A response to "Liberal Creationism." - By Stephen Metcalf - Slate Magazine
Remember the link I posted a little while ago about the IQ differences in races? It being due to genetic factors? Here's another guy who says that's highly questionable. I'm a little more inclined to believe him. I want to believe that "all men are created equal", at least in general, and not just spiritually. I want to live in a world of equals, not castes. But I also want to know the truth. I hope more research is done on this issue...if it really were to turn out that certain groups have higher or lower intelligence, that'd have huge implications...most of them bad.


China expresses "grave concern" that USS Kitty Hawk passed Taiwan on way back to Japan - International Herald Tribune
You might have heard of this whole mess. Now the Chinese are saying they're unhappy that the ships may have gone through the Taiwan strait after being turned away from Hong Kong.
I'm at least a little surprised at their astounding blindness as to the importance of public opinion - people in this country already dislike them quite a bit, and this is going to make their paranoia and hatred much worse.
But, I'd believe that we probably did go through that strait on the way home. After all, since Taiwan is our ally, why not swing by? heheh. Not like we were going through a sovereign state's internal territory.


Krugman: The making of a mess - International Herald Tribune
This writer is of the opinion that we're headed for a huge financial mess - not only because of all the things you already know about, but because the people who created our modern financial system don't actually understand it. It's gotten too byzantine for anyone to predict or navigate.



Brazilians giving up their American dream - International Herald Tribune
Thanks to the idiocy of our current immigration policy, as well as the impossibility of even becoming a legal citizen for many legal immigrants (thank you, again, bureaucrats), many of the hundreds of thousands (or millions, no one knows) of Brazilians who came here are now leaving. It just isn't worth it anymore. I expect more groups will follow, and we will be worse for it.

Also, you've almost certainly seen it by now, but I've been meaning to post that Mike Huckaby/Chuck Norris ad. I was surprised it was made.


It's funny...but I don't know how you'd follow up on that. It seems like the sort of thing that, should he win, will come back to bite him in the ass. I mean, we both know the whole immigration mess isn't going to get fixed, probably ever.

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All I can say is, holy crap.
This guy is called the "tree man" for the way his hands and feet look. I wish I could embed the video, but I can't.
Tree Man video
Wow. It looks painful.

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Woman Killed by Stray Dogs in Bulgaria
I'd heard it was bad over there, but I though it was exaggerated.
Like in this comic (which admittedly is about Romania, but hey, it's a problem in most of the area, I guess)






















Sore Thumbs Online

She went to walk her own dog in the small village she lived in. She's British...so...I don't really know why she was there. Doesn't matter, though.
A pack of stray dogs attacked her. They ate the meat from her legs, then, with the bones jutting from her ruined, eaten stumps, they left her bleeding to death. It's kind of hard to imagine worse ways of dying than watching your legs get eaten, then hoping that maybe, since the dogs left, that you might survive, horribly crippled, and then bleed to death anyway. False hope is bitter.

So...to those people overly attached to your cute little doggies...they are still animals, and if they have to, they will kill you. Except lapdogs. They'll just bite really annoyingly and bark until maybe you die from it.
Also, I lost the link, but packs of stray dogs are acting much like wolves in the de-militarized parts of Cyprus. So. Remember they are animals, not people. Even if they were people, of course, you probably still should not entirely trust them. People with that many sharp teeth would be inherently a little untrustworthy. Hehhe.


China's African Misadventures
You may have heard of China's spending spree in Africa. They prop up evil governments and etc. Usual business.
It turns out, Africa is still a really screwed up continent that even the Chinese have trouble with.


The (Impossible) American Dream
You may have heard recently that the American dream has failed - that children no longer grow up to be richer than their parents, etc., etc. It turns out to be mostly bullshit. Unsurprisingly. Also, the thing about black children growing up in the middle class and ending up poor...is kind of true, except that it ignores the fact that the size of the black middle class has doubled since the 70s, which was the generation being observed. It turns out that in this country, things are at least somewhat meritocratic - if you start out rich, there's no guarantee you'll end up that way, and if you start poor, it's not guaranteed you'll stay there, either. So unless every black family had six kids, four of whom grew up to be prosperous, and two which were utter failures, you'd have to conclude the system is working for somebody. Groups don't just double in size by accident. (except trailer trash. Oh! Insult! Except they're due to lots of accidents. heheh.)


