UPDATE: Roger Ebert is STILL Dead!

And it's the weekend, so it's time for Salon to recycle Roger Ebert's article.... because pageviews.

Roger Ebert, dead for months, still does not fear death

Shortly after his diagnosis, Roger Ebert wrote an essay for Salon.com entitled "I do not fear death." As essays go, it wasn't bad. Thought provoking. The comments thread degenerated into a bible-beater vs militant atheist snarkfest, but Ebert can't be blamed for that.

The week he died, the article was pulled back onto the front.

And the week after that.

And the week after that.

And about every two weeks since. It wasn't there yesterday, but it's back up today.

I get that it's a good essay... but why is it still being dragged to the front page months after he died? Salon's published better essays than this. They've published more important essays than this.

What demented click-whoring algorithm keeps dragging up this out of date essay? We may never know.

Mismatched Caption Dept.

I don't know if it's an issue with the website or with my browser, but I've noticed something about Andrew Sullivan's site. The right side of the page has links to various articles at the Daily Beast. Sometimes the linked story changes, but the image attached to the link doesn't. This can  result in things like this:

No, you don't care to know where my mind went with that combination.... 

Corporate Efficiency

Dear Sears PartsDirect:

Thank you very much for the email informing me that the water filter I ordered online has shipped.

IT ARRIVED HERE 2 DAYS AGO. TWO DAYS BEFORE YOUR EMAIL WAS SENT.

Such a degree of inefficiency requires a great deal of effort, and I'm sure you have many bureaucrats dedicated to the job.

Generals With Issues

Sometimes you just don't know what to say. I wonder what he thinks about late at night....

Date Oddness Dept

See, I'm still here... And while reading an article on Salon about the demise of the Dr Demento Show (source of some much-needed comic relief in my teenage years), I couldn't help noticing a slight problem.....




How long has that slide show been up, anyway?

"We Pledge Allegiance To Gene's Shirt...."

I swear, you cannot make this up.

Y'know, when I was in grade school, a student came to school in a flag-motif shirt...and was sent home to change, and his parents were called in to have a chat with the principal. Flag desecration not being something the school would put up with.

Now, of course, it's a matter of political orthodoxy.

No life? Hardly...

There's a how-many-movies-have-you-seen meme floating around Facebook at the moment that begins with the declaration:

SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 films, you have no life.

Note that we're never told who's supposing this...

But at any rate. Let's test that assumption.

Assume that you see 85 movies. Further assume that the movies you see average 2 1/2 hours, about as long as the latest Harry Potter installment. (Mini-review: It was good, but as a friend of mine put it, I really don't see what there is about this that inspires such fanaticism...).

Further assume you spend 8 hours per night sleeping, 40 hours per week working, and 3 hours per day in other stuff (eating, commuting, etc), leaving 51 hours per week potential movie-watching time.

Let us further assume your movie-watching career began at age 10, and you are 35 when you take the quiz.

51 hours per week * 52 weeks per year * 25 years = 66,300 potential movie-watching hours.
85 movies * 2.5 hours each = 212.5 hours.

So if you've seen 85 movies, you've spent 212.5/66,300 = 0.321% (rounding up) of your time watching movies.

Hardly into "you have no life" territory.

As an aside, it's amazing what you can distract yourself with when you don't want to work....

This Just In (Badly Worded Headline Division)

Man Held in LA in Stolen Violin Case

What is it, some kind of kidnapping? And in addition to stuffing the poor man into a violin case, the case itself was stolen? Is that even relevant? Given what you'd have to do to get someone (even a very small someone) stuffed into a violin case, is ownership of the violin case itself really the issue here?

The Internets, Where All Your Questions Are Answered

Including the one that everyone wonders about, "How Many Balloons Would It Take To Lift A House?"

Incidentally, welcome to blog post #400. Launch the balloons, toss the confetti, and all that.

Today's fun little ditty

Apparently Pat Robertson made a spectacularly silly comment to the effect that if gay marriage becomes legal, then marriage to ducks can't be far behind. Or someone who likes sex with ducks will be able to marry one. Or something. (Last time I checked, animals couldn't enter into legally binding relationships with people, or vice versa, but I never ever claimed to understand Pat Robertson's thought processes.)

At any rate, here's a fun little song about where it all could lead.

I love my country, yes I do...

First it was the tebagging parties.

Now it's the 2M4M movement.

To quote a friend of mine, "Is there anything gayer than straight America?"

Power Tools Dept

In a revelation that should surprise no one, the "spontaneous" citizen's uprising calling itself the teabag movement is actually being coordinated by two corporate lobbying organizations with a long history of setting up fake astroturf campaigns.

So I hope the enraged wingnuts are enjoying being corporate tools.

On the other hand, as someone generally in favor of teabagging, I hope they have a great time.

[h/t: GottaLaff]

Why You Shouldn't Use Foreign Terms You Don't Really Know

From an article on GM's woes....

General Motors has experience shedding divisions, and shut down the Oldsmobile brand in 2001. Plenty of Oldsmobiles are still on the road today, and continue to receive service through GM dealers and the independent aftermarket industry. Likewise, when Ford bid alvederzane to their German Merkur brand or when Chrysler furled the sails on Plymouth,...

Emphasis added.

Okay, trying to throw in some German when referring to a German brand is understandable. But next time, would it be possible to get it proofread by someone who actually knows German? I'm not sure I could spell Auf Wiedersehen correctly without looking it up, but I could certainly come closer than that...

(And I didn't look it up, and I may have misspelled it...but I still came closer than the supposed pro....)

Update Mar. 29: It's been fixed.

Assisting Mark Kleiman

In a post about a topic I'm not informed enough to have an opinion on (yes, there are a few of them), Mark Kleiman wonders if there's a form of the term "bimbo" that applies to men.

The term I've heard used is "himbo."

Glad to be of service.

Snarky Atheist Video of the Day

Why God Seems Nonexistent.

Nothing brilliantly original here, but well-executed.

And check the comments out. Poe's law still holds: No matter how over the top it is, someone will take it seriously.

[Hat tip: PZ Myers]

Embezzlers (?) For Jesus. Well, self-enrichers, at least.

PZ has the details.

It seems a small bank tried to do everything just as God wanted, including praying before all their meetings and giving 10% of their income to charity. (The article doesn't say whether that's gross or net income.)

It also seems they paid themselves exorbitantly well -- five or six times what bank officers at banks that size usually make.

I know there's something there about the workman being worthy of his hire, but isn't there also something about rich men, camels, needle's eyes, etc?

(Though actually the reference was to a very narrow gate in Jerusalem, called the Needle's Eye, that merchants had to go through. A loaded camel wouldn't fit; thus the camel had to be completely unloaded, with the friendly tax collector conveniently close by. This concludes today's historical aside.)

The FDIC is looking into things.

Life is strange dept.

I had the opportunity last spring to participate in the Oxford Roundtable conference on regulating cyberspace. I submitted a paper based on my presentation to the Oxford Journal of Public Policy.

Unfortunately, my journal article was turned down.

But on the bright side, a photo I took while I was out sightseeing got selected for an online travel guide. So I guess now I can add "published travel photographer" to my resume.

There might be a lesson in here somewhere, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is.

"Well, duh!" Headline Of The Day

From CNN:


I suppose there's a market for unattractive sex... but I don't think I care to know the details.

[Yes, yes, different people have different ideas about what "attractive" or "unattractive" may be, in this context, I know.]

Incidentally, here's the full story, if you want the details.

Reality Explained

[h/t: PZ Myers]