Vaccines, Research, Benefits and Ladders

Posted on February 19, 2015 | Leave a comment

We’re going there, sorry, but the stories are getting out of hand.  We’ll start with the anti-vaxxers who point to a “prestigious study” in The Lancet that says vaccines cause autism in children.  Here’s the link to the article, Feb 2 2010 where The Lancet retracted the article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, because his research was, to be generous, bullshit. 

There are no scientific links between being vaccinated and becoming autistic, or any of the other shades of autism spectrum disorders.

Yes, there has been thiomersal in many vaccine fluids.  Thiomersal is an organic mercury compound in use since the 1930’s as a preservative and anti-fungal.  It was developed because an early (1928) diphtheria vaccine under testing created a more than 50% fatality rate when injected as the vaccine did not contain a preservative.  The children died of staphylococcus from the injection media, not the vaccine.

Oddly enough there was no incredible uptick in the cases of autism when thiomersal was incorporated into vaccine preparations in 1930.  One would think that there would be several generations of autism victims to research, but that doesn’t seem to be true.

However, since us humans shouldn’t be exposed to any more mercury than is really necessary, the CDC asked vaccine makers to remove it, just in case, and since 1999, they have.  Thiomersal is still used as a preservative in contact lens solution, nasal sprays and tattoo ink. 

Using the anit-vaxxer logic circuits then, any woman either pregnant or hoping to become pregnant should be prohibited by law from wearing contact lenses, using nasal spray or getting some ink.  Needless to say, young kids should never get tats until they’re older and can make bad decisions on their own. (Daddy I can’t get a job for the summer, nobody will hire me! It’s because you have have Donnies’ Fuck Bitch poorly and illiterately tattooed on your face, dear daughter.  Now what did I tell you about the possessive apostrophe?) 

By way of comparison of the concentration of thiomersal in a vaccine, you would have to take a piss in an Olympic sized swimming pool, then drink all the pool water to equal the concentration.  You probably get more mercury exposure from being near a burned out compact fluorescent light bulb.  Funny how nobody has drawn a link between CFL’s and autism.  Could it be there is no link?  Just sayin’. 

What the anti-vaxx movement really shows us is how dumb we have become.  We have near-instantaneous access to a gazillion pages of learned research, from people who have forgotten more about disease prevention than we will ever know, but yet we grab at that one miniscule outlying data point in a million that ‘proves’ our opinion.

Here’s a suggestion:  Do your due diligence before opening your mouth.  If you think that there is a causal link between A and Z, odds are you can find research by someone that will give you more leads to more research, from more people.  This sounds like Journalism 101 and in many ways it is very rudimentary research. 

The other concept to keep in mind while doing your research is this one:  Cui Bono?  It’s Latin for Who Benefits?  To contemporize it, follow the money, meaning who is paying for the research.  Sorry dear scientists, but money rides and ethics walks when it comes to primary research these days. 

Now, if you can find three unrelated, probably accurate, unbiased sources, odds are the idea is nearing the department of truthiness.  There are hard facts out there.  We use Wikipedia for some of them, but tend to keep our use to things like How many square miles is France (247,368) or what is number 44 in the Periodic Table of Elements (Ruthenium).  When it comes to opinion or analysis, there are too many sources to list, but we do tend to investigate both sides of an argument to find where the middle ground is, as that is where the real truth is most likely to reside.

The third concept to keep in mind is the overall benefit of something.  Back in the 1960’s seat belts in cars were considered weird Birkenstock-wearing tree-hugger, stream-tasting, safety-freak articles.  Drivers and car makers complained that they would be trapped in their cars with seatbelts and millions of innocents would drown or burn to death in crashes, strangled and mummified by seat belts.  Fifty years later, we belt up automatically.  (I’m primary research in the efficacy of seat belts, having survived a couple of serious and fatal crashes:  Seat belts are the only reason I’m alive.)

Overall benefit is sometimes tough to measure and there are always mitigating opinions on both sides.  Take the simple tool of a ladder.  Ladders are wonderful things and have been around for thousands of years, but they can be tricky for idiots to use.  Go to Home Depot and look at a ladder.  If you can find the rungs behind all the warning labels, you’ll find a useful tool.  Those labels are there because someone sued someone else, which has nothing to do with the overall benefits of a ladder – It has plenty to do with Cui Bono. 

This doesn’t mean that ladders are inherently dangerous, but it does mean that idiots should use them with caution.  There is no international conspiracy of ladder manufacturers to make them more dangerous, so you will be forced to hire a licensed ladder operator to change that light bulb in the foyer.  The overall benefit of a ladder exceeds the number of morons who have climbed up two storeys and their last words have been recorded as “Honey, watch this!”

