perfidy

Recently, Buckethead and clan relocated from their suburban abode in the heart of Alexandria, Virginia, to a mountain fastness some sixty miles distant. That ordeal has been amply documented on this site.

The call went out across the land to bloggers and regular people near and far to gather to celebrate the dual events of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the ensconcement of Clan Buckethead in their new home at Festung Buckethead. Goodwyfe Johno and I flew into the area to attend this bash, and in the process catch the talented Dead Men's Hollow in concert.

The gathering was a great success. Aside from myself and Buckethead, both Ministers GeekLethal (with the lovely Mrs. Lethal and the lil' Lethal in tow) and Ross made the scene. Also in attendence were Princess Kat, the Maximum Leader, and the formerly AWOL Phil Dennison, reformed blogger who no longer has a webpage and who therefore is only eligilble for old-school meatspace esteem. Much business was transacted. Much perfidy was committed. Much music was played, some of it through an iPod fed into a fire-spewing Ruben's Tube. Much very fine Scotch was consumed, and some fairly nice cigars as well. Good times, good times.

We of the Ministry thank all attendees in body or spirit, and hope that the remainder of their 2007 is as auspicious and friendly as ithe precedent set at Festung Buckethead.

Brew # 14, Desert Fox Dunkelweizen

6.6 lbs liquid wheat malt extract (50% each barley and wheat)
4 oz caramunich malt? or maybe it was crystal malt 90L?
2 oz crystal malt 60L?
4 oz chocolate malt
2 oz black patent malt
1 oz Styrian goldings hops, pellet
1/4 oz Tettnanger Tettnang hops, pellet
1 lb very ripe bananas, frozen, thawed, and mashed
.2 oz locally grown coriander, ground
1/2 tsp black pepper, ground
1/2 tsp North African dried lemon, grated
White Labs WLP 300, Hefeweizen Yeast

Steeped grains in 1 gal bottled spring water at 160 degrees for 45 minutes. Meanwhile brought 2.5 gallons bottled spring water to boil in kettle. Sparged grain bag in kettle water and added the gallon of steeping water. At boil added extract and Styrian goldings and started the hour clock.

At :40 added Tettnanger Tettnang
At :50 added bananas
At :55 added coriander
At :59 added pepper and dried lemon

Removed kettle to ice-water bath and brought down to about 95 degrees within half an hour. Added about 1.5 gallons bottled spring water to fermentor. Added contents of kettle to fermentor, and separated out cold/hot break and hops. There were banana chunks in the wort; made sure that as many of them were in the bucket as possible, which may eventually prove to be a grave mistake. Pitched yeast at 74 degrees.

Woken up the ensuing morning by my wife, alarmed by the amount of activity at the fermentor. Sure enough, a VERY vigorous fermentation at a higher than optimum temperature (74-75 degrees rather than 68-72) had combined with a banana chunk to block the airlock, and pressure was building. Cracked lid for a second to relieve pressure and went to rig a blowoff hose instead; when airlock was removed it blew protein scum and banana a couple feet in the air. Yeesh.

There's a lot about this beer that I'm doing "wrong." First of all, I'm really not sure what my specialty grains are; it was a while back when I bought them and I have conflicting reports on my draft recipes. I should have used a little Caramunich or munich, with a small amount of black Carafa malt for color; these are all German malts and characteristic of the style. Instead, I chose to go with American varieties that are rather unlike their German counterparts. Chocolate malt is fairly astringent, and the dark crystal malt I believe I used is bittersweet, rather than frankly sweet. That's probably fine - I'm not really after a sweet beer, but a complex one. But I hope that the yeast strain I'm using doesn't dry things out too too much. Dunkelweizens are supposed to be a little heavier and sweeter than light hefeweizens. I'm heading in that direction but taking a detour.

As for the adulterants; I'm bored with making regular beers, good as they are. I figure what the hell, I'll go nuts. I have bananas; hefeweizen yeast produces banana flavors; in go bananas. I have this weird little dried up black desiccated Egyptian lemon; some lemon tartness is good in hefeweizens; in goes some of that. Hefeweizen yeast produces phenolic compounds reminiscent of cloves and spices; coriander in small amounts adds depth, and black pepper in small amounts adds punch without being noticeable, and they're both characteristic of Red Sea area cuisine; in they go!

It could suck, I suppose. But I kind of think it won't. We'll find out.

Next up is either an Imperial Belgian IPA, combining the citrusy overtones and maltiness of an American IPA with the spicy punch of a Belgian ale, golden in color and around 8% alcohol, or a Fakey-fake Pilsener Ale, which takes the subtle malt and soft hops of a Czech Pilsener and translates them into a higher-alcohol, hoppier American version made with the cleanest, most lagerlike ale yeast I can find. Nummy-num-num.

[wik] Holy crap! The blowoff hose keeps getting clogged with bits of banana, requiring me to physically go to the bucket every half hour to press on the lid enough to blow the banana down the hose. There's all kinds of floaty bits of banana in my bottle of sanitizer now that have come out the end of the hose. This is what they call "adventure in homebrewing."

[alsø wik] So a word to the wise: no matter the worth of the banana as an adjunct to beer, whether slight or great, always make sure those bananas are liquified before they go in the wort.

[alsø alsø wik] Now what terrible spasm of tastelessness could drive me to name a fusion German-Egyptian beer "Desert Fox?"

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] No seriously. Twelve hours into the fermentation and I've had to take the risky step of removing the blowoff hose and replacing it temporarily with a standard airlock while I cleaned the crud that had totally blocked the hose out of said hose. Five minutes was enough for the foam of the fermentation to fill the airlock, force its way out of the tiny holes in the top of the fermentor, and begin pooling. Now that I've replaced the blowoff hose, I sincerely hope this is the last I'll have to screw around with this damn beer until bottling day. Is the yeast just Conan-strong? Did I manage to introduce a very hungry bug that's eating everything in sight (very unlikely)? Will I post yet another follow-up to this saga? Stay tuned!

