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Search rbgilbert.com

This is my blogchalk:
United States, Massachusetts, Boston, Brighton, English, Ron, Male, Photography, Nudity.

If a tow truck pulls a transponder-equipped car through a transponder lane on a transponder-enabled highway or bridge, does the owner of the car get charged? Does it matter if the towed car broke down on that toll road or if it was brought onto the toll road by the tow truck? And, regardless of transponders, how do they charge tow trucks on their way to assist a disabled vehicle? Do they get to go free or pay the usual rate? When they come off the toll road towing a vehicle, does that vehicle count as a trailer?

Retail Satisfaction Update
Yesterday the e-mail brought me a note from Vince Mackenzie that my yellow Carlton was on its way. When I got home I found my magnet for the bike computer from Sigma in the mailbox. And there was a slip from UPS telling me they had a package for me from Bike Friday. I hope that's the trailer parts, and not just the little crap like the computer mounting attachment.

If you have an unrequited yearning to give me a gift, here's a suggestion!

There must be a little corner at Microsoft where a new operating system goes for its cosmetic facelift. It's so Detroit. Somebody had to decide that Windows 2000 needed a little darker blue for the default background color, and they had to kick the musician to churn out a variation on the start up sound, and was it an interior decorator or graphics designer who decided the recycle bin icon needed refreshing? And who decided to put the shadow under the mouse cursor. Not liking that. Where do I turn that off in Windows 2000? But my main point is: if you work in that corner or know someone who does, let me know how the morale is. It sounds like a government job, lots of superficiality.

Would you pay these people to design your site?

It's a Savings & Clone!

Here we have The authoritative source on early churches in New Jersey
I think I recognize a few of them, but why restrict it solely to Christian churches? Are there no 19th century Jewish temples in New Jersey? Maybe not.

I finally relented and used on-line access to my Fidelity accounts. I've been real slow to do this, or experiment with on-line bill paying or banking because the small convenience it would give me, didn't come close to outweighing the risk. But now it's been going on for years, and I imagine they've got the worst bugs killed, and if you walk into a Fidelity office they have almost no staff to deal with you face to face. Recently when I opened a new account the sales person told me to go home and get the number of the new account on-line. If I wanted him to get it for me, it would take ten minutes. He wasn't cute enough or single enough for me to spend ten minutes with, so I went and did the on-line thing.

So the first thing I notice after one day of falling DJIA and one day of rising DJIA with my on-line access is the very tiny urge to see if I can't do better than those guys in suits at Fidelity. Don't worry, I'm not crazy enough to give in to that, but it must be what drives a lot of the on-line trading. I'm used to getting quarterly statements. By the time I read those, those thousands of dollars of loss or gain are history and there's no real urge to intervene.

By the way, after these first two exciting days, I'm ahead. Time to pull out?

Just diddling with the new machine this AM I made a successful copy of a CD containing the Brandenburg Concertos 1, 2 and 3. This with no reading of a single damn instruction except what popped up on screen. I do enjoy that improved Mac-ness of Windows machines.

The Gardner Museum in the Fenway. Whether you have visited there or not click on the link to "PAN THE COURTYARD WITH QTVR." You'll love it. I had hoped to find information on the site about the stolen art works, but there seems to be nothing. Are they downplaying that? The last time I was at the museum (it's been awhile) they had information there to fill you in. Sort of the art museum equivalent of the milk boxes that ask "Have you seen me?"

Chunk 666

Erotic cycling photos. Sorry, the subjects are all women.

And while you're there, think of these poor people who seem to have been blinded by the Sin of Onan.

To get you back to a more wholesome level, here is www.bowwow.com.au who will help you pick the best name for your new (or recently refurbished) pet.

Every doctor joke you've ever heard.

Looking for bike tours I ran across this: Border to Border Challenge. It's a fundraiser for pediatric AIDS patients. This one makes some improvements over the Pallotta rides. First of all, the minimum pledge is $5000! Last time I rode an AIDS ride the most they asked for was $2700. Also, this border to border ride does NOT provide breakfast or dinner. That'll keep expenses down. The riders do, however, stay in motels. That brings the cost back up. The route looks totally challenging. It's actually three sequential rides from the Canadian border to El Paso, Texas. If you want to do the whole thing it'll cost $15,000!

