This Blog has been moved

I am moving my blog to WordPress because I am sick of all the blogger jibber-jabber. Well, overall, Blogger worked pretty good, but not great and per the suggestion of my brother I shall try something new.

Go Here Now
http://dan.kokopop.com/

Blog Templates

Why do all the easy, free blog templates have these wide margins on each side. It just makes things hard to read. Making matters worse, the HTML is pretty complicated for a simple design (probably because blogs are now required to DO much more than just provide a space to write something). Anyway, I'm sure I'll change this one when I have time to find something I like better. Last time I changed, I forgot to add my google analytics to the code, so I don't even know if my readership has swelled into the thousands (or at least more than 2).

In other news, I'm sick. I'm pretty sure it's the flu, although not of the swine variety. My whole body aches and my head in congested, but no fever or coughing. Everyone seems to be sick.

The Onion

Watch the videos on the Onion's.

Hilarious.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/pre_game_coin_toss_makes

Guantánamo Bay and Gun Control

Just a quick thought on the two recent Congressional debates. The first is that they are stalling the closure of Guantanamo Bay because they don't know what to do with the current prisoners. Apparently no one wants them in their town. I'm pretty sure they are going to into a prison and not some work release program. Why would anyone care if there were terrorists in their local supermax prison. They aren't any more dangerous than the other serial killers or domestic terrorists housed there. Or why not just build a new prison just for them, which would be fine since they have a different set of rights (although I think that is not the best use of tax payers money). I live with 20 miles of two major prisons (Riker's Island and Sing Sing) and I couldn't care less. People don't escape. This whole thing looks bad for Obama who couldn't get a single Congressman to take these people (in exchange for good will and some extra funding).

The other thing is the latest Credit Card legislation. This bill is designed to protect consumers from being abused by Credit Card companies. However, the Republicans included a law allowing concealed guns into national parks. What? How is this legal? Now, I don't have is the gun law is good or bad, but I know it has nothing to do with credit cards. If Obama had some marbles he would veto the bill and insist that Congress sends him two different bills, one for each subject.

The Plauge of the 20th Century

Samaritrophia: A hysterical indifference to the troubles of those less fortunate than oneself

Samaritrophia is the suppression of an overactive conscience by the rest of the mind. "You must all take instructions from me!" the conscience shrieks, in effect, to all the other mental processes. The other processes try it for a while, note that the conscience is unappeased, that it continues to shriek, and they note, too, that the outside world has not been even microscopically improved by the unselfish acts the conscience has demanded.

They rebel at last. They pitch the tyrannous conscience down an oubliette, weld shut the manhole cover of that dark dungeon. They can hear the conscience no more. In the sweet silence, the mental processes look about for a new leader, and the leader most prompt to appear whenever the conscience is stilled, Enlightened Self-interest, does appear. Enlightened Self-interest gives them a flag, which they adore on sight. It is essentially the black and white Jolly Roger, with these words written beneath the skull and crossbones, 'The hell with you, Jack, I've got mine!"

- Kurt Vonnegut, God bless you, Mr. Rosewater

Poor Euclid

I am currently reading “Is God a Mathematician” by Mario Livio, a book that my brother sent me over the holidays. First, I need to say that 98% of the book has absolutely nothing to do with god or religion in any way. There is about 5% that has to do with philosophy, but it is basically a straight forward history of mathematics. I would bet that the name of the book and subsequent references to God where added after the book was already written. It was a marketing ploy through and through.

I just finished the section on non-Euclidian geometry and it was just silly. Let me explain, for thousands of years, geometry was the basis for much of math and logic. Euclidian geometry is the math we all learn in school. By stating several undeniable “truths” or axioms, people are able to extrapolate more complex concept and truths. These truths were used as the basis for all other mathematical adventures. They include things like: if you have a triangle the sum of all the angles inside the triangle is 180. You can make any triangle you want and it will always match that truth. Another one is: the shortest distance between two points in a straight line. Seems simple, right? Than along came some smart-ass mathematician who said, “well, what if reality only existed on the surface of sphere.” Under this premise, Euclidian geometry falls apart. Triangles will have more than 180 degrees and the quickest way between two points in a curve. People have dedicated their careers to what the math would look like on such a circular reality. In fact, people just kept creating new ways that reality could be shaped and researched the math in their new world. This includes realities shaped like saddles, cones, lines, ellipses, and countless other shapes or functions.

Now there is some utility in concepts like this. A plane travelling from New York to Paris cannot travel in a straight line because that would mean it would have to go through the crust of the earth. The plane has to calculate the best possible curve to reach its destination. However, the curve is still not the shortest way, it is just the shortest way that we can realistically travel. The true shortest path is through the earth’s crust. Non-Euclidian geometry may be useful, but how can anyone consider it a way of describing a reality beyond the arbitrary rules it creates for itself.