Hiding their air from us, apparently. New measurements and calculations from the orbiting Mars spy satellites indicate that Mars is losing about 20 grams of atmosphere a second. Which is not a whole hell of a lot. Even adding it all up over the course of billions of years, its still not a whole hell of a lot.

Extrapolating this measurement back over 3.5 billion years, they estimate that only a small fraction, 0.2 to 4 millibars, of carbon dioxide and a few centimeters of water could have been lost to solar winds during that timeframe.

Which means that either Mars never had the thicker, wetter atmosphere we think it did in the past, or else that atmosphere was not blown away atom by atom by the solar wind as we thought it did. Either way, something we though was so, weren't. If Mars did in fact have that thick atmosphere, it must be sequestered away somewhere in, around, or in the pockets of the planet. Which is a positive thought for all those budding junior scientists with their home terraforming kits. Martian air, perhaps hidden in underground reservoirs, or bound up in the crust or whatnot, would at least theoretically be amenable to be reintroduced into the atmosphere. Unless a third theory is true - that Mars' atmosphere was blown clear off the planet by a large meteor strike. So, to sum up, Mars doesn't have air, and is losing it slowly. It may or may not have air hidden. Mars may or may not have had a thick atmosphere in the past. Mars may or may not have been hit by an atmosphere-stealing asteroid. See how our knowledge grows?

[wik] I find it interesting, btw, that catastrophic explanations for what we see in the solar system are becoming more common.

Reuters reports that in the aftermath of the recent round up of hundreds of illegal undocumented aliens workers, known to me as scofflaw foreigners, some people in California are fearful. Why are they fearful? Let's hear what Rosa Maria Salazar has to say. She is a cook at a Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles:

"We're terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us."

As an aside, she made the above comment in Spanish. Reuters helpfully translated. But why is Rosa Maria frightened? Because, well, she's an illegal alien. She is here in this country illegally, and she is working illegally. I am sure that Rosa Maria is a nice woman, hard working and eager to make a better life for herself. No doubt that was difficult in her native Guatemala. But I am not overly moved by her terror. She has every right to be concerned that agents of our government will come and send her away, because, that's their job and she is a utterly and completely legitimate target for their scrutiny. She's breaking our laws just by being in Los Angeles.

This Reuters article is full of not so sly bias toward the "victims" of this latest sweep. Observe:

The 55-year-old undocumented worker from Guatemala is among many Hispanics deeply shaken by recent immigration raids at the heart of Latino communities in southern California.

I imagine that most of those frightened Hispanics are also illegal aliens. American citizens of Hispanic descent really don’t have to worry, now, do they? Should we be concerned that criminals are “shaken” by police patrols?

The-seven day Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep, dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," targeted jails across five counties in the Los Angeles area, where police took 423 of what they called "criminal aliens" into federal custody for deportation, after being held on charges unrelated to their immigration status.

And look, more than half of the people rounded up were already rounded up, albeit for other crimes. Is the Hispanic community, and indeed concerned citizens throughout this great nation expected to weep for shame because 400 people already in jail are deported? Sheesh.

Federal agents from seven teams also fanned out in local communities, where they nabbed 338 undocumented immigrants, more than 150 of whom were classed as "immigration fugitives" -- foreign nationals who ignored final deportation orders.

And of the other half, almost half of them were not merely here illegally, but were actively running from immigration officials. These aren’t the grey masses of illagals, people who are in this country but under the radar. These are people who we have specifically told to go home, and for some reason are still here. Why were these “final deportation orders” not accompanied by a Federal Marshall and a plane ticket? Of the others, these undocumented immigrants yearning to be free, well they are 188 out of an estimated 2.5 million in California alone. It’s a start, but hardly a solution.

"We hadn't seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock," said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Why the fuck would this come as a shock to you, Antonio? The fact that we haven’t enforced our laws for decades might have lulled you into a false sense of security, but the writing has been on the wall for a little while now. And why aren’t you in jail for helping criminals evade justice?

"The police didn't just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody ... guys who were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box restaurant ... and now people are afraid to go out," he added.

Well, damn, that’s just like, terrible. They took anybody who wasn’t here legally. How… fascist.

"We used to feel secure here," Nicaraguan electrician Manuel Salomon told Reuters as he sipped coffee in a Mexican bakery in the city. "But it looks like that honeymoon is over."

I certainly hope so, Manuel. I hope that you get arrested and deported. And then I hope that you turn around, and make your way back to this country legally.

This article, and many like it, are ridiculous in the euphemistic treatment of this issue. Calling Manuel, or others, “Undocumented Workers” or some other truth dodging phrase does not erase the fact that they are people who are breaking our laws, and have been showing contempt for laws since the moment they slipped across the border. They are illegal aliens – a nicely accurate phrase that has almost completely disappeared from the major media. I am not against immigration. I do not hate Hispanics. I am against illegal immigration, and I think that most people on this side of the issue realize that they are different issues despite the efforts of some on the other side to conflate them.

Some pharmacist should lose a license over this, I guess. Either that or a zoologist, if such even have licenses.

Never give an iguana Viagra

Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:04pm ET

ANTWERP, Belgium (Reuters) - Mozart, an iguana with an erection that has lasted for over a week, will have his penis amputated in the next couple of days.

Veterinarians at Antwerp's Aquatopia had sought to treat the animal's problem, but decided removal was the only solution because of the risk of infection. The good news for Mozart and his mates is that male iguanas have two penises.

Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed by the news.

"It doesn't bother him. He doesn't know what amputation means," said vet Luc Lambrecht, adding that Mozart's sexual activity should be undimmed by the operation.

