Job application annoyance of the day: Wrong URL

Greetings.

I am still unemployed, and I will gripe about it. Today’s job application annoyance is one ad which gives two URLs to the site on which one is supposed to apply. The one actually set up as an HTML link, of course, sends one to a nonexistent server. The one left as plain text in the ad, of course, is the address of a real computer. Go figure.

While I am at it, I am also annoyed when, as in this ad, one is told which site to go to and what the unique identifier of the job is, but it is somehow too much trouble for whoever wrote the ad to include a link directly to the job’s page on the site where one is supposed to apply. This is stupid because 1) the applicant gets the message that his/her time and effort are not valuable, which reflects badly on the company and 2) every time anyone wants to apply for a specific job, they must do a search, which consumes much more in the way of resources than going straight to the correct page. Shame, shame, shame!

Aaron

12 Tammuz 5768: International Dadaism Month/Saint Swithin’s Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Tell your Senator that NOW is the time to abolish the HIV Travel Ban!” and “Help Unleash a New Energy Future Today”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “What does the pope do on his day off?” Nothing actually wrong here. It basically notes that popes are human, too.
   
2. “UZBEKISTAN: Fifteen year sentence for reading 'prohibited' Christian literature?”: This is one of many articles coming out these days on persecution of people for their religion, often any religion, in the former Soviet Union and China. I am getting severely disgusted at the constant bureaucratic/political games being played, often taking the form of determining what is and what is not legitimate or necessary in someone else’s religion.  This is, of course, unjustifiable, especially when the party making the decisions is a hostile party.  On a planet which practically every country has supposedly agreed to support religious freedom, it is inexcusable that such travesties should still be happening.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “Housing Sales (1974)”
  
• “Should I Take a Multivitamin?”
  
• “Choosing an Energy-Efficient TV”
  
• “10 steps to better secure your Mac laptop from physical data theft”
  
• “More Midlife (and Older) STDs” (Epidemiologically, this makes plenty of sense.)
  
• “Particles Retain Weight for Billions of Years ”
  
• “Prosecutor flagged by US terror watch list”
  
• “Secrets of Bad Singing”
  
• “Infectious cancer forces Tasmanian Devil lifecycle evolution”
  
• “Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long”
  
• “Is China's Pollution Poisoning Its Children?”
  
• “Muslim Moles”

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Barry, is “Parental IQ versus Child’s Age”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Job application annoyance of the day: “We don’t care that you already have a résumé; you have to create a new one from scratch”

Greetings.

I am still unemployed, and I am going to gripe about the idiocy I encounter when trying to get employed.

Today’s annoyance are sites which demand that you “build” a résumé, rather than upload one. The people who came up with such a boneheaded idea clearly have no idea that you put time and effort into putting together a résumé or curriculum vitae, which is grossly disrespectful to all job applicants. Adding injury to insult, they force the applicant to wade through a series of dreadful forms, reentering every single piece of information. They may also further alienate the applicant by asking for a precomposed résumé or curriculum vitae at the very end. Shame on all human resources departments which take this time- and effort-wasting approach! You deserve to be catastrophically understaffed!

Note: This post, as are all posts in this series, is dedicated to George W. Bush, who has done everything he can to strangle research funding, squelch science, and wreck the economy in such a way to his supporters in the short term.

Aaron

11 Tammuz 5768: Bastille Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Stand Up Against Big Oil!”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: “Study attacks Euro-centric view of worldwide religious decline”.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “Photoshopped”
  
• “Today's crunch feels like '70s”
  
• “DNA sewing machine”
  
• “HOWDY, NEIGHBOR!” (Note: This is an article on continental drift, not Home Improvement.)
  

Today’s weird thing is a Truly Awesome Steampunk Mouse. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

10 Tammuz 5768: Embrace Your Geekness Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Speak Out Against Logging that Threatens Martens and Other Wildlife” and “Stand Up for Prevention and Public Health!” (skimping on healthcare is a recipe for disaster).

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Man Claims God Uses Him To Cure Cancer, Raise Dead; Thousands”:  This is an article about a Pentecostal faith-healer.  It is a good sign that even fellow Pentecostals are skeptical about his claims of miracle cures.  Lack of evidence is a warning sign that something fishy is happening.
   
2. “Man sues church, claiming spirit forced his fall”:  This does not sound so much like a religious fallacy as it does a failure to act responsibly.  If someone has a tendency to fall over when having a deep religious experience, does it make sense for him to continue having such experiences standing up?  It is perfectly possible to experience ecstasy while sitting down.  That the claimant blames his church for his own error suggests that these religious experiences have utterly failed in their function of making him a better person.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Fossil finds suggest an early origin for human speech”
  
• “Study: As gas prices go up, auto deaths decline” (Apparently there is a silver lining to one of the things people love to gripe about these days.)
  
• “Kan. town sets pair of penny world records”
  
• “Rare 'Star-Making Machine' Found in Distant Universe”
  
• “Canadian Media: Errors and Distortions”
  
• “I Hear Ya: Bush Signs Expanded Wiretap Power into Law” (Shame on Bush and everyone who voted for this law!)
  
• “Autism Genes That Control Early Learning”
  
• “The Week That Should Have Ended McCain's Presidential Hopes”
  
• “Superconductors Enter Commercial Utility Service”
  
• “Sandwich board is new tool in job search” (Maybe I ought to try a stunt like this.  Serious suggestions of an appropriate stunt to try will be taken under consideration and appreciated.)
  
• “Will This Vaccine Prevent or Reverse Alzheimer's Disease?”
  
• “Diet Diary Doubles Weight Loss” (This makes sense. After all, it is harder to lie to oneself about what one has eaten when their is evidence to the contrary.)
  

Today’s weird thing is the My Little Cthulhu Vinyl Figure . (If you don’t understand it, you probably don’t want to know anyway.) Enjoy and share the weirdness with a fan (or anti-fan) of H. P. Lovecraft.

Aaron

8 Tammuz 5768: National Slurpee Day/World Population Day/Day of the Five Billion

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Object to Privacy-Invading FISA Law”, “Stop the Polar Bear Whitewash”, and “World Leaders Must Fulfill Their Promise”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “New legal threat to teaching evolution in the US”: Apparently some people do not understand the concepts of critical thinking and academic freedom or are willing to indulge in Orwellian distortions of language in order to encourage belief in creationism. If I have not said it before, I will say it now: religion is supposed to be about truth. It is hypocritical to lie in order to get people to believe what is allegedly the truth.
   
