New Toy

 

Won this* Ruger 9mm at the Friends of NRA Banquet in Pittsburg last night. Wife already stole it. It wll make a nice little concealable for her.

* well, one just like it.

Principles

Has anyone seen the racism?

I know it's around here somewhere:

State Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), a campaign surrogate for President Obama in Virginia, said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is appealing to racists who do not want a black man in the White House...

Yeah, I know, blah, blah, blah. Obama is falling in the polls and it's due to people who formerly supported him but just discovered that he's black.* That said, this state senator, famous as a woman who "has never been one to hold her tongue," said something of actual, real, interest in her otherwise wholly predictable little rant. When asked by radio host John Fredericks if she "really believe[s] now that this is still about race,” Triple-L answered thusly:

“I absolutely believe it’s all about race, and for the first time in my life I’ve been able to convince my children, finally, that racism is alive and well,” she replied.

Let that assertion sink in for a minute. L. Louise Lucas is black and 68 years old.  That means that her kids are black and at least in their 40s. And this, in July of 2012, is the first time that she has been able to convince her children, who have lived more than four decades as black Americans in a formerly-Confederate state, that racism is alive and well.

With all due respect, Senator, if it really takes 4 decades to convince the obvious victims of racism that racism is alive and well, either they are really, really stupid, or racism is neither as alive nor as well as you so dearly hope and pray.** If racism were as pervasive as the remnants of the Civil Rights generation assert, its victims would need no convincing.

* Shhhhh. You'll ruin his chances of becoming President.
** and what kind of a woman would spend decades trying to convince her own children, despite their incredulity, that they are really victims of other people?

The argument from silence

is not really science:

MORE than half a century ago, iconic physicist Enrico Fermi famously asked a deceptively simple question. After patiently listening to reams of calculations that implied multitudes of advanced civilizations in a vast universe, he asked his optimistic colleagues, "Well, then, where is everyone?"

...Even without a single confirmed example of extraterrestrial life, fields as diverse as astronomy, statistics and probability, game theory, and organic chemistry have provided major fodder for speculation on what might be out there, and where they may be hiding.

I'm not sure how Fermi's question is "deceptively" simple; it's simply the basic question that needs to be asked. Since there is nothing for such scientific programs as SETI to study, is any of it science? I doubt it.

It looks like science. The Drake Equation, which lines up a half-dozen variables into a very scientific-looking formula, might tell us the number of communicating galaxies in our universe.*  Unfortunately,** no matter what values are filled in, the fact on the ground remains that the total number of discovered civilizations of the type we are expecting to find sits very stubbornly at zero.  None. Zip. Nil. From all indications, except for this planet, we live in a dead universe.***

Which leads to Fermi's Paradox, a scientific-sounding way of saying that the facts show that no matter the variables you plug into Dr. Drake's equation, N in reality comes up zero. It's not a paradox, really, any more than it's a paradox that if I count some potatoes twice I run out of potato salad. If one's math doesn't match reality, it's not a paradox; you're just doing the math wrong.

Which leads to another speculation called The Great Filter. The Great Filter proposes - oversimplified - that:
a) since Drake's N = zero, and
b) since if you multiply a bunch of numbers together, one of which is zero, you get zero, then
c) one likely explanation for a) is that one of the variables in Drake's equation is actually zero.

That is to say, one of them doesn't happen. At all. Ever. Maybe not even here. It's not really science, but it makes a lot of sense.

Wandering through the seven variables, I wonder which one The Great Zero is.

* If we knew 1) the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy, 2) the fraction of those stars that have planets, 3) the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets, 4) the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point, 5) the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life, 6) the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space, or 7) the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space. We don't. 
**  Or fortunately, perhaps. I've seen ID4.
*** All "scientific" indications. I don't believe we live in a dead universe and neither, at the bottom, does anyone else. But that's really not a question of science.

always wanted to do that...

Next best thing

They haven't even started yet and I'm already tired of the Olympics.  Bring on the football.

While Michael Dyer won't be coming to Pitt State, I just found out that former KU wide receiver/safety Keeston Terry is already here. Son of former KC Chief Doug Terry, the kid started at safety in Division I* as a true freshman and played 9 games for the Jayhawks last year. He's now a junior and will make a great addition** to what is already a pretty stacked Pitt State defense.

* It's KU, but still. He was also recruited by Nebraska before heading to Lawrence.
** Unlike Dyer, who lost his scholarship because of bad behavior, Terry left KU because his new coach is a dick. So I'm not too worried he'll be a bad influence.

