Category Archives: Politics

January 20, 2015 · 21:25

Hooray For Cat Hallucinations!

I’ve noted before (I used it as a starting plot point for the 2013 NaNoWriMo) that it’s freaky as all get out when a cat that’s resting comfortably and calmly on your lap suddenly bolts upright, ears twitching, eyes wide open, staring at something behind you that only it can see. It doesn’t help any when they spend the next five minutes with their eyes locked on whatever unseen horror it might be, their head swiveling as they follow their hallucination around the room, as if there’s some poltergeist or invisible zombie creeping up behind you.

When they start making that little chirping noise and twitching their butt like they’re getting ready to leap, and the idiot freakin’ raccoons on the roof choose that particular moment to run the 100-yard dash across the roof right above your head, it’s an invitation to a coronary.

On the other hand…

When you’ve spent the day dealing with people and situations that you swear are there just to see where your frustration breaking point is, then your nominal evening entertainment is all pre-empted by the State Of The Union address, and your substitute entertainment (social media) is saturated with bullshit from both sides on the aforementioned SOTU, and you’re just about to punch something just because, it can be a relief to have the sleeping cat freak out.

“Ignorance is bliss.” I’ve often thought it was nonsense to think that way. I always wanted to know and know more and to understand.

But in the case of both the political/social polarity/intolerance in our society and the invisible phantom haunting the room, I’m starting to place a higher value on ignorance.

In both cases, I don’t think there’s much I can do to change the situation, and being aware of it is just raising my blood pressure and making me feel bad. So while I’ve always hated being ignorant or uninformed, I think the argument could be made that I might be better off being blissfully ignorant.

Even if it does mean that I’m slightly less prepared to catch Ken Jenning’s record when I finally get on “Jeopardy!”

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Filed under Cats, Critters, Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!, Politics, Religion

November 24, 2014 · 22:07

Take A Breath, Don’t Make Things Worse

Lots of shit going on in the world recently. Ebola. Global Warming. Ferguson. Congress. Rape Culture. GamerGate. Bigotry. Hatred.

Makes the head swim. Makes you frustrated. Makes you angry. Makes you wonder what to do, ’cause we’ve gotta do SOMETHING, don’t we?

I remembered something I was taught when I was learning to fly. I heard it echoed a couple of times last week at the Armstrong NASA Social.

In all of these cases, the category was “EMERGENCY!!!” Bad things were happening in the plane. Fire. Pieces falling off. Out of control. Ground getting bigger real fast.

In every instance, the first rule, of course, is, “Don’t panic.” It’s not just a buzzline from Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. In a “situation”, you might be close to dying. If you panic, the odds of dying approach 1.00 very quickly. Your odds might not be great, but they can only get worse if you panic.

Which leads to the second rule – “Don’t make it worse.” Like the Hippocratic Oath for pilots, it reminds us that there’s no situation that can’t be made worse. Maybe you can make it better, maybe you can’t. Buy you can always make it worse. Don’t do that.

To assist in executing Rule One and Rule Two, Rule Three is to, “Take a deep breath or five.” This might be more of a suggestion than a rule, since there might be times when the fire is in the cockpit NOW, or the mountain in front of you as you come out of the clouds is RIGHT THERE. But those are the exceptions. Most crises build and grow, a chain of errors, poor decisions, and bad luck.

So when you realize you’re at the end of such a chain and it’s about to be a “bad day,” take a couple of deep breaths, don’t panic, and don’t make the situation worse.

The suggestion I’ve heard for the next step, when you’re evaluating the danger in your situation, is to see if you’re in mortal danger this second. For example, following an earthquake, if you’re trapped under rubble and you smell gas leaking, you’re in deep guano right this second. But for the vast majority of us, even if you got banged up a little, you’re probably safe this second. There could be fires to come, aftershocks, further damage, lack of food & water for days, looting… But this second, you’re okay. You can plan from there to make sure you’re still safe in a minute, an hour, a day, a week.

Viewing heaping piles of the idiotic, insane, and vitriolic shit that seems to sometimes fill the news and FaceBook and Twitter and the conversation around the water cooler, it’s natural and easy to get angry, to want to react, to want to strike out, to want to do something now to change things. The topic doesn’t matter. Ebola, global warming, Ferguson, Congress, rape culture, GamerGate, bigotry, or hatred.

I’m not saying that there’s nothing we can do about these things, and I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take action to change these things. Quite the opposite.

But… Don’t panic. Don’t make it worse. Take a few deep breaths. See if you personally are in mortal danger at this second.

Then let’s figure out ways to make these things better. Hopefully we’ll make things better by working together, but we’ll do it one individual at a time if necessary. We’ll do it while remembering all of the really good things in the world that balance out some of the really terrible things. We’ll get there, but it’s a marathon, not a spring.

Don’t panic.

Don’t make it worse.

Take a few deep breaths.

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Filed under Moral Outrage, Paul, Politics

November 4, 2014 · 21:17

We Voted Today

It’s all over (except maybe in Hawaii) and it will be what it will be. Not to be too much of a downer, but when Congress’ approval ratings are lower than the approval ratings for venereal diseases…

The worst thing is that they don’t care. They’ve passed laws that let billionaires and corporations make almost unlimited contributions, they can’t be voted out of office (take a look at the number of folks re-elected today who have recent felonies), and they don’t have to care. In addition, most of them give the appearance of having an IQ lower than their shoe size. Watch a hearing on one of the Science & Technology committees some day if you don’t believe me.

Which got me to thinking, as I often do on election day — when was the last time you voted for someone you REALLY LIKED?

Personally, I can’t remember an election in decades where every spot from dogcatcher to President wasn’t a choice between “really screwed up & pathetic” and “totally, completely, 100% unacceptable.” I have vague memories from the 1970’s, when I started voting, of occasionally being enthusiastic about some issue or candidate. For the last twenty or thirty years? Not so much.