Then there's the Great Alaska Highway Ride on the Al-Can highway. Just for fun, mostly camping. 23 days to ride 1421 miles from Delta Junction, Alaska, (98 miles from Fairbanks) to Dawson Creek, British Columbia.

Two good articles on bikes on the road: The Roads We Have and What Cycling Needs.

The new PC arrived today, assembled by the boys at PCs For Everyone. Geo helped me get it home. It boots up, it looks lovely. For now, and the near future, Ron's Log will continue to be generated on my little Win 98 box, but eventually the big new Win 2000 will take its place. 75 gig IBM hard drive, AMD Athlon chip, DVD-ROM, Plextor CD-RW, 256 Meg RAM, and a good ol-fashion 56K modem, as I continue to avoid the nightmares of DSL.

Some people still believe in legislating politically correct language...in California (where else?).

Recent Retail Experiences

Yesterday I got the Sigma odometer from Performance. This is the "wireless" version; i.e., radio. I think my Cateye is going to end up on my Diamondback, but placement on the Air Glide is difficult, so getting rid of the wire eliminates one problem.

Anyway, the Sigma (German company, Chinese made) arrives with its polylingual/graphic instructions. The graphic installation instructions include something that looks like a black thing that snaps onto a spoke. I can't find it anywhere, but there's an 800 number (actually an 888 number) on the packaging so I call them. The nice Sigma lady answers and says that, no, I don't have to send it back to Performance. She will simply mail out a magnet to me. How nice. I'll let you know the second it shows up.

Also today I called Valley Cycles in the UK to order the yellow travel case for my Air Glide. Talked to Vince Mackenzie, who is the UK distributor for Bike Friday and who claims to have located the Carlton cases for Bike Friday initially. He was quite nice and had that charming accent that I can understand about 40% of the time. He says the yellow Carlton will be on its way to me in a day or two.

Kremlin Fried Chicken

Skipped the Gym

I had a new excuse to skip the gym yesterday. It seems that on the street corner outside my gym a Boston police undercover officer struck up a conversation with one of the our convenient drug dealers. The dealer, apparently realizing the identity of the police officer, leaped into his car and tried to drive away. Somehow in the fuss the police officer ended up ON THE HOOD of the dealer's car. The dealer drove for a backhoe (they are always digging up SOMEthing on that street). So our police officer fired through either the windshield or the sunroof (depending on which version you like) and hit the driver. The car missed the hole being dug into the street, but did hit the backhoe. The police officer escaped with an a leg injury. People who I work with who happened to be walking up the street during the altercation reported they saw the dealer lying soaked with blood UNDER his own car! We tried to develop a theory to explain that. I suggested the police hauled him out and then let the c ar just roll over him. Not awfully likely, since the street is dead flat, but it's an interesting idea. The dealer went to meet his maker in short order. Meanwhile the street was completely blocked off while they picked up the bullets (I guess). Couldn't get to the gym.

This is not a common thing around here, and I think it was a bit ill-advised for anyone to ply an illegal drug trade right outside a donut shop. Duh!

Here's a link to the story in the Globe. It'll be available for only a day or two.

Our friend in trouble
R.I. Mayor Indicted on Racketeering
by MICHAEL MELLO
Associated Press Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Mayor Vincent Cianci Jr., the city's longest-serving mayor, faces his toughest public challenge yet after being indicted on federal racketeering charges.

Cianci, 59, was charged Monday with soliciting bribes in exchange for city contracts and government promotions during a career that has spanned more than 20 years.

"I will defend these charges until the day I die," a defiant Cianci told reporters at a news conference. The 97-page indictment alleges that Cianci, his former top aide Frank Corrente and a third defendant ran the city like a criminal enterprise, in one case extorting $250,000 in campaign contributions from members of a towing association that has police contracts.

The mayor also attempted to extort $10,000 from businessman Anthony Freitas, who secretly recorded hundreds of conversations with city officials, collecting key evidence for the FBI's case, prosecutors said.

Cianci is accused of using city agencies to pressure the elite University Club to admit him as a member, holding up approval of the club's renovation plans to win a free, lifetime membership. The mayor also tried to hinder a witness from providing information to the FBI and to a federal grand jury, prosecutors said.

