Heh:

U.S. Releases Secret List of Nuclear Sites Accidentally

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

* * *

Several nuclear experts argued that any dangers from the disclosure were minimal, given that the general outlines of the most sensitive information were already known publicly.

“These screw-ups happen,” said John M. Deutch, a former director of central intelligence and deputy secretary of defense who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s going further than I would have gone but doesn’t look like a serious breach.”

Yeah, everyone knows where their local stockpile of enriched uranium is, right? I mean, really. I can't see the problem here.

Jim Downey

*Sorry, I couldn't resist the connection to Heinlein's classic SF story "Blowups Happen" because of the topic and attitude.

Cross posted to my blog.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
-- Lazarus Long

I can't believe it.

One of my favorite economic historians from my undergrad days wrote a famous treatise on human stupidity, and it took me 20 years to find out about it.

Sheesh!

Well, just in case you too missed this little gem, I offer:

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
By Carlo M. Cipolla

Go. Read the whole thing. It's not too long. And if you have a wry, cynical (maybe even sardonic?) twist to your view of the world (as I certainly do), you will laugh your proverbial ass off. Maybe even your real ass. But since most people need a bit of convincing to actually *read* things these days, here's a taste to whet your appetite:

THE FIRST BASIC LAW

The first basic law of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:

Here's another in an ongoing series! Robert Heinlein first made me aware of this verse in his book Stranger in a Stranger Land. Here's the verse: 2 Kings 2:23-25.

2:23 He went up from there to Bethel. As he was traveling up the road, some young boys came out of the city and made fun of him, saying, “Go on up, baldy! Go on up, baldy!” 24 When he turned around and saw them, he called God’s judgment down on them. Two female bears came out of the woods and ripped forty-two of the boys to pieces. 25 From there he traveled to Mount Carmel and then back to Samaria.

------------

So...yeah. This has to be a tough verse for Christians. Frankly, this has to be a tough verse for Jews too. It's a little redundant but let me recap.

1. Kids make fun of bald guy (who happens to be a prophet of "God")
2. Kids get killed by bears sent by "God".

Fun! (more below the fold)

Not quite a year ago I wrote about the Raytheon Sarcos powered exoskeleton, which was a major step towards the Powered Armor of Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Well, now there's some competition:

HULC

Dismounted Soldiers often carry heavy combat loads that increase the stress on the body leading to potential injuries. With a HULC exoskeleton, these loads are transferred to the ground through powered titanium legs without loss of mobility.

Hehehehehe:

City to OK water-bill surcharge

The Seattle City Council is expected Tuesday to approve a surcharge on city water customers to help cover the cost of a $22 million court-ordered rebate to water customers.

The rebates are for fire hydrant costs that were wrongly charged to water customers. Fire hydrants are a basic city responsibility and have to be paid for from the general fund, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

OK, read that again. Got it? The city screwed up and charged water customers for basic city infrastructure. So they have been ordered to pay said customers back for the overcharges. And to do so they are going to slap a surcharge onto water bills.

Gotta love it.

As someone in the comments said:

How to put the scr*ws to people four times in a row.

1. Charge some customers for a city financial responsibility.

2. Pay the lawyers to defend the city for wrongfully doing so that will be paid for by all city water customers.

3. Charge the customers for the refunds they have been ordered to pay the customers who were originally charged as well as all city water users.

4. Charge the customers for the legal fees it's going to cost the city to defend itself from the upcoming law suit for wrongfully charging all water customers for the city being ordered by court to refund the fees it wrongfully charged "some" of the customers.

Brilliant.

Jim Downey

(Via BB. Cross posted to my blog.)

An interesting post on MeFi about survivalists - here's the lede:

"Civilization is Just a Thin Veneer. In the absence of law and order, men quickly revert to savagery. As was illustrated by the rioting and looting that accompanied disasters in the past three decades, the transition from tranquility to absolute barbarism can occur overnight. People expect tomorrow to be just like today, and they act accordingly. But then comes a unpredictable disaster that catches the vast majority unprepared. The average American family has four days worth of food on hand. When that food is gone, we'll soon see the thin veneer stripped away."

A good friend passed along this Quote of the Day from Eric Hoffer:

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

Longer ago than I really care to admit I read a number of Hoffer's works, and in a very large part they helped to crystallize some of my own thoughts and inclinations about people and religion (I'm using religion here in a broad sense - meaning both god-belief as well as secular adherence to a movement). Hoffer's perceptions were much like Heinlein's; unorthodox, cynical, deeply insightful. Like Heinlein, he was a non-intellectual, a working-class guy who appreciated intelligence and common sense but disdained pretension. And yes, like Heinlein, he was human with more than a little touch of hypocrisy. We all fail in these ways.

A good friend uses this quote from Robert Heinlein (from Time Enough for Love) as part of her .sig:

"There is no such thing as luck.
There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe."

Which is a nice reformulation of my favorite Louis Pasteur quote:

"Chance favors the prepared mind."

