Thinking about trains and snow
With the right design, high-speed trains shouldn't be stopped by snow. If you build the entire line as a low trestle instead of a grade, the snow will drop through the ties. Three or four feet above ground should do in most places. This would also prevent collisions with livestock, and make it easier to run roads and pedestrian crossings under the track.

I thought I had seen pictures of this design on the old 1910-era interurbans, but can't find any online. Luckily Polistra came through with a demonstration:


  ¶ 5:43 PM

  Why I listen to NPR, part 4
Excellent piece this morning on the long-running Dioxin controversy. NPR gives the history of Times Beach and notes that the ecoterrorist organization "EPA" is now planning to treat the rest of the country like Times Beach. Anywhere they find even a single molecule of Dioxin, we must evacuate the population, dig up all the earth, and incinerate everything to eliminate the single molecule.

Uniquely, NPR gives close attention to the deep problem with the EPA mindset, namely linear extrapolation. Nature simply isn't linear, and any attempt to treat it as linear leads to genocide.

Allah and Gaia are closely related. Purist thinking, whether Islamic or EPA, always involves a superstition about a substance. If a large quantity of something is problematic, then any quantity of this substance is bad. Zero tolerance, literally and metaphorically.

Islam says: Alcohol in large doses causes all sorts of problems, so we must not consume even a single molecule of alcohol. EPA says: Dioxin in large doses causes acne, so we must tear up the world to destroy even a single molecule of Dioxin.

Nature doesn't work this way. Nature has considerable tolerance, literally and metaphorically.

Nature prefers sigmoids. Our nervous system, most of our biological and chemical systems, most of our social actions, and many natural phenomena like weather, follow the sigmoid pattern. Small amounts of nearly anything are harmless or even helpful. It's the big gulps that lead to trouble.



Here Polistra is giving Happystar a sigmoid ride. When the input to the system (represented by Polistra's back and forth sliding) increases linearly, the system's response (Happystar's height) moves up very slowly until it reaches a lower threshold point, then increases quickly until it reaches an upper threshold.

= = = = =

The stupid linear tendency is not new at all. In the Laputa chapter of Gulliver's Travels, Swift described the linear extrapolators of 1720, who sound exactly like the elites of today even though computers hadn't been invented yet. They have never worked with any sort of mechanism, never used a tool, never rocked a cradle. Their sole experience is with arithmetic, which forces their minds into a linear mold:

What I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong disposition I observed in them towards news and politics, perpetually inquiring into public affairs, giving their judgments in matters of state, and passionately disputing every inch of a party opinion.

These people are under continual disquietudes, never enjoying a minute's peace of mind; and their disturbances proceed from causes which very little affect the rest of mortals. Their apprehensions arise from several changes they dread in the celestial bodies: for instance, that the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up; that the face of the sun, will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more light to the world; that the earth very narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for one-and-thirty years hence, will probably destroy us.

For if, in its perihelion, it should approach within a certain degree of the sun (as by their calculations they have reason to dread) it will receive a degree of heat ten thousand times more intense than that of red hot glowing iron, and in its absence from the sun, carry a blazing tail ten hundred thousand and fourteen miles long, through which, if the earth should pass at the distance of one hundred thousand miles from the nucleus, or main body of the comet, it must in its passage be set on fire, and reduced to ashes: that the sun, daily spending its rays without any nutriment to supply them, will at last be wholly consumed and annihilated; which must be attended with the destruction of this earth, and of all the planets that receive their light from it.

Especially enjoy "ten hundred thousand and fourteen miles", which strongly resembles the mathematics of the Carbon Cult. Pick a number, any number, as long as it sounds big, scary and precise. Use this number to generate panic.
  ¶ 7:52 AM

  Back to normal for IBC
Islamic Broadcasting Corporation, known before 1989 as BBC, has now returned to normal Muslim programming after ever so briefly allowing a Christian to defend Christianity. This morning IBC licks the cunt of Imam Rauf's wife, in a feature celebrating the loss of American resistance to the Ground Zero Cordoba Victory Mosque.

Imam Rauf's wife cites the fine Islamic example of Imam Bloomberg of NYC: "We got support from Mayor Bloomberg because he understands discrimination. When his father wanted to buy a house, he had to do it through his lawyer."

You egregious monster, discrimination and war are NOT THE SAME GODDAMN THING.

Discriminating against Jews because they're annoyingly superior and selfish is a bad idea, though certainly tempting.

Discriminating against Arab savages BECAUSE ARAB SAVAGES MADE WAR AGAINST US AND KILLED 3000 OF US is an excellent idea. The best form of discrimination against Arab savages would be to remove them from the face of the Earth, but that ain't gonna happen.
  ¶ 4:48 AM

  Strange search
This blog gets about 3 or 4 hits per day on average. Most of them are either looking for "explanatory sentence" or looking for the video game named after a period of confinement related to disease. I'm not going to write the word Q**r**t*n*. I went through considerable trouble to remove it from the text, yet the hits keep coming from the past through Google's cache.

Sort of like the legendary DX Skip phenomenon. ... Well, I thought I could find a story about that strangeness online, but no go, so here it is. ... Back in the 1960s, electronics mags occasionally featured reports from known and reliable ham operators, about receiving signals that had apparently circled around in the ionosphere for several years. The one I remember was a Houston TV station that closed permanently in 1956, then was unquestionably received for a few minutes in 1962. Possible explanation: those particular years featured historically high sunspot levels, which intensified the ionosphere to a degree that hasn't been repeated.

Anyway, today a mysterious and plaintive search string appeared:

"terrible pain in the upper right side of my eggstocks.what can it be?need urgent help"

Running the search myself, I can see the combination of words (in Aug 2005) that accidentally matched some of the search pattern, but it's obviously not connected to the meaning of the search.

I do hope the searcher found help for her eggstocks pain. (Is eggstocks a bad translation of uterus? There's a Swiss mountain named Eggstock, but that can't be it.)
  ¶ 5:10 AM

  Amazing!
An Anglican bishop defends Christianity!

The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, warned that the death of “religious literacy” among those who made and administered the law had created an imbalance in the way in which those with faith were treated compared to sexual minorities. ...

Bishop Scott-Joynt told the BBC’s World This Weekend: "The problem is that there is a really quite widespread perception among Christians that there is growing up something of an imbalance in the legal position with regard to the freedom of Christians and people of other faiths to pursue the calling of their faith in public life, in public service.

Probably for the first time in our history there is a widespread lack of religious literacy among those who one way and another hold power and influence, whether it’s Parliament or the media or even, dare I say it, in the judiciary.

... There are increasingly professions where it could be difficult for people who are devoted believers to work in certain of the public services, indeed in Parliament.

Anybody who is part of the religious community believes that you don’t just hold views, you live them. Manifesting your faith is part of having it and not part of some optional bolt-on."

I'm sure he will be quickly replaced by some Communist bullbitch who "represents Anglican values" more accurately, but for this one shining moment a Christian official has spoken in favor of Christianity.
  ¶ 4:33 PM

  Inconsistent?
BBC interviewer Owen Bennett-Jones ran a 'year-end compilation' of his best stuff this morning. Several of the pieces dealt with the same subject, and Bennett-Jones showed his Commie colors magnificently.

Piece 1: Interview with an old British Jew who had fought against Mosley's fascists in post-WW2 London, and later moved to Israel. Bennett-Jones VIOLENTLY on the side of the old Jew, VIOLENTLY against the fascists.

Piece 2: Interview with current mayor of Jerusalem. Bennett-Jones VIOLENTLY against Israel's need to maintain its own territory, VIOLENTLY in favor of Arab vermin taking Jerusalem.

Piece 3: Interview with Tony Blair, who had just published a book on the need to stay firm against Islam. Bennett-Jones VIOLENTLY against Blair, VIOLENTLY in favor of letting Islam have the world.

Piece 4: Interview with Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who made lots of noise about his desire to make the first eentsy-weentsy symbolic gesture of resistance against Islam since 9/11, but finally chickened out. Bennett-Jones clearly wanted to pop Jones upside the face, barely restrained himself.

