Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, the second most important holiday in the year in the United States of America. It is a uniquely American holiday, with no counterparts much elsewhere, although Canada has its Thanksgiving in another month. It features a turkey dinner. Since only two of us live at my house, baking a huge 8-lb turkey does not seem to make sense; it results in turkey meals all the way to Yule, it seems. So we cooked instead three turkey legs. Maybe we should save the turkeys and have a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal and save the poor birds. As far as the meaning of the holiday, it seems to imply a God, to give thanks to, but I don't believe in such a personal God. So I simply feel glad for all the good things that have happened this year. My congregation got it right on their Thanksgiving service. They hosted a play featuring a family wanting to leave their country because men in uniform were stationing in their community and were about to monitor or even arrest them. Where did they go? America. The land of freedom of speech, of economic opportunity, and religious freedom. I just hope our country continues to be a haven for retreat from repression elsewhere; there is still a lot of it in this world. I know we have had Planeattack and feel threatened by other countries' and organizations' (such as al Qaeda) weapons, but we must not give up these freedoms. That is one of the special things about being Americans.

Different types of Weather

I ran the Richmond Marathon in 1983. The weather was rainy with a temperature in the mid 50s (or about 12 C). It was not the nicest weather to run a marathon in. Since that time I had called cloudy and rainy weather "marathon weather"; that is, until I went to several Toastmaster conferences in a row that featured such weather. Then I called cloudy and rainy weather "Toastmaster weather". Here is a table of the various weathers I had come up with in the past few years:

Marathon Weather	Cloudy and Rainy
Toastmaster Weather	Cloudy and Rainy
Fair Weather	Cloudy and Rainy
Miami Weather	Pleasant sunny days and bone-chilly nights
SWIM Weather	same as Miami weather
SUUSI Weather	Warm and hazy; storms at night
Spring Weather	Snow flurries
Skywatch Weather	Cloudy or muggy and hazy
Eclipse Weather	Clouds at the wrong time
Christmas Weather	No Snow
Fourth of July Weather	Warm and muggy with lots of bugs
Skiing weather	Warm weather suitable for short sleeves and shorts

The third one is pronounced FAIR weather, not fair WEAther, and means weather typical of a Virginia State Fair; i.e., cloudy and rainy. To that I might add "drought weather", which means cloudy and rainy. SWIM is the Southeast Winter Institute in Miami, a Unitarian-Universalist camp and conference held between Yule and New Year's; no URL for this camp seems to be available.

It's that time of the year again

This evening I went up into my attic to get down the Yule decorations - 27 boxes of it. I only got down 10 of them tonight, and I will leave box number 16 upstairs: that's Halloween. This is the yearly ritual we go through that transform our drab landscape into a festival of color. I will take two or three hours to get our tree, three-light candelabras, and outdoor lighting up. The result is not as bright as some other displays I have seen, which require getting on the roof and putting up loads of lights. These displays must eat up a lot of electricity and take the entire holiday period to put up. I will also send cards this season, and get gifts for my relatives. Only two are that close - my wife and my mother. There will be parties all over the place, at my workplace and even at my astronomy club. Maybe we will sing Christmas carols at my church. And by the way, why call it Christmas when I am not Christian? I am a Unitarian Universalist with "pagan" leanings. So that is why I call it Yule.

Declaring Weapons Of Mass Destruction

By 2002 December 8, Iraq must declare all of its weapons of mass destruction, reads one headline today. Declare? To me that is unusual language, that Saddam must declare his weapons of mass destruction. It makes me think of his morphing into the image of Scarlett O'Hara, who then says, "Well, I'll Declare! Weapons of Mass Destruction!" In any case, Saddam may have his own idea of what "declare" means, as this script shows:


[Saddam Hussein standing up front in his usual uniform. Behind him are some buildings and a collection of inspectors. To the right and front are UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US President George W. Bush]

Annan: Saddam, by December 8, you must declare all of your weapons of mass destruction or face serious consequences.

Hussein: You are saying, Kofi, that I must declare all of my weapons of mass destruction.

