A Man of Principle

     The Saturday, May 28, 1994 issue of the New York Times reported the execution by hanging of Charles Rodman Campbell, 39. The report stated, "Mr. Campbell was convicted of murdering Renae Wicklund, her 8 year old daughter, and a neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, in 1982. He slashed the throats of all three nearly beheading the child. He had been imprisoned in 1974 for raping Ms. Wicklund and was on a work-release program at the time of the slayings. Prosecutors said he had murdered Ms. Wicklund and Ms. Hendrickson for testifying against him at the rape trial."

     In the state of Washington condemned murderers may choose lethal injection as an alternative to hanging. Mr. Campbell refused to choose on the grounds that by so doing he would be violating his religious principles. It is comforting to know that he wasn't a completely depraved individual. Perhaps he would have made a choice had the Biblical method of public stoning been an option.

Neologisms

Fartitude: n, the demeanor to be maintained when one’s companion is severely flatulent.

Gismoid: n, A small useful device with no moving parts.

Frustacean: n, a lobster unable to find a mate.

Gadgitation; n, the state of mind of a person who has just acquired a new PC or Blackberry or similar item.

Gmail is Free

Google’s Gmail is free, has virtually unlimited storage and the user interface is well designed for efficient mail handling. There is, however, a slight catch. Because it is free, it has no support. If trouble occurs, the user is directed to a Q & A site where he becomes involved in a seemingly endless regression. A further recourse is a forum devoted to the particular glitsch. These forums have upwards of 100,000 entries apiece. The worst problem though is the refusal by the login page to accept a password. This has been a recurring headache. The protocol for resetting is a time-consuming nuisance. Far more serious is the sudden inability to reach the login page. Instead of the login page I get a site inviting me to try Gmail. That my Gmail account is active is attested by the fact that mail addressed there does not bounce. To solve that problem I skipped the forums and retained professional help. It was to no avail. Yes, Google is free, but that is too high a price.

Salmonella

The full-page advertisement by America’s Egg Farmers in the August 25th NY Times suggesting that eggs be cooked so that both yolk and white are firm implies that eggs may well be salmonella contaminated.    To eat scrambled or soft-boiled eggs is to play chicken with your health. The necessity for much tighter regulation of the industry is obvious. The use of the British protocol for elimination of salmonella from all poultry products should be mandatory. 

Egg farmers want the same rights are hog producers, all of whom sell pork which is trichinosis infected..

HP-35s is a Pain in the Ass

The HP 35s: How do I hate thee, let me count the ways.
     1. Two keystrokes are requiired to turn it off. 
     2. Two keystrokes are required to recall a stored number.
     3. Too many functions require 3 keystrokes.
     4. It has more bells and whistles that a circus calliope.
     5. The users' manual is supplied on a CD.  A several hundred page manual on line cannot be read efficiently.  It is not possible to extract the section of interest.
     6. If a PC is required to read the manual one does not need the 35s.  One may have access to  packages such as Maple or Mathematica.  If not, MACSYMA is now a free download.
     7. It is inferior in ease of use to the HP 15c which it replaced.

The sole improvement over the HP15 is the display of the "y" register in addition to the "x" register,

The Chase

In the East, Night rises inexorably
     in relentless pursuit of Day.

In the West, Day, as ever, slips away
     silently beyond the horizon.

Billions of years have passed with
     billions more to go.

Night is patient; the Chase will end.
     This much is certain; it Will end.

A Letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (September 2009)

The effort to achieve health care reform is in serious, perhaps mortal difficulties. The reason is that too much was attempted. The target presented to opponents of was so large and varied, that any attack, however malicious or misleading was certain to obtain wide support. Too much was attempted. The entire effort should be terminated. Recognizing and exploiting the fact that many parts of the problem are disjoint can achieve reform. It can be accomplished step-wise. Present each piece of the assemblage sequentially. In that way, much of the misleading propaganda can be refuted forcefully. Instead of the enemies of reform being able to ride into battle with impunity, their warhorses could be easily hamstrung. A useful sequence might be: enable Medicare to bargain with pharmaceutical companies in the same way as the VA; establish a government insurance plan to serve as a benchmark.

Democracy in America

For years, I have believed that the most serious threat to democracy in the US was the Supreme Court. In recent years, that threat has been widely surpassed by the Senate. It has established rules strongly reminiscent of those which led to the demise of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century - the right of any member of the parliament to veto any legislation it had passed.

Beware What you Search For!

I went onto the Internet to find the web site of the London Philosophy Study Guide. To save time I entered acronym LPSG. What I got was the "Large Penis Study Group".  Clearly, the Google search engine knows what is really important.