That thing that the car mechanic in Buckeye Arizona said must have stuck in Quito's brain. The white coyote is what he called her. It must have instantly resonated with her. I'm the white coyote how cool is that she must have thought. For no sooner had I begun preparing her dinner at our next stop in Anza Borrego Desert State Park in the Mojave Desert than Quito lit out across a dry lake be
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Free Associating on Drugs
One of the joys of being free from the ability to research and fact check is that I can ponder at will without the annoyance of challenging my own assumptions. I'll let you dear reader do so in the comments section. Since my last posting I have continued to consider the ubiquitousness of the border patrol and that the prime reason given in the area is the drug runners. Whatever we are all aware
My family is going to be so proud of what I ate today.
So yesterday Sagrario invited three of her friends over for tea and wanted me to meet them. I came home promptly at 7 as I was told that the Spanish are generally at least half an hour late to social gatherings. However just because of how things tend to go for me they had gotten here early. I was introduced to an elderly couple and a young girl probably in her late 20s. The women kept up a co
Organ Pipe
We have been spending some time by ourselves in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This is the only place in the US where organ pipe cacti grow though they cover a great deal of Mexico to the south. The scenery is sublime. The canyon walls soar above us and the vegetation is lush. Saguaros organ pipe palo verde mesquite creosote bush prickly pear cholla jojoba all abound though not alway
just a monday
It was a typical monday. Nothing much happened I was so tired from the weekend that I stayed in bed till half eleven. Once I finally got up I had to go to a tutorial for one of my classes I learned that tests are pretty much what the normal art history test is back home. So Adan prepared me well. When I came back my roommate and I went to the english market which is a pretty interesting place w
Book Excerpt: The Play of Light
Louis Masson on the importance of silence.
Resurrecting Tammany Hall: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suggests old time Voter intimidation and Vote buying as a way to save Democrat Martha Coakley
by Eric Dondero
He was known as "Boss Tweed," and he ran New York City Democrat politics for over two decades. He used tactics such as voter intimidation, vote buying, trading votes through booze, prostitutes and cold hard cash. He muscled political opponents through staged strikes, protests, street demonstrations, and sometimes even fistfights and rumbles.
Boston itself has its own history of voter intimidation and rough-edged politics.
From the essay "The Boston Irish: A Political History" by Thomas H. O'Connor:
Based in the ghetto network of churches, clubs and bars, the sometimes ruthless and always populist ethnic class politics of Irish party bosses would turn out to be an effective strategy against Anglo-American "brahmins". By virtue of their sheer number and well oiled (and infamous) "poltical machines" - the boss of the local precinct (like John F. Kennedy's grandfather, e.g.) acting the role of mediator between the individual and collective interests of his district and the municipal government - they were able to force the leaders of the Protestant Yankee establishment first to share and later to yield political power. With the election of John F. Fitzgerald (Rose F. Kennedy's father) as mayor of the city in 1905, the Boston Irish would take full control over the city and use their political power to further their own social and economic aspirations.
Now one very prominent TV Cable News talk show host, coincidentally himself of Irish descent and a New Yorker, wants to resurrect the old traditions of Tammany to save the Boston-based seat of the proud ole' irishman Ted Kennedy.
From Chris Matthews, Hardball MSNBC, Friday, Jan. 16:
CHUCK TODD: Everybody is going to blame Coakley... she wanted to coast. They were whispering in her ear, you know once you won the primary you were the virtual Senator, Senator-elect, you might as well start thinking that way. And the Republicans, you know this guy Brown, he's not a neophyte. He's been a candidate that the Republicans have identified for the longest time... wanted to get him to run for Congress, believed he was a rising star. When the spotlight got turned on, he performed, and she turned out to be, ya know, a cross between a technocrat a little bit, I think, doesn't seem to have this automatic warmth... hasn't been able to connect. Now they're grasping for messages... just shows you they never had a consistent message: Why not Brown. Elections are about choices.
MATTHEWS: You know in the old days, it shouldn't be hard getting back to the old days. If the Democrats faced a kinda disaster in the works, you'd go back to your ones, the people you were sure were going to vote Democrat and you'd make sure they got to the polling place. You'd get them lunch. You'd get them a car. You'd make sure they'd got there. And in some cases you'd be buying people to get them. Not officially buying them. But getting them there as block secretaries. Block captains. You'd be getting them street money. Legitimate. But it's a little bit old school.
CHUCK TODD: Right... right.
MATTHEWS: But I hear talking to some people today, they're aren't people like that up in Massachusetts any more. They're aren't those automatic Democrat votes out there any more. You can't count on anybody...
