Mr Mahatma--who is a Mr in real life--lives in the valleys of Southern California with his wife, a herd of Dears, and an impressive collection of books. Pnorny!
He is reachable at:
littlemrmahatma@yahoo.com

All writings are copyrighted 2003-2008 and trademarked: Little Mr. Mahatma

tBlog Mirror

Some fun links:
Little Miss Attila - polar opposite and origin of LMM.

Critical Sites:
Dr. Forbush Thinks
Slashdot
Games Slashdot
UserFriendly
James Randi
Snopes
Home of the Underdogs
The Sun Online

For those generous in spirit, heart, and wallet:

So with Condaleeza and Rummy saying that - golly gee - there's no ties between 9/11 and Hussein, Bush has jumped on the bandwagon. Don't expect any sort of apology though. What they've cleverly done is produced some poll that says 70% of Americans believe there was a link between 9/11 and Hussein. It's our fault, you see.

Ignore the fact that Bush kept on harping that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda, later changed to links to terrorism, as a justification for invading Iraq. Watch now as they try a reverse spin, something like:

"We acted according to the wishes of the American people for a free Iraq and to remove a source of terrorism. Many Americans believed that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda, a belief our intelligence has shown incorrect."

And for $190 BILLION still no Hussein or bin Laden. For that much we could've entirely leveled Afghanistan and Iraq and built a freakin' MidEast Disneyland.

Governor Davis has some breathing room thanks to an Appeal Court postponing the California recall. Republicans and anti-Davis people are whining that this helps Davis.

But does it?

If the conspiracy theorists are right this will help Republicans - big time.

If California is forced to go electronic then give California to Arnold or McClintlock. Paranoid, conspiracy types say (and with good reason) that the companies that sell the electronic machines (Diebold, for example) are run by outwardly Pro-Rebulican supporters AND that voting by electronic means is very open to manipulation. No accountability which is just the way the Republicans like it.

So the postponement MAY help Davis but if California has to go fully electronic look for a surprise Republican win. Heck, if the U.S. goes entirely electronic look to see the major and many minor states having Republican Governors with just enough Democrats to look good but, in reality, be ineffective.

OH MY GAWD!!!

Ben and J Lo have broken up!!! My world has ended. I mean, I just LIVE to follow those two and they were SO PERFECT together. What will I do? How can my life continue?

J Lo is the perfect female - beautiful, talented, rich. All women should be like her, really! She's like every guys dream, certainly mine. She's perfect for Ben.

And with the perfect woman is the perfect man - Ben. Big Ben! Everything about him displays the ultimate achievement of all that is a man. Every male should constantly strive to be like Ben. He's perfect for J Lo.

And the two of them together, heaven on earth. Everlasting salvation and rapture in our time. With those two married our world would have been perfect.

But now, despair, hopelessness, confusion. What will we do?

Rumsfeld is again pushing the position that if you're critical of or against Bush's policies then you are helping the terrorists cause.

This is outright bullshit.This is against what America is about - Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, Freedom to call our "President" an idiot if we feel it is warranted.

Rumsfeld has proven himself an Anti-American. If anything his words and actions are helping the terrorists by giving them a reason to fear America and to unite against us. His attempts to coerce and scare Americans into supporting Bush demonstrates the very bullying mentality that the terrorists are against.

As Americans it is our right to vote for and judge the efficacy of whomever is in office. If we feel that our leaders are wrong we can say so. It is perfectly American to be against terrorism and still think the person occupying the Presidency is in impostor.

Go away Rumsfeld. We wish you out to the cornfield.

And no end in sight. Thanks Bush for making damn sure that your friends increase their wealth at the expense of taxpayers.

(Maybe I should make a contribution to Bush's re-election fund. Become a bosom buddy of his.

Nah. Too much self-esteem.

Where's a recall when you need one?)

As we approach 2 years after 9/11, no bin Laden, no Hussein, no Weapons of Mass Destruction, no proof of a threat to the U.S. by Iraq what-so-ever. Instead, we're saddled with restoring the economies of Afghanistan and Iraq which counts a minor victory for the terrorists. They wanted to disrupt our system and they have.

How about we set fire to the oilfields and get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan.Those tribes want to kill each other - let them.

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code

Finished it. Loved it. Yet another fun mystery revolving around secret societies, symbolism, history, and weirdness. Nice that neither The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The Illuminati, nor Hiram Abiff were mentioned. The plot became a tad predictable as to the real bad guy and where the big finale would take place but still an enjoyable read. Much more enjoyable than Tom Clancy's latest. Ugh, now I'm not looking forward to reading Ludlum's last. I still have conspiracy on the brain. Where's the picture of The Last Supper?

Scooby Doo

I may have to stop my kids from watching this cartoon. Goodness, it's a covert attempt to turn them all into potheads! Scooby Doobie Do - get it? Which would explain why Shaggy (the old hippie) and Scooby always have the munchies. But it doesn't explain why I have this deja vu feeling that this topic has been before. The colors....

September 19th. What? You don't know about "Talk Like A Pirate" Day? Get yer bloated, barnacle ridden carcass over to:

Talk Like A Pirate

In particular worm yer way o'er to "Ask Capt Slappy". Tell 'im Greybeard The Flatulent sent ye.

The Teeth Of The Tiger

I finished Clancy's latest last night in a 2 day, 400-page blitz of reading. Before that I plowed through Maugham's Of Human Bondage which I liked though I wanted to throttle the main character a few times. At least, he got the young babe in the end (no pun intended, I think) - I had uncertainty about his heterosexuality but then again it's Maugham.

Back to Clancy. His last book Red Rabbit was boring, plodding, and for me unfinishable. This new book showed a return to his "normal" style - action but with lots of techie stuff. He could've added more in details on how people are tracked through their computers but that's my personal whim.

The book ends abruptly. The last 20 pages or so seem like a rush, like Clancy was trying to meet some sort of publishing deadline.

Clancy has written longer books. What I fear is that instead of writing a complete solid story in 600 pages, Clancy is chopping this plot into two books of 400 pages each. Instead of buying a single $39 book, we're facing the purchase of 2 $29 books. Nice profit there. Then the next plot can be split up between 3 books.

I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend.

In the meantime I'll just lose myself in Dan Brown's latest The Da Vinci Code with a Robert Ludlum waiting in the batters circle. Don't worry. It's just a phase I go through - thrillers this month. Classics the next.

Digital Rights Management

You thought Microsoft was a slimy, monopolistic, law-breaking company. You ain't seen nothing yet. Buy your stock now.

File sharing, as you know, can be a good thing or a bad thing with the argument boiling down to privacy / piracy versus profit. The RIAA and music companies are crying over lost profits due to mp3 sharing. Movie companies grind their teeth when copies of their films get swapped within hours of a premiere. And the swappers say their privacy is being invaded by these companies and, oh, music and movies cost too much.

But - problem solved - it's Microsoft to the rescue with their new Digital Rights Management. Now each user can specify who can read a file. Piracy problem solved! Profit problem solved! Privacy maintained!

Except...(you could see this coming, right?)

Let's say I create a file in Office 2005 with DRM. No other (non-Microsoft) program will be able to read this. Wow, such security! That means if you want to share a file with a Linux OpenOffice user you'll either have to convert the file to a simpler non-DRM format or they'll have to convert to Microsoft. Such convenience! Such a good use of business time.

Microsoft could release versions of their apps for Linux but that'd be admitting that Linux is a real OS. No, much better to force everyone to abide by Microsoft's "standards". Force businesses to "upgrade" from Linux to Microsoft.

