I don’t thnk I can ever be a comedian. I wouldn’t mind telling humiliating stories about myself for laughs, but I don’t have any particularly good stories. I lack the penchant for putting myself in humiliating situations.

Then again, I could always tell humiliating stories about other people.

I was thinking about something like this about a month ago. It’s a belt that goes around your torsoe and creates tactile sensations, either through vibration or heat. I’d use it to cheat on tests, by providing me with information I otherwise couldn’t memorize. (Of course, maybe all the time I spent building the belt and developing a language for that belt to communciate in would’ve been better spent studying.)

Looks as if the military’s been working on something similar for a while. Theirs differs in that they’re focusing on remote communication, not cheating on exams.

Links:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/04/darpa-wants-sol.html
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn10846-vibrating-vest-could-send-alerts-to-soldiers.html

1. I feel perpetually off-center when I’m at school, and normal when I get home.
2. Sometimes I get really paranoid that people secretly hate me.
3. I tell people that I really love pancakes, but I just think they’re okay.

Note: I debated whether to add “Because I secretly hate you” to the second one. I decided against it because 1) it wasn’t true, and 2) it sounded cliche upon second reading.

I enjoy conversing with other people because it always reminds me that I’m not as smart as I think I am.

As I mentioned before, I went to a book event where Glenn Greenwald was beginning his tour for Great American Hypocrites. (Wow, did I seriously just link Amazon?) If you want to know more, here’s an account written by a blogger I met at the event.

There was one thing I wanted to note in particular. A question was asked about “what can we do?” This question is important, but not unique. When people hear someone pointing out injustice or danger, they always ask what can the “little” person do. I’ve heard various answers, some more effective than others.

Greenwald’s answer was an anecdote about how a deluge of e-mails pressured Lee Hamilton to comment on something Michael Mukasey said. (Long story short: Mukasey made up a story about how 9/11 could’ve been prevented if only we’d eavesdropped on a certain phone call, and Hamilton at first refused to comment, and then after the e-mails commented that Mukasey said something the 9/11 Commission had never heard of.) We can also pressure thin-skinned journalist through blogging.

Here’s my addition:

Our political culture is not just sick from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. It’s not just the media’s fault for parroting hoary right-wing caricatures of leftists, but our fault for paying attention.

That is to say, every time you forward an e-mail saying Obama hates America, you make a difference.

But every time you combat such myths, you also make a difference.

After reading a blog post about Obama’s accomplishments in the Senate, I told my friend about how Obama was involved in reforming government and unsexy issues like nuclear non-proliferation. The very same night, when we were engaged in a political debate, he used those same talking points that I had told him.

Even if you make just one person aware, you have influenced the national debate in a powerful manner. What you say will spread.

(Caveat: It will only do so if it’s worth repeating and if it’s easy to repeat.)

The take-home message is, you don’t have to influence powerful people in order to influence the debate.

This kind of one-on-one work is just as important as the other stuff. However, don’t say, “Oh, I’ve convinced one person McCain isn’t as much of a maverick as he seems,” and then rest.

Change needs to be made both from the top-down and the bottom-up.

Keep up the discussion. Talk to your friends; e-mail the pundits and journalists. You’ll make a difference.

I don’t spend enough time staying in contact with the people I care about.

I don’t spend enough time making new friends.

I’m trying to change that about myself.

1. I’ll postpone eating because I hate washing dishes.
2. The only reason I’m still in college is because I feel an obligation towards my parents.
3. How can someone so unimportant as me get over a hundred e-mails in a week?

I went to Glenn Greenwald’s book signing today in DC. They ran out of books, though, so I didn’t have anything to sign. Still, I got to hear him talk and I got to meet him. That’s worth more than any signature in my estimation.

I plan on purchasing his book very soon. I have a feeling it’s going to give me a good framework in which to work.

Note to self: When you go somewhere, make sure you check when the trains get back. Also, expect a delay whenever dealing with trains.

I was totally stranded at the train station and then in the train. I tried calling people, but most of them didn’t pick up. To be honest, I really wanted to call Lloyd because he actually knows who Glenn Greenwald is, but I don’t have his number.

1. My internet addiction is obvious.
2. Sometimes I don’t like seeing other people have fun.
3. I talk to myself when I’m alone in the car.