Cianci said the charges were "based on self-serving statements of criminals seeking to save their own skin."

"I have devoted my life to this city. I love this city. This city has come an awful long way. It's not been because we have been running a criminal enterprise out of this office for the last 10 years," Cianci said.

It is not the first time corruption allegations have swirled around Cianci, who has served six terms as mayor.

During his first administration, 22 city workers were convicted of extortion and fraud. Cianci denied any knowledge of the criminal activities and remained in office.

In 1984, Cianci received a five-year suspended sentence for assaulting a man with a lighted cigarette and fireplace log. Cianci suspected the man of having an affair with his estranged wife. He was forced from office, but re-elected in 1990.

Corruption allegations surfaced again two years ago when the FBI launched Operation Plunder Dome, an investigation in which four city officials and two city attorneys have so far been convicted of soliciting bribes in exchange for property tax breaks. A seventh official, Corrente, is awaiting trial. Federal investigators accuse Corrente of soliciting bribes on Cianci's behalf, allowing the mayor to deny his involvement in the scheme.

Cianci, a former state prosecutor who's car license plate reads "No. 1," has always denied any knowledge of corruption. But Joseph Pannone, the imprisoned former chairman of the Tax Board, said the mayor gave him tips on how to take bribes without getting caught.

Cianci labeled the accusations a "fantasy" and said Pannone's Italian-sprinkled banter caught on an FBI surveillance tape made him sound like a "Goodfellas wannabe."

Following the news conference, some City Hall staff members invited Cianci to dinner in a show of support. He has vowed to stay in office and has already started raising money for a seventh term. Nothing in the state charter allows the City Council to oust a mayor upon indictment, said City Solicitor Charles Mansollilo. A mayor can be suspended after being convicted of a felony, but can only be removed after all appeals are exhausted.

"Tonight is the beginning of a long fight that I will lead against these people who brought this indictment," Cianci said.

In West Virginia you can get NASCAR plates for your vehicle.

From www.yourdictionary.com
Salmagundi (Noun)

Pronunciation: [sæl-mê-'gên-di]

Definition 1: A dish made of chopped anchovies, smoked herring, or other meat and onions mixed with condiments in oil (varying from region to region); any disorganized hodge-podge or confusion of ingredients.

Usage 1: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, spelling today's word has presented problems since its introduction in the 17th century. The following variations have been recorded; sallad-magundy, Solomon Gundy, salamongundy, salmagundy. The spelling we list has become the standard form. Now, the usage of salmagundi itself is varied: it makes an excellent hors d'oeuvre topping for crackers and bread, as a condiment or a main course for lunch if prepared mild.

Suggested Usage: Trinidadian Salmagundi (Dr. Language's favorite) makes a great cracker spread or dip with sherry or a garnish for red meat, particularly if barbecued or jerked. But the word's metaphorical versatility is what lexical legends are made of: "The parade was a salmagundi of colors and sounds." "Her broken sentences created an almost incomprehensible salmagundi of words." I could go on but you get the idea.

Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French salmingondis, itself from salmingondin, a compound probably based on salemine "salted food" and condir "to season." (Dr. Language thanks Yvonne Smith of Guyana for introducing him to salmagundi—the word and the gastronomic delight.)

The Bicycle Tour of Colorado looks good. Anyone who knows about it, should contact me.

Also the Arctic Ocean Ride of Pain

This place claims to MAIL pot directly to you from the Netherlands! Someone test this, please. And get back to me.

And then go to hell!

This shows no respect for our President!

Ignored the weather predictions today and went out for a more real ride. Went out Comm Ave to Route 128, where the Charles was a little flooded. Saw a Newton city park that was closed due to flooding with "sewerage." Ducks were frolicking in it. Newton still has quite a bit of snow on the ground, while there's none here in Brighton. The bike got a couple of looks from pedestrians, and I fell in with a couple of real cyclists on the return leg. I was surprised that I could do better than the woman on the Basso while going uphill.