2. On Wednesday, I explained that “if it is natural, it is good” is a moral fallacy.  Also relevant to the discussion of sexuality and morality is “Bisexual Species: Unorthodox Sex in the Animal Kingdom”, which discusses the prevalence of homosexuality among non-human animals in the wild and in captivity and the reasons for its existence.  Noted also is the fluidity of human sexuality.  While it is common these days for people to pigeonhole themselves and others as “heterosexual”, “homosexual”, “bisexual”, and certain less-popular categories, these categories at best only approximate people’s actual behavior; people do not always behave in accordance with the category by which they classify themselves or others classify them, and the lines between categories are regularly crossed in certain situations.  One cannot therefore assume one is permanently fixed in a specific category, which has two moral consequences:  1)  One cannot make the plea that one is predestined to behave strictly according to one category.  Granted, few, if any, humans can switch categories solely at will, and many may never switch, but the potential for change may be there.  2)  One cannot assume one will never find oneself tempted to do anything in a forbidden category.  Granted, temptation is not the same thing as acting on temptation, and many will never be seriously tempted to do certain actions, but the wise are aware of their own potential weaknesses so they may guard against them.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Iran's Missiles”
  
• Congress examines EMP threat
  
• “The Process of Koshering”
  
• “Top Ten Worst Uses for Windows” (I really cannot make this up.)
  
• “Drug marketing code draws line at gift pens” (Down with bribery!)
  
• “Iconic Pink Flamingo Maker Files Bankruptcy”
  
• “Dick Cheney, enemy of reality”
  
• “The Roar of the Aurora ”
  
• “Coral Grief: Warming Climate Threatens Reef Destruction”
  
• “Pesticides That Kill Pests--But Not Pets”
  
• “Rove ignores committee's subpoena, refuses to testify” (Does anyone buy the rationale? It is hard to imagine “executive privilege” applied to someone no longer part of the executive branch of the federal government.)
  

Today’s weird things are Mark Melchior's Cigar Box Guitars, a much better use for cigar boxes than holding death sticks. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

7 Tammuz 5768: Don’t Step on a Bee Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Pressure Indonesian President to Release Papuan Prisoners of Conscience” and “Speak Out for Red Knots Before It's Too Late ”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The U.S. Dollar (1978)”
  
• “Journalist's Abuse Claims Refuted”
  
• “Should We Study Chelation for Autism?”
  
• “Wetlands Update--Has Preservation Had an Impact?”
  
• “Doctors worried by Supreme Court gun ruling”
  
• “Magnetic Movie”
  
  Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.
  
• “Moon Once Harbored Water, Lunar Lava Beads Show”
  
• “Senate Joins House in Caving to White House Immunity Demands” (Boo! No wonder people disapprove of Congress more than they disapprove of Bush!)
  
• “Golden Ray photos of amazing mass migration” (Courtesy of Nancy and Barry.)

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Emily, is “Ferocious Attack Kitten”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

6 Tammuz 5768: Martyrdom of the Bab

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “We Can’t Afford to Wait for a Clean Energy Economy”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: “We may allow gay unions: COI head”. If I may quote:

The head of the Church of Ireland has said if homosexuality is proven to be biologically predetermined then his church would have to allow gay unions.

"If such comes to be shown, it will be necessary to acknowledge the full implications of that new aspect of the truth," said Archbishop Alan Harper.

Now, granted that Archbishop Harper said “If”, nevertheless he is making a classic mistake:  the naturalistic fallacy, i.e., the belief that if something is natural, it is therefore good or right.  To illustrate why this is a fallacy, suppose someone has a natural inclination towards pedophilia.  Do we therefore blindly assume that this person has no choice is whether or not he/she will commit acts of pedophilia?  Do we give our approval to any acts of pedophilia he/she might commit?  Of course not!  The moral codes that most of us live by and most of our consciences highly disapprove of pedophilia.  We expect that anyone with inclinations towards pedophilia to keep him/herself under control, and we demand that anyone who commits pedophilia be punished severely—and we really do not care whether the act was natural or not.  In fact, there are many acts that are frequently considered wrong which are arguably natural for humans:

• Murder
• Infidelity
• Rape
• Theft
• Dishonesty
• Ephebophilia
• Prostitution
• Infanticide
• Violence
• War
• Xenophobia
• Promiscuity
• Tyranny
• Politics (in the negative sense of the term)
• Cruelty
• Misogyny
• Spousal abuse
• Social injustice
• Slavery

This list is composed of acts known to occur widely among humans (whether sanctioned or not) since ancient times or among humanity’s closest relatives (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans).  The fact that these acts may be natural does not in any way make them any less morally abhorrent.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Moral codes are meant to regulate behavior, and the sorts of behavior that one would expect to receive the most mention, whether being praised or condemned, are ones that are actually likely to occur—including ones that are natural for humans to do.  In short, the fact that something is natural does not morally justify it.  The Archbishop should get off this line of reasoning and base his position on homosexuality on something more relevant to Christianity, such as what Jesus would have to say on the subject.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The New China?”
  
• “Hamas caught using cease-fire to rearm” and “Another truce violation: Palestinians fire mortar shell at w. Negev” (Who didn’t foresee this coming?)
  
• “Our World: The media and enduring narrative”
  
• “Investigating the Environmental Origins of Autism”
  
• “Researchers Track Disease With Google News, Google.org Money” and the site described therein, HealthMap (Very cool.)
  
• “Cheney wanted cuts in climate testimony” (His nose must be a few kilometers long by now.)
  
• “Check Yourself for Genetic Abnormalities”
  
• “Want some torture with your peanuts?” (From the Bush and Cheney school of thought on civil rights.)
  
• “Study says turn TV off to stay slim” (Unsurprising.)
  
• “Are Cardiologists Ordering Too Many CT Angiograms?”

