On the BBC news hour this morning a reporter asserted, completely without evidence, that Iran has been supplying the Taliban with fancy new shaped munitions roadside bombs for use against British and American forces in Afghanistan. It's possible, I guess, though last I heard Iran was in the hands of the Shia, the Taliban were a bunch of crazy ass Sunnis, and the two didn't get along very well.
At any rate, would it be too much to ask that these sorts of charges be backed by a significant body of evidence before being publicly aired? I seem to recall that playing fast and loose with the facts can lead to popular support for unprovoked wars of aggression.
Also, if I were Iran's head mullah in charge of manufacturing shaped munitions roadside bombs I wouldn't export. I'd stockpile.
6/11/07
6/10/07
Sopranos blogging
Even though it'll probably be a year or so before I get around to watching it, here's my prediction for the final episode: There will be ducks.
6/8/07
Friday comment whoring, dumb things I've been required to do at work edition
While working for CIS in Houston I was at what they called an in-service meeting where all attendees were compelled to stand, join hands, and sing Whitney Houston's "The Children Are Our Future".
Beat that.
Beat that.
6/7/07
Suck it
Speaking of medical interventions in human flourishing, I've been wondering if our attitudes towards performance enhancing drugs in sports track our attitudes towards cosmetic surgery in daily life. Liposuction, to take one example, seems to be disapproved of (or at least riduculed) in most circles, and this even though many of us are carrying around more fat than we'd care to. My suspicion is that disapproval of liposuction stems from its status as a short cut. Physical fitness, the thinking goes, is attractive at least partly because it provides evidence of personal virtue, but the person who appears fit after liposuction hasn't led a virtuous life at all. On the contrary, the mere fact that they have lost weight through surgery rather than exercise seems to demonstrate that they lack the discipline to master their appetites.
It's important to be very clear here. The disapproval of liposuction is seperable from the disapproval of gluttony. That is, it has primarily to do with the feeling that the liposuction patient has gotten something that he didn't deserve.
As it happens, I'm pretty skeptical of the notion of desert, so I'm not convinced that this gives us a good reason to disapprove of liposuction. That's really no surprise though, since I can't quite understand why people object to the use of steroids by athletes, and that seems to be the performance enhancing drug that most closely tracks the liposuction case.
It's important to be very clear here. The disapproval of liposuction is seperable from the disapproval of gluttony. That is, it has primarily to do with the feeling that the liposuction patient has gotten something that he didn't deserve.
As it happens, I'm pretty skeptical of the notion of desert, so I'm not convinced that this gives us a good reason to disapprove of liposuction. That's really no surprise though, since I can't quite understand why people object to the use of steroids by athletes, and that seems to be the performance enhancing drug that most closely tracks the liposuction case.
6/6/07
Real real gone
Greetings from the land of super basic cable! In the pop culture wasteland that is my life, one of the few things that keeps me going is that even with super basic cable you can watch good movies. For example, both Jackie Brown and The Big Lebowski are in pretty heavy rotation this month.
But here's something odd. The super basic cable versions of both movies have entire characters cut out. So with Lebowski John Turturro gets screen credit but doesn't appear in the film, and in Jackie Brown, Ordell knocks on Beaumont's door and the next thing you know he's showing the body to Louis. Chris Tucker never makes it on screen.
Even so, it's better than MASH reruns and mostly better than the Ann Arbor Planning Board.
But here's something odd. The super basic cable versions of both movies have entire characters cut out. So with Lebowski John Turturro gets screen credit but doesn't appear in the film, and in Jackie Brown, Ordell knocks on Beaumont's door and the next thing you know he's showing the body to Louis. Chris Tucker never makes it on screen.
Even so, it's better than MASH reruns and mostly better than the Ann Arbor Planning Board.
This is exactly what I've been saying
NYC's republican mayor.:
Yep. Don't give up your civil liberties. Don't go invading other countries. Get a life.
via TPM
"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life. You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist."
