Monday, April 05, 2004

Cindy Crawford's Mole and ANWR

J. Bowen, of No Watermelons Allowed, understands he won’t be drilling in either location, but even so, he does the calculations and finds that the mole, well, here’s what he said.

"The ANWR has 19,000,000 acres of land. Thus the drilling would take up .00011 of the land surface, or .011%. Or about 20 times as great a proportion of ANWR as Cindy Crawford’s mole takes up on her."

Bowen double checks his calculations via the thong analysis.  The post is located here.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/05 at 05:09 AM
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On This Day in History

On April 5, 1926, H.L. Mencken was arrested by the Boston vice police and charged with possession and sale of indecent literature.  The next day, the court exonerated him.  Just another example of Mencken’s Law. 

"Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of improving or saving X, A is a scoundrel."

Via Fred Lapides.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/05 at 04:53 AM
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Sunday, April 04, 2004

What is a Jew?

If you click the link in the title to this post, you can actually learn something about the Jewish faith and the people who have kept this faith alive for thousands of years.  If you type the word Jew into the Google search engine, though, the first link you’ll come upon leads to a Jewish hate site that chronicles, well, for lack of a better word, bullshit.  This is not the fault of individuals at Google, as this response to a request to remove the anti-semitic site which appears first in line in the Google search states.

"Unfortunately, no computer can assess the morality, tastefulness, or honesty of a site’s content. Results are determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query."

I found this out by reading an article in the online edition of the Jerusalem Post titled “Anti-Semitic ‘Jew’ site top of Google search," which Dean Esmay pointed out after reading this entry at the blog It Comes in Pints?

I experimented with IE’s search engine and when I typed the word Jew in from the MSN homepage received the results shown.  I also tried Yahoo’s search engine and here are their results after typing in the word Jew.

Kind of interesting, isn’t it?

Posted by John Venlet on 04/04 at 03:37 PM
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Sunday Morning Chuckle(s)

"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?’"

Quentin Crisp

Via Gene Expression.

Update: More chuckle.

"The first time Microsoft produces something that doesn’t suck will be when they start making vacuum cleaners."

Seen on a t-shirt, by McQ, from Questions and Observations.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/04 at 07:59 AM
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Searching for History

Interesting article, in Haaretz, concerning tunneling under the Temple Mount, which, of course is a site of dispute in Jerusalem.  The article is titled “Raiders of the Lost Ark" and chronicles Rabbi Yehuda Meir Getz’s part in this search for the Ark of the Covenant and the dimensions of the Western Wall.

Via J. Orlin Grabbe.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/04 at 07:36 AM
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Psst, Hey Kid, What's the Answer to Number 4?

Skip Oliva, at Citizens for Voluntary Trade, brings to our attention a recent court decision against Morris Communications Corp. Morris had sued the PGA Tour, Inc. over the PGA’s terms of use for their proprietory Real Time Scoring System (RTSS).  Morris seemed to feel that they could use the Tour’s RTSS system as if it was their own, and based their suit on a perceived violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

As I read the post, the title I used to head this post immediately came to mind.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/04 at 07:12 AM
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Ya Gotta Have Goals

J. Bowen, of No Watermelons Allowed, points to a post by David Halliday titled “The Goals of Communism." The title to Halliday’s post is in response to a book written by W. Cleon Skousen titled The Naked Communist. Halliday has a list of 45 goals posted.  Here’s a few I found interesting.

15.  Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
23.  Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
38.  Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand (or treat).

Posted by John Venlet on 04/04 at 06:45 AM
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Are Only the Nazis Certifiably Evil?

I went to see HellBoy. Having never read the comic, but intriqued by the trailer, I wasn’t quite sure what I would think of the movie.  The movie was, okay.  On a ten star scale, I’d give it a 6.375.  I would have scored it higher, if the movie hadn’t drifted into smarminess because of HellBoy’s love interest, not to mention the bland caricature acting contributed by other supporting actors.  I’m glad I only paid matinee prices for a ticket.

While watching the movie, though, I did have a thought I wanted to share.  I wondered why the Nazis are the only group that can be besmirched with impunity.  Why aren’t socialists, communists, Islamofascists, to name just a few groups with the same profile as the Nazis, besmirched with the same impunity?

Posted by John Venlet on 04/04 at 06:18 AM
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Saturday, April 03, 2004

One of My Favorite Movie Lines

Yesterday evening, because of flight delays hindering the return of the lovely Melis, I popped in one of my favorite, modern black and white films.  Dead Man. Written by Jim Jarmusch, the film chronicles an innocent’s, from Cleveland, journey from, well, innocence to reality to death in the imagined wild west.  I enjoyed the film immensely, once again.

Anyway, one of my favorite lines in the movie is spoken by a character named Nobody.  Great name.  Nobody, a mixed blood Indian traveling with the main character, William Blake, walks into a trading post manned by a missionary.  The missionary utters a disparging comment at Nobody’s appearance having to do with saving the world from primitive savages and Philistines by the grace of Christ.  Nobody’s response.

"The vision of Christ, that thou dost see, is my vision’s greatest enemy."

I dig that line.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 09:58 AM
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It's A Dutch Thing

I’m 6’ 4” tall.  The shortest person in my family, my mum, is 5’ 10” tall, and the tallest person in my family, Big Jer, is 6’ 6” tall.  Oh, and we’re Dutch.  I’ve always enjoyed being tall, it does have advantages, and this article, titled “THE HEIGHT GAP," published in the New Yorker, looks at heighth through the course of history and peoples and the advantages gained from being tall, such as dates, income and politics.  By the way, the Dutch are the tallest.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

For the heighth challenged, there are always this, or this.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 08:28 AM
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"Public Purpose," No, Illegal Seizure

Nice piece of property you have there comrade citizen.  The state needs it for the public good.  But I own it.  Come, come comrade citizen, it is only a piece of property and you very well know that the state knows best how to utilize property.

“Testing the Boundaries of Eminent Domain."

Via Debra who is blogging for Claire Wolfe.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 08:08 AM
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A Lifted Quote

"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who do nothing about them."

Albert Einstein

Lifted from Survival Arts.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 08:05 AM
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Marginalized

I enjoy cigars.  I also perversely enjoy some of the nasty looks cast my way when enjoying a cigar in public.  For example, recently the lovely Melis and I spent an evening out.  We had a fine dinner accompanied by a tasty little Merlot and, after dinner, we decamped to Grand Rapids’ finest hotel for an after dinner drink and, of course, a well aged cigar.  Melis passed on the cigar.  Anyway, while sitting at the circular bar, where cigar smoking was allowed, Melis would occasionally point out to me that certain individuals seemed to be offended by aromas wafting lazily from my cigar.  If looks could kill, I might not be typing this now.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I can understand individuals being offended by smoking, but I’ll be damned if I will accede to these individuals in an establishment that allows cigar smoking.  If said individuals do not want to be offended by the cigar, they should retire to another venue were cigar smoking is not allowed.

Why do I mention this?  I mention this because of recent events in Ireland, were smoking has been outlawed in public places, and this recently enacted prohibition has claimed its first high profile victim.  John Deasy, an opposition leader, has been booted from the party for smoking in public. I wonder how long it will take the dogooders to spread this madness through the U.S.

Via Radley Balko.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 07:40 AM
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I Did Not Know That

Daniel Medley has a short post up on Isadora Duncan. Prior to reading Daniel’s post, I don’t recall ever hearing or reading about Isadora.  Maybe I don’t get out enough.  Daniel begins his post with a quote.

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel." --Horace Walpole

The short history of Isadora provided by Daniel fits the quote well.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 07:10 AM
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Short, Long, Up, Down, All Around, Sift, Sift, Sift

I recently linked to a couple posts at Selling Waves which touched on the age old question of the existence, or non-existence of God.  The first post, by Curt, is titled “Religious polemics? To the hatchet-mobile!," and the second post is titled “A tale of a theism scorned--continued!" I thought both posts were interesting reading.

Stopping by the blog AnalPhilosopher this morning, I read a post that is related to the posts above and thought I would link to it for informational purposes.  The post is titled “Broad and Narrow Theism." But only if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/03 at 06:54 AM
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