Minas Tirith

Today in the News

2009-07-14T13:05:00.004-02:00

Here's a little gem from the Wall Street Journal, echoed this AM by FoxNews:

CIA Plan Envisioned Hit Teams Killing Al Qaeda Leaders

WASHINGTON -- A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative axed by Director Leon Panetta examined how to assassinate members of Al Qaeda with hit teams on the ground, according to current and former national-security officials familiar with the matter.
The goal was to assemble teams of CIA and special-operations forces "and put bullets in [the Al Qaeda leaders'] heads," one former intelligence official said.
The plan was never carried out, and Panetta canceled the effort on the day he learned of it, June 23. The next day, he alerted Congress, which didn't know about the plan.

My goodness. The big bad CIA were planning to pop some bad guys. Leon Panetta, horrified by the existence of evil (which for him, I suspect, would be defined as "the United States military, and the paramilitary branches of the three-letter-agencies"), slams the brakes on and then immediately runs like a tearful little boy to Congress to spill the whole upsetting tale. News flash, Mr. Panetta: you are the director of the CIA. That makes you the spymaster for the United States of America. Your job, therfore, is to (a) close your mouth, (b) open your ears, (c) listen and understand, and (d) lead your agency with all the diligence and loyalty you can muster. Right now you are behaving like a third-rate trash journalist, eager to dig up the dirt on Big Bad Bush and prove to the public what a horrible guy he was. Or maybe pile up brownie points with your new boss in the Oval Office. Or maybe I don't care what. Just do your job, or quit and give it to someone who is competent to do it.

And as for those dreadful CIA types --- why, they were behaving like there was a war on, and thousands of innocent Americans had been massacred, or something!

No, wait, that is what happened ...

Outline for MACS course on the Trinity

2009-03-29T16:37:00.004-02:00

Posted here for collaboration purposes while the course is being developed.

Background
Several months ago, Ed was soliciting ideas from people who had been involved with MACS Classes in the past and I hatched the idea of doing a course on the Trinity. Because the intention is to structure courses in four-week blocks, I expanded it to involve discussions of the deity of Jesus, the deity of the Holy Spirit and the character of God the Father. The outline as it has developed to date is as below (the order is still tentative).
In each segment I want to emphasize ...

group input and discussion;
why these concepts matter to us in day-to-day life;
Scriptural support.

Content
1. The Deity of Jesus

Verses that indicate Jesus is God
- his claims about himself
- his actions
- the claims of others on his behalf

Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah
Old Testament theophanies and Christophanies
Objections or alternative theories of Jesus' nature; responses to them
- If Jesus was divine, how could he say things like "Who touched me?", "the Father is greater than I" and how could he be surprised ("He was amazed, and said, 'I have not found faith like this in Israel'")?
- If Jesus was divine, why there were things that the Father knew that he didn't: e.g., ("Not the angels, nor even the Son, but only the Father")?
  - Answer: "Equal" is not the same as "identical." They are one Being but three Persons.
Why it matters to us on a practical level that Jesus is divine, and not merely a created being (even one of a very high order).

2. The Deity of the Holy Spirit

Verses that indicate that the Holy Spirit is a Person and not just an impersonal force
Verses that indicate the Holy Spirit is divine
The function of the Holy Spirit, to point to Jesus
Why it matters to us that the Holy Spirit is divine

3. The Character of God the Father
There would be a different emphasis here because we obviously don't need to defend the idea that the Father is divine. Instead, I would focus on God's attributes and why they matter to us in daily Christian life.

Omniscience: God knows everything, past, present and future.
- How can God know everything and we can still have free will (and therefore accountability)?
Omnipotence: God is infinitely powerful.
Omnipresence: God is everywhere.
Some objections to God's existence and nature, and how to respond to them.
Responses to questions such as:
- "If God created everything, where did God come from?"
  - Answer: The question presupposes that God exists in time in the same way we do, i.e., He has to "come from" anywhere. This is a false assumption because time is a means of measuring part of His creation, i.e., the physical universe, and He is no more bounded by time than by distance or by any other measurement of the universe. "I am that I am."
    Why this matters practically to us.
- "Is there anything God can't do?"
  - Answer: Yes, there are many things He can't do, and they can all be summed up in the phrase God cannot do anything that is contrary to His nature.
    Why this matters to us.

