House of Eratosthenes

My Solution to Iraq Is to Never Have Gone There
An Editorial by Senator Barack Obama

Iraq continues to be a serious problem, and the Bush administration has done nothing but increase the problem and cause unnecessary deaths. It is a mess, but I have a solution: I would never have gone there.

The Iraq War will be a big problem to inherit, but it would not be if we hadn’t have gone there. That’s why that is my solution.
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As for Al Qaeda in Iraq, I don’t think they would be a problem if we hadn’t had gone. Maybe they already were there and working with some support from Saddam, but I still think not having gone there is a risk worth taking. You may worry about all the terrorists there and whether they have intentions for attacking America, but you wouldn’t if we hadn’t had gone.
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The future. And not just any future; a future where we look forward and say, “We shouldn’t have gone to Iraq.”

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Without Apology
Friday, February 29th, 2008

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, agrees with the nanny-state on one single issue and we stomp the bleachers as we bang our hands together in applause here…

“It is universally understood that operating a motor vehicle while using a cell phone is dangerous, and yet it’s almost a universal practice,” [Police Capt. Jeff] Gural said. “Unlike the seatbelt law, the violation of which puts only the violator at risk, violation of the cell phone law puts others at risk.

“Therefore, the Evesham police will be enforcing the law vigorously and without apology.”

Cinnaminson Police Lt. Robert Martens said it won’t be hard to find violators

“There are so many drivers that still talk on their (hand-held) cell phones that it’s going to be like shooting fish in a barrel,” Martens said of the number of potential violators traveling area roadways.

However, he said his department does not now plan any special details to look for violators.

“If we see someone violating the law and creating a traffic hazard, we’re going to enforce it,” Martens said.

The sight of people spending enormous gobs of money to make their car as cocoon-like as they possibly can, and then filling that cocoon with distractions, ticks me off like you wouldn’t believe. Worst of all is the sight of someone just jawing away on their cell phone…and I understand people are going to think I’m jumping to conclusions a bit too quickly, and they’re entitled to their opinion however wrong it may be. I insist you can tell certain things by the way they move. The way they hold the phones. The way their jaws move as they talk into them.

They are NOT receiving instructions on how to perform CPR on a baby, or how to defuse a bomb.

They are yakking away about stupid crap.

Because they’re used to driving this way. If they’re driving, and there’s no phone held up to their face, they feel that something is wrong. It’s like using a computer without drinking coffee. Quarter-pounder without the fries. The engine roars to life, and the phone has to be up to their silly ear if it isn’t there already.

Cardo Scala Because being ready for any ol’ thing to go wrong — the time-honored example of the three-year-old chasing the ball out into the street just yards in front of your bumper — that is unacceptably boring. To people who put ten…twenty…thirty thousand miles on their chariots, every year. Just consider the implications of that.

There shouldn’t even be a law needed, when you think about it. If you hold a cell phone up to your face, you’re advertising to the world that you don’t check your blind spots when you turn corners or change lanes. There can be very little doubt about it. Just watch people yakking away on their cell phones while they drive. Take a good look. Three quarters of them are holding the phone up to their left ears. Their left ears. They do head checks when they change lanes? They do? How? Law or no law, that’s worth a warning.

Pictured is the headset I use, which has worked wonderfully now for three years straight. There’s nothing unique about it except for the handy cord that you can use to keep it close by, like around your neck. You can get it for $25. Some others work perfectly well, and cost even less.

I’m always amazed by folks who drive BMWs or Lincoln Navs for the prestige factor, but can’t put together $15 to talk on their phones while they drive unobstructed. What’s up with you people? Are you afraid of losing the headset? Then keep the headset in your damn car.

Now that I actually agree with the nanny state about something, I have to go take a shower. But you see, I really have no choice but to agree with them on this one. It doesn’t matter how much “there oughtta be a law” is overused and over-abused…it applies here. This nonsense is WAY out of control.

WAY out.

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Flashlight Gun
Friday, February 29th, 2008

Pretty cool.

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Mayor Carmen Out
Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Awhile ago I had added the misadventures of Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, Mayor of Arlington, OR to my “Flesh! Oh No!” archives in which we keep close tabs on the the sight of good-lookin’ women in skimpy clothing inspiring reactions from others that are…bollywonkers.

