Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Two years ago, after struggling for several years with my health, outsourcing, battling with insane laws, lawyers, and greedy corporations, and coping with the bile accumulated from eight years of hatred for my country's politics (this includes Clinton's last two years), I got fed up.
I finally threw in the towel on my profession, and lost hope for my country.
I found a place to live cheap, and decided to enjoy what time I/we had left with all the gusto I could muster. I was awfully tired and ill. It was a good time togo on strike rest.
I surfed one hell of a lot. Studied Spanish. Traveled. I tried to get married (twice), and ultimately settled on embracing bachelorhood to its fullest. I wrote a lot. I learned a lot of music. I helped create a live music scene that continues to expand... I saw that Ron Paul had correctly foreseen the coming calamity, and followed him for a while...
And I didn't write a single line of code. (well, I did tune a few bits with david rowe)
For a while, all that worked for me. Yet I kept remembering that "despair is a sin", and "for evil to triumph all that is required is for good men to do nothing". I played mind games with myself, rendering the latter comment as "For good to triumph all that is required is that evil men be rendered powerless" - which ties better back into my overall philosophy - but ultimately...
I found myself compelled to create software once again.
Slowly, on my own time, at my own pace, I have been doing work of the quality I desire, at the pace that I need to work at. I'm perhaps 1/20th as productive as I used to be, and half as competent, and probably too perfectionist to be employable at it. Yet - some of the results of my work just made the Linux kernel, and some more will end up in ardour soon, and others stand alone. It has been a worthwhile struggle. I do retain hope that I can find an engineering niche again due to the cost differential between me in California and me here, and a non-native english speaker in China... but I don't really care - it's a rewarding hobby - and I'd rather pursue Quality - as Rob Persig would define it - than profit, any day. I think I can keep the lights on and the bills paid pretty easily now.
Today, Barack Obama is president of the United States.
I am impressed. Obama, by his mere existence, can clear up some of the most terrible cracks in the American conciousness and ideals in a way no one else can.
I pray that he can also reduce the stucked-ness that America has been plagued with for the last decade.
I didn't vote for him, but, weirdly, I can date my returned urge to code back to the day he was elected. I wasn't planning on coding again, I was (still am) working towards making a modest living in another field entirely....
I think it will take a decade or more to reverse the changes the last three decades has wrought. Certainly the next two years are going to be pretty bad. I still feel that it is probable, however, that America's decline is unstoppable - the decline in quality jobs, living standards, ethics, education, and morality, will not halt, but accelerate, and the Far East take the center stage. Maybe they will do a better job with their day in the sun.
Hyperinflation may well set in next year - or at least, strain the currencies still slaved to the dollar.
I think housing prices will continue to plunge for another year too. (and this is a good thing, housing had become unaffordable for too many, including myself - houses are also too big, according to our current demographics, but that's a tale for yet another unpublished article)
There's no sign that Obama is capable of chopping away the deadwood, or setting fire to it. It does look possible he can plant a new forest or two. Governments can create markets. Look at the market for war-making, for example...
I still have issues with resuming my profession - Terry Childs is still in jail - and his incompetent management isn't.
Fear of the competent man still reigns, in scenes that remind me very much of the final parts of Atlas Shrugged.
I was reminded of that particular novel a lot in the last few years. I was spending most of my time being tasked with avoiding copyright and patent laws and seemingly spending endless days with lawyers, and not doing what I loved, engineering. More than once, I quit because what I was doing was ethically or legally challenging. In part, I came to Nicaragua because I hoped CAFTA wouldn't pass (it did, but remains mostly unimplemented), so I could be left alone to create once again.
Last year, I struggled with writing a piece about why I was not a libertarian, but believed they pulled in the right direction. Recently I found part of the answer in something Jerry Pournelle wrote:
Some things cheer me up, a lot.
Take, for example, the resurgence of Philadelphia sports - the Phillies winning the world series - and the plucky Eagles first, crushing the Cowboys a few weeks back, and then almost making the Superbowl with comeback after comeback in every game since - the last quarter of the last game was seemingly designed to make a Rocky fan weep every two minutes.
Or, SpaceX building the Falcon 9 rocket from scratch before NASA could even demonstrate a prototype of their own - and getting a contract for it. It's on the pad now. I get choked up about how it represents the America I once believed in every time I look at it. And I remember that Elon Musk is actually from South Africa, yet still believes in the American dream.
Or, Microsoft and Novell engineers slaving - together! - over the Silverlight code over the last few days so that people running on a PowerPC or under x86/x86_64 Linux could watch the inaugural.
People working towards being united, rather than divided.
One of the most galling things about the Bush regime was that, after election on the thinnest of margins, he then proceeded to rule as if he had an absolute majority.
I'm comforted by the idea of a new president that reaches for a cigarette, rather than a bible, when he needs contemplation - a president that might reach for technology, rather than weaponry, to achieve his goals. A uniter, rather than a divider, that actually may be one.
It is a nice thing to hope for, and although I can't gush over him like many of my friends, or Andrew Sullivan, or Doc Searls... Barack Obama does give me hope for a better tomorrow - or at least, a slightly less worse one. I'm willing to give him his shot, for now.
I intend to hang up this blog - and the prolefeed - and blogging in general - completely for a few months while I work on some code and some spanish. Maybe when I come back things will truly have changed.
"If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way." - Elon Musk
I didn't actually manage to see Obama's inaugural speech, though I read it. It didn't say a whole heck of a lot, really, that hasn't been said before... but it said it well.
However, in seeing pictures of the Mall today, I couldn't help but be reminded of the following:
not this part of the movie, in particular, but the sense of imminent doom, removed by the words,
Klaatu Barada Nikto...
(didn't they remake that movie recently?)
I finally threw in the towel on my profession, and lost hope for my country.
I found a place to live cheap, and decided to enjoy what time I/we had left with all the gusto I could muster. I was awfully tired and ill. It was a good time to
I surfed one hell of a lot. Studied Spanish. Traveled. I tried to get married (twice), and ultimately settled on embracing bachelorhood to its fullest. I wrote a lot. I learned a lot of music. I helped create a live music scene that continues to expand... I saw that Ron Paul had correctly foreseen the coming calamity, and followed him for a while...
And I didn't write a single line of code. (well, I did tune a few bits with david rowe)
For a while, all that worked for me. Yet I kept remembering that "despair is a sin", and "for evil to triumph all that is required is for good men to do nothing". I played mind games with myself, rendering the latter comment as "For good to triumph all that is required is that evil men be rendered powerless" - which ties better back into my overall philosophy - but ultimately...
I found myself compelled to create software once again.
Slowly, on my own time, at my own pace, I have been doing work of the quality I desire, at the pace that I need to work at. I'm perhaps 1/20th as productive as I used to be, and half as competent, and probably too perfectionist to be employable at it. Yet - some of the results of my work just made the Linux kernel, and some more will end up in ardour soon, and others stand alone. It has been a worthwhile struggle. I do retain hope that I can find an engineering niche again due to the cost differential between me in California and me here, and a non-native english speaker in China... but I don't really care - it's a rewarding hobby - and I'd rather pursue Quality - as Rob Persig would define it - than profit, any day. I think I can keep the lights on and the bills paid pretty easily now.
Today, Barack Obama is president of the United States.
I am impressed. Obama, by his mere existence, can clear up some of the most terrible cracks in the American conciousness and ideals in a way no one else can.
I pray that he can also reduce the stucked-ness that America has been plagued with for the last decade.
I didn't vote for him, but, weirdly, I can date my returned urge to code back to the day he was elected. I wasn't planning on coding again, I was (still am) working towards making a modest living in another field entirely....
I think it will take a decade or more to reverse the changes the last three decades has wrought. Certainly the next two years are going to be pretty bad. I still feel that it is probable, however, that America's decline is unstoppable - the decline in quality jobs, living standards, ethics, education, and morality, will not halt, but accelerate, and the Far East take the center stage. Maybe they will do a better job with their day in the sun.
Hyperinflation may well set in next year - or at least, strain the currencies still slaved to the dollar.
I think housing prices will continue to plunge for another year too. (and this is a good thing, housing had become unaffordable for too many, including myself - houses are also too big, according to our current demographics, but that's a tale for yet another unpublished article)
There's no sign that Obama is capable of chopping away the deadwood, or setting fire to it. It does look possible he can plant a new forest or two. Governments can create markets. Look at the market for war-making, for example...
I still have issues with resuming my profession - Terry Childs is still in jail - and his incompetent management isn't.
Fear of the competent man still reigns, in scenes that remind me very much of the final parts of Atlas Shrugged.
I was reminded of that particular novel a lot in the last few years. I was spending most of my time being tasked with avoiding copyright and patent laws and seemingly spending endless days with lawyers, and not doing what I loved, engineering. More than once, I quit because what I was doing was ethically or legally challenging. In part, I came to Nicaragua because I hoped CAFTA wouldn't pass (it did, but remains mostly unimplemented), so I could be left alone to create once again.
Last year, I struggled with writing a piece about why I was not a libertarian, but believed they pulled in the right direction. Recently I found part of the answer in something Jerry Pournelle wrote:
- Atlas Shrugged shows capitalists overwhelmed by government regulators who don't understand how things work and eventually, which trying to assure fair play, make it impossible for the market to work.
Alas, a slave market shows where unregulated capitalism will go if left to itself.
For two thousand years political philosophers have known that good government consists of a mix, and that maximum freedom can only be obtained through mechanisms to assure that freedom. 'That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed'
Apparently no one remembers any of this. Miss Rand didn't; her unregulated capitalists were still decent men and women.
Some things cheer me up, a lot.
Take, for example, the resurgence of Philadelphia sports - the Phillies winning the world series - and the plucky Eagles first, crushing the Cowboys a few weeks back, and then almost making the Superbowl with comeback after comeback in every game since - the last quarter of the last game was seemingly designed to make a Rocky fan weep every two minutes. Or, SpaceX building the Falcon 9 rocket from scratch before NASA could even demonstrate a prototype of their own - and getting a contract for it. It's on the pad now. I get choked up about how it represents the America I once believed in every time I look at it. And I remember that Elon Musk is actually from South Africa, yet still believes in the American dream.
Or, Microsoft and Novell engineers slaving - together! - over the Silverlight code over the last few days so that people running on a PowerPC or under x86/x86_64 Linux could watch the inaugural.
People working towards being united, rather than divided.
One of the most galling things about the Bush regime was that, after election on the thinnest of margins, he then proceeded to rule as if he had an absolute majority.
I'm comforted by the idea of a new president that reaches for a cigarette, rather than a bible, when he needs contemplation - a president that might reach for technology, rather than weaponry, to achieve his goals. A uniter, rather than a divider, that actually may be one.
It is a nice thing to hope for, and although I can't gush over him like many of my friends, or Andrew Sullivan, or Doc Searls... Barack Obama does give me hope for a better tomorrow - or at least, a slightly less worse one. I'm willing to give him his shot, for now.
I intend to hang up this blog - and the prolefeed - and blogging in general - completely for a few months while I work on some code and some spanish. Maybe when I come back things will truly have changed.
"If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way." - Elon Musk
I didn't actually manage to see Obama's inaugural speech, though I read it. It didn't say a whole heck of a lot, really, that hasn't been said before... but it said it well.
However, in seeing pictures of the Mall today, I couldn't help but be reminded of the following:
not this part of the movie, in particular, but the sense of imminent doom, removed by the words,
Klaatu Barada Nikto...
(didn't they remake that movie recently?)
