Eliel's Random Musings

The Return of John McCain

2008-11-04T23:22:00.002-05:00

His concession speech tonight echoes the comments he made on Saturday Night Live: The Mac is back! This is the man of honor and integrity who pushes through adversity with honor and integrity and takes responsibility for his actions that I thought was a much better candidate than George Walker Bush back in 2000. He deserves our respect for making the effort to remind people tonight that ~~Senator~~ President Elect Obama is the president of all of us, and that his supporters need to get behind him.

"I would not be a an American worthy of the name should I regret a fate that has allowed me the extraordinary privilege for serving the country for half a century.... Tonight, I remain her servant, and that is blessing enough for any one".

Closing by calling Obama "my President:" was a great touch.

Kudos to the old John McCain. Candidate McCain of the last 3 months can now slink quietly back go to hell.

Heartfelt Condolences

2008-11-03T21:48:00.002-05:00

To Senator Obama on the loss of his grandmother the night before he will likely be elected the President of the United States of America. I don't have the words to express how sad it is for him that the woman who raised him for so many of his years did not live to be able to express to him her pride in his accomplishments.

In some ways, her passing gives we, the people of this great nation, a chance to sit back and reflect on who exactly it is that has taught this man to be the man and the candidate that he is. I think Mr. Coates says it best here:

Likewise, I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man....

Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what normal, right people should always do when faced with a child--commit an act love. Here's to doing the right thing.

My House is not the one in the Middle of The Street

2008-11-02T23:58:00.001-05:00

How timely can an album be, really? When singer-songwriter Cantinero dropped his latest album, I can't imagine he knew that the work he'd done over the course of a year would resonate so well with the elections of 2008.

He's been posting the relevant ones here on the Huffington Post's "rapid response" site 23/6. The latest is a good reminder that as the closing argument against Senator Obama is that he's an out-of-touch elitist with Marxist tendencies, that Senator McCain lives in many glass houses.

No Mo NanoWriMo

2008-11-01T23:56:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the title. It was too hard to resist.

Another November 1st has arrived, and another year of not taking on NaNoWriMo.

It's just the more realistic thing to do. Maybe in 2 years, when all the kids are in school, it will be a possibility. Until then, I will watch my friends take on the challenge and cheer them on. Best of luck to you, Childhood Bud!

The Prosecution's Opening Arguments

2008-07-29T00:44:00.003-04:00

I have read reviews of Mr. Bugliosi's book () that lead me to believe that book is worth a read. But given that the [alleged--Ed.] opposition party has declared that they will not pursue any form of prosecution (civil or criminal) of this administration and their high crimes and misdemeanors, I hadn't really pursued it much.

So, it was quite a shock to hear him give this presentation:

I think I might have to give the offices of Senator Clinton and Schumer a call tomorrow.

Too much blood on my hands

2008-07-28T23:36:00.002-04:00

Is it really fair that we the men and women of our armed forces go to a foreign land and fight for us, but yet don't provide them the care they need when they return home?

I don't think so. I admit though that even though I've been trying to keep up with information on veterans and the small things that I can do to help, I was shocked to see these numbers:

The VA estimates that every year 6,500 veterans take their own lives. The mental health director for the VA, Ira Katz, said in an e-mail last December that of the 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, four to five of them are under VA care, and 12,000 veterans under VA care are attempting suicide each year.

18 people a day in the United States take their own lives as a direct result of doing what they believed to be their duty to God and country. I cannot account for God, but the tiny fraction of country that I represent just got a wake up call that I need to do more. I am not sure what that is. But I have to do something.

digg story

21 Days Later

2008-06-15T21:36:00.002-04:00

I have this evening realized another failure of character on my part.

Being one of those who do believe that an serious pandemic influenza outbreak is on the horizon, as I read this article, I kept finding myself stumbling over something that I realize says more about me than the subject matter. This MedGuru article on a successful trial of a new flu vaccine targeted at the dreaded H5N1 strain of influenza details some good news on the preparatory work that the world of medicine is doing to mitigate the impact a pandemic would have. But, I must admit: it never occurred to me that they would be doing human trials so soon. I found myself stumbling over the term "volunteers":

The vaccine uses a clade 1 strain of H5N1 virus. Total 284 volunteers, aged 18-45 years were administered this vaccine, twice, with a gap of 21 days with and without adjuvant. The trials were conducted in Austria and Singapore.

