Nicholsclan.com : a dimension of mind...

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Winter is coming and for many that will mean countless hours stuck indoors whining that there's nothing good on cable. Tired of crosswords? Can't knit another blanket? Have you considered studying Trouser Semaphores??

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Have you seen Dubya's resume` online yet? When you're done, click the links at the bottom of the page to get to some eye-opening reprinted articles expressing so-called alternative views of the administration. Many are from the European perspective. We don't look so good from there.

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Hmmmm.... Cheney is still sticking to the 9/11 - Saddam connection. He sites a meeting which was supposed to have occurred in Prague about 4 months before the attack between key players from both sides. This despite evidence that one of the alleged people involved was in the U.S. at the time. Increasingly he stands alone. Well hidden, but alone. I don't believe for a minute that his ego will allow him to let go of this particular bone. I don't think he can cope with being wrong, and it's driving him further into a self-delusional state.

Now normally, self-delusional or even comatose VPs don't really matter much. But Cheney is the puppet master behind the current administration, and the entourage will continue to spiral into collective self-delusion with him. Curiously, this is good news, for no matter how desperately the "moral majority" and business tycoon legions wants to hold onto their political power, their emperor is slowing revealing that he's wearing no clothes.

Can you smell that? Smells like a burning Bush... Lean close, listen hard, perhaps you'll hear the voice of the sane.

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Guest naysayer Brian thoughtfully submitted the following:

Iltnsegnetiry I'm sdutynig tihs crsrootaivnel pnoheenmon at the Dptmnearet
of Liuniigctss at Absytrytewh Uivsreitny and my exartrnairdoy doisiervecs
waleoetderhlhy cndairotct the picsbeliud fdnngiis rrgdinaeg the rtlvaeie
dfuictlify of ialtnstny ttalrisanng sentences. My rsceeerhars deplveeod a
cnionevent ctnoiaptorn at hnasoa/tw.nartswdbvweos/utrtek:p./il taht
dosnatterems that the hhpsteyios uuiqelny wrtaarns criieltidby if the
aoussmpitn that the prreoecandpne of your wrods is not eendetxd is
uueniqtolnabse. Aoilegpos for aidnoptg a cdocianorttry vwpiienot but,
ttoheliacrley spkeaing, lgitehnneng the words can mnartafucue an iocnuurgons
samenttet that is vlrtiauly isbpilechmoenrne.

Or, if you prefer...

Interestingly I'm studying this controversial phenomenon at the Department
of Linguistics at Aberystwyth University and my extraordinary discoveries
wholeheartedly contradict the publicised findings regarding the relative
difficulty of instantly translating sentences. My researchers developed a
convenient contraption at http://www.aardvarkbusiness.net/tool that
demonstrates that the hypothesis uniquely warrants credibility if the
assumption that the preponderance of your words is not extended is
unquestionable. Apologies for adopting a contradictory viewpoint but,
theoretically speaking, lengthening the words can manufacture an incongruous
statement that is virtually incomprehensible. :)

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In other news, Colin Powell has given Iraq just 6 months to come up with a constitution... or what? We'll invade? We'll leave? We'll replace the current puppet government with another one more likely to abide by arbitrary toothless deadlines imposed by occupying military forces?

This is such an obvious dollop of whipped creme` being lobbed at the French it should be embarrassing.

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You gotta admire the big brass ones it took to pull this off. Fox News reported that:

The Young Conservatives of Texas has raised only $1.50 from what it called an Affirmative Action bake sale…white males were charged $1.00 per cookie, white women paid $.75, Hispanics $.50 and blacks $.25.

The group said the bake sale…held at Southern Methodist University in Dallas…was to protest the use of race or gender in college admissions. But a black student at the university said the bake sale was offensive, and the school shut it down.

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A local man published an OpEd piece in the newspaper opining that New York State was being unreasonable in teaching kids more math than they really needed. He felt that basic functional math skills were sufficient for the average adult. After all, few of us actually use trigonometry, geometry, or algebra once we leave school. He alleges he is a proponent of math, but it should be an option, not a requirement for graduation.

