iPod Update

Now that I've had an iPod for several months, let me give an update to those few of you who don't already own one. You know who you are. Its a nice gadget, I'll admit. I'm not sure if its worth the 250 clams that I laid out, but since my daughter hasn't had to go hungry I guess I could afford it. Other than a replacement related to a sledding tragedy I've had no complaints thus far. I'm still waiting for it to change my life, as a doctor I worked with insisted that it would. I drive an hour to work each way, so I listen to a podcast on the way to work and music coming home. I use it in the gym, and I keep some photos to share with others. Truth be known I'd be just as well off with another MP3 player with a capacity of 4GB or so. I'll update again when I have the life-changing epiphany.

Columbia University and Ahmadinejab

I may need to apologize to Columbia University. When given a chance to get up in front of an audience of American college kids, the president of Iran managed to make himself look like a complete tool. I don't know if that was Columbia's President Lee Bollinger's aim, but it was certainly the result. Judging from his introduction I think that he had an idea what Ahmadinejad's speech would sound like. "We have no homosexuals" and "What Holocaust?" He might be somewhat deluded and hyper religious, but Ahmadinejad isn't stupid. My best guess is that he just doesn't realize the demographics would include a sizable number of both Jews and homosexuals, at least compared with a representative sample of the rest of America. Then again, maybe he did and was just playing to the home audience knowing that in America, not even Bush-hating lefties would warm up to him. (for an exception read here)
In Iran there probably aren't as many open homosexuals as there are in NYC, not least due to the unfortunate risk of stone-based kinetic energy poisoning so common in Tehran. As for hoping that New Yorkers will buy the story that there was no Holocaust, tell them that Babe Ruth never lived and 9-11 never happened.
I'll say this about Ahmadinejad; he does have balls. While I'd like to think that someday an American-built smart bomb will blow them off, its more likely that he will die in bed. Just not in another guy's bed because they don't have that in Iran.

Photographic Evidence of American Troops Abusing Children

Those children look terrified. Just another jack-booted Bush-loving thug out to oppress the indigenous victims of Big Oil. Those kids are in fear for their lives...

Seriously, from my experience I'm guessing that the kids are looking for some candy or Beanie Babies.

(photo courtesy of http://www.mnf-iraq.com/)

Taxing the Hand That Feeds Us - New York Times

Taxing the Hand That Feeds Us - New York Times
While Democrats might not be saying much about tax increases (yet,) they aren't saying much about new restrictions on gun ownership (yet) either. Both are key components of the Democrat parties guiding philosophy. Increased governmental spending programs, regulation, and oversight should be the primary method to enact social agenda; and that requires more government tax receipts which in turn require more tax collection. Increased tax collection requires more taxes which require tax increases. Tiresome to write and more tiresome to live through.
This article however is about the apparent lack of interest by the Republican presidential candidates in talking about tax cuts per se. I'm glad for that, though. It gives me hope that somebody may be more interested in spending less money instead.

Belgium to split in two, world yawns and goes back to sleep

Color me unexcited

I'll have a #1 Value Euro-Mac Meal please

To Woo Europeans, McDonald’s Goes Upscale - New York Times

This story reminded me, in an oblique way, of a city back in the 80's; Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. They tried to ban restaurants defined as either "Drive In, Formula, or Fast-Food" Establishments. I remember visiting the town back in the day when I was attending a language school nearby. Carmel-by-the-Sea has plenty of other odd regulations as well. I remember the nice shops and that while the beach was nice the water was frigid.  I was also  a poor soldier and couldn't afford to eat there.  Not even an upscale euroMcDs.

The College Second Home - New York Times

The College Second Home - New York Times

I knew someone in college (back in 1983) who was living in a house that his parents had bought for his use while in school. Turns out that my university had a rule; freshman and sophomores had to live in the dorms unless they were locals, above a certain age, married, and so on. Since this was an actual house and not a small condo, there was a lot of extra room. He ended up renting most of it out to other guys on the football team, and was making the mortgage himself. As a side note, the guys in the house hosted parties every Saturday night; $3 a cup for all the beer you could drink (or stand.) These parties subsidized the rent, utilities, cable, and food supplies of all the housemates. The end analysis is that nobody in the house had to actually pay anything for their housing, the owning parents didn't have to pay the mortgage, and everyone was happy. Except for the neighbors, of course.