CHUCK TODD: You're right Chris. It isn't the old machine that's up there.
MATTHEWS: Well, the street corner guys are getting called upon, perhaps a little too late. Perhaps. We'll see. It could still be very close. Thank you Chuck Todd.
See the full video of the exchange at MSNBC.
Today's modern day political street thugs are of course, ACORN and SEIU. They no longer descend from the Irish ghettos. But the same mentality of intimidation and street thuggery remains. Will see next Tuesday, if Matthews does indeed get his wish, and that mentality prevails.
Photos - Cartoon of Boss Tweed protecting the ballot box, Boston street thugs, and Tammany Hall, NYC.
Free Spirit: Mired at Troy
Click here to view the embedded video.
I don’t know and I’m hoping for the best, but this could be it for the little rover. There is a good team working on it so who knows – good luck!!
Immunization FAQs, and some nice stories | Bad Astronomy
I’m a fan of the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition, whose purpose is to make sure my home state’s kids are healthy and not susceptible to preventable diseases (they’re on Twitter, too!). Last Thanksgiving, they had a "Thanks-a-thon", letting Coloradans post their messages and stories about their kids. It’s a great read, with lots of heart-warming — and some harrowing — stories.
And while I’m at it, here is a great immunization FAQ posted by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In it you’ll see something very hard to find on the web: actual science-based facts about vaccinations, without the scare tactics employed constantly by the antivax (what some people call the pro-disease) crowd. If you’re wondering about getting yourself or your kids vaccinated, please check out that site and read it carefully. You may be saving not only your child’s life, but the lives of other children as well.
Rob’s Post: Black Holes
It doesn’t matter how much you say about them, there’s still more to say. It doesn’t matter how much you know about them, you barely know anything at all. We’ve talked at length about what black holes are, what they do, how they do it, and what may happen after they’ve done it. We all know about Hawking Radiation, microscopic black holes, and event horizons.
Doesn’t the term “event horizon” sound like it fell right out of The Twilight Zone?
Since most people know I’m very interested in black holes, I get a lot of questions and comments on the subject. Here are a few of the topics most discussed in my email:
Image created by ESA/NASA/JPL – a Black Hole Concept drawing
A good “rule of thumb” in the empirical sciences goes like this: For every action there is an equal, and opposite, reaction. How does that work with black holes?
The “flip-side” to the black hole coin could very well be the hypothetical “white hole”. Matter is drawn inexorably into the black hole, compressed by enormous energy into a singularity, and released (explosively) by the white hole. The puzzler in this theory is if it happens at all (and it seems as if it must), why don’t we see it happen around us all the time? After all, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of black holes. Some scientists are saying that the ejection of matter at the white hole is happening all around us, all the time. It simply creates another “universe” when it happens. The next step along this line of thought is the speculation that we have indeed experienced a white hole in this universe. We called it “The Big Bang”.
Remember, the existence of a white hole it purely hypothetical. By its very definition, we couldn’t produce one in this universe since its existence could only be manifest by the formation of another universe. Tricky little problem in logic, that.
NASA/ESA STScl X-Rays from heated material falling into a black hole
Let me give you a quick aside here; if you fall into a black hole, you are not going to encounter a “worm hole” and travel through time, space, or dimension. If you fall into a black hole, the only thing you’re going to encounter is a singularity, and that’s not a pleasant prospect. Worm holes are an even iffier proposition than white holes. Even if they did exist, and there was a way to travel through them (and control where you were going), you would not want to go through one. Trust me, you do not want to go there.
Illustration of space-time “fabric” being warped by a black hole
Black holes are now thought to be at the center of most, if not all galaxies. The gravitational pull of the black hole may very well be instrumental in holding the galaxy together. When galaxies collide, or “merge”, it appears that their respective black holes orbit each other, creating a binary system, until they also collide. The largest black hole located so far, OJ287 (a BL Lac object), is believed to be one center of such a collision of galaxies. OJ287 is thought to contain 18 billion (that’s “b” as in “boy”) solar masses, and is one member of a binary system. Its smaller companion (“only” 100 million solar masses), will eventually be absorbed. OJ287 is in the constellation of Cancer.
There is indeed a black hole at the center of The Milky Way. It’s about 27,000 ly away, and is believed to be 4 million solar masses. Here is an image of the center of our galaxy, combining images from Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer.