Yep. Don't give up your civil liberties. Don't go invading other countries. Get a life.
via TPM
6/5/07
Good news from the internet
This album kicks ass:
If you liked The In Sound from Way Out, you will like this. I hope it comes out on vinyl. More good news:
If you liked The In Sound from Way Out, you will like this. I hope it comes out on vinyl. More good news:
Mike D said that "even though The Mix-Up is a "post-punk instrumental" album, the Beasties have no plans to ditch vocals for good. In fact, they are currently planning another version of the album that will feature collaborations with "a pretty wide array" of "mostly newer" vocalists.
6/4/07
Keep them poor and stupid, please!
So, rather than type the whole article into the blog, I'll let people go read it. You can find the Catholic Advance online now. Here is a link to the May 25, 2007 edition. Go to page 2 and read, "Father Nielson: we're the richest people in history." Also, you philosophers out there might get a kick out of the article just above it, "What are the Eucharistic 'accidents'?" (I know I haven't had one since I was 2 or 3, but....)
Anyway, here is the link (pdf).
Update: I used my extensive knowledge of HTML to embed the link - dr
Anyway, here is the link (pdf).
Update: I used my extensive knowledge of HTML to embed the link - dr
Ad astra per aspera
A union representing 570 space shuttle program workers at the Kennedy Space Center voted to strike, less than a week before the planned launch of the shuttle Atlantis. |CNN|
The Intention Experiements will not cease until we are all frozen and dead
This is unfortunate.
If one sets aside one's natural skepticism about such matters, this is a very interesting result. One would want to dig a little deeper, and perhaps try to reproduce the result a few times with different labs participating. Maybe use a rhododendron next time, or a fern.*
But not the Intention Experiment! Fresh off their make-a-plant-glow-so-dimly-that-it-cannot-be-detected-by-the-human-eye success, their next "experiment" is to combat global warming:
God help us if they have actually harnessed a true, measurable effect, here. What if they do manage to significantly "lower the temperature of the earth? Do they have a team of climatologists on staff running computer models to figure out what effects a sudden cooling might have? I fear for our planet.
Our only hope is to counter their cooling vibe by burning as many fossil fuels as possible!
* UPDATE: A little browsing on their site reveals that they've tried it a few times, and at least once they used string beans.
Their first project was to make a geranium leaf glow. "We wanted to start from the ground floor," says McTaggart. "First we had to establish that we could have an effect—any effect. This type of study would enable us to record every single hair's breath of difference—even by a single photon."
The first experiment was carried out using the attendees of a conference in London on March 11. The 400 delegates were asked to send intention to increase the light emissions of a geranium leaf 6,000 miles away at the University of Arizona— to make the leaf "glow and glow."
The University of Arizona's lab had prepared two matched leaves, so that one could act as the control. Images of each leaf were simultaneously sent over the internet from Tucson to London. The audience flipped a coin to choose which leaf to send their intentions to, and the scientists were only told which one after the experiment was concluded.
While meditative music played, the audience sent intention to the leaf to "glow and glow" for 10 minutes. After the intention period, the leaves were placed in a biophoton imaging system and photographed for two hours.
The results astonished the scientists. "The results of the glowing intention were so strong that they could readily be seen in the digital biophoton images," says Dr. Schwartz, who analyzed the leaf compared to the control. "In addition, the increased biophoton effect was highly statistically significant."
If one sets aside one's natural skepticism about such matters, this is a very interesting result. One would want to dig a little deeper, and perhaps try to reproduce the result a few times with different labs participating. Maybe use a rhododendron next time, or a fern.*
But not the Intention Experiment! Fresh off their make-a-plant-glow-so-dimly-that-it-cannot-be-detected-by-the-human-eye success, their next "experiment" is to combat global warming:
The next Intention Project will be a big one: to change global warming by using group minds to lower the temperature of the earth. McTaggart says, "If we find we have a significant effect, the implications of it—that our collective thoughts could tackle global warming—will be extraordinary."
God help us if they have actually harnessed a true, measurable effect, here. What if they do manage to significantly "lower the temperature of the earth? Do they have a team of climatologists on staff running computer models to figure out what effects a sudden cooling might have? I fear for our planet.
Our only hope is to counter their cooling vibe by burning as many fossil fuels as possible!
* UPDATE: A little browsing on their site reveals that they've tried it a few times, and at least once they used string beans.
As cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes
I suspect that most of you aren't particularly excited about Danilo Di Luca's victory in the Giro d'Italia. Perhaps this is because you assume that any achievement in the sport of cycling is necessarily tainted by the spectre of performance enhancing drugs.
