Derision and Precision

I came across an interesting list of fallacies today, but I have a question about one: "Misplaced Precision"

The first example I have no quarrel with:

The museum guide says the dinosaur skeleton is 90,000,006 years old - because when he was hired six years ago he was told that it was 90 million years old.

That's pretty funny. Now consider the second example:

The time for the Olympic 30-kilometer relay race, which takes almost an hour and a half to run, is measured to one one-hundredth of a second.

Are these cases really similar? In the case of the dinosaur, we know that paleolithic dating is inherently imprecise, and when we hear a number like 90 million years, we know it has been rounded and has a big margin of error.

But in the case of the 30k, the problem is not imprecise timing systems. We have the technology to measure a race with that kind of precision. And some Olympic races are indeed won by fractions of a second. The hundredths may not matter for most races, but we have them if we need them.

So I ask, quite matter-of-factly,
Where is the falsehood, exactly?

Ring Season

We went to a wedding in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The bride said there had been cold rainy weather until just before the big day, when a serious case of sun broke out. So she got lucky.

Not that wedding day weather is much of an omen for a marriage. My parents got married in the middle of an unseasonable November blizzard in Chicago. The best man didn't make it. The photographer didn't make it. The marriage worked out anyway.

Despite getting hitched in bad weather,
They seemed rather happy together.

Just So

Infinity needed a sign.
The numeral 8 said "Try mine!
If I lie on my side
I can smoothly provide
A shape you can endlessly twine."

Taboo

There's a tendency in the Western world to look elsewhere for societies that are "free and natural" with regard to sex.

But from what I can make out, no such other place really exists. Of course there are plenty of places that don't have our particular customs and prohibitions. But they all have their own.

Most societies ooze
Massive sets of taboos
That seem guaranteed to confuse
Outsiders.

Cheeky

A court in India has issued an arrest warrant for Richard Gere.

He publicly kissed a Bollywood actress on the cheek - repeatedly - even bending her over into a deep dip while smooching the side of her face.

Richard Gere,
You are a freak.
Hou could you kiss her
On the cheek?

Get out of here,
And do it quick.
Such behavior's
Simply sick!

One More Thing

"New Storm Bears Down On Chicago Region" reads the Trib headline.

I read it wrong the first time. I thought it was saying:

"New Bears Storm Down On Chicago Region"... which could be even worse.

I visualize a thunderous herd of polars
Chasing after me with flashing molars.

Disturbed

I got a thought-provoking set of comments on yesterday's post. So I wanted to follow-up on this business of broadcasting the arrests of men who arrive in pursuit of sex with imaginary 14-year-olds.

Apparently, what they get charged with is "Attempted Statutory Rape" (or whatever it's called now), since they were never really in touch with an actual 14-year-old, but they were nonetheless attempting to do so.

I watched it just once, and found it thoroughly queasy TV. I lacked sympathy for the guys - but I was also disturbed by the stingers. They seemed overly worked up, in a scary sort of way, and I wondered about their motivations.

Are there really a lot of 14 year old females hooking up with middle aged males on the net? I'm a bit skeptical that this is quite the massive social problem it is made out to be.

When old guys announce their attraction,
Wouldn't "Ewww!!!" be the standard reaction?

Jailbait and Switch

Our current Miss America, who is 20 years old, has been going into chat rooms and posing as a 14 year old.

It was for one of those televised sting programs, where the unwitting pervs show up looking for an underage hookup, but instead end up videotaped and handcuffed.

They step in the room - and kaboom - there's the cops.
From hookup to lockup in one hour tops!

Harvard Law of Animal Behavior

Under controlled conditions
Of stimulus and response,
An animal makes its decisions
However the hell it wants.

Killer Colors

Dandelions and violets
Splash across the lawn
Slurping up the sun,
And violating the mellow green
With purple and yellow fun.

Cold Standard

Peggy Noonan wrote in the Journal today about the Virginia Tech case:

The literally white-bearded head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.

I thought the whole piece was packed with insight.

Noonan thinks the people in charge of the school
Come off like learned fools.

Limbo

The theologians said you can't die well
Unless you have received a watery blessing.
Without it, you go straight to burning hell.
But baby lovers found this point distressing.

How could newborn children be condemned
To suffer for eternity despite
Their doing nothing wrong? The high priests hemmed,
And hawed, and hatched a scheme to set things right.

They said that on the Inferno's farthest edge
There was a pleasant place of fairest form -
Limbo they called it, and they gave a pledge
That children frolicked there, cozy and warm.

They only lacked one thing – they could not see
The One who paroled them to this periphery.

Ready for Change

A baby came to stay
At our house for just one day.
Her mom and dad came as well.

I enjoyed the chance to play
But I'm glad mom took her away,
When that diaper began to smell.

It's A Gas

Earth Day is April 22.

You may want to plant some algae. Some varieties suck up CO2. But I guess they aren't technically plants anymore.

Whatever you do, don't exercise. Your body produces increased CO2 when you exercise! Just lie still and admire the planet.

In its honor, for what it's worth,
I plan to spend the day on Earth.

Sick of Cho Already

I don't want to see
His nasty face.
It's fine with me
If we just erase
Every last trace
Of his being.

First, or Second, Impressions

Tomorrow in book club we're doing Jane Austen's most popular novel. A fellow club member reviews it here, seeing it as a comedy of manners.

I read it more as a romance.

What did the divine Miss Austen really think about those 2 alliterative attitudes she put in the title? I have my own ideas, of course.

Dreadful wretchedness
Comes from Prejudice,
But the joy of Pride
Abides.

Slow Massacre

What a sorrowful mess at Virginia Tech.

Gun-free zone. Except for the psycho. Great.

And, from the descriptions so far, the police sat outside with rifles - while the guy kept pausing to reload before killing more victims inside the building.

I suspect fewer would have died,
With an early, aggressive, charge inside.

Electronic Running

I bought the wrist GPS to get current speed while running.

But favorite feature, so far, is simple mileage.

Formerly I arranged my long runs so that it was easy to calculate mileage. Now I can run as the spirit moves me and the gizmo will just tell me the distance.

Not bound to any particular route,
I'm free to run till my legs give out.

If I can't take a step to save my life,
I use my cell phone to call my wife.

With an Edge

Seeing The Unseen, Part 2, is a passionate attack on conspiracy theories.

It opens like this:

Occam’s Razor is the idea that when confronted with competing theories that explain certain data equally well, the simplest one is usually correct. It’s called Occam’s Razor, and not Occam’s Hypothesis, or Occam’s Theorem, or Occam’s Bit of Useful Advice, because it is a razor – it cuts cleanly and with great efficiency.

Occam's bit of useful advice:
Needless complexity isn't nice.

Third Rails

"the Imus remark... didn’t touch merely one third rail of American societal discourse (race) but two third rails (race and gender)."

Put aside the question of how there can be more than one "third rail".

I actually think that neither the race issue, nor the gender issue was key. I get the impression that Imus made a habit of standing on those 2 rails and laughing at the world. I think what he did wrong was to cast those sorts of aspersions on children.

Children are the true third rail of American politics.

Sure, college students are legal adults for most purposes. But they're perceived as not having entered the grown-up world yet.

If you want your career
To hit the skids
Just let folks hear
You're attacking kids.