perfidy

When I was a tyke, I read Mad Magazine all the time. Long before I knew what "randy" and "bazoombies" even meant I though everything they did was absolutely hilarious(, which explains a lot about me). The weirdest stuff sticks with me. I remember back in the early and mid 70's, whenever the people at Mad drew a mob scene, there was always one guy in a corner stuffing his fist in his mouth. I didn't know why, and at age ten I never understood it, but there it always was: a crowd of people going apeshit, and a dude with his hand in his mouth.

Why do I bring this up? Because at approximately 8:15 Eastern time tonight, I was eating my fucking hand. Thirty seconds later, I was screaming triumphant obscenities at the legions of arrogant, ignorant Yankees fans I imagined were just in the other room. At some point, I misplaced my pants.

Those naysayers who believe that baseball is boring can go to hell. Tim McCarver and Joe Buck can go right behind them. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, tonight I watched the most exciting game of baseball I have ever seen, and the best part is the Red Sox won.

My commute is bad for 4PM start times: I leave in the middle of the 2nd or 3rd, usually, after watching as much live update gamecast as I can on mlb.com. Then an agonizing 90 minutes of silence. The Schroedinger's catbox agony of knowing/not knowing what's going on in the game is terrible, and the last few days merciful people with Wi-Fi connections have been keeping my train updated as to the score. Then I get home in the 7th (or later) and watch the end. Home is a sweet relief even when the game almost gives me a coronary.

Today, five innings of game was enough. Any more baseball may have killed me. The wind! The field conditions! Nomar's error! Yankees rally! Nomar's triple! Sox rally! Trot's dinger! That crazy wind! The bullpen by committee is finally working! Red Sox stay alive and win, 9-6, to force a game 7! Damn, it feels good to be a Masshole. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, when Pedro and Clemens go at it again, this has been the best post-season I've ever been witness too. And that includes the agonizing snowing-in-October Indians-Marlins World Series back when I was still a Cleveland fan and the Derek Jeter Game Of Tears last year.

Hope the Cubbies fuck Florida good. I'm'na go watch.

[update] The Cubbies failed to fuck Florida good. The possibility of a snoozer Yankees-Marlins series looms. If that happens.... hey, at least hockey and football are on.

[update] My most sincere condolences to the Chicago Cubs, and to the family and friends of Steve Bartman of Chicago, IL. Steve will be leaving now; is a leper colony in Calcutta far enough away?

[update] And, yes, congratulations to the Florida Marlins. They're not the same team that beat the Indians back in '97, and Dontrelle, Pudge, and the rest of that crew are an incredibly entertaining team to watch. Best of luck to 'em, unless they play the Red Sox.

This Wired article looks at the debate over cloning of food animals. Predictibly, consumers express reluctance to consider buying cloned meat, even though scientists are reasonably certain that it would be safe to eat.

Interestingly, this debate may well be moot: the economics of cloning cattle mean that we won't be eating Clone Steak any time soon. Cloning is not economically effective for raising cattle for slaughter ($72K a pop these days...), but it works when employed instead of breeding to perpetuate a particularly strong genetic line-- making ten copies of your best Hereford. Man! Stud fees galore!

--Editorial handwaving--
People flip out over genetically modified food way too much. Some advances, like the much-touted Vitamin-A enriched Golden Rice, are 100% double plus goods. Others are of more dubious good, like Monsanto seed that goes bad after a year. At this point, the general public is so paranoid about Frankenfood (and note the fear factor in that very slang) that a reasoned debate isn't even possible, even though plenty of food has already been tampered with at the genetic level by pointy-heads with clipboards. This paranoia is no way to feed the world.

On that note, the Wired article does note that the biggest concern of scientists working on cloning cattle is that a clone might escape and try to breed. Although it's hard to imagine a doomsday scenario arising from that event, if the scientists are worried, I'll let them find a solution.

Personally, I would LOVE the economics and technology of cloning to advance to the point that cheap beef could be vatgrown. That would be great! Cheesesteak without the cruelty! Seriously, one reason I don't eat a lot of meat is that I want to do my tiny, symbolic part to help humankind, and a cow takes up a lot of perfectly good grain that could otherwise feed people on the cheap. Vatgrown beef would mitigate this concern, and have the added benefit that a cow didn't have to die. Of course, the Black Angus top-line stuff could/should still be the real thang, but who the hell's going to notice the difference in cafeteria food?

I love the future!

Further contributing to what is adding up to be a fascinating session, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the COPA ("Children's Online Protection Act"), which has twice been struck down by the Third Circuit Court as unnecessarily vague and "constitutionally infirm." The Feds argue that the law is an important tool in fighing the War On Terror Paw-naw-gra-phy.

The usual suspects team up in the honorable defense of horrible things, arguing that the law as written bars adults from engaging in Constitutionally protected activities. Won't somebody please think of the children??

About an hour ago, the Chinese launched their first manned mission into space, with one Chinkonaut aboard. (Okay, that's the last time I'll use that. They made it into orbit, they deserve some props.) The Chinese government decided not to broadcast the launch live, but apparently all went well, and taikonaut Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, 38, is now circling the globe. He will return to Earth sometime tomorrow.

