Are Women Evil?

Women have gotten a bad rap ever since Eve snuck the bite of the apple. Labor pains, earning less than men for doing the same job, having to wear thongs, medieval religious beliefs that make you a second-class citizen...yes, it can be tough to be a woman.

But did you know that it can be mathematically proven that women are actually evil? Consider this...

First, we state that women require time and money:

Women = Time x Money

It is well-known that time is money:

Time = Money

Therefore, substituting for like terms we have:

Women = Money x Money = Money²

And because we know that money is the root of all evil:

Money = √evil

Therefore:

Women = (√evil)²

From which we conclude that:

Women = Evil

I know it's horrifying, but you just can't argue with the math.

Have a good day. Ladies, take your best shot back.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Responsible Speech

Last Sunday I wrote a post titled Caution: Engage Brain Before Opening Mouth, in which I lamented the abuse of the right of free speech and its relationship to some of the dreadful crimes and abuses we see in the world around us. If you haven't read that post, you might want to go back and read it now. I'll wait a few minutes while you do.

Finished? Okay, now take a look at this news story posted on CNN yesterday: Justices to Hear Case Over Protests at Military Funerals. The case, which is already being viewed as a potential landmark case that seeks to balance freedoms of religion, speech, and privacy, deals with the actions of a small Kansas church congregation which protests loudly at the funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They contend that God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" by allowing soldiers to be killed, and they travel around the country, shouting at grieving family members at funerals and displaying such signs as "Thank God for Maimed Soldiers" and "God Blew Up the Troops." Here's an example:

The problem with freedom of speech (if I can call it that) is that it protects even the most heinous and despicable of messages. My personal opinion is that those who would intrude on the grief of families who have suffered the loss of a loved one are heartless, morally bankrupt, and deserving of condemnation by decent human beings everywhere.

But their speech is protected by the Constitution, even as is my freedom to condemn their callous behavior.

The real problem with rights and freedoms is that we have separated them from responsibilities. Many people in America today are quick to complain about infringement of their rights, but never consider the possibility that they might be acting irresponsibly. Those who demonstrate and file lawsuits on behalf of unrestricted gun ownership never mention that not everyone exercising his or her right to bear arms will do so responsibly...that's why we seldom go a week without reading of someone going on a killing spree with guns (which have, almost invariably, been legally purchased). Those who insist on unrestricted freedom of speech never seem to worry about the harm their speech might cause others, but are quick to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court if they think their rights are being infringed.

Freedom is good. Freedom coupled with responsible behavior is better.

Unfortunately, shouting about freedom is much easier than behaving responsibly.

I have a dream that this case will make it to the Supreme Court, and that nine justices will glower down from the bench and give these despicable people a lesson in civic behavior and common decency.

But I think, somehow, I'll win the lottery first.

Have a good day. Enjoy your freedom of speech responsibly.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

I Hope It's True...

There appears to be some confusion as to whether or not Adam Gadahn has been arrested.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't take notice of such an issue. After all, I live in Washington, DC, where we don't notice arrests unless the perp is a Member of Congress or higher. Heck, getting arrested is practically a required element of your resume if you want to work for the DC city government. Arrests aren't news.

Except in the case of a cowardly snake like Adam Gadahn, also known as "Azzam the American." This person, of course, is the California-born individual who is the English-speaking mouthpiece for al Qaeda, glorifying murderers as heroes and urging Muslims everywhere to kill Americans. He's the worthless bastard that recently posted a video praising Maj Nidal Hasan for murdering 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, last November, crowing that Nidal had "lit a path" for other Muslim servicemembers to follow. He went on to say "I believe that defiant Brother Nidal is the ideal role model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes."

I hope that reports of his arrest are correct, although I have to admit I'd feel better if he were shot trying to escape. This miserable swine has caused indescribable damage to his country and has encouraged murder and mayhem in the service of twisted religious bigotry. The blood on his hands can never be washed away.

