Sunday, December 31, 2006

Work Your Core

The other day, I was graciously given a freshman-level college geography textbook. At first glance, you might think, "I know everything in this textbook. There's nothing freshman geography can teach me." Think again. For one thing, did you know that every region has a core? It's true. Thanks to "Geography: Realms, Regions and Concepts," let's learn about some notable cores.

North America: North America's core runs from St. Louis to Milwaukee, to southern Ontario, to Boston, to DC. It turns out I live in the core. And I didn't even know it.

India: India's core is just south of Nepal. New Delhi is not in the core.

China: China's core is along the Yellow River. It does not include any notable cities.

Japan: Japan's core runs from Tokyo to Kyushu.

Nigeria's core area is all over the place. North, southwest, southeast -- whatever. Typical Nigeria.

Russia's core is huge. You know what they say; if your core is cold, you are cold, and Russia is no exception.

Most of the other regions of the world don't seem to have cores. The Middle East, Africa and South America don't seem to have them, which could account for all the chaos there. If they could just get it together, designate some cores, and focus on those, that would be a start.

Some other facts you will learn from my new textbook:

Chapter heading: "Sri Lanka: South Asian Tragedy"

"Say 'South America' and the first image most people conjure up is Sugar Loaf Mountain."

"The Republic of South Africa is the giant of Southern Africa, an African country at the center of world attention, a bright ray of hope, not only for Africa, but for all humankind."

Armenia is the size of Maryland
Tajikistan is the size of Iowa
Nepal is the size of Illinois
Japan is the size of Montana

"Southeast Asia... the very name roils American emotions."

"Of all the continents, South America has the most familiar shape."

T-Shirt Idea

It would say "The political wing."

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Warren Harding

Why is Warren Harding considered such a bad president? James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce were probably responsible for the Civil War, and Andrew Johnson & Ulysses Grant did something... I don't know, something to do with Reconstruction. I'll take the historians' word that he was a bad president. But what did Warren Harding do that was so disastrous?

The only thing anybody knows about Harding is Teapot Dome. But Harding wasn't aware of the Teapot Dome scandal while it was happening. He appointed Albert Fall, of course, but appointing a crooked man is hardly enough to make you worse than a warmonger like William McKinley or an actual crooked man like Martin Van Buren.

Anyway, Teapot Dome was only oil money. Public lands in Wyoming are not important in the present day, and they were certainly not important in the 1920's. The US Navy didn't end up seeing much action in those days, and there were plenty of other sources of oil if it came to that (domestic oil, even). So, no harm done. Contrast with Watergate, the attempted fixing of an election. And Nixon usually scores rather highly among presidents. Not to say that he doesn't deserve to, but if we're going to care about scandals, let's care about them.

What else did Harding do? Well, he was kind of dumb, he drank whiskey, and he had affairs. I guess those are bad things for a president to do, but most presidents in the 20th century have done at least one. He didn't do much, but then, not much needed to be done. I'm sure the 1920's could have been even nicer than they were, but "how much has he done" is no way to rate a president. You could argue that Harding's economic policies set the pattern that would lead to Great Depression six years later, but it's more traditional to blame Coolidge, who served longer and had more impact. And Coolidge always scores higher than Harding.

Finally, Harding's low score is mystifying in light of the fact that he died in office. America loves its dead presidents. Kennedy was a pretty bad president, but since he died in office, he's America's favorite. I happen to think that McKinley, Lincoln and Taylor all score higher than they deserve -- although that may just be opinion -- but Harding doesn't seem to have gotten any post-mortem boost whatsoever.

Pork-Barrel Politics

We understand how the political system works. There's lobbying, and there's pork barrel. I'm sure there are people lobbying for pork, and for some projects, the public-relations benefits are huge, but it's sometimes really hard to see how some pork barrel projects come about.

Military bases are popular, symbolic of good things, high-profile, and economically important. It's not hard to see why a politician might agitate to bring them to his home district. But as any cranky website can tell you, some really stupid things get earmarked. This is nothing new, but seriously; how do these things happen? Ted Stevens was so committed to his "Bridge to Nowhere" that he threatened to quit the Senate if the funding were withdrawn. That was probably just an idle threat, but where did the Bridge to Nowhere project come from in the first place? Alaska isn't a populous place, but 750,000 people live there, and only a hundred would be helped by the construction of the bridge. A bunch more would benefit from the mere redistribution of money, but surely there are better projects; Alaska is a pretty run-down place.

