BunkBlog

“Liberal in the good sense…”  Because the liberal media is so ineffective at propagandazing that the term liberal has become a curse word, while somehow conservative is still a respectable term.

Although I’ve been battling a cold since Sunday, yesterday was an especially good day for Us.  Kat first drove down from Lubbock to see me one year ago, on the 14th of May.  To commemorate this momentous occasion, we went for a bicycle ride to the river with The Boy, then for dinner we had fish tacos (her favorite of my cooking thus far), and knocked back a fabulous bottle of Moscat Spumante to finish up the night.  I didn’t even know that spumante was made with muscat grapes, but it was very nice – not at all dry and very very drinkable.

I’ve told her that one anniversary per year is all you get, so next year there will be no date-aversary.  Gotta hold the line somewhere…

Remember when the MSN Music Store shut down over a year ago? Remember that Microsoft said that songs you “bought” from the MSN Music Store were going to be yours to keep forever? Guess what, sucker? After August, you can’t upgrade your computer without losing your music.

Yet another in a long series of “DRM Hates Customers” stories. You’d think the computer industry ditching copy protection years ago, coupled with the complete meltdown of DRM in music over the past couple years, would make the movie industry wake up and kill their copy protection plans. You’d be wrong. Not that their DRM will hold up either… Oh, yeah – it didn’t! HAH!

I’ve been using a WD MyBook 500GB USB-attached drive for my nightly backups for about a year now.  This week, it stopped working reliably (SMART errors intermittently).  Of course, it’s out of warranty, so it had to die.  🙂

I’m looking into a more reliable storage system, perhaps a RAID or Drobo box, maybe attached to the network, but probably direct-attached to the desktop.  Does anyone have any advice, based on personal experience?

The Drobo looks awfully sweet, if a bit pricey.  I like the idea that I can just swap in a new drive whenever I have some extra cash (or drives drop in price or go on sale), and the device just uses it automagically.  The traditional RAID approach of having multiple identical drives, preferably all the same model, seems somewhat rigid and unreasonable to me.  What happens if a drive fails a year or two from now, and that model is no longer available?  Imagine you have a RAID filled with 80GB drives today; good luck finding a replacement drive new.

After a great ceramic show at the museum, where Kat caught up with several fellow artists (and a few students who want extra credit), followed by a wonderful dinner downtown (despite the best efforts of the most inept waiter ever seen), there was a presentation. Kat insists that I inform all and sundry throughout the world, so I will.

Yes, she is actually pointing to the ring after having put marker on her finger pointing to the ring as well. Thorough, she is.

October 14th is the big day. We’ll be having a dinner for locals (and whoever wants to travel to the middle of nowhere) on the afternoon of Sunday October 19th, which happens to be my son’s (and sister’s) birthday.

The estate tax only affects estates valued at above $2 million today, and maybe down to $1 million if things are allowed to lapse in 2011 (not $675,000 no matter what your talk radio told you). How much do you expect to leave in net worth for your heirs? More than a million dollars? Not likely. Yet, a significant number of people who will never be affected by the estate tax are fighting to repeal it, on behalf of people making amounts of money most of us can’t imagine.

There are so many complicated economic issues wrapped up in estate tax debates, it would be ridiculous to try to summarize them. My curiousity is piqued by the rabid defense of the “repeal the death tax” mantra by people who will likely never have to pay it anyway. What kind of strange phenomenon causes people to spend time and effort fighting for something that helps only people most of us would classify as filthy rich?

I recently read a Princeton research paper, which showed quite clearly that the party in the Executive has historically been a good indicator of the rate of increase in income inequality. Republican presidents have been very good to the top 20% of Americans, and pretty crappy to the bottom 20%, with a relatively straight-line graph between them. Democratic presidents have been pretty good to the bottom 20%, and just about as good to the top 20%, with a straight-line graph between them as well. The difference, of course, is that the Dem graph is nearly horizontal. Income growth is about 2.5% for the top quintile under either party, but under a Dem that’s about the same level for everyone in the country (2-2.5%). Under the GOP, on the other hand, the top quintile still gets a nice growth rate of 2.5% or so, but the bottom quintile gets growth of 0.5%. The only exception to this pattern is in election years, when the Democrats seem to shoot themselves in the foot with the poor, and the Republicans somehow discover they can give money to the plebes to gain votes. Economic stimulus package, anyone?

By the way, I’ve been told by someone near and dear to me that the Princeton paper is not nearly as fascinating a read as I think it is. Something about “deathly dull” was murmured, as I recall. I am focusing on income inequality because it is so stark a statistic of economic health for most people, as well as being an indicator of widespread discontent.  Discontent breeds instability and all that, ya know. So, currently, the top 1% of people in the country have 22% of the income, which is the greatest concentration of wealth in such a small group since before the Great Depression.  We all know how well that turned out, eh? Another good indicator of economic health is personal savings. In 1982, that rate was 11%; in 2006, it was negative 1%. I’m pretty sure that’s not good.

