Lots of brouhaha on the news about Christian values yesterday. I caught a bit of Meet the Press with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Rev. Al Sharpton, Jim Wallis, Dr. Richard Land . - Religious Leaders Clash on 'Meet the Press'.

A discussion of just war criteria came up regarding the Iraq war. I'm not a Christian, but I've read the new testament. I must of missed that just war piece of sermon on the mount.

Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.

and then Jesus paused, wrung his hands and spake,

However, if we feel someone might happen to have weapons of mass destruction, then Blessed are precision guided missiles and mini nukes.

Amen

I later caught Rev Falwell and Rev Sharpton on CNN at the airport while waiting for my plane. Here is Al Sharpon's final reply to Rev Falwell, "I preach the gospel of the good book, and the book says to love." I'm not so sure these guys have the same book.

While driving south on highway 55 heading to Rochester Minnesota we passed a blue highway sign that read "towards zero death traffic corridor"

Does this imply that we were driving towards a zero death traffic corridor? Does that mean we were driving in a death ridden corridor, and in a few moments we would just barely make it into a zero death corridor? And if you are in a non zero death corridor, about how many deaths does that current corridor inflict?

Maybe the sign was implying that the corridor that we were driving in was trying to reduce the death to zero, and instead of moving towards more death, that particular corridor was moving towards lesser deaths with the hope of obtaining a zero death statistic. Even so, how do we ascertain the current death statistic of a corridor that is moving towards zero death? And, does that imply that there are corridors that are moving towards greater death? Isn't it safe to assume that all traffic corridors are striving for a zero death percentage, or does this sign prove otherwise?

My sister has been doing some family research, and she sent me a bunch of old photos she scanned.

Oddly enough, the following picture is from a long lost second cousin that is my sister's co-worker. She didn't know she was a relative until my sister mentioned her maiden name Wilkie, and the woman was a bit shocked. They started talking and her coworker showed her a photo of their family plot in Queens, which just so happens to be my family plot. Turns out there was a fight in the family back in the thirties, and the family split apart. Her coworker is a long lost relative, a second cousin. A small world indeed.

After years of using google I have never seen an error page (at least one that I can recollect). Impressive to say the least. That is until today. I guess even the people at google are human, at least part human, kinda like the borg.

on a side note: when doing screen grabs in OS X with dual monitors, it saves the screens as a two page pdf. Me gusta mucho.

While discussing the many methods in which the kinja team could integrate a new search algorithm into their sophisticated and highly complex technical architecture, Mark is distracted by something shiny.

A bit of a tweaking to the design (no laughing in the back, please) here at the pill. A tightening of a CSS screw here, and a calibration of some XHTML there. For the better? Well, can it get any worse?

A garden we pass on the way to the Pavilion Theater up on Prospect Park West:

But of the softness of the bear which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not snuggle of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Some more fun with the photo album. I added keyboard navigation with a little image opacity eye candy.

• move forward through an album using 'spacebar' or right arrow '-->'
• move backwards through an album using the left arrow '<--'
• pause a slide show using the 'spacebar'
• play/continue a stopped/paused sideshow using the 'spacebar'
• move to the next image in a slide show using the right arrow '-->'

An album example

A sildeshow example

If you're inclined, please let me know how it works for you under various operating systems and browsers.

A brief clip from Errol Morris of Donald Trump discussing Citizen Cane - via kottke.org.

Simply surreal...

Errol Morris: If you could give Charles Foster Kane advice, what would you say to him?

Donald Trump: Get yourself a different woman.

When did I start using the term nifty. nifty? Do I have some weird affinity towards Wally Cleaver, or maybe a strange fetish?

I did a search of this site to see how many instances of the phrase nifty I could find, but the google API is done busted, and after a bit of research it appears that the spelling suggestion portion of the API fails when looking up certain words, 'nifty' being one of those words. Is google trying to protect me from myself? Possibly.