Labels: america, Barack Obama, election 2008, nicaragua, Ron Paul
¶ 4:44 AM 3 comments
Friday, November 21, 2008
I visited Managua last Sunday. It was - as my friends were telling me - a disturbing scene, particularly to someone unused to seeing gunpowder outside the hands of professionals.
The polarized election had nearly every telephone pole painted in some variant of each party's colors and many campaign signs were defaced.
There was a FSLN (Sandinista) rally on nearly every traffic circle I passed - two that I passed (near the galleria and metro central) had people equipped with what looked like hand made rocket launchers - short tubes, about 18 to 24 inches in size, with handles. They were shooting off fireworks that mostly went boom rather than had pretty colors. I mean, whooooosh - BOOM. whooosh - BOOOOOOOOOM! whoooosh - KA-BOOOOM!
No mortars, as some reported. But it was early. I didn't stick around after dark.
There were people, young and old, celebrating - lots of flag waving of both the Nicaraguan (blue and white) flag and the FSLN flag (red and black), and music, powered by generator trucks. Members of the opposing parties were notable by their absence, but all those present seemed enthusiastic, and only a very few drunk.
"Big Booms" occurred every few seconds at times. I mean, explosions to rival the best of a July 4th celebration - head-aching booms. As I noted in a previous blog entry, this sort of thing happens all the time in Nicaragua, firecrackers and fireworks are set off on nearly every occasion... but, man, there was an awful lot of it, everywhere, in Managua.
It was disturbing to see the rockets being fired off from within the crowd, and also obvious that the same devices could do a lot of damage if used horizontally rather than vertically. They weren't - but then again, the policia weren't bothering anyone celebrating, just sealing off the streets around the area and re-routing traffic.
I've always wondered: where does all that gunpowder come from? Some latent regulatory sense within me asks: "why does the government let the non-professionals have it?" - and my engineering side then asks "why don't I?" I have plenty of uses for the stuff. I could fix a few roads.
For all that, inside those malls, it was business as usual, no stores closed, no taped entrances. As I left Metro Central around 4 o'clock (I spent a few hours there getting my visa renewed), the front side parking had emptied of cars save my own, and mall guards - in bulletproof vests - were closing off the exits to the main road, where a much bigger rally was assembling just a block away.
We drove out of the mall up to the rally but had to turn around due to the sheer masses of people partying down.
The rest of the day was peaceful. I was amazed at how much the road network between San Juan Del Sur and Managua had improved - aside from a few bumps inside of busy towns, I encountered 0 - zero - potholes - in over 100km of driving - a huge improvement over my first visit 18 months ago, and accounting for a major increase of speed between those two destinations (with a detour in Caterina for pottery).
The airport - business as usual - the hotel - business as usual - otherwise just a normal day - well, one with explosions overhead every few minutes no matter where you went.
On my way out of Managua, I got stopped by some cops expecting a bribe. I had done nothing wrong, but I had broken the speed limit all day - and until a few minutes before was effectively in the country illegally - so it was kind of karmic.
400 cordobas (about $20 US) later my buddy and I were on our way. Having to bribe your way out of an unjustified ticket is just one price you have to pay for living in the third world, but I have to admit those cops made me pretty nervous before settling on an appropriate amount - I was already kind of disturbed and deaf from the day - AND had I not just freshly renewed my (late) visa I might have been in major trouble.
I am trying very hard here to document what I'd witnessed or done vs what I've heard. There are so many rumors swirling around, and the only place I've found approximations of the truth has been on the comment sections of websites such as Nica Living, and the on-going dialog over an economist article.
Several sources claim that Tuesday grew ugly, as Eduardo Montealegre (the losing PLC candidate for Mayor of Managua) staged marches in multiple municipalities and had planned a major march in Managua itself before being stopped by a rock-throwing counter-demonstration. He plans to appeal the election results to every authority he can find - and with good reason, among many other signs of election fraud was a multitude of ballots found thrown in a ditch. (still looking for backing urls for the above - the latter came from La Prensa a few days ago)
Update: The recount came back today, with the same results as before, a massive Sandinista win across much of the country. No credible observers, however, Montealegre called off a march in Estelí.
I hope my reporting comes across as a little more factual and correct than what appears in the Pimes.
The polarized election had nearly every telephone pole painted in some variant of each party's colors and many campaign signs were defaced.
There was a FSLN (Sandinista) rally on nearly every traffic circle I passed - two that I passed (near the galleria and metro central) had people equipped with what looked like hand made rocket launchers - short tubes, about 18 to 24 inches in size, with handles. They were shooting off fireworks that mostly went boom rather than had pretty colors. I mean, whooooosh - BOOM. whooosh - BOOOOOOOOOM! whoooosh - KA-BOOOOM!
No mortars, as some reported. But it was early. I didn't stick around after dark.
There were people, young and old, celebrating - lots of flag waving of both the Nicaraguan (blue and white) flag and the FSLN flag (red and black), and music, powered by generator trucks. Members of the opposing parties were notable by their absence, but all those present seemed enthusiastic, and only a very few drunk.
"Big Booms" occurred every few seconds at times. I mean, explosions to rival the best of a July 4th celebration - head-aching booms. As I noted in a previous blog entry, this sort of thing happens all the time in Nicaragua, firecrackers and fireworks are set off on nearly every occasion... but, man, there was an awful lot of it, everywhere, in Managua.
It was disturbing to see the rockets being fired off from within the crowd, and also obvious that the same devices could do a lot of damage if used horizontally rather than vertically. They weren't - but then again, the policia weren't bothering anyone celebrating, just sealing off the streets around the area and re-routing traffic.
I've always wondered: where does all that gunpowder come from? Some latent regulatory sense within me asks: "why does the government let the non-professionals have it?" - and my engineering side then asks "why don't I?" I have plenty of uses for the stuff. I could fix a few roads.
For all that, inside those malls, it was business as usual, no stores closed, no taped entrances. As I left Metro Central around 4 o'clock (I spent a few hours there getting my visa renewed), the front side parking had emptied of cars save my own, and mall guards - in bulletproof vests - were closing off the exits to the main road, where a much bigger rally was assembling just a block away.
We drove out of the mall up to the rally but had to turn around due to the sheer masses of people partying down.
The rest of the day was peaceful. I was amazed at how much the road network between San Juan Del Sur and Managua had improved - aside from a few bumps inside of busy towns, I encountered 0 - zero - potholes - in over 100km of driving - a huge improvement over my first visit 18 months ago, and accounting for a major increase of speed between those two destinations (with a detour in Caterina for pottery).
The airport - business as usual - the hotel - business as usual - otherwise just a normal day - well, one with explosions overhead every few minutes no matter where you went.
On my way out of Managua, I got stopped by some cops expecting a bribe. I had done nothing wrong, but I had broken the speed limit all day - and until a few minutes before was effectively in the country illegally - so it was kind of karmic.
400 cordobas (about $20 US) later my buddy and I were on our way. Having to bribe your way out of an unjustified ticket is just one price you have to pay for living in the third world, but I have to admit those cops made me pretty nervous before settling on an appropriate amount - I was already kind of disturbed and deaf from the day - AND had I not just freshly renewed my (late) visa I might have been in major trouble.
I am trying very hard here to document what I'd witnessed or done vs what I've heard. There are so many rumors swirling around, and the only place I've found approximations of the truth has been on the comment sections of websites such as Nica Living, and the on-going dialog over an economist article.
Several sources claim that Tuesday grew ugly, as Eduardo Montealegre (the losing PLC candidate for Mayor of Managua) staged marches in multiple municipalities and had planned a major march in Managua itself before being stopped by a rock-throwing counter-demonstration. He plans to appeal the election results to every authority he can find - and with good reason, among many other signs of election fraud was a multitude of ballots found thrown in a ditch. (still looking for backing urls for the above - the latter came from La Prensa a few days ago)
Update: The recount came back today, with the same results as before, a massive Sandinista win across much of the country. No credible observers, however, Montealegre called off a march in Estelí.
I hope my reporting comes across as a little more factual and correct than what appears in the Pimes.
Labels: election 2008, nicaragua
¶ 12:08 PM 8 comments
Friday, November 14, 2008
Nicaragua's election aftermath
Listening to rumors and hearsay, I hear all sorts of things... but Time, however, posted the most inflammatory piece, lacking almost entirely in substantive detail, but containing gems like:"This week, the streets of Managua were once again aflame amid the boom of mortar rounds, as the Sandinistas and their rivals battled for control..."
Um, I haven't heard that from any local I know. I think the journalist is mistaking the common practice of lighting off large firecrackers ("bombas") for mortar rounds. You hear bombas all the time, day or night, anywhere you go in Nicaragua, on even the most trivial occasion. After a week or two you stop jumping under your desk for safety.
Yes, there are problems. Other news organizations, such as the Latin American Herald Tribune, have posted that At least two people were killed and several other injured in clashes Monday. Accusations of vote-buying and a miscount are rampant, and the losing party (PLC) is demanding a recount with international observers. Since the entire election process lacked international observers, and had two parties banned from taking part, somehow I doubt this will happen...
Update: The comment section of this economist article has a pointer to Citizen's Crusade Watch's accounts of the vote totals in Managua, which show some rather major discrepancies.
For my part, as an accidental international observer, the voting process in San Juan Del Sur seemed orderly and peaceful. It was a foregone conclusion that SJDS would go FSLN - it has for 27 years, after all. One image from the day sticks with me: As a victory parade stalled out in front of my house, one truck containing at least thirty men, women and children stopped, and one of those walking reached up to hand the driver a beer.
My amigos and amigas in Managua have told me that it IS tense there, that the police are doing nothing, and gangs of supporters of all factions are messing up the place.
One conversation (with a native Managuan) went like this:
S: Are you happy with your new president?
Dave: Um, er, not really. I hate the existing president with a passion I can barely express.
S: Wow.
Dave: Problem is, all the power that Bush gathered to himself is going to Obama next and I'd prefer that all that power... dissipate... vanish... so that no president ever again, has that much power. Obama is going to try to use his power for "good" and absolute power corrupts absolutely. U happy with your new Boxer mayor?
S: Not at all. To be honest, i didnt like McCain nor Obama. I think they are 2 extreme persons. One is too liberal. The other is too conservative when it comes to helping people from another race. But I do share McCain's values - I'm pro-life - and I can be a little conservative when it comes to values. I'm totally against war, though.
Dave: Yea, someone having a consistent pro-life position would be nice - no abortion, no war.
S: Yep. So those 2 guys are the extreme position.
Dave: Hmm. I regarded McCain as middle of the road... for the current crop of Republicans. I was going to vote for him until he selected Palin.
S: That too.
Dave: Ah, well, she was good for a laugh.
S: haha. managua is crazy today. Sandinistas are fighting against liberales.
Dave: I heard there was violence, is it still going on?
S: Horrible. Yes.
Dave: Well, I heard there was a lot of allegations of fraud - property for a vote, money for a vote, food for a vote - but I took that as "normal" for Nicaragua... not enough to account for a 51% vs 45% vote difference.
S: Yes i think it was like that. I think authorities are acting in a very irresponsible way
Dave: How so? In America, there are now "free speech zones" - one of the many reasons why I left, for here. Here strikes me as saner than America... or did, until a few days ago. You don't need a permit for a parade.
S: Yea.
Dave: How are the authorities acting irresponsibly? rubber bullets? gas?
S: They should stop people from acting the way they are acting. The police are not doing anything and the president doesn't care. I don't care what party is causing what... that's not the proper way to protest.
Dave: How can they manage better? Persuasion? Passing out good dope?
