Hoarse Speak

I guess the hacks gave up on trying to vandalize wikipedia and got their own mediawiki:

A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.

Conservapedia has over 3,800 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, as well as more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 1,600,000 page views and over 17,100 page edits. Already Conservapedia has become one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet. This site is growing rapidly.

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

I like the bit about "clean" and "one of the largest user-controlled" (uh I guess wikipedia is the largest?

But ok, to give them a chance I checked out their article on "The Alamo" and compared it to Wikipedia. I must say their scholarship is at about the 3rd grade book report level where I expected it, but see for yourselves:

Conservapedia:
The Alamo (courtesy of conservapedia)

Wikipedia:
The Battle of the Alamo (courtesy of wikipedia)

Because I can read what's in your wallet! The NYT writes that RFID on a credit card is a bad idea! Give'em a genius award. Kudos to the researchers who put together the $150 hacker kit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/business/23card.html

Oh yea, the companies say - but this doesn't mean our card.

Yes, that was how North Korea's bomb was described this morning on the BBC World Service.
Paraphasing:

The Russians estimated that the bomb had a yield of between 5 and 15 Kilotons. By comparison, the first nuclear bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of about 15 Kilotons. So this is a quite basic atomic device.

As I have recently finished Hiroshima by John Hershey, here's what that "quite basic" bomb did to a city of 237,000 people.

• 100,000 dead
• 62,000 of 90,000 buildings destroyed
• Hibakusha "explosion-affected survivors" who suffered long term health effects all their lives from radiation poisoning

I'm always overwhelmed by the British capability for understatement.

I was looking at our Chancellor's State of the University Address which he delivered on the 6th of September as part of a project I'm working on about open source and open standards at this particular public institution. He told a great joke, you can figure out who I identify with:

A man in a hot-air balloon realized that he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. "Excuse me," he shouted. "Can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman looked up and replied: "You are in a hot-air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information - and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."

"Well," said the woman, "you must be an administrator."

"I am," said the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep. And you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is that you are in exactly the same place you were before we met - but, now, somehow, it's my fault."

The Iraqi "government" has decided in its wisdom to go with moats instead of the proposed wall that our most intelligent president suggested. From the Nytimes article, Iraqis Plan to Ring Baghdad With Trenches, I'll just pull some choice quotes:

BAGHDAD, Sept. 15 — The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.

The effort is one of the most ambitious security projects this year, with cars expected to be funneled through 28 checkpoints along the main arteries snaking out from the capital. Smaller roads would be closed. The trenches would run across farmland or other open areas to prevent cars from evading checkpoints, said the ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.

“We’re going to build a trench around Baghdad so we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched properly,” he said in a telephone interview. “The idea is to get the cars to go through the 28 checkpoints that we set up.”

This is what our 'C' average fratboy-in-chief had to say:

Bush said at a news conference on Friday that the Iraqis were “building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices, for example.” Military officials said the Iraqis had considered such a project earlier, but decided to go with trenches instead.

I guess, the Iraqi's figured that Bush hadn't studied his military history. Otherwise he would have known that walled cities became obsolete with the advent of artillery of which the guerillas fighting in Iraq have plenty - as they routinely mortar (that is lob shells over walls) the green zone, U.S. bases, Iraqi police outposts, etc…

I don't know that the moat (i.e. trench) strategy will be much more effective considering the sheer area of Bagdad (60 miles in circumference) - but then considering NR's post on the CPA, they'll be creating more jobs for people!! Now that is more modern!

Nathan Milian manager of Carr Mill Mall through www.nrmilian.com is a big meany. He hates dancing and made the guy who dances to his walkman (Bruce Thomas) on the weaverstreet lawn stop because "We don't allow performers to use the lawn without our permission." (Herald Sun article). Next up he says he is going after the hoola hoopers.

From WillR's Concerned Citizen.