Weird thing of the day 27 March 2005/16 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Easter)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is an article on a new twist in bowling balls: “Making Scents”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 25 March 2005/14 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Purim/Good Friday)

Greetings.

Sorry to be so late. I’ve been occupied with the obligations of Purim and getting light bulbs. (And no, I was not investigating that thing at Aish.com I mentioned yesterday.)

Today’s weird thing is the article “Prankster Smuggles Art Into Top Museums”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 24 March 2005/13 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Ta`anith 'Esther)

Greetings.

Today is Ta‘anith ’Esther (the Fast of Esther), which commemorates the three-day fast of Esther in a time of peril due to an evil decree against the Jews of the Persian Empire as recounted in the Book of Esther. Purim, which commemorates the annulment of that decree, is tomorrow.

Political update: The wall surrounding the British Consulate in Jerusalem angers its Arab neighbors. Keep in mind that Israel was criticized by the UK (among others) for daring to put a wall between itself and hostile Arabs.

Also: The MoveOn PAC wants you to tell Congress to stay out of the Terri Schiavo fight. They’re also requesting donations to fight Bush’s plan to destroy Social Security.

Weird thing: Aish.com has a somewhat amusing 80-second film about light bulb-jokes.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 23 March 2005/12 'Adhar Sheni 5765

Greetings.

Political update: The good news is that Medicare is going to start covering quit-smoking programs. The bad news is that they’ll only pay for the elderly who already have smoking-related illnesses. Can’t the federal government stop procrastinating and put every smoker in the United States on a quit-smoking program by banning tobacco and spare everyone the unneeded disease and deaths?

Today’s weird thing is www.SuitCaseServers.com. I think that one will speak for itself. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 22 March 2005/11 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (World Water Day)

Greetings.

Today you’re getting two weird things, mainly in because I’m trying to downsize my inbox.

1) My father directed me to the article “Ex-prosecutor says he kept Jews off juries”, which notes some of the strange biases people have.

2) Barry wrote to me:

The behav-an listserve has recently had a discussion
about teachers and why they often do not use those
techniques with the best empirical support.  (Do not
flame me.  No one is accusing teachers of being stupid
or anything like that.)  Among the factors that came
up in the discussion were school administrators, who
may actively oppose using effective techniques.  One
person on the listserve posted these gems of
administrator behavior as examples of how screwed up
some of them are.  Do note that not every school
administrator is as messed-up as those in the below
examples.  Furthermore, the credit for the
ineffectiveness of public education in the United
States is shared among many parties.  Mark Twain
himself once said, "In the first place, God made
idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school
boards."  

This is True recently had a few items indicating
what teachers are up
against re: administrators.  

THIS is TRUE for 27 February 2005            

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
STRIKE 1, YOU'RE OUT: Raven Furbert, 12, has four
relatives in the
  military stationed in Iraq, including her uncle.
To help her remember
  them, she wore a patriotic red, white and blue
necklace, a Christmas
  gift. But officials at Mont Pleasant Middle School
in Schenectady,
  N.Y., told her the beaded necklace is contrary to
the school's dress
  code, which bans "gang-related" clothing. They
said if she continued to
  wear it in any visible place, she would be
suspended. When they
  discovered she was wearing the beads hidden -- not
visible -- they told
  her to remove them. Furbert's mother, Katie
Grzywna, says the girl was
  previously a good student, but is now frequently
targeted for
  detention, so she has filed a federal lawsuit
against the school. "I'll
  be really glad when this is all over," Raven says.
"I just want to wear
  them for my uncle" in Iraq. (Albany Times-Union)
...Who, if you asked
  him, would say he's there to fight for our
freedoms.

STRIKE 2, YOU'RE OUT: A drug dog doing a routine
sniff of cars at R.E.
  Lee High School in Staunton, Va., alerted near the
car parked by
  student body president Sam Dungan, 17. Officials
demanded he let them
  search the car but Dungan, the son of a defense
attorney, called his
  dad instead. After all, it was his dad's car,
since his own was broken
  down. His father, James Dungan, arrived at the
school and consented to
  a search, since "I don't smoke marijuana, my wife
doesn't smoke
  marijuana, and my son doesn't smoke marijuana," he
told them. Bad idea:
  the search turned up a rusty Boy Scout knife and a
bottle of cream
  liqueur, left in the car after a Christmas party.
Good enough: Sam was
  suspended for 5 days for "possessing" a "weapon"
and alcohol on campus.
  He also must attend alcohol counseling.
(Waynesboro News Virginian)
  ...On the other hand, he may have a good
malpractice case against his
  attorney.

STRIKE 37, YOU'RE OUT: Susan Bartlett, 34, a teacher
at Pine Grove
  Elementary School in Brooksville, Fla., was "out
of control,"
  colleagues say. She allegedly yelled at
colleagues, smoked pot at
  school, "burped loudly" in staff meetings, and
called children "stupid"
  in class. Yet the worst the school would do to her
is enter a reprimand
  in her record -- and extend her contract for
another year. School
  officials finally took action when, in a staff
meeting, Bartlett
  "pulled her pants down and showed her entire
bottom to the whole group
  of teachers in the room," an incident report says.
The penalty? She was
  ordered to take a drug test. Bartlett refused that
demand, saying there
  was a "lack of just cause," and only then was she
fired. (St.
  Petersburg Times) ...The difference between the
kids and the teachers:
  the kids don't have a union.

Enjoy (or be scared).

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 21 March 2005/10 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Naw Rúz)

Greetings.

Cool software update: Today I heard about StepMenus, which takes a step towards bringing NeXT-style menus to Mac OS X.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Mind games”, which deals with the use of brain scanning in economic research. Barry may enjoy (or be scared by) this one.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 20 March 2005/9 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Extraterrestrial Abductions Day/Palm Sunday/National Quilting Day/Great American Meat Out)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is “ps. i'll find my frog”, the story of a lost frog and someone with too much time and a copy of Photoshop. The only thing clear is that the frog is not in Australia, because Australia’s only frog hospital is set to close and is not accepting any new patients.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 18 March 2005/7 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Spacewalk Day)

Greetings.

My own weird experience: Last night I dropped the stylus I use with my graphics tablet (as a fancy mouse substitute), and it rolled under the sofa where I couldn't reach it. This morning I took everything off the sofa and partially unfolded the part that turns into a bed in order to reach it. To my surprise, there was very little accumulation of anything under there, just a few dead pill bugs.

Today’s joint weird thing and political update is an article which tells of an amazing development in military technology: “'Wrist Video' Gives Israeli Army an Edge”. Note that official “Palestinian” spreader of misinformation Hanan Ashrawi proclaims against the technology, which has the potential to reduce unwanted casualties when targeting individual terrorists, “Nobody doubts Israelis can develop these weapons. But is this the kind of sophistication they need against defenseless people? It seems like a case of overkill.” Amazingly, she is actually promoting unnecessary killings of innocent civilians, specifically of her own people. Also, if her claim that the “Palestinians” are “defenseless people” is correct, then their obviously starting an armed conflict against a country with an excellent standing army was a downright stupid idea. As such, she is clearly a self-hating “Palestinian”, thinking that her own people are a bunch of morons who deserve to die.

Enjoy (or be scared by “Palestinian” self-hatred), and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Silly excuse to party

Good evening.

In tonight’s bonus update, we have “date %s Turning 1111111111”. And I thought no one paid any attention to how many seconds it is since the start of the UNIX era (January 1, 1970)...

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 17 March 2005/6 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Submarine Day)

Greetings.

Semi-political update: “Auditors Find IRS Workers Prone to Hackers”.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Holograms Poised to Feed Bio Data”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Worthless lawsuit of the day

Good evening.

No, I cannot make up such a worthless lawsuit: “Corrie family sues Caterpillar”. Briefly: A pro-“Palestinian” idiot was stupid enough to place herself in the path of a moving bulldozer in order to stop the demolition of a terrorist’s home and get herself killed because the driver did not manage to stop in time. Now her family is stupid enough to sue to company which made the bulldozer. Insert your own comment about personal responsibility here.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 16 March 2005/5 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (National Artichoke Hearts Day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Alaska Community Researches Nuclear Power”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Various

Good evening.

1) The second half of what happened last week with the wedding:

Tuesday: We had breakfast with the parents of the bride and a number of other wedding guests staying at the hotel. The weather forecast the night before had been that there would probably be snow in the afternoon, so Mom and I decided to leave soon after breakfast in the hopes of beating the snow.

It was too late. Snow was falling as we walked out the front door.

Things went downhill from there. Driving back to the airport was made a bit difficult due to snow falling horizontally and a bewildering traffic maze getting into the airport. Not long after we got to our terminal at the airport, they started delaying flights. After a while, they started canceling flights, including ours. We were trapped in Newark. We did get (different) rescheduled flights for the next day, but we also had to get a hotel room. This involved us getting a hotel room, since Mom was not willing to sleep in the terminal. Unfortunately, we had serious transportation problems even while we were still at the airport. Though Mom managed to call a hotel to make reservations, it took a while to get where the courtesy vans stop because the monorail system connecting the wide-flung parts of the airport for some reason were not functioning well. I cracked a joke about penguins having to push the trains down the track. Eventually the train did come, but it was absurdly crowded. Then, due to a miscommunication, after we got in a courtesy van, it took us to the wrong hotel, necessitating us to go back to the airport and take a different hotel. By the time we had checked in, we were exhausted. Considering that the traffic situation was bad, we did not consider going anywhere else for any reason.

Wednesday: I went to the airport at 6 AM since I had the earlier flight. Mom followed half an hour later. The worst thing that happened to me on my flight was at the changeover in Washington, DC, the second plane was late. Of course, I had to drive back to the airport two hours later to pick up Mom.

2) For your enjoyment, the page of some people and a parrot Mom and I met at the airport on the way up north: Parrotworks, Inc.

3) Pale Male and Lola update: “New York High-Rise Hawks Have Egg in Nest”.

4) Political update: “WFP helping more people in Darfur despite continuing violence”, i.e., the UN’s diplomacy has failed miserably.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 15 March 2005/4 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Ides of March/Brutus Day)

Greetings.

Today’s relevant play is “Julius Caesar”.

Today’s weird thing is “Robots and Emotion: Tetchy the Turtle Meets Sonny and HAL”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Pi Day and wedding update

Greetings.

Little did I know this morning that there are people who celebrate Pi Day. Some of them frequent MathematiciansPictures.com, where they also sell silly mathematical merchandise. I apologize for missing the Pi Drop, which was on 3/14 at 1:59 PM. (I know: That’s groan-worthy. Then again, it's no sillier than October 10 being International Metric Day.)

I’ve finally written up something on the wedding last Monday. Here goes:

Monday: Mom and I fly up to Newark. From the airport we take a rental car to Monsey/Spring Valley/Nanuet (they all blend into each other) without getting seriously lost. Having arrived significantly before the 3 PM hotel check-in time, we went to Tuvia’s, a Jewish bookstore. They have enough stuff there that Mom and I were both dazzled. I went looking for plastic covers for the set of tefillin I have been using since this summer (formerly my late grandfather’s), but didn’t find appropriate ones. I ended up buying a small siddur (prayer book) and a copy of ’Ayil Meshullash, a geometry book written by my probable ancestor R. ’Eliyyahu ben Shelomoh (the Vilna Ga’on). Mom seemed more interested in the ritual objects. We both could have probably spent days in there looking over what they had. Afterwards we went to a local pizza shop for lunch; it was the first time I had had pizza since Hanukkah. We checked in at the hotel. We rested a little and got ready for the wedding.

Unfortunately, the trip to the wedding was highly stressful. The road signs in New Jersey leave much to be desired in visibility, and so we ended up getting significantly lost. After stopping to ask for directions twice, we got to the wedding seven minutes before it was supposed to to start (and missing most of the reception beforehand) by ignoring the directions and instead using a map and brute-force logic.

The wedding itself was very much along Orthodox Jewish lines, with the emphasis on making sure everything was done correctly rather than what my intuition insists on calling “embroidery”. (Not to say there wasn’t “embroidery”; it just wasn’t the focus. I thought the parents of the bride and groom carrying candles as they accompanied their children to the huppah (wedding canopy) was a nice touch.) The major problem they had is that the groom is a yeshivah student, and apparently they divied up the honors in the ceremony as much as possible so none of the rabbis at the yeshiva would be snubbed; consequently it got very crowded by the huppah.

The wedding feast afterwards was unusual in the degree of separation between the sexes. I had heard of weddings where there were little barriers separating men and women sitting at the same table. In this one there was a barrier running down the center of the room. (Not surprising; just never heard of it previously.) This put a major damper on plans to use the wedding to meet single Orthodox Jewish women. (We have a serious lack of them in Charleston, which contributes significantly to me still being single.) Nevertheless the festivities were still very enjoyable. There was an amazing amount of dancing going on, and even I, the introvert whom no one has ever seen engage in strenuous exercise, got into the act along with the more Hasidhic types and had to take off my vest and jacket at times to avoid overheating. I had no idea what I was doing, mind you, but it was still rather thrilling. A few people wore unusual costumes for the dancing or did tricks of some sort. E.g., there was a guy on a unicycle and someone else who did minor fire-eating. At one point we were even doing the limbo. (Not sure how that happened.)

Mom and I left around midnight. We have no idea when the festivities actually ended.

Stay tuned for what happened last Tuesday and Wednesday...

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 14 March 2005/3 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Pi Day/National Potato Chip Day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Genetic engineering for better suburbia”. I think I’ll let this one speak for itself. Enjoy.

Aaron

Political update and worthy cause

Greetings.

Today’s political update is “The vanishing Jews of the Arab world / Baghdad native tells the story of being a Middle East refugee”, which deals with Jewish (genuine) refugees from Arab countries, who, weirdly enough, are rarely mentioned in the context of the Israeli-“Palestinian” conflict because that would conflict with most of the conventional rhetoric and pretenses.

And for today’s worthy cause, this afternoon I stumbled across Ride Gemach (gemah is an abbreviation for gemiluth hasadhim = “acts of loving-kindness”). The site describes itself thusly: “This site is a meeting place for drivers who want to offer a ride to someone who needs it and those seeking such a ride.” Though it currently only has rides in the New York City/Monsey/Lakewood area, this strikes me as a cool idea for helping people and reducing automobile emissions.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 13 March 2005/2 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Genealogy Day/National Open An Umbrella Indoors Day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is an article which gives some insight into the difference between causation and correlation: “The Secret to Man's Aggression: in His Finger?”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Sanhedhrin update and worthy cause of the day

Greetings.

I’m trying to get caught up from earlier this week.

Sanhedhrin update: On Monday the Temple Institute E-mailed me some news on the proto-Sanhedhrin, which I reproduce for you between the two horizontal lines. Suffice it to say that Sharon is doing a great job of angering the Israeli electorate. (Note: This is not the last thing in this post.)

---

The Sanhedrin's Declaration Concerning the Disengagement
26 Adar 1 5765


Since its meeting on 28th Shvat 5765, the Sanhedrin has deliberated the initiative of the Prime Minister of Israel, the decisions of the government, and legislation enacted by the Knesset regarding the plan known as "The Disengagement," henceforth referred to in this document as "the uprooting."


This plan involves the uprooting of Jewish communities in the Gaza strip and northern Samaria, the forced expulsion of Jews from their homes, and the willful transfer of these lands to a foreign power.


Following an intensive study which took place regarding the halachic (authentic Jewish law) questions that arise from the government's decision, the Sanhedrin hereby brings its conclusions and decisions to the public's attention.

1). The Prime Minister's program of uprooting stands in direct contradiction to the Torah of Israel.


2). The decision to implement the uprooting will cause large numbers of Jews to transgress many of the Torah's commandments. This applies to many varied commandments, including both those that are practiced between man and G-d, as well as those between man and his fellow man; those that apply to the nation as a whole, and those that apply to every individual.


3). The Government of Israel and the Knesset, in their present form and power structure, do not constitute institutions that have any authority according to halacha to render decisions that contradict the Torah of Israel.


4). Government ministers who have deemed this plan of uprooting to be wrongful have been removed from their positions, and likewise senior officials of the security establishment who have expressed independent opinions about the matter have been ousted.


5). THEREFORE, the decision of this government - which has also violated its promises to its own electorate - is null and void.


6). THUS: No Jew is permitted to cooperate with the program of uprooting, in any way whatsoever.


7). Any Jew - including a soldier or policeman - who supports the uprooting, whether directly or indirectly, whether by voting in its favor, or by giving council, or by supplying vehicles or materials, and obviously, anyone who actively participates in the uprooting... by so doing, transgresses a large number of Torah commandments.


8). The uprooting of the residents of the Gaza Strip and Samaria is a crime, and an injustice to the residents, and places many other communities - in fact, all citizens of the State of IsraelÊ- in mortal danger.


9). Any Jew who participates in, or cooperates with this plan, whether actively, or even by merely remaining silent, transgresses the commandment "You shall not stand idly by your neighbor's blood (Lev. 19:17)," and in the future will be judged by G-d for this sin.


10). The leaders and their agents - including soldiers and policemen who support the uprooting and participate in it - may be brought to bear personal responsibility for all damages caused to those who are hurt, and to their property.


11). By this declaration, the Sanhedrin, as the link of continuity of the Torah received by Moses at Sinai, hereby expresses the stance of Israel's Torah. For if, Heaven forbid, the present government carries out this, or some other, program of uprooting - this action has no validity. The Land of Israel is holy land, and all of its regions belong exclusively to the nation of Israel, forever.


12). The Sanhedrin, as the representative of the Jewish people throughout history, hereby affirms that the Jewish people - regardless of this or that government - does not relinquish, and is not entitled to relinquish, so much as the span of a solitary man's foot of the Land of Israel according to its Biblical boundaries... for it is G-d's land.


13). The commandment to "inherit and dwell" (Deut. 12:29) in the Land of Israel is obligatory upon every Israeli government. In this regard Israel is commanded by G-d to conquer the entire expanse of the Land of Israel within its Biblical boundaries, including the Gaza strip.


14). THEREFORE: Even if (Heaven forbid) the residents are forcibly removed from their homes - when the government changes, and a government in Israel arises that conducts itself according to the Torah, the armies of Israel will return and re-conquer this strip of land, to reinstate the people of Israel to their rightful place. This applies not only to this area, but to all the expanses of the Land of Israel that were stolen and are presently in foreign hands.


15). We are permeated with faith in the G-d of the Legions of Israel, that the oath which He swore to our forefather Abraham at the "Covenant Between the Halves" will be fulfilled precisely as it is stated, and with G-d's help, speedily - as it is written (Gen. 15:18):


"On that day the L-rd made a covenant with Avram, saying, to your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates river... "

---

Worthy cause (submitted by Jessica): Care2's Race To Save Baby Seals.

Shabbath shalom, and happy new month.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 11 March 2005/30 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Ro'sh Hodhesh Adhar Sheni/Johnny Appleseed Day/Nametag Day)

Hi! My name is Aaron, and welcome to my blog.

Political update: There’s so much stuff out there it’s hard to choose, and I’m not just talking about Bush’s attempts to bankrupt Social Security. To cite a problem that receives little attention in America because Africa isn’t “important” enough to us, I pick “On the way to freedom, Niger's slaves stuck in limbo” and note on the side that this is not the only place on Earth with a slavery problem.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Real World Doesn't Use a Joystick”, which reports on an interesting side effect of using a computer way too much. I suspect Barry may have something to say about this.

And I still have to go write up something about my trip...

Until then, enjoy, Shabbath shalom, and happy new month.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 10 March 2005/29 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Raven Legend Day)

Greetings.

Feeling sleepier than usual. Not expecting to make great progress today. I have no idea what Raven Legend Day is about.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Big-hearted pythons pull off post-prandial trick”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 9 March 2005/29 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Unique Names Day)

Greetings.

I have returned from my trip up north to a friend’s wedding, and I’m very tired. The wedding was lots of fun (e.g., even I got caught up in the spirit and did a lot of dancing), but travel was difficult, especially on the way home, where Mom and I were delayed a whole day in Newark due to a snowstorm. I hope to give more details tomorrow when I have more energy (God willing).

Bobby Awesome was not authorized to post to my blog, and he was only able to do so with the help of the evil hacker Junior Crabtree. I have sent my pet miniature hippopotamuses to deal with Bobby and Junior. Rupert Hippo and the gang are calling in some favors from full-sized hippos.

Political update: Yahoo! News - U.N.: Far More Than 70,000 Dead in Darfur

Today’s weird thing: ChevronTexaco Opens California Hydrogen Fuel Station - from TBO.com

Enjoy, and nighty-night.

Aaron

march‭ ‬8‭ ‬2005‭ ‬giant killer shrew day

hey again im still doing this weird thing of the day thing again coz i want everyone to enjoy getting this n u know im a wonderful person unlike that dog kicker cat smasher butt painter aaron so here are more good links on useful things i like food i hope u do coz w/o food u die but i get my stuff out of plastic bags n mickydees n stuff but aaron wont eat out coz hes stupid n he cooks i dont cook but if u like‭ ‬2‭ ‬cook then here r some good recipes‭ ‬4‭ ‬u bone appeteet

http‭://‬www.earthportals.com/Portal_Messenger/ratfordinner.html
http‭://‬park.org/Kazakhstan/horse.big.html
http‭://‬www.thisispashmina.com/cannibal.html

n the weird thing of the day s aarons weird thing of the day coz its not really weird enough to be called weird which is weird in itself go figure

march‭ ‬7‭ ‬2005‭ ‬kiss my shiny butt day

hey u like cool people out there while aaron is out he like asked me to do weird thing of the day coz he wanted someone who could do all these cool things n show u like awesome stuff n charge yeah thats how i got to post n this thing so here i m cool huh

ive been told that every1‭ ‬needs an education why i dont know i never needed‭ ‬1‭ ‬n i turned out real good but aaron likes all that smarypants stuff the elephant tickler he is so heres some sites u can learn useful things n score good n ur sats or acts

http‭://‬www.yamara.com/axe/index.html
http‭://‬www.biosci.ohio-state.edu‭/‬~parasite/home.html
http‭://‬www.pca.state.mn.us/hot/frogs.html
http‭://‬www.popvssoda.com‭/‬
http‭://‬home.earthlink.net‭/‬~misaak/taxonomy.html
http‭://‬www.cs.utk.edu‭/‬~mclennan/BA/UAGP.html
http‭://‬www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/index.html

o yeah n the weird thing of the day s aarons hair coz it looks funny u dont believe me go look at this

http‭://‬people.musc.edu‭/‬~adelmaas/Aaron_info.html

Late-breaking weird news: Aaron thinks a Republican wants to do the right thing

Greetings.

In my last post before my two-day absence (or one-and-a-half-day absence; I could post Tuesday evening), I would like to announce that a Republican may actually want to do something genuinely good, namely that Arnold Schwarzenegger supports banning junk food sales at California schools. As an epidemiologist, I know high levels junk food consumption are very, very bad for people (they make people obese and give them diabetes), and I welcome politicians actually doing something about the junk food problem rather than making excuses for allowing our children to fall victim to predatory advertising. Now let’s hope he follows through with what he says he wants...

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 6 March 2005/25 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (National Frozen Food Day/International Book Day/Anniversary of the Fall of the Alamo/Lent)

Greetings.

Reminder: I will not be posting Weird things of the day tomorrow or the day afterwards because I will be out of town at a friend’s wedding.

Political update: War is raging in places the media largely ignores, e.g., the Congo. Meanwhile in Israel, reports of there being a truce are highly exaggerated.

Today’s weird thing: The age of solar power is now upon us! A company called Brunton is selling solar power equipment, including rollable, portable solar cells. I find myself wondering about getting some of this stuff at some point. After all, Sunlight is free (thank you, God) and nonpolluting, plus using it as an energy source weakens the grip on our planet of terror-supporting countries which happen to also export oil (such as Saudi Arabia). Not to mention it might avoid a potential problem in Shabbath observance. I hear that many observant Jews in Israel (where I hope and pray to be this fall) will not use electricity on Shabbath because said electricity is probably being produced by Jews who are violating Shabbath; using such electricity therefore encourages Shabbath violation, which is itself prohibited. Having a battery and solar panels powering such things as lights and a crock pot would circumvent this problem. Arguably there would be no problem of mar’ith ‘ayin (giving the appearance of doing something wrong) because solar panels need to be exposed to light, where people would be able to see them and thus make it obvious where the electricity is coming from, in order to work.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Social Security Pledge

Greetings.

Almost forgot about about this pledge I received E-mail about yesterday: Social Security Pledge.

The text of the pledge, which is to be sent to You-Know-Who reads:

I oppose the Republican privatization plan because:

• It would cut Social Security’s funding and weaken the program.
  
• It would cut benefits by one-third or more, even for those who choose not to risk their money in a privatized account.
  
• It would require even deeper benefit cuts for those who do choose a privatized account.
  
• It would require borrowing nearly $5 trillion, much of which from foreign countries like China and Japan.

Therefore, I pledge to fight the Republican privatization plan and work for real solutions that strengthen Social Security for the long term.

Please let people in government know you are concerned. (Or if you really don’t care about Social Security or are for the Republican privatization plan, just ignore this message.) Thank you.

Aaron

PS: You-Know-Who is not Voldemort!

Weird thing of the day 4 March 2005/23 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765

Greetings.

Note: Monday and Tuesday (7 and 8 March) I will not post Weird things of the day, because I will be out of town attending a friend’s wedding.

Today’s weird thing is an article on a new way to fight cancer: Yahoo! News - South Korean scientists find key to producing cancer-killing cells.

Enjoy, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 3 March 2005/22 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (What if Cats and Dogs has opposable Thumbs day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is an article on a new medical use for robots: “Rx robot does all except give shot”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Miscellaneous things on my desktop

Greetings.

1) A gigantic celebrity lobster is dead.

2) Bill Gates received an honorary knighthood today. It is hard to imagine how someone who has brought so much suffering to the World in the form of bloated, buggy software and unfair competition could be made an honorary knight. Perhaps insane governments are pandemic.

3) SaveEnterprise.com reports on who donated $3,000,000 to save Star Trek: Enterprise: people in the aerospace industry. The justification is actually interesting.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 2 March 2005/21 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765

Greetings.

Political update: Yesterday Backspin noted an article on the Orwellian misuse of language in the Israeli-“Palestinian” conflict,
“The Peculiar Institution: Understanding Why Palestinian Terror Is Different”.

Today’s weird thing: Are you afraid of the dark, but you don’t want to waste electricity on a night-light? Then you need a “hamster-powered night light”!

Enjoy.

Aaron

Worthy cause of the day

Greetings.

Yes, this evening I have for you another MoveOn PAC petition. Please mosey on over there and fill it out in order to urge your Senators to do the right thing. Thank you.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 1 March 2005/20 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (National Surf and Turf Day/National Pig Day/Ayyám-i-Há)

Greetings.

I’m feeling a lot better than yesterday (thank God).

Political update: I’m officially giving Bush the week off from bashing and turning my focus towards other deserving people. HonestReporting.com reports today that media claims of a sudden change in “Palestinian” popular opinion about terrorism (or any euphemism for it) are committing a serious error of omission.

Today’s weird thing: Could Voldemort be behind a disturbance at Amazon? Find out by reading Yahoo! News - Amazon blames muggles for Harry Potter mixup.

Aaron

Putting one's values into action

Greetings.

After not enough sleep last night and a lot of playing with R today and feeling sort of zonked about now, I feel like sharing an article that was reported today. Many people take moral positions but do not even try to live up to them. Until recently, this was arguably true of hold that it is immoral to destroy human embryos, even for science. However, last year at a clinic in Spain
women began to adopt surplus frozen embryos and bear them to term in order to “save” them from research.. While I do not agree that using embryos for research is immoral, adopting embryos strikes me as a refreshingly self-consistent way for opponents of research on embryos to live by the beliefs the profess.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 28 February 2005/19 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Public Sleeping Day/Ayyám-i-Há)

Greetings.

Weird science-fiction news update: Star Trek: Enterprise fans raise over $3,000,000 to keep the show on the air another season.

Today’s weird thing was sent to me by Ruth and is included below. Enjoy.

Aaron

---

English is Easy?

So a 2 letter word has a hundred completely different meanings. So what is this stuff about English being easy?

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meaning than any other two-letter word,and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we waken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing:

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable of the proper uses of UP, look UP the word in the dictionary. In a desk size dictionary, the word up, takes UP almost 1/4th the page and definitions add UP to about thirty.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say
it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so.............

I'll shut UP...

Razzie results

Greetings.

It is with great pleasure that I inform you of the 25th RAZZIE® Dis-Honors. Go forth and see who the worst of the worst last year was. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 27 February 2005/18 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (International Polar Bear Day/Ayyám-i-Há)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the 2004 Razzie Awards. The first report, “Yahoo! News - Bush and Berry win Razzies”, is available, though the official Razzies site has not been updated yet. I hope to send out a full list this evening.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 25 February 2005/16 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Go Bowling Day)

Greetings.

I have too many URL files for weird news articles cluttering up my desktop:

• Yahoo! News - Salt Should Be Regulated Food Additive, Group Says (Duh. Maybe someone will get around to trying to ban tobacco. It’s about time the federal government acted responsibly.)
  
• Freed Terrorist Arrested Again (This does not bode well for the whole concept of making “gestures” towards the “Palestinians”.)
  
• Yahoo! News - Poll: Most Want U.S. Price Limits on Drugs (Duh. All those who believe any of the excuses of the drug companies and the federal government for drug prices being significantly higher here than in Canada, stand on your heads.)
  
• Yahoo! News - Survey: Teens' Religious Knowledge Shallow

I would also like to make fun of some spam I received yesterday. It purports to be from “Web@FBI.gov” and says:

Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 40 illegal Websites.

Important: Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.


Yours faithfully,
M. John Stellford



++-++ Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
++-++ 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 2130
++-++ Washington, DC 20535
++-++ (202) 324-3000

This one, like a lot of other spam, assumes people are downright stupid. Most obviously, the quality of the language is substandard (e.g., “we” should be capitalized, “Yours faithfully” has no place in a formal letter), which is a tip-off it is not from the FBI. (The government tends to use proper English, George W. Bush excepted.) Secondly, the sender would likely have a username more sensible than "Web". Thirdly, I have major doubts the FBI is conducting that draconian level of surveillance of the Internet, which would involve a lot of peaking at data passing through their computers on the way to other computers or (worse) spyware; either way, an invasion of privacy is involved, and as such they would arguably be trampling on my constitutional rights unless they had probable cause and a warrant. Finally, if the FBI wanted to ask me questions concerning alleged illegal activity on my behalf, I would presumably be visited by their agents personally. There have to be smarter ways to get people to activate a virus.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Wright This Way: iPod Shuffle RAID” and its sequel “Wright This Way: Shuffle RAID Redux”. For the uninitiated into the obscure world of computer geekdom, RAID stands for “redundant array of inexpensive drives” and refers to a way of configuring a bunch of small drives to act as a bigger, automatically backed-up drive. Using a bunch of music players for the job is simply creative silliness. (Challenge for anyone seeking ultimate RAID silliness: a floppy disk RAID.)

Enjoy, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

And I thought Bush was a public relations disaster...

Greetings.

I really cannot make this up, especially since I do not have the equipment to produce this: Social Security.

Be scared.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 24 February 2005/15 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Pure Shushan Qatan/International Pancake Day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the article Patent Prescription: A radical cure for the ailing U.S. patent system, which talks about the sorts of bizarre things people hold patents on and how to fix such a blatantly broken system. After reading this, you will want to try patenting pancakes. Enjoy.

Aaron

Worthy cause of the day

Greetings.

The nice people at MoveOn have a new petition for every American citizen who supports democracy to sign. The demand made in it is, and I quote: ”Congress must support electoral reforms such as guaranteeing paper receipts for electronic voting machines, providing remedies for long lines, and prohibiting partisan election officials.” If you sign this petition, your Senators and Representatives will be sent copies of the message. (I got snail-mail back from them for a previous petition, that one on gun control.) So please make your voice heard and sign, and help avoid a repeat of our last two presidential elections.

Thank you.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 23 February 2005/14 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Purim Qatan/National Dog Biscuit Day)

Greetings.

General note: You can reply directly to the mailed version of the blog, and the replies go directly to me. However, some of the replies some of you have sent me are more suitable as comments directly on the blog, so please feel free to post your comments. On-line commentary was one of the main reasons I wanted a blog in the first place.

Caveat: Comments whose language or insinuations go beyond the bounds of decency will be deleted. I have already done this to Bobby Awesome.

Furthermore, I would like to note to the last person to send me a message on Social Security that:

• I am not a Democrat. I am an anti-Republican. The difference is not that I think the Democratic Party is great; rather I believe that the Republican Party has degenerated into the party of the greedy rich who do not care if the rest of the country suffers horribly, so long as they themselves do well, and therefore must be opposed.
  
• Taking Bush’s plan in the most generous light rationally possible, I still oppose it. Yes, some people might do better on it, but many would not. Stock is not a reliable place to keep money in the long term. The market fluctuates, and given enough time, the market inevitably crashes. The odds are that many people on Bush’s plan will lose money in their private accounts in the stock market, which defeats the purpose of Social Security in the first place. One’s money would be safer in a mattress. Now, I am aware that Bush wants to make his plan one which people opt into, so one could easily avoid the problems associated with the stock market. That is good news for me, but what about those who do not realize that stock is risky? I am a religious man, and in my religion the ideal is that people ought to care for each other, including helping the poor and getting them self-supporting so they do not need charity, and that we should reduce human suffering. (These values are shared by other ideologies, too.) The Bush plan works against these ideals, since it would make millions of people financially worse off, resulting in many people needing to give money, time, and effort towards helping them that might otherwise be better utilized (such as towards education and curing diseases). Net suffering would increase. As such, I feel justified in exercising my democratic rights and complaining about Bush’s plan. Those who disagree may complain about my complaining in comments on the blog. I am quite fallible, and if anyone has good reason to believe I am wrong on this or any other issue, I welcome such criticism.

Today’s weird thing is A. K. Dewdney’s article “A Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Social security

Greetings.

I have done some editing today, and as I type, R is busy crunching-data. That leaves me free to do share with you two items on Social Security brought to you courtesy of the Democratic Party:

• The GOP - Caught on Tape!, which catches Republicans making campaign promises during commercials which they fail to keep.
  
• Social Security Calculator, which shows you how much you stand to lose from our illegitimate president’s plan.

Be scared.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 22 February 2005/13 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765

Greetings.

I’ve been doing lots of running in circles trying to find useful information so I can properly edit a paper for resubmission. Not exactly happy when the information isn’t forthcoming. God willing, I’ll get to play with R (a statistical programming language) today.

Today’s weird thing is “New graphic displays for the blind”. It’s amazing what they can do these days.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 21 February 2005/12 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Presidents' Day/International Mother Language Day)

Greetings.

Weird political update: Yahoo! News - U.N. Panel Backs Anti-Cloning Resolution, which was namely “to prohibit all forms of human cloning in as much as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.” My previous comments on cloning still stand.

Weird health update: Yahoo! News - Lead in Environment Causing Violent Crime - Study.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Army to deploy robots that shoot”. (I cannot make up stuff like this.)

Enjoy.

Aaron

Bush smoked pot!

Greetings.

Yes, it’s time for more embarrassment for George W. Bush’s Reign of Error; not a day goes by without it making it harder to believe this man could be taken seriously by anyone.

• Yahoo! News - Governors Oppose Bush's Medicaid Cuts
  
• Yahoo! News - NAACP: Social Security Plan Hurts Blacks
  
• Yahoo! News - Panelists Decry Bush Science Policies
  
• Yahoo! News - Did Bush smoke pot?

Be scared.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 20 February 2005/11 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the Allow My Left Shoe to Be King of the World! Petition. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 18 February 2005/9 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (National Battery Day)

Greetings.

Weird update: Pale Male and Lola seem happy with their new nest.

Weird health news: Tailor-made skin from 'ink' printer. (And, no, I am not making this up.)

Weird political news: There is way too much out there which reflects very badly on politicians all over the planet, even in places I have never mentioned here. I could easily make a full-time job out of sorting through it all and commenting on it. Since no one is paying me to do that, I want to keep it down to about one a day, so please infer that for every politically damning article I tell you about, there are a few orders of magnitude more out there. As for today’s political update, you can visit National Priorities Project to find out how bad a job the Bush administration is doing with taxpayer money, including how much he’s costing your state and city.

Today’s weird thing is Fourmilab’s Earth and Moon Viewer. Enjoy, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 17 February 2005/8 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Champion Crab Races Day)

Greetings.

Weird health news: Yahoo! News - Quit Smoking or Quit Your Job, U.S. Company Says, which is about a new method to improve employee health.

Weird political news: Mahmoud Abbas has decided to show everyone what he really thinks of cooperating with Israel by executing three “collaborators”.

Today’s weird thing is a neat trick that has nothing to do with crab-racing: MysticalBall.com - The Amazing Mind Reader. Enjoy.

Aaron

Bunch of weird things

Greetings.

I’ve had the dubious pleasure of calculating tables of distributions of 24 variables today. Information on these variables was incorporated into a report I’m working on which has grown to 94 pages long. Good thing the report only exists as data on my hard drives; otherwise the desk would probably collapse.

People do not know how to stop doing weird things, especially in politics. Here in the USA, Pataki has decried remarks by his state’s (New York) chairman of the local Republican party. The politician on the hot-seat had the audacity to “lump” the lawyer for a terrorist into the Democratic Party, thereby following (illegitimate) President Bush’s lead in effectively putting Senator Kerry into the Axis of Evil.

Things are just about as crazy in Israel. The “Palestinian” Authority is adding wanted terrorists to its “security” forces. (“The move is designed to protect them against Israeli assassination attempts.” As if such a move had any chance of working.) As for the Israelis, the Kenesseth has passed a Gaza disengagement bill without a referendum, thus subverting the democratic process and giving Israeli citizens every right to feel their concerns are not being considered by the politicians. Since this is the same sort of shtik that Yishaq Rabbin pulled, I suspect ’Ari’el Sharon is well on his way to being assassinated. (NOTE: I do not endorse assassination, but in this case I would not find it surprising.) That Sharon is also releasing terrorist prisoners with blood on their hands is probably doing little to increase his life expectancy. If stuff like this keeps up, I may start seriously ranting on the “peace process” and write out a peace plan that has a chance of success.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 16 February 2005/7 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765

Greetings.

Double-edged retraction: Barry and I had a little discussion about yesterday’s weird thing about Rick Mathes, and while the incident apparently happened, not everyone agrees on the details. I am thus giving you the full list of links on the incident which came up in our discussion. Not all of them are reliable.

• “Did Islam Grow By Killing Non-Believers?” is in complete denial that contemporary Islam is violent in any way, shape, or form.
  
• Allah or Jesus? - Netlore Archive notes the dispute on what really happened and, though noting that Islam means different things to different people, does not want to get involved in that debate.
  
• Allah or Jesus notes the dispute on what really happened and that Islam is not a monolithic religion.
  
• Philosophy & Religion: If you are of an Islamic belief, please respond... (others... feel free to listen) is largely apologetic and in denial.
  
• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Allah or Jesus?)

The main reason I posted the story in the first place is because of its plausibility: Islam is the religion most used on the planet to preach and perform violence. Though there are non-Muslim terrorists, they tend to be very localized (e.g., Basque separatists); only Muslim terrorism has become a planet-wide threat. (See the news every day and listen to what Muslims around the planet actually say if you do not believe me.) Whether or not Mathes’s interpretation of the incident corresponds well with reality has little bearing on this. The only question is whether or not I should be more careful doing my homework.

In today’s weird news, Iran is hard at work trying to get a hefty bribe out of the European Union to stop work on nuclear weapons. Needless to say, Iran is not likely to keep such an agreement anyway—they are already in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which they did sign—and the most likely outcome will be that Israel will have to bomb them, just as they did Iraq.

Not quite as bad, TrekUnited.com is collecting donations to fund another season of Star Trek: Enterprise. On a brighter note, J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) wants a chance to do Star Trek himself.

Finally, for today’s weird news, I am pleased to announce David Dingman-Grover, the boy who dubbed his tumor “Frank”, is now cancer-free.

Today’s weird thing is the bizarre case of some Colorado teens fined for giving cookies to a neighbor. Fortunately for them, they have received donations towards their legal defense.

Enjoy/be scared.

Aaron

Chicken soup

Greetings.

Due to my brother David getting apparently the same infection that I got, he’s got a sudden desire for chicken soup. Since what we have seems to be going around, for the greater good I am releasing the family chicken soup recipe on the Internet. I am also releasing the accompanying massah ball (kneidlakh) recipe, since they go great with chicken soup. Everybody thank Mom for writing the recipes. Also note that chicken soup is known to be as effective as an cold medicine on the market and much better tasting. Enjoy.

Aaron

PS: I’m aware that Mom and I have different ideas about how to transliterate Hebrew.

---

CHICKEN SOUP

1 CHICKEN, cut up
onion
rib of celery
carrot
sprig of parsley
water
salt and pepper to taste

Put cut up chicken into pot, cover with water. Bring to a boil. Skim as necessary. Add other ingredients and simmer for at least 1 hour, although it tastes better when the chicken falls off the bones.


MATZAH BALLS

2 Tbs. fat (chicken fat or regular crisco)
2 eggs
1/2 c. matzah meal
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. soup stock or water

Mix fat and eggs. Add matzah meal and salt. Blend well. Add soup stock or water. Cover bowl and chill at least 20 min. In 2 or 3 qt. pot boil water briskly. Reduce flame and drop balls into it. Cover and cook 30-40 min. Add to soup that is at room temp. or warmer. Let soup simmer at least 5 min. before serving.

More weird stuff

Greetings.

I’m zonked, I managed to create 48 pretty (yet highly functional) graphs anyway, and my desktop is getting clogged with weird and damning items.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Draft: UN Troops in Sudan; Darfur Sanctions, or Too little, too late. (Tangent: If anyone knows anything about charities to actually do something meaningful about the Sudan genocide, please tell me.)

Yahoo! News - Study: Homeless Shelters, Food in Demand, or Bush hates the poor.

Yahoo! News - War budget request loaded with extras.

Yahoo! News - Chocolate Industry Eyed for Child Labor. (Warning: Not for the faint of heart!)

And finally, demonstrating that some people have no understanding of religion whatsoever (and I cannot make something like this up): Yahoo! News - Hail Christina Aguilera, love goddess.

Be scared.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 15 February 2005/6 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing was forwarded to me by my mother from Vanessa and Storm, and it is included below. Enjoy.

Aaron

---

A MUST READ ... IT WILL MAKE YOU THINK!

Have you ever heard of Rick Mathes??? This is a must read ... it’s short but very informative! The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States, especially in the minority races!!! Allah or Jesus?

By Rick Mathes

Last month I attended my annual training session that’s required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their belief systems.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers.

When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked: “Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world. And, that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims, they are assured of a place in heaven. If that’s the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?”

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, “Non-believers!”

I responded, “So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can go to Heaven. Is that correct?”

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sheepishly replied, “Yes.”

I then stated, “Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering Protestants to do the same in order to go to Heaven!” The Imam was speechless.

I continued, “I also have problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me. Let me ask you a question. Would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in order to go to Heaven or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to Heaven and He wants you to be with me?”

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame. Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the ’Diversification’ training seminar were not happy with Rick’s way of dealing with the Islamic Imam and exposing the truth about the Muslim’s beliefs.

I think everyone in the US should be required to read this, but with the liberal justice system, liberal media, and the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized. Please pass this on to all your e-mail contacts.

This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well known leader in a prison ministry.

More political insanity

They keep doing bad stuff; I keep noticing it.

Yahoo! News - Bush Urges Renewal of Patriot Act, or How Bush wants to keep on impinging on our freedoms

Yahoo! News - Bush Wants $82B More for Iraq, Afgan Costs, or How Bush wants to waste your money on a war he has no idea how to win rather than balance the budget

Yahoo! News - Lawmakers Divided Over Social Security, or How Bush’s plan to destroy Social Security isn’t winning many converts among Republicans who wish to be reelected

Yahoo! News - U.S. Missile Defense System Flunks Test, or How Bush bush wastes our money on big toys that don’t work

Yahoo! News - Moderate evangelicals preach their own politics, or Why not every seriously religious Christian is a pro-Bush idiot, despite the stereotype

And finally, unrelated: Yahoo! News - New Bad Boy Truck Dwarfs the Hummer, or How to show the world one is an oil-wasting idiot

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 14 February 2005/5 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Valentine's Day/Ferris Wheel Day)

Greetings.

I have no material on ferris wheels, so you’re going to be subjected to articles on Valentine’s Day:

• Yahoo! News - Psychedelic Drug Found in Valentine Candy
  
• Yahoo! News - Indian hardliners vow to disrupt Valentine's Day
  
• Yahoo! News - Saudi Morality Police See Red Over Valentine Roses
  
• Yahoo! News - Saudis Mark Valentine's Day Despite Laws

Enjoy.

Aaron

Idiocy at the United Nations

Greetings.

I still haven’t fully recovered from my bacterial infection, and I’m feeling rather zonked, and yet I was still instantly able to see this article was a big bunch of worrying over nothing: Yahoo! News - U.N. Talks Seek Compromise on Human Cloning Ban. This is a downright pointless issue, since there is nothing to panic over.

1. No one actually holds that early embryos have the same status as fully developed humans. If they did, they would have to argue that forms of contraception that prevent fertilized eggs from implanting (“morning after” pills) are murder.
   
2. Cloning for reproduction is not an affront to individuality. Many individuals on this planet share the same genome without anyone (of any intelligence) claiming there is any affront. We call such people “twins”, “triplets”, “quadruplets”, etc.
   
3. Cloning for reproduction, even if it were available at very low cost, would be an idiotic way to reproduce regularly. The canonical method of reproduction is much more fun and results in children with a wide variety of genomes. The latter is critical for our species, because widespread cloning would result in too many people who are all susceptible to the exact same diseases. (Even non-epidemiologists ought to be able to recognize this side effect of too much cloning as bad).
   
4. Given the previous, the only people likely to resort to cloning to reproduce would be egotists, those obsessed with the silly notion of “racial purity” (such as the Saudis), and those unable to reproduce in any other manner. Only for the latter is anyone seriously advocating reproductive cloning.
   
5. Just to preempt the whole notion of an evil army of clones: forget it; that’s just too stupid. The clones would take just as long to grow to maturity as anyone else. They would require the same resources as anyone else. They would turn evil no more easily than anyone else, and they would not be any easier for a dictator to control than anyone else. And let’s not forget the aforementioned disease problem: to disable the whole army, the enemy would only have to find a disease that disabled one of them. In short, a dictator foolish enough to bother with a clone army would probably be easily conquered by enemies who chose to invest in more practical weapons, such as nuclear bombs. (Believe it or not, someone actually used the “evil clone army” argument against cloning on me, and I did not hesitate to explain why this was a stupid idea to him.)

If anyone knows of anything the UN is actually doing right, please let me know.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 13 February 2005/4 'Adhar Ri'shon 5765 (Stamp Collectors Day/Get a Different Name Day)

Greetings.

If anyone knows any stamp collectors trying to change their names, please tell me.

Political update: 54% of Americans think Bush is doing a bad job as president. Too bad enough of them did not figure this out before November.

Meanwhile, Star Trek: Enterprise fans have taken out a full-page ad in an attempt to the save the show. If they are successful, I pray that God inspire the writers to produce some better scripts. I demand time-travel be used to get the Enterprise into the midst of the Great Tribble Hunt!

Today’s weird thing is The Goldfish Online, which has information on the amazing things one person has made out of LEGOs.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Before I forget about these...

I hate being sick. So easy to forget about stuff...

More political stuff:

• Yahoo! News - Democrats Oppose 2 GOP Ethics Panel Picks, which shows that the Republicans still have no clue when it comes to ethics
  
• Group urges release of Jewish prisoners, which has an interesting idea of fairness
  

Enjoy (or be scared).

Aaron

weird thing of the day 11 February 2005/2 ’Adhar Ri’shon 5765 (Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day/National Inventor’s Day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the British Weights and Measures Association, which is a group for promotion of the pound, the inch, and all manner of obsolete units of measurement, despite the fact that almost all of the planet is using the same measurement system and that unnecessary extra systems are just a waste of time, effort, and memory. Tell these people they are being petty by voting NO on their survey!

Enjoy.

Aaron

Way too many anti-Bush articles

Greetings.

I’m drowning in anti-Bush articles over here. His second (illegitimate) term has barely begun, and already he’s causing trouble rather than do the best thing he could possibly do for his country: take a four-year vacation. Notice that absolutely no one likes his tax cuts or Social Security reform ideas.

• Yahoo! News - Bush Faces Fight on Farm Payment Limits
  
• Yahoo! News - Baltimore Mayor Denounces Affair Rumors
  
• Yahoo! News - House Moving to Make Asylum Policy Harsher
  
• Yahoo! News - Smaller Fixes Could Bolster Social Security -AARP
  
• Yahoo! News - Study: White House Seeks Even More Cuts
  
• Yahoo! News - Congress Unlikely to Embrace Bush Wish List
  
• Yahoo! News - Congressman Pitches Social Security Deal
  
• Yahoo! News - White House Seeks Ban on Religious Tea
  
• Yahoo! News - Democrats Demand Bush Halt Attacks on Reid
  
• Yahoo! News - Lost Halliburton Nuclear Material Found
  Yahoo! News - Report: FAA Had 52 Pre-9/11 Warnings
  

And finally, just because Bush is probably at least as ignorant as American youth: Yahoo! News - Teach Evolution: Leave No Child Behind.

Be scared.

Aaron

The ceasefire has already been broken

Did anyone with any grip on reality expect the “Palestinians” to even try to live up to their end of the bargain? See the Jerusalem Post article “IDF, ISA thwart J'lem suicide bombing”.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 10 February 2005/1 ’Adhar Ri’shon 5765 (Ro’sh Hodhesh ’Adhar Ri’shon/Umbrella Day/Islamic New Year)

Greetings.

I’m feeling better, but my sleep was sufficiently disturbed last night that I doubt I’ll get anything done today. It’s a good thing that I’ve taken to writing the regular posts four or five at a time at night and then sending them out when appropriate. (Thank God.)

Today’s weird thing is a sad story: “In defence of 'lost' languages”.

Aaron

New Sanhedhrin news

Greetings.

The proto-Sanhedhrin is hard at work, as discussed in the article “Reestablished Sanhedrin Convenes to Discuss Temple”. The focus of this article is on the determination on where the Temple stood. This is not made easy by the popular political delusion that it is necessary to mollify the Arabs and thus the lack of archaeological examination. One of the two favored opinions puts the Holy of Holies directly on the Dome of the Rock, which makes it extremely similar to the opinion of Leen Ritmeyer, the archaeologist who created my late grandfather’s Temple Mount model, outlined in his book The Temple and the Rock. Considering that doing almost anything that the Arabs claim they oppose works (against the common delusion) against terror and violence, the proto-Sanhedhrin’s idea of reestablishing the Temple service (which the Arabs show no sign of being willing to allow) deserves serious consideration if for no reason other than saving human life. Intuition suggests that it may be time for a study of how to practically rebuilt the Temple, including cost estimates.

Very notable link: אגודת "השיבה שופטינו" - לכינון בית הדין הגדול, which is the site of the proto-Sanhedhrin. My apologies to those who do not know Hebrew.

Other notable links, recycled from the post of 4 May 2004 for the benefit of those who were not not reading the Weird thing of the day back then and who would otherwise have to wait until I put the pre-blog editions on-line:

• The Temple Institute, who are the people making items for the Third Temple
  
• The Pope John Paul II Cultural Center’s pathetic page on Grandpa’s Temple Mount exhibit (Please don’t ask me why the exhibit ended up here; I’m not entirely clear on the circumstances behind it.)
  
• Ritmeyer Archaeological Design, which made the exhibit
  
• P’til Tekhelet, who are the people who make that blue dye in my sisiyyoth, which also was used in the Temple
  
• The Temple Store, which sells various Temple-related merchandise and whose Pre-3rd Temple Sale Barry likes
  

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 9 February 2005/30 Shevat 5765 (Ro’sh Hodhesh ’Adhar Ri’shon/Toothache Day/Ash Wednesday)

Greetings, and happy new month.

Yesterday my mother dragged me to the doctor. Turns out I have a bacterial infection. I have new medicine to take now. When they say the cough medicine may make you drowsy, believe it. I’m not expecting to get much done the rest of this week.

Today’s weird thing is the Klingon language, which is the most financially successful artificial language ever. (Esperanto has about a million speakers, but they’re an idealistic bunch with little publicity who could easily be conquered by the Klingonists.) The main source of information on Klingon is The Klingon Language Institute. These people have a number of projects in the works, including translating the Bible (Hebrew Bible and New Testament) into Klingon, and the restoration of Shakespeare to its original Klingon. (See Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country for the latter.) Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 8 February 2005/29 Shevat 5765 (Kite Flying Day/Shrove Tuesday)

Greetings.

Still sick. No fever, but plenty of other symptoms. Have finished off the kneidlakh Mom made for me.

Political commentary: Condoleeza Rice has actively raised money for the (corrupt, terror-supporting) Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas wrote a doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust and is currently occupied doing everything he can to avoid getting the Palestinian Authority to live up to its obligations (such as fight Hamas), all the while pretending he is a respectable human being. Hosni Mubarak has failed to make his country, Egypt, live up to its obligations with regard to Israel, such as keeping smugglers from sneaking weapons into the Gaza Strip. Is anyone stupid enough to believe any of these is a good choice to help the “Palestinians” make real peace with Israel, especially when the current prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, has gone insane and is ignoring democratic principles and risking civil war in order to force a questionable plan down his country’s throat? The last person to try such a crazy stunt was Yitzhak Rabin, and the results were disastrous. All these “peace-makers” should go fly a kite and find something more worthwhile to do with their time, such as hunting snipe.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic (and itself worthy of being dubbed weird thing of the day) cable companies provide porn while funding politicians. (Thank you, Dad, for pointing this one out to me.) The cable companies and the Republican recipients of their bribes should also go fly a kite and find something better to do with their time, such as hunting snipe. (It’s a big planet, and their are plenty of snipe to be hunted.)

Today’s weird thing is a grandfather clock made entirely out of LEGOs. (Somehow I feel tempted to challenge this guy to make a kite out of LEGOs. No doubt any snipe would stand in awe of him.)

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 7 February 2005/28 Shevat 5765 (Charles Dickens Day/Carnival Monday)

Greetings.

Still sick, but at least my sense of humor has returned in full force. Hope to get some work done today.

Worthy cause of the day: Someone has figured out how to harness normally annoying advertising to raise funds for charity!


First there were sin taxes, which targeted those who exercised their vices. Then there were stupidity taxes, or as they are usually called, “state lotteries”, which target those who are foolish enough to think they can beat probability at a game of chance. Now, with the George W. Bush-caused financial crisis gripping governments across the nation, the vanity tax is coming to pass. For more information see “Lawmakers Look to Tax Cosmetic Surgery”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 6 February 2005/27 Shevat 5765 (National Frozen Yogurt Day/Superbowl Sunday)

Greetings.

I’m still sick. I’m able to do things, though a lot of the symptoms are still there. I need to get my hands on some kneidlakh...

Today’s weird thing is “Asteroid named after ‘Hitchhiker’ humorist”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 4 February 2005/25 Shevat 5765 (Thank a Mailman Day)

Greetings.

This is not one of my better days; I think I’ve come down with a virus, despite having gotten a flu shot. Right now I’m making bean soup.

Today’s weird thing is a rant that Barry wrote, included below.

Enjoy, and Shabbath shalom.

---

Having seen a few episodes of the remake of the series Battlestar Galactica, I felt like making some comparisons with the original, not all of them kind.

1) There are some interesting revisions of the characters. Boomer and Colonel Ty are no longer black (Boomer now is east Asian, Ty is white). Furthermore, Boomer and Starbuck are now women. Baltar now looks and sounds a lot like Dr. Julian Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and at times acts like him too (as when he hit on Starbuck). Baltar also now is conflicted, scared, and has hallucinations of a blonde woman which I think are caused by the Cylons. The Cylons, when they look like robots, look a lot slicker than the old ones. However, these Cylons can also look like humans. So far there is no sign of the dagget, for which I am really disappointed. I also have not seen anything in the Cylon command structure, like the one voiced by Patrick MacGee or the toadying one with all the lights in his head.

2) The show is a lot grimmer than the old one, and the characters often have to make unpleasant decisions which often involve people dying. Can you imagine Lorne Green making the decision to leave behind a ship full of people? I don’t think so. Overall the show comes off as less cheesy than the original.

3) Baltar has been charged with coming up with a way to screen people for being Cylons. For some reason this is a problem. I don’t know why he can’t think of a convenient way of doing this (other than him being a traitor working for the Cylons), but I can think of a few ways that humans and Cylons disguised as humans might differ:

• Cylons made primarily of metal might be heavier than humans, denser, have a different specific gravity, etc. If the Cylons are denser than humans, all it might take is dumping the suspected Cylon in a tank of water to make the determination. Then again, having one step on a scale might be just as effective.

• The internal structure of Cylons might look different on a CT scan.

• Retain suspected Cylons until they say they have to go to the bathroom. Covertly observe if anything comes out of them and what exactly does come out of them.

• Analyze the composition of what they exhale. It should have less oxygen and more carbon dioxide than what went in.

• Put refrigerator magnets on the suspected Cylon’s head. If they stick, you have a Cylon.

• Prick the suspected Cylon. Presumably robots don’t bleed. If the suspected Cylon does bleed, put the liquid under a microscope and look for blood cells.

• Check to see if the suspected Cylon sweats.

• Swab the inside of the cheek and put the swab under a microscope. Cylons are presumably not made of cells.

None of these is completely foolproof, but making robots indistinguishable from humans would presumably become increasingly difficult the more characteristics they have to match humans on. In order to be indistinguishable from humans in every way, they would ultimately have to be humans, which does not make them robots in anything more than a trivial sense. The idea of robots passing as humans is interesting, but unless extreme measures are taken in the design and manufacture, they should be relatively easy to detect. That the humans around Baltar do not realize this (not to mention Baltar or the writers) makes me seriously question how much a future humanity has up there in the heavens.

4) My dream episode: Starbuck trips and spills her beer on a Cylon impostor, causing it to short. Baltar makes lame excuses for his failure to think of this and is thrown to the dagget. Lucifer (the annoying toadying robot) shows up and saves Baltar just so he can have something to laugh at.

Almost forgot about this

TrekToday - UPN Cancels 'Star Trek: Enterprise'

Yes, the rumors turned out to be true, and it will not be missed by many of us. (Just say “no” to illogical Vulcan-bashing!) God willing, the next time they make a Trek series (or movie; Nemesis wasn’t particularly good) they’ll think it through ahead of time.

Trek project idea: I’m hoping to see something along the lines of a Borg civil war and perhaps some of the Borg (other than Hugh and company) trying to enter the Federation.

Alternative Trek project idea: It is known that the Klingons exterminated the tribbles. Why not base a movie on that?

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 3 February 2005/24 Shevat 5765

Greetings.

Alleged president George W. Bush gave his State of the Union speech last night. For those of you who missed it, it consisted of him saying what boiled down to “We are going to turn the USA and Earth in general into Utopia, never mind that I have no idea how to do that and have been actively working against that for the past four years. Now start investing your retirement money in the stock market so you can make my good buddies on Wall Street even richer than they are now. Blah blah blah.” The Democratic rebuttal usurped Bush’s religious and moral overtones (to which he never had a legitimate claim anyway) and rightly slammed Bush for working against the interests of senior citizens and our troops.

Other weird and scary political headlines:
• Astronomers Surprised by White House Plan to Scuttle Hubble
• CNN.com - Freedom of what? - Jan 31, 2005
• Yahoo! News - Audit: $9 Billion Unaccounted for in Iraq

Today’s weird thing is “Small Asteroid Passes Between Satellites and Earth”, which shows how little most of us know of what is going on up there.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 2 February 2005/23 Shevat 5765 (Groundhog Day/Frozen Food Day/No Soda Day)

Greetings.

1) On January 9 (National Static Electricity Day), I reported on a boy, David Dingman-Grover, who was being treated for a very inconveniently placed tumor. Today he is scheduled to have a biopsy to make sure the tumor is dead. (It has been treated with radiation and chemotherapy and has dramatically shrunken, thank God.) Prayers for a full recovery would be appropriate. You can find his Web-site at http://www.brytr.com/.

2) The groundhogs are predicting six more weeks of winter. I wouldn’t mind, but winter isn’t much fun without snow, which we get very little of here in Charleston. Meanwhile, a town in North Carolina has decided to use a pig on “Groundhawg’s Day” to predict the weather. Go figure.

3) If you've checked Lesser Known Holidays, which is where I get a lot of my weird holiday information, you won’t find No Soda Day. That’s because No Soda Day is a holiday only here at the Medical University of South Carolina, where they sent us some E-mail on it:

DRINK SODA?? THINK AGAIN...



Sodas and other sweetened beverages are associated with:



*Higher Caloric Intake, *Greater Weight Gain, **Displacement of milk from 

Children’s Diets, and **Increased Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women 

CELEBRATE NO SODA DAY!  Wednesday, February 2nd



Stop by the Horseshoe and get a free non-soda beverage between noon and 1pm.



Affirm that you take a stand against a cause of obesity by being a role model –

You will not imbibe liquid candy for a day!



Goals of No Soda Day:

• Make people aware of the health problems associated with soda consumption

• Encourage health professions students to think about their own habits and setting

an example for their patients



Sponsored by PHIG (Public Health Interest Group) and AMSA (American Medical Student 

Association)



*J Pediatr. 2003 Jun;142(6): 604-10.  **JAMA. 2004 Aug 25; 292(8): 927-34.

Considering how bad soda really is, decreasing soda consumption is something worth thinking about.

Aaron

My poor Uncle Grover’s demise last year

Greetings.

I just got contacted by someone I didn’t know by instant messaging (Yahoo! Messenger’s protocol, specifically), and I quickly decided to have some fun with him/her...

12:24:24 2005-02-01
drfelixodogwung
hi

Buzz!!


12:24:43 2005-02-01
Hiergargo (Aaron Adelman)
Do I know you?


12:25:09 2005-02-01
drfelixodogwung
i am Barr. Felix Odogwu


12:25:27 2005-02-01
Hiergargo (Aaron Adelman)
You don't sound familiar.

Do you know who I am?


12:26:07 2005-02-01
drfelixodogwung
i know your late unclwe

he live in Nigeria

before his death


12:26:25 2005-02-01
Hiergargo (Aaron Adelman)
You do?


12:26:38 2005-02-01
drfelixodogwung
i am the personal attorney to your late uncle


12:26:41 2005-02-01
Hiergargo (Aaron Adelman)
You knew Grover?


12:26:52 2005-02-01
drfelixodogwung
yeah

he died 2004

i am looking for his next of kin


12:27:20 2005-02-01
Hiergargo (Aaron Adelman)
I never had an Uncle Grover.  Go read http://weirdthingoftheday.blogspot.com/ while I take a walk around the department.  Good day.


I’ve heard of this sort of scam before, where the scammer tries to get bank account numbers so he/she can steal money, but this is the first time I’m aware of it being attempted via IM.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 1 February 2005/22 Shevat 5765 (Robinson Crusoe Day)

Greetings.

Yes it’s that day you get to pretend you’re stranded on a desert island. To get into the mood, you can read Robinson Crusoe and The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Or watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island if you have any idea when (and if) that’s on.

Today’s weird thing was going to be Terranova: Planet of the Day, which focuses on imaginary planets. However, Barry pointed out to me an article by Bill Moyers titled “There is no tomorrow”. This is about how common the Christian belief in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus is in the United States (apparently very) and how this affects American politics. Moyers’ thesis is essentially that the current administration is able to perpetuate many of its outrages because to believers these abuses of governmental power do not matter. After all, if the World (at least as we know it) will not be around much longer, there is little point in trying to make it a better place. Some of the abuses, in fact, such as making war stupidly in the Middle East, may even be perceived as hastening the Second Coming, which also meets with believers’ approval.

If I may build on what Moyers wrote, I as a religious man also find this mixture of theology and politics disturbing. As an educated Orthodox Jew, I could easily attack Christian theology. However, even within the confines of Christian theology, regardless of whether its basic assumptions are correct or not, the logic of those who believe the Rapture will be soon and act upon it is not valid.

For one thing, the eschatology is not correct. Throughout history many have attempted to calculate end-times, yet so far all have failed. There is no a priori reason to assume current predictions of the World’s imminent demise are any more correct. This is not in and of itself a reason for a believer to suspect that the Second Coming might occur soon; many unusual events have occurred in recent year. However, considering that there is a sizable chance of being wrong, relying on the Rapture occurring soon is downright foolish.

Even worse, they have botched morality according to Jesus. While Jesus fully approved in helping others do evil to oneself (“turning the other cheek”), he did not approve of helping do evil to other people, and certainly not doing evil oneself. (Go ahead and check the Gospels. I dare anyone who disagrees.) Since Jesus is supposed to be the standard for Christian morality, the Bush administration’s efforts to benefit the greedy rich at the expense of everyone else (not to mention trying to undermine our future) are downright un-Christian. Did not Jesus himself say that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Have I not been pointing out the Bush administration’s immoral (and hence un-Christian) actions to benefit those himself and others who are highly unlikely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven on this mailing list and blog? Such behavior should not be welcomed by any believing Christian, period, and ought to be actively fought. QED.

Be scared.

Aaron, believing Orthodox Jew, hoping to see the coming of the Messiah (not Jesus) in his lifetime, though not relying on it, and hoping that the Birth-Pangs of the Messiah can be circumvented

NOTE: I have said in the past that you should feel free to forward the Weird thing of the day to others. With something like this, I seriously recommend it to better help fight the Bush administration.