I checked out this link today to see what the cost of the War in Iraq has become www.costofwar.com. The number when I checked was roughly $277 billion. To give some needed perspective, there are according to the CIA factbook, roughly 27 million Iraquis. This means that our government has now spent over $10,000 for every man woman and child in Iraq.
But wait. That is not all. Our problem with Iraq was not with every member of the population. Our problem was not with Kurdistan. The Kurds love us and they are roughly 20% of the Iraqi population. Our problem was not with women (50% of the population) or children (39.7% of the population). This eliminates all but 6.5 million Iraquis. These are the guys that we had a big problem with - not all of them of course, but most of them. Their behavior needed to be modified. They were making bad choices. They had a very bad leader. These men needed to make much better choices. Because they sit on an ocean of oil, their bad choices could seriously impact us. They could contribute to a future where our country is cut off from oil and our economy screeches to a halt, and the whole country suddenly looks like the New Orleans Superdome.
So our leaders decided to force them to make better choices, militarily. In so doing, Bush et al has spent $43,000 on each of these guys. There have been almost 2,400 American lives lost. There have been approximately 45,000-50,000 Iraqis killed, about 10,000 of whom were military.
Now whether or not you agreed with the need to force regime change in Iraq, does this seem like a sensible use of all that money? I mean, my job is not to think of stuff like this but why not put that money into say, building roads and bridges and schools and hospitals for the Kurds, for example. I mean, what would the rest of Iraq have done if they saw their northern neighbors go from herding goats to driving Jaguars. I'd have to think that a lot of them would say, "We need to rethink this whole Death to America thing. Being a friend to America seems to have nice benefits."
I'm sure there were people in the Pentagon that were paid to think up clever ways to affect change in Iraq. I'm sure they had great ideas that made my pour-money-on-the-Kurds idea look really absurd. But we'll never know what those ideas were. They are all moot now. They were made impotent by our leader when he told us that we had no time. He told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they intended to use them against us. No time meant no choice but war. If they had found WMDs in Iraq, I don't know how I would feel about George Bush. But knowing that was all a lie, I really have a hard time with the guy. I used to love politics. I used to love watching Meet the Press and Face the Nation and This Week with Cokie Roberts (just kidding about the last one). Now I can't even turn that stuff on without seriously wanting to throw a brick through my TV. January 2009 can't get here fast enough.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Reasons Why Oil Prices Should Lower
It appears that we are in a runaway speculative bubble in the price of gasoline. Throughout history, there have been periods where the markets lost touch with reality and began bidding the prices up of something or other for the sole reason that the price was going up. This seems to be one of those times.
The fundamentals aren't there. It is true that we are using oil at nearly 100% of refining capacity, but that fact alone would only justify a price of $50 per barrel or so. At the time of this writing, oil is between $73 and $75 per barrel. There are four reasons that the market has bid the price so high.
1) Iran. The market thinks that we might ultimately invade Iran and Iran is a huge oil producer. They are second only to Saudi Arabia in OPEC. But I believe that Iran is bluffing about their nuclear ambitions. They know we will never let them have nukes. They are trying to get the U.S. to sit down with them and offer concessions that we won't invade them and topple their government just because we really don't like them. It is high stakes poker and Iran doesn't have any cards. They aren't crazy. At least I don't think they are crazy. Okay I really hope they aren't crazy. Fuggetaboudit.
2) Nigeria. Nigeria has already experienced a huge disruption in the flow of oil. Their government has lost $1.5 billion in oil revenue. It can only get better from here.
3) Al Qaieda. Those evil-doers recently tried to blow up a Saudi refinery. This probably means that from now on, major refineries will be top on the list of terrorist targets. I agree that this is bad news for oil prices, but let us look on the bright side. They FAILED to blow up a Saudi refinery. FAILED. C'mon guys.
4) Prices are going up and demand is not dropping. The biggest reason oil prices are climbing is because they can. It seems that demand for oil is, as the economists say, inelastic. In other words, we'll buy it regardless of the price. Well this just isn't true. There is a time lag. When you pay $3 per gallon at the pump, you don't sell your SUV that day and trade it in for a PRIUS. It takes some time. But it will happen. And when it does, look out below.
Without the fundamentals supporting current oil prices, any good news (a cease fire in Nigeria, a deal with Iran, Osama on a stick) will shock the markets into a very swift sell off. Oil will settle at a price that is more in keeping with its fundamentals. In other words, it will settle at the price that OPEC wants it to be, which is to say $50 per barrel or so.
The fundamentals aren't there. It is true that we are using oil at nearly 100% of refining capacity, but that fact alone would only justify a price of $50 per barrel or so. At the time of this writing, oil is between $73 and $75 per barrel. There are four reasons that the market has bid the price so high.
1) Iran. The market thinks that we might ultimately invade Iran and Iran is a huge oil producer. They are second only to Saudi Arabia in OPEC. But I believe that Iran is bluffing about their nuclear ambitions. They know we will never let them have nukes. They are trying to get the U.S. to sit down with them and offer concessions that we won't invade them and topple their government just because we really don't like them. It is high stakes poker and Iran doesn't have any cards. They aren't crazy. At least I don't think they are crazy. Okay I really hope they aren't crazy. Fuggetaboudit.
2) Nigeria. Nigeria has already experienced a huge disruption in the flow of oil. Their government has lost $1.5 billion in oil revenue. It can only get better from here.
3) Al Qaieda. Those evil-doers recently tried to blow up a Saudi refinery. This probably means that from now on, major refineries will be top on the list of terrorist targets. I agree that this is bad news for oil prices, but let us look on the bright side. They FAILED to blow up a Saudi refinery. FAILED. C'mon guys.
4) Prices are going up and demand is not dropping. The biggest reason oil prices are climbing is because they can. It seems that demand for oil is, as the economists say, inelastic. In other words, we'll buy it regardless of the price. Well this just isn't true. There is a time lag. When you pay $3 per gallon at the pump, you don't sell your SUV that day and trade it in for a PRIUS. It takes some time. But it will happen. And when it does, look out below.
Without the fundamentals supporting current oil prices, any good news (a cease fire in Nigeria, a deal with Iran, Osama on a stick) will shock the markets into a very swift sell off. Oil will settle at a price that is more in keeping with its fundamentals. In other words, it will settle at the price that OPEC wants it to be, which is to say $50 per barrel or so.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Scott Crossfield 1921-2006
The year was 1987. My father and I were traveling to Minneapolis for the weekend. As I stood in line at the ticket counter of the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, I noticed a man a few places in line in front of me. My first thought was that he looked like Walt Disney. Then I had the oddest sense of déjà vu. I seemed to remember seeing this man before recently, perhaps on T.V., and thinking that he looked like Walt Disney then too. I wracked my brain trying to figure out where I had seen this guy. It was driving me nuts. I asked my father, “Does that guy look familiar to you?” My dad just shrugged.
A few minutes later we took our seats aboard the aircraft. My dad took the window seat, and I had to sit in the middle seat. The Walt Disney-looking guy soon sat down in the aisle seat. I was trying to muster up the courage to ask him who the hell he was when I saw his name engraved on a brass plate on the front of his briefcase. It read: Scott Crossfield. I remembered where I had seen him.
“Jesus Christ Dad, that guy is Scott Crossfield!” I practically had to yell at my father over the whine of the jet engines warming up.
“No way, really?”
“Look at his briefcase.”
My dad looked at the briefcase, and then a transformation came over him. I wasn’t sitting next to my dad anymore. I was sitting next to his inner child.
I need to break from this story to tell you about my father. My dad loved everything about flying. When my father was in his 20’s he bought and restored half a dozen World War II fighter aircraft, and he flew them in airshows around the country with a group called The Confederate Air Force. One of the founders of the Confederate Air Force was astronaut Gus Grissom. My dad talked about Gus Grissom like he was a god. He also talked with the same reverence about the one other astronaut he had met, Wally Shira.
I think my dad’s first dream in life was to be a military pilot. And as a military pilot, my dad would have done anything to fly the fastest thing he could possibly fly. In other words, my dad’s ultimate dream would have been to be an astronaut. But that could never happen. The military wouldn’t take my dad. He was blind in one eye. So restoring World War II fighters was the closest thing he could get to being an astronaut. My dad settled for a P-51 Mustang, the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever built. The dragster of the sky.
My dad’s dream was so strong that I took it on. I spent much of my childhood dreaming of being an astronaut. I devoured every bit of information about the space program. I think at one time I could name every American astronaut. Imagine how I felt to be sitting with Scott Crossfield on one side of me and my father on the other.
