Planeattack and Trainattack

Now Spain has had a major terrorist attack. On 2004 March 11, early in the morning, ten bombs ripped through cars of commuter trains taking passengers to or away from Madrid, killing exactly 200 people (this may go higher). It reminds us of Planeattack on 2001 September 11, and it occurred 2 1/2 years after Planeattack. It was only one-third the intensity of Planeattack; in a nation of 52 million people, or about 1/5 the size of the US, 1/15 of the people (200 versus about 3,000) died. Still, it was a terrible tragedy.

However, I do note a problem and an error appearing in the media about this event. First of all, they are calling it 3/11 or even March 11. This is just as inappropriate as calling Planeattack 9/11 or September 11. It demeans people born on March 11, and the phrase "March 11" can't be used for anything else (such as 2005 March 11) without causing confusion. Further, the numbers 3/11 can also cause confusion. If one says that something will occur on March 3-11, then that will cause confusion.

It is difficult to find names for these events, and it was only after some searching that I came up with the name Planeattack for the events of 2001 September 11, choosing it over Attack on America, Towerfall, and several other names. But now that I call the events of that day Planeattack, that suggests that the events in Spain on 2004 March 11 be called Trainattack (el Trenataque or el Trenatentado in español). One problem with both names is that there could very well be another event of this type, especially Trainattack. I suppose it would be Trainattack II, or for the first one, Trainattack in Madrid, instead. Indeed, I have already used planeattack, with a small p, to denote the deliberate crashing of planes into buildings as terrorist attacks in general. But I still am lacking a better name, so for now it is Planeattack and Trainattack.

An error that the media has made is saying that Trainattack occurred 911 days after Planeattack. Maybe this is the reason the day was chosen (more likely is the 2 1/2-year anniversary), but it is just plain wrong. Planeattack occurred on Tuesday, and Trainattack occurred on Thursday. It occurred on Wednesday to people in the Western Hemisphere, but that isn't what counts: it occurred on Thursday in the place where it mattered. The number 91 is divisible by 7, so likewise 910 is divisible by 7. Hence when 911 is divided by 7, the remainder is 1. This means that 911 days after a certain day of the week is the next day of the week. So 911 days after Tuesday is Wednesday, not Thursday. It is true that 911 days lie between the two dates, but that is not how the media states it. The two events occurred 912 days apart, and if the media continues to call it 911 days, then I will have to answer them the same way as the receiver of an unwanted call did: "Ah no, you got the wrong number. This is 91…2."

What's going on tonight, anyway?

It seems like half the Internet is malfunctioning tonight. These things have happened tonight:

1. My workplace says that it can't log me onto my account.
2. Only partly to mostly cloudy were called for in the official weather forecast for Virginia, and instead thunderstorms with high winds occurred.
3. When these thunderstorms occurred, WTVR's site as of the evening of 2004 March 7 displayed a radar from 2004 March 6 1745; since it was perfect weather then, with a beautiful sunset, naturally, nothing was on the radar.
4. Blogger, to which I post my blogs, has a weird new interface which won't let me see my old blogs.
5. CNN had a story on the Republican National Committee warning TV stations not to air ads from moveon.org, so when I searched for them, it said it could not do it right now.I had to go to news.google.com to search for it elsewhere.
6. Accessing Weather Underground causes a vicious popup firm to change your home page, and worse yet, threatens to open up all your CD drives.
7. Intellicast refuses to show radar.

Is there a virus out there? Have some hubs been hit? What's going on here?

Beware of using Weather Underground

Weather Underground is one of the best sites for obtaining weather information. It gives the weather for a wide range of locations, and has a huge amount of statistics for all of these locations. That is why I have listed it as a site on my weather page. However, they now insist on throwing ads and popup windows in your face, or on charging you something like $5 a year. The problem with that is that all these sites want to charge you (or throw ads in your face). If you subscribe to all of them, it can add up to a huge bill.

So I don't subscribe and put up with the ads. But I wish they would put them in their place. They should go inline in with the page and do nothing except sit there with the words. Above all, they should not pop up windows in your face. Fortunately, there are ways of dealing with the popups. You can download Pow! from AnalogX, or Popup Stopper from Panicware. However, these programs do not properly identify the offending popups by name, and only Pow! will allow you to tell the computer which sites to pow off the screen. Still, they keep the popup situation in check.

