Took Beth out to lunch today to our favorite Mexican place, Guadalajara on South Parkway. We got our usual meals, she had a margarita, I had a Bud Light. Yeah, I know, but somehow Mexican food and crappy beer kinda go together.
Afterwards I stopped by Great Spirits and, lo and behold, they had finally gotten some more Rogue Dead Guy in stock. Bought a sixer and a single I haven't had before.
Then I went to UAH campus and signed up for the math placement test. I'm studying this week, so I arranged to be there at 9:30 AM on May 16th. Hopefully I can place into Calculus, despite my six-year absence from any math classes.
Also stopped by the UAH library to look up some more information on amylase, which was unfortunately a bust. I did find several Isaac Asimov essay collections I haven't read, though, so the trip wasn't a total loss.
I'm going to spent the time until Beth comes home drinking a Dead Guy and reading Asimov. Not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon, if you can get away with it.
05 May 2006
04 May 2006
Libertarianism?
Over at Dispatches From the Culture Wars, Ed Brayton has had several posts (see here, here, and here) that deal in whole or in part with libertarian political philosophy. As a teenager, I felt strongly that libertarian philosophy was the most self-consistent and logical political stance one could take, and that as such it should be the political philosophy of choice for any reasoning person (in other words, I was caught up in the works of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein), but as I have gotten older I have moved further away from such a position.
Now, this is no way invalidates the concept of self-consistency or logic in judging the worth of political theory, not in the slightest. Indeed, I feel that many of the mistakes that our government makes (particularly under the oh-so-inspired leadership of Shrub) could be remedied --or at least mediated-- by properly involving a bit more logic and self-consistency. However, I feel that many of the claims of libertarian philosophy are based more on a Socratic or more properly Scholastic methodology instead of an empical one.
By a Scholastic methodology, determining truth or falsity of a particular statement (in modern-day logical terms) is to be done by examining a set series of writings, such as the works of Aristotle, and simply uncoverng hidden truths about the subject being studied through introspection and interpretation of the ancient text. Likewise, as Michael Shermer so ably demonstrated here, many of the modern-day libertarian thinkers (who oh-so-ironically call themselves Objectivists) take exactly this approach to the works of Ayn Rand and other (very few!) libertarian thinkers. A strange phenomenon indeed for a group that insists on its own independent thought and individual reasoning.
It is actually perhaps a bit unfair to compare all libertarian thinkers with the cult-like mentality exposed by Shermer -- after all Brayton himself is by no means beholden to the texts of Rand, and neither are those at The Cato Institute. However, such cult-like activity by those extreme libertarians holding to the Holy Texts of Ayn Rand are, I feel, a fairly reasonable symptom of the thought of other libertarians who are so enraptured in their own political philosophy that they lose touch with reality.
An example, not from Brayton, but from a commenter on one of the entries above.
Now, of course, I agree that the "War-on-Drugs" is a terrible policy debacle that should be ended, and I am generally in support of allowing people to make up their own minds. But gutting the FDA (or at least declawing it)? It sounds good on paper, but as other commenters in the thread demonstrate, such an idea really leads us back to something like the olden days of snake-oil salesmen, in that medical doctors suddenly have no independent body doing research into a drug's efficacy for them. In short, consumers get screwed because large-scale organizations (namely, pharmaceutical corporations) have the money and power to keep truth out of the hands of ordinary individuals, and even have the civil right to not have to share information.
One could possibly get around this with independent accrediting bodies for pharmaceuticals, but don't we then run into the problem of collusion amongst the accrediting agencies and the manufacturers of drugs?
I think that an objective, empirical view of these matters indicates that there are certain functions (namely, I would argue, regulation, healthcare, and education, among others) that corporations simply don't do well, due to the difficulty in maintaining profit margins in these areas. I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy, but for those taxes the government provides me with safety, with infrastructure, with regulation insuring the meat I buy, the drugs I take, the air I breathe, et cetera will be clean and safe to use, and many other functions.
