Synova

533 And my daughter would like to say two things... "My tongue went numb," and... "It depends on the Tootsie Pop, for every Tootsie Pop is unique."

The immegrant's holiday. When we lived in California I asked the couple who owned our favorite Chinese take-out place if they were celebrating Thanksgiving and they said, No. What a pity. Of all the holidays Thanksgiving seems to me to be all about coming to America and everything that America represents. Traditionally we talk about pilgrims and turkeys and while the first Thanksgiving is important (and for the record, it was celebrated by a diverse community, the settlers together with the natives for a big feast) but in the end it was just a party. New immegrants are actually CLOSER to the pilgrims than any of us. They came from somewhere else to America for opportunities, for material blessings, for the freedom to worship or live without oppression. The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of freedom and, yes, wealth... the new settlers had finally gotten over that extremely fragile time when they weren't sure they'd make it through the next winter. They had enough extra...

When I was in school we were supposed to be in a panic about the hole in the o-zone layer. A decade later my sister was supposed to be in a panic about an oncoming ice age (I actually don’t remember this, I think I was reproducing at the time and suffering brain-death by hormones). A decade later (now) we’re supposed to be in a panic about global warming. What I want to know about is how those environmental models (I’m not certain they *have* models, but...) deal with this… Robin McKie, science editor Sunday November 10, 2002 The Observer Earth’s magnetic field - the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space - is weakening dramatically. Scientists have discovered that its strength has dropped precipitously over the past two centuries and could disappear over the next 1,000 years. The effects could be catastrophic. Powerful radiation bursts, which normally never touch the atmosphere, would heat up its upper layers, triggering climatic disruption. Navigation an...

The most amazing thing to me... Suppose America had made our plans taking into account the long history, the unfamiliarity of the Iraqi people with concepts of equal protection under the law (more important, actually, than democracy, which can still abuse minorities) and we made our plans differently. Different than we did. Are there any plans that would have transformed the assumptions and attitudes of the Iraqi people in three or four years? Let's get some liberal social scientists on this one, okay? How long to tranform... given a "psychological program"... how long to transform attitudes? Consider the age of the population, quite young, flexible, how long until children have never really known any different? Oh yeah, we screwed up because we didn't have a plan that would do all that in THREE FREAKING YEARS. So let's give up... leave them to figure it out themselves, since it's ultimately up to them. At the same time, let's explain why we have *any* soc...

Rangel is at it again, and like usual no one is taking him seriously. He doesn't want a draft of course, he's just trying to make a point about social justice. Anyhow, to the extent that poorer people join the military it's because they see it as an opportunity. JUST like anyone else. The Heritage Foundation numbers compared geographical demographic areas, by fifths, and found that only something like 13% come from the poorest area (20% of the population by definition). High school drop outs or anyone with police involvement or who can't pass a urine test... don't get in. I think that the reason why blacks are killed in Iraq at lower than their numbers in the military is that, particularly in the Army, you get to chose your MOS and blacks don't chose combat specialties at an equal rate as they enlist. My guess... maybe there's numbers someplace to test it. If blacks are viewing military service as an opportunity it makes sense to chose something with more o...

I don't know about you, but I find this really creepy. It's creepy on two levels. First, what is said about Pelosi and the new Congress. Second, what it says about Eleanor Clift. Eleanor isn't my most favorite person ever, but I don't spend any effort whatsoever disliking her either. I do have to say though, that as she talks about Pelosi and demands of loyalty it does make me wonder about her assumptions. Frankly, the idea that *anyone* should be *loyal* to the House Leader is just simply weird. I mean *any* House Leader from any party. There's an element of compulsion in the language that I find disturbing, as though Pelosi has been installed as some sort of tin-pot dictator over her new little kingdom. This is something I'd expect coming from a conservative blogger who can express just about any negative opinion without repercussion... but it's Eleanor Clift, who isn't conservative, isn't a blogger, and doesn't appear to th...

