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writer, singer, webwrangler, blogger, comedy tragic | about.me/vivsmythe

  • More Dieboldical machinations

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    weezil at Machine Gun Keyboard keeps us up to date on the dastardly Diebold voting machines: in the last week not only have they been proven to be embarrasingly easy to untraceably tamper with electronically, but the much touted lock to prevent such tampering can be opened with an easily obtainable mini-bar key. Read, as they say, the whole thing

  • Yes Horowitz, this is exactly what the eevil libruls are up to

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    David Horowitz regularly gets shrill about liberal academic bias on American college campuses. Rosa Brooks in the LATimes takes him to task for this.

    Michael Bérubé is one of the lecturers on Horowitz’s list of dangerous ideologues who are polluting the minds of innocent young Americans. He’s recently written a book called “What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?”. Horowitz, predictably, hates it without having read it.

  • Seeing red, not slim

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    Slimming photos with HP digital cameras.

    The two models in the ad for this “Digital Slimming Effect” are both women. Both of them are already slim before the effect is applied.

    What. The. Fuck

  • Seven’s slur on rugby international

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    It was meant to be a feelgood story of celebrity generosity. George Smith has shaved off his trademark dreadlocks and is donating them to be auctioned by charity CanTeen. The Sunrise team on Channel 7 were having a nice time joking about how they might be bought by the South African rugby players, seeing as they are always grabbing them during the game.

    Then someone blurted [paraphrasing] “but who’d want them really? Greasy things.” Another team member quickly said “No!” and then the hole was dug deeper “Yeah, you can’t wash them, can you?”

    ACTUALLY, YES YOU CAN AND PEOPLE WITH LOCS WASH THEIR HAIR REGULARLY.

  • Ahoy, mateys! Arrrr!

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    Aye, ’tis Talk Like a Pirate Day agin, ye scurrrvy dogs.

    Talk Like a Pirate Day

    Some fine buccaneers from U Penn have spliced a webpage with some tips on talkin’ ‘n’ typin’ pirate, pieces-of-eight.

    Pharyngularrrrr will presumably be switchin’ to PZ’s annual pirate mode at midnight Minnesota time, fer those what like their science with more arrrrrrrghs.

  • That was noice

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    The weather was so warm and spring-has-sprung-y that I spent it outdoors instead of in, s0 blogging has been light. I was also excited by anticipating my belated-birthday night out watching Hugh Jackman shake his moneymaker in The Boy from Oz, which was a fine fine sight.

    A fine spectacular sight. The opening number was totally over the top, and Jackman’s stratospherically high energy set the pace for the

  • words words words

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    Words! Words! Words! I’m so sick of words!
    I get words all day through;
    First from him, now from you!
    Is that all you blighters can do?

    Pavlov’s Cat is feeling tetchy about certain words she’d like to ban, and presented us with an array of abused words and phrases, most of which, as she points out, were once vivid metaphor but now grown dull from overuse.

    What a good idea!

  • Facing the evidence

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    An episode of the Health Report on Radio National asked whether our doctors really know what treatment works best for their patients?

    Does the current system, which essentially teaches doctors just enough science that they can go into an apprentice programme for their final professional training, absorb and react quickly enough to evidence regarding whether their treatments are actually effective or not?

    Dr Alex Barratt provides data which shows that most

  • A visiting FRA

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    Father’s Rights Activist, that is. He’s commenting over at the old place, in a post from a few months ago where I referenced another blogger’s longer commentary:

    Kevin T. Keith at Sufficient Scruples examines how fathers’ rights organisations attract pseudoscientists making up mental illnesses that their harpy ex-wives must be suffering from that both explain why they’re being difficult about visiting rights and why the courts should just

  • Peeve of the week

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    I tried to ignore it, I really did. Does it really matter? said I. The people who don’t already know won’t care, and surely the rest of us Auntie-loving lefties will forgive them the odd howler.

    In the end, I couldn’t let it go. So, I sent my letter to ABC complaints:

    Please please please can the ABC promotion for the upcoming new season of the Midsomer Murders series stop calling Midsomer a village when it’s obviously a county!?!