The way I read this, the solution to global warming is to build mountains. We can do that...

weeee 2nd to post....horaay

I love Roz Chast. I just shared "When mothers dance" with all my friends who have teenaged daughters.

"It also reinforces the notion that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are a major driver of Earth's climate."

Great, we knew that. Does this mean that since we don't know how to get a mountain rising, we're just victims of Mother Nature here?
Now I understand why Bush rejected Kyoto - even he doesn't have the faith needed to move a mountain.

What happened with the rise of the Cascades, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Rockies?

How old is that photo of VP Cheney? He is looking a little portlier than in other photos I have seen of him. Or is it just the angle the photo is taken at?

*reposting from last Boodle*

Ooooooh, Mommy Blog's taking on the topic of staying civil! And here's a unintentionally spot-on summation of how some people over there blog...

"I agree that attacking a person instead of their views is the best way to go."

I mean, I HOPE that poster meant the opposite, but you never know...

:-)

__________________________

I think we obviously need to goose the mid-ocean ridges to speed up and therefore make more mountains to combat global warming. To say nothing of the increase in skiable acreage...

Quote of the year: "We don't torture."

That's up there with "I am not a crook." for shear ironic hilarity.

I threw some molotov coktails in the last kit just to stir things up, but one item I was serious about, so I'll repost an excerpt.

Charles Krauthammer is running the Draft Obama campaign out of the goodness of his conservative heart. Be careful whose advise you take, Barack.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601253.html

Obligatory nerdish commentary: Chuckie K, despite being a med school grad and all, completely muffed his metaphor about potential and kinetic energy. Somebody should have stayed awake during Physics class. We have some rocket scientists around here that can straighten him out.

As long as we're talking about debating...

http://members.comics.com/members/common/affiliateArchive.do?site=washpost&comic=dilbert

:-)

Hey Aloha,

I caught your remarks a few kits back and very much appreciated them. Yes, you have the exact same and most wonderful professor in your sites as my childhood next door neighbor.

I remember when we made the big Willie Mays for Mickey Mantle baseball card trade. I also remember when my mother "tossed" my cards. Ohhhh, what they would have been worth today!

Aloha, here's one for you... I used to swim at UH as a child with the youth team HSC with Coach Sakamoto when there was a pool right in the middle of the original campus. I remember that you couldn't get into the pool and do your assigned laps until you had Coach personally check your strokes and breathing ... it didn't matter if you swam in the olympics or were a national record holder or just a beginner.

Aloha, you made a great point about economics being a seperating factor. I would say that it may be easier in Hawaii to bridge those gaps, but it is never really easy. As our society's family income stagnates at the median point, we are experiencing some of those pressures here.

Aloha, I hope we can keep talking. I think that you bring a perspective that really can't be summed up by the history of Hawaii, with all due respect to Loomis. It is a place where there probably still is a respect to the lore and spirits of the old Hawaii.

You know, at nap time from 1st grade on, we used to have a story teller come in to tell the old stories of Hawaii. They would run up to weeks long. Those stories gave us a feeling of morals and ethics and power and caring that may be found in various other sources, but were so important to me as I grew up.

I guess that is part of the culture that becomes part of the "salad."

Talk soon!

Linda, how do you think Coors stays so cold?

Re Cheney:
Is it ok that I am officially scared that this guy is next in line if Bush kicks it?

Scottynuke - regarding debate. I have a double-ruby pin somewhere. I pray you have no idea what I am talking about.

Some very thought provoking comments on the last kit. I see no absolutes in either issue, only shaes of grey, and I find myself wondering if that is a picture of a healthy society. Fewer absolutes, and more shades of grey.

Now back to more Friday stuff, how come no one is talking about baseball? Its the world series. In the absence of baseball, I submit we should disscuss curling. Locally the big news is that mr.dr's team is on a winning streak. They fully expect to be back in losing streak mode any day now.

I will read & post on this Kit later. I just wanted to register my chagrin -- I missed the death penalty discussion! It is just my luck that during four days when I could not check in, the Boodle finally discussed something I know something about. I have lots of professional expertise on this issue -- in large part, it is what I do -- and I Missed It. Ah well.

"this guy" is also in line when Bush is removed from office following impeachment..

I-mom! You didn't really miss anything--the boodle is an amorphous blob, I mean blog, outside of time and space, unconstrained by any sort of linear-time conceits.

Please post about the death penalty and don't deprive us of your point of view / expertise.

Here's the Cheney line that bothered me, where he refers to, "a robust interrogation program without torture". Robust? I also picture him smirking through those comments, could be because I watch too much Jon Stewart.

Scotty -- ha!
There also seems to be some dismay at the idea of meta-blogging, or "blogging about blogging." Someone needs to go over there and introduce those people to the Ouroboros -- I dare ya!

I did learn something new, though: When one person posts under multiple handles and has conversations with him- or herself, it's called "sockpuppetry." I did not know that.

You know, reading the new civility policy on the Mommy Blog brings back memories. Seems like only yesterday Joel was delivering his own version of the let's-be-civil speech (aka the "beneath contempt" Kit):

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2005/05/new_achenblog_comment_policy.html

Key words: snippety, sanctimonious, Parcheesi

Ah, fun times.

Ivansmom! Welcome back! I really, really missed you, esp. in the death penalty boodle. Totally understand if you are too busy to go back over the previous boodle. (My own position with boodles is the same as my position with back issues of the dead-tree version: If it's more than three days old, forgive yourself, acknowledge that you will never catch up, and move on, vowing to do better in the future.)

But . . . the death penalty one was just yesterday. It would be SO INTERESTING to me, and I bet to others, to hear your perspective, if you can make the time to go back to yesterday's boodle.

Un abrazo,
Annie

This is quite off topic, but I received an email with this link to the Dove campaign, it shows a model from start to final photo. For anyone with young girls, teenagers it is a good look at what is behind the photos. I have a vague recollection of something like this being posted that I didn't have time to look at, if it is duplicated I am sorry.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/bblank.asp?id=6895

Ivansmom, I would also like to state that I would be very interested on what you have to say concerning DP.

I am off to a luncheon later, where our Prime Minister will speak, if later in the day I seem snarky or edgy just keep this in mind.

Ivansmom, I was thinking of you yesterday, when I saw a car sporting a "Boy on Board" bumper sticker. (Never seen *that* before.) I thought, Ivansmom? THE Boy?

And then I wondered, Do they make "Girl on Board" stickers, too?

RDP;

Ruby slippers?? What???

I'm terminally confused, you know that.

:-)

Annie, when I was doing an article on live cell therapy (related to monkey gland therapy) in which they basically inject lamb cells or solutions that supposedly have this into rich people at expensive spas, I found my attitude towards stem cell therapy changing overnight.

However, embryonic stem cell RESEARCH remains valid. the problem with simply using adult stem cells is that there are so many varieties and every stem cell lines specializes into a certain cell type.
It's easier to go back to earlier stages and then figure out what it takes to mature a stem cell line into a specific cell type, rather than trying and backing up an stem cell line meant for a different kind of tissue to an earlier stage, and then redirecting it into a new stage.

We can phenotype those cells by gene expression patterns.

I do believe that eventually that will be what happens in order to make stem cell therapy at all viable. I don't think we are there in terms of knowledge yet unless we understand the A-Z of how a stem cell line matures from embryos onwards.

Oh, and by the way, I'm against in vitro fertilization. I feel so unpopular saying that, but it leads to far more destruction and loss of embryos than a simple abortion does. And let's not forget the increased incidence of multiple births, premature births and life-long learning disabilities.

It makes much more sense to ban that for humans outright first of all before you tackle abortion.
But it won't happen, cause it's all about "in vitro fertilization makes babies" and "abortion kills babies."

Since when did the ends justify the means in baby-making, anyway?

this just in: Bethesda Metro is closed and Shuttle bus service requested between Medical Center and Friendship Heights.

