Monthly Archives: October 2006

Protecting Us…

This entry was posted in al Qaeda bush administration Humor War on Terrorism on by

…from mass destruction math instruction:

New York October 19
A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carryingweapons of math instruction.
“Al-gebra is a problem for us,” Gonzalez said. “They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns,’ but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ‘There are 3 sides to every triangle.’
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.” White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President during his entire administration.

Blatently stolen from a mailing list.

The Eye of Mordor is Upon You

This entry was posted in bush administration on by

According to rick santorum:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

“It’s being drawn to Iraq and it’s not being drawn to the U.S.,” Santorum continued. “You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don’t want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

James Joyner notes:

I’ve got to admit, I’d never thought of it that way before. . . .

…..

It increasingly appears that Santorum’s Yoda-like wisdom will have to come from the sidelines,…

There are a lot of other folks that will not see this quite the way that santorum would like and, unfortunately, his wisdom is anything but Yoda-like.

The eyes that were drawn to Iraq 5 years ago pretty much all lived in Washington, DC. So I suppose this makes sense if santorum is equating Mordor with the US.

Many of us also would prefer that those eyes do not dwell often on the United States. Alas, even as they have put Americans in harms way, created chaos and death in Iraq, allowed Americans to torture others, etc., their eyes have not strayed far from home. They have had time to bring us the patriot act, the military commisions act and a myriad of other encroachments on the Constitution, liberty and freedom of the American people.

Update (10/20): Colbert agrees that santorum must be equating Morder with the US.

A Commercial History of the Personal Computer

This entry was posted in Culture Marketing Technology on by

If you haven’t already seen this go now to A Brief History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Adds put together with commentary by Harry McCracken at PC World’s Techblog!

It’s been said that the average American will see two million TV commercials by the time he or she turns 65. Doing some quick math in my head, I believe that means that I’ve seen…well, a terrifyingly large number of commercials for PCs and related products over the past 26 years or so. You too, maybe.

One of the many perversely fascinating things about YouTube is that its users have uploaded a remarkable percentage of those ads to the site, including both famous and obscure examples. Watch enough of them, in the right order, and what you have is a history of the PC in American life.

Well, perhaps you should wait until you get home from workas you might want to spend just a bit too much time watching this fascinating collection of commercials.

As cool as many of these ads are Americans might get just a slight feeling of having been short changed if they check out the example of why the author did not include commercials from Europe in his selections:

Q: Where are these commercials from?
A: The U.S., as far as I know. Rule one of European computer commercials: They’re too dirty for American TV.

I don’t agree with the ‘dirty’ description at all but, yes, this one is probably not work friendly.

If You Have Young Children…

This entry was posted in Health Care on by

…turn off the television!

As a final point, although as discussed our results do not definitively prove that early childhood television watching is an important trigger for autism, we believe our results provide sufficient support for the possibility that until further research can be conducted it might be prudent to act as if it were. page 42

You should turn off the TV for your children anyway but this is certainly another great reason to do so.

Via /.Science