S: Increasing violence, killing people... each party should talk with its people and tell them to calm down. they haven't done that.
Dave: Police are killing people?
S: No, Sandinistas and Liberales are killing each other. Police are not doing anything. It is just sad.
Dave: Well, mass insurrection does not seem to be be happening (yet). People kill one another all the time - over relationships, over politics, over money or stuff... it's a fact of life.
S: I know, but Nicaragua is not ready for more wars. We have gone through a lot.
Dave: I'm essentially conservative (in the old fashioned, 1950s, American sense) that in case of doubt, the government should do nothing. I came here because I wanted to understand peace. No lessons to be had in Iraq, or the Balkans, or many other places in the world. Somehow, post-Chammorro, Nicaragua has retained a strong semblance of peace. It's amazing. I'd hate to see it go to hell.
S: I know. We need people who love Nicaragua with passion, people with good values and morality and people ready to make a change in this country without violence, using values,and discipline and morality as the weapon. That's what I think.
Dave: So get out there and BE peaceful!
S: We need a new face. People are getting tired of Ortega and Arnoldo.
Dave: Not enough tired, this time.
S: We'll see.
Outside my window, children play. Four came up, this morning, to ask for water. We talked - or rather, they talked while I tried to translate what they said - the most voluble among them was growing in a new set of front teeth, which made that doubly difficult - about baseball, television, and games.
Kid stuff, nothing important.
I wish politics wasn't important.
Labels: election 2008, nicaragua
¶ 8:38 AM 2 comments
Monday, November 10, 2008
How many congresscritters got re-elected?
I'd really like to know how many congresscritters got re-elected this time around. Last I'd heard Congress's approval rating was in the 20% range, which in a just world, would have led to some significant turnover. Despite extensive googling, I haven't found anyone that totaled up the results of this past election... I did find thirty-thousand.org, which has an interesting perspective, but isn't keeping up to date.
America really seemed to make a sea-change around 1910-13 - not only enacting a central bank, and the income tax, and screwing up copyright, but freezing representation at 435 representatives at the national level....
Still, some news agency, somewhere, must have totaled up the number re-elected??
Anyone know?
Labels: congresscritters, election 2008
¶ 1:36 PM 1 comments
Sunday, November 09, 2008
After all my coverage of America's election, writing something on Nicaragua's election today would be appropriate...
I'd write something about it, if I understood it, but I don't. Where I spend most of my time - San Juan Del Sur - is very much a tourist town, half its bars and restaurants run by Canadians, Italians, and Swedes... and a very few Americans, the other half locals, and the pulperias, mechanical, and plumbing shops run by locals almost exclusively. I don't think it is representative of the rest of Nicaragua, or perhaps it is: despite - or because of - the foreign business class - the town has voted Sandinista (FSLN) for 27 years, straight.
Understanding this place may take a lifetime, or more. I desperately need to speak spanish better, and get out more. Sorting out just the current political parties would take more paragraphs than I care to expend today.
I have snippets and impressions... like...
Despite having read dozens of books on this place, I'm no better off than I was when I started. On my bookshelf are "Why Nicaragua Vanished", "Coffee and Power", "Where is Nicaragua", "Nicaragua - Revolution in the Family", "At War in Nicaragua", and "The Sandinista Revolution", and I've misplaced or loaned out Chamorro's biography as well as Somosa's, as well as a book of translated speeches from 1983...
There is very little written about Nicaragua since the end of the war, aside from real estate blurbs. This is a shame, because I find peace far more interesting than war. It's partially why I'm here... Somehow, Nicaragua achieved peace after that bitter war, and is groping towards prosperity now. What lessons were learnt in that time would be good to apply to places like Iraq and the Balkans.
I struggle, still, in trying to figure out how to explain what I do not understand. The FSLN is running a former member of the National Guard (and Contra), a famous boxer named Alexis Arguello, as their candidate for Mayor of Managua. The ALN/PLC is running Eduardo Montealegre, a Brown and Harvard educated economist. How either of these choices makes sense is beyond me, the closest analogy I could make would be as if Arnold Schwarzenegger was running against Joe Lieberman in the US.
One Nicaraguan wrote me:
I'd write something about it, if I understood it, but I don't. Where I spend most of my time - San Juan Del Sur - is very much a tourist town, half its bars and restaurants run by Canadians, Italians, and Swedes... and a very few Americans, the other half locals, and the pulperias, mechanical, and plumbing shops run by locals almost exclusively. I don't think it is representative of the rest of Nicaragua, or perhaps it is: despite - or because of - the foreign business class - the town has voted Sandinista (FSLN) for 27 years, straight.
Understanding this place may take a lifetime, or more. I desperately need to speak spanish better, and get out more. Sorting out just the current political parties would take more paragraphs than I care to expend today.
I have snippets and impressions... like...
- The election is held on a Sunday. Selling or serving alcohol is banned the day prior and the day of - last night was the most sober and empty I've ever seen San Juan Del Sur... yet I saw a storekeeper slip a favored customer a beer, with a mutually conspiratorial grin... and outside my window this morning, a good hundred+ gathered to vote before dawn...
A happy, drunken crowd had gathered near the beach. I was walking my guitar home, and they welcomed me into their group. One poured me a drink of 7 year Flor de Cana from their cooler, and another asked if I knew anything about Sandino. I waved off the question, saying in my bad spanish "tengo no entiendo de politicos", and he didn't persist. They applauded politely for my song, then I passed my guitar off to a local musician who leaned up against a car and started to play. One of the members of the group kept pushing his cell phone with a recording of someone screaming "Sandino" against his ear, until he shrugged it away so he could concentrate on his singing... a few more musicians showed up, and we sat, perched between two cars and the beach, for hours, and passed the bottle and guitars around.
Despite having read dozens of books on this place, I'm no better off than I was when I started. On my bookshelf are "Why Nicaragua Vanished", "Coffee and Power", "Where is Nicaragua", "Nicaragua - Revolution in the Family", "At War in Nicaragua", and "The Sandinista Revolution", and I've misplaced or loaned out Chamorro's biography as well as Somosa's, as well as a book of translated speeches from 1983...
There is very little written about Nicaragua since the end of the war, aside from real estate blurbs. This is a shame, because I find peace far more interesting than war. It's partially why I'm here... Somehow, Nicaragua achieved peace after that bitter war, and is groping towards prosperity now. What lessons were learnt in that time would be good to apply to places like Iraq and the Balkans.
I struggle, still, in trying to figure out how to explain what I do not understand. The FSLN is running a former member of the National Guard (and Contra), a famous boxer named Alexis Arguello, as their candidate for Mayor of Managua. The ALN/PLC is running Eduardo Montealegre, a Brown and Harvard educated economist. How either of these choices makes sense is beyond me, the closest analogy I could make would be as if Arnold Schwarzenegger was running against Joe Lieberman in the US.
One Nicaraguan wrote me:
- No se tengo familia liberal, y tengo familia Sandinista. pero no se todavia por quien votar. Montealegre en un tiempo atras robo mucho dinero, dinero que era para los pobres el los robo y sobre el boxeador no se porque es primera vez que se esta tirando para alcalde. No se mucho de eso, pero montealegre desde ase 4 anos quiere ganar y no ha podido ganar, primero para presidente de Nicaragua y no gano ahora para alcalde de managua y no se si ira a ganar. La verdad es que esos politicos mierda, solamente quieren dinero para ellos ellos quieren ganar no para ayudar a los pobres si no para aserse ellos mas ricos y mas poderosos.
Labels: election 2008, nicaragua
¶ 4:28 AM 0 comments
Thursday, November 06, 2008
I managed to avoid the election almost entirely, although, here, I'm nearly getting mowed down by Jessica “La Capitana”, on her longboard. She's good. Too good, sometimes, she catches everything she even looks at.I have been riding a longer board myself, as a compensation for for my age and inertial problems. The board's appropriately named "Tombstone". On this day, however, Tombstone was in need of maintenance, and I was on a shorter board, that not only was less stable but had laminar flow problems. I managed to stand up once all day... so spent the rest of my time admiring Jessica's, Trev's, and Ben's moves.
Speaking of moving... I moved from my air conditioned apt/office, 30 meters from the beach, to sharing a house with a couple buddies further inland. The positives are - lots more room - I can set up the music studio far better - our own internet (and a real IP address so I hopefully can get back into IPv6 land), a small backyard, a great front porch....
The downsides - too many ninos & ninas during the day, and no air conditioning. I am not sure if me or my gear can survive the lack of air conditioning. I've been moved for 2 days now and my fingers have swollen to 30% bigger than normal, and my super-computer - the water cooled one - refused to boot when I got here. I also liked having an office in the center of town, it gave me hope one day that I'd build a viable business there.
Ah, well, change is good. I like the added space a lot, and I'll be immersed in more spanish on a daily basis, and get closer to achieving my goals for this past year, by next year.
Should have some good waves next week....
So anyway, I managed to avoid the election entirely up until 7PM when I wandered into a bar that was showing the horserace with a bunch of talking heads hovering over the early returns.
I showed up just in time for the hologram. While this might be gee-whiz technology, all I could flash on was a few of the holographic characters from an old British SF show whose name I struggle to recall. SMEG!
So, I started arguing with people - a McCain supporter on the one side, who felt that somebody else should fix his road - or if he did, he should charge an exorbitant toll - and an Obama supporter on the other who spouted so much optimism about the two (now one) party system that I started calling him "Comrade" - and before I got entirely POed and left I told the McCain guy to build his own damn road and charge whatever toll he could get away with, and quoted PJ O'Roarke and H.L. Mencken at the Obama guy...
... and stomped home and finished plugging more stuff in.
For the record, the quotes were:
- "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."- O'Roarke
- "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard."- Mencken
I am really glad the election is over. I have a backlog of far more interesting things to deal with....
Labels: election 2008, nicaragua, surfing
¶ 4:49 AM 5 comments
Saturday, November 01, 2008
I went to check my links on my last post only to find that the McKinney website, votetruth08.com was... utterly blank. Cracked, but not defaced? What's going on? I hit reload a couple times before checking google's cache for the site, which contained the following, which only heightened the irony...
Green Party becomes the first party to endorse the Standing For Voters pledge to defend election integrity
• Green national candidates McKinney and Clemente sign on, along with other Green candidates; Greens cite their leadership role in the 2004 Ohio and New Mexico recounts after evidence of vote theft
• Greens condemn GOP efforts to disqualify legitimate voters in the 2008 election
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States has become the first political party to endorse the Election Integrity Pledge promoted by Standing For Voters
(http://www.StandingForVoters.org), an internet-based group inviting candidates to pledge their commitment to fair elections. Along with the Green Party, several Green Party candidates have pledged 'no early concessions' and actions challenging election outcomes if necessary: presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and vice presidential candidate Rosa Clemente; US Congressional candidates Carol Brouillet (Calif.-14), Rebecca Dewitt
(Ariz.-4), Harold Burbank (Conn.-5), and Mike Beilstein (Or.-4); and five candidates for state and local offices: Dan Kairis of Illinois, Richard Boyle of California, Rick
Lass of New Mexico, Allan Hancock of Minnesota, and Charles A. Pillsbury of Connecticut.
"Led by David Cobb, our 2004 presidential candidate, Greens organized the response to the 2004 vote theft. John Kerry and most of his fellow Democrats did nothing after reports and evidence of GOP election manipulation and obstruction of African American and young voters surfaced. Meanwhile, Greens filed for the recounts in Ohio and New Mexico and raised most of the money for legal expenses. It's our special obligation and privilege to be the first party to sign on to the Standing For Voters pledge," said Holly Hart, secretary of
the Green Party of the United States.
