Thursday, October 02, 2003

Scottish Researchers Discover Perfect Sandwich

The Miracle of Science

... or at least the perfect sandwich for Scottish people. Disgusting.


Posted by Johno on 10/02/03 at 07:43 PM
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Recovery redux

Filthy Lucre

I also see, via Macaronies, that 43.6 million Americans don’t have health insurance-- an increase of 2.4 million over last year.

Though this is short of the 1998 high, this kind of sucks. The main cause is that employers are finding new and exciting ways to deny their workers health care (extending the part-time designation, or just flat out not having a health plan), and the secondary cause is rising unemployment.

Some, like my esteemed coblogger, see this as inherent in the system. I see this as a problem that bears addressing. Basic health care is so simple, and so important, [update: and so expensive!!] that the Good Old Liberal Try seems attractive to me in this case. What do we do? What DO we do?


Posted by Johno on 10/02/03 at 07:32 PM
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An Open Letter to Chicago Public Library Desk Vandals

Lead Pipe Cruelty

From the greatest website in Christendom, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

A N &nbsp O P E N &nbsp L E T T E R
T O &nbsp C H I C A G O
P U B L I C &nbsp L I B R A R Y
D E S K &nbsp V A N D A L S .

BY HOLLY GRIGALUNAS

Dear Vandals,

I write in regard to your collective graffiti displayed on a study carrel — just east of the map collection and through the foreign books — in the Harold Washington branch of the Chicago Public Library. While your detailed Asian fetishes and sketches of generously-endowed hermaphrodites kept me distracted from my primary reading materials for quite some time, I thought you may benefit from a few tips that may better convey your sentiments.

Choose your writing instrument carefully. Markers and Wite-Out will do. Avoid pencil; it rubs off far too easily — “CASTRATE ALL… “ what? Your ideal method may be to etch directly into the wood, perhaps with a paperclip or very sturdy ballpoint pen. Along with imbuing a rustic, almost old-timey, timbre to your voice, it may avoid any further confusion over which ethnic group gives the best head.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/02/03 at 06:06 PM
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Intrepid Kuwaitis find smoking gun?

War

The world renowned Hindustan Times is reporting that:

Kuwaiti security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Wednesday.

A desultory google search showed no other articles on this event.  Meanwhile, the long expected Kay report is expected to show no hard evidence of WMD, though many dual use facilities that could be quickly converted to evil uses - and extensive efforts to conceal those capabilities.

The Hindustan Times article came out almost a day ago, its surprising that no other news outlet has commented on it.

In related news, North Korea has three times as many nukes as we thought, and is making more.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/02/03 at 02:47 PM
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Belated Vituperation

Filthy Lucre

Some recovery we’re having.

The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million last year, and the median household income declined by 1.1 percent, the Census Bureau reported today. The worsening economic conditions fell heaviest on Midwesterners and nonwhites.

It was the second straight year of adverse changes in both poverty and income, the first two-year downturn since the early 1990’s.

The data, results of the Census Bureau’s annual Current Population Survey, the official barometer for measuring income and poverty rates, showed that lingering negative effects of the recent recession cut across a broad swath of the population.

The official poverty rate rose to 12.1 percent in 2002 from 11.7 percent the year before, bringing to total number of people living below the poverty line to 34.6 million.

The median household earned income fell $500 over the same period to $42,400. Per capita income declined by 1.8 in 2002 to $22,794, the first decline since 1991.


Posted by Johno on 10/02/03 at 02:43 PM
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Democrats: Drifting, drifting ever aft & larboard

Lead Pipe Cruelty

Yesterday was a day of music blogging, but since today I’m feeling vituperative, I’d like to comment on this.

Senate Republicans, bowing to what appears to be a Senate majority, said Tuesday that they had begun exploring a compromise that would require Iraq to repay at least part of the $20.3 billion in reconstruction aid the Bush administration wants to spend.

