Blasphemy is Teh Funneh

Commenting

First, a note about the Deonandia commenting policies. Do you people actually read the preamble before writing? Let me be clear once again: unless you are already known to me, no anonymous posts are permitted.

If find it interesting that the only people who wish to post anonymously, or to give fake names or email addresses, are the ones who are confrontational. If you're so full of bluster and aggression, then surely you'd have the guts to peek out from the shadows, right? One thing I will not tolerate is cowardice.

So far I've been lax in not confirming the email addresses that commenters provide. No more. The pattern is unmistakable: the ones who give questionable names and emails quickly degenerate into trolls.

If you're wondering why your posts have not been published here, it's because: (a) you're a banned poster, and the system automatically deleted you; (b) you did not provide a name and email address; (c) the name or email address you provided was fake; (d) you violated one of the explicitly stated content rules.

So sayeth Lord Wat.

Gore

As you all know by now, I've been predicting Gore 2008 since 2000. Now, Hitchens is on board. Not sure I like the company. How will Gore enter the race? Hitchens predicts it will be announced shortly after Gore wins the Nobel prize. I don't know. But there are forces at work to suck him back into the fray.

Apollo XX

Remember the Apollo XX hoax I mentioned earlier? Well some people refuse to let it go. Now there's a whole site dedicated to is.

Swastika Building

Apparently the US navy is going to spend half a million dollars to alter the appearance of a building that, from space, looks like a swastika. Because God forbid the US military offend anyone.

The friendly people at Fark.com have a slew of good responses. Here's a sample:

From the navy: "I'm concerned about symbolism. This is not the type of message America needs to be sending to the world."
Fark: Not bombing the crap out of innocent civilians would be a nice symbolic improvement, too.

Andre MA: While they're at it, there's a suspicious building in Virginia that looks like the middle of a well-known Satanic symbol...

At this point, I'd like to remind the world that the swastika is a Hindu religious emblem having nothing to do Nazis or anything else. Hitler was the Madonna of his day: co-opting the ancient symbolism of older cultures for his own little fad.

Verizon To Block NARAL

Big news out of the US is that the phone company Verizon will block text messages from the pro-abortion group NARAL.

While some Democrat groups are charging Verizon with a rightist bias, I actually applaud the phone company's move. First of all, they are correct in wishing to remain as neutral as possible. Their policy is that presidential campaigns from both sides of the aisle are free to send text messages about their campaigns, but a special interest group is not allowed to text about a specific political issue. This strikes me as very wise.... so long as Verizon holds true to this principle and does not turn around and grant a texting licence to an issues-based group on the other side of the aisle!

Moreover, there's the larger question of why does ANY group get a licence to blast us with texts messages? Texting by an organization is the equivalent of telemarketers calling us at home. It simply should not be allowed for anyone.

LOLCATZ

Andoo sends us the best lolcatz site yet. This one is for you religious types. Hey, learn to take a joke.

Bonobos

I've been reading about the sexual proclivities of Bonobos. Why? 'Cause they have a funny name, and as a result I can't help but think about Sonny Bono and Bono Vox getting it on.

It seems Bonobos, who are humanity's closest living relatives, are an omnisexual species, among whom lesbian activity is more common than heterosexual activity, which is marginally more common than male-male sexual activity. That our closest primate relatives would embrace such pan-sexuality is a bit of sideways evidence for the "naturalness" of homosexuality among humans.

Mind you, animal studies can be used to justify pretty much any political stance among humans. Want to argue that males should be the child rearers? Cite sea horses. Want to argue that females should rule society? Cite honey bees. Want to argue that males should be polyamorous and sit around while females do all the work? Cite lions.

And lastly...

The following is not a Daily Perv Pic, and you've probably seen it before. But I can't stop laughing at the penguin with the purse:

Blackwater (No, Not The Kali Pani)

During the first Gulf War, the US Secretary of Defence was none other than Darth Dick Cheney. As usual, learning the wrong lessons from Vietnam, Cheney was determined to find a way to project military power while minimizing political cost and ignorning financial cost. So he commissioned a study from Halliburton --a company he would eventually lead-- to investigate the feasibility of bolstering US power with so-called "contractors", which of course is a euphemism for "mercenaries".

Cheney left his government post to head up Halliburton, growing it into the world's biggest defence contractor. Incoming President Clinton seemingly embraced this development, sadly myopic to the deeper historic implications of the rise of a mercenary economy. When Cheney returned to politics to become Vice President under the Monkey King, he conveniently had at his disposal a recommendation from an "impartial" private authority --Halliburton-- to further wratchet up US dependency upon "private armies."

Thus, with the rise of the neo-fascistic state of George Bush the Younger, the neo-cons felt able to wage limitless war without needing to upset the American public with the dreaded draft: mercenaries would do the heavy lifting, with almost no "optical" pain or seeming social cost.

Thus was born the world's biggest mercenary corporation, Blackwater USA, a secretive outfit headed by Erik Prince, described as a radical right-wing Christian fundamentalist, heir to a billion dollar fortune, and bank-roller of the Republican party. Blackwater rose to prominence shortly after the Columbine shootings, when Prince got the bright idea of expanding his security services to include anti-terror training for police who might need to storm schools, offices or churches or mosques. With the ascent of Bush/Cheney and their righeous warrior agenda, Prince ramped up his services to offer full-spectrum military support, which includes ground soldiers, aircraft, tactical and intelligence support.

Blackwater employees are experiened, blooded soldiers from around the world. The are paid an order of magnitude better than actual troops, and their loyalties are to their employer and client, not to any flag or code of ethics.

