UnSpace

Have you ever seen those stores with the signs "Closed for Remodeling?" Ever notice how few of them actually re-open? I've always wondered if it's just a dodge to get creditors to hesitate while the proprietors head for parts unknown.

I guess I'm about to find out what the truth is.

I need to concentrate on three things, and for at least a month, maintaining this blog would distract from that concentration:

• I'm fighting depression again. Exposure to stupidity is known to exacerbate the problem. The psychiatrist has noted in the past that I always seem to get depressed in early fall. I wonder if that's related to the first Tuesday in November?
• I'm trying to take NaNoWriMo seriously this year. L. Ron Hubbard, the hack, liar, and con artist, continues to write and publish books, and he's dead. Surely I can do better than him.
• I am studying a martial art. In college, I took a class in Tae Kwon Do. After college, I became proficient with several martial arts weapons, including bo, kubotan, sai, nunchaku, and semi-automatic handguns. Now I have decided to study Tae Kwon Leap. Too many people have been tipping the fraggin' vessel of knowledge, and I need to be prepared. This may help with the depression thing as well.

There's other things, which I don't feel like getting into here. Those of you who know, understand.

Strangely, this announcement comes on the fourth or second anniversary of the UnSpace blog, depending upon how you wish to deal with the rather long hiatus after the shuttle Columbia tragedy.

Will UnSpace return from the remodeling, or is this a goodbye disguised?

Even I don't know. Perhaps this is the end. Perhaps I'm just stockpiling boots.

Two people are owed books — you will get them. One person is owed an escort to a voting place. I will make sure you get that, too. Anyone else I owe something to, please remind me. I'm not kidding about the depression, and sometimes getting things done in a reasonable amount of time is one of the symptoms.

Thanks to all who have helped me over the years.

The Pleiades.

This image of the Pleiades was taken merely with my camera and zoom lense. Quite a bit of processing in Corel Paint Shop Pro XI (new edition; I'm still learning to use it) was done to emphasize all the stars. As seen through a telescope, the Pleiades are a wonderous jewel in the night sky. This photo gives just a brief impression of the richness one would see with the human eye through the eyepiece.

We are reaching the time of year known as the culmination of the Pleiades. With the setting of the sun, the Pleiades rise; at midnight, the Pleiades will be at their highest point, and at sunrise, the Pleiades will be setting.

Worldwide, the Pleiades are known as the Seven Sisters, which is a bit strange since only 6 stars are visible to the naked eye. Astronomers doubt that one of the stars has gone out. Instead, various cultures have various explanations for the absence of the one sister. Anthropologists believe that this asterism (like the Great Bear) dates back to a time before humanity was widespread on Earth — these star groupings may be over 12,000 years old.

Many cultures associate the culmination of the Pleiades with death. Culmination used to take place on October 31st, but now it's later in November. As it was in mid-fall, the natural association with the death of the plants with the increasingly cold weather was natural. The culmination of the Pleiades signaled the coming winter.

The Mayans and the Aztecs believed that four times, the world had been destroyed while the Pleiades were in opposition to the sun; when next the world ended, the Pleiades would once again be high overhead at midnight.

The Pleiades can be thought of as a symbol of ending.

I was surprised and glad to receive an e-mail message from Bonnie Veraldi. She chose to respond to me, commenting on my article Help "Those in Housing Crisis: Just Not in Pleasant Hills." I had hoped to respond with a thoughtful analysis. Further communication with Ms. Veraldi led me to understand that she was sincere and of a good heart. This seemed the perfect opportunity to engage in the very sort of dialogue that my pastor had encouraged me toward, and away from the vituperativeness that I felt following the meeting.

Unfortunately, following my posting of Ms. Veraldi's e-mail were several comments and e-mails from anonymous people, none of whom were of a good heart.

The messages were profane and racist. The agents I passed them on to have recommended I not publish the messages and that any other such messages be forwarded to them. I was told that none of the messages contained "actionable" content, but that I should be prudent in my behavior for my own safety. One question that was answered for me was that none of the messages appeared to originate in Pleasant Hills, although nothing could be said for certain. Instead, I got a lecture reminding me of one of the sadder things western Pennsylvania is noted for, and some instruction on some fun features my hosting site provides that I was unaware of.

At a younger age, I might have ignored this advice and attempted to take on these people. In the process, I would have almost certainly destroyed any chance of clearing up the misinformation and misunderstandings around the church's proposed programs.

