Travel, history, politics and everything else

I have no faith

2010-08-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have no faith. Simple a that. I've been an atheist for all of my adult life (though I used to be a little soft and called myself an agnostic for a while). So, I have no faith. I am a scientist and I have no place for faith. To me, faith is a weakness. Faith is what folks use when they can't supply enough evidence for their belief. I would rather retain doubts about something than to fall back on faith to support a belief. I do not have faith in gravity. I have rather strong evidence for gravity and have a pretty good idea of how it works (why is another story, but I'm not going to fall back on faith to explain why, I'll just leave that to future science). When we launch a spacecraft to a distant planet, I know that the scientists and engineers who built it used science and technology to do their job and the rocket engines will accelerate the spacecraft to the right speed to follow the trajectory it needs to get to its destination. With science, we can predict to the second the spacecrafts arrival at its destination. We do that with science, not faith.

I don't have faith in the love I have for my wife or in hers for me. I don't need faith. I have evidence. Evidence is much better and much more important than something as trivial as faith. Be careful of the way to say something like that to your sweetie, though. I made the mistake of saying, rather too casually to her: "I don't have any faith in your love." Oops. She didn't hear what I meant, only what I said. And it took me a long time to finally make her understand what I really meant. But I think I did finally get her to understand that my love for her is far more than what only faith could provide.

New Computer build

2010-01-09T20:00:00.000-08:00

I "newegged" my sweeties new computer, planning the build for a few weeks before x-mas. She had her mind set on one of the HP "all-in-one" computers that she first saw at Best Buy. After some research online, she found the machine she wanted upgraded somewhat that cost around $2,050. Definitely rather high for our budget. I suggested offhand "I could build a machine that would be about twice as fast for about half as much as that." She was not too interested, having her heart now set on the machine on the HP site. As x-mas approached and our budget did not expand, I started looking through the Newegg website. Her "All-in-one" had a dual core Intel processor and a 22" touchscreen with upgrades to 6G of RAM and 1TB hard drive along with Win 7 Home Edition and a Blu-Ray player. I quickly found that the Athlon II X4 620 was only $99 at Newegg and after checking out motherboards and other components I was becoming confident that I could assemble an inexpensive better machine - except for the touchscreen. The touchscreens were all expen$ive being $600 to much more than $1K. A day or two before x-mas, I finally found the clincher - HP makes a new 21.5" touchscreen (released suspiciously a day after Windows 7 was released) for only $300! Suddenly my newegg special was looking much better. My sweetie was skeptical of the cheap HP touchscreen at first and started researching and asking for the opinions of some of her tech minded friends and she slowly was won over.

Some parts of the computer were obvious. The Athlon II X4 620 quad core processor, for example, for only $99. I was set on a 1TB hard drive with ideas to upgrade later to something like 2TB RAID1 when the budget allowed and the WD Caviars SATA drives were an obvious choice. I found a Rosewill case for only $39 that looked great and I'd scribbled in an 850W power supply along with an ASUS motherboard with onboard graphics and 1 PCIe 2.0 16x slot. I scribbled Win7 Pro down for the OS and the OEM version runs just $149 at Newegg. Some memory, a Blu-Ray player and my first pass on the machine was coming in at just under $1K without the $300 HP touchscreen. A few days later when it was time to order the hardware, a few things had changed. My nice Rosewill case had jumped back to its pre-sale price, so I looked around at some of the other cases I'd been eyeing and decided to go with the Antec Nine Hundred for $89.99 - $30 more than the pre-sale price of the Rosewell & $50 more than the sale price. I also decided to go with a 750W power supply, a Corsair 750TX at $109.99. I decided to go with G.SKILL 6GP (3x2GB) DDR3 1600 triple channel RAM for $149.99. I also upgraded a few more items, going with the WD Caviar WD1001FALS 1TB drive at $99.99 (on sale, regularly $109.99) instead of the cheaper cousin that would have cost $89.99. I also upgraded to Win7 Ultimate (64bit) for $174.99. For the Blu-ray I chose an LG combo drive that ran 8X BD-ROM, 16X DVD-ROM, 40X CD-ROM with lightscribe and DVD+R for $119.99. I also upgraded my motherboard choice to an ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO socket AM3 board with onboard Radeon HD 4200 graphics as well as 2 PCIe 2.0 16x slots for future graphics upgrades. I threw in a Rosewill RNX-N2X IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB2.0 wireless dongle to hook up to my planned upgraded home wifi network (currently 802.11g but hopefully soon to be 802.11n). Total price including shipping was $1,010.21. The order was placed the night of 12/30/09 and ETA was 1/6/10.

I planned to stay home from work to recieve the packages on the 6th. In the meantime, Newegg shipped two packages. One of Murphy's Laws for shipping is that a watched package never moves, so I tried to ignore the tracking as much as possible. On Monday the 4th, it looked like one of the packages was running a day behind the other, so would one arrive on Thursday the 7th instead? Tuesday mornings check of the lead package found it out for delivery already - a day early - and mid afternoon it was delivered, left at our front door. It was the Antec case all by itself. On Wednesday the 6th, package 2 was listed as out for delivery. I spent the morning first having the oil changed in the car along with some noisy fan belts, then I bought a new Acer X233H 1080P monitor (I plan to buy a 2nd one eventually for a matched pair for my desktop but this will act as a temporary for the new machine until the HP touchscreen arrives and it will replace the monitor my desktop currently has which will go on my sweeties old computer that I will convert over to a Linux server once it officially is retired from service) as well as a Logitech MK700 keyboard & mouse set to replace my old cheapo Logitech keyboard that will go on my sweeties old computer as well eventually. Once I got home, I spent the rest of my time waiting for the shipment by catching up on e-mail and doing some other work on my computer. I also cleared some space on the table and set up the Antec case.

