Saturday, February 28, 2009

5.56 NATO and the Hague Convention

The Hague convention prohibits the use of weapons calculated to cause excessive structuring. This moratorium is construed to prohibit the use of hollowpoint rounds in warfare (unless the hollowpoint is for aerodynamic reasons). This makes about as much sense, in today's asymmetric warfare, as hand grenades made of cream cheese. Let's work our way down the reasons that the U.S. should adopt the hollowpoint 5.56 round and, ah, adjust its interpretation of the Hague convention.

1) Stopping Power

Currently, the standard round for U.S. forces is the 5.56 mm NATO round in either jacket (steel coated) or ball (solid, pointed lead) form. Fired from an M-16 or comparable rifle, this round develops a muzzles velocity of about 1100 m/sec and a kinetic energy of 7774 joules. This is the equivalent energy of baseball thrown at 706 miles per hour. More meaningfully, a 5.56 has the same momentum as a 210 mile per hour fastball. This is a fearsome amount of energy. Most of it is wasted. This bullet has a tendency to go straight through the target and continues downrange at a considerable speed. Now let's get something straight. When an insurgent charges a soldier with an AKS and who knows what else, what matters is stopping him as quickly as possible. This means imparting maximum momentum change into the target to create shock. A 210 mile per hour fastball will do this quite admirably. One that transfers only half of its momentum to the target will not. A hollowpoint round, on the other hand, expands on impact and thus becomes less aerodynamic upon entering the target and usually stops in it. Complete momentum (but incomplete energy) transfer occurs. This is why most people who carry handguns for self-defense use hollowpoint or softpoint ammunition.

2) Collateral Damage

This is a more serious issue. The 5.56 inflicts a lot of damage and, even in ball form, has formidable stopping power, but on passing through a target it keeps going. This is wasteful and extremely dangerous to anyone downrange. This bullet can go straight through someone, a few panels of drywall, and halfway into an innocent standing next door. A round that stops in the target is unable to do damage beyond the person hit.

3) Lethality

The irony of this is that, at least generally, ball ammunition is more likely to eventually kill the target than hollowpoint. Why? Think about it. How many holes does a person receive when shot by a round that stops in the target? One. When the rounds goes clean through? Two. And exit wounds are a lot nastier than entry ones. A person who is hit by a hollowpoint may be stopped cold, but provided a major organ has not been destroyed stands a decent chance of surviving. A person hit by ball ammunition is likely to bleed to death in the absence of professional medical help. This is even more ironic considering that the 5.56 was not originally developed to be consistently lethal. The reasoning was that in a war of attrition (say, with the U.S.S.R.) the enemy would have to spend more money and time treating wounded soldiers than burying dead ones. This logic is sound, but depends upon the enemy being able and willing to spend the time. Al Qaeda seems a bit reticent in this particular area, so we either end up treating terrorists ourselves or letting them die. I am a proponent of the least force necessary approach, and if we can instantly incapacitate an insurgent without necessitating either death or more expensive medical treatment, this sounds like a sound course of action to me.

My mother has a saying: "Use the proper tool for the proper job." Although she'd be aghast to find she'd been quoted in a post about the 5.56 NATO round, she raises an excellent point. We need to adapt to fight the war we are actually in, not the ones of thirty years ago. This means using the correct tools, and maybe a bit of common sense.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

But wait, there's more!

I hate infomercials. So I wrote one. I will give five dollars to whoever convinces Billy Mays to actually do this.


"Hi, Billy Mays here for UberOxiDiciPutty, the solution to all your household, global, and spiritual problems!" Random hand gestures that imply he is wearing invisible handcuffs and trying to stab you through the television screen.


"UberOxiDiciPutty is a Scientific Discovery made Right Here in America by German Engineers using Japanese Electronics and assembled by Swiss Craftsmen from Genuine Components." More gestures. The television creaks ominously.


"Do you have leaky pipes? UberOxiDiciPutty is the solution! Just apply it!!!!! So easy this untrained, unpracticed child can use it!!!!!!!!!!!!" Enter a frightened looking seven-year-old. She keeps glancing offstage, as though her parents are being held at gunpoint until she fixes the pipes.


"Here, Mandy--"


"I'm Stephanie."