The so-called President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai (who is really no more than the mayor of Kabul) relies upon Blackwater "contractors" as his private bodyguard; his own people would likely kill him if they were given the job. The occasional reports from Iraq of locals "murdering" American "civilians" have, in almost all cases not involving journalists, been military exchanges between insurgents and mercenaries; the American public has always remained unsurprisingly ignorant to the full extent of mercenary involvement in their "righteous" wars. At the time of this post, the number of contractors in Baghdad exceeds the number of actual US military personnel.

So what's the problem? Where do I begin....

1. Mercenaries are not subject to any law, military or civilian. A Blackwater contractor who murders a civilian will not be brought before any tribunal or court. Technically, in a war zone, I understand that the responsibility for investigating any crime committed by a foreign national falls to the home nation of the perpetrator. A Blackwater contractor from Chile, for example, can commit murder and get away with it, since the government of Chile has no representation in Baghdad, and is extremely unlikely to mount any sort of distance investigation.

2. Because of #1, the employer (the US government, in this case) can commit any violation or crime it chooses, so long as the act is effected by the contractor. In 20 years, I guarantee we will learn of systematic torture and murder committed by mercenaries at the behest of their supposedly "civilized" employers.

3. The lure of high mercenary salaries is rapidly stripping the standard military of its most experienced assets.

4. Unlike a true military, the mercenary outfit Blackwater USA has a blatant political agenda, as evidenced by its campaign donations: to extend and bolster fundamentalist Christian values at home and abroad. Blackwater is now attempting to gain "peacekeeping" contracts in such places as Sudan, where differences are religion-based. Is it really in the world's best interest to be sanctioning a crusader army to "keep the peace"?

5. It is possible that a mercenary group can be deployed without governmental oversight, thus bypassing domestic laws enacted to avoid this very thing.

6. History has shown again and again that the rise of a mercenary class is quickly followed by the collapse of empire. This was most notably the case in ancient Rome. The Roman republicans wisely argued that wars should always be fought with volunteer and conscripted troops, so that no one goes lightly and without sacrifice. It was a built-in baffle to control the wanton use of military power. The rise of private armies created power-brokering fiefdoms within the empire, and quickly reduced governmental military power to a joke.

Since the mercenary corps now has parity with the Western soldiers in Iraq, might I suggest that all the middle-aged white men (and they are almost all middle-aged white men) with "I support the troops" bumper stickers on their SUVs modify their message to, "I support the government-contracted mercenaries who kill in my name, but without my permission or knowledge."

Might I also suggest Blackwater, by Jeremy Scahill.

Mutual of Deonandia's Wild Kingdom

Apparently there's a quiz to see just how "libertarian" you are. I scored 38, which puts me well in the "sane" category.

There are some new articles over at The Podium. Go look. Now.

This Friday evening, 5pm-7pm, I will be one of a handful of scientists speaking on a "Global Health panel" at the Hospital campus of the University of Ottawa, amphitheatre B. It's open to the public.

Here's a happy photo of a miniature horse. So what do you use them for? Midget rodeos? I dunno.

Which brings us to today's Daily Perv Link (TM). What's up with these people? Do they drive around, see a dog's ass in mid-crap or mid-pee and whisper to themselves, "Yeah, I gotta get me some of that"? I sure as heck don't want to understand.

But, you know, same-species sex is a natural and wonderful thing. So to cleanse your thoughts of the grime left over from reading of the actions of the pervy shelter worker, here's some natural goodness that we should not be ashamed to applaud:




Quite honestly, I cannot confirm nor deny these apes' actions. But, to bring this post back to something resembling science, I wish to remind you of the ongoing debate over whether recreational sex is strictly a human construct. For anyone who's ever tried swimming with a male dolphin, you know humans ain't the only ones. (I'll tell you my tales from Cuba if you pay for the scotch and therapist.) The real question before us is whether, in the scenes photographically recorded above, any money changed hands.

Mah Peeps

Today's Daily Perv Link (TM) is once more a photo, courtesy of Andoo, who got it off his Digg.com feed:


Lord love a duck, indeed.

Today, let's take a quick peek at the world of famous Guyanese ex-patriates. Yes, there are a few. I can think of exactly four of them that might have some degree of fame among modern Westerners --which is a lot when you consider that the entire nation of Guyana has a population of less than a million people!

We begin with Eddy Grant, the rastafarian who shot to prominence in the 1980s with the song. "Electric Avenue". Eddy continues to produce for the likes of Elvis Costello and that Sting fella.

Then there's Dave Baksh, who the kids may recognize as the former lead guitarist for Sum 41. Even though Dave is from Ajax, Ontario, which is not far from Toronto, I have never met him. So stop asking.

Third is Shakira Baksh, of no relation to Dave, as far as I know. Shakira is best known as Mrs. Michael Caine, but had already achieved a bit of fame on her own after having placed #3 in the 1967 Miss World pageant.

Last is the R&B singer Rihanna, whom I think I once described as possibly borderline retarded. Unfair of me, I know; it was based entirely on an interview of her I once saw that was, shall we say, less than stellar. But really, it was no worse than a thousand other celebrity interviews. Rihanna is only half Guyanese, on her mother's side.

Did I miss any? I'm sure my peeps will let me know.

In Other News...

The conservative blogosphere is all abuzz with news of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to both the UN and Columbia University this past week. Here are some of my observations:

• To echo the sentiments of Ru S. Freeman, when you invite someone to speak at your event, you should treat him as an invited guest. In Freeman's words, "Columbia University’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, chose to ask a visiting foreign dignitary to grace his campus with his presence. A guest who accepts such an invitation does not envision that they will be publicly humiliated and attacked by their host for the amusement of other attendees."