Dickey: The Truth About Illegal Immigrants
According to this guy, the cities with the most immigrants, illegal or otherwise, are also the safest cities. Of course, there's no mention of what, exactly, they meant by safest - lowest murders per capita, lowest numbers for property crimes, what? I'm pretty sure the places listed - border towns, mostly, New York City, and Honolulu - have all got some problems with theft. Mostly the border towns. They sure as hell do.
Also, he doesn't demonstrate that the immigrants themselves make these places "safer". It could very well be that there is an increased police presence, or that other measures are being taken to deal with that community, that keep the "safeness" level where it is. I'd really like to believe him, because I like immigrants, think they make our country better and stronger, and generally dislike any sort of government controls, especially ones on where people are allowed to go - but he really fails to make the case. Too bad.

Hmm...I actually looked the thing up, and I'm not sure what he's referring to - here's a list of the safest/least safe cities for 2006 and 2007 from the Wikipedia article about the company that made his list. Apparently there is quite a bit of controversy over their methods: even the FBI says not to trust them.


Finally, because the first link is terrible, and the last depressingly stupid, here is a good story.
A Mexican man was walking over the borderlands. He came across a little boy on the side of the road, holding the mirror of his van. He had been camping with his mom, and driving back on Thanksgiving, she had left the road. The fall destroyed the van and took her life, but left the boy unhurt and alone. Though the man could not understand the boy, nor the boy him, he decided that he would help. Even knowing that he would be deported for doing so, he stayed, made a fire, gave the boy his sweater, and found some food in what was left of the van.

They were found the next day by hunters. The boy was returned to his uncle, and the man was sent to Mexico, where his own seven children depend on him. He does not regret what he did.
I'm really glad there are people like this in the world. We need more of them.

Feds' budget tricks hide trillions in debt - MSN Money
Did you know that, even during the "surplus" years at the end of Clinton's presidency, our national debt still grew? Funny thing. Our budget is all lies.

Also, because everyone needs some levity:

Karate Cat

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Fake shark fins may be infiltrating the Taiwan market
I didn't know there was such a thing. I suppose I'm glad, though - it seems a waste to kill a shark just for its fin, so being able to make a substitute is a good thing. Especially if most people can't tell the difference.


Millions in Sales From 3 Simple Words - New York Times
Have you seen those shirts (and everything else) that say, "life is good"? I'm sure you have. They have been irritating me for several years now. I'm not sure exactly why - I used to know. Maybe it's the drawing. That's irritating. Maybe it's the ignorance. Life, for me, actually has been pretty good. Outstanding, even. But I know it's not that way for everyone. Hmm...



What Would Jesus Buy? - Movie - Review - New York Times
It's not an actual pastor in the movie, but that seems to be the norm for documentaries these days - Michael Moore pionered the not-actually documentable documentary, and since so many people gave him money, it's inspired a whole wave of movies claiming to document things that don't exist.
Whatever. It seems like it might be a funny movie - this 'performance artist' goes around as Reverend Billy (Though I think Pastor Chuck would be more appropriate) and his congregation, and warns people of the coming "shopocalypse". It's trying to make people question what it is they believe in, and what they're doing. Christmas is not supposed to be about buying stuff, after all. True, we did receive a great gift, but we certainly didn't get it for being "nice". And the level of spending is really getting out of hand. Perhaps this year it will be less so, but there's always the future.

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Race, genes, and intelligence. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine
William Saletan is not afraid of controversy. I suppose this is common knowledge by now. He will be writing a series of articles about the different characteristics of the various races - backed by what is supposedly solid research. And yes, he does say that race has an impact on intelligence - blacks tend to have lower IQs, whites about 'average' (100 or so), and East Asians higher than that. You may want to read it.

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Urban Legends Reference Pages: Obnoxious Airline Passengers
This is just a collection of stories of dubious verity - but all entertaining. The sort of stories you wish were true.



This is an awesome video. The dancing alone makes it worth watching. It's Indian. But the supposed subtitles are really the meat of the thing. You should see it.


Language Log: Autour-du-mondegreens: bunkum unbound
Believe it or not, this is a serious webpage by a serious scholar of linguistics...who just happens to enjoy bad internet videos. He passes it off as a linguistic exercise...and you know, it is. Lucky guy.