Brought to you by NASA/ESA, SSC, CXC, and STScI
And finally, to look at our galactic center, churning around our own black hole:
Recycle Your Old Cellphone To Fund Haiti Relief [Haiti]
ReCellular, the world's leading recycler of cellphones, has launched Phones For Haiti—a relief effort that donates 100% of the value of your recycled phone to quake victims via the American Red Cross. [Phones for Haiti via Inhabitat]
Ninjas Employ Their Own Method Of Unboxing a Nexus One [Nexus One]
In this Google-sponsored video by Patrick Boivin, stop-motion ninjas show us only the second unboxing that I can describe as "action-packed." They easily defeated the Nexus One packaging, but their arch-rival Blister Pack won't go down so easy. [Engadget]
Windows Mobile 7 Rumor Explosion: Two Versions, New Name, First Hardware [Microsoft]
As Mobile World Congress—and presumably Window Mobile 7—careens closer and closer, we're going to hear a lot more of this. Today's batch? Business and consumer versions of the OS, a sexxxy new name, and possible first hardware.
WMExperts' post is essentially a digest of everything they think they know from a variety of sources, including this very site. Even as a summary, though, it's pretty huge, and the rumors sprawl from totally ridiculous to fairly credible, so here are the meaty bits:
&bull Windows Mobile 7 won't be marketed as Windows Mobile 7. We sort of knew this already, since Microsoft has been marketing Windows Mobile and "Windows Phone" since the announcement of 6.5. But it's not even going to be that, apparently. The new name? "Seven."
&bull There will be two versions of the OS: one for OEMs and businesses, a stripped-down that's being referred to in development as Business Edition; and one media-oriented version for consumers, tentatiely called Media Edition. Business edition will be focused on enterprise tools, like collaborative document editing, while the media edition will be focused on, well, media.
&bull If we see Seven at MWC, it won't be a full product—we'll see HD video playback, a Zune-like media interface, and some of the rest of the UI, but not all of it. This sounds odd! But the rumor consensus is that the OS won't hit phones until late 2010, so it's plausible that they're just not done yet,
There's nothing earth-shattering here, and most of these rumors just prompt more questions. Perhaps the juiciest part of this whole mess, though, is the rumored hardware from LG and HTC. What's so great about the LG Apollo and HTC Obsession, assuming they actually exist? Well, seeing as they're supposed to be Seven launch devices, they represent the new baseline for Windows Mobile phones. And this baseline is high: WMExperts reports both have 1GHz+ Snapdragon processors, 3.7-inch AMOLED screens, and 512MB to 1GB of RAM. In other words, Windows Mobile 7's dumpiest handsets will be gutsier than anything you can buy today—something that will get less and less impressive the longer Microsoft waits to release this thing.
Anyway, if you're still feeling a little lost as to what on earth WinMo 7 may or may not be, WMExperts' breakdown is worth a read. [WMExperts]
On Lego Pandora, Everyone Gets Along Just Fine [Legos]
I'd like to give a tiny Golden Globe to all the fine people who put together these incredibly detailed Avatar Lego dioramas. That's my kind of 3D.
Many of these are repurposed from older Lego sets, such as Halo and (gasp!) Toy Story, which in a way is an apt metaphor for Avatar itself, no? Either way, another win for the hobbyists! [Flickr via The Brothers Brick]
Apple Tablet Might Have Decent Graphical Capabilities For Gaming? [Apple Tablet]
Even though the existence and announcement of the Apple Tablet is pretty much a lock for January 27, we still don't know much about specs or capabilities. But it might do gaming at least decently.
Apple invited our sister site Kotaku to the event as well. Not much, on the surface of things, but because details are so slim about the tablet, small tells give us a sneak peek into what Apple's engineers are planning.
Because the tablet's not a phone, both in terms of computing capability and input mechanics, people are going to be expecting more from its performance. Especially in the gaming realm, which Apple has been pushing hard in their ads for the iPod Touch and iPhone. If the guess that Apple will include iPhone App Store support on the tablet is true, it'll at least enough graphical capability to run those games.
But our guess is that we'll see at least an Nvidia Ion-esque solution (like the Nvidia 9400M found in MacBooks), supposing the whole thing runs with at least as much power as a decently specced netbook.
Who knows though—we could be reading too much into this.
Xbox Live May Kill Cable With Live Streaming Sports From ESPN [Xbox Live]
While you never necessarily needed cable, the one gap in internet video service has always been the lack of live sports. According to the NY Times, Microsoft and Disney are looking to change that, bringing ESPN to your Xbox Live.
Xbox Live users can already access dated content via Netflix, but this move towards live streaming would be a major one towards killing off cable once and for all. Especially since it targets a dedicated audience (sports fans) that has significant overlap with Xbox Live's built-in gaming community.