Now, those who know about the recent work done to better understand flu pandemic of 1918 know that scientists have discovered that those most affected by the virus were healthy people between the age of 18 and 45. To know full well that scientists have compared H5N1 to the Spanish Flu in it's morbidity rate amongst healthier victims, and to then sign up to take 2 injections of (granted, a killed strain) of this virus separated by 21 days of monitoring requires a certain kind of bravery that I sadly don't think I am in possession of.

I would like to personally thank those 248 people and the folks working in the BHL-3 lab with live strains of H5N1 for taking the risks required to save the millions who might be saved should this vaccine prove safe and effective.

Now, before you go posting a comment decrying my use of the phrase "millions" above, let me point you to someone who has written more eloquently than I on the subject of what information is out there about the coming plague and how we all process it. This blogger, focused on the issue of the pandemic, has broken it down quite succinctly in the title of her post: We all make choices.

As she points out, the information is out there. There was news on the subject almost daily when the outbreaks in Asia were coming fast and furious. And now, the information is still there, but the impact of it is deadened by the fact that in reality, it is nearly impossible to determine how bad the outbreak could be until it starts happening. And, as she points out, "we don't know if H5N1 will cause the next pandemic (it may be some other pathogen)". So, in the face of all that uncertainty, yes, it is quite possible to think that those of us, like your humble correspondent, who keep an eye out for news on the subject are just wacko "Flubies". But I don't think we are. I would rather think that we are according to nature all of the respect she is due. And have chosen to be afraid. Very afraid. Yet optimistic.

As David said best in Psalm 139:14: "... I am fearfully and wonderfully made..."

Dirty Pretty Things

2008-06-05T21:52:00.004-04:00

This blog is called "Random Musings", so in keeping with the rubric, I am required to bring your attention to this bit of somewhat old, but apparently still valid news:

At elementary schools, kindergartens, and preschools all across Japan, kids are losing themselves making hikaru dorodango, or balls of mud that shine.

As a mediative adult hobby, it sounds worth exploring. It is probably still too early to start our children on it. Maybe in another year or so. Then again, making objects of beauty out of mud resonates with anyone's beliefs about creation.

And the instructions seem simple enough.

On second thought, maybe I will try this out soon.

Tag Nabbit...

2008-05-03T01:12:00.003-04:00

I have so far survived being "tagged". Today that changed, courtesy of Emily (who I am sure has more than two readers).

So, following said instructions, I offer up this from JG Ballard's War Fever, which was sitting in the box next to my desk:

Even so, I have to be careful not to give the game away. I maintain a reasonably kempt appearance, wave from the upstairs windows at Mrs. Johnson and gesture apologetically at the overgrown lawn. She understands -- I have been abandoned by my wife, condemned to the despair of a womanless world.

I won't name names with regards to tagging. But if anyone who reads this has a blog of their own (and you don't make your saving throw), then leave a comment and let me know you've taken up the tag.

Listen Up

2008-04-28T22:32:00.002-04:00

Cantinero has published a new post on the HuffingtonPost spin-off 23/6, and with it an new song that captures the current vibe of the Clinton campaign with laser precision.

If it makes the front page of Digg, I can imagine that the conversation about it will be lively, which is why I'm posting the link to the Digg page as well as the directl link to the 236.com page.

A word about terminology here: Normally, I'd cringe at referring to the first viable female candidate for the Oval Office as Little Princess. But since Cantinero is a British fellow and the Brits (like much of the developed world) have a long history of women rulers, I am sure that this is not a sexist slam, but instead a targeted critique of the "funny thing that happened in the way to the inevitable nomination of HRC"

read more | digg story

A Good Cause

2008-04-09T23:58:00.002-04:00

As a fan of genre movies, one of the most biting statements I use about a film is to say "that money could have been better spent". But being one who judges movies on how well they do in their genre, and don't hold them up to some gold standard in a completely unrelated area (say comparing Doomsday to Blow-Up to name two films I've seen recently) There aren't very many films I say this about. One that comes to mind most readily is House of the Dead. It was a complete abomination of a film, and I am not saying that about the zombies in the film, I'm talking about the film itself.

