Life as I see it

Next year's Washington Capitals

2012-05-16T05:06:00.001-04:00

While the Caps did a lot better than I thought they would in the playoffs, the regular season was a disaster. wildly inconsistent players and results. They would go from looking unbeatable to looking like they were the worst team in the league game to game. They just manage to sneak into the playoffs and found a system that made them competitive. It did look a bit like a square peg into a round hole situation though. So many of the players were brought in to suit Boudreaux's run and gun style, it took time to get the guys to buy into the block shots, defense first mentality. There are a lot of free agents on this team, and there are some people that I'd like to see go.

I think we should let Semen, Green, Voukun, and Shultz walk away as free agents. Yes, Semin has amazing skills but he is going to be expensive and he is way too inconsistent to pay the kind of money he is going to be asking for. While Green has gotten a little more physical in his defensive play, he never got his most valuable part of his game going this year, his offense. Plus, he can't stay healthy. I can't imagine tying him down to a longer contract. Schultz is just slow and he doesn't use his size the way a defenseman should.

I think that Backstrom is the best player on the team and he's worth building around. I'm mostly OK with most of the other guys like Johannson, Aucoin, Knuble, Laich, etc. SOme are getting paid more than they should be, but still, good NHL players. I don't think that Brower or Ward are pulling their weight, but they can still be valuable pieces. Chimera and Hendricks have been revelations this year, I had no idea they could perform that well. We're in good shape in the net. Both Neuvirth and Holtby are the real deal, and they're cheap.

I would entertain offers on Ovetchkin. I know, I know, but hear me out. His offensive contributions continue to go down, and the rest of his game hasn't really improved enough to offset that decline. I think that it's telling that OV spent so much time on the bench during the playoffs. It's even more telling that it worked. Semin is far better all around player, his defensive work can be really good and he was even a good guy to have out there short handed. OV continues to be a defensive liability. I'm not saying we should dump him, he's still a good player, but he has always been an offensive player. If the offense keeps going down and his defense doesn't get markedly better, he will be a net negative on the team, especially with his salary. I feel that if we can't find a good fit for him on the team, we should trade him and get some good players in return.

So yeah, I'm more or less advocating breaking up "the young guns." This season has shown that they simply do not gel well enough to be successful. At the very least, this season has shown us that we don't have the right kinds of players for whatever systems that were tried. I thought that the moves made by GM last offseason were good, but they never did gel. Let's see what he can do this time around.

A new crowd sourcing "charity" for me

2012-05-03T01:13:00.001-04:00

I am really getting into the crowd sourcing thing. The whole idea behind it is to get lots of people donating a little bit of money to fund something. I have been doing that with Kiva and Kickstarter.

If you don't remember, Kiva is an organization that helps put together small (by our standards) loans to people in developing countries so that they can make improvements. It is one of the more visible forms of micro-finance out there. I have decided to stop participating in that program mostly because it isn't clear that it makes a tremendous amount of difference. I think I am going to steer the money I had been using for Kiva to a more typical development charity.

Kickstarter is a really popular place for people with ideas that need funding. They post their idea and ask for donations. As you go up the scale in dollar amount, they have better and better rewards to offer. It's a novel way to attract funding for pet projects. So far I have helped make several pens and a comic. Kickstarter is un, but it's no charity. I do it to get interesting things. The power of crowd sourcing allows some folks to do really big things. Several video game projects have gotten well over a million dollars and there is a new smart watch that is getting close to 9 million I think. Powerful stuff.

The latest crowd sourcing site I've stumbled across is wishbone.org. They look for "at risk" high school kids that show some potential and fund educational experiences for them. It's still a bit loosey-goosey for me to invest long term, but I happened across a student there that would like to go to a summer school program at my Alma Mater, Ithaca College. I can imagine a kid from a bad neighborhood in NYC getting a lot out of a summer thing like that, so I donated $25 to the cause. I need to do some more reading and see what this program actually accomplishes before I get too involved though. It isn't as though they are sending them to college, they are sending them to summer event, or some sort of seminar series and things like that. If I am going to be doing stuff with that site, it will be with things that have a good chance of getting people out of bad situations. If they want to study computer science, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. I don't mind lending a helping hand. Like I said, I'm going to do a little more research and see what it's really all about.

CDs

2012-05-03T00:51:00.001-04:00

I continue to rip my CDs into my computer. I haven't seen these in almost 6 years and they are bringing back lots of memories. I'm currently ripping "Calamus," a recording of Arab-Andulisian music. Really haunting, and very unusual. It used to be a favorite demo disk of mine when I was selling stereo equipment, always impressed people. I've also just stumbled across a disk my girlfriend in college gave me.

Here's a good one, I just unearthed my box set of the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir. I know, I can hear you now, but really, this is some amazing stuff. Like Calamus, the Bulgarian choir sings in a style that has a zillion influences from both east and west. It really is mesmerizing. Well, maybe not three disks back to back to back mesmerizing, but really good.

I'm looking for my favorite Flamenco disk, my collection of different composers' "Stabat Mater," and all of my various live jazz and classic jazz recordings. Oddly enough, the big rock collection isn't exciting me overly much. I probably ripped most of that before I went to Yemen and have been listening to it ever since. I'm also probably still hearing it via the various streaming services I use. Hmm, and maybe most of the really good stuff is on vinyl. Probably all of the above. In any case, it'll be good to get through this project.

I'm seriously considering backing this up to another hard drive (aside from my usual back-up) and keeping it somewhere else for safe keeping. I plan on getting rid of all of these CDs once I'm done with them. I would then be in a situation where all of my music would be in two rather fragile drive enclosures. If something really bad happened here, I don't want to lose all of that stuff. Hmm. Will have to think about where I could put it.

Sorry I haven't been writing

2012-05-03T00:37:00.001-04:00

Seemingly every idea I've had for writing has been little more than a rant. The political grandstanding, ongoing economic issues, and various pop culture things just seem to make me angry. I'm really trying to not just vent, I'm trying to stay sort of positive. I'll see if I can't figure out some sort of positive thing, or at least some personal news that might appeal to folks.

Healthcare reform

2012-03-28T00:40:00.001-04:00

My Facebook page is being filled up with impassioned pleas to save healthcare reform. They are of course talking about the arguments in the Supreme Court over the "Affordable Healthcare Act." I'm not a big fan of the legislation, no surprise there. Funnily enough, I don't need to know the minutia of the 1000+ page law to draw my conclusion either. The main sticking point to me, and I think the reason it is being argued at the Supreme Court, is the individual mandate. The law says that everyone has to purchase health insurance, in fact it relays on this in order to realize its cost savings that are supposed to come from it.

Let's forget for a moment that this law is not about healthcare, but health insurance, and let's also forget for a moment that popular opinion shouldn't sway the Supreme Court. I am also going to, for the sake of argument, allow that the law actually would reduce health insurance prices and it would actually work out best for everyone. I don't believe that for a second mind you, but I don't want to dwell on that here.

