perfidy

This year has been a really hard year for disasters. From the giant tsunami that struck Asia just after Christmas last year to the recent earthquakes and hurricanes that have spread misery almost as fast and wide as humankind could have done if left to its own devices, many terrible things have befallen the hapless and helpless populations of Earth of late.

But I have been hearing rumblings of "disaster fatigue." Indeed, the Red Cross reports that, in the wake of the massive relief efforts mounted for Indonesia and Louisiana, relatively little charity has been left over for the Red Cross' efforts in Pakistan, Guatemala, etc. Although money can only do so much, it can do a damn sight more than nothing at all.

So I have a proposition. If you, meaning "you right there with a Diet Coke, a gas station burrito and a Star Trek t-shirt riding up over your belly (I mean... with the snifter of brandy, the great hair, and the air of nonchalant cool that some would kill to possess)," donate at least $15 to the charity of your choice to help fund relief efforts in these relatively needful areas: e.g. the Pakistan/India earthquate, Hurricane Stan, or indeed any one of the thousands of worthy and underfunded causes out there in the world trying to do their part, I will send you, meaning "you right there the benighted soul whose life is enriched incrementally each day as our perfidious electrons bathe your benumbed eyes," two mix cds I have personally compiled from songs selected from among the 1,500 albums in my collection. I cannot guarantee each song will be new to you, but I can guarantee that you have never heard them in that particular order. So how about it?

(Offer expires November 31. Offer not valid in Albania, Uzbekistan, or Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan.)

The Ministry is pleased to note the attention brought to NaDruWriNi. All minions, readers, and hangers-on associated with the Ministry are herewith encouraged to make every effort to participate in this endeavor; only through concerted action will our enemies be driven in terror before us.

When the robots come your cooperation will not be forgotten; remember this act of kindness.

That is all.

If NaNoWriMo is the marathon race of the writing/blogging set, then NaDruWriNi is the beer-soaked game of backyard wiffle ball.

National Drunk Writing Night, this year scheduled for Saturday, November 5, is your opportunity to uncork your logorrhea and let loose a firehose of ill-considered and unsteadily libidinous verbage directly from the lizard brain at the top of your spine to glorious nigh-eternal enshrinement on the intar-nets.

There are a few rules:
Rule 1: You do not talk about Fight Club.

Rule 2: You kick without mercy the ass of anyone who cracks that weak and tired old Fight Club joke. (Yeah, you try it!)

Rule 3: You must tell us what you're drinking.

Rule D: You may not edit. You may spellcheck, backspace, and edit on the fly as normal, but what goes up on your webpage must be the sloppy first draft of whatever it was you were.... yeah.

Rule V: You MUST post whatever you write to your web log. Site. Web site. "Blog" is sooooo 2003. You must post whatever crapulous drivel you write to your website.

Rule 42: You DO NOT talk about Fight Club.

Game on!!!

Geneticists have completed a map of the common variations in the human genome. Sadly, this will not immediately lead to technology that would make our brains, muscles or, uh, units bigger. However, it is a major step forward in our understanding of what actually makes us tick. The HapMap, as it is called, is a sort of a complement for Craig Venter's human genome project. Where the human genome project detailed the genetics that all humans have in common, the HapMap details the genes that make us different.

As scientists dig into the details, it is expected that we may begin to get a handle on how genes can contribute to disease. In the past, single genes have been linked to rare disorders, but the technology did not exist to look at patterns in large numbers of genes. Analysis of the data in HapMap may lead to stunning advances in medical treatments.

The idea behind the map is rather clever, as we would expect of highly paid genetic scientists. There are over three billion letters in the human genetic code. That's a lot, and presents a problem for researchers trying to track down subtle interrelationships between genes. However,

Each person differs from someone else by, on average, 3 million of these units, but every time two people are compared, it is a different set of 3 million. To find all those differences, scientists had feared they would need to determine the full genome, all 3 billion units, of every volunteer in a study, which would be too expensive using current technology.

But then researchers began to notice consistent patterns in the DNA of different individuals that suggested a shortcut, said Mark Daly, a scientist at Mass. General and the Broad who was one of the first to discover the patterns. They found that DNA can be thought of as a series of sections, called ''haplotype blocks." Each block comes in only a handful of variations, and each person has just one of the variations. (Each of these variations is known as a haplotype, which is why the map is known as the HapMap.)

To determine which block a person has, researchers have only to look at one spot where the block varieties are different, giving them a ''tag" that identifies the block.

So instead of laboriously trawling through billions of units, only a relative few need to be checked. Maybe we'll beat the robots yet...

And maybe, we can all get tiger-shaped eyes. 'Cause that would be so cool!

In honor of the looming pagan bacchanalia, perfidy presents to you this wonderful pumpkin carving web thingy devised by the clever yet morally suspect gnomes at Toilette Humor. For your All-Hallows Eve enjoyment, a custom-designed, perfidious Jack-O-Lantern:

Sixty-five years after winning the Battle of Britain, the sceptered isle has fallen to the fascists. In this case, the health nazis who have banned smoking across the entire nation, save only in alcohol-only pubs and clubs. Of course the government is reserving the right to ban smoking in those places as well. I imagine they're planning to wait and see if the British accept the first round like sheep, and then take away the rest of their rights.

"Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt says she is "proud" to be introducing new smoke-free legislation for England - despite widespread dismay at the Government's proposals." Goering was proud of the Luftwaffe, too.

I work at a government agency. We were recently forwarded this message regarding the upcoming switch back to Eastern Standard Time:

UNCLAS STATE 196946
INFORM CONSULS
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ACOA
SUBJECT: DEPARTMENT/WASHINGTON TIME CHANGE.

1. All posts are advised that WASHINGTON will return to EASTERN STANDARD TIME (From ZULU minus four (4) to ZULU minus five (5) hours) on Sunday, October 30, 2005, at 0200 local, (0700 Zulu).
2. Minimize considered.
RICE
BT
#6946


NNNN
UNCLASSIFIED STATE 00196946

Exsqeeze me? Why all of that, when, instead of forwarding some pseudo-cryptic message from the State Department, they could have merely typed a friendly reminder to all staff, that, "Hey, kids, don't forget to set your clocks back this weekend." And further, wtf is up with item two?

Tropical Storm Beta has formed in the Caribbean. Sounds like they're still in testing. Anyone want to lay odds on Hurricane Epsilon ravaging the East Coast? I bet Rocket Jones and most of the munuvians are desperately praying for at least Tropical Storm Mu. If they could have Mu and Nu, well, they'd probably all just die.

For those of you who are insufficiently classically trained and cannot, as I can, recite the greek alphabet; here for your convenience is the list of the next score or so hurricanes that will form in the next five weeks:

Okay, so that's an overstatement. I never had any personal animus toward Miers, and I am sure that she is a bright lady who is kind to strangers and small woodland creatures. But I am provisionally glad that she is no longer in the race for a seat at the big kid's table. Provisionally, because I am deeply afeared that Bush, being the stubborn guy he is, will nominate Gonzales just as a personal dry-pop to the uppity conservatives who dissed his first choice. If Bush does the sensible and right thing, he will appoint someone from the long list of highly qualified and respected conservative jurists everyone thought he'd dip into the first time 'round.

What cracked me up was this quote:

Democrats accused him of bowing to the "radical right wing of the Republican Party."

Oh really? First off, it's truly ridiculous to refer to a wing of a conservative party as "radical." Second, the reason Bush picked this chick in the first place was that he thought she'd do exactly everything the Democrats are most afraid a Republican nominee would do on the court. Like overturn Roe v Wade or immantize the eschaton.

It looks like the White House is using Krauthammer's strategy for face saving, claiming that the Senate's desire for at least some documentation on Miers conflicted with executive privilege. Well and good, but we all know why she's ducking out the back door. Let us hope that the next pick will not be Gonzales or Larry Thompson, or we'll go through this mess all over again, and probably worse.

Living the rough and tumble, high adventure lifestyle I do, it's very dfficult for me to sit and watch a little TV at night. I catch a show now and then, but I increasingly rely on DVR to bank what I care to see. Which, alas, isn't as much as I feared it might be- mainly because most of TV sucks so mightily.

So OK, I sit and spend 10 minutes a week scrolling through the menu, finding shows and movies Lady Lethal or I might care about, and set them up to record. It's in that way that it really hits home how just criminally poor television programming is, and the amount of garbage viewers will tolerate.

Case in point: several days ago I was home in the pm, flipping around, and there was Superfly on Cinemax. How I missed it in previous scan/record sessions I don't know, but there it was. Once. One time only, on a random Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I was pissed because I missed it, and an opportunity to conduct a side project I've been considering for awhile now (viewing with a stopwatch to record how much of the film is devoted to showing the front end of Priest's car as he drives around. Seriously.)

What really gets under my skin is that I can catch Top Gun, Major League, and A League of Their Own in any language seemingly at any moment on about any movie channel. Look, we've all seen them. Many, many, many times. And I think each brings their own value or insight to the medium, particularly Top Gun's exploration of gay military aviators. That's super.

But why do choice flicks like Superfly have to get the Shaft every time?