He who controls the spice

controls Division II:

Former Auburn running back Michael Dyer may be on the move again.

After being released from scholarship at Auburn, Dyer landed at Arkansas State under his former offensive coordinator and Arkansas State head coach Gus Malzahn. Now that's rumored to be changing...

Pitt State may not be Auburn, but it did take home the Division II national championship last season and will give Dyer a marquee small-school platform to play for. The talent level isn't great, and Dyer will have the ability to produce large numbers, which will keep his name in the headlines throughout the season. 

Pitt State has had a couple pros come through this little town*. And the Gorillas are the current Division II national champions as well as being the winningest team in Division II history. They've got 4 national championships going back to NAIA days and have played for the title 5 times in the past 20 years.

That said, Division II is what it is. It's DII for a reason. While the talent level at Pitt State is great compared to the rest of the MIAA and the rest of DII, it's still a Division II school. 7000 students. In Podunk County Kansas. There's a reason Pitt State prides itself on the fact that we have more GTE Academic All-Americans than any other NCAA Division II school over the past decade: our kids are not going pro. They need to learn something while they are here.

This one is going pro. He's going to run through defenses like Bo Jackson**. He will quite probably ensure that PSU, who is returning a whole bevy of seniors and is ranked #1 going into the year***, will be #1 on the other end.  Good grief, the guy will probably rush for 2,000 yards in 12 games.  I doubt the mighty defenses of Lindenwood or Southwest Baptist are going to slow him down much. When later San Diego Charger Ron Moore was in the PSU backfield, the Gorillas broke nearly every MIAA scoring and yardage record and a handful of DII ones as well. Those records are in danger again.

I wonder if that's good for the school, though.  Dyer is a ringer, the guy you bring in to win when all you want to do is win. He's not going to help build the team. He's probably not even going to graduate. He might not even go to class. Next year, the team may even be worse for having had his influence. Those kids who remain behind will have missed a lot of opportunities that went to the ringer.

Still, if the guy's coming to DII, no one will be able to stop him. Including us.  I guess that's enough reason to welcome him to our humble town.

UPDATE: Never mind:

As of Thursday night, sources close to Dyer say the running back is reconsidering his intentions to transfer. Arkansas State has scheduled a press conference for Friday at 1pm to discuss the back's future.

That's just as well. Perhaps better the devil you know than the devil you don't, but no devil at all is the best choice of all.

* Current Bills punter Brian Moorman and former All-Pro Steelers long snapper Kendall Gammon are two that come to mind.
** whose freshman records he broke at Auburn.
*** That's a mere formality. The champs are almost always ranked #1 the next season.

Reviews and Thanks

A big thank you to John Rogers and to the blogger formerly known as Kawaika for their kind reviews on the Amazon site. Glad you guys enjoyed the book.

I'm not going to print excerpts and probably won't even mention reviews going forward. But I do appreciate you guys taking the time to do that.

Questions nobody is asking

Effect and cause

At the Episcopal church:

Episcopal Church Leaders Vote to Sell NY Headquarters 

Amid budget cuts, staff layoffs and losses in membership, a legislative house of The Episcopal Church voted Friday to sell the denomination's headquarters in New York. Church leaders will also vote on a resolution calling for pastors to bless same-sex unions.

The more the Episcopalians try to prove themselves modern and trendy, the less impact they will continue to have on the world.

UPDATE: Vox picks up an NYT article along the same lines. However, starting from the wrong premise, its author can't help but reach the wrong conclusion:

The defining idea of liberal Christianity — that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion — has been an immensely positive force in our national life.

Except that's not the defining ideal of liberal Christianity, or it would simply be "active" or "social" Christianity rather than liberal. One does not have to be a theological or political liberal to engage in social reform, and the elimination* of infanticide in fourth century Rome was as great a social reform as anything that has occurred since. Rather, the defining idea of liberal Christianity is that our religion ought to be informed by modern ideas.** Christianity, and especially Christian doctrine, must change with the times.

Whether evolution or civil rights or abortion on demand or gay marriage, whether it's the Jesus Seminar or the documentary hypothesis, liberal Christianity is always on the cutting edge of what the world considers trendy or sophisticated. Liberal Christians want to be seen to "get it." Sometimes they are correct, as in the case of slavery.  Sometimes they are incorrect, as in the case of abortion. Sometimes they are merely silly, as when they vote on "whether to develop funeral rites for dogs and cats." But the operative motive is not truth, it is modernity: they want to be the kind of Christians the NYT approves of. What you end up with is inane prayers to some Rainbow Christ, empty churches, unbelieving leadership,*** and organizational collapse.