“Quick dad, what rank is he? Is he a colonel or what?”
“I don’t know. It seems that I remember him being in the Navy. I think he is a Navy commander.”
I couldn’t risk using a title without more certainty.
“Uh, Mister Crossfield, excuse me I couldn’t help noticing who you are. I have a videotape of the PBS documentary “Spaceflight” at home and I was just watching it last week. You are interviewed extensively in that program. I just wanted to say what an honor it is to meet you.” I didn’t bother to mention that he looked like Walt Disney.
He looked a little startled.
“Well it is nice to meet you too, uh…”
“Chris Kavanaugh, sir, and this is my father Dan Kavanaugh. He is a big admirer of yours as well.”
My dad’s inner child reached out to shake his hand.
“It is nice to meet you both.” He said.
The uncomfortable silence that followed was interrupted by the stewardess lecturing us on all kinds of valuable information like what to do in the event of a water landing during the flight from Oklahoma City to Dallas Fort Worth. Just in case we crash into Lake Texoma, I thought. It could happen.
By the time she was through, Scott Crossfield had leaned his head back and shut his eyes.
Great, I thought. He isn’t going to talk to me at all. He is going to sleep all the way to Dallas. Wonderful.
I sat there for several minutes and watched him sleep. I went through three of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages. Denial – He is not really sleeping. Anger – Goddammit, can’t he see how important it is to talk to me. Bargaining – Maybe if I wake him he won’t be that pissed off. I was somewhere between depression and acceptance when the drink cart lady came by and said “Care for something to drink?”
My dad and I both gave our drink orders and then Crossfield opened his eyes, “I’ll have a cup of coffee.” He said.
Crossfield straightened himself in his seat, then he turned to me and said, “What documentary did you say you saw me in?”
“Spaceflight. Have you not seen it?”
“No, I remember them interviewing me though. I haven’t seen it. Is it good?” He asked.
“It’s really good. Martin Sheen narrates it. It has tons of footage of you being interviewed and it is spliced in with some amazing old footage of the X-15. They showed footage of the X-15 breaking in half on landing. . .”
Crossfield chuckled. “That was quite a day.”
“. . .they also showed footage of when the X-15 caught on fire with you in it.”
“Yeah. A man risked his life to save mine when that happened.” Crossfield’s eyes were twinkling now. “I guess I’ll have to get a tape of it.”
I noticed my father straining to hear our conversation. Unfortunately, the whine of the engines was too loud. I knew he could only hear bits and pieces. It served him right for taking the window seat.
“So where are you flying to today?” I asked.
“I am going back to Washington, D.C. I had some work in Oklahoma and now I am headed home.”
“So what are you doing these days?”
“Well, I work for Congress. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the National Aerospace Plane. . .”
I nodded.
“It’s designed to take off from a runway, accelerate to hypersonic speed, and propel itself into orbit. Well, I am sort of an intermediary between Congress and the contractors on the project. Some of the work is being done in Oklahoma.”
“How close are we to having an Aerospace Plane?” I asked.
“We are about seven years away from testing prototypes.”
“Wow, that’s unbelievable.” I said. Apparently, I was right.
“So, I am dying to ask you a question. . .What does Scott Crossfield think about the Challenger disaster?”
The Challenger disaster happened in January of 1986, a little over one year before our conversation. The wound was still fresh. Crossfield winced.
“It was fucking criminal is what I think.” Crossfield said. “People should go to jail.”
And so it began. The real Scott Crossfield poured out.
“How they could put a school teacher on that rocket. . . It’s unbelievable. Those astronauts knew the risks, but a school teacher? It’s criminal.”
“When Reagan came out and declared the Space Shuttle operational, what a joke. Operational. Mark my words, one day history will show that Kennedy set the space program back 50 years by taking it out of the hands of aeronautical engineers and handing it to the fucking missileers.”
Apparently “missileers” was a derogatory slur of missile engineers.
“Operational. The missileers idea of operational is if 80% of their rockets don’t blow up on the launch pad, its operational.”
He shook his head.
“We are sitting in an aircraft that was designed and built in 1969 - 1969!! – and you don’t see a bunch of assholes standing around the runway applauding, do you?”
I laughed. “No, you have a point.”
I have no idea how Crossfield knew in what year our plane was built. The McDonnell Douglas DC9 was manufactured from 1965 – 1982. I suspect he was guessing and bullshitting me a little bit.
I had read the book “The Right Stuff,” by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe spent a lot of time describing the amazing egos of these test pilots. He described them like brain surgeons, how they had to be completely lacking in humility to do what they do. Tom Wolfe had Scott Crossfield pegged.
“So have you seen the movie “The Right Stuff?”
“No. And I never will. But I did read the book, though.”
“Why won’t you see the movie?” How could you not see a movie in which an actor plays you, I wondered.
“Some friends of mine saw it and they said the movie made Pancho Barnes look like a worn out old alcoholic. There is no way I’ll ever watch that. That woman was a saint.”
“Hmm. But did you like the book?”
“Yeah. The book was alright. He got a few things right in the book.”
“Did you ever get interviewed by Tom Wolfe?”
“No. I have never talked to the man. But some of my friends did.”
“Well, the movie especially made it look like there was this big rivalry between you and Chuck Yeager. What do you think about all the attention he’s been getting lately?”
He laughed. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never forget watching Johnny Carson, and he introduced Yeager as ‘the greatest pilot that ever lived.’ Shit, there were dozens of pilots at Edwards that could wax his tail any day. The greatest pilot that ever lived.” He shook his head.
“You mean to tell me that there was nothing special about Chuck Yeager?”
“Well, he did do one thing that impressed me. Yeager put an F104 into a flat spin. Those planes were really easy to put into a flat spin. Anyway, most pilots would have punched out, but Yeager thought to lower the landing gear. That provided enough drag to lower the nose and get him out of the spin. That was pretty clever. I was impressed with that.”
“Well, with all those ads he’s doing these days, Yeager must be making a fortune.” I said. “If I were you, I’d call his agent. Maybe you and Yeager could do an ad where you are bantering about who the best test pilot is.”
He laughed. “No way. You’ll never see me selling spark plugs.”
The short flight to Dallas ended way too soon. I said goodbye to Scott Crossfield and thanked him for making my flight so interesting. As soon as he was out of sight, my father's inner child turned to me and said “You will now repeat every single word he said.”
Rest in peace, Scott Crossfield.
A few minutes later we took our seats aboard the aircraft. My dad took the window seat, and I had to sit in the middle seat. The Walt Disney-looking guy soon sat down in the aisle seat. I was trying to muster up the courage to ask him who the hell he was when I saw his name engraved on a brass plate on the front of his briefcase. It read: Scott Crossfield. I remembered where I had seen him.
“Jesus Christ Dad, that guy is Scott Crossfield!” I practically had to yell at my father over the whine of the jet engines warming up.
“No way, really?”
“Look at his briefcase.”
My dad looked at the briefcase, and then a transformation came over him. I wasn’t sitting next to my dad anymore. I was sitting next to his inner child.
I need to break from this story to tell you about my father. My dad loved everything about flying. When my father was in his 20’s he bought and restored half a dozen World War II fighter aircraft, and he flew them in airshows around the country with a group called The Confederate Air Force. One of the founders of the Confederate Air Force was astronaut Gus Grissom. My dad talked about Gus Grissom like he was a god. He also talked with the same reverence about the one other astronaut he had met, Wally Shira.
I think my dad’s first dream in life was to be a military pilot. And as a military pilot, my dad would have done anything to fly the fastest thing he could possibly fly. In other words, my dad’s ultimate dream would have been to be an astronaut. But that could never happen. The military wouldn’t take my dad. He was blind in one eye. So restoring World War II fighters was the closest thing he could get to being an astronaut. My dad settled for a P-51 Mustang, the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever built. The dragster of the sky.
My dad’s dream was so strong that I took it on. I spent much of my childhood dreaming of being an astronaut. I devoured every bit of information about the space program. I think at one time I could name every American astronaut. Imagine how I felt to be sitting with Scott Crossfield on one side of me and my father on the other.
“Quick dad, what rank is he? Is he a colonel or what?”
“I don’t know. It seems that I remember him being in the Navy. I think he is a Navy commander.”
I couldn’t risk using a title without more certainty.