So lemme get this straight. We go in and blow hell out of their country. We find that the previous head of household left it a shithole. Said shithole isn’t producing revenue fast enough to offset the cost of helping the residents of said shithole survive past age 20. Consequently, we ask the people living in said shithole, who would very much like to ascend to “hovel” or even “happy dwelling” status sooner rather than later, and who have been on the whole most accommodating to our ass-kickery, to come up with the money themselves sometime soon. The money they don’t have.

Well ain’t that a kick in the fucking head. Maybe the Senate should look into the possibilities of extracting a pound of flesh from each Iraqi citizen instead. Or perhaps traffick in their children. Either way is equally insulting as the actual proposal.

Twenty fucking billion. What is that? The cost of a hammer? A drop in the ocean? Thanks, Senate Democrats, for finding a new low! Thanks, Republicans, for sharing in the discovery!


Posted by Johno on 10/02/03 at 02:28 PM
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Wednesday, October 01, 2003

New Logo belatedly applied to Pefidy category

Perfidy

After strenuous interrogation, summary executions, and several six-hour-long mandatory marketing meetings, the HTML gnomes who labor in the stygian depths below the Ministry compound were forced to admit that they had made a dreadful and embarrassing error.  That despite having received no instructions to do so, they had utterly and completely failed to adapt the new Perfidy logo to the Perfidy category, as should have been obvious to even your average retarded Ohioan.

Behold, the new Perfidy category icon:

Perfidy Perfidy, for Ministry announcements and directives.

This painful mistake is now behind us.  A new team of HTML pixies has taken over supervision of the smoking industrial edifice that is the Minsitry web server, devotedly feeding it sacrifices of blood and toil to keep it churning away, pounding and shaping the code into the beautiful form you see before you.


Posted by Ministry on 10/01/03 at 08:21 PM
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New, Better Perfidy Gear Available

Perfidy

The Ministry would like to thank, if not actually compensate, the thousands of young children in various third world hell holes that have labored so hard and so well to create the new perfidy gear.  The Ministry would also like to commend John Karapelou for his foresightful and compassionate concern for his pets, that resulted in the wondrous Perfidy Logo now available on a variety of consumer goods.

By clicking here or on the “Perfidious Store Thingy” link to my right, you will be instantly transported to a lucious garden of glorious capitalism.  Here you may peruse the garments hand crafted by the nimble fingers of Latin American youths.  Here you will see toys manufactured by Chinese criminals paying their debt to soceity.  Here you find wonders made possible by your humble servant, the Ministry of Minor Perfidy.

Shop, and buy.  We insist.


Posted by Ministry on 10/01/03 at 08:06 PM
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Eat Drums! Eat Drums!

Entertainment

Via Rodney Welch I find the greatest thing I’ve seen this week, and possibly this year:

Ken Brashear’s virtual drumkit.

Enjoy, kids!


Posted by Johno on 10/01/03 at 07:01 PM
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Wilson speaks

Partisan Politics

It seems that Joe Wilson has something of an agenda.  Wilson said:

“Neo-conservatives and religious conservatives have hijacked this administration, and I consider myself on a personal mission to destroy both.”

So why was this guy accepting a secret mission from the Bush administration to go to Nigeria in the first place?  A lot of people who were aghast at the idea of independent counsels a half decade ago suddenly seem enamored of them now. 

And Bob Novak has written another piece, here, that pokes some more holes in the scandal in waiting.  But, go ahead, investigate, we need to be sure.  But this looks less and less like a story with legs to me.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/01/03 at 05:43 PM
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Do-it-yourself MIT education

Just So You Know

MIT has expanded significantly the course offerings through its
OpenCourseWare program.  Over 500 classes in 33 academic disciplines are now available. 

I’m diving into two courses, Systems Analysis of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Numerical Methods of Applied Mathematics I.  Exciting and stimulating material.  Oh, and I’m going to take Mechanical Assembly and Its Role in Product Development and Beginning Japanese I.

