Putin interview

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/29/putin.transcript/

 

Interesting stuff. Two points jump out at me:

 

1.) He's lying about the chronology. We know this thanks to Michael Totten's reporting from Georgia, which I mentioned a few days ago. Not surprising, because Saakashvili's bungling misinformation attempt has everyone (including the pro-Georgian camp) convinced that there were no Russian jets bombing Georgian forces until after the war officially started on August 7.

 

2.) He doesn't like McCain. No big surprise there, but he throws this bit in: "If my suppositions are confirmed, then there are grounds to suspect that some people in the United States created this conflict deliberately in order to aggravate the situation and create a competitive advantage for one of the candidates for the U.S. presidency. And if that is the case, this is nothing but the use of the called administrative resource in domestic politics, in the worst possible way, one that leads to bloodshed." Given #1, this is more likely a lie than a real paranoid suspicion. Does Putin want to work with Obama, or work Obama over?

 

-Max

[P.S. to the blog: the Michael Totten material I alluded to above is here. -M.]

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Regrowing fingers

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/sunday/main3960219.shtml

 

Three years ago, Lee Spievack sliced off the tip of his finger in the propeller of a hobby shop airplane. What happened next, Andrews reports, propelled him into the future of medicine. Spievack's brother, Alan, a medical research scientist, sent him a special powder and told him to sprinkle it on the wound. "I powdered it on until it was covered," Spievack recalled.

To his astonishment, every bit of his fingertip grew back.

 

"Your finger grew back," Andrews asked Spievack, "flesh, blood, vessels and nail?"

"Four weeks," he answered.

[snip] That powder is a substance made from pig bladders called extracellular matrix. It is a mix of protein and connective tissue surgeons often use to repair tendons and it holds some of the secrets behind the emerging new science of regenerative medicine.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

True conservatism (Sarah Palin)

http://dwb.adn.com/news/government/legislature/story/8525563p-8419318c.html
 
In the first veto of an administration that isn't yet a month old, Palin said she rejected the bill despite her disagreement with a state Supreme Court order earlier this month that directed the state to offer benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Advice from her new attorney general said the bill passed by the Legislature was unconstitutional, she said.

"Signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office," Palin said in a prepared statement released by her administration Thursday night.

Yay for Sarah Palin. I don't know the terms of the bill or whether it was or was not unconstitutional, but here she's showing 1.) character, in not letting personal distaste trump the rule of law as she understands it (liberals claim that conservatives support "activist judges" as long as they are active in service of conservatism, but they're wrong), 2.) awareness that defending the Constitution is the responsibility and prerogative of all three branches of government, not just the courts. (And if the government will not defend the Consitution, that duty devolves upon the people themselves.)

 

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)
 
Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Just Plain Weird

Just Plain Weird: Do nuclear decay rates for certain elements depend upon our distance from the sun?

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F.
Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Sarah Palin

McCain just announced his VP pick for 2008. It's not Mitt Romney with his economic and governing experience, and it's not Tim Pawlenty with his solid conservative credentials and good record. It's not even Joe Lieberman, a pick for bi-partisan unity. It's Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska.

 

Wow. Just--wow. I'm absolutely blown out of the water. A bold but excellent pick. Executive experience, a record of reform and standing up to her own party insiders (she ultimately killed Republican Ted Stevens' two "bridge to nowhere" projects), inside knowledge of Alaska and the oil industry (who knows better how to get the oil pumping? See my prevoius post on oil timelines).

 

Obama's campaign's reaction shows they've been thrown totally off-kilter. Why else would they make this hilarious statement?

 

Informed of the selection, a Barack Obama spokesman questioned Palin's executive experience.

 

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies — that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," said spokesman Bill Burton.

 

Note that Obama's campaign wants to put a... former community service organizer with less executive experience than a mayor, and zero foreign policy experience, directly in the presidency, skipping the "heartbeat" entirely. Who says things like that about your own candidate? The spokesman should have started with his second sentence.

