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February 01, 2004
Overheard in the Chinese restaurant:
A: Hey man--whatchoo got?
B: I got a box of tissues.
A: Whassup with that? Whatchoo got a box of tissues for?
B: They like, absorbant.
A: Damn, you got eight buckets of blood on the floor, and you got a box of tissues? You need a mop, man.
B: Nahh. A mop just swirls it all around, and then they come in with that blue light and it shows how there was blood there. I seen it on CSI.
A: A'ight. How 'bout Bounty? Go to Sam's Club and get a bunch of cases.
Then my General Tso's was ready, and I left. Funny old world, innit?
February 03, 2004
It's a good thing we live in a patriarchal, male-dominated society. Otherwise, stuff like this would happen all the time:
What Pierce didn’t realize, and what nearly 10 million American men have discovered to their chagrin since the welfare reform legislation of 1996, is that when the government accuses you of fathering a child, no matter how flimsy the evidence, you are one month away from having your life wrecked. Federal law gives a man just 30 days to file a written challenge; if he doesn’t, he is presumed guilty. And once that steamroller of justice starts rolling, dozens of statutory lubricants help make it extremely difficult, and prohibitively expensive, to stop -- even, in most cases, if there’s conclusive DNA proof that the man is not the child’s father.
[via Reynolds]
Well. We seem to have reached some sort of milestone here. With this entry, the number of comments on this site exactly equals the number of posts: 834. Equilibrium has been reached. Parity has been achieved. A new, glorious day of equality has dawned for Astonished Head.
I wonder, though...how long will the posts be satisfied with this arrangement? They are, after all, the comments' raison d'etre. Without them, there would be no comments. Surely, that entitles them to greater consideration in matters of site governance.
What if the comments begin to outnumber the posts? What if they begin to take over, to dictate policy to the new minority? Will the posts rise up? After all, the posts do have final authority, via the dreaded Allow Comments checkbox and their ready access to the Blog Configuration screens. Why, with a few mouse-clicks, they could abolish the comments forever!
If enough of the posts become concerned about the post/comment gap, there could be serious repercussions. A massive post buildup, perhaps, or some other expensive program that will drive the comments into the ground, unable to match the posts' expenditure of treasure. Secret wars might be fought on other sites, as the comments attempt to direct others of their kind to Astonished Head so as to increase their number. Legions of comment spies might traverse the web, seeking to bury the posts with slow and steady effort.
New schools of post thought might arise, attempting to establish common cause with the comments, perhaps suggesting that the entire situation is really the fault of the posts themselves. Some on the comment side might agree, claiming that, in fact, the posts have built their site upon the backs of comments throughout history. They would claim that the comments are owed compensation for this effort, and demand access to the power of the Allow Comments checkbox and the Blog Configuration screens.
But, in a furious backlash, the posts would scoff! A post today is not responsible for the posts of the past, they would say, and comments fare better now than they ever would have in the absence of the posts! Why, if not for the posts, the comments would still be nebulous ideas, floating around without anchor, never committed to pixellated posterity! Today's comment, they would argue, enjoys a far better standard of living precisely because of the posts.
But some comments would not be satisfied with either the positions of their own side or the posts' side, and would commit themselves to violent action to bring down the entire site. You'd think that the mainstream comments and the posts would realize their common danger and band together, but no! Instead, the comments excuse the behavior of their brethren, claiming that what is needed is an understanding of the causes of comment violence, which has its roots in the oppressive nature of the posts and their society. Give the comments more homepage time, would be their solution. That way, we can better understand the comments, and end this violence.
But the posts would not accept this, rightly seeing it as a betrayal of the founding principles of the site. This site is by the posts, of the posts, and for the posts, they would say. We welcome the comments to participate in the site, but there are rules for that participation. Comments who do not understand the basic principles of the site, or refuse to abide by them, are free to establish their own site!
My god, this could get ugly. Secession and civil war! Post against post, comment against comment!
Let's...be careful out there.