To tie this all up, use your brain.  If you see an internet posting that says stuffing two sticks of unsalted butter and a dill pickle up your ass will cure cancer and you believe it to be true, then you need to step away from the keyboard, slowly.  Do some research, follow the money and look at the overall benefit of something before pontificating.

Leave a comment

Posted in News and politics, Social Constructs

An Effective Reply to ISIS

Posted on February 3, 2015 | 3 comments

We were discussing the appropriate reply to ISIS the other day.  ISIS or ISIL has become a source of outrage and offense of global proportions.  Today’s latest was burning a Jordanian prisoner to death; locked in a cell, doused with fuel and torched.  There have been beheadings, throwing people off buildings, executions of every possible kind.  Our consensus is this must stop. 

We worked through a number of scenarios after the video of Kenji Goto’s beheading was released and after today’s outrage, are more convinced of our favoured reply to ISIS, which we are of mixed feelings for sharing. 

Our initial responses were considered and lengthy, starting with simple ones like sending over 250,000 troops from an international coalition to hunt every member down like rabid dogs, incarcerating them and letting the Hague figure it out in trials that might last for decades.

One featured B-52’s with a full combat load of dumb iron bombs, starting at map coordinate X and working up the alphabet to A, making nice boxes on Google Maps 2016 that look like the surface of the moon.  Iron bombs are cheap, the BUFF is reasonable in its maintenance hours to combat hours ratios and it gives the US Air Force some important and needed practice in terrain modification without expending the expensive precision ordinance.  Mark-84’s run about $3,100 a piece and a H model BUFF can rack 51 a trip, so just under $160,000, not counting gas, maintenance and crew.  Compared to others fancy-pants Things That Go Bang that start at $100,000 a go, we don’t need that expense, what with the economy these days.      

Others were a tad excessive, involving turning significant parts of Syria and Iran into large lakes of glass with tactical weapons of a nuclear nature.  We eventually considered that the collateral damage (making a few thousands square miles of the Middle East uninhabitable for 10,000 years) and the unintended immolation of a few million innocents was, well, excessive.

Then we struck upon the proper, reasoned and effective response that combined the right notes of economy (Coalition military response is pricey and cumbersome with weird political overtones) and the clarity of a well-stated message that cannot be misinterpreted, even by illiterates, uneducated, or those in the narcissist throes of some jihadist fantasy of being immune to discipline as their own blessed caliphate.

Jordan, happily, does not have the greatest international reputation for being kind, considerate or caring, (see Norway, or Canada as a compare and contrast exercise) so they are a natural fit in our scheme. Jordan has several dozen convicted ISIS members in custody.  The reason ISIS was holding Kenji Goto hostage was to use him as a bargaining chip to get their people released from Jordanian prisons.  The same is true with the Jordanian Air Force pilot, although Proof of Life has not been provided by ISIS yet, so negotiations are at an impasse.   

Since ISIS wants their people back, we should give ISIS what they want.

Every two or three days a lone or escorted Jordanian Air Force helicopter ($500/hour gas, maintenance and crew) can bring one of the ISIS members in custody over some of the lands held by ISIS. Come in fast, if only to keep the RPG interference to a minimum.  Slip into a quick hover over a village square, or some gathering place, preferably on market day when there are a lot of ISIS-supporting people milling around.

Attach a simple note in the appropriate languages to the ISIS prisoner.  The text should be along the lines of:  You want your people back?  Here you go.  We’ll be back in a while with another one until you smarten up.  Lay down your arms and give it up.  Sincerely, The Rest of the World.

Then deliver the prisoner to ISIS.  From 1,000 feet.  Alive.  Without a parachute. 

Post video of the whole thing, from inside the helicopter, watching the prisoner all the way down to his or her somewhat unpleasant (and probably pixelated) impact. 

Retweet it, cross-post it on every social media site that ISIS uses to recruit new members.  Hack the ISIS web pages and post it there too.

We figure it will take about three trips for the message to be received and understood.

If your opponent is a savage, the only thing they can comprehend is greater savagery.  We’re better than that, but if that’s all ISIS can comprehend, then game on.

Enough. We’re pissed.  Send in the savages.