“Uh, Mister Crossfield, excuse me I couldn’t help noticing who you are. I have a videotape of the PBS documentary “Spaceflight” at home and I was just watching it last week. You are interviewed extensively in that program. I just wanted to say what an honor it is to meet you.” I didn’t bother to mention that he looked like Walt Disney.
He looked a little startled.
“Well it is nice to meet you too, uh…”
“Chris Kavanaugh, sir, and this is my father Dan Kavanaugh. He is a big admirer of yours as well.”
My dad’s inner child reached out to shake his hand.
“It is nice to meet you both.” He said.
The uncomfortable silence that followed was interrupted by the stewardess lecturing us on all kinds of valuable information like what to do in the event of a water landing during the flight from Oklahoma City to Dallas Fort Worth. Just in case we crash into Lake Texoma, I thought. It could happen.
By the time she was through, Scott Crossfield had leaned his head back and shut his eyes.
Great, I thought. He isn’t going to talk to me at all. He is going to sleep all the way to Dallas. Wonderful.
I sat there for several minutes and watched him sleep. I went through three of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages. Denial – He is not really sleeping. Anger – Goddammit, can’t he see how important it is to talk to me. Bargaining – Maybe if I wake him he won’t be that pissed off. I was somewhere between depression and acceptance when the drink cart lady came by and said “Care for something to drink?”
My dad and I both gave our drink orders and then Crossfield opened his eyes, “I’ll have a cup of coffee.” He said.
Crossfield straightened himself in his seat, then he turned to me and said, “What documentary did you say you saw me in?”
“Spaceflight. Have you not seen it?”
“No, I remember them interviewing me though. I haven’t seen it. Is it good?” He asked.
“It’s really good. Martin Sheen narrates it. It has tons of footage of you being interviewed and it is spliced in with some amazing old footage of the X-15. They showed footage of the X-15 breaking in half on landing. . .”
Crossfield chuckled. “That was quite a day.”
“. . .they also showed footage of when the X-15 caught on fire with you in it.”
“Yeah. A man risked his life to save mine when that happened.” Crossfield’s eyes were twinkling now. “I guess I’ll have to get a tape of it.”
I noticed my father straining to hear our conversation. Unfortunately, the whine of the engines was too loud. I knew he could only hear bits and pieces. It served him right for taking the window seat.
“So where are you flying to today?” I asked.
“I am going back to Washington, D.C. I had some work in Oklahoma and now I am headed home.”
“So what are you doing these days?”
“Well, I work for Congress. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the National Aerospace Plane. . .”
I nodded.
“It’s designed to take off from a runway, accelerate to hypersonic speed, and propel itself into orbit. Well, I am sort of an intermediary between Congress and the contractors on the project. Some of the work is being done in Oklahoma.”
“How close are we to having an Aerospace Plane?” I asked.
“We are about seven years away from testing prototypes.”
“Wow, that’s unbelievable.” I said. Apparently, I was right.
“So, I am dying to ask you a question. . .What does Scott Crossfield think about the Challenger disaster?”
The Challenger disaster happened in January of 1986, a little over one year before our conversation. The wound was still fresh. Crossfield winced.
“It was fucking criminal is what I think.” Crossfield said. “People should go to jail.”
And so it began. The real Scott Crossfield poured out.
“How they could put a school teacher on that rocket. . . It’s unbelievable. Those astronauts knew the risks, but a school teacher? It’s criminal.”
“When Reagan came out and declared the Space Shuttle operational, what a joke. Operational. Mark my words, one day history will show that Kennedy set the space program back 50 years by taking it out of the hands of aeronautical engineers and handing it to the fucking missileers.”
Apparently “missileers” was a derogatory slur of missile engineers.
“Operational. The missileers idea of operational is if 80% of their rockets don’t blow up on the launch pad, its operational.”
He shook his head.
“We are sitting in an aircraft that was designed and built in 1969 - 1969!! – and you don’t see a bunch of assholes standing around the runway applauding, do you?”
I laughed. “No, you have a point.”
I have no idea how Crossfield knew in what year our plane was built. The McDonnell Douglas DC9 was manufactured from 1965 – 1982. I suspect he was guessing and bullshitting me a little bit.
I had read the book “The Right Stuff,” by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe spent a lot of time describing the amazing egos of these test pilots. He described them like brain surgeons, how they had to be completely lacking in humility to do what they do. Tom Wolfe had Scott Crossfield pegged.
“So have you seen the movie “The Right Stuff?”
“No. And I never will. But I did read the book, though.”
“Why won’t you see the movie?” How could you not see a movie in which an actor plays you, I wondered.
“Some friends of mine saw it and they said the movie made Pancho Barnes look like a worn out old alcoholic. There is no way I’ll ever watch that. That woman was a saint.”
“Hmm. But did you like the book?”
“Yeah. The book was alright. He got a few things right in the book.”
“Did you ever get interviewed by Tom Wolfe?”
“No. I have never talked to the man. But some of my friends did.”
“Well, the movie especially made it look like there was this big rivalry between you and Chuck Yeager. What do you think about all the attention he’s been getting lately?”
He laughed. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never forget watching Johnny Carson, and he introduced Yeager as ‘the greatest pilot that ever lived.’ Shit, there were dozens of pilots at Edwards that could wax his tail any day. The greatest pilot that ever lived.” He shook his head.
“You mean to tell me that there was nothing special about Chuck Yeager?”
“Well, he did do one thing that impressed me. Yeager put an F104 into a flat spin. Those planes were really easy to put into a flat spin. Anyway, most pilots would have punched out, but Yeager thought to lower the landing gear. That provided enough drag to lower the nose and get him out of the spin. That was pretty clever. I was impressed with that.”
“Well, with all those ads he’s doing these days, Yeager must be making a fortune.” I said. “If I were you, I’d call his agent. Maybe you and Yeager could do an ad where you are bantering about who the best test pilot is.”
He laughed. “No way. You’ll never see me selling spark plugs.”
The short flight to Dallas ended way too soon. I said goodbye to Scott Crossfield and thanked him for making my flight so interesting. As soon as he was out of sight, my father's inner child turned to me and said “You will now repeat every single word he said.”
Rest in peace, Scott Crossfield.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Last night's Nova and Global Dimming
Last night I watched Nova and it messed with me more than a little. To save you the trouble, the show was about the relatively new discovery that air-pollution particles have a very powerful cooling effect on our atmosphere.
That there is an effect is not news. I remember Carl Sagan talking about how we would have a "nuclear winter" following an H-bomb party with the Ruskies (or an asteroid collision) when I was a little kid. The big news had to do with the impact on global temperatures of the grounding of all commercial airline flights following 9/11. You see, jet exhaust creates contrails, artificial clouds that reflect the Sun's heat back out into space. While the scientists expected a very tiny impact on global temperature ranges from these commercial jet groundings, what they saw instead was the largest spike in global temperature range (hotter days, cooler nights) ever recorded (just over 1 degree Celsius).
There is not much chance that was a coincidence, and it isn't like the research might be in error, because anyone can calculate global temperature range. The data from weather stations around the world is freely available. No this is the real thing: a totally overlooked MAJOR cooling influence on the Earth's climate. And because this effect (called "Global Dimming") is so much more powerful than anyone ever dreamed, then all the atmospheric scientists are having to admit that the warming effect of greenhouse gases is correspondingly much more powerful than anyone has heretofore theorized.
If you want to read about it:
Click Here Dude
So what does all this mean? It means that:
With new polution-scrubbing coal-burning power plants popping up all over India and China, and catalytic converters on all their shiny new cars, global warming is more likely to accelerate faster in the coming years than anyone but the fringe ever thought possible. Sure there remains uncertainty, but in poker-terminology, we seem to have fewer outs. It is less likely that we can just kick back and ignore the problem until fossil fuel reserves run out and we transition to some other source of power (probably nuclear) like the George Bushes and Rush Limbaughs of the world might advise.
There is an upside. I won't have to move to a warmer climate in my old age. It will come to me. Also, I may fund my retirement by short selling Florida real estate and investing the profits in Greenland real estate.
Still, in all seriousness, solutions like this one may start to look a lot less radical in the coming years:
Dude Click Here
What I want to know now is: what conditions are necessary to create a contrail? Since high-altitude jets do it by accident, what would an aircraft be like that was designed for the purpose of creating contrails? It seems to me that a zillion robotic contrail-makers buzzing all over the planet would be a cheaper solution to global warming than making a ring around the equator in space.