Now there is a new menace, so severe that perhaps one should not use Weather Underground anymore unless you take precautions. Every once in a while when you access Weather Underground something called Default Homepage Network will throw a popup window in your face. Not only that, but it will change your default page to the Default Homepage Network page, and worse of all, it will open up all your CD-ROM drives. They are clearly going too far here. This could cause damage to the computer, because one does not normally expect all one's CD drives to open up at once. If your hand happens to be anywhere near the CD drives at the time, the CD drive will be blocked and damage may occur. These people are asking for lawsuits. Fortunately I have found a way to cure the menace. Go into Tools, Internet Options in Internet Explorer, and click on Security, then click on the red Restricted Sites symbol. Click on the "Sites…" button, and type "httq://*.default-homepage-network.com" in the blank, and click "Add". Click OK. Then click on the General Tab, and where it says "Address:" in the Home Page block at the top, you will have to retype in your desired default page; Default Homepage Network probably has changed it to their page. Click OK. If you have Symantec Internet Security, you may be able to block the site there. I tried it already and when it happened tonight, it changed my home page, but it did not open up all my disc drives. I think the "restricted zone" bit did it. The red symbol appeared in the right corner. Unfortunately I don't know of any way of blocking popup or other malicious access to your home page; you just simply have to change the page back to where it was.

If any of you know of any more information on this CD-ROM pop-out phenomenon such as who is behind it or a better way of blocking it, please let me know. In the meantime, don't use Weather Underground until you have protected your CD drives from this malicious spam popup.

March Forth

Today is a most unusual date. You can't February 25, you can't July 4, you can't September 11, you can't December 25 and so forth, but you can March 4. You can March 4th into battle, or you can March 4th for the Arts, as one charity would have us do. That caused the online periodical Newszap to pose this question:

"P.S. GF's annual quiz question: What's the only date on the calendar that issues a command?"

The intended answer is today, of course. March 4th. March Forth. Of course this is correct; you can march forth. However, today is not the only day of the year that is a command. They overlooked that one can March 1st. In fact, whoever Marched 1st probably were not the ones that Marched 4th, since they marched before everyone else.

Religion R vs One Big Mess

Last May (2003) I blogged about the saying "God is a definite integral.", by the Rev. Sarah Voss, minister of the Sioux Falls, SD, Unitarian Universalist Church. Her idea was that God was like the area under a curve and above the x-axis of a Cartesian graph, from one place on the horizontal axis to another. One can approximate the area under the graph by subdividing the interval into a number of subintervals, then drawing rectangles from these to the curve and adding up their areas. The finer the mesh, the closer the area comes to the area under the curve; i.e., to God or the Ultimate. She imagined that each religion was like a subdividing of the interval, and that the closer the area, the finer the mesh, to the ultimate curve, the more like The Reality or God the mesh and the interval was. She then said, take the subdividings representing each religion, one for Christianity, one for Jainism, one for Buddhism, and so forth, and take the union of all their subdividing points and take the sum of areas based on that. That comes much closer to the actual curve than any of the individual meshes or religions does. In mathematics, one takes the limit of these areas, and the result is called the definite integral of the function on the interval. That is where Rev. Voss gets her saying from. She called this combined religion Religion R, and she remarked that her and my faith, Unitarian Universalism, out of all the religions, comes the closest to being Religion R. See her book What Number is God? for details.

However, I read a newsletter a little while ago called Human Kindness Foundation: a Little Good News. In the Christmas 2003 issue, Bo Lozoff wrote "An Impatient Letter from God". In it, God says,

I'm not telling you to abandon your religions. I want you to enjoy your religions, honor them, learn from them, just as you should enjoy, honor, and learn from your parents. But do you walk around telling everyone that your parents are better than theirs? Your religion, like your parents, may always have the most special place in your heart; I don't mind that at all. And I don't want you to combine all the Great Traditions into One Big Mess. Each religion is unique for a reason. Each has a unique style so that people can find the best path for themselves.

He seems to say that Rev. Voss' Religion R is "One Big Mess". The newsletter makes a case for not considering your religion as above the others. But then he says don't try to practice them all. If indeed your own religion is not something special, it follows that you might want to try following some tenets of another religion. But then Bo, as God, says that makes a big mess. So which is it, a big mess or the religion that comes closest to The Way?