Annan: Yes, you must.

Hussein: OK, I will. [presses button on gadget]

[In the background a blue-green cloud emanates, and all of the inspectors collapse to the ground.]

Hussein: Sir, I have just declared a weapon of mass destruction. Do you want me to declare any more weapons of mass destruction?

Bush: No, that will be OK, Saddam. It is now our turn to declare. We declare a Regime Change!

[Big explosion in middle of screen; Saddam vanishes.]

Here is my declaration: that Saddam Hussein destroys all of his weapons of mass destruction without harm to any one and without anyone going to war with anyone.

Bottom Line?

The phrase "bottom line" does not make sense. It is an accounting term that has been pulled out of its content. The bottom line of a baseball league standings is the last place team. Nice guys finish last, remember? The bottom line of an outline is the least important. The phrase needs to be replaced by "front line", else it generates contradictory phrases such as BLUF, bottom line up front. What's the front line of your enterprise?

Wasting Population Explosion

Since when does a disease among an animal species causes its numbers to increase? The answer is when the species is deer. In Wisconsin, they come down with chronic wasting disease, which is a relative of mad cow disease. Hunters now stay away since they can't eat their kill. This will cause deer populations to explode in Wisconsin. So what do you call a spreading disease that increases the numbers of the species that it attacks? An anti-epidemic?

Birds and Stars

This year I have been to one birding trip, at the Outer Banks, in October, and several skywatches or star parties. These two events have similarities. They both use binoculars or telescopes, they both try to spot objects in nature (birds or celestial objects), and they involve transportation to favorable sites (shores for birds, dark sites for stars). So the idea I had is, why not combine the two on the same trip? Have a birding and amateur astronomer outing, probably lasting two days, wherein you would observe the birds by day and the stars (and possibly a few birds) at night. Binoculars would be good for both. So where do you start Birdstar? Someone has to find a location, preferably a place near the ocean without lights nearby, such as Okracoke Island, and someone has to handle the logistics of this event, including informing both astronomical, nature and birding groups, arranging for the space and providing accommodations, leaders, and food for everyone. But I think it would be a good way to get birders to meet stargazers.

State Quarters

The two most recent quarters have become rather scarce. Indianas came out in August, and so far I have seen only five of them. Mississippis came out last month, but so far I have not seen a single one. I sorted out my excess collection and found out that I have more Virginias and North Carolinas than any other state. I took a look at next year's offerings. Alabama struck me as being notable. Initially they were going to put hackneyed items such as farms, bolls of cotton and so forth on the coin; then I saw one that featured the state house, which in the past had been a symbol of segregation. I did not think much of these designs. When I found out about the final design, I got a pleasant surprise. They put Helen Keller on the coin. This is the blind and deaf woman who made the most of her life. The inscription is in English and Braille; the first coin that anyone has heard of bearing Braille inscriptions. I think people are going to want that coin. It could become scarce quickly. So I am looking forward to it.

CNN misleads on the Shuttle

I heard that the shuttle Endeavour was going to launch tonight, but it may not because of bad weather in Spain, where the astronauts would have to land if trouble developed on takeoff. This made me wonder about the shuttle. I was going to walk out to a place in my development with a low southeastern horizon so I could see it take off. I had seen one of these before. But I could go out there and wait and wait and wait without knowing that it had been scrubbed at X minus 3 seconds. So I carried out a cellular phone and asked my wife to call me if a report on CNN says the mission is scrubbed. I took this extra measure to ensure that I see the shuttle. I stood out there a while and then my wife called me on the cellular phone. She said that CNN reported that the mission had been delayed to see if they could get better weather in Spain. So I walked back to the house to find out when they were going to launch it now. I was surprised to find instead that the shuttle launched! It was too late to go back. I was misled by an erroneous CNN report. It is all the more galling because later on CNN contradicted themselves by saying the shuttle launched.

