered Republican who doesn't plan to vote for her, I have to say that she sounds good, and seems to be much warmer than we usually see her. When she's speaking in a normal tone of voice, rather than raising her voice to orate, she doesn't sound too annoying. She even sounds convincing when she talks about wanting to help other people. At the very least, she sounds like she believes it.

Senator Clinton has a lot to be happy about this morning. All of the polls said that Obama was probably going to win by a comfortable margin. Instead, Hillary won in a close contest, 39%-36% over Obama, with John Edwards finishing a distant third and Bill Richardson an also-ran. Yesterday, all of the news was that Hillary's campaign was in panic mode and that there would be a shake-up coming today, with veteran Democrat pit bulls James Carville and Paul Begala coming in with crash carts to slap the paddles on an arrhythmic campaign. Now, all of that talk is on hold. The reports of Hillary's demise seem to have been greatly exaggerated.

Why are the New Hampshire results so surprising, other than the fact that all of the polling had Obama in the lead? Well, the Granite State has an open primary, meaning that independents who are not registered as either Democrats or Republicans can still participate in the primaries. Indeed, members of either party are free to cross the aisle and vote in either primary. The independents were expected to break heavily for Obama, with an expected bandwagon effect after his Iowa victory. Everybody loves a winner, right? It appears, however, that the independents who voted for Obama weren't enough to offset whatever support Hillary had from the Democrat party base. And many of those independents might have thought that Obama's victory was a fait acccompli, since he was up so much in the polls, so they may have decided to vote for Republican John McCain instead.

Two things are certain after yesterday: People will take those polls with a grain of salt, and Hillary and Obama seem headed for a long, hard battle for the Democrat nomination. It should be entertaining.

After Hillary went off Fox News Channel, they had Madeleine Albright on. It appears that at least Hillary's campaign has overcome the Democrats' aversion to FNC. I know that many Democrats are suspicious of the network, since it doesn't have the liberal bias of other news networks like CNN and MSNBC. A few months back, the Democrats canceled a debate sponsored by FNC, mainly because of pressure from some extremist elements in the party. At this point, it looks like the Democrat candidates will take free news exposure where they can get it, even from networks with a more conservative viewpoint.

Hot On the iPod Today

This is "Everything I Wanted," one of the new Bangles songs I added to my collection from the Glitter Years: Rarities & Gems CD. It was also on their Greatest Hits CD. It's a great song and I've been pumping the play count. This video is made from footage compiled from their other videos. Enjoy.

Gazing At the Granite State

New Hampshire primary today. The vote count is already in from the tiny hamlet of Dixville Notch, which votes just after midnight. If this is a preview of how the day is going to go for Hillary Clinton, it's going to be a very, very bad day for her. Barack Obama got seven of the ten votes cast for Democrats, John Edwards got two votes, and Bill Richardson got one vote. Hillary? Donut. Zip. Nada. Zero.

If Hillary does come back to win the nomination and the election, I would not want to be a resident of Dixville Notch, which would probably be the future location of the Hillary Clinton National Nuclear Waste Storage Facility.

And then there were the two protesters at one of Hillary's rallies yesterday, who stood up and yelled "Iron My Shirt!" and waved signs with the same slogan. Security removed them and Hillary was able to comment, "Ah, the remnants of sexism — alive and well," scoring applause from the crowd. Am I the only one to wonder whether the men might have been planted there deliberately by the Clinton campaign, perhaps to garner sympathy for her and to allow her a clever riposte? Now, some people might think that's being overly suspicious of Senator Clinton, but then again, she did have planted questioners during a debate. I wouldn't put it past her to plant fake protesters in the crowd.

Talking with one of my co-workers last night, I asked her what she thought of Mike Huckabee. "He scares me a bit... He was a preacher, after all..." she told me.

"You know what scares me about him?" I asked. "He lost all of that weight. You know how the people who are the toughest against smoking are the reformed smokers? It's the same for fat people. Today, he was on television showing off a Huckaburger made of bison meat and bean sprouts. People who have made drastic lifestyle changes often want to push them on other people. I don't need a nanny state, though. I already have a mother."