I say the difference is this. If you go out and try to practice all the religions, you indeed get a big mess. In fact, you get contradictions all over the place. For example, you revere Jesus as God (Christianity), and you revere Jesus as an important human prophet, but not God (Islam). That is a blatant contradiction. I think that Rev. Voss means take the best of each religion and combine these best beliefs into a Religion R. That can resolve the contradictions. For instance, you then believe in a Christianity that reveres Jesus as a model human, but not a god, or you may believe that everyone has a little bit of God or the divine in them (Wicca). Indeed, to me it seems this Religion R, and to a somewhat lesser extent Unitarian Universalism, does indeed come closer to the Ultimate Reality than any of the individual components does, just like with the areas. It seems to me that Religion R then is the way to go.

Weather Report Errors

It is sometimes interesting to listen to TV weather personnel give their weather report on the six o'clock news (AM and PM) and on the Weather Channel, although I have not looked at that much lately. When thunderstorms come, they march (as though they had feet) or roll (as though they had wheels), or they are popcorn. They will say when a cold spell comes that temperatures are headed south, even though temperatures are usually warmer to the south. They will say that storms check out, although it seems they never try to collect the bill, like any hotel would. They even go to the extent of trying to use a broom to sweep away pesky clouds on the satellite map that have been making several days in a row cloudy.

But at least they should do it without errors. I notice that when they venture outside weather, say to astronomy, they can make mistakes. For example, once I heard one say that the time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun is 365.24 days. That is not true. It takes 365.2564 days. Besides, that's not what he is really talking about; he meant the year, which is not the time it takes for the earth to go around the sun. The year we live by is the time it takes the seasons to repeat. That is indeed 365.2422 days. The two differ by precession, which takes the vernal equinox all the way around the ecliptic or zodiac in 26,000 years.

He then said that leap year is not always every 4 years. Actually, it is, usually. It is true except for some century years. He then said that every 400 years we skip a leap year. That isn't true, either. He is talking about the century rule. Among century years, it is actually every 400 years that is a leap year, not every 400 years that it is isn't. The other century years are common years. Specifically, if a year is a century year, it has to be divisible by 400 to be a leap year. This means that 2000 was a leap year, but 1900 wasn't.

Newscasters and weathermen, this is a place where you can clear up the fog of confusion about science. Tell how it really is, and that will help clear the fog.

Mission Accomplished

No, not Iraq. Mars. Today, NASA scientists announced that they have obtained results from the two rovers going over the surface of Mars and drilling into rocks. They have found definite indications that at one time the area that Opportunity had landed into was soaked in water - probably underwater in a sea or lake. The objective of the two rovers was to find evidence that Mars has or had water on it. Today they have met their objective. Mission Accomplished.

The big question is, however, was there ever life on Mars? The rovers did not find this and were not expected to. But with water on Mars, conditions suitable for life may have once existed. Maybe we won't find out until humans are on Mars. However, the chances look good. That may not be so good. If there is or was life on Mars, then that suggests that there is life all over the place in the cosmos. However, we have not detected any signal from an extraterrestrial civilization. Putting these two facts together with the Greenbank equation suggests that advanced civilizations are short-lived. That would not be good news for us, that our civilization may last only a hundred or more years or so. But it was good that they at least found water on Mars. The money put on this program was well spent. Keep going, NASA.

Dick Clark commits age discrimination

I heard an unbelievable story today. Ralph Andrews, 76, with a considerable background in the entertainment industry, was rejected for a job with Dick Clark's Bandstand because he was too old. Here is what the CNN site said:

"I have great respect and admiration for your accomplishments, and wish you success in your desire to 'get back to work," Clark's letter read, according to the suit. (But) the last development guy we hired was 27 years old. Another person who is joining our staff next week is 30. People our age are considered dinosaurs! The business is being run by 'The Next Generation."' Clark added, "On a brighter note, Ralph, please know that if any project comes up where we could use your experienced hands, I wouldn't hesitate to call you."

