Cranezilla --Mark Crane's collection of rarely annotated links

Google Search: applescript and entourage 2) AppleScript can't move IMAP messages. The AppleScript event 'move' requires a result (the message ID) to be returned, and IMAP servers won't return the result. I have made a feature request to MS that they create new events 'copy on server' and 'move to server' which don't return results (which would be unreliable, of course), but it hasn't happened yet.

Mac OS X Hints - Create single-volume multi session CD-Rs

To create multi-session CD-Rs which appear as single volumes in the Finder, you'll need a third-party UNIX tool along with some of the existing OS X tools.

chicklit: paper jam

But the offers still come in. “The more you say no, the more they try. If you said yes they wouldn't try at all, they'd stop asking.” He also gets asked to do a lot of radio commecials. “I always say that I'd do commercials for Percodan and marijuana, but those are the only products that I would advertise. I don't even want to know how much money they're offering. No one's going to respect you if you do commercials.”

dooce - certifiably not nice

Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman and Jennifer Garner at the Felicity First Season CD Release Party which I attended not only voluntarily but with such religious exultation that I almost scared the curl out of Keri Russell’s hair. Keri was wonderful and beautiful and utterly disgusting in her cuteness. I wanted to pinch her little button nose until she shrieked.

Spence Tandard Supply Plumbing - Lehi, Utah (UT) Plumber

Spence Tandard Supply Plumbing

190 E Main St
Lehi, UT 84043
Tel: (801) 768-2711

Email:
Website:

Replacing Water Heaters A vital part of your water heater installation is a temperature and pressure relief valve and relief line. The relief system lets off excess heat and pressure automatically (Fig. 9).

HandymanWire -Hot Water Heater Questions and Answers It could be a couple of things. Although it is only 1-1/2 years old the safety valve could be bad, which means it needs to be replaced? Most likely sediment has built up around the valve. Try flushing it out. Place a bucket under the blow down tube from the valve. Quickly open and close the valve a couple of times to clean it out. If it still leaks replace the valve. You should also clean out the tank itself, to get rid of sediment. Shut off the water supply to the heater. Turn the temperature control to low and the on-off to "pilot". Connect a hose to the drain valve at the bottom and run the hose outside or to a drain. Drain the tank down and then open the water supply to force the sediment out. Close the drain, refill the tank, and reset the controls to normal. There is a good article in the current issue of This Old House magazine about water heater maintenance.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press

Through an interrogation of the social spaces of play, creativity, imagination and innovation, my doctoral project assesses current biotechnological, military and artistic applications of intelligent fibres and interactive fabrics. Current applications include bio-prosthetics and artificial organs, as well as adaptive clothing and woven building materials. My research focusses on the social, spatial and performative dimensions of artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and nanotechnology and their application to new textile technologies. My doctoral project investigates how social and cultural theory may contribute to the understanding and design of ubiquitous computing, and the place of social ethics and accountability in new technologies.

Through an interrogation of the social spaces of play, creativity, imagination and innovation, my doctoral project assesses current biotechnological, military and artistic applications of intelligent fibres and interactive fabrics. Current applications include bio-prosthetics and artificial organs, as well as adaptive clothing and woven building materials. My research focusses on the social, spatial and performative dimensions of artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and nanotechnology and their application to new textile technologies. My doctoral project investigates how social and cultural theory may contribute to the understanding and design of ubiquitous computing, and the place of social ethics and accountability in new technologies.

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow

CBS News | A Rare Glimpse Inside Bush's Cabinet | November 17, 2002 23:34:46 Woodward: Tenet sent his secret paramilitary team in, and the team leader, who's named Gary, is riding in his helicopter and he has a big suitcase between his legs.

Wired News | President Kennedy in Greater Pain Than Known -Paper

The records show that Kennedy variously took codeine, Demerol and methadone for pain; Ritalin, a stimulant; meprobamate and librium for anxiety; barbiturates for sleep; thyroid hormone; and injections of a blood derivative, gamma globulin, presumably to combat infections.
In the White House , Kennedy received "seven to eight injections of procaine in his back in the same sitting" before news conferences and other events, Kelman said.
The president suffered pain from three fractured vertebrae from osteoporosis.

Anne Galloway | Purse Lip Square Jaw

Good links to some academic blogs, and a .pdf paper on blogs as a research tool.

