The Leaking Brain

For those of my readers who attend Washington University, alot of brouhaha (Check, goal number 44, use the word brouhaha in a sentence) has been made over the lack of competition for elected positions.  For example, 17 candidates are running for 19 treasury spots.  2 Candidates are running for 2 spots as Engineering representatives.  For this reason I am throwing my hat into the ring.  According to StudLife, about 400 students voted in the last election, with one representative being elected with 2% of the vote that comes out to about 8 people voting for him!  A candidate for senate from the Art-Sci school received 1.5% of the vote and won, 6 votes.  The way I see it, if I can convince about 20 people to vote for me I’m practically a shoe-in.  This is fortunate, seing as my readership is somewhere around 15-20 regulars.

So here’s the deal.  Write me in under Treasury and under Engineering representative. 

Vote for me!

 Sincerely,

Peter Glaser

Quick quiz: name one event that happened between 1400 and 1500.  Given the state of American education there is a very possible chance that you couldn’t name anything but that is a story for another day.  For now, I would say that it is relatively safe to assume that you correctly remembered that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and that the event you named was Columbus’s “discovery” of America.  Now a slightly harder question: name any war that happened between 1400 and 1500.  In the unlikely event you were able to name one well then congratulations, in the more likely scenario that you drew a blank (you couldn’t remember the War of the Roses?) then you are one step closer to realizing why Space Exploration is necessary.

Quick quiz:  Who were the first people to climb Mt. Everest?   Who were the first people to land on the Moon?  Who invented the Astrolabe that made Columbus’s voyage possible?  In what country is the first Democracy believed to have existed?  The answers are Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Hipparchus, and India.  If you were only able to answer the first two questions it is completely understandable.  You are one more step closer to realizing why Space Exploration is necessary.

Quick quiz:  Which duo explored the Louisiana Territory for President Jefferson between 1804 and 1806?  Who wrote “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, published between 1776 and 1789?  The answers to these two questions are Lewis & Clark and Edward Gibbon.  If you were unable to remember Gibbon as the answer to the second question well than you are one more step closer to realizing why Space Exploration is necessary.

I was recently asked what the most important single event of the 20^th century was.  Instantly I thought to WWII and the Holocaust, because nothing could have affected as many people as that.  I thought of the event that started it all and was about to say “Hitler invading Poland” when I thought to myself, “Surely, WWI was the most influential event.”  And so I got to thinking and was about to say “The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.”  Then the computer nerd in me woke up and screamed, “Hello!  The invention of the computer!” to which the physics nerd in me responded, “Uhh duh!  The invention of the Atomic Bomb!”  I even considered the possibility that it might be the writing of the Marshall plan for reconstruction after WWII or the destruction of the Berlin Wall signifying the end of Communism.  After mulling these options I finally said that it must have been the splitting of the atom because it lead to the invention of nuclear weapons.

I was quite happy with my answer until I was asked the first question that I asked you, “Name one event that happened between 1400 and 1500.”  I, like most others, answered Columbus’s discovery of America.  “Aha!” said the person who had originally sought my opinion.  I realized that while there were wars, inventions, and atrocities during the 15^th century, the one event that everyone remembers 500 years later was an accidental discovery.  This got me thinking about what event would be remembered 500 years from now.  While we study the American revolution, when there is no more America, all students will remember is the people who “discovered” the west.  When England is long gone, few will remember its Kings and Queens but many will remember its great citizen who conquered Everest.  And in 500 years when people look back on the 20^th century they will remember those brave men who first made it to the Moon.

Whenever the question of funding for space exploration comes up someone inevitably asks why we spend millions of dollars to explore an area with no practical application.  ‘Why should we go to Mars?  We’ve been to the Moon?  What is the benefit to the people?’ naysayers will ask.  There isn’t one.  The direct benefit to the people isn’t there, but we do it anyway.  Why, because it is what’s next.  Because we’ve conquered the lands that came before it.  The history of civilization has been a history of discovery.  Why should we explore space?  Because we can.  It is as simple as that.  In 500 or 1000 years when people look back upon our civilization our wars and our inventions will be forgotten, the 21^st century will not be remembered as the century in which a country called America invaded another one called Iraq.  It will not be remembered as the century in which terrorists killed innocent people by flying a plane into a building.  Those invents will become mere footnotes in the annals of history.

It has been almost 40 years since we reached the moon.  In that time space exploration has stagnated and eventually ground to a halt.  We have not set foot on the moon since 1972.  Sending probes into space to measure comets and photograph planets is fine, but it is time for manned space exploration to return to the forefront of our national goals.  In the 1960s America was inspired by the race to the Moon.  The American people watched in anticipation as the finest minds in the world worked to reach a place that had no practical application for the nation.  We have the capability to achieve greatness.  We can “boldly go where no man has gone before.”  It is the calling of man, to discover what lies just beyond the horizon.  We conquered the high seas and the West, we conquered the North Pole and the South Pole.  We looked upward toward the heavens and conquered the moon.  It is high time we took the next step.  We have the capability to achieve greatness and to not do so will be our biggest failure.

Quick Quiz:  How much is NASA’s yearly budget?  How much is the budget for the war in Iraq?  $16.25 billion and approximately $60 billion.

It seems these days that we always find reasons to celebrate. Well here’s one, I’ve been blogging for a month. So here’s a few reflections before I go to sleep.

A few statistics:

1. There have been 145 page views (not including my own) in total this month.

2. The most page views there have been in a day is 13.

3. There have been 2 comments left by visitors.

4. I’ve written a little less than 7000 words.

People have found their way onto my site in weird ways, this is a list of some of the most common search terms (in no particular order) people used to get to my site

1. “Colbertopoly” — for the record as of 2/29 I am the only result.
2. “leaking brain ?” — A very interesting question
3. “physics and child labour” — We all know that the reason why India has so many more physics students is because they are forced to calculate De Broglie wavelengths in a sweatshop all day.
4. “leaking from the right side of the brain” — A personal favorite, since I assume this person wanted medical attention I will say that if you are leaking from the right side of the brain, you probably don’t have much time left so you might as well read some articles here before going on to WebMD.

Writing this blog has not been easy but to all my (at most 13 on any one day) readers I say, ‘Thank You for taking the time.’

On his show this past night Stephen Colbert complained that there was no Colbert version of Monopoly. So as a loyal fan, this is what I came up with.

****SO I WON’T GET SUED (i hope)****

This game is for personal use only, all copyrights pertaining to the images, games, and television shows mentioned, are reserved (I would assume) by their owners. If you wish to use this image commercially, you yourself must seek permission from the owners of these pictures.

It has been said that it is easier to tear down a home than it is to build one. This point was illustrated by Alberto Gonzales today, with the protesters has his proof. Regardless of what one thinks about the former Attorney General (personally I think he abused his position of power and overly politicized a position that ought to be at most, advisory) it is was nice to actually here him speak.

I had a couple of thoughts while I heard him speak, here they are:

Hearing him speak about how his poor immigrant background and his rise to the highest position in the US Government a Latino has achieved made me realize that he had to do something right. As much as we often criticize those in our government (on both sides of the aisle) for stupidity or untrustworthiness it is always humbling to remember that for them to have gotten to the position they did, they had to do something right. Example A is George W. Bush, while some say that he achieved everything in life do to his father’s influence, we ought to remember that while George W. and Jeb were both successes in life, brother Neil Bush has largely been a failure. So logically there must be something that George W. and Jeb did right that their brother did not.

Similarly, while we criticize politicians for their mismanagement of the government, in reality we know very little as to whether the government was actually mismanaged. In Plato’s book, “Crito”, Socrates who is in prison, having been convicted of corrupting the youth and sentenced to death. In reality, very few people in Athens actually wanted Socrates dead, they hoped that he would exile himself and they would not have to deal with him anymore. So he sat in prison with the population hoping he would escape and leave their country. Crito, Socrates’ rich friend, is sitting at his bedside telling Socrates that he has bribed the guards and arranged safe passage to other city-states in Greece and abroad. He begs Socrates to escape but Socrates refuses. He tells Socrates that if Socrates is put to death people will blame him because he is rich and could have freed Socrates. People will say that he is greedy because he wouldn’t give some of his fortune to spare Socrates’ life. Socrates responds that Crito shouldn’t worry about the opinion of the uninformed masses because the only people who matter are those who know the truth, who are himself and Crito. While we often criticize the government, we are so uninformed that our criticism is often irrelevant if not downright wrong.

Speaking of which Alberto Gonzales made a good point when he responded to a question about the United States violating the Geneva Convention in our treatment of terrorists. The Geneva Convetion says that the following groups of people (among others) shall be considered soldiers and therefore can be considered prisoners of war if captured:

-Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

- Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

-Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

Anyone who fulfills one of these requirements has the rights accorded to soldiers under the Geneva convention. Since terrorists are not members of an armed force that has a “fixed distinctive sign,” nor do they carry “arms openly,” or conduct “their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.” The laws and customs of war explicity prohibit the purposeful killing of civilians. Since these rules are violated, terrorists technically don’t get Geneva convention rights. But even if you do think that terrorists deserve Geneva Convention rights, among other stipulations the Geneva Convention says:

The Detaining Power may subject prisoners of war to internment. It may impose on them the obligation of not leaving, beyond certain limits, the camp where they are interned, or if the said camp is fenced in, of not going outside its perimeter.

So detaining terrorists in Guantanamo Bay is technically legal. I’m not saying I support the torture of detainees, I am very much against it. But to those people who put up signs and argue about the law, it would be nice if they got the facts right.

Finally, I commend the protesters for doing a good job today. They made their point without resorting to violence or smear tactics. The protesters who wore orange jumpsuits (prisoner outfits) and watched Alberto Gonzales speak were generally respectful and allowed him to say what he had to say.

As for the disgraceful, unfortunately there were a incredibly annoying people at the speech. To those few people who stood up in the middle of Gonzales’s speech and yelled things like “Torture” and “Perjury” before walking out of the speech I just have one thing to say, “Immature”. We are college students and therefore, I hope, capable of using logic to make a point.

One last thought. The one major point I on which I agreed with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was on his call to public service. It is, in my opinion, a noble act to serve one’s country and should be undertaken by more citizens. Besides, as George Carlin once said, If everyone always complains about corrupt politicians, where are all the honest citizens ready to take their place?