General

Compassionate Conservatism

American Red Cross
The Red Cross notes that they are not in New Orleans after Katrina at the request of the state Homeland Security Department.

And there are other reports that people are not being allowed to leave New Orleans on foot. No resources going in and no people going out. That sounds compassionate and conservative.

I was listening to an interview on NPR the other day with the author of a book on the Mississippi 1927 flood (or maybe it was this one). On one of the bluffs outside a Mississipppi town, everyone, black and white, gathered high and dry to await rescue. When it came time to evacuate, the whites were taken and the blacks were left. Evidently, the plantation owners were afraid if the sharecroppers were evacuated they would never come back and they would lose their labor force.

I wonder if that sort of thought is going on now.

General, Politics

Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure

Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure – New York Times

One line jumped out at me here: Under the circumstances, Mr. Becker said, the government response “has been nothing short of heroic.” I think they need to find a new definition of ‘heroic’. Mr. Becker is with the Red Cross.

It looks like there was enough incompetence all around in this fiasco. The local and state officials need to take the brunt of the blame since it was their city under siege. They shouldn’t be counting on the Feds to do all, or any, of the immediate relief work. If they can’t even take care of their own citizens then they shouldn’t be in office.

The Feds should help support the aftermath, the clean-up, not the immediate crisis. But, it is New Orleans, The Big Easy.

Geek Stuff

Lessons Learned

I think I am in the process of learning a lesson with Web Gallery. Rather than putting the entire trip into one gallery, I should have divided it up into St Andrews-tourist, St Andrews-Golf, London, Worldcon, and Scotland-non-Worldcon. The time it takes to update the entire Gallery when I make changes to just a bit is very long. I think it is examining every single page whether it has new content or not.

I think the next lesson I learn will be that I can’t split an existing gallery in 5-6 smaller ones. I will look into that when the latest changes have finished publishing.

General, Politics

Teaching of Creationism Is Endorsed in New Survey

Teaching of Creationism Is Endorsed in New Survey – New York Times

And we should be teaching Astrology in school because so many Americans read their daily horoscopes in the paper (or online).

What are these people thinking? Science is not based on a belief system. You don’t teach some scientific theory because you believe it to be true. You teach it because you are able to construct a logical thesis based on empirical evidence that has been tested and re-tested and reviewed by the community to reach the conclusions that are reached.

K-12 is not a proving ground for teaching hypotheses. Theories should be taught in K-12, not hypotheses. There is a difference between the two and if you don’t know what it is, look it up.

Why don’t we make π = 3? That will certainly simplify a lot of calculations.

Reviews

Master Mosquiton OVA

AnimeNfo.Com : Anime : Master Mosquiton OVA

I was lucky enough to get both disks of this OVA back-to-back. It is a quirky story about a young girl, searching for immortality, who resurrects a vampire as her slave.

Then she uses the vampire, and his lackeys, to search for the O-Part (Philosopher’s Stone) that will grant her immortality. She doesn’t want to use the vampire’s method for immortality.

She and the gang have many interesting adventures finding the O-Part and, when she has it in hand, she finds that the human race will be destroyed if she doesn’t part with it.

Such a dilemma; to keep the O-part and have youth and beauty forever but lose whatever admiring audience she would have had, or keep the audience and lose the immortality. Decisions, decisions.

The vampire, Mosquiton, is an interesting character. A docile slave most of the time, happy to be cleaning and cooking, he becomes a vicious monster who forgets his slavery when he sucks on the blood of his master. Evidently, the only way to get him off this blood high is to stake him and then resurrect him one more time.

I enjoyed the show quite a bit. A lot of comedy in it; sort of like Lupin crossed with Hellsing. And the ending is decidely weird. (Did I mention they ended up on the Moon in the 1920s)

I will give this a 7 out of ten.

Reviews

The Bushido Blade (1981)

The Bushido Blade (1981)

The background in this movie is that Perry is in Japan trying to get a treaty signed with the Shogun before the Russians show up. The Shogun is going to give the President a gift of a sword, but the sword is stolen by an anti-treaty faction and the Shogun will lose face and not sign the treaty if the sword is not recovered.

The Shogun’s commander sends off an agent to get the sword back and several American sailors follow to assist, very much against the orders that forbid foreigners from travelling in Japan.

Much fighting, heads removed, arms removed, samurai vs rapier fighting; the sword is eventually recovered after much loss and tribulation and it is returned to the signing ceremony. This means the Shogun Commander doesn’t have to commit seppuku to preserve the Shogun’s face and Perry is happy.

This was a joint US-Japanese production and had a good cast, this was Richard Boone’s last role (as Perry). Toshiro Mifune did well as the Shogun’s Commander. Sonny Chiba was the Prince tasked to recover the sword. And I thought Frank Converse did a good job as the American Captain. It had a lot of POTENTIAL.

It just wasn’t very-well written or directed. Three Americans wandering around the Japanese countryside don’t have a whole lot of trouble (some, but not a lot) getting through to their destination. And they keep finding Japanese who speak English. (I suppose you had to do that for the story-line. They didn’t use subtitles.) Interesting scenarios didn’t quite gel into a whole. I will give it a 5 out of 10.

Geek Stuff

Hackers Attack Via Chinese Web Sites

Hackers Attack Via Chinese Web Sites

I really have to wonder who is in charge. Why is the DoD internet access accepting any traffic from a Chinese site, hacker or legit, or a Russian site or a German site or a Nigerian site. It is public knowledge where the adddresses are registered and assigned. .

We know, from the IP address and the address registry, where the message is coming. If there is any sort of question about the access request, it should be denied or ignored.

There is nothing that says a server has to respond to every query it receives and it is perfectly fine for the server to reject requests that are problematic. They could even set up a white list of legitimate servers that won’t be rejected.

There are a lot of options other than letting the hackers in the front door.

The Thoughts and Luminations of Jack Heneghan