Just after the crack of 2PM, the doorbell rang & the UPS delivery man set the package down and was already heading for his truck, typing on his data pad. Package #2 was actually smaller than the Antec package from the day before (makes sense since everything in package 2 has to fit inside the Antec case....). I unpacked the box and checked off the items to be sure everything was there, then I went looking for my computer tools and my static wristband in particular. Found my toolbox but not the wristband, so off to Radio Shack to buy a new one. Of course they didn't have them. They suggested I go to one of the Radio Shacks halfway across town that had computer specialization. I went to Ace instead and while they didn't have one, they suggested the nearby Best Buy. Ace is always helpful even if they don't have what you came for and this was no exception. Best Buy did not sell just the wristband, but sold a computer kit with one in it for $30, so I bought it and back home I went.

I had found an article online on the Maximum PC website about their building a computer for $647. They chose the same Athlon II X4 620 CPU I did and had a good set of photos showing their build. I kept that webpage open during my build for reference. The article appears in the February 2010 issue which arrived in my mailbox about a day late to be of assistance (but that didn't matter given the web version). Assembly started slowly as I carefully organized my work area and unpacked the individual components. First was installation of the CPU and CPU heatsink and fan. I remember the first time I did that more than 10 years ago - it was intimidating then, but I find it easy now. First attaching my new grounded wrist-strap, I then lifted the AM3 socket lever. I carefully examined the motherboard manual, CPU documentation and Maximum PC website to identify the correct orientation of the CPU and after a moment had the pins aligned and it dropped easily into the socket. Closing the lever, the CPU was locked firmly in place. Next came the CPU fan and heatsink. The motherboard manual and CPU documentation helped identify the orientation I needed to use. There are 2 choices with tabs on the side of the socket that the clips attach to. I chose to put the lever on the heatsink towards the center of the motherboard and attached the clips and locked the lever. I then routed the CPU fan power cable over to the header on the motherboard labeled CPU Fan. I was worried it might get in the way of the RAM install later, so I kept that in mind as I unpackaged the G.Skill RAM. The motherboard manual did not make it obvious how to deploy the 3 sticks of RAM in the 4 RAM sockets available. Out from the middle of the motherboard (away from the CPU towards the front of the motherboard) the slots are labeled A2 B2 A1 B1. 2 of the sticks would go in A1 & B1 but the manual was unclear on if there was a difference between using A2 or B2 for the 3rd stick. I decided to put it in A2 that would separate the first 2 sticks from the third and perhaps help in keeping the 3 sticks cooler. Next it was time to install the motherboard into the case. I had removed the side panels as well as the HD cages from the case and layed the case down on its side for the install and found 6 of the needed 9 standoffs in the case. I confirmed the location of the mounting holes on the motherboard and added the last 3 metal standoffs. I popped out the I/O shield that came with the case and then installed the shield that came with the motherboard. I payed some attention to the metal tabs that help seat the motherboard and I/O sockets as I slid the motherboard into place. It wasn't obvious which of the many screws that came with the case were the ones I needed for the motherboard and I stupidly didn't check the screws with the standoffs before sliding the motherboard in. Of course, I chose the wrong screws and it took me a bit to recognize that they did not fit properly. It was challenging to get the incorrect screws out and as I finished, my sweetie called to ask to pick her up from work. I put a couple of the now identified correct screws in just to hold the motherboard in place and took a short break as I converted to taxi driver.

As play resumed I finished installing the rest of the 9 screws to attach the motherboard. The case only came with 8 screws, BTW, so I had to come up with a 9th screw from my vast collection of computer hardware. Next I needed to install the case front USB port cables as well as the power and reset button connections. Each of these was obvious with the case connector and the header on the motherboard being well labeled. The Antec Nine Hundred does not come with any power LED since the case fans come with blue LEDs that make it obvious when the power is on. The last connection was for the top panel audio and I chose to attach the case cable to the HD-audio compliant connector instead of the Legacy AC'97 connector. That was apparently the wrong choice as the top panel audio does not work yet (I'll switch those connectors next time I need to open up the case).

The Corsair power supply has a Medusa head of power cables and it took a bit to sort out who was who and what was what. It has 8 PCI-E cables, 8 SATA connectors on 2 cables, 8 IDE (peripheral) connectors on 2 cables and a 24 pin (20 + 4 pin) cable/connector and a 12V (4/8pin) cable/connector. And they are all tangled up when you remove the power supply from its packaging. I needed to stand the case upright in order to seat the power supply and screw it into place with the 4 supplied screws.

Before attaching the power connectors, I installed the Blu-Ray drive and the hard drive. The Blu-Ray went into the top 5.25 inch slot. I removed the cover with 2 screws and slid the drive in easily, locking it in place with 4 small screws. The WD hard drive slid into the top slot of one of the cages that I had removed from the case earlier. It locks in place with 4 long screws that pass through the removable cage. I first removed the large 200mm empty fan mount from the back of the top cage as it was not needed and got in the way of the hard drive installation. I then re-installed the two cages (one empty) with the HD in the top cage. The cages have fans mounted on the front of them. I wrapped up the un-needed power cables and stowed them in the empty bottom cage. I used one of the SATA power cables to attach to both the SATA Blu-Ray drive and the HD. The peripheral cable was only needed for the fans and I attached all 4 case fans on one of the 2 peripheral cables. Last was plugging in the 2 SATA data cables. I used the first 2 of 5 onboard SATA ports (there is a 6th on the back as an eSATA port).

A few cable ties later to tidy up the mess of cables, I double checked all the internal connections and then plugged in my new monitor (which came with 3 data cables, a DVI, a VGA and an HDMI cable) and plugged in my cheapo old keyboard and mouse. I then plugged in the power supply and turned it on. Pressing the power switch on top, I was greeted with the blue case lights and spinning fans and very shortly, the screen came to life as it went through its first POST. As expected, it failed when it went to look for a bootable OS. I powered down and inserted the Windows install disk before turning the power back on.

