Simple Rules To Go By.

I am at heart a simple guy.

You may not believe this, but it's true.

And as a simple guy, I live by simple rules; those rules guide MOST - not all - of my decisions. I go by those rules because they have a proven track record of success for me.

They may not work for you; your mileage may vary.

But I get asked more often than you'd think "How did you make that decision?" (in various ways) and so I decided to let you guys in on it.

So, here are my simple rules, with a bit of explanation for each.

• Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance. You can never plan for every eventuality - but you can TRY, and the more of a solid plan of action you have, before you do ANYTHING, the more likely you are to do well at it. If you want to go to a movie, the guy who knows how much tickets cost and what time the box office opens is more likely to get in than someone who doesn't know either and shows up after the movie starts.
  
• It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. My wife hears this all the time. A surplus is always better than a deficit. Yeah, you may not need something, but once you have it you guarantee you won't come up short in a pinch. This applies to savings, to material goods, to whatever.
• There is no right way to do the wrong thing. This one's tough; sometimes the wrong thing is a hell of a lot easier than the right thing. But nobody ever promised it would be easy, and if you pick the lesser of two evils - like, say, in this election - the thing to remember is that you're still choosing an evil.
• Never replace a monumental fuckup with a different monumental fuckup just because it's different. "Change" in and of itself - despite what you hear from politicians (both candidates, for example) - in not necessarily the best course. The point is BENEFICIAL change - and it's on you to examine things and choose which change that is, for you.
• Opinions and friends are worth what you paid for them. If some stranger I don't know comes walking by me and says something personally insulting, I'm not going to be hurt, because that person doesn't know me; I have nothing invested in them. The opinions of a friend in whom I have invested years of relationship work mean far more to me, because I have put in tons of investment in that relationship, and they have done likewise. If someone who's known me for years, and expended tons of effort to maintain our relationship, tells me they're really pissed at me about something, it's time to take a serious step back and look at things. I may still disagree - but I WILL look to make sure.
  
• There's no such thing as a contradiction. If you hit one, check your premises - one of them is wrong. That's simple enough, hmmm?
• Question everything, even yourself - always. Because there's no such thing as too much double-checking - and you WILL - not might, WILL - find mistakes later on that you didn't see at all the first time you looked over something.
• Pick your battles - not the ones you "can" win, but those you SHOULD win. Sometimes you get in a situation where you could win a battle if you really want to, but it wouldn't really accomplish anything; and sometimes there's a battle that you couldn't win if you tried - but it's still worth fighting to the death over. It behooves you to know which is which.
• When in doubt, look it up. There's no shame in fact-checking yourself. You guys may have noticed - damn well should have if you read my blog regularly - that I often show up with platoons of facts and figures arrayed for your perusal; this is because rather than guess, rather than offer unsupported conjecture, I look it up - and then I KNOW. And Knowing Is Half The Battle, LOL.
• Make judgements based on facts; emotions lie. Your reason is your ability to understand the world. If you attempt to predicate your reason on emotion, it will fail, and you will find yourself on the losing end of many, many arguments. Facts don't lie; they simply exist, and basing your reason on what exists is the only solid ground you can have in this life.
  

There are others, but those are the biggies - and if you go by those rules, you will not often find yourself up shit creek with no paddle and a hole in your canoe. They can't cover EVERY situation - but if you think about them, you'd be surprised at how well they DO cover things; and that makes them useful.

Oh, Boy, Are People Going To Get Mad When They Read This. Come Get Some.

Let's talk about reading comprehension.

Some of you have it, some of you don't.

If you're one of the ones that does, then, I'm not going to be talking about you. I AM going to talk shit about the people who don't have any reading comprehension. So brace yourself.

Especially since what I'm about to say may remove your delusion that YOU have reading comprehension.

See, I'm going to talk about autism. And a radio talk show host.

And thus far, this topic has turned people's minds into helpless, useless slush.

So, I will be clear. If you're one of the ones turned into brainless slush by what I have to say here, then I AM INSULTING YOU PERSONALLY.

Just to make REALLY, REALLY SURE there's no "misinterpretation."

See, on the 16th of July, a gentleman by the name of Michael Savage did a program in which he was asked about his views on autism.

So I'm gonna discuss what he said, and what MY views on autism are, and then we're going to talk about how many, many people in America are illiterate fucktards.

Right.

So, Savage was asked about autism, and he made some statements that people appear unable to process.

Specifically, he said:

SAVAGE: Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I'm not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden -- why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], "When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], 'I don't know, the dust got me.' " See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is.

What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."

Autism -- everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, "Don't behave like a fool." The worst thing he said -- "Don't behave like a fool. Don't be anybody's dummy. Don't sound like an idiot. Don't act like a girl. Don't cry." That's what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You're turning your son into a girl, and you're turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That's why we have the politicians we have.

So.

Let's dissect this, shall we?

He says

In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out.

This is what's called hyperbole; he's exaggerating for effect. In fact, the misdiagnosis rate for autism is about 34%.

But what's he saying here? The "autism community" seems to think - because, I suppose, they're autistic, so they can't read, that he's calling actually autistic children brats. That's not what he said; he said 99% of the cases AREN'T AUTISM AT ALL.

So, what's the objection, here? That he's exaggerating? Noooooooo. That would be a LEGITIMATE objection. No, the objection to this statement is that he's talking about people's actual, personal, legitimately sick, autistic children.

Except he's not. And that's a problem. Because he's not wrong; he's exaggerating. And in ACTUAL FACT, according to the experts, 34% of the children diagnosed as having autism are IN REALITY "brats who haven't been told to cut the act out."

So. Does this apply to YOUR child? Your ACTUALLY AUTISTIC child?

Clearly, no.

Unless you fail reading comprehension.

But let's move right along, shall we?

He said

Why did they sudden -- why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school.

Now, why would he say this?

MAYBE because there's a misdiagnosis rate for autism of THIRTY-FOUR PERCENT. And that IS a fraud and a racket. Someone, somewhere, is making money off autism. THAT is what's wrong; THAT is what should be stopped. You want to advance the "cause" of autism, and push for actual research? Good idea.

Because in reality, there is no actual medical test that can determine if a child is autistic.

Now, if there's no actual medical test that can diagnose the child as having autism, how do they figure it out?