The NYT Op-Ed asks whether liberal Christianity can be saved.  A better question is how those few Christians who still remain in those churches, whether through inertia or ignorance, can be saved out of the clutches of the wolves that run them.   

* temporary, obviously, since liberal Christians have fought so hard to bring it back.
** One reason why a Google search for "modernist Christianity" will bring up the Wikipedia page for "liberal Christianity."  While they are not actually identical, they are functionally equivalent. Show me a theologian who promotes JEPD and personally disbelieves in the supernatural, and I'll show you one who thought George Tiller was an upstanding Christian. He was, after all, murdered while attending church. 
*** "John Shelby Spong, then the reliably controversial Episcopal bishop of Newark... dismissed almost every element of traditional Christian faith as so much superstition."  Why, then, was a Christian denomination paying his salary?

UPDATE the SECOND: It's not that we're meaningless, but that we're smart:

[NYT] How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?

About 2.2 million [in 2006]. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children. 

Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.

 Bishop Schori will be happy to know that there are now about 1.9 million Episcopalians in the US, down about 10% in the past 6 years. And they are getting smarter all the time.

LZ's Fuzzy Logic

CNN's LZ Granderson presents an unassailable argument against abortion laws:

My own view lies somewhere in the middle: I'm against abortion ... so I refuse to have one. Seeing how I've never had an unwanted or life-threatening pregnancy, I don't feel equipped to tell complete strangers in those circumstances what they should do with their bodies.

Now, given that LZ is also gay, it's probably true that he will never have to deal with pregnancy in any form.* So he seems to have an open and shut case: live and let die.

I can dig that.  In fact, I think his logic is impeccable and could be used to inform us on all kinds of other matters related to American law.  For example, I'm against assaulting people for being homosexual... so I refuse to beat one. Since I've never had an unwanted or uncomfortable meeting with a gay person, I don't feel equipped to tell complete strangers in those circumstances what they should do with their baseball bats.

He's also black but has a European surname, which means that his ancestors quite probably crossed the Big Drink against their will. Hey, I'm against chattel slavery, too... so I refuse to own one. Since I've never had a cotton field that needed to be harvested, I don't feel equipped to tell complete strangers in those circumstances what they should do with their neck shackles and bull whips.

Of course, LZ would be the first of many liberals to tell you that people ought not be able to beat gays or enslave blacks, not just because he doesn't want to be beaten and enslaved but because it's wrong. Blacks and gays have human rights that the law ought to respect** even if there's cotton that needs picking. Those rights, as Rachel Maddow once noted, are not up for vote.

However, Liberals are perfectly happy to ignore what they see in the sonogram, instead voting on the human rights of that child with an electorate of one.  If mom*** wants it, it's a baby, a human being with full human rights and even medical coverage for in-utero surgery.  If she doesn't, then it's a burst appendix or an artery blockage or something.  Biology doesn't matter. Rights don't matter. All that matters is a woman's desire.

* From here on out.  He does have a son. I'm not sure how that happened and didn't ask.
** and actively protect.  Even if it means expelling students for expressing themselves in the Free Expression Tunnel.
*** And only Mom.  If Dad decides he does not want to be a parent, he's a deadbeat, to be pursued for material support to the ends of the earth by the full force of law. If Mom doesn't want to be a parent, she's simply an outpatient.

Evolution for me

But not for thee:

State Rep. Mary Franson has apologized and removed a YouTube video that compared Minnesota’s food stamp program to “feed(ing) the animals.” It started Friday, when Franson, a first-term Republican from Alexandria, posted a week-in-review video on YouTube. She ran through the news about the new state budget forcast(sic) and ended with a plea to end child sexual abuse. In between, at about the two-minute mark, she turned to the welfare reform:

“I'll read you this little funny clip that we got from a friend. It says, 'Isn't it ironic that the food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps, ever. Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to please not feed the animals, because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves."

...The Alliance for a Better Minnesota has launched a petition drive, demanding that Franson make another video – this one, an apology for her last video. 

Why in the world should she apologize? For comparing humans to animals? It seems to me that a bedrock principle of modern biology is that humans are animals.  It is so basic, in fact, that larval academics* will go out of their way to ignorantly mock bestiality laws because, well, you can't outlaw sex with animals without outlawing sex with humans.  It's science.

