Bob's retiring. I thought he'd die first.

The word of the day, kids, is whorifying. Its when a kid wears something that on an adult would make them look like a whore/prostitite/crack ho, etc.

See this link for more info on the costume craze this year (what, no picts?) HT: Blogfather

Pictures are here, fyi. I guess there is a line between cute and not appropriate. I don't get it but I'm not a parent. But, yeah, all the girls costumes seem to scream 'sexy', which isn't appropriate for kids.

Actually I'm not that clever. Urban dictionary defines it as: A slut that looks SO fat and ugly that it just blows your mind.

I like my def better.

This is too cool! Looks very scientific.

Some theories regarding the explosion are here. Key word: surface tension.

Playing WOW while doing cardio. Sounds fun! His rule - no WOW if not biking. So bike sessions tend to go a few hours. A good way to put the 'wasted' time to good use and not get too caught up in WOW (which as previously discussed is very addictive)

Amir Taheri has an excellent piece in the NY Post (not a staunch Bush supporting mouth-piece) regarding Iraq.

The biggest blow to the many enemies of new Iraq would be a clear message from the United States that, whoever controls the next Congress, Americans won't hand Iraq over to the jihadists, the Saddamites or the mullahs of Tehran.

Yup, it would be nice if the Dems don't actually cut and run.

Michael Barone has a great piece on polls, including some interesting stats. Did you know 22% more people voted for W in 2004 vs 2000?

Bottom line, he says, is mobilizing the base, since the independents usually sit off-years out. That makes sense to me. Its the people who are apathetic to voting that campaigns are trying to lure in. And the Republican machine is in full force. Since polls are somewhat unreliable, we're left with some ambiguity on election day, which may be not a bad thing.

Update: Human events has a list of 'at risk' seats, but they are possible wrong about Tx district 22, aka Tom Delay's district. The chronicle now reports that the write in candidate Secula-Gibs is a likely winner of the race.

...to sharks with laser beams. (The reference is explained here)

At it again! (warning, satirical title)

St. Louis? That's what this poll says. Wonder why we are not on that list.

I say, big deal. People have short memories. Remember when it was at 4500 and rising? I got the historic data for the NASDAQ and plotted it on this graph. I didn't adjust for inflation, which is obviously a huge factor for 35 years of data, but you get the gist. Eventually we will be back to 2000 highs, but it's going to take decades probably.



Update: Thanks blogfather for the mention. I typically post about international affairs, biology, and politics. Fortunately this post isn't nearly as contentious as my previous instalanche
(which was later validated by our local paper)

Update2:



This graph shows the NASDAQ composite adjusted for the 1971 CPI. In the 90s, the NASDAQ steadily increased, then soared in 2000, then plummeted again. However, it can now be seen that in the 2000s the NASDAQ has barely increased at all. Which goes to show, according to this data, the heady days of 2000 are, for now, behind us.

I think when the folks at Iraq the Model give up I'll declare Iraq a lost cause. Fortunately Mohammed has hope still, indicative of the many Iraqis who hope and work towards a better, less violent future.

Mohammed said this recently regarding the new Al Qaeda state (Caliph):

There's no going back thirty years to the days of Saddam an there's no going back a thousand yeas to the days of the Caliphs.
It's over…

We have accepted the rough road and the outcome will not be in the benefit of the criminals. The war is tough, painful and hard but I have no doubt of the outcome that will mean the end for the supporters of tyranny and extremism.

Bill O'Reilly has a piece saying that people are on two sides of a debate: those who think life begins at conception and those who don't; this is in regard to whether it's ethically okay to take embryonic stem cells and perform research on them. That's an interesting, black or white view. My view is that it's up to the parents who actually created that embryo whether they want to use it for research. Usually these are frozen embryos from in vitro fertilization (which, not so long ago, was ethically questionable behavior). What happens is that a bunch of fertilized eggs are made, and some are implanted, and some survive. Those that are no implanted are frozen for later use, or destroyed.

Bill is right in saying that we have no idea if ES cells will lead to cures for diseases; that's probably too optimistic. HOwever right now they are the best chance for moving forward in many fields, including cancer. ES cells have a large potential as research tools, but to utilize them, we'll need many cell lines, since cells don't last forever when frozen, and since as you grow them, they have a strong tendency to differentiate and destroy their totipotent nature.

Something about fourier transforms. The picture looks cool though. I'm sure the geeks in my life will understand and appreciate.

A very rare outlook on the country, by the DOD. Although the source is suspect, the numbers look very encouraging.

For example: The U.S. has printed 42 million text books for Afghani children, and helped distribute 48 million. By printing them, we ensure they are not filled with anti-American crap (this still occurs in Saudi Arabia)

Income: The national GDP has nearly quadrupled since 2002. The per capita GDP has doubled (meaning that the country's population has doubled in the last 5 years). Accordingly, tax revenues increased from $177 million in 2002-2003 to $500 million estimate 2005-2006.

These tell the real story. The kids are getting educated and much better access to healthcare, and the income is surging (Opium production probably has a large role), allowing increased spending on infrastructure and military; the two keys to defeating an insurgency. I think fears of a resurgent Taliban are there, but there is definitely a battle for hearts and minds. The Taliban had decades to improve the country, and Afghanis have seen the result. The U.S. and it's coalition has worked in the country for 5 years, for dramatic results.

Good advice! My errors were #2 and #8.

I'm continually amazed that Glenn finds these things, but he is the blogfather. Anyway, yeah i agree about the link between depression and endorphins and a lack of interesting things in life, but I can think of better therapy than whippings.

