Monday, August 6, 2007
A newlywed wife whose husband is serving in the war wrote about a dinner where many of the attendees were members of the liberal elite:
For dark, personal reasons, many people could not resist this chance at cruelty. There were the intellectuals who demanded aggressively if we believed in war and asked across our dinner tables did we relish the idea of being the widows of dead heroes? There were men of peace who fulminated against destruction and argued that no idea was worth fighting for that leveled Casino or Dresden….There were the newscasters who, after the fourth Martini, swore with something akin to professional pride that the war would last another eight years….
These “men of peace” aren't talking about the Iraq war – it's World War II they're fulminating about. The newlywed was choreographer Agnes De Mille, writing in her memoirs.
Neo-Neocon uses this story to illustrate that there's nothing new about the liberal elites' reflexive anti-war posture, or their declarations about the useless sacrifice in any war. To them, it's always “not worth it” – even in circumstances such as World War II, where to most people the lines between good and evil seemed so clearly drawn.
Agnes De Mille would instantly recognize the sneers and blatherings of today's liberals as they posture about the Iraq war.
I always wonder why those liberal elites can't seem to hear themselves in the echoes of history – and why the don't ever seem to pause to think hard about the folly of their position when we are in a battle to the death with an implacable enemy. I'm still waiting for an answer on that one…
I have long felt that my vote in Presidential elections was, for all practical purposes, completely useless – the Democrats inevitably win because they have a large majority in any statewide race, and California (like most states) has a winner-takes-all rule for its electoral votes. It's not that I'm a Republican, mind you – but it's hard to imagine any Democrat that I'd vote for winning the primary…
That winner-takes-all rule is the source of what is essentially the disenfranchisement (in California, for Presidential elections) of anyone who is not a Democrat. It seems quite unfair to me that the roughly 45% of the voters in California who normally vote for some candidate other than the Democrat have no influence on the election at all.
The winner-takes-all rule is not imposed by any Federal constraint – the individual states are completely free to allocate those electoral votes any way they see fit. Last month, a well-known attorney (GOP Thomas Hiltachk) filed the papers to begin the initiative process to change the winner-takes-all rule to one that instead allocates two electoral college votes to the winner in each congressional district, plus two more for the statewide winner. In the 2004 election, had that been in place, George Bush would have received 22 electoral votes from California, instead of zero. And my vote would have actually meant something, as I could have contributed to a win against John Kerry in my congressional district (which leans slightly Republican).
Hiltachk's proposal still isn't completely “fair” (where proportional votes would be completely fair) – but it's a huge step in that direction. It's also completely within the spirit and intent of the electoral college system, unlike some other proposals being bandied about. I like the idea, and I think it is a much fairer system than the winner-takes-all system we have in almost every state today. I'd support it, and I say this without even knowing if Democrats or Republicans have an advantage if this were implemented in other states. California's unique initiative system probably makes it easier to get the ball rolling here than in any other state, and here the Republicans would be the clear winner. In many other states, such a change would deliver an advantage to the Democrats, and I have no idea how it would balance out nationwide.
But who cares? I want my vote to matter!
I suspect there's going to be one hell of a fight over this California initiative, with money pouring in from all over the country, both for and against. Hiltachk has an impressive record with initiatives – he's the guy who started the recall effort that pitched Governor Gray Davis out of office four years ago. If this initiative were crafted and timed such that it would be effective for the 2008 election, then both Democrats and Republicans would see this as quite likely to tilt the playing field significantly in the Republican's direction – 22 electoral votes ain't chickenfeed; it could easily be enough to swing the election. So both sides will have a large incentive to influence the initiative vote – and there are no limits on spending for initiatives…
More information from the Sacremento Bee.
Davy (the mason) and his son Alfredo arrived early this morning, and immediately plowed into the work of laying more block. It is a pleasure to watch this quiet, competent man work – there are no theatrics, no drama; just a wall that slowly and steadily appears. As the wall gets higher and higher, the amount of work to lay each block gets larger and larger. When I took the photo at right (early this morning), Davy's head is about 12 feet off the ground. Each block must be lifted up to him (that's what Alfredo does), and buckets full of mortar must be raised the same way. Also, Davy's motions are now constrained to the size of the scaffold – which is just a couple 2 x 12s supported on steel ends.
But other than taking more effort (per block), the work is the same as it has been the past few days. The only thing that I spotted that was different today is visible in the photo at right, where it appears that the distant wall has a block missing. That's where one of the building's two vents will be located; there will be another one directly opposite it. If you look carefully, you can see that Davy – a bit of a perfectionist – used two half-blocks in order to locate the vent in the exact center of the wall. I wouldn't have cared if he was five feet off in either direction!
By the time they'd finished for the day, as they did shortly after I took the photo above, one entire wall was at full 10' height, along with one other corner (the one that Davy is working on). Tomorrow, Davy believes, they will finish all the block work. After that, the form for the roof goes up – and after that, the two layers of rebar for the reinforced concrete roof.
The form should be interesting to watch; I've never seen anything even remotely like this constructed. As best I understand it, the form inside the building will consist of a large number of 4 x 4 posts, on approximately 18" centers, supporting sheets of 3/4" plywood that will comprise the form for the bottom of the interior. The roof will project 8" outside the walls, forming short eaves. The form will be made from 2 x 8s for the bottom and 2 x 12s for the sides, with this assembly held up by more 4 x 4 posts. I haven't yet deciphered how they're planning to keep the pressure of the concrete from forcing the form away from the walls.
The plans call for two layers of rebar inside the roof. Both layers are constructed from #5 (5/8" diameter) rebar – that's big, heavy, “industrial strength” rebar! The top layer will be made of rebar on 16" centers (forming 16" squares); the bottom layer on 8" centers. That's a lot of rebar – about 1,600 feet if I did the math right.
I did learn something new today, talking with Davy: once we pour the roof, the form must stay in place for 15 to 22 days. This is much longer than the three days we waited after pouring the slab before starting to lay the block. Apparently it is critical for the concrete in the roof to completely cure before it first takes the loads and stresses of holding up the roof by itself. I'm not too surprised at this: reinforced concrete weighs roughly 160 pounds per cubic feet, and this roof will be 290 cubic feet – that works out to just over 23 tons of concrete! I want that to be well-cured before we remove those forms – and I don't want to be underneath it when we do!
Are you fascinated by images such as the one at right, showing NGC 1316 as captured by the Hubble Telescope? If so, don't miss this web site.
Here's an interesting simulation of gravity in two dimensions (a much simpler problem than in three dimension). You can drag the black dots (which have “gravity” around as you like.
