Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Don’t miss our year end blowout.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Learning Disability Myth
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Link building with Blogger
Here’s a few more things you should do:
- Open the Settings panel from the Blogger dashboard.
- Select the Comments tab in the Settings panel (Figure 1).
- Set the Backlinks option by checking the Show radio button. Your blog information will now display a link that says, ”Links to this post.” (Figure 2).
- Clicking, “Links to this post,” will display the permalink for the current post. A link reading, “Create a Link,” is displayed under the header, “Links to this post.”
- After clicking, “Create a link,” a window appears displaying the link. You can choose to display either rich text or HTML. The HTML will look something like this: “<a href="http://truthtalltales.blogspot.com/2008/11/when-ceos-come-begging.html#links">Truth and Tall Tales: When CEOs come a begging</a>”
You can change the title to, “See related article,” by changing the code to: “<a href="http://truthtalltales.blogspot.com/2008/11/when-ceos-come-begging.html#links">See related article</a>”
Another good way to encourage links to your blogs is to provide links to other’s blogs. Blogger provides several ways of creating lists of links.
- Open the Layout panel from the Blogger dashboard.
- Choose the option to “Add a Gadget” (Figure 3).
- Choose either Blog List or Link List from among the available gadget choices. When you add a blog link, inform that blog’s author. The author might return the favor. If he doesn’t, try replacing that link with a link to someone else’s blog. Eventually, you’ll have a list of links to blogs linking to your blog.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Dangerous uses for peanut butter.
Fortunately, peanut butter isn’t pizza. Everyone knows that Elvis liked to put bananas on his peanut butter sandwiches. I like mine with sharp cheddar cheese, or perhaps sprinkled with bacon bits. Think that’s strange? How about mixing peanut butter with vinegar, chilies and soy sauce and pouring it over noodles? Live dangerously.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Matzo Ball Soup for Gentiles
Easy Matzo Ball Soup Recipe
Make turkey soup.
Make matzo balls.
Drop the matzo balls into the soup.
Okay, maybe that was a little too easy. Just what is a matzo ball anyway? Matzos are the, often bland tasting, crackers that Jews eat during the Passover season. Matzos commemorate the time when the ancient Jews were captives in Egypt. Upon gaining their freedom, they had to beat it out of Egypt so fast that they didn’t have time to wait for their bread to rise.
Purchase matzo meal in the kosher section of your grocery store. Look for a recipe for matzo balls on the package. Follow it. Find a recipe for turkey soup. Follow it.
Make sure you refrigerate your matzo meal mixture before you roll it into matzo balls. A one-inch diameter is about right. Toss the matzo balls in your turkey soup. They will expand as they cook and their color will lighten. When done, the outer segments will be soft, and the interiors, slightly firm. Mazel tov.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Take two aspen and call a tree surgeon.
If you spend some time in the mountains, you can’t help noticing the degree to which spruce and pine trees are dying off. But you may not know that aspen are suffering, too. An article by Michelle Nijhuis in the December 2008 issue of Smithsonian, addresses the issue.
Foresters began observing aspen die-off in western Colorado in 2004. Although aspen bark beetles, borers, fungi, and diseases have all attacked the aspen, the underlying causes of aspen decline are high temperatures and draught, which stress the trees allowing them to fall victim to secondary causes.
It’s said that you can’t control the weather, but apparently people can, and have, influenced the climate. Global warming has begun, but perhaps it’s not too late to slow its progress. If we don’t, those beautiful mountain vistas may not be.
Friday, November 21, 2008
When CEOs come a begging
Have they no shame? Had they taken salary cuts it would have demonstrated sincerity and contrition. But they continued to behave like it was business as usual. Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? Damn right, he did. Does history repeat itself? No, why should it? Thankfully, they didn’t get all the money at once. Before they get the rest, they should be held accountable for how it gets spent.
When CEOs from the automotive sector came begging yesterday, Congress sent them home. “Come back when you have a plan,” it told them. Rightly so. After eight years of no bid contracts to privatize a war that wasn’t necessary, it’s about time that accountability came into fashion again. Tough financial decisions will soon need to be made. Let’s hope the government decides wisely.