That there is an effect is not news. I remember Carl Sagan talking about how we would have a "nuclear winter" following an H-bomb party with the Ruskies (or an asteroid collision) when I was a little kid. The big news had to do with the impact on global temperatures of the grounding of all commercial airline flights following 9/11. You see, jet exhaust creates contrails, artificial clouds that reflect the Sun's heat back out into space. While the scientists expected a very tiny impact on global temperature ranges from these commercial jet groundings, what they saw instead was the largest spike in global temperature range (hotter days, cooler nights) ever recorded (just over 1 degree Celsius).
There is not much chance that was a coincidence, and it isn't like the research might be in error, because anyone can calculate global temperature range. The data from weather stations around the world is freely available. No this is the real thing: a totally overlooked MAJOR cooling influence on the Earth's climate. And because this effect (called "Global Dimming") is so much more powerful than anyone ever dreamed, then all the atmospheric scientists are having to admit that the warming effect of greenhouse gases is correspondingly much more powerful than anyone has heretofore theorized.
If you want to read about it:
Click Here Dude
So what does all this mean? It means that:
With new polution-scrubbing coal-burning power plants popping up all over India and China, and catalytic converters on all their shiny new cars, global warming is more likely to accelerate faster in the coming years than anyone but the fringe ever thought possible. Sure there remains uncertainty, but in poker-terminology, we seem to have fewer outs. It is less likely that we can just kick back and ignore the problem until fossil fuel reserves run out and we transition to some other source of power (probably nuclear) like the George Bushes and Rush Limbaughs of the world might advise.
There is an upside. I won't have to move to a warmer climate in my old age. It will come to me. Also, I may fund my retirement by short selling Florida real estate and investing the profits in Greenland real estate.
Still, in all seriousness, solutions like this one may start to look a lot less radical in the coming years:
Dude Click Here
What I want to know now is: what conditions are necessary to create a contrail? Since high-altitude jets do it by accident, what would an aircraft be like that was designed for the purpose of creating contrails? It seems to me that a zillion robotic contrail-makers buzzing all over the planet would be a cheaper solution to global warming than making a ring around the equator in space.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
An Article for Olivia
I found this news story and clipped it because it directly relates to an inside joke between me and my daughter Olivia. The rest of you are welcome to read it if you like, and you can guess at the joke. But Olivia and I will never tell.
Man allegedly gets neighbor's cat euthanized
Associated Press
Apr. 17, 2006 10:22 AM
WEST ISLIP, N.Y. - A man who didn't get along with his neighbor trapped her cat in his back yard and then took it to an animal shelter to be euthanized, police said.
Regina Fagone searched the neighborhood for two days earlier this month after her cat disappeared, and then went to the Town of Islip Animal Shelter.
Employees there broke the news to her: Her cat, a Russian blue, had been euthanized that day.
Richard DeSantis, 56, was arrested Saturday and was charged with criminal mischief, criminal possession of stolen property and making a punishable false written statement, police said. He was issued a desk appearance ticket and will be arraigned June 5.
DeSantis, reached by telephone at his home Sunday, said there are two sides to every story and then hung up.
Police said an investigation found DeSantis had captured the cat and dropped it off at the shelter to be killed.
Man allegedly gets neighbor's cat euthanized
Associated Press
Apr. 17, 2006 10:22 AM
WEST ISLIP, N.Y. - A man who didn't get along with his neighbor trapped her cat in his back yard and then took it to an animal shelter to be euthanized, police said.
Regina Fagone searched the neighborhood for two days earlier this month after her cat disappeared, and then went to the Town of Islip Animal Shelter.
Employees there broke the news to her: Her cat, a Russian blue, had been euthanized that day.
Richard DeSantis, 56, was arrested Saturday and was charged with criminal mischief, criminal possession of stolen property and making a punishable false written statement, police said. He was issued a desk appearance ticket and will be arraigned June 5.
DeSantis, reached by telephone at his home Sunday, said there are two sides to every story and then hung up.
Police said an investigation found DeSantis had captured the cat and dropped it off at the shelter to be killed.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Things I Found Interesting While Web Surfing Today
I found some interesting stuff while web surfing today. I read on a site, which I didn't bother to save, that part of the reason that we have kept the pagan fertility tradition of Easter eggs is that poultry farmers needed to get rid of all the eggs that piled up due to the drop in demand from Lenten fasting. True or not, I love thinking that this holiday was commerce driven, even in the middle ages.
I also discovered a web site with all kinds of interesting facts about our government and taxes. It is www.taxfoundation.org. There I learned many things, the most interesting of which was that since 1977, our government has made about $60 billion per year on gasoline taxes at the pump on average, while the combined profits of the major oil companies has averaged about $30 billion per year. I will no longer wonder why our government isn't doing more to encourage alternative energy investment.
I also discovered a web site with all kinds of interesting facts about our government and taxes. It is www.taxfoundation.org. There I learned many things, the most interesting of which was that since 1977, our government has made about $60 billion per year on gasoline taxes at the pump on average, while the combined profits of the major oil companies has averaged about $30 billion per year. I will no longer wonder why our government isn't doing more to encourage alternative energy investment.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
1998
(While looking through the writings of my past for stuff to put up on my blog, I found this particular piece interesting for its nostalgia. It took me right back to 1998.)
In the last year, several things have occurred in the world that would seem too ridiculous to believe if they were fiction. I have concluded that I have somehow lost all touch with reality and I am dreaming. Perhaps I am in a coma. Since I don't know how I got here, I have no idea how to get out. Here is my collection of evidence that supports this contention. I would welcome any suggestions on how to wake myself up.
The Nation
The Washington Post and the New York Times, two of the most liberal organizations in America, have been leading a media assault on President Clinton over compelling audio-taped evidence that he was having his knob polished by a young White House intern. If true, Clinton is guilty of perjury and may also be guilty of obstructing justice. In his testimony, President Clinton did testify that he had an affair with Jennifer Flowers, something he emphatically denied in his 1992 presidential campaign. The Clintons are blaming the whole thing on a partisan conspiracy. Furthermore, several allied nations including France and Russia are accusing the U.S. of instigating a military crisis with Iraq to shift national attention from the president's legal problems. A movie, called Wag The Dog, just completed its run in theaters and tells the story of a fictional president that first blames partisan politics, then fabricates a military crisis to shift national attention from the compelling story of a sexual encounter with a young girl in the White House. To add to the surrealism, polls indicate that the public strongly believes the president's denials and supports him in this matter.
The Federal Government is forecasting a budget surplus for 1998, the first year since the Eisenhower Administration. An argument is raging on Capitol Hill over what to do with the extra money.
Sports
The wild card Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl. The victory was mostly due to the strength of the Bronco's running game.
The U.S. soccer team beat Brazil 1 - 0 in an international soccer tournament, on Tuesday. Brazil is widely believed to be the best soccer team in the world. The U.S. goes undefeated into the tournament's final match on Sunday. In the 68 year history of the U.S. soccer team, the U.S. has never before beaten Brazil - in fact, they have never before even tied Brazil - in fact, they have never before scored a single goal against Brazil.
The PGA will now be forced by court order to allow professionals to use golf carts in tournament play if they have a note from their doctors.
Mike Tyson has been banned from boxing for biting off Evander Holyfield's ear. Boxing industry leaders are now worried that the sport's reputation will be tarnished by Tyson's association with an upcoming wrestling match.
Anything relating to Marv Albert.
Finance
Stock investing genius and second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett has lately been investing billions of dollars in silver futures and zero coupon treasury bonds. Throughout his career, Buffett has been an outspoken advocate of buying quality stocks when they are cheap. He has frequently advised investors that it is foolish to ever try to time the market. Silver futures are bets about the short term fluctuations of the price of Silver on the commodities exchanges. Zero coupon treasury bonds are most commonly used to speculate on short term changes in interest rates.
Movies
The next big-budget Hollywood extravaganzas include Sony's Godzilla starring Oscar and Tony award winner Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick and Lost in Space starring "Friend" Matt LeBlanc.
In the past, I have had dreams where I jumped off of buildings. I always wake up just before I hit the ground. If, by chance, I am mistaken and this is not a dream, and I jump off a building after watching Lost in Space, then you’ll know what happened.
In the last year, several things have occurred in the world that would seem too ridiculous to believe if they were fiction. I have concluded that I have somehow lost all touch with reality and I am dreaming. Perhaps I am in a coma. Since I don't know how I got here, I have no idea how to get out. Here is my collection of evidence that supports this contention. I would welcome any suggestions on how to wake myself up.
