Archive for the 'Rants' Category

My 2008 predictions are already coming true! Apparently, the three young men who were attacked by the Siberian tiger at the San Francisco zoo were drunk and stoned on marijuana, were standing on the retaining wall around the tigers enclosure, and were yelling and taunting the cat.

The second part of my prediction: despite the fact that these fellows were at least partly responsible for what happened, I expected their parents to sue the zoo. I would be quite happy to be proven wrong on this half of my prognostication, but… my faith in the average American and their love of lawsuits suggests I will be proven right.

I think the tradition of making predictions of the future near the turn of the New Year is vacuous and stupid. That’s why I’m planning on making predictions for the first time here on my blog- “vacuous and stupid” is my middle name

Without further ado, here are my predictions for the next twelve to eighteen months. Just like this website, most of the content is technically-oriented, but other weird stuff creeps in as well

• Apple will release a new iPhone supporting G3 (faster mobile networking). Unfortunately, it will still be the world’s most expensive disposable phone as Apple will persist in making the battery impossible for the consumer to replace. Another 15 million iPhones will be sold during 2008 despite this and the fact that there are innumerable other, more capable phones out there,
• Apple will announce a new ultra-mobile PC: it will essentially be a giant iPhone, with a more complete OS X user interface. It will have no keyboard (although it will have the option to add one), will use a touch sensitive screen about 8″ x 5″ in size, and will weigh somewhere between 1.5 and 2 pounds. It will cost about $1,500 at launch, and may actually have a user battery that can be replaced by the owner. There will be inevitable comparisons to the Newton
• the tiger that killed the one boy and injured two others will turn out to have been provoked by the victims themselves. The “victims” will be shown to have either entered the enclosure and/or have released the tiger as part of a pre-Christmas prank. The boys parents will still sue the San Francisco Zoo because in America personal responsibility is a dead concept and litigation is a national sport
• Microsoft will release Vista Service Pack 1, and it will make using Vista significantly more pleasurable. The next version of Windows will be announced with a target ship date of mid-2009. There is almost zero chance of it actually shipping by that date
• Starcraft 2 will be delayed until 2009
• Duke Nukem Forever will not be released
• The format war between HD DVD and Blu Ray will be resolved. Unfortunately, almost no one will care
• SSD (flash memory “drives”) with a capacity of 32 GB will drop in price to approximately $600
• there won’t be a single new successful (I.E.: > 500,000 paid month-to-month subscribers) massively multi-player role playing game released during 2008. Only one or two of the new games released during the year will survive for more than twelve months
• Stock market analysts will begin to recognize that Google has a massively over-inflated value. There will be a downward price adjustment in Google stock of over 20%, making it only over-valued by a factor of about 50:1

I expect that my track record for “correct” predictions will be at least as good as that demonstrated by most tabloid telepaths..

There is no culturally significant reason for killing whales, I don’t care what the Japanese government says…and apparently my opinion is shared by Wired blogger Tony Long.

I am already against the native cultural “tradition” of killing whales, but so long as it is a couple a year hunted using traditional methods, I guess I have to live with it. But a dozen diesel powered whaling ships with radar, GPS, and rocket powered explosive harpoons kinda stretch any conceivable notion of “tradition”.

If I had the funds, I’d be giving some serious thought to getting my own submarine and doing my own kind of “traditional hunting”. And maybe there would be a few less Japanese whaling ships to find gainful employ for next year.

Intelligent design is a theory of faith. Evolution is a theory of science.

Science is based on something called scientific method. A scientific theory requires something (or more realistically, several things) that can be proven or shown to be false. A scientific theory is never absolute “fact”: it is always subject to discovery of further data that could prove or disprove certain aspects of its truth. Science is strictly about the “how”, “what”, “where”, and “when”. Science demands perpetual intelligent inquiry, the continuous challenging of the status quo. Science does not guide a person’s moral choices, it does not make someone a kinder, better person. It does, however, require a certain amount of intelligence.

Faith is belief. It requires an act of will, and it abhors fact. Identifying contradictory information is anathema to faith. If something contradicts the matter of faith, it can be conveniently dismissed as heretic, or a lie. Faith can save a life or a soul, can guide one’s life decisions and moral choices. Fundamentally, faith is all about answering the “why” question. But Faith isn’t much good when trying to build a bridge or attempting to safely launch a man into space.

