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Makes sense

Ferrari 360 Modena.

I'm a Ferrari 360 Modena!

You've got it all. Power, passion, precision, and style. You're sensuous, exotic, and temperamental. Sure, you're expensive and high-maintenance, but you're worth it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

The Evil Villain Test

The Joker You scored 58 % maniacal, 44 %intelligent, and 47% power!

Completely insane! That's what you are, just like the Joker. But he is also very witty and intelligent. He has a very demented, yet creative view on life. He's always the one with the good comebacks, and the kind that make you think too.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 91% on maniacal You scored higher than 2% on intelligent You scored higher than 54% on power

Link: The Evil Villain Test written by Reiryu on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

The Onion - Funny At Last!

Wal-Mart P.R.:

Legal Writing Highlights

A boy throws a stone into a pond. 
The ripples spread.
The water level rises. 
The history of that pond is altered to all eternity. 
It will be altered by other causes also. 

Yet it will be forever the resultant of all causes combined. 
Each one will have an influence. 
How great only omniscience can say. 
You may speak of a chain, or if you please, a net.
An analogy is of little aid.   

Each cause brings about future events. 
Without each the future would not be the same. 
Each is proximate in the sense it is essential. 
But that is not what we mean by the word. 
Nor on the other hand do we mean sole cause. 
There is no such thing.

Justice Andrews' dissent in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339 (1928).

Cheeky Bastards!

Although the British have a well known and deserved reputation for going abroad and stealing whatever they can from "the Natives", it turns out that Limeys aren't so, well, Victorian, anymore. Especially when they travel the peaceful countryside of Austria, reports AFP.

British tourists have left the residents of one charming Austrian village effing and blinding by constantly stealing the signs for their oddly-named village.

While British visitors are finding it hilarious, the residents of F---ing are failing to see the funny side, The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported.

Only one kind of criminal ever stalks the sleepy 32-house village near Salzburg on the German border -- cheeky British tourists armed with a sense of humour and a screwdriver.

But the local authorities are hitting back and with the signs now set in concrete, police chief Kommandant Schmidtberger is on the lookout.

"We will not stand for the F---ing signs being removed," the officer told the broadsheet.

"It may be very amusing for you British, but F---ing is simply F---ing to us. What is this big F---ing joke? It is puerile."

Local guide Andreas Behmueller said it was only the British that had a fixation with F---ing.

"The Germans all want to see the Mozart house in Salzburg," he explained.

"Every American seems to care only about 'The Sound of Music' (the 1965 film shot around Salzburg). The occasional Japanese wants to see Hitler's birthplace in Braunau.

"But for the British, it's all about F---ing."

Guesthouse boss Augustina Lindlbauer described the village's breathtaking lakes, forests and vistas.

"Yet still there is this obsession with F---ing," she said.

"Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards."

A little bilingual humor

More inbox fun, this time from El Hermano Lejano:

Un ricachón conoció a una joven muy linda pero con muy poca  cultura. (En otras palabras, muuuy tonta.) Luego de poca conversación y muchos tragos pasaron una noche apasionada de máximo placer y al día siguiente el ricachón le dijo a la humilde muchacha:

Mamita estoy muy agradecido contigo, pídeme lo que sea que yo te lo doy.

Ella dijo: Dame una flor.

El ricachón se conmueve y piensa: ¡Qué ternura!, ¡Cuánta humildad!, Y le pregunta a la muchacha:

¿Sólo eso? ¿Cómo la quieres?, ¿Una rosa, un clavel?

La muchacha le contesta: -No!!!!! Quiero una FLOR Esplorer 4 x 4 dil 2005 con dibidi y musica de sidi!!

A Compromise Position?

Comes to us via TCS, where Frederick Turner advances the idea of "Divine Evolution":

We now know that nonlinear dynamical systems -- essentially, systems whose elements all cause and control each other's actions, and in which a single line of cause and effect is impossible to untangle -- have "strange attractors". Strange attractors are graphically demonstrable forms that govern the evolution of the dynamical system, but do it in a way that is not predictable. Some attractors, like the Lorenz attractor, govern lots of very different dynamical systems, from dripping faucets to the rotation of star clusters. Living organisms are highly complex dynamical systems, combining in their operation many hierarchical levels of different attractors, with a grand super-attractor that is unique to each species. That attractor can be seen at work in embryonic and fetal development and maturation, where the proteins specified by the genes self-assemble into the adult organism. A much swifter form of self-assembly, but of the same kind, takes place in the brain when the nonlinear dynamical system of the neurons, connected by continually-adjusting synaptic gates, comes up with an idea or a memory.

