Archive for September 2010
Putting the “bust-er” in filibuster…
The Taiwanese Parliament, upholding the tradition that won it the igNobel Peace Prize in 1995, when their citation read:
The Taiwan National Parliament, for demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations.
As we prepare for the weigh-ins before the November elections, we might recall that it was on this date in in 1938 that Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact– and sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany. Back in Britain, Chamberlain declared that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.”
Rather, by formally ceding the Sudentenland, the Pact granted Hitler and the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power, and thus, in short order, control of all of Czechoslovakia– which, by the time Poland was invaded, a year later, had disappeared as an independent nation.
Chamberlain, who had thought Hitler’s territorial demands were “not unreasonable,” and Hitler, a “gentleman,” was ruined as a political leader. He was hounded from office, to be replaced by Winston Churchill who later observed, relevantly to both subjects of this missive:
Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
– speech in the House of Commons (November 11, 1947)
Hitting ’em where they ain’t…
The folks at Really Magazine have a bone to pick with Google and it’s Page Rank Algorithm, which determines the results that a search yields:
It is of course pure folly. It works by pushing up the pages which are already popular and have lots of links to them. Although it is patented, there is and never was absolutely nothing new about it. It is just a computerized feedback version of ‘The rich get richer’ or ‘Nothing succeeds like success’ – which we all know too well.
full article
By way of remedy, Really commissioned Inframutt, which “is trained to automatically fetch and display the least popular results for any given search page.”
Try it here.
As we marvel at the ways in which democracy can seem positively random, we might recall that it was on this date in 1994 that the first phase of jury selection in the O.J. Simpson murder trial was completed (304 potential jurors were chosen). It was exactly one year later– on this date in 1995– that the case was sent to the jury for deliberation.
I, for one, have always wanted to know…
Readers will know the Large Hadron Collider, the massive particle accelerator built to answer such questions as “Is there a ‘God Particle” (Higgs Boson)?” The LHC accelerates two counter-rotating beams of protons to nearly the speed of light and then brings them into collision inside giant, cathedral-sized detectors that study the subatomic debris that comes flying outward. The folks at CERN, who operate the LHC, hold the world’s record for the highest energies ever achieved: the collisions of more than 10 billion protons per bunch at a total energy of 2.36 trillion electron volts, or TeV, per collision.
But the LHC raises as many questions as it hopes to answer…
Who hasn’t wondered, for example, what happens if one puts one’s hand in front of the beam? Happily (if not conclusively), the folks at Sixty Symbols have gathered some answers:
As we think hard about wearing gloves, we might recall that it was on this date in 1969 that a number of meteor fragments fell near Murchison, in Victoria, Australia. Analysis of the fragments has identified over 14,000 compounds in the carbonaceous chondrite; almost 100 of them, different amino acids, only 19 of which are found on earth… encouraging proponents of “panspermia”– the proposition that life on earth was “jump-started” when key ingredients in the primordial soup dropped in from the Heavens.
Don’t we all?…
Hi, my name’s Trevor, and I look like Barack Obama. I’ve had lots of people stop me on the streets, ask me about taxes and healthcare and things like that, and I thought I’d create a website to clarify that I am, in fact, NOT Barack Obama. Please note:
1. I am NOT Barack Obama, we just look alike.
2. We are not in any way related (to the best of my knowledge).
3. I am not the president of the United States.
So please, if you see me on the street, don’t come up to me asking if I’m Barack Obama. I’m not. He has bodyguards and dresses better. If you’re walking down the street, and think you see Barack Obama, WAIT, do not go up to him, because it might just be me…The resemblance is not only skin deep. We have many non-physical similarities. Barack wanted to be president. I have wanted to be president. Barack used to live in Chicago. I live in Chicago. Barack went to college. I went to college. Barack was a senator. I was a patrol leader in the boy scouts.
But then, there are many physical similarities. We’re both approximately the same height, different by only a few inches. Our hair is about the same length, though he curls his hair so it’s hard to tell.
Let’s look at our faces. Overall, our faces are about the same. Same number of eyes, noses, ears. But let’s look deeper. Let’s look at the facial structure.
I drew all sorts of lines all over the images to make it look like facial recognition stuff. Notice how similar the lines are! It’s not just coincidence! We really look alike.
More amazement at I Look Like Barack Obama.
As we remind ourselves that no two snowflakes are exactly alike, we might recall that it was on this date in 1964 that The Warren Commission released its report (three days after presenting it to President Johnson), concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President John F. Kennedy, and that that was all there was to it.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; this is your Captain screaming…
Bruce Dickinson is known for belting out “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter,” “Die With Your Boots On,” and “Holy Smoke.” So who better to become head of marketing at an airline business than the Iron Maiden frontman known as The Air-Raid Siren?
Mr Dickinson, 51, has landed the job at the Gatwick-based Astraeus Airlines, which leases planes and crews to carriers including British Airways, BMI and easyJet… He is already well known to Astraeus. Between gigs, Mr Dickinson flies its aircraft – running up 7,000 hours on Boeing 737 and 757 jets.
Read the full story in The Telegraph (and learn of Dickinson’s humanitarian relief flights here).
Dickinson and Iron Maiden, “Tailgunner”
As we buckle our seat belts, we might recall that it was on this date in 1990 that the Motion Picture Association of America replaced it’s “X” rating with “NC-17.” The MPAA’s (self-regulated) film rating system was created in 1968 to replace the Hays Code, which had been in force since the 30’s; the original version of the ratings assigned an “X” to films with content deemed to strong for non-adult audiences– e.g., Midnight Cowboy, Last Tango in Paris. But with the rise of the pornography industry, which often released its films with “X” (or “XXX”) badges, the “X” became synonymous with smut. When newspapers began to refuse to carry ads for any film with an “X” rating, films like The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer found it very hard, their positive reviews notwithstanding, to get release. And so, the MPAA jettisoned the “X.” Henry and June was the first film to be released with an NC-17 rating.
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