• 16:20 There's some sort of fire going on NW of Rocky Hill. Big black smoke plume rising into the sky. #

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Obama appeals to U.S., allies to end war in Afghanistan

The legacy of a bad President and administration lives on and on. He tried to go to war on the cheap, and failed. And now, it's up to the following President to clean up the mess.

If you wanted to do it cheaply, there was a small window in 2002 to 2004 where a massive influx of troops could have stabilized things so they could have handed things over to the Northern Alliance. But this little detour called Iraq made Afghanistan the secondary theatre of war. And then Bush got this idea that you could impose democracy from above - and the downward spiral began. Afghanistan has always been hostile to foreign powers, and it's always been hard to control. You can do it, but it takes a lot more blood and treasure than the U.S. and NATO has been willing to spend so far.

With what Obama's proposing, just like the surge in Iraq, all you'll buy here is peace with honour - then when the American troops finally return home, the whole edifice will come crashing down. You cannot build a fully working democracy from a tyranny in less than a generation. It's impossible. (The only examples I can think of where a tyranny did turn into a democracy in less than a generation were a few of the Eastern European nations -- and they had the relative advantages of working economies, a literate population, a relatively sophisticated political infrastructure, a general liberal trend in terms of dissent, and proximity to Western Europe.) This is nothing more than a domestic political move - to buy Obama enough political credibility from the majority of Americans who have stopped paying attention to the fact we're at war (except at sporting events), so he can focus on his domestic agenda, as well as deflect a line of attack from Republicans who, now that they're in opposition, don't even have to justify their demands by even the threadbare logic that their majority governed with from 2001 to 2007.

I read something recently in The Next 100 Years by George Friedman, that made me really re-consider my general pro-war stance on Afghanistan. I really believe now the only real long term solution is to offer refugee status to anybody in Afghanistan who wants to rebuild their life in the West, and then pull everybody else out. If the Taliban show their heads again, smack them back down -- but, otherwise, stay out of the region. Let Pakistan, India, Iran, the 'stans and Russia play the Great Game. The main goal was accomplished - the Taliban sponsored an attack on U.S. soil, the Taliban got clobbered.

It's always when I think about stuff like this that I think that von Clausewitz's ideas about war and politics are still valid, no matter what the revisionists might say.

Can't remember which tourney this was. I recognize only 2 or 3 people in the pic.

I'll probably be dribbling out observations from the past weekend a bit at a time here...


Taking nothing away from the WSC or NSC, the Causeway Challenge premier division is perhaps the reigning major tournament now. It's got the best field, the most games and the highest top prize. At dinner one night, tailskid and I speculated on what a North American version of Causeway might look like. The plan might be to divide North America into eight or ten regions, suitably gerrymandered so that they're roughly equal in strength. Each region's top five, pick some sensible qualifying method, would then get a spot in the NSC Premier to compete for the North American championship. (If it's found necessary to make sure obviously qualified players are allowed into the Premier, at-large teams can be used, as Causeway does.) Everyone else plays an open. In the NSC's case, since a 500-player open isn't desirable, divide the open into maybe three divisions with unlimited play-up to any division except Premier.

There would also be a prize, or at least recognition, for the highest placing region in the premier division. As with WSC countries, regions could gain or lose spots for future NSCs based on performance.

The WSC and Causeway have gotten little attention on CGP. Unsurprising, but let me tell y'all, you're missing a great game. Ridiculous that Nigel and Pakorn can be slugging it out in a final for the ages and people on CGP would rather busy themselves playing Miss Thistlebottom with the word list. (If you haven't heard of Miss Thistlebottom, see here: http://www.centrobooks.com/bernstein.htm) I guess if it doesn't happen in North America or happens using a different arbitrary word list than the one used here, it doesn't count. Definitely was reminded again how monumentally stupid the current word list schism is. All these great players here, all these great players there, and they can't play with each other. I absolutely think at this point that NASPA should impose Collins by fiat, though perhaps only for the experts and with an extended grace period to acclimate. Not because Collins is "better" in terms of the words or the game - reasonable people can differ on both issues - but because it's fairer for us to learn words than to demand that everyone else around the world forget them. In any case, the wall should come down.

Athletes are human beings too. And even though we always hear about the athletes behaving badly, or athletes behaving weirdly, we hardly ever hear enough about the athletes who are just trying to do their job and be the best human beings they can be.

So it's always nice when you hear some good press, whether it's big things like the the Jimmie Johnson Foundation, or it's the little things like Ryan Miller being a decent human being.

More color to come. For now, a couple of lists:

( Read more... )

My eleventh skating lesson (of thirteen) was today, and during the warm-up drills and post-lesson free skate the instructors play music. It has been a trip down memory lane as the music has been, so far, all hits from the seventies. The first song they played on my first lesson was "Fly, Robin, Fly" by Silver Convention, which took me back over thirty years since I remember skating to that song when I was a child. I used to skate on an outdoor rink beside my primary school, and sometimes I went to the Huron Park Recreation Centre, where I am taking lessons now. It was a jolt to the memory when I heard "Fly, Robin, Fly" over thirty years later and in the same place.

