Rhinocrisy

I remember a few years back when the Media Lab at MIT announced that it had developed a “sound laser”, a prototype device that could focus sound, laser-like, in a particular direction. I’m not exactly surprised to see the Guardian report that a weaponized version of the thing is being used as a crowd control device against G20 protesters in Pittsburgh. This is, after all, what our society seems to think engineering is most applicable to: better and better ways to hurt, kill, and torture each other. Hopefully the machines will come quickly and slice us into cube-shaped biotic units so that we’ll finally stop hurting each other.

This blog serves to some extent as a barometer of my mental health - when it is effulgent and rife with words, it means I’m doing well, my confidence is overabundant, and I’m willing to project my useless blatherings onto the Interspores. When it becomes ghostlike and silent, except for the occasional tumbleweed post, it’s probably the reflection of some dark stormclouds over my head.

Based on this assumption I can construct for myself a chart of my mental health history over the past few years, using the number of posts per quarter. Here it is:

Evidently 2005 was a very happy year for me. I was in the full bloom of my youth, I was in excellent physical shape, I was living with the best set of housemates I’ve ever had, and I had just taken a step back into graduate school, which at the time seemed fresh and exciting.^* The proceeding three years are clearly the result of grim reality setting in, of a succession of defeats wearing down my patience and self-confidence - the usual business of a PhD program. The last few quarters are understandably muddled; I still haven’t learned how to walk in the surreal mooonscape of San Francisco.

^* I was also the much-beloved neighbor of a bevy of beautiful and charming twenty-year old girls, whose company I sorely miss.

It’s perhaps too early to select a video of the year for 2009, but as a long-time admirer of ladies’ footses, I think this one should at least be in the running. It definitely makes me like Richard a lot more.

Via: the Daily Show, which has been surprisingly and refreshingly anti-Zionist this week.

Well, it seems once again the people who manage the Golden Gate Bridge are considering installing a suicide barrier (previously feted by hibiscus in this brilliant comment). The barrier would be a 12-foot tall fence, or possibly nets - yes, nets - to catch the jumpers, like so many fish flopping off the deck of a boat. Suicidal people wouldn’t be killing themselves, after all, if they didn’t have a bridge to jump off. I mean, it’s not like they can just swallow some pills, or something. Wait, can they? Oh, nuts! We should ban those - and maybe also rope, which could conceivably be used to form a noose, if they knew how to tie knots. Perhaps we should ban knots?

This essay on the subject of the miserable TSA regulations seems almost redundant. Does anyone approve of the meaningless protocols set in place at airport security?

I’m not sure which is more troubling, the inanity of the existing regulations, or the average American’s acceptance of them and willingness to be humiliated. These wasteful and tedious protocols have solidified into what appears to be indefinite policy, with little or no opposition. There ought to be a tide of protest rising up against this mania. Where is it? At its loudest, the voice of the traveling public is one of grumbled resignation. The op-ed pages are silent, the pundits have nothing meaningful to say.

Holiday travel => airport security => taking off my shoes again. I gather this is the result of infamous would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid, whose failed attempt has since resulted in more bunion and hangnail exposure than the founding of the Birkenstock sandal company. It’s only a matter of time before a Catholic church pedophilia-like scandal sweeps the TSA and it is forced to admit it covered up the legions of foot fetishists who have since joined its ranks, lecherously ogling unclad arches and sweat-stained socks.

But why should foot-fetishists have all the fun? Airports have a disproportionate number of young, attractive travelers, and I, too, want to be able to ogle my pound of flesh. The time is ripe: we need a pants bomber pronto.

Listen, I am usually afraid to admit I am wrong, but in this instance the evidence is unequivocal. Yes, it’s all about the sexbots, people. Don’t miss this in the comments:

The technology isn’t there yet, but one day it will be. Those who think it’s sick now won’t years from now when a passable android exists. Who doesn’t want a beautiful woman around the house who can do all the housework, never talks back or argues, is totally loyal and obedient, won’t run away, will take care of you in bed without demanding anything, never give you a STD, never get pregnant, and if you get tired of her, you trade her in for a new one without fear of being sued for every penny. A lot more guys than just the sad pathetic ones who can’t get laid any other way would be lining up for this.