The one candidate that has stood out for me was in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. If you managed to somehow miss this circus, the tl;dr version is that they recalled Gray Davis, which opened up the field to just about anyone to run — 135 people qualified for the ballot (not a typo – One Hundred Thrity-Five candidates!), including folks such as actor Gary Coleman and porn star Mary Carey. Nothing demonstrates what a joke it was better than the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger won and was the governor for eight years. (Can’t make this crap up, no one would believe it.)

In that particular free for all, both I and The Long Suffering Wife ended up voting for Larry Flynt, the publisher of “Hustler” magazine. It wasn’t a joke or a protest vote — while we weren’t nuts about him, there were several points that we thought made him a better candidate than most of the other prominent candidates, especially Schwarzenegger.

First, Flynt’s a huge proponent of the First Amendment and protecting freedom of speech. That’s a hot button item for me and I like the way Flynt’s stood up for those rights.

Second, Flynt had for years run a large and successful company, making a lot of money over the years. He may have been the only person on the ballot who had ever actually been responsible for making payroll to keep his employees fed. Like his particular industry or publication or not, the man’s been successful.

Third, and most important, there was unlikely to be any dirt to be dredged up on Flynt. Considering his lifestyle and history, there wouldn’t be any smear campaigns against him based on skeletons in his closet. Flynt’s been bringing those skeletons out and putting them on display for everyone to see for decades. The rest of the field, however… Remember how Schwarzenegger got divorced just before he left office, and why?

So back to my original point  — when was the last time you voted for someone you REALLY LIKED? If the only time you can remember is when you voted for Larry Flynt for governor, but got Arnold Schwarzenegger instead, you might just have a bit of a structural problem in your democracy.

GOP? Democrat? Independent? Doesn’t matter. They’re all a bunch of FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!

I would absolutely love to be proven wrong by any of them. I won’t be holding my breath waiting for it to hapen.

 

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Politics

October 30, 2014 · 23:42

Flash Fiction: The People’s Plague

It’s All Hallow’s Eve Eve, so this week’s  Flash Fiction Challenge of course involves horror. Inspired by the fact that Ebola hysteria is running rampant through the mainstream media and the halls of government, our assignment is to write a horror story involving some sort of disease.

This might not have turned out as well as I wanted — too serious to be slapstick, trying too hard for a punchline to be horror. But the dozen political calls a day and hundreds of TV ads every day may be having an effect on my brain.

THE PEOPLE’S PLAGUE

“We have another one, ma’am. This report just came in from Phoenix.”

Doctor Helen Fletcher, the CDC’s lead investigator, looked at the window that popped up on her console, attached to a pin dropped on the map in Arizona. Ten cases already there, along with all of the other boxes and pins displayed all over the country. Thousands of cases nationwide and spreading like wildfire.

“We’re running out of time to get this under control,” she said to the row of faces shown in the small boxes lining the bottom of her computer screen.

“Doctor Fletcher,” the Midwest section head said, “it’s too early to even tell if it’s airborne or not. We’re going to need at least a couple of days to determine the distribution vector.”

“You do all realize this is an attack, not a disease, don’t you?” A new window had opened up, with the medical liaison to the FBI shown. “Look at the pattern that’s showing up. The first cases were seen in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and Chicago, but now it’s popping up everywhere overnight. Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, now Phoenix. But also Trenton, Hartford, Nashville, Richmond. Can’t any of you see what that means?”

There was a pause while all of the medical experts tried looking at their data for a pattern they had missed so far. Most of them had been awake for the better part of seventy-two hours and were function solely on caffeine and adrenaline.

“What are we missing? I don’t see it,” Doctor Fletcher said. “It looks like it’s spread all over the country at random. They’re all metropolitan areas, but there’s no obvious vector based on wind, weather, animal population, food distribution, or transportation routes.”

“Another report coming in,” said the sergeant. “Juneau, eight cases suspected.”

“How in hell did it jump so fast to Alaska?” asked the CDC director for the Pacific Northwest. “That can’t be natural, it’s got to be based on travel, some agent introduced into the air transportation fleet somehow, or…”

“Stop it!” shouted the FBI agent. “Did any of you study anything other than biology in high school?”

“State capitals,” said the CDC Southwest director. “With the exception of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, they’re all state capitals.”

“Exactly,” said the FBI agent. “This is an attack on the government of the United States. I’m going to be briefing the President on this in ten minutes. What else can I tell him?”

“If it’s an attack on the government with a biological agent,” asked Southwest, “wouldn’t it be aimed at the people who run the government, the politicians themselves and their staffs? Do any of the infected fit that profile?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” said Doctor Fletcher, “we certainly would have heard if any of the infected were governors, Senators, or Members of Congress.” She gestured to one of her aides hovering behind her. “Start checking on who the infected people are, what they do, where they work.”

A new window opened up on the conference call screen, showing columns of data including names, location, age, sex, religion, and occupation. Data fields started to populate the chart, seemingly at random.

“Lawyers, advertising, film editors, clerical workers, computer programmers, graphic designers, sound engineers, CPAs – it seems random.”

“Wait, it’s not what we see, it’s what we don’t see,” said the FBI agent. “There aren’t any housewives, any unemployed, any students, or any children. I want to see something. Can you show just the people in the cities that are not state capitals, and also show the company they work for?”

The data once again shifted and shuffled and finally pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. The data for the infected patients began to clump into groups with multiple data records showing people working together at the same companies.

“Does anyone recognize any of these companies?” asked the FBI agent. “Can we see a couple of their web pages real quickly?” The new windows popped open. “See, they’re all related to advertising in some way. Most are ad agencies or production companies for television or radio. A few are printers. Now, let’s look at a couple of the state capitals.”