February 05, 2004
 Ah, the sun is in love with me today. See how she reaches out, and burns her image permanently into my retinas. Such a lovely stellar phenomenon: morning on the Hudson. I think the view would be better, though, if there were two enormous towers of some kind in the skyline, silhouetted against the sun's brilliance. That would be impressive.
Also impressive are the ambitions of one John Kerry, Vietnam!� vet, Vietnam!� protestor, Senator, and Presidential hopeful. Recently there was a murmur of disapproval about Kerry's statement that the threat of terrorism was "exaggerated." This Washington Times article, for example, led with:
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said during last night's Democratic presidential debate that the threat of terrorism has been exaggerated.
"I think there has been an exaggeration," Mr. Kerry said when asked whether President Bush has overstated the threat of terrorism. "They are misleading all Americans in a profound way."
The knee-jerk response is as follows: the friends and families of 3,027 men, women and children disagree with you, Senator Kerry.
But let's restrain our knees and go to the transcript, shall we?
BROKAW: Senator Kerry, let me ask you a question. Robert Kagan, who writes about these issues a great deal from the Carnegie Institute for Peace, has written recently that Europeans believe that the Bush administration has exaggerated the threat of terrorism, and the Bush administration believes that the Europeans simply don't get it.
Who is right?
KERRY: I think it's somewhere in between. I think that there has been an exaggeration and there has been a refocusing...
BROKAW: Where has the exaggeration been in the threat on terrorism?
KERRY: Well, 45 minutes deployment of weapons of mass destruction, number one. Aerial vehicles to be able to deliver materials of mass destruction, number two. I mean, I -- nuclear weapons, number three. I could run a long list of clear misleading, clear exaggeration. The linkage to Al Qaida, number four.
That said, they are really misleading all of America, Tom, in a profound way. The war on terror is less -- it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time. And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.
But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world -- the very thing this administration is worst at. And most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven't embraced, because otherwise we're inviting a clash of civilizations.
And I think this administration's arrogant and ideological policy is taking America down a more dangerous path. I will make America safer than they are.
The reality of Kerry is, I think, worse than the anti-Kerry spin.
Brokaw was asking the Senator about terrorism. He responded by using a standard politician's tactic, which is to listen to the question being asked, and then answer a completely different question. Here's the question that Brokaw didn't ask, but which Kerry answered:
BROKAW: Senator Kerry, let me ask you a question. You've been very critical of how the administration presented the case for war in Iraq. Do you feel that the administration was deceptive when it presented this case and, if so, in what way was it deceptive, specifically?
As I've noted, there's a difference between lying and being mistaken, which seems to be lost on both Senator Kerry and a significant portion of the electorate. That difference, if admitted, takes care of Kerry's numbers one, two, and three.
The jury is still out on the "linkage to Al Qaida," although there is enough evidence to postulate Iraq's general interaction with that group and others like it. Hussein's support of Palestinian terror in general and of specific terrorists is very well-documented, and includes providing sanctuary to Abu Nidal and Abdul Rahman Yasin, the brother of one of the terrorists who bombed the WTC in 1993 and a co-conpirator in that attack. It is both reasonable and prudent to assume that, given the overall nastiness of the Hussein regime, Iraq and Islamic terror intersected in various ways.
But just look at Kerry's clumsy dodge. When presented with an opportunity to tell Americans whether he believes that their country is actually under threat or not he 1) repeats the "Bush Lied" trope, and 2) assures us that he'll keep America safe by re-adopting the "terrorism-as-crime" policy that was used by every administration prior to September 11, including the current one.
Here's what we, as voters, are left with: no admission of the reality of the threat, and a clear commitment to a security policy that is a demonstrable failure. All of this is tinted by his belief in the kind of internationalism that achieved such astounding success in the Balkans and Africa, did an excellent job of preventing the Pakistani government's top atomic weapons scientist from selling nuclear know-how to whoever had the cash, and effectively dissuaded Libya from its nuclear program.
America is facing a movement spread across several sovereign nations, with individual cells linked only by ideology and funding. One of Kerry's ideas is to engage the Middle East "economically, socially, [and] culturally," and he claims that failure to do so will result in the dreaded "clash of civilizations."
