perfidy

Pans can explode or separate when preheated, used on high heat or used for frying.

Today's Stars and Stripes includes coverage of hangover treatments sworn to by soldiers, men, women, and Germans.

Note that the first coupla people the article speaks to (and the only ones pictured if you're reading the electronic edition) are from intelligence units. Also note that they were found at a local bar. This ought not surprise anyone. Not at all. Ah, memories.

For my part, I don't get hangovers. Even when I drank to excess on a regular basis, I was never hung over. I woke up bone tired, achey, and feeling half starved, sure, but that was more likely due to the astonishing volumes of vomit, and concomitant effort to hurl same, than purely the spirits themselves. Never a headache. Unless I'd been cracked in the head.

Tell you what though, that one young stud swearing by a raw egg in a Bloody Mary or some such- geh. Imaginative, but much too gross in the application. What I have seen is medics drink all night, then instead of just crashing for an hour or two before PT, would give themselves IVs of vitamin C and sugar solutions. They were right as rain, in a clear example of nutrition science trumping alchemy.

Does anyone else dabble in the alchemical pursuit of hangover remedy?

Rand links to an excellent speech by Michael Crichton on the subject of complexity and the environment. I really insist that you go read it.

I bought Crichton's most recent book, State of Fear, a little while back but it has been languishing unloved on my bookshelf. After reading this, I will plow through his wooden prose to get at the meaty goodness inside.

But not according to these people:

If I was an OS, though, I imagine that is as reasonable an assignment as any other, and likely moreso.

I also determined that if I were a Nigerian email scammer, I'd be this guy:

I don't remember getting any emails from that dude. Personally, I was hoping for the astronaut guy but no test is perfect.

If you are so inclined, you can also find out what file extension you are. I was not so inclined, but you go right ahead.

Much of the nutrition in a banana is concentrated in one end.

From the department of obscure punctuation, we have the interrobang. A single character constructed by superimposing the exclamation point and the question mark, the interrobang was invented in the early sixties, enjoyed a brief, if mild, popularity before sinking inexorably into obscurity.

American Martin K. Speckter concocted the interrobang itself in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that ads would look better if advertising copywriters conveyed surprised queries using a single mark.

The deluded hopes of hack writers enamored of !?!?!?! constructions were dashed when this idea failed to gain traction.

If you have been unable to concentrate or sleep for not knowing where the International Space Station is, relief is at hand.

[wik] Helpful Reader Ric informs us that there is an even better site for satellite-keeping-track-of. Heavens Above allows you to enter your exact location, and tells you when stuff will be overhead. Awfully damn nifty.

Many snakes are actually quite short if you don't count the tail.

Two entomologists have named three recently discovered slime mold beetles of the genus Agathidium after our President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense. Quentin Wheeler and Kelly Miller were responsible for naming 65 species of slime mold beetles, and aside from A. bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi, they named other bugs after wives, a former wife, Pocahontas, Hernan Cortez, the Aztecs, Darth Vader ("who shares with A. vaderi a broad, shiny, helmetlike head"), their scientific illustrator Frances Fawcett, the Greek words for "ugly" and "having prominent teeth" and the Latin word for "strange," and for various distinguishing features they discovered on the beetles. Also achieving immortality in scientific nomenclature were various geographic locations, such as California, Georgia and a few states in Mexico.

Lest you think that the decision to name slime mold beetles after administration figures is some sort of lame political hit job,

The decision to name three slime-mold beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, however, didn't have anything to do with physical features, says Quentin Wheeler, a professor of entomology and of plant biology at Cornell for 24 years until last October, but to pay homage to the U.S. leaders. "We admire these leaders as fellow citizens who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to do the very difficult and unpopular work of living up to principles of freedom and democracy rather than accepting the expedient or popular," says Wheeler, who named the beetles and wrote the recently published monograph describing the new slime-mold beetle species while a professor at Cornell.

President Bush was pleased with his new namesakes, and called Wheeler in London to thank him.

If you want to acquire your very own Agathidium, for a pet or for ritual sacrifice, Wheeler says, "bushi so far is known from southern Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia; Agathidium rumsfeldi is known from Oaxaca and Hidalgo in Mexico; and Agathidium cheneyi is known from Chiapas, Mexico.

For a super-size version of the above image, suitable for (among other things) desktop wallparper, framing or target practice depending on your proclivities, click here.

The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part, to appreciate the Cardinal Number system.

This carnival is slightly belated, as Christmas travel (and preparations for Christmas travel) kept me from my computer, and from you, dear reader. In recompense, I have attempted to assemble a nifty and link-stuffed carnival for your perusal.

In keeping with the season, I have divided the subject matter into three categories:

Ghosts of Christmas Past

It is a commonplace that yesterday's tomorrows are our todays. However, not all of those tomorrows actually happened. Some of the most interesting tomorrows from our past still might sneak into being.

Deep Space Bombardment presents the original patent for the Orion spacecraft. And is the Orion truly dead?

Medieval artisans were unwitting nanotechnologists, according to the Advances in Nanotechnology blog. Gives new meaning to the idea of the philosopher's stone.

Want to build Atomic rockets in the old style? These people have the know-how.

Percival Lowell thought there were canals on Mars. But you can see more up-to-date maps of Mars in Ralph Aeschliman's Atlas of Mars.

Decoding of the Mammoth genome might lead to its resurrection. This project would likely be a good deal easier than the Jurassic Park scenario, given that close relatives of the fuzzy mammoth are still lumbering around as elephants.

Ghosts of Christmas Present

Antigravitas informs us that the Stardust comet sample return probe will return to Earth in January.

The Israelis have developed a new nanotech material that might make for some rather incredible armor. "[The] material was subjected to severe shocks generated by a steel projectile traveling at velocities of up to 1.5 km/second. The material withstood the shock pressures generated by the impacts of up to 250 tons per square centimeter. This is approximately equivalent to dropping four diesel locomotives onto an area the size of one’s fingernail. During the test the material proved to be so strong that after the impact the samples remained essentially identical compared to the original material." Powered armor might be just around the corner.

In good news for private space initiatives, NASA seeks private carriers to take over from Space Shuttle for near earth missions. In bad news, Jeffrey F. Bell thinks that SSTOs are basically impossible.

Chris Hall of Spacecraft links to an article about our Solar System's seventeen planets. That should make the old mnemonic rather more complicated.

The Pluto Probe is still, hopefully, ready to launch early in the new year. The first launch window opens on January 11th.

In other hot space news, Fred Keische of the Eternal Golden Braid reports that the congressional battle over the future of the Space Shuttle is heating up.

NASA and the Air Force have teamed up to develop a next generation chemical rocket. The new rocket would provide nearly twice as much thrust as current space shuttle engines and to do it safer and more efficiently, by using unique "full flow" preburners that provide more thrust than traditional rocket engines while operating at cooler temperatures.

And here's Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings on an encouraging trend in discussion about space.

The mind behind RocketForge has created a new blog, COTSWatch, to track articles and news about NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) announcements.