I do not mean to join ranks with those who mindlessly drivel out stale cliches, like…”in America, we’re sexually repressed…in other countries, they let women go topless on the beach…there’s something about America where blah blah blah…” To our minds, those babbling idjits are living proof that you can have a good point to make, but by relying on lazy thinking and favoring too much your initial prejudices, come to logically weak conclusions anyway. Yes, most of our localities insist the ladies wear all of their bathing suits in public — and your point is?

But at the same time, it is quite silly to indulge in any & all condemnation in the presence of a lady in the flesh, or of a picture of such a female — or of a suggestion of a picture of such a female — in less than complete attire. As if her judgment, or lack thereof, in what to wear somehow justifies any silly decision you have to make about how much to get worked up over it. This, we contend, is a problem in twenty-first century America. It is one of two subjects, wholly unrelated to one another, that reliably inspires large numbers of people to dribble out the most perverse nonsense as if on cue.

Carmen Kontur-Gronquist And some of this nonsense has served as a “pretext” for bouncing out the Mayor of Arlington…

According to the person who spearheaded the recall drive, Ron Miller, the vote was 142 in favor and 139 against the recall of Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist.
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“My reaction is that the democratic process took place, and that is a good process that we have in the United States, and it’s fair,” she said.
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[Miller] said Gronquist will leave office immediately. The Arlington City Council President will take over as mayor until a new mayor is selected.

As for Gronquist, she said she is selling a poster of herself on eBay. A portion of the proceeds, she said, will go to the Arlington city ambulance company.

The ridiculous thing about this is that the real subject of the recall seems to have something to do with some decisions the Mayor made about golf courses. The underwear-picture thing, according to all the information I’ve been able to gather, was just the camel’s nose in the tent.

No self-respecting activist would say “I want the Mayor recalled because I found a picture of her in her underwear,” but they ended up doing that very thing. Had the golf decisions stood, but the underwear photo never come to light, this thing never would have gotten off the ground. And so her tragic tale goes into the file of evidence of modern busybody Dark Matter, the stuff that holds the cosmos that is the American Taliban together. Bible-thumping tightasses and jealous frumpy housewives who want to go out on their daily peregrinations without seeing any bare elbows and toes belonging to any ladies who might happen to look nice.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This is rooted in jealousy, plain and simple, whether the complainant is a lady or a gentleman. If a female happens to come off as heavy, poorly-maintained or otherwise substandard, she can flaunt all she wants. You read about an unsuspecting lass getting in a peck of trouble over a swimsuit photo, and you know she’s lookin’ good.

H/T: Ace.

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Bird Feeder
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

It’s currently making the rounds on the innernets…

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it lovingly with seed. It was indeed a beautiful bird feeder.

Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the bird shit. It was everywhere; on the patio tile, the chairs, the table … everywhere! Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food. After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore.

So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be … quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see ….

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen. Then the illegal’s came by the millions.

Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 or more families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by a doctor in an emergency room because it is filled with illegals; your child’s class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English.

Breakfast cereal now comes in a bilingual box; I have to ‘press one’ to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than ‘The Union Jack’ are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties. Its just my opinion but: maybe, just maybe, it’s time for the government to take down the damn bird feeder.

I have not yet heard it suggested…not even once…that any other nation besides the United States of America would be doing anything “racist” by establishing, or continuing to establish, an official language. To the best of my knowledge, this is a rule that doesn’t make sufficient sense to be articulated outright anywhere — that the United States is engaged in an act of RAY-SCIZM by making English the official language of the country. But other countries can go ahead and have theirs. That’s all good.

This is an abuse of logic and common sense of monstrous proportions. That’s probably what it’s not articulated outright.

It doesn’t even begin to be rational.

What color is English anyway?

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Diebold Accidentally Leaks the Results
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

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Yeah…Oh, Yeah…That’s Objective
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Two Mastheads Via Verum Serum, via Cartago Delanda Est, via Rick.

The stories are tragically similar. The Bush incident took place six months ago in Albuquerque, and Victor Lozada Tirado lost his life in the Clinton motorcade in Dallas last week.

At this time, I can’t locate the name of the officer who was killed six months ago in Albuquerque. Mostly because, even with the Clinton headline an unknown future event and the contrast therefore missing, “Bush Motorcade Kills Cop” was a shockingly irresponsible headline on its own. (Also, it should be pointed out that in some sources Sen. Cpl. Tirado is identified as “a policewoman” so it would appear more details are needed here as well.)