Checked wmata... damn, another jumper suicide. DO NOT DO THAT, suicides.

Secret Service Snipers are always armed and ready if you really want a quick, sure death.

Scottynuke, A Double-Ruby is an award given for High School Debate. I was one of *those* kids. I spent most weekends going to debate tournaments. I went to debate camp. The name of my debate partner and I struck terror in the hearts of fellow members of the National Forensic League. In other words, I was one of these:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27587

The post has an article on Metro.

'The reason for the 9:15 a.m. collision was not immediately known, and the name of the person who was hit was not released.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102700509.html

RDP;

The only debating I ever did was in Model UN. I'll tell you about it sometime...

*L*

Isn't Cheney being next in line why there were no impeachment papers?

RD, were you one of the group in the hot tub, or alone in your room? There are debate camps? I have so much to learn.

All kidding aside, your experience shows in the way you communicate.

Allright, bad taste joke.

But that's the problem with suicidal depression, it makes people only think about themselves. They don't think about their family, friends, and the thousands of strangers who have to see their fricassed remains. They forget they're not alone. They despair.

I have already been on 2 trains that struck people, and I cannot begin to say that this is one of the most gross way to commit suicide. The people operating the train that hit you will be traumatized for life. They know about physics and all but they can't help wishing it didn't happen for the rest of their life.

And do you think there'll be much of you left to bury or indeed identify? If you think the impact will kill you instantly, it won't. With luck you'll be concussed into unconsciousness immediately just before you get dragged right under the train. If not, you will feel the breath knocked out of you and be stunned by pain before you die.

I've been hit by a car, I know what I am speaking of. I would never choose suicide by any kind of vehicle if I wanted to go.

RD,

I'm not sure what the humor is in the Onion article. It sounded just like every Model United Nations trip I went on while in high school. Like the time we turned a bathtub into a beer cooler. Or the time someone showed XXX 8mm films in the room and charged a cover for free booze. Or....

Good times, good times.

RD Padouk -- that was hilarious. I wish I had known you in high school. Anyone who can cause actual DEBATE TEAM MEMBERS to quake in fear is someone who has his mojo working.

WMATA site says witnesses said the guy jumped in front of the train as it came in. Bethesda metro has the bumps and all that, very hard to do that accidentally.

So my umbrage at suicide by train stands.

If this keeps up, we need to add a new destination on the charts for all train stations: The Celestial line: "Heaven/Limbo/Hell/Gehenna/Paradise/Nirvana" with a special fare that would at least trigger a call for suicide hotline help.

Is it just me, or is the Internet in general, and this blog in particular, one giant Revenge of the Nerds scenario?

I have an idea for a blog item that I'm going to post this weekend, about how "Captured by Aliens" refers not just to extra-terrestrial life but also to alienated humans, and how Achenbach is captured by them and also has inadvertently collected a bunch of them on the Achenblog. There will be Vonnegut references.

It might have been the way he snapped his rubber bands out of his braces and played his armpit everytime he made a triumphant point, Annie. Or maybe it was his impressions while debating. ;).
.

Actually I regard this blog as invaded by gnomes, pixelated pixies, trolls, bards...

But each to their own imagination. ;) Post your blog and I'll like reading it, especially since I ain't no Vonnegut scholar.

dmd - Yes indeedy there are debate camps. Not nearly as fun as band camps, but still the source of pleasant memories. Of course, they weren't usually called camps. They were called "Debate Institutes."

For an ubergeek like me Debate was a lifesafer. It was a peer group. I have kept in touch with most of my friends from that time, including my old debate partner who is now a very highly paid lawyer now.

In fact, most of them are highly paid lawyers.

And the rest work for Microsoft.

Sigh.

Wilbrod - "Braces?" Oh how I wish...

Braces ain't all that, RD. Trust me.

Anybody up for BPH this month, or have we all been so demoralized about the sufferings of the world and the little cross-fire battles that we can no longer lift a cup to achenblog syne?

Here's hoping that I may be an employed gnome again in November. (Big knock on wood here).

And yes, personal attacks and trolling should have been deleted more aggressively in the last 2 weeks or so.

kb,

I definitely will want to read the CBA/Vonnegut post. Being captured by aliens is a common KV motiff since it happens in both 'Slaughterhouse Five' and 'Sirens of Titan'.

And I have always thought the titular aliens in CBA were clearly metaphorical.

Nerd scenarios, aliens, institutionalized debaters . . . requests for shuttle bus service . . . I fear I'll be having weird and wacky dreams tonight.

I believe "titular alien" is still available as a Boodle handle.

Wilbrod is correct, the Post just updated the article (10:56AM).

A November BPH would seem eminently possible... :-)

And you should see the Mommy Blog... They keep saying they get the most traffic of any WaPo blog, and that there's no such thing as a civil blog. I ain't even gonna touch those!

:-)

kb, can't wait to read that post.

"There will be repercussions" used to be one of my favorite lines, but it's not as good as "There will be Vonnegut references."

And at least their timestamps are an hour off too... :-)

I am definitely up for a BPH -- and we better get on it, before holiday parties start absorbing all our time.

Who's in?

Wednesdays are out for me but otherwise am in town next week, and still cherishing my dream of getting there early enough to meet Curmudgeon and have a 99 cent cheeseburger. Hey, it's important to have goals.

Wilbrod, I agree with your point that committing suicide by jumping under a train maximizes the horribleness of the act itself, by making creating an unwitting accomplice, and so many unwitting witnesses, to it. I grieve for anyone in a state of such despair and, let it be said, such rage. And I give thanks that my extreme fear of pain has kept me from seriously considering any such thing, even at times in my life when despair has had me in its grip.

It's very dreary and cold here in Washington today, out-of-town boodlers, which may account for the dark undertones of our discourse today. I realize that our Canadian brethren and sistren are probably laughing at us, thinking "You people don't know what cold weather is." And of course, you are right.

I am focusing on my mental image of Yoki curled up with Bernese moutain dogs at her feet and warm-laundry smells filling her house. It makes me more happy than jealous.

Ivansmom, I would love to read your opinion on the death penalty. I hope you can check in with that.

I don't know, the Vice President looks like a man that one would not mess with. To me he looks rather mean, but in a cunning sneaky way. He is not someone I would want to meet late at night on the street. And he may be a nice person, but the personna just does not exude that for me.

Annie, you were clear on your feelings concerning the question posed, I still feel the way I feel. Killing in any form is not good, and it does not matter who does it.

Where to start...

"By the time Chicxulub struck, the oceans were already 3-4 degrees warmer, even at the bottom, Keller said."

Good to her that Keller is actually acknowledging the impact--last I had heard she didn't think there was an impact at all (which was my view before Chixulub was discovered). However, I think most paleontologists would agree that you need a variety of coincident causes to make a mass extinction as large as the K-T extinction.

"The rise of the Appalachian Mountains may have caused a major ice age approximately 450 million years ago"

That's an interesting idea--I'll have to think about that one. There might be a correlation between the hypothesized "supercontinent cycle" and ice ages, but there are a lot of variables involved.

Himalayas are a much smaller uplift than the Appalachian uplift (which includes mountains in Scandanavia, Scotland, and Morocco). On the other hand, there was a talk at SVP that indicated that uplift in the Himalayas + Tibet resulted in climatologic changes that caused a drop in mammal diversity in North America during the Miocene.

Another major common factor between the Pennsylvanian-Permian (the Ice Age when the Appalachians formed) and the Pleistocene (the last Ice Age) is the presence of a land mass at the pole. You can only build up an ice sheet if you have a continent to build it on, and that was true at both of those times. Or current global climate (for the last 30 million years) has been primarily driven by the Antarctic Ice Sheet. I wonder if both factors might be required (polar continent and fold-thrust mountain belt)?

Incidentally, this should apply to subduction zone mountain chains like the Andes. Any potential CO2 sink would be offset by the CO2 emmitted by volcanic eruptions in those chains.