Ray Bradbury - Now and Forever - Books - New York Times

Ray Bradbury - Now and Forever - Books - New York Times:

Something I never knew before; that Ray Bradbury vigorously denies that Fahrenheit 451 is a metaphor for censorship but rather the insidious evil that is television,

"Though Mr. Bradbury’s critics have bristled at his comments that “Fahrenheit 451” was not a novel about censorship — a statement that the paper trail in "Match to Flame” seems to disprove"

I find that when giving talks about his works he has had to argue with high school English teachers about what the books mean. "Actually, Mr. Bradbury, this is what you really meant..." said the diploma-holder from Push-M-Through U. I have a hard time imagining the arrogance necessary for a English teacher to scrap with an author, standing in front of him, of one of his own works.

Defining EMP

Just in case you haven't heard of EMP, here's the Wikipedia definition. Essentially, detonating a nuclear weapon (depending on yield) about 300 miles over ground has the potential to disrupt, damage, or destroy electrical, and (especially) microprocessor systems in a circle roughly the size of the US. Take a tramp freighter or oil tanker, place a mobile/portable launch system roughly similar to the Peacekeeper or MX missile system deployed in the USA until 1991. This system mounted a missile in a more or less standard railroad car. The Russian SS-27/Topol-M is a very similar system.
The point is, a strategic nuclear missile can be transported in a package the size of a railroad car. The Peacekeeper system generally was two locomotives, two missile cars, two security cars, one launch control car, one fuel car, and one maintenance car. Inside the guts of a medium-sized oil tanker I'd guess that the equivalent of two missile launchers and the launch control unit would mount quite nicely. Parked in the Gulf Coast area the two missiles could be launched towards each coast to maximize damage. In another vision, one or more could also be launched to detonate near each coast to maximize damage to the more heavily populated areas of the US. The same system would do wonderfully for the EU nations, Japan, India, and the Russian states.
Damage from an EMP would come from its ability to knock out the electrical grid and damage electronics and computers. No electricity for anyone, for quite some time according to my electrical worker friends. Repairing and restarting power plants is much more complicated than most of realize. Telecommunications would be disrupted not just by the damage or destruction of much phone company equipment but also by messing up comsats. Your car wouldn't work anymore until repaired. No computers, television, cell phones, iPods, elevators, refrigerators, microwave ovens, electronically-controlled furnaces or air conditioners, or just about anything you might think of. Lets not even try to imagine intensive care units in hospitals, operating rooms, fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, police radios, or the other myriad bits of glue holding everything together.
Try to imagine Katrina, but the entire country, and with nobody able to send help. No food getting delivered, no water being pumped, no fuel being delivered. How many of us in the industrialized world could go two or more weeks without running water, the grocery store, transportation, heat, communications, or any electrically-provided luxury or necessity?
Effective aid was delivered to New Orleans within 3 days and look at the chaos. Lest we forget, New Orleans was fairly empty when everything went south. Try to imagine what would have happened there without any evacuation, and no aid delivery for two weeks. The stuff nightmares are made of. Now try to imagine this damage in the dead of winter in anyplace that gets cold. The point is, an effective EMP attack against the industrialized world would be a disaster unimaginable, in loss of life and damage done. Military gear is generally hardened against EMP but little in the civilian world is.
Now do you understand why EMP attacks could be bad? If I had just a few nuclear weapons and delivery devices, I really can't think of a better way to use them. I'm sure that I'm not the only person out there thinking.

Israel Asking If They Can 'Play Through'

Israel is leaking the information that they are lining up permission in advance to overfly other nation's airspace for future air strikes in Iran. I'd expect mainly to make sure that everyone understands how seriously they take the Iranian nuclear threat. I've written about this before my pleasant imaginary reader, so it should come as a surprise to nobody. Some time back in this post, a timetable of 90 days came up; before March 28th. Maybe what they are asking for is exactly what they are asking for, if you get my drift. Not really triangulating but preparation.
Sounds ominous when read together.