The Nation
The Washington Post and the New York Times, two of the most liberal organizations in America, have been leading a media assault on President Clinton over compelling audio-taped evidence that he was having his knob polished by a young White House intern. If true, Clinton is guilty of perjury and may also be guilty of obstructing justice. In his testimony, President Clinton did testify that he had an affair with Jennifer Flowers, something he emphatically denied in his 1992 presidential campaign. The Clintons are blaming the whole thing on a partisan conspiracy. Furthermore, several allied nations including France and Russia are accusing the U.S. of instigating a military crisis with Iraq to shift national attention from the president's legal problems. A movie, called Wag The Dog, just completed its run in theaters and tells the story of a fictional president that first blames partisan politics, then fabricates a military crisis to shift national attention from the compelling story of a sexual encounter with a young girl in the White House. To add to the surrealism, polls indicate that the public strongly believes the president's denials and supports him in this matter.
The Federal Government is forecasting a budget surplus for 1998, the first year since the Eisenhower Administration. An argument is raging on Capitol Hill over what to do with the extra money.
Sports
The wild card Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl. The victory was mostly due to the strength of the Bronco's running game.
The U.S. soccer team beat Brazil 1 - 0 in an international soccer tournament, on Tuesday. Brazil is widely believed to be the best soccer team in the world. The U.S. goes undefeated into the tournament's final match on Sunday. In the 68 year history of the U.S. soccer team, the U.S. has never before beaten Brazil - in fact, they have never before even tied Brazil - in fact, they have never before scored a single goal against Brazil.
The PGA will now be forced by court order to allow professionals to use golf carts in tournament play if they have a note from their doctors.
Mike Tyson has been banned from boxing for biting off Evander Holyfield's ear. Boxing industry leaders are now worried that the sport's reputation will be tarnished by Tyson's association with an upcoming wrestling match.
Anything relating to Marv Albert.
Finance
Stock investing genius and second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett has lately been investing billions of dollars in silver futures and zero coupon treasury bonds. Throughout his career, Buffett has been an outspoken advocate of buying quality stocks when they are cheap. He has frequently advised investors that it is foolish to ever try to time the market. Silver futures are bets about the short term fluctuations of the price of Silver on the commodities exchanges. Zero coupon treasury bonds are most commonly used to speculate on short term changes in interest rates.
Movies
The next big-budget Hollywood extravaganzas include Sony's Godzilla starring Oscar and Tony award winner Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick and Lost in Space starring "Friend" Matt LeBlanc.
In the past, I have had dreams where I jumped off of buildings. I always wake up just before I hit the ground. If, by chance, I am mistaken and this is not a dream, and I jump off a building after watching Lost in Space, then you’ll know what happened.
Colonoscopii
My good friend Dave and I recently had an email dialog on the subject of colonoscopies. Dave is a very funny guy. He teaches middle school, in case you were wondering, and you'll find a link to his blog here. Since he didn't share his thoughts on colonoscopies on his blog, I am posting them here.
"Chris,
I'm having my first ever colonoscopy today. I had some thoughts on the process thus far, and I had to write them down.
So, I share. Why? because I'm a helper. I help. It's what I do.
If hell has an official soft drink, it's GOT to be Colyte
Because of the unforeseen (and, it must be said, ferocious) efficiency of the Colyte, I ended up with a nasty little rash deal on my . . . well, you know. My wife says to me "Want me to go to the store and get some Destin? It's real good when you're hurtin' in your bobo" Now, the fact that she referred to that part of my body as my "bobo" made me laugh, hard, for 20 minutes, and made me so glad I'd married her I can't even describe it.
Destin really is good when you're hurtin' in your bobo. It's basically zinc oxide paste, but it works like a charm.
I had to take enemas this morning. Plural. I begin to suspect this has no medical purpose, but merely serves to amuse the staff at the hospital.
Either that or its some bizarre government subsidy of the enema industry
Or both
The enema instructions read, in part, "before inserting, remove green protective cap from insertion tube". Thanks for the heads up, guys. Really.
I'll probably have more thoughts after the procedure proper is over. Whether they'll be thoughts I can or should share, I'll let you know.
Yours in colo-rectal health,
Dave"
Dave,
Having had three colonoscopys (ies?), I have a few additional thoughts on the matter:
Colyte is chemically the same as Palmolive dishwashing liquid. Why do you need a prescription for colyte but not palmolive, I wonder?
To avoid future rashes on the bobo, I recommend liberal use of vaseline on the bobo before the colyte has its desired effect. Not only will this protect the bobo, you may find that it stimulates your wink wink.
I have wondered about the purpose of the enemas myself given that the colyte is so damn effective. But if you really want to amuse the staff, I would suggest inserting some innocuous item in your rectum such as a live gerbil. Having once worked at a hospital, I learned that there is simply no better way to amuse hospital staff.
I am looking forward to your thoughts on the Demoral/Versed cocktail that you will soon be taking intravenously, the purpose of which is not to sedate you, but to make you forget the experience. I believe this combination of drugs was discovered as part of a technology exchange program with aliens.
--Chris
"Chris,
Really, I can't say enough good things about the Demerol/versed combo. The actual procedure was a piece of cake compared to the preparatory stuff. If they'd mix a little dem/ver in the Colyte mix, then they'd have something.
I asked them if I could have a case of that stuff in a to-go box, but no dice. The whole "mind wipe" effect would make my current job tolerable, if used on a daily basis.
The first thing that happened this morning was when the nurse hooked me up to the heart monitor, it showed a flatline. I looked up at her and said "I see a light, I see a light . . . ."
She thought that was pretty funny.
It didn't fill me with confidence to have an equipment breakdown right from the git-go, but I thought to myself "I'll take my chances, because I'm not doing that whole burnin' bobo thing again . . . bring it on"
Next thing I knew, Cid was standing next to me asking me how I felt. I got dressed and we went to Jimmy's Egg.
So, class, what have we learned from this little experience?:
Colonoscopies (colonoscopii?) are easy, but the day before is a bitch on wheels.
Colyte is evil; it's of the deb-uhl.
Demerol/versed cocktails are our friend; putting it in the water supply is an idea whose time has come.
I'd rather have a colonoscopy every day of the work-week than teach in the public schools system anymore.
I now have the perfect photo for next year's Christmas cards
Life really is like a "Kids in the Hall" sketch. Remember this one:
[We see Mark on a table, with two strange white "lights" folded down near his head. A sequined blanket is draped over him, and he lies down with his knees curled up into his chest. We see two aliens stand around him. One alien holds a strange device that looks kind of like a lightsaber, but with a solid white plastic piece where the beam would be.]
Kevin: Ready the anal probe.
[Dave switches the device on as it begins to glow. It looks like a lightsaber with a small white beam]
Dave: Anal probe is ready.
Kevin: [nods] Commence anal probing.
[Mark screams loud and long as Dave sticks it where the sun don't shine. He pulls it out, after two seconds and pulls off the white plastic part [to sterilize it?]
Dave: Quick, erase his memory!
[Kevin waves a hand over Mark as the two lighted "paddles" come up. Mark stops yelling and gets a calm look on his face]
Kevin: Memory's erased. Get him out of here.
[Two other aliens come and start to wheel Mark off]
Dave: Move it. [pauses as he moves closer to Kevin] Ah, boy.
Kevin: Something wrong?
Dave: Ah.. it's nothing really....
Kevin: I think you could use a cup of coffee.
Dave: Yeah. [sighs]
[They move to a lounge where Kevin pours two cups of coffee. They keep talking as Dave sits down]
Kevin: So what's bothering you?
Dave: Ahhhh.... Lately I just keep wondering... what's the point?
Kevin: The point?
Dave: Yeah. What's the point of what we do?
Kevin: Sorry, I don't follow you
[Kevin sits down]
Dave: Well, I mean, we travel 250,000 light years across the universe, abduct humans, probe them anally and release them.
Kevin: Yeah... AND?
Dave: Well, doesn't it seem kind of point-LESS?
Kevin: I really don't think about it.
Dave: Well don't you think you should?
Kevin: No, I don't think I should. I don't think I should question the leadership of our Great Leader
Dave: Oh, come on! I mean, we've been coming here for 50 years and performing anal probes and all that we have learned is that 1 in 10 doesn't really seem to mind.
Kevin: Well, do you have a better plan than our Great Leader?
Dave: Yes I do, I do have a better plan. My plan is that we DON'T travel 250,000 light years, we DON'T abduct any humans and, this is the best part, we DON'T do any anal probing.
