What beheading apologists are you referring to? This is just a red herring invented by conservatives as the only defense to our own abuses.
You are absolutely right when you say beheading is inexcusable if we did it, as it is inexcusable by anyone. Similarly, it would be wrong for the terrorists to humiliate our soldiers, deprive them of food and sleep, beat them, leave them tied up for hours outside on the desert ground, and other such abuses.
The only moral relativists I see in this mess are conservatives trying to defend this indefensible war. Wrong is wrong, no matter who the perpetrator is.
Curious thought. It brings to mind the question "Is it wrong for a man to steal bread for his hungry children?" Yes, it's wrong because stealing is wrong and as 'Anonymous' says wrong is wrong no matter the perpetrator. However, most people are not monsters and would say it is acceptable for a man to steal food for his hungry children, myself included. Consider it the benefit of the doubt defense. It's probable that the man is only stealing bread because they're hungry and he has no alternative. In a different situation, it's likely that he would never steal bread.
The bread man is a staple of moral discussion. I'm not really sure how it relates to Abu Ghraib vs. the Beheaders, but consider: It's at least marginally acceptable to many people that the breadman steal food for his kids. Was the breadman childless and not hungry it would be completely unacceptable.
So, what changes our assessment? Are we "Thinking of the children"? I don't think so, at least not directly. If the man steals bread for his kids he's taking risk on behalf of others. Immoral actions done for a noble cause is pallatable. Thus, motivation serves as a measure of morality. Stealing for one's own gain is disgraceful. Stealing for a second party's necessity is (or can be) acceptable.
It's marginally okay for the breadman to steal bread for his kids. What if he robs a bank at gunpoint, with the intent of spending the money on bread for the little tykes? I would feel sympathy for him but not to the extent of agreeing that he should be let off. At that point the man ought to be prosecuted. What is different here? The extent of the moral infraction. Theft is the immoral behavior. Swiping bread from the grocery store is wrong, but nobody is endangered, and the loss is on the order of pennies. Robbing a bank at gunpoint puts many people at risk, and is measured in hundreds or thousands of dollars. Thus, magnitude is important in determining the morality of actions.
Combining these two ideas gives us moral judgement. Lying is a moral infraction (I hate lying and very seldom do it). Social lies are generally acceptable (I'm not good at these. "Does this shirt make me look fat?" "Yeah. Ow! Stop hitting me!") Lying to spare somebody's feelings is often excused. I tend not to do this either, but feelings and I don't talk often. Lying for personal gain is generally reprehensible.
Furthermore, the response to moral infractions is important to determining the moral fiber of a person or people.
Abu Ghraib was shameful. It was wrong. It was inexcusable, and never once have I seen a conservative blogger make excuses. America was appalled. We expect excellence from our people and this was most certainly not excellence. We are still in the process of punishing those who were guilty of this atrocity. We responded by holding the guilty parties accountable to a standard of behavior. We trotted them out in front of everybody and made them take responsibility and face their shame. It doesn't make it right but it hopefully helps us move towards a world where it will not happen again. At least not at our hands.
Beheading civilians is shameful and wrong and inexcusable. In America it would be considered a monstrosity only explainable by insanity. We would be collectively horrified if a farmer in the midwest showed up on the news beheading some stranger, some passerby. It is almost blase in the Islamic world. Some of them are chagrined and ashamed and horrified, but no small number of them dance in the streets and cheer for these monsters. They clearly have a different moral scale than we have as Americans.
Conservatives, including myself, use an absolute moral scale. Moral infractions are measured on a 'wrongness' scale. Liberals use a relative moral scale and wrongness is measured on a perpetrator scale. America is supposed to be better than fundamentalists so lesser transgressions perpetrated by Americans are equivalent to greater transgressions perpetrated by others.
I'll close with this: Were you captured by an enemy and given a choice would you pick humiliation or beheading? I know I can live with wounded pride and a few bruises. I'm not so sure I would long survive without my head.
The Top 100 Grossing Movies (with snide on the side) Bold those you've seen, asterisk those not seen at the theatre.
1. Titanic Touching movie, but can you believe that broad threw a priceless gem away like it was a piece of chewed gum? 2. Star Wars* 3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial* ET bored me when I was a kid and it hasn't gotten better. 4. Star Wars: Episode I It was okay as far as it goes, but a wild gorilla could have done better than "Annie". 5. Spider-Man 6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King We likes it precious. 7. Passion of the Christ 8. Jurassic Park* 9. Shrek 2 10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 11. Finding Nemo Twice in the theatre. 12. Forrest Gump I've tried watching it a couple times and reading the book and it's so fucking stupid I can't stick it out for more than half an hour. Please explain the appeal this garbage has. 13. Lion King* 14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 16. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones The new Annikin is fine as hell. 17. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi* 18. Independence Day* 19. Pirates of the Caribbean 20. Sixth Sense, The (1999)* I figured it out early in the movie and was bored through the rest of it. 21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back* 22. Home Alone* 23. Matrix Reloaded, The 24. Shrek This is a toss up. The allusions were funny. The general humor not so much. 25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas Retch 27. Jaws* Jaws is one of my top ten. 28. Monsters, Inc.* 29. Batman* 30. Men in Black 31. Toy Story 2 * 32. Bruce Almighty 33. Raiders of the Lost Ark * 34. Twister 35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding * 36. Ghost Busters * 37. Beverly Hills Cop * 38. Cast Away 39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The * 40. Signs 41. Rush Hour 2 42. Mrs. Doubtfire * 43. Ghost (1990) * 44. Aladdin * 45. Saving Private Ryan Phenomenal 46. Mission: Impossible II * 47. X2 48. Austin Powers in Goldmember* 49. Back to the Future * 50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me 51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day * 52. Exorcist, The 53. Mummy Returns, The What a waste. Absolutely pathetic. 54. Armageddon Please. NASA is going to hire a misfit bunch of roughnecks an turn them into astronauts in a matter of weeks to stop impending doom from destroying the earth. Retch. 55. Gone with the Wind *(Does reading the book count?) 56. Pearl Harbor 57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade * 58. Toy Story (1995) * 59. Men in Black II Another waste. I couple this with The Mummy Returns. 60. Gladiator 61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* 62. Dances with Wolves* Retch 63. Batman Forever * 64. Fugitive, The * This was excellent. 65. Ocean's Eleven * I'm going to assume this was the original with the Rat Pack since the more recent one was a fucking rip. 66. What Women Want 67. Perfect Storm, The 68. Liar Liar* Jim Carey got old almost as rapidly as Ben Stiller. 69. Grease 70. Jurassic Park III * 71. Mission: Impossible* 72. Planet of the Apes 73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom * 74. Pretty Woman* 75. Tootsie 76. Top Gun * My brother's favorite. I think it was decent but not great. 77. There's Something About Mary* - The only thing funny in this movie was the little dog. 78. Ice Age * Scrat killed me. 79. Crocodile Dundee * 80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York * Retch 81. Elf - Will Farrell is not funny 82. Air Force One 83. Rain Man * I've watched it in bits and pieces and finally pieced it all together. Not bad. 84. Apollo 13* 85. Matrix, The 86. Beauty and the Beast* 87. Tarzan 88. Beautiful Mind, A 89. Chicago 90. Three Men and a Baby* I can't possibly believe this is one of the top 100 movies. 91. Meet the Parents 92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves* Fair enough, I guess. Kevin Costner shouldn't be allowed to act. 93. Hannibal Excellent. 94. Catch Me If You Can I saw this on an airplane flight. I managed to watch all of it because technically I was a captive audience. 95. Big Daddy 96. Sound of Music, The* One of my all time favorites. 97. Batman Returns* 98. Bug's Life, A* 99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 100. Waterboy, The* Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Jim Carey were marginally funny at one point. This is no longer the case.
