My Trip To Namibia; or, I Drank The Water And Lived To Write The Blog Post

I just got home from my week-and-a-half long sojourn in Namibia, a "developing" country in southern Africa. I was visiting my sister who lives and works there as a primary school teacher. Man, what a ride.



The flight from New Hampshire to Windhoek (the capital and largest city of Namibia) took about 24 hours spread over two and a half days. I can't sleep on airplanes or in airports, so I got to the lodge drunk with fatigue. A state, by the way, excellent for your first hours of driving on the left side of the road and navigating an unfamiliar city and country.



English is a foreign language for Namibians, though it is the official language of the country. They won their independence from South Africa not even two decades ago now, and they chose English to be the official language because it was politically neutral. The form of English they do speak, though, is more akin to the British variety than the American variety ("gas" is "petrol", "trucks" are "lorries", etc).

It is odd to realize that you're the one with the strange accent.

My sister managed to effect an accent she called "Namlish". It was not quite the local accent, but it was local enough to make it easier for her to be understood. They use "must" as Americans would use "should" or "ought to". They use "clever" as we use "smart". They use present progressive tense to confer a state of being instead of a temporal action ("We are having no money" instead of "We have no money".) And many words are monophthongized ("no" is pronounced closer to /nɔː/ instead of /noʊ/). "It is true" is said a lot as Americans might say "really".

No, really!

I tried to mimic this a little bit, but the 7th graders in the class I taught still looked at me like I was speaking Klingon.

I also took a 5th-grade class in Khoekhoegowab, the native language of the Damara. It has nasalization and clicks, which English does not generally use semantically. My attempt to pronounce sentences was met with laughter from the rest of the class. However, the language appears to be largely isolating, like English, with a low morpheme-to-word ratio and a few bounded morphemes to convey semantics. Like English. Word order plays a heavy role in meaning. In that respect, it is a simple language for an English speaker to learn, but not to speak.

When I was walking home from school one day, I was followed by a group of girls who didn't seem to speak English. They held their hands up to their eyes. It wasn't until they pointed to the camera on my belt that I understood: they wanted me to take their picture. And promptly following, they wanted to look at their picture. This was a famously popular occupation among the children of the town (and the drunk men). Most of my thousand or so pictures are of random kids throwing gang signs to the camera.



Before I went, people warned me about traveling to a developing country. Common admonitions were to carry a travel wallet to hide my money from theft, to pretend I was Canadian to minimize anti-Americanism, and to avoid the tap water.

I didn't carry a travel wallet. In fact, I felt remarkably safe in most places. The primary dangers I faced seemed to be venomous snakes and a corresponding weak medical infrastructure to care for snake bites; drunk drivers; and other tourists.

Heavy taxes and a culture of weak property rights discourages industry and hard work. Not just in Namibia, but everywhere. But Namibians know that any money they make will simply be taxed away from them, and any money they save will simply be mooched by friends and family. So they have little incentive to do more than the bare minimum. Nevertheless, they do seem to prefer entrepreneurship in the form of carving Makalani nuts with your name on them and selling them to white folk for obscene prices.

Be very careful when loitering. A stranger that asks your name will have it carved into a nut before you realize it.

And I didn't pretend I was Canadian. Everyone assumed I was South African or German (or French or British). And when they found out my true nationality, they were more interested in Barack Obama and California than whatever nonsense the Federal Government is up to today.

It was a fantastic trip. My sister was an excellent tour guide and hostess. The locals I met were friendly and rude and entertaining and bored and curious. Just like humans are everywhere. The desert landscape has a dangerous beauty to it; it gets to you in an odd way. Driving on the left side of the road seems more natural, which is odd considering only about 25% of the world does it. I think it's how the brain works or something, driving being a right-brain activity. I don't really know.



I definitely recommend visiting if you have a vacation coming up. Plan to visit all the countries in the Southern African Development Community. Things are cheap, tourism is well-developed, its safe, and it is gorgeous territory.

And yes, I drank tap water in all the various cities and towns I visited, and I didn't get sick.

It is true.

Wood chucks

How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

There's a question I never considered important at all, but I think about it from time to time. I've not been able to come up with an answer. My primary limitation to answering this question, I think, is my complete ignorance about what a wood chuck is.

It's a question that sometimes weighs on my mind, but often when I'm not in a place to look up the answer. Sitting at stop lights, for example, is when I frequently think about this.

My first thought is that a wood chuck would be some manner of non-human animal. Probably a rodent. Maybe related to a beaver.

But there really is no information in the tongue twister to actually indicate that it is, in fact, an animal. I thought maybe it was related to a beaver because of the "wood" part of "wood chuck", but a closer examination of the text suggests that a wood chuck cannot actually chuck wood. So the name must be inaccurate. Kind of like how fire ants can never really seem to get a fire going.

Another possibility is that a wood chuck is an occupation. Presumably someone who throws around bits of wood for a living. I could see that. Probably a union job.

"Yeah, I'm the Wood Chuckers Potentate of the Federated West Virginia Chuckers. This here's my son, the lieutenant chucker of the FWVC. My dad is retired now, but he's still the Grand Chucker of the Chucker's Lodge. Heck, even my mother was a chucker. Back in the Great War, she used to chuck wood while my dad was shipped off to Europe. The government was rationing at that time, so she piled what wood she had into a big heap in her back yard and chucked it from one pile into another and back again. It was how she helped defeat the Kaiser. Of course, chucking wood isn't just an American occupation. The Germans have their own wood chucks. They call them the Plankenhuft."

That seems unlikely to me.

A third, somewhat more remote, possibility is that a wood chuck is a form of tree steak. You can't call it a "steak", though, because everyone would think you mean "stake". As in:

"Hey, fellas, I got me some nice birch steaks at the market today!"
"Nice. Are you going to grill them, or stab a vampire with them?"
"Know of any vampires that need stabbing?"
"No."
"Then I'll probably grill them. How do you like yours? Rare? Medium?"
"Well done."
"These steaks are birch; I can't turn them into ash."

Because that would be a union job.

Even if we had some way to figure out what, exactly, a wood chuck is, the original question is still unanswerable because it does not specify a duration.

