Hypocrisy of the Week

As everyone has by now heard, this country is going to shit because of the wild judicial decisions made by activist judges. At least, that's what our right-wing friends and their leader, Emperor Bush, would like us to believe. Although I haven't found an exact definition of what an activist judge is, Wikipedia's entry on this subject contains the following line: "a term used perforatively to describe rulings or decisions which are perceived to endorse or implement a particular social or political agenda".

Despite the fact that the whole Judicial Activism entry in Wikipedia is being contested as not being "neutral", I think the definition given is somewhat accurate. An activist judge is someone who basis his or her decision on personal opinion and motivation, not on Constitutional arguments. Not that I think judicial activism is as rampant in this country as some would have us believe. In fact, I think it's a diversion used by our 'leaders' who just don't agree with the fact that judges from all levels of our judicial system have found certain legislation unconstitutional. That's their job and if they rule as such then we're in the position to accept it or appeal it, not make false claims that those making these highly important decisions are biased. Perhaps that asking too much.

But let's go back to that definition again. A activist judge, in his or her simplest form, is someone who ignore Constitutional precedent to form an judicial opinion tainted with personal opinion and bias. It comes as no surprise, of course, that the person leading the way in this finger pointing is our fearless president. It seems strange to me that the issue of activist judges hasn't actually been a issue at all until this current presidency. Could it have anything to do with the questionable legislative practices of our resident Republican majority Congress? We'll let smarter people than myself make that judgement.

I propose a new term, maybe one that will take us to the end of Bush's second and final term: activist President. Is it possible to be an activist President? In other words, can a President choose a course of action based on personal opinion and not necessarily popular support nor overwhelming precedent or evidence? Of course. It happens all the time, though some President's decisions have more impact than others. Mr. Bush has proven once again that he isn't concerned about the will of the American public nor making policy to make the public happy. Instead, he panders to his major supporters (right wing Christians, big business, etc.). For instance, Bush recently vetoed a bill to provide federal funding to stem cell research despite the legislation being approved by both the Senate and House of Representatives by overwhelming majorities. The people we voted into office to represent us, the people of the United States, decided that we would like more federal funding to go into research that could potentially lead to cures of all sorts of diseases and maladies. Despite this fact, Bush decided to veto the bill because it violated his personal beliefs and those of his supporters. If the man had any credibility before this, it's gone now.

But the truth is that stem cell research is here and it's going to stay. Maybe not in the U.S. but in many other countries around the world. Eventually, when we elect a leader who has at least one foot in reality, we too will join the effort. Of course, there is still some hope left in Bush. If his major contributers ever become so arthritic (a condition potentially cured through stem cell research) that they can no longer sign a donation check, Bush may change his mind. His lack of credibility won't be cured, but it would give the rest of us hope for the future.

So much to do, so little time.

I don't know where to begin. Needless to say, I've been busy. Has anything been worth writing about? It's questionable, but I'll try anyway and let you be the judge.

I finally got the accident report from the Houston Police Department from when I was rear-ended by a car that was rear-ended by the drunken whore. Now I can finally deal with my insurance company who will deal with the DW's insurance company. Best case scenario, she pays for everything and this is resolved before I go to Germany. Worst case scenario, I'm about the $500 deductable I'll have to pay when my insurance company determines that the DW is incapable of paying for the damages and my policy will have to cover them. It's not something I really want to deal with but such is life.

Engineers Without Borders. It's consuming my life, but not in a bad way. The only real aggravating part is that I'm essentially trying to do the work of three or four people, which means that not enough is getting done. As the "Outreach Coordinator" I'm in charge of the P.R. for the group. It's not something I'm used to doing and I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea how to go about doing it. That's assuming, of course, that I know what "it" is. In the meantime I've been focusing on organizing our bi-monthly engineering seminars, the last of which occurred Thursday. It was a huge success, drawing in twentyone paying attendees. I know, twentyone isn't a very large number, but it is significantly more people than we had at our last seminar so I'm very happy. Not that we made much of a profit from this thing, but the exposure is great and we've even managed to draw in new members so it's all been worth it. Now that this seminar is over, it's time to start working on the next one. Like I said, too much to do, not enough time. I have some ideas and it would be incredibly useful to find others to help me implement them. Priorities are a complicated thing, and choosing them even more complicated.

