You Dropped a Bomb on Me - Redux

For some reason, the other video for this got taken off YouTube, so here's a repost of the GREATEST SONG OF ALL TIME!

Tap Your Foot

OK.... This might be the most poppy song I've ever heard, but there is no way you can listen to it without tapping your foot. Go ahead... try it... it's impossible.

Post Updates

A few updates from past posts:

1. Dieting: Last April I posted all about how I lost weight (and have kept it off) not because of some magic pill or fad diet, but by eating less and exercising more. I saw an article today that gives a little more proof that all those diet pills are just a load of rubbish.
   
   
   
2. Human Weakness: This was my first blog post, from September, 2005. Last night on Primetime on ABC, they had a special called "Basic Instincts" (a silly name, I think) all about revisiting the Milgram experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment that I mentioned in that blog. The report shed further light on the fact that people will do extraordinarily horrible things if put in the right situation, and that almost all the people don't understand why they do those things afterwards. A lot of people in the Primetime piece used the ever-popular, "I was just following orders." Take a look at the article online.

A Quick Guide to RSS

If you've been hanging out on the internet (moving around in the tubes) recently, you may have noticed a lot of links on pages that look like this:

or sometimes:or sometimes:
or, who knows, maybe you've never noticed. Either way, what are these cute little three-letter-acronym buttons for? They're for RSS (Really Simple Syndication). While the name suggests that RSS is "Really Simple", a lot of people have a hard time understanding what it's for, if they want to use it, and what benefit they can get out of it. This blog entry will hopefully straighten this all out for you and get you on the RSS bandwagon.

A lot of people use the internet for porn reading the news. Unfortunately, most major news sites are filled with links to videos you have to pay for, and ads, and all sorts of junk so that it's a pain to sift through all that to get to the content that you're looking for. That's where RSS comes in. It's all about CONTENT!

Imagine a world where you can get all the news, blogs, comics, movie reviews, weather reports, etc. all in one place, and without any of the extra junk that comes with web pages. Then imagine that in that world you can decide how and when you view the information. Imagine instantly, constantly updating content. Now, stop imagining! That's what RSS can do! RSS gives you all the information you already use the Internet for, but all in one place. It's easy to read, easy to organize, and free of excess junk.

Now, how does it work? People who make websites can have their data automatically munged into a format called XML. This treats all pages as a series of titles and content. So, for a news site, the titles will be the headlines and the content will be either the articles or a snippet of the articles. The titles are usually links to the real article on the news site. XML does not say how the information should be organized or displayed, it just has the information. Now, all that is well and good, but how do YOU use RSS? First you need an RSS reader. This is the software that allows you to view all of the feeds you want to see. I can recommend two of them. One is an add-on to firefox called Sage, the other is a website, and is my favorite RSS reader: Google Reader. With either reader, you supply the link to the feed, and they grab the feeds for you and tell you when there are new items available for the feed. You can get the feed address by click on the buttons that I put in above. For example, the feed for my blog is:

http://choppedherring.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Once you get all the blogs, news sites, etc. added to your reader, you'll be able to surf all that content in one place, without needing to go from one site to another to get information. Google Reader even has ways for you to organize your feeds by folders so you can see all the content for a group of feeds in one listing.

So, go get yourself an RSS reader and start enjoying the world of RSS. I'll put some links here to RSS feeds that I follow. Please add comments with any questions you have and I'll post the answers.

BBC NEWS (World):
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml

Daily Show Text Headlines:
http://www.comedycentral.com/rss/tdsheadlines.jhtml

Daily Dilbert Cartoons:
http://www.caesar.nl/CaesarRSS/DilbertRSS.aspx

Fark.com:
http://www.fark.com/fark.rss

Rotten Tomatoes: Movies:
http://i.rottentomatoes.com/syndication/rss/complete_movies.xml

Yahoo! News: Most Viewed:
http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/mostviewed

UPDATE:

I have added a new section to my blog on the right that is a feed of my Google Reader Shared Items. This is a feature of Google Reader where I can share RSS feed items that I think other people might be interested in. I'll try to share a few every day, so check back!

Saddam's Execution

As you all probably realize by now, Saddam Hussein was put to death the other day. I wanted to share a few thoughts on this. By the way, I will NOT be linking to ANY videos of the hanging.

President Bush has been quoted as saying, "Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime." Regardless of what you think of the man or the death penalty, I find it very difficult to understand how one can consider this justice. First, the trial was clearly a show, put on by the new Iraqi government to bring retribution on him. The trial was televised with all the dignity and grandstanding of the OJ Simpson trial. It's hard to find validity in a court that establishes its laws specifically to try one trial. It also seemed clear from the beginning that he would be found guilty. Now, there has been a situation like this before: the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two. These trials had three main purposes:

1) Determine who was responsible for what actions;
2) Find out exactly what happened; and
3) Punish the people responsible.

