A couple days ago, a friend of mine and I came up with a simply brilliant idea. If you’ve ever been or lived in the western half of the country, you’re probably quite familiar with Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of Mexican pride that is somewhat synonymous to Texas’ odd fascination with The Alamo. The basic premise is similar to St. Patrick’s Day - it’s a good excuse for a lot of drinking, a lot of Mexican cultural pride, and some strange music. Trouble is, for some Mexicans, cultural pride doesn’t begin or end on May 5th - on the contrary, some of them will raise Mexican flags and such.

What’s the problem? It’s a free country. They’re allowed to do what they want, right? Absolutely, and I have zero desire in interfering in their exercise of their right to free speech. That said, this is America, and if Mexico was really worth celebrating, why did you move here?

So, without further ado, the idea…

My friend and I have decided that it’s high time for me to celebrate my Canadian heritage. This may come as a shock to those of you (all two of you that read this blog, including me), but my father’s side of the family immigrated into the US from Canada. This can be proven by the existence of such family landmarks as Port Colborne, among other things. So, to honor that, I’m going to learn all about my Canadian heritage and celebrate it the same way some Mexicans celebrate their heritage. I’m going to use Victoria Day as an excuse to get drunk, sing “Oh, Canada!”, and bust out a big Canadian flag. I’m going to learn about hockey. I will possess a basic knowledge and understanding of curling. I will even learn how to eat like a Canadian.

(By the way… is there anything Wikipedia does NOT have? They actually have a section on Canadian FOOD? Amazing!)

Yes, folks… for one year, starting next year, this Presidential candidate will flaunt his Canadian-ness with pride!

Meanwhile, from the NCAA:

ATLANTA — An NAACP leader said Michael Vick should be allowed to return to the NFL, preferably the Atlanta Falcons, after serving his sentence for his role in a dogfighting operation.

“As a society, we should aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football,” said R.L. White, president of the NAACP’s Atlanta chapter. “We further ask the NFL, Falcons, and the sponsors not to permanently ban Mr. Vick from his ability to bring hours of enjoyment to fans all over this country.”

…

“At this point, you’re not looking at guilt or innocence,” White said, referring to the possible harsher sentence Vick could have received had he taken his case to trial and been found guilty. “You’re thinking, ‘What I better do is cut my losses and take a plea.’ But if he saw this as the best thing to do at this point for his future, then I think he made the correct choice.”

White said he regretted that the plea deal will mean all the facts of the case might never be known.

“Some have said things to save their own necks,” White said. “Michael Vick has received more negative press than if he had killed a human being.”

White said he does not support dogfighting and that he considers it as bad as hunting.

“His crime is, it was a dog,” White said.

Some quick points:

I actually agree with the NAACP that Vick should not be formally banned from the NFL. I think it’s unnecessary - Vick is probably going to be in jail for a long time (almost certainly more than the year he’s plea bargaining for) and no team would dare take him. I think that formally banning Vick from the NFL would be a power flexing move on the part of Goddell, which would probably cause more problems than it would solve. Besides, we require Vick to have the opportunity to make restitution on this; if he’s formally banned, where’s the incentive, much less the opportunity, to do so?

That said… anyone that thinks that Vick would’ve received less bad press if he killed human beings in the way he allegedly killed dogs is insane. If he killed just one human being by drowning them or coldly executing them, rest assured, the furor would be infinitely louder than what you’re seeing right now. If he paid people to kill other people for him, he wouldn’t be plea bargaining for a year - the feds would try to lock him up for life, while the NFL would try to strike his name from the history books. Also, if Vick, with his legal team and substantial fortune, thinks that the case against him is airtight enough for him to plea bargain, that’s a sign that he’s probably not innocent. He knows that signing that plea bargain will probably mean the end of his professional football career, to say nothing of jail time - why chance it if he knows he’s innocent?

