massdestruction

Wordpress

I have decided to switch this blog to the "Wordpress" system instead of upgrading Movable Type. It just seems cleaner to me. This will screw up the RSS/Atom feeds for this site so if you enjoy reading this blog via syndication you should update the feed links when the move is completed.

Thankyou for your patience.

The Management

Nephew up a tree

My point and shoot digital camera makes 16:9 photos. I suppose they think I will only show photos on wide-screen TVs. I kinda like the scale to be honest but I cannot find anyone who can cheaply print these things. This is my nephew who was climbing in the tree in my front yard.

The trip

OK I wrote a bit of a diary of my trip to Mississippi and am sharing it with everyone. It is long and I really don't expect people to read the whole thing but what the hell. You can read the html version here or if you would rather, I have also made a pdf version.

Sorry its so long but its what happened and it really was an amazing trip for me. I hope everyone gets an opportunity to do some service work as it is quite good for the soul.

If you don't like to read, hate me talking about the soul, and would rather get straight to the photos then you can look at my gallery instead.

Back home

I'm back from Mississippi now and I'll be putting up a bit of a diary and photos from my travels soon. It was very hard work and I am still very tired from it all. I did send my powerbook off while I was gone for "general repairs" as I had only one month left on my warranty - its like coming home to a brand new computer too. They replaced the screen, both fans, the DC board, the bottom case, the microphone, and the keyboard - all for free. So, no reason not to get a full computer-generated representation of my experiences quite soon.

At least its not Bush

The Liberian election results are almost all tabulated and it appears that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has won. Like I said before, either her or former soccer star George Weah are excellent for the war-torn country. What is perhaps not so good is Weah's allegations of vote tampering and the reaction to that claim. George should make sure he understands his young, male supporters are quite uneasy right now. Shouts of "No Weah, no peace" make me uncomfortable, let's hope it turns out well.

Meditation does grow a brain

I like it when science shows us things that we don't understand. This is one of those cases.

With my brain, it might be too late. Still, maybe I should start a rigid diet of meditation.

Off to Gulf Coast

I will be leaving on Sunday for the Gulf Coast to do some volunteer work. It sounds like most of the work is going to involve ripping out everything below flood lines in people's homes. The people can't afford the contractor's prices so the volunteer go in, rip it out, and leave it all on the curb for the contractors to pick up under other arrangements. I really have no idea what happens to their homes after that, these people have no jobs and no money is coming into their economy to create any opportunities. I suppose I will learn more soon.

I was talking to a friend who mentioned that insurance should take care of all of that anyway... but I had to remind him that these people never had insurance, they were already below the poverty line before this happened.

I'll be gone for about 10 days and hopefully I'll be able to take some photos while I am down there but it does sound like nothing but hard work all day, every day. I've gotten a fresh tetanus shot so nobody worry!

Shearon Harris

This article informs us of a person sneaking into our nuclear power plant (which is only 20 or so miles from my house), getting up to the secured area, climbing a tower and leaving a black flag flying. I have been out by the plant on my bike and I was really surpised how insecure it was. The "gate" is a series of pylons with no one there. Its a sad commentary on how much we haven't done after 9/11. I won't completely blame the workers there as I know most of the money that was earmarked for security has been pulled into other things like the war and paying off people like Armstrong Williams but there is a good amount of blame to be placed on the guy who decided pylons would keep terrorists out.

Update: Since I don't have comments turned on, I thought I'd post an email response to this from my good friend John:

I think you need to be careful to worry about the right things here. The story suggests that the nuclear power plant maintains a "secure area" around the reactor, and the person didn't get in it. My experience with nuclear facilities here is that they guard the stuff that's important, and don't guard the stuff that isn't, which is an efficient use of limited resources. As near as I can tell from the story, that's what happened in this case.

If you don't know John he writes the science beat for the Albuquerque Journal - being that close to Los Alamos means he is the goto guy on Nukes.

You are absolutely right John, but I also agree with the idea that this is just the right prank to make sure the right questions get asked. Most of us who live within breathing space of Shearon Harris wouldn't be surprised at all to hear the guy had walked into the control room with an "Al Qaeda Rulez" flag. It may be the wrong opinion about what goes on there, but I sure would like us to be overly cautious about it.

Besides, who the hell can trust a place that misspelled "Sharon"?

Tammy Flu

So did everyone see Bush's proposal for protecting us from a flu that, at this point, doesn't exist? Well, its OK if you didn't see it there has been a lot of news with Bush's name on it recently.

Let's look at one small detail of this plan, shall we? If you look closely you will see that Bush wants to purchase tons of Tamiflu (which is supposed to lesson the effects of flu although there is debate about it working on this particular type). Now this might seem like a good idea except for two things: 1) there is no way in hell that they can come close to buying enough of the stuff to help us (not that it would really do anything anyway) 2) Guess who developed Tamiflu? Well, you might say the Swiss pharm. company Roche right? Well they distribute the stuff but the company who made it and receives licensing for it is a company called Gilead Sciences, Inc. Now guess who used to be the Chairman of Gilead and still has large investments in the company... come on, guess!
...
One more try...

That's right! Donald Rumsfeld! Hey, look at that Gilead's stock has gone so much higher lately! Rummy you are set brother! Invite me to the party!

People who Euthanize.....

If you have ever read anything in depth about the PETA organization you might come to the conclusion I did... they are fucking nuts. I'm not referring to any of the positions they might have and truly believe in... I'm simply talking about the people. The woman who founded it is completely insane and the organization runs on all her whims. They would much rather have controversy than to do good.

Well, that's my opinion but here in N.C. there may be more people drawing conclusions after reading this headline: PETA Employees Accused Of Dumping Animals Face New Charges. This is a different sort of bad press than to the type I was referring to, this is just two completely nutso employees doing something really bad.... euthanizing animals when they had promised to rescue them. Um... wow... I don't think they are going to keep their PETA jobs.