Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Tuesday Morning Haiku
Write a poem e'ry day.
True, haikus are simple, but,
Brevity ain't easy.
True, haikus are simple, but,
Brevity ain't easy.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Wednesday Morning Haiku
Huge pile of paper,
You keep growing and growing.
I fear you’ll crush me.
You keep growing and growing.
I fear you’ll crush me.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
A Moment of Geek Weakness
Did you ever watch the Babylon 5 TV series?
To catch-up the uninitiated, it was a sci-fi TV series set on a very large space station deep in outer space somewhere quite dangerous.
I always thought it was interesting how the Captain would go and hit baseballs when he'd had a rough day. Not just at a batting cage, either, but on a real-sized baseball diamond located somewhere on the space station (I told you it was a big station).
What always struck me as odd is that no one else was ever playing baseball and he always had the whole place to himself. I fact, that's why he went there - lots of open space and no people around. I suppose these are rare commodities on a space station. Surely, though, the Captain was not the only person seeking a little open space, so I always wondered why he had the field all to himself. I thought, well, he's the Captain and he just ordered everyone off the field. Rank hath its privileges.
But, then it occurred to me: no one was ever playing baseball, because you can't play baseball on a space station - especially not a station that rotates to simulate gravitational forces.
Why not? Coriolis.
Let's say you hit a pop fly into right field... the ball has a fairly long flight time - a couple of seconds at least. The ball travels in a nice arc from it's starting point (where it was hit) to wherever it going to land. However, during those seconds, the space station (i.e. the floor) is rotating away taking the right fielder (who is standing on the station and moving with it) along with it. Therefore, from the right fielder's perspective, the ball is not flying in a simple parabolic trajectory, but is curving away from him in the direction opposite the station’s rotation. This same thing would happen to pitches and throws, making the game well nigh impossible to play.
So, it turns out there was a simple reason the baseball diamond was always empty... it was useless.
I suppose – even in the future – the government will still have no clue how to spend their money correctly.
To catch-up the uninitiated, it was a sci-fi TV series set on a very large space station deep in outer space somewhere quite dangerous.
I always thought it was interesting how the Captain would go and hit baseballs when he'd had a rough day. Not just at a batting cage, either, but on a real-sized baseball diamond located somewhere on the space station (I told you it was a big station).
What always struck me as odd is that no one else was ever playing baseball and he always had the whole place to himself. I fact, that's why he went there - lots of open space and no people around. I suppose these are rare commodities on a space station. Surely, though, the Captain was not the only person seeking a little open space, so I always wondered why he had the field all to himself. I thought, well, he's the Captain and he just ordered everyone off the field. Rank hath its privileges.
But, then it occurred to me: no one was ever playing baseball, because you can't play baseball on a space station - especially not a station that rotates to simulate gravitational forces.
Why not? Coriolis.
Let's say you hit a pop fly into right field... the ball has a fairly long flight time - a couple of seconds at least. The ball travels in a nice arc from it's starting point (where it was hit) to wherever it going to land. However, during those seconds, the space station (i.e. the floor) is rotating away taking the right fielder (who is standing on the station and moving with it) along with it. Therefore, from the right fielder's perspective, the ball is not flying in a simple parabolic trajectory, but is curving away from him in the direction opposite the station’s rotation. This same thing would happen to pitches and throws, making the game well nigh impossible to play.
So, it turns out there was a simple reason the baseball diamond was always empty... it was useless.
I suppose – even in the future – the government will still have no clue how to spend their money correctly.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Stopping Logic
This is an intentionally dispassionate and critical view. My subject matter has nothing to do with my point, but you'll see that if you keep reading to the end – remember, just keep reading, you’ll get there. Tricksy... that Lemur.
Logic can bite you... in the end.
After years of thought, I've decided that the fear of anti-abortion rulings issuing from the Supreme Court is actually a fear of democracy and an apparent admission that pro-choice ideology is a small minority position not held by most Americans. I think this stems from the logical foundations of the argument. This seems a contrary starting point upon which to base the logic for an otherwise effective argument.
This conclusion crystallized while watching the recent Supreme Court nominations. The abortion issue has single handedly polarized the political process of nominating supreme court justices and turned the nomination process into an over-politicized nightmare.
On that note, a small digression. Legal thinkers (including judges), for the most part, compartmentalize their thinking. So, let's make a few separations: First, it IS possible to separate a person's belief in the right to life from a belief that others have the right to make their own choice. This is called liberalism (the true liberalism as opposed to our modern socialism or "left-ism" that actually limits personal freedoms - an interesting word game, that) in which a person believes in the right of individuals to choose their own path.
