Of mice and men . . .

Re-inventing the wheel!


If we are truthful, most of us think that Mr Jobs and Apple Computers were the inventors of the modern mouse; but it turns out we would be wrong. The inventor was, apparently, one Douglass Engelbart. Of course, without Apple, IBM, Bill Gates and others who popularized the PC, this mouse would not have gotten so well-established. Or perhaps it really is the other way round. Anyway, the modern mouse has not only increased in number, but they are now available in designs of great variety!

Just look here!

Now, with not much imagination, if I had said to you, "Have you ever seen a mouse on a wheel?", you would have said, "Of course!"

You know, like this:




But what about a wheel on a mouse? Well, these days, that is nothing less than the standard! So much the standard, that from the perspective of revolutionary technological leaps, it brings together one ancient with one modern ground-breaking invention.

Of course, why should only humans have fun.

Here is a mouse who (for his chutzpah, we shall honor him with this pronoun, as if he were a "person") has re-engineered the frog -

and as Louis the XIVth used to say, "After me? The flood!"
___________________________________________
Image Acknowledgements: 1 the animated "mouse on wheel" comes from an education resource website: Discoveryschool.com who specify the following - Discoveryschool.com must be credited, use is not for profit, and includes a link to the Discoveryschool.com Web site. Credit must read - "Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com". 2 "Mouse on frog" from National Geographic News.

Zis is gutt, ja?

Progress and Unity in Europe:





The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vordskontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

ps - yu ken us ze emel butn belo! kvatchkopf!

pps - If zis mad you laf, pleas ze yor bos.

ppps - If zis mad you kry, you hef bin siting by yor kompute to long.

Summertime . . .

Michael, give us Moore!

The most recent storm in a tea cup; Michael Moore gave Wolf a Blitzing.

After airing a report by Sunjay Gupta, which included a charge that Moore fudged the numbers in his new movie, Sicko, (in which the Sicko is the US Healthcare System), Blitzer asked Moore for his reaction.

Here is the whole sequence from the Situation Room. (Keep your arms, legs and head inside the vehicle!)

Here's the thing with these shows. Blitzer introduces the piece as - (paraphrase) "some are saying that Moore's facts are not accurate". Gupta's report then goes into action, reporting errors that turn on factors of the order of less than 5 %. And he calls these "errors" - the word he actually uses: "fudged" the facts.

The spin doctor's implication? If Moore's facts are inaccurate, then his position on the issues can't be trusted. That is what set Moore off.
I believe he was justified, and Gupta owes him an apology - for casting aspersions on his credibility. On LK Live, it turned out, Moore and Gupta had used different sources for their respective data - but in essence their data agreed. (Any test / report that is 90% accurate, is as good as gold!)

The dope who got caught in the middle was Wolfy. But then, having not apologised for his remarks about that other movie by Moore, relating to the war in Iraq, Me thinks Blitzy had it coming.

In the AOL news section a day-or-so back, someone noted that this was the best appeal to the mainstream media to get real since Jon Stewart macerated the teen with the bowtie on CNN's fake debate show, Crossfire. Oh, man, let's roll!

In Rome: One step forward, two steps back . . .

From AOL news -

Pope Angers Jews, Liberals With Rite
Conservatives Rejoice as Pontiff Revives Old Latin Mass
By NICOLE WINFIELD,AP
Posted: 2007-07-07 23:16:06

From the report:

The document upset Jews, since the Tridentine rite contains a prayer on Good Friday of Easter Week calling for their conversion. The Anti-Defamation League called the move a "body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations," the Jewish news agency JTA reported.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Benedict to publicly point out that such phrases "are now entirely contrary to the teaching of the church."

Link to full article

Happy 07-07-07

We celebrate a year of the New WAM holding services at the JCC!