Obama vs. Hillary

I've been watching the Democrats' presidential primary campaigns with a certain sense of bemusement. The conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton was the Democrats' presumptive nominee, and that the amount of money that she had raised and her party connections, especially her husband, would be enough for her to steamroll the competition. And then, in Iowa, Hillary finished well behind Barack Obama and narrowly behind John Edwards for third place. The key to Obama's victory in Iowa was getting the youth vote out to vote for him.

Now, Obama is a charismatic politician and a fine orator, a comparatively youthful and handsome Senator with a photogenic young family. He shares at least that much in common with another man who ran for the presidency and won almost half a century ago: John F. Kennedy. Most importantly, he is significantly younger at 46 than his two main competitors' for the Democrat's nomination, Edwards (54) and Clinton (60), and his life experience falls on the other side of a significant divide.

Both Clinton and Edwards no doubt remember JFK and the assassination in November, 1963, a major traumatic event for those who were old enough to be aware of it at the time. They were shaped by the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, as well as the cynicism about America and its government. By contrast, Obama was too young to remember the Kennedy assassination, and by the time he came of age, the Vietnam War and conscription were history. The Watergate scandal was something that the adults were talking about, and those of us who were young teens at the time breathed in the cynicism like second-hand smoke, but it was not the main formative experience of our lives as it was for people a decade older than us. Instead, our formative events were the hard economic times under Jimmy Carter, as well as the embarrassment of having Americans held hostage in Iran, and the resurgence of American pride and power under Ronald Reagan when Carter was voted out.

While all three candidates are "baby boomers," those of us at the tail end of the boom had significantly different formative experiences in our lives, which have permanently affected our world view in a lot of cases. For a lot of leading-edge Boomers born in the late 1940s, every war that America gets involved in is Vietnam all over again, and every president that they disagree with is another Nixon. They cannot escape this prism through which they view the world and which distorts their vision of reality.

It may be shocking to Hillary Clinton to think about it, but she's not so young any more. The 14-year age gap between Obama and her is the difference between a perception of youthfulness and a perception of age. The younger voters in Iowa apparently noticed the difference, and felt more of an affinity for Obama than for Hillary.

There was an interesting article in The New Yorker by Ryan Lizza about Hillary's final campaign rally in Iowa, which was at a museum in front of the skeleton of a mammoth. The theme music in the background was classic rock from the 1970s and 1980s. Boomer music, the music of the middle-aged. Is Obama's campaign using music from Bachman-Turner Overdrive? The Clintons have long since stopped thinking about tomorrow, and perhaps Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" would be more appropriate theme music.

To put the youth vote into perspective, let's look at one person who will able to vote in November for the first time, my niece Rachel, who is almost exactly thirty years younger than me. Rachel was born in 1990. For her, the end of the Vietnam War is farther back in time than World War II was for me. The Berlin Wall came down before she was born; the Soviet Union went out of business before she turned two, so she has no memory of the Cold War. For her entire life, someone named Bush or Clinton has been the President of the United States. Is it any wonder that any youth voter who wants "change" won't associate Hillary Clinton with that word?

To be honest, I'm not sure why so many people seem to want "change," because historically, these are pretty good times, at least as far as the economy goes. Unemployment is low, inflation is low, and people who weren't taking foolish chances in the housing market during the bubble aren't doing badly. Those who think these are bad economic times probably have never seen a real recession, much less a depression. They don't remember the Jimmy Carter years when the term "misery index" was coined. Any "change" that comes about is not likely to be for the better.

New Stuff

I got a shipment in from Amazon today. I got the Bangles' Return to Bangleonia DVD, which is a live concert from September 2000 at the House of Blues in L.A.; a Bangles CD, Glitter Years: Rarities & Gems, which has four songs that I didn't already have on the Bangles' four studio albums; and finally, the four-disc Collector's Edition of Blade Runner.

I just finished watching the Bangleonia DVD, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's too bad it took them seven years to put the DVD out. The concert consists of 18 songs which are a mix of older material and new songs that the group had not yet recorded for their Doll Revolution album that came out in early 2003. There are also a couple of acoustic songs in the extras, as well as a commentary track for the concert featuring Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson and Debbi Peterson, and a photo gallery. This DVD is a must for any Bangles fan.