(story here) What would be better (the holy grail) is a blood test that looks at a panel of markers for various different cancers. Part of the issue is that it's actually very hard to get good blood markers for solid tumors. PSA is a great marker for prostate cancer, but there probably aren't any other markers quite as good. Anyway, its something that alot of researchers are very hard at work developing. It will take time though, perhaps several decades; but it is coming.

If we are to believe this research from Newsweek. They used mortality as a critical score to judge hospitals, which is perhaps not the best indicator. I don't know what the best indicator would be, though. I do know our hospital, MD Anderson, would never be in a top-ten list if mortality is a lead criterion, since we typical get the worst and sickest cases. However, MDACC does so many things, they constantly promote the best in care, and research here continually pushes the edge in cancer treatment regiments, and further seeks to understand the fundamentals of cancer. Not many hospitals have a huge 'basic biology' program established. Anyway, this is probably the best cancer hospital in America, but it's too bad that Newsweek doesn't get it. You don't go to the hospital because you are healthy. You don't go to the best hospital because you have a mild cold, you go because its the best thing to help with a terrible disease.

I ordered some items from Newegg (a new CPU, motherboard, and graphics card) Monday night. By tuesday early AM it was shipped from California. This morning it arrived, according to UPS; the transit took 48 hours. What is amazing is that this is ground transit, and it's 1600 miles between here and CA. Their drivers must be on amphetamines!

Walmart expanded its $4 generic drug program to Texas on last Thursday. The drugs are mostly cardiac, anti-depressants, a few diabetic drugs (list is here). Notably lacking, any sort of allergy or asthma drug (with the exception of the old standby Albuterol, which is a 'emergency' med for asthmatics). Claritin is now available generically, (fairly cheaply if i recall), and the decongestant portion is usually very expensive (inexplicably). Thank god I don't need to use these drugs too much any more, I use advair 1x/day, lowest dose, and I use a nasal steroid every once in a while for rhinitis/congestion. My eczema (atopic dermititis) is well controlled too, using emoliants 2x/day, and the ocassional tacrolimus to stop eczema attacks ('flareups').

Available here

From the leaflet (brings back memories! DEC? Make that ancient memories.

Welcome to Zork (originally Dungeon)!

Dungeon is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained within.

In Dungeon, the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!

No DECsystem should be without one!

Dungeon was created at the Programming Technology Division of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling. It was inspired by the Adventure game of Crowther and Woods, and the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax and Arneson. The original version was written in MDL (alias MUDDLE). The current version was translated from MDL into FORTRAN IV by
a somewhat paranoid DEC engineer who prefers to remain anonymous, and was later translated to C.

On-line information may be obtained with the commands HELP and INFO.

This version is a PHP web hack of the original Dungeon, which allows you to LOGIN, SAVE, and RESTORE your game. You can see your fellow players, but since they are running their own instance of the game you can't do much other than SAY things to them.. or at least you will be able to once that bit has been coded. It is a work in progress.

Have fun.

Glenn posits that no lawyers were consulted. I'm guessing no scientists were consulted in this experiment, either. Where are the experimental controls, anyway?

Interesting reading. I wish the bush admin. would take heed.

This is from the James Lacey piece that I referred to earlier. He's got some interesting statistics; for example the percent of US troops accused of misconduct in the last year is 0.05%, as compared to NYC police at 15% (meaning 15% of cops were accused of some sort of misconduct). Yet the envt in Iraq is at least 850 times more deadly than that of NYC (NYPD has lost one officier in the last year, coaltion forces have lost 842, and another 5000 wounded) Interesting stuff!

That's the way its trending right now. Anyway, the Houston Chronicle has finally picked up on what i've been blogging about the spike in murders; it wasn't new and I'm certainly not the only one who noticed. But they buried the dicotomy way down in the article noting that overall violent crimes has not increased significantly, which is what my data also say. Anyway we still don't know if there is a real Katrina effect, if the rate of felonies commited by Katrina refugees is higher than the rate of felonies in Houston overall. Since the Katrina population is so small (100,000?) it would be difficult to tease that data out (and is it that relevant anyway?)

I won't link the tape itself, which shows Iraqi insurgent/terrorists waiting for and shooting US military in cold blood. But I will link the AC360 blog, which discusses why they aired the tape. I think three things. 1) it serves as a good training for our forces to understand insurgent techniques, so hopefully they could spot them. 2) It's a brilliant insurgent coop, getting a premier US media outlet to air their point of view. 3) It shows who's side CNN is really on - the insurgents, or whoever is fighting the U.S. I notice FOXnews isn't covering the tape, I don't know abuot other media outlets. The usually won't, if it's an 'exclusive'.

Update: Blackfive has much more on the issue, appropriately. HT: Glenn.

Confederate Yankee also has some insight. HT: Blackfive He asks why this is particularly 'newsworthy' now? What would happen if CNN got ahold of US sniper team recordings? They would not play them, it would not play into their anti-U.S. bias (and I'm not sure what to call it, they are certainly not trying to help our forces, nor promote our American way of life).


Update: from the AC 360 comments (link above). These comments closely mirror my position, but are more eloquent. However, many more seem to think it's okay to show the 'horror of war'. But in reality, that's *all* CNN shows, the bombing, the murder, the death. Granted, there's alot of it. But when there is the constant bombardment of negativity, and not a shred of anything like good news, you get negative. So it's hard to rouse the public with a drumbeat of years of negative publicity, and that's being shown in the current polls (only 25% of Americans now approve of the war in Iraq).

