close to home

Anyone else noticed that the Comedy Central show Dog Bites Man--a mockumentary based on a fake news outlet called "KHBX Spokane"--directly parodies KOMO-4's graphics?

the Red Hot Chili Peppers suck

Take a jalapeño, scoop out the seeds, and throw the rest into a pot of boiling water for two hours. What do you get? The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

the Gipper's unfamiliar legacy

Matt Rosenberg is angry. Really angry. In fact, he's sliming Washington State Democrats as America-haters because of their call for a national Department of Peace. Quoth Rosenberg,

This flaccid and inimical concept surfaced during the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign of Dennis Kucinich. Message today from Yakima: Washington Democrats are naive dupes, soft on terrorism, and they hate the United States while fatuously pretending otherwise.

However, astute reader DaveJ (in the comments, scroll down) points to the United States Institute for Peace, an official organization established by Congress and already set up to accomplish similar goals. Who, you may ask, approved the establishment of this liberal, America-hating enterprise?

After considerable debate about the appropriate form of the new institution, the United States Institute of Peace Act was finally passed and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

We may have to revise our hagiography.

Washington State GOP platform: available for public comment

Some highlights [pdf]:

• Approvingly quoting a classic Bushism: "There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country."
• Not recognizing the irony in quoting Emma Lazarus to preface talk of building a better fence.
• Calling for "A policy that public schools not promote or identify homosexuality as a healthy, morally acceptable, or alternative lifestyle," while a mere three bullet points later, calling for "Academic freedom and the free expression of all varying viewpoints on our campuses." Except, of course, the identification of homosexuality as healthy, morally acceptable, or an alternative lifestyle.
• Boldly defending the Pledge of Allegiance (in its modified form, of course).
• Trumpeting individual liberty while completely ignoring I-901.

[link thanks to David Postman.]

only the ignorant have nothing to fear

Constitution? Old and outmoded. Slippery slopes? I've got traction tires. Power corrupts? Change the channel.

If our government needs to check call logs to keep this country safe, then by all means, check away. For all I care, the NSA can come over to my house and listen in to my own conversations.

People are complaining that it is an invasion of privacy. Let me tell you something: The NSA will not be cracking down on some guy in Connecticut for using a curse word. They are looking for terrorists.

If people are saying nothing wrong or calling the wrong people, there should be nothing to worry about. If you're not a terrorist, you have nothing to worry about. If no one was making bad deals overseas with warlords in Iraq or Afghanistan, there wouldn't need to be this proactive strike on terrorism.

The NSA is not actually listening in and recording phone calls, they are just checking call records - where calls are going to or coming from - in order to detect any calling patterns that may lead to terrorist activity. They do not actually have the right to listen into or record any phone conversations without a warrant from a judge.

I'm not saying that it absolutely doesn't happen, but if it keeps me safe, I don't care.

Unless the people who are proposing that this is an invasion of privacy can come up with some surefire way to keep me safe from any terrorist attacks, quit complaining.

Let the NSA do its job and keep this country safe.

Brad Ecklund, Olympia

Hands down, the saddest letter to the editor of the entire year.

illegal immigration anagram

1. $999,999 is as high as I'll go for this auto repository.
2. Get to shuttle moms, aunts, sisters, and grandmas in a stretch Hummer.
3. Paper-folding whiz feels a strange vibration.
4. Watch out: Sheen sibling acquires Midas touch.
5. Nonnative netminder downed by diptheria.
6. Why can't the reptilian just say what we all know isn't true?

Click "read more" to see the answers.



1. GARAGE LIMIT: MILLION
2. MATRILINEAL LIMO GIG
3. ORIGAMI MILL ATINGLE
4. ALARMING EMILIO GILT
5. IMMIGRANT GOALIE ILL
6. ALLIGATOR MIMING LIE



[ninety-ninth in a series]

ontologically impossible

Right now there's an interesting discussion over on EvolutionBlog concerning Dembski's recent attempt at theodicy [pdf] Two posts--check 'em out.