For more on Green leadership in the Ohio and New Mexico recounts, visit IWantMyVote.com (http://www.iwantmyvote.com).
In signing the pledge, Greens sharply condemned recent tactics that have been used to obstruct and discourage voters, especially African Americans in certain states, from voting. Such tactics include letters to voters falsely claiming that they've been declared ineligible to vote, foreclosure lists denying right to vote because a voter's address is "no longer valid," and vicious attacks on voter registration efforts.
"The drastic efforts to disqualify legitimate voters suggests that we'll see a repeat of Republican conspiracies to steal the national election. Will Democrats fight this time, or will they roll over again and leave it to the Green Party?" asked Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party.
Green Party becomes the first party to endorse the Standing For Voters pledge to defend election integrity
• Green national candidates McKinney and Clemente sign on, along with other Green candidates; Greens cite their leadership role in the 2004 Ohio and New Mexico recounts after evidence of vote theft
• Greens condemn GOP efforts to disqualify legitimate voters in the 2008 election
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States has become the first political party to endorse the Election Integrity Pledge promoted by Standing For Voters
(http://www.StandingForVoters.org), an internet-based group inviting candidates to pledge their commitment to fair elections. Along with the Green Party, several Green Party candidates have pledged 'no early concessions' and actions challenging election outcomes if necessary: presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and vice presidential candidate Rosa Clemente; US Congressional candidates Carol Brouillet (Calif.-14), Rebecca Dewitt
(Ariz.-4), Harold Burbank (Conn.-5), and Mike Beilstein (Or.-4); and five candidates for state and local offices: Dan Kairis of Illinois, Richard Boyle of California, Rick
Lass of New Mexico, Allan Hancock of Minnesota, and Charles A. Pillsbury of Connecticut.
"Led by David Cobb, our 2004 presidential candidate, Greens organized the response to the 2004 vote theft. John Kerry and most of his fellow Democrats did nothing after reports and evidence of GOP election manipulation and obstruction of African American and young voters surfaced. Meanwhile, Greens filed for the recounts in Ohio and New Mexico and raised most of the money for legal expenses. It's our special obligation and privilege to be the first party to sign on to the Standing For Voters pledge," said Holly Hart, secretary of
the Green Party of the United States.
For more on Green leadership in the Ohio and New Mexico recounts, visit IWantMyVote.com (http://www.iwantmyvote.com).
In signing the pledge, Greens sharply condemned recent tactics that have been used to obstruct and discourage voters, especially African Americans in certain states, from voting. Such tactics include letters to voters falsely claiming that they've been declared ineligible to vote, foreclosure lists denying right to vote because a voter's address is "no longer valid," and vicious attacks on voter registration efforts.
"The drastic efforts to disqualify legitimate voters suggests that we'll see a repeat of Republican conspiracies to steal the national election. Will Democrats fight this time, or will they roll over again and leave it to the Green Party?" asked Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party.
Labels: cracking, election 2008, green party
¶ 8:11 PM 2 comments
I thought for weeks, and wrote page upon page that I am not going to get around to publishing, about McCain, Obama, Nader, McKinney, Barr, and Baldwin.
I am, on the whole, glad the primary season for the major parties went down as it did.
Ron Paul knocked out the rabid Rudy Guilani, that plastic faced Mormon car salesman excluded agnostics from his tent and went down in flames, and I forget the rest of the Republican field, thank god.
The underqualified Clinton got beat by a guy that had made it on his own. I'm happy about that, too. I loathe the idea of a hereditary aristocracy.
I was sorry that Ron Paul didn't do better. I'd like to see the federal government stripped of all but its constitutional powers by design, rather than bankruptcy.
It was good to see libertarians co-operate on his campaign. Nice change, too bad it didn't last.
When the media was betting on Guilani - Clinton as the final candidates (funny how wrong they were!), I was getting ready to emigrate and utterly fed up with the endless battle over Vietnam and Woodstock.
My generation has to clean up that worldwide mess, as do multiple generations afterwards. So shut up about it, retire already, and get on the golf course.
I've already written elsewhere about how I'd like to vote, and my unresolved issues, and here's the short version of why I voted as I just did:
McCain: Eisenhower was a successful general and a war hero. So was Andrew Jackson, and for that matter, George Washington. McCain was a flyboy with no responsibility for tens of thousands of men and a POW. Neither of these characteristics make for great leaders of men.
Palin: Although I share some of her husband's seccessionist sympathies, I can't embrace ignorance. Lately, her campaign rhetoric has been full of the "Joe the Plumber" references, trying to capture the hearts and minds of the remaining middle class - the ones who don't have to cope with H1B visas or overseas competition.
Hey Palin: What about "Eric, the engineer", "Al the Artist", "Mike the musician", and "Paul the programmer"? What about "Wendy, the writer", or "Sal, the sysadmin"?
:sound of crickets:
Obama: Great speaker, with a speech in hand. Off the cuff. His speech. Reminds me. Of. William Shatner's. Delivery. Maybe. He can. Heal. Part of. The Country. By making it. Even more. A centralized State. But the. Republicans. Have looted. The treasury. Making it impossible. For him. To cope with. New crises.
Biden: Biden is one of the poorest members of congress. Whether this is due to honesty or lack of financial acumen remains to be seen.
Nader: In 2000, Nader was the one person I felt confident that was on the side of the people. Too bad he's now too old and too marginalized, and has no military experience.
Barr: How I feel about Barr is unprintable. His oh-too-recent conversion to libertarianism, arrogance, and uncooperation with the other third parties, cost him my vote, and the LP the chance of a lifetime. His VP is an ass, too.
McKinney: I kept wondering when the popular press would evaluate McKinney vs Palin, or, for that matter, Clinton. It never happened, I guess because McKinney would have come across as so much saner and more experienced in comparison. I do look forward to seeing the 9/11 records unsealed on Jan 3rd.
Baldwin: I'm not huge on pastors as presidents. Even ones that are willing to allow agnostics in their tent. I would like more people to pay attention to him, he writes well.
After eliminating each of these choices, I finally realized that I'd already voted... with my feet.
I'd decided, 18 months ago, that I'd rather live under a weak and socialistic government than under an all-powerful one of any stripe.
I still have to pay attention to the elephant in the room, but I intend to arrange my life so that what happens in the world matters to me as little as possible.
I hope you can live with your choices. I can live with mine.
I am, on the whole, glad the primary season for the major parties went down as it did.
Ron Paul knocked out the rabid Rudy Guilani, that plastic faced Mormon car salesman excluded agnostics from his tent and went down in flames, and I forget the rest of the Republican field, thank god.
The underqualified Clinton got beat by a guy that had made it on his own. I'm happy about that, too. I loathe the idea of a hereditary aristocracy.
I was sorry that Ron Paul didn't do better. I'd like to see the federal government stripped of all but its constitutional powers by design, rather than bankruptcy.
It was good to see libertarians co-operate on his campaign. Nice change, too bad it didn't last.
When the media was betting on Guilani - Clinton as the final candidates (funny how wrong they were!), I was getting ready to emigrate and utterly fed up with the endless battle over Vietnam and Woodstock.
My generation has to clean up that worldwide mess, as do multiple generations afterwards. So shut up about it, retire already, and get on the golf course.
I've already written elsewhere about how I'd like to vote, and my unresolved issues, and here's the short version of why I voted as I just did:
McCain: Eisenhower was a successful general and a war hero. So was Andrew Jackson, and for that matter, George Washington. McCain was a flyboy with no responsibility for tens of thousands of men and a POW. Neither of these characteristics make for great leaders of men.
Palin: Although I share some of her husband's seccessionist sympathies, I can't embrace ignorance. Lately, her campaign rhetoric has been full of the "Joe the Plumber" references, trying to capture the hearts and minds of the remaining middle class - the ones who don't have to cope with H1B visas or overseas competition.
Hey Palin: What about "Eric, the engineer", "Al the Artist", "Mike the musician", and "Paul the programmer"? What about "Wendy, the writer", or "Sal, the sysadmin"?
:sound of crickets:
Obama: Great speaker, with a speech in hand. Off the cuff. His speech. Reminds me. Of. William Shatner's. Delivery. Maybe. He can. Heal. Part of. The Country. By making it. Even more. A centralized State. But the. Republicans. Have looted. The treasury. Making it impossible. For him. To cope with. New crises.
Biden: Biden is one of the poorest members of congress. Whether this is due to honesty or lack of financial acumen remains to be seen.
Nader: In 2000, Nader was the one person I felt confident that was on the side of the people. Too bad he's now too old and too marginalized, and has no military experience.
Barr: How I feel about Barr is unprintable. His oh-too-recent conversion to libertarianism, arrogance, and uncooperation with the other third parties, cost him my vote, and the LP the chance of a lifetime. His VP is an ass, too.
McKinney: I kept wondering when the popular press would evaluate McKinney vs Palin, or, for that matter, Clinton. It never happened, I guess because McKinney would have come across as so much saner and more experienced in comparison. I do look forward to seeing the 9/11 records unsealed on Jan 3rd.
Baldwin: I'm not huge on pastors as presidents. Even ones that are willing to allow agnostics in their tent. I would like more people to pay attention to him, he writes well.
After eliminating each of these choices, I finally realized that I'd already voted... with my feet.
I'd decided, 18 months ago, that I'd rather live under a weak and socialistic government than under an all-powerful one of any stripe.
I still have to pay attention to the elephant in the room, but I intend to arrange my life so that what happens in the world matters to me as little as possible.
I hope you can live with your choices. I can live with mine.
Labels: Barack Obama, chuck baldwin, democrats, election 2008, green party, hillary clinton, republicans, Ron Paul
¶ 10:06 AM 1 comments
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
This song was made in 2004 but not released until 2005.
The lyrics are a stark accusation of not just the Bush administration, but of politicians, and the military industrial complex.
I sat through a bunch of ads while watching the World Series rain out. This wasn't one of them. Would have preferred it to Hannity.
Found via the deconstruction zone.
The lyrics are a stark accusation of not just the Bush administration, but of politicians, and the military industrial complex.
I sat through a bunch of ads while watching the World Series rain out. This wasn't one of them. Would have preferred it to Hannity.
Found via the deconstruction zone.
Labels: election 2008, music, rap
¶ 4:45 PM 0 comments
Sunday, October 19, 2008
My Sunday morning TV fix: Propaganda then and now.
Useful background for that is Orwell's Politics and the English Language.
Here's a devastating (and funny) critique of the TSA's security theater, carried by the Atlantic.
And a little bit about Spengler's decline of the West.
And foreign investment into the USA continues to dry up at an astounding rate - of course, these statistics lag reality by a lot, so I have no idea how the worldwide intervention is being accounted for.
Useful background for that is Orwell's Politics and the English Language.
Here's a devastating (and funny) critique of the TSA's security theater, carried by the Atlantic.
And a little bit about Spengler's decline of the West.
And foreign investment into the USA continues to dry up at an astounding rate - of course, these statistics lag reality by a lot, so I have no idea how the worldwide intervention is being accounted for.
Labels: banking, election 2008, politics, propaganda
¶ 9:21 AM 1 comments
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Fed up with the two party system?
Two of the alternate candidates for President, participate virtually in the last debate.And Break The Matrix continues to provide a look at the third party tickets.
Update: The independent parties are so disorganized as to not even be able to pull together a debate!? Ah, well, the age of single party politics is upon us again... comrade.
