Photo: Heralds of Carmageddon

I'm signed up to get daily transportation headlines from the Los Angeles Metro Library and Archive, so it's not like I can avoid the news of the impending Carmageddon; that is, the planned closure of Interstate 405 for a fifty-three hour period focused around July 16th and 17th - an entire weekend where the five hundred thousand cars that normally use that route will have to find another one.

In Los Angeles.

Good luck with that.

Even when everything's normal, traffic is an inescapeable presence in Los Angeles - it's just that some times are better than others. Take this one, for instance, from December 2009; this is a southward look toward the Hollywood Freeway, U.S. Route 101, from the Hollywood Bowl Overlook off Mulholland Drive. For those people heading into the city, it looks surprisingly smooth.

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We're Leaving Together, But Still It's Farewell

Today, the weather held. I watched the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch this morning. For the last time. Ever. At 11:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 8:29 AM Pacific, she surged away from Kennedy Space Center on a tower of fire and smoke. In ten minutes, Atlantis went from the Space Coast to space - from motionlessness to fifteen thousand miles per hour. It will be a while yet before she returns - the planned landing is set for July 20, which in itself is notable; forty-two years after Apollo 11's landing on the moon.

Even watching it in the form of a choppy webcast couldn't detract from the majesty of it. In the minutes between the separation of the Solid Rocket Boosters and External Fuel Tank, the feed carried an unearthly silence; Atlantis, though soaring orbitward at thousands of miles per hour, seemed frozen - enough so that until Houston started talking, I was worried I had lost my connection to NASA TV.

Atlantis is en route to a rendezvous with the International Space Station on Sunday. Launch Pad 39A is empty now, and it will remain that way for some time to come. No shuttle will ever again sit on the pad at Cape Canaveral. It begs the question - where are we going? What are we going to do now? Maintaining the space program was difficult enough in a time of plenty like the 1990s, when there were no endless wars for the United States to pay for. In a world where the United States remains mired in recession after nearly four years of misery, when the entire global financial system feels as stable as a house on a pogo stick, what have we to do next? I've been noticing quite a few people expressing uncertainty, wondering if this is the end of the road for manned spaceflight.

A view of Atlantis from the External Fuel Tank during the ascent to orbit, after SRB separation. Frame courtesy NASA TV.

We used to know where we were going - up until last year, when President Obama cancelled the Constellation program out from under us. For the first time in years, perhaps decades, NASA had a comprehensive, concrete plan for the future that involved something greater than flights to the International Space Station - and we couldn't afford it. Of course not. We can afford bailouts to parasite corporations demand we make restitution for their losses so that they can keep all the profits if good times come again, but we couldn't afford this.

But this isn't the end of the road. There's still, thankfully, the International Space Station to consider - something to focus our attention on. There's the burgeoning private space sector; ten years ago SpaceX didn't exist, and ten years from now it may well be sending people into space on top if its own rockets. There's Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Bigelow Aerospace - and there's the Chinese space program, with its plan to have the space station Tiangong complete and in orbit for 2020.

Sure, these estimates may change, and some may never get off the ground at all. But we have to remember that nothing is ever a sure thing, and not even the Space Shuttle itself was a sure thing once; our view of it is distorted by the scope of the mostly-successful thirty-year program.

"If it survives the political onslaught," Jerry Pournelle wrote in the April 1977 issue of Galaxy, "the Shuttle will put 65,000 pounds in near-Earth orbit for a cost of between $10 and $20 million per mission... at the moment the turn-around time from re-entry to next mission is planned at 160 hours; but a great deal of that is checkout and elaborate tests, and if the ships fly as well as we think they will, it can be cut."

The Space Shuttle didn't live up to the optimistic forecasts of launch costs that you'll find in 1970s sources - if it had, there would likely be a real orbital infrastructure by now, not just the ISS - but it brought space to a new generation - my generation, a generation that grew up always knowing that spaceflight was something that was done, which was done regularly, and which was a normal part of the world. Today, that world feels as if it's missing something.

"The Shuttle's always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do," Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson in the final minutes before launch this morning. He's right, because the Shuttle is about something greater. It's something that isn't just about profit. Something that isn't just about the everyday. Something that is about going beyond... about the future.

Photo: Not Your Average Canvas

For better or worse, San Francisco is easily the single most graffitied city I've ever visited. Graffiti is practically everywhere there, it seems - on the buildings, on construction equipment, on the roofs of the buses, carved into the windows of the streetcars, and on the vehicles. This particular cube van, which I found parked on Fulton out by Golden Gate Park, was just the most striking example I came across.

I've gotta admit, it certainly is one way to make your average cube van a bit more distinct.

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Thanatos ex Machina

You may hever have heard of Machine of Death 2, so here's the skinny: it's a planned short story anthology, still soliciting submissions up to the 15th, built around the common concept of a machine that can tell you how you're going to die. The first one, as I understand, was rather successful, and I've already looked at a couple of stories that friends and associates are sending in for consideration. I like it when an anthology reaches this level of prominence; it increases the chances, I think, that other groups will take a chance on the format.

I've known about this project for a while, but I'm not working on a submission. Fact is, I made a conscious decision to not submit to Machine of Death 2, for one reason only: I could not suspend my disbelief over its shared premise. When I said that it's based around a machine that can tell you how you're going to die, that's just paraphrasing. There are actually standards, to quote from the website: "The death predictions in your story MUST always be accurate, they MUST always be the same for each individual, and they MUST be derived from a blood test."

It was pretty much as soon as I finished reading that part that my thinking went from "oh, this could be an interesting endeavour for me" to "are you serious." I suppose it's the way my brain works, and the implications of the above "musts" when you look at the titles of the stories in the first anthology - each story, incidentally, has to carry the death prediction as a title. So the first one had stories called "Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions," "HIV Infection From Machine of Death Needle," and Yahtzee's "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor" - which, attention-grabbing though they may be, did not help me with my issues very much.

I mean, this is some machine that's testing blood! And it can tell you how you're going to die with 100% accuracy even when that has nothing to do with blood!

I was thinking about this the other day, when it hit me: I have this problem precisely because it's a machine.

This machine doesn't need to take a blood test to tell you how it's gonna kill you. Not necessarily 100% accurate, though.

Generally speaking, I expect certain things of machines. I expect them to work unless they're broken, at which point I expect they were designed and built in such a way to preclude repair, and so get another one. I expect them to hew closely to the "known," or at least to be based on a fundamental understanding of how the world works. Take something like faster-than-light in science fiction; while it goes against the theoretical underpinnings of the universe today, all it needs is an acknowledgement that our understanding improved and we figured out new ways of doing things.

I don't expect them to go in for mysticism. In the end, that's how I see the idea of the Machine of Death: mystical. It's like some electronic oracle. Which, incidentally, is something I could accept - in human form. There's a long, long, long tradition in storytelling of people who can do mysterious things, impossible things, things far beyond the norm: it speaks to something deep in us, perhaps of our desire to bend the world to our will. I could accept the idea of a human who, with nothing more than a sample of your blood, could tell you with total accuracy how you're going to die - because it's impossible. No human could do that, but we're accustomed to the idea of people doing impossible things. Of not being subject to how we understand the world to work.

For me, I think, the use of a machine in that role makes those justifications break down. The use of a machine, to me, implicitly says "this thing obeys the rules of the universe as they are understood in the setting." But I can't accept the idea of a universe where precognition is understood and possible. Michio Kaku, in his Physics of the Impossible, labelled it a Class III impossibility for its violation of the known laws of physics, alongside perpetual motion machines. But precognition through blood?

In the end, I need to be able to believe my own stuff. If I can't suspend my disbelief over something I create, how can I expect the reader to do it?

I want to make it clear, though, that I'm not trying to attack the Machine of Death group - they're doing an awesome thing and I hope they will continue doing awesome things. Plus, the first was released under a Creative Commons license! It's just that I can't be a part of this particular awesome thing.

Photo: A Taller Ship Than Usual

Sailboats aren't uncommon on Burrard Inlet, but they tend to be small; the sort of yachts and skiffs that can easily be kept in the marina until they're ready to go meet the waves. Big ships with big sails are a far less frequent sight, but I caught this one emerging from Coal Harbour over the weekend. While this vessel is probably far too small to be a true tall ship, its masts give it a sort of dominance that not many other ships on this part of the water can manifest.

I can't tell what that flag is, either. That's the problem with so many British colonies and Commonwealth states using Red Ensigns - with the Union Flag in the canton and their own coat of arms in the fly, it's practically impossible to distinguish between them at a distance.


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The Fourth and the Future

Today is the Fourth of July. In previous years I've been able to mark it with a simple American flag post, but that seems a bit... utilitarian for how things are today. The path of the United States is the path of the world, and particularly over the last year, when I've looked south I've seen something that has become progressively more and more worrying - something that has greatly changed its appearance in the last twenty years.