The Blade Runner set includes four different versions of the movie, including the Final Cut from 2007, the original 1982 U.S. Theatrical Cut, the 1982 International Cut and the 1992 Director's Cut, all of them digitally remastered. It will be interesting to watch all four different versions and note the differences. I could have spent another $25 and gotten the super-duper-deluxe five-disc set with the Working Cut as well, but that seemed like overkill. Indeed, four different versions probably is overkill. It all comes down to whether or not you like Deckard's voiceover and the happy ending of the original version that was in the theaters in 1982. I'll have to wait until later to watch this, since there's football games for the rest of tonight...

My $0.02 On Iowa

Re: The Iowa caucuses, I think far too much is made of them, especially since nobody ever gets a clear majority. Sure Obama and Huckabee "won," until you consider that 62% of Democrats preferred someone else to Obama, and 66% of Republicans preferred someone else to Huckabee.

The other thing is that the number of people who actually participate in the caucuses is ridiculously small, and almost all of them are half-crazed political junkies of one stripe or another. The normal people were at home, watching the Orange Bowl or having dinner with their families.

I think Huckabee got fewer than 45,000 votes in a state of 3 miillion people. The anecdotal evidence is that Democrat turnout was about twice as high as the Republicans, since the Iowa nutroots types were more "fired up," but that would mean that Obama got maybe 100,000 votes at most.

The Democrats don't release the actual vote counts from their caucuses, just the delegate counts, which is hardly a transparent system. I heard some convoluted explanation this morning on the talk radio show, and apparently the delegate counts aren't completely congruent with the number of votes the candidates actually received. Some animals are more equal than others, apparently, and some voters are, too, making the party name an oxymoron. At least there wasn't a People's Soviet Duma involved, as far as I know.

But Hillary has lost her aura of inevitability. I can't foresee any
combination of circumstances that would result in me voting for any of the Democrat candidates in November, but of all of them, she would probably be the least dangerous to the country.

This is not to say that I don't think that her socialist policies would be bad for the country, but I think that the rest of them would likely be worse. Hillary is cold and vindictive, and any country that attacked us on her watch could expect prompt retaliation. I don't think that would be the case under Obama, and it certainly wouldn't be the case under Edwards, who would probably make Carter seem bold and bellicose by comparison.

Obama gives a nice speech, but his record is far to the left of Hillary's, which is a bad thing. An Obama administration's policies would likely be even more collectivist and confiscatory than a Hillary administration would be, and more likely to try to give away American sovereignty and prosperity to unaccountable international organizations like the U.N.under boondoggles like "fighting climate change."

Bearded Late Night Hosts

It's called the Law of Unintended Consequences, and it describes what happens when someone does A expecting result B, and at the same time, C occurs. In the case of the Writers Guild of America strike, the late night talk shows went dark for a couple of months, since they didn't have writers to write jokes for them. For the past two months, it's all been reruns on late night. In the last few days, however, David Letterman's company made a separate peace with the writers and settled that part of the strike. Last night, Letterman was back with his writers in tow. Letterman's competition (Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel) came back without writers.

The unintended consequence was that Letterman returned to the small screen with a beard, as did Conan O'Brien. Now, this may seem odd, but when you think about it, perhaps not. You don't normally see bearded talk show hosts because they're all clean-cut when they're hired, and if you're on television on a daily basis, you simply cannot go through the inevitable scruffy phase of beard growing during that first two or three weeks. But if you are off-screen for two months because of a writers' strike... Ah, then you can come back, fully bearded and looking wise and distinguished, without having to go through the scruffy phase on camera. A well-trimmed beard can add a sense of gravitas. But it can also be hot and itchy, and if it's much grayer than the hair on your head, it can make you look much older, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Cold Enough For You?