All other arguments aside, I boil this down to a question. Why is is that this video is aired, yet you would undoubtedly cringe at the prospect of showing similar readily available video showing US counter-sniper or other teams in similar kill situations to balance the coverage?

In priority order it seems the media is more than willing to display footage of civilian casualties first, terrorist propaganda second, and American military successes somewhere far down the list.

I wouldn't have minded this footage quite so much (it's still objectionable to support the efforts of your enemy, I don't care how you spin it), if I knew I would see balanced coverage of the successes of the US Military.
Posted By Mickey, Beaverdam Virginia : 2:29 PM ET
I served in Iraq last year when the Texas Army National Guard was called to support Operation Iraqi Freedom.

While serving, the soldiers had to put up with CNN's almost totally negative view of the war. None of the many positive events made your news program. I often said that "to CNN, if it's not blowing up - it's not news".

Now, I am disgusted by CNN's decision to air this video. No amount of spin can justify the damage you have done to the families of soldiers serving our country during trying times.

My prayers are with those soldiers serving now and their families.

I will not forget your organization's callous approach to this story. No matter how you try to rationalize your decision - you did it simply for the ratings. You had a 'hot item' and could not resist.

No, I won't forget.

You might as well change the CNN logo to Al Jazerra.
Posted By Rodney Hammack, - Plano, TX : 2:30 PM ET

Update: Foxnews has picked up the story from the opposing point of view, quoting Rep Hunter (R-CA) as wondering which side of the war CNN is on. I completely agree with that. But Foxnews adds:

Hunter's fury over the video underscores the tightrope often walked by news media in the war. Critics of the war say Americans see very little of the daily violence in Iraq because of television's reluctance to show gory footage. Dangerous conditions also keep journalists from reporting independent of military units that provide them protection.

#1 we don't need to see gory stuff every day, especially if it's against our guys.

#2 They never show gory footage of insurgents getting their asses handed to them, like they do every time they go up against coalition forces.

#3 The reason its dangerous for journalists is because, my opinion, that they have become so much a part of this war; Al Qaeda admits at least half of the war effort is through the media. The terrorists have a vested interest in making sure no good news is reported, and only their side is heard, via violence. Thus, there is nothing to really encourage these guys from not terrorizing and killing wantonly, because they know this tactic works, and when you talk and try to come to an agreement, its likely that you are not going to get exactly what you want.

#4 Another reason why there are very few reporters in Iraq is b/c of the stupid coalition media policies, as Mike Yon explained.

Update2: Also see this piece on Mike Yon's site from James Lacey, who was also embedded during the 'hot war' portion of the second Iraq war.

An interesting blog discussing catholicism and biotech issues, mostly stem cell research. Too bad it's very one sided, it mainly points out the problems with stem cell technology and why it's not ready to use yet. It would be nice to have a more objective point of view, but I understand that's not the focus of the blog.

Man, they've done it this time. NEC has announced a ultra-high res TFT display specifically for imaging applications that require very high resolution monochromatic images (ie radiography). If only there was a portable, storable, high-res media. Oh, wait, it's called x-ray film.

No, not me, another Robbie. Apparently he was torn between Perry (the incumbant Texas governor), and Kinky Friedman, an independant candidate, but decided to vote for Perry due to the death penalty (Kinky being 'too soft') and illigal immigration (ditto). Fair enough, but I'm somewhat peeved how the kids in our state consistantly rank either dead last or almost last for insurance and stupidity (ie % of high school graduates,(80-90% graduation rate in texas overall, depending on race) test scores (50-80% TAKS grade 11, depending on race). I believe Houston has much worse stats (50%, according to a study discussed by USA Today. Anyway these things are pretty important to me, and others, but I'm not honestly sure if any candidate for any public office in texas has a good idea to improve the lot of kids in texas.

Guess someone is feeling stupid right about now.

Says nortel, the cable provider (i mean they sell the pipes that make the internet run, they don't do cable TV). You don't have to convince me very much. I was concerned over this a decade ago, and more recently 5 or so years ago when everyone started getting into video. Now the baudwidth demands have gone through the roof, brought upon by streaming video content and online games. Nortel stock is only $2.50 now, maybe they are a good buy (but they've been hammered in the past). Makes sense that work has banned many many sites, since the traffic was so high, it was hard to get legit work done.

Apparently this guy baits pickpockets and then trys to steal back the bait. Too cool.

Story here. This has relevance to Houston, since the city council just agreed upon a smoking ban in bars; which is great news to me. Now if they could just clean up the bars... (the ban takes effect in Sept 07)

This is an interesting debate, I think. Should teh IRS tax transactions that occur in 'virtual economies' such as Second Life or World of Warcraft?. As Taxprof notes, the Joint Economic Committee (whoever they are) recommends against purely virtual transactions, but taxing transactions for virtual items that are paid for in real monies.

For example, I have a shiney sword I got in Kingdom of Loathing. Now, in the game, it's worth 1 million meat (the in-game currency). If i sell it for 1M meat, should I pay a tax to the IRS? How much? 10,000 meat? The IRS wants US dollars, not meat, or gold pieces. So one proposal is saying, okay, people are willing to pay $1 US dollar for an item worth 1 million meat, so you should be taxed on that dollar. But what if you cheat in gaining that 1M meat, so it's actually ill-gotten, which breaks the game, and forces currancy evaluations to soar? So now that shiny sword is worth in-game 10M meat. Would you now be expected to pay tax on a transction for $10?