Dick Clark himself is 74 years old! To me this is blatant age discrimination. If he feels this way about old people, he should fire himself. How much do those two measly years mean, anyway? Mr. Andrews has filed a suit against Dick Clark. Maybe it's good. Mr. Clark was not shown in a favorable light in the movie "Bowling for Columbine". Mr. Andrews has filed a suit against Mr. Clark. Good. I hope he wins.

Bowling for Columbine

No, this is not about strikes and spares, nor is it about flowers. It is a movie about guns. This movie, written by Michael Moore, is much better than the previous one I reviewed, The Passion of the Christ. This time I saw the entire movie. It made a lot of good points about our obsession with guns in this country. It does have some weak points, primarily in supporting material for some of the claims made in the movie, and because it had some glaring omissions. But it was a movie worth making and seeing. I give it five stars and recommend to anyone wanting a movie to see to see this one, a winner at a film festival last year.

The movie features several memorable scenes. Two children with bullets in their body from the slaughter at Columbine High School go with Michael Moore and others to K-Mart to demand a change to their gun policy. This group actually went to a K-Mart and bought ALL the ammunition at that store and bought it to the headquarters. After some discussion and some delaying, a spokesperson came out saying that K-Mart would change its policies. Michael interviewed Charlton Heston but got nowhere. A bank offered a gift of a gun for opening an account there. That's right, a gun. The best moment of the film was in comparing statistics for annual gun deaths in a number of countries. Japan, European countries, and Canada had two and three digit numbers of deaths from guns, but the US had 11,127. That's right, five digits. So big that the fact that the US is bigger doesn't matter. Further, the usual arguments for the US having so many gun deaths don't work. The US has had a bloodthirsty history. True, but what did Nazi Germany have? And the Germans have a two-digit annual gun death total, probably 68. There are a lot of guns in the US. There are guns in every block. But so does Canada, which has a much lower rate. Even Windsor, right next to gun-happy Detroit, has a low death toll from guns. The US is entertained with violent TV and video games. Where did those video games come from? Japan, that's where, and Japan has a low death toll from guns. No none of these arguments work. That baffled me at first, and a movie that does that is usually a good movie. Later on, after reading some about it, I concluded that it's the hypermedia again. They blow up anything violent, and even create fears in us that are unfounded, such as fear from terrorists, overseas dictators, and even African bees.

One important omission, one which could explain part of the toll as well, was that of illegal drugs. Many deadly shootings and prison convictions in this country result from the sale of drugs. So it seems to me that a solution to the problem of gun deaths in this country is to legalize drugs and discourage their use, as well as countering the hyperboles of the media. Overall, it is a good movie. Stay home and watch it on DVD, or go to a theater and see it, if it is still there.

Operation Iraqi Liberation

Recently I ran into an incomprehensible acronym: OIF, and also OEF. After doing some research, I found that OIF stood for Operation Iraqi Freedom (and OEF for Operation Enduring Freedom). I suppose that ONE then is Operation Noble Eagle; there can be only one such operation, apparently. I think these operation names should not be acronymed. Spell it out or the reader may not understand. It is an Operation Iraqi Freedom, not an oif, whatever that is. If you insist on using acronyms, at least make them meaningful. Name the operation Operation Iraqi Liberation instead and then the acronym will mean something: OIL.

Leap Year Day

Today was Leap Year Day, 2004 February 29. It was a Sunday, so I went to church for the fifth time in the month. Five Sundays in February is rare; the last time it occurred was in 1976. The day was warm, but it seemed like any other day to me. But it was out of the calendar. Saying "A year from now" does not make sense, for instance, since there will be no 2005 February 29. February 29 has special properties; for example, women can ask men for dances, dates, and marriage today, but many of them do anyway in today's egalitarian age, so that does not make any difference. The only difference now is that women may ask women for dances, dates and marriage, and men may ask men.

So how often does this day occur? In the original Julian calendar, any year that was divisible by 4 was a leap year. That means the years 0, 324, 1776, and 1900 were leap years, and 1801, 1946, and 2003 were not. This assumes the year is 365.25 days long. It isn't. The year is no nice multiple of the day in length, and the number of days in a year continually changes due to variations in the motions of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and other planets. It comes close to being 365.242199 days long. This is a tiny fraction, but over centuries, this added up to 10 days. So Pope Gregory XIII ordered his astronomical operations research analysts to come up with a way of correcting the situation. They decided that from now on, century years such as 1900 and 2000 were leap years only if they were divisible not only by 4, but by 400. Since the Pope thought that March 21 as spring was ordained presumably by God, he would not change that, so he ordered 10 days chopped from the calendar. 1582 Oct 4 was followed by 1582 Oct 15, causing massive accounting headaches and a few rebellions ("give us back our 10 days!"). He could have left the beginning of spring at March 11. But for once the Church and the Pope came up with a good decision. However, since the Pope was associated with it, Protestant nations such as England would have nothing to do with it and Britain did not convert until 1752, chopping 11 days out of September, including September 11.

