So what's going on in the world right now? Not too much of real interest. Yes we're still at war and meanwhile the French told Chirac and the rest of the EU to go shove it, but really its been very quiet. Even in the X household, its been pretty quiet. Mrs. X got a new car last weekend and we spent this weekend dressing up the house and visiting with Mrs. X's mom, but that's about it. Excitement seems to be at a premium right about now.
Meanwhile, the book continues to move forward, albeit somewhat slowly. Working in the Peloponnesian War was getting a bit bogged down, so I took a short break and have gone back to examine the Joseph angle. I think I can definitely work through enough evidence that the Pharaoh who started the oppression was Sesostris III, making the Pharaoh of the Exodus Amenemhet IV, but I've hit a small snag with the start of things. Amenemhet I (founder of the 12th dynasty) began his reign a few years after Joseph came to court according to the current breakdown in chronology. So, either some of the numbers assigned to the various Pharaohs are wrong, or Joseph actually started before the 12th dynasty really got going. Then there is the whole reconciling thing with the 4th dynasty, but I'm not going to worry about that for the moment.
Still confidence is high and progress is being made. I have a total of eight chapters in various states of editing, although only one is anywhere near close to being ready. Plod along, get new information and work hard is all I can do.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Revenge of Lucas
So Mrs. X and I saw Episode III last night. It was good. It certainly was the best of the prequel trilogy. I’d have to see it again before if I could decide whether or not it was better than Return of the Jedi. So right now, it’s hovering between 3 and 4 on my rating of the 6.
Good things:
* The good things about the movie included a much better repartee between Anakin and Obi-
wan.
* There was a lot more of the dry humor that flavored the original trilogy.
* The lightsaber duels were quite impressive.
* Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor put the full force of their acting abilities into their roles
and steal most scenes they are in.
* Yoda was a much more three-dimensional character, both in terms of the effects and his
dialogue.
Bad things:
* The overall dialogue still stinks. In a movie driven for nearly an hour by political intrigue, the
simplistic dialogue renders many actors wooden.
* The chemistry between Anakin and Padme was very forced. A shame since both have shown
to be very good actors in other movies, but neither seem to be able to struggle out of the bad
dialogue and lack of direction that Lucas gives them.
* Padme is severely underused as a character and then given a very weak death, out of line with
the way she was developed in the first two movies.
* Sloppy answers to existing questions. Lucas answered most of the questions people felt
needed to be answered, but several of them were very rushed and to the point. Further
development of these should have been explored.
I’d still recommend it to see, although not necessarily in the theater Mrs. X and I went to. It was old and the sound wasn’t that great, but we expected that since it only cost us $4 to see it. The worst though was the audience. A few rows back of us was a kid maybe 4 years old who was very fussy and shouldn’t have been in there at all. There were other people, including the couple sitting next to us, who kept running commentary throughout the movie and that was highly distracting. Lower price also seems to invite lower class.
Good things:
* The good things about the movie included a much better repartee between Anakin and Obi-
wan.
* There was a lot more of the dry humor that flavored the original trilogy.
* The lightsaber duels were quite impressive.
* Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor put the full force of their acting abilities into their roles
and steal most scenes they are in.
* Yoda was a much more three-dimensional character, both in terms of the effects and his
dialogue.
Bad things:
* The overall dialogue still stinks. In a movie driven for nearly an hour by political intrigue, the
simplistic dialogue renders many actors wooden.
* The chemistry between Anakin and Padme was very forced. A shame since both have shown
to be very good actors in other movies, but neither seem to be able to struggle out of the bad
dialogue and lack of direction that Lucas gives them.
* Padme is severely underused as a character and then given a very weak death, out of line with
the way she was developed in the first two movies.
* Sloppy answers to existing questions. Lucas answered most of the questions people felt
needed to be answered, but several of them were very rushed and to the point. Further
development of these should have been explored.