It's not like this project is vital to Ted Stevens' career. He's probably going to retire soon anyway, and if he doesn't, he'll win re-election. And most importantly, who follows pork-barrel spending? As I said, there are cranks who keep track of the North Carolina porcelain doll museum, but are the actual residents of North Carolina taking notice? Of those who do notice, and who realize that the museum was a result of federal spending, how many are going to credit their representative? If Americans are as disgusted by pork as they claim to be, I hardly think these white elephants are going to sway many voters to your column, even leaving aside the federal-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee mentality.

But the real problem is that nobody cares. I've lived in this district for a while, Military bases aside, I couldn't tell you of one federal penny my representatives have brought home. And I'm one of those guys who pays attention to politics. I don't understand how our political system works after all.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

That Old Chestnut

Apparently, Saddam Hussein is going to be executed some time before New Years, but the date of his execution is going to be a surprise. That means it can't be Sunday, because if it gets to Sunday and Saddam Hussein is still alive, we will know that he is going to be executed on Sunday, and it won't be a surprise.

So it can't be Sunday. By the same logic, he can't die on Saturday, because he can't die on Sunday, and the date of his execution has to be a surprise, so he can't die on the last possible day.

He can't be executed on Friday either, or today. So, Saddam Hussein won't be executed after all. High five, Saddam! I had this pro-Saddam change of heart after reading the headline of the article above, "Saddam Bids Family Farewell." Poor Saddam. I'm really glad he escaped death by this trick of logic. And if that doesn't work, maybe he can convince the Iraqis to throw him in a briar patch instead.

Update: No dice. Saddam's last words: "Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies, and the Persians."

Wikipedia Sentence of the Year

Running the gauntlet:

"There was also a naval version, on deck, stopped from rushing by the
master-at-arms with a cutlass and pushed forward by a corporal, notably for
minor theft (hated by the shipmates) in the Royal navy, using rope yarns that
were plaited into so-called knittles (a word for a string; possibly
sound-associated with nettles), looking like an improvised mini-version of the
cat o' nine tails (of which formal scourger the culprit got an excruciating
dozen lashes in advance, guaranteeing any further hit to hurt his lacerated back
badly), which was also used –even with knots, worsening the sting- on severe
theft charges but then immobilizing them by ropes."

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Post #404

Goodness gracious. I was so caught up in not having things to say that I forgot to say that my 400th blog post happened. Kindly count backwards to #400, and imagine some stupid looking animated GIF fireworks all over it. I know you guys love that stuff. I promise to have something good to say as I stagger past that milestone that is 500. I promise, people. I will save something good for you, because I love you.

The Following Blog Post May not Represent the Opinions of apk01004.blogspot.com

You've all seen it: "The following program... may not represent the opinions... XYZ channel."

What are those disclaimers for? First of all, nobody cares. If there was anybody who ever read a disclaimer, and was interested in it, I never met him. To normal people, those pre-show messages might as well be garbled in transmission. There is just nobody who cares, not at all, that Rush Limbaugh might say something which the EIB network disagrees with. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Of the already small group of people likely to form an opinion about a TV channel, few will be deterred by a hastily worded message. They are hard to discourage, those opinion-havers. I should know.

And even if you read and understand the warning, is it going to convince you? If you are offended by a late night infomercial, really offended, I don't see how this lame abdication of responsibility is going to help. "He said it, not me," is not an excuse in real life. People (lame-os) can and do boycott networks for whatever reason. A lamely-worded plea not to won't cut any ice with them. They mostly do it for religious reasons, after all, and you know how religious people are.

...

I'm just playing with you. I know why there's a disclaimer. I know why there's any disclaimer. It's a liability thing. Someone might see something on "Medical secrets they don't want you to know" and... lawsuit. I'm not sure how that would happen exactly; providing the forum for fraudulent claims to be made is still not a crime, but I supppose better safe than sorry. People assume that, well, why not have a warning before your show. It's stupid, of course, that the law should work that way.

