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nonesuch...the chronicle of the insane... 4/28/2008 William doesn't live here anymoreYou can find and message me via: Blog/Tumblr: http://www.aintnolai.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/laiwilliam Facebook: wlaims _at_ hotmail.com 11/11/2006 Great article contrasting the 08 Dem front runners: Hillary and ObamaIs America too Racist for Barack? Too Sexist for Hillary?
Are Americans ready to put a black man or a woman in charge of the country? And does the hefty symbolism that Obama and Clinton would bring help one of them more than the other -- in other words, is the country more racist or more sexist?I don't know if America is read y for a Black President, but I think Hillary has too much luggage to be elected. . Obama is also the more elequoent of the two candidates, and I'd wouldn't be surprised to see him become the front runner soon. 3/26/2006 Disintermediated hunters-gatherers When I was growing up, the markets are more like farmer's market today. Stalls after stalls line the street, and the food are displayed in its natural and primitive form. The vegetables are laid out on a woven basket, or perhaps on a newspaper, without the benefits of a supermarket refrigerator and spritizer to keep it looking fresh and hydrated. If it looks fresh, it is fresh, an d most likely picked from the earth not more than a day ago. The fish are swimming in a crowded tank, and the dead or sick fish is easily avoided. You pick the one that looks healthy, give it a strong whack at the head by a cleaver, and the fish monger dresses it right in front of you while you wait. Alive one second, meat the next. The butcher hang his meat off the rack, sometimes the entire side of a beast. You order a cut and he slices the flesh from the carcass, all the while waving off the flies that are hovering around the flesh.
Today, the industrializaton of food is so complete, that we rarely get to know the food from which our meal comes from. Vegetables are kept in suspended animation for as long as possible. Refrigeration is common, of course, but so is picking vegetables before their time, only to ripen them by gassing the produce with ethylene right before delivery to the shelves. Fish is presented in filets that are cleaned and dressed, and resembles a protein matrix more than any swimming species. Meat is trimmed and dressed, hidden behind hygenic plastic wrapping, presented in a tray with a hidden sanitary napkin that will soak up any traces of bio-fluid, lest you confuse it with something that used to be alive. Which is why Michael Pollan's article this Sunday at the NYT Magazine is so satisfying: Here is a man taking the journey to stalk, hunt, and kill for his food, feeling the warmth of the just killed animal as the heart beat silenced, opening up the animal and confronting the innards that resemble the hunter's organs. The emotional, moral, and introspective journey that he embarked on tells us alot about the unique nature that is human, and is one that every modern food consumer should read.
3/23/2006 Republican is all Fire and BrimstonesIn the book: Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives, George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist and linguist at Berkeley, hypothesized that alot of what conservatives have done to be successful has to do with how they use clever semantics like Family Value (who isn't for family?) and Tax Relief (who isn't for relief, especially from the big government's taxes?). Arguing against those terms is a fool's errand. Lakoff further instructs that what conservative Republican are pitching is the "Strict father" model of government: The world is scary place, people tend to be bad even as babies (though James Dobson doens't advocate spanking until the kid is at least 15 months old), and the only way a father should act is to reward good behavior while severly punishing bad, lest your child learns the wrong lessons. So, a Strict Father will reward the successful businesses with corporate tax relief, otherwise they may forget to make even more money. But when the welfare mother can't hold down a job, you punish them with welfare cuts because they are bad examples and everyone should learn we don't reward failures. When good countries do good (i.e. the developed nations, those who listen to us, Strict Father Sam), we reward them with free trade, IMF funding, etc. When bad countries like Iraq shows up Daddy Deariest, you have no choice but to punish them, even if it hurts you too when you spank them. This philosophy, Lakoff says, is fundamentally what the conservative voters subscribe to, a strong and moral and strict father who isn't your friend, but knows best and is to be obeyed without question. Thus the Bush administration's obsession with presidential power, and wiretapping its own citizens. And it's not about government secrecy, in the way that the liberals would frame it. Father must know what's going on even if it means the kids losing some privacy; it's trying to do the right thing by the family. You, the kids, don't have a right to know what Father does. Those who question what Father does is just asking for a smack down.
