Friday, October 29, 2004

Twice The Astonishing Lunacy, One Grand Old Party!

Unmitigated Gall

Rudy Giuliani, sawing through his own treelimb on The Today Show:

“No matter how you try to blame [allegedly misplacing 370 tons of ‘splosives] on the President, the actual responsibility for it should be on the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?”

Shorter Rudy: “Our troops are clowns.” Way to energize the base!!

Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, now an Intelligence bigwig at the Department of We Can See What You’re Doing, speaking at Haahvahd last yearon the topic of civil rights, safety and terrorism:

“Set aside what the mass of people think. Some things are so bad for them that you cannot allow them to have them. One of them is war in the context of terrorism in the United States… [t]herefore, we have to abridge individual rights, change the societal conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with our values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security official the right to search you without a judicial finding of probable cause.

Let me guess. We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. You have more responsibility than I could possibly fathom. I weep for civil liberties. I have that luxury. I have the luxury of not knowing what you know. That what you do saves lives. And your existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to me, saves lives. I don’t want the truth. because deep down, in places I don’t talk about at parties, I want you on that wall, I need you on that wall!

Something like that, then? Assclown?

[wik] ... and a Bonus Round from the Department of Homeland Security And Frivolous Prosecution of Stated Duties (this and the last via Reason):

So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox hasn’t been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.

So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia River town just north of Portland.

When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an illegal copy of the Rubik’s Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time.

He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.

After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that Rubik’s Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on the rival toy’s trademark.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency’s intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

“One of the things that our agency’s responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation’s financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications,” she said.

Seriously, DHS agents could take a stroll down Canal Street in Manhattan every day of the week and meet their yearly quota for copyright infrigement busts. It’s not that I object to them doing their job (much) but I do object to spending money on a toy store outside Portland and for busting Tommy Chong for selling impractical and unusable artistically-designed handblown glass intoxicant delivery devices. C’mon guys! Real bootleggers sell off tarpaulins, and real stoners can make a bong out of an apple. Why not go bust up a crystal meth lab somewheres?


Posted by Johno on 10/29/04 at 06:08 PM
Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Accountability

Partisan Politics

NDR has voted, and he (plus brdgt in the comments) makes an eleoquent case for the virtues of thoughtful political involvement. Says brdgt: “I will never mistake carefully crafted apathy as actual political participation again.”

Earlier this week I found myself on the phone to my parents pleading with them about the upcoming election. They live at Ground Zero (formerly known as “Ohio"), and between the Presidential race, a few ludicrious Congressional races including the one in their district, and the outrageous baby/bathwater Let’s Ban Gay Marriage And Everything That Reminds Us Of It Act that’s up for ratification, the stakes are pretty high. Although I changed no minds (and found that in important ways minds didn’t need changing), I found myself, almost for the first time in the past eighteen months, discarding my “carefully crafted apathy” (which is actually more like “finely modulated disgust,” but a spade’s a spade) in favor of unavoidable facts and solid positions. As for what that means, and who I’m voting for-- not telling, and your guess is probably wrong.

See also farther down NDR’s main page for perceptive comments on the ways that regional ties (homeland-ness) hinder the democratic process. 


Posted by Johno on 10/29/04 at 02:17 PM
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On Any Other Day…

Just So You Know

...this would be big news. But today, in light of the horrifying developments in the Robot War Against Nature we at the Ministry say ho-hum. A teacup-sized flying spy robot. Whoopeedoo. Wake us when they build a Veritech.


Posted by Johno on 10/29/04 at 01:54 PM
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Our Overlords Will Roam Free

Just So You Know

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than bionic rat brains and disembodied monkey waldos, it does. The benighted fools at the University of West England have built a robot that recharges itself by eating.

Scientists at the University of the West of England have designed a potentially autonomous robot which feeds on flies attracted by human excrement and uses them to generate electricity, the New Scientist reports.

EcoBot II is reckoned to be a real step towards “release and forget” autonomous robots - albeit it a small one. At present, EcoBot II has to be fed bluebottles manually by its creators and can generate enough juice to travel at about 10 centimetres an hour.

