Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

Over at Jerry Pournell's website, in the current mail section, he's got up an excellent article that someone sent to him, regarding our situation over in Iraq, and why there is good reason to be optimistic.

Here's just the beginning:

"Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them." - T. E. Lawrence

It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq.

If current trends continue, our counter-insurgent campaign in Iraq will be fit to be mentioned in the same breath as the British victory over a Communist insurgency in Malaysia in the 1950s, a textbook example of this form of war. Our counterinsurgency has gone through the same stages as that of the Brits five decades ago: confusion in the initial reaction to the insurgency, followed by a long period of adjustment, and finally the slow but steady erosion of the insurgency's military and political base. Even as there has been a steady diet of bad news about Iraq in the media over the last year, even as some hawks have bailed on the war in despair, even as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has become everyone's whipping boy, the U.S. military has been regaining the strategic upper hand.

The article is very long, but it has a lot of things that I didn't know and it's made me look at a number of issues in a different light. I highly recommend it.

Okay, this post links to a funny essay by John Varley about stupid TSA rules. It's well worth reading, despite the horrible, horrible, unfunny pun that I was compelled to use in the post title.

It contains the following excerpt:

No, the new rule I’m thinking of concerns air travel. It seems it’s not safe enough, in this post 9/11 world. The great thinkers at Homeland Security have already protected us from people carrying pocketknives and scissors onto airplanes. Here’s the new rule:

Stuff you can’t take onto an airplane:

Kitchen matches.
Cigarette lighters.

Things you can take onto an airplane:

4 books of safety matches.

Now, I really need some help here. I’ve been raking my brain—a much more painful process than either racking or wracking—and I haven’t been able to come up with many things you can do with a cigarette lighter that you can’t do with a book of matches. You can easily throw a lighter or a book of matches. You can put either item into your mouth, thought I wouldn’t recommend eating them. Neither item will fit in your ear. You can stick a cigarette lighter or a book of matches up your ass, if that’s your bag.

He has a number of good essays up, always entertaining even when I disagree with his politics. For example, this recent one suggesting which country we should target next: Iceland: Threat or Menace?

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Wow, talk about multi-tasking. Sometimes I wonder if our culture is becoming so information saturated that we can no longer be content paying attention to one thing at a time anymore. When we watch TV, we're also surfing the net. While we're reading a book, we're also listening to music and doing the laundry.

How else can we explain this: Sky-High Gamers Go to Extremes

These folks are playing video games while sky-diving!!! Super Mario DS on wireless multi-player to be precise!

"It was a rush," said Myers. "Playing in the air was pretty exciting. It was also incredibly difficult. Some of the problems were that when you were jumping, you needed to bring both hands together on the DS, and it seriously decreased your stability."

Yet, notwithstanding the risks, the four sky divers proved that an ad hoc network set up using the wireless functions of a Nintendo DS works perfectly at distances of nearly 400 feet while falling 120 miles an hour.

Gone are the days when falling out of an airplane was enough to occupy our full attention.

It's a shame really, because bad things can happen to inattentive sky-divers...

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Well, it took long enough, but I finally found some Dark Chocolate M&M's! I found them at the local Wal-Mart and picked up a few bags.

At first, they taste just like the normal milk chocolate version, but then that wonderful dark chocolate aftertaste kicks in. WOW! Mega-tasty.

But dangerous. Be warned. I sense much hunger in you. Hunger leads to temptation. Temptation leads to tasting. Tasting leads to obsession.

And obsession leads to fat.

Anyway, they're pretty good.

Are you tired of these links yet? Too bad!

I'm continuing to get a lot of visitors looking for numa numa stuff, including some specific things that I know about, but have not yet linked to.

Now, it is just in my nature to want to help people out. These poor lost souls, wandering the barren information super-highway in search of the NUMA-NUMA CLASS, or the AMERICAN IDLE PARODY. Or any of a dozen other copy-cat videos.

I just can't bear to watch these poor souls suffering, even though I know that the quality of these links is falling quicker than Tom from Survivor on a few shots of rum. As such, I have graciously offered these links here, as well as adding them to my Numa Numa Permalink, which can always be found on the right sidebar. It's a tremendous sacrifice, but that's just the kind of good samaritan I am.

Also, I am a huge traffic-whore.

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We all knew it was coming. After all, it happens only once a year. Every year it comes, on April 15th, just like clockwork.

That's right, it's Leonardo DaVinci's birthday.

Born on this day in 1452, the painter of the Mona Lisa


and The Last Supper


designer of early helicopters and bicycles, scupltor, architect, genius.

More recently, he apparently invented some sort of "code", but he is perhaps best known as the inspiration for the "fearless leader" of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.


So it's important, whenever April 15th comes around, to take some time to remember the original "Renaissance Man".

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Hmm, why do I feel like there was something else I was supposed to do today? Oh well, I'm sure it can wait.
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The Pirate Captain has been elected student body president at NC State!


He didn't run on his real name and ballots actually said: "The Pirate Captain." If you read this story here, you'll see that instead of a platform, he had a "plank", and it included "expanding the bus lines to haul thar peopled cargo to and fro from ACC bouts at the yonder RBC Center." Also, "holding meetin's open to all yae landlubbers."

Not everyone was impressed. Clearly out of touch with reality, one sophomore said: "Voting for someone who wants to rid the campus of scurvy dogs is not really an effective way of having student government."

