Crisis

It is often said that those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. What's said less often is that knowledge of history can give you insight into the future. Not that that's always comforting. The following letter was written by Lord Thomas Macaulay to Henry Randall (President Jefferson's biographer) in the 1850's. It is remarkably accurate as to how things evolved over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, although we must point out that Lord Macaulay would have been influenced in his views by the rise of Marxism.

"I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must sooner or later destroy liberty or civilization, or both. You may think that your country enjoys an exemption from these evils. I will frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. Your fate I believe to be settled, though it is deferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than is the laboring population of the old world, and while that is the case the Jefferson politics may continue to exist without any fatal calamity. But the time will come when wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and your Birminghams, and in these Manchesters and Birminghams hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be out of work. Then your institutions will be brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and incline him to listen to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million while another cannot get a full meal.

"I have seen England pass through three or four such critical seasons as I have described; through such seasons the United States will have to pass in the course of the next century, if not of this. How will you pass through them? I heartily wish you a good deliverance. But my reason and my wishes are at war, and one cannot help foreboding the worst.

"The day will come when in the State of New York, a multitude of people, none of whom has had more than half a breakfast or expects to have more than half a dinner, will choose a legislature. On one side is a statesman teaching patience, respect for the vested rights, strict observance of public faith. On the other is a demagogue, ranting at the tyranny of capitalists and usurists, and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and ride in a carriage while thousands of honest people are in want of necessities. Which of these candidates is likely to be preferred by a working-man who hears his children cry for bread?

"I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such season of adversity as I have described, do things which will prevent prosperity from returning. There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress. The distress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop you. Your constitution is all sail and no anchor.

"As I said before, when society has entered on this downward progress, either civilisation or liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, and your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid to waste by the barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with the difference that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman empire came from without; and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions."

Yay us

Much remains but I would still like to dedicate this little bit to the removal of Mr. Bin Laden

Modernizing Movies

TRON debuted back in 1982 with a bit of a lackluster ad campaign. The movie ended up doing poorly but became a significant nerd cult hit with the VHS release (enough to spawn a sequal nearly 30 years later).

However, I would imagine that if you took someone who had never seen or heard of TRON but was interested in action movies and showed them this modern style trailer of it, you could probably get them interested enough to see it.



Now, contrast that with the original trailer from 1982:



Ah, how fickle the viewing public is.

150 Years Ago Today...

Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard ordered his batteries in Charleston, SC to open fire on Ft. Sumter, formally initiating the Civil War. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort the next day.

One of the greatest ironies is that the opening battle of the Civil War ended with the only casulty being a Confederate horse. The first official casualties of the war, Union Privates Daniel Hough and Edward Gallway, were killed when an ammunition dump blew up from a stray spark during a gun salute of the American flag just prior to the Union men leaving the fort.

Go Ahead. Make My Day.

The Arab league, acting at the request of Hamas, is petitioning the UN to impose a "No-Fly" zone over Gaza. Hamas is requesting this as they are currently getting the crap kicked out of them by Israeli air-strikes after they tried to murder children by launching an anti-tank missle at a school bus.

The resolution would almost certainly get vetoed by the US, but there is a part of me that wishes it would pass and then the UN would task the Arab League withe enforcing the "No-Fly" Zone. That would give the Israelis a nice excuse to reduce the Arab air-force to scrap metal, which they would do easily. The Arabs still haven't recovered from the destruction of their air forces in the 1967 Six Day War.

This should generate a proper Magnum Force moment:

Oops... Did I Do That?

A minor political error was noted yesterday in Wisconsin. On Wednesday, liberal candidate for supreme court justice Joanne Kloppenburg declared victory with a 204 vote margin over conservative sitting justice David Prosser. Yesterday, Waukesha County sheepishly announced that a computer error failed to send election results from the city of Brookfield (~14,000 votes). The net effect of this is that Mr. Prosser will pick up over 7,000 votes, vaulting him into the lead.

Naturally, there will be allegations of voter fraud (bags of votes found in the trunks of cars?) but apparently, the paper trail seems legitimate. The primary culprit seems to be an antiquated computer and the head of elections' refusal to update a system she was comfortable with. Bet she updates now.

More Fun in Wisconsin

Yesterday, an election was held for a position on the state Supreme Court. Current Justice David Prosser (conservative) was being challenged by JoAnne Kloppenburg (liberal). As of this writing, Kloppenburg was leading by 336 votes out of 1.5 million cast with all but one precincts reporting. That precinct is in Jefferson County (won by Mr. Prosser) so Ms. Kloppenburg's lead will be reduced by some margin, although it is unlikely to be overcome. Needless to say, this will go to a recount as there are accusations of fraud on both sides. Fortunately, Mr. Prosser's term does not end until the end of July so they will have four full months to play sue and counter sue before this whole thing comes to an end.

Of course, the reason this has grabbed attention is that the Wisconsin Supreme Court is currently split 4-3 conservative-liberal. Nearly everyone expects the justices to vote on party lines regarding the recent law about union dues and bargining. So this is seen as either a way to maintain the law as passed by the legislature and governor or as a means to strike down the law and return to the status quo.

Sakura

With everything going on, I thought this seemed poinant.

Whirlpool!

