A Mind is a Terrible Thing

Remember what I said before about being busy?

Cube that, run it through a tesseract, and add 42.

On the plus side, life’s gotten very interesting lately.

By the way, in case you’ve forgotten, there are STILL two rovers poking around on Mars.  Intended to last just three months, both Spirit and Opportunity have remained functional and mobile for well over four YEARS.

Kudos to the engineers and techs.  True, the rovers are wearing out, but it’s simply amazing to realize they’ve weathered over 1500 day/night cycles, including two Martian winters that neither was expected to survive.  We’re still getting good science from these wee, hardy beasties.

Fingers crossed for the upcoming landing of the Phoenix probe, due to touchdown this coming Sunday.

No More Free Baggage For American Passengers – KNTV-TV- msnbc.com
ET May 22, 2008 American Airlines will start charging $15 for the first checked bag, cut domestic flights and lay off possibly thousands of workers as it grapples with record-high fuel prices.

This incredibly stupid and off-putting move, instead of doing the sensible thing, which would be to raise the ticket fare by $12-13.

Any intelligent adult already assumes that the expenses of transporting luggage is supposed to factor into the cost of any given airfare.  Some will travel with very little luggage, while others will push the posted limits — that’s all perfectly fair, and has been part of doing business for decades.

Only now the US airlines especially are trying to find ways to shave still more slivers off every penny.  So they make everybody lose the last few precious inches of leg-room, just so they can cram in two or three more rows in economy.  (A tip: If you’re going to do this, just disable the danged seat reclining function, because few things are more annoying than spending several hours of a flight with some stranger’s head literally in your lap.)

The airlines eliminate in-flight meals, charge for drinks, charge to rent headphones to watch the in-flight movies, and institute charges for stuff that used to be complimentary — but again, nobody was so foolish as to honestly believe these amenities were totally ‘free’.  They once were part of the flight experience — just like the bygone days when young kids sometimes got to see the cockpit and get a ‘free’ pair of captain’s wings — and these were all also part of the little comforts to help make a trip more enjoyable. 

And yes, the savvy traveler knows we paid for these things.

The inevitable fallout of this decision, of course, is going to be more people trying to push the carry-on limits, cramming the overhead bins until they burst — and with the additional side-effect being that flights will be delayed due to slow passenger boarding, bags getting bumped from in-cabin to checked, and so on.

Stupid, stupid, stupid…  It’s no wonder the successful, profitable airlines are the ones which have actually maintained or even enhanced the comforts of flying (JetBlue, Singapore Air, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, etc.), whereas it’s the short-sighted American companies which are losing their customers and which consistently rate lowest in customer satisfaction (AA, Delta, Northwest, TWA, PanAm, and so on).  (Note: I am aware some of these companies are already out of business… It’s one of my points.)

I know oftentimes several days can go by without posts from me.  Sometimes it’s because I simply don’t have anything much to say.  Other times, it’s because I’m insanely busy.

The past several days have been the latter reason.

Monty Python’s dead parrot did exist – Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:32AM BST 16/05/2008
The fictional Norwegian Blue parrot – famed as the star of Monty Python’s iconic dead parrot comedy sketch – appears to have once really existed.

A fossil expert has established for the first time that parrots lived in Scandinavia about 55 million years ago when the area was covered in tropical forest. Dr David Waterhouse of Norwich, Norfolk, found that a fossilised wing recovered from a mine in Denmark came from a bird which belonged to the parrot family.

He said: “I specialise in bird fossils and am also a Python fan, so I have lived with jokes about dead parrots for years. Article continues advertisement advertisement “Obviously we were dealing with a bird that is bereft of life, but the tricky bit was establishing it was a parrot.”

Submitted without comment.  The rest at the link.

Think Progress » Conservatives Dismiss CA Gay Marriage Decision By Falsely Attacking ‘Unelected Judges’
Responding to the California Supreme Court’s decision yesterday overturning the state’s ban on gay marriage, congressional conservatives attacked the decision by calling it the result of “unelected judges” turning over the will of the people.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the House Minority Whip, charged in a statement that “unelected judges” are trying to “substitute their own worldview for the wisdom of the American people”: Today, the decision of unelected judges to overturn the will of the people of California on the question of same-sex marriage demonstrates the lengths that unelected judges will go to substitute their own worldview for the wisdom of the American people.

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), piled on, saying that “unelected judges” had “irresponsibly decided to legislate from the bench.”

But, in making their rush to judgment about the CA decision, both Blunt and Feeney have the basic facts wrong about how California’s judicial system works. SmartVoter.org, a resource of the League of Women’s Voters, makes clear that California’s Supreme Court justices are “confirmed by the public at the next general election” after being appointed and “justices also come before voters at the end of their 12-year terms.”

In fact, each of the seven justices involved in yesterday’s decision were approved by California voters by overwhelming margins:
- Justice Joyce L. Kennard confirmed in 2006 with 74.5% of the vote.
- Justice Carol A. Corrigan confirmed in 2006 with 74.4% of the vote.
- Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar confirmed in 2002 with 74.1% of the vote.
- Justice Carlos R. Moreno confirmed in 2002 with 72.6% of the vote.
- Justice Marvin R. Baxter confirmed in 2002 with 71.5% of the vote.
- Justice Ronald M. George confirmed in 1998 with 75.5% of the vote.
- Justice Ming William Chin confirmed in 1998 with 69.3% of the vote.

Moreover, the California state legislature TWICE passed laws since 2000 which would have made marriage available to both heterosexual and homosexual couples — thus ‘legislating from the legislature’ — but Republican Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the majority-passed laws both times, saying he wanted the CA Supreme Court to weigh in.

Still, to the governor’s credit, he did say he would oppose amending the state constitution, should the ban on same-sex marriages be found by the CA SC to be unconstitutional.

So… the CA legislature has twice passed a law allowing it.  The voter-confirmed Supreme Court has ruled that a ban is discriminatory and illegal.  The Republican governor agrees and opposes amending the constitution.  Isn’t this how a democratic republic is supposed to work?

All these liars have is the tyranny of the mob — and that’s what they’ll be going for come November.

Dan Froomkin ("WaPo: White House Watch") writes:

Bush Cries Alone
… I wrote in yesterday’s column about Bush’s idea of sacrifice: Giving up golf in solidarity with the families soldiers who have died or been wounded in Iraq. And I noted that although Bush told Mike Allen of Politico that he had given it up in mid-August of 2003, an Associated Press report placed Bush on the links on Oct. 13, 2003.

Now it turns out Bush also went golfing in September. According to a Sept. 28, 2003, report from the Associated Press: "President Bush spent a sunny Sunday joking with his golfing friends at Andrews Air Force Base. "Bush played with David Hobbs, his chief liaison to Congress; Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., a leading negotiator on the Medicare bill which is stalled in Congress; and House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio – a state Bush plans to visit this week.

So Mr. Bush isn’t just so craven as to abstain from golf and call that a sacrifice a gesture appropriate for the families of those who died or were wounded in Iraq.  No, he can’t even bring himself to do that much.  What makes it even worse is the casual and cavalier way in which he simply lied about it.

This is truly a man who believes there are no personal consequences for anything he does or says.

Hmm…

California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban – New York Times
May 15, 2008 Filed at 1:38 p.m. (AP) — The California Supreme Court has overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, paving the way for the state to become the second in the United States where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

Well, we tried this back in 2004, when Mayor Gavin Newsom was issuing marriage licenses, but it didn’t stick.  Got overturned later that summer.

My spouse and I have been ‘domestic partners’ pretty much since the option was offered by California.  Perhaps if this hangs on, there’ll be another marriage ceremony for us when we’re back in California this coming October/November…

We still count 21 December 1998 as the actual start of our marriage though.

Addendum:  Powerful, moneyed groups (many are based outside California) are trying to get a measure on the ballot in November, which would amend the CA state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.  Only requires roughly 700,000 signatures and 50%+1 of the vote to pass.  I have to wonder how this situation can be allowed — I mean, what’s to stop some group from amending the state constitution to strip women of their voting rights or to reinstate slavery?  Talk about potential for mischief and abuse, not to mention the very definition of Mob Rule.

Well, that was kinda fun, and a different experience, getting to do most of our travels with a good friend.  The flights were on-time and all right, the food varied (I liked it; Stephy didn’t much care for the veg offerings on SA), and we enjoyed shopping at the Singapore airport.

Today, after a couple days’ worth of trips to Nilgiris and another supermarket up on MG Road (Gourmet Food World), we returned to Penukonda with a car full of groceries.  Tonight’s dinner: Corn on the cob, and a fresh salad.

I’d also like to mention that I’ve gotten some feedback lately, first-hand, indicating that more ashram-related posts would be appreciated.  (One of my Imaginary Readers became unImaginary during the last few weeks…)  Anyway, I’ll try to meet that request.  Mayhap I’ll write more about my teacher, too…

Once again, we find ourselves in Bangalore — this time, at the Ballal Residency Hotel, and tonight we head out for Singapore.  Just planning a brief stay, long enough to satisfy the visa rules back here in Mama India.  Then it’s back here, a couple days of shopping, and then back to ye olde ashram…

One upside of the trip — besides the really fab duty-free shopping available at Changi airport — is that Singapore Airlines usually serves really great seafood meals on the flights.  Downside is their vegetarian fare is rather less good…unfortunately for Stephanie.