Ode to Winter

I still don’t believe
Anthropogenic Global Climate
CHANGE
The evidence from my betters
DETAILS
Neither do they

The latest first snow
On the Front Range
TOMORROW
Doesn’t mean a thing but
WEATHER
Is different than climate

I used to believe
The French Revolution
BEHEADED
To many for too little
NOW
I believe they beheaded too few

In just a few weeks
The snow will be deep and
MARAT
Still sleeps while poor Charlotte
CORDAY
Is not accorded her due

The powder will be deep on
Ski slopes in Aspen and
VAIL
When winter comes and emulates
CHARLOTTE
Putting end to babbling fools

 

On the A-10 Warthog

The US Air Force was once again planning to mothball the A-10 Warthog fleet. What is wrong with the generals? Every time they plan to get rid of this superb ground attack aircraft, they come back shamed faced and admit that they have nothing in the inventory to replace it with.

Usually I agree with the concept of multi-role, but that is in my kitchen. In war fighting it is a different story. I wouldn’t use a sniper rifle when my enemy is within arm’s reach, I would use my Colt 1911. And I would not use an aircraft designed as an air superiority fighter as a ground attack fighter. Multi role weapon platforms have pretty dismal military records; they do a lot of things poorly and nothing well.

In 1975, when the first production A-10 flew, my US Army unit’s mission was to stop the communists at the gap in the mountains north of Bayreuth on the inter German border. Since every war game we played went nuclear within a matter of a few days, because we would be overrun by Soviet armor, I was interested in anything that might give us a chance to stop the communist without using nuclear weapons – every artillery piece (self-propelled 155 and Lance missile) we had were nuclear capable. I had seen the nuclear warheads, we had lots of them, and we were trained in their use. So I was very interested, as glowing in the dark didn’t seem to be a good life strategy.

Everything I could get my hands on about the A-10 I read. It had a gun that with one round could destroy any tank on earth. It had titanium armor that protected the pilot from much of the ground fire they would get hit by when they were destroying tanks. It had deceptive loiter capability. Command and communications were being developed so the grunts on the ground could get information to the pilot in the air. This was an aircraft that the US Army would love.

Thankfully the A-10 never had to engage Soviet armor on the inter-German border. When it did have to show its mettle in the wars of Islamo-fascism the A-10 proved it was even better than advertised. It destroyed enemy armor with ease. When hit by ground fire it brought its pilots home. A work buddy was a crew chief for A-10’s and told me he was able to stand up and through a hole in a wing. The pilot’s comment was that it “handled a little rough on the way back.”

There was a joke that made the rounds when I was Herzo Artillery Base. It went like this: What is the difference between the army and the Boy Scouts? The Boy Scouts have adult leadership. Some things do not seem to change. If once again the Pentagon was seriously thinking that the A-10 could be replaced by a mere fighter aircraft, then the only thing this proves is that there is still no adult leadership in Washington DC.

On, goddamnit it’s a Washington Post article, “Richard Sherman says Roger Goodell needs to ‘give up some of his power’” as presented on MSN Sports

Sorry about the slip up there, here is the link to the article. The last gazillion articles I’ve read in The Washington Post have been abysmal. The writing makes that “newspaper” you made in the third grade look like a Nobel Prize, hold it. They are giving the Nobel Prize in Literature to incoherent hacks now so that is not a standard you can measure anything by. Let’s just say that The Washington Post is to journalism as hagfish are to tuna.

My first awareness of Richard Sherman, the person, was a “man on the street” interview he did for someone. He was interviewing people on the street asking them who they thought the best cornerback in the NFL was. The comic angle was that it was already well known to NFL fans that Mr Sherman thought pretty highly of his talent. And the fact that none of interviews shown did anyone say anything about Richard Sherman brought a smile to my face, as Mr. Sherman played those cards out. By the way, in my opinion Richard Sherman was already the best corner back in the NFL, even if he did not play for my Packers.