By observing the child's behavior, of course. Autistic children tend to behave in certain ways. The Autism Society provides a convenient bullet list to describe autistic behavior:

Insistence on sameness; resistance to change
Difficulty in expressing needs; using gestures or pointing instead of words
Repeating words or phrases in place of normal, responsive language
Laughing (and/or crying) for no apparent reason; showing distress for reasons not apparent to others
Preference to being alone; aloof manner
Tantrums
Difficulty in mixing with others
Not wanting to cuddle or be cuddled
Little or no eye contact
Unresponsive to normal teaching methods
Sustained odd play
Spinning objects
Obsessive attachment to objects
Apparent over-sensitivity or under-sensitivity to pain
No real fears of danger
Noticeable physical over-activity or extreme under-activity
Uneven gross/fine motor skills
Non-responsive to verbal cues; acts as if deaf, although hearing tests are in normal range

Right. Now. THAT SAME ORGANIZATION recommends that children be diagnosed - based on observation of these behaviors - as having autism as early as TWO YEARS OLD.
"Spinning objects." Did any of you EVER in all your life see a two-year-old that WASN'T fascinated by spinning objects? "Tantrums?" Are you fucking KIDDING me? What child DOESN'T have tantrums occasionally?

In fact, they recommend screening a child for autism twice BEFORE they're 24 months old. At that age, MOST kids go through a stage of pointing at things instead of calling them by name. MOST kids get attached to objects. MOST kids have uneven gross and fine motor skills.

Does this therefore mean that MOST kids have autism? No. It means that the behaviors used to diagnose autism don't begin to stand out from the norm until the child is much older.

And by that same token, it means that a hell of a lot of kids get diagnosed with autism WHO DON'T FUCKING HAVE IT.

But let's get back to Mr. - I'm sorry, excuse me, DOCTOR - Savage, shall we?

After all, his claim that autism is widely misdiagnosed, despite the facts supporting him, is clearly a slam at those who are actually ill.

His claim that those who ARE misdiagnosed are in need of parenting, not medication, is clearly a slam at those who AREN'T misdiagnosed.

His claim that misdiagnosis for profit exists, and that intentionally misdiagnosing children as autistic for profit is FRAUD is CLEARLY a slam against those who AREN'T misdiagnosed, and against the parents of those non-misdiagnosed kids, who are obviously frauds as well.

So, what are the facts? Since we're discussing Dr. Savage's comments about autism, how about some actual facts about autism? MSNBC reports that:

But many experts believe these unsociable behaviors were just about as common 30 or 40 years ago. The recent explosion of cases appears to be mostly caused by a surge in special education services for autistic children, and by a corresponding shift in what doctors call autism.

Autism has always been diagnosed by making judgments about a child's behavior; there are no blood or biologic tests. For decades, the diagnosis was given only to kids with severe language and social impairments and unusual, repetitious behaviors.

Right, so what they're saying is that as opposed to the past, when kids who actually needed help were diagnosed with autism, NOW kids are getting diagnosed with autism based on all kinds of unrelated crap, so that they can get social services - EXACTLY what Dr. Savage said.

ChildCareExchange points out that diagnoses of autism have increased by as much as EIGHT HUNDRED PERCENT since 1990 - and that only a third of the increase represents actual cases. This is exactly the point Dr. Savage was making.

Sadly, psychologists and social workers misdiagnose children by the thousands every year, not just with autism, but with a host of disorders; ADHD, autism, OCD, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Chronic Complaint Disorder, you name it. Just because Dr. Savage was asked about autism, and thus made this point in reference specifically to autism as a common misdiagnosis, doesn't mean it was about YOU.

If you've been pissed off about this, and now you feel ashamed of yourself, congratulations! You're literate, you have reading comprehension, and you're getting past a rough patch. If it helps any, I have occasional slips as well, and as a result I can sympathize with you about how easy it is to take a magic keyword and instantly get pissed off when anyone talks about it; it's what happens to me when people begin talking about communism.

But if you're still pissed at Dr. Savage, and still convinced that he was talking about YOU, or YOUR KID, who is TRAGICALLY SICK and HOW DARE HE, then I'm about to start personally insulting you.

Brace yourself.

If you HONESTLY BELIEVE that talking about people who defraud the taxpayer for millions of dollars in benefits a year, is insulting to those who are not defrauding the taxpayer at all, then you are a drooling fucktard.

If you HONESTLY BELIEVE that saying there's a huge misdiagnosis rate for autism means that YOUR CHILD is misdiagnosed, then you're taking offense deliberately at something not directed at you; this makes you a babbling idiot.

If you HONESTLY BELIEVE that saying kids who are NOT AUTISTIC that act out need parental attention, somehow insults the parenting skills of those who have actual autistic children, you are an illiterate, incompetent jackass who should live in a plastic bubble.

And most importantly, if you don't understand the exact point I'm making here - the DIFFERENCE between a PERSONAL INSULT and something directed at someone who's NOT YOU - then you fail reading comprehension, and I AM personally insulting YOU.

What amazes me, here, is that no-one - NOT ONE PERSON - seems to have seized upon the homophobia inherent in Savage's comments as to how a father should react. "Don't be a girl." Nice. Yet no-one calls him on THIS, which was more offensive by FAR than his comments that people who defraud the government with intentional misdiagnosis are jerks. Instead, they openly misinterpret his comments so that they can take them as a personal insult, when they were clearly and obviously NOT directed at people with autistic children.

An Opportunity To Whine.

...You know, I frequent several tech-oriented sites, for news, and commentary.

Those sites are largely ad-supported, and the way this works is that from the moment you load the page until as long as fifteen minutes after you close your browser, depending on how many popup windows they decided to spawn, you get barraged with advertising.

Since they're tech sites, the ads are what's called "demographically targeted."

What this means is that since you're all nerds - you're reading, say, Slashdot, therefore you're a nerd - you must want to buy goofy "technology" crap that does useful things like shoot foam arrows into distant office cubicles from a desk-mounted cannon powered by your laptop's USB port.

Actually, now that I think of it...







...Thank God for Paypal.

Anyway, as I was saying, they try to sell you all sorts of junk, most of which doesn't work at all, and the majority of the rest of which isn't very good.

So, I'm used to being barraged with gadgetry.

But the other day I saw one that made me take notice.

You see, I read. I read a LOT. I typically read a 300-page book every 2 days during the work week, and a book a day on the weekends; if I'm stuck in a queue somewhere, that number can go as high as five books a day, depending on the length of the line.

I cannot NEARLY afford to keep up with my book habit.

More importantly, I can't constantly carry a satchel full of books with me; I would develop a permanent hunch, and look even more like Igor than is already my lot in life.

I would rather avoid such a *hrm* hideous fate. *cough.*

So, my attention and interest were piqued by the latest Sony e-book reader. Enough storage space for literally hundreds of books; the really cool e-Ink technology that lets the screen only use power when you change "pages," thus letting your battery last long enough to read War and Peace, Moby-Dick, Atlas Shrugged, the Nosler Ammunition Hand-Reloading Guide, and the complete Linux Bible, end-to-end, twice; and best of all, compatibility with basically every document format known to man, allowing me to use the huge library of e-books of various types that I keep on my computer on the go.

Cool.

So, I decided that - it being Sony - it was probably a bit out of my price range, and went looking for a bargain version.

The flaw in my master plan was twofold; first, the definition I had held for "a bit" and the definition Sony - and, indeed, every other manufacturer of these ingenious devices - holds, are quite different.