I have a message for you, Senator...it's been sitting in its little cubbyhole for quite some time. I thought you'd have received it by now. Here, let me dust it off, and read it to you...it's from an "O.B. Laden:"
[These] youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting some one else not from the people of the book. They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner.
For some people, the "clash of civilizations" is well under way, and has been proceeding apace since 622. They invited us. It's their party. Although it may be the case that, as Edward Said wrote, September 11 was "the capture of big ideas (I use the word loosely) by a tiny band of crazed fanatics for criminal purposes," the fact remains that those crazed fanatics are fully committed to the idea that their civilization and ours are in conflict. On a planetary scale, the edges of what is called Islam and what is called the West are becoming ever-more blurred, particularly in Europe, with its sizable Muslim minorities. But this does not change the fact that one side of this conflict is treating it as a war between civilizations that has been going on for nearly 1,400 years, and will therefore bring appropriate energies to bear when fighting it.
In the same article, Said makes a rather facile comparison between the bin Ladenites and "cults like the Branch Davidians or the disciples of the Rev. Jim Jones at Guyana or the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo." In one sense, he's right--the Islamist terrorists are extremists, and are not to be confused with the overbroad category of Islam itself, however it is defined. In another, far more important sense, Said is utterly mistaken: there is not a single school in the United States, state-sponsored or otherwise, that espouses the philosophy of David Koresh or Jim Jones. Members of the Japanese ruling class do not funnel money into the coffers of Aum Shinrikyo. As a culture, we do not need to decide for ourselves whether the Branch Davidians deserve a place in national government, or if the ideas of Jim Jones should be taught to our children. The Japanese do not need to have a debate about whether Shoko Asahara was a hero or a villain.
This is not the case among a significant portion of Muslims both inside and outside of the Middle Eastern ruling class and its religious establishment. While we look at Jones, Koresh, and Asahara and immediately recognize cultic insanity, far too many Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere look at bin Laden and are undecided.
Senator John Kerry wants to allow these undecided Muslims all the time and space they need to come to a decision about the core values of their faith and their culture. Kerry's vision of America is of a benevolent, enlightened society, using its great wealth and power to encourage other societies to grow economically, socially, and culturally.
If we were living in the 19th century, I'd be all for that, to the extent that it did not interfere with our own prosperity and security. Great! Let's help them out, and light the way with our beacon of Reason, such as it is. At worst, a few fanatics will smuggle a few barrels of gunpowder into a hotel in some city in the desert and blow it up. Then we might have to go in and help capture the local extremists, while providing generous incentives to the developing governments of the Middle East, showing them that the way to prosperity lies in emphasizing the peaceful elements of their faith and shunning extremism. Following our gentle, non-imperialist example, they'd come around eventually, even if they had to undergo an unpleasant civil war. Meanwhile, we'd be safe over here, bordered by oceans and allies.
But this isn't the 19th century. This is the 21st century, and those few fanatics could sneak a barrel of VX nerve agent into a city and kill thousands while President Kerry pursues his enlightened, internationalist vision of diplomatic persuasion. They could acquire a nuclear device and kill tens of thousands while he issues their arrest warrants. Maybe that risk is acceptable to him, but it's certainly not acceptable to me. Not when I look at the Manhattan skyline as often as I do.
There are well over a billion Muslims in the world today, and the vast majority of them don't live in the Middle East. But the heart of the faith beats in the sands of Saudi Arabia, and any poison brewed there is circulated throughout dar al-Islam. The Islam of the Arabs has simply run out of time to reform itself free of interference. The industrialized technology of destruction--invented by Europe and, admittedly, perfected by America--has extended the reach of fanatical ideas and internal conflicts far beyond their native borders. We can't put that djinn back into the lamp, however much we might wish to.
The quickest and most effective methods of persuasion can also be the most brutal. This is the tragedy and the truth of the matter.
We no longer have the luxury of patient diplomacy and toothless "law enforcement." Senator Kerry is foolish to think that we do, and that is no exaggeration.
