lost in the noise

we live in a sea of noise: buy that, hate him, love her, follow me; the voices on all sides are the sea in which we swim. Some of them are friendly, all too many of them are sharks. In some ways this is the true fear of death; will my children, will my ideas, will my ideals survive the passage of time. I can think of no greater curse than "May your plans crumble in your hands, you allies thrown down, your name whispered as a curse. Watch as your enemies breach your walls, may your ideals be cast in the dirt and danced upon by those who opposed you. Finally the greatest curse of them all, let your soul be scattered in the wind and lost in the noise of the world......"

Blerg...

Yeah, bad blogger, not posting in over half a month. What is that, like twelve years in internet time? I'm probably going to post more science-type blogging in the future (I am a scientist, in the electrical engineering grad school, "Nobody knows what this does? let's poke it with a stick!" fashion). Often I will drop things that I think are good for me, and not want to pick them up because I've been lax in doing what needs to be done. Well, here is the pickup of the dropped plan of the day.

So one step forward, twelve steps sideways... At least it's progress

Oh Look! A comment!

And what a cute little right wingnut troll too! Here I was, thinking I was posting and nobody was listening and he comes along. Still if I managed to raise his blood pressure I must be doing something right, really started my day off on the right foot. So in commeration of the double first of my first comment AND my first troll, I donate $50 (my first political money donation ever) to the Democratic party of New Mexico. Thank you right wingnut anonymous troll, I couldn't have done it without you.

Translating Wingnut-ese for the reality based community.

[Cross posted to Salon.com]

Murh.. Muhahaha… Kudos to Salon for getting this turkey to give an interview; as noxious as he is, I’m glad I have a chance to beat Glenn Greenwald to the punch a bit, I imagine he will be able to tear this guy apart much better than I.

Before we start peeling apart the spin and defenses, lets take a look at the man’s history. The Wikipedia bio of Jerome Corsi, member of the Constitutional party (originally called the U.S. Taxpayers Party), which has such august supporters like Pat Buchanan, Bob Smith, and minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist. Lovely company he keeps, old school. “constitution in exile” and “anti-UN New World order” paranoids. Read the full Constitutional party entry, it’s pretty hair curling.

In the interest of space and because it’s getting late, I’m just going to give the reality-based translation to the first page of his questions, with a link back to the original page.

What's the book about?

It's about the coming merger with Mexico and Canada. I make the argument that just as in Europe, it was a 50-year stealth plan by the intellectual elites and government officials planning to create a European Union, to go from originally a trade agreement, the coal and steel agreement, the original agreement, step by step incrementally building an argument and getting the votes needed to end up with the European Union. They went through a European common market, a European customs union, European community, finally European Union with its own currency, the euro. I'm saying the plan here is the same. Multinational corporations and elites pushing to have NAFTA advance into what it is now, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, ultimately a North American community, and if we don't stop it it will end up as a North American Union with its own currency, the "amero," the a-m-e-r-o, replacing the dollar and the other currencies in Canada and Mexico.

Translation:

How us pure Americans are going to get our bodily fluids sapped and impurified by those Icky Brown People, and the French, I mean Canadians.

What you seem to foresee, however, is something that would go further than the European Union and actually dissolve the United States.

The United States could remain as a country in a North American Union the same way Italy, France and Germany remain as countries in the European Union, but there's a significant loss of sovereignty so that now the European Union dictates from the nameless bureaucrats in the working groups in Brussels, in Luxembourg, the laws which the legislatures in the various countries -- Germany, France, Italy, etc. -- can pass. And if it's not approved they can't pass the law. So you basically have a European Union regional government becoming supreme and the governments of the individual countries becoming secondary in sovereignty to the regional government's dictates and rulings.

Evil liberals have destroyed the nations of Europe, who are soon going to soon be Muslim because they didn’t keep out those icky brown people. If we don’t go into full frothing paranoid mode, we won’t be able to invade other countries at will, because The current iraq war is going so well.

So what's the motive on the part of the American government and American corporations in forming this North American Union? That wasn't much discussed in your book.