First, a confession - I’m a bit of a sports junky. I’m not crazy about it or anything, but I do keep up with the major bulletin points as they happen. Part of that involves visiting ESPN.com periodically. While there, I found an article by Kevin Bryant titled, “In failing Vick, NFL Players Association fails itself“. I was intrigued right off the bat, right up until I read this:

It is unclear whether Upshaw is at the bargaining table now in negotiating a settlement for Vick’s suspension and parameters for — however remote — a potential return to the NFL. He’s vacationing until after Labor Day. But neither Vick nor Pacman Jones nor Tank Johnson is the union’s real issue.

The issue is precedent.

The reason is clear. The responsibility of a union is to defend its membership — every time, all the time, if for no other reasons than to send a dissenting vote to management that its membership always will be protected by a strong union and to alert the commissioner that his powers always will be checked by an advocate for the players. The union’s message should be that a commissioner cannot simply do whatever he wants.

That right there is why unions are a declining power in this country. The mindset that a union must always be adversarial against management, even when management is right, just to show that there is a limit to managerial power is not only ridiculous but counterproductive. What would the NFLPA gain by defending Michael Vick? Nothing - Vick is about to become a convicted felon. He’s going to jail for at least a year, probably more. It’s not like the NFLPA is going to get him a football career in prison, and no fan base in the country would accept him on their team. So, the NFLPA would burn precious political capital and gain… poor PR and a hostile ownership?

Then comes the point…

So the union has an understanding that it won’t be blindsided by a runaway commissioner, adopting a position closer to equity shareholder than skeptical watchdog. It has labor peace and can take comfort in not worrying about losing public goodwill during contract years or losing face should its membership crack during pressurized labor negotiations. The union seems comforted that it is treated as an inside player instead of a hostile entity. But what good is maintaining the peace if it is not accompanied by power?

Noise is not equal to power. The Major League Baseball Player’s Association has made a lot of noise over the years. Where has it taken them? Baseball is becoming increasingly irrelevant while football ratings increase. When records are broken, everyone assumes it has something to do with steroids or human growth hormone. Congress has stepped in where the owners fear to tread, bringing in former players and conducting investigations. Is this really in the best interest of the players? How does having the nation slowly turn their back on their careers and accomplishments aid them? Meanwhile, the NFL is turning what would normally be a PR disaster into a coup - they’ve severely punished Pacman Jones, they’re probably going to expel Michael Vick, and, even though the Michael Vick story couldn’t get much worse, nobody’s going to stop watching football because of it because the NFL took responsibility and dealt with the situation appropriately. Meanwhile, ratings are through the roof, income for the owners and players is increasing quickly and steadily, we have football on the radio and TV almost 24/7/365, and people are clamoring for more.

Who’s approach is really better here?

Ah, good times… it finally works.

I noticed on the LiveCD for Ubuntu that the power management actually behaved the way it was supposed to, so I wiped the install and redid it, this time not installing any kernel updates. Unfortunately, it still installed a kernel update somehow (not sure how), but it didn’t install the 2.6.20-16.1 update, which seemed to be the one that hosed ACPI. Consequently, it correctly detects battery life now. A little ndiswrapper love solved the wireless issue, which wasn’t surprising. Nvidia’s drivers installed relatively cleanly, so no complaints there.

All in all, mission accomplished! Was it more difficult than it should have been? You betcha. But, at least it works, and for that I am thankful.

Been a little too quiet lately - been rather busy with work-related and tech-related nonsense. The good news is that, if somebody ever does something that would call upon the expertise I grabbed while doing this stuff, well, I’ll be ready. In the meantime… well, new post below. Enjoy.

Some quick background:

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased a used Compaq V6000Z laptop from my girlfriend’s dad - it had only been used for six months by her sister and he decided it was time to reallocate it somewhere else. So, I bought it for cheap ($400) and decided that, when I got a spare moment, I’d throw Linux on there, just to find out how well it works on a laptop. Since I run Ubuntu on my home PC without much trouble and have been throwing it on servers at work whenever they’re not paying attention, I figured I’d just stick with what I knew and go from there.

The install began on Saturday. I’m still not quite done tweaking it, which is not encouraging.