The God that a despicable traitor and bigot like Adam Gadahn claims to serve is certainly preparing a place for him in the hottest depths of hell. I hope he gets to enjoy the hospitality at the earliest possible date.

I hate to start off a new week with a rant on a topic like this, but I can't help it. It's bad enough that the world suffers from the curse of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's bad enough that so-called "holy men" convince morons that they will be serviced by dark-eyed virgins in paradise if they kill their fellow human beings. It's worse when the evil bastard who fronts for this horrendous barbarity is ... or was ... one of our own. There is no excuse - in any language - for this treachery.

Press on, Azzam the American. God is waiting with your reward ... and it has nothing to do with virgins.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Caution: Engage Brain Before Opening Mouth

If you've been reading my random comments over the last few years, you know some of my favorite aphorisms. Just to recap two of them:

"Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of smart;" and,

"Don't let anyone else do your thinking for you."

I've been thinking a lot about these two rules lately in the context of recent events.

You may have read about the incident this past Thursday in which a disturbed young man pulled a gun at the main entrance to the Pentagon and opened fire on two policemen...with predictable results. It turns out that the shooter was fueled with anti-government anger and conspiracy theories that led him to drive from California to Washington to be able to strike at what he believed was a government that, according to an online post attributed to him, "would use its powers to convert military, intelligence, and law enforcement bureacracies (sic) into instruments for political control and the domination and subjection of society, while discrediting, destroying, and murdering honest individuals within those services that work to root out corruption and faithfully serve their fellow citizens."

Where does someone come up with some of these ideas? Oddly enough, in many cases, from people who ought to know better.

Look back to two famous quotes from Ronald Reagan, the icon of today's ultra-conservative movement:

"In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem;" and,

"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."

When the President of the United States mocks and derides the government of which he is the head, how can citizens maintain the respect for civic authority that is the mainstay of a democratic society?

Listen to the talking heads of Faux News, and to the commentators of the far right and far left. What you hear is a constant drumbeat of anti-government anger. And what is the ultimate result of all this?

* A man is shot and killed at the entrance to the Pentagon when he tries to shoot two armed police officers.

* A man angry at the Internal Revenue Service crashes his airplane into a building occupied by the tax agency in Austin, Texas.

* Timothy McVeigh and his accomplices use a truck bomb to blow up a federal office building in Oklahoma City.

I believe people like these are spun up in part by irresponsible anti-government rhetoric that provides apparent justification for irresponsible extremist behavior. We shake our heads in amazement that people in the Middle East swallow the mindless religious bigotry and hatred churned out by radical Imams, but we somehow fail to recognize that the same sort of twisted language is being used by political extremists here at home to justify their positions.

Perhaps you don't like the government. That's fine. It's your right. Your freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. But, as Hansell Duckett once said, "What this country needs is more free speech worth listening to." And we all know what Bilbo says.

If you listen closely to many of the talking heads who rail about government actions they claim are unconstitutional, you will find that - in most cases - they have only the vaguest idea of what the Constitution actually says. A survey conducted in 2008-2009 yielded some interesting insights into what Americans actually know about the document that set up and guides their government, and which guarantees their basic freedoms. You can read the results of the survey here.

So, what's the message today?

Don't believe everything you hear, especially if your main source of information is Faux News and rigid talking heads of the radical right and left. If someone tells you what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, double-check by reading them yourself - you can buy copies in any bookstore, check them out from any library, or find them online by clicking the links I've provided.

There's a difference between freedom of speech and freedom of smart. There's a difference between spouting what you've heard someone else say about the Constitution and actually reading it and understanding it on your own. There's a difference between working to change the opinions of people you don't like and deciding it's easier to just kill them.

We are at a difficult time in the history of this country. Solving our problems will require people of all political viewpoints working together to develop compromises that work rather than gridlock that doesn't.

But I'm not holding my breath. And, sadly, neither should you.