The resulting Gregorian calendar has done well for us. The most unusual Leap Year Day in 2000 came by and went without any Y2K or any other trouble. This year's Leap Year Day is only an ordinary Leap Year Day, but still it is unusual enough to notice. There are two proposals for ensuring accuracy in the millennia ahead. Herschel would make 0, 4000, 8000, years, divisible by 4000, common years, as by then the Gregorian calendar would be off by a day. That has the disadvantage of being unstable at year 0. First it is a leap year, now it is a common year. Another change, the New Orthodox calendar, would from now on make a century year a leap year if and only if it leaves a remainder of 200 or 600 upon division by 900. This is more accurate than the Gregorian calendar and even the Herschelian calendar. 2400 is a leap year in both calendars, so the first difference is 2800 is a leap year in the Herschelian calendar, but 2900 is the leap year in the New Orthodox calendar. But that is for people living 750 years or so from now to figure out. Right now our calendar satisfies our needs, even if February gets short-changed, leap year or no.

Squirrel Circus

We like to feed the birds outside, using a feeder that hangs from a pole, as well as seed on the ground. We have had a variety of birds access our feeder, including red-bellied woodpeckers, nuthatches, juncos, cardinals, and mourning doves. The biggest problem we have had was squirrels. Every time we put out food there for the birds, squirrels would show up, as many as nine of them. They would climb up the pole and dangle down from the top of the cylindrical feeder and eat all its food. Most of our bird food was going to the squirrels instead. So we needed to stop them. Anne put out some metal pipe around the base of the feeder. That didn't stop them. They'd go to the top of the feeder by hopping from a nearby branch. So I cut off the branch. They still got to the feeder by leaping from the tree trunk to the feeder, a sizable distance. They were like flying squirrels, and once they got on the feeder pole, they'd dangle upside down and eat all the food.

Recently, at the Maymont Flower and Garden Show, I found a device being sold by Wild Bird Center in Richmond and Fredericksburg. It is a tall cylindrical feeder, like the one we have, but it has feeding holes only at the bottom, and it has a ring around it at the bottom for the birds to perch on. There is a battery-powered mechanism on the feeder that causes the ring to rotate rather strongly if pressure is put on it. If a bird were to land on this feeder, nothing would happen; the bird would be able to eat. If a squirrel were to land on this feeder, since it is heavier, it would cause the ring to rotate, and that would throw the squirrel off. I saw some comical video of this happening. Since we have a squirrel problem and since the feeder resembles the one we have, I purchased it for $100.

I then tried it out. I got no squirrels wanting to go to the feeder at first. Chickadees, titmice, and wrens landed on it and ate the food. At the end of the work week, I had more time to observe it. I saw some really comical action, although most of it was not squirrels getting whoaaaaa… thrown off the thing. I saw one squirrel dangling from the wooden post to the feeder, putting his paws gently on it. He was able some of the time to get the food out and eat it, although occasionally it would rotate. Apparently my new device failed. But no. I shifted the feeder to another hook, this time lower, so that the squirrel would have to dangle from slippery metal.

Later in the day, I saw a squirrel leap from the nearby tree to the right and out towards the feeder. Instead of going to the top of the pole, he apparently went straight for the feeding circle and completely missed, plopping on the ground, scaring birds and some other squirrels. I then saw one climb up the tree, make a flying leap to the feeder, and then he did not know what to do. He hopped from there to the top of the feeder. He tried leaning downwards. Then he retreated. Then he went back and leaned downwards again, and fell off, plop, on the ground. He tried this again, and this time he hopped from the top of the feeder to the top of the pole to the top of the metal area of the pole and so forth, not knowing which way to go. After a while he gave up.

