I Can Always Rely on Carl.
At the moment, I find myself unable to write anything worth a damn, particularly anything even remotely humorous. That’s because I’m having difficulty thinking about much of anything except how close some murdering bastard came to blowing an American airliner out of the sky on Christmas day. When I consider the governmental incompetence that resulted in the attack and the governmental incompetence, stupidity and outright mendacity that followed it, I am sickened and frankly terrified.
So, it is on days like this, when I need to take my mind off the horror stories in the news, I enjoy taking a look at what our old pal Carl Brannen has been thinking about. Carl’s latest meanderings concern a matter that has phenomenologists in a bit of an uproar. Of course, I am referring to the controversy swirling around the Wolfenstein parametrization for the Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. Read it carefully, as I am considering giving a quiz.
Carl farookin’ rocks.
I need to go lie down for a while. That just blew the topper off my compendium on the theory of an inverse Newtonian constant. Might as well stop right where I am and go back to my research on the Gizzner Effect and how it relates to the angle of descent as applied to fainting goats… bah.
Comment by gregor — December 29, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
Dammit! I have enough to ponder today about the number 5 and all its attendant realities. Did you know that 5 is an evil number? And, that the only polygon that has the same number of sides and diagonals is a pentagon? And that 5 is the smallest degree at which polynomial roots are no longer findable in closed form?
Comment by Joan of Argghh! — December 29, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
An attack like that would never have happened if George W. Bush were still president.
Comment by Kevin — December 29, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
Worst.POTUS.EVER! Thanks to all the dingleberries who voted for this royal POS with peanuts! What a buffoon! Jeez, everybody! Look at the shiny new candidate! He surely do talk purty, don’ he?!!! He’s gonna govern jist like a centrist, don’ ya know! He is! He tol’ us! Never mind ’bout all those lefty things he done! He gonna run the cuntry ship-shape, he is! He tol’ us! Honest! He was forthright, don’ ya know?! He was a strate shooter with that revired guy from californee…ya know, the one who wrote that big book about livin’ yur true life…ricky warrin, I think. Anyhows, the ONE tol’ ricky that ansering that big question about aborshion was above his pay grade. See! he honest, he is! That one tol’ us the trooth and we voted fer him. everyone gather ‘roun and hold hands. Ready? koom bye ya, ma loord, koom by ya! Oooooo… I’m springing a woody thinkin’ about all the luv and harmony going on in the worl’ with the ONE in charge! SING, everybody! Peas! LUV! Joys! Let sway…
Comment by Lee — December 30, 2009 @ 2:09 am
But what about the Kobayashi Maru scenario?
Comment by Mr. Bingley — December 30, 2009 @ 8:14 am
I don’t know what is more incomprehensible, Carl Brennan’s post or Lee’s comment.
Comment by joated — December 30, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Kidstuff…..you want a challenge , read the healthcare bill if you can get one!
Comment by dudley1 — December 30, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
Doesn’t Our Lord Obama eat 5lbs of Kobayashi beef a day or something like that?
Comment by RobbieRob — December 30, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
Well the controversy was short lived; arXiv downgraded the paper from “hep-ph” to “gen-ph”, which is another way of saying “it sucks”.
The funny thing is that the author still hasn’t retracted it.
Comment by Carl Brannen — December 31, 2009 @ 1:39 am