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Your grandmother's vibrator. - By Teresa Riordan - Slate Magazine
Yes, that really is the title.
I didn't know, but a lot of "psychotherapy" of Freud's time was, simply, using vibrators on "hysterical" women. Strangely enough, it became very popular. I always knew there was something seedy about Psychology.



Family feud. - By Michael Newdow - Slate Magazine
As it describes itself: "Family courts don't solve conflict, they create it." It describes why divorces are often so ugly, and it all has to do with our custody laws.



Chinese girl swims with limbs bound - Focus on China - MSNBC.com
Yes, China, home of the world's highest concentration of crazy people. Probably. I mean, seriously...this girl wants to swim the English channel, so, for training, her dad ties her arms together, and then her legs, and throws her into a river, where she swims for hours like a dolphin. Also: it mentions an 8-year old who ran 2,212 miles in 55 days...also in China.



Do daughters cause divorce? - By Steven E. Landsburg - Slate Magazine
Just like it says.



The priest sex-abuse scandal claims some new, elderly victims. - By Melinda Henneberger - Slate Magazine
How is the Catholic Church paying for the sex-abuse scandals? By closing down nunneries. Or are they called convents now?



Men sleep better next to their mates - Sleep - MSNBC.com
And women do not. Huh.



Danger to lead-free electronics: tin whiskers - Science - MSNBC.com
For reasons no one understands, tin solder grows whiskers after a while. This, obviously, is bad for electronics, which are not generally in need of new pathways for their carefully herded electrons. (Note to self: train special breed of dogs as electron herders). Lead prevents this. Unfortunately, the EU, with all its infinite European wisdom and world-weariness, has declared any amount of lead whatsoever to be intolerably dangerous...and so lead is going away. Which means tin whiskers will be making a comeback, unless someone thinks of a clever solution soon.



Music to their ears it is not - MSN Health & Fitness
Turns out only a few people are actually tone-deaf. Most people can hear music just fine, though. A few who can't? Che Guevara and Milton Friedman. I had to steal that from the article. It's just too good to pass up. There's a test, too.


Two last things of interest -
Man accused of beheading duck at hotel - Criminal Peculiarity - MSNBC.com
He was hungry. Also drunk.

And

Appendix may be useful after all - More Health News - MSNBC.com
This's pretty cool. It might help repopulate your guts with bacteria if they should all die off or something. Most of us don't need it anymore, since there are so many other people around to get these bacteria from, but in isolation, and in more primitive conditions, it's probably really handy.

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There are people who reminisce about the '80s. I am not one of them.
Here's why:

Tone-Deaf Star Wars Trumpet

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The Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs -- Hare et al. 298 (5598): 1634 -- Science
This is neat. I meant to post this some years ago...before this blog existed. Creepy, eh? Heheh. Well, anyway, it seems we've bred dogs to recognize emotions. No surprise, right? So it turns out that puppies raised by humans, or even without human contact in kennels, are able to 'read' humans pretty well, whereas wolves raised by humans mostly fail.


Did the Soviets really build a "doomsday machine"? - By Ron Rosenbaum - Slate Magazine
The answer is yes, kind of. It was a system that, after detecting a nuclear attack on Russian soil, and not receiving any sort of signal from Moscow, would authorize whatever guy happened to be sitting in the bunker that day to launch Russia's arsenal at the US. No two keys, no backups, just one guy. Still, it did require an attack to occur before the system would unlock. But electronics are somewhat less than reliable. heh.
The really awesome part?
It's still turned on.




Experts doubt plan to block Web bomb recipes - Online World - MSNBC.com
Those crazy Europeans. They want to "use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism". That sounds pretty likely to work, doesn't it? And I'm sure it won't impede people's ability to actually talk about the world, or criticize government, or even do basic research on what's going on in the world. Weren't there a few silly, fantasy-story books about dangerous words a few years ago?
Heh. Just imagine - you want to write a paper about suicide bombers, you google "suicide bombers", "terrorism", and get "no results found." While I'd hope that that's true of the results of suicide bombing, I doubt it is true of the information online.



Part of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com
I don't have to say much beyond the title. It's just like it says. And that's good news. Government has got to play by the rules all the time, not just when it's convenient, or what the hell are rules for?



World Hepatitis Awareness Day 2007
And finally something lighthearted. No, seriously! If you've been failing to get hepatitis lately, this will give you some nice pointers. And knowing is half the battle! (the other half is violence! I saw that on the Internet)

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How to wash a grenade



grenade wash

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Bush slams MoveOn ad - - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
Remember the "General Betray-Us" thing? I'm sure you've heard already, but MoveOn.org got a $120,000 dollar discount for their somewhat unbalanced newspaper attack.
Anyway, if you'll go onto page two, you'll find at least the New York Times has some honor - they've allowed Giuliani to run an ad at the same price. So, while they aren't raising prices, they aren't raising their standards much, either. Heheh. Alright, that was a cheap shot. To his credit, his ad was defending Gen. Petraeus.



Shag the Dog - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine
This is an old article - but I found it interesting when I first read it, and still do. Basically, it's almost impossible to oppose man-beast relations on any sort of moral grounds besides "it's icky." Well, I could just say, "God says don't do it, and that means don't do it," but people don't tend to listen to that.
Anyway - if you're thinking of opposing it on the grounds of lack of consent...wouldn't that leave animals unable to have sex at all, with each other, since they cannot give any meaningful sort of consent?
Chalk up one more reason to like God-given, inflexible moral rules! Sure, you can't prove them logically, but at least they deny dogsex!


Also,
What's wrong with eating dogs? - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine


Well...that was interesting.

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Well, I should start out strong.
This woman in Texas believes she has the corpses of three chupacabra (s?). They are ugly. They are also dogs.

Also, a man was trying to fish. A sea lion stole his bait. A very large sea lion. So he stabbed it. Now he's going to jail? Only in California, I hope, could this happen. It's a federal law, but....

On the subject...
In Hawaii, they have been without a ferry service. Now they have one. But environmentalists are blocking it, and a judge is cooperating with them. The reason? The boat does not have an environmental impact statement.
Come on. It's a boat. There are already several hundred, if not thousand, there. None of them had to complete one of these.

More bureaucratic awesomeness:
Men were heard speaking Arabic on a plane. So the plane was not allowed to take off. It turns out the men were contractors trying to teach our soldiers Arabic...but the government didn't get things sorted out very quickly, as usual; the flight didn't end up taking off until the next day.
Seriously, people, calm down. Terrorism sucks, but there really aren't that many people trying to kill us. And let's remember - Arabic != death. Or terrorists.

And more!
The Vatican recently started chartering planes to pilgrimage sites. On the way back from Lourdes, passengers were not allowed to carry their vials of holy water onto the plane.
I understand now. See, I thought those rules were silly. But actually, it's all been an elaborate set up for this very case. If you were an undead monster, or something similar, and had to fly on a plane, where you couldn't get away, wouldn't it suck if there was someone with holy water who happened to have it in for you? Problem solved, now!
Either that, or airplanes are inherently evil, like some old Luddites and technophobes have mentioned.

中國新聞的時候!
Officials on the mainland are concerned about the use of English...pretty much everywhere in that country. With good reason. I've seen a few "steamed crap"s in my day. They'd like to clear the confusion. (Though in some cases, there may be truth in advertising - cardboard is the main ingredient in some 包子, for example.)


少林寺徒不但弱, 而且很笨的.
Also, this is too ridiculous to be true, but I'm not in charge of these things, generally. A person wrote on the Internet that a single ninja went to a Shaolin temple and defeated all who would fight him. Another day on the Internet, right?
That reveals that you are neither a Shaolin monk nor the mainland government.
The monks are suing.
Notable quotes:

“The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the Internet user
to apologize to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did,” the Beijing News
said, citing a notice announced by a lawyer for the Shaolin monks.

The Shaolin Temple “strongly condemned the horrible deeds” of the user, the newspaper said.

“It is not only extremely irresponsible behavior with respect to the Shaolin Temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation,” it quoted the monks as saying.

Wow. Haven't they heard the one about the Internet and Special Olympics?


And lastly, making jet fuel out of algae. Awesome.

Milk is expensive. Blame China. (Or so this article says. I'd guess it has more to do with our own government...think ethanol.)

More on China - 175 million people are currently studying English there. Worldwide, there should be 2 billion people learning English by 2010. Well, I'll learn Chinese anyway.


Francis Fukuyama tells you why you shouldn't worry about immigration. (He wrote End of History and the Last Man. He has since realized that maybe there's a few more things that will happen. Capitalistic Democracies are certainly the best systems, but not everyone is convinced.)


The Weekly World News is dead! This sucks pretty bad. Now what will I read at the grocery store? That's one of the few things I liked about shopping. I suppose I'll have to start my own.

Finally, I have read that this guy is not actually the best around, but I'm impressed anyway. He plays his guitar like a piano. It sounds neat.

It has been a while, again. I just had to post this first one, though.

An arm wrestling game has broken three arms in Japan. It was recalled.
But here's the quote:
"The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it," said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall "a precaution." In other words, "you guys are so weak you scare us."



This isn't really a link to a story, per se; it's a link to a comment. The story is about a reporter's recent trip to the town in Peru that was almost totally destroyed.

"I pray they find peace and understanding that this was through no fault of their own, not punishment from our God or their God."

Uh...who is our God, and who is their God? Is there a different God for Latinos?

Of course, she continues:

"It is the forces of nature in which we have no control. Our Earth is continuously moving, good or bad, it is going hurt some people...an unexplained force beyond their comprehension. Only those of us that have post graduate degrees understand what these innocent people have experienced. To try an explain to them is somewhat futile for us but to empathize is to be human not a scientist, I know it would be hard but Mr. Potter can reach out and put his exquisite gifted skills to good use, Mr. Potter try…just give it a try…"

Holy crap. "Only those of us who have post graduate(sic) degrees understand"? Talk about condescending. Or dumb. Or both, as is usual.
But, being full of herself, and thus unable to stop yet, to wipe herself clean of this affair, she can't stop there, no. "To try to explain to them is somewhat futile..."
Yes, because those dumb Mexicans or whatever lives in Peru have a different, stupid God, and that is because they are also stupid, but we are educated people with postgraduate degrees who understand the Earth is crazy, and We know it's futile, but we're good people so we should explain it to them anyway. We are saints.

Just...This really caught my attention. I had no idea there were people like this, really. I kind of thought they were caricatures. Guess not.

Wow. I didn't really want to write commentary or anything. This is just supposed to be links with short descriptions.

So.

Diet food makes kids fat.

Baby Einstein videos actually decrease kids' vocabulary. And the creator says they "were never designed to make infants smarter, only happier." Right.

Maybe women really do prefer pink. (maybe. But, I am tired of the old, "men were hunters, women sat at home, thus _x." Does this seem overused and unprovable to anyone else?)

Things labeled "McDonald's" taste better to toddlers, even better than unlabeled McDonald's food. Of course they decrie marketers, but, might it also be possible that any label would make the food taste better than none?

Women who get silent when they argue have a lot more health problems, and are likely to die earlier. So...please talk things out. It's better.

And on that note, there are certainly things you should argue about.

That's it for now!

Kids in Nigeria who got free laptops use them...to look at porn.

Lesson of the day: do not irritate ex-marines, whether you be a bank robber or bear.

Also, when is free speech a hate crime? When it offends Muslims.


You probably already know, but most of the guys cheering for Saddam, or at least advocating not going to war, and protesting the sanctions, were in Saddam's pay. Not that the sanctions were a particularly good idea, or very effective, but....

Finally, a site dedicated to eating Chinese food. Some recipes, too.

(Just for my own use, unless you'd like it, too - a recipe that calls itself "Taiwanese bread". I'll have to make it and see whether it tastes like the bread there. It may need more sugar.)

I'm back in the US now. So, with that exciting news out of the way:

Due to the usual idiocy, foreign doctors (and everyone else with talent) are finding it harder to practice medicine in America, or to stay once they get here. This hurts the poor more than anyone else. Big surprise. Go CONGRESS! And I mean, leave.

There is supposedly a cat who can predict the deaths of people at his nursing home. CAT PLAYS FURRY GRIM REAPER, read the headline. I hoped it meant animals were trying to reclaim their turf from those damn furries.

There is a new study purportedly showing that the more independent you are, the harder it is for you to understand others' viewpoints/needs. So of course it praises collectivist societies and disses Americans. Nevermind that we try to take care of the rest of the world...then again, look how that's turning out....

Also, if you are currently engaged or married, (and I am the former! Hahah! 我愛你,家寧!), you might like to know the secret to successful marriage: it turns out it's saying, "thank you." I hope only the scientists involved needed a study for that - I'd think the rest of us might've suspected already.

