3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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This line, from Ann Althouse’s evisceration of the abominable Wisconsin "Forward" state quarter, made me laugh. Which probably means there is something wrong with me.
You should note that the dairy product does not come out of the cow’s head. The important aspect of the cow is not its head.
Ann offers some design criteria (along with general advice that art should not be democratic) - use a single iconic image and keep words to a minimum. I agree that the Wisconsin quarter is bad, mostly because I still don’t know what "Forward" as a motto is intended to mean. I don’t share her love for the Connecticut quarter, however. The leafless oak tree just seems depressing. Reading the description of the Charter Oak makes it more interesting, but when I think of Connecticut, I don’t think of oak trees, which takes away from the iconography of the icon. I think of Jim Calhoun, which isn’t a good icon either.
The U.S. Mint has the thirty released quarter designs on two pages - the "Designs" page currently only includes the 1999-2003 releases. The five 2004 designs are on the main 50 State Quarters page. I like the North Carolina design (featuring the Wright Flyer) the best. Mississippi and Arkansas are each as bad as Wisconsin. Arkansas’ is even more densely packed with symbols than Wisconsin’s cow head-cheese block-corn troika.
My five year old has been fascinated by the states for some time (favorite state: MIssissippi). We have several books, including the entertaining The Scrambled States of America. Also The Scrambled States of America Geography Game . Plus the thirty quarters released so far. And now I have to add the Crayola State Your Color 64 Box of Crayons (Kentucky’s color: Fort Knox Gold).
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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A couple of interesting twists in last night’s episode. I liked the cooperative task, which pitted two teams of 10 rowers against one another in Viking-style boats. I generally like taks that reward something other than brute strength, in this case ability to follow instruction and willingness to work together, each assets that Amazing Race participants seem generally to be lacking. It doesn’t make such good television to have teams that actually communicate well and cooperate. Last night also repeated the premiere episode’s race to nowhere - in this case, teams raced to the Viking village where they waited for the next day’s boat race. There was a subtle reward, in that teams arriving later were more likely to be from the "bicker-and-don’t-accomplish-anything" camp, which worked to their disadvantage in the boat race.
The big winners looked to be Meredith and Maria, who seemed to evade consequence for their inability to drive a manual transmission car, although it finally caught them in the end. In hindsight, it was stupid to predict Don and Mary Jean as the losers, given that the CBS promos clearly showed the New Yawkers transmission issues. Meanwhile, the race (or Cleavage-a-Thon 2004 as it is quickly becoming) continues.
Satan: Still Jonathan. Now, not only is he verbally abusive to Victoria, he is physically abusive as well, shoving her out of the way when annoyed.
Not quite Satan, but of the demon realm: Adam. Going postal over the missing sunglasses was a bad move, son. No wonder you’re "formerly dating." Just waiting for the implosion now.
Great plan that almost went awry: Lena and Christy. Good move using your aw shucks, we’re from Utah charm to capture a nice Norwegian, but too bad you couldn’t keep him around to navigate at the end. In last to start week three, but I wouldn’t expect them to stay there.
Showing weakness: Don and Mary Jean. Amazing Race Rule No. 2: always play to your strengths. Don made two big mistakes this week. First, he appointed himself the Roadblock task, even though it clearly did not require physical strength, which may force Mary Jean into a task she’s not well-equipped for later in the race. Second, he forced Mary Jean to do an archery task even though she told him for years of her archery-related issues. To top it off, he couldn’t throw the axe well anyway.
Showing (surprising) strength: Gus and Hera. Still haven;t forgiven him for the snow bath from last week, but Gus is using his big brain to help the team, telling Hera to do a two-handed overhead axe throw, which worked out well. Give her the strength tasks, and use Dad’s knowledge and they could be OK.
Week 2 Prediction: Don and Mary Jean (0-2)
Week 3 prediction: Ditto.
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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There’s an interesting discussion of favorite/best/whatever songs of all time at A Small Victory. The whole list (165 as of this writing) is here. I’ve exchanged some e-mail with Michele about this. I’m too ill to come up with anything original, so I turned the first 50 songs from her list into an iMix playlist on iTunes. Only 38 selections, because some aren’t available on iTunes (most egregious omissions include Metallica, Zeppelin, Nick Cave). $37.62 to download all 38.
