Montreal vs Austin

I came across an article today about the new standard Franglais greeting "bonjour/hi" in Montreal. I guess there's a "merci/bye" or something like that as well. 

I think Montrealais may develop into its own language. In the meanwhile, the endless dance of my language/your language continues its fraught and enervating pall over the city. Consequently it is to the point where every grunt that is ambiguous as to language, and every saved syllable,  is finely honed and bricked into place at the shabby commercial foundation of a new language. Most Montrealers, as a consequence, (Leonard Cohen, grace a dieu, excepted) are terse and have underdeveloped sense of language and to some extent of music. The other senses and other aspects of civilization are rather heightened.

In Texas, though, the smallest transaction with a stranger, a pack of gum, a pencil, will cost you a half hour of chitchat about the weather, the ballgame, and the best barbecue in Lee county.

Un Acadien Errant

Un Acadien errant,

Banni de ses foyers,

Parcourait en pleurant

Des pays étrangers.

Un jour, triste et pensif,

Assis au bord des flots,

Au courant fugitif

Il adressa ces mots

"Si tu vois mon pays,

Mon pays malheureux,

Va, dis à mes amis

Que je me souviens d'eux.

"O jours si pleins d'appas

Vous êtes disparus,

Et ma patrie, hélas!

Je ne la verrai plus!"

       - Traditional

Journalism again

Professional journalism is too important to go away. There is plenty of room for discussion of what the new business model is going to be, and plenty of discussion of that. But there’s another interesting question implied here, and this is where I think additional focus is needed. Assuming a professional journalist class is needed, WHO are the professional journalists going to be? Does the training and culture of the J-schools actually create people well-suited for the emerging marketplace?

The existing news media are very much in the same position as book and music publishers are now, and as movie studios will be soon enough. Distribution costs, which used to dominate, are near zero. Therefore a corporate position controlling distribution is impossible; hence it is a matter of something other than capital to provide the filtering on what is and what isn’t worth attending to.

Few of the successful writers emerging from this process will be the ones who have been employed as journalists without establishing a personal brand. And as in music and book publishing, the long tail gets longer and fatter at the expense of the height of the short peak; it will be easier to make a supplementary income as a writer and harder to make a good living.

In the past, the people getting the sweet jobs have been the people playing by the rules of journalism, starting out covering apartment fires for the Podunk Register, as if that were a task that the person living across the street couldn’t do, and as if that were a task which prepared anyone for really digging into any complex story of civic importance.

The collapse of the barriers to entry works to the detriment of the person whose “expertise” is only in journalism, an expertise whose value to the news consumer has long been rather dubious and is becoming increasingly so. 

Always something to improve

Ray's provided a great dining experience. There are always things that I would change pretty much everywhere I go... Ray's is no exception. I'd move Ray's closer to Houston so I could eat there more.

- Texas Burger Guy

A bit ghoulish

to say the least, but amazingly creative, the skull-a-day project:

http://skulladay.blogspot.com/2007/06/original-36525-skulls-1-122.html

I Fix Computers

(Click for higher resolution image)

The Magic of Photography

From LifeHacker ; food photography vs a photograph of the represented food.

Uh-Oh

From Bill Wixted:

Jitterbug Vipers at Central Market

Slowed down my grocery shopping a bit today.

Also Will Taylor/Strings Attached's Sgt Pepper's/Abbey Road show last night was a hoot. I loved the Texas swing version of "When I'm 64" and the audience participation "Carry That Weight" and the young Aretha-esque singer on "Come Together" and...

Austin is really something. It's not much to look at, but it's really something.

Mad Hatter's Neighborhood Tea Party

March 21 2009, Linda Lane, Austin TX

Bastrop TX

Feed store


Car lot


Don't do dat


Bicyclist and Goats


Mexican church

L'amour est bleu

Bleu, bleu, l'amour est bleu
Le ciel est bleu lorsque tu reviens
Bleu, bleu, l'amour est bleu
L'amour est bleu quand tu prends ma main
Fou, fou, l'amour est fou
Fou comme toi et fou comme moi
Bleu, bleu, l'amour est bleu
L'amour est bleu quand je suis à toi

Everything's Bigger in Jersey

Florist

Left Turn Not Protected (Austin 2009)

Blame the Depression

Cafe Mundi, Austin TX, February 2009

How to Know You Are in Texas

ART for the public

Ducks in a Row joke

via xkcd

also adaptive algorithmics in Python (though I don't quite get the joke) via xkcd

I am getting increasingly paranoid...

Further Updates to the Vinyl Database

here

Album: Greg Allman Tour

Picked at random from my vinyl collection.

Gregg Allman with a 24 piece orchestra, 3 voice chorus, wind section, &c.

An extremely ambitious effort from 1974. A CD digital release exists but is out of print. Amazon reviewers liked "Queen of Hearts" which I found saappy and over the top. I really appreciate Chuck Leavell's piano on this disk. Love the use of near-silence just before the turnaround in the blues number Feel So Bad, which is a kind of hallmark of the Allman/Southern rock thread. Tommy Talton's guitar riffs are a clone of Duane Allman's (deceased 1971 at age 25), that certain tangy squeak: ta-da-dada-SQUEAK-da.

There's a kind of blues-brothers-ensemble feel that keeps coming and going behind what would normally be a cowboy-fringe five-piece sound, but for me it works. One Amazon reviewer says this was the birth of jazz-rock fusion, but I don't buy that. It's not really an important recording because nobody really went in this direction later, but it's probably the rockinest orchestra ever and definitely worthy of note on that score. If anyone ever wants to do large ensemble rock and roll again, this ought to be primary source material.

My copy is a bit scratchy (and was a cutout to begin with) but still quite listenable. I'm moving this one to the front burner and will consider picking up a used CD if I get the chance.

Obama on science

More grownup talk:

Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create twenty-first century jobs—today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It is time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.

...

Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us

Like my friend J says, he better not f'ing blow it. Don't you want to hear Palin's take on this issue?

Overheard on Twitter

Courtesy twitter ID caseywright:

Watching the Blagojevich conference, and all I can think is "Don't any of these reporters have shoes?"