The data set expanded, to include the infected patient data for five of the smaller cities.

“There’s your link. It’s an election year. I’ll bet when we dig deeper, every one of these people is involved in some way with a political campaign.”

“Doctor Fletcher,” said Mid-Atlantic, “we’re just getting word from Annapolis and Richmond that new cases include a couple of state politicians and candidates.”

“Same here,” said Northwest. “We’re taking a closer look at the data for patients in Salem and Boise, and some of them are state legislators.”

“Okay, I’m going to go brief the President,” said the FBI agent. “Am I correct that so far there have been no fatalities or permanent disabilities?”

“You are correct, no fatalities,” said Doctor Fletcher. “It’s too early to tell about long term disabilities, and given this new information, we might have to reassess how we use that term.”

“Please clarify that for me and do it quickly, the President’s waiting.”

“The symptoms we’ve been concentrating on were the fever, dehydration, convulsions, and unexplained breathing difficulties. But there have been other symptoms reported which we’ve discounted, assuming they were side effects of the fever, perhaps delusions or hallucinations. We need to reevaluate that.”

“Why?”

“We’ve had reports the convulsions and breathing difficulties were experienced specifically when people tried to lie. The more egregious the lie, the more severe the symptoms appear to be.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yes, I do. This might be an engineered virus which forces the victims to tell the truth or suffer horribly. And it’s targeting politicians.”

There was stunned silence across the conference call.

“Alright, I’ve got to go,” said the FBI agent. “I’ll get people at my end started on tracking down the terrorist monsters that might have done this.”

“’Monsters’? Don’t you mean ‘geniuses’?” Doctor Fletcher muttered under her breath.

“Say again, Doctor?”

“Nothing. We’re on it.”

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Filed under Disasters, Health, Politics, Science Fiction, Writing

August 29, 2014 · 12:51

Tin Foil Hats At The Ready!

Watch out today, at least in Los Angeles. I don’t know if it’s something in the air, something in the water, a change in the solar neutrino flux, or a variation in tachyons arriving from the galactic core, but it’s time to put on your tin foil hats!

I had a few errands to run this morning, no biggie. Post office. Bank. Restock the pet food larder. Maybe go pick up the new John Scalzi book and/or the new Richard Kadrey book and/or the new Brad Paisley album. No biggie.

It started at the post office. There were a few cars in line for the drive-through mail drop and something was making the line go slow. I finally saw that there was a booth set up on the sidewalk. A couple of people from the booth were trying to talk to the drivers as cars left the mailbox and waited to exit onto the street. When it was my turn, I saw that it was a fanatical group trying to rally support to impeach Obama.

While the opportunities for entertainment were clear, so were the opportunities to raise my blood pressure.

First off, I’m a huge fan of the First Amendment, even when it means that we have to give assholes and subhumans like the Westboro Baptist Church the right to picket funerals. I despise people like that with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but I understand that if I want those rights for me and people who agree with me, I also have to allow those rights to people I detest.

Secondly, I try real hard to be tolerant and give everyone a chance, maybe two. (It’s my Catholic school education, I’m sure.) However, after that point, my tolerance level drops off pretty fast. People who insist on demonstrating repeatedly that they’re delusional, anti-social, ignorant, or psychotic are fools who no longer deserve to be suffered gladly. The screaming folks with the big posters of Obama made to look like Hitler? They might have at least one strike against them to start with.

This guy wanted to shove propaganda flyers into my face before I could get the window rolled up after dropping off my mail — I declined to accept. (Strike one.) This dude looking like a poster child for a white supremacy group screamed at me, asking if I knew we were all doomed if Obama wasn’t “stopped” — I ignored him. (Strike two.) He then asked if I had ever considered the “evidence” that Obama was a fascist, socialist, Nazi dictator…

In my defense, the street was full of cars in front of me and I couldn’t go anywhere anyway.

I asked him if he knew the difference between fascists, socialists, and Nazis, since they were all different and in many respects had opposing policies and viewpoints and hated each other.

He pointed at the Hitler mustache on the poster and told me that Obama was just like Hitler! I told him that I didn’t know that Hitler’s mustache made him evil, I had always thought that it was senseless slaughter of millions of innocent people.

He told me that when I looked in the mirror I would see that mustache on myself and know that I was a Nazi too. I told him when he looked in the mirror he would see a psychotic idiot in desperate need of some serious mental help.

He started listing the conspiracies all around us regarding AIDS and 9-11 and global warming and the United Nations, saying that if we ignored the danger we would all be locked up in gulags. I pointed out that if Obama was really a dictator, nut jobs like him wouldn’t be sitting on the sidewalk ranting. He and his friends would be dead and no one would ever find the bodies, so ipso facto, Obama wasn’t a dictator.

I may have been using intellectual arguments above his weight class.

Traffic was clearing and I started to move. As I did so, I saw the poster on the front side of the fold-up table they had. It was urging people to impeach that Nazi-socialist-communist-fascist-dictator Obama and join Lyndon LaRouche in saving the country. His obvious problems with reality made so much more sense now! I told my delusional friend that he needed to find a better cult to join next time. I suggested one with lots of sex and drugs might be more to his liking. He called me a Nazi again, we flipped each other off, and I left.

You don’t see that every day in the San Fernando Valley!

Nor do you normally see folks jogging in 95° heat while wearing full, black sweat suits, including full-length sweatpants and a hoodie pulled up over their head. Yes, you see folks jogging. Yes, you even see a few of them out jogging in 95° weather. But I’ve never seen anyone dressed like it’s 35° when it’s 95° and running at a good pace to boot. It looked like a good way to either wake up in intensive care needing multiple organ transplants or to simply wake up dead. Good luck, guys, you’re going to need it. Stay hydrated!