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Like many others, I would like to extend a hearty thanks to PETA, and its Fish Empathy Project. I was having a hard time deciding what to have at tonight’s dinner at Louisville italian eatery Porcini, where I usually stick to land-based meat. But now that I know how smart them fishes are, I’ll have to go with the cappelini con pesce. No word from PETA on whether the shrimp, scallops, mussels, clams or squid are equally smart and empathetic, but I’ll take my chances.
Friedrich acknowledges the difficulty of
changing long-held customs, but thinks his project is worthwhile. "We’d
rather go too far than not far enough," he said.
Mission accomplished, I’d say. And PETA - minus ten points for stealing a slogan from Finding Nemo.
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Blogging related spam. Who knew? This showed up in my Gmail spam folder a while ago, and I just noticed it.
From: survey@crestwoods.com <survey@crestwoods.com>
Reply-To: survey@crestwoods.com
To: [deleted]
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:40:12 -0000
Subject: Tell us about blogging and win $100!
Crestwood Associates is conducting an online survey about blogging.
Your thoughts opinions will help blogging companies better serve you in
the future. This survey is not part of any sales program and your
private information will not be shared with any other company.
The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. If you qualify
and complete the survey, your name will be entered into a random
drawing for five $100 cash prizes to be mailed out upon completion of
the study.
To participate in this research, please follow the link:
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[link deleted]
Crestwood Associates is a market research firm, Please be assured that
your individual responses are completely confidential and that the data
is for research and planning purposes only. There will not be any sales
tied in with this survey and your name will not be given or sold to
anyone.
Thank you in advance for your participation.
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Last night’s premiere of the sixth season of the Amazing Race seems promising, although I fear the show may well be going down the path of casting really obnoxious people to keep viewer interest up. Other than my general interest in cheering for the oldest team (Don and Mary Jean this time), there was little to make me want to root for anyone in the first installment. As usual, it made me want to visit the locale (Iceland this time), particularly the glacier.
I was glad to see Avi and Joe go down, as they were clearly among the most annoying. They also have not learned Amazing Race Rule #1: never, never, never choose a Road Block task that involves searching for something. Other early conclusions:
Team that appeared kind of endearing but now must go (tie): Lori and Bolo and Gus and Hera. The wrestling on the glacier was kind of fun, but you are both incredibly horrible people. And Gus, please no more half-naked snow baths. Who sleeps naked in a tent with their daughter, anyway?
Satan: Jonathan
Likely to lack endurance to go far: Lena and Kristy
Week 2 prediction: Gus and Hera
Week 1 prediction: Don and Mary Jean (0-1)
And is it just me, or was there a conscious decision to cast more cleavage?
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Ah, November. The leaves are changing, the smell of autumn is in the air. Thoughts turn from college football to college basketball and from Halloween candy to Thanksgiving turkey (fried, of course) and Christmas festivities. And, of course, the traditional so-bad-it’s-funny network miniseries starring B and C-list actors that I can’t seem to pull myself away from. Just when did Randy Quaid get so bald, old and fat? And earth to Nancy McKeon and Thomas Gibson: this means your careers are officially past their peaks, if not all-over-but-for-the-fat-lady. At least I now understand the looks on my computer industry friends’ faces when they watch The Net.
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3 years, 9 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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I had a chance to see The Incredibles yesterday as part of a birthday party for a classmate of my son’s. This, by the way, is a good-and-bad way to see a kid-friendly movie. On the plus side, I didn’t have to shell out for tickets, and we got pizza, cake and popcorn to go along with the film. On the downside, I was one of about five adults accompanying 18 5-7 year old boys to a movie.
As for the film, there’s not a lot to say that hasn’t already been said. If you’re a fan of Pixar, go see the movie. It’s as good as anything else they’ve done, and leagues ahead of things like A Shark’s Tale. It is one of those animated features that transcends the medium, and a good test for whether any animated film will ever be a Best Picture nominee now that there is a Best Animated Film category.
