Day: June 27, 2001

I thought I’d seen every annoying web trick under the sun, but apparently I missed one — why not make it impossible for people to resize to the browser window when they’re visiting your site? Check out: http://209.50.251.215:81/ and just try to resize the window.

View the source for the page and you see what has to be the most pointless script in the world:

Sub window_onresize
	Dim WL, WH, CPW, CPH, WT, W
	WL = screen.width
	WH = screen.height
	'Get Screen Center Points
	CPW = WL / 2
	CPH = WH /2	
	'Rezise Window
	window.resizeTo 770,580
	'Center Window In Center Of WIndow
	WT = WL / 2 - 400
	W = WH / 2 - 292 - 10
	self.moveto WT,W
End Sub

What would possess someone to make it impossible to resize the browser? What possible advantage is there to doing so?

You have to love the irony of a web site devoted to Primitivism. Anyway, there were a couple links to their site on Permaculture which reminds me of an amusing (well at least I thought it was amusing) anecdote.

My wife likes to shop in health food stores, and I like to tag along because most such stores include a section of brochures, fliers, etc. that are just plain nutty. I struck paydirt on the last such visit with a small, typed brochure put together by some folks who want to start a permaculture-style planned community on some land that is for sale just outside of town.

So I’m reading this and laughing out loud, and Lisa’s asking me what’s so funny. I point out that the fee for the seminar these folks are planning to hold is ridiculously expensive (several hundred dollars), but that it might be worth it because among the things they plan to do is to create a system where the land produces more than they put into it (as opposed to the evil capitalist system of manipulation which takes more out than goes in).

As far as I’m concerned, a few hundred bucks is cheap to learn about the latest revolution in physics.

Gail Jarvis wrote a hilarious article (Don?t Make Fun of Feminists) at a mini-controversy involving South Carolina’s legislature that is so bizarre you couldn’t make this stuff up.

South Carolina’s legislature uses college students to act as pages. Members of the legislature’s Women’s Caucus were apparently offended at the short skirts and low-cut blouses than some female pages were wearing. They complained to the page supervisor who dutifully issued a memo that, No low-cut blouses or shirts that show your cleavage, and tops that are too tight will not be allowed. Skirts that are more than 4 inches above the knee will not be allowed.” At least two female pages were subsequently sent home for wearing clothes that violated this policy.

On the heels of that, some anonymous jokester wrote a parody of the memo from a non-existent Men’s Caucus. I couldn’t find the complete text of the “Men’s Caucus” memo, but the Associated Press reported, “It suggested that pages receive extra pay for wearing tops with less material. It also said dresses should be no longer than 4 inches above the knee. The memo also said underwear is optional and female pages should ignore future memos from the Women’s Caucus.”

The still unknown author might has well have set off a bomb considering the furor the tongue-in-cheek memo created. Governor Jim Hodges told the South Carolina Post and Courier, “I find the contents of this anonymous memorandum despicable. Moreover, I am concerned that the circulation of this memorandum might have created a hostile and offensive working environment for female employees of the House of Representatives in violation of state and federal law.”

Both South Carolina’s Human Affairs Commission and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are investigating the memo, and a spokesperson for the governor said if the author is found he (or she) could face anything from a public reprimand to charges of sexual harassment.

Hodges had to turn around and suspend his own speech writer, however, after the writer fired off a memo referring to male legislators as “cave men.”

Apparently South Carolina must have few, if any, major problems if its political establishment has this much time on its hands to deal with a parody of a memo.

Sources:

Don?t Make Fun of Feminists. Gail Jarvis, LewRockwell.Com, June 27, 2001.

Hodges orders inquiry into memo about pages. Warren Wise, The Post and Courier (South Carolina), June 9, 2001.

Female pages told to dress more carefully. The Associated Press, June 8, 2001.

Governor calls for investigation into phony page dress code letter. Amy Grier, Associated Press, June 8, 2001.

Female pages receive a dressing-down. Warren Wise, The Post and Courier (South Carolina), June 7, 2001.

Should anyone who enjoys viewing pornography be barred from supervising other people? That’s the conclusion that a Canadian feminist group has reached in the wake of an Internet pornography scandal involving a high ranking Canadian naval officer.

In some respects, the Canadian Navy’s crackdown on Commodore Eric Lerhe seems excessive. While traveling alone in San Diego in April 2000, Lerhe used a military-owned laptop he had with him to access an Internet porn site while he was off duty. Lerhe used an account he paid for himself to access the Internet, and although the military does have strict regulations barring people from using government equipment to view pornography, as the Boston Globe reported, “the rule is usually interpreted to mean workplace equipment, not a laptop while on personal time.”

For accessing a few pornographic JPEGs on a site described as similar to Penthouse, Lerhe’s career is effectively over. He’s been stripped of his command and could face a dishonorable discharge.

But if that’s a bit of overkill, consider the claim made by Geraldine Glattstein of the Ontario-based Woman Against Violence Against Women. According to Glattstein, “It’s dangerous for women to be supervised by someone who looks at those kinds of Web sites.”

Anyone who looks at a web site along the lines of Penthouse or Playboy is unfit to supervise people? If my boss (who is a woman) happens to read Penthouse, I should consider her “dangerous”?

Bizarre.

Source:

Web porn grounds Canada Navy man. Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, June 21, 2001.