Before I start explaining what’s going on here, I want to be clear about something - I’m not blaming Ubuntu for what’s going on with my laptop. Compaq and HP laptops (especially the AMD-based ones, like mine) are so notoriously poor with Linux in general and Ubuntu specifically that they have a number of threads dedicated to getting Ubuntu installed on them. The problems, near as I can tell, generally stem from poor wireless support for Broadcom wireless cards, odd BIOS issues, and somewhat sporadic support from Nvidia on the onboard graphics cards. I know that Ubuntu can only work with what it has, I know that HP does not support Linux on my model of laptop, and I’m okay with that. I’m sure there are other, better, more Linux-friendly laptops out there. I’m definitely interested in researching them in the future.

So, here’s where I’m at so far, after a couple of days of fiddling…

1. Got Ubuntu Feisty Fawn installed after finding this walkthrough, which gave me the necessary flags to hand the boot CD. Once the right flags were on there, things improved dramatically; before that, I was getting frustrated as GDM would never load.

2. Got wireless sort of working. This walkthrough helped supplement the instructions in the previous walkthrough, and I also managed to get a little more information on the bcm4xx-fwcutter utility by following this thread. That said, it’s still only semi-reliable; sometimes it finds and connects, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the little blue light is on. Sometimes it’s not. I’m probably going to have to break down and just get ndiswrapper going. Ugh.

3. Graphics are working great. Haven’t had too many troubles with Nvidia’s drivers, except for the usual issues whenever a kernel update happens. Speaking of which, it would be absolutely wonderful if there was some way for kernel updates to not break video drivers. I have the same problem with my home PC. The problem, of course, is that the proprietary drivers require me to compile against the kernel to install them, so whenever the kernel changes, it breaks… still annoying. However, I’m getting used to the procedure enough to actually keep the driver install script handy so that, when GDM goes down in a pile of flames on the next kernel update, I’ll be ready. I honestly don’t know who to blame for this… those “in the know” would probably blame the writers of the drivers, but I’ll point out that running updates in Windows machines doesn’t routinely break drivers (not that it’s unprecedented, mind you - it’s just unusual, whereas this seems to happen on my Linux systems routinely). Speaking of which, this same rant applies to VMWare Server. It’d be great if I didn’t have to recompile it after every kernel upgrade, too. That’d be swell.

4. Having major issues with battery management. Updated to the latest kernel version, suddenly lost the battery meter. Discovered that the latest kernel version breaks acpi, downgraded to the original install version. Reinstalled my video drivers (see #3), discovered the battery meter still wasn’t there. Now it’s there… sometimes. Worse yet, my wireless is much more flaky than it was on the up-to-date kernel version. The wireless was absolutely bulletproof on the latest kernel version. Now I’m left trying to decide if I want to have a working battery meter or working wireless. I’m not exactly relishing my choices on this one.

So… yeah. I’m not exactly thrilled. That said, it’s still usable; it’s just not as nice as I had hoped for. I’m still not reinstalling XP - the battery life I kill in having an anti-virus program autoscan every login is not worth it. Besides, I like Linux. Maybe I’ll just do something really daring and stupid and throw PC-BSD on this thing and see if the BSD kernel is any better behaved. It’s not like I have anything worthwhile on this laptop yet anyways.

Found this gem on Fark. The fact that I read Fark probably indicates that I’m not presidential material, but no matter. The article lists 20 questions that presidential candidates must not touch during a campaign. Since I feel like killing some time today, I’m going to look at them and see how I fare. Since I don’t feel like engaging in wholesale copyright infringement, I encourage you to open up the link to the article and compare their questions with the boldface items that I’m going to list below. Think of it as my way of keeping “fair use” fair. On the off chance that you’re feeling lazy, though, I’m including a brief summary of each item - again, be fair to the guy who came up with this list and actually look at it, okay? Okay!

So, let’s do this list, shall we?

#1: Sexual Non-Conformism (Personal)
SUMMARY: Are you straight and married? You better hope so.
WHERE AM I: I am straight. I was married years ago. I currently live with my girlfriend of three years. We’re monogamous.

