Considering the bad behavior of Jupiter in the ancient legends, it might make some sense to name the satellite that's going to explore it Juno, after his long-suffering wife.
But if it finds out that the Great Red Spot is just lipstick on the big planet's collar, that whole idea about everything being a simulation might start to make some sense.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Saturday, August 6, 2016
What Are Those Things?
Brendan Maloy, writing at Sports Illustrated, ranks Olympic mascots in the order of scariness. The scariest part of all may be that someone got paid to design some of them.
Also in Olympic news, everyone had a cheer for the "Refugee Team" of people displaced from their homelands who are competing under the Olympic flag rather than a national one. It made everyone feel good. Then we found out the Lebanese team threw a tantrum at the idea of riding to the opening ceremonies on the same bus as the Israeli team, and we were back to business as usual for this "above all the politics" event.
Also in Olympic news, everyone had a cheer for the "Refugee Team" of people displaced from their homelands who are competing under the Olympic flag rather than a national one. It made everyone feel good. Then we found out the Lebanese team threw a tantrum at the idea of riding to the opening ceremonies on the same bus as the Israeli team, and we were back to business as usual for this "above all the politics" event.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Redemption Draweth Nigh?
The Major League Baseball Hall of Fame has made a decision that could allow it to once again be worthy of the name, reorganizing its veterans committees and re-opening the door to Negro Leagues players after shutting it in 2006.
The Sporting News article notes that the changes could help ease the logjam for players who have had Hall-eligible carers but who have been sidetracked by the vagaries of voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. It could also help pave the way for players caught in the Steroid Era who chemically enhanced their performance during years when that was not yet illegal.
As to those possibilities, whatever. The world turns as it always has whether Cooperstown features Alan Trammell's features on a plaque or not. Ballplayers have always sought an edge, and the reality that a needle should feature as prominently as a bat on a Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire display doesn't change that what they did was mostly legal when they did it. BBWAA members can vote them down if they want to, but making sure that the system gives them their chance is a good idea.
But as has been noted before, a special Hall of Fame committee set up in 2006 to take care of remaining Hall-worthy Negro Leagues players exhibited truly adamantine dumbitude by leaving out John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil, about two years before O'Neil's death. The special committees had been necessary because the segregation of baseball by race had left too many great players shining on a less visible stage. Everybody knew how great Babe Ruth was. But not nearly so many knew how great Josh Gibson was, so extra effort was needed to research Gibson and top players like him so they could receive the recognition they deserved.
O'Neil himself didn't consider his stats Hall-of-Fame worthy. As this otherwise kind of corny column in the Kansas City Star notes, he carried his list of Cooperstown-caliber-but-overlooked Negro Leagues players in his wallet. He didn't list himself. But his contributions towards getting the biggest stars some of the attention they deserved and highlighting the untold story of Negro Leagues baseball are without peer. The committee that overlooked him did so to its eternal shame, especially since it was supposed to make the last recommendations from that era and then consider the case closed.
But by including Negro Leagues players in its new "Early Committee," the Hall now allows for the possibility that the face of Buck O'Neil could smile out at Cooperstown visitors sometime after 2020, when that committee first meets. And that's the kind of fame that can cross out a whole lot of chemically-enhanced infamy.
The Sporting News article notes that the changes could help ease the logjam for players who have had Hall-eligible carers but who have been sidetracked by the vagaries of voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. It could also help pave the way for players caught in the Steroid Era who chemically enhanced their performance during years when that was not yet illegal.
As to those possibilities, whatever. The world turns as it always has whether Cooperstown features Alan Trammell's features on a plaque or not. Ballplayers have always sought an edge, and the reality that a needle should feature as prominently as a bat on a Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire display doesn't change that what they did was mostly legal when they did it. BBWAA members can vote them down if they want to, but making sure that the system gives them their chance is a good idea.
But as has been noted before, a special Hall of Fame committee set up in 2006 to take care of remaining Hall-worthy Negro Leagues players exhibited truly adamantine dumbitude by leaving out John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil, about two years before O'Neil's death. The special committees had been necessary because the segregation of baseball by race had left too many great players shining on a less visible stage. Everybody knew how great Babe Ruth was. But not nearly so many knew how great Josh Gibson was, so extra effort was needed to research Gibson and top players like him so they could receive the recognition they deserved.