I will shortly be blogging with more regularity. In the meantime, here are some books I've been (re)reading. I suggest you drop everything you're doing and rush down to the nearest library to check them out immediately.
"The Elegant Universe" -- Brian Greene
"Hyperspace" -- Michio Kaku
"Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" -- Kip Thorne
Islamic fundamentalists have beheaded Paul Marshall Johnson. In all probability a video will soon be circulated. We'll soon hear the worthless two-bit apologists making excuses for what would be inexcusable if it was our doing. Welcome to the world of moral relativity where the malleability of truth is plotted asymptotically.
For the life of me I can't fathom how anybody could try to rationalize this monstrosity. I don't care to try fathoming it either. I have nothing but contempt for anybody who thinks slaughtering an innocent man, a civilian engineer, is fair play.
We're the evil ones, they say. We shouldn't be there in the first place, they say.
Why not? Who will hold these people responsible for what they do? Europe? Themselves? Allah? Please. Europe is overflowing with apologists. Arabs might publicly excoriate the actions of these fundamentalists, but their actions don't reflect their words. And their god?
[i]"Allah revealed His will to the angels, saying: 'I shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, maim them in every limb!'" Sura 8:12[/i]
In short, their god invites them to behave monstrously.
[url=http://www.tblog.com/template...]I called it a sickness[/url] before and I stand by that. It festers in their heart and drives them to madness. They are like rabid dogs and like rabid dogs these fundamentalists should be killed.
Go through the list, bold those you've read. Italicize those you've started but not finished. Normalize the rest. Add three of your own.
For those of you who don't care to go through my list, I have a weakness for 19th century literature, early 20th century literature, science fiction and fantasy.
The three I'm adding are: [b]439. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 440. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson 441. The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe[/b]
As an aside I looked up these books on Amazon and was floored when I read some of the reviews. One young lady said she was a high school freshman in Advanced English and thought the book was a real challenge. Makes me wonder how advanced that class is. I first read Kidnapped in the fifth grade and it's been one of my all time favorites ever since. Then again, it was around that time that I first read the Bible, cover to cover, so my bookwormishness might be a little extreme.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien 2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen 3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman 4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling 6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee 7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne 8. 1984, George Orwell 9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis 10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte 11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller 12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte 13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks 14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier 15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger 16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame 17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott 19. Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres 20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy 21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell 22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone, JK Rowling 23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling 24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling 25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien 26. Tess Of The DUrbervilles, Thomas Hardy 27. Middlemarch, George Eliot 28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving 29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck 30. Alices Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll 31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson 32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett 34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens 35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute 38. Persuasion, Jane Austen 39. Dune, Frank Herbert 40. Emma, Jane Austen 41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery 42. Watership Down, Richard Adams 43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald 44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas 45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh 46. Animal Farm, George Orwell 47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens 48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy 49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian 50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher 51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett 52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck 53. The Stand, Stephen King 54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth 56. The BFG, Roald Dahl 57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome 58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell 59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer 60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky 61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman 62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden 63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens 64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough 65. Mort, Terry Pratchett 66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton 67. The Magus, John Fowles 68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett 70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding 71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind 72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell 73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett 74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 75. Bridget Joness Diary, Helen Fielding 76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt 77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins 78. Ulysses, James Joyce 79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens 80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson 81. The Twits, Roald Dahl 82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith 83. Holes, Louis Sachar 84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake 85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy 86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson 87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley 88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons 89. Magician, Raymond E Feist 90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac 91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo 92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel 93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett 94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho 95. Katherine, Anya Seton 96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer 97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson 99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot 100. Midnights Children, Salman Rushdie 101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome 102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett 103. The Beach, Alex Garland 104. Dracula, Bram Stoker 105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz 106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens 107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz 108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks 109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth 110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson 111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy 112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend 113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat 114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo 115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy 116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson 117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson 118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde 119. Shogun, James Clavell 120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham 121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson 122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray 123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy 124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski 125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver 126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett 127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison 128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle 129. Possession, A. S. Byatt 130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov 131. The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood 132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl 133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck 134. Georges Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl 135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett 136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker 137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett 138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan 139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson 140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson 141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque 142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson 143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby 144. It, Stephen King 145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl 146. The Green Mile, Stephen King 147. Papillon, Henri Charriere 148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett 149. Master And Commander, Patrick OBrian 150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz 151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett 152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett 153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett 154. Atonement, Ian McEwan 155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson 156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier 157. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey 158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad 159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling 160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon 161. Moby Dick , Herman Melville 162. River God, Wilbur Smith 163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon 164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx 165. The World According To Garp, John Irving 166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore 167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson 168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye 169. The Witches, Roald Dahl 170. Charlottes Web, E. B. White 171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley 172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams 173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway 174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco 175. Sophies World, Jostein Gaarder 176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson 177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl 178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov 179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach 180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery 181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson 182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens 183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay 184. Silas Marner, George Eliot 185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis 186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith 187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh 188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine 189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri 190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence 191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera 192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons 193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett 194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells 195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans 196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry 197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett 198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White 199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle 200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews 201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien 202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan 203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan 204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan 205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan 206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan 207. Winters Heart, Robert Jordan 208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan 209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan 210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan 211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto 212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland 213. The Married Man, Edmund White 214. Winters Tale, Mark Helprin 215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault 216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice 217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell 218. Equus, Peter Shaffer 219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten 220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke 221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn 222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice 223. Anthem, Ayn Rand 224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson 225. Tartuffe, Moliere 226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka 227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller 228. The Trial, Franz Kafka 229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles 230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles 231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther 232. A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen 233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen 234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton 235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry 236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read 237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono 238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde 240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley 241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson 242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny 242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 243. Summerland, Michael Chabon 244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole 245. Candide, Voltaire 246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl 247. Ringworld, Larry Niven 248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault 249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein 250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline LEngle 251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde 252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne 253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne 254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan 255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson 256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith 257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony 258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum 259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon 260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde 261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde 261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel 263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver 264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris 265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder 267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls 268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock 269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland 270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. OBrien 271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt 272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor 273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg 274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster 275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin 276. The Kitchen Gods Wife, Amy Tan 277. The Bone Setters Daughter, Amy Tan 278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child 279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire 280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman 281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry 282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum 283. Haunted, Judith St. George 284. Singularity, William Sleator 285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson 286. Different Seasons, Stephen King 287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk 288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby 289. The Bookmans Wake, John Dunning 290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns 291. Illusions, Richard Bach 292. Magics Pawn, Mercedes Lackey 293. Magics Promise, Mercedes Lackey 294. Magics Price, Mercedes Lackey 295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav 296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker 297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice 298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love 299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace. 300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison. 301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving. 302. Enders Game, Orson Scott Card 303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland 304. The Lions Game, Nelson Demille 305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust 306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh 307. Foucaults Pendulum, Umberto Eco 308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson 309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk 310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz 311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand 312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk 313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu 314. The Giver, Lois Lowry 315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin 316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler 317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold 318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold 319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil) 320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill 321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman) 322. Beowulf, Anonymous 323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell 324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley 325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey 326. Passage, Connie Willis 327. Otherland, Tad Williams 328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay 329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry 330. Beloved, Toni Morrison 331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christs Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore 332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin 333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume 334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo 335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev 336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover 337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson 338. The Genesis Code, John Case 339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen 340. Paradise Lost, John Milton 341. Phantom, Susan Kay 342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice 343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman 344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher 345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson 346: The Winter of Magics Return, Pamela Service 347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz 348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok 349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler 350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime ONeill 351. Othello, by William Shakespeare 352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas 353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats 354. Sati, Christopher Pike 355. The Inferno, Dante 356. The Apology, Plato 357. The Small Rain, Madeline LEngle 358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick 359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater 360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier 361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier 362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf 363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder 364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King 365. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass 366. The Moors Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie 367. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson 368. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster loved 369. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky 370. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux 371. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg 372. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy 373. Howls Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones 374. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown 375. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo 376. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer 377. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck 378. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby 379. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston 380. Time for Bed by David Baddiel 381. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold 382. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre 383. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley 384. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff 385. Jhereg by Steven Brust 386. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane 387. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville 388. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte 389. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz 390. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje 391. Neuromancer, William Gibson 392. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 393. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr 394. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault 395. The Gunslinger, Stephen King 396. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare 397. Childhoods End, Arthur C. Clarke 398. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman 399. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott 400. The God Boy, Ian Cross 401. The Beekeepers Apprentice, Laurie R. King 402. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson 403. Misery, Stephen King 404. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters 405. Hood, Emma Donoghue 406. The Land of Spices, Kate OBrien 407. The Diary of Anne Frank 408. Regeneration, Pat Barker 409. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald 410. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia 411. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway 412. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg 413. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede 414. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss 415. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine LEngle 416. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman 417. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest 418. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown 419. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill 420. The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris 421. The Things We Carried, Tim OBrien 422. I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb 423. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk 424. Enders Shadow, Orson Scott Card 425. The Memory of Earth, Orson Scott Card 426. The Iron Tower, Dennis L. McKiernen 427. The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles 428. The Four Feathers, A.E.W. Mason 429. The Jester, James Patterson 430. Cry the beloved Country, Alan Paton 431. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath 432. The Stranger, Albert Camus 433. Deathscent, Robin Jarvis 434. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice 435. My legendary girlfriend, Mike Gayle 436. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Phillip K Dick 437. Bored of the Rings - Harvard Lampoon 438. The Pelican Brief - John Grisham
I saw the Chronicles of Riddick Sunday. It wasn't entirely a waste. There was a lot of action and gadgetry. The shallow side of me loved all the big nasty looking weapons and the eye candy. The critical spiteful side of me wanted a refund. The story was choppy at best. At least, what story there was. And I can't for the life of me imagine why anybody would pay Vin Diesel to act. He's horrible.
The camera work irritated me. The actors were mostly horrible. The story was tantilizing but horribly inadequate. I can't recall the soundtrack at all. There were many inconsistencies that bugged me (like if dim candlelight is uncomfortably bright to Riddick how can he not be blinded by flashing gunfire in near total darkness? How could Riddick emerg unscathed from even a few moments exposure to 700 degree temperature by splashing himself with a canteen of water?). But, I'm shallow enough to give it a positive neutral rating for the science fiction action and eye candy alone. Anybody other than Vin Diesel would have earned it a negative positive.
The other movie I watched was Van Helsing. I liked it much better. It was very fun with lots of eye candy and action. There were some cleverly done camera tricks and I loved the soundtrack. Van Helsing's accent came and went. That always bugs me a little bit. The humor was second rate one-liners. But the action was excellent, and the weapons equally so. I can't claim Hugh Jackman is much of an actor either, but he at least strikes me as being likable. Van Helsing gets an outright positive positive.
Curiously, and almost wholly unrelated, Babylon 5 Season 5 DVD is the #8 bestseller on Yahoo Shopping. Simpsons Season 4 didn't rate yet, although it was sold out when I checked the store yesterday afternoon.
I've not seen much of interest in the political/current events arena lately. But here are a few interesting items.
Under God
Michael Newdow lost his case in the Supreme Court. Under God will remain in the pledge of allegience. I put this in the ignorant waste of time category. Seperation of church and state only means that no church can carry political influence in our governments. Since our government is made up of people and people tend to have religious beliefs that color their actions, I don't think it is realistic to believe that every religious reference can be excised from our government. Under God in the pledge of allegiance is harmless, as is 'in God we trust' on our money, as is the patriotic song, God Bless America. I think it's more of an historical trapping than anything, it's America's version of invoking God on our behalf.
France Unions
French utility workers initiated targeted blackouts against members of the government to protest a move towards privitization. I'm no economist but I have to think that France is headed towards a meltdown. 25% of France's labor force is employed in the public sector. 10% is unemployed. That means 65% of their labor force has to pay enough taxes to cover entitlements and so on. Combined with economic strangulation, I don't see how they can last much longer. The fact that the government is desperately trying to solve the budget problem and is being blocked at every step by unions, compounds the problem.
