September, 2010 archive
Kompozer HTML Editor 0
Kompozer was one of the tools I used to update my boating website over the past week.
I’ve written a review of it at at Geekazine.
Once More All Over Again 0
Paul Jablow, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, remembers:
Which all goes to show how little changed between the death throes of the segregationist South and today’s Mosque Madness.
Read the whole thing and contemn the demagogues.
Voting Is Not a Right. It Is a Duty. 0
Or we all shall be ruled by whackadoodles.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
3,000 is not such a big deal, but grasping at straws etc. (emphasis added):
Initial jobless claims dropped by 3,000 to 450,000 in the week ended Sept. 11, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast was for a rise to 459,000, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance fell, and those getting extended payments plunged.
Horsing Around 0
I doubt this would work at a public school; no place to park:
It’s not often you see a kid riding his horse to school on the Main Line.
Geeking Out 0
I have updated the my boating website. It’s down the hall, second door on the left (here, there are no doors on the right).
There’s a little in the way of new content, but most of what I did was internal to make it easier to use and compliant with current web standards and practices.
I have converted it to HTML 4.01 with CSS, fixed or deleted broken links, added a few new links, and sharpened up some of the pictures.
Martin’s Mole 0
Ernest C. Withers, celebrated photographer of the Civil Rights movement and intimate of many civil rights leaders is revealed to have been a paid FBI informant.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the story is buried deep inside, that persons trying to make real the vision that
were–and may still be today–considered “subversive”:
Shaun Mullen shares his take on the story at Kiko’s House.
Blue Ridge Blues 0
The local rag finishes up a four-part series on the Blue Ridge Parkway today on the year of the 75th anniversary of the road, reviewing its history and previewing its future.
I have ridden most of the road, not all at once, but in bits and pieces. It would probably take three days to drive the whole thing because of the slow speeds and almost-constant curves
The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Shenandoah Drive combined are easily the most beautiful legacy of the New Deal.
Rather than post the links piecemeal, I decided to wait until the print series was finished; the last piece came out today and is scheduled to hit their website tomorrow.
Read it here.
QOTD 0
O. Henry, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.
Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner 0
Two hours earlier than usual to allow persons to attend Virginia Beach City Council Candidates Forum at 7 p. m. at Thalia Trinity Presbyterian Church, 420 Thalia Road, Virginia Beach
- What: Third Thursday Dinner
- When: September 16th, 5:00 PM
- Where: Kelly’s Hilltop Tavern, 1936 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 (map)
Show up, order off the menu (separate checks), socialize, and talk politics–or whatever else interests you.
I have attended several of these. They tend to be smaller gatherings, highly informal, and a lot of fun.
For more information, email VaBeachBoy@aol.com
Why Do They Lie? 0
WMDs. Trickle-down economics. Birtherism. And so on.
Why? Because “Making the rich richer and the poor poorer” is probably not a vote-getter.
John H. Richardson theorizes:
I have two theories about this. One is that the conservative intelligentsia is deliberately training the Republican base to be irrational. I can almost see them chortling: “If we can get them to believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, we can get them to believe anything!”
But while this theory provides a little consolation, I don’t actually think it’s true. Far more likely is theory No. 2 — that Republicans have lost all confidence in their ability to convince the American people with honest arguments. Their triumphalism about November conceals a stink of desperation.
Read the whole thing. His email exchange with celebrated fabricator Dinesh D’Souza is worth the price of admission by itself.
Via Balloon Juice.
Roger. Out. 0
Now he’s back in again:
Roger, an African sulcata, was last seen by pet store employees about 2 p.m. Friday, sitting on a patch of grass outside the store in the 100 block of Greenbank Road, where he was chomping on grass.
Follow the link for pictures
And We Wonder What’s Wrong 0
Offered without comment:
Children’s wear accounted for 5 percent of Burberry’s 1.28 billion-pound ($2 billion) sales last year and may double to 10 percent “over time” . . . .