If this income inequality issue is so blatantly obvious, the question remains: Why does anyone who isn’t already wealthy vote Republican? My theory is “the media makes people crazy.” Look at the giant storms of controversy and outrage the media talking heads have been stirring up over relatively minor issues of things like “bitter people” and cleavage and flag pins. Do any of those things really matter to the citizenry? Of course not. But, people have grown so accustomed to the din of information flowing from the magic box that shows them both parties looking stupid and venal and self-serving and hypocritical, people assume there’s no difference between them. We’ve watched the offshore outsourcing and domestic dismantling of our industrial base, through several presidents of both parties. People have become used to the idea that either party will screw the citizenry over. So, the parties end up ceding the ground of substance to “none of the above” and spend all their time fighting over trivia and “social issues.” Most of the social issues affect very few people, and based on my reading of that quaint document called The Constitution, are none of the government’s business anyway. But, you can sure rile folks up if you claim your opponent wants to take their guns or Bibles away (no matter how fictitious your claim may be).

It’s all rather disgusting. If you can stand it, watch the Pennsylvania Democratic debate – the first half is devoted to flag pins and bitterness. We’re so screwed.

Following Wayne’s tip on Gear Diary, I requested a “free” Senseo coffee maker (just pay for shipping) last week.  Guess what’s in my kitchen right now?  Oh, yeah, baby.  I’m not a big coffee drinker, but someone else is and for fifteen bucks, what the heck?

I guess I didn’t read the offer very well, because I was surprised to see a canister in the box, along with a bag of coffee and the machine itself.  The machine is on sale at Amazon for about 65, coffee bags cost around 4 dollars, and the canister is another 4 bucks.  So, almost 75 dollars worth of coffee swag for 15 – dude, hit that site, if you (or your significant other) like coffee even a little bit.

You may have heard a story or two on the news recently about the peculiar group of polygamists down the road from me. After attending a school function for The Boy next door to Fort Concho, I had an encounter with a Texas State Trooper.

School function, so I took photos. The sight of me with a camera was of some interest to the DPS officer, apparently. He asked if I’d been taking photos of the Fort, which of course I hadn’t been and told him that. Then he turned friendly and wished me a good day. About 50 meters down the street, I passed a man with a massive camera taking photos of the Fort, while standing in the street. Guess he was too obvious.

Anyway, I know that there are many issues (privacy, witness tampering, yada yada) involved in this mess, and I’m not about to raise a fuss about a rather minor thing, but I’m allowed to take photos of just about anything I want to. I can’t help but wonder how the conversation would have gone if I’d actually been so bold as to have taken a photo of Officer Friendly or (gasp!) even of the State Park, while standing on a public street. I’m sure the sky would have fallen.

Sure hope this circus is over soon. Housing all those people on the Fort has already caused at least one event cancellation.  This town uses the area for many community days.

The movie Expelled is coming out in just over a week. According to every reviewer who isn’t an right-wing fundamentalist, it sucks. Of course, I assume it will play here in San Angelo (as seen on “FLDS Watch”!), because we always get that stuff. Have fun with the reviews on Expelled Exposed – the reviews are pretty entertaining. Heck, even Fox News didn’t like it; I’m pretty sure that’s the target demo.

This must be the worst case of senioritis ever.

My most linked-to post ever, yesterday’s denialists missive, has attracted the usual suspects. Not surprisingly, Akismet’s spam filter blocked them and I don’t feel like unblocking them. Typical tactic of the denialists – overwhelmingly loud shoutdowns instead of actual scientific evidence. In lieu of opening up my blog to becoming another nutjob-infested place, I will address the “issues” that denialists like to throw out in defense of the lack of action toward anything like good stewardship of the planet.

More ice is forming in the Antarctic than is being lost. This is actually a predictable effect of the current warming cycle. More warmth equals more evaporation equals more precipitation, particularly at the poles (more at the South than North for other reasons). It also equals less precipitation in the tropics. These things are predicted, and they have happened.

Antarctica is cooling. No. It had a cooling trend over 60% of its mass, several years ago. It’s a lot more clear now, as the warming trend has become much more widespread. Also, Antarctica is susceptible to warming and cooling based on ocean temperatures, so it would be predicted to warm later than the Arctic region. This is predicted, and it is happening.

It’s cold in BC right now, so global warming is a hoax. Local temperature variations do not change a global multi-decade trend. See also, “it’s been a cool year all over” for more nonsense. Yes, it has been the coolest winter since 2001. But, it’s still the 16th warmest year on record. So, “cooler” than “really hot” is not much to go by. The warmest years on record are 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2007.

The arctic sea ice came back big time this winter. Yes, it did. But, there are two types of ice pack in the arctic – perennial and annual. The annual ice made a nice recovery. The perennial ice, though, is still much decreased. The perennial ice covers about 30% of the arctic, where is had covered 50-60% of that area in the past. Perennial ice (which lasts 6 or more years) covered 20% of the arctic as recently as the 1980s, but now accounts for a mere 6% of the coverage. One year does not make a trend. In the past twenty years, 17 of them are the top 17 hottest in 150 years of records.