The set-up would be similar to that of ESPN 360, which is already available from some ISPs. It would be based on a per-subscriber fee, and would include live streams of sporting events and possibly also interactive games that incorporate the ESPN brand. We'll update with more details if and when they're available. [NY Times]
Geocentric Watch Puts You At The Center Of Attention [Watches]
There aren't many watches out there that can draw a crowd, but Geoffrey Cooper's "Geocentric" has that potential. The passage of time is represented much like the Earth revolving around the sun.
The rings, which are in constant motion, revolve around the face of the watch to display both the hour an the minutes. So far as I can tell, Geocentric is still in the design/prototype phase, but I think it has what it takes to be a great product. [Geoffrey Cooper via The Design Blog]
Consider What You Take For Granted [Imagecache]
There's still nothing approaching normalcy in Haiti, days after a quake essentially leveled Port-au-Prince. Here, we see a makeshift power strip being used to rent out phone chargers by the hour.
Because even things we take for granted like electricity are extremely scarce, people are forced to share, ration or go without. Today's Big Picture has a collection of recent photos from the disaster, and they are harrowing to say the least.
The people of Haiti still need help, and lots of it. If you haven't donated yet, or have already and are able to do so again, I can't urge you strongly enough to give as much as you can. [The Big Picture]
Haiti
The current tragedy in Haiti may turn out to be one of the worst natural disasters (if not the worst) the Western Hemisphere has seen in the post-colonial era. Immediate deaths caused directly by trauma from the quake itself will likely number in the tens of thousands but we can be pretty sure that there’s more horror to come. This is a tragedy which is going to continue for months—probably years—to come. Science-based medicine has taught us much about how to mitigate disasters such as this one. Unfortunately, in Haiti medicine is only part of the problem; the long-standing political and economic problems have helped limit what medicine can do. But even in the most troubled of countries, attitudes toward science-based medicine can have profound effects on the health of the population. We in the U.S. still wield an enormous power over health policy in other countries. We have managed to insert our religious ideologies into other nations’ HIV prevention and treatment strategies via foreign aid policies. American individuals, such as HIV-denialist Peter Duesberg, have influenced foreign leaders in making disastrous health policy decisions. When the South African government bought into AIDS denialism, tens to hundreds of thousands died. The anti-vaccination movement has the potential to cause much more damage (and by “damage” I mean death and suffering). If the anti-vaccination crowd increases their influence, they can not only injure more Americans, but also those in other countries who are already suffering quite enough. 
One of the coming tragedies in Haiti will be widespread illness and death from vaccine-preventable diseases. A terrifying example is tetanus. Tetanus is a disease caused by the bacterium Clostridium tetani. These bacteria live in most soils, especially rich soils, and can easily infect small wounds. Once the infection takes hold, the bacteria produce a potent toxin responsible for most of the symptoms of the disease. These symptoms include horrifying muscle spasms, including jaw spasms which give the disease its other name, “lock-jaw”. And it is a horrifying disease, affecting adults with even minor wounds, and babies, who can become infected at the site of their umbilical cord. The disease is frightening, causing uncontrollable muscle spasms resulting in death in nearly 100% of untreated cases. Even when treated, tetanus has a very high mortality rate, and given that tetanus tends to be more common in areas with less access to treatment, the impact is doubly felt. Neonatal tetanus is a dreadful disease, doubly so because it is so easily prevented. When mothers are vaccinated neonates are protected by passage of antibodies to the fetus in utero. Due mainly to political and economic conditions, tetanus vaccination rates in Haiti are low (about 50% in children). Previous similar disasters, such as the Kashmir earthquake and the Indian Ocean tsunami have showed us that tetanus is a special problem after natural disasters. 
In developed nations such as the U.S. and the U.K., anti-vaccine movements have caused outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. If anti-vaccination activists succeed in influencing the policies of the U.S. and other governments—as other fringe health activists have done—they may become morally complicit in the deaths of thousands of Haitians. We must remain vigilant to protect our neighbors from our less knowledgeable citizens. Meanwhile, Haiti needs cash. There are many organizations that are already on the ground helping. Here is a brief list (one that is not in any way endorsed by SBM or it’s editors and writers other than myself):
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Joe Kennedy Needs your help!
Joe Kennedy is the Independent/libertarian (small L) candidate for the Massachusetts's Senate seat. He needs Hoosier help! If you have some time today and tomorrow to make phone calls to help turn out LP votes, please contact Debbie Tharp at 1-559-308-3672, or at dbbspill@yahoo.com. To find out more about Joe, please visit his website: joekennedyforsenate.com.
Also, check out this story: Conservative PAC Says Joseph Kennedy Taking More Votes From Martha Coakley in U.S. Senate Race; Coakley Drops Below 50% Thanks To Kennedy