Hopefully you see the issue; if the transaction is in-game, then you can't really determine the value in real-life terms (since, essentially everything you do in a video game has no real-life benefit, and actually quite teh opposite. (Except in the case of manual dexterity, which has given me much benefit in my job).

The other issue is, what if you sell that shiny sword for $10 in real cash. Should you pay tax? Sure, says the JEC (linked above). I agree w/ that. There are certain rare people who make a decent living providing in-game items. It first occured with Diablo2, where people who would play it for months to get access to really rare items, then turn around and auction those items on Ebay. Usually the items would fetch $10 or so, but it adds up. Now people are taking items for online games and doing the same thing, and potentially hiding the tax gain, since it's an argueable point if the person has really sold something of value or not. I think the bottom line is that the person is getting income somehow, and it should be taxable like everything else (to a degree; i'm not sure the IRS would care about my $100/year income I gain from selling stuff on ebay).

(World of Warcraft). The tale of one guy, a very 'hard-core gamer' giving it up, because of the huge toll it took on his social life. Online games are just like any other addictive agent; if you are playing 10,20,30 hours a week or more, somethings gotta give. Usually its your social life first, sleep second, job third. I ran into this aquantice of mine, she had dropped out of grad school recently, then. She said she and her boyfriend were playing WOW all the time, and never went out. I could tell, her skin was so white she was corpse-like. I don't know if WOW precipitated the dropping out, but if she started when she was in grad school and dropped out, well the drug gets worse you see, not better. And it's hard to quite.

Luckly I never got into online gaming too much; and offline games you beat fairly quickly so there is not much danger of that (and I hardly ever play any more). I tried everquest, but found it extremely disappointing. It was frankly boring, the people were rude, (or those that I could find once I never see again), I would spend hours running around and getting obscure things I wouldn't know what to do with. The final straw was the realization that I completely did not fit into this culture, and I never would (which is fine!). I play Kingdom of Loathing now, it's fun but short (only 30' per day max), and it doesn't promise to be the long term time sink that so many online games are.

What many people have noted on the comments of that post is that it's such a huge waste. You get some pixelated treasure if you 'win' (and there is no real winning in WOW). You get a very brief feeling of accomplishment, then what? It doesn't last. It's merely an escape from life, and when you go back to life, all the problems are still there, but probably more so.

A common question. Now, guidester can help you choose. It basically narrows down the list of items you want based on features, ie megapixels. They are expanding from just electronics to other things, including college choices.

This is superhot if Sony doesn't kill it. Yellow Dog announced that they will have a linux distribution available for the PS3 when it ships. This is the first console with a publically available linux distribution (whereas the Xbox ran a varient of linux (i think) but wasn't accessable unless modified w/ a special chip). The dream of many companies would be to have the ultimate home entertainment box; that would do games, music, video, dvd, digital video recording a la Tivo. This modified PS3 would do all that except the DVR part (since it has no TV tuner built in). But I could see a huge advantage of running it and playing all your music and video via it. And it would be as cheap or cheaper than a equivalent PC.

The pricing of the PS3 is high, though, $400 for a minimal spec. It does have wireless connectivity though, and lots of input options (ie usb). Still, this is enough for me to wait on building a PC which will handle the identical tasks.

Thats what JIM GERAGHTY says. Anyway I got curious and browsed through what I wrote over on my old LJ blog; I said it was pretty much neck and neck, even thought I wanted bush to win and not kerry (anyone but kerry). Anyway, '04 and '00 were incredibly close races, perhaps because neither candidate was outstanding. Bush wasn't great in 04 either, he was just slightly better than Kerry (and he had the whole incumbant thing going). Looking back, that very narrow victory in 04 was a message that even though Bush was doing well on national security issues, the nation was not that happy with him. 2 years later, he's doing worse, and the Iraqi war has been much more bloody than anyone foresaw, and has essentially decended into civil war (with the odd exception that the govt is composed of both sunnis and shiites). Anyway, i hope this election will serve as a wake-up call for the GOP that the war really needs our most strident efforts and not some half-baked 'stay the course' message, that doesn't work.

I say, bring it on. Since they have no working nuke yet (yet being key word), and in a conventional war they would get their ass kicked (since their army is moral-poor and likely ill trained), bring it on. Oh yeah, biowarfare doesn't really work that well, either. So bring that on too. (See the recent anthrax scares) (See also this Jane's commentary).

On a battlefield, biological weapons are more likely than not to be inactive very quickly, and our troops are NBC trained (nuke/bio/chem) (see this wiki page). From the wiki:

However, the consensus among military analysts is that, except in the context of bioterrorism, biological warfare is of little military use.

As a tactical weapon, the main military problem with a biological warfare attack is that it would take days to be effective, and therefore, unlike a nuclear or chemical attack, would not immediately stop an opposing force. As a strategic weapon, biological warfare is again militarily problematic, because it is difficult to prevent the attack from spreading, either to allies or to the attacker, and while an attack is taking effect, the opponent can undertake massive retaliation.

The U.S. will never strike first, but I urge the NK regime to commit suicide and attack SK; it is a way out of this mess (in fact this has been their national doctrine for 50 years). It will be bloody and costly, but quick. Or they could just do us a favor and kill themselves, and leave the world to deal with their huge starving population.

Right Wing News is on it, listing the 20 seats that the GOP is most likely to lose this year. But how many will they gain? (Hopefully none!) To me, this is one difference in the parties; the GOP seems to be able to look at political reality and say 'we're going to get our butt kicked' and not, 'oh those evil democrates, it's all their fault'. Maybe that's perception bias.

