Where Have I Been?

I was in Europe for a while, then I got the flu (the regular kind, not swine) and was laid up in bed for a while. Now I'm home and better and full of ideas for blog posts.

Meanwhile, I have often heard it said by world travellers (which in British Airways lingo means "coach", by the way) that the US of A is the best place in the whole world to live. They must not have been to Barcelona.

From Whence Do Rights Derive?

What gives me the right to express my stupid opinions on this blog? My right derives from the fact that neither the state nor anyone else with the ability to do anything about it gives a rat's patootie about my opinion or whether and how I express it. The state does not at present have any particular interest in my speech acts. Why would it? I can't really do the state any harm, and it may even score legitimacy points by ignoring me, especially in the case of states such as mine that claim to protect their subjects' freedom.

Other folks who might disagree with me don't care enough about it to try to punish me for my opinions. Part of this stems from my use of a nom de blogge. It isn't as easy to mess with me if you don't know who I really am. Besides, interference by a private individual or entity probably wouldn't be considered as a violation of my "rights". We have come to think of rights as deriving from the Constitution and applying only to state action. If I had some God given inalienable rights, wouldn't I be able to defend them against all comers, state and non-state actors alike?

Whatever rights I have I enjoy at the sufferance of my conspecifics.

Aspects of Popular Culture That I Just Don't Get

Vampires. Kids want to be vampires or date vampires. Vampirism seems like it would be a huge disability what with not being able to eat anything but blood or to come out in the daylight. Believe me kids, you'll know enough toxic psychic vampires in your life without wishing to meet some mythical ones.

Flavored martinis (except as starter drinks for junior high schoolers). These are nothing like actual martinis and are far removed from the martini experience. After age 25, these should not be permitted. Men of any age should never order these. These are girlie drinks.

Kardashians. Why do I have to know who these people are?

Shredded jeans. In my day, shredded jeans meant you were trash. Decent folks would patch the holes in their jeans.

Facebook. I spend enough time in front of a computer without corresponding with my long lost grammar school classmates.

2012. What makes anyone think the Mayans knew peedoodlysquat about anything? I don't think they even predicted the precipitous fall of their own civilization, so I don't put much store in their prognosticating abilities. Show me some shit they got right, and I might take them seriously.

We Need a Better GOP

Some of my conspecifics of the Democratic persuasion are glad that the GOP has gone completely over to the dark side and is now almost exclusively the party of batshit. Its leaders are the likes of Limbaugh, Beck and Palin so my conspecifics reckon that the GOP will be too scary for most people now.

This is not a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Since we have two party system, it is never a good idea to have one of those parties committed to insanity. Americans are so stupid that they might just vote the maniacs into power. They did it in 2000 and 2004, although in those days we couldn't be sure that the crazy wing would take complete control of the party.

A healthier American political system calls for two parties that are pretty much the same and both of which are capable of actually governing when in power.

Makes You Think

I went to the Wikipedia and looked up mass murderers. They have lists of shooters by hate crime, workplace shootings, school shootings, slaughter of families. Based on the names of the killers in the US, it looks like the Ft Hood shooter was the only one that was a Muslim. So if I call for special attention to be paid to Muslims as potential spree shooters, what does that make me?

Tim McVeigh was a Roman Catholic. I didn't hear a whole lot of talk about screening Catholics after he blew up a building. After all, there have been lots of Irish Catholic terrorists, mostly in Ulster, so the Oklahoma City bombing could have been seen as par for the course. Why wasn't it?

Eric Rudolph also identified himself as a Roman Catholic. When he murdered folks based on his religious beliefs there was no call to monitor Catholics. Why not?

Ft Hood Shooter

Know what I'm going to say about the Ft Hood shooter before the facts come out? Nothing!

Know why? Because I am self aware and would be ashamed if my dumbass speculation turned out to be wrong.

I wish more people were like me.

Lay Off Pit Bulls

Mrs Vache Folle and I are big boosters of pit bulls. Now that I've lived with one for a few years, I don't think I'll ever get any other breed. We get annoyed when we hear folks say things like,"Little Timmy McCracken was bitten by a pit bull." Why mention the breed? Most of the time the dog in question was not, in fact, a pit bull. Nobody ever says "A golden retriever attacked Granny!" or such like even though every breed of dog is liable to attack someone under the right circumstances.

It's analogous to including a reference to a person's religion or ethnicity in a statement about their alleged crimes. "Robin and Holden McGroin of Brewster were swindled by a Chinaman last month." "A Negro driver struck the sign post, causing damage estimated at $800." "The Roman Catholic gunman was killed in a shootout with police." "Scotsman arrested in bribery case."