I'm sure many in the community are cheering him on. Math-phobes are fairly common, and in fairness, math is hard for a lot of people. But I still don't get his point. In general, I find my algebra skills a lot more useful than the details of the American Revolutionary War or the plot from The Old Man and the Sea. So why didn't he assert that students only learn as much history or language skills as they will directly apply in their adult lives? School is not intended as a vocational experience. It is an opportunity to learn how to learn. That includes mastering core learning skills such as comprehension, interpretation, logical analysis, creativity, abstraction, etc. These are skills which can't be learned directly. How would you teach a course in critical thinking without actually thinking about something? Math, like language, science, and history, teaches many of these skills. It is a language in it's own right, and is arguably as fundamental as spoken and written language skills. Don't sell the kids short. Besides, doing something that's hard just might teach them some other useful life skills.

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Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be
a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the
wrod as a wlohe.

Prtety amzanig, huh?

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Columnist Suzanne Fields offers an interesting perspective on how religiosity is viewed differently in performers (e.g. the late Johnny Cash) and politicians (e.g. G.W. Bush). You should definitely read her column before proceeding as I'm not going to reiterate all she said.

While I think she is correct that Born-Again politicians tend to frighten people whereas Born-Again performers do not, I think she is missing a crucial point. It is not that these people are guided by a religious based code of ethics and morals that freightens people. It is that they (often) believe that they get actionable instructions from God.

In one case, Johnny Cash was attempting suicide to escape his drug habit and had a vision of God speaking to him and telling him to get his life in order. That's a heart-warming story regardless of your religion, and people admire his strength in having lived up to that vision. But the impact of Cash's vision was limited to Cash's life. At the other extreme, had Cash's vision told him to buy an automatic weapon and take out the local Wal-Mart, he would have been seen as a deranged criminal and not a hero. The impact of his vision suddenly would have forced itself into the lives of those around him. But as a performer (or most any other walk of life), as long as the vision doesn't inspire criminal behavior, the person is harmless to our lives if we choose them to be. I can choose to not listen to Cash's gospel songs.

And that brings us to the very reason why politicians of the same ilk scare us. Their "visions" are much more likely to result in actions which impact us all. No one vilifies Bush for having turned his wild and reckless youth around through religion. No one is intimidated because he has a firm sense of Christian morality. Those are admirable qualities. What scares us is the perception that he is acting on orders from God, not just in his personal life, but in his professional one. That is intolerable behavior for a political leader. It is abdication of control to an unchecked authority. It's one thing for political opposition to challenge a man's ideas or opinions. It's quite another for them to challenge what is being positioned as the Word of God. We quickly become a theocracy where dissent is seen as blasphemy. That's a scary and slippery slope.

So yes Suzanne, politicians are held to a different standard - and they should be. It's one thing to have ideas pop into your head. It's quite another when you start assuming they are the unquestionable will of a deity. Pardon me if that makes me nervous.

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Avast! ye scurvy dogs. It's Talk Like a Pirate Day at last. So be grabbin' a tankard of ale and yer beauty and see how many land lubbers ya can annoy today!

My money's on Rummy... all the way.

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Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Lies, Deception, and Defending The Inexplicable, announced yesterday that he had no reason to believe that Saddam had a hand in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Really. Also yesterday, Condoleezza Rice said that one of the reasons Bush went to war was because Saddam posed a threat "in a region" from which the 9/11 threat emerged. They were in the neighborhood? By this logic we should have responded to the Kaiser's sinking of the Lusitania by bombing France.

More disturbing is the abandon with which these guys change their story. They needed to link Saddam to 9/11 to justify the war they wanted to fight. Now that 70% of Americans think it's true, they feel safe to back away from the lie so they don't get caught in it. First WMDs, now 9/11. It is increasingly clear that this administration will lie to justify its agenda.