Now to tell the truth, I’m really ignorant about how the public-at-large perceives this problem. That media bias exists and that it slants to the left, seems to be something that can’t be doubted by anyone except the insane. But that’s just the way I see it. I can’t speak for others.

I think most of us acknowledge the leftist tilt — this Zogby poll pegs the quotient at two-thirds — but handle the issue with an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. In other words, when we aren’t constantly reminded of it, we have a tendency to presume the problem has gone away, and even to rely on our media sources for balanced coverage the very next day. Presuming that, then, I predict most people becoming aware of these two “dueling headlines” will conclude that sometime over the last six months Time Magazine “grew up” and can now be relied-upon.

How adorable. How charmingly naive. I have to blatantly steal a line from Rachel Lucas and gush that I could just pinch their cute little cheeks, really, really hard.

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Birds
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

From Pics We Like (click for full).

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Vote For –ism
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

The 2008 presidential election now has a clear front-runner. And that front-runner is the suffix “ism.”

Nobody else is having nearly as big an effect…

Top Republican strategists are working on plans to protect the GOP from charges of racism or sexism in the general election, as they prepare for a presidential campaign against the first ever African-American or female Democratic nominee.

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved. The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior GOP operatives see for a party often criticized for its insensitivity to minorities in campaigns dating back to the 1960s.

The RNC project is viewed as so sensitive that those involved in the work were reluctant to discuss the findings in detail. But one Republican strategist, who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, said the research shows the daunting and delicate task ahead.

Republicans will be told to “be sensitive to tone and stick to the substance of the discussion” and that “the key is that you have to be sensitive to the fact that you are running against historic firsts,” the strategist explained.

Facepalm Wow. Is it racist or sexist to infer from this that, when you’re a candidate to become the nation’s next President, it’s an enormous advantage to you to have dark skin or be female? Because if your opponent has to be sensitive when pointing out your faults, but you don’t have to be sensitive when you point out his…gosh, ya know, I think anybody who’s successfully graduated from the seventh grade should be able to say “I think that might be a tactical advantage.”

GOP operatives have already coined a term for clumsy rhetoric: “undisciplined messaging.” It appears as a bullet point in a Power Point presentation making the rounds among major donors, party leaders and surrogates. The presentation outlines five main strategic attacks against an Obama candidacy, with one of them stating how “undisciplined messaging carries great risk.”

“Republicans will need to exercise less deafness and more deftness in dealing with a different looking candidate, whether it is a woman or a black man,” Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway said. “But at the same time, really charge back at any insinuation or accusation of sexism or racism.”

But since we’re talking about campaign-land and not about the planet I call home, which is Earth…I guess really charging back at these insinuations will have something to do with bluster, bravado and bumper sticker slogans. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with saying “nice name-calling now will you please address my question” or something favorable to finding the truth about things.

I wonder how much per hour these strategerists are pulling down for cobbling together these Power Point presentations.

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Yes, Let’s Become More Like Europe
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

There seems to be no down-side to it.

Who is allowed to break in to your house?
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It may sound suprising, but according to a 2007 report by Harry Snook, a barrister for the Centre for Policy Studies, there are 266 powers allowing officials to enter your home, and not all require a warrant. Those who can break in include firefighters, in an emergency, and police arresting a suspect. The Environment Agency can gain access without a warrant where there is danger of pollution or damage to public health.

Electricity and gas companies can come in to inspect equipment or change a meter but have to give at least two days’ notice (though they can enter in an emergency).

Landlords are allowed to enter their property and seize goods in lieu of unpaid rent, and local authorities can enter your home for a number of reasons, including to turn off a continuous burglar alarm or pest extermination.
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Then there are the more unusual Acts. Under the Bees Act, officers can enter to search for foreign bees. Under the Hypnotism Act, the police can enter a property where they suspect offences related to stage hypnotism are taking place. Stage hypnotism, strangely, is not an offence in itself.

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Are We There Yet?
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

That’s what I call quite a trip.

It is the furthest galaxy on the record. The galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916 is located about 13,230 million light-years away. Hence, it is seen at a time when the Universe was merely 470 million years young, that is, barely 3 percent of its current age.

But don’t feel so dejected, young-earth creationists, there’s something for you too…

Scientists are finding extraterrestrial influence in this galaxy. It seems the galaxy was engineered and fit into place by artificial forces. This is the furthest galaxy ever discovered. Therefore it is also the earliest galaxy that we can view through gravitational lenses.