1. I almost never wear deoderant.
2. I tried looking for God, but I found nothing.
3. Someone almost killed himself in the next room. We wouldn’t have noticed.

How does one motivate oneself?

Because of the necessity of working on weekends, I’m having trouble segregating my school life from my personal life.

This is really frustrating. I could work on blocking time to give me more personal time on the weekdays, but I really do need a Sabbath. Without a day off, I’m getting exhausted. The more exhausted I get, the more frustrated I get.

A whole day off. Is that so much to ask?

1. I don’t know my dad’s religious views.
2. I spend a lot of my time missing people.
3. I take delight in making people jealous.

1. Sometimes my best friends annoy me.
2. I’m too cynical to dance.
3. I’m uncomfortable around large homogeneous racial groups, i.e. too many white people or too many black people. Except Chinese people.

1. I’m a little bit serious when I say that “America, Fuck Yeah” should be our national anthem.
2. I can’t take short naps.
3. I don’t hate Hillary Clinton anymore.

I’m going to write three small confessions for each day, for one week.

Life lesson: If you’re going to buy something that looks cheap, examine it before you buy it. It might already be broken.

On the one hand, I have determined that I should turn the computer off in order to get more work done. I definitely have a bad addiction to the internets.

On the other hand, I am utterly dependent on the computer. I decided to start one of my homework assignments. I download the problem set from a web site. The first problem asks about density and gives me one solar mass as a unit. I open Google and search for “mass of sun” to find its mass in kilograms. It’s not just that. I need Word to do my writing assignments. I can’t win.

I’m like an alcoholic who needs to drink in order to get anything done.

Curse you, technology! My savior and my devil.

Random Thoughts:

1) I can’t put out all these fires. I have too much to do, and I’m having trouble getting myself organized enough to do it. Also, to switch metaphors, I wonder if I’m going to put too much on my plate.

2) I was talking with somebody today and the topic was the internets and various sites. “Have you seen site x?” I jokingly asked, “Have you heard of chalkboardmanifesto.com?” She had. I was shocked.

3) I don’t know if I can be a writer. I’m too protective of my words and not prolific enough. Writing is an event for me, and even small assignments hang over my head and make it hard to concentrate on other things. That just means I need to blog more to get over it.

I’ve been reading my own history, so I don’t repeat it.

I just became aware of how much of a narcissist I am. What a sobering revelation. Is this a part of growing up?

This is entry 31 for March.

From March 1:

I have a goal for March: I will have written 31 weblog entries for the month. I need to sharpen my writing skills and develop talking points. I need to commit my political talking points to memory.

Well, I didn’t really develop talking points, but I did begin to sharpen my writing skills. I wrote several longer pieces this month, which I haven’t done in a while.

I’m pretty excited about achieving the goal of 31 entries. It always feels good to set a goal and achieve it. I think I’ve made weblogging a habit once again, and you can look forward to many more entries in the future.

These Snickers commercials are genius.

By the way, does anyone know why YouTube is suddenly incompatible with Opera?

I feel like my brain is running on a treadmill and the treadmill won’t stop. It’s been running for who knows how long, and I’m starting to go crazy.

Maybe TV will help stop my brain’s constant frenetic activity.

UPDATE: And that’s why I can’t survive without television.

Isn’t this the opposite of what the surge was supposed to accomplish? We were supposed to have space for political reconciliation. This open warfare between factions is precisely the opposite of political situation. Propping up Maliki has led to this.

The American presence is supposed to prevent civil war, and here we are, our military supporting one side of a civil war.

Also, saw this: “The Turkish military said Saturday that it had killed 15 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Thursday using long-range land weapons, Reuters reported.” in a NY Times article. I got to find out what’s going on with that.

I’m doing my best to stay informed on the violence in Basra, and the rest of Iraq. Here’s some random links:

Slate: Warlord vs. Warlord

The fighting this week in Basra may be a prelude to the moratorium’s collapse and, with it, the resumption of wide-scale sectarian violence—Shiite vs. Sunni and Shiite vs. Shiite.

Many Shiites believe—not unreasonably—that Maliki ordered the offensive in Basra now in order to destroy Sadr’s base of support and thus keep his party from beating ISCI in the upcoming provincial elections.

NY Times: U.S. Planes Attack Militia Strongholds in Basra Fighting

Violence also broke out in Kut, Hilla, Amara, Kirkuk, Baquba and other cities. In Baghdad, where explosions shook the city throughout the day on Thursday, American officials said 11 rockets struck the Green Zone, killing an unidentified American government worker, the second this week.

Yahoo! News: US airstrike kills at least 4 in Baghdad

“He imprisoned and displaced thousands of Iraqi people under the name of democracy. He is killing the citizens in the south of Iraq,” Sheik Jalil al-Sarghi said, referring to al-Maliki as U.S. helicopters buzzed over the office where the prayer service was held.

[…]

The prime minister put his credibility on the line by flying down to Basra on Monday and issuing a weekend deadline for the surrender of Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to al-Sadr.

When the surge was first proposed, I said it was a foolish thing to do. I conceded that it could temporarily dampen violence. However, we were like Sisyphus, rolling the stone up the hill, and before it reaches the top, it will roll down again. With the outbreak of violence in Basra, I fear that Sisyphus’s boulder is rolling down the hill again.

Conservatives like to say that liberals take glee every time there’s bad news from Iraq. We don’t. We (well, I’m not quite a liberal) are angry because this was preventable. Our soldiers are dying because you sent them on a fool’s errand. We take no delight in being prescient about disaster. Instead, we are aghast that you are so detached from reality.

I’ve said that the surge has been a strategic failure (no political reconciliation, which was the stated purpose of the surge by surge-proponents), but now I want to go even further. As we continue with this boondoggle, we pump billions of dollars in Iraq. Much of this money simply disappears. The Iraqi government is a thinly veiled sectarian stronghold and some of this money undoubtedly goes into weapons. At the same time, we are bribing Sunnis not to kill us and not to kill other Iraqis. Undoubtedly, some of that money will go into weapons. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more money we dump into a civil war. We are fanning the flames. We are making the situation worse.

The surge was limited and we could maintain that troop level only for so long without breaking our military. That is why I predicted that any gains would be transient. We simply do not have the troops to pacify Iraq without a draft. Furthermore, because we do not have the necessary economic plan to rebuild Iraq and because we still do not enough people who speak their language, we cannot make the correct long term investments to make any real gains in Iraq. We’re attempting to nation-build with the military, which is the wrong approach. It is like trying to turn a screw with a hammer.

While I do recognize that leaving Iraq will not be a cakewalk, it is abundantly clear that the only correct option is to withdraw our troops. It is impossible to do what the proponents of war want us to achieve. We do not have enough men or cultural awareness. Our presence destabilizes Iraq while it bankrupts us. That is enough to discredit the pro-occupation stance.

I picked up Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely several days ago. It was a quick read; I finished it on the airplain ride to Baltimore. Dan Ariely is a Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT. The book’s about how the human mind makes the same kinds of mistakes over and over. We’re irrational, but not randomly irrational.

The book occasionally delves into speculation about policy implications, but it got me thinking more abstractly. I thought about political philosophy in general. Certain ideologies, such as radical libertarianism, are very wedded to the power of the free market. However, these ideas are based on a model of economics which are in turn based on a faulty theory of mind. In fact, inside any political philosophy, you’ll find a theory of human nature. If we’re finding out new things about human nature, shouldn’t our political philosophies reflect those new discoveries? Shouldn’t old political philosophies be tossed aside?

It’s not that I haven’t had the time to say things. I just don’t have much to say. Don’t worry, I’ll think of things. I have to. I’m behind in my goal for 31 entries for March.

A long time ago, I disabled hotlinking to my websites. That is, one could not put an image of mine (src=”mywebsite.com/blank.jpg”) on their own website. I had a very good reason. People loved posting my Chalkboard Manifesto comics on other people’s MySpace pages. On my old host, the amount of hotlinking from MySpace made me go over my bandwidth limits. I switched to a new host, but I was still using bandwidth at an alarming rate. I had to disable hotlinking.

Although I’m still with that same host, they’ve since upped my bandwidth (and space). I’m reconsidering lifting that hotlinking ban. It’s amazing how little bandwidth and server space costs these days.