Scottynuke-"I think we obviously need to goose the mid-ocean ridges to speed up and therefore make more mountains to combat global warming."

One problem there (only one?)--when spreading rates increase, the average temperature of the ocean crust is hotter (not as much time to cool off). This makes the crust less dense, so it kind of rides higher on the mantle. This effectively raises the seafloor, making the volume of the ocean basin smaller, and pushing more of the ocean up onto the continents. This probably has a greater effect on sea level than even the presence of ice caps.

Moreover, if you increase the spreading rate, you also increase the subduction rate, which increase the amount of volcanism at the subduction zones. Volcanoes produce tremendous amounts of CO2, so you would also make global warming go even faster. You might actually be able to flood all of the interior of North America between the Appalachians and the Rockies!

Tony Snow this morning, according to Dan Eggen:

'
White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters this morning that Cheney was not referring to waterboarding in the radio interview.

"You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will," Snow said, according to the Reuters news agency. "You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on."
'

Cassandra -- //Annie, you were clear on your feelings concerning the question posed, I still feel the way I feel. Killing in any form is not good, and it does not matter who does it.//

Umm, Cassandra, where are you getting the idea that we do not agree?

Dooley;

Oh, you're no fun anymore...

:-)

'Titular' is one of my favorite words. I have used it no less than four times on my blog.

http://www.google.com/search?q=+site:livebythefoma.blogspot.com+titular&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&filter=0

Another words I love, but don't use enough is 'defenstrate'.

SCC: Another word... (no plural)

I am deeply immersed in the wacky world of steel, and am submitting this because it is just too goofy. In the world of steel there are things called S shapes, W shapes, and WF shapes.

Logic implies that something named an s shape would look S like, a w shape, w-like but nooooo. In the world of steel they all look suspiciously like a capital I.

I think I am being had.

So Tony Snow is saying Cheney is advocating actually drowning suspects during interrogation? Is this better? Snow is so sharp he may cut himself.

I will jump belatedly in with a capital punishment opinion but want to finish skimming first.

Dooley, are you saying that making mountains would raise global warming in the short term? If it would have the end result of cooling everything off, maybe that short term is worth it for our remaining, extremely hardy descendants. We have to think big here. I bet RD has access to some raising-the-mountains plan. Hey, maybe that's the secret administration plan Conrad Burns was referring to for ending the war -- turn Iraq into a large mountain range overnight, thus ending hostilities and making a bold statement about global warming in one fell swoop.

Are you sure you missed me?

No fun? See you at the beach in eastern Colorado. We can charter a boat and dive down to see the flooded remains of the Kansas Dept of Education offices...

Ivansmom--an increase in volcanoes (as opposed to folded mountains like the Appalachians) might increase global warming in the short term because of CO2 release. If this new study is correct, in the long run it might balance out, because the increased weathering would eventually remove the extra CO2 from the volcanoes.

Eugene Robinson explains the 'code':

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601255.html

Here's the ad he refers to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWkrwENN5CQ&search=TN-SEN%20Harold%20Ford%20Bob%20Corker

Ivansmom;

Absolutely sure. :-)

Dooley, if Kansas keeps going like they have, you might see the Dept. of Education ark floating by... *L*

An S shape is Slender, a W shape is Wide and a WF has Wide Flanges dr. A round HSS is a round Hollow Structural shape by the way, not a pipe...
I didn't looked it up but this is the way I remember it. But again I have been known to be wrong once in a while...

There seems to be an impression out there that water-boarding is painless. Ever had your sinuses filled with water? I have and it is excruciating.
The Mexican police use an interesting method of interrogation. They shake up a soda, force the prisoners head back and release the soda up his nose. Very effective and leaves no marks. Does anyone doubt that pouring water up a prisoners nose is any less painful?
Only *s.

Joel,

Is it possible to reach you by email?

Ivansmom - ixnay on the ountainmay plans.

Sheesh.

Thoughts about the death penalty, Part I: Societal acceptance.

Yesterday Steve-2 remarked he thought people were more inclined to support a death penalty that was, broadly speaking, local in nature. I think that is right. In the United States this penalty is carried out in particular localities. States with the death penalty impose it only in their jurisdictions, and the crimes tend to be widely publicized. Where a Federal sentence is carried out, it is within a particular federal jurisdiction, and the crime receives wide publicity in that location. These crimes are usually horribled in either the method of death, the activity before death, or the choice of victim (or a combination, of course). The people in those locations often have a personal sense of the case and use that to form an opinion about the justice of the sentence.

Although many people say they support capital punishment, it is my experience that jurors actually faced with imposing this sentence never take it lightly. Time and time again, jurors who thought they were for the death sentence say that it was extremely difficult to actually decide to impose it, even in the worst of crimes. Requiring public viewing of executions, as *Tim suggested, may bring the reality of this decision home to more people, but it may not.

While some families do receive a certain amount of relief from the execution, many find that the death of the murderer does not provide the closure they expected.

Still to come: pro and cons of the process itself, how it works.

SD, I'm laughing here. Are you sure you don't work in my office?

Just finished a Dionne op-ed piece that put a crazy idea in my head. Imagine the Republicans realize that they may lose the House and the Senate and strong arm bill through which repeals the part of the constitution in Article. II. Section. 1. (Quoted here)

(""No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;"" neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.)

So that they could run Arnold in 2008, and the Democrats nominate Gov. Jennifer Granholme of Michigan, and she wins the general.

The crazy part of this isn't our first women President, but two foreigners running against each other. Granholme's from Canada.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Only if you could get 2/3 of the states to ratify the Constiutional amendment before then, omni...

:-)

yellojkt, i think what krauthammer was saying was that he needs to raise his elevation, and therefore his potential energy. that was the way i read it, anyways.

joel, you broke it. we were so close to 1009. oh well.

bph? i'm in.

"Foreigners" omni? Umbrage may be taken. To me, "foreigner" has quite pejorative undertones; kind of xenophobic. We prefer to think of ourselves as citizens of Canada *or of Quebec* (and, of course, uniquely polite, welcoming, clean and cold-tolerant). Oh, and we know how to make love in a canoe.

Harold Ford is mighty light-skinned. From his pictures, I wouldn't know he was black. It's a good thing his rascist opponents have ways of pointing that out to people via code.

OK Yoki, change 'foreigner' to 'naturalized citizen'.

Death penalty part II: Offenders.

I noticed the Boodle discussion focused on serial killers. Actually the typical person on death row has not killed more than one person. He's male, probably white (there are more white people in the country is all, capital sentences are certainly disproporationatly given to black males but that is another topic), and starts out young. Most capital crimes aren't committed by evil people. Like all other crimes, they are committed by stupid people, or people who have poor impulse control, or occasionally just someone who made a really bad choice. Substance abuse is often involved. Many are crimes of passion, or what I call career choice crimes -- if you rob convenience stores for a living eventually you're likely to kill someone. Often, once on death row these folks grow up, get some schooling, maybe get religion (truly, not for show) and bear little resemblance to the guy they were at the time of the crime. The popular conception of capital murderers as evil people is far too simple.

It's really good to get the lawyerly POV around here from PLS, Yoki, and all.

Hope you get that judgeship, Ivansmom. What is the average age at which one gets sentenced to death for capital crimes? I always have the impression it's fairly young, given how gung-ho people are to try teen murderers as adults so they're eligible for the death penalty. Research shows that the brain continues growing until age 25 or so, so those people in fact might grow up a bit even out of prison. (the problem being, they might mature into different crimes instead, of course.)

I've never found the actual statistics on ages of people at sentencing, though.