My view of the matter is a little different, and though I understand that there's probably nothing to be gained by arguing about it, here's something that confuses me. When dealing with sickness, we generally consider treatments with drugs to be less radical than surgical interventions. In sport, however, things seem to be reversed. An athlete can undergo mulitiple surgeries without anyone raising an eyebrow, but the use of steroids or EPO sparks worries about the legitimacy and authenticity of athletic performance.
I have heard the argument that performance enhancing drugs, unlike surgical interventions, change the essence of the athlete. Metaphysically I'm not sure what to make of this, but that's neither here nor there. The root of the idea seems to be that surgeries restore capacities lost through injury whereas performance enhancing drugs create formerly nonexistant capacities in an illegitimate way. But even leaving aside difficulties about the creation of capacities[1], this doesn't seem to be an accurate description of the workings of all performance enhancing drugs. Many of the most effective performance enhancing drugs, that is, achieve their ends by artificially increasing an athlete's ability to recover from the physical stresses of competition or training. What's wrong with that?
----------
1 New capacities can be created in various ways, but not all of these methods are frowned upon. For example, creating new capacities through mere training or practice is thought to be legitimate, and obviously so, but it's not clear (to me at least) why. Moreover, there are surgical interventions (Tommy John Surgery, Lasik) which are treated as unobjectionable even though they create capacities.
My view of the matter is a little different, and though I understand that there's probably nothing to be gained by arguing about it, here's something that confuses me. When dealing with sickness, we generally consider treatments with drugs to be less radical than surgical interventions. In sport, however, things seem to be reversed. An athlete can undergo mulitiple surgeries without anyone raising an eyebrow, but the use of steroids or EPO sparks worries about the legitimacy and authenticity of athletic performance.
I have heard the argument that performance enhancing drugs, unlike surgical interventions, change the essence of the athlete. Metaphysically I'm not sure what to make of this, but that's neither here nor there. The root of the idea seems to be that surgeries restore capacities lost through injury whereas performance enhancing drugs create formerly nonexistant capacities in an illegitimate way. But even leaving aside difficulties about the creation of capacities[1], this doesn't seem to be an accurate description of the workings of all performance enhancing drugs. Many of the most effective performance enhancing drugs, that is, achieve their ends by artificially increasing an athlete's ability to recover from the physical stresses of competition or training. What's wrong with that?
----------
1 New capacities can be created in various ways, but not all of these methods are frowned upon. For example, creating new capacities through mere training or practice is thought to be legitimate, and obviously so, but it's not clear (to me at least) why. Moreover, there are surgical interventions (Tommy John Surgery, Lasik) which are treated as unobjectionable even though they create capacities.
6/1/07
Slow week at The Bellman
Mark promised us some Catholic humor, but I think he overdosed on Jesus last weekend, and is actually sick today. So, in the mean time, let me kill any momentum this blog had by asking.....
David Tennant: Is he a great Doctor, or the greatest Doctor?
Season 3 is halfway over in ol' England, and I've been 'renting it. At the end of Season 2, I woulda said that he's a "good Doctor," but now I've ratcheted my esteem all the way up to "the greatest Doctor." He's really got a bead on the character.
Also, his new chica is the cutest one in, let's say, 900 years of travel through time and space.
In other news, the new Sage Francis album is pretty good. I didn't know he was white, tho. Like da man says:
divagate
[Origin: 1590–1600; From Latin 'dīvagātus', to wander off]
verb
1. To wander; stray.
2. To digress in speech.
verb
1. To wander; stray.
2. To digress in speech.
uxorious
[Origin 1590-1600; From Latin 'uxōrius', from 'uxor', wife]
adj.
Doting upon, foolishly fond of, or affectionately submissive toward one's wife.
adj.
Doting upon, foolishly fond of, or affectionately submissive toward one's wife.
See the light that's right before my eyes
In all of the 90s alternapop nostalgia blogging going around, nobody seems to be talking about Urge Overkill. Why is that? I never cared for them much myself, but for awhile there they were well nigh inescapable. And if nostalgia blogging can sustain mention of The Gin Blossoms, surely there's room for some Urge.
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