So I'm going to assume the answer to the tongue twister is 7. A wood chuck can chuck 7 chuck units of wood per unit time.

Typhoid Mary

As I frequently do while I try to avoid working, I was thinking about Typhoid Mary today. Mary Mallon was a cook in New York City during the turn of the 20th Century. In many of the places she worked, the patrons and residents came down with typhoid. All together, she infected over 53 people, three of whom died.

Mallon in quarantine.

She was the first identified healthy carrier of the disease, probably infected by her mother during pregnancy. She died of pneumonia in quarantine. During an autopsy, live typhoid bacteria were found in her organs.

I've never really wondered much about typhoid as a disease until recently. I took some typhoid vaccine pills in preparation for a trip to Africa that I'll be taking in a few months. Sometimes, you can experience symptoms of a disease when you get vaccinated for that disease, so I looked up the symptoms of typhoid on Wikipedia to see if they matched some weird symptoms I've been experiencing lately, or if my symptoms were the result of one of the other vaccines.

From Wikipedia:

Typhoid fever is an illness. Common worldwide, it is transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces from an infected person.

Hold up. What was that last bit?

How on earth is it possible for a bacteria to be viable through humans with a transmission vector of feces? Humans are not supposed to be coprophagic animals. At least not traditionally, a tradition I plan to stick with.

It kinda makes me wonder a bit about what kind of cook Mary Mallon was. Clearly, not an anal-retentive kind.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's, not many people were all that obsessed with sanitation, but I would think they'd have enough sense to keep the output separated from the input. Garbage out, garbage in, apparently.

In restaurants (and most other open-to-the-public businesses), they always have those signs in the restrooms: "Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning To Work". Is this a legally required posting? It must be. Either that or its some kind of oddly advised PR for the restaurant to reassure their patrons about their typhoid-free cooks.

Also, those signs tend to show an illustration of disembodied hands washing themselves. I'm guessing if you have to instruct someone to wash their hands after using the bathroom, chances are pretty good that person does not have a working knowledge of microbiology. Rinsing your hands off does little more than get the chunks. What you need to do is give your hands, fingers, and nails a thorough bactericidal scrubbing. Like you see surgeons do on TV.

I've never seen any employee roll up their sleeves and get down to the germ-killing business at the sink.

The symptoms of typhoid include death. And other things. But mostly it's the death thing that I'm concerned about. I worry from time to time about a sudden acute onset of that symptom.

The word "typhoid" comes from another disease called "typhus", which in turn was named from the Greek word typhos which means "hazy", due to the stupor experienced by the patient.

Stupor. That sounds more like the symptoms I've been experiencing. That and nausea, but I think the nausea comes from reading the Wikipedia article about typhoid. The stupor, likely, is the result of my work and my efforts to find things to distract me from work.

Things like writing blog posts.

I should do this more often.

The New Mario

For the past several days, I've been playing New Super Mario Bros. This is the first video game I've played in years and years. (Well, I guess I played Guitar Hero once or twice at a party last year, but other than that ...)

It's an interesting game. Nintendo has decided to return their flagship product to its side-scrolling roots. But gameplay has retained much of what Mario has acquired along the way, including butt-stomping, triple jumps, and wall jumps.

Overall, it's quite an entertaining game. I'm not sure if it beats Super Mario Bros. 3 for my favorite of the series, but it's not bad at all.

My favorite part of the game is the dancing Goombas. Yeah, the Goombas dance to the sound track. And so do the Koopas. It's quite adorable, and, frankly, a nice touch from the game's designers. Well done, sirs. Well done.

I've taken the liberty of creating a video of a dancing Goomba. I apologize for the low quality, but you'll get the picture.



Anyone who has played Mario knows that it is not a very intense game. There are no really scary bits. It's not a deep plot line. The monsters consist of shy ghosts and terpsichorean mushrooms.

Nevertheless, the night after I started playing, I had vivid and terrifying dreams. And every time I've slept since starting to play this game on a regular basis, I've had similar dreams. I wouldn't call them nightmares. But they are quite vivid. Vivid and intense. But I think I've covered that already.

I wonder if videos games stimulate a part of the brain that is not normally used by humans. Or at least by this human who does relatively little princess rescuing in real life.

I see these commercials all the time for video games that are designed to exercise the brain. I've researched them, and none has much—if any—scientific backing to support its claims about improving mental processes.

I doubt it could hurt, although at least one study has suggested that test scores have declined after playing these games on a regular basis for a given period.

Most of these games seem to be based around mathematical puzzles. But I do math all day. What I need is something to stimulate my right brain. At least something that's not marijuana. I don't like illegal drugs due to a lack of quality control. And the lack of legality. But mostly the quality control thing. But if you read about the purview of the right brain, it reads like a hippy's resume.

We're all one with the universe, man. It's all a mystic energy field surrounding us and binding us together, maan.

One begins to wonder if midichlorians dance to the sound track, too.

Next up, I plan to check out a game called Hotel Dusk: Room 215, which has been depicted as an interactive mystery novel. It looks like something I'll enjoy. I'll post a review when I get it.

But first there be krumping mushrooms that need to be butt-stomped.

The liberty boobs

Recently in Keene, NH, a woman named Cassidy (pictured) walked topless down public streets to protest laws that say, I assume, that women are not allowed to walk topless down public streets. This protest was sanctioned, as much as such things are possible, by the liberty movement (or at least various factions therein) in the area.

Cassidy was arrested for her actions by a very squicked-looking cop.

Interestingly, this protest has sparked a great deal of controversy in the liberty movement. The controversy part isn't the interesting part; we'd riot over pizza toppings if it didn't get in the way of our beer drinking. The interesting part is that the controversy is all wrong.

"It will make us look bad", they cry.

No, it won't. We already look bad, just like every other group composed primarily of socially inept and mostly overweight males. And this had nothing to do with that. If anything it makes us look better; everything is improved by a pair of twins strutting around town.

Of course, most of the people in the liberty movement are frightened little piglets that complain when anyone does anything stronger than writing a tepidly worded essay about the Fed for Lew Rockwell.

The liberty movement is based on the premise of private property, starting with your own body and extending to the effects of that body's labor (both good and bad). So hypothetically, the liberty movement people should have no problems with, say, a restaurant banning topless women. In fact, many restaurants have a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy (except in Hawaii).