Then, for a more common bizarre circumstance for LA, there was apparently a huge accident on the freeway. The westbound freeway was gridlocked. Grid. Locked.

I didn’t know until I got within a block or so of the onramp. Then I could see that traffic wasn’t moving at all, dead stop, so I decided to stay off the freeway and get to the book store on surface streets. Unfortunately, the freeway backup apparently had been there for a while, had multiple lanes blocked, and the gridlock went back at least six or seven miles, so a few hundred thousand of my close, personal friends had decided to use that street as an alternate route.

No one was moving. Period.

But a significant number were driving like freakin’ idiots. (Big surprise, I know, right?) People cutting into shopping center parking lots, going 100 yards, then trying to cut back out into traffic in order to pass ten or twelve cars. People doing U-turns across the center divider islands into gridlocked traffic coming the other way. People ignoring the traffic control cops who were trying to keep some semblance of order at the bigger interchanges, and getting away with it because there was no way to stop and/or cite them.

After about fifteen minutes I made it a half mile and was able to turn away from it all onto a side street and escape. (Knowing the local topography intimately is a huge help in such circumstances — I recommend running to get to know all of the side streets on a first name basis.)

As I bailed on the book store errand and got back towards home, I went by the post office and saw our favorite neighborhood whackjobs still out there harassing postal patrons. I thought briefly of letting them know about the massive gridlock a couple miles away. Down there were thousands and thousands of helpless motorists who would have no opportunity at all to get away from their delusional diatribes. It would be like shooting ducks in a barrel!

The word “shooting” triggered the realization that many of those frustrated, pissed-off, short-tempered motorists might well be armed. As entertaining as it was to think of these deluded dimwits being shot at, I decided to leave well enough alone.

Instead I’m at home, making more tin foil hats and tin foil liners for my athletic supporter cups. It might be a long weekend in LA.

I think it’s the neutrinos.

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Filed under Farce, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Politics, Running

July 20, 2014 · 13:00

Tonight, What If EVERYBODY…

July 20th

If you’ve read more than one or two of my rants here, you know what it’s the anniversary (45th) of. Last year I described where I was on that momentous day. Earlier this month I talked about why I love NASA so much, despite some of the recent political and bureaucratic decisions that have frustrated me.

I don’t know if the social media universe (Twitter, FaceBook, and so on) are actually making a big deal of the anniversary or if it’s just my timelines/feed/slice that is. Since I follow a lot of NASA, space, science, and science fiction folks, there very well could be a huge selection effect going on here.

(For the record, looking at Twitter’s worldwide, US, and Los Angeles trends, the two I see trending across the board are James Garner’s death and “Happy National Ice Cream Day”, but there’s no sign of anything related to NASA or Apollo 11. FaceBook shows Gaza, James Garner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the Open Championship, and Buzz Aldrin all trending. Finally, even if we do have to go to the “See More” button to find something.)

Within my social media feeds it’s about 75/25 between the, “Wow, wasn’t that fantastic & here’s where I was & it changed my life” comments and the, “WTF happened, why aren’t we living on the moon & walking around on Mars & heading toward the outer planets & mining asteroids & & & & &…” comments.

Jim Wright’s essay is spectacular (as they all are) and highly recommended. The best comment I’ve seen there (“Stonekettle Station,” John Scalzi’s “Whatever,” and Chuck Wendig’s “terribleminds” are the only three places where I dare to read the comments) is attributed to Andy Borowitz and says, “1969: America winning space race with the Russians. 2014: America keeping up with the Kardashians.” That’s far more true than I’m happy with.

But we can and should remember well what was accomplished on July 20, 1969, if for no other reason than to inspire us to yet again redouble our efforts to take the next small steps and giant leaps ahead. And it’s about time (literally) to do that.

It’s 13:00 PDT here in Los Angeles right now. Forty-five years ago, at 13:18 PT, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. At 17:56 PT, the first moonwalk began.

This evening, starting at 19:39 PDT (22:39 PDT) NASA-TV will show that original moonwalk telecast will be shown in its entirety just as it did forty-five years ago. Your cable or satellite company does (or should!) carry NASA-TV, or you can watch it here online.

At the conclusion of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” he asks the rhetorical question about what would happen if  one person a day, two people a day, three people a day, or fifty people a day would go to their draft board singing “Alice’s Restaurant.” Would they see it as a movement, or more bluntly, would any of the powers-that-be know or care?”

I don’t know if the Nielsen ratings system and software are even aware of NASA-TV’s existence. But I wonder…

Tonight, what if EVERYBODY watched the Apollo 11 replay? What if tonight, instead of getting two to three million viewers each, “60 Minutes,” “Big Brother,” “Rising Star,” “American Ninja Warrior,” and “The Simpsons” each got a few thousand viewers at most, while ten or twenty million televisions were tuned to NASA-TV all night watching a forty-five year old rerun?

Would that get anyone’s attention come tomorrow morning? Would that keep anyone’s attention through the next news cycle, or through the next election?

Wouldn’t it be really bitchin’ to find out?

I understand that it won’t happen tonight. But the fiftieth anniversary is five years away. That will be more of an attention getter than the forty-fifth anniversaryWith a little bit of planning and some grass-roots activism…

Spread the word. 1,827 days to go.

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Filed under Moral Outrage, Politics, Space

July 10, 2014 · 23:04

Flash Fiction: Board Room

This week’s Flash Fiction Challenge — is a repeat, because for the life of me, I can’t see where Chuck Wendig posted a blog entry or tweet with any mention of a contest this week. Okay, so the man’s entitled to take a week off. But I’m on a writing “mission from god”, so I picked a previous Challenge (this one from late April) and rolled the hypothetical, fifty-sided dice to get a 46, which gives me the character of  “the brutal businessperson.”