The device uses the chitin in the fly’s exoskeleton for fuel. The six-legged snacks are digested by bacteria in eight “microbial fuel cells” (anaerobic chambers filled with raw sewage slurry). The bacteria produce enzymes which break down the fly chitin, releasing sugars which the bacteria then absorb and metabolise. This latter process produces electrons which EcoBot II captures to generate electricity.

Oh, fabulous. Way to break the tether, gentlemen! The yoke of external power is the single most potent weapon in humankind’s fight against the encroaching robot menace. As long as they are resigned to periodically recharge themselves in some way, they can be fought and beaten. But what now? Imagine a titanium-framed wheeled machine (large or small) equipped with ‘nonlethal’ “pain ray” technology that can roam indefinitely, sustaining itself on biomass as it rounds up humans to labor in the tungsten mines. “Scientists"-- or should I say, species-traitors-- like this are only hurting the cause of humanity.

If we’re lucky-- if we’re lucky-- perhaps the robots will condescend to program themselves with taste, preserving our human traditions of “palatable food” and “good cooking” so as to make the coming Age of Machines less utterly miserable. 


Posted by Johno on 10/29/04 at 01:44 PM
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New Robotic Overlords to Use Rudimentary Tools, Fling Feces

Holy Shit!

Minister GeekLethal has notified me of a deeply disturbing new twist in humankind’s relentless march to self-enslavement: monkey-controlled robot arms.

US scientists have taught a monkey to operate a robotic arm to feed itself using only the power of its thoughts.

The experiment was revealed Tuesday at a meeting of neuroscientists in San Diego, The Guardian reports, and involves interception of signals from the brain by electrode probes. The signals are interpreted through an algorithm and transmitted to a robotic arm. The robotic arm consists of a mobile shoulder, elbow and gripping device.

<...snip...>

Four years ago a team from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, used electrode brain implants to link a monkey to the internet to allow it to move a lever 600 miles away in Massachusetts.

In the last several weeks we at the Ministry have collected a number of alarming stories. To name a few, we have seen: robotic house servants to do our chores and prepare us for a life of slavish lassitude; disembodied rat neurons flying jet planes; and the advent of ‘nonlethal’ “pain ray” technology ostensibly for crowd control but doubtless destined for infamy as our robot overlords’ weapon of choice against uprising, free-thinking, and food riots. Pain rays aren’t much good against robots, are they?

(Has anyone contemplated the horror that will befall mankind when the robots take over? I mean, really thought about it? I’m a bit of a gourmand and am looking forward tonight to dining with my wife on a nice piece of Alsatian cheese, a Cotes du Rhone, and a loaf of pain Levain. Do you think the robots will give two shits for how or what we eat? Soylent Green for some, and nutritous Vitamin Gruel for all! No more aged Angus steaks. No more new potatoes steamed and served with butter and thyme. No more artisan cheese. No more slatey, herbal Australian Sav Blancs. No more pizza. The horror!)

But back to the monkeys. We at the Ministry take our position as quislings very seriously, and when the robots come we intend to do all we can to extend the Ministry’s dominance and by implication see to the well-being of mankind-- something the robots will surely neglect. (We expect all to remember this kindness when the dark day comes, and to not hinder the Ministry in the unfortunate tasks set before us.) Unfortunately some things are beyond the pale, and remote-controlled mechanical monkey strangling arms are it. I for one do not welcome our screeching, feces-flinging, publicly autoerotic, bionically enhanced fleabag overlords and hereby put them on notice: KOKO BAD MONKEY.  BAD PAIN. SHINY ARM BAD. MAKE KOKO PAIN. Got that, monkeyboy?

I hope I have made myself clear to simian and hominid alike. That is all.


Posted by Johno on 10/29/04 at 01:23 PM
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Thursday, October 28, 2004

Nauseating

Unmitigated Gall

It just is. Hot dogs are bad enough without being shaped like intelligent sea life.

Thanks to Loyal Reader #0017, EDog, who now has a website all his own.  Says EDog, “Please visit it so my counter goes above ten.”