With age, though, comes the knowledge that there are certain battles that simply can't be won, and there's no point in even trying. Part of me hopes that's simply old age talking and not the truth.

The baser part of me hopes that, at some time in the future, those people of Pleasant Hills and elsewhere who opposed the proposed program will find themselves in need of some form of aid — and be unable to find it. Logic has its place, but nothing clears the mind like personal experience. The better part of me always hopes for mercy instead of justice. Mercy is always better; it's just not as humorous.

No part of me would wish that fate on Bonnie Veraldi. Like I said. I've learned that, while we disagree, she means well. Once she came to truly understand what was being suggested (and the scientific realities regarding the spread of infectious diseases), I think she would change her mind.

BTW: The quote that I used as the title of this article is from Die Jungfrau von Orleans beim Friedrich Schiller, Dritter Aufzug, Sechster Auftritt. I had no idea that one of my favorite quotes was from a play about one of my favorite historical characters. Amazingly appropriate, though.

I received the following e-mail about the post "Help Those in Housing Crisis: Just Not in Pleasant Hills." The following is a direct copy from the e-mail; no changes have been made other than to place it in a blockquote:

Rob, I am e -mailing you because I am SO low- tech, I don't know how to blog.You may publish this as a blog or not, whatever.But since you can publish yours in it's entirety, I would appreciate the same courtesy. A neighbor gave me a copy of your piece re: above subject and I felt I had to respond. While I DO appreciate your follow -up piece, may I speak for our group and tell you that we are un-apologetic about our stand on this. I was the woman in the front row that did some research on the area through a realtor and a police officer. Do you and your followers live near this church? How would you feel if something was trying to come into YOUR neighborhood that would affect your home, safety, health, etc? How would you like YOUR taxes to go up to pay for this? Children not immunized coming in contact with your children?Mrs. Donnan- IHN director, has not been honest from the beginning, her story changed constantly, and she in fact denied the police reports until I called her on it! My husband does back-ground checks on people and it can take WEEKS, but according to her, she has a magic wand.Our MAIN concern is that once something is re-zoned, that opens the door to ANYTHING.How would you and your supporters like a methadone clinic in your neighborhood, or a halfway house for child molesters ,etc. They're all GOD'S people to you, right? This is a ZONED residential neighborhood and we intend for it to stay that way.Tell "Stewie" he can threaten all he wants with RLUIPA- it does'nt apply here. And the LONE vote at the meeting for this should have re-cused himself because he was not impartial, being a member of the church. And lastly, when you were saying your piece, the grumbling was'nt about your views, it was - 1. that you were constantly taking pictures, which was distracting, and -2. you were going on and on about yourself. Even the commision told you to wrap it up. This has been interesting to see the fervor this has created on both sides, and maybe the church finally sees that in their arrogance they have turned the people against them that they tried to control. Bonnie Veraldi

I will leave this up for a day or two and then publish my own response. All commenters are welcome.

Note: The follow-up post that is referred to is this one: I Was Wrong

By comparing word use and word combination frequencies of Shakespeare's plays with those of other authors of his time, scientists have determined that William Shakespeare authored the plays attributed to him.

Apparently, Edward deVere's death in 1601, 10 years before the last of Shakespeare's plays, was insufficient to prove that he was not the author of the famous plays. That Shakespeare made gross scientific errors in his plays (based on the science of his time) never eliminated Lord Byron as a potential Shakespearian ghost writer. Douglas Adams was also considered a possible suspect, although that would have required a contraceptive failure and a time machine.

Later this week, NASA is expected to announce that the sun appears to rise in the east approximately every 23.934 hours.

The South Koreans, who got a better seizmic look at the North Korean nuclear test, put the explosive power at .5 kT.

Highly advanced weapons programs have difficulty producing nuclear explosions less than 5 kT, even when they're trying to produce something that small. .5 kT is an order of magnitude less. Are North Korean nuclear scientists incredible geniuses…or did something go wrong?

Fox News, based on information from the Washingto Times, suggests that the North Koreans used the equivalent of .5 kT of TNT to start the nuclear reaction…which failed. .5kT of TNT equivalent to make the nuclear weapon work? And it didn't?