Sunspots are to blame for the warmer temperatures. Sunspots have not increased in 20 years, so how could they be to blame? NASA says solar increases do not have the ability to cause large global temperature increases.” The Sun is approaching solar minimum, yet global warming continues.

Calling people who deny the incredible mass of data about global warming “denialists” rather than “skeptics” is an ad hominem attack and I should be ashamed of myself. I am a member of the Skeptic Society. Skeptics don’t believe things contrary to masses of evidence, willfully denying the vast majority of experts and all the research, cherry-picking bits of contradictory evidence to support a tiny minority opinion. Nope. Doesn’t happen. I’m amazed that people can call themselves “skeptics” and yet retain such unwavering belief in something.

What are the denialists afraid of? If the global warming “conspiracy” has its way, we’ll get cleaner air, cleaner water, less dependence on hostile governments, more wildlife returning to their habitats, and a booming economy based on renewable rather than finite resources. Oh, please don’t throw me in the briar patch!

If you ever have some time in San Antonio, be sure to check out the Botanical Gardens. Very spiffy, and not all covered in knick knacks like the Riverwalk. Oh, and the Mercado has free Wifi! Gotta have priorities.

3105

When the Larsen B shelf collapsed in 2002, melting a block of ice the size of Rhode Island, global warming denialists said that a 12,000 year-old stable feature was just due to collapse anyway.  Nothing to see here.

Now, the Wilkins shelf is about to calve a block about the size of Connecticut.  Want to bet how the denialists will react? Liberal media conspiracy, anyone? Maybe a nice ad hominem attack on Al Gore? Pick your logical fallacy, and handicap the race for yourself!

Doesn’t this fit the definition of terrorism?

From the Department of Defense definition: The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

Not to mention, are the producers of 24 getting a cut of this blatant ripoff?

I’m sitting at work, just trying to do my job, supporting our military intelligence professionals and all that jazz. Three of my coworkers, just on the other side of my desk, spend ten minutes discussing how absurd it is that anyone would be upset that our country is torturing bad guys to get information. One is laughing about blowing someone’s brains out to send a message to his compatriots that we’re not kidding.

Given that we’re not interrogators, we are all intelligence veterans, and we should all know by now that torture doesn’t work. I even printed out the recent 60 Minutes interview with Saddam’s interrogator, in which he described how true interrogation techniques do work. True interrogation requires lots of time, lots of controlling and ingratiating behavior, etc. – it is remarkably dissimilar to the way the world works on 24. You’d think folks with decades of experience in intelligence would know that the real world rarely resembles movies. After all, the satellites of the NSA sure don’t see through buildings and around corners like in Enemy of the State. Don’t even get me started on the black ops SWAT teams the NSA apparently has in the movies. Incredible lack of understanding of our capabilities there.

Yet, these knuckleheads are cackling about how great it is that our great country, shining light of freedom on the hilltop and all, is admittedly torturing people and keeping them completely cut off from all normal legal and ethical systems. I really wonder if I should have taken that other job after all…

Picture this: Kat’s in the kitchen, making herself some pasta. I hear a shout, and go in to see boiling water pouring down the counter and the front of the dishwasher.

Um… What happened?

“I was holding the colander to strain the pasta.”

Did you know it was recently boiling?

So, I now know someone who literally can’t be trusted to boil water. I suspect she does this sort of thing just to ensure I won’t allow her to cook.

How’s this for wacky? Kat interviewed at a pet store to play with birds, and had to wear slacks. For mcjob. Her interview with the local university for an art professor gig – jeans.

She got both jobs, if’n you were wondering. My woman rocks.

Happy 2008!

The Boy made it to midnight, which was surprising. We had cheese, sausage, crackers, and fresh apple tartin (upside-down cake thang). Oh, and Italian sparkling wines are much more drinkable than champagne.

In the previous year, I’ve achieved some stability in life, and gained a sane and intelligent girlfriend. The coming year looks promising.

Cheers.

A great look at upgrading from Vista to XP.  Amusing and yet very informative as a primer to the various issues Vista users encounter far too frequently.  Except Wayne, who thinks Vista is wonderful.  Cuz he’s insane.

Review: Windows XP – Coding Sanity

The base where I work uses some of the most arbitrary web-blocking filters I’ve ever seen. Yesterday, I could get to ScienceBlogs, today they’re listed as forbidden because they are “Reference/Education” pages. Yes, we wouldn’t want anyone here at the Air Education and Training Command to get to any sort of reference or education page.

My personal website has been blocked today (but not yesterday), listed as a “Forum/Bulletin Board.” Strangely, I can still get to Rush Limbaugh; I’m sure that’s official government use there. Al Franken’s campaign page is blocked for being a “Personal Page” – no political slant at all there, is there?

The web filtering they’ve had in place has gotten ever-more draconian over the years, to the point that I’m actually surprised if a hyperlink does not end in an “Access Denied” page. Science Blogs has got to be the top of the WTF list, though.