So if, say, YouTube wanted to ban videos of this event, they would be perfectly allowed to, right?

And along comes YouTube, which pulls the videos of Cassidy walking around the streets of Keene topless. The videos are all shot in a way to avoid showing nipples. Female nipples. All the topless guys around her, we get full frontal. But Cassidy's nipples are more or less delicately cropped out of the frame, mostly. I know. I checked.

And the movement loses their shit.

So here's where I get confused.

It's not about public property because YouTube is private property. Is this protest supposed to change the minds of Americans about non-sexual nudity? Americans are unusually hung up about nudity. I agree, at least partially, that that needs to change. Moms who take pictures of their toddlers bathing are not producing child porn. Guys who urinate behind trees on the side of the road do not belong on the sex offenders lists. There is nothing sexual or pornographic about nudity, and if you don't believe that, go to your nearest public location (like a mall) and just imagine what each person there would look like naked.

It's going to take you a while to scrub from your mind that image of the two-ton woman in spandex capris waddling her way down the sidewalk.

But if changing America's views on nudity is the point of the protest, why weren't the guys bottomless?

Perhaps the protest is an attempt to restore gender equality in the laws. Men are allowed to walk around topless, apparently, in Keene, whereas women are not.

However, precedent has shown that the liberty movement's MO in gender equality is to increase the size of government. I present the case of gay marriage as an example. Instead of lobbying against government marriage, the liberty movement's horse in this race is to increase the size of government by giving it power to legislate gay marriage. It's a bit odd, you might think, but I've come to realize that the vast majority of people in the liberty movement are not deep thinkers.

If the purpose of the protest was to promote gender equality, then certainly requiring men to wear shirts in public would achieve the same goal. And judging by the man-boobs in the video, perhaps it would be a goal that the normal folks would get behind.

So it's not about nudity, and it's not about equality. Which leaves pretty much just a publicity stunt, a scheme by a bunch of lonely guys to convince some poor girl to take their shirt off in front of them, or an attempt to get a funny video of a really uncomfortable cop arresting an 80-lbs girl.

It's hard for me to say what the purpose of this event was. It looked like Cassidy and the police officer were having quite a vigorous discussion in the video, but I watched the whole thing on mute. I, uh, didn't want to interrupt my iTunes play list. Apple put a lot of work into Genius, dammit.

My very favorite part of this story is that Cassidy was awarded her brass balls for her actions.

So props to you, Cassidy, for standing up for something you believe in. I don't get it, but I don't have to. It's a free country, sort of, and that's the wonderful thing about freedom: the ability to amicably disagree, like grown ups are supposed to do.

Maybe that's the point.

I guess I'll just have to watch the videos again and find out.

Dating in the Dark

There is a new reality/dating show on ABC called Dating in the Dark. It's an interesting show. The premise, as you might be able to infer, is that the contestants only get to meet in a darkroom, so they don't get to see each other during the majority of their dates. At the end of the show, they get to see one person revealed and then choose if they want to start a relationship with this person.

One might think that this would be a good morality lesson about how compatible people can be regardless of physical appearance.

However, it seems to be the case that people are hopelessly shallow.

For example, the first thing that the women say upon meeting the men is "can I feel your hair?".

Yeah, because when you're selecting a life partner, things like trustworthiness, the ability to be a loving father, and being responsible—those are all important. But the truly important thing is to make sure that this man has fluffy hair.

And the men are just as bad. They can have an excellent connection with a woman, but when the lights come up and the woman is a brunette, they say things like "well, I don't really care for brunettes." Or, "well, I don't think she's really all that pretty."

Again, when you're selecting a life partner, having a pretty woman on your arm is an ego trip for about 30 seconds when you walk into the restaurant and all the other patrons ooh and ahh over her like she's a new boat. But then you have to spend the next few hours talking to this woman. I don't care how pretty she is, that thirty seconds of ego glory is not going to be worth two hours of talking to a nitwit.

I can't say that physical appearance isn't important at all. There are aspects of one's appearance that are under one's control. But hair follicles and cheek bones are not such aspects.

Over all, I'd rather spend time with a woman who was brilliant and funny and adventurous and deeply philosophical but who looked like a gargoyle than spending time with a woman who looks like Megan Fox but has a personality remanence of that sand you always find under carpets when you rip them up. Not to say I wouldn't like both, but if I had to choose.

An interesting thing, though, is that people who are pretty—men and women—live in a different world from the rest of you. Sociological experiments and meta-analyses have shown that humans tend to be kinder and more generous and trusting of pretty people than average-looking people. Pretty women tend to have more children than average-looking women. Pretty people make more money on average and have more job opportunities.

So there definitely seems to be some kind of built-in, evolutionary process for humans to prefer pretty people at the cost of substance.

However, there is also a built-in, evolutionary process for humans to consume as much fat and sugar as they can. But the sciences of nutrition and medicine tell us that eating unmitigated amounts of those substances is bad for us.

Likewise, the science of philosophy tells us that, while pretty people might get the juices flowing, when it comes to choosing a life partner, cheek bones and skin pigments are bad criteria.

However, not all hope is destroyed by Dating in the Dark. In one of the first episodes, the man rejected the woman, who was very pretty, because of an irreconcilable personality difference. (In this case, their religions were incompatible.)

And one wonders why the women wear lipstick in the darkroom. Unless it's glow in the dark, it's not really going to do anything for your blind date.

Thinking about thoughts

I was sitting here thinking about topics I could blog about, and I had a scary thought: I think I've already thought all my thoughts. I've already spent my life-time quota of thoughts. Now with nothing more going on in my head, I'm afraid I'll be relegated to watching sports and voting.

I tried hard to come up with something to think about for this post. I shut my eyes and squeezed out a thought. Here it is:

Having a mosquito bite on your crack must be really irritating.

Not my best, but let's work with that.

Of course, the natural question one might first consider is how one might get a mosquito bite on that particular region of the body. I've brainstormed a variety of scenarios and come up with the top two most likely reasons: (1) a major coin slot problem during a picnic; and, (2) a nudist colony's krumping party.