This shows you can't trust the media any more. I asked my wife to call me if the shuttle was scrubbed as protection against waiting a long time for a shuttle that won't come. Instead, this prevented me from seeing the shuttle by getting me to leave the place before the shuttle was visible. It used to be that I could trust stations like CNN to tell the truth; I could have relied on it for information on the shuttle. But I can't. Since I can't, I feel I need to treat it as though they were going to do the worst against me. That results in this matrix game:

	CNN tells truth	CNN lies
trust CNN	see shuttle(10)	don't see shuttle(-20)
don't trust CNN	wait forever for shuttle(0)	see shuttle(10)

Game theory says then I should flip two coins. If both come up heads, I trust CNN; otherwise, I don't. CNN's most perverse strategy is to tell the truth 3/4 of the time and lie 1/4 of the time. This implies that the chance that I see the shuttle is (3/4)*(1/4) + (1/4)*(3/4) = 3/8 or 37.5%. The most probable outcome is to wait forever for the shuttle; actually, probably only 20 minutes. If I could fully trust CNN, the probability would be 100%. Amazing what a lack of trust can cost. Trust is lacking in our world today and sooner or later we will pay the penalty for it.

At least I helped someone see the shuttle. I sent a notice to an Internet group, someone noticed it there, looked for the shuttle and found it.

Where is Iraq?

I have found something surprising as of late. The National Geographic conducted a survey of 18-24 year olds around the world and found that only 13 percent of American young people could find Iraq on a map. 87 percent couldn't, and we want to send these people to fight a war there? Only 17 percent could identify Afghanistan on a map. About 45 percent knew where New York was, but an incredible 11 percent could not even identify the United States. Scores around the world are similar. Mexico is even worse than the United States. In general, young people around the world don't know their world. This is dangerous. A lack of knowledge about the world, about science, mathematics, and social systems is what dogmas, fundamentalist religions, and tyrannical regimes feed on. Don't you think that if instead 87 percent could identify Iraq, Afghanistan, Mongolia, the United States and so forth that tyrannical regimes would fall and fundamentalist religions would disappear? I think so. Get out your National Geographic maps and discuss them with your kids. The fate of the world may depend on it.

More Giséle and PETA

This thing is starting to get hilarious. So far I thought that when PETA activists barged into the Victoria's Secret fashion show when strutted out, that the only signs that they held read "Giséle: Fur Scum". But according to two other Blogs, namely right-thinking.com and Blogs of War (sorry, no URL; it has become invalid), there were other signs, such as "OMG, she's hot!!!" and "I'm a fat whore with no life", and even one with the F word. To me the photos look authentic, but either they are fake or the media has misreported the PETA intrusion, maybe because some of these signs are not for family audiences. In my opinion, the PETA people are missing the mark. Their target is cruel treatment of mink, not the sex life of Giséle. It is the sight of these PETA women walking around a sexy supermodel is what I find interesting. The PETA women had their mouths wide open, and looked angry and demonstrative, while Giséle did not crack a smile and looked like an unfriendly nearly-undraped statue. At least the PETA women were expressing themselves and making their positions clear. To me Giséle seemed stuck up.

Giséle's name is interesting; to me, unnecessary umlauts and accents are hifalutin. But apparently her real family name was Bündchen. That is a German name; the word means little "Bund", since -chen plus umlaut is what the Germans use for a diminutive. For example, "Hund" is dog, and Hündchen is "doggie" or "puppy". "Bund" has several meanings, all of which suggests a binding or putting together. It could mean "league", in which case Giséle is Little League; maybe I'll find her in Williamsport. It could also mean "waistband", in which case it describes what she wore: a little waistband.

To me PETA is the Coyote of the protest world. They are always uncorking goofy skits. They have a woman in a skimpy bikini in a cage in the middle of downtown to protest cruel treatment to caged animals. Their dress is interesting and is designed for maximum impact: they dress skimpy where people are normally dressed, and they dress well covered where people are normally skimpily dressed, as at the fashion show. They recommend that kids drink beer, not milk. Why not orange juice? Because they want impact. They even compare a grisly murder to the butchering of cattle and other animals destined for the dinner table. Their tactic is to get people to notice. But much of the time they simply alienate. I prefer the actions of groups such as the Humane Society or the Farm Sanctuary.

