Democrats are the liberal party, the movers and the shakers if you will. So why then will not a single one of them embrace the concept of gay marriage. Oh sure, those practically unknowns Gravel-face and Kucinichead are willing to do it, but Edwards, Clinton and Obama stand pat on the "civil union" side of the fence.
I really wish someone would tell me what the hell is wrong with people getting married that it should be denied to anyone. I'm willing to bet that homosexuals can't mess it up anymore than heterosexuals have already done. It's been said before, but I think it bears repeating, no matter what Jerry Falwell may have said homosexuals are not making a mockery of marriage, divorce is.
Current nationwide estimates put divorce rates somewhere near 50% with rates going down as one moves from east to west until they get their lowest in the Midwest, then it's on to California where the estimates are on the order of 60-70%. Yep, us heteros are doing a great job screwing up marriage.
Maybe a better measure to take would be to rewrite ALL marriage laws so that EVERY marriage would be a civil union. People could still call themselves "married" but on paper it would be a civil union. That would mean some work for our lawmakers, but they need something to do other than voting themselves pay raises.
I meant to go further into this, but real work draws me away.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
A little Latin
Not everyone can be an Einstein. It’s a simple fact of life that some people are smarter than others, or at the very least have more knowledge about a certain subject than others.
Without a doubt, nuclear physicists are very smart people. But how many of them could tell you the difference between a guernsey and a jersey cow? Different walks of life require different knowledge and different kinds of intelligence.
Over time it seems that certain kinds of knowledge have become privileged with lofty spots in our society. Someone who can start a fire by rubbing two sticks together might be seen as having less knowledge than someone who can recite and digress on the meaning of Geofrey Chaucer, but who would you rather have with you after your plane went down in the wilderness.
My point is that what seems like esteemed knowledge in one situation is useless in a different context, so really nobody has the right to walk around being snooty to other people just because they know a bit of latin.
Of course, learning a little latin isn’t all that hard, and can make you look smarter in front of all your friends and relatives. The trick is to learn just a few words and phrases and when to use them. So, here are a few key phrases to impress your acquaintances with:
Phrase: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”
Meaning: “Sweet and honorable it is to die for one’s country.”
When to use it: When talking about war, especially when someone makes reference to the sacrifice laid down by our brave men and women in uniform. Often this phrase is used in a manner which questions how sweet the sacrificer found the action.
Phrase: “Ecce Homo”
Meaning: Behold Man
When to use it: Anytime someone makes a very human mistake. It can be akin to saying “nobody’s perfect” (you can also use “errare humanum est” - “to err is human).
Phrase: “Alea iacta est”
Meaning: “The die is cast.”
When to use it: When you’ve just started a project where the outcome is unsure. Julius Caeser is reported to have said this as he led his troops across the Rubicon River toward Rome.
Phrase: “Quo fata ferunt”
Meaning: “Wherever the fates bear us”
When to use it: Whenever someone asks you a question about the future. It can be very useful in interviews when you are asked questions like, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Phrase: “Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur”
Meaning: “What is asserted without reason can be denied without reason.”
When to use it: When someone makes a claim you disagree with and can’t back it up with facts.
Phrase: “Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses”
Meaning: “If you had kept your silence, you would have stayed a philosopher”
When to use it: Best to bring this one out sparingly as it is somewhat insulting. It is essentially used as a barb against someone who has just revealed their own ignorance. You may have heard a similar expression attributed to Mark Twain, “It is better to keep one’s mouth closed an be though a fool than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
Phrase: “Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.”
Meaning: “If you can read this, you have too much education.”
When to use it: Whenever someone is trying to prove their intelligence by using latin.
Without a doubt, nuclear physicists are very smart people. But how many of them could tell you the difference between a guernsey and a jersey cow? Different walks of life require different knowledge and different kinds of intelligence.
Over time it seems that certain kinds of knowledge have become privileged with lofty spots in our society. Someone who can start a fire by rubbing two sticks together might be seen as having less knowledge than someone who can recite and digress on the meaning of Geofrey Chaucer, but who would you rather have with you after your plane went down in the wilderness.
My point is that what seems like esteemed knowledge in one situation is useless in a different context, so really nobody has the right to walk around being snooty to other people just because they know a bit of latin.
Of course, learning a little latin isn’t all that hard, and can make you look smarter in front of all your friends and relatives. The trick is to learn just a few words and phrases and when to use them. So, here are a few key phrases to impress your acquaintances with:
Phrase: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”
Meaning: “Sweet and honorable it is to die for one’s country.”