"I don't think so. That's all in his head."

I'm happy to report that the Reuters report doesn't contain any pictures of swollen, red, iguana junk, so it's safe for work. I don't know which is sillier - the fact that someone gave the iguana Viagra, or the fact that some (presumedly different) person can assert, apparently straight-faced, that his sexual performance is all in his head.

[wik] This posting might be mis-titled - the iguana doesn't seem to actually have been too embarrassed by this malpractice.

[alsø wik] I wonder what role the physiology of the iguana plays in the psychology of penis envy?

[alsø alsø wik] The Reuters article might just as logically been entitled "Never Give an Iguana a Lit M-80 for Lunch", come to think of it.

Just heard, in a phone conversation with my buddy Ian:

He was speaking with a friend of his, during an event today in Orlando, and they discussed the fertility specialist that the friend and his wife were seeing, due to their difficulty conceiving a child.

His friend went in to visit the specialist, and the nurse handed him a cup and asked him to produce a specimen. After heading down to a fairly generic restroom and grabbing a stall, he did so, bringing the cup back to the nurse.

Who looked at it and said "No, I needed a urine specimen".

Ian asked him "So what did you do then?". Turns out he just left, utterly crushed by embarrassment, though he's since recovered after realizing that what he did, wanted or not, was something he'd been practicing his whole life for.

Ever the clown/instigator, Ian pointed out to him that he'd handled it all wrong, and should instead have replied "What do you think this is?"

"I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down." -- Mitch Hedberg

As impressive as they are to watch, rockets are a dangerous and in the end inefficient means of getting to orbit. Burning tons of liquefied oxygen and hydrogen and throwing away the rocket every time you want a satellite is not what your average beancounter would call sound economically. Imagine if, to fly from New York to Los Angeles, you built a brand new 747, flew it across the country, and jumped out over LAX for a parachute landing and let the plane crash into the Pacific. Getting a airline ticket would face a few more difficulties than just avoiding TSA’s watchlist.

This is a sound argument for reusable spaceships. But it is an even better argument for taking a step away from rockets altogether. Instead of rockets, why not have an elevator? Walk through the doors, take a seat, and ride into space with as much fireworks and commotion as getting on the express elevator in the Empire State Building. Building a physical structure that extends from the surface of the earth to orbit and beyond seems fantastical, but the idea actually has an extensive pedigree.

The idea for space elevators goes back to the misty dawn of the space age. Russian space theorist Konstantine Tsiolkovsky first proposed the idea of an orbital tower in his 1895 paper "Day-dreams of Heaven and Earth.”

On the tower, as one climbed higher and higher up it, gravity would decrease gradually; and if it were constructed on the Earth's equator and, therefore, rapidly rotated together with the earth, the gravitation would disappear not only because of the distance from the centre of the planet, but also from the centrifugal force that is increasing proportionately to that distance. The gravitational force drops ... but the centrifugal force operating in the reverse direction increases. On the earth the gravity is finally eliminated at the top of the tower, at an elevation of 5.5 radii of the Earth (36,000 km).

However, it was soon realized that no material could withstand the compressive stress of the weight of the tower. Half a century and more down the road, another Russian, Yuri Artsutanov, proposed what we now think of as the space elevator. Artsutanov suggested using a satellite in geostationary earth orbit (GEO) as a construction base, and extending a cable downward while simultaneously paying out a counterweight upwards to maintain the center of gravity in GEO. Artsutanov also described using a tapered tether to reduce the stress on the cable.

Over the last several decades, many people have examined the idea. Charles Sheffield and Arthur C. Clarke both used the idea as the central focus of their novels Fountains of Paradise and The Web Between the Worlds in the late seventies. And more thorough research has established many of the engineering requirements for a working space elevator. Most of these problems are solvable by a suitable application of engineering or politics – for example, building a working elevator car for the cable would be a straightforward, if difficult, application of the principles currently used in maglev trains.

But the biggest obstacle is the creation of a structural material for the elevator cable. Our strongest materials until recently fell short of the required tensile strength by a large margin. At a minimum, beanstalk cable material should have a tensile strength of 65 GPa (gigapascals, a measure of stress), and a density on the order of graphite. (Too much weight, and it doesn’t matter how strong the cable is.) The strongest steel is at about 5 GPa. Kevlar hits about the same, but is much lighter. We’re off by at least an order of magnitude. Quartz fibers and diamond filaments would reach up to the twenties. But then, in the nineties, came carbon nanotubes. Their theoretical tensile strength is in the range needed for a beanstalk.

But, the strongest actual observed GPa was only in the fifties, and the tensile strength of a cable would likely be less than that of its nanotube components. There are also difficulties with making bulk quatities of nanotubes and making them into suitable strands. Cost is also a factor, as nanotubes run about $25 a gram. But there is hope – carbon nanotubes have applications far beyond making space elevator cables, and someone, sometime, will for his own purposes invent a cable that is suitable for our beanstalk.

These developments in materials science put a working beanstalk in sight. And one company has formed to pursue the creation of a space elevator. I ran into Brian Dunbar of the Liftport Company in the comments section over at Murdoc Online, and asked him if he’d do an interview. He graciously agreed, and below, part one of our interview:

Brian, what is your role at the LiftPort Corporation?

I have two roles at Liftport.

Systems Administration - setup accounts, monitor disk usage, setup the web server

Gadfly - I flit about the Internet, looking for blogs, websites and forums that talk about space access, and specifically Liftport and the space elevator. If there are questions or misunderstandings, I correct them or point to a resource for better answers.

Why? Public support alone won't get us cheap access to space (CATS), but we won't get CATS without it. More specifically to Liftport we'll need a favorable legal and political climate to operate in. This is one way of doing that.

I'm not sure if there is a better way - would you trust us more if we ran commercials on TV? I wouldn't - and we don't have the funds for a massive traditional PR campaign so it's moot.

