May 18

Social and Internet Law Violation by the LA City Council


Posted: under commentary.

Attention Los Angeles City Council:


“Once such a comparison [to Hitler or Nazis] is made, the discussion is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically ‘lost’ whatever debate was in progress.” — Godwin’s Law, Corollary #1



I always bristle at hearing anyone, especially public officials, throwing in Hitler and the Nazis to add weight to their arguments. After hearing audio clips from the L.A. City Council vote to for their partial, somewhat, if-it’s-not-too-inconvenient boycott of Arizona, I recalled a “law” that was often invoked during the early days of the Internet. The law is called “Godwin’s Law” named for Mike Godwin, an Internet guru back in 1990.


The original law, (or “universal truth”), says:


“As a [online] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”


Probability is usually expressed in “likelihood of something to occur on a scale from 0.0 to 1.0″.  So, a probability of 0 is very unlikely and a probability approaching 1 (such as .9999999) is very likely.


We already know this is the case with the LA City Council, but it could have been predicted with Godwin’s Law. However, the MOST INTERESTING aspect of this law is one of the “corollaries” which are expansions, amendments or modifications of the original law (or theorem, or principle, etc.)


Godwin’s Law, Corollary #1:


“Once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically ‘lost’ whatever debate was in progress.”


Basically, that means the idiot who invokes Hitler or Nazis causes all other parties to the discussion to vacate the discussion and the invoker loses the argument.


There are a few other laws which I found are applicable to many of the people and topics discussed on talk radio (and sometimes in other media).  I will be posting a complete list of these laws with source information, but one can easily find most or all of them all over the Internet.  (Except, Wikipedia… real researchers do not use Wikipedia as a resource; it’s just a bunch of people — like me –  writing whatever we want and not subject to professional or expert “vetting”.)


I’ll also post a second list which has a series of “rules” for using the Internet, many of which also apply to the subjects of talk shows (and to some of the callers, too).  Some of these Internet Rules directly mention the Internet Laws; it’s all very similar to local bylaws deferring to state laws and state laws referencing federal laws.


This is not to be confused with the despicable laws they used in Nazi Germ….     aaaaarrrrrrggggggg!

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Dec 02

CIA – I Is For Intelligence Or Incompetance?


Posted: under commentary.
Tags: ,

I was listening to a podcast the other day by Leo Laporte in which he was doing a commercial for Audible.com and mentioned the book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. He was saying that according to the book the CIA is inept. Now I have not read/listened to the book but according to a Publishers Weekly review the author, Tim Weiner concludes the CIA is a “reservoir of incompetence”.


So my question is this, if this is the case, why is the CIA and the U. S. Government in general for that mater considered by some to be the greatest architects of conspiracies in the world? From the Kennedy assassination to the South Central Los Angeles crack epidemic some say they planned it all.


The problem is you just can’t have it both ways folks; are they incompetent or not? Or maybe they are so good they just make you think they’re incompetent.

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Nov 26

This Sums It Up


Posted: under commentary.
Tags: , , ,

If you own a buisiness you will relate and if you think you want to own your own business read this and think long and hard before jumping in. This artcle appeared in the letters to the editor section of the Whittier Daily NEs on November 18, 2008. I Did My Part

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Nov 19

We Don’t Need No Stink’n Fiscal Responsibility


Posted: under commentary.
Tags: , , , ,

What is this the great Governator says we should “…not get stuck just on fiscal responsibility.” Was this the same guy who we put in office because Gray Davis was not ahh err fiscally responsible?


The state of California is basically bankrupt and all the Governor can do is suggest raising taxes and cut school spending. As if there is no place in the $144.4 billion state budget that can be cut without affecting essential services. Did you know we spend over $2.7 million per year to have an Office of the Lieutenant Governor?


The electorate in California is not blameless here either. Just this last election on November 4th we Californians opted to borrow via bond issues over $23 billion. At some point this has to stop the state can’t keep borrowing and spending like this. If we don’t get stuck on fiscal responsibility soon we are going to be stuck in bankruptcy.

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Nov 17

MS FrontPage


Posted: under Humor, commentary.

This was sent to me by someone who saw it on a scripting help group. It is so true I just couldn’t help posting it to Opuscules.


“Use any version of Microsoft FrontPage to create your site. (This won’t prevent people from viewing your source code, but no one will want to steal it.)”

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Nov 16

We Don’t Need No Stinkin Grammer


Posted: under commentary.
Tags: , ,

The Bush economy has now forced the Washington Post to outsource it’s proofreading jobs to automated spell checking systems. Can other print media be far behind? With more and more thinking people finding their news from other than traditional print sources the Post has evidently seen the need to implement cost saving measures and do away with proofreaders. In a recent WashingPost.com blog, Andrew Cohen states, “It is not yet known where venue for the case ultimately will be placed…” It looks like the bit twiddlers in Redmond need to do a little more programming on their spell checker to improve the grammar side of the equation.

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