 

I dislike the politics of identity, but seeing the way women I care about were cheering for and empathizing with Hillary Clinton earlier this year (part of me was sort of hoping she would win, just because they would like it--I know that's absurd sentimentalism) I can't help seeing the possibility of a woman in the White House, bringing a slightly different perspective to problems, as a nice bonus. And she's the right woman for the job, too.

 

-Max 

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

McCain vs. Obama projection

One other reason I think McCain is going to win this election: McCain treats the election like a job interview with America. Obama treats it as an opportunity to change America. Obviously it's not quite that cut-and-dried (they both pander on some points and stick to their guns on others), but my general sense is that McCain sees the American people as boss and Obama doesn't. Since the voters actually are the boss this doesn't bode well for Obama's chances--"marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow" works in old musicals but not so well in real-life relationships.

I could be wrong, of course. I frequently am.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F.
Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

More on Russia

Wow. This article blew me away. If Putin is really that smart...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH19Ag04.html

It's a thought-provoking contrast to the view that says Russia is a country controlled by short-sighted megacorporations.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

On Russia

[I like this post from Thomas P. Barnett. -Max]

 

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/08/very_sensible_analysis_on_russ.html

Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center, also saw a dual approach. The armed response and the invasion of Georgia were intended to show that Russia is back on its feet and will not tolerate Western meddling in its traditional sphere of influence, she said. But, she added, Russian leaders are also trying to suggest that they do not want to jeopardize the economic progress the nation has achieved through its ties to the West. Russia has become rich by selling oil, and it needs to sell its oil to the West, she said.

 

[snip] In harsh realist terms, these are exactly the sort of hard-power allies you want for a long war against radical extremism... bent on turning back globalization. Sure, it'd be nice is we only had to consort with the best people all the time, but it doesn't tend to work out that way in the real world. Truly mature democracies (we're weird in that way) tend to grow past the willingness to use force, so when you want to tap people willing to fight, you're probably talking about rising great powers with something to prove and something to protect.

The short-cut is to regurgitate Cold War memes and call it a day. That's the easy way out. The harder route is growing these rising great powers into something we can use over the long term. That's a whole lot trickier, requiring all sorts of compromises and persistent effort. [snip]

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

(University) Education

[Cc'ed brain gang]

 

J.--

 

Charles Murray (of infamy and "The Bell Curve") argues that employers would be better-served by relying less on B.A./B.S. degrees than on certification tests a la the bar exam:
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html
 
The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough -- four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you're a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school.

The merits of a CPA-like certification exam apply to any college major for which the BA is now used as a job qualification. To name just some of them: criminal justice, social work, public administration and the many separate majors under the headings of business, computer science and education. Such majors accounted for almost two-thirds of the bachelor's degrees conferred in 2005. For that matter, certification tests can be used for purely academic disciplines. Why not present graduate schools with certifications in microbiology or economics -- and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library?
 
The incentives are right. Certification tests would provide all employers with valuable, trustworthy information about job applicants. They would benefit young people who cannot or do not want to attend a traditional four-year college. They would be welcomed by the growing post-secondary online educational industry, which cannot offer the halo effect of a BA from a traditional college, but can realistically promise their students good training for a certification test -- as good as they are likely to get at a traditional college, for a lot less money and in a lot less time.

Certification tests would disadvantage just one set of people: Students who have gotten into well-known traditional schools, but who are coasting through their years in college and would score poorly on a certification test. Disadvantaging them is an outcome devoutly to be wished.
 
I'm not much of a believer in the idea of people who "know the material" but "don't test well." Yes, I consider it both obvious and true that test performance does not correlate perfectly with job performance--some people's test scores will overpredict their actual competence and others, who get nervous or whose competence is better-suited to actual long-range projects, will have their performance underpredicted by test scores. However, I don't think that matters much: so what if I get a 75 when I'm actually a 90 in practice? The key thing is that I'm competent and I can prove it. If I'm just barely competent and also a poor test-taker, and I therefore fail to make the cut, I study harder and work until I can muster a passing grade, which will pay off when I get on the job and now turn out to be more than just barely competent. Of course all this assumes that you have tests which actually measure competence in some meaningful way. That's a potential failure point in a test-driven system, but is the current regime wherein ability is inferred from one's ability to stagger through a four-year English program any better?
 