Labels: election 2008
¶ 12:22 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Another weird day, DOW down 700+ and gold barely budged a dollar after 2PM. What could be weirder than that?
The Phillies are probably in the World Series.
Things are weird alright.
I'd rather be watching the playoffs, but instead I'm listening to tonight's presidential debate - apparently, I am "Joe Plumber". I just want both of these b*stards to leave me alone. "Give someone affordability", - McCain is saying... to hell with the insurance companies I'm saying. They take up 1/7th the economy and spend their money on fatcat CEOs and lawyers and lobbyists and making sure that their clients don't get what they think they bought.
"I want to leave money in your pocket", McCain is saying. Suuuuuuure, I'm saying. Look me in the eyes when you say that, pardner, and keep your hands where I can see 'em.
And now emotional gobbledygook on abortion... It's the economy, stupids, I yell back.
"We have to improve our educational system to keep our military power", obama says. Oh, boy, I don't think I heard that right... "We need to recruit an army of new teachers", he says now. Umm... the military metaphors get under my skin.
And now, Obama proposes a tuition credit in exchange for community or military service. A wopping 4 grand. I suppose delivering pizza and making hats doesn't get you through college anymore. Pack it up for the Army, girl... sign right here... and go and sit on the group W bench...
Greg types in chat: Wow, both candidates are going to cut taxes, lower the deficit, and increase social services. We're so lucky this year... that no-one can add.
I am looking forward to the third party debate on Sunday... in the hope that there is someone making more sense out there.
16 days ago, the national debt cracked 10 trillion dollars. In the 16 days since it increased by 300 billion dollars. It's now at:
Update: I was right about Tesla falling into trouble in today's environment. That moral hazard issue, again. Printing enough money to save everybody is a pesky problem, isn't it?
Update 2:I wish I'd had 6 minutes with Obama and some face time on the news. I'd have suggested I was withholding my decision as to who to vote for until after the other parties debated. And maybe I'd have got someone to talk sensibly about capitalism without capital.
The Phillies are probably in the World Series.
Things are weird alright.
I'd rather be watching the playoffs, but instead I'm listening to tonight's presidential debate - apparently, I am "Joe Plumber". I just want both of these b*stards to leave me alone. "Give someone affordability", - McCain is saying... to hell with the insurance companies I'm saying. They take up 1/7th the economy and spend their money on fatcat CEOs and lawyers and lobbyists and making sure that their clients don't get what they think they bought.
"I want to leave money in your pocket", McCain is saying. Suuuuuuure, I'm saying. Look me in the eyes when you say that, pardner, and keep your hands where I can see 'em.
And now emotional gobbledygook on abortion... It's the economy, stupids, I yell back.
"We have to improve our educational system to keep our military power", obama says. Oh, boy, I don't think I heard that right... "We need to recruit an army of new teachers", he says now. Umm... the military metaphors get under my skin.
And now, Obama proposes a tuition credit in exchange for community or military service. A wopping 4 grand. I suppose delivering pizza and making hats doesn't get you through college anymore. Pack it up for the Army, girl... sign right here... and go and sit on the group W bench...
Greg types in chat: Wow, both candidates are going to cut taxes, lower the deficit, and increase social services. We're so lucky this year... that no-one can add.
I am looking forward to the third party debate on Sunday... in the hope that there is someone making more sense out there.
16 days ago, the national debt cracked 10 trillion dollars. In the 16 days since it increased by 300 billion dollars. It's now at:
Update: I was right about Tesla falling into trouble in today's environment. That moral hazard issue, again. Printing enough money to save everybody is a pesky problem, isn't it?
Update 2:I wish I'd had 6 minutes with Obama and some face time on the news. I'd have suggested I was withholding my decision as to who to vote for until after the other parties debated. And maybe I'd have got someone to talk sensibly about capitalism without capital.
Labels: debates, election 2008, national debt
¶ 6:50 PM 0 comments
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Almost exactly a year ago I started paying attention to the primary process, and in particular I published my top 10 questions for America in the hope that they would become issues.
They didn't.
(Well, as part of the bailout bill, AMT was "addressed" at the last minute but it remains to be seen how the math works out on that.)
Half of my writing during that period was an assault on the MSM framing of the issues. It was seemingly impossible to escape someone else, 1000s of corporate and government backed someone elses babbling down from On High, saying: you must choose A or B, A or B, A or B, A or B - when obviously both A and B sucked and some other idea(s) would have been useful to push back into the discussion.
I took a lot of heart in the coherent thinking - AND the vitrol and venom expended - on the comments sections of all the newspapers and newssites that allowed open comments. I hope that some of that shouting was heard. I listened to my fellow man and stopped reading all the publications that filtered their comments sections.
Over the past year I grew more concerned about the crumbling infrastructure and centralization of control in America, and at the same time, more apathetic. I don't live there anymore, anyway, I thought. America's not my problem. I should keep thinking and writing about science and engineering, about AGW and asteroids, about search engines, sexy women and surfing...
I read a whole heck of a lot of economics texts, everything from Marx to Mises, in the hope that I'd get a grip on what was really going on.
I was doing well on ignoring the looting of our future until last month... then the weather changed and I got locked inside with the prolefeed... and the looting went global.
I just gained ten pounds and 20 pts of blood pressure. I'm just sick of it all now and just want to turn it off and run as far away as possible, someplace safe, where I can get back to work on something that nobody can rob from me.
It was an easy decision this year, in the end, on how to vote. I'm voting against incompetence and ignorance, against all the idiots, and against incumbents and ideologists. I'm voting for a reduction in federal and corporate power, and in favor of sane long term policies.
Not that that will do any good, all by itself, because, so far as I can tell, no American party is truthfully against much of what I'm against, or for much of what I'm for.
If there was a party of scientists and engineers, I'd vote for that. Perhaps one exists, elsewhere on the planet. I'd join that party, in whatever country it existed, and live there and do my best in word and deed, to create a future worth living in.
I still think that my now 2 year old decision to leave the country, live somewhere cheap, and sell my services on the global market were the right ones. There's no point in competing with the H1B program anymore, from the inside, although I'm told wages are rising rapidly in my field, now, in the States.
My one regret was that when I left I was pretty burnt out. If I hadn't been so burned out I would have tried to remain in Australia, an option that remains attractive.
Australia's fundamentals are good, although they are somewhat overexposed in the housing market, and taking risks on the world markets that I'd prefer they didn't.
I prefer Nicaragua, still, because it's closer to my family, and it - so far - is performing a balancing act between America and Russia, and between Japan and Taiwan. The links to Canada are strong, as well. I only need - thanks to that global market - to get work 3 months out of the year - and Nicaragua can feed itself, theoretically, if the crap really hits the fan. Civilization, here, has the least far to fall.
They didn't.
(Well, as part of the bailout bill, AMT was "addressed" at the last minute but it remains to be seen how the math works out on that.)
Half of my writing during that period was an assault on the MSM framing of the issues. It was seemingly impossible to escape someone else, 1000s of corporate and government backed someone elses babbling down from On High, saying: you must choose A or B, A or B, A or B, A or B - when obviously both A and B sucked and some other idea(s) would have been useful to push back into the discussion.
I took a lot of heart in the coherent thinking - AND the vitrol and venom expended - on the comments sections of all the newspapers and newssites that allowed open comments. I hope that some of that shouting was heard. I listened to my fellow man and stopped reading all the publications that filtered their comments sections.
Over the past year I grew more concerned about the crumbling infrastructure and centralization of control in America, and at the same time, more apathetic. I don't live there anymore, anyway, I thought. America's not my problem. I should keep thinking and writing about science and engineering, about AGW and asteroids, about search engines, sexy women and surfing...
I read a whole heck of a lot of economics texts, everything from Marx to Mises, in the hope that I'd get a grip on what was really going on.
I was doing well on ignoring the looting of our future until last month... then the weather changed and I got locked inside with the prolefeed... and the looting went global.
I just gained ten pounds and 20 pts of blood pressure. I'm just sick of it all now and just want to turn it off and run as far away as possible, someplace safe, where I can get back to work on something that nobody can rob from me.
It was an easy decision this year, in the end, on how to vote. I'm voting against incompetence and ignorance, against all the idiots, and against incumbents and ideologists. I'm voting for a reduction in federal and corporate power, and in favor of sane long term policies.
Not that that will do any good, all by itself, because, so far as I can tell, no American party is truthfully against much of what I'm against, or for much of what I'm for.
If there was a party of scientists and engineers, I'd vote for that. Perhaps one exists, elsewhere on the planet. I'd join that party, in whatever country it existed, and live there and do my best in word and deed, to create a future worth living in.
I still think that my now 2 year old decision to leave the country, live somewhere cheap, and sell my services on the global market were the right ones. There's no point in competing with the H1B program anymore, from the inside, although I'm told wages are rising rapidly in my field, now, in the States.
My one regret was that when I left I was pretty burnt out. If I hadn't been so burned out I would have tried to remain in Australia, an option that remains attractive.
Australia's fundamentals are good, although they are somewhat overexposed in the housing market, and taking risks on the world markets that I'd prefer they didn't.
I prefer Nicaragua, still, because it's closer to my family, and it - so far - is performing a balancing act between America and Russia, and between Japan and Taiwan. The links to Canada are strong, as well. I only need - thanks to that global market - to get work 3 months out of the year - and Nicaragua can feed itself, theoretically, if the crap really hits the fan. Civilization, here, has the least far to fall.
Labels: election 2008, msm
¶ 4:07 AM 3 comments
Sunday, August 31, 2008
I've been too mad to write lately.
Don't get me started on the "energy debate" that Obama and McCain had. It lasted about 2 weeks, as best as I recall, and fizzled out as the price of oil dropped below $109.99. Both parties agreed to spend money on other sources. Yea! All I wanted was someone with a flip chart showing 3.5TW of power in use in the USA, and a 2% growth rate, and a picture showing what percentage of that would come from what energy source by 2030.
All I wanted was just that one chart, that one graphic, that actually turned those two weeks of atonal political heat into air conditioned offices with great chairs for the rest of my life.
Also, for the last month I was asking: "Who will be the next Dick Cheney?".
Answer Numero Uno: Joe Biden. I'd go into the long tainted list here, but this is the guy that helped rewrite bankruptcy law long before the current crisis, ensuring that your pain would be more prolonged and severe.
Answer Numero Dos: Sarah Palin. She bears an uncanny resemblance to the character of Laura Roslin on Battlestar Galactica. I'd go into a list of where their qualifications, experience, and personal growth are similar.... but I'll wait for some other fanperson to write that up.
[elf? anyone? - help me out here?]
The Republicans think they have captured the SF channel vote.
The USA's issues in space are more severe than on that show. Technical issues (someone may have left a vacuum cleaner in the tank) and the latest hurricane, have disabled both of the space shuttles on the pad, and the problems in Georgia may deny the US manned access to space by 2010.
The show only goes to season 4 and I want to know: what happens to the people in the prison ships?
A season 1 Roslin might be sweet and tough, but a season 4 Roslin might say, Import some experts from across the Bering strait and bring back the gulag!! There's 600+ thousand potential jobs in Alaska if opened to major drilling. Forget freedom and space. Go North, young man! A life on a rig awaits you in the cold and -40 degree weather in the land of the midnight sun. Maybe we'll build a settlement for you with casinos, hard drugs, cheap beer, and easy women, just like Alberta...
I got a good belly laugh from this Alabama joke:
The "Red Menace" has been reversed. It's now Russia recognizing independence and the US barring it. It would be kind of interesting if Alabama's gun sales had spiked.
