Mr T’s rants and ravings

So depending on who you listen to you may think that today’s failure of the House to pass the bailout bill was the fault of the Republicans. Or maybe you looked a little deeper. Both New Hampshire Congressmen who are Democrats voted against it. In fact if all the Democrats has voted for the bill it would have passed.

What happened is that people who are in very close races for reelection almost all voted against the bill. Phone calls in many districts were running 100 to 1 against the bill. If you are in a close race it takes a lot of courage and integrity to vote for what you think is right when it means going against what people are asking you to do.

Now maybe some of these people were voting their principles. Based on their records I am sure that is true for many who voted against the bill. But I doubt that is true for all of them.  Why would a Democrat vote against more government control? Highly unexpected. Just call my a cynic. In any case this vote made it a lot easier for me to vote for the Republican in the House race. I have been up in the air on all the races this year.

But this is just so typical. There is so much going on in Congress and it is so much about staying in office for the sake of the job (salary, perks, etc) that many congress critters seem to default to the leadership line or the party line or be overly influenced by lobbyists. It’s disgusting.

I’m really fed up. I hope the Republican party falls apart and is reborn as several smaller parties. Then maybe the Democrats will do the same thing.

So I got on the scale the other day to see how much I weigh. And then for a lark I decided to get on it again a second later. Somehow I gained almost 3 pounds in that second. A second later I lost half of it. I wound up standing on the scale 6 times and getting six different weights. The closest two were about 2 tenths of a pound apart and the furthest apart was about 3 pounds from lightest to heaviest. What’s up with that?

And then today I looked at an electronic parts scale and watched it move up and down in weight displayed without anyone or anything being near enough to touch it.

I figure that some of this is related to changes in air pressure. But all of it? And three pounds worth? It’s all very frustrating especially for someone who is trying to lose weight. Did I lose a pound this week or gain a pound? Crazy.

I have been watching some of the Olympics. Not much on TV though. The TV never shows the sports I am interested in. So I hvae been watching a lot of the shooting events at NBCOlympics.com. It’s been really cool because I have long wondered how those events were run at the Olympic level. Also it turns out that some of the women shooters are very attractive.

The US does surprisingly well at shooting. I know we have a lot of guns but we really don’t support the shooting sports that much here. (I should say that I was truly amazed at the Japanese shooters because I  think they all have to leave the country to practice their sport.) There was a time when there were a lot of high school and college shooting teams. Today not so much.

Personally I think that is a shame. We have many violent sports - football, hockey, lacrosse, wrestling and on and on. In many of these sports we encourage athletes to "get angry" and to "go get" the other players. In football so many players get hurt that an ambulance is required to be at every high school football game. We could use some non-violent sports and it seems like shooting and archery fit that need nicely.

I’m not sure what the objection could be. Clearly violence is not a problem because a) the shooting sports are completely non-violent (if a gun even accidentally points at someone the holder is disqualified on the spot) b) there are lots of violent sports in high schools. Weapons are not an issue because clubs are an important part of many sports including baseball, lacrosse and golf. And safety is not an issue because football for example sees more high school athletes killed every year than have been killed in organized shooting sports at all levels in well over 100 years combined. Cost? Also not much of a problem. Guns last a very long time and shooting ranges exist and most private ones would be happy to support local teams for the good of the sport. Ammo is the big thing and even that is not as expensive as a lot of sporting equipment. What are football helmets these days? $300 a piece? With annual expensive safety checks.

Shooting teaches patience. It teaches calm – you are trying to shoot between breaths and heart beats for goodness sake. You cannot do that while angry. It teaches self-control. It’s just about everything you want to teach high school students.
The world is a crazy place sometimes.

For the longest time I have associated the word “scheme” with something bad people do. In the movies, TV and in many books the word “scheme” has been associated with some sort of evil plot. And in fact if you look up the word at Dictionary.com you will find one of the 11 meanings is “an underhand plot; intrigue.” But in the last couple of years I keep running into people for whom its meaning is basically another word for plan. In the UK the word scheme is used where I would use plan on a very regular basis. This has caused a bit of cognitive dissonance for me. Everytime I hear the word used it makes me think about the meaning of the work rather than about the scheme that is being discussed. I expect that will wear off some time but so far it hasn’t happened.

I wonder if this is also part of why I have so much trouble being open minded about Scheme the functional language while I find it easy to be open about F#? Although it may also have something to do with the people who introduced me to each of those langauages. But that is a discussion for another time.