Or this scenario: you have a business with 5000 computers, all running Office 2002. Some of them upgrade to Office DRM. The folks running 2002 can't read the DRM files. "Gosh!" says Microsoft, "You have to upgrade your 2002 users to DRM and have we got a licensing deal for you..."

DRM will be yet another way for Microsoft to inflict costly upgrades on people and companies, not a one-time upgrade but continual. Microsoft is a rich company. They want to stay rich. They need continual sources of income. What better way than to release new versions of their products that will be neither forward nor backwards compatible.

Mind you, I'm not cheesed over Microsoft being a monopoly. Not at all. The pinnacle of success for a business is to be a monopoly. I deplore Microsoft's method of becoming a monopoly and my disgust with them started way back in the DOS days. Yes, that's how long Microsoft has been manipulating things.

I remember when Microsoft and DR-DOS both came out with upgrades. The computer magazines consistently rated DR-DOS better, with nicer utilities. With Microsoft everything was half-baked. The new memory manager worked fair. It left an opening filled by Quarterdeck's memory manager. Anyway. Consensus was that DR-DOS was better than MS-DOS.

Yet DR-DOS failed and MS-DOS sold gazillions. Why? Because Microsoft had a scam where every PC would come preloaded with MS-DOS - even if you didn't want that OS, Microsoft still got a cut.

Money wasn't cheap back then. You spend $1,200 on a new PC, you'd think twice about spending another $40 for DR-DOS when MS-DOS worked OK. And, of course, Microsoft programs written for MS-DOS may not run under DR-DOS. And vice versa. Excel might run fine in MS-DOS but Lotus might have problems.

And hence the birth of a monopoly. You control the OS, you control the software that can run under it.

Tell me if this sounds familiar? Microsoft would release an app - it'd be garbage. But, after borrowing ideas from competitors and a bit of creative marketing, by version 3 Microsoft would own the niche.

Or to knock out a competitor they release either a free clone, buy the company, or incorporate the clone into the OS and claim it's necessary. Bye-bye Netscape. Toodles Quicktime and RealPlayer. Tschuss Fox Software. Adios AOL Messenger. Sayonara Autocad. (Whoops, Autocad still owns their market...for now.)

Time to stop before I *really* start frothing. With DRM on its way to your desktop, now's a good time to buy Microsoft (MSFT). Be a part of the monopoly.

(But you may want to use Linux and OpenOffice to get your real work done.)

And, once again, when you talk about religion with "true" believers it's best to leave logic at the door and make your drink a double.

Our Founding Fathers may have Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or even Satanists - it doesn't matter!! When they wrote our Constitution and other vital documents they purposely and explicitly constructed a separation between Church and State. At no point do they say America will be a Judeo-Christian country.

This point is inarguable. If the Fathers favored a religion, you'd have seen it written up. Since we have Freedom of Religion in this country let's have a statue of Ganesha or of Satan - certainly Judge Moore can't have a problem with that.

With that in mind, what exactly is meant by "Freedom of Religion" - is it a requirement to believe in a religion, any religion? If so, does it have to be an organized religion?

Certainly if Freedom of Religion is a requirement to support a religion, then it's not a freedom. It's societal pressure. It's what our Founding Fathers sought to avoid.

Let's focus on that maligned concept: Freedom.

I contend that there are two types of Freedom: Societal and Spiritual. To demonstrate the difference consider this scenario: You are alone on the planet. Just you - no one else. You'd have complete Societal Freedom. You could do whatever you want without fear of the police or anyone calling you to task for your actions. You could leave the toilet seat up, burn down the neighbors house, or go into a movie theater and yell "Fire!" You could travel anywhere, read anything, eat anything, watch anything. Your actions are your own without consequences from any authority.

Maybe. You might not have Spiritual Freedom, that though you could burn down the neighbor's house (there is no more neighbor), somehow it isn't the right thing to do. Similarly, come a Sunday, you could skip going to church but somehow it wouldn't be right. Or on Friday you could skip lighting Shabbat candles. Or you could skip fasting during Ramadan. Or, or, or...

(Would you stop praying? Would you pray in an empty temple? Would you fast?)

For an Atheist spiritual freedom and societal freedom are deeply linked. The Morality of the Atheist focuses solely on his relation to other people. In our scenario removing the societal pressure grants complete societal and spiritual freedom!

In our scenario if we add in one person as a neighbor consider how that would affect you. You wouldn't have complete freedom. Your behavior could result in conflicts. And how would you feel if your kindly neighbor started telling you how to think, started questioning your beliefs.Your societal freedom is immediately impacted. If your spiritual freedom is affected, you'd likely get angry or upset. If you don't like your neighbor looking at you askew because of your religious beliefs how would you feel if your government did the same?

Freedom of Religion, I believe, is not intended to be a requirement to believe in a religion. That would be overstepping Societal Freedom and infringing on Spiritual Freedom. Our Government ideally does not do this. This type of infringement is what we fought against (in part) when we warred in Afghanistan. This is why our Founding Fathers called for a separation of Church and State, to separate Societal Freedom from Spiritual Freedom.

By necessity Freedom of Religion MUST include Freedom from Religion. If I belong to a mainstream Roman Catholic Church and that's acceptable to the notion of Freedom of Religion, then belonging to a branch of that Church must also be acceptable. If belonging to a branch or a sect is acceptable then certainly it must be acceptable if that sect consists of myself and at least one other person. If that's acceptable, why can it not be acceptable that the sect or branch consists of only myself? Can an organized religion consist of a single person? Arguably yes if you're focussing on Spiritual Freedom. Arguably no if there's a societal requirement i.e. you must have more than one person involved. If Freedom of Religion includes Freedom from Religion the question of the religion being organized becomes moot. More importantly it restores Spiritual Freedom to the individual.

Certainly if I'm free to believe in any religion, I'm also free to not believe in any religion. Our great country may have been founded by Judeo-Christian believers but they recognized that their or anyone else's personal religious beliefs do not belong in Government.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

ABC showed this film on Sunday night, a 2-hour film. My family watched it - the kids liked it despite the commercials. My wife and I both thought that few scenes were chopped out. Monday while in Walmart we bought the DVD for $9. It's a 2.5 hour film!! We were shocked when we watched it. ABC chopped out at least 40% of the film, including the great song P.O.S.H. - those bastards!

My wife and I started talking about CCBB and it's relation to other films. Bear with me.

Ian Fleming wrote the book as well, of course, the James Bond series. "Cubby" Broccoli directed Jamed Bond and CCBB. Gert Frobe (Auric Goldfinger) and Desmond Llewellyn (Q) are both in CCBB. During the hovercraft scene in CCBB I expected the James Bond theme to kick in.

The Sherman Brothers did the music for CCBB and Mary Poppins. Dick Van Dyke was in CCBB and Mary Poppins. Sally Ann Howes looked like Julie Andrews and tried to sound like her with her voice of loving consternation in CCBB - OK, not a good connection.

Roald Dahl wrote the CCBB screenplay and the Willy Wonka series. Candy and a candy factory are important in both films. Both films have a candyman of sorts. Both films have families missing either a father or mother, and include a singing and "dancing" grandfather. Both films end with views from a flying vehicle.

Julie Andrews' husband Blake Edwards made the classic comedy "The Great Race" which in part has scenes in Castle Neuschwanstein as does CCBB. In the Great Race the castle is located in Pottsdorf! Both films have car races as important plot elements. Both films involve castle rescues.

Any more connections?

Of course one thing really bothered me in CCBB. In the beginning when Chitty is wrecked and when you see the kids playing in her, the car's front end is collapsed. Yet, when the car is delivered to Potts it's intact. Plus that didn't look like Desmond Llewellyn delivering the car. OK, enough nit picks. Time to get on with life.