At first I thought that the director had a bad script. That maybe the budget ran out during filming and they had to pull some Plan 9 from Outer Space-like actor swaps mid-stream. Then after casting about for a reason that such a monstrosity could exist in the known universe, I discovered the cause: Dr. Uwe Boll. Please don't let the sedate Wikipedia entry fool you: I believe that the man's not quite right. (What other film directors have actually challenged their critics to boxing matches?)

This week, Slashdot and Digg reported the story that Boll has declared that should 1 million people sign a petition, he'll stop making films. Since then, he seems to be characteristically waffling, as Wired reports here. The serious note behind all this is that because of some tax incentives to encourage local film production (his films are financed in Germany), Boll can continue to make films that never do well in the theaters or on DVD and not get fiscally penalized for it.

So the German taxpayers are getting the shaft here, and lesser directors without the kinds of financial connections that Boll has are left out. Granted, there are some who do benefit from it (the crews and actors that he hires) but as this Slashdot comment points out, that's not enough:

As someone who actually works in the film industry, I'm not too quick to complain, since all of his films generally result in people working....

But on the other hand, his films are some of the most cynically exploitive junk you've ever seen. He uses a provision in the German tax code to get tax credits and free money, and uses those to bootstrap foreign distribution pre-sales and video-game tie in deals. In effect, he's made money before he even starts rolling the camera, and so the quality of his film itself is irrelevant as long as it cuts a good trailer, will have a good poster, and has enough "bankable" stars in the project to stimulate box office. It's essentially the Roger Corman model, just without the class and punk authenticity.

That's just wrong. And so I urge you, gentle reader, to take the time and sign the petition here.

Bravo: Lifetime lands the Runway

2008-04-08T00:26:00.002-04:00

So, after years of toiling to produce some of the best reality programming for the fashionistas of the world, the Weinstein company's Project Runway will finally be moving from the Bravo network to Lifetime.

I still think that it should replace The Apprentice in that time slot since it's actually an interesting show (not that I watched last season, mind you, I am on a reduced intake diet of television)

Well, all this will happen if NBC's law suit to stop it gets decided in the brother's Weinstein's favor, that is:

The suit asserts Harvey Weinstein, the chief executive of the Weinstein Company, promised NBC that it would have an opportunity to match any offer to the rights of “Project Runway” and that instead, Mr. Weinstein concluded a deal with Lifetime on Feb. 7, even though he continued to negotiate with NBC Universal for two more months.
In a statement, NBC said “NBC Universal has continuing rights related to ‘Project Runway,’ including a right of first refusal to future cycles of the series, which the Weinstein Company unfortunately has refused to honor.”

My (obligatory) response to this is to say that in network programming, NBC: sometimes you're in. And then, you're out.

The Wages of War

2008-04-07T23:49:00.002-04:00

No matter what you thought about whether we should have gone into Iraq or not, at this point, it has become clear that the cost of the war in lives and dollars has exceeded any of the estimates given by the architects of the conflict.

Specifically, with the number of US war dead over 4,000 and the number of wounded a factor of 10 greater than that, it is time for our nation to start thinking about how we are all going to pitch in to help the families of those who went to fight. Unfortunately, each day that these brave men and women continue to spend in Iraq reduces our nation's ability to provide them with the types of benefits that they will need to be able to recover any semblance of normalcy in their lives upon their return home.

Robert Reich touched upon this tangentially in his most recent post on his blog. Not only are we damaging our ability to provide for our soldiers, we are also losing our ability to provide for those they left behind. Dr. Reich's analysis is short and to the point:

The war is a terribly inefficient stimulus to the US economy. A dollar spent on repairing a bridge in Iraq doesn’t have nearly the multiplier effect on our economy as a dollar spent repairing a bridge here in the United States.