The liberals, Lakoff suggests, is more of a modern "nurturant parents" type. First, it's gener neutral, as both the masculine and feminine is brought to bear. Second, you assume that the kids (citizenry, other nations, etc.) are fundamentally good, and that as parents your job is to nuture, to be empathetic to their needs, while teaching them responsibility. Thus when the weak falls down in society, the liberals want to help them get back on their feet with social programs. There is no end to the mercy that one should show to "those in need", just as parents will go to extreme lengths to help their young. Povery and hunger around the world is to be reliefed. Bathist Iraq is to be isolated and contained, while diplomacy is brought to bear, but not forcelly smacked down and eradicated at all cost.
This makes alot of sense to me, but I think Lakoff could have made one more conceptual leap with the methaphors: (Or maybe he did later in the book, as I haven't finished it yet) The conservatives believe we are dealing with the Old Testament God, where mercy is not shown, and the vengeful God will cast upon thee fire and brimstone on those who are not following to the will of God. If God asks you to sacrifice your own son, you do it because your loyalty is paramount whereas you earthly relationship is not. The liberals are living in the time of New Testament, in that mercy and compassion is shown to all, including the sinners, as witnessed by Jesus walked amongst and helped the whores, the leppards, and the immorals, and a hand is extended to all no matter their sins to help them regardless of how they got there.
I think framed in those terms, the Democrats stand a better chance of winning at least the ears of the more centrist Republicans, and maybe even win back some of the more progressive Christan votes. It's a better strategy than to keep talking about absolute freedom of choice for women, social protection, bill of rights, etc. Because the Old Testament Republicans just don't see the world in those terms.
3/16/2006 Who buys Picasso at Costco?Apparently, meat distributors who are into the Cubism
Cost of various thingsGates Foundation's work to eradicate Malaria from the world: USD $258 Million
Gates Foundation's entire endowment: USD $29 Billion
UN's Plan to Eradicate Poverty from the world: USD $80 Billion
Cost to boot Sadam from power in Iraq: USD: $247 Billion and counting
Where would you spend the money?
3/14/2006 The Mad Mad Cow Scientist and BurecratsHow dumb are we supposed to be? When they discovered the new mad cow in Alabama, the FDA officials tell us that they system works, that they caught it before the cow got into the food chain.
I wish I understand their branch of logic. One incident of catching a mad cow is extrapolated to mean that all mad cows were caught. Hmm, maybe it's not the cows that are mad after all.
3/13/2006 Brokeback: Goldilock but not greatFinally saw Brokeback Mountain. Hmm, it didn't win the Oscar, and probably didn't deserve it. I can see that this may have been a difficult film to make, but the end results wasn't all that great as a film
First, I think Ang Lee did the best he could with the material, at this point in the cultural war of the gay acceptance. I for one am glad that he got the first sex scene out of the way fairly early on in the movie, because everyone in the theaterwas probably thinking the same thing: When are they going to do it? Was that dialog a come-on? What was that glance? How much skin are they going to show? etc etc. So to get it out the way early on allows most everyone to just settle in for the ride.
But the ride wasn't that good. I mean, if it wasn't for two gay cowboys, the plot could have been a Lifetime movie. You know, impossible love, overcoming the obstacles that society threw at them, that sort of thing. Been there, done that many times for the heterosexual. What distinguished the film is that the characters are two very normal, even masculine, gay guys. I mean, unlike all other gay-themed film I've seen (and let's face it, I haven't seen that many, but it's more than five and less than 20, I'd guess), these two guys are just so unlikely to have a homosexual relationship.
Their first encounter was so very sudden, and early on in the film, that if I didn't know what this film was about before I stepped foot in the theater, I'll be totally shocked that they hooked up when they did. There were hardly any flirtation, andy sparks between the two before hand; they just got in the tent and did it. There were no hints of any repressed sexual attraction between the two. I really don't know where it came from. Now whether that's the fault of the film maker not laying the right groundwork for the audience, or perhaps that's exactly the point of this kind of sexual encounters, I don't know.
From there, it wasn't so much what happened to these guys that was interesting. It was *how* they went about it that was interesting. Both actors put in great performances, very subtle, very repressed on the surface, and yet they were able to hint at what's simmering inside. Heath Ledger was very believable as a tough guy cowboy, and put in the better performance of the two, I thought. Jake Gyllenhaal was a bit too transparent, perhaps his character was a bit easier to see through. But I was pretty impressed with how they got themselves into character; this straight guy couldn't relate to their emotion much, if at all. Maybe I'm supressing or what not, but it couldn't have been easy, even for a thespian. Or perhaps it was how Ang Lee extracted the performances out of them that was impressive, and maybe that's why he won Best Director.