Kerry's Message
Senator Kerry says he will fix Bush's economic squeeze. Meanwhile, hiring prospects are exploding. I don't know if Kerry reads the news or just ignores it, but as my folks used to say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
The big question asked in my [url=http://www.tblog.com/template...]previous post on Linux[/url] and networking was if it is possible to use one Linux box to serve as a DHCP server, an HTTP server, an FTP server, a DNS server, and a LAN server. The short answer is yes.
I now have all of the daemons running on my server. It assigns IP addresses via DHCP as it is supposed to. Apache is running. Xinetd is running. Samba is running. Bind is running. Kudos to me.
As an aside, this is no small undertaking. The documentation for Linux is not terribly convenient. I had to sift through man pages, commented configuration and sample files and how tos to patch everything together. One of the less helpfully commented sample configuration files looked something like this:
So, having all of these things working on some level is an accomplishment on its own. The worst thing about the documentation is that it isn't laid out logically. Most of the information only applies to very specific parts of the process so when setting up the dhcpd module you have to hunt through a whole mess of files and folders to find the ones that need editing. It's a lucky thing to find references to other files that need to be configured while editing one. Only by hunting through as much of the documentation as I could find did I learn that setting up Bind meant editing named.conf then creating *.zone files for my domain and then editing the named.conf.include file to point to the *.zone file.
I would be disingenuous if I led you to believe that all of these things are working exactly as they ought to be. I think I'm probably trying to do to many things at one time and would have more complete success if I focused on one task at a time but I don't operate like that. Also, it makes some things easier to get these things working at more or less the same time. For example, setting up the DHCP server makes it easier to connect clients because you don't have to worry about assigning IP addresses. Having the Apache web server running makes it easier to set up Samba because you can't use the Swat utitility to change the Samba configuration files unless the httpd process is running. Swat is a form-based utility run in a web browser that allows you to update your Samba configuration files. It's much easier than scouring through smb.conf files.
I still have some problems to work out. DHCPD doesn't start on boot. I have to manually start the dhcpd process with the command dhcpd eth0. I used the chkconfig command to change the runlevel but I haven't found where to define the interface to be used. That's why I have to manually specify the eth0 interface. Samba is running almost satisfactorily. My windows machine detects the workgroup but I can't browse to any of the shares. I believe the problem is that user priveleges on the shares are set to deny so I need to change the user priveleges to allow remote users to access the shares. Once that is done I should be able to map the share as a network drive.
Setting up DNS is the real bitch. Bind is running but I can't figure out where to specify the domain I want to use. I'm going to use ziggurat.home. I need to set it up as a zone in the named file but I'm forever getting errors about invalid syntax in my *.zone file or in the zone section of the named.conf file. The errors make no sense to me because I've even used examples that are supposed to be functional. When I do find a reference to my domain it's always Linux or localhost. Linux is not specified anywhere as a domain or as an alias that I'm aware of and localhost is simply the loopback for my Linux box. I need to dig up some more information about Bind and DNS.
I just got the http daemon working so I haven't tinkered with it much so far. I think it will be something of a bitch too though. I want to be able to create subdomains for the projects I'm working on so I can have (for example) http :// mysqlproj.ziggurat.home, http :// phpproj.ziggurat.home, http :// perlproj.ziggurat.home. Both Apache and Bind support this, but the problem I have is that I have no idea what the directory structure will look like or where it is supposed to live, or how to specify the path. I know how the http file structure looks since I've done some web development, but not how it fits into the Linux directory structure. I'm fairly certain this information is buried somewhere in the Apache documentation or in the httpd.conf comments. It'll just take some digging and some trial and error. You can ditto all of the above for ftp.
Actually, one thing I've hardly even mentioned is MySQL. I also intend for my Linux box to be a MySQL server. As things stand now I don't even know what questions to ask except how do I start the MySQLd process? All of the commands give me an error and tell me to read the manual which is over 1000 pages long. I guess I'll just have to start the long slog.
I can say it is coming together. My clients are all assigned IP addresses via the DHCP daemon. I can wrestle the clients into accessing the Apache documentation pages and the Swat utility which means Apache is running as it is supposed to. I can navigate to the Samba Server, even if I can't yet access the shares. Here are the questions I intend to answer in the immediate future.
1. How do I assign the domain I want to use for my intranet? 2. How do I create subdomains? And are these zones? 3. How do I create a directory structure for my domain and for my web development projects? Where do I locate this directory structure? 4. How do I give my clients access to the Samba shares and to their own Samba directories?
My best means of answering these questions is trial and error and scouring through the documentation. I've heard and read a lot of things that rave about how well documented the linux modules are and how extensive the help, but there are a couple of problems with the documentation.
A lot of it is written by and for people who already have some idea of what it is they're doing. It's also written sort of reflexively. It's like having a dictionary with circular definitions. Crotchety means grouchy. Grouchy means crotchety. A domain is a location defined by an IP address. An IP address defines the location of a domain. A domain server gives a domain an IP address and conversely assigns an IP address to a domain.
Another problem is that there are often pages and pages of nuts and bolts information about how these services work. I know in excruciating detail the 4 step process that is how IP addresses are assigned using DCHP, but barely enough about the practicalities of making Linux into a DHCP server to make it happen. It's like taking a driving course and learning about the internal combustion engine that causes vehicular perambulation.
This is why Linux is not terribly popular among casual users or even professionals. It has a lot going for it in some ways but learning how to use it is a hell of a project. I've searched for a lot of information but I can seldom find things that lay out the processes logically. Nor is there much information that bridges the gap between developer and mechanic. Command line commands aren't discussed anywhere except from within Linux. The command line is very useful for setting these services up and testing them, but there aren't any references that tell you what commands to use or how to use them. Users who are new to Linux and the command line would be a complete loss as to how to use it. I've learned a number of basic commands, but know very few of the arguments. The man pages don't do much good from the command line because you can't see them and type on the command line at the same time. The command -h isn't very helpful unless you already know what the arguments do and just need a reminder of which one you want. Like I mentioned, a lot of the manuals tell you all you could ever want to know about the processes and why they work and what they do, but it's a rare thing to find a clear cut how, which in my case is what I really want to know. Going back to the driving lesson, you could learn everything there is to know about why the internal combustion engine works and what it does, but that doesn't mean you will know how to operate it.
In any case, I think it's interesting and useful enough to be worth my attention and I will keep hammering away at it.
Darkness clouded the early days of your time in office but you saw the light. Your steady example guided the rest of America towards the light you saw. Time has proven the acuity of your vision.
Your vision was born of optimism unbound, patriotism unfettered, courage undaunted. You believed that America was a land of great people and great ideas, although you may not have counted yourself among them. An old adage has it that there are no great people, only ordinary people who do great things. You, sir, prove its truth.