So a prominant Houston blogger is asked to vid-blog by HotAir, and asked to do a blog on the Chronicle, and instead she stops all-together? It's somewhat of an insult for the thousands who are virtually unread. But whatever. I get the fact that blogging can not substitute for real-life, and this person felt a need to go back to real-life. But still...somewhat insulting.

It's a cool service that allows you to trade your CDs/movies/games with others. The seller has to pay shipping though, that's the downside. But since it's media mail it's usually cheap. This sort of idea, though, depends on a critical mass; if there are not enough people you won't gain enough points to 'sell' your wares, and then you won't be able to 'buy' things using the points you get from selling.

Their new Behind the Scenes series is about 3 years too late, but hey, it shows that reporters are once again ready to take the field and report 'unbiased' war news.

Autism is a mysterious disease, but hopefully this study linking mutations in MET to increased autism riskwill shed light on it. MET is a non-brain gene, according to the scientists who discovered the MET/autism link. I can't find anything on the PNAS website though. Typical!

It's been a harsh few years in Iraq, but now Saddam is seemingly convinced he will be released (somehow) and resume control over his country. Wonder what Iraqis will think of that. At least he's calling for an end to bloodshed. I hope Iraqis will not forget what life was like under Saddam, and realize that at least they have some sort of freedom and a possible future instead of endless tyranny.

First the earthquake in Hawaii (my folks were fine, as was almost everyone else), now it's pouring in Houston, to make up for all those dry days we've been having (it's been unusually dry here, seemingly, but not according to weather statistics), perhaps due to lack of tropical storms/hurricaines...we usually get one a year coming somewhere near Houston.

Some areas got 10 inches overnight. It rained most of yesterday, spoiling my biking plans, rained today as I went in (drenching me), still raining; we just have a band of major thunderstorms go by, hopefully that's the last of them. When i went by the bayou this morning it was past the concrete banks and onto the grass slopes; not breaching yet. The bayou is probably 30' deep? I dunno, it can move *alot* of water in a short time. For it to breech it's banks would take a major storm. Even T.S. Allison, which devestated Houston 5ish years ago barely breached it. But if rain continues it could happen. Luckily our condo will not flood, not unless a biblical storm comes down and gives us 10 feet of water.

Interesting story here. Everyone has opinions, of course, but this seems like it may contribute at least in part. Further a mild hurricaine season and the end of 'summer driving season' not to mention the end of smog-preventing additives all converge to decrease prices. Hope it lasts (doubt it will).

(linky) Not like i know anyone who abuses fonts Jim, Julie from work.

InstaGlenn has a pre-election roundup of important issues that blew up in the GOP's face. He's missing Katrina, but my guess is that it wasn't really a GOP fault, usual big govt stuff.

Good. Also it's proof that flora and fauna can rapidly recover from disasters. Although the fauna mentioned usually benefit from humans. I hope I am not being too cynical to say in a hundred years this will be all that is left of species diversity.

London Times Online has a cool graphic showing the effect of the absence of humans (and conversely shows the more important long lasting issues).

Regardign endangered species, many won't come back, due to lack of environment and so forth. The prarie pidgeon is likely doomed; the species requires too many individuals. We'd have to captively raise say 1 million birds for the species to have a chance. Coral destruction and the depletion of the ozone layer are things that will take centuries to come back. The heating cycle would also cause mass extinctions well after we're gone. So, yeah, we can look forward to more species vanishing, even if all humans dissappear.

But maybe someone else might. Story here.

Yes, you heard me. You lose calories drinking this stuff, according to coke. It contains green tea extracts which speeds up metabolism. But the trick is that 3 12 oz servings are required, probably spaced 8 hours apart. So as a weight loss beverage it's not probably the best. But, hey, drinking something with a net negative calorie effect, that's pretty cool.

Back to talks, he says in this op/ed in today's Chronicle.

Responding to an invitation from President Kim Il-sung of North Korea, and with the approval of President Bill Clinton, I went to Pyongyang and negotiated an agreement under which North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon and permit inspectors from the atomic agency to return to the site to assure that the spent fuel was not reprocessed. It was also agreed that direct talks would be held between the two Koreas.

Our hero :) Unfortunately the NKs lied through their teeth and had still had interest in developing nukes. So Carter's appeasement tactic only bought time, somewhat like Europe and Hitler in the late '30s.

But beginning in 2002, the United States branded North Korea as part of an axis of evil, threatened military action, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction of nuclear power plants and refused to consider further bilateral talks. In their discussions with me at this time, North Korean spokesmen seemed convinced that the American positions posed a serious danger to their country and to its political regime.

So it's Bush's fault, of course, for pointing out the obvious; that NK was a major exporter of narcotics, fake currancy, and ballistic missiles to other rogue states.

The other option is to make an effort to put into effect the September denuclearization agreement, which the North Koreans still maintain is feasible. The simple framework for a step-by-step agreement exists, with the United States giving a firm and direct statement of no hostile intent, and moving toward normal relations if North Korea forgoes any further nuclear weapons program and remains at peace with its neighbors. Each element would have to be confirmed by mutual actions combined with unimpeded international inspections.

Herein is Jimmy's solution, back to talks, give them what they want. More talking. We've had a decade of talking, and it's achieved us nothing, but prolonged the NK regime. Further, Bush and Condi Rice have said repeatedly that the U.S. has no interest in invading NK, nor are we in a position to do so. What else does NK want? This is a sham, to make the U.S. do their bidding. They don't care about peace, they care about regime stability.

