Matching Tracksuits

Month: November 2004

Vindictive Voting

Sunday 7 November 2004

I joined Blogexplosion from sheer curiosity as to what this would do for this stupid site of mine. Thud mentioned it once and I though, “Why not give it a try.”

I got an account, looked through some blogs, and that’s about it. I don’t know if my traffic went up or not. To some degree I guess it did.

One of the things you can do with BE is you can rate other people’s work. And you can see who rated you, and more importantly (for some I guess), what rating they gave you.

Which gives rise to vindictive voting. For example, I gave this blog by one Lewis Moten a low rating. A one, in fact. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. It wasn’t that bad. But the content and the design annoyed me.

The first thing I saw was this entry about the Star Wars trailer, which includes nothing but a screen shot and the comment,

I just watched the trailer to Star Wars Episode III — Revent [sic] of the Sith. Pretty cool, and I didn’t have to buy a Hyperspace account to see it.

Fairly lame, I thought.

Worse, the design is a little annoying, with all those frames and scroll bars. As I commented (admittedly later):

The embedded frames with the off-color scroll bars makes it visually unattractive. The floating link list on the right adds a distracting element, and partially obscures the site title.

So I gave it a low mark and moved on.

Well, it appears that Lewis, angered by my low rating, decided to give me a low rating.

Ah, the joys and pains of the cyber experience…

Chewing Gum in Singapore

Friday 5 November 2004

Everyone knows of the “notorious” ban on gum in Singapore. It seems that liberalization is coming. You can chew gum now! That is, if you’re registered to do so.

I was doing a search on this because there’s a listening activity on the history of chewing gum in the intermediate English textbook I use. I was shocked and thrilled to find out that freedom of chew is slowly coming to Singapore.

And America is helping bring it!

The gum became a sticking point in the trade talks when Philip Crane, a US congressman from Illinois, called for Singapore to lift the ban on all gum. Mr Crane represents Chicago, the home of chewing gum giant Wrigley (BBC Article).

I guess Singapore better brace for an attack if these restrictions aren’t lifted . . .

Party Across the Hall

Thursday 4 November 2004

1-01

When your apartment is across the hall from a small office, and you know most of the people who work in the office, and they have an after-work party, you’ll probably end up there as well.

Calling the Kettle Black

Tuesday 2 November 2004

Using The Cloak I can now look at W’s web site. He writes,

Kerry politicized the Osama bin Laden tape by using it to attack the President and now his campaign surrogates are taking those attacks to a new low.

I seem to recall a scene of Bush getting off of Air Force One and saying something about bin Laden and the need for a safe America…

Apparently what’s good for the goose is not good for the mule. (Wait, I think I got my metaphors mixed up a little.)

Further, one Steve Schmidt says:

For John Kerry’s surrogates to suggest that Osama bin Laden supports President Bush’s reelection is disgusting. John Kerry politicized the tape by using it to attack the President and now his campaign surrogates are taking those attacks to a new low, even as Kerry hypocritically says it would be ‘wrong’ to politicize the tape. This just demonstrates once again that for John Kerry the War on Terror is about political opportunity, not victory.

But it’s okay for Bush’s surrogates to suggest that bin Laden would rather Kerry win because it’ll make U.S. security weaker?!

The article quotes Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) as saying, “Bin Laden is trying to help George Bush because George Bush is the best  recruiter that Al Qaeda has.” I’m not sure why this is so inflamatory, because in a sense, it’s true. It’s just that Bush and his handlers aren’t good at interpreting subtlities, as the uproar of Kerry’s “irritation” comment regarding terrorism.

John Paul II is a Liberal

Monday 1 November 2004

Just when you think the Catholic Church is bad, along comes someone who proves that it really could be worse.

According to Earl Pulvermacher, John Paul II is an Anti-Pope, which I suppose is almost as bad as being an anti-Christ. He in fact is the true pope.

After 40 years of the Holy See being vacant, the Catholic Church has, on October 24, 1998 elected Pope Pius XIII as the Vicar of Christ on Earth. The details of his election and papacy can be found on the Papal Homepage.

JPII is a heretic. Among JPII’s alleged heresies (our hero lists 101 of them – perhaps he was watching a Disney film as he typed them up?) are all the pronouncements that put a human, tolerant face on the Catholic faith.

There are two columns in list: JP2’s alleged heresies, and “Truth of Divine and Catholic Faith.” Under the latter heading of we find:

  • Only Catholics have the right to religious liberty.
  • Equal rights for all men is senseless.
  • The State must forbid non-Catholic religions.
  • False religions worship the Devil.
  • Apostate Jews do not worship the One True God.
  • No one can be saved who is not in the Church.
  • John Paul II worshiped the Devil.
  • Buddhism is a religion of damnation

When I look at the list and think of the possibilities, I am all the more thankful that Karol Wojtyla was elected pope and not some more “traditional” Catholic.

Us and Babia

Monday 1 November 2004

Riding Round Babia
Slovakian view of Babia Gora

Last Saturday, Kinga and I went for a bike ride through Slovakia, around to the back side of Babia Gora. It’ll probably turn out to be the last bike ride of the season, because the Indian Summer we’d been enjoying (called in Polish “lady’s summer”) came to an abrupt end recently. So no more pictures like the one at right . . .