This post has been removed and cannot be restored.

See my October 21st entry for more information if interested.

This post has been removed and cannot be restored.

See my October 21st entry for more information if interested.

Zac sent this to me via email and I got a big kick out of it. I decided to HTML-ify it and post it here.

We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and (more than occasionally) liberal people of the country.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights:

ARTICLE I:

You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II:

You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone-not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III:

You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV:

You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V:

You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI:

You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII:

You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII:

You don't have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you'd like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.

ARTICLE IX:

You don't have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X:

You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness-which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

I added a new (replaced an old) feature to the site. You may have noticed to the right is a new content box. This box has a list of the top search terms people used which led them here. For example, if someone searches for (which is almost a Googlewhack, BTW), then they wind up at this site if they click the link on the results page. (There I go, skewing the results...) Get it? People search for something, find a link to our site, click that link and come here. I see their search terms in our log files.

How did this "feature" come about? Well, search engines have always fascinated me. I always thought there was a lot of unseen data in search engines. So I was thinking about the logs for this site one day and thought that a good way to get a third-hand view of the site would be to see what people were searching for when they found us. Pretty soon, Tess and I found ourselves continuously amused by the referrer links we get from Google (even my all-too-common typos, which are apprently common for other people as well). In fact, I'd say the greatest joy we've had out of doing this site is checking the referrer logs for new search terms that sent people our way. We've had some real howlers. People have searched for some supremely odd things and found this site. Interestingly, not all of the search terms are completely wholesome, even though Tess and I rarely swear much online.

(I guess this is a good a place as any for the disclaimer: other people entered every single word in the search term rankings box I make, not us. We had nothing to do with it; we aren't in the habit of searching for our own web site. I simply found the words in our log files. So if you see a bad word, then don't look at it, OK?)

But it's been fun to guess what people were looking for even when it hasn't been fornicating NASCAR chicas. I don't think think anyone has every found their query quarry by coming here, yet we've had quite a large number of people stay and check out lots of pages.

I wanted an easy way to see the search terms, and figured everyone else might get a kick out of it as well. So I cooked up a little script which reads a file of the most common search terms found in this month's log files. It counts each unique search term and reports the top ones (currently, it only reports the top 20 terms, although that number can change). I don't list the actual counts because A) it doesn't really matter for the purposes of a ranked list and B) I didn't want anyone stuffing the ballot -- 10 is just as good as 50 when you don't see the actual count. Anyway, all you have to do is click on a search term to go back to Google and see what the original search was, and where this site fit into the rankings. Sometimes, we're pretty far down the list (assuming the ranking hadn't changed, although I don't see how we could move very far in a month). It only links back to Google because we get the most hits from Google and it's the only good search engine anyway. This list will change every month, so it might have less than 20. And I've noticed that the list changes quite a bit towards the end of the month. Oh yeah, one more thing: only one month's search terms are kept; once a month is past, it's past and we keep no archive.

After looking at the list and clicking over to Google a couple times, I find myself wondering if the sum of those searches reflect what Tess and I have written about, and therefore are about? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe.

BTW, you know what the best thing about making the search term list publicly available is? Search engine spiders will follow their own crumbs. Heh heh.

Sometimes the best part about a job is the little stuff. Like having all department heads at work wondering why everyone in the new test database is named John:

mysql> select name from applicant where name like 'John%' order by timestamp;
+----------------+
| name           |
+----------------+
| John Worfin    |
| John Bigbootie |
| John Many Jars |
| John Rajneesh  |
+----------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)