The self-assembly is not constrained to take a single path, but can take many branching alternatives while still being constrained by a general goal. Such systems are the home of the butterfly effect, where measurably the same situation can give rise to many different paths of development. Strange attractors, when graphically represented, are invariably beautiful to the human eye, with their fractal depth and inexhaustible variation upon a theme. Many have seen pictures of the whorls and paisleys of the Mandelbrot Set. Such attractors are impossible to ever fully plot out, and so are infinite in their own way.

In a sense the attractors preexist the dynamical systems they govern. Even before there were globular star-clusters and dripping faucets, the fractal form of the star orbits and drip-sequences was already inherent in nature. Even before there were plesiosaurs and dolphins and seals and penguins, the strange attractors of airbreathing marine fauna were already inherent in nature. Even before we thought these thoughts, the incredibly complex and unique dance of neuronal firings and chemical reactions that embody them was already waiting in nature's wings. If we insist, as the physicists do, that our universe began with certain fundamental constants -- the speed of light, Planck's constant, etc -- it must also have begun with the whole suite of strange attractors of species and even thoughts, past, present and future.

This conception might be called natural providence, and it has some appealing features from a theological point of view. Whereas classical linear cause and effect "pushes" events into happening, enforces them, attractors "pull" or invite them to happen; what happens next is only one of a number of possible outcomes for the system at that moment -- in effect, choice is built into the physical world. This view of things suggests that if there are divine intentions working themselves out, they are incarnate within nature itself. It brings the will of God into the most intimate recesses of our bodies. And yet it does not constrain belief in God -- a hugely important criterion in the Bible, at least, since we must be free to choose to believe. For we can always dismiss the whole process as merely a natural phenomenon.

Oh Captains, My Captains

Discovered this via, a here-to-fore-unknown-to-me site, SwirlSpice, who is "Internet Famous"

First attempt:

Take the Star Trek Quiz

Captain Jean-Luc Picard             
Always in control, you are a great leader, deligator, and diplomat. These qualities attract people to you, and this sometimes annoys you.
Aloof, introspective, and philosophical; you enjoy quiet time in solitude.

 

               

Second attempt:

Take the Star Trek Quiz

Captain James T. Kirk
Charasmatic tatical leader/ egotistical womanizer. Your arrogant cowboy mentality is forgiven because of your deep concern for those close to you.
Your middle name is Tiberius.

 

               

In Memorium

Inbox Fun

This came via e-mail today.

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU THINK

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during January....

In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January.

That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire War torn country of Iraq.

When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following.

Speciation & Set Trippin'

Scientists have announced a breakthrough, as a Butterfly unlocks evolution secret.

Given our planet's rich biodiversity, "speciation" clearly happens regularly, but scientists cannot quite pinpoint the driving forces behind it.

Now, researchers studying a family of butterflies think they have witnessed a subtle process, which could be forcing a wedge between newly formed species.

The team, from Harvard University, US, discovered that closely related species living in the same geographical space displayed unusually distinct wing markings.

These wing colours apparently evolved as a sort of "team strip", allowing butterflies to easily identify the species of a potential mate.

This process, called "reinforcement", prevents closely related species from interbreeding thus driving them further apart genetically and promoting speciation.

(snip)

The Harvard team made the discovery while studying the butterfly genus Agrodiaetus, which has a wide ranging habitat in Asia.

The females are brown while the males exhibit a variety of wing colours ranging from silver and blue to brown.

Dr Kandul and his colleagues found that if closely related species of Agrodiaetus are geographically separate, they tend to look quite similar. That is to say, they do not display a distinctive "team strip".

But if similarly closely related species are living side-by-side, the researchers noticed, they frequently look strikingly different - their "teams" are clearly advertised.

This has the effect of discouraging inter-species mating, thus encouraging genetic isolation and species divergence.

"This butterfly study presents evidence that the differences in the male's wing colouration is stronger [when the species share a habitat] than [when they do not]," said the speciation expert Axel Meyer, from Konstanz University in Germany.

"This pattern would therefore support the interpretation that it was brought about by reinforcement, hence natural selection."

There is still no word yet, on how much speciation is responsible for Crips and Bloods, Norteños and Sureños, or even power ties, toupees, and Camaros.

Well that explains...

His boyish good looks.

LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair has spent more than 1,800 pounds (US$3,130) of taxpayers' money on makeup and cosmetic artists over the past six years, according to the government.