Some 13.7 billion years ago, after the big bang, the Universe plunged into darkness. Neither stars nor quasars had yet been formed which could illuminate the vast space. The Universe was a cold and opaque place. Some thing went wrong, according to some scientists. Intervention was needed by the Type IV civilization that created the big bang in their massive inter-universe particle colliders. The big bang created a black hole in the hyperspace – our universe with three spatial dimensions and a forward moving single time dimension. According to scientists this was the start of ‘dark ages’ that was eventually corrected through the intervention of the Type IV civilization.

Type IV is a reference to the Kardashev Scale; specifically, to something on par with the Q Continuum.

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On the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Statement from President Bill Clinton on October 31, 1998 on signing the Iraq Liberation Act.

Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.” This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.

Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are:

The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.

The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.

The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.

My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.

In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council’s efforts to keep the current regime’s behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.

Clinton talked. Bush did.

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Star Wars According to a Three-Year-Old
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

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What I Learned Today
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

One. It isn’t butkus; it’s bubkes.
Two. There’s a little bit of a pain-in-the-ass side to having a professional editor perusing The Blog That Nobody Reads.

During our off-line I was given cause to think about this exchange…

The final proposed revision to the Declaration is brought by Adams himself. He indicates that the grammatically correct term would be “unalienable,” not “inalienable.” Jefferson insists that “inalienable” is correct. Adams defends his assertion with his Harvard credentials, which Jefferson counters with his studies at the College of William and Mary. In the interest of proceeding with the vote, Hancock asks Jefferson if he will agree to the revision, to which Jefferson says no, grinning at Adams. Annoyed, Adams withdraws his request, earning Franklin’s praise, but retorts that he will speak to the printer later.

Three. Even with Seattle natives, it seems a linguistic disagreement may occasionally be settled with broadswords (whether it looks like this is something that will remain unknown for now).
Four. “Bubkes” is Yiddish! It also is a reference to goat droppings. Who’d a-thunk.
Five. It isn’t good enough to use the urban dictionary to make sure you’re doing it right. It’s always been one of my favorite reference materials. I claim ignorance. Nobody told me bubkes about it.

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On Angry White Men
Monday, February 25th, 2008

Buck sez…

I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh but I used to once upon a time, and I don’t particularly like Rush Limbaugh but I agree with about 97.6% of this rant…

Limbaugh is reading an editorial by Gary Hubbell that appeared in the February 9th edition of the Aspen Times Weekly, so this is old news. Still and even, old or not…there’s a lot of truth in that, eh? If you disagree, I’d like to hear about it…with an emphasis on “why.” If you have the time and inclination, of course.

I wouldn’t call myself an Angry White Man. But I am disturbed at the way things are going in this country, so I most definitely relate to the sentiments in Mr. Hubbell’s piece.

I would characterize some of the images in that LiveLeak clip to be work hazardous. That is to say, I’d regard any decision to embed the clip without such a warning as an entirely meritorious decision, so I don’t mean to chastise Buck or anybody else for leaving the warnings out. But if you work around a whole gaggle of foppish snots, you’ll probably appreciate having a warning. But of course you’d have to be a sniveling scatterbrain to be watching videos on the innernets around a crowd like that. There. Warning complete. Now then.

I never did agree with calling these guys “white men.” One of the things I’ve been noticing happening in the last few years, let’s say since the first term of Bill Clinton, is that people in general tire quickly of the “diversity” argument. It seems to be a stew that remains tasty only in very light doses, and whenever a diner is served a heavy banquet of whitey-bashing, the palette grows weary of the flavoring without regard to the diner’s gender or skin color.

And so we had the 1994 midterm elections. Which were also blamed on the angry white male, but I don’t think it happened that way quite so much.

The things about which Hubbell is writing, all have two things in common. One: To the lazy mind, they can be presented as positive things. Two: Under the surface, they’re all bitingly, acridly negative. Each and every single one. A perfect example is the flood of illegal laborers. The lazy mind hears of such a thing, and it seems like this is a positive thing, opposed only by negative people. Giving jobs to poor people who cross an arbitrary line in the sand to make a better life for their families. But waitaminnit…what is the consequence of allowing this to happen? What is the consequence of stopping it?