Don't get me wrong here--I'm not sad I went to college, and I even benefitted from a couple years of graduate classes, but if I'm not able to demonstrate that competence in some quantifiable way it's hard to see why a potential employer should care.
 
-M.

P.S. I should add that you have to validate the test, for example by giving it to workers of various ability levels within the industry and seeing if the best of them also score better on the test. If the test doesn't predict actual performance it's worthless.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Drill for oil: timeline

Oil appears to be much like nuclear power. We could get the oil rolling in pretty quickly if it becomes a political priority (technologically it's not hard), but it's hard to say yet whether the American people have the will to do so. Maybe when gas gets up to $10/gallon, maybe before.

 

http://www.reason.com/news/show/128096.html

 

In Anchorage last month, Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, explained to me the following time frame for ANWR drilling: Expect 12 months or more for an Environmental Impact Statement after Congress approves drilling. And this is working fast. It would likely take much longer. Expect 12 months to 18 months for the Department of Interior to draw up and bid out the lease-sale process. Plan on two years for oil companies to do test drilling and analysis. Drilling and transport of heavy equipment can only be done in the winter months when the permafrost ground is solidly frozen, from December through April. Concurrently with oil drilling, a 75-mile pipeline spur needs be built to connect to the main Alyeska Pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Southern shipping port.

 

However, this time frame does not allow for environmental lawsuits "every step of the way," as Crockett warned. The rest of the 10-year time frame is to allow for lawsuits trying to prevent or harass production in one way or another. For example, a single judge in California's 9th circuit has failed to issue a decision on a Shell Oil project that already had $200 million of investment before it was ordered to stop. It will produce 30,000 barrels per day, about $1 billion per year of oil.

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Greg Cochran on Ivins Anthrax Case

Cochran has a lot of credibility in my book for thinking clearly. From what I've seen of the FBI evidence, they really did have the right guy this time (although there are still datapoints that puzzle me). Moreover, I think Cochran is right about the reasons why a crazy guy did what he did, when he did, and why he was allowed to work in a military lab in the first place.

 

But Cochran is always worth reading.

 

-Max

 

 

letters from Florida

We have no reason to believe that any letters containing anthrax were mailed from Florida. As far as we can tell, all were mailed from the same place in New Jersey. Of course a couple of letters were not preserved and we know of them only by their effects. The first letters were postmarked on Sept 18th, the second set on October 9. There were little physical defects in the letters that limited them to a few possible post offices in Maryland and Virginia, including one right next to Fort Detrick.

The second set of anthrax letters contained purer anthrax, but it looks as if they were not weaponized in any special way, no special coating or anything. A lot of outside people talked about that and eventually many people had the impression that it was known to be true: it looks as if that's all wrong. Some people were real students of this case had this clear in their minds a long time ago. In fact, if it didn't come from some foreign military program, and if it didn't come straight from an illegal US military program, it was certain _not_ to be highly weaponized.

The FBI understood that a foreign provenance (from some state with sophisticated military anthrax) was very unlikely, because infuriating the United States is suicidal, a lot like shooting Superman's dog. The Administration appears not to understand that suicidal attacks from small states are not in the cards.

The case evolved over time . In early days, the FBI came to the conclusions that it was probably someone connected to anthrax research, probably someone who didn't really intend to kill anyone. That was logical and now looks to be correct - but the pool of potential perps was moderately large. It looks as if the FBI stumbled onto a false positive, Hatfill, and fixated on him, as people will. He wasn't a perfect match, being a virologist rather than an anthrax guy. The FBI investigation may have been complicated by Ivin's role as a scientific adviser/helper: he lied. For example when they asked for a sample of his main anthrax culture, he gave them something else, as later determined. Anyhow, in principle even cultures that been separated for fairly small times should evolve small genetic differences. In 2002 you couldn't easily scan those differences: but our gene-sequencing tech was improving very rapidly. After two or three years, were were able to sequence the anthrax (a number of samples and potential matches) in sufficient detail to determine that a single substrain was responsible, the substrain in Ivin's lab. Others had access, but the FBI (it says) has eliminated them as suspects. For example people in distant places wouldn't have had those particular letters available. Or maybe you could show that they had an alibi for Sept 17th, etc.