TV Watching

We left season 4 of Weeds on a cliffhanger, and season 5 is not yet available from NetFlix. We've moved on to season 1 of Big Love. I had only seen the most recent season before and was hoping for some background. Season 1 was pretty much the same as the last season but with more multimarital sex. You'd think old Joe Smith would have come up with a way to mandate a four way, but I reckon he was killed before he had that revelation.

We haven't watched much regular TV since we got the NetFlix subscription. The only show we catch by appointment is The Biggest Loser where morbidly obese people compete to lose weight. Each week, two contestants who lose the least percentage of body weight are liable to be voted off, and each week the voting contestants vote off the wrong person. The right way to vote is to get rid of the fatter person who is apt to lose more weight and put you below the yellow line in a future weigh in. If a superfat guy has a bad week and is up for a vote, that's your chance to eliminate a real competitor. But no, the contestants always vote based on other idiotic criteria and screw themselves. Great fun.

The Daily Show repeat moved to 7 pm so I don't catch it as often as when it was on at 8. I watch documentaries on The Science Channel or Discovery. The History Channel seems to have turned into the crazy hokum channel with a fixation on Nostradamus and Gods from Outer Space and Atlantis.

I Am Apathetic

I voted yesterday, but I'm not sure why I bothered. It was easy since all I had to do was pull the lever on every Democrat on the ballot. I vote entirely based on spite and self preservation, although our Hudson Valley Republicans seeking local offices (a) aren't as batshit insane as their copunterparts in other regions, and (b) can't do much harm on the East Fishkill town council or Highway Department.

I just don't give much of a shit about politics these days except to keep one eye open for incursions by the wingnut Christianists and those in their coalition of crazies.

Eschatology

I have been thinking about eschatology lately and have decided that it's a mystery. We don't have enough to go on to know when Gotterdammerung will come about or what it will look like. Maybe we won't even know that it has happened. One day we'll be plugging away as usual and the next thing you know we're living in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I'm not afraid to speculate, and I have some eschatological suspicions that I'll share now for what they are worth. I have not had any special revelation from God, nor am I trained in theology, but I do have some completely irrational beliefs about our ultimate fate that I reckon are as authoritative as anyone else's.

Judgment Day is billions or trillions of years away, and we will have become a class 3 or better galactic or intergalactic civilization by then. The teachings of Jesus, as practiced by those who actually understand them and in whom the Spirit dwells, will be the characteristic of humanity that permits us, among all the intelligent species in the universe, to avoid destroying ourselves and to go on to the next levels of civilization. Our technological advancement will go hand in hand with our ability to love. Love will inspire us to occupy the whole universe. We will be a blessing to the universe, and the Kingdom of God will encompass everything.

Earth will be long gone by then, and I can't imagine what kind of beings our descendants will be by then. They may not even be flesh and blood.

Thought Crimes?

There might be good reasons to oppose particular hate crime legislation, but the argument that such legislation, at least as it has been drafted so far, constitutes "thought crime" is not one of them. The argument is as fatuous as it gets. Here's how it has been used in my experience: "To find that something is a hate crime requires us to delve into the perpetrator's mental state; therefore, it criminalizes the mental state and is an Orwellian thought crime."

Most crimes require delving into the perpetrator's mental state. For example, intent is an indispensable element of many crimes. If I kill you without intending to, it could just be an accident, for which I may not be criminally culpable, but if I meant to kill you and especially if I had malice aforethought I am a murderer. Does that mean murder is a thought crime?

As far as I know, no hate crime legislation promulgated to date makes hating a crime. It's only a crime if you do violence to someone on the basis of that hate. Hate all you want, haters! Hate openly so we'll all know to shun you. Just don't act on your hate violently.

My $0.02 on Afghanistan

I don't know what the US thinks its mission is in Afghanistan. If it's to rid the country of Al Qaeda, then congratulations to the US on its victory. You can bring your troops home now. If it's to create a stable, pro-US country with a legitimate central government, then good luck with that. That will take decades and zillions of dollars and tens of thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of troops. The end result is certainly desirable, especially if you're an Afghan, but the enormous costs greatly outweigh the benefits in terms of US interests and can't be justified politically. Or maybe the goal is to keep Afganistan from becoming a breeding ground for anti-modern, authoritarian extremism. If so, we have failed by making it more of such a breeding ground than ever. The best we can do is contain the extremists and counter them with, say, cash.

