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5.16.2009

Conservative Pundits and Cognitive Dissonance

Although every nation has ratified Children Rights as recommended by the United Naitons, only the U. S. and Somalia haven't. That's the background.

Here's the rhetoric: Rep. Hoekstra on the O'Reilly Factor.

Evidently Hoekstra and O'Reilly are proud of the following bit of mental gymnasitcs:

The basis of conservative insistence on stopping abortion is the rights of the community protecting members who are voiceless. Community rights versus individual rights. Period.

Strangely, the basis of the United Nations push to grant rights to children in law is the same.

So what's the difference? In one case Hoekstra and O'Reilly like community rights and in the other, they like individual rights better.

I don't understand and I suspect, neither do they.

5.12.2009

Google Squared

When you see Google Squared in a couple of weeks or months and you love spreadsheets, you will love the juicy goodness of a search arrayed in splendor and ordered in columns and rows. Or rows and columns if you prefer.

An if, as a spreadsheet user, you enjoy surrounding yourself with stacks of building blocks, you will again be content.

But if you think Google will extract structure out of the disorder, you will only be fooling yourself. I may be wrong. I have only seen a brief demonstration.

But it seems as though Google Squared is like looking at the world and seeing intelligent design. And yes, I believe the lead up was worth the punch line.