233 years

The United States formed as a refuge for the world’s outcasts, where those from beyond could find sanctuary from the oppressive taxes and tyrannical laws of their ancestral homelands. The architects of the Revolution were, for the most part, rich men who sacrificed all they had or nearly that much in the hope of breaking this land away from Britain and its European political entanglements.

In the French and Indian Wars, European conflicts spilled over, through their Indian alliances, to America. Three times this happened over the course of Britain’s and France’s ‘Second Hundred Years War.’ It was the enmities established by those opposing Indian alliances in the first three wars, that caused the fourth war to begin in America, the French and Indian War. Those with a bias towards the British will say that the taxes they laid on their colonies after the French and Indian War was just payment for the military aid they sent. But from the American perspective, that aid in the fourth war was a very late repayment for not sending any military aid in the first three wars, and from that perspective the taxes that occurred afterwards were a complete insult.

As a result, the American colonies rebelled, and over the next century became a nation that was the envy of the world.

Now, eleven score and thirteen years later, we may be standing once more on the brink. Some say King George has returned. True, he’s a good bit swarthier than the old portraits show and goes by the name Barack H. Obama now, but the man in the White House is nonetheless someone who imagines himself King, and aims to squeeze the American people for all they have.  He has bribed the voters with promises that the government will take care of them– their housing needs, their livelihoods, their health.  Blind to the fact that the King will soon lay claim over their very bodily functions, they voted for him, bribed by shiny promises.  And the democrats, true to their name, irrationally believe that a vote holds supreme moral authority, that the will of the people manifested in an election is unimpeachable.   This sentiment is shown by their reaction to the events in Honduras, and their perverse reaction to the events of Iran.

He has deliberately avoided the use of anti-fraud measures in accepting credit card donations for his election campaign, allowing a significant amount of campaign funding to come from unverifiable sources.

He has given voice to the climate-alarmists and threatened to bankrupt the coal power industry, and stymied oil companies’ efforts to explore for and exploit new oil reserves,  threatening reckless inflation to the prices of electricity and fuel, all in the name of an imaginary crisis.

He has promised to extend into the United States, a type of health care system more like that of many European countries, whose inevitable course is dangerously long waiting lists and eventual rationing.  He has said outright that he would not necessarily subject his own family to the care of the system he means to inflict upon the rest of us.

He has interfered in the American automobile industry,  throwing the taxpayers’ hard-earned money away trying to save two insolvent car manufacturers.

He has, with his accomplices in Congress, begun efforts to tax the emission of the gas carbon dioxide, which is in truth a vital part of the Earth’s life cycle, but mendaciously described as a pollutant, hysterically described as the main cause of the imaginary threat of global warming.

He has pissed upon our steadfast allies Israel and the United Kingdom, ignored the very real possibility of forging stronger alliances with India, Japan, and the nations of Eastern Europe, and instead focused on winning the favor of South American socialists and Islamic theocrats in the Middle East.

He has used the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to intimidate his political opponents.

He has relaxed our nation’s vigilance against Islamic terrorism, the same menace that has haunted our nation since the Barbary Wars, now refusing to name the enemy, and  now working to restore their agents to positions of political influence.

He has bent the major press and television news agencies to his will, using the deaths of celebrities as smokescreens to cover the stealthy advancement of his agenda, using their sycophantic worship to insulate himself from those who wish to ask harder questions.

If it is at all possible, the People of the United States must endure until the elections of 2010, when we may purge the King’s accomplices from Congress and leave him vulnerable to the formal process of impeachment, and then proceed with a refreshed government with a new President at its head, with the will to undo all that Barack H. Obama  has achieved against the people.   The alternative is too terrible to discuss, but let us not indulge in the conceit that it cannot possibly come to that.  Remembering that it can come to such terrible consequences is the way to find the resolve not to allow such a thing to occur.

A more honestly totalitarian proposal for universal free healthcare

Let’s stop  beating around the bush, President Soetero, Obama, Wilberforce, whatever your name is.

Let’s take a random selection of 50% of the top 10% of every high school graduating class and ship them off to special installations in remote parts of the country.

There they will partake in a compulsory education in college-level courses designed to make them nurses, pharmacists, or lab techs; all of the programs designed to work as pre-medical degrees so that they may all take a compulsory MCAT and the top-scoring 10% or so will be enrolled in compulsory medical school.  Students will be provided with food, housing, and Wi-Fi.  A variety of disciplinary measures will be approved to minimize unnecessary academic failure; the measures include psychological, pharmacological, social, and corporal discipline techniques.  Washouts will be thrown into the streets, placed in menial labor roles, or enrolled in the medical experimental volunteer list, depending on what makes sense at the time.