Second, there is apparently no such thing as a "cheap" e-book reader.

Now, in this day and age, let's be realistic; most people don't read at all. Those who do, typically read one, or at most five, authors exclusively; they don't make "impulse" book buys, they don't use e-books, and by and large would have no use for such a device at all.

Which means that I am mystified by the electronics companies. Why can they not understand that to make such a device popular amongst a public that reads less and less every year, the crucial factor is price?

A new e-book reader costs MORE THAN A MONTH'S RENT ON MY HOUSE.

Let me be blunt with you, electronics executives.

There is no way on God's green earth that I can be persuaded to part with a sum of money sufficient to keep a roof over the heads of my family for an entire month for something that is a "convenience."

Especially when the device itself, fundamentally, is a crippled PDA with a cool screen. Think about this; it can't go online wirelessly, it can't browse the internet, it can't run any programs other than the reader software, it can't message my friends, let me check my Multiply inbox, allow me to make annotations on various things as they occur to me, or do any of the other nifty things today's PDAs can do; it just - exclusively - reads books.

Now, a half-decent PDA - which can do all of those things - runs around $275. So, would someone like to invest some time in explaining to me why the Sony e-book reader has to cost $299? I'm at a loss. It's bigger, heavier, and doesn't do as much; so what's up?

The Kindle reader from Amazon is even worse, as it supports ONLY DRMed media bought in the Amazon online store.

There are other brands, but the only decent price I've found so far is on eBay.

That's pitiable. Why don't these guys understand that if you want this to take off, you have to actually make it affordable? I mean, come on, we churn out a billion cellphones a week, or some such, all of which by now are at least as cool as an e-book reader; and yet the book reader costs as much as an iPhone?

I finally find a gadget I really want, and it's manufactured by drooling, retarded monkeys with no comprehension of the price system.

Just So's Y'all All Know....

...My AWESOMELY fucked up little brother Jon just got his first story published!

Check it out here!

The Dark Knight (SPOILER ALERT! THIS REVIEW HAS MASSIVE SPOILERS!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON' T WANT TO KNOW MAJOR PLOT POINTS AND THE ENDING!!!)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

Tonight, we went to the drive-in.

For $10, we watched two movies; that's (essentially) $2.50 a ticket. But cinemas cannot survive without $11 ticket prices!

...At any rate, we saw The Dark Knight first. The nature of this film is that it is tremendously difficult to say anything substantive about this movie without giving away plot points; as such I have done two versions of this review, one with and one without spoilers. THIS REVIEW IS THE ONE THAT HAS SPOILERS. So, if you'd rather not spoil the ending for yourself, click here to go read the other review instead.

Right.

First off, I will say flatly that Heath Ledger deserves a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this portrayal of the Joker. Nicholson played it as an evil man, but one with a sardonic sense of gallows humor; this Joker is far superior. Ledger carries this Joker like a gore-crow, soaring above a field of slaughter on tattered wings, dedicated only to serving chaos and madness; his Joker is an agent evil evil of the worst and most dangerous kind, because his actions serve to force Batman farther and farther into the darkness in his own heart, and farther from the light he reaches for but can never attain.

"Gotham needs a hero who does not need a mask."

Powerful words, and words from Batman himself, referring to the character upon which the whole plot turns throughout; Harvey Dent - later known as Two-Face - Gotham's new District Attorney.

Dent is a true crusader against crime; rather than resorting to beating up crooks in alleys, he uses the law, and rounds up the criminal element of Gotham City wholesale, indicting literally hundreds of mafiosi, gunrunners, money-launderers, druggies, and hitmen at once, from the street thugs to the capos themselves; he is the hero without a mask, and the hopes of the city rest on his shoulders.

The Joker's plan is to undo that hope, to extinguish that light, by showing that given enough strain, even someone like Harvey Dent, even a man willing to risk his life for the rule of law, can become a savage.

There are so many really amazing portrayals here that it honestly leaves you feeling that you wanted more; despite a three-hour runtime, I wanted more of Two-Face in particular, who gains legitimacy as a villain here that he never had in the comics, or in the previous movies; it is because of Dent that Two-Face becomes who he does.

Everything in the plot, literally, turns upon Dent; the Joker's campaign - though orchestrated to appear as though it is against Batman - actually serves a single purpose, and that is to turn Dent into Two-Face. Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal (an improvement over Katie Holmes in acting chops, if not in looks,) is dating Dent, and at the critical moment - a moment where Batman is forced to choose between Dent and Rachel's lives - chooses to marry Dent, and tells him so seconds before her death at the hands of the Joker's accomplices. Batman does not know this, and I've no doubt that that element will appear in a third Chris Nolan Batman movie, if we're fortunate enough to get another one.

It is that death, and the charring into the best Two-Face costume ever, that transforms Dent into a villain; the grief and loss snaps his control, and he begins to operate out of blind vengeance.

The Joker, of course, banks on this; his goal is to extinguish the light of hope in the hearts of the people of Gotham by exposing Dent as a killer; at a stroke, this would release into the streets the flood of criminals Dent put away, and convince the people that there's no point in resisting them, because if even the supposedly incorruptible can be corrupted, there's no-one to trust, and that way lies either resignation or madness.

"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

All the bit players do their usual adequate if not stellar job; I was left wishing that both Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) had had more screen time, which is always a sign of a good performance.

Goyer's script really allows both Christian Bale, as Batman, and Ledger's Joker, room to play. The Joker's fiendishness comes out here as never before in the movies or TV; remember that this is the JOKER - someone who, in the comics, made Commissioner Gordon's daughter quadriplegic just to prove a point. The influence of the SAW films is felt here; Joker's traps almost inevitably depend on the heroes' morality to activate themselves.

There is one moment, at the end of the movie - well, in the last ten minutes, anyway - that nearly brought me to my feet, something that almost never happens in the movies.

The Joker's final trap is nasty; two ferries are leaving Gotham, one loaded with innocent civilians, the other with the criminals Dent had put away; both are carrying huge bombs, and the Joker informs them that they have a choice; each boat has the detonator for the other boat's bombs; either one boat sinks the other - and lives - or the Joker will blow them both up at midnight.

As the last minutes tick out, one of the prisoners - Tommy Lister, used in many, many movies when they need a 6'5" dude to play "intimidating black dude with goofy eye" - stands up, tells the guard holding the detonator to give him the detonator "so I can do what you shoulda did ten minutes ago."

Given the detonator, he turns with a grimace of contempt and throws it out the window into the river.

Sorry, Joker; as much as you'd like for the world to be irredeemable, there's always a tiny bit of heart left somewhere.

Batman is faced with an insurmountable situation; he is - as Gordon says, in the last minutes of the film,

...the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one we need...