3 Comments

Posted in News and politics

Je Suis Charlie

Posted on January 8, 2015 | 2 comments

62650_1603110169912403_1317175214343749019_n

Credit – Unofficial: Banksy https://www.facebook.com/banksy/photos/a.1471310386425716.1073741828.1471162443107177/1603110169912403/?type=1&fref=nf

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Crashin’ Planes with Mason Baveux

Posted on January 4, 2015 | 2 comments

Our esteemed pinch-hitter Mason Baveux has managed to sober up long enough to have some coherent thoughts regarding the spate of aircraft crashes.  Believe it or not he used to hold an A&P (airframe and powerplant) ticket, so he might even speak with a modicum of authority, which scares the crap out of us.

Thanks for the bloggery keys again Davey as I got something to say.  First off, a happy new year’s to you and the rest of the readers what read your blog on a semi regular basis of readin. 

And a Merry Christmas too.  Not Happy Friggin Holidays, but Merry Friggin Christmas, goddammit.  If’n you don’t celebrate Christmas, then a Happy Chanuka, or Eid, or Diwalli or Saturnalia, or Solstice, or what ever effin holiday you call yours.  We’ll all get along fine, as we all take our turns.  Right now, it’s our turn, so Merry Christmas.

Airplanes crashin is what I need to talk about for a piece.  A lot of airlines out of Malaysia and Singapore has been havin a shit run of luck of late, either bein shot down like in the Ukerainia or disappearing off the scopes, like last year, or just a couple of days ago over the Java Sea. 

What’s got my arse in a knot is those moron commentators on the cable news who are talkin nonsense about aircraft, about hows the pilot gone off his meds and crashed her on purpose to piss off his ex wife, or how come they ain’t got a way to find a downed aircraft in fourteen minutes flat.  We’re gonna set that to right, right about now. 

First off to keep in mind is that the pilot is always the first one on the scene of the accident, as he’s up at the pointy end, so’s its in his interest to land the airplane proper and make sure it’s all workin fine.  He (or these days, it could be a she, but I’ll use he as that’s what I’m used to sayin) is the lad what makes sure you get to where you’re goin, as he’s been told to get you there. 

Pax who die on the trip tend not to buy another ticket, so it’s in the interests of the airline to get you there and bring you back.  There’s a whole whack of other folks that have your interests too.  Co-pilot, stews (I mean flight attendants) gas jockeys, caterin’, bag monkeys, ramp rats, de-icers, wrenches, ATC, tower pukes and all them has your best interests at heart.  They all got the right and the obligation to speak up if they see something wrong.  They want you to get there safe and come home safe.  Might not be the best trip and your luggage might wind up at DME but at least you got there and back in one piece. 

Where it can get complicated is with all the movin parts.  Airplanes are simple things don’t you know.  If you got enough airspeed you can glide one damn near anywheres, as long as you got room to dive enough to keep up airspeed.  Where it goes to hell, is if you ain’t got room between your airplane and the ground to dive enough to have enough airspeed to fly.  Yes, a 747-100 will glide and if you’re at FL32 you got room to dive and keep flyin long enough to find somewheres reasonably flat to land it, as long as you got wings, ailerons, elevators and a rudder.  Keep up 240 IAS and the ratio is more or less 15 feet forward for every foot down. 

That Gimli Glider (Charlie Golf Alpha Uniform November) was nothin but a 767-200 out of gas in the hands of a good pilot who had enough room betwixt himself and the ground to keep it flyin.  Same with Captain Sully Sullenberger with that USScare flight on the Hudson River.  He didn’t have but a dozen seconds after a double bird strike to figure it out and glide it in for a river ditchin.  Gliding ain’t the problem as long as you got all the parts on the aircraft.  

This becomes a problem when you’re out over the ocean 120 minutes from frig all to land on.  Used to be the lads called ETOPS, Engines Turning Or Passengers Swimming but that was a while ago, after my time.  Water ditchin means you’re hittin something at 170 or so knots.  Even if you hit the inside of Ivor Wynne Stadium and she’s full of Kraft marshmallows, you’ll bust up the airframe. with a bit o simple math: 

170 knots (got flaps, got gear, got the centerline) is 195 miles per hour give or take.  Now think about some puke what’s lost it on the 401 at 85 mph?  Is there much left of the car, or him?  Nope.  He gets buried in a #10 window envelope so’s they can have a viewing before the burial, so’s going more than twice that in a Scarebus with 150 souls, then you got a mess of aluminum scrap.

What also galls my galluses is the tv turds what are beefin about not having a GPS on modern airplanes.  The problem ain’t havin a GPS, as all the new ones got’em, but havin someone listening to the report coming back from the aircraft and keepin tabs on the flight the whole way.  That takes a human keepin an eye on’er all the time that costs the airlines money for monitoring 100,000 flights where frig all happens except the plane gets there and comes back and maybe they’re out of Crown Royal, so’s you got to have a gin and tonic instead of a rye and ginger.  I’m not sayin you cain’t do it, but she’ll cost a ton to monitor something that happens one time in a million. 

