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Well, I just published something I had written a month ago in defense of Ron Paul. It ended up being really long and boring so I quit writing it and saved it. Today I was inspired to write some drivel about some wikipedia events going on and just include my largely unoriginal thoughts.

As it turns out Islamic culture (largely it seems, uneducated extremists) is having another spat with the rest of the world. This time it’s over images of Mohammed in WikiPedia. I won’t go into it anymore than this: there seems to be a fundamental misuderstanding of freedom within the culture of Islam. Because you are free to censor images of your key prophet doesn’t mean you should. Claiming that people who, in the name of scholarship, insult you by including these images is laughable. Claiming that these same people should be more sensitive of your culture is rediculous. On a world stage Islam needs to learn something that Christians have know since Piss Christ and before even that: NOTHING IS SACRED, GET OVER IT.

And for some more wikidrama, check the register noted a cult oriented conflict of interest. If you read through the COI complaint it was resolved that he was not at fault because there weren’t any edit wars over it. I read it more as, the article is a whitewash, but no one really cares enough to make a section of criticisms. Sigh.

Finally on a lighter and much less controversial note, I leave you with a new read I’ve found this year. It’s the art of manliness and it’s not too great for manly tips as it seems geared to a much younger crowd (and I’m not that old… yet). But it is very light and easy to read with some good laughs and sometimes an insight or two.

Unrest in Georgia. The president there is American backed, yet the Soviet Union (Yes, yes, I call it that on purpose) still considers it to be in it’s sphere of influence. And they like to play the same way the US does: economic sanctions. Despite the fact that they are trying to westernize (they are even part of the EU) a large part of their economy still depends on trade with Russia. This is the way it is in Eastern Europe. But trust me, they make excellent wine. Support them by ordering a bottle or two. By the way, the protests are blamed on Russian insurgent types, but also because people are blaming the current president/pm on not being faster about the economy and land grabbing.

A quickie: an engine falls off a plane during take-off. Where’s superman when you need him to make sure airline timetables are kept?

The girl with 8 limbs continues to recover. She showed movement in the limbs they kept, which is a good sign apparently. Among the stats: it was a 24+ hour surgery, it took  30+ doctors, it cost $625,000 (I assume that’s US$), they were charged $0, being thought of as a reincarnated god: priceless. (I know, I know, lame… pfft)

If I could invent a disease to get out of life, this is what it would be. 30 Students walked out in protest, 300 or so students simply aren’t coming to school, and parents are flipping their lids because some students and teachers have a weird “twitch”. How rich…

A neat looking program I’m going to be using asap.  Xentient thumbnails does a much better job putting your images into icon thumbnails in windows.

i’ve had netvibes for some time. i just now took the time to add a good number of news feeds to it. i’m thinking this will be an improvement in my blogging process since i can see at a glance what’s being talked about on the news line and i don’t have to deal with the ranking crap of reddit and digg (but i do have digg in my netvibes, never know what you’ll find)

First up today, girls gone wild? well, yes, but on facebook. probably NSFW, I braved it, though somewhat suspiciously. Now I haven’t been able to check the credibility of this, but I at least can say that I haven’t noticed anyone in my network of friends posting that stuff. I myself am not exempt either. I just post it elsewhere for everyone to find it.

Science blog article from wired about dumping urea into the sea to offset CO2 by stimulating the growth of O2 producing algae. To me it seems like environmentalist infighting. Here are some people who have an idea of how to fix a problem, and the people who want the fix are saying “not really gonna let you do that.” It’s oversimplification, I know. But the topic warrants looking into the source article referenced and the related topics as well.

Is the human race mutating? No not really, actually it was probably pretty insensitive of me to say that, but I digress. This is a pretty popular story among the news outlets. This girl was born with 8 extra limbs. I can’t really tell from the picture which ones they are. If I had a say I wouldn’t take them off unless it really adversely affected her health (it does, I’m just saying..), because hey, who hasn’t wanted to be a human spider? I kid, I kid.

This is just one of many many articles analyzing Google’s announcement of Android - an open mobile technology platform. I just happened to find this one. I’m psyched about this if it pans out. I’ve always been sick of ATT et. all locking phones up and limiting my choices as a consumer through contracts. I recently shelled out a good wad of cash just to say FU and bought a phone not sold as a contract package by ATT. Yay me, right?

I’m really not a financial expert, but if the dollar keeps falling I’m gonna be pinching for my vaca this winter. It seems this is largely based on irresponsible borrowing and lending. With our GDP so high, what gives?

some interesting surfing for you today. though not very exciting. I was listening to my music this morning with my awesome sony headphones when i noticed some earwax. eww. well, i was curious, so here’s some random, probably useless info on earwax via wikipedia.

also via wikipedia, by way of my brother. Fernet-Branca, a liqueur we had last night that tasted like someone mixed whiskey and gin together. I enjoyed, he enjoyed it, and come to find out, its base is a grape, with a lot of herbs and spices (not unlike gin). So good, i think i’ll be getting a bottle in the not-to-distant future.

i have been toying with idea of getting rid of this blog as a link sharing method. my commentaries, while enlightening and witty (i’m sure), can be time consuming and tedious. plus in my social web surfing way of life, i’ve come to be the generator of several social feeds (del.icio.us, etherealnation.net, flickr, digg, google reader, and several others). a while back i found tumblr, made an account, didn’t figure out what it could be useful for, and just gave up. well, in my quest to minimize my data output (more accurately, simplify) i went back to tumblr, and added in a ton of my data feeds. here is what has happened: my tumblr. sorry to say it doesn’t look like it backfills anything, so there isn’t anything posted there. but don’t worry, it will soon be waaaay too full of stuff for most normal people. so eat your hearts out (on glaring lack of privacy). similar, quicker, but not quite as nice is soup.io.

i do a lot of work with people who work with a lot of other people. do you know what this means for me? MAJOR SCHEDULING ISSUES. so i found timebridge. i’ve recommended it to the people in my life who swear that it would take a full day just trying to schedule 30 minutes with 5 busy people. and the good news is they’ve actually started using it, and so far, it’s really nice. simplified, it’s almost like a business version of evite. but, it allows for alternative date suggestions and it can put the agreed upon meeting time into your google, msoffice, or ical calendars.

and finally for a bit of science, check out nasa’s page for a neat article about a sun spot taking on the shape of the trilobite. also, here’s the video. it’s pretty intense. i mean for one thing, you’re watching the magnetic waves emanating from the surface of the sun. and for another thing, according to the article you’re actually seeing into the sun.

I del.icio.us‘d this one: SignalMap. It allows you to add what signal you are getting, where you are getting it to a googlemap api. You can see all the signal points in your area with comments. I added one for work so far.

the hypochondriac’s favorite (or most feared) site has a decent article with pointers for getting more energy. don’t read the last page, it’s advertisements basically (and totally lame). top on my todo list is exercise (in the morning!?!?) and breakfast.

great list of credit pointers (10 commandments style) from the consumerist.

what apple product have you owned? my first mac (besides the ][’s at school) was a Mac Classic. with a black and white screen, i was able to surf the web through prodigy (which is still around somehow). which basically meant i was surfing a fake web.

i don’t usually link straight to Fake Steve Jobs, but he includes some parody thoughts that i particularly like regarding the sloth known as the recording industry.

more screw-the-recording-man goodness: ars has a little article about a grandma who is fighting back, as well as some related stories down at the end which are worth a look.

a wal-mart ethics fiasco? they have ethics?

a fun little flash game teaching kids - and politicians - how to gerrymander. maybe some kid will have the sense to make a libertarian district or fifty.

i like british news, it’s witty and informative, and specifically not american news. so when they say their people have a problem with liver disease, that doesn’t include me right? i did a quick tally of drinks this week:

• Monday: beer at guitar hero night ~ 1 drink
• Tuesday: Dinner with Sarah ~ 2 drinks
• Wednesday: I really don’t remember what I did on wed. but I’m pretty sure I didn’t drink anything ~ 0 drinks
• Thursday: Bowling ~ 1 drink
• Friday: Father’s Day ~ 2 drinks
• Saturday: Sarah’s parents were in town ~ 4 drinks
• Sunday: apres driving range nightcap ~ 2 drinks

So tally tally tally and bam! 12 drinks in a week. Am I damaging my liver. I don’t know. Does anyone know?

and finally, quite possibly more interestingly, Isaac Newton throws in his opinion on the end of days. note that the title of the article says that the world will definitely end in 2060 according to Mr. Newton. THAT’S NOT WHAT HIS LETTER SAYS AT ALL YOU TARDS. their own article clearly states

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton wrote. However, he added, “This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.”

I guess all that matters is that you get people to read your stupid site. GREAT JORB. meh.

Lifehacker recently posted a handful of really helpful articles on posture and ergonomics in the cube. Also there’s a neat little timer program that reminds you to do various stretches at set intervals. I’ll be trying that out soon, getting my tweezercize on.

And I’ve got a bit of a triple play with lifehacker and desk oriented goodness today, so I’ll submit to you this article on desk organization. Not that I need it. I’m desk OCD.

I’ve been following some really neat articles on one of my “geeky” subscriptions (probably lifehacker again, but i can’t tell) about eliminating wallet size, and came across a great carabeaner (sp?) wallet. As soon as I find out about the local legality of ID hole punching, I’m on my way!

Totally insane! Change the channels and the volume while having a pillowfight! KIYA!

I haven’t tested this yet, but there’s a neat-looking Real-Costs firefox plugin that purports to show carbon offsets when setting up flights online. It seems they also have a google maps driving version in the works as well. Note: I’m not totally convinced about the whole carbon offset stuff, I’m just interested in alternative resources.

Big news in the drugs and miscellaneous abusables department - Absinthe will be available soon in the US. For those of you wondering, it is illegal to sell and import absinthe, but not really illegal to consume it. At one time or another I have considered having some smuggled/air mailed to me, but without much fruit to the idea.

Dell announced this morning that it will begin selling pcs installed with ubuntu. Based on my experience, I just hope it works with the video card and two monitors.

And we’re back after a grueling weekend.

Interesting, common sense blog article on Free and Open Sourced Software (FOSS). While this article is probably a little oversimplified, I’m always interested in the benefits/drawback of free software that you can reprogram yourself (if you’ve got the programming resources).

A new virus was discovered in Australia after three patients received transplants and subsequently died. Their organs were from the same donor. Somewhat gruesome, but the doctors seem upbeat simply on the fact that they were able to detect and will be able to test it further.

Mac’s are hack-proof… sort of. I didn’t see any specifics on the rules that were laxed to make this possible. I find it interesting that he spent 9 hours programming the site to exploit the security hole. Intense.

I’m not totally versed in N. Korean culture. But this UK Times article about a man not selling them anymore giant rabbits for consumption is just cool. (That they are using rabbits as food, not that he’s not selling to N. Korea anymore). Because rabbits reproduce so quickly, this seems like a great way to relieve some food shortage issues.

The Twinky vs. the Carrot? A great article on obesity, caloric pricing, the Farm Bill and politics. Via Megnut.

Some phenomenal hand-made electronica instruments. I really need to try my hand at some of this. Sigh. Via Made.

A free and open sourced bass synth modeled after the Roland TB-303. (NOT A CLONE, mind you). Another musical project endeavor. Sigh, sigh.

Article from BBC on sleep and how much you should be getting. 8 hours isn’t really standard, the article says about 7.25 is OK. I think I need like 9, because I’m always tired at work. There’s just not enough time in the day for sleep.

The leader, Boris Yeltsin, is dead. His career seems to be marked with varying highs and lows. He seemingly ushered both democracy and economic decline into Russia.

Japanese like the wii so much they’re making cell phones with motion-based games. I just wish that instead of having their own games, they could connect to the wii and be used to some capacity. A NINE+ BUTTON CONTROLLER WITH MOTION! overkill? nahhh

Well, I always like to start my day of with a little Penny Arcade. Watch out, horny witches on the loose. Brought to you by wii.

I’m always a big fan of technology improving life. BBC has an article describing how Nigerians will be using cell phone text messages to help ensure a fair election. The move seems encouraging to me and I’m eager to see the results.

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a cheap illegal substance reference today. Check out 4/20 throughout history via wikipedia.

WELL, I GUESS PORN IS BORING NOW THAT THE INTERNET IS SO COOL. Interesting article from the economist showing that hit trends are beginning to lean away from pornography to search engines and social sites. YAY INTERNET, BOO-BIES. j/k.

The scientific american has a neat myth busters type article on the 0-grav pen’s origination. Now you can write UPSIDE DOWN!

In other news, there’s actually a site that gives advice on how to get rid of things. Very refreshing when we live in an age that is obsessed with collecting and hoarding. But I digress. They put forward an interesting write up on fat from historical (evolutionary) body mechanics to tips and tricks.

Going a little heavier, a little deeper, I submit to you the supreme court syllabus from the recent decision that effectively enforces the ban on partial birth abortions. This is a difficult read and takes a lot of time and energy to digest. So admittedly, the following viewpoints are based on having only read the first three paragraphs of the syllabus without being trained in the law. But, with words like

“The fetus is usually ripped apart”

and

“In order to allow the head to pass through the cervix, the doctor typically pierces or crushes the skull.”

Having read this short introduction I only hold two basic views on the subject

1. What is the moral standard of our culture that we find it acceptable to treat any life like this? We have been given over to our desires.
2. What kind of failure is the Church that we as a people must now revert to the senseless stripping of rights because we, for generations, have utterly failed at following the second most important mission of our lives as “Christians”: To LOVE our neighbor. We should be ashamed. I am.

Apologies for the diatribe.

And without leaving you, the faithful reader to a grossly disappointing end, I submit to you a thoughtful write up on web design from smashing magazine.