My dear wife, who was once trained to not accidentally cause nuclear explosions, said it best:

What did they do? Collect up all the radium watches they could find and try to get them to blow up? With 500 tons of TNT, I could set off a nuclear reaction with your comic book collection!

(Honesty, comic books cannot be used to construct any nuclear weapon without a neutron star or black hole. That was just wishful thinking on Nancy's part.)

Now, let's just think about this nuclear weapon they were trying to threaten the world with. 500 tons of TNT is a lot. For comparison, the Space Shuttle can loft about 50,000 lbs. Now, assuming that's short tons of TNT, it would take 20 Space Shuttle flights to loft that weight. Assuming you got a better explosive than TNT (cubane? I don't know if it's all that more explosive, but it's such a fun compound, I have to suggest it!) and you cut it down to one Space Shuttle flight to launch your bomb.

Let's face it: Deploying a North Korean 500 ton TNT-equivalent weapon is problematic. Forget sending it on a crappy North Korean missile. A tractor trailer or 747 could be used to fly the thing to the target, but it would almost certainly have to be a suicide mission. We're not talking a suitcase weapon, here folks!

This nuke is a total embarassment. I'm surprised they didn't deny the whole thing. Whoever runs PR for North Korea should have put out the following bulletin:

Our illustrious leader ate at Taco Bell; what the South Koreans recorded was simply his magnificent flatus (and it smells good, too!)! If this is what his flatus is like, think what he will do to you running-dog reactionaries when he finally decides to punish you for your evil!

500 kT to set off the nuke? And it didn't work? I wonder how many of the research team committed suicide after this, and how many have since been executed.

I just got a phone call "not paid for by any candidate." The woman on the recording said that I had recently been sent an absentee voting ballot request form and that they needed my vote in the November election because it will be close.

I'm a Democrat. I don't think they really want my true vote. Nancy was a Republican, but the last time she got her license renewed, she changed to Democrat.

Has someone requested an absentee ballot in one of our names? Is there a way to find out? If, on election day, one (or both of us) are told we cannot vote because we are voting by absentee ballot, what is the appropriate procedure for us to take?

I believe the phone call was simply an automated mistake. But I received no absentee voting ballot request.

When it comes to voting, I'd rather be prepared to deal with potential problems, rather than trying to figure it out on an emergency basis.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

The Moon, hidden by clouds.

The standing joke is that, anytime there's something I wish to see in the sky, the atmosphere above Pittsburgh refuses to cooperate. As you can see in the above picture, taken about 20 minutes before the Moon was to begin occluding the Pleiades, the tradition appeared set to continue.

The clouds begin to thin.

A few minutes later, just before I went to hear Jay Leno's monologue, things seemed to be improving. Might this work out?

The waning gibbous Moon.

By the time "Headlines" was over (mandatory watching in our house), the sky had cleared. My photos of the Moon are improving further. I definitely need to swap out the focus mechanism on the telescope. While my eyes can apparently refocus things slightly off, the camera can't. I'm getting better at focusing, but it's way too finicky. Heck, I want a telescope/camera combination with autofocus!

Now, I didn't take time to set up the autotracking on the telescope. With the bright Moon and the neighbor's lights, I didn't think I had a hope of getting it to work. Besides, I haven't read the instructions yet. Typical guy, right?

So I was surprised at the streaks on the 3 second photograph of the edge of the moon revealed:

The Pleiades and the Moon.

Ok, first off, I tortured this photograph to make the stars easily visible at this resolution. I'm not even quite sure what I did to make them visible. This is definitely not the original photograph. (All the others were merely corrected for exposure and cropped).

The Moon is far brighter than the stars, and at any exposure that reveals the stars, the Moon is whited out. I could actually see the two stars closest to the Moon through the camera eyepiece. F.D. of Ales Rarus questioned whether cameras really were inferior to human eyes. To me, this proves it, although I understand the Nikon D80 has a wider range of response. I don't have a Nikon D80. Whine.

The stars are streaks. Longer exposures (8 seconds) show streaks a bit more than two times the length of the 3 second exposures. In other words, almost all of the streaks are caused by rotation of the Earth. Moon photos, which tend to be taken in fractions of a second, don't have that problem.

This image looks to be fairly close to the Starry night image for the exact same time. Before taking the good Moon and Pleiades photos, I set the camera clock with the kitchen atomic clock — the time stamp is probably within a second or two.

