The BLOG: January 2005

Purple Fingers of Freedom

In much the same way P. Diddy's, 'Vote Or Die' campaign failed in the US election, the terrorists', 'Vote And Die' campaign failed in Iraq, too.

Iraqis voted in large numbers...breaking a barrier of fear.

Iraqi Election Montage

Set to Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man", this montage of photos of the election in Iraq is a must see... here
(It isn't an active blog, but click on adamkeiperblogs.com & you will be transported to the video)

Send it to all the naysayer liberals in your life
...the ones who never wanted us to go to Iraq, & now want the US to cut & run.

You know, the ones who love the smell of quagmire in the morning.

[The BLOG tip o'the hat to Michelle Malkin for bringing it to my attention]

Pull My Finger?

Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer speaks to the media in Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Yawer urged all Iraqis to vote, adding that he planned to vote just as soon as he wiped off the chocolate syrup from his finger.

Challenger: In Memorium

Dick Scobee
Michael Smith
Ellison Onizuka
Judith Resnik
Ron McNair
Greg Jarvis
Christa McAuliffe — died in the fiery fall on Jan. 28, 1986.

The 19 years have flown by but I haven't forgotten.

Hello Hanoi Kitty

Bombshells are on the way from Jane Fonda's new book, "My Life...So Far", which is under complete embargo until April.

Rumor has it that she devotes several scathing chapters to the rigors of living with ex-husband Ted Turner & his mental illness, facistomentia.

Low Prozac Levels

At the opening session of the National Association for Television Programming Executives, Ted Turner called FOX an arm of the Bush administration and compared FOXNEWS's popularity to Hitler's popular election to run Germany before WWII.

Flashback to 1996 when Turner compared Fox head, Rupert Murdoch to Hitler. Notice a pattern?

Sadly, this is another example of Mr. Turner's rare psychiatric disorder, fascistomentia, a mental illness characterized by delusions of fascism in places where it doesn't exist. For example, the facistomentated patient would look upon the innocuous cartoon character, Hello Kitty, as something like this:

[note: the photo is quite small, but it depicts a cat wearing a Nazi armband threatening a fish with 220 volts because it refuses to talk.]
It is sad, indeed...
Fortunately, there is hope for Mr. Turner's mental illness...a higher dose of Prozac should do the trick.

Height Site

How do you measure up?

Find out here

Statistical Distributions

Recent remarks by Harvard University President, Lawrence H. Summers have touched off an angry response from many Harvard professors, including members of a committee on women's issues, when he mentioned one possible hypothesis explaining the paucity of women in science.

Professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT, an attendee of the lecture, told the Boston Globe (and the New York Times, The Today Show, and anyone else who would listen) that she had to leave Summers' lecture because if she didn't, she would have "either blacked out or thrown up."

In an email exchange with The Crimson here, Johnston Professor of Psychology, Steven Pinker, attempts to explain the hypothesis & how every one of Summers' critics have misunderstood it . According to Pinker, Summers never said all men are better @ quantitative abilities than all women, although the firestorm surrounding the remarks might lead one to believe that he did.

In fact, the scientific consensus is that there are innate cognitive differences between men and women — as groups. Individual men and women can be geniuses or morons (though the data suggest that men tend to produce more of both than women).

My favorite quote from Professor Pinker came when The Crimson asked him if he personally found President Summers' remarks to be offensive, and Pinker replied, "Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is “offensive” even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry."

Professor Hopkins' emotional response to the lecture does make her appear incapable of rational, scientific analysis. In fact, she single-handedly does more to enhance the stereotype of the hysterical woman than any intellectual study, whether scientifically rigorous or not, could do in a month of Sundays.

Hopkins' views harken back to the Victorian era when women got the vapors at the drop of a hat & had to retire to their beds. Sticking your fingers in your ears & childishly refusing to listen to opposing viewpoints is equally ridiculous & hardly my idea of a modern day professor who should be able to marshall data & formulate arguments to bolster his or her position. Perhaps a refresher course in statistical distributions would help Professor Hopkins reign in her emotions and gather her thoughts.