Have a good day. Think. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

A man shot and injured two police officers outside the Pentagon before being killed by the officers' return fire; six persons were killed when a bus - which was operating illegally - crashed Friday on an Arizona interstate south of Phoenix; a former Ohio emergency room doctor has been convicted of aggravated murder for poisoning his wife in 2005; the Navy has fired a female ship captain for cruelty and maltreatment of her crew of 400 - among other things, she was known to swear like a ... uh ... sailor; and a cruise ship in the Mediterranean was hit by a huge rogue wave, killing two people, injuring 14, and severely damaging the ship.

If ever you needed Cartoon Saturday, it's now.

The temperature is supposed to be in the mid-50s this weekend (that's about 13 degrees Celsius, for those of you in Metric lands), which means we may finally see the last of the big piles of snow still dotting our neighborhood. Here are two melting-snow cartoons in honor of the event...

and...

Just for grins yesterday, I decided to count the number of security cameras that monitor my progress between my office at the Pentagon and my front door. I lost count at 23. I think we need a new Oscar category ...

Agnes and I have a new dog...Nessa, an exuberantly friendly Chocolate Lab, has come to live with us. In some ways, it's nice to have a dog...she gives us companionship, security, love, and exercise. The exercise part comes from the long walks she enjoys. But being in this family, when the dog wants to go out, the dog wants to go out...

You can tell you're getting old when...

And finally, I wonder what the eventual outcome of all the fiscal bailouts we've seen in the last year or two will be. Does anyone know? Is anyone looking to the future? One wonders...

It looks like it's going to be a beautiful, sunny weekend here in Northern Virginia...perfect for walking the dog and surveying what's left of our landscaping after the snow has melted and the deer have feasted. I think it's going to be a long Spring.

Have a good day. More - and more serious - thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Picture on the Fifty

In case you were wondering what your government may be spending your tax dollars on in the future (besides putting up more signs announcing we're a wholly-owned subsidiary of China), consider this article that showed up yesterday on CNN - The $50 Question: Grant or Reagan?

Yes, a Republican Congressman from North Carolina plans to introduce a bill that will remove the picture of President Ulysses S. Grant from the $50 bill and replace it with the image of President Ronald Reagan.

This would be the same President Reagan for whom the Reagan Building is named, and for whom (at Republican insistence) Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in 1998 (by the way...the next time there's a major Metro accident or problem caused by lack of money to keep the system in repair, remember that the Republican-controlled Congress required Metro to pay the full cost of the renaming - an amount estimated to be as much as $400,000...which would have bought a lot of repairs and maintenance instead of a lot of signs and maps).

Now, President Grant was a great general, but perhaps less successful as a president. Does he deserve to be memorialized on the $50 bill? I don't know. My mental jury's still out. But I also question whether it's appropriate to put Ronald Reagan's name on something else, particularly our money. My personal opinion is that history will be less kind to Ronald Reagan than those who worship at his festooned altar would have you believe. I think that much of our current economic disaster can be traced back to the cut-taxes-and-deregulate-everything policies championed by President Reagan and those who idolize him today.

Leave President Grant on the Fifty. President Reagan has enough things named after him. If you want to put someone on the money, how about putting any current member of Congress on the $3 bill? I think that's as appropriate as anything.

Expect better from your elected reprehensives, but don't be disappointed when, instead of fixing the problems that beset the nation, they waste your time and money on new ways to deify Ronald Reagan. After all, it's easier than solving real problems.

Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday is coming tomorrow...you'll need it.

Bilbo

The Sound of Then

I enjoy listening to classical music, although I don't recognize many specific pieces by name. There are a few pieces I can hear and name (Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz, Mussorgsky's A Night on Bare Mountain, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, and a few others), but for the most part it just washes over me in a tide of pleasantly entertaining sound.

But is it the sound the composer actually heard at the time he wrote the music?

