But while we're on the subject

My last post dealt with congress "outlawing incandecents" (which is technically not true).

But lest you think that it's time to breathe a sigh of relief that government isn't pushing the boundaries of liberty farther and farther back... this is no joke.

Granted, it's "only" being proposed in California right now. But imagine a president Al Gore with a congress full of Nancy Pelosis.

And be afraid.

Going Incandescent

A week or so ago I saw a headline in the paper saying that Congress had outlawed incandescent light bulbs, effective 1012 as a part of an energy independence bill.

Now I'm all for energy independence. I'm all for efficiency. I'm "environmental", in that I want a nice environment to live in and pretty wilderness places to get away to when I have time to get away.

Of course, rising energy costs and hyper-inflated concerns over greenhouse gasses were already driving the market that way. As a matter of fact, most of those incandescent bulbs in my house have already been swapped for the mercury-laden replacements. I'm hoping the mercury recovery or mercury containment facilities will be in place by the time my bulbs wear out. I'm far more concerned with mercury in my ground water than I am with CO2 in the air, really. But I do like the 60% energy savings, no doubt.

Still, I think Congress has no business mandating these things.

I've worried about what we will do to replace our dimmable lights. There is a dimmable CF, but it won't look nice in smaller, open-style light fixtures where the bulb is visible (or would be visible if you had to use one of these new fangled things). I know LED is on the horizon, but it's DC and my light fixtures are AC.

So I dug in to this a little more, and it turns out the headline and the story were misleading. Incandescents aren't being outlawed. Oh, the kind we have now are -- but not explicitly. It's an efficiency coefficient that's being mandated. And apparently GE et. al. expect to have an incandescent that is twice as efficient as today's model (~2.2%) by 2010 (~ 5%). Which would put them about halfway in between current incandescents and current CF bulbs (~7%) in efficiency. And you'd still be able to dim them without re-wiring your house.

Apparently tube fluorescent are more efficient than CFs, and high and low pressure sodium bulbs are the most efficient at about 22%. Apparently there are some white LED prototypes approaching this figure as well.

So while I disagree with Congress sticking it's nose in the situation, it looks like it's mostly symbolic. It may force the issue some, but things were headed in that direction anyway. Still, someone came up with the observation that the incandescent bulb has been the symbol of new ideas since ... Edison, and lamented the prospect of squelching our innovative abilities by outlawing the symbol.

A comment on a forum discussing this by someone going by catfantastic caught my eye and my funny bone when someone suggested we won't be able to come up with ideas anymore when the incandescent goes away:

People will still be able to have ideas. It's just, there will be a one-second delay, and then they'll get a slightly dimmer idea, and then that idea will flicker for a second, and THEN they'll get the real idea.

We just need to think of a longer word than "Eureka!" so that people can shout something that covers the duration.

A Privilege

Drove out to my parents' house for our family's Christmas get-together today, and I was treated to this sight about a mile or so from their house. A bird took off from the middle of the road where it had been feeding on a dead possum, and as it flew up 20 or so yards in front of the car, I saw the distinctive white tail, dark body, and majestic wingspan.

Is that a bald eagle??? I have never, to my knowledge, seen one in the wild. If I have it was certainly not this close. I didn't even think we had any here. I quickly pulled the car to the side of the road and hauled out my ever-present camera.

He wasn't going anywhere. He had a guaranteed meal to finish and he wasn't about to leave it. He waited high in a tree for me to move on, and I'm sure he went right back to it after we left.

No wonder we picked this bird as our national symbol. Wow.

Aw, shucks!

I am humbled.

I didn't do much internetting between December 21 and ... Well, Jan 2. No regrets about it, really -- I was doing that family Christmas thing. Christmas is a Big Deal to me ... to us, and I pay a lot more attention to IT than anything else for a couple of weeks every December.

But in doing that I missed what has to be the biggest compliment I've ever gotten from anyone, maybe ever -- besides my wife saying she'd marry me, of course.

It came from Morgan at House of Eratosthenes the very day I started my hiatus.

