Jupiter Loses Stripe

From The Daily Mail:

"Jupiter has lost one of its iconic red stripes and scientists are baffled as to why.

"The largest planet in our solar system is usually dominated by two dark bands in its atmosphere, with one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere.

"However, the most recent images taken by amateur astronomers have revealed the lower stripe known as the Southern Equatorial Belt has disappeared leaving the southern half of the planet looking unusually bare.

"The band was present in at the end of last year before Jupiter ducked behind the Sun on its orbit. However, when it emerged three months later the belt had disappeared."

How long before some scientist blames global warming?

Taser

In response to an article at View From The Porch in which Tam made an offhand comparison between Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh, with which I generally agree, I noted some of Boortz's moral failings:

"I thought Boortz was a libertarian-leaning conservative.

That was before I heard Boortz advise a caller how to snitch to the IRS. Also, recently he expressed glee that the idiot cop used a taser on a non-violent streaker at a ball game. [Boortz's approval was done on-air but not mentioned in the preceding linked article.] The more I listen to Boortz, the more examples of anti-freedom ideas leak out from his microphone.

His "libertarian" principles run very shallow. Sure, he might be better than Rush in many ways, but I think it's worse to have someone who purportedly represents the libertarian position who undermines real application of the principles of freedom."

In a followup comment, "Divemedic" dissented:

"To Elliot: I don't have a problem with tasing the ball game streaker, even from a libertarian standpoint. Not only was he resisting arrest AND violating the property rights of the stadium owner and ball club, but he was violating the rights of the thousands of fans who paid to watch a ball game, not an idiot streaker.

IMO, this is no different than the "Don't tase me, bro" guy- why should one person who is disrupting the event and refusing to leave when instructed be given greater weight than the thousands of others there? The easy way to not get tased is to 1) not trespass, 2) leave when instructed, 3) not resist when being arrested for failing at #1 and #2."

To which I replied:

"Divemedic, when the taser was introduced to law enforcement, authorities claimed that it was to be used as a "non-lethal" alternative to using a gun or other more lethal force.

By that reasoning, the idiot cop could have been justified in shooting the streaker with a gun.

Please note that the taser is not actually non-lethal. In rare cases, people do die. If LEOs honestly only used tasers in cases where guns would be justified, one could argue that even a small risk of death is preferable to being shot.

But the reality is that LEOs routinely use tasers in an inappropriate fashion, even on old people, disabled people, and children. In many situations, they aren't reasonably justified in doing this. [Added: Nikoley gives an example of a video showing a cop's obviously sadistic pleasure in using a taser. His mom is right.] LEOs are supposed to be able to handle people in a professional manner, including using reason and, if necessary, physically restraining a smaller, weaker person without resorting to sadistic methods. And, if they're afraid for their safety, they shouldn't have become a cop in the first place. Fire the cowards who can't handle such situations.

The problem is that LEOs have become unaccountable, paramilitary automatons. They know that people like you will defend their inappropriate use of force ("don't tase me bro") and that they can do what they want.

I'm disgusted that you, or anyone else, could look at either situation and decide that "law and order" must be maintained, that not disrupting other people's "enjoyment" is of such a paramount importance that thuggish violence ought to be used to expedite the resolution.

This is the mindset that has led to SWAT teams swarming into the homes of non-violent suspects, risking the lives of innocent bystanders (like children), murdering family pets, and generally escalating a non-violent situation into a very violent one. Despite what apologists might argue, this happens hundreds of times a day.

Police are supposed to be professional and display exemplary behavior. They are supposed to be brave and strong, not cowards. They are supposed to use reason and restraint to resolve problems and defuse situations before they get violent, not inject unnecessary violence into them. And, most of all, they ought to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, not given a free pass to do things that would put us in prison for years."