Have you wondered why there is so much chatter about this supreme court case? I'm not talking about the political scorekeeping involved, I'm talking about the commerce clause.

[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;

That little clause has been twisted to the point where it is unrecognizable. It's meaning seems rather straightforward, but congress, with the Supreme Court's blessing, has used it in all manner of strange ways. In Ashcroft vs. Raich, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government could outlaw marijuana because of the commerce clause even though in this case the defendant never sold it at all, let alone between states. It was ruled that the defendant could have sold it, therefore the federal government had jurisdiction over it. Judge Clarence Thomas said this in his dissenting opinion:

"If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers -- as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause -- have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to "appropria[te] state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce."

So who could blame congress when it passed a law saying that it could force every American to do something? When pressed on what gives them that power, they respond that the commerce clause gives it to them.

This really is the drug war's chickens coming home to roost. Once the Supreme Court ruled that congress can essentially legislate anything at all because of the commerce clause, all bets were off. If this law gets struck down, they will have established that the Federal Government cannot force you to buy something. That's hardly a shocking idea and it shows just how nuts the law is as determined by the Supreme Court.

There was a time when lawmakers assumed that prohibiting a substance was unconstitutional. Banning alcohol was a popular cause at one point, but they knew they couldn't pass laws banning it until they amended the constitution. How quaint. It is now assumed that the federal government can legislate any damn thing it wants to. This law getting struck down will carve out a very narrow limitation on the feds, one that I'm really terrified that we have to spell out so clearly.

Much has been made about the hypothetical broccoli law. The thought experiment goes like this, broccoli is good for you, so can the federal government force people to buy it if not eat it? It's a silly thing, no one really thinks that, but there are legions of people that think in the abstract that the government should legislate "good" things. You, know, for our own good.

this goes right back to my "Everything is fine as long as the right people are in power" model of politics. Why does no one think about the damage that will ensue as soon as the "wrong" people are in charge? Limiting government power is to protect us from whatever politician you think is evil incarnate. Dick Cheney or Nancy Polesi, it doesn't matter. No one should be afraid of the changing of the political winds.

This is the real reason why this case is so important. If we can get some sort of semblance of sanity with regards to the commerce clause, it will be a victory. With any luck, it will also force the court to reconsider previous contortions over the clause as well. Remember, the law being "good for us" is not a sufficient reason for the government to employ its force.

Pinball!

2012-03-27T23:13:00.001-04:00

I have always enjoyed pinball machines. Too many people think of them as just wildly flailing flippers, trying to keep the ball in play. True, there is always some of that, but there is so much more. Once you get past the problem of keeping the ball in play, you will start to notice that there are goals and targets to get to those goals. In order to get to the highest score, you need to actually aim for certain things, and sometimes in certain orders. There is definite skill involved along with the randomness that only a physical interaction can bring. Every game on a particular table has the same goals, but every game plays very differently.

Pinball machines reached their height right along the same time that video games became popular at arcades. Video games had one big advantage, there is almost no maintenance involved with them, Pinball machines on the other hand are filled with an incredible number of moving parts that are constantly pummeled by a heavy ball. They have constant upkeep, there's no wonder that they became less and less prevalent in the video era.

Well, that's one more problem the iPad has solved! The pinball games on it are amazing, the action is very realistic, and there are no mechanical breakdowns. That's even more important with the last generation of pinball machines. They had gone from a fairly simple layout to to devices with multiple ramps, magnets, multiple sets of flippers, different levels, etc. A lo of the pinball machines from the 80's were fun, but they eventually would get the ball stuck in some weird way, or some spring would get loose and render it inoperable. No more...

Pinball used to be a pretty simple game. You hit as many targets and numbers as you could while avoiding loosing the ball. Sometime along the way, they introduced the concept of goals like hitting all of one set of targets would trigger a bonus of you did a specific thing afterwards. That added a little more thinking into the process. Once the technology was there, they started to introduce things like multiple balls, multiple levels, and lots of other gimmicks. Here's an example from an iPad game.

See the three money bags in the upper left? You have to clear the targets over by the pile of money above them before you can get to the money bags. This one also has a rather simple ramp made to look like railroad tracks. If you hit a certain target, you will then get a bonus for each time you put the ball around the ramp. If you hit the bell in the very top left corner, the table will light up on of the many triangles on it. They're not illuminated in this image, but the easiest one to see is on the left side about midway on the table. Once a triangle/arrowhead lights up, you get a bonus for hitting whatever it is pointed at. There is usually another bonus for doing several in a row. If you lose a ball, everything resets of course and you have to start all over again.

Towards the end, the tables got a little crazy. They were fun to play, but they were really gimmicky. Check this one out.

I played this in the arcades and even then I thought it was getting too Las Vegas for my tastes. Lots of flashing lights, voices, lots of crap all over the table. The multi ball has 4 balls at a time! Lots of the graphic you see on the table light up and/or flash. It also showed where we were with point inflation. Every so often, the number of points you got for anything went up. This table gives you a free game when you hit 600,000,000. It's like the table lives in Zimbabwe or something… This particular table suffers on the iPad because the ball can be hard to see. It's just another graphic on a really busy screen. It was always easy to see the ball on the original/

It's interesting that I rarely played what I have always considered the best pinball machine. Black Hole (not to be confused with the machine made in conjunction with the Dinsey film) was a very difficult game to play.

It was one of the first ones that I ever saw that had multi ball and a different level. This table demanded real skill. On a lot of tables, getting to the other level was just a fun way to wrack up points. On this one, if you got sucked into the black hole, you might loose the ball. The lower level in the center of the table can indeed get you some good points, but you need to hit certain targets and avoid others if you wanted the ball to get back to you on the top. You could also complete the yellow targets on the right and then have the ball go over the sensor in the channel behind the right bumper. That would open up the gate to get the ball back as well. I almost never get the ball back unless I complete the stuff on top first. In addition, when the multi ball setup was enabled (not a particularly easy thing to do either), you frequently had to contend with both levels at the same time!

So why didn't I play it much? Well, it was hard. Plus, it was also a 50 cent machine. That would have taken too much money to get good at when I was 12 or whatever. I was so happy to find this in the app store! Now I can try to master that table that intimidated me so much back then. They are also going to try to make other tables available too. I remember a favorite, but I don't exactly remember its name. Something to do with knights I think. It had the innovation of being able to trigger magnets that would prevent the ball from going down certain channels. Really added another dimension to the game.

I think it's going to be funny if the golden age of pinball will come about because of the iPad. There's nothing to break, and the physical gimmicks work correctly every single time. The 12 year old in me is grinning from ear to ear.