Omni, you mean Granholmes is an ALIEN ?
US customs use to have ALIEN and US Citizens boots. I always stand proudly in the Alien lines, trying to be as green as possible. They don't use the Alien signs anymore, the Dept. of the Fatherland Security has sucked the last bit of levity out of air travel.
I am happy to report that we are safe from the flip-flop bombers. This summer's fashion trend had the kids and women wear flip-flops and those almost-not-there asian slippers, but still they had to be removed and x-rayed at security screening to reveal their secret compartments. Sanity seem to have left the buillding at the DHS, with excuses to RDP.

As the only one around here who's actually served hard time in lock-up: Is anybody really working to repeal the death penalty for doggies?

I was in for 2 months and I smelled dogs heading to death row.

And all I did was grow big fast, maybe break a mirror or two, and generally love too much. Nobody taught me anything about obedience then. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to jump or bark or anything.

I don't want to think about it anymore.

Annie, as you noticed, correctly, I might add, I did not read closely. Ran through the post real fast, and probably need to go back and re-read. I believe what I was responding to was your "it's my body, I can do what I want" assessment. And I probably didn't read that thorough or maybe did not understand.

Ivansmom, what do you think we, and I mean the country as a whole should do about the death penalty? We know it is not done fairly, and sometimes, wrongly. In the state I live there was talk of holding off for a couple of years until things could be looked at a little more closely. I can't think of the word for that, but the last time I checked, we're still killing folks.

Death penalty, last part: Process

What does the death penalty reliably and unarguably do? It deters that particular offender from committing another crime -- difficult to do after death. It does not cost less than life imprisonment or life without parole (simple numbers, available lots of places). It does not deter other criminal offenders from committing capital murders. As I noted in my last post, criminal offenders are just like other folks. Overwhelmingly, at the time of the murder they are acting on some strongly felt emotion, are unable to judge the consequences of their action, or simply don't think as far as the end result. Some believe they won't get caught, of course, but truly most folks don't go that far. As many posters noted, innocent people DO get convicted of capital crimes, and do get executed wrongly. DNA review alone will not solve this problem, as not all cases have DNA evidence.

Although details differ among jurisdictions, the death penalty can't be imposed for every murder. There must be special characteristics which take it outside the usual realm of killing. That is why these crimes are so often so horrible -- otherwise, they wouldn't be death cases. The issue becomes whether this person, who has committed this extra-bad murder, deserves to be killed. For this reason, the sentencing stage of a capital trial is not about the victim, it is about the offender. While juries now hear about the victim's sterling qualities (when there are any, this makes some victims unequal but that is also another topic), the focus is on the good and bad characteristics of the defendant, his life history, and the circumstances of the crime.

Some people argue that capital punishment is an extension of society's responsibility to protect its members. I personally believe that civilized societies should not kill people as punishment. However I've sworn an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of a state with capital punishment. I reach an uneasy balance in this ethical dilemma by conducting the most thorough review possible in each capital case I work on, to ensure that insofar as I have any influence the sentence is truly appropriate within the law. Does it always work? No. Will I be able to do this indefinitely? Probably not. However, in an odd way, violating my own principles in order to do my job properly may actually help the system work better than if I did something else.

Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.

-If a relative leaves you a creepy looking something-or-other (House, Book, Key) in their will, just bulldoze it or sell it.

Whoops, wrong blog!

One important (IMO) fact about the death penalty in the US: when jurors are chosen, they are asked specifically their opinions about the death penalty. if they say they are against it, they are taken automatically out of the jury.

The obvious (to me) consequence is that death penalty cases juries tend to be made up of stricter, more law and order-type people.

Which, in turn, tends to make those juries give out death penalties sentences more easily. Again IMO.

PS: I have posted my opinion of the Achenblog and its aversion for dissent on the mommy blog, if anybody's interested. (smile)

Wilbrod, exciting news about possible work emerging in November. We won't jinx this by asking too many details but bravo.

Annecdote on seamless garment approach -- or the consistently pro-life stance:

Long ago and far away, a lovable death-penalty favoring relative revised two stances:

One: Death Penalty
He held his pro-life (read anti-abortion, if you prefer) stance up against seamless garment approaches and with difficulty and uncharacteristic humilty, revised his position on the death penalty.

He would LOVE TO SEE THEM FRY OR HANG OR BE SHOT (Way out West, you know) but knows that the moral code he confesses calls him to live beyond his feelings.

TWO: Anti-Nuke Initiative (1979?)
He also voted FOR a nuclear-freeze state ballot initiative, again with grumbling, but acknowledged that an examination of conscience compelled him to vote for "life."

---
OK, he is Roman Catholic. But he "submitted" to thinking outside his feelings. Does he LIKE being anti-death penalty? Not at all.

---
Your mileage may vary. I respect other experience, other opinion.

My point is that we can be most human when we move beyond our feelings and quick-thinking. We need more thoughtfulness: science, knowledge, data, etc AND values, codes, morals, philosopies.

Humanity means we can choose to operate out of a code.

Yes, codes compete. Hard to solve this. Civility and conversation and political debate trump abolutism.

Okay, final thoughts on the death penalty. Cassandra is referring to a moratorium on executions. Illinois instituted one, and it has been proposed in other states. The goal is to find a way to make the process fairer by, for example, having fewer racially disproportionate sentences, and reducing the execution of innocent people. I say "reducing" because I don't think you can ever eliminate that risk; all human systems are fallible. Various things may be considered, including methods of jury selection, which vary widely from state to state; police procedures, such as requiring all interrogations and confessions to be videotaped. This would actually go a long way to curing several common problems with criminal trials. I don't know how all that will work.

There is a big flap over the method of lethal execution. Without going into tedious detail, it concerns the particular drugs used, their mix, and the timing and method of their delivery. The goal of execution is to kill the offender quickly and painlessly (you may not agree with this goal, which is based on notions of punishment in a civilized society, but that too is another topic). The concern is that the current method may in fact (and most likely does) have one drug subject the offender to incredible pain, which he is unable to express in any way due to the paralytic effect of another drug. Oklahoma was the first state to use this method. The real problem is that, since we adopted it, and other jurisdictions copied us, there have been advances in medicine. Simply put, changing and refining the drug types, mixture and amounts per drug would solve this problem. The difficulty is, some jurisdictions prescribe these things in statutes, not regulations, and statutes must be changed by legislatures. I think we all know the problems with that.

Thanks Ivansmom for your informative (and informed) posts. Great reading.

Yes Ivansmom - That was fascinating. One of the things I really like about this blog is the breadth of experience among its participants.

ivansmom,

I used to know a DoJ lawyer whose favorite accomplishment was getting a mentally retarded murderer off of death row. The representation he had was just abysmal. There was no doubt of his guilt, but just whether he should die or not.

According to the Post Bethesda Metro service returned to normal operations shortly after noon. According to the WMATA web site it hasn't. Accordining to my eyes I see people entering and exiting the system. Also the Post reports it was a woman not a man as originally believed.

SF, let me say this: Your opinions on specific issues are useful, actually.

Secondly, you did specifically make personal attacks on Curmudgeon, for the past 2 weeks, snide and purportedly humorous digs in violation of the specific guidelines of the Achenblog, civilty and respect. That came across as very petty, not funny.

I happen to know a lot of permanent residents and naturalized citizens and I'm used to the constant criticism of both cultures as a symptom of culture shock.

"Cross-Cultural Communication" by Nicholas Dima, a man who escaped Communist Romania, is a good read and explains the emotional effects on expatriates as they become both dissatified with both their old homeland and the country they have chosen.

I've lived with culture shock at home and aboard, and I know it does bring out ugly reactions. Each to their own; one man's fish is another man's poisson and all those cliches.

Cicero knew about exile. "Exile is terrible to those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation; but not to those who look upon the whole globe but as one city."

He recommended: "Politeness and an affable address are our best introduction."

He also counseled that: "A perverse temper and fretful disposition will, wherever they prevail render any state of life whatsoever unhappy."

He also said "Anger should never appear in awarding punishment."

Further, "Hatred is settled anger."