There are major parallels in the ending of this film, and the ending of Watchmen, the highly acclaimed graphic novel (which deserves the acclaim; I have it, and it's fantastic) which has been slavishly adapted for a movie coming "soon."

So, when you watch the Watchmen movie, and you get to the ending, when the heroes allow great evil to pass unnoticed and unremarked because to do otherwise will create even more disorder and chaos, don't feel that The Dark Knight came up with it first; TDK was a homage of the highest order to Alan Moore's work.

Batman finds, at the end, that he must claim responsibility for the deaths of several people - the one crime Batman has NEVER committed is murder - to allow the legend of Harvey Dent to remain unsullied; to defeat the Joker's plot, Dent's treachery and madness can never be revealed, and rather than allow that light of hope to be extinguished, Batman shoulders yet another burden.

...he's the hero Gotham deserves, but he's not the one we need now; so we'll hunt him, because he's tough; he can take it.

This is far and away the best Batman ever filmed.

But it's more than that. This is the best movie this year so far.

And I suspect that while others might come close, this film will get more Oscars than just Best Supporting Actor. Best Screenplay and Best Director just LEAP to mind.

It's not every day that I see a movie I want to see again the next night. Or the next month.

But Tara and I are planning to see it again next Friday. So, that should say something.

The Dark Knight (SPOILER FREE)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

Tonight, we went to the drive-in theater. We paid $10 for the equivalent of 4 tickets; two adults for two movies.

The first was The Dark Knight.

To begin, this is the spoiler-free review. I know critics just love to give everything away, but i don't; in fact I infuriate my wife with "read the book" and "go watch the movie" on a regular basis.

That said, it's difficult to say anything substantive about this movie without giving away plot points, so I decided to do two versions of this review, one with and one without spoilers, so feel free to link to the other review if you'd rather read all the juicy tidbits.

I will first say that, granted that I haven't seen every movie that's come out in 2008 - although I have seen most of them - thus far, barring something really wonderful in a later movie, Heath Ledger flatly DESERVES the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

You hear that? He DESERVES it. I know, I know, the minute he died he was destined to win it; but I'm telling you outright that he would have won it even if he had lived. Jack Nicholson should feel like a jackass. (You may not know this, but when Heath Ledger was confirmed to be the new Joker, Nicholson pitched a fit about it because Ledger hadn't "consulted" Nicholson on how to play the Joker properly. Ledger didn't need any lessons; he openly steals the show.)

That said; this is not what you can really think of as a "comic book" movie, despite the origins of the characters.

There's a great deal of philosophy in this movie; it explores thoroughly the nature of vigilantism, of justice, and examines that element in human nature that seems addicted to chaos, despite our best efforts. The Batman as shown here cannot be a hero, because of his very nature; he can act in the best interests of the city, but he can never REALLY be clean, never have hands unsullied enough to act as a real hero.

This is not the Adam West Batman, folks.

Christian Bale does his usual stellar job; I have come to expect a high standard from him, and he delivers solidly; but in this film, what's surprising is that director Chris Nolan has pulled finer performances out of many of the bit players than they've delivered in years, if ever.

Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent is particularly fine; he carries his role with much more gravity and believability than has EVER been invested in the character otherwise known as Two-Face. I've seen him in several movies in small roles, and he's pretty much always been completely crap, in my opinion; and if anyone disagrees, I challenge them to find one single line he delivered believably in The Core.

He excels here. Harvey Dent, before, has been either a comic figure, or simply on to be pitied; can anyone believe the character - as played by Tommy Lee Jones - as a district attorney? But here, it is upon his character, his identity, that the entire plot turns.

Make no mistake; Batman is the hero; the Joker is the villain; but it is Two-Face's movie, from start to finish. Harvey Dent is the battleground upon which Batman's dedication to order preserved through disorderly means, and Joker's chaos and madness, are brought together to war; his is the soul over which they fight; and the lesson they leave you with at the end is that, despite the stains, sometimes a hero needs to get his hands dirty if anything "good" is to be accomplished.

I will note, here, that there are very, very great parallels between the ending of this movie, and the ending of the Watchmen graphic novel, written by Alan Moore. There's a Watchmen movie coming out, which from the trailer is almost slavishly devoted to accurately transferring the novel to the screen, and if this is the case, I fear that many may call Watchmen an imitator, simply because they never read it; that would be a damn shame.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and in this case, David S. Goyer, the screenwriter, has taken the concept of the ending, and worked (this is theory, but it fits) backwards to create from it the most powerful Joker portrayal ever. It's clear to see the influence of the SAW movies on the screenplay; many of Joker's actions, while seemingly random, are in fact cunningly constructed to turn the heroes' own beliefs and rules against them, to count on their actions and allow that to dictate the outcome in the Joker's favor.

It's not very often a three hour movie can really hold my interest.

This one does it. It takes an immense canvas, both of time, and of character, to build a story this epic in scale; Nolan succeeds on nearly every level here.

This is beyond doubt the best movie I've seen this year; unquestionably the best Batman ever filmed; certainly the standard for any future portrayal of the Joker; allows Two-Face to finally have some dignity; this sets the bar.

And it is a high bar indeed. This movie deserves all the accolades it gets, and then some.

"I would give it a better score, but I only have two thumbs!"

The Dark Knight For $2.50?!?

I love the drive-in theater. Officially.

This was a new experience for me; I've never been to one as an adult, and so I was not really sure what to expect.

But let me say this; even though "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" - the Brendan Fraser remake - may be the worst movie I've seen in a decade, and is certainly the worst I've had my intelligence insulted since The Core, seeing The Dark Knight for $2.50 on its second day of release was worth every penny.

Journey To The Center Of The Earth was bad. It was so bad, in fact, that Tara asked me

"Honey, Brendan Fraser made tons of money in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns; why on earth would he take this movie?"

to which I replied,

"Because he hasn't worked since The Mummy Returns."

Bad. Battlecruiser Millennium Bad.

Shitty.

Bioluminescent BIRDS?

A miniature SUN in the depths of the earth?

An ocean with HURRICANES in the depths of the earth?

A FRIGGING TYRANNOSAURUS REX IN THE DEPTH OF THE EARTH WHERE THERE IS NOTHING FOR IT TO EAT?

I leave out the minor, gemstones-pulled-from-the-rocky-walls-with-perfect-facets-and-clarity badness; I'm talking about THIS MOVIE JUST PLAIN SUCKS AND SHOULD BE DESTROYED.

But The Dark Knight...

Well, it was so good I wrote not one, but two, five-star reviews.

One that's spoiler-free, for those who haven't seen it and want to hear my opinion without having to know everything about it; and one that tells all and knows all, for those who have seen it and want to discuss it.

Bear in mind that when I say "has spoilers" I mean to say "completely gives away the ending of the movie even to the point of direct quotation."

That said, feel free to read either.

Here's the spoiler-free one.

Here's the one that will completely give everything away and ruin your whole time at the movies by giving away all the surprises.

