The World's Scariest Pumpkin!

Couldn't think of anything scarier!

If you're wondering what it took to make it, here are some pics:



I cut the top off the pumpkin with my jigsaw...










I used a small baking pan lined with towels to hold the pumpkin as I carved it...


The pumpkin and the image to be transferred. My brother, who did the Obama pumpkin I posted the other day, made the template with 3 color zones -black (the pumpkin skin), white (the cutout areas that let the light through), and grey (skinned translucent pumpkin flesh). I made two copies of the image. One I would use to transfer the image to the pumpkin (destroying it in the process), and the other I would look at to keep a perspective on things.








Here the image is taped onto the pumpkin and ready to go!





I initially used a nail to transfer the image, but when I began using a pen knife (instead of a steak knife) I just cut directly through the template.







A small section of skin removed, and another section marked for removal.



The eyes (those !@#$* glasses!), the teeth, and the hair were the most difficult sections.










I used my DeWalt 18v spot light with the flexible neck to light it.

The finished product!

Much thanks to Matt for making the template, and Teddy for snapping the pics of me making it!

Family Values

In my family, we value all families.

My Pumpkin has HOPE!

Okay, technically its not my pumpkin, as it was done by my brother, Matthew Pyle, who apparently has some heretofore unknown expertise in pumpkin carving. Maybe he was just inspired?

Why supporting gay rights is the rational thing to do. (Californians, please vote no on Proposition 8)

I recognize that many people find homosexuality offensive, and having grown up in small-town bible-belt America, I too have been at least moderately anti-gay in the distant past. However, anti-gay efforts cause real, calculable harm to society.

The premise is simple. When we create an environment that is hostile to gay people, to a greater or lessor degree, they leave. When they leave, we lose their contributions to our communities. The greater the degree of hostility, the more likely they are to leave to find a place more accepting of them. Now this may be the goal of many, but as a society, this greatly harms us all.

To fully understand the potential harm we cause ourselves with such intolerance, consider the case of Alan Turing. A mathematical genius with a gift for bridging the theoretical and practical worlds, in 1936 Turing imagined a "universal" machine with physical embodiment capable of executing any algorithm sufficiently defined. In other words, he was the father of the modern computer.

While in America in the 1930s,and recognizing the prospect of war with Germany, Turing studied cyphers and cryptography and returned to England to aid his country. He was put to work at England's wartime cryptanalytic headquarters at Bletchley Park, and was instrumental in the development of the Turning-Welchman Bombe, a computing device that made reading German Luftwaffe signals routine.

He then turned his attention towards Germany's naval communications, secured by the "unbreakable" Enigma machine. As a result of Turing's efforts, by mid-1941 the English were regularly decrypting German u-boat communications. Although the Germans added complexity to their machines, temporarily stopping England's interception, this too was defeated, setting the stage for Germany's demise.

In 1952, Turing was arrested, tried, and convicted for the "crime" of homosexuality, identified as "gross indecency" under an 1885 statute. He was given a "choice" between a prison sentence, or estrogen injections to treat his "illness." He opted for the injections, as prison may well have been fatal for him. As a known homosexual, he was ineligible for a security clearance, and fell into a downward spiral, ultimately committing suicide in 1954.

As a direct result of Turing's contributions to the Allied war effort, literally hundreds of thousands of lives were saved, including countless Americans. Imagine the course of history had Turing been outed in 1939 and driven from England. What if the Germans had a gay-friendly society, and welcomed him with open arms? I shudder to think of how WWII could have turned out very differently without Turing on our side.

Before you say "that was then, and this is now, and don't we prosecute gays any more," recognize that our anti-gay bias is still causing grave harm to our national security. Our "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military forces gay people to either live a lie, or be fired, and has directly resulted in the expulsion of a significant number of language translators fluent in Arabic and Farsi. Imagine, in this "post 9/11" world, and in the midst of the Iraq war, we are still booting some of the same people we desperately need to help us figure out what the hell is going on.

I recognize that many, particularly those with deep-seated religious beliefs, may find it difficult to happily accept gay people. If this is you, please follow Jesus' teachings in the book of John, that "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," and leave it to god to sort out. You may also want to note that the anti-gay passages of the bible are contained in the book of Leviticus, which has more than a few rather odd pronouncements (consider this, this, or this), and may not be a reliable guide as to how to live your life.

My Tortoise Thinks He's a Dog. . .(he comes when you call him)

Meet Seven. He's an eight year old male Sulcata tortoise that weighs about eighty pounds. He has been in our family for about a year and a half now, and has completely changed my perception of reptiles. Prior to Seven, I viewed reptilian intelligence as more akin to insect intelligence, as opposed to that of dogs, cats, or other warm-blooded creatures.