The Nuremberg Trials were run by an international court, not by the victims. Clearly, the outcome and trial proceedings would have been different if the trial had been run by survivors of the Holocaust. While this situation is very different, having the trial run by the people who were treated worst by Saddam eliminates much of the legitimacy of the case and the impartiality of the court. Had the case been run by an international court, the case could be seen as more than retribution.

The timing of the hanging was also very poor. I'm not speaking of the proximity to a Muslim festival, I'm speaking of killing him after the first trial. These trials could have been an incredibly valuable tool to discover what exactly happened under his regime -- instead, he was hanged before more information could be discovered. It is likely that the trial will now quickly lose its steam and fall apart. After the Holocaust, there were the Nuremberg Trials; after Apartheid, there was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After Saddam there will just be a lot of unanswered questions.

One could argue that justice was served here. He was punished for his crimes. Even with that argument, this trial was for one, specific act of tyranny in a career of horrible acts. Where is the justice for all of his other victims? At this point, a whole lot more could have been gained for history from his life than his quick death.

Also, a lot of noise has been made about the cell phone video of the execution being criminal and wrong and disgusting. I completely agree. However, the video that was shown on cable news of Saddam before the hanging is almost as graphic. Why was it necessary to video any of the execution? If people needed proof of the execution, couldn't they have videotaped him in his cell and then taken a photo of him in a casket? I do not see any reason to video a man walking to his death or having a noose put around his neck. It seemed a way for the new Iraqi government to show off their power and retribution.

So, contrary to what Bush said, I don't think any justice has been served here. Instead, we can see what passionate, irrational thinking can result in. For more commentary on this, read this article by Fareed Zakaria.

Happy New Year... Sorta

With everyone getting ready for New Years Eve, I thought it might be a good time to recognize the other New Years... perhaps we should celebrate them all... I'll bring the beer...

(Dates are New Years during 2006)

Gregorian Calendar - January 1 (January 1)
Indian National Calendar - Chaitra 1 (March 22)
Kurdish Calendar - Jezhnan 1 (March 21)
Persian Calendar - Farvardin 1 (March 21)
Islamic Calendar - 1 Muharram (January 31)
Chinese Calendar - Month 1, Day 1 (January 29)
Jewish Calendar - 1 Tishre (September 22)
Julian Calendar - January 1 (January 14)
Baha'i Calendar - Baha' 1 (March 20)
Bengali Calendar - Pôhela Boishakh (April 14)
Coptic Calendar - Thout 1 (September 11)
Ethiopian Calendar - Enkutatash (September 11)
Javanese Calendar - Mangsa Kaso 1 (June 23)
Nanakshahi calendar - Chet 1 (March 14)
Bikram Samwat - Baisakh 1 (April 13)


I'm sure there are a lot more I didn't include, but either way,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Secret War

The Gap Band - You Dropped The Bomb On Me

Channukah

Another Jewish holiday arrives, and with it, a new song by Israel Beer. So, grab your dreidel and start...

Spinnin' on Nun

Religion and Homosexuality

I prefer not to delve in to personal beliefs on homosexuality or other people's personal beliefs on it. Believe whatever you want. I do have a problem, however, with people taking things out of context and trying to rationalize their personal beliefs that way.

On the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, in the afternoon service, we read from Leviticus, Chapter 18. This is the section of the Torah (part of the old testament to Christians) that is most often quoted as showing what G-d thinks about homosexuality and how we should act towards it. Clearly the rabbis thought this was a very important section since it is read on such a holy day. The line that specifically speaks of homosexuality is:

18:22 Do not lie with a male as you would with a woman, since this is a disgusting perversion.

This clearly doesn't leave my wiggle room. Now, on the surface, it seems that what all of those preachers on TV are yelling about is correct, but look at the rest of the paragraph and you'll see that this sentence cannot be read alone. I'll highlight a passage I think is very interesting:

18:19 Do not come close to a woman who is ritually unclean because of her menstruation, since this is a sexual offense.

This verse is also very clear and gives very little wiggle room. I have never heard of any preacher disallowing this. How can someone be so incredibly passionate about one sentence and yet ignore other sentences just before it? It seems like those who preach so strongly against homosexuality need to either start preaching against sex during a woman's period until she has ritually bathed or they need to start viewing the bible as an entire, cohesive book. You cannot pick out the pieces you are passionate about and throw out the rest.

Now, I'm not saying I obey all the laws in the bible. VERY far from it. What I'm saying is that if you're going to use the bible as justification for ostracizing and hating a group of people, you need to also listen to everything else it has to say -- if not in the whole thing, at least take entire sections. Cherry picking sentences that fit your needs while ignoring others only shows a desire to prove ones point, not a desire to follow what you believe is the will of G-d. I know there are other passages that also speak of homosexuality, Wikipedia has an entire article on the topic, but this seems to be the one most often referenced and used.

Also, an interesting note: This passages specifically mentions men, not women. Like always, just something to think about. If I'm way off base here, tell me in the comments and I'll post updates and changes as necessary. I'm not a religion expert, just a casual observer.

A Little Joke

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."

The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."