#2: Sex Positivism (Socio-Political)
SUMMARY: The only time you can say “sex is good” is if you’re mentioning it within the context of a straight married relationship and the missionary position. Otherwise, forgetaboutit.
WHERE AM I: I think sex is outstanding. I don’t believe in open relationships - it’s been my experience that people are jealous creatures that don’t like to share, so having to share their most intimate relationship with someone else tends to end very badly. I think porn is great, though I’m not an aficionado myself. Teen sexuality is something that I’m lukewarm on - it’s been my experience that teenagers are clinically insane in every conceivable mental and emotional range imaginable; throwing sex into the mix, though generally unavoidable, is like adding burning napalm to gasoline. That said, since I recognize that teens have had sex as long as there have been teens, I’d much rather they were protected, which is why I’m all about educating my son about prophylactics when he gets old enough (he’s 4 - give him, oh, two more years).

#3: Open Borders
SUMMARY: People are coming in all the time and we’re not exactly stopping them. Why fight it?
WHERE AM I: I’m personally in the “legalize and document” camp on this one. I don’t want people becoming automatic citizens just for crossing the border; that said, as long as they’re willing to be documented, pay taxes, and do everything else that ordinary Americans do (save for vote), I see no reason for them not to stay. In honor of Heinlein, I’m even willing to throw in a “service means citizenship” clause - if you’re an immigrant and serve successfully in the military, you’re automatically a citizen. Let’s face it - if you’re willing to put your life on the line for your adoptive country, the least we can do is respect that and let you participate fully in it. That said, if you’re not willing to carry some basic identification and/or you’re not willing to pay taxes, go home. It goes without saying that attempting to undermine our nation through terrorist attacks and the like is also out.

4: “I Dig Pot and Shrooms”
SUMMARY: Everyone does ‘em, so why do we pretend we don’t?
WHERE AM I: I’ve smoked pot and didn’t particularly enjoy it. I’m scared to death of the concept of hallucinogenics, so I’ve never touched them. I consume alcohol from time to time (once every couple of weeks or so). My experience with pot has convinced me that there is absolutely no good reason for it to be illegal; it’s certainly no worse than alcohol. I just found my ability to self-dose with it somewhat lacking - I found it extremely difficult to get “comfortably buzzed” on it without spinning out. Your mileage may vary. I also think the “Drug War” is a rather effective vehicle for making felons out of numerous poor people, thus preventing them from voting, though I know this wasn’t its original or overt intent. Even so, it’s a rather nasty unintended consequence that we should really do something about.

5: No Athiests, Agnostics, or Pagans
SUMMARY: Be Judeo-Christian or forget about getting elected.
WHERE AM I: I’m an atheist. I guess I’m out. *smile* I’m also not inclined to pay “lip service” to it by pretending I’m Christian, either. I’m okay with people being Christian, though I may not necessarily agree with some of the nuttier ones; I’d like the same respect in kind.

6: U.S. Militarism
SUMMARY: We like throwing our weight around. Don’t mention that.
WHERE AM I: I think that, if we’re going to throw our weight around, we need to do so to accomplish a set of objectives that benefit us. If we’re not willing to do that, we shouldn’t be throwing our weight around.

7: Weird With a Beard
SUMMARY: Get clean-shaven. Fast!
WHERE AM I: I shave about once a week. I could shave more regularly if the occasion called for it, though. Growing a beard or any sort of facial hair is generally a “bad idea” on me, I’ve decided.

8: Daddy, Where Does Money Come From?
SUMMARY: People don’t understand money, so don’t talk about it.
WHERE AM I: I’ve taken some economics classes, so I have a basic understanding of modern economic theory. I made some poor choices in college, credit-wise, that I’m still paying off. As for whether we can handle money better… well, as much as I’d like to harp on it, we’re currently enjoying almost a century of nearly uninterrupted financial and economic progress, and as time has passed, recessions have become fewer and less damaging when they do occur. The downside, of course, is that we’re not experiencing as many wild booms as we used to, either, which is probably messing with people’s perceptions about money and the world. That said, I do find it distressing that many people don’t understand credit, rack up huge mortgages and credit card debt, and then ask the government to bail them out. Consequently, I think we either need to do one of two things: Either we stop bailing people out of their poor credit choices, or we require that people get educated about credit before they assume any.