Yesterday I read this fascinating article in MSN Slate Magazine: "In Search of Lost Sounds: Why You've Never Really Heard the 'Moonlight' Sonata." Author Jan Swofford writes that "During the 19^th century, Viennese pianos were noted for their lightness of touch and tone and British pianos for a more robust build, touch, and sound; French pianos lay somewhere between ... When composers wrote for these instruments they sometimes loved them and sometimes chafed at their limitations, but in any case they wrote for those sounds, that touch, those bells and whistles."

Mr Swafford notes that, for instance, a piano built today will have a tone very different from the pianos Beethoven and Strauss knew in their day. Construction techniques were different, the treatment of the materials used was different, and composers wrote their music based on the quality of sound they were used to hearing from the available instruments. In some cases, those sounds are not only quite different from those we hear and know today but, as Mr Swofford explains, some cannot even be accurately reproduced on modern instruments.

If you enjoy classical music - or even if you just enjoy a good tale of how things change over time - read the article and play the audio clips which are included. For a few minutes, you can hear music as audiences heard it in the past, and as the great composers imagined it as they wrote.

If you like rap or heavy metal "music," never mind. Your ears are probably a lost cause, anyhow.

Have a good day. Listen to some beautiful music.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

So Much Bloggable, So Little Time...

This is one of those times when it seems that interesting things about which to blog are coming in faster than I can use them. If I dedicate a whole post to each one, by the time I get to the last one, the topic will be stale and nobody will remember the context. Of course, it's better to have lots of things to choose from instead of a dry spell when I can't think of anything to say, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

So...

Here is today's post - a little bit about a lot of things...

The catastrophic earthquake that hit the South American nation of Chile last Saturday caused enormous damage. According to some scientists, the quake was so powerful that it tipped the earth off it's axis by about three inches (eight centimeters) - enough to change the length of a day. Each day is now approximately 1.26 microseconds shorter than it was before the quake...not a lot, but enough to attract the notice of scientists...and of Congressional Republicans, who quickly introduced a bill in Congress to reduce taxes because the average working day is now shorter.

Yesterday the Senate finally managed to get past the objections of Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning and pass legislation to extend unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans. Bunning had continually blocked the legislation because it was unfunded and would add to the deficit. He finally yielded to the pleas of other Compassionate Conservatives who were worried that his intransigence was negatively affecting their gentle, caring image. Senator Bunning settled for a compromise under which he agreed to vote for the bill if Congressional Democrats agreed to hang House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Effigy...a small town in rural Texas.

The celebrity cast of the new season of Dancing with the Stars has been named, and includes "actress" and former Playboy playmate Pamela Anderson, actress and professional bad girl Shannen Doherty, and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. No jokes about Mr Aldrin doing the moonwalk, please.

According to an article in People Magazine, pop singer Lady Gaga has announced that she is "single and celibate." Apparently the "celibate" part isn't by choice, but results from the inability of potential sexual partners to find a body underneath her bizarre costumes.

Texas governor Rick Perry has won reelection over a challenge from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. In his victory speech, Governor-elect Perry shouted a defiant message to Washington: "Quit spending all the money! Stop trying to take over our lives and our businesses." One assumes that doesn't apply to the money the government spends on military bases in Texas, and on the $3.5 billion the state will receive this year in assorted Federal grants.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Socks

Yesterday I mentioned my efforts each morning to match my clothes and ensure that my socks match each other, but not the rest of my clothes. Here, as the late Paul Harvey would have said, is the rest of the story...

One of little issues that makes my life interesting is that I have wacky color vision. Not wacky in the sense of "only sees black and white," but wacky in the sense of, well, wacky. In general, I have a real problem with telling similar colors apart, particularly in the absence of bright sunlight: black, navy blue, dark brown, dark green - forget it...they're all more or less black to me. Same with pastel shades: pale yellow, green, pink, light blue, light tan - they're all more or less white to me. If you would put any of these colors out by itself in bright light, I could probably tell you what it was. But put them all together and, well, I can come up with some interesting matches.

