Dzhokhar's Joke

People are wondering what motivated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to commit the atrocity in Boston. His page on the Russian-language social networking site vk.com (short for "v kontakte," or "in contact") is still up as of this writing. It looks fairly normal, with links to a couple of generic pages about Chechnya.

His worldview is listed as "Islam" and his personal priority is listed as "career and money."  Not exactly a terrorist manifesto, is it?

There is one thing that may shed some light on his mindset, a joke he posted on March 19:

В школе задают загадку..Едет
автомобиль. В нем сидят – дагестанец,
чеченец и ингуш.
Вопрос – кто ведет машину ?
Мага отвечает: - Полиция.

Translated into English:

In school they posed a riddle: A car is going along. In it sit a guy from Dagestan, one from Chechnya and one from Ingushetia [regions of Russia that have been torn by insurrection and repression].
Question: who's driving the car?
Maga answers: The police.

Well, I Didn't See That One Coming

It looks like the two bombers of the Boston Marathon were Chechen rebels? Wow, I didn't see that one coming. One of them is dead and the other one is still at large of this post.

His Finest Hour

Everyone keeps talking about how the defeat of the Manchin-Toomey gun bill is the greatest loss the president has experienced and how awful it is. I disagree. In fact, I think it has been his finest hour. Watch his entire speech below from yesterday.



I don't think I have ever been prouder of the man. People are going to remember these words and, when juxtaposed with the 46 Senators that voted against Manchin-Toomey, the American people are going to remember the contrast.

One of the 2.5 Million?

A cop in DeKalb County Atlanta was charged with aggravated assault after pulling a gun on some kids waiting in a drive-thru at McDonalds.

Does the NRA count that as one of the 2.5 million defensive uses of guns they say happen every year?

Three New "Habitable" Planets Found?

Astronomers have found three new planets that are the most similar to earth so far. The scientists used NASA's Kepler spacecraft to observe variations in star brightness to find the planets. No question, this is a great discovery. But reading the popular press, you'd think they'd found little green men peering back at us with big, sad eyes.

The New York Times article is typical, with the headline "2 Good Places to Live, 1,200 Light-Years Away." That's a colossal overstatement, much like their claim that Mars is "habitable."

Mars is in the habitable zone, to be sure, but it's not habitable in any real sense. It is far too cold and the atmosphere too thin and lacking oxygen for a person to survive without wearing a space suit. Crops will not grow except in hermetically sealed green houses. So far there's no trace of any form of life on the surface. Bacteria could likely be persuaded to live there in the soil fairly easily as they do in Antarctica. And, yes, humans could colonize Mars and perhaps thrive there. But it would be little different from living on the moon

The two parent stars, Kepler 62 and Kepler 69, are more than a thousand light years away. Kepler 62-e is on the inner edge of the habitable zone, and is 60 percent larger than earth. Kepler 62-f is only 40 percent larger than earth, and is at the outside edge of the habitable zone. A third planet, 1.7 times the size of earth, was found in the habitable zone of Kepler 69, a star almost identical to the sun. But those are the only things we know about the planets: we don't know if they're made of rock or gas. And we don't know what the atmospheres consist of.

Just being in the habitable zone doesn't make a planet habitable: the diagram on the right shows that Venus and Mars are both well inside the habitable zone of the solar system, but Mars is far too cold and Venus is far too hot for human habitation.

Why? The atmospheres: Mars was too small to hold on to its atmosphere for very long; what oxygen remained combined with carbon or other elements. It's only got a wispy envelope of carbon dioxide.

Venus, a bit smaller than earth, has a very thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuric acid. The temperature on the surface of Venus is almost 900 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmospheric pressure is 92 times greater than earth's at sea level. It's the greenhouse effect gone mad: the same thing would happen to earth if we pumped enough CO2 into the air.

Finally, the only reason that earth is habitable in the sense that people can live here is that it has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. But such an atmosphere is impossible without bacteria and plant life that constantly produce the free oxygen required for animal life. Without those simpler forms of life, the reactive oxygen would oxidize everything around it. The entire earth would rust and perhaps wind up looking like Mars. So these planets we're finding out in the galaxy wouldn't be truly habitable for humans unless something is constantly replenishing atmospheric oxygen -- something we'd probably call life.