9: No Muslims!
SUMMARY: Sorry, Barack.
WHERE AM I: Those Muslims that wish to practice the religion of Islam as a religion of peace will receive my respect. Those Muslims that wish to practice the religion of Islam as a religion of nationalism and hatred will face the full range of the vast American military machine.

10: Stop The Drug War
SUMMARY: Why are we fighting the Drug War?
WHERE AM I: The Drug War, in many respects, is completely pointless. Criminalizing drugs has simply led to the locking up of numerous impoverished people and reduced their employment chances to the point where selling drugs remain their only option to survive. That’s ridiculous. I favor a slow rollback of the Drug War, starting with marijuana, and working our way back as circumstances dictate. I want it to be fairly cautious, though, because undoing something as big as this will lead to all kinds of interesting and unintended consequences that may or may not be all that pleasant, and I’d rather we handle those consequences when they’re still manageable than just blast ourselves with them wholesale.

11: Bloated Military Budget
SUMMARY: Wow, we spend a lot of money on the military. Why?
WHERE AM I: I think the military is a good place to start looking at federal largess. I’m personally just as concerned with the amount of money we pump into federally-sponsored health care and the social welfare state, and would like to see reductions in funding for all of these programs. I suspect that much of the trouble we’ve had with our health care system is due to the system knowing that, as a last resort, the federal government will always be willing to spend X amount on a procedure - if we remove that from the equation, health care prices can adjust downward accordingly. As for the military, it’s a very expensive and highly effective security blanket. Military spending is also frequently the genesis of numerous technologies, including the Internet, GPS, and Doppler radar, among others. Even so, we do spend an awful lot on it, and a lot of the money we spend goes to projects that are rather unnecessary, so I’d like the opportunity to look at that and clean that up.

12: Question Israel’s Authority
SUMMARY: Is Israel really that great?
WHERE AM I: Well, let’s see here… they’re the one power in the entire region that actually shares our values and a system of government similar to our own. All of her neighbors are either dictatorships or absolute monarchies that, at various points in history, have tried to undermine our systems with varying levels of success. Gee… I wonder why we usually take Israel’s side? Do I think Israel is perfect? No. Am I fond of their “solution” to the Palestinian “problem”? No. Do I think that the other countries in the Middle East are going to stop using Israel and the US as a scapegoat for their failed policies, even if Israel and the US does everything that they ask us to (which we wouldn’t want to do anyways, unless you’re into sharia)? Heck no.

13: Vote for me — I’m smart!
SUMMARY: Why the f— do we keep voting for idiots?
WHERE AM I: Because smart people tend to be pretentious, condescending know-it-alls that think they have expertise in fields that they wouldn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Take, for example, computer guys that think they know enough about politics to become President of the United States. What’s up with that? Seriously, though, more smart people would get elected if they stopped equating intelligence with “my ability to know what you need more than you do.” Really smart people let everyone else do their own thing and not climb on their backs about it. I like to think I’m really smart.

14: Let’s Have More Democracy!
SUMMARY: Why don’t we have more democracy?
WHERE AM I: Because majority rule is an absolutely lousy governing system when you’re a minority, and sometimes everyone IS wrong. I do think there need to be some serious reforms in our system, though. For example, candidates from outside the major parties should have the same access to a ballot as the major party candidates, and I don’t mean that in a “well, if they’re willing to pay a $200 million fee and get 100,000 signatures on a petition, they can show up too,” sort of way. I’m thinking more of a, “If you’re willing to cover the cost of putting you on the ballot, you’re on it,” sort of way. Also, I think the primary system is inherently broken in its current state - any system that says that all politicians must first pander to the “true believers” of the party platform before being allowed to show up on a ballot is going to lead to nothing but divisive hand-wringing as everyone tries to cozy up to the “true believers”, whether they be PETA or the Moral Majority. We need to come up with a system that prevents interest groups from having a disproportionate voice in the system just because they’re a little louder and a little more passionate than everyone else. I think a good start would be to eliminate the “winner-takes-all” nature of the Electoral College; though I understand why it was created in the first place, it’s turned into a bastard child of what the Founding Fathers intended and nobody wants it to be what the Founding Fathers intended anymore, so let’s scrap it. I also think the French system of having two elections - one with a bunch of candidates, then the two top vote-receivers running in a run-off election - might be incredibly useful for our purposes. I’d like to spend a little time looking at the results of the French system before I sign off on it, though.