Now.

When your theater tells you that they'd be forced to shut the doors if they didn't charge you $11 for a single ticket at matinee, ask them why my drive-in can show it at the same time, on the same weekend, and charge $2.50. Maybe if enough people do that, they'll stop stealing your money. For the record, Tara and I will see The Dark Knight again next weekend - for $2.50.

By the time you've taken your date to the movie, you've already paid more than Tara and i will have paid to see it twice, along with Hancock and JTTCOTE. That's two people, four showings for - count it - $20.

I love the drive-in.

Meanwhile, in Parts Of The World That Actually ACT When There's A Crisis...

...Tata Motors, India's biggest car manufacturer, has just announced the street date for the MiniCAT, which is a car that runs on compressed air. The first 6000 are due on the street in August - that's, errr, in 2 weeks.

Capable of a 156-mile range (that's an average; they claim 2-300 kilometers, so I called it 250 and converted) on a single charge, the car can refill at a "gas" station with an industrial compressor in 3 minutes, or at home in 3 to 4 hours on the included compressor.

The air that comes out as "exhaust" is cold enough to also power the air conditioning directly.

There are NO pollutants whatsoever.

The motor oil only need changing every 31,000 miles, because there are no combustion residues.

The price is a bit over $8,000, and refills are around $2 worth of electricity.

..Believe it or not, this passes the economy test and actually is cheaper than my 15-year-old Saturn.

There are some issues; its current construction will UNQUESTIONABLY not pass U.S. "safety" standards, which would require it to be far heavier and more expensive. For safety.

But, anyway, at least someone somewhere is working on an actual useful technology that can alleviate the fuel crunch.




...HOLY JESUS CHRIST, people, STOP adding new tags! We don't need "environment, enviroment, environmentalism." ONE would have been good enough. You DO know you can just go in the list and click individual tags to put them on your post, instead of misspelling your way into a list three pages long, right?

Since No-One Else Seems To Have Picked This One Up Yet...

It turns out that despite the Supreme Court of the United States ordering the District of Columbia to allow Richard Heller, recently of D.C. vs. Heller, to register his handgun, D.C. has decided that they don't actually give a damn about the Supreme Court; they're not going to allow him to register his handgun anyway.

Their excuse this time is that despite the fact that his handgun has a seven-round magazine, it possesses the capacity to accept a 12-round magazine, and as such is not a semi-automatic pistol at all, but a machine gun.

Wait, excuse me, what? Can you guys really be this dumb? EVEN THE LIBERAL judges on the Supreme Court are not going to stand for a municipality simply ignoring their orders; which means that when Richard Heller almost inevitably goes back to court again, he is virtually guaranteed to win; thus once again expanding on the legal discussion surrounding the Second Amendment.

I approve of this, just because D.C.'s just digging their hole ever deeper.

Even Pixie Dust And Rainbows Can't Make This A Good Idea...

I hear a lot about how wonderful hybrid-engine cars are, and every once in a while - although several times this week - some self-important "environmentally correct" douchebag will ask me why I drive a 15-year-old Saturn instead of a fuel-efficient hybrid.

So, I'll answer that.

But before I do, I will explode some myths.

First, gas mileage. My current car is 15 years old, cost me $900, and has a ten-gallon gas tank, from which it gets about 27 miles to the gallon.(I know this by the way I end up walking every time the trip meter hits 270.) Now, a typical, non-hybrid car gets between 23 and 33 miles per gallon; hybrids go higher - in a couple of cases, much higher - but they're not cheap.

Second is durability. There's a notion that hybrids will somehow magically last longer than older vehicles did; this is patently and obviously ridiculous. The more mechanically complex a system is, the greater its chance of failure; a hybrid has, essentially, two engines - making it nearly twice as likely to suffer a catastrophic breakdown as a standard car in the same time period, if they're both maintained equally.

Third is the myth of environmental friendliness. Any vehicle using an electric motor - even partially - needs storage batteries made of heavy metals that must be acquired through strip-mining.

Yes, very environmentally friendly. These cars are meant to improve fuel economy; that doesn't mean their environmental impact is any smaller, just that it's in a different place.

So, why DO I drive a 15-year-old Saturn instead of a hybrid?

For purposes of comparison, let's first make a few assumptions. Bear in mind that used cars are - at least in my case - paid for outright. Because I want the hybrids to come out on top - really, I do - I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt everywhere I can, in every way I can. So, let's start with the assumption that a used car will break down - without fail - in 12 months and require complete replacement. Given that, I divided the price of the used car I drive into "monthly payments" to give a fair comparison. (Keep in mind, though, that the used cars in the comparison are owned completely and cannot be repossessed.) Because it's difficult enough even to get a car dealer to make a price quote online, much less guesstimate interest without giving them your bank records and tax returns for the last fifteen years, I decided to give the hybrids a break; so I'm assuming that the car dealer is Santa Claus and is giving the hybrids out on no-interest loans for the straight purchase price of the car, without turning one tiny penny in profit. I used my own information and driving record to get an insurance quote, for $100,000 bodily injury,$100,000 uninsured motorist, and $50,000 property damage coverage with a $250 deductible for both collision and injury, as the basis for the "full coverage" on the Prius. So what are we using for comparisons, here?

First, there's my actual car:

• My car cost me $900 cash.
• This divides out to $75 per month.
• I pay $55 a month in insurance, since I don't need more than liability.
• Our gas budget comes out to about $108 a month; roughly $27 a week.
• Taking the cost of all the repairs I've ever had to do to the car, it averages out to about $52 a month in maintenance.
• The sales tax in this state is 6%, and on $900 comes out to $4.50 a month.
• All this comes out to an approximate "monthly payment" of $294.50

Second, to give the hybrids a fair chance, I created a fictitious "oldie but goodie" car:

• Call it $1200 cash.
• That's an even $100 per month.
• That's a bit more than my car, so I upped the cost of liability to $65 a month.
• I assumed it's a gas guzzler, driving the same distance I am: $160 a month.
• I also assumed it's a deathtrap: $200 a month in maintenance.
• Taxes on $1200 are a bit more: $6 a month.
• This comes out to a total "monthly payment" of $531.