The highlight of the week, however, occured this past Friday when I got to head up to Walter's on Washington, a little dive bar in a questionable part of town, and see The-Future-Mrs. The Rube perform. Yes, I'm talking about Tristan Prettyman, the San Diego beauty with voice of an angel and looks that could stop a man dead in his tracks. You can imagine the excited response she got from the men in the room when she announced that she was newly single. So you're saying there's a chance...I really can't say enough about this girl. She's only 24 so she has (hopefully) a long career ahead of her. Although I love seeing her perform at small venues, I wish her the best of luck in finding her groove and exposing herself to the world (musically, of course) for everyone to enjoy. She'll be performing at this years Austin City Limits so, if you plan on attending, please check her out and support a great and relatively unknown musician.

I'll admit this is a relatively boring post. Consider it a summary of the week, one that was busy but not exciting to anyone but possibly myself. Perhaps there is one thing that everyone would love to hear about (excluding the majority of my readers who I actually work with) and that is the impending shuttle launch. First, and foremost, I want to point out that the Shuttle does NOT launch from Houston. I've started seeing this girl who thought we launched from Galveston. This relationship isn't going to last long (I hope she doesn't read this...it was a joke, really!) No, my friends, we launch (as we always have) from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. As you aleady know, we failed to launch both Saturday and Sunday due to weather (we have VERY conservative constraints on weather) and the next attempt will be made on Tuesday. Although Monday is a viable launch date, having the shuttle all gassed up and ready to go on the launch pad for two days results in the need for a little maintenance. This will be done on Monday and the shuttle will be good to go for a few more days. Keep your fingers crossed. It's been some time since the last launch and despite what you may have heard about safety issues with the launch, everyone here is confident that we will get the crew into space safely. Nobody would have given a thumbs up for launch if they felt otherwise. For those of you with some concerns, let me put this in perspective. The space shuttle has over a million parts. That's 1,000,000 pieces of cabling and wires, and nuts and bolts and gears and valves and sensors and anything else you could possibly think of in a mechanical system. Even if you had a 0.001% failure rate (that is, 99.999% of the parts experienced no issues) that still leaves 1,000 pieces of hardware with the potential for causing issues. For those of you non-engineers, 99.999% is a ridiculously impossible number to sustain in any engineering system. Things break. That's a natural law. In fact, at the risk of shattering your faith in modern engineering, I'll divulge a little secret: everything you buy is designed to break. That's not to say you're being screwed everytime you buy something, but nothing lasts forever and the trick of successful engineering is to design something that fails in a known and control fashion. That's the only way you can predict failure and successfully prevent it. The break pads on your car will fail eventually but since the people who create them know this, and understand the mechanism, they can recommend how often you should be changing them out. Rather convenient, don't you think. On the other hand, because nothing is 100% reliable, more often than not redundancy is built into a system. So, when you hear about a malfunctioning temp sensor onboard the shuttle, be concerned but also understand that there are ways to get around it and rest assured that there are many, many people on the ground working around the clock to figure out a solution.

Whew...I didn't expect to write so much. I hope that shed's some light on the current situation. Someone asked me to write a little about my work so I hope that was informative. I'll gladly take any requests to write more. I can't get enough of this stuff ;)

Another downside to our failure to launch is that I know have to work the midnight shift this week...sort of. I'm working it tonight (Sunday night/Monday morning) but then I get Tuesday off due to the holiday. If we don't launch on Tuesday then I'm coming back in Wednesday and then through the rest of the week until we launch. It wouldnt' be all that bad if I didn't have a day on shift, then a day off shift, and then back on shift. If you hear from me this week, I may be a bit out of it. Now you know why.

For some reason I'm once again unable to uplink photos to the site. I'm getting sick of this. I know the blog has been looking a little bland lately so I'll do what I can to spruce it up. Until then you're stuck looking at boring text.

Have a great 4th of July! Don't forget that it's possible to love your country even if you don't agree with everything it's doing. America has fought long and hard to get where it is now. People have sacrificed, they've died, and they've spoken out and supported causes despite the danger it might have put them in. This holiday isn't just about the American Revolution. It's about the greatness of this nation and it's humble beginnings. It's about the love and dedication its people have felt and pledged for over two hundred years. I love my country because there's no other like it but there are many things about us that I can't stand and you can be sure that I'll invoke my Constitutional right as an American to rant and rave about them here for your enjoyment.

-The Rube