= = = = =

In the mind of Owen Bennett-Jones:

When European fascists beat up Jews, that's horrible, and any Christian who helps the Jews is wonderful.

When Islamic fascists kill Jews, that's wonderful, and any Christian who helps the Jews is horrible.

Inconsistent? Nah. Consistently Stalinist. In WW2, the German fascists were Stalin's enemy. Now the Islamic fascists are Stalin's ally, so the BBC follows the Correct Line without even noticing the inconsistency. BBC's consistent enemy in all cases is Christianity; the Jews are just a tool, to be used from whichever angle helps to KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL Christianity.
  ¶ 5:49 AM

  Christmas at the mill


Polistra and Happystar are celebrating with the annual Christmas Pyrosome again.

[Appropriate music: Here and here, and of course here.]

Been a pretty good year in general, except for atrocious weather. Thinking strongly now about returning to Okla in the spring. Okla has its own atrocious weather, but as the world grows colder in the next 30 years the Spokane version of atrocious will get worse, while the Okla version of atrocious will get weaker.

Shutting off cable TV has removed a great source of irritation and "negative inspiration", which means that Polistra has gotten more rest this year.
  ¶ 6:19 PM

  National hypochondria
Realized something today.

Three Mile Island was a landmark in government and media insanity. Our current pathology began there.

= = =

Pretty good definition of sanity: When inconsequential things happen, you more or less ignore them. When consequential things happen, you change the situation to prevent them from recurring.

= = =

Examples of sane response on the human level:

(1) A mosquito bite happens. You scratch it, maybe cuss a little, then try to ignore it so it won't get inflamed.

(2) A heart attack happens. You endure surgery or medicine to recover, then you change your lifestyle in big ways to prevent another attack. Quit smoking, quit drinking, find a less stressful occupation.

= = =

Examples of insane response on the human level:

(3) A mosquito bite happens. You rush to the Mayo Clinic, order thousands of tests and X-rays to rule out leprosy, Lyme disease, malaria, blood poisoning, psoriasis, hair cancer, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. You never go outside again, and soon die from anxiety and lack of sunshine and exercise.

(4) A heart attack happens. You keep on smoking and drinking, work even harder, and die fast.

= = = = =

Now think about TMI. Nationally speaking it was a mosquito bite. It damaged one structure, but didn't kill or injure anyone and didn't release any radiation.

The sane response, and the normal American response until that time: Run full speed ahead with nuclear power. We've seen now that our technology can survive the WORST possible set of events. Thus we know for sure that we're on the right track. Keep it up, and develop this clean non-polluting efficient technology to the max.

But for the first time, we didn't respond sanely. Under careful Soviet guidance, we chose (3), the hypochondriac response.

= = = = =

And now every national response is insane.

= = =

Two examples of hypochondria (over-reaction to tiny event):

(a) When one kid makes up an impossible and bizarre story about his daycare teacher, we keep all our kids inside forever after so they can be much easier targets for the real molesters (stepfathers and boyfriends).

(b) When one oil well busts a pipe, leaking slightly more oil than the natural seepage, we shut off all drilling forever after so irresponsible countries with shitty engineering can move into our territory and steal our oil.

[The Global Warming crime is the most insane example of all, but doesn't quite fit this pattern because it's a suicidal over-response to precisely nothing. There was no triggering event at all. The weather does what it's always done, so we kill Western Civilization.]

= = =

Two examples of the opposite (non-reaction to huge event):

(c) Arabian warriors kill 3000 Americans. The sane (FDR) response would be to surgically remove Arabia from the face of the earth. The modern (Bushobama) response: we continue drinking Arabian oil, work even harder than before to please Arabia. Make war against two of Arabia's competitors, stop our own oil production to let Arabia have all the profit.

(d) Gambling at the Jew casino in NYC leads us to national bankruptcy. The sane (FDR) response would be to change the laws to prohibit such gambling, and confiscate the ill-gotten gains of the Jew Mafia. The modern (Bushobama) response: Continue gambling. Change laws to make gambling at the Jew casino a little easier, change laws to make saving and thrift much harder, reward the Jew Mafia with a pure gift of trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars.
  ¶ 5:10 PM

  Praying for Korea again


Polistra and Happystar are praying hard ... yet again ... for the survival of South Korea. Specifically praying for the success of Bill Richardson, who appears to be an effective and realistic negotiator.

If any nation on this old unfortunate world is worth fighting for, South Korea is it. The last Saving Remnant of Christianity, now that America and Europe have enthusiastically and abjectly surrendered to the twin antichrists of Gaia and Allah.

Want evidence? This will do. Or on a lighter note, this.
  ¶ 4:51 AM

  Perpetual puzzlement
On tonight's news they're discussing, yet again, the ever-new threat of home-grown terrorists.

Expert said: "It wasn't that long ago, when we talked about a terrorist, we were talking about someone trained in a cave overseas."

Yes, you were talking that way, but no successful terrorists have ever been trained that way.

The 9/11 boys were trained in Germany and Florida and Oklahoma.

Shortly thereafter, you experts began talking about the "potential new" threat of homegrown terrorists, which would "soon replace" the caveman type. And after 10 years you're still talking about the "potential new" threat, which is in fact the only threat.

All successful terrorists have been trained (or self-trained) in America or Europe. The only thing that comes from those "cave" countries is money and Islamic ideology.

If you really believe this crap about the need to remove "failed states", you're only fooling yourselves. I don't think you really believe it. You keep saying it, and the media keeps replaying it year after year, to justify our endless pointless warlike operations in those "cave" countries.

= = = = =

Later: No, I take it back. There was one Islamic jihadi who was trained in those "cave" countries. Terry Nichols, born in Michigan and trained in the Philippines.


  ¶ 5:45 PM

  McAfee isn't stopping "HDD Rescue" trojan
Twice in the last few days, my computer has caught the "HDD Rescue" trojan. This is a serious one, which nearly paralyzes all normal operations while flashing nasty-looking error messages. Seems to have been caught from two different innocent websites.

I've been using and paying for McAfee for several years, with good enough results until this.

"Stopzilla" does catch and remove HDD Rescue. Worked both times.

It's fairly expensive but I don't mind paying for something that really works. I do object to paying for McAfee, which doesn't work!

= = = = =

Update March 2011: I removed and quit paying for McAfee shortly after the above. Stopzilla continues to function perfectly, and it has much less overhead. McAfee added 3 minutes to every startup and shutdown, and forced the computer to a halt for 5 or 6 minutes every day with updates, most of which required a reboot to take effect. Stopzilla doesn't do any of that crap. It updates about twice a week, quietly and quickly, and adds only 30 seconds to startup and shutdown.
  ¶ 4:42 PM

  RT gets the banksters
Among the major online news sources, Russia Today is the most reliable. They handle the Wall Street scams, from Global Banking to Global Warming, with accuracy and humor.

Today's RT comment on Assange:




PREEEE-cisely.
  ¶ 12:25 PM

  Missing words


Professor Polistra has noticed an 'incomplete table' in our sensory vocabulary.

We have obvious and common words for the zero state, the lack of sensation, in most senses.

Sight: Dark.
Hearing: Quiet.
Taste: Bland.
Kinesthesia: Weightless.
Temperature: Tepid.

But what's the zero state for smell? We have a whole universe of terms for aroma, but no way to describe non-aromatic-ness. There is an obscure technical word anosmic, but it refers to a person without a sense of smell, not the absence of scent.

And how about touch? A small set of words for various kinds of touch: feathery, brush, pinprick, pinch; but no word for the lack of pressure.
  ¶ 4:03 AM

  Why I listen to NPR, part 3
Fascinating feature this morning on A.G. Gaston, a black businessman in Alabama who started with funeral homes and expanded to run lots of other businesses. Never heard of him before.

Gaston worked successfully to desegregate white businesses, using his tremendous financial power to steer them toward hiring more blacks. When the Communists under Comrade M.L. King Boulevard invaded Alabama in 1963, Gaston didn't like it; he reluctantly worked with Comrade M.L. King Boulevard to avoid the worst of the violence.