Tradition in an Age of Rationalization

I love the Wall Street Journal, and not just because I'm a capitalist swine.  No, I love them because, more than other news outlest, they eschew he-said-she-said journalism or I'm-right-dumbass-becase-I've-got-a-bigger-soapbox-than-you editorializing and rise to a level of intellectually honest and insightful discourse, as illustrated by this excellent piece by Lee Harris, The Future of Tradition:

Each of these wars has its own particular antagonists, each its own weapons of combat, each its own battlefield. But the essential nature of a culture war is invariant: A set of traditional values comes under attack by those who, like the Greek Sophist, the French philosophe and the American intellectual, make their living by their superior proficiency in handling abstract ideas, and promote a radically new and revolutionary set of values. This is precisely what one would expect from those who excel in dispute and argumentation.

In every culture war the existing customs and traditions of a society are called to the bar of reason and ruthlessly interrogated and cross-examined by an intellectual elite asking whether they can be rationally justified or are simply the products of superstition and thus unworthy of being taken seriously by enlightened men and women.

Indeed, there could be no better example of this disdainful attitude toward inherited tradition than that displayed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in discussing her court's legalization of gay marriage, clearly expressed by her summary dismissal of any opposition to the high court's decision as arising from nothing more than "residual personal prejudice." Against such opposition, it is no wonder that many conservatives--including many of those who call themselves neoconservatives--have attempted to combat the opponents of tradition with their opponents' own weapon of enlightened rationality.

But is it possible to defend tradition with the help of reason? Can a particular tradition be justified by reason? And what if our traditional belief conflicts with reason--can we rationally justify keeping it? Suppose we have been raised in the belief that we must wash our hands before every meal in order to appease a local deity in our pantheon, say, the god of the harvest; and suppose again that we have come to learn of the hygienic benefits of washing our hands before every meal. Must we keep the absurd tradition once we have grasped its scientific rationale? In either case, whether tradition and reason conflict, or tradition is revealed to be reason disguised, reason wins and tradition loses.

Where reason shines forth, then, tradition is no longer necessary. Hence the question before us: In a world that is being more and more rationalized, does tradition have a future? Or will we one day look upon it as we now look upon the myths of the ancient world--quaint and amusing, but of no real relevance to our lives?

Provocative questions.  As they say, read it all -- his conclusions may surprise you.

droll.

how very droll.

Now that we're done "keeping it real", we should do something about the dreaded White Man's Overbite.

GOP & NAACP: Happy Together?

RealClearPolitics posts some of RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's July 14 speech before the NAACP.  We repost bits n' pieces approvingly.

The party of Lincoln and the African American community have a proud history together.

Our party was founded to eliminate slavery, and our first Republican President was Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.

It was the Republican Party that led the effort to pass the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.

We spearheaded the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Morrill Land Grant College Act, which recognized that education and opportunity and property ownership were all essential to the American Dream.

(snip)

The history of the other party is a different one. Democrats were the party of Jim Crow and Democratic filibusters blocked progress for decades.

Despite this history, the Democratic Party by the 1960s had something real and tangible to overcome this legacy. Lyndon Johnson, a Democratic President, signed what in my opinion were the most important laws of the 20th century: the civil rights act, voting rights act, open housing law.

By the 70s and into the 80s and 90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out.

Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican Chairman to tell you we were wrong.

But if my party benefited from racial polarization in the past, it is the Democratic Party that benefits from it today.

I know it is not in my interest as chairman of the Republican Party for close to 90% of African-Americans to vote for the Democrat every election. But more important, it’s not in the interest of African-Americans for 90% to vote for the Democrat every election.

And it’s not healthy for the country for our political parties to be so racially polarized.

African-American voters should have the benefit of a two-party system. In recent years, the Democratic Party, in my judgment, has come to take many African American voters for granted.

Just as the Democrats came to this community in 1964 with something real to offer, today we Republicans have something that should cause you to take another look at the party of Lincoln.

Just last month, Bruce Gordon talked about a wider vision of civil rights. "We've got to get the right emphasis placed on economic equality," he said. "I happen to think that when you have economic stability and equality that often becomes an enabler for social equality."

I couldn’t agree more.

The next step in civil rights is to build on equal treatment under the law to ensure equal opportunity to pursue the American Dream -- equal opportunity in education, equal opportunity in where you live, equal opportunity in making a living, equal opportunity for a secure retirement.

To all Americans who want equal opportunity in America, give us a chance, and we’ll give you a choice.