Kevin: [sarcastic] Oh, great plan! Do you realize how many people Intergalactic Anal-Probing employs?
[They see that the next victim is ready. They put down the coffee and do the same motions as before, except Dave is very reluctant this time.]
Kevin: Well back to work.
Dave: Awww..
Kevin: Ready the anal probe.
Dave: [unenthusiastic]Anal probe is ready.
Kevin: Commence anal probing
Dave:[rolling eyes, exasperated] Couldn't we at least abduct their political or religious leaders instead of just any idiot in a pickup truck?!?!
Kevin: I'm sure the Great Leader has his reasons
Dave: [sarcastic] Well, I'm sure the Great Leader is just some sort of twisted ass freak!
Kevin: [calmly] All right. I am now officially ignoring you. Commence anal probing.
[Dave inserts the probe. This victim doesn't scream. Rather, he smiles and looks happy.]
Dave: Well, that's a relief anyway. Erase his memory.
Kevin [going through motions] Memory is erased.
Dave: Get him out of here.
Kevin: [to interns wheeling victim out.] Come on, kid. Move it. Move it!
[They move to the window and look out on the moon and the Earth]
Kevin: You know what you need? A hobby. I know it helps me.
Dave: Yeah? What do you do?
Kevin: Well, I don't like to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty good amateur rectal photographer. Would you like to see my portfolio?
Dave: No. I would hate to.
Kevin: Fine. Screw you.
Dave: Well, Screw you.
[Kevin moves off, leaving Dave staring at the Earth]
Yours in colorectal hygiene,
Dave"
"Chris,
I'm having my first ever colonoscopy today. I had some thoughts on the process thus far, and I had to write them down.
So, I share. Why? because I'm a helper. I help. It's what I do.
If hell has an official soft drink, it's GOT to be Colyte
Because of the unforeseen (and, it must be said, ferocious) efficiency of the Colyte, I ended up with a nasty little rash deal on my . . . well, you know. My wife says to me "Want me to go to the store and get some Destin? It's real good when you're hurtin' in your bobo" Now, the fact that she referred to that part of my body as my "bobo" made me laugh, hard, for 20 minutes, and made me so glad I'd married her I can't even describe it.
Destin really is good when you're hurtin' in your bobo. It's basically zinc oxide paste, but it works like a charm.
I had to take enemas this morning. Plural. I begin to suspect this has no medical purpose, but merely serves to amuse the staff at the hospital.
Either that or its some bizarre government subsidy of the enema industry
Or both
The enema instructions read, in part, "before inserting, remove green protective cap from insertion tube". Thanks for the heads up, guys. Really.
I'll probably have more thoughts after the procedure proper is over. Whether they'll be thoughts I can or should share, I'll let you know.
Yours in colo-rectal health,
Dave"
Dave,
Having had three colonoscopys (ies?), I have a few additional thoughts on the matter:
Colyte is chemically the same as Palmolive dishwashing liquid. Why do you need a prescription for colyte but not palmolive, I wonder?
To avoid future rashes on the bobo, I recommend liberal use of vaseline on the bobo before the colyte has its desired effect. Not only will this protect the bobo, you may find that it stimulates your wink wink.
I have wondered about the purpose of the enemas myself given that the colyte is so damn effective. But if you really want to amuse the staff, I would suggest inserting some innocuous item in your rectum such as a live gerbil. Having once worked at a hospital, I learned that there is simply no better way to amuse hospital staff.
I am looking forward to your thoughts on the Demoral/Versed cocktail that you will soon be taking intravenously, the purpose of which is not to sedate you, but to make you forget the experience. I believe this combination of drugs was discovered as part of a technology exchange program with aliens.
--Chris
"Chris,
Really, I can't say enough good things about the Demerol/versed combo. The actual procedure was a piece of cake compared to the preparatory stuff. If they'd mix a little dem/ver in the Colyte mix, then they'd have something.
I asked them if I could have a case of that stuff in a to-go box, but no dice. The whole "mind wipe" effect would make my current job tolerable, if used on a daily basis.
The first thing that happened this morning was when the nurse hooked me up to the heart monitor, it showed a flatline. I looked up at her and said "I see a light, I see a light . . . ."
She thought that was pretty funny.
It didn't fill me with confidence to have an equipment breakdown right from the git-go, but I thought to myself "I'll take my chances, because I'm not doing that whole burnin' bobo thing again . . . bring it on"
Next thing I knew, Cid was standing next to me asking me how I felt. I got dressed and we went to Jimmy's Egg.
So, class, what have we learned from this little experience?:
Colonoscopies (colonoscopii?) are easy, but the day before is a bitch on wheels.
Colyte is evil; it's of the deb-uhl.
Demerol/versed cocktails are our friend; putting it in the water supply is an idea whose time has come.
I'd rather have a colonoscopy every day of the work-week than teach in the public schools system anymore.
I now have the perfect photo for next year's Christmas cards
Life really is like a "Kids in the Hall" sketch. Remember this one:
[We see Mark on a table, with two strange white "lights" folded down near his head. A sequined blanket is draped over him, and he lies down with his knees curled up into his chest. We see two aliens stand around him. One alien holds a strange device that looks kind of like a lightsaber, but with a solid white plastic piece where the beam would be.]
Kevin: Ready the anal probe.
[Dave switches the device on as it begins to glow. It looks like a lightsaber with a small white beam]
Dave: Anal probe is ready.
Kevin: [nods] Commence anal probing.
[Mark screams loud and long as Dave sticks it where the sun don't shine. He pulls it out, after two seconds and pulls off the white plastic part [to sterilize it?]
Dave: Quick, erase his memory!
[Kevin waves a hand over Mark as the two lighted "paddles" come up. Mark stops yelling and gets a calm look on his face]
Kevin: Memory's erased. Get him out of here.
[Two other aliens come and start to wheel Mark off]
Dave: Move it. [pauses as he moves closer to Kevin] Ah, boy.
Kevin: Something wrong?
Dave: Ah.. it's nothing really....
Kevin: I think you could use a cup of coffee.
Dave: Yeah. [sighs]
[They move to a lounge where Kevin pours two cups of coffee. They keep talking as Dave sits down]
Kevin: So what's bothering you?
Dave: Ahhhh.... Lately I just keep wondering... what's the point?
Kevin: The point?
Dave: Yeah. What's the point of what we do?
Kevin: Sorry, I don't follow you
[Kevin sits down]
Dave: Well, I mean, we travel 250,000 light years across the universe, abduct humans, probe them anally and release them.
Kevin: Yeah... AND?
Dave: Well, doesn't it seem kind of point-LESS?
Kevin: I really don't think about it.
Dave: Well don't you think you should?
Kevin: No, I don't think I should. I don't think I should question the leadership of our Great Leader
Dave: Oh, come on! I mean, we've been coming here for 50 years and performing anal probes and all that we have learned is that 1 in 10 doesn't really seem to mind.
Kevin: Well, do you have a better plan than our Great Leader?
Dave: Yes I do, I do have a better plan. My plan is that we DON'T travel 250,000 light years, we DON'T abduct any humans and, this is the best part, we DON'T do any anal probing.
Kevin: [sarcastic] Oh, great plan! Do you realize how many people Intergalactic Anal-Probing employs?
[They see that the next victim is ready. They put down the coffee and do the same motions as before, except Dave is very reluctant this time.]
Kevin: Well back to work.
Dave: Awww..
Kevin: Ready the anal probe.
Dave: [unenthusiastic]Anal probe is ready.
Kevin: Commence anal probing
Dave:[rolling eyes, exasperated] Couldn't we at least abduct their political or religious leaders instead of just any idiot in a pickup truck?!?!
Kevin: I'm sure the Great Leader has his reasons
Dave: [sarcastic] Well, I'm sure the Great Leader is just some sort of twisted ass freak!
Kevin: [calmly] All right. I am now officially ignoring you. Commence anal probing.
[Dave inserts the probe. This victim doesn't scream. Rather, he smiles and looks happy.]
Dave: Well, that's a relief anyway. Erase his memory.
Kevin [going through motions] Memory is erased.
Dave: Get him out of here.
Kevin: [to interns wheeling victim out.] Come on, kid. Move it. Move it!
[They move to the window and look out on the moon and the Earth]
Kevin: You know what you need? A hobby. I know it helps me.
Dave: Yeah? What do you do?
Kevin: Well, I don't like to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty good amateur rectal photographer. Would you like to see my portfolio?
