The Rise of the American Taliban

This is what happens when a confused, misinformed electorate votes for confused, Tea Party idiots to become their government officials:

One blog post on the Eagle Forum Alaska site praised efforts at criminalizing adultery in Michigan, and Paskvan asked Haase if he thought it should be a felony in Alaska.

"I don't see that that would rise to the level of a felony," Haase said.

Paskvan: "Do you believe it should be a crime?"

Haase: "Yeah, I think it's very harmful to have extramarital affairs. It's harmful to children, it's harmful to the spouse who entered a legally binding agreement to marry the person that's cheating on them."

Paskvan: "What about premarital affairs -- should that be a crime?"

Haase: "I think that would be up to the voters certainly. If it came before (the state) as a vote, I probably would vote for it ... I can see where it would be a matter for the state to be involved with because of the spread of disease and the likelihood that it would cause violence. I can see legitimate reasons to push that as a crime."

Congratulations America, you reap what you sow!

Barack Obama is Hammond's disgusting picture

Living in South Carolina, this is particularly poignant for me:

"Are we prepared to see them mingling in our Legislatures? Is any portion of this country prepared to see them enter these halls and take their seats by our sides, in perfect equality with the white representatives of an Anglo Saxon race ... to see them placed at the heads of your Departments; or to see, perhaps, some 'Othello' or 'Toussaint' or 'Boyer' gifted with genius and inspired by ambition grasp the presidential wreath, and wield the destinies of this great Republic? From such a picture I turn with irrepressible disgust."

Well, it took 172 years, but an African-American with a name a lot more exotic than Othello or Toussaint did indeed become president of these United States. And it was particularly tin-eared, historically speaking, for a member of that self-same South Carolina delegation to hector Barack Obama at last year's State of the Union address. In truth, James Henry Hammond's racist diatribe was milder than those by other Southern "statesmen" who stirred hate and fear among their countrymen in the days leading up to the Civil War.

Jefferson Davis, in a speech to the Confederate Congress in April 1861, extolled slavery as a benevolent invention that allowed a "superior race" to transform "brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers." Alexander H. Stephens, Jefferson Davis' vice president, proclaimed that Jefferson and the Founders' high-minded declarations of universal liberty were "in violation of the laws of nature." This was profoundly wrong, Stephens said.

"Our new government is founded on exactly the opposite idea," thundered the vice president of the Confederacy. "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."

The South will never rise again (thank Jesus). And it has instead continued to decline.

Mere Coincidence?

Google's "Quote of the Day" applet today (3/21/11) provides:

You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
- Scott Adams

Newsweek's poll today agrees:

NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test--38 percent failed. The country's future is imperiled by our ignorance.

It's a conspiracy!

Why am I someone, rather than someone else?

"I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me...Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee. The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever. We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build fine houses, etc. We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth."

-Blaise Pascal

Pensées Sec. II 205-211, translated by W. F. Trotter, link

Economics and Politics

My initial political leanings, if you can call it that, came from a childhood steeped in conservatism. I remember clearly hearing talk about "welfare queens" bankrupting the country and how union workers were lazy and were a real drag on corporate growth and profits. My parents were big fans of Reagan and thought that taxes were basically always wasted on someone who didn't deserve them. I read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" when I was about 22 and went through a libertarian phase which I now see as hopelessly naive. For the libertarian and hard-core right-wingers, personal property is sacrosanct: taxes are an immoral theft of the government, a "transfer of wealth" from the rightful owner to some undeserving social parasite.

Tablet decision

About six months ago (Oct) I mentioned that I liked the Galaxy over the iPad.

As far as hardware specs go, the new iPad2 and Xoom have significantly improved the playing field since that time. Leaps and bounds, really...

But the decision to buy is still a tough one for me.

For one thing, I don't intend to buy a 3G device simply because I don't feel it's worth the extra monthly charge on the data plans, since it is more than offset by the subsidy offered by the carriers.

You can buy a Xoom or iPad2 wi-fi only model for about $500-600. That's a lot of $ for a toy, if you already have a decent laptop, as we do. We're trying to sell our desktop, but it probably won't go for much (if anything).

In comparing the two devices, the iPad2 wins on its apps at the moment, but I have a strong feeling that Android's software and app store will both win out in the long run. It's just too hard to beat open source, and Honeycomb is much newer than the iPad2's predecessors, which set the stage for app development a long time ago. The iPod Touch, iPhone and original iPad mean that Apple simply had a huge head start in the app game. But all it takes is literally browsing the Apple App store, finding neat ideas, and copying them into the Android SDK. That's why the "app advantage" is simply a matter of time, and shouldn't be a serious part of your consideration of which one to buy.

A lower-cost and somewhat attractive alternative is buying a Nook Color for about half the price ($250), and rooting it with either Froyo or Honeycomb. Although the NC doesn't have cameras or the newer software advantages, it is a 7", not a 10" tablet, which I think is a more perfect size for a tablet. The drawback here are the hardware limitations and the eventual problem updating the OS as the hardware was never built for Honeycomb.

So...decisions, decisions...but I'm in no rush.