I found the button I plan to wear this season:
The last shuttle out of the US is scheduled for 2010.
I'll be there. So will a lot of people I know. 2010, The Cape - be there.
Don't get me started on the "energy debate" that Obama and McCain had. It lasted about 2 weeks, as best as I recall, and fizzled out as the price of oil dropped below $109.99. Both parties agreed to spend money on other sources. Yea! All I wanted was someone with a flip chart showing 3.5TW of power in use in the USA, and a 2% growth rate, and a picture showing what percentage of that would come from what energy source by 2030.
All I wanted was just that one chart, that one graphic, that actually turned those two weeks of atonal political heat into air conditioned offices with great chairs for the rest of my life.
Also, for the last month I was asking: "Who will be the next Dick Cheney?".
Answer Numero Uno: Joe Biden. I'd go into the long tainted list here, but this is the guy that helped rewrite bankruptcy law long before the current crisis, ensuring that your pain would be more prolonged and severe.
Answer Numero Dos: Sarah Palin. She bears an uncanny resemblance to the character of Laura Roslin on Battlestar Galactica. I'd go into a list of where their qualifications, experience, and personal growth are similar.... but I'll wait for some other fanperson to write that up.
[elf? anyone? - help me out here?]
The Republicans think they have captured the SF channel vote.
The USA's issues in space are more severe than on that show. Technical issues (someone may have left a vacuum cleaner in the tank) and the latest hurricane, have disabled both of the space shuttles on the pad, and the problems in Georgia may deny the US manned access to space by 2010.
The show only goes to season 4 and I want to know: what happens to the people in the prison ships?
A season 1 Roslin might be sweet and tough, but a season 4 Roslin might say, Import some experts from across the Bering strait and bring back the gulag!! There's 600+ thousand potential jobs in Alaska if opened to major drilling. Forget freedom and space. Go North, young man! A life on a rig awaits you in the cold and -40 degree weather in the land of the midnight sun. Maybe we'll build a settlement for you with casinos, hard drugs, cheap beer, and easy women, just like Alberta...
I got a good belly laugh from this Alabama joke:
- "Guns are sold out throughout Alabama this week. Said one native: "We aren't gonna get caught with our pants down by dem Russkies, like Georgia."
The "Red Menace" has been reversed. It's now Russia recognizing independence and the US barring it. It would be kind of interesting if Alabama's gun sales had spiked.
I found the button I plan to wear this season:
The last shuttle out of the US is scheduled for 2010.
I'll be there. So will a lot of people I know. 2010, The Cape - be there.
Labels: Battlestar Galactica, election 2008, joe biden, laura roslin, sarah palin, space
¶ 3:49 PM 8 comments
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
A chance encounter in San Juan Del Sur
I had a couple drinks with Eduardo Montealegre this past evening.I don't know which is more unlikely - the Nicaraguan Liberal (ALN) party's candidate for president in 2006 just showing up unannounced in a bar/restaurant or me sitting at the bar in the first place (I am not much of a drinker).
Mr Montealegre came in second (28.3% of the vote) in 2006, and he's currently running for mayor of Managua in the upcoming (November) election.
We had a "frank exchange of views" - on everything from Jimmy Carter to 9/11 - being that I did not identify myself as a member of the press, and I had at least one sheet to the wind I will keep what we talked about private - it was pretty obvious that all he wanted was a nice night out with his family.
Can you imagine any politician at the national level in America just getting out mingling with the normal folk without it all being staged somehow?
The last politician to do that in America was Jesse Ventura.
Anyway, I got home and slept it off, and got up to write down what I remembered discussing and figured I should blog a little. I kind of cringe now at what I said about America's security theater post-9/11 - "Ziplock! Keeps in the terror".
Labels: eduardo montealegre, election 2008, nicaragua
¶ 2:41 AM 0 comments
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Mccain proposes 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030
As reported in the NYT, McCain just proposed that the US build 45 new nuclear power plants before 2030.The article - and apparently McCain - failed to note that nearly all of the existing 109 nuclear power plants in the US will be past their design life by then. So - if we were a sane country and actually paid attention to what engineers and mechanics told us about hardware - we'd actually retire those 109, leaving us with a net deficit from where we stand today of 64 plants, which (stay with me here, I know that basic addition and subtraction are hard for the average politician or reporter) leaves us with more oil and coal dependence than what we have today.
I anticipate that we will run the existing plants past obsolescence until another accident inevitably occurs.
This reminds me of something of something McCain said during the debates earlier in this electoral season. he said:
"We have got to achieve energy independence, oil independence in this nation. I will make it a Manhattan Project, and we will in five years become oil independent."
This statement is not only absurd on its face, but the Manhattan project is the wrong metaphor. The Manhattan project spent billions of dollars, and labored for 5 years to produce two - count 'em - two bombs - that ultimately capped world war II. The aftermath and spin-offs from that research and development led to the first commercial nuclear power plants, but it took a very long time to ramp up, with the peak of construction in the late 60s.
I'd prefer a politician propose something more like the Liberty ship construction project, where, by constant refinement of the production techniques, Henry Kaiser and teams of engineers throughout the country cut the manufacturing time from 230 to only 42 days, over less than 3 years. That was just the time from start to finish - as ships were being laid down in parallel, by 1943 we rolled 3 new ships off the quay every day.
We need to get away from custom designs and into mass production.
Mass production used to be an American virtue. Perhaps it isn't anymore. Perhaps all we are capable of anymore is massive, wasteful, one-shot projects, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing. A few hundred handmade fighters here, a few dozen bombers there...
A mere 45 new nuclear power plants won't help.
About my only hope for this energy "debate" would be for Obama to propose a reasonable number of nuclear power plants, like, 1000... and to truly retain the American lifestyle, one with a high performance electric car in every garage, 10,000 might be the right number.
Some level of realism regarding our energy requirements is called for. I'm not expecting any until we are reduced to watching television by candlelight.
There are alternatives - like solar and wind - that would benefit also from a "Liberty Ship" approach. Right now, solar cell production is being impacted by chip manufacturing more than anything else. Although the silicon shortage is easing - demand outstrips supply. If the cost of supply were to drop from its present level, solar power would become far more competitive.
I note that any nation could (theoretically) get into the silicon manufacturing business. I wish more would try - after manufacturing, the biggest expense is transport - every nation, particularly those located near the equator, should have sufficient supplies of sand to start with. Creating solar cell grade silicon is less demanding than chip quality...
I do wish we could invent a machine that could be powered by a politician's promises, but more, I wish Americans still understood the advantages of mass manufacturing.
Labels: Barack Obama, election 2008, energy, John Mccain
¶ 8:01 AM 23 comments
Monday, April 21, 2008
Election insanity, and other unpopular causes
I've tried all day to not hit reload on google news regarding Pennsylvania's election.I've tried to forget that 90% of the votes cast will be on unaccountable electronic voting machines... and the tests by Princeton showing how easy they were to compromise.
I thought about voting security for a while, and finally understood the contrarian view point - that paper trails were the wrong framing of the question, and that it seems impossible to retain anonymity and security.
I've tried not to remember the dead unanimously voting for the Daley machine.
I spent an hour trying to figure out what truths exist in Venezuela from an obviously biased source, and realizing, that I probably had to go there, too, to really figure it out, after I spoke the language. I might be ready in five years, after learning ten new words a day, but that would be just the dictionary meanings.
I've tried not to boggle at the prospect of hundreds of kids forced to submit to a DNA test that their parents can legally refuse, nor at a government worker calling a cotton swab inside the mouth "non-invasive".
I've tried to hope that all the forces in the world lined up against each other would cancel out, and democracy would be preserved, truths found, and justice win out.
I've tried hope, and failed at that, too. I keep hitting reload, instead.
The answer to the voting machine problem is entirely open hardware and software, and the chances of seeing that happen are slim, at least this year.
As to the state's invasion of the FLDS church's settlement, the term "clusterf*ck" applies. How can a dragnet haul in 500+ people with a single search warrant, an entire community, who by every independent account, are no trouble to outsiders, and live and let live, based on a single phone call, from a single informant, who may never have existed? The further injustices in - parents separated from their children, children separated from each other, kept in gym, lawyers leaping over each other to defend and prosecute - make me despair. The raid is probably the best thing to happen to the legal industry in Texas since Enron's collapse. Not to mention: all the reporters reporting on it have no chance to investigate other, perhaps more pertinent, events there....
Perhaps admirable in an earlier age - the settlement was self-sufficient in food and manufacturing, there's no evidence of social disorder, mass drunkenness, drug abuse, or sales thereof. By every standard save one they appear to have been model citizens, worthy of emulation.
Perhaps that was their real crime - to try and live independently of the State. The state got lonely for lack of worship.
I'd found some random amusement in today's reloads. One headline, written by someone no doubt pressed for space: "DNA tests for polygamy begin". Tests for that may work in cats, but not humans.
Closing arguments were heard in the Hans Reiser case. Oh, Reiser is certainly guilty. Guilty of not attending church on sundays, guilty of brilliance, and arrogance, guilty of being a geek, guilty of being unloved, and of being unlovable - guilty of murder? I don't know. An independent prosecutor thinks so. Reiser's verbose indictment of the system - the judge told him he'd made a mockery of the court, and threatened to remove him from the stand, repeatedly - may well outlive him, guilty or innocent.
The one bright spot in my day: Percy schmeiser finally beat Monsanto in his long battle regarding licensing of his crop.
Still the fundamental issues around genetic engineering and patenting lifeforms for fun and profit remain unchallenged.
I've always wondered what happened to the termination seed patent that Monsanto tried to buy back in 1998.
I'm afraid to find out.
On the plane ride home I almost finished re-reading John Brunner's classic book of ecological and social disaster, The sheep look up. I couldn't finish. It was too depressing. I looked out the window, into darkness, instead, thinking about the irony of PETA pursuing an Xprize for artificial meat.
China is selling cheap cars by the freighterload into South America, selling crappy hardware to people glad to get anything, to a people that hasn't ever heard of "Unsafe at any speed", nor capable of reading it, without translation.
I'd put "The sheep look up" down, just after the part where a defective microwave fried Josie's baby in her womb, after most of the other good characters had died.
As much as I try to close my ears and my eyes and yell neener neener neener neener, like a rat conditioned to get electric shocks and food pellets, I keep hitting reload on the prolefeed, hoping for a different result.
- Opening the door to the visiting doctor, all set to apologize for the flour on her hands - she had been baking - Mrs Byrne sniffed. Smoke! And if she could smell it with her heavy head cold, it must be a tremendous fire! "We ought to call the brigade!", she exclaimed. "Is it a hayrick?".
"The brigade would have a long way to go," the doctor told her curtly. "It's from America. The wind's blowing that way."
Labels: election 2008, hans reiser
¶ 4:55 PM 0 comments
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Saturday I'd been thinking about global warming and working on Livin in the 00ze (new draft of the audio here - have a listen while you read on - where I was last week on the song is talked about and recorded here). I'd gone back to the original nightmare lyrically, partially, coming up with a way to bring easter island in, and trying to tell more of the story in the song in the song rather than in me writing about it around the song. Still, I'm hard at work here, writing around the song...
On Easter Island/Moai turns to man/With your technology/Why are you with me?
I'm always trying to wedge too much stuff into one song (take Rhysling and Me, for instance. Please)
Sunday I went to the Betania church in Adelaide.