Today’s weird thing is “The Dalek School of Surveillance”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

5 Tammuz 5768: Video Games Day/Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama (SCUD) Day

Greetings.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Saudi Arms Buildup (1988)”
  
• “Humanizing the Murderer”
  
• “Sale of 1 house will help 30 villages”
  
• “Fermilab Saved from Chopping Block--for Now”
  
• This Modern World 2008-07-08
  
• “Chess boxers slug it out”
  
• “100 new terms make the cut for Merriam-Webster dictionary”
  
• “Japanese woman overpowers thief with tea and sympathy”
  
• “Vaccinate Networks, Not Everyone”

Today’s weird thing is “Sea Organ - musical instrument played by the sea”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

4 Tammuz 5768: Father & Daughter Take a Walk Day

Greetings.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Doctors told to defy parents and save child’s life”:  If I may quote:

   Doctors had to ask for a court’s help to give a six-year-old girl a life-saving blood transfusion. Her parents were refusing to give their permission to the procedure on religious grounds. The family are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

   Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known for refusing blood transfusions. Their official Web site lists three sources for this (in “How Can Blood Save Your Life?” under Jehovah's Witnesses—The Surgical/Ethical Challenge):  Genesis 9:3-4, Leviticus 17:13-14, and Acts 15:19-21.  Genesis 9:3-4 (my translation) reads:  

   Every creeping-being that is alive, to you it will be for food, like the vegetation, grass, I have given to you all.  But flesh with its life-force, its blood, you will not eat.

   I.e., the prohibition is eating meat from a living animal, not transfusion.  Leviticus 17:13-14 (my translation) reads:  

   And every man from the Children of Yisra’el and from the convert who dwells among them who will hunt game of a wild-beast or a fowl that will be eaten, he will spill its blood and he will cover it with earth.  For the life-force of all flesh, its blood is in its life-force; I said to the Children of Yisra’el, “You will not eat the blood of all flesh, for the life-force of all flesh is its blood; all who eat it will be excised [a form of Divine punishment].”

   Likewise, there is nothing about transfusion here.  Eating blood is prohibited, and the blood of a hunted animal must be covered up with earth, but transfusions are not discussed at all.  Acts 15:19-21 (New American Bible) reads:  

   It is my judgment, therefore, that we ought to stop troubling the Gentiles who turn to God, but tell them by letter to avoid pollution from idols, unlawful marriage, the meat of strangled animals, and blood.  For Moses, for generations now, has had those who proclaim him in every town, as he has been read in the synagogues every sabbath.

   Now, blood transfusions are an extremely recent phenomenon, not performed in ancient times.  It is hardly likely that James has transfusions in mind when he speaks these words.   Just as the other matters he referred to are contemporarily relevant, so to the prohibition on blood he referred to is probably contemporarily relevant.  Thus James is most likely referring to consuming blood, not transfusions.  In summary:  all the verses used to support the notion that blood transfusions are prohibited are irrelevant, providing no support whatsoever.
2. “When a tombstone reads 'Light of the World'”: Lots of wisdom in this.
3. “The disaster for Christians in Iraq”: Why are the Christians of the World doing next to nothing to protect and save their coreligionists? Whatever happened to Christian brotherhood?

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry may be responsible for:

• “Suicide Tactics”
  
• “'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights”
  
• “Gaza struggles with waste between closure and Palestinian terror attacks” (Making war can be bad for your health and the environment. Not to mention there is something in the way of poetic justice in this, after a macabre fashion.)
  
• “A new paradigm for releasing Israeli captives”

Today’s weird thing is NetRacer, an Internet multiplayer racing game—for the Commodore 64. (That is not a typo. People are still using Commodore 64s and even connecting them to the Internet. Go figure.) Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

3 Tammuz 5768: National Fried Chicken Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Smog Leading to Loss of Smell and Premature Death in Mexico City”.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “Employers use federal law to deny benefits” (Submitted by Barry. The situation described therein is disgusting.)
  
• “Tortoise returned after 2 1/2 weeks on the lam”
  
• “MESSENGER Scientists 'Astonished' to Find Water in Mercury's Thin Atmosphere”
  
• “Ore. man completes flight of fancy - in lawn chair”
  
• “West condemns Mugabe, ignores other Africa despots” (Good point. There are plenty of despots around the planet.)
  
• “UK court: Pringles are potato-light, tax-free” (If Pringles are only 42% potato, what’s the other 58%?)
  
• “Where the candidates stand on energy”

Today’s weird thing is something silly from Emily’s collection, included below. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

---

Why did the chicken cross the road?


DR. PHIL:

The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.


OPRAH :

Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.


GEORGE W. BUSH:

We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.


COLIN POWELL:

Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...


ANDERSON COOPER - CNN:

We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.


JOHN KERRY:

Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.


NANCY GRACE:

That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.


PAT BUCHANAN:

To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.


MARTHA STEWART:

No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.


DR SEUSS:

Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, the chicken crossed the road,
but why it crossed I've not been told.


ERNEST HEMINGWAY:

To die in the rain. Alone.


JERRY FALWELL:

Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth? That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side.' That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.


GRANDPA :

In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.


BARBARA WALTERS:

Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.


JOHN LENNON:

Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.


ARISTOTLE :

It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.


BILL GATES:

I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^(C% ........ reboot.


ALBERT EINSTEIN:

Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?


BILL CLINTON:

I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?


AL GORE:

I invented the chicken!


COLONEL SANDERS:

Did I miss one?


DICK CHENEY :

Where's my gun?


AL SHARPTON:

Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

1 Tammuz 5768: Ro’sh Ḥodhesh/Independence Day

Greetings.

Interesting cause: Wish Upon a Hero (Submitted by Barry.)

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Iran, Israel, and the 4th of July”
  
• “Texas Archaeological Dig Challenges Assumptions about First Americans”
  
• “Who Will Die?: Computer Predicts Which Death Row Inmates Will Be Executed”
  
• “Coal War: Georgia Court Halts Construction of New Coal-Fired Plant”
  
• “Mercury Flyby Reveals Active (but Shrinking) Core”
  
• “What Are the Origins of Famous Patriotic Songs?” (Submitted by Barry.)
  
• “Indiana gas price protester to plead guilty” (Yet another side effect of sky-high gasoline prices. I bet a lot of people wish they had the guts to do this sort of stunt.)
  
• “In unique stellar laboratory, Einstein's theory passes strict, new test”
  
• “Wood density holds key to Stradivarius sweet sound”
  
• “Unwelcome Immigrants: Can the U.S. Thwart Asian Moths?”
  
• “Does Herpes Cause Brain Cancer?”

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Barry, is “Disney Cartoons”. Enjoy, share the weirdness, Shabbath shalom, and happy new month.