Audio Doctor Who Spinoffs

2012-03-22T02:14:00.001-04:00

Big Finish has produced a bunch of Doctor Who Radio plays. By and large they are great. As time has gone on, they have made a bunch of spinoffs that don't include the Doctor in any of his versions. Most of these use characters or groups directly from the TV show although they have done a few that are products of Big Finish. I wasn't too impressed with the first one I heard, Graceless. It was about a pair of "sisters" that were created by powerful entities during one of the story arcs. Never really felt like it went anywhere. They have since put out a second set, but I haven't heard anything about it and I'm not all that interested in getting it. I am looking forward to one that has been in the works for years. Nick Briggs keeps promising that he is going to do a Charlotte Pollard spinoff. Charlie was played by India Fisher. Charlie was a long time companion to the 8th and the 6th Doctor (in that order interestingly) and she is a favorite of a lot of fans, including myself. Nick says it will come out at some point, I will definitely get it...

Big Finish has released a ton of other spinoffs. I've listened to the Cyberman, Dalek Empire I-IV, UNIT, I Davros, Sarah Jane Adventures series and enjoyed them. They do have two series that really stand out though, Gallifrey and Jago and Lightfoot.

Gallifrey chronicles the goings on back on the home planet of the Time Lords. It stars the regular Doctor Who characters of Leela, Romana II, and K-9. It also includes a book/audio character named Irving Braxital. The first three episodes were gripping political dramas with lots of action and intrigue. The fourth series was a real departure and that made a lot of fans angry. I've warmed up to it, mostly because we have been told that the series will finish up picking up where we left them in series three. Gallifrey does an excellent job of showing how conniving and political the Time Lords were. No wonder the Doctor had to get out of there...

The other standout series is Jago and Lightfoot. Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Lightfoot were characters in the classic 4th doctor adventure "The Talons of Wang Chiang." Big Finish has managed to create an entire series based around those characters' infernal investigations in the Victorian era. It seems strange to think that secondary characters that showed up in one TV show could have 12 more stories, but it works very well. The acting is fantastic and the whole thing is all kinds of fun. Lots of fog, lots of monsters and bad guys. Even a little time travel thrown in. All in foggy Victorian London. Good stuff, well worth listening to.

There is a new series coming out from Big Finish. Since they hit a home run with one set of secondary characters, I guess they are going to try again with a different set. This time it is a group from the 7th Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks. I'm looking forward to hearing it. The trailers make it clear that they are aiming to recreate a 60's sound. We'll see if Big Finish can do it again.

Another audio spinoff that is well worth listening to is from Magic Bullet productions. The Kaldor City series uses the world created in the 4th Doctoe show "The Robots of Death." It is a classic episode and Magic Bullet have managed to make a great political thriller out of it. It is very reminiscent of Robots of Death, there are plenty of mentions of Terran Capel, robophobia, sand mines, etc. If you liked Robots of Death, you'll love Kaldor City!

Doctor Who spinoffs

2012-03-21T21:15:00.001-04:00

Sure, some fans of Doctor Who consider themselves crazy fans because they have seen all the new series. Some others think you have to have seen all of the original series too. I think those people are missing out on a whole world of fandom. There are zillions of books, audios, and comics out there that explore the universe that the TV show created. Personally, as great as the TV show has been, I think that the audios and books outclass the TV show by a considerable margin. I have listened to the vast majority of the Doctor Who audios and love them. The hit rate on them is quite a bit higher than the new series, and miles above the original. I have read 40 something novels and also found them to be more engrossing than the TV show. SO fans of the TV show have a lot of exploring to do in order to get a more comprehensive view of Doctor Who.

So, as a fan I think the Doctor Who books and audios are where it's at. But I'm going one step further, this post is about the spinoffs of Doctor Who. How far into the red can my nerd-meter go?

First off, the TV spinoffs. As far as I can tell, the TV spinoffs amount to a pilot episode of a Sarah Jane investigates show, the proper Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, and a K-9 show that I can't remember the name of. Th Sarah Jane Adventures are easily the most consistently good of the shows. Torchwood had its moments, especially the Children of Earth series, but was really inconsistent. The two shows are very different from each other. The SJA is quite clearly a kid's show. Great writing, good acting, they are a lot of fun, but the are definitely for the younger crowd. Torchwood went the opposite direction. They wanted to be an "adult" show so badly. Per usual, this usually means violence and sex. Children of Earth was the only one I can think of that was properly adult (as opposed to being gimmicky) in that it involved real horror, despair, heartbreaking decisions and regret so real you can't sleep. I've only seen one episode of the K-9 series, I think it's made in Austrailia and it really didn't seem to be very interesting let alone good.

When the show was cancelled in 1989, fans were cut adrift. Some people convinced the BBC to allow them to write Doctor Who novels with the 7th Doctor and his companions. The Virgin New Adventures picked up where the TV show left off. Overall, they were quite a bit darker, with more violence, sexual situations, and generally adult themes. The 7th doctor continued with Ace for a while. He eventually picked up an archeologist in the Paul Cornell book Love and War. No, not that archeologist, Bernice Summerfield! Bernice (Benny to her friends) has been going strong for 20 years now. I'll have to count, but she may have been with the Doctor for more books than Ace was. Benny stayed on with the Doctor until Virgin lost the license to write about the Doctor. So they spun her off into her own books. Like all good spinoffs, they were limited by copyright issues. The books certainly exist in the Doctor Who universe, but they can't mention The Doctor, the TARDIS, Cybermen, or anything else owned by the BBC. It isn't as limiting as you might think. Benny is still going strong. Big Finish is celebrating her 20th anniversary this year with new books and continuing the audio series. I've been talking to the folks at Big Finish and they would like to make ebook versions of their out of print Benny books but worry about the difficulty of getting digital distribution rights. The New Adventures seem to be stuck in copyright hell. Most of them are long out of print and it doesn't look good for them being re-released.

When the BBC worked with FOX to make the 8th Doctor TV movie, it was the end of the Virgin Doctor Who franchise. Since the movie actually showed the 7th Doctor turn into the 8th, it also spelled the end of the 7th Doctor. When nothing became of the hoped for 8th Doctor series, they started making books with him in them. The BBC also started to publish past doctor adventures featuring previous Doctors and companions.

Iris Wildthyme came out of the Past Doctor Adventures, we first see her with the 4th Doctor. She is an older, boozy time traveller that exists as a warped parallel to the Doctor. Her stories are really about having fun. Her "TARDIS" is a Routmaster double decker bus (the no. 22 to Putney Common) that is curiously smaller on the inside than the outside. Her favorite gin is Bombay Saphire, and she typically travels with a stuffed panda (don't call him a toy!) named Panda. Reading her stories is frequently a trip into Doctor Who fandom and mythology. She has alluded to her knowing that she is fictional several times, it can get a bit meta at times. Iris books and stories are all about having fun. For example, my favorite line of hers is from the Big Finish audio "The Wormery." She has been communing with the villains behind the scenes in a drunken stupor and the 6th Doctor is giving her a hard time about it. Her retort? "What we need is less thinking, MORE DRINKING!" Katy Manning (who played Jo Grant on the TV show) plays Iris brilliantly in the audios. Another example, Obverse Books is coming out with a short story collection featuring her being trapped in realities based on David Bowie songs. You get the idea, a more frivolous take on Doctor Who. If you don't like Iris, you're too serious. Iris audios are being made and sold by Big Finish and the books are mostly being put out by Obverse Books.

