Batman is a River in Turkey

Posted on July 31, 2012 by wellsdc

The Batman River is a major tributary of the Tigris, joining it near the source of Tigris called Dicle River in southeast Turkey. It originates in the Anti-Taurus Mountains (at the Sason and Genç mountains) and flows approximately from north to south, passing near the city of Batman and forming a natural border between the Batman Province and Diyarbakır Province.

It’s also a city and a province.

Just thought you should know. I seriously doubt that the town has anything related to Bruce Wayne, so if you’re going to attempt “Batman tourism,” please don’t be a douche about it.

Photo credit: ’Batman, Turkey’ by Bryce Edwards [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Don’t take my Thin Mints!!!!!

Posted on July 30, 2012 by wellsdc

I’m the kind of guy who, in the vicinity of a table where someone is selling Girl Scout cookies, is guaranteed to leave the premises with an amount of Girl Scout Cookie boxes equal in value to the total amount of cash on my person just prior to noticing the table of cookies. I was shocked, shocked, to learn that Girl Scout Daisy Troop #2753 in California says it will not be selling cookies anymore:

Who can resist the allure of a girl scout cookie? We all should, says one troop leader and mom of three from southern California. Monica Serratos, troop leader of Girl Scout Daisy Troop #2753, says her troop is opting out of selling Girl Scout cookies this year and will instead celebrate the Girl Scouts 100th anniversary by displaying a “cake” made of fruit at the Orange County Fair on July 27.

Serratos, 31, said she wanted to call attention to the fact that cookies aren’t good for kids who already get too much sugar at school and at home, so she asked other troop parents to talk with their daughters about the issue.

***

Serratos said she also worries about some of the ingredients in Girl Scout cookies, such as palm oil — the production of which leads to deforestation.

Okay, yes, they have a lot of sugar. Some of them have high fructose corn syrup and trans fats. Some of the cookies have mysterious GM ingredients, although I would hope to serve as living proof that eating one’s weight in Girl Scout cookies will not turn you into a betentacled supervillain (that might not be the primary concern of most people where GMO’s are concerned, but it is for me. Don’t judge.)

You have to understand, Girl Scouts, that I am in the “bargaining” stage of the grief process, perhaps tinged with a bit of denial. What can we do to save the cookies? If it is a concern over high fructose corn syrup, couldn’t we just eliminate it from some other part of our diets to balance things out? I almost never drink non-diet soft drinks, minimizing my HFC exposure. I avoid trans fats, too, whenever possible. What if we convinced everyone in the world to stop using shortening in anything but your cookies? Would that balance the scales in childhood health?

Please, just tell me what to do!!!!!!!

Photo credit: ‘US Navy 070609-N-6897L-018 Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 8 assists hundreds of Girl Scouts from Westchester and Putnam counties in New York load more than 33,000 boxes of cookies as part of Operation Cookie Drop’ by U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Lesley Lykins [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Monday Morning Cute: Bold Penguin

Posted on July 30, 2012 by wellsdc

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, little penguin.

Batman, Fascism, and Absurd Occupy Wall Street Caricatures

Posted on July 29, 2012 by wellsdc

586px-Batman_(truck) I just saw The Dark Knight Rises (as in the start time of the movie was just over ~~three~~ four hours ago) and many thoughts are bouncing through my head. I reserve the right to augment/amend my commentary at a later date. Two warnings before I start:

1. There will be spoilers. Stop reading right now if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want it spoiled.

2. If you are the sort of person who prefers not to think about movies too much, or is the sort of person to respond to any negative criticism with something like “Jeez, it’s just a movie!!!” you should stop reading now, too, because you’ll only waste your time. I recommend that you instead check out the blog “Indifferent Cats in Amateur Porn” (NSFW, obviously.)

If you are still reading, I will assume that you have read the above disclaimers, and that you not only are interested in what I have to say, but find it more interesting, somehow, than pictures of cats next to ordinary people’s non-airbrushed junk. So here goes:

Dear sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, is this movie pro-fascist or what?

I should explain, lest my use of the word “fascist” send you into a tizzy. Certain words have been largely stripped of all meaning by modern political discourse. For example, “socialism” has some very specific economic and political meanings, but tends to mean “stuff that Obama does” to many people. People who lack an understanding of both history and irony claim that he is both socialist and fascist. The Dark Knight Rises, viewed at least one way, is just plain fascist, and I use the meaning of the term applied by Noah Brand in his article “The Dark Knight Rises is a Pro-Fascist Movie”: Continue reading →

Odd Olympic Editing

Posted on July 29, 2012 by wellsdc

With live streaming of most events, NBC seems to be doing a pretty good job of allowing us to see as much of the Olympics as possible. With one major exception: they omitted a musical number in the opening ceremonies in favor of a bland interview with a rather bland athlete. The musical number may or may not have been a tribute to the victims of the July 7, 2005 terror attacks in London. Why NBC would omit that is still beyond me, but NBC’s explanation defies comprehension:

When asked about editing the song-and-dance performance, an NBC Sports spokesman responded in a statement: “Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience. It’s a credit to [opening ceremony producer] Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”

I’m not sure if this is a way of damning Danny Boyle with faint praise, or if I should feel insulted that NBC doesn’t think I, as an American, could normally understand British television without the help of Danny Boyle and NBC. Either way, this is fishy.