Anyway, the movie probably delivered just the right touch at this point in history. It wasn't a flameboyant movie about passionate, impossible love, like the cliched hetero genre, or even most earlier gay themed films where the homosexuality was front and center. And Brokeback didn't exploit the homosexuality like just another plot device, which assumably it will become in due time as society accepts it. It just *is*, and perhaps that's exactly what we need at this moment in time.
 Rethinking the Marlboro Man WTF: I agree with Bush on Dubai ports dealOkay, this once and for all proves that I'm not blinded by my complete disregard for the man: Bush is right that this is a terrible example to set for the Arab friendlies, to reject Dubai World Ports' acquisition of the company that runs serveral of our ports. It is playing politics rather than true leadership. Now, I'm not daying the administration did or didn't review the security implications of this deal, but to reject it because Dubai is an Arab country makes no sense if the US is to be a non-racist, non-discriminatory nation. The House/Senate Republicans are just running away from Bush because the Prez is really out of touch with the thinking of the common man/woman...It is his job to lead the country to deal with this kind of issue in a sensible way.
The democrats are just looking for a chance to pile on, and frankly it's not a principled attack.
Modern Dubai, UAE 3/8/2006 Foreign gimmickThought it'll be fun and gimmicky to post in a foreign tounge. Decode it using the SysTran tool to convert it back to English:
 3/6/2006 AT&T back on top; will it matter?Looks like AT&T, at least in name, will be back on top in terms of number of local phone lines, after its announcment to buy (and expected closing) of Bell South. However, does it really matter anymore? With Mobile, WiFi, 3G, WiMax,VoIP, cable broadband, and others in the work, the local phone line is increasingly under attack. Now, one can argue they are buying the consumer relationships, but AT&T has a pretty poor history of turning potential into reality. Maybe these new SBC/BellSouth guys will be much better than C. Michael Armstrong, but that remains to be seen, particular with such a burecracy.
However, one should be very careful of the re-concentration of power into these telco. Back in the Ma Bell days, the monopoly network was able to forestall any sort of innovation in technology, from phone models to packet switch networks. Now that we are free from that bondage, let's be very careful of the telco's temptation and push to be back in the driver's seat in terms of what service and options the consumer may have. See my post below to heed the warning signs already out there, and do something about it before it's too late.
 3/5/2006 Crash?I saw Crash on DVD, maybe a month or two ago. I can't tell you what it is about, as I don't remember much about it. I think it was alright, but nothing special. The fact that I can't remember much about it, I think, is pretty telling. I honestly only remembered that Sandra Bullock played an unusual role for her. As a matter of fact, when I look over my notes on Crash, which I added to to my list of films in this blog's sidebar, was "Powerful performances, but contrived and manipulative."
Best Picture? Hate to say it, but maybe homophobia has something to do with the Academy's choice this year. Not an "upset"as much as a "fix", since any one of the other nominated film is easily better.
Update: I just went back to see the trailer and see if it can jog my memory, and frankly, I don't even know if this film is the best example of its genre; i.e. multiple plotlines intersecting when the characters run into each other (in this case, CRASH into each other), in L.A. no less. It's self-evident if you read this line for Don Cheadle's character: "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." Oh Plze! As good an actor as Cheadle is, he couldn't really pull off such crapola. I was right, definitely contrived.
There are tons of films that are better sketches on the theme of urban/suburban alienation. Start with almost any Wong Kar Wai movie. If you really want to see "Crash", I'll go directly to the 1996 "Crash" by David Cronenberg. May be you won't like it, but at least you'll see something new and not a rehash.
Salad Bar HackSomewhere out there in the wide wide world, is a chain of Pizza Hut restaurants that limit you to one visit to the salad bar. What's a customer to do? Pile food on the plate, that's what.
Our food and usThis blog entry about home made "fleur de sel" (flower of salt) using Pacific sea water is so interesting, not because of the salt making process itself, but what it says about the modern men and their relationship to his food.
From reading all the comments, you'll think this blogger discovered a new cuisine. But all she did (and she herself said it's no big deal) is to collect a gallon of sea water from the shore, and boiled it down. Yup, boiling water, leaving salt behind. Wow. If you read the reaction in the comments, however, you'd think that this is a breakthrough. Sentiments express amazment, request for instructions to duplicate at home, comments on the amazing "realness" of making one's own salt, were all expressed in admiration of this quaint exercise of boiling sea water.