Stopping P2P needs anti-terrorist-like effort - Quick Topic

I guess my question would be: What has the movie industry (studios, theatres, etc...) done in recent years to make it more appealing for me to go to the movies?

Are the prices lower? No, they're much higher (in my area, at least) than inflation would account for.

Are there fewer advertisements? No, as the story yesterday pointed out, there are many more.

Are the movies better? Not noticably.

Is the picture quality better than at home? No.

Is the sound quality better than at home? Sometimes...it's hit and miss, and depends on where you sit in the theater.

Are there jackasses with laser pointers sitting in my bedroom hoping to fuck up my movie experience? No, not usually...and if they are, I'm allowed to beat them to death with a crowbar.

The point is, if the experience is more pleasant elsewhere, the proper course is _not_ to try and stop the consumer from enjoying that other, more pleasant experience...it's to attempt to compete accordingly.

AppleScript Central (.com)

This is an AppleScript that was designed to function on Mac OS X v10.1. BlogScript uses the built in XML-RPC power of X.1 and it's new Toolbar Script feature. BlogScript's main purpose is to allow users of Blogger.com's weblog and news site management system to post directly from a users desktop, or from anywhere for that matter. It allows the user to copy any text from any application and by making a single menu selection have the weblog entry posted automatically, instantly. It is fast, powerful, and amazingly handy. (Script ID: 313)

AppleScript Central (.com)

This is an AppleScript that was designed to function on Mac OS X v10.1. BlogScript uses the built in XML-RPC power of X.1 and it's new Toolbar Script feature. BlogScript's main purpose is to allow users of Blogger.com's weblog and news site management system to post directly from a users desktop, or from anywhere for that matter. It allows the user to copy any text from any application and by making a single menu selection have the weblog entry posted automatically, instantly. It is fast, powerful, and amazingly handy. (Script ID: 313)

Entourage Events2Web

Transfer calendar events from Microsoft Entourage X (Office X) to a web-based calendar.

AppleScript Central (.com)

Backs up any files and folders on any disks to any location(s), in Finder format or as Stuffit archives. Supports any number of backup sets ˆ each will keep its own list of items to back up, where to back them up to and which format to use. Automatically email or distribute backups.

Use this with student papers

AppleScript Central (.com)

This script will add the senders or recipients of selected messages in a folder — or automatically of messages filtered by a rule — to an Entourage Group you choose. It can also enter the members in the Address Book if desired, set set category of the messages and/or these contacts to that of the group, and automatically make new groups if and when the number of group members reaches the limit set by your ISP for multiple recipients. (Script ID: 354)

Mac OS X Hints - Use pine to read Mail.app mail

I wrote a script (actually, a pair of scripts) to make all of my Mail.app 'archived mail' mailboxes available in pine. Note that it does *not* automatically link your POP inboxes like the above hint does, so they complement each other nicely.

CBS News | Kamen's Next Big Project | November 13, 2002 18:39:10 "In the emerging world, in the under-developed world, a gallon of water is so precious that without it, you're going to die," he says. "In some places, the average amount of time per day spent looking for water that's safe for their kids by women is four hours. And they carry this stuff, which weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, four or five miles. And if it didn't turn out to be the right stuff, or they put their hands in it and contaminated it, they spend the next day or two burying the babies."

Kamen began experimenting with a Stirling engine. The Stirling engine is named after its designer, Robert Stirling, a 19th Century Scottish minister. Basically, it is non-polluting device that plays heat against cold to create energy. It is a closed box with two chambers, one filled with gas.

Viridian Note 00325: Open Source Speech

In times of adversity, you learn who your friends are. You guys need a lot of friends. You need friends in all walks of life. Pretty soon, you are going to graduate from the status of techie geeks to official dissidents. This is your fate. People are wasting time on dissident relics like Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky is a pretty good dissident: he's persistent, he means what he says, and he's certainly very courageous, but this is the 21st century, and Stallman is a bigger deal. Lawrence Lessig is a bigger deal.

"Anatomy of a hype" Newsweek 9-7-92

All this for a book that shows a great deal of talent and ambition but remains every inch a first novel. A murder without the mystery, "The Secret History" is about a coterie of college students fanatically devoted to the study of ancient Greek. Halfway through the novel the group murders one of its own, and from then on the book is concerned with the ramifications of their deed, especially the psychological consequences. This could have been a successful page-turner if only the characters were compelling, but they are the weakest element. It's impossible to distinguish one student from another without continually flipping back to the page where Tartt introduces them. She adorns them with quirks, but none has a personality; and her amateur's device of keeping them constantly drunk or on drugs gets tedious fast. Unlike the truly startling debuts of recent years, such as Mona Simpson's "Anywhere But Here," or Jonathan Franzen's "The Twenty-Seventh City"-highly sophisticated achievements both technically and emotionally--"The Secret History" feels strained and pretentious, as if Tartt were determined to Write a Novel, rather than eager to tell a story.