I homeschool. The other day on a forum on which I participate someone asked... "Do you think you should have the freedom to not educate your children?" Our local troll/expert in everything no matter what, added to that honest question... "Or teach them pseudo-svioence creationism ionstead of real science? Or bible myths instead of history? Or Jesus Jingles instead of music? Or God Ads instead of literature? Or biblical maths (1 + 1+ 1 = 1) instead of real maths?" My reply: Yes. Because I don't want to live in a world where thought is controlled. I don't want to live in a world where someone decides what is best for me and what I must know and what I am allowed to believe. I don't desire the power to enforce others to teach or believe what I know is true, the approved curriculum, a tyranny of experts and those who qualify for ideological purity. It doesn't matter if those tyrants are in agreement with me and if they implement everything t...

Okay, I decided to do it. Again. NaNoWriMo is, of course, National Novel Writing Month. Last year was a bust. The idea is to give yourself permission to write truely terrible fiction for the purpose of finishing a novel, beginning to end, or at least to get to 50,000 words just to show you can. 2,000 words a day is quite a lot but it's only 30 days so there is an end in sight. Since I'm great at starting and terrible at finishing I figure this is probably a good thing for me. But what happened last year was that I got to just over 20,000 words and decided that the story was pretty darned good after all and suddenly I wanted to *make* it good instead of just plough through. And that was that. I wasn't intending on doing it this year. But I was getting all ready to start a new project (I'm great at starting) and at the last minute decided that I might as well put off starting for a week and do the NaNoWriMo thing. So I'm making question sheets for plot and chara...

Oh my... “One CIA pilot told me that in the mid 1990s, when Clinton was president, that the lawyers began to take over. Previously, they used to take CIA planes into hangars all the time, re-spray them, and come out with a different tail number. That way none of the tracing of CIA planes I’ve been doing since 9/11 would have been possible. The idea of flying around with one tail number for three years would have been thought completely nuts,” Grey told me. “But [Clinton-era] lawyers said they needed to stay legal. They even insisted that, to comply with FAA regulations, they needed stewardesses.” Yes, stewardesses on CIA planes. Instapundit linked this (and compared it to fantasy-fiction with amorous demons. I can only say that the comparison seems appropriate.

Well, no one, of course. But George Bush is right on about this one. National security isn't about being fair, it's about being in a position of strength. Bush Sets Defense As Space Priority. I agree with this guy: The new policy was applauded by defense analyst Baker Spring of the conservative Heritage Foundation. He said that he supported the policy's rejection of international agreements or treaties, as well as its emphasis on protecting military assets and placing missile defense components in space. He also said that he liked the policy's promotion of commercial enterprises in space and its apparent recognition that private satellites will need military protection as well. This is interesting as well: A number of nations have pushed for talks to ban space weapons, and the United States has long been one of a handful of nations opposed to the idea. Although it had abstained in the past when proposals to ban space weapons came up in the United Nations, last October t...

In the interest of doing more local blogging, here is a column about the University New Mexico Law School. (via Instapundit, no less, who isn't local at all) Long story short, Christina Hoff Sommers relates her impression that at the UNM Law School Liberal Bias Rules. I can't even find pithy quotations to take from the article because it's just a list of examples of weirdness so I'd have to quote them all. I can say that after reading it I can't imagine anyone deciding to attend this school. Quite frankly, it sounds like a community college. No doubt I've just slandered some wonderful community college somewhere, but it seems to me that when a college instructor is quoted saying something truely far-out, as often as not it's someone on a community college faculty. Like the guy who said that it would be good if 80% of the population died of bird flu. I doubt that the average community college is as completely one sided as Sommers says the UNM Law ...

Tim Blair has this wonderful pictoral tribute. I'm probably the only person in the country who hasn't figured out how to effortlessly e-mail pictures so I'll attempt to post my contribution to the 300 million here. My four and my sister's two boys. My brother also has two of the cutest babies but so far we don't have a picture of all the cousins together. My brother-in-law also has a boy that is too adorable for words.

