ddubb industries

Digital Ethnography

October 31st, 2008 | creative, cultural, technical

I just found this video on The Lab, a design firm working in the U.S. campus ministry communications field. Interesting facts and effective presentation.

Adam Kokesh, an Iraq Veteran Against the War

October 24th, 2008 | cultural, historical, political

On Thursday evening I attended dinner and a lecture with former Marine Corp Sergeant Adam Kokesh, a veteran of Fallujah in 2004. Because of his experience, Adam has since become an outspoken opponent of the US-led occupation of Iraq. Someday when I become famous and my detractors dig up the list of radical characters I’ve associated with, I’m sure the 3 hours we’ve spent within arm’s reach will come into question—though I can’t argue that I was only 8 years old!

I’ve recorded the first hour of the lecture here (mp3, 26Mb) and have captured the full two hours including Q&A on video (but am currently experiencing difficulty transferring the two 2Gb files off the camera.) Please listen with an open mind and try to put yourself in the boots of the thousands of young men and women in these types of situations everyday. Challenge yourself to think more deeply than the soundbites you hear on TV about “the surge” and what the “generals on the ground” say.

Although the audience was obviously predisposed to agree with him, Adam clearly challenged the crowd when he explained his perspective on how Obama and McCain have essentially the same foreign policy. There were gasps when he boldly gave the reasons he believes that McCain would actually bring the troops home before Obama! He cited McCain’s response to a question about how the future would be in 4 years under his administration where he answered that the troops would be home by then. He puts more confidence in McCain’s ability to take charge of the military. Obama, he countered, has proposed keeping a force of 40,000 in Iraq indefinitely. However, he accused McCain of supporting policies that make it less desirable for soldiers to retire to increase retention. In the end, his opposition of the two main party candidates was quite obvious, and to me, refreshing.

Adam told his story with uncommon honesty, humor, transparency and eloquence. I hope he can return to speak before a larger audience at Tech, including the corp.

Google CEO Endorses Warner in Lyric

October 24th, 2008 | cultural, economic, local, political, technical

At noon on Thursday, I stood in line an hour early outside the Lyric to see Blacksburg native and current CEO of Google Eric Schmidt answer questions with and give glowing endorsements to VA Senate candidate and former governor Mark Warner. I attempted a bootleg audio recording via laptop mic which you can try to listen to here (mp3, 1hr, 26Mb). The signal to noise ratio is very poor.

I was impressed by Mark’s precision and passion. He rose above party platitudes to give solid answers about government’s role in education, technology, infrastructure, and energy. I was particularly in agreement with his belief that the government’s role is not to pick winners and losers as they have done with ethanol. He opposes giving subsidies to alternatives and favors the more rational option of simply ending the lucrative 75 year tax breaks the oil industry has enjoyed. Let them compete on a level playing field.

There was also naysaying about the bailout from both Schmidt and Warner, though the latter didn’t explicitly say he would have opposed it. Warner ended with a reminder that his most important achievement as governor was getting Tech into the ACC.

Hunting Facts

October 20th, 2008 | ecological

It may not seem like something you’d picture me doing, but I completed the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries hunter safety course this weekend in order to get my hunting license. I always go to great lengths to avoid killing any member of the animal kingdom (my rule is that it has to be in the imminent act of biting me), but as long as I remain an omnivore, someone’s got to do it. It’s time for me to man up and participate in the food chain. As far as carnivorism goes, venison is lean, free-range, organic, delicious, and essentially free. As far as ethics are concerned, which is worse: a shot through the heart or a disease-ridden starvation on a cold winter night?

Some interesting facts:

• The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is completely self-supported through license fees and taxes on firearms and ammunition, no general tax money. (A lot more government services should be run this way.)
• The list of federally protected birds of prey includes eagles, falcons, hawks, vultures, and crows.
• By the 1930’s in Virginia, deer were hunted to near extinction by market hunting (as opposed to sport hunting) where hunters would kill dozens of deer and sell the meat as a job.
• To reintroduce the animal, they were trapped in the upper-peninsula of Michigan brought to this area. If not for the revenues of sport hunting, this would not have been possible and the deer would have become extinct.
• Hunting permits have been on the decline in the last 5 years due to public pressures.
• 5% of the population hunts. 5% of the population is anti-hunting.
• Virginia had 47 hunting incidents last year: 5 fatal, 19 with shotguns, 16 involving falling out of treestands, and 16 self-inflicted.
• In 1992, the year Virginia started it’s mandatory blaze orange law, hunter-on-hunter fatalities went from 5 to 0.
• Pennsylvannia is the only state with a primative weapons season which requires mandatory flint-lock muzzle-loaders like the settlers used.
• Squirrels were the primary source of protein for settlers of Southwest VA.
• Coyotes are becoming more common in southwest Virginia because the deer population is soaring. One of the instructors has trapped two on Virginia Tech property in this year alone.
• Groundhog pelts sell for $1.50, used as glove-liners. The instructor has trapped 352 thus far this season.
• Never stalk a turkey, you’re likely to be following the sound of another hunter making turkey calls.
• If you get lost in the woods, admit you’re lost, stop and make a plan. The average person wandering lost in the woods walks in a 1.5 mile circle.
• It is illegal to hunt deer from a boat in VA.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

October 16th, 2008 | axiomatic, economic, historical

The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
106 - 43 BC

The Man With A Chronically Incurable Case of Stickittothemaneosis

October 6th, 2008 | axiomatic, political

This video illustrates my thesis that the differences between the two major parties are merely superficial.

“Our vaunted two-party system is a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey.”

Patrick J. Buchanan
2000 Reform Party Presidential Candidate

Ralph Nader, love him or hate him, is an exceptional personality. He comes from Catholic Arab Lebanese descent, speaks Arabic, Chinese, Russian, graduated Princeton and Harvard, has been a consumer rights activist since the 50’s, and a 5 time presidential candidate.

He is lambasted by the Democratic party for causing Gore’s defeat by 527 Florida votes in 2000. To this he responds: each of the seven other 3rd party candidates got more votes than the spread, Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, the controversial Supreme Court decision blocked a recount, and 250,000 registered Florida Democrats voted for Bush.

He says if the Democrats can’t win 2008 in a landslide, they ought to just wrap up, close down, and emerge in a different form. I gleaned some good thoughts from him on the spirit of the 3rd party concept this weekend:

“There comes a time when the least worst is just not good enough for America.”

“How is it that the 65th seed in the NCAA tournament is given a chance to win the whole thing but a 3rd party presidential candidate is not allowed to debate with the other two?”

To know and not to act is not to know. (Chinese Proverb)

Ralph Nader
2008 Independent Presidential Candidate

“Better to vote for someone you believe in and lose, than to vote for someone you do not believe in and win, because that someone will surely betray you.”

Eugene Debs
1900 3rd party presidential candidate

Chuck Norris Trusts Ron Paul

October 3rd, 2008 | axiomatic, political

Part 1 (fast forward to 8:40 for the full context of the quote below), Part 2

“I don’t trust any of them. Ron Paul is the only guy I trust. If I had one wish… one wish… I’d like to line up all the members of Congress, and have Ron Paul walk with me down the line and say, ‘Okay, which one’s corrupted? Which one’s corrupted?’ And the ones he points to… I will choke them unconscious. And stick them into a pile.”

Chuck Norris
Force of Nature

I’ve never heard the Texas Ranger talk politics, but he’s rock-solid on small-government Constitutional principles and apparently pro-Paul now. Who would dare risk their life to oppose a Paul/Norris ticket 2012?