Aaron

30 Siwan 5768: Ro’sh Ḥodhesh/Stay Out Of The Sun Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “WORLD LEADERS: DO NOT RECOGNISE MUGABE”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: “New Zealand man puts up his soul for auction”. This is obviously ridiculous since 1) souls are not material objects, but rather information encoded (in this universe) in brains (and maybe digitally in the future) and 2) souls are not property. Just as one cannot meaningfully sell one’s brain (at least not without becoming a slave), selling the soul encoded within one’s brain is also not meaningful.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “4th of July (1983)”
  
• “Runway tractor carrying potatoes mashes car”
  
• “EU Pushes Unity Government in Zimbabwe” (OK, let’s think about this. Mugabe blatantly cheated in the election. Why should he be allowed to be part of the government at all?)
  
• “The Bait and Switch of Unscientific Medicine”
  
• “Mideast Summer Camps: By the Numbers”
  
• “The Death of Gallium”
  
• “FTC recruiting identity theft victims”
  
• “Nowthen, Minn., I think our city has a name”
  
• “Marketing Execs And Privacy Execs Disagree Over What Companies Do With Private Info”
  
• “PC Outrage of the Month”
  
  

Today’s weird thing, courtesy of Barry, is Candied Bacon Ice Cream, which, due to my religio-social background, strikes me as bizarre as eating shoe leather. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

29 Siwan 5768: I Forgot Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Oppose the Destructive Practice of Mountaintop Removal Mining”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: “Jordan charges Dutch politician with blasphemy”. Barry brought this to my attention yesterday. If I may quote the first paragraph of the article, which pretty much sums up what’s going on:

A Jordanian prosecutor on Tuesday charged Dutch politician Geert Wilders with blasphemy and contempt of Muslims for making an anti-Koran film and ordered him to stand trial in the kingdom, judicial sources said.

Now, there are two things wrong here:

1. The legal problem:  Jordan has no jurisdiction in the Netherlands.  There does not even seem to be a claim that the film, Fitna, was made in Jordan to make it vaguely plausible that a crime was committed on Jordanian soil.  Even if someone committed the most heinous crimes imaginable, if said crimes were performed outside of Jordanian territory, standard operating procedure would be to try that person in the country in which the crimes were committed, not Jordan.
2. This is an instance of Muslims trying to dictate the rules that non-Muslims have to live by.  Now, many religions do have beliefs about how non-believers and outsiders should behave.  In the case of Islam, the attitude is that Muslims are inherently superior to non-Muslims and thus non-Muslims may do nothing to offend Muslims even if offense is deserved, e.g., Muslims complaining about the use of dogs to sniff out terrorists as noted in “Sniffer dogs offend Muslims”, despite the well-known links between Islam and terrorism.  However, what makes Islam truly unusual in that Muslims will often try to enforce their rules on non-Muslims.  And while this is feasible in Islamic states, such as Jordan, it is irrational to expect that the Netherlands, a society which is not Islamic and in which free speech is protected, will bow to Jordan’s wishes and extradite Wilders.  Given that there is an anti-Islamic backlash in Europe at the moment, this is doubly correct.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Israeli Prisoner Exchange”
  
• “Caught: BBC's Shocking First Response to Terror Attack”
  
• “Baby otters safe after excursion, stop at pub”
  
• “How crochet solved an age-old maths problem” (Submitted by Emily. I cannot make up something like this.)
  
• “uturistic Chembots Squeeze Through Small Spaces”
  
• “Google Earth highlights the 'Nakba'”
  
• “Roundest objects in the world created”
  
• “NASA Satellites Watch Polar Ice Shelf Break into Crushed Ice”
  

Today’s weird thing is the Bic pen bow & arrow. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

28 Siwan 5768: Build A Scarecrow Day/Canada Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Tell Congress You Don't Buy the Lie!”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Palestinian Terrorists (1993)”
  
• “Disappearing babies”
  
• “IMSLP:Open Letter (Reopening)” (Good news for musicians: free sheet music!)
  
• “Israel closes Gaza border crossings once again in wake of Qassam” (All those who believe that Hamas ever had any intention of keeping the truce, stand on your heads.)
  
• “Giraffe helps camels, zebras escape from circus”
  
• This Modern World 2008-06-30
  
• “California to drivers: Drop the cell phone, dude” (Applause!)
  
• “Algorithm determines 'ideal' VP candidates for Obama, McCain” (I don’t know about you, but the idea of electing Colin Powell vice-president, after he lied to the entire planet about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, strikes me as a horrible idea.)
  
• “Does Foreign Aid Fuel Palestinian Violence?”
  
• “Anonymous newsmakers”

Today’s weird thing is this odd picture. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

27 Siwan 5768: Please Take My Children to Work Day

Greetings.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The Tunguska Mystery 100 Years Later”
  
• “I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch”
  
• “Liberal Syrian Journalist Abi Hassan: My Day in Haifa”

Today’s weird thing is “Ruby Gamba”, dedicated to the electric viola da gamba. (Somebody had to come up with this sooner or later.) Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

26 Siwan 5768: Camera Day/Peter and Paul Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Tell Senator Obama: Hang up on Big Telecom” and “FOX: Stop the smears”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Presbyterian Conference”
  
• “Telling the Truce?”
  
• “Palestinian group to sue British gov't over Israel” (This is an interesting tactic. But why don’t we try putting the blame on the people really responsible for the tragedy of the so-called “Palestinians” for a change and lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of 1) the Muslim countries who attacked the newly formed state of Israel and 2) the so-called “Palestinians” themselves, who frequently act in ways that make their own lives worse?)
  
• “German man torches car to protest high gas prices”
  
• “Scientists Create Synthesized DNA”
  
• “Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole”
  
• “Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects”

Today’s weird thing is the Cool Calvin and Hobbes Collection. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

24 Siwan 5768: Decide to Be Married Day/National HIV Testing Day/National Columnists Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Protect Our Best Lands from Unnecessary Oil and Gas Drilling!”, “A Simple Request to the G8”, and “NRA Wants Loaded Guns in Parks. What Do YOU Want?”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Bits of Ancient Earth Hidden on the Moon ”
  
• “Life Survived Catastrophic Space Rock Impact ”
  
• “Historical Significance!”
  
• “Google Earth: A New Platform for Anti-Israel Propaganda and Replacement Geography”
  
• “Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns” (Bad idea. Bad idea. Did those guys even read the text of the Second Amendment?)
  