The stars, by the way, are easy for me to identify, at least using the Starry Night software. The star at the top right near the Moon is Taygeta. Below it and closest to the Moon is Maia. Over to the left, there are two fainter stars closer together. The top one is Sterope. Below it is 22 Tauri. This star is also a member of the Pleiades. Before telescopes were invented, this star was also named Sterope — it was thought to be just one star! The Pleiades were used by ancient Greeks and North American Indians (and probably a lot of other people as well) as a visual acuity test.

Photographing the reappearance of the stars from behind the Moon should have been far easier than photographing them approaching the lit limb of the Moon. Yet I never saw any and none of the photographs, no matter how I torture them to exaggerate differences in the pixels, shows any sign of the stars re-emerging from behind the Moon. I don't understand why at all.

I did check the news this morning. If the stars hadn't re-emerged, I'm pretty sure that would have made the headlines.

Last night, I dreamt I was clothes shopping.

On the warm Pittsburgh night, a boxy yellow wagon¹ I'd seen in an earlier dream, packed with teens, pulled up. I carefully went over to the passenger window and the kid riding shotgun said "She tried to kill herself." Looking toward the rear seats, I could see them holding her body.

I went around to the hatchback, opened it up, and had them pass her out to me. The kids said she'd been down for 30 minutes; they'd been looking for a hospital and they were certain she was now dead. The rifle came with her as well. My friend was on the phone calling 911, and I wound up handling the body myself. I cursed as her head flopped back when I took her in my arms. So much for C-spine protection. Her airway open, she gasped and started moving.

I got her down on the ground. She was young, maybe 19. Short brown hair, matted on the one side. The wound looked like an attempted hesitation mark. She'd chickened out as she pulled the trigger, but the bullet caught her skull at abit more than a tangent and dug in on the temporal region. You could see a tunnel in the brain matter where the bullet went in. There should have been an exit wound, but there wasn't. The bullet must have ricocheted inside her brain. Was it a squib, a bad load that did no damage? I didn't have time to think about it. There wasn't as much blood as I expected. Everything was clotted and dried. How long had these kids driven around searching for the hospital?

I lay her down on the ground and went to make sure her airway was open. She was breathing on her own quite well. One of the kids came over and said "Why are you trying to save her? She's just going to wind up a vegetable."

I explained to him that, even if she dies, her organs might save the lives of five or six people. I started to say something about not trusting their "30 minute" estimate. Bystanders (me included) never estimate time correctly in situations like this. But there was that dried, caked blood.

The young girl stirred and opened her eyes. Given the amount of brain trauma, I didn't understand how, but I wasn't going to argue. In a weak voice, she said "What happened?"

Only now did I think to remove the gun from her reach. I passed it over to my friend. He wasn't feeling well, so he put the rifle down on the street and sat down over it. "You were hurt" I said to the young girl. I didn't want to bring up what she'd done to herself.

"I tried to kill myself. Everything felt so bad. But now, it doesn't hurt any more. Is this heaven?"

"No," I chuckled. "this is Strawberry Way, near Macys."

Despite my request, she sat up and hugged me. "I don't want to die any more" she said. "It's gone! It's gone!" She started to laugh.

At first, I wasn't too thrilled about the hug. If I cut myself shaving, I have to resist the temptation to glove up. Blood is bad; I've never seen a theologian comment on the change in the view of blood in modern society. The head wound, which was on the other side, had stopped bleeding, which was strange. There wasn't any blood that I could see. Nothing felt "squishy." I hugged her back. She talked about her life and what she was going to do now that the dark monster was gone. I wanted to believe her depression was really gone, though this was not a recommended treatment.

Medic 5 pulled up, and two guys hopped out. One I'd worked with; one was someone hired in the decade since I'd quit. I filled them in on the medical report. The guy I knew took over caring for the girl, and he kept up the same conversation with her that I'd started. She didn't seem to notice the change. Just how much brain damage was there? She got the works: collar, long board, CID, oxygen, and as they drove off (on-scene time — 3 minutes according to my watch — good job) the guy I didn't know in the back was going for an IV.

The next day, I went to the hospital in the Oxford Tower. I'm not sure why they moved Mercy into the Oxford tower, but patient rooms were on the 40th floor. I went up, walked past the nurse's station, and went to where her room should have been. The room wasn't there. The whole room was just gone.

At the nurse's station, they filled me in on the night before. By the time the ambulance had gotten to the E.R., the girl was unconscious again. The doctors were reluctant to believe the medic report that she had been conscious and alert times four, that she had been conscious at all. They did what they could. During the surgery, her brain swelled so bad that, to get the skull back on, they had to trim away large sections of the brain. Her parents decided to remove life support, and asked that it be done in such a way as to harvest as many of her organs as possible for transplant.

The nurse saw that I was upset, and tried to comfort me. "Look, what you did last night saved the lives of five or six people."

The nurse started to walk away, and turned back.

"It's a good thing you done." She didn't look old enough to remember the Twilight Zone. At least I hoped she wasn't. If this were a TV show instead of a dream, I'm sure someone would have played Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in the background, and it would be listed on Wikipedia.

Somewhere, a woman started screaming as if she was being ax-murdered. I woke up, opened my eyes, rolled off the bed, and, from a crouched position peeked over the bed, searching the bedroom door and beyond for attackers. Chauncey screamed again, and this time I recognized his voice. False alarm.

Time to get up. But maybe I've got an interesting post for the blog…

1. A local florist has one of these things. They're ugly and yet attractive. I don't know what they're called. [back]

Pittsburgh times (approximate, and may vary based on your actual location):

Note: The Japanese name for this asterism is "Subaru."

Our senior pastor for the past 18 years was a chemical engineer before entering the ministry. I happened to mention how fortunate we have been: we had someone who knew both what T.U.L.I.P. and RPN are!

BTW: the "Polish" in RPN is not an insult.

Full Moon.

I'm getting better at the astrophotography. Here's a full Moon photo I took the other night. It still needs some work. Apparently the focus is different for the viewfinder and for the camera sensor, so once I get the system set up, I need to work on getting an exact focus.

There are some other tricks, too: minimizing vibration, setting the camera so that I get "RAW" files (this appears to avoid some "cleanup" that degrades the image), and picking a night with low wind.

I still need to learn a lot, but I'm improving.

Believe it or not, a webcam may be my next purchase. Webcams are actually one of the best instruments for certain types of observations: you pick the best frames and then sum them using the software.

I may take a while before I get to that!

The Recording Institute Association of America (RIAA) has a chance to file the most bizarre copyright lawsuit of all times, thanks to Leondard Cohen.

Last night, while watching Numb3rs on TV¹, they started playing the song "Hallelujah." Nancy commented that it was the third or fourth time they played this song on a show we watched.

I looked it up on Wikipedia, and found that we'd heard it far more than that: House, The L Word, Scrubs, The West Wing, Without a Trace, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, Crossing Jordan, and Numb3rs. Strangely, the Numb3rs episode was already listed, mere hours after it first aired. That's Wikipedia for you — it may or may not be accurate, but it's up-to-the-minute!

Now, good luck trying to find all the lyrics. The original performance had 15 verses; most recordings are mix-and-match of those lyrics plus later added ones. But almost all versions have a verse that drives the RIAA nuts:

I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord.
Bbut you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall and the major lift,
The baffled king composing hallelujah.

Now, if you're not familiar with the RIAA, they're the nutcases suing grandmothers for downloading hardcore rap and web sites for listing chords used in songs. They do it all in the name of protecting "copyrights." To them, there is no such thing as "fair use." If you take a CD and copy the song to your MP3 player, to them, that's a copyright violation and you're guilty of high treason and ought to be declared an enemy combatant. There's no such thing to them as fair use, so I might get sued for quoting one verse of a 15+ verse song as part of an editorial.

But if you're a musician and you look at the lyrics, you'll notice that they lyrics themselves give some of the chords! Where it says "Well it goes like this," that's obvoiusly a major chord. As an example, let's say it's the G chord. The song is written in the Ionian mode, meaning we can expect G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim chords. The fourth would be C and the fifth would be D. The minor fall could only be Em. The major lift is obviously C and D, since they're the only two major chords side by side.

In other words, the song is it's own chord chart, at least in part. From those chords, it's easy to figure out the rest of the song. Many chord chart sites list them; bizarrely, several list the wrong chords, especially for this verse. Don't look at me, I don't understand how they could possibly have a major chord listed where it' says it's minor.

So, does this mean the RIAA could sue Leonard Cohen (the author of the song, and apparently the author of several other favorite songs, including "Suzanne") for illegally making public the chords to this song?

I hope they try it. I love watching deranged insanity at work.

And yes, they could sue me for pointing out that the song reveals the chords!

1. Ok, like you're all surprised Nancy and I are glued to the TV set for that one. [back]

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website:

The perpetrator apparently started threatening the chief of police when the chief asked for assistance from the public in solving this hate crime. The WPXI article gives a photograph of two of the letters; perhaps someone will recognize the distinctive characteristics of the printing. Some of the letters mailed by the perp contained a powder and were evaluated by a hazmat team.

Members of the local Christian community attended the press conference as part of a show of solidarity with the synagogues and against the perpetrator.

His pattern appears to be to target the Jewish institutions that bother him as well as anyone who attempts to interfere in his attacks. Given the new involvement by so many people — the FBI, the local news media, and local Christians — he really should consider setting up a mailing list and getting a bulk mail permit. Done properly, he can probably cut his preparatory time in half and save 70-80% on his printing and postage costs, especially since most of his mailings will stay in White Oak. Less intelligent perpetrators fail to take advantage of this, leading to both their arrest and greater out-of-pocket expenses.

The EQ Industrial Services Inc hazardous waste plant in Apex, NC caught fire, forcing emergency responders to evacuate up to 17,000 people. A yellow chlorine-smelling cloud hangs over the town today as firefighters stand by and watch it burn — often the least bad choice when dealing with a HazMat incident.

So far, only 18 people have been injured — many of them law enforcement personnel. While most fire and EMS personnel are trained in hazardous materials response, police are often neglected. Because they are often first on the scene, they are often most at risk. The injuries are respiratory and/or nausea in nature.

A significant HazMat incident like this puts a terrible strain on the resources of an area. The original order to evacuate about half the residents, was increased when weather changes shifted the toxic plume. Apex has made use of mutual aid, which became especially important when the 911 center had to be evacuated. Reverse 911 was used to inform residents of the need to evacuate.

Shelters have been set up, nursing homes evacuated, streets closed off, and other typical responses for such an incident have been implimented. The corporation that owns the plant is mobilizing it's own response team.

This would be a difficult incident to respond to; because it was a waste disposal plant, which hazardous waste has caught fire is not known, and the materials in the plant may not be categorized in sufficient detail, as would a traditional chemical plant fire or rail car inferno. This makes protection of HazMat personnel more difficult and probably contributes to the decision to hang back and let it burn. Fire often breaks down organic compounds into less toxic components. Chlorine, if it reacts, will form chemicals that are often easier to deal with.

The plant was near petrolium tanks, which have also caught fire.

According to MSNBC's AP report,

In March, the state Department of Natural Resources had fined EQ $32,000 for six violations at the plant, including failing to “maintain and operate the facility to minimize the possibility of a sudden or non-sudden release of hazardous waste … which could threaten human health or the environment.”

As in mine safety enforcement (much in the news around the West-Virginia / Ohio / Pennsylvania area), the Federal government has taken a far more "industry friendly" approach to regulating the manufacturing and disposal of hazardous materials. The concept, that cooperation produces greater industry compliance, would appear to not actually work in practice. Rather than cooperating, the kinder approach seems to encourage industry to see just how much it can get away with. Whether that is what has happened in the Apex case is not yet known.

The author of the UnSpace blog was taken to the woodshed and whacked with a 2×4.

"Deservedly so," says Nancy. "He was just rude."

Rob says it was the painkillers, pain, hypoglycemia (blood glucose level was 79 mg/dl; normal is 80-120 mg/dl), depression, mania induced by antidepressant, phase of the Moon (full Moon lousy for astrophotography if there was ever a time when clouds weren't obscuring it), CSI: Miama (why are we still watching that piece of drek?), anxiety over whether Eureka! would be renewed (it was), and inhaling fumes from diswasher detergent.

Actually, I just tried being a little cute and I shouldn't have been. I screwed up, pure and simple. I'll try to do better.

Sorry about that.

Someone has to speak out about the horrible scientific inaccuracy in this video!