Missing In Action: Donna Tartt's Secret History Detour May 1999

Donna Tartt doesn't have time to talk. She's too busy writing. But where's the evidence? It's been seven years since her first novel, The Secret History, became one of those rare best-sellers that actually has literary merit - and nought but a couple of flaccid short stories have dribbled out since. Her cautionary tale of highbrow murder set in the dead of winter against the thinly disguised backdrop of Vermont's exclusive Bennington College (where Tartt is an alum), charmed crusty book critics, while drawing in the John Grisham set. Since then, though, the author seems to have fallen off the literary map.

Medieval Sourcebook: Procopius of Caesarea: The Secret History

The Secret History claims to provide explanations and additions that the author could not insert into his work on the Wars for fear of retribution from Justinian and Theodora. Since both before and afterward, Procopius wrote approvingly of the emperor, it was suggested in the past that he was not the author of the work, but it is now generally accepted that Procopius wrote it. Analysis of text, which show no contradictions in point of fact between the Secret History and the other works, as well a linguistic and grammatical analysis makes this a conclusive opinion.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/10/2002 | Freed miners fall from grace at home

The media - they change you, too, he said, calling the reporters who have swarmed Somerset "relentless." A recent story in a major newspaper revealed that some of the men were seeing counselors and taking antidepressants.
"You lose a piece of your life," Unger said.

Charlotte Observer | 11/09/2002 | Boy's research launches probe

With his small thermal cooler packed with petri dishes, filters, agar, vials and a syringe, Zach took samples of water from the airplane's galleys and lavatory taps, just to see what it might contain.
He tested the waters on nine different flights and found seven were contaminated with E.coli, fecal coliform or salmonella. In one, he even found insect eggs.
"It was pretty gross," said Zach, now a high school freshman at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Google Search: installing electrical outlet line load

-2 wire usually has a black, white and bare ground wire. Sometimes
the white is red instead for 220V circuits without neutral. In
the latter case, the sheath is usually red too

The Family Handyman

CONNECT the new wires to the GFCI terminals marked “Line.” Connect the black wire to the brass screw and the white wire to the side that’s labeled “white,” “W” or has a silver screw. Do not connect wires to the “Load” terminals. If there’s no equipment ground wire available (copper that’s bare or is covered with green insulation), don’t connect anything to the GFCI ground terminal (green screw).

Home and Garden Television: Electrical

Connect the power supply wires to the terminals marked "line," and the load wires to the terminals marked "load." Be sure to connect the white wires to the silver screws and the black wires to the brass or gold screws. The outlet may also indicate appropriate color connections.

Safely install electrical outlets with the PlugGrip

Reconnect the wires as directed on the back of the outlet. White insulated wires usually connect to the silver screws or into the holes marked "WHITE" on the outlet. Black insulated wires usually connect to the brass screws or into the holes marked "HOT" on the back of the outlet. The ground wire, which has no insulating cover, connects to the green screw. If not and a loose ground wire is present, connect it to the grounding screw attached to the top of the metal support plate.

TIME.com: W. and the "Boy Genius"

"It felt like a funeral, "recalls Bainwol. Democrats were calling for the scalp of Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt and citing poll numbers that pointed to big gains for their party in both houses. "They were filled with the euphoria of our misery, "Bainwol says of his rivals.
Rove stepped in to stop the bleeding. Sources tell Time he leaned on executives to support the corporate accounting reforms written by Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes. Three weeks later, he orchestrated the President's economic summit in Waco, Texas, which amounted to little more than a photo op for ceos but gave the impression that Bush was focused on the economy. The Justice Department, urged on by G.O.P. political consultants, made several high-profile arrests of corporate chiefs, complete with handcuffs. In August Rove kept his boss traveling during his vacation and talking about the economy.

Linksys: EC2T - PCMCIA EthernetCard EC2T--will work with my z50. Now where to find one?

