Archive for May, 2005
Thus spake Tycho
May 31, 2005 at 12:01 pm
W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Post reporter Bob Woodward’s source, the magazine said.
…
“I don’t think (being Deep Throat) was anything to be proud of,” Felt indicated to his son, Mark Jr., at one point, according to the article. “You (should) not leak information to anyone.”
Link.
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Thus spake Adrian
May 30, 2005 at 10:52 pm
Lafitte is apparently in the crotch of Louisiana. There is nothing to do there unless you love to fish so much that you’ll leave behind civilization to do it. Houses are built on poles to survive frequent flooding, the restaurants look like shacks (but usually serve good or interesting seafood), and the only real store seems to be Piggly Wiggly. There is more than one marina store that doubles as a marine supply store and tavern.
Apparently people way too frequently crash their boats into barges around this place. Last Saturday the phone at the C-Way Marina store rang with a caller wanting to know exactly what happened that day concerning such an accident (”We don’t keep up with that”), and that night the phone rang at Fuzzy’s Bar with a caller wanting to know who died (”They should turn on the news”).
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Thus spake Sheni
at 4:41 pm
Thus spake Tycho
May 28, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Thus spake Evil Overload
May 27, 2005 at 10:22 am
Thus spake Joanne
at 7:41 am
Thus spake Tycho
May 26, 2005 at 4:36 pm
I didn’t need any proof that Repulicans are either evil manipulators or evil mainpulatees, but it came the other day in the mail. It calls itself a census (so shady!) of the Repulican party (which I’m not a member of! honest!). They never ask if you think eating human babies is wrong, but the questions are so loaded that they might as well have! Here’s page one and page two. I had to scan it so let me know if you have trouble reading it.
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Thus spake Joanne
May 25, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Thus spake Tycho
at 7:52 am
In addition to threatening people with guns, he apparently has taken up sticking his finger in outlets.
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Thus spake Evil Overload
at 5:23 am
The new coffeehouse at the old Blue Sky location is now open. Stop by and check it out.
And in other coffee-related news, the abandoned gas station at the corner of Boulevard and Chase is being renovated into a coffeehouse. Excellent! A new coffeehouse, three doors down from me.
Update: They have Dancing Goats. And they’ve done great things with the interior courtyard. Highly recommended.
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Thus spake H
May 24, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Thus spake Sheni
at 12:17 pm
This article, from Scientific American Mind, presents a pretty interesting theory on the role of lying in the evolution of humanity. The argument basically goes like this:
- Facility at deception creates a competitive advantage over others of one’s own species.
- More complex organisms are more capable of high-level deception
- Self-deception is necessary for the successful deception of others
- Self-deception is made possible by a filter between the cognitive mind and the conscious mind. This filter basically hides information as it passes from the cognitive mind to the conscious mind, allowing the liar to, at least momentarily, believe the lie and not fall into the trap of nonverbal self-betrayal.
It’s really quite a fascinating article; providing both a motivation and an evolutionary framework for the existence of deception. And I agree that the concept of the filter between the cognitive and conscious minds provides a reasonable mechanism for self-deception. However, I do have a problem with the theory:
The theory seems to imply that the filter lies below the conscious mind. If this is true, what part of the mind is responsible for making the decision to lie? Is it the unconscious? Is it instinctual? If that’s the case, is the capacity to lie genetically coded? Is our ability to lie predetermined at birth? I hope so, because my conscience could rest a lot easier.
Regardless of any problems I have with the theory, the idea of the filter is really what fascinates me. I believe that such a filter exists, and that it is responsible for much more than self-deception. I would imagine that this filter is primarily responsible for what we call personality. It is the mechanism that allows us to make quick decision. To operate on autopilot. It is what allows us to whittle down the vast amount of information and broad array behavioral characteristics, of which we are all capable, into one consistent, identifiable segment of ourselves, which we call our personality. In reality, it might be a series or elaborate overlapping of filters that come into play, each based on some combination of genetic predetermination and personal experience. Regardless, though, It would make sense that that filter is responsible for much more than lying; it’s responsible for the establishment of identity and the capacity for social interaction.
Blatantly ganked from BoingBoing
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Thus spake Evil Overload
at 6:26 am
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Or, more accurately, a femtosecond-pulsating laser that ionizes a cylinder of air, making it able to conduct a surge of electricity. Think of a ranged taser, only without the little taser-darts and connecting wires. Similar weapons were used in movies like Freejack and The Matrix, in case you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Here’s the link to the article about a company that is currently developing this device. |
(stolen from Warren Ellis)
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Thus spake Sheni
May 23, 2005 at 7:57 am
This Scientific American article provides a little clarification to the misinformation so commonly spread by Creationists.
6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.
The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, “If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?” New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.
I’m not really sure how much of the misinformation is intentional and how much is a result of ignorance, but regardless, I’ve met with some pretty ridiculous arguments in debates about evolution. In the future, I might just point people to this LINK.
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Thus spake Adrian
May 21, 2005 at 5:22 pm
In a cafeteria at the Savannah College of Art and Design, there is a series of six paintings of a pomegranate and its seeds. On the adjacent wall is a contrast: a painting of a purple dog sitting up to eat something abstract.
