Random Reaction

Let a Hurricane Huff and Puff - New York Times On the Gulf Coast of Texas, Jim Hayes is building houses on concrete stilts that he says will shrug off winds of more than 130 miles an hour and will easily survive the worst hurricane flooding. Near Orlando, Fla., modest but striking cottages are being built with safe rooms and ballistic nylon storm shutters. In the Florida Panhandle, Jason Comer is putting up a village of gleaming white mansions with eight-inch concrete walls and heavy, ridged concrete roofs. Is it just me, or does this represent a special version of stupidity?  Does it occur to any of these people NOT to keep building on the coast?  Does it occur to the taxpayers that we should not be subsidizing building in the hurricane zones and floodplains, only to further subsidize the rebuilding of the houses when the disaster strikes?  Talk about a vicious circle!  [Caution: logic-based sarcasm ahead - use at the risk of penetrating your denial and hubris]  Nooooo...let's kee

WWdN: In Exile: catching up, part two http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4919866 Wil Wheaton is on the money as usual, talking about a lack of time to do everything we would like to do with our lives. I have WAY more ideas than I have time to execute. Totally agree with the practice discourse as well, both as it relates to creativity and to performance. Kung Fu is my classic example of performance. I have done martial arts on and off for years, and the value of practice is fairly obvious at the beginner level - you have to practice to learn the moves. But now that I am into traditional Shaolin Kung Fu , I am starting to understand more deeply how practice starts to bring pieces together. Practicing allows you to make moves without thinking about them, so you can then focus on learning to make the moves in a relaxed way, which improves speed, and paradoxically, power. The next step (I would imagine - we have not been taught this), is to bring your chi into your every move, which

Miles Per Cob - New York Times This article in the NY Times prompted me to write about what I think should be happening with regards to the CAFE standards.  They propose that it become the "Carbon Alternative Fuel Equivalent," which is fine, but they say that the proposed changes to the CAFE standards misses the point.  I think they are overly focused on ethanol as a solution.  We need more fuel efficient cars, period.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made this point clearly (and presciently, only months after 9/11) here .  There is not enough ethanol available to make a huge difference in our overall gas needs, as Howard Simons notes in his article on TheStreet.com:  We could run through a similar exercise with ethanol. If we distilled the entire U.S. corn crop and used none of it for human or livestock consumption, we could displace 85 days of gasoline consumption. That is not to say ethanol cannot help us in our current situation - it can.  But not nearly as much as revised CAFE st

I know Brad has quite the social conscience, what with the trips to Africa and Asia to help those less fortunate, etc. So clearly, his move to help the unlucky folks in New Orleans to get back into housing and on their feet comes from a desire to do the right thing. But (and you knew there had to be one, didn't you?) why is he focusing on rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward? My understanding is that is one of the lowest areas of the city. How is helping rebuild there helping people in the long run? If you really want to help them Brad, get them out of the hole in the ground below sea level!! While I understand the desire to help people rebuild their home, isn't it the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result? With hurricane intensity and frequency increasing, and sea level rising, can anyone make a convincing case that this is a good idea? I mean is it just me , or is this an incredible amount of human hubris that we can somehow hold back n

As much as I won't miss Tom Delay's partisan and ethically questionable politics, I wonder if it isn't indicative of a larger problem: politics and power attracts exactly the wrong personality type. That is hyper-competitive, ego-driven, monomaniacal, power-mongers. This quote from an MSNBC article illustrates my point (although I am not all that familiar with Jim Wright's personality). Jim Wright, the Democratic speaker, resigned that year after being found in violation of House conflict of interest rules. His tormentor, the Republican Newt Gingrich, became speaker in 1994 following the Republican sweep of Congress, but was forced out by his own party in 1998 following a series of investigations into alleged ethics violations. Mr DeLay, who held the number two post in the House behind speaker Dennis Hastert until he was forced to step down after a criminal indictment on money-laundering charges last year, is now the latest House leader to see his career destroyed by a

Reading this editorial in the NY Times, I was reminded of an idea that occurred to me sometime ago: why do moral values = religion? It is of course my contention that they don't, which is well illustrated in the article, but perhaps even more so by the pedophilia in the Catholic church and the other sex/money scandals involving prominent evangelists. But after the last election, which was supposedly decided by "values voters," the media in general equated them with religious people. Personally, some of the most moral people I know have nothing to do with religion. They simply care about other people, animals and the earth, and act accordingly. Religious people generally favor "traditional" values, which is all well and good as long as profession of those values is not simply a cover for behavior in direct contradiction of those values.

This is just one example of my concern of many years that it is going to be the little things that kill us. Since well before 1999, when I mentioned it to a microbiology researcher, I have been worried that the much faster lifecycle of micro-organisms, and their resultant increase in evolution speed would be very dangerous to humans. They evolve much faster than we do. It is obviously already happening with bacteria and antibiotics. And it is happening with viral diseases as well. I wonder what the anti-evolutionists think about seeing evolution happen right before our eyes. I am sure they can come up with some unprovable non-sequitur to explain it all away. That's the thing about faith-based explanations - they never have to make sense or be provable. I mean, do they think some "intelligent" designer is sitting somewhere pointing his/her magic wand at all the DNA in world and saying, "Let's mutate that one today!"? We can (and should) worry about th