Third, a real, actual, from-the-dealer honest-to-goodness hybrid, the Toyota Prius:

• At $27,014, a STEAL!
• I assumed a five-year payoff, again with a no-interest loan; that's $450.23 a month.
• Most dealers require full coverage, and even Santa Claus isn't nice enough to skip that one: $73 a month from AIG for the coverage I described above.
• I took the Prius' gas mileage to be the middle between the CNN quote (60 MPG) and the dealer quote (45 MPG)and called it double my real car's mileage at 54, then halved my gas bill: $54 a month.
• Hybrids won't break as often, but it costs way more to fix them, so I threw up my hands and made maintenance the same as for my real car: $52 a month.
• Taxes on $27,014 are a bit higher: $27 a month.
• This comes out to a total "monthly payment" of $656.23

And finally, because I love hybrids and I want them to do as well as possible, I made up a fictitious "hybrid" that makes some assumptions you may find startling:

• First, I knocked down the price to $20K even; this is Santa Claus Motors, after all, so why wouldn't he give you $7,000 off?
• On the patented Santa Claus Motors interest-free-forever loan, that comes to $333.33 a month.
• Let's say the same price for the insurance; $73 a month.
• This is a Santa Claus Motors vehicle, so it doesn't require gasoline AT ALL and instead runs on pixie dust and fucking rainbows: $ZERO A MONTH.
• There's no need for maintenance because Santa's Elves will fix your car: $ ZERO A MONTH.
• There's no taxes on a Santa-mobile because it's paid for by Rudolph and the reindeer: $ZERO A MONTH.
• This comes to a grand total of $406 per month.

So, let's interpret this.

The fictitious hybrid from Santa Claus that runs on pixie dust and rainbows costs $111.83 a month more than my actual car, even assuming that my car will blow the fuck up in a single year (it hasn't.) The real, actual hybrid costs $125.23 more than my fictitious rattletrap "certified pre-owned" vehicle, and $361.73 a month more than my actual real car.

What this means is that if I continue with my car, in the five years it would have taken me to pay off the Prius, I will have saved $21,703.80; that's enough money to buy a 52-inch 1080p LCD TV for every room in my apartment including the BATHROOM - I included sales tax, because Rudolph doesn't like me - a 2006 Saturn Ion, again including sales tax - dammit, Rudolph, what the fuck - a keg of premium beer, a Playstation 3 bundle for every room in the house including the bathroom,, and replace my old laptop, and still have change.

So, when you ask me why i don't drive a hybrid, don't be surprised when I point at you and laugh openly; EVEN THE PIXIE DUST AND RAINBOWS COULDN'T MAKE IT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE.

No Kidding, It Really Is One Of The World's Oldest Professions

So, there's these researchers at Yale, led by Keith Chen, who have been experimenting with monkey psychology for years. One of the things they've been working on is teaching the monkeys a primitive monetary system; using tokens earned through various activities, the monkeys can buy food.

...They've noticed that monkeys DON'T save - but they DO steal; the monkeys have been observed to swipe each other's tokens for extra chow.

Now, you and I, being normal people, may be inclined to think this is simply learned behavior, instead of a true understanding of the function of money.

...Until the researchers witnessed one monkey paying another monkey for sex.

...And the second monkey used the tokens to buy food.

No matter where we build a society, there's always gonna be hookers, I guess.

Craftsmanship

This week, I've had a clear demonstration of the truth of the old saying,

You get what you pay for.

My work boots have been gradually wearing out, and I had been planning to buy new ones this weekend. I got a surprise on Tuesday, though; my toes started getting wet, in supposedly waterproof boots. I investigated and found a hole in my left boot big enough to stick my thumb through. Literally; I demonstrated for Tara.

Yikes.

Now, I'm not complaining; those boots are 18 months old, and only cost $30; they've done well by me, all things considered.

But.

On my feet the last two days, I have been wearing a pair of U.S. Army issue leather infantry boots.

They cost me about $100 in the PX in Fort Benning, Georgia. I bought them as an extra pair, when I was in Airborne school. In 1996.

I didn't have a chance this week to buy pads to put in them - and there's no point, really, since I'm getting new work boots this weekend anyway - so my feet hurt like blue blazes, now, but you know what? Those boots are 12 years old, and I can still wear them to work.

That, folks, is good craftsmanship, plain and simple. Those boots have 83 airborne jumps; they've been to 11 countries, walked and run countless miles, and been faithful companions of mine for over a decade. They're getting near the end of their road, but they're not quite there yet.

That kinda puts "cost three times as much," into perspective, doesn't it?

Warning! This Blog Post Contains Milk And Dairy Ingredients And Was Made On Equipment That Processes Peanuts.

I'm sure you're all aware of the ongoing trend to put warnings on everything. It's driven by ligitation, and we all know THAT.

But now it's getting really ridiculous.

Look at a pack of - for example - sour cream and onion potato chips. Sour cream is in those, right? Sour cream is made from milk, right? So why does this product require:

Warning: Contains milk ingredients.

Peanut butter:

This product contains peanuts.

This is why I'm buying it. If you're allergic to peanuts, it's reasonable to expect a warning from a soft drink. Go look and see how many sodas say:

Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine.

That's perfectly legitimate, as nobody would reasonably expect peanuts in a Pepsi. But, come on, if you're allergic to peanuts and you're buying peanut butter, Here's your Darwin Award, move along, citizen.

Likewise with any other allergy. There are some warnings that are actually useful - the "equipment used to process peanuts" one, in particular - but if you have a milk allergy, just don't fucking GO to the dairy section, hmmm?

I guess what I'm getting at is that if we need this much handholding, we are a nation of lost, helpless children in plastic bubbles, and something bad should happen to us.

So, Let's Put A Stake In The Heart Of 'Bush Lied, People Died.' Now Updated To Include More Fearmongering Extremism!

For those of you who have complained in the past that the huge amount of evidence FOR Saddam Hussein's WMD program that I've pointed out in my past blogs are nothing but "blog postings," here's some news for you.

The final stocks of Saddam's refinable URANIUM have been shipped to Canada.  [*NOTE FOR THE STUPID: IT WAS MOVED THERE FOR SAFEKEEPING, BECAUSE CANADA'S ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS. See comments below.]

The material was so-called "Yellowcake," which is refinable to produce weapons-grade uranium. FIVE HUNDRED FIFTY METRIC TONS OF IT.

Let's talk about "yellowcake," to make sure we're all on the same page. "Yellowcake" - so-called because it comes in cakes, and is yellow - is what's called "low-enrichment" uranium. 

In nature, Uranium exists in two versions - the basically inert U-238 isotope, which is useless for fission weapons - it can be used in fusion warheads - and the much more unstable U-235 isotope, which is what is needed for weapons. The percentage of U-238 is much higher.

Yellowcake is uranium which has been - basically - cooked, so as to remove the majority of the NON-uranium impurities. From there, there are several methods used to remove the U-238 and leave the pure, or nearly so, U-235.

Now, U-235 can be used directly to build bombs in the style and power range of the Hiroshima bomb, or it can be "bred" in a breeder reactor to make plutonium, which is used to make the really godawful huge multimegaton nukes.

YEAH, IT'S THE STUFF THEY USE TO BUILD NUKES.

BUT HE HAD NO WMD PROGRAM.

Here's a clue, folks; Iraq has only EVER had ONE nuclear reactor for power;the Osiraq reactor, which was crippled by the Israelis in 1981, and utterly destroyed by the U.S. in 1991.