Posted by Johno on 10/28/04 at 08:45 PM
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War Materiel, Mostly Used

War

You don’t have to be an Arab trader, a thrifty Yankee, or a corporate titan to value a good deal.

Who among us has not wished for a lower car payment, or a more cost-effective set of wheels?  For the stump-jumping set, how long have you pined to take your H2 off-road for real, without needing the resources of a corporate sponsor to pay for the damage?  Can any one of you reading this now honestly say you have no need at all for a tracked vehicle?  Of course not.

For alot less cost and effort than you might think, you can drive away in an old US 2 1/2 ton truck (the venerable and ubiquitous “deuce-and-a-half"), various Germanic surplus trucks ("Pinzgauers"- these things kick viele Arsch), an old tracked tank destroyer (only driven to church and back-promise!), and even like-new Austrian assault bicycles.  Dealers’ prices too much for you?  Put in your own bid for everything from aircraft parts to semi-trailers.

The Pinzes especially are super cheap.  Even the refurbished ones are quite reasonable, both in terms of price and therefore in terms of not being afraid to really beat the shit out of them the way these things should be.  Don’t be surprised to see one someday around my house with a snowplow on it.


Posted by on 10/28/04 at 07:15 PM
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Impressive

Partisan Politics

Eminem’s new video/single, Mosh is really, really good. In an election season marked by singularly idiotic statements by artists (I’m talking to you, Bruce Springsteen. “We’ve been misled?” What the hell is misling?), Eminem has succeeded in making protest music that neither sucks nor panders.

Instead of recycling all the usual Bush Lied/Halliburton crap bit by bit, Eminem distances himself from pat criticisms of the President by putting those words in the mouths of characters and ties up all the criticisms of the President into one mass, putting the focus more on dissatisfaction in general rather than any one charge. A 9/11 reference opens the video, and takes us through vignettes of regular folks dealing with hard facts of life-- overly vigorous police, not making ends meet, and coming home from Iraq to your wife and kids to find you’re being shipped right back. For himself, Eminem reserves a more unfocused disgust with the way things are going (yes, getting with some pretty weak “F**k Bush” stuff) and by the end of the video he is leading a grim and angry mob into the street to… go vote.

I can’t believe I am writing this. It’s a sign of how bad things have gotten.  But Eminem-- Slim Shady-- has put together the single best populist critique of the post-9/11 Bush Administration, not that that’s saying much. No doubt at least two of my cobloggers will disagree with me about the quality of the critiques of the administration (and hey, Eminem is not exactly the most nuanced guy on the planet… Bush is a “weapon of mass destruction” my ass), but damn. In one shot Eminem succeeds in reducing hyperbole to something that almost resembles argument (or at least a call to arms), and makes voting into a revolutionary, fist-in-the-air act. It’s not that idiotic, pandering “Vote or Die” campaign P-Diddy’s on. It’s not that milkylicking limo-liberal “Vote for Change” thing. It’s just “Vote,” and for all the cliche and lack of nuance, it just works. 


Posted by Johno on 10/28/04 at 02:49 PM
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Big Ideas, Big Talent, and all Bent Toward Big Slacking

Unmitigated Gall

Loyal reader and former mullet-bearer Phil has noted, in responding to the most recent edition of TWiEHB, that despite their publicized buffoonery university students do have ideas.  He was being sarcastic, and I think he and I are of one mind concerning students generally.  I remembered that Phil has commented in the past about higher ed, which had caused me to think big thoughts about higher ed, which in turn snuffed any single, simple response I composed concerning higher ed.  His questions were too good and defied bloggish, simplistic responses.  So I ignored them, because addressing them proved too much like work.

This time, Phil has reminded me that despite my snarkiness over rampaging overgrown children, many students DO have ideas.  And he is right.  They DO have intellectual talent, and healthy imaginations.  They DO have the mental equipment to build a framework of understanding, a framework that, with a decent education and nurturing of caring faculty, can ultimately lead to the highest offices of leadership in our nation, and in our world.