In Boston some authority had obligingly ground down the surface of Comm Ave in a few places. These spots and the crossings of the Green Line tracks at Chestnut Hill gave me great opportunities to test the effectiveness of the titanium beam. Resisting years old habit, I sat down fully while crossing these rough parts. It was an odd sensation to feel my feet, clipped into the pedals, rattling away while my butt cruised along as smooth as butter. Some bumps did get transmitted to my saddle, but others were absorbed completely by the titanium. I'd say the net effect was a 50% reduction in shock delivered to by butt parts. This bike could spoil me for my other bikes.

Who I am not

• I'm not into chronic fatigue
• I'm not an oncologist
• I'm not a staff writer on a B2B website for fish
• I don't do radio frequencies in the Pacific Northwest, but not a bad pic, eh? looks like that figure on the Voyager that is now beyond the heliopause [go look it up]
• I'm not a member of the Screen Actors Guild,
• And these would be my credits, but they're not
• I am not president of MEDi
• I am none of these men, and I never hang out on golf courses
• I have never created a lesson plan on "Geology" (not even on geology), and if I were studying Education I'd feel obligated to improve my grammar
• I'm not a lawyer and chair no foundations, but if I did I suppose I could like this
  
• In fact if I were chair of this worthy foundation I would look just the same
• An Iowan about my age; close, but I've never lived in Brainerd
• I'm not a senior vice president at GE, nor is my middle initial "C"
• We have some Kansas and Missouri connections here, but way too old, and I've never had relatives in Louisiana
• If I ever felt the need to mention a "standard committee working on 'drain entrapment/sucition'" I would have done it here first
• Scroll down to "Amateur Lightweight SportBike" - it's not me
• I was not in the third grade honor roll at Westover School in Jackson, Tennessee
• Cute, but I never went to the University of Arizona
  
• If someone presented me a paper entitled "Divine Legislation and Secular Regulations Analysis of Old Testament Law and Practice" I think I'd just die laughing
• Don't even know where Aghagallon is
• I don't think much of smokers, but it never occurred to me that I could make a living at it
• A librarian in Iowa - sort of in the neighborhood - but I'm not color blind
• And if I was on "Jeopardy" and traveled to Madrid, that has all slipped my enfeebled mind since
• Close, but we really disagree on electrospray mass spectrometry evidence for an oxo-manganese(V) species generated during the reaction of manganese triazacyclononane complexes with H2O2 and 4-methoxyphenol in aqueous solution
• I actually have a CD by this me - it's terrible
• I've been to Moscow, but never used a public phone there
  
• A urologist specializing in male infertility and male sexual dysfunction - close, but it's really just a hobby - I never call myself Doctor
• Never been to Alberta, and could certainly do better with the photos
• Not born August 2 (but we're getting mighty close) and I have no idea where Morgan county is
• Nor am I in a position of authority in any city called Madison
• Not associated with the University of Western Sydney
• And I can't even guess what blinker fluid is
• Simply not me
• Middle initial not "C" and never been in London
  
• I've never had an installation
  
• Not my pets, even though he is just so cute I would never name a cat "Gatsby"
• Not my album
• Nor this one
• Nor even this one

Seen on Usenet

snowbiz <snowbiz@ihug.com.au> wrote:

The most popular and the greatest dispenser of all democratic morale at the planetary level, swamped in a mediatico-judiciary imbroglio has this time all the problems in the world to hide its own democratic model. At this level of jubilant cretinism attained by all of  the american medias and their european relays, one surely doesnt count on the americans themselves to tell us the last word about this buffoonic episode that unvails for all to see  their political system and their own idea of  democracy. It is now convenient for the europeans to draw themselves the lessons to be learned from this dead end democratic model, who want to export itself all over the world....The mechanics of the Democratic practics of the biggest power in the world are in crisis .

It is the model that can illustrate the general bankrup phenomenon of a democratic mecanism bound to be planetary. Of course occidental hypocrisy subsists, the gap between the speech "Pret a porter" full of compationate tones, aimed at non democratic or "almost there"democratic countries, clashes with  the precautions some times "so littlely" democratic used by this same occident to master democracy and control it , or even sway the universal suffrage

Pi=3 exactly. And 130 miles = 230 km.
I brought this issue up to our t-shirt people at last month's meeting and again this past week. I think it'll be fixed, but if not I'll be obligated to lay out a different route for our riders who come from metric nations (i.e., everywhere else). Or maybe we could make up some hyperspace joke.