Wow. I mean really. Here's the whole post (with links to other sites he considers worthwhile). As he would say, I'm not in it for the recognition, but I will take some if I may since it was offered:

Phil, Clue Batting Cage. He comes in second after Buck. A close second. You know Myers-Briggs? This guys is as INTP as INTP can possibly get, and that’s supposed to be 1% of the population. I’m a heavy INTP myself, so Phil and I have some interesting off-line conversations about what’s going on and how “everybody” is kind of failing to grasp what’s really important about the latest events. Oh, but unlike myself Phil is somewhat well organized, can pass tests, and has actually pulled down some formal education for himself. Yet somehow, he’s sufficiently anchored to reality to understand something is heap-big-busted with the way such sheepskins are ritually handed out nowadays. From what I’ve been able to gather, Phil is married to an incredible woman and is one lucky sonofabitch.

Thank you, Morgan. High praise from someone I think has a lot more insight into people and behavior than I do and a special knack for expressing thoughts that often leaves me saying to myself, "now why didn't I think of that?"

Morgan has been on the top of my "Highly Recommended" blog roll for quite some time now. It was a good day when I found a link to one (three, actually: I II III) of his posts with high recommendation from Misha, the infamous Anti-Idiotarian Emporer. I was immediatley struck by how closely Morgan shared my world view, but was much better at expressing it. So I stuck around. He always has something interesting and insightful to say. He's a daily read. More than that, really. And a friend I have never met in person but would surely enjoy tossing a few back with him on some patio somewhere.

---

As a footnote, he's since added a couple more installments to the What Is a Liberal? series.

IV and V

Fluff

"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." - Barack Obama

Wow. He has the audacity to say that?! What courage!

Now, what did he say?

Nothing!

Again, it is meaningless on purpose. This is what everybody's excited about? "The Audacity of Hope". "Change We Can Believe In". "There has never been anything false about hope!"

There has never been anything shoe about ears, either. What's that got to do with running a country?

---

Update: Yes, ok, I know, that was a little obtuse. It was intentionally obtuse. But it's been pointed out that it's a bit too obtuse. It was all I could come up with at the time. I guess I falsely hoped that everyone would see that. So here's a better example:

There's never been anything shallow about water.

See, shallow isn't an inherent property of water. Water can be deep, and water can be shallow, depending on where the water is and how much of it there is. Similarly, falsehood is not an inherent property of hope, either. But hope can certainly be false hope, depending on what is being hoped for and the liklihood of that thing happening being a positive number with reasonable magnitude.

Human Events Endorses Fred

I heard it from Fred, first, but I'm also on the Human Events mailing list so I'll probably see it later today from them.

Also, if you haven't seen it and you're wondering "hey, I've never heard of this Thompson guy" or "I have but I don't know much about him, check out the video at the top of this website:

Fred Thompson

Not to be confused with Fred08.com, the official site.

Sombody Turned the Thompson Switch On

Wanna see some passion?

Stupid Bumperstickers

Same culprit as the Che one from a couple of weeks ago, only this one's on her car instead of her guitar case:

"The important thing is to never stop questioning".

While I agree that questioning - or skepticism - is healthy, it isn't "the" important thing. And when you do question, be prepared for an answer, and you should be prepared to evaluate that answer for yourself.

The important thing is to obtain good answers to your questions.

I wanted to slap another bumpersticker right on top of that one. It would say:

"Are you sure about that?"

Pat Sajak

Yup. That's right.

Pat.

Freakin'.

Sajak.

That one. Yes, the same. The one that's been hanging out with the blonde with the legs and the big smile in front of the big wheel for what, 25 or so years?

Turns out the guy is also a pundit. And a conservative one at that. Maybe I'm late to the game and everyone else knew this. At any rate, a couple of days ago I read a satire article he wrote about Al Gore suing Time magazine to recount their votes for Man of the Year. (Or would that be ManBearPig of the year?)

That very evening, a friend of mine sent me another article by him, A Solution to Man Made Global Warming -- basically a throwdown to Global Warm-0ngers. Pretty good.

So I went looking to read more of his stuff. And with all our recent talk about polls, I found this one from 2006 relevant.