Lawrence Miles introduced us to Faction Paradox in the 8th Doctor Adventures. The Faction is a splinter group of Time Lords that embraces paradox, something that is anathema to the Time Lords. They are your typical criminal, time traveling cult that uses ritual to disrupt time lines and screw with the TIme Lords. Lawrence spun off Faction Paradox in a series of novels, audios, and a short lived comic series. Since he was writing outside of BBC blessing, he had to change a few things. First off, there was no mention of The Doctor and the Time Lords were referred to as "The Great Houses." The Faction Paradox world reviles around The War between the Great Houses and The Enemy. We never do get an explicit explanation of who the enemy is. Fans have speculated on everything from future versions of the Time Lords, The Doctor, or even the concept of Fiction. Yes, concepts can be an enemy in the world of Faction Paradox. The novels from Mad Norwegian Press spend quite a bit of time with the idea that information, meaning, and the connections we make between them are the real reality. Whoever can control that and adjust it have the real power. I have really enjoyed the Faction Paradox books so far because they have really widened my view of the Doctor Who universe. I have a better understanding of what is at stake with the altering of time lines, paradox, and time travel in general. Plus, they manage to bring in a little magic too. Well, it looks like magic, but it is just a different way of altering information, so it looks like magic. There have been two audio series of Faction Paradox. One was put out by a company called BBV and now are only available from the owner via eBay. Haven't heard them yet but they have a great reputation. The other, more recent series was put out by Magic Bullet Productions and is excellent. Still available too.

This has gone on long enough, I'll tackle the Doctor Who Spinoffs created solely by Big Finish in another post.

Raising awareness

2012-03-10T00:45:00.001-05:00

The "Kony" video has been circulating around. I haven't watched it, the brief intro turned me off. It said something to the effect that the video wasn't suggesting a solution, but simply raising awareness of the man and the awful things he has done. I don't doubt for a second that he is truly awful, but I really don't trust any activity or organization that is about "raising awareness."

Predictably, actual Ugandans aren't so thrilled with the video. Apparently, there wasn't a single instance of talking to people involved in the terrible things that the 20 minute video is about. Kony isn't even in Uganda any more. There's a fair amount of backlash. Why? I have always had a difficult time putting into words why I disliked the publicity thing, but I think I can now.

Several months after I got my job, I was spreading the news that I had MS. I was telling it one guy and he informed me that he takes part in a annual MS ride. Now he's a really nice guy, and he really wants to do well, so the only thing I could say to him was, "Funny, I don't do that ride…" My gut reaction was to ask him if I should thank him for riding his bike. Yes, that is incredibly cynical. I'm sure the ride made him feel good. I'm also sure those Ugandans probably figured all those white people in California felt good about making that slick 20 minute, high def video about problems in Uganda.

Yes, I'm sure the MS ride drums up money for MS research, but just like the video, I wonder if it is awareness of MS that is being raised or awareness of the National MS whatever that is putting on the event. The same complaint is being leveled against the Kony video. Detractors claim that the video did a great job of raising awareness of the NGO that made the video, but did very little about the actual problems, let alone admit that things were quite a bit more complicated than there being one bad guy.

If you are going to market problems, don't be surprised when the people that actually suffer those problems question you. All of the effort put into raising awareness, that couldn't have been put to more productive uses? Maybe it can, maybe. But the fact that you would rather take the chance instead of spending the resources on something concrete says something.

I told you it was good

2012-03-07T23:25:00.001-05:00

Remember that short film I mentioned? I saw "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" in the interactive app of the same name on my iPad. Turns out it won the Oscar for best short film. While I don't usually pay any attention to what the academy does, I'm pretty sure they got this one right.

I'm doomed...

2012-03-07T22:51:00.001-05:00

Last year I bought my iPhone, iPad, and iMac. All within two months. I do love them but it was a bit of a hit to the old finances. I resolved to be a little more practical with my money this year.

Late last year I had decided that I was going to get a "real" digital camera. Still want to get it, and it really isn't all that expensive as those things go. I also knew that I would be getting the new iPad when it came out. Well, the announcement for the iPad was today, and it has the two things that I was looking for. A much higher res screen and much faster connection to the internet, so I'm in. Last time I got a 16GB wi-fi only model. This time around I will get a 4g model, so that's an extra $130. Since I'll be using it in conjunction with my new digital camera, I'll get the 32gb version, that's another $100. SIGH.

But that's OK, I'll make good use of it. I use my current iPad constantly, I consider it money well spent. So between the camera (and lens) and the iPad, that'll be a little more than I spent on my computer last year. Still hitting my target for spending less. But then Apple also released the new pile TV. Since I now live in a place with a really nice TV and I've subscribed to MLB.TV, this makes a lot of sense. Plus, I can now stream my videos in 1080p to the TV from my computer. OK, another $100, no problem.

And then he said it. The words I was fearing the most. Tim Cook wrapped up the iPad keynote by telling us that "This is just the beginning" for Apple this year. GROAN… Am I going to get a new phone? A new computer? No no, must resist… That's the thing about Apple, I know that new things from them are quite capable of instilling idiotic desire from me. Of course I want them to come out with the new, amazing stuff, but part of me dreads it too, in a good way of course…:)

Remarkable animation

2012-02-29T00:32:00.001-05:00

The Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is an amazing short film. It's amazing how far animation has come. It's about 15 minutes long, so be careful if you're on a bandwidth limited internet connection.

It really is a sweet and touching piece. I found it through an app for the iPad that turns it into an interactive book for children. Each scene has some writing that expands the story and at the end of each paragraph, the movie clip becomes interactive. It really is a lot of fun even though it's probably aimed at the 6 to 8 year old demographic. You get to play pop goes the weasel on the piano and you get to use the iPad to steer Morris through his flight inside a book among other things. I can only imagine what kind of impact this kind of storytelling could have on kids groaning up. Of course when you apply it to educational purposes, the possibilities are endless. Look out future, here we come!

I'd like Lady Gaga more if she played guitar

2012-02-28T23:35:00.001-05:00

I came across the other day and found it remarkable. I have since been informed by some of my friends that it is old news, but still, I doubt everyone has seen this. It's a cover of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." If you've been wondering about the appeal of Gaga, this might at least give you a taste.