That gets me wondering: do nudists spray each other with Off! in that region?

Bend over and spread 'em while humming the Free Willy soundtrack, love, because here it comes!

Some people might need the Deep Woods Off! instead of the regular stuff. I'm just sayin'.

Maybe deet- or citronella-laced toilet paper?

I don't think they sell citronella-laced toilet paper. And that, to me, is a huge market failure. Which leads nicely back to my point: screw the banks, we need more regulation in the two-ply sectors of the economy.

And thus, having run out of things to think, I would like to take this opportunity to announce my candidacy for Congress. I promise to invest public money into the R&D of citronella-laced toilet paper.

Now one might suggest we also fund R&D into a high-SPF toilet paper, but of course everyone knows the sun don't shine there. I think. But I've run out of thoughts, so who knows.

We should fund a research project to find out.

Proud Moments From School

My family and I had been hiking in a state park one day. I read a sign that described the age of the trees (probably the California Redwoods, though my memory doesn't specify). The sign used the word "approximately". So I learned that word that day.

Later, in school, I wrote a paper, and I used my new word "approximately". That paper was held up by the teacher as the standard she wanted in her class.

In high school, we were asked to write a story about a family member. I wrote the story about my dog, but I anthropomorphized her and played it up as if she was my sister.

When I read it in front of the class, most of my classmates didn't catch on, though it grew increasingly obvious from the narrative that the character was a dog (due to the activities in which we were engaged, like playing fetch).

The teacher caught on rapidly, and she loved the twist I added to the assignment, once again holding the paper up as the benchmark for creativity in her writing class.

In middle school, my writing teacher was this beautiful young woman on whom I immediately developed a crush. We did a lot of fiction writing in that class, and we read "controversial" books like The Giver.

In one particular assignment, we had to write a short story of some length, and the only parameter was that it must have a conclusion that was not "and then I woke up".

I wrote a medieval political drama of some kind, with kings and knights and riding gloriously into battle. I don't recall if we shared our stories with the class, but I do remember getting good marks on that paper.

Nothing quite like getting praise on a story from a teacher you have a crush on. It is interesting to think that I am currently older than she was when I was taking her class.

It is also interesting to notice that all of my fond memories from school have to do with writing and not science or math or sports (though I do remember one time making a model of the ocean floor using wheat flour, which turned out looking more like sand than the white flour we were supposed to use, but that was an accident).

Why we record

I don't know why I record audiobooks for LibriVox. I don't get paid for it. It's a lot of tedious work trimming and editing the files. There is the endless frustration that inhabits all computer work in fiddling with settings, accidentally deleting hours of work in one button press, and old-school software crashes.

It has its moments, though. It's fun to read the old stories out loud, as they were meant to be read. Trying to power your way through a tongue twister and finally conquering it always gives me a brief squeal of elation. Coming up with character voices on the spot, only to find out a few chapters later that you are dead accurate with your choice.

These are all positive aspects.

And let's not forget the awesome LibriVox community. I've never met a more up-beat, cheerful clump of people on the Internet. Our forums are one of the few troll-free places on the Internet. This blog is another such place, though that's just because I have such low traffic that I have to do my own trolling, and I just don't have time for that these days.

Noob!

Heeey, don't make me come over there.

Anyway, I don't do it for the lavish praise. In fact, I don't think very many people listen to my recordings at all. A few do, but probably not many. According to the Internet Archive page where LibriVox files are hosted, The Castle of Otranto, my first and so-far only completed solo work, has been downloaded over 2,300 times.

Additionally, there are two reviews:

I love this story, and your reading of it made me enjoy it a thousand times more than I ever would have before. I loved your voices a great deal! Thank you! :)

and

This is considered the first gothic novel. It may not be the best one, but I found it entertaining and educational, because this is where many gothic writers got their ideas. The reader for this, Great Plains, does a fantastic job, and the main reason I’m giving this a five. Thank you, Great Plains and other readers for your hard work.

Since I have only one mother last time I hosted a nose count, I have to assume at least one of the above reviews is genuine plaudits for my work.

That's kinda cool. Thank you, dear reviewers, for the feedback.

However, if you want to know why I record, you'll have to read a message I posted in the LibriVox forums a few days ago called "LibriVox nostalgia":

When I was a kid, my dad got deployed to Desert Storm for about 6 months. I was probably about 6 or 7 at the time, so 6 months may as well been a hundred years. But he would read stories onto tapes and then mail them to me. I would listen to them while going to bed.

I often think about that when I edit my LibriVox recordings because my voice, intonation, accent, etc, all sound very much like my dad's did (or at least how I remember it). It's a good memory. Makes editing much more enjoyable.

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Motivation

I don't feel motivated to write in my blog much anymore. I don't know why that is. There are a lot of activities I do in spurts of manic gusto, only to lose interest a week or two later. This blog is one such activity.

When I sit down to write, in an attempt to power through the writer's block using all the various techniques they teach you in writers school, I feel an intense and overwhelming lethargy. A feeling of dread and fatigue so powerful, all I want to do is take a nap.

I wonder why this happens.

Of course, philosopher that I be, I do have a hypothesis.

But I don't really feel like typing it all out right now, so instead I'm going to leave you with this picture of a moose.

The Scary Pirates

It seems that the latest media darling boogie man is pirates! From CNN,
New pirate attack thwarted in Gulf of Aden:

NATO forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden foiled a pirate attack on a Norwegian tanker early Sunday morning, a NATO spokesman said.
The Canadian navy's HMCS Winnipeg scared off pirates attacking a Norwegian tanker Sunday, NATO says.

Pirates attempted to capture the MV Front Ardennes, but fled when they spotted other foreign vessels, Commander Chris Davies said.

There's nothing scarier than pirates. Except perhaps pirates that can be frightened away at the first sign of a Canadian frigate.

I gotta say that this whole new boogie man is coming a bit too soon. I'm still scared of immigrants, terrorists, Iraqis, corporations, North Korea, pedophiles, and Internet file sharing. I live in terror of all these ominous threats, and now I get to add pirates to that list.

Arrr!

I barely got over my fear of communists by the time the twin towers fell.

I wonder why these pirates are pirating. It doesn't seem like a viable source of long-term income. And it violates private property rights.