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Thus spake Evil Overload
May 20, 2005 at 11:02 am
This is the best way I’ve ever heard of to deal with pent-up aggression:
“When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don’t take it out on someone you know — take it out on someone you don’t know.
I was sitting at my desk when I remembered a phone call I had forgotten to make. I found the number and dialed it. A man answered, saying, “Hello.” I politely said, “Could I please speak with Robin Carter?” Suddenly, the phone was slammed down on me. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so rude. I realized I had called the wrong number. I tracked down Robin’s correct number and called her. I had accidentally transposed the last two digits of her phone number.
After hanging up with her, I decided to call the ‘wrong’ number again. When the same guy answered the phone, I yelled, “You’re an asshole!” and hung up. I wrote his number down with the word ‘asshole’ next to it, and put it in my desk drawer.
Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I’d call him up and yell, “You’re an asshole!” It always cheered me up.
More…
(Thanks to Jason and Jason for this one)
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Thus spake Tycho
at 7:02 am
Thus spake Joanne
May 19, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Thus spake Joanne
at 8:09 am
The International Committee of the Red Cross documented what it called credible information about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Korans at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and pointed it out to the Pentagon in confidential reports during 2002 and early 2003, an ICRC spokesman said Wednesday.
Representatives of the ICRC, who have played a key role in investigating abuse allegations at the facility in Cuba and other U.S. military prisons, never witnessed such incidents firsthand during on-site visits, said Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman in Washington.
But ICRC delegates, who have been granted access to the secretive camp since January 2002, gathered and corroborated enough similar, independent reports from detainees to raise the issue multiple times with Guantanamo commanders and with Pentagon officials, Schorno said in an interview Wednesday.
Link
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Thus spake Sheni
at 6:20 am
This Boing Boing post adds another poignant detail to the story of the “Chili Finger.” (Which should either be a B Horror Movie title or some corollary to the Dirty Sanchez) Apparently, Ayala, the woman who “found” the finger in her Wendy’s chili, actually got the finger from one of her husband’s coworkers. The coworker gave it to her husband to settle a fifty dollar bet.
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Thus spake Tycho
May 18, 2005 at 4:02 pm
He’s no Boba Fett but I don’t know what Jar-Jar did to deserve getting tossed in the dumpster out in the parking lot like this. I thought this picture was appropriate in honor of the release of the 6th (or is it really the 3rd?) movie tomorrow.
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Thus spake Sheni
at 7:28 am
Sweet. Here’s a blog that features Ann Coulter Erotica(if you can call it that). While I’m a little disgusted at the prospect of viewing Ann Coulter as a sexual being (or even a human, for that matter), I have to admit that the whole concept is pretty funny. Here’s an excertpt, you dirty little perverts:
‘I’m not talking to you,’ she spat, ‘I’m talking to your cock. Bet you never thought you’d see me again.’
‘Not without being able to change the channel, no..’
‘Well get out of that ridiculously too young for you Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt, say goodbye to 1998 and lose the cargo pants, and get ready to stuff the only thing interesting about you into the sloppy end of my digestive tract.’
‘Which end is that?’
Awesome. LINK
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Thus spake Joanne
at 6:51 am
Thus spake Evil Overload
at 6:37 am
I’m too busy this week to think, so here are other people’s thoughts for your enjoyment:
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
–Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
–Marquis de la Grange (1639 - 1692)
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Thus spake Joanne
at 6:22 am
The Plaza Hotel has been shut down and will be converted to condominiums. Get your souveniers while you can.
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Thus spake H
May 17, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Thus spake Joanne
at 10:39 am
…are convinced that female orgasms are connected to the genetic quality of the male. Yeah right!
Dr. Alcock theorized that a woman might use orgasm “as an unconscious way to evaluate the quality of the male,” his genetic fitness and, thus, how suitable he would be as a father for her offspring.
Furthermore, they asserted, when a woman has intercourse with a man other than her regular sexual partner, she is more likely to have an orgasm in that prime time span and thus retain more sperm, presumably making conception more likely. They postulated that women seek other partners in an effort to obtain better genes for their offspring. (Baker and Bell)
This sounds much more likely to me.
Dr. Lloyd says the most convincing theory is one put forward in 1979 by Dr. Donald Symons, an anthropologist.
That theory holds that female orgasms are simply artifacts - a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life.
Read the article here.
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Thus spake Evil Overload
at 5:42 am
For those of you who had requested a Bored Athenians RSS feed, here it is! It’s also over there on the left. Someone who actually does that RSS thing, give it a try and let us know if it works.
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Thus spake Evil Overload
at 5:24 am
Hey, where my ninjas at? Anyway, here’s a newspaper that’s offering several classical novels in PDF format for our reading pleasure. Included:
# Some Christmas Stories by Charles Dickens
# Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
# The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
# The People of the Abyss by Jack London
The site implies that there might be more to follow. I’ve been looking for an excuse to catch up on my Machiavelli, and here it is. Link
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Thus spake Evil Overload
May 13, 2005 at 11:47 am
Quote for the day:
Do not ask God the way to heaven; he will show you the hardest one.
-Stanislaw J. Lec
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