Iranian Suborbital Rocket Test

At the NYT is a story about Iran testing a suborbital rocket. (The Christian Science monitor doesn't charge, though.) The kind used to carry satellites into space. Or the king used to boost high-altitude nukes used to propagate serious EMP attacks. Call me paranoid, but if I were an enemy of the USA that's just what I'd be working on myself. Along with a portable/mobile launcher unit it could be a truly devastating attack against any 1st world nation. I've talked about this before so all of my imaginary readers shouldn't be surprised to hear me obsessing about this.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

About a month ago I finally broke down and bought an iPod. My old 2.5gb Rio took its final, fatal, plunge into piece of shithood and died. The 30gb iPod which I bought on a Friday died on Sunday; possibly the victim of too much received kinetic trauma received while I was sledding after one of my daughter's hockey games. To be fair, I broke the middle finger on my left hand and have been off work for a month now so maybe the iPod's failure wasn't entirely lame. Anyway the replacement has worked wonderfully since and I haven't returned to the sledding slopes so it should stay that way.

It works well and everything, but I'm not sure what the big deal is. A Mac True Believer® I work with actually said things like "This has changed my life" when speaking of his iPod. Again, its nice but not epiphany nice. The intellectual class in America has abandoned religion for the most part it seems, but voids must be filled. Some with celebrity-friendly global warming orthodoxy, some with alternative celebrity-friendly religions, some with nihilism and schadenfreude, and others with love of their Apple products. Whatever it takes to get through the day I guess.

The Troublesome S word

One more thing that I just can't get excited about. The word "scrotum" appears in a book for children aged nine or so. Apparently some poor dog gets their scrotum bit by another dog. Tough luck for that pooch but even tougher if your child is reading the book and doesn't yet know what a scrotum is. Look, if you're child is nine and doesn't know this, then its probably time for them to discover that body parts have names that don't sound like winky, po-po, or whatever cute-sounding euphemism.

the New Blogger (non-Beta)

I just made the switch today to this version of Blogger. I must say that I really like the ability to add labels ala Flickr et al. Please, in the future feel free to obey the tag 'buy me this' when you see such a post. Now I have to leave, and go through my old posts dreaming up applicable tags for everything..

Update; I can't believe that I forgot to put a label on this post. Well, its down there now.

Second Thoughts on Gays in the Military - New York Times

Second Thoughts on Gays in the Military - New York Times

Its about time for American politicians to give up this bullshit prejudice against gay soldiers. What next, Pelosi will give in to the PETA lobby and decide that meat-eaters have no place defending America? Why not, it seems just as arbitrary. Not that big a percentage of soldiers are gay so the troop-strength arguments are lame. Its not that because we throw out gays we have no Arabic linguists. The total number of troops thrown out for being gay are far fewer than the number the military throws out for weighing too much. By the way, yes, they do that.
The best argument for allowing gay people to be in the military is freedom. Anyone who wants to be in the military who otherwise would qualify has no business being excluded because of where they put their genitals on their own time. I have to agree with Barry Goldwater here, "You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight."

What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of Diagnoses - New York Times

Yesterday at the hospital where I work, a demented patient who is dying and for whom it has been decided that no aggressive treatments will be done, had a physician order a painful, invasive, procedure which would have yielded no significant information. Terry my friend and coworker would have said "Teaching hospital" and we both would have known exactly what he meant.
Now I know this rant takes a somewhat different tack than Dr. Welch's article does. He's talking about over diagnosing, over testing, and over treating those who aren't really sick. I'm talking about over diagnosing, over testing, and over treating those who are so far gone that there isn't any hope of making their lives any longer and certainly not better.
In a teaching hospital teams of physicians change frequently. Depending on whim and the pet theories of their latest instructors the patients they take over will suddenly have be retested for everything in sight. Never mind that they were already retested by the last group of residents who flashed through. Apparently it is the fondest wish of a medical student or resident to be the first on their block to discover a disease or disorder which their friends haven't yet. Even if they don't, they get to practice expensive, painful, procedures that no doctor out in the world would dream of ordering for fear of the reaming a lawyer might hand them.
To that end, every 89-year old gomer from the nursing home admitted with pneumonia gets a spinal tap looking for hydrocephalus or meningitis when they have a long-standing history of Alzheimer's Disease. Maybe blood tests looking for Lyme Disease, perhaps the 14th repeat of a hypothyroid panel just in case it comes up positive this time. Maybe even a repeat head CAT Scan or MRI "just to make sure."

These young doctors are so earnest, so convinced. They actually believe that they are doing these crazed, demented, deathly ill, suffering souls some sort of favor. I'd call them cute but someday I'll be a crazed old gomer myself suffering through their Josef Mengele-style mercy. If I still have any self-awareness left I'll be wishing for the sweet release of death only to be thwarted by some deadly serious kid who just bought their first stethoscope last fall.