There's no question that this is a very cool discovery: it shows that earth-sized planets are common around stars like the sun at the distance necessary for the right temperature for human habitation. But it's way too early to claim they're "habitable" without any knowledge of the planets' compositions and the constituents of their atmospheres.

Beautiful

What Is Wrong with South Carolina Republican Voters?

Yesterday the National Republican Congressional Committee pulled the plug on funding former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford's run for Congress:

Blindsided by news that Sanford’s ex-wife has accused him of trespassing and concluding he has no plausible path to victory, the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

Sanford has been a big story since he began his recent comeback. When a seat opened up in the House of Representatives due to the resignation of Jim DeMint, Sanford decided to run, even though everyone thought his political career was over. He beat 16 other Republicans in primaries to win the right to face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, Stephen Colbert's sister.

Sanford became infamous when he disappeared from South Carolina in 2009, telling aides that he was going to hike the Appalachian Trail. He was actually visiting his mistress in Argentina. A reporter caught him getting off the plane at the Atlanta airport.

To make matters worse, Sanford later gave tearful and sappy interviews about "finding his soul mate." He was accused of using state money to visit his mistress, and he returned funds to the state he'd spent visiting her in 2008. The South Carolina legislature wrestled with impeaching him, but finally decided against it. His divorce from his wife Jenny was finalized in 2010. He left office in 2011.

When the South Carolina House seat opened up, Sanford had the gall to ask his wife to run his campaign for him, saying,“I could pay you this time." His latest problems arose when his ex-wife caught him trespassing in her house. His excuse? He couldn't bear the thought of his son watching the Super Bowl alone.

Sanford has the worst case of serial idiocy I've ever seen. This guy is a liar, a cheat, a thief, a fool and a jerk. And the most incredible thing is that Republican primary voters chose him over 16 other Republicans!

Were those voters totally oblivious to the stench emanating from Sanford for the last four years? Or did they just not care? What kind of people would vote for a man like Sanford? He has violated every institution that Republicans claim to cherish: honesty, faithfulness, holy matrimony, careful stewardship of public funds, and on and on.

Yes, it's true, forgiveness is a Christian virtue. But just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you should put him in Congress.

Who is the "Adult" Party, again?

The photo above was put on Mitch McConnell's Facebook page right after Manchin-Toomey was defeated.  I think I'm going to enjoy watching Senator McConnell lose next fall to Alison Lundergan Grimes. Moreover,  it's going to be even more fun to watch Kentucky turn blue when Hillary wins there:)

Next Week's School Shooting Victims Thank Senate For Failing To Pass Gun Bill

WASHINGTON—Following the Senate’s rejection of a bipartisan amendment to expand background checks for gun buyers, the young victims of next week’s school shooting emphatically thanked members of Congress today for failing to pass more comprehensive gun control legislation. “Great job, guys,” said 14-year-old Jacob Miller, one of nine junior high school students who will be shot next week by a mentally ill gunman wielding a legally acquired assault rifle that was purchased at a gun show. “My classmates and I are really proud of you for cowering to the NRA and caring more about politics than my friends and I getting shot and killed. It totally makes sense. You’re the best.” The soon-to-be massacred teenager added that his parents, Caroline and Pete Miller, also wanted to extend their heartfelt congratulations to the Senate.

Retired Cop Shoots Self in School

From the Des Plaines Trib:

A retired police officer accidentally shot himself when he dropped his gun inside a Des Plaines school while attending his grandson's Boy Scout troop meeting.

He wasn't an official "good guy with a gun", but incidents like this show that the NRA's plan for preventing school shootings by "bad guys with guns" will instead result in many more accidental shootings by incompetent and clumsy "good guys with guns."

Considering that the bad guys will always have the drop on the good guys, the net number of dead kids is only going to go up.

54-46

The Manchin-Toomey Gun bill has failed by a vote of 54 to 46. Let the hand wringing and recriminations begin!