The only negative criticism I have heard is that it is not as funny as Pixar’s best work. This is true. It is not laugh-out-loud funny, although it has its moments. It’s also not intended to be. This is a film featuring humans, not anthropomorphic toys or talking fish. The characters have the full range of human emotions, and some of these emotions are not as conducive to talking toy humor. In some ways, Pixar is growing up. The next Pixar feature is “Cars,” however, so the “old” Pixar isn’t gone. This is a different film that doesn’t try to be Toy Story III and shouldn’t be judged a failure because it is not.
If you’re a fan of post-Understanding Comics comics, you should see the movie, too. It is a direct heir to both Watchmen and the Black Knight graphic novels. There’s a whole tradition of “what would happen if superheroes were real” in the genre. The anti-cape diatribe is a good example of what made it fun.
As an action movie, it works, too. Part Indiana Jones, part James Bond, part X-Men. With witty dialogue.
The best part, though is the underlying message. We’re not all created equal. Some people are in fact exceptional, and a society that demeans their talents is a lesser society as a result. Trial lawyers take a well-deserved beating for essentially suing the superheroes out of existence for doing their jobs. More importantly, the villian in the film epitomizes the fallacy of “if there are no Supers, then we’re all Super.” No, we’re not. We’re ordinary people who no longer enjoy the benefit of those who excelled in ways we cannot.
I also especially enjoyed Violet’s superpower as metaphor for the junior high experience.
This is probably putting too fine a point on it. The movie is fun, and I was left wondering what happens next, in a way I wasn’t with any of Pixar’s previous offerings. I really want to know how the world responds to the return of The Incredibles and Frozone. And what, precisely, Jack-Jack can do.
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3 years, 10 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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At the risk of using intellectual capital paying attention to an "alternative weekly," the copy of LEO I picked up while enjoying an Asian Sesame Salad and free wi-fi at Panera just begs for it. I’ll check out the Best of Louisville choices later (I was happy to see the Twig and Leaf picked as best cheap eats), but the editor just had to follow his pre-election prediction of a resounding Kerry victory with this:
Like many other liberals, I am still in denial,
which, as they say, is not a river in Egypt. However, as a refuge it’s
warmer than Canada and you don’t have to watch hockey.
Speaking
of denial, while I congratulate the Republican partisans on their
victory, I contend it is they who remain in denial about many important
things. Here are 10 ways you will know you’re a conservative in denial:
1.
You believe American gays and lesbians are preparing for mass suicide.
They are going to go on living — together — sometimes right next door
to you — and they will eventually be married or civilly united despite
cruel, manipulative referenda like the one passed here in Kentucky. And
in a stunning development, heterosexual marriages won’t change, for
better or worse.
First, a caveat. I don’t really consider myself a conservative in the purest sense. I do, however, share many conservative positions, and this list just begs a nice fisking. On, as they say, with the show. Yarmuth here trots out the tired saw that the "moral values" voters swung the election for Bush, particularly the gay-hating voters in the eleven gay marriage amendment states. This is simply not true - as I have pointed out before, Bush gained more in several surprising states than he did in the Gay Eleven. More importantly, Bush voters are almost evenly divided on the issue of recognition of homosexual relationships. 49.3% of Bush voters approve of either gay marriage or civil unions (all exit poll data via CNN). Given that nearly 60% of Bush voters self-identify as conservative, there is some support for civil unions among conservatives (not the least from the President himself). I don’t completely disagree with the description of the Kentucky amendment - I voted against it - but the support for these amendments comes more from a sense that the issue is being judicially imposed than from hatred of gays or a desire that they not "go on living — together — sometimes right next door
to you."
2. You believe there is such a thing as a permanent
tax cut. Maybe Congress will eliminate the “sunset†provisions of the
Bush cuts, but what Congress gives it can take away, and it surely will
raise somebody’s taxes at some point.
Well, duh. I don’t know any conservative, in denial or otherwise, that actually believes this. After seeing taxes increase under Clinton, and hearing Kerry and his Democratic legislator colleagues call for a tax increase, who would? "Make the tax cuts permanent" should be obvious shorthand for "make the tax cuts permanent until Congress goes on the record supporting a tax increase instead of allowing them to raise taxes without voter accountability" to anybody paying attention. Which Yarmuth isn’t.