If you don't want him there, don't invite him. He didn't ask to come. The same holds true if a Canadian university were to invite George Bush to speak. Protests are fine and expected; but one would hope that the host of the event, the man who issued the invitation, would not be among them. Ahmadinejad is right that in Iran, and perhaps everywhere else in the world, an invited guest would be given the courtesy of not being mocked by his host.

Why is this important? Because the specific case of the Iranian President is one in which his views are not being challenged by the supposed free press of the West. This was a ripe opportunity to have him unfiltered and bare, with the serious crucible of rationalism set forth before him, in which his words could be weighed and challenged. The opportunity was squandered in the name of scoring a few emotional points with fairly obvious insults.


• Having said that, the corollary is that Ahmadinejad is a buffoon. But who cares? What exactly has he done to warrant such active hatred and derision? He's said some stupid things; that's all. His government's policies and actions have not changed one bit since he came to power; he is irrelevant, a sideshow. As far as I can tell, nothing he has said is much different from the on-record views of some extreme members of the Republican party, none of whom get nearly as much press as this guy, and all of whom get considerably more respect. So why waste so much energy on him, and not on the army of domestic racist, sexist homophobes who actually have influence over our lives?
  


• Lastly, I will echo the following sentiment from Pierre Tristam:

"Do I mean to say that Bush is a man as dangerous as Ahmadinejad? Am I making that relativist leap? No. Of course not. What I am saying is that Bush not only is a more dangerous man than Ahmadinejad has ever managed to be, but that Bush has the record to prove it. Ahmadinejad is all bluster where Bush is all bombs. Ahmadinejad is all bombast and posturing where Bush is actual hubris in action, with Iraq physically and socially demolished by his doing (and in ways even Saddam Hussein hadn’t managed) and the United States fiscally and constitutionally demolished. As for stupid statements like Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial, it’s not as if Bush’s I’m-on-a-mission-from-God rhetoric is any less stupid, although it has been a lot more destructive than any denying on Ahmadinejad’s part."

Hamsters Is Dangerous

Why? because hamsters are innately funny, that's why. And dangerous!

Before I forget, the week of Oct 14 is officially science education week. We at Deonandia will be honouring this hallowed time by drinking large quantities of caffeine and reading comic books. Speaking of which, last night I read all the issues of the Death of Superman, one of the most important arcs in comic book history. Despite its gravitas, I gotta say.... feh. Not the greatest graphic read I've ever had. Ultimate Avengers is muuuuch better.

Cousin Ajay sends us this story about a rise in Asian (read: Indian) naval power. We didn't even know brown people could swim!

Here's a story about an "epidemic" of teen drivers texting while driving! Okay, I'll admit to having done so, as well, at times. But I'm good at it. All right, all right, I won't do it anymore. Here are the fun comments from the Rotten.com forum on this topic:

From jaybegood: "You should be allowed to text as a teen only if you do it nekkid! "
From grindbassist: "Hey man u goin 2 tha prty toniOMGOMGOMG!! therz a d00d in my windshield IMO!! "

In other news, the EU seriously considered trying to block people's access to bomb-making information on the Internet. (At this point, Ray slaps his forehead audibly.) When are they ever going to learn? The solution to anything is never to limit access to information. Information is like water and life: it will always find a way. The more you block it, the more determined it becomes to leak out. This is especially true when the information can be reconstructed from base principles. We aren't talking about a state secret, like who really killed Kennedy; we're talking about basic high school physics. Besides, everything you need to know about bomb making you can learn from watching Hollywood movies or attending the School of the Americas.

Next, Spidey Patel sends us the Great Canadian Biz Wiz Quiz. I scored 9/10 and I still contest the one I missed!

Lastly, I proudly announce that I am the new owner of a Palm 755p, pictured here below. I got it on Ebay last night, so technically it is not in my possession just yet. Having been screwed on an Ebay phone deal in the past, I'm a tad antsy. But clearly, I'm not willing to give up on PalmOS just yet. My slight dalliance with Windows Mobile left me less than enthused.

Return Of The Horse Shtupper

You may recall a while back that I reported on a "barnyard brothel" in Washington for those folks with peculiar bestial sexual tastes. You may also recall that the story came to national prominence after one of the clients, after having paid to be the willing ingler (i.e., recipient) of some old fashioned horse lovin', succumbed to the resulting (and fairly unavoidable, I should think) internal injuries.

Well, apparently the dude's Yahoo! profile is still up. Yep, looks like a horse fucker to me. The best part is that under "hobbies", he has included "horses". Ya think?

The entire sordid affair is summarized here, with a link at the bottom to a video allegedly of the deed itself. Trust me: you do not need to see this video. But I include it here because I know at least one of you wants to.

There are two silver linings to this story. First, as a result, the state of Washington was forced to reconsider its stance that interspecies sex with animals over 100 lbs is not illegal. And second, I got to discover the Encyclopaedia of Stupid.

In other news (Let's quickly change this subject)....

Today's SF Book of the Day: I just finished reading Clarke and Baxter's The Light of Other Days, a brilliant science fiction novel about the greatest communications revolution in history-- the ability to watch anyone, anywhere in the Universe, from any perspective and at any time. The book cleverly explores all the possible societal and psychological implications of such a technology.

One of the interesting parlour exercises it presents, however, is cogitating upon what historical event you would watch if you could observe anything that happened at any time in history. I think we would quickly tire of watching ourselves in the past, and maybe even our parted loved ones, and would soon dial the machine back to the most interesting moments of the past.