This is the first time in my personal history I've actually been afraid of the U.S. leadership. I've disagreed with policies and philosophies of previous administrations. I've been angry, content, happy, and apathetic. But I am afraid of these guys. They are dangerous. They are capable of leading us into dark and scary places with false bluster and bravado. And they will not be the ones to take the fall if things get ugly. They are not leaders. They are manipulators.

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I didn't write this, but I thought it was funny...

Teaching Math in1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is
4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is
4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1970:
A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality
of set M is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots
representing the elements of the set M. The set C, the cost of production,
contains 20 fewer points than the set M Represent the set C as a subset of
set M and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set
P of profits?

Teaching Math in 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber of $100. His cost of production is
$80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: underline the number 20.

Teaching Math in 1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you
think of this way of making a living? What's wrong about it? Topic for
class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds
and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? (There are no wrong
answers).

Teaching Math in 2000:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is
$120. How does Arthur Anderson determine that his profit margin is $60.
And, how many documents were shredded to achieve this number?

Teaching Math in 2010:
El Loggero se habla with the truckero y se ponen de acuerdo con otro driver
de la conpentencia y etc....

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A well intentioned friend sent the following "helpful" e-mail. This is one of my pet peeves. Not that it was sent to me, but that the original author and apparently some of the people involved in the story are guilty as victims of bad science. My rebuttal/analysis follows.

> Read this, this could save your life!!!!
>
> A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago and totaled
> her car. A resident of Kilgore, Texas, she was traveling between Gladewater
> & Kilgore. It was raining, though not excessive, when her car suddenly began
> to hydroplane and literally flew through the air.
>
> She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden
> occurrence!
>
> When she explained to the highway patrolman what had happened he
> told her something that every driver should know -NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN
> WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON. She had thought she was being cautious by
> setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain.
> But the highway patrolman told her that if the cruise control is on and your car
> begins to hydroplaned - when your tires loose contact with the pavement
> - your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed and you take off
> like an airplane. She told the patrolman that was exactly what had occurred.
>
> We all know you have little or no control over a car when it begins
> to hydroplane. You are at the mercy of the Good Lord. The highway patrol
> estimated her car was actually traveling through the air at 10 to 15 miles
> per hour faster than the speed set on the cruise control.
>
> The patrolman said this warning should be listed, on the drivers
> seat sun-visor - NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR
> ICY along with the airbag warning.
>
> We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe speed,
> but we don't tell them to use the cruise control only when the pavement is dry.
>
> The only person the accident victim found, who knew this (besides
> the patrolman), was a man who had had a similar accident, totaled his car and
> sustained severe injuries.
>
> If you send this to 15 people and only one of them doesn't know
> about this, then it was all worth it. You might have saved a life.
>

While not using cruise control under adverse weather conditions is certainly good advice... to be true, this story requires cars which don't exist and/or laws of physics not found outside the Cartoon Network.

To my knowledge, no stock model car on the road has any sensor that tells you how fast you are actually going relative to the world around you. The car (and by implication, the cruise control) only knows some rotational velocity (typically the engine, drive shaft, or wheels) which it converts to the speed of the car. This conversion assumes the tires are in contact with the road, the clutch (or torque converter) is locked, etc. Cruise control's entire aim is to keep that rotational velocity constant. To simplify it, cruise control only tries to keep the wheels spinning at a constant speed.

So let's assume you're running along at this constant speed and hit a slippery spot. By definition, this slippery spot is a point where your tires lose traction with the road. Without traction there is no way to transfer the rotational power of the wheels into vehicular velocity. What with Earth having an atmosphere and the consequent drag it produces, at the point your wheels start to slip, you actually begin to SLOW DOWN.

And what's the cruise control doing during all this? Well, it's just happily humming the wheels along at the speed it was set at. It would never attempt to accelerate the car (that's not it's job), and would actually "let off on the gas" because the wheels are no longer under much of a load. It probably "thinks" you're going downhill.