Dave: No. I would hate to.
Kevin: Fine. Screw you.
Dave: Well, Screw you.
[Kevin moves off, leaving Dave staring at the Earth]
Yours in colorectal hygiene,
Dave"
Friday, April 14, 2006
Science News
From my email box: A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium".
Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of four years; it does not decay but instead, it undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypocritical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." You will know it when you see it.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of four years; it does not decay but instead, it undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypocritical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." You will know it when you see it.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Dinosaur
I wrote this 5 years ago.
Driving from Salt Lake City to Denver took me down one of the loneliest roads I have ever seen. In one stretch, it must have been over 20 minutes without seeing another car.
By the time I got to the town of Dinosaur, Colorado, I was ready for a break. I had plenty of gas and I wasn’t hungry or thirsty, but I needed to stretch my legs. It was then that I saw a wooden shack by the side of the road with a large sign that read “FOSSILS”. I thought it would be great to bring home a fossil as a present for my 10-year-old daughter. So I pulled into the empty gravel parking lot, parked my rented Ford Taurus, and went inside.
The shop was very dirty and cluttered and filled with an amazing variety of fossils of every kind I could imagine. Some were polished and quite beautiful. Many were several hundred dollars. Some were well over a thousand.
I was enthralled. I had to look at every one of them and there were so many. I must have been browsing for over ten minutes when I heard, “Can I help you find something?”
The old man behind the counter bore a striking resemblance to the actor Wilfred Brimley. He wore a pair of overalls and was even more covered with dirt than his store. He looked like he had come from an excavation he had going just outside the back door.
“Yes, thank you. I am looking for a fossil for my daughter’s rock collection.”
“How much are you looking to spend?” He asked.
“I just want to spend around $5.”
A brief look of disappointment flashed across the old man’s face. Then he smiled and said, “Trilobites! Kids love trilobites.”
He handed me a small black trilobite. It was exactly $5. It was very cool.
“Thank you. This is perfect. My daughter will love it.” I said.
“Have you been up to see the monument?” The old man inquired.
I knew he was referring to Dinosaur National Monument. I had seen the signs on the highway. The entrance was about 6 miles east of town. I really had no desire.
“No. I wasn’t planning to see it. I am just on my way from Salt Lake City to Oklahoma. I’m staying in Denver tonight.”
The old man sighed.
“So, let me get this straight. You are in too much of a hurry to drive twenty miles out of your way to see something that people come all the way from Jay-PAN to see.”
I laughed. “Well, since you put it that way, I guess I’ll go see the monument. Is it really that impressive?”
“You’ll have to decide for yourself. There sure are a lot of dinosaurs up there.”
I thanked the man again and left. Twenty minutes later, I was parking at the Dinosaur Quarry Visitors Center at Dinosaur National Monument.
In 1909, Earl Douglass, a paleontologist who worked for the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, discovered this place. He was looking for a few dinosaur bones to ship to his museum. What he found instead were thousands of them. By 1915, president Woodrow Wilson had heard about the great dinosaur quarry that Douglass had started and he declared it Dinosaur National Monument.
As I walked out of the bright sunlight and into the glass building that protects the quarry from the elements, my eyes had to adjust for a moment before I could see anything. Slowly the exhibit came into view, and as it did I was overcome with awe. I stood on a walkway about three stories above the ground facing a huge rock wall. Clearly imbedded all over this rock wall were the fossilized bones of hundreds of dinosaurs.
I had seen dinosaur skeletons made to look fearsome in a museum gallery, but this was entirely different. The bones of these animals were in their natural state; arranged exactly as they were when their bodies were buried in a riverbed, 150 million years ago. The image did not even remotely inspire fear. A large pile of dead animals inspires sadness.
As I looked at the quarry wall, I was reminded of a scene from years before. When I was 16, my father took me fishing in Alaska. It was in the month of August, and the King Salmon had already finished spawning, and they were dying. I was walking along a river and I saw the bloated carcasses of King Salmon everywhere. I remembered how their bodies would collect in pockets of still water.
The rock wall of the quarry looked just like that, only instead of King Salmon bodies, I was mostly looking at the remains of brontosaurs - sauropods of the late Jurassic period. These animals were 75 feet long. When they were alive, they each weighed 13 tons.
Just what killed all of these animals? Did they die at different times and at different places along the river, but water currents kept depositing bodies at this one spot? Or did they all die on the same day, perhaps all drowning in a flash flood? For some reason I think that these animals all died together. As I looked at the wall of rock at Dinosaur Quarry, I felt almost like I was witnessing a mass drowning death in a river so very long ago.
And then I thought about the time span that separates me from that day. 150 million years. One hundred fifty-years seems like a long time to me, but 150 MILLION years? That is beyond comprehension.
Or is it? My memory goes back 38 years. With that memory, I can maybe comprehend a century. Maybe. On the other hand, the briefest time interval I am familiar with is one second. What if I had a time machine that would go back in time at the rate of one century for every second? Think about it. My entire life would pass by in the time it takes for my heart to beat one beat, during a jog. In 20 seconds, I would be back to the time of Christ. After a minute, I would be well beyond recorded history. How long then, at this pace, would it take for me to get back to the day where the bodies of these giant animals came to their final resting place at the bottom of a nameless river? I did the math. The answer is 17 days, 8 hours, and 40 minutes. Unlike H.G. Well’s famous time machine, mine better have plenty of provisions and a bathroom.
The Earth was a very different place when these animals died. It spun faster on its axis; the days were only 23 hours long. The moon was even closer. It appeared much larger in the sky, and months were a week shorter than they are now. If I were to step out of my time machine after my 17-day journey, the plants, the animals, everything would seem alien to me. I might not recognize the Earth of the late Jurassic period to be my home planet at all.
And yet, I was there. I was a part of that world. Virtually every atom in my body was here on Earth 150 million years ago. The water that makes up most of me was in the sea, or in the air, or in a lake, or in the river that claimed the bodies of these noble brontosaurs. Some of me may have actually been part of one of the brontosaurs now entombed on the side of that mountain in Utah.
I had the strange sense of awakening a long forgotten memory. I could see the Sun hanging low over the misty forest, and I saw its light reflecting in the water of a vast winding river. I could see the brontosaurs grazing on the trees near the river banks. Then suddenly the water came crashing down on them. Blocked by the dense forest, there was no way to escape the flood. I could hear their cries of anguish. The brontosaurs struggled to regain their footing, but the water was too strong. They were pulled down into the blackness.
Their bodies lay buried for so long that thousands of feet of rock and dirt was eventually deposited above. The crushing weight and heat forced all the water from the soft riverbed and hardened it into solid rock. Then, the continent buckled. The land shattered at the very place where the riverbed once was. The tomb of these dinosaurs was lifted into the sky. Their fossilized bones eventually saw sunlight again. The stone that was the riverbed in which they were buried was now the very top of a mountain peak in the Rockies.
For the last two thousand years many Christians have been expecting the world to come to an end fairly soon. As I stood looking at the dinosaurs of Dinosaur National Monument, I knew that the world will be here for a very long time. It will be here 150 million years from now. The sun will still be shining. The moon will be smaller in the sky. And I will still be here, the same way I was here the day those dinosaurs drowned.
I got back in my car and headed home. I was no longer in a hurry.
Encounters with Famous People
I decided it would be fun to make a list of famous people I have met in my life. As I compiled the list, I realized that I had to first decide what constitutes "famous", and second what constitutes "meeting" someone. So, for the sake of this list, "famous" means that the person is a national figure. So, current Oklahoma governor Brad Henry, and past Oklahoma governors, Howard Edmondson, David Walters, and George Nigh did not make the cut. Sorry guys. "Meeting" someone means that words were exchanged between us. So, by this definition, being on the front row of a Who concert does not mean that I have met Pete Townshend, nor does catching Stewart Copeland's drum stick at a Police concert count as an adequate exchange. Asking Bono how he was doing and having him reply "fine", however was a meeting. Finally there are two people that have been nationally famous for brief periods of time that I left off of the list but it was difficult. They are Washington attorney John Dowd (Pete Rose prosecutor, the defender of John McCain in the Keating Five debacle) and former Penn Square Bank chief lending officer Bill Patterson, who at one time was blamed for nearly destroying Western civilization single-handedly. So now the list of famous people I have met:
Singer/Songwriter Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. We have several mutual friends here in wonderful Oklahoma City. I met him at a wedding.
U2 Before they were famous they played in a small bar in Oklahoma City and I chatted briefly with them between sets.
