Derek K. Miller - Penmachine words music comment - Vancouver, Canada

Via Kottke, here is a gallery of UPI photos of a thunderstorm meeting the volcanic plume from the Chaitén volcano in Chile this week. Check out picture #11:

Whoa, as Keanu would say. I never knew the Spanish term for thunderstorm before, but it's pretty nifty: tormenta eléctrica.

Labels: americas, disaster, environment, news, photography, science

From Salon: "More and more, the strict new [U.S.-Canada] border rules appear to be a huge cultural and economic mistake. As the United States walls itself off against illegal immigration and terrorism, the relationship between Americans and Canadians will be a casualty."

Labels: americas, politics, security, travel

A few days ago I wrote about the 50th anniversary of the Ripple Rock detonation, which sent me hunting around the Web for information. Inevitably, I came across lots of pictures of explosions of all sorts.

I think many people in a broad cohort around my age (38), who grew up during the Cold War, have a morbid fascination with photos of nuclear bomb tests. Some of them are chillingly, starkly, awfully beautiful, especially this set from the French Licorne ("Unicorn") test in the Pacific in 1970:

Reports say that the day of the Licorne detonation had "cloudy conditions but good visibility," but notice how the bomb's shockwave punches right through those clouds, sweeping them entirely away and leaving blue sky in the later pictures. Scary.

Of the hundreds of above-ground nuclear detonations by the U.S., the U.S.S.R., the U.K., France, and China between 1945 and 1980, no two seem to have looked the same. The photographs that freak me out the most are those where the surrounding landscape (and thus the scale) is clear. Or where soldiers walk towards a mushroom cloud in the Nevada desert.

China performed the last atmospheric test of a nuclear weapon almost 28 years ago—these sorts of photos are all, thankfully, now historical. But North Korea conducted what may have been a failed atomic explosion uderground as recently as 2006.

So those mushroom-cloud images don't worry me like they used to when I was a kid. But the worry isn't entirely gone either, is it?

Labels: age, americas, china, europe, history, korea, science, war

I've just finished watching the full online version of the first part of "Bush's War" (via Kottke), an extraordinary PBS Frontline documentary about the tactical battles and infighting within the U.S. federal administration between September 11, 2001 and the initial invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.

It is a multi-hour program, extraordinarily depressing, though not surprising. The sinking feeling I had back in 2002—as I slowly lost the belief that there were good intentions somewhere, anywhere in the call to war—comes seeping back as I watch it.

I recommend you watch "Bush's War." (I plan to check out the second part tomorrow.) It is election season in the U.S. again, and it's worth some time for all of us, inside and outside America, to remember what the real stakes of voting in that country are.

Labels: americas, controversy, politics, terrorism, war

At the video store yesterday my wife suggested we pick up For the Bible Tells Me So, a documentary about Christian families whose children come out as gay. Despite a slightly silly and jarring animated interlude, it's a good film.

It would be especially worthwhile for people in similar situations: those parents, relatives, and friends who have been brought up to think of gays and lesbians as "abominations" (in the words of an oft-cited Bible passage) but who want to maintain their religion and also accept a loved one's homosexuality. Or for those raised conservatively Christian who are gay themselves, and struggle with it.

But I'm neither gay nor religious. I'm an atheist, and my many friends who are gay, lesbian, or transgendered don't offend my sensibilities in any way. For me, the movie is more of an anthropological study, and a fascinating one because a religious life is so far from my own experience.

It makes sense to me that those who work to reconcile the Bible (or the Qu'ran, or other religious books) with many aspects of modern life often have tough work to do. Those books were written centuries or millennia ago, by people who knew nothing of gravitational theory, fossils, deep time, microbiology and germs, Big Bang cosmology, evolution, quantum mechanics and relativity, plate tectonics, organic and inorganic chemistry, absolute zero, the concept of a vacuum, and DNA—or even of the existence of the Americas, Australia, Antarctica, and the Pacific Ocean.

So if authorities at the time thought that homosexuality was unclean or improper or abominable, of course they wrote that into their religious texts. Accordingly, that same passage of the Bible also condemns wearing clothes of mixed fibres, cutting your hair a certain way, and eating shellfish and pork as equally wrong. Plus, other passages of those same books condone or accept slavery, physical abuse of women, pillaging and murder during wartime, and other things many of us now consider abominable.