When to use it: When talking about war, especially when someone makes reference to the sacrifice laid down by our brave men and women in uniform. Often this phrase is used in a manner which questions how sweet the sacrificer found the action.
Phrase: “Ecce Homo”
Meaning: Behold Man
When to use it: Anytime someone makes a very human mistake. It can be akin to saying “nobody’s perfect” (you can also use “errare humanum est” - “to err is human).
Phrase: “Alea iacta est”
Meaning: “The die is cast.”
When to use it: When you’ve just started a project where the outcome is unsure. Julius Caeser is reported to have said this as he led his troops across the Rubicon River toward Rome.
Phrase: “Quo fata ferunt”
Meaning: “Wherever the fates bear us”
When to use it: Whenever someone asks you a question about the future. It can be very useful in interviews when you are asked questions like, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Phrase: “Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur”
Meaning: “What is asserted without reason can be denied without reason.”
When to use it: When someone makes a claim you disagree with and can’t back it up with facts.
Phrase: “Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses”
Meaning: “If you had kept your silence, you would have stayed a philosopher”
When to use it: Best to bring this one out sparingly as it is somewhat insulting. It is essentially used as a barb against someone who has just revealed their own ignorance. You may have heard a similar expression attributed to Mark Twain, “It is better to keep one’s mouth closed an be though a fool than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
Phrase: “Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.”
Meaning: “If you can read this, you have too much education.”
When to use it: Whenever someone is trying to prove their intelligence by using latin.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Again doing what's popular, wondering about bridge collapses
The collapse of the 35W interstate bridge in Minneapolis was a horrific accident. Noone is denying that. I would call it a terrible tradgedy, but ever since 9/11/01 the word "tradgedy" seems to be a little over the top for any incident that claims less than 100 lives or fails to touch the life of at least a B-list celebrity. If Billy Zane's kid brother had died, then somebody might have called it a tradgedy. Not me, but somebody.
Stories continue to cover the response to the bridge collapse as if there was really something new to tell. I guess there is, because the death toll keeps changing, various newspaper and television spots place it somewhere between five and 16 people. How hard is it to tell who's dead and who's not? I really don't want to be the one to dash the hopes of the victims' families, but if they haven't been found by now, then chances are good that they were washed downstream and may never be found.
There might be a few people out there who think it's callous of me to downplay the horror of the incident over and in the Mississippi by relating it to the tradgedy of the world trade center collapse. I obviously disagree, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this right now. No, the link between the two was made in the mind of every American old enough to form coherent thoughts and remember the terrible fear that followed the events of 9/11/01. At the very least, everyone wondered subconciously whether or not this had anything to do with terrorist plots to undermine our confidence in our government, transportation systems, and general infrastructure.
Every news outlet knew what was at the back of everyone's mind, which is why every paper that ran the story included a paragraph which specified that this was not terrorist related. Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief and went on about their business. This was certainly nothing to worry about, it wasn't even close to 9/11, couldn't measure up to Hurricane Katrina, and the only thing it had on the New York blackout was that a few people died.
But maybe these events are related in some way? Perhaps there is something wrong with the government that all of these things are happening. Looking at 9/11 the evidence seems to point to a massive intelligence failure. Maybe that's not quite fair, the problem was really a failure to act on good intelligence. Reliable sources in the FBI warned about terrorists using planes as bombs, missile defense was more important to the current regime.
Moving on to Hurricane Katrina. Did terrorists have anything to do with it? If they did, then they have a weather generation machine and we'll have to create a biologically advance human with super powers to stop them. But realistically, no they didn't do this one, we did it to ourselves. But again I'm being harsh on the majority of Americans who weren't even aware that New Orleans had levvies which protected it from flooding, until they broke. However, once again, sources which warned of impending disaster were ignored and a terrible tradgedy occured ( the amount of collateral damage alone make this one a tradgedy).
The New York blackout. A relay station blew. Terrorists didn't have anything to do with it other than the fact that there are probably a few undetected cell members in New York using power and you can't plan a jihad in the dark anyway. Anyways, my only beef here is that everyone in New York was so congratulatory to themselves. Hadn't New York done well? They had survived a few hours in the dark without everyone going postal and killing each other. Absolutely no tradgedy here.