I’d still recommend it to see, although not necessarily in the theater Mrs. X and I went to. It was old and the sound wasn’t that great, but we expected that since it only cost us $4 to see it. The worst though was the audience. A few rows back of us was a kid maybe 4 years old who was very fussy and shouldn’t have been in there at all. There were other people, including the couple sitting next to us, who kept running commentary throughout the movie and that was highly distracting. Lower price also seems to invite lower class.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Blood in the Snow?
Things are getting interesting with our neighbors to the North. The Prime Minister just lost a non-binding “no confidence” vote 153-150. While the Liberals are free to ignore this, it does weaken their position in the eyes of the public even more. Mr. Martin has to explain to the public why he is not scheduling elections when he has clearly lost the confidence of the House of Commons. The head of the Conservatives does have the option of petitioning the Governor-General to dissolve the government and appoint an acting Prime Minister, but unless he can secure a binding resolution, its unlikely the Governor-General will make that step.
For those of you who haven’t been fully following this story, the Liberals are in some hot water concerning an investigation into a kickback scheme involving federal judges. The Liberals then slapped on a publication ban to try and control the outflow of information. But, news got out through a couple of American bloggers and then quickly spread through the Canadian mainstream. Full back-story details are best read at Captain’s Quarters, which provided the original leak in the first place.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t even really ping that high except for one very prominent factor. The current government is primarily a coalition between the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois. Bloc Quebecois has gotten really pissed off by the whole issue and been talking about secession again. If Ottawa continues to bumble, Quebec could throw enough Bloc Quebecois members into the mix that they are able to put a secession initiative before the people of Quebec as they did in the 90’s. If Quebec passes the resolution, all of Canada could break apart. The fact that the West doesn’t like Ontario very much is not a well-kept secret. Spurred by Quebec’s departure, the West could pull its support as well. It’s also somewhat debatable as to how loyal the Maritimes would be to Ontario without a common border.
All of this is raw speculation based on the worst-case scenario, but it is a possibility. From this we then speculate as to whether Ontario would sit by and just take the dissolution of Canada, or if they would move to reunite the country by force.
So where would the US stand in the whole mix? Obviously chaos up North would spell trouble for us, but greed might trump that fear. Its no secret that the Republicans aren’t fond of the way Ontario runs things. Certain factions within the party would love a chance to offer protection for Western Canada with the hope of assimilating that portion into the US. Logging and oil companies would be made very happy by this move. Fueled by the possible intake of more “red state” voters, Democrats might then push to offer the same protections to the Maritimes, which are closer to New England in ideology to balance everything out. So a giant monster consumes the edges, leaving the center.
Again, this is a rather long shot in terms of possibility, but there is always a chance when there is this much tension in the system.
For those of you who haven’t been fully following this story, the Liberals are in some hot water concerning an investigation into a kickback scheme involving federal judges. The Liberals then slapped on a publication ban to try and control the outflow of information. But, news got out through a couple of American bloggers and then quickly spread through the Canadian mainstream. Full back-story details are best read at Captain’s Quarters, which provided the original leak in the first place.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t even really ping that high except for one very prominent factor. The current government is primarily a coalition between the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois. Bloc Quebecois has gotten really pissed off by the whole issue and been talking about secession again. If Ottawa continues to bumble, Quebec could throw enough Bloc Quebecois members into the mix that they are able to put a secession initiative before the people of Quebec as they did in the 90’s. If Quebec passes the resolution, all of Canada could break apart. The fact that the West doesn’t like Ontario very much is not a well-kept secret. Spurred by Quebec’s departure, the West could pull its support as well. It’s also somewhat debatable as to how loyal the Maritimes would be to Ontario without a common border.
All of this is raw speculation based on the worst-case scenario, but it is a possibility. From this we then speculate as to whether Ontario would sit by and just take the dissolution of Canada, or if they would move to reunite the country by force.