When I saw the link for this article on Mr. Sherman I clicked through because I thought I would at least get a smile on my face reading what he had to say. I do think that Roger Goodell is the worse NFL commissioner in my lifetime, but probably not for the reasons that Richard Sherman does. Mr Sherman seems only to rant about Goodell’s hypocrisy. Fair enough, if there is one thing that describes Mr. Goodell it is that he is a hypocrite. I think that Roger Goodell is the worse commissioner in NFL history because he has not banned the abominable “instant replay rule.”

I have this feeling about sports that referees are part of the game and there are times when the referee will bend you over the barrel and stick it to you without the benefit of KY or a reach around. And you should just shut your mouth and take it.  I remember on my high school football team, I was at my usual starting position, on the bench, cheering my team on. We had the ball, it was first and ten, and the other team got flagged for being off sides. The referee steps off the 5 yard penalty. First and five, and the other team is off sides again! The referee steps off the penalty and calls off “First and one to go!” The referee even brought the chains out to prove his point. My coach exploded in a fit of apoplexy and ran onto the field screaming at the referee, acting the fool. We loved it. My coach finished the game in the locker room as the referee threw him out. That is the way sports are supposed to be played. No lawyering, no interminable reviews, just get thrown out of the game if you disagree so much – it was the talk of the town for the next week, no one cared that we got stomped – and line up for the next play.

There is something deeply wrong with the NFL today and it is not the hypocrisy that oozes like a foul pus from every moment of an NFL game and every second of a telecast of a game or the fan boy shows on the likes of MSNBCESPN, I bet you didn’t even notice ESPN turning into MSNBC did you? I believe Roger Goodell’s real sin is that he is strangling the goose in a vain attempt to squeeze more eggs from its golden oviduct. Just a hint Roger, the oviduct is not in the throat. Methinks that the NFL players are protesting too much, at least they are protesting over things which are meaningless to them, just like what Richard Sherman is protesting in this article. Instead of protesting that Roger Goodell is destroying the golden goose they protest for being penalized for vulgarities. What are you going to protest when NFL television ratings have tanked so badly that those multi billion dollar contracts from every television network are gone; and those tickets in those public paid for stadiums, if they could be sold, are a fraction of today’s price? What are you going to protest when, if you want to play, you will have to wash your own jock strap?

I haven’t watched much football this year. A couple of Packer games and I didn’t even watch all of them. And this is from a Packer fan who watched every Packer game he could from Starr to Favre when they set the standard for ineptitude. It is not just Colin Kaepernick’s leftist insensitivities that I find tedious, or the vulgarities of the players that I find tedious, or the vulgarities of the owners that I find tedious, it is all of these things and the nonstop marketing I must endure to watch a game.

Can’t the NFL owners and players skimming the millions and millions and millions of dollars from the economy be satisfied with this vast wealth and let me at least have a kernel of a fantasy that sport is something untouched by mammon and the cynicism of the modern world?

On the BBC article “Philippines Duterte: God told me to stop swearing” as published on MSN News

Here is the link to the story.

After reading the first sentence I felt my desire for world political news plummet to new lows. President Duterte has been the only reason I have been paying attention to the Pacific Rim. Well maybe Chinese Cowboyism; and the Norks; and the thirty year long stumble of Japanese government ineptitude – that is like watching a slow motion car crash, you can’t just tear your eyes away; and there is Modi trying to drag India, kicking and screaming, out of that gods awful mess it was in; and the always delightful fantasy that the Pacific Islands are going to be washed away in increasing sea level disasters, lets reel in it here. I was trying to keep it about reality.

So I guess there was more than Duterte’s outrageous statements that I was paying attention to in the Pacific, but if Duterte stops bad mouthing President Obama I won’t get any view of Obama that does not come from those who think Obama is the second coming of Jesus Christ singing the Internationale; curing the ill without the need for doctor’s or medicine, with just His existential touch; and causing peace to break out all over the world as his gaze rests upon a region in strife.  If Duterte cleans up his language how will I know that this view of Obama is nonsense?

I hadn’t realized that the BBC became more puritanical than Grandma.   The Beeb quotes Duterte as calling President Obama as a “son of a w***e.” I think the BBC meant to write “whore” instead of w***e.  I don’t think that President Obama’s mother was a prostitute, let alone a whore, and I don’t think that that statement is swearing. I think in English we would say that is hyperbole. And I am puzzled that the BBC has had a corporate “come to Jesus” moment and is so worried about the souls of their readers that they must be protected from the word whore.