It's from an artist that goes by the name Lissie. I think she does a great job with the song, moves it towards a little more honest performance. Gaga's, in comparison, sounds a little… entitled? Not whiny, but… I dunno, not as honest. I also find Lissie's glancing down at the neck of the guitar for chord changes endearing.

I often play a game with more recent music where I try to imagine what some of the luminaries from the late 60's would think of the song. I wonder what would Pete Townsend or Janis Joplin think of this? When we compare this rendition to what was offered back then, you can see how far women have come. First there is the guitar playing. With the exception of "The Duchess" (Norma-Jean Wofford), I can't think of any prominent female rock guitarists until the Runaways came along. Then there is the content. Women back then just didn't sing songs like that. I very much doubt that any woman could bring herself to all herself a "freak bitch" back then. I mean, it just wasn't done. But that's the point, for a woman to come out and perform a song about lust back then would have been very difficult. Does anyone know of an example?

Some would say that Gaga represents the current state of feminist expression. Maybe, but I'm with Kathleen Hannah, I wish Gaga would would pants a little more often while being a strong woman. Lissie is more powerful I think because she isn't using any of her feminine wiles to get her point across, but she still gets it across. Anyway, enjoy!

41!

2012-02-13T11:23:00.001-05:00

I'll be turning 41 tomorrow. My 40th year was really a bit of a blur. MS clouded my thoughts and made really lethargic for long periods of time but i think I've got it mostly under control now. My doctor explained MS like this, there are two ongoing issues with the disease, damage to the nerves, and the inflammation that causes that damage.

Right now there isn't a whole lot that can be done about the nerve damage, but the inflammation is a good target for improvement. I stumbled across Gary Taubes's writing about weight gain. His ideas that insulin, caused by carbs in the diet, is the main factor is weight gain seem to make a lot of sense, and it certainly has led to me losing some weight. What I was surprised about was how much clearer my thinking was and how much better my balance was. That didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I liked it.

In my usual poring over the internet, I think I stumbled across the reason for that. It turns out that carb rich foods spur on different types of inflammation. I don't know the mechanism, but it certainly seems to fit my experience.

I have also come across a new supplement that I think is really helping me. It's called Anatabloc and it is supposed to be a miracle anti-inflammatory substance. There have been some great studies done on various conditions and it seems to really help. This stuff is really expensive as far as supplements go, but in my short time using it, I feel like its worth it. This is the very definition of a small sample size, but in my two days at work with it, I have felt almost normal. In addition, I have not had any leg cramps at night either. I'm going to keep using this for a couple of months and see how it goes. Think I'll give it a test and try a favorite meal that is guaranteed to make me feel blah, Chic-Fil-A. One of their sandwiches and fries will usually make me swim my and dizzy, we'll see if this supplement has a mitigating effect.

I can do that because I have the next 7 days off! I'll be going down to see the folks and see a friend or two, should be fun.

I can't believe it, a digital camera...

2012-02-06T22:30:00.001-05:00

They've finally made a digital camera that I think I'd like to use. Usually that would be no big deal, Isaac liking a camera, big surprise. Of course I just recently talked about how digital doesn't excite me and I'm going to do analog stuff… Of course, the last half of my "analog" photography was going to be digital anyway. There's still the magic of the alchemy and the making of a physical thing. And of course it feels good doing something low tech. So I think I'll still do it, I think. The problem isn't the cost so much, the problem is that the cost involved is on decidedly unsexy things. I need to get a scanner, a light meter, chemicals, and some processing equipment like beakers and tanks. To me, that's like buying a bunch of socks. Necessary but not something you enjoy spending money on.

Buying a new camera on the other hand… And of course, the camera is just an excuse to buy some lenses. I am still a total lens snob. I love good lenses for the images they create but also as objects themselves. That's why I could never own any Sigma or Tamron lenses. They might have been fine performers, they felt like junk to me. My Leica lenses, various Zeiss lenses I've owned or own, the Pentax lenses I've owned, and all of the large format lenses have been joys to use and to hold. That's one of the reasons this camera has caught my eye.

It is a bit odd looking, as far as cameras go, but the top plate and back plate are really what caught my eye.

(all pictures from Pentax)

I have never liked digital cameras. I have long since appreciated their performance, but the cameras themselves were just awful. Lots of little buttons spread everywhere. On small cameras, important setting hidden inside menus or arranged in weird ways. This one is the first reasonably priced digital camera that appeals to me. Very clean, the important stuff is readily accessible without a lot of gunk clogging up the interface. The conventional wisdom on the camera forums is that this thing is the ugliest camera ever made. That was my first impression as well. But the more I looked at it, the more I realized I was just reacting that way because other cameras don't look like that, and maybe the yellow version that is being shown had something to do with it as well. The more I looked at it, the more I appreciated how it was designed.

I had previously liked some of the small Sony cameras. They don't make any lenses I like but you could adapt other companies lenses to them as long as you were willing to give up auto focus, auto exposure and even auto aperture. If I were going to go that route, I would have used the Pentax lenses (21mm, 35mm macro, and 55mm) because they are amazing and they are about 1/3 the cost of the likes of Leica. So when Pentax came out with this camera, things started to fall into place.

I have some other things that need to be taken care of (oh the joys of adulthood…) and it's still not nice enough outside to go shooting anyway. I'm hoping that by the time spring rolls around I'll be shooting again...

CDs

2012-02-03T22:09:00.001-05:00

Dad and Butler brought up my CD collection when they moved me into Rick's place. I packed them up before I went to Yemen and haven't seen them since. It's amazing how much space 400+ CDs take up! I'm in the process of ripping them to my computer where they will take up considerably less space. Don't know what I'll do with them afterwards, do people still buy used CDs?

The box I'm working on now has part of my classical collection with some jazz thrown in. I'm struck at the number of discs I got through services like the BBC magazine and the Musical Heritage Society. Before them it was BMG and some other CD service. Before that I was a member of the RCA club for cassettes. You remember those clubs right? They send you 12 or 13 albums for a penny and you only have to agree to buy… what was it, 10? more CDs in the next year. Of course b y default they would send you one a month unless you sent in the paperwork on time. Each time you bought something at full price (17.99 if I remember correctly) they would give you a certificate to buy the next one at half price.

I tried to remember to send in the "do not send me the selection of the month" letter every time for the popular music clubs. I'd screw up from time to time of course and I'd get something or other that I didn't want. I think the only time that ever worked out was the time I got Pat Benetar's "Live From Earth" cassette. That was pretty good, at least 13 year old me thought so...

I went ahead and got the selections of the month with the classical clubs mostly because I wanted to hear a lot of different things. The BBC Music magazine was supposedly a cornucopia of classical music information, but I really only ever cared about the CDs that came with it every month. I got some stuff that I never would have thought of getting that way. I never would have dived into early music otherwise. Of course, I also wouldn't have gotten any of the early English operas either, anyone want a copy of "Alfred?"