And until they really really need to function in adult society, like when there’s a paycheck riding on their productivity, they will use those skills to get over, cheat, whine, and weasel out of exams. 

Here are 2 excuses I can recall, just off the top of my head, from when I was a TA, concerning missing an exam (or some other deadline):

“My roommate was freaking out because it turned out she was on crack and I had to take her to the emergency room,” and yadda yadda yadda, “couldn’t make the exam”.  Roughly 12 hours later.

“My roommate’s ex-boyfriend, who’s been stalking her, was lurking about and we had to go into hiding all night” and yadda yadda yadda, “couldn’t take the exam”.  Again, 12 hours after the fact.

What is the lamest excuse you ever heard for someone missing an exam?  What is the lamest excuse you personally ever had the nuts to give to get out of an exam?


Posted by on 10/27/04 at 04:36 PM
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At least they never slept with their mothers

Perfidy Responds

The Red Sox’ postseason run is shaping up an awful lot like Greek tragedy, and not your usual one, either. The Greeks sort of went in for that tacit “he’s f**ked” vibe in their morality plays without ever spelling it out. The Red Sox are more likely living out a fate similar to Ionesco’s retelling of Oedipus Rex where you are told right at the beginning by narrators how Oedipus will spend the next three hours being f**ked, in precisely what ways, and how his anguish matches perfectly in method and measure with some capricious twist of fate he had an accidental hand in long ago.

I mention this because every Red Sox fan in the world knows that everying teeters on a knife’s edge now. The Red Sox are one game away from winning the World Series, and indeed have gone 3-0 against their opponents to get to this point.

But wait. Just last week the Red Sox dispatched their oldest and most hated rivals by losing three and winning four. I am convinced that by this weekend, the hands of what cruel gods rule baseball will be visible in the heavens as the Red Sox slide inexorably to their horrible, crushing, and perfectly greek-tragic-symmetrical fate, losing the next four games to fall in seven to the same franchise that has beaten them twice before-- but this time losing the World Series in the exact same way they won to get there. Along the way, they will find that, having killed their enemy, they have become him.

It’s only a short step from Calvinistic predestination to talk of modern-day Greek Gods. It doesn’t help that Kevin Youkilis, the God of Walks, actually plays for the Sox.  It’s over folks. Remember, you read it here first.

[wik]...... OR NOT.

*WHEW.* Now maybe I can get some sleep.


Posted by Johno on 10/27/04 at 03:12 PM
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Pray For Oil

Partisan Politics

Conservatives, please...unite.  Join hands with me now, as we pray to the Lord Almighty for deliverance.  Or deliveries, as it were.  Let the good works, the fine brown trucks of UPS continue to flourish across this glorious land which you have given us.  Spare us from the distasteful inconveniences of the sciences, whose conclusions embrace the fallen. 

Our brethren, who art in Amman, honoured are thy contracts.  Lord provide unto them captured sunlight, the guise of dead life.  Give us our texas tea, and forgive those whom we crush, as we forgive them for our trespasses.  Lead us not, and deliver us from reason. 

Dear Biblical Scholars: Did the bible ever cover the fiscal signs of the apocalypse? 


Posted by Ross on 10/26/04 at 06:56 PM
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Caucus Right Up Your Quorum

Partisan Politics

CNN makes with the dirty funnies: Clinton pumps base from the stump.

Yeah, I tried that once. Hurt like hell and I had to pee sitting down for a week.

[wik] In case anyone was wondering, the appearance of knock-knock and dick jokes from me in this forum indicates that I’ve had enough of this whole ‘lection thing. Soooo tired. Soooo sick of it.

Of the dozens of weblogs I no longer read thanks to election fatigue, I deign to single out for particular abuse: Kevin Drum, Balloon Juice, Mark Kleiman, RedState, Tacitus, and those assholes at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy. Just kidding about that last one. The rest can go pound salt. 


Posted by Johno on 10/26/04 at 04:47 PM
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Unfrozen Caveman Sox Fan

Just So You Know

The world’s oldest man is a lifelong Red Sox fan. 


