Utah County Republican BBQ

I like, Utah Conservative attended the republican Utah County BBQ last week. It was about what I expected. Out of order questions that can be answered by reading the bylaws and food followed by a unanimous vote. I came for the meeting to fulfill my responsibility as Neighborhood Chair then left before the BBQ because, no offense, but I'd rather be home with my 3 year olds than hanging out with the county power structure for the party.

Free markets and internet pornography

Pete, you pretty much got what I was trying to say. Let me propose an alternative position that plays to your strength on this issue, might be more consistent with your personal values and makes it clear that you want to do something to help families handle internet pornography. You own Senator Hatch on this technology thing (this is no surprise though).

My impression is that the free market idea doesn't work well here because many families are technology-aliterate in the sense that they are afraid of technology and don't spend the time to figure out what their options are. In 20 years, that will be different, but for now, that's the way it is.

The FDA (or whoever it is) puts out the food pyramid which is supposed to give nutrution-aliterate people a quick and easy guide to making good food choices. It is still a free market in that people can buy whatever food they want, but the government has done something to help people understand their choices.

Why not propose a similar thing here? ... "As your senator, I will work with a broad bi-partisan coalition to help American families understand the strengths and pitfalls of their Internet filtering options. An educated populace can then make choices that will enforce their family values on Internet content. I will alos seek to increase Federal funding of research that investigates better filtering solutions" (I threw the research thing in because research is important to me :))

The closest parallel I can think of is movie ratings. In a free market, ratings would be optional and families would just choose which theaters to visit. And really, that's what we have. We have a ratings system which puts clear, simple information in the hands of families and then they decide. A similar rating system for Internet Service Providers may also be helpful for families that don't understand Internet technology.

And finally, the miracle of the free market isn't always a good thing. For example, public education may or may not thrive in a free market. The charter school experience will bear that out one way or the other. Government welfare and social security, while serving a critical role our society, is completely contrary to pure free markets.

Best Disc Golf Course in Utah (County)

Would be the new Art Dye Course in American Fork. We played the first 12 holes this morning (before I had to get home). Interesting layout, unlike Bicentennial in Provo. Challenging, but not overwhelming like the Rock Canyon Course.

The course at Solitude, discussed in the
Salt Lake Tribune a while back, is fun but I lost 2-3 discs. I made an epic 1,229 foot drive downhill on no. 18 at Solitude but sadly I was about 500 feet right of the hole when it finally hit the ground. That's another par 4 at most courses.

What I wish Pete Ashdown would have said about Internet pornography

Recently, I mentioned that I wouldn't vote for Pete because of his position on Internet pornography (that was buried in a post about how much I like his thinking on the feed-the-hungry reverse fundraiser). Pete left a comment on my post in his usual unassuming way, which is a refreshing attitude to see in a political candidate.

Here's the gist of what I had hoped Pete would have said:

"At Xmission, I've done a lot to give families the tools they need to control the information that comes into their house over the Internet. While we haven't solved the problem, we have made significant progress. The Federal Government can and should play a role in requiring internet service providers to give all parents the same tools. In the 10 years since the rise of the WWW, very little has happened in the private sector to solve this problem. It is time for the government to intervene. In addition, the Federal Government can and should fund research into more effective ways to identify and classify objectionable content. This is a particularly difficult problem since the United States Government can not regulate the creation of content throughout the world. But with some ingenuity and creativity we can and must do a better job of giving families the tools they need to filter content.

My opponent, and most other sentors, lack the experience and knowledge needed to understand or propose such legislation. I do. I have the vision and the know-how needed to give parents the tools they need to filter material that they find objectionable. Rather than make empty promises and spew hollow rhetoric, I have plans and an agenda based on my N years of experience as one of Utah's first [or Utah's first?] internet service providers."

The thing about Pete is that he's not a phoney on this issue. He's got the background to make some progress on the issue and he's done good stuff at XMission, but that's not what his platform is about. I respect that, but I wish it was different.

Jordan School District Money for the Sandy Soccer Stadium: In what universe does that make sense?

I had to study modal logic as part of my education--and I use it surprisingly often. Basically, modal logic is a kind of logic in which the truth value of a statement depends on the Universe in which the statement is evaluated. For example, you could say that in Universe A the statement "the sky is green" is true and in Universe B the statement "the sky is green" is false. Obviously, we are more likely to inhabit Universe B (depending on what else is true or false in Universe B).

So when my sister out in Daybreak forwarded this little gem about using school money to fund the new Sandy soccer stadium despite explosive growth in her part of the Universe: deseretnews.com | Funds from Jordan District sought for soccer deal.

My first thought was: in what universe does that make sense? I am not convinced that such a universe is consistent with the one in which I currently live.

I'm all about soccer and my niece had a great time at the Real Madrid Real Salt Lake game, but school money on a soccer stadium? An Alpine School District Board Member (I think that's the right title) lives in my neighborhood, so I realize that school funding is often more complex than my brain is prepared to deal with, but I am having a hard time on this one. Fortunately, the Jordan School District Board Members also made cautious statements like: let's see the proposal, we are waiting on the numbers etc.

Way to go Pete!

Pete Ashdown's putting on a sort of reverse-fundraiser dinner to raise money for charities that deal with hunger. Very creative thinking by a political candidate. Now if Pete could switch his stand and become more like a tradiational Democrat and favor government involvement in the regulation of pornography on the internet, then I could actually vote for him in November.

I asked Sen. Hatch at a pre-state-convention lunch about regulation of the internet. His answer convinced me that he doesn't really understand how the internet works and what role government might play in regulating the internet. I think Pete gets it (I've been using the internet since 1994 so Pete's got 7 years on my) but I don't agree with his stand on Internet porn.

[Pete Ashdown%u2019s Campaign Journal � Feed the Hungry not Politicians]

Romney will never win

Because his great-grandfather was a polygamist. That settles that. I suppose then that Karl Rove will begin digging for dirt on Hillary's great-grandparents as well? There's 8 of them and at least 1 of them had to have done something, maybe one of them opposed abortin or gay marriage?, that should cost her the presidency.

Salt Lake Tribune - Could ancestors haunt Romney?

Why Democrats can't get Elected in Utah

A Democratic politician inviting an acrid anti-Bush protestor to his anti-war rally that just happens to coincide with the President's visit to the American Legion convention is going to loose a lot of casual voters. And the democrats wonder why they can't lure in the lemming-like voter who hasn't read the platform of either party.

From a public perception angle, it's almost funny to protest the war and the president during an American Legion convention. Most of these guys are old men who fought in WWII or Vietnam era people who are sick of protestors anyway.

ksl.com - Utah's Online Source for Local News & Information Sheehan Invited by SLC Mayor to Participate in Protest

Utahania.com Tour of Utah Combativity Award goes to...

Todd Hageman of Team End!

So me and some colleagues grabed our roadies and headed up the Nebo Loop to get some riding in and watch the Tour of Utah go by (four CS professors on road bikes is not as pathetic a sight as one might normally imagine, but still inspires some pity).

After the race went by, we decided to keep riding up. After those of us in the slow group of professors had been dropped by the fast group of professors, rider #92 from the Tour of Utah, Todd Hageman, came cruising up the hill. It appeared that Todd had wiped out somewhere on the course and was gutting it out to the finish. I was impressed.

So Todd Hageman of Team End, you get the Utahania.com combativity award for your gusty finish of Stage 4. Nice work and I didn't realize how fast you all go until I'd been passed by one of you on the road during a race.

Herrin Twins Updates

Maybe it's because I have 3 year old twin girls (not conjoined and not even identical) of my own, but this Herrin twin story just grabs me every day. Fortunately, the Herrin's post updates in the most web-literate of fashions. This is, for me, the most interesting blog in Utah right now: Updates from HerrinTwins.com.

I have now seen it all

An article at CNN today about 9/11 conspiracy theories in academia quotes a guy from the American Association of University Professors as saying, basically, "academic freedom doesn't include conspiracy theories" like those advanced by Dr. Steven Jones at BYU. (Dr. Jones was quoted earlier in the article).

Now I have seen it all. Back in the good old days, the AAUP censured BYU for limiting the the academic freedom of one Gail Houston. Now the AAUP is getting after people like Dr. Jones and BYU (my extrapolation) for excercising too much adamic freedom. Nice work.

I suppose we should just invite the AAUP to come and run the University for us to make sure we get it just right.

All kidding aside, if you read the AAUP carefully, they are advancing a very logical arguement dispasionately and I've got to admire them for that even if I don't think they understand BYU very well. Their deal is that academic freedom should include all and only the work that lies within the boundaries of a well-defined academic discipline. Dr. Jones' work on 9/11 probably lies outside those boundaries, so I agree with them on that, but I am still waiting for a good qualified peer review on Dr. Jones' work.



CNN.com - 9/11 conspiracy theorists energized - Aug 6, 2006: "Faculty can express any opinion outside the classroom, said Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors. However, 'with academic freedom comes academic responsibility. And that requires them to teach the truth of their discipline, and the truth does not include conspiracy theories, or flat Earth theories, or Holocaust denial theories.'"

Snow in Provo? In August?

It's either hailing in a really strong wind or snowing outside my office right now. If it's hail, then the wind is really strong because it's flowing in the wind like snow would. If it's snow, then that would be a first for me in August, in Provo.

I'm back from the blogging-dead. July was, let's say, a very busy month. Things appear to becoming more reasonable. This was bad news for my cycling goals, but good news for my job security goals.

Robert Gehrke: That's almost as bad as a blog!

Today's headline article in the Tribune asserts that the recent letter from the LDS church may have aided Cannon's win over Jacob. That's a baseless yet lurid headline that one might find in a blog. Nice work for a real, professional journalist. But Robert acknowledges the "solid" rhetorical foundation for his piece with: "It is impossible to quantify exactly how either moved the final results, but [more baseless statements]."

[Salt Lake Tribune - LDS letter may have aided Cannon win]

(AirMed|Lifeflight) can land at Aspen Grove in the Dark

We took our 3 year olds on a little campout up to Aspen Grove last night for some peace and quiet high in the mountains. On our way back from Cascade Springs (perfect for a 3 year old by the way), we noticed LifeFlight executing a landing at the Aspen Grove trailhead. Curious. We noticed that AirMed was already there. Even more curious.

Then the airlift began. I believe there were 3 flights upto somewhere higher on the mountain. Probably ferrying SAR upto to some late evening situation. Just before dark, one of the helicopters made it's last trip and shot out of there south toward Sundance and out of the moutains. I assumed that the helicopters couldn't fly missions up there at night and that SAR would be up there for the night doing their thing

At 1:15 am last night, I discovered that helicopters can land at Aspen Grove at night. It sounded like their landing pattern took them directly over our tent. Unfortunately, the pilot missed on the first approach and had to come around again. They sat at the trailhead forever and then finally took off. I have a vague recollection of a police or ambulance siren in there somewhere too.

At about 30 minutes before sunrise this morning, another helicopter arrived and began, I assume, ferrying SAR off the mountain. That took about 3 trips.

So much for peace and quiet. But good news for a Provo man who took a long fall on the trail while hiking solo. I am curious to hear what the whole story is later today or tommorow.

The VV-PAT made it!

I used to be involved in the electronic voting thing a little more than I am now. One of my academic role models, David Dill at Stanford, was very heavily involved in the whole thing.

What little I did to influence the Utah decision was focused on getting a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VV-PAT for short). Magentic images on disks or other non-volatile media are so easy to modify without leaving any trace of the previous image that I thought a VV-PAT was essential.

I wasn't sure where it ended up, but I was happy to see a beautiful easy to read VV-PAT when I voted this morning.

Whom to vote for tommorow

If you are in the same disticts as I am, then you can help tommorow's close races be not so close by voting for the following...

1. Stephen Sandstrom over Jim Ferron. I struggled long and hard on this one. I liked voting against the UEA's guy (Sandstrom) at the convention and I like Ferron's positions on local transportation and finance in general. However, I didn't like Ferron as a Charter School investor and a State Legislator. I know that might be a reasonable thing, but I just don't like the conflict of interest. The thing that put me over the top was Ferron's latest campaign mailer that included an LDS Church statement designed to support his position. I don't like that, alot. So I am going Sandstrom.

2. Joe Cannon over John Jacob. First of all, Jacob is way too tight on immigration. I visited Berlin while there was a wall. I don't like walls as an immigration policy. The problem is INS. INS is a disaster. If we make legal immigration possible without requiring a team of lawyers or 5 years of beaurocracy then we can get more people in here legally and we can all get along just fine. I like that children of illegal immigrants who graduate from a Utah High School can get in state tuition. I mean, come on, these kids got dragged here by their parents, succesfully completed high school and want to go to college. Let's give them all the support we can. Let's not create an oppressed underclass like they have over in France. Utah is relatively free of car burnings perpetrated by hopeless, voiceless immigrant children. Let's keep it that way. Jacob's campaign was just weird too. The Satan comment was an unfortuate lesson for him in how to work with the media (which I believe is "say as little as possible" if read REAL reporter correctly).

3. Jerry Grover over the other guy. I wasn't sure I wanted an engineer on the County Commision or Council or whatever it is called, but after meeting all of the candidates, I decided that a real engineer on the County Commission is exactly what I want.

That is all. Happy voting and don't get freaked out by those touchscreens!

Nice work Robert Gehrke.

Robert Gehrke's piece on John Jacob leads off with Jacob's belief that Satan is opposing him in the race against Cannon. Gehrke even includes Jacobs' request "I don't want you to print that."

Nice work letting people talk off the record, Robert. Good to see that weak journalistic ethics are still alive and well at the Trib. Have you all sold any inside information to a tabloid yet this year?

[Salt Lake Tribune - Jacob's bad luck: Is it . . . Satan?]

Bicycle Tour of Moab with the Scouts

We recently returned from a 4 day 3 night bicycle tour of Moab with the Varsity Scouts. No scouts were lost, killed or (permanently) injured during the entire trip. We did have some injuries, but they were just scrapes and bruises.

We set up a trip around the White Rim in Canyonlands (that's 100 ish miles of moderately difficult dirt roads). For scout groups who've trained and have competent adult leadership, the White Rim in mid-June is a difficult journey in which there is a significant chance of severe injury in a remote location with a difficult evacuation. We found that we could travel at about 7 mph, we had an injury accident every hour and experienced a tour-ending bicycle failure every 2.5 hours. That's why we opted to take the Potash Road back to Moab after the 20 mile ride into Airport Tower camp (going clockwise).

It was great. We got all the desert dirt road riding we wanted and our 50 mile day ended with 22 miles of paved road into town. Every scout finished the 50 mile ride for the merit badge. We even had overcast with light wind all day for the 50 miler.

We did Slickrock on Friday. For a scout group, Slickrock on a sunny day in June with a 7:30 am start will require about 2.5 liters of water per person to complete safely. Unfortunately for us, we only had about 1.6 liters per person and there was no opt-out option when the water got real low and the sun got real high. Fortunately for us, Dan Mick of Dan Mick's Guided Moab Jeep Tours carries a case of water to pass out to less-prepared scout groups such as ours, and the one behind us. Dan drives a tricked out jeep and we meet one of his clients on Saturday. She and her family had a great time. That should sound like an endorement of Dan's jeep operation. It was meant to be. Good karma should come to good Samaritans like Dan.

Slickrock was fun with the scouts. We experienced about 6 injury accidents. All injuries were minor and 4 were mine. My Canari jersey looks like swiss cheese and my knees look like strawberries. But it was a blast. Although the riding was more technical, a serious injury here would be less serious than an injury on the far side of the White Rim.

Friday afternoon, we cleaned up a park in town for our service project then lazed about in the shade while the scouts played soccer in the park. That evening, we rode down from Sand Flats to the Moab Community pool on 400 North for a shower and a swim. A perfect end to the riding part of our tour and a good set up for our spiritual meeting friday night followed by the 1/2 day whitewater trip on Saturday on the Colorado past Fisher Towers.

When I got home, my 3 year old daughters were very concerned about my "owies" on my knees and elbows. I told them I fell of my bike and they thought that was ok. Later, I told them I would take them down to Moab. Megan got a scared look on her face and said she didn't want to go. I asked her why. And she said she didn't want to fall off her bike and get owies too. I admired her courage, but I don't think her tricyle would make it far on slickrock. We'll have to take all the bikes and do the Millcreek trail in town instead.

RSL wins several games ahead of schedule

Previously, I extrapolated a bit to project the date of RSL's next win to be sometime in August. Well, it turns out that they've won 2, lost 0 and tied 1 since my projection. Nice work. I suppose that my projection must have appeared on the locker room bulletin board, fired up the team and now they are winning. Just happy to help where I can.

Being a fair weather fan, I might even get out there to watch a game this summer.

Patagonia Ambassador's Climb of Delicate Arch not so Clean After all?

Outside magazine has a three-page story on Dean Potter's Climb of Delicate Arch. The article mentions that the climb was filmed from above, implying that a cameraman was above him on the arch. The article discusses how ropes were used and the article includes close up pictures of rope damage at the top of the arch. While it's not clear that Potter's rope created the rope damage, it is clear that he used more than just chalk.

What's amazing about this whole thing is that neither Patagonia nor Potter have backed down. Patagonia stands behind their ambassador while saying that "not all of his actions represent the company" (in which case they should call him a part time ambassador).

The online poll at Outside online is running just under 9 to 1 against the climb, by the way.