Graduates of the program will be guaranteed a luxurious lifestyle in 500 square foot government condos with a weekly ration of 10 pounds of government granola, 5 pounds of government mystery meat, and 1 pound of government cheese, along with a 512 MB daily Internet bandwidth quota, in perpetuity so long as they work in a volunteer capacity at a local government-approved hospital or clinic.  Deserters of the program will be automatically enrolled as medical experimental volunteers.

I think this is what would really help out our healthcare system, Mr. President. I hope you’ll consider it.

Sincerely,

Joe M.

Hyperinflation on the Horizon?

You may see something like this in the future.

5 KABILLION DOLLARS

So what am I supposed to say about George Tiller?

Frankly I don’t give a damn.  He was scum and he deserved every bit of what happened.   Late term abortions in particular, are horrible and I find anyone who could do such a thing several times a day with the indifference of a professional going about one’s business, utterly revolting. The guy who shot him however, appears to have demonstrated a dangerous lack of appreciation for the rule of law, and for that he also deserves every bit of what is coming to him.   We as a society chose to give abortionists the protection of the law, and that protection should not be broken until we as a society can articulate a sane policy for dealing with the practice.   When men pretend to the authority to enforce God’s laws, it is blasphemy.

The Emperor says it better.

This is not to say it is categorically wrong to ‘take the law into your own hands’.  It is justifiable when there is an imminent threat to you or people around you, such that a reasonable person can expect the police to possibly not arrive in time, but that has more to do with dealing with a temporary state of anarchy than with presuming the authority to enforce transcendent moral law.

On photographic fraud: fauxtography

August 9, 2006: an overview of reuters fauxtography, discovered so far -  I did not directly refer to or rip off this post, although while hashing this post out, I recalled that a similar categorization might have been made already, and in fact ran across this post once again during my search for example pictures.

Here is how I would arrange the four categories of fraud.

Class I: Misleading Presentation

The first class of fraudulent photography involves the use of authentic pictures in a misleading presentation.  Take an old picture, put a new caption on it and stick it next to an article on a current event.  Or take a closely cropped picture of a few people at a demonstration and inflate their numbers.  Maybe there aren’t any good pictures out yet, of the rubble and devastation of the current war, so it might seem like a good idea to lift some images of the previous one.  The dishonesty here is in presenting authentic pictures as something other than what they are.

Class II: Digitally Manipulated Photography

The second class of fraudulent photography involves pictures that have been altered; they would have taken expert work with an airbrush in days past, now any idiot with Photoshop can have a go at it.

What disturbs me about this is that in some of these cases, such as the infamous smoke over Beirut picture, the fraud was caught due to some highly obvious uses of the ‘clone brush’.  In other words, had the work not been so amateurish it might have passed public examination for perhaps a few more days.  It is disturbing because it is not at all outside the realm of possibility that next time, the bad guys will make sure they hire people with advanced computer graphics skill.

Often the press agency will defend some of these pictures as ‘part of our perfectly normal procedure for adjusting contrast and removing specks of dust’.   But while some contrast enhancement and dust removal is certainly legitimate, here’s a tip: if the result is that you make white smoke look like brown smoke, or gray smoke look like black smoke, you’re going to get called on it.  Because different colors of smoke indicate different things.

2006 - Adnan Hajj decides his picture of Beirut needs more smoke than appeared in real life. Reuters buys it.

CBC photo of Toronto, original.

Same CBC photo of Toronto, somewhat cropped, somehow a lot more brown, as if the city were being choked by nasty pollution. Except the color shift is completely someone taking artistic license.

Class III: Staged Photography

The third class of fraudulent photography involves the use of “real pictures” of staged events.  The pictures are real in that there is no manipulation of the picture itself, so they will pass inspection for anyone looking for signs of the dreaded Photoshop.  However the subject matter is nothing but performance art masquerading as news.  It may be the photographers themselves setting up a scene, the subjects, or a collaboration.  In whatever case it is not news. The best a staged photo or an altered photo can qualify to be is an illustration, nothing more.

I consider staged photography more threatening than digitally manipulated photography (when used fraudulently), as it is generally easier to make it look ‘good’, and generally somewhat less obvious.

2009 - AP publishes Palestinian grievance theater

2005 - Iraqi terrorists claim to have captured a soldier(left), but it is really an action figure (right). AP buys it.