This message -- give us a chance and we’ll give you a choice—should sound familiar. It’s the same theme that 50 years ago inspired decent Americans like Joe Mehlman to support the work of the NAACP. We’re not asking for folks to embrace all of our policies or to vote for all of our candidates. We’re not asking for agreement on everything or endorsement of our platform. All we’re asking for is a fair hearing, the chance to make our case, the benefit of the doubt that we’re sincere in wanting to renew our historic bonds.

(snip)

Renewing our common bonds is important for the African American community. As my law school classmate and friend and now Senator Barak Obama says, there’s a reason that the farmers usually get what they want in politics. All Americans – white, black, Asian, Hispanic – are better served by having two parties competing for their attention and their support.

The NAACP is too important, your mission too urgent, to be identified with one political party. As we go forward, let’s talk more, and look for more opportunities where we can work together. And when we do disagree—and we will—let’s remember our proud past and what we can accomplish when we work together.

Wrecked 'em? Damn near killed him!

Steyn speaks truth, vii

The only distraction here is the pitiful parochialism of our political culture. .

Those Reckless Bush Tax Cuts

OpinionJournal:

Let's see if we can get this straight: When tax revenues fall and budget deficits go up, it's bad news. But when tax revenues rise and deficits decline, it's still bad news.

At least that seems to be the way a sizable chunk of Washington is reacting to this week's report from the White House budget office that the federal deficit is down by nearly $100 billion this fiscal year, that the deficit as a share of GDP is down to 2.7% (very near its historical average), and that this is all happening because tax receipts are surging by more than 14%. Uncle Sam is having a better year so far than even Paris Hilton, but half of the Beltway is depressed.

John Spratt, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, seems especially upset that this revenue surge isn't coming from wage income, but rather from investment income--that is, the so-called non-withholding income tax collections, which have skyrocketed by some 30% this year. "These are typically taxes paid on one-time capital gains, bonuses, stock-options income that may not recur," he laments.

Well, sure, Congressman, the 2003 reductions in the tax rates on dividends and capital gains seem to be resulting in much higher tax revenues on . . . dividends and capital gains. This is called the Laffer Curve effect, and we thank Mr. Spratt for validating it. If he wants those revenues to "recur," maybe he'll even vote to make those tax cuts permanent.

This revenue surge from investment income also rebuts the mantra that the 2003 tax cuts were a giveaway to the rich. Nearly half of all Americans have some kind of stock ownership, and thus have shared in these gains in investment income. And if most of the extra tax income is coming from capital gains and dividend payments, that would have to mean that the rich in America are paying more taxes, not less, as a result of the 2003 tax cut.

By the way, we don't recall Mr. Spratt and other Democrats lamenting when a similar spike in taxes from investment income was boosting tax revenues to historic heights as a share of GDP during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, as per the nearby chart. Then it was all said to be an economic miracle; now it's a windfall for the wealthy. This selective budget criticism couldn't be related to who's sitting in the White House, could it?

But you'll become a first-class asshole.

Yahoo! News:

PARIS (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac, whose recent comments on British and Finnish cooking provoked a minor diplomatic incident, claimed that French cuisine was part of the reason for the longevity of his compatriots.

"French cooking, it should be given the tribute it is due," he said, arguing that "it has perhaps, certainly, its role in the long life of the French people."

He caused a furore earlier this month when he was overheard saying British cuisine was the worst in the world after Finland's and joking "the only thing they have done for European agriculture is 'mad cow'" at a Franco-German-Russian summit in Russia.

Much Ado About Nothing

If Karl Rove were any other man, he'd be a hero to these people.

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail.

"While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from clear--at least on the public record--that a crime took place," the Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.

(ASIDE:  We should note, at this point, that the underlying logic of the media's argument -- while persuasive to this observer -- ultimately means nothing, because, as we all know, journalists are above the law.)

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush Administration is also guilty on this count, since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided missile, holding reporters in contempt for not disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the time that no underlying crime was at issue.

As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

Yes. That's what they should do.  But they won't.  Because journalism is not an intellectually honest discipline.  Especially not how it is practiced within the Beltway.  The Washington media establishment (and their fellow travelers in the Democratic Party) are calling for Rove's head out of spite and anger (and political opportunism) for looking like fools for buying Wilson's fraud and falling prey to yellowcake fever, but also over the hung-on-their-own-petard "martyrdom" of Judith Miller and Matt Cooper, prompted, you might remember, by the White House Press Corps' calls for a special prosecutor to investigate themselves.

Still, we await the results of the special prosecutor's investigation.  Especially since we are eager to evaluate the degree of disengenousness that characterizes that reporting.