O'Neil himself didn't consider his stats Hall-of-Fame worthy. As this otherwise kind of corny column in the Kansas City Star notes, he carried his list of Cooperstown-caliber-but-overlooked Negro Leagues players in his wallet. He didn't list himself. But his contributions towards getting the biggest stars some of the attention they deserved and highlighting the untold story of Negro Leagues baseball are without peer. The committee that overlooked him did so to its eternal shame, especially since it was supposed to make the last recommendations from that era and then consider the case closed.
But by including Negro Leagues players in its new "Early Committee," the Hall now allows for the possibility that the face of Buck O'Neil could smile out at Cooperstown visitors sometime after 2020, when that committee first meets. And that's the kind of fame that can cross out a whole lot of chemically-enhanced infamy.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Photo Effects
But when I go to sleep tonight, I'm going to tell myself it's a wormhole opening above a spacecraft docking tower. Maybe I'll manage to talk my subconscious into making me a captain, standing on the deck of a star cruiser as it returns to Earth.
It beats re-living the meeting I had this morning.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Nigerian Barrister Required
By an individual known as "Mike," who was arrested by Nigerian police in connection with millions of dollars of internet scams run by a network stretching across several nations in Africa that may have involved as many as 40 people.
The "Nigerian e-mail scam" is its own meme, as fake e-mails seeking money or help in schemes to get money have been around for nearly as long as there has been an internet. One of the more common involves a person mysteriously being named as the beneficiary of some wealthy Nigerian's will. A "barrister," or lawyer, is contacting the hoped-for-victim on behalf of the estate, seeking account details needed to make the substantial deposit. You know it's not a scam, of course, because the person sending the e-mail has the address of their barrister offices and everything right in the message.
I will now make a public offer of my own. "Mike" and his network were believed to have hoovered up some $60 million over the course of their alleged scam, according to authorities. If he sends me two of those millions, I will send him a copy of a book that I have in my sole possession that contains an entire section of nothing but barristers who defend people accused of crimes. Their contact information and addresses are even printed on different-colored pages -- yellow, to be exact -- in order to set them apart from other listings.
But he will need to keep this offer confidential. If it gets out, unscrupulous types might try to take advantage of him in his hour of need.
The "Nigerian e-mail scam" is its own meme, as fake e-mails seeking money or help in schemes to get money have been around for nearly as long as there has been an internet. One of the more common involves a person mysteriously being named as the beneficiary of some wealthy Nigerian's will. A "barrister," or lawyer, is contacting the hoped-for-victim on behalf of the estate, seeking account details needed to make the substantial deposit. You know it's not a scam, of course, because the person sending the e-mail has the address of their barrister offices and everything right in the message.
I will now make a public offer of my own. "Mike" and his network were believed to have hoovered up some $60 million over the course of their alleged scam, according to authorities. If he sends me two of those millions, I will send him a copy of a book that I have in my sole possession that contains an entire section of nothing but barristers who defend people accused of crimes. Their contact information and addresses are even printed on different-colored pages -- yellow, to be exact -- in order to set them apart from other listings.
But he will need to keep this offer confidential. If it gets out, unscrupulous types might try to take advantage of him in his hour of need.
Monday, August 1, 2016
The Burden of the Ballot
Problem: The election of Republican nominee Donald Trump to the office of President of the United States will be at best an embarrassment and at worst actually dangerous to our nation. The only responsible course of action is to vote for the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, no matter how much one may disagree with her policies and positions.
Verdict: Half-right.
Problem: The election of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to the office of President of the United States will be at best an embarrassment and at worst actually dangerous to our nation. The only responsible course of action is to vote for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, no matter how much one may disagree with his policies and positions.
Verdict: Half-right.
So of you're a person who believes that voting in elections is the kind of civic duty which you should not shirk, considering how many people sacrificed so that you could have and keep the right to do so, you have one heck of a problem. Now, it's not like there haven't been morally objectionable candidates for the office before. Woodrow Wilson was a vicious racist. Richard Nixon was a crook, despite what he said to the contrary. And so on.