He also specifically counsels that:
"Every man should bear his own grievances rather than detract from the comforts of another."

He also spoke about opinion thus: "No wise man has called a change of opinion inconstancy."

He also said: "It is peculiarly a fool's habit to discern the faults of others, and to forget his own."

He said that yes, a man should stand by his convictions, not public opinion.

Yet, "That man is guilty of impertinence who considers not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in."

I merely quote from our common Western civilization heritage. Our customs of discourse differ, but the rationale behind polite discourse have rarely altered since classical times.

"It's really good to get the lawyerly POV around here from PLS, Yoki, and all" - Wilbrod

Gotta say it again, just in case the Law Society of Alberta is monitoring this blog (hahahaha): I am not a lawyer, and do not play one. I have been in the legal business for a long time. When I was working for the correctional justice programme, I was one of the few staff at the law school (I was, officially, Executive Editor of Publications) who had interviewing skills, was not afraid to enter prison walls, and could take the time to go with the law students, who mostly staffed the files, to show them how it was done. I had the time because we mostly produced publications during the summer when the profs had time to write, and mostly interviewed prisoners during the school year when students were available. As soon as the lawyer/profs were sure a particular student could handle the duties and environment themselves, I'd move on to the latest crop.

So I've done lots of legal stuff (and still do, like writing regulations for upstream oil & gas for a West African country) but I don't do lawyer stuff. Nope, not me.

Answers to Everything lead to More Questions

If you step back and squint, our death penalty looks a lot like ritual human sacrifice. I have a feeling that Bushco won't ever be happy until Iraq duplicates our criminal justice system precisely, emulating Texas as the example. I don't think they know that's what they want, but I suspect that's it.

I wonder what the effect on climate might be if the Bering Strait closed up. I also heard that due to gravational anomalies, the water on the Pacific side of Panama is 20 feet higher than on the Atlantic side. So a sea-level canal might not be a good idea...

I've been trying to find out data on the volcano that caused a serious ash-cloud and/or sulfur-cloud to circle over Texas every few months in '79 or so. I remember it blocking out the sun, making it almost cool in the summer Texas heat. It was strange. In 1980 I then moved to Ohio and it got down to 24 below zero that winter of '80-81. I was trying to find evidence of a connection on the web, but no luck so far. Then I got sidetracked into research on the Ixtoc I oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst accidental spill in history, which most people have forgotten about. Except when they get tarballs on their feet at Port Aransas. And after all this time, who knows which spill specifically they come from? Then I got sidetracked into reading about George Bush the Elder and Zapata Drilling, and then I gave up on all that and tried looking at the Panama Canal on Google Earth, and it was slow to load so I came here. It's raining and work was cancelled.

College Parkian -- I am with your uncle, as it happens(and also with Ivansmom, in her commitment to the necessity of operationalizing values she does not hold).

I would much rather be for the death penalty than against. I would much rather be pro-choice than pro-life. I am the most reluctant Christian you could ever hope to meet. Anyone who sneers that people follow Christ because doing so gives you easy, pat answers or provides some sort of spritual pablum simply doesn't know what he's parler-ing about. As my man CS Lewis put it, the question about Christianity is not whether you find it easy or useful, but whether you believe it to be true. The honest man, if be believes it to be true, will follow it however hard the going may be; if he believes it not to be true, he'll leave it alone however much comfort or advantage it might bring.

Procedural note: I do not know, but I strongly suspect, that many times when a jury votes the death penalty, they do so because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is the only way to ensure that the guy never gets out on parole. If there were (or if there already are)ways to guarantee that life means life, and no parole means no parole, and if juries clearly understood and believed that, I bet fewer would vote for capital punishement.

Ivansmom?

Wilbrod -- nice train of thought. I might have to think about changing my secret crush from ScienceTim to you.

Oooooooohhhhh. A secret imaginary admirer! I feel honored. LostinThought, are you aware that Wilbrod and I differ in the gender department? If that's no problem, well then, hmmmmmm...

It's about time to get serious with these bandwagon-jumping writers who misuse the word "comprise." They've heard it; they've read it. They want it. They just can't get it right. They seem to think it's a synonym for "compose," like "the team is comprised of 9 players."

Well, they're wrong. I say, if they can't look it up, they shouldn't mess with it! They're in over their heads! They appear to be fools! Thank goodness they don't show up on this blog.

Ha, LostInThought, you just outed yourself.

Let me hijack this here blog for a moment to make an announcement:

Tim the Storyteller will be telling "Cinderella, a Rough Sailor's Tale" in the Laurel Mill Playhouse Variety Show, starting at 8:00 PM, on November 10 and 11, 508 Main Street, Laurel, MD 20707. Call 301-617-9906 for reservations.

I'm not sure whether tickets are free, or what, but I know that no one has mentioned paying me, so I believe that this can qualify as not violating the Rule against commercial advertising.

Although, I do expect to have copies of my CD available for sale.

I however, claim Storyteller Tim, ScienceTim's cousin with a huge HQ.
(H.Q. = humanities quotient)

I dream he will tell me a story, in front of a fire (real logs releasing C02 and everything), with two cats in they hard, life used to be so hard.

Our House is a very very very fine (imaginary) house.....

See how flustered the infatuation phase is!!

Revise the sound track to my fantasy life with Storyteller Tim (egads he lives up Route One in Laurel!):

...with two cats in the yard
Live used to be so hard.

Crosby, Stills, Nash (Young or not?)

My twiterpation continues

LIFE used to be so hard.

---
I quit. Back to grading papers and private mistakes.

You're right. I'll just go back to lurking.

I believe that Neil Young is in that one, CP. It's from the Déjà Vu album.

I am so glad that you corrected the lyric; I was very concerned about whether it was an intentional paraphrase... I get flustered in groups, you know, and the reference to "they"; well, I was concerned.

LostinThought, those words are mostly Cicero's... unfortunately he's long since dead, but I imagine with time-travel, universal translators, or holodecks, he'd make a fanastic dinner companion. Great orator.

//one man's fish is another man's poisson//

Oh Oh Oh. I feel validated, but rest assured I promise to pun responsibly.
Funny I never heard that before. Did you make it up, Wilbrod?

Sorry StorytellerTim. I don't want to get you in trouble or make you blush.

Ahhh. Neil Young. That is my constant, faithful crush. CPnNY4evr

So, we are breaking up. Online. I am so cold, but I'm

Looking for a heart of gold....

Yeah, I did, Boko. From the first day I learned that word for "fish", I always thought a misspelled poisson was the original source of the proverb ;).

The Germanic riff on that saying is "One man's present is another's _Gift_."

I think "one man's fish is another man's poisson" is one of those things that comes to multiple people. I've used it (and also the variation "one man's meat...") and later seen it in print.

Ah, fugu. Now I get it. hehehe

I still like the idea of making mountains out of molehills. If we don't want to admit starting in Iraq (sorry RD) there are the Flint Hills in southwestern Kansas, which really are little more than molehills now and would be great fun transformed into mountains.

Annie, that's an interesting question. To some extent I think it is true. However, in Oklahoma and some other states we have life without parole (or LWOP), and jurors are now instructed that it means what it says. Having that alternative certainly means some death sentences are not imposed.

And speaking of baseball, who else is hoping that the Tigers prevail in the next game to keep the Series alive? I've been really torn. As an Astros fan it is hard to cheer for the Cardinals. As a believer in the National League it is hard to cheer for an American League team. But hey, it's all baseball, right?

yeah, ivansmom, i've always kind of wondered about why we use things like lethal injection (with paralysis followed by pain, which is rendered inexpressible by the paralysis) and the electric chair (don't even get me started) when we have quick, effective, and much more humane ways to kill people, which seem to have been banned simply because they lend themselves particularly well to public spectacle (i.e. the guillotine, hanging).

it's also interesting to note that murder has one of the lowest recidivism rates among any crime. we think "murderers should be locked up or put to death", but most of them, if you let them back out on the street, will never do it again. thieves? rapists? drug dealers? almost all of them will do it again.

as far as the death penalty goes, pretty much everyone has an opinion, some well thought out, others not so much, and most of us have heard the arguments for each side. but there are other irreversible punishments which would probably do much more to protect society, but which aren't under general discussion, probably primarily because they aren't in general use. so let's change up the discussion a little bit: how does everyone feel about chemical castration for serial rapists/sex offenders?

