Quantum Theology

They made me wear a tie to work yesterday. The NERVE! Engineers and ties went with the 90’s! Ha! I’ll get back at them. Today I’ll look a little like a punk-rocker who happens to have a tie on. Ha! Hahahaha  HA!

I have been sampling various Ginger Beers over the last few years. After travelling 1200 miles to shop at the Beverages and More in San Diego, I have found the king of Ginger Beers. This delicious brew is made by Bundaberg, an Australian company. I really want to taste their Horehound brew, but I might have to go to Australia to get it.

Finding a good Ginger brew is quite a hit and miss adventure. Hehehe, I sent one of the worst Ginger brews off to Therese a while ago. It was a mix of raspberry and ginger and it was so very nasty. I kinda wished I was there to see her expression on the first taste. No, I’m not sick and demented, I also sent some very good root beer as well.

I’ve done it. This morning, in the hotel lobby, at 9:15 AM PST,  I ordered de-caffinated Starbucks coffee. What has my world come to?

It has a perfectly simple explaination. Every once and a while I kick the coffee for a period of time after it becomes obvious that I am a caffine addict. it became obvious late this week when I happened to go a few days without coffee. I paid the price with light afternooon headaches. Usually I just switch to tea for a week or so, but there is no tea in the hotel lobby and I just can’t pass up the chance to sit in the morning sun on my balcony while eating breakfast, sipping coffee, blogging, and watching the hotties swim in the pool. Coffee is such a critical part of this experience that I just can’t do without it this morning. Hence, the decaff.

I have managed to piss off three people in less than a month. This is quite a record for me. I only really expected one of those people to get mad, the others came by surprise. I won’t be apologizing to any of these individuals.

I’m averaging one a week right now. That’s a bit distrubing.

Article II of the United States Constitution provides that any citizen of appropriate birth, age
and residency may be elected to the Office of President of the United States and be vested with the executive power of this nation.
The duties and powers of the Chief Executive are carefully listed, including the duty to be
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,49 and the Presidential Oath of
Office is set forth in the Constitution and requires him to swear or affirm that he “will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”50
The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional
language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.
We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its
powers, by the Constitution.  There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution.  So all “inherent powers” must derive from that Constitution.

The above quotation is from Judge Anna Taylor’s ruling that the NSA’s wiretapping program is unconstitutional. The following is the President’s full response to that ruling.

Last week America and the world received a stark reminder that terrorists are still plotting to attack our country and kill innocent people. Today a federal judge in Michigan has ruled that the Terrorist Surveillance Program ordered by the President to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the American people is unconstitutional and otherwise illegal. We couldn’t disagree more with this ruling, and the Justice Department will seek an immediate stay of the opinion and appeal. Until the Court has the opportunity to rule on a stay of the Court’s ruling in a hearing now set for September 7, 2006, the parties have agreed that enforcement of the ruling will be stayed.

United States intelligence officials have confirmed that the program has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives. The program is carefully administered, and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected Al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist. The whole point is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks before they can be carried out. That’s what the American people expect from their government, and it is the President’s most solemn duty to ensure their protection.

The Terrorist Surveillance Program is firmly grounded in law and regularly reviewed to make sure steps are taken to protect civil liberties. The Terrorist Surveillance Program has proven to be one of our most critical and effective tools in the war against terrorism, and we look forward to demonstrating on appeal the validity of this vital program.

I shake my head and I simply cannot believe the kind of leadership we have elected. Bush is so full of shit it’s spewing from his mouth. What a disgrace to the Presidential office. I’ll start off with my first objection which is the continuing appeal to fear which appears in the first paragraph. The existence of terrorists and their threats have no bearing and are irrelevent with regards to the legality of the program. The legality of the program is judged with respect to the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution holds both in times of peace and in times of war.

The second paragraph is simply your standard marketing bullshit. The assertions here require a leap of faith since the assertions cannot be verified due to the secret nature of the program.

The real bullshit doesn’t appear until the final paragraph. It is asserted that the Terrorist Surveillance Program is firmly grounded in law. This is a classic example of trying to make something true simply by saying asserting is over and over again.  I am not educated in law, but I am an educated and intelligent individual. A degree in law is not required to judge between solid and weak arguments, and it is certainly not required to understand the provisions of the Constitution. The ruling by Judge Taylor is VERY solid and it is clear that the TSP is NOT firmly grounded in law. This is not a difficult determination, it is obvious and plain.