Windows 7 install went flawlessly. Well almost. I followed onscreen directions for entering my location and time zone and so on. Finally, it was time to enter the license key which comes on a sticker on the DVD case that the OEM package came in. The key is written in what looks to be microfiche sized text and I typed in the 5 sets of 5 digits of numbers and letters. When I hit return, it complained about a bad product key! I re-checked the key and retyped it 3 times. Still no joy. I logged onto microsoft webpages starting to look for a number to call (couldn't find one!). In the meantime, I looked at the product key again and as I looked at what I thought was an "8", I realized it looked like it might be a "B". Editing that character and sure enough, it took the key and continued the rest of the install.

When all was said and done, I have to say that this build was probably about the smoothest I've ever experienced (I've built about 4 or 5 other PCs before). The build went well and was quite easy. The first power up went flawlessly and the Windows 7 install was probably the fastest I've experienced even with the 10 minute speed bump I experienced with the micro-font used in the product key.

It occured to me that the Maximum PC $647 PC could have been built cheaper if they had foregone the graphics card. The motherboard I chose costs about $40 more but without their $166 graphics card, it could have come in at only about $521 using the onboard graphics! Some of the other major differences are: My choice of power supply and case. They also used only 4G of DDR2 RAM and used only a 500G hard drive. While we opted for a more expensive Blu-Ray/DVD-R/RW drive, they saved $90 by using only a DVD-R/RW drive. I haven't run any benchmarks on the machine, but I bet it will be a little faster than the Maximum PC machine if for no other reason than I used DDR3 1600 memory. Though they may make up the difference with their external graphics card. I anticipate upgrading both the HD capacity and the graphics card(s) eventually. And the HP touchscreen monitor should arrive on Monday. Cross your fingers!

Some bicyclists give the rest of us a bad name...

2008-10-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

I was peddling home the other day when I stopped at a light heading south. I saw at least 3 cars in in the northbound left turn lane in front of me as the light turned green. As I started peddling, going straight across the intersection, the lead car patiently sat there waiting for me to clear the intersection. As I started moving, I also noticed a lady on her bike coming off a bike path on the southeast corner cut across in front of the cars in the turn lane - against a red light (by the time she passed in front of the car, the light had been red in her direction for probably 5 seconds or more!) Had the lead car not been waiting for me, the bicyclist would have plowed right into the right front side of that car as the driver would have pulled out into the intersection. Naturally, the driver in the car honked at the stupid cyclist at which point the cyclist had the gall to turn and give the driver the finger! It was the stupid cyclist that deserved the finger! As I continued to cross the intersection I tried to make eye contact with the driver, shrugging my shoulders to try and indicate my thoughts on the stupid cyclist..... Drivers or bicyclists - there's way too many bad examples of each. Luckily, most of them are courteous and careful.

Now, if we can get the idiots who toss glass bottles out of their cars off the streets....

George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

2008-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Sad news today that George Carlin has passed away Sunday afternoon. George Carlin was a great comedian. He probably incensed every person who ever listened to him at least once (including probably himself). His comedy was insightful and inciteful at the same time. Brilliant almost always. I first saw him when I was a kid watching the Tonight Show (in the days of Johnny Carson) and his comedy monologues there were always G rated and hillarious there.

"Jumbo Shrimp: is that a big shrimp... or a little jumbo?"

"Why do we need a 'hot water heater?' - if the water is already hot, why do we need to heat it?"

"Have you ever wondered why we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?"

And his baseball/football routine is a classic. Later, I discovered that his Tonight Show material was greatly cleaned up compared to what he did on stage and on his many albums. I don't care much for 4 letter word saturated monologues, but I still found his work hillarious. Damn, we're going to miss that F-ing bastard!

Here's a few youtube videos (some of these are NSFW due to language):

Baseball/Football
Airport Security
The Ten Commandments
Things You Never See
Some people are stupd
George Carlin nails it
Religion is bullshit
"Stuff"
Have a Nice Day
Those Little Moments
Common experiences
on Language

Thanks and goodbye, George.

Trekkie Test.

2007-10-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, After the nerd test, I couldn't pass up the trekkie test:

Nerd Test 2.0

2007-10-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

So I took the Nerd Test 2.0 and scored pretty high on it. From now on you have to refer to me as a "Cool Nerd King".

Ew!

2007-09-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is a little disgusting thing I have witnessed a few times. Have you ever sat in a public bathroom (aka "the library"), minding your own business when you hear the guy in the next stall finishing his business (tp and all), flush, then get up and head straight out the bathroom door? Yuk! Wash your freaking hands! And use that nice antibacterial soap they have on the wall next to the sink too! I'm not going to shake anyones hand who is wearing those brown loafer shoes. It's bad enough when you watch someone step away from the urinal and head straight for the door, but even after wiping..... That is disgusting! :xP

Live Free (of physics) or Die Hard

2007-06-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

We went to see the new Die Hard movie with Bruce Willis last night - "Live Free or Die Hard" and while it was an enjoyable movie, the scientist in me was cringing at abuot every action scene because of the Cartoon Physics that this movie employed liberally.

The left and right halves of my brain were battling each other - one half was enjoying the action and adventure. The other half was saying "No! That can't work! He'd be killed!" The first half would reply "But it's Bruce Willis - give me more! Explosions, gunfire, crashes, helicopters!"

I won't put any spoilers in here - assuming you know it's a Die Hard film and that there are always explosions, gunfire, crashes, etc. in a Die Hard film....