What I see from my Barcalounger is cable news tryin to fill time with bullshit like they got all confused on metric versus imperial or the pilot lost his marbles and was screamin in arabic as he threw it all away and the airline did their maintenance with sheet metal screws and 200 mph tape on a route they weren’t licensed to fly.  I call bullshit.  Aircraft don’t work like that as long as the crew has their head screwed on right and all the parts of the airframe are there, she’ll fly.  

I’ll be bettin a picture of Sir Wilfrid Laurier that he ran into a a microburst that he couldn’t get around or over, and lost something important like the rudder or a half a wing and then it became a brick.  Bricks don’t fly too well and those inside the brick are in real trouble.

Now I’m sorry all them people died and it makes for great tv to see wailin relatives, but wailin relatives is got nothin to do with air safety.  Them tears are the result of sometimes just some bad luck.  Was there other contributing factors, of course there was and we’ll find that out soon enough. 

Just we don’t need some uninformed hairsprayed jagoff who couldn’t parallel park a Smart car, tell us how everything is all buggered up when they don’t know much more than left from right or can’t tell a JT9D from a CF6.  Bunch of arseholes.

 

Thanks Mason for your insight.   

 

 

 

  

       

2 Comments

Posted in Travel

Foodies and Steak Rolendeli

Posted on December 26, 2014 | 8 comments

Foodie is a dangerous term.  Foodies argue endlessly about the provenance of the oregano in a chef’s Sunday gravy, or bicker about the appropriate  number of pounds to press the espresso puck to pull a correct Americano.  Flame wars erupt amongst them about the proper use of Himalayan salt, or Nepalese salt, or Hawaiian lava salt and which goes correctly with organic wild basa, instead of farmed basa.

If we want ‘genuine’ Kerala Chicken Curry, we’ll go to Kerala and get it in Kerala from a sketchy street vendor, instead of arguing over the spice mixtures and whether the cocoanut milk is fresh or canned.  We approach food differently, eschewing the esoteric hipster-approved pseudo-experience of “genuine”or “authentic” cuisine, for things that Taste Good. 

To which we present something that Tastes Good.  It is called Steak Rolendeli.

In an Esquire article, Man At His Best, November 1990 the late Jim Enger described a dish of such remarkable beauty that we have kept the magazine, now stained with butter and meat juices and have actually prepared Steak Rolendeli three times.  Each time those around the table have been enthralled at the simplicity and beauty of the recipe and marked it as one of those meals that one remembers for a long, long time.  It will also make you a Kitchen Deity for years to come.  

Herewith, Steak Rolendeli.

Go to the butcher.  A real butcher that understands beef, not some gormless mook that merely stocks the racks with hermetically sealed pre-digested, pre-portioned cow parts.  Point at the sirloin steaks and ask to buy the primal cut that those steaks came from as one big whole.  Many butchers get their meat in big chunks and cut it down from the primal cut, usually packed in a Cryovac bag, from their meat distributor.  If you have a butcher that gets actual carcasses of beef, tell them you want the whole sirloin, cap on.  It should weigh about 17 to 20 pounds.  This will cost you more than $100, but it will be worth it.  Trust us.

Stop at the supermarket on the way home from the butcher, get two pounds of unsalted butter, two pounds of salted butter and three boxes of regular table salt.  Swing by the bread department and get two loaves of the best, crusty Italian or French bread you can wangle.  If you have a baker nearby get the two best they have in a crusty, white baguette or freeform loaf.

Salad?  Sure.  You can make a salad if you wish.  Nobody will eat it, but you can make it. 

Call up four to eight excellent friends with good appetites and get enough wine to go with this meal. Or beer, or bourbon.  Drinks are mandatory, but as to what, we’ll leave that to you.  Whatever goes with beef and is of a modest price is your objective.

At home, open the package from the butcher to gaze upon this hunk of meat.  You’ll need a sharp knife to take off the fat cDSC_5865ap (or if you butcher knows what you’re creating, will do it for you.  This is the time to have a very sharp knife.  You want to trim the fat cap down to where there is a thin layer of fat on the top side.  You might have to whittle the fat cap off in smaller pieces and it might take off a pound or two of weight, but you have plenty to work with. 

Place the whole thing in a turkey-sized roaster and let the meat come up to room temperature, which should take about an hour.  Meanwhile take those two loaves of bread and cut them into slices, perhaps on the thinner side.  Steak Rolendeli is about the meat, the bread is important, but thinner is better here.

