Obsidian Wings

Finally, We have An Answer...

... to an age-old question.

And there was much rejoicing.

(Via Volokh.)

UPDATE: I have had the Plasma Physicist Who Lives In The Basement Of My House* look at this, and she confirms that the numbers and stuff seem to check out. She doesn't do biophysics, though.

*Of course, from her point of view my girlfriend and I are The Robotics Engineer and General Researcher Who Live In The Top Floor of Her House. As she likes to say, it's all relative.

Politics schmolitcs, let's talk about Important Stuff

I agree with Mr. Drezner wholeheartedly: Please, please, please don't let it suck.

Now, THIS Is What A Proper Protest Looks Like

Via Balloon Juice we see that a showdown was brewing in Georgia - the one in Eurasia - over a recent election that has everybody going, "Yeah, well". Well, oh my droogies, the showdown has come, and with a vengeance.

I hereby invite every person who has ever voluntarily engaged in the more ... colorful ... shenanigans of the Western protest circuit (and only them: the vast majority of the people who have protested in America lately don't need this corrective) to take a good, hard look at these people. They grew up under a totalitarian regime - a real one. They live in a country with a documented history of religious persecution and torture of suspects (considering that Shevardnadze has called the people leading the revolt "criminals", take that last bit very very seriously). They know the stakes of what they're doing... and yet they are doing it, even though unaccountably they left their giant puppets, fake blood and vomit kits behind*.

In short, these are the people that the Bush=Hitler crowd only think that they are. Just wanted to get that in before the Usual Suspects started dislocating their shoulders to pat themselves on the backs over this one.

Moe

PS: Oh, and President Bush?

If you could support the coup that tried to topple Chavez, you can damn well support these guys. Just so we're all on the same page and everything: anybody who agrees with me on that, at least should drop the guy a general line on the matter via here. If I find a dedicated-to-this-specific-situation automated letter generator, I'll link to that instead.

*Heck of a lot of their country's flags, though. Funny, that.

UPDATE: CNN reports that Shevardnadze has resigned. There were no reports of organized violence, although everybody's naturally a bit nervous about the chance that it might still happen; however, it seems clear that the refusal of troops to move against the demonstrators was of high significance, not to mention a hopeful sign for the future government.

Sports and/or Haiku Open Thread

I'll start with some Red Sox haiku, via this week's New Yorker:

Hey, wait till next year:
Every eighty-six years
Like clockwork. Go Sox

Buckner or Little
It doesn’t really matter
Someone will f*ck up

Apotropaic Symbols for the Modern Age

Or, My God. The Giant Puppet Thing All Makes Sense Now.
By Moe Lane

No, really, it did. I was as shocked as anybody else would have been to have figured it out.

Updating the Blogroll...

... which will not be normally subject to such fanfare. Actually, maybe it will be; we're all making this up as we go along. Tonight's additions are Sacred And Inane, Matthew J Stinson, A Fistful of Euros and James Casey. Alphabetization will commence... apparently not until somebody lets us do that.

Moe

PS: Von, old buddy, gimme something for the About page. Anything.

Because, really...

...there's no point to writing for a blog if you can't do egoboo for it. Well, in this case, girlfriend egoboo: she wrote out this particular piece after watching the Real Version of The Two Towers (some people call it the Extended Version, but we all know better, right?). Fair warning: she's as much a roleplaying game geek as I am*, so if you don't speak AD&D this may be a little hard to follow.

Moe

*Not to mention being an engineer going for her doctorate in robotics, double major of engineering/medieval studies as an undergrad, singer, harpist, speaks three languages, fencer, seamstress, expert GM and currently learning how to make meads and beers. Cute, too - and both smarter and in a higher tax bracket than I am. Did I mention that she's in the NRA?

I know, I know: it's so blatantly unfair.

actual good news!!!!!

Thabo Mbeki seems to have finally, and dramatically, reversed his heretofore disastrous AIDS policy. South Africa is going to begin providing free anti-retrovirals.

Bill Clinton apparently helped negotiate it. Funny that he'll have done more for Africa as an ex-President than as President, but either way, I'll take it.

I wrote my college thesis on this subject, when it was clear what bad shape South Africa was in but before Mbeki was so actively shooting himself in the foot--back then it looked like the cost would always be prohibitive, and people were trying to convince the government to provide AZT or nevirapene to prevent mother-to-child and rapist-to-victim transmission. It was so upsetting--here was the one place that seemed to have hope of doing things differently in Africa, with a peaceful transition and a truly honorable anti-colonialist leader, about to be completely destroyed by this disease. Well, this is a hopeful sign.

Next thing we need is a form of prevention that women can use without needing a man's permission or knowledge.

40 years on

It's after midnight. So, as we know from the parade of TV specials this week, John F. Kennedy was killed forty years ago tomorrow.

Obviously, I was not alive. It had a profound effect on my parents, especially my mother, the liberal Irish Catholic college freshman. My father went through a (fortunately brief)* Goldwater phase around that time, so I don’t know if it hit him as hard.

Political assassination—and untimely death in general—seems to haunt a lot of Democrats, even those of us who are too young to remember Dallas, Memphis or Los Angeles. (I’d guess Wellstone’s death last year was an unneeded reminder. Even though it was accidental, it was so completely out of nowhere.) Among other Dean volunteers and on the campaign website the subject occasionally comes up, and immediately half a dozen people say they’ve had the same fear; ask the campaign whether those dangerous small planes are really necessary, whether they’ve thought about secret service protection. I’ve had the same fear, for that matter (especially after the gay marriage decision and Dean’s history with the issue--it was bad enough in Vermont, and Ruth Dwyer is no Fred Phelps). Do Republicans and other candidates’ supporters share this worry, or is it our particular neurosis?

I wrote something sort of relevant three or four years ago, though it’s much more about JFK’s younger brother.**

*if it wasn’t brief, I wouldn’t exist.
**warning: long. And you can probably tell from the writing style that I was several years younger when I wrote this.

Stop the World, I want to get off.

Busy day today, what?