Now China is resisting U.S. efforts at any type of penalty for NK behavior; they have no interest in destroying the NK regime. So the world will do nothing, and NK will eventually aquire enough technology to have nuclear missles. Then what? It's really not up to us, but to those that NK can strike: SK and Japan and China. It's a sad situation for the people of NK who are held hostage.


Update: Victor David Hanson has an commentary on this and notes:

It is typical of Jimmy Carter’s shamelessness or dotage that, after the failure of his Nobel-Prize-driven intervention into the Korean morass during the Clinton administration, that he now pontificates how George Bush has broken his fine porcelain Korean policy.

I think Bush realizes that appeasement will not work, although people like Jimmy Carter don't seem to get it.

The Washington Times (HT: Glenn Reynolds) reports our intelligence on NK was wrong again, including the likelyhood of success for a NK nuke test. Our intel boys said there was little likelyhood (according to the paper). But, if the test was a dud, then they were right and the WashTimes is wrong. Maybe there is something to it that NK is bluffing with nukes. I seriously doubt their compentence to make anything advanced and complicated, since they have very little infrastructure to do that.

The chronicle now reports no significant per capita increase in crime in the counties surrounding but not including Houston. They are using data from the end of 2005. They don't use,oddly enough, the data from Harris county, which has the most people and is where the city of houston is located. (But I did those analyses in a previous post (link below)

[Montgomary county sherrif] Norris said there is no evidence to show that people displaced by Katrina have had any effect on local crime rates.

Norris said that a few months after the hurricane, police quit paying attention to place of origin after experience showed the Katrina victims were not appearing in police reports in any significant numbers.

They are missing the real story about the surge in murder rates compared to the non-surge in other crimes. Alas. Others have lambasted the soaring houston crime rate, hopefully this will put some of those comments to rest. ANyway as a famous person once said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. By incorporating the murder rate into the overall crime rate, you hide the surge in murders.

Update: I sent Eric Hanson a link to my analyses, and got a quick 'thanks for the comments' reply. I guess that means that the story will stay buried. Oh well.

Looks legit to me, but MSDOS6 is, what, 10 years old? At this point I can't imagine any consequence for MS.

Looks cool!

Seems like it's a site to host discussions about books. Great idea, somewhat like all the amazon forums and lists.

Blogrolling, the popular blog roll site is currently down, so my blogroll doesn't appear. Hope they get it fixed at some point.

A blog from a leukemia patient being treated here. 7 weeks post BMT and CBC looks good! (that's good news)

Katie Wernecke is a Virginia girl who was taken from her parents and treated here at MDACC without their consent. They finally got medical custody over her and took her 'somewhere else'. Where, we don't know. Anyway, approximately 6 months later, Katie is still alive. , the parents claim the tumor is in remission, but we'll have to see. She has Hodgkin's disease, which is a pretty bad cancer, but I don't know much about it at all.

The long story is here, which I won't comment upon, except to say that people and not the state should be competent to make medical decisions, poor or otherwise. After tx in Virgina, she was ca free but the doctor wanted radiation therapy as a final measure. The parents refused. Somehow she got sent to MDACC, but by that time the tumor apparently came back worse than ever. (There is a high incidence of recurrance w/ this disease). Anyway I wish her and her parents well.

Says Mohammad at Iraq the Model. I agree with him, for what it's worth.

iFizzle - check it out!

So they would have us believe. The latest Time article professes to tell us all about how this current situation is the Bush admin. fault, and how they know exactly what is going on with Kim & Co. It somewhat sticks in my craw. Two points.

1) Time professes that the U.S. wants regime change in NK, but it's neighbors (SK, China) do not. No statement or policy of Bush & Co reflect that. If we wanted regime change, we would take additional steps, such as go before the UN and demand compliance with the Nuclear non proliferation treaty. We would increase the military presence around NK. We haven't done anything like this (as far as i know).

2) The nuke test was a success, it wasn't, again as far as western experts know.

3) "Washington was forced into six-party talks". My recollection is that this is what Bush & Co wanted all along, as opposed to 1x1 talks which Clinton & Co tried but didn't work.

4) Further sactions will attempt to modify NK behavior. I doubt this; the point of further diplomacy from the UN will be to ensure that NK does not proliferate; they are the #1 exporter of ballistic missile technology in the world. (sorry, can't find the link to reputate this)

I find the article arogant and condescending, telling people what to think and how to blame Bush for a wacko dictator half the globe away. We have power but that gives us too much credit. I think every western source believes that it's up to China to actually do something about NK. SK is now increasing their military might, which is a logical harbringer of a new military arms race in the pennensula.

Austin Bay gets it (meaning he agrees w/ me)

It’s time for China to make a choice– to defend the wealth-producing global system that is modernizing China or continue to propo up a nuclear-armed failed state that ultimately threatens Chinese economic health.China needs to propose a land and maritime embargo of North Korea, one that hermetically seals the Hermit Kingdom’s borders. And then help enforce it.

The Aussie Herald Sun has a roundup of world reaction to the NK test.

Meanwhile at the NK border (warning, very graphic and disturbing)

As Austin bay points out (above link), this may be a turning point in China/Japan relations. And China is mobilizing troops on the NK border. Maybe China will 'clean up their mess' after all! (We can hope, after all, its what the U.S. has done in Central America countless times).

Technorati: North Korea

Robert Kaplan at the New Republic thinks NK is on the verge of collapse (this was published prior to the nuke test), and gives the stages of what would be expected during a regime collapse (a flood of refuges would be a clear sign). HT: IndieScribe

The UK Times expresses amazment that Kim is still alive.