Exactly! Who DOESN’T want such a woman? Who doesn’t is no man at all, but some sort of fiendish construct - perhaps engineered in a lab to have abnormal desires!

Daylight savings time starts tonight in the United States, 5 weeks earlier than it has in prior years. The theory behind the change was that it would save energy. The theory, from what I can tell, was based on studies that dated to the Nixon Administration. Like so much in the Bush Administration, it was a “no-brainer” fix, a painless step that seemed like a win-win. I bet you $1 that it turns out to be lose-lose.

The win-win idea was that it would cost little to implement the change, consumers would save money, and the U.S. would become more energy-independent. All of these are likely to turn out false.
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Or rather, food for cars.

I found it strange a few days ago, in this transcript of a conversation between Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, that the two of them agreed that ethanol was a horrible waste. Their reasoning was one I haven’t heard articulated outside of the disgruntled mumblings of luddites:

Hugo Chávez.- Do you know how many hectares of corn it takes to produce one million barrels of ethanol?Fidel Castro.- Of ethanol, I think you talked about 20 million hectares the other day, something like that (Laughter), but remind me.

Hugo Chávez.- Twenty million. No, you are the one with the exceptional mind.

Fidel Castro.- Ah, 20 million. Well, of course, the idea of using food for producing fuel is tragic, it is dramatic. Nobody is certain about what is going to happen with food prices, when soy is becoming a fuel, with the need there is in the world to produce eggs, to produce milk, to produce meat, and it is one more tragedy of the many that exist at this time.

But then there’s this:

An increase in the cost of tortillas, a staple of the Mexican diet since the Maya ruled 1,000 years ago, has triggered a slump in the peso.

Tortilla prices jumped 5.9 percent in January, the most in eight years, after costs climbed for corn, the main ingredient. That increase fanned inflation and a bond market rout that curbed demand for the currency. The peso has fallen 2.3 percent in the past month, making it the world’s second-worst performer against the dollar among the 70 currencies tracked by Bloomberg…

The peso may fall further in the next several months as corn prices continue to rise. Corn has soared 16 percent in the past eight weeks and 121 percent since late 2005 as demand for the grain grows from ethanol producers.

That’s not to say there’s no debate on the subject. But it’s pretty remarkable. Of all the reasons for corn prices in Mexico to finally rebound from their Nafta-depressed state, this is the most depressing. A need to feed cars.

Note: this blog beat me to the discussion.

Update: Saurabh, in comments, spots the impresarios’ math error. What’s two orders of magnitude when you’re in charge of a whole damn country? The basic point remains — consumption of corn for fuel, or speculation on corn because it’s now trendy to see it as an energy commodity rather than a boring old grocery store item, is screwing up Mexico.

This is deeply fucked up.^* A children’s book to teach little kids about “Democrat values”. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. I mean, look at this sample page:

Truly abominable. Instead of teaching kids that praxis of good values has merit in itself, these authors (and apparently their readers) will tell them that merit is derived from their association with the correct tribe.^†

I’m not some sort of shameless individualist, but herd mentalities give me the heebie-jeebies. An incisive observer of the world is one who appreciates nuance and does not cut the world into broad swathes. The opposite tendency is the hallmark of dullards. “You should all grow wheat,” Stalin says to the peasants in the USSR. “Oh, crap,” say all the Kyrgyzstanis, who have herded sheep for eons, and promptly starve to death.

I found this kind of shit-flinging tribalism especially offensive after the 2004 election, when plenty of Democrat associates of mine fulminated about those troglodytes in the “red states” and their lack of basic human decency. A message to you, Rudy: get over your need to draw battle lines over political allegiances. Baring your teeth and snarling at each other is what dogs do. Just be humans.

^* Incidentally, is there any more powerful way to express condemnation than to say that “shit is fucked up”? I don’t think there is!

^† Especially when this particular tribe contains some notably virtue-less individuals.