Exactly, it's a pretty obvious pun if you don't go by the sound but by the printed word, Yoki.

Good one, Omni! Not what I meant precisely though...;).

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With chemical castration, (or actual) the offender could clandestinely get access to pharmaceutical testosterone and defeat the whole deal.

As a matter of fact, right now I have a testosterone patch one one shoulder, and a nicotine patch on the other, and I feel like a menace to society at this very moment. Just kidding!

Drugging as punishment (or criminal management)is a big can of worms surely. It suggests a synthesis of psychopharmological treatment and penal theory. "Guilty AND insane" the sentence might be. A brave new world.

As a society, we have not really knowingly gone here before. This suggests offshoots such as drugging terrorism suspects, or even sentencing malefactors to bad LSD trips, etc. Is there not an alternative?

I know, but I did have to google it first.

Google ads was me. Not that it matters, except I'm admitting I'm ignorant.

Ah. CEMS = Comprehensive Emergency Management System

But CEM = Customer Experience Managment

Have to keep those straight.

Dang. That was me again. I'd better go get a cuppa tea and go back to lurking for a while.

I believe in this case it stands for Chemical Emissions Monitor System.

And thus do we return to methane, omni...

*L*

Sorry to back up a bit, but to RD Padouk: I too have a double ruby pin stashed away somewhere. I'm not sure that my partner and I ever struck fear into anyone, but we did reasonably well for ourselves. (And he did the Ivy League law school NYC big firm thing, which is something of a cliche but still great. Me, not so much, though I did manage to eventually finish college.)

A few weeks ago I was photographing a college debate team, and it brought back a few good memories. Of course, everything nowadays is on laptop computers -- no index cards, no giant cases to carry said index cards. One of the debaters had actually heard of my high school debate team, which was a nice suprise. Of course, none of them had been born when I was debating, but that's just one of the everyday reminders of my advancing age.

Eureka. I saw the common thread in two of the Kit items. Cheney, scary-looking in a mountain-man-shaved-with-money-and-power way, is from Wyoming, home to mountains, energy sources and guns. Emergence of mountains has an effect on energy resources and global warming. Cheney, as the Grey Eminence, is behind the secret plan to win the war and stop global warming by turning Iraq into a mountain range. It's okay, RD, you didn't tell us.

I'm not going to talk about criminal law any more today, except for one comment: chemical castration for sex offenses is ineffective because those are crimes of violence, not passion.

I didn't get that judgeship, by the way. There were 41 applicants, though, so I don't feel bad. Besides, if I'd got it I'd have to do the job (divorce court).

Rent "A Clockwork Orange" or read the book. I think it's genius, separately and collaboratively, on the part of Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick, and Malcolm McDowell, that they make you feel sympathetic towards the horrible vile monster that is Alex, the protagonist. If one is going to have capital punishment, then Alex certainly qualifies for it. However, Alex lives in a society that has outlawed capital punishment in favor of behavior-modification. Alex is conditioned to be unable to commit crime, regardless of his actual desire to do so.

In the book, Burgess has Alex reform somewhat -- he's not only conditioned against acts of evil, he actually learns some empathy for the victims of crime IIRC. However, he continue to be treated as the scum of society, fair game for any brutality. That makes it easier to feel sorry for him at the end, and to forgive yourself for feeling that way -- he really has become a marginally better person, and we feel that he could have been encouraged on the path to redemption. Alex could have reformed.

The movie, on the other hand, is pitiless towards us. Alex is a monster. He becomes a shackled monster, and is tormented by representatives of a society that is as monstrous as he is, but puts a better face on it. Ultimately, Alex frees himself from his shackles and we are made to feel a glow of satisfaction, until we recall that Alex is a complete sociopath, who cheerfully rapes and murders for an evening's entertainment. Alex's society creates its Alexes, and it deserves what it gets.

It's a fabulously disturbing movie.

Thanks, omni.

New ad:

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And my google ads (only have one) just changes from something to do with knowing your credit score to reliable fax service. Huh...what's up with that. I mean first I only get one (is that fair) second neither of them have anything to do with blog.

Acronyms.

In 1991 I was working at IBM and a manager, normally a reserved, pleasant, keep-your-head-down sort of bureaucrat, emerged from his office one day with his voice raised and said "That's it! No more acronyms! I've had it! I'm done with it!"

He became my God for saying what we all thought. I have striven to emulate his profound realization since. I refuse to keep more than a modicum of them in my head. Demand conciseness and eschew obfuscation, I say.

Perhaps there's hope for the local justice system yet...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601597.html

:-)

Got to keep my SCC membership current:

changes==>changed
insert 'the' before 'blog'

That's ok omni. All I have is

Place Newspaper Ads
Advertise in almost every US daily, weekly or business newspaper.

OK, so the mailroom guy just came around with his cart, and the only thing for me was, inexplicably, a catalogue called "Explorations" (www.expeditions.com)

It's apparently a joint venture between National Geographic and an outfit called Lindblad Expeditions. Now all I can think about is how much I want to go see the fjords and northern lights, and the polar bears, and the Dalmatian Coast, and the Greek islands.

I have been feeling so restless anyway, but all those places look absolutely breathtaking.

Acronyms, bah. I can't even use online shorthand correctly -- what is IIRC, anyway? I keep forgetting. I don't use emoticons either -- I'd probably send a completely different message than I thought.

Dalmation polar bears?? Doesn't that ruin the camouflage??? What???

*very confused, as always*

:-)

Dolphin Michael

I know of Coach Sakamoto, he used to coach my husband's family who were all swimmers (and related to Keo Nakama, National Swimming Hall of Fame inductee). That guy's a legend. He used make the kids on Maui swim in the irrigation ditches because they didn't have pools back in the day.

You mention the storytime that you had in elementary school (what school did you go to, by the way?). In the last five or six years, the Hawaii State DOE has put Kupuna (Hawaiian elders) into the classrooms a few times a week to teach the kids about Hawaiian culture and history. My kids are learning all about Hawaiian lore and legends as well as the history of the monarchy. I'm waiting for them to get to plantation history in high school, that's when things get really meaty.

One of the biggest issues in Hawaii (besides the earthquake damage) is the increasing number of homeless in the islands. We have our share of the homeless who are mentally ill or hooked on drugs as in many other states, but we also have a large number of families who live in tents on the beaches because they can't afford the high housing costs in the islands. Most two-bedroom apartments rent for 1 ½ times what many of these people make in a month - and that's assuming you can even find an apartment that's decent to live in. There is a rental housing shortage on most of the major islands because real estate sales boomed and gave landlords the opportunity to sell their properties at inflated prices. A lot of the buyers turned these rentals into "condos" or tore them down to build their own houses to live in which took a large number of rentals off the market.

Oh, and did I mention that wage scales here are at least 20% lower than those on the mainland? So, even if you get a better paying job, you still can't necessarily keep up with the rent. The haves and the have-nots will grow further and further apart.

I guess that's the price we pay for living in paradise.

Sparks, if it worked I'd be all for it. Unfortunately there are too many instances of men raping while impotent for me to be convinced.

Right now, the chemical castration stuff in place is not proven to actually work, and pedophiles often exhibit low sex desire to start with. As Ivansmom says, they are crimes of violence.

We need to address the BRAIN, not the weapon of offense. Although hormonal therapy just might help that...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-10-01-progesterone-brain_x.htm

Ivansmom;

If you recalled correctly, then you could use If I Recall Correctly...

