Month: April 2005

Your tax dollars at work. (Photo by Rick Lee. h/t Instapundit)

Well blogger did it again. Had a post written. Even got _most_ of the html tags “recognized” by blogger and CLICKed “Publish”. All that was published was the title.

But we know (because the good folks at blogger tell us so) that,

“[they have] pushed into production a number of performance enhancements which have improved the responsiveness of the site. Additionally, we have eliminated an automated spam problem which was negatively impacting publish success rates.”

Right. We’re MUCH better, now.

Blogger Status page says:

“Thursday, April 07, 2005 This afternoon we pushed into production a number of performance enhancements which have improved the responsiveness of the site. Additionally, we have eliminated an automated spam problem which was negatively impacting publish success rates.”

Yeh, great job. Now, about the ONLY way I can publish a darned thing is with “Hello!” or by CLICKing on the edit button in Opera, and ONLY in Opera. Let’s see… Internet Exploder can’t even FIND blogger.com, and Firebird reports the login page “has no data”… Opera seems to find everything all right, but I can’t even enter standard html code, let alone use the wysiwyg editor.

Great improvements, guys! Anybody ever heard the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” line? Well, you might have fixed something that was “broken,” but you left the rest in a shambles on the sever room floor…

Apologies for the lack of links in the post below. I guess I could go back and put them in parentheses, since blogger is NOT accepting html tags [sigh] and just tell folks to copy n paste ’em. Guess that’ll have to do until I wait out blogger’s intransigence. [profound sigh]

Oh. Well. Early to bed and all that…

Holly Lisle was right in “Killing Grandma for Fun and Profit”

You knew this was coming, didn’t you?

“Georgia Woman Being Starved and Dehydrated

“85 year-old Mae Margourik of LaGrange, Georgia, is currently being deprived of nutrition and hydration at the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy. Mrs. Margourik suffered an aortic dissection 2 weeks ago and was hospitalized. Though her doctors have said that she is not terminally ill, Ms. Gaddy declared that she held medical power of attorney for Mae, and had her transferred to the LaGrange Hospice. Later investigation revealed that Ms. Gaddy did not in fact have such power of attorney. Furthermore, Mae’s Living Will provides that nutrition and hydration are to be withheld only if she is comatose or vegetative. Mae is in neither condition. Neither is her condition terminal.”

Y’all be careful out there. Especially all you grannies. It just got a lot easier for your loving grandkids to kill you with impunity.

h/t The Corner’s K.J. Lopez.

13 things [in the world of science] that do not make sense

Michael Brooks, writing in The New Scientist, outlines 13 things that serious scientists are grappling with that are real conundrums. Baffling and contradictory-to-establish-theories data in such widely diverse areas of inquiry as

• The placebo effect
• The horizon problem
• Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
• Homeopathy
• Dark matter

And eight other areas of inquiry that have serious scientists baffled.

With serious scientists at odds over data in such fundamental fields as the temperature of the universe (and it’s contradictory implications for the fav Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe!), it boggles the mind that eco-religionists posing as scientists and spouting nonsense get so much press from the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army.

Check it out: 13 things that do not make sense.

(h/t: Jerry Pournelle’s Current View Wednesday, 04/06/05)

Just read it.

It’s at least a place to start talking about how to deal with ahild abuse in the classroom, prisons for kids, etc. (also known as “public education”). School choice. Who’d have thought that “choice” was evil to so-called “liberals”? Well, everyone with more than two active brain cells knows that where choice refers to any option exercised against the grain of loony left moonbat feelings (I won’t call them principles or even thoughts) it’s eeeeeeevilllll. To loony left moonbats, that is.

OK, so I lie about other things, too

Just see if I’m lying about this, too. Go. I’ll wait.

[imagine elevator muzak here]

[imagine elevator muzak here]

[imagine elevator muzak here]

[imagine elevator muzak here]

[imagine elevator muzak here]

[yeh, more elevator muzak here]

Back, now? OK, now you know I was. Lying to you, that is. Sorry. Nah. I’m not.

Prisons for kids gives us several headlines this week

Kris, over at Anywhere But Here, has a sample of news from our country’s prisons for kids (otherwise falsely labeled, “public schools”). “Guards in Scuffle,” “Inmate Death Threats” and “Parolee Abuse” are three articles you ought to check out. (OK, I admit it: I made up those titles. Kris is more generous and conventional in labeling the incidents.)

Another illustration of the eternal nature of civil service corruption

The lil ditty (indeed, Kipling included it in his “Departmental Ditties” so I’m not using the term in a demeaning fashion) below always brings a wry smile to my face. Most of us have known a “Potipher Gubbins” in our own lives: someone who through connections, schmoozing ability (or outright brown-nosing), or other qualities rises far beyond their level of competence and reaps rewards far beyond their accomplishments. (In fact, such people are so common, there are whole classes of them: politicians, school administrators, petty bureaucrats of all stripes, etc.). So here’s

Study of an Elevation, In Indian Ink

This ditty is a string of lies.
But-how the deuce did Gubbins rise?

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.
Stands at the top of the tree;
And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led
To the hoisting of Potiphar G.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is seven years junior to Me;
Each bridge that he makes either buckles or breaks,
And his work is as rough as he.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is coarse as a chimpanzee;
And I can’t understand why you gave him your hand,
Lovely Mehitabel Lee.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is dear to the Powers that Be;
For They bow and They smile in an affable style,
Which is seldom accorded to Me.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is certain as certain can be
Of a highly paid post which is claimed by a host
Of seniors — including Me.

Careless and lazy is he,
Greatly inferior to Me.
What is the spell that you manage so well,
Commonplace Potiphar G.?

Lovely Mehitabel Lee,
Let me inquire of thee,
Should I have riz to where Potiphar is,
Hadst thou been mated to Me?

When I first read this (and as with much poetry, I of course read it aloud), it not only resonated with TRUTH, it answered an immediate need: I had another “contract” song to write to fullfill my grade in a composition class, and this text simply wrote its own song out for me–the ostinato in the accompaniment, the tune, the rest of the piano part, even the lovely lil “B” section interlude (once I moved the third verse down and swapped the positions of the last two verses). Thanks, Rudyard!

🙂

Yeh, I probably ought to dig that old exercise out, polish it up, fix a couple of places in the piano part, etc…, but why? It’s not as though it’s the kind of art song that’ll find a lot f use. Still, it’s an enjoyable sing for me, every now and then.

“DST is complete bulls**** and we should take it out behind the woodshed, and shoot it in the back of the neck.”—Kim duToit

Not much to argue with there. If strong (heartfelt, accurately reflecting state of mind but a wee tad crude) language gives you “the vapors” (heh), you might want to get out the smelling salts before clicking on over to Kim’s post on Daylight Savings Time. 🙂