Victoria's Secret

It's name is alluring. Victoria represents the epitome of sexual repressiveness. So saying "Victoria's Secret" says that there may be more than we see of Victoria, hidden behind a curtain. The company sells women's lingerie, and tonight they had a fashion show of some of the skimpiest fashions that they sell. Women paraded around in these outfits, sometimes garnished with outlandish wings, to the tune of dance music with a heavy beat, including one of my favorites, "Independence" by Jon and Vangelis.

I looked at this program because it was doubly controversial. Women's groups such as NOW protested the show is sexual exploitation. It shows women as sex objects. There may be some evidence of this. They showed one man there as having a "family" of women, of their training women to get out there and parade nearly naked, and so forth. Women's groups maintain that shows like this help put women in second place in our society, and these scenes certainly did not do anything to dispel that.

We need to distinguish, however, between discrimination and exploitation issues and expression of sexuality. The former is negative, the latter positive. For a long time societal institutions, especially religious ones, have been trying to repress sexuality. The show tonight was an expression of sexuality, showing off products that are normally used to stir sexual interest in the bedroom. As such it sends a positive message, that sexual expression is good and can add excitement to your life.

Victoria's Secret could have cleaned up its act a little bit. If the women have to go out there half naked, then so should the men. They should have been just as alluringly dressed, including singer Mark Anthony, who belted out a great song tonight. The show described how a man can get a gift for his woman from Victoria's Secret. No. That's not how it goes. The woman is the one to buy the lingerie for herself as a gift for the man, perhaps as a surprise in the bedroom. And the show could have refrained from referring to the women as "girls" and especially as "my girls". But in general I praise the show for celebrating one of the joys of life, namely sex.

The other way in which this show was controversial was due to one particular model: Giséle Bündchen. Initially as they filmed this episode, when Giséle walked on the stage, three women from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) walked on the stage and called her "fur scum", because she had signed a contract with Blackglama to model mink coats. Indeed, PETA's web site describes the cruel way in which mink are killed to make mink coats - electrocution, gassing and so forth. The three women were arrested and charged, then released, and the segment was edited out. Too bad. I liked seeing the models, but I would have liked seeing the PETA protesters as well. PETA's stand is well-taken; we have been unusually cruel to animals over the years. But I do think they were off-mark here. Tonight Giséle was wearing hardly anything, let alone fur. Her fur business was elsewhere. If PETA wanted to protest, they should have protested by waiting until she appeared in a fur coat somewhere. Doing it here instead puts them in the sexually repressed group. They led us the wrong way.

So to sum up I'd say that Victoria's Secret should have equalize the field by including alluring models of both sexes, by not referring to the women as "girls", by being careful recruiting models so they don't wind up with controversial people such as Giséle Bündchen, and PETA should have chosen the timing of its protests more carefully. I give the show a C+.

Thinking is believing

I saw this on Time Magazine's web site today: "He runs Iraq, in no small part, because people think he runs Iraq." (I am not going to post a URL, because in no time flat, it will become invalid.) This exposes Saddam's rule for what it is: it is a rule of abstract entities, a rule of belief. If you are an Iraqi and you think Saddam runs Iraq, then he will continue right on "ruling" Iraq and things will stay the same. But thoughts are free. What if you think differently? What if you think that he is just an ordinary bully instead? If a large number of people in Iraq thought that, the regime would fall quickly.

What else exists because of simply believing it exists? How about the value of the paper money in my wallet? Is there a dollar's worth of material in a dollar? No. That piece of paper is worth a dollar because I believe it is worth a dollar, because my friends and acquaintances think it is worth a dollar, and because the US government says it is worth a dollar. There used to be money that was really worth that (silver coins) but you don't see that anymore. In this case we want to keep on believing. If we don't, a monetary crisis will result and we will lose all of our savings. That happened during the Great Depression and in Germany in 1923.

