Musings
Today one of my work friends was talking to his Dad and making arrangements for a weekend visit. His Dad has esophageal cancer and will be dead in another year or two. Still, there was joy and happiness in my friends voice as they talked. Listening to them talk brought back strong memories of similar conversations between my Dad and me and I realized something. Even with my Dad in the spider cocoon of Alzheimer’s, simply being around him made me happy.
P.S. My friends Dad died shortly after Thanksgiving.
August 20, 2009
Trap 2?
The following comments were written during 2006 - 2010 and reflect the political and economic anxieties of that period. They are preserved as a historical record, not as current opinion.BHO appears to be setting another trap for Israel. Buraq wants to cut a deal with Iran’s Ahmadinejad (colloquially known as “Dinner Jacket”*) that will loosely ally us with Iran. If Barry succeeds, then any preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities by Israel could cause an Israeli-American fracture. BHO could then exploit this fracture to withdraw support from Israel. If Israel does nothing, then Iran gets nuclear weapons and becomes an existential threat to Israel. And again, if Israel preemptively strikes to protect itself, an exploitable fracture is created and all BHO needs to do to destroy Israel is to sit back and do nothing. Does Barak really want to become the 21st century’s first mass murderer? Maybe. It depends on how loyal BHO is to his Muslim roots and how deeply his antisemitism runs.
*Ahmadinejad wears a sport’s coat and no tie when dealing with the West. It’s the same as an American Indian chief in the 1800’s wearing an bowler hat. Classic Eagle Feather syndrome one would expect from a savage barbarian.
June 25, 2009
SID Music
I listened to some SID music last night and was instantly transported back into my computer hobby years in the ‘80’s. It’s amazing how easily the simple SID music brought forth a reverie of good memories and happy feelings. 1981 was a watershed year for me. That was the year that my brother F bought a Commodore Vic 20 microcomputer (PCs didn’t exist then). The Vic 20 was our magic door into the future and all time prior to 1981 became the ancient past. My brothers and I had been steeped in the lore of science fiction from birth. A legacy from our Dad who had escaped as a boy from the confining hollows of a southern West Virgina coal town into the wide, open spaces of “Astounding Science Fiction” and “Amazing Stories”. We grew up expecting the future Heinlein and Asimov wrote about and computers were the background of that future. At some unconscious level, there was no future without computers everywhere and all of a sudden, we were building that future just by messing around with microcomputers. It was exciting! More exciting than the political revolution a year earlier. More exciting than cornering the Fiat on two wheels. Man, making science fiction into science reality was IT! Of course, at the time we didn’t know why we loved computers. We mastered microcomputer hardware and software. We designed and wrote games, dove into the AI and BBS movements and hacked and cracked our way through. Those acts were the air we breathed with unselfconscious joy at their meaning. I can still feel it as a Jamaican breeze after 28 years but when the SID music plays, I’m back on the China clipper riding the typhoon’s edge into the future.
April 29, 2009
Strategic Misstep
The following comments were written during 2006 - 2010 and reflect the political and economic anxieties of that period. They are preserved as a historical record, not as current opinion.Interesting. BHO visits Russia and comes away with a nuclear arms limitation treaty instead of assurances that we can send supplies through Russia to Afghanistan and Russia’s help in getting the same assurances from the ‘stans. Afghanistan is land locked and our main logistical route from the sea runs through Pakistan. Regime change in Pakistan is moving from possible to probable and if the Jihadi take over, goodbye easy supply lines into Afghanistan. The only other viable route is through the ‘stans via Russia and BHO appears to be uninterested in securing that route. Is BHO really interested in pursuing Afghanistan or is he and his advisors simply blinded by a deep geo-strategic ignorance and a non-understanding of how to move forward in the world? This and other missteps lead me to believe the latter. Too bad. Thanks to the win in Iraq the Jihadi infection is only virulent in Afghanistan and eastern Pakistan. It’s time to lance the boil and clean the wound instead of allowing it to fester and potentially breaking out again. Unfortunately, if BHO’s foreign policy continues to flounder, we may lose the best opportunity we have to “easily” stop the Jihadi infection. All other Jihadi sterilization scenarios are “hard” in comparison.
Why the nuclear arms treaty? Political kickback to some of the 53 that put BHO in office. The Cold War has been over for 20 years and some people still don’t get it.
April 22, 2009
Principle of Least Astonishment
The Principle of Least Astonishment states that if the evidence equally supports two different conclusions, then the least astonishing conclusion is usually correct. For example, the evidence supported dust on the Moon but not how much dust. Some people seriously speculated that parts of the Moon could be covered by layers of dust thick enough to swallow a lander. Other people speculated that Moon dust would be no thicker than dust on Earth. Neither side had sufficient supporting data. The least astonishing conclusion would be an Earth like layer of dust and that is how it turned out.
Of course, the Principle of Least Astonishment isn’t really proof for anything. It’s simply a mildly humorous way to appeal to common sense and an experience bred sense of balance in life. Oddly enough, even though it’s not logical, using the POLA does help maintain balance when people are wildly speculating.
February 10, 2009
Mechanism
The following comments were written during 2006 - 2010 and reflect the political and economic anxieties of that period. They are preserved as a historical record, not as current opinion.I heard on the radio that Hussein wants to setup government programs to encourage private business to buy up bad debt. Hmmm… Sorta like the government programs that were setup to encourage private banks to make bad risk loans. The investment industry has been de facto nationalized and 5 - 10 years from now any private business foolish enough to take the bait will also be nationalized. This combined with the job patronage bill Congress just passed has a good chance of bringing down both American capitalism and democracy. Where is Teddy when you need him?
Update
The Dow Jones dropped over 400 points on news of the job patronage bill (official name: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. nickname: Porkulus) passing into law.
February 10, 2009
Life is a Cabaret My Friend
The following comments were written during 2006 - 2010 and reflect the political and economic anxieties of that period. They are preserved as a historical record, not as current opinion.There is a great scene at the end of the movie Cabaret. The scene is a slow pan across a distorted mirror reflecting the audience. The pan starts off showing a couple of normal people and ends showing an audience dominated by Nazi. Throughout the movie the Nazi slowly squeeze everyone else out until only the distorted humanity of the Nazi remains. This is how it will be in the next four years. I am a Jew in 1930’s Germany. Where do I escape to? Nowhere. There is nowhere left. America is it and when it’s gone, it’s all gone.