I tend to go to church wherever I am. I find spiritual practice comforting - I always feel a lot better shifting some of my burden onto the object of worship of the moment - be it some brand of Jesus, Jehovah, Mohammed, Buddha, or Shiva. I like to think I'm being respectful to my hosts by going, and I try very hard (usually) to blend in with maximum Zeligness - my "acceptance mode" - and I'm always hopeful that at one of these sessions, somewhere, enlightenment would strike, and stick. I've experienced religious ecstasy in a variety of environments. Briefly. Sometimes the ecstasy lasts til Tuesday, but usually... not past noon. I've been getting by on some basic Buddhism ("desire is the source of all unhappiness") for a year now. No desire, not much unhappiness, no ecstasy.
I liked this church initially- It's like a bumpin black baptist church but translated into Italian/Australian accents. Missing is all the Catholic idol ism: Christ bleeding on a cross, ornate statuary and stained glass... Just a podium on a platform, and one
Betania's band is the best band I've heard in church in years - drummer (encased in plexiglas), bassist, two guitarists, two synthesizers, and a four (gorgeous) girl backing group. The lead singer resembles Jim Morrison...
Rock and Roll has come full circle - originally derided as the tool of the devil - it's been tamed and harnessed in the service of the Lord - None of the spiritualism of Bach or Grecian chants are found here. When services start, and the power chords kick in - people's heads start boppin, they raise their hands up high and they start shaking their booty!
When I think about what it would cost for a band this big to tour my head hurts, but there they are, up on stage, every Sunday, with a steady gig... and when I'm not in my "acceptance mode", I reflect, bitterly, on how the exact same manipulation techniques are used in church, in advertising, and in politics... But...
The first song up - "Oh Happy Day" - a bouncing gospel number - managed to completely erase "00ze" from my head - a good thing, as I had tiresome snippets of it looping there still from Saturday. (when you edit audio you tend to loop very short clips of it while you line up beats. They stay with you until you find something to drive them out)
Everybody starts singing more or less in unison and everybody's spirits, including mine, are lifted way up. When involved with music I feel closest to god, my neoclassical pieces are all spiritually influenced, and this is good music, no matter the lyrical content, it just rocks! They play it again. Then the band starts playing a slower, more spiritual number, I don't remember the name, but in it was a theme about only wanting one thing from Jesus - to be with him. Very nice, very spiritual, I can dig it, I'm having a good time...
And then the third song, while I get rid of my spare change during the offering, leaves me cold, brings me back to the planet with a jerk - because (as best as I can remember) it's about also wanting Jesus to "give us the nations" - which but, um, a song back - wasn't what "we" wanted at all... and my rational mind comes back from wherever I've banished it the last 6 Sundays... just before the pastor comes on stage to elaborate on that point... he repeats... "give us the nations... "give us the nations..." "give us the nations...."
My song was gone, but my head was still full of the causes of global warming, not least of which is all the hot air emitted by humans... but let me digress for a couple minutes. Here, have another song...
I grew up with an encyclopedia in my bedroom. I became a rabid and willfully ignorant atheist at the age of five, a total convert to science - in a deeply religious town. This left me ill equipped to reconcile the attitudes I absorbed from the generally religious people around me. I didn't have any reference points. I didn't have anything to tie attitude to idea, and vice versa. This was one source of my subsequent social isolation. I didn't watch cartoons on Saturdays, and I didn't go to church on Sundays. Conversation starters on Mondays were few and far between. But there was that encyclopedia...
When I was 15 I took a huge test that tested my level of general knowledge about the world. I scored off the chart. I only missed two questions. I can't remember one, but the other was: "What is the first chapter of the Bible"?
Yea, I was so willfully ignorant of religion then that I didn't know that answer was Genesis - but I looked that up in my encyclopedia when I got home. I resolved to remedy that ignorance, so in the following weeks I read the Bible (King James Version) and for good measure, read the Koran, AND the Torah, and tossed in Albert Speer's biography and the Kinsey Report for some variety.
I could have used some help in digesting all that, but a short visit to a local Bible study class had me arguing for evolution immediately - I had very little tact then, and less patience. There were no non-Christian religions in town - and I didn't know anyone that could talk about the stuff in the Kinsey report, either. So all that information just sort of sat there in my head, without a whole lot of comprehension, for years and years.
Today, well, I could use a lot of bible study, but I'd prefer to be in a situation where getting confrontational with the group of believers would be ok - like a bar, while I was under a false name - in a place I would never visit again. The pressure to conform in these study classes is intense, and, well, I'd like to have safe place to go or something good to drink while trying to digest it, and otherwise not have to distress my immediate neighbors for having such a heretic in their midst. I've always been perfectly happy to leave my neighbors to their beliefs if they didn't muck with mine.
These days I have a wise rabbi in Florida that I email when I'm dealing with the crazy stuff. Sometimes he mails me back.
What I remember from being 15 was that the Old Testament reverberated with me a lot more than than the new. Perhaps that was reinforced by almost simultaneously reading the Koran, but I don't remember. I thought then (and still think) that the King James version of the creation myth was one of the most powerful ever put into words.
In the years since I studied Norse and Greek mythology, and also got interested in Sumerian after Neal Stephenson made a compelling set of references to it in Snow Crash. Greek mythology sticks with me the best, though, as even the shortest journey through our solar system brings up a whole lot of that.
To this day I think about the other question I missed in that test at 15. What was it? I know it was also religious in nature. I don't know what that question was, and thus, not the answer.
After life smacked me over the head one too many times - I guess I was around 29 - I became agnostic, a seeker, rather than a non-believer. I know, now, that I know too much, and understand too little.
I've always kind of wondered if people offered bible study via instant messaging. That would get rid of the control and conflict elements inherent of such a group, and also make it possible to look up things online. A Biblebot might be a good thing.
I have great difficulties with concept of miracles, and getting guidance via burning bushes, and the like.
That doesn't mean that my life isn't filled with coincidences that get downright spooky. I turned to wikipedia while writing this (march 12th) to lookup creation myths - and what's their featured article? Cretaceous Tertiary Extinction Event - what I've been more or less writing about in living in the 00ze. What made them choose today to write about this? Asteroid appreciation day was 12 days ago!?
Further, Doc Searls - on the other side of the planet from me - today wrote about mankind messing up the planet, and near the end of his piece came up with a rhyme for "ooze" that I hadn't thought of, and may well use at some point...
"push the bar on snooze"
Tonight, at 8:54PM Adelaide time, crossing across the bottom of a cursive Y like star formation, something glimmered in the night. It was moving too flat to be a meteor and didn't change in brightness, and seemingly too high up to be an airplane, and was visible only for a few seconds. It was moving at a clip suitable for a satellite - but so bright? At that inclination? I'll have to look it up....
Out in the night/Just out of sight/A star overhead/And soon we'll be...
Back to the 00ze (although I can still hum oh happy day having only heard it twice) a whole bunch of 3 related numbers started going through my head, as they almost match the syllables in the 00ze song...
BF533 - BFP533 - UB313
Which are, respectively, the processor I've been working on, Hans Reiser's prisoner number, and the original designation the dwarf planet Eris (it's larger than Pluto!) out in the Trans Neptune region of our solar system. Along with the satellite, "Dysnomia", it may be responsible for perturbing a few cometary orbits...
Another phrase that rhymes with all that is Holy Trinity. - which in my internal frame of reference is far less about religion than the bomb - but it all ties together somehow.
Some people get apocalyptic visions every weekend. They even tithe for the privilege, or come back for a second helping on wednesdays. I only have to cope with one apocalyptic vision every couple of years. Maybe constant exposure to the concept of the great shout would make finishing this song easier... make it more possible to welcome the demise of the people watching the cameras at the traffic lights... the end of the spammers... etc... yea...
Give us the nations - the pastor said. What the heck did he mean by that? As best as I could tell from listening to the sermon it meant that it was good that nations like Russia and Indonesia were open to missionaries now, and that the existing nations could be ruled by the righteous (meaning Jesus followers) one day, and that their religious education could sweep across all the lands... everyone would be converted... and then there will be peace!
Something in me snaps, and in response to something the pastor says, I say... no, while everyone around me is shouting yes...
I say, louder Peace cannot be predicated on whether or not people accept Jesus, or there will be war. Peace, then, will only be found by the dead.
Now, I've spent months rubbing blue mud into my belly-button and bonding with my hosts and in general trying to get along, and you know, people start looking at you funny when you are in church disagreeing with the pastor from pew 42 so I shut up and tried to keep my mind at bay...
I'm reminded by Bush's recent briefing on Iran and foreign policy which had a great number of religious people present and was punctuated by frequent cries of Amen!, and Praise the lord! And I am especially reminded (today) of Fox Fallon stepping down from US Central command shortly after that briefing. Maybe these events are related for my current state of worry...
As the pastor closed up his fiery sermon the band kicked in with another inspirational song and the the audience fills with people babbling in tongues and crying out to Jesus - Oh, Jesus! Thank you Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la YES Jesus!, Oh Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Jeeessusssss... Jeeeesus
Did I mention that this church is pentecostal? That means that speaking in tongues, especially on Sundays, is socially acceptable, almost required. It's kind of comforting to know that this is acceptable behavior somewhere, because I do it (especially when singing to a wordless tune) or when I'm completely frustrated - or underwater - or as these people are - in the throes of ecstasy. The babble seems to tie into some deep pre-cogent verbal human process. I've never done it with other people tho and as the pastor revs up the volume I kind of do a review of my deteriorating mental state... So, let's see...
Oh, Jesus! Thank you Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la YES Lord!, Oh Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Jeeessusssss... Jeeeesus
I just blogged a long piece about emphasizing with a programmer that's being tried for murder, while thumbing my nose at authority about riding my bicycle on the sidewalk... while writing something scary about Clinton - while simultaneously working on a post-apocalyptic song filled with maniacal laughter... these are all reactions to my present environment. I've swallowed enough of it. Zelig can't handle it anymore. I think it's time to move on.
ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la....
I've sometimes wished that the groups of people that go into public places and freeze in place for two minutes would go into a strange place and babble like this into their cellphones, but I'm not sure if anybody would notice.
ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la....
I mentioned in the last blog entry that I ran google with safesearch off.
Oh, Jesus! Thank you Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la YES Jesus!, Oh Lord! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Jeeessusssss... Jeeeesus
I don't like other people - or machines - filtering my inputs, without my control, or input into how they were shaping my inputs. I like my data raw, my people raw, whenever possible. I try to embrace the moment and the new to the fullest, yet (eventually) I do filter things heavily with my mind and using my own tools - like privoxy and firefox adblock - and always exhibit a great deal of scepticism regarding the purpose of the people spinning a secondhand story. I have one filter that changes every occurrence of the phrase "cut taxes" into "increase deficit spending", for example.
ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la....
My mental filters snapped back into place... and I was back to thinking again about global warming, and the similarities between marketing and church verbal manipulation techniques - and what I started hearing in my head was:
Oh Chrysler! Thank you, CHRYSLER! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Thank you CHRYSLER. Oh, FORD! Yes, CHRYSLER! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la... CHRYSLERRRRRRRRRRR.... CHRYSLEERRR!
Word substitution of this sort continued until the end of the service. Feel free to fill in the key words for yourself.
I'm pretty sure that when this happens to a regular churchgoer they are filled with remorse, and, were I catholic, would have to be followed by an immediate confession and penance. Me, after the service, I went for a very long walk. Something of a run, actually... I needed to get out of there.
Long ago I found one sure way to end a conversation with a true believer in almost any modern religion. I'll start talking rapidly about my deep reverence for the greek goddess Athena, and about how her springing fully formed from Zeus's forehead just blew away the Virgin Mary story... how much that I admired that she was a god of war, equipped mostly with a shield... etc. - and inside of a few minutes, they wander away, mind blown by an apparently unrepentant pantheist, without a reference point to further discussion on.