But in 2016, both major parties somehow dipped their cups deep deep down into the fetid level of their basest, where greed and narcissism and the naked lust for power metastized together with malignant untruth and paranoiac secrecy and basic incompetence. And then they each drew up a gelid stinking rat's nest of a candidate, only to find that they had finally really done it: They had nominated two people who mirrored each other in almost every way, with the minor differences between them (he's more natural at public speaking, she has a better handle on how to get policy enacted) drowned in the reality that neither of them is of fit character for the office of President of the United States. Neither of them deserves "Hail to the Chief" or Air Force One or a life in the West Wing of the people's house or to receive a salute from someone wearing our nation's uniform.
The only position for which either nominee is suited by character is one of grasping avarice, single-minded in their devotion to enrich themselves and gain power for the sole reason of being able to tell other people what to do rather than empower them on their own. This position they already hold, of course, and a sane cosmos would leave them both in it.
This being the cosmos we have, though, here they are and there is still the necessity of voting. And so for someone of a conservative political bent, there comes former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, running as the Libertarian Party candidate. Mr. Johnson is far from ideal. His ideas on religious freedom remain dismal (and not all that libertarian) and his track record in limiting spending isn't everything you could want (although he had to work against his NM legislature to even slow it down).
What I read of Mr. Johnson makes me think he would be at best an average president and unlikely to get a lot of his agenda through Congress. We might wind up with the authority and enormous bureaucracy of the executive branch trimmed, since he could do that more or less on his own. Or he might decide he needs to invest his energy in getting pot legalized. In an ordinary year, I can't find too many policy reasons I would vote for him, especially given the near certainty that he will not win.
But this is no ordinary year. The foulest stench is in the air; the funk of forty thousand hours of political ads and debates and conventions, and the only thing that Mr. Johnson has to recommend him is that if I mark the box next to his name on Nov. 8. I can look at myself in the mirror on Nov. 9 and probably corral the completely understandable impulse to ram my head through the wall behind it.
Verdict: Half-right.
Problem: The election of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to the office of President of the United States will be at best an embarrassment and at worst actually dangerous to our nation. The only responsible course of action is to vote for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, no matter how much one may disagree with his policies and positions.
Verdict: Half-right.
So of you're a person who believes that voting in elections is the kind of civic duty which you should not shirk, considering how many people sacrificed so that you could have and keep the right to do so, you have one heck of a problem. Now, it's not like there haven't been morally objectionable candidates for the office before. Woodrow Wilson was a vicious racist. Richard Nixon was a crook, despite what he said to the contrary. And so on.
But in 2016, both major parties somehow dipped their cups deep deep down into the fetid level of their basest, where greed and narcissism and the naked lust for power metastized together with malignant untruth and paranoiac secrecy and basic incompetence. And then they each drew up a gelid stinking rat's nest of a candidate, only to find that they had finally really done it: They had nominated two people who mirrored each other in almost every way, with the minor differences between them (he's more natural at public speaking, she has a better handle on how to get policy enacted) drowned in the reality that neither of them is of fit character for the office of President of the United States. Neither of them deserves "Hail to the Chief" or Air Force One or a life in the West Wing of the people's house or to receive a salute from someone wearing our nation's uniform.
The only position for which either nominee is suited by character is one of grasping avarice, single-minded in their devotion to enrich themselves and gain power for the sole reason of being able to tell other people what to do rather than empower them on their own. This position they already hold, of course, and a sane cosmos would leave them both in it.
This being the cosmos we have, though, here they are and there is still the necessity of voting. And so for someone of a conservative political bent, there comes former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, running as the Libertarian Party candidate. Mr. Johnson is far from ideal. His ideas on religious freedom remain dismal (and not all that libertarian) and his track record in limiting spending isn't everything you could want (although he had to work against his NM legislature to even slow it down).
What I read of Mr. Johnson makes me think he would be at best an average president and unlikely to get a lot of his agenda through Congress. We might wind up with the authority and enormous bureaucracy of the executive branch trimmed, since he could do that more or less on his own. Or he might decide he needs to invest his energy in getting pot legalized. In an ordinary year, I can't find too many policy reasons I would vote for him, especially given the near certainty that he will not win.
But this is no ordinary year. The foulest stench is in the air; the funk of forty thousand hours of political ads and debates and conventions, and the only thing that Mr. Johnson has to recommend him is that if I mark the box next to his name on Nov. 8. I can look at myself in the mirror on Nov. 9 and probably corral the completely understandable impulse to ram my head through the wall behind it.
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