There was no reactor to use that nuclear fuel IN. There was no program to build one, either. So it wasn't meant for reactor fuel.

However, depleted uranium - produced as a byproduct of the process of refining uranium into weapons-grade material - WAS found at the al-Tuwaitha nuclear site; something the media's ALSO been claiming Hussein didn't have. So, at least at one time, Iraq CLEARLY had a weapons program and was attempting to build a bomb.

They had enough uranium to make 142 Hiroshima bombs.

I want you to think about that, really closely. That's enough to nuke the 47 biggest cities in the U.S. THREE TIMES APIECE and still have one left to threaten other countries with.

Alternately, you can think of it as enough to nuke every state in the U.S. twice and still have enough left to triple up on Russia, Germany, Italy, England, France, Switzerland, Israel, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Macedonia.

Now, that's all well and good; but he's totally on the other side of the world and can't send missiles that far, so no threat to the U.S., blah, blah.

Let me change your mind. According to the folks doing all that detaining and stuffing of insurgents into Gitmo, many of then already have arrest records in the U.S. - meaning they've been here before, and WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT.

Modern technology realistically allows a nuclear device with the power of the Hiroshima bomb to be carried in a steamer trunk.

Do you honestly believe they COULDN'T smuggle a steamer trunk into the United States if they wanted, considering the Chinese have been smuggling in whole boxcar shipping containers full of people for years?

I hope it's clear to you all that there was a threat.

Are we done now?

For Those Of You Who Might Be Interested...

There's a calculator, now, that you can use to figure out how long it would take you to break even on the deal, if you trade in your current vehicle for a fuel-efficient "greenmobile."

http://www.edmunds.com/calculators/gas-guzzler.html

Enjoy!


...If I trade in my Saturn for a Prius, I should start saving money on gas in December of 2046.

Someone Needs To Be Brought Up On Charges!

So, Wednesday, two 20-something young thugs run into a Subway restaurant in Florida, draw guns, and threaten the clerk and the one customer.

That customer was John Lovell.

John Lovell is a retired Marine.

John Lovell is 71 years old.

John Lovell has a concealed carry permit, and when the two tried to force him to go to the bathroom at the back of the restaurant, he drew his gun and killed one of them; police found the other one hiding in some bushes, trying to patch up his sucking chest wound.

The families of the two thugs, of course, are claiming that Mr. Lovell deserves to be brought up on charges for shooting their beloved precious snowflakes.

For once, I agree totally.

Mr. Lovell should be brought up on charges immediately.

For using a weapon of insufficient caliber to finish the job.

Best If Used By...

OK.

One secret most people secretly know, that they don't share with people because it's a secret, is that once you freeze something, it's pretty much unchanged from then until you thaw it.

They once found a woolly mammoth buried in ice; it was approximately 20,000 years old, and the flowers it was lying on when it died were still their original colors. So, once it's frozen, it's pretty much good.

That doesn't help the companies that manufacture frozen food, though; so they run a scam on the consumer. See, the law says that "best if used by" dates are immutable laws of reality, and that products past their due dates must be taken out and destroyed. The law says nothing whatsoever about frozen products that are simply undated, because the FDA knows as well as you or I that as long as it doesn't thaw, it's fine indefinitely.

But, see, food manufacturers know this, too, and so in order to force the grocery stores to buy more of their product, they have started putting pre-freezing sell-by dates on frozen products; some as short as EIGHT DAYS.

And if those products aren't sold by that date - often the case - the store has to, by law, DESTROY the product. And that passes right along to you and me as increased food prices; the store compensates for increased shrinkage - product they buy but don't sell for whatever reason - with slightly higher prices.

Now, this is true, and it is stupid. But it merely scratches the surface. Wednesday, the factory where I work - a packing plant - threw away product worth almost - at a guess, for reasons I will explain shortly - three times as much as my wife and I earn in a year COMBINED.

Why? Because we have a major customer who insists on pre-freezing sell-by dates.

Now. This is a poultry packing plant; we have three products associated with this particular event, those being ground chicken, ground white turkey, and ground dark turkey. We triple-grind it, and freeze it in those little heat-sealed styrofoam and plastic containers that hamburger comes in now.

And for this particular customer, we slap a date on it before it goes in the blast freezer.

And as a result of that, and for no other reason, we had to destroy THIRTY-FIVE PALLETS of ground poultry. Here's the reason for the guess - I know how many boxes per pallet, how much per item, how many units per box, all that; what Idon't know is the exact number of pallets of each product.

But, ok, here goes:

12 units per box.

52 boxes per pallet.

35 pallets.

That's twenty-one thousand, eight hundred forty individual packages.

Now, the dark turkey is the cheapest, at $3.50; the chicken's $4, and the white turkey's $5. I don't know how much EXACTLY is in there of the other two, but just using the price for dark turkey for the batch is bad enough: $76, 440. That's right; SEVENTY-SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS.

But here's the thing; at a guess, I'd say about a ninth of it is chicken (2426 individual packages,) and two ninths is white turkey (4853 individual packages.)

So, that's 14, 560 packages of dark turkey: $50, 960.

4853 packs of white turkey: $24, 265.

2426 packages of ground chicken: $9, 704.

So that means that - using my patented "this is how many tags I scanned so that's the approximate percentage we produce" guesswork method - we chucked $84, 929 worth of perfectly good ground poultry in the trash, because our customer insisted on a meaningless sell-by date.

Eighty-four thousand dollars.

Must be nice. If you can't just sell it, why not donate it to charity, or the food banks, or something?

But, instead, nope; off that all goes to become dog food.

*Sigh*

Either I'm Crazy... Or You're Dumb As A Box Of Rocks. Guess Which?

So, ok, the other night, my son found a new form of entertainment: try to cripple Daddy with a mine field.

See, he has these little, hard plastic cars - you know, the ones from that Pixar movie - that he loves to play with. But the thing is, he's 15 months old; he's easily bored, and tends to go all "Oooo, shiny," and drop whatever he's holding to go after the new shiny thing.

So, at about 3 AM on Monday, nature calls, and Daddy staggers out and across the living room to the bathroom. About halfway across, *crunch* Daddy's left foot lands squarely on one of those cars. Daddy swears very quietly under his breath, picks up the misplaced toy, and places it back in the crib next to the adorable motionless lump of baby boy, and limps on his merry way.

Seven-thirty rolls around, and Daddy gets up for a return engagement. Unbeknownst to Daddy, the boy has already hatched the next phase in his master plan, and halfway across the living room, *crunch* Daddy's left foot comes down squarely on another one of those hard plastic cars. Daddy really, really tried to keep the swearing under his breath, but fails, waking the boy, who laughs openly at Daddy's comical limping and gesticulating. The car is returned to the toy box.

Morning routine complete, freshly shaved and showered, Daddy is coming back upstairs to get ready for work, when without warning, *crunch* Daddy's left foot comes down squarely on another of those retarded fucking little cars.