Noodle on that for a little while, and you see the issue is far greater than illegal labor. It has to do with whether laws are to be enforced equally, or selectively. To suppose that laws should be enforced equally, is just a natural conclusion you reach when you proceed from the premise that fairness is a good thing. To flood these work sites with illegal laborers who broke the law to get in the country, and are allowed to stay only because corrupt businesses and law enforcement agencies look the other way — that’s downright nasty.

It can seem “fair,” but only if you started evaluating fairness with an ingrained hostility toward those who are injured.

Ditto for the “Press 1 For English.” It seems fair — if you start evaluating fairness with an ingrained hostility toward the English language. If you flavor your evaluation with a sneering “What’s So Great About English?” attitude. Imagining the same situation with an imaginary country and an imaginary language, to remove the passions, the conclusion would naturally drift to the other way. This is why so many other countries, around the world, are allowed to keep their native languages. To have “official” ones. And nobody says bubkes about it.

I suppose to characterize this as a “white guy” thing is fair, for now, because Hubbell is talking about voting. He’s talking, therefore, about numbers. My anecdotes about black guys I’ve met who appreciate these sentiments, or women I’ve met who also nurture these passions, may therefore be relegated to sideline status.

But even with voting, the white-guy dominance of this phenomenon is on the wane. In 2006, the democrats won, and they won with their “Down With Whitey” nastiness (the irony being, that the positions that really count for a lot in the democrat party, are all occupied by white people).

But has there ever been a more hollow victory in American politics? Ask a dozen loyal democrats what they thought they’d get out of the 2006 victory, you won’t get a single answer about what it was supposed to be. But you’ll definitely get a single answer as to whether they got it or not: NO.

I think what Hubbell is really writing about, is a fatigue that has set in against negativity and nastiness. We see this fatigue in our white guys first and foremost, because they are the objects of it. But the folks pushing this anti-white-guy nastiness and negativity are also white guys.

Across all the colors, a hunger has set in and it is not being satisfied. The hunger is for leaders in our government that are FOR something. I’ve been wondering this about Hillary Clinton for the longest time, now: What is she FOR? You don’t have to do much listening at all to hear all about this-or-that policy that was stupid from day one and hasn’t worked and is bad bad bad bad bad…but when it’s time to hear what these guys & gals support, all I hear of is this word “CHANGE.”

So I think there is a multi-hued passion for something that has not been delivered and cannot be delivered soon. But Hubbell is right on the point where he implies the white male will deliver some surprises on election day, because this is the class about which nobody is asking, or answering, any questions. Not unless it’s about that angry self-hating left-wing type of white guy.

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On Dogs in Purses
Monday, February 25th, 2008

Gerard is interested, again, in our snarking about technology, post-Y2K. The issue under discussion is/was the snotty atheist movement.

How come atheism waited until the twenty-first century to really bask in the limelight? Wouldn’t it be more fitting if it came to popularity half a century ago, when we were launching satellites and smashing atoms? This is the age of fifty gazillion wonderful new inventions, all of which are dedicated to finding new ways to play personal music collections and carry dogs around in purses.

And this is the era in which the atheist’s view of the cosmos, is most popularly thought to be the correct one. If I were an atheist, that would be sufficient to make me seriously question my atheism. I’m glad I’m not one.

No moonshots. We may land on Mars someday, but if we do it will be like a thief in the night. Nobody cares.

Our kids all want to be rap stars and basketball players when they grow up, which would be alright on some level if they had to overcome some approach-approach conflict to get there, but one gathers the impression they lit upon this dream just because nature abhors a vacuum. Rare is the child nowadays who has ever fiddled with a chemistry set or used a calculator just for fun.

Technology is useful when it gives us something we can leave under the Winter Solstice Tree for each other. Technology is wonderful when it’s about ME. When it plays MY music…when it displays MY photographs. By doing things that are, conceptually, not new. Years and years ago, we figured out how to pass a digital file through a solid-state device and get stereo music out of it — and if by noon tomorrow ten exciting inventions are unveiled, you know at least nine of them will have something to do with performing this old task in some fancy new way. It isn’t real innovation.

The tenth will have something to do with dogs and purses.

I thought I would provide a link to how the dog-in-the-purse became a metaphor around here for stale technology. It is a technology-related thing, after all, because for the most part a dog-in-a-purse is not a natural component. It is artificial. It is an expenditure of our anemic twenty-first century “atheism is cool” technological wherewithal. One of the very few.

Though the teacup toy poodle is easily less than 5 pounds, some breeders specifically select their smallest dogs for breeding to bring down the size and weight of further generations.

