A small and miscellaneous collection of information I didn't know until very recently. Some dropped into my lap, others I went looking for. -- Ed
HO scale (the most popular scale of model trains) means "Half O Scale", and the scale is indeed about half that of O scale (1:87 versus 1:48)
"First Nations" is a term used in Canada for the people usually called in the U.S. "Native Americans" or "American Indians"
"Stuck In The Middle With You", a pop song from 1973, is by Stealer's Wheel, and not by Steely Dan, as I've thought for years.
The tallest mountain in the world measured from its base is Hawaii. Measured from the Earth's center it's Aconcagua. The tallest mountain on land as measured from local ground level is usually Everest, but is K-2 in some years. Both of them vary over a few feet in any decade. Over the millenia, of course, they vary hundreds of feet, though pretty much in parallel. The summit of Aconcagua is further from the Earth's center than that of Everest or K-2 because earth is oblate, not spherical.
Not exactly something I didn't know, but something I haven't thought about for a long time: Listening to The Beatles' White Album recently I was struck again by the beauty and complete appropriateness of George Martin's arrangements for the various session musicians used. Has any rock group from the beginning of time been better served by a producer and arranger? His work is truly outstanding and, sometimes (especially given the times) astounding. The Fifth Beatle, for sure.
"In March 2002, Lloyd's List, the three-hundred-year-old British publication that supplied information on ship movements and casualties, announced that ships would no longer take the feminine pronoun. Nautical stalwarts protested the tyranny of the politically correct, feminists hailed the death of an anachronism, and the tide kept going out twice a day."
Aaron Sorkin, the creator of "The West Wing" and "Sports Night" was also the playright of "A Few Good Men", and also wrote the screenplay for the film based on it.
Frank Knox, FDR's Secretary of the Navy during WW2 (1940-1944) was the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in 1936. His ticket-mate was Alf Landon. They ran, of course, against FDR and John Nance Garner and they carried only two states, Maine and Vermont. Also, FDR's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson (1940-1945), was a Republican as well, and he had previously been Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State (1929-1933).
"Colonel Tom Parker", the longtime manager of Elvis Presley, was an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands who was born Andreas Cornelius van Kujik. He stole his name from a US Army officer.
The sound that is made when you "crack your knuckles" is "cavitation that pulls in nitrogen gas to fill the vacuum created when the fluidic attraction between joint surfaces is broken." This is also the explanation for the sounds made when a chiropractor "adjusts" the spine, but it is *not* an indication of a locked or binding joint. "The truth is that perfectly normal spinal joints will pop when manipulation forces movement into the paraphysiological space (beyond the normal range of passive movement). Once a joint pops, it will not pop again until the gas is absorbed and the joint surfaces settle back together, usually in about half an hour."
[quotes from "Placebos, Nocebos, and Chiropractic Adjustments" by Samuel Homola, D.C. in Skeptical Inquirer (Jan-Feb/2003)]
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
guest-blogged for:
Be sure to visit them all!!
recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
E-mail
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Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