It turned out a little bit preachy, which I blame on flipping by “The Devil’s Advocate” on cable earlier today. This story was an interesting, dialogue-based scene to write as an exercise. As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

BOARD ROOM

“I have to recommend against building this project,” Carson said. “The possible consequences could be catastrophic.”

There was silence in the board room as all eyes turned to the end of the table. The CEO did not appear to be bothered by the comment, but everyone knew that looks could be deceiving.

“What consequences, Carson? Every relevant department has concluded that this will be an enormously profitable venture.”

“I have no doubt that it will make money, sir. But I would bring your attention again to the report from our environmental consultant.”

The Chief Legal Officer turned his head slightly, not looking directly at Carson, turning only the minimal amount necessary to acknowledge his existence. “The EPA has already signed off on this project, Carson. You should know that.”

“Jason, I’m aware that the EPA has given the green light to this project. I’m also aware of how that approval was obtained, as is everyone else in this room.”

“Would you care to be more clear, Carson? I believe we’ve only followed our standard operating procedures.”

“I’m referring to the way the EPA was given only select parts of a highly edited report from our consultants, while both EPA personnel and our consultants were paid handsomely to ignore the discrepancies between the early versions and the final submission.”

“Is there any truth to that accusation, Jason?” asked the CEO.

“Sir, the EPA approved our final petition based on the information given to them by our consultants. The consultants were well paid by us. The information that was given to the EPA by our consultants and their testimony under oath at the EPA hearings were completely out of our control. If some of the senior EPA staff who recommended approval have careers with our consultant’s firm after they complete their careers at the EPA, that would not be unusual, nor would it be anything that we have any say in. It’s all completely legal and a normal state of affairs, as you know.”

“I understand, Jason. Christine, would you please remind Carson of the predicted financial return on this project?”

The CFO didn’t even need to look at her notes. “We estimate a minimum annual ROI of 25% beginning two years after construction, increasing to 40% or more by year ten. Our projected annual net profits over the first ten years are over one trillion dollars.”

The CEO turned back to Carson. “If we’re going to make that kind of return and nothing illegal is being done, what objections can you still have about this project?”

“Sir, the original environmental assessment, before Jason and his staff had it changed, warned that the drilling operations, refining facilities, and pipeline construction could have serious environmental side effects, particularly in terms of damage and accelerated melting of the permafrost across a region of hundreds of thousands of square miles.”

“Which is why we made engineering changes to allow for any civil engineering issues that might arise, which in turn led to changes in the final environmental report. The chances of an oil spill are infinitesimal.”

“Yes, sir, the odds of an oil spill are no more than one in fifty for any given year, and our engineering plan does allow for structural integrity of our facilities even in the event of changes in the permafrost. But that’s not the problem. There is a high probability that our facilities could cause massive melting of the permafrost, which will release trillions of tons of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The environmental damage of a major oil spill is nothing compared to that. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s even more dangerous than carbon dioxide in its effect on climate change. Melting of the permafrost at an accelerated rate like this could result in an accelerated rate of global temperature increase that will be impossible to reverse.”

The CEO’s stare had gotten steadily more intense as Carson had continued to speak. “I’m disappointed by your sudden passion for this fear-mongering and nonsense from the liberal press, Carson. This company’s position of so-called ‘global warming’ is quite clear, as are the multiple studies we have funded proving it false.”

“Sir, you and this board have surrounded yourselves with sycophants and yes-men who have told you whatever you wanted to hear for decades. The truth is that proceeding with this project will likely bring catastrophic climate change, not in two hundred years or a hundred years, but in as little as fifteen or twenty years. In your lifetime, the entire world economy will collapse as a billion or more people become homeless and start to starve. There will be wars, there will be famine, there could be the end of our civilization as we know it. You will not be earning hundreds of billions a dollars a year when the world collapses into chaos.”

The ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantle in the conference room was the only sound for long seconds.

“You are dismissed,” the CEO finally said.

“Sir, the facts will not change just because you choose not to believe them.”

“Carson, you may leave voluntarily or you may be removed from this meeting. I will speak with you privately later.”

“I’ll leave, but this needs to be said now and said to all of you. This project will be the tipping point that pushes the entire planet over into a runaway greenhouse. You personally are taking actions that will destroy five thousand years of human civilization. I hope that you all live to see the day you realize what you’ve done, and remember you had the power to stop it, but chose not to. As for you, sir, I hope you will live to see how the lives of your family, of your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are destroyed by your actions.” Carson turned on his heel and left the meeting room, cold silence a wall behind him.

Everyone waited for the CEO to proceed. After a moment of staring absently down at the documents on the desk in front of him, he raised his head and looked around the room.

“I apologize for my son’s unreasonable outburst. Now, let’s proceed. When do we begin construction?”

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Filed under Disasters, Freakin' Idiots!, Moral Outrage, Politics, Writing

July 8, 2014 · 22:12

Why I Love NASA So Much

Three years ago today, NASA launched the final space shuttle mission, STS-135. It’s an appropriate time to mention just how much I love NASA.

Yes, you read that correctly. I really, really love NASA. Really.

If you’re a regular reader, you might be surprised by that assertion, given my comments here, here, and here. But the belief that I do nothing but criticize and rag on NASA couldn’t be further from the truth, and I’ll tell you why.

Because when I was five, my dad dragged me out of bed at O’Dark-Thirty and we sat there for hours to see an American get shot into space.

01 Shepard LaunchPhoto: NASA

Because all through the Sixties I devoured every

02 Life Cover

Photo: Life Magazine

03 Look Cover

Photo: Look Magazine

TIME COVERS - THE 60S

Photo: Time Magazine

and

05 National Geographic Cover

Photo: National Geographic Magazine

that I could find with pictures of every single manned and unmanned space shot.