"Whatever, brat. Now watch as Melanie mends those pipes in a snap!" The camera zooms in extremely close to the pipes so only Stephanie's hands are visible. They seem oddly large, hairy, and professional looking. The hands throw some UberOxiDiciPutty at the pipes. They stop leaking.

"And just like that Melanie fixes the pipes!!! Wouldn't you like to be able to fix your pipes?" Stephanie begins crying. "What's this? UderOxiDiciPutty can fix that!" Billy splatters approximately a kilo and a half of noxoius UberOxiDiciPutty into Stephanie's eyes. Her head bursts into flame. Parental voices cry out, followed by a scuffling noise and a warning shot.


"And just like that, UberOxiDiciPutty quiets upset children!" Stephanie manages to plunge her head into the tub of water awaiting the laundry demonstration.


"Why thank you, Melanie!!! I almost forgot!!! Even though I'm reading from a teleprompter!!! UberOxiDiciPutty is to stains as Rosie O'Donnell is to a buffet!!!" He grabs a pile of shirts that look like they've been home to a family of sick badgers for a few years. One of them is actually oozing something that looks suspiciously like warm roofing tar. Billy throws the entire pile into the water.


"Now watch the power!!!! Just one scoop of UberOxiDiciPutty can clean all of these clothes!!! They will look like new!!!" He tosses another handful of crud into the water. Smoke and steam erupt from the surface. A terrified badger scrambles out of the tub, it's fur falling out even as is mauls a cameraman. Billy pulls out a shirt, apparently from immediately behind the tub. It is gleaming white and has a faint halo of light surrounding it. He hastily yanks off the tag.


"Just like new!!!! No, it's better!!! This shirt is now imbued with the strength of UberOxiDiciPutty!!!! We stitched together a parachute from shirts treated with this amazing substance!!!" A skydiver leaps out of an airplane. We briefly see a parachute of shirts opening above him. The camera cuts to a skydiver standing on the ground, grinning. He gives a thumbs-up. He is wearing a different color than the diver who left the aircraft. The audio is indistinct, but screams are just discernible in the distance.


"And that's not all!!!!!! UberOxiDiciPutty offers the perfect means to prepare for inlaws and family get-togethers!!!" Camera cuts to a woman snickering as she balances a bucket of UberOxiDiciPutty on top of the front door. "Let's hear her mention my cooking now," she cackles. The ceiling over the bucket begins to blacken.


"Order now!!! $19.95 will get you a full tub! Two more payments of $19.95 will get you a tub full of UberOxiDiciPutty!!! But you must call now!!! Now!!! Now!!! But wait!!!! We will include, free, a set of premium asbestos cleaning gloves with a lifetime warranty!!!!!" Billy Mays passes out from lack of oxygen. His hands continue to gesture, causing the TV screen to crack. A small drop of UberOxiDiciPutty falls from the table and lands on his head. A faint sizzling noise begins. The badger, now completely hairless, darts over and begins to eat one of his hands. Stephanie throws a bucket of UberOxiDiciPutty over both of them. The result, ranking among the greatest moments in television history, levels most of southern California. She deserves a medal. She needs a wig.





The few, the many, and those ill-equipped to choose

I am a Lost addict. One scene in a recent episode featured a rather substantial number of people on an aircraft that may have been about to crash. A character asked the person seated next to him what would happen to all those people. The other, in one of his priceless signature lines, answered, "Who cares?" This cold indifference to the possible deaths of a few dozen people struck me as simply evil. Then I thought about it for a while. No one could do anything to protect them. Even if they died, the cause for which they died is probably (nothing is certain on this show) more important than a few lives. Surely allowing the dozen to die to save millions is acceptable? Ah, utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher of the early and mid 19th century, proposed that an action is moral when it attains the highest good for the greatest number. Utilitarianism is, at first glance, a viable moral framework for at least the shaping of policy. Unfortunately, it is also flawed. The Second Law of Humanity (see January 27) and the Third Law both render utilitarianism ineffective and even dangerous.

1) People cannot always identify "the highest good for the greatest number."