But maybe with other things, if you stop believing in what you have been in habit of believing or what others tell you to believe, you may blaze a new trail. This is how clothing fads change. For example, people said in the 1960s and early 1970s that people will never own computers, and that it is not necessary to own one. But Wozniak and Jobs had a different idea: they wanted to own a computer and to make a living by getting others to own their own computers. So therefore the Apple II, and now many of us own computers, including this one I am writing on.

Be careful carving out a new belief trail. Trying to live life as you feel like it in Saddam's Iraq may not be a good idea. And you may startle people with your new thinking. But there are so many other belief trails to choose from, and the rewards can be great.

Nature Shows

I see a generational difference in the way that nature shows are presented. Take Wild Kingdom, for instance. I used to watch it in the late 1960s and 1970s when I was a young adult. The show was presented by the Silent Generation then; those born between 1925 and 1942. The show presented mostly the animals, in their adventures in obtaining what they need to survive. It would show cheetahs chasing springbok; jaguars hunting capybaras, and elephants grazing on the savanna. Once in a great while a human would appear, as in one case when one wrestled with an anaconda.

Wild Kingdom has reappeared on the Animal Channel, but it is different. It is now presented by Generation X, noted for practicality and adventurousness. Today is the day of wrestling crocodiles and "crikey". Now people appear all over the place on Wild Kingdom, especially young men who go out in the wilderness and investigate all over the place even to the extent of holding the necks of black mamba snakes in their hands. Instead of a travelogue of animals, we now get a wild safari. The show is just as interesting and informative; it is just presented differently.

If generational trends as theorized by Strauss and Howe in Generations continue, in 10-20 years the Millennial Generation will present the show. We then will see nature people going into the wilderness showing how we can preserve the environment and how to live peacefully among the animals. It will show a much more loving attitude than the bookworms of the 1960s or the daredevils of today.

A new telescope?

I currently own a Meade 2045 telescope but am looking for a bigger model. Somoene from my astronomical society wanted to hold a telescope party in which we showed our scopes to the rest of us. I figured this would be a good place to find out what scopes are available. It was not the best day to do it, as it was pouring rain much of the time. Some of us showed the hand-made scopes we made, including one called the StarStalker, named that as no commercial ad-generating enterprise will want a name like that for their scope. I got interested in the Meade LX-200, a solidly built telescope that takes 15 minutes to set up. It is a go-to scope, meaning that if you want to see the Ring Nebula, you bring up Ring Nebula in the little remote-like device that comes with it, press Go, and it slews the scope to it and hopefully you will see it. But it weighs a lot! Further, there is so much gadgetry and details involved. At $1,500-$2,500, it is a rather expensive gizmo. Still, it may be ideal to show to the public at skywatches because of the "go to" features. But if I think it is too symbolic of the conspicuous consumption in this country, I may settle for a ten-inch Dobsonian telescope: you plunk it on a lawn, use the guide scope to move the dob to your object, using old-fashioned star-hopping, and look. I still have not decided what to do.

Autumn Maple

In 1992 August we purchased a Norway red maple for our yard. It was a little taller than us, with only a thin (maybe an inch) trunk. Since then it has grown into a nice pear shape and as tall as our two-story house. It is a beautiful tree. This year the leaves stayed green all October, the first time I have seen that happen here. After the first week of November, the leaves turned into a brilliant shade of red. I took a few pictures of it admired its beauty. In just ten short years, we now have the prettiest tree on the street. Sad to say, its autumn glow did not last long. This week, some windy storms came, and all of the leaves dropped off to the ground, leaving me with a leaf raking chore this weekend. But it was something to see while it lasted.

Like Iraq!?

I would think that GM would stop these commercials hawking its SUVs, trucks and vans. I keep hearing about the Chevy Tahoe, how it is "like a rock". But that sounds a lot like "like Iraq", and while Saddam runs that country, I don't think anyone, no matter what their stand on war in Iraq is, would want themselves or items associated with them to be anything like Iraq. But if GM wants to be known in the future as having these SUVs that are like Iraq, that's their call.