Later I saw the squirrels try something else. Now they are thinking of leaping from the ground straight to the pole or feeder. I see them sit up on their hind legs. I have never seen so many squirrels act like prairie dogs in my life. One of them looked far up and strained his neck. Then he leaped for the black tape area of the pole, and instantly leaped from there to the ring on the feeder, whereupon the ring rotated, throwing the squirrel off the feeder. That one was really funny to watch.

Since then, many squirrels have been making prairie dogs at the feeder, but they have not attempted to access it. The device worked. Now birds may safely graze on the feeder. Birds have taken it over. There are still a few problems; for example, one mourning dove flew at the feeder repeatedly and then flew back down again or to the top of the pole. Apparently he thought he could get at the food. But I think the feeder has improved the bird situation considerably since I installed it. Try it some time if you want to thwart squirrels.

Maybe Nader is good after all

Recently the Pentagon issued a report on the future of climate change. Controlling climate change has been a big part of environmentalist's agendas, including Ralph Nader's. The report predicts that unless the world cooperates to do something about it, drastic climate changes will result in more famine and war in the world, to the extent of being catastrophic. This report comes from the President's own Department of Defense. DOD has a lot of supporters among Republicans and conservatives, and so a report from the Pentagon would carry some weight among these. If Nader hammers on this platform that something needs to be done about climate change, many of these Republicans and conservatives might vote for Nader rather than Bush. Nader would then take votes away from Bush; if that happens, Key 4 (third party) would topple. That could put the President only one key from defeat, and evidence of a sagging economy could be the thing that does the President in. So maybe Nader is what we need after all. He is the only third party of any note running. I hope he devotes his efforts, then, to winning over conservatives and Republicans concerned about global warming.

How traditional religious beliefs can be destructive.

Lately I have been thinking aboiut religious beliefs and how they are a personal matter and that these beliefs are essentially positive. But then I realized that some religious beliefs can be downright dangerous. Here are some examples from Christianity and Islam:

Christian belief: The world was created by God only 10,000 years ago or so.
The danger: Failure to realize the magnitude of the running out of oil problem; it takes millions of years to create oil.

Christian belief: Jesus Christ is God.
The danger: Demeaning everyone else. We are all born equal. We are all God or none of us are.

Christian belief: Jesus will save you from your sins.
The danger: Encourages crime, as if Jesus saves you it won't matter in the long run.

Christian belief: The Bible is truth; it is literal truth.
The danger: One can then believe in anything, as since the Bible contains contradictions, one can use it to prove anything. Hence this belief promotes charlatanism and extremist groups.

Christian belief: Jesus was crucified because he ran afoul of Jewish laws and customs.
The danger: Anti-Semitism, and we have had many examples of that in history.

Christian belief: Creation, not evolution.
The danger: Failure to realize the dangers of evolution in our society today; for example, of antibiotic-resistant microbes.

Islamic belief: The laws of a country must be Islamic.
The danger: Persecution of religious minorities. Barbaric punishments.

Christian and Islamic belief: There is evil.
The danger: Believing that the other guys are the ones that are evil.

Catholic belief: Birth control methods are not to be used.
The danger: Catastrophic population explosion.

The Bomb of Bombs

I heard that the movie "The Passion of the Christ" opened today, as though we had enough films on the crucifixion of Jesus. I have read and heard reviews of it and found out what's in it. After hearing about all this, I have come to the conclusion that this may be the worst movie ever written. There are several points on which to base this. It is one of the most violent movies ever written, showing explicit poundings of big nails into Jesus' hands and blood all over the place. It seems to make a presupposition that the viewer is Christian; indeed that Christianity is the only way to go. It takes literally from the Bible even though historians doubt the authenticity of much of the Bible; people don't listen to the historians because they insist that everything in the Bible is true, despite the numerous contradictions in it. But the worst part is that it may start a wave of anti-Semitism. The movie makes Pontius Pilate into a heroic image, even though the evidence was that he was ruthless at times. It makes the Jewish community into a heathen tribe that was responsible solely for the death of Jesus. I read one reviewer who thought that Jews would regard the movie as offensive. We need a new wave of anti-Semitism like we need a hole in the head, yet this movie may gross (there are two meanings to that word!) the largest amount of any movie on record. It says something about where we are headed. Please, media, take the attention off this movie. We don't need throngs of people eager to see what I regard as the Bomb of Bombs (and I mean Bomb in the American sense; that is, a failure).