There seems to be some tenuous evidence that the pirates are actually a private "coast guard" to protect the Somali coast, which is being exploited by the navies of other nations for dumping refuse, which is destroying fish stocks and threatening a major sector of the Somali economy.

From The Huffington Post, "You Are Being Lied to About Pirates":

[...]

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

[...]

(Emphasis added.)

It seems like Somalia's biggest liability is not their lack of government. It's the presence of Western governments.

But we can't worry about that. We have terrorists and pedophiles ... and pirates! ... to fret over.

Bible stories that suck

It's Passover. I've always hated the story of Passover, so I thought it would be a good time to share a couple of Bible stories that really suck. Starting with ...

Passover

The Israelites are slaves in Egypt and Moses is trying his level best to get them out. But dammit if Pharaoh isn't being a real prick about everything. So God unleashed a can of plagues on the land. When Pharaoh still didn't get the message, God let his attack Angel off the leash to go slaughter all the first born children in the land, except the Israelites as long as they painted their door post with the blood of a lamb or kid (baby goat, I assume, not their first born's blood, though I wouldn't put it past God).

As a first born who was raised with this story, I was scared by this story for several reasons. One:

Exodus 7:13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said. (14) And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.

Pharoah was all set to give in to Moses's demands, but God was all like "Nuh-uh. I got more bad-ass God stuff to show off." In fact, God sent Moses into the situation knowing ahead of time that He was going to pull this stunt:

Exodus 4:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

It seems like his whole plan was some elaborate excuse to knock-off all the Egyptian first born children.

It scared me to think that God would take my life due to the assholish actions of some distant ruler of the land I live in. Most of the Egyptians probably didn't even know for sure if they were in Pharoah's land. They sure as hell didn't vote for this fellow.

Abraham and Issac

God wanted to test the faith of his servant Abraham. Frequently that whole "omniscience" thing fails him, so it is understandable. So in Genesis 22, God commands that Abraham sacrifices his only son Issac to him. And Abraham said, "yeah, alright," and the next morning he loaded his donkey with firewood and his son, and they walked up the mountainside to the alter.

Issac, not being a complete dumbass, knew what was up. They were going to make a burnt offering to the Lord, but they didn't have any animals with them. But he went along with it because, I assume, living with a father who would be willing to slaughter his son probably wasn't a very happy childhood.

In any event, God played this one up to the last second. Just before Abraham struck his only son with the knife, an Angel swooped down and grabbed his hand and pointed out a convenient ram in the nearby bushes.

And Abraham went on to become the father of nations because of his stupifyingly blind obedience to the mad ravings of a bipolar deity.

I was just a young child when I first heard this story at Sunday School. That's all I really need to say about that. What kind of psychopaths would tell this kind of a story to a young kid? I came home in tears and asked my mother if she would do this to me if God asked her to, to which she gave some kind of foggy answer about having "different kinds of love" for me and for God.

Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis 19. God informs Abraham that he's planning to destroy Sodom because those folks are like totally giving Him a creepy vibe. Upon hearing this news, Abraham sat around with God all afternoon having the following conversation:

Abraham: You gonna destroy the whole city?
God: Yup.
Abraham: What about the righteous?
God: What about them?
Abraham: You gonna destroy them with the city?
God: That's a fallacy. There are no righteous in that city.
Abraham: But what if there are. Let's say there are fifty righteous in the city. Will you destroy it?
God: No. If there are fifty righteous in the city, I will not destroy it.
Abraham: But what if there are only forty-five righteous in the city. Will you destroy it?
God: No. If there are forty-five righteous in the city, I will not destroy it.
Abraham: But what if there are only forty righteous in the city. Will you destroy it?
God: No. If there are forty righteous in the city, I will not destroy it.
Abraham: But what if there are only thirty righteous in the city. Will you destroy it?
God: No. If there are thirty righteous in the city, I will not destroy it.
Abraham: Ah-ha! But what if there are only twenty righteous in the city. Will you destroy it?
God: No. If there are twenty righteous in the city, I will not destroy it.
Abraham: Yes, but what if there are only ten righteous in the city. Will you dsetroy it?
God: No. If there are ten righteous in the city, I will not destroy it.

At which point, Abraham's IT guy tells him about binary searches.

But it's not until the next chapter that we find out why Abraham was so worried about the exact number of righteous in the city: his nephew Lot had a loft in the Sodom metro.

Now much later on, God sends that whole Jesus character to Earth to preach this bit about "love thy neighbor", but for right now, the plot calls for Abraham to only care about his own blood. Screw the thousands of Sodomites who are blissfully unaware of the coming weapon of mass deitystruction.

So Lot hangs out at the gates of Sodom all day and meets a pair of God's angels. Presumably, this was around nighttime, because Lot is in a huge hurry to get the angels back to his house even though they want to hit up the Sodom nightlife. And here comes the part of the story you might be familiar with:

19:4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

19:5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

19:6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

19:7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

First of all, let's look at the line "that we may know them". The Hebrew word "to know" in this case means, shockingly, "to know". It could be used to mean "to know" in the Biblical sense. Or it could be used to mean "to know" in the police investigation sense.

The latter definition is much more likely.

You have this town with gates, so they're probably very suspicious of outsiders. The town cops probably have eyes on Lot's house because, well, Lot is a resident alien and none of the Sodomites are too sure about him yet. And here he comes with two strange men into the city.

It's possible that they might have gotten a spontaneous homosexual urge for angel ass, but most likely they were just investigating.

But here's the good part. The "righteous" man in this story, Lot, jumps right to the smutty and offers the cops a bribe in the form of his virgin daughters. Do you suppose the daughters volunteered for this assignment? Either way, it's clear that the rights of women in the eyes of God's righteous man don't matter at all because if they did, they would have been spelled out in the story.

And finally, instead of hanging out in the city with his family, Lot gathers them up and pulls all ten righteous people out of town so God can have room to fire-and-brimstone them like the loving creature that He is.

Bathsheba

King David was chilling on the sunporch one day when he spies on Bathsheba skinny-dipping in yonder river. She must have had all the right curves, because:

David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.--2 Samuel 11

Well, as it turned out, she was already married and she got pregnant.