And indeed, still other parts say you should sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor, not squander your wealth wastefully, go forth and multiply, not be arrogant and boastful, forgive debts, and love your neighbour. Oh, and you shall not work on the Sabbath, shall honour your parents, shall not kill or commit adultery or bear false witness, etc.

You can consider those proclamations the words of men now long dead—words sometimes wise and transcendent, sometimes narrow-minded and obsolete. Or you can consider them the word of God. Then you might have to interpret what those words could mean in a time where we have stood on the Moon, created antibiotics, invented the Internet, changed the climate, developed sexual reassignment surgery, measured the age of the Universe, and reached a population exceeding six billion.

I find those interpretations interesting. But unlike the subjects of the film, including well-known gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, for me they are unnecessary. I have no personal need to reconcile modern ethics and morals with the Bible or the Qu'ran or the Vedas; with the teachings of Buddha or Lao Tzu or Confucius; or for that matter with the myths of the Spartans, Aztecs, Bantu, Haida, or Maori. Any or all of those things can inform my sense of right and wrong, but they don't define it.

All of us struggle to be good people. For the Bible Tells Me So can help some of us in that struggle. It's worth watching, whether its struggle is yours or not.

Labels: americas, film, movie, religion, science, sex

In Vancouver, the clouds cleared just long enough for some beautiful views of the lunar eclipse. I got some nice pictures (and so did my dad):

Mine were taken with a Nikon D50 camera on a tripod, and attached to a Sigma/Quantaray 70-210 mm zoom lens set at f/5.6, ISO 800, exposures generally between a half-second and two seconds. My dad took his with a Canon Digital Rebel XT attached to a Celestron C90 reflector telescope on a tripod, acting as a 1000 mm f/11 lens, with similar exposure times and ISO settings.

Labels: americas, astronomy, eclipse, moon, photography, science, vancouver

It's already started, and so far the sky only has a few clear patches here in Vancouver, but if you're lucky enough you can head outside in about 45 minutes and see a total lunar eclipse for the last time until late 2010.

Lunar eclipses are much more common than the famous solar kind, but they are also spectacular in their own way. The moon can turn a deep red colour and appear much more obviously spherical. As the earth's shadow crosses it, you can also see the curve of our planet, showing our own roundness.

So if your skies are clear and it's night where you are, go outside! Check out the moon going into the earth's shadow!

UPDATE: We had some lucky clear sky spots and I fired off a batch of nice photos.

Labels: americas, astronomy, eclipse, moon, science

I've really liked Dr. Pepper pop since I was a little kid. After I developed Type 1 diabetes in 1991, Diet Dr. Pepper and some of its variants have been favourites of mine too. But the new Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper is simply vile.

Chocolate is a good idea most of the time, even with cherries. But combined with Dr. Pepper? Nope. I bought some a couple of weeks ago, and my family has only now managed to drink the last of it. My wife says it tastes like "bad medicine." My kids think it's tolerable only when it's very cold—and normally they'd fall in love with anything even remotely resembling a carbonated beverage. It is even more repulsive than most other sodas when warm.

What I want to know is why plain old and delicious Diet Cherry Coke remains unavailable in Canada. Forget the weird flavour combinations: if I can get that stuff without having to make a run across the U.S. border, I'll be happy.

Labels: americas, diabetes, food

I'm Canadian, and can't vote in the upcoming U.S. elections. But they affect me, as they affect everyone on the world, so I have opinions.

I think—as most seem to—that John McCain or whoever wins the Republican nomination would have to work miracles to win the general election this time around. And I think that's a good thing. His party has damaged his country and its relations with the rest of us in the past seven years, and they do not deserve to keep running it. I hope its citizens agree.

On the Democrat side, there were a number of strong candidates, now down to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As Larry Lessig notes in his video today, their policies do not differ especially radically (although Obama's policy document and website state without equivocation, "I will close Guantanamo," which is enough for me right there). I think either one would make a good president of their nation, and obviously make history doing it.

Where I agree with Lessig, and why I think Obama is a better choice, is that he is inspiring to watch and to listen to in the way no other presidential candidate is, from Clinton to Edwards to McCain and the rest. There is a danger with Obama, as Tom Negrino notes:

What bothers me the most about Obama is his core message, which boils down to "I'm magic, and I'll be able to bring everyone together to move America forward."

