Category: Odds & Ends

I just saw an ad that said, “Congratulations. You are the 1,000th visitor to our web site and…”
I thought, “1,000??? Did the clock turn back to 1995 or something?”
A business school tidbit: The Customer Relationship Management people that write for Harvard Business Review and other publications think it’s high time marketers were honest with people so that a real relationship can either happen or not happen.
So perhaps the banner should read:

“We aren’t creative enough to come up with a promotion that means something, but why don’t you give us all your personal info and we’ll add you to a e-newsletter that comes out twice a day and splatters you with all sorts of travel offers. It will make you feel pretty. And we promise we won’t sell your e-mail address to the Martians or anyone that has all five vowels in the sequential order you learned them in pre-school in their last name.”

I guess that’s too big for a banner…

A Boston priest has adopted the nom de blog “Father Elijah” for his site Fides et Ratio, which approaches church affairs in Beantown with a refreshing frankness. Welcome, Father E!

Proof from authority is the weakest form of proof.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Summa Theologica

The first principle: a thing cannot be and not be at the same time.
“Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped.”
Avicenna
Ancient Muslim philosopher

From the Googlewar site, comparing the raw number of results from two Google queries:
“catholic” vs. “protestant”
results: 14,600,000 to 1,870,000
eucharist” vs. “communion”
632,000 to 2,260,000
“orthodox” vs. “heretical”
3,240,000 to 235,000
“eric” vs. “johnson“
24,400,000 to 32,300,000
“catholic light” vs. “catholic darkness”
13,500 to 41
“folk music” vs. “good music”
2,570,000 to 1,640,000
“Linux” vs. “Microsoft”
108,000,000 to 101,000,000
“folk music” vs. “plainchant”
2,570,000 to 13,400
“weak soldier” vs. “strong marine”
199 to 3,650