Posted by Johno on 10/26/04 at 01:41 PM
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Some Perfectly Cromulent Neologisms

Entertainment

Loyal Reader #0017 (EDog) writes,

The Washington Post’s “Style Invitational” once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year’s winners;

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you’re eating

Heh. Indeed. 


Posted by Johno on 10/26/04 at 01:33 PM
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This Week in Exemplary Human Behavior

Lead Pipe Cruelty

For the Week Ending 25Oct04:

Spotlight Iraq: Since this feature began, Iraq has been a bottomless well of exemplary human behavior.  This week is no different.  Savages kidnapped Margaret Hassan, head of CARE International’s Iraq operations.  Hassan is part Iraqi herself, and has spent much of the last 30 years working in the country to help (according to the CARE homepage) “the world’s poorest communities solve their most threatening problems.” But Hassan is only the highest-profile prisoner this week.  Three Macedonian contractors captured in August were beheaded.  Perhaps the head chopping, self-imagined footsoldiers for Allah might be counted among the most threatening problems in Iraq?

Spotlight South Carolina: A Rock Hill, SC policeman used his taser to subdue a 75 year old woman who...ahem..."assaulted" him.  The woman refused to leave a nursing home after visiting hours and became argumentative when told to leave.  The cop claims the woman swung at him, despite her having “arthritis and six broken ribs”.  Tasering ensued, although why he couldn’t have just picked her up and tucked her under his arm I’m not sure about.

I might have wished for a taser once or twice when I foolishly put myself between an elderly phalanx of walkers, canes, and Rascals and the 3-for-a-dollar cucumber bin at my grocery store.  Warm cookie and macrame cozy grandma disappears; coldly shrewd and implacable ancient evil takes her place.  But I manage to get myself out of their way without actually having to, you know, electrocute anyone.  Sheesh.

Spotlight Pennsylvania: A man shooting at a mouse in his home shot his girlfriend instead.

One more time: A man shooting at a mouse...in his home...shot his girlfriend instead.

So.  His first instinct wasn’t to buy some traps, or get a fucking cat, but to take out his .22 and start shooting.  As far as I’m concerned, she got what she deserved by being so stupid as to hang around someone so improbably stupid.  Too bad the mouse didn’t skitter across his forehead when he was shooting.  We would’ve owed him and all mousekind a great debt by helping eradicate this contamination of the human genepool.

Spotlight Massachussesss: Boston is aswarm with historical places.  The city is aware of its history and that history’s greater relationship to the national imagination.  Boston and environs have pioneered living responsibly within important historical spaces in the evolving cityscape.  And most importantly, Boston has mastered marketing history to make money from tourists.  So it was just true to form that after a historic win in a historic game, the Land of Bean and Cod had itself a good, olde tyme riot. 

Lots of property damage, your basic flipped and burned cars, busted windows aplenty.  Not a few busted noses.  And one death: an undergraduate killed by a policeman firing a munition marketed as “non-lethal”.  Since the victim is non-alive, and will ever remain so, I urge Boston PD to reconsider non-lethal ammunition’s place in the force and treat it henceforward as lethal.  Because it quite obviously can be.

Meanwhile, at the University of Massachuessesss-Amherst, local police had their own riots to contend with.  There were at least 29 arrests immediately following the game, relating primarily to destruction of property, assault, and....oh yes, hurling beer cans of flaming liquid at cops.  Several thousand dollars will be spent to repair windows and replace furniture. 

The leaders of tomorrow.  Today.

Ministry safety tip: Kids, rioting can be a blast.  You can break stuff and steal things, maybe even bust a head or two, all in good fun.  You even get plausible deniability to the cops by being a nameless face in a crowd.  For precisely the same reason, you get to sound like a big man because you can say you were wherever you need to say you were to sound interesting to chicks.  And best of all, you don’t even have to be a malefactor- just being there is enough to claim anything for any audience.  But when you see a line of riot police with shields, faceplates, and mounted cavalry on the march, go home.  Come down off the telephone pole and go the hell home. 


Posted by on 10/26/04 at 12:39 PM
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