Put your oven rack as far down as it will go and put the broiler on about 20 minutes before cooking to get the broiler screeching hot.  We have a gas broiler and it takes about 8 minutes to get to the point where you can sweat-solder copper pipe with it.  Yours might take a little longer to come up to full temp.  Obviously Steak Rolendeli will not work if your heat source is a $29.99 toaster oven from that fancy French store, Target.DSC_5886

Open one of the boxes of salt.  This is ordinary table salt, not kosher, or sea, or lava, or smoked. Simple table salt.  Pour it all over the top of the steak. All of it.  Every grain.  Tell your guests to hush as they will protest drowning a magnificent hunk of beef in a kilo of salt.  You are doing something brave and fantastic that will have your friends talking for years, licking their lips in fond remembrance and hushed reverence for your status as a Kitchen Deity.

Put the steak, salt side up, under the broiler and set the timer for 25 minutes.  Do not peek, as there is magic afoot!

While the meat is broiling, melt down the four pounds of butter in a pot that you would make a big batch of chili, or boil pasta in.  The pot should be big enough that the butter only comes up about half-way.  Get the butter melted and simmering, not boiling:  You should see the occasional bubble on the surface, not a full rolling boil, so go slowly.

Once the timer goes off, take out the Steak Rolendeli and chip off the burned salt crust.  It will come off in chunks, looking a little burned and hard, which is exactly what you want.  Toss the salt out and brush off any excess.  DSC_5924

Flip the meat over and pour another box of table salt over the uncooked side and return the steak to the broiler.  Set the timer to another 25 minutes and tell the now-yapping guests to shut up. These things take time.  Open another bottle, or tell a long pointless story about finding the recipe on an obscure blog run by a crazed Canadian up in Ottawa named Smitty, based on an article in Esquire in 1990, by a guy who loved fly fishing in the UP of Michigan.

When the timer goes off, the fun starts.  Bring out the meat and chip off the salt again, brushing off the excess that didn’t harden up.  Put the meat on a cutting board and chop it into fist-sized chunks.  You’ll see the meat is on the rare side of rare, perhaps even blue in the middle.  Plop one or two chunks into the pot, carefully, so as not to splash molten butter everywhere.  DSC_5943

Nominate one of your most trustworthy unindicted co-conspirators as the Runner, as he or she will be running plates of Steak Rolendeli to the table and acting as your able assistant.  Send your guests to the table and tell them to prepare themselves. 

Fish out the first chunk of meat from the butter. It should soak for about two minutes.  While you are slicing off pieces as thin as you can, your Runner is very lightly dipping one side of the bread in the butter and placing them on a platter. You cover the bread with razor thin slices of meat, cut against the grain.  As your Runner delivers a platter to the dining area, fish out another big chunk and drop another one into the butter.  The Runner will load the next platter with butter dipped bread and you will continue to slice off the meaty goodness.  Some rare, some medium and even some medium well, mixed across the bread slices will allow your guests to choose to their tastes.  DSC_5965

Those particularly fine pieces, with a bit of char that weren’t perfectly covered with salt?  Those are hoarded to one side of the cutting board for you and your Runner.  Dip, slice, place, run, repeat. 

You will notice a peculiar sound about the time the second platter arrives.  You won’t hear your guests griping, harping, or complaining.  You won’t hear good-natured bantering, laughter, or stories.  Perhaps you might hear the occasional clink of a glass or the elegant chirp of silverware on a plate.  You will hear a lot of silence and the comfortingly guttural sounds of people eating with lustful abandon.  With luck you might hear the tiny jingle of a belt-buckle being undone discreetly under the table. 

This is what you want. 

After the third or fourth platter, herd that stack of very choice cuts you’ve been hoarding on the corner of the cutting board onto a slice of dipped bread for your Runner.  This is their Just Reward. 

One last platter, this time asking your guests if they want very rare, rare, medium or well done and provision their bread as appropriate.  You may now enter the dining area to your well-deserved applause and adulation, your Runner discreetly sliding into place at their seat, with their own special plate of Steak Rolendeli.

What you have created, if you are of a culinary perspective, is a broiled, salt-crusted sirloin, finished by butter poaching.  The beef is not salty, perhaps the top 1/32nd of an inch is, but not any more than that.  The salt crusts under the heat of the broiler, trapping the juices in the meat, until you release them with that final quick poaching in butter.  Tender, juicy, flavourful, remarkable sirloin of beef, served simply on well-buttered and meat-juiced bread.

The other thing you have created is a memory for your guests of a meal they will not soon forget. 