Even as a non-Christian, I think one of my first stops would be to observe the life of Jesus Christ-- a topic fully explored in the book. I think the early days of Mohammed's revelations would be fascinating to watch, as well. The assassination of JFK? A given. Or maybe even watch Robert Johnson sell his soul to the devil.

What would you watch? (And don't say you'd watch that horse-shtupper in the barn; there's already video of that.)

"Creideiki is a geniussss"

SF Book of the Day

Recently, some friends have been asking for suggestions of good science fiction novels. I know I previously had an entire post dedicated to listing the best SF books, but I thought I'd start a new regular thingy here at Deonandia: the SF Book of the Day. Like with all my "Of the Day" services (Joke of the Day, Daily Perv Link, Word of the Day, etc), expect to see one every few months.

Today's SF Book of the Day is Startide Rising by David Brin. I was never a big Brin fan; he rarely delivers in terms of plot finales. And Startide Rising is no exception on that count. However, the very idea of the story more than makes up for its shortcomings. It's about a crashed spaceship crewed by humans, a chimp and some talking dolphins, the latter of which are barely clinging to their newly evolved sentience. And that's what's ultimately fascinating about the story, seeing how the dolphin's slow crawl to self-aware intelligence unfolds, and the pitfalls they must face.

The crew is led by a besieged dolphin captain named Creideiki, who is the heroic heart of the story. I will always be haunted by a creepy line from the book, when the distraught and semi-feral dolphins are calmed by their leader, and one comments, "Creideiki is a geniussss," in that uncomfortable, skin-tingling, lolcat way.

More Climate Change Denial

Yesterday I talked a little bit about Climate Change denial. It's a fascinating concept, no? I found this blog, dedicated to exploring "the topic of the psychology of climate change denial - with observations and anecdotes about our weird and disturbed response to the problem. It seeks to answer a question that has puzzled me for years: why, when the evidence is so strong, and so many agree that this is our greatest problem, are we doing so little about climate change?"

The fellow mounting the blog appears to be a Brit. I wonder if CC denial has a different face in Europe than it does in North America. To me, the nature of CC denial here is quite clear: it's essentially people so subconciously married to the idea that Western civilization is the greatest invention in human history, that they cannot critically view some of its more deleterious pillars, specifically the double-edged sword of free market capitalism, which produces wealth and civil liberties, but also effects a significant tragedy upon the environmental commons.

I know there are some lurkers waving their fists at me, growling, "You'll see! You'll see we were right when you and kids and grandkids suffer no bad environmental effects at all! Then you'll be sorry!"

Yeah. Let me go on record as saying that if the Climate Change deniers are correct, I will be so unabashedly relieved and happy, that I won't care what names you want to call me. See, it's not a matter of wanting a certain outlook to be correct; it's a matter of appraising the moutain of evidence and drawing a conclusion, however undesirable that conclusion might be. On this topic, I hope to God that the right-wing free market types are right.

Them Wacky 'Mercuns

Them wacky 'Mercuns are at it again. Apparently, US airport screeners are taking note of what we read on flights. So next time, don't pack that Koran or that biography of Marx or Bill Clinton's new book, otherwise you might get onto somebody's database. Best to stick with vintage copies of Hustler.

Conservative Revisionism

Today's Daily Perv Link (TM) is actually a photo. Continuing on a theme:



First, The News:

A scary development is the increasing trend towards courts ordering the release of identities of anonymous bloggers and blog commenters. (Of course, law makers are woefully ignorant of that fact that we can already narrow down a blog comment to tight neighbourhood. Sort of like how I identified a particular miscreant from Yonkers who's been banned from this site a couple of times. Oh, s/he/it knows what I'm talking about.)

This case in Texas is just the latest. If anonymous blogging is to be a thing of the past, it's only a matter of time before y'all figure out that I'm actually Ross Perot.

Conservative Historical Revisionism

Where do I start? How is it that US "conservatism" is no longer characterized by a desire for small government, free trade and low taxes, and is now almost entirely about defending the reputation of the White/Notherner/Westerner/American/Bigot? How are these conflated? Well, silly question....

Take this article by supreme turd Michael Medved. He essentially argues that the Europeans did not commit genocide against the Native Americans. His argument boils down to two items: (1) 100% of settlers did not kill 100% of Natives, therefore no genocide occurred; and (2) most Natives were killed by disease, not by pilgrims with guns.

This has got to be one of the most transparently racist and idiotic arguments I've ever seen put forth in mainstream media in the modern era. It's up there with Michelle Malkin defending the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII. Again, what is up with so-called "conservatism" and blatant racist beliefs, policies and revisionism?

For the record, American governments during the age of settlement had conscious policies directed toward the eradication of Native Americans. The buffalo hunt, for example, was organized to remove a vital resource from Native culture. The provision of blankets infected with small pox was meant to kill Natives via bioterrorism. The fact that casual, unintended diseases passed on from the Europeans were the thing that really destroyed Native peoples is irrelevant: the intent to eradicate was present, and the goal was certainly achieved.

In a court of law, would these events result in a guilty finding? Probably not. But that does not innoculate colonial governments and peoples from the judging eye of history. Medved should be ashamed of his supremacist, apologist, revisionist view. In the wake of George Bush's disastrous wars, it seems the scramble is on to re-establish some sort of ethical high ground for Westerners, however brittle the scaffolding.

The Climate Change Game Continues

Back in my Schlomberg post, I mentioned how it's interesting that all of the Climate Change deniers with any sort of solid backing are remarkably non-scientists. Indeed, the loudest tend to be economists, statisticians and political scientists. To reiterate, I find it troubling that for a topic that is innately scientific, the voices of non-specialists are given equal --and sometimes greater-- weight than the voices of people who have committed their lives to the field.