So where would the US stand in the whole mix? Obviously chaos up North would spell trouble for us, but greed might trump that fear. Its no secret that the Republicans aren’t fond of the way Ontario runs things. Certain factions within the party would love a chance to offer protection for Western Canada with the hope of assimilating that portion into the US. Logging and oil companies would be made very happy by this move. Fueled by the possible intake of more “red state” voters, Democrats might then push to offer the same protections to the Maritimes, which are closer to New England in ideology to balance everything out. So a giant monster consumes the edges, leaving the center.
Again, this is a rather long shot in terms of possibility, but there is always a chance when there is this much tension in the system.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Science likes to pass itself off as being very flexible and will constantly amend its theories whenever new discoveries are made. In some cases this is true, but in other cases, science is as stiff necked about certain theories as a church is about dogma.
A prime example is the nature of the dinosaur debate. This debate is still evolving but the paleontologists held very rigid in their theories for many years. I had books growing up in the 80’s that were indistinguishable from books in the 50’s. Dinosaurs were cold-blooded, slow-witted creatures. Tyrannosaurus Rex stood completely upright on his hind legs. The primary sauropod was the brontosaurus. Brachiosaurus had to stand in water to support its weight. Etcetera, etcetera.
It wasn’t until the late 80’s when Robert Bakker published his book, The Dinosaur Heresies, challenging these theories. Many of these theories were picked up by Michael Creighton and incorporated into Jurassic Park. With the success of that series, the public started paying enough attention that people began to change their minds and science was actually forced to consider new theories and has made them into the new gospel.
I mention this example because I’ve been reading some articles that argue that the Big Bang theory is wrong, but science is resisting change. Apparently some of the key tenants of Big Bang have been disproved relatively recently. Doppler Shift is incorrect around certain key galaxies. The overall age of bodies such as the moon and Mars have been vastly overestimated. According to the Big Bang model, the galaxy is supposed to be electrically neutral and it has recently found to be not.
In its place is a theory of electric plasma strings that disperse matter throughout the universe. I don’t know the full nature of the theory except that it takes certain key elements first proposed by Immanuel Velikovsky in the 1950’s. I don’t quite buy all of his theories (he believes the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter and caused the disasters of biblical era by closely passing Earth before settling into a stable orbit) but it does make for interesting reading. It also teaches one to challenge the orthodoxy of science. Question and agitate
A prime example is the nature of the dinosaur debate. This debate is still evolving but the paleontologists held very rigid in their theories for many years. I had books growing up in the 80’s that were indistinguishable from books in the 50’s. Dinosaurs were cold-blooded, slow-witted creatures. Tyrannosaurus Rex stood completely upright on his hind legs. The primary sauropod was the brontosaurus. Brachiosaurus had to stand in water to support its weight. Etcetera, etcetera.
It wasn’t until the late 80’s when Robert Bakker published his book, The Dinosaur Heresies, challenging these theories. Many of these theories were picked up by Michael Creighton and incorporated into Jurassic Park. With the success of that series, the public started paying enough attention that people began to change their minds and science was actually forced to consider new theories and has made them into the new gospel.
I mention this example because I’ve been reading some articles that argue that the Big Bang theory is wrong, but science is resisting change. Apparently some of the key tenants of Big Bang have been disproved relatively recently. Doppler Shift is incorrect around certain key galaxies. The overall age of bodies such as the moon and Mars have been vastly overestimated. According to the Big Bang model, the galaxy is supposed to be electrically neutral and it has recently found to be not.
In its place is a theory of electric plasma strings that disperse matter throughout the universe. I don’t know the full nature of the theory except that it takes certain key elements first proposed by Immanuel Velikovsky in the 1950’s. I don’t quite buy all of his theories (he believes the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter and caused the disasters of biblical era by closely passing Earth before settling into a stable orbit) but it does make for interesting reading. It also teaches one to challenge the orthodoxy of science. Question and agitate
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