Here’s one place to go if you like Irish drinking songs.
A little late for St. Patrick’s Day, but …
March 19th, 2008I guess I keep up with it
March 19th, 2008
Take the test – it’s pretty short.
Via Bits & Pieces
Update: I didn’t make it clear at all, but this is a quiz about how well you know current events. I guess I should have titled it something like, “I read the news today, oh, boy.”
Arthur C. Clarke, RIP
March 19th, 2008Arthur C. Clarke is dead. It’s all over the internet, but I first found out about it via email. Like Billy Beck, I prefer his short stories to his novels. But then, I like short stories, particularly older ones from the field.
He made other contributions besides his fiction. I think I’ll note the occasion by digging out my button with the paraphrase of his Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.”
Phone troubles
March 5th, 2008First, I got a spam text message on my cellphone, advertising a Texas Hold’em poker website. It had a corporate email address in the “from” field, which I presumed was spoofed. I certainly hope I don’t have to deal with more of those, but I’m afraid it’s a harbinger of things to come.
Then, I looked at the phone’s display a few minutes later, and saw that I’d missed a call from my daughter. The phone hadn’t rung to let me know, which is something that happens from time to time. Given that she was going to call me today concerning getting together for dinner, I figured I’d best call her back immediately.
She hadn’t called. Why the phone told me she had, I have no idea. The phone log doesn’t have any entries for today. If it’s going to start lying to me, maybe I need a new phone. Of course, if she’d been about to call me, I could claim that it’s a psychic phone, and I wouldn’t need another one. The problem is, a psychic phone could send out text messages in my name before I get around to it, and who’d know the difference?
Which way does the tower of Pisa lean?
February 28th, 2008
I first saw this article at Verum Serum this past weekend, when I came across the link at Brutally Honest. I didn’t have anything to say other than, “See! Another example, and really blatant this time.” until I read what Morgan Freeberg had to say about it.
As he says,
That media bias exists and that it slants to the left, seems to be something that cant be doubted by anyone except the insane. But thats just the way I see it. I cant speak for others.
I don’t know where Morgan lives, but the area I live in is so far to the left that the Republican candidate for Congress drew about 1% of the vote in the last election. The rest was split about 3-to-1 between the incumbent Democrat and the Green Party candidate. I have no trouble finding people who believe that the media is either balanced (except for Fox) or tilted to the right.
Like media bias, whether you believe that a candidate is a moderate who works well with others is a function of your point of view (and whether you have a historical perspective on the matter).
Snopes says that Hillary’s quotes (“We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good”) aren’t really Marxist. I couldn’t find anything there about her Christmas video. However, Snopes has its own problems with bias.
I don’t like John McCain. I respect the man for his military service, but it’s going to be hard for me to vote for him in November. I’m not a Republican, so appeals to party unity have no standing with me. I took an online quiz not that long ago that said he was the best match to my positions, but the quiz seemed to be looking for simple answers to hard questions, and McCain lands on the wrong side some issues I consider very important.
I do feel that Obama and Clinton are unacceptable choices – given that the liberal-conservative split in this country is roughly even, with slightly more identifying as conservative, I don’t see how they even have a chance without the active support of the media. Then again, I’ve seen McCain described as the third Democrat in the race.
It’s depressing to think about – radical left-winger, socialist-in-all-but-name, or Republican-in-name-only. Harsh characterizations, perhaps, but contrast them with the media portrayals as the election approaches.
I might have known
February 27th, 2008| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
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It’s not a terribly uncommon name. I’ve never actually met anyone with my name, but I’ve come close. I have a couple of cookbooks on my shelves written by someone with the exact first, middle, and last name I have. When I was a senior in high school, we had a student transfer in whose name was Wheeler Ronald Stevens, which is eerily close to being mine in reverse (my middle name is Robert).
I keep thinking that I should someday write an autobiography for my “about” page that uses the results from a Google search to produce a life history that is more interesting (if totally fanciful) than my own. Given that one of the people who comes up when you search on one of the variants of my name is an ice-skating stage magician, that wouldn’t be hard to do, and might turn out to be quite fascinating.
The cat, however, was a raging psycho
February 27th, 2008Do you know …
February 27th, 2008… who this man is? Scroll down slowly, so you don’t get the second photo too soon.
I did not recognize him.
This is not a spoiler.
February 26th, 2008Is that car an import?
February 21st, 2008
Why, yes, it’s a 2004 Molotov (click for larger).
Saw it yesterday at lunch.