Transcendental Generalization

Conde Nast Traveler had nice things to say about the local Jupiter Hotel. GQ Magazine’s September issue mentioned it, too.

If you want to visit a web site without the web server being told where you are visiting from, you can use an anonymous proxy.

In general, these are a security problem, because the web server may need to distinguish legitimate visitors from illegitimate ones, on the basis of where they are visiting from. Users coming through the anonymous proxy don’t reveal where on the internet they are visiting from.

However, I have found anonymous proxies to be useful to simulate outside visitors to the web site hosted by the computer I am using. Such visitors will typically visit www.milindspandit.org or www.himalaya-capital.com, whereas I visit localhost to view my site.

www.proxify.com is the anonymous proxy server I use.

I’m currently hosting both www.milindspandit.org and www.himalaya-capital.com on an XP Pro machine in my home office. The version of IIS that ships with Windows XP Pro is normally crippled to prevent multiple sites being hosted, but I did a kludge. When visitors come into one domain, they are directed to one sub-directory, and visitors to the other domain are directed to another. Redirection is accomplished via the following PHP code. It works great!

< ?php
if (strtolower($_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]) == "www.milindspandit.org")
header("Location: http://www.milindspandit.org/MSP/");
elseif (strtolower($_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]) == "www.himalaya-capital.com")
header("Location: http://www.himalaya-capital.com/HC/");
?>


Seen on a bumper sticker:

How’s my driving? Let’s discuss it on my cell phone!

This came into my inbox today…

President Bush and a giddy Jacques Chirac shake hands on the deal.

BATON ROUGE, LA. - The White House announced today that President Bush has successfully sold the state of Louisiana back to the French at more than double its original selling price of $11,250,000.

“This is a bold step forward for America,” said Bush. “And America will be stronger and better as a result. I stand here today in unity with French Prime Minister Jack Shiraq, who was so kind to accept my offer of Louisiana in exchange for 25 million dollars cash.”

The state, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild.

“Jack understands full well that this one’s a ‘fixer upper,’” said Bush. “He and the French people are quite prepared to pump out all that water, and make Louisiana a decent place to live again. And they’ve got a lot of work to do. But Jack’s assured me, if it’s not right, they’re going to fix it.”

The move has been met with incredulity from the already beleaguered residents of Louisiana.

However, President Bush’s decision has been widely lauded by Republicans.

“This is an unexpected but brilliant move by the President,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. “Instead of spending billions and billions, and billions of dollars rebuilding the state of Louisiana, we’ve just made 25 million dollars in pure profit.”

“This is indeed a smart move,” commented Fox News analyst Brit Hume. “Not only have we stopped the flooding in our own budget, we’ve made money on the deal. Plus, when the god-awful French are done fixing it up, we can easily invade and take it back again.”

The money gained from ‘The Louisiana Refund’ is expected to be immediately pumped back into the rebuilding of Iraq.

I had dinner with some one who enjoys geocaching. Geocaching “gee-oh-cash-ing” is a new form of recreation facilitated by inexpensive Global Positioning System components. As stated on the geocaching web site,

The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

This came into my inbox today. Warning: obscenities ahead!

It was the first day of school and a new student named Chandrashekhar Subrahmanyam entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, “Let’s begin by reviewing some American History. Who said “Give me liberty, or give me death”? She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Chandrashekhar, who had his hand up: “Patrick Henry, 1775″ he said.

“Very good!” Who said “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth?” Again, no response except from Chandrashekhar. “Abraham Lincoln, 1863″ said Chandrashekhar.

The teacher snapped at the class, “Class, you should be ashamed. Chandrashekhar, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.”

She heard a loud whisper: “Fuck the Indians!”

“Who said that?” she demanded. Chandrashekhar put his hand up, “General Custer, 1862.”

At that point, a student in the back said, “I’m gonna puke.” The teacher glared around and asked “All right! Now, who said that?” Chandrashekhar said, “George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister,1991.”

Now furious, another student yelled at Chandrashekhar, “Oh yeah? Suck this!”

Chandrashekhar jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouted to the teacher, “Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!”

Now with almost a mob hysteria someone said “You little shit! If you say anything else, I’ll kill you!”

Chandrashekhar frantically yelled at the top of his voice, “Gary Condit to Chandra Levy, 2001.”

The teacher fainted. And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, “Oh shit, we’re fucked!” and
Chandrashekhar said quietly, “George Bush, Iraq, 2005.”

This came into my inbox today. A double entendre that occurred while our President commented on Hurricane Katrina.

This came into my inbox today. Worth remembering!

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
- Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.”
- Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
- Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
- Moses Hadas

“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.”
- Samuel Johnson

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
- Groucho Marx

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
- Thomas Brackett Reed

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.”
- James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
- Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
- Mae West

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
- Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.”
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”
Winston Churchill, in reply

“A sheep in sheep’s clothing.”
- Winston Churchill, on Clement Atlee

“There but for the grace of God, goes God.”
- Winston Churchill, on Stafford Cripps

“He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”
- Winston Churchill, on Stanley Baldwin

Check out a hilarious satire of our President’s speaking goofs here.