3. You believe that deficits don’t matter. They
especially matter to the foreign investors who have loaned such a huge
percentage of the money we are borrowing to finance the Bush/GOP
spending spree that is racking up debt at the rate of $400 billion a
year.
This is a valid point, but not the point Yarmuth thinks he is making. Conservatives aren’t in denial thinking deficits don’t matter - its a basic tenet of conservative doctrine that the government spends too much. Rather, this proves that when it comes to fiscal policy, President Bush is not a conservative.
4. You believe the health-care crisis in this
country can be solved within the free marketplace. Health care is not a
free market; to a large extent, demand for medical treatment is not
affected by supply or cost, and unless we control costs or ration
supply, we will go broke taking care of people.
Here Yarmuth makes a typical liberal error and faulty argument, assuming that the current state of the health care system proves that health care is not a free market. It’s very hard to determine the true elasticity of demand for routine health care because the current system perverts market forces. Under the current system, the payer (largely employers) and the consumer (the patient) are not the same, so there is no easy way to determine how demand responds to cost. Of course, in some cases the choice is between a medical procedure and death, but a big chunk of health care costs are not. Further, our current system of health care "insurance" is not really insurance at all (as would be, say, catastrophic-care insurance). Rather, it’s a system of employer subsidization of routine medical costs and a means for employees to pay for care using pretax dollars. If you want market forces to be effective, a system of catastrophic care insurance and medical savings accounts makes more sense.
5. You believe global warming is a myth. It isn’t,
as another important study demonstrated earlier this week. There is no
escaping the fact that the Bush-Cheney extraction-industry-dominated
agenda is doing serious harm to nature.
Hard to know where to begin with this one. First, not all conservatives believe global warming is a "myth." Some certainly do, and those on each side of the equation have studies in their respective arsenals. Some conservatives believe there may be some truth to theories of human influence on climate change, but believe that the costs of the remedies proposed outweigh the putative benefits. In any event, the Bush agenda is neither "extraction industry" (whatever that is) dominated nor doing serious harm to nature. And liberals espousing this view have not proposed any serious alternative to the "extraction industry," primarily because there is none.
6. You believe Roe vs. Wade will be overturned. The
GOP needs the issue far more than it wants to end abortions. It is
becoming the wedgie (as in wedge issue) party.
Let’s take the last sentence first - this is an unfair and gratuitous slam on conservatives. Any issue on which people disagree is a wedge issue, in the sense that proponents of one position use it to try to influence voters to vote for their side or vote against the other. Why is it that when conservatives do it (i.e. abortion), they’re the wedgie party, but when liberals do it (i.e. scaring seniors with vague threats about Social Security or spreading the absurd draft issue this year), it’s legitimate politics?
As for the first point, it is true that most (but not all) conservatives oppose abortion. And most (but not all) would like to see an end to Roe. Many of us who actually disfavor criminalizing abortion still oppose the Roe decision on constitutional or federalist grounds. Both parties have a clear interest in keeping the Roe bogeyman alive - Republicans raise a lot of money and win a lot of votes by agitating against the Roe decision, and Democrats raise a lot of money and win a lot of votes by agitating against Republican threats to Roe. If the decision were overturned, and the battle turned to the statehouse (where it belongs in the first place), the dynamic, but not the ideology, would change.
7. You believe stem cell research has been ended.
England, France, Germany and probably many other countries (not to
mention California), will continue to aggressively pursue stem cell
research, which means that they’ll have something else we need.
Nobody with half a brain believes this. Those who support the President are smart enough to realize that limiting federal spending on an issue has little to no effect on private, state or foreign spending on that issue. In any event, there is a lot more liberal denial here than conservative. The President’s action didn’t affect federal spending on adult stem cell research an iota, allows significant level of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and has no effect at all on private spending on research, even at federally-supported institutions. Plus, I’m sure there are a goodly number of fiscal conservatives who believe as I do, that this, like much research, is better supported with private dollars than funds expropriated from taxpayers.
8. You believe the “No Child Left Behind†act really
leaves no children behind. Until we (and here I mean states as well as
the feds) get as serious about funding as we are about testing and
blaming, our schools won’t improve.