Earlier this morning we had enough of a break from the very steady, very heavy, very windy rain, and we were close to the predicted high temperature for the weekend (37° F) so I rode the Air Glide up the short side of Corey Hill where I took some detailed photos on Kodachrome. Those, of course, won't be available for viewing for a few days, but I did get this one digital pic just because it's a shame to post nothing but indoor pics of a bike!
From the park atop Corey Hill I tested the brakes by rolling down the long side. Fabulo-so! Then I rambled around Brookline and Brighton a bit, hitting some well-potholed roads. Things rode marvelously. The chain did its weird suck thing only once, so I'm not going to worry about it.

From www.Merriam-Webster.com

eyas \EYE-uss\ (noun)
: an unfledged bird; specifically : a nestling hawk

Example sentence:
The falconer carefully took an eyas from the nest to raise in captivity.

Did you know?
"Eyas" is a funny-sounding word that actually exists because of a mistake. In the 15th century, Middle English speakers made an incorrect assumption about the word "neias," which comes from the Middle French "niais" ("fresh from the nest"). "A neias" sounded like "an eias" to their ears, so the word lost that initial "n," eventually becoming "eyas." (There are other words in English that were created in this same fashion; for example, "an apron" used to be "a napron.") The change in spelling may have been suggested by other Middle English words like "ey" ("egg") and "eyry," which was a spelling of "aerie," the hawk's nest where an eyas would be found. The preferred plural of "eyas" is "eyases," but plurals such as "eyasses," "eyass," and even simply "eyas" have turned up occasionally.

The publishers of the World Book Dictionary deleted the verb "jew" from their dictionary because it is offensive and archaic! How naive. See the red paragraph below. Maybe in their circles of enlightened people no one "jews" another, but you get together any group of midwestern Gentiles over the age of 40 and you'll hear using "jew" as a verb. I wonder if the same dictionary has removed "gyp" as well. "I got gypped" is no less offensive just because it refers to Gypsies rather than Jews.

Many dictionaries define "faggot" only as a bunch of sticks for burning, thereby pretending it cannot be used in any hateful way.

Dictionaries should present language as it is and has been used, not as some academicians think it should be.

Dictionaries mull use of sensitive words
By David Mehegan, Globe Staff, 3/29/2001

In the ongoing controversy over how certain words are to be handled in dictionaries, Chicago-based World Book Publishing has decided to delete the word "jew" - with a lower-case j - and its definition from the World Book Dictionary. The decision came after a letter of complaint last month from the American Jewish Commmittee.

The definition - to bargain someone down in price - is almost always characterized as offensive in dictionaries. In the two-volume World Book, descended from the old Thorndike-Barnhart of the 1960s and marketed primarily to schools, it is defined thus: "slang. To bargain with overkeenly; beat (down) in price (used in an unfriendly way)."

According to Murray Friedman, Middle-Atlantic States regional director of the American Jewish Committee, a psychologist in the Philadelphia school system noticed the word in a CD-ROM edition and contacted the Philadelphia branch of the committee. Friedman then sent a letter to the publisher.

"We complained that there was no opprobrium attached to it: It was played straight," Friedman says. "We said we would prefer that they not use the word in that way, but if they felt the definition was out there, at least they should say something about it. They wrote back immediately and said they would remove the word from the CD-ROM and would look at other words that might inadvert ently be offensive."

World publisher Michael Ross says editors were startled to find the word. "The editors didn't know it was in there," he said. "We decided that use of the word is extremely archaic, and also offensive, and not likely come up in contemporary speech."

A random examination of several dictionaries in a Boston-area bookstore found the lower-case spelling and definition of "jew" in most. In all cases it is characterized as insulting, with varying degrees of strength. The Oxford American Dictionary calls the word "often offensive." Webster's New World says "vulgar and offensive." Random House Webster's and American Heritage Dictionary both call the usage "offensive." Webster's Third International, unabridged: "usually taken to be offensive."