One does not “Believe” in science- science simply is. Faith is not challenged by science, unless one’s faith is doggedly attempting to explain natural occurrences. An intelligent religion could embrace science without giving up their fundamental belief: the “why” part of life.

Intelligent design can be taught in a church. It does not belong in a school, unless it is a school of religion. If someone choses to set aside facts and reason for a life dedicated to faith, they can educate themselves in whatever misinformation they choose: but public schools should stick to facts, not faith. Unless, apparently, you live in Texas, where a science curriculum director was suspended (and felt compelled to resign) recently for expressing the opinion that Intelligent Design is not a science.

I feel nothing but sorrow (and a bit of anger) that the U.S. has sunk to such a low state. Not only do 40% of Americans still believe that Weapons of Mass Destruction were found in Iraq (about the same percentage that believe in Angels, I believe…), but apparently a nearly equal number have no clue regarding the difference between faith and science.

And if you are reading this and muttering “heretic!” and “blasphemer!” under your breath, there is another faith-based “theory” you should check out: the theory of intelligent falling.

I generally have a lot of respect for police officers. Lately, there have been a lot of questions raised regarding the use of tasers by police. To me, a taser is an alternative to deadly force: if the cop feels they have to use a gun, or if they feel that the next step will be hand to hand combat, then the taser gives them an alternative.

Tasers are about as likely to cause lasting harm as a night stick or a punch, and are far more effective with much less risk to both the police officer and bystanders. However, I am beginning to think that some police officers are using them under rather questionable circumstances. If there are four or five cops and one guy with no history of violence and without a weapon, why is a taser considered “appropriate”? Or how about the circumstance in this video…

Here we have a police officer pulling over a guy for speeding in a construction zone. The driver has no priors, his wife and baby are in the vehicle with him, he is not drunk or stoned, and he is carrying no weapons. He is being belligerent and uncooperative: specifically, he is asking where the 40 MPH sign is (the video clearly shows him driving past it). And his big crime: he refuses to sign the speeding ticket.

Now…I personally don’t think I would do what this guy is doing- you don’t get out of your car and ask a cop to show you the speed limit sign. You might ask him (politely) where the speed zone is, but you leave the maneuvering for the court room. But it is a small step from asking a reasonably polite question to the level this guy was at- he wasn’t swearing, he wasn’t spitting, swinging, or throwing things, he didn’t even noticeably raise his voice. But he was tasered, thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested. And the second officer on the scene (supervisor?) said “Good job!” to the arresting officer.

This doesn’t look like the right way to use a taser to me…

I am generally tolerant of different cultures. But after reading about a young woman sentenced in a Saudi court to 200 lashes and six months in jail for the crime of being gang-raped 14 times by seven men…well, tolerance is out the window.

The seven men who raped the young woman were charged with between one and five years in prison. This is *after* their sentences were doubled by the court. Apparently the woman was guilty of having been in the car of a man who was not a blood relation to her prior to being raped: she was further guilty of appealing her conviction to 90 lashes for this crime, which led the Judges to double her sentence and tack on six months in jail.

I don’t care what the politically correct in this world may say, but this is simply and utterly wrong. No religion, no culture, no political system should tolerate this. Period. Full stop. The Judges involved will likely be praised for their true and stalwart belief in whatever insanity passes for a legal system in Saudi Arabia. Personally, I think they deserve a full helping of what the young lady got…

Apparently, elephants in India are getting drunk, and Paris Hilton wants us all to do something about it.

Apparently the idea of not giving the elephants any alcohol never occurred to anyone. I suppose I can forgive Paris for not thinking of this- she is, after all, a complete moron. But I’ve generally thought Indians were at least marginally smarter than the average American hotel heiress…

I have talked here recently about my difficulty resisting the left over halloween candy. But for those who have no such concerns, and for whom money is no object, there is the world’s most expensive dessert.

$25,000 for a snack. This is almost as inconceivable to me as the $100,000 bottles of wine some people consume. It really puts things like $50,000 watches and $250,000 cars in perspective: if you drop $25k on dessert, spending a quarter million on something you drive around in for several years seems downright economical.