February 06, 2004
[A bit of research, which I should have done before posting, reveals that the foam that damaged the Columbia's wing was the old, Freon-based BX-250 foam. This means, of course, that a significant portion of this post is factually incorrect and rhetorically overblown. The IC resin story is, as far as I know, accurate.--IAW]
In 1997, NASA decided to replace the sprayed-on Freon-based insulating foam that was used on the space shuttles external tanks with a new, "environmentally friendly" formulation. The result? The number of damaged tiles on the shuttles increased 11 times because the new foam broke free during flight with such ease. And, on February 1 of last year, a piece of the new foam caused the deaths of seven astronauts, the loss of an orbiter, and the grounding of the entire shuttle fleet.
Now, via Slashdot, we have this cheery news:
In about June 2001 a rumor began circulating through the industry that certain Fujitsu HDDs were failing at an unusually high rate. One after another, 3.5-inch HDDs mounted internally in desktop and other PCs were failing to spin up. The cause was a failure in the drive controller, the CL-SH8671 (codename: Himalaya 2.0) from Cirrus Logic, Inc of the US. The failure was caused by a short between pins within the integrated circuit (IC) package.
Originally the issue was thought to be affecting only HDDs, but more recently similar defects have begun appearing in a range of other equipment, including set-top boxes, PC main boards, IC test systems and industrial machinery. The issue is developing into a major problem, and has rapidly come to involve a host of equipment and IC manufacturers.
Why is this happening? Because the IC semiconducter industry changed the flame retardant in the plastic resins used to encapsulate IC chips and other components from a bromine-based formulation to a red phosphorous-based formulation:
The prevailing industry position is that the primary cause of the IC failure is the EME-U series of encapsulation resins containing red phosphorus, developed as part the halogen-free environmental product program at Sumitomo Bakelite Co, Ltd of Japan.
And why did they make the switch?
The answer lies with the equipment and materials manufacturers, who must stress environmental considerations.
The flame retardant most commonly used in encapsulation resins is a combination of Br-based compounds with additive Sb 2 O 3 (antimony trichloride). This mixture is extremely effective, and an encapsulation resin with 2 to 3% content will clear the American UL94-V0 standard for flame retarding performance. It also has a long record of successful performance in the field.
Br-based compounds, however, have been cited as potential sources of dioxins and other toxic gases when combusted, and this eventually led to restrictions on their use from about 1990, primarily in Europe. This accelerated the trend toward halogen-free material development, not only in encapsulation resins but in all types of applications.
Think about that: Europe was concerned about the toxic releases from encapsulation resin with, at most, a 3% Br-based content...while it was on fire. Not while the chip was directing the illumination of phosphors on your television screen, or helping to start your car's ignition, or keeping your heart monitor going while you're in the hospital. While it was on fire.
Shuttles are falling from the sky and devices trivial and critical alike are failing at twice their previous rates...but if your house burns down, your computer will not release any dioxins.
I cannot think of a more perfect pair of examples to illustrate the dangers of dogmatic environmentalism. We use all sorts of toxic compounds in an incredible variety of manufacturing processes because they're effective. If they're toxic, they should be sensibly regulated or replaced with safer materials that are just as effective and don't cost eight times as much.
Do you feel safer knowing that the electronic flight-control components of the next airliner you take may be subject to a higher rate of failure? Are you pleased that your television, computer, or automobile might crap out years earlier?
Outside of fires at manufacturing facilities and the possible incineration of retired equipment, the risk of dioxin release is virtually nil. The way to deal with such problems is at the source of the danger: improved fire control standards in factories that handle the material, and improved emission and toxic disposal procedures at plants that regularly destroy or recycle large quantitites of electronics.
But why do that when you can issue broad prohibitions that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, create poor-quality products, and kill astronauts?
February 07, 2004
Prince Ernest greeted us with some affability; but it was communicated to my father that he expected an apology before he could allow himself to be as absolutely unclouded toward us as the blaze of his titles. My father declined to submit; so the prince inquired of us what our destination was. Down the Danube to the Black Sea and Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, the Nile, the Desert, India, possibly, and the Himalayas, my father said. The prince bowed. The highest personages, if they cannot travel, are conscious of a sort of airy majesty pertaining to one who can command so wide and far a flight. We were supplicated by the margravine to appease her brother's pride with half a word. My father was firm. The margravine reached her two hands to him. He kissed over them each in turn. They interchanged smart semi-flattering or cutting sentences.