Actually, I think I’m going to check out some of the political science and history stuff.  Pretty cool.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/01/03 at 05:27 PM
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Fusion Power Now!

That Buck Rogers Stuff

In response to Johno’s post about Sterling’s Luddite screed:

Bruce is an insightful and clever guy, mostly.  What he is willfully ignoring here is the provisional nature of all technology.  As the Connestoga wagon was relentlessly consumed by the recreational vehicle, so all technologies are on death row, waiting for their final appeal to fail.  Then they are replaced by something cheaper, more efficient, or better.  These ten technologies are no worse, or better than hundreds of others.  What he is offering is a purely aesthetic evaluation of the technologies he’d most like to see replaced by their more advanced descendents. 

For example, coal, while not an optimal solution to our energy needs, is a good enough fit that it provides for a quarter of our energy requirements.  Certainly, orbital solar power satellites or the perennially twenty-years distant cheap fusion power would be better in most respects.  Less environmental impact, cheaper, less waste, and fusion reactors look really cool on the back of a DeLorean.  However, the primary stumbling block to the adoption of these superior technologies is that they do not yet exist.

All technologies, with certain exceptions, are awkward compromises between cost, performance, and safety.  Like the joke about NASA, “Better, faster, cheaper: pick two.” We could all wish for the inhead, superultramegahigh definition tv with the dolbyphonic 9.3 3D surround sound that comes straight from the ether directly into your cranium.  And it won’t scratch like a DVD!  But the premature destruction of these technologies would not advance the process of getting their replacements.  With coal, most obviously. 

But as a space nut, I take particular exception for his call for the immediate demise of space travel - just as it looks like the whole thing might be going somewhere.  Given Sterling’s general political leanings, I would think that he would be happy that private grass-rootsy space exploration endeavors are on the verge of actually working.  Killing what little we have now would make it impossible to get to the next, better stage.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/01/03 at 05:12 PM
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Fat Possum: They Try Their Best

Music Wonkery

On the topic of the Blues and music industry perfidy, Fat Possum Records has a page up on their site taken from the New York Times explaining why Fat Possum Artists didn’t participate in Martin Scorcese’s “The Blues.”

It boils down to this: Fat Possum treats their artists well, and didn’t think that the rates the producers were offering for use of the music were close to fair. The publishers for the film-makers responds, as does Bobby Rush. 


Posted by Johno on 10/01/03 at 02:04 PM
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Martin Scorsese is a Goddamned Genius

Music Wonkery

Last night I was idly flipping channels before hitting the sack when I came upon the third episode of Martin Scorsese’s The Blues, directed by Richard Pearce.

Fuck.


Posted by Johno on 10/01/03 at 01:39 PM
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Bruce Sterling Fights A Rearguard Action!

That Buck Rogers Stuff

I’m not so sure what to make of this. Science Fiction great Bruce Sterling has an article in the ”Technology Review“ titled “Ten Technologies That Deserve To Die.”

His list, without his explanations:

  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Coal-Based Power
  • The Internal Combustion Engine
  • Incandescent Lightbulbs
  • Land Mines
  • Manned Space Flight
  • Prisons
  • Cosmetic Implants
  • Lie Detectors
  • DVDs

    Wha? The automobiles are scaring the horses! Where are my pants?

    Now, I’m with Brucie on removing land mines, lie detectors, and perhaps maybe newcular weapons from the minds and hands of man, but what the hell? If you read the list closely, Sterling isn’t so much arguing that all these technologies are EVIL, per se, (though he certainly has a hate on for coal power and the light bulb), as arguing that they are deeply flawed temporary solutions to problems that will one day be solved through the power of… technology. No argument there, but the whole thing seems a little overheated, not to mention unexpectedly curmudgeonly, coming from someone who once fell in love with the revolutionary possibilities of the fax machine.

    [update] Now, with working link! 


    Posted by Johno on 10/01/03 at 01:09 PM
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