But the Beeb also finds the word “hypocritical” swearing; they must be tying themselves in knots that Popeye the Sailor Man would be proud of over there in London, to stoop to such levels as to call hypocritical a swear word. And this is from the country that perfected the high art of swearing. And if you don’t believe me read the play “Le Marriage de Figaro” written by the French playwright Beaumarchais in 1778 AD. Figaro waxes poetic how he must learn to swear when he contemplates going to London from his home in Seville. His master is being sent as the ambassador to the Court of St James’s from Spain. Even in far off Spain, Figaro knows all the British know how to do is swear.

You don’t think that the Victorian era wiped swearing clean from the British verbal plate, do you?

Anyhoo, if Duterte did have a revelation from the Almighty and that he cleans up his language I suppose this brief refreshing moment in politics is over. I’m sure that some other politico will rise from the swamp (In the BBC’s fevered imagination) and enlighten us with a new take on the British art of swearing.

Afterword: My grandma was not a puritan. She taught me every swear word in the book by the time I was ten years old, after all her heritage was British. My other grandma was German. She couldn’t swear if she tried. German’s just don’t have the talent to swear like the British do. My German family are amateurs when it comes to swearing, my British family are fucking professionals.

 

On The Washington Post’s news story: “Hurricane intensity is not exaggerated to scare people, and here’s how we know”

The first place to look to understand why the newspaper business in the United States has fallen on such hard times is the headlines. The headline for this story had me in a coma before I got to the word “exaggerated.” Headlines are indicative of how the quality of newspapering has sunken to depths lower than the Marianas Trench.

First of all, I have been through my share of hurricanes. They are frightful bitches. Tropical storms are not much less frightful. These species of weather events can make you see the wisdom of believing in the Almighty.

The story starts out and gives us a couple of the journalistic pantheon of: “who, what, where, why, when.” The first graph ends in the hysterical sobs of “…we’ll never know the final death toll.” We will never know the final death toll because in those areas hardest hit they do not believe in accurate record keeping when it is nice outside, let alone when the land all around has been flattened by a hurricane. At least they do understand the importance of getting the corpses disposed of before corruption and disease set in. Record keeping doesn’t seem so important when you are struggling to keep the living, living.

Then the story launches into a hateful screed on Matt Drudge because he had the temerity to question NOAA’s published weather information. When I lived on the gulf coast I always assumed that the NOAA was full of shit because they were trying to predict something they did not have the knowledge to predict. I understood that whatever I saw from them would be as accurate as if I put my ear to the palm tree in my front yard and listen to it sing the secrets of weather.

It is obvious that the writers of this article did not understand that Matt was baiting them into doing something stupid like writing this screed. After finishing this article I understood they did not even realize they had fallen into his trap. What a bunch of maroons.

Why do I think the writers of this article fit the definition Bugs Bunny gave for maroons? First their initial response to Matt Drudge’s question is to bring ad hominem attacks on Matt Drudge’s person. Yep, that really answers Matt’s question, doesn’t it. What is “The Washington Post,” a newspaper ran by a bunch of junior high students? I expect better from adults.

The second reason is the data the writers used to support their claim that NOAA’s published information on Hurricane Mathew was accurate. Only one of the data sets presented had anything to do with Hurricane Mathew. The first data set was “Wind Speed from a High-resolution Hurricane Model.” Guess what maroons, that has nothing whatsoever to do with answering Drudge’s question. The next data set is for Hurricane Joaquin for the time frame of 28 September to 7 October….2015. This chart only supports Drudge’s claim. When the plot line is above almost every single data point then I am going to question the accuracy of your models. In this graph the highest predicted wind speed is about 135 knots (I do wish everyone would just go metric!) on October 4th. There is only one data point above that plot line. The majority of the actual data is lower than 100 knots. I scratch my head, “Lucy you got some ‘splaining to do.” Hey, what can I say? I thought Ricky Riccardo was about the coolest man on earth.