It seems that the stately revolution of the Earth is simply not accurate enough for us anymore. Atomic clocks lose a second in three million years, but the unseemly wobble of the Earth requires that this year, a leap second be added to the last day of the year.

Al Fin reports on the "Deep Web" - that huge part of the interweb not normally accessible to ordinary search engines. The Deep web might be 500 times larger than the "surface web," is growing faster, and exceeds in size all the printed matter in the world. That's a lot of information. And that presents a lot of problems, some of which are touched on in this post in the btw.net blog. One answer to that problem is the Google brain, brought to us by Joshua Bell's Personal Blog.

From my cobloggers, helping robots see better and Injecting microchips into yourself containing vital information - good idea or mark of the beast?

Mr. Shape Shifter links to DNA Pyramids and thinks that nanomachines can't be far behind. Cellular life is in essence a proof of concept for nanotechnology, and biotech might well provide the tools that allow us to begin to make true nanotech. One nifty tool might be a particularly fascinating and powerful part of the anatomy of a small microbe, as reported by the Biosingularity blog.

The future isn't always tomorrow. Some bits of the future that have arrived early, and most of them make excellent gifts. Here's a couple lists.

In a round up of changes happening right now, from the founders of the Carnival of Tomorrow, the Speculist reports in Better all the time #27 that things are, well, better all the time.

Ghosts of Christmas Future

In the future, we might all be dead.

Ken Talton links to an idea for cheap access to space.

The Space Law Probe is all about Getting' Jiggy in Space. Just to make it into space is cool. Makin it in space would logically be even better.

But for those who say, "I'm a fighter, not a lover," there's always ASATs, Soviet space weapons, military space vehicles, and Weaponizing Space in general.

"The art of prophecy is very difficult - especially with respect to the future. --Mark Twain" The central thesis of the Singularity is that it is not merely very difficult, but perhaps impossible to predict the future. Nevertheless, there are those who will try. Among them are a small cadre of science fiction writers who are attempting to divine the indivinable. Among the best of this elite cadre are:

• Vernor Vinge, who is coming out with a new novel (finally!) in May, called Rainbows End
• Charles Stross, who maintains a journal, and has posted his excellent novel Accelerando online.
• Greg Egan, author of some of the most mind expanding fiction I've run across, has an online presence here, where you can find some of his short works, and much else of interest.

For non fiction, it's not too late to give your favorite technophile a present. Especially if that technophile is you. Chris Phoenix, of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, has his list of best nanotech books here, including a link to an online version of Drexler's Engines of Creation.

The web home of the singularity is perhaps Ray Kurzweil's site, but others are also hoping to make a mark, including Singularity Now, which hopefully will end up better than the movie his site logo is based on. Here's another singularity website.

Singularly appropriate for the Christmas version of the Carnival of Tomorrow, and one of the most fascinating possibilities of nanotechnology (aside from amorous utility fog) is the potential for creating the Christmas Bush. The Christmas Bush first appeared in fiction in Robert Forward's novel Flight of the Dragonfly and its sequels, and also in The Turing Option, co-written by MIT AI researcher Marvin Minsky and Harry Harrison. The Christmas Bush is detailed in, well, detail, in these papers by its inventor, CMU roboticist Hans Moravec. Here's a pic:

And if you're going to have your own personal Christmas Bush, you also need a suitable spaceship for it to inhabit. Probably the best choice (consonant with current knowledge of physics) is the Valkyrie antimatter powered interstellar rocket designed by Charles Pellegrino, polymath and coauthor of one of my favorite books, Killing Star. (Available for as little as 75 cents on Amazon.)

If a multi-year journey to another star is unacceptable to you, you might need a warp drive. These guys think they can build one.

The future isn't all about technology. Only mostly. But among other things, politics will certainly have a large impact on how we live our lives. Wars and strife and violence are likely to be on the menu. But one of the most interesting ideas for how to shape the future comes from (in its most detailed form) from James Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge and now a blogger at Albion's Seedling. Just for a taste of what the anglosphere idea may have in store for us, imagine that the fifty-first state isn't Puerto Rico, or even one of the provinces of a balkanized Canada. Rather, Guyana.

Well, I could find more, but this post is already tragically late. Hope you enjoyed it, and don't forget to check out last week's carnival was at the Speculist. If you would like to contribute to or host an upcoming Carnival of Tomorrow, please write to:

mrstg87 {@ symbol} yahoo {dot} com
or
bowermaster {@ symbol} gmail {dot} com

It's like clockwork.

Every year, right along with the weepy encomiums to some Jewish schmoe who got nailed up for trying to get people to be nice to each other and the kitchy, dippy foolishness that drips from every tree, building, and television in these United States, come the nattering nabobs of negativity.

"Christmas is too religious!" "It's too secular!" It's too commercial!" "It's unfair to atheists!" It's unfair to people without families!" "It's unfair to me!"

Any more it's really just part of the season. Suicides rise. Families split. Hospitals fill up with busted legs, busted lips, and bitter husbands full of spite and too much eggnog. In fact, even in years where the pundits don't crow about some fatuous "War on Christmas," its almost fashionable to talk the season down like we're all super cool teenagers trying to distance ourselves from our oh-so-humiliating parents.

Personally I mostly dig Christmas. Sure, I don't so much love the six-week shopping season and all the glitter and chintz, but I guess other people do so live and let live is what I say. But do I love spending time with my family, opening mystery boxes fulla loot, and gorging myself on turkey, cookies, and wine. C'mon! That's a good time!

Nevertheless I am in the habit of being deeply negative about Christmas music. In general, I hate it. Aside from a few beautiful classics (mostly hymns) Christmas music as a genre is the cloying and nasty auditory cousin of cat pee, of puke and disinfectant, of unwashed old ladies wearing far too much perfume crammed into a tiny hot room. Worse yet, I can't just block it out. My mind doesn't work that way. If it's playing, I'm listening, and if I'm listening, I'm suffering a little. Poor me, right?

It's easy for me to get worked up about this; I just ride in on the surf of everyone else's bitterness. But even as I can get carried away in paroxysms of fury at "Little Drummer Boy" and techno editions of "Sleigh Ride," I think it is also worth remembering (for me and you alike) that Christmas means more things than fatty rum drinks, crammed full malls and caterwauled carols. You've got to find the good and try to ignore the bad.

In his faux-memoir Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor writes about the town's Catholic priest, Father Emil, who foregoes a second finger of brandy on Christmas eve because

[e]ven on Christmas Eve, one finger is the correct portion, by him, and it's a miserable mistake to think that two would be twice as good, and three even better, or putting both hands around the bottle and climbing into it. That's no Christmas. The true Christmas bathes every little thing in light and makes one cookie a token, one candle, one simple pageant more wonderful than anything seen on stage or screen.

Christmas is indeed more special the more simple things are kept. If you're a Christian, better to focus on the simple beauty of Jesus' life work, and celebrate the joys of family and friends. If you're not, it is a season to find solace in friends or family, or the simple pleasures of solitary contemplation and silly Santa headgear.