Ok. I can accept insects playing teeny tiny instruments. I'll let pass that the pitch of those instruments would be far above human hearing. I'll ignore the problem that such creepy-crawlies would not be romantically attracted to a human — to them, we're grotesque and deformed. I'll argue that an appropriate tuning would permit the guitarist insect to play the guitar despite the lack of fingers. Insects do not breathe in and out of their mouths; they breathe through spiracles on their thoraxes. I'll even make some handwaving excuses that it's not the organophosphate in the insecticide that causes the hallucinations, that rather the hallucinations are a byproduct of hypoxia and overstimulation of the nerves. I'll even excuse the slow, painful death of the bass player. Everyone knows bass players are really cool.

But a woman smiling as she vacuums? Come on! Some things just push the envelope of "suspension of disbelief" to absurd levels!

Thanks to Multi Medium for pointing out this video. Even though I've got a phobia about electron micrographs of insects, this is still cool.

It's Friday Feast time once again, probably because it's Friday. See, this is far more logical than what NBC does. They put Friday Night Lights on Tuesday. I'm betting people are confused by that.

If you want to join in, put up your answers on your blog and a comment at Friday's Feast.

Appetizer
Name a song you know by heart.

I am guaranteed to be the only person to list this song for the Friday Five. I'm probably the only one who has ever heard it that blogs. I can play this one on keyboard, it's the song I probably play best on guitar, and I can sing this one from some place in my heart. I learned the song as Clyde described the musical to some friends, back in 1973. Growing up, Clyde was my hero. I wanted to be him. There are other reasons why this song is special, too, but mostly it says something about how I want to live my life.

Do the World a Favor
by Clyde Ligons (c) Clyde Ligons
from the musical
"One Way Road"

Do the world a favor,
And help the Son,
And love your neighbor,
Everyone.

Give a gift to mankind,
Give a precious one,
And love your neighbor
Everyone.

Moonbeams
Which light your dreams
And paint them silver stone,
We'll paint every one to let us know
That we are never, never never
Never alone.
Oh yes we're never alone.

Raise an institution
And have some fun
And love your neighbor,
Everyone.

Do the world a favor
And help the Son,
And love your neighbor,
And love your neighbor,
And love your neighbor,
Everyone.

Soup
What will you absolutely not do in front of another person?

I've been married for 23 years, was a paramedic for over 11, lived in the dorms in college, and was on several sports teams. I can't think of anything I haven't done in front of someone else. For crying out loud, I dressed up as a clown for the church youth group. A clown! I've got clown phobia! Now, I can think of a lot of things I wish I'd never done, like dress up like a clown. I can even think of things I'd never do, like deliberately murder someone. But, unless I get silly and say something like "Skydive naked into Neptune's atmosphere," I can't come up with anything.

Salad
How often do you use mouthwash and what kind do you like?

I use an anti-plaque rinse before brushing, but I love the original Lavoris flavor from when I was a kid.

Main Course
Finish this sentence: I am embarrassed when…

…I look stupid. I'm embarrassed a lot.

Dessert
What was the last food you craved?

French's French Fried Onions. There's a quarter can left next to me. It's a strange comfort food.

Apparently, few people like Rick Santorum. Even the people who agree with him seem to despise him. Does science offer anything to help Santorum in these last days before the election?

Brain Transplant:

A brain transplant would be the easiest solution. Take out Santorum's brain, pop in someone else's and voila! Someone everyone can like!

It won't work. Brain transplants simply aren't currently feasible. You do realize that "Spock's Brain" was a) science fiction and b) bad science fiction, right? The brain, connected by all those cranial nerves and the spine, is simply too difficult to remove and reinstall. I'm not sure the body would heal up in time, and it sure wouldn't look like Santorum given the number of cuts required.

The brain would also be totally disconnected from the body, incapable of even blinking. Strangely, this might be fixable with current technology. Do you think they'd mind using embryonic stem cells? They seem to actually work in rats.

Nah, forget it. The brain transplant's right out. Besides, legally, Santorum is his brain. It might look like him, but, if consistent, the courts should rule that his brain gets elected, not his body.

Face Transplant:

If you saw the Travolta/Cage movie, you might think about this. Unfortunately, connecting the nerves is too difficult — those pesky embryonic stem cells again. Also, there's the whole problem of "Which one's Santorum?" As in the previous answer, it's Santorum's brain that counts. Now, they might lie and tell us the wrong one is Santorum, but of course American politicians would never lie.

I also suspect Mrs. Santorum might object. I doubt she even likes Nicholas Cage. If she does, I don't want to know. I refuse to contribute to breaking up anyone's marriage.