—extrapolated from this mornings stories on NPR.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
It looked kinda like this...
H. P. Lovecraft - The Lurking Fear
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Well known Boston surgeon, Herbert West, disappears.
Police investigating the scene found blood profusely spattered around the laboratory, but no evidence of a body. The laboratory’s large incinerator contained recent ashes. However, it could not immediately be determined if they were of human or reptilian origin.
Dr. West was murdered by a group of men who entered the laboratory through an ancient tomb, claimed his assistant. However, police consider this doubtful since the plaster shows no sign of disturbance.
Both Dr. West and his assistant were graduates of Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. Their careers, though successful, have been accompanied by rumors of unprofessional behavior. Some of these go as far back as their student days. Though some felt Dr. West’s theories regarding restoring the dead to life to be brilliant, others such as, Mishkatonic’s Dean, the late Dr. Allan Halsey, found them unpractical and morbid.
Though Dr. West’s disappearance has not yet been labeled a murder, his assistant is being held for further questioning. Further details regarding “Herbert West—Reanimator,” are divided into six episodes and can be found at dagonbytes.com .
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Spiritual Benefits of Recession.
The first lesson is moderation. Lenders and borrowers both took excessive risks. When something looks too good to be true, it probably is. But avarice makes us want to believe when we should doubt. That’s why con artists are able to cheat us. Isn’t avarice one of the seven deadly sins?
Monday, November 10, 2008
Get rich working part-time
I'm rooting for ya. We're all in this together.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tea and Tidbits
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Doing the DNC. Taking it to the streets.
I got downtown, did a lot of walking—but, hey, let the pictures tell the story
Over by the college, I came across some guys from the, "Temple of O," who were dressed up like the toga party in "Animal House". I can't guess their motive, but I have to agree—they are not worthy.
These guys have a lot to say about a lot of other people who are going to Hell.
She's not saying anything. Is she just sitting around, or is there something more going on?
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sunday Vibes in Denver's City Park
A number of events are scheduled to occur in City Park during the week of the Democratic National Convention.
The Yoga Health Festival, taking place on August 24 and 25, starts the week off.
Today (Sunday), smells of incense and sounds of soft drums are in the air. No doubt, the atmosphere will be more politically charged as the week progresses.
But, today, peaceful vibes, are in the air.Saturday, July 19, 2008
Shroedinger’s Cat Versus Eternity
Mary Roach
Nonfiction 311 pages
W.W. Norton and Co. 2005
Others may be dying to find out if there’s an afterlife, but Mary Roach looks at what science has to say about it. In “Spook: science tackles the afterlife,” Ms. Roach seeks the answer on three continents. She encounters reincarnation research in India, a school mediums in England; and in the U.S.A., she encounters laptop computers viewable only by those who are temporarily discarnate.
Does she find the answer? No, her findings are inconclusive. Some of the afterlife research is badly designed. Some is downright bogus. Regardless, whatever research she analyses, Mary Roach’s writing is always entertaining and witty.
Roach’s most convincing evidence is based on near death experience (NDE) research and is presented toward the end of the book. NDE research may be the most hopeful route toward understanding the afterlife. However, it is not a straightforward route. There are both neurological and practical factors to consider. Since near death is not death itself, permanent and unyielding, to what extent can experiencing it be generalized to experiencing death itself? For that matter, since much of our experience comes through our senses, which require living organs to function, how can there even be a death experience, at least in terms that are understandable by the living?
The near death experience reminds me of the dilemma that Erwin Shroedinger’s cat found itself in. In Shroedinger’s thought experiment, the cat is both live and dead until an observer opens the box that contains it. Only upon observation can the cat be considered dead or living. That’s the thing — is a person dead or living during an NDE? Roach’s book doesn’t provide any solid answers, but it does ask some great questions.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Crystal Skull Persuasion
Nonetheless, popular belief in their mystical qualities fuels the current Indiana Jones adventure, “Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls”. Stephen Mehler appeared on Coast to Coast AM on May 22, 2008, that movie's opening day, to discuss the mystical qualities of crystal skulls. Apparently, like computers, they can store information. It makes perfect sense — both computers and crystal skulls contain silicone.
