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Monday, September 27, 2004 |
Palm reading dressed as science
Palm reading dressed as science: "Millions take personality tests every year, but are they valid?"
(Via Christian Science Monitor | Books.)
A review of The Cult of Personality, which covers the gamut of so-called personality tests, and the way they're being (mis)used in education and the work place. There was a good piece on the topic in the New Yorker a few weeks ago. A couple years back, my then-employer had everyone take one of these tests, the Briggs-Meyers test. I think I got branded as some sort of obstructionist when I didn't take it. The New Yorker article had a nice chunk on Isabel Meyers, who, as this review says, with "her daughter, Katharine Briggs, ... misread Carl Jung's theories to develop their erratic people-sorting paradigm - the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), now used by 89 of the Fortune 100 companies." What a joke these things are; as that piece pointed out and well illustrated, it's very easy to test one way one day and another way the next day. Seems to me that they're just sham ways to put people into little pigeonholes and avoid the work of actually getting to know them.
10:10:29 PM Permalink
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[Trashy News] George Bush handwritten note a fake
[Trashy News] George Bush handwritten note a fake: " Yet another memo controversy, and this time, it's the Bush camp with yolk on their faces.
Earlier this week, FOX News produced a note written by George W. Bush. They then asked experts from Handwriting University to analyze Bush's personality based on the note. Speaking from the new 50 million dollar Murdoch Research Center in the heart of Handwriting University's campus, faculty members agreed that Bush's handwriting says he is an enthusiastic highly intelligent and generous man.
A new study by the SaltwaterPizza Blog, however, suggests the note may have been a fake. Here's the note in question:
In my own in-depth research, I found several glaring reasons why the above document has been faked:
- Bush does not mention Irag, Saddam Hussein, or war in the entire memo.
- There are no misspellings.
- The words "fortunate" (line 8), "honored" (line 15), and "sincerely" (line 17) can be found in the document despite the fact that Bush does not know the definition of any of these words.
- Bush mentions that he wants to "stay on schedule and be able to execute our plan." (lines 11-12). This is an obvious forgery, because Bush has never let anyone know what his plan is. Why would he leak this information in a memo?
- Bush doesn't know cursive.
I'm urging FOX News to come clean about this memo. The sooner this is resolved, the sooner we can get back to the important issues of this election.
Thank you for your time. "
(Via The SaltwaterPizza Blog.)
3:03:36 PM Permalink
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St Wenceslaus
St Wenceslaus: "Other than the Christmas carol, when do we ever hear of St Wenceslaus? Never, in my neck of the woods. He's important over here, though: St Wenceslaus is the patron saint of brewers, Bohemia, the Czech Republic, and Prague. September 28th is his feast day, and that's a national holiday in the Czech Republic. Wenceslaus (or Wenceslas, if you prefer) was murdered in the year 929 by his brother. If you're curious about him, read more here, here, and here...."
(Via Mirabilis.ca.)
Fun reading; I've been brewing like a madman lately. I have 5 gallons of a California Common in a bucket, waiting to be bottled, and I did a lighter Bitter ALe yesterday.
11:11:39 AM Permalink
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Shrill!
Shrill!: " From a purely military standpoint, the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. This administration failed to make even a cursory effort at adequately defining the political end state they sought to achieve by removing Saddam Hussein, making it impossible to precisely define long-term military success. That, in turn, makes it impossible to lay out a rational exit strategy for U.S. troops. Like Vietnam, the military is again being asked to clean up the detritus of a failed foreign policy. We are nose-deep in a protracted insurgency, an occupying Christian power in an oil-rich, Arab country. That country is not now and has never been a single nation. A single, unified, democratic Iraq comprised of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis is a willfully ignorant illusion at best.
Who is this freedom hating hippy? "Retired Air Force Col. Mike Turner is a former military planner who served on the U.S. Central Command planning staff for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm." Oh."
(Via Oliver Willis - Like Kryptonite To Stupid.)
10:48:53 AM Permalink
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Does Not Compute
Does Not Compute: "Does a photograph shows RAND Corporation's 1954 design for a home computer?"
(Via New Urban Legends.)
Probably not surprisingly, the photo so many people linked two a couple weeks ago (including me), supposedly showing a RAND Corporation view of a home computer, was a paste up job.
8:13:38 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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