The man is obviously articulate, observant, and intelligent.

Waaaah-Tear-Gate

The whole "Hilly cried" bit was a bit much for me. Not so much that she did it, but that it got analyzed and analyzed and analyzed. My inclination is to believe it was calculated, but how can I really ever know? And does it make a difference where she stands on the issues if she shed a tear about pressure? No. I don't like her beliefs. It has nothing to do with her emotional expression.

As a side note, for what it's worth, Karl Rove believes Hillary's scant emotional display was genuine.

Some of the analysis actually raises my eyebrow -- not about the "event", but about the analysis itself. Which is why I'm even mentioning this whole thing to begin with. There are those analysts out there who actually think that a bunch of New Hampshire women changed their minds about voting for Obama and switched to her because ... she shed a tear. Like, a day or two before voting. It reminds me a bit of the election process in the movie Brazil¹.

I don't know about you, but I think that's bizzare. Because I don't think that way. And nobody I know thinks that way. Maybe it's the quality of the company I keep.

The other main idea explaining the "surprise" was that NH women who had been excited about Obama suddenly changed their minds after seeing the results of the Iowa primary -- and were now afraid that a woman wouldn't make it to the White House. Huh? They liked Obama until they thought he might win?

I've heard the argument that a straight democracy eventually leads to government by the stupid. I thought (at the time) that was a bit harsh. I'm not so sure anymore. I really do hope we're not so whimsical on our candidate of choice that our minds can be changed at the drop of a tear or a sudden shift on who the underdog is, or because he or she is black or white or male or female or southern or northern or whatever.

What I find most interesting is the adherence to the theory that if the polls said A on Sunday, and not-A happened on Tuesday, it must mean that something happened between Sunday and Tuesday to "change" the outcome.

It couldn't possibly be that the polls were just ... wrong.

---

¹ For those of you who haven't seen it, each candidate was represented by a TV network. Ratings for each TV network were continuously, instantaneously being updated based on how many people were tuned in right then. At a certain time on Election Day, which ever network had the highest rating at that instant -- well the candidate who was represented by that network won the election.

To take it further to the brittle extreme, the programming on these networks had nothing whatsoever to do with the candidates or their politics. Programming was chosen soley to get the most people to tune in.

Intellectual Honesty

From a big name in the press, no less:

Tom Brokaw, on the "surprise" NH Clinton victory over Obama and his colleagues' reaction -

"The pirouettes are amazing. The utter confidence with which everyone had been wrong 20 minutes earlier, they have the same utter confidence about what produced this surprise. It's intellectually dishonest."

Has Tom had a breakthrough about the culture in which he works? I'll bet if he sat and thought about it, other examples of how press culture works would pop out of the woodwork right and left.

But mostly left.

What Have You Done for Fred?

This is a friendly little message to all the Fred Thompson backers out there.

I have never given money to a political campaign before. I mean, ever.

I was on the Blogs for Bush Blogroll for the last Presidental election. And I have a picture and link to Fred Thompson on my blog this time around. But nobody really reads this blog, anyway, with all due hat-tipping to Morgan.

And so I watch in vain this political campaign where my guy, the guy I would really rather have in the White House than anybody else running on either side ... struggles. He doesn't appear to have the big backers others have. But I know a lot of people who say they are for him. I also know a lot of other people who know absolutely nothing about him, but they'd be for him if they did and thought about their choices for a while.

If I do nothing, I can only blame myself.

So I did it. Not much, mind you, but a little. If everybody who wants to see Fred get out there and have the press take him seriously (which, of course is 90% of the problem) would donate just a little ... well he'd have a better chance.

So here's a little throwdown to all the Fred supporters out there. If you haven't already, put a little money where your mouth is. As Bob Parks just said ... he's the only real adult in the pack. A shame to let the fact that we actually have one go to waste.

Idiocracy

My good web buddy Morgan Freeberg recommended this movie a month or so ago.

The throngs of 26th century people in this movie would be swept away by Obama. He's got electrolytes, you know. He's what the young people crave. It says so right on his label.

I laughed all the way through it.

