Friday, July 3, 2009
Uh, okay.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Ixnay on that Star Spangled Banner
They wanted to see if the songs created a pro-social or an anti-social response. He said the preliminary findings showed that the patriotic songs had a negative effect on the participants, as shown through their responses to the survey's questions about other cultures and diversity. The patriotic songs made the participants close-minded and prejudiced. "Once they were in a patriotic point of view, they were less empathetic," Alvarado said. "They didn't put themselves in other people's perspective." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090625115237.htmHow is empathizing with North Korea and Iran working so far?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Love for sale
"Pssst. Hey, you...come over here."
"What? What do you want? Are you selling something?"
"Yeah. Hey, listen, I got half-priced love."
"Half-price? How much you got?"
"A hunnert dollars worth for fifty bucks."
"What kind of love?"
"Well, it's like you won't have to lick 'em."
"I really hadn't planned on licking them..."
"All you have to do is peel 'em and stick 'em."
"Oooo! I like that. Where are they?"
"I got 'em right here."
"That's just a roll of stamps."
"Yeah, but hey, they're LOVE stamps."
"Say, aren't you my mailman?"
"It's the haircut. Everybody thinks I'm their mailman. Well, I'm outta here."
"Bye now. Dang...that's some haircut..."
Monday, May 11, 2009
Blah blah, blah-blah [John Derbyshire]
Monday, May 11, 2009
Blah blah, blah-blah [John Derbyshire]
Blah blah-ah blah blah, blah - blah blah. Blah, blah-blah-blah, blah! Blah.
Blah-blah, blah/blah, blah blah-blah blah blah.
The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, and social. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the esteem of our peers. For most people, wanting to know the truth about the world is way, way down the list.
Blah-blah blah blah (blah) blah, blah. Blah blah; blah.
[Occasionally, the internet inadvertently leaks out something profound.]
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Buck Up
Buck Up
Pirates, hackers and suicide bombers,
you're not even safe at home.
They'll come down the intertubes --
snatch all your data, or blow up
your tour group in Rome.
What good is having a Defense Department
with wide open borders and sky?
If the suitcase nukes or swine flu don't getcha,
they'll serve up a new way to die.
So rattle your cage bars, trade 'safety' for freedom,
keep terror from clouding your day.
'Cause just like the cops, fedguv will tell you,
"When it comes down to seconds, we're only minutes away!"
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
"Bring me fraud's head on a platter!"
Writing on physicist fraud:
"Science was corrected in the Schön case, but not by itself – only because individual scientists made corrections. From would-be replicators in dozens of labs to many sceptics, only a couple of researchers were transformed into whistle-blowers by the unlikely pattern of [duplicated] evidence."
Reich continues, "Fraud was able to stifle questions about Schön's lab technique that would otherwise have been asked, and to turn review processes at journals into opportunities for additional fabrication. Other scientists' support of the fraud was unwitting, but the decision to place so much trust in a colleague was a conscious rationalisation that continues to be defended in science to this day."
Who is this fraud, and why is he stifling me? Even Reich, it seems, must lapse into passive aggression. How could so many be fooled for so long? As Family Circus would say, "Beats me. Not me. I dunno."
It isn't the first time gobbledy-gook cooked books have been taken for gospel. Won't be the last. Still, it self-corrects sooner or later. There's that.