Technorati: North Korea

Ennuipundit has a roundup of newspaper quotes, essentially stating that the Bush admin foreign policy has failed in NK, which may be argueably true. The odd thing is that NK is using a nuclear lever to get to bilateral NK/US talks, and so far the Bush admin has resisted this. Why? B/c a) we have no leverage with them, and b) it would elevate them to a place they shouldn't be, in the world of international relations.

And that is why it is so necessary to stand firm in the insistence that North Korea come back to the six-party talks. When a petulant child throws a temper tantrum, you don’t give in, because it teaches the child and other children to throw a tantrum to get their way.

The reason NK wants a bilateral discussion with the US can NOT be good, after they spent this much effort doing so. To me the only thing it could be is a) trade blackmail (ie, you give us weapons and food, or we'll bomb you), or b) withdraw support from SK, at which point they will promply invade and subjugate SK, and you can bet that would not be good for the citizens of SK (since they treat their current citizens so well!).


Technorati: North Korea

The Independant Conservative points out that the reason they have nukes in the first place is b/c of the Clinton administration helped them there. Further, Dr. Michael Savage advocates a military option, pointing out the futility of sactions. Savage is a right-wing glory-hound nut, but somehow managed to get a PhD from berkley when they were handing them out with UPC coupons. Shrug, takes all types I guess.

Mixter's Mix mentinos that Bush continued the Clinton plan (1994 Agreed Framework), and in 2002 released almost $100M to fund two 'weapon proof' nuke reactors to NK without requiring inspections, thus this could have promoted NK nuclear proliferation. I don't think it helped, but the reactors were never finished. Anyway it's not like we haven't tried giving NK what it wants, but they just ask for more, like a penguin mobster.



Technorati: North Korea

John McCain, a man I admire, is guest blogging at Captain's Quarters

I would remind Senator Hillary Clinton and other Democrats critical of Bush Administration policies that the framework agreement her husband’s administration negotiated was a failure. The Koreans received millions in energy assistance. They diverted millions in food assistance to their military. And what did they do? They secretly enriched uranium.

Prior to the agreement, every single time the Clinton Administration warned the Koreans not to do something — not to kick out the IAEA inspectors, not to remove the fuel rods from their reactor — they did it. And they were rewarded every single time by the Clinton Administration with further talks. We had a carrots and no sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn’t work, we offered another.

Ouch! Yeah, we need something with teeth, they don't get it otherwise.



Technorati: North Korea

Okay, so they tested their little bomb, and apparently it worked (although there is some doubt about that (it's either a very low yield weapon, or didn't work).

Update: The Foreign Policy blog is speculating what a NK dud would mean, as some nuclear experts suggest the test was. Not knowing anything about nukes, i'd say the suggested yield of only 1kt or so is much less than a sustainable nuclear reaction would produce, but I hardly am an expert in the field.

Update2: U.S. officials are now saying it's a dud.



Update2: Capt. Ed notes that Australia has already impossed unilateral penalties, including revoking visas.


Technorati: North Korea

On Ann Coulter:

I actually feel sorry for her. Once your career is based on denigrating 9/11 widows, what's your second act? Unless you dig up Mother Teresa and stick a dildo in her eye, nothing could be more offensive.

Glenn thinks the fun part of this is that Stewart actually reads blogs...or maybe you just can't do the Coulter quote justice, and not piss off Mother Teresa. But i swear the man has a evil demonic agent who alerts him anytime Instapundit is mentioned.

Part of a big story on Colbert.

Here's an interesting comparison about Battlestar Galactica and the current situation in the mideast, (current = last 30 years). It's a valid point I think. I think BSG is an excellent show, but gritty; it's not campy or humorous. But I still like House M.D. and Stargate SG1 which are humorous and campy respectively.

Here's an good article that goes into some details about how megapixels on cameras isn't the sole criteria for measuring image quality. Its completely true. Generally speaking when comparing among cameras of a specific generation, ie all the cameras built within the last 6 months, throw away the fact that some are 6, or 8 or 10 megapixel. In fact, some 6 MP cameras look better than the 8 or 10, b/c the same ccd is used and does a better job with less pixels. More pixels allows you to blow up the image to high print size, that's pretty much it. You can also get away with more digital zoom, ie taking a small portion of the picture and amplifying it. So, MP aren't useless, but the most important thing is how pictures actually look coming out of the camera, not how many pixels it can store.

Pretty cool shot of Mars Rover "Opportunity" perched at the edge of a crater here.

Work has decided to start blocking a whole list of websites. Before, they were limited to porn, dating sites, etc. Now they are blocking youtube, sports sites, IMDB (the movie database), game sites (anything to do with games, either blogs, or reviews, or whatever). Of course it makes sense and all, but it doesn't encourage me to stay late and work, if there is nothing to occupy my time while I am waiting for slow experiments. Maybe this means i will get home sooner now. For non 8 to 5 people like, I would not be surprised to see productivity actually decrease now. For 8 to 5 people productivity may actually increase.

This is probably due to this study. , which doesn't seem all that bad to me. I get the arguement that looking at porn and gambling is a bad thing. I also understand that baudwidth is being sucked up by increasingly video-oriented web (which is why work banned youtube). And I also get that people shouldn't be web surfing while working. But I think that if there is no recreation allowed at work, there would be no incentive to do any more than required, the usual 40 hour work week. Of course employers won't agree, that's fine.