That is how far we have come in how we view food. We no longer eat much food from the natural world; we eat industrialized products. Cheese products like Velvetta; meat products like Oscar Meyer; dairy products like Coffee Mate; even water products (!) like reverse-osmosised water with added vitamins, like Smart Water. Oh, but those are processed food you say? Well, then let's take a steakt from the meat counter: it is nothing more than beef protein in a cry-o-vac package, moistureless from the pad that soaks up any unpleasantness of blood, featureless with no reference to the original animal from which it came. It is hermatically sealed in plastic, so that you can think as little as possible about that poor cow that gave up this meat. It's amazing we haven't started selling retangular cuts of meat.
And another thing: Judging from the comments at this blog entry, you'll think the woman is suicidal just for injesting salt from the real sea. They cite industrial waste, sewer outflow, etc, as reasons why she shouldn't try the home-made salt. I suppose salt from industrial mines, chemically bleached, iodized, and pulverized is much healthier for you? By that logic, you shouldn't be eatting fish and shrimp or any type of seafood, since they all live in this cest pool we call the sea. Better to have fish protein grown in vats, carefully monitored and controlled by adjusting the pH balance and checmical composition via addition of chemical products.
It is normal now to think sterilized food, clean-room produced, human-intervened, rather than food from nature, as being cleanner, healthier. It's sad that we no longer think it reasonable to eat food from the "wild", trusting the chemical and industiral engineers more than the farmers and Mother Nature herself.
Update: Here's two book on salt that I've been wanting to buy:
3/3/2006 Fight for your rights, to DOWNNNNLOAD!The most empowering thing to do as a citizen of a democracy is to vote. Second most empowering, however, is to express your opinion to the elected officials to shape the debate of an issue. I don't exercise this power very often, but once in a while an issue gets me so riled up that I'm willing to spend a few minutes to write to my legistlators.
The issue that has me spending 30 mins of my time is the recent warmongering coming out of Verizon, ATT and other telco carriers. They are saying that they have the right to charge web sites, such as MSN, Google, or Yahoo, to access *their* network. This is on top of them charging you for having DSL or cable or whatever. In any scenario this is called double dipping, and it pisses me off as a consumer.
What really got me going though, is the thought that Verizon and ATT can now dictate who wins on the Internet. If you are Google, sure, I suppose you can pay a few billion dollars to Verizon to get high quality of service, and still have a business model. But what if you are a little upstart? How are you going to compete against the preferential treatment of Google in carrying high bandwidth video? You can't, that's how. You'll get crappy QoS and people will abandon you even if you have a superior product offering by one of the "in" players that are paying off Verizon. This is called an un-level playing field, and it is counter to what the Internet is all about. Extrapolate Verizon's position out to the extreme, and in a political context, and you basically get the Great Chinese Firewall, in which they get to call the shot about what you can see, and what you can't. I am not going to stand for that. So write to your congress representative about the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, introduced by Sen. Wyden of Oregon. Tell your Senators how you feel about being limited to Google and MSN Videos, but not Youtube.com.
Set them straight before they get bought off by Verizon and ATT, and the next Jack Abramhoff.
3/2/2006 Aquaman becoming realityIf DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) has its way, we'll be getting very close to turning Uncle Sam into one of my favorite Super Hero: Aquaman. Yes, the guy is kinda lame compared to Superman, but he is nothing if not scalable: Whereas Superman and Batman has to fight crime by themselves, Aquaman can command an army (ok, navy) of sea creatures to do his bidding. That was always appealing to me.
Now it looks like DARPA is sponsoring research to remotely sense what a shark is seeing/smelling, as well as control where it goes. That's pretty close to the Aquaman goal, don't you think?
Actually, this is not the first time DARPA tried to fulfill super-destiny. They also sponsored stealth plane/boat research, which in a way is similar to Wonder Woman's invisible plane, except that DARPA wasn't working with the visible spectrum, just the radar spectrum. For that, the Japanese beats DARPA. Check this video out on the invisibiity suit, pretty awesome.
2/27/2006 Is the Bush administration too trusting to enterprises, but not to individuals?You wonder why we spend all these money spying on individuals, including US citizens, and without due process lock up people of Islamic faith and put them out of sight of any judicial system. While at the same time, it is perfectly okay to take the words of Dubai Port World, a company from United Arab Emirates, to run our port without much of an security review. Yes, the same ports that are still vulnerable to terrorism today, five years after 9/11, without much lip service let alone actions from the administration.
Now look at Halliburton. This is a company that even the Pentagon auditors sid has overbilled (over-bilked) our government. And yet, it's okay to continue to pay these guys these disputed sums. Why? Because corporate entites are better citizens than mere human?