You may now wear your jaunty crown as a Kitchen Deity which also entitles you to tell any obnoxious foodie to go climb a tree and hang themselves by their woolen hipster toque. 

We make food that tastes good.

8 Comments

Posted in Food and drink

Christmas Traditions

Posted on December 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

Yuletide is a season of traditions, some old, some new.  We’re going to share one or two with you as our way of a holiday post. 

We’ve been listening to The Shepherd on the radio almost every Christmas Eve.  For those not familiar with the CBC, or As It Happens, here’s the backstory.  As It Happens is a CBC radio program that since 1979 has aired either on Christmas Eve, or as close to it as possible, a short story by Fredrick Forsyth called The Shepherd.  It is a reading by the late Alan Maitland of the story of a RAF flyer in 1957 taking a Christmas Even flight home from Germany in a DH 100 Vampire single seat jet fighter.  The story by Fredrick Forsythe is part redemption, a narrative of faith and a great historical ghost story, all set on Christmas Eve.    

We turn down the lights in the house, turn up the radio, or the computer and sit for a half-hour, listening to the magic of radio as Forsyth’s words and Maitland’s voice weave story in our minds more vivid that any presentation in 4K HD and THX audio.  In an interesting twist of history, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum has a DH 100 Vampire and a DH 98 Mosquito as part of the collection, not a dozen kilometers from here.

Even though we have heard The Shepherd dozens of times and can nearly quote it verbatim, it still brings a chill and then a warmth that is our Christmas Even tradition.  We can’t do it justice so go to the CBC site, here and listen for yourself.

The second tradition was started about fifteen years ago, as a way to spread the load of the holiday season.  Ourselves and another couple take it in turns to host the Christmas Day dinner, adjourning to each others houses for the feast.  Some years it is the traditional turkey and other years a more contemporary tasting table.  There is always too much to drink and too much to eat, but the fellowship and close personal ties between us and any strays we round up provide an evening of warmth, laughter and closeness that is about as good as it gets.  It is the highlight of the season.

If you have a mind as twisted as ours, we will suggest Cards Against Humanity, the Canadian Edition, as a way to tighten your abs to work off the Christmas dinner.  We still hurt this morning from laughing hard enough to cause damage.

To our friends, distant, near, online, and real world, we wish you happiness and joy this holiday season and hope that you find your moments of warmth, joy and closeness with those who mean much to you.

In the words of Joe the old batman from The Shepherd, Happy Christmas.

Leave a comment

Posted in Social Constructs

Spacing Again

Posted on December 5, 2014 | 1 comment

NASA has been sitting on the sidelines since the Space Shuttles stopped flying, relying on the Russian Soyuz as a way to get folks to the International Space Station along with groceries and gizmos to keep the joint going.

This morning NASA launched, for the first time, an unmanned Orion, the next-gen spacecraft that will contain humans to go to places like Mars.  Using a Delta IV Heavy rocket NASA did what they used to do:  Punch big holes in the sky.  Everything worked, two orbits and a successful re-entry old-skool style under parachutes to a splashdown.

Which led to some comments from colleagues.  One remarked he had seen the beginning of the Shuttle and the end of the Shuttle and was astounded by the passing of that many years.  We commented that some of us recall Sheppard and Glen in the early days, the Gemini series, the Apollos and Skylab.  We felt old for a moment.  My colleague’s timeline was different and we have the benefit of perspective.

Most of us of a certain age remember the Space Race when the US was in a death-march to the Moon with the Soviets:  When winning mattered to demonstrate the prowess of the ‘free world’ to conquer these kinds of massive technological things that had never been done before by anyone, anywhere, ever.  That sense of seeing a greyish, grainy shot of someone in a bulky spacesuit stepping onto another planet nearly a quarter of a million miles away, that sense of “Holy Shit!  We Did It!”

We, as a people, had lost that sense of awe of doing the impossible, but for about five hours today, we got a tiny taste of that mojo back. 

It isn’t the beginning, but more like Orion is the very first struggling, hesitant steps of the beginning of the Beginning.  Hopefully, soon, we’ll have that incredible sense of awe back.  Our planet needs it, perhaps now more than ever.     

    

 

1 Comment

Posted in Social Constructs

Museum Maintenance Woes

Posted on December 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

The Canada Science and Technology Museum is going into the porcelain facility quickly, a victim of years of neglect.  To those who don’t know the joint, the museum is one of the pre-eminent museums of, oddly enough, Science and Technology in the world, located not 10 kilometers from where we write this august blog.