More to the point – and here’s what Americans need to understand – a dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar we do not have to spend here, not only repairing our own bridges, roads, and water and sewage systems, but also giving Americans access to health insurance and children access to good schools, fully funding Social Security and Medicare, investing adequately in non-carbon based energy sources and green technologies, and borrowing less from abroad. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the real economic cost of the Iraqi War doesn’t show up in the business cycle, and it's not responsible for the current recession. The real economic cost will show up years from now in a standard of living that for most Americans will be significantly lower than we might otherwise have enjoyed.

That's for those of us not dealing with a life-changing wound received in the line of fire. And those of us not dealing with the tragic loss of a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a father or a mother to the chaos that is the "Iraqi theater of operations".

So what can you or I do about it? First, check this list and go and find out if your state's senators and congress folk have signed on to support the new GI Bill by clicking here.

Then go take a look at some of the stories shared by the soldiers at the IAVA web site.

They've earned it.

On the Governor

2008-03-13T00:23:00.002-04:00

This song by The Frames best sums up how I'm feeling:

FRAMES lyrics

No surprise here...

2008-02-16T11:49:00.000-05:00

I took this online quiz a while ago, and hadn't posted the results.

Given that my choice for Democratic Party nominee might be viewed as some as showing a particular gender bias, I submit this now to establish my bona fides...

The link to take the test yourself is at the bottom.

You Are 98% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man).
You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Notes on some music

2007-10-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

On Friday, I got upstairs to my office a few minutes later than I should have because I had to sit and listen to the rest of The Last Town Chorus's version of Modern Love. If you've not heard it, you can listen and watch the music video on YouTube here. I never knew this song of Bowie's would benefit so much from some steel guitar, but it does.

Elizabeth and I have this running joke that Norah Jones' sole claim to fame is that she can sing anyone's song slower than the original artist can. At first blush, this rendition brings one close to that, but something about the delivery keeps it from being lame.

Another album for me to buy, thanks to the wonderful South By Southwest festival bit torrent file. You can get your copy by following the link.

The Magical Fruit

2007-07-21T22:37:00.001-04:00

This flash "game" is just too random and fun.

[Thanks Digg, for pointing Eliel this way--Ed.]

Technorati Tags: Random Musing

Better Never Late

2007-07-09T10:36:00.000-04:00

On July 8th, The New York Times finally published an editorial piece that unequivocally calls for US withdrawal from the war. It can be found here. I agree with their detailed analysis of what needs to be done and the risks involved. But it is the right thing to do.

The only bone I have to pick with them is from this passage snuck in after declaring that it's time to withdraw:

Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward. [Emphasis Eliel's--Ed.]

They mean "many Americans" for ever-decreasing values of "many" by my understanding. Here's an article from almost two years ago that shows what I mean:

Right now, the polls suggest a similar move. 13% want us to send more troops (the McCain position), 28% want us to muddle on as we are now, 23% want us to withdraw some of our boys, and 33% want a full pullout. For those keeping score at home, that means 41% want to continue this fight and 56% want to end it. [With "right now" being August 25th, 2005--Ed.]

Literary Theory and Software design

2007-07-09T10:15:00.000-04:00

Some wonder how the 'twain came to meet for me. I used to joke that both computers and cultures both need programming, so there you go.

Now, a new book (reviewed here) has appeared that puts into better terms that notion:

This concept of 'process expression' is, he says, a common thread running through the various disciplines of computer science. "A logic circuit is an expression of a logical process; an architecture is an expression of a continuously acting process to interpret symbolically expressed processes; a program is a symbolic expression of a process; a programming language is an environment within which to create symbolic process expression; a compiler is an expression of a process that translates between symbolic process expressions in different languages; an operating system is an expression of a process that manages the interpretation of other process expressions; any application is an expression of the application process."

It does not take much work to replace those pairs of concepts with equivalent cultural components: architecture becomes language, a program becomes a signifier or ritual, a programming language a culture, etc.