Second, it IS possible to separate the belief in a person right to choose from the belief that the Federal Government (specifically the Article Three courts) do not have the power to dictate to the State legislatures how they may pass laws on the abortion issue. This is both a federalist, conservative, and liberal view. Federalist in preserving states rights, conservative in choosing a limited role for the courts (as opposed to activist - the opposite of conservative), and liberal in preserving the people's rights, via their state legislature, to choose. Ah, hopefully my battle cry that “conservative” and “liberal” are meaningless monikers begins to gel, yes?
Enough digression.
Now, let me set up the hypothetical that most pro-choice persons seem to fear:
1. New Justices are put on the Supreme Court who are both “right-ist” and activist.
2. The Supreme Court breaks with the tradition of stare decisis and overturns the Roe/Casey line of decisions that extended due process rights to include the rights to have access to abortion procedures.
3. States now have the ability returned to them to limit access to abortion by law within their borders.
4. States do so.
What happens next? If the people hate the hypothetical new anti-abortion laws, they can elect new representative who will change the new laws. If they can't wait until the next election, they can recall their representatives and elect a new one immediately (most state constitutions/legal systems have a provision along these lines).
Therefore, to be rational and justified, the pro-choice fear scenario outline above must also include the following fear:
5. They won't be able to replace or recall their representatives.
Why not?
It follows that they fear they won't have the votes to do it. They must fear that the majority of Americans really would like to see access to abortion limited and would not vote their way. That, or they fear most Americans really don't care (the most likely scenario). Be it apathy or opposition, either way, they fear it to be a death knell.
That fear of majority rule boils down to a fear of democracy. A reasonably healthy fear that even the Greeks (the inventors) realized early on: democracy is, quite simply, rule by the majority and majorities can be quite brutal to minorities. Yes, philosophically, democracy and freedom do not always go hand in hand. Fascinating, no? This is why most modern democracies have tried (are still trying with an arguable level of success) to stabilize the majority's most brutal effects on the minorities. Curiously, though, it still takes a majority to enact these types of reforms (anti-discrimination reforms, etc.) so it is still, technically, rule by the majority - its just that this time, a different minority is not getting their way. In the end, the majority - a majority - is protecting a minority from another minority.
So, the majority would have to decide: is the pro-choice minority's view worthy of protection? Tying this back to the pro-choice fear hypothetical outlined above, the pro-choice movement seems to not only fear that they are a minority and not be able to get the representation they desire, but they also fear they are not large enough to align with another minority and gain a majority. This fear seems to indicate that the pro-choice movement (as a whole) fears not only that their position is a minority, but a very small minority. This must have been a concern all along, which is why they went to the courts, not the polling both (where their argument, admittedly political and legislative in nature, seems more apropos). Moreover, the Courts seemed to have guessed it, which does much to explain their stretch to grasp the rulings.
Seems to me, that this is the wrong place to begin your logic argument, but it seems to have worked despite that.
There is a problem with logic, though: once it is applied somewhere, the legal system will mine it for application elsewhere.
Consider this scenario:
Does the pro-gun lobby have a due process right to limit laws restricting gun ownership? Put aside your personal belief (whatever side it is) and compare a state's requirement of a short waiting period before an abortion to a waiting period before a gun purchase. What about notification rules? Or the flat-out right to abortion with the flat-out right to a own a gun. They are surprisingly similar when compared - and, the gun lobby has an actual constitutional amendment to argue with, something sadly lacking in the pro-choice argument.
What about right-to-die? The abortion due process argument seems very similar to the right-to-die argument, yet the court has picked one and not the other.
What about sodomy laws? The "moral underpinning" theory of the Constitution was struck down in Lawrence and then bridged to the states. How does this affect adultery laws? Fornication laws? Incest laws? The same argument applies to them all. When do you stop? How do you stop?
In fact, the court seems to have been walking a minefield with their logic. That’s something they are normally loath to do. For good reason, because valid arguments, like a virus, have a way of jumping from host issue to host issue. I fear that there may not be much more double speak that the basic logic here can endure before it must be extended or defeated.
The moral is: be careful with which decisions you applaud. Watch your logic closely. It does not die with your argument. Once accepted, it lives on forever and you very well may find it stuck in your own back one day.
Logic can bite you... in the end.
After years of thought, I've decided that the fear of anti-abortion rulings issuing from the Supreme Court is actually a fear of democracy and an apparent admission that pro-choice ideology is a small minority position not held by most Americans. I think this stems from the logical foundations of the argument. This seems a contrary starting point upon which to base the logic for an otherwise effective argument.
This conclusion crystallized while watching the recent Supreme Court nominations. The abortion issue has single handedly polarized the political process of nominating supreme court justices and turned the nomination process into an over-politicized nightmare.