Capture Osama Now

I heard in an article by Ahmad Bouzid that Osama is cornered in Afghanistan and that US and British troops are awaiting for the order to come in for the capture; not the kill, but the capture. I don't know if this is the case, but if it is, Bush needs to capture Osama bin Laden now!

But I don't think that Bush is planning that. In fact, I will predict a date on which Osama bin Laden will be captured: 2004 October 15, or somewhere around then. The elections are the reason why I believe this. If this actually happened, Bush would get such a boost to his campaign that he would win in a landslide. Waiting until October 15 to get votes to me is unacceptable. If Osama is indeed responsible for the terrorist attacks on African embassies in 1998, for the attack in Bali, and especially for Planeattack on 2001 September 11, then he needs to be captured now before he has any chance of planning any more terrorist attacks. I agree with Chuck, a replier to Bouzid's article. Kerry and Edwards need to call for the capture of Osama now! If instead, he is captured on October 15, then the Democrat will just go back to the original call and call Bush down on his choosing the date for the capture. But the Democrats need to call for Osama's capture as soon as possible, if indeed he is within the US's and Britain's grasp.

Run, Arnie

Yesterday I called upon Ralph Nader not to run because he would take votes away from the Democrat and help Bush get re-elect- no, excuse me, I mean elected. Today I found about someone else who would like to run for President: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California. He talked about it in a news program a day or so ago. An amendment would have to be passed for him to be President; maybe one that says that a foreign-born citizen with 20 or more years in the USA could become President. He also says he is not interested in it right now. That of course means he is interested.

Well, don't let the foreignbornness hold you back, Mr. Schwarzenegger. I want you to run for President. I feel that Arnold would have better stands on the issues than most Republicans would have, although he goofed up with gay marriages recently. But the main reason is that he would take votes away from Bush. Furthermore, unlike Nader, if he runs for President and gets 5% or more, he would topple Key 4, the third-party Lichtman key, because he would hurt Bush. Further, he is likely to get that 5% if he runs. He has charisma in abundance. If he ran, he would siphon off many votes from Bush, maybe so many that not only would he topple Key 4 bigspace, he might even take some states, such as Alaska, Maine, and perhaps his home state of California. If this happened, he would take away so many Bush votes that a 45% Kerry or Edwards showing would be a massive electoral landslide. The only hitch among voters would be, what if he gets elected and can't serve because of his being foreign-born? Maybe Congress and the state legislatures would hurry up and ratify an amendment, or maybe the VP could serve while this was being processed. But I don't think it will go that far as to actually elect Schwarzenegger. I do think that he would get enough to knock down Key 4 and make it easier for Bush to be defeated.

For that reason, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a candidate that I would like to see run. If I had been in California last year and Arnold was native-born, I would have voted for him because of this possibility of running for President. So Run, Arnie, Run! Give Bush a run for his money.

Nader, please don't run

I heard this morning that Nader is running for President. Nader, please don't run. The Election of 2000 was so close that x in the sentence, "If x had happened, then Gore would have won the election." could be anyone of a number of things; for example, "If he had won his home state", "If the ballot in Palm Beach County had not been misdesigned", "If he had won New Hampshire.", and so forth. But one thing that could certainly be substituted for x is "If Nader hadn't run". For if a mere smidgen of votes for Nader had gone for Gore instead in Florida, Gore would have taken Florida, pregnant chads or no, and if the polls were correct that Nader voters would gone 2/3 for Gore if Nader had not run, then Gore would have taken New Hampshire as well. Nader's running in 2004 raises this specter again.

Now the Lichtman keys theory has a key for independent candidates, namely Key 4, which says "There is no major third party challenge." The criteria for this is 5%. But maybe a Nader candidacy would not count since he would hurt the Democrat. Or one could argue reduction ad absurdum that if Nader gets more than 5%, the Bush is helped, since he would take votes away from the Democrat, and Bush would be hurt since that would cause Key 4 to fall. This contradiction would then show that Nader will not get 5% this fall. I think he will not even get 1%. Too many people know what happened in 2000 and they will not let it happen again.