Anthropogenic Global Warming

2007-06-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

I am really tired of the Global Warming debate. I'm not talking about the debate over whether it is really happening. There clearly is some global warming. I'm just tired of the "religious" beliefs in the subject on the extremes of both sides. I'm not talking about Jesus here. I'm talking about belief for the sake of belief and digging for facts to support your notion of the "truth" regardless of what an unbiased examination of the evidence would indicate.

The one thing I think we can say about the climate on Earth is that it changes. Both external affects such as variability of the energy output of the Sun and Earthly affects such as volcanic activity and of course human activity affect the amount of energy Earth's climate takes in. To me, it's not clear which are really the dominant affects on climate and I'm not convinced particularly of the dire predictions that are coming out of the global warming extremists. To me, it appears that they are cherry picking from the data, selecting a subset of the evidence that supports their dire predictions while ignoring evidence that does not support their claims, as well as using unreasonable extrapolations of the various influences on the environment.

It troubles me particularly to see otherwise reasonable people, even fellow scientists, who jump to conclusions about a claim or something said which does not fit in with what is now the "consensus opinion" which now is that Global Warming is caused by humans and we will suffer dire affects in the not-too-distant future because of it. I've even seen otherwise reasonable folks resort to political name calling over the issue and claiming that someone whose opinion differs from theirs is an idiot. That is just not right!

And of course, the extremists on the other side of the debate are not doing their cause any justice either.....

We need to reset the entire subject and remove the religious and political motivations from it and put it firmly back into a scientifically unbiased and objective study. Yeah, that's probably asking too much.

Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center"

2006-07-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

I've been turned off of Olver Stone movies. Mostly because Mr. Stone has created fictional stories around controversial real life subjects in the past, in particular JFK where he ran roughshod over the facts of the case and has convinced a generation or two that there was some huge conspiracy/coverup in the Kennedy assassination when the facts strongly suggest otherwise. So when I heard about his new movie about 9/11, "World Trade Center", my first instinct was to simply ignore it. But it seems to have some favorable reviews so far and doesn't seem to take the anti-establishment approach that some of Stone's other films (like "Nixon" or "Platoon") have taken which I find rather distasteful. So I guess I'll have to go see it when it opens, especially when it seems to remain focused on the experiences of a few the heroes that deserve some attention from that awful day.

John Lennon

2005-12-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

It was 25 years ago tonight that that bastard murdered John Lennon in cold blood. It's hard to believe it's been 25 years. I'm older now than John was that night, for example. His son Julian is older than he was that night. And Sean is 30. He missed so much thanks to that jerk. I won't mention his name because he doesn't deserve to have his name mentioned in the same text as John Lennon's. For a guy who claimed to be killing a phoney, it was he himself who was the real phoney. John Lennon was about the least phoney person there was. What have we missed in all the years since? Who really knows. John was just getting back into the studio and being as creative as he ever was.

December 8, 1980 was a night I'll remember forever. It started out as any other school night as I worked on a programming project for our Numerical Methods Math class on a Data General Eclipse computer in the Math building on campus. After a long night, I headed home at which time, my 3 roommates sat me down to tell me the news. After confirming the news on TV and radio, I spent the night listening to one of the local radio stations - all of them were playing Beatles and John Lennon music. It was a hard time. I had just been getting into John's music in particular, but that night, I heard songs I had never heard of his before. I can remember hearing songs like Instant Karma and God that night. The realization that the Beatles would never get together slowly sunk in. The loss of such a great artist was even harder. The jackass who murdered him is one of the people, like Charlie Manson or Adolf Hitler who this world would have been better without.

What a waste, what a loss. Imagine.... Just Imagine.

We miss you John.

Inconsiderate drivers....

2005-11-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

We were on the freeway yesterday and traffic was moving at parking lot speeds thanks to a terrible accident up ahead (of course, we didn't know it at the time). The 10mph speeds seemed like pennance for our normal speed of 63 in the 55 speed zone. Both lanes were moving slowly and up ahead about a mile was a merge into a single lane while the authorities cleaned up the accident site. So we're creeping along. And of course, the usual drivers who decide to shortcut the line by driving past you on the shoulder start up - who do these morons think they are?! Apparently, their time is more important than our time. These idiots really steam me. A number of us drivers in the right lane drifted halfway onto the shoulder to block those morons. It worked, mostly. I really hate these dolts, whether it's an accident scene or road construction or whatever. So inconsiderate they are.

Cartoon Physics on new TV series "E-Ring"

2005-09-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I tuned in to watch the new NBC program "E-Ring" last night and while it was better than I was expecting, I was on the floor laughing near the end of the show when they used some "Cartoon Physics" (you know, like when Wyle Coyote hangs in the air briefly as he runs off a cliff before putting up a sign and then falling....). Some minor spoilers if you haven't seen it yet.

So a secret agent is being rescued from China by a US Nuclear submarine and a Seal team and just before the seals make contact, the guys back in the Pentagon watching the operation notice that a Chinese satellite has just changed course to fly directly over the site. Now, the graphic they showed with the satellite moving along its orbit shows the satellite making a sharp left turn with what must have been at least a 10 degree orbit plane change! If the Chinese can do that with their satellites, we definitely are in trouble, because that would take a very large rocket motor on board! Secondly, apparently they think you have to be straight overhead to get whatever reconn data they would need to expose the US Sub inside of their international boundaries. Also, apparently they think we are actively tracking every satellite in real time so we would notice such orbit changes so quickly. And I didn't even analyze what they showed for the orbit speed of the object, but I have a feeling it was speeding up and slowing down to fit the drama of the scene...... Typical Hollywood.