On that note, a small digression. Legal thinkers (including judges), for the most part, compartmentalize their thinking. So, let's make a few separations: First, it IS possible to separate a person's belief in the right to life from a belief that others have the right to make their own choice. This is called liberalism (the true liberalism as opposed to our modern socialism or "left-ism" that actually limits personal freedoms - an interesting word game, that) in which a person believes in the right of individuals to choose their own path.
Second, it IS possible to separate the belief in a person right to choose from the belief that the Federal Government (specifically the Article Three courts) do not have the power to dictate to the State legislatures how they may pass laws on the abortion issue. This is both a federalist, conservative, and liberal view. Federalist in preserving states rights, conservative in choosing a limited role for the courts (as opposed to activist - the opposite of conservative), and liberal in preserving the people's rights, via their state legislature, to choose. Ah, hopefully my battle cry that “conservative” and “liberal” are meaningless monikers begins to gel, yes?
Enough digression.
Now, let me set up the hypothetical that most pro-choice persons seem to fear:
1. New Justices are put on the Supreme Court who are both “right-ist” and activist.
2. The Supreme Court breaks with the tradition of stare decisis and overturns the Roe/Casey line of decisions that extended due process rights to include the rights to have access to abortion procedures.
3. States now have the ability returned to them to limit access to abortion by law within their borders.
4. States do so.
What happens next? If the people hate the hypothetical new anti-abortion laws, they can elect new representative who will change the new laws. If they can't wait until the next election, they can recall their representatives and elect a new one immediately (most state constitutions/legal systems have a provision along these lines).
Therefore, to be rational and justified, the pro-choice fear scenario outline above must also include the following fear:
5. They won't be able to replace or recall their representatives.
Why not?
It follows that they fear they won't have the votes to do it. They must fear that the majority of Americans really would like to see access to abortion limited and would not vote their way. That, or they fear most Americans really don't care (the most likely scenario). Be it apathy or opposition, either way, they fear it to be a death knell.
That fear of majority rule boils down to a fear of democracy. A reasonably healthy fear that even the Greeks (the inventors) realized early on: democracy is, quite simply, rule by the majority and majorities can be quite brutal to minorities. Yes, philosophically, democracy and freedom do not always go hand in hand. Fascinating, no? This is why most modern democracies have tried (are still trying with an arguable level of success) to stabilize the majority's most brutal effects on the minorities. Curiously, though, it still takes a majority to enact these types of reforms (anti-discrimination reforms, etc.) so it is still, technically, rule by the majority - its just that this time, a different minority is not getting their way. In the end, the majority - a majority - is protecting a minority from another minority.
So, the majority would have to decide: is the pro-choice minority's view worthy of protection? Tying this back to the pro-choice fear hypothetical outlined above, the pro-choice movement seems to not only fear that they are a minority and not be able to get the representation they desire, but they also fear they are not large enough to align with another minority and gain a majority. This fear seems to indicate that the pro-choice movement (as a whole) fears not only that their position is a minority, but a very small minority. This must have been a concern all along, which is why they went to the courts, not the polling both (where their argument, admittedly political and legislative in nature, seems more apropos). Moreover, the Courts seemed to have guessed it, which does much to explain their stretch to grasp the rulings.
Seems to me, that this is the wrong place to begin your logic argument, but it seems to have worked despite that.
There is a problem with logic, though: once it is applied somewhere, the legal system will mine it for application elsewhere.
Consider this scenario:
Does the pro-gun lobby have a due process right to limit laws restricting gun ownership? Put aside your personal belief (whatever side it is) and compare a state's requirement of a short waiting period before an abortion to a waiting period before a gun purchase. What about notification rules? Or the flat-out right to abortion with the flat-out right to a own a gun. They are surprisingly similar when compared - and, the gun lobby has an actual constitutional amendment to argue with, something sadly lacking in the pro-choice argument.
What about right-to-die? The abortion due process argument seems very similar to the right-to-die argument, yet the court has picked one and not the other.
What about sodomy laws? The "moral underpinning" theory of the Constitution was struck down in Lawrence and then bridged to the states. How does this affect adultery laws? Fornication laws? Incest laws? The same argument applies to them all. When do you stop? How do you stop?
In fact, the court seems to have been walking a minefield with their logic. That’s something they are normally loath to do. For good reason, because valid arguments, like a virus, have a way of jumping from host issue to host issue. I fear that there may not be much more double speak that the basic logic here can endure before it must be extended or defeated.
The moral is: be careful with which decisions you applaud. Watch your logic closely. It does not die with your argument. Once accepted, it lives on forever and you very well may find it stuck in your own back one day.