Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category.
What the crap? I feel like someone missed something, but I double-checked the press release from the White House, and the map is correct (yes, in an attempt to avoid my Number Theory homework, I matched up all 39 parishes to locations on a map of Louisiana).
Does anyone remember why half the country thought this administration would be a competent government?
The California Senate and Assembly have both passed a bill legalizing gay and lesbian marriage. Our illustrious governator is expected to veto it, but it’s hard to say – passing the bill would alienate him from his conservative Republican base, but I’m not convinced he really wants a career in politics. Vetoing the bill would alienate many gay people who hold power in the movie-making business, which I kinda think is “more” his base. Either way, he’s between a rock and a hard place. We’ll see what happens.
So, I really should have posted this a couple days ago, but I wasn’t on the ball. Despite the authorities claiming that everything is under control in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, This is simply not the case. This is clearly shown by this FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT blog (special thanks to whosdamike for showing me this). It seems that the entire area is having troubles, with policemen committing suicide because they are simply overwhelmed with everything. The Army is apparently throwing relief supplies off of their trucks to people, but the supplies hit the ground and break open, so little usable water is getting through. There aren’t enough busses to get everyone out of the area, but they won’t allow civilians to come in and pick up people to take elsewhere, so many people are stuck, living in squalid conditions and resorting to looting to simply survive. There are elderly people stuck in their apartments because they have trouble getting around, and who are out of food and medicine. The people have grown impatient with the inneffective relief efforts and have begun setting things on fire and then shooting at the firemen who come to stop the blazes. The situation is absolutely terrible. It’s now a week later, and things are just barely starting to get better.
Also, Elaine brought up an interesting little theory last night – she suspects (and apparently the BBC agrees) that a response effort would not have taken nearly as long if this were a rich, white city (this is at least partially corroborated by this post, in which car looting was allowed until it moved into a rich neighborhood, where SWAT teams descended upon the looters). She seems to think this is much more of a class/race problem than a “we don’t have the supplies” problem. I actually see it the other way around – if it were a richer neighborhood, more people would have had the means to leave the area before the hurricane struck, and there would be fewer people who need assistance. The same amount of relief would go farther on these few people. However, since it is a poorer area, many people didn’t have cars or other means of getting away, so there are more people who need help.
Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died this evening.
Other than that, however, Wet Season has started off splendidly.
This evening, Amanda, Reid, Mac, Ricco, Robert, Rachel, and I went to the Hollywood Bowl and saw John Williams conduct the LA Philharmonic orchestra. In case the name doesn’t sound familiar, John Williams has composed many of the scores for movies over the past few decades. He composed (and this evening conducted) the music for all the Star Wars movies, ET, Indiana Jones, Amistad, Schindler’s List, Robin Hood, Harry Potter, and a bunch I hadn’t heard of. It was pretty cool. We were in the 2nd farthest away section, so we could barely see the stage and had to rely on the screens on the sides of the building to see what was going on, but it sounded wonderful. They performed roughly 5 encores at the end, which was kinda neat. When they played any Star Wars music, about a dozen people in the audience held up their light sabers and waved them around. A wonderful time was had by all.
Here’s something odd about the TV screens in the Rose Bowl – there was a delay between John Williams’ motions and the motions on the 2 screens nearest the center, and then a longer delay between these screens and the ones further out. wtf!? Electricity travels at roughly half the speed of light (in which case the signal could circle the globe 3 times per second), so that shouldn’t cause a delay. The only thing I can think of (and this is already quite improbable) is that the signal from the video cameras takes a long time to encode (causing the delay in the first set of screens), but this same signal should be able to be used in all the screens, so I can’t account for the second delay. Any ideas? I find it hard to believe that the signal would be carried by something other than electricity (accounting for the longer delays to reach the more distant screens), and really hard to imagine that the signal would be decoded for the first screen and then re-encoded to be sent to the second one (accounting for a second delay).
Hey, here’s a way to speed up the war in Iraq: actually give the terrorists a trial before either holding them indefinitely or releasing them. Yes, it’s a long read, but it’s well worth it. ‘Tis a first-hand account of some of the goings-on in Iraq, and mentions that it is fairly typical to capture a terrorist armed to the teeth and shooting at the Police/Army, and then to have the case dismissed and see the very same terrorist back in the streets, shooting at more people within a couple months.
If we’re going to let them go, let them go completely and pull out of the country. If we’re going to stay and “win” this war, capture the terrorists and give them a trial. If they’re convicted, don’t release them. Argh! Who is in charge of this? Why are they stupid?!
Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency released an independent report stating that Iran was not, in fact, developing nuclear weapons. This report corroborates almost everything Iran has said about its nuclear programme since 2003. However, the US is claiming that the report is wrong, and Iran is developing nuclear weapons, even though I haven’t seen a shred of evidence for it. Iran is now engaging in talks with the IAEA about their nuclear facilities at Isfahan, and everyone seems to hope that Iran will stop its nuclear programme. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, every country, including Iran, has a right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes (see Article IV). And yet, no one seems to want them to do this.
I could understand this anxiety if Iran had recently been trying to be an aggressive, dangerous country, but try as I might, I can’t seem to dig up anything that bad on them. Certainly, they’re not a shining utopia. But still, they don’t seem that bad. When the current government came to power in 1979, they took a bunch of Americans hostage for a year, but that was because the United States was initiating a covert CIA project called Operation Ajax to stop that same revolution and keep the Shah in power. I’d say this is mean, but justifiable. When another country is having a revolution, don’t go sticking your nose in their business, or else you might get in trouble. For several years after that, Irani gunboats shot at US warships, partly because the US was violating their waterspace (is that a word?). In response, we shot down their civilian aircraft (though we later apologized). Again, this isn’t particularly great, but I can understand why Iran might want to shoot at the ships in their waters, especially after Iran Air flight 655. During the 1980’s, Iran was an ally, albeit an unpopular one, in the Iran/Contra scandal (they don’t like Israel and had some Israeli hostages, but the US was the country doing all the illegal things). Again, they were an ally in the Gulf War.
I honestly can’t find anything particularly aggressive or bad that Iran has done since the current government came to power. The only thing I don’t like is that they seem to hate Israel, but even that is justifiable (after all, Israel can be considered an unjust occupation of a Palestinian state). Why are the US and EU so distrustful of Iran that they are trying, against all evidence, to keep Iran from exercising what everyone acknowledges is an inalienable right to peaceful nuclear power? Any insight is welcome.
This evening, Jim and I played bridge for the last time this summer. It was my one last chance to become a Junior Master before school started. Well, I’m pleased to announce that I made it! Our 54.5% game landed us 3rd place in the C stratification and 4th over all 13 East-West pairs, and we each got 0.49 Master Points. I am now no longer officially considered a Rookie. Our game was nothing to brag about, but we certainly did well enough.
I feel a little weird writing this, but the best part about the night, in my opinion, was that I made fewer mistakes than Jim did. He was responsible for both bottom boards that we got, while I blame myself for only one of the second-from-bottoms. Strangely enough, we didn’t do anything especially well; our best boards were almost all mistakes by our opponents.
So I at least got one of my goals. We didn’t use Smolen, nor did I pull off a squeeze play (though I almost endplayed someone into handing me a bath coup. However, he saw what was going on and got out of it).
15 more Master Points until I’m a Club Master.
http://www.aclu.tv/ – ooh, this looks interesting. Tune in in September!
One of my goals for the summer is to become a Junior Master at the bridge club. Since the last time I wrote about bridge, I’ve needed about a third of a Master Point to get there. Sadly, try as I might, I can’t seem to do it! Jim and I played together this past Thursday at the club. Thursdays they have a 49er game (for people with less than 50 Master Points) and an open game (for people with more). Since Jim has 180 or so, we were in the open game, and got a 3-way tie for 2nd out of 4 partnerships (there was a winner, and everyone else tied; it was kind of weird). It was my first IMPs game (slightly different scoring system), so I was thrown off a bit. Still, no dice. Jim and I then played in St. Paul on Sunday and came in slightly below average out of 14 or so tables. Finally, we played tonight. We had been doing OK but not great, and I thought that we could certainly get points in the C stratification. With 31 of the 32 boards scored, we were tied for 3rd in C, which gets half a Master Point. However, that last board came in, and bumped us down to 4th, which gets nothing. This entry is called “0 for 9” because at each of these games, there are 3 things I’m trying to do: successfully use Smolen Transfers (we’re playing them, but the situation hasn’t come up to use them yet), successfully pull off a squeeze play (I’ve found 2 situations where I tried, but I messed up one and got a bad trump split in the other), or become a Junior Master, which still hasn’t quite happened. Argh! We’re giving it one more shot tomorrow, and I fear that will be the end of bridge this summer. I’d really like to be 1 for 12 in my goals here (preferably 2 for 12, but I can’t be picky at this point). There were at least 3 boards that I should have played better this evening, including 2 cold slams that I considered bidding but shied away from in the end. Well, we’ll see what tomorrow holds, I guess…