The larger point here, and one that Professor Pinker does a good job of elucidating, is that left leaning, political correctness has no business intimidating intellectual curiousity in academia, and most especially not in the sciences.

Don't Worry...Be Happy

According to U.K. psychologist, Dr. Cliff Arnall, January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. Arnall who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff, Wales, created a formula... here ... & his calculations show that the misery peaks today.

O-Kay...be miserable if you like.

The BLOG prefers Abraham Lincoln's point of view:

"People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

So... be happy. Life is good.

Dissenting Votes

Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-2 in favor of confirming Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts were the 2 dissenting voters on the committee.

Cox and Forkum Editorial Cartoons has a humorous take on it here .

A Small Step For Antimatter...

Antimatter has fueled the imaginations of science fiction enthusiasts for decades, but in reality only miniscule quantities of it have been isolated. In the January 21st, American Physical Society Journal, Physical Review Letters, Japanese researchers describe isolating more antimatter than ever before. Their technique trapped 50 times as many antiprotons from high energy collisions as previous methods could.

Researchers have isolated more antimatter than ever before by corralling over a million antiprotons in an atom trap. They may make possible new precision measurements of basic laws of physics, but probably not for fueling an antimatter engine, which NASA imagines using in a future spaceship.

OK, its not enough for a warp drive yet... but its a start.

Die, Aqualad, Die

Would Starfire and Raven swoon over Aqualad if they knew the voice behind the cartoon is... Wil Wheaton a.k.a. Wesley Crusher?

I think not!

No wonder I was rooting for Beast Boy to kick Aqualad's butt.

Four More Years!

Godspeed, Mr. President.

Tsk, Tsk, Sidney

O.J. Simpson's daughter was arrested after she refused to stop yelling at police officers called about a fight outside a basketball game involving her old prep school team, police said.

Sydney Brooke Simpson, 19, was charged Saturday with resisting arrest without violence, punishable by up to a year in jail, and disorderly conduct, which carries a possible 60-day jail sentence.

While she was being placed into custody, she slapped another officer's hand, leading to the resisting arrest charge, the report said.

Two teenage girls told police that Simpson hit them in the face. Karina Van Ginkel, 16, and Simone Weissman, 17, refused to press battery charges.

The fear of having Sidney's father sneak up behind them & stab them with a large knife & nearly hack off their respective heads played no part in their refusal to press battery charges, the two girls added nervously.

Poe Toaster Strikes Again

For the 56th time, a devoted fan of Edgar Allen Poe has commemorated Poe's birthday by leaving 3 roses & a half a bottle of cognac at the writer's grave...inside a locked cemetary at the corner of Fayette & Greene in Baltimore.

Now that is devotion.

[Note: I would've included a photo of the gravesite, however, The BLOG is still
photo-challenged.]

Amber Overdose

Amber Frey has been giving interviews to anyone & everyone with a microphone lately.
Enough already.

Today, CBS announced that it has bought the rights to make a TV movie based on Frey's
book, "Witness: For The Prosecution of Scott Peterson".

Bela Bajaria, a CBS senior vice president, said, "Having the rights to her life story, as well as her book, provides an opportunity to tell new dimensions of the story & give viewers a personal look into one of the most notorious crimes of the past decade."

...opportunity to tell new dimensions of the story? Hmmm...I wonder if that will include forgeries & fabrications, too.

Miss Beazley Arrives At White House

President George W. Bush and Laura Bush received Miss Beazley, their new Scottish Terrier puppy, from breeder Bill Berry on the South Lawn of the White House Jan. 6, 2005. Miss Beazley is a birthday present from the President to Mrs. Bush. Beginning life at the White House in proper fashion, Miss Beazley's started her first day with a press conference.

The BLOG is still photo-impaired, but pictures of the new pup can be seen at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/barneybeazley/index.html

Administrative Note

The BLOG has been experiencing technical difficulties lately.

I have been unable to post photos which are an integral part of this blog.

Anyway, I'm working on the problem & I hope to have it fixed sooner rather than later.