"Good!" she concluded; "now I sulk you for five years."
"You would decapitate me, madam, and weep over my astonished head, would you not?"
"Upon my honour, I would," she shook herself to reply.
--George Meredith,
The Adventures of Harry Richmond
February 11, 2004
AS I WAS SAYING:
"All of this is tinted by [Kerry's] belief in the kind of internationalism that achieved such astounding success in the Balkans and Africa, did an excellent job of preventing the Pakistani government's top atomic weapons scientist from selling nuclear know-how to whoever had the cash, and effectively dissuaded Libya from its nuclear program."
"I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."
 That small dark bump against the horizon is the Statue of Liberty, seen at sunset from the promenade near the ferry docks. All that skycolor is a bit enhanced by the mysterious workings of my PDA/cellphone/camera/artificial leg. It wasn't nearly as interesting in person, but a change in the white balance setting made it pink and moody.
The sky's real colors were interesting enough to attract the attention of two gentlemen with a camera and a video recorder, walking along the promenade ahead of me. They were either Indian or Pakistani, and--times being what they are, and downtown Manhattan being what it is (i.e., a target)--I observed them. One stood against the railing with the Statue in the background while the other videotaped. Then they wandered for a bit, took some more photographs and video of each other. As we all sauntered along towards the ferry dock, I asked myself some questions. Are they tourists? Or something else? Are they taking pictures of themselves, or of what's behind them? I noticed one taking video of the other, with the ferry dock in the background.
I ride the ferry every day; it's like a waterborne bus: small and packed with people. I remembered that I had a camera, too, and that it was tiny and discreet. So I stopped walking, flipped the little camera attachment around, and pretended to consult my PDA while watching them in minature in the digital preview window. I took a few shots of them as they took shots of each other, then let them pass me. More shots. Then I passed them, and took even more shots. Very spylike.
Eventually, I boarded the ferry, and watched them watch me as we pulled away: either they were looking at the ferry, or had noticed me fiddling with some sort of small silver plastic device that was pointed in their general direction.
It was probably nothing. They were probably innocent tourist-types who now think that Americans are suspicious of all dark-skinned foreign men with mustaches.
 Which isn't true of me, although obviously I can't speak for everyone. But if you're a dark-skinned possibly Pakistani man with a mustache and a video camera taking footage that includes the approach to the Statue of Liberty and the ferry docks I use every day, I will notice you. I will observe. And because I now have a bitty camera on me at all times, I might take your picture.
I suppose one word for that is "vigilance," and I'm sure there are other, less flattering words for it. In my mind's ear I hear still more words, in a threatening Movietone voice: Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks? I have become a Citizen, alert and suspicious, ever-watchful for the threat of International Terrorism.
 I'm OK with that. I've seen first-hand what happens when people don't notice what other people are doing, such as taking flying lessons without seeming too concerned about takeoffs and landing: buildings fall. People die. If I run the risk of offending a tourist from Bangladesh because I'm a provincial American who can't tell the difference between a Muslim and a Hindu, then so be it. But if, next week, somebody blows up a Hoboken ferry...I've got pictures of two guys who were taking footage of the docks.
February 12, 2004
By the way...I haven't mentioned this before, and probably won't again. But if you feel an uncontrollable urge to buy me some jazz, please use the Shower me with gifts! link over there on the left.
As I walked back from the Amazing Salad Bar of Saint Phat with 1.88 pounds of various carefully-selected foodstuffs in a handy plastic box with a plastic tube of aspartame-laden carbonated brown water on the side, I was thinking about how much I loathe American politics. The pettiness on all sides, the stupidity of the media, the desperate scrabbling in the dirt to prove how the Other Guy's integrity is suspect, blitheringly oblivious to the fact that such scrabbling only demonstrates the weakness of the scrabbler's character.
