Executive Orders

Posted by Void on 08/07/2005

t r u t h o u t – CIA Commander: We Let bin Laden Slip Away
Yes, we already knew that. It was certain as early as summer or fall 2002.

Let’s think it through: If we got bin Laden, Bush would have had no boogeyman to frighten us with. So the military let bin Laden slip off into Pakistan. He’s 6-foot-tall, a giant among Arabs, with a seriously damaged arm and possibly dragging a kidney machine. How hard could it really be to find him? Trust me, he is in a comfortable, air-conditioned apartment somewhere in Pakistan.
Pakistan – their President, Musharraf, gets a lot of mileage out of being an ally in the “War on Terror”. The Pakistani Muslim schools – madrasses – are veritable terrorist kindergartens. They teach the kids from before they can walk that giving their life to kill an infidel is the greatest gift they can give their god. How does a moderate Pakistani president remain in power in an Islamic extremist country? With lots of aid from the U.S., of course.
My thought was that Pakistan knew where bin Laden was from the time he got away from the caves in Tora Bora. I thought Bush was going to pull him out of his hat just before the election. It turned out he’d poisoned the well in Ohio so he didn’t need to.
Ohio, yeah, we knew about that too, didn’t we? Remember all the complaints the day after the election, and how quickly they went away?
But I digress… Pakistan also needs us to protect them from their enemy, India, another nuclear power. If they give us bin Laden, if a Islamic extremist government gets in power, that’s all over. We drop our friend Pakistan like a hot potato and India starts pushing on their borders again. So they keep bin Laden to themselves and dish out low-level terrorists at appropriate intervals. Everybody wins except the American people.
The military and the government have little euphemisms that they use to obfuscate the situation. You are probably familiar with the term, “extreme prejudice.” That’s a left-handed way of saying “shoot the fucker where he stands.” It’s all like that. You don’t kill the enemy, you “engage” him. Well, anytime they quote some government mouthpiece directly, you have to look at the unfamiliar word combinations and figure out what they’re really saying. It helps if you read a few books about the military. Tom Clancy novels are a relatively painless intro to spook-speak, if you skip the parts where he masterfully makes love to his wife. His stuff can be kind of technical, though. John le Carre is a good choice for non-technical people. You know, the ones with social skills.
Incidentally, in Clancy’s 1999 book, Rainbow Six Executive Orders, a Japanese terrorist flies an airliner into the Capitol building. How can the U.S. government pretend they had never considered the possibility of such an attack?
Working in the defense industry for several years is another way to get an intro to military slang. I don’t recommend it. :-)

I can’t help thinking that truthout is merely documenting it for history.

Categories: Books. Tags: , , , , , , , .

The American Dream

Posted by Void on 08/07/2005

Thinking about The American Dream.
You wouldn’t look at me and think Money. I can’t afford the trappings that would take me up a level.
Did that make sense… you have to act like you belong to the club before they’ll let you in?
The American Dream requires that you spend spend spend the future and hope that future earnings pay the debt. To even get in the game requires access to credit, doesn’t it?
Megadeth did a song about this called “Foreclosure of a Dream.”
Did anyone notice that they just brought back the 30-year T-bill? That’s right, your grandchildren will still be paying this administration’s debt 30 years from now.
It’s also enlightening to look into who exactly owns the U.S. Public Debt. What would happen if our foreign investors demanded repayment? What would we give them?

Categories: Economics, Politics. Tags: , , , , , , , .

Eosinophils

Posted by Void on 08/05/2005

Got some bloodwork back from the doctor. The asthma hasn’t improved, even though the steroids are messing up my head.
Thyroid is ok.
My eosinophils, a type of white blood cell involved in asthma, are >500. The reference level is between 40 to 400 per cubic millimetre.
There are four types of white blood cells, each doing a different job.