Class IV: Wholly Fictitious Photography

The fourth class of fraudulent photography has no current examples that I know of.   But it is conceivable that a combination of a staged photo with digital manipulation could–if under the control of skilled artists rather than the hacks working for the Iranian government, Hezbollah, or Hamas– remove basically all limits to the imagination. Massive crowds appearing where they never really were,  apparently brutal and gory violence where nobody was seriously hurt, or rocket strikes multiplied twentyfold from their real number.   The difference between this and simple staged photography would basically be the same as the difference between 21st century movies and films from the early 1980s.

On blogs and free speech

A private weblog is private property, and the blogmaster has every right to control what kind of guest commentary is permitted.

The presence of a commentary system is, however, an implicit invitation to discussion.  People have a right to expect that their comments will either be accepted or rejected.  It is dishonest to use it, for instance, to glean private information for nefarious purposes.

A comment rating system is likewise an implicit invitation to use it, each user according to their own criteria.  It is dishonest to present such a device and punish those who use it.

In memoriam

For all who died for this country, we must endure the present and keep hope alive for the future, or else they have died in vain.

AP publishes staged photograph as news

Original Photo and caption here.
The following content constitutes fair use for the purpose of legitimate criticism and satirical mockery regarding the Associated Press.

This is the original photo.

Now let’s deconstruct the caption:

A Palestinian, passed out from tear gas fired by Israeli troops,

Oh really?  Awfully convenient pose if he’s unconscious, which is what “passed out” means. The hand holding the key just so, and the hand raised as if he’s gripping the barbed wire which is really too far  in the background.  Clearly this man was conscious enough to follow the photographer’s instructions.

holds a key symbolizing the keys to houses left by Palestinians in 1948, during a demonstration

And obviously he’s still demonstrating, as he still has the presence of mind to hold up his symbolic key for the camera.  Rather than question the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ version of history, the AP acts as their willing waterboys, displaying Palestinian grievance theater to the rest of the world.

marking the 61st anniversary of “Nakba,” Arabic for catastrophe, in the West Bank village Bilin, near Ramallah, Friday, May 15, 2008. The rally marked the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 war over Israel’s creation.

Either fled or were lured out, surely you mean. They thought the Arabs were going to win soundly when they attacked, so they fled or actually went to join their armies, but those stubborn Jews just refused to die, and now the Palestinians want to pretend they can just come back home like nothing happened, and yet still plot revenge.   They’ve turned this grudge into their entire culture.  I have no sympathy for the Palestinians whatsoever.

Now let’s have some fun with the picture.

The Keymaster and his mom from Lebanon?

I’m sure the Pallies would have very much liked to have a Photoshop master on their photo crew, but unfortunately their plot to send some of their guys to Gnomon and get some experience working at ILM before coming home, does not appear to have been completed yet.   This is my rendition of what would currently be their best attempt to ‘enhance’ the photo, ‘removing dust speckles and adjusting contrast’.

Too fancy?

I suggest that this photo took a bit of time to get right, and they probably experimented with a few different keys while trying to decide which one looked the most symbolic.  This is my reconstruction of one of the discarded photos.

And here’s another one.

My apologies to Joseph Hoetzl; the key I used in the original version of this last picture (now it’s a different one) was actually a key to a men’s room in the World Trade Center.  To depict it in the hand of a man who was very probably dancing in the streets the day the towers fell seems like sacrilege, since it is exactly the sort of key that would represent the places to which our people can no longer return  thanks to his friends, if any sort of mirror-image demonstration should take place.

It was the first good picture of an ordinary modern key I found under a Yahoo image search for “key”, so I went ahead and did it.

Addendum: I had J. Hoetzl’s formal permission, though I was previously in violation of a Creative Commons license which prohibited derivative works.   I suppose this was sloppy.   My normal modus operandi when playing with photos, whether for personal amusement or for a contest, is to just grab whatever images come off the image search and look good.    Generally speaking, it is considered defensible to do such things provided that the end result is sufficiently altered from the source as to be unrecognizable; I felt it necessary to apologize mainly because after I finished that picture I found the combination inappropriate.  Therefore I have redone the last picture with a different key, for what this silly picture is worth.

In a minor spate of paranoia I altered the notches on the new key, even though I’ve never heard of anybody actually using a photo from the Internet to reproduce a key to let oneself into a tiny suburban house before.  Seems like more effort than it’s worth unless it happens to be a very nice big house loaded with valuables.

Sometimes my humor is so subtle I myself fail to be highly amused.

A better plan for dealing with domestic Islamic terrorism

Very simple: deal directly with these three categories of situations.

Category 1:   Identify persons threatened by domestic violence, get them out, and keep them safe.

Category 2:   Identify persons threatened over matters of speech or personal conviction, and keep them safe.