Blame for the post-Katrina disaster

2005-09-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Both the mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of Louisianna and numerous celebrities and politicians have been quick to assign the blame for the awful conditions in New Orleans after Kratrina blew through the city on the President and the federal government and it's "slow" response, it is clear that most of the blame actually rests squarely on the mayor and governors shoulders. The Wall Street Journal has a very insightful article which lays out the case against these two apparently incompetent public officials. They apaprently didn't even impliment the city and states plans for evacuation and also did not learn from disaster drills carried out long before Katrina approached the city. From previous experience and from these drills, it was apparent long before the storm hit that evacuating to the Superdome was asking for a huminatitarian disaster with a lack of basic living needs for any duration. And failing to evacuate the poor from a city that lies below sea level, forcing many folks to fend for themselves during and after the storm was an issue that had been well identified in the past. Mayor Nagin failed these people, many of whom died in the storm and resulting floods, by not deploying the cities buses and school buses to the task of evacuating those who could not transport themselves out of the danger areas. Gov. Blanco also failed to initiate the call for complete evacuation until prompted by the President himself who also declared an emergency for the area before the order was issued that would have allowed for substantial federal assistence, free for the asking.

Trying to deflect blame to the federal government is obviously an attempt to keep the public from recognizing who we really ought to blame for the disasterous aftermath of Katrina. While we cannot stop a hurricane from impacting an area, there are procedures at the city and state level which can minimize the deaths and post-storm disaster and many of those procedures were not implimented in this case and we are seeing exactly what many pre-Katrina warnings predicted coming true in a very unfortunate way.

And by the way, who was the idiot who decided to build a city below sea level?!

Katrina aftermath

2005-09-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

What a terrible disaster. A hurricane wiping whole towns off the map. Levees breaking causing flooding of an entire city. Looting, lack of food and water and no power and sewage. Terrible conditions for those who remain. And it will get worse before it gets better.

I hear people - politicians, the press and so on - complaining that the government has not done enough. While I agree that enough has not been done, I also believe that we could not have done much more than was done. It takes time to mobilize resources and get people and supplies into the devistated areas. Bridges and roads are out or unpassable. Whole areas lie under water. I see much of the criticism as political maneuvering, such as the comments of people like Jesse Jackson (see my previous entry...).

I don't know what I would do in the same situation and I hope no one ever has to go through what the folks of the Gulf Coast have gone through in the past week and what they will have to endure for the coming months as the recovery progresses and rebuilding happens. We will have to learn from this and try to prevent much of the disaster from happening again to the same or other areas. But Catagory 4 hurricanes are going to cause a lot of damage, no matter what we do. The Earth is not an intrinsically friendly place (though much friendlier than Venus would be!).

Jesse Jackson is a racist...

2005-09-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

...and an idiot. In an article entitled "Jackson Blasts Bush Over Katrina Aid", we hear Jackson turning the issue of relief to the folks affected by Katrina into a race issue with statements like:

"There's a historical indifference to the pain of poor people and black people."

He also belittles the relief efforts with no apparent clue about what is involved in them. I don't know what he expects, but mobilizing resources cannot happen in an instant - he and others who are overly critical of the relief efforts apparently have unrealistic expectations of such efforts. With roads and bridges out and flooded, how are we to get such resources into an area of such devistation? In the first days, we have a choice of concentrating on getting resources into the area or just rescuing the survivors in the area. Would he have also decided to retrieve bodies of blacks instead of rescuing the living? I don't see this as a race issue - it is a disaster recovery issue and I don't care what color your skin is or what language you speak, or for that matter, what country you are from - disaster relief takes time and effort, both of which are being invested heavily, proably about as heavily as can be expected given the conditions in the area. So Mr. Jackson, why don't you just shut up and and start helping the victims instead of trying to politicize this event, placing yourself ahead of the very disaster relief that you criticize the President about. Perhaps Mr. Jackson thinks that "god" is a racist since the hurricane apparently targeted an area with a large population of blacks?

Mr. Jackson also claims that:

'the news media has "criminalized the people of New Orleans" by focusing on violence in the city'

I don't see that the news media has focused on the aftermath of Katrina any differently than it has focused on any other events. Look at Iraq or the Middle East - we only hear about the violence, not about the good there. The news is not going out of its way to treat the people of New Orleans badly and indeed we have heard about good amongst the bad. This is a difficult time and no matter how much we do how quickly, to folks like Mr. Jackson, it will never be enough.

Katrina aftermath....

2005-08-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

It's a heart-wrenching situation on the Gulf coast today. The news was bad Monday as Hurricane Katrina passed through the area, but it seemed that perhaps they'd avoided the worst, but today, as the damage is being assessed and as the levees around New Orleans are breeched, the news is deteriorating. It makes me glad I only have to put up with 100+ heat during the summer along with lightning storms and miss out on the hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and other awful natural disasters that plague many areas of our planet. It's hard to imagine areas flooded with up to 20 feet of water. I hope I never have to find out what it must be like for folks there to watch images of their homes under many feet of water, not to mention trying to ride out such a storm with 140+ mph winds and rain and tsunami like tidal surges washing through an area. It's an awful reminder of just how powerful and indiscriminate nature can be and how fragile life on this planet can be.

Crews Pass Dead to Reach Storm Survivors

Crisis Grows As Flooded New Orleans Looted

Superdome Refugees Get Some Fresh Air

Team: Favre Learns Family Home Destroyed in Mississippi

Evolution

2005-01-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

This article tells us about how 'Intelligent Design' is now being taught in Pennsylvania classrooms. Intelligent design is an attempt to put religion into classroom science teaching and has no place there. This is not about separation of church and state, it's about teaching science, not mysticism and superstition. Evolution is a fact like gravity is a fact. Evolution is a description of how life changes over time due to genetic and environmental selection. The only question about it is the details of how and why it works, not of whether or not it works. We have the same kinds of questions about gravity - we can easily observe that it gravity is a fact, yet we're still discussing the hows and whys of gravity. If we are to allow 'Intelligent Design' to be taught in school, we might as well allow the teaching of astrology along side of astronomy. Perhaps we should teach these subjects, but with a proper skeptical treatment we would show just how ludicrous astrology and 'intelligent design' really are in the light of knowledge and science.