Not a War

This is an interesting web site: http://irregulartimes.com. It has articles from an independent minded Republican; certainly not your run of the mill Republican. He's an "irregular Republican". Especially interesting is the article Not a War. In the article, entitled "When is a war not a war? When it's a crime", he maintains that the campaign against terror is not a war, because it is not against a nation; otherwise, anyone can attack our soldiers or our installations and claim that they are fighting a war against our country. Terror, such as what happened on 2001 September 11, does not come from a nation and so therefore it is not a war. It is an interesting article although somewhat overdrawn. His main point I feel is valid: our effort to combat terrorism is not a war.

Negative blogs

I note that I have been posting a lot of negative blogs as of late. Perhaps that is because times are negative: war with Iraq, stock market dropping, the sniper. I think we should all try to find good and happy things in life, and I shall try to find some myself.

Theft of time?

I found an editorial in the local newspaper that takes a stand that I question. The editorialist condemned the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) for its "terrorist" actions. I for one believe that the actions of the ELF do damage to the cause of environmentalism and preserving this planet as a place of beauty to live. They cause people to oppose ELF, and hence by association, environmentalism.

However, I take exception to one comment that the author makes. He quotes from the science fiction novel Dune in which he says that depriving a man of an hour and depriving him of his life is merely a difference of degree. He cites the case of a person who has to replace the tires of an SUV after they get slashed. If that's the case, then I can name quite a few mass murderers. Take the computer companies, for instance, especially Microsoft. Think of how much time has been wasted, probably billions of person-hours, because computers crash. How about the time wasted waiting for service at some of these computer and cellular phone places? I did not have cable modem service for four days, when it was the modem that was bad instead of all the other things they had me do and had me waste 10 hours or so on. Today I was forced to wait two hours for a service only to be told that I had to make an appointment another day. How about all the times that car repair places misrepaired my car or made me wait a long time for it? If this editorialist is correct, this constitutes many killings worth of time many thousands of time over.

I have never thought of things this way. To me there is a difference of level as well as one of degree between a vandalism and a murder.

Pure Theater

President Bush called the action of the Iraqi parliament in unanimously rejecting U.N. Resolution 1441 "pure theater". Interesting way of putting it. At least I'd rather have pure theater than polluted theater or dirty theater. Maybe he means a theater that has been scrubbed of germs so that you won't catch a cold there, or maybe he means one in which all of the things that are done and all that the actors ever do is devoted to producing plays in a theater. It is pure theater, and nothing else but theater. In any case, Bush still says that Iraq must comply else there will be another kind of theater - a military one.

Looms

I have noticed recently that the media likes to use the verb to loom a lot. The war on Iraq looms, unemployment looms, the top-rated Florida State Seminoles loom, new restrictions on tax shelters loom. Everything seems to loom. Here a loom, there a loom, everywhere a loom loom. Don't they get tired of using that word?

How about "approach ominously", or "is coming" or even my nonword ominate? The impending war with Iraq ominates while Iraq mulls U.N. Resolution 1441. Budget cuts ominate. At least it is new and different. But don't use it too often. Else the day when everything ominates in the media will loom.

Bubble Bees Revisited

Bubble Bees has become my favorite game on the Internet. It is relatively easy to play, has a few mysteries to pique you, and, most importantly, is non-violent. I have played many games and have deduced a few rules which I feel should have been stated up front;

1. Fast red bees are 50 points.
2. Catching two objects (clocks, ordinary bees, or red bees) gets you 100 points.
3. Catching an ordinary bee by itself counts 10 points, but does not count anything if caught with other objects; then you get the bonus instead.
4. Catching a clock gives you 5 more seconds.
5. You have 60 seconds to start with
6. Going past a multiple of 500 gets you 10 extra seconds.
7. Catching three objects at once gets you 500 points.
8. Catching four objects at once gets you 1000 points (not 2500 points).
9. Bubbles vary in size.