This is a huge whirlpool that formed shortly after the earthquake in Japan. If you look closely, you can see a fishing boat on the outer rim to give it a sense of scale.

Comet Elenin

I've been reading a little bit on Comet Elenin. The comet (formally known as C/2010 X1) was discovered back in Dec. 2010 by a Russian astronomer named Leonid Elenin. What's interesting is that it will pass about 0.23 AU (21.37 million miles) of Earth in mid-October 2011 (1 AU (92.96 million miles) is the distance between the Sun and the Earth). That should mean that we should get a really good look at it. What's more, there is a possibility that the Earth may actually pass through the tail debris, which should produce a mini-meteor shower.

According to a website that tracks comets, Elenin will be tracking through Virgo and Leo at it's closest approach. Unfortunately according to star maps, in mid-October Leo will be setting where I live around 6:30 PM which means that the sun will still be up. So my best chance to see it will probably be in mid to late September when it is still tracking in Virgo. Virgo doesn't set until around 7 PM in late September and closer to 8 PM in mid-September. At this time of year, the comet will be about 0.45 AU (41.83 million miles).

Saudi Day of Rage

March 11th has been set as a "Day of Rage" in Saudi Arabia. Naturally this will have a wonderful effect on oil prices.

One thing that seems to have escaped the notice of some people though is that this day will be the 7th anniversary of the Madrid train bombings and the 9-1/2 anniversary of Sept. 11.

Given that there have been at least two Fridays between the call for a "Day of Rage" and the scheduled date leads me to believe that the date is not lost to the organizers. I'll be very curious to see if any signs show up at this event next week.

The Whos

I find this picture far more amusing that it should probably be.

For reference:

Roger Daltrey (vocals) - 8th doctor
Pete Townshend (guitar) - 11th doctor
John Entwistle (bass) - 4th doctor
Keith Moon (drums) - 10th doctor

Presidental Geneology

Every president is connected to George Washington. How cool is that?

Can We Fix It? YES WE CAN!

One of the best things about having young kids is that you can unashamedly enjoy things like this:

Glee Favorites

Just a few for quick reference:

Good Game, Bad Commercials

A good game and I'm glad the Packers won. More so because it meant that the Steelers lost, but why taint the feelings of my sister ;)

What sucked though was the commercials. Mrs. X made a note that the commercials had been going downhill for the past few years and they took a sharp dive this year. The humor was sophmoric and repeatative. Many were just stupid. I usually like to post a top three of the commercials that I like, but this year I can only muster feeling about two:

1. Darth Vader Volkswagon - This was the only truly funny one other there. It's even funnier if you have kids. The temptation to do exactly what the dad does at the end of the commercial (to pull little pranks to make the kids think they can do magic or other things) is very true to style.

2. Motorola Xoom Tablet - This was an ok commercial itself but it wins points with me for the intellegence of the ad. One of the greatest Super Bowl ads was the 1984 Macintosh ad. In the Motorola ad, Apple has become big brother (not that offbase if you ever talk to Mac people) and it is the Motorola Tablet that is fighting against Big Brother much as Apple promised the Mac would against the conformity of IBM.

If I had to pick a third one, I might go with the CarMax one where the modern guy pulls up to a 1950's gas station. It didn't do much in telling me anything about CarMax, but it was funny in how we probably would react if we got the full service treatment of yesteryear.

Horcrux Collectors Club

Another good one from Teefury. Can you identify all 7?

Egypt Eye View

This is a post by a blogger named Sandmonkey who lives and has participated in the protests. There are rumors that he has been arrested. It certainly makes for a different perspective on what is going on there.

Boom Boom in Japan

Mt. Kirishima on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu started erupting yesterday. The pictures are quite dramatic.

I've never been to that part of Japan but it's all still interesting. I've noted the location of the volcano on the map below:

Perspective

Someone posted this yesterday and I just want to hold on to it for reference.

Time Magazine – March 31, 1980:

“National opinion polls continue to show Carter leading Reagan by an apparently comfortable margin of about 25%. They also show that more moderate Republicans like Ford would run better against the President. This suggests that Reagan is not the strongest G.O.P. choice for the November election and that he clearly faces an uphill battle.”

“Party operatives are plainly unhappy with his selection. In Massachusetts, where both Bush and Anderson defeated Reagan, party leaders are not yet reconciled to the Reagan candidacy. Says one: “There’s a vacuum of leadership at the national level; and what appears to be the Republican Party’s response? A 69-year-old man who has done virtually nothing for years”

“Reagan has a history of committing rhetorical blunders that drive away voters. His quest in 1976 was damaged when he suggested vaguely, without proper research and consideration, that $90 billion in federal programs should be turned back to the states. He then spent months explaining that the affected programs would not be eliminated, only transferred. As Governor, Reagan was outraged by student unrest and once proclaimed: “The state of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity.”

“Worse perhaps than the verbal gaffe is Reagan’s relentlessly simple-minded discussion of complex problems. He is aware that he is charged with this failing, and in his 1967 inaugural address on becoming Governor of California, he asserted: “We have been told there are no simple answers to complex problems. Well, the truth is there are simple answers, just not easy ones.”

Electoral College:

Reagan: 489
Carter: 49