I never made the connection between Mike Judge and Beavis and Butthead when I saw "The Office". For some reason I get him mixed up with someone else. But now that I've seen this movie I feel a whole lot better about secretly liking the Beavis & Butthead cartoon. My "excuse" had been that Beavis and Butthead were cariacatures of people we all knew and couldn't stand. This peek inside Mike Judge's mind assures me that that was his intent. We're not supposed to like them or what they do. We're supposed to shake our heads that people actually think they're cool when they do things that they think will make them cool.

Change

In the paper the other day I saw a picture of Barak Obama with his campaign slogan on the podium in front of him. It was also plastered all over supporter's signs behind him. It said:

Change We Can Believe In

I hate to state the obvious, but that doesn't mean anything. Worse, it means nothing on purpose.

The candidates and pudits alike are all talking about "change" as if it means something. Something even semi-specific.

It means whatever the listener wants it to mean. That's why they use it. It's calculated ambiguity. Triangulation. Whatever you want to call it.

I'll throw out a simple example. Suppose a gun-banner hears the word "Change" and thinks there ought to be no guns in the hands of private citizens. There are guns in the hands of private citizens. So further restriction of the right to bear arms would be "Change". And suppose your average NRA member who is for less restrictive laws hears the word "Change". There are some very restrictive laws on the books about how and where you can buy a gun and where you can carry one and where you can't, and what you have to do to carry one where it can't be seen even if you're carrying one where you're allowed to carry one. Relaxation or repeal of some of these laws would be "Change" to the NRA member.

In this case, the politician asks "Do you want 'Change'? Are you for 'Change'?". And both people say "yes!". But they want opposite things. There is no better example of a meaningless question than one in which the same answer can have directly opposing meanings. Any answer to a meaningless question is likewise meaningless.

It's like the question "Do you think the country is headed in the right direction?" The question means nothing. It's far too vague. The same gun-control example I used above applies, and it can apply to almost any issue. More than that, neither one talks about any specific issue, so any answer could apply to anything. One person might think the question refers to culture. Say I don't like the trend toward shock celebrities and reality TV, but I'm supportive of the Iraq war. So I say, "No, the country is not headed in the right direction." And someone else who likes Brittany Spears and whatever that horrible new game/reality show ... "Nothing But the Truth" -- but is also strongly anti-war might say "No, the country is not headed in the right direction."

Protectionism, social policy, fiscal policy... there's something for anyone to answer that they don't like and want changed. A campaign slogan of "Change" allows anyone to hang their aspirations on that candidate.

Anyone who votes for a candidate based on the fact that he/she promises "Change" ... shouldn't be voting. Make 'em say where they stand on the important issues and decide whether or not you agree with their philosophy.

"Change" isn't a philosophy. It's certainly not something to govern by.

Stupid Bumperstickers

This one on the guitar case of a young woman whose lesson was right after mine:

"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love."
- Che Guevara

Well, my little self-aggrandizing anti-western budding communist, he also said:

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
- Che Guevara

Huh. Two-faced, too. My next bumpersticker might just be:

"A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
- Che Guevara


This one wouldn't be bad either:

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary."
- Che Guevara

Still for Fred

Fred has been the most promising guy to me, not necessarily to win, but to support most of the issues I support and use some of what we used to call "common sense" in running things and negotiating with our enemies. Within and without.

But I'd kinda written him off early. But after yesterday, I'm gonna say "Not So Fast".

Show of hands -- who thinks Giuliani or Huckabee will win the nomination?

Republicans "Like This War" - Pelosi

So I get this thing from Bob Parks where he tips me off to Nancy Pelosi's latest assault on reason, truth, and history:

"They like this war. They want this war to continue." ... "We thought that they shared the view of so many people in our country that we needed a new direction in Iraq." ... "But the Republicans have made it very clear that this is not just George Bush's war. This is the war of the Republicans in Congress."

And it doesn't take long googling for news outlets that that indeed is what she said. That Republicans like the war and want it to continue.

I do not for one minute believe that George W. Bush or any other Republican "likes" this war or wants it to continue. They do want to finish it. But finishing it and ending it are not the same thing.