Which is why I grieve for the future of my country when I read things like this:

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment (from the NY Public Library following the 9/11 attacks), she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

A toast from Robert Heinlein's Jubal Harshaw:

"Here's to our noble selves!"

To all the hosts and commenters and readers here, and to all the bright, funny, reasoning people we share the world with:

Happy New Year!

To the living, all the best in 2008.

To those who couldn't be here with us, warm memories of the time we had together.

Like Professor Dawkins, and many of you as well, I am a cultural Christian. I was born and raised in this American society, bathed in Christianity - it's customs, it's traditions, and it's holidays. I love Christmastime and I always have. Here at stately Inscrutable Manor, we celebrate the traditional secular American Christmas not unlike most of our Christian friends and family. We have a tree, gift-giving, dinners and parties with friends and family, and a general period of good cheer and love.

Here are some of my favorite Christmas quotes. Enjoy, and add your own! Merry Christmas and a very happy and safe holiday to everyone!

"Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart..." -Freya Stark

"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'" -Dave Barry

"Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." -Washington Irving

"Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect."
-Oren Arnold

"Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion." -Ralph Sockman

"Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven." -W. C. Fields

One of the panels I attended at the Heinlein Centennial included Pat Bahn of TGV Rockets. I got there a bit late, and he had a call which pulled him away early, but the few minutes he spoke about his company and the future of spaceflight as he sees it were fascinating.

Standing there, looking out the window to the driveway just below, I saw the fox take the unwitting squirrel. One quick, quiet leap from behind a tree, a snap, pause to snap again at the struggling grey mass, and it had breakfast. A pretty, lethal thing, yellow-red short fur, characteristic long legs and bushy tail, eyes sharp as it looked around. Probably weighed twelve to fifteen pounds, lean and long. Made me consider keeping the cats inside.

******************************

Oh boy! Thanks to MeFi, I've found out about this great alternative to that "politically correct" organization for children called the Boy Scouts of America: Keepers of the Faith clubs for boys and girls! Wow, you can learn about and get merit badges for such cool things as 'Bible Memory' and 'Insects'! Here's a great description from their brochure:

How is Keepers at Home and Contenders for the Faith different?

Why not step beyond a politically correct scouting program in which a Christian might not feel completely comfortable at activities, or with the materials furnished by a central committee? Are you tired of pretending to be neutral? Give your children a program that Jesus could join. These programs are specifically for Christians.

Over the next week or so I'll be writing a lot about some of the things I saw/heard/experienced at the Heinlein Centennial this past weekend. It was a fantastic, and for me, transformative experience, which will play out in interesting ways for some time, I think. Here on UTI I will be posting things related to religion, Heinlein, and private space ventures (the last I will also be posting on dKos). On my own blog I will also be posting more personal stuff which not everyone here may find of interest. This will not be in any kind of order, and this first item was in fact just about the last thing that happened over the weekend.

Jim D

*******************************************************

Just a quick note - I received the final information update for the Heinlein Centennial taking place in KC the beginning of next month, thought I'd share some of it:

The Centennial Souvenir Book - Our Fabulous Gift to Attendees!

We always planned to have a nice "program book" but things fell together even better than we hoped. The Robert A. Heinlein Centennial Souvenir Book is now in press and will be waiting for attendees... and after you read this, you'll be waiting for your copy!

How's this for some of the contents:

* 15,000 words of never-before-published Heinlein - and it ain't laundry lists, folks. Prepare to wonder, laugh and learn.
* Two dozen photos and document images, many never before published... including one or two real dazzlers and a bombshell you won't believe!
* An excellent short biography of Heinlein that's like nothing you've read before.

Via BoingBoing, info about a Heinlein Centennial celebration to be held in my neck of the woods 7/7/07:

July 7, 2007 - 07/07/07! - will be the birth centennial of American author, futurist, philosopher and spaceflight advocate Robert A. Heinlein. The science fiction Grandmaster's Centennial year will be marked with a grand event on the weekend of July 6, 7 and 8 in his home town of Kansas City, Missouri.

The clock is ticking down, and only weeks remain before this exceptional event. The time is now now NOW! to make your plans to join us for this huge, once in a lifetime gathering, remembrance and birthday celebration. Whether you're a science fiction fan, a student of Heinlein's work and legacy or involved with the growing world of commercial spaceflight... This is where you'll want to be that weekend. Don't miss out!

Hmm...KC is only about 2 hours away from me...may need to see what's going on that weekend...

Jim Downey

[link] FLORIDA -- Two priests have been accused of stealing more than $8.6 million from collection plates to bankroll lavish double lives.

Those lives involved girlfriends, property investments and gambling junkets to Las Vegas and the Bahamas, police say.

Retired Msgr John A. Skehan, 79, pastor at St Vincent Ferrer for more than 40 years, was picked up at Palm Beach airport after returning from Ireland and was in custody.

[R.A.H.] The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes on to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man.

But it's lovely work if you can stomach it.

Indeed.