NBC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the United States, and it seems like we are subject to trademark warnings in almost every commercial break. Given that, you’d think they would at least have the courtesy not to blatantly edit something as major as the opening ceremony.

“Every Day’s a Good Day When You Paint”

Posted on July 28, 2012 by wellsdc

When life has you down, just remember that:

This is your world – you’re the creator.

Best comment on YouTube, by user Rambw249:

Bob Ross didnt die. God just wanted to learn how to paint. “All you gotta do is believe”

Even if you don’t paint, go find something to create. Bob Ross left us seventeen years, ago, on July 4, 1995, but he found a way to live forever.

Chick-Fil-A: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the WTF? – UPDATED x 2

Posted on July 27, 2012 by wellsdc

This is what everyone is so worked up about never eating again.

The Good: The Muppets (well, the Jim Henson Company), sever their ties to Chick-Fil-A.

The Bad: The mayor of Boston tells Chick-Fil-A to take a hike. So does the mayor of Chicago. As much as I may wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, this is not a good idea. Near as I can tell, Chick-Fil-A has not done anything illegal, per se. It would be one thing if the company could not meet some municipal requirements for fairness in hiring, or something similar, but this appears to be a rejection by city officials, in at least two major cities, based solely on the content of Chick-Fil-A’s speech. This has First Amendment problems written all over it, because as long as Chick-Fil-A isn’t breaking the law, it can say whatever dumb crap it wants. We, as consumers, exercise our free speech by criticizing the company, and we exercise our economic rights by eating nasty fried chicken sandwiches elsewhere. The government ought to stick to enforcing the law. Plus, this action potentially sets a dangerous precedent, giving free reign to a far less tolerant mayor of some other city to deny a corporation that supports same-sex equality. (NOTE: The mayor of Boston has withdrawn his threat to bar the company from setting up shop in town.)

The Ugly: Chick-Fil-A recalls its Muppet-themed toys, citing “safety” concerns. Specifically, it claims that, although “there have not been any cases in which a child has actually been injured, however there have been some reports of children getting their fingers stuck in the holes of the puppets.” People all over the world try not to giggle, and very few believe that this announcement is unrelated to contemporary events. (NOTE: If there haven’t been any actual safety concerns, someone could get in quite a bit of trouble for saying that there are.)

The WTF? Someone pretends to be a teenage girl on Facebook in order to lamely defend Chick-Fil-A. Nothing directly links several fake Facebook pages to Chick-Fil-A, so it is likely to be some rogue ally whose help Chick-Fil-A is better of without. The girl’s account promptly disappears from Facebook once “she” is called out. Wil Wheaton helpfully puts out this missing person report:

The entire world of social media shudders in dismay. Names like Abby Farle and Cordell Bunton may go down in obscure social media history.

Honorable Mention: Rick “Frothy” Santorum joins Mike “The Huck” Huckabee (he needs a better nickname) in standing up for Chick-Fil-A. So Chick-Fil-A traded the Muppets for these two? Ouch.

UPDATE: Based on my “dangerous precedent” argument above regarding the cities of Boston and Chicago, astute reader Kathleen points out that the precedent, in a sense, was already set nearly two decades ago, right in my own backyard. The commissioners of Williamson County, Texas decided not to give tax breaks to Apple because of Apple’s policy on benefits for same-sex partners. As the AP reported on December 1, 1993:

Commissioners of a Texas county on Tuesday refused to give a tax break to Apple Computer Inc., citing the company’s policy of granting the same health benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees that it does to heterosexual spouses.

Apple had sought $750,000 in tax abatements over seven years to build an $80-million, 700-employee complex in Williamson County, just north of Austin.

County commissioners rejected the tax abatements, 3-2.

“We’re very disappointed at this time,” Apple spokeswoman Lisa Byrne said. “We’re going to regroup and review our operations. It is unlikely we will locate in Williamson County.”

Debate on the tax break for several weeks centered on Apple’s domestic partner policy.

“I cannot in good conscience extend that benefit to them (Apple) because of the conviction I have that same-sex partners is wrong,” Commissioner Greg Boatwright had said earlier.

After the vote, Charlie Culpepper, the mayor of Round Rock, which is the largest town in Williamson County, said he disagreed with the commissioners.

“I don’t agree with the idea of same-sex marriages, but government needs to stay out of business. Families need jobs,” he said.

I note a couple of key difference between Williamson County’s decision and the mayors of Boston and Chicago, but the overall principle seems to be the same.

1. The mayors in Boston and Chicago seemed to be wanting to deny Chick-Fil-A the right to set up shop in their towns entirely. In Williamson County, it was a decision not to give them a tax break. It’s mostly a cosmetic difference, since such an enormous tax break would constitute most of the incentive for a company to locate in a particular place. At any rate, Apple seems to be doing just fine in Austin, thanks.