My strategy has improved over time and my high game is now 6,230 points. Here are some of my strategies:

1. Balance between snatching bees before time passes and waiting to get more than one at a time.
2. Catch single bees while you can while you wait for two bees to get close enough to get the 100-point bonus.
3. In catching the clock, you need to put the bubbler lower than usual, especially near the bottom of the screen.
4. Wait, if possible, to catch the clock until it is near some bees, so that catching it will get a bonus.
5. Wait, if possible, to catch the fast red bee until it is near some other bees, so that catching will get the 100-point bonus.
6. Bees porpoise up and down and go at different speeds. If you watch their flying pattern, you can anticipate groupings.
7. When your score has a 4 or 9 as the hundreds digit, catch whatever you can, even if it be ordinary bees, to get you over the next multiple of 500.
8. It is better, when going after two bees, to miss them both than to catch just one of them. If the latter happens, your chance of getting the 100-point bonus with them is forever gone. I call this a "chop", borrowing the term from bowling.
9. Don't snare bees immediately upon going on the screen. You miss groupings by doing that.

My high score is 6,230, which is a far cry from the six-digit amounts that are on the top 10 list. How does one get those? I counted the bees once and determined that in 10 seconds, 8 bees appear on the average. To stay in the game indefinitely, you need to get 500 points every 10 minutes, with a little help from the clocks. To get 500 points out of 8 bees, you need to snare three of them together or catch them with the clock and the fast red bee. Usually they are too far apart to catch in pairs, so I don't see how one can last a long time in the game to get those six-digit scores. I tried stretching the bubbles, but there is only so far that they will stretch. Another way in which you can get high scores is if catching huge bunches of bees gets you tremendous scores. That is whay I thought that 4 bees would get you 2,500 points, 5 gets you 12,500 points, and 6 gets you 62,500 points, each one being 5 times the previous. But when I caught 4 bees once, it yielded not 2,500 but 1,000 points. Apparently it goes up only arithmetically. So that rules that out.

So how then does one get those six-digit scores? There must be an Easter egg in the game.

Anti-muslimism and Anti-whitevanism

In the past two years two types of discrimination have appeared. The first appeared after Planeattack, and was directed against Muslims, since it was Muslims who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. People looked askance at them, or anyone of Mideastern descent, because of Planeattack. The second appeared while the DC sniper was terrorizing the Washington-Richmond area and was directed against owners of white vans. Police inspected these vans much more than other cars, and people started to avoid and look wary of white vans.

There are similarities and differences between the two discriminations. They are similar in that they are based on unwarranted stereotypes - the Mideasterner as suicide bomber and the white van owner as a sniper. These stereotypes are frequently wrong; it was for the sniper case, as the snipers did their killing from a Chevrolet Caprice instead. The two discriminations are also based on the same human emotion: fear. It is different in that a person's religious beliefs are much more integrated with the person than what kind of vehicle he drives. The anti-Muslim beliefs also are more like to turn into hate, as they are directed against people, while the white-van fear was directed against things.

The white van discrimination makes it clear that discrimination of other types frequently is based on fear. This makes it important that community groups be organized once in a while to allow people to experience each other as for a common cause. This could go a long way to alleviating the fear.

Bomb Iraq with...

One of the more interesting pastimes I found on the web is to hunt in Google for a famous phrase with one word changed. Take, for example, "Loose lips sink ships." If I want to get the entire phrase except the word "lips", I enter "loose * sink ships" -lips, telling Google I want "loose" followed by any word (the wild character *) followed by "sink ships", and that I don't want the word "lips". The first entry I get is "loose chips sink ships", which may be appropriate for today's cybernetic world. "Give me liberty or give me *" -death yields "Give me liberty or give me, um, a Game Boy", and then "Give me liberty or give me Microsoft". Have it your own way. If I star the liberty instead, I get "Give me pixels or give me death." They probably mean the Blue Screen of Death. "Read my lips, no more *" -taxes yields "science" first, then "terror" and "Bush". The choices get better all the time. I tried "Bomb Iraq with *" and got this list:

Ballots
Food
Lots of smart bombs
Blair's backing
our a*hole smart technology
Prayer
Sh*loads of DU
No provocation
Love
Really bad jokes

As you can see, some interesting alternatives.