• “Wash. dentist's staff saddles up to beat gas costs”
  
• Tom the Dancing Bug 2008-06-26
  
• “Climbing Trees: Plants Move Uphill as World Warms”

Today’s weird thing is Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements”.

I hope you all take notes, because there’s going to be a short quiz on Sunday. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

23 Siwan 5768: International Day in Support of Torture Victims/International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Demand Fox stop race baiting and fear mongering”, “Call on investors: stand up for human rights in Darfur”, “Help us fight to protect Hatteras!”, “Tell Governor Sanford: Stop Offshore Oil Drilling”, and “Neotropical Birds Need Your Help”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Low Carb Diet (1987)”
  
• “A Deadline on Malaria”
  
• “Attention Gearheads: Green Racing Ahead!”
  
• “The west has to tackle Tehran - before Israel sends in the bombers”
  
• “Israel and the Front Line of Civilization”
  
• “How Can I Free My Home of Pests without Harming My Family?”
  
• “Tru Heeros” (Submitted by Barry. Surprisingly profound for a LOLcat picture.)
  
• “Exxon Valdez $2.5 billion oil spill ruling overturned”

Today’s weird thing is Principality of New Utopia. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

22 Siwan 5768: Log Cabin Day

Greetings.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

• “Sacred Science: Using Faith to Explain Anomalies in Physics”: The notion of God conjured in this article is “the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe, biosphere and human cultures”, an emergent property of the laws of nature. This is actually an illegitimate redefinition, as it does not respect the traditional notion of deity as a real entity and not an abstraction. Note Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning ’Elohim [God] created the heaven and the earth”, i.e., the Deity is the creator of our universe, not a property of it. Such a deity is to be expected to be independent of our universe and not subject to its laws. The alternatives given by some traditional religions to this idea of deity are really just variants, such as the Hindu notion that the deity being worshipped is an aspect of the creator deity Brahman. Trying to redefine the Deity of any traditional religion as a mere emergent property therefore makes no sense whatsoever, and this new vision of deity as a nonentity is completely unworthy of worship.
  
• “Can a Robot, an Insect or God Be Aware?” I am unclear on where this notion of YHWH having no emotions comes from. It certainly does not come from the Hebrew Bible. (I suspect that philosophers are behind it.) The claim also makes no sense objectively: since we cannot observe YHWH’s internal states, such as emotions, we cannot make any legitimate objective claims as to what these states are or are not. However, since YHWH is depicted in the Hebrew Bible as acting emotionally (with other deities receiving similar treatment in other scriptures), we can, at least, speak of YHWH’s emotions in the same way one usually speaks about other humans’ emotions: in a behavioral sense. Paranormal empathic powers may be nonexistent, making it impossible to actually know what other humans are feeling, but that does not stop us from assuming that other humans have the same sorts of emotional states that we do; we do not know that an angry human actually feels angry, only that he/she behaves in an angry manner. Same thing with YHWH.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “They Just Can't Help Themselves”
  
• “A Lesson About Pride Jews Can Learn From Obama”
  
• “Angry kids protest gas prices after losing cable TV”
  
• “Where You Vote Can Affect How You Vote”
  
• “Artificial turf target of legal action”
  
• “Death By Medicine”
  
• “BOMBS AWAY”
  
• “Study: RFID Tags Can Mess Up Medical Devices”
  
• “Photographer Documents Secret Satellites — All 189 of Them”
  
• “Ohio man repays borrowed gasoline after 34 years”
  
• “Hippocratic Oath for Scientists?”
  
• “Thieves steal phones, laptops from moving truck”
  
• “Just Smelling Coffee Helps Head”

Today’s weird thing is RealSnailMail, explained in “'Snail mail' blazes slow e-trail”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

21 Siwan 5768: Fairy Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “SAVE ZIMBABWE FROM MUGABE” and “Tell Congress to Resist Calls for Drilling”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

• “Homer's Odyssey Said to Document 3,200-Year-Old Eclipse”
  
• “The ethnic cleansing of Arabic Jews”
  
• “The Fifth Generation Warfare”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “First Kassams since cease-fire: Three rockets hit western Negev” and “Gaza truce shaken as four Qassams slam into west Negev” (Did anyone really expect Hamas or Islamic Jihad to abide by the truce? Shame on ’Olmerṭ for making the truce in the first place!)
  
• “The Myth of Multitasking ”
  
• “Snow Leopard to slim apps, add touch framework” (1) I am pleasantly surprised that Apple is planning to make programs consume less disk space for a change. This may be unprecedented in the history of computing. 2) Multi-touch! Multi-touch! Multi-touch!)
  
• “Ice Core Reveals How Quickly Climate Can Change”

Today’s weird thing is DISINTEGRATOR.co.uk - home of the motorised double rubber band minigun. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Worthy cause of the day: Don't Let Bush Cut Funding for Public Broadcasting

Greetings.

Today’s worthy cause is “Don't Let Bush Cut Funding for Public Broadcasting”. Please sign and save PBS. Remember: politicians have to pay attention to their constituencies or risk getting thrown out of office. Thank you.

Aaron

20 Siwan 5768: Let It Go Day/United Nations Public Service Day

Greetings.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: “A missing ethic”. Rav Shafran is right. Being accused of wrongdoing is not the same as wrongdoing. All sorts of claims have been made against people throughout history, down to the present day, which have been baseless (e.g., conspiracy theories, blood libels, accusations of devil worship, accusations of witchcraft, accusations based on allegedly recovered memories, alleged Satanic ritual abuse, and “Palestinian” claims of being victims of genocide), and such claims have sometimes resulted in disaster for the wrongfully accused. It is therefore only sensible to give people benefit of the doubt when doubt exists and not to rush to judgement.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Incredibly, Hulk gets abducted from Mass. theater”

Today’s weird thing is a request of Barry in honor of his recently deceased dog, Buddy: “Johnny Carson - Jimmy Stewart - Beau Poem”.


Aaron

19 Siwan 5768: Stupid Guy Thing Day

Greetings.

Relevant to Divine Miconceptions

• “Court suspends French virgin case” (Oh, great. Not only are people sticking their nose in other people’s business where it does not belong, but now the court has invalidated the annulment of a marriage that both the husband and wife want to be over. Are people trying to make a bad situation worse?)
  
• “Calif. Court Considers Medical Rights” (Some people clearly have ignored that freedom of religion is part of the Constitution.)

