Octopodial Chrome

A fellow downloaded & installed all 100 top Firefox extensions—and then documented the resulting browser experience. Somewhat surprisingly (given modern software trends), the resulting installation was pretty stable.

initng is a a new way of starting services on a Unix machine, taking advantage of the fact that many boot-time processes can be started synchronously. I’m not certain if it’s as stable as the old SysV init, but it’s certainly worth a look.

Recently, a Florida TV station sent an undercover reporter into various police stations, asking for their complaint policy. He was threatened with a gun; he was verbally abused; he was nearly given a ticket for illegally backing up. Now, I am not stating that all police officers are animals—hardly, for there are many who are men dedicated to upholding justice; I have even known some—but they are certainly failing to police themselves, at least in some departments. A most illuminating documentary. God help those in trouble in south Florida; for the police certainly won’t.

Just finished reading a devastating exposé of Herbalife. What’s that? you ask; why, it’s the source of all those make money from home and lose weight fast signs you seen all over the place. The truth hurts, sometimes.

Well, Apple are happily celebrating their one-billionth song sold, and Thomas Hawk points out that it’s the consumers who are getting shafted. All that music you’ve bought is only playable on Apple-approved platforms; if something better comes out, something which threatens the Great Fruit, then you’re SOL: they won’t support it, and you can’t play it. Meanwhile, those of us who insist on freedom are just as well off as ever.

I just read an interview with Jacques Barzun, the author of From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life: 1500 to the Present, and I feel that I simply must read his work. He grew up in pre-Great War France; he started teaching in 1927; he retired from the professoriate three years before my birth: his perspective is one which will soon vanish from the world, and which deserves to be known whether it be right or wrong.

For those I number amongst family and friends, I’ve a birthday coming up in May…

Here are some great pics of a marijuana growing operation in Tennessee. I really do hope that some of those involved escaped—no-one who goes to this much trouble deserves to be caught. I admire them for their ingenuity and their industriousness, doing their best to grow a product which has brought some kind of joy to many. Not my thing, I’m afraid—but then, neither is eggplant.

An American lawyer claims that our prison at Guantanamo Bay is a gulag. If his allegations are true, then they are very disturbing and I am ashamed of my government. On the other hand, he himself has an agenda. Whom to trust?

Do you receive far, far too many bits of junk mail? Well, be of good cheer, for there’s a way to get back at snail mail spammers: simply reply to their offers. The key is that you attach up to 72 pounds of refuse to their business reply mail. I suggest offal, for maximal effect…

Some such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. have advocated mass acts of civil disobedience: disobeying unjust laws in order to draw attention to the injustice. But what about a mass act of civil obedience, in which one obeys the ludicrous law in order to make a point? A group of students in Georgia did just that, with A Meditation on the Speed Limit, in which they drove four abreast doing exactly the speed limit—a mere 55 miles an hour. One impatient driver rode up along the shoulder and smashed a mirror…

It’s truly a great day for lovers of liberty to see the insanity made obvious in such a fashion:

If this doesn’t make you think, your brain must have stopped its workings decades ago…

A homeless man from Greensboro, North Carolina, has been posting to one of the world’s first homeless blogs. He created his blog using the local public library’s computers. A real profile in industry. Although I wonder why he’s had such difficulty finding work: typically those who have trouble in life have…issues.

A fellow has definitive proof of the need for High Definition television, in the form of frame captures of various scenes. The difference is truly striking: it’s like the difference between dirty and clean glasses. Sure, one doesn’t need clean lenses, but the world sure does look more pleasant with ’em. Likewise, while the differences when watching a motion picture tend to smooth over, the sharper image available with HD is a definite advantage.

A Dutch team has evidence that the Black Death caused the Little Ice Age. Their theory is that the massive decrease in human population led to reforestation of abandoned farmlands, and that this in turn led to absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to lower overall temperatures. Interestingly, before the plague atmospheric C02 was increasing, suggesting that man was affecting global temperatures well before most had previously suggested.

For my part, I would love there to be another Little Ice Age, for that would mean cooler weather, which means more clothes, which means more sweaters and coats—and anything which means more sweaters and coats cannot be completely bad.

Russell Beattie punctures some of the hype surrounding Web 2.0. Remember: it’s all about the money, stupid.

Thanks to the guys at South Park, there’s a nice animated introduction to the key tenet of Scientology: that all unhappiness and religion is caused by the supposed fact that we’re possessed by the tortured souls of aliens murdered and then brainwashed by the evil alien Lord Xenu. Strangely enough, no-one’s making this up: Scientologists actually believe this! For more information, take a look at Operation Clambake, which is a more in-depth exploration of Scientology beliefs and practises. Remarkably, they believe that anyone who disagrees with them is fair game and may be silenced in any way possible—one wonders what misfortune might befall South Park and Operation Clambake…

Just read an article at prescod.net titled Is Perl Difficult?; it argues that Perl’s complexity and throw-everything-into-the-language tendency combine to make it significantly more difficult than it really needs to be.

The Guardian reports on the last decade’s sushi boom. It’s strange to think that my first sushi was in 1994, right when it was becoming a big deal—I never believed that I was that avant garde, but apparently I must have been.

Mmm…sushi…

According to this graph, the United States combined have an economy greater than that of the next four nations, and greater than that of the next fifteen. It’s good to be an American!

Twenty years ago the Nintendo Entertainment System came out, and suddenly video games were the big new thing. GameSpot have a NES retrospective which covers some of the best & worst of that era.

Stone Age savages murdered two Indian fishermen whose boat had drifted to their island. Remarkably, no-one has said anything about capturing and punishing those responsible; indeed, environmental groups urged the authorities to leave the bodies and respect the three-mile exclusion zone thrown around the island. Am I the only one who thinks that these people should be brought into the twentieth century?

Apparently, US publishers are allowed to publish enemy propaganda, but cannot publish the works of dissidents from the enemy’s party line. Someone please tell me how this doesn’t run afoul of the First Amendment!

Peggy Noonan writes that the Transportation Security Administration’s mission seems to be the ritual abuse of passengers. Travelling by air in this country today is like travelling in the Soviet Bloc once was: shouting, angry, petty clerks; families abused; private citizens seeing their valuables stolen by agents of an uncaring state. This is the end of America, the Land of the Free. The mind boggles and the spirit rebels at the thought that a once-proud nation has allowed that TSA’s boot to stamp on its face for so long.

As seen on Eggshells and Miracle Grow, apparently dope is the number eight agricultural commodity in Washington state. As John points out, they should regulate and tax that crop, and make a bundle in the process.

What really galls me is that the state is proud of assaulting farmers and stealing & destroying their crops. It even perverts the National Guard to that end, by using their helicopters to look for marijuana farms. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: the policeman who arrests a pot grower or smoker is not fundamentally different from any other thug foot-soldier of a repressive regime. Rich Wiley of Washington State Patrol’s narcotics programme is no different in a certain sense from one of Saddam Hussein’s torturers.

As many of you might now, it’s considered good practise to link to one’s friends and acquaintances throughout the blogosphere, as it helps their blogs get discovered. OTOH, linking gives a certain amount of validation to their views. Different folks have different answers to this quandary: some of my acquaintances have linked to me despite heavily disagreeing with me about just about everything; others don’t link at all. Until recently, I had linked only to my family and my best friend, but that’s no longer the case. I think that I’ll start linking to folks and let my readers judge for themselves—my opinions are not exactly hidden, so it should be pretty easy to figure out if I advocate the view espoused in other blogs.

A fellow blogs about a a co-worker who died alone, and has no-one to grieve for him. I wonder how many sad grey men are leading sad grey lives out there.

There’s now a way to find the top Billboard&tradem; song on any day; the day I was born it was With a Little Luck by Wings. On my second birthday it was Blondie’s Call Me–which makes me feel very, very young indeed.

Mark Alexander reviews the shameful legacy of Abraham Lincoln: trampling of the Constitution, war & war crimes; racism; abuse of civil liberties. He may not have been the most shameful of American presidents, but I can’t think of a worse one off-hand. Lyndon B. Johnson, perhaps?

The minister of minority welfare in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has offered six million pounds to anyone who beheads one of the Danish cartoonists. These people are insane—completely and truly insane. I hope that maybe some intelligent folks will realise how disturbing (and disturbed) they are!