I've got a lot more tactful in my old age. Recently I successfully endured a 4 hours of a bible literalist (same sect) describing his elaborate explanation for why God created the world apparently old, but that it was still - really - only 6000 years old, just like the bible said... before I invoked the Athena defense. He hasn't spoken to me since. Too bad - he was otherwise a pretty nice guy, worth drinking a beer with. I think I have to come up with a way of switching the subject before I get to that point.
I know that one day, were I come to trial for something, that well over half of the "jury of my peers" would consist of people that were utterly alien in their belief systems to me - and I to them. I have met many good religious people - many, many, many - in person they are wonderful - in groups, though, they scare the (sorry) bejesus out of me.
I can't think of one religious person, ever, that bothered to look up the story of Athena, after I dissed the Virgin Mary. That really bothers me. Athena is cool....
It was good to take that walk. It cleared my head up of all this apocalyptic crap, I managed to work on some code for most of the week, and type bits of this story up, trying to figure out how to make it all coherent, and realizing that I probably had to publish two pieces I'd held back because I'd had it with holding my tongue on what I really thought, and I didn't care anymore what some people thought of me because I was leaving soon.
So here I go, trying to tie all this back into the original nightmare... and the present world...
I needed to assemble the remaining components of the song - the two voice overs, and the bit about peanut butter and jellyfish... I got David Rowe's daughter to perform that part. I gave her a mic and and got her to say, over and over again, "I just love my plankton and jellyfish" - "again!" - "I just LOVE my plankton and jellyfish" - "Say it like you mean it!" "I JUST LOVE MY PLANKTON and JELLYFISH" "Think of something that you really love and say it!" "I HATE SEAFOOD!" "Well, PRETEND!" "I just LOVE my plankton and jellyfish"...
She broke down into giggles repeatedly, and waste not, want not - one of those giggles is getting used as a rhythmic element now in the song.
She asked me later upon hearing the mix what the song was about and I said it was about survival after a giant asteroid had smacked into the planet, that the same people that get busted for selling grow-lights today would get called upon to raise plankton and jellyfish after that to feed little girls... and she told me (again) how much she hated seafood.
I'm not happy with the two "news report voiceovers" but thematically they seem to fit in a "le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le" sort of way so I'm leaving them in until I come up with something better to say (and a more genuine newscaster voice)....
I LOVE how she said plankton and jellyfish on the exit to the song, tho....
Livin in the 00ze (as of March 12th)
Drums and Bass kick in
[repeat] Piano Kicks in
[overdub of weather announcer kicks in]
bsst! Weather today - hot, rainy - Bikinis were spotted as far north as greenland...
bsstt! some tiny little details bsst!
today's shuttle launch was canceled due to atomspheric disturbances]
on easter island
Moai turns to man
"With your technology -
why are you with me?"
you'll soon be livin in the 00ze
[announcer]
[some stuff about global warming]
[Wait... this just in...]
Out in the night
Just out of sight
There's a star overhead
And soon we'll be...
(Chorus)
Livin in the 00ze - UB313
Livin in the 00ze - UB313
Livin in the 00ze - UB313
far above the beach
Just out of reach
bordered in black
It's a Meteor Attack ack ack ack...
And now we're living in the 00ze
Yes, we're living in the 00ze
Livin in the 00ze
[solos, more overdubs]
Out on the beach
Just out of reach
Mind melting heat
Nothing to eat
[weather announcer
Weather today. Cold. Rainy. The
last few remaining people in washington state
looked up at that terrible sky and
decided to give up entirely. We haven't
heard from them in a week.
Next up, our special "Glaciers on the Move"
... If there is anyone still listening... ]
[chorus]
Yea we're living in the 00ze
and we don't have any shoes
and we're turning corn to booze
Because we're livin in the 00ze.
[Girl's voice: I just LOVE my plankton and jellyfish]
Yea.
One link that couldn't fit into this piece: Oh, happy day as performed in India.
Labels: election 2008, music, religion
¶ 4:40 AM 8 comments
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Given the Idiom shortage, I don't know what I'll do.
I would like a president that wasn't interested in re-fighting vietnam or reliving woodstock.
I would like a president that wasn't afraid.
I would like a president that rebuilt a country that built stuff.
I thought John McCain was the best republican candidate of 2000. In 2008 he often appeared unfocused and unsharp, too tired and old for the office. Now he's the presumptive nominee for the Republican side of the US, the second best of a bad lot, and perhaps if he naps through his presidency and refrains from singing Beach Boys parodies, he won't do the country or the world much harm.
I always thought that Hillary Clinton was the brains of the Clinton operation. Perhaps if she gets laid once in a while (send in the male interns!) she'll mellow out and drop most of that control freak behavior. She should maybe go to France or something. Their president seems to have a good work/life balance.
Frankly I was hoping for a clear win for Obama yesterday, which would have given me some hope that a country long divided could unite on something. No such luck. (Although I thought Clinton would take Ohio, I wasn't expecting Texas)
The "Democratic" party is now going to have to rely on the non-democratic institution of super-delegates to decide their nomination - how ironic is that? To me, that means Clinton is in like flynn...
The US is such a divided country that I sometimes wish that the various components were allowed to go their own way - the fundies could have half the south, McCain the middle of the country, the Clintonites the upper east coast, the Obamians the west and the other half of the south, and the Paulians, Nevada and maybe New Mexico and North Dakota. Let those subnations compete on their own merits, and get the presidents they deserve.... I am so reminded this morning of an H.L. Mencken quote:
"Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard".
I have to say that it has been the most interesting political season in my memory, and despite my disappointments so far in 2008, call me crazy, I have hope that someone worthwhile will get elected... in 2012.
I would like a president that wasn't interested in re-fighting vietnam or reliving woodstock.
I would like a president that wasn't afraid.
I would like a president that rebuilt a country that built stuff.
I thought John McCain was the best republican candidate of 2000. In 2008 he often appeared unfocused and unsharp, too tired and old for the office. Now he's the presumptive nominee for the Republican side of the US, the second best of a bad lot, and perhaps if he naps through his presidency and refrains from singing Beach Boys parodies, he won't do the country or the world much harm.
I always thought that Hillary Clinton was the brains of the Clinton operation. Perhaps if she gets laid once in a while (send in the male interns!) she'll mellow out and drop most of that control freak behavior. She should maybe go to France or something. Their president seems to have a good work/life balance.
Frankly I was hoping for a clear win for Obama yesterday, which would have given me some hope that a country long divided could unite on something. No such luck. (Although I thought Clinton would take Ohio, I wasn't expecting Texas)
The "Democratic" party is now going to have to rely on the non-democratic institution of super-delegates to decide their nomination - how ironic is that? To me, that means Clinton is in like flynn...
The US is such a divided country that I sometimes wish that the various components were allowed to go their own way - the fundies could have half the south, McCain the middle of the country, the Clintonites the upper east coast, the Obamians the west and the other half of the south, and the Paulians, Nevada and maybe New Mexico and North Dakota. Let those subnations compete on their own merits, and get the presidents they deserve.... I am so reminded this morning of an H.L. Mencken quote:
"Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard".
I have to say that it has been the most interesting political season in my memory, and despite my disappointments so far in 2008, call me crazy, I have hope that someone worthwhile will get elected... in 2012.
Labels: election 2008
¶ 1:59 PM 3 comments
Monday, February 04, 2008
Losing interest in the election
So I just took yet another stupid political quiz in the hope I might learn something about myself that I didn't already know...
Imagine my shock when John Mccain won - ranked 27 - Followed closely by Mitt Romney at 26 - and - GOD - Mike Huckabee at 24. Obama at 16, and Clinton at 13.
Ron Paul ranked 12.
As usual, the thing I disagree with most is the framing of the questions - although this quiz, at least lets you rank the importance of the questions to you. It didn't seem to make a difference in the results.
What blew my mind about the test was that none of my personal top ranked issues were on it - The overwhelming federal and consumer debt - space - separation of church and state - opposing aristocracy - fixing AMT - reforming copyright and patent law... stuff that would have moved Paul way up on the list, and Huckabee completely off of it.
My responses were littered with "don't care's" - don't care about marriage, abortion, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts made no difference in my outlook but I DO think the estate tax is a good thing if the low cutoff got raised....
Take the education question, for example: "Should teachers receive merit pay?" Answer 1) this is a no brainer - Sure! - But a far more important question is should students get a quality education at a low cost to them? Nobody answers that question, and college students are piling up debt at record rates for degrees of dubious worth....
I oppose federal funding of stem cell research, in fact, federal funding for almost anything that's not in the constitution - but support - applaud, even - California's attempt to make california a hotbed of research for it.
I would support a constitutional amendment for a line item veto. I've never forgiven Guilani for saving New York at the expense of the country.
I didn't like any of the choices presented me on the immigration issue. I would abolish the H1B program - which is indentured servitude of the worst kind - AND make it significantly easier for anyone that's qualified to come to America to live, work, and become a citizen. Encouraging immigration is the only way to keep social security solvent... and the nation fresh and young. I simply don't 'get' why America is so focused on ostracising the world. Someday - soon - Americans will be begging for someone, anyone - to come there and support the crushing debt load. The way things are going, I foresee a massive increase in emigration from the US starting, well, now.... why immigration in a nation of immigrants has to be continually discussed in such negative terms is beyond my ken.
Ethanol subsidies are dumb. The price of corn is shooting up everywhere - and people need corn to eat! Burning food for fuel is like burning books for heat. Worse, people are planting corn intead of barley, and that's driving up the price of beer! I wouldn't mind seeing a federally garunteed market - for solar cells powering federal buildings - but that's about it.
As for gun control, I argue that if you live in a rural area, guns, rifles and shotguns at least - are mandatory - in urban areas, far less so - and that's the source of the conflict. If we could disarm the police, I'd support disarming urban areas... since we can't - well, I tend to think that the possibility of gun institutes a little respect on all sides of the law, so we're stuck with them. I have an interesting story to tell about gun control in Australia that I'll tell when I get the time....
I support the death penalty. Not only that, I'd like to see public embarrassment - stocks in the public square - brought back, especially for white collar offenders.
This is turning out to be another election about issues that I don't care about, that ignores the ones I do care about. I'm not surprised. I'd sit this one out if it weren't so important.
My only choice is to continue to try and shift the framing of public discourse towards the problems that need to be solved, which, in addition to feeling like pushing jello uphill, is not something I'm willing to spend a whole lot more time on. I have more important things to do, like finding somewhere other than America to live for a while longer.
But Super Tuesday is tomorrow, and I thought I'd share a little overseas 'live from Australia' thinking. Universally, the election in the US is being reported on as a two person race for the Democrats, and a three man one for the Republicans (no Ron Paul at all). Obama is getting the most press at present, with Hillary being pictured as on the defensive.
From meeting with random "people on the street" - Hillary is the only candidate nearly anyone has heard of - more than one person has asked when she is taking office - and Bush universally hated. Obama got a thumbs down from a taxi driver who also had strong opinions on abos, and until a few days ago, it seems, nobody had really heard of Obama. I haven't met anyone that thinks a Republican has a chance...
Me, I hope Obama wins big tomorrow. If a Democrat has to win the next election, it might as well be one that's not interested in refighting vietnam or woodstock. Maybe the Republican race will stay fluid - I hope it does, but who can tell anything from here?
Labels: election 2008
¶ 4:52 PM 1 comments