Here is a webpage that debunks 'creation science'. 'Intelligent design' is just another disguise for 'creationism' or 'creation science'.

Jim.

Anit-Kerry "propoganda"....

2004-10-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

From an article on CNN:

"Sinclair's plan to air anti-Kerry propaganda before the election is an abuse of the public airwaves for what appears to be partisan political purposes," Media Matters CEO David Brock said in the letter.

This is pretty funny. When someone comes out with something against John Kerry, the democrats call it "propaganda", but when one of their boys, for example Michael Moore spews his hateful lies and halftruths, they have no problem with it.... Typical.

Jim.

Remember....

2004-09-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a letter I sent to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star in response to a front page article on viewing the beheading videos that you can find on the internet (for example you can find links to them from Michael Savage's website):

In regards to your front page story on viewing the beheading videos in the September 30 Star, I have viewed the beheading videos of Mr. Berg, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Armstrong. I did not view them out of voyeuric curiosity. I considered it a duty to the memory of these men and all the other victims of all the terrorist thugs who are operating in the world today. I would have prefered to not view the horrific scenes at all, but I consider it important for all Americans to know just what we are up against in the War on Terror. Unfortunately, 3 years removed from the terrible events of 9/11/01, too many of our fellow countrymen have forgotten what those 19 terrorists and their cohorts did in killing nearly 3000 innocent humans that day. We need to be reminded of just how little they value life and liberty and how much they hate the freedom that so many of us in the western world have worked so hard to maintain. Do you remember what you felt when you saw the images of those jets plowing into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon? Do you remember the images of victims jumping from the upper floors of the Trade Center? Do you remember the collapse of those towers and the death of so many heroic rescue workers trying in vane to help those trapped high up in the buildings despite the danger to themselves? Do you remember the heroic actions of the passengers of Flight 93 when they stormed the cockpit and foiled the evil plans of the terrorist hijackers on their flight? Do you remember the sacrifice of so many other heroes as they have fought the War on Terror in the faraway lands of Afghanistan and Iraq? We must remember what we are up against and just how ruthless these terrorists are and how important it is to the free world that these terrorists and terrorism itself is exterminated from this world.

Jim.

Democratic Hypocracy again....

2004-09-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

CNN has published an article touting John Kerry's use of humor on the campaign trail. This is pretty ironic, considering Kerry's whining about Bush's comments the other day about Kerry being able to argue with himself for the full 90 minutes of their scheduled debate on Thursday. As I recall, Kerry complained about how the President could possibly be using humor while we have troops fighting in Irag.

This is just another in a long line of Democratic whining about Bush for things (legitimate or not) that they themselves have been doing. A while back, he was complaining about Bush "attacking" his stand on the war on Terror, saying that "We were all together after 9/11...." and then launching into their complaining about what Bush had recently said (legitimately, I might add, questioning Kerry's recent statements about the war on terror....). So who has been attacking everything the Bush Administration has been doing for at least the last 2 years? You got it, a large number of partisan Democrats.

Jim.

I'd Rather not.

2004-09-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's nice of Dan Rather to apologize for being caught airing faked documents, but I noticed he didn't retract or apologize for the story itself - he still believes that the spirit of the faked documents are correct. Certainly he wants to believe that they are correct. I wonder what would turn up in John Kerry's military records if he would stop weaseling out on allowing their release? The liberal democrats like to repeat charges over and over until, regardless of the real truth, the public accepts the alegations as the truth. Having Dan Rather reading the CBS evening news as I see it is akin to having Rush Limbaugh reading the national news to a liberal - whether or not the story is true, there will always be doubt about whether the story is true or colored by his liberal bias.

Jim.

Scum of the Earth....

2004-09-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

It's happened again. We see the now all too familiar image of a group of two-bit thugs hiding behind their masks standing behind a helpless innocent. They read their pitiful demands and then pull out a knife and saw the head off of the helpless victim. These images make me mad, as I'm sure they do you. And I know just who to blame. It's not George Bush, but it is these radical Islamic extremists who only want to exterminate freedom. When these bastards are caught, I volunteer my dull pocket knife to use in their execution.

Jim.

DNC B.S.

2004-08-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

The latest DNC commercial for John Kerry stoops to a new low in partisan bull shit. It says up front that we should stick together and then accuses the Bush campaign of questioning Kerry's plans for fighting terrorism, implying that the Democrats in this country have stayed behind the President 100% in the fight against terrorism since 9/11. That could not be farther from the truth! The Democrats have been dragging their feet in Bush's efforts in that regard for at least 2 years! They've even gone so far as to question the President about his support for things that they themselves also claimed to support after that terrible day. This political ad had me rolling on the floor with its claims - I couldn't believe my ears the first time I heard it.

Jim.

A "sensitive" war on terror....

2004-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

John Kerry wants to fight a "sensitive" war on terror. Now that is funny. Perhaps we'll fight a sensitive war on terror like he fought a sensitive war on the Vietnamese whose village he burnt to the ground with his Zippo lighter? I suppose this is another case of his planning to talk to the terrorists and convince them not to attack us again. Of course, the only way that will work is if we totally acquiesce to their demands and become radical Islamists ourselves, giving up our freedoms to these two-bit thugs. Sure sounds like the right solution to me!

Jim.

Do we want an admitted war criminal for President?