Bon appetit!

I read an article today regarding how a Blackwater sniper in Iraq apparently killed three Iraq government security guards.

Blackwater Worldwide is a private security firm- the new term for “mercenary army”- engaged by the U.S. Government to provide security for U.S. interests in Iraq. This includes guarding American diplomats. The incident in question involved a group of Blackwater guards protecting such a diplomat. One of the guards, a trained sniper, positioned himself in a secure and commanding position on the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry where the diplomat was in a meeting. Across the road was the compound of the Government-controlled Iraqi television network. The Blackwater sniper felt compelled at some point to shoot three guards who had been situated on a balcony of the television network building throughout the diplomat’s visit.

Friendly fire deaths are not an uncommon occurrence. But what disturbs me about this situation is two-fold. First, the American investigation into the incident sounds like a total farce. The only people interviewed were the Blackwater employees and a couple of American military personnel. None of the Iraqi security guards were interviewed. No onsite forensic investigation was performed. The conclusion was (unsurprisingly) that the Blackwater security guards responded accordingly to a perceived threat.

The second thing that disturbs me is that the Americans have had the Iraqi government create a law placing all U.S. government funded private security firms above all Iraqi law. This means that neither Blackwater nor the U.S. Government can be charged, not even in a civil suit for wrongful death. Blackwater, which is being paid about a billion dollars a year for security services, hasn’t even paid a small gratuity to the families of the men who were killed. They claim they have no obligation to do so.

I find this entire incident, at least as reported by the Washington Post, disgusting in the extreme. The killed Iraqi guards were employees of the Iraqi government operating in performance of their duties. They were not firing upon the Americans. But accidents happen: a gunshot or something like a gunshot might have been heard. A case of mistaken identity, and innocents get killed. But the Americans and Blackwater leave the impression that the Iraqi guards were at fault, damn evil foreigners that they are. A little kindness to the families of the Iraqi guards could go a long way towards making the Americans look less like despicable.

I heard several news reports regarding some study performed recently on Canadian attitudes towards immigrants.  The conclusion was that Canadians are less tolerant than we used to be, and several of the news reports said we are “more racist”.  They then cited such things as requiring Moslem women to reveal their faces for ID purposes when voting, and referenced our vaunted “cultural mosaic” political mantra.

Like a lot of good ideas, the “cultural mosaic” or “multiculturalism” has flaws when interpreted to extreme ends.  Some people, including some immigrants, believe that Canada’s cultural mosaic (versus the American “melting pot” mantra) means that they can transplant all of their personal beliefs and cultural standards to Canada wholesale, and Canadians will gladly accept them.

So if you come from a culture where the appropriate way to express your dissatisfaction with your wife’s behavior is to beat her with a steel rod, that’s fine.  If men are absolute rulers, and women are considered chattel, that’s perfectly acceptable in Canada.  If “divorce” of your wife means pouring gasoline on her and lighting her on fire where you come from, that’s okay too.  If your religion has hated, tortured, and killed members of another religion for generations, that’s welcome in Canada as well.  If your former homeland has fought a guerilla war with another land for decades, feel free to bring your hatred and fear here to Canada too. 

Maybe that’s the way original crafters of the multiculturalism policy were thinking, but I don’t believe so.  To my way of thinking, to be a Canadian you must accept certain values and agree to abide by our laws.   Tolerance of cultural differences is all well and good, but that tolerance stops when those differences violate Canadian laws and basic principles of behavior.  If the law says I need to wear a helmet to ride a motorcycle, then belonging to a certain religion or culture shouldn’t exclude me from adherence to that law.  If carrying weapons is unacceptable in some areas, then having a particular faith shouldn’t get me a pass. 

Canadian tolerance says that we should attempt to make some accommodations to support one another’s differences.  For example, allowing veiled women to vote by providing them some alternate way to identify themselves is being “tolerant”.  Removing unnecessary (I.E.: no practical purpose) headwear rules from organizations so that other cultures can participate is “tolerant”.

But if believing that “cultural” practices of violence, oppression, and hatred are unacceptable in my Country regardless of the individuals skin colour, country of origin, or religion is “racist”…then count me as a racist.