Lightest of the Light Linux Hey, all, just to put this in context, I've been collecting some very old Itronix Mil-Spec laptops recently (one survived being thrown full-strength by me, a 285 pound ex-marine, from seven feet onto worn-out carpet over plywood, and booted up no problem) because I have a fetish for such things. Let's just say I have a thing for durability. The only problem is, the laptops have a "full environmental seal" which means no cd-rom, no internal floppy, no usb ports, etc. They only have a parallel and serial port, a phone jack, and a PCMCIA port protected with a cast aluminum door and a gasket. My weaker ones have eight MB of ram each and are only 486DX2-50's, with a 260MB HDD. My three stronger ones are Pentium 133's with 32MB of ram each, and about a 1.3 GB disk, with monochrome LCDs. Only one has color, but that one's just a 640x480 LCD. I wanted to run Linux, and not some quirky, doofy ancient Linux either. Here's how I got it to work.

Step 1. I have an external floppy that connects to the PCMCIA slot, and a parallel port zipdrive. So, I downloaded Zipslack (available on the Slackware website) and the companion, fourmeg.zip, which creates a swap file. Zipslack is interesting because it creates a UMSDOS slackware installation on a zipdisk (just unzip it to the zipdisk). This can then be booted from the zipslack boot floppy (boot from the boot floppy, then direct root at /dev/sda4, i.e. the zipdisk). Zipslack booted with only minor difficulties -- I had to tweak a couple of BIOS settings, that's all.

DIY: Local TV and the Satellite Dish The best solution for off-air reception, in a suburban environment where outside antennas are restricted, is to mount a small outdoor VHF-UHF antenna (such as the Radio Shack VU-110) in the attic space of your home and run the cable (RG-6 coax) to the TV set. Orienting the antenna for best reception will give you access to all channels VHF and UHF (not to mention FM radio). Since the whole unit is completely out of the weather, it could last as long as your house, and for around $50, results will be far superior to set-top rabbit ears. In areas where restrictions are minimal, mounting an antenna outside and controlling it with a rotator (RS#15-1225, $65) will allow you to tune in signals from several distant cities in different directions. Investing in a much larger antenna will allow you to expand your horizons to over 100 miles. But, there's a limit. Single, amplified antennas 15 or 20 feet above the peak of your house will be unlikely to get usable signals beyond 100 miles.

How to Be a Leader in Your Field

(1) Pick an issue. You need an issue that the profession as a whole is not really thinking about, but which is going to be the center of attention in five years. The issue could be technical, strategic, managerial, policy-related, or all of the above. It could be a problem or an opportunity or both. It could be a new method or a whole new area of practice. It should be fairly specific, though, and should directly address the day-to-day work of people in some segment of the profession. "Technology" is too big. You can find an issue in several ways:

Yahoo! News - Guns N' Riot "That's it, I'm trashing all my GNR stuff," a fan named Dana Claydon told Vancouver's Providence. "I've been waiting for this since '93 when Axl canceled the last time. What a jerk."

Hog Tied and Hooded - Quick Topic They're getting more legroom that I did on my last charter flight.

Reuters | The World's Leading Provider of Financial Information and News

He also recounted a conversation with the queen in which she told him to be careful of unknown "powers at work in this country."

ClubMac - The Online Mac Catalog

SIMPLE TECHNOLOGY FLASHLINK KEYCHAIN USB COMPACTFLASH CARD READER/WRITER
Your Price: $19.99


Mfg #: STI-UCF100
SKU #: 364608

SanDisk FAQ's

I'm really pissed. I had procmail and bloxsom all set up on my Emac, and I was ready to set it up so I could send email to myself and have it converted into blog entries that nobody would ever read, and then discovered that sendmail had quit working. I don't know how I broke it. Some time in the past week it died. Crap.

Google Search:

We are now living in a new Gilded Age, as extravagant as the original.
Mansions have made a comeback. Back in 1999 this magazine profiled Thierry
Despont, the ''eminence of excess,'' an architect who specializes in designing
houses for the superrich. His creations typically range from 20,000 to 60,000
square feet; houses at the upper end of his range are not much smaller than
the White House. Needless to say, the armies of servants are back, too. So are
the yachts. Still, even J.P. Morgan didn't have a Gulfstream.