Is it that because business are more accountable, more responsibles entities than individuals? Are foreign corporations to be afforded more trust by the Feds than individuals who are citizens of the US? Perhaps the Founding Fathers should have just make the business owners the Electoral College, and in one stroke you could have a "safeguard" built into our democracy, where "Businesses know Best."
2/24/2006 How to kill open sourceThis is a fasincating article on OSx86, on how you can break open source efforts by throwing in the world's most desirable element: Money. Apparently, the $12,000 reward to the first person who can dual boot XP on an Intel Mac has caused the open source community to stop sharing, and thus slowed down the progress that would have happened if everyone worked together, rather than every one working individually in secret because each developer wants to win the prize. Who would have guessed that such a well intentioned act would have such negative consequences? The open source world is just so fasicnating, chaotic, and complicated.  2/20/2006 Another iPod sillinessThis is JBL's On Time, designed to be first and foremost a shrine for you iPod, and secondarily they threw in some alarm clock functions. Uggy.
Jeez guys, I love my iPod, but please stop this iSilliness.
The National Archives need to hire CheneyNYT reports that the various intelligence agencies, under the Bush administration's spirit of the more secretive government, is re-classifing already declassified documents that were released in the mid 90's, most of them posing no security risk. Historians discovered in December that declassified matierials that they copied from the Archives in the mid 90's is no longer available there, triggering the Archives to acknowledge this secret operation, and perform an internal audit that concluded most of the material is mundane or downright silly to be re-classified. The consensus seems to be that the various agencies are trying to cover up their past mistakes, such as the CIA declaring in 1950 that China will not move to supporting Communists in Korea, only to have it actually happen two weeks later.
You know, if the Archives want the material back, they just need to hire Cheney. He seems to be the one person who can arbitrarily declassify information, so one stroke of his pen (or whatever) and it's all fixed!
 Pam and Barbie: Role models to girls everywhereThis was not set up by me in any way: I went to Barnes & Noble and just happened to spot in the art book section this display:
The book cover in the back is of course Pamela Anderson, silicone extraordinaire. The title of the book is "Pam: American Icon". The book in front, is a tribute to the most popluar toy for girls of all time, is "Barbie, Memoria" by Frederick Beigbeber. I should make this a photo for caption contest. I'll start: Between Pam and Barbie, which is more correct anatomically to the modern female ideal? 2/16/2006 Another secret and illegal NSA program?A whistleblowing former NSA employee told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relation (Can Capitol Hill name a committe or what?) that there exists another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights. Russell Tice (Long time Intelligence agent in NSA, fired by NSA in May 05, supposedly as retailiation against him being the leak to the NYT's article that blew the whistle on this whole thing) said that he has concerns about this program being far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping previously reported by the NYT. He believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures, but refuse to say more due to its classified nature, particularly since even the Congressional intelligence committees lack high enough clearance. These type of "Special Access" clearance are only granted to those with a need-to-know basis, and so in a way, you can't know what you don't know, even if you are members of Congressional intelligence committees, with oversight responsibility over this very area. Which is exactly what Bush/Cheney is counting on so they can continue their little power trip / self deception, eh, I mean war on terror. This is dangerous for the nation because their betrayal of the public and Congressional trust is going to ultimately hinder Presidential power for years to come, once the shennigans are exposed in full, long after Bush and Cheney are out of sight. How concerning is this? Christ, even Geroge Will is against it.
Secrets and Lies 2/12/2006 Cheney's Modus Operandi Redux: Shoot first, look laterJust like his instinct for Iraq: Invade first, find WMD later. Throw in a bit of denial and it's classic Bush/Cheney. Inadequate level of intelligence ignored, but let's jawbone the country into invading Iraq because they *will be* WMD attacks any minute now. That's because they *are confirmed* to be working with Al Queida. But shit, no one could have anticipated this level of insurgency when a bunch of Christians invade a Muslim country. Oops, sorry! But at least we didn't drown them, like we did in New Orleans!
Cheney, ready to shoot anything that moves 2/3/2006 Sexual attraction only lasts two years, report foundThe University of Pisa in Italy found that the sexual attraction hormones, called neutrophins, only last two years before it declines in the lovers' system. This is replaced, I kid you not, with the hormones for cuddling, oxytocin.
I wonder if they can extend their study and see if there's a hormone increase at the 7 year mark, and once and for all describe the Seven Years Itch.
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