QOTD 0
H. L. Mencken, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
Why Vote? 0
Tax Cuts Do Not Stimulate the Economy 0
Bloomberg reports on a study by Moody’s which indicate that they stimulate the rich–stimulate them not to spend their tax cut money. Moody’s, by the way, is hardly a leftist media source:
The findings may weaken arguments by Republicans and some Democrats in Congress who say allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to lapse will prompt them to reduce their spending, harming the economy. President Barack Obama wants to extend the cuts for individuals earning less than $200,000 and couples earning less than $250,000 while ending them for those who earn more.
Follow the link for a summary of the actual numbers.
Why Science Reporting Stinks 0
Because it doesn’t tell enough and it misses the point.
Case in point missed:
The Daily Progress reports on a study by the University of Virginia in conjunction with the Dial Soap people. The study purports to prove that alcohol hand sanitizers–the kind the everyone set out in the waiting room last flu season–aren’t very effective against colds and flu.
Here’s the two crucial pieces from the Daily Progress story:
(and the last paragraph)
Turner said his findings aren’t cause for panic. He said studies have shown that hand sanitizer is effective for gastrointestinal diseases, particularly in the developing world. According to a 2002 CDC study, sanitizers did a better job reducing bacteria on hands than did antibacterial soap.
The Daily Progress is the hometown paper for Charlottesville, Va., the site of the University of Virginia. The version that went out over the wires is much shorter, more like this.
To evaluate this, the reader needs to know how large the sample was. The results are given in pseudo-percentages, such as “42 our of 100.” A someone skimming the story could conclude that 100 persons were in the sample, but that’s neither stated nor implied under a careful reading.
I also find the conclusion questionable. Here’s the lead from the Daily Progress and most wire versions I’ve found:
Using alcohol-based hand sanitizer doesn’t significantly decrease how often someone is infected with a cold or flu, a University of Virginia study has found.
Look at the figures: the incidents of colds was reduced by 9 per 100, to use the story’s construct. That’s 18%. Given the pervalence of colds, that’s not insignificant.
The incidence of flu was reduced from 15 per 100 to 12 per 100. Let’s do the math:
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3 case reduction divided by 15 cases in control group = 20%
Again, not an insignificant reduction.
I suspect that the stories are based on a UVa press release; I haven’t looked for it and it’s not the issue any way. The issue is that the numbers do not support the headlines. If the headlines are based on the wording of press release, reporters ought to have done the math and pressed (heh) for more information.
Frankly, an ad campaign that X may reduce your chance of catching the common cold by 20% would be a pretty good ad campaign, especially if it didn’t include fully dressed people in bath tubs.
Full Disclosure: I don’t commonly use alcohol hand sanitizers unless I’m visiting someone in the hospital, something I fortunately haven’t had to do lately.
No Village Should Be without Its Idiot 0
Gainesville, Florida, has found theirs. Leonard Pitts, Jr.:
As this case makes oppressively clear, the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle have evolved an analog to the terrorist veto. Call it the idiot veto — the ability of a single obscure malcontent, powerless but for his willingness to do some outrageous thing, to make himself heard at the highest level of geopolitics and force his way upon the international stage.
Two weeks ago, no one had ever heard of Jones, podunk pastor of a tiny church — 50 members — in Gainesville, Fla. Twenty years ago, his proclaimed intention to burn the Quran might have gotten him a few minutes on the rump end of the local TV newscast.
“Man bites dog is news,” because it’s unusual.
“Some persons are idiots is not news,” because a certain percentage of the populace will always be idiots.
It is a law of nature. When
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K = the symbol for constant and
- i = idiocy,
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Ki= the Idiocy Constant of Human Nature.
Corollary to the Idiocy Constant:
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Do not try to make anything idiot-proof. God will simply make a new and better idiot.
All seriousness aside, it’s persons like Mr. Mustache Jones who make me ashamed to call myself “Christian.”