But still his presence threatens the Democratic candidate and hence the very ideas that Nader is espousing. No, Nader. You don't defeat Bush by running. You defeat him by helping the best chance there is of defeating him: Kerry or Edwards, or whoever the nominee is. Please don't run. Quit now. I'll put it to a song, song to the words of Hit the Road, Jack:

Please don't run, Ralph,
Please don't run and run and your case push,
Pleases don't run, Ralph,
And throw the election to Bush…

(Nader: What you'd say??)

Schwarzenegger makes weird analogy

Recently I heard Schwarzenegger say that gay marriages need to be stopped in San Francisco. Something is happening here with these gay marriages. The very institution of marriage appears to be changing into something quite a bit different, causing us to ask what is a marriage for, anyway? But that is another story. What I am talking about is Schwarzenegger's weird analogy. He says if we allow gay marriages today, it will be assault weapons tomorrow and drugs after that.

Whaaa?? What does marriage and the bond of love do with something whose main purpose is to cause a large amount of violence? I heard it on TV from one of the cobrides who got married recently to her girlfriend. Marriage is a bond of love between two people, and represents attraction and a desire to have a family. What does that have to do with guns? She felt offended by the Terminator's remarks. I think Schwarzenegger has Terminator in his brain. In the movie, all someone has to do to maintain their point is pull out a gun. Schwarzenegger, this is reality. It is not a rootin', tootin' movie.

Now he would be more on the target instead of saying guns and drugs, he had said marriages of three or more people. I feel that is coming next. For if two people can come together to an agreement of support and love and to form a family, why not three or four or more? I think three or more person marriages may be the trend of the future, given a lot of aging baby boomers with little or no family to support them or give them comfort. It is my belief that such marriages work best with at least one man and at least one women, but when it comes I believe that we should legally honor three and four person marriages, even if all are of the same sex, just as we are now doing with two-person same-sex marriages. If Schwarzenegger had said this, he would have made sense. It's evident that he is still living in the movies.

Looks like Bush is going to win

The media is already hyping up a close contest between Kerry and Bush. They are bringing forth memories of Election 2000. The polls are indicating a slight lead for Kerry. One thorn may be Nader's candidacy, which would cut into the Democratic party's nominee's vote total. But Nader or no, is this contest going to be close?

Maybe, but maybe not. In any case it is still looking like a Bush win. This is because Bush has still lost only four of the 13 Lichtman keys. He has lost number 7, the policy key (no good policies), number 10, foreign or military failure (Planeattack, aka "9/11"), number 12, incumbent charisma (he is not charismatic), and number 6, long-term economy (because of the dot-com bust). He has lost no others. He does have Key 1, mandate (because of the 2002 elections) and Key 3 incumbency (he's the President). I don't see him losing the other keys right now. There is still no Republican challenger (Key 2), and Ralph Nader (Key 4, third party) does not count, as he hurts Democrats, not Republicans. There is no social unrest (Key 8), incipient scandals are evaporating (Key 9), Saddam was captured (ensuring Key 11, foreign or military success), Kerry is not charismatic (Key 13), and the economy is improving, so he probably has Key 5.

It could be a close win. Incumbents have lost 9 keys and still lost by a whisker. It could be a landslide. Johnson won handily over Goldwater despite losing 3 keys. But the Lichtman Key system says right now, no matter how it comes, that Bush will win.

What would change the prospect of a Bush victory? First, the economy would have to sputter. Higher gasoline prices may do just that by election day. Then some real scandal would have to develop; it would have to lead to many convictions and jail terms (as with Teapot Dome or Watergate), or lead to an impeachment or virtually certain impeachment of the President (as with Nixon and Clinton). Or social unrest would have to develop; this would have to be on the scale of 1964-1968, with its race riots and massive antiwar demonstrations. Or the Democrats would have to nominate someone who is charismatic. They may do better with Edwards than Kerry; Edwards shows signs of possibly being charismatic. If for example, Edwards is nominated, turns out to be charismatic, and the economy takes a downturn, Bush will be defeated. However, right now, none of this is happening, so Bush will win the popular vote. That shows another avenue happening: a reverse 2000 wherein Kerry or Edwards gets the electoral vote and Bush the popular, maybe by the Democrat winning several big states by slim margins. But for Bush to be defeated, something has to happen, polls or no.