15: The Nanny State
SUMMARY: Does the federal government need to get involved in everything?
WHERE I AM: No, it really doesn’t. If you want to smoke, live off of Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese, have nothing but biscuits & gravy for breakfast, and drink nothing but double-malt whiskey, more power to you. Just don’t come to me to cover the medical costs of those decisions, otherwise I’m going to want to ask a few questions… which is why we have a nanny state in the first place. As long as the federal government is paying for everything, it’s going to have a say on everything. If you want it to stop, stop having the federal government pay for everything. Simple as that.

16: “Think of the Children!”
SUMMARY: What’s up with all the “family values” nonsense?
WHERE I AM: I have a son, so I think family values are great. I also don’t think they come from any form of government, at least in any official capacity. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s the government’s responsibility to determine what forms of entertainment are acceptable for my son to consume, what foods he should eat, or how much exercise he receives. Then again, as long as the government is paying for (or has the potential to pay for) his schooling, his school lunches, and his health needs, well, I guess they’re going to get a say whether I want one or not, won’t they?

17: The Great Gun Debate? Irrelevant!
SUMMARY: Most people don’t want to give up all guns, and most people don’t want automatic weapons on the street. Why do we have to give lip service to this debate?
WHERE I AM: Most people don’t want complete prohibition of all mind-altering substances (caffeine, alcohol, etc.) and most people don’t want complete legalization of every single drug under the sun. Yet, the fact that we don’t have a debate on drug laws is hurting this country. Personally, I’d rather have a little debate on gun issues than have no debate at all.

18: Are Our Leaders Accountable?
SUMMARY: What does a guy have to do to get fired at that job?
WHERE I AM: Though I’m all for accountability, who’s going to provide it? Congress? The Supreme Court? The people? Well, the law already gives the people the ability to maintain accountability by voting presidents in and out of office every four years. Congress is highly politicized, so if enough people from one party were in there, they’d find a way to kick the President out if he/she was from the opposing party; proof of that would be all the hand-wringing over “Monicagate”, “Whitewater”, Bush’s performance in Iraq, and so on. As for the Supreme Court, I’d much rather they focus on the law and not on who’s running the country since, well, their job is to focus on the laws of the country.

(Hey, I’m running for this office. Do YOU think I want to be accountable once I get there? Of course not! Think, people!)

19: The Prison-Industrial Complex
SUMMARY: Why do we lock so many people up?
WHERE AM I: See #4 and #10. No more Drug War = fewer people arrested for drug crimes = fewer people in prison. Not complicated.

20: I Shouted Out Who Killed The Kennedys
SUMMARY: Who killed JFK and MLK?
WHERE AM I: I was born in 1980. I don’t care about who shot JFK, MLK, or even John Lennon, for that matter. What I care about is if there is something we can learn from JFK’s brief stint as President, if there’s something we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr’s example and message, and if there’s something we can learn from Lennon’s horrible taste in women.

That’s it! Based on my answers, it looks like I’m very much a “fringe” candidate. So, who’s feeling “fringe” with me?

So, via Instapundit, I found this article at Gateway Pundit on a rally in Indonesia where people planned the next Islamic caliphate. The event brought in 100,000 people, which is pretty impressive, and it got me thinking:

What was so great about the Caliphate, anyways?

In theory, the original Caliphate was the only state governed by the laws of Allah instead of man. Of course, being an atheist and all, I think that’s a load of bunk, and besides, I don’t see any Catholics calling for the return of the Papal States. So, what makes the Caliphate so special?