Anyway, it was only a matter of time before one of the deniers put out a children's book. Here it is. It's written by someone named Holly Fretwell. She, unsurprisingly, is yet another economist and political scientist. She is also a senior researcher with the Property and Environmental Research Center. Despite its name, the organization does not sound very environmentally focused. Its Board of Directors is made up of lawyers, venture capitalists, insurers, right wing think tanks, management consultants, investment firms, etc. What part of that list says "science" or "environment" to you? Here's the skinny on them, which includes their history of receiving funding from the world's largest oil company.

Sure, they may claim to be publishing their children's book to combat the "propaganda" of the ultra-Green extreme-Left. But who do you think has the more questionable agenda? A table full of lawyers, investment bankers and venture capitalists doesn't strike me as the most trustworthy source of unbiased information for children.

Arrr!

• Today is official Talk Like a Pirate Day. So, all together now: Arrrr!


• Today is also 2 days after the 158th anniversary of the crowning of Norton I, the first and sole Emperor of these United States of America, and Protector of Mexico.


• Look what I found: there's a whole page about me over at Ryerson University! Ryerson is now my favouritest university in the world.... oh wait, University of Ottawa pays me a salary. Heh heh. Never mind.


• Cousin Ajay sends us this great pictorial link to "7 Amazing Holes". No, sadly it is not pornographic.


• Here's a little historical flashback: a series of catty letters between Salman Rushdie and John Le Carre. That little bitch Christopher Hitchens couldn't resist poking his nose into the fray, trying to soak up some of the leftover grandness of these two literary behemoths.


• From Brother Bhash, here's a discusion of the extent of use of "private contractors", i.e. mercenaries, in Iraq. I'd meant to have a whole post dedicated to the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's biggest private army, but I'm not up to it today. Instead, here's another link to a discussion of how Blackwater's contractors are essentially impervious to any sort of legal restrictions on their activities in the field.

Spidey Patel sends us this study claiming to show a link between conservative political sentiments and a certain lack of intellectual rigour. It's created quite a stir, as you might have guessed. Slate's slightly right-leaning William Saletan dissects the study here. But readers respond here.

My take? Well, to be honest, I haven't read the whole study. I strongly suspect there are serious statistical deficiencies present, and I wonder about how they are defining "conservative" and "liberal" --in a manner sufficiently forgiving to be representative of the national population? I doubt it.

More to the point, the conclusions that the journalists are claiming that the authors made don't seem to reasonably follow from the way that the methodology has been described. My bias: I don't doubt for a second that there are neurocognitive deficits among hardcore, unyielding conservatives; it takes a certain kind of dysfunction to enact that special kind of reality denial. (Yeah, I said it.) However, this study in no way demonstrates those deficits.

And before all you right-of-centre lurkers start having an aneurism, take a moment to think about the word "conservative": it means "resistant to change". An extreme conservative is therefore someone who is pathologically resistant to change, to the point of an inability to process new evidence that might indicate a strong need for change. It's entirely likely that converse cognitive issues exist among extreme hardcore liberals, as well. But that's not what we're talking about here, is it?

On that note, I leave you with the constantly updated Top 10 List of Conservative Idiots.

Energy

Here in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, North America, we are soon to be beset with a series of elections: provincial, federal, then the American elections. Increasingly, the regular talking head set is appearing on our TV screens, talking not about labour and employment, but energy and the environment.

To my eye, this is an appropriate shift. Environmental or energy issues are long term; the traditional topics of the political season are transient. I'm glad that the mainstream, public forum is now --at least a bit-- occupied discussing the larger, physical and scientific phenomena bearing down upon our species and planet.

The biggest such issue, in my opinion, is energy. Energy is everything. Theoretically, an overabundance of energy presents a technological solution to almost every other issue that besets us. It is possible, for instance, to transport all Earthly garbage to the dark side of the moon; all that is required is a sufficiently cheap source of energy. It is possible, as well, to provide unlimited fresh water by moving pure ice asteroids from outside Mars orbit; all that is required is some advancement in space engineering and, again, sufficient amounts of energy. Moreover, human-mediated Global Warming can be slowed, stopped and maybe even reversed if all human activity and industry were fueled by sufficient amounts of cheap, clean energy.

(Now, the purist physicist in me bristles whenever an adjective is attached to "energy", as in "clean energy". But you know what I mean.)

As you are all probably now screaming at me, the practical barrier to this Utopian view is that we cannot yet produce energy without exacerbating the very same issues I propose that energy can combat. Currently, most of our energy is either chemical (fossil fuels, burning wood) or nuclear. Hydroelectric and wind sources are not nearly as popular as many in the West think.

Let's break down the current sources:

Nuclear
I'm on record as supporting the expansion of nuclear dependence in Canada. Contrary to nay sayers' insistence, nuclear fission is a relatively clean option. It's certainly cleaner than coal and oil, and can produce far more energy than hydroelectric sources and wind sources.

The problem, of course, is with safety and waste disposal. I'm not too worried about the safety of modern reactors, except in the case of terrorism or enormous natural disasters; but none of this is without risk. And I'm much more worried about the deleterious health consequences of smog and other byproducts of fossil fuel consumption, than I am of the dangers of nuclear waste.

Having said all that, the truth is that there is not enough fissable nuclear material in the world to supply even a noticeable fraction of the globe's energy demands. More to the point, the mining and processing of uranium requires the burning of large quantities of fossil fuels. Despite all that, an interim move to nuclear power would provide temporary relief from the accelerating local environmental degradation and, more importantly, show us that a path away from fossil fuels is possible.