New 24" iMac

This screen is so gorgeous I don't think I will ever want to look at anything else ever again.

An Extraterrestrial in Austin

http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/just-turn-right/?hp

Canada Who?

The BQ (Quebec separatists) are in a governing coalition! The liberal and socialist parties find them less offensive than the conservatives.

You'd think the most eventful day in Canadian politics in forty years would make NPR news, or the front page of the Times or something.

At least it gets a terse mention on the front page of BBC News. See, right at the bottom there?

Afghanistan is not Iraq

When a former Afghanistan interior minister compares the two by saying "Afghanistan is not Iraq", he is implying that Iraq was a cakewalk by comparison.

I am no military expert, but I doubt it in principle. It seems that had the Bushies not been in such a hurry to engage Iraq, the campaign for Afghanistan would have turned out better. And of course, if Charlie Wilson's version of events (a v ery interesting movie except for the as-always insufferable Julia Roberts, by the way) holds any water, even that should never have been necessary; blame for that falls to both parties and typical congressional shortsightedness.

In practice, though, the volunteer military is tapped out and so is the world's tolerance for American military adventures. This needs to be a NATO campaign or it will be NOT A campaign.

Shrimp Breakfast Tacos (Tacos con huevos y camarones)

Irene wanted shrimp for breakfast. This recipe is my response:

• olive oil or bacon grease
• sweet onion, finely chopped
• roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped Hatch green chile, one per medium onion (may substitute Anaheim, or Poblano)
  
• two peeled cloves garlic per medium onion
• chili powder or, (preferably Tears of Joy Armadillo Rub!) barbeque rub
• pinch salt
• a half dozen medium shrimp, peeled, deveined and coarsely chopped
• two authentic flour tortillas (small, taco size; HEB house brand has lard but is nice Central Market and Whole Foods now carry oil or butter based tacos in these parts.)
• Two eggs, cracked in a bowl and blended
• black pepper
• fresh lime
• ripe Haas avocado slices

You will need two frying pans, one nonstick and one cast iron.

1) Fry onions and chiles in oil or grease slowly, adding pressed or crushed garlic cloves, salt and spice blend to taste in nonstick frying pan.
2) when onions are translucent, remove most of the vegetable blend from pan and save for some other recipe; you will need just a small amount here.
3) Add shrimp; fry the shrimp with veggies until just barely cooked. Take nonstick pan off heat.
4) Warm tortillas in hot cast iron pan on each side until heated through and one side starts to brown. (If they start to puff up, you have the authentic kind. Remove them just as they start to inflate.) Put in warm oven or ceramic tortilla dish to keep warm.
5) Reheat nonstick pan. Once hot, add eggs. Scramble until no longer runny. Put into warm tortillas.
6) Sprinkle generously with lime juice and freshly ground black pepper. (This step is crucial.)
7) Garnish with avocado slices.

Serves two, obviously. Scales up to the number of eggs you can scramble in your pan. (Hungry younger folk can easily handle two tacos each.)

Serve with refried beans, orange juice or mimosas, and if you can find such a thing in Texas, a halfway decent cup of coffee. Enjoy! And don't ever tell me I never had an original idea in my life.

Dire Symmetry

Republicans paranoid about people voting multiple times and Democrats paranoid about votes not being counted does not make for a stable democracy. Nobody is going to believe anything.

This better be a landslide; a close election going either way will be disastrous just by itself.

I don't think other countries have these problems, at least, not other established democracies.

More here. (h/t electoral-vote.com )

CCSUSA Wastes Your Tax Dollars Bothering Me

Somebody named Benjamin something-or-other owes somebody money. A credit agency robot calls me at work every few days. It has stopped warning me sternly not to reply if I am not Benjamin, but it offers me no way to shut it up.

Today, I went to the website to enter Benjamin's account number and my office phone on their website, but it refuses to let me through. It says 

"Continue button will be enabled when form is completed."

but it isn't. Perhaps it's just bad HTML that only works on Explorer? I am pretty sure I got the account number right. They also gave me a telephone number to call. Every time I have called it it is busy, except today, Saturday, when it urges me to call during business hours.

Oh. It is bad html. Firefox 3 succeeded where Safari did not. However, to get anywhere I had to read past the place where they told me to avert my eyes if I am not Benjamin. It turns out this is about a debt of a bit less that $400.

Now I suppose this isn't costing them very much. But as my employer, do you think this is a good use of my time? I think it constitutes harassment. They ought to make some effort to see that I am actually the person they are calling.

In the private sector I could assign clerical staff to track this down.

Versailles Today

Dodging a Bullet

So night before last I'm in an overpriced motel in Pasadena, about 30 miles from LAX, and I have a 6:40 AM plane to catch. (Plus the following week is going to be stressful for reasons I won't relate here.) I figure I ought to practice returning the car the night before. I set out at 7:45, hoping to make it back to Pasadena within an hour, maybe an hour and change.

Sure enough, I take several wrong turns on the way to the airport. The rental car return
is abysmally marked, with a few haphazard signs but no clear path, and I'm driving around in circles on Sepulveda and Century and suchlike looking for Avis when I realize I have a desperate need to relieve myself. Thinking Avis would not be appreciative if I were to piss their car, (well sort fo a car, it is a rather worthless largish beast called an HHR or such that they have foisted upon me as "midsized") I begin an urgent search for a back street with a tree I can water.

Taking the road less traveled three or four times works smoothly enough. I find a deserted out of the way street which is unlikely to have any evening traffic and proceed to fertilize a handy eucalyptus. Or so I thought. In retrospect it was something of a dyscalyptus.

Much relieved, I pull a U and am surprised to see another car waiting at the light. So I'm behind this car at a bit of an angle. Perhaps my lights are not visible in the mirror of the nice lady in the other car. In any case, she suddenly takes into her head to go into reverse. I see the reverse lights come on and start leaning on my horn to no avail. She guns it and gives me a good solid thwok in the side.

Well, suddenly I am facing a sleepless night with accident reports, something which I can ill afford at the moment. I am furious. But when we go to look, there isn't any sign of damage on either car! Not a scratch!

"We dodged a bullet" I say to the nice lady, and let her go on her way and me on mine.