Could you give us a capsule description (for the sake of those readers who are not space enthusiasts) of what LiftPort is trying to do?

Build a space elevator system. Make money. Have fun.

To do that you need an organization that is going to be around for a few decades. This implies cash flow.

Our answer to that is to use the ancillary technology for a space elevator to build a series of businesses to provide short-term capital and long-term seriousness.

We're talking 'niche market' stuff here. Our robotics group is a good example; a lifter rolls up and down a ribbon to a balloon thousands of feet overhead. Going up it can carry fresh batteries or other consumables. Coming back it brings home the dead battery. This enables your load to have a much longer mission life, and it can power a higher energy device than a solar array could.

Potential uses are for wireless internet connectivity for areas where it's problematic to build towers or the towers have not been built yet, disaster recovery efforts, radio relay for the military.

So .. while it appears to be a two steps up one step back kinda deal this seems to be an optimal way to keep a private organization going while driving onto the main goal.

On your website, you always refer to your goal as a "space elevator." Is this a conscious decision to avoid the (Perfidy preferred) term "Beanstalk?"

Ya it is. 'Beanstalk' is a reference to 'Jack and the Beanstalk' of course and that story may not be known or internalized across the world. Space elevator .. everyone knows what an elevator is.

At this point the term 'space elevator' is more widely known than beanstalk. No one person set out to make this so it just happened.

Do you feel there is a strong analogy between the historical development of railroads and the future development of space elevators? Or does some other analogy present itself?

It's possible to use analogy while recognizing that space is different and analogies to previous eras don't really apply very well.

The railroad analogy is flawed, I believe, if you look at the American West in the 19th century. There the railroad companies gained wealth by owning sections of land adjacent to the tracks, and selling them at a profit. Towns were created by virtue of their being a railroad stop. This falls down with a space elevator - there isn't any value in owning
space next to the ribbon. It's all about the anchor, GEO and the bitter end.

The railroad as experienced in Europe might be a better analogy – there lines were constructed along existing communication links, improving the throughput between established locations. I'm dumbing that down for the sake of brevity of course.

It might be better to state that 'decreasing transaction cost on a transportation link always generates wealth' and leave it at that.

A few questions about technology:

What is the state of the art in materials technology, and how close are we to beanstalk grade materials?

I am no expert - it's not where I work and once you get beyond the most elementary description and math most of it is beyond me. The state of the art appears to be that it's possible to generate the material in the required strength in lengths of a few centimeters but beyond that, nothing. Yet.

Depending on who you talk to we're about a decade, or decade and half from 'space elevator' grade material. Or twenty years to never.

I am confident that the economic benefits of having such material would apply broadly across a number of disciplines - body armor, structural members, etc. So this should keep people beavering away at it.

What technologies need to be developed for a working beanstalk besides ribbon material?

We need a reliable vehicle or system that can traverse a variety of environments, without fail, at high speed. This isn't 'a' technology so much as engineering but neither is it a trivial exercise.

A power system for delivering energy from ground to the lifter needs to be devised. We're pretty sure that microwave aren't going to cut it (the rectenna would be huge) so that seems to leave a free-electron laser. You can't just go get one of these at Ace Hardware but they do exist as tested units in the lab. These need to gone over to see what efficiencies in manufacturing and operation could be had.

Organization. What does an organization that builds and operates a space elevator system (we certainly hope to have more than one in service) look like? We don't know. There have certainly been private operators of launch services but they've been geared around a low launch rate. Things are going to speed up and the org will have to be geared up to that fact.

The anchor. We think that the anchor is going to need to be mobile and capable of an average speed of 12 km/hour. This is faster than deep-sea oil platforms, and we'll move far more often than they're capable of doing. This implies some engineering of the concept.

What alternative uses for this technology is your company pursuing in the short term?

Currently we're standing up a CNT furnace in New Jersey - this will function as a new products integration lab for testing and (we hope) small scale manufacturing of CNT material.

Liftport Robotics to leverage the lifter work into a revenue stream (see above).

Liftport Media is stood up to exploit the media possibilities of the enterprise.

Traditionally, (in science fiction and elsewhere) a space elevator was portrayed as a cable. Why has LiftPort moved to a ribbon concept?

It's easier for the lifter to clamp onto a ribbon. Generally the answer 'cheaper and/or easier' will be valid for most of the choices we'll make.

How does LiftPort envision a beanstalk construction effort? Will it be built incrementally, or constructed in space and then deployed?

Yes.

The Plan calls for a seed ribbon to be built and lofted into orbit, in several loads. Once there we mate them together, then deploy the thing. Once it's down lifters ascend and add on more ribbon until we have 'enough' to support a few 20-ton climbers at a time.

Consider the phrase, "Behind every great man is a woman". We're all familiar with the thought, if the precise wording varies: that there is causation between the presence of a woman and the success of her affiliated man.

Does it follow then that behind every loser is a bad woman? Does the causation flow downhill too?

Discuss.

Apple to impose 50% fanboy sucker tax on iPhone consumers, reports AppleInsider. (h/t to gizmodo) It seems that it's only going to cost about $250 to manufacture the iPhone, and so Apple gets the 50% profit margins that in the past have made it rich, yet contributed to its marginal status in the computer industry. And Cingular gets a two year lock for free, since they ain't subsidizing shit. This is as annoying as it always is. It's why I've never purchased a new Mac computer.

I think I might wait a little bit until the fanboy rush subsides and competition, hopefully, forces Apple to lower prices. But competition from Dell, HP and a thousand others never forced Apple to lower Mac prices. Will competition from Nokia, Samsung, Sony/Ericsson and others come to the same? Or will Cingular try to convince Jobs to lower the price to keep people coming? You'd think Jobs would have learned by now that if you sell a hundred computers at a 10% margin, you make a lot more money than selling five at 50%. (Assuming about the same price to manufacture, you make twice as much.)

