perfidy

Here, in case you're curious, is the current list of movies and tv shows that I own, and have put on my hard drive:

12 Monkeys
2001: A Space Odyssey
2003 NCAA College Football Championship Game (OSU beats Miami)
2012
3 Days of the Condor
300
9
A Bug’s Life
A Fistful of Dollars
A Knight’s Tale
Air America
Aladdin
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Alien
Aliens
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Animal House
Apocalypse Now
Army of Darkness
Atom Age Vampire
Austin Powers: Goldmember
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Avatar
Back to the Future
Bad Santa
Band of Brothers
Bandits
Barbie and the Diamond Castle
Barbie Fairytopia
Barbie Presents Thumbelina
Batman Begins
Beast from Haunted Cave
Beauty and the Beast
Because of Winn-Dixie
Being John Malkovich
Best in Show
Best of John Belushi
Beyond the Gridiron: History of Woody Hayes
Big
Black Hawk Down
Blade
Blade Runner
Blade Trinity
Blast from the Past
Blazing Saddles
Bloodlust
Blue Steel
Bluebeard
Blues Brothers
Bolt
Bond: Dr. No
Bond: Goldfinger
Bond: The World is Not Enough
Braveheart
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Bubba Ho-Tep
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Cars
Chappelle's Show, season 1
Charlie’s Angels
Cinderella
Claymation Christmas (Includes Easter and Halloween)
Club Dread
Constantine
Coraline
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Curious George
Dangerous Liaisons
Dark City
Dark Star
David Spade: Take the Hit
Dawn of the Dead
Day Watch
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
Dead Men Walk
Death to Smoochy
Destination Moon
Die Hard
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Die Harder
Dog Soldiers
Down from the Mountain
Emma
Enemy of the State
Equilibrium
Eraser
ET
Evil Dead
Fantasia
Fantasia 2000
Fargo
Felix the Cat
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Fight Club
Finding Nemo
Flight of the Navigator
Flushed Away
Fools Rush In
Full Metal Jacket
G Force
Galaxy Quest
Gattaca
Generation Kill
Ghost Dog
Ghostbusters
Gladiator
Glory
Good Morning Vietnam
Grosse Point Blank
Groundhog Day
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Heathers
Hell Town
Henry V
Herbie Fully Loaded
Hero
High Noon
Highlander
History of the Cleveland Browns
Hot Fuzz
House of Flying Daggers
House on Haunted Hill
Ice Age
Ice Age 2
Independence Day
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Iron Giant
Iron Man
Iron Man II
Jacob's Ladder
Jurassic Park
Key Largo
Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda and the Furious Five
Lake Placid
Last Man Standing
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Looney Tunes Back in Action
Loony Toons Golden Collection
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lost in Translation
Madagascar
Major League
Mallrats
Master and Commander
Maverick
Me, Myself & Irene
Meet the Robinsons
Men in Black
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Miller’s Crossing
Minority Report
Minuscule (Animated Short Movies about bugs)
Miracle
Miss Congeniality
Mission Impossible
Monster House
Monsters vs. Aliens
Monsters, Inc.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Mulan
Muppets in Space
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Cousin Vinny
My Fair Lady
Night Watch
Nightmare Before Christmas
Nightmare Castle
Nothing to Lose
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Oceans 11
Oceans 12
Office Space
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Outland
Over the Hedge
Patton
Payback
PCU
Penguins of Madagascar: A Christmas Caper
Penguins of Madagascar: New to the Zoo
Penguins of Madagascar: Operation DVD Release
Peter Pan
Phil the Alien
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean
Pixar Short Movies
Popeye (Cartoons)
Princess and the Frog
Pulp Fiction
Push
Quantum of Solace
Raising Arizona
Ratatouille
Ray
Red Dawn
Red Planet
Reign of Fire
Reservoir Dogs
Revolt of the Zombies
Robin Hood
Rosenkranz and Guildenstern are Dead
Saved
Schoolhouse Rock
Serenity
Shakespeare in Love
Shaun of the Dead
Shrek
Shrek 2
Shrek 3
Sin City
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sleeping Beauty
Small Soldiers
Snatch
Sneakers
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
So I Married an Axe Murderer
South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
Spiderman
Spiderman 2
Spiderman 3
Spongebob SquarePants: Absorbing Favorites
Spongebob SquarePants: Atlantis SquarePantis
Spongebob SquarePants: Pest of the West
Spongebob SquarePants: SpongBob vs. The Big One
Spongebob SquarePants: SpongeBob Goes Prehistoric
Spongebob SquarePants: Spongicus
Spongebob SquarePants: To SquarePants or not to SquarePants
Star Wars Episode I
Star Wars Episode II
Star Wars Episode III
Star Wars Episode IV
Star Wars Episode V
Star Wars Episode VI
Star Wars: Clone Wars, season 1
Stargate
Strange Brew
Strawberry Shortcake
Stripes
Supertroopers
Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (original version)
Tears of the Sun
Terminator
Terminator 2
The Abyss
The Big Lebowski
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Dark Knight
The Fifth Element
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
The Godfather Part III
The Golden Compass
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
The Hangover
The History of Buckeye Football
The Hunt for Red October
The Hustler
The Incredibles
The Jungle Book
The Last Boy Scout
The Limey
The Lion King
The Little Mermaid
The Lonely Guy
The Loved One
The Magnificent Seven
The Maltese Falcon
The Man in Black: Johnny Cash Live in Denmark
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Manchurian Candidate
The Mask
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
The Monster Maker
The Mummy
The Patriot
The Pest
The Protector
The Ref
The Replacements
The Ringer
The Saint
The Scorpion King
The Sixth Sense
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Three Stooges Collection
There’s Something About Mary
Tinker Bell
Tomb Raider
Tombstone
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
Trainspotting
Treasure Planet
Unbreakable
Unforgiven
Up
V for Vendetta
Van Wilder
WALL-E
Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Wererabbit
Wallace and Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures
Wallace and Gromit: Cracking Contraptions
Wanted
War Tapes
Wayne’s World
Wayne’s World 2
Wedding Crashers
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story
When Harry Met Sally
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Wizard of Oz
X-Men
X-Men 2
X-Men 3
Young Frankenstein
Zombieland

Fascinating article on the connection between batshit, sovereignty, empire and the reach of the constitution.

I stumbled on a 969-page typescript treatise which is kept in the library of the US State Department. Flipping through this great leather-bound brick of onion-skin pages, I gradually absorbed that the whole massive volume had been put together in the 1930s by a lawyer working for the US Government who’d been given a killer assignment. Apparently somebody had walked over to the desk of this poor functionary, scribbling away in some basement office, and said something along the lines of: “You know, we have a bunch of islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean—little islands. How about you figure out what the deal is with all these places, legally speaking.” I was holding the result: The Sovereignty of Islands Claimed Under the Guano Act and of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Midway, and Wake. And it was splendid to behold: nearly a thousand pages of intricate legal arguments and historical documentation on the strange history of the United States’ nearly invisible, but surprisingly vast, insular empire.

...The Guano Islands Act of 1856 arguably laid the legal groundwork for American imperialism.

I love sentences like that.

You can sort of see it [the language of the act] drift from talking about the waters and other resources “appurtenant” to the guano islands, to being used to talk about the relationship between the islands themselves and the United States. It was basically a fudge. A way of taking the places as possessions, while being careful not to call themterritories, since that implied constitutional entanglements. It was a way of taking the places without really taking responsibility for them within the federal system. The bill also carefully removed the language of “sovereignty,” since that, too, seemed potentially to entail various obligations under domestic and international law. And finally, to get the bill to pass, they also stuck in a bit about how the United States could get rid of the places if it wanted—that there was no commitment to hang onto these islands after the resources had been stripped or their utility otherwise terminated.

And the act passes in that form?

It does, and boom, there are all these wildcatters and roughnecks throwing up the Stars and Stripes on little mounds of manure all over the world. In the end, more than seventy such islands are actually secured under the act, and many more are claimed (unsuccessfully, for one reason or another). But that’s not the interesting part, really—although it’s curious enough, and there are some great stories about what goes down on these islands: shanghaiing Polynesian laborers, piracy (of course), mutiny, etc. Some of the islands are still claimed by various shady types. Indeed, a rather mysterious gentleman contacted me some years ago in connection with his alleged title to an uninhabited guano island in the Caribbean.

Awesome.

The Onion never fails me:

One scroll recounts the demise of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who died of exposure and malnutrition within sight of the shores of his beloved island home, while another tells tale of a giant ice floe that carried the entire House Ways and Means Committee into the Arctic night, never to be seen again.

Dangling desperately by a lashing line, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is said to have fallen into a churning maelstrom off the Horn of Africa while raging at the heavens and shouting, "Fools! Fools! There is no Sword! There is no Bipartisanship! It's all a lie, and we all bound for Death!"