My own thoughts on the subject:

evil and free will: an exploration

To recap: if God freely always does the right thing, Plantinga's argument implodes. If God has freely chosen the wrong thing, He is not wholly good. If God cannot help but always do the right thing, then humans are more "valuable" than God....

transcending infinite loops: theodical musings

Dembski is fond of (mis)using the "NFL theorems" to whack at evolution. But "transcendence," like "emergence," is its own form of ontological free lunch, raising far more questions than answers....

of mice and design

Why can fish and amphibians regrow organs and limbs, while mammals--never mind humans--can't? Is it an inscrutable whim, a design constraint, a purposeful omission?...

rainbow on your parade

Listen to your gut. No, you're not hungry--beauty implies design....

[ninety-eighth in a series]

what does it mean to put a bug in your ear?

You're humming along to the corporate anthem, clickety-clacking at your desk in contentment, or at least resignation, triple-checking the sales figures from the third quarter of 2004 when your boss wheels over to your cubicle, leans in, brushes away a sandwich crumb from her upper lip and says, "Carson, I've been meaning to put a bug in your ear about the upcoming picnic, but haven't had the time, blah blah bliggety blah blah blah...." and your three thoughts are that was either rye or wheat bread and it would be nice if cubicles had doors and what the heck is she talking about?

When your boss leaves, you Google the phrase, arrive here, and learn every reasonable permutation, both literal and metaphorical.

"Put a bug in your ear."

literal meanings

Place an... ...in your...
insect or similar organism... ...organ of hearing
disease-causing microorganism... ...something resembling this organ
infectious disease... ...seed-bearing spike of a cereal plant
defect in a system or design... ...small box in the upper corner of a newspaper
defect in a computer program... ...obsession
enthusiast... ...electronic surveillance device

metaphorical meanings
get your attention
make you afraid of children
subliminally get you to think
have a bottle of Chardonnay
cause your crops to wither
curse your descendants
cause your brain to malfunction
diversify your investment portfolio

Do you love to learn English? I love to learn English. I love you, too.




[ninety-seventh in a series]

letter-writing campaign kicks off

"That's why I'm glad I'm here, maybe I can do something about it."
--Kris Kringle, Miracle on 34th Street

In one of the best-known (and most often parodied) scenes from the classic film, a judge asking for evidence that Santa is real is buried in a pile of letters from the US Postal Service, and tears of joy stream from the eyes of everyone in the courtroom into a river of goodness that stretches from New York to San Diego.

Okay, not quite. But writing a letter--especially a succinct letter--is an important and effective way to communicate our seriousness and resolve to our friends across the negotiating table.

Here's an early draft of my letter.

Dear School Board Members and Superintendent Lahmann,

First, I'd like to thank you for your ceaseless efforts to make the Olympia School District truly world-class. I've spent four years as a high school English teacher at Capital, confident from the first day that I chose the right place to learn and grow as a teacher, even staying with the district through a difficult RIF process because of that same confidence.

Each day this district's teachers sacrifice hours of their time to help students meet rigorous standards. Adding nine hours of optional day time and six hours of staff development is a small but significant way to mitigate that sacrifice. Now that we're financially solvent again, the time is right to take this important step.

I encourage you to accept the OEA's proposal.

Regards,

Jim Anderson

It takes fifteen minutes to sit down, type up, print off, and mail away a letter. Thanks to the magic of interdistrict mail, it doesn't even cost a stamp. Write yours today, and send it Monday.

Four hundred letters. I've written one. You can write one. Together, we can achieve our goal.

the smoke-easy, Seattle, circa 2006

Ridiculous overreach. Unnecessary litigating. Nannycoddling. (All part of a sadder, larger trend.) The smoking ban has a new unintended consequence: the smoke-easy.

Quietly, the tattooed bartender scans the room, poker-faced.

It's about 11 p.m. on a weeknight. A man with a shaved head is talking about being in a heavy-metal band. Two young women are flipping through an adult entertainment industry magazine. About a dozen others are drinking in the bar.

Nobody looks like the type who'd rat the bartender out to the health department.

So she pulls out a stack of black plastic ashtrays -- the kind that used to be so prevalent in bars across Washington -- and casually places them in front of her customers, who immediately begin digging out packs of cigarettes.

