Office of Naval Contemplation

11:24 am - Don't eat what you won't kill?

http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/05/08/dont-eat-what-you-wont-kill/

11:34 am - Police use intelligence test to target suspects for arrest

03:08 pm - QFT

see more song memes

05:13 pm - Too cute not to repost

12:40 pm - Quote of the day

It's a pity Crouch didn't invite the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the studio for a three-way conversation. It would have elevated the tone.

09:50 pm - The Volokh Conspiracy answers the deep questions

Why is "Happy Birtday to You" still copyrighted if it was first published in 1893?

But it leaves an even more important question unanswered: who owns the copyright to the alternate lyrics?

Happy birthday to you
You belong in a zoo
You look like a monkey
And you smell like one, too

01:17 pm - Fun fact of the day

The following statement is true:
c == c++;

01:05 pm - Caption Contest XC

01:02 pm - Caption Contest Winners

The winner of Caption Contest LXXXIX is rustycoon:

Cue "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" by Tomoyasu Hotei.

parzanese

Mr Brown, Mr Blue, Mr Orange, Mr White, Mr Blonde, and Mr Pink.

sailorrogue

MiG: Men in Gray

03:02 pm - Adventures in Suburban Agriculture

My birds like pet grass, but $5 for 9 square inches of @#$%ing grass is absurd. I'm off the the garden store to see about buying a couple tiny pots and some seed wheat.

Update: The garden store seems to have gone out of business, and Home Despot Garden Center only carries Scott's Turf Builder, which is not what I want

12:44 pm - I can has legal precedent?

Where lolcats fall in the heirarchy of authority in legal briefs

10:18 am - The Civil Debater's Creed

http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/04/24/the-civil-debaters-creed/

10:03 pm - Grrr...

A butler is either the head servant of a household, or the servant in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry staff of a household whose overall head servant is a majordomo or castellan. A "gentleman's gentleman" who is the sole manservant of a small household or the personal attendant of a man of a larger household is a valet. Jeeves, although he could "buttle with the best of them" if necessary, was Bertie Wooster's valet, not his butler.

While we're on the subject, a podium is the platform the speaker stands on. The thing the speaker stands behind and puts his notes on is a lectern. And decimate means to kill one in ten, from the Latin "deci" (a tenth) and "-mate" (to remove).

06:44 pm - This is not a caption contest

02:29 pm - Trivia contest

There is one specific type of rock which humans eat on a regular basis. Is this rock classified as igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic?

11:54 am - Credit where it's due

I congratulate the Transportation Security Administration on doing certain things right.

10:31 am - Tax-funded campaign idea

I think I've come up with an idea for public campaign financing which I don't hate.

Currently, on your income taxes, you can check a box to designate $3 of your taxes to go towards the presidential campaign matching fund. That money funds all the qualified candidates who accept the matching funds. I leave that box unchecked because I want the likes of Mike Huckabee and Bill Richardson to pay their own ways.

My idea is that rather than that checkbox diverting into a shared fund, you instead have a portion of your taxes saved up, and 3 months in advance of each election you have the option of saving it for later, abandoning it into the public treasury, or designating it to candidates of your choosing.

The first variation I came up with was a $10-20 fee each election cycle to register to vote (waived if you're below a certain income threshold), which (after deducting administrative costs) is paid to the campaign funds of the candidates you designate while registering. This variation won't work, as it's unconstitutional for good reason.

In either proposal, additional contributions and independant issue advocacy are absolutely permitted. The purpose of this proposal is to increase the portion of campaign finance which comes from the broad electorate, thus diminishing the relative influence of large donors, which is the primary goal of public finance proposals.

11:31 am - Productivity update

Remember DM of the Rings, the screen-cap comic strip about a group of hack-and-slash roleplayers playing through the plot of Lord of the Rings? The one where Aragorn had an invisible leather TARDIS?

Apparently, someone else is doing a similar strip for Star Wars.

Also, if you go to the archives page, you'll see that they've translated the strips into a variety of languages, including pirate.

10:49 am - Prophet Motive

I would think that any Prophet or Messiah would fall into one of the following four categories:

1. He's talking to God -- he is a genuine Prophet


2. He's talking to himself -- he is a madman


3. He's making it up -- he is the perpetrator of a hoax


4. He's talking to someone he incorrectly believes to be God -- he is the victim of a hoax or of a misunderstanding

10:15 am - How to lower gas costs with a boycott

http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/04/17/how-to-lower-gasoline-costs-with-a-boycott/

12:29 pm - Caption Contest LXXXIX

12:26 pm - Caption Contest Winners

The winner of Caption Contest LXXXVIII is makellan:

"No no! Don't cheat yet, he's going to loose anyway!"

10:18 am - Market failure and government failure

http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/04/16/market-failure-and-government-failure/

11:48 am - We are all moderates

http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/04/15/we-are-all-moderates/

09:52 am - Epic win

This is against the Chess Titans AI at level 6. Note that the only captures in the game were a single exchange of pawns.