But then in today's continuing pattern of getting your PR soundbytes out (Clinton Campaign: The Republicans are going to rake our poor friend Obama over the coals for his former drug use. Ooops, did we say that? Well we aren't saying it, but they will. - snicker- ) she later "takes it back":

Well, when I said like, I used a poor choice of words. The fact is: They support this war. They support the president's execution of it, even though any objective observer of it would say that a war that we've been in much longer -- more than a year longer -- than we were in World War II, going in on a false pretense without a strategy for success, without a reason to stay, against the wishes of the American people does not deserve the support of the Congress of the United States.

It's a war America is in, Nancy, and one you voted for. Adults, once they start something even if they find out later some of their premises were wrong -- finish what they start. You got your PR soundbyte in, then you try to have it both ways by "apologizing" -- just like Shaheen & Huckabee.

What was the strategy for success in WWII, anyway? Whatever it was, if there was one, it sure wasn't to minimize every success we had and amplify any setback or any wrongdoing by a handful of our troops. Which has been the political strategy of the Democrats ever since we crossed the Kuwaiti border. Which I believe has a lot to do with why this war has gone on for longer than WWII.

Pelosi, et al have given aid and comfort to the enemy practically since the war began. You know what we used to call that? You know what the peanalty used to be?

And what's all this stuff about no change in strategy? Remember the Surge that the Democrats were so against and were so sure it wouldn't work that they declared it failed before it even started? (Probably because they were afraid it might succeed?) After the big "change in direction" (which, incidentally is not synonymous with "withdrawal", Nancy) was allegedly asked for, America got one in just a few months. And a few months after the change took place, things in Iraq started getting much much better. Which is why you're playing a misdirection by screeching the same tired charges over and over and over and over and over trying to nurture the anti-war "Availability Cascade".

Without a reason to stay? Without a reason to stay? We stormed somebody's house to take out an abusive parent and left it pretty messed up. In the mean time, some of our worst enemies came in to make it as bad as they possibly could for us. If we leave before we should, we do a great disservice to the Iraqi people. If we leave before we should, we hand a PR victory to Al Queda. Don't give me this "no reason to stay" schtick.

I see through you. You're trying to convince us what you say is true by repeating it and having the press repeat it for you.

We did not go to war against the wishes of the American people, and while naturally the American people wish we could leave and have our troops home ASAP, we know that it isn't a good idea.

Apparently you think it is. Or maybe you're just afraid of Code Pink.

The A List

Passed along from my good buddy Morgan, via Buck.

I thought I was doing pretty well until I read Buck's.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped (don't plan on it, either)
11. Visited Paris

Expand to see the rest

[−]

12. Watched a lightning storm.
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights (I'd love to!)
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg (be cool to see one first hand. Not in the same way the Titanic did, but...)
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking (if it still counts when you're drunk)
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day (well... kind of ... for a lot of the day)
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country ( I have, however danced with the two guitarists from an all-girl punk-rock band. Once again, there was alcohol inovled. But that's another story.)
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud (not a big fan of getting muddy)
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas (through it but not to it)
86. Recorded music (not professionally)
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth (was up to my elbows in the back of a cow trying to situate a calf in the right position to come out at 2:00 am, following a vet's instructions)
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (every single one, baby!)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days (I'd love to do this, too)
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read (I'm going to guess Jimmy Buffett doesn't count)
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream (for brief moments in the mountains, yes. but in genral, I take life as it comes rather than dream big)
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Good Sign

At our "December Shindig" at the office, I talked to a woman who just bought a gun and was getting her CCW license, and another piped up and said she was doing the same.

And I work on a college campus.

Of course, these ladies aren't on the academic side and were raised with rural-esque midwestern values. But still. Good for them. Good for America.

Merry Christmas :-)

A Random Thought From Sowell

His "Random Thoughts" posts aren't his normal well-developed dissertations. But they sure are fun. And often pointed.

Now that the British television documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is available on DVD, will those schools that forced their students to watch Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" also show them the other side? Ask them.