It’s Wednesday; Do You Know Where Your Summer’s Going?

Yeh, and what does Wednesday have to do with anything, anyway? I dunno, but the voices in my head told me to say that. πŸ˜‰


The other day, I read the most hilarious “guest editorial” in a paper from a couple of countues north of America’s Third World County. The author accused averyone in politics except himself of being biased in viewpoint and speech. Now, by “bias” one can safely infer from the tone of this guy’s article that he means something very much like, “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment” or “an instance of… prejudice,” but the hilarious thing is that the guy never even sees the huge, honking beam in his own eye.

Silly puppy.


*Tearing hair out* OK, so strangely enough, one of this curmudgeon’s fav movies of all time is Matilda. If you’ve not seen it, just do. It’s one of the very, very few movies of the last 25 years or so I feel is worth watching more than once.

So why the *Tearing hair out*? New comp. Decided to watch a bit of Matilda. No joy. Errors reading the DVD. *sigh* Check on regular old everyday DVD player. S’all right. Is it the drive(s)? If so, another $60 (or less) should fix that, but then I’d be moving over my target “Mr. Tightwad” budget for this thing.

Oh. Well. Some tests today (OK, much later today) should tell the tale.


What’s with the Obamassiah? Why are so many “idjits” under this snake oil salesman’s spell? Oh. Answered my own question, didn’t I? What I simply cannot get, in any way, shape, fashion or form, is why this stublebum speaker has the reputation as a powerful public speaker. His delivery alone (let’s not even count his almost complete lack of content) would earn him low “C’s” in my high school speech classes lo these many years ago, and I’ve heard better public speaking from some of the worst preachers I’ve heard over more than half a century. So why do folks think Obamassiah’s public speaking is the bomb?

Again, idjits. Very nearly absolutely illiterate bums and oafs and dummies making the assessment of Obamassiah’s speaking ability.

What marrons.


Then again there are the maroons on the other side of the disappearing “aisle” who have given the Repugnican’t nomination to Juan Mexicain. Brush up on your Mexican Spanish, folks, cos Juan Mexicain wants to surrender the U.S. to Mexico. Oh, and isn’t it sweet that he wants to drill for oil offshore? Of course, readily accessible sites with loads of infrastructure available for moving oil pumped to the surface? No to ANWAR (among others). Go ahead and gimme my $0.18/gallon forgiveness of “feddle gummint” extortion, Juan, but don’t expect me to see you as serious about energy and the environment until you simply say, “Drill Here, Drill Now” and “build those 200 nuclear power plants” and STOP saying silly and stupid things about CO2 and Anthropogenic Global Warming.

What a maroon.


Gee, supposed to hot up today in America’s Third World County. Had to use a light blanket with the windows open last night, though. Sleeping with a blanket in UNair conditioned space oward the end of June. In America’s Third World County. Never thought I’d do that. Must be global warming.

Speaking of…

Finnish Finish Global Warming

The Goracle needs to have someone read that to him… slowly.


The other day, in comments, Perri Nelson expressed a wee tad of surprise that I’m regularly getting better than 40mpg on my lil 11-year-old Saturn. Actually, he knows better. πŸ™‚ Apart from simply not driving at all, the single greatest boost to fuelk economy one can make is to drive a stick. Manual transmission. No automatic tranny (unless one is talking about some of the new CVT trannies–they’re hard to beat) can approach offering the fuel economy of active intelligence applied to a manual transmission vehicle.

Note the qualifier: folks who are dumber than a bag of hammers (easily 80-90% of the drivers on the roads today) need not attempt this fuel saving measure. It does take an active, intelligent, constantly monitored approach to ALL driving conditions.

So if you are unable to chew gum and refute the dogma of the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming at the same time, you should just pass this lil tip by…


OK, a couple more things I miss using Ubuntu/Linux (w/nice GUI) on a daily basis:

–middle mouse button/scroll wheel behavior in my browser of choice. In Windoze I can “CLICK” the thing and set a scroll speed and just let it scroll away. Nice for reading ebooks hands off.

–RIGHT-CLICK on desktop context menu is sorely lacking in options. Heck, RIGHT-CLICK context menu options in general are kinda thin

–I seriously need to find a better file browser than the built-in crippledware GUI file browser. Less than genuinely useful.

HAdn’t really missed those things in earlier uses of Ubuntu, cos my previous usage was more limited.

Apart from those things (and the probably hardware-related DVD issue mentioned above) and a couple of lil niggling things like HIBERNATION *heh*, Ubuntu is proving to be all I had come to expect of it: about halfway between Win98 and WINXP in ease-of-use. At least an order of magnitude more stable. Quicker than any Windows version (and yeh, I am discounting some for speed of newer hardware, since I’ve experienced the nimble footedness of Linux GUI distros for years on old, OLD hardware). As nice an experience, overall, as any Windows upgrade I’ve done in the past, save for perhaps Windows 2000 Pro (now there was a nice, stable Windows. Still a resopurce hog, but solid in my experience. When it did come apart, though… *sheesh!*).


Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, , Conservative Cat, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

“DWUC”–Driving While Under-Caffeinated

Wandering through a disjointed, rambling discussion with the voices in my head this A.M….


It’s a good thing I was under-caffeinated this morning. Too many “driving while brain dead” people on the road. Had I been properly caffeinated (thus, awake), I’d probably have stroked out at the number of folks who let a little dampness (after a night full of heavy rain) turn them into Aunt Tillies on the road… But enough of that.


Ever think about the differences between stereotypes and archetypes? They have common roots in real world relationships and usefulness. Archetypes as theoretical models actually have less usefulness in our quotidian experiences, IMO. Stereotypes though…

Ever notice that stereotypes get a bum rap in the talk of Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Mass Media Podpeople, et al, and yet Academia Nut Fruitcakes almost universally stereotype stereotypes as “bad” and Mass Media Podpeople cannot utter two sentences in a row without using stereotypes.

Why is that?

Well, on the one hand, Academia Nut Fruitcakes despise anything that simplifies models to the point of actual usefulness, while at the same time unconsiously making sweeping generalizations (oversimplified assumptions) about the unusefulness of simple models, AKA, stereotypes, which they have come to characterize as oversimplifications of some observed or imagined trait of behaviour or appearance.

(Mass Media Podpeople, OTOH, are unable to think in complex terms at all, and so have nothing BUT genuine oversimplifications to offer. In their case, stereotypes really are a bad, bad thing.)

Why do stereotypes exist to begin with? Because humans are generalization machines and Occam’s Razor is one of the most powerful tools (I almost typed “forces”) of reason. Face it: most “jocks” are intellectually stunted boors. Yes, it’s true. Nerds are, by definition, socially inept. Latino men are almost universally dominated by machismo (natural public reaction to their basically matriarchal home life–*heh*), and American society is becoming ever more feminized day by day.

Sidebar: I don’t have to defend any of the statements above, because to any person who has more functioning brain cells than a head of cabbage they are self-evident. Stereotype-driven, because they are generalizations from the real world that are testable hypotheses that can stand against exceptional tests: they work.

Example: the feminization of America. 99%+ of America’s future is brainwashed in our society’s prisons for kids (disingenuously referred to by Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Mass media Podpeople and politicians *spit* as “public schools”). More and more kids are being drugged out of their minds because, being boys, they act like boys, and our prisons for kids are dominated by female teachers for whom boyish behavior is anathema. Take a typical playground event: bully picks on victim. If the victim does the female teacher-acceptable thing and “goes crying to surrogate mommy” all is well in the eye of the prison for kids. If the victim does the right thing and plasters the bully, he gets in trouble. OK, maybe both get in trouble, but the point is that to satisfy a feminine culture, a forceful personal response results in injustice: punishment for self-defense.

And this trait is, of course, permeating our society. Self-defense is equated with aggression at an increasing rate. By all meeans, lets talk with the crazy guy with the atom bomb…

And that is but one of many examples of the feminization of America.

And so it goes with many things slurred as stereotypes: they are reflections of a reality the politically correct simply want to deny, as they embrace instead their reality-based fantasies and tyrannical utopian/dystopian views.

As someone once said (something like :-)), “In much of [their] talk, thinking is half-murdered.”


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Reason to Not Vote At All?

Or, “God speaks out against democracy”–*LOL*

Carl has posted what may be a compelling reason to avoid going to the polls at all come Fall.

Think about it.

*heh*

β€œHe that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” (Proverbs 13:20)

Hmmm, you think the Founders had a reason or three to avoid making the U.S. a democracy? (Yes, they did.)

Interesting read…

…from a guy who has some knowledge of the subject. As Wikipedia (not always the best source, but close enough here) puts is, “Jerry Pournelle is a essayist and science fiction author. He holds advanced degrees in psychology, statistics, engineering and political science.”

The Voodoo Sciences

Even though its focus is not directed specifically at the science/politics interface, it’s worth reading as a prelude to considering how politics affects what is regarded as science in climatology, medicine, and other fields.

Writing elsewhere referring to the essay linked above, Pournelle does a nice shirt cuff precis of the essay:

“I long ago did an essay on “The Voodoo Science” in which I pointed out that novelists require only plausibility, lawyers need evidence, but science requires data — and also requires that ALL the data be taken into account, which means going outside closed systems to check with the real world. And that, I think, is the real difference between the fuzzy subjects and the sciences and the humanities: if you endlessly apply logic to a closed system with no chance of checking against reality, you had better have chosen the right closed system — and we have no way of knowing what that one is.”

Worth taking a couple of minutes out of your day to read and ponder, IMO.


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Thought for Today

A mini-micro post inspired by a comment today that got me thinking about politicians *spit*, Mass Media Podpeople and others, from Neal Boortz’s Top Ten Thoughts for 2008:

“Some people are like a Slinky … not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.”

*heh*


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If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

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Is it still Christmas in Cambodia?/OP

I figure I’d better hold this post open for trackbacks in case anyone knows when Jean Fraud sKerry’s gonna get back from his Christmas in Cambodia… Maybe that’ll be around the time he finally keeps his word on such matters as, gosh, I dunno, releasing his records?

(BTW, I’ve actually got that release date. Inside information. 12th of Never.)

Meanwhile, If you don’t understand what a trackback is go here for a good explanation. If your blog software doesn’t generate trackbacks use this form or this one.

Short shrift again today. A few links up later. DO hit the “Treatment Time Open Trackbacks” over at The Uncooperative Blogger. Note other linkfests in my left sidebar, too, ‘K?

Cya at Choose Life! (Just wanted to link to a blog! with! an! exclamation! point! πŸ™‚

UPDATE: The MaryHunter noted in comments that DL’s trackback from Teddy Lied, Mary Jo Died failed. A shame, really. Otherwise, how are y’all ever going to find the piece? Oh. OK. And TMH’s trackback of Realizing UN/NGO Tsunami AidÒ€¦ Someday disappeared into the aether as well, apparently. And do note his commentary on the hubris of modern genetic tinkerers.

Still short shrift. Will update later… possibly.

*sigh* I didn’t want to give you this for Christmas…

…although those of y’all depending on Symantec security products (e.g. Norton Anti-Virus) might view this as my Christmas present to you. So, Merry Christmas, all tied up with a bow and all:

Using NAV? JUST STOP IT. Quick, download a different AV product! Grisoft’s free AVG Anti-Virus will do. Why?

“Symantec Confirms AV Library Flaw, Promises Patches”

Anti-virus vendor Symantec Corp. has publicly acknowledged that a high-risk buffer overflow vulnerability in its AntiVirus Library could lead to code execution attacks when RAR archive files are scanned.

A proof-of-concept example of Symantec’s products’ inability to catch bad code that can execute from within an RAR file is all that’s been shown, so far. But that’s enough. Just ONE example like that would be enough for me to switch (and it was, several years ago), and anyone using NAV ought to at least temporarily disable it, download another AV product and install it until Symantec can restore some semblance of confidence in its product.

You have been warned, If the Grinch steals your Christmas cos you didn’t heed the warning, at least I know I tried.

(Yes, I know that SO FAR no examples exploiting the Symantec virus scan flaw/vulnerability have been found in the wild. So? You wanna be the one to find one? πŸ™‚

Red Lights Flashing at Is it Just Me?, NIF, TMH’s Bacon Bits, and Jo’s Cafe.

*sigh* I didn’t want to give you this for Christmas…

…although those of y’all depending on Symantec security products (e.g. Norton Anti-Virus) might view this as my Christmas present to you. So, Merry Christmas, all tied up with a bow and all:

Using NAV? JUST STOP IT. Quick, download a different AV product! Grisoft’s free AVG Anti-Virus will do. Why?

“Symantec Confirms AV Library Flaw, Promises Patches”

Anti-virus vendor Symantec Corp. has publicly acknowledged that a high-risk buffer overflow vulnerability in its AntiVirus Library could lead to code execution attacks when RAR archive files are scanned.

A proof-of-concept example of Symantec’s products’ inability to catch bad code that can execute from within an RAR file is all that’s been shown, so far. But that’s enough. Just ONE example like that would be enough for me to switch (and it was, several years ago), and anyone using NAV ought to at least temporarily disable it, download another AV product and install it until Symantec can restore some semblance of confidence in its product.

You have been warned, If the Grinch steals your Christmas cos you didn’t heed the warning, at least I know I tried.

(Yes, I know that SO FAR no examples exploiting the Symantec virus scan flaw/vulnerability have been found in the wild. So? You wanna be the one to find one? πŸ™‚

Red Lights Flashing at Is it Just Me?, NIF, TMH’s Bacon Bits, and Jo’s Cafe.

This party’s open through Christmas Day

OTA-BIGGEST

Since I don’t plan on posting anything else apart from strictly Christmas-related posts until Monday, this Open Trackback Alliance post will remain open through the weekend. Oh, I’ll try to do a roundup of interesting posts, but it will probably also be focused on Christmas-related posts. See the OTA blogroll in my left sidebar for a list of OTA members having open posts this weekend, as well.

Just link to this post and trackback. Any questions, put ’em in comments and I’ll help ya out.