This all comes to mind because a few weeks ago there crossed my desk a modest and gentle-hearted Christmas music compilation that I actually enjoy, curated by maverick filmmaker John Waters. Waters' films are like a grotesque inverse of Keillor's pretty small-town jewel boxes. Of course, where Keillor is likely to serve the Lundbjergs a plate of tuna hotdish in that slow tweed voice of his, Waters is more likely to serve Divine a dogshit sandwich in a nasal Baltimore honk. Still, at the core of their best works is a sweetness that makes them kindred souls.

A John Waters Christmas (which came out in 2004) is a slam-dunk collection of Christmas music that fully embraces the cheesy, kitschy side as well as the sour grudging side of the holiday, and spikes both with a bracing dose of the bizarre.

Given that it is John Waters it's a no brainer that he would have included something from sweet-natured freakshow Tiny Tim, in this case "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Tiny Tim's Disney counterparts The Chipmunks show up too, with a loopy version of "Sleigh Ride" that hammers the irritating little tune into your head with brio.

Even better than these already high points of kidding-or-not Christmasania are the less well known selections. Waters has managed to track down a rare copy of the legendary "Santa Claus is a Black Man" by Teddy Vann, and he includes it as the capper on a wide-ranging set of outsider Christmas music ranging from the high camp of the sad-orphan ballad "Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child's Prayer)" and treacly story "Little Mary Christmas" to the bitter empty-wallet rant of "Here Comes Fatty Claus" (with the immortal chorus "Here comes fatty with his sack of shit"). These are songs you can't believe were ever recorded, much less released to the public. Were the artists serious? Could they possibly have been serious? If so, what were they thinking?

However, Waters didn't put this together to mock Christmas with chintzy foolishness but to celebrate the myriad ways people approach Christmas, positive and negative. Thus in the midst of all the demented novelty sing-alongs and syrupy dying-orphan songs there is time for real beauty. "First Snowfall," a fuzzy winter instrumental by the Chicago hipster band The Coctails, is a gorgeous meditation full of mellow vibraphone and Theremin. This quiet piece is complemented by the classic doo-wop of "Christmas Time is Here" by Stormy Weather and the Motown sound of "I Wish You A Merry Christmas" by Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva. All three are high-quality and perfectly serious well wishes for the season. Moreover, let's be frank. Despite his bizarre voice and appearance Tiny Tim wasn't putting us on, and his rendition of "Rudolph" is as sweet and true as can be.

This is the key. No matter how outrageous Waters' films may sometimes be, they retain an innocence at their heart that disarms all the layers of winking irony that viewers lay on top.

If he had been joking the joke would have fallen flat. But he's not, and A John Waters Christmas ends up a surprisingly fine collection of Christmas novelties.

With his Baltimore charm, his little mustache, and his sly smirky face, Waters is the master of the tacky. Yet he truly loves tackiness for the modest sincerity at its core. Like his movies, A John Waters Christmas sums up all the varied sides of the Christmas season from the bitter to the lovely (not so much with the Jesus-y, but plenty of folks have that covered already) with a gentle winsome cheeriness.

This collection deserves to be on the shelf of anyone with a sweet-cynical bent and a penchant for the weird. This will be in my holiday rotation for years and years to come.

(This post also appears at blogcritics.org.)

It actually causes me physical pain to write the words down in electrons and photons, since I am a godless liberal from Massachusetts, but.... "Merry Christmas" to all the Ministry's readers. I surely hate our freedom almost as much as I hate our American values. And the baby Jesus. But Merry Christmas to all! (It burns! Oh, the burning!)

(Feh.)

In keeping with the spirit of the season, and as a special lagniappe to our Buckethead, here is (via BoingBoing), a wonderful page full of images of aerospace-themed New Years greeting cards from the former Soviet Union.

Hawkins posted his now-annual top ten list of worst utterancesfrom the Democratic Underground, and I couldn't help but go look. It's like rubbernecking adn accidents. You know it's not quite right, but you do it anyway. The sampling of quotes is predictably tendentious and irritating. Of course, you could find equal amounts of goofiness (if not bile) at a UFO convention, Evangelist Tent Rally or a Burning Man festival. But this one just tugs at my heart:

3) seabeyond: "i refuse kentuck i just refuse. why do you think the (American) people are so dumb because they have been being dumb down consistantly alst decade especially during bush time. i refuse and tell my children i refuse to allow them to be dumb down. they had better use their brain to follow me. i have high expectation,. i will not feed into the dumbing down of america. i tell my friends, exactly i expect more out of them, i especially tell my older nieces and nephews and their friends, i will not play their dumb down game

no no no"

I'm afraid that unless his or her) fellow gene donor is a damn sight smarter, his kids have little hope but to play the dumb down game.

From our pal the Maximum Leader, we find this apt Christmastime quiz: Just how evil are you? Without any sort of lying or exaggeration, or gaming the quiz to get the answer I wanted, I discover to my shock (but not surprise) that I am

No doubt some will find this knowledge a confirmation of their warped perceptions of reality.

You don't have to buy anything, donate any money, or even think happy thoughts. Just send us links for the upcoming Carnival of Tomorrow. Futuristic, scientific, or even just weird. Seriously. Just send 'em in, and we'll call off the hit teams headed to your house at this very moment.

Via James of Hell in a Handbasket, we find this heartwarming (and braineating) Christmas poem.

The Canadian High Court has declared that group sex clubs are kosher in the Great White North.

"Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society," said the opinion of the seven-to-two majority, written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

I guess you'd have to be both if you're a swingin' canuck.

From a while back, Kathy linked to this interesting research from MIT. Apparently, the tin foil helmets believed by paranoics everywhere to block the signals from the government's mind control satellites actually attract the signals, not repel them. The MIT researchers discovered that,

[after testing] several hat designs, there was "a 30 db amplification at 2.6 Ghz and a 20 db amplification at 1.2 Ghz, regardless of the position of the antenna on the cranium."

..."the helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for 'radio location' (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites."

The researchers speculate that the government is behind the rumour that tinfoil hats protect people from invasive radio signals in order to encourage their use and therefore to enhance the effectiveness of their radio control program.

The author of the Register piece pointed out, though,

We're no experts, but the researchers did admit to using Reynolds brand aluminum foil, rather than the classic tin foil, and we wonder if this could have skewed the results. We wonder also if a tinfoil propeller beanie might scatter the signals more effectively than a plain hat, and offer this humble suggestion for the benefit of the paranoiac community until further testing is complete.

Looks like I will have to do some research into a more effective lining for my baseball cap. And my coworkers always wonder why I am never seen without my hat...

If you are in a repressive work environment, interweb-wise, here's a nifty trick from O'Reilly. Rather than use the rather obvious cloaking or anonymizing services, which are often themselves blacklisted by internal proxy servers and firewalls, use google:

The Google Proxy makes use of Google's translation service. Just enter

http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.forbiddensite.com

Where "www.forbiddensite.com" stands for the verboten URL. Google will return an English to English translation of the site. Which is to say, the original site. The connection to the bad site is directed first to Google, so the page won't be blocked unless your blacklist includes google.com. Which is unlikely in the extreme. The "langpair" parameter is set in the example above to English and English. You could, for example, set it to fr|fr to read naughty French sites in the original. Or, you could actually translate them. (In which case, the first variable is the original language, the second is the language you wish to translate into.)

Note, however, that this method of ducking blacklists does not hide your IP from the site you visit, as the cloak or anonymizer sites do.

Ted's got a good joke over at Rocket Jones.

Yesterday, I posted a link to an article on WorldNetDaily regarding violence on the US Mexican border. Knowing that this particular news source is sometimes a little, shall we say, overeager; I included the word "apparently" in my link, not having had the time to research more thoroughly. Despite my caution, Phil jumped all over me. This morning, government work having slown down for the day off that has nothing to do with Christmas, I decided to check it all out.

It turns out that the story has some fairly solid basis in fact. The key incident is this – a dump truck laden with marijuana got stuck in the Rio Grande between Mexico and Texas. Border Patrol agents began unloading the truck until "men who looked like Mexican troops yanked the truck into Mexico, according to authorities."

The Austin-American Statesman relates:

Hudspeth County Chief Deputy Mike Doyal told the El Paso Times: "Everyone had the presence of mind not to cause an international incident or start shooting."

Thursday evening, Border Patrol agents tried to stop the dump truck on Interstate 10, sheriff's officials said. The truck fled to Mexico in the Neely's Crossing area.

The truck got stuck in the riverbed, and the driver took off running. Doyal said the driver returned with armed men, including men who arrived in official-looking vehicles with overhead lights and what appeared to be Mexican soldiers in uniform and with military-style rifles.
The standoff ended when the "soldiers" used a bulldozer to pull the dump truck into Mexico, sheriff's department officials said.

Officials with the Mexican army, used in anti-narcotics operations, could not be reached for comment.

The Border Patrol, however, disputes parts of that story. The El Paso Times reported that

Border Patrol officials now dispute the allegation by officials with the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department that the men on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande were the Mexican military.

"We have no evidence of that. We don't believe it was true," Paul Beeson, deputy chief patrol agent in El Paso, said of the incident.

Border Patrol officials noted that the Mexican military uses G3 rifles, and not AK-47s, which were allegedly used by the men in the standoff.

Beeson said Border Patrol agents started to unload the drugs when the driver returned with smugglers who were dressed in camouflage fatigues and who carried AK-47s.

Sheriff's deputies, who were called for back-up, saw the smugglers, 15 to 20 of them, Sheriff Arvin West said. Some of them hooked the truck to a bulldozer and towed it out of the river, while others stood watch holding the weapons, but not pointing them.

"They appeared to have a military style to them -- their way of standing. It was military-style people," West said. But he added, "I don't know that they were (the military)."

West admitted that everything the men had, from the fatigues, to the red dashboard light in their vehicles, to their weapons, are readily available to people outside the military.

So, at the very least, we have "military looking people" confronting Border Patrol Agents and local law enforcement. Clearly, even if these "military looking people" were not actually members of the Mexican army; they outgunned the U.S. Law Enforcement presence on the border and no one did anything to stop the drug smugglers, either from a desire to avoid an international incident or a simple common sense desire not to get involved in a gunfight with heavily armed bad people.

And there certainly are a lot of heavily armed bad people on the border, and those bad people are growing increasingly willing to use those weapons on Border Patrol agents attempting to protect the border. The San Antonio Express-News offers some information on the drug smugglers:

Paramilitary enforcers for Mexican drug cartels are responsible for a wave of violence in Nuevo Laredo that poses a serious threat for residents on both sides of the Southwest border, U.S. law enforcement officials told a House committee Thursday.

Assassinations, kidnappings and daylight shootouts between military-trained gangs place citizens at risk along the border where violence has soared past historical norms, officials said.

"These paramilitary groups work for the cartels as enforcers and are a serious threat to public safety on both sides of the border," said Chris Swecker, the FBI assistant director for the criminal investigative division.

…The root of the escalating violence is the use of trained paramilitary enforcers known as Los Zetas by the Gulf Cartel, which is still supervised by kingpin Osiel Cardenas Guillen, despite his 2003 arrest, Reid said.

Los Zetas is comprised of former members of Mexico's special forces, many of them military deserters hired by the Gulf Cartel, according to the FBI.

While not as bad as actual Mexican army forces attacking U.S. Border Patrol agents, Mexican Special Forces-staffed and -trained paramilitary enforcers attacking U.S. Border Patrol agents is still pretty damned bad. And given the level of corruption and intimidation in and on the Mexican authorities - both civilian and military – the idea is not all that far fetched.

And the incident with the dump truck is not an isolated one. Back in the El Paso Times we learn that

Men in military gear protecting drug shipments are not an uncommon sight on the border, officials with the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition said.

Earlier this year, investigators doing surveillance in Zapata County in South Texas spotted 25 armed people in dark fatigues carrying duffel bags, said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., the coalition's chairman.

"The way they were dressed, they appeared to be military- oriented. Clean-cut. Some type of military organization," Gonzalez said.

The backdrop for all this is the fact that assaults on Border Patrol agents doubled in fiscal year 2005. According to the Arizona Republic,

Nationwide, the number of assaults nearly doubled, with attacks on agents based in Arizona making up more than half the incidents.

From Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, the Border Patrol registered 687 assaults on its agents, up from 349 during the same period along the Southwest and Canadian borders. All but one of the attacks occurred on the Southwest border, officials said. In Tucson and Yuma, there were 365 assaults during the past fiscal year, up from 179 the year before.

…Federal law enforcement officials told Congress last week that drug cartels from Mexico have gotten much more aggressive in smuggling drugs and people across the border, hiring local gangs on both sides of the international line and arming members with assault rifles, grenades and other weapons.

…Agents say they frequently are subjected to grapefruit-size rocks being thrown at their trucks from the Mexican side of the border.

Trucks carrying drugs or migrants have tried to ram Border Patrol vehicles when the agents attempt to stop the vehicles.

The Indianapolis Star adds,

Shootings are becoming more frequent as well. In the Tucson and Yuma sectors in fiscal year 2005, there were 45 shootings, up from 15 in 2004. Two agents from Nogales were hit in an ambush as they tracked drug smugglers through the desert on June 30 in one of the year's most serious assaults. Both are recovering. Neither is back on duty.

This should be worrying to anyone. The Border Patrol is unable to patrol the border. Local law enforcement can't fill the gap. Hundreds of thousands of people cross the border without our say-so every year. And when the border patrol does attempt to intervene, the response is ever more often a violent one, and the border patrol agents are outgunned.

As I've said many times before, it really doesn't matter what you feel about immigration. Whether you favor lots of immigrants or none, illegal immigration is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. And further, having a complete lack of control over the border is a serious problem in an era where terrorists would like to kill large numbers of Americans.