Now we come to the bridge collapse. As newspapers and bloggers continue to dig into this story there keeps coming to light new information on warnings which were issued about problems and dangers of increased interstate traffic on the bridge. The last inspection of the bridge was made in June 2006 and can be found here: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/hottopics/35w/06_br_%209340%20.pdf
If you just took time to scan the "Executive Summary" you might have found such interesting phrases as "Fatigue cracks at girder #1C (NBL)," or, "Fatigue cracks at girder #3 (NBL), crack at the diaphragm bottom cutout." While these might be a little alarming, I don't think they hold a candle to the in depth report which details hundreds of patches to the bridge and even webbing that had broken all the way through at points (these were repaired). The report also has phrases which I personally find alarming like, "The truss members have numerous poor weld details."
Now I'm no civil engineer (my next step is to go find one and have him or her explain this report to me), but overall I get a vague feeling of unease when reading the report. From the lack of action taken and the recent stampede of state and local government branches to close and repair bridges, it seems to be like this could have happened anywhere. There are probably reports almost identical to this one for major bridges in every state (maybe fewer the southwest, but they tend to have less rivers to cross anyway).
It's a shame that people had to die for something to be done about deteriorating bridges, but then, that seems to be the precedent set by a string of national emergencies.
Stories continue to cover the response to the bridge collapse as if there was really something new to tell. I guess there is, because the death toll keeps changing, various newspaper and television spots place it somewhere between five and 16 people. How hard is it to tell who's dead and who's not? I really don't want to be the one to dash the hopes of the victims' families, but if they haven't been found by now, then chances are good that they were washed downstream and may never be found.
There might be a few people out there who think it's callous of me to downplay the horror of the incident over and in the Mississippi by relating it to the tradgedy of the world trade center collapse. I obviously disagree, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this right now. No, the link between the two was made in the mind of every American old enough to form coherent thoughts and remember the terrible fear that followed the events of 9/11/01. At the very least, everyone wondered subconciously whether or not this had anything to do with terrorist plots to undermine our confidence in our government, transportation systems, and general infrastructure.
Every news outlet knew what was at the back of everyone's mind, which is why every paper that ran the story included a paragraph which specified that this was not terrorist related. Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief and went on about their business. This was certainly nothing to worry about, it wasn't even close to 9/11, couldn't measure up to Hurricane Katrina, and the only thing it had on the New York blackout was that a few people died.
But maybe these events are related in some way? Perhaps there is something wrong with the government that all of these things are happening. Looking at 9/11 the evidence seems to point to a massive intelligence failure. Maybe that's not quite fair, the problem was really a failure to act on good intelligence. Reliable sources in the FBI warned about terrorists using planes as bombs, missile defense was more important to the current regime.
Moving on to Hurricane Katrina. Did terrorists have anything to do with it? If they did, then they have a weather generation machine and we'll have to create a biologically advance human with super powers to stop them. But realistically, no they didn't do this one, we did it to ourselves. But again I'm being harsh on the majority of Americans who weren't even aware that New Orleans had levvies which protected it from flooding, until they broke. However, once again, sources which warned of impending disaster were ignored and a terrible tradgedy occured ( the amount of collateral damage alone make this one a tradgedy).
The New York blackout. A relay station blew. Terrorists didn't have anything to do with it other than the fact that there are probably a few undetected cell members in New York using power and you can't plan a jihad in the dark anyway. Anyways, my only beef here is that everyone in New York was so congratulatory to themselves. Hadn't New York done well? They had survived a few hours in the dark without everyone going postal and killing each other. Absolutely no tradgedy here.
Now we come to the bridge collapse. As newspapers and bloggers continue to dig into this story there keeps coming to light new information on warnings which were issued about problems and dangers of increased interstate traffic on the bridge. The last inspection of the bridge was made in June 2006 and can be found here: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/hottopics/35w/06_br_%209340%20.pdf
If you just took time to scan the "Executive Summary" you might have found such interesting phrases as "Fatigue cracks at girder #1C (NBL)," or, "Fatigue cracks at girder #3 (NBL), crack at the diaphragm bottom cutout." While these might be a little alarming, I don't think they hold a candle to the in depth report which details hundreds of patches to the bridge and even webbing that had broken all the way through at points (these were repaired). The report also has phrases which I personally find alarming like, "The truss members have numerous poor weld details."
Now I'm no civil engineer (my next step is to go find one and have him or her explain this report to me), but overall I get a vague feeling of unease when reading the report. From the lack of action taken and the recent stampede of state and local government branches to close and repair bridges, it seems to be like this could have happened anywhere. There are probably reports almost identical to this one for major bridges in every state (maybe fewer the southwest, but they tend to have less rivers to cross anyway).
It's a shame that people had to die for something to be done about deteriorating bridges, but then, that seems to be the precedent set by a string of national emergencies.
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