The behavior of this administration is very totalitarian in nature and it disturbs me greatly. I will be writing more on this subject…

The full text of the decision can be downloaded from: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pdf/aclunsa.pdf. It is a good read.

P.S. To President Bush and all the lemmings that adore him: Kiss my ass mother-fuckers! *shoves the first amedment in their collective faces*

I’m feeling the need to plan something epic. Something epic, and with a motorcycle. My 450 mile trip to Rocky Mountain National Park proved that my Poudre and my ass are capable of extended rides. An epic ride of epic distance sounds like fantastic fun. I think a trip should include a path through Yellowstone, into Canada, across Canada, south through New England, west just south of the great lakes, and back into Colorado. That could be something like 9-10 thousand miles total. I might even go so far as to visit Therese in NB. How’s that for epic? I’m getting excited just thinking about it.

Ya know, it would be REALLY nice to share my epic adventures with another soul. Sadly I simply do not know people who do epic things. Well, I do know one person, but he is a bit too poor.  *sigh*

The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. For a long time I didn’t really know why I liked it so much. It should have been obvious as the answer was staring me right in the face. In any case, it struck me this morning as I was watching it.

There are the three good things in life that characterize the human experience: faith, hope, and love. The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies that characterises the human spirit and hope. Yes, there are not enough movies about hope.

On a side note, it is interesting to observe that to the populace in Lebanon and Palestine, Hezbollah and Hamas are the organizations that represent hope for a better future. I believe that the failure of diplomacy in the Middle East is connected directly to the failure of the governing powers to seek the welfare of the people ahead of their own hold on power. I believe it to be a moral failing for US foreign policy to support corrupt governments so long as those governements are inline with our business interests. Indeed, it is interesting how Bush’s so-called faith extends only to token social programs. It is sad to look at the historical failure of western Christianity to take its faith to its logical conclusion in matters of social justice.

Most people have no clue what it is exactly what I do. It’s not exactly easy to explain what you do to people not in my field. I was having lunch the other day and I overheard a conversation going on at the table next to me. I was surprised because they were having a business lunch and were obviously in my domain of expertise. The word that caught my attention was ‘Geospatial.’ That pretty much sums it up in a word. I write software and that software falls into the geospatial domain. You won’t find a good definition of geospatial on the internet, but it falls under the broad subject of geomatics.

“Geomatics Engineering is a modern discipline, which integrates acquisition, modelling, analysis, and management of spatially referenced data, i.e. data identified according to their locations. Based on the scientific framework of geodesy, it uses terrestrial, marine, airborne, and satellite-based sensors to acquire spatial and other data. It includes the process of transforming spatially referenced data from different sources into common information systems with well-defined accuracy characteristics.”

That’s what I do.

It says in Proverbs that you should not answer a fool according to his folly, least you become like him. The next sentence says that you SHOULD answer a fool according to his folly, least he be wise in his own eyes.

That clears it all up now. You see, when you deal with a fool there is no winning scenario. It’s simply best to avoid them in your life if at all possible. Hopefully your family does not include a significant amount of fools because then you may be out of luck in any avoidance scheme.

Fool’s are easy to spot in an argument. They:

• Seek to dominate the argument, either by talking more than the other guy or by talking louder.
• Attempt to construct an argument using logic, but fail miserably. This can take the form of a straw man argument, or something like drawing a conclusion from two or more premises. It is often the case that the premises just don’t hold and even if they do the conclusion typically doesn’t follow logically.
• Often take the argument very, very personally. The can either take the form of claiming that a point made against their argument is against them in person, or it could take shape in making personal attacks against the other person. Often both are used at the same time.

There are few things more pitiful than the sight of two fools arguing. Especially when neither one knows anything about the subject matter. On the other hand, it is quite interesting listening to two wise people debate. Here is a chance to gain wisdom. The combination of wise/fool should be avoided at all costs.

oh, so very dead.

I don’t like it when people use straw man arguments. It’s shows only a shallow understanding of the subject and none of its complexities. Here, I’ll help you kick that straw man. Lets even light him on fire and see if he runs to Dorthy. Good. Now can we get onto a real argument? Oh, you can’t? Then perhaps you shouln’t argue a point when you lack sufficient domain knowledge.