Tonight, while waiting for the A train, which always makes me hum Take the 'A' Train in my head no matter how many damn times I wait for the A train (a little midi so you can hum along), which, I believe, is a tell tale sign of impending insanity, but I digress. While waiting, and humming, for the 'A' train, two girls sitting next to me on the bench were having a conversation, one in which I eavesdropped:

Girl 1: I don't like working. I spend all my time working, and then there's like no time to do anything else. I mean, I work like eight hours a day, and then after that, plus eating and sleeping and all the other extraneous stuff I have to do during the day, there is no time to do anything else.

Girl 2: Your right.

Girl 1: I know I'm right. Think of all the time we're wasting waiting for the train, and then I'll get home and go to bed, then get up and go to work all day.

Me: (under my breath) preach it sister...dum, da da dum da dum...

Update: this link above has a nifty little flash app that does some analysis of the song while playing along. select the 'Go to Analysis' link...

I click a link to werenotsorry.com (via - scribbling.net), and then slip into a deep depression that resolves to find me drunk and crying in the fetal position behind a dumpster just outside of Tijuana...no es bueno.

some photos taken at Prospect Park during the off leash dog hours, or as I like to call it, dog-a-palooza.

This day is not to honor war, but the sacrifice made by others for our freedom.

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nation.

President Woodrow Wilson - November, 1919

Maybe that's what the world needs right now, a little less Ashcroft and a little more Angus.

Barbie marries one of the guys from Phish, sells her dream house, and moves to Oregon.

A reusable energy model house kit: Power House

Twenty building projects and 70 experiments guide students through building a house complete with solar panels, windmill, greenhouse and desalination system. This outstanding kit teaches principles of physics, electricity, magnetism and energy conversion through the practical processes of baking bread, heating water, growing sunflowers and much more. Kit includes a motor, solar cells, a solar oven and hygrometer as well as other supplies, plus a thorough experiment manual.

If I wasn't so damned cheap I'd buy it for one of my nieces or nephews. Who am I kidding, I want it for myself.

I have been struggling for years to define for myself the true meaning of Christmas.

• good will towards humans
• a neo-Christian co-opting pagan ritual holiday turned holidazle
• a time to worship a religious and spiritual icon
• a fun filled commerce fueled Elmo doll feeding frenzy

Turns out it is none of the above.

It is a time for our good friend Bill to sell you luffas, falafel, and French fried hate hats and bumper stickers to cram into your overflowing closet of right wing chatzkies: The Bill O'Reilly Christmas Store - via wonkette

Joy to the World...

Maxwell goes there and back...

Yesterday, as we experimented further with getting to know the city and simple delights, we walked from one tip of Manhattan to the other - entirely along Broadway.

- Apartment Therapy Walks the Island

I added a tad more functionality to the gallery this weekend.

1. Added a main gallery index listing all albums in the galery.
2. Added the ability to add sub albums to an album, so albums can contain albums...

Bitter Pill's post election roundtable:

Angry Liberal: It's those shovel headed fools in North dakota, don't they know that we know best for this country.

Pundit: If only democrats knew how to talk to the people. They talk down to them and tell them what to think. That is why they lost the election. The democrats need to take the complicated far reaching multi faceted political, social economic and international issues, and boil them down into a simple message of black and white, good and evil. Like the right did.

Conservative: uh, our, err, guy won. we are...so..um...happy. If the democrats only knew how much we like George Bush. We do, we really like him. I'm tellin' ya, he's...um...great.

Neo-conservative: The people have spoken loud and clear. We have been mandated by the people to enact our policies. Even if we didn't want to, we are now obligated by the masses to do what we want. We ran on a platform of the people, that's why we won. We gave them a simple frightening message of god and terrorism. That's what the people wanted.

Joe Smith, plumber, Toledo Ohio: That Kerry was kinda flipin' an a floppin' and he looked French, and Bill O'Rielly said he was a traitor. So I voted for Bush.

Mary Smith, accountant, Joe's wife, Toledo Ohio: I liked Senator Kerry, it's just that I am afraid for the future of this country, and I am afraid of another terrorists attack, and I just wasn't sure I could trust Mr. Kerry.

Reverend John, Tempe Arizona: John Kerry supported the gay agenda, and he spoke for the murder of millions of unborn babies. He would have driven this country into a place of dark dark sin.