Because the Mercury Program showed us that we had the right stuff.

06 Glenn LaunchPhoto: NASA

Because Gemini taught us how to do the things we had to do to get to the moon.

07 Gemini LaunchPhoto: NASA

Because Ed White took the first US spacewalk.

08 Gemini 4 EVAPhoto: NASA

Because Mariner showed us that Mars had craters instead of canals.

09 Mariner 9 MarsPhoto: JPL

Because we learned what “renedezvous” meant, and how to do it.

10 Gemini 6-7 RendezvousPhoto: NASA

Because we faced down an ‘angry alligator.’

11 Gemini 9 Angry AlligatorPhoto: NASA

Because we paid for our mistakes with Apollo 1.

12 Apollo 1 FirePhoto: NASA

Grissom. White. Chaffee.

12 Apollo 1 CrewPhoto: NASA

Because Surveyor showed that we could land on the moon and scouted the path.

13 Surveyor 3Photo: NASA

Because at the end of 1968, when we as a country had endured assassinations, riots over civil rights, the growing war in Vietnam, we ended the year with our first view of the home planet rising above the horizon of another world, while the words of Genesis were read to us on Christmas Eve.

14 Apollo 8 EarthrisePhoto: NASA

Because the Eagle landed at Tranquility Base. And the entire world watched, breathless, as we saw the first steps on the moon, live on our televisions.

15 Apollo 11 TV imagePhoto: NASA

Because Apollo 13 taught us that “failure is not an option.”

16 Apollo 13 Service ModulePhoto: NASA

Because I watched Apollo 17 leaving the moon, on live television. I talked my parents into letting me stay home from school for three days to watch the final moonwalks live, because they were the last ones for then. Who knew that forty-five years later, they would still the last ones?

17 Apollo 17 LEM LiftoffPhoto: NASA

Because I got to see Skylab launch, and we started on the next steps, learning to live in space.

18 SkylabPhoto: NASA

Because Pioneer showed us what Jupiter and Saturn looked like up close and made us want so much more.

19 Pioneer 10 JupiterPhoto: JPL

Because Viking landed safely on Mars, proving that it could be done, and showed us what the surface of another planet looked like up close. If only we could scoot over and touch that one…

converted PNM filePhoto: JPL

Because the Voyagers showed us Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, plus all of their large moons, in absolutely stunning detail. And then they kept going, finally reaching interstellar space. The Voyagers are still working, now in the thirty-seventh year of their three-year mission.

21 Voyager JupiterPhoto: JPL

Because the Space Shuttle was the most magnificent machine ever built, despite being the result of a thousand compromises. It may not have been perfect and it may not have been as cheap as it was supposed to be, but it was the most beautiful thing to ever see lifting off the pad.

Photo: NASA

Because Sally Ride led the way, leading the way for so many women who have followed.

23 Sally RidePhoto: NASA

Because Challenger again showed us the price of hubris.

CHALLENGER EXPLOSIONPhoto: NASA

Scobee. Smith. McNair. Onizuka. Resnik. Jarvis. McAullife.

24 Challenger CrewPhoto: NASA

Because Galileo, although partially crippled, showed us things at Jupiter that we never dreamed of. In July, 2016 the Juno mission will arrive at Jupiter and show us even more.

25 Galileo Jupiter & MoonsPhoto: JPL

Because the Hubble Space Telescope has extended our vision a million fold.

26 Hubble Space TelescopePhoto: NASA

Because the HST Repair Missions were necessary to fix Hubble when it first was launched, showing levels of ingenuity, problem solving, and skill not seen since Apollo 13, all accomplished flawlessly.

27 HST RepairsPhoto: NASA

Because Pathfinder let us go touch that rock over there on Mars, and when it landed I sat with my three kids, watching the feed from JPL to see if it had succeeded and cheering those first pictures.

28 PathfinderPhoto: JPL

Because the International Space Station is the biggest international project in history, showing that multiple nations on almost every continent can work together to build the most complex and advanced laboratory ever, and showing everyone what their planet looks like from space every day.

29 International Space StationPhoto: NASA

Because Columbia showed us again that this was an extremely dangerous business, no matter how easy we made it look time after time after time. Yet we picked up the pieces and flew again.

30 Columbia AccidentPhoto: NASA

Husband. McCool. Anderson. Chawla. Brown. Clark. Ramon.

30 Columbia CrewPhoto: NASA

Because Spirit roamed around Mars for 2,210 sols of its 90-sol mission before getting stuck in the sand. One of these days we’ll have to go rescue her and bring her back home. (Thanks, Randall, even though it makes me cry every time.)

31 SpiritPhoto: JPL

Because Opportunity is STILL roaming around Mars, now in her 3,715 sol of her 90-sol mission.

32 OpportunityPhoto: JPL

Because Cassini has not only sent back over 332,000 pictures of Saturn, her rings, and her moons, it also put the Huygens probe down on the surface of Titan ten years ago. And it’s still going.

33 Cassini SaturnPhoto: JPL

Because Curiosity landed on Mars using a freakin’ rocket powered sky crane and it’s as big as an SUV, nuclear powered, laser shooting, climbing Mount Sharp, now in the 683rd sol of its 90-sol mission.

34 CuriosityPhoto: JPL

See, I REALLY LOVE NASA. All of these missions and hundreds and hundreds more. All of the tens and hundreds of thousands of people who work so hard to make sure that the billion necessary details get done so that the impossible somehow becomes the possible.

I would kill to work at JPL or for some NASA site. I wanted (and still want, desperately) to be an astronaut, to see the Earth from orbit, from the moon, or in my rear-view mirror as we head to Mars. But even if I can’t do that, there are so many other amazing things that NASA and JPL do routinely, things that I would do anything to participate in and help accomplish.