People always, always base decisions on incomplete information outside the realm of mathematics. Consider, for example, a chess game. You are white, so you open. What to do? Queenside pawn? Kingside? A knight? Just run away because you are playing Matthew Sadler? The cold, unpleasant truth is that you have no idea of what the best move is. You might have a general idea or a "gist" of what a sound move would be, but you cannot plan the entire game and cannot foresee every outcome. The science of making decisions without complete information is called "heuristics." It is, almost by definition, the least precise science in existence with the possible exceptions of sociology and psychology. Let us say that Ebola breaks out from an escaped monkey in San Diego (lots of zoos there) and threatens to wipe out 80% of the U.S. population, but we can stop the spread of the plague by detonating a thermonuclear device over San Diego and killing everyone who is infected. Not exactly original, I know, but still interesting. On the one hand, we can save 270 million people by killing a few hundred thousand. But will we really? Can we be sure that the nuclear device will kill everyone? Has anyone already left San Diego? Will the outbreak just die out due to the inhospitably cold climate (relative to Congo)? We just don't know. Utilitarianism promises the end of moral compromise via precise measuring of cost and benefit, but all it offers is a set of mind-boggling probabilities and possibilities. Man knows not his needs.

2) People are incapable of detecting error once a choice has been made without an external reference point. People are also very, very selfish.

Consider, for example, an incident that occurred a few days ago. A man was pulled over by the police and later questioned by the Secret Service because he had an "Abort Obama, not the unborn" bumper sticker. (Here's a brain teaser: if abortion is not murder then how is this a death threat?) This poor guy was placed under investigation for expressing an opinion is way that was tactless but hardly disruptive or grossly inappropriate. Now we come to the crux of the matter: the government will continue to treat folks this way until given a reason not to. Unless someone loses a Senate seat over this, conduct will stay the same because the choice has been made and from the perspective of the people in power there is no reason to change it. Because the government has a different perspective than the people it theoretically serves the significance of external stimuli is not consistent between the two. SWAT teams accidentally breaking down the wrong door is a problem for the people in the house; it is not a problem for the government beyond some wasted time. What Congress perceives to be the greater good is almost certainly going to be incorrect from our standpoint and will remain incorrect until angry letters and petitions start showing up. Utilitarianism cannot be counted upon in government because "highest good for the greatest number" is a relative term from the beginning and is still further damaged by inertia and selfishness.

3) Utilitarianism cannot even be enacted.

I love game theory; it is one of the few elements of philosophy that functions with mathematical precision. Consider the following: two fighter pilots are over enemy territory. A formation of enemy fighters approaches. If both fighters stay, both pilots will be injured and both craft damaged but they survive and reach home. This outcome has a value of 2 for both pilots. (total of 4) If one turns and runs, he will escape but his wingman will die trying to hold off the fighters. This outcome has a value of 3 for the pilot who escapes but a value of 0 for the pilot who dies. (total of 3) If they both flee they outrun the enemy fighters but burn so much fuel doing so that they have to bail out over enemy territory and are captured. This outcome has a value of 1 for both pilots. (total of 2) Now imagine that you are one of the pilots. Should you stay or go? If he stays you are best off fleeing because otherwise you'll be wounded. If he flees you had better follow because otherwise you will die. No matter what your wingman does you are best off retreating. And yet, paradoxically, the best overall outcome is if you both stay and fight. The utilitarian outcome is only possible if both fighters stay. The actions that the pilots actually take will be based in self-interest and render an optimal outcome impossible. The optimal outcome occurs only when courage is added to the mix. This is rather ironic, given that utilitarianism is intended to replace all other value systems and cannot explain or support courage. Utilitarianism tells us to value the highest good for the greatest number but provides to clear means or even reason to try. People, left to their own devices, are not utilitarian. People subject to the will of a Benthamite totalitarian are not free and will likely attempt to become so.

Utilitarianism has a certain appeal, I admit, but recall what is paved with good intentions and utilitarianism is little more than a set of good intentions.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Professional sports and the prospect of alien invasion

Football. Basketball. Baseball. We all seem obsessed with them. I am currently watching professional bull riding, and I'm pretty sure someone is obsessed with that, too. Why? Why do we pay money to applaud as grown men swat little balls or tackle each other or get mauled by 2000 pounds of angry muscle? We waste time, incur the wrath of PETA, and expend incredible resources to watch other people do stuff. Amazing? Obviously. Sinister, perhaps? I think so. It is clear that many "sports leagues" are alien conspiracies to convert us into helpless couch potatoes. Proof? You want proof? Let's start with a look at the people involved in professional sports, hm?

1. Plaxico Burress

This guy is an alien. The Giants' wide receiver was attempting to acquaint himself with earthling weaponry, but he did insufficient homework. As a result, he decided to carry a Glock without a holster, do this in New York state, and pull the trigger while the end with the hole in it was pointed at his leg. As most of my readers who are not aliens have likely deduced, all three of these acts were either illegal, stupid, or both. Surely a human earning a few million dollars a year would be smarter. The only logical explanation is that he is an alien without extensive knowledge of why holsters are important, what New York's laws are, and which end the bullets come out of.

2. Bret Favre

This alien is no longer involved with the conspiracy directly; the aliens did not anticipate that some of their people might actually develop a liking for football. Favre, in addition to subversively introducing the alien system of pronunciation, has become rather fond of his records. He keeps coming out of retirement to further protect them, and will continue to do so for the rest of his five-hundred year lifespan. Old? He's barely past adolescence.

3. Dennis Rodman

Look up a picture. Yeah...I don't think I need to say anything else.

But why? How does the aliens' support of sports benefit them in their ongoing quest to toast us and seize our planet with its scenery intact? Think about what sports do. They bind us, with ever increasing strength, to our couches decreasing our ability to protect ourselves. More importantly, they divide us. Millions of people hold deep, almost religious opinions, about stuff that does not matter. Cubs fans hate Cardinals fans. Aggies fans hate Longhorn fans. Americans own lots and lots of guns. The situation is the same in the rest of the world, except with soccer and blunt instruments. By my estimates, the Global Sports War, with no fewer than 1500 separate sides, will erupt in less than twenty years. When the dust settles, only people uninterested in sports will have survived. In other words, the only people left alive after 2029 will be monks. And most monks are really, really bad at blowing up aliens.

Is there a solution? Of course. We must give monks as many nuclear weapons as possible.

P.S. Come 2029, if you are a Patriots fan, you better hope somebody has mercy on you. I guarantee the entire population of Indiana won't.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Apex

One common sentiment I often hear expressed (and admit to sometimes sharing) is the idea that human civilization somehow peaked a few decades ago and is now beginning an inexorable, horrific decline interrupted only by (a) the return of Christ or (b) the destruction of humanity.

This is nonsense for two reasons.

One: Egocentrism

The United States is in moral, political, and (largely for political reasons) economic decline. Unfortunate? Sure. The demise of all mankind? Hardly. India is on the rise. China (if democracy wins out) may be another great nation. Europe is falling apart but has been doing so for the last fifty years. The cold fact is this: change is not always decline. The Western world is diminishing; the Eastern is ascendant. We may as well get used to it and learn to live with the new order. We may even, through miraculous recovery, manage to slow the shift, but it's pretty hard to argue with population and nationalistic youth and vigor. Even if the United States falls clean off the world stage or embraces socialism (more) and is ruined economically, humanity will go on. Look at the decline of the British Empire. To the English it looked like the end of the world. Who even thinks about this today? It's amazing what a bit of perspective can do. The United States was waiting to fill the power vacuum and has, all in all, done fairly well. The world kept turning. The counter argument here is that the new rising nations are hardly supporters of human rights, freedom, and justice. Which brings us to reason two:

Two: Transience

Even if democracy and capitalism fall and the world is plunged into a new dark age, a new renaissance will follow it. Civilizations fall. How about them Romans, eh? The Roman Empire (and earlier the Roman Republic and earlier still Greece) was a truly amazing society, with knowledge and a passion for truth unmatched until the Enlightenment. What is left of the Romans today? The Coliseum (which actually is a symbol of decline and barbarism) and Little Caesar's Pizza. Life is tough. Countries are no more exempt to entropy than the people who comprise them. Everything dies, and sometimes death is painful. The fall of the Roman Empire triggered the Dark Ages. And guess what? We recovered. It took fifteen hundred years to reclaim some of the losses, but we recovered. Upheaval is not even truly death but rather slumber. Nigh all mistakes are reversible, any error healed by the passage of time. Is there pain, loss, turmoil? Yes. But there is no final end that we can bring about ourselves.

What is my point? Let's not get so enraptured by our own accomplishments and our own status and even our precious modern comforts that we lose track of the truth that matters. Life finds a way. The fall of the West is not the fall of humanity. Should we stave it off as long as possible? Sure. We can even mourn its passage on the day we fail. But we must do so because the fall is undesirable, not because it is the end of the world. The idea that we have reached the pinnacle of human history is unsupportable and distorts how we view the world. We all too easily forget that the only things that matter are eternal and universal. Our current civilization is neither.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Off with his head (only in French)

I've been thinking about swarm intelligence. This concept forms a major part of Michael Crichton's book Prey. This novel is science fiction, of course, but the idea of swarm intelligence is still interesting and highly applicable to human societies.


The general concept of swarm intelligence is the idea that the interaction of multitudes of simple agents can give rise to complex behaviors. In Prey, this made Crichton's swarms of nanoparticles incredibly intelligent and capable of rapid evolution and innovation. In reality, it makes us very, very stupid. Because people are the exact opposite of a "nanoswarm." People are, as individuals, pretty intelligent. We can be misled, but are usually able to handle ourselves fairly well. People as groups are incapable of rational thought. Consider a mob. To find the IQ of a mob, start at 70 and divide by the number of people involved. Look at the French Revolution. The more violent aspects of this period were either mob-executed (literally) or mob-inspired. Random head removal would not lower the price of bread. This did not discourage random head removal. Why? The main problem with swarm intelligence is a tendency to lose track of goals. People as individuals may see and objective and work to overcome it. I see that the price of bread is too high for me to buy as much as I want to, so I'll fire off an angry letter to Robespierre. A mob sees that the price is too high and they whack off his head. End result? Thermidorian reaction and (gasp) the price of bread stays exactly the same.



What can we learn from this? I'd say that people are, as groups, not very bright. So, let us turn our attention to the idea of democracy. Democracy is based on the idea that the majority of people should determine a government's policies. There's nothing there about desirable or sound policies, what matters is that the people are choosing their own laws. This is interesting in light of the assertion that people are weakest intellectually in large groups. The obvious counter here is that I am making a false comparison; it's pretty evident that election day differs (usually) from the elimination of Robespierre. But the concept that people are more easily confused and misled in groups holds true. Why? Because people (collectively) get caught up in the same emotional rush that drives mobs and demonstrations. Think about the recent election of certain very famous, very popular political figure. The number of Obama supporters I found who could accurately describe his policies, let alone why they supported these policies, can be counted on the hand of a blind butcher. What mattered was that Obama generated a massive emotional upwelling in enough people that it self-propagated. A few people are enraptured. The sensation spreads to their friends, families, etc., growing exponentially with each degree of separation. By the end of the campaign, millions of people acting as the democratic analogue of a mob elected a man whose policies very few of them actually know. Interesting, eh?



This explains, in part, why I have never met a person with an extreme leftist view on gun control or national healthcare who has been willing to argue logically and with evidence. Little such support exists, but this is irrelevant simply because enough other people like the idea or think they do. Want to have some fun? Lock five Republicans and five Democrats in a room. Wait for one hour. Open the door and you will find at least fifteen different opinions. How do such people get into office? Because, collectively, people are frequently idiots. The opinions don't matter; what matters is the ability to stir people up via grandiose promises of "change" or "progress" or even "values" and to get out the vote.



Solution, anyone? America's system of democracy is based on the erroneous idea that people vote in a vacuum. This may have been close to correct in 1787, but it most certainly is false now. People are bombarded with everyone else's opinion (frequently an unthinking one) and before long their own disappears into the noise. We need to restore some measure of individualism. Only when people start thinking for ourselves again can swarm intelligence be neutralized.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

EPIC FAIL

Among the semi-literate exclamations of surprise, mockery, or dismay in current use is the phrase "EPIC FAIL." No, no, no. Don't read it like that. Drop your voice an octave or two. Slloooowww dowwwn... Form a mental image of someone you dislike incurring the wrath of a dozen rabid weasels. Now say it out loud a few times. Fun, eh? This term evolved to express the keen sense of "I'm glad that that didn't just happen to me" that so often accompanies video game playing and watching professional sports. Someone not get out of his foxhole when the plasma grenade got in? Epic fail. Break left instead of right and take a heat-seeking missile right through the cockpit? Epic fail. Throw a Hail Mary, have it picked off and run back for a touchdown? Epic fail. Pitch four consecutive balls to someone with a batting average lower than Katie Couric's IQ? Epic fail. But I suspect that epic fail is more widely applicable than just the realms of gaming and sport spectating. The first possibility that comes to mind is my own field of debate. I can just imagine the cross-ex:

Neg: So you agree that human rights can conflict with one another?

Aff: Sometimes, yes.

Neg: How do you know which ones to uphold?

Aff: Well, I guess it varies by the case...

Neg: EPIC FAIL! EPIC FAAAIIIILLLLLL!

(Dull thump as affirmative flowpad and notebook hit the floor. Sharp thump as affirmative debater collapses on top of them, quivering and wondering what just happened.)

Funny, yes, but it got me thinking about what an "epic fail" really is in debate. Looking at my flows from last tournament, I noticed something interesting. I only ever lost to one opponent, and she consistently addressed all the points as they were actually presented. Most of the debaters I defeated tended to use the straw man logical fallacy; they countered an argument that had not actually been made. This is annoying, mainly because of how common it is both inside and outside debate rounds. Real example from today's news:

Pundit 1: How does raising taxes help the economy?

Pundit 2: Ronald Reagan both raised and lowered taxes!

Fascinating factoid, Pundit 2, but also entirely irrelevant to the question. Note that P2 neatly sidestepped the question by implying that the economic boom following the Reagan administration was due in part to tax increases, but he does not address the fact that taxes decreased on the whole. He never actually gave an answer to the question. Here is an even better example:

Me: Why should we label semi-automatic rifles as "assault weapons" and ban them when they definitionally are not "assault weapons" and are used in almost no gun crime?

Angry Liberal: Guns are dangerous and assault weapons are even worse because they spray entire rooms with bullets!

Okay, three things here. One: AL made a flat statement (guns are dangerous) which is not really on point and is unsupported. Two: AL reused the term "assault weapons" (an extremely emotive phrase) which is not accurate and does not refer to the guns under discussion. Three: AL placed the stigma on the guns ("they spray") instead of the criminals. Suddenly the firearms are the whole problem, not the people who misuse them.

Note also a punctuation mark used in both examples: "!" This little mark is usually an indicator that someone is either lying to you or speaking irrationally. Solid argumentation does not need an exclamation point. Solid argumentation does not need an exclamation point! Notice the difference? The second statement sounds almost shrill. Gone is coldly incisive logic and rearing in its stead is the flare of human emotion. Most epic fails in argumentation are made quite spectacularly. Appeals to emotion tend to accompany the burning of straw men.

So, epic fails can be identified by attention to language and the sudden presence of inappropriate emotional intensity. How do you counter them? You can't. Sorry. Someone who makes an argument like one of the examples has already decided to Not Agree With You Ever Even If Hell Freezes Over Twice And The Cubs Win the World Series and nothing you do or say will sway them. Like we say in debate, "Don't try to persuade to other side. Persuade the judge." You cannot effectively hold a discussion with someone willing to resort to logical fallacies (perhaps even subconsciously) because they are both opposition and judge. Epic fail. Suddenly it's not quite as amusing. But this post is not all gloom. Most discussions do not happen in a vacuum. Usually there are observers, even ones sitting on the proverbial fence about an issue. Be alert for lapses in logic and argumentation and gently but clearly exploit them when they occur. Be a source of truth. Above all, please do not give in the urge to commit epic fails in your own speech and conduct. I see nigh as many errors on my side of the issues as on the other side. If enough people conduct ourselves according the standards of ethical debate, I wonder what we could accomplish. I wonder how much we could change and actually change for the better. Think about it. Maybe check out a book on logic and persuasion from the library. And don't play Halo against Xbox nerds unless you know how. My ear is still sore from all the "EPIC FAILs" I received.