At least two errors in thinking here. First, conservatives have been vocal in decrying the liberal educational establishment’s interference with NCLB, which has led to very few of the students eligible to transfer from failing schools actually transferring. If public school administrators and teachers unions won’t let kids leave failing schools, the statute won’t have its desired effect, as you’ve taken away the stick (and there wasn’t much carrot to begin with).
Second, the idea that if we just gave schools more money, they’d excel has been thoroughly debunked. The Jefferson County Public Schools spend nearly as much per-student as I pay in private school tuition for my kindergartner. But they still fail. They fail because the public school establishment is dominated by teachers’ unions opposed to any accountability, because they’re dominated by groupthink and a devotion to protecting the psychological well-being of failing students at the expense of education, because they have abandoned proven educational models in favor of "new" techniques developed in the Education Schools turnigng out the teachers who aren’t successfully teaching students. And because they refuse to see that they are providing a service to consumers, who have a right to demand acceptable performance as does every consumer of any service, while denying consumers any degree of choice or competitive alternative.
9. You believe the world will now support George W.
Bush’s foreign policy because he won. Just as conservatives don’t want
to be dictated to by intellectuals (also known as the reality-based),
the world doesn’t want to be ordered around by a cowboy.
This is just dumb. George Bush got a whole lot of votes from a whole lot of voters, both conservative and otherwise, precisely because they don’t give a good goddamn what the rest of the world believes about U.S. foreign policy. Because they don’t care that the French and Germans are crying in their provided by bribes and UN graft cabernets and beer. No conservative believes that the world will toe the U.S. line because Bush won reelection, any more than they thought the world would do that during the previous four years because Bush won election the first time (maybe Yarmuth is from the "selected not elected" school of liberal nuttery).
10. You believe you have driven a stake through the
heart of liberalism. Fifty-five million Americans voted for the “most
liberal member of the U.S. Senate.†Young people and most ethnic groups
supported the liberal candidate, and they will constitute an
increasingly larger percentage of the electorate. Demographic trends
aren’t good for conservatives.
Most conservatives don’t believe this either, but it should be noted that the only Democrat to win election since 1976 won because he successfully promoted the idea that he was not a liberal. And that unprecedented amounts of George Soros’ money, Hollywood agitation and Michael Moore blather couldn’t achieve victory in an election involving a war about which the public was divided. If the liberals can’t win under these circumstances, it’s unlikely that they can win national election (the so-called liberal candidate this time couldn’t even win the Iowa primary).
The demographic trends don’t necessarily help Democrats either. They don’t have a stranglehold on their base the way they used to. Bush increased his share of the Latino vote by nearly 10 percentage points over 2000. He increased support among Catholics, Jews and Atheists. As minority groups move further into the middle class and the suburbs, it is likely that a significant subset will vote Republican. As the 18-29 set actually graduate from college, get jobs and pay taxes, a significant subset will vote Republican. As Churchill is alleged to have said "If you’re not a liberal when you’re in your 20s you haven’t got a
heart; if you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 40 you haven’t
got a brain." This is likely to hold true. Finally, the electorate has been growing more Republican, not less. This year, voters were as likely to say they were Republican as Democrat (37% for each). This reverses the usual pattern in national elections, and makes it unlikely that "[d]emographic trends
aren’t good for conservatives."
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3 years, 10 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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With the U.S. Hispanic population projected to triple by 2050 (PDF), rising to nearly 25% of the total population, maybe it’s time for our pop culture to pay attention to spanish grammar. First we have U2 in the new iTunes Vertigo TV ad (Quicktime required) counting “uno-dos-tres-catorce.” One, two, three, fourteen? Maybe they’re being all ironical and over my small Bush-voting head. I’ve also noted that the Dora the Explorer Fruit Snack package suggests one count “una, dos, tres…” That’s a real nit-pick, but isn’t generic cardinal counting supposed to start with uno? Maybe it’s to be implied that we’re counting Doras or something. Una chica, dos chicas…, which would be correct.
These things bother me for some reason. And they defeat the purpose of the advertising. Instead of selling me on what is actually a good idea - preload an iPod with the oeuvre of an artist (I wouldn’t buy a U2 iPod, but I’d consider other versions) - I get hung up on the grammar. Same with “Think Different.” And this mortgage broker.
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