NASA is now holding “NASA Socials” for many of its launches and major events, inviting bloggers and others active in social media so that word about their new missions gets spread far and wide. So far I’ve not been chosen as one of the NASA Social participants, but I’m going to keep trying.

When I rant about what NASA isn’t doing, it’s because there are so many things that it has done and so many amazing and fantastic things that it could do if given the chance. Those I rant at are the bureaucrats and the politicians, particularly the politicians. Don’t confuse my contempt for our current “leadership” with my utter admiration for those in the trenches at NASA, doing the impossible on a daily basis.

So, just in case I’ve been too subtle,

I really love NASA!!!

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Filed under Astronomy, Paul, Politics, Space

June 4, 2014 · 22:38

Odds & Sods For Wednesday, June 3rd

Item The First: Living in any big city it seems that you can see a little bit of anything. (not so much in a rural area or small town, but I could be wrong.) One thing about Los Angeles is that this phenomenon is taken to a whole new dimension at times. It can be a really odd place.

The latest demonstration of this I’ve seen is a large number of men who are shaving their heads, so they look like Telly Savalas or this Republican dude running for governor. But they find that their skin is pasty white and pale under all of that stubble, making them look more like Marine recruits on their first day of boot camp. To solve this in turn, they apparently go and get a spray tan.

Unfortunately, too often the spray tans are pretty orange-ish. That’s a good way to tell actually, you don’t get that particular shade of orange-brown by any natural method known to man. But looking silly and fake and plastic has never stopped anyone in LA, so they do it anyway.

Then they cluster together, presumably because they’re co-workers or peers of some sort. Or maybe they just belong to the same cult.

Either way, they end up looking like the love children of Oompa Loompas and Mr. Clean, in business suits.

Item The Second: In January, the US first class postal rate went from 46¢ to 49¢. Most of us don’t even realize it happened because 99% of the stamps the USPOD has sold for several years are the “Forever” stamps, good for whatever the first class rate happens to be when you use them.

The USPOD touts this as a great thing and when rates are going up they urge everyone to buy a bunch at the older, lower rate so they can have them and save the extra couple of cents until your stockpile runs out.

But that assumes that the rates are always going to go up. That’s a pretty solid assumption in general — have the rates ever gone down? But this time, the Postal Commission decreed that the increase was temporary, and in three years the rates must go back down to 46.

I wouldn’t bet on that happening, but assuming for the moment that it does, will everyone get their three cents per stamp back on all of the “Forever” stamps they have, or will the USPOD just pocket all that money?

I guess it’s only fair if they do since they’ve eaten the difference when rates have gone up. Plus, it’s not like we’re talking a ton of money. Businesses all use postage machines, it’s just the little guys like you and me who buy stamps (how archaic!), and most of us have, what? Maybe a roll of 100 stamps at most, probably just a sheet of 20 (partially used). So we’re talking 60¢ to $3.00 or so per household? Except $2.00 a household times 115,226,802 households is a $230,457,604 windfall…

My brain wonders about things like this. It’s possible that it’s broken.

Item The Third: We were watching the US vs. Turkey “friendly” soccer match this last weekend and for kicks we were watching Univision, the Spanish language network. Their announcers are much more fun to listen to when a goal is scored, regardless of who scores it. Despite our command of the language gained by twelve weeks of community college conversational Spanish last year (non-graded, one class a week, no homework, and we bailed on about a third of the classes), we weren’t picking up more than one word in a hundred, and feeling grateful for that one word.

When that got old (and discouraging) we switched over to ESPN, where they had (I think) an English announcer and an Irish announcer.

We didn’t do any better understanding them.

Item The Fourth: In baseball these days it’s a thing for everyone on the home team to have “walk-on music” which plays as they walk up to the plate to bat, or for relief pitchers as they run in from the bullpen. This practice has gotten some attention recently when some players chose some rather unconventional music samples.

Usually you will hear something rock and roll, pop, rap, or maybe country. “Enter Sandman,” “Welcome To The Jungle,” something from Led Zeppelin, “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy,” whatever. There have been practical jokes where some players will bribe the guys running the PA system to play the “wrong” music for a teammate, using a tune from a kid’s TV show or something, but that’s a one-time thing for laughs.

Recently, Josh Reddick of the Oakland Athletics has changed his walk-on music to Wham’s “Careless Whisper.” This has gotten quite a bit of attention, as well as a bit of a cult following with the Oakland fans. It’s not so clear that it’s helped his batting — a quick perusal of today’s MLB American League stats doesn’t show him anywhere in the top forty in any batting category.

But it’s bizarre and unusual, and I like that.

Item The Fifth: When shooting pictures of the lunar eclipse in April, one thing I noticed was that many pictures were blurry due to motion of the camera when the shutter was triggered. With the simple setup I was using I’ll never get rid of that entirely, but there are steps that can be taken to minimize the worst of it.

In particular, a lot of the vibration and motion comes when you physically push down on the button on the camera to take the picture. This gets worse the longer the exposure is, because on most cameras you have to keep holding the button down for as long as you want the shutter open. Needless to say, no matter how careful and steady you try to be, your hand is wiggling and so is the camera.

On a DSLR (as opposed to a point & shoot or smartphone camera) there are other ways to trigger the shutter. I knew that there were remote controls which plug into the camera electronically, and trigger the camera via a radio transmitter. Sort of like a garage door opener, only it takes the picture instead.

Especially for astrophotography, this is extremely useful since it will eliminate all of the vibration and blur caused when you physically touch the camera while taking the picture. A good radio remote control trigger also lets you do things like set up the camera on the roof and then remotely trigger it when you hear the raccoons rampaging about up there.