  • Neutrophils are pH-neutral cells that gather and dispose of bacteria and other detritus in the blood.
  • Lymphocytes are the cells that are responsible for determining the difference between our own cells and foreign materials. They “learn” to react quickly to threats. When they react to non-threatening materials such as pollen or pet dander, they are the cause of allergies.
    Lymphocytes are carried through the body by the lymph system, a matrix of tubes similar to veins and arteries. Lymph is pumped by muscular action – by exercise – rather than by a heart analogue.
  • Monocytes are similar to lymphocytes in that they recognize foreign substances. They then break them up so that the neutrophils can identify and encapsulate them.
  • Eosinophils carry little bags of toxins. They gather wherever there are bacterial or parasitic infections, and release the toxins in order to kill them. In large quantities and over time, these toxins can damage the lining of the lungs. Steroid inhalers can prevent the immunological reaction that draws eosinophils to the lungs.
  • Basophils release histamine in an allergic reaction.

CHURG-STRAUSS SYNDROME is a rare illness caused by eosinphils. It can be misdiagnosed as asthma. Differential diagnosis can be based on progressive nerve damage. It is a collagen vascular disease / reactive erythema / granulomatous disorder.
Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis (ABPA) is due to a severe allergy to a common fungus found in the lungs. An Aspergillus precipitins test can diagnose it. X-rays show shadows that move over time as the fungus grows. CAT scans can show structural changes. Symptoms include sudden bouts of malaise, sharp chest pain, cough, and wheezing.

I’m thinking aspergillosis. I think I’ll see about getting chest x-rays and a skin test for the allergy. The treatment seems to be long-term low dosage prednisone or, less often, an oral antifungal. In that case, a natural alternative might be tea tree oil, aka the medicine chest in a bottle.

Categories: Medicine. Tags: , , , , , , , .

The Continuing Saga

Posted by Void on 08/05/2005

The continuing saga of the Linux Laptop.
The battery wasn’t warranted, so I didn’t expect it to work. It didn’t. I ordered a new battery on ebay, should be in early next week. S’okay, I have an AC adapter to use until then.
I borrowed a LinkSys WUSB11 USB network I/F from work to try under Windows 98. Alas, I didn’t have the right USB cable.
The next day I borrowed the correct cable. Alas, I lost my router in the power failure that morning. It was the only computer accessory in the room that wasn’t on a surge suppressor. Of course, my new surge suppressor is in there in the box waiting for me to set it up. Eh.
So anyway, I ordered a new wireless router, a USRobotics USR8054. This is what I had, and I liked it. Very easy-to-use interface – with online help. Good deal! I also ordered a combination floppy disk/flash reader that caught my eye. It has to work in one of the computers, right? And just to be thorough, a Belkin F5D6020 Wireless Notebook Network Card for when I return the WUSB11. There were a couple of articles on how to get PCMCIA network cards to work with similar laptops.

Categories: Comp Sci, DIY, Operating System, Technology. Tags: , , , , , , .

The End of the Age of Aquarius

Posted by Void on 08/02/2005

I graduated high school in 1975.
The world was in constant change from the time I was little. New paradigms all around. Students protesting an unjust war, many minorities fighting for equality. A great human awareness of our place on the planet and in the cosmos. Even the pop music carried the message.
O Brave New World, that hath such things in it! The opiates of the masses – TV, religion, the double-edged sword of technology.
Some eye-openers – Kennedy’s assassination was the first time I developed in interest in American politics (my mom was English, and a Queen made a whole lot more sense), Barry MacGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” which was the first time I became aware of war as something more than Army Men shooting rifles at some vague, dehumanized Enemy. A Life Magazine article with the first pictures of a human fetus in the womb. Martin Luther King’s assassination. [Update 11/22/2006 See comment below.]
The space race, John Glenn, Apollo 1 burning on the pad, men on the moon.
One day a college student’s voice rang across the campuses – “Oh my God, they’re killing us!” and the Age of Aquarius ended. The hippies became real estate agents and business executives. *My* generation became dopers and freaks, because the beautiful future we looked forward to no longer existed. We just weren’t prepared to live in the new Dark Ages.
Nixon’s resignation. Leisure suits. Disco. What a wasteland the ’70s were.
The space shuttle. Reagan’s Evil Empire Speech. The Challenger disaster. I was working on a telemetry system for Edwards AFB when that happened. There had been a great movement to engage the public in the space program, and in technology in general – the Teacher in Space idea was a very good one, even if the main lesson learned was that space travel is still dangerous.
I would go in a heartbeat.
I guess what bothers me is what bothers everyone my age. The human race makes the same mistakes over and over. It seems like the written word might have been helpful if only people would back away from the TV and read once in a while.
Opiate of the masses.

Categories: Media, Religion, Science, Technology, Television. Tags: , , , .

Pearls of Wisdom

Posted by Void on 07/30/2005

I harvested this lunacy out of several old datebooks that I threw away last week. The books were from the ’80s and I was undxed and possibly self-medicating through most of them. Pointless.

  • “Gay, straight or Mummer?”
  • Drive the porcelain bus.
  • Country club for the exceedingly timid.
  • Missionaries & Cannibals. This is a bar game we used to play. The rules are simple, the solution isn’t, especially when you’re in Jay’s Elbow Room getting hammered.
  • Selective psychotropic medication – helps you forget only the things you want to forget.
  • Beef Croquet. I guess you play with meatballs and a tenderizing mallet?
  • The best part about eating cockroaches
    is that when you’re done you can pick your teeth with the legs.
  • Book: “Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine!“- Works best on a V8.
  • Living Color: “Time’s Up“
  • Positive K – Nightshift – this was the first urban/rap/whatever song I ever liked. I was on my way home from working second shift and it resonated with me. I wrote it down in case I wanted to buy the album sometime. Apparently I didn’t. It’s not listed on Amazon.com, maybe it was local?
  • Haverford College Quaker Collection
    Swarthmore 1815-1872 -> Pine Pt., Shakamaxon???
    This is where the records from Newton Meeting in Gloucester County, NJ wound up. Sometime I will go over and research. I am descended from Simeon Ellis, who married Sarah Bates in 1692.
  • Chris Issak – “Wicked Game” How maudlin! Don’t know why I wrote this one down.
  • Steve Reich & Double Edge – “Early Works” – Electra/Asylum/Nonesuch. – the odd thing is that after I wrote this one down, I carried it forward through two more datebooks. I must have really really wanted it. Ok, so I’ll add it to my Amazon.com Wish List.
  • Revolution – 1967 – I don’t think I was referring to the song by the Beatles.
  • Snooks Eaglin
  • “I’ve been trying to develop a lifestyle that doesn’t require my presence.” – G. Trudeau
  • “Si Hoc Signum Legere Potes, Operis Boni In Rebus Latinis Alacribus Et Fructuosis Potiri Potes!” — If You Can Read This Sign, You Can Get A Good Job In The Fast-Paced, High-Paying World Of Latin!
  • “Cum Catapultae Proscriptae, Erunt Tum Soli Proscripti Catapultus Habebunt” — When Catapults Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Catapults.
  • “What if the human race always thought about their dignity?” No sex?
  • Isolated Insolence.
  • Delusions of Adequacy.
  • “Mishaps are like knives, they cut us or serve us depending on whether we grab them by the blade or the handle.” – K.K. Note: Did you say that to me c. 1984? Leave a comment!
  • Have a Coke and a struggle.
  • Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs. I think I’ll update this one: Reality is for people who can’t handle psych meds.
  • “A Guide to Rational Living” – Albert Ellis
  • I’ve got PacMan fever – I wake up in the morning and eat myself.
  • “I’ve given up on looking for Mr. Right or even Mr. Not-So-Bad. I’d settle for Mr. Tolerable.” — KK again.
  • “Open your memory intake valves.” – Robin
  • No Profanity/Profundity.
  • No excuse for unwanted kids.
  • POSSLQ: Persons Of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. – The U.S. Census Bureau
  • Did the Lost Tribe of Israel turn gay and die out?
  • “It’s a wave!!” “It’s a particle!” “No, it’s a wave!!”
  • Recreational diseases?
  • Notice – Due to the shortage of robots some of our workers are human and may react unpredictably if abused.
  • Hanging out with my cynical friends making nasty cracks about people who have aspirations of becoming chairman of the board.
  • Northern New Zealand Sheep and Computer Company.
  • “Hairy-assed double-breasted He-Man.” You know, I think my grandmother said that.
  • What do you give to someone whose life is so miserable that material possessions are no consolation?
    1. A gun
    2. A divorce
  • I’ve done all the required readings – I just haven’t taken the labs yet.
  • Reality is a glazed doughnut without a hole.
  • “Old enough to know how, young enough to still use it.” – Robin
  • The paranoid delusion has replaced the deus ex machina.
  • “I had a 10 last night – 8 drinks and a 2!” – Harry
  • Frijid Pink – “House of the Rising Sun”. They stole it from The Animals who stole it from Bob Dylan who stole it from Dave Van Ronk.
  • Air Force Chicken: wings and landing gear.
  • Ghetto briefcase.
  • I’m bisexual – I have to buy it like everyone else.
  • Ion Bombardment Tube. If you sit too close to the TV, does the ionic breeze blow your hair back?
  • “One good thing about jerking off – you don’t have to look your best.” – Steven Tyler of Aerosmith in an interview c. 1982
  • Red Red Wine – UB40 – Hmmm, I don’t even know who UB40 are.
  • Sarah Hardy – The Woman That Never Evolved. Is this a book or am I slamming Sarah?
  • “Love affair in the abstract.”
  • Reason to get married – so you have someone to babysit the kids when you have a date?
  • Borrowed time: From whom??
Categories: Books, Humor. Tags: , , , .

Am I opposed to SSDI?

Posted by Void on 07/30/2005

I could have gone on SSDI in 1999. I chose not to. Instead, I went back to school for one more semester in the fall of 2000 and finished up my BSES at 42 years old. I’m not sure whether I’m experiencing a slow decline or whether I’m just having a couple of bad years. But I’m going to work for as long as I can. Maybe next time I’;m out of work I’ll apply for SSDI. And maybe I’ll go for my master’s when it happens. Who the hell knows?
I want to be my best, whatever my best is. I expect everyone to be the best they can around me. I understand physical and mental limitations. I don’t understand not trying.
Anybody who wants a Hallmark card can go to Eckerd’s and buy one. That’s not what the Bipolar Planet is all about. That’s not what I’m about.
To quote Timothy Leary, “The future of the human species is to learn how to use our brains.” We are the ones who can do this, but it comes with a price tag.

Categories: Drugs, Medicine, Psychiatry. Tags: , .

My Amazon.com Wishlist

Posted by Void on 07/17/2005

I spend a good deal of my discretionary income on books. Amazon.com lets you create a wishlist. I like to put things on the wishlist instead of in the shopping cart. It still feels like a hypomanic shopping spree. I can’t change what I am, but I can change how I behave, right?
I scan the wishlist a couple times a year and if I still want an item I put on there a few months ago, I probably am justified in actually buying it. Plus it makes it easier for friends and family to buy for me. (Not a hint.)
This is my wishlist.
I don’t read as much on bipolar disorder as I used to. Theyre running out of novel ways to say “Take yer meds!” I read more on alternatives these days. And not much of that, I’m afraid.
You’ll see when you look at the lists.

Categories: Books. Tags: .

Another blogthing

Posted by Void on 07/17/2005

You are dependable, popular, and observant.
Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness.
In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do.
You are unique, creative, and expressive.
You don’t mind waving your freak flag every once and a while.
And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!
Categories: Humor.

What Kind of Soul are You?

Posted by Void on 07/13/2005

What Kind of Soul Are You?

You Are a Visionary Soul

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness.
Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul.
You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable.
Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings.

You have great vision and can be very insightful.
In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself.
Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend.
You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer.

Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

Categories: Philosophy & psychology, Religion, Web. Tags: , , , , , .
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