Saturday, October 18, 2003
My Halloween tactics...
Friday, October 17, 2003
Which Implants Look Fake?
It's a key question, and Slate have the goods on the question of Which Implants Look Fake? Boy, am I glad to know...
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Cheeky spam
I just love this one:
"STOP E-MAILS LIKE THIS
FORGET SPAM BLOCKERS!
Get SMART Spam Control That Always Delivers The Email You Want!
Finally, we discovered the ultimate solution that is guaranteed to stop all spam
without losing any of your important email! This revolutionary advanced technology
also protects you 100% against ALL email-borne viruses - both known and unknown.
We didn't beleive it either until we actually tried it. So you be the judge and see for yourself.
Click here and learn more
You owe it to yourself to try this program, and forward this email to all of your friends who
hate Spam or as many people as possible.
We are strongly against sending unsolicited emails to those who do not wish to receive
our special mailings. You have opted in to one or more of our affiliate sites requesting to
be notified of any special offers we may run from time to time. We also have attained the
services of an independent 3rd party to overlook list management and removal services.
This is NOT unsolicited email. If you do not wish to receive further mailings, please
click here to be removed from the list. Please accept our apologies if you have been sent
this email in error. We honor all removal requests"
How self-knowing...
"STOP E-MAILS LIKE THIS
FORGET SPAM BLOCKERS!
Get SMART Spam Control That Always Delivers The Email You Want!
Finally, we discovered the ultimate solution that is guaranteed to stop all spam
without losing any of your important email! This revolutionary advanced technology
also protects you 100% against ALL email-borne viruses - both known and unknown.
We didn't beleive it either until we actually tried it. So you be the judge and see for yourself.
Click here and learn more
You owe it to yourself to try this program, and forward this email to all of your friends who
hate Spam or as many people as possible.
We are strongly against sending unsolicited emails to those who do not wish to receive
our special mailings. You have opted in to one or more of our affiliate sites requesting to
be notified of any special offers we may run from time to time. We also have attained the
services of an independent 3rd party to overlook list management and removal services.
This is NOT unsolicited email. If you do not wish to receive further mailings, please
click here to be removed from the list. Please accept our apologies if you have been sent
this email in error. We honor all removal requests"
How self-knowing...
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
For lovers of paleolinguistics
Or near enough, anyway - the evolution of various alphabet systems, in animated formats.
Who Wants to Marry a Founding Father?
Yes, it's the question on everyone's lips - Who Wants to Marry a Founding Father?
Via Memepool, source of the next couple of bits of nonsense.
Via Memepool, source of the next couple of bits of nonsense.
Tatchell wins! D'oh....
Set aside ANY issue of whether gays can be "turned" straight, the details of the research, etc. Just consider this extract:
"So Professor Robert Spitzer was expecting a certain amount of flak when his study of 200 homosexuals claimed last week that most of them had experienced a change in their sexuality through therapy. “I guess there’s something in me that is drawn to controversy,” he says.
Gay organisations duly obliged him. Stonewall condemned the research as dangerous nonsense. “There’s no evidence gay people can be ‘cured’ as if it’s some kind of illness,” said a spokesman. Peter Tatchell of OutRage! observed acutely: “It would be interesting to see research on whether straight people can be made to be gay.”"
Is this not proof positive that Tatchell's a liability to his cause? Surely one of the prime arguments used by Stonewall and OutRage! against Section 28, the law that prevented the "teaching of homosexuality" and so (apparently) aspects of sex-ed in schools, surely one of the arguments was people just ARE gay or straight.
I.e. it can't be taught/learnt/brought about through therapy, etc.
And, indeed, this plays a serious role in claims for tolerance - if God makes people gay, where's the problem?
So - if you did research that showed straight people can be made to be gay, as Tatchell claims, and it turned out to be true*, then surely this would a) bring back Section 28 with a vengance, b) increase discrimination against gay people (if it can be taught, it's practically catching), and c) possibly encourage the "therapy for homosexuality" crowd.
All seems like bad news for the gay rights cause, even if it were true* and unremarkable. So perhaps not the best thing to say?
* then it would be an unremarkable finding about the malleability (within limits) of the human condition, and of how much of sexual practice is socially conditioned....
