Honored more in the breach than in observance

A great chapter in Samuel Kramer's History Begins at Sumer thirty-nine firsts in recorded history is The First "Sick" Society. Identifying himself as a Sumerologist, Kramer conveys vividly Sumerian culture and societal values. In this chapter he set out to compare our contemporary (mid to late 1900s) social ills with ancient ones. What he found was basically a mirror image of today's society that "yearned for peace but was constantly at war," "professed ideals such as justice, equity, and compassion but abounded in injustice, inequality, and oppression," that was "materialistic and shortsighted." The general message seems to me to be human society hasn't changed so much in 4500 years. It is particularly interesting though that the examples, which repeatedly point to the ideal of justice and the eradication of injustice, specify that it is the thievery and brutality of the rich and powerful that must be reigned-in. Perhaps it's telling that Sumer was an egalitarian society and that Sumerian kings generally rose from the population and therefore were all too acquainted with the ways of the rich and powerful and the challenges of the poor and meek--also that they relied on the support of the populace to maintain their rule. So, even 4500 years ago the picture of human values seems a battle between the rich, the powerful, the egoist and the poor, the meek, the altruist.

Evolution deniers are idiots.

Just a little pointer for evolution deniers: George Bush, a denier himself hedged his bet on the Almighty when he directed Federal agencies to prepare for the adaptation of bird flu to human infection. For, if bird flu was not adapting so much as being engineered by a god to infect humans, then Bushie would be going against the will of the god. And, that just couldn't be the case, could it?

Now, there is an even more striking similar case of evolution in which “the flu … combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. The evolution and outbreak of this virus seem to be a pretty novel occurrence—it’s the platypus of viruses.

I just caught onto his as an everyday example of evolution, but it is also interesting that it could just as well provide fuel for intelligent design advocates. You see, while the scientific community generally sees phylogeny in the similarity of DNA and RNA, ID advocates say the appearance of phylogeny is the result of God’s re-use of previously created building blocks. For example, chimps must have been the last thing created before homo sapiens, since they have the most similar DNA to us.

Anyway, the point is that evolution deniers are idiots.

Happy late Darwin Day.

Evangelism is rampant in the military...duh!

This story on NPR about Sikhs not being allowed to maintain their religiously prescribed personal grooming after enlistment is interesting. There are some issues in conflict--military respect for religious freedom, military rules laid-out for practicality and uniformity, the honorable service of Sikhs in the armed forces before the rather recent "gotta-shave" rule, basic fairness. But, what really gets me is that so many of the commenters seem oblivious to the fact that religious bias is not only accepted in the US armed forces, Christian evangelism is unofficially endorsed, sanctioned, and promoted--despite rules that prohibit any such act. Perhaps the mass uninformedness is a result of news media failure. The Public Record is the only journal doing a decent job of covering the issue, and their latest article is here.

Maybe Rapture is really meant to save the rest of us from the "saved" by getting them off my planet?! If so, bring it on!

Why couldn't we have a shadow government that didn't suck?!

Like a hypochondriac who won’t go to the doctor because he thinks he’s just being hypochondriacal, I have doubted my own assessment that the US government is controlled—essentially owned—by wealthy oligarchs who pay for the elections and votes of our politicians, that the Executive and Legislative branches (at least) of the US government are simply an elaborate puppet show designed to appease the masses with illusions of self determination. Finally, much to my chagrin, a former chief economist at the IMF says I’m right. Fuck! I knew it all along—wishing whole-heartedly I was wrong. (Original article.) This dude at the Rolling Stone takes a different tack to say practically the same thing and spells it out with more detail in a ridiculously long article. So, all you paranoid conspiracy hounds, rest easy; there really is a “shadow government” controlling your nation and your fate.

SOS

OK, so I've been keeping my thoughts to myself for a while. ‘Fraid I usually stop paying attention so closely to politics after an election, because no matter what the result I feel basically helpless to affect anything once the ball gets rolling—not that I ever have any power beyond my one little vote. But, this blog is only for my personal gratification anyway, so I guess I’ve just been lazy.