I say let all the real hard-core libertarians go set up shop in the newly-unoccupied areas of Iraq or Afghanistan and set up Libertopia over there. When I've seen it work on a non-trivial level, I'd be happy to try to enact reforms over here. Until then, some "big government" regulatory and functional bodies are necessary.
Now, this is no way invalidates the concept of self-consistency or logic in judging the worth of political theory, not in the slightest. Indeed, I feel that many of the mistakes that our government makes (particularly under the oh-so-inspired leadership of Shrub) could be remedied --or at least mediated-- by properly involving a bit more logic and self-consistency. However, I feel that many of the claims of libertarian philosophy are based more on a Socratic or more properly Scholastic methodology instead of an empical one.
By a Scholastic methodology, determining truth or falsity of a particular statement (in modern-day logical terms) is to be done by examining a set series of writings, such as the works of Aristotle, and simply uncoverng hidden truths about the subject being studied through introspection and interpretation of the ancient text. Likewise, as Michael Shermer so ably demonstrated here, many of the modern-day libertarian thinkers (who oh-so-ironically call themselves Objectivists) take exactly this approach to the works of Ayn Rand and other (very few!) libertarian thinkers. A strange phenomenon indeed for a group that insists on its own independent thought and individual reasoning.
It is actually perhaps a bit unfair to compare all libertarian thinkers with the cult-like mentality exposed by Shermer -- after all Brayton himself is by no means beholden to the texts of Rand, and neither are those at The Cato Institute. However, such cult-like activity by those extreme libertarians holding to the Holy Texts of Ayn Rand are, I feel, a fairly reasonable symptom of the thought of other libertarians who are so enraptured in their own political philosophy that they lose touch with reality.
An example, not from Brayton, but from a commenter on one of the entries above.
Not only would I legalize drugs like cocaine, but I would also legalize all prescription drugs. At the same time, I would make the FDA approval process voluntary. If a pharma company decides to obtain FDA approval, it would receive qualified immunity from product liability suits. Fraud/failure to disclose during the approval process would of course, negate any immunity.
The government simply should not have the right to tell me what I can legally ingest. If I am suffering from MS and I find that Tysarbi (or marijuana or Vioxx or whatever) works for me, I should be able to use it. Banning a drug because of rare, fatal side effects is not a choice for the government. I should be able to make that risk assessment myself.
Now, of course, I agree that the "War-on-Drugs" is a terrible policy debacle that should be ended, and I am generally in support of allowing people to make up their own minds. But gutting the FDA (or at least declawing it)? It sounds good on paper, but as other commenters in the thread demonstrate, such an idea really leads us back to something like the olden days of snake-oil salesmen, in that medical doctors suddenly have no independent body doing research into a drug's efficacy for them. In short, consumers get screwed because large-scale organizations (namely, pharmaceutical corporations) have the money and power to keep truth out of the hands of ordinary individuals, and even have the civil right to not have to share information.
One could possibly get around this with independent accrediting bodies for pharmaceuticals, but don't we then run into the problem of collusion amongst the accrediting agencies and the manufacturers of drugs?
I think that an objective, empirical view of these matters indicates that there are certain functions (namely, I would argue, regulation, healthcare, and education, among others) that corporations simply don't do well, due to the difficulty in maintaining profit margins in these areas. I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy, but for those taxes the government provides me with safety, with infrastructure, with regulation insuring the meat I buy, the drugs I take, the air I breathe, et cetera will be clean and safe to use, and many other functions.
I say let all the real hard-core libertarians go set up shop in the newly-unoccupied areas of Iraq or Afghanistan and set up Libertopia over there. When I've seen it work on a non-trivial level, I'd be happy to try to enact reforms over here. Until then, some "big government" regulatory and functional bodies are necessary.
03 May 2006
Why I'd Make a Terrible Father
As I mentioned earlier, Beth and I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning with my mother and my sister, who has a now-six-month old baby (cute pictures here) named Camden, who is cute and adorable and endlessly watchable even when he's not feeling well due to tubes having been put in his ears, as was the case over the weekend. Now, I can't say I'm overly fond of children in general, having a general preference for the intellectual and social world of adults, but Camden's a cute kid, and I can certainly imagine feeling more love for the little brats when (or if) I ever have one of my own.