As I have said previously, this would be a great example of "losing the argument" but still managing to be right. Gun safety advocates should take heart that there are several things to be positive about after the vote today. Regardless of what happens from this point forward, it's going to work out for the best, with likely sacrifices along the way, unfortunately.

Newtown struck a very deep wound in the heart of America. My hope is that, even without new laws, there won't be another shooting on this scale, at least in the near term. People are going to start taking more of an interest in their local, young men who fit the same profile as Adam Lanza and be more aware of allowing them to have guns and play 'Call of Duty" for hours and hours. Perhaps I'm being naive but I've certainly seen it in my neck of the woods and I hope it lasts.

Yet, the regular, every day gun violence will still continue and now we have 46 senators on record as not even supporting expanded background checks. When something like this happens, it usually brings out the worst in people and we have certainly seen that from these senators and the gun rights lobby. It's a short term victory for them with long term ruin on the horizon. America is not with them on this one and they are going to pay a very steep penalty in 2014 and 2016. There will likely be many gun deaths between now and the next election and voters are not going to be happy about it. The chance for the president to revisit this issue again in 2015 is there.

And, if there is another Newtown or something like it, the next gun bill will make the gun lobby wish they had gone along with this one so they could at least look like they were trying to solve the problem. Another Newtown or Aurora means more people added to the gun safety lobby and that means you can say hello again to an assault weapons ban and ammo clip limitations with far more support than there is today.

I hope it doesn't come to that and we can, at least, turn our attention away from guns and towards mental health and how much parents really and truly are sucking right now. In the final analysis, that's why these shooting sprees happen. Parents are fucking morons and let their mentally ill children have guns. Of course, fixing this doesn't do much to the every day violence that occurs from guns and isn't much comfort to those who have lost loved ones in this manner. Maybe this will be the kick in the ass the federal government needs to start putting away more people who fail background checks.

Defense Contractor Signs Big Green Energy Contract with China

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lockheed Martin has signed a contract to build a 10-megawatt power plant for a luxury resort on the Chinese island of Hainan. The plant will use "ocean thermal energy conversion" technology, or OTEC:

The OTEC process uses warm tropical waters to power a steam-driven turbine. Cold water is pumped from the depths of the sea to condense the steam back into liquid.

Closed-system plants like the one Lockheed plans to build use a liquid such as ammonia that has a low boiling point to create the steam.

Warmer surface waters pass by a heat exchanger, causing the ammonia in the closed system to boil and create the steam that drives the turbine. Cold deep-sea water is pumped by another heat exchanger to condense the ammonia back to a liquid.

Similar technology is used in ground-source (also called geothermal) heat pumps for many large buildings and some homes in the United States. These systems use temperature differentials to transfer heat into the earth during the summer for air conditioning, and to transfer heat from the earth into buildings during the winter. Such temperature control systems are expensive to install, because they typically require sinking hundreds of feet of pipe into the ground, but because they are so efficient they're cheaper in the long run. They also produce less pollution compared to burning natural gas directly or by electric heating.

Republicans like John McCain have criticized the Defense Department for green initiatives, but since the US military is the largest consumer of oil in the entire world, defense planners have to be out in front on energy issues since it's vital to national security.

So it's good to see a company like Lockheed Martin, best known for aerospace and defense business, leading the way on technology that could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It would be nice not to be forced to invade a Middle Eastern country every time some nutjob threatens to stop the flow of oil out of there.

A Suspect?

CNN is reporting that they have video of a dark skinned male placing a bag at the site of the second bombing. He is considered a suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombing.

On Their Way Out The Door

I've watched with amusement over the media's obsession with the word "terror" and how the president didn't use it right away. Fox News, in particular, saw their opening and started attacking the president for being "weak on terror" and proceeded to overuse the word throughout their broadcasts since the bombing in Boston on Monday.

Well, 'ol Sean Hannity was the leader of the pack. I can only stomach him for a couple of minutes but he used the word at least a dozen times in the span that I viewed. My advice to him is to be careful what he wishes for...he might get it. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss speculated that this bombing seems like the work of a domestic agent. Rick DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office and head of this investigation, is asking for people who might have heard someone talking about April 15th (tax day) or if they heard someone practicing with bomb making materials. That also says home grown terrorist and we all know what kind that could be.