Yeah, me too. It's 31 degrees outside. I don't think we made it down into the 20s, but we have definitely broken the old record for this date of 34 degrees back in 1979. This appears to be the coldest day here since 1996. You're probably thinking, "Gee, 31 degrees doesn't sound so bad." And where you're at, it probably isn't. It's probably warmer than what you have right now, unless you're in Hawaii. But if you want to compare it to how it feels to us Floridians, just go to your local newspaper's weather section, find the record low for today and subtract three degrees. THAT is how cold it feels to us.

It was kind of funny at work last night, because a few people were having cognitive dissonance with reality and were wearing shorts! I told one friend in shorts that he reminded me of a tropical bird that got blown off course and ended up in the Arctic, and didn't know what to do. Another friend in shorts told me that he doesn't even own a pair of long pants any more, just shorts. With the exception of one black guy on the earlier tour who was wearing long baggy shorts that hung down past his knees, all of the guys wearing shorts were white. The Haitians and Hispanics were all bundled up; they're no more acclimated to cold weather than I am.

Final weather comment: Al Gore is a charlatan. If this is "global warming," then we need to build a few more coal-fired power plants and run them full blast for a while.

"At the end of the day, it just tells you that honesty sometimes does not pay."

That was what former Malaysian health minister Chua Soi Lek had to say, after he was forced to resign after admitting that he was the man in two widely circulated sex tapes. He'd hoped that his pecadillos would be forgiven, but alas, as he put it, "Some Malaysians have a holier-than-thou attitude."

Mr. Chua was in two tapes that ran 56 and 44 minutes respectively, so stamina was in his favor. There is no mention in the article about whether he was using protection, however. Frankly, if he wasn't wearing a condom, then he probably should have been fired for not being a good role model as health minister. One must lead by example.

Slingshots and Vodka?

That's what the New York Post claims a source told them that the Tiger Boys had on them when they were mauled by the tiger at the San Francisco Zoo. Well, the empty vodka bottle was allegedly found in their car, but supposedly they had the slingshots on them. Not the sort of item that a totally innocent victim would be carrying on his person.

Now, if it comes out at the civil liability trial that they did, indeed, have slingshots on them, do you know how much money I would give them? Nada! I'd say that the zoo was liable to the point that I wouldn't make the Dhaliwals pay to replace the tiger, but I wouldn't give them a dime. They're lucky that I won't be on their jury at the civil trial.

It sounds like they are India-Indian, so maybe one of their relatives might want to explain to them about the concept of karma coming around to bite you in the ass (and other places) if you do bad things. If the Post's report is true, then they got what they deserved: Karma in the incarnation of an angry tiger, coming to chastise them for their evil deeds.

In a place like liberal San Francisco, with its large contingent of vegans and Animal Liberation Front types, the Dhaliwals and the family of the dead boy might have a hard time getting a sympathetic jury if their own wrongdoing led to their injuries. They'll be lawyered up with high-powered shysters, but that might not be enough if the people on the jury feel that they brought it on themselves.

It's almost makes you believe in God, albeit an angry, Old Testament God. The only thing that would have been a better indication would have been a pack of wild dogs attacking Michael Vick.

Meet the New Year, Same As the Old Year

Or, "We Won't Get Fooled Again," the perfect theme song for an election year.

I was thinking about the subject of the arbitrariness of the concept of the new year, and about the fact that December 31st, 2007 has more in common with January 1st, 2008 than it does with the first 363 days in 2007. Watching the numbers roll over on the calendar gives the illusion of change, but in reality, things are still pretty much the same as they were yesterday.

Change IS coming, though, and not for the better: We have a major cold front on the way that is likely to give us record cold temperatures for January 3rd on Thursday. The newspaper has threatened us with temperatures in the upper 20s, which could be the coldest day since 1996 (29 degrees) or even back to The Great Christmas Freeze of 1989 (27 and 28 degrees on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, respectively). The all-time record low for Fort Myers of 26 degrees was recorded on December 13, 1962. (Update: That's the modern record at Page Field, the old airport. The all-time coldest temperature in downtown Fort Myers was 24 degrees on December 24, 1894.) The Great Christmas Freeze was my first winter in Florida, and it killed off a lot of palm trees and other tropical plants.

"Global warming," my foot.