I find the Avis lot at last and head back to Sepulveda to find the 105 eastbound ramp. Something glitches in my brain, and when I pass the 105 ramp I think I see "405" and keep going. I am wondering if the car is a bit misaligned. Of course, I groan, she must have hit the tire. I stupidly think nothing of it, wondering if I will have to report this to Avis after all. When I am sure I have missed my ramp, I turn right onto a quiet little cul-de-sac on 30th street to do a 3-point turn and go back, but when I shift into reverse, essentially the wheel breaks off along with a bit of the axle, loosely remaining attached to the car at a jaunty angle.

I did dodge a bullet after all. Had I found the 105 ramp, this a axle-breaking trick would likely have happened at speed on an elevated expressway. Who knows what would have become of me.

Since my phone battery was dead, I was lucky to find myself right by a Domino's pizza to make a couple of calls. The tow came, Avis in total indifference swapped out the car, with no mention of the 45 degree angle that one of the wheels was dangling at. This gave me enough time to get back to Pasadena, sleep for two hours, collect my luggage and (with some trepidation) haul myself back to LAX where the plane to Austin was on time. Irene was kindly waiting at Bergstrom, and I came home and collapsed into bed.

One moral of the story is that what appears to be good luck can be bad luck and what appears to be bad luck can be good. I slept through my all too brief weekend, but intact, intact.

The other moral is that if someone backs really hard into your tire, file the accident report anyway. I guess. I don't know. I really wouldn't have thought of it, and maybe the cop wouldn't have either.

I suppose Avis will be bothering me this week as if I didn't have enough troubles. But all of that is better than getting onto the 105 elevated expressway with a wheel that is about to break off, something I had every intention of doing,

Larry Monroe invokes Shakespeare Eggly

Larry is sitting in hosting the "Phil Show" this week on KUT. He just played a tune called "Plans Aft Gang Agley", but I think he missed the reference. So...

"PLAYuns EFT GAyung EGGly" of course.

Kick butt show just the same. I love Tixes.

Have to Give 'em Credit

The Texas Republicans certainly don't mince words.

See, e.g., p 18: "We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state."

The Seven Blunders of the World

Some rich people's travel magazine has an article called the New Wonders of the World. I like the giant toaster somewhat; it's a posthumous le Corbusier church in France somewhere. The village's web site doesn't appear very proud of it, though.

The rest of the wonders, though, the usual Lebeskind and Gehry crap, ought to be prosecuted, not celebrated.

I love KUT

Paul Ray is the ever-so Texan jazz DJ. (Pay no mind to the picture. He sure sounds Texan.) He just came out with this:

"Y'know muh car's th'only shade I got out there."

rah

zed, dammit, zed

On a related note, progress is defined by running it backwards.

Think Indifferent

Famous Potatoes

I'm sure he wouldn't care for my opinions very much, and vice versa, but I find it impossible not to like this guy or the simple cheerful vision of America he represents. R I P J Simplot.

Trudeau

I was struck by the resemblance between Obamamania and Trudeaumania so I went looking to see if anyone else had noticed.

Someone had. So, I just want to get it on record that this really isn't the way I, for one, remember it going.

What can you say to people who gather their evidence in an alternative universe of their own imagining?

Tobis and his Gauchos

"Tobis and his Gauchos - led by singer and guitar player Torvald "Tobis" Tollgren (1910-86) - could be described as the first Swedish latino pop group. During the 1940s and early 1950s, Tobis and his Gauchos was very popular with their (in the eyes and ears of the Swedes) exotic and colourful music. They lad lots of tangos, rhumbas and (as in this case) sambas and even a couple of hillbilly numbers on their repertoir and made over fifty 78 rpm records 1940-53. Tobis formed his group in 1938 and disbanded the group in 1956. Torvald Tollgren later worked as a manufacturer of ballet shoes." mp3 here
 

Update: I was remiss in not crediting my source: http://the78rpmblog.blogspot.com/

Song for Yom Tov

Well I came across a child of God, he was walking along the road
and I asked him tell where are you going, this he told me:
Well, I'm going down to Yasgur's farm, going to join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.

We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Well, then can I walk beside you? I have come to lose the smog.
And I feel like I'm a cog in something turning.
And maybe it's the time of year, yes, and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am but life is for learning.

We are stardust, we are golden, we are caught in the devil's bargain,
and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

-JM

Your Flag Decal

won't get you into heaven anymore

Talkin' 'bout My Generation

I wonder what it would be like to be from a generation that wanted to please its parents. I suppose that's the norm, but to a childless boomer everything mentally healthy young people do seems bloodless and shallow, on whatever side. It all seems to be a quest for parental approval, not for creativity or self-actualization.

This may have something to do with why waiting around for youth movements isn't going to amount to much. It's not all roses, but maybe we really are a special generation. Nobody will ever have parents as out of touch as ours were. We were on opposite sides of the Future Shock.

We really had no guidance. This led to many very bad things and many very good things.

Maybe the future is still up to us.

Folk etymology

Now that's one for the books. Spotted online:

Legally Google can not be in kohutz with Yahoo.

heh

So Hip It Hurts

Huh.

I bought a Scion xD because it seemed practical and comfortable. I wasn't trying to be brash or act other than my age. I just wanted a car.

Apparently this makes me so hip it hurts. Or so unhip I can be hip by accident. Which is the same thing I guess. Somebody in Chicago was amazed by the thing, wnted to talk about it and figure me out like I was riding Ken Kesey's bus.

The fact is just that apparently I am missing some neurons. It looks exactly the same as any other hatchback to me. I prefer to buy cars from Toyota because their stuff works. I got a silver one because the red color was even uglier.

I like the steering wheel controls of the audio system, but the dash controls of the radio are among the worst user interface designs I have ever seen, and I used to run Windows 3.1 . The roof is too low and the vertical extent of visibility a bit cramped. Everything important works, and it works great for small Ikea runs. City mileage isn't great compared to the Prius but it's really pretty good on the highway.

Update: Luigi refers to its "bug eyes". The headlights are indeed a bit distinctive. I rarely approach the car from the front though and I really hadn't noticed.