Wind and Hydro
Wind and hydro look good in theory. They are safe, clean and renewable sources. Here's the problem: current and easily foreseen wind and hydro sources cannot even approach providing enough energy to run an industrial economy. Unlike jurisdictions to which it is often compared, like California or New York, Ontario must power several energy-hungry industries, like ore processing. Currently, only nuclear and coal can sufficiently augment the shortfalls of Ontario's hydroelectric services.

So why not dramatically scale up wind and hydro production worldwide? Here's where the basic science comes in. This energy is not free; it comes at a price. Hydro power is energy extracted from moving and falling water; its extraction alters the ways that rivers move. Wind power is taken from moving air; its extraction alters the way that air moves. At large scales, these "clean" sources will also affect the environment in unpredictable ways.

Oil and Coal
Not long term options.

Conservation
Don't make me laugh. Calls for conservation as a long term solution are beyond naive. At best, conservation on a global level will slow the demand for energy, but such demand will inexorably rise, because our economies are dependent upon energy usage. Our civilizations would sooner collapse than to deny their economic wherewithal.... and collapse is not out of the question.

So where does that leave us? Well, sort of screwed, to be honest. But there are a few possible technological solutions that are not entirely within the realm of science fiction:

Casimir Energy
Theoretical physics allows for two related concepts, the Casimir Effect and Zero Point Energy. The details are difficult, but the upshot is that these theoretical constructs are driving some of the more obscure innovators to develop fuel cells that extract this seemingly free, endless and clean energy.

Fusion
Controlled nuclear fusion has been a rational dream for decades. As most are aware, nuclear fusion is the process of joining two atomic nuclei. It is the energy that fuels the sun; all stars are essentially giant fusion reactors. It is also the process employed by the so-called hydrogen bomb.

Fusion produces no radioactive waste, and depending on what is fused, might produce plain water as a byproduct. It is, however, an EM radiation source, which can be easily contained with today's technology.

All efforts at sustained, controlled fusion have failed. But lots of people are still trying. Many respectable global consortia are still at it. Like these guys.

Matter-Antimatter Reaction
We all remember that the starship Enterprise is powered by antimatter, which is magnetically held separate from real matter in the nacelles of the starship, with the reaction between the two controlled by "dilithium". All fun and fanciful, but not that unrealistic, at least in its basic concept.

Antimatter is the conceptual and polar opposite of matter. It is real. It exists. In fact, one of the great mysteries of theoretical physics is why there isn't more natural antimatter in the universe. At the Big Bang, it is presumed that matter and antimatter existed in equal quantities. So where did all the latter go?

Presently, scientists can produce minute quantities in laboratory conditions. But imagine the process could be done on an industrial scale, and without too much energy expenditure. The resulting potential energy output is mindboggling.

Power Satellites
Along with nuclear fusion, this option is the most realizable in the short term. The only barrier to its implementation is the formulation of a way to construct and launch the things cheaply. Essentially, a powersat is a satellite placed in high Earth orbit to collect pure sunlight on its photosensitive arrays, then to beam that energy back to the Earth in the form of microwaves, whereupon the energy is converted to electricity for human usage.

Conceptually, a network of powersats placed around the world could remove our need for any other kind of energy. Think about it: all energy in our solar system --wind, fossil, hydro-- are all ultimately solar in their source. And the Earth only collects a minute fraction of the total solar output; most of it radiates into empty space. Using our space technology to harvest more of that free, clean energy seems a fairly obvious way to go.

The problem? Our space technology is not quite advanced enough to build these things in anything resembling the scale required. It's taken a massive global effort decades and billions to build one crappy space station. To build hundreds of powersats, each hundreds of times bigger than the space station, requires an enormous economic and political investment.

Then there's the practical environmental question of whether a hundred satellites beaming down a constant stream of microwaves from space is a good thing. I don't know if anyone has done the math.

A Last Word About Oil
It's worth pointing out that one of the biggest challenges in finding an energy replacement for oil is that oil is an economic supercharger: you can put it in your ships, factories, homes, cars and aircraft carriers. Oil allows you to build an industrial economy from scratch. The same might not be said of the other energy sources I've listed here.

In Other News

• From Cousin Ajay: a porn star reality show. Will there be a judges panel?
• From Darth Vadum: scientific evidence that suggests that we pervy old men who hook up with younger hotties are in fact improving the species
• Shameless plug: for those in Ottawa, I will be part of a panel discussion on global health, held Friday, Sep 28, from 5pm-7pm, in RGN 2003, hospital campus of the University of Ottawa
• Sitar star Shahid Parvez will play Ottawa University on Oct 21, in the Perez Building at 7pm
• From That Dude Who Beats Me At Trivial Pursuit: the rude awakening of Optimus Prime

Cornio

Strange news from the world of crime. It seems one Carlton Davis has been apprehended for robbing a woman then forcing her to submit to having her toes sucked. Here is the perpetrator in question:



As strange as he appears, his photo does spur one thought: we haven't heard from Coolio in a while, haven't we?

As Delicious As a Child's Head

Sorry, nothing too deep for you today. Kinda tired. I did forget to relate to you my most recent gastronomic adventure. I and the droogies decided to indulge in Dangerous Dan's enormous 24 oz burger. Yes, you read that right. The burger is 1.5 lbs, and comes with 1/4 lb of cheese and 1/4 lb of bacon. The "colon clogger" platter, which I ordered, also comes with a mountain of poutine and a home made milkshake.

Courtesy of Andrew Currie, here are some pictures of the adventure...