Tam reminded me that my rant (which she incorrectly called "copypasta"—I didn't cut-and-paste, but rather included hyperlinks in my original commentary) was inappropriate in the comment section for that article she wrote. That's her place, so she gets to make the rules. However, if anyone would like to discuss this further, feel free to use the comment section in this article.

and a high chair for my wife

Chris Muir sets the bar high for entries in the first annual Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. This follows on the heels of the 2005 Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publication (and 2008 reprinting) of various cartoonists' renderings, which triggered riots by savages in which more than 100 people were killed.

I still think Giovani di Modena's 1415 depiction of Mohammad burning in hell, as part of a fresco about Dante's Inferno takes the cake:

Dog Murders on Film

WARNING: The following video involves a police raid in which one, or possibly two, family pets are murdered by cops. The murders occur off camera and the dogs are never visually shown, but the sounds are very disturbing to hear. (via Balko)

This is just plain evil. There is absolutely no justification for this. If you approve of laws which make drugs illegal, please explain to me how shooting pets in a house with children just to keep some people from smoking a plant makes any sense. How is pot more dangerous than a violent, paramilitary raid with guns blazing?

Mailmen, meter readers, cable/phone technicians all have to deal with dogs. I've never heard of any of them needing to kill a dog. [Update: I forgot to mention what cowardly pussies all these cops who murder dogs are. It happens all over the country, all the time. (Search for "puppycide".)]

I don't need to watch any fictional movies about a futuristic dystopia. We are there now.

P.S.: "The entire philosophy behind SWAT-style drug raids is that the death of a mother, a child, or the family pet is an acceptable risk to prevent flushing." — Commenter "Dr Mabuse" in a forum.

Big Brother Tax Threat Commercial in PA

Balko, FNC. They are actually proud of their work.

American Idol

I didn't bother to blog last week's Shania Twain show. I was busy, but I also wasn't enthusiastic about the show, anyway. Shania Twain is a beautiful woman and seems to be a nice person, but I just can't stand her songs. They are trite and the worst combination of pop and country. My interest in country music ended in the 70s: Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels, Glen Campbell, Mac Davis, the Oakridge Boys, Loretta Lynn, Lynn Anderson. After that, I quit paying attention. Except a few Randy Travis albums I own and a couple songs here or there, I just don't find any country music in the past few decades to be enjoyable, particularly the pop-ish women. That night, I picked Siobhan Magnus as the best performance of the night, with the caveat that all of the songs that night were annoying and stupid. To me, her song was just the least awful to hear. I don't think any singer could have made those tunes enjoyable for me. I don't know if Shania Twain fans could have enjoyed the American Idol versions. All the thematic choices of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Elvis, Shania, and Sinatra this season have pushed contestants into an awkward corner. I don't imagine any of them will ever cut an album with those types of songs, so what is the point? For whatever reason, people called in more votes for what I believe are clearly inferior singers, particularly Aaron and Casey. Perhaps they thought she was safe. Perhaps they thought she was too weird. Perhaps her poor song choices from previous weeks had caught up to her. Whatever the case, I was disappointed that her elimination left Crystal Bowersox being the only remaining singer whose performances have interested me. Sure, Lee and Michael have done decent jobs here and there, but I just can't get enthusiastic about them as artists. Unless one of the men does something fantastic, I can't imagine any excitment in the final showdown this season. It's Crystal's to lose. If she does lose, it will just make this season even more uninteresting.

South Park Punks the "Revolution Muslim" Punks

South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were the target of threats by a group called "Revolution Muslim." These ridiculously stereotypical angry Muslims produced a video intimating that Parker and Stone would end up murdered, like Theo Van Gogh, for depicting Mohammad in a "blasphemous" way. Well, the joke was on the angry Muslims:

Mohammed appeared on Wednesday night's US episode of the cartoon with his body obscured by a black box, since Muslims consider a physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous. Last week, the character was believed to be disguised in a bear costume. When that same costume was removed this week, Santa Claus appeared.

The very idea of blasphemy against any religion is such an obviously human one. There is no god. But if there were a being of such awesome unimaginable power, would it really be necessary for people to protect this god from ridicule? It's not like this alleged creator of the universe would have the emotional constitution of a fragile young child being mocked on the playground for having a goofy haircut. This is supposed to be an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity. Few other human attitudes do more to highlight the absurdity of blind faith than throwing a temper tantrum and demanding that everyone else give respect to the irrational belief in imaginary beings.