What I've seen of his policies seems more concrete to me, but it is true that many of his speeches are long on rhetoric and short on details.

Yet rhetoric is not evil if it not empty, if real action follows it. I think Obama can inspire a politics of "hope and common sense," rather than one of "fear and ideology," as he says. To lead the United States, he need not know the answer to every question—that's why presidents hire smart staffs—but he does need to listen, and to prompt action.

I think one reason he inspires so many already is that while he does give speeches crafted by a team of top-notch writers, he doesn't sound like a machine while he does it. He comes across as a human being. Clinton may be smarter, more knowledgeable, and more experienced, and I hope if Obama wins she can find a place to execute her ideas in his administration. (And if she wins, I certainly hope he can find one in hers.)

But she is not more inspiring. America and the rest of us need inspiration now. America's citizens need to say to us, and to themselves, "We have been on the wrong path, and we will choose a different and better way." To see and to listen to Barack Obama as president will demonstrate the beginning of that choice. If I'm right, I think he will win.

Labels: americas, government, war

I've never run a business any larger than my own solo writer-editor endeavour, and didn't enjoy the paperwork of that very much. I don't like reading business magazines, I don't play the stock market at all, and most financial analysts on TV, radio, the Web, and newspapers give me the heebie-jeebies. So I'm no financial expert.

Still, in the past few years, I couldn't understand why anyone in the U.S. could think a subprime mortgage (better called a "high-risk mortgage" or a "poorly qualified mortgage") would be a good idea for anybody. I heard some stories about them, but it wasn't really an issue in Canada, so I thought these mortgages were a silly, fringe thing and pretty much forgot about them.

People borrowing from banks and mortgage brokers and other finance companies who offered these mortgages were betting that house prices would keep going up indefinitely and interest rates would stay low, no matter what. The firms and financial analysts were, insanely, betting the same. Sometimes the companies loaned people more money than their houses were worth at the time on that assumption—and didn't check on their customers' ability to pay either!

I'm only 38 years old, but I've seen several economic booms, busts, and recessions in my lifetime. I remember when interest rates were 17% and higher in the early '80s, and my junior high school classmates and I—barely comprehending teenagers at the time—laughed out loud when our teachers said loan interest used to be 4% and lower. We never thought that would happen again. And if it did, we knew that could change. The dot-com boom and bust are less than a decade old too.

So I agree completely with Daniel Gross when he writes at Slate that bankers and financiers, now getting pounded in the markets because the subprime mortgage situation (which is vaster than I could have imagined anyone letting it get) is now shooting holes in the U.S. economy, are acting like a bunch of spoiled toddlers:

Children typically display an unwillingness to reckon with the consequences of their own actions. They look to parents to pick them up when they fall, and spare them from responsibility for their misbehavior. And parents will go to great lengths to insulate their offspring from the jolts the world can deliver.

The same might be said about Washington's current economic ministrations. The nation is now nursing a seriously skinned knee because of reckless housing and credit practices. But rather than force consumers, borrowers, and bankers to face the consequences of their own actions, Washington is functioning as a helicopter parent.

As we face another recessionary slump (maybe insulated a bit here in Canada), we're all going to pay for that childishness, because governments don't have enough money to do anything but cushion the blow a little. Steven Pearlstein put it even more simply in the Wall Street Journal almost a year ago:

Bankers shouldn't make—or be allowed to make—mortgage loans that require no money down and no documentation of income to people who won't be able to afford the monthly payments if interest rates rise, house prices fall or the roof springs a leak. It's not a whole lot more complicated than that.

What I do wonder is, when people are losing or walking away from homes they shouldn't have been able to buy in the first place, and also losing jobs as the economy weakens, why do the well-paid supposed mavens of Wall Street, and other finance types around the world who bought into this scheme, still have jobs?

And why do investors continue believe them when they're wrong more often than weather forecasters used to be before we had satellites?

Labels: americas, controversy, money

Wrote this to an online retailer in the U.S. a few minutes ago:

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I was just about to buy one of your products, but backed out when I discovered your only shipping method is UPS. I'm in Canada, and UPS is notorious here for egregious and mysterious "brokerage" fees when clearing customs, and also for slow or mishandled deliveries. See here:

• Never use UPS
• Never got a delivery right
• How to avoid UPS brokerage charges
• UPS lawsuit

These experiences are not unusual—I have refused, if given any choice, to use UPS as a carrier for the past ten years because of repeated problems and extraordinary fees.