The way I figure it, the US should set as its goals (a) keeping Pakistan from falling to the Taliban or other nutjobs, (b) keeping Al Qaeda and its ilk from reasserting itself in the region, and (c) establishing effective networks of intelligence and propaganda dissemination in the area to protect and promote US interests. A huge military presence is not required to meet these aims. A huge military presence, unless it's huge enough to maintain a police state, may even be counterproductive.

It was a dumb idea to invade Afghanistan in the first place. Let's not compound the error. If the US leaves and the Taliban returns to power, then Afganistan is the same as it was when we invaded it, no better or worse.

What Most Americans Think

Do most Americans consider a vote for cloture as tantamount to support for the actual bill?

No. Most Americans don't know what cloture is. Most Americans don't even know they have a Senate let alone how it works.

Reveals of no Particular Interest to Anybody

I don't have ass cancer, but I have to get snaked every three years for polyp removal. I'm supposed to eat more fiber and less red meat.

I have not touched alcohol in 10.5 days. I don't feel any better, but I figure I don't need the calories.

Mrs Vache Folle and I have become addicted to the TV series Weeds which we have been renting via NetFlix.

The choir is "auditioning" a prospective director tomorrow, the first time we've assembled in many weeks. Perhaps the church is committed to the concept of a chancel choir after all.

I have been running/marching a five mile route whenever I can lately, but my left knee is killing me. I have excruciating pain in the medial condyle of my shin. It's back to the orthopod for me, I reckon.

I have been reading a science fiction anthology, a book on human evolution, and a book entitled The New Atheism. The science fiction is about to displace the others since the evolution book seems to be more about paleontologists and their discontents than about interpreting their finds. Just let me know the current consensus, OK? The atheism book is pretty dull. so I haven't gotten far. That it relies to any extent on The End of Faith does not bode well for the rest of the book.

I have fallen behind in my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons, and I will be in Spain in two weeks! We're scheduled to go to Barcelona for a few days and then to cruise in the Western Mediterranean for a week.

Farewell, Newspapers

I hear that newspapers are failing as businesses. Remember back when the Town Criers were whining about how newspapers were eating into their profits? Or when the bards complained about that newfangled writing thing and how it was killing the demand for epic poems recited from memory? I don't either, but I bet it was a lot like what we're getting from the papers.

The only thing I'll miss about newspapers is how useful they are as a weed suppressant under the mulch. A few layers of newspaper will keep down the weeds and decompose handily into the soil with no ill effects. I reckon I'll just have to use cardboard if Mrs Vache Folle gives up her subscription to the NY Times. She could read it on her blackberry for free, and it would always show up on time (unlike now). She could also avoid the mess of newsprint on her hands and clothes and the annoying way the paper refuses to unfold properly.

Saxons, Vikings and Celts

I recently finished Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: the Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland by Bryan Sykes. It would have been a lot more interesting (and it was pretty interesting, mind you) if Sykes had devoted more pages to interpretation and implications than to the quest for DNA samples and thumbnail histories of the Isles. (BLOGGER ETHICS NOTE: I had to buy the book with my own money and did not get a damned thing for reviewing it. Nobody asked me to review it, and it is unlikely that anyone will be inspired by this review either to acquire the book or to eschew it.)

Anyway, the analysis shows that the long postulated Celtic invasion from Central Europe does not show up in the genes of the Islanders. On the matrilineal side, the Islanders are mainly descended from the mesolithic foragers who first resettled the Isles following the last glacial retreat up to 10,000 years ago. There appears to have some movement along the Atlantic coast from Iberia in the early Neolithic. In Orkney and Shetland, it appears that the Vikings brought their women with them when they settled the area (about a third of the folks carry Viking mDNA). In the old Danelaw, there is evidence that women came with the Danes or the Saxons (5-10% have Viking, Dane, Saxon or Norman mDNA). There is almost no sign of Roman genetic influence in mDNA.

On the patrilineal side, the vast majority of male Islanders carry a Celtiberian Y chromosome. There also seems to be a substantial minority who carry the Y of the mesolithic aborigines, and there is an overlay in the East of Saxons, Danes, or Vikings (in East Anglia as much as 20%).

All in all, the Islanders are Celts (their ancestors antedated the Romans and spoke Celtic languages). Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotsmen, and Welshmen are all brothers. Suck on that, WASPs!