It looks to me as if this significantly shrank the suspect pool. For example, they found that Hatfill had quit the lab before that particular culture was created, clearing him. I've seen some people out on the Internet saying that those advances in sequencing speed (by orders of magnitude) only made things easier and faster. Well, they don't understand: that quantitative speedup made a qualitative change in what could be done.

At this point it looks as they ruled out Hatfill scientifically by early 2005 but didn't stop harassing him until late 2006, when the head of the FBI replaced the leaders of the investigation and told the new boys to re-examine the case. Naturally, in a better world than our, the FBI should have dropped Hatfield as a suspect the _second_ that the scientific evidence ruled him out, but you know how most people cling to their pet theories even when _every_ piece of scientific evidence is against them. And they hate admitting that they're wrong. The FBI started looking at people connected to this particular anthrax culture, and of course it's in Ivins lab.

Nobody at Fort Detrick seems to have known that Ivins was deeply crazy (for example, he was talking to his shrink about poisoning some soccer player if she lost the game back in 2000 - enough to get the shrink to call in the cops). The FBI, pointed in a new direction, did all the FBI things and found that Ivins had been lying to them, gradually found that he was crazy as a bedbug. They found that he put in a bunch of unexplained and atypical late hours in the labs the weekend before the first batch of mailings, they found that he took Sept 17th off (which easily allows for a drive to Jersey and back): they found a similar clump of late hours before the second set of mailings. They could not prove that he'd been to New Jersey on the 17th, but as long as he didn't use a credit card for gas or get pulled over, there's no way that they could have. I've seen people wondering how he could manage to get anthrax in a spillproof container and then get it in sealed envelopes, but that's silly - the guy worked with anthrax every day. He knew how to handle it. And driving to New Jersey (about 200 miles each way) hardly requires a second conspirator, particularly since Ivins took almost all of Sept 17th off. He had the Columbus Day weekend for the later letters.

It seems that although crazy people are not supposed to work on super-dangerous military stuff, the system expected them to either be obviously crazy or self-identify and ask for help. I can believe it - I certainly ran into a couple of mentally ill people in defense work. I believe that things are tighter in some other slots - for example, friends tell me that the Feds work really hard at having sane captains of missile submarines.

Out on the net, I've seen people saying that the case would have had trouble in court. For example, they say that the microbial forensics part is new and would have been effectively criticized by a defense attorney. Likely, since no lawyer, judge, or juror would understand any of it. Of course that's a lawyer argument - has nothing to do with facts or truth. We have colleagues saying that Ivins hadn't seemed like a crazed murderer to them. Well, I doubt if anyone on the suspect list _did_ seem a like a crazed murderer to their colleagues if they had, they'd have been fired and/or locked in the booby hatch a long time ago. But it had to be someone on the list, someone with access to this particular culture. Anyhow we know of plenty of examples of psychopaths who managed to hide it. Along the same lines, I've seen people ask how someone could be crazy enough to do this and sane enough to do it fairly carefully. I think they should ask the Unabomber: plenty smart ( math Ph.D. from Berkeley), very careful in his bomb-making, but quite crazy.

Next: people on the net don't like this explanation. Some want it to have been Iraq: but we know that's wrong, since they for sure didn't have that substrain of anthrax. And it never made any sense: they're not suicidal. Some want it to involve more than one person, but there's nothing in the case that requites more than one person, unless you think the skillsets of (A. knowing a lot about anthrax) and (B. being able to drive a car) are disjoint. It's worth remembering that mailing anthrax to people is crazy: craziness is rare, and it's easier to find one crazy person than two or more. Occam's razor says no.