If it does turn out that this was an anti-government, right wing type, check out how fast Fox and the rest of the right wing media walk back the use of the word "terror" and play make believe that the bomber wasn't really a conservative. They'll be falling all over themselves on the way out the door.

Emerging Details

AP News is reporting that the bombs used yesterday in Boston were pressure cooker bombs similar to those used in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, according to a July 2010 joint FBI and Homeland Security intelligence report. Also, one of the three devices used in the May 2010 Times Square attempted bombing was a pressure cooker, the intelligence report said. The group responsible for that attempted attack, the Pakistani Taliban, has denied responsibility for the bombing yesterday.

So, no real details on who was behind this yet but one thing is really starting to sink in: you have to be pretty dumb in this day and age to try to pull of something like this incognito. In addition to the traffic and security cameras, the number of people with recording devices is astronomical. Who needs Big Brother when you have people documenting everything themselves?

Good Words

I've been searching for the words after yesterday's bombing in Boston and just didn't seem to really have any. I still don't.

But these words from Patton Oswalt's Facebook page were very inspiring.

You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out.When you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

What is this Bitcoin Nonsense?

In the Internet age there's always something to buzz about. Bitcoin is the latest craze: the virtual currency has been dominating the news recently. It was trading as high as $266 and then fell to as low as $54 last Friday when Mt. Gox, the Japanese bitcoin exchange, was hit by a cyberattack and stopped trading. The Winklevoss twins (of Facebook fame) were calculated to have lost tens of millions of dollars on paper.

What is bitcoin? An artificial currency that is backed by no government and is not tied to any real-world commodity such as gold. Bitcoins are fabricated out of thin air, in pretty much the same fashion as "gold" is in online roleplaying games like World of  Warcraft. Instead of slaying electronic orcs or chipping away at virtual rock outcroppings, bitcoins are created by running computers through complex algorithms to "mine" bitcoins which can then be sold on exchanges.

But that play money doesn't come cheaply: it's estimated that the current production of bitcoins uses $147,000 of electricity a day (enough to power 31,000 homes) just to crank out 25 new bitcoins every 10 minutes. But don't worry, it won't go on forever; in the year 2140 the maximum number will be reached, a total of 21 million.

Supporters of bitcoin decry governments that just print fiat money, claiming this destroys the economy by causing massive inflation. But the bitcoin "miners" are doing exactly what they're accusing government of: making money out of thin air. Many libertarians are calling for a return to the gold standard, but with the recent crash in the price of gold to $1,400/oz (down almost 30%  since 2011) you have to wonder if it's such a stable commodity.

The fact is, the supply of gold is always going up, just like the supply of dollars -- it's just slower. In fact, once we develop the technology for asteroid mining, the price of any precious metal could drop through the basement if we snagged an asteroid with a particularly rich vein. The total amount of gold in the world is amazingly small: a mere 171,300 tons, which would make a cube 60 feet on a side, the size of two adjacent volleyball courts.

So why would anyone use bitcoins? Because it's theoretically untraceable. People like bitcoin because they can buy things over the Internet without any records. It's the perfect medium for paying for prostitutes, laundering drug money, buying illegal weapons, and so on.

That also means bitcoins are easily stolen: if anyone gets hold of yours, it's gone for good. Stories about hackers stealing bitcoins are rampant. That's why the Winklevoss twins supposedly have put their bitcoins on flash drives they've stored in safe deposit boxes in three different cities. All in all, it's not a very safe or useful currency.

The value of any currency depends solely on the trust society has in the institution that backs it. The US government backs the dollar. The EU backs the euro. Precious metals are backed by exchanges that buy and sell them, though gold and copper also have an intrinsic value because they are essential components of every piece technology we use today, and some people still feel gold has an intrinsic value as jewelry.

But the only backers of bitcoin are other bitcoin users. And if those users are primarily criminals, hackers and the Winklevii, how much trust can you possibly put in bitcoin?

