Fine Wine, Cheese of a Certain Age and Wikipedia Jollies
Go ahead. Guess what this post is about. I dare you.
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Divide by Zero
On the off chance the subject line doesn’t make it clear enough, this is a post about man of the hour, Rush Limbaugh. Aren’t you grateful for truth in blogging? You may now safely skip this post.
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High Colonical Economics #SOPA
This is based on a true story. That means that, most likely, people named George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin really did exist. Beyond that, however, there may be some historical inaccuracies. I spent countless seconds imagining – I mean researching – but some errors have may have crept in. Besides, as I write this, Wikipedia is protesting SOPA, so I’m making up the stuff I don’t know. Even though we are now controlling transmission we are not responsible for the content. Enjoy!
It was a fine beautiful day in the Colonies as Thomas Jefferson strode purposefully to his neighbor’s house, a fine upstanding gentleman by the name of George Washington.
Stopping at the gate, Thomas chuckled as he often did at the signs George had posted. “Trespassers will be musketed” and “We don’t lamp for the Constable.” He let himself in the gate and found his friend near the porch, apparently taking a break from afternoon chores.
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Philosophy, poop, ethics and this blog
Blurt did a post about Wikipedia and how ALL pages eventually link back to the “philosophy” page. It was interesting stuff and I’ve been pondering if we should do that ever since I saw it. (Heh.)
I took a few liberties and mind-mapped a few terms from this very blog to see what that would look like:
The Shout Abyss Universe (side view). Click image to probe further.
This is interesting stuff. And no, I didn’t do anything clever to generate that image. You can do it yourself at http://xefer.com/wikipedia. Try it out for yourself. It’s fun.
The fact that all Wikipedia pages lead back to the “philosophy” page really makes one think. The why. The should. Do we even exist? Are you real?
Somehow I don’t think so.
via Blurt
Killing time with some random ponderings
Supervisor Dan White
Is justice blind? Sometimes it sure feels like it. For my random thought today I’d like to compare two different criminal cases to illustrate the disparate dispensation of justice. The cases occurred about 22 years apart but I feel they still offer a disturbing example of inconsistent justice.
Dan White, Supervisor
If you’ve seen the movie Milk you may already know some of this. In 1978 San Fransisco former Supervisor Dan White killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. White entered city hall through a first-floor window to avoid newly installed metal detectors while carrying a loaded gun and 10 rounds of ammunition, then gained entry to the Mayor’s office where an argument ensured. White shot and killed Moscone using four bullets. White then reloaded his gun and walked down the hall to Milk’s office and shot and killed Milk using five bullets.
For the cold-blooded and premeditated murder of two men White served less than two years of a five-year sentence.
Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch, TV game show contestant
The first season of the reality TV show Survivor was held in 2000 in Borneo and was won by a contestant named Richard Hatch. His prize for winning the game was $1 million.
After becoming the sole survivor Hatch failed to report his winnings on his federal tax returns. In addition to the $1 million he also failed to report $10,000 for a reunion show, $321,000 for appearances on a radio program, an automobile he won on Survivor, and rental income from properties he owned.
In 2006 a jury found Hatch guilty of tax evasion. He faced up to 13 years in prison.
For tax evasion Hatch was sentenced to 51 months (4 years, 3 months) in prison and three additional years of probation. He served over three years of that sentence before being released.
I find the comparison in sentences between White and Hatch very incredible. The killing of two human beings resulted in less than two years in prison while cheating on taxes resulted in over three.
Random Wikipedia
Today’s random Wikipedia page is actually fairly interesting. It’s about Maski, an archeological site in India.
I got nothin
Hello Abyssimites. (Mind if I call you that?)
I got absolutely nothing ready for today, so as a consequence you will all be asked to suffer interminably. Mwuhahaha.
First, I tried a random Wikipedia page for inspiration. That brought up an educational page regarding the Tajikistani presidential election, 1999. That was seriously a big time goat cluster. I mean 98 percent turnout is pretty good but one guy won with 96 percent of the vote. Even Bush wasn’t that greedy. But I keed, I keed. I’d never even heard of Tajikistani before. So I read up on the country a bit and it’s fairly interesting and I did find this really cool photo of the Fan Mountains on Wikipedia. It is incredibly beautiful there.
Other than that, I only have one other special treat for y’all today. Grab your hurl buckets and listen to the vintage sounds of yours truly crooning on this track from my extremely rare CD. (Only one copy was ever sold.) It’s an auto-biographical melody that I wrote, performed vocals and produced called “Wrongful Life.” It tells the story of a reluctant fetus. I don’t remember the original release date but I think it was in the late 1990’s or so. Enjoy!
Random Wikipedia
I always have a long list of ideas I keep handy for my next possible blog post. Today I decided to ignore that list. D’oh!
I had an idea that I thought might turn out to be interesting. I was going to use the “Random Article” feature on Wikipedia to power my next blog post. I’d click the link and no matter what the topic, I’d then expound on it. No matter what came up I’d find some way to use it.
Epic fail!
I knew from the very first page load that the idea had problems.
I tried it three times and this is what came up:
Mika is a vocalist and also a member of a group called “Reggae Disco Rockers.” I visited their MySpace page and listened to a couple of their songs. Not quite my cup of tea.
Then I visited the China Plastic & Rubber Journal web site. (At this point I was beginning to suspect the universe was fucking with me.) Boring!
The Garin page looked mildly interesting with a few possible avenues of exploration. Meh.
Guess my idea was lame. 🙂
FYI to Elric66: The last comment is not an invitation to submit a comment agreeing with me and calling me a “moron.” Thanks so much!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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