A Short Essay on Lying

There are certain places where you just expect that everyone is lying. Take a poker game for instance. Poker players win or loose not so much based on the the turn of the cards, but on how well they can lie about their strong or weak position with respect to the other players. This is expected and in a poker game, and if you are horrified or angry about such behavior, you really ought to find something else to do with your money.

In other pursuits, lying is generally frowned on. Cheating wives or husbands, children with balls and broken windows, or the family member that polishes off the last piece of pie in the fridge. These are instances where lying is just not acceptable as a normal course of events, and generally has dire consequences for the liar such as divorce or alienation, a tanned butt or drained allowance, or family members secreting snacks in less vulnerable locations.

Then there is the middle ground. Personal taxes and politicians come to mind. I would wager that more than half of the people who file taxes enhance their 'charitable contributions' simply because there generally are little or no consequences since receipts are not required for amounts less than $300. Overall such little lies are insignificant as the $100 savings on taxes is insignificant. Similarly, politicians will often lie and say they are either doing something when they are not or will claim they are doing nothing when they are. It is the nature of the beast and citizens generally expect no less, as long as the lie does not embarrass them or cause any real harm. That is the key.

One common denominator of chronic liars is their 'tells'. The more they lie, generally the easier it is to see their tell. That's why really good poker players excel at reading tells and muting their own. The more impaired a liar is, the more pronounced the tell. take for example your average drug abuser. They generally lie all the time and feel that they are good at it. Some of them even are. Mostly though, for those around them, their lies are transparent and even a little sad.

So that brings me to the reason for this little essay. I heard on the news this morning that our fearless leader did a series of taped interviews with major networks to try to convince the citizens of the need for his desire to punitively punish Syria. My thoughts were two fold. First, he has proven himself untruthful on matters of substance too many times for me to believe any evidence he may present (Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting, et. al.). Secondly, the fact that he is only presenting his case in controlled and taped interviews is something of a tell for him. If he had real and incontrovertible evidence, he would have gone to the UN and Congress like Bush did and presented his case there. Choosing to make his case to a NBC interviewer virtually negates any minute chance that he might be presenting truthful information.

What is perhaps saddest is that somehow he and his advisers believe that they are able to fool the public with this ruse. Only the most brain dead of citizen will not recognize this tell and believe what is presented. I do feel sorry for him in the same way that I feel sorry for the drug addict on the corner insisting that he needs 'just a dollar or two to get something to eat'.  Yet there is some percentage of the population that will reach in their pockets and give that guy money. There is also a percentage of the population that will be convinced by these taped interviews. The scary thing is that the thin margin of those that recognize and reject the 'tell' is the same margin on which our democracy teeters over the brink of the unimaginable.

God help us all.

New trail Guide - Veach Gap Trail - Front Royal VA

It is here. Nice little hike for a weekend stroll.

Weekend Tech Roundup

(entirely unrelated to anything - because I like it, that's why)

So time to clear the palette of tech related stuff I found amusing this week. First up is this:

http://behindthewall.nbcnews.com

Now a casual observer might think that in some weird twist they are selling plungers to obsessive Japanese who just hate to see a stopped up toilet. But those that can read kanji already know the answer - they are selling 'pee directors'. It turns out the men are being fined for missing the toilet. These 'directors' make sure that doesn't happen. So if you think these ladies have a rotten job, think about the guy inside writing the tickets.

In other news:

http://squirrel.ws/
(Squirrel Season Opens in Today in Virginia! Happy Hunting!)

$1600 partially rubberized overalls! Is this a great country or what? I will admit the very idea of throwing yourself off a cliff face and relying on these things to glide down scares the crap out of me. It's a moot point for me right now anyway as I am guessing there is a weight limit to these things, and I am not there yet. Not exactly the goal I am shooting for.

I just don't believe this:

No - not 3D printers. I think they are pretty cool. I don't believe this article's assertion that they could pay for themselves in a year.  I will admit to buying parts for my old and busted fridge that I think are insanely overpriced given the are just little plastic bits. Assuming I could even get the templates for the parts to make them on the printer, it would still take a very long time to recoup the $1000+ Somalians, not to include the cost of 'printing supplies'. Of course, that doesn't mean I still don't want one.

The puppy blender is disappointed by smart watches. He is of course wrong, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. As I have stated before, my vision for smart watches is as an appliance for the phone you have tucked away on your person. From an engineering standpoint it is the natural progression of the technologies that are in place. The visual real estate for what can aesthetically and unobtrusively fit on your wrist is just too small for much more than that. I dream of a world where wrist worn phone appliances are as common and cheap as the ubiquitous Bluetooth headset. Sadly, there just aren't enough youngsters wearing watches anymore, so that may never happen.

Also via Instapundit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

The promise of the thorium reactor. If they could get the size and safety in line, this would be a tremendous leap forward. On the other hand, given the regulatory hoops any nuclear power plant has to go through, I don't see them becoming a household appliance any time soon. I hope I am wrong on this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

So now our puny little plant has one of the biggest volcanos in the solar system? Yea! Finally we are (almost) #1 at something. See how happy our citizens are?

Congrats to Virgin Galactic for Space Ship 2's supersonic flight. It is worth noting that they built this thing from the ground up without the burden of the NASA legacy development weighing them down. I've noted before that I worked on GD's CRS module. From that work it became exceedingly clear that way too much time and otherwise excellent engineering effort was being expended on pursuits that were done 'because that's the way we have always done things <for NASA>'. Cultural bias can kill (or maim) the space industry as easily as it did the auto industry. I for one am glad to see Branson's 'outside the box' culture seeing success. To the young engineers reading this take note - this is the type of company where you should be trying to get a job. Even with my going grey hair and almost 30 years experience, if I was given the chance to work for them I would jump at it in a second. To the stars!

Who the Hell Are You?

I commented on this thread over at C&S and it got me thinking a bit, so I guess i'll expound a little here too. Imagine for a minute you are outside working in your yard, and a guy walks up to you and says 'hi - i'm your representative in Congress and I want your vote'. Kinda like the farmer in this story said

Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected

Now most people reading this will think. Ha! In today's modern world, that just never happens. If you thought that - and admit it - you really did - then you exactly get my point. In Crockett's time, this was the way that elections were done. The representative would actually go around their district, introducing themselves individually and talking about how they were the best guy for the job. In theory, the congressional districts were small enough that this was possible.

In 1827 when Crockett was in office, there was (according to the chart on this wiki page) about 40,000 souls in a congressional district. Contrast that with 332,000 votes cast in the last congressional election in my district. Now a politician will rightly claim that it is understandable that there is no way they can visit with each voter as the numbers just don't make that possible. Using the above 320,000 voter number, assuming that there are 2 voters in each household, and a 15 minute visit with each household, that's something like 40,000 hours - or assuming a hard working 12 hour day of meeting and talking, 3333 days or 9 years (assuming no weekends or holidays off) to get this task done. Another mind blowing aspect to this issue is to consider that those 332,000 are (according the the 2010 census as noted in this report) only 30% of the 1,089,691 voting age citizens in the district.

So a representative has an out to such personal meetings. It just is not possible. What is the logical conclusion to that rather un-profound observation?  Exactly what is happening today. The 'representative' are not really representative at all. They have no obligation to interact with their actual constituencies, as such a thing is impossible. Instead, they must rely on a very undemocratic cadre of lobbyist and sycophants to guide them and their votes. With no direct contact, the have no need to face any voter who might say to them what that farmer said to Crockett:

I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again

 This type of confrontation was an assumed element of the democracy that the founding fathers envisioned. Amusingly, I will admit to having said almost those exact words to scary Jerry at his office during the Obamacare debate. Predictably his reaction was not near as noble as Crockett's. He claimed he was late to a meeting and scooted away as soon as he heard I would not vote for him (after making me and my family wait 10 minutes while he waxed on poetically about non-issue related matters with a lobbyist that was in line in front of us). Now that it is no longer an element that a politician need account for, the dynamics of our republic have changed. A politician need only avoid exposure to ridicule in the months prior to an election and garner just enough an edge to get his (or her) constituency to cast a vote for him or against his rival. This seems to me to be a bastardization of what the founding fathers intended.

Is there an answer for this? I suspect that the tea party movement toward strengthening the power of the state over federal intervention is the best way to get back to a representative democracy. Consider that in my State Senate district 40,000 votes were cast in the last election - shockingly similar to the size of the congressional district of 1829. That being said, I don't recall either of my state house or senate representatives holding any kind of townhall, knocking on my door, or publishing any missives about how they were going to vote in the coming year. I am thinking this is where democracy can be retaken. It is up to these representatives to re-educate the electorate about their responsibility by becoming more visible. Once people become aware of the political process, such shenanigans as making up outrage over a nonsense word (i.e. George Allen and the 'macaca' incident) will have less power and influence when it comes to a federal (or any other) election.

Something Red

(Yeah - Red Wine - Get it?)

So apparently the Bamster has forgotten about some red line he drew that folks are making a big fuss about. Being the ever helpful citizen I am, I thought that i'd help him find it. My reasoning is that if someone as important as the President of the most powerful country in the world drew a red line somewhere, surely there would be a picture of it somewhere on the internet.

(Ugh - that red was driving me crazy - switching back over to normal. Use your imagination and pretend the rest of this is in red on black). I searched Google for images of red lines to see if I could help him find his red line. After all, it is just unseemly for our President to be wondering around mumbling about a lost red line.

The first picture I found was this:

But that is just some old white Jew nominally in charge of some insignificant mid-east country with a poster. There is no way that's the Bamster's "world drawn" red line. Looking further I found this:

While this is a prominent red line in Washington DC, I don't think he drew that line either. I used to ride that red line briefly every day when I worked in DC. I would transfer to it at Metro center. That place was a zoo. Perhaps he misspoke and meant to say "I lost <mumble> on the Red Line". That I could believe. In that case maybe he should check with these guys:

http://www.copblock.org/

Maybe he actually meant that he lost a movie, namely this one:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/

It's been a while since I've been in Blockbuster, but since it's been like 10 years since that came out on tape, if he hasn't returned it yet I've got some good news and bad news for him. The bad news is that he is going to have to pay like $30 for an old and busted movie that he probably doesn't even have a player he can watch it on. The good news is since they are practically out of business and have probably mostly laid off most of their workers due to Obamacare, if he doesn't say anything they won't know. So maybe if that is the case he should probably Ix-Nay on the Ed-Ray Ine-Lay.

Looking further, I found this:

http://www.redlinebicycles.com/

Maybe he meant to say he is missing his "red line bike". I can see being upset and going on national TV about that. After all, we are talking about a primo BMX bike here. The only problem with that is that I don't think BMX is really his style. Does this look like a guy that is into BMX?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Maybe he meant to say "I drawed at Redline" <as in 'tied'>. Redline being this 5 year old MAC game:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1056831/redline.html

I would hate for that to be the case. Then even an old guy like Senator McCain would make fun of his lack of tech game savvy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com

Well I have to say that this search is a bust. I am sorry I have failed you Mr. President. On the other hand, perhaps if Congress continues to probe the various scandals your administration has started, something will be found.

Update!!!: Welcome IMAO readers! Looks like this is becoming a regular thing. While your here, look around, kick the tires, and see if the blog is something you'd like to take a look at on a regular basis. I have an eclectic mix of tech, humor, politics, and nostalgia and post almost every day unless i'm hung up doing 'real work'. Once again, mucho thanks the Harvey for providing the link.

A little help from your friends

Poor Bamster. He seems to be getting a great deal of criticism lately after pushing the envelop of his foreign policy. Coincidentally, I was perusing the Lifehacker site and saw this article where the experts addressed the question "How can I gracefully back out of an obligation?" I immediately thought that I could look that over and and see if it had any relevance to poor Barry's predicament. I mean once he drew that 'red line' he was kinda caught in his own rhetoric in a position that he couldn't back out of.

So the article opens by sort of dodging the question, which is kinda metaphorically the Bamster's whole leadership style. Here's what it said:

You don't always have to back out of too many obligations. Sometimes you only need to re-prioritize your time and set new deadlines where you can.

Holy Crap! It's like that little walk that he took with his chief of staff was accompanied by a perusal of this article.  Delay the bombing for a while and maybe the whole thing will go away. But wait you say - he made that decision 4 days ago and the Lifehacker article only came out yesterday. Heh - right... Like that is a problem for the guy that has the resources of the NSA at his beck and call.

The article follows up that concept of 're-prioritizing' by describing methods for accomplishing that. Point one is:

Take a vacation day (or two) from work

Done! Time to call up Reggie Love and hit the links! Next is:

Extend the <conflicting obligation> deadline. 

 Then goes on to explain that sometimes people miss deadlines. For the guy who's administration is late on everything (responding to congressional inquiries, Obamacare implementation, budgets), this is really not a problem. He can soo do this. The next advice bullet is a bit more problematic:

Cut your favors in half. While it sucks to prioritize work over your friends, sometimes you have to do that. 

However, he is quite adept at throwing people under the bus, so cutting back on favors to the Al Qaeda fighters may be the right move. After all, they should have seen it coming after the last little misstep with the MB guys in Egypt.

The article then goes on to give advice on what to do if you can't re-prioritize. Their first bullet:

  When re-prioritizing your time can't solve the problem and you need to back out of an obligation, you need to do so gracefully and, in many cases, have a plan

Humm. Not quite sure how this applies to this situation. Planning is really hard work. I am thinking that Barry should probably just skip over  this part of the article. Grace and planning is not really his strong suite. But he should think about this very cosignate point:

You don't necessarily need to succeed in helping a friend, but your intentions will go a long way when you have to bow out.

See intentions are everything with Barry. Follow through is not nearly as important. I'm sure his Al Qaeda buddies will understand.

Finally there is this wrap up point in the article:

We can't always manage our time perfectly, so pay attention to the times when you screwed up so you can avoid making the same errors in the future

I am thinking this might be kinda wasted on Barry, but he seems like a smart guy, so perhaps not. I guess time will tell.

Why am I not surprised?

So Boner rolls over for Obama and says he will support his ill advised foray into bombing Syria. (H/T Drudge) Wow. I didn't see that coming. Here's what he said:

"We have enemies around the world that need to understand that we're not going to tolerate this type of behavior. We also have allies around the world and allies in the region who also need to know that America will be there and stand up whether it is necessary"

So lets see. There has been no irrefutable publicly available evidence presented indicating that the gas came from Assad, lots of indications that it didn't, and we are to take the word of the same administration that still has not accounted for what happened at Benghazi. Boner misses a golden opportunity to tell him that no one trust this administration and instead rolls over for a belly rub.

Who exactly are the enemies here? The fundamentalist that are otherwise tearing that country apart? Who are the allies that we are standing by? I don't really see anyone in that conflict that are allies. The only reason I can see for Boner going along with this madness are two fold. One is that he hopes that the Republicans will gain respect of the electorate while supporting the president in time of conflict. The other is that he hopes the Bamster will screw up this so bad that the country will have no other choice but to elect Republicans.

Let's take those one at a time. First, the respect gained by supporting the President. Now if we were dealing with an honorable administration installed by conscientious electorate I would agree. Times, they have changed though. Take a good look at who is in the White House and how he got there. The electorate you are hoping to impress are laughing their ass off at your naivete. Next is what happens when the Bamster brings the Mideast into chaos? He has proven himself quite adapt at throwing others under the bus to avoid blame. The last finger he will point will be at Boner who allowed him to go forward. A willing press will not dare call him out.

Here's what Boner Benedict should have said:

"I have met with the President and listened to his reasoning for military intervention in the Syrian conflict. I do not share his belief that the US has any reason for getting mired in that conflict as we have no allies or enemies engaged in it. While he has presented alleged proof that Assad fired the gas shells, I cannot accept such indications from an administration that has failed to come clean about Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the IRS manipulations. When he does so I will be glad to consider this 'evidence' that he has shown us. Until then I can't in good conscious agree to this adventure. Oh - and don't think for a moment I am distracted from defunding Obamacare."

 Yeah - that's what a real leader would do. I'm sure he will stand up and be counted next time...