Friday, September 02, 2005

Katrina, the will of a vengeful God, by one name or another. A self-proclaimed "Christian" view: "New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of...the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now. God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there." And an Islamist perspective: "It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire...Have the storms have joined the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization?" Shiva, the Destroyer of Worlds, could not be reached for comment. 9:21:02 PM   permalink   comment []

War, famine, pestilence, and death. But today's big story for our neighbors to the south...                                          Front page of The State, Columbia SC, 9/2/05 Cocks. (Thanks for the tip, JR). 3:19:20 PM   permalink   comment []

Glenn Reynolds interviews Ray Kurzweil. RK: "Nonbiological intelligence will have access to its own design and will be able to improve itself in an increasingly rapid redesign cycle. We'll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it. That will mark the Singularity." In my lifetime (I'm 43) Kurzweil predicts computers that pass the Turing test, reverse engineering of the human brain, and "a web of computing deeply integrated into the environment, our bodies and brains." The part about "an existential threat...in the form of the possibility of a bioengineered malevolent biological virus" sounds less wonderful. Kurzweil: "The Singularity will be an explosion of human knowledge made possible by the amplification of our intelligence through its merger with its exponentially growing variant. Creating knowledge requires passion, so one piece of advice would be to follow your passion." Read the whole thing. 2:59:49 PM   permalink   comment []

N&R front page. Wait, here's the real one. Maybe I'm missing something, but this Katrina thing seems to me like a local story in ways that go far beyond gas prices. I guess I'll let it go now. 2:18:01 PM   permalink   comment []

I remember my first gas line...I was visiting my aunt and uncle in New York, summer of '79, and I volunteered to fill up their car. I'm sure my 17-year-old foot did that clutch a lot of good as I worked my way up the long queue in cross-town traffic. Maybe I'll get a chance to relive that youthful magic this weekend, right here in GSO. 7:16:53 AM   permalink   comment []