Non-Euclidian also allows Mathematicians to do things like calculate the rules of geometry with more than three dimensions. So a cube would have length, width, height, and something else. What would be the math if this meta-physical fourth physical dimension (not time) existed. So they create this alternate reality and an alternate math and claim that the truths that exist in that world are true mathematical truths (which conflict with Euclidian geometry).

(Side note: It is this ridiculous logic that allowed physicists to add extra dimensions into their calculations in order to have their theories fit their observations. This is at the core of M-theory, which I do not even consider a scientific theory since it is based on evidence that can never be proven or disproven.)

Anyway, I am thinking about creating Lipka-Geometry. I will calculate a new math based on the concept of a reality that only exists on the surface of my face. What will a triangle look like? What is the shortest distance between my left ear and my right eyebrow? Uggg, poor Euclid.

Arlen Specter (R or D)

What, what, what? Arlen Specter , the 30 year US Senator from Pennsylvania was a middle-republican his entire life, but this morning he dropped the GOP and wants to be a Democrat. I despise political parties and believe they have a tremendous negative effect on progress and democracy. I believe that once elected everyone should be forced to be an independent and not have any political affiliation. And I don’t care if he changes his party, but what is important is whether he changes his politics. It would have been more appropriate if he just become an independent. However, Specter has no interest in fairness, democracy, his constituency, or anything else except for his own ability to get re-elected. He stated, with all honesty, that the only reason he is doing this is because he feared losing the next republican primary. I don’t know why he didn’t learn from Lieberman than he could have run as a Republican and if he lost than run again as an independent.

I believe Specter would vote for anything to preserve his seat in the Senate and that is the very worst that a democracy can become. The democrats could say “Senator Specter was elected to represent the interests of Pennsylvania and of the United States. We hope that he does that regardless of any political party. However, let us be clear that the Democratic Party stands for the people it represents and all elected Democrat officials are public servants and will always put the best interest of the people above themselves. Senator Specter does not seem to value these beliefs and although we welcome his support, there are no seats for people who only care about re-election in our party.” Of course, I give the Democrats too much credit; most of them would do the same thing to save themselves.

How could a US Senator say that this was only about re-elected? It would be so easy to just say “The Republicans are too far to the right and like the new Democrats. They rock and I want to be part of this great, new winning team. “

The more important thing is that this gives the Democrats a potential filibuster proof majority in the Senate. They only need one more seat, which should (eventually) go to Al Franken, the actor/democrat from Minnesota. That race is being contested and will be going to court in June. Now the Republicans may live and die by that race and they have all the incentives in the world to delay the outcome for as long as possible. And unlike Al Gore (who gave up the Presidency because he thought it was best for the country), the Republicans won’t go down so easy. And just thinking about Al Gore conceding make me throw up in my mouth.

This could change the entire landscape of Congress. The democrats could pass healthcare reform and anything else they wanted. This could be two years are tremendously risky and potentially helpful legislation. And the New York Times online put the story on the cover all morning and now the entire story somehow disappeared. The Jets trading up for Mark Sanchez was a bigger story, but alas, that is another story for another time.

Born to be a Politician

"What we require is that those who take office should not be lovers of rule. Otherwise there will be a contest with rival lovers. What others, then, will you compel to undertake the guardianship of the city than those who have the most intelligence of the principals that are the means of good government and who possess distinctions of another kind of and a life that is preferable to political life?" - Plato

Plato explained that our political leaders must first be trained and educated before they ever have the opportunity to be corrupted. That is that our young students should be taught the beauty and usefulness of math, science, history, philosophy, and the arts. The brightest should be chosen to further study economics, governments, law, and diplomacy. The best of those should be chosen to participate in the public sector (even at a young age) to get real exposure to the realities of effective and ineffective governance. The most talented and capable of these young adults will continue their studies and eventually become the politicians of the next generation. Politicians will have a context to understand their role and the experience to do it well. They will be chosen for their abilities and not their actual desire or love of politics.

This goes directly against the current method in which politicians rise to power. Today, those people who are the most power hungry, who desire to rule, who will do anything to get to the top; well those are the ones who end up running our government. And should we expect anything different from a system that encourages the very worst people to be most capable of achieving the most powerful positions in government.

Our “leaders” are not the best and the brightest, they are not our shining light. Some are very dedicated and capable, but almost all of them love to “rule” and do not love to be effective public servant. Here is a portion of the powerful politicians (US Senators, US Congressmen, Governors, and Mayors of large cities) who have been indicted in the past 15 years. Sadly, I couldn’t find a complete and if anything has one, please let me know.

Rick Renzi
William Jefferson
Mark D. Siljanderl

Tom Delay
Ted Stevens
John Doolittle
James Traficanta
Michael Meyers
Rick Renzi

Dan Rostenkowski

Rod Blagojevich

Brian Krolicki

Eliot Spitzer

Don Siegelman

Marion Barry

Joe Bruno

Scooter Libby

Larry Craig

Bob Ney

Tom Delay

William Janklow

James Traficant