Yeah. Dumb disclaimers are dumb. I think I already covered something like this subject before. And I didn't have much to say then anyway. Oh well. Wake me when another celebrity dies.

Ford to Self: Drop Dead

Gerald Ford is dead. I predict this will be the least mourned presidential death in history. More mourned than Jeanne Kirkpatrick, but less mourned than James Brown, in case you were searching for context.

Is it me, or have people been dying more and more lately? I sometimes feel that this blog is nothing but a big obituary column. Ann Richards, Pinochet, and now Gerald Ford. It's really too bad, because he was my dark, dark horse pick for 2008. Gerald Ford, my friends. He would have been due for a comeback. RIP.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Good Slot Machine Themes

  • Void of space
  • AIDS
  • Remembrance of Things Past
  • Taliban
  • Kitties
  • The color blue
  • People's Temple
  • God

OMG

I went to a casino yesterday. Everything was named after Indians. There were no actual Indians at the casino, so the overall effect was to make me feel a little dirty. I won one dollar playing slot machines, used a wheelchair under false pretenses, and went to a loud casino bar. I had a mohito for nine dollars. This is notable because A) it was terrible and B) it was the *least* homosexual drink on the drinks menu. The only other interesting thing that happened, was that there was a Tabasco-themed slot machine. I'm not sure that's something that happened, but, well, you heard it here first.

So yeah. Product placement in slot machines is just another way they get you. Try not to go to a casino folks. You'll only encourage them.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Ice in Beer

A mystery! Americans like to drink cold drinks. They drink coffee and tea and cola with ice in them, and some lost souls even crunch up ice cubes plain, like insane dogs. On an airplane once, I saw the stewardess serenely add ice to someone's glass of orange juice, and I think I've seen people drink milk with ice.

But I have never seen anybody put ice in his beer. If there's one trend that I expect 2007 to bring to light, it's ice in our beer. What could be more American? We like our beer cold and watery, right? And the ice would make it a lot fizzier, as it provided areas for carbon dioxide to precipitate. Unlike wine and liquor, beer is drunk in a big enough glass to accomodate a lot of ice. Dropping one ice cube into a glass of wine would look silly, but filling a highball glass with ice, then pouring the beer over it might look almost decent.

So come on, America. I know you can do it. Ice in beer in '07. It's either that or drinking pure cream, and I know you don't want to do that.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Yeah

Yeah...

I got nothing.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Time Travel

Let us beat on this theme again. Scientists have no self-awareness. First it was quantum mechanics, and now it is time travel. The problem is the same; physicists have gotten so far ahead of themselves, with their cyclotrons and their bosons and their fancy degrees, that they think they can ignore the basic principles of science. If your impossibly complicated theory seems to prove something impossibly stupid, well, that can't be something wrong with your theory; it must just be one of those things.

I'm not sure whether time travel is as popular in the physics community as quantum superposition. I know there are some physicists who are into that sort of thing, but I'm not sure whether they are considered "rogue" physicists. Maybe normal
physicists are all concentrating on building the X-ray laser. If so, awesome. But assume this is a big thing in modern research.

Time travel theory comes from a pretty simple idea: Other times are just like other places. Not *just* like other places, of course. With time travel, for instance, you might meet yourself when you were a baby. But basically like other places. Other times, in this reading, are places you can go, and return from, with the push of a button or whatever. It's a tempting idea, when we're talking about the age of the dinosaurs. You can practically see those dinosaurs, just on the other side of the temporal divide.

This picture runs into huge problems, of course, when you get into the what-if-you-kill-your-own-grandmother questions, and others. But it underlies every attempt to prove that time travel is possible. There's just no reason to think it is, otherwise. Scientists may say that tachyons can travel backwards in time, (and I am not up to date on tachyon theory, so I can't say how justifiable this claim is, if it is coherent at all. And how do you tell that a single particle with no identifying marks has gone back in time?) but I have no doubt that it never would have come up at all, if it weren't for the H. G. Wells model of time travel.