Once upon a time people dressed up to travel. This was actually true for years with air travel. I can remember getting all dressed up as if to some place special to get on an airplane. Today air travel is taken for granted. I think I’ve taken 5 trips this year for about 20,000 total miles. Ho hum. So the focus has moved to comfort in travel.

I don’t get dressed up. I frequently travel in jeans for example. But I do wear a nice shirt, usually a button down shirt and only occasionally a polo shirt. I don’t feel comfortable being in public looking too shabby. But apparently that is not a unanimous opinion. On this last trip a lot of people  were in shorts (ok fine but gym shorts?) sandals (ok easier to take on and off at security but why not socks?) and sleeveless t-shirts. I really draw the line at sleeveless T-shirts. Seriously those do not belong outside a sports activity or maybe the beach.

I really think that some people take travel casual too far. I know someone who wears sweat pants and a t-shirt when he flies. Ok they are neat and clean but call me an old foggy if you must but gym clothing belongs at the gym. It’s not just the airport where it bugs me of course. I am tired of seeing people in all sorts of public places in gym shorts, sweats and other recreational clothing. Stopping on ones way to or from an athletic event I can see it. But you’d better look like you were participating in sports.

Yeah this is a rant and probably (actually definitely) a lot of people disagree with me but I really needed to vent.

Even if you are not an Obama fan this is cool.

So there are a couple of ads on TV lately that bother me. One shows a man talking to his wife when a pretty woman (or women? I forget) walk by. The man does not look away and the voice over says something like “he kept his eyes on his wife. Give that man a Klondike bar.”

The second one has a couple talking when a number of attractive women walk by. The guy looks at them and in fact uses the reflective service on his phone to watch them walk away until a text message that says “OMG U R A PIG” shows up from his girl friend. A momentary distraction means he is a pig?

The implication in both is that it is wrong for a man to notice and to admire attractive women when they have some sort of relationship or conversation going on with another woman. OK I will admit that I object to this idea.

Personally I am at the far heterosexual end of the continuum. Not only do I not understand men finding men attractive I sometimes have trouble understanding how women do. Women are amazingly beautiful. Probably more wonderful to look at than anything else in nature. Would it be ok for a man to be distracted by an amazing sunset? Of course - in many cases - it would be. And yet a beautiful woman is not an acceptable distraction? That’s crazy.

I can see the argument that two people in a conversation should give each other their full attention. But there is also a difference between a casual conversation filling time and a serious conversation that requires total concentration. Also I don’t think that just because a man notices and dares to enjoy the view of an attractive woman that he is some sort of pig or sex crazed jerk. After all one doesn’t see/hear anyone calling a woman a pig for noticing a good looking man do you? What’s the difference? A woman can make a big deal of ogling a shirtless construction worker or life guard but a man can’t appreciate a fully dressed woman without being a pervert?

I think this is all about control and insecurity. In short I think that the woman in the ad who called her boyfriend a pig is being immature and unreasonable. It’s not like he is planning on leaving her or that he doesn’t care about it. It is just that he is enjoying the beauty of nature that happens to be in the form of a woman. Pig or human?

Sure it is great that the guy in the first ad is giving his wife his full attention but would he be evil to have noticed the other woman walking by? I think it would depend a lot on the circumstances of the conversation.

Well I had to vent. I do think there is very much a double standard in western cultures that is very much unfair to men. I do not buy this crap that it is a man’s world for a minute. That is a big lie propagated by women to help them maintain a lead in the balance of power. BTW the fact that men hold most jobs and women control most of the money in the west supports my claim. If it were a man’s world it would be the other way around. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Unless my wife asks.

Take a look at this list. One example. For every 100 girls aged 15 to 24 who die 277 boys die. And boys have to face greater odds on getting even that far then girls.

Since I was a little kid I have been interested in outer space and in the world under the seas. I attended a conference on undersea exploration when I was a high school student. I heard talks about research stations under the seas. I remember thinking we were at the beginning of a great time. But like space exploration we were actually at the peak and going down hill. We’d been to the moon but haven’t been back since. And we haven’t had a lot more undersea exploration since either.
Today I ran across this great talk by Robert Ballard. It’s about 18/19 minutes and well worth your time.

This is just wierd. Click on the models to see a close up of the hair.
I think what bugs me are the looks on the model’s faces. They do not look happy. I’m pretty convinced that smiles make people look a lot more attractive. I suspect that one of the reasons models do not smile is because it might distract people from the hair (in this case) or the clothing. After all a pretty face is a lot more interesting than clothing.