Monovesrity

American society is enamored with the idea of diversity, but we can't make it past the obvious: skin color. Strength in diversity is not a factor of color but rather a function of ideas. Focusing on skin color critically undermines this very important notion. Additionally, the people focusing on reflecting a diversity of skin color throughout all facets of society seek to homogenize our thinking and create an environment where questioning the ideas of others is not allowed if they look different than you.

The most beholdened man on the planet

The president of the US has generally been considered the most powerful man in the US. I disagree. Seeing as millions of people (in election 2004 that would be 50 million) elect the president, he is working for them. Fifty million bosses. I would say the president is the lowest man on any totem pole, anywhere.

Maybe we should let him wear jeans to work...

I've got your old browser support right here

Supporting old browsers removes incentive to upgrade. Along the way we may alienate a few people - and I feel bad for them, really I do - but they obviously made bad choices in their lives. Why should I suffer on their behalf?

The following browsers suck too much and are too old to warrant support*:

• IE5/Mac


• IE5.5 and below/Windows


• Netscape 4


• Netscape 6/7 (really weren't bad browsers, but do you have installations of either in which you test your web sites? You do? Well, you suck.)

Anyone building a web site who consciously strives for backward compatibility with any of the above browsers is an asshole. And if you are seeking web site expertise from someone who claims backward compatibility with any of these browsers, please report them to me and I will see they are dealt with severely.

Thank you.

*Opera 4/5 should be added to this list, but I haven't used them.

Random Mental Detritus

Landfills = littering by proxy

Your mom is so fat...

...she rolled over in New York and woke up in California.

It is just a weed

Once upon a time, everything was a weed. Or, nothing was a weed, since nothing that was not yet not a weed did not exist to define what was a weed.

Vanity

My favorite sin. I think it may be the root cause of everything. Mortgage "crisis"? Vanity. Accounting scandals? Vanity. Problems with your boss? Vanity. Wife? Vanity. Dog? Yeah, vanity there, too.

Think about it. We lead with our egos. And collectively, our egos will lead us off a steep precipice.

Here are some suggestions:

• Admit when you are wrong


• Let someone else be right


• Decide you have enough of something


• Decide it is OK to have less of it than someone else

QOTD

"Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used."
[Haruki Murakami, "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World"]

Briefly...

If the government is the protector and the producer we are, in short order, screwed.

Information is the new opiate of the masses. Too bad critical thinking is no longer requried in order to graduate high school.

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

Except that life usually never gives you sugar, so the lemonade is bitter and angry, and never wants to have sex with you.

Soylent Green is...Sheeple!

People are crying over the economy. After years, decades even, the definition of recession as two successive quarters with negative growth suddenly isn't good enough for Joe and Mary Lunchbox. Well boo-frieking-hoo. I'm sad you made bad choices in your life and you now can't afford to take little Johnny to his special drum circle for 2 year olds. I'm sorry you can't order every dinner from your favorite restaurant instead of cooking at home from scratch. It's too goat-fucking bad that your sorry ass can't get the latest tank-sized SUV from GM because your interest rate on you second mortgage just ballooned, or your credit cards are past due, or whatever chickens you got coming home to roost are suddenly pooping in your corn flakes.
But that got me thinking...Maybe the startlingly rapid rate of information dissemination now makes peoples' feelings a real market force. Perhaps the market, once controlled by old white guys in blue blazers with crests on the pockets, guarding the little black box we call the economy between 3 martini lunches, games of squash, and occasional bath house sodomy parties, is now in the hands of the people.
The people?!?! They are sheep! They need to be led, and in the vacuum of a clear leader, rather than one of them emerging as the new leader we have chaos brought on by too much information. They fire up their favorite browser - you know, the one that comes pre-packaged with their operating system - and they are inundated by headlines proclaiming the end. They lack the mental faculty to sort through the noise and find out what is really going on, and they probably lack the reading comprehension necessary to understand anything above an eighth-grade level. The "truth" is whatever Diane "Brain Donor" Sawyer tells them on Good Morning America, to which they faithfully tune each morning while enjoying Pop Tarts and Kool Aid, the breakfast of the Proletariat.
Look on the bright side: You will die eventually.

and speaking of vegetables...

Someone once said to me, "Maybe I don't think it is OK to eat a living thing." I promptly replied, "Broccoli is alive and you eat it." I know that is not what he meant, but is it not alive? And that got me thinking...
Since everything allegedly started as point of energy and expanded out (the Big Bang), we all started out as the very same thing: Energy. Somewhere along the line that energy evolved into flora and fauna. In fact, sometime earlier than that it had branched, and one of those branches made the stars. So we share a common origin with not just monkeys, but also the sun.

Dinner

My wife is vegan. Here is a recent dinner conversation:
Me: What do you want for dinner?
Wife: Yams, with sliced tomatoes, black beans, and tomatillo salsa.
Me: We don't have any beans.
Wife: Then how about chopped pecans instead.
Me:



(I didn't take a photo, so I Gimp'd up an image.)
The tomatoes are "green zebra" variety. Very delicious.

Think. Post. Repeat. Always repeat.

Matt's Infinite Monkey Corollary - The "blogosphere" is proof that millions of monkeys pounding away 24/7 will eventually repeat everything. Again. And much like the monkeys, they/we/it will be no smarter for it.

But surely God made bacon?

I don't see that a god mutually excludes evolution. In fact, is it even logical that a god would create a universe with laws (gravity, energy laws, aging, natural selection), but start by breaking them? As long and hard as anti-creationist blowhards blow, they still can't - and never will be able to - tell you from where the something that is here came. And as long and hard as Bible-thumpers thump, the best they can come up with is, "Did you read the Bible? Well, there's your answer!"
I've got an answer for you: God created the universe much like I made a fabulous conch stew on a sailing trip to Belize:

Let's see...Start with a rue, saute some onion and garlic...add some, let's check the pantry, yeah, black beans. OK, got some fresh coconut meat, chop that up, add some stock, add salt and pepper, bay leaf, some other stuff around the galley. Let that cook for a while, then add the fresh-from-the-ocean conch, when done finish with some coconut water and let the party begin...

As for the age of the universe, particle physics, cosmology, etc., I refer you to Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black:

Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

We always think we are so smart...

But before I go, I'd like to thank...

...the guy who invented beer.
And the guy who marketed beer. And the guy who delivered the beer; the guy who sold me the beer; the ugly girl who got pretty when I drank the beer; the toilet that took the left-over beer; the harbor to which the toilet sent the left-over beer; the fish that drank the left-over beer; the man that caught the fish; the man who sold the fish; the man who cooked the fish for me, the guy who poured the beer I drank while eating the fish...

Best Movie Ever

"Circle of Iron"

Cord: "I was taking a journey that was indicated in the palm of my hand."

Yeah, buddy, 99% of men take that journey. The other 1% just don't admit to it. This could be the greatest movie of all time. Or the worst. It's a glass is half empty/half full type of situation, where the glass is a Dixie cup and the water is goat piss.

Initial Conditions

We all iterate out from a set of initial conditions. Chaos theory dictates that a few will turn out balanced and symmetrical. The rest...well, you get the idea.

Two Men, One Man

I love Barack Obama. Not only can he become the first black president, but he can also be just another white president. Is he the perfect politician?