Category: General

General rambling, ranting, raving etc.

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Crazy web sites

I’ve encountered a number of very weird web sites this week, not the good kind of weird either. Be careful if you visit them your IQ might plummet. 🙂 I’ve intentionally not linked the [crazy sites] because I don’t want to improve their search rankings. If any of the owners or supporters of the crazy sites wants my opinion, here it is, seek professional psychiatric help, sooner rather than later.

Barcodes are evil, as in Satan (echoing like the Church Ladies voice) – Warning: 666 Is Coming – [www.av1611.org/666.html] and [www.av1611.org/666/barcode.html].

These people think theocracy is good – Society for the Practical Establishment and Perpetuation of the TEN COMMANDMENTS – [www.tencommandments.org].

Too crazy to describe – 11:11 O’Clock Explained – [www.1111spiritguardians.com].

Wow they have an professional organization – the American Society of Dowsers – [www.dowsers.org], and a local chapter in my area – Greater Boston Chapter of ASD – [susantom.com].

On the way home from the office today I listened to this weeks The Infidel Guy Show a totally NOT crazy site and one of the fine “The Triad of Reason” podcasts. I’ve only been listening for a little while but so far I’ve liked the podcasts, in particular the Massimo Pigliucci interviews are excellent.

This weeks show is an interview with Glenn Borchardt [www.glennborchardt.com], Director (and possibly only member of) the Progressive Science Institute [www.scientificphilosophy.com]. Glenn has written a book, “THE SCIENTIFIC WORLDVIEW, Beyond Newton and Einstein: Understanding the Universal Mechanism of Evolution”, that he talks about on this weeks The Infidel Guy Show.

I can’t find words to describe the craziness but, I did find another blogger, Damian Guerra, who found the words: Glenn Borchardt and the Scientific Worldview and, The Scientific Worldview .

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Blogroll Update

I limit my blogroll to blogs that I actively follow, in the past few months the following blogs have become part of my reading addiction so, they have been added to the blogroll.

In alphabetic order:

Deltoid by Tim Lambert

Denialism blog by brothers Mark and Chris Hoofnagle

Dispatches from the Culture Wars by Ed Brayton

RichardDawkins.net The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Science After Sunclipse “A blag for math and physics on the Wobosphere” by Blake Stacey
Here’s a recent post that I feel hits the nail on the head, and his closing sentence, “All weÂ’ve got is the truth and each other.” sums it up beautifully.

The Bronze Blog by Bronze Dog, Ryan and, Crystal

The Red Notebook by Richard Carter, FCD
If you don’t know what FCD stands for, go to Join the Friends of Charles Darwin and sign up today if you qualify.

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And the winner is?

The Alliance For Science 2007 National High School Essay Contest has announced the winners, first place goes to Gregory Simonian. I have just read his essay and found it to be excellent, give it a read then head over to his blog to congratulate Gregory.

I haven’t read the other essay’s yet but I plan on reading as many as I can because it makes me feel hopeful for humanities future to read works by rational critical thinking young people.

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I attended a fashion premier today

For the first time in my life I attended an exclusive, by invitation, fashion premier. OK, well everyone who buys from Despair Inc. got invited and, anyone who typed in despair.com today after 9:00AM CST got to see the premier so, I guess I’m not too special.

I’ve been a big fan of the Demotivators series of products from Despair for the past few years, how could you not love a company that has this, :-(, for a logo. Their customer disservice motto of “We’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied” clearly shows how they care for you.

Now that they’ve introduced the DespairWear clothing line you can share their hilarious messages where ever you go. I like everything in this first round of introductions and as they promised in my invitation,

With new clothing items added EVERY WEDNESDAY until the Apocalypse*.

*After that, well, you’ll just have to shop elsewhere, ‘cuz we ain’t down for that mandatory Mark of the Beast thingie… It’s not gonna be retailer-friendly… Not in the slightest.

Wednesdays have just gotten a lot more fun!

After you check out the latest fashions try your hand at creating a personal Demotivator in the D.I.Y. section. Here’s my attempt:demotivator1

Image is from CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS with me adding the arrow and text. The original image was chosen as Number One Astronomy Picture of 2006 by BadAstronomer Phil Plait.

—————–Update——————

A new exclusive mailing I received, OK, OK, it’s just marketing info that goes to anyone who wants it, has expanded on the Apocalypse comment:

*Yes, we’re serious… Offer not valid if:

1)
the economy completely collapses under the weight of its sheer unsustainability… (Don’t think it can’t happen- the US Government is spending money every bit as irresponsibly as YOU are, and on a whole lot of stupid junk every bit as non-substantive as the products that are our lifeblood…)

2)
Despair goes bankrupt… Which won’t happen AS LONG AS YOU KEEP BUYING OUR VALUABLE WARES! We’re a team, remember?

3)
The Apocalypse starts…**.

** What, didn’t you ever go to Church? You don’t even know what to look for? Well, if you see a prophet bringing fire down out of the skies in the full view of men who encourages you to worship a messianic figure from whom he derives power… THAT’s a good sign that we’re not going to be selling any more DespairWear. If that messianic figure tries to enforce a cashless society where no person can buy or sell stuff who doesn’t take a mark on their right hand or forehead- you better start shopping at Hot Topic for your novelty t-shirt needs. ‘Cuz for real, we’re heading to a non-disclosed and heavily fortified location at that point. Yes there are other signs but jeez, I’m just a marketing lackey trying to finish an email newsletter… Can’t you crack a Bible or something?

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May 15th No Gas foolishness

This e-mail is going around:

Don’t pump gas on May 15th, in April 1997, there was a “gas out” conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight. On May 15th 2007, all internet users are to not go to a gas station inprotest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places. There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up. If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take$2,292,000,000.00 (that’s almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companyspockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May15th and lets try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry forat least one day. If you agree (which I cant see why you wouldnt) resend this to all yourcontact list. With it saying, ”Don’t pump gas on May 15th”

In the words of Penn & Teller this is Bulls hit! (FCC friendly version 🙂 ).

Simply changing when or where something is purchased has very little impact on the base economics. Whether you buy gas on the 15th or, 14th or, 16th doesn’t significantly affect any oil company. What has an effect is reducing actual consumption so, if the originators of this chain mail really wanted to have an impact on oil prices they’d ask to make 5/15 a don’t use any gas day.

In addition to this not passing the business common sense test, there is also this outright misinformation:

in April 1997, there was a “gas out” conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.

The US DOE keeps track of gasoline prices and provides the data in an excel spreadsheet. Examining the US Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices excerpt for 1997 shows:

Date Cents per Gallon
Mar 03 121.5
Mar 10 120.6
Mar 17 120.0
Mar 24 120.4
Mar 31 120.0
Apr 07 120.3
Apr 14 119.9
Apr 21 119.9
Apr 28 119.5
May 05 119.3
May 12 119.3
May 19 120.3
May 26 121.2
Jun 02 121.5

So where is that 30 cents/gal drop? There is a slight dip of 2.2 cents/gal centerd in May but that’s a far cry from 30 cents/gal.

See Also:
Snopes Article

U.S. Retail Gasoline Historical Prices

Independent Gasoline Price History adjusted for inflation

Crude oil price 1947 – 2006 in 2006 dollars

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Who's Joe Lab?

On the way home from the office today I was stuck in traffic behind a car with a bunch of www.FreeJoeLab.com bumper stickers and the unusual vanity license plate of “PRISMS”. Being curious about this I checked out the web site once I got home. It turns out the site is about Joe Labriola a highly decorated Marine who served two tours in Vietnam. He is currently serving a life sentence in Massachusetts and has published a book of his poetry entitled “Prisms of War”.

After reading everything on that web site tonight, I can only say that it certainly appears there may have been an injustice done to Joe Labriola . However, the site does not contain much in the way of evidence to back up the claims of injustice. If the 1973 trial transcript was posted in its entirety it would help but there is only one page available there. I searched around a bit with Google but there is very little at other spots on the net about Joe. There is one poem on a guys My Space page, and mentions in newsletters from two political groups, MIM Notes 1997 and, MASSRAIL 1999.

If any law students happen to read this post please check out his site, I think Joe’s case would make a good project for you. I can strongly recommend that everyone read the articles on www.FreeJoeLab.com many are very sad or troubling making them a tough read but they are all informative and thought provoking so I feel it is well worth the effort.

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A great day for rational people and a bad day for the frauds

This is one of the most encouraging stories I’ve read in a while. Philadelphia PA is enforcing a law that was passed decades ago prohibiting fortune telling for profit. Far too many gullible people lose money they can’t really afford to these con-people. I think shutting them down is the right thing to do.

The AP story is here and a larger article from The Philadelphia Inquirer is here.

Now if only we can get this local law to become a federal law we can hit the frauds where they hurt, their wallets.

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Happy Earth Day

I had completely forgotten that today is Earth Day until I used Google and saw their holiday logo. Very clever, a melting iceberg version of the Google logo to remind us of the dangers of global climate change.

I’m surprised none of the blogs I regularly read has yet mentioned Earth Day. The weather is absolutely beautiful today so I’m going to spend some time outdoors enjoying nature.

If your weather sucks, keeping you indoors today, here are some Earth Day links to explore:
Wikipedia
U.S. Government site
U.S. EPA
The Wilderness Society
Also, click the Google logo on their site to find more.