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The Trojan Social Open-Source Drop-Down”
  
• “Austria accused of shielding Nazi suspect”
  
• “Humans Spreading Disease To Chimps”
  
• “The Homegrown Young Radicals Of Next-Gen Jihad”
  
• “When the Levee Breaks: Is the Culprit Rain--Or Overdevelopment?”
  
• “New E-Waste Standards: Junking Electronic Gadgets without Trashing the Planet”
  
• “Tiny Shetland island declares independence”
  
• “Fastest-ever flashgun captures image of light wave”

Today’s weird thing is something someone who wishes to remain anonymous sent to me, included below. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

---

The Hole in the Roof

A rabbi stands before his congregation and reports to them that a massive hole has been found in the roof of the synagogue.

“Now I have good news and bad news for you,” the Rabbi continues.  “The good news is that we have the money to repair it; the bad news is that the money is in your pockets.”

17 Siwan 5768: Take Your Dog to Work Day/Ice Cream Soda Day/World Refugee Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Save the Ocelot from Border Fence”, “Tell Gov. Crist -- Comply with the law and register voters”, and “Take Action: America's Heritage for Sale”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

• “The New Israel and the Old ”
  
• “souls. i eets them.” (I know full well this is completely unserious. However, it is not unprecedented. Soul-eating appears in some form in at least two Star Trek episodes, and intuition insists it happens elsewhere. Maybe I need to read more H. P. Lovecraft... In any case, there is the serious question of why and how anyone could eat a soul which merits investigation.)

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “How to Keep Cool without Running Your AC”
  
• “Carbon nanotubes: Microscopic menace or misunderstood mini miracle?”
  
• “Can the "Amphibian Ark" Save Frogs From Pollution/Extinction?”
  
• “Thief breaks into donation box, steals fake money”
  
• “In South Africa, Chinese is the New Black”
  
• “Physicists Explain Mentos-Soda Spray”
  
• “Previous cease-fires with Palestinians paint a bleak picture”
  
• “Hawaiian group demands restoration of the monarchy” (Not surprising, considering I have heard horrible things about how Hawaii became part of the United States.)
  
• Perot Charts » Charting Government Fiscal Irresponsibility (Not news per se, but a potentially useful resource.)
  
• “Barge floats 2-story home from Wash. to Canada”
  
• “Sderot, A Love Story”
  

Today’s weird thing is Tom Sepe's Steampunk Motorbike. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

16 Siwan 5768: Juneteenth

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Get Big Money Out of Politics”, “
Tell Congress to combat global hunger”, “Protect Medical Marijuana Patients”, “Make Pre-k Available for Every Child”, “Reform Unfair Credit Card Tricks”, “Reid, McConnell and PEPFAR”, and “HELP PASS THE INTERNATIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT (HR 5927)”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

• “Will gay rights trample religious freedom?”
  
• “Study: Non-Orthodox men less connected than women”
  
• “Islamic school draws fire” (Yes, the Saudis and Wahabis are not our friends.)
  
• “The enemy has a name” (Pretending that militant Islam is not the problem does not actually make it so.)
  
• “Teen from faith healing family dies at Ore. home” (How many times do I have to say this? Belief and prayer alone do not cure illness or save lives! The truly pious way to submit to YHWH’s will is to recognize that in His mercy He has given us brains so that we may use them and allowed a veritable explosion of medical knowledge and technology to extend our lives and improve their quality. How dare anyone insult the Deity by refusing to avail him/herself of Divine mercy? Who are we to demand that YHWH show us mercy in a different manner than His choice? The next time you are sick, thank YHWH and visit His messenger: a doctor.)

Today’s news and commentary:

• “How to Pick A Lawn Mower That's Easy on Man--And Nature”
  
• Tom the Dancing Bug 2008-06-19
  
• “How to train death squads and quash revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq” (I seriously hope this is a huge fraud, because if it is real, it makes me ashamed to be an American.)
  
• “Uri Geller loses lawsuit over eBay bid for former Elvis home” (If he is really a psychic, why did he not see this coming?)
  
• “Large 'Planet X' May Lurk Beyond Pluto ”
  
• “Patient, Heal Thyself: Body's Own Immune Cells Whack Late-Stage Tumor” (Beautiful!)
  
• “'Oldest' computer music unveiled”

Today’s weird thing is “A Person Paper on Purity in Language”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Job application kvetching of the day

Greetings.

I am still unemployed, and the process of applying for jobs really sucks. Many sites allow one to apply for jobs on-line. This may be convenient, but often the people who set up these sites have no clue what they are doing.

The last application I entered went through an especially bad site. This site allows the applicant to upload their résumé, promising to extract all the desired information from it. This, of course, failed for me. The site did not even have a clue that my curriculum vitae actually contained all the information it wanted. This is also despite my curriculum vitae being in the extremely common Microsoft Word format.

Furthermore, many values have to selected from pop-up lists which need to be “confirmed”. This operation invariably reloads the entire page when a selection was made—or even opens a whole new window asking for one, single value. Good grief! Who designed such an annoying system? The whole point of such a system is to ensure that all values entered are valid. Why not just let the applicant enter the values in simple, unencumbered text fields and annoy him/her only if some value is invalid?  That cannot be any harder to program!

OK, back to work now...

Aaron

15 Siwan 5768: International Picnic Day/Cow Day

Greetings.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Not Treating - A Neglected Option”
  
• “Hacking Coffee Makers” (Yes, people, that’s right: someone figured out how to hack an Internet-connected coffee maker.)

Today’s weird thing is WE ♥ SHEDS, with a recommendation that you search for sheds with the word “TARDIS” in the description. Bonus points for anyone who figures out how to make a shed bigger on the inside than on the outside. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

14 Siwan 5768: Watergate Day/World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “No More Weapons to Darfur: Expand the Arms Embargo”.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “The 3,000 Mile Oil Change Myth”
  
• “Questions Remain Over BBC Response”
  
• “White House office wins ruling on e-mail records” (Bad court! No desert for you!)
  
• “30+ Useful Websites You Probably Didn't Know About”
  
• “Oregon man wins Great American Think-Off”
  
• “Mending Ozone Hole May Benefit Climate Change”
  
• “Three Super-Earths Found Orbiting One Star ”

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Barry, is the SomethingStore. I probably will not try this, but the idea is interesting. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

13 Siwan 5768: Fudge Day/Bloomsday

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “G8: TIME TO LEAD ON CLIMATE CHANGE”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• Why my Torah is crying
  
• “Stephen Hawking: ministers’ £80m error puts science at risk”
  
• “The media versus the frontiers of medicine and surgery”

Today’s weird thing is “Magic120Cell”, a 4-dimensional puzzle. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

12 Siwan 5768: Father’s Day

Greetings.