4. The Trinity

Verses that indicate God is three Persons in one Being.
Old Testament verses that point to the Trinity.
Discussion of how the three Persons are co-equal and co-eternal, equal in prerogative and divinity but different in role and in interaction with us
Why this matters practically to us.
- In a strictly monotheistic view, God would be incapable of love and communication without having creatures to share these things. In essence they wouldn't be part of his nature, i.e., even these attributes would be created, not innate. But with the Trinity you have love and communication in eternal existence between the Persons of the Trinity, not contingent on us creatures to share them.

UFC 94 :: St. Pierre / Penn II

2009-02-01T05:35:00.007-02:00

Just got back from the standing-room-only James Street Pub where I watched most of UFC 94 with my buddies Rick and Andrew. I know you're all waiting for it, so here's my analysis.

Lightweight bout: Nate Diaz vs. Clay Guida
I don't understand Diaz losing the split decision: I thought he clearly took rounds 2 and 3. Apparently the judges didn't see it that way. Guida takes the evening's I Looked Really Goofy But Still Won The Fight Anyway award.

Welterweight bout: Karo Parisyan vs. Dong Hyun Kim
The clear winner of the Most Boring Fight of the Night award. After three rounds it wasn't so much a question of who won as who really cares. The referee, engrossed in his book, looked up with surprise as the bell sounded to end round three.

Light Heavyweight bout: Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones
Don't be fooled by those thin little legs. 21-year-old Jon Jones is going to be huge, repeat huge, in the UFC. The kid is incredibly talented. The evening's award for I Was Owned To The Point Of Humiliation goes out to poor Stephan Bonnar, who alternated between getting pummelled in the standup and getting tossed like a rag doll to the canvas. Repeatedly. Bonnar just didn't have any answers tonight.

Welterweight Championship bout: Georges St-Pierre vs. BJ Penn
The bar repeatedly erupted in deafening cheers as St. Pierre pounded Penn on the ground and in the standup. Georges had to work for most of the first round to get a takedown, but by round four he was doing so at will. Not a mark on him at the end of the fight, which came when Penn's corner signalled "we're done" during the break before round five -- I thought I heard the phrase doctor stoppage from an announcer, but the noise in the James Street Pub was a little overwhelming at that point.
Good for Georges. I was hoping he would take it. No one else will be welterweight champion as long as he's around.

The software design process: a pictorial summary

2008-10-26T20:05:00.002-02:00

Differences between men and women

2008-10-26T20:00:00.002-02:00

NICKNAMES

If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.

EATING OUT

When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY

A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.

BATHROOMS

A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel .
The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS

A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

MARRIAGE

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

DRESSING UP

A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL

Men wake up as good-looking as when they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING

A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-10-18T02:11:00.001-02:00

... so bad it's embarrassing.

Qantas mechanics

2008-09-10T01:22:00.001-02:00

I know, everyone has seen this by now. I just really like it.

"After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a gripe sheet, which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form,
then the pilots review the gripe sheets right before the next flight. Here are some of the actual maintenance complaints submitted by the Qantas' pilots (as marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (as marked with an S) by the maintenance engineers."

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in the cockpit.
S: Something tightened in the cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on backorder.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of a leak on the right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume reset to a more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: The number 3 engine is missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after a brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under the instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from the midget.

Does the Bible contain secret codes?

2008-05-05T00:08:00.010-02:00

My bus ride to and from work is about 30-45 minutes each way, during which I sometimes doze off and sometimes read the Bible. Came across the following verse the other day as the bus rumbled down the transitway past the Tunney's Pasture office complex:

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. [Deuteronomy 29:29]

Now, some people contend that there is esoteric information embedded in the Bible. The theory is that you perform some sort of calculations ("Gematria," in the Kabbalah tradition) on the text, yielding special hidden information not otherwise accessible. But it seems to me that Deuteronomy 29:29 nixes this idea of hidden information. To wit:

There would seem to be two categories of information referred to in the Scriptures: the secret things and the things revealed. The things revealed "belong to us and to our children forever." Their explicit purpose is to lead us to live according to God's rules. The term forever is significant for two reasons. One, because it's prophetic: here we are talking about it thirty-three centuries later, and the Bible is not going away any time soon. Second and more importantly, because this category of information is put in the special zone of Fundamental Universal Truth --- things that will never change, basic knowledge that underlies all human experiences ("that we may follow the words of this Law," i.e., that we may order our lives as God wants) for all people ("us and our children forever").
The secret things, in contrast, belong to God. The things revealed are ours forever, and so a second contrast is hiding below the surface: the secret things likewise belong to God forever. Never to be divulged. They are His and His alone.

So "gematria," and any similar scheme for ferreting out hidden information from the Bible, can't be for real. The secret things belong to God, forever; and the things revealed belong to us forever, and provide us with all we need to follow Him. There is no third category of knowledge, no "things that we secret for a while until we dug them out;" and there is no overlap between these two.

Does the Scripture provide us with everything required to follow God?

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. [2 Timothy 3:16-17]

Do we need special esoteric knowledge in addition to that?

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." [Luke 10:21]

I'm guessing that if "little children" can master the requirements, there can't be anything too esoteric about it ...

Today in the news

2007-11-11T02:28:00.000-02:00

This story just speaks for itself. The King of Spain tells Venezuelan "president" Hugo Chavez to "shut up" at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile. You can read all about it here.

I love it. I mean, every thinking person in the Western Hemisphere has wanted Hugo Chavez to shut up for a long time now ... it's just really cool having foreign royalty act as your spokesman.

Pirates of the Carribean .:. Dead Man's Chest

2007-07-14T21:47:00.000-02:00

Rented POTC/DMC last night. It was the third movie in one of those "rent two, get the third one free" deals at the local Rogers Video. I thought, how bad can it be?

Well ... it can be bad.

It just went on and on and on and on and on and on

and it never made any sense and it never got interesting

and the weird spooky supernatural bad guys might have been neat to see but you never really got a good look at them

and Johnny Depp played his character with this bizarre, mincing, prancing, swishing body language that made you wonder what was wrong with him

So my advice, if you have nothing else to do this evening, is (in order of preference):

watch paint dry
chew tinfoil
listen to a speech by a member of the NDP
listen to David Suzuki's latest rant about Global Whining, sorry, I meant Global Warning
watch POTC/DMC.

Liddell / Jackson, UFC 71

2007-05-28T00:12:00.000-02:00

Time to sound off about that Chuck Liddell / Quentin Jackson mess at UFC 71 last night. It was just like the St.-Pierre / Serra thing a few months ago: the second-rate guy got in one lucky punch in the first round and ended up with a title he doesn't deserve. St.-Pierre should have kept his welterweight title (well, actually, I wanted Matt Hughes not to lose it in the first place, but that's another issue) and Liddell absolutely should have kept his light heavyweight title at 71 last night.

Look, Jackson taking the title was 100% fluke, plain and simple. Chuck, come back soon and pummel this guy like you were supposed to last night, please.

The Protestant Reformation wasn't real after all

2007-02-21T01:54:00.000-02:00

... or so I learned a week or two ago.

There are three universities here in town: Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and St. Paul's University. The first two of these broadcast some lectures on a local TV station. I happened to catch several minutes of some professor (sorry, no name available) positing a correlation between certain aspects of brain chemistry and one's imaginitive abilities. He then offhandedly provided his young class with what seemed to be some kind of case study. Martin Luther had been struck by lightning early in his adult life, and that this had caused his personality to change radically, giving the former stolid and unimaginitive young German a flair for crackpot invention. Hence the Protestant Reformation.

Before we accept the utter debunking of Lutheranism, the Reformation in general and (for I suspect this professor was aiming high) Christianity in general, let's examine the argument being made here.

First, Luther was not struck by lightning. Lightning struck near him and he was merely frightened. I personally don't see any reason to believe that his brain chemistry was altered.

Second, this event occurred before he became a monk. The change in attitudes and beliefs that brought about the 95 Theses were still years in the future. Guess that was slow-acting lightning.

Third, the Lutheran Brain Chemistry hypothesis doesn't provide a very strong explanation for the fact that many other people with eerily similar ideas contributed to the Reformation --- Hus, Farel, Knox and Calvin, to name a few. Seems a lot of people were getting struck by lightning in those days.

Fourth, Luther admitted freely that a significant part of his theology was developed by his long-time friend, theologian Philip Melancthon. No data are available on how many lightning strikes Melancthon suffered.

Fifth: News flash, Professor --- evangelicals don't hold conservative beliefs Because Martin Luther Said So. We hold them because we agree that they are an accurate interpretation of the Bible.

So, Professor, whatever your name was, it was interesting to get a religious critique from the Second-Head-Bonk-Cures-Amnesia school of thought, but I'd really suggest you get another hobby. There are many people who don't belong at the front of a classroom. Frankly, you're one of them.

Atheism :: circularity

2006-10-23T00:29:00.000-02:00

The atheistic worldview holds that we are able to (a) use our senses to gather data about the universe, and (b) use our human reason to discover truth based on the input of our senses. Is there a problem with this system?

(a) We have no way of verifying the input of our senses except by the use of our senses. This is circular.

(b) We have no way to verify that our reasoning produces valid results except to examine the results using human reasoning. This is also circular.

Appealing to the fact that our experience agrees with that of others doesn't solve these problems because we have to use our senses and reasoning to communicate with each other and to process the information we communicate.

Do theists have the same problem?

Christian theists --- moi, for example --- hold that outside of the closed system of the material universe there is another entity, whom we refer to as God, whose nature provides our senses and reasoning with a foundation from outside of the closed system. Human reasoning can be grounded on something external to the material universe and can therefore be able to produce valid results.

Atheism :: the coherence of logical thought

2006-10-23T00:27:00.000-02:00

Someone might object that human senses and reasoning are obviously valid because they agree with the functioning of the universe. I release a baseball and it falls and hits the ground. Cosmologists predict the location of Mars, and astronomers look through their telescopes and --- gee! --- there it is.
To an atheist, the human mind is not the product of design, but of random material processes operating over huge stretches of time according to the drive for survival. The questions must be asked: (1) why would a material universe give rise to non-material minds at all, and (2) why should we assume that these minds would function in a logical manner that comports with the physical behavior of the universe?

As to (1), there are plenty of creatures out there far more successful at survival than humans who can hardly have much in the way of a mind. Sharks have just enough brain to run their muscles, and they're pretty effective at surviving. Ditto for cockroaches. There are lots more examples. In fact it has been said that advanced intelligence conveys much of an adaptive benefit, we would expect to see a lot more of it. Out of all the billions of species out there, however, we can only be sure of one that has advanced intelligence: the one that is reading this web page right now.

As to (2), a quote from the ubiquitous C. S. Lewis.

When logic says a thing must be so, Nature always agrees. No one can suppose that this can be due to a happy coincidence. A great many people think that it is due to the fact that Nature produced the mind. But on the assumption that Nature is herself mindless this provides no explanation. To be the result of a series of mindless events is one thing: to be a kind of plan or true account of the laws according to which those mindless events arose is quite another. Thus the Gulf Stream produces all sorts of results: for instance, the temperature of the Irish Sea. What it does not produce is maps of the Gulf Stream. But if logic, as we find it operative in our own minds, is really a result of mindless nature, then it is a result as improbable as that. The laws whereby logic obliges us to think turn out to be the laws according to which every event in space and time must happen. The man who thinks this an ordinary or probable result does not really understand. It is as if cabbages, in addition to resulting from the laws of botany also gave lectures in that subject: or as if, when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’ But if the validity of knowledge cannot be explained that way, and if perpetual happy coincidence throughout the whole of recorded time is out of the question, then surely we must seek the real explanation elsewhere.
[C.S. Lewis “De Futilitate” [1967] in Lesley Walmsley (ed.), C.S. Lewis Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories (London: HarperCollins, 2002), pp. 267-8.]

That Baked Bean Recipe I Promised Lori

2006-10-15T16:05:00.000-02:00

Lori, here's that recipe I promised you a week ago. Sorry for the delay :-
I can cook at last count three things: those perennial greats lasagne and chili, and the bean recipe below. [Typical male.]

1 20-oz can pork and beans in tomato sauce
1 20-oz can five-bean mix
1 20-oz can red kidney beans
1/2 pound bacon
2 large white onions
1/2 cup vinegar
1 cup brown sugar

Drain the beans and dump them into a baking dish.
Chop up the bacon and onions and fry them until the bacon is crisp.
Mix the vinegar, sugar and fried bacon and onions and cook them in a frying pan for 20 minutes: then pour everything over the beans and bake it all for 1 hour at 300.
Better reheated the next day after being refrigerated overnight.

Gordon Ramsay, look out. BTW, unlike Gordon (see this page), I don't scream obscenities while cooking.

Christianity and The Lord of the Rings

2006-04-17T04:07:00.000-02:00

Is it totally inappropriate for a Christian to watch Lord of the Rings?

Well, I don't think so.
I recently encountered the following argument. (I'm sure there are others out there.)

LOTR received huge popular acclaim. The Bible, however, says that friendship with the world is enmity towards God. Christians must not rebel against God by agreeing with the world.

I don't find this argument compelling, for the following reasons.