The Dallas Morning News has a fascinating article on the issue. Of all the articles I've linked, read all of this one. The authors interviewed Val Verde County Sheriff D'Wayne Jernigan, who has dealt with smugglers and drug gangs both as sheriff and customs agent.

But in the last year, the risks of drug-fueled terrorism have raised the stakes to scary levels. Rifles and handguns have been replaced by rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, and high-caliber machine guns.

"Now the bad guys have more sophisticated training and better equipment," Sheriff Jernigan said. "They're better armed and willing to shoot."

One of the reasons they're more willing to shoot is explained by Jernigan's deputy:

"To make matters worse, a few months ago we picked up information that a new order went out from the Zetas that no more drug loads would be lost," he said. "It used to be that losing a load now and then was a cost of doing business. Now the Zetas are telling their people they can't give up a load. They're to fight the cops. ...

"We're caught in the middle until somebody wins," Chief Deputy Simons said. "It's not just drug smuggling anymore. You have to think of it as narco-terrorism."

To get an idea of the scale of the mismatch, there's this:

For the border sheriffs, it is, at best, an uneven battle.

Sheriff Jernigan has 13 deputies to patrol a county of 3,100 square miles – roughly three-fourths the size of New Jersey. Most of the county's 45,000 residents live in Del Rio. The rest are scattered across isolated ranches and small communities, connected to state highways via gravel ranch roads or private twisting dirt roads. The deputies also patrol roughly 90 miles of river frontage, including thick stands of carrizo (cane) and limestone cliffs.

"What we need is money to put more boots on the ground and give these guys better training and equipment," Sheriff Jernigan said.

"But this isn't just our fight. ... If border law enforcement doesn't work, than the rest of the country is going to lose."

To be sure, there are also the Border Patrol agents, but at 12,000 – many of whom are bureaucrats and not actually on the border – that's not really that many. The smugglers have the advantage of tactical surprise, as they can decide when and where they cross. They also can concentrate their forces to gain the advantage locally, even when it would be impossible for them to take on all the opposing U.S. forces. For a border as long, and as uninhabited, as this one, we certainly need more agents, and a more aggressive plan.

As for aggressiveness, the Homeland Security Department made a small step and addressed one of the border sheriff's biggest complaints when they ended the controversial "catch and release" policy for illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico – the "OTMs." OTMs were released with a "notice to appear," pending deportation proceedings. Sheriff Jernigan said,

"The OTMs were coming through in droves from all over the world. They'd come up to us, asking where to find a Border Patrol agent. We'd see them later, waiting to hitch a ride along Highway 90. And no one had any idea of where they were going or what they might do once they got there."

And, it's not just drugs:

In Vega Verde, a neighborhood along the river west of Del Rio that borders a major smuggling route,thieves come across the river, hit the homes there and get back to Mexico before deputies can arrive.

"They're taking guns, jewelry, air conditioners, anything they can get on a raft and get across," Deputy Faz said. "Landowners are frustrated. And my concern is that people will start taking the law in their own hands. What's going to happen if residents take up their hunting rifles against some Zetas bringing a load of dope across?"

Recently, deputies frustrated with the inaction of Mexican authorities staged an impromptu raid, taking boats across the river and seizing stolen property.

"The funny thing is, with all this activity on the river, the Border Patrol never showed up," Deputy Jose Luis Blancarte said. "We're bringing back TVs and air conditioners and nobody saw it? We don't have to worry about terrorists sneaking suitcase nukes across the border. They could be bringing whole bombs, and no one would know."

The border sheriffs say their main concern is the safety of their residents. "We don't want to be immigration officers," Sheriff Jernigan said. "We just want to make sure our counties are safe. To do that we need help, and that help has to come from the federal government.

"My nightmare is that it will take another 9-11 attack to wake up this country about the vulnerability of the border," he said. "And some border sheriff is going to have to say it came through his county."

From one of the commenters at Murdoc's place, apparently we are having border clashes with Mexican military forces, and no one is talking about it. Murdoc's beloved strykers could certainly be of use in this situation, although I still dig my proposed solution.

The Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad.

Found this somewhere. I found these tidbits especially useful, and will immediately integrate them into my personal shame and humiliation avoidance program:

Be careful of what you headbutt. Some doors are not as sturdy as they might first look, and it can be hard to estimate your own strength immediately after inhaling nitrous oxide.

You should never put a string of lit Black Cat firecrackers in someone’s back pocket while they’re on stage playing bass guitar with their band. Even if they fucked your knee up by reversing the figure-four on you that one time. And even if you crack up at just the idea of someone with their pants are on fire jumping up and down and spinning around and around like a dog chasing its tail while trying to figure out what’s going on. Yup, someone could get their ass burned, so it’s wrong. Despite the fact that shit is really, really funny.

Sure, she’s good-lookin’. She’s also crazy. Crazy as a shithouse rat. Run for your life.

The bouncer at Mons Venus always knows best. If he says you should stop, then you should stop.

The Renaissance Faire may not be the source of all your problems, but it sure as shit isn’t helping any.

Sadly this piece of wisdom comes too late for me:

Dungeons and Dragons never goes away. Girls will still sense that shit 20 years later.

Andrew Ian Dodge points us to a Cthulhu Wiki. Pretty cool, even though the top level navigation is weak. Bonus: actual Lovecraft short stories, like "The Rats in the Walls."

Even though John stood me up for our Civ IV deathmatch, the coward, I am a kind-hearted and generous soul. So go check out Carnival of Music #24, hosted by its originator.

From the "So weird, it has to be true" files comes this report that Uncle Joe Stalin attempted to breed half-man, half-ape super warriors.

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine". The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialisation: new cities, architecture, and a new egalitarian society were being created.

Along with the red terror, and just around the corner the engineered famine in the Ukraine and the purges.

Mr Ivanov was highly regarded. He had established his reputation under the Tsar when in 1901 he established the world's first centre for the artificial insemination of racehorses.

Mr Ivanov's ideas were music to the ears of Soviet planners and in 1926 he was dispatched to West Africa with $200,000 to conduct his first experiment in impregnating chimpanzees.

Meanwhile, a centre for the experiments was set up in Georgia - Stalin's birthplace - for the apes to be raised.

Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail.

A final attempt to persuade a Cuban heiress to lend some of her monkeys for further experiments reached American ears, with the New York Times reporting on the story, and she dropped the idea amid the uproar.

When all of his experiments failed utterly, Ivanov was sentenced to five years in prison, though he was merely exiled to Kazakhstan. He was lucky it wasn't the gulags or a bullet, but in any event he died not long after, falling ill from standing on a freezing rail platform.

Bizarre experiments and programs were a near constant in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was renowned, often unjustly, for pushing back the frontiers of science. We remember Soviet successes in the space race, and their ability to construct a large and well-equipped war machine. But the failures were much more the rule than the exception. Aside from the tragic failures of forced collectivization and the industrial programs, Soviet science was a morass of bad ideas and programs inspired by ideology rather than rational inquiry. Lysenkoism was only the most obvious wrong turn. Further, most Soviet successes were the results of individual genius rather than a system that produced results. The T-34, the AK-47, and most of the Soviet Space program were the achievements of individual geniuses working despite the system. The Soviet Space program largely collapsed after Korolev, the chief designer, died as a result of the inefficiencies of the Soviet medical system.