The bartender tells them, "You shouldn't smoke" and "Don't do it," partly because she just graduated from nursing school and really thinks people shouldn't smoke, and partly because the bar doesn't "officially" endorse smoking.

Then she walks from behind the bar over to the front windows and closes the red velvet curtains....

The sheer inanity of I-901 ought to be apparent to everyone by now. It's legal to inhale all the smoke you want from your own cigarette. It's illegal to inhale all the smoke you want from someone else's. How stupid is that?

"Smoking is part of dive-bar culture," said Zack Brown, a smoker in a literally underground establishment elsewhere in the city. "It's like people drinking PBR."

Pabst Blue Ribbon? Now there's something worth banning. PBR smokes you.

no award for "most likely to blog about the awards"

Last night my wife and I attended CHS's IB potluck. At the end of each school year, diploma candidates gather to relax, celebrate the end of a stressful academic career, and hand out awards such as "Biggest Slacker" and "Most Likely To Remind a Teacher About an Assignment."

I taught many of these students for two consecutive years*, so I felt fortunate to be there celebrating with them, but more fortunate to escape some of the special teacher awards, including "Worst Whiskers" and "Most Likely to Go Off on a Tangent." (I will preserve the anonymity of the winners.)

A nifty card came my way, designed in a tacky tie theme and bearing kind words from former students. But really, the debt of gratitude is mine. Have I mentioned how much I love teaching?




*The same can be said about this year's juniors, so next year will be equally special.

WASL wait: the suspense builds

The impending score release hits The Olympian this morning (thank you, Internet; no thank you, internal alarm clock). Districts will receive the scores June 9, while students will get them around the middle of the month. For those who didn't pass--and no one at this point has any idea how many students this will be--remediation looms large.

Earlier this year, state legislators approved $28.5 million for programs for students who didn't pass the WASL.

The amount each district gets is determined by a formula involving student scores and the district's average salary for teachers, said Joe Willhoft of OSPI. The average amount will be about $120 per student per subject for someone who almost passed, and $330 per student per subject for someone who was not very close to passing, he said.

Districts have until summer 2007 to use the money, he said....

The supplemental money won't cover what districts already have planned to help students pass the WASL, district officials said. The Tumwater and Olympia districts found money in their budgets to subsidize the WASL programs. Information from North Thurston Public Schools wasn't available.

Will the vast majority of students pass? Will $28.5 million be enough? Will I sleep in past 8:30 on a weekend? Stay tuned....

those sinister amino acids

A couple months ago I blogged about a putative advance in the study of chirality, back when Meir Shinitzky figured that water's properties might explain why amino acids are left-handed. I wrote, "The problem isn't yet solved to everyone's satisfaction, but at least demonstrates that saying 'Science will never / can never' is often a bet against the odds."

Now, in an important new finding that builds on Shinitzky's work,

Donna Blackmond at Imperial College London and colleagues dissolved a mixture of solid L and D versions of the amino acid serine in water. They found that a small difference in the initial proportion of one version gets amplified in the resulting solution. So a 100:1 mixture of L- and D-serine produces a solution made up almost entirely of L-serine, but so does a 100:99 mixture (Nature, vol 441, p 621).

"It doesn't matter what proportions of solid amino acids you throw in, you always get exactly the same proportions in solution," says Blackmond, whose team has found a similar effect with other amino acids. She says she is surprised that no one noticed the effect before.

I'll wager a left-handed shovel that the origin of chirality will be explained to (pretty much) everybody's satisfaction within the next decade. And I, unlike certain blowhards we all know and love, keep my wagers.

leapin' Libertarians

A while back, prompted by Timothy Sandefur's observations, I thought I'd chip in some thoughts about capital-L Libertarian demographics, eventually asking how the perpetual backrunners might someday lead the pack.

And then I discovered the national Libertarian strategic plan [HUGE pdf].