Today the instructors played only Christmas music. I love all Christmas music, and have been listening to nothing but since the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. My favourite Christmas albums are by Ray Conniff, Lawrence Welk, both Christmas albums by Quartette, Rosemary Clooney (especially her Concord album White Christmas), the Kingston Trio (their album The Last Month of the Year), and Sari and Mari Kaasinen (whose Finnish Christmas album has been released in the US under the English title Can We Have Christmas Now?):

http://www.amazon.com/Can-We-Have-Christmas-Now/dp/B000009RL6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1259699526&sr=8-1

When I got home from skating this morning I did a company search on Google®. The search results came up and I clicked on one, which seemed to direct me to the company's web site. The page took a long time to load, and in the meantime, I couldn't click on the other windows I had open. Okay, nothing strange there. When the page finally loaded, I couldn't open up any other web sites. Nothing worked, however, oddly, I could still use GMail. I sent test messages to people and received their replies, yet none of my favourites worked since I kept getting the same durn message that "this page cannot be displayed". Not even www.google.com would open, nor my default Google page, the Romansch version of www.google.ch :-)

For fear that I wouldn't be able even to log on to GMail upon my return home from work I left my computer on, and stayed logged on to GMail. Yet I can't get the Internet to work on anything else. What's going on? How could I have fried my Internet connection to any and all sites except GMail?

backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're high on adventurous spirit, but low on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about inexpensive hotels and youth hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!

Lazy day, but one interesting enough to crank out 800-some words on

Jason

I was thinking about that passage from Wordfreak where Chris Crii was bummed out because he bombed a tourney, even though he won 100 grand playing blackjack that weekend. He said he would have rather have won the tourney and not the money!

Imagine if he won the tourney, but blew 100 grand at blackjack... that would have made a really lame story.

In yoga we did partner body weight exercises to build upper body strength, like this


I also uploaded a new video:

• 09:12 Where's George hit in North Carolina - new county! #wheresgeorge tinyurl.com/yk7j93y #
• 22:05 Can you possibly become sick of Christmas music prior to it even being December? My studied answer is YES. #
• 22:16 Here's the thing: I LIKE Christmas music - really, I do! - but the songs on the diner's system have been hideous tonight. Ho ho freakin' ho. #

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A Syracuse woman standing on a street corner holding a sign saying "HOMOSEXUALITY IS SIN, CHRIST CAN SET YOU FREE" got pwned when a student took up station next to her with a sign mocking her dress: "CORDUROY SKIRTS ARE A SIN".



I will say I am somewhat discomfited by boingboing's sneering characterization of the woman as an "angry loser" (although the expression on her face in the picture is worth 1000 words), and I'm also bothered by this nugget from TFA: "Administration officials heard the call of their students and stated that the Deferios were no longer welcome on Syracuse's campus." Unless they ban all non-student protests or can cite some legitimate public safety concern, that seems wrong...

via vpFREE:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/Binions-to-close-hotel-tower-lay-off-100-workers-78149717.html



Discontinuing keno!? How can you drop a game with such a huge edge? :-)

Any word on how this will affect BARGE? I'm not on the list any more but I assume there's been discussion...

via slashdot:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/wheres-the-data/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

bookfails
Planning to do your part to help boost the declining publishing industry this holiday? Better check here first. Sure, there are plenty of folks who post glowing reviews of their favorite books. But what about the epic fails? Compose and/or discuss snarky, incisive critiques on the books you despise most.

foundphotos
Ever stumble across a frayed photo in your grandmother's attic? How about a faded picture tucked in the sleeve of an old novel at a used book sale? This is the place to post them. An amazing, eclectic collection of photographs sure to delight anyone with a penchant for history or nostalgic memorabilia.

note_to_cat
Having trouble conveying the concept of accountability to your cat? Now you can share letters to your significant felines and give public witness to your declarations of love and domestic negotiations. Whether you want to publish an apology for falling short on your cat-nip obligations or you need to raise a delicate hygiene issue.

I tried an idea where some online people played left handed Tiddly-winks at ILHTWC today using the Elo rating system, but with multipliers equal to the age of the player multiplied by the number of moles each player claimed to have on their body, or exceeding that, 101. We all had nice ratings and nice moles. Then we played a fun game of Pick-Up-Sticks. When we were all tuckered out, we drank some juice and realized that the pills were a bit stronger today. This picture is also fittingly irrelevant.

So I caved into the 101 point game idea on yahoo backgammon. Playing where you only win or lose a few points with a single game is lame. So setting the number to 101, then both players doubling up to 128 as fast as they can, means the game is rated "fully." If you play somebody your own rating a win/loss will have about a 20 point rating change. However, the multiplier falls the more the rating difference increases. So if you played somebody rated 500 points higher/lower than you, a win or loss would have a tiny rating point change. An 800 point rating difference will have no rating change!

On the plus side, this does encourage people to play opponents with similar ratings (assuming playing for rating is one of their goals.)

I have no idea who this is, but I thought it would spice up this entry:

Food, glorious food

Jason

• 18:20 Soon-to-be dinner: homemade turkey soup with homemade pasta and homemade bread. Life is not awful. #
• 19:32 There has been much consumption. And pink cheese is still pink. Yum. #

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At the Herald Hunt this weekend, I was on a team with bcdominy, elainetyger, ericberlin, and Justin Smith. We solved the initial five puzzles easily, taking only about one hour of the three hours provided, then went to have lunch and discuss how the final round might work.

I forget the precise wording of the first clue, but it included something about "forewords" being important. At first I goggled -- could this really be the same metapuzzle that I used in my 2008 Mini-Hunt, where the four-letter words in the clues spelled out a message (in my case, TAKE EACH BONE FROM THIS HUNT; THAT TRIO WILL FORM YOUR NEXT STEP)? No, it couldn't. But Eric believed that we should take the number of four-letter words in each of the other four clues, and use that four-digit number for ... well, something.

(At this point I feel obligated to point out that when counting the four-letter words independently, Eric and Justin *both* managed to miscount one of the clues as having four four-letter words; I later corrected that number to five. Our team's deficiency at basic counting lives on.)

Either Eric or Justin then had the idea that if the final clue was a four-letter word, that could match up with the four numbers we were given to form four map coordinates. That is to say, if our number was 7536 and Dave Barry said "Your final clue is 'lame'", that would give us coordinates at 7-L, 5-A, 3-M, and 6-E.

I protested that there was no way that a final clue was going to send teams to four totally different areas of the map simultaneously. Eric replied that it didn't have to, if the letters in the word were near enough to each other. For example, if the word was DEED, then it would be easy to get to all of 7-D, 5-E, 3-E, and 6-D.

I thought it would be a little lame to just reveal a single word as the final clue, and that it would be nicer if it was in fact more of a clue. I suggested that it would be nice if the final clue invoked ABBA, and therefore, the proper capper for this line of thinking would be that the final clue would consist of a snippet of "Dancing Queen".

Eric actually started to be convinced that this was a real possibility; I thought it was an amusing idea but very unlikely. We did consider the possibility of sneaking up behind Dave Barry and singing the song just to see whether he jumped six feet in the air as a result.

Needless to say, the endgame wasn't anything near as interesting; it was straightforward, somewhat flawed, and simple enough that the winning team was decided about a minute after the final clue was announced. But if "Dancing Queen" really had come over the intercom, it would have been the most amazing example of backsolving ever.

She was getting a bit batty in her old age... watch, it's actually quite funny.

Something current climate models may not be accounting for: swimming animals "may contribute to ocean mixing on the same level as winds and tides."

Holy unholy alliance, Batman! Murdoch-Microsoft deal in the works.

Sushi fraud? Of 68 samples of tuna sushi obtained from 31 restaurants in NYC and Denver, some "were from endangered species, others were not as labeled, and some were not tuna at all. Of these last, five samples labeled as 'white tuna' were from a toxic fish, Escolar, which is a gempylid species banned for sale in Italy and Japan due to health concerns."

Google patents the display of patents.

The innocent have nothing to fear: "Britain is full of license-plate cameras [...] any police officer can add any license number to the database of "people of interest" and every time that license plate passes a camera, the local police force will receive an urgent alert, and can pull over the car, detain the driver, and search the car and its passengers under the Terrorism Act."

A company is making a paper hole-puncher for Legos -- i.e. it punches 4 holes with the right spacing so you can lock a (presumably creatively-shaped) piece of paper between two Lego pieces.

via vpFREE, whale sues Harrah's over gambling losses, claiming they exploited his gambling addiction, supplied him with alcohol/drugs, etc. However he has a dubious history, having written bad checks for 7-figure markers to other casinos before. This line is amazing: "[Caesars and the Rio] drew as much as one-fifth of their annual revenue from Mr. Watanabe's play in both 2006 and 2007."

In the "be careful what you ask for" department, a 41-year-old man who was adopted as a child tracked down his biological father. It's Charles Manson. FML.

cockeyed.com: "For a few years now, Greg, Scott and I have each been vying for top prize at Sacramento's Zone Ball Halloween costume contest." Scott's amazing tauntaun costume was link-dumped previously; now here is Greg's equally-amazing Bumblebee costume for a Halloween contest in Las Vegas.

Speaking of Star Wars, a collection of awesome Star-Wars-themed band names, via badastronomy I think. Samples: Chewbacca Khan, Kessel Run DMC, Alderan Duran, De La Solo

Speaking of astronomy, Monday's APOD is a picture of a gorgeous crescent Earth taken by the ESA's Rosetta spacecraft.

Intentional ad image placement on a Swedish taxi? You decide.

Animated map of US unemployment rates since 2007.

Another cool optical illusion.

Neat graffiti in Montreal's Chinatown that re-imagines a fire escape stairway as a giant snake

More from OKCupid's statistical analysis blog: graphs of behavior of online matchmaking participants, and interesting if debatable male-vs-female conclusions drawn from same.