"So Professor Robert Spitzer was expecting a certain amount of flak when his study of 200 homosexuals claimed last week that most of them had experienced a change in their sexuality through therapy. “I guess there’s something in me that is drawn to controversy,” he says.
Gay organisations duly obliged him. Stonewall condemned the research as dangerous nonsense. “There’s no evidence gay people can be ‘cured’ as if it’s some kind of illness,” said a spokesman. Peter Tatchell of OutRage! observed acutely: “It would be interesting to see research on whether straight people can be made to be gay.”"
Is this not proof positive that Tatchell's a liability to his cause? Surely one of the prime arguments used by Stonewall and OutRage! against Section 28, the law that prevented the "teaching of homosexuality" and so (apparently) aspects of sex-ed in schools, surely one of the arguments was people just ARE gay or straight.
I.e. it can't be taught/learnt/brought about through therapy, etc.
And, indeed, this plays a serious role in claims for tolerance - if God makes people gay, where's the problem?
So - if you did research that showed straight people can be made to be gay, as Tatchell claims, and it turned out to be true*, then surely this would a) bring back Section 28 with a vengance, b) increase discrimination against gay people (if it can be taught, it's practically catching), and c) possibly encourage the "therapy for homosexuality" crowd.
All seems like bad news for the gay rights cause, even if it were true* and unremarkable. So perhaps not the best thing to say?
* then it would be an unremarkable finding about the malleability (within limits) of the human condition, and of how much of sexual practice is socially conditioned....
A Gentleman in the round
The wonderful thing about the letters page of The Times is the staggeringly esoteric facts you can discover. Yet I find this a wonderful parable about the benefits of a broad education, particularly of the type furnished by Oxford, and by subjects (such as Classics) that serve as mental training:
"From Mr Anselm Kuhn
Sir, Scientists everywhere will be delighted at the well-deserved award of a Nobel prize to the British physicist, Anthony Leggett. Though his work is known and admired by his peers, Leggett has another unusual achievement to his credit.
As an Oxford undergraduate, at Balliol, he obtained a First in Greats. Spurred on, perhaps, by the dictum, well-known at Oxford, “the Greats man can turn his mind to anything”, an experiment was set up by the college in which he and one or two others agreed to take part. Was it possible to convert a classicist, with minimal maths or science qualifications, into a physicist? In Leggett’s case at least, we have the answer. Greats men, too, will find reason to rejoice at his achievement.
Yours faithfully,
ANSELM KUHN,
PO Box 70, Stevenage,
Hertfordshire SG1 4DF."
"From Mr Anselm Kuhn
Sir, Scientists everywhere will be delighted at the well-deserved award of a Nobel prize to the British physicist, Anthony Leggett. Though his work is known and admired by his peers, Leggett has another unusual achievement to his credit.
As an Oxford undergraduate, at Balliol, he obtained a First in Greats. Spurred on, perhaps, by the dictum, well-known at Oxford, “the Greats man can turn his mind to anything”, an experiment was set up by the college in which he and one or two others agreed to take part. Was it possible to convert a classicist, with minimal maths or science qualifications, into a physicist? In Leggett’s case at least, we have the answer. Greats men, too, will find reason to rejoice at his achievement.
Yours faithfully,
ANSELM KUHN,
PO Box 70, Stevenage,
Hertfordshire SG1 4DF."
Monday, October 13, 2003
Tipping competition
Norm Geras, whose blog has great leftish political commentary and polsci thought too has a RWC tipping comp up. Go play
"Please have a go by sending in your answers to these four questions: a) which nation will win? b) first tie-breaker, which nation will be the other finalist? c) second tie-breaker, what will be the points margin between them in the final? d) third tie-breaker, who will the other two semi-finalists be?"
Cash prizes are involved, I hear.
Contact him at normblog at yahoo dot co dot uk.
"Please have a go by sending in your answers to these four questions: a) which nation will win? b) first tie-breaker, which nation will be the other finalist? c) second tie-breaker, what will be the points margin between them in the final? d) third tie-breaker, who will the other two semi-finalists be?"
Cash prizes are involved, I hear.
Contact him at normblog at yahoo dot co dot uk.