This was on my Yahoo Messenger "Inside Yahoo" when I logged in this morning. I honestly don't know what these people use for brains. Seriously. The story is basically the same as ever, U.S. troops fired at people they knew were reporters and so knew were not a threat. Thus, they committed a war crime and are guilty of murder. Witnesses testified during the weeklong inquest that Lloyd — who was driving with fellow ITN reporters from Kuwait toward Basra, Iraq — was shot in the back by Iraqi troops who overtook his car, then died after U.S. fire hit a civilian minivan being used as an ambulance and struck him in the head. Firstly, please let us realize that Lloyd, who surely did not deserve to die, was shot by *both* sides. By Saddam's forces and then by Americans. What does this tell us? Yes, children, he was smack dab in the center of a battle ground. Between the two forces who were trying to kill each other. Now comes the hubris. Walker said. "There is no doubt...

"Streisand noted that "the artist's role is to disturb,"" Oh really? Of all the emotions that an artist can envoke, "disturb" is the easiest. It's the cop out. It's the artistic angst of youth that mistakes "disturbing" for art just because it gets a reaction from your elders and lends a guilty thrill to your peers. What is the artists role? To make us think, certainly. To illuminate the world. When did art become more pure the more people it could repel? Interestingly the article describes Babs' Bush skit as only a little bit funny and too long and the audience's response as subdued.

...maybe these people should move. And I'm serious that I hate to say it. If I could move home again and make a living there I would do it. I understand the pull of geology and culture. Having to be elsewhere in order to pay the bills sucks. In any case, it is a trade-off that a whole lot of people make. A better solution would be economic development but I can't even think of what to suggest. Other than fishing or drilling for oil what is there? The same things that make groceries and gas expensive make shipping anything *out* expensive as well. But maybe someone can think of a good idea or two. Anyhow, bravo to those who have refused Citgo money. I hope someone else steps in to make up the difference. Donating insulation and building supplies doesn't sound like a bad idea either, if the homes are as flimsy as the article says. It does sound like a really horrible place to live, though. Someone please tell me the summer is glorious or the aurora or...

Geez. Is "comer" a word? It is, I looked it up. It still looks wrong though. I did have to fix the spelling so it even looks wronger. LOL. So, for those of you who aren't Norse, Late-Comer's Day is otherwise known as Columbus Day.

First there's Mario Burgos who has a blog of the same name. And Lucky Dawg News . It's sort of weird because the blogosphere isn't geographical and I don't think in terms of geography and Mario probably lives within a couple of miles of me. It actually feels strange. Maybe we can have some sort of New Mexico conservative blog party or something. Or maybe they already have that sort of thing and I can get myself invited. Hmm?

What happens when people who've been trying their best to be culturally sensative have finally had enough of being unappreciated. It will probably not be a *violent* backlash, but expect some disrespect, Islam, because you've earned it.

The insult of Pope Benedict to Muhammad and to Islam is nothing to the insult of Muslims themselves. It's as though they're trying to prove every statement against them 100% correct. I wish the Pope had not given even his non-apology. I wish he'd just out and out said, "But you're proving that what I quoted is true." and then let them choke on it. I'm *appalled* that other churches or church leaders have apologized *for* him. It's like apologizing to the Mafia for suggesting that they are breaking kneecaps in hopes that they won't break your kneecaps. Doesn't truth matter? Or does only safety matter? Or maybe, if there really *are* Muslims who don't believe in violence the analogy should be that it's like apologizing and pretending to *Italians* that there is no Mafia. It might make them feel good, but it encourages the Mafia. And the usual victims of the Mafia were other Italians just as the usual victim of violent Islam...

I can hardly even watch this. These guys are amazing. (h/t Instpundit) It *is* just like any other sort of conspiracy theory. It all depends on the truth being hidden from thousands of people. And the only agencies capable of pulling off such a stunt? Huge government agencies. I guess if you're in the government the saying "two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" doesn't apply. There were bombs in the world trade centers. They were installed ahead of time. How many man-hours? How many engineers and explosive experts and scientists figured out just where to place those explosives and how many workers humped how many tons of explosives up how many trips in the freight elevators and wired the detonators? And not only was the government able to *find* people who would be willing to do this, none of those people bragged about it over a beer? No one told their husband or wife or lover that they spent the wee hours of the morning install...