And some want to blame the Administration: they must have cooked this up to jinn up support for the Iraq war. Well, it _did_ increase support for the invasion of Iraq, and for crap like Homeland Security. But that doesn't mean that the Administration did it, any more than they caused 9-11. It's my judgment that it would have very hard to do such a thing without someone leaking, and that the vast majority of people in the Administration would hate to do it: for one thing, it's a death penalty offense. Now I know that they're not above lying and forgery (some of them), and that they have next to no sense, support aggressive war, some are traitors, and that many high-ranking individuals, including the President, are for all practical purposes as dumb as a box of rocks, but I don't think the Administration-conspiracy angle makes any sense or has any likelihood.

I could listen to someone arguing that the FBI just randomly picked another guy to persecute after their Hatfill mistake, or maybe even made a more-defensible mistake of some kind, but I doubt it. I suspect that they were more careful after Hatfill, which can't have done the key investigator's careers any good, and I think they had much better evidence and, as it turns out, a much better suspect.

I think that 9-11 actually played a key causal role in this: I think it sent Ivins over the edge. Admittedly he was a lot closer to the edge than most of us, likely hanging on by his fingertips. I'll bet that he cooked the whole thing up between 9-11 and 9-17: he was the sort of guy who could do that. I don't think he intended to kill anyone, just to stoke anthrax research. 9-11 drove him crazy: but then it drove most of the country crazy. A good fraction of the country is _still_ crazy, unfortunately.

Gregory Cochran

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Adultery

Dear Jennifer,

"Adultery." Heady subject line, I know. I was watching a music video by the Killers, "When You Were Young," which portrays a young woman's devastation when she walks in on her husband committing adultery with another woman. (The video operates in reverse chronology; the first scene depicts her on the edge of a cliff, and her husband rushing up in time to save her from casting herself off. There's an alternate ending apparently where he isn't fast enough.) The raw anguish depicted on her face as her memories turn to ashes both saddened and interested me, and I went looking for information on the emotional effects of adultery. This quote is the most interesting that I found (I'll underline the key parts):

In the following weeks our marriage teetered on the brink of disaster. Michelle would be ok one moment, and then something would trigger in her and she'd either start crying or go off on a burst of anger. Our married life became a volatile emotional roller coaster that I couldn't fix, and in fact my presence made it worse; all Michelle had to do was look at me to be tortured with the reminder of what I'd done. I couldn't comfort her because I was the one who'd hurt her, and when I touched her physically, even if it was just holding hands, it was as if I was rubbing salt in her wounds.
         At a loss for what to do I sought the advice of another Christian brother. John had committed adultery on his wife several years earlier, and his marriage had made it. When I asked John how long it took his wife to heal from his betrayal, John's response was short and to the point: "years."
        My mouth dropped. "Years ???" I said in disbelief. "Years ??? I thought surely you were going to say a few weeks or maybe even months… but… years??!!"
        "Yes, years" John repeated firmly. "The old marriage you had is dead and you have to build a new one. This is going to take a lot of time and effort on your part; you've got to kill her with kindness and win her all over again."    

         Today I know that John was right. It took two years before my wife was able to feel completely at ease when I traveled again. My all out efforts to break free from lust were critical; if I'd have continued to slip with porn or committed adultery again then she would have had no reason for hope, and our marriage would have been over.

The scripture says, "But he that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt forgive; But if he doeth it again, he shall not be forgiven, but shall be cast out." Isn't that interesting? He gets one more shot and that's it--this is not a "seven times seventy" situation. I think the underlined comments are right on the mark: you're trying to build a new marriage, and if he messes up this one too there's no real way to recover trust. And without trust, there isn't any marriage. Even if you still care about each other, without trust there can't be any partnership.

Sorry for the ugly thoughts. Someone asked me recently what two adjectives describe my intrinsic nature. "Apodictic" (meaning "characterized by or possessing the nature of absolute certainty") was one, but I couldn't think of a good second one. Of course I should have said "curious." My thoughts go all kinds of strange places just so I can tell myself I've been there, sometimes to places that make me feel ill. Not necessarily a good thing, but it means I'll be prepared mentally and/or emotionally for many, many low-probability outcomes. Yeah, you're laughing, I can feel it.