Honor Among Thieves

From today's Statesman:

University of Texas at San Antonio students wanted to draft an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.

Unfortunately, it appears they copied another school's code without proper attribution.

The student in charge of drafting the code said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don't cite sources properly and think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines.

Akshay Thusu said he took over the project a month ago and inherited a draft from other students.

He said he discovered that a group of students attended a conference put on by Clemson's Center for Academic Integrity five years ago. Materials from the conference, which are used by many universities, were probably the main source of UT-San Antonio's code, Thusu said.

That's why parts of the draft match word-for-word the online version of Brigham Young University's code.

Brigham Young credited the Center for Academic Integrity, but UT-San Antonio didn't. That will change, said Thusu, who plans to submit a draft with proper citation to the Faculty Senate

.

Rule of Law

Indeed.

It appears that Mr Bush got one right and the supreme court overruled him. This is pretty close to a showstopper for me. Man.

Avoid Circuit City

I must have been Texan in a previous life. I can't believe how, on leaving Circuit City after a repulsively foul consumer experience, I mutterred in perfect Texan "That's alright (assaw rat). I'll take it out of their hide (attather had.)" Weird.

So herewith, delivery on my vow. I offer you a strong piece of advice to avoid Circuit City, which essentially will not accept returns of merchandise that does not function as advertised. I won't bore you with the details of my story. If you are foolishly tempted to enter the place, and you aren't within 300 miles of a Fry's, please just go to Best Buy or some small time place instead.

If you won't take my word for it check this story out. Corroboration here, there and everywhere. Treating staff with this sort of contempt apparently leads to staff that treats customers with comparable contempt. Don't let them take it out on you.

Blame Canada

I guess it's not funny anymore.

A Stray Thought for PyCon

So it turns out I actually end up believing that rules and regulations are a good thing, but really, it's just a stray thought, don't read too much into it:

So your brother's bound and gagged
And they chained him to a chair,
Won't you please come to Chicago
Just to sing.
In a land that's known as freedom,
How can such a thing be fair?
Won't you please come to Chicago
For the help that we can bring.

We can change the World.
Rearrange the World.
It's dying
to get better.

Politicians sit yourselves down,
There's nothing for you here.
Won't you please come to Chicago
For a ride.
Don't ask Jack to help you
Cause he'll turn the other ear.
Won't you please come to Chicago
Or else join the other side.

We can change / yes we can change the World.
Rearrange / rearrange the World.
It's dying / do you believe in justice?
It's dying / and if you believe in freedom.
It's dying / Let a man live his own life.
It's dying / Rules and regulations who needs them?
Open up the door.

Somehow people must be free,
I hope the day comes soon.
Won't you please come to Chicago,
To show your face.
From the bottom of the ocean
To the mountains of the Moon.
Won't you please come to Chicago
No one else can take your place.

We can change / yes we can change the World.
Rearrange / rearrange the World.
It's dying / If you believe in justice.
It's dying / and if you believe in freedom.
It's dying / Let a man live his own life.
It's dying / Rules and regulations, who needs them?
Open up the door.

OLPC grumble

Won't have one before PyCon for sure.

Dear Michael,

Please accept my apologies for the delay in receiving your XO laptop. Give
One Get One was such a phenomenal success that we over-taxed our order
processing, and payment systems. Demand exceeded supply.

Additional XO laptops are being built now, and will be delivered in April.

Sincerly,
Kutia
One Laptop Per Child
Donor Services


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Tobis [mailto:mtobis@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 12:05 PM
To: Support

I have been in the following status for more than two weeks.

"Your donation is ready to be shipped and is in our shipping queue.
Please check back with us every few days for updates If you have
received this same response after several days (2 weeks or more)
please contact Donor Services to verify your shipping information."

I am pretty frustrated. Hoped to have mine in hand months ago.

Please ship to ...

Update: It finally arrived at the older shipping address, about two weeks before it would have been impossible for me to retrieve it from there. It was on my desk on my return from PyCon. All's well that ends well, I guess. Now the problem is figuring out what to do with it.

Acclimatized?

I've only been here a year now (this is the 1-year anniversary this week, now that I think of it) and I usually have on hand the following ingredients, probably still difficult to find in Canada. You could do most of it quite well in Chicago, though I never went this far there.

Beverages:

• corn-syrup-free Coke imported from Mexico
• iced tea
• Shiner Bock beer
• proper top-shelf margarita fixin's, i.e., good tequila, triple sec,
• fresh limes (ten for a dollar in season)

Condiments:

• proper barbeque sauce
• red salsa
• pico de gallo (marinated vegetables with tomato, for tacos)
• green salsa
• escabeche (hot pickled onions and carrots)
• ground ancho chile (dark red, smoky, mild)
• ground guajillo chiles (red, spicy)
• ground chipotle chiles (red, smoky and tangy)
• ground jalapeno (green, hot)
• if there's company I will spring for some queso, which resembles Velveeta until you taste it (served hot in a crock pot)
  
• mole' sauce
• mexican sour cream

Vegetables:

• green chiles, preferably Hatch, anaheim acceptable
• (also poblano and serrano green chiles on occasion)
• tomatillos (a.k.a. "Mexican green tomatoes", close relative of the tomato but has a paperlike husk)
• I always have onions, regular peppers, on hand. sometimes mushrooms, zucchini and celery

Tortillas:

• fresh corn tortillas, coarse grind, strong preference for El Milagro brand
• fresh flour tortillas, strong preference for lard-free house-made from Central Market
• if there's company I will spring for some tortilla chips for the queso

Nuts:

• pecans are essentially free in Texas, though they do require some work to shell them. Real Mexicans put ground nuts in everything. Not so much the Texans, who save them for sweets and chop them. Either way, roast em in a cast iron pan for a few minutes as soon as they are out of their shells. Watch carefully and stir constantly. Don't burn 'em.
  

Protein:

• I don't eat beef except when in a restaurant and essentially forced to as a social obligation, this happens in Texas. Also non-beef at rural restaurants is usually unpalatable compared to the barbecue or the burgers.
  