But, see, David is a righteous man of God, so he did what all righteous men of God seem to do in these situations: he recalled Bathsheba's husband, Uriah the Hittite, and tried to get him to sleep with his wife so he would think the kid was his. But dammit if Uriah wasn't really in the mood, so David switched to plan B: send Uriah to the front lines where he would almost certainly be killed.

God punishes David for this craven act of righteousness by killing the child. Yeah. Once again, take it out on the innocent children caught up in all this.

But when that wasn't enough, God let David live a long life until 1 Kings chapter 1 rolls along and "his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat."

Ouch.

Cuddled by a comely virgin for warmth.

Harsh.

Joseph

Jacob's favorite kid, Joseph, is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and eventually, he ends up in Egypt as the second-in-command. Pharaoh's been having some messed up dreams, and he heard that Joseph was good at interpreting dreams, so that's how they met. Joseph, being the cunning sort, saw an opportunity and claimed that Pharoah's dreams were talking about a coming famine.

That's a no-lose situation for Joseph. If there is a famine, he can claim to have predicted it. If there is no famine, he can claim that his warning effected positive change.

Pharoah, knowing how to recognize good help, hires on the dream-interpreting slave as Egypt's minister of the interior and agriculture. Joseph promptly sets about nationalizing all the farms, just like the Soviet Union and Communist China would do a few millennia down the road.

And sure enough, in the first self-fulfilling prophecy in all of fiction, Joseph's government bureaucracy caused a massive famine.

Which, incidentally, led to the Israelites coming to Egypt for food and being enslaved by the Egyptians. So God sent Moses to talk to Pharoah, but first, he hardened Pharoah's heart ...

The Brazillian Wax Issue

New Jersey was considering a law to ban brazilian waxing in the state. They have since scrapped the idea. But it does provide me with a nice chance to address this controversial issue.

For those of you who are not familiar with this issue, there are basically two sides: those who believe waxing should be banned (the "pro-pubes" side), and those who believe in a woman's right to modify her own body hair (the "pro-sphinx" side).

Traditionally, it is the conservative, religious types who believe waxing ought to be outlawed, often with exceptions for "health of the woman" concerns. They often cite various Bible verses supporting their positions that waxing is immoral and dangerous, like Isaiah 3:17:

Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.

And Lamentations 1:8

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

And their favorite, 1 Timothy 5:11

But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;

Though in that last case, I don't think the author is using the word "wax" in the same context.

There are many others versus waiting to be taken out of context. Although I'm not religious, I do tend to agree with the anti-waxing crowd. New Jersey wanted to ban brazilian waxing because two women were injured, and we just can't abide that. We need to live in a world that is perfectly, 100%, guaranteed safe. It's for the children.

Although, I tend to distance myself from the anti-waxing side of the issue because anti-wax extremists have been known to bomb salons.

In one case, several people were injured in the bombing, and one cosmetologist was killed. While tragic, though, you have to consider how many waxings that cosmetologist might have performed during her (probably "her") career. Hundreds? Thousands? How many women might have gotten an infection? At least one. And that's one too many.

On the other hand, if New Jersey banned waxing, that would just drive it into the black market. And I think we can all agree that that's the last thing we need: back-alley waxing salons, probably run by pimps.

I can already hear your objections: "But Daniel, why can't the women just go to neighboring states to get their waxes?"

Well, that's possible. But too many women getting waxes are minors, so they would have to get parental permission. But that could be dangerous in the case of abusive parents. And in any case, laws like this spread. It's just a matter of time before Pennsylvania and New York have similar bans in place.

Either way, New Jersey has reconsidered its consideration. But the debate isn't over. The issue is still divisive. And in this time of wars and disease and economic armageddon, I think it's important that we remember to focus on the truly trivial things like this.

From abclocal.go.com:

"It's a woman's body. If she wants to get it completely waxed then that's up to her, it's her choice to do that, so I don't know why it would be illegal," said Carol Betting of Cherry Hill.

Because it's unimportant, that's why.

How To Kill Guns In America

The United States military is no longer going to sell the used brass to civilian bullet manufacturers. This has caused the supply of ammunition to plummet. Add to that a general "bank run"-like panic of people buying guns and ammo because of Comrade Barack's new anti-gun administration. So increased demand and plummeting supply. That makes for a huge spike in ammunition prices.

But the Dems are going about this all wrong. Increased demand means increased profit means increased motivation for more manufacturers to get into the game. Sure, you can try to regulate it, but that's just like throwing a boulder into a river. The water of the free market will just navigate around it somehow. It always does.

However, it occurs to me that the reason the Great Depression lasted so long was mostly because of price controls (and its cousin, wage controls). If the Dems really want to kill guns in America, price controls. Don't try to make bullets expensive.

For example, right now .30-06 ammo is $1.20 per round. Two years ago, it was $0.20/round. It's six times more expensive now. If a manufacturer can make a profit selling a .30-06 round at 20¢, imagine the profit margin when they can sell it at $1.20.

No, price controls. All bullets, regardless of caliber, must cost no more than, say, 35¢/round. As always, when price controls are enacted, shortages result. Do the same thing with guns. No gun can cost more than, say, $500 (except Mosin-Nagant, which shouldn't cost more than $35 :-) This will effectively kill guns in America because there will be no profit motive to manufacture and sell them, regardless of demand and 2nd Amendment, and all that.

(On the other hand, that will affect the law enforcement agencies and military, too, but who cares. They won't need guns if no one else has guns.)

Just trying to help the cause of tyranny. Seems to be the thing to do these days, and I'm nothing if not a joiner!

The Stripper Tax

They tax food. They tax shelter. And now they're taxing love. From the New York Post, "Stripper Tax Is Hard To 'Bare'":

By BRENDAN SCOTT

ALBANY - Call it an un-cover charge.

A Brooklyn assemblyman introduced a bill yesterday that would require patrons to pay the state $10 every time they visit a strip club or topless joint.

Felix Ortiz, a Democrat, said the flesh fee could raise as much as $500 million for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and child prostitution.

States have increasingly turned to the adult-entertainment industry to help close budget gaps in recent years.