Shipments sent via FedEx (express or ground), regular parcel post, and other services do not generally encounter these issues. If you can provide any alternative shipping method other than UPS, we'd be happy to make a purchase. I'm sure there are many other Canadians who feel the same.

Thanks!

This follows UPS's latest snafu here at our house, attempting to charge us almost $90 in brokerage and other fees for a shipment of cosmetic samples sent to my wife that she didn't purchase and was not going to sell. Under instructions from the manufacturer who shipped it, we refused the delivery and will have it re-sent with another carrier.

Avoid UPS for anything shipped into Canada. Better you know this now than learn it the hard way as I have.

Labels: americas, fedex, linkbait, ups

Several years ago, before the 2004 U.S. election, I wrote about Guantanamo Bay, still for me the key symbol of the failure of American foreign and legal policy after the 9/11 attacks, although I have been encouraged that the country's courts and media have at least done some chipping away at the edges of its black hole.

A big issue this year has been allegations of government-endorsed torture by U.S. government personnel at Guantanamo and elsewhere. I think P.Z. Myers's take on the subject today is cogent:

When the U.S. government announces [its] support for torture, they aren't talking about intelligence gathering: they are simply saying "Fear us." They are taking the first step on the road to tyranny.

The real problem is that fear isn't a good tool to use in a democratic society. [...] Anyone who supports torture is a traitor to the democratic form of government...

This upcoming year will give Americans a chance, once again, to decide what kind of country they want to become, and whether that will be a different one, with Guantanamo and torture as a sad past to remember, not a poisonous legacy for the future.

Iraq, well, that's more complicated, isn't it?

Labels: americas, government, terrorism, war

I've ordered several of this year's Christmas presents online from the U.S., although none of them has arrived yet, which is a bit worrisome. Nevertheless, the current U.S.-Canadian dollar parity means waiting for Customs clearance is usually worth it.

For instance, I was looking for a particular present that I wanted to pick up today in town. No one had it in stock, despite several stores listing it on their websites. So I went to the manufacturer's online store in the U.S., and they were happy to take my order and ship it expedited to Canada, so that it may very well arrive before Christmas (no guarantees, though). And even with rush shipping and taxes, it was still several dollars cheaper than if I'd found it locally at retail.

My podcast co-host Paul has a post office box just across the border in Washington state (he lives in Cloverdale, B.C., about 15 minutes north of the line) which simplifies things even further: he can order from stores that don't normally ship to Canada at all, then pick up the stuff and deal with Customs himself. That saves him quite a bit of time and money—even when the dollar isn't as strong as it is now.

He does seem to be spending an awful lot more than he might otherwise on gadgets and gizmos across the border these days, though. I don't know if we're saving money in the end, or simply spending on more stuff.

Labels: americas, insidehomerecording, money, paulgaray, shopping, travel, web

My parents are visiting San Diego for a few days. Their hosts live right by the seashore in La Jolla, and are in no danger from the massive fires to the east, but the sky is still raining ash, and the sun is reddened by the smoke, as my dad's photo shows.

Hundreds of thousands of people (I thought I misread that, but no, 500,000 it is) have had to evacuate their homes. To see what's really going on from way high up, check out this satellite view:

Nasty. My parents return tomorrow, assuming flights out of San Diego Airport are running normally.

Labels: americas, disaster, family, fire, friends, sandiego, travel

Remember my big rant last year about the horrible experience of updating Adobe Reader on my computer? Adobe is not improving things. (As John Gruber puts it, "Dear Adobe Reader team: We're laughing at you, not with you.")

More interestingly and completely unrelated, there's now pretty serious evidence that Polynesians reached the Americas before Columbus did (but not before the Vikings), bringing chickens with them. But, since there were already people here, and since Polynesians preferred to settle only uninhabited places, they probably just went home after that.

In any case, it looks like Polynesians crossing the ocean 600 years ago were more on the ball than the people building Adobe's installer software, who should also turn around and go home.

Labels: acrobat, adobe, adobereader, americas, archaeology, history