Month: September 2006

As if the demotion of Pluto– err, I mean 134340– wasn’t enough, the IAU has now renamed Xena to the much less cool name of Eris (the Greek god of lawlessness). The moon of Eris is Dysnomia.

It’s getting harder to keep track of the outer solar system these days…

I was poking around the web a bit and came across a web site with this image on their home page (I’ve blurred the rest of the header to protect their identity):

For some reason that photo is funny and weird and creepy all at the same time. A couple of men on a beach… one guy holding a little globe and smiling at it… his friend putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. It gives me shivers. What kind of stock-art photographer came up with this pose?

Yech.

Here’s a funny idea from today’s junk mail pile…

Wow.

Now that Pluto has been demoted from planet status, it has been reassigned an asteroid number.

134340

Poor Pluto.

To commemorate Patriot Day, I present a copy of a revised Terrorist Threat Level scale. It shows the number of fatalities in several different categories, beginning with the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. (One could argue whether or not this was a “terrorist” act in the sense that the current administration uses the word, but no matter.)

Yep, it’s clear we need to be concerned about being killed by terrorists. The irony, perhaps, is that as I write this I’m battling a stuffy nose. I see that dying from the flu is six times more likely than dying from a terrorist act. Hopefully I’ll recover okay.

Laralee and I really enjoy playing Settlers of Catan, a strategy board game that involves commerce, planning, and a little bit of backstabbing. The only real bummer for us is it’s a three- or four-person game, so we can’t play as often as we’d like… we have to wait until we’re hanging out with friends who are willing to play.

I figured the kids are old enough now to grok a game like this, so today I sat down with them and explained it. Alex and Kyra took to it right away, and played surprisingly well. Kyra started out strong, and Alex took a little longer to get moving but was soon cruising as well. The game ends when someone hits ten points, and near the end it was 9-to-9-to-9, so we were fighting for that last point. Kyra ended up victorious, although I think Alex was going to win on his next turn.

So all in all it was a lot of fun, and both of them are excited to play again. Finally Laralee and I will be able to get our “Settlers fix”!

Seen on Digg, in a discussion about how Bush is outright lying about torture being used on “certain detainees”:

It may seem funny, but at the same time it’s a sad commentary on how the President stands before our nation and says, “I’ve said to people we don’t torture. And we don’t.” Yet on the very same day, it’s announced that certain people who have been held as “enemy combatants” were most certainly tortured, and will soon be given the privilege of a trial without a jury, without fair legal representation, and without the opportunity to even see all of the evidence presented against them.

How long can this continue?

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

— Aldous Huxley

Another month (August) has come and gone, and Baghdad has seen another 1,500 or so of its residents killed in the ongoing violence there. This is the third straight month that more than 1,500 civilians were killed. Do the math, and you’re looking at more than fifty people per day being slaughtered by their fellow countrymen. And that’s just one city in Iraq.

But I’m sure the Bush crowd has the situation under control. Civil war? Hah! They treat it like it’s a bunch of high school kids pulling nightly pranks or something.

Wake up.