Dictionary publishers have come under increasing pressure to specify more explicitly the offensive aspect of words and in some cases to get rid of them. After a 1998 letter-writing campaign sought to eliminate the word "nigger" from the Merriam-Webster Third International, the publisher announced that it would review all words deemed to be offensive and characterize them more clearly. "We have done extensive studies," says Merriam-Webster spokesman Arthur Bicknell, "and we did modify more than 200 ethnic, religious, and sexual slurs, and vulgar words." The offensive implication of words, he says, "now appears earlier in the definition, and in italics."

"We have worked hard," says Joseph P. Pickett, executive editor of the American Heritage Dic tionary, "to make the dictionary, as far as we can, reflect a view of social justice, to be sensitive to different groups' concerns. We include a lot of these slurs, trying to present a broad picture of how language is used, but they're carefully labeled. We say up front that they're offensive, 'used as a disparaging term for X."' The school-age American Heritage version does not have lower-case "jew" or other slurs, says Pickett.

Some lexicographers, however, deplore the idea of deleting a word and its definition altogether. "Removing offensive words from the dictionary," says Richard J. Bailey, professor of English at the University of Michigan and vice president of the Dictionary Society of North America, "is like removing offensive events from history books. Pretending that they didn't exist dooms us to deny the harm they caused."

Bu Ross of World Book Publishing says, "We had to choose. We could have left ['jew'] there and said, 'This is regarded as offensive.' But we felt it's not worth having. Our mandate is to represent contemporary language as it is used and perceived and researched by our target audience: teachers, librarians, and primarily middle- through high-school kids and families. We're not trying to be the OED."

Universal paranoia unification theory, including urban legends

Subject: Re: yeah ok ok ok sure
From: Tim Robinson <timis@home.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.cecil-adams

Well, it's like this: The alligators were placed in the sewers by the KKK which is endorsed by Procter and Gamble, who also supports the satanists, and who sold Mrs. Field's cookie recipe to Neiman Marcus for $2,000 after the kiddie tatoos laced with LSD that were supposed to be used for satanic ritual abuse at that day care center in Beaufort were mistakenly eaten by the choking doberman who was bitten by the snake that came out of the fur coat that was worn by the escaped homicidal maniac whose hook prosthesis was found hanging from the door of the car of the teenagers who high-tailed it out of a lover's lane when they heard that he had escaped and then went to the pot party where the kids who were supposed to be babysitting got high on marijuana and were so stoned they accidentally put the baby in the oven instead of the turkey that makes you sleepy because it contains tryptophan because the microwave was ruined by the exploding poodle that the girl with the beehive hairdo that turned out to contain roaches who had gotten an automatic "A" at college because her roommate had committed suicide had put in to dry after it had gotten wet chasing the vanishing hitchhiker who had tried to warn the girl that her insides were cooked because she had stayed too long under the sun lamp at the local tanning salon while her dad poured a load of concrete into a new convertible parked outside of the house because he thought it belonged to a guy who was having sex with his wife but was really a prize he had won in a contest at that radio station that played rock records that contained hidden commands and subliminal messages planted by the Jews, international bankers, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Illuminati, the New World Order, multinational corporations, right wing militias, Jerry Falwell, the Christian Coalition, Planned Parenthood, and the spooks at Hanger 18 of Area 51 in Dreamland who performed the autopsies on the aliens who crashed at Roswell, New Mexico while on a mission to abduct people and conduct weird sexual and reproductive experiments on them because they knew we use only ten percent of our brains and that engineers had "proven" that bumblebees can't fly and that sugar wakes you up even if you're a CIA agent who has recovered memories about conspiring with organized crime and anti-Castro extremists to kill JFK with a magic bullet, and then killed dozens of other people whose odds of all dying within the period in which they did are infintesimal even if you don't count their near-death experiences in which an angel guided them to the light before they were called back because it wasn't time for them to die like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials did after eating Pop Rocks(R) candy when his friend Alice Cooper who was Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver woke up after a one night stand in a hotel only to find that the girl he was with was gone and had written "Welcome to the world of AIDS" in lipstick on the bathroom mirror which terrified him because he knew that it is just as easy to get AIDS from heterosexual intercourse as it is from homosexual sodomy with an IV drug user because when the US government created AIDS to commit genocide against blacks who aren't adversely affected by the minimum wage with the aid of Korean grocers who don't give anything back to the community they knew that Anne Klein had said on the Donahue show that she didn't want blacks buying her clothes because when the poison they put in that fried chicken at Church's so The Rich could keep the poor down because they can't be rich if nobody is poor there would be a massive coverup like the Philadelphia Experiment or the carburetor that can allow a car to get 100 mpg in perpetual motion just like Nikola Tesla had done a hundred years ago using the same principal that Uri Geller uses to bend spoons and psychic friends use to give you valuable insights that improve your life for amusement purposes only while smoking a cigarette that has no more been proven to give you cancer than evolution has been proven to occur because it's only a theory and there are no transitional fossils and it violates the second law of thermodynamics unlike creation science which is not religious and fear of irradiated food which is rational because we know it's bad just like the assault weapons that are more dangerous than other semi-automatic weapons because they look scary and ugly and they're ok to ban because the second amendment wasn't meant to preserve the rights of individuals against the state like the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights but instead is the only amendment designed to protect the state against individuals because if there is no effective way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals the next best thing is to keep them out of the hands of law abiding citizens and make sure only the state has them because countries where the state doesn't permit its citizens to own guns are never oppressive and the government doesn't become arrogant and intractable and corrupt because the government can improve our lives by suspending the laws of supply and demand to make prices fair and deciding how many people of each race and sex should be in colleges and jobs which is good because when control of everyday life is centralized in the state the people who get to make the decisions are never capricious or highhanded or make decisions favoring their friends and family and people who pay them money because if only we can get the right people into positions of control it will be safe to let them run things because smart people can figure out how to allocate resources and what fair prices are for goods and services and labor and who should be allowed to do what much more efficiently and constructively than just letting millions of people make their own decisions about what they should eat or drink or smoke or for whom they should work for under what conditions for how much money on what schedule based on their own perceptions concerns and plans in accordance with their best interests.
But I digress . . .