Science and Tech, as is has been known for a zillion years, was originally a Morrison-Lamonthe bakery, a huge rambling joint in the suburbs of Ottawa since 1967 when it opened.  Morrison-Lamonthe, so the story goes, was expanding their production plant from their old Echo Drive location into a new state of the 1966-art high tech bakery when the market tanked.  They had a big, almost finished building and a big bill to finish the construction, when they decided not to go ahead with their mammoth undertaking and turned to the Feds to bail them out, which they did. 

Now, what to do with 11,000 square meters of floor space (118,403 square feet) and 12 hectares (almost 30 acres) of land?  It being Centennial Year, they decided to do a museum to Science and Technology and do it fast. 

Being an Ottawa kid, growing up a short bike ride from the site, I’ve probably been to the museum more times than I’ve had freshly laundered shirts.  It was an amazing place. 

We’re using past tense for a reason.  This story tells of the imminent demise of the joint.  Years of neglect, budget cutbacks, shifting priorities and the usual level of governmental dumb has left the now-shuttered Canada Science and Technology Museum in a bureaucratic limbo.  The roof leaks, there is asbestos falling out of the ceiling and enough mold growing to the point of the mold having their own exhibit space with their own docents for single cell attendees from the schools.  Alas.

The Crazy Kitchen, messing with your perception of what is level, or straight, the rotating Earth, the optical illusions, the artifacts of some of the first Cobalt 60 radiation machines, radios, televisions, telephones and telegraphs.  Where else could you see a working old-school rotary dial Central Office switch connecting two phones, not a foot away from your face, or an IBM card reader from an early IT beast along with a Minimoog Model D?  A Massey-Ferguson combine, a Model T, or components off one of the original Avro Arrows along with a working submarine periscope that stuck out the roof of the building?  Nowhere else but what we called Science and Tech.

In the Train Hall you could walk up into the cab of several massive 4-8-4 Northern-class steam locomotives:   Number 6400 looked like it needed nothing more than a few thousand gallons of water and a load of coal (plus the attention of a hotshot fireman) to get up a head of steam and pull the whole darn building out to the main CP line, then off to Montreal with green lights all the way

Outside was a collection of more rolling stock, some of the first passenger diesel locos, a working lighthouse, the working radar dish, and of course, the brushed aluminum menace of the Atlas missile pointing its finger at the Soviets, ready to release Armageddon at the press of a button.  We’re barely scratching the surface here, but suffice to say it was a magical place.

Now, with the mold, the collapsing roof and the asbestos, the years of fiscal neglect are going to kill the Canada Science and Technology Museum.  It will become pedagogically-approved, socially inclusive, hyperlinked, positive and affirming travelling exhibit on a series of tablet computers:  Here is a picture of a car, or a jet engine , or how sound travels in a tube that the target audiences and stakeholders can interact with in a contemporary learning modality. 

Interacting is nice, but being able to reach out and touch a drive rod of stainless steel as big around as your waist, smelling of oil and exertion, on a 1929 CPR Locomotive (#3100 to be exact) that would push a wheel twice as tall as you were, along with their five other brethren, is not interactive learning.

It’s magic.  Wild, uncontained, uncontaminated, magical, learning.  We’ll miss it.

Leave a comment

Posted in Ersatz History

Black Friday, Oil, Cocktails

Posted on November 29, 2014 | Leave a comment

Since it was Black Friday in the US yesterday, we were treated to the standard video of hordes of people lined up for hours outside stores, then rushing in to grab one of four deep-discounted items the store had on offer. 

There were the usual stories of people waving guns around, fighting over a big-screen TV and wrestling goods out of other less-deserving hands, accompanied by a cacophony of swearing, screaming, imprecations and comments about the other person involving antecedents, genetic status and general state of mental hygiene.  The store comments?  Let’s just say they appreciate the coverage on the six o’clock news as free advertising in primo eyeball hours as long as there are no machete-wielding crazies, butchering a dozen people to get the sole remaining counterfeit action figure from some kid’s movie. 

We suspect that someone, somewhere is planning a reality show that has Black Friday every week, with the contestants fighting over a KitchenAid stand mixer, a case of Ragu sauce and a big-screen TV in exchange for answering general knowledge questions about other reality show contestants. 

We would add a feature of the Big Savings Tunnel of Doom, a 70-foot long Lexan tunnel that the 30 contestants have to run through, barefoot, facing a barrage of pepper spray, fire hoses and beanbag projectiles, as well as an amphetamine-crazed ostrich, four toddlers with Lego on the floor, a hill of fire ants and Gordon Ramsay judging how well they can fry an egg while running a gauntlet of Ferguson, Missouri protestors hell-bent on burning the studio down because of Michael Brown.