Your loss reminds us of the ideals in which you so firmly believed. It reminds us why they are important to America and to the world. You will not be missed, Mr. Reagan. You will be remembered.
I'm a little startled at the surge of emotion Ronald Reagan's death has precipitated. They who appreciated him place him in the top ten presidents of our nations history. Those with less favorable recollections vent unadulterated vitriolic spleen.
I'm not old enough to remember most of Reagan's administration but I'm smart enough to read my history. Ronald Reagan was a victim of circumstance as much as he was an adept political figure. When Reagan was elected, the Soviet Union was about to collapse under its own weight. Communism was its own source of destruction. Reagan was not directly responsible for its death. He was responsible for the acceleration of the collapse though. Reagan pumped additional money into the military and reignited the arms race. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. He had the good fortune to be president during that time, and the wit to seize the opportunity. He made some hard economic decisions, but combined with the end of the Cold War it set the stage for the boom of the 90s. People howl about Reaganomics, but sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. In 1980, when Reagan was elected, the inflation rate was over 13%. In 1984 at the beginning of his second term the inflation rate was a little over 4%. Interest rates peaked in 1980 at 21.5%. In 1984 they were 11%. His economic policies inflated unemployment for his first term, but the unemployment rate fell throughout his second term to 5%.
I think he will be remembered for something other than his politics though. He was a good man, he treated people with dignity and respect. Even the letter he wrote to the American people when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's was encouraging and generous of spirit. He was the kind of man people could believe in. During both terms, Reagan's approval rating hung damn close to 50%. He was not wildly popular but over 50% of America believed in him and trusted him. And he didn't let them down. He stuck to his guns; he did what he thought was right. I suspect he will fade into mediocrity with time. He won't be counted among the very best of American presidents, but he made our world a little better than it had been, and for that he can rest peacefully.
I have a desktop computer running Linux and a laptop running Windows XP. I don't know if it's possible, but I'm trying to use my desktop as a server that will do the following:
1. DHCP assignment of IP addresses 2. DNS Server 3. HTML Server (Apache 2.0) 4. FTP Server 5. Document/Print Server
This system is not on the internet right now so IP addresses and domain names can be completely arbitrary. I suspect it will be a nightmare if I ever do decide to actually use it on the internet, but it's just an exercise for now.
So, my Linux machine has all of the modules installed that should be necessary. I have installed Samba Server, Samba Client, LDAP Server/client, Apache 2.0, Lisa, DHCP Server, DNS Server, and a few others. The first question I have is possible or not? Can my Linux machine provide all of these functions (as far as I can tell, I'm trying to set up my Linux box so it fools the laptop into believing it is connected to a lan and the internet). I'll only be able to access one domain, but that's not a problem, since the purpose of this exercise is to give me a realistic network/web development environment. In the future (near future even) I might want to set up virtual domain name hosting so I can work on mutiple web development projects. For now I just want to get it working. I can divide my development project using the directory structure instead of a domain structure (e.g. I can set up my domain to be "http://linuxbox.projects/project1", "http://linuxbox.projects/projects2" instead of "http://linuxbox.project1/index", "http://linuxbox.project2/index").
Anyhow, I think I may need to get some different hardware. Here's what I have right now:
1. Desktop running Suse Linux 9. 450 Mhz (can be upgraded to dual processors) 512 Mb ram. 10 Gb hardrive + 80 Gb hardrive. 10/100 ethernet card. Lots of peripheral gadgetry, Firewire card, USB hub, External CD RW, Internal CDRW, USB Soundcard, Fire Zip.
3. Simple network hub. Do I need a router? My Linux machine seems to be able to serve as a router. Can this be set up as well or does that simply add to the headache?
My first priority is for my desktop to serve as a virtual ISP/host for my laptop and for it to serve as an HTTP/FTP server (with MySQL) so I can have a realistic web development environment. Second priority is for it to serve as a LAN file/print server.
My question then becomes how do I do this? So far, I've gotten Apache up and running. When logged in as a local user on my Linux machine I can load the "http://localhost" page. It took a mere two days and three complete installs to get that far. I have a tendency to fuck up my installed Linux kernel and have to start over. Anyhow, I now need my Linux machine to assign my laptop an IP address, and allow me to view the //localhost page from my Windows machine. This is where I'm at a complete loss. My Linux box ought to assign my Windows box an IP address via DHCP. I may need to set up my Windows ethernet connection differently, but that isn't a problem. The problem is Linux doesn't seem to be broadcasting the DHCP information.
I can't get my Windows machine to recognize my Linux machine as any kind of server. My Windows machine makes up its own IP address. It can successfully ping the Linux IP address but the reverse is not true. Network services are activated on the Linux machine but I get an error when I try to ping the Windows IP address. I have gotten Linux to network with Windows in the past using Lisa (the LAN browser daemon) but for entertainment purposes I want a server based network instead of a peer to peer. That may be a different project. I think Samba is the dealy I want to use for that, but who the hell knows?
My questions are as follows:
1. How do I make Linux broadcast the DHCP information that will assign my Windows machine an IP address? And do I need different/additional hardware to make it happen? 2. Once that is done, will Windows recognize my Linux box as a Domain Name Server? 3. How do I create a domain? 4. Given that I can use my Linux machine as both a DHCP/DNS server and fool my Windows machine into thinking it's on the internet, can I then also use my Linux machine as a file/print server using Samba?
Drforbush wrote "So, to supply all the energy the country needs we need to have 500,000 Acres (782 square miles)of Solar Arrays. to supply 300 million people with all of their energy needs. . . Of course, gasoline is only a small amount of the energy that we use. If you have numbers for the amount of gasoline we use in a day to support the conjecture that we couldn't possiblly use hydrogen, then have at it."
Having at it.
America used about 461 gallons of gas per person in 2002. Figuring about 300 million people that amounts to 138,300,000,000 gallons of gas. Gas is an energy source and one gallon of gas contains 1.3e8 or 130,000,000 joules (a joule is a unit of energy). Stretched over the course of a year that amounts to about 591,000,000,000 watts. Or 591,000 megawatts.
Solar panels aren't very good at converting sunlight to electricity. Good panels at peak produce about 12 watts per square foot. We use 591 billion watts worth of gasoline. To produce that much electricity requires 49,250,000,000 square feet or about 1,767 square miles. 782 is less than half what is needed for gasoline alone much less total electrical consumption. It's still only a little over 1% the size of Arizona, but that's a lot of square feet worth of pv panels.