"One of the messages, burnt on the edges and smelling of brimstone, tells how they stopped on a remote island for provisions and were imprisoned by a mighty one-eyed monster who bellowed, 'But there's no way to pay for all this!'" Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters from atop the Washington Monument, where she awaits the Congressmen's return, clad in widow's black burlap and gazing out to sea. "They seem to have defeated this Cyclops, but of the coveted saber, there is no word."

"And now I've received news that fishermen in Monterey Bay have found in their nets the bloated remains of Barney Frank," Pelosi added.

Tales sung by bards since time immemorial describe the Sword as a master blade forged at Lexington and Concord, broken during the Civil War, reforged by Abraham Lincoln, wielded by the imp Joe McCarthy until he was driven mad, used briefly at a Cleveland City Council meeting during a unanimous vote on a zoning variance, and then lost somewhere in the misty murk of Indochina.

I would apologize abjectly for my dearth of posting, except for the fact that I don't think it has had an adverse impact on, well, anyone. So there.

But, for those who do care, here's what I've been up to. Most of my free time over the last month has been occupied with purging, Soviet-style, my belongings. Eight entire Nissan X-Terra loads of my possessions have been lined up against the wall, shot, and taken to the dump. Their families were billed for the cost of the bullets. An additional five loads have been taken to the Militant wing of the Salvation Army, and one full load of books - 26 liquor boxes worth - were sold or donated as well. There is another two loads of detritus staged next to the garage waiting for their dirt-nap, and I'm going to have to borrow my neighbor's trailer to take a load of busted or worthless furniture and appliances to the landfill.

By comparison, only four loads have been taken to the storage facility. The house is now down to currently-being-used clothes, kitchen stuff, furniture and only ten books. I've also ripped nearly every DVD I own, I've thrown out the cases and someone is going to get an unexpected gift of nearly 400 movies.

It is liberating, nay, exhilarating to get rid of so much crap. My soul feels lighter and cleaner.

So that's to the good.

As far as the reason for all this - it doesn't look like we'll even be making the attempt to purchase another home. From what I've been reading, the housing market collapse is far from over. Even though we could by the same house for half what we paid four years ago, it looks like if we did, we could find ourselves underwater again within a year. Which would suck. Note to self: buy low, sell high.

So I think we'll be renting. I'll lose some tax write-offs, but paying between a third and a half of what I've been paying will more than even that up. Much more, really. And besides, I'll have another child deduction next year.

So I'll be moving within the month, which will continue to cut into blogging time.  But less so, since I've already gotten through the obsessive difficult part.

In discussing the Fred Phelps menagerie of douche-canoes, my friend Uncle Jimbo has this to say about our beloved gubmint:

Government is a blunt and stupid tool run by blunt and stupid tools.

"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor."

From Shit my dad says

Every week, I wait and wait and wait, pining for the next installment of Badass of the Week.  It's sad, perhaps.  But nothing gets me going like tales of ball-destroying, face-ripping bloody carnage.  Every one hopes in their heart of hearts to be a badass.  And the Badass of the Week is quite the archive of inspirational badassitude.  But how, we ask, do we become badasses our own selves?

We now have the answer:

[wik] I think we here at perfidy should get some credit just for having a category entitled "Lead Pipe Cruelty."

I have benefitted greatly from the home brew/craft brew movement.  Over the last 30 years, I have enjoyed many a tasty beverage.  It could be argued that America has the best beer on the planet.  And we have Jimmy Carter to thank for that.  Thank you, Jimmy Carter.

But it never occurred to me wonder why the rules aren't the same for liquor.  It came as a mild surprise to me learn that the revenuers are still raiding moonshiners, and breaking up their stills.  Yet, they are.  It is a felony in this country to distill even a drop.

Back twenty years ago, I was climbing in WV, and at the camp that night the populations of out-of-state rock climbers mingled with the locals.  The locals had 'shine in mason jars.  And that was some of the best whiskey I've ever tasted.  It was like drinking an alcoholic hot pepper, and it was like smoking a cuban cigar, and it was like breathing in the air on a cold Fall day.  Nothing I ever paid for in a liquor store ever matched it.

This video from Reason explains a bit of why almost no one ever gets to experience that.

There is a time and place for everything, except possibly your impression of Christopher Reeve as a lifeguard.

From Capitalist Lion Tamer

I've run across a few sciency links that caught my interest.

• E.O. Wilson, famous scientist, inventor of sociobiology and proponent of the kin selection theory that attempted to explain the selflessness of ant workers has changed his tune.
  