On a similar note, philosopher, Red Green once reasoned that he could build a computer by duct-taping a typewriter to an old television set. Hey, if that works for Red, I figure I can learn the secrets of Atlantis by staring into glass eyeballs.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Charles Fort, father of the supernatural
I took a look at Ford’s book and this is what I found:
The book gets off to a slow start with a long skeptical description of what is, what isn’t and what not. The language is interesting; for example, “The little harlots will caper, and freaks will distract attention, and the clowns will break the rhythm of the whole with their buffooneries—but the solidity of the procession as a whole: the impressiveness of things that pass and pass and pass, and keep on and keep on and keep on coming.” But one wonders, what’s his point? Just where is this guy coming from? He finally tells us, “We are not realists. We are not idealists. We are intermediatists—that nothing is real, but that nothing is unreal: that all phenomena are approximations one way or the other between realness and unrealness.”
Yeah, okay, so where is he taking us? To the land of unexplained things, it seems. He begins by describing effects of the Krakatoa eruption which were observed prior to the event. He then describes all sorts of strange things that fell from the sky, including manna. He describes them for pages upon pages. More interesting than falling frogs or fish are the meteorites examined by Dr. Hahn, who “found fossils in specified meteorites: also he published photographs of them. His book is in the New York Public Library. In the reproductions every feature of some of the little shells is plainly marked. If they're not shells, neither are things under an oyster-counter.”
Other things turn up in places where they shouldn’t, like iron nails embedded in quartz, or metal cubes found in coal lumps.
All in all, Ford’s book is an ambitious catalog of unexplainable oddities. Yet his commentary is even odder, “It may be that the Milky Way is a composition of stiff, frozen, finally-static, absolute angels. We shall have data of little Milky Ways, moving swiftly; or data of hosts of angels, not absolute, or still dynamic. I suspect, myself, that the fixed stars are really fixed, and that the minute motions said to have been detected in them are illusions. I think that the fixed stars are absolutes.”
Ford’s, “The Book of the Damned” has been re-printed recently. But it’s also in the public domain and you can download it.
A case of trespass
Thursday, May 08, 2008
A Man’s Best Friend
Other people keep cats, dogs and parrots. And those are nice, but, “only God can make a tree.” Besides, keeping cats, dogs and parrots uses up way too much time and money. Bonsais ask for little and give much. They never howl at the moon and keep your neighbors up all night. Bonsais won’t rub up against your leg and leave their fur all over your trousers. They won’t scratch your furniture or shove spit soaked tennis balls into your crotch. I once knew a man who went everywhere with his parrot riding on his wet, stained shoulder. The kids all called him, “Mr. Guano.”
A bonsai doesn’t ask for much — sun, rain, pruning twice a year — tops. Maybe some plant food on occasion. I know, you’re thinking, “It can’t be that simple.” Okay, I’ll level with you—there is a little more you need to know. For example, most bonsais do best if you let them ride out the winter somewhere cold, but not so cold that their roots can freeze. Garages work well. Tool sheds too. Sometimes they don’t survive dormancy. But on the plus side, once they’ve dropped their leaves, it can take months before you realize that they’re dead.
If you can’t be bothered with all that, then stick with a tree that doesn’t mind living indoors. A narrow leaf ficus makes a good pet. But watch out for spider mites. They kill! My sweet pet, Chia, got into some spider mites. Her leaves turned yellow and fell off. I buried her in the trash this morning. Will I miss her? Gosh, no, she was just a house plant. I’ll buy another this afternoon.
My instant, new best friend. Just add water.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Writing personal histories for young people
How to Write your Life Story
Ralph Fletcher
Nonfiction 102 pages
HarperCollins Children's Books. 2007
More is not necessarily better. This little book, aimed at a young audience, has a universal appeal. Fletcher discusses focus, form, and other aspects of telling a personal story. He also addresses ways of triggering memories. He advises writing about sad as well as happy experiences. Fletcher's samples of writing about sad events give young readers permission to process sad experiences through writing and also remind older readers of the therapeutic benefits of writing.