• I mostly get quality fish, shrimp (very cheap! $5/lb.), chicken, pork, or non-beef sausage at Central Market and grill it and refrigerate it, then throw it in a stew when dinner comes around
• I always have some low-fat refried pintos available from cans. Served with every meal including breakfast
• Mexican chorizo is nice for breakfast, I found a turkey based one at H.E.B.

===========

Prepping ingredients weekly:

• roast and freeze some chiles. When frozen, peel and seed them, chop
• and refrigerate.
• grill some meats
• boil some shrimp
• cut up some peppers and onions and sautee slowly in garlic and salt

Typical breakfast:

• Heat and crumble chorizo (NB, Spanish chorizo is not the same stuff), and scramble into an egg with some chopped roasted green chiles
• Heat up a flour tortilla in a cast iron pan. Wrap around the scramble.
• Serve with reheated refried beans.

Typical lunch:

• Microwave a grilled sausage.
  
• Heat up a flour tortilla in a cast iron pan.
  
• Wrap, add good barbecue sauce.
  
• Serve with salad

Typical dinner:

• chop grilled meat, some sauteed vegetables, and a sauce, add spices to taste and cook long enough to blend spices
• offer rice and refried beans
• Optionally sour cream, and pico could be available, depending on the filling. Grated cheese and shredded lettuce possible if you're leaning more Tex than Mex.
• for company, start with a tortilla soup

Recipes? We don't need no steenking recipes.

OK, here's a tortilla soup recipe:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/002087tortilla_soup.php

Tex and Mex both tend to excessive sweetness with their desserts though I'll enjoy a tres leches or a chess pie on occasion. When we don't have company we settle for a square of chocolate. If the occasion calls for dessert and we don't have time to bake something I will pick up something at Dolce Vita on Duval Street. Not really thematically unified but yummm!

We are also close enough to Lousiana to make a difference. Between all the good food and the lousy walking and bicycling, it's really a treacherous place for the likes of me.

It's striking how differently I have treated my kitchen since coming down here, though. If I ever go back to Canada I will need a tortilla press of my own.

Urgent Information Regarding Mortgage Holder!

I must be in a low IQ zipcode.

Apparently buying a house in a middle-class neighborhood in America these days makes you a target for various scam artists intimating that they are your lender or your government. I have here the six offers from this week:

===

1) "It has been brought to our attention that you are not yet participating in the Mortgage Cancellation Program to which you are entitled". (OK, at least it looks optional. This is an assume-your-mortgage-in-case-of-death offer. If I ever plan to off myself I will certainly look them up.)

2) Attention: Time Sensitive Material. Complete and Return.

LENDER: Supreme Lending
Michael Tobis
address....

(This is an offer of life and disability insurance)

3) Important Notice to Michael Tobis. Please Complete and Return.

Travis County.

(life and disability. AT least they said "please". This one is especially creepy because it seems to claim to be from the county.)

4) IMPORTANT NOTICE from Mortgage Protection Services. Complete and Return.

Lender:
Supreme Lending
To Borrower:
Mr. & Mrs. Michael Tobis
[address]

(Cleverly dressed up to look like it's FROM the lender. Of course, they sold me off to Wells Fargo inside a week. Maybe the U of T thinks I'm marginal but the banks think I'm golden...)

5) Attention: Time Sensitive Material. Complete and Return.

Lender: Supreme Lending
Record Date: 01/22/2008 (huh?)
Loan Amount: [amount]

6) Notice of Interest Overpayment

(This one is the best. Apparently if you pay off your loan early you will pay less interest! Who knew? Anyway these people will kindly collect payments biweekly and pay your mortgage down monthly for a modest fee.)

====

I wonder how many people fill out everything marked "Complete and Return" and end up with twenty life insurance policies...

Ethical Society, Unitarianism, Trinitarianism

Irene and I have applied to join the Ethical Society, which is sort of an engineers' religion.

"Deed before creed" is the motto; what we believe is less important to us than our actions and their consequences in the world.

...each of those religions, these value systems, have two principles they share in common: tzedakah and tikkun olam, and the two principles started with monotheism and the Jews. Tzedakah means generally that we must treat each other as brother and sister. We should show one another respect and dignity because we are like things; we are human beings in a world that has nothing else like us, and we ought to treat each other with love, charity, use your own words. And the second principle is, "Well, what do you do with this relationship?" Well, we don't know exactly how we got here and why we are here, etc. etc.; that's for minds larger than our own. But we do know that we are like kinds, and we should work together to make this as good an experience as possible: tikkun olam -"let us repair the universe." Now, Islam believes that, and Buddhism that has no god believes it. Every Ethical Humanist I ever met believes it. Those two principles: We're supposed to love one another and we're supposed to work together to make the experience better. That's all the religion you need, really, to make a success of this planet...

-Mario Cuomo

That said, today's meeting was all about comparing the ethical society to other comparable groups. It's sort of droll to consider myself an apostate Unitarian. Garrison Keillor has many jokes about Unitarians but I only remember this one. Forgive me if you;ve heard it before.

"Did you hear about the Jehovah's Witness who converted to Unitarianism? He went around the neighborhood ringing doorbells for no particular reason." I myself have written a Unitarian hymn. It's called "To Whom It May Concern". What I like about the ethicists is that they don't feel compelled to pretend to be protestants during their meetings. The superficial resemblance to a protestant service does nothing at all for me.

The discussion of the history of Unitarianism showed that it arose as an alternative to Trinitarianism. We also discussed atheism and agnosticism and the fine distinctions between them. Most of us feel that agreeing on what you disbelieve is almost as bad as agreeing on what you pretend to believe as an organizing model for a community.

When it comes to Trinitarianism, though, agnostic doesn't begin to capture my philosophical response. I simply don't get it. I have never had the slightes clue who the Holy Ghost was supposed to be. Everyone I've asked has failed to come up with a coherent answer. I am certainly Unitarian as opposed to atheistic or agnostic, myself. I can't begin to express an opinion on the Trinity though. It simply baffles me who the third guy is. I am not so much atheistic or agnostic when it comes to the trinity as baffled. Call me an acomprehensive.

I've been hearing this stuff all my life and I just don't get it. Somehow polytheism is heresy unless the number of gods is three? Three shall be the number of gods, not two nor four? Five is right out? I'm still waiting for something to wrap my head around. I sort of understand the savior thing though it doesn't ring true for me but I just don't get it about the ghost.

