Odracirys

Modernist's Response Back on July 5th, I shared an email I wrote to Roger Lewis.  He is a professor of architecture who wrote an article criticizing people who want Washington D.C. to maintain its Classical spirit instead being turned into a showcase for Modernism.  Below is a link to my July 5th post: http://odracirys.blogspot.jp/2012/07/my-response-email-to-k.html Well, quite a while back, he replied to me, which was pretty nice of him.  I also wrote a reply back to him.  My response was not super well-thought-out, but was rather spur of the moment, reaching for what I had at hand.  But it has quite a few links to pictures comparing Modernist to Classical buildings.  Here are both his and my replies: Roger Lewis' Email: Dear Odaricirys Mediys, I just returned from three weeks teaching and traveling in Russia, which is why I did not respond promptly to your July 4 email. The headline for my column, "Why classical architecture makes little sense for today'

Scientific Sadism This just in!  Existing forever on the verge of starvation doesn't help to prolong your life. http://health.heraldtribune.com/2012/08/30/severe-diet-doesnt-prolong-life-at-least-in-monkeys/ "For 25 years, the rhesus monkeys were kept semistarved, lean and hungry. The males’ weights were so low they were the equivalent of a 6-foot-tall man who tipped the scales at just 120 to 133 pounds." However, the study failed.  Starved rhesus monkeys didn't live longer than their (non-obese) well-fed counterparts.  Still, "The study is continuing until the youngest monkeys are 22 years old. While the data pretty much rule out any notion that the low-calorie diet will increase average lifespans, there still is a chance that the study might find that the diet increases the animals’ maximum lifespan" , said Julie A. Mattison So, they failed at their experiment, but decided to continue to ruin the lives of more monkeys just to see what mi

Drunken man turns off power on poultry farm, causes death of 70,000 chickens http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13531163-sheriff-drunken-man-turns-off-power-on-poultry-farm-causes-death-of-70000-chickens Here is an excerpt from the article: "Shelton was arrested and booked into jail on charges of second-degree burglary, trespass and malicious destruction of property. The property owner discovered the dead chickens Saturday morning. He told investigators that without power, the chickens will begin to die within 15 minutes. The birds, which were due to be delivered to a local processing plant the following day, were valued at $20,000. Allen Farms, which was going to process the birds, estimated its loss at $220,000, said sheriff's Chief Deputy Gary Baker." This article is disturbing on many levels.  The first is the fact that around 70,000 chickens died.  But that's not the worst part.  You see, they were going to die the next day anyway, most likely in

Q: What Should Be Done About Iran's Nuclear Program? A: Nothing. Recently, there have been lots of news stories about the possibility of air strikes to hit Iranian nuclear facilities.  In particular, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying that the international community needs to act now to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and that this can take the form of air strikes, even if Israel has to go it alone. Now, I think that Israel is one of the more sane states in the region...usually.  I was impressed when Israel gave up the Gaza Strip - even going so far as to remove their own settlers.  The result was an electoral victory for Hamas and a hail storm of rockets aimed at Israel.  And the "Chomskyan liberals" (i.e. "human rights" activists that overlook all of the hateful rhetoric and violence in the Islamic world and think that Israel is the most oppressive country around) always seem to rush to call Israel a fascist state fo

Question: The defense of the Colorado shooter is claiming that the defendant is insane and thus should get a lenient sentence (at least not the death penalty).  My question is what makes insane people better than the rest of us?  Why do they get off with more lenient sentences than others? My Take: There is nothing that makes an insane person better.  My opinion is that insane people who commit murder should be executed like anyone else . This is an open and shut case.  Everyone knows that he's guilty.  This is not a case where a DNA test has been refused and he's on death row because of the testimony of one unreliable witness with a grudge.  This is a case where everyone knows what he has done and everyone knows that he's completely guilty. It may offend some people when I say this, but... KILL HIM, ALREADY!

Chick-fil-A is an evil company!  That's why we must all boycott it! However, Kentucky Fried Chicken (depicted in the video below) is awesome!  They didn't come out and say something that hurt some people's feelings.  Instead, they just torture animals.  Liberals rejoice!  You have found your savior in KFC!

Olympics Propaganda I realized this in 2008 during the Beijing Olympics.  There are at least two systems being used - one by the United States media, and another by most of the rest of the countries in the world (and Google, by the way). Look at the page I linked to below. http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals/index.html It shows the 2012 medals count.   China is in the lead, and the United States is second place.  Where it becomes strange is with Japan, which is number 3 with medals, but is actually tied for 9th place when it comes to gold medals won. See, the American media (catering to an American audience) have felt the need to base the country rankings on ALL medals won (gold, silver, and bronze), whereas the rest of the world (and international websites like Google) rank countries based on GOLD medals. I think the latter is a much better policy.  Being "Number 2" or "Number 3" is not equal to being "Number 1", but NBC (and many other American medi