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." —Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

The plot of episodes "200" and "201" are quite convoluted and silly, in true South Park fashion. But as with many episodes, it's a subversive, intentionally offensive morality play. Buddha is depicted snorting cocaine, Jesus admits viewing porn on the internet, but a box covers Mohammed at all times and even the mention of his name by the characters is bleeped in the audio. The closed captions, however, weren't altered. Even more absurd, a "lessons learned" speech at the end of the show, which made no mention of Mohammed, was completely bleeped out (including the closed captions). Apparently, Comedy Central completely caved to what can only be described as terroristic "warnings."

Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, and years before the murderous riots by angry Muslims, pissed over a few Mohammed cartoons, the episode "Super Best Friends" (July 4, 2001), showed an apparently innocuous cartoon version of Mohammed as part of the plot, but there were no riots, no death threats then. On April 5, 2006 and April 12, 2006, a two part episode "Cartoon Wars" had terrified characters throughout the US burying their heads in sand to show Muslims that they had no part in the airing of a picture of Mohammed on the show Family Guy (well, the South Park parody of Family Guy). They built the suspense, first showing an episode within an episode with a black censorship box. The next week, they were supposedly going to show it unedited, but Comedy Central wouldn't air it:

vs.

I still prefer the "Douche and Turd" episode, in which Stan decides not to vote for a school election, and is threatend by Puff Daddy to "Vote or Die" (an actual slogan he used in pro-voting commercials). As usual, their over-the-top theme serves to illustrate the stupidity of people feeling obligated to vote in an election, even if they don't like either candidate.

P.S.: Balko links to a story about a call to ink pens, for cartoonists everywhere to draw Mohammed on April 20, 2010.

Anthropomorphizing Nature

At CNN, Alan Weisman tries to add a few more squawks to the chorus of Chicken Littles pushing the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) theory. He litters his unsupported hypothesis with the childish view of the entire world being a sentient being which is "striking back at us" for our environmental "sins", closing with the stereotypical alarmist imagery:

...if we don't pull carbon out of the way we energize our lives soon, a small clump of our not-too-distant surviving descendants may find themselves, as Gaia scientist James Lovelock has direly predicted, like the first Icelanders: gathered on some near-barren hunk of rock near one of the still-habitable poles, trying yet anew to eke out a plan for human civilization.

"Gaia scientist"? What's next, an astrology scientist? How can so many grown men and women go out in public and pretend that a 658-sextillion-ton rock measuring 25,000 miles around has a rational mind? This is Santa Claus and Leprechaun stuff.

Even more amazing is how these charlatans have managed to repackage socialism and convince so many people that there is a dire need to do the economic equivalent of carpet bombing modern industry.

As I wrote before, green is the new red.

What he said.

Musical Madness

Radley Balko links to an article at Slate explaining the maddening trade-offs involved in tuning keyboard and fretted instruments. I was blissfully unaware of the concept of musical temperament and just assumed that musical notes were perfectly laid out in simple, integral frequency ratios. Thanks, Balko, for making me feel even stupider about music theory.

My introduction to playing music was on a trumpet in the sixth grade, which meant I had a very narrow perspective: one note at a time. I could hear when I didn't harmonize with another person's instrument, but that was either a matter of tuning, or a simple result of someone playing the wrong note. Not until high school did the band directors even attempt a cursory sketch of music theory: major, minor, and perfect intervals. Otherwise, it was just rote learning. Play what's on the page.*

Being a math geek, it always bothered me that the notes on a major scale were not symmetrical, making each letter two semitones apart--the reason there isn't a black key between every white key on a piano. Why not use a hexatonic, or whole tone scale, so an octave involved six notes instead of the seven notes in a diatonic scale? Put a black key between each white key and adjust accordingly. A C-major scale would no longer be void of accidentals, but wouldn't that force neophyte musicians to grasp just exactly how a major interval differs from a perfect interval? Alas, the symmetry of such a scale was swapped out for the concept of the tonic. Having done most of my playing on a one-note horn, and never having been taught improvisation, I still only have a fuzzy grasp of harmonics. The idea of connecting that to what's on sheet music and what's on a piano or guitar comes as naturally to me as playing Boggle in Spanish. I have a rookie-level ability to pronounce printed words (I have to look up how to pronounce words like "ciudad") and would be an abysmal failure at writing down words I know by ear ("quatro" vs. "cuatro").