Serendipity

2007-06-26T14:30:00.001-04:00

[From 6/26/07--Ed]

So last night, I stayed up later that I should reading the exciting climax to the first full-fledged Science Fiction book I've read in a long time. [A review of which can be found on Eliel's Book Blog here--Ed]

And lo and behold, I go to do a search on Google, and my quotation block has this gem from George Carlin on it

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

How random is that? Sometimes I wonder whether I am the recipient of a special extra lifetime supply of synchronicity, or whether in my desire to know more about the world around me, I expose myself to enough stuff from different area that the coincidental repetition of themes seems like Something Else™

An energy solution that's not corny

2007-06-20T20:49:00.000-04:00

I am not a fan of corn-based ethanol. I think the "ethanol cure" to dependence on foreign oil is a sham of a hoax being perpetrated on the public by the farm lobby. As you can see from the two sides presented in this NCPA article, agribusiness folks are sold on the value of ethanol, while a cui bono-asking policy-analyst's distillation of the issue leaves them unconvinced.

The bottom line is that ethanol requires petroleum fuels to produce and transport. And by some measures, it requires more energy to make than it produces when burned in an internal combustion engine. And if you were to take away the farm subsidies, the cost of it would be greater than that of some of other alternative sources of energy.

So I am very happy to hear about a solution to the energy problem that still uses plant fuel but does so in a smarter way. This brief Scientific American article describes the process:

A recipe for fuel: take the carbohydrates like starch and cellulose that make up the majority of plants. Use enzymes to break them down into fructose, the sugar found in fruits and honey. Mix this fructose with salt water and hydrochloric acid. Add a solvent—in this case butanol also derived from plant matter—to protect the resulting hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from reacting with the water, then extract it. This versatile molecule can be used to create plastic polymers or other chemicals. And by the way, adding a copper-coated ruthenium catalyst can also convert the HMF to DMF (2,5-dimethylfuran), a fuel that provides more energy than ethanol.

So, here's a potential fuel that's more stable than ethanol (which means lower transport costs as it could be shipped via pipeline, unlike ethanol), made from crops and providing more power per unit of measure than ethanol. That's a win.

Another plus to this research is the careful approach that the developers of this technology are using. Cognizant of the MTBE fiasco, they are moving cautiously and want to evaluate the environmental impact of their product before producing it in quantity. Nice move.

Technorati Tags: Nature, Politics

A curvy necked stalker...

2007-06-20T20:06:00.000-04:00

As I sit here on the lawn updating the old blog, [Naturally, Eliel is sans camera--Ed], there's a beautiful specimen of Great Blue Heron strolling around our pond.

I imagine it's hunting frog for dinner.

Our pond can spare some, so I wish this bird some happy eating.

Piggy banks for Pain

2007-06-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

An interesting article from a member of the Cato Institute on Medical Savings Accounts and their effect on his own recent need for urgent care. As usual, I am almost sold on the Libertarian agenda here. The shortcoming for me of mandating MSA's for everyone is the very issue that the author brings up but brushes aside: not everyone knows how to negotiate the best deal in health care. And in his case, he did not need emergency care, just urgent care. I am pretty sure if I were in pain, I wouldn't take the time to price shop. I guess like his friend the marine, I too am a wimp.

Caught a Bug....

2007-06-17T23:01:00.001-04:00

A virus.

A music virus.

I got it from my Childhood Bud. He said

But I'm not going to be the only one stuck with this song in my head.

and he wasn't kidding.

So here I am, instead of being asleep, I am placing an order for the album Back to Black - Amy Winehouse, on which that forsaken hellspawn of a catchy song appears.

For those of you curious about how Ms. Winehouse's live performance compares to her studio work, it does so favourably as this YouTube video of the same song shows.

Truth and Reconciliation

2007-05-30T07:01:00.000-04:00

Imagine a press conference on the lawn of the White House where the President of the United States stands up and says the following:

Yes, my position on fighting in Iraq has turned 180 degrees from four years ago. I thought then that fighting in Iraq was the best way to defeat Islamist terrorism. After four years of observing it, and its actual empowerment of Islamist terrorism, I've changed my mind.

It seems that this will never happen. But it has for self-avowed small-c conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. If you are not a regular reader of the Daily Dish, I recommend you become one.

Mr. Sullivan ends his posting (titled Busted) with a most compelling quotation that I wish someone from the White House press corp would ask the President at their next opportunity:

But as Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?"

Technorati Tags: Politics