Now, it's an established fact that if you feed animals, they will grow dependent upon that food. To the extent that food is free and plentiful, they will even change their lives and habits to enjoy its benefit. My little brother has a freezer full of venison that proves what dropping a few apples in front of your archery blind can do**. Some animals will grow so dependent on such manna from heaven that they will starve if that food supply is ever cut off.

On the other hand, FDR probably thought nothing of animal husbandry when he said in his 1935 State of the Union address that, "The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers. The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief."*** If you feed people, with no effort on their part, it brings about spiritual and moral disintegration. In short, it fosters dependence. One might even say it creates ready-made prey that fills the freezers of federal poverty workers****.

So how to explain this coincidental intersection of action and reaction?  Why is it that food given to animals and food given to the poor can bring about the same result? A scientist might conclude that since humans are animals, similar actions might bring about the same results.  But outraged lefties think that drawing such a comparison is an insult. 

 I guess all of us evolved from animals, and remain animals, except the poor. Where they came from, no one knows.

 *"Andrew is a graduate student in North Carolina studying population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities." I kid you not.
** Swear to God. He'd been telling me for years - years of getting his a deer via bow "in minutes on opening day" - about this great spot he had.  Finally I saw it. It was a great spot indeed - a camouflaged  pill box 15' from a huge pile of apples. He could have killed his prey with a large pipe wrench.
*** Obviously he was kidding about that last part.
**** As federal highway workers work to create highways, federal poverty workers...

Next year the bulls need to win

The Running of the Bulls provides little news:

PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) — One elderly thrill-seeker was gored in a leg and five others slightly injured as thousands of adrenaline-fueled runners raced ahead of six fighting bulls in the streets of the northern Spanish city of Pamplona in the first running of the bulls of this year's San Fermin festival, officials said Saturday. Runners, in traditional white clothing and red kerchiefs around their necks, tripped over each other or fell in the mad daredevil annual rush along early morning dew-moistened slippery streets to the city's bull ring.

So one septuagenarian and 5 other crazy people got gored or trampled by bulls as they purposely harassed and ran with them through the streets?  The only problem I see is that there weren't enough bulls. There were "thousands" of people running. That's too much work for 6 bulls. Yeah, they got an average of one person each, but they are still working against pretty long odds.  Plus, it's really unfair* to a lot of runners who barely get to see a bull, much less have the opportunity to accumulate scars instead of mere yarns.

I propose that next year, each runner have his own bull. That will up the challenge and news level no little bit. Those Spanish streets are narrow and can get pretty crowded, so to make sure there is no confusion over whose bull is whose, each runner ought to be fastened to the bull by a tether of about 10' length. And just to add to the festive atmosphere, the bulls need to have really big sparklers attached to their horns. I would love to see the story that would follow such a celebration of machismo: "Six Survive Running of the Fools."

* and probably racist, sexist, and heteronormative to boot.

Tuesday Randomness

Mammy, where's my drama queen crown?

So anyway, folks at the Civil War forum apparently do not appreciate my opinion that watching Gone with the Wind was like "waking up next to a badger ugly tramp and finding you were cuffed to her not at the wrist - where you might be able to gnaw your hand off and escape - but at the waist."  That's ok, I'm sure they're the experts.

I thought it pretty funny that our pastor preached on Romans 13 on Sunday morning, then that night at church we celebrated our successful rebellion against George III.

I rather liked Doomfinger's summary of Good Hater: A thesis without the boring bits, submitted in complete fulfillment of awesome. I just hope he's not trying to spare my feelings.

I may actually have a 'surprise' book or three out before "Penhallow's 'Indian Wars' for Modern Readers" is published in September.  It seems that a trio of my old "Tales of the Red Brethren" fantasy tales just might beat that to Kindle.  I'm not doing it, but I've been warned by a very sexy lady editor not to even think about publishing those. So with my birthday coming up, that might be my present.

When I was in Duluth a few months ago, I surreptitiously poured about 4" of rain in my (precipitation-obsessive) father's rain gauge.  He was totally excited, until I sent him a picture of me desecrating his backyard altar to Tlaloc.Then he laughed at the pwnage, but I could tell he was bummed. Suddenly Duluth got 9" of rain, flooded like hell, and he's all like, "Wow, that's too much water." First time since 1972 that he's had too much water. I'm sure I'm going to turn into him someday, not that it's a bad thing, all things considered.