Okay, I told you that long-winded story so I could tell you this one...

When Agnes and I met, I was still in the Air Force. A military career is a pretty good deal for someone with defective color vision, because you wear the same clothes every day, and you always wear black socks. Voila! - no problem, ever, with matching colors!

Now, Agnes's mother enjoys knitting. And after Agnes and I had been together a while, Mama presented me one day with a box of beautiful, hand-made wool socks...black, of course, because that was pretty much all I could wear. And after that, about twice a year she would send me a new package of hand-made black wool socks. I never ran out.

Fast forward about 14 years...

When I retired from the Air Force, I discovered that one of my big problems was going to be making sure that my clothes always matched. I got into the habit of laying out the next day's work clothes the night before so that Agnes could make sure that shirt, tie, suit, and socks all matched.

Act II...enter Mama...

Agnes's mother now realizes that I am no longer limited to black socks, and that some variety is in order. And so it was that one day a package arrived in the mail. We opened the package and found many pairs of nice, new, hand-made socks...in some of the most bizarre color combinations you can imagine. There were bright blue socks with flashed of yellow and red. There were brown-and-yellow striped socks. There were socks with colors so bright they hurt your eyes.

I now had plenty of beautiful socks that didn't match anything else I owned.

Well, when life gives you lemons, the saying goes, make lemonade. I decided that as long as everything else matched, I could wear whatever socks I wanted, and if an observer didn't like it, well, too bad. My loud socks would become my lucky charm.

So now we come to this part of the story...

I had hammered away for months on a major project at work, and my customer decided it was time to have a "murder board" of distinguished graybeards (and bluehairs) to review it. We duly assembled a board of about ten retired General Officers and senior government civilians, and on the appointed day, they filed into the conference room to hear my presentation. For my part, I dressed in my best conservative gray suit with light blue shirt and power tie (all carefully vetted by Agnes)...and a pair of the most garish socks I owned. They were bright red, shot through with bolts of yellow, orange, and blue. People gawked at me on the bus. Mothers hid their children. Radical imams issued fatwas condemning my un-Islamic socks. I was ready.

I spent all morning making my presentation, answering the graybeards' questions, defending my analysis, and generally coming up smelling like the proverbial rose (cue the self-congratulatory back-slapping). At about noon we broke for lunch, which had been arranged in one of the private dining rooms in the Pentagon. As we walked down the hallway, the tall and distinguished general who was chairing the board turned to me and quietly said, "Bilbo, I've just got to ask you...where did you get those damned socks?"

I told him the story, he laughed, and his board endorsed my project.

So nowadays, I'm known for something. I'd rather it be for my wit, panache, and towering intellect, but if it's my socks, well, I'll take it. In fact, I've been at conferences where people I've met before may not remember my name, but remember that I'm "The Guy with the Socks."

Sock it to me, as it were.

Have a good day. Wear bright socks. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Of Busy Mornings, and Socks

Today is March 1st - since it's the first day of the month, that means paying bills (gotta get that mortgage check in so the bank will let us keep living in this house, dontcha know). We also have a new step-dog: Nessa is now living with us, and demands a certain amount of attention. There's trash to put out, recyclables to get to the curb, and consciousness to re-achieve (not always easy on a Monday). Not to mention the stress of making sure that my clothes match and my socks match, but that my socks don't match the rest of my clothes (it's a long story that I'll tell you another time...the punch line is "Oh, yeah! You're the guy with the socks!"). I also have to go through the end-of-February agony of figuring out how to reset the calendar function on my watch so that I know today is March 1st, rather than February 29th (you'd think an expensive watch would be able to make that change on its own, or at least with minimum effort on the part of the owner, but you'd be wrong).

So...

No long and erudite post this morning...just a reflection on how some mornings can be so much more stressing than others.

And we haven't even talked about work, yet.

Sigh.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo