When I wrote my journal entry on "Klingons vs the Federation", I had no idea the topic of morality was so charged. The journal entry right after it was seemingly unrelated and received no comment, which surprised me since the subject matter of a very rational male being a ...

keen young mind read[ing] between the lines and perceiv[ing] the folly of all that he's told to accept. Because he lacks an adult perspective, however, what he cannot grasp is the ruthlessness of the war that the education reformers have waged"

Indeed, I'm still trying to get to the top of the whole matter myself, having lived a life where I naturally identify with the protagonist in that story more than quite a bit.

In the comment section of the Klingons vs the Federation, you can read my old friends acting like I've always known them to act. Most of them no matter where they fall in opposition to each other, oddly enough, probably identify with Brandon also. Bill Dog and Pudge, both straightforward and rational. And both are ready to skewer with the reason and ration then bind them and take captives with it. They are, essentially, the dread pirate Roberts of internet debates. Then there is CounterTrolling, who I believe I've never met before, smart enough to know he was being out-maneuvered but not smart enough to realize his evasiveness was really his own captivity of ignorance. Don't get me wring, CounterTrolling shows some great insights, but when push comes to shove he cedes the rational high ground and runs for the bushes. The hope is to get payback with teasing evasion, like the school child who runs into the hills to get the pleasure of annoying the teacher with the chase. Its a Pyrrhic victory.

And then there is Marxist Hacker, who can be rational and moral, but treading the unpaved terrain of reality outside of academia often gets high centered on the gooey plateau of the utopian disconnect. In that way he takes after Karl Marx, who was probably the most successful Utopianist, but ultimately a flawed unconstrained utopianist like the rest.

Yes, I'm being a bit incisive with my commentary today of my old and new friends here. There perspectives and reactions are altogether engaging and fascinating. They have my regard and esteem. But today instead of dealing with the Klingons fatal flaw, I want to make mention of the Federation's fatal flaw. You see, even though the Federation is more based on a real history then the Klingons, the extrapolation of how Earth finally makes it into space like a phoenix from the ashes of a nuclear war is still not plausible to me. In fact, it is probably no surprise that the Star Trek universe doesn't wholly rely on our Earth like ambition and instead evokes a Vulcan ex Machina to tutor them the rest of the way into the hostile galaxy. While Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke have far more developed plots of a carefully guided upliftment of humanity through measured contact in Contact and 2001: Space Odyssey, the Roddenberry universe also relies on a First Contact. Utopianism and restraint, critical for safeguarding progression, are not in and of themselves progress. In fact, they can in many ways cause regression.

In short, the human spirit which provides the drive for the utopian morality as seen by Roddenberry, is not enough to get us to the stars even in his own vision. My misgivings that the Klingons with their exploitative and expansionist culture slit their own throats if they laid their hands on the power required for space travel. My misgivings for the Federation are more nuanced. Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club, is someone I read faithfully. And, to be honest, you should too. Today he provided me the best way to describe the fatal flaw of the Federation's morality...

An academic from the University of East Anglia argues that animals have privacy rights. âoeWhat does it say about our assumptions about animalsâ when people film them he asked. In Britain a Muslim who spray painted a war memorial with a slogan calling for Islamic world domination, the assassination of Gordon Brown and the exaltation of Osama bin Laden is not prosecuted, after authorities concluded that his graffiti was âoenot racially motivatedâ. A teacher is acquitted for beating a student with a 7 pound dumb bell after he snaps from repeated taunting.

Each incident exemplifies in its bizarre way the new morality. Things are now âappropriateâ(TM) or âinappropriateâ(TM) for reasons which only 20 years ago would have been regarded as completely crazy. Take Peter Harvey, the teacher at a school in Britain. He knew the rules, the only problem was, he couldnâ(TM)t take them any more.

Hounded for months by a group of students who decided to see what it would take to make him snap; tripped up, shoved him into hedges and followed home threateningly, Harvey went on a 5 month leave of absence because he feared he would lose his mind. Punishing the gang leaders was out of the question. Traditional classroom disciplinary measures were no longer available to him. No more harsh words, no more corporal punishment, however slight. Teachers had been sentenced to jail for striking students in a country where the police were called into classrooms 40 times a day because the schools had lost control. Upon his return from leave the same group decided to secretly record him going over the edge and arranged to goad him after which they planned to distribute the video to complete his humiliation. They didnâ(TM)t reckon on the 7 pound dumb bell. The result was a 14 year old with a skull fracture and a man accused of murder.

In a way Peter Harvey was a failure. He couldnâ(TM)t meet the enlightened standard. Political correctness is a tough game; it demands a relentless reinforcement of small problems until things fall apart. Double down until your broke. Poor, weak Mr Harvey wasnâ(TM)t made of stern enough stuff.

You should read the whole thing for access to the links he provides, and read more of his excellent commentary on the matter.

But when you get down to it, getting the bomb was an act of war. Even going to the Moon was (perhaps primarily) a political dog whistle to each country about the countries ICBM capacity. In the Star Trek Universe, it was a repurposed ICBM which the first warp technology was developed on for Earth. These Klingon like ambitions and the concept of ownership is probably more directly correlated to progress then the moral restraint that the Federation represents.

Restraint is critical. But, when you get down to it, restraint can too easily turn from the demure Jekyll to a Mr. Hyde monster of self-flatulation and drawing from the accreditation of our own restraint in compensation for injustice. Or rather, we pay our own morality to subsidize injustice. Any utopianist nation ready to spend good moral capital for bad, is bound to exhaust their own resources and utterly collapse under the emotional and monetary load.

The teacher, restrained from the ability to restrain injustice, finally regressed to his own animal nature. Or, perhaps, self-destructed completely. Brandon willfully accepting being bound by the same sinews he then used to thread his pathetically anemic rebellion. He'd never reach the stars with such a utopian bargain. He dramatically undervalued his own use of those threads, and underestimated their ability to bind. To give the analogy people tried to tell me not so long ago, I was drinking a quart of poison to get someone to drink a thimble full.

I noticed early on that my special-ed boys often sat at their desks with their heads down or casually staring off into space, as if tracking motes in their eyes, while I proceeded with my lesson. A special-ed caseworker would arrive, take their assignments, and disappear with the boys into the resource room. The students would return the next day with completed assignments.

âoeDid you do this yourself?â Iâ(TM)d ask, dubious.

They assured me that they did. I became suspicious, however, when I noticed that they couldnâ(TM)t perform the same work on their own, away from the resource room. A special-ed caseworkerâ(TM)s job is to keep her charges from failing. A failure invites scrutiny and reams of paperwork. The caseworkers do their jobs.

Brandon has been on the special-ed track since he was nine. He knows his legal rights as well as his caseworkers do. And he plays them ruthlessly. In every debate I have with him about his low performance, Brandon delicately threads his response with the very sinews that bind him. After a particularly easy midterm, I made him stay after class to explain his failure.

âoeAn âFâ(TM)?!â I said, holding the test under his nose.

âoeYou were supposed to modify that test,â he countered coolly. âoeI only had to answer nine of the 27 questions. The nine I did are all right.â

His argument is like a piece of fine crystal that he rolls admiringly in his hand. He demands that I appreciate the elegance of his position. I do, particularly because my own is so weak.

Yet while the process of education may be deeply absorbing to Brandon, he long ago came to dismiss the content entirely. For several decades, white Anglo-Saxon malesâ"Brandonâ(TM)s ancestorsâ"have faced withering assault from feminism- and multiculturalism-inspired education specialists. Armed with a spiteful moral rectitude, their goal is to sever his historical reach, to defame, cover over, dilute . . . and then reconstruct.

In todayâ(TM)s politically correct textbooks, Nikki Giovanni and Toni Morrison stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens, even though both women are second-raters at best. But even in their superficial aspects, the textbooks advertise publishersâ(TM) intent to pander to the prevailing PC attitudes. The books feature page after page of healthy, exuberant young girls in winning portraits. Boys (white boys in particular) will more often than not be shunted to the background in photos or be absent entirely or appear sitting in wheelchairs.

The underlying message isnâ(TM)t lost on Brandon. His keen young mind reads between the lines and perceives the folly of all that heâ(TM)s told to accept. Because he lacks an adult perspective, however, what he cannot grasp is the ruthlessness of the war that the education reformers have waged. Often when he provokes, itâ(TM)s simple boyish tit for tat.

A week ago, I dispatched Brandon to the library with directions to choose a book for his novel assignment. He returned minutes later with his choice and a twinkling smile.

âoeI got a grrreat book, Mr. Garibaldi!â he said, holding up an old, bleary, clothbound item. âoeCan I read the first page aloud, pahlease?â

My mind buzzed like a fly, trying to discover some hint of mischief.

âoeWhoâ(TM)s the author?â

âoeAh, Joseph Conrad,â he replied, consulting the frontispiece. âoeCan I? Huh, huh, huh?â

âoeI guess so.â

Brandon eagerly stood up before the now-alert class of mostly black and Puerto Rican faces, adjusted his shoulders as if straightening a prep-school blazer, then intoned solemnly: âoeThe Nigger of the âNarcissusâ(TM) ââ"twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. âoeChapter one. . . .â

Merry mayhem ensued. Brandon had one of his best days of the year.

Boys today feel isolated and outgunned, but many, like Brandon, donâ(TM)t lack pluck and courage. They often seem to have more of it than their parents, who writhe uncomfortably before a system steeled in the armor of âoesocial conscience.â The game, parents whisper to themselves, is to play along, to maneuver, to outdistance your rival. Brandonâ(TM)s struggle is an honest one: to preserve truth and his own integrity.

Boys who get a compartment on the special-ed train take the ride to its end without looking out the window. They wait for the moment when they can step out and scorn the rattletrap that took them nowhere. At the end of the line, some, like Brandon, may have forged the resiliency of survival. But thatâ(TM)s not what school is for.

Any essay with a line as pithy as "Brandon delicately threads his response with the very sinews that bind him" deserves a mention.

I don't have anything to add, the author presents this perfectly. I only regret I can't post it here in full. I'm not completely sold on the education vs boys thing, but I relate 100% with Brandon.

Stephen Hawking has come out with a strong caution against trying to contact space aliens. In Stephen Hawking's universe the likely put us on the wrong end of the same scenario where the white man who ultimately over-ran the Native American population. The reasoning is simple, those with the technology to achieve such transit (like the Europeans across the Atlantic), would also have the capacity to soundly defeat us, the backwards people still dependent and living off of the earth's bounty. With such an opportunity, why wouldn't they just take what they want?

Dafydd ab Hugh, co-author of the Doom Novels has the most pragmatic reply. He takes a number of well (if not over-written) scenarios of war-like aliens and shows how completely infeasible it is. He then notes that he's struggled with this before in his own writings...

When my pal and worthy co-conspirator Brad Linaweaver and I wrote the Doom tetralogy, we wanted (for plot reasons) to have an interstellar war (we were writing a subluminous, Einsteinian space opera, which I think is unique in science-fiction history). My goodness, how we struggled to come up with a reason that was not preposterous on its face, that was vaguely plausible, why alien races would ever go to war!

We finally settled on a long-ago dispute between competing schools of literary theory, the Surrealists and the Post-Modernists, each trying to analyze a fistful of fragments left behind by the first race ever to achieve spaceflight, billions of years earlier. These academic disputes erupted into a war that, due to lightspeed limitations, still continued after thousands of millennia. But that took us days of teleconferences to concoct.

Simply put, logic implies there is simply no reason for beings of one stellar system to attack beings of another. And while it's true that alien logic might be very different, we don't have any to study; so we're stuck with our own logic. To be frightened of the prospect of contacting aliens is to yield to xenophobia and the mortal sin (and bleak helplessness) of despair.

But he left one flagon unfilled though he set it at the table. Perhaps this flagon was a bit strong on the philosophy in a pragmatic menu of the logistics of inter-stellar war ... kind of. See, I've always had a question after many years of watching the Klingons and others on Star Trek that deals directly with logistics, but has more to do with morality.

The Klingons were a war like race, ready to exploit anyone and everything around them. The Federation stood in ideological opposition, helping each society grow on their own. The Federation even instituted a Prime Directive that was ultimately an act of discipline, don't deal with undeveloped societies at all.

Watching the struggle between the two, the same question kept coming up. Could Klingons, with their sense of warlike domination, ever have developed the technology needed without killing each other first? Would any race that learns the skills of domination and exploitation not even more become their own demise of undermining the very source of their livelyhood when they learn to harness power capable of wiping out entire continents or planets? The Cold War was a reaction, a reaction of discipline, in light of the creation of a weapon that could wipe out the earth. Could they have cooled off their warfare?

The game theory of confrontation is also simple. Where the threat of being exploited exists, it is better to be on the side of being the exploiter. As General Patton put it, it is better to get them to die for their country then for you to die for your country. He also noted that a poor plan executed violently will prevail over a superior strategy.

But the ability to exploit with greater power comes with the danger of undermining your own ability to tap resources. Today is the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, which was by no means was an act of war. It wasn't even an act of natural exploitation. It was simply a failure to implement the safety required for handling the worst case scenarios of nuclear power. If anything it was a failure to act, it was a failure to enact discipline. Discipline, the ability to enact safeguards even when no danger is immediately present but still potentially dangerous, is the core of morality.

The Federation, the only political power in the Star Trek universe that is projected from a real history -- our own -- developed a sense of morality from the threat of unnatural disaster after another. After years of war, dark ages, and general strife, the society matured to note the power of morality was an essential survival tactic. Without great restraint and morality, there was no safety from great power.

Ultimately, however, that doesn't predict whether or not we can guarantee any alien intelligence we contact is benign. Because there is no guarantee that technology doesn't fall into the wrong hands. IIRC, the Klingons did not develop inter-stellar travel on their own, but took it from the Romulans who though war-like were very calculating about its execution. Their own isolationism kept them restrained, as opposed to the expansionism of the Klingons. But should an atom bomb fall into the hands of an aggressive society, wouldn't they still cut their own thoughts with it rather then realize its potential to send them to the stars? I don't know. But the question keeps coming up.

So, when I got married I decided I would tell my kids the truth about Santa. He was a good person who lived a thousand years ago and is dead. Now we like him so much we all act like him.

But as they've grown they seem to have convinced me he does exist. I don't correct them when they make assumptions based on their belief, I find myself going along with it rather then tell the truth.

What a softie.

All you have to do is same anything critical about Google.

Robert Frank takes the NYT's standards even lower. Now it seems that if you think lower taxes are better than higher taxes, well, you're some kind of vandal.

"Anti-tax zealots denounce all taxation as theft, as depriving citizens of their right to spend their hard-earned incomes as they see fit. Yet nowhere does the Constitution grant us the right not to be taxed. Nor does it grant us the right to harm others with impunity. No one is permitted to steal our cars or vandalize our homes. Why should opponents of taxation be allowed to harm us in less direct ways?"

"Be allowed"? Nice, Ill Duce. We'll take that under advisement. BTW, here's what the law actually says about issue:

"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." - Judge Learned Hand, Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809, 810-11 (2d Cir. 1934)

In the New Republic, copyright activist and professor Lawrence Lessig pens an essay called Against Transparency: The Perils Of Openness In Government (Warning: the essay is 11 pages of some pretty dry writing). Lessig makes the argument that while transparency in government seems like a good thing, it's not always so, and he seemingly worries that there are some things that citizens just wouldn't understand in government if given complete access to data, and that the whole process will simply make voters more cynical. That strikes me as a little lame, and more like "I don't trust voters to make decisions based on what they see".

  Sayeth Lessig:

How could anyone be against transparency? Its virtues and its utilities seem so crushingly obvious. But I have increasingly come to worry that there is an error at the core of this unquestioned goodness. We are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works, and where and when it may lead to confusion, or to worse. And I fear that the inevitable success of this movement--if pursued alone, without any sensitivity to the full complexity of the idea of perfect openness--will inspire not reform, but disgust. The "naked transparency movement," as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff.

New York Times Op-Ed writer Thomas Friedman is showing his true colors. He's advocating "enlightened" one-party rule, as he tires of Republicans refusing to co-operate with Democratic initiatives. Friedman says that we currently have a "one party democracy" because of near-total GOP opposition to Democratic bills, and that perhaps an enlightened one-party autocracy with America's best interests at heart could be the answer. Friedman further thinks China is a good model of government to emulate. "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century." Friedman flatly states that "our one-party democracy is worse". Perhaps we too can look forward to things like a one-child policy and extensive Internet censorship. Friedman is the type of Liberal Jonah Goldberg was talking about when he wrote Liberal Fascism.

Further, Goldberg says that liberals like Friedman are nothing new, that we've seen this kind of liberal pining for benevolent dictatorship many times before:

"I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives."

Back when my wife and I were first married, we enjoyed music made from sampled sections of other music. Two of our favorite artists at that time were Thievery Corporation and Avalanche. For old time's sake we looked up one of our favorite songs in YouTube just to listen to it again.

Now, most of the time when you really like a song as rich and complex as this, the music video is a real bummer. In fact, watching the movie "The Wall" permanently ruined me from listening to the album ever again.

But this music video turned out to be a real treat. In fact, it may far eclipse the song itself...

Frontier Psychiatrist

And after that you may enjoy, Since I left you

I rarely go there, but on two occasions now, I've gone to TNR.com following a story link, and an attempted AntiVirus 2008 infection begins. Lucky me that I use a Mac this time of day.

National Review doesn't have this problem.

... has really impressed me of late.

In the recent story McCain releases technology platform, one poster stood out in his responses against the usual left-libertarian grain here. He's ScentCone, and he consistently posts forcefully argued, well reasoned ripostes. Despite the left-libertarian slant here, he's usually modded pretty well because, frankly, he makes very good arguments. He's apparently a productive poster as well. I'm a little wary of adding friends here, but after his "performance", so to speak, in that story, I had to add him. Simply an outstanding guy, and a great read.

Safari (on OS X Tiger, all the latest updates) seems to be dying way too much when I'm on Slashdot. It's gotten bad enough that when I report it to Apple, I put "Slashdot hates you" in the what-were-you-doing part of the crash dialogue box. I wonder if Slashdot has some funky scripts that Safari chokes on?

Anyone know of a utility that will read through Apache logs, and then simulate that activity (i.e. replay) to help debug issues?

...and I just don't know who I'm going to vote for in the GOP primaries now. I'm down to a few very bad choices. This will very much be a lesser of the evils election for me.

I have to choose between John McCain, a man who seemingly has more fondness for Democrats than for his own party on the big issues of the day (save for the war), and Mitt Romney, a man who ran and governed as a liberal in Massachusetts, and now claims to be the heir to Reagan....which means either he's had the mother of all mind changes, or that he just tells the crowd whatever it wants to hear to win the next office. Nice choice,eh?

And don't even mention Huckabee, a man more like Jimmy Carter than a Republican nominee for President.

... are 365/1. Mecco's Star Wars Christmas, with narration by C3-P0.

Just an update. As you may or may not remember, I promised to not lie to my children about Santa Clause. He is someone who lived many years ago and is dead. Now we have a bunch of people pretending to be like him. What is wrong with that?

Last year I saw defeat. My child, despite my best efforts, told me I was wrong. Santa was real.

This year, though I continued to say once or twice the truth, got caught up in the geek factor. My children and I watched in anticipation as Santa was tracked around the world by NORAD. This year it was even better because I could track Santa on Google Earth.

What a great way to teach my child that this is a whole world, with time zones and such. Around the time Santa crossed the Atlantic we gave NORAD a call. No circuits available. As we read the bedtime story we left our cell phone in re-dial, and it never went through.

As it was just my wife and I staying up putting the Santa gifts out, I watched Santa pass over my city. I told my wife even though it wasn't true, there was still something fun about the anticipation. I remember it as a child, and its not really dead now that I know the truth. Odd, huh.

But I see the cracks in the foundation. As my child watched the Santa cam via NORAD, she said, "I want to see Santa land."

"Yeah," I said, "me too. It is pretty odd how he can deliver presents to so many houses while he is flying over these cities".