I'll figure that these things always operate at their peak of about 12 watts per square foot, but for that to happen, they have to be mounted on a tracking system that follows the sun east to west and north to south throughout the year. They lose efficiency quickly as the solar incidence moves away from 90 degrees to the surface of the panel. Complete systems cost about $100 per square foot. Given a super Costco bulk discount, I'll figure it costs $60 per square foot to purchase and assemble these kits (including panels, tracking systems, inverters, labor, heavy equipment, administrative costs, etc). The cost to assemble the array is nearly $3 trillion.
I'd be surprised if these things can survive ten years worth of sand laden desert wind storms, but if they do have a life of 10 years, the maintenance cost is $300 billion per year after the first ten years. Americans spent about $276,600,000,000 on gas (less since the average was less than $2.00 per gallon in 2002). That doesn't even pay for maintenance much less recoup the capital cost for the array.
I haven't figured the cost of building a hydrogen fuel infrastructure, and I've assumed that these panels will work at peak efficiency and that 100% of the electricity will be converted to hydrogen. I think we would actually be doing quite well if 50% of the electricity was converted into hydrogen. One other thing I haven't added is the inevitable legal wrangling. Environmentalists go nuts over housing developments built on one or two sqare miles. We're talking about paving over 1,700 square miles with photovoltaics. It would change the albedo of that area and affect surrounding weather patterns, not to mention any incidental tortoises, lizards, or endgangered dirt that might need a champion. Yet, even with my conservative estimate we can't even pay for the upkeep of the solar array. That doesn't account for the upkeep of the hydrogen infrastructure.
If you doubt there will be litigation, guess again. Environmentalists here in the Bay Area added billions of dollars to the cost of the new Benicia bridge because they discovered that fish died when trapped in boxes near the pile drivers. They got a judge to issue an administrative order and CalTrans had to study the effect of pile drivers on the fish. Surprisingly it turns out the fish swim away from the pile driver while it's operating. I've read of half a dozen multi-million dollar lawsuits against housing developments in the last five years because these developments endager salamanders or frogs or some other critter or weed or patch of dirt.
Beyond the cost of the project, there is a timeframe issue as well. I arbitrarily decided it could be done in 10 years but I doubt it. I can't find an estimate but I know the industry does not produce anywhere near 5 billion square feet of PV per year. And even if it can be done in ten years it will no longer meet our gas consumption.
We could upgrade our coal or nuclear power production enough to produce significant amounts of hydrogen but if greenliness is your platform, that's out of the question.
I'm on a technology kick right now, and with oil prices where they are, everyone is thinking about energy and novel energy sources. I'm as curious as anybody about such things, but perhaps better read on the topic. I'm something of a skeptic as far as novel energy sources go. I just thought it would be interesting to discuss energy sources that currently exist and the ones that may come available in the future.
Hydrocarbons
This is mostly where the U.S. is today. Coal provides the majority of American electricity. Coal is smashed into dust (literally) the dust is injected into the furnace where it burns, heats water to steam, spins the turbine, and actuates the dynamo. Presto-changeo coal becomes electricity. Coal is a great fuel for electricity. It burns hot (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 F). More importantly coal is ubiquitous in the United States. There are about 500 billion short tons of recoverable coal in the U.S. As mining technology improves so will the amount of recoverable coal. Coal is easy to mine and plentiful. It does have drawbacks. For one thing it's filthy. We have developed technology to limit the dirtiness of coal, so it's not as bad as it was fifty years ago. In fact, there's a coal power plant in Wheatland, Wyoming that is absolutely amazing for it's cleanliness. If you were the sort to do such things, you could eat off the floor. But coal power plants still release radioactive elements into the atmosphere and produce staggering amounts of somewhat radioactive slag. It's not exactly a tree-huggers dream. Natural gas is less polluting but less efficient. Oil is also used to generate some electricity but it has better uses.
Hydroelectric
Hydroelectric accounts for about 2% of America's electricity. Hoover dam is a hydroelectric power plant. A dam is built to contain a river. Pipes are placed near the bottom of the dam. As the water rises, it creates a big fucking head of pressure that forces water through the pipes, past the turbines which actuate the dynamo and once again we have electricity. Hydroelectric is a decent source of electricity it produces a lot, but there are a limited number of places where hydroelectric dams can be built. Ecofrauds go nuts anytime somebody says dam.
Others
Others account for 1% of America's electricity. Others includes wind turbines, geothermal, and solar. Wind turbines are horrible. Vast fields of these things have to be built to generate any significant amount of electricity. They're an inefficient eyesore. Solar power can take two forms, one is photo-voltaics, the other is mirrors. Solar and wind power both have a similar problem. The total energy is enormous, but it is diffuse and inconstant. Geothermal is limited to very specific parts of the world, where the crust is thin enough for internal energy to affect the surface. Wyoming could produce a not insignificant amount of geothermal electricty from Yellowstone but we all know that will never happen.
Nuclear
Fission acounts for about 20% of America's electricity. Given appropriate containment procedures (which we have), nuclear fission is probably the most desirable energy source that is presently viable. It produces enormous amounts of energy at low cost, and is environmentally friendly. Ecofrauds hate nuclear power. They constantly argue about the radioactive leftovers. It's not much of an argument really. The hot waste is stored in boro-silicate boxes which could then be buried in the mine from which the raw materials were extracted. By the time geological processes brought this stuff back to the surface it would no longer be hot and no more dangerous than common background radiation. Unfortunately, nuclear power is politically dead in the U.S. The regulatory burden prevents anybody from building a new nuclear reactor in the U.S. Until people pull their heads out it will remain dead. I do believe it will eventually become viable once again, but probably not for some time.
There are many other ideas for producing electricity. Some of them are downright foolish, others are highly speculative.
Bio Fuels
I'm using this as an inclusive category for things like biomass, biodiesel and ethanol. This is one of those that is downright foolish. People who promote these as ideas for fuel sources simply have no grasp of the staggering amounts of energy we use in the U.S. Bio fuels could even include trees. Simply burning timber for electricity. It's been done for a long time. Until we discovered coal, wood and peat were primary sources of fuel. Practically the entire island of Great Britain was deforested prior to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution because wood was one of the few sources of energy. In fact, the lack of wood for burning spurred the Industrial Revolution because people were forced to use coal and peat. Anyhow, if Europe could exhaust their most convenient supply of biomass (timber) over three hundred years ago, how could we possibly produce enough biomass to meet today's energy needs?
Alternative Hydroelectric
Hydroelectric means electricity from water. These are some ideas floating around for different ways of generating electricity from water, other than using dams. One is using tides to actuate dynamos. The problem is tides don't really change very much in most parts of the world. At least not enough that we can really capture their energy. I won't say it can't be done, but I think right now we just don't have any idea how to go about it. Dams work because we're able to creat a big fucking head of pressure to force water through pipes. Tides don't rise and fall enough to do that (except maybe in the Bay of Fundy). I found an idea where oceanic currents could be used to turn turbines, but while currents are more constant than wind they are still too diffuse, and the cost of building an underwater facility would be astronomical. One other source of hydroelectric is the OTEC. I think OTECs are very sexy electricity producers, but there are some hurdles to be overcome before they are commercially viable. I can't say I think there is any reason they can't work, but for now the cost of constructing one large enough to produce a significant amount of electricity is prohibitive.