Gary Farber is in a panic. Despite chronic physical ailments, and wrestling with crippling depression, Amygdala has been one of the most consistently excellent blogs I know. In keeping with the Ministry tradition of not linking to anyone, or in fact doing anything that would increase our popularity, I have only linked Gary a couple times. But I read. And the other day, he explained why he has been in a panic. One of the few dependable sources of income he has has evaporated. He needs cash.

Imagine you're a cute, fuzzy deer. You wander onto the highway. You see some lights, you freeze. You think to yourself, "I've got to get out of the highway." The lights get closer. You think, even more urgently, "I've really got to get out of the highway." But you can't move. Imagine that feeling lasting for months or years at a time. People with chronic ailments like diabetes can take insulin or whatever to control their disease. There is nothing about diabetes that actively tries to prevent you from getting help. Depression does. It's five miles of fog between you and reality. It's all the color in your life going away, and not all cute like in Pleasantville. It even makes you like the Cure and the Smiths. And all the while, people tell you to cheer up, or get your shit together, or for godsakes just do something. You feel that whatever talents or gifts you have, which - in the hands of anyone else - would have allowed them to become wildly successful and boink supermodels all day, are really just a mocking curse from a cruel god because you have them, and can't use them for anything.

I think that Gary might be feeling better, thanks to the generosity of those who've already pitched in. Make him feel a little better, if for no other reason than so I can keep reading his blog.

By way of Princess Cat, I see that there is a contest (with actual prize money) for best milblogger over at the VA Mortgage Center blog. $3,000 cash money to the winner, and $250 to the top ten finishers. It seems they need someone to straighten out the prize money statement. Regardless, folks will be getting checks. Cat has suggested that you all vote for Sgt. Hook, to help him subsidize his trip to the Milblogger conference this spring here in the Nation's capitol. But I noticed, to my horror, that Murdoc had not been nominated. I corrected that grievous oversight, and I hope that he'll be sending more links our way. Of course, I could make it easier for him by posting more often.

But if so, here's your explanation for why Dallas' next game will be in the late summer, 2007:

Moles are annoying, conniving and vile creatures. They hate our freedom. But is it worth risking your life to fight the growing mole menace? Uwe Werner felt so, and managed to eliminate himself in attempting to exterminate the moles infesting his yard. His innovative mole electrocution system worked so well in its first test, that it killed a human. Uwe himself.

[wik] No moles were harmed in the writing of this post.

[alsø wik] My apologies to any family or friends of Uwe Werner who may by some freak of the internets have read this story. UWE IS NOT DEAD. IT'S OKAY. Uwe is the police spokesgerman who announced that the retiree is dead. HE IS NOT DEAD HIMSELF. The name of the retiree has not, to my knowledge, been released. Which is frustrating, because I was imagining an old guy, puttering around the lawn, about to plug in his super-turbo-mole-zapper2000; his wife calls out, "UUUweee noooooo!" and then he goes all lightning and special effects. Without the name, my mental picture is less satisfying.

Technology Smack-Down!

  (WSJ online sub required, other than for "mouse over" preview)

TECHNOLOGY ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal.

Jan. 10, 2007

Cisco sued Apple for trademark infringement over the "iPhone" name Apple chose for its new cellphone, unveiled yesterday. Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000, and had been in talks with Apple over rights to the name.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, Cisco's general counsel. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

So much for all those negotiations that were going on yesterday at CES. This could get interesting, even though it really is all just positioning and preening.

[wik] Just like Russia v. Belarus. Honest.

And while you're waiting for the iPhone to be released in June, build your own home fabricator.

And speaking of cool technological gimcrakery we've linked in the past, it occurred to me the other day that Linux freaks are always complaining that they need to have a truly beautiful and slick user interface to have a chance to beat Windows. Most efforts along these lines have been workmanlike at best, and nothing compared to the almost godlike levels of slick that regularly come from Cupertino. Even Vista has Linux beat solid at least in this department. If someone put bumptop on top of a well packaged Linux distro that made minimal demands on the user for installation (and, more to the point, included codecs so that user could actually watch movies and listen to music without breaking the law. ESR has a screed on this issue, and how Linux could actually win the OS wars as computers switch to 64bit architectures. Interesting read.)

You'll remember bumptop - we linked it here, and here's a pic:

Combine the intuitiveness of that interface with the solidity, security and open source goodness of Linux, and you'd have something that even Steve Jobs would envy.

Here we are in only the second week of the new year, and already we have movement on some of my predictions. Most notably, yesterday Steve Jobs made a liar out of me by introducing the iPhone. Completely, utterly, wrong on that one. However, I have rarely been so pleased at being wrong. The new iPhone is, I must say, pretty damn impressive.

I am no Apple fanboy, but I am deeply impressed by the iPhone. I want one.

So what's the big deal? It's a widescreen iPod. It will play movies and music. Okay, cool. It's a quad band GSM cell phone. Okay, cool. It has a 2 megapixel camera. It's a little taller than an iPod, but otherwise similar in dimension. Not too heavy, and while it doesn't have the disappear in a pocket form factor of my razr phone, it is certainly eminently portable. Ok, cool. There are other devices that have these functions. Why is the iPhone so damn cool? The answer is what you might expect: design and user interface, which have always been Apple's real strength.

The whole front of the phone is a multi-touch screen. No keypad at all. The touchpad technology is just like what we linked here at perfidy a while back. (The original video link is stale, but here's a new one.) Apple bought the tech, and has integrated it into the phone. Watch these three movies, and you'll get a feel for how sweet this thing is going to be. Cell phones, even very expensive nice ones, are not user friendly. Most functions are difficult to find, and harder to use. This is, well, the opposite. The iPhone is slick as all hell. This looks like it will be a joy to use, as easy for all of these functions - photos, email, music, video, web, sms, phone - as the iPod is for music.

Further, it is wireless capable, so that leaves open the possibility that you could use a service like skype for phone calls when you're near a hotspot. You won't have to use hideously expensive cell phone data transfer to get on the internet, either. The thing runs OSX, so you've got the reality of real applications running on the phone from other developers. It will come with Safari for web browsing, and the email system hooks up with Yahoo for push IMAP, and they've also worked with Google for googlemaps. Cingular pitched in and worked with Apple to make a visual voicemail system - so you can choose which voicemails to listen to, rather than be forced to listen to them in order. And hackers will realize that the OS has UNIX lurking in the basement. How cool can it get?

The only downside is the price - $500 for a 4GB model, and $600 for an 8GB version. And, we have to wait til June. But wait, my birthday is in June... Another problem for some is that Cingular will be the only carrier - they and Apple have an exclusive deal. Happily for me, I have Cingular, and coverage where I live is excellent. If I save $50 from every paycheck from now until June, I can have one. And I do want one.

Gizmodo has the best coverage of the release, that's where I found most of this info. They've got pics, movies, and Apple even let them play with a phone for a few minutes. Check out their coverage.

On the positive side, prediction-wise, I was less wrong about Vladimir Putin. While he didn't poison half of Europe, he did cut off their gas. And he's charging hard towards something closely resembling "Tsar." I'd rather be wrong about the iPhone. But at least I don't live in Russia.

[wik] Engadget points out that all is not sweetness and light:

• It's not extensible by third parties, only Apple. The means at the moment no RSS readers, no Slingplayers.
• No 3G. We know you know, but still, it hurts man.
• No over the air iTunes Store downloads or WiFi syncing to your host machine.
• No expandable memory.
• No removable battery.
• No Exchange or Office support.

[alsø wik] A surprisingly interesting Time article.

[alsø alsø wik] Make your own size comparisons with sizeasy! You have no idea how hard it was (so to speak) for me to resist making a dick comparison chart. No idea.

And of course, I can't stop you, nor would I want to. But the world's full of things I just don't get, and among them is the complaint I periodically hear about Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert just not being funny. I can't say I watch his show a lot, but when I do, I find him to be quite good at his schtick, and quite entertaining.

Bill O'Reilly? Not so enjoyable. But it turns out, "Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Colbert to Trade Appearances on Each Other's Shows", so I'm going to have to set the DVR to record both.

Here's the thing, though - Colbert seems never to break character, and O'Reilly seems seldom to work with any spontaneity, so this could be rather like the American Idol tryouts my wife and daughter are so looking forward to - impossible to stomach. Colbert can certainly do a good O'Reilly, but if O'Reilly attempts to go into Colbert's realm, he could come off looking like a goof. OK, like a bigger goof - whatever.

Colbert's take on things? Typical sucker punch, well-delivered:

"I look forward to the evening," Colbert said. "It is an honor to speak face-to-face with a broadcasting legend, and I feel the same way about Mr. O'Reilly."

Hail Florida. The better team tonight seems clearly poised to win, big.

Damn shame, that, but it is what it is, and my prior words on the matter can be considered to have been eaten.

[wik] Velociman's comments cut to the quick:

There are two types of collegiate football played in America, Neck.

1) Southeastern Conference Football, and

2) that weasily dandified transvestite version they play everywhere else. Most notably, apparently, there in your beloved Rust Belt.

The game's now over, and the result is no longer quite as shocking. Ohio State, after a decent start, got pounded like the new guy at the prison. Beat like a rented mule.

While (V-Man's purple prose notwithstanding) it says not a damned thing about the superiority of the SEC compared to anyone, Florida was without a doubt the baddest team on the field tonight.

[alsø wik] Buckethead update: I was going to write a post about this, but Patton's quote from Velociman preempts me. I was talking to my mom after the game, and I told her that as disappointed as I was with the loss the thing that bothered me most was that now the SEC bigots will never shut up. "I know," said she. My personal theory is that someone kidnapped the Buckeyes, and replaced them with the Cleveland Browns.

Ministry crony and combat knitter Mapgirl is celebrating her first Blogoversary. While we here at the Ministry are proud of her accomplishment, her oodles of traffic and lucrative advertising deals, we just would like to say that we were here first, so long ago that we can't even remember what blogoversary we'll be celebrating this March. Congrats, Maps. And if you come to the party, I'll give you a beer.

A 1972 (or thereabouts) Chevy pickup, nicely restored, with a "Nixon/Agnew" bumpersticker. I wish I had had my camera handy.

I guess killing all those cats caught up to him.

Truth is, walking around a New England January in a t-shirt, and sweating, is DOWNRIGHT UNNATURAL, like Zima, Cirque de Soleil, and obese men in Speedos.

Bush Finds Error In Fermilab Calculations

BATAVIA, IL-Bush, who describes himself as "something of an armchair physicist," said that anyone could have made that mistake.

Just for Buckethead. Well, that, plus it's kind of funny, in a "blast from the past" sort of way.

I'm not one to make a habit of endless posts about the cuteness of my children. I mean, they are cute and all. I just don't want to belabor the point. But yesterday, the boy and I were in the car and had some interesting conversation.

the boy: There are good aliens, and bad aliens.
me: really?
the boy: Yes! And if the bad aliens come, we'll be in trouble.
me: I should think so.
the boy: But when the bad aliens come, the good aliens will come and fight them.
me: That's reassuring. What will we do when this happens?
the boy: Well, if our car breaks down and we get a flat tire, the good aliens will help us fix it
me: An Alien Auto Club?
the boy: Yes! That's true.

A little later, we drove by an accident scene, with four or five fire trucks, plus an assortment of police cars, ambulances and the like. Couldn't see what actually caused the ruckus. That led to this:

the boy: Can you sing the fire truck rescue song?
me: I don't know that one. How does it go?
the boy: [tuneless hum, then...] Why are you up on that house, anyway?

Always a good question. But then back to the aliens:

the boy: Where are the aliens, Daddy?
me: if there are aliens, they're probably on a planet around another star. Or in Hollywood.
the boy: They're on their way here.
me: Okay. When will they get here.
the boy: They'll get here tomorrow.
me: We should get ready then.
the boy: Yeah!

That led into a long rambling discussion about the difference between talking and non-talking, and good and bad aliens. He broke them down into the four possible combinations, and - I think - analyzed our proper reaction to the presence of each. But it's hard to tell.

To the little shit who stole my credit card number:

You should have gone for the big bucks while you could, you unimaginative mouthbreather. $11.99 to Paypal? $100 to DirectTV? One... fercryin... dollar to YahooWallet? Skype?!? Too bad I check my balances every couple days, and here you thought you'd nickel and dime me along to finance your crabbed little scriptkiddie lifestyle. You Skype-using unclefucker. Chances are slim that our paths will ever cross, but if they do, you better pray it's a day on which I'm suffering an excess of mercy.

That is all.

My mom sent me this photo she took when she was up over the holidays. I had to share:

Our baby girl is amazed at her world.

[wik] The Ministry of Future Perfidy reports in late 2025 that that crab still exists, and is still lovingly referred to as, "The Hippy Crab."

In today's Washington Post, this story: "FBI Reports Duct-Taping, 'Baptizing' at Guantanamo"

Duct-taping a guy's head? That's kind of harsh.

In another incident that month, interrogators wrapped a bearded prisoner's head in duct tape "because he would not stop quoting the Koran," according to an FBI agent, the documents show. The agent, whose account was corroborated by a colleague, said that a civilian contractor laughed about the treatment and was eager to show it off.

The "civilian contractor" sounds like an asshole, and a mildly sadistic one, to boot. I'd bet it hurt like a bitch when the tape was taken off. At least they didn't cut his head off with a dull hacksaw. But if he wouldn't stop quoting the Koran (which I'm sure got quite old & tiresome for the interrogators to hear), why didn't they just spray alum in his mouth? That's seemed to work in the Looney Toons episodes I've seen where it's been used.

The parts of the story that make me scratch my head, however, are those where the circumstances are more comical.

FBI agents witnessed possible mistreatment of the Koran at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including at least one instance in which an interrogator squatted over Islam's holy text in an apparent attempt to offend a captive, according to bureau documents released yesterday.

In October 2002, a Marine captain allegedly squatted over a copy of the Koran during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was "incensed" by the tactic, according to an FBI agent. A second agent described similar events, but it is unclear from the documents whether it was a separate case.

Sounds to me like the Marine captain can claim his mission accomplished, and good for him. At least he didn't cut his subject's head off with a dull hacksaw.

The "baptism" sounds like comedy gold to me.

In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to "Satanic black metal music for hours," then dressed as a Catholic priest before "baptizing" him.

The "Satanic black metal music", like the duct tape, seems a bit much, and bragging about it is bush-league, but putting your collar on backwards and spraying a guy with water that, by that guy's belief system, is just water, while telling him he's been put through a ritual he clearly believes has no meaning, and having this amount to some sort of an outrage is cartoonish. At least they didn't baptize him with pig's blood. Or cut his head off with a dull hacksaw.

This story is a continuation of an older theme, of course:

The reports amount to new and separate allegations of religiously oriented tactics used against Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. After an erroneous report of Koran abuse prompted deadly protests overseas in 2005, the U.S. military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling the book at the detention facility. They acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Koran, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy.

Poor bunnies! These incidents, along with those in earlier reports of "sexually suggestive" interrogation techniques, help me to better understand some of the concern about more physically coercive methods of questioning that have been used.

If all it takes to get these detainees to go off the rails is to fake dropping a deuce on their "holy book", or to violate the "three foot rule" one might find in a low-grade Atlanta gentlemen's club, then of course one could question physical coercion - who needs such extreme tactics in the face of detainees with severe critical thinking deficits and unresolved "mommie issues"?

The fact that such things, particularly the absurd veneration of copies of the Koran, (copies, mind you - I'd cut them some slack for their outrage if someone took a leak on the original) can so easily trigger "deadly protests" is by itself an indication of a belief system that's seriously askew. For clarification, I'd point the interested reader to a scholarly essay from September 2001, "God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule".

I question, pretty aggressively, the perceived need to apologize for, or to even explain, any of the reported incidents. And, on the bright side, I remind myself again that in each case, at least nobody got his head cut off with a dull hacksaw.

In the absence of any real ideas, penetrating insights on the events of the day, or for that matter, even any good dick jokes, I am reduced to my penultimate resort. Answering questions posed by other blogs. (My ultimate resort is reviving the state motto or actual facts series.)

The Maximum Leader is a good source of questions. With his aid, I can make pretend that I am a real blogger. For example, just today, ML posed this existential quandary:

Your Maximum Leader riddles you this: Suppose you are a native Northeasterner who has retired to South Florida, you scrimp and save and buy a trailer on the shore to live our your days in heaven's waiting room. Then one day a developer comes and offers you (cue Dr. Evil voice) One Million Dollars to sell your trailer on the shore. What do you do?

This hypothetical situation is counter to my nature in several ways. First, I hate Florida. I would never in a million years move there willingly. Unless of course, sometime in the next million years there was an ice age, or Florida detached itself from Georgia and moved northwards a good bit; and ceased to be a pestilential, overly-humid, bug and lizard infested hellhole. Second, that a lifetime of saving and planning would provide me with only enough resources to buy a trailer, or, having that much cash, that I would buy a trailer anyway, rather than a honest shotgun shack. Third, that I am a native Northeasterner. I am a Midwesterner, and fiercely proud of it. Or at least, not afraid of mentioning it.

But, let us for the sake of argument and this post, assume that a retiring Buckethead, with all the little bucketheads out on their own, has cashed in his savings and bought a trailer (gasp!) in Florida (double plus gasp!). This plan has the one saving grace of locating Mr. and Mrs. Buckethead by the ocean, where at least we can smell dead fish.

The evil developer arrives to save the day, I mean, cheat me of my lifelong dream of sandy senescence. Would I succumb to the tentacles of his greedy plan? In the context of the hypothetical, that’s a tough one. If, by chance and cruel fate I ended up living in a trailer in Florida and someone offered me one meelion dollars, I’d take it in a hot minute and kiss the guy’s feet. Then I’d move somewhere cooler and less susceptible to coriolis storms.

But, again, assuming that this was my dream destination, I’d offer a qualified yes. I’d take the money, and use it to buy another trailer further down the coast. A nicer trailer, a doublewide; and get me a nice 4x4; and mebbe an RV so’s me and the missus can travel around the country and complain at people. The sea looks the same pretty much from any vantage point in Florida, so I can’t imagine that I’d be that attached to any one spot.

I have relatives that moved to the Florida Panhandle, near Pensacola. The bubbas in that region have been slowly moving inland, thanks to over generous offers from developers. The builders give the bubbas large amounts of cash, the bubbas move their trailers inland and buy new trucks. So long as they’re still on water – lagoon, river, whatnot, they seem to be happy.

With careful planning, even, you could get bought out multiple times.

Now, to turn this question around. If I were living in my dream house, and someone offered me a million dollars to move, the answer would in all likelihood be no. My dream house is in the mountains – or hills, at least – a forested wonderland of fifty or more acres, with a beautifully sited stone house overlooking a pleasant and undeveloped valley. This house might even have been built with my own hands. It will be custom designed, with secret passages, lots of built in bookshelves, and a turret. It would be my paradise.

If a developer tried to get me out of that, I’d fight tooth and nail. I’d not only turn down his offer, but get all grassroots on his ass and make sure he didn’t build anywhere near me.

Interestingly, ML mentions Carl Hiassen, whose book Basket Case I just started reading yesterday afternoon. I’d never heard of the guy before Friday, when my mom recommended him. So off I went to my local used book store and found one. Good so far.

I hope it is not too late to wish you, our dear readers, a Happy New Year. I sincerely hope that 2007 has already proved to be prosperous, enjoyable and relaxing for you, and that it will continue to be for the next 363 days. Hell, let’s just wish everyone a pleasant and nice 2008, 2009 and 2010 while we’re at it and put paid to the entire rest of the decade. Happy New Years!

The new year is too recent, yet, to have served up much in the way of disappointments or surprises yet. But I am confident that 2007 will prove to be as exciting and loaded with days as was 2006. In fact, I believe that 2007 will be a banner year. An anus mirabilis, if you will.

What will the new year hold for us? Well, a quick glance about the internets will reveal any number of predictions. A surplus of predictions, if we’re being honest. So what harm would there be in piling on just a little, and offering some predictions of our own? Not much, I think, and those who might be harmed will likely not be in any position to complain.

So, here are some predictions for the new year, organized by probability.

Near Certainties:

• Saddam Hussein will remain dead
• Fergie will remain talentless (pick a Fergie, it will be true regardless)
• I will be tired of the 2008 presidential campaign by mid Spring
• Patton will continue to pretend to post by using the Onion’s nifty auto-post feature
• I will revive the state motto and actual fact series when I run out of ideas again
• That will be sometime before February

Should Happen:

• Apple will continue to not introduce the iPhone
• Despite making progress in Iraq, it will look like we’ve made no progress whatsoever
• Someone will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities
• Fidel Castro will die, but continue to rule Cuba
• The world will get a bit warmer, and some Canadian farmers will be happy

Might Happen:

• Wi-Fi enabled Skype phones will totally transform the way people do mobile communications
• North Korea will do the decent thing and collapse, and be absorbed by South Korea with minimal loss of life
• Pat Robertson will personally kill Hugo Chavez with his bare hands
• Putin will stop playing around and get really authoritarian, whilst poisoning half of Europe
• It will be revealed that every single professional athlete is on the juice, and most of the amateur ones, too

Could Happen:

• People will realize that France doesn’t matter, and hasn’t mattered since May of 1940
• President Bush will be assassinated, causing momentary rejoicing in certain quarters. Until they realize that Dick Cheney is now President.
• Intelligent life will be discovered on Earth, and it won’t like us
• Michael Jackson’s comeback will be a resounding success

Out on Limb, Here:

• Aliens will invade, then get their asses kick when Christ and Elvis come back. Only the Amish will survive
• The Illuminati will reveal themselves, citing disgust with the total failure of all their plans, thanks to that meddling jerk, Dan Brown
• Apple will seize 95% of the personal computer market, and then everyone will realize that Bill Gates was a nice guy, right before they go into the reeducation camps
• The Libertarians will field a rational, non-insane candidate for President. Oh, shit, sorry, this is about predictions, not fantasy.
• The Ministry will mount a successful hostile takeover of Instapundit. We will appoint the crack young staff of the Hatemonger’s Quarterly to blog here in our stead.

Almost Certain not to Happen in 2007:

• Hell will freeze over
• The Rapture of the Nerds
• Panopticon surveillance and ubiquitous law enforcement become a reality in the industrialized west. (That’s scheduled for 2008. Smoke ‘em while you can)
• The world will end in fire

There you have it. Some of those things, and many others besides, will be sure to happen this year. We'll check back in December to see how I did.