However, shortly after he began living in my back yard, I noticed that he could discriminate between me and my wife. Although I spent more time in the yard with him, he generally ignored me. My wife, who eschewed my "leave him to graze" philosophy, would bring him treats (apples, watermelon slices, etc.) whenever she went out back. As a result, her voice would bring him running (and he moves surprisingly fast.) With just a little training, he now comes when I call him, and my mind is reeling with the potential tricks he is likely capable of learning. Check out the video:

If Tyranny is to Rule, First Kill all the Lawyers

I sent an email to a friend of mine the other day asking, amongst other things, whether he was an Obama supporter this election cycle. His response, printed in its entirety below, sums up a fundamental problem in America today.

Good to hear from you Jim.

To satisfy you that I am an Obama supporter, I have copied and pasted below my response to my uncle, an accountant, about his concern that the Pres. and VP should not be lawyers:

I find it ironic that you are concerned that the two Democratic candidates are lawyers. I know you’ve enjoyed poking fun at lawyers over the years, and God knows our profession deserves it sometimes. Almost as much as accountants.

But, in all seriousness, let’s take a brief trip down memory lane. Twenty five of our forty three Presidents were lawyers (admittedly, Richard Nixon was one of them, but he was a Republican, so what do you expect?). Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration of Independence was a lawyer. So, of course, was James Madison, the principal drafter of the United States Constitution and of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, by my count, 24 of the 54 signers of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers, by far the most of any profession. By the way, I found no accountants among the signers, although they have been playing a much more prominent role in recent years helping to drive our economy into the ground.

Just think about it: The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. The Declaration of Independence. It must make you crazy that these cornerstones of American democracy were created by good-for- nothing lawyers. In fact, if you think about it too long, you will come to the unhappy realization that these documents are what America is all about. Boring legal documents prepared by boring lawyers! Documents that say no one, not even the President, is above the law, that the rights of minorities must be respected no matter how unpopular they may be, that all men have a fundamental and inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While other countries have since copied bits and pieces of some of these documents, it was American lawyers who created these ingenious documents in the first place. How embarrassing this must be for people like you and Rush Limbaugh!

Oh, I almost forgot. The last state senator from Illinois who became President, Abraham Lincoln, was also a lawyer. Most people agree he did ok. He drafted another important legal document. The Emancipation Proclamation. I don’t think an accountant would have done nearly as good a job. Do you?

So I don’t share your concern about a lawyer in the White House. I’m far more concerned when people with no understanding of these iconic legal documents are in charge. People like Bush Junior who denigrate the legal profession – and thus their work product – at every opportunity.

Wisely, Mr. Madison, Esquire, designed a system of checks and balances to control the power of the various institutions of our government, and particularly the President. He had only to look to the European monarchies to remember why this was a good thing to do! Only the most ignorant of Presidents (e.g., Junior) could have ever imagined the executive branch had the authority to issue warrantless wiretaps, ignoring the checks and balances of the legislative and judicial branches. Only a President with no understanding of American legal history could think it was a good idea to ignore international treaty obligations (the Geneva Convention) and condone torture. (And please don’t tell me waterboarding is not torture! Eight Japanese prison guards were executed after World War II for using the technique on American POWs). Only a chicken hawk President who dodged service in the Vietnam War could think it is a good idea to treat enemy combatants in a way that would allow our enemies to rationalize similar abuses of American soldiers. Yes, I think a little legal training would have been a good idea for Junior.

As it happens, Obama’s and Biden’s specialty is Constitutional law. In fact, both have taught the subject to law schools. What a happy coincidence, after eight years of watching Junior trample the Constitution!

You are concerned about too many lawyers running the country? Obviously, we have lawyers in the judicial branch. And, please recall that the function of the legislature is to make laws. So having some legal training, again, is not a bad thing. Who knows, maybe that’s precisely what Mr. Madison, Esquire had in mind when he drafted the Constitution.

Like it or not, we are a country of laws. This is fundamental to our system. Our best leaders understand and respect our Constitution. Would you prefer a group of Ayatollahs, like in Iran? A former KGB head, like in Russia? An uneducated Army sergeant, like in Venezuela? Or worst of all, an arrogant failed businessman with an MBA from Harvard?

So you had a positive first impression of Sarah Palin? I did too until I learned she believes children in our public schools should be taught a religious doctrine that our planet was created less than 10,000 years ago, that she feels a woman should not have a right to an abortion even after being raped by her own father, and that she wanted to ban books from her town library. Talk about someone who needs a little legal training! But, like you say, she makes a great first impression.

I have just one question for you: In light of the fact that Junior has grown our Federal government by 40% in the last 7 years, that he has wasted ten billion dollars this week (and every week for the last five plus years) fighting to preserve our oil supply in Iraq, that he master-minded the spectacularly bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, and that he decided last week to authorize as much as $1 trillion to bail out lending institutions that everyone now agrees should have been subject to far stricter regulation, what was your first impression of George W. Bush?