Facial Nerve Severing:

This only gets rid of the sneer. Cutting the 7th cranial nerve won't be enough. Severing the Hypoglossal (12th cranial nerve) will prevent him from verbalizing, although he could still use a Hawking-like keyboard. No good.

Brain Trauma:

I'll include lobotomies in this one. The problem is, most brain trauma makes people nastier. I keep referring to that poor guy, a good Christian teetotaller, provider, husband, and father who got a piece of rebar through the brain and turned into a drunken lout. It's mostly either that or the "happy moron" of lobotomy fame. Stupid won't get elected, and could you imagine Santorum getting nastier? Not a good idea.

Hypnosis:

I can do in 5 minutes with suggestions what a lot of hypnotists can do with hours of hypnosis. Suggestion has been found to be far more powerful than hypnosis, especially if you know anything about Milton Ericson. I am sure Santorum's handlers have suggested to Hershey and back that he chill out a bit. If that doesn't work, neither will the hypnosis. Bzzzz. Wrong answer.

Reason:

Tell Santorum to act like a nice person until he gets re-elected or he won't get re-elected. In other words, lie. I know Santorum doesn't lie. Tell him it has to do with getting his kids' schooling paid for by the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. That might help with any moral compunctions. But I think they've already tried that. Have you seen Santorum's "nice" commercials? It doesn't work. The sneer is still there, and his voice still has enough of the dripping sarcasm in his voice to make your skin crawl. Chauncey starts screaming the "snake" alarm every time Santorum comes on TV. It's getting annoying. I can't wait for this election cycle to be over.

Brainwashing and Torture:

Don't laugh. I've considered having this done to me to make me lose weight. It will work, and what's a few more psychological scars after the crap I've been through? Santorum shouldn't be opposed to this. He supports torturing enemy combatants, and that includes Americans who tell Dick Cheney they don't agree with him. So if he supports torture for Americans, it would make sense he'd be willing to subject himself to this for the sake of the Republican party.

There's only one problem: If they fix him, they turn him into Bob Casey Jr. Why vote for Santorum when you can vote for the original? They've pounded really hard on the "Vote for Rick Santorum because he's a rectal orifice, unlike Bobby Casey Jr." Fixing Santorum just costs votes. I'm not sure that's really a good campaign commercial to run.

Advertising:

What do you think they've been trying? It doesn't work, at least in this case. An awful lot of money has been spent to no effect. This just might destroy the advertising industry. No loss there.

Eliminate Santorum From the Campaign:

George W. Bush is a loser, and so the Santorum campaign has asked him to stay far, far away. I think this is working. So why not take it one step further: Could we eliminate Rick Santorum from the Santorum campaign? Have other people appear in the commercials, being very careful to not mention Rick Santorum. Look, the guy's already got name recognition — that's the problem. If no one sees Santorum until after election, he just might win.

Unfortunately, the Casey campaign only has to mention that his opponent is Rick Santorum to defeat this strategy. Darn. I really liked this one.

Conclusion:

Contrary to what many believe, science does not hold all the answers to our problems.

Ms. Monongahela wrote me a nice letter, saying that she's been enjoying my ongoing tooth saga, that I've been a bit more entertaining than most such "organ recitals." The letter seems sincere but honestly, with Ms. Monongahela, there's bound to be some suspicion that maybe I'm just not getting the joke.

If I've been pwned, so be it!

My sense of humor is definitely out of whack. I have to keep reminding myself that "CSI: Miami" is not a comedy. I'm not saying it's a bad show, but my root canal was more suspenseful, more scientifically accurate, and far more entertaining. Ok, the writing for the root canal was not as good as CSI: Miami. The dentist and the assistant hardly talked at all.

I've been writing about it mostly because it's hard to think of anything other than that tooth. The root canal is over, but despite levels of anaprox that appear to be making me feel guilty over past personal mistakes best left forgotten¹, I'm still feeling some pain. At least it's no longer to the point where I"m wondering if there's some level of pain that will get me smashing my head into the wall like I did when I was two years old. Yeah, I probably have significant brain damage, which ought to explain a lot.

On the home front, it's far worse. We're supposed to eat dinner with my in-laws today. Nancy picked a time that would be easy to remember.

Tooth-hurty!

Thanks, hon. I love you, too.

1. Dang, though, one is hysterical, although it would take too much of a setup — anyone want to hear something that really humiliates me? [back]