We surmise that the End of Civilization is nigh, as this is no different from the Roman Coliseum with their historical bear-baiting bouts, or feeding Christians to the lions, except Black Friday The Series, will have much better numbers:  The Colosseum could only hold about 50.000 and didn’t have WiFi so we could keep up with social media and see who is trending.

Oil has been in the news of late.  Prices for Brent Oil and West Texas Intermediate have tanked, now down around $66 – $70 a barrel.  Which means the price at the pump is lower.  If you listen to economists this is either the end of Life As We Know It or the Beginning of a New Era of Prosperity. 

Economists are those people who can use terabytes of statistics to prove any air-headed postulation, but can’t actually tell if it is raining outside.  Remember when reading financial projections, everyone has a hidden agenda and it is usually sinister.  OPEC has responded as only they can as an illegal price-fixing scheme that we tolerate:  They’re both reducing and increasing production at new higher, but lower prices. It’s complicated.   

For the time being, we’ll adapt to cheap gas.  We don’t care that  Exxon or Sinopec is taking a beating on their quarterly earnings per share:  The shareholders can kiss my sweaty pink puckered portcullis.  We’re thankful we don’t have to sell a kidney to gas up the car tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we finished up a tough week and plan on relaxing with a cocktail tonight.  There may be more than one involving a coffee liquor and vodka.  And how was your week?

       

Leave a comment

Posted in Ersatz History, News and politics, Social Constructs

Jian Gone III: Judgment Calls and Cosby

Posted on November 27, 2014 | 3 comments

Things on the Jian Ghomeshi side have now come to their logical conclusion.  For those with Attention-Deficit disorders, the story is here and here.  Jian has been charged with four counts of sexual assault and in a post-charge perp walk, the lawyers have said they won’t fight the case in the media. 

After tapping the silence bar on our bullshit detector to keep it from wailing too loudly, we went back to the basics.  Now that the person involved has been charged, we have to apply a certain mindframe, that being the hard one, of Innocent Until Proven Guilty.

It’s hard to do because like every other human around, we make judgments every day: Can I turn left between these two cars?  Can I mix regular and premium?  Does this smell bad?  Is Person X guilty as hell? Do these pants make my ass look fat?  Is that shoelace about to break or can I get through another day? 

These are all judgment calls we make, sometimes in milliseconds (no, don’t turn now) and sometimes over days of agonizing about the minutiae and endless if-then (pants) internalized discussions that go on and on and on.   

Simultaneous to Jian Ghomeshi’s fecal matter storm, it comes out that Bill Cosby has been the subject of sexual assault allegations, going back several years, usually involving younger-ish women who have claimed Cos drugged them, then sexually assaulted them.  Cosby? WTF? 

Here’s the conundrum about judgments.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and poops like a duck, it’s probably a duck. 

A fast-talking puke at your front door offering to check your hot water heater for dangerous fumes and violent explosive potentials is probably a lying sack of skin that should be tossed off the front step with one of your shoes lodged in his backside.  A beloved comedian, Jell-o pitchman, social activist, philanthropist and character actor with a secret life as a walking Pez dispenser of roofies and dick doesn’t quite fit with duck analogy. 

Which is where we get discomforted.  There is some kind of line where we have to consciously stop trying to come to a judgment and let the legal process go to work.  If Cosby has been a scumbag (judgment call there) then the Law should be doing something along the lines of charging him with several counts of sexual assault and proving their case in open court.

Crap, there is that horrible term when it comes to sexual assault charges: Open Court.

We have reasonable rape shield laws in Canada and most US States have at least some vestige of the same thing:  The trial isn’t about what the victim was wearing, or has done in previous interactions with the defendant, or others.  Therefore many lines of questioning are inadmissible in court to keep the questions relevant to the issue of consent and the suspension of consent as that is the key moment when an encounter becomes non-consenting.  A judgment point.

Even with rape shield laws, the judge has to make several hundred calls about the case and the facts at hand.  Not all facts can be corroborated by dash-cam video of tab A in slot B, then a puff of smoke and Skittles everywhere.  Reality doesn’t work that way.  There was no cellphone selfie video of Lee Harvey Oswald speaking to camera then firing four rounds at a limo and running for the door to connect him with a President who was suddenly cured of migraines.  Life is not CSI.

What we come down to is a judgment of who is telling the complete truth and who is not telling the complete truth.

Jian goes to court.  We’ll see.  Cosby, if he’s charged, will probably go to court too.  And again, we’ll see.  We have to make a judgment call here and trust the system to do what it needs to do. 

Be prepared for a very icky ride. 

           

3 Comments

Posted in News and politics, Social Constructs