Texas lawmakers are fighting to save a similar $5 "pole tax," which was struck down as unconstitutional by a state judge.

Gov. Paterson, facing a $14 billion budget deficit, has proposed a tax on Internet downloads that would also apply to Web porn.

"The bottom line is, we have to protect people who have been victimized by unscrupulous individuals, and we cannot continue, especially in this economy, to have government pay for everything," Ortiz said.

That last line is just unbelievable. "[W]e cannot continue [...] to have government pay for everything". Did government suddenly turn into mommy and daddy with deep pockets paying for college and rent? In fact, government doesn't pay for anything because:

Everything the state says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

Nietzsche wrote that, or so Google tells me, and he's a big name, so you know it must be accurate.

But I don't really want to get into any philosophical discussions today. I just wanted to express my outrage at a pole tax. I mean, can't our culture have something sacred? Are we going to allow the state to get its hands into everything? Maybe the bouncers will slap the iron fist away.

I like that the Texas courts ruled it unconstitutional. The Iraq War, the Drug War, gun registration and permits—all those are just fine. But tax a stripper, and woah, violating the constitution.

I have a feeling the Texan judges might be patrons of certain establishments that would have otherwise been affected by that tax.

You know the state taxes illegal drug transactions? I wonder if there are many gangsters reporting their drug deals on their 1040s. I'll bet H&R Block has a specialist on staff for just such an occasion. They can probably deduct a lot as "business expenses".

In many cities and other jurisdictions in America, a person has to report to the police station before he commits a crime. I have a feeling that such laws aren't intended to actually be followed as they are to just have more to throw at someone.

Self-righteous prosecutor: "Your Honor, the defendant is accused of raping and murdering 17 kids, and he didn't report it to the police station prior to the events!"

Gallery: "*gasp*"

Jury: "*gasp*"

Judge: "Order, order!"

Reporter outside: "It was complete pandaemonium in the court house today when the prosecution alleged that the defendant failed to report his crimes to the police station before committing them."

Later, in some leather and mahogany-covered office somewhere:

Chief of staff: "Senator, we're getting deluged with emails and phone calls about the Smith Trial."

Senator: "Remind me again."

CoS: "Smith was convicted for failing to report his crimes to the police prior to committing them."

Senator: *grasping his chest and downing a finger of scotch* "What is our Christian society coming to? It's all that MTV and Grand Theft Auto these kids are playing."

Later, in New York City:

S/RES/1875 (2009):

The Security Council,

Recalling all its previous resolutions regarding a failure for criminals to report their crimes prior to the act,

Reaffirming that such actions are like totally bogus,

Emphasizing that that's not cool, dude,

Underlining its commitment to law and order,

Welcoming this chance to further steal national sovereignty and personal freedoms,

Acting under the Charter of the United Nations,

1. Reaffirms that we are totally not down with that, man,



2. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

Reporter: "With the United Nations still debating the matter, Russia and China have allied in their firm commitment against what they are referring to as 'decadent Western capitalism'."

Much later, in a ditch in Arkansas:

Reporter: "I'm here with the 13th Mechanized. The war against the Chinese is going poorly for us. Texarkana is the last bastion of Freedom on the North American continent, thanks in large part to the impressive number of unregistered guns and ammunition buried in backyards. But it may not be enough. We keep shooting the reds, but they keep sending more over here. The lieutenant informs me that the Chinese tanks are only miles down the road now. There is nothing standing between us and them. This is the last stand for freedom. At a time like this, I can't help but recall that this all started with the Smith Trial and that heinous man's failure to report his crimes prior to committing them. If he had just reported them—what was that? What was that? I'm hearing the reports of Arkansas artillery. The lieutenant is on the radio! The reds are just over the hill. They're coming! They're—

*end of recording*

###

You see what failing to observe the rule of law can do? You who think it's okay to drive 35 in a 30 or smoke pot on the weekends or carry a gun without asking permssion—it is you who will be the ultimate downfall of civilization.

Which leads nicely back to my point, if I can be said to actually have one in this post.

In the original article, Ortiz said:

The bottom line is, we have to protect people who have been victimized by unscrupulous individuals

To which I can only say:

Hello, pot. My name is kettle.

Dialogus Denialium

Hey, m—, I've been thinking. Wanted to run some stuff by you. Remember that Facebook status line I posted recently?

'Daniel notes that you can't spell "Daniel" without "denial".'? That one?

Yeah. I've been thinking on that, and it occurs to me that there's a lot of philosophical and psychological implications in that statement.

Here we go.

Oh hush. Like any good philosophical discussion, we must first define terms. In this case, the most nebulous term is "denial". What is "denial"?

A river in Egypt?

Oh hush. What does the dictionary say?

de·ni·al (dĭ-nī'əl)
n.

1. A refusal to comply with or satisfy a request.


2. A refusal to grant the truth of a statement or allegation; a contradiction.


3. Law. The opposing by a defendant of an allegation of the plaintiff.


4. A refusal to accept or believe something, such as a doctrine or belief.


5. Psychology. An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings.


6. The act of disowning or disavowing; repudiation.


7. Abstinence; self-denial

Yeah, it seems we have three main definitions to work with: refusing the truth of a factual statement; refusing the existence of a belief; and abstinence or self-denial. All three of which I believe in this context can deal with, say, emotional states. "I am happy" is a factual statement that can be denied. It is a belief that I can refuse to hold. Or it is an emotional state I can refuse myself.

Given that, we have to define emotions. What are emotions.

A feeling or mental state effected by thoughts and events.

Is that what the dictionary says?

No, that's my own definition.

Ah, very nice. But I disagree with it. It seems to me that all emotions are based on hormones. I base this assertion not on any factual evidence I have, but simply logic and personal experience. For example, recently I've been toying around with this idea. The other night, I thought about this idea and I nearly burst into tears. The next morning, I thought about it, and I was excited and motivated. Later in the afternoon, it frustrated and upset me. Each time I thought about it, I was in a different physical state: exhausted from a long day, energized from a nice night's sleep and filled with a good breakfast, etc.

Couldn't you also say that the thoughts and processing you did about the idea influenced your state of mind from one session to the next?