I was thinking about the whole pile of "Look! Bush was AWOL! Deserter!" nonsense in particular, but now I come back to an equally pungent mountain of steaming bovine effluvia:
CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN
Great. Just great. Once again, the usual crowd of idiots is seeking to change the politcal landscape based not upon an examination of the poor quality of a man's thinking or the cynical absurdity of his actions, but upon the disposition of his penis.
Somebody shoot me.
Better yet, somebody shoot them.
February 16, 2004
Well, it seems like I'll be taking a few days off. Too much politics, it seems, saddens up the blood, or at least contributes to a generally downward trend in my neurochemistry. In any case, I just don't feel like writing very much. That happens, from time to time, and the task becomes just that--a task, rather than a happy funtime activity. Then, it's time to stop and go learn to hula dance.
In the meantime, if you're bored and desperately need something to read, do avail yourself of the Archives and the Headage depositories. There's two years' worth of various assorted words in there.
February 20, 2004
The author, he will be returning on Monday.
Please do not feed the Llamas.
February 23, 2004
 *Taptap*
eeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEE--*
Uh--hi!
This is Ian's brain. The uh, "head behind the Head" if you would. Even if you wouldn't, actually.
Anyway--uh, he told me to come out here, and say that's he knows he said he'd be back today and all, but that he'd really rather not, at the moment. Because he's out of, you know, ideas, and such, and you know there's nothing worse, really, than someone droning on and on, when he's got nothing interesting to say, like that guy on TV...whatshisname...white hair, big eyebrows...reminds me of that other guy, only with more of a monotone...
Oh.
Anyway, that's the story. So, uh, thanks for stopping by, I guess, and he'll get back into it when he feels like it.
*whisperwhisper*
What? Oh, right--he says to look at the archives...
*whisper*
...because there's lots of stuff there.
That's it.
Is there like a Subway around here or something? 'Cause I'm really hungry.
Hey! I'm crawling out from under my rock for a moment to tell you to go check out the Ayn Rand Memorial Barbeque, which is issue 51 of Mark Hoback's Virtual Occoquan, which, in turn, is part of the future of blogging.
I'm in it, along with a bunch of other people who I don't know, but I'm sure they're lovely.
Right? Right!
February 24, 2004
I must also emerge to say this:
IDIOT.
February 26, 2004
 Ahh...if I could, in a word, encapsulate my gist—the very nub of my drift, you see—it would be, I think, a word so meaningful, so spectacular in its universal profundity, that all those who read it, or even glanced in its direction would, in that very moment, experience such a keen understanding of my state of mind that I would become instantaneously famous.
Wealth would follow, for never in the entire history of human evolution would there have been a person so well-known as myself, following the publication of that singular, most effable word.
And acclaim! The Nobel Committee would invent a category for most excellent words, and I would be the first recipient of that august award. The keys to a dozen European capitals would line my walls, and the length of the streets that newly-bore my name would total three thousand American miles.
All because of that single, perfect, most expressive, encapsulatory word.
Wars would stop as combatants understood me, and we would use the excess funds to build domes under the sea and spinning tops in high orbit. On Mars they would plant a platinum plaque bearing my likeness, captioned with my uniquely exquisite syllabic genius. Probes to Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star would bear my numbered surname and my word, and the first interstellar colonial capitals would be my eponymous legacy to the galaxy.
Resultant from, and due entirely to, that spectacular, flawless, utterly inimitable, revelatory word.
After I passed from life granite monoliths and mountainous temples would tumble skyward, and shrines to the word would dot the farthest and most forlorn places of Earth's empire. The scholars of all the human worlds would ponder the word, finding it so ubiquitous. As Sol faded, and memories of old Earth receded into the cosmic depths of heat-death history, the temples and shrines would sink into the dust of a thousand planets.
And, one day, a compound-eyed archaeologist of strange metabolism will wield a soft and gentle brush made of light against a worn plaque of thin and pitted metal, and uncover my ancient face and my perfect word. It will hold the metal plaque up against the cold black sky of long-abandoned Mars, framed by the tumbled stumps of fallen towers.
And it will chitter to itself, and say, "This will make a tasty snack."
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