abb1's weblog

God is mysterious…

abb1 — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:18:24 +0000

117 Hospitalized After Drinking Holy Water, the Moscow Times reports:

More than 100 Russian Orthodox believers have been hospitalized after drinking holy water during Epiphany celebrations in Irkutsk, an official said Monday.

A total of 117 people, including 48 children, were in the hospital complaining of acute intestinal pain after drinking water from wells in and around a local church last week, said Vladimir Salovarov, a spokesman for the Irkutsk branch of the Investigative Committee.

Exercise in Ron-Paulism

abb1 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:00:19 +0000

Here. I’m kinda proud of it. So far, at least. There are 26 comments at this point.

Gloam Greensky

abb1 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:25:12 +0000

I like this guy’s trajectory of radicalization:

Talking about Iran on the TV

A glossary of terms in foreign affairs

The guy obviously is not looking for a career in the mainstream media. I’m curious for how long he’ll manage to continue to get invited to those obscure cable and radio shows. If he keeps writing columns like “A glossary of terms in foreign affairs” above, I’ll give him 6 months, until he’s officially declared insane, like Ramsey Clark. Anyone wanna bet?

A mind that’s a-weak

abb1 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:27:39 +0000

The Lord loves a working man, don’t trust whitey, see a doctor and get rid of it.

abb1 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:43:45 +0000

Matthew Yglesias is a funny guy. He reminds me of a smart, amusing, and very serious 4-year old; you know, a 4-year old saying serious things to adults. So cute.

…it exists to protect interests from voters.

abb1 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:19:51 +0000

Matt Taibbi: “Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters.”

Now, I’m pretty sure it would sound better as “…doesn’t exist to protect voters’ interests, it exists to protect interests from voters”, but still, that’s some damn good writing.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

abb1 — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:50:10 +0000

The NYT reports:

…On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.
[...]
Amazon appears to have deleted other purchased e-books from Kindles recently. Customers commenting on Web forums reported the disappearance of digital editions of the Harry Potter books and the novels of Ayn Rand over similar issues.

“On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole,” opines the author of this piece in the last paragraph. Oh, don’t kid yourself, Brad Stone – of course there is.

The Swiss Connection

abb1 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:08:35 +0000

“”Commander Kim” speaks Swiss German” – swissinfo.ch reports – “Not only will the next leader of North Korea reportedly is a drink-loving basketball fan but the youngest son of Kim Jong-il is also an alumnus of a Swiss private school.”

Why, of course he is. After all, he’s from a rich family, a dynasty.

A mysterious figure, Kim Jong-un is the second son of former dancer Ko Yong Hi, a woman who died of cancer in 2004.

A Swiss connection runs through the family. Jong-un studied at the International School of Berne in the 1990s, but left in 1998 at the age of 15 before taking his baccalaureate exam, the equivalent to a British A-level.

The Swiss weekly news magazine L’Hebdo reported that he went by the pseudonym Pak Chol and learned to speak English, German and French – as well as Swiss German.

State-run History Falsification Commission

abb1 — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:40:05 +0000

…has been announced by liberal President Dmitry Medvedev and will soon convene in Moscow.

Fools, they obviously don’t trust The Market to write history.

The end is near, indeed.

abb1 — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:15:12 +0000

According to the NYT:

New software from I.B.M. can suck up huge volumes of data from many sources and quickly identify correlations within it. [...]

Instead of creating separate large databases to track things like currency movements, stock trading patterns and housing data, the System S software can meld all of that information together. In addition, it could theoretically then layer on databases that tracked current events, like news headlines on the Internet or weather fluctuations, to try to gauge how such factors interplay with the financial data.[...]

The company suggests, for example, that a hospital could tap the System S technology to monitor not only individual patients but also entire patient databases, as well as medication and diagnostics systems. If all goes according to plan, the computing systems could alert nurses and doctors to emerging problems.[...]

Right, if all goes according to plan…

The most depressing and dystopian news article ever, is it not?