While a purse dog may look cute, there are some inherent problems with breeding a dog to be small, specifically as a fashion accessory. First, bladder control is a major issue for most of these dogs, as they have tiny bladders that won’t hold liquid for long. Dog owners, this writer among them, often wonder how many times purses have to be replaced if you’re carrying a tiny dog around for long parties or events and forget to give it ample opportunities to urinate.

Second, as breeds get smaller, reproduction gets more challenging. Tiny dogs usually have to have cesarean section deliveries of young, which is more risky for both the mother and her pups. Further, there are unfortunately many unscrupulous breeders who attempt to breed very small puppies and do so in unsafe or unhealthy ways. Puppy mills frequently produce purse dogs, and allow larger dogs that don’t fit size requirements to languish without proper care.

Did you catch that? The artificially bred dogs have problems with pissing and crapping. I’m sure if you’re like me, the first time you saw a purse dog the first thought in your head was “I wonder how the dog tells his mistress it’s time to be walked?” And the answer is — he doesn’t! The dogs are soiling expensive purses left-and-right. Not cheap purses, either. Designer purses. Suede purses. Purses selected specifically according to the criteria that they cost a lot.

The dog-in-the-purse is a wonderful concoction of disparate components, each one tossed into the stewpot that becomes a dog-in-a-purse because that component is impractical. The objective, therefore, is impracticality — and no small measure of what might be called animal cruelty.

It is, in a darkly upside-down way, an innovation. An exercise in seeing how many impractical things can be offered in a single new trend.

It is the very picture of what suits our fancy in the twenty-first century.

Because we’re BORED.

I believe one suspect might be Y2K. I remember, in about ‘97 or ‘98 or so, the trend started that if you worked in Information Technology you were probably engaged in a project or two that had something to do with Y2K upgrades. By the third quarter of ‘98, everybody was neck-deep in it. To bring in something genuinely new, was an effort that would’ve run into a stiff headwind.

Well, my theory is that Y2K killed technology. One would presume after the crisis had passed, we’d go back to finding creative, innovative, powerful new ways to do things, previously undreamed-of. Like we did pre-1997.

Well, one would have presumed wrong. When one has been creating and there is suddenly a need to preserve, the urge to preserve is a powerful one. When one has been preserving and there arises a need to go back to creating, it turns out that urge is not quite so strong. We leaped out of the Age of Brahma into the Age of Vishnu…and in the Age of Vishnu, we remain. Technology, to the technology professional as well as to the man in the street, is something that works when it — simply works. It’s like a pencil. The damn thing writes or else it doesn’t. We really don’t care how to make a better one.

Another culprit I have in mind, is the 640k memory limit. We did an awfully sloppy job of getting past that one. It was an issue when the IBM PC first came out, and fifteen years later it was still an issue. It worked out well for Microsoft, which released a whole string of Windows versions that people had practical reasons to buy.

The guy who just wanted to buy a nice gadget for his sweetie to put under the Holiday Tree, would have to contend in some way with the 640k memory barrier because some programs would run on some operating systems, and others would not. Now, we don’t have to worry about this. Supposedly, that’s an improvement. But is it really?

In the 1990’s, we had Windows 95. What an amazing thing it was. I don’t mean to say you’d go back to it now, but think about when it first came out. Contrast it against what came before. Of course, everybody cared…we had to…and once we had it, the sky was the limit as far as what we could put on it.

Now, we have Vista…

Microsoft’s biggest competitor is itself. In a market where one product dominates, older versions compete with newer ones. The problem exacerbates as a product improves and more people use it. Windows XP reached the “good enough” threshold, in terms of features and usability and market saturation. To displace XP, Vista needed to be a whole lot better, not just the same or even a little better. But Vista isn’t the “WOW” operating system Microsoft advertised. Vista is a very good operating system and arguably better than XP. But Vista isn’t a great operating system and, therefore, a whole lot better than Windows XP.

Which is a pretty big problem, because the time window of dominance by Vista’s successor, XP, was already much longer than what would have been considered normal pre-Y2K. Windows XP is a Fourth Quarter ‘01 product; presuming it can retain a dominant toehold because its successor has done a lackluster job making a name for itself, we’re now into the eighth year of essentially one operating system.

The dominant Windows operating system has been the trunk of the technology tree. If there’s rot in the core of this trunk, the branches aren’t going to do too well either.