  The researchers offer their own alternative theory, based on standard natural selection, but with a twist: After starting with a focus on a single founder, selection moves to the level of colony. From this perspective, a worker ant is something like a cell — part of a larger evolutionary unit, not a unit unto itself.

  “Our model proves that looking at a worker ant and asking why it is altruistic is the wrong level of analysis,” said Tarnita. “The important unit is the colony.”

  The researchers propose a theoretical narrative that begins with a primordial, solitary ant — perhaps something like the ancient Martialis heureka — that lived near a food source and developed genetic mutations that caused it to feed its offspring, rather than letting them fend for themselves. Called progressive provisioning, such nurture is widespread in insects.

  Another mutation could result in offspring that stayed near the nest, rather than leaving. They would “instinctively recognize that certain things need to be done, and do them,” said Nowak, describing real-world examples. “Put two normally solitary wasps together, and if one builds a hole, the other puts an egg in it. The other sees the egg, and feeds it.”

  That would be enough to form a small but real colony — and from there, eusociality could emerge from an accumulation of mutations that led to a hyper-specialization of tasks, limited reproduction to queens alone and favored the colony’s success above all else. Within this colony, a queen would be analogous to a human egg or sperm cell — a unit that embodies the whole. Worker self-sacrifice is no more nonsensical than that of a white blood cell.

  The researchers called this series of steps a “labyrinth,” one that isn’t easily navigated. Hence the rareness of eusociality, which is believed to have arisen just 10 to 20 times in history. But their theory explains everything that kin selection does, plus what it doesn’t.

  “There is no need whatsoever to invoke kin selection or inclusive fitness,” said Corina — not in eusociality, not in any cooperative behavior.

  Interesting in that kin relationships (while not unimportant) are subordinate to evolutionary changes that allow cooperative behavior.  The relevance to HBD, and evolutionary changes that may have altered human patterns of socialization over the past few millenia, will deserve some pondering.

• I'm curious as to why this report gets mainstream coverage without a hint of disdain, when other plasma theorists are ridiculed.  It's the same thing.  But still, good that the researchers are using real experiments rather than computer models to try and figure something out.
• The Younger Dryas was a period of intense cold almost 13,000 years ago.  Overall, there's been continuous warming since the end of the last ice age - the Younger Dryas period is a sharp, and rather long, exception to that trend.  Some have speculated that a (relatively small) cometary impact may have caused the cold.  This period also saw the extinction of megafauna in N. America, and the demise of the Clovis culture.
  

  In sedimentary deposits dating to the beginning of the YD, impact proponents have reported finding carbon spherules containing tiny nano-scale diamonds, which they thought to be created by shock metamorphism or chemical vapor deposition when the impactor struck.
  The nanodiamonds included lonsdaleite, an unusal form of diamond that has a hexagonal lattice rather than the usual cubic crystal lattice. Lonsdaleite is particularly interesting because it has been found inside meteorites and at known impact sites.

  But, another team of researchers has reported that they found no diamonds in YD boundary layer material.  Instead, they say, it's graphite.

  “Of all the evidence reported for a YD impact event, the presence of hexagonal diamond in YD boundary sediments represented the strongest evidence suggesting shock processing,” Daulton, who is also a member of WUSTL’s Center for Materials Innovation, says.
  However, a close examination of carbon spherules from the YD boundary using transmission electron microscopy by the Daulton team found no nanodiamonds. Instead, graphene- and graphene/graphane-oxide aggregates were found in all the specimens examined (including carbon spherules dated from before the YD to the present). Importantly, the researchers demonstrated that previous YD studies misidentified graphene/graphane-oxides as hexagonal diamond and likely misidentified graphene as cubic diamond.
  The YD impact hypothesis was in trouble already before this latest finding. Many other lines of evidence — including: fullerenes, extraterrestrial forms of helium, purported spikes in radioactivity and iridium, and claims of unique spikes in magnetic meteorite particles — had already been discredited. According to Pinter, “nanodiamonds were the last man standing.”
  “We should always have a skeptical attitude to new theories and test them thoroughly,” Scott says, “and if the evidence goes against them they should be abandoned.”

  Of course, that attitude is also required for existing theories. But nevermind. The fact that there is a YD boundary layer, and it's composed of a thick layer of carbon - well, that should be indicative of something bad going on, like perhaps lots of things burning. I'd be curious to hear what the YD impact proponents have to say about this.

• The Burgess Shale is a fascinating bit of meaty science - and now, there is another.  The new fossil beds are only a few miles from the Burgess deposits, but scientists have already discovered eight taxa previously unknown to man.  Pretty cool.