:-)

actually, jumper, your note about lsd reminds me of an interesting point in history: the concord prison experiment, wherein psilocybin was used in an attempt to reduce recidivism rates in prison inmates. wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Prison_Experiment

also, i was just reading hax's chat, and there was a question about suicide, which reminded me of something i wanted to say in response to someone's response to the metro incident this morning: there are far more gruesome/publically damaging ways to kill yourself than jumping in front of a train. i probably should not bring this up for fear of being committed, but several of my friends and i have sat around discussing the merits of various ways of killing oneself, and believe me, some people are creative exhibitionists. the one i've got on hold for when i decide it's just not worth it anymore is not that bad. i intend to scale mount everest, and attempt to strip naked as quickly as possible, so as to be completely nude by the time i freeze to death. i will therefore be unique in human history as the only (or, at the very least, most) naked person on top of mount everest. plus, i assume nobody would bother dragging my frozen, naked ass down from the top, leaving me there as an interesting landmark for all to see.

i have now been reminded of a japanese film called suicide club. there is a scene in this movie where something like 200 people jump in front of a train at once.

Hi bigcranky! I was 1N/2A with Impromptu and Expos as my IEs.

Yet I feel like turning in my NFL certficate at your news.

No two-drawer file cases full of file cards? What do they do, hold the computers while speaking? Or do they, horror of horrors, use the podium?

Please tell me they still use the four color pens. Or do they take notes entirely on notebooks too?

Of course, I was involved during the Carmandale Ferandez era, so I am hopelessly out of touch.

Although the Onion article still rang true.

Although in an obvious fit of neurolinguistic Stockholm Syndrome, I am proud of coining the acronynym PITA. As in "the PITA factor" when pricing a proposal. Factoring in the "Pain In The A."

I am back from the luncheon, where topically the Prime Minister used the occasion to lash the opposition for holding up his crime bill. Not a great speech, but the women I attended with had a fun time making snide remarks about just about everything, (not the most mature I will admit).

For those will legal experience, I am curious to learn what you believe would be changes that could be made to the system or society in general to reduce crime.

One other note about the event, was how low key it was, no ID required, secret service was visible but not intrusive, PM signed autographs after, had his picture taken etc.

RD, hope my message about the debate club wasn't misinterpreted. My school did not have a debate team, a band, only a few sports teams - so my comment about the camp realy was surprise. My friends children attend some really great camps at the local university, engineering/robots, science etc.

I have never aquired the composure necessary to debate, I get way to riled up so I admire people who can comment calmly.

Scotty, the Dalmatian polar bear (Ursus maritimus maculata) has evolved from the regular ones due to global warming. the snow coverage isn't what it used to be.
Besides, as I have ranted about it before the polar bear should be called the northern bear, the boreal bear or the marine bear. There ain't no polar bear at the South Pole.

Suicide on Everest

Make sure to have manufactured a framework of structural struts made of mothballs, which will slowly evaporate; even more slowly at the frigid temperature of the top of Everest. Pose yourself in a classic stance, and freeze, and over the next few months the struts made of mothball material will disappear, leaving only yourself in the classical pose, upright. This will entitle your estate to a postumous National Endowment of the Arts check to go to your surviving family members.

Thank you Scottynuke! I seldom recall correctly, so perhaps I'll just eschew that abbreviation.

RD, you scare me. I debated for a year in high school (though I was better at extempore speaking, what a surprise). Despite my toe in that water, I have no idea what you just said. I'm so relieved.

You know which bear I love best? The Spirit Bear on Vancouver island. It's a regular black bear, but with an albino mutation found only on the island. Long sacred to the indigenous people there.

Sparks, somehow I ain't surprised at this uh, revelation.

Since suicide is a cop-out when we all die anyway, I haven't given it much thought most of the time.

I do remember when I was a kid I once stomped out barefoot in the snow and decided to die of cold and then they'd come find me and all be sorry for how they treated me. A very common sentiment in the young. Mt. Everest seems... the pinnacle of that dramatic impulse.

But I just wanted to gross people out on the choo choo suicide idea because I'm frankly tired of running over people on the way to and from work.

dmd - No! Of course I didn't take any offense! I realize Debate is not exactly a mainstream activity. Yet I have very fond memories it. The Debate team was the first time that I actually felt a sense of belonging. And I was good at it. After having been "cut" from 7 separate sporting teams, (It was a more brutal time.) I could actually succeed at something outside of the classroom. Granted, this was Washington State, not exactly the heartland of High School Debate. Yet my debate partner,"Z" and I still took the state championship. (Only to get destroyed, of course, at the national level.)

To this day I remember standing in front of a big crowd and feeling my dopamine levels go through the roof.

Anyway, I apologize for this little walk down memory lane.

I'm out of here now. Have a good weekend everyone. I'm going to try hard to stay offline and get ready for Halloween.

We take our Jack-O-Lanterns seriously around my house.

Wilbrod, you're confusing mockery of a pompous, arrogant, self-important writing style with personal attacks.

Such mockery was meant as sarcasm.

And was mocking said style, not the person.

Writing style being what the blogger chooses to expose of him or herself, I do not believe that to be out of bounds. Perrsonal opinion of course, but I find that it is no different than the mockery of a weird personal opinion, or of a strong case of grammatically challenged writing.

To be honest, it was also meant as a mockery of the cheerleading and applause coming from the 11 other bloggers any time such affected style was used.

Of course, poor as my own mocking style may have been, the difference with a personal attack may indeed not have been very clear. For that of course I am sorry.

Looooong time lurker here making first post. Please be gentle, as I already knew you would be and thus I have chosen you (all) as my first.

Today's *Dilbert* cartoon compels me to come forward.

http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W9RT02493E8C0AA4C4C2B335F5BAE0

That probably didn't post as a real link but find today's Dilbert by any means possible. I thought of the Achenblog immediately.

Wonderful, eclectic bunch of geeks and such here. Can't keep up, however. Still don't have the genders indexed properly and forget about remembering everyone's QTH (location). (I'm an outside the braces kind of quy.) And it's: red, white, and blue, not: red, white and blue. What I do have is that mo is panamanian and superfrenchie is, I think, French. Wilbrod is deaf, but hears more than most, Pat is blind, but sees more than most, and 'Mudge is, well, old, but writes better than most.

Me? I used to live in Loudoun Co. and miss it very much, having had to move to SC about three years ago. Cassandra is here someplace, no? Anyhow, no BPHs for me, not that I would actually attend one. I have one of those "invisible" personalities. Some think that I am shy but I am not.

I am for the Death Penalty. Some people "just need killin'", which is what I think the 'bach man was alluding too. But I also want to be very careful about how that is applied.

I am for a woman having control of her body, at *least* equal to what a man enjoys.

I believe the Second Amendment affords every law-abiding citizen the RIGHT to possess firearms. Those who champion the First Amendment will not need to wonder for very long what will happen to free speech and the press if the 2nd is ever abolished. I am also for swift and sure punishment for anyone who abuses that Right.

Sky report for Pat: Cloudy and rainy all day here in Charleston. NFTR.

Oh, SF? As gently and as kind as I can say it, you are, from so many perspectives, just plain wrong dude. And, yes, so were some others. There is little that this or any other blog can do for you. We can all see that wrongs were done but you are looking in the wrong direction.

Am totally appalled at the long-term inability to keep the blog's load-balanced servers sync'd to the correct time. Time servers connected to atomic clocks are readily available on the net.

DLD

Bonjour, Monsieur DLD. Welcome to the Monkey House.

Ahh, I remember my first post. Such and innocent time...

"an", not "and"

DLD welcome.

I see WAPO jumped the gun on the time.

If you think the failure to link to atomic clocks is bad, you should see the error message you get when try to post here but you have set your browser to not accept cookies. It's incomprehensible.