Anyway I am down with the unity of the universe, and perfectly comfortable with calling it God and taking an attitude of deep gratitude to that God for what seems to me the astonishing miracle of life.

The only reason I'm a Unitarian apostate is because the services are silly.

Good night and God bless.

Grownups in Government

A valentine widget seen on GOP.com .

Would it be too much to ask for some grownups to run the country?

From WIRED:

Unlike traditional Valentine's messages, the GOP-grams are perhaps better sent to people you dislike. The Valentine site launched Monday without a privacy policy. After an inquiry by Wired.com on Wednesday, the RNC added a link to the GOP.com privacy policy, which allows it to share any information it collects with "like-minded" organizations "committed to the principles or candidates of the Republican party." How romantic.

Yiddish Radio Project

Better late than never. Here.

Hmm, it doesn't actually rock. It does sort of swing in a schmaltzdikke sort of a way.

Related resources here. So click, why don't you? Go. Click, click.

Numeracy

In a comment on "In It", Hank R points to a very interesting observation by Greg Palast.

It starts with the observation that the number of millionaires in the US is comparable to the number of poor children, and then compares the benefits offerred to each class by the Bush administration.

Read it.

This is why we need numeracy. Fear of big numbers prevents people from thinking clearly.

Island of Noise

Fly silly seabird
No dreams can possess you
No voices can blame you
For sun on your wings
My gentle relations
Have names they must call me
For loving the freedom
Of all flying things
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

I came to the city
And lived like old Crusoe
On an island of noise
In a cobblestone sea
And the beaches were concrete
And the stars paid a light bill
And the blossoms hung false
On their store window trees
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

Out of the city
And down to the seaside
To sun on my shoulders
And wind in my hair
But sandcastles crumble
And hunger is human
And humans are hungry
For worlds they can't share
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

I call to a seagull
Who dives to the waters
And catches his silver-fine
Dinner alone
Crying where are the footprints
That danced on these beaches
And the hands that cast wishes
That sunk like a stone
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach Out of cry

JM (1968)

Exercise Plan

I was bemoaning the fact that I can't hire someone to exercise for me.

The ideal would be a temporary mind swap. My contractor would go to the gym in my body and exercise for me, and I'd be in his body reading a book. Afterward, I'd be healthier and he'd be smarter.

Woot!

In It was linked directly from the lead RealClimate story yesterday, and a nice one it is indeed. Nice to know Ray is getting so much attention, and a bit daunting to know I am.

Ray linked to my Bambi vs Godzilla posting, which is really just a quote from David Mamet.

No Shortcut to Freedom

OK, it's painfully sappy in that pedestrian folksinger way, but true enough just the same:

Chorus:
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more

And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.

1.
Some folks want to be like an ostrich,
Bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands.

2.
Some hope to take the easy way:
Poisons, bombs. They think we need 'em.
Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?
There's no shortcut to freedom.

(Repeat chorus)

3.
Go tell all the little children.
Tell all the mothers and fathers too.
Now's our last chance to learn to share
What's been given to me and you.

(Repeat chorus one and a half times)

- PS (1967)

Yinglish

The most realistic glossary of Yiddish words commonly used in English that I have seen is under your nose in this clicky thing, what, you never saw a computer before?

Homage a M Cohen

So in honor of the explicitly Cohenesque recent discovery in my old diaries, I thought it would be churlish to pass up the opportunity to go see a Leonard Cohen tribute concert this weekend.

Irene and I and friend Linda accordingly trucked ourselves out to beautiful downtown Marble Falls (a fairly remote town but it has a nice downtown, a bit tarted up for the tourist trade which has its plusses and minuses) where we took in a marvelous show put on by the astonishing (and amazingly eclectic) group Strings Attached. It was among the best concert experiences of my life. They managed not only to present the poetry but to make a musically coherent and varied experience out of, let's face it, LC's perpetual droning. Amusingly it was a flawless performance except for bobbling the lyrics of the one hit song, you know the one, the one with the garbage and the flowers.

I also enjoyed the random reference to cooolllld snoooowy Monntreal in the stage patter; you could almost hear the shivering. It was T-shirt weather in Central Texas yesterday.

They were brilliant. Watch out especially for the astonishing young vocalist Molly Venter.

Some of us (names are embargoed) were reduced to tears at various points during the show. I am eagerly awaiting release of the recording of the very performance we attended.

I am now a Will Taylor/Strings Attached fan for life. (They also have done a Led Zepellin tribute! A Paul Simon tribute is coming up and I can hardly wait for it.)

Austin really lives up to its billing as the music capital of the world and I find it a great joy and privilege to live here.

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

-my homeboy, LC of course

On Moving South

Be flexible! cries the pragmatist within me - why can't you write your diary on this steno notebook passed through an iron grill of a half-closed drugstore on Christmas night, a Saturday, this fuckless bicentennial year.

Be poetic! cries my muse, wondering at the instant add water and stir summer into which I have suddenly been propelled, writing weak poetry or is it strong prose propped up against a garbage bin under the shade of a street lamp flooded palm tree.

Be with me! cries my disease, but she whom it addresses cannot hear.

Be still! cries the December summer wind.

- mt, Christmas 1976, Gainesville FL

Asian Restaurant in Texas

Spotted in a mini-mall outside San Antonio, the Aw Dang Asian Restaurant...

Texism of the Week

One of our movers today was a delightful southwestern type, very reminiscent of Scoresby in the Golden Compass movie in demeanor and aspect. I really did like the fellow quite a lot even before he enriched my vocabulary.

Anyway, while we were pointing out what was to be moved and what was to stay, I told him that the microwave oven was to be loaded onto the truck.

He nodded and reassuringly echoed "makker vuvven".

T'other side o Tixes

http://www.idrewthis.org/comics/idt20070201.gif

Oh Great

"The day will come when all executions carried out in the US will be in Texas"

Makes me reallll proud.

No brainer

Which $400 device do YOU want to see under the tree? The Amazon Kindle or the XO?

Oh Bloody Ell

Hello? Google? Hello?