We've come so far in such a short period of time. Convenience is king nowadays. It is trivially easy to find and download almost anything you want. The world of popular music is your oyster with new streaming services like Spotify MOG. Classical and jazz folks still have to buy their stuff mostly, but it is out there. The streaming and downloading options for popular music sound just fine with the compressed formats. The classical types have a variety of high res formats available to them too.

When the CD came out, we couldn't believe how nice it was. There was no surface noise, no pops, no cracks and most people mistook the absence of defects for sound quality. CDs and CD players eventually got really good and we figured, "This is it, this is the ultimate audio medium." Of course having no medium at all has proven to be far nicer, and at no penalty of sound quality. When I sold audio gear, I fantasized about having a 300 CD changer so I could have most of my music in my system at all times. These eventually came into being but they were always too clunky, slow, and prone to breaking down. Now I can stream 12 million songs whenever I want for 10 bucks a month, life is good!

ADDENDUM:

I just googled BMG Music Service, just for old times sake. It's hilarious. Towards the bottom, there is a pane that says BMG Music Service is what Columbia House Music was. Then the pane above that says that BMG Music Service is closed and is now Columbia House DVD service… Anyway, the deal isn't too bad really, you have to get 12 CDs for a little under 50 bucks. That's pretty cheap. I can't imagine having to deal with the clutter of all of those CDs mind you. The selection is straight out of the 80's. They boast of having over 14,000 albums to choose from! That was impressive back a ways, but nowadays with iTunes having 18 million songs, 14,000 is laughable. I can only imagine that it is filled with the blandest radio hits type of folks too. Good luck with that Columbia/BMG/Columbia!

Diet update

2012-02-02T23:37:00.001-05:00

I've been pretty good about my diet. I'm allowing myself one day a week to eat bread or rice, the rest of the time it's veggies and meat. I've felt pretty good, very little of the usual muddy headedness and balance problems. It's also striking what happens when I deviate from it. My father and stepmother moved me into my new/old place (more about that in another post) and then took me out to dinner. We went to a really nice Indian place around the corner. You can't very well eat Indian without bread and rice, so I ate bread and rice. Ice cream was offered later and I couldn't say no. The next night, my mother made a family favorite, Hungarian goulash. I have no idea if it's actually Hungarian or not, but it sure is tasty. It's served over a bed of noodles. Well, it's an unusual treat, and mom made it, so of course I was going to chow down. I felt lousy for the next two days. Dizzy, fatigued, and muddleheaded. Started eating my usual meat veggie diet and it cleared up within a day. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it does fit in with the longer pattern I've noticed.

As far as the diet part is concerned, I weighed myself yesterday and I came in at 204. That compares with 219 three months ago. Yes, I used two different scales, but that's a big enough difference that I know there's been a real loss. It's good to drop the weight, my jeans certainly fit better. I've also started to check my blood pressure in the morning. I'm averaging around 120/67ish. The months previous to me starting my diet I was hitting 130 and 140 at my monthly infusions. Yes, it's only been a handful of days, and my previous measurements were only done once a month where any old thing could throw them off. Still, I like the difference:) It's possible losing the weight could be enough to lower the BP, I don't really care. I'm going to continue weighing myself and taking my blood pressure, who knows, maybe I'll start exercising or something too. The diet is pretty easy to stick to, especially since I have a cheat day built in. After I've been on it for several more months, I'll go get my blood drawn and see what it looks like.

Culture and the Bible

2012-01-14T20:49:00.001-05:00

"It rains on the just and the unjust alike. What do you think that means?"

"Oh, teacher! It means good things happen to both good and bad people."

That was an exchange I had with my class in Yemen. The saying is from the Bible (I can't remember where in there) and my first reaction to the student was that they had it completely backwards. WIth just a second's worth of thought though, I realized that their view of what rain means is probably a lot closer to the Bible's than my Euro-centric vision. Rain is a good thing when you live in a parched place. While we usually associate rain with melancholy, cancelled picnics, and general ickiness, they rightfully see it as a life giving gift.

It made me wonder what else we have been getting precisely wrong out of the Bible because of the culture we are in now. Some things that seem obvious to us might have had a very different meaning back then. We need to remember who was being taught to. I don't have any hard evidence, but it certainly seems like Yemen is much closer in climate and culture to 30 AD than we are in the US. With that cultural filter put into place, let's take a look at two different well known teachings from the New Testament.

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

This is usually seen as a straightforward appeal to pacifism by Jesus. If a guy hits you, you shouldn't resist, right? Well, it could be a little different… The translation of that passage is pretty consistent, with most translators using slap, some use smite. The really interesting thing is that they all say "cheek." None of them say, "If someone gives you a black eye, don't hit him back," or even "If someone slugs you in a bar…" No, it says if someone slaps your cheek, you should offer the other one to be slapped as well. What's the significance of a slap on the cheek?

Even in western culture, a slap across the cheek is the universal symbol of disrespect. There is no damage involved, there are far more violent things you can do than slap someone. What a slap offers that a punch doesn't is shame. I was warned by some of the expat "old timers" in Yemen to never slap a guy. If I got into a fight, well, that can happen. But if you slap him, he will be forced to defend his honor and that will have much worse endings than a brawl.

With that in mind, that passage may not have much to do with pacifism but with keeping your cool and not escalating things. Don't let concepts of "honor" drive you to committing a worse sin than the guy that hit you did. Modern day Yemen, and I'm sure all of Semitic culture going waaaaaaay back has many problems with honor related violence. I'm pretty convinced this passage is addressing that instead of being a blanket exhortation of pacifism.

Homosexuality isn't actually mentioned all that much in the Bible. Lots of conservatives will point to the Old Testament's "sodomites" as a counter example but word is a really dodgy interpretation. The King James version sounds weighty, but most Bible scholars lament its awful translation. A more accurate translation is "temple prostitute." It certainly makes more sense when read that way.

Jesus didn't actually say anything at all about homosexuality. I think that's significant as I put the most weight on what "The Man" says more than anyone else. But others disagree. Paul was pretty straightforward in his commendation of homosexuality though, and that's where a lot of nontrivial discussion about it in Christian circles comes from.

My personal opinion is that a lot of Paul's writing sounds like Paul spouting off. He certainly doesn't sound like Jesus, and he wasn't around for any of Jesus's teachings. But let's ignore that for the time being… It shouldn't be a surprise, but there is actually a fair amount of confusion about the translation of the word Paul used that most conservatives assume is homosexual. It could mean a variety of other things instead. But let's ignore that too and concentrate on the audience that Paul was preaching to.