Friday, February 6, 2009

I'm freeeeeeeeee...free fallin'

I love theme parks. I didn't always much appreciate them; for many years I had this irrational fear of streaking straight down at 90 miles per hour in a vehicle designed by engineers not currently riding in it. Luckily, at Cedar Point I overcame this entirely groundless phobia long enough to discover I actually like roller coasters. I think that the lawn mowing I did over the summer finally killed off enough brain cells. Let us examine the theme park experience.

Step One: Travel

There are plenty of ways to die interestingly in Anytown, USA, but go ahead and travel a few hundred miles to visit Cedar Point. This way, you get to pay gas money to countries like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, helping their struggling economies. In Dubhai the number of indoor ski slopes per capita has fallen to below 3.4, resulting in, well, I don't know what. At the end of the journey, you are faced with another opportunity to discard the bits of green paper you've been accumulating. This time, you shell out 100 bucks a night at a Super 8 twenty miles from the park. Most horrifying, you feel fortunate to have secured this rate. Perhaps this is because it pales in comparison to:

Step Two: Admission

Roller coasters are just barely visible over the horizon as you are directed to the nearest available parking space. Most parks have parking lots that make Kansas look positively cramped. Last year more people starved to death lost in parking lots outside Cedar Point than in all the world's natural deserts combined. Haggard and weary, you reach the gate only to be asked to surrender any and all cash you might be carrying. 401(k)s might also be confiscated. Decurrencied and searched to make sure you aren't smuggling food into the park, you are free to enjoy the wonder, fear, adrenaline, and pure joy of:

Step Three: Lines

If set end to end, the lines at Cedar Point would wrap around Rosie O'Donnell and Al Gore combined. We waited nearly two hours for one ride even though we went on two of the slower days of the season. Even more ferocious than the length of the lines are their contents. Horrifying as it may sound, these lines of composed of living human beings, among the strangest elements in the known universe. The denizens of lines provide great entertainment, but more than once I felt like calling for security and, on rather more occasions, the CDC. In line for the Maverick (a coaster more fun the Sarah Palin in a Gander Mountain without security cameras), we got to listen, for an hour and a half, to iPod Man. I should clarify; iPod Man is in no way associated with Apple Computers. I think he might be associated with the clinical trial of an inhibition-lowering drug that works a bit too well. For ninety minutes he listened to his iPod, happily belting out the lyrics at random intervals. Everyone would be minding their own business, standing around and pretending they weren't contemplating making a break for it, when suddenly a voice would launch into "He Reigns" a Newsboys song of which I used to be moderately fond. In a fantasy world, everyone would have joined in and a Billy Graham-style revival would have swept Sandusky, Ohio into the New Millennium. In this world everyone looked slightly nervous and resolutely avoided eye-contact. A real shame, I think. Creepiness aside, I give this guy credit for at least being willing to show some sign of worship in public.

Step Four: Things Man Was Not Meant To Know

After the two-hour line comes the two-minute ride. The rides themselves always have vaguely ominous names. Case in point: The Corkscrew. I admit, most of the mental images that come to mind are not positive. The common corkscrew's application beyond the realm of wine bottles does not bear contemplation. I like my nasal passages the way God made them. The coaster is nowhere near as sinister as the name implies; it simply contains a corkscrew-shaped loop. Now consider the Mantis. A mantis is a bug. It's not even poisonous. So the coaster won't be too vicious, right? Well...the Mantis is a coaster on which the riders stand astride a bicycle seat-like saddle and underneath a shoulder harness. The seat ratchets up, the harness ratchets down. The problem here is fairly evident to anyone familiar with classical American humor. The harness will invariably be a bit too low and the seat a bit too high. Add four g's and the situation is suddenly not funny at all to the victim and an absolute scream to whoever is standing next to him. I'm just glad I was the guy standing next to him. And don't even get me started on Top Thrill Dragster. Too late. Hah! This ride features a line slightly longer than the total length of the track. I wonder why, because TTD consists solely of a hydraulic launch system, a 400-foot tall hill, and a few dozen foolish victims. They recommend you leave behind easily lost things like limbs before boarding.

In summary, we give up time, money, safety, and sanity to simulate falling to our deaths. It just seems to me that there is an easier way.