Liberalism

NOTE: lots of hits on the dubious quote. I don't know where it came from either.

I am willing to make enemies on the left and right saying I don't believe in the grass roots, I believe in big government, I believe in taxing and spending, I believe that your property is a limited charter from the collective interest, not a god-given right. I believe it's a good idea to interfere with your use of that property only as much as necessary, and no more, but that's a tactical and not a moral belief.

We are the custodians of life and art in the universe. That's more important than your pathetic striving to be top monkey in your little corner of the woods. And that's why the liberal program needs to be revived, not sheepishly and in half measures but proudly and triumphantly. Here's a Daily Kos article:

When you're too busy trying not to lose, you may win elections now and then, but you rarely advance those causes you're supposed to care about. We've reached the point where Republican voters can claim the philosophy of absolute greed.

"I make a great deal of money through my own hard work. I don't want to pay for someone else's child to eat breakfast at school anymore."

[Is that for real? I don't know.]

Get that? She makes not just enough money, but a "great deal of money." How dare anyone take it away for something so frivolous as feeding a poor child? And yet Republicans, through their actions in blurring the lines between church and state, have become the "party of faith." Because they say so. Because they are bold in their actions and snarling in their defense.

We need to be just as adamant. We need to not hide behind any abstraction or evasion. We need to be unafraid to address this voter and say "I am going to take some of your money, and give it to that poor kid, because it's more important -- both to the child and to society -- that he eat, rather than that you have an extra week in Cabo."

Note that we should not pretend that "a program will take your money." Or "the government will take your money." This is a democracy, and we are the government. I will take your money. I will. Some of that money you worked hard for and want to keep. I will give it to a kid who is hungry. If your concern is that poverty should be addressed by individuals, then there's a simple solution: feed him. If there are no poor children needing food, I won't have to take anything for them. If your position is that people would be more generous if only the government would stay out of it, then sorry. I'm not willing to put this child at risk to as part of your experiment. Besides, if that were true, then why were their more hungry kids before we started these programs to give them a little breakfast? If your position is that your being able to keep all your money is more important than a child being fed, then I simply think you're wrong. And sick. You want to keep that money? You better beat me at the polls.

Sweden to Gibraltar Pix

http://www.narfstrom.se

This guy is a very perceptive landscape photographer.

He's biking to South Africa from Sweden. Wishing him luck.

451

This one's from memory:

"There must be some kind of way out of here" said the joker to the thief. "There is too much confusion. I can't get no relief. Businessmen they drink my wine, plowmen take my earth, and none of them along the line knows what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke. "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. You and I, we've been through that and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept their view while all their women came and went, their footservants too. Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat did growl. Two riders were approaching.

The wind began to howl.

Lipstick, Pig

"I ran out of lipstick before I ran out of pig."

- a salesman about quitting his job

Quote

"Fidelity to truth butters no parsnips."

- Scott Nearing

Going to the Gym

It feels like such a waste of time to attend to my body and leave my brain bored to tears listening to disco and counting down the minutes until I can get off the stationary bike.

So I had this great idea. A giant keyboard where each of the keys is a fifty pound weight. You'd get your exercise while coding or writing documents. Of course you'd need several versions to exercise various muscle groups.

Then at the end of the day you wouldn't need to waste an hour at the gym trying to stay healthy enough to keep typing.

I go to Lance Armstrong's franchise, which is sort of cool. I try to use the locker closest to his used jersey. Still, maybe we can have a geek franchise of some sort. Say Richard Stallman's 24-hour T-3 House of Pointless Exertions? Do you think RMS would be interested? We'll make millions!

Realpolitik is Hypocrisy

An interesting and intense rant appears on DailyKos. Here's the nub of the argument:

Let me state this clearly, because I failed to do so in an earlier post on a similar subject. Human rights were not created by the US Constitution, or by the International Bill of Human Rights, or by Thomas Paine, or by the Magna Carta. The men who created this nation knew well enough the origin of rights.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The rights were not granted by treaty or government, they were only recognized. Human rights are innate. Preexisting.

Our foreign policy a blatant confession that our morals are far less than skin deep, that our obligation to human rights is nothing but talk, and we have no real concerns other than our own power. We will state so, openly and often, under the guise of being realistic, then go back to mouthing the words of democracy and freedom tomorrow.

So long as we base our policy on what's good for us, rather than what best upholds human rights, we are base pretenders to the legacy left to us by those men who signed the Declaration of Independence. So long as we uphold dictators for our own gain, our soldiers, no matter how individually noble or honorable, are bound to an unjust cause. So long as we nod solemnly over the need to deny others their rights under the pretense of securing our own, we are monsters no less than the worst of our enemies.

There's some horrifying commentary by Ted Koppel that kicks off this severe complaint. Follow the link and see if it makes sense to you.

Turkey Day

Why does this make the press in the UK and not in America?

"This annual survey of food pantries and soup kitchens shows that more working families, children, and seniors are being forced to seek emergency food," Joel Berg, the coalition's executive director, said in a statement.

"Given that hunger continued to increase in the city, even when the economy was still strong last year, it is no wonder that now, when the economy is weakening, lines at pantries and kitchens are getting even worse."

Some food outlets said they would not be able to distribute turkey rations for Thanksgiving on Thursday, because their federal supplies of food had been cut by as much as three-quarters.

Thinking About What a Friend Had Said

After the Goldrush

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights
In armor coming,
Saying something about a queen.
There were peasants singing and
Drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree.
There was a fanfare blowing
To the sun
That was floating on the breeze.
Look at mother nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies.
Look at mother nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies.

I was lying in a burned out basement
With the full moon in my eyes.
I was hoping for a replacement
When the sun burst thru the sky.
There was a band playing in my head
And I felt like getting high.
I was thinking about what a
Friend had said
I was hoping it was a lie.
Thinking about what a
Friend had said
I was hoping it was a lie.

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver
Space ships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun,
There were children crying
And colors flying
All around the chosen ones.
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun.
They were flying mother nature's
Silver seed to a new home in the sun.
Flying mother nature's
Silver seed to a new home.