I’ve been watching the Israel-Palestine conflict, like I always have. This article and many others like it are particularly disheartening. I am glad to know that so many Americans feel the way I do about it—that the US has been enabling the oppressors and that we need to stop if there is to be any justice and peace, but I’m blown away that the administration fails to grasp our undermining role. For all of the positive and negative “internationalist” finger-pointing, Obama is after all either a poor student of the I-P conflict or he is on the wrong side of the philosophical debate about US’s role. The US has a moral obligation to support the underdog and when it fails to do so, it is usually if not always for transparent political or economic motives. Turkey has been a much better ally than Israel, WTF do we need Israel for? Are we trying to keep them paid off so that we don’t have to fight them? The ass-kissing is one-sided. When do we get something back from them for our support? Idunno.

The whole domestic sustainable power thing is looking like a hamster wheel. We have all this money we just said we were gonna inject into the economy. But, the guys with the power are bickering about investing through deficit spending—Yeah, it sucks, but ya got another idea? I want my goddam sidewalks, so I can walk to the store. What’s it gonna take to get you jackasses to gimme my goddam sidewalks!?!? I see no reason why we can take a chunk of that money and put it directly into wind turbine factories and the purchase of property to put ‘em on. Yeah yeah. Socialism. Blah. The private sector aint doin’ it. The gov’t forced me to pay for the Iraq war and subsidize Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, they can damn sure force some SUV-driving Limbaugh listener to pay for a sustainable energy system.

SOS. Same ol’ shit.

Retards for Palin

Do I really need to say anything about this? Probably not. But I will anyway. Is there any better way to illustrate that you're a fanatic that stripping half nude and painting your body as a banner for your cause? Well, you could burn a symbol of your enemy...but let's not got there. Need I say that the more fanatical someone is the less rational he/she is likely being about his/her cause? Ugh. The pic comes from here. It's from an article about "Palin Dudes," who dole out the idiotic quotes as quick as they make complete tools of themselves: "You rock me out, Sarah." Way, Dude! Rockenroll! One dude "wore a 'Proud to be voting for a hot chick' button," as if that's a good reason to vote for someone and that he should be proud of thinking with the little head. "Who can't trust a mother?" Maybe a kid whose been drowned by one or a husband who had one sleep around on him or hide her pregnancy from him. What kind of dumbass would stereotype someone into being trustworthy? She's a politician, dipshit. "Marry me, Sarah." You get the picture.

The article then goes in an entirely different direction describing a segment of the men who have come to distrust men and deeply want female leadership, but not just any female leadership, her female leadership. They see her as a woman as a woman should be--a wife and a mother, a woman who would marry a man like them. They don't want an intellectual woman or a woman who has had to masculate herself in order to climb the political ladder. They don't want a woman who stresses stereotypically feminine issues like education. Because she likes hunting and generically tough-guy stuff, she is nonthreatening. Aside from her being marginally doable, she's possesses nothing typically feminine. She is effectively a "dude" like them--moreso than McCain even. So, they're voting for themselves but repressing this fact and representing their choice superficially as a vote for radical (which tough-guy feminism is) change. Rationality apparently never comes into the equation.

These are weird times.

Briefly, Regarding Windpower

I have assumed, correctly I think, that people want very badly to exploit alternative energy sources. By alternative, I mean “not fossil fuels.” It is very tempting to add nuclear to the category, since, if we had more practical alternatives, nuclear would immediately be taken off the table. While “utility scale” wind generation is growing rapidly, it is years and billions of dollars away from the needed degree of implementation. This has left poor jokers like myself to consider household scale alternative energy production. This is a topic I spend way too much time thinking about particularly considering that I can hardly afford anything more than the most trivial household generator. But, apparently I am not alone. The linked article details just how impractical if not imprudent and how unaffordable household generation systems are. But, by virtue of all these points, it illustrates how desperate people are for alternative energy sources—because they buy the systems despite the great impracticality.