Thankfully, we have Wikipedia to the rescue… yes, I know it’s not a good primary source, but when you need basic information in a hurry, it works just nicely. Long story short, caliphates have two rather interesting features:

1. They’re the descendant political structure left from Mohammed’s absolute rule and as such are meant to be a marriage between church and state. A western equivalent might be Deseret or, taking a more period example, the aforementioned Papal States. Other possible parallels include the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, both of which used the church to provide legitimacy for monarchic rule.
2. Each caliphate was essentially the major power in the world during their period of reign. For example, during the Umayyad Dynasty, the Caliphate stretch from Spain to Pakistan. The Ottoman Caliphate went as far north as the gates of Vienna.

So, what happened to these powers? The same thing that happens to all empires - they began to splinter. The Umayyad Dynasty began to collapse; the attempt to find a replacement for it led to the creation of the Shia sect of Islam that is predominant in Iran and southern Iraq. The Ottoman Empire was caught flat-footed by a sudden burst of European innovation, as the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution kicked in, fueled in part by resources from the New World. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire picked the wrong side in World War I, Kemal Ataturk took control over Turkey, the French and English divided up the Middle East amongst themselves, and the rest is history.

In this light, it’s pretty obvious why many Muslims would like to see a caliphate come back. Each caliphate (Arab or Turkish) corresponded to a time when Islam was ascendant in the world. However, what those who pine for a new caliphate don’t get is that each caliphate was the direct result of the Islamic culture being better organized and more technologically advanced than its neighbors, something which hasn’t been true in over 200 years now. In fact, if it weren’t for the fortuitous discovery of oil in the Middle East, the former areas of the caliphates would be completely irrelevant today.

As others have had to learn the hard way, governing according to medieval nostalgia is a very quick way to become disappointed. If they really wish to create a new caliphate, one that would compete with the West, then they need to outdo the west. They certainly have the oil reserves for it.

By “campaign stop”, I, of course, mean “sit in a class in San Jose for ten hours a day, five days a week, learning how to program an open-source phone system,” but the important thing is that it’s over. Besides, I actually learned a fair amount at the training, which will lead to me communicating quite a bit of information to my coworkers. They’re going to love me for that, believe me.

During the trip, I managed to meet an owner of a business that I’ve communicated with in Redding, someone who worked at Yahoo, and a host of other interesting people. All in all, it was a good, albeit exhausting, trip, and I’m very glad I took it.

I just watched him beat Hank Aaron’s record a few minutes ago… it was a really good shot. It’ll probably be all over YouTube, if it isn’t already.

I’m not sure what to say. The talking heads on ESPN are pointing out that everyone seems to be focused on Barry Bonds as far as the steroid allegations go and, if you’re going to be fair, you need to hit up all of the players, not just Barry. I think that’s a good point - since some players have been caught getting juiced, it’s clear the problem is much bigger than Barry Bonds. Barry just gained the most from it and knew when to stop.

For what it’s worth, I view him as something of a modern day Ty Cobb… a damn good player who was an absolute asshole. Fifty years from now, people are going to look back on him and continue to have mixed feelings, but they’ll credit his ability. Besides, Ty Cobb turned out to be incredibly interesting, and I suspect Barry will as well.

Perhaps it’s because I spent 10 hours today in a class on a rather intricate computer-based PBX system, but I feel the need to go off on rationality and the need for a rational basis between right and wrong. Especially after this wonderful thread on Something Awful. Yes, I know Soemthing Awful really isn’t a great source of hard-hitting journalism, but if there’s one thing that Teens-4-Christ has proven to me, it’s that people really need a clue.

Things are right or wrong not because God or some other invisible being said so but because they either benefit us as individuals and as a group OR they don’t. For example, murder is wrong because doing so ends the existence of whomever is murdered as an individual (clearly doesn’t benefit them) and, if every person lived in constant fear of their life, nothing would ever get done. On the contrary, you’d probably be inclined to listen to any leader willing to promise to end the murder, even if they’re the ones perpetrating it. This would be a big part of the dynamic that leads to some of the more “popular” leaders in poorer countries.