Take care,
Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Hand-eye coordination game

Click on the ball and it changes color. How many color changes can you get in two minutes?

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Nuclear-power-in-a-box

I really can't tell if this is a good idea or not...

 

http://earth2tech.com/2008/08/01/hyperions-nuclear-in-a-box-ready-by-2013/

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Bachelor Monks

I've revived the Bachelor Monks and updated the creed. Here's a trancript of the redacted document.

Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known among the Powers of the Earth, that [Maximilian Damacion Wilson], on this day [Dec. 17] in the year nineteen-hundred and ninety-six does, in the act of enlistment against the forces of evil as a Brother of the Secular Society of Bachelor Monks, vow as a free agent upon his honor to uphold the following standards and ideals:

A Bachelor Monk must remain emotionally celibate. It is forbidden for a Bachelor Monk to entertain more than a superficial affection for any female under the age of decrepitude and decay (twenty-nine years, eleven months, twenty-seven days), after which the point becomes academic. Violations of this law require that the transgressor wear a pink, red, or purple heart, cut from construction paper or similar material, pinned to his breast as a badge of his shame.

A Bachelor Monk must remain aesthetically pure. It is not permitted for a Bachelor Monk to gaze upon the female countenance for more than a few moments at a time, for fear that such loveliness will corrupt the perfect abstraction of beauty which he carries within his bosom. Infractions shall be punished by a shout of "Cooties!" and the appellation of "cootie-head," by which said Monk shall be known for a period of seven hours.

All Brothers of the Secular Society must renounce the harmful and archaic institutions of society, specifically the great social ill which masquerades under the seemingly-innocuous label of "dating." We of the Brotherhood know, or are at least pretty sure, that dating—and its accomplice in evil, marriage—is probably the great and abominable church which is spoken of in the book of Revelation, which shall hold sway over all the world, and that it is the very root of all evil in the world—including death, taxes, and small children. In the event that a Brother shall assist a maiden in the commission of such heinous folly as going on a "date," he shall be fined an amount equal to one-half the expenses incurred by his crime, which said monies shall flow into the Brotherhood coffers to be disposed of in a manner decided by the Chief Abbot (or by the most senior member of the Brotherhood available).

A Bachelor Monk is permitted to propose marriage to a young woman, in whatsoever manner as he shall feel acceptable and shall strike his fancy. He is not, however, under any circumstances permitted to follow through on such offers. A Bachelor Monk must remain forever single, although he may have as many fiancées at one time as he can conceal from all the others. (As a sole exception to this rule, a Bachelor Monk is permitted to elope with a damsel, provided that she is not engaged to him at the time, provided that there is potential for great financial gain on the part of the Monk or the Brotherhood, provided that the damsel is terminally ill or that the marriage is otherwise projected to last no longer than six weeks.) Any Brother who violates this law shall not be punished by the order, as the mere fact of marriage to a woman is considered to bring agony (and ecstasy) enough.

In addition to the provisos mentioned above, a Brother of the Secular Society of Bachelor Monks is likewise prohibited from stalking, kissing, courting, ogling, drooling on or over, obsessing about, or "macking on" any and all young ladies he shall come in contact with. Finally, a Bachelor Monk is not permitted to have his mother do his laundry for him. Infractions shall be punished as the Chief Abbot sees fit.

I, [Max Wilson], do hereby swear upon my honor to uphold from this day forth the ideals of my order as set forth in this document*, to accept any punishments I shall merit gracefully and without cowardice, and to slavishly obey my Chief Abbot's every command.

Signed

[Max Wilson]

[12/17/96]

* With the understanding that none of the above restrictions applies to any female who fits the Glass Slipper.

 We solemnly swear that we have seen and witnessed the oath which was sworn by [Max Wilson], on this day [12-17-96] of the year nineteen-hundred and ninety-six, and do bear testimony that he was indeed coherent and whole of mind at the time of signature.

[David Wynder, 12/17/96]

[Gina Smith, 12/17/96]

[Joe Stevick, 12/17/96]

[Margo Runyon, 12/17/96]

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.