Guerilla Queer Bar looks like fun...in San Francisco. Haven't found anything like this in Boston. Not holding my breath.

I was much surprised yesterday when I got a catalog from International Male! I haven't gotten one of those in years. I wonder how they picked me up again?

Their site was one of the first I ever went to check out way, way back when I installed Windows 3.11 and Netscape Navigator version 2 point something. Their site sucked! I was amazed that a catalog that relied almost solely on good graphics and hot models had such a disappointing website. All the images were small and fuzzy. Some items actually had NO photos! When I wrote them an email expressing my disappointment and pointing out a few other websites that did a much better job they wrote me back a really snotty message. I haven't sent them any more suggestions since then. Nonetheless, they are still in business and they have improved their website. Click on my good buddy in the yellow jock to go see.

I picked up the Air Glide at Bicycle Bill's tonight. The shifting was almost perfect. The brakes had been adjusted. He came up with a way to stabilize the rear fender (the front fender is my problem to solve). It felt much, much better. I do need to tighten the pedal cleats a bit. Paul said Bike Friday wasn't required to install reflectors because they sent me the bike in pieces.

Tonight was another P-town ride meeting. At Boston Beerworks. I think we settled on a light green background for riders and light blue for volunteers. I'm not sure. Lot of beer and noise.

Seen on Usenet

Subject: Re: Hacker Proof Security Device- Hardware. Available???
From: "A.Yamamoto" <ayamamoto@new1.ion.ne.jp>
Newsgroups: comp.os.netware.security, comp.security.firewalls, comp.security.unix, fj.comp.security, uwo.comp.security

An American movie titled "The Net" was broadcasted lacently on TV Asahi in Japan, and I saw it. The hidden functions of the firewall in the movie were very very horible, And I understood this movie telling us a warning for such firewall software could be developped, and nobody in general people could understand the danger potentials.

A young girl in the movie, she has clear brain and works at somewhere lab. where some people checks software's security. She found a special operation which enables invading into any computer through a firewall software. Then she was involved in the trouble, and forced to fight with men who developed that very dangerous firewall.

Finaly she destroyed their computer system completely by sending a powerfull computer virus, and sent a E-mail to CIA which informes the too danger behaviors caudes by the firewall and the firewall's developpers ( Cyber terolists) who were filled with ill will. CIA got her E-mail successfully, and the developpers( Cyber terolists) were killed all !

Seeing the movie, I have very impressed with her courage, and American's spirit for justice which they never permit cyber terorism

PS.
I support U.S. DOJ's efforts to protect the computer market which was inveded by some dirty business filled with ill will.

Subject: OT: A Palindrome
From: Brad Ferguson <thirteen@frXOXed.net>
Newsgroups: alt.obituaries

DUBYA WON? NO WAY, BUD.

Here is one story, and here another, both of which suggest that Windows XP (the OS to come next after Windows 2000) is good and stable and fair and wise! How nice. Whatever will we have to talk about then?

THIS WEBSITE TELLS YOU HOW TO MAKE A THOUGHT SCREEN HELMET. You may need it to keep your brain from being fried by Microsoft.

Tired of the internet?

Future rule of thumb: never try to use military power to subdue people who choose to eat rats.

We may not have many more chances to slam Microsoft!

The very good news is that my friend Carlton has been gracious enough to allow me to bamboozle him into signing up with me for the motorcycle class! We picked the couple of weekends at the end of June as our first and second choices. That gives us a few comfortable months to learn to smoke, drink cheap beer, and get appropriate tattoos.

Here's an amusing, lighthearted article that lays out the basics of what libertarianism would mean in America. In case you're a bit fuzzy on libertarianism and think maybe it's just a bunch of tolerant conservatives or some low-tax liberals (there's an oxymoron), go read this.
Step 1 in the libertarian agenda: $21 trillion tax cut.

From Merriam-Webster

eupeptic \yoo-PEP-tik\ (adjective)
1 : of, relating to, or having good digestion
2 : cheerful, optimistic

Example sentence: "By being dignified but not stuffy, cheerful but not frivolous, . . . the eupeptic Mr. Reagan had put Americans at their ease." (The Economist, January 3-9, 1987)

Did you know?
"Eupeptic" probably derives from "eupepsia" ("good digestion"), which in turn breaks down to "eu-" ("good") and "-pepsia" ("digestion"). Both elements are based on Latin forms and are ultimately of Greek origin. It seems reasonable that good digestion might enhance one's outlook on life -- and indeed, "eupeptic" can suggest a happy frame of mind as well as a happy digestive system. Along similar lines, someone with poor digestion might be cranky, and the antonymous counterparts of "eupeptic" and "eupepsia" -- "dyspeptic" and "dyspepsia" -- can suggest either indigestion or ill humor.


Grand Guignol \grahn-gheen-YAWL\ (noun) : dramatic entertainment featuring the gruesome or horrible

Example sentence: Part fairy tale and part Grand Guignol, the film had a bizarre overall effect that many viewers found very disturbing.

Did you know?
In the 19th century, gory plays dealing with murder and mayhem were popular in Paris. These plays were performed mainly at the Theatre du Grand Guignol. The name "Grand Guignol" apparently springs from an 18th-century puppet theater in France that was frequently violent and featured a main character named Guignol. Today we use "Grand Guignol" to mean entertainment of the horror-show variety. We also use it as a modifier meaning "gruesome" or "horrifying." Writing about baseball's Baltimore Orioles in the _New York Times_ in 1989, for example, David Falkner made use of the term: "Only eight of the players currently on the roster were here for the Grand Guignol losing streak last year."

The Bahai Temple in Haifa, Israel, of all places.

Really interesting in this photo at the mission control center in Korolyov outside Moscow are the prominent corporate logos.

I think it was Isaac Asimov who said that good science fiction wasn't the sort that predicted the automobile (using a mid-19th century point of view). Good science fiction would have predicted the PARKING METER! Any half-twit author could have written lame science fiction about spacecraft falling to earth...but did any predict that chunks of those downed spacecraft might show up on ebay?! Well, according to this article that's what happened. When I click on the links, though, ebay comes back and says they're not valid. If you have experience with ebay and can find the Mir chunks, get back to me. Okay?

Korova hoax info.

The measure approved by the [Arkansas] House panel would bar the topic of evolution or related radio-carbon dating of animal and plant fossils from state-funded textbooks used in schools, museums, libraries and zoos.