Then we get into a discussion about why we can not believe actual data. Puh-lease. If your actual data can not be trusted then you need to fix how you acquire your data. If you do not believe your actual data then you can not calculate “fudge” factors and call it sacred. If you do this then you have fallen into the GIGO of computing. Garbage in, garbage out. No wonder the predicted models are so wobbly.

Finally we get some data on Hurricane Mathew. I was wondering if Hurricane Mathew data was ever going to be used in this story on Hurricane Mathew. This data is from a buoy somewhere in the “central Caribbean Sea” with a time frame from 00:00 September 29 to 00:00 October 4th (GMT). I’m cool with using GMT as a time stamp. It is how we know everyone is talking about the same time. Of course there are weasel words about why we can not believe this data. “…sheltering effect and sub-optimal placement,” even though it also says “…Hurricane Mathew passed almost directly over a buoy…” NOAA estimates the “official intensity” at 115 knots even though the recorded intensity was 65 knots. Don’t you just love science! Data doesn’t matter unless we say it does! Jiminy Cricket! No wonder we can’t get any predictions right. Instead of fixing our measuring techniques we just fudge the effing data!

After the data sets have been presented we get a bunch of hand wringing about how difficult it is to do the hard work of science. Yes, science ain’t easy. Fudging science is easy. It is why they do it. Quite frankly, I am on Matt Drudge’s side in this argument. Nothing the writers of this article have written supports their contention that NOAA’s published information for the public is accurate. Wind speed just may reflect the amount of energy that is in a hurricane system and when the measured peak velocity is 65 knots but you fudge factor that and claim that it means 115 knots you have almost doubled the amount of energy in that system. And that is if that increase is a linear function. I do think it is at least a place to start thinking about the implications. Is this science? I think the needle is wavering on the “No” side of the Yes/No meter.

As I said, science is hard work and humans are by nature lazy, blind and deceitful creatures. That is why so much science is shown to be wrong almost as soon as it is published. Instead of weaseling your way by fudging the data, how about getting us some accurate effing data?

On the NY Times article “AARP Sues U.S. Over Rules for Wellness Programs”

I would find it harder to swallow the bile rising in my throat after a three day alcohol binge then to admit I read an article in the New York Times, the most pathetic newspaper on the face of this earth. But I did read an article in the New York Times, “AARP Sues U.S. Over Rules for Wellness Programs.” The fact that AARP (and why is it AARP but U.S. ? Isn’t that rather odd?) is another organization which would better be consigned to the depths of hell, as Don Giovanni is during the song “Don Giovanni a cenar teco.” But I did read this article and with just a little interest and sympathy.

It was less than a year after I filled out a wellness program form at work that I was laid off. Can I prove that the corporation I worked for laid me off for this wellness program info I submitted. No I can not. It just seems an odd coincidence that within the fiscal year I was gone.

I have an auto immune disorder called ankylosing spondylitis, I disclosed this information. The only treatments for this disorder are frightenly expensive. When I was on Remicade the treatments were listed on the insurance forms at thirty thousand dollars a month, the fact that I rarely received any comfort is neither here nor there. Every month I would sit in the infusion center while that mouse laden infusion dripped into my veins. When my right sterno-clavicle joint enlarged to three times the left side, and it hurt to use my right arm, my rheumatologist switched me to Humira, “You must have developed antibodies to Remicade,” he told me. That is a known issue with Remicade; after all Remicade is a chimera of human and mouse cells. You would have thought that the insurance company would have rejoiced. Humira cost about two thousand dollars a month. Instead I got a ration of shit from the insurance company. They would invent new paper work that they were not required to inform me about. I would go weeks without regular treatment while trying to figure out what this paper work I had to fill out was. I felt like I was in a Spy v Spy episode of Mad Magazine.

The telephone calls I had with the insurance company while I was at work became legendary. My supervisor even called the insurance company and after a frustrating call he came to me and told me not to worry. If I needed to go ape shit crazy on the insurance company it was fine by him. He would back me if management got a hair up its ass. And he did. A fellow employee came to me and asked me how often I went to the emergency room. His cousin had ankylosing spondylitis and this cousin seemed to spend all his time in the emergency room. I looked at him and said, “I’m a single dad, I’ve got two kids. I can’t spend my time worrying about me.”