Still, reading that article made me think: if the program had succeeded, what would the effect have been on Nazi attitudes toward race? Confronted with super soldiers invulnerable to pain and privation, and derived from, literally, sub-human stock, would they have initiated their own program?

Carnival of Tomorrow #15, the King Kong edition, is up at the Speculist. Lots of futuristic goodness there, so do go check it out. And next week, the Ministry will be hosting Carnival of Tomorrow #16, the Christmas edition. If any of you have hot tips on technological gimcrackery, egghead scientists disrobing shy and reclusive nature, or giant fighting robots, email me. The Ministry has thoughtfully provided email links to all the ministers in the left sidebar, just click on our names.

Me! I'm fascinating and lazy!

Bears are strong and independent creatures who roam in the forest in search of food. Bears are usually gentle, but anger one and be prepared for their full fury! You're big, you won't back down from a fight, you have a bit of a temper -- classic attributes of a bear. Intelligent and resourceful, though lazy at times, you are a fascinating creature of the wild.

You were almost a: Turtle or a Groundhog
You are least like a: Squirrel or a MouseWhat Cute Animal Are You?

Thanks to Princess Cat for linkage to the Cute Animal Quiz.

This week's Carnival of the Recipes is up, replete with holiday party recipe goodness!

The US House of Representatives voted to construct a wall along the US-Mexican border. The usual suspects will decry this as racist, or suspect, or even just unfriendly toward our prosperous and friendly neighbors to the south. I don't think this is necessarily the case. I don't have a problem with individual Mexicans. I don't have a problem with Mexicans - even in large numbers - moving northwards in an orderly and legal fashion.

I do, however, have a problem with most of the Mexican nation shouting, "Hey! Look! Terrorists!" and sneaking over the border en masse while we're looking the other way. Despite the predictions of many dreamy-eyed one-world-staters, the importance of the nation-state has not withered away. And one of the essentials of national soveriegnty is control over the borders. If we can't keep the damn furriners out with the existing border, than by god we should build a better one.

Sadly, it looks like the planned wall won't really be a wall, exactly, but rather a security fence with cameras. In other words, looking north from the otherside of the border will, in essence, be much like looking in at any standard issue industrial facility. Which, in essence, is the whole relationship Mexico has with the US anyway. So no worries!

What we should build, just because we can and because it would make a much better statement is a combination of this:

And this:

That would just be fun.

[wik] Bram adds: We’re going to need some cheap Mexican labor to build a wall that big! Good thing there is plenty available.

Christmas Cheer; and of course the traditional Christmas assault and battery:

The Ontario County Sheriff's Department says the shopper flew into a rage after another woman bumped into her while waiting in line at a cash register.

Deputies say she grabbed a tape dispenser and hit a 63-year-old woman in the face, then kicked her several times. She's also accused of punching the woman's daughter when she tried to break up the fight, then hitting her in the face with a cell phone.

Then the woman reportedly screamed obscenities and fought with the deputy who arrested her.

I considered getting this as a Christmas gift for Johno,

but considering what I got him for his birthday, his wife would probably drive down from Massachusetts and kill me.

Attentive readers will be aware that I supported the war in Iraq from the beginning. I had some few quibbles about the Patriot act, but on the whole felt that the powers it granted our government were reasonable given the threats that face us.

But what is entirely unacceptable, if true, is the report in the Times that the administration secretly allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrent.

Some of those who object to the operation argue that is unnecessary. By getting warrants through the foreign intelligence court, the N.S.A. and F.B.I. could eavesdrop on people inside the United States who might be tied to terrorist groups without skirting longstanding rules, they say.

The standard of proof required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is generally considered lower than that required for a criminal warrant ­ intelligence officials only have to show probable cause that someone may be "an agent of a foreign power," which includes international terrorist groups ­ and the secret court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years. In 2004, according to the Justice Department, 1,754 warrants were approved. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can grant emergency approval for wiretaps within hours, officials say.

I can understand that people in the NSA and elsewhere in the intelligence community want to have the ability to act quickly to prevent some very bad people from causing us harm. That is admirable. But in their zeal to prosecute the war on terror, we must be aware of the consequences of the actions that we take. We must be very cautious in granting powers to government, and especially to secret government intelligence agencies. There is already far too much secrecy in government. Vast powers can just as easily - even more easily - be used for ill as for good. To err on the side of caution is a good rule of thumb when it comes to liberty.

However, blatantly violating the Constitution is not a reasonable exercise of executive power no matter how "bad" the people we wiretapped are. No matter how clear the connection to known foriegn terrorists is, the law and our constitution must be obeyed. Liberty is more important than safety. Much more.

This gadget may not have the sleek modernistic styling of my earlier request, but just think of the possibilities with this baby: 

By way of the Claremont Institute blog and someone I can't remember, we find Judge Bork on Original Intent and the Martini:

Martini's Founding Fathers: Original Intent Debatable

Eric Felten's essay on the dry martini is itself near-perfect ("Don't Forget the Vermouth," Leisure & Arts, Pursuits, Dec. 10). His allusion to constitutional jurisprudence is faulty, however, since neither in law nor martinis can we know the subjective "original intent" of the Founding Fathers. As to martinis, the intent may have been to ease man's passage through this vale of tears or, less admirably, to employ the tactic of "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."

What counts in mixology is the "original understanding" of the martini's essence by those who first consumed it. The essence remains unaltered but allows proportions to evolve as circumstances change. Mr. Felten's "near-perfect martini" is the same in principle as the "original-understanding martini" and therefore its legitimate descendant. Such latter-day travesties as the chocolate martini and the raspberry martini, on the other hand, are the work of activist bartenders.

Mr. Felten lapses into heresy only once. He prefers the olive to the lemon peel because the former is a "snack." Dropping a snack into a classic drink is like garnishing filet mignon with ketchup. The correct response when offered an olive is, "When I want a salad, I'll ask for it."

-Robert H. Bork
The Hudson Institute
Washington

I couldn't agree more.

If anyone is looking to spend $500 on a worthy cause, I think one of these would make an excellent Christmas gift for, for example, me.

Via Rand Simberg, we find the Battle for Monrovia, or The Definitive Guide to Gangsta Hip-Hop Urban Combat. A true classic, and one that illustrates why many third world military forces are so... ineffective.

While engaged in a near futile, almost entirely unsucessful attempt to acquire a photograph of the mayor of my hometowan, I discovered this magical place:

The Internet's Most Comprehensive Source of U.S. Political Biography, or, The Web Site That Tells Where the Dead Politicians are Buried

Check it out. Look up your hometown. Enjoy.

When one thinks of stealing, what generally comes to mind is items of easily portable value - jewels, cash, cars, and the like. What doesn't come to mind is silos. Tall, cylindrical structures for storing grain. If you had asked me, I would not have thought it possible to steal a silo. Nevertheless, an Akron, Ohio man was convicted by my mom for doing just that. Retired, and readily available for civic duties like jury service, mom was one of twelve upright citizens who put the kabosh on this silo-thieving maniac.

Who knows what might have happened had his criminal career gone unthwarted? The growing epidemic of silo-grifting might be of serious import. Silos might be gateway structures that lead to even more dangerous building theft. Unpunished for abducting silos and selling them on the brisk farm outbuilding black market, he might have moved on to bigger game. Like turnpike tollbooths. Or stripmall yogurt franchises. Or even U-Store-It warehouses.

However, it should be noted that this guy, Thomas Woosnam, was probably not cut out for a life of criminal wrongdoing. When confronted by the authorities, his only defense was, "He thought when he took these (silos) that he could take them." Apparently he believed that since they were abandoned, and not being used, they were free for the taking. Quipped Assistant County Prosecutor Scott Salisbury, "At age 3 or 4 you learn to keep your hands off other people's stuff. (Woosnam) never learned that lesson.'' We all know that ignorance of the law is no excuse. But a corollary of that bit of folk wisdom might be, "lack of a plausible excuse leads to soggy pepper steak at the county jail."

Hats off to mom, fighting crime in the big city.

[wik] At least the accused wasn't the Medina City Mayor, as has often been the case in the past. Medina has more executive malfeasance per capita than any city I'm aware of. Plus corrupt judges with cross-dressing murderous sons. And crack-smoking ex mayors living with prostitututes. And goofy hippie mayors who take out full page adds in the local paper consisting solely of the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine. And much, much more.

I have been meme tagged by Princess Cat. I am enjoined to reveal my five weirdest habits. This presents a problem for me, given that by some estimations (my wife's, for example) all my habits are weird. By my estimation, none are. How can anything I do be weird. Weird, almost by definition, is what other people do. So, here I will attempt to figure out what my five weirdest habits are.

• Habit the first: I am absent minded, from a long line of absent minded forebears. This has, on occasion, caused me great consternation when I forget to bring along things like wallets, ID badges for work, cell phones, etc. To attempt to forestall this, I have developed a mantra that I must recite every time I leave the house. The Mantra contains everything I might need to survive outside the house. If I am interrupted, I must start the Mantra over or forget something. The Mantra also includes visual effects as I pat various pockets and bags to determine that the named items are in fact on my person.
• Habit the second: I am a fairly particular person. Once I determine the best, or most efficient means of doing something, I will do it that way forevermore. People have often said that I don't try new things. This isn't true – I regularly go through periods of experimentation to determine the optimal solutions to things. Then, I stick with the winner. For example, with spaghetti sauce, the experimentation phase lasted decades until I found the sweet basil marinara flavor. Now I only use that. Other things that have been decided include toothpaste brand and flavor, ketchup, steak sauce, soy sauce, bread, cracker, snack food, pizza toppings, milk, sausage, bacon, soap, shampoo, and many, many others. This creates a bit of a minefield for my wife, as buying the wrong thing can be disastrous. The only things that have not settled down, despite decades of experimentation, are shaving cream and jam.
• Habit the third: I order cheeseburgers plain, even though I will always add ketchup; and enjoy lettuce, tomatoes, and a few other additions. I do this to avoid any chance of mustard being placed on my cheeseburger.
• Habit the fourth: I sleep with a pillow over my head. But not just any pillow. It has to be an old down feather pillow that, through the years, has lost about half its feathers. A partially filled feather pillow still has some heft to it, yet is supremely moldable. It will conform perfectly to the shape of my lumpen head. Among the countless reasons that I hate summer, high in the rankings is the fact that if it is too hot I can't sleep with a pillow on my head due to heat dissipation concerns.
• Habit the fifth: According to my wife, most of my weirdness lies in how I sleep. The aforementioned pillow on the head is only part of the weirdness. I also have a banky. Not in the security blanket sense. I have a blanket that I love, because of its tactile features. It is an old fleece blanket, of the type where one side is smooth, and the other nubbly. In most fleece blankets, the nubbly side is very soft. But if you keep one of these around for a decade, and wash it frequently, then the nubbly side gets a little more, uh, nubbly. Verging on, but not quite getting to scratchy. A surface that is rough and soft at the same time. I love that. And I only have one blanket that has been aged to that sublime perfection. Therefore, it is my banky. The pillow and the banky are the two biggest parts of my sleep temperature regulation scheme. Normal blankets on the lower part of my body, banky around the shoulders, and pillow on the head. If I get too warm, I can stick a toe out from under the lower blankets. Or lift an arm and get a bit of fresh air into the torso region. Or move my head to allow more heat to radiate. Subtle adjustments can keep me perfectly comfortable all night. You may call it weird, I call it comfortable and efficient.

I generally don't ask other people to participate in memes. So if you feel like it, go right ahead and pretend that I asked you.

[wik] Last week, my son was sick with the flu. Desperate for comfort, he asked his mom for Daddy's special banky.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Star Wars Wiki. See you in several hours when you emerge.

Keith at Sortapundit is gearing up to do the very dumbest fun thing I've ever heard of: drive the Mongol Rally. Participants must first donate a bunch of money to Send a Cow, a charity that, erm, Sends Cows to needy African families, and then drive from the west coast of Europe to Ulaan Bataar in Eastern Mongolia in a car with a total engine displacement of less than 1000ccs or less. Which is tiny, especially for the mountains and deserts of central Asia while pursued by enraged highwaymen in CIA surplus white SUVs waving AK-47s.

So, he's got the tin cup out and is rattling it around and why not head over there, read up on the stupid hijinks this moron Brit is cooking up, and kick in a fivespot or so to help him cover the costs. And maybe buy him a helmet.

[wik] Buckethead adds: I have been offered a place in the boot of their car. I have to supply my own beer, though. I don't think they realize that the combined weight of a moderately large Buckethead and his beer supply would have a deleterious effect on a 1000cc engine's ability to accelerate on anything but a downhill pitch.

John of Texas Best Grok has once again prodded and poked me (metaphorically, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with that) insisting that I suck the crack pipe that is Civilization even deeper than ever before.

Okay then. Online Civ. This will probably wreck my marriage. But: anyone who would like to join John and I in an online and supremely nerdly contest of strategic acumen, email me and we'll do this thing. For an idea of what it might be like, read this fictionalized but yet truer than true visualization from our own, dear, Geeklethal:

G33kL3th4l > I need iron. Who has iron?

John0 > I got 99 problems, but iron ain’t one.

G33kL3th4l > Wha u want trade for iron?

8ucketH3D > Johno, I’ll trade you not kicking your ass for not giving GL iron.

G33kL3th4l > wtf did I do?

John0 > You don’t know me I do what I want

8ucketH3D > J as soon as he has iron he builds Legions and he’s gonna march them up your ass

G33kL3th4l > wtf bitch let him trade what he wants and I can’t even build Legions yet and you have fucking ironclads fielded

The Dog Genome Project is powering ahead, hoping to divine the secrets contained within doggie DNA. This is actually pretty interesting - dogs are unique critters in so many ways, because of their thousands of years of alliance with us, and because of the effects of selective breeding over most of that period. No animal has the range of variation that dogs do - from chihuahuas to St. Bernards, from short haired dobs to long-haired afghans. And not just physical variation - the difference in temperaments found in German Shepherds, Terriers and Retrievers is striking to say the least.

Researchers have catalogued the genome of Tasha, a boxer, and are publishing the results in Nature. Earlier victims include Genome Project scientist Craig Venter's pet shadow, as well as eight other breeds and samples from a gray wolf and a coyote.

As a result [of the large differences between breeds], some breeds are predisposed to conditions such as heart disease, cancer, or blindness, and identifying genes responsible for diseases or traits should be much easier to do in dogs than man.

The sequence of 2.4 billion DNA "letters" records the genetic recipe, or genome, of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), which consists of 19,300 genes - roughly the same number as that found in people. The team also sampled the genetic recipes of 10 dog breeds, the grey wolf and the coyote, pinpointing 2.5 million differences in a single "letter" of genetic code, which serve as signposts to physical and behavioural traits, as well as diseases.

...By tracking evolution's genetic footprints through the dog, human and mouse genomes, the scientists found that humans share more ancestral DNA with dogs than with mice, confirming that dog genes can be used to understand human disease. They also found that selective breeding has shuffled large blocks of DNA code among dog breeds, which should make it easier to find the genes responsible for body size, behaviour and disease.

Soon, we should be able to purchase glow in the dark accessory poodles for nitwitted bimbo celebrities. But more important, with the knowledge gained we may be able to design superior fighting dogs to help us in the coming war with the giant fighting robots. We can count on the allegiance of the canines - they've stuck with us this long. The cats, though - I'm not so sure about them. They'll probably be the first to welcome our new robot overlords, so long as they can eat the scraps after the robots destroy us.

Johno didn't tag me, the bastard, but its been eating away at my brain and so here is my sevens thing, for your edification and (hopefully) amusement:

Seven things to do before I die:

1. Found and operate a bookstore/bar named the "First Federal Bar, Grill and Seminar.
2. Get a novel or non-fiction book published.
3. Jump out of an airplane.
4. Become curmudgeonly.
5. Become the all-being, master of time, space and dimension.
6. Then go to Europe.
7. Walk on the moon.

Seven things I cannot do:

1. Play basketball.
2. Bake Bread.
3. Focus.
4. Remember what I'm supposed to do without a list.
5. Fly.
6. Paint.
7. Sing.

Seven things that attract me to my best friend:

1. I am not so judgmental that I would put one friend above another.
2.  
3.  
4.  
5.  
6.  
7.  

Seven things I say most often:

1. “Just a minute!”
2. “What?”
3. “That's weird” (this is only at work)
4. “No.” (to son)
5. “No.” (to wife)
6. “No!” (to dog)
7. So this one time, at band camp…”

Seven books (or series) I love:

1. The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
2. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (and part of Time Enough for Love) by R. Heinlein
3. Good Omens by N. Gaiman and T. Pratchett
4. Dune, by F. Herbert
5. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
6. The Stars My Destination, by A. Bester
7. Leaves of Grass, by W. Whitman

Seven movies I watch over and over again:

1. Incredibles
2. Monsters, Inc.
3. Iron Giant
4. Finding Nemo
5. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
6. Nightmare Before Christmas
7. Some stupid Thomas the Train Engine Movie

Seven movies I would watch over and over again, if my son wasn't watching one of the movies listed above:

1. The Blues Brothers
2. Tombstone
3. Animal House
4. Galaxy Quest
5. Blade Runner
6. Fifth Element
7. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Go read Joe Lieberman's oped in the Wall Street Journal. It's a good read. Pulling out of Iraq now - or even declaring a hard timetable for withdrawal - would be stupidity of the worst kind. Those who argue for it constantly proclaim that Iraq is a quagmire, a Vietnam. While simultaneously doing anything in their power to ensure that it does. Remarks like those from DNC Chair Howlin' Mad Dean the other day, saying that there's no way we can win - this on the eve of important elections in Iraq - are, if not treason, colossally defeatist and wrongheaded.

While I was for the libervasion of Iraq from time immemorial, not everyone agreed. That's fine. Even if, like Johno, you are a little iffy on the reasons we went into Iraq, and unsure whether it's all worth it; the only sane way to look at it is that we are there now, and must craft a policy that maximizes our chances of success. As Johno said, "You break it, you bought it." Immediate pullout is the farthest from that ideal as I can imagine. Especially considering that we are closer to success now than at any point since 2003. Withdrawing our troops, and allowing the collapse of the provisional government would sacrifice any credibility we have in international affairs. America's ability to accomplish anything significant, let alone worthwhile, would be gone for the forseeable future. Of course, if that is your goal, then a lot of this posturing makes sense.

I was walking over to the post office on 14th street, and my eye was caught by this ridiculous building.

Whatever possessed the architect to include one (1) column, and that at the very top of the building? Hey! It's classical! Of course, he got the proportions of the column wrong. And it's stupid. Neoclassical design can result in some impressive, and beautiful buildings. This is just neostalinist pancake architecture lite. Crap.

Now that the National Novel Writing Month is over, by more than a week, I propose the Procrastinator's National Novel Writing Month, which shall last until further notice. Now that that administrivia is out of the way, on to the status of my novel. Before the end of November, I had actually finished an additional five thousand words beyond the 4300 or so I had already posted. As the deadline approached, and dark forces beyond my control converged upon me, I realized that I had made a great mistake. Several, actually.

First, I picked as my topic something that required altogether too much thought. The storyline involves several things that I have been thinking about for a long time, and therefore wanted to get exactly right – details of space combat, to be sure; but also issues revolving around the singularity, artificial intelligence and the nature of first contact. Getting things exactly right does not interact well with wanting to get it done in thirty days.

Second, I started an impossible recursive exercise wherein the things I wrote in the five thousand words I didn't post required changes in the four thousand I did, and vice versa, ad infinitum. I have largely resolved those issues now, but now is December.

Third, I picked the wrong month to write a novel in. A variety of outside influences militated strongly against any possibility of finishing the novel in the agreed framework. Work, vacations, and finally solo child rearing while my wife was in Kansas are all killer when you're trying to write.

Fourth, I procrastinated. Not as much as you'd think, but I didn't make terribly efficient use of what time I did have.

Now that I have resolved most of my philosophical difficulties, and now that many of the other impediments have at least lessened, I plan to start posting the rest of what I've written, and move on to finish the story. I plan on getting the up over ten thousand words posted within a week or so, and somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand words a week thereafter until the damn thing is done.

As for the fate of baby, I'm not altogether sure what will happen in the end, but at least I know how it will happen.

Thanks all for your patience, and the kind words you've already given.

Before I start though, I'm gonna go read Ian's forklift racing story.