So anyway, Camden was lying on the floor Saturday night kicking at one of his toys, when a bit of drool escaped from the side of his mouth. Being the good uncle (and having a napkin handy) I wiped the fluid from the side of his mouth, cleaned his face in general, then started thinking:
I wonder when babies start to produce amylase?
A bit of explanation is at hand. Enzymes are macromolecules (proteins, actually) that act as catalysts to allow high-energy chemical reactions to take place in relatively low-energy regions, such as the human body. For instance, the body "burns" sugars in the muscles through the breaking off of phosphate groups from ATP molecules -- an enzyme binds to the phosphate group and removes it with what's known as a dehydration reaction to "burn" the molecule, while in ordinary circumstances the energy required to burn off that bit of energy would require temperatures far in excess of what the human body could stand. Enzymes are not magical chemicals -- far from it -- but they are one of the things that make life fairly unique in the universe, and much of the study of biochemistry is really the study of enzymes.
Amylase is an enzyme found in saliva (and in the pancreas, but that's another issue) that binds with certain chemical bonds in starches and breaks them down into molecules that are usable in the production of energy and proteins by the organism. (It is of course aided by digestive enzymes in the stomach and intestines, but that's a bit out of field here.) In my Intro to Biology course at UAH, one of our labs involved placing ground up cereal grains into a solution of water and amylase, and oberving the carbon dioxide produced by enzymmatic action. In the lab, we used professionally-obtained (or perhaps synthesized) amylase, but in theory could have simply used our own saliva to break down the cereal, although saliva contains other enzymes as well.
My curiosity, then, was at what age amylase was produced by the human body, in particular by the salivary glands. I was struck by the incredible urge to collect a few milliliters of Camden's saliva (not difficult, I assume, given the production of fluids by babies) and an equal amount of my own, mix each with some cereal or some other starch (like crackers) and place them both next to a control and a timer. And I might have done exactly that, except that the child's mother and grandmother were sitting right there playing with their baby and otherwise being perfectly normal, well-adjusted individuals, and might have taken offense to my doing strange experiments with their child's saliva.
How easy would it be to imagine me using one of my own children as a little walking, talking microbiology lab, blithely ignoring their needs so that I could satiate my own curiosity regarding their development in a hands-on, somewhat-controlled way? I have no doubt that I'll soon end up living up to the self-given moniker "Weird Uncle Daniel" anytime now.
So anyway, Camden was lying on the floor Saturday night kicking at one of his toys, when a bit of drool escaped from the side of his mouth. Being the good uncle (and having a napkin handy) I wiped the fluid from the side of his mouth, cleaned his face in general, then started thinking:
I wonder when babies start to produce amylase?
A bit of explanation is at hand. Enzymes are macromolecules (proteins, actually) that act as catalysts to allow high-energy chemical reactions to take place in relatively low-energy regions, such as the human body. For instance, the body "burns" sugars in the muscles through the breaking off of phosphate groups from ATP molecules -- an enzyme binds to the phosphate group and removes it with what's known as a dehydration reaction to "burn" the molecule, while in ordinary circumstances the energy required to burn off that bit of energy would require temperatures far in excess of what the human body could stand. Enzymes are not magical chemicals -- far from it -- but they are one of the things that make life fairly unique in the universe, and much of the study of biochemistry is really the study of enzymes.
Amylase is an enzyme found in saliva (and in the pancreas, but that's another issue) that binds with certain chemical bonds in starches and breaks them down into molecules that are usable in the production of energy and proteins by the organism. (It is of course aided by digestive enzymes in the stomach and intestines, but that's a bit out of field here.) In my Intro to Biology course at UAH, one of our labs involved placing ground up cereal grains into a solution of water and amylase, and oberving the carbon dioxide produced by enzymmatic action. In the lab, we used professionally-obtained (or perhaps synthesized) amylase, but in theory could have simply used our own saliva to break down the cereal, although saliva contains other enzymes as well.