One of the worst kept secrets in the middle east is how much guy on guy sex there is. To our eyes, it is clearly homosexual sex, but they have a little different view of it in Yemen. Keep in mind that guys never see any women over there that aren't their mother or sister until they get married. Starting in puberty, guys are only with other guys. Hormones being what they are, things go on. From a western perspective, they are all engaging in homosexual acts. Over there, people tend to mostly ignore younger guys fooling around with each other. It's a little more tricky when they are older. Yemen, like most Arab countries doesn't consider the one "giving" to be engaging in a homosexual act. It's my understanding that if you're married and doing this, it's a much more serious problem...

My point is this, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that the same behavior was going on back then. Taken in that context, I think it very likely that Paul would be addressing the guys screwing around because they are horny. That's a far cry from people wanting to marry each other.

Maybe I'm full of it, but I really do believe that a lot of the stuff we supposedly learned from stories in the Bible have been twisted around completely. That is a translation issue, but we need to understand how big a role culture plays in understanding what is said. Somehow we need to put ourselves into the hot, arid, conservative culture of 30 AD. Yemen is about as close as we'll get today.

Photography? (Maybe)

2012-01-13T22:17:00.001-05:00

I've been following the Facebook page dedicated to former employees of Penn Camera and participating in the nostalgia. People are digging out old pictures and we're all remembering what it used to be like.

It got me thinking about photography again. I haven't been shooting much in years. I brought back a smattering of old pictures from mom's place, mostly stuff I did in school and decided to share some of them on Facebook. Looking at, and holding these things brought back a lot of memories.

Digital photography has never done much for me. I just can't get excited about it. When I looked at the prints and polaroids I made in school, I remember shooting it, but I also remember making that object. THe process of developing the negatives, cutting them up, making the prints in the darkroom, even matting and framing them are all part of the interest for me. There is a difference between capturing an image and taking a step in making an object. The film I develop was what received the light, and the chemicals I chose determined how that light would look on the film.

I know, it all sounds silly, but it does make a difference. Digital photography to me puts almost all of the emphasis on getting the shot. Yes, there is post processing, but I always feel like I'm doing a spreadsheet or something when I'm manipulating data.

I have been thinking that I should get a "real" digital camera soon. They really are remarkable these days, far far better than when I was selling them. No matter what comes out, I just can't get excited about the gear, or the process. Certainly not excited enough to spend what it will take to get one of the cameras that interest me.

Then it struck me. All of the most recent pictures that I have a connection to were taken with cameras I still own. My best pictures in Yemen were taken with a Chinese folding camera from the mid sixties and a pinhole camera. Here was my rather radical idea; why not shoot film?

I immediately liked the idea. I figured I'd do a "last hurrah" with the cameras I own. Thought maybe I'd use the B&W slide service I've used in the past. The slides you get back from them are just gorgeous. Shooting film in the quantities I have in mind isn't all that expensive, or at least it wasn't until I looked at those slides. It would almost $20 a roll in processing, etc. Way too much, no matter how beautiful.

The second thought that struck me was why don't I develop it myself? Film processing is dead simple, and incredibly cheap. Now we're talking...

I'll need to buy a few more things like a light meter, processing equipment, and the chemicals. The big expense will be the scanner. Yes, I could buy a passable digital camera for that kind of money, but I wouldn't use it. I may have finally grown up, the thought of owning the niftiest camera doesn't really excite me any more. The few things I have to buy are less expensive enow than they were when I sold them.

Here's my plan. I am going to primarily shoot with medium format film with small cameras. I'll develop the film myself and scan it myself. I'm going to try to use a single film type but probably use two different developers. This all sounds really exciting to me now, with any luck I'll be ready (and still excited) when spring comes around. It'll be good to flex my creative muscles again.

Child Labor

2012-01-13T18:32:00.001-05:00

I cringe whenever I read about child labor laws. Western, prosperous countries have a real aversion to the thought of child laborers and anew quick to denounce and to combat it. Every time another concession is reached to limit child labor the success is trumpeted and progress is seen to have been made. Funnily enough, I have never seen any of those organizations track the outcomes of the children themselves to see if they are being helped.

Like everything else in life, the issue of child labor is about options. I can guarantee that whenever you find child laborers, you will find crushing poverty as well. I believe the best way to think about child labor is to imagine what they will do if they are not allowed to work legally. Clearly, if they needed to work before, the passing of a law will not change that circumstance. We have an analog of what happens right here in this country with illegal aliens. When you are not permitted to work legally, you are driven underground. You might find regular work, but at a much lower rate of pay. The ones that aren't lucky enough to find work as gardeners, carpenters, cooks, etc. or aren't willing to accept the low wages end up in the black markets. Drugs, prostitution, and other types of illegal activities are careers open to people that can't find legal jobs.

I don't have any evidence, but there are plenty of anecdotal accounts of sheet children being forced out of jobs by the new laws and into much less savory occupations. The stories from Yemen alone are heartbreaking, I can't imagine what its like in more urban places like SE Asia.

I wish that people that pursue these laws would spend as much time worrying about what the kids will do once they lose their job. I also wish that people in the US and Europe would understand that they don't really have a good idea of what real poverty is like and what choices people living in it face. Child labor is a terrible thing, no doubt, but if we're going to take that away from kids, we need to provide them with something other than the thing they are avoiding by working...

My unexpected Yemen bonuses

2012-01-05T23:35:00.001-05:00

I had been working at Penn camera off and on for almost 7 years when I decided to move out of the country. I had learned a lot at Penn. My sales technique was honed there and I learned how to deal with people, both customers and employees. I thought it was time for a change, so I decided to move.
I eventually decided to move to Yemen. The decisions leading up to that are a whole other story. By the time the date for me leaving came up, I had saved up over 20 grand for the trip. Believe me, I thought long and hard if spending that money was the best thing I could do. Ultimately, I spent my mid-life crisis over there, you can read my blog on my time over there if you want.
I could have invested that money, or I could have put it down on a house. All the while I would still be working at Penn. While I was in Yemen, the stock market tanked and I lost about half of my investments. I would have undoubtedly have invested that 20 thousand the same way, so I would have probably lost 10 grand. I felt pretty good about that, my experiences in Yemen were certainly worth that! Of course, I could have bought a house. We all saw what happened to housing prices...
So, looking back, I cannot believe how lucky I am to have spent my money on that experience. Looking back, it was the very best thing I could have done. May be the only time I've done that...
When I came back, I needed a job. Ramona was more than happy to hire me again. I really wanted something different though, so I stayed unemployed for a while longer while I looked around. After I got diagnosed, I was even more in need of a job. I had finally gotten through to the company I had wanted to work for, and they offered me a job, at little more than half of what Penn had been paying me. Ugh. That was a tough decision. Ultimately, I couldn't shake the feeling that Penn was on shaky ground going into the future. Photography just wasn't what it once was, and it's all Penn really did. So I took the hit in pay in the short term.
It has payed off. Penn Camera declared bankruptcy the other day. The company I work for is incredibly stable and I now make what I used to. Plus, the benefits are quite a bit better. I was about 50/50 at the time I made my decision, thank God I did what I did. I also think that my trip to Yemen helped with this as well. If I had been working at Penn all along, it would have been much more difficult, maybe even impossible to take that hit in pay to work somewhere else. Starting from scratch, I didn't have the baggage of a rent or lifestyle maintenance to worry about. I had gotten used to being poor, I even lived in a third world country!
So maybe my trip to Yemen was divine providence. It was the best use of my money, it was an amazing experience, it was the very last time I could do something like that, and I think it helped me start a new career. If I had stayed put, done the safe thing, at best I would now be on disability. I certainly would be a lot poorer in spirit.