Here're Kevin and I, inspecting the poutine:



Here I am posing with the monster, the size of a child's head... and just as delicious:



And here's the outcome:



In truth, it wasn't so bad. In fact, I went to my brother's BBQ immediately afterwards and managed to squeeze in a couple of Polish sausages and some carrot cake.

In other news, courtesy of E.K. Hornbeck, comes convincing evidence that the End is Near.

I leave you with this sad bit of news, about Toronto's CN Tower finally being dethroned as the world's tallest building, after a 30 year reign. What pisses me off is that nowhere outside Canada is this fact known. So many Americans still believe the Sears Tower or the fallen World Trade Center were taller. Not so. Come to Toronto and bask in the tower's wondrous shadow: a bit of 21st century architecture and vision, erected in the heydey of the 1970s.

Tidbits

I had this long post planned on hate crime. But I just don't have the time today. Instead you get tidbits...

Tidbit #1
An airline makes a sexy young woman cover up her assets lest she offend other passengers. I really don't know how airlines get away with this sort of anti-libertarian prudishness. The woman was breaking no morality laws in the country of embarkation or of the airline's operation. If this sort of decision is allowed to go unquestioned, then airlines are free to chastise passengers for other harmless behaviours that the airline might be prejudiced against... like interracial couples, homosexual couples, wearing faded jeans, speaking in Arabic.... the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Tidbit #2
There's a famous internet meme about the video "resume" of one Aleksey Vayner, who is apparently a delusional pathological liar who believes he is a champion weight lifter, ballroom dancer, world class tennis pro, Olympic skier, CIA operative, novelist, hedge fund owner, etc. Google his name and watch the video. If it weren't so sad, it would be hilarious.

Well the dude who plays "George Michael" on the brilliant TV show Arrested Development has created a spoof of the famous Vayner video.

Tidbit #3
From N.K. comes this story of an Ontario court ruling that a hand-job is not sex, and therefore not considered an act of prostitution when exchanged for cash. Well, if "manual release" is no longer considered sex, then the number of notches on my bedpost just went down considerably. And millions of young men have just discovered that their own hands are now technically virgins.

Tidbit #4
From Darth Vadum comes this video explaining to the world (and to women) the intricate rules of male washroom etiquette. Ever read Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel? If you have, you know why I'm bringing it up.

Tidbit #5
I leave you with the best Family Guy opening segment ever...

The 70s

Here in the dawning weeks of the 5th decade of my life, I can't help but look back to the first decade. I'm actually weirdly proud that I remember the 1970s, a time that has taken on something of a tinge of legend among the youth of today. The 70s saw: walking on the moon become commonplace, open omnisexuality, the first instances of open distrust of politicians, the birth of the microcomputer, the first steps toward the Internet, and --perhaps most importantly-- the rise of creative mainstream art, yet to be overwhelmed by the forces of marketing and skittish corporate agendas. Only in the 1970s could we have had movies like The Godfather and Last Tango In Paris, or the arrival of Deep Throat as mainstream "cool" porn, or the ascension of inconoclastic musical themes, like glam rock, punk rock and disco.

Despite all this, I have very bad memories of the 1970s. For this brown-skinned immigrant kid growing up in the intolerant Toronto of those days, it was a time of extreme racism, discomfort and unhappiness. But we all get over our childhoods, no? (At least those of us who don't become serial killers, that is). And middle age presents us with an opportunity to reconsider the era of our youth with an eye untainted by the biases of our individual circumstance. Looking back, I suddenly feel a rush of nostalgia for that lost decade.

And I don't think I'm alone in this sentiment. The Smashing Pumpkins hit song "1979" is one of nostalgic melancholy, after all. And one of my favourite TV Shows, That 70s Show, attains greatness when it touches that chord of regret and nostalgia in each of us. In its pilot, at the closing credits, the kids all sing along to one of the great, moving songs of that decade, Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me." Appropriately, I'm told they played the same clip for the series' finale, years later.

In case you missed it, here's that clip:



But that's a 21st century interpretation of the feel and emotion of the 1970s. For the real thing, watch this actual clip of Todd Rundgren doing the song. The fascinating part is that Rundgren looks like an absolute freak. But back then, that was okay, even desirable. Enjoy:

Downloaders Ahoy!

The Pirate Bay is one of --if not the-- most popular torrents sites on the Internet. The site is famous as a champion of the rights of downloaders, and revels in thumbing its nose at corporate threats. Situated in Sweden, where copyright laws are different from those in the USA, the site has been able to deny the demands of mostly American corporations (filmmakers, software manufacturers, etc) to remove their links to copyrighted materials.

It comes down to this: a torrent is not copyrighted material. It's a pointer to where material may be located, usually on the private computers of thousands of nerds scattered across the world. So The Pirate Bay offers information, not content. And, under very rational Swedish law, it's not illegal to offer information. God bless the little arseholes.

The history of The Pirate Bay is summarized on Wikipedia here. What's more fun, though, is reading TPB's many insulting responses to legal threats, which they post here. The best bits are the correspondence between TPB and that copyright bully, Web Sheriff.

So what's my take on the downloading of copyrighted material? Well, if someone offers me content for free, then it is rational for me to accept it. People should not be penalized for doing what is rational. Businesses --the movie and music industries in particular-- need to develop new business models for making their inflated profits. Downloading is a response to decades of outrageous pricing strategies and the flooding of the market with poor quality products. Most people would gladly pay a reasonable price for high quality entertainment. But since such is not available, it is perfectly understandable and rational for us to seek low quality entertainment for free.