Now, most of it's pretty tame, obvious even, calling for greater visibility, better and more numerous candidates, hot-button issues, etc. But there are some interesting ideas in there:

Strategy 12: Strive to achieve a left/right balance among the Libertarian Party support base

Strategy 14: Develop and implement an internal program of ideological education

Strategy 18: Focus resources to achieve the repeal of drug prohibition at the federal level by 2010 and get substantial credit for it [Under this we find "Position the LP as the champion of innocent third party victims of the drug war," "Position the LP as the champion of incarcerated drug users who are not guilty of other offenses," and "Build a 'Parents Against Prohibition' organization."]

Strategy 20: Motivate the Libertarian Party support base to increase activism by recognizing and rewarding both effort and success and by making involvement in the Libertarian Party an enjoyable, positive experience

(Number 14 sounds positively communist.) A general way to boost numbers: water down the entrance requirements.

SPT recommends that the LP should welcome into the LP all people in the “libertarian quadrant.” This term relates to the “World’s Smallest Political Quiz” which measures one’s views on economic and personal liberty. The “libertarian quadrant” corresponds to a rating of 50% or higher in response to questions on both economic and personal liberty.

Rebranding Libertarians is part of the process. How they want to be seen:

Armed
Beneficial
Caring
Compassionate
Competent
Creative
Doers
Effective
Empathetic
Freedom-loving
Helpful
Honest
Humane
Inspiring
Just
Knowledgeable
Leaders
Likeable
Passionate
Patriotic
Peaceful
Practical
Principled
Quaker
Right (correct)
Self-Reliant
Superman
Tolerant
Trustworthy

The best part of the document comes from the brainstorming sessions. After all, in a brainstorm there's no such thing as a bad idea.

Buy an island and make it into a Libertarian society
Elimination the Socialist Party
Repeal all laws against activities of consenting adults
Challenge the cult of the omnipotent state
Successful lobbying for/against legislation
Implementation of Sun Tzu guerilla tactics
Defending the "odd ball" for attention
Going on the offensive and stop worrying about appearing radical
Reaching out to already-sympathetic high school students
Owning and running with the Bill of Rights
Looking at practices that made us strong in the 1970's
Accepting any federal money we can get
Emphasizing secession from tyrannical local, state, and federal governments
Promoting "caring" libertarians
Focusing on Internet dominance
Sponsoring a race car
Advertising in "High Times" magazine
Sponsoring a WWF wrestler
Recruiting Drew Carey
Using voter outreach teams accompanied by rock bands
Encouraging the national media to report real news
Don’t worry, be happy
Employing a poet to develop symbols and themes to sell our message
Developing a "Women of the LP" calendar
Throwing a monkey wrench into the political process whenever possible
Blackmailing other candidates to support our positions in tight races
Developing an LP beer
Encouraging activists to develop a killer instinct
Advocating the dispersal of all government land to the poor

This is why you hire consultants: to weed out the wackos.

WASL wait

Summon all your powers of reading comprehension (yes, there will be a test) to figure this one out:

Sophomores will get their own WASL scores by June 14, but officials for the state's education agency said Thursday there are too many data issues to quickly calculate how many students statewide passed the three exam sections required to graduate — reading, writing and math. OSPI, however, will release this month how many of the test-takers passed each individual subject.

Maybe this will make more sense:

Sophomores will get their own WASL scores by June 14, but officials for the state's education agency said Thursday there are too many data issues to quickly calculate how many students statewide passed all three exam sections required to graduate — reading, writing and math. OSPI, however, will release this month how many of the test-takers passed each individual subject.

Get it now?

(If not, you may need a refresher on the ecological fallacy. Let's say 90% pass reading, 90% pass writing, and 90% pass math. That means 90% passed the WASL, right?

Bzzt. It's possible that there are a different 10% failing each subject, so up to 30% overall might have failed the WASL. After all, if you fail one section, sucks to be you. Welcome to remedial classes or a long, long summer.)

an age-old question--sort of

Philosophers have never been able to pin down precisely when sand crosses the threshold from scattered grains to a pile. (In fact, in his later years, Plato was often seen playing on the beaches of Athens, building invisible sandcastles and muttering to himself.)

