Stats (curiosity, too)

Netherlands, Taiwan, China, Korea. And, somewhat alarmingly, state.gov and nipr.mil. (Did you ever get the feeling that you're being watched?)



The state.gov one came from the Blogger home page, so I'm guessing it's just a person at the State Dept. who surfs blogs in his/her spare time. But the .mil one came from a U.S. Navy IP, which, when I plugged it into an address bar, didn't get me anywhere; when I did a Google search on it, I found that someone else had contacted the military saying he'd been finding the IP in his logs, and was wondering what it was; he got the following reply, which I quote it its entirety:

F ...



You know all you need to know.



hostmaster@nic.mil

Alrighty then! I'll be on my way now...



According to my log, the referrer was an archive page in another blog, which had a lot to say about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, and had a random Blogger link button. I'm guessing this guy's page sent up some very red flags for the military Web search people/engine, and they just followed the links to see where they went.



Hm. I haven't said anything incriminating, have I? I've expressed certain doubts about government military policy, and if you've been paying any attention you know how I feel about Mr. I.H.I.D.V.F.H. Santorum, but that's about it...



Oh well. That's the thing about the Worldwide Web: it's worldwide.



I've spent too much time sitting in front of my computer already—you'd think I got enough of that during the work week—so J. and I are going to go to Center City and hit some bookstores. He's looking for a book on ADD, and I need some more Michael Connelly novels. (Well, I don't need them, but I want them.)



Okay. Getting up. Logging off. Really.

The Kentucky Derby

Postulate: The Kentucky Derby has the highest ratio of analysis and blather to actual sporting event time. On ESPN, there's a three-hour Kentucky Derby Preview; on NBC, a one-and-a-half-hour "Kentucky Derby" block, featuring the actual running of the race; and on ESPN2, a one-hour "Kentucky Derby Recap." And that's just today; I don't know what might have been going on previously. So that's five and a half hours of programming time for an approximately two-minute race. I'm not especially good at division (I think I missed that day in third-grade math class), but I believe that works out to 99.4% analysis/blather and 0.6% sporting event.



(There may be a similar/higher percentage for the Super Bowl, since that has an entire week of run-up time for an approximately four-hour game [although that includes time-outs and half-time in addition to on-the-field playing time], but I don't feel like looking it up and figuring it out now.)

Bunkum alert

Man, what a scam this is: Essences Online. Selling flower essences—okay, fine, they're obtained from actual, physical flowers—but also "environmental essences" and "gem elixirs." There is no such goddamn thing as a gem elixir! You cannot extract juice from a gem! The dictionary definition for elixir does indicate that it can be a powder, which you could indeed get from a gem; but powder is not what they're selling. Nope, it's a liquid that has somehow been infused with the properties of the gem. In other words, it's water that they've looked at while thinking about gems. Same with the "environmental essences." I have to quote this, it's too priceless to paraphrase:

The preparation of an environmental essence begins with the identification of specific elemental qualities in the environment that we wish to enter into a co-creative healing agreement with. We then extend an attunement from our hearts to the devic and elemental beings that represent these qualities. Through this attunement we communicate our love and blessings, and ask that the energies we have identified be transferred into the bowl of water that we have prepared. We accept the essence gratefully as the environment responds. The resulting essence is totally unique, as the vibrational qualities it contains can never be duplicated in exactly the same way.

(This particular description is from the Alaskan Flower Essence Project.)



So...yes, they are selling water. For approximately $11 an ounce!



Oh, here's a quote from the Angelic Essences seller:

Angelic Essences produce no harmful side effects and will do nothing if not needed.

Right...because it's fucking water!



Damn, I wasted all that time on a Yale education and I could've just been looking at water while thinking about gems and elements and angels.

Something overdue but interesting

This would have been more relevant in 2000 (or 2001, when the census results came out), and I've been thinking about it for a while, but for some reason I decided to do it today. And this is my response to people talking about the 2000 election and saying "the majority of people voted for Gore."



Voted for Bush: 50,456,002

Voted for Gore: 50,999,897

Voted for Others: 3,949,201

Total who voted: 105,405,100^*

US population: 290,867,001^**

19 and under: 78,537,000⁺

Total of voting age: 212,300,001

Percentage who voted: 49.65



So, as I suspected, the answer is...The majority of Americans didn't vote for anybody!



Regardless of what you think of the 2000 election results, that's pretty dispiriting.



References:

^*From Official 2000 Presidential Election Results

^**From Census Bureau.

⁺Based on Census Bureau's 2000 estimated U.S. population by age (estimated from 1990 results). This is slightly skewed because it doesn't have 18 and under, just 19 and under.

Referring

Hey, someone actually went from here to New Directions! Woo-hoo! (Now let's see how long it takes to get into Yahoo!) (Question of the day: When you end a sentence with "Yahoo!" do you put a period at the end of it? Probably not.)

Stats

Costa Rica, Taiwan, Australia. (I think Costa Rica was just a robot, though.)



Costa Rica's TLD is .cr; when I saw it in the log I assumed it was Croatia. But, no, Croatia is .hr. Which I thought was strange, so I looked in up in the CIA World Factbook, wherein I learned that the official name of Croatia is Republika Hrvatska. I'm guessing that H is pronounced "kh," hence the hard C sound at the beginning of the English version. (It's not the strangest discrepancy between official name and English name; there's Deutschland-Germany, Ellas-Greece, Sak'art'velo-Georgia, and, my favorite, Suomi-Finland.)

The latest Bush speech

Well, I've downloaded the transcript and haven't found Syria, Korea, or Iran in it anywhere. Good speechwriter. You get a biscuit. (He did mention Palestine, but immediately preceded by the adjective "peaceful," as opposed to the verbal phrase "bomb the hell out of.")



Quote of the day:



"American values and American interests lead in the same direction. We stand for human liberty...."



...unless you are an adult who wants to have consensual sex with another adult who is not your legally-married only spouse of the opposite gender.



Well, that's another fight (PDF link).



Immediately after the speech, someone actually set off firecrackers outside. That's South Philly for ya. (The noise then set off the dogs next door. If only the firecrackers and the dogs had been in closer proximity...)