Ardi is not the Boss of Me

Via Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frans-de-waal/was-ardi-perhaps-liberal_b_325201.html comes an article speculating whether Ardipithecus was a "liberal". The author, Frans de Waal, after going through the history of interpretations of human nature by analogy with various extant non-human primates, wonders:

"What if we descend not from a blustering chimp-like ancestor but from a gentle, empathic bonobo-like ape? Or what if we share characteristics with both of these close relatives instead of just the one favored by our personal political ideology? Ardi is telling us something, and there may be little agreement about what she is saying, but I hear a refreshing halt to the drums of war that have accompanied all previous theories."

The discovery of the postcranial remains of Ardipithecus has been one of the most exciting events in paleoanthropology in years. Ardi stood erect, and she had a prehensile great toe. She lived in the forest, not on the savannah. The implications of the discovery for human evolution have been described by Owen Lovejoy and others in a special issue of Science http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5949/74 (registration required).

What I find most interesting about the discovery are the plausible explanation for the development of bipedalism offered by the data and the long overdue recognition that extant great apes have been evolving all this time from our common ancestor as well. Our ancestor probably wasn't like any of the living species of hominoids. Several features of Ardipithecus are consistent with the notion that bipedalism developed as part of a strategy of male provisioning of mates and offspring which required carrying provisions over relatively long distances.

But as exciting as all this may be, I can't wrap my brain around the idea that the way that Ardi lived has much to do with how we should live now. Righties (other than Creationist religious righties, that is) sometimes point to evolutionary psychology (they prefer the term sociobiology for some reason) to support the status quo, and they tend in my experience to favor the "Killer Ape" model, so I reckon fossil evidence that counters such fatuous arguments with equally fatuous counterarguments are useful to a degree. I'd prefer, however, to attack the underlying premise that human evolution has left us with a set of "natural" tendencies that it would be wrong in many cases to resist and in all cases to problematize.

I am speculating here a bit, but I would bet that Ardi shit in the woods. Does that mean that we ought to shit in the woods, that it is foolish to develop plumbing and alternative shit disposal systems that run counter to our nature as sylvan defecators? Should I tolerate it if strangers come and shit in my woods?

Ardi ate all her food raw. Does that mean cooking is unnatural and wrong?

Ardi didn't wear any clothes. Clothing is unnatural and wrong?

What if Ardi were promiscuous? Would that mean that promiscuity should be the norm for us now?

Ardi lived by the chase and forage. Is it, therefore, wrong to farm or work at a trade?

Ardipithecine females may have stayed close to the nest with their young while males went off in search of provisions. Does that mean that it is wrong for our women to leave the house and work?

Ardi did what Ardi had to do to get by when and where she lived. Lucky for us, her descendants were flexible enough to adapt when times changed. We're still adapting. If we're not, we're doomed.

Bill Donohue Embarasses Catholics Yet Agaain

Bill Donohue, whacky Catholic apologist, reckons that troglodytes are outbreeding folks with more progressive outlooks: http://wonkette.com/411702/bill-donohues-washington-post-opinion-column-is-even-greater-than-casually-aborting-your-kids#more-411702

Wonkette quotes the following:

"The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels."

Crazy Bill Donohue, don't you know that religious conservatism is not hereditary? Hell, everyone's ancestors at some point were religious conservatives, but a lot of us have thrown off the yoke of superstition and authoritarianism despite this. No matter how many babies your religious conservatives pump out, there's no guarantee that they will also be religious conservatives.

Look at the Anabaptists. Their belief system is held by a small minority of the world's population even though they have been "breeding like rabbits" for almost five hundred years. If Anabaptist beliefs were hereditable, they would have overrun the world by now. Look at Catholics. No matter how many little Catholics you make, you can't depend on their not blowing off their religion when something more attractive comes along. You still have to sell Catholicism, and that's one hard sell now that Donohue and his ilk aren't allowed to host autos da fe any longer.

Time is on the side of the angels, Bill Donohue, but you'd be surprised at who the angels really are.

Escapee

Jasper escaped last night and was missing for an hour and a half. I was just finishing up listing him on findtoto.com when he found his way home. I don't think I could have slept last night he had still been missing.

Today, I clogged up his escape route real good with a plank that I don't think he can dislodge even if he works at it for a good hour. I also need to impress on him the importance of coming to me when I call him even when he is hot on the trail of some varmint.

On a positive note, Jasper was not followed by villagers with torches and pitchforks.

I don't like worrying the way Jasper made me worry last night. Good thing I don't have children, I reckon.

Query

Is it conceivable that the US has sponsored "terrorists" in the past and continues to do so to advance foreign policy aims?