Yeah, that's true. And if that was the totality of my case, I could readily agree with you. But this happens a lot to me. When I was a kid, naturally my perspective on time was skewed and emotions were not temporary states but permanent ones. As I got older, I began to realize that emotions pass with time and will return with time. It's just a natural course of our circadian rhythms and such.

But that's an argument from personal anecdote. It holds no logical validity.

That's true if I was going to use it as a premise in a logical syllogism, or if it was the basis of a philosophical theory. But I'm using it as the basis of a philosophical hypothesis, for which personal anecdote is perfectly valid.

Go on.

Well, let's talk more about emotions and the brain. What is the brain, on a fundamental level.

A mass of biological matter engaged in processing various chemical and physical processes.

Right, and what are emotions?

The brain's interpretation of various chemical and physical processes.

Right. So if emotions are basically just programs on a chemical computer, it would stand to reason that external chemical stimuli would affect the results of the program, right?

I don't know. It sounds like you're in denial about your emotions.

Oh hush.

You know, if you keep telling me to hush, I might just do it. And then where will you be.

Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry, m—.

Going back to the original topic of this discussion, which definition of "denial" did you mean when you wrote that "you can't spell 'Daniel' without 'denial'"?

I don't know. You're my unconscious. I was hoping you'd tell me.

I'm part of your unconscious. But there are a lot of us beneath these calm waves. I've no idea which one of us put this idea into your head.

So you don't know?

No.

Well, that's a bit anti-climactic.

Oh, hush.

My First Tech Demo

This past weekend, I showed off a website I'm working on. I've never done anything quite like this before, showing off a new technology. The site is still in its alpha stage, so the paint is still drying, and it shows in some places.

I was really surprised at how the convention turned out. I had no idea what to expect. I've always been on the other side of the table. So it was interesting to see things from the vendor's side.

In general, it was a positive experience. But I noticed several distinct classes of people I talked to:

• The Moochers. These people wanted the free stuff and felt obliged to waste my time by having me tell them about something they clearly didn't want to hear.



• The Geeks. These people wanted to hear all about the various technology we used on the site. And they have all kinds of brilliant suggestions about technology they're familiar with that we should employ. "Hey, you wrote this in PHP? You should try out ASP, it's like PHP but so much better because I use it and it's awesome and you should try it and let me tell you all about variable dereferencing in ASP for the next 45 minutes!" I love to hear about this kind of stuff, but that's not why I'm here. Perhaps you can save your enthusiasm for cocktail hour.



• The Overly-Enthusiastic. These people are absolutely stunned with our product and were willing to have a sex-change operation so they could have my children (this group is predominantly male).



• The Unenthused. These people want to hear my spiel, but they are woefully unresponsive. It's like talking to a brick wall. A poorly dressed, mumbling brick wall. They say that 96% of communication is non-verbal, so if you're not giving me anything but the occasional grunt, you're not giving me much to work with. If you're not interested, leave. I'm not offended.



• The Monday-Morning Quarterbacks. These people really really really like your idea, but it should be totally different. "You built a search-engine website? Nice. Can I download it and use it as mind mapping software?" Um, no. No you can't. You can however download mind mapping software and use it as mind mapping software. But generally you want to leave a search engine online and use it to search for things. That's how it works.

In general, things went very well. I had a blast talking to everyone. Even the uninterested people were useful for engendering demand. It's all about warm bodies, even the people who look like they are actively dying of boredom.

Dr. Mary Ruwart's speech at the 2009 NH Liberty Forum

I just got home from the first day of the 2009 NH Liberty Forum. There is so much cool going on, but I'll wait until the forum is over to go into that.

What I want to talk about right now is the keynote speech that Dr. Mary Ruwart gave. Dr. Ruwart is a biomedical scientist who has worked in pharmaceutical companies for decades (I assume given the context in her speech). She was around before the 1962 FDA legislation required drugs to be proven to be "safe and effective".

I'm trying to think of an awesomer word than "awesome". Really, I'd have to make one up.

I won't attempt to recreate her speech; I imagine it'll be online shortly. She went through all of the points about how drug companies operated rapidly, safely, and without patents prior to the FDA. She showed us solid evidence about how the FDA and other medical and pharmaceutical regulations are killing millions of people each year in the US alone.

And she showed us how regulations are getting worse thanks to things like CODEX, a UN attempt to regulate vitamins, which according to some statistics from Germany where these regulations are already enforced, will cause many, many, many more deaths while preventing none, and thanks to Obama's new stimulus package which will require all medical spending---public and private---to be cost effective. Translation: rationed. If you're old or infirm or otherwise not of excellent health and prognosis, you will not get health care under Obama's new plan. You will not be allowed to purchase your health care privately, domestically or abroad. You will have nowhere to go.

You will die.

As she said, this is not about sales taxes or zoning regulations or concealed carry laws. This is about your right to live.

The woman knows what she's talking about. I defy anyone to watch her speech and remain even a shred of faith in the state. If you don't become an instant anarchist after hearing her talk, you have probably committed a crime against humanity. It's that good.

She is brilliant.

I'll post a video when I find one. There were almost 1000 cameras at the speech, so I imagine I'll find it on YouTube somewhere in the near future.

I just wanted to get this bit of awesomeness down. I'll have more to report from the front lines of liberty here in the Free State as the weekend progresses.

I'm at the 2009 New Hampshire Liberty Forum

If you happen to be in Nashua, NH, stop by the Crowne Plaza Hotel and visit me at the 2009 New Hampshire Liberty Forum. I'm staffing the Alekese.com table, #17, today and tomorrow starting at 9:00 AM.

The Google Bug; or, a certain code monkey needs caffeine and sleep

We finally got the newest version of the site up and running. It looks good. It works good. We have to show it tomorrow and Saturday at a convention in Nashua.

But one thing wasn't working. The Google ads we put on the site were not showing up. I fiddled with it briefly, but I figured it was something in the Google settings that we have to flip to turn the ads on, so I ignored it.

Turns out, the ads are working just fine. I have Firefox's Adblock Plus add-on installed and turned on. Naturally, I wouldn't see the ads; they were being blocked.

Yeah.

That's a category of bug I like to call "Daniel's being a dunderhead". I wish I could say it is an uncommon variety. Alas, it tends not to be.