Mark, programmer, Brooklyn New York: I assumed that Americans were as unhappy and scared about the direction this country was heading as I was. I thought that the legacy left by the past four years, a presidency that I felt had divided and hurt this country more that I have seen in my lifetime, would outweigh the messages of fear and morality. I hoped that humanity would win out over fear. I was wrong.

This could possibly be my favorite search string ? for bitter pill ever:

crack smell

Padding the new gallery with images, I add a new album documenting a day in the life of building the gallery:

Building the Gallery

Some more gallery fun to be had at the pill*. I added two new features to the new gallery in the past few days.

1. Added a show all thumbnails piece.
2. And some eye candy for the kids, a DHTML slideshow.

* a failed attempt to shut out the world around me.

The good Dr. post some interesting numbers related to wartime elections.

<snip>

No wartime president has lost an election. Following are the victory percentages for each wartime election in the 20th-21st Century

World War 1
Woodrow Wilson won by 3.1 %

World War 2
Franklin D. Roosevelt won by 9.9 %

Korean War
Dwight D. Eisenhower won by 10.5%

Vietnam War
* John F. Kennedy won by .2 %
Lyndon B. Johnson won by 22.6%
Richard M. Nixon won by .7 %
Richard M. Nixon won by 23.2 %

Iraq War
George W. Bush won by 3%

Bush had the lowest percentage of any wartime presidential victory, except for Richard Nixon's victory in 1968 over Hubert H. Humphrey. The closeness of the election during World War 1 can be attributed to the unpopularity of that war, due to a significant number of german immigrants in the US and a sweeping sense of isolationism.

Vietnam was probably the most unpopular war, and Nixon probably the most unpopular president in history, and that can account for Nixons close race, but what does that tell us about Bush and Iraq?

* - Not really a war yet, more of an "gulf of tonkin affair"

Sources:
Encyclopedia Britannica
CNN

</snip>

This doesn't explain the loss of seats in the house or the senate, and the gay marriage bans for that matter, but interesting non the less.

In related news, anger stocks make huge gains in this morning's trading.

Today a new term is born: chate * - where the loving and smite-full hand of God helps guide the righteous and wealthy to a land where the almighty governs and the people are filled with an insatiable desire for fundamentalist conservative judges. A land where the middle class becomes an unsightly memory from our heathen past, where homosexuals are driven back to their closet and the heady word of god fills the fizzy little brain of The President with thinly veiled hate and distain for anyone who believes otherwise.

God bless America, indeed.

* origins [Middle English, from Old French urscrewed] the merging of church and state into one biblically forged abomination. And some hate throw in for good measure

Is this the kind of freedom and liberty we are sowing today in America?

Red state or blue, north or south, voters around the country found at least one thing they could agree on yesterday as proposals banning same-sex marriage were winning in all 11 states where the issue appeared on the ballot.

- Same-Sex Marriage Measures Succeed Washington Post

scott (4:37:33 PM): i had a bad dream last night that our country was fucked ... and woke up to find out it's true.

I have no comment about the election today, and I have nothing even quasi political to say. I am pretending that nothing is happening. I'm going to my happy place. I need to find my happy place...

been playing around with some jpeg converters and perl to hack out a new way to organize my photos. I love gallery, but I wanted something a little simpler and hopefully a bit more elegant.

Here are the photos from the recent vermont trip:

Gina reminisces about deleting important files, and changes her life for the better with backups.

Good thing I...um...have a sophisticated and...er...reliable backup system working here at home. Um, yeah.

Today is All Saints Day, a fabulous holiday where any Saint, and all other residents of New York City, are given a free Monday parking spot.

The origins of All Saints Day are rooted in the parking tradition. Saints in the know would call all the new saints and tell them they forgot to move their car, and that they'd better go move it because they're going to get a ticket. The joke was on them, because on the first All Saints Day there were no cars, or parking attendants for that matter.

Here in our house we still celebrate All Saints in the old tradition. We get up very early. We move our car from a perfectly good All Saints Monday parking spot, and then sit double parked in front of our house for well over ten minutes wondering why nobody is moving their car.