Daddy's swearing didn't even START under his breath the third time.

"How many of these fucking things does he HAVE, anyway?"

Right.

So, I started Monday with a horribly bruised foot. Now, some of you may be able to sympathize with my situation; my job entails ten hours of standing on unrelieved concrete. This is not exactly kind to feet anyway. So, all week, I kept my weight on my other foot as much as possible, which of course resulted in the other foot getting bruised up as well.

What this means is that for the last two days, instead of a confident stride, or even a Texas-style amble, I've been walking in this hitched, no-doubt-awful-looking double limp remarkably reminiscent of zombie movies. I know it is, because one of my co-workers informed me that if I put my arms up and growled a lot, I could get a part in the next Romero flick.

So, because I am a clown, I've been doing exactly that; growling, zombie walk, "Brrrraaaaaaaainnnnnssssssss" and all that; I mean, this sucks, but I'm stuck with it; why not play it for a laugh?

I didn't count on people suffering from TLOH Syndrome. (Pronounced Tee-Low.) That being, Total Lack Of Humor.

Which brings me to Thursday!

I was coming back out onto the floor from a break, when a woman from a different line runs into me.

"Rarrrrrr! Brainnnnssss!"

She jumped nearly a foot in the air, and said, "Oh, my GOD, what was THAT?"

"A zombie growl."

"Well whatever for?!"

"Because this week, I'm a zombie."

She gave me a look of total incomprehension mixed with WTF, and I decided to have mercy on her.

"Look, the plant is eating my brain, heart, and soul; it's only fair if I get to eat everyone else's brains, right? So, RARRRR! BRAINNNNNNSSSS!!"

She started backing away from me like I just grew fangs and horns right in front of her.

And I came to the sudden realization that this poor woman really believed I was serious. She had not a CLUE that it might be a joke.

I mean, if something is a joke and you don't get the punchline, you can usually at least tell that it was intended as humor, right?

So, there we are; either I'm batshit crazy, or she's as dumb as a box of rocks. I know which one I lean towards, but hey, it's the internet, so I will go out on a limb and put up a poll.

OMG, WHAT Are You Driving, Again?

 Congress sometimes acts in a manner that's ... shall we say... ill-advised.

Right now, in terms of powering cars, specifically, there are two major "alternatives" to petroleum; ethanol and biodiesel. The differences between them are rather profound, but Congress didn't do the research- or even use Google- and thus we're stuck with the corn-for-ethanol program.

But it's never too late to send Congresss letters pushing for repeal. So, it's time someone spelled out the differences between ethanol and biodiesel. The fact that you're here means I'm gonna take first crack at it.

First, ethanol is corrosive; unlike gasoline and biodiesel, it cannot be run in a standard engine without a very low admixture ratio with gasoline. A typical admixture ratio - ethanol to gasoline - is 1:9. This means that anything significantly over 1/10th ethanol in your tank requires a special engine, so that the ethanol doesn't corrode the seals and gaskets internal to the engine. So-called "E85" cars have those redesigned engines, but their cost is quite high.

By contrast, biodiesel can be run in a standard diesel engine with as high an admixture ratio as 4:1 with petrodiesel; this means use of biodiesel can greatly reduce our usage of petroleum products with no other investment in infrastruture for the end user.

Secondly, ethanol is only about 65% as fuel efficient as gasoline; a car will require far more pricey ethanol to travel the same distance, even with an enhanced E85 engine.

By contrast, biodiesel, for all intents and purposes, is petrodiesel in terms of fuel efficiency - and diesel engines are more fuel efficient than gasoline engines to start with.

Third, both are equally clean-burning; the contaminants in petrodiesel are not present in biodiesel, and thus both ethanol and biodiesel are essentially pollutant-free.

Fourth, ethanol can be made - thus far anyway - from corn, sugar, or switchgrass (called 'cellulosic' ethanol). Corn and sugar are both food crops and using either for ethanol takes not only the crops themselves, but the acreage as well, out of food production. Demonstrably, this causes cascading increases in food prices. Switchgrass, while 5 times as efficient in ethanol production as corn, takes acreage again, to produce.

By contrast, biodiesel can be produced from essentially any organic source, including byproducts of the food manufacturing process, organic wastes, hay, used cooking oil - basically anything organic. This can actually affect food prices positively, as disposal costs for organic waste from food production can be replaces by turning those wastes over to biodiesel producers, allowing food manufacturers to actually make a profit on their wastes. This in turn lowers costs and food prices drop accordingly.

Fifth, production of ethanol is a process that, itself, pollutes; since mandating ethanol production Congress has had to order the EPA to give concessions to the ethanol producers, since they are basically all in violation of the Clean Air Act.

By contrast, biodiesel reactors are sealed; the only atmospheric byproduct is water vapor. Interestingly, since the chemical reaction is exothermic, the addition of a steam turbine can transform a biodiesel reactor into an electrical generator, as well, allowing biodiesel production to contribute to the other half of the energy crisis at the same time.

The facts simply don't speak in Congress' favor. Biodiesel is clearly the superior alternative fuel service, as a few minutes with Google would have told them.

Accordingly, I'd like to start an email compaign advocating the repeal of the mandoatory ethanol standards, and development of biodiesel instead.

Here's how this works: below, there is a complete email stating the case against mandatory ethanol. Feel free to use it, or use it as a guideline; simply copy, past, and put in your Senators' and Representatives' information.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Senator / Representative :

The energy crisis is steadily growing. Your constituents are finding it more difficult each day to pay the growing cost for fuel. As such, alternatives are needed. But more important than simply acting, is choosing the correct alternatives to support.

Biodiesel, as an alternative fuel, is far superior to ethanol. Unlike ethanol, it can be made from any organic waste; this allows production of biodiesel without raising food prices and limiting crop acreage.

Also unlike ethanol, which is corrosive to engine parts and thus requires significant reinvestment by the consumer, biodiesel can be run in conventional diesel engines in far higher admixture ratios, even up to 80% biodiesel in an unmodified engine.

As well, biodiesel productions can address other aspects of the energy crisis. Biodiesel reactors, which run much more cleanly than do ethanol production facilities, can produce electrical power during the production of biodiesel, which can assist in lowering the load on our power grid.

Making the right choice now is crucial to the future of our nation. We owe it to our children, and the nation they will inherit from us, to give them the tools to build a more enviroment-friendly, energy independent future.

As your constituent, I am asking you to repeal the congressional mandate for ethanol production, from corn, and the requirement for the blending of ethanol with gasoline for retail sale and I am asking you to sponsor legislation giving tax incentives to companies producing biodiesel.

This will allow the market to innovate, and result in the advancement of the superior biodiesel technology as a means of partially replacing our reliance on petroleum-based fuels. Help our children live in a world where our economy is no longer dependent upon petroleum.

Thank you for your time,

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