Month: August 2013

Education? At a College? You Must Be Joking

It seems that Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees have passed rules against all functioning or non-functioning guns from their campuses. Even those that are being used in a class to teach students about how guns work and how to handle them safely.

Board of Trustees Vice President Scott Svonkin, author the resolution that ushered in the new rules, told Campus Reform last Monday he believes school’s have no place teaching students how to use guns —but that its educators and faculty do have a responsibility to “promote gun control.”

“We should make sure that students don’t come to campus being afraid to run into somebody with a gun,” Svonkin said.

He argued it was necessary to ban “non-operational” guns, because although they could not hurt anyone, they could scare students.

Of course, there’s an exception for using non-operational guns in the drama classes.

It’s like learning how guns work and gun control are incompatible.

Why We Have The First Amendment

So the government can’t threaten to shut down a paper because it’s leaking details of government abuses.

The British government, which has much more authority over the press, demands the return of the Snowden materials. Then it goes to The Guardian’s offices to make sure the hard drives containing the information are destroyed.

This new aggressive surveillance state is bad enough, but you’d think that the people who have gone to great lengths to monitor email would have an understanding of the Interwebz and that you can’t stop the signal.

Metal Tuesday – Sonata Arctica – My Selene

This week’s Metal Tuesday is Sonata Arctica’s “My Selene.” This is one of those songs that will get stuck in my head and I have to burn it out through repeated plays.

Lyrics:

Nocturnal poetry
Dressed in the whitest silver, you’d smile at me
Every night I wait for my sweet Selene

But, still
Solitude’s upon my skin
A life that’s bound by the chains of reality
Would you let me be your Endymion?

I won’t bathe in your moonlight and slumber in peace
Enchanted by your kiss in forever sleep

But until we unite
I live for that night
Wait for time
Two souls entwine

In the break of new dawn
My hope is forlorn
Shadows, they will fade
But I’m always in the shade
Without you

Serene and silent sky
Rays of moon are dancing with the tide
A perfect sight, a world divine

And I
The loneliest child alive
Always waiting, searching for my rhyme
I’m still alone in the dead of night

Silent I lie with smile on my face
Appearance deceives and the silence betrays

As I wait for the time
My dream comes alive
Always out of sight
But never out of mind

And under waning moon
Still I long for you
Alone against the light
Solitude am I?

In the end, I’m enslaved by my dream
In the end, there’s no soul who’d bleed for me

Hidden from daylight, I’m sealed in my cave
Trapped in a dream that is slowly turning to a nightmare
Where I’m all alone

Venial is life when you’re but a dream
The book is still open
The pages as empty as me

I cling to a hope that’s beginning to fade
Trying to break the desolation I hate

But until we unite
I live for that night
Wait for time
Two souls entwine

In the break of new dawn
My hope is forlorn
We will never meet
Only misery and me

This is my final call
My even fall
Drowning into time
I become the night

By the light of new day
I’ll fade away
Reality cuts deep
Would you bleed with me
My Selene?

Spiders and Cats

Some of you may know this, but I hate spiders. Intellectually, I can appreciate the biological niche they have carved out for themselves. Emotionally, my response is more “KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!”

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Yeah, that about sums it up.

So, of course, I am having a weird dream where I am precariously perched with a large spider skirting about. I am desperately trying to keep my legs from getting within jumping distance of this abomination.

I don’t know what I was murmuring or what was going through that FSM-damned kitten’s mind, but that was the exact moment that EBC decided to pounce on my legs.

I was very lucky not to have sodden sheets. Or a dead kitten.

Stop Advocating and Tell Us the Science

In my opinion, the biggest reason that the populace (particularly the American populace) doesn’t believe in climate change is the demands on policy made by many climatologists. It doesn’t help that many of those who are sounding the death drums can only think of government intervention as the only means to alleviate the changes.

So, it’s nice to see when a climatologist reminds her profession to just tell the science and stay out of policy.

I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. We risk our credibility, our reputation for objectivity, if we are not absolutely neutral. At the very least, it leaves us open to criticism. I find much climate scepticism is driven by a belief that environmental activism has influenced how scientists gather and interpret evidence. So I’ve found my hardline approach successful in taking the politics and therefore – pun intended – the heat out of climate science discussions.

Science should strive to tell us what is going on in the natural world and help to develop new technologies. Climatologists telling me that only a carbon tax will save the world from destruction looks like a fool because (s)he obviously doesn’t understand how market economies work or that the best way to a clean environment is through prosperity.

H/t Uncle

I Am Spartacus (TJIC, Rodeo Clown…)

Sarah Hoyt has an excellent post up over at her place. YOU NEED TO RTWT.

I am Spartacus because Benghazi.

I am Spartacus because summer of recovery 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 5… and?

I am Spartacus because at some point you have made enough money – AND THAT’S FOR YOU TO DECIDE, not bureaucrats. And if you never think you’ve made enough money, that’s your decision.

I am Spartacus because Fast and Furious.

I am Spartacus because I want the government to leave me alone.

I am Spartacus because I DID build that.

And that’s just a small part.