The late great Shirley Hemphill from the T.V. show What's Happening. I met her when I worked as the assistant manager of Joker's Comedy Club in Oklahoma City in 1982/83.
Olympic Gold-Medalist Gymnast Shannon Miller. I met her at the home of my boss just before I was hired to be a stockbroker in 1990.
Actor/Comedian Robert Wuhl. Another encounter from Joker's.
Singer/Songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard (Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother, Home With The Armadillo). We met at London's Heathrow Airport in 1997. He was with Terry Ware, a musician from Norman, Oklahoma that was a friend of my aunt's.
Pat Paulsen. Another Joker's performer.
Actor O-Lan Jones. We met in San Francisco after a comedy improv performance in which she was cast. She has been in many movies, and is also famous for being Sam Shepard's ex-wife.
Mickey Rooney. We met at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport - a very nice guy.
LBJ - we met at the funeral for former Oklahoma governor/senator James Howard Edmondson. I was seven.
Jenny Jones. Can you believe she had a career in stand up comedy before she went on to become whatever it is she became? I can't believe it either and I saw her perform (at Joker's).
Nationally famous black republican J.C. Watts. We met when he was just a locally famous former OU quarterback.
James Garner. I met him when I was a kid and he was a huge star. He really impressed me by being a normal nice guy.
Former FEMA Director James Lee Witt. We met at DFW Airport. Very nice guy.
Graham Nash. We met in front of the Sheraton in downtown Oklahoma City just before a CSN concert.
Test Pilot Scott Crossfield. We met on a plane and had one of the most entertaining conversations of my entire life. One day I'll write about it.
Chelsea Clinton. I ran into her leaving a Broadway play. She's got her dad's charm.
T.V. Personality Byron Allen. Not the high point of my time at Joker's.
Comedian Bill Hicks. He may have been the high point of my brief career in the comedy club biz. Without a doubt, he's the most talented comic I met while working at Jokers. He died a few years later but he still has a cult following today (deservedly so).
Former OU Head Football Coach Barry Switzer.
And last but not least, Al Franken. We met at a convention I attended where he was the after-dinner speaker. There is a good story about what happened after we met that I'll need to write about some time.
Thats it. If I encounter any other famous people, I'll let you know. I know how important this stuff is in our fame-worshipping society.
Singer/Songwriter Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. We have several mutual friends here in wonderful Oklahoma City. I met him at a wedding.
U2 Before they were famous they played in a small bar in Oklahoma City and I chatted briefly with them between sets.
The late great Shirley Hemphill from the T.V. show What's Happening. I met her when I worked as the assistant manager of Joker's Comedy Club in Oklahoma City in 1982/83.
Olympic Gold-Medalist Gymnast Shannon Miller. I met her at the home of my boss just before I was hired to be a stockbroker in 1990.
Actor/Comedian Robert Wuhl. Another encounter from Joker's.
Singer/Songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard (Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother, Home With The Armadillo). We met at London's Heathrow Airport in 1997. He was with Terry Ware, a musician from Norman, Oklahoma that was a friend of my aunt's.
Pat Paulsen. Another Joker's performer.
Actor O-Lan Jones. We met in San Francisco after a comedy improv performance in which she was cast. She has been in many movies, and is also famous for being Sam Shepard's ex-wife.
Mickey Rooney. We met at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport - a very nice guy.
LBJ - we met at the funeral for former Oklahoma governor/senator James Howard Edmondson. I was seven.
Jenny Jones. Can you believe she had a career in stand up comedy before she went on to become whatever it is she became? I can't believe it either and I saw her perform (at Joker's).
Nationally famous black republican J.C. Watts. We met when he was just a locally famous former OU quarterback.
James Garner. I met him when I was a kid and he was a huge star. He really impressed me by being a normal nice guy.
Former FEMA Director James Lee Witt. We met at DFW Airport. Very nice guy.
Graham Nash. We met in front of the Sheraton in downtown Oklahoma City just before a CSN concert.
Test Pilot Scott Crossfield. We met on a plane and had one of the most entertaining conversations of my entire life. One day I'll write about it.
Chelsea Clinton. I ran into her leaving a Broadway play. She's got her dad's charm.
T.V. Personality Byron Allen. Not the high point of my time at Joker's.
Comedian Bill Hicks. He may have been the high point of my brief career in the comedy club biz. Without a doubt, he's the most talented comic I met while working at Jokers. He died a few years later but he still has a cult following today (deservedly so).
Former OU Head Football Coach Barry Switzer.
And last but not least, Al Franken. We met at a convention I attended where he was the after-dinner speaker. There is a good story about what happened after we met that I'll need to write about some time.
Thats it. If I encounter any other famous people, I'll let you know. I know how important this stuff is in our fame-worshipping society.
Why am I unhappy?
More wisdom from the sages:
"Anguish emerges from craving for life to be other than it is. In the face of a changing world, such craving seeks consolation in something permanent and reliable, in a self that is in control of things, in a God that is in charge of destiny. The irony of this strategy is that it turns out to be the cause of what it seeks to dispel. In yearning for anguish to be assuaged in such ways, we reinforce what creates anguish in the first place: the craving for life to be other than it is. We find ourselves spinning in a vicious cycle. The more acute the anguish, the more we want rid of it, but the more we want rid of it, the more acute it gets."
--Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs
"Anguish emerges from craving for life to be other than it is. In the face of a changing world, such craving seeks consolation in something permanent and reliable, in a self that is in control of things, in a God that is in charge of destiny. The irony of this strategy is that it turns out to be the cause of what it seeks to dispel. In yearning for anguish to be assuaged in such ways, we reinforce what creates anguish in the first place: the craving for life to be other than it is. We find ourselves spinning in a vicious cycle. The more acute the anguish, the more we want rid of it, but the more we want rid of it, the more acute it gets."
--Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Bonnaroo Part 1
I am planning to spend a short summer vacation at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. My daughter, Olivia and I will be driving out there and camping out. It should be a great time. My favorite rock band, Radiohead, is headlining the show. I will also be enjoying Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Ben Folds, and some other lesser known bands that should be really good. Olivia is most looking forward to seeing The Streets perform, although I can't handle much rap, even when it is with a British accent.
The festival has a design contest every year. If someone submits a graphic design and the show producers decide to use it in any way, then the festival is free. Being the renaissance man that I am, I took a chance and submitted my own design for the contest:
I should find out whether or not it wins at the end of this week. Wish me luck.
The festival has a design contest every year. If someone submits a graphic design and the show producers decide to use it in any way, then the festival is free. Being the renaissance man that I am, I took a chance and submitted my own design for the contest:
I should find out whether or not it wins at the end of this week. Wish me luck.
Why do all my relationships fail?
In this and future blog postings, I will be sharing wisdom that has helped me survive the trials and tribulations of everyday life. I will begin with the answer to the immortal question: Why do all my relationships fail?
"If in your relationships you experience both "love" and the opposite of love -- attack, emotional violence, and so on -- then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your "love" has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego's substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation.
But there comes a point when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet your needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain, and lack that are an intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the "love relationship" now resurface. Just as with every other addiction, you are on a high when the drug is available, but invariably there comes a time when the drug no longer works for you. When those painful feelings reappear, you feel them even more strongly than before, and what is more, you now perceive your partner as the cause of those feelings. This means that you project them outward and attack the other with all the savage violence that is part of your pain. This attack may awaken the partner's own pain, and he or she may counter your attack. At this point, the ego is still unconsciously hoping that its attack or its attempts at manipulation will be sufficient punishment to induce your partner to change their behavior, so that it can use them again as a cover-up for your pain.
Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to -- alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person -- you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever."
--Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
"If in your relationships you experience both "love" and the opposite of love -- attack, emotional violence, and so on -- then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your "love" has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego's substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation.
But there comes a point when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet your needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain, and lack that are an intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the "love relationship" now resurface. Just as with every other addiction, you are on a high when the drug is available, but invariably there comes a time when the drug no longer works for you. When those painful feelings reappear, you feel them even more strongly than before, and what is more, you now perceive your partner as the cause of those feelings. This means that you project them outward and attack the other with all the savage violence that is part of your pain. This attack may awaken the partner's own pain, and he or she may counter your attack. At this point, the ego is still unconsciously hoping that its attack or its attempts at manipulation will be sufficient punishment to induce your partner to change their behavior, so that it can use them again as a cover-up for your pain.
Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to -- alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person -- you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever."
--Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
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