As an author, and therefore a producer of content and an owner of copyright, how would I feel if my works were being downloaded for free? It wouldn't bother me a bit, so long as (A) my content was not being altered in any way; and (B) my name remains attached to the work. In short, all I care about is the integrity of my work and being acknowledged as its creator; payment doesn't even enter my thought process. Of course, I'm not making 7 figures off my books. Maybe I'd feel differently if I were.

But I'm not. Of course, if I were, then I could afford to pay full price for all the content I presently download....

Bad Bunny

Some random items today:

• In the --what is it now?-- 6 year history of the Daily Perv Link (TM), the stories have universally involved activities on the land. Well, no more, my droogies. Here be the the first comprehensive Aquatic Perv Link. Yeah, it looks fake to me, too, but you never know. You just never know.
  
  
• The next time you watch one of those ridiculous late night American movies that portrays the military as an outfit of perfect professionals with contingency plans for every occasion, blah blah blah.... think about this story. Courtesy of Brother Bhash.
  
  
• Here's a nice little site on winners of the Guyana Prize for Literature.
  
  
• Speaking of Guyana, next year's Carifesta festival will take place in the land of my birth. So get your tickets now!
  
  
• Haloscan informs me that previously banned commenters have been attempting to post comments to this blog. I guess they don't understand that "your comments will be deleted without being read" doesn't mean I read them then press delete. Rather, it means that Haloscan automatically deletes the banned comments before they even get to my mailbox. So, to whoever is writing the comments: keep trying to post, if you'd like; doesn't really affect my life. Just seems a little psychotic, or self-hating, to me... sort of like continuing to read a blog that you clearly don't like. Weird, man, weird.
  
  
• Speaking of self hatred...
  
  
• Speaking of porn... here's an article about a study in China attempting to link porn consumption with early puberty. No biological mechanism is suggested. Instead, this is the worst kind of science journalism, which seeks to conflate a series of unrelated issues by putting them in the same article. The issue of early exposure to pornographic material, which may or may not result in earlier sexual activity (as the article suggests), has no apparent linkage to early puberty, except to the extent that early puberty implies earlier sexual apetites. Bad, irresponsible journalism-- or bad, irresponsible science. Not sure which one is in play here. Maybe both.
  
  
• And let's end off on a story that mixes poor science with today's animal theme. Courtesy of Darth Vadum is this tale of Nepal Airlines actually sacrificing a goat to appease the aky god. I hope the plane's engineers and pilots will have a little faith in their science and technology educations, as well, just in case the goat thing is not enough.
  

Internet Stars

Remember those wonderful Marvel/DC Youtube videos I talked about a couple of weeks ago? Seems their creator is becoming quite the Internet star. His name is Michael Agrusso, and he unsurprisingly has a theatre and film background. His clips are so popular now that even the Marvel company has linked to an interview with him. Weirdly, his Wikipedia page has been deleted, but you can still access the google cache here.

The dude's rise to geek fame reminds me of one Chris Hyatte, back in the heydey of the Internet wrestling columns. Hyatte is the godfather of a certain style of online writing, yet is only known by name by his legions of nerdly wrestling fans. I'll admit that that Hyatte was one inspiration for my own 411 column. Every now and then, someone asks the very important question, What ever happened to Chris Hyatte?

Enough nerdliness. Here are the links to the latest Marvel/DC "After Hours" videos, courtesy of Mr Agrusso:

Part 5
Part 6

The Most Unwelcome Place

You know the one place where you're sure to never be wanted? The elevator. Everyone enjoys his alone time in the elevator. When that door opens and a stranger walks in to join you in that tiny space, it's like someone just shot Santa Claus. When you're alone, it's like driving in your car or lying in your bathtub: you can sing out of key, pose in front of the mirror, jump up and down, adjust your gonads, frolic in your odours and adopt your favourite outrageous kung fu stances.

The worst is when you get onto the occupied elevator on floor #12 and push the button for floor #9, while everyone else is going to the ground floor. You can almost taste the hatred, 'cause you've slowed their voyage down by two unwelcome stops.

Ever got into the elevator alone and quickly push the "door close" button, just as others are rushing down the hallway? Oh, they know you did it. But it doesn't matter, 'cause in a few seconds you'll be gone and they'll still be waiting. Every now and again, though, they'll be a tad faster than you thought, and manage to squeeze in just before the door closes. Then the awkwardness begins, because they know you just tried to shut them out. You just look straight ahead or pretend to send a text on your phone. But you can feel the death stare on the side of your face.

Even more awkward is when you were actually trying to push the door open button when they barely rush in. Doesn't matter that you were trying to hold the door for them, it looked like you were closing it, because for some reason they make elevators with the "close" and "open" buttons right next to each other. You still get the death stare, but it's even worse because this time you didn't deserve it!

Just sayin'.

Captain's Blog

One of the great joys in life is thinking up real or fantastical titles for porno movies, based on actual mainstream movies. Why? Why not? Here's my list of favourites:

Sperms of Endearment
Das Butt
Mr Holland's Penis
Shaving Ryan's Privates
The Gaytrix
Edward Penishands
Star Whores
Sleeping Booty
Forrest Hump
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Cum
The Sperminator
Romancing The Bone
The Porn Identity (and its predictable sequels)
Snatch Addams
Schindler's Fist
Riding Miss Daisy
Good Will Humping
Tango and Snatch
The Loin King
Splendor in the Ass
Analize This
and the winner... Jurassic Pork

I'm sure you've got some of your own. Feel free to add them in the comments section.

...Oh, and to CJ/RL or whatever name it goes by now: yes, I'm fully qualified to make up fake porno titles. My credentials have been inspected and vetted by the international fake porno title federation. So stop fretting about my qualifications and go back to pleasuring your sorry self to my glowing words of wisdom.