(a) Merely to like something that people who aren't (yet) Christians also like is not automatically wrong.
You must show that there is a link between the attraction and their unChristian mindset. I like a lot of things that receive popular acclaim: Mexican food, (some of) Pat Metheny's music, my Ford Freestar. These things aren't, for that reason, innately wrong.

(b) There may be multiple reasons for the popular acclaim.
It's categorically wrong for a Christian to watch MTV: to subscribe to Playboy, or to comparable publications; to pick up satellite TV signals in areas where it's illegal to do so. All of these things are praised by "the world," and for reasons that reflect the unregenerate nature's approval of what is wrong. In the case of the LOTR movies, though, I believe that the attraction is for reasons that reflect the unregenerate nature's approval of what is good: heroism (Aragorn and Boromir pledging their lives to protect Frodo); self-sacrifice (Gandalf sacrificing himself for his friends); unfailing devotion to a friend (Sam); romantic and honorable love that is platonic prior to marriage (Arwen and Aragorn); an unambiguous distinction between good and evil; an acknowledgement that evil is to be resisted, sometimes to the point of death.
When non-Christians approve of these things, they're approving of what is good. I see this as the incoherent longing of the unregenerate person for the God in whose image he or she was made. Christians, who by the grace of God are regenerate, are free to agree with them.

Now two important caveats.

One, if you don't agree with me and you don't think it's appropriate for you to watch LOTR, then don't watch it. Inform your conscience with what you believe is truth from the Bible, and follow it where it leads you.
Two, it's true that there are "magical" elements in LOTR. Now I don't think that they automatically fall under the condemnation that the Bible applies to what we call magic, which is the attempt to achieve power through communication with evil spirits. I.e., I don't see LOTR's "magic" as being in that category. But this subject will take longer to develop and explain, and I'm going to need more time to work up a good comment on the subject. Stay tuned. :-)

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part IV

2006-04-17T02:18:00.000-02:00

How To Tell That You're a Star Trek Alien

[1] You are completely human in appearance, except that there's something weird about your nose.
[2] You speak perfect 20th-century English. Mild accent is optional.
[3] You know how to work the Transporter.
[4] You can interbreed with humans. Worf's wife and Spock are two examples of the result. Then there's Kirk and the insane green woman, Marta [episode?], but I don't want to get into that whole thing right now. Anyway, it's because a super-race seeded the galaxy with DNA a long time ago. But evolution still happened, though, because Klingons for example used to be exoskeletal and Picard was a marmoset, but everybody converged again to the point of being able to have kids, i.e., the DNA structure is identical, ... no, don't try to understand it.

Nominations for Most Embarassing Moment

This could take a while. It's a target-rich environment.

[1] Spock Is Really a Playstation2
Here we have yet another alien race that (a) was completely human in appearance, and (b) spoke unaccented English --- well, except that "male" and "female" had been replaced with "morg" and "eyemorg." Or vice versa; I don't remember which was which, and I'm not real interesting in finding out, either.
Spock has had his brain surgically removed, without messing up his hair, but the perpetrators have helpfully set him up with a little hand-held remote that allows for robotic walking. (And takes two 9-volt batteries.) McCoy puts the brain back in without bothering to wash his hands, or provide for a septic environment, or any of that sort of trivia.

[2] The Space Hippies Episode
There isn't a Most Embarassing Moment in this one. The entire episode is an Embarassing Moment. But the crowning moment was the little jam session, with Spock On Vulcan Harp and Hippie Chick On Bicycle Wheel. Playing a moronic tape loop of annoying 1960's chords. Nope, I don't reach, Harold.

[3] Swahili Is Implemented On The Hardware
Nomad wipes out Uhura's memory, so that she needs to be retaught everything she knows --- communications technology, the English language, how to blow her nose, et cetera. But she still speaks Swahili: that part didn't get wiped. Must be physically imprinted on her brain cells. One good punch in the head and she forgets past-tense conjugations.

[4+] Runners-Up and Honorable Mentions

"I never forget a face, Mister ... Chekov," says Khan.
Chekov wasn't in the episode he's referring to.

Sulu and the boys are going to freeze to death down on the planet, because the transporter is generating good-guy / bad-guy copies of everybody. ... So what was wrong with the shuttlecraft? Did it have a flat?

During the course of this episode, Bad Kirk tries to molest his yeoman, Janice Rand. She scratches his face. Later in the show, the scratches are on the other side. Then back again.
You remember Yeoman Rand. She was the one with the beehive hairdo. Yes, this was the show that lectured us about female equality, and then showed us female crew members in miniskirts and go-go boots.

Fight scenes in general are, well, different. Finnegan punches Kirk on the left side of the face. Kirk falls in the same direction --- to his own left. [Shore Leave].
Sulu hits a Klingon on the forearm with a robotic-looking little chop. The Klingon falls to the floor unconscious. [The Enemy Within].

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part III

2006-04-17T02:05:00.000-02:00

Out Of My Way, I'm In Charge Here

The "Environmental Control Panel" is three buttons in the middle of the wall next to the main screen on the bridge. (What a place to put it.) During an emergency, some guy is standing there pushing the buttons in and out. This guy's whole life is these three buttons, but Kirk runs over, shoves him aside and starts pushing the buttons himself.

Communication Is Important

When Uhura has to reach Kirk, she says, "Enterprise to Captain Kirk, Enterprise to Captain Kirk, come in please." But Kirk doesn't hear that. He hears beep-beep beep-beep. The same sort of thing happens when he calls back.
It's a shame, too, because Uhura has exactly three phrases in her vocabulary --- Enterprise to Captain Kirk, hailing frequencies open Captain and Captain, I'm frightened --- and one of them is constantly being editing out by her own equipment. That's gotta be humiliating for her.
In the "Nomad" episode, we are treated to the sight of Uhura learning the phrase The ball is blooo-ie but I don't recall her ever needing to use it thereafter.

Kirk has an intercom on his chair. All it has is one little white button and one speaker / microphone, but it always knows who he wants to talk to. Maybe it listens to his conversation. We aren't sure who he gets if he hasn't said anything for a while.

While looking for Nancy The Salt Vampire, Kirk calls the Enterprise. Spock, also on the planet's surface, interrupts his conversation. "Spock breaking in, Captain," he says. Communicators don't relay other conversations. How did he know what Kirk was saying? And how did he direct his communicator to break into that conversation? Was a pretty neat trick, because that's the only time anybody ever does it.

Spock has flipped out because of the spores and "doesn't feel like responding." Kirk is trying to reach him. "The channel's open, but he isn't responding," he observes to McCoy. He hits the communicator several times. So does he think there are moving parts in there that have jammed, and it'll start working if he jars them loose? [The Naked Time]

Almost every alien in the universe speaks English. Generally with an accent. If they don't, then there's a device called a Universal Translator, which looks like a magic marker. It translates unknown languages into English, and it gets the first word right. ... What if the first thing you do is sneeze?

When sneaking up on the Klingon "gulag" where Kirk and McCoy are imprisoned, the bridge crew need to play head games with the bored Klingons at the listening post, pretending they're a Klingon freighter carrying supplies. (It's well known that Klingon freighters have precisely the same radar signatures, or whatever, as Federation starships.) The universal translator, however, "would be recognized," so the best option is to have Uhura shout phrases like We am thy freighter. Uh, how about having the translator write correct phrases on a screen and have Uhura just read them out loud? ... No, that couldn't possibly work. [The Undiscovered Country]

They're trying to figure out what the huge tube-shaped machine is doing to planets [The Doomsday Machine]. They have terminals all over the place, hooked up to something called a 'duotronic computer,' but when they have to look up information on metallurgy, Kirk hands Spock a huge hardcover textbook.
They also use little rectangular diskette-type items. These diskettes have absolutely no writing on them, but McCoy sometimes picks them up and reads titles off them anyway. There are probably millions of them aboard, but at one point Spock identifies one as "tape H". (Tape, no less.)

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part II

2006-04-17T01:59:00.000-02:00

Maybe All That Hardware Is For Making Coleslaw

Sometimes the little hand-held items in the elevators make them go. Sometimes they make them stop. Sometimes they override RedJack who is trying to kill people. When Spock is taking the captive female Romulan commander from the bridge down to deck 3 --- I'm guessing they're numbered from the top down, so that's three decks, at the very most a trip of 50 or 60 feet --- they have an extended conversation and forty-one little light bars went by.

"Strike that last entry from the log," says Kirk. Spock reverses a white toggle switch and the terminal makes a chugging noise. [Mudd's Women].

Spock has a round, spidery, psychadelic-looking display high up on his console. It never does anything except rotate, and he never looks at it.
He also has a black box protruding below it. Sometimes it has acoustic grill cloth on it. Sometimes it has little red and yellow lights. He never looks at it, either.
He has a little pyramidal viewer that he does use. All he every says, though, is "Energy of a form never before encountered." Maybe that's all it says down there. If he's never encountered it before, how does he know it's energy?
The computer voice has a background of little chattering machine-type noises. Apparently the computer itself is sitting in a room full of sewing machines.

"Is the computer working?" asks Kirk. Now remember, he's talking about a computer that oversees every last little detail of the workings of a ship capable of travelling faster than light, for years on end, with a crew of several hundred people. Spock reverses two white toggle switches on his console. There is no output of any sort, whether visual or audible, and Spock doesn't wait for any. "The computer is in perfect operating condition," says Spock.

Sulu has an array of at least thirty by thirty lights on his console. Not one of them is labelled. They're not buttons, but he pushes them anyway. He also has a goose-neck viewer that apparently acts as a sighting device for the ship's weapons systems. It seems to take several minutes to unfold and extend into position --- during emergencies. (23rd-century weapons apparently have to be aimed by eyeball.)

"Do you still measure time in hours and minutes?" asks Abraham Lincoln. "We can convert," says Kirk. In another episode: shows Sulu's board. There are bubble meters --- yes, bubble meters --- labelled HH, MM and SS. Maybe they changed the hardware for the convenience of other dead Presidents.

The ship makes a faint roaring noise as it moves through space. ... Space doesn't conduct sound.

Every alien race knows how to operate the Transporter, even though the procedure changes with each use. Sometimes you slide the three little bars up. Sometimes you slide them up, then down. Sometimes you slide them up, then cross-circuit to B, then slide them down, then cross-circuit to A, then ...

There's a chicken soup dispenser in the transporter room. People must have to spend a lot of time in there. Maybe using the transporter gives you a cold.

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part I

2006-04-17T01:51:00.000-02:00

McCoy, the Bipolar Ship's Surgeon

Maybe I Am, Maybe I'm Not. You Just Don't Know.

"I'm a doctor, not a psychiatrist!" says McCoy angrily. In another episode: "Dr. McCoy, you're well-known for your advances in space psychiatry," says the prosecuting attorney. "Yes," McCoy acknowledges humbly.

Dr. Engstrom, inventor of the Duotronic and Multitronic Computers, is hearing about the possibility of his latest invention causing casualties about the ship. "In which case you would be guilty of murder!" McCoy rants, before being reined in by Kirk. About a minute later he's gravely expressing his concerns about how stressed Engstrom has been looking recently. Perhaps drumming up business for his space psychiatry sideline.

Klingons Make Difficult Patients

"Heart rate all wrong, blood pressure non-existant .. Jim, this man's a Klingon!" No blood pressure means vascular collapse, which in turn means dead person. Interesting. McCoy doesn't explain how someone can have a heart beat that doesn't exert pressure on the walls of their blood vessels. It doesn't seem to bother him. [The Trouble with Tribbles]

"I'll go with you. They may have wounded," he volunteers, after Gorkhon's ship has been torpedoed [The Undiscovered Country]. Yeah, there probably is no such thing as a Klingon doctor. But when he gets there, he exclaims miserably, "I don't even know his anatomy!" (So why did he volunteer to come? Did he think there would be humans in the crew?) Then he wants the dying Gorkhon moved onto the conference table, for CPR. Maybe the floor wasn't solid enough. (He isn't worried that the movement will aggravate internal or spinal injuries.) Even though Gorkhon is still conscious and breathing, he starts CPR. For good measure, he begins with a pre-cardiac thump, which hasn't been common practice since the early 1980's. Guess he was going through a retro phase at the time.

He's Making It Up, Jim

McCoy's little hand-held sensing device can diagnose anything at all, in seconds. He holds it next to Kirk's shoulder, then his wrist, and looks at the base. He says, "It's advanced arthritis, Jim, and it's spreading." Uh-huh. There isn't even room to write ADVANCED ARTHRITIS, SPREADING on the base of that thing.

Scientific Study of Prayer

2006-04-15T22:28:00.000-02:00

From Does Prayer Work?, Breakpoint commentary of 13 April 2006 (click here to read the original article):

The headlines seemed almost triumphal in tone.
“Prayer Doesn’t Aid Recovery, Study Finds.” That was the Washington Post. “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer.” That was the New York Times.
Both papers were describing a study designed to determine the power of prayer. Not only did it show that prayer apparently makes no difference, but some prayed-for patients in the study actually fared worse than the unprayed-for ones.

Puh-LEEEZE. This entire 'study' misses the point by about a thousand miles. Prayer is not some mystical energy called into action by a certain set of words, postures or attitudes. It is communication with a living, conscious Being --- the God described in the Bible --- that has the ability to intervene in human affairs, whom the Bible also says does not perform tricks on demand to prove that He exists. (Nor were we told what motives were suggested to the praying participants regarding their praying for the health of their assigned group and not for the other patients.)

Put it this way. It's Friday night around 9:15. Both our kids are asleep, and my wife and I are going to make a bowl of popcorn and watch a movie. She's going down to the basement fridge to get herself a Coke. I say Honey, would you please get me one while you're down there? and she will. Now, suppose I gather 45 guys with white coats and clipboards, line them all up to observe and say Ahem! Observe, ladies and gentlemen, my wife responds to verbal requests! Cheryl Would You Please Get Me a Coke From The Basement!

What do you think she'd do? what would you do? ... So what do you think God should do if people treat Him that way?

travels (26T): heidelberg, germany

2006-04-06T23:55:00.000-02:00

September 1993. Like many Bavarian cities (many European cities?) Heidelberg has an "old city" and a "new city." We had a hotel reservation waiting for us in the old city as we travelled up the Romantischestrass. It was a cold, rainy afternoon as we pulled up to the little B&B jammed in between the other centuries-old buildings. Not a parking lot in sight, despite the fact that they advertised parking, but we had learned that in Germany this typically meant that they had a bunch of reserved spots a few blocks away.

So I ducked inside and checked in with the portly lady behind the counter. Where's the parking, I asked, figuring she'd whip out a map and give directions. Not quite. Out she comes from the counter and into the tiled entrance hallway; opens out a set of double doors to a little courtyard between buildings, then the double doors to the wet and windy street where my Missus was waiting in the rented 190E; and gestures. Drive 'er in here, buddy.

This was too weird. She wants me to drive the car down the hallway. Had to kind of bite my tongue to keep from asking Can I park it next to the room?. So, feeling foolish for some odd reason, I drove it between these sets of doors and out to the spot at the back left.

We encountered stuff like this a number of times in Germany. I guess when you're dealing with buildings and streets that were laid out centuries before motorized travel, you just gotta do what it takes. One more European thing that we don't have to deal with in Canada.

travels (13B): estes park, colorado

2006-04-05T23:52:00.000-02:00

October 1991. The rented Jeep Cherokee grumbled up the mountainside. We came to a place where the highway widened out a dozen yards or so, parallel parking spots lined up along the low stone wall, nothing but empty space beyond that, another mountainside many miles distant. When I got out to admire the view, I could see that there was actually a jumble of boulders beyond the wall, then a gently sloping hillside for quite a distance, and then an apparent dropoff. (I had wondered why people were so brave about walking along that low stone wall.) My poor wife, however, was by this time traumatized by the five-digits-above-sea-level environment and wouldn't get out of the Jeep.

I briefly considered pretending to frantically lose my balance atop the wall, then hopping down to crouch on the other side. Decided against this for two reasons: (a) didn't wish to cause a coronary in the woman who had said I do to me in our church only two weeks earlier; and (b) October in the Colorado Rockies is way too cold to spend the night alone in a Jeep Cherokee.

BTW, we visited lots of other places on our honeymoon that she did enjoy.

being somewhere else

2006-04-05T23:23:00.000-02:00

Ever notice how we seem to spend a lot of time being somewhere else?

Recently I've been noticing how much I do this. Perhaps noticing more than usual, or just doing it more than usual, not sure which. Today always seems to be lived with reference to (a) some day that hasn't happened yet, or (b) some day from the past.

The thing that both (a) and (b) have in common, of course, is that they're inaccessible. I can't get back to the past, and I can't jump ahead to the future. Kind of like my four-and-a-half-minute walk to the bus stop every weekday morning: down the street / turn right / up to the entrance to the park / through the park / across the soccer field / down to the bus shelter. Can't be done in three seconds, no matter how hard I train. It always has to be done one step at a time.

So what's with all this concentration on the past or the future? The thing I always seem to forget is that five or ten or twenty years ago this was the future that I was looking forward to, and I'm in it now. Conversely, five or ten or twenty years from now --- if I make it that far! --- this will be the past that I look back on. So, by induction, it seems like all days are the same after all. Guess I oughta spend more time in the here and now after all.