Now, of course, it's much harder for black businessmen to succeed.

And this was the whole purpose of Comrade M.L. King Boulevard. Blacks were the first tool of the grand Leninist gambit; later it was implemented on women, then on disabled people, and most recently on homosexuals in the military.

Always the same sequence:

(1) Define the Victim class and the Oppressor class.

(2) Propagandize both to believe that everyone is identical, so any failures must be caused by Oppression, not innate differences.

(3) Forcibly mix the Victim class into the Oppressor class in such a way that the innate characteristics of the Victims will cause inevitable failure.

(4) Achieve Goal: Increased poverty and dependence on government among the Victim class, increased resentment among the Oppressor class.

(5) Rectify all schoolbooks and media to divide history at the "Landmark Human Rights Legislation" for each Victim Class. The Victim Class must be seen as destitute and powerless before its respective Landmark, rich and liberated after its Landmark. Liquidate any hapless Crimethinker who continues to write the Unrectified (i.e. factual) version of history.

= = = = =

This is the first time I've heard the 'decapitalization' of blacks discussed on mainstream media. Kudos to NPR for opening the subject.

The trend is dramatically obvious from reading the WPA Guides written in the '30s: every city and town with a black population had large numbers of black-owned businesses, catering largely to blacks.

Or you can get the same picture by listening to Amos and Andy. Contrary to the Standard Rectified Myth, A&A was not about stereotypical lazy criminal Ebonics speakers. It was about the black middle class in the '30s. Most of its dialog is smarter and more literate than the comedies about Irish or Jewish folks in that period.

Now we have comparatively few blacks running their own businesses. They're either on welfare, involved in crime, working for government, or running corrupt NGOs.

Leninist goal consummated, thanks to Comrade Boulevard.
  ¶ 6:31 AM

  Another reporter dream
This morning's dream was a highly detailed story. I was working for an artsy-craftsy magazine based in San Francisco, doing an "immersion" report on an Alaskan village where isolation had developed a separate culture. The villagers were using leftovers of American technology in ways that functioned without electricity or fuel, like a mix of Amish and Cuban adaptations.

These fine-grained details didn't come from anything I've been reading or thinking. All the villagers had names and personalities; some of them went along with my pretense of participation, some didn't. Even their horses had names!

My previous reporter dream back in April was more puzzling because it was simply not my dream at all. In that one my thoughts belonged to someone like Rod Dreher. In this morning's sequence I was working for a Dreher-ish employer but thinking my own thoughts.
  ¶ 5:09 AM

  Well, isn't that special.
Both flanks of the Soros Army of Utter Destruction gained huge victories this week.

The Republican flank of the Soros Army ... whose marching song is "Zero Taxes, Infinite Spending" ... got what they wanted. Zero new inflow, infinite new outflow.

Oh boy! No more budget, just Chinese IOUs from stem to stern.

The Democrat flank of the Soros Army of Destruction ... whose marching song is the old Dylan favorite "Everyone Must Get Gay" ... got what they wanted.

Oh boy! No more military, just fairies from, uh, stem to stern!

The right flank kills our economy. The left flank kills our military and our culture. Total victory for Soros is not far off!!!
  ¶ 1:14 PM

  Gregoire the realist
Wash gov Gregoire has guts. Faced with the unbreakable need to cut spending, she's made some extremely hard choices.

Eliminate the Basic Health program

Consolidate and eliminate many state agencies

Cut food stamps drastically

Stop automatic rises in pensions

Cut deep in education:

— About $1.1 billion would be saved by not paying for two voter-backed education initiatives for class size reduction and teacher pay.

— Another $1 billion would be saved by cutting college scholarship programs and outreach to future college students from underserved communities.

— The lack of investment in education reform would save an estimated $600 million.

— Another $99.5 million would be saved by suspending annual bonuses for National Board-certified teachers.

— State support for higher education would be cut by $344.7 million, but most of those losses would be offset by major tuition increases and scholarship money.