As I said, I have no idea what the evidence for time travel is, that these intrepid scientists have uncovered. I also have no idea what evidence they could find. "'It has gone back in time' the scientists said", is not a sentence we are likely to hear, or to verify, in the near future. All they have is their unbelievable theories, based on the readouts from cyclotrons and electron microscopes and space telescopes. I'm no fancy, big-city particle physicist, but I'm going to on the record and say, time travel is a big diversion.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

I'm the Man of the Year

Yes, me. I control the Information Age. Welcome to my world.

I said I would write something about how terrible Time Magazine's Person of the Year award is, especially lately. What with "The American Soldier" and "The Whistleblowers" and "Bono & Mr. & Mrs. Gates", I was getting pretty distraught. I had meant to say something this year about how annoying it was, but now?

I don't have the heart. I love you too, Time Magazine.

Not Included: Lump

Here are some shapes that have particularly significant meaning, according to a guide for interpreting the shapes wax makes when you drip it into water:

Bat
Bottle
Club
Comet
Earring
Fire
Hairpin
Lollipop
Mushroom
Pear
Oar
Shovel
Teardrop

It's a Wonderful Life

Christmas movies are of course terrible, but the gold standard for Christmas movie awfulness is "It's a Wonderful Life". That's puzzling, in a way, because it is not a Christmas movie at all. It was released near Christmas in 1946, and approximately 1/4 of the movie takes place around Christmas. Somebody plays Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and I think there's a Christmas tree.

Is that all it takes? Most of the things that make this a wonderful life don't happen at Christmas time. The only scene in the movie I like is the bank run, which presumably happens in October. Mr. Bailey is a bank manager. It's what makes his life so wonderful. But the banks are closed on Christmas; how wonderful is that, people? Bank holidays *are* wonderful for most of us, but would it have been a less wonderful life if the movie were released on Memorial Day?

If that's all you need to make a movie a Christmas movie, well, I could make some suggestions. How about Brazil?

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Get Rich Quick Scheme

Pornography filmed with forced perspective. The actors are positioned so that it *looks* like they're doin' it, but they aren't actually; one of them is in the foreground, and one is in the background. This might be extra special if you used it to film giantess niche pornography; in fact, it might be the only way to do it. Just think about those people with unrealizeable fantasies. Did you ever think to apply the oldest trick in filmography? As I say, you could make a mint.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

"If you look to your left, you will see a sad man."

Because politicians are fun people about whom we deserve to know more, I'm going to lurch into "Campaign 2008 Biography" mode. So strap in, because we are going to profile the less-loved presidential candidates as they make themselves known. I already mentioned Tommy Thompson and Tom Daschle, but I missed Duncan Hunter and Mike Gravel. So let me just note that Hunter's PAC is called "Peace through Strength," an illustration of the fact that "X through Y" constructions are always fascist. And Mike Gravel's Wikipedia photo is killer.

But Dennis Kucinich is the reason for the series. I can understand hating his platform. It's pretty far out, my friends, and I say this as someone who presses the far out to his breast. But to hate Dennis Kucinich? Impossible. Between his monkey-like appearence, his monkey-like speaking voice, and his complete indifference to the complete indifference of the world, Dennis Kucinich is someone you just want to pick up and put in your pocket.

At least he finally found a wife, putting an end to one of the most painful chapters of political history, the date-Dennis-Kucinich contest of 2004. I am a sentimental boy, and I feel like crying when I think of that. I voted for him in the 2004 primary election, mostly because I felt sorry for him. Campaigning all year, nobody to love him, his best political days long behind, the poorest man in the House-- It tears your heart up, it really does.

I'll probably be voting for him in 2008, if he goes the distance (which he will. Dennis Kucinich is not a quitter.) Who else would I vote for? John Kerry may be sadder in his own way, but he's so monumental. He doesn't need me, or you. Kucinich seems so much more approachable, and he needs a political friend so badly. I am hereby announcing my pick for '08 (provisional). I hope you will join me on his bandwagon. "Dennis Kucinich for President: He seriously looks like he could break down in tears at any moment."

Monday, December 11, 2006

QED

Ads on the internet are almost as good as the ones in Harper's. Either they're ads for products nobody could possibly want (hands up if you've ever bought something off a website other than e-Bay or Amazon), or they're the information superhighway equivalent of vanity publishing, someone with cash deciding his ideas won't sell themselves on the merits.

This doesn't mean that all internet ads are worthless. It just means that the websites advertised are owned by people with low self-esteem, but also a lot of nerve.

I mention this because -- why else? -- I came across an ad today for this website, Honestargument.com. It's pretty neat, the idea being that nested trees will solve all our current argumentative woes. From now on, debates will be conducted in a LIFO, depth-first rhetorical style. From some inexorable principle embedded in graph theory, we can conclude that misunderstandings, flame wars, imperfect analogies and hypocrisy will be utterly expunged. And if only Socrates had been born after Euler, they might not have killed him.

It's a new website, but it's working already. Look:

Rush Limbaugh has little standing to question others morality Rush Limbaugh has little standing to question others morality
He has been divorced three times He has been divorced three times
He has had multiple run-ins with the law involving drugs He has had multiple run-ins with the law involving drugs
He is a hypocrite He is a hypocrite

You heard it here first: Rush Limbaugh has little standing to question others' morality. It's a tidy proof, and I expect it to completely baffle the "Rush Limbaugh has plenty of standing to question others' morality" crowd. He'll be off the air by 2007. Good work, Honestargument.com!

I'm Huge in Japan

I seem to be leading the Japanese astray with my poorly thought-through opinions. If only I could speak the language, I would learn their ideas about nutritionism. Tell me, my Japanese friends, what are the haps?

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Onion Juice

Seems like this should be more widespread. Onions are pretty watery. If you squeeze the water out of them, it ought to have a lot of onion flavor, but in liquid form. Yet you never see this in recipe books. I dunno. It looks like a pretty obvious move to me, but perhaps that's why I'm not a chef.

The Long Thin Country

So it looks like Pinochet died today. I don't have much to say about that except there is no clearer triumph of the jocks over the nerds than him and Salvador Allende, who might still be alive today if it weren't for his dopey safety-goggle glasses.

Contrast with Augusto Pinochet (pronunciation?), who gives us the perfect example of what cool people would do if they ran the world.

So I guess it's probably good that he's dead, mostly because he was bad, but also because that makes the rest of us that much cooler. With him out of the way, I'm almost suave enough to be a fascist dictator. I can taste it.

In Which I Reason About Anarchism

Are anarchists serious? I know anarchism isn't a vibrant political movement, but it certainly used to be. There were thousands of anarchists, many of them thoughtful. There are even some anarchists now. If you live in a "cool" city, you will probably see their graffiti, an A with a circle around it. (I don't live in a cool city. These are second-hand reports.)

But are there people now, or were there ever, who thought this stuff through? Suppose your goal is the blunt, unnreducible "freedom from government coercion." I suppose, looking just at ends, anarchism is the political theory for you, a theory which says freedom from government coercion is best. But don't think that if anarchist plans are successful, and total overthrow of the government happens, that your utopia will last long. Isn't it pretty obvious that new governments would reassert themselves over a lawless world in less than a week? Unless I am completely wrong, it is impossible to have a governmentless world for long.

Do any anarchists have plans for how the transition to anarchy is going to happen, such that the coercive state doesn't spring back up? Is it even possible to make such plans, consistently with the principles of anarchism? Would any anarchists like to fill me in on the earthshaking details? Or would you rather just shout curse words at me?

Of course, even if new authority didn't replace the smashed state, is an anarchist world really a good place to live? To your hardcore believer, the answer is of course "yes", but I can't make out how. I hate the police as much as the next guy, but the specter of legal action does keep some bad things from happening, no? It seems hard to make a believable case that crime *wouldn't* skyrocket in an anarchist state, so hard that I feel stupid for even discussing it.

I think the existence of anarchism is nothing but an illustration of the fact that smart people, and there were smart anarchists, can believe stupid things. Or rather, that smart people can believe nothing in particular, and call it something. The obvious comparison here is to Wicca. As far as I can tell, adherents of that religion don't believe anything in particular. (Anarchists "believe" things, but as I say, those beliefs are so transparently wrong as to not count.) What it really means to be a Wiccan or an anarchist is to belong to a group of like-minded people. Wiccans might not all believe anything, but they are all like something. Same with anarchists. I don't want to go out on a limb and say just what anarchists are like, because I may not know any, but I'm pretty sure they enjoy punk rock and graffiti, and they enjoy being resentful.

You can probably supply your own details for this anarchist mock-up, but I think it's pretty clear that anarchism is more a society of friends than liberalism or libertarianism or any of those political theories. What else could hold them together? Their half-assed social theories? Don't make me laugh. In all probability, c.1900 anarchism followed the same model; they pretended to have cogent theories, but it was all just sullen class envy pretending to be ideas. If you all have a sense that you're oppressed, that is enough to form a movement, however unrealistic. That, and having all slept with Emma Goldman at various times.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

The Unfortunate Gentleman


Click -->here<-- to see his jazz hands & diaper.
Click--> here<-- to wonder whom you should be feeling sorry for.

One of the 613 Mitzvot

Today I was introduced to www.ShowCats.com (which I will not comment on, except to express hope that cat-breeders really do call their businesses "catteries"), but why should the fun stop there? Their webpage says that ShowCats.com was created to follow in the wake of ShowDog.com, TrophyHorse.com and ShowCattle.com. I don't want to indulge in hateful stereotypes about which animals are loveable and which are not, but cattle? Cattle is what you say when you call each individual cow a "head" and have a butchery chart on your wall.

Oh well! I guess cattle are loveable now, and who am I to say no? Better than horses at any rate. The trouble is that while cows are nice, there is no way you could belong to ShowCattle.com without being a horrible person.
If you like cows,
and don't have any cows of your own,
and use the internet to engage in cow-wish-fulfillment,
then I feel comfortable saying that there's something wrong with you.

I can't put my finger on exactly how virtual cows are worse than virtual cats or dogs, but perhaps it's just sad. Cats and dogs are well within human experience, but it takes a leap to get to cows. It's such a small leap though. This is the internet, people. Let your libidinous fantasies run free. If your deepest wish involves trading fake cows to other players, in exchange for fake cash or "embryos", then you have a small little mind. At least trade dinosaurs or smallpox cultures or African slaves.


Yeah, owning a virtual pet of any kind is disturbing, and owning a virtual commodity is worse. But if you own a virtual cow, and are selling virtual bull semen to the highest bidder, that is a special kind of worse. Get a life squared.
Unless you are a Masai tribesman who just got one of those $100 laptops, cow-ownership is not a fantasy healthy people have.

Or maybe it's just the site rules:
"Creating accounts for the purpose of buying semen or cattle from another account is strictly prohibited." I think that was in Deuteronomy somewhere. Whatever. It is now an official rule for **my** website. No doubling up on accounts, guys. These virtual bulls are gonna run dry eventually, and I want to make sure there's enough for everybody.

Friday, December 08, 2006

All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan smokes "one to two packs a day."

My blog: Your source for things I've been wondering.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

On the Other Hand...

One warning that I am pleased to see Wikipedia offer?
Wikipedia may contain triggers for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
I like the way that sounds. I'm going to adopt it for my personal motto. I may contain triggers for people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Better not cross me, or you could wind up trembling under your bed.

Disclaimer

When you are in the business of having opinions, one opinion you cannot go wrong with is the "anti disclaimer" opinion. Tell people that you are tired of "Caution: Contents may be hot" and they will think you are a pretty sharp guy. Which you may be; it's a shame we live in a world with warnings like that, and everyone thinks so, but nobody can do anything about it.

If we have to issue those warnings, though, can we please stop being proud of ourselves for doing it? Wikipedia has these disclaimers--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Medical_disclaimer. They make me sick. I can understand the legal necessity, Wikipedia having a lot to lose. But the large font? The gratuitious boldface? Either there's a law requiring these things or there isn't. If there isn't, then it looks like Wikipedia, *the world's greatest repository of knowledge,* is thrilled to say that they don't know anything about medicine. Which is false anyway; Wikipedia knows lots about medicine, and I would trust them over any doctor.

If there is a law (or insurance company regulation) requiring high-school girl-level emphasis on one's disclaimers, then that's even worse. I know I said that curfews were an infallible sign of a police state, but I'm changing my answer. Compulsory fonts are a sign that it's only going to get worse from here on.

For my own part, I'm not going to issue any disclaimers. I stand by all of my opnions, medical and meta-medical. When I say you can put hydrogen peroxide in your mouth, I honestly mean "go for it." You should bear in mind that I get all of my facts from Wikipedia anyway. But if you want medical advice without the heartbreaking disclaimers, just ask, and we'll work something out.

New Flavors

If you're like me, you've discovered by now that all food tastes basically the same. They can use all the vivid colors and ingredients at their disposal, but as it turns out, all food pretty much tastes like tomatoes, like coffee, or like dust. Some foods are sweet, and some are salty, and the texture may vary, but there just aren't many different things to eat.

Some people can live 90 years without longing for another taste, even though they've tasted them all by age 20. Most people, in fact, which is why chemists in New Jersey are focussing more on recreating strawberry (i.e. tomato) flavor than on inventing truly new flavors. Still, there must be someone out there yearning for new flavors to conquer, so let me suggest these ideas:

Hydrogen peroxide: This stimulates nerves when you put it on a flesh wound. Sounds like a roundabout way of saying "flavor!" I understand that some people use H2O2 to brush their teeth. It's a pretty good disinfectant, so I can understand wanting peroxide toothpaste. But does it have any flavor? It's a strong oxidant, so I'm going to guess it's "piquant". Am I right? Does anybody out there know what it actually tastes like?

Camphor: Camphor isn't exactly edible, being a kind of wood. But camphor oil, which you presumably get by boiling the wood and skimming the surface of the pot, is sort of edible. Wikipedia says it is "poisonous in larger quantities" without giving any hint to the actual quantities. Camphor, like nutmeg, causes "confusion" upon overdose. Could camphor be the next big fad among 16-year olds left home alone? Assuming you don't take too much, the actual flavor of camphor is intriguing. Floral? A little. Like mothballs? A little more. Medicinal? Yes indeed. It is an acquired taste, but a new one.

Ammonia: Highly toxic in large amounts, but used to revive Victorian matrons. You could probably market ammonia, diluted even further, as a "new hot sauce". Acrid sauce, more like, but you're the one who wants new flavors; I'm just trying to help. I'm not sure what goes well with ammonia. I guess you couldn't eat it with anything very acidic. Would it taste good on bread? Only by trial and error can we know for sure.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Good Fronts for Prostitution

  • Vending machine
  • The least suspicious business in the world.
  • Santa
  • Crack house
  • International terrorism
  • Street-corner cleaning business
  • Small sovereign country
  • Tarzan, King of the Jungle (this is where you search through the jungle for Tarzan, but when you find him, he's actually a male prostitute)
  • Just go ahead and break the law
  • Heaven (if possible)
Just a thought. If I ever open a brothel, it's not going to be another icky massage parlor. God no.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Momentary Smiling

Nothing says "Read Me" like an ad on someone's webpage, completely blank except for the title The Origin of Emotions, and, "This book identifies the trigger, purpose and effect of each emotion." So who could resist? I read it.

With almost Scientological zeal, the author, Mark Devon (who obviously didn't graduate from Harvard, or he would have mentioned it) categorizes our emotions. Categorizes them into 54 groups, as a matter of fact, which you will see if you download the PDF from his website. In case you aren't interested in waiting for a long PDF to download, here are a few of his choices:
  • Grandmaternal Love
  • Monogynistic Grief (AKA "The woman I love is dead")
  • Adulterous Guilt
  • Prolonged Frowning
  • Cute
  • Male Nipple Pleasure (Cosmopolitan was right!)
  • Blushing
If you read the portion of his magnum opus that he supplies you with, you will begin to see why they kicked him out of Harvard. He has no notion of anything but short declarative sentences, each using two or three terms that he has stolen from the English language and repurposed for his book. A sample:
Heartbreak is triggered by making another woman happy, not by having sex with her. Women do not feel heartbreak if their man has sex with another woman. Women do feel heartbreak if their man buys another woman presents. Men have sex to make themselves happy. Men buy a woman presents to make her happy. If a man wants to make another woman happy, he is in love with her. If a man is in love with another woman, he cannot be in love with the heartbroken woman.
I'm going to say it: This is demented. You might think, well Alex, maybe he's writing this as a scholarly publication. You can't expect carefully crafted sentences from academics. But as far as I can tell, he lists no sources for anything. Unless he did the research himself, and doesn't mention having done it, he has pulled all of these facts right out of his mind.

Still, I can't help but recommend that you read his book. Only the first eighteen chapters are free (out of 59) but half a loaf is better than no bread. He makes you pay for the juicy bits, like the chapter on "female clitoral pleasure" (an emotion that has inspired poets and pornographers since Shakespeare) but there is plenty to love in what he offers. And Christmas is coming up! For the holidays, give your friends some insight into the mind of a man who... well, who is very different from you and me.

For instance, he always relates everything back to evolutionary psychology, like an alternate-universe Freud. But instead of some maxim about sexuality pervading all things, the lesson he wants you to extract from his work? "You're always doing what's best for the species." To me, the lesson of this book, the real lesson, is clear: If you think you might develop schizophrenia, don't study evolutionary psychology.

Stop Doing That!

To follow up on the difficulty of telling Shiites from Sunnis, apparently the national ID card for Iraq, which all Iraqis are required to carry, lists the bearer's religion right on it. What on earth is the point of that? Do you think, maybe, it's responsible for some of the more brazen executions? Apparently, apart from these ID cards, and a few more sect-specific names -- also on the ID card -- there's not much to go on. So here's my plan for Iraq. Change the ID cards to just a serial number. And they said there were no more useful ideas.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Wikipedia Sentence for Today

"Ben has been seen drinking a Bulleit brand Bourbon and Cola. Whether this is his favourite alcoholic beverage is unknown."

-->News<--

Tom Daschle says he doesn't want to run for president, putting an end to literally minutes of wonder among armchair pundits. In a way, that's too bad, because his entire political career was based on the fact that nobody can find anything wrong with him. It's a powerful force, and I think he could have followed it all the way to the presidency.

Oh well. We'll just have to cross him off our Program of Political Pondering. I guess we can take all the moments that we *would* have used to think about Tom Daschle, and use them to think about Chris Dodd instead. All the not caring you were doing about Daschle? Get ready to do it about Dodd, because he's my new pick to snooze his way into the White House.

"That illiterate National Anthem"

The United States has a pretty good national anthem, as they go. It's not as good as the Russian one -- which was better when it was Soviet -- which goes without saying -- but when you measure it against the competition in America, it looks great. "God Bless America?""This Land is Your Land" (hippies only)? "America the Beautiful?" These are all terrible candidates.

As we all know, the national anthem goes on into more verses. It was clearly intended to be sung as a bunch, since the first verse alone is almost as useless as the first eight lines of any poem. I wonder whether the other verses are sung at any official functions. If so, what is the bridge that connects them? We know how each verse ends if it's the last one to be sung, but how do you sing "home of the free and land of the brave" if you're just going to lead into another verse? Do you slow the tempo? What does the band do between verses?

Really it's all a big shame, because it's a lovely poem, and the tune is good, but the two just don't match up at all. They were not written for each other, and it shows. Would anyone, just listening to "The Star Spangled Banner", know that it has eight lines per verse? Or that the meter is dactylic somethingorother? It gets off to altogether the wrong start, dragging "oh" out into two syllables.

But still, as I say, what else is there? We're never going to have "Your Favorite Song" as our national anthem, so can we just settle on "The Star Spangled Banner" as something that's good enough for everyone? It could absolutely be worse, you know.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

Russia may be worse off in almost every way now that the Soviet Union is gone, but does anyone here think this cartoon (I would describe it for you, but there's no describing) would have gotten made under the rigorous eye of the censors?

Well, probably. Russia may be full of alcoholic gangsters, but they will always have the cartoons. And unless this is an allegory for some kind of official foible, I can't imagine that it would offend anybody in power. If it makes you feel better though, you can imagine this cartoon was made under the thumb of officialdom. Like all cultural artifacts, it's way more significant if you pretend it was made in a communist spirit.

So here it is. If you watch one YouTube video this year, and heaven knows I'm trying to keep my own number down, make it this one. Bear in mind that it has low sound quality, picture quality and narrative quality. But I do like those bugs.

Happy World AIDS Day

Current HIV status: Negative.