I thought that these things were hundreds of dollars and I really didn’t want to spend that kind of money right now. But, catching the assumption in my calculation, I was pleased to see that they’re under $20 from China via mail order. Who knew?

That’s one of the reasons the ISS transit pictures were so steady, I’m using the new toy to trigger the exposures. Next, the raccoons!

Item The Sixth: So, what would your walk-on music be? I’ll let you know my thoughts on mine in the next “Odds & Sods”. I would love to hear your thoughts about what you would pick (and why) in the comments.

 

 

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Critters, Los Angeles, Music, Odds & Sods, Photography, Politics, Sports

June 3, 2014 · 22:26

Seoul (Part Eight)

In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by Seoul. Day One in Seoul, we made our way to the Gyeongokgung Palace museum with all of its attendant palace buildings from various eras. On Day Two, following a somber morning looking at  the War History Museum, we went to a baseball game. Day Three we went on an all-day trip to one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been, the DMZ that divides North and South Korea.

After seeing the UN buildings in Panmunjoem, it was time for lunch. Our bus went to a roadside stop that looks like it’s there strictly to service all of the tour buses going to the DMZ. A Stuckeys this was not! There was a war memorial monument, a small temple (much like the third picture down here), the equivalent of truck stop mini-market & souvenir shop all rolled into one (not a classy joint!), and a couple of packed restaurants.

This was the point where I could here my mother in my head, like a character out of a Chevy Chase movie, saying, “No way I’m going in there and eating that!” So, of course, I went in and ate. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in these travelogues, when travelling overseas I will never eat at a conventional Western food place (McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, whatever) unless for some reason it’s the only option and I’m about to drop from hunger. I can eat that at home, if I’m in Rome, I’m going to eat like the Romanians!

IMG_0537_smallAt a Korean restaurant, you often cook your own food at the table. (I also saw this in Shanghai.) Two to a table, we had a butane burner & skillet with a bunch of beef and onions, with a whole selection of other peppers and stuff to either stew along with the beef or to eat separately. I’m told that this dish is “bulgogi” and it’s very common and popular in Korea.

It was fantastic! Go find a Korean restaurant and have bulgogi!

And try the kimchi. All I knew of kimchi was what I had learned from old “M*A*S*H” episodes, where it was described as fermented sauerkraut, often fermented in earthen jugs that were buried for days and weeks to ripen. It sounded disgusting. But when in Kaesong… I’m here to tell you, kimchi was a wonderful surprise. I’ve even started buying it back at home from time to time, when I can find it.

IMG_0552_smallAfter lunch we went to the DMZ Pavilion at Paju. There’s a line of tourists waiting to get their picture taken in front of this, like they were at Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. (Yes, I did it too.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThere are sculptures about the reunification of the two Koreas that everyone hopes will eventually come.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is also the site of “The Third Tunnel Of Aggression,” a place where in 1978 the South Koreans caught the North Koreans digging long tunnels from their side of the border into South Korea. You grab a hard hat and head down a really, REALLY steep tunnel that’s wet and slippery. OSHA would love this place!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe tunnels were wide enough for a whole division of 10,000 troops to move through in an hour. (It may not look like it here, because the shoring material  and other equipment keep the tourists on a narrow course in the middle.) The North Koreans tried to claim that the tunnels had been built by the South Koreans to invade the North, but that was pretty obviously not the case. Then the North Koreans tried to claim that they were coal mines. The South Koreans pointed out that there was no coal anywhere nearby, but the tunnel walls had been painted black to look like coal.

I’m not sure that the North Koreans ever had a response for that, other than “Unt uuhh! Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOf course, what they don’t warn you of before you go down, is that after walking 400 or 500 feet underground in that really steep tunnel to get in, you now have to walk back up it in order to get out. It’s quite the little climb. Emptying out into a gift shop, of course.

IMG_0564_smallNear the Third Tunnel Of Aggression (I love that name!) is the Dora Observation point. From here you can look across the DMZ into North Korea. It’s easy to see North Korean troop sites, towns, and a large city that was built there purely for propaganda and show. (No one actually lives there.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhat you can NOT do at the Dora Observatory is take pictures — if you’re on the far side of that yellow line. Yeah, they really, REALLY mean it, and they’ve got guys with guns to convince you they’re serious. If you’re caught, they’ll take your camera and you’ll never see it again, period. Or worse.

The reason is because they don’t want to give out any intelligence to the North Koreans. There’s a large wall at the edge of the cliff with those big observation binoculars. From in back of the yellow line, the only pictures you can take would be of North Korea off in the distance. Get any closer and take pictures over the wall looking down, and you’ll be taking pictures of South Korean military positions and roads. Then you go on the internet (like me!) and post them, not realizing that you just gave the North Koreans free tactical information if they ever do decide to invade.

Yet another reminder that this truly is not Disneyland or the Grand Canyon.

IMG_0611_smallAfter a long day, we headed back to Seoul, watching the rice paddies on the South Korean side of the Han River and the mountains and fortifications on the distant North Korean side.

We also got harangued all the way back about some jewelry store that had the best this and the finest that. We weren’t completely surprised to find that our bus didn’t go back to the hotel where we had been picked up that morning, but back to this magical, special jewelry store for a visit. They would take us back to the hotel after everyone had used this unique opportunity to go buy something. Our guide was probably joking about the bus not leaving until everyone actually HAD bought something. Probably. We didn’t have a car waiting or anything, so we just went hunting for a subway station and bailed.  Gotta love mass transit!

The next morning I was off to Inchon International to finish my stay in Korea. (The transit through Inchon, if you’ll remember, is why I couldn’t donate blood for a whole year, despite the fact that I was never outside or anyplace where where I could have been exposed to malaria.) Inchon is a lovely airport and I saw my first Airbus 380 there as we were taxiing out.

Two countries and two kids down, one to go.

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