Granted, given that your wheels are now slipping, the cruise control will exacerbate the slip because it will keep spinning the wheels so that you can't get your traction back. This will result in a loss of control (both car and bladder) and will often create the sensation of acceleration or flight - but it's just fear you're feeling. This is why cruise control on bad roads or in bad weather is a bad idea. But if this car actually zoomed faster and took off like an airplane it was because she pushed the button to ignite the after market JATO (jet assisted take off) packs her husband had installed.

If the car was equipped with traction control, the computer would have kicked out the cruise control and brought the wheels back into control. Anti-lock brakes are not a factor unless you step on the pedal. Apparently she didn't as that would have disengaged the cruise control and "take-off" would have been aborted.

I must conclude that in an attempt to impress the cleavage laden accident victim, Barney forgot that the badge on his chest didn't qualify him as an authority on driving, cars, physics, engineering, or apparently even common sense.

Send THIS to 15 people!! Tell them to encourage their kids to take science in school. As for cruise control, I would never tell a kid or other inexperienced driver to use it - ever. It slows your reaction time to any situation. If you can't drive without it, you shouldn't be using it. It's not a crutch.

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Okay, Barbie creating a stir with the morally rightous isn't big news, but did you know she was Jewish??

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Sheep. We're a society of sheep. The Washington Post polled the county and found that 69% of Americans believed it was likely that Saddam was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. This despite no actual evidence any relationship between bin Laden and Hussein existed. This despite all intelligence stating that bin Laden and Hussein disliked each other. This entirely because it is the fodder fed to us by the administration as part of the war justification propaganda. Sun Tsu said, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." This could have been motivation for Saddam and Osama to team up, but it was never positioned that way. Somehow it was twisted to become, "My enemy and my other enemy must be friends." What crap. Shame on us.

In a similar vein, there is a lot of scrambling to determine if the bombings in Iraq are related incidents. Is there a single group behind them? No one knows for sure, but personally, I think they are likely unrelated. Every terrorist group out there with an anti-American agenda is likely converging on Baghdad. There is no reason for us to take solace in the fact that no new attacks have taken place on U.S. soil in the last 2 years. It is far easier for these groups to launch attacks on us overseas, and I think this is exactly what's happening in Iraq. It's open season on Americans there. Are these groups working together now? Probably not. If they are, in a way, we are responsible for bringing them together. But likely they are not working cooperatively any more than a field full of deer hunters are working together. A common goal and common tactics do not imply a coordinated effort.

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I'm anxious to see what the U.N. has to say to G.W. about the request he will likely make for international forces in Iraq. There's no way Bush will take any sort of a concillitory position here. He will doubtless play this as a "concession" to "let the U.N. play a role". However, everyone has to clearly recognize that this so-called concession is only coming about because the rebuilding of Iraq is more difficult and way more expensive than Bush and his cronies planned. Now they need help bailing our collective butt out of this quagmire. While it would be petty of the U.N. to thumb it's nose and say they told us so, it would be stupid for them to just jump in and help. This is an opportunity for the U.N. to re-establish its credibility as a world political force. They should demand concessions from Bush as compensation for their support. This should include some level of control in Iraq. It's not like Bush can claim his plan is working. The only plan faltering more is the Israeli-Palestinian road map. We started this, we have to take accountability for that. But a little humility on our part would go a long way toward re-establishing our credibility as well, and possibly getting us out of the hole we're in.

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Okay... cultural vent coming. The local newspaper has been running this near full page ad for Verizon for weeks now. It drives me nuts. It pictures 3 young girls at the beach lying on the sand. They are smiling, and packed shoulder to shoulder on a single blanket with a proximity which would make any guy desperately uncomfortable, but that's not the point. The point is that they are ALL TALKING ON CELL PHONES. Granted, this is a cellular ad, but what is the cultural message here. That given the time to hang at the beach with your two best girlfriends, there is nothing to make the day complete like ignoring each other while talking to people who are somewhere else? I'm thinking this connectedness thing is going too far. Is it so weird to think you'd want to spend time with the people you are with? If not, why not go the beach (or wherever) alone? Geeze...