Finally, re-introducing wolves to Yellowstone has helped the aspens there greatly. They can grow now, instead of being eaten by elk/deer. Good news.

As cities grow, rainfall diminishes.


Also, a former Marine killed a bear - by throwing a single piece of wood at it.
He was also ticketed for not securing his campsite properly.

And, as further proof that Chinese people will eat just about anything, especially if someone says it's medicinal, they dug up dinosaur bones...and ate them.

I'm back from my unannounced vacation!

And, no relation at all (probably), it turns out that, if you are clever, you can figure out how to make people do useful work while playing.

Also, a well-known and influential, not to mention bizarre, coder is accused of murdering his Russian mail-order bride, who apparently was having an affair with his bisexual, sado-masochistic (murderous?) buddy. Sounds like a bad movie.

This guy thinks we may soon have high-speed rail available in America (or at least, it would be possible and a good idea, which is new).

That's it for now.

The rich got richer - in the 80s. Not now.
(Also, though the gap between the very richest and poorest grew, there is not a "welfare gap" - in other words, nearly everyone has their needs taken care of.)

Also, say thank you to the government for screwing up gas prices. (Thank you, government, for spending my money on ethanol, which is more expensive, to sell back to me at a high rate, and discouraging the production of gasoline, or the opening of new refineries! You are so awesome and wise!)

China is building a road to Mt. Everest. Starting this week.

I always wanted to see a movie about killer sheep.

Just some YouTube stuff today.

Fur Elise. Fur 2 guitars.


Awesome.

The Moonlight Sonata, on classical guitar.

I thought, "not on piano = not good." I was wrong.

Lastly, beatboxing...on a flute...the Super Mario Brothers music.

Also awesome. He's talented. Explaining to people what he was practicing was probably an exercise in creativity, don't you think?

The successful Iraq - a short article on America's successful occupation of the Phillipines - and the way we put down an insurrection.

A scientist at the University of Washington was fired for exposing the inconvenient truth that the local glaciers are not actually shrinking.

While I'm at it, global warming, shockingly enough, makes the Northern Hemisphere greener. Who would guess that with more available carbon, plants would grow more?


Have you ever wanted an awesome case (for your computer)? Would putting your computer inside a dead animal be awesome enough? It would for me.

Need money? Here's a list of things you can legally donate. Except, I guess, if it's for cash, you're not really donating, are you? Anyway, if you want some other odd jobs, here's a list of some easy ones.



Finally, have you seen "DO NOT WANT" on the the Internet? Guess where it came from?

STAR WARS! Episode 3, the prequel, was released in Hong Kong - with Chinese subtitles. The bootleg version came out soon after, with English subtitles below the Chinese ones. Rather than typing in the dialogue, unfortunately, the Chinese subtitles were translated. Which leaves us with, "STAR WARS - the Backstroke of the West"!

This book caught my attention for the title alone:
Tough Jews : Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams
I mean, "Tough Jews"? Heh. Why not? And it's an interesting period of time. Maybe a shirt reading:

Italians: not the OG

would be appropriate.

Gary Kasparov, famous for his skill at chess, and for losing to Deep Blue, has decided to take on the corrupt new Russia he finds himself in. Good luck, buddy! I hope you're still with us next year.


Scientists are trying to grow meat in a lab. Good for them! I want cheap meat. It sounds more efficient than a cow, anyway.

Yet another attempt at a gender-neutral pronoun, doomed to failure because it sounds stupid. I post it because they would like to bring to your attention that we already have a perfectly good gender-neutral pronoun, and it is "they". I use it myself. But they back up their support for its usage with plenty of examples.

Greenland had glaciers 30-38 million years ago, in a time when the world was even warmer than it is now, and had far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Oh, Al Gore, what will we do when the ice caps don't melt? WE WILL MELT THEM WITH AN ORBITAL LASER - AL GORE HAS NEVER ERRED.

Lastly, you remember lolcats? How about philolsophers? I have to agree with Language Log - these two are my favorites.

A few things today -

• Firstly. "Eggcorns". That's what you call a turn of phrase turned wrongly, but that makes a new sort of sense. Eggcorns, for example. It's someone's mis-hearing of "acorns", but it makes sense because it is egglike, and it is like corn in that it is a seed. Or to use another of their examples, "to name a view." It sounds like "to name a few", but acquires new meaning.

• Secondly, a nice article summarizing why our generals just aren't very good.

• Thirdly, this:

Mickey Mouse has been blatantly ripped off to teach Palestinian children why it's ok to hate and kill Jews. And, well, everyone else.

• Fourthly, something about the gardens that started gardening - Persian gardens. I'd like to see some for myself. Shame they're in...Iran. And that I look conspicuously non-Persian. Heh. Well, I hear plenty of people there are hospitable, even if their government is not.

• Fifthly, and lastly for today, it looks like a comet killed ice-age critters, not us. The reason no one found an impact crater? There wasn't one. It exploded in the sky, over the ice sheet that covered Canada. That's why it's difficult to pin down just where the explosion was. (after the initial burst, everything burst into flame and a great conflagration destroyed more or less everything on the continent.)

Last week was busy.

So! Here we go.

Bears don't lose their muscles when they hibernate. Understanding why may be useful to astronauts...and those of us who don't move frequently.

Sorghum has recently been developed especially for dry climates and for processing into fuel.

Language Log. If you like language, read it.

A few things they've got:

• monkeys that understand language are bullshit.

• There has been a recent effort to teach strategically important languages to US citizens/personnel - but it is not the first! (Shortly before WW2 our country (or, more specifically, one professor with foresight) created an extremely ad-hoc, odd program that would later become the Defense Language Institute. Many of the professors selected to teach languages to our soldiers had never, in fact, studied the languages they were assigned.
  So they went off and learned them quick. )

• They support using "they" in a singular way - I like that. Plus, they found a few examples to back up this practice - dating back several centuries, (the very first English printing of the Bible, for example).

That alone made me like these guys.

Very worth reading.


Lastly, and this is related, though you may not know why - lolcats! You are certainly aware of them by now, and you have probably seen some of these photos. These are some that I like.

• Hydrogen-filled cat.

• Hoverkitten!

• A classic.

• Ikea.

Ending special - a quote I found. "Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"

Climate change killed Neanderthals. (Note: not us)

Clear skies not actually clear. (The forecast never has been right...)

Damage from heart attacks doesn't happen when the brain is deprived of oxygen. It happens when oxygen is restored.

"How Blair Botched the Iran Hostage Crisis" (Britain's armed forces not so tough as they once were?)

"How Vietnam Really Ended" (It had little to do with domestic politics)

StarCraft 2 Trailer


Gameplay and Units Preview Video (warning: very long):

This news story mentioned guns being used in a positive way.
Bode Miller's (famous skiier?) cousin thought it'd be a good idea to shoot a cop four or so times, then run him over.
A passer-by picked up the fallen cop's gun, then shot the bastard (Liko Kenney) who did it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18632025/

There's a lot to post right now, because these links have been languishing for a few days.

A gladiator's graveyard was found. Turns out gladiatorial battles were not insane melees with few survivors - they had rules. People still did die. And were killed for failure. But in an organized, civilized way.

A planet 1.5 times larger than Earth, thought to have liquid water, and only 20 light years from us, was found. Want to go?

Iraq's collapse was inevitable, and we all should have seen it coming. So says an Iraqi government minister and legislator.

Mormonism is a scam. How bout that. Also, Mohammed was a self-serving, epileptic syncretizer, and the probability that the Koran even contains his words, in any accurate or organized way, is quite low.

Finally, these people claim to have irrefutable scientific proof of the existence of God. Someone has to make Christianity look bad, right?. If they really have proof, great. I'll be astounded. But I am guessing they have something...less convincing. History is on my side. Worse, they will be debating the "Rational Response Squad" - atheists devoted to reason. On TV.

Like throwing a donkey into a shark pool. Sure, donkeys are good-natured and strong, but sharks are really good at what they do, and they're in their native environment. Oh, and donkeys taste good.


That's it for now!

Purpose

I decided to put things here that would be inappropriate for my other blog.

Say you found a puddle of fake vomit. You could put it on your books, your diaries, your photos, etc. That might be a good gag for guests once in a while.

Say you found a whole shipping crate full of it. That wouldn't be as funny, if it were all on your books.

Now say there was a high-speed freeway next to your house, and crates of fake vomit fell off on a regular basis. Then what? You wouldn't want to put it with everything else, right?

Me neither.

I would sell it.


Heheh...or at least collect it all in one place, and find something to do with it.


Here's the Internet, regurgitated.