Neil Young

Bumper Sticker

seen in Austin:

"I'll bet Jesus would have used his turn signals"

Texas Frittata

My almost-prize-winning recipe:

Texas Fritatta:

You will need a 10" nonstick pan with a glass lid

Frozen commercial breakfast sausage (I use Jimmy Dean brand; reduced fat is fine)
1 medium sweet onion
1 mild hatch chile, roasted and peeled
3 eggs
mexican sour cream (no gelatins or emulsifiers) or creme fraiche
sweet smoky Texan spice "rub" blend (I use "Tears of Joy")

1 ) VEGETABLES

Chop and slowly sautee vegetables until soft, remove from heat

2) COMBINE EGGS BUT NOT TOO PERFECTLY

Coarsely mix three eggs and 2 Tbsp runny Mexican sour cream or creme fraiche with spice rub to taste. It is necessary to avoid creams with gelatins etc. for the texture to come out right. Do not blend . Whites, yolks, and cream should be intermingled but not indistingushable.

3) START COOKING SAUSAGES

With a sharp knife, shave slices of breakfast sausage as thinly as possible. Tear slices into roughly 1 inch pieces. Spread non-overlapping across the bottom of the nonstick pan. Meat should cover about half the pan.

On low heat, heat until tops are cooked. Do not flip the sausages!

4) ADD VEGGIES

Pile the cooked chiles and onions evenly over the tops of the sausage. If they are cool, cover and cook until just warm. Leave heat on low. Do not flip the sausages.

5) ADD EGG MIXTURE

Sprinkle a tiny bit of spice blend for color, then pour egg mixture over veggies and meat. Cover.

6) WAIT PATIENTLY

Wait for egg whites to just barely set. Some sour cream should rise to the top and will remain moist.

7) FOLD IN HALF, CUT IN HALF, and SERVE

If all went well, the sausage should be blackening and almost burnt, and the eggs on the bottom very firmly cooked, and the top of the fritatta very moist and creamy. The goal is to get a range of textures, and a smoky flavor. Fold in half, cut in half and serve with refries and home fried potatoes or toast of your choice. Wear a big hat while serving.

serves two.

How Life Went Live

From no less than Stanley Fish in the NY Times, an account of someone who has seen the non-dark:

about Antony Flew’s “There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.” Flew, a noted professor of philosophy, announced in 2004 that after decades of writing essays and books from the vantage point of atheism, he now believes in God. “Changed his mind” is not a casual formulation. Flew wouldn’t call what has happened to him a conversion, for that would suggest something unavailable to analysis. His journey, he tells us, is best viewed as “a pilgrimage of reason,” an extension of his life-long habit of “following the argument no matter where it leads.”

Where it led when he was a schoolboy was to the same place Ehrman arrived at after many years of devout Christian practice: “I was regularly arguing with fellow sixth formers that the idea of a God who is both omnipotent and perfectly good is incompatible with the manifest evils and imperfections of the world.” For much of his philosophical career, Flew continued the argument in debates with a distinguished list of philosophers, scientists, theologians and historians. And then, gradually and to his own great surprise, he found that his decades-long “exploration of the Divine ha[d] after all these years turned from denial to discovery.”

What exactly did he discover? That by interrogating atheism with the same rigor he had directed at theism, he could begin to shake the foundations of that dogmatism. He poses to his former fellow atheists the following question: “What would have to occur or have occurred to constitute for you a reason to at least consider the existence of a superior Mind.” He knows that a cornerstone of the atheist creed is an argument that he himself made many times – the sufficiency of the materialist natural world as an explanation of how things work. “I pointed out,” he recalls, that “even the most complex entities in the universe – human beings – are the products of unconscious physical and mechanical forces.”

But it is precisely the word “unconscious” that, in the end, sends Flew in another direction. How, he asks, do merely physical and mechanical forces – forces without mind, without consciousness – give rise to the world of purposes, thoughts and moral projects? “How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends [and] self-replication capabilities?” In short (this is the title of a chapter), “How Did Life Go Live?”

Flew does not deny the explanatory power of materialist thought when the question is how are we to understand the physical causes of this or that event or effect. He’s is just contending that what is explained by materialist thought – the intricate workings of nature – itself demands an explanation, and materialist thought cannot supply it. Scientists, he says, “are dealing with the interaction of chemicals, whereas our questions have to do with how something can be intrinsically purpose-driven and how matter can be managed by symbol processing?” These queries, Flew insists, exist on entirely different levels and the knowledge gained from the first can not be used to illuminate the second.

In an appendix to the book, Abraham Varghese makes Flew’s point with the aid of an everyday example: “To suggest that the computer ‘understands’ what it is doing is like saying that a power line can meditate on the question of free will and determinism or that the chemicals in a test tube can apply the principle of non-contradiction in solving a problem, or that a DVD player understands and enjoys the music it plays.”

How did purposive behavior of the kind we engage in all the time – understanding, meditating, enjoying – ever emerge from electrons and chemical elements?

The usual origin-of-life theories, Flew observes, are caught in an infinite regress that can only be stopped by an arbitrary statement of the kind he himself used to make: “ . . . our knowledge of the universe must stop with the big bang, which is to be seen as the ultimate fact.” Or, “The laws of physics are ‘lawless laws’ that arise from the void – end of discussion.” He is now persuaded that such pronouncements beg the crucial question – why is there something rather than nothing? – a question to which he replies with the very proposition he argued against for most of his life: “The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such ‘end-directed, self-replicating’ life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind.”

... Flew assures his readers that he “has had no connection with any of the revealed religions,” and no “personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or religious.”

Well, I don't see where he gets the "infinite intelligence" part, but the argument for the insufficiency of materialism is compelling. Still, there are people (Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers) who understand the question but nevertheless work very hard to sweep it under a rug somehow.

Malkovich

What you get when you put "Tobis" into Google Maps. Probably an error. I hope they don't get around to fxing it anytime soon.

Python in MIT Core Curriculum

I guess we have arrived. Catherine Devlin has been banging a python advocacy drum with the fact that Python is now the introductory language in the MIT EECS curriculum. Brad Allen made a digg link.

Go team!

Stolen Geek Art

I sort of like this idea: