Normally don’t do these, but….
Allen September 21st, 2005
| You are a Social Liberal (61% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (75% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian
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Archive for September, 2005
Chuckle of the Day
Allen September 20th, 2005
Even as an OU fan, I got a chuckle out of an email forwarded to me with the design for the new OU helmet.
Google Maps + Wikipedia = Placeopedia.com
Allen September 20th, 2005
What do you get when you combine Google Maps with Wikipedia? Placeopedia.com.
Simply enter in the text for an existing Wikipedia entry, click on a Google map and a short confirmation email later, a marker is placed on top of a Google map.
Pretty cool.
Sometimes I Just Wish Jim…
Allen September 19th, 2005
could just cut loose and tell us what he really thinks.
Oh, wait…. he did.
A classic rant that sums up rather well my feelings on the whole NOLA debacle.
MSM has attempted to turn this thing into a soap-opera written by Michael Moore. I think they are driving consumer confidence in MSM even lower than they are driving citizen confidence in GW. And perhaps that isn’t a bad thing after all.
Now THIS is the speech…
Allen September 16th, 2005
President Bush should have delivered last night. Too bad it is satire.
ScrappleFace: Bush Accidentally Delivers Rejected Draft Speech.
What happens when you combine
Allen September 15th, 2005
A "spam magnet" and Google maps? Mailinator:Spam Map.
Mailinator allows you to create a temporary email address and check back later for emails arriving at that address. Your temporary email address is deleted after a few hours, so it isn’t as permanent as Yahoo’s AddressGuard.
Combine mailinator with Google maps and you get a cool application that lets you pin-point where the spam servers reside (well, sort of — it uses whois documentation for the address).
Enjoy!
BTW: Still very busy at work. Have several draft postings that I’m trying to either (a) clean up or (b) purge. I still refuse to do a link-dump.
Yeah Toast!
Allen September 15th, 2005
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Heywood Banks - Toast.
After wiping away his tear, Iron Eyes Cody torched 1,000 acres before calling it a day.
Allen September 1st, 2005
In America’s pristine myth, Charles C. Mann examines the myth of the "Noble Savage" and the "Pristine Wilderness":
Next week my daughter will go back to elementary school, and I will be faced with a choice. At some point the curriculum will cover the environment, and she’ll be taught that before Europeans settled the Americas the Indians lived so lightly on the land that for all practical purposes the hemisphere was a wilderness. The forests and plains, the teacher will explain, were crowded with bison, beaver, and deer; the rivers, with fish; flights of passenger pigeons darkened the skies. The continent’s few inhabitants walked beneath an endless forest of tall trees that had never been disturbed.
But in recent decades most archaeologists, anthropologists, and geographers have come to believe that this Edenic image isn’t true. When Columbus landed, the new research suggests, the Western Hemisphere wasn’t filled with scattered bands of ecologically pure hunters and gatherers.
Some folks disparage others for believing in the literal truth of the Bible — casting aspersion on those who believe in the "mythos" of said book. Perhaps those who see only evil in Western culture need to examine what "mythos" they hold to be infallible.
Continuing on…
Although Indian engineering led to some disasters, for the most part its impact on the environment was, as Mr. Denevan notes, "subtle, transformative, and persistent." The forests were burned and the land was farmed, but the soil was left largely intact, or even improved; despite their large numbers, there is little evidence that native Americans often exhausted or polluted water supplies, or overran their resource base.
But is this a marvel of Native American planning or just a matter of not yet overdeveloping their resource base? Ah well, at least some mythos remain intact.
All in all an excellent read that I highly recommend.
Random Neurons Firing
Allen September 1st, 2005
- Listening to the Dixie Chick’s song More Love while driving home yesterday. Tell you what girls: you load up with all of that personal wealth, drive down to New Orleans and walk around town. Let me know how that More Love thing goes then. Oh, when you are done — don’t try to "even the score".
- So who will serve on the blue-panel ribbon about 7 years from now trying to determine why the big chain retail outfits haven’t moved back into New Orleans?
- I’m tired of seeing human scum looting and trying to pass it off as justifiable. Exactly how are those 10 pairs of Nike shoes and plasma TV going to help feed your family? While I can understand somewhat someone who is out searching for food and water, those who are looting non-essentials are just plain looters. Thugs and cretins. Even those who are stealing food and water are still stealing. And yes, I might do the same thing if I was in their situation. But just because I’m willing to do it doesn’t make it morally right.
- Even more reprehensible are the TV commentators who almost seem to enjoy the spectacle. We were watching MSNBC last night (yeah, I know — should have changed the channel) when one reporter was commenting on the looting going on at the Wal-Mart. He said something to the effect of, "Yes this is wrong. But this is a large chain and you almost have to laugh." I’m going to guess that on the whole "Ayn Rand / Karl Marx" spectrum he’s on the "each to his abilities, each to his needs" end of scale.
- Below even this are those political cretins who are attempting to blame this on Bush somehow. Either because he didn’t sign the Kyoto treaty (which the Senate didn’t ratify) or because there is a war in Iraq. The party of JFK and Truman is dead. The shambling ghoul calling itself the "Democratic Party" is like a zombie — it has the same name and appearance of the Democratic party, but it’s really a different creature.
- Clue to those who are suggesting that the National Guard should be available for emergencies. No. They are not the disaster police. They are there for national defense.
- Just heard from my wife that people are firing on a helicopter flying over the Super Dome. I’m sure that will really help things along.
- I’m so proud of those who attempt to extract themselves from the hellish situation and attempt to help those around them.
- I’m equally distraught at those who seem to sit back on their haunches and say, "When is the government going to take care of me?" Have we sunk so low that people really think they don’t have a stake in their own lives? I just finished listening to Atlas Shrugged and some of the people in New Orleans remind me of the village near Dagney Taggert’s cabin.
- Speaking of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand was a terrible writer. Recently wrote a review in her style and it was rather tortuous to write. Several brilliant passages, but you have to wade through a lot of purple prose to get to them. I’ll try to quote my favorites later.
So this wasn’t really a link dump, but I had several thoughts I needed to get out.
I’ve been extremely busy at work and a home. So as before, life trumps blogging. I’ve made another note to myself to write at least once a day, but that can’t always happen.