Fusion
A lot of money and research is being poured into fusion. I think the U.S. would be better off spending this money on particle accelerators or telescopes since the ecofrauds won't like fusion any more than they like fission, but I'm just a lowly peon taxpayer. I also think we lack the understanding we need to make fusion function. We're tinkering with the process and getting closer to making it work, but I like I said, studying the underlying science of fusion would probably take us further than trial and error. Anyhow fusion is the opposite of fission. Instead of tearing atoms apart we're mashing them together (fusing) them. It will potentially be very clean and produce enormous amounts of power, but probably not for many years. I think cold fusion is a fairy tale. I know enough about physics to know it takes an unbelievable amount of energy to make atoms fuse. In stars it works because gravity is strong enough to overcome the repulsion of atoms. In fusion reactors we heat the atoms until they are so energetic they smash into each other and fuse together. Fusion also has a little radioactivity problem. Much worse than fission at this point. The fuels we use in fusion produce spare particles that aren't converted into electricity and can't be easily contained. These particles escape the reactor and plow through the rest of the structure creating a radioactive power plant. The only way fusion would really be acceptable is if we found the mixture of fuels that doesn't produce these spare particles. We know what the fuel is (Helium 3 and Deuterium) but He-3 is extremely rare on earth. It does exist on the moon, so there is a possibility that future moon bases could be powered by fusion. I do believe fusion will eventually be a source of energy, but not for some time, and possibly never on Earth.
Alternative Geothermal
There is a way to sort of artificially produce geothermal electricity. Instead of wrecking Yellowstone, we create an artificial geyser by drilling a hole deep into the crust of the earth and pouring water into it. This is called a core tap. The hole has to be deep enough that the water is boiled into steam. It blasts up through the hole and spins turbines. For now we don't have the technology to drill deeply enough for this to work. I don't think there is any reason to think we won't be able to do so in the not so distant future though.
Orbital Solar
Solar energy on the earth is too diffuse to work well. In orbit things are different though. Photo-voltaics are not terribly useful, all things considered, they only operate at 10% efficiency. Solar energy is actually more efficient if it is converted to heat by using mirrors to focus it on a reservoir of water. It takes a lot of mirrors to heat water to boiling though. A lot of mirrors, as in paving many square miles of land with mirrors. Also the mirrors on Earth have to track the sun, since it so inconveniently tools about in the sky. In space satellites can be positioned so they collect solar energy 24 hours a day. Better yet, a space mirror is pretty easy to build. Inflate a large bubble. Without gravity it will form a near perfect sphere. Silver half the inside of the bubble (preferably the half facing the sun). Since a sphere's focus is at the center the reservoir is placed at the center of the bubble and the water boils where the sunlight is concentrated. But, to produce a significant amount of electricity would still require an extemely large mirror. After that you have to transport the energy to earth, probably via microwaves. On earth you have to have a microwave collector (called a rectenna). And it also has to be large. I suspect it's not very efficient, but I think it would be acceptable if space transport costs fell enough. Sending the equipment to space would price a solar satellite power plant out of the running for now. I have faith the X-Prize and other such commercialization projects will eventually make it viable, but probably not for at least a decade or longer.
Finally, there are a couple of potential theoretical sources of power. One is a probability, the other less so.
Matter/Antimatter
I think that once we have a firm grasp of the principles underlying particle physics fusion and fission will be no-brainers. Our current fission and fusion knowledge is brute force kind of knowledge, but once we have an understanding of the hows and whys it will open the door to direct matter/energy conversion. We are far from reaching this point but we probably will eventually. It's a pretty simple concept. Matter and antimatter annhilate when they contact. The result is energy. It's near perfect conversion of matter into energy and the amount of energy is phenomenal. I don't think anybody rightly knows what technological hurdles have to be overcome to reach this stage of development but I don't think there's any reason to think we never will. At least not until we learn otherwise.
Zero Point Energy
This will probably come to nothing, but it is an idea. I get the feeling the folks who believe in ZP energy are the same ones who think they can talk to aliens through their tinfoil hat. But Zero Point energy has been proven to exist. It's called the Casimir effect. It's an artifact of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The problem is nobody knows if it can be scaled to be useful in a macroscopic world. There are no shortage of folks out their claiming they have built devices that operate using zero point energy. In reality, if they had done so the world would be a different place by next week. Generally the claim goes that they are just trying to raise the capital to produce their device (or Halliburton is suppressing it). If they could demonstrate the efficacy of their device, they would have to beat investors off with a stick. So, while zero point energy actually does exist, we have yet to determine how it can be harnessed or if can be used to any practical effect. For example an engine can be built that uses the Casimir effect as an energy source but it can only be fired once. It's a nice dream, but probably not much more than that.
There are other more outlandish claims about sources of free energy, but they are inconsistent with the structure of our reality. You know, the Laws of Thermodynamics and such. A quick search of the web will give you thousands of hits on people who claim to know the secret to controlling gravity, producing energy from nothing, harnessing angular momentum. It's all bunk. There are laws that make our universe what it is. If they were violable our universe would cease to exist. My favorite is the guy who claims he knows how to manipulate gravity. In the future we might discover some loopholes but for now we have to color within the lines.
Yesterday I was browsing Pushback and Envirotruth. Today I read iRi's blog (title link) and an idea was born. Funny how that works.
Anyhow, in many ways, the ecofrauds are masters of marketing. The likes of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace are cleverly disguised marketing corporations peddling ridiculous ideas. Greenpeace is actually a fraudulent corporation of the Enron brand(and is domestic terrorists no less ardent in their collective belief than Islamic fundamentalists). Greenpeace has around 5 million members (make that 5 million car driving, bicycle riding, electricity using, finished product consuming members). While I could turn this into a tirade about the hypocrisy of these folks, I will resist. If these people had their way our entire civilization would collapse. In fact, it seems they want our civilization to revert to a pre-technology stage.
If the world bought Greenpeace tripe where would we be?
1. They don't like genetically modified food (nevermind humans have been doing this since we discovered agriculture). Without GM crops we would need to cultivate every acre of arable land in the world to keep the current population alive. Not that we would be allowed to do so since that would mean destoying millions of acres of prairie land and forests. Famine anyone?
2. Water has to be clean but clean water is usually home to bacteria. Greenpeacers would have us stop treating water with chlorine. I'll have a glass of giardia juice with my organic omelet, thanks.
