Amusing editing

I was playing a game on pogo and I was chatting in the window to the right. Here's a close up:

What I had typed, that got edited over, was "playing on a different". As you can see I then asked why it got edited. No one ever answered me, but I finally figured it out. Apparently it will edit out the word "gonad". Notice that it is the "g" from playing, then "on a" and the "d" from different. I just thought that was too funny. I guess you have to be really careful what you type. You never know when you might be accidentally offensive.

A Heartfelt Thank You

I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to my benevolent
blogfather (Steven Taylor), for the links earlier this week. My sitemeter is always positively affected.

We're back from Louisville!

We are back from our trip to Louisville, KY (Steve had a conference there). We had a good time. We stayed at the Seelbach Hilton (very fancy, but I really can't recommend it). I am somewhat jealous of the U of L library, however. Here is a link to the photo album of our trip. I will add more pictures as time and Webshots permits. The link to all my Webshots photo albums is in the link list on the right hand side of the screen. Enjoy!

I'm a Talent, but not definitively

I'm a Talent!

You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life.

Talent: 48%
Lifer: 41%
Mandarin: 41%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

I really felt like they should have used a Likert scale instead of a simple dichotomy on many of those questions. But I guess risk taker fits me well enough. "You're not willing to settle for an ordinary life" might be pushing it a little far though.

h/t: Mandarin Dr. Stephen Taylor

Are you normal?. . .I'm Quirky!

Are You Normal?

Your Normalcy Quotient is: 69 out of 100.

Your quiz results make you a Quirky Character

You've found yourself mostly in the middle of the road, but you have enough quirky habits to not be entirely normal. You're probably glad to be more than ordinary, but you're normal enough to fit in. Sounds like a perfect balance.

Take this free personality test by Clicking Here.

The test is a little annoying and they e-mail you the results, but I took it so I thought I'd share. But we already knew I was quirky, didn't we.

Rogue Senator or typo, you decide.

I saw this headline "Biden: I won't be taken alive" and was completely confused. I asked myself, "Has Senator Biden lost his mind and taken hostages somewhere?" No, of course not. It was actually a link to story about Osama bin Laden. MSN had just made a typo. It should have read "Bin Laden" not "Biden". I just had to share it before they realize their mistake and fix it. I certainly hope they realize their mistake and fix it.

Will we listen. . .I doubt it

The AP is reporting that the UN is urging the US to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo. According to the article

In a response included at the end of the report, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. offices in Geneva said investigators had taken little account of evidence against the abuse allegations provided by the United States and rejected an invitation to visit Guantanamo.

“It is particularly unfortunate that the special rapporteurs rejected the invitation and that their unedited report does not reflect the direct, personal knowledge that this visit would have provided,” ambassador Kevin Moley wrote.

However this argument seems a bit lame when one considers

The five U.N. experts had sought invitations from the United States to visit Guantanamo since 2002. Three were invited last year, but refused to go in November after being told they could not interview detainees.

What good is a trip to visit if they are not going to be allowed to do what they need to do. It seems obvious that there are things going on down there that we want to hide. If another country behaved the way the US does, there is no way we would stand for it. Just ask Saddam. The US attitude seems to be "Do what the UN says or else, but don't expect us to do what the UN says." Unfortunately, we have the international power to get away with it. But it really only serves to continue to erode our image overseas.

When one considers the Gramscian definition of hegemony (leading by ideas and legitimacy), I fear American hegemony is waning. Once we move completely into the realist notion of hegemony (leading by might and force), I hate to think what will happen.

A persecution complex?

Is it possible that former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has a persecution complex? He is now suggesting that the Chairperson of the Alabama Republican Party should step down because he believes she is using her position to support incumbent Gov. Bob Riley. Moore seems to me like the type who is unable to accept the idea that people might not want him to be the governor of Alabama. (I know I certainly don't!) It seems that in his mind there has to be some excuse, someone out to get him, to explain why things don't his way.
This argument

Moore said Tuesday that the newsletter and Cavanaugh's previous employment with Riley, combined with the party's recent flirtation with prohibiting Democratic primary voters from voting in a Republican primary runoff, are enough to establish a pattern of unfairness.

In the event of a runoff, conventional wisdom holds that crossover votes would benefit Moore, who refused to take his Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building and subsequently was removed as chief justice.

seems somewhat weak. It might be true that conventional says crossover voting would help Moore, but all the talk I've heard about Democrats crossing over to vote in the Republic primary was aimed at voting AGAINST Moore.

However, if he's already in persecution mode, maybe that means he already knows his campaign is in trouble.