With that in mind, allow me to rant on… gay marriage and polygamy.

The problem with gay marriage is in the name - those of a religious persuasion believe that gay marriage demeans the institution of marriage. Slate had a wonderful article explaining this a little further, which brings me to my solution:

Split the religious institution of marriage from the civil institution of a contractual union between two people bestowing the legal rights and responsibilities of a marriage. All people that choose to engage in a union with each other will engage in a civil union (or some other similarly catchy name). If they choose to get married, they can find a priest to do so. The priest-run marriage, however, will not have any legal standing, unless accompanied by a civil union certificate (same as a marriage license, only with a different name). So, in short, judges will no longer be marrying people - they can unify them in a civil ceremony, but that would be it. However, that doesn’t stop someone from getting a civil union certificate, getting a notary to sign off on it, then running down to some Pastafarian and getting married in the religious ceremony of their choice. If two men feel like getting married, great! As long as they can find a religious figure willing to accommodate that and as long as they get their civil union certificate notarized, their marriage will be just as legally legitimate as that of a straight couple. Would it be equally religiously significant? I’m running for President, not for Pope, so it’s not my problem.

Now, the slippery slope… if we allow gay marriage, why stop there? Why not allow marriage between people and animals? What about polygamy?

Let’s rule bestiality out right now - animals do not possess the cognitive capabilities to engage in a mutual contract, much less understand the ramifications of one, so it’s pretty easy to shoot that down. Besides, that’s just cruel to the animal. Polygamy, however, is a slightly harder nut to crack. I say “slightly” because it really doesn’t take much to explain why gay marriage is legally acceptable and polygamy isn’t.

It’s all about legal precedent.

To understand where I’m going here, you have to remember something - marriage, legally speaking, is a contract between two people that, if a party chooses to break it, defines how assets, rights, and responsibilities are divided between the two people. This includes things like alimony, child-related issues (support, visitation, custody), dividing up of assets (house, furniture, retirement funds) and debts (credit cards, loans, etc.), and so on. Since existing laws are now much more gender-neutral than they used to be, thanks to decades of hard work from women’s rights groups, it doesn’t take much to just write out the genders entirely and let it be between any two consenting adults. The rules would still be identical; there’s little legal distinction between a husband and a wife these days, so it wouldn’t take much to take existing laws and apply them to a gender-neutral union.

Polygamy, on the other hand, is a different story. All of our laws are designed with a civil union/marriage having only two parties involved. Consequently, if we needed to rewrite the laws to authorize polygamy, how would we approach it? Consider the following:

1. If a husband has five wives and one of them choose to leave, does the ex-wife get half of the assets of the family or just 1/6 of them?
2. If a wife leaves and had two children with the husband, does the husband have sole responsibility to pay child support, or do the responsibilities get subdivided evenly between the husband and the other participating wives? If it’s divided between all members of the family, what happens if one of the wives wasn’t in the family before one of the children was born?
3. Take #2, but it’s one wife and her kids and five husbands. Now what?
4. Extremely ludicrous but still worthwhile to consider scenario: Let’s say I decide I want to run a sweatshop. If polygamy were legal, what would stop me from finding 10 impoverished women, engaging in a “civil union” with them that ties into a pre-nup that guarantees them absolutely nothing if they choose to leave (perhaps even having a provision where they have to pay me to leave), then working them as my “wives” and thus avoiding all minimum wage labor laws?

Point being, legalizing polygamy isn’t just as easy as saying, “Eh, let’s do it.” We’d have to rewrite significant portions of marriage law to do it, which is not something that should be done lightly. Since I don’t see a whole lot of people volunteering to rewrite that particular social contract, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Shocking, no?

Just a quick explanation to the half dozen of you that seem to visit on rare occasion here… when I’m not posting, it’s probably a sign that I’m working way too hard to come up with anything coherent. But… that temporarily ends this week! I’m currently in San Jose enjoying a week of Asterisk training, so I have plenty of time after work to say all kinds of clever things. Or something.