It's an interesting issue (discussed here); if we had to ration shots, who would get them first, and who would be allowed to die or fall ill? The three groups are adults, children, and elderly. Seems like a no-brainer to me, vaccinate the kids. First, the elderly have already contributed to society, and kids have not, nor have they had a chance to reproduce. Ecologically speaking, this is the reason our kids are important, because if they are killed off, our species would go extinct (whereas if you kill off the elderly, this would not happen). Second, as the article notes, schools and kids are walking plagues, very prone to infection and spreading it, due to schools, etc. Elderly are less so, being more issolated and not mobile. In an epidemic situation, the kids would be the real typhoid marys. Epidemiological work bears this out; if we vaccinate kids, the number of elderly who get sick plummets. (this is the same argument used by the article quoted above, I just happen to agree with it. The ecology arguement is of course new and probably repugnant to the vast majority of us).

Last year, scientists showed in a model that if you vaccinate about 60% of U.S. schoolchildren, flu deaths among the elderly would fall to 6,600 from the typical 34,000. "It's not necessarily true that the best way to protect someone is to vaccinate that person," says Ira Longini of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle. "In the case of the elderly, flu vaccine doesn't protect them very well, so breaking the chain of transmission provides greater protection."

Of course, we shouldn't have to make this choice; the vaccine market should be viable and profitable, yet very few companies want to deal with the FDA requirements. There is probably a cost component too - since it's not required, if the vaccine is too expensive people won't buy it.

At Patterico. Rivetting stuff. Certainly blows the claims of 'detainee abuse' out of the water.

Apparently I missed it. Still, now everyone knows the evils of DRM (digital rights management)

4% of the national hops supply went up in smoke yesterday. I can see it now.

Soaring prices.
Beer lines.
Angry fights in beer lines.
Riots in beer lines.
A national of alcoholics in withdraw
The alcoholics turn zombified due to lack of suds
28 days later...we're all dead.

Found this amusing article on Boingboing.

"The online and blogging community had a field day tearing down Stephane Dion for failing to cite the David Suzuki Foundation report The Air We Breathe as a source for his environmental platform ... [David Suzuki himself put] forward an open call for the general use of his foundation's research: 'Knock yourselves out. Feel free to steal, pilfer, borrow, rent, filch or otherwise take any research my foundation does and put it to good use.'"

Yeah, I agree with Suzuki. If the research is published and available to the public or the scientific community, you are supposed to actually use it, and it's not really theft. Attribution would be nice though. However, if you are talking to another scientist in a coffee shop about your work, and they come along and publish it, or worse, steal your unpublished data and publish it under their name, that's a big no no. So there are allowable and not allowable uses of scientific data. Generally we're happy as long as we're cited and the data are published. Would I really care if someone took my dissertation and used that as a basis for a study? No, I wouldn't care (particularly since my paper was finally published in biochemical journal). Would I mind if a colleague saw a presentation of mine and published it somewhere? You bet, it certainly crosses the line. Seems obvious to me, but i guess the general public and teh science community have different moral standards.

Story here. RIGHT! Does anyone believe them? 5 years ago oil prices where half the price they are now. Were they low then, too? Folks, $60/barrel is NOT CHEAP OIL. Just 5-10 years ago, it was 2x or 3x less. In 1998 it was $11. In 2000 it was $27, in 2002, $23. The audacity of OPEC knows no bounds. Also see this previous post during the spring of this year. What we should be asking is, how can the world cut oil demand, and why are oil suppliers making such a huge profit (answer, because they can, of course). The profit margin for the oil countries is astonding, something like 400 fold above production cost. The oil refineries carry little profit; most of it is from pumping. Already gas here has dropped from about $3 this summer to $2.00 currently, here in Houston, due to oversupply and probably the MTBE additive required for the summer (to ease pollution). But we can't let OPEC think that $2 gas is cheap, it isn't and we know it.

One word; beer. The resurgance of microbrews is the story of everything great about the American economy, as discussed in the recent Slate meme. Truely the micros are in a renessance, and I think as more and more people start to wake up and enjoy decent beer (read, non-major brewery beer), this trend will continue. It's an issue of distribution. You see, beer doesn't last too long, regardless of what tricks the brewers employ. So the longer the distrubtion network, the longer it takes for you to get the beer, and the less you'll enjoy it. Microbrews dramatically lower that distribution, so the beer is fresher and thus tastier. The best beer is drunk at the brewery, although great beers like Shiner Bock are available in Texas (with limited distrubtion in surrounding states). Likewise w/ Oregon or Colorado brews; some famous brews make it out(ie Bridgeport IPA, New Belgian brews), but a host of others do not (can't recall examples, sorry).

The other great thing is that all these breweries support biking; Portland is great for biking, Shiner has their yearly Shiner Bash, New Belgium has the Tour de Fat (Fat Tire brew, Fat Tire is what we call mountain bike tires).

The success of microbrews is everything great about this country, ingenuity, hard work ethic, and great taste!

Heh, they said naked.

They're here

Lots of online literature resources are available, for ex literature network, which includes 1984

Micro$oft has entered the portable digital music player market with Zune (yet to be released). However, it's pricing is the same as the iPod, which is about the most expensive player on the market. So why get it? Says M$: it's viral networking, stupid. Apparently you can share content (photos, music, etc) with other users rather easily. That would be pretty cool, but at the $200-$300 price tag, we need a lot more info before plunking down that sort of cash for something that isn't made by apple (which we know has a great reputation in this market)

The famous book from Stephen Hawking is online here.

Says *the* man. Bummer. Apparently he's doing comics nowadays?

In other news, i got drafted to be the website administrator for our local cycling club, pearland cycling club. At last my dreams of global domination are coming to fruition! :)