It really is the last twenty years that have done it. Before 1991, the United States had the Soviet Union to keep it honest; to lean against. Personally, I doubt that the economy would have unravelled to the point that it has in the last few years if the USSR was still around - this sort of collapse would have been a propaganda goldmine for the Kremlin, the true crisis of capitalism. Without the threat of the Soviets getting the upper hand, though, there's been nothing to moderate the world's superpower. While it took people a while to realize this, realize it they have. Today, ideologues decry President Obama as a Marxist because... well, I suppose because he's a Democrat. Evidence? Who needs it?

The "peace dividend" following the end of the Cold War was wasted. With the utter implosion of its historic rival, the United States and its partners in the West had a chance to take a step back and reevaluate its course for the twenty-first century. Why, with all those billions that don't need to be spent on keeping the Soviets at bay, we could invest in new technologies, better the lot of the poor, maybe even go to Mars! That, of course, didn't happen - too much inertia had built up during forty-five years of brinksmanship. As someone born in the early 1980s and who really became aware of things in the 1990s, I grew up in a world where the Cold War was a fading nightmare. Where I didn't have to worry about nuclear war burning away everything I knew and loved. Where I could be sure that the people in charge were working toward a clean and prosperous future for the betterment of all.

Only a child could think that way. I know better now. I know that in the United States, the political discourse is degenerating further and further into emotional shrieks and extremism. The cracks in the system are being thrown into progressively starker relief. Look at California, where all potential tax/fee/levy/whatever increases require a supermajority in the State Legislature to pass... but if they want to decrease tax, they only need a simple majority. Now there's a framework that sure is built in a farsighted manner, eh? After all, does government really need money anyway?

In the past, it seems, there was at least the appearance of professional amity between the Democrats and the Republicans. You won't find that anymore. American politics, from my vantage point a scant thirty miles from the border, is descending into name-calling and knee-jerk opposition. It's practically sport - people have decided whether they're part of Team Democrat or Team Republican, and the goal has shifted from governing well to "winning" - whatever the winning condition might be in this world.

Do you want to know what I think? I think that if the future continues along the same trajectory as the present, this video may be a workable metaphor for the United States.


Have a good Fourth of July, Americans - and try to ensure there'll be more.

Photo: Algonquin on the Sea

Most days, all you're going to see on the waters of Burrard Inlet are container ships, tugboats, personal pleasure craft, and one or two of the SeaBuses. Every once in a while, though, you'll find the stark lines of a warship there. HMCS Algonquin, one of Canada's three remaining Iroquois-class air defense destroyers, arrived at Canada Place in Vancouver a couple of days ago for the Canada Day festivities. She does look subtly meaner to my eyes than the Halifax-class frigates, even though all those VLS cells toward the bow only contain surface-to-air missiles - if Wikipedia is accurate, that is.

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True Expatriate Love

There are plenty of reasons a Canadian citizen might want to leave Canada for an extended period of time. Perhaps they picked up a sweet gig teaching English in Japan, like I aimed for but never quite hit, or perhaps they're just looking to understand life in some other part of the world before they come home. No matter where they live, though, they're still Canadian citizens. Hell, many expatriates are still subject to paying Canadian taxes if they're living and working abroad, depending on how long they're gone and if they left residential ties behind - the situation is a bit complex. It's also something a lot of people don't tend to think about, because really, how many expats do you know?

Recently I've been seeing news clippings about expatriate voting issues on the SkyTrain platform screens. The Globe and Mail recently reported on the results of a survey among Canadians dealing with attitudes about expats' right to vote. This isn't something I hadn't really thought about either, even though this was still the Land of the Constant Minority Government when I'd been trying to get out to Japan - but if you're a Canadian who's been out of the country for five years, you're no longer eligible to vote in Canadian elections. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed say that this is BS - that expats should have the same voting rights as citizens within the borders.

I've been thinking about the logistics of that, though. When you get right down to it, voting is a fundamentally democratic thing, and the MP you vote for is meant to represent you. But if you're teaching kids the difference between "they're" and "their" in a country school in Hokkaido, how capably is the Member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park going to be able to represent you and deal with your issues as a Canadian citizen?

So here's an idea - give expats representation of their own. I mean, is there any real reason why our ridings shouldn't just end at the borders?

There are something like 3 million Canadians living abroad; many of them, unsurprisingly, in the United States, but there are populations scattered across the world. So give them their own representation! Add the United States to the riding map - create the ridings of United States of America—East and United States of America—West so those expats have seats specifically responsive to their problems. Create similar ones for the expats living in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and so on, and so we'd have a bunch of new MPs dealing with the interests of Canadians overseas.

Governments, after all, are responsible to the people - and just because they live outside its direct authority, that responsibility doesn't go away.

Photo: Flags of the Day

It's Canada Day again, and so to mark it here's a photo of flags all in a row - Canadian first, then American, Japanese, British Columbian, and I believe that's the flag of the Hyatt hotel chain there in the middle between the Japan and BC flags. I never really liked most corporate vexillology; it seems overwhelmingly to be lazy, nothing more than putting your logo on a flag-shaped fabric. That's not what making a flag is supposed to be about. If you have to write your name on your flag in order for people to know it's your flag, you're doing it wrong.

A lot of US state flags, such as Wisconsin, fall into this trap as well.

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Defaulting to the Plutocrats

Things are not well in the birthplace of democracy. To be honest, Greece has been on shaky ground for a while; it's only recently, however, that threats of Greece defaulting on its debt, and potentially throwing the "recovery" - such as it is - into jeopardy, have been making headlines. Yesterday, the Hellenic Parliament passed its second austerity vote, necessary to secure a €28 billion bailout from the European Union, despite fierce opposition from the thousands of people on the streets of Athens.

This is, predictably enough, being framed in the media as Greeks being unwilling to lose their state-funded entitlements and wanting to continue to live in the lap of luxury while German and French taxpayers foot the bill. Like many frames the media hangs on the wall, it's a bit crooked. Remember that this isn't the first round of austerity measures that the Greek government has just barely managed to squeeze by - and it's the Greeks that are going to be squeezed as a result.

I picked up this 100-drachma note in 2000, only a couple of years before the euro came into force and all the old currencies of Europe were swept away. Back then, with sovereign control of its own currency, Greece wouldn't be in nearly this bad of a situation. Such is progress!

Nor is it just that. Part of the deal with the bailout is that the Greek government is selling many of its assets - such as its lottery, its 55% stake in Athens International Airport, some of its real estate, and so on. Now, one might think that this perfectly normal; particularly Athens' interest to lessen its stake in the national railway system, which as of May lost €1 billion a year and had a debt of €10 billion. But look it at it realistically - the government isn't going to want to sell something that isn't profitable, or which they think can't be made profitable before the sale. If that was the case, who'd want to buy it?

What I suspect here, what I see here, is another triumph of neoliberal ideology - the same ideology that gave us the wonderful philosophy "privatize the profits, socialize the losses" - such as when a bank makes cash hand over fist it's laissez les bon temps roulez for the bosses and investors, but when it loses a wad on a stupid risk, suddenly it's the taxpayers who have to have to shovel the green back into the money bins.

It's something that's never actually said outright, but is hinted at this way and that by the actions of governments, usually conservative - "the government has no business making money." Witness the 1999 Ontario provincial election, where the government of Mike Harris sold Highway 407 for $4.1 billion, under a ninety-nine year lease, to a group of private investors less than two years after the highway had opened. It could have been a consistent money source for the government, but... there was an opportunity there to balance the budget by getting rid of state assets at fire-sale prices! Other examples aren't hard to find; look at the sale of Chicago's parking meters, for instance, or the noises Rob Ford was making about selling the city's stake in Toronto Hydro during the election.

If Greece was really expected to pay down its debt, it wouldn't be selling - or, perhaps more appropriately, forced to be selling - profitable assets. Without those, the government will have less money to work with in general, and thus be less able to pay back the debt. But this isn't about debt, I don't believe. Greece's debt as a percentage of GDP was 142.8% in 2010 - put bluntly, even if Greece put every single euro it had into paying down its debt this year, it would not be able to. Greece's debt problems have got so bad since joining the Eurozone that I don't think a default of some kind is avoidable anymore.

I doubt I'm the only one who suspects that. Thus, then, I can't see what's going in Greece as an honest attempt to stabilize the country - rather, I see it as an opportunity being taken advantage of by the unfettered psychopaths who have come to dominate the global economy, who care about little except the acquisition of greater and greater wealth. After all, Greece wants money, don't it? So it's a perfect time to pick up great formerly-government assets at bargain basement prices, and tap them ruthlessly for profit! Remember the railway? Don't forget how Reuters reported that "the government will try to sweeten the sale by closing loss-making routes and making other cost cuts."

Who does that sound like it's serving? The Greek people, those who the Greek government exists to serve - or the capitalists?