Google Search:

When I was a teenager growing up on Long Island, one of my favorite excursions
was a trip to see the great Gilded Age mansions of the North Shore. Those
mansions weren't just pieces of architectural history. They were monuments to
a bygone social era, one in which the rich could afford the armies of servants
needed to maintain a house the size of a European palace. By the time I saw
them, of course, that era was long past. Almost none of the Long Island
mansions were still private residences. Those that hadn't been turned into
museums were occupied by nursing homes or private schools

Google Search: knudson provo

Bryce and Janet Knudson - (801) 377-1310 - 169 S 300 E, Provo, UT 84606

The google phonebook doesn't work if you spell the last name wrong. I think my wife went to the wrong address in Provo tonight.

ii.com: Procmail Quick Start by Nancy McGough
:0:
* ^Subject:.*test
IN-testing

The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century

A couple of people, in addition to exclaiming "you don't look 35!" have asked me if I feel 35.

I don't: "You're only old when your regrets outnumber your dreams."

According to this, I'm pretty old. Bummer.

The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century

Oh, and tell your housemate to get bank with name that not sound like bullshit.

Petetownshend.com - Pete's Diary - 4 Nov 2002

These are the scribblings of some once beautiful, muddled, angry, petulant, spoiled, drug-addled middle-class white boy from a divorced family who just happened - with the help of two of his slightly more stable peers - to make a first album that is hailed as one of the best rock records ever made. I sometimes get letters from people who write and draw like Kurt Cobain. I put them in a file marked 'Loonies', just in case they try to sue me in the future for stealing their ideas.

Software for OS X

Awesome! applescript file renaming. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

MachoPython - wxPython Wiki

Yikes, Blogger just ate Markzilla and puked it back up. Time to publish to another server, because lets face it--blogger has no customer service.

engl 3160: layout and editing exercise

SITE DESIGN: "Chunking" information "Chunking" information

WebWritingWiki: Web Writing Wiki

Andre Torrez

Even more disappointing than the people I just mentioned, are the people who claim they are not voting to "make a statement about not voting." That's like inventing an ideological view to justify the purchase of adult diapers when you're just too lazy to walk to a g*d damned toilet. If you're so serious about making a statement, how about going to the poll, retrieving your ballot, and walking it (un-punched) over to the ballot box?

Guardian Unlimited Observer | Special reports | Carve-up of oil riches begins

The leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, has met executives of three US oil multinationals to negotiate the carve-up of Iraq's massive oil reserves post-Saddam.
Disclosure of the meetings in October in Washington - confirmed by an INC spokesman - comes as Lord Browne, the head of BP, has warned that British oil companies have been squeezed out of post-war Iraq even before the first shot has been fired in any US-led land invasion.

Mac OS X-PHP on Mac OS X Configuration Tips
The following listings show some suggested flags and configuration tweaks that may help you in the process of configuring and installing PHP on Mac OS X. Additionally, there is a rundown of modules that have been successfully built on Mac OS X. The list is not exhaustive; it represents some of the more popular modules that are used with PHP. If you have gotten an additional module successfully compiled, please let us know.

Mac OS X-PHP on Mac OS X Note: There is an known incompatibility between PHP 4.1 and MacOS X version 10.1.2. If you need to compile PHP 4.1 from the source code, you can employ the work around found at http://www.entropy.ch/software/ macosx/php/. See NOTE 2 of the Build Instructions. You can also find a pre-compiled binary at the same location. This article currently covers installation of PHP 4.0.6.

Weblog Kitchen: Wiki Logs

We're trying to do this at SnipSnap. Right now weblog entries are named wiki snips (ala vanilla). But we are considering adding labels to (or in) the wiki to get it in the weblog.

Disinfotainment: Free Spam Filtering for MacOS X

Free Spam Filtering for MacOS X: How To Do It - Version 1.5

Email Filtering on MacOS X with fetchmail and procmail

What is procmail?
Oh, my, let's talk. =^ ) What procmail does is filter email, that's all it does, and it is incredibly powerful. It can do pattern matching, weighted scoring, blacklist lookups, re-write headers, and pipe its output to other programs for further processing. There are effective spam protection services written entirely in procmail and updated on a regular basis (i.e. www.spambouncer.org). If that's not enough, when configured just so, procmail can do fun email bouncing tricks. Nothing like it exists in the Windoze or Macintosh world. You need it. Let's get started.

Mac OS X Apps - The Source For Mac OS X Software

"JOE is the professional freeware ASCII text screen editor for UNIX. It makes full use of the power and versatility of UNIX, but lacks the steep learning curve and basic nonsense you have to deal with in every other UNIX editor. JOE has the feel of most IBM PC text editors: The key-sequences are reminiscent of WordStar and Turbo-C. JOE is much more powerful than those editors, however. JOE has all of the features a UNIX user should expect: full use of termcap/terminfo, excellent screen update optimizations (JOE is fully useable at 2400 baud), simple installation, and all of the UNIX-integration features of VI."