And so, in 2008 we don’t look to scientists…engineers…programmers…for an awful lot. Nothing at all, really. If you have a home computer at all, you probably have a pretty good idea on what you want it to do and you’re not like some guy in the 1980’s running in to Egghead Software to find some new tricks you can teach it. If you do have a new program in mind and the computer won’t run it, you probably just need — more RAM. The day you finally need to trade up your PC, it’s probably a decision driven by hardware and not by software. The old unit wouldn’t support a SATA hard drive…or some such.

As everyday folks, we’re just not that connected on what goes on in the guts of technology. Not like we were. Technology cannot gratify us anymore…it cannot spark our imaginations…all it can do is disappoint us, by not doing exactly what we had in mind.

The Age of Brahma is over. It is the Age of Vishnu. We have no interest in creating, we only want to preserve.

That’s why your kids want to be rap stars instead of doctors.

Boom chicka boom.

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How Many of Me
Monday, February 25th, 2008

There are no Morgan Freebergs other than yours truly…according to this, anyway.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
0
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

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Best Sentence XXVI
Sunday, February 24th, 2008

There is a round-about way we stumbled across the winner of the latest BSIHORL (Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately) award. Follow along…

Michelle Malkin linked to a curious item in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, which was crying crocodile tears for the illegal aliens who couldn’t find any work leaving any parallel dilemma faced by the people who actually belong here, mostly uncommented-upon.

And the story contained this curious undertone. Like trout in a plentiful pond, it would break the surface when you least expected it, and elude capture by vanishing almost instantly. And then do it again. And again.

The bad times are trickling down to the lowest rung of the work force: the illegal labor pool, which has long been tapped by both contractors and homeowners for convenience and low cost.
:
“Everybody is going to suffer in a recession — from the top on down,” says Patti Decker, a branch manager with Labor Ready in Soquel, whose number of Spanish-speaking customers, she added, has been on the rise in the last few months, in part due to the poor economy.

This recurring reference to verticality. I think it’s relevant, because if you accept that the illegal aliens are the lowest among us — rather than the children who are brutalized by some of them, more often than we’d be led to believe — this would mean every time a politician makes reference to our goodness being defined by how we treat the least among us, that politician is saying our goodness is defined by how we treat our illegal aliens.

Which would be groundbreaking, because I’m hearing it from them every goddamned day. Society is to be regarded according to how it treats the weakest…the least…the lowest…the poorest. Many saying this is so. Few saying why.

Not sure if this comes from The Gospels or any other part of the Bible. This seems to be a misattribution based on Luke 9:48, “…the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.”

But thankfully, I don’t see this attributed to the Bible too much. Most of the time people a

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This Is Good XLVIIIFriday, February 29th, 2008

Without ApologyFriday, February 29th, 2008

Flashlight GunFriday, February 29th, 2008

Mayor Carmen OutThursday, February 28th, 2008

Bird FeederTuesday, February 26th, 2008

Diebold Accidentally Leaks the ResultsTuesday, February 26th, 2008

Yeah…Oh, Yeah…That’s ObjectiveTuesday, February 26th, 2008

BirdsTuesday, February 26th, 2008

Vote For –ismTuesday, February 26th, 2008

Yes, Let’s Become More Like EuropeTuesday, February 26th, 2008

Are We There Yet?Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

On the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Star Wars According to a Three-Year-OldTuesday, February 26th, 2008

What I Learned TodayTuesday, February 26th, 2008

On Angry White MenMonday, February 25th, 2008

On Dogs in PursesMonday, February 25th, 2008

How Many of MeMonday, February 25th, 2008

Best Sentence XXVISunday, February 24th, 2008

This Is Good XLVIII
Friday, February 29th, 2008

Without Apology
Friday, February 29th, 2008

Flashlight Gun
Friday, February 29th, 2008

Mayor Carmen Out
Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Bird Feeder
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Diebold Accidentally Leaks the Results
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Yeah…Oh, Yeah…That’s Objective
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Birds
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Vote For –ism
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Yes, Let’s Become More Like Europe
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Are We There Yet?
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

On the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Star Wars According to a Three-Year-Old
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

What I Learned Today
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

On Angry White Men
Monday, February 25th, 2008

On Dogs in Purses
Monday, February 25th, 2008

How Many of Me
Monday, February 25th, 2008

Best Sentence XXVI
Sunday, February 24th, 2008