I pointed out very clearly that the motive here is a multinational corporate model, that our multinational corporations largely are beyond borders already. I pointed this out extensively when I discussed how the North American Competitiveness Council, which is an advisory group under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, was constituted almost entirely of multinational business groups that are constituted to advise SPP. The agenda there is that, you know, American labor is too expensive for the multinational corporations. Our manufacturing jobs are increasingly going to China and our high-skill jobs -- I mean take a look at Bill Gates and Microsoft: He's one of the top billionaires in the world, yet evidently he does not have enough billions. Rather than being thankful to U.S. citizens for buying Microsoft products over decades ... he's pushing for another billion dollars. He wants unlimited H-1B visas to get computer scientists in an unlimited capacity from India and he's threatening that if he can't get that here in the United States, he'll form a subsidiary in Canada and get his Indian computer scientists through Canada. As opposed to -- evidently the sons and daughters of American citizens graduating from colleges in computer science are too expensive for Bill Gates. And it's that type of an agenda that is already beyond borders, which is pushing for global profits at the expense of the U.S. manufacturing or the U.S. middle class.

The icky brown people (and French) are going to take our jobs and stuff. Never mind we ran a political hit job that handed re-election to the shrub, bosom buddy with the Enron, Wal-Mart, Halliburton, and any other multi-national that was willing to pay up. Never mind that.

See? translating a frothing wingnut is easy, fun for the entire family!

Update: added block quotes for this entry, since it's just confusing going back and forth

Cross posting, across the universe

Cross-post on my DailyKos diary.

I know it's like the 13th and I haven't followed up on why the amendment is a good idea, stupid angst.

This I remember...

I'm going to try a mental exercise. It's loosely based of of the classic "this I believe" series by NPR. rather that trying to say what I believe (with all of the defenses we put in place to defend our beliefs) I'm just going to say what I remember those moments we never forget. The images that we can call up in Technicolor when the moment arrives, for all of our days. This I remember....

I remember when the Challenger shuttle blew up, driving along the forested road with moss on the roots of trees taller than my house, I hadn't buttoned up my shirt.....

This I remember....

I remember seeing the second plane hit on 9/11 on live TV on CNN, and thinking "When did I wake up in a Tom Clancy novel?"

This I remember...

I remember glimpsing the nature of light, with the electric field dancing with the magnetic field in a waltz that could last the end of time, reach the end of space. Seeing the waltz of light all around me in the dark Houston night, lit by the lamps of the parking lot.

This I remember...

I remember driving a U-Haul truck counting the miles till I left Texas forever, ending one page of my life, and starting another.

I Remember.....

What to do about the Libby commutation

Well, Bush did it, he gave Libby a nearly-get-out-jail-free card, and may get a full pardon eventually. People are rightly very pissed all over the place, and now talk is focusing on what to do. Outside of extra-legal options, what can be done is pretty limited, by the letter of the law is pretty clear, even when the spirit has been violated five ways from Friday. Digby has put forward the idea of impeachment for very good reasons, others are not so hot on that course of action for other very good reasons. I want to suggest an alternate way, not a third way, but a different line of attack to this travesty.

The founders managed to understand that their document was not perfect, which is a lot better than the majority of people trying to lead a country, past or present. To allow mistakes in the constitution to be fixed, to allow holes to be filled. Well we've found a big gaping hole in the constitution, and it's time to apply some Spackle. Yes, I'm saying we should amend the constitution, not a major change, but a tweak that would go a long way to fixing the problem.

The 28th amendment would "currently" read (I just know there is going to be feedback on this one so it will almost surely change).


The President and Vice President do not have the power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States to members of the Executive Elected and Appointed during their terms of office as either the President or Vice President.


There are two questions that need to be answered with this leap. Is it needed? and is it a good Amendment from a historical point?

The first question, is it needed? my personal short answer is of course yes, but here are the reasons why. First, this abuse of the constitution has been used before, anyone remember Nixon? I'd like to say that it was a healing thing but it seems like so many of the same people found their way back into the current administration this time around. Finally, of course, who can forget Ollie North, the poster child for the "break the law for us and we will get you off scott free" system of Republican governance.

The second reason why this is needed comes from my department of scary precog; I give better than a 50% chance of the happening. Step 1) On the last day of the Bush presidency, after the democratic party wins the House, has +60 seats in the Senate, and the White House (I can dream, can't I), president Bush gives blanket pardons to many of his appointed people and Dick Cheney. Step 2) Bush resigns as president, and as the new President (winded from a two month spree of shredding every document in sight), Dick Cheney pardons George Bush Jr. and spends the shortest presidency on record, less than 24 hours, laughing at the rest of us, with the entire corrupt orginization free as a bird to try it in another 20 years.