Slashing education is especially gutsy for a Democrat politician, unless you think in terms of the dog-bowl rule. By that rule, only a Dem politician can cut education.



Polistra's law of dog-bowls: Politicians are like two dogs with two food bowls, or two babies with two toys. Each party only wants the voters and lobbyists in the other party's bowl. Repooflicans get no money from lawyers, but they want money from lawyers, so they never try tort reform. Repooflicans get no votes from blacks and Mexicans, but they want votes from blacks and Mexicans, so they suck up to blacks and Mexicans while neglecting whites.

= = = = =

Aside from speculation about motive, Gregoire's cuts will be good in the long run.

Less education money will lead to better education.

The state cuts will ripple downward, and local schools will have to make their own hard choices. At some point they will run out of teachers to fire, and they will grudgingly have to cut one or two administrators because there won't be any alternative. Some districts may even decide to disobey Federal mandates because Federal mandates cost more than they bring in. And when that decision happens, education will finally begin to improve.

More broadly, the state will now be in a better position to attract business because its regulators will be weaker and less able to squash any sign of incipient life.

But this won't last long unless the underlying Nazi environmental laws are repealed. As soon as the moment of maximum crisis has passed, the fascist bureaucrats will resume their tumorous multiplication and resume sucking the state's blood.
  ¶ 7:17 AM

  Nixon the realist
Yesterday's release of old Nixon tapes seems to have a particular purpose. Considering which remarks have been emphasized, I'd guess the purpose is to make neocons dislike Nixon.

These quotes show him as a perfect realist. He understood the characteristics of various ethnic groups accurately. I can't judge whether he got the part about Italians right, because I haven't known enough Italians to form a valid impression. But his judgments about blacks and Jews are spot on. Would blacks be ready for prime time in 50 years? Nope. Since 1960 we've seen that nobody of African ancestry has successfully run a country, a state or a city. Not once. Failure, violence, and unimaginably filthy corruption every goddamn time.

Neocons are ferociously devoted to the Leninist lie of perfect equality, so this bit of plain reality should cause them to lose respect for old Dick.

And Nixon's wisdom in ignoring Russia's treatment of Jews also runs wildly against the neocon mindset. Though the modern neocon mindset was largely written by Jews, who are understandably insulted, that's not really the problem. The neocon mindset runs deeper, starting with Woodrow Wilson.

The conflict arises because Wilsonians are utopian busybodies who think America should use its military power to enforce the egalitarian lie everywhere in the world. They openly declare that we are fighting in Afghanistan because Afghanistan doesn't let women go to college!

That's nanny-state utopianism at its worst, and we now see that Nixon wasn't having any of it. If the Russians wanted to treat some of THEIR OWN PEOPLE badly, that was none of our damn business. Our business is to treat OUR OWN PEOPLE well, not to spend all our money on useless and pointless "reform" of other countries, which does nothing for their "oppressed" minorities. It only makes the other countries more likely to attack us.

Bravo, old Dickie! Wish we'd known you better.
  ¶ 3:27 AM

  Boehner is a sad drunk.
Isn't it obvious? He doesn't have "emotional problems", he's just a weepy wino. Listen to his articulation.
  ¶ 1:12 PM

  Negative learning at its best
Holbrooke's last words:

"You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan."

He said it to the heart surgeon just before the anesthetic took hold. The operation was unsuccessful, which Holbrooke probably foresaw.

And how is the Islamic Occupation Government of DC honoring his last words?

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Mr Holbrooke's presence would be greatly missed.

Adm Mullen said that Mr Holbrooke helped draw up write and "deeply believed in" the war strategy. "That we have been making steady progress in this war is due in no small measure to Richard's tireless efforts and dedication. I know he would want our work to continue unabated. And I know we will all feel his bully presence in the room as we do so."

No, you fucking treasonous Orwellian idiots. He specifically wouldn't want your work to continue unabated. He said in plain and simple words, his LAST WORDS, that he wanted your work to STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.

"STOP" IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF "CONTINUE UNABATED", YOU MONSTROUS MURDEROUS ORWELLIAN TYRANTS.
  ¶ 11:31 AM