My heart goes out to the folks that were still working at Penn. Starting over is tough, believe me I know.
I'll miss Penn Camera, and I'm thanking God I made the decisions that I did. Who would have ever thought that Yemen would be the best thing to happen to me?:)

An honest defense for voting for Obama

2012-01-01T00:41:00.001-05:00

Glenn Greenwald hits one out of the park when describing the relative shortcomings of the two more "liberal" candidates in this year's presidential running, he gives what he calls an honest, candid, and rational way for a democrat to defend voting for Obama.

Yes, I’m willing to continue to have Muslim children slaughtered by covert drones and cluster bombs, and America’s minorities imprisoned by the hundreds of thousands for no good reason, and the CIA able to run rampant with no checks or transparency, and privacy eroded further by the unchecked Surveillance State, and American citizens targeted by the President for assassination with no due process, and whistleblowers threatened with life imprisonment for “espionage,” and the Fed able to dole out trillions to bankers in secret, and a substantially higher risk of war with Iran (fought by the U.S. or by Israel with U.S. support) in exchange for less severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, the preservation of the Education and Energy Departments, more stringent environmental regulations, broader health care coverage, defense of reproductive rights for women, stronger enforcement of civil rights for America’s minorities, a President with no associations with racist views in a newsletter, and a more progressive Supreme Court.

He was comparing Obama's policies to Ron Paul's. Greenwald does a good job of pointing out why people might want to vote for either one, but it is important to look at what "liberals" should value more highly. Not enough liberals admit to Obama's shortcomings, and they are numerous from a liberal's point of view. In the same vein, liberals seem to have a knee jerk reaction to Ron Paul without giving enough credence to his strong points. The article is illuminating in that it exposes the desire to instantly discredit "the competition" for any negative parts of their plank. Of course doing that requires you to overlook the very real problems of your own candidate. No politician is free from taint, free from problems. What needs to be done is to prioritize what is important to you and then decide if a president can wield much power over those things.

I've written at length about how disappointed I am with Obama's foreign policy, war mongering, executive power grabs, solidifying of Bush doctrine, bailouts, and erosion of civil liberties. Ron Paul is directly opposed to all of those things, and has been for 40 years. Yes, some of Paul's theories make my skin crawl, I don't like his stance on immigration, and I'm not sure I agree with his abortion policy objectives, but I'll take the trade off. I'd like to think that all of the people that hated Bush Jr. would also like Paul more than Obama simply because Obama is a lot closer to Bush in all the worst ways.

I've met plenty of people that don't like Obama, but have shrugged their shoulders and said, "What choice do I have? Perry? Gingrich?" It may still come to that, but there is a chance that we might have a very real alternative this next time around. Say what you want about Paul, but he is very different than Obama, and I think his positives outweigh the negatives. Suffice it to say that he really differs from the rank and file of the republicans too, so he still may not get the nomination. If he does win the nomination, I will have no choice but to vote for him because I hate war. War on other countries and war on our own citizens (both through military actions and the war on drugs). If he doesn't get the nomination, who will agitate against war? Certainly not any of the other republicans, and Obama can't exactly repudiate all of his foreign policy. Read the article and watch the video clips, Ron Paul is the only one saying what needs to be said.

Progressives and the Ron Paul Fallacies

Ron Paul and the Newsletters

2011-12-30T14:34:00.001-05:00

Newsletters published under Ron Paul's name have started to be talked about again now that he's a front runner in Iowa. These came up last election too. He disavowed them then and now. They are still a problem for him though. The newsletters are pretty bad, they talk about race wars, gay bashing, and anti-semitism. Paul has claimed that he wasn't involved in writing them and wasn't aware of what was being published. That's tough to believe...

On the other hand, the newsletters really don't sound like him. Paul has been very consistent over the years in preaching about liberty and freedom. That includes gay rights and the ignoring of color. How many other politicians point out the racist motivations for drug laws? Surely a racist wouldn't explain how drug laws unfairly target minorities, let alone point out that it was the minority use of those drugs that led to the formation of those laws?

Paul has been consistent enough with his proclamations and votes that I don't think that anyone really thinks he is a racist. I don't understand the tactic some of the really far left commentors have used, essentially claiming that because there are racists and homophobes supporting Ron Paul that he shouldn't be supported. Part of libertarianism is the tolerance of ideas, including ones you don't like. I certainly don't see why Paul shouldn't take money from anyone that wants to give to him. After all, if you can take money from racists and use it to promote liberty for all, that's got to be a good thing.

I think the best critique of this situation is that it shows a real problem with Paul's decision making process and attention to detail. Certainly it calls into question just how politically un-savvy he is. Sure, there is an impetus to allow anyone to help you out, and in libertarian political circles I'm sure it's impolitic to critique belief systems. Still, making a stand against racists shouldn't be too hard to do and him not doing it might cost him in the long term. Shame, really, as his nomination would really show the political process actually representing people's frustration over the status quo. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be disappointed, again...

Say it ain't so

2011-12-30T14:17:00.001-05:00

US doubt intelligence that led to Yemen strike. That's the name of an article in the Wall Street Journal that describes what sounds like a Yemeni official fingering a political rival as Al Queda so the US could kill him. I've been beating this drum for a long time. The Yemeni government has long used the bogeyman of Queda to eliminate rivals. It was commonly understood over there that when the Yemeni government claimed to have killed Queda operatives, it was probably killing political rivals. When there was tribal violence, it was usually ascribed to Queda.

All forms of intelligence in Yemen are untrustworthy. There are too many local power struggles and not enough transparency to accurately understand what motivates most of the violence over there. It shouldn't surprise anyone that US military force is used as a convenient way of solving local disagreements. If we give them the power to direct force, it will be used in ways that best suit them.

I'm still not convinced that Queda in Yemen poses any threat to the US. They were the picture of incompetence in Yemen, and their attempts outside of the US have been laughable. Even if they are a threat, Yemeni sources are about the least trustworthy you can find. I don't think it's too much to ask that we get clear intelligence before we kill someone. Is that really too weird a suggestion?