3. We should be using 'green' energy production like solar power or wind turbines. Of course producing sufficient amounts of solar energy would mean paving a fair chunk of the Mojave desert with solar collectors (mirrors or solar panels). Wind turbines are nearly worthless. Vast fields of them are necessary to produce an appreciable amount of electricity. Not exactly a golf-course view, is it?
4. Hydrogen is a lovely dream, but it takes energy to produce hydrogen. And the amount of hydrogen we would need would require lots and lots of energy to produce. The only source of hydrogen large enough to meet our demand is the ocean (water). Water has to be electrolyzed to produce hydrogen. Catch-22.
There is a reciprocal relationship between resources, technology and the environment though, and this is more or less where we stand. Certainly we treat the environment better today than we did fifty or one hundred fifty years ago. And not because the Greenpeacers have opened our eyes but because the market recognizes the value in maximizing resource consumption versus advancement and because technology allows us to do so.
Where are we likely headed in terms of technology? I think we will eventually move to fission power. For now the regulatory strangulation prevents construction of new fission power plants so we're stuck with coal (the filthiest of all options). In time I suspect the resistance to fission will be eroded. If we do ever move entirely to fission there is potential that we will produce enough surplus electricity to migrate towards a hydrogen economy.
Fusion would be even more ideal for a hydrogen economy but I think fusion is more than a few decades away. Barring the fact we haven't achieved the break even point, we must also be concerned about the radiation problem with fusion reactors. Another problem with fusion is that we are moving beyond the point where it will be feasible to recoup the R&D costs. That's not to say fusion will never be viable, just that we aren't there yet. And I think there are probably a lot of tangential benefits of fusion research. OTECs are another possibility and Japan is researching this avenue more than anywhere else. It's a little ironic that the same people screaming for a hydrogen economy are the ones most likely to throw themselves in front of a bulldozer as it breaks ground for a new fission power plant.
Anyhow, once we do move away from hydrocarbons there will be a corresponding shift in the application of raw materials. Coal mining and natural gas drilling will be less important, and instead uranium mining will be lucrative. Having grown up in Wyoming, I know that coal mining is a huge operation. Practically the entire state of Wyoming sits on top of a massive seam of coal (Factoid of the day: Wyoming produces over 90% of the country's helium). Up until recently the best way to get at the coal has been open pit mining which is exactly what it sounds like. An enormous pit is dug down to the surface of the coal bed. The coal is shattered by dynamite explosions, a dragline scoops up coal by the cubic acre and haul trucks take it to the train. There's a break even point where it is no longer economical to dig a pit down to the coal. In that case underground mines are more economical. In order to determine the economics of coal mining they factor in the reclamation project. Once the coal has been mined the pit has to be filled in and biologists reseed the area with native plants and grasses. The reclamation for an underground mine is far less expensive and less disruptive of the surrounding ecology which makes Uranium mining more attractive than strip mining of coal beds. Not to mention the discrepancy between fission and hydrocarbon emissions. Anyhow all of the resources poured into strip mining are shifted to other resource gathering projects. So, while we are in no danger of running out of coal, it can serve as more of a fallback if necessary and we can pursue other avenues.
Other technologies that could promise to extend the life of our finite resources are biotech and nanotechnology, both of which are under fire. The howlers battling against biotech really make me nuts. We've been pursuing biotechnology since we invented domestication. Modern day domestic plants and animals hardly resemble their ancient ancestors. Compare teosinte with corn. This is an example of genetic manipulation. It may have taken hundred of years, but humans modified the genetic structure of ancient teosinte until it became modern day corn. Today we have the ability to do so more rapidly. Furthermore, modern genetically modified crops are modified in such a way that they are unable to reproduce. The idea that some superweed will emerge is unfounded. The idea that GM crops cause cancer or disease is equally ridiculous since the difference between 'GM' crops and normal crops is a matter of protein structures which are broken down during digestion anyhow. If it weren't for genetic modification, there would be fewer people and more hungry ones in the world than there are today. That being said, genetic modification will further reduce reliance on existing resources. Eventually (it's already happening to some degree) specific medical molecules will be grown and harvested using plants or algae. I could agree that biotech needs some degree of oversight, but I think it's benefits outweigh it's potential pitfalls and firmly believe it should be pursued with diligence.
Coming full circle, this all shows how our resource base shifts with changing technology. Fission will shift focus from coal and natural gas to uranium. Biotech makes arable land a new sort of resource (not necessarily food-related) and reduces reliance on petrochemicals which are a source of many of our modern medicines. These resources are also limited, but give us additional breathing room to continue to progress as a society. And eventually, with luck, we will find that perfect balance.
Den Beste of Starship Clueless writes about media bias and the changing status of journalists. Monday, Pete Wilson of KGO posed this question: "If a journalist uncovers information about an attack before the attack, should they do something about it or wait, and report on the subsequent events?" Some time ago, Peter Jennings (yak) and Mike Wallace (ditto) said a journalists job is to report and they would be derelict in their duty to report the pending attack. They are journalists before Americans. Their loyalty to America does not extend so far as protecting those who protect the very rights they are exercising. Nor does their humanity seem to extend so far as to protect life. Not all journalists think as do Jennings and Wallace, but to my mind there is no decision to be made.
The R Card
The R Card is a good idea. It's a ready made permission slip parents can give their under-17 kids to get them into R rated movies. I suppose the theory is that parents will talk with their kids and know if they are mature enough to be allowed to watch R rated films. I approve.
The Day After Tomorrow
I've not seen it (nor will I) but The Day After Tomorrow hit theatres. It goes in the category of The Core. It is too obviously ridiculous to be worth watching. I didn't watch the Core, because I couldn't stomach the foolishness. In The Core the earth's core stops spinning and the magnetic field collapses allowing cosmic radiation to scorch the planet. The only way to fix the problem is to tunnel to the center of the earth and detonate nuclear weapons to make it start rotating again. I'm a huge science fiction fan but that's beyond my ability to suspend belief. I get the same feeling from The Day After Tomorrow previews. Global warming changes the earth's weather patterns to such extremities that a gigantic tidal wave swamps New York City and subsequently freezes (in a matter of days or weeks as far as I can tell). Please. At least in actual science fiction there is an attempt to make up some sort of explanation that helps suspend belief, like a giant alien death beam or an inter-dimensional space anomaly. I hereby create a new genre of film. It shall be known as Science Fraud. The Core, and The Day After Tomorrow are the first inductees.
Random Thoughts
A few thoughts about some other movies. I saw Van Helsing Sunday. It was a fun movie. Lots of nifty gadgets and weapons and how can you go wrong with Wolfman, Dracula and Frankenstein? But why are vampire minions always sexy women and never sexy guys?
Has anybody seen Ronin? What was in the damned brief case?
