Henry Imler February 26th, 2007
For today’s foolishness of the day (fotd) Kyle point us to Conservipedia. It is a wiki designed to counter the menacing liberal bias on Wikipedia. Only thing is, it makes Conservatives look foolish half the time.
To these “conservatives,” Wikipedia is biased down to their dating system. Take a look at the number-one item on their Examples of Bias in Wikipedia page.
1) Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C.
and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so
why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes
the CE deception.
The deception? Check out the Wikipedia entry on the Common Era.
They make no bones about the name change even though there are no date
shifts. Imagine you are a Christian living in a world where the dating
system was named after Muhammad or Darwin. Wouldn’t you rather use a
nonreligious dating system?
Kyle looks at a few other of their grievances.
Conservipedia - FCBC; anyone else need not apply.
I guess I like the idea in general, of having a repository of
conservative thought where people can get a perspective on conservative
thought. It it just sometimes embarrassing as a quasi-conservative
person.
Henry Imler February 24th, 2007
Today’s piece of unnecessary advice, otherwise known as “dumb things Henry did,” is on drinking homemade espresso drinks.
If you are going to leave espresso drinks with 20% of their contents
left around the house, make sure you remember the ages of each one
along with their corresponding locations. If not, when you go to drink
the one you made twenty minutes ago, you might drink from one that is
more than a few days old. Contrary to non-popular opinion, a drink from
days old espresso is quite nasty.
Yum. In other news, our espresso machine died today.
Henry Imler February 23rd, 2007
Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies
In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished
notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen living in
caves and hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an
animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.
Man is a rational animal, is he not? Rationality has often been how
we have separated ourselves from the animals, justifying our use of
them. After all, animals only work off of instinct, whereas us humans
with souls are rational. So, what do we do if animals are seen to be
rational as well? Since rationality has been the evidence of souls in
humans, would we then need to graft souls onto animals?
I don’t think one can hold to the “Man is a rational animal” as a
distinction between humans and their rights and aminals with their
lesser rights.
Henry Imler February 23rd, 2007
I was hoping to beat Dave to this one, but I am 37 minutes short.
Wimbledon agrees to equal prize money
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — After years of holding out
against equal prize money, Wimbledon bowed to public pressure Thursday
and agreed to pay women players as much as the men at the world’s most
prestigious tennis tournament.
The All England Club fell in line with other Grand Slam events and
offered equal pay through all rounds at this year’s tournament.
“Tennis is one of the few sports in which women and men compete in
the same event at the same time,” club chairman Tim Phillips said at a
news conference. “We believe our decision to offer equal prize money
provides a boost for the game as a whole and recognizes the enormous
contribution that women players make to the game and to Wimbledon.
“In short, good for tennis, good for women players and good for Wimbledon.”
Not everyone thinks this is a just system, however: Keith Burgess-Jackson :: Injustice.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time,
you know that there are two kinds of injustice: treating likes
differently and treating unlikes the same. Read this.
Female tennis players are going to be paid as much as male tennis
players at Wimbledon. This is unjust, for men play five sets and women
three. If and when women start playing five sets, or men three, I’ll
stop complaining.
I am not so sure about this line of argument. Why not break it down
and prorate the monetary award by how many over all sets the player
took to win the tournament? That would be absurd, and so is basing the
pay on number of matches someone has to play. Say the first ranked
player got a “by” in the first round. If that person wins the
tournament, should they receive less money than someone who won and did
not get a “by” in the first round? Of course not. The status of winning
Wimbledon is the same for a women and for a man. It is the same
accomplishment. Hence, it should pay the same.
Henry Imler February 21st, 2007
I am down to three pages left to go on my essay writing, so let me relate to you a weird incident from last night.
It was about 1:15 AM. Meredith and I had laid down about two hours
beforehand. I sleep on the side of the apartment with the window. On
the opposite side of the room is the doorway that leads to hallway that
leads to the living room. I awake1 and glance off to my right towards the window. I caught a glimpse of something. Well, I caught a glimpse of some things. They were two in number, floating towards me. They were starfish-like spectres
with no real substance of their own, but instead were a darkening of
what was around them. As they floated towards me I reacted.
In
one deft movement I leapt to the other side of the room. I am not sure
exactly how I did this. One instant I am lying down with covers over me
and a wife lying beside me. The next, I am at the door, bounding by it.
I did not touch Meredith, nor did I go around the bed. Anyway, for some
reason, as I bounded out of the room, I had the presence of mind to
turn on the lights as I was leaving. I finally stopped in our living
room, where I collapsed on the arm of our couch, sucking in air as fast
as I could, eyes glassed over with my gaze fixed somewhere beyond the
floor. Meredith remained in the bed, doing the same.
After a minute or two we spoke. We had both been absolutely
terrified by two different things. One was a figment of my imagination,
the other was being awoken by husband freaking the hell out.
Anyway, I thought that was weird. Never had a dream or anything like
it before. I most certainly have never had any dream affect me like
that. It was an absolute state of terror. It took me a few minutes
after I had awoke before I could muster any words.
Crazy, no?
1) I thought I had awoken, but I guess it was part of the dream. That is what made it seems so real.
Henry Imler February 21st, 2007
Henry Imler February 21st, 2007
As I sit here not wanting to finish two six-page essay test
questions that are due tomorrow, allow me to present to you several
links to middle mouse click for this Wednesday evening.
- Lifehacker :: Organizing your GMail
- Jollyblogger :: Grudem and Leithart on Cussin’ - Is the Piper/cursing fiasco a mountain out of a molehill?
I don’t even know what Piper preached on at Passion07 and that’s a shame.
Also take a look at On Vulgar Language by Leithart, the post that prompted this one.
- Is Socialism Rooted in Envy?
- Can you guess what the answer is? This post is coming from a
conservative philosopher. Survey says: Wrong - the answer is no, just
like Capitalism isn’t rooted in greed.
- Cheap Stingy
Bastard Bargins :: NHL 2003 for Xbox only $2 w/ Free Shipping! - I don’t know which is more of a factor in the price, a) The fact it is four years old or b) that it is an NHL game.
Henry Imler February 14th, 2007
I
was looking over a rough draft this afternoon for a student and I
noticed that the person referred to two groups of people, the “Genitals
and the Jews.”
Spellcheck might be your friend, but sometimes he can play tricks on you if you are not careful.
Henry Imler February 13th, 2007
I used to use ESPN.com
for all my sports news. However, it seems that with every passing day
there are more advertisements and more and more of their real analysis
is hidden behind the “Insider,” a subscription feature. I used to have
a free pass beyond its doors, but alas, it has expired.
In light of that, do any of you know where to get good sports news?
Henry Imler February 13th, 2007
In the architecture of nationhood, the United
States had achieved something quite remarkable…. Americans had
erected their constitutional roof before they put up the national
walls. Hovering there over a divided people, it aroused wonder and awe,
even ecstasy. Early historians rewrote the past to make the
Constitution the culminating event of their story…. Orators plundered
the language in search of fitting praise. Someone may have even put the
document to music. This spirit of Amazement, this frenzy of
self-congratulation, owed it intensity to the terrible fear that the
roof could come crashing down at almost any time. Indeed, the national
walls have take much longer to build.
John M. Murrin, “A Roof without Walls: The Delemma of American National Identity,” in Beyond Confederation, ed. Beetman et al., 347.
![Hundie Jo [Dot] Com](http://www.hundiejo.com/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache2/7d6a910bbe08845c0836a517a70936d5.png){kind=small}
