Month: December 2005

Added a couple of missing bits to my shopping cart/wishlist.

Technorati Tags: iTunes

My 3G iPod won’t accept updates anymore, no synchronization. I have reset/restored/formatted/verified/run diagnostics on it but I get the same error each time.

<update> Huh. It looks like it has something to do with podcasts. After repeatedly updating my iPod software, formatting the drive, etc., I noticed that the update/sync process would bail when it updated my Science Friday podcasts. Removing those (all podcasts I subscribe to) seems to have resolved it.

I don’t understand where a permissions problem could come from.

Technorati Tags: iPod, sucks less

Tokyo Rose was pardoned? Just the other week I found myself defending P G Wodehouse against charges that he was a Nazi sympathizer. I never heard Tokyo Rose’s story, but as in so many cases, things are more complex than they appear.

Aside from being a bad son (lik…:

Her trial was considered the most expensive in American history at that time. The U.S. government stacked the deck against Toguri and her meager defense, and the judge later admitted he was prejudiced against her from the start. Toguri was found guilty of only one of the eight treason charges — “That she did speak into a microphone concerning the loss of ships.” She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $10,000. Because she was a model prisoner, Toguri was released early in 1956, although she was served with a deportation order which took two years to fight.

In 1976, the TV news show 60 Minutes told the Tokyo Rose story from Toguri’s point of view. This led to a full pardon for Toguri from President Gerald Ford in 1977.

This came up as a result of Howard Dean being accused of treason for claiming that the president’s poorly-planned and more poorly-prosecuted war was unwinnable. I don’t think Dr Dean meant to disparage the troops in the field — I’m sure of that — but to keep in mind the people who decided to go to war with the flawed information they had, the ill-designed war plans they had, the inadequate matériel they had, not the ones they wish they had are getting Americans killed, to say nothing of what they’re doing to Iraq and it’s citizens.

Not to end up as cargo.

These days I find that I can’t be bothered,
To argue with, them, well, what’s the point?
Better to take your shots and drop down dead,
then they send you home in a pine overcoat

With a letter to your mum /
Saying find enclosed one son, one medal, and a note to say he won.

10News.com – Print This Story – Family Upset Over Marine’s Body Arriving As Freight:

SAN DIEGO — There’s controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag — greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners — stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.”When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made,” said John Holley.

John and Stacey Holley, who were both in the Army, made some calls, and with the help of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Matthew was greeted with honor and respect.

“Our familiarity with military protocol and things of that sort allowed us to kind of put our foot down — we’re not sure other parents have that same knowledge,” said Stacey Holley.

The Holleys now want to make sure every fallen hero gets the proper welcome.

The bodies of dead service members arrive at Dover Air Force Base.

From that point, they are sent to their families on commercial airliners.

Reporters from 10News called the Defense Department for an explanation. A representative said she did not know why this is happening.

Suburban Parents Clash Over Textbooks’ Evolution Warning Labels…:

MARIETTA, Ga. — The evolution controversy in this comfortable Atlanta suburb began with one boy’s fascination with dinosaurs. “He was really into ‘Jurassic Park,’ ” his mother recalled. The trouble was, “we kept reading over and over that ‘millions and millions of years ago, dinosaurs roamed the earth,’ ” Marjorie Rogers continued. “And that’s where I said, ‘Hmm — wait a second.’ ”

Like others who adhere to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, Rogers, a lawyer, believes that Earth is several thousand years old, while most scientists, basing their estimates on the radioactive decay of rock samples, say the planet is billions of years old.

This is a lawyer saying this. Ah, but the full story at the WaPo has . . . .The Rest of The Story:

Rogers is a BMW-driving graduate of the University of Georgia.

Why does BMW rate a mention? What have they done to deserve that?

When Cobb County turned to selecting new biology textbooks in late 2001, that widespread unease developed into parent anger that spurred the school board to action.

Sparked by her son’s interest in dinosaurs, Rogers read several books casting doubt on evolution science, including “Icons of Evolution” by Jonathan Wells and “Darwin on Trial” by Phillip E. Johnson. Once she saw the textbooks under consideration, she was appalled.

“Humans are fundamentally not exceptional because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species,” she read from one during an interview.

“That offends me,” she said. “That has no business being in a science textbook. That’s religion.”

Um, excuse me?

She points to another passage, in “Biology: Concepts & Connections,” that she says is irreverent. The passage suggests that had human knees and spines been “designed” for our bipedal posture, rather than borrowed from four-legged ancestors, they probably would “be less subject to sprains, spasms and other common injuries.”

Finding fault with the design of humans exasperates her.

“That’s slamming God,” she said.

Why do people feel compelled to defend the tender feelings of someone they believe is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent? I think anyone with those capabilities can handle things for themselves.

Unless there is no such presence.

I don’t know about anyone else, but this is doing more to shift me from a lazy agnosticism to a more rigid atheism.