Divine misconceptions of the day: 1) “End of the World? House of Yahweh says so”, in which false prophecy is noted, e.g., we did not have a predicted nuclear war. 2) “'Witch' family killed in India”, which shows what sort of disasters can occur when people act on irrational and unproven accusations. I cannot reiterate enough that irrationality does not make for good religion.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school”
  
• “Here Be Dragons: An Introduction to Critical Thinking”
  
• “Medicare bill reducing insurers' pay is blocked”
  
• “The Republican Party’s Base?”
  
• “Sudoku addicts halt drugs trial”
  
• “Mysterious 'Gas Men' dole out cash at the pumps”
  
• “Study: Life's Raw Material Came from Space ”
  
• “Environmental Catch-22?: Mending Ozone Hole May Worsen Climate Change”
  
• “ADHD Genetics Sometimes Beneficial”

Today’s weird thing is the Erdős–Bacon number. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

10 Siwan 5768: International Puzzle Day/National Juggling Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Say No to Senator Bond's FISA Capitulation”, “Last Chance to Stop Medicare Cuts!”, and “Cook Inlet Beluga Whales Need Your Help”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Is it true that the DEET used in most mosquito repellents is toxic?”
  
• “Dutch study shows Friday 13th not more unlucky”
  
• “Researchers confirm age of "Methuselah" tree”
  
• “Mordechai Kedar in al-Jazeera - in defence of Jerusalem” (An embarrassing moment for the Qaṭari network.)
  
  Also available with Hebrew subtitles:
  “מרדכי קידר - באלג'זירה - על ירושלים ומעמד יהודה ושומרון”
  
  
• “Endangered sea dragon at Ga. aquarium pregnant”
  
• “Saudi Academy's Books Promote Violence, Intolerance, Panel Says”
  
• “Astronomers Argue Pluto is a Planet” (Yes, the fight is not over. Probably bookies are taking bets on what the eventual outcome will be.)
  
• “Addicted to Starvation: The Neurological Roots of Anorexia”

Today’s weird thing is “Star Wars Floppy Disk”.

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

9 Siwan 5768: Crowded Nest Awareness Day/Magic Day/World Day Against Child Labour

Greetings.

Interesting idea of the day, submitted by Barry: The Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc.. I wish we had this in Charleston.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Is Lubavitch losing its heart?” (This is worrying.)
  
• “Symposium: Islamic Cultural Genocide”
  
• “South Koreans Protest American Beef”
  
• “Grief Counseling Possibly Counterproductive”
  
• “Artist claims record with quarter-mile drawing”
  
• “The Sky, From Above”
  
• “Why the Brain Follows the Rules”
  
• “Researchers Link Storm Botnet to Illegal Pharmaceutical Sales”
  
• “Pluto Now Called a Plutoid ”
  
• “A New Step In Evolution”
  
• “FEMA gives away $85 million of supplies for Katrina victims” (Submitted by Barry. That these supplies were not distributed soon after Katrina is an outrage.)
  
• “Problem gamblers sue Canada casinos”
  
• “Single-horned 'Unicorn' deer found in Italy”
  
• “Poll: Growing Israeli opposition to Golan pullback in Syria peace talks” (Prediction: ’Olmerṭ will not pay attention and try to pull Israel out of the Golan if he manages to stay in office despite the corruption scandal.)
  

Today’s weird thing, which is totally Barry’s fault, is Contrabass Mania, including “You Might Be A Contrabass Maniac If”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

8 Siwan 5768: Swimming Pool Day

Greetings.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “BBC Reporter: Genuine Eyewitness or Palestinian Propagandist?”
  
• “Light fantastic: pedestrians to generate power”
  
• “People vs. Dinosaurs”
  
• “Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and “Green Our Vaccines”: Anti-vaccine, not “pro-safe vaccine””
  
• “Cigarettes whisked out of sight at Canadian stores” (We should do this in the USA, too.)
  
• “Calif. police: Things get ugly at the gas pumps” (Does pump rage surprise anyone?)
  
• Non Sequitur 2008-06-08, which is eerily realistic

Today’s weird thing is the Random Plot Generator, which may be useful to anyone writing an adventure story. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

5 Siwan 5768: Day 49 of the ‘Omer/National Taco Day/World Brain Tumour Day/World Ocean Day

Greetings.

Note: Tomorrow and Tuesday are the major Jewish holiday of Shavu‘oth, and thus there will be no weird thing of the day then.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “BBC Reporter: Genuine Eyewitness or Palestinian Propagandist?”
  
• “Why does organic milk last so much longer than regular milk?”
  
• “Fact or Fiction: Antioxidant Supplements Will Help You Live Longer”
  
• “NY Medicaid to deny payment for hospital errors” (Interesting approach.)
  
• “Hundreds of Kenyans Made Doomsday Plans Two Years Ago” (Thank YHWH there are people out there who know when an alleged prophet has been objectively debunked.)
  
• “Farmer planning diesel tree biofuel”
  
• “Moon "hoax" lesson results”

Today’s weird thing is the Article Kingdom of Redonda. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and ḥagh sameaḥ.

Aaron

Job application weirdness of the day

Greetings.

I am still unemployed, and I am going to take out my frustration with the process on my blog. Yesterday, I tried applying for one job, but the site had two problems: 1) they insist one use Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater and 2) every time I tried submitting, the code handing the process would suffer a catastrophic error and give a detailed listing of what happened that is utterly meaningless to anyone other than the person who wrote the job application submission code.

Problem 1 was relatively easy to overcome, despite my ideological refusal to use Microsoft software whenever I do not need to (and the whole point of Web standards is so that one can use any standards-compliant software and not be chained to a particular vendor) and the simple fact that Internet Explorer ≥6.0 does not exist for Mac OS X. I currently use Safari 3.1.1 (latest version as of this writing), and in the Preferences window under the “Advanced” tab there is the option “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. When enabled, one can choose a specific “User Agent” and lie to Web sites about which browser one is using. Aaron 1, Microsoft chauvinists 0.

Problem 2 took a bit longer to crack (figured it out a few minutes ago), but it all came out to a matter of passwords. My standard method of choosing passwords is to use text which I see or hear at the point I need it. E.g., I have a copy of Vanity Fair by W. M. Thackeray near me right now, so if I needed a new password, I might take some text off the front cover, such as “MODERN LIBRARY COLLEGE EDITIONS”. This system has the advantage of being highly unpredictable. The obvious disadvantage is that I have to keep records of my passwords, but good security is not always convenient. The not-so-obvious disadvantage is that many Web sites on the Internet have arbitrary rules for passwords, e.g., demanding that there be a number or symbol in them or refusing passwords with spaces in them. It turns out the problem with the site I was trying to submit to is one of the most idiotic limitations on passwords since it reduces the work anyone has to do to crack the system: the site crashed in response to a password that was too long. I wanted to use a four-word phrase, but the site only was happy when I fed it an eight-character password.

Go figure.

Aaron

3 Siwan 5768: Day 47 of the ‘Omer/Anniversary of D-Day/Teacher’s Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “It's Time to Ban Cluster Munitions”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Shavuot Holiday”
  
• “Curbing bike theft with thievery lessons?” (There is a weird, yet valid, logic to this.)
  
• “Borrow a Muslim? A 'living library' to prick stereotypes”
  
• “Seizing cars from drunk drivers” (More places ought to be doing this.)
  
• “Twenty-Three Moves Suffice”
  
• “Artificial Sweeteners Confound the Brain; May Lead to Diet Disaster”
  
• “The Top Tech Issues of the Presidential Campaign”
  
• “RepRap - Open Source Machine 'Prints' 3-D Objects, Including Copies Of Itself”

Today’s weird thing is this cartoon:

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

2 Siwan 5768: Day 46 of the ‘Omer/UN World Environment Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Support the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act”.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “Terrorists Executed in Egypt (1993)”
  
• “Perpetuating the al-Qaeda-Iraq Myth”
  
• “Indonesians told to plant trees before marrying”
  
• “McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too” (Oops.)
  
• “Missing Cape Cod lighthouse located in Calif.” (I cannot make something like this up.)
  
• “Novel bacterial species found trapped in Greenland's ice”
  
• “Goat Reunited With Owner After Boarding Bus”
  
• “The FDA drops the ball on patient rights” (No one likes internal review boards, but they are there for a good reason: humans have a nasty tendency to do cruel things to each other if there are no consequences. The last thing we need are horror stories in research.)
  
• “Outcry after French court rules on virginity” (The only people involved for whom I have any sympathy are the court, who had the unenviable problem of not being able to render a verdict without someone getting mad at them. The husband is hard to sympathize with because the condition he made is hard to prove, therefore liable to result in a false accusation; furthermore, he comes off sounding shallow since he comes off sounding as if he is rejecting his wife based on just one attribute which arguably is not the most important one in choosing a mate. The wife is hard to sympathize with because she lied, contracting marriage under a false pretense; yes, what she did is understandable, based on the culture, but lying to one’s spouse is a great way to cause marital problems, especially when the lie is found out. The people raising the ruckus about the whole case are hard to sympathize with, too, since 1) they are trying to force their values on other people, 2) they are making things worse for both the husband and wife, 3) if the court were to rule so as to try to make them happy, they would be promoting lying and marrying under false pretenses, and 4) they come off making it sound like premarital sex is a virtue.)
  
• “Self-Destructing DVDs Make a Comeback”
  
• “Minn. city sets reward for legendary creature”
  
• “Report: Palestinian textbooks portray Jews badly”
  
• “Canada offers cash and bicycles for scrapped cars”
  
• “Sudan Officials Implicated in Attacks” (You think?)
  
• “Yo Quiero Asthma Cure”

Today’s weird thing, courtesy of Nancy, is “When seafood”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

1 Siwan 5768: Ro’sh Ḥodhesh/Day 45 of the ‘Omer/National Tailors Day/International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression/Clean Air Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Fix or ditch the global warming bill.”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Olmert and the Envelopes of Cash”
  
• “Sheik Yassin returns to Gaza (1998)”
  
• “New Images: Milky Way Loses Two Arms ” (This is not the tragedy it sounds like it could be.)
  
• “From Time Immemorial”
  
• “China blocks quake school protesters” (Submitted by Barry.)
  
• “Antibacterial wipes can spread superbugs: study” (As if antibacterial soap creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria was not ironic enough.)
  
• “Hospitals Auction Patients' Unpaid Medical Debt Online” (Somehow this disturbs me.)
  
• “Words of warning to the West”
  
• “Search For Titanic Really Was Cover-Up Mission”

Today’s weird thing is the CompuBeaver Casemod, perfect for fans of Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

29 ’Iyyar 5768: Day 44 of the ‘Omer/National Doughnut Day/Egg Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Bring the Foreign Assistance Act into the 21st Century”.

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “Sloths Not as Lazy as Thought”
  
• “New Mini-Planet Is Lightweight Champ ”
  
• “Texas children roped into Islamic training”
  
• “Senate votes to begin global warming debate”
  
• “EcoGeeks get all the girls”
  
• “Diagnostic Dilemmas”
  
• “Mow your lawn... or risk jail time in Canton, Ohio” (You would think a government would have better things to worry about.)

Today’s weird thing, courtesy of Barry, is Alternative Acoustic VioLynn. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

28 ’Iyyar 5768: Day 43 of the ‘Omer/Yell “Fudge” at Cobras in North America Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day, courtesy of Barry: “Protect the British Virgin Islands Marine Area From Development”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Olmert Survives”
  
• “Islamic fanatics in Jakarta break up rally promoting religious tolerance” (I think this speaks for itself.)
  
• “Iowa man says he planned to compost pot, not smoke” (Very strange excuse.)

Today’s weird thing is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

27 ’Iyyar 5768: Day 42 of the ‘Omer/International Children’s Day/Doughnut Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Make Mainstream Media Answer for Spreading Propaganda”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “What the CIA Learned From Get Smart”
  
• “Full Disclosure and why Vendors Hate it”
  
• “More Young People Going Without Health Insurance”
  
• “Which U.S. Cities Contribute Most to Global Warming?”
  
• “Uncontacted tribe photographed near Brazil-Peru border”
  

Today’s weird thing is the Etch-A-Sketch Clock. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron