China is going to kill everyone on Earth

I just read a book, The Coming China Wars. It's become eminently clear that China is either going to

A) Have a revolution that kills millions.
B) Have a war that kills billions.
or
C) do both at once.

Also, they're the worst thing for the environment since the USA. To be perfectly serious, I cannot think of a good way for this thing to work out well.

Photos

The first photo contest was a qualified success: the posting and voting went fine, but I lost.

There is a new plan, though: Every Sunday, we'll get a subject from the internet, then we'll have until the next Sunday to put up a picture regarding it. While voting on the previous week proceeds, we'll take pictures for the next week, and so on.

Inaction

Am I the only person amused by organizations like Democracy In Action? Isn't it odd to have a name which sounds like it supports the opposite of its purpose?

"I'm in favor of Democracy in action."

"You mean sitting on the couch on election day?"

"No, not inaction. In action."

"Buh?"

Judgment Day

The pictures are taken. Judge ye, that we may be judged.

Rules for voting:
1. Clearly indicate which of the two following pictures is the greatest in the comments section.
2. Sign a name. Your name, or some alias by which I will know you.
3. No cheating.
4. The winner will be determined by who gets the most votes.


The first picture is:

The Act of Water Hitting More Water



The second picture is:

Bird of Paradise


To see an enlarged version of a picture, just click on it.

PS. This is post number 200. WOOOOOO!

RESULTS:
"The Act of Water Hitting More Water" won this one with a rather large margin.

Time's Up!

Spring Break is over, the pictures have been taken. Soon, we will discover who has taken the greatest picture of all time. I have chosen which picture I will submit, but I don't think it's the greatest of all time. We'll see.

I expect to have the pictures up by the end of the week. Good luck to everyone involved. (Particularly me).

24

I think 24 would be a much better show if they actually stuck with the concept and had the events that would happen in 24 hours. Jack Bauer going to the bathroom for 15 minutes, sitting on a airstrip for an hour waiting for clearance, etc.

"We have to get to Washington!"
"But the flight will take two hours!"
"Fine, that'll give me time to take a nap."

Now that would make for good television. Keifer Sutherland sleeping on a plane.

There's a part of the show where Bauer dies while being tortured. They inject adrenaline into his heart to bring him back, then resume the torture. A few minutes later, he's out of chains and kicking butt. Medical experts may think that someone would profit from a bit of a lie down, but Jack Bauer doesn't need such things. I expect he would recover from a prefrontal lobotomy over a commercial break.

PS: Injecting adrenaline into someone's heart is sooo passé. Stealing stuff is inevitable with television shows, but I wouldn't steal from Pulp Fiction.

PPS: Los Angeles is notorious for being very sprawling. How does the show handle that? They can't just wait half an hour for him to drive to places...

Water on Mars

According to this Slashdot article, there is confirmation that there is water on Mars. Vast amounts of water.

Step one is complete. Now we need to move to step two: sending people there to die.

I don't mean to say that we should send people hoping that they die. I'm saying that when we send people to Mars, lots of them are going to die. I believe that the first successful colony on Mars will incorporate parts from previous, unsuccessful missions. We just have to steel our hearts against the nearly endless tragedies that will come inevitably from what will be the hardest thing man has ever done.

Political Suicide

In This Article, the author mentions that George McGovern, as a member of a committee on food, was going to release a statement that, among other things, would advise Americans to cut back on Meat and Dairy. This is good advice; if it had been released and followed, we would see a much healthier American populace. Of course, before the document was released, the cow owners of America raised a few objections, mainly along the lines of, "we make our money by making the American people ill, thank you."

The fact is, the government will never make a statement which actually gives good advice regarding food. It's too dangerous. The unhealthy way our food is produced and distributed is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it has behind it the American farmer, one of the most solid voting blocs in the country. Anyone who points out that beef three times a day is a bad idea is simply committing political suicide.

If I was running for president, I would win the record for having the most groups oppose me. I don't think there's a demographic out there who wouldn't vote against me for at least one of my positions.

The Great Spring Break Photo Contest

To show that my opponent has no photography skillz, I have begun a contest. The rules are simple: the first person to take the greatest photo in history wins. The contest lasts across Spring Break. On Sunday night or Monday morning, we should have the photos posted for judging by our panel of people who happen to go to my weblog.

PS: Another person has joined into the fray, so there will be three pictures at the end of Spring Break.

Cheating

It is traditional for fiction with future technology to explain how it works. I have no idea why. If the author had a real explanation, he'd probably go invent the future product, instead of sitting around writing books. Because they don't have a real explanation, they cheat. They add "Flux Capacitors", "positronic networks", and so on. They essentially use magic, but replace it with a different word.

Michael Chriton's Timeline is the biggest cheater of all time. The technology is a common one in fiction, Time Travel. In the book, it turns out that they are not traveling through time at all, they are travel ling to a parallel universe that has an Earth similar to our history. You want to see Lincoln? You can't go back in time, you go to a parallel universe that happens to be before 1865.

Some would point out that this is silly, and that it makes some unrealistic assumptions about the nature of the universe. I don't mind it, personally. That's not the big cheat.

The big cheat is that they didn't invent any technology that allows them to travel to alternate universes! They created a machine that did nothing at all. The only reason that they can travel to alternate dimensions is that someone in yet another dimension is transporting them. I swear, I am not making this up.

Shoelaces are Dumb

Shoelaces are dumb. They get untied, get in the dirt, then carry that dirt to pants. Lame. Velcro or a buckle would be faster to attach and would never become accidentally undone. The only reason we use laces is because we're socialized to think it makes sense.

D&D

As many of you know, I am currently in a game of D&D, and our party is a silly one. I am a Bard/Paladin, and the others are a Monk, Fighter, Level Adjusted Hound Archon, and a Scout.

You may notice that something is missing, notably, half of a party. We have a support character in myself, then four people who run around cutting people. Not one spellcaster, not one thief. Our method of dealing with traps is getting hit by them.

PS
Earlier, I was saying that Rome would be a good setting for an RPG. As further proof, I'll point out that the MO for a Roman politician was to go kill people, take their treasure, then spend it all at the capitol. Remind you of something?