Another mystery to me was the "Every Good Boy Does Fine" vs. "Good Boys Do Fine Always" discrepancy (treble clef versus bass clef). It didn't matter to me when I stuck to one instrument. But after a few lessons on the classical guitar (which was already rough going), I was asked to take lessons on the electric bass guitar to replace another student (Chris W.**) in the jazz band, because he was moving. If I recall correctly, his family had a change of plans so he quickly returned and I was spared the agony of compounding two unfamiliar tasks--playing a string instrument and reading bass clef. Unfortunately, it also meant I never resumed the classical guitar lessons.

---

* On my list of most embarrassing moments is the time I was hired at age 17 to be part of a trumpet trio playing Christmas music in front of a large congregation. At the last minute, we were told to transpose to another key to make it easier for the pianist. The other two more experienced players said "no problem" but I managed to inject a plethora of sour notes. "A little bit of humiliation goes a long way."

---

**My Best Man at my wedding, Carlos, played with Chris in a band, doing gigs for high school parties. They were often arguing over what songs to play. As a bassist, Chris was always wanting to play Rush songs, which are heavy on Geddy Lee's bass playing. Chris was most famous in the high school band for keeping a book of quotes of our band director's humorous impromptu aphorisms. After it became well-known, Mr. M. would add, "Put that in your little book, Mr. W!" afterwards.

B.O.H.I.C.A.

From the AP:

President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.

Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, "I want to get a better picture of what our options are."

Here's an option: cancel all the rubber checks you've been writing and let people decide how to spend their own goddamned money.

Bill Clinton paraphrases Billy Beck

When I first read the "hatriot" section of Bill Clinton's speech, I told my wife that he was quoting Billy Beck (well, almost). Apparently, Billy didn't miss that, nor did the many people who sent him e-mail about it.

Idol Season 9, Top 7

Tuesday night was mostly disappointing:

1. Crystal Bowersox ("People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield) - Again, Crystal beats everyone else. This time, she outdoes the best of the rest by the biggest margin yet. I loved her a capella opening. She didn't allow the music to overtake her voice. Even a couple seconds of crying was forgivable, given the awesomeness of her performance. Speaking of forgiveness, the lyrics make reference to the more obnoxious side of Christianity ("no room ... no hiding"). Even an atheist like me can appreciate a moving gospel song about love and charity if it has a good melody and is sung beautifully. I just don't care for the hellfire, Left Behind crap.
2. Lee DeWyze ("The Boxer" by Paul Simon) - I love this song. While Lee didn't live up to the original, he did a very good job. It was very moving at times. There were a few rough spots, but not many. Even better than the original was a cover by James Taylor and Alison Krauss at the 2002 Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Paul Simon. It's worth it if you can find it. (Incidentally, Lee DeWyze, like Taylor & Krauss, skipped the verses which included the line: "Just a come on from the whores on Seventh Avenue." I listened Simon & Garfunkel's version for years, oblivious to the exact words they were singing until I actually read it.)
3. TIE Siobhan Magnus ("When You Believe" by Mariah Carey, et al.) and Michael Lynche ("Hero" by Nickleback) - I was disappointed with both performers. I'd say they were a distant third, behind a distant second, which is not a good place to be. Siobhan was very boring and her voice got nasal at times. Otherwise, her singing was excellent. Michael let the music overshadow his voice at times, even though his vocals were excellent, as well. Neither of them moved me, like Crystal and Lee.

I curse Casey for playing that song that the Clintons forever ruined for me.