2004-08-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

John Kerry is an admitted war criminal. He freely admits to shooting a Vietnamese in the back and to burning down a Vietnamese village and killing farm animals in the village. He claimed that he saw many of his fellow Vietnam veterans do similar or worse. We now have some eyewitnesses to John Karry the "war hero" who have come forward to report on his questionable actions 30+ years ago and those witnesses provide grave evidence of a clear lack of character on the candidates part. These same witnesses say that they did not participate in such actions and would not dream of it, in fact putting themselves in danger to avoid harming innocent civilians. Instead of running for President, perhaps John Kerry deserves to be brought up on war crime charges. Of the 23 surviving Swift boat veterans who commanded boats during Kerry's tour and have direct experience with him, only 1 supports the candidate for president and 18 are against his candidacy. Of course, these veterans are being smeared for speaking out.

www.swiftvets.com
humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/unfit_video_wmv.html
www.blogsofwar.com/archives/2004/07/26/swift-boat-veterans-for-truth/

Additionally, they provide documented evidence that two of Kerry's three purple hearts were for self inflicted accidental injuries and none required significant medical attention. Unlike most purple heart awards, apparently Kerry actually submitted his own paper work in order to recieve those medals after his commander refused to do so. Kerry has claimed he spent Christmas in Cambodia (on the Senate floor, no less!), yet there is substantial evidence that that was a lie. If these Swift Boat veterans are not telling the truth, why doesn't Kerry release his Vietnam records instead of sicking his houndogs on these veterans to call them liars? The tool of those who can't defend their claims using real evidence is ad hominem attacks against there opponent and these veterans who have come forth have been the victims of just such attacks.

Based on these claims, John Kerry is not fit to be our Commander-in-Chief.

Jim.

Glen Canyon

2004-08-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm torn between being sad for the loss or happy for the improved access to scenary. We traveled up to the Glen Canyon Dam and the SW end of Lake Powell last week on our way back from visiting some of the canyon country of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah including Monument Valley and Natural Bridges National Monument (which deserve separate posts by themselves!). I've been thinking about the possibility of boating on Lake Powell, particularly with the water level more than 100 feet below the maximum level. What parts of Glen Canyon are available now that have been lost for more than 20 years under the waters of Lake Powell? We picked up a couple books on the area, including "Glen Canyon Dammed" and "The Colorado River Through Glen Canyon: Before Lake Powell" which discuss the canyon and show some of the many wonderful pictures of what now lies beneath the lake. It must have been wonderful to raft down the river and hike up the side canyons. Seeing the narrow canyons, the indian ruins, the Gregory Natural Bridge and all the other things must have been spectacular.

On the other side of the story, the lake has made those same areas - at least those not flooded - available in ways that were not possible before the Dam. One can boat up the lake, camp along its shores, do day hikes or even over night hikes from the lake and get to places that would take days of hiking to get to from outside the canyon boundaries. At high water, you can boat right up to Rainbow Natural Bridge. Even today at very low lake levels, the hike is only a couple miles rather than the 10 day horseback expeditions required of Teddy Roosevelt or Zane Grey early in the 20th Century. Many, many more visitors are able to see the scenary that was inaccessible to all but the hardiest of explorers before the dam.

But again, the loss and sacrifice that required - the plant and animal life that drowned as the canyon flooded behind the Dam. The historic sites that are no longer available to study. Imagine the Grand Canyon below the Dam with water up to the rim at the overlooks along the south rim drive. Imagine that all below that would no longer be accessible. Is the tradeoff worth it? The improved accessibility. The power generating capability of the Dams along the Colorado and it's feeder rivers. The water storage capacity of the lake which evens out the irregular year-round flow of the river and also provides water to cities of the southwest. It's a tough call.

Jim.

Kerry

2004-08-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Have you heard John Kerry's latest TV ad? It shows a snipet from the DNC where he says: "...we need strong alliances, we will be able to tell the terrorists, you will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear, it belongs to freedom."

Can you believe this!?! Does he actually believe this nonsense?!? We'll tell the terrorists that they will lose and we will win. Yeah, right and they'll say "Oh, Ok, well, nevermind, we'll leave you alone." He doesn't have a clue! These terrorists are part of radical groups who hate what we stand for, regardless of whether you are a Democrat or Republican - it is that you don't believe exactly what they believe and that you believe in freedom. That you believe in a different god than they do, or even - gasp! - no god! You allow your women to actually have choices and to vote and to show their faces in public. You allow everyone choices in what they want to do or believe. That is why they hate us and no amount of appeasement will abate their ruthless, terrorist, criminal actions. We must stand up to these two bit thugs and take positive action as our current President has done.

I, for one, am glad that Al Gore was not in office when the terrorists attacked our country almost 3 years ago, and I am convinced that it was the inaction and lack of resolve of our previous president that allowed those terrorists to be so bold and who helped cripple our intelligence communities abilities to gather the evidence they needed to recognize the threat by starving them during his administration. He depleted our military without restocking it while he lobbed a couple of random cruise missles in Bin Laden's general direction and he turned tail and ran at the first sign of resistance in Mogadishu.

Yes, war is terrible, but sometimes it is necessary. This world is much better off without the likes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein in power giving refuge and support to terrorists and carrying out ruthless campaigns against their own people.

Jim.

Moore-ons....

2004-07-21T17:55:00.000-07:00

You know, I used to like Linda Ronstadt. I suppose I still like her music. She has a voice like no other, just beautiful. But like many celebrities, she has decided to spend her energies fighting for political causes. As you can imagine, her politics do not agree with me....

Now don't get me wrong. I don't agree with everything President Bush says or does, particularly in his mixing of religion and government. I do agree with our need to fight terrorism and in our work in Afghanistan and Iraq and support those wars as necessary. I also am enormously glad that Al Gore was not President during the events of 9/11 and I believe that Clinton needs to be held accountable in his responsibility for those terrible events. Had he handled certain incidents differently, with more conviction and had not decimated our military and intelligence agencies, perhaps the terrorists would not have been so bold in their actions or perhaps might have been thwarted before carrying out their crimes.