DLD, welcome. I remember well the feeling of taking a deep breath and just diving in to make that first post to the Boodle (since it was only a couple of months ago). My biggest barrier? The 'regulars' know each other well and are so clever and funny. Being neither clever nor funny myself made it feel very risky. But after Joel published my guest kit, I guess the imprimatur of the Boss made it easier.

SF has been somewhat wrong from time to time (as which of us has not?), and Mr. Curmudgeon was uncharacteristically humourless and even bullying in return, so I think Joel's decision to shut down that whole subject of conversation (which applies to you, too) was very wise.

To supporters of the Second Amendment, I advise the following thought experiment: Imagine yourself defending your right to own surface-to-air missiles armed with nuclear warhead tips.

I actually support the Second Amendment, but I have already done this mental exercise and adjusted my thinking accordingly.

Welcome, DLD!

Yoki, when was your guest kit? (Date, name, anything -- want to look it up, I must have been out of town or dealing with houseguests or something.)

Amazing to me, that your self-image might be other than clever or funny. So many people seem to have self-images at odds with how the world sees them. Like beautiful women who look in the mirror and honestly see a wildebeest staring back at them.

You are one of my favorites to read, in fact, for what that is worth.

Yoki, and the thing is, I can't help thinking if they met they'd get on wonderfully-- kind of like Spock and Bones.

at the risk of offending all the good people here, it occurs to me that when dogs take to attacking people, they have to be put down. is it too outlandish to suggest that when some humans take to murdering others (e.g. the Amish girls' killer, the killer of the college students in florida, j. dahmer) those people have to be put down, as well. there is a wonderful passage in saroyan's 'the time of your life' that gets at this issue. the problem is that that much of govt has become so corrupt that it's hard to trust the verdicts that are rendered in some jurisdictions.

by the way, cheney is a coward and a punk. he would not last one day where i grew up.

Yoki, I agree with Annie, I really enjoy your posts, your post to Martooni last night brought tears to my eyes.

Sheesh...quite a bit to skim to catch up...

I have to admit that although I didn't to on-topic, I knew what the double ruby pin was/is. I did LD debate and Impromptu and my favorite event was Extemporaneous Speaking. And now, I do theater and I have to say that my Forensics background has been very helpful. First, I can project my voice fairly easily in most spaces. I also know how to think quickly on my feet which is great for reacting in live theater.

Wilbrod, that was my *whole point* in talking about "imaginary enemies" as well as imaginary friends, the other day. Not that I haven't liked most of my on-line friends that I've met, but that 'Mudge and SF might be imaginary enemies and really like each other in person.

Thanks Annie. Guest kit was on July 15, 2006. "Kiterature" under my old handle "Stampede." Here's a story I haven't told; when Joel emailed me to say he wanted to run it (as the very first guest kit in that run of them!!!) I was deeply pleased, as you can imagine. I wrote back saying I was "tremulous" with delight. And he wrote back saying "I love the word tremulous." So that was a good day.

Love, Wildebeest

Wilbrod (3:21pm): Very likely.

And let me add this: to help out, a glass of wine (or beer, whatever he fancies) will be on me.

Same for everybody I may have ever offended here.

Wait, did I do that 12 count right?

Dogs kill fewer people than people kill people. Or people kill dogs. Still, there are more rabid dogs than people.

There are literally hundreds of us, and we're all coming to Washington for the next BPH!

I suggest live webcam BPH!

dmd, brilliant. Let us do just that. A virtual BPH.

When you were at the Prime Ministerial lunch, did he do his "my government is tough on crime" schtick?

Better make that a keg party, then, SF, and bring in some of that Romulan ale.

Do you want my honest version, or the politically correct answer :-)

Yes he did, and moaned about the changes made in committee, which at first glance don't seem that bad and are made with some logic.

He used the speech at a Chamber of Commerce to slap down the opposition for not be open and making changes in committee (which is the purpose of committiee review/revise), he wants them to use the house to do this, while he goes off in front of business people to express his views.

One clarification, after I hit submit, I realized webcams are often used in a slimy way, I DID NOT MEAN IT THAT WAY!!

I saw some coverage of His Honourableness complaining that Opposition members are messing with his "Accountability Act" which, of course, is meant to muzzle his ministers and the caucus and the civil service so that we only hear from His Prime Ministerialness.

Can you tell I'm not a Conservative, even though I live in the depths of it's black heartland? I'm actually a card carrying member of both the federal and provincial Liberal parties; when I go to fundraisers and other Liberal events in Calgary, all 14 of us meet up once again!

Brian Wilson did a miracle in recreating the lost Smile album. It's as if a fresco artist accepted a commission to recreate a work after his original was destroyed by an earthquake or similar cataclysm, it's like sorcery: provides the '60s with a "reset" button.

Geez. I know the difference between it's and its, and still, every time I post, I type it wrong. Sorry Wilbrod, you must be cringing.

Joel -- I'm still trying to post.

Welcome aboard, DLD!

SF,
You said "you're confusing mockery of a pompous, arrogant, self-important writing style with personal attacks."

I think you're confusing what you think is "pompous, arrogant, self-important writing style" with what I consider a hilariously hyperbolic, humorous writing style.

There's a fine line between teasing and a personal attack, and mockery is right about where that line is. Sometimes what amuses you might be insulting to the recipient(s).

I'm sensitive to this because I have a former friend who thought mockery was funny, but it was actually only amusing to himself. And he also thought that if he made fun of someone and they didn't laugh, that they had no sense of humor. And he thought it was rude if anyone teased him. He stopped being fun to be around. So your attempt at humorous mockery didn't go over well with me.

But anyway, you didn't offend me personally (much), but you can buy me a beer, anyway! It will have to be a virtual one, though.

I hear you Yoki, pretty much how I felt in that Luncheon today. Not to mention they said Grace and Toast the Queen. Until today I was quite ambivilent on separation of church and state, but at that event the Grace really bothered me, not only out of place but the guy doing it really milked his moment in the spotlight.

Have to go home, we are preparing for the party of the century (daughters).

Have a great weekend all.

ac, I'm with you on the fine line. And virtual beer it is! In fact, virtual champagne if you want!

Have a great weekend dmd. I was exhausted just reading about your halloween party the other day!

Have a great weekend dmd. I was exhausted just reading about your halloween party the other day!

To be perfectly clear, there is a reason why there are only 14 liberals in the heart of conservative country.

DLD, welcome to the hotel achenblog.

feel free to check out anytime you like.

just be aware that you can never leave.

tim, are you aware that the american edition of clockwork orange ends a chapter early? in the /real/ last chapter, alex does actually reform. sort of a boys will be boys lesson.

whoever posted the packer link, thank you. i am enthralled.

Superfrenchie picking at Curmudgeon:

We drove to San Francisco over last weekend, and one book we listened to was "Knockdown" by Dick Francis. In it, one of the characters says something like -- "The way to break down a group's resistance is to take down the strongest member."

nellie,
So *that's* sf's scheme! Well, it won't work.

I just stopped in SLO on my way back from LA Tuesday. Had a nice cup of coffee there. I left LA on Monday but spent the night in Buellton because my car broke down on the 101. (bad spark plug wires)(190,000 miles on my Civic and hoping for 200,000 before I give her up)

You did say you're in SLO, didn't you?

Welcome, DLD. Watch out. I went from tentative to insufferable in about five seconds. Ah, those were the days.

DadWannaBe, I've been out too long, so accept my heartfelt condolences now, please. And, not to dwell on them, changing the subject: are you a tenor, baritone or bass? I'm guessing not countertenor, or you'd be making lots of money as one of six guys singing obscure music. Just remember, as we airhead soprani say, tenors get the applause but the women go home with the basses.
[Basses are singers. Bass are fish. They sound different too. As a non-fisher, I used to get in a lot of trouble over this.]

a good friend of mine once warned me against dating sopranos. i don't at the moment recall what the reasoning behind this was.

I think that is called the Acheneffect.