Category 3:   Identify persons, homes, and places of business threatened by gang or gang-like territorialism, and keep them safe.
Notice that these categories are general, and deliberately so, even though the common denominator should be obvious.

Ideally, one would want an organization sufficiently trained and equipped for such a task, and capable of helping those it takes into its care get similarly prepared.  One umbrella organization, with one arm to establish and administrate shelters, and another arm to provide for the training and equipping of the security force to protect the shelters and escort people to and from places.

My Education Plan

First, establish exit requirements for elementary school.  The 3 R’s and all that.   An elementary certificate should not be granted except to those who complete an elementary education, having mastered basic arithmetic and can read and write fluently in English (this is specifically dealing with America here, of course; one would obviously use their own country’s primary language elsewhere), and demonstrating a basic knowledge of history, literature,  and geography.  Anything learned beyond the required basics (i.e. art, music, English,  foreign language, math, science, and so forth)  should be noted on a separate certificate(s) in terms of what kind of high school courses the student can be considered to have already completed.

Second, dispense with the idea of ‘middle school’.  Middle school as some form of distinct stage between elementary school and high school is, as far as I can tell, a fundamentally worthless notion.  It sucks up 3 years of  students’ lives with course material that is either repeated from elementary school or due to be repeated in high school. The net result of doing “well” in middle school as far as the student is concerned, is nothing but the opportunity to get a single  year ahead in math, science, and a foreign language in high school.  I believe the primary function of middle schools in the public system derives from school district bureaucrats deciding it would be a good idea to rename junior high schools to something that sounds more distinct, in order to attract a little more state and federal pork, and shift 6th graders into a level that “requires” a larger per-student budget than elementary school.  In other words, it’s a cheap scheme for the bureaucrats to loot the community.

For child education we really need only two stages.  First, toward the minimum level of knowledge every adult must have, barring genuine severe cognitive impairment.  That’s elementary school.   Second, toward the level of knowledge we can  reasonably expect of any independent adult who exercises the common rights, duties, and privileges our society affords to adults: voting, parenting, self-defense, jury duty, and so forth.  That sounds like high school to me.   What to do with  the “middle school” age group (11-14 y)?  Simple. Throw out the current age-grade system.   Abandon all expectations of keeping all students of a particular class group together.  Use a system of shorter terms of a few months each.  Some students will take until age 15 to finish elementary school, others might do it at 9.  This is not a problem that needs to be corrected.  The problem is kids not learning to read.  The solution is making them spend as long as necessary in elementary school, and not a week longer.

Third, what high schools need to start doing is prepare students for independence as adults.   Adjust the standard curriculum to assume part-time employment as a norm, and to include a certain amount of course hours toward learning some profitable skill.  This will serve graduates well, whether or not they go on to college.  If they do not, then they are better prepared for life.   If they do, then they are better prepared to pay for college.

Public school, especially in its current state, is absolute rubbish.  That is not to say there are no good teachers or no good classes, but they are not worth the ordeal of putting up with the rest of the system.  I myself have sworn to never send any child of mine to public school or allow myself to get into a serious relationship with any woman who would ever try to talk me into it.   It is not a matter of religious beliefs as such;  I am simply totally disillusioned by the quality of education the system offers.   The only reason I know what I know is because my parents taught me to read at a very early age.  Had I paid more attention in class through grade school and done all my homework assignments, I would have had much better grades  and much less time to read anything interesting.

---

So what kind of actual guidelines would I be prepared to give at this point?

1.  Teach your children independence.   Consider what goes into a high I-CUBE score: financial discipline, some form of marketable skill,  an array of domestic skills, and a willingness to pursue secondary sources of income.  All else is gravy.

2.  Homeschooling is the superior option IF you, the parents, are willing to make the commitment, and have the confidence in your ability to teach.    If not, see what private  and charter schools are in the area, and get your kids into one of those.   But if you can’t—space is often limited in charter schools, and private schools can be costly—reconsider homeschooling before you resort to public school.

3. If your kid is showing signs of interest in developing a particular skill or studying a particular subject  in-depth, do not hesitate for a moment to feed that interest and see how far it goes.  If they turn out to be prodigies in some area it will be necessary to customize their education to a larger degree.

4. Delegate, never abdicate.  If you do outsource your children’s education by sending them to a school, remain involved, and remember there is never anything wrong with helping them get ahead on the material.  The worst that could happen is that they could end up skipping grades.  If you’re worried about the social problems that might result from that, reconsider homeschooling.

5. If you’re in charge of the education, it is not necessary to strictly structure the actual assignments and activities.  Just keep records and categorize everything appropriately.