The guy who invented bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, doesn't even exist.  He's just a pseudonym for one or more programmers of unknown nationality who posted on Internet forums. So there isn't even a "founder" who will back bitcoin.

Still, I bet the guy who paid 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas is kicking himself now.

He Is Saying Things That Need To Said

There are so many things to love about Peter Brown Hoffmeister's recent piece that was banned from the Huffington Post that I don't even know where to start. He is saying things that need to be said and forcing us to confront a very deep fissure in our culture. In many ways, he speaks to the heart of the problem with young men in this country and how a few of them end up going on shooting sprees.

He should know. He was one of those young men and he made it out and became mentor and teacher himself. Correctly, he identifies the ingredients that get these young men to the point of shooting people and it's not just the guns.

Now I am not anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson. I’m not suggesting that everyone who plays a video game will act out that video game in reality. But I am saying that it is very dangerous to allow troubled, angry, teenage boys access to killing practice, even if that access is only virtual killing practice. The military uses video games to train soldiers to kill, yet we don’t consider “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3″ training for addicted teenage players? A high school boy who plays that game 30 hours per week isn’t training to kill somebody?

Now combine that with a mom who buys into the whole "live free or die" horse hockey and decides to allow their son access to a large quantity of weaponry and you have a disaster. Why is that the parents of these shooters never have their feet held to the fire? In the final analysis, it's primarily their responsibility. Nancy Lanza was a complete and total failure as a parent and her incompetence resulted in the deaths of 26 people.   There are thousands more like her out there and they truly, truly suck. They need to stop sucking. Yesterday.

Where are the parents in this situation or others like this one?

I was walking behind two teenage boys in the hall at my high school the other day and I heard one talking about slitting someone’s throat. He said, “I just came up behind him, pulled out my knife so quietly and cut his throat.” The other boy said, “Yeah, then I killed everyone else in less than, like, 10 seconds. Just slaughtered them.” 

I looked at these two boys: Tall and awkward. Unathletic. I knew that they weren’t tied-in socially, that they both struggled in classes and with peers. Yet they were capable of incredible and sudden violence on screen. Together, they could slit throats and shoot everyone. I asked one of them later, and he said that he played Call of Duty “an average of 40 hours per week, at least.” 

Is this what we want angry, adolescent boys to do? Do we want to give them this practice? Do we want them to glorify violent actions, to brag about violence in the school’s hallways? Or even worse, given the perfect equation of frustration + opportunity + practice, do we want them to do as Weise, Roberts, and Lanza did, and act out these fantasies in real life? Do we want them to yell, “I am the shooter” as they enter a crowded mall – as Roberts did? Or dress like video-game shooters – as Lanza and Roberts were – before heading into a murder spree?

When I was an awkward teenager, all I thought about was sex. All my friends were the same. We smoked pot, listened to music and were obsessed with progressing around the bases in terms of carnal escapades. That is definitely not the case today. Sex is very verboten subject with teenagers and they are much less sexual active than they were in my generation. There are drugs, of course, but they are viewed so negatively by our culture that the deviance takes on a truly ugly hue for the kids that do them...even marijuana. I can't help but think that if some of these kids just smoked some pot and made out with their girlfriends or boyfriends, they might be more at peace.

Hoffmeister closes the piece with a direct appeal to parents. I agree with it completely and I will close with it as well.

Get kids outside. Take them out and let them wander around in the woods. Let them canoe across a lake. Let them backpack through a mountain range. Give them a map and compass assignment. Give frustrated youth an opportunity to challenge themselves in the natural world. Have you ever heard of a school shooter who’s hobbies are kayaking, rock climbing, and fly-fishing? If that seems absurd – and it does seem absurd to me – we might be onto something. I don’t think that those hobbies can create a school shooter. There’s just something abut the natural world that defuses anger. I know this because the outdoors helped saved my life. An outdoor diversion program for troubled teens started the process when I was sixteen. Camping and hiking and climbing helped me mature further as a nineteen and twenty year old. And now, as the director of a high school outdoor program, one of my student leaders said recently that “the outdoor program saves lives.” That’s not me. That’s nature. Kids need the outdoors. Help the young people. Get them outside.

Amen.