2. In Boston and Chicago, the decision was motivated by disagreement with statements made by the company’s owner, essentially ratified by the company’s history of donations. This is, first and foremost, disagreement with the content of the company’s speech. With Apple, the Williamson County commissioners did not disagree with any particular statement of the company, but rather its employment practices. My spin would be that the commissioners objected to the fact that Apple didn’t discriminate against its gay and lesbian employees. I’m not sure if this is any more defensible than a disagreement over speech, but it is a distinction worth noting.

UPDATE 2: The ACLU of Illinois seems to agree with me (h/t Consumerist):

Alderman Moreno’s single-handed actions are wrong and dangerous. The ACLU of Illinois strongly supports full recognition and fair treatment for LGBT persons in Chicago and across Illinois. Indeed, our strong support for the LGBT community led us in May to file a lawsuit challenging the state ban in Illinois on the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. At the same time, we oppose using the power and authority of government to retaliate against those who express messages that are controversial or averse to the views of current office holders. In this instance, the Alderman is using his governmental authority to exclude a business from opening its doors simply because the corporate leadership has expressed anti-LGBT views in the public. This use of government authority simply is not permissible under our Constitution.

We also are concerned how this practice might be applied in the future. If the government is permitted to deny entrance into a Chicago community to Chik-Fil-A based on statements about public policy, then government elsewhere will have the power to exclude the expanding number of businesses who support fairness for LGBT people. Over the longer term, such government censorship would undermine the growing success of the LGBT rights movement.

Photo credit: ’Chick FilA Chicken Sandwich’ by J. Reed (Flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

This Week in WTF, July 27, 2012

Posted on July 27, 2012 by wellsdc

- One of the more, uh, creative members of the Texas State Board of Education, Ken Mercer, tries to blame liberals or communists or somebody for changes to the social studies curriculum that he himself made–specifically, the removal of the terms “free market” and “free enterprise.” He presumably figures most people will not actually do the research to see that he is lying, nor will they read anything in the “librul meedeeyuh” that would prove his pants are on fire. He’s right about that, at least (h/t Texas Freedom Network)

- Michelle Bachmann has finally found a way to bring Republicans and Democrats together with her tomfoolery over Huma Abedin, aide to Secretary of State Clinton. I doubt that was Bachmann’s intent, of course, since I have my doubts that she can see the consequences of her own actions more than about thirty seconds into the future. I also haven’t ruled out the possibility that she is actually a cyborg sent back in time from a future America that has already had to endure a Romney and a Palin presidency and derives most of its GDP desperately trying to sell tickets to a nationwide network of creation museums and theme parks to Canadian tourists. If that is the case, I assume the cyborg will be built in China, Japan, or India, because there’s no way we would have the wherewithal to do it here.

- Louie Gohmert, Bryan Fischer, and even Rick Warren test the limits of humanity.

- Chick-Fil-A. That gets its own post.

- Sally Ride was the first American woman, and only the third woman in history, to go to space. She was about as true a pioneer as America is ever likely to have. She could not have served as a den mother, though.

Where the Government Creates, the Private Sector Sexifies

Posted on July 26, 2012 by wellsdc

I mean “sexify” in the sense of “make marketable” or “desirable”–”sexy,” to use the parlance of our times. I am specifically referring to the internet. Al Gore did not invent the internet, and he never claimed he did. It was actually a decades-spanning effort of government agencies and private companies with government contracts, gradually building computers and networks that could eventually integrate to create a truly decentralized, global system.

Partial map of the Internet based on the January 15, 2005 data found on opte.org. Each line is drawn between two nodes, representing two IP addresses. The length of the lines are indicative of the delay between those two nodes. This graph represents less than 30% of the Class C networks reachable by the data collection program in early 2005. Lines are color-coded according to their corresponding RFC 1918 allocation as follows:
Dark blue: net, ca, us
Green: com, org
Red: mil, gov, edu
Yellow: jp, cn, tw, au, de
Magenta: uk, it, pl, fr
Gold: br, kr, nl
White: unknown

Many of the essential components of what we now call the internet actually would have been foolish ventures, had private companies undertaken them. Perhaps it was a gamble by the government, but it was a gamble that paid off big. According to Farhad Manjoo at Slate:

In 1960, an engineer named Paul Baran came up with the idea of a packet-switching network. Baran was working for the RAND Corporation, a government-funded think tank, and he’d been looking for ways to create networks that would survive a disaster. Baran saw that the country’s most basic communications infrastructure—especially the telephone network maintained by AT&T—had several central points of failure. If you took out these central machines, the entire network would fail. His insight was to create a decentralized network, one in which every point was connected to every other point in multiple ways—your message from New York to San Francisco would get split into packets and might pass through Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa, or St. Louis. If one of those nodes were taken out, most of your message would get through, and the network would still survive. Continue reading →

I shall not let slide this slanderous slut-shaming of sloths!

Posted on July 25, 2012 by wellsdc

Hoffman’s two-toed sloths have active sex lives, according to the BBC. MSN Now calls them “slutty.”

More power to them, I say!

Cryptic Philosopher

____ Days Since Our Last Industrial Accident!

Monthly Archives: July 2012