Now, though, scientists have solved a slightly different problem: how many locusts does it take to make a swarm? The answer:

The experiments showed that at low densities of just 2 to 7 locusts, the insects moved independently, while at slightly higher densities of 10 to 25 locusts they banded together, changing direction in unison, rapidly and spontaneously.

When more than 30 locusts were put together in the enclosed space (equivalent to 74 locusts per square metre), they adopted the aligned movement of a swarm after five minutes, collectively marching around the confined space until the experiment was ended 8 hours later.

No word on when a swarm of locusts becomes a viable political option.

Paul Nelson vs. Michael Shermer

Just got word of the audio of the Nelson-Shermer debate [mp3]:

On February 27th, at the University of Alabama, Michael Shermer defended evolution in a debate against Paul Nelson — one of the world’s most noted proponents of intelligent design and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. For your listening pleasure, we have made available an audio recording of this debate in mp3 format. Please note that the first 2 minutes and 48 seconds of this recording has technical problems with volume and clarity, but the rest is fine.

I haven't had time to listen to the whole thing, but I will note that Paul Nelson seems to grant that life appeared on earth 3.8 billion years ago--at least according to "current models."

Baby steps, Paul.

numbers to surprise and delight

One of the benefits of a subscription to The Economist is its annual "Pocket World in Figures," a nifty compendium of economic and demographic statistics the globe over.

For instance, though the United States is by far the global leader in consumption, it's not first in nitrogen emissions (9th) or sulfur dioxide emissions (16th), and isn't in the top twenty for threatened mammal species. Also, everyone who carps about SUVs and overcrowded highways had better look at this list:

Number of Cars Per 1000 People
1. Lebanon 732
2. New Zealand 613
3. Brunei 576
Luxembourg 576
5. Iceland 561
6. Canada 559
7. Italy 542
8. Germany 516
9. Switzerland 507
10. Malta 505
11. Austria 494
12. France 491
13. Australia 488
14. United States 481

Considering that about half of the U.S.'s cars currently are rusting in a yard in Oakville, Washington, and that the U.S. also ranks 14th in vehicles per kilometer of populated land and 17th in overall road use, perhaps we should direct our vehicular wrath elsewhere. Like at Lebanon.

pardon my analogy

We're in the sixth inning, now. Our starter is starting to get a bit winded, but has changed tactics as the game has progressed, mixing in a few offspeed pitches, a changeup or sinker just to keep the batters guessing. The other side, though, has already plowed through several middle relievers. The latest, called from the bullpen after only a couple warmup tosses, can't find his control, and has just walked the bases loaded.

"The community expects a return on the investment of their dollars into the school system," said Mike Reitz, director of labor policy for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative public policy research organization. "The teachers being in a position of wanting more pay for no new work is a difficult one for administrators to accommodate. ... That's a free gift of taxpayer dollars."

Yes, it's possible to throw a curveball with too much spin. Down in the dirt, bouncing past the catcher. Another run scores. It's going to be a long sixth.

why did Jesus choose 12 disciples?

The reasons are never directly mentioned in any of the Gospels, but centuries of study have resulted in four major competing theories.

1. Twelve disciples, twelve tribes.
At a recent meeting of the Biblical Studies Confederation, this theory was described as "embarrassingly obvious," "trite," and "obviously true."

2. The Count can count only to twelve, and no further.

3. Seven is the holy number. Three is the number of the Trinity. Seven multiplied by three is twenty-one; reverse the numbers to get twelve.
Espoused by Orestes Metcalf, D.Lit., Ph.D., J.D., of the Biblical University of Oshkosh. "Number reversal plays a huge role in Christian theology," Metcalf claims. "I can think of fifteen--or maybe fifty-one, I can't remember--examples of numeric reversal in the New Testament, where God revealed His will in verses like Romans 6:11 and 11:6." Metcalf, it should be noted, wears a cape covered with moons, stars, four-leaf clovers, and horseshoes.

4. As an prophetic foreshadowing of the Gregorian calendar.
Moving away from the flux between twelve or thirteen months, Christianity, breaking away from its Judaic roots, would set the number at an even twelve. Twelve disciples, twelve months.




[ninety-sixth in a series]