So here comes the latest celebrity to throw her hat into the ring. Lovely Linda Ronstadt.... She thinks that anything Michael Moore says is solid gold fact, apparently. I suppose most liberals love Moore, mostly because he agrees with their point of view and gives them ammo to throw Bush's way. Apparently, however, the facts don't really matter to them. One needs to look at some of Moore's "facts".

Here are some links to pages detailing Moore's "work":
The Wall Street Journal Opion page, "Unmoored From Reality"
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE:Documentary or Fiction?
Michael Moore: Style vs. Substance
www.mooreexposed.com
moorewatch.com/
celiberal
www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com
spinsanity

Why?

2004-07-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

Why do Psychics have to advertise their conventions?

Why do all the starships in Star Trek fly around in the same plane? Isn't space 3-dimensional?

Why do you have to press the "start" button to stop running Windows?

Why don't any of the dead folks that "psycic" John Edward claims talk to tell him specifically what they want rather than couching their communication in riddles and vague generalities? You know, something like: "This is Fred Smith and I want to talk to my lousy nephew Johnny Smith about how he's been wasting all that money that I left him...." Edward must here things like "Hi! My name is F-something and I want to talk to a relative who's name begins with a J or a T - Thomas, or is that Joe? And to proove who I am, I suffered a heart attack, or some sort of chest trauma or maybe it was a car accident...."

Why do smokers toss their cigarette butts out the car window? Do they really think that the world is their ashtray?

Why didn't God write a bible that was not flooded with contradictions and that was scientifically accurate?

Jim.

The Chiricahuas

2004-06-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

My family and I took a trip to the Chiricahuas a couple weekends ago. I'll have to post some of the pictures from the trip as well. We traveled from Tucson, through Willcox and took a right on Pinery Canyon road just before we would have entered the National Monument. We camped on a Friday night at the Pinery Canyon campground about halfway across the mountains at about 6950 feet elevation in a pine forest. We were the only occupants of the 5 or 6 space campground there, which was probably good, since it does not have any restrooms, only flat areas for tents, picnic tables and grills. Considering how dry things are, we brought in food that we did not have to cook, to avoid the fire restriction issues (we could have had a fire in the grill or with propane stoves, but not open fires). We uncharacteristically pulled into the campground about 3PM - traditionally, we have always pulled into the last campsite in a campground right at the crack of sunset (I should tell about our trip up to Toroweap Overlook last summer....). That night, before going to sleep, I pulled out my new binoculars and scanned the skies through the holes in the tree cover. Up in southern Ursa Major (the Big Dipper), I ran across a fuzzy object that I didn't remember. It was probably about 6th magnitude - a pretty easy object. I made a mental note of its place amongst the starfield so I could look for it again the next night.

We were off bright and early the next morning, continuing our drive over the Pinery Canyon road. This road is a dirt road, very easy for our Trooper and would not have been a problem for most passenger cars. The only washboarding was back within the first couple miles from the turnoff just short of the National Monument. The views were spectacular as we drover over Onion Pass and over onto the Eastern slopes of the Chiricahaus. We took a left on the road towards Paradise, a little community that used to support mining in its heyday about a hundred years ago. On our agenda for the day were 6 geocaches, the first two were just east of Paradise. I blinked and almost missed Paradise, but I did forget to get a picture signs announcing our presence in Paradise - drat. The first geocache was next to the Paradise Cemetary and we found it easily before roaming through the headstones, imagining the lives these folks must have had all those years ago. The oldest was from the early 20th Century, about 1904 or so. I would come to recognize many of the names on those headstones later, as I picked up a copy of A Portal to Paradise by Alden Hayes, a longtime resident of the Portal area, when we stopped at the little store in Portal later that day.

The 2nd 4 geocaches of the day were back along the road into Cave Creek, past the ranger station there, which had a great display of live critters, namely rattlesnakes and Gila Monsters. I did a double take when I looked in their cages, thinking they were realistic models until I saw the snake working on swallowing a dead white mouse..... We picked up some maps of the area at the ranger station and stopped along the main road for cache numbers 3, 4 and 5 of the day. Most of them were a short distance from the logical parking spot, but the 5th required a scramble up some rocks. The last cache of the day was over by Crystal Cave, across a small canyon, actually, from the actual cave entrance which we visited early the next morning. Crystal Cave is closed without a permit that one can apparently get back at the ranger station near Portal and is locked with a gate. We camped at the Bob Martyr campground and after dark, I confirmed that the fuzzy I had seen last night had moved - it was a Comet. But, was it a new comet or a known one? It was in the area that Comet NEAT was heading towards when I had last seen it a month or so earlier, so I suspected it was not going to be a new comet. When I got home, my suspicions where confirmed, it was comet NEAT. Too bad.

On Sunday, after our hike up to Crystal Cave, we drove back up Pinery Canyon road, reversing our course (well almost - we had taken a detour the previous day into Paradise instead of coming past Cave Creek into the Portal area) and head west back over Onion Pass on the road. We headed into the National Monument, buying an Annual Park Pass which we will hopefully use in other National Parks and National Monuments in the next 12 months. We spent the day taking short hikes and seeing the sites after spending almost $150 in the ranger station giftshop. We're suckers for books, maps and other goodies to be found in such places....

By midafternoon, we were heading back to Tucson - we needed to get home at a reasonable hour since my Son had to start summerschool classes early the next morning. We did 4 more geocaches along I-10 and after stopping at "The Thing" to get some goodies at the Dairy Queen there, we made it home with two Travel Bugs and lots of pictures and stories!

Jim.