The Washington Post has some good coverage, or just go to the drudge report and use one of his several links. I'll have more on this tomorrow. 

I hope those two fans who blocked the catch make it out of Wrigley Field alive. Helpfully, the network kept putting their picture up on the screen.

I've always wanted to write that headline!

The Supreme Court has denied a US Government appeal of last year's ruling that the government may not revoke the licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana as medicine to patients. This clears the way toward state laws legalizing the perscription of medical marijuana.

Naturally, the government is horribly incensed: "Solicitor General Theodore Olson of the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court and said the decision impaired the government's power 'to enforce the law in an area vital to the public health and safety.' He said the appeals court decision imposed "sweeping and unprecedented restrictions on the government's ability even to investigate possible violations of the law."

Or, possibly, the Supreme Court returned some autonomy to the states.

This is especially interesting because it was only two weeks ago that the Attorney General called for more uniform sentencing guidelines. I'm unwilling to call a wink a blink-- I think this is merely evidence of contrary trends in government, but it's an entertaining dichotomy nevertheless.

[moreover] I see that the Supremes will hear the Pledge of Allegiance case. Ballsy! I wonder which way the Court will go on this one? On one hand, I don't see the need for "Under God" in the Pledge, especially since it's a Cold War relic and not exactly an Exalted Artifact of Time Immemorial. On the other hand, I don't think it's that huge a deal. On the gripping hand, it would be helpful for the Supremes to clarify exactly what they're thinking as regards the separation of Church and State, in several long, elegant, and detailed opinions. Pithiness will be a plus.

[moreover, once over] Allow me to oversimplify. When kids want drugs, it's eeevil and must be stopped. When old people want drugs, Congress can't do enough.

[moreover, overdone] I see from the Volokhs via Howard Bashman that Scalia has recused himself from the Pledge of Allegiance decision. See Bashman's post for discussion of exactly what the courts have and have not agreed to decide.

Via slashdot, we learn that Japanese engineers have developed kung-fu-fighting robots. Morph3 is a foot-tall martial arts dynamo, able to perform backflips and karate moves thanks to his 138 pressure sensors, 30 motors and 14 computers. Naturally, Morph3 runs on Linux. 

Researchers say that they are already hard at work on more intelligent ass-kicking robots. Hopefully, the researchers will not make them bullet-proof and consumed with implacable rage and a desire to destroy their makers. 
 

I was watching the news today, when the anchor starts a lead in for the next story: "Presidential candidate the Reverand Al Sharpton is upset that a new game reinforces negative racial stereotypes."

Now, my first reaction was, "what is the little tubby bastard exercised about now?" After the commercial break, it was revealed that the offensive game is called, and I am as serious as a heartattack,

Gettopoly

The game is a stolen property fencing game. The one property I remember was "Tyrone's Gun Shop." Reverend Al might have a point here.

Since the the game's site is not working, here is a link to a story about the game.

Software company sues student under DMCA for use of "shift" key.

[update] Two hours later: Software company comes to senses.

Over at Bill Whittle's place, there's a new, short post up on the aftermath of the CA Recall Election. I had thought some of this, though not quite so well, when I trolled through the Democratic Underground forum after it became clear that the Terminator would now be the Governator. The Democratic Underground is exactly what it would be if it were designed by an evil genius hired by Karl Rove to discredit the left. Of course, this is exactly what Sovietologist Robert Conquest's second law predicts: "The behavior of an organization can best be predicted by assuming it to be controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."

Amazingly, no one who posts on DU seems to be aware of this.

Anyway, the best bit from Whittle's post:

I just heard on the radio from a Democratic state senator who said that "the people were unable to figure out who they were really angry at," that this was really a vote against George W Bush, only the people weren't smart enough to figure out how to go about it and blamed it on poor old Gray Davis. Yes, in their righteous fury and anger at the Republican President, the People of California elected - a Republican governor! That'll show him! 

But as I just learned from California Democratic Party members, we were too stupid to figure out who to be angry with. Yes, by all means - please continue to tell us how stupid we are. We'll love you with all our hearts! 

... DemocraticUnderground.com is awash in conspiracy theories, and spins on how this is 1) The most flagrant voter fraud since - um - the last election, which was itself only overshadowed once in all of history, that being the time right before; and 2) Really the best thing that could possibly happen, since now the Democratic Sweep of 2004 is assured.

And still these people wonder why, after insulting and demeaning the electorate, their poll numbers continue to go down? Shwartz---sorry, Governor Schwarzenegger and McClintock - two Republicans that essentially split the party ticket - together took home around 60% of Califreakingfornia! And instead of doing the smart thing - let alone the honorable thing - they keep hanging blame wherever they think it will stick. They lost because the machines were rigged. They lost because you voters are so stupid. They lost because of a backroom conspiracy. They lost because you're all racists. Or sheep. Or blinded by cheap glitter.

What an uplifting, inspiring philosophy! How can a simple citizen like me become a part of this great vision of leadership and hope?

This is the real, and very serious problem with the left. The contempt and derision for the electorate, the conspiracy theories, the Bush=Hitler, and all the other wacky shit desperately need to go far, far away and not come back. I sincerely hope that at some point it recovers from this madness, and we can have the relatively sane and mildly acrimonious political arena we once had.