My curiosity, then, was at what age amylase was produced by the human body, in particular by the salivary glands. I was struck by the incredible urge to collect a few milliliters of Camden's saliva (not difficult, I assume, given the production of fluids by babies) and an equal amount of my own, mix each with some cereal or some other starch (like crackers) and place them both next to a control and a timer. And I might have done exactly that, except that the child's mother and grandmother were sitting right there playing with their baby and otherwise being perfectly normal, well-adjusted individuals, and might have taken offense to my doing strange experiments with their child's saliva.
How easy would it be to imagine me using one of my own children as a little walking, talking microbiology lab, blithely ignoring their needs so that I could satiate my own curiosity regarding their development in a hands-on, somewhat-controlled way? I have no doubt that I'll soon end up living up to the self-given moniker "Weird Uncle Daniel" anytime now.
01 May 2006
I've got no problems with psychology, I promise
Just stuck a photo into the MyHeritage.com Celebrity face analyzer. Guess who I look like?
That's right, crazy-ass, couch-jumping, anti-depressant-pooh-poohing, placenta-eating Tom Cruise. (Oh, and also a huge movie star who has made quite a few really really fuckin' good movies. And one more to boot.
I'd throw up the picture it gave me for comparison, but MyHeritage won't let me save the pictures it throws up (damned Flash!). My other matches include Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone, Meg Ryan (!), and Kenneth Branaugh. I can go with that.
Since I'm linking to the Superficial above, and in a blatant attempt to increase my visit count, I'm also linking to Jessica Alba being a tease, getting all Sapphic with Rosario Dawson (I wish!), wearing a bikini, picking a wedgie in a totally sexy way, and bending over in a white bikini. You're welcome.
Oh, and I just did this picture of Beth.
One of hers was Christy Turlington. Whoo-hoo! I'm engaged to a mid-90's supermodel! (Not a supermodel in her mid-90's, mind you...)
That's right, crazy-ass, couch-jumping, anti-depressant-pooh-poohing, placenta-eating Tom Cruise. (Oh, and also a huge movie star who has made quite a few really really fuckin' good movies. And one more to boot.
I'd throw up the picture it gave me for comparison, but MyHeritage won't let me save the pictures it throws up (damned Flash!). My other matches include Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone, Meg Ryan (!), and Kenneth Branaugh. I can go with that.
Since I'm linking to the Superficial above, and in a blatant attempt to increase my visit count, I'm also linking to Jessica Alba being a tease, getting all Sapphic with Rosario Dawson (I wish!), wearing a bikini, picking a wedgie in a totally sexy way, and bending over in a white bikini. You're welcome.
Oh, and I just did this picture of Beth.
One of hers was Christy Turlington. Whoo-hoo! I'm engaged to a mid-90's supermodel! (Not a supermodel in her mid-90's, mind you...)
And we thought Texas was bad
Oh, dear God. Wasn't Roy Moore enough for my poor state?
Beth sent me this link from one of the local news station websites this morning. At least the local Democratic Party isn't supporting his nomination.
He's behind in the polls, but as the wag says, is that because he's a holocaust-denier, or because he's an atheist?
Beth sent me this link from one of the local news station websites this morning. At least the local Democratic Party isn't supporting his nomination.
He's behind in the polls, but as the wag says, is that because he's a holocaust-denier, or because he's an atheist?
Our tax dollars at work, and a link or two.
Over the weekend I went to visit my family down in Millbrook, which took me out of my comfortable little cocoon here long enough to give me some interesting stuff to talk about. I'll be covering it over the next couple of days.
On the drive back, a bit south of Birmingham, Beth and I witnessed a single-car accident. I was on the phone with UncleFlip, arranging a meeting place so he could give me the two bottles of Dark Lord Imperial Stout when out of the corner of my eye I some movement in my rearview mirror. The car in the lane beside me smashed into the metal divider that separated the lanes of traffic on I-65, spun around 360 degrees, and made a huge squealing noise and kicked up a lot of dust. Basically smashing in the entire front end of the vehicle at some 65-70 miles per hour.
"Oh, shit," I said, still on the phone with Flip.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'll call you back."
Utterly calm and collected, I pulled off on the side of the road, hung up with flip, and dialed 911. After a moment with a very professional emergency operator (the kind I hope I'd get to speak to if I were ever in a danger spot), Beth and I got out my Mazda to walk back and see if there was anything we could do. We'd moved ahead of the other vehicle by maybe five hundred feet, and trudging back there through the weeds on the side of the interstate was fairly rough going, but not too bad. Still, by the time we got to the other vehicle (some sort of white or silver sedan), a fire engine and a local cop were pulling up to the scene.
We happened to have pulled off onto the other side of the interstate, so the cop yelled to us, "Are you involved?" as he walked up.
"No, we just called it in."
He made a hand motion to stay back and checked on the occupant of the vehicle. A youngish foreign girl who couldn't have been more than twenty or so, she seemed unharmed by the incident and was stepping out of the car when the cop got there.
After a few minutes of watching (traffic was getting backed up, as well) and yelling to no less than two firefighters that we weren't involved, that we just called it in, the cop crossed the street (carefully, mind you) and asked me what I saw. I told him that I had seen the car hit the rail in my rearview mirror and had called in the accident. He thanked me and told me to be on my way.
I was amazed at the speed at which it happened. No less than ten minutes after witnessing the accident, we were back in our car and on the way. And then my hands started shaking a bit, likely from the adrenaline rush. The rest of the three-hour drive to Huntsville was a bit rough, not least because a bit later it started raining, and I was feeling just a bit twitchy.
Interesting how I was utterly calm at first, and only began to stress out over it later. Selective advantage or neutral drift I can't say, but obviously the adrenaline system has its quirks.
And, on a completely different note:
This is a link to Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner on Saturday. I'm a huge fan of The Colbert Report, and this is some really good material from him.
Zazzafooky is a personal blog that I'm working through the archives of. Heartfelt oddities from an often humorous but often painful personal perspective of an Angeleno. It's interesting stuff.
On the drive back, a bit south of Birmingham, Beth and I witnessed a single-car accident. I was on the phone with UncleFlip, arranging a meeting place so he could give me the two bottles of Dark Lord Imperial Stout when out of the corner of my eye I some movement in my rearview mirror. The car in the lane beside me smashed into the metal divider that separated the lanes of traffic on I-65, spun around 360 degrees, and made a huge squealing noise and kicked up a lot of dust. Basically smashing in the entire front end of the vehicle at some 65-70 miles per hour.
"Oh, shit," I said, still on the phone with Flip.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'll call you back."
Utterly calm and collected, I pulled off on the side of the road, hung up with flip, and dialed 911. After a moment with a very professional emergency operator (the kind I hope I'd get to speak to if I were ever in a danger spot), Beth and I got out my Mazda to walk back and see if there was anything we could do. We'd moved ahead of the other vehicle by maybe five hundred feet, and trudging back there through the weeds on the side of the interstate was fairly rough going, but not too bad. Still, by the time we got to the other vehicle (some sort of white or silver sedan), a fire engine and a local cop were pulling up to the scene.
We happened to have pulled off onto the other side of the interstate, so the cop yelled to us, "Are you involved?" as he walked up.
"No, we just called it in."
He made a hand motion to stay back and checked on the occupant of the vehicle. A youngish foreign girl who couldn't have been more than twenty or so, she seemed unharmed by the incident and was stepping out of the car when the cop got there.
After a few minutes of watching (traffic was getting backed up, as well) and yelling to no less than two firefighters that we weren't involved, that we just called it in, the cop crossed the street (carefully, mind you) and asked me what I saw. I told him that I had seen the car hit the rail in my rearview mirror and had called in the accident. He thanked me and told me to be on my way.
I was amazed at the speed at which it happened. No less than ten minutes after witnessing the accident, we were back in our car and on the way. And then my hands started shaking a bit, likely from the adrenaline rush. The rest of the three-hour drive to Huntsville was a bit rough, not least because a bit later it started raining, and I was feeling just a bit twitchy.
Interesting how I was utterly calm at first, and only began to stress out over it later. Selective advantage or neutral drift I can't say, but obviously the adrenaline system has its quirks.
And, on a completely different note:
This is a link to Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner on Saturday. I'm a huge fan of The Colbert Report, and this is some really good material from him.
Zazzafooky is a personal blog that I'm working through the archives of. Heartfelt oddities from an often humorous but often painful personal perspective of an Angeleno. It's interesting stuff.
29 April 2006
World Wide Stout
Well, I had that bottle of World Wide Stout I was talking about yesterday. Utterly fantastic beer.
UncleFlip, from the BA and FTH forums, is on a trip to Three Floyd's to pick up as much Dark Lord as he can -- he's promised me a bottle or two. He's also picked me up a sixer of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot from Atlanta, and hopefully we can work it out so I can get all of this from him this week sometime.
Beth is really hungover this morning, having had only a little over a bottle of wine. Usually that's not enough to make her get sick, but apparently her tolerance isn't what it once was.
Dogfish Head World Wide StoutBeth tried it with me last night and nearly stole the damn thing from me, and she's definetly not a beer drinker. Next time I'm in Nashville I'll be on the lookout for more of that stuff for sure.
A: 4.5
S: 4.5
T: 5.0
M: 5.0
D: 4.5
Received in trade from fdrich29. (Thanks, Frank!)
Bottled in 2003. Beer tasted and consumed on my one-year beer-reviewing anniversary, 4/28/06.
A: Pours black, black, black into a pint glass. No real head, just khaki-colored "soap scum" on the top of the glass. Leaves some lacing.
S: Aroma thick, malty, strong notes of grapes -- almost like a deep dark red wine. Slight astringency, slight coffee, and notes of licorice, walnuts, and caramel.
T: Strong coffee and raisin flavor, sweet and strongly astringent due to alcohol. Aftertaste astringent, again like a fine red wine -- no hop bitterness at all. Warming sensation in chest, and as the beer warms the flavor profile increases in maltiness.
M: Mouthfeel thick, syrupy, even chewy. Bready, even.
T: So incredibly drinkable. I'll be buying these whenever I see them.
UncleFlip, from the BA and FTH forums, is on a trip to Three Floyd's to pick up as much Dark Lord as he can -- he's promised me a bottle or two. He's also picked me up a sixer of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot from Atlanta, and hopefully we can work it out so I can get all of this from him this week sometime.
Beth is really hungover this morning, having had only a little over a bottle of wine. Usually that's not enough to make her get sick, but apparently her tolerance isn't what it once was.
28 April 2006
Final Exam
I had my final for my Intro Biology class today. I feel certain that I'll end up with at least a B in the class overall, with the distinct possibility of an A. Of course, I was really hoping for an A, so a B will be somewhat disappointing, but I suppose I can live with the disappointment.
In other news, today is my one-year anniversary of my very first beer review over at Beer Advocate. Members can read my very first review here or for those who haven't joined, I'll post it below:
In other news, today is my one-year anniversary of my very first beer review over at Beer Advocate. Members can read my very first review here or for those who haven't joined, I'll post it below:
I've learned a lot since then. Tonight I'm planning on having my bottle of World Wide Stout -- I'll post the review here when I get it done.
Mackseon XXX
A: 4.5
S: 4.5
T: 4.5
M: 4.5
D: 5.0
Six-pack purchased from Great Spirits, Huntsville, AL.
This is a truly fantastic example of what beer can be. Pours a deep black color with amount of head depending on the aggressiveness of the pour. I tend to like a medium-aggressive pour, which produces a small but persistent red/black foam that persists until the end of the brew. An overly-aggressive pour can effect the head, and also effect the perceived sweetness of the beer -- if you want this beer to taste more like a dessert, it's best to pour more aggressively from the bottle.
After the look, the smell's the first thing that hits you. Smells like a nice stout, not a lot of hops, balanced perfectly between sweetness and bitterness. The aroma is one of the best parts of the brew; I like to sniff continually while drinking, and have been known to let it sit for awhile on my desk to let the aroma sink in for a bit.
Taste is fantastic, with coffee and chocolate flavors dominating, but still with that "beeriness" and alcohol underneath. Finishes about the same way it started, with perhaps a bit more bitterness.
The mouthfeel is good, but I the carbonation seems a bit overdone to me. It's not an extreme deal (hence the high rating) but the carbonation means I can't quite guzzle this one the way I'd sometimes like to.
This is one of my favorite beers right now. It has all of the qualities of a great stout, but instead of being bitter and dry, it is sweet and refreshing. I realize that not everyone shares my taste on matters of bitterness, but if you've tried Guinness or Rogue and didn't care for the dryness, this is an excellent brew to try.
EDIT 6/25/2005: I bought another six-pack of these and tried them again last night, and found that many of my earlier caveats about mouthfeel and drinkability were unfounded. This beer is good at virtually any temperature range, and even when I had one at nearly room temperature, it went down smooth and clean. I absolutely love this beer, and have upped the drinkability to 5 and the mouthfeel to 4.5 to better reflect what my more sophisticated palate tells me about this beer.
24 April 2006
Destroying the World, or Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot
Beth and I ate lunch today (my first day of unemployment) at that fine-dining capital of the known universe, Taco Bell. After dropping her off, I drove off towards campus to look at the on-campus jobs postings (bupkiss, basically) and decided to see what AM radio was like around one PM here in Huntsville. By chance (or by design?) Rush Limbaugh's fine, fine program was on.
First off, has anyone noticed how much of the air time on these programs is filled with needless advertisements of other AM talk radio programs or other such things? The signal to noise ratio is even worse than network TV, I suspect, and may even be on the "free porn site" level. Not that Rush Limbaugh makes me think of pornography or anything...
What made me want to post, though, was that Rushie-boy was pontificating about environmentalism and so-called doomsayers in the environmental movement. He teased his audience, saying that he had coming up a list of the top ten things to destroy the Earth, and that "global warming's not on the list!" A bit later (the drive was fairly long, as I expected for the early afternoon Parkway driving), Limbaugh quoted the list by one "Sam Hughes" and went through it point-by-point. The top ten?
10. Total Existence Failure (i.e. all the molecules in the Earth just happen to spontaneously not be there anymore.)
9. Gobbled by strangelets (absorbing the earth into strange quarks.)
8. Sucked into a microscopic black hole
7. Blown up by a matter/antimatter reaction
6. Destroyed by vacuum point energy
5. Sucked into a giant black hole (I like that there are two specific black hole methods on the list)
4. Meticulously and systematically deconstructed (in essence, hurl the mass of the Earth into space using some advanced energy rail.)
3. Blown into smithereens by collision with a blunt instrument (like, say, Mars.)
2. Eaten by von Neumann machines
1. Hurled into the sun
Limbaugh included some commentary on these methods from an article that I found here, basically describing each of these methods to his audience. To any reasonable person with an interest in science or science fiction, these "methods" are really just a bunch of thought experiments meant to provide a bit of humor to geeks interested in such things, and perhaps to give some perspective as to the size and the nature of the Earth and the universe around us. The author even references Terry Pratchett, Red Dwarf and other science fiction comedy sources in compliling this list. It's a gag.
But Limbaugh, not recognizing this or not caring, seems to feel that it merits some sort of serious discussion. First of all, he clearly hasn't a clue what most of the items on the list really mean, in particular items like zero-point energy and von Neumann machines. Secondly, he uses the bizarre and horribly inconvenient nature of these "methods" to argue that environmentalism is wack, because obviously it takes a lot more than simple pollution to destroy the Earth.
Well, no shit. While we might argue that lefties worrying about human action "destroying the planet" are engaging in a bit of hysterical rhetoric, most persons would agree that the real worry such environmental concerns indicate is not the literal destruction of the ball of solid and liquid rock and metal that is the Earth, but the carbon/nitrogen-based and much more fragile life forms (most notably, that odd chordate called Homo sapiens) that live on the surface.
Limbaugh has, wittingly or unwittingly, created an enormous straw man here. And has absolutely no regard for scientific knowledge. If he weren't such a powerful personality with so many millions of listeners, I'd feel sorry for the bloviating blowhard.
(And I'm sure my title is completely original to myself. Came up with it myself, y'see?)
First off, has anyone noticed how much of the air time on these programs is filled with needless advertisements of other AM talk radio programs or other such things? The signal to noise ratio is even worse than network TV, I suspect, and may even be on the "free porn site" level. Not that Rush Limbaugh makes me think of pornography or anything...
What made me want to post, though, was that Rushie-boy was pontificating about environmentalism and so-called doomsayers in the environmental movement. He teased his audience, saying that he had coming up a list of the top ten things to destroy the Earth, and that "global warming's not on the list!" A bit later (the drive was fairly long, as I expected for the early afternoon Parkway driving), Limbaugh quoted the list by one "Sam Hughes" and went through it point-by-point. The top ten?
10. Total Existence Failure (i.e. all the molecules in the Earth just happen to spontaneously not be there anymore.)
9. Gobbled by strangelets (absorbing the earth into strange quarks.)
8. Sucked into a microscopic black hole
7. Blown up by a matter/antimatter reaction
6. Destroyed by vacuum point energy
5. Sucked into a giant black hole (I like that there are two specific black hole methods on the list)
4. Meticulously and systematically deconstructed (in essence, hurl the mass of the Earth into space using some advanced energy rail.)
3. Blown into smithereens by collision with a blunt instrument (like, say, Mars.)
2. Eaten by von Neumann machines
1. Hurled into the sun
Limbaugh included some commentary on these methods from an article that I found here, basically describing each of these methods to his audience. To any reasonable person with an interest in science or science fiction, these "methods" are really just a bunch of thought experiments meant to provide a bit of humor to geeks interested in such things, and perhaps to give some perspective as to the size and the nature of the Earth and the universe around us. The author even references Terry Pratchett, Red Dwarf and other science fiction comedy sources in compliling this list. It's a gag.
But Limbaugh, not recognizing this or not caring, seems to feel that it merits some sort of serious discussion. First of all, he clearly hasn't a clue what most of the items on the list really mean, in particular items like zero-point energy and von Neumann machines. Secondly, he uses the bizarre and horribly inconvenient nature of these "methods" to argue that environmentalism is wack, because obviously it takes a lot more than simple pollution to destroy the Earth.
Well, no shit. While we might argue that lefties worrying about human action "destroying the planet" are engaging in a bit of hysterical rhetoric, most persons would agree that the real worry such environmental concerns indicate is not the literal destruction of the ball of solid and liquid rock and metal that is the Earth, but the carbon/nitrogen-based and much more fragile life forms (most notably, that odd chordate called Homo sapiens) that live on the surface.
Limbaugh has, wittingly or unwittingly, created an enormous straw man here. And has absolutely no regard for scientific knowledge. If he weren't such a powerful personality with so many millions of listeners, I'd feel sorry for the bloviating blowhard.
(And I'm sure my title is completely original to myself. Came up with it myself, y'see?)
20 April 2006
Whoa
Two and a half months without a post. Geez. In my defense, I've been busy with work and school (on the plus side, I'm pretty sure I'll have an A in my class when all is said and done), and just haven't had the energy to blog lately.
I did run across a neat site today:
Giant Microbes
I like the yeast, but that's probably just me.
I did run across a neat site today:
Giant Microbes
I like the yeast, but that's probably just me.
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