Now by this time the kids were out of the house and all grow’d up. Could I have spent my time in the emergency room? Yes I could have. I am lucky if I get two hours a sleep at a sitting – should I say “a laying?” When I wake the pain is extreme. It takes me four to six hours after waking to come to terms with the pain. I have eaten over a hundred milligrams of OxyContin a day to handle the pain. OxyContin is no solution. Do I sleep, yes. Am I me, no. The question is would I rather be me or would I rather be without pain. I would rather be me. No pain, no brain I told my niece who is one of my two kids. She is a pediatric nephrologist now, besides being the apple of my eye. And I see the despair in her eyes. She knows what it is that I live with.

Unfortunately, the company I worked for could not see this. And the government we all bow to does not see this. The government allows the companies in our country to treat our citizens the horrible way they do because they pay the politicians much more than I will ever be able to pay. So those of you who think that it is better to vote for a God Damned Bastard (Hillary) over a Republithug (Trump) or vice a versa are utter fools.

On “Supper’s Ready” by Genesis

As I have said before I think that Peter Gabriel should have won the Nobel Prize in Literature before ol’ what’s his name. “Supper’s Ready” is a song that brings this into stark contrast with any of the songs by ol’ what’s his face. Hell, Wolfgang Mozart would have been proud to have written “Supper’s Ready,” but he stands, shame faced in the shadows, angry that he did not have the instruments available to the modern composer. If Mozart had lived in today’s era instead of shaming every composer who had ever lived he would have shamed every composer who would ever live.

Because of this advantage of time the group Genesis, a gathering of very talented young musicians, composed this endearing song. It is not a two minute thirty ditty you would have heard on your top forty radio station that would have been an ear worm in your brain. It is a twenty minute marathon that is structured more along the line of a concerto or a symphony than a pop song. Yes, concertos and symphonies are usually three or four movements and Supper’s Ready is seven; but I don’t find that that is a significant difference. The similarities between the classical methods, perfected by the aforementioned Mozart, and exhibited by Genesis in Supper’s Ready are apparent event to the musically ignorant like myself.

There are musical themes that pick up and repeat throughout that tie the sections together. There are allusions to classical mythology that cause your ears to perk. But when you get to the last verse in the song the whole of Western Civilization hits home:

“There’s an angel standing in the sun, and he’s crying with a loud voice,

‘This is the supper of the mighty one,’

Lord of Lords,

King of Kings,

Has returned to lead his children home,

To take them to the new Jerusalem.”

If you need to be educated in the imagery of the new Jerusalem and the shining city on the hill, I beg to whatever God exists in the firmament to forgive me for failing you.

 

Grandma, barn, switch

This is based on the National Geographic article “Oldest Evidence of Right-Handedness Seen in Fossil Jaw.”

First of all maybe David doesn’t need to be treated as a rambunctious boy and Grandma doesn’t need to stripe his ass with a switch. It is well known that the National Geographic is deep into the dementia era of its life cycle and the quotes from Mr Frayer could have been taken out of context. Also once interviewed David can hardly be held accountable for the verbal ramblings of such a contemptible creature as a journalist.

A heavy sigh escaped my lips at the use of “handy man” in the first sentence. This is so trite as to be painful to read. The next sentence uses “Homo habilis” but for those not up on the arcane species naming schemes this awful joke is missed. I can imagine the author of this article “yuking” it up on how clever the first sentence was.

Don’t mistake that I think that Mr Frayer’s research is bogus. From what I read in this article and David’s paper in “Journal of Human Evolution,” I think that his analysis is very thoughtful and precisely managed and his findings may be correct. I do question the sexual identification of the remains. There is no discussion of the pelvis or other sexual dimorphic features, probably because there are no other remains associated with this jaw. Whole libraries have been composed on less evidence than a jaw. The link associated with this identification leads to the Science Magazine’s page for the article “Late Pliocene Homo and Hominid Land Use from Western Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania “by Blumenschine et al 2003. Unfortunately this page is also a paywall and you do not even get the dignity of an abstract. It really pisses me off that an article supports its speculations with facts I am not allowed to see. Am I expected to make a judgement based on faith alone? Hardly, I am an anarchist; I do not believe in authority figures, so you must give me evidence if I am to buy into your argument. Besides, if the remains are female or male are not even germane to this discussion.  As far as I am concerned these fossil remains are an “it” until proven otherwise. And I see no proof even offered.

The writer of the article nods in the direction of science with the phrase “…a sample size of one…” That shows that he knows that rules of evidence to support a hypothesis demand more than one example. I smiled at the left brain, right brain discussion. I found that intriguing too, when I was in the eighth grade. As an adult I want evidence to support a hypothesis about what this means. Otherwise it is only idle speculation that leads to a deep dark pit of nothingness.

The evidence to support handedness in the quote by David is what originally gave me the image of “Grandma, barn, switch.” We used to speculate it was an increase in brain size that drove hominid evolution. Then, more humbly since the brain size thing was so horribly, awfully, wrong, maybe it was bipedalism that was the driving force. I suspect that that will also embarrass a generation of anthropologists. As will David’s quote that “right-handedness, cerebral lateral asymmetry and language” being a package will cause David, in his decrepitude to utter, “what a fool I was.”

I doubt that the writer of this article will ever have the honesty that I bet David Frayer will have. The paragraph on the handedness relationship holding across primates was bogus the moment it was written. David’s paper has a section on this very discussion and it states that the evidence is just not there to support any but the most speculative conclusion on handedness until the Middle Paleolithic. The evidence David discusses on other methods to determine handedness he admits “…reflects only general trends for handedness in the archaeological record…” David also discusses human/chimp handedness differences. In this discussion David brings a point of evidence that causes my eyebrow to arch. Homo sapien Hunter-gather specimens show a handedness of 62.5% right versus 65% for chimpanzees. It is not until the British Medieval specimens that there is evidence for the modern handedness split. So this whole handedness subject is probably not related to language as David’s quote in the article suggests that it is. Nor does handedness hold across primates. It clearly does not. Once you get away from chimpanzees the preference for handedness in primates seems to disappear and as near as can be determined there is no preference. Since David’s quote implies a relationship between handedness and language how did Homo sapiens know how to use language prior to the time of Medieval Britain when the modern handedness split is first established? Marcus Tullius Cicero, I think, would have been offended; Roman aristocrats were easily offended. How do we know this?  Those Roman aristocrats wrote about it in precise and exquisite prose.

The article ends with a quote from David that he believes his study is not an isolated, one off instance. And that when other dental studies are made with other teeth from the archeologic record his findings will be shown correct. I think that David is on to something here, at least in some of his ideas. I’m not buying into his speculation between handedness and language. I think that the evidence is just to bare to support this. Currently I think we have evidence for language back to about forty thousand years ago. My idle speculation is that cave paintings were mnemonics to trigger story telling. Before that we only have isolated endocasts that suggest brain structures now associated with speech and language.

My beef with this story is with the writer’s cheap rhetorical tricks, not with David Frayer. Rational people can have rational disagreements as I do with David and his handedness language connection. My distaste for this article is entirely with the National Geographic and the writer of the article. Starting with an awful joke and using rhetorical maneuverings instead of evidence to support claims, it leads the reader down a hole just as fantasy laden as Alice’s rabbit hole.

One last question for David: “Does your grandmother or you hold the scientific method dearer?”

On the LiveScience article “The Maya Were Tracking the Planets Long Before Copernicus” by Tia Ghose

First of all the headline for this story is abominable. The headline writer needs to study the headlines from the Golden Age of Newspapers in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Those headline writers knew what it was about. Reread this headline and then read this headline from Variety newspaper from July 17, 1935: “Sticks Nix Hick Pix.” Which headline grabs you? Which one will you remember tomorrow? Which one makes you want to read the story? The last great headline in the United States may have been the 1983 New York Post headline “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” Those headlines ring with the beauty of poetry. This headline? You are comatose before you get to the word “Planets”.

This article is about a study on the “Venus” portion of the Dresden Codex. The Dresden Codex has a fascinating history. Its provenance is only traceable to Vienna in 1739. How it came to be in Vienna is unknown. Idle speculation is that Hernan Cortes sent it as tribute to King Charles of Spain, but that is to history as unicorns are to horses. Since 1739 the history of this Codex is well known. Described as a “Mexican Book” at the time of its acquisition it lived at the Royal Library in Dresden since that time. It was displayed beneath glass since the 1830’s. The Codex survived the firebombing of Dresden in WWII though it was heavily damaged. If you are unfamiliar with the firebombing of Dresden, first you should go back and beat to death every teacher you have ever had, and then you should read “Slaughter House Five” by Vonnegut. Vonnegut survived this event, that horrified even the Allies, and his fictionalized account will let you live this tragedy. Oh, and it was written before Vonnegut went completely wonkers so it is very readable. And it is a rather short novel so those of you who do not have the attention span that God gave a gnat you can make it from beginning to end without too much effort.

It takes Tia over half of the article to get to the meat of this story. And I understand this. For those who had never heard of the Dresden Codex before and know nothing of the Maya, besides the misinterpretation of the “2012” calendar cycle, you need some of this background. What fills my mind with awe is how this translation of the Codex ties the Mayans with the other civilizations of the ancient world. The Mayans had no contact with the Babylonians. Nor the Egyptians. Nor the Chinese. Nor the Romans. But yet here we find that the Mayans had just as great a nerdgasm for the calendar as any of these other civilizations.

Instead of showing this common human yearning to understand what the year was, the tires are spinning on idle speculation. It has been known for some time that the civilizations of Meso-America were superb mathematicians, maybe the very best of the ancient world. But what did they use those mathematical skill sets for? It seems the sole purpose of those skills was to make sure that religious festivals happened on the correct day.

One can not argue that “if only the Mayans had been…” What if’s are only for alternate history fiction. The Mayan civilization seems to have been destroyed by pure bad luck. A drought unlike any since the Ice Ages paid end to the Maya, for they had no source of water other than rain. It seems that when the logic of mathematics is tied to religious tyranny death happens.

Rest In Peace Steven Den Beste

It was like I took a weighted ball bat to the gut when I read the news: Steven Den Beste was dead. I know that he had been in failing health for the last several years, but that didn’t salve the aching loss I felt. I know I had quit reading his blog because he had turned from the vicious side of the internet to a more carefree side that held little appeal to me, and I like anime. Just not that much. Fan sites discussing entertainment issues just do not appeal to my tastes. But Steven Den Beste is dead? God please not let it be!

Back in the day when the blogosphere was still a new thing, I discovered a dark and beautiful section of the blogosphere. This was a place where people could plead the case for a more rational world, away from the unicorns and fairies of the left. This was a place where the discussions used logic and science to dissect the increasingly insane world that claimed to own logic and science, but only owned fantasy. This light that was being shined on our insane world, by this section of the blogosphere, illuminated the delusion of the political left. It was comforting to know that I was not alone, screeching in the dark.

I don’t remember how I stumbled into Steven’s blog, USS Clueless, but I do remember the utter fascination I had with Steven’s thinking. He had been an engineer; I think cell phone technology had been his gig. So he had the engineer’s view of things. Engineer precisely, but not overly. There was a whole discussion on the cost analysis of where you stop when you engineer a product. Though I was familiar with the concepts I had never really understood how to put them in practice. Steven opened my eyes to this and I saw how to put those ideas in my thinking on politics. I understood why governments always over engineer the meaningless and under engineer the meaningful.  Thank you Steven.

Steven’s discussions on the folly of society’s fascination with “green” energy were another of the concepts that opened my mind. His dictum that when you turn on a light it doesn’t cause the wind to blow was a revelation. In Steven’s easy, simple explanations on energy from electrical generation to distribution to how usage patterns are determined and thereby how generation is brought online and off helped me to understand that the proposals from the left on energy were not worth the effort to read as they had not even considered those details. Steven’s discussion on the photo-electric effect showed that solar panels, outside a few specialized applications, were another example of this folly.  Thank you Steven.

The person I am today is a better one because Steven Den Beste was my teacher. I am not a religious man, I don’t know if God is there or not. But if there is a God in heaven I plead that You give SDB the peace and happiness he richly deserves.

Thank you Steven for living your life your way.