The F-14 Tomcat—the jet which inspired a thousand little boys when they watched Top Gun—has flown its last combat mission: on the 8th of February, one dropped a bomb somewhere in Iraq. I always loved the Tomcats; it’s sad to see them go. Sic transit gloria mundi.

In 1940 the door was sealed on the Crypt of Civilisation, a room in a basement at Oglethorpe University in Georgia. Built up over the course of three years, it consists of documents and gadgets meant to preserve a record of civilisation until the year 8113. Documents describing the location of the crypt were distributed to libraries throughout the world, and maybe someday someone will open it up and marvel at the treasure it finds there. Of course, depending upon the sense of sportsmanship of posterity is perhaps not the absolute best of game plans. On the other hand, our civilisation will respect it, and if some successor doesn’t respect our rules then, really, the vault’s purpose will be served.

There’s an old saying that it’s not news when a dog bites a man, but it is news when a man bites dog. Likewise, no-one cares if a horse beats a man in a race, but it’s definitely news when a man outruns a horse. In this case, he outran 500 runners and over 40 horses.

David Friedman writes in favour of unschooling—that is, allowing children to learn what they like. To me, this actually makes a fair amount of sense. Really, the function of pre-college education, so far as I can tell, is to teach kids to read, write and add numbers: surely that can be done in something less than a dozen years. Given that it’s doable, one wonders what a kid is supposed to do with all that extra time. The obvious answer is that he or she should pursue his or her own bliss, in the colourful argot of our times, or in more plebeian terms: the kid should be allowed to learn as he wishes. A very good read.

This morning as I left for work, the parking lot at my condo complex was full of couples: the women sitting in their cars, and their husbands or boyfriends brushing off snow and scraping away ice from their cars. Made me feel rather lonely, to tell the truth.

Dr. Edward Thorp has written a cool treatise on the mathematics of gambling. Of course, from my perspective the answer is not to play. You can’t lose if you don’t play!

Ben Stein—a conservative economist and famous actor (remember Bueller? Bueller?)—writes about protecting investors from rapacious executives. After all, as he writes, stockholders hire a board of directors to manage their firm, and the board hires executives to run it—so why aren’t executives more cognisant of their duty to improve shareholder value? If an executive is just an employee, why does he cost so much more than other employees (it used to be on the order of 10–20 times, and maybe 40–80 when the company was doing extremely well—now it’s hundreds of times the average salary)?

If you discovered that two of your three children weren’t genetically related to you, you’d be pretty upset if you were their father. But what if you were their mother?

A woman discovered that she is a chimera, formed from the fusing of two fraternal twins. Strange, huh?

Kyle MacDonald is trading his way up from a red paperclip to a house. So far, he traded the paperclip for a fish pen, the pen for a doorknob, the knob for a camp stove, the stove for a generator, the generator for an instant part, the party for a snowmobile, the snowmobile for a vacation and the vacation for a cube truck. Simple economics at work, and really cool.

Theodore Dalrymple writes about the suicide of Europe. It’s a truly sad phenomenon: a culture which once ruled the globe, which held every other under its sway, is now reduced to begging Marxists and Islamists to allow it to survive another generation or two. Pathetic, really, that the Prussians, the Pomeranians, the Silesians, the English and so forth have allowed themselves to be brought down so.

Just found a great post detailing a journey away from Hurricane Katrina to Dallas. Interestingly, the firearms the family possessed went a good way towards keeping them safe on that hellacious journey: their pistols kept others from attacking them for the fuel they held in the bed of their pickup. It was, apparently, a complete breakdown in law and order.

This just goes to show something I’ve often argued: that when push comes to shove, we’re all just ever-so-slightly-evolved apes, and that while might may not make right, it certainly rules the day nonetheless. Thus it is necessary for a man to be prepared for the worst—he should have a stockpile of food and weapons ready in case of emergency.

A new study in Great Britain has revealed that mineral levels in meat & milk have dropped greatly in the past 60 years. I am beginning to suspect that modern agriculture, with its scientific bent, is not properly prepared to supply the whole of man’s needs.

Just found a blog entry dedicated to steam tunnels beneath the University of Texas at Austin. I must admit that the one great disappointment I had with Austin College and the University of Denver was that I was unable to find steam tunnels or their analogues. C’est la vie.

Two men bravely faced thousands of Mohammedan protesters in defence of free speech. That takes big brass ones.

From the NRA site, a father’s advice:

If a sportsman true you’d be
Listen carefully to me…

Never, never let your gun
Pointed be at anyone.
That it may unloaded be
Matters not the least to me.

When a hedge or fence you cross
Though of time it cause a loss
From your gun the cartridge take
For the greater safety’s sake.

If twixt you and neighboring gun
Bird shall fly or beast may run
Let this maxim ere be thine
Follow not across the line.

Stops and beaters oft unseen
Lurk behind some leafy screen.
Calm and steady always be
Never shoot where you can’t see.

You may kill or you may miss
But at all times think this:
All the pheasants ever bred
Won’t repay for one man dead.

Perhaps Dick Cheney should have taken the fifth stanza to heart…

Here’s a list of stars & their real names. Who knew that Meg Ryan was really Margaret Hyra? Or that Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lipschitz? Or that Dido is actually Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong?

Oddly, a fair number of the original names are more English than their replacements. Bono is Paul Hewson; Billy Idol is William Broad; Tina Turner is Anna Bullock; Moby is Richard Melville Hall. Strange, really—who would go from English-sounding to anything else? As Cecil Rhodes noted, to be born English is to have won the lottery of life.

Our nation’s top scientists have discovered how to make Garfield funny: remove all of his thought balloons. Strange but true!

Well, it’s National Let’s-Mock-Singles Day, and for my part I hope that everyone of you in a happy relationship gets run over. By a truck. A Mack truck. Preferably with spikes mounted all over.

Not that I’m bitter or anything…

Andrew Stuttaford reviews the capitulation of the European governments to the Mohammedan mob. This submission is obviously a prelude to the dhimmitude of the West; it is sad that a once-mighty continent is brought so low. Remember, Free speech is free speech is free speech. There is no but.

I’ve recently been re-watching the Highlander television series which aired during my high school years. In case you’re not familiar with the plot, it’s based off of the Highlander film(s): for an unknown reason, some people are immortal; they can be killed, but they come back to life—the only way that they can be killed is by cutting off their heads. There’s a bit more than just this, but suffice it to say that the upshot is that in pretty much every episode the hero, Duncan McLeod, fights a duel with some bad guy or gal.

As a teenage boy, this had just about everything I could have asked for: a cool hero for me to identify with; hot women (the show was half-produced by French television) to drool over; cool historical flashbacks with lots of great costumes; and a guaranteed swordfight in every episode. As an adult, though, I find it somewhat lacking: the acting is…sad (the hero couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag); the costumes range from pretty good to really, truly pathetic; the flashbacks themselves are mid-90s characters in historical settings; the swordfights are absurd stage choreography (hint: in a real fight, one doesn’t attack one’s opponent’s sword but his body; a nasty cut to a sword does nothing, but a good cut to the torso can end the whole thing). But one thing remains: the gals are almost uniformly hot, even if they are dolled up in mid-90s clothing (which is beginning to look almost as foolish to my eyes as 80s and 70s styles, sadly).

And really, what more does a show need than attractive women, a thin plot and some swordfights which are passable if one’s had enough to drink? Nothing, I think you’ll find.

Those who opposed Google’s recent cave-in to the Chinese government are boycotting Google for Valentine’s Day. You may not know this, but Google in China refuses to return in its searches results for things related to free speech, Tibet and so forth. It will be tough, but tomorrow I will do my best to avoid Google.

Dick Cheney has become the first serving vice president in quite awhile to shoot a man, albeit accidentally—he hit one of his hunting partners with birdshot. How very amusing. And let this be a warning to our fies: if we do this to our friends, imagine what we’ll do to you…

The Software Chronicles point out the importance of getting one’s site’s name right. They’re quite correct: women will check out something called Magnolia. As of now, this blog is renamed Magnolia Chrome. Octopodial Magnolia? Never mind.

A team at the University of Minnesota have determined that one swims as quickly though syrup as through water, settling a dispute which dates back at least to the days of Sir Isaac Newton.

An Irishman with more beer in him than brains attempted to attach a the HMS Richmond last year with two firebombs. I’ll just note here that it is the Irish who invented modern terrorism, the Fenians murdering men, women and children since the 19th century. I am part Irish (in fact, it may actually be the majority of my blood), but I’m not particularly proud of the fact—these are, after all, the sort of people who get upset about that the conspirators behind the Easter Rising of 1916 were executed. Yes, you read that date correctly: the Irish staged a military revolt in the middle of the First World War, and now have the gall to complain that it was suppressed.

On my recent trip to Germany I was puzzled by an indication on the in-flight map that part of Canada was French territory. It turns out that the islands of St.-Pierre & Miquelon south of Newfoundland belong to France, and have since 1813. Learn something new every day, I suppose. It’d actually be kinda cool to go visit ’em: France on a budget…

Achieve-IT! writes about the Caffeine Nap, a way of staying alert. One drinks a cup of coffee, then immediately takes a 15-minutes nap (no more, no less). Curious idea.

A Japanese TV show locked a man naked in a room until he won $10,000 in prizes through mail-entry contests; his ordeal lasted a year and three month. I really hope that this is a hoax, but something tells me that it’s not.

Today I attended a lecture on an Orthodox perspective of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia; it was generally pretty good, but perhaps the most profound thing said wasn’t actually about Narnia or even Lewis at all—it was this: that each individual’s spiritual progress recapitulates that of mankind as a whole.

When we’re small, we are pagans: we experience nature and God through our senses. We smell the incense, we see the multi-coloured icons and vestments; we taste the antidoron and the Body & Blood of Christ; we hear the music & the prayers; we even feel the various bits of furniture and cloth scattered about a church. We do what we do because we enjoy the experience.

When we get a bit older—maybe six or seven—we are then Jews, that is people of the law. We see the world in terms of right and wrong, of rules whose following is rewarded and breaking is punished. We do what we do because we wish to avoid that punishment and would prefer a reward.

When we are older yet—perhaps 13 or 14—we then become Christians, people of love (agape). Rather than doing what is right because we hope for a reward, or because we fear the punishment for doing what is wrong, we do what we do because we love God and our fellow man. Father made the point that fear of God does not mean being afraid of Him, but rather of causing Him pain through sin.

I was struck my the similarity to an Arab saying my father has long loved: treat your son like a prince until he’s five; like a slave until he’s fifteen; and like a friend thereafter. It’s built on much the same idea: the small child is treated well, because that’s what he understands; the older child is dealt with under a law, because that’s where he’s at; and the man is dealt with lovingly, like a friend and fellow-man.

I’ve just discovered Peerflix, a DVD-rental competitor with a twist: users trade the films amongst themselves; it costs about $1 to receive a movie, and when one’s done one just mails it on to someone else. They claim to be cheaper than Netflix, without the throttling that Netflix applies to heavy users (like me…). An interesting alternative; I think I’ll wait until their library is larger, though.

I attended the International Mead Festival last night, my second ever. This year’s was in a different hotel than the last one I’d been to, but it was just as enjoyable as ever. There were meadmakers from across the United States, as well as from Canada, Australia, England and Poland. I’d some wonderful meads, and as I walked back to the room I’d rented for the night I felt that I had broadened my horizons somewhat.

A political candidate accused his opponent of murder based on a vision—and it turns out that he was right! How weird is that?

Think that welfare is solely for the poor? Think again—a great deal of state largess goes straight into the coffers of the wealthy. It’s despicable, and it’s wrong, and I’m afraid that there’s nothing at all we can do about it.

Phyllis Schlafly reports that a Michigan man has spent 20 years in prison for a crime he may not have committed. During a child-custody battle, his wife accused him of having raped her—despite the fact that there was no physical evidence, he was convicted, no doubt due to the fact that she could not be cross-examined because of a rape shield law (preventing cross-examination is a violation of both our Anglo-Saxon legal precepts and the Sixth Amendment, which quite clearly states that the accused has a right to be confronted with the witnesses against him.

Wikipedia links to another article from 1994 with even more information about the case.

If Mr. Hetherington is indeed guilty (and unlike some—possibly including Mrs. Schlafly—I believe that spousal rape is a legitimate crime and should be punished as such), then let him rot. But it is far from certain that he is indeed guilty—and at least from her account it seems quite likely that he is innocent.

Erik Lokkesmoe has a brilliant rundown on how we conservatives really fail at the arts—and what is more, how we might combat that tendency.

Salon has an explanation of how a one-man company can destroy RIM, makers of the Blackberry. It details how broken current patent law is, and how it got that way (essentially, a judicial power grab).

My old acquaintance John (note that he’s rather on the opposite side of the political spectrum from me) sent me word that a leftist blog managed to raise funds to pay for the body armour of the wounded soldier. I’m very embarrassed that none of use on the Right—not even myself—thought to do this.

OTOH, I mentioned the incident to some of my co-workers (many of them served in the armed forces in younger days), and they were not at all surprised. One of them had to cough up $75 for a parka he’d been issued 18 years before! And a fellow-parishioner wrote that it’s not uncommon for the Army bureaucracy to mess up stuff like this—generally it’s easier to just pay the money than to stand on principle.

I still don’t like it.

An eight-year study followed nearly 49,000 women and discovered that a low-fat diet has no effect on the rates of breast & colon cancer, heart attacks & strokes. I knew it! Now slide over and gimme a bacon cheeseburger…

A study has revealed that playing French music in a wineshop leads to purchases of French wine, and German music to German wine—but the customers will swear that it made no difference. Very amusing.

The Economist has a special report on Arab backwardness. There’s no obvious reason why the region should be so accursed, and yet it is. As the authors point out, in the past 1,000 years the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in one year. That’s just not good!

Michelle Singletary has a truly wonderful piece on money management and marriage. It’s my firmly-held belief that money is one of the most important things in life: it puts food in our bellies, clothes on our limbs and roofs over our heads; it is how we can afford vacations and gifts; it is what enables us to live in the style to which we’d like to become accustomed. True, this is a very materialistic way of looking at things, and certainly it is also true that one can be happier with less money than with more (e.g., observe monks—some of the most content people I can think of); however, we do live in a materialist society, and we have to deal with ourselves as we are. Moreover, financial forthrightness is key for everyone, whether rich or poor; it’s just another aspect of honesty.

There’s also the matter that one’s attitude towards money reflects one’s attitude towards other matters. Someone who is a careful steward of his resources, dutifully managing them and increasing them from year to year, is unlikely to go a-haring off after every flight of fancy which comes to him. Prudence and diligence may not be sexy, but they last much longer than lissome limbs or a pretty pout.

The Guardian (yes, their politics are execrable) has an article about the explosion in beta software these days which is quite good.

Just saw Complete Anatomy of a Geek. Anyone who realises that Robert Jordan is an unscrupulous hack gets points in my book: I was reading his stuff in the library at ODU! When I was 13! Another good quote: if you come from a Star Trek household, showing up at a Star Wars convention is an almost Shakespearean betrayal. Of course, if you come from a Star Drek household, then you should probably do the genepool a favour and get fixed…

Hey, all you Apple devotees: the iPod is disposable! Its lifespan is a smidgen over the warranty period. Meanwhile, I play music on a computer I built and warrant myself, which is a general-purpose computing platform—it even serves this very blog. Granted, it’s not quite as portable as an iPod. Somehow I’m able to make do with radio. Which is free, unlike the iPod. And the iTunes Music Store.

An officer in our army, a graduate of West Point, was forced to pay $700 for body armour which was stripped from him by medics as he lay wounded and they fought to save his life (an artery in his arm was severed). What the hell is up with the Army?

Ed Epstein writes in Slate about why Hollywood can’t afford to be original any longer. It seems to me that the answer is to make the films a little less expensive, and thus change the risk-benefit ratios just a touch.

For all those deeply envious of my l33t Un1x sk1llz, here’s a quick and dirty introduction to Unix. I, of course, learnt all this back when I was 13 or 14. I’m so cool I don’t know what to do with myself.

Of course, if that were true, I’d be too busy hanging out with the stars on my private island to write this blog…

Howard Tayler makes an interesting point: jocks are sports geeks. I’d never thought about it before, but it’s certainly true. And why is it that it’s cool to be an athletic geek, but uncool to be a comic geek, or a film geek, or a math geek? And he’s spot-on about that sports fan in the picture—the man should be ashamed of himself to go out in public dressed like that...

You may have heard of case-modding, in which folks create cool cases for their computers. Well, a fellow has installed a computer in a whisky bottle. Way, way, way too cool.

This evening I watched the Super Bowl over at a buddy’s house; I think that it may have been the first time I’ve ever watched an entire game from start to finish. It was actually quite enjoyable—I can’t believe it, but I might actually like the sport! Strange days...

Why do shampoo bottles have instructions to lather, rinse and then repeat? Has anyone in the entire history of shampooing ever actually shampooed his hair twice in a row? Just curious…

Christopher Westley & his wife gave up television for Lent in 1995—and they never returned. I did the same thing when I graduated college in 2000; back then I watched an absolutely horrifying about of TV (well, in relation to others perhaps it wasn’t quite so horrible, but I disliked it anyway), and decided that I’d rather have that time to do with as I wish. I have a TV set and a DVD player (and in a closet somewhere there’s my old VHS VCR), but there’s no cable or antenna. When I want to watch a movie or a TV series on DVD, I do—when I don’t, I don’t. There’re no commercials, no previews of shows I’d rather not see; I can pause to answer a phone or the call of nature, or to head out the door and see friends.

I mean this quite seriously: everyone should do as I & Prof. Westley do; they would be happier and have more free time for the things which really matter.

Mohammedans the world over are rioting over a dozen cartoon caricatures of the founder of their religion. They have burnt embassies; they have destroyed property; they have generally made pests of themselves. You’ll note that the founder of my religion, Jesus Christ, is mocked on a daily basis (indeed, the latest Rolling Stone apparently features a rap musician costumed as Christ)—and yet we Christians are not rioting in the streets over it. And remember, Mohammedans consider Mohammed to be merely a prophet; we consider Jesus Christ to be God and the Son of God. Moreover, images of Mohammed have been around for a very, very long time.

Sadly, almost no-one cares about freedom of speech. Our own State Department condemned the cartoons; the Vatican stated that freedom cannot imply the right to offend religion, which is patently absurd: the Mohammedan’s freedom to call Jesus a man offends me, and my freedom to call Mohammed a fraud offends him. Freedom means tolerating that which is unacceptable, not accepting that which is tolerable.

When I was a teenager, my best friend and I would rappel from trees; we also took German classes. We developed a hierarchy of ranks for our rappelling. each was divided into three sub-ranks: copper (junior), silver and gold (senior). The lowest rank was Keinbärtig, whose symbol was a downward-pointing semi-circle. This was pidgin German for unbearded, and the symbol indicated a smooth chin. The next rank was Bärtig, whose symbol was a downwards-pointing equilateral triangle—its name meant bearded. The highest rank was Langbärtig, whose symbol was a downward-pointing isosceles triangle; its name meant long-bearded. Thus the lowest of the low—a new recruit, as it were—would be a junior Keinbärtig, with a copper semi-circle, while the highest rank would be a senior Langbärtig, with a gold long triangle.

As you can see, even as a boy I placed a very high importance on the beard. It is, after all, the indication that a man is in fact a man.

Thanks to my brother Tom for pointing out this despicable Turkish film. Set in Iraq, Valley of the Wolves Iraq depicts American soldiers killing a child before his mother, murdering wedding guests, and having a Jewish doctor remove the organs of prisoners and sell them to the rich. Worse even than that (after all, we have come to expect such anti-American, anti-Semitic filth from the Middle East), Billy Zane and Gary Busey play parts in it.

I’ve a picture of my brother Tom on my desk at work; it’s his formal portrait from the Naval Academy. Over the years, various folks have asked if it were me—which is absurd, for he looks nothing at all like me. But today I’d the oddest question of all: a co-worker asked if we were identical twins! This is completely absurd; the two of us look nothing at all alike. See for yourself:

We don’t look a thing like one another—even our noses differ!