Mac OS X Apps - The Source For Mac OS X Software

Blender (freeware 3d modeling/animation/game design/web plugin) for OS X is out. Get the alpha release on http://www.blender3d.com

Mac OS X Apps - The Source For Mac OS X Software

Quickly tie ideas together. That is what Idea Knot does. With it you write documents that contain ideas written quickly at the instant inspiration hits you. You then organize these ideas together into relevant groups. Finally, when you have more time, you can edit those ideas until they are complete.

Mac OS X Apps - The Source For Mac OS X Software

With its fully aqua compliant interface, chartConstructor allows you to build Gantt and PERT charts in minutes. Once created, these charts can be printed or exported as image files for inclusion in other documents, or on the web.

ABCNEWS.com : Clooney Butt Shot Sparks R Rating Flap Solaris, directed by Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich), is due to hit theaters Nov. 27. Clooney plays a psychologist who encounters the ghost of his dead wife (Natascha McElhone) on a distant space station.

This sounds like a great flick. Email me if you've heard anything about it. --like anyone reads this.

O'Reilly Network: Configuring sendmail on Jaguar [Sep. 10, 2002] Setting Up Aliases

Our next stop on the tour is to look at aliases. An alias lets you define that mail to an address actually gets sent to somebody else. That other person might be a user on the local machine or might be an email address on a completely different system.

Mac OS X-Information Architecture

Learning to Use Regular Expressions

Renaming Files with Perl : evolt.org, Code

dooce - it's not for kids: the longest elevator ride of my life Anyway, we make our way to the elevator, and because we're on the bottom floor of the monstrous parking structure, we have to wait a few minutes for the next ride. And Jon and I are looking at the three other people waiting with us, three complete strangers, and we're all silent, and we're all letting each other know through like telepathy or something that, yes, we're all here for the arty movie. People like us, people like those who are waiting with us, we don't have to talk about how cool we are. All you have to do is look at our arty vintage shoes.

dooce - it's not for kids Chukee thinks:
I think Utah sounds wonderful. Wonderful because you can actually consider buying a house in the Avenues - it won't cost $480,000 unless it has six bedrooms (not uncommon in Utah). Wonderful because no one drives an Audi TT and complains about how down she is because her Daddy can't get her a newer one. Wonderful because generic cola comes in 3-liter bottles. Wonderful because I once bought an apple green cashmere coat at the DI for $8 (Utah has the best vintage). My husband and I are designers in Venice who are actively marketing to overseas clients, so that we can move to Utah without anyone noticing. (I think we will go to Logan.) Neither of us are LDS. He has lived there before, and I love it there. Besides, nowhere else is it so easy to be an "individual".

mozdev.org - composite: installation

Metafilter | Comments on 21405

Slopthrop's Third Proverb for Paranoids:

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

Metafilter | Comments on 21405

In the meantime, I've developed a diabolical phrase to scare Republicans: Hillary Clinton in '04.

"In paranoid thinking a person believes he has detected a conspiracy--that is,
a hidden (and malevolent) pattern in the behavior of friends, associates or governments--where in fact no such pattern exists. If there is such a
conspiracy, the subject may be profoundly anxious, but his thinking is not necessarily paranoid. A famous case involves James Forrestal, the first U.S. Secretary of of Defense. At the end of World War II, Forrestal was convinced that Israeli secret agents were following him everywhere. His physicians, equally convinced of his idee fixe, diagnosed him as paranoid and confined him to an upper storey of Walter Reed Army Hospital, from which he plunged to his death , partly because of inadequate supervision by hospital personnel, overly deferential to to one of his exalted rank.
Later it was discovered that Forrestal was indeed being followed by Israeli agents who were worried that he might reach a secret understanding with representatives of Arab nations. Forrestal had other problems, but having his valid perception labeled paranoid did not help his condition.

In times of rapid social change there are bound to be conspiracies, both by those in favor of change and by those defending the status quo, the latter more than the former in recent American political history. Detecting conspiracies when there are no conspiracies is a symptom of paranoia; detecting them when they exist is a sign of mental health.

# posted by craniac @ Wednesday, November 06, 2002 |