I'm getting a low probability message from the department of scary precog, a 1-10% chance of Bush launching a nuclear strike on Iran on the last day, kind of a step zero. I'd like to say he wasn't that stupid, but I been REALLY wrong before, and he does like those nukes.

I'd like to say that they have never thought of it, but that just isn't the case.

I'll talk about why this is a good amendment tomorrow, on July 4th no less.

Knowledge in strange places

Looking over the edited mess of my previous post (and it's still a bit of a mess). There was a part that I cut out (not struck through), mainly because I really felt it deserved it's own post. The part was:

Personally, I like to say I'm a Deist on good days and an Agnostic on bad days. Other days I like to say I'm a neo-social-Darwinist (one who thinks symbiosis is generally a more effective path then "nature red in tooth and claw").

Deist, Agnostic, Darwinist It looks like I'm a bit of a schizophrenic philosopher, but it boils down to the fact that I have no clue with what "The Truth" is, and I'm man enough to admit it. I may have guesses, theories and hunches, but nothing that I can say in my heart "Yes! this is it!". Still I look, and occasionally I find clues in the most unexpected places.

I'm pretty much a hardcore man of science (with a fair bit of mad scientist thrown in, you should hear my evil laugh), and it irritates me to no end when some glassy-eyed fundy says "but how can you live with out the wonder of miracles around?" Here is my answer to that, found it in a comic book (though it's one of the best comic books this century, Watchmen).

Thermodynamic miracles ...events with odds so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... ...Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of that thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... That is the crowning unlikelihood. the thermodynamic miracle.

But... If me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle... I mean you could say that about anybody in the world!

Yes.

Anybody in the world.

But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget...

I forget.

We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.

Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.

When a fundy asks me where my miracles are, they are everwhere around me to the point of drowning myself in wonder when I glimpse the knowledge in strange places. How parched they must be for those same miracles, clutching that dry book in the boundless sea of life.

Out.

Life of a blogger

I've heard many places on the Internet that one of the best ways to make your blog better is to post at least once a day. I managed to keep that up for about 2 days. Ah well, at least I got that bit of angst out of my system....

I'm not even sure the direction this blog is going to take, primarily this is currently a political blog ( 2/3 posts), and it's an important part of what drives me, but with the great majority of the population, we don't survive on a single issue. I've lurked on the websites of left blogosphere before it became cool, and it was amazing; to watch the path of the greatest nation one earth change for the better. To actually know that you looked at the moment when the butterfly of chaos flapped it wing and started the change of events that moved nations, that you might have glimpsed a flash of how it all works; there is no mental high like that, it's like freebasing God. I can see why there are so many cranks and would-be prophets out there.

Of course there is always the come-down, I watched and learned and did nothing. A bit of wisdom there, as anyone who has been out here for a while knows you lurk on a board for a while before you post. Being bit repeatedly as a child, teenager and young adult on grandiose ideals, I've learned to be cautious with my passions, to worry when the universe seems to be aligning with what I feel. I also worry that I'm not being aggressive enough, how is that for angst?

But still is there is that rush... when the stars align, when the crowd turns with you, when lady luck smiles, when you make the goal to win the game, when the universe reveals its secrets in subtle splendor. When in all of the confusion of the world falls away: you see clearly, act clearly, feel clearly, and actually do the right thing. If somebody could do that every second of the day, in an day they could save a life, in a month they could be hero, in a year they could be important, and in a lifetime they could change the world, forever. It's what I personally consider "The Divine State" and those who have managed to attain it for sustained periods of time have changed the world in profound manners.

Still, those who I think have managed to reach that state of being a significant part of the time are pretty famous: Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Patton, Einstein, Alexander the great, Archimedes, Michael Jordan, Plato, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and M.L.K to name a few. Some were able to attain The State more fully than others, some managed to maintain The State longer too. It's those moments of clarity and understanding that sear the soul, you could almost call it an "monolith moment" AKA 2001, where the chimp holds a bone in his hand and sees how he can change the world.

Agh.. too late to expound further.... Need to get to sleep for my meat-job tomorrow. We ain't done with this *points finger to all you out there*

Edit: minor changes since I finished this post at about 2AM last night

From the department of scary precog....

What was I saying? yesterday about the price that the theocons wanted for making it all OK?

"Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

Updated: To put the quote in, for better clarity.