Still, The Pirate Captain commandeered 44% of the vote, and then, in a run-off, keel-hauled the competition and seized 58% of the booty, making him (probably) the first Pirate Student Body President ever!

Avast, ye preppies! There's a new Captain on Campus!

Thanks to Dave Barry's Blog for the head's up...

Regular readers will remember my botched daylight saving time prank, (or not,) but apparently I'm not the first to try that sort of joke.

Apparently, during the election, The Onion did a story wherein Republicans were "reminding" Democrats that the election rules had changed so that Republicans voted on Tuesday, Democrats on Wednesday.

And John Kerry takes this seriously. (story: Trickory Dickory Dock)

What's actually better still though is that the Onion didn't even come up with it first. Scroll about halfway down this link to the story called "Did Franken Bury Kerry?" (hee hee, Frankenberry...)

During the 2000 election, it was the Democrats reminding Republicans to vote on Wednesday! So, it makes me feel good that I'm in good company with my prank. Both parties have done it, so I'm not just lame, I'm bipartisan.

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And watch Bunny Hunter.

One of the weirdest things I've ever seen... recently.

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Hey there everybody, check out the most recent resident of Southpark! Me!


Want to join me? Click here and head on down to Southpark

Thanks to Dean's World for the link...

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If it is, please leave a comment!

Because it's mine too, and Siddhartha's (AKA Buddha), and statistically, if you have 30 people in a room, the odds are 7 out of 10 that two of them will have the same birthday. If you have 23, the odds are 50/50.

Don't believe it? I can prove it. The trick is to calculate the odds that no one will have the same birthday.

For example, if you have two people, the odds that they won't have the same birthday is 364/365.

If you add a third person, then the odds that that person won't have the same birthday as either of the other two is 363/365. Then, the odds that none of the three of them will have the same birthday is the multiple of the first two ratios, namely (364/365)*(363/365) = 0.991 or 99.1%

You follow the same procedure with each new person you add, so the odds that four people won't have the same birthday is (364/365)*(363/365)*(362/365) and so on.

The odds that at least two of them will have the same birthday, are of course, 100% minus the odds that they won't.

Keep it going (it's easy with a Spreadsheet), and you'll see that at 23 people, the odds that none of them will have the same birthday is ~49.3%. Go out to 30, and the odds are 29.4%

So what does this all mean? Well, I've been getting more than 30 views a day, so statistically speaking, the odds are pretty good that one of you will have the same birthday as me. If you do, please leave a comment and don't leave me hanging like a hopeless math geek!

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Check out this video of a guy flying a plane, upside-down, under a bridge!

Here's a cockpit-cam of another guy flying, again, upside-down, through a cave!

Thanks to Dean's World for the links.

An animated book report on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. You know, it's a lot more interesting than I remember it. I read it a while ago, and I didn't even remember the part about the burning sharks.

Thanks to PolySciFi
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But it appears that the story from last week about the woman who found a finger in her Wendy's Chili, may in fact be the one responsible.

Apparently, the Las Vegas police obtained a search warrant for her house, and have confirmed that they are opening a criminal investigation. Sounds like the finger may have come from her dead aunt.

I thought there was something off about that story, but I just couldn't... no, it's too easy.

Anyway, thanks to matociquala for letting me know.

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Just a hint: It's stuff like this.

French Flage Tribute to Pope Sparks Left-Wing Anger

Politicians in secular France squabbled over whether the government had been right to order flags lowered on public buildings in a sign of respect for Pope John Paul.

Socialist senator Jean-Luc Melenchon and Yves Contassot, a senior Green party member on the Paris City Council, said the government had abused its powers on Monday by ordering the official tribute to the Pope, who died on Saturday.

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"Let the Christians pay tribute to the head of their church, it's a private matter," Contassot told France Inter radio.

"Today, we have a government and a head of state who, clearly, for political reasons, are trying to take advantage of an issue that is a private matter," he said.

Lowering of flags on all state buildings was "totally out of place and at the limit of legality."

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Samurai Sword Attack at Church

One person is dead after a man wielding a samurai sword stormed into a Protestant church in Germany.

Police say yesterday's attack in Stuttgart left three others seriously injured, including one man whose hand was hacked off.

They say some 65 members of the local Tamil (TAM'-il) community were in the middle of a service when the man stormed in, waving a sword.

A 43-year-old woman was killed.

Police called to the scene subdued the man with pepper spray before arresting him.

Police say the suspect, a Tamil from Stuttgart, was motivated by "personal reasons."

Tamils are a predominantly Hindu minority in Sri Lanka and southern India. The group regularly rented the Stuttgart church to hold its services.

Of course, it was horrific I'm sure for the people in volved, but it's just surreal. I think my favorite part is actually the "personal reasons" bit.

"So, buddy, why'd you feel the need to cut up a bunch of people in a church with a samurai sword?"

"Um, it's kinda personal."

Oh, and this is entirely unrelated to that, except on the theme of "WTF", and because it's funny:

End